fatesdesign | (no subject)

Unsurprisingly, Peter was not that great at planning dates.

It wasn't like he'd never been on one. He'd been on plenty, but most of them were double dates with friends, or just a party where they all agreed to meet up, or a vague agreement to maybe run into each other somewhere. He'd never bothered to take that shit seriously, which was probably why he'd never maintained a serious relationship... ever. The longest he'd held onto a girlfriend was a few months over the summer, and a big chunk of that, she was off at some internship program in New York.

She'd finally figured out that he was a loser, over those few weeks, and he'd decided, only afterwards, that she was stuck up and not worth it anyway.

So, saying that he felt out of his element was probably the understatement of the century. His jeans were clean, and he'd put on a dark green button-up shirt, but after walking a block, he'd rolled up the sleeves and cuffed them over his elbows. The date seemed important, but he also didn't want to take her someplace uptight and fancy, if only because that wasn't really them.

Plus, he had to consider where the money would come from. The Home was really strict about how much allowance they gave you each month, and being a seventeen-year-old unaccustomed to budgeting, he hadn't exactly figured out how to make it last.

Standing outside her apartment, he decided at least five times in a span of two minutes that bowling was the actual stupidest idea he'd ever come up with. Maybe they could find a movie to see? Or they could just get food? Or— Oh, God, there she was.

"Wow, hey. You look... Wow."

Rapunzel blushes at the greeting, ducking her head to hide a smile at how stunned he looks. It makes her feel nice, special even, and she lifts her head to walk over and take his hands in hers.

“Hi, Peter,” she says, lifting up onto her toes to give him a soft kiss on the cheek. “You look very handsome. This is a good color on you.”

They haven’t talked about it, at least not yet, but Rapunzel assumes that Peter, though younger, has more experience with this stuff than she does. He’s very handsome and had a relatively normal life, at least up until— he didn’t. Why wouldn’t girls want to be around him?

This isn’t to say that she’s jealous, but more that she’s ready to follow his lead. He knows her, and so she’s confident that she’ll like whatever he has planned. Nothing too fancy, she’s sure, and she’s perfectly fine with that. She still really doesn’t know how to handle places like that, and it seems like the fancier a place is, the less fun it will be.

“So, lead the way,” she says brightly, tipping her head back to smile up at him. “Where are we going?”

"Oh, yeah. Thanks," he said, smoothing a hand awkwardly down his front.

"Uh, have you ever been bowling? There's that place downtown, and they, uh. I think they have decent burgers, too? I mean, I've heard. I've never actually been."

In fact, he hadn't been bowling since freshman year, and once again, he was convinced it was the worst idea he'd ever had. Which was saying something.

"We can go somewhere else..." He offered, nearly holding his breath as he waited for her answer.

“Bowling. That’s the one where you roll the ball to knock down the pins, right? I’ve never done that,” she says excitedly, eager to try something new. “That sounds fun. Let’s do that!”

It doesn’t escape her notice that Peter seems very nervous. It’s cute that he’s nervous because that means he cares, but Rapunzel doesn’t want him to worry. She slides her hand down his arm to threads their fingers together and tugs him over to a shadowy little alcove so they aren’t in the way, and then turns to look up at him with open fondness in her expression.

“Don’t be nervous, Peter,” she says warmly, giving him a soft, flirty smile as she reaches up to touch his cheek. Pressing up onto her toes, she puts her lips near his ear to whisper to him. “I’ll tell you a secret. I already like you very much.”

After a moment spent getting over her own nerves, she bites her lip and then lifts her head to give him a kiss, just a soft press of mouths before she pulls back and holds her hand out for him to take again.

“Now come on,” she tells him, gesturing him forward with pink cheeks and a happy smile. “You have to teach me bowling.”

"That doesn't actually make me any less nervous," he admitted, but his smile was more relaxed, his shoulders slumping as a fraction of the tension seeped out of him.

Before she could pull away, he lifted a hand to her face, pulling her in for another, more lingering kiss.

"Okay, okay," he said, laughing breathlessly as he followed her out of the alley.

"And, uh. I mean, it's probably obvious, but I like you, too."

"Ah, but I bet you're a better kind of nervous," she says with a chuckle, proudly noting how some of the stiffness seems to have left his shoulders. Her own heart flutters a bit as he pulls her in for another kiss, and she lets out a soft hum against his mouth as she reaches up to curl her fingers around his forearm.

She looks a little dazed when he pulls back, blinking a few times before following him. There's a smear of pink on his lips and she smiles, stopping him so she can reach up and gently wipe it away with her thumb.

"I like hearing it," she replies, because she doesn't know how to explain that it isn't really all that obvious. Not because of him, of course, but Rapunzel still hasn't really been able to settle into the idea that someone might actually like her. She's working on it though, because Peter is special.

They walk hand in hand towards the bowling alley making small talk, and Rapunzel perks up a bit as they arrive. The place is loud and bright, with an arcade full of flashing, noisy games. She has to take a breath to settle herself, moving in closer to Peter's side.

