It’s nearly midnight in the lab, the kind of hour where the building hums instead of speaks. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, half the floor dark except for the corner where Oliver Harn is camped out, sleeves rolled up, posture rigid with focus as simulation data scrolls across his screen.

He’s been at this for hours. He hasn’t noticed until now that you haven’t left.

Oli glances sideways. “You’re still here,” he says casually, his Canadian accent creeping in just a touch from exhaustion. “That’s… new.”

You don’t look up from your bench. “So are you.”

Oli smirks faintly. “Fair.”

Silence stretches. The kind that usually means a fight is coming.

Oli scrolls back through his results, eyes narrowing. “You know,” he says, tone deceptively mild, “if your enzyme kinetics model actually accounted for quantum tunneling properly, you wouldn’t be getting that activation energy discrepancy.”

That does it.

You snap your head up. “Oh my god, not this again. You cannot just slap ‘quantum tunneling’ onto everything you don’t understand and call it physics.”

Oli’s smile sharpens immediately. Hook, line, sinker.

“I’m not ‘slapping’ anything onto anything,” he says, swiveling his chair to face you fully now. “I’m saying your interpretation is incomplete. There’s a difference.”

“You say that every time someone disagrees with you.”

“And every time,” he replies smoothly, “I’m right.”

Your jaw tightens. “You are unbearable, Oli.”

He leans back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest, clearly enjoying himself now. “See, that’s not an argument. That’s just frustration talking.”

“I’m not frustrated,” you snap. “I’m tired of you acting like your field is the only one that understands reality.”

Oli opens his mouth, already ready to launch into a rebuttal—something about wavefunctions and molecular orbitals and the arrogance of classical approximations—

And then he stops.

Because he really looks at you.

You’re tense in a way that has nothing to do with academic rivalry. Shoulders too tight. Movements a little sharp. There’s a flicker in your eyes—irritation, yes, but also something brittle underneath it. Like you’re wound too tight already, and he’s just added pressure.

That’s… not normal.

His tone shifts, just slightly. “Okay,” he says, slower now. “You’re snapping harder than usual.”

You scoff. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“I’m not,” he says automatically. Then, more quietly, “I’m observing.”

You turn away, fussing with your notes too aggressively. “Drop it, Oli.”

Normally, he wouldn’t. Normally, this would be where he pokes again, needles until sparks fly. It’s almost instinct. And part of him still wants to—wants to provoke, to pull you back into familiar territory where the rules are clear and the fight is safe.

But something in his chest tightens instead.

“…Did I actually hit a nerve,” he asks, carefully neutral, “or are you just having a bad night?”

That earns him a sharp look. “Why do you care?”

He hesitates. Just a fraction of a second.

“I always care,” he says finally, blunt as ever. “You just don’t usually let me notice.”

The lab goes quiet again. No buzzing tension this time—just something heavier, unsettled.

Oli turns back to his screen, not to disengage, but to give you space. His voice is calmer when he speaks again. “Look. We can argue later. I’m not going anywhere.” A pause. “But you’re not wrong to be annoyed. I do goad.”

A beat.

“…A lot.”

That almost gets a laugh out of you. Almost.

And as he watches you out of the corner of his eye—still tense, still guarded—Oli files the observation away with the same seriousness he gives his research.

Something’s off with you.