AN: Modern!AU rather than Storybrooke!AU. Rather fluffy with hints of dark/possessive!Pan. Tumblr prompt fic; was supposed to be a drabble (HA!)
all the small things
It starts small. So small in fact that Wendy thinks nothing of it at first. She has lost lots of pens in her lifetime. But then her whole pencil case goes missing one day. Then her Maths text book, then her History notebook, and so on and so forth.
The only good thing about the whole situation is that it nothing really stays missing for very long. The boy in her grade who lives two streets over - Peter is his name - keeps returning her things. Well, he returns her necessities. She has lost a few items that never make it back to her possession: a hairband, a glove, her tiny bottle of Lancôme perfume. The one thing she regrets losing the most is the beautiful, soft, white pashmina her mother had given her last Christmas. It was designer though, so she doubts she will ever see it again.
She has just realized that her lip gloss is missing when Peter appears with it between two fingers. He grins winningly at her and asks, "Looking for something, Darling?"
"Where'd you find it this time?" she huffs, utterly fed up with her apparent absentmindedness.
He smirks at her, leaning against the wall as she tries to reach around herself to get ahold of her elusive messenger bag, and says airily, "You dropped it during Geography."
She rolls her eyes. Of course. She is always distracted and nervous in that class because she does not think their teacher likes her very much. She reaches out to take it from him but he snatches it back at just the last minute. The tips of her fingers graze his knuckles and she sucks in a breath she hopes he doesn't hear.
He grins widely, all impishness and cavalier attitude. Sometimes, when he talks to her, she forgets that he is the school's resident bad boy. Other times, like now, it is all too obvious that she is playing with fire. He is the bad seed, yes, but he is very, very good looking.
"I should charge you for my services," he says. Is her flirting with her? She can never tell.
She licks her lips (misses the hungry way his dark eyes follow the motion) and replies with all the indignation she can muster, "It's a £3 lip gloss, Peter. You can keep it if you must."
His expression quirks just a little, a small crease appearing on his brow despite the smile he still wears. Then his grin brightens exponentially. He clenches his fist tighter around the small tube and lowers his arm.
"Will do then."
And then he takes off, swaggering down the hall and out the school doors while Wendy tries to gather her wits about her. Did Peter Pan just steal her lip gloss? What is he even going to do with lip gloss?
When she mentions the incident to her brothers on the ride home, John asks her if she thinks it could be Peter who has been taking her things in the first place. Wendy cannot imagine him doing it. After all, she had practically gifted him the lip gloss, albeit sarcastically.
And as much as her brothers and everyone else in the UK try to make her believe that Peter is some wicked sort of demon-boy, she thinks she knows a little better. She has seen him at the playground outside the orphanage running around with the children. No one who can make children smile like that can be truly bad.
The next week passes with its usually monotony. She loses only one thing - a ribbon - that Peter does not find for her. Then, on Thursday just when she thinks the week is going well, something irreplaceable disappears. That thing being the silver bracelet with the single thimble charm she wears religiously. It was a present from her Nana.
Wendy almost has a heart attack looking for it. She cannot lose it; cannot have been so foolish as to lose it. One minute, she was walking into Chemistry with it on (Peter is her lab partner because no one else will work with him; he has a predilection for small explosions) and the next she was leaving and noticing her lightened wrist with horror. Naturally, the first thing she does is look for Peter.
She spies him slinking out the rear door of the classroom. Ignoring the warning bell signaling the start of a new period, she takes off after him. The hallway she turns down leads to the field behind the school and it is deserted given the pouring rain outside. Peter still seems to be making a break for the door. She calls out to him, voice pitchy and desperate.
His shoulders tense and he stops midstride. Then he pivots on his heel to face her, smile stretched wide across his face.
"Sup, Darling?"
She is out of breath from running after him (the boy has legs on him, it's a wonder he isn't on the footy team) but still manages to ask, "Peter, have you seen my bracelet?"
He tilts his head curiously. "Which bracelet?"
She is in no mood to deal with his antics. She expels a harsh breath and replies, "The silver one. The one I always wear, with the thimble on it. The only one I ever wear."
"Hmm," his tone is coquettish and infuriating given her frantic frustration, "I can't seem to recall it."
Wendy closes her eyes and scrunches her nose in a silent bid for patience and calm. But then she thinks, If he says he hasn't seen it, then he probably hasn't. He always gives her things back, after all. Her shoulders slump in defeat.
"I guess I'll just have to keep searching then," she mumbles opening her eyes. Her bracelet dangles from his fingers right in front of her face.
"Peter! You horrid boy!" she shrieks. "You said-"
"I know what I said," he laughs. "I was just teasing, Darling."
Wendy makes to grab the precious jewelry out of his grasp but he snatches it back just like with the lip gloss. He cannot possibly expect her to give him this, can he? It cost far more than £3. More than that though, it holds great sentimental value for her.
"What do I get for my services this time?" he asks.
There is something in his voice that is more than just teasing. It makes Wendy's heart accelerate and she does not think it right or normal to like it, even if she does not know what it is. (She likes it anyway.)
"Wh-what do you want?" she counters. This really should not feel so much like a deal with the devil. When Peter's eyes light up, she realizes that a deal with the devil might be exactly what it is. She should have listened to the warnings. John had been right; it probably was Peter taking her things all along. The only question is: why?
Instead of responding to her question, Peter ducks his head, reaches out, and takes hold of her right wrist - the one recently bared and overly-aware of its nakedness. All her nerve-endings burn under his touch.
"I want a chance," he murmurs as he turns her hand over so the sensitive underside of her wrist is exposed to him. He trails a fingertip across the raised blue veins there and Wendy shudders.
"One date, Wendy-bird," it is the first time he has ever said her first name, "Come out with me and let's live a little."
"You want to date me?" she repeats, stunned because Peter - gorgeous, wild, dangerous Peter - wants to go out with her - quiet, distracted, boring Wendy Darling.
He wraps the bracelet around her wrist and makes quick work of the clasp. When he looks up into her eyes, his expression is nothing that she expects to see. All the confidence and bravado in his words are nullified by the peeping vulnerability in his eyes.
"Please."
She says yes before her brain can even process the thought. Peter gives her no time to recover. He leans forward and steals a kiss right there in the middle of the hallway. Wendy thinks it was supposed to be a peck but the next thing she knows, her hands are buried in his hair and he is holding her to him so closely her toes barely brush the ground.
When they break apart, his boyish grin is back in full force. He tells her, "You're going to be all mine, Darling."
"Then can I get my scarf back too?"
END
Original prompt by michemistic on Tumblr:
ModernAU!Prompt please: Wendy constantly misplaces her items at school. Pens, old school papers, hair accessories, jewelry, lip glosses, lotions, mini-perfume, sweaters, etc. Or is someone stealing them? It's awfully nice Peter returns some (not all, he keeps the more intimate items to himself) of her things back to her, how could everyone at school think he's such a mean teen? Besides stealing her belongings because of his (obsessive) crush, it's also an excuse to talk & spend time with her. When Wendy asked how she could ever repay her gratitude; Peter replies that they go out on dates. Peter would do anything to make Wendy his girlfriend.