Please write some 001 fanfics!
Change of Heart
Chapter 01/?? Click HERE for this fic’s masterlist!
Reader is a troubled pediatrician at Hawkins lab when she crosses paths with this lovely orderly. Nothing will stand between Peter and his revenge. Not even really pretty distractions.
Pairing: Peter Ballard x f!reader
Word count: 1117
Ratings & warnings: SPOILERS, period typical sexism, violence, blood, NSFW, swearing, no (Y/N), no described defining features for reader. Ratings may change as chapters are added.
A/N: your wish is my wish as well my command!
She doesn’t talk much.
Not to her colleagues, at least. She speaks with dr. Brenner because she answers to him and she speaks to the children when they need her.
But not to the other doctors and nurses, not to the other orderlies. Not to him.
It has never bothered Peter before. He doesn’t need her, has no reason to let her live when his plan eventually comes to fruition. In his mind, she is just like everyone else who works at Hawkins Lab. Another mindless sheep pretending to care for the children, but in reality only interested in prodding their supernatural brains in the name of science and a paycheck at the end of the month.
Eat. Sleep. Work. Reproduce. Die.
It was stupid of him to let her become a distraction. He should have killed her when he had the chance.
“Peter,” one of the kids in the rainbow room groans to him, tugging on the spotless white sleeve of his uniform.
He crosses eyes with little 015 when he looks down, the boy looks paler than usual and his lips are chapped. The kid’s eyes are watery and his nose runny.
“I don’t feel so good, Peter.”
Alec locks eyes with him and then nods, signaling that it’s fine, under the illusion that he can handle these kids on their own while Peter is away.
“Come with me, 015. The doctor will make you all better.”
A disheveled mess greets the pair when he and 015 arrive at the sick bay, something that he’s not used to from the Hawkin’s lab pediatrician.
Though usually neatly put in a tight bun, her locks now tumble in unkempt tresses down her face and deep, purple circles have appeared under her eyes. It is out of the ordinary and bound to capture Peter’s attention.
“015 is not feeling good,” he states the obvious, expecting her to ignore him as she usually does. When her eyes find his deep blue ones before they wander off to 015, his interest is piqued once again.
Something is off, which meant the puzzle pieces could change and be rearranged. Peter always keeps his eyes open for little shifts in the matrix that could mean he has to change his initial plan. Has the doctor’s obvious distracted state any real meaning to him? Could and would she form a problem?
Peter watches as she sits the kid down in her office, producing a penlight and has him follow the light for her.
“Does it hurt anywhere, 015? Do you remember when it started?” She asks him, squatting in front of the kid so that they’re at eye level.
“I’ll come back later to pick him up,” Peter says, but before he can make his way out of her office and back to the rainbow room, she calls after him. Knitting his brows together in amusement, he turns around on his heels to look at the doctor.
“Yes?” His hands are folded neatly behind his back, ever the friendly, harmless orderly. She’s at least a head smaller than he is.
“I know we’re not supposed to intervene with the kids. And I’m not asking you to,” her eyes dart around the hallway. He wonders what she has to hide. “But tell dr. Brenner if you see any of the bigger kids picking on the smaller ones. I’ve had too many kids in here with nosebleeds that didn’t stem from their powers.”
“Why?” He asks. Not why should he tell dr. Brenner. He understands her motivation behind that. But why him? Why can’t she tell Brenner herself? Unlike Brenner and himself, she has always been on good terms with the man. What happened?
“I…” she hesitates, worrying her lip between her teeth as he looks down upon her. “You seem like a good guy, Peter. You’re here every day, you spend every waking moments with these kids. I know you care for them. Please?”
Please.
Please? Fuck.
If Peter was the person she assumed he was, good and kind, maybe he would fulfill her request. But he is far from that person and she must surely be delusional to think he cared. The only person Peter looks out for is number 001, and that meant that drawing attention to himself would only make dr. Brenner suspicious of him. He could and would not risk it, not even when she asks him so prettily.
“I’ll be back for him. After dinner,” she looks dejected, but it doesn’t matter to Peter. The clicking of his shoes on the tiles announce his retreat.
With a disappointing huff she watches the lean orderly go before turning back to 015 with a fake smile plastered on her face.
“Alright, kid. Let’s get you all better.”
It’s long after dinner when Peter makes his nightly rounds around the lab, enjoying the peace and quiet, free of the chatter between doctors that could be heard during the day. It’s moments like these Peter enjoys most. The deathly quiet where he can take a moment and think.
Back when he had just been assigned the job of an orderly, he used to take these moments and try as he might to rekindle his power. Every night for days, weeks, months he tried, until he had no choice but to accept that the blocker in his neck did it’s job. There was no way around it.
Later, he took these moments to order his thoughts and form a plan. An escape plan that not even dr. Brenner could see coming. He would be sure to make them all pay, Martin Brenner the first to atone and the last to die.
Nowadays, he saw these quiet moments as the calm before the storm. Much like a spider, he shakes his long limbs loose and his mind wanders off to a place he’d be able to call home. Somewhere he could be well and truly alone.
“For fuck’s sake!” Peter’s head snaps up at the muffled cussing coming from behind a closed door. His body stiffens and his breathing becomes steady like an animal ready to pounce on it’s prey.
Seconds pass like rain droplets joining a winded river as he waits for another sound.
Suddenly, a door on his left flies open and he has his hand halfway lifted before cursing dr. Brenner and his idiotic power blocker.
To his surprise, it’s not one of the other staff members on duty, or even one of the kids.
It’s the pediatrician.
And she’s not wearing her lab coat or her white pants, either. She’s wearing a pastel nightgown. His hand falls, in sync with her face when she notices him.
“Peter?!”
“Doctor.”
A/N: well, that’s the end of chapter 01! If people enjoy it, I’ll definitely continue. I have a bunch of ideas for this pair and I love getting in Peter’s head to discover his motivations etc. Also lmk if you want to be tagged for future chapters!
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Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1
The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.
So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.
So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.
Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.
And the probe is working again.
From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.
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