Fic: Looking Glass (Olivia/Peter, G)
Vacations are apparently for cleaning out hard drives... I accidentally deleted this and then found it in the recycle bin a the last moment. Oops. Tag to a certain other, brilliant fic on the kinkmeme that has not had it's author reveal yet, but posting this now before I go and purge it again. (that'll also teach me not to use random letter combinations as document titles!)
Title Looking Glass
Spoilers Post-S4, in particular 4.17, Everything In It's Right Place.
Summary Olivia finds a window
“What exactly are you doing back here?” Peter asks from the storage room doorway.
“Just looking for something,” Olivia’s voice filters back from between the crooked stacks of overstuffed banker’s boxes and shelves piled high with specimen jars and wires and other bits of unidentifiable laboratory flotsam.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” is Peter’s first reaction. “Does Walter know you’re in here?” is what actually comes out because he’s always had a healthy sense of self-preservation, and after the pigeon incident, Olivia’d made it clear that she wouldn’t tolerate his over-protective daddy-to-be act. Especially if it got in the way of her doing her job.
“He said this is where he remembers putting-- “ she interrupts herself with a curse as a wall of boxes starts to wobble. Peter holds his breath, waits with his hands out as if he can catch the pile if it topples.
It doesn’t. This time. “You want some help in there?” he asks.
There’s muffled grunt, then silence, followed by the scraping sound of something being dragged across the concrete floor. “Nope.” Olivia appears triumphantly from behind a shelf, face smudged with dust, canvas-wrapped treasure in tow. “Found it.”
“And what exactly is ’it’?”
“Well,” she rubs the end of her nose with her sleeve and sniff, trying not to sneeze. “You know how Walternate created the quantum entangled typewriters to stay in contact with his agents over here?” Olivia pauses. “Or he did. Before… in our timeline,” she clarifies out of what’s becoming habit. Because two universes and multiple timelines doesn’t get confusing fast.
“Anyhow, I was thinking that as good as it is to be able to talk to Lincoln again,” Peter doesn’t miss how she drops her eyes for a second while she pulls on her lip with her teeth, “it’d be nice to actually see him too.”
The possibilities are intriguing, but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up quite yet. Peter points to the package she’s got propped against her hip. “And you think this thing of Walter’s will let us do that?”
Olivia shrugs. “It might.” She crouches to start untying the string that’s securing the canvas wrapper.
Peter digs into his jeans and pulls out his pocket knife. He offers it to her. “How’d you know about this?”
She bobs her head in that way she does when she’s trying to avoid a question. “Walter showed it to me once.” And that’s all she’ll say about it. Peter accepts that, because he’s not interested in getting hung up on the past (plural, he mentally notes) with her.
Olivia pulls back the canvas with a flourish and her triumphant smile falls. The device - a square of glass about two feet by two feet, held in a wooden frame with a snarl of wires and buttons on the side - is cracked. And not just split in two, but a mess of spider webs radiating out from a hole in the center, like a windshield hit with a speeding rock.
Or a hammer, in frustration.
Peter’s surprised at the sudden rush of disappointment that clogs his throat. He offers Olivia a hand and she pulls herself off the floor.
“You said Walter built this?” She nods and starts pulling the canvas back around the device.
But Peter stops her. He’d told Lincoln that typewriters were difficult - no takebacks. He hoists the device up to the light, holds it at arm's length while he catalogs the damages. It looks like they might not be too bad, after all.
“Let’s go see if Walter can fix his magic looking glass.”
Also posted at DW, where
people have commented. Comments welcome here or there.
Title Looking Glass
Spoilers Post-S4, in particular 4.17, Everything In It's Right Place.
Summary Olivia finds a window
“What exactly are you doing back here?” Peter asks from the storage room doorway.
“Just looking for something,” Olivia’s voice filters back from between the crooked stacks of overstuffed banker’s boxes and shelves piled high with specimen jars and wires and other bits of unidentifiable laboratory flotsam.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” is Peter’s first reaction. “Does Walter know you’re in here?” is what actually comes out because he’s always had a healthy sense of self-preservation, and after the pigeon incident, Olivia’d made it clear that she wouldn’t tolerate his over-protective daddy-to-be act. Especially if it got in the way of her doing her job.
“He said this is where he remembers putting-- “ she interrupts herself with a curse as a wall of boxes starts to wobble. Peter holds his breath, waits with his hands out as if he can catch the pile if it topples.
It doesn’t. This time. “You want some help in there?” he asks.
There’s muffled grunt, then silence, followed by the scraping sound of something being dragged across the concrete floor. “Nope.” Olivia appears triumphantly from behind a shelf, face smudged with dust, canvas-wrapped treasure in tow. “Found it.”
“And what exactly is ’it’?”
“Well,” she rubs the end of her nose with her sleeve and sniff, trying not to sneeze. “You know how Walternate created the quantum entangled typewriters to stay in contact with his agents over here?” Olivia pauses. “Or he did. Before… in our timeline,” she clarifies out of what’s becoming habit. Because two universes and multiple timelines doesn’t get confusing fast.
“Anyhow, I was thinking that as good as it is to be able to talk to Lincoln again,” Peter doesn’t miss how she drops her eyes for a second while she pulls on her lip with her teeth, “it’d be nice to actually see him too.”
The possibilities are intriguing, but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up quite yet. Peter points to the package she’s got propped against her hip. “And you think this thing of Walter’s will let us do that?”
Olivia shrugs. “It might.” She crouches to start untying the string that’s securing the canvas wrapper.
Peter digs into his jeans and pulls out his pocket knife. He offers it to her. “How’d you know about this?”
She bobs her head in that way she does when she’s trying to avoid a question. “Walter showed it to me once.” And that’s all she’ll say about it. Peter accepts that, because he’s not interested in getting hung up on the past (plural, he mentally notes) with her.
Olivia pulls back the canvas with a flourish and her triumphant smile falls. The device - a square of glass about two feet by two feet, held in a wooden frame with a snarl of wires and buttons on the side - is cracked. And not just split in two, but a mess of spider webs radiating out from a hole in the center, like a windshield hit with a speeding rock.
Or a hammer, in frustration.
Peter’s surprised at the sudden rush of disappointment that clogs his throat. He offers Olivia a hand and she pulls herself off the floor.
“You said Walter built this?” She nods and starts pulling the canvas back around the device.
But Peter stops her. He’d told Lincoln that typewriters were difficult - no takebacks. He hoists the device up to the light, holds it at arm's length while he catalogs the damages. It looks like they might not be too bad, after all.
“Let’s go see if Walter can fix his magic looking glass.”
Also posted at DW, where
people have commented. Comments welcome here or there.