Chapter Text
Dr. Ronova Tuonetar was a woman you did not want to mess with.
She was an outstanding researcher who became the youngest person to lead the Department of Theoretical Physics and Chemistry at the University of Snezhnograd. With more than two hundred review and research papers, as well as five published books, Dr. Ronova was considered one of the top researchers in Snezhnayan history. As if that weren't enough, she had also won enough international prizes to fill her whole house. All in all, she was a role model for anyone wandering through physical sciences.
All the students sitting inside lecture hall 101 on a Monday afternoon were shocked out of their wits. Dr. Ronova herself stood at the podium in the middle of the vaulted hall, dressed in a black corporate suit and high heels. Her strict, emotionally detached golden eyes roamed around the hall as she laid out the framework of her Theoretical Physical Chemistry course.
"Quantum mechanics is a serious matter, not a creative writing exercise." Her cold, sharp voice cut through the air like a knife. "It is the mathematical description of reality at its most unforgiving level," she said, walking around the hall and staring at her students. Intimidated, everyone averted their eyes. "Half of you will drop this class before mid-term. The other half will spend the rest of the semester wondering why you didn't."
Sitting in the first row, Mitya was frozen. The pen in his hand hovered over a blank page in his open notebook. He stared nervously at the terrifying woman.
Archons, no, he thought. Blood drained from his face as she paced around the place calmly explaining the rules of her classroom. From all professors he could have in this class, it had to be her.
Dr. Ronova Tuonetar, the woman who had co-authored the textbook sitting comfortably inside his backpack.
Dr. Ronova Tuonetar, the cold genius every student in the department feared.
Dr. Ronova Tuonetar, Mitya's mother-in-law who hated his guts with the energy of gamma-ray bursts.
Her fierce gaze swept across the front row, scanning the stiff, nervous poses of the poor graduate students. Then, her eyes landed on Mitya. She fell silent for a few seconds that felt like hours. Her eyebrow twitched upwards by a millimeter, a clear sign of recognition and discontent. She wasn't looking at a student, but rather at the slacker who had dared to taint her son and take him away from home into a messy apartment.
I'm going to die. Alyosha, please take care of our son.
Her eyes remained locked on him, burning holes in his skull. "Some of you believe enthusiasm compensates for lack of discipline, but in quantum calculations a single sign mistake causes a catastrophic error. It turns the intended state into an orthogonal or incorrect one. Yields completely wrong physical predictions or corrupted algorithm results." Dr. Ronova didn't take her eyes off him for a second. At that point, Mitya was a trembling lamb under her claws. "Expect no leniency."
⋆. ⌬ ˚ ⚛︎ ˚☣︎ :•.
The first time he saw Alyosha, the latter was walking around on campus with Vodyanitsa. Thinking he was cute, Mitya asked the singer to introduce them. The girl only smiled sweetly while telling him a dry: no. Guess she was still pissed about him writing equations during her performances instead of paying attention.
One could guess his surprise when he walked into physics class and found the cute guy already sitting inside the lecture hall. Mitya absolutely took the chance, sat next to him, and tried his best doing small talk. Tried, because Alyosha was an introvert who didn't speak much. That didn't stop Mitya from finding out that he was a veterinary student three years his junior and that he had a hard time with math. Taking that chance too, he offered to tutor the younger man. Not once had he been happier with majoring in Physics than in that moment.
Eventually, they became friends and then started dating. A year later, they moved in together in a small one-room apartment thirty minutes from campus. Together, they built a cozy home with Alyosha's dog Tugarin, whom Mitya treated as his son.
He had no idea that his cute, wonderful Alyosha was the adoptive son of two of the most brilliant modern minds: Dr. Ronova Tuonetar and Dr. Istaroth Laimelea. The former was literally what he aspired to become, while the latter was an incredible historian said to remember every detail from human history.
He met Istaroth before Ronova when she invited him and Alyosha for tea and gave him a brutal shovel talk while smiling sweetly. Istaroth was nice. She usually got them all together for lunch and asked how he was doing, even though she looked like she didn't actually care.
