I do not own Scorpion or any of its characters! All belong to CBS!
This fic is dedicated to a-beautiful-mind-wf001 on Tumblr!
"You know what you should do?" asked Toby between bites of his sandwich. "Cook for her."
Walter raised an eyebrow at Toby. "Cook for her?" He shook his head. "I don't cook."
"What do you mean you 'don't cook'? Just throw the ingredients in a bowl and then bake it." Said Toby, leaning nonchalantly in his chair.
Walter huffed a laugh. "Oh ya, master chef Toby," he quipped sarcastically. "I'm sure all those takeout boxes in your apartment are just for decoration."
"Hey," said Toby, popping the last bite into his mouth, "Don't confuse laziness with lack of capability. Besides, Happy and I usually don't have much energy left for cooking."
"Toby!" Walter scrunches his face up in disgust and shakes his head, as if trying to rid his brain of something disturbing.
"From work, Walter! We don't have much energy left after work!" Toby rolls his eyes. Walter's shoulders relax and the tension releases in his face just enough to give Toby a reprimanding glare. Grinning, Toby gets up from the table and places his Fedora on his head.
"But, well, the play gets a little exhausting too." He adds slyly, booking it out of the kitchen before Walter EQ-deprived brain can register the doc's words.
When he makes the connection, a repulsed groan escapes the back of his throat. He buries his face in his hands and sighs heavily. The feeling of hands running over his shoulders surprises him and he looks up to see Paige, who's smiling warmly at him as she works her fingers over his muscles.
"Good morning," she whispers into his ear before planting a kiss on his cheek. Walter can't help the smile that spreads across his face when he feels her lips on his skin. He swivels slightly to face her and pulls her in close to kiss her. They pull apart and Paige heads into the kitchen, grabbing a mug from the counter, pouring herself a cup of coffee, and taking a dainty first sip.
"So, what are our plans for the evening? Assuming we don't get any major cases today. We could go Downtown or to Santa Monica or maybe to a movie." She says.
"Actually, I was thinking maybe we could just stay in tonight." Walter moves closer to her. When he reaches her, he places his hands on her hips and leans in until their foreheads are nearly touching. He can smell the cinnamon coffee from the cup in her hands and vaguely on her breath.
"I can make us dinner, we can get some wine. I know I don't drink often, but for tonight it would be fine —,"
Walter's cut off by a breathy laugh from Paige. He leans away and raises an eyebrow at her, to which she raises one back.
"You're going to cook for us? You?" She laughs again. He steps back and she puts her hands on her hips with a smirk on her face.
"You don't think I can cook us a good diner?" He asks. Paige laughs but she can see that his face has turned to hurt and offense so she shakes the smile from her face and reaches for him.
"No, wait, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm sure you're a great cook." She lifts herself up to the tips of her toes to kiss him.
"Well, I guess we'll see," says Walter when she pulls away. "I've never been famous for my culinary skills, but it can't be too difficult. Cooking is a simple process of measuring desired amounts of ingredients and balancing flavors. It's like chemistry. It's the most basic thing in the world. I'm going to make us a wonderful, romantic dinner tonight."
"Cooking and romance! What a step up for you, Walter!" Says Paige, holding back a laugh.
-x-
Walter's eyes widened as he read over the surprisingly long list of ingredients and cooking steps.
"Why do the French have to make everything so complicated?" he mumbled to himself as his searched the cupboards for Thyme. He raised his eyebrows when he read that the recipe called for 1 bottle of red wine (preferably Burgundy or Cotes du Rhone). He frowned as he realized he'd only bought white wine, and he was hoping to actually drink some of that. Luckily, Walter remembered that Toby always kept a bottle of wine stashed in the closet next to the stairs leading up to the roof.
He set out all the ingredients needed to make Boeuf Bourguignon on the table and sighed before his daunting task. He suddenly felt very nervous and thought that perhaps he had underestimated the difficulty of it. He wanted so badly to please Paige and prove to her that he was making a real effort to be romantic for her. He heard Toby's voice in his head: What do you mean you 'don't cook'? He had an IQ of 197 after all. He's defused bombs, saved a child from a watery grave, stopped World War 3 — he should be able to prepare a French dinner for his girlfriend.
Time passed quickly as Walter measured tablespoons of butter and pounds of meat and cut carrots into exactly 1/4 inch pieces, just as the recipe had called for. He didn't hear Toby's Monte Carlo drive away for the weekend, taking Happy and Ralph with it, and he was too preoccupied to hear Paige's heels clicking across the floor as she made her way into the kitchen. He was only made aware of her presence by her small intake of breath at the sight of Walter in the apron he'd found next to the grill. He spun around to catch her eying the table he'd laid out for the two of them. He'd set the table with extra cutlery and soft clothes that he guessed Happy had at one point used to clean the grease off her motorcycle, but now clean, they served as placemats. He'd even managed to dig out some candles from the emergency kit in the back; they were held up with graduated cylinder clamps and teacup saucers were placed below them to catch the wax as it dripped. A single rose sat in a tall, slim vase in the center of the table.
