A/N: For context, this is an alternate ending to the episode 2x07 "Of Human Action" during which Peter briefly gets abducted by a teenage boy who has the ability to control people's minds. At the end of that episode, Walter makes him crêpes, because crêpes fix everything apparently. In this version of things, he decides Olivia needs some crêpes, too.
GRAVITY
CHAPTER TWO
When Peter opens the door, he certainly doesn't expect to find Olivia standing on the other side of it.
While she used to show up often, usually at all hours of the night, that's a habit she'd not yet resumed since he and Walter moved into this house a couple of weeks ago. Not unexpected either, given what else happened, a couple of weeks ago.
He wouldn't go as far as saying Olivia has been avoiding him, but she sure seems to have been going to great lengths to make sure she was never alone with him. None of which surprised him in the least, but it did pain him. He doesn't exactly regret what went on that night, but he wishes things weren't so…well.
Awkward is one way to put it—all of it Olivia's doing, of course, who could overthink anything better than anyone he's ever met. All he could do was give her space, again, making it a point to behave as normally as he would have before, in the hope that she'd realize he meant it, when he said they were fine.
She doesn't need to know about the particularly vivid dreams—slash—fantasies he's been having for two weeks, in which she's prominently present, most of them scenarios that pick up right where they left off.
That kiss they shared might have been a blip in what has otherwise been months and months of (mostly) platonic interactions, the sensory overload it gave him, and still gives him nearly every night, certainly doesn't feel like a blip, making him very glad he has his own bedroom again.
As Peter stares at her standing on his threshold tonight, her cheeks already a little flushed, looking a bit sheepish alright, he doubts she's here for work-related reasons.
The fact that he was abducted by an unhinged fifteen-year-old today might have more to do with it.
Just as she opens her mouth to actually say something, she's interrupted, loudly.
"Agent Dunham, you came!"
Peter turns, his father having shuffled out of the kitchen, holding up a ladle that is dripping crêpe mix all over the floor. The grin on his face is so genuine that Peter doesn't have it in him to tell him off about the mess.
Plus, he's more than a little confused by what Walter said, looking back at Olivia with a bit of a scowl. "Did I miss something?"
She gives him a pinched smile. "I called earlier. Your father picked up."
"You were in the shower," Walter says. "I figured Agent Dunham might want some of my crêpes!"
Judging by Olivia's rather adorable little pout, Peter isn't too sure about that.
"We talked about this," he tells his father. "If you really can't keep your hands off my phone when it's ringing, you're supposed to tell me someone called me afterward."
"Ah well. I figured you wouldn't mind a bit of a surprise." Walter actually punctuates his comment with a wink that isn't nearly as subtle as he thinks it is. "You were kidnapped, after all."
"As you've reminded me thirteen times since we came home." He shakes his head, turning back to Olivia. "Do come in, though."
She's barely inside that Walter is invading her space. "Did you bring it?"
Peter grabs his father's shoulders, not unkindly, and stirs him away from her. "Personal space, Walter."
Walter doesn't seem to notice, back to beaming at Olivia as she holds out the bag she'd been carrying, Walter grabbing it enthusiastically. "Excellent!"
He rushes back to the kitchen without another word, possibly remembering he's got crêpes on the stove.
"Do I dare ask?" Peter does ask, as Olivia unbuttons her coat.
"He said you were out of raspberry jam, which apparently was a travesty."
There is a slight awkwardness once she's done taking off her coat, the two of them just standing there in his foyer, 'alone' for maybe the first time in a couple of weeks. Remembering the manners his mother taught him, Peter almost asks for her coat, but judging by how Olivia's clinging it to her chest, he would feel bad taking it from her.
Truth is, Olivia is not entirely sure she should have come at all.
But during those few hours when Peter went missing, today, she'd told herself that when they found him again (because they would), she was going to make an effort, and stop acting like a fool.
It'd been so easy, to do what she always does. To retreat, to keep him at arm's length, a knee-jerk reaction from having dared do the opposite for a couple minutes, even with him being true to his words, never showing any sign that something out of the ordinary had happened between them.