On the other hand, Ronova was not nice. At all.
Her hatred started from the first time they met.
It happened a few months after they moved in together. Different majors meant different schedules, and on that particular day, Alyosha had class first period, while his started until eleven.
"Mitya," Alyosha whispered, standing next to the bed, ready to head out.
The older woke up all groggy, hair disheveled, and feeling like shit after staying up until an ungodly hour the previous day. He had spent the whole night working on his undergraduate dissertation defense and was actively dying. "Are you leaving already?" Mitya mumbled from under the covers, voice raspy from sleeping.
"Yes. I have class early."
He hummed and carefully sat up to avoid bothering Tugarin, fast asleep at the end of their bed. Still very much gone from exhaustion, he let Alyosha pull him for a chaste kiss. "I'll wait for you after class."
"Have a good day."
"You too."
Mitya woke up two hours later. Tugarin was nowhere to be seen, so he pushed the blankets off and got out of bed. He was about to put some pants on when he heard their doorbell ringing and Tugarin barking as if he wanted to murder whoever was on the other side of the door.
There wasn't really anyone who would visit them, even less at that hour. He guessed it was his boyfriend who probably forgot his keys. In hindsight, he must've still been freaking asleep because Alyosha never forgot his keys. Ever.
Stupidly, he didn't even bother to look through the peephole before opening the door. "Babe, did you fo-"
Words died in Mitya's throat when he found himself face-to-face with an evil-looking, elegant lady. She raised an eyebrow in question. "Who are you?"
"I'm Mitya, Alyosha's boyfriend." He tried to play it cool despite being in only his fucking underwear. Adding something else to the long list of stupid things he had done that day, he offered her a handshake. The woman stared at his hand as if it were the dirtiest thing she had ever seen in her life.
She swept her cold gaze over him, from head to toes. "You?"
Before he could say anything, Tugarin jumped up on her, tail wagging with joy. Weird; he usually didn't like people after meeting them for the first time. The evil lady seemed like someone who wouldn't enjoy getting her clothes wrinkled by a dog, so Mitya tried to get him to stay back. "Get down, Tug-!"
To his surprise, she softly petted his head. "Hello, Tugarin. It's nice to see you too. Are you taking care of Alyosha properly?" The dog barked in response. She nodded, a small smile setting on her sharp features. "Good."
Mitya was pretty confused about who this lady was. Her golden eyes fell over him again, and he offered a smile. "Do you want to leave a message for him?"
Once again, he was ignored. Her gaze fell inside their apartment, analyzing the freaking mess he had inside. Then, she looked back at him. He laughed sheepishly. A terribly awkward silence fell upon them.
Evil-looking lady petted his dog again, blank expression on her face. She signaled Tugarin to sit down. "No need. I'll call my son later," she said without even looking at him and walked away.
Mitya remained frozen in place. He wasn't even sure when he closed the front door.
Son…
Son…
Son?!
His face turned completely red as he died from shame. His back hit the door, and he slid all the way down until he sat on the cold entryway floor. Tugarin came to his aid, licking his face to make him feel better.
How do you recover from the embarrassment of meeting your mother-in-law almost butt naked?
After that, the woman freaking hated him. During every lunch meeting, she made passive-aggressive remarks about how messy he was and looked at him with disdain written all over her face. Alyosha comforted him, saying it didn't matter what she thought, but it did.
The woman was his mother-in-law and aspiration; how could he not take what she thought seriously?
In a way, having her as his professor could be a chance to redeem himself. The thought made him feel better and ready to take on her class!
It couldn't be that bad, right?
⋆. ⌬ ˚ ⚛︎ ˚☣︎ :•.
It was bad. Terrible even. The woman absolutely fucking hated him, and she wasn't even trying to hide it. The first week of the course was already a nightmare, and she hadn't even given them any assignments yet.
"How do you solve the Schrödinger wave equation for a multi-electron system?" Dr. Ronova asked the whole class.
Mitya raised his hand. She looked at him and actively ignored him.
"No one?"
He raised his hand even higher.