A sign catches her eye and she tilts her head curiously before looking up at Peter. "What is a shoe rental? I mean-- I get what it is. I guess a better question is why is it here?"

"Uh, I think it's something to do with scuffing the lanes," Peter admitted with a shrug. Really, he wasn't that focused on the shoes. Or the loud noises. Or any of it.

What he cared about most was the bright, wide-eyed look on Rapunzel's face, and the warmth of her hand in his.

"I don't think they'll let you wear your regular shoes past a certain point."

“Oh, well.” Rapunzel wrinkles her nose as she watches someone hand over a pair of shoes to a patron, and then shakes her head a little. She’s not fond of her own shoes on any given day, so she’s even less interested in wearing someone else’s. “I’ll just go barefoot then. I prefer that anyway but people seem so uptight about shoes. I did just fine eighteen years without them.”

They walk up to the counter and she lets Peter handle the details, only letting go of his hand to slip her arm around his waist as she shifts to his other side and presses up onto her toes to look curiously out at the lanes. It doesn’t seem all that complicated but she still wants to try and get the hang of it before they start, so she furrows her brow and studies a group of people in matching shirts at a lane near the end.

“They seem very intense,” she comments, hooking her thumb through Peter’s belt loop while biting thoughtfully at her lip. She isn’t even looking at him but she can’t seem to stop touching him, and she just hopes that it isn’t too much.

"Yeah, I think it's a pro team," Peter explained, handing over the cash for their lane and then moving over to claim a decent one before it got taken.

Sitting down to change his shoes, he tucked the pair they'd made him rent for her under his own chair. In front of him was one of those digital score counters, but the technology looked at least twenty years old. It had a spot to put in their team name, and he quickly typed in Peter+Rapunzel.

"Come on, let's pick out our balls," he said, gesture to the rack near the back wall. There were balls of all different colors, some solid, some sparkly, some metallic, and each one had its weight stamped on it. Reaching out to take her hand, after only a brief moment of second-guessing himself, he led her over, pointing out a lavender ball near the low end. "You'll probably want something light."

After slipping out of her shoes and pushing them under one of the seats, she looks up to watch as Peter types in their names. She smiles at the sight of them together up on the screen and then lets Peter lead her away.

“Oh, I think you’re underestimating my upper body strength,” she teases with a laugh, squeezing his hand before letting go and leaning over gracefully to pick up the ball. It’s fairly light in her hands, and she hefts it up in both of them with a thoughtful pout. “So, we throw it down the lane? Or— rolling. We roll-throw.”

With a shake of her head, she puts the ball down and picks up a darker purple ball that sparkles under the light. This one feels a little less like she might chuck it across the alley, so she nods approvingly and holds it up under her chin with both hands.

“Okay, ball chosen,” she tells him, twisting the ball around and quirking an eyebrow at the three holes before slipping her fingers and thumb inside of them. Once she’s sure that she’s got it, she looks up at Peter with a grin. “And now I throw it?”

"Hey, at least I didn't tell you to grab one from the kiddie rack," Peter said, gesturing to the lightest balls, on a low shelf down at the end.

"Yeah, it's kind of a roll-throw," he agreed, picking his own ball, a dark and swirling blue, and turning back towards the lane.

"I'm not saying I'm great at this, but I can go first, if you want to see how to do it."

“By all means,” Rapunzel says as she approaches their lane. There’s a rack of balls at the end and she sets hers down so she can remove her jacket and lay it over a chair before coming to stand next to Peter’s side. “Oh, I should probably—“

She grins sheepishly and hooks her thumb over her shoulder before sliding back on the polished wood to stand behind him, more out of the way.

“Show me how it’s done,” she tells him, tilting her head to watch him curiously.

Laughing softly, he said, "Yeah, maybe stay behind the line," he gestured, really not wanting to hit her or bump into her.

He hadn't bowled in forever, but it was a familiar enough motion, drawing the ball back as he walking across the polished wood, his feet sliding a little in the follow-through as the threw the ball down the middle, watching it roll a little to the left and only knocking out the furthest three pins.

"Jesus. Yeah, okay. That was, you know... Practice," he said, struggling to look like he didn't care about his shitty throw, when a part of him just wanted to impress her.

His ball shot out from the return shoot, and he grabbed it again as it rolled to a stop. "You get two throws, each turn."

Rapunzel is all set to watch him roll-throw the ball, but her attention is admittedly caught more by the long lines of him and the way his tight jeans hug his body. The clutter of the pins distracts her and she looks down the lane with softly flushed cheeks.

“Hey, you’re still the best bowler I’ve ever seen,” she tells him, and once he turns to grab his ball she reaches back to pat the spot where her dress meets her thighs, hoping it won’t ride up too much when she bends over to throw her ball. Maybe she can do more of a graceful lunge.

The lane next to them is empty so she comes up near his side again, but still safely out of the way. “At least it didn’t end up in the little— what, loser pit?” She gestures vaguely to the gutters lining the lane.

“So, come on. Go Peter!” She puts her hands next to her mouth to mimic the dull roar of a crowd. “Peter, Peter, he’s our man.”