As always, there wasn't much she could do about her own ability to sabotage herself.
Realizing that Peter was gone, kidnapped by a kid who so far had caused the death of most people he interacted with, had made her rethink her recent behavior. When he was missing, she didn't care much about the right or the wrong of what they'd done.
She just wanted Peter safe again.
As easy as it'd been to tell herself she would just talk to him again as soon as they found him, she'd lost her nerve the moment he'd opened his eyes, after he'd crashed his car into that pole. Given how her heart had stuttered in her chest when their gazes met, even from a distance, it felt much safer to stay away.
She felt pathetic enough about it once she got home to work up the courage to call at least, to check up on him. When Walter had picked up instead and enthusiastically explained how he'd made way too much crêpe mix, if she cared to join them, Olivia had…caved.
Despite the memories from her childhood the mere thought of said food stirred up in her mind, which would usually have kept her away, Olivia was intent on rectifying her own ridiculous behavior with Peter, hence her presence in his foyer.
All of her good intentions are put to the test within a couple of minutes in his proximity, never exactly unaffected by his presence alone.
Just from the way he's been moving and standing, she can tell he's achy.
"How are you feeling?" she does eventually ask, her eyes stopping on his bruised forehead. While she's asking in part to put an end to the growing tension, her concern for him is genuine.
He smiles. "All things considered? Not that bad." He gives a tired, half-shrug that makes him grimace a little. "I'm very sore, and I had a killer headache, but one perk of having Walter as a father is his impressive stash of potent pain inhibitors."
Olivia cannot help but smile, too. "Is that your way of telling me you're tripping?"
When he chuckles goodheartedly, her heart flutters a little, a bit too pleased over the fact that she's already managed to make him laugh again.
"Nah, I stayed clear of the really hard stuff," he says with a shake of his head. "I'm way too happy to have my free will back to let anything mess with my head again."
Despite her best effort, that tension is refusing to alleviate, caused in part by the reminder of what he's gone through today.
She also doubts she's the only one remembering whiskey right now, and how it'd supposedly messed with their heads.
"Crêpes are ready!"
Olivia more than welcomes Walter's timely intervention, giving her the perfect opportunity to briefly evade Peter's proximity, first to enter the kitchen. The smells are much stronger, here, triggering a new wave of memories from distant times, catching her off guard. They are not exactly unpleasant, but they are unexpected, rarely thinking back to that period of her life.
"Sit, sit!" Walter encourages her way too enthusiastically, having pulled out a chair for her.
She does, finally letting go of her coat, putting it on the chair next to hers, before staring at the impressive mountain of crêpes Walter has put in the middle of the table.
"After the day we all had, we need all the sugar we can get," Walter says, adding a wide variety of toppings to the table, from honey to whipped cream, along with the jam Olivia brought over. And then, just as casually, he adds: "Agent Dunham was really worried about you when you were gone, Peter."
Olivia's face heats up at once, feeling like a deer caught in headlights.
She cannot look at Peter, who's just taken the seat opposite hers, suddenly having a new kind of appreciation for how he must have felt a few months back, when she had been abducted, and Walter kept bringing up how worried Peter had been.
"It's safe to assume that whenever someone goes missing, their friends are gonna worry about them, Walter."
Peter says it calmly, in a patient tone she hears him use more and more often with his father. Olivia can't help it, glancing at him, having half-expected him to tease her about this, the way he definitely would have a few months back.
He doesn't even meet her eyes, busy getting himself a crêpe, as if nothing had happened at all, his way of making sure they move on, aware that she doesn't like being put on the spot like that.
She may know most of his tells after months by his side, he knows most of hers, too.
To be honest, Peter is just baffled to have Olivia Dunham in their kitchen. That's new for sure, but far from being unpleasant, especially since this is the longest he's been in her presence for days, except for work related reasons.
"Do help yourself, Agent Dunham," Walter is already speaking again, working on getting his own crêpe ready, currently spreading a thick layer of jam on it.
Actually, Olivia is looking extremely out of place right now, as if overwhelmed by the amount of food and toppings available to her, something Peter finds quite endearing as he chews on his crêpe.