"I told you all, this class is-"
He lost it and spoke without her telling him to, "An exact solution is impossible because of the repulsion between electrons. We can only use approximation methods like Born-Oppenheimer, Hartree-Fock, or density functional theory."
Silence reigned inside the hall. Face devoid of any emotion, she approached him; each click of her heels against the floor made him want to crawl and die. "Mr. Mitya, interrupting class is against the code of conduct, even if your answer is correct," she said with a frigid tone. She went back to the podium. "We'll see each other in the next class. That's all for today."
Every student practically escaped the hall, looking pale even though this was only the semester's first week. Mitya walked out and let out a heavy sigh. He wrapped himself in his blue scarf when cold night air hit his face.
His mood improved once he saw Alyosha sitting inside the campus coffeeshop, scrolling through his phone. Being his cringey self, Mitya took a picture of his boyfriend from outside and sent it to him with an equally cringey line. He saw Alyosha opening his message. He smiled softly at the picture for a second before staring through the window and finding Mitya on the other side.
Inside, Alyosha already had hot choco and a cookie waiting for him. Mitya collapsed on the chair next to him, laying his head on his boyfriend's shoulder. Alyosha patted his head gently. "There, there."
He let out an exhausted sigh. "I want to die."
The younger boy hummed. "You can't leave our son and me behind." He petted Mitya's hair. "Is it that bad?"
"Yeah. Professor is a bit… harsh." As in she wanted to rip his head off for tainting her son. Maybe things would be easier if he told Alyosha his mother was his professor, but he was prideful and stupid. He would take this chance to prove to Ronova that he was worthy of his son.
"You can do it. There's nothing you can't do once you put your mind on it." Alyosha grabbed his hands between his and squeezed them to comfort him.
Mitya's heart melted. He moved his boyfriend's bangs away and brushed a soft kiss against his forehead. "I love you."
"I love you too. Eat your cookie."
⋆. ⌬ ˚ ⚛︎ ˚☣︎ :•.
The walk back home was as peaceful as always. Going back hand-in-hand was always the best part of their day. "How were your classes?"
"Fine. Legislation and deontology class is a bit boring, though… Ah! Mom invited us for lunch tomorrow."
Mitya smiled, but deep inside he was cursing the world. He really didn't want to see Ronova's face on a Saturday after seeing her the whole fucking week. "Sure," he answered. His voice came out exhausted.
Alyosha noticed he wasn't feeling his best. He always noticed somehow. The younger boy cradled Mitya's face tenderly before closing the gap between their mouths. A soft, chaste kiss that was a mere brush of their lips. Soothing, warm, and perfect. After a few seconds, they pulled back.
Alyosha kept cradling his face, softly caressing his cheeks. "Do you feel better?"
Mitya smiled and captured his boyfriend's lips between his again. The kiss started as a soft caress that slowly turned fiercer. He pulled Alyosha closer from the waist, earning a little gasp that died in their mouths.
Feeling better, he promised he was going to show that woman that he was worthy of being by her son's si-
"Alyosha."
Fuck why? Go away, woman!
Sure enough, his boyfriend's evil mother stood a few steps away. "Please refrain from doing indecent acts in the middle of the street with your… boyfriend."
Alyosha jumped away from him. His cute face was completely red, embarrassed at being caught. "H-How was your day, mother?"
"Fine," she deadpanned. Of course she was fine. The woman fed on poor students' suffering for her own happiness, and she definitely had a lot of miserable souls to feed from. Mitya had to stop himself from clicking his tongue when the woman approached. "I hope you had a good day, too."
"I did. We're starting operating room protocols next week," Alyosha answered with a small smile. His face was still flushed, which made him look extra adorable.
Ronova smiled for a few seconds. It was super fucking weird. "That's good. Make sure to do your best as you always do." Her smile fell immediately when she turned towards Mitya. "I'll see you two tomorrow at lunch. Your mother is excited."
"Of course." She walked away as Alyosha waved.
"She hates me."
"She does."
"You're not even going to pretend to make me feel better," Mitya whined. His cute boyfriend only laughed softly.
How the heck was he supposed to survive the whole semester?