"Wow, impressive, Walter." Said Paige as her eyes took in the sights and her nostrils caught the scent of seasoned beef and red wine.
"Paige! What are you doing here! You weren't supposed to be here until 6:30!" said Walter, wiping his hands furiously on the front of his apron. Paige attempted to hold back a laugh but was apparently unsuccessful as Walter's cheeks immediately flushed bright red and he ripped the apron off, throwing it aside.
"It's 6:15, I know I'm a little early. I just wanted to see how you were doing." She sashayed over to him and hooked her arms around his neck. She lifted herself up to capture his lips with hers. He felt her smile against him through the electric tingle that he felt whenever she kissed him — a sensation that had not gone away or wavered in the slightest after nearly six months of experiencing it.
"It's important to stick to proper scheduling as to avoid such situations as this. I'm not ready. I want everything to be perfect for you." He said when they broke apart.
"Walter, everything is already perfect. It's just us for the whole evening." Paige smiled and pecked his lips lightly again. She let go of him and turned to his French creation in the crock pot. She lifted the lid and took in the delicious smell of seasoned meat, vegetables, and — was that Malbec? She let out a pleasant sigh before opening her eyes and reaching up in the cupboard. She dug around before pulling out a small cylinder of Oregano. Before she could pop the cap, Walter was snatching it from her hand.
"The recipe does not call for that!" he said when Paige gave him a questioning frown.
"Ya, but I love Oregano. It will be fine, Walter." She said, taking the Oregano from him and throwing a generous amount into the pot.
"No, no! Now that's going to offset the garlic and the ratio is going to be totally wrong! There needs to be equal parts spices as vegetables. And the wine seasoning is going to be completely unbalanced!" said Walter as he looked down into the pot at his ruined masterpiece.
"Walter, calm down. I've been cooking for a long time. I used to help my mother in the kitchen all the time. It's doesn't need to be exact all the time, it's not chemistry, it's art. Part of being a chef is being able to tweak recipes and create something new. Besides, Oregano is just a touch of extra flavor. It's not like I was throwing in cups of ranch dressing." Paige stirred the contents of the crockpot with a small smile and Walter let out a sigh of surrender. He couldn't be angry with her when she looked so beautiful standing there in the kitchen with her soft blonde curls and immeasurable charm.
Suddenly, Paige lifted her head up and sniffed the air. "Do you smell something burning?"
Walter whipped his head around to the stove where he caught sight of flames in the pan with what were supposed to be sautéed vegetables.
"Crap," he muttered as he looked frantically for a fire extinguisher.
"Walter, why did you have this on high?" Paige shrilled.
"Because higher heat equals less cooking time! Simple math!"
Paige's shoulders fell in an exasperated sigh. "Walter, you can't cook with oil on high heat! It's starts grease fires!"
After drowning the flames with foam, Walter angrily threw down the fire extinguisher.
"Well I don't cook so I had no possible way of knowing that! I may have an IQ of 197, but that doesn't mean that I know every damn thing on the planet!"
Paige looked at him with soft, sorry-filled eyes. She moved to him, placing her hand gently on his arm. He instantly relaxed with her touch. Paige used this technique many times on both Walter and Ralph. Paige could see that he was just frustrated about not having known a trivial piece of information that would have prevented this.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, "I just really wanted to do this for you, like a normal boyfriend. I wanted this to be perfect and I wanted to prove to you that I could do something romantic. But I ruined it." He frowned at the mess of the kitchen. There was foam everywhere, coating the walls and the floor and his beautiful Boeuf Bourguignon.
"No, Walter, it's not ruined. I am so flattered that you went to all this trouble for me. But honestly, I just love being with you and spending time with you. I don't need a big fancy dinner. I love you so much that it doesn't even matter that you're a terrible cook." She laughed and Walter couldn't stop the smile spreading across his own face as looked down into her eyes, which he swore had an everlasting sparkle. She moved to meet his lips with hers and he responded feverishly. They both moved to deepen the kiss as Walter wrapped his arms around her lower back, hugging her close. They were both still laughing when they broke apart.
"Now, how about we get this mess cleaned up and call the Thai place down the street?" Paige asked as she went to pick up the fire extinguisher.
"Call it a deal. We can still eat it on the nice table I set out for us." Walter laughed.
"Ok, I'll go order, I know what you like — the pineapple chicken with noodles."
"Perfect, I'll just be down here, throwing away the remains of my exquisite French dish."
"Whatever, honestly if I wanted to digest some French crap I'd just ask Toby to read from Nivelle's battle strategy book."
Walter gave a genuine laugh at Paige's clever history joke. "Did you learn that in your European History class?"
Paige winked at him. "And you said that class wouldn't come in handy."