"You gonna be alright there, Dunham?" he can't help but tease. "I don't think I've actually ever seen you ingest anything solid."
That's a bit risky, whiskey once again on both of their minds for sure.
Olivia takes the bait, though, as he really hoped she would, meeting his eyes and giving him a look, her cheeks still a little flushed from Walter's comment. Without a word, she grabs one of the crêpes, rolls it up, folds it up, before stuffing the whole thing into her mouth, clearly to shut him up.
And because Peter is five years old, he answers yet another one of her silent dares, and does the exact same thing.
"That's the spirit!" Walter is beaming as they chew, apparently delighted to see them drawing the most mature side out of each other again. "Although the French may have disapproved a bit."
There's something more than a little charming in watching Olivia now trying to deal with her large mouthful of food while attempting to keep her composure. More to give himself a reason not to keep staring at her than anything else, Peter gets up and goes to the sink, filling up a glass of water that he then casually sets down next to her plate without a word.
He grabs another crêpe, not sitting back down, leaning against the counter instead.
"Those are actually tasty, Walter, thank you," Olivia eventually says after downing half her glass of water. "I hadn't had crêpes in a couple decades."
Walter, still not done prepping his first crêpe, having added honey and chocolate chips to it, interrupts his task to look up at Olivia. "That is a very long time to go without a food." He says it with the kind of emphasis he often uses when he thinks about his years spent in St. Claire's. "Not since your childhood, then?" he continues, having done the easy math.
There is a subtle change in Olivia's body language, not subtle enough for Peter to miss it. She rarely if ever speaks of her childhood—especially not around Walter, whose role he'd played in it back then was more than a little problematic.
She does give a small, sharp tilt of her head, not meeting any of their eyes as she does so. "That's right. My mom used to love making them."
Warning bells ring in Peter's mind, his heart squeezing at this quiet confirmation of what he deduced a while ago—that her mom isn't around anymore. Although she never shared her family tree with him, he'd been able to figure out a few things on his own. The fact that no one but Rachel had showed up to that hospital a couple months back to…say goodbye, had been telling enough.
If Peter had been alone with her, he would have dropped the subject, or he'd have approached it in a tactful manner.
Walter and tact are not things that tend to coexist, unfortunately.
"Oh, does she not like them anymore?" he asks, back to his preparation, having grabbed the can of whipped cream, shaking it enthusiastically while Peter swallows back a frustrated groan.
Olivia is clearly uncomfortable now, shoulders hunched, looking like she's been cornered into talking about something she really didn't expect to be talking about when she agreed to come.
As his father layers his crêpe with a generous amount of cream, Peter begs his brain to come up with something smart to say, something that will change the subject without making her think he's feeling sorry for her.
To his surprise, she speaks first.
"Well, my mother died when I was fourteen, so…"
The obnoxious noise coming from the can of whipped cream abruptly stops, the look on Walter's face matching what Peter feels at Olivia's admission—which very much feels like a punch to the gut.
There's a difference between being aware that her mom probably died 'at some point' in her life, and learning that it happened when she was barely more than a kid.
"I'm so sorry, Olivia," Walter says, his whole demeanor having changed completely as he stares at her, solemn and genuinely upset. "I didn't mean to be callous."
Olivia does that thing, then, bravely meeting Walter's eyes and giving him one of her sad smiles with a swift shake of her head, as if trying to dismiss something that can't be dismissed. "You couldn't have known."
For about five seconds, Peter actually believes Walter might drop the subject.
All wishful thinking on his part.
"Peter's mother died, too."
Experiencing his second punch to the gut in less than three minutes, Peter's mood is quickly deteriorating and darkening, the way it usually does whenever his mother comes up, especially her death.
"Excellent. You're definitely being callous, now, Walter."
He's barely affected by his father's quivering lip and watering eyes. "It wasn't my intention. Olivia shared something very personal with us. I thought it was important for us to share something just as meaningful."
"I'm all for meaningful bonding, but maybe we could stir away from the topic of dead parents."
Olivia is already standing up, her chair scraping the floor. "I should be heading home anyway."
