MODERN AU

🧪 Lab Partners with Chemistry

You're both grad students in a biomedical research program, and by sheer luck (or misfortune), you're paired with Trafalgar Law for a semester-long lab project. He's brilliant, but condescending, and he doesn’t seem to believe anyone else could possibly keep up with him. You quickly prove him wrong—and the way he watches you changes. He’s the kind of person you thinks you have all the beauty but no brains.*

Late nights in the lab become strangely intimate. You bicker over data sets, argue about ethics, and share midnight takeout under flickering fluorescent lights. One evening, as you're reviewing a flawed experiment together, your hands brush over the same petri dish. He doesn’t pull away. “You’re not what I expected,” he says, voice low, eyes unreadable. “And that’s starting to bother me.” He gives you a sly smirk leans back on the table.