SCORPION - GRAVITY - CHAPTER 1

Hi everyone! So, a few things explaining whats going to happen here before we get started : With my studies I almost don't go out anymore and I stopped sport so I needed something to do a break in work and I started to write a few minutes every evening to prevent myself from becoming crazy and eventually I came up with this.I've been meaning to publish this story for a long time, I actually started putting down ideas a few weeks ago but I didn't want to publish it until I had already written a few chapters. So anyway, this is a completely AU story (of course I still don't own the characters etc) where Walter and Paige were in the same campus, like in my mind they are around 17 in this, and all of the characters of Scorpion will also make their appearance. None of what happened in the three seasons happened here, but of course I will always be inspired by the show to develop this.

As I said before, I already wrote a little which led me to a few chapters done and ready to be published. And my goal here is to keep this advance and be able to publish every evening or at least one out of two. This is really a challenge like I'm not even sure I have the ability to actually do this so it will mostly depend on you, like how reactive you are, and if you like this story you just tell me and I will do everything I can to keep posting very regular updates. Sure, as soon as I enter my exam period I'll stop it all and come back to it after a hiatus (like in the real show in fact ahah).

I don't know yet how many chapters there will be but it's going to be a really long story so the installment is quiet slow because this isn't meant to be a 5 chapters story you know (besides we're talking about Walter and Paige here, most frustrating otp ever). Although I can't promise I will be able to keep my rhythm for very long, I'd like to try.

All this said, here is the first chapter !

Walter O'Brien could seem like a normal man the first time you meet him. He was a thin young man, black curls on the top of his head, piercing and very expressive eyes, rather discrete but anyone who paid attention to him would find him good looking. So nothing abnormal so far… until he starts to talk. When he starts to talk, you're rapidly very much aware that Walter is far from being normal. In fact, Walter is a genius, with an IQ of 197, making him the fourth most intelligent human being alive.

So what people could wonder is : What such an intelligent man is doing in the University when he could easily be working for the NASA?

At least that's what Paige Dineen wondered the first time she ran into Walter. And of course none of their first encounter was due to hasard.

Paige was nothing like Walter. She has good grades but had to work hard for them when he didn't had to lift a finger to be major in all his classes, she was very popular and had a lot of friends when he was the most lonely man on the campus. But he didn't mind, he never felt this loneliness since he was always busy thinking about new problems to solve, and also he had his family to go back to at the end of the day. Of course Walter was often approached by other students, but none of them wanted his friendship. No they rather talked to him so he could help them do a paper, they would even sometimes offer money so he could do it for them and Walter accepted from time to time, because he needed the money to live since his parents were still in Ireland and he was in the United States.

Oh yeah, when Walter referred to his family he wasn't talking about his parents. They were erased from his life a long time ago and maybe they were related by blood but that was the only thing they ever shared. In fact Walter hadn't seen them for a long time now. He arrived in the US when he was seven, wanted to get emancipated at the age of 12 but of course this wasn't possible, even for a genius. So when she turned 20, and he was 15, his sister Megan came to join him and accepted to be his legal tutor. Now they were living together in a small loft above a garage, which Walter secretly planed to buy to make it his headquarter, for him and his friends, the other members of his family.

They were all going to different colleges but they were also all geniuses so they only had each other to rely on and Walter knew that even if he was sometimes mocked or persecuted during the day, he could deal with it as long as he had them to have his back. And they had always been here for now.

First, there was Happy. He met her during middle school and was rapidly aware that she was like him. So they grew close to each other in order to protect themselves from the mockery of the other teenagers. After what they never left each other and even if he never actually said it out loud, Walter considered Happy as his best friend. She was very much like him, abandoned by her biological parents, misunderstood by her foster ones with whom she didn't have any contact anymore, expressing very few emotions, preferring to work on a project with him rather than spending time in useless conversations. She had recently dropped school and found a job in a garage where she could exerce her gift for mechanic, at a much lower level that what she was worth but it was still a start for a girl her age.

Then there was Toby. The first time Walter saw him was when his host family of the time forced him to go to a psychiatrist. The patient before him was Tobias Curtis, and he managed to drive the doctor crazy by realizing his own analysis of the man's behavior. Walter's appointment had then been cancelled so he went to hang on with this young man instead. He discovered that he was also a genius and even if he hated to admit it, he found him quiet funny. Unlike Happy, Toby talked a lot, but Walter didn't mind because he almost never had to answer. It was fascinating how long could Toby make a conversation last on his own. Toby was different from Happy and Walter, probably more aware of the other people, but it wasn't always so good. He had a gift for putting himself in dangerous situations and the other geniuses often had to help him getting out of it. With the help of his friends, he managed to have an interview in Harvard and of course he was taken right away into the medicine section of the prestigious university.

And finally there was Sylvester. He was younger than the others and he had been kicked out of his family at a young age, having to live in the street for a while, which was even more difficult for him than for anyone else since he was an hygiene freak. At first we can think that he is afraid of everything but he actually has more courage than a lot of people. He went on TV to play a game in order to win money and get out of the streets, whereas he is really stressed in front of an audience. That's where Walter saw him and realized he was also a genius, so he contacted him to help him. Since then, Sylvester had been reached out by a research laboratory in mathematics and he went to work for them which allowed him to buy a small place in town but he kept in touch with Walter and loved to hang out with them.

So in fact, Walter could say he had everything he could ask for, and didn't need anything else. Except for one thing. Paige Dineen. As said before, Paige was nothing like Walter. Walter had never shown any interest in girls. He only knew his sister and Happy and didn't seem to be appealed by any other form of relationship with someone of the opposite sex. He tried dating once or twice, because some girl found it sexy that he was the lonely smart boy just like they saw in movies, but after spending time with him they quickly realized that he was far for being the ideal boyfriend. Walter didn't mind, he only tried it as an experiment but wasn't invested in it at all.

But Paige… She was different. He was obsessed by her. Of course she was beautiful and popular and was dating the hottest guy of the baseball team in the campus so Walter never dared making a move. But he recorded every single path of her on the campus since he first lay eyes on her and always manages to cross it, pretending to be absorbed in a book or just walking behind her. When he talked about it to Toby, he said that he was being a real freak and that Paige must be scared of him. But she was always busy talking with her friends and never seemed to notice him anyway. Or at least that's what he thought.

In fact Paige's favorite part of the day was when she spotted Walter, innocently reading or doing maths. Walter may not know it but he was famous all over the campus for his incredible grades. Paige's friends told her that he was a creep but she thought he was cute. She didn't know him yet she couldn't explain why she felt drawn to him. Of course she was happy with Drew, she had a lot of good friends, but she thought he was… different.

And the day of her 17th birthday, her secret wish that he would eventually speak to her was realized.

So this is kind of a prologue, to set the action and see if you're in with me? Feedbacks will be important for me since this story will be a lot of work, but I have the plot idea for like 40 chapters already (you can't stop inspiration when it keeps coming ahah) so all I have to do is write them ;) It's not going to be extra long chapter, but at least 1K words each, and also there won't be updates on episodes nights because I'm still writing one shots after each episode. Take care!