He can't even blame her for wanting to flee their kitchen.
"I'll walk you out," Peter says, so it doesn't look too much like she is fleeing.
She gives a short nod as she picks up her coat, once again not meeting any of their eyes. "Thank you for the crêpes, Walter."
Although she's once again first to walk out, Peter following her as he always does, she's gracious enough to let him open the door for her. She goes as far as not rushing out of his house the moment he does, lingering on his threshold—a sweet irony he does not miss.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly, so that his father won't hear. "He's been doing that a lot, lately."
He doesn't add, bring up my dead mother, but she seems to hear it anyway.
"That's alright," Olivia says in a fake, chipper tone, although her voice remains on the softer side. "Who doesn't like a bit of meaningful bonding over crêpes?"
Her brave, almost unexpected attempt at humor creates a dip in his chest, the sweet, aching kind, especially when she courageously meets his eyes, too, with the smallest of smiles. How could he not smile back?
The topic itself is anything but funny, quite the opposite. And yet, having indeed both lost their mothers, they are uniquely allowed to say whatever the hell they want.
That heavy commonality hangs in the air, now, like so many other unsaid between them.
Peter is not the most ingenuous person. He's actually spent a good chunk of his adult life perfecting a few different personas that made it so he rarely if ever had to be honest or open about these very personal facts—a trait he long ago noticed he shared with Olivia.
And yet, at that moment, all he wants to do is talk to her.
He wants to ask about her mom. About how she died, about the years that followed her passing. Most surprising of all is his growing itch to tell her about those things, too, even if he's not sure how he would manage to say any of it, having never before talked about it, not in a way that matters. Not in a way that was real.
All he knows is that in those rare, quiet moments of honesty with Olivia, he feels like she gets him. Not his made-up facades, not his safe, cocky persona.
Just him.
He feels like he could talk to her about his mom, really talk to her, something he struggles to do with Walter, still selfishly believing at times that his father hasn't earned the right to talk about Elizabeth at all.
No more than him, really, who ran off and let her drown.
Peter doesn't say any of this tonight, nor does he ask anything, attempting to chase it all away instead. Enough of it must have crossed his face, though, because Olivia's small smile is gone, now looking up at him with a kind of perceptive empathy that is entirely hers.
He forces himself to smile wider, conjuring up one of those facades, or trying to, at least. From the look in her eyes, he's not fooling her, quickly dropping the smile altogether. For a moment, there, they just stare at each other.
Until her eyes leave his, and drift down to his lips.
They're not even that close, nothing like they were, back at her place, when he'd had her in his arms, breathing her. And yet, because he did have her in his arms, his lungs full of her, he doesn't need to have her that close to feel it all over again, to feel that same current crawling up his spine the moment she looks up again and meets his eyes.
He's not the only one thinking about it, thinking about that kiss that supposedly never happened, judging by the small blush already creeping back, coloring her cheeks, or the way her pupils expand, ever so slightly—all signals his body recognizes alright.
Olivia puts an end to the charged moment as abruptly as she started it, tilting her head down and away, chin to her chest.
"I, uh, really should get home. Finish my report."
She's trying to sound more like Agent Dunham, but she's not quite succeeding, her voice a bit too low. Still, after being more or less shunned for a couple of weeks, Peter is not about to push his luck.
"I'm guessing there's no way you can leave out the part where I shot Broyles, uh?"
Her next smile is much more genuine, looking back at him with pursed lips. "I'm afraid that would be a federal offense."
"Figures."
He's back to smiling softly, too. As much as part of him would love nothing more than to reach out and pull her to him, confident that he could be persuasive enough somehow to lure her upstairs, where they could recreate some of the many fantasies that have been plaguing his nights, his mind is all his again, so is his freewill.
He's too relieved to have her talking to him, comfortable enough to banter with him, to risk jeopardizing it, stuffing his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans.
"Good night, Olivia," he says, with a hint of affection he doesn't even try to hide.
He's rewarded with the loveliest smile from her, small and almost bashful, that soft blush still warming up her face.
"Good night, Peter."
