Workplace Hazards
Part 2
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Olivia Dunham didn't swear often.
The truth was she made an active effort in her everyday life to cut it out. Swearing was not proper, and usually never resulted in a feeling of trust from those she sought information. Besides, working in a professional environment that already judged her intellectual competence by her gender, Olivia had decided adding evidence of a poor vocabulary would be the last thing to get her anywhere.
That said, certain occasions called for certain measures.
Watching (her) poor, dear Peter Bishop topple backwards onto a row of beakers, Olivia thought it was as good a time as any to make an exception.
"Shit ... shit!" she swore.
Too far away, too. If she had been just a few feet closer to him, Olivia imagined the result would have been a lot prettier.
Peter's fall was quite a feat. As the whole room had stood momentarily still, he seemed to soar towards the side of the desk like a dancer being led into a dip. His back arching gracefully, taking to the ninety degree angle that the edge of the desk presented, the soft thump of impact and the sound of cracking glass could almost be ignored. Even as Peter slid to the floor, ass first and his head slamming as a finish, Olivia felt as though he deserved some sort of applause for the whole spectacle.
Applause with maybe a few cuddles thrown in too. Not that he'd ever get them from her.
As it were, Peter now painted a rather pitiful picture. Splayed out on the floor on top of large, jagged shards of glass and underneath a miraculously still-standing table, he did look quiet unfortunate indeed.
By the time Olivia got her bum into action, Walter was already all over the mess.
"Aster- ... Asterid! Call an ambulance," he instructed, waving at the girl with one arm as he pushed the table backwards to get more access to Peter's prone form.
Olivia rushed up behind him, keys long forgotten on the floor, as Walter bent over Peter and began to gently feel around the back of his head for injuries. As Olivia crouched down on Peter's right, Walter, seemingly satisfied that none of Peter's blood was coming from his head, started to gently call his name.
Olivia took a few moments to get a good look at the damage. There was no way Peter's back was getting out of this scot-free. The pieces of beakers hadn't shattered like normal glass but had instead broken off in large, sharp chunks – and by the way that Peter was propped up on the floor, there was no doubt he had landed on quite a lot of it. His normally tanned face was pale and glossy, and the lines under his eyes had become very pronounced. Olivia thought, with a shudder, that he looked like he had after the virus.
Despite Walter's encouragement, Peter lay worryingly still. Olivia shifted a bit closer, letting her left hand – unseen by Walter – trail loosely down Peter's limp wrist.
The slight tremble in Walter's hands caught her attention, and Olivia wondered how she'd missed it before. A sudden rush of sympathy washed through her. How many more times was Walter going to be forced to revive his own son before the day came that Peter never woke up at all?
Staring down at Peter's pale, still body she suddenly had horrible thought.
"Walter ... Walter!" Olivia spoke suddenly, startling even herself, "is he breathing?"
Walter turned to her in surprise, and with a little laugh said, "Why of course he is, dear! He hasn't hit his head hard enough for that to be a worry!" He paused, blinking a few times as though he just remembered where he was, and turned back to Peter. After a few more gentle slaps that got no reaction, he beckoned his right hand needlessly in Olivia's direction and almost smacked her in the face. "We do need to wake him up. Maybe you could get some water, Olivia? Yes ... yes that should help," he nodded, not taking his eyes off his son.
Reluctantly moving away from Peter, Olivia pushed herself off the floor and quickly made her way into the side room she and Peter had been occupying earlier that morning. She had left a half finished bottle of water there from the night before.
Astrid was still giving details to the 911 operator on the phone when she re-entered the room, and as Olivia caught her eye Astrid shot her a look of exasperation. Covering the front of her cellphone she informed them, "He's saying they're only about three minutes away now, so I'm going to go and wait outside."
Olivia nodded.
The paramedics did indeed arrive within the specified time. They burst in the lab doors only about a minute after Walter, Olivia and the bottle of water had finally succeeded in waking up a shocked, coughing and dripping wet Peter Bishop.
It turns out his head had been pretty much fine all along. Maybe a little sore.
But just to be safe, as Peter was loaded onto the stretcher, on his side (revealing nine separate chunks of glass securely embedded in his back), and whisked off to hospital, he was given no pain medication at all.
.
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A rude awakening, hospital admission, forty-odd stitches, some Tylenol, and a back examination later Peter Bishop could be found tucked rather uncomfortably under bleach-white sheets.
For some stupid reason the medical staff at Massachusetts General had decided that due to the slight, small possibility of a hidden brain trauma it would be better that he lie through the glass extraction surgery completely conscious and with nothing more than some topical anaesthetic to ease the pain. The two Tylenol had come an hour later.
So, needless to say, the attitude Peter was now excreting out of every pore had the room's occupants a little bit on edge.
To distract himself, Walter had taken to fiddling with all the electrical monitoring equipment the room had to offer. Astrid, lucky for her, had volunteered to clean up the mess back in the lab and was now far, far away.
Olivia, well ... Olivia was hovering somewhere in between the foot of Peter's bed and the door.
To be completely honest, she really did feel bad for him. It was just ... well, what was she supposed to do? Slide into the single bed next to him with Walter here and kiss every inch of his back all better? Er, not that she wanted to. Anyway, that would be completely ridiculous!
Instead, she alternated between peering out the doorway to see when a nurse was coming by and sending Peter quizzical, sympathetic looks from across the room.
It was really getting on his nerves.
Shifting gently from one uncomfortably position to another, Peter silently cursed his life. Could this day get any better? He thought to himself bitterly.
And of course, it just could.
You see, in amongst all the flurry surrounding the head injury, glass punctures and nearly-broken tailbone, the real reason why the incident had occurred in the first place had gone without much speculation.
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"What do you mean he just fainted?"
Peter grimaced. And to think he could be out hunting down a biological terrorist today ... with some dignity. Instead here he was, tucked too tightly into a hospital bed with Olivia badgering the first nurse who had been unlucky enough to come in and check on him.
Her voice may not have quite made it to the ICU yet, but it was a distinct possibility.
"He works in a laboratory and could have come into contact with anything, and you're not even going to give him a blood test? What if he's sick?"
Internally, the nurse was counting backwards from ten. "Fainting is a lot more common than you think," She explained, "and there is nothing in his charts that indicates any kind of illness."
Walter, thankfully still distracted by the heart monitor, had so far stayed out of it.
"But you just said his blood sugar was low," Olivia argued.
No, no ... no, no.
"Look I'm fine, Olivia! It was really more of a trip," Peter ventured, trying to derail the conversation.
The nurse continued on regardless. "Yes, it is," she said to Olivia, "and that is probably what caused the faint. It doesn't take much. –" Olivia opened her mouth to interrupt.
"– He probably hadn't eaten in a while."
Olivia halted.
The nurse scanned the chart once again and said to Peter, "Did you have breakfast this morning?"
Peter floundered, "Well –"
"No, he did not." Olivia supplied, realisation beginning to dawn.
Dammit.
Peter tried desperately to think of an adequate response, but it was too late.
"What?" Walter suddenly exclaimed, turning away from the heart monitor for a second to give Peter a stern look, "but Peter you know you're supposed to eat your breakfast!"
One of Olivia's eyebrows was inching its way up her face as she launched into a glorious expression of mirth.
Shut up, Olivia.
This was not about to happen.
Peter tried fruitlessly to wiggle further under his hospital sheets, but to no avail. The gauze covering the stitches in his back was beginning to peel against the sticky skin beneath and he was forced to lie still as Walter began.
"What happened to that muffin I saw you buy this morning?" Walter asked, eyeing Peter suspiciously.
"He gave it to me," Olivia informed him, her mouth upturned.
"What!"
"Yeah. Why? He found out that I hadn't had breakfast and he practically force-fed it to me." She replied innocently.
"Peter!"
"If I knew he needed it that badly ..."
"Peter! What have I told you about eating your breakfast?"
"I'm not ten, Walter!" Peter complained, now renewing his efforts to sneak further under the sheets, stitches be damned.
Olivia continued on with faux confusion, "I get that breakfast's an important meal, Walter, but that shouldn't –"
"An important meal! No, no, Miss Dunham you do not understand. You see, Peter's a very sensitive boy –"
"Oh my god," Peter muttered from within his white cocoon.
"– he has been all his life. He's particularly sensitive to changes in his blood sugar levels, which is why I always make sure he eats his breakfast. When they drop even a little bit – as is normal when one hasn't eaten in a while – he is prone to sudden drops in blood pressure! This morning, as we have all seen, was the kind of situation I have been trying to avoid. Peter may complain about all those pancakes I make him eat but at least he isn't fainting left and right when he's out there with you- you and Mister Broyles and all that."
"Oh ... is that so?" Olivia replied, and Peter could bloody well hear her satisfaction.
He then decided upon two things. One, he never really liked Olivia that much anyway – and two, his back was not uncomfortable enough to keep him from staying in this position for the rest of the day.
Calming down slightly, Walter sighed, and patted Peter's shoulder – which still hurt, thanks – roughly through the hospital sheets.
"I am glad you're feeling better though, son," he announced. "... You're such a dandelion sometimes."
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And so the day ended much as it had not begun.
The day that had once been so quiet – well, not literally, but you know what I mean – was now quiet no more.
Wheeled out of hospital against his will, a sore and humiliated Peter Bishop could be heard throwing catty remarks left, right and centre the entire trip from the hospital room to Olivia Dunham's car.
Walter wheeled him with a tender grin anyway.
Back at the lab, Agent Astrid Farnsworth was vacuuming up the last fragments of glass as Gene moo'd loudly in the background, upset at the noise.
Agent Olivia Dunham followed up the rear of the two Bishop men, with a satisfied smirk.
Well, that should be the end to Peter's food campaign. She could now not eat in peace.
And due to all the fuss said man had been making for the past twenty minutes, Olivia decided it might just be necessary to inform a certain Agent Broyles about this new team ... development.
Just in case it ever happened again.
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End.
A/N: This fandom is seriously lack in Peter h/c you all NEED to write more of it pronto please. :) It's not fun reading your own writing.
And due the on-drugs nature of this fanfic, I apologise.