"Okay, that's enough," Peter said, struggling against a grin as he tried to wave off her supportive cheers. There were people looking, a couple of girls a few lanes down, leaning in close and giggling together.

He couldn't really remember the last time he'd felt like this-- just normal teenage embarrassment, the kind that felt exciting and tingly and not a whole lot like embarrassment at all.

"The gutter," he said, "Or loser pit, whatever." Grinning, he turned back towards the pins, lining up his shot and then trying to arc the ball a little more towards the middle and right. This time, all but the pin on the far right came clattering down.

"Jesus, okay," he said, ruffling a hand through his hair and trudging back to Rapunzel's side.

“Hey, that’s ninety percent,” she says as he comes over to her, and she suddenly feels nervous as she looks over at her own ball. “You’re setting a bad precedent. What if mine goes right in the loser pit?”

Oh well, playing is the fun part. She combs a few wisps of hair back behind her ears and picks up her ball before padding barefoot up to the line at the end of the lane. She does her best to copy Peter’s pose while also not letting her dress ride up too much, and then lets the ball go.

She throws it more than rolls it, and the ball goes barreling down the lane to barely pick off one pin before it drops onto the gutter at the last possible moment.

“Okay, hm. I need to re-strategize,” she murmurs to herself, looking down at the little diamonds embedded into the wood and then down the lane again as the pins reset. This time she grabs her ball with a little more confidence and rolls it right down the middle, kicking one bare foot back and hopping back to watch.

“Oh my gosh, look at how straight— oh, no. There it goes.” The ball veers left bear the end of the lane and ends up taking down a few more pins, and Rapunzel turns to give him a sheepish smile. “I was hoping that was going to be very triumphant.”

"No, that was kind of great," he assured her, picking up his ball and waiting as the pins were reset. "The first time I played, I swear, I didn't knock over a single pin for at least my first few turns."

He'd been about eleven at the time, but she didn't need to know that.

Lining up his next shot, he threw the ball, blowing out a breath when all but three were knocked over. "Okay, see," he said, pointing out the two pins on the right, and the third on the left, "That's called a split. Knocking them all down now is like, really hard."

"Kind of great," she says with a bright laugh, nodding her head and going to sit on the edge of the seat in front of the screen. She studies the little numbers and then looks up when she hears the sound of Peter's ball clashing against the pins.

"Oh, wow. How would you even do that?" She gets up and walks over to Peter as she looks out at the split pins. Casually, she rests her hand on Peter's back and tilts her head. "You'd have to knock one into the others somehow."

Rapunzel rests her chin on Peter's shoulder and blinks up at him with faux innocence, wanting to tease him a little. "I bet no one could make that shot."

"Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?" Peter laughed softly, wrapping his arm around her waist as his ball came rolling down the shoot.

"If you're, uh, going to judge this whole date on whether I make this shot, I guess I'm screwed."

“Nah, I’ll let this one slide,” she says with a laugh, pressing up onto her toes a bit when Peter’s arm goes around her waist. The girls a few lanes over are glancing at them every so often and Rapunzel realizes that she’s never really been on the other end of that sort of attention. She’s sighed wistfully over plenty of cute couples, and now she’s a part of one. It makes her feel fluttery, full of both nerves and excitement.

“For good luck,” she says, twisting up to drop a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth before twirling away. Their hands stay clasped until they’re stretched between them and she has to let go, and she leans back against the score monitor as Peter goes to get his ball.

"Uh, thanks," he said, watching the twirl of her skirt, her thick braid swaying against her back. There was literally no way he could concentrate on his shot now.

Drawing in a deep breath, he turned away from her, lined up his shot, and threw wide, managing only to knock down the pin on the far right before the ball clattered into the gutter.

"Don't say it," he said, biting back a grin as he turned back to her, lifting a finger in playful admonishment.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Rapunzel says with a delighted laugh. “It was very impressive.”

Honestly, she doesn’t care how good Peter is at bowling. He could knock down zero pins, and she would still love that he brought her here so they could have fun together. Sure, she can get a little competitive, but this isn’t the place for that.

She gets up and leans in to playfully snap her teeth near his finger, laughing musically as she retrieves her ball. Her first throws were a little too hard and on the next one she overcompensates and there’s a very awkward minute where the ball rolls slowly down the lane. That actually knocks down a few pins, so she tries to do the same thing but faster, and it leaves only two pins standing.

They go through a few more turns each, getting a little better each time, and once Rapunzel’s ball disappears behind the pins she turns to see Peter seated near the score monitor. Without giving herself too much time to think about it, she walks over and sits sideways across his lap, curling one arm around his shoulders as she kicks her foot up.

“How many more turns before food?” She asks, letting her thumb glide back and forth across the soft skin above the collar of Peter’s shirt. “I believe you mentioned burgers.”

Peter was barely paying attention to the game at all.

He felt kind of like a perv, but her skirt was really short, and at every turn she made, it rode up just enough to show him a peek of the back of her thighs. He found himself imagining what her panties looked like, if they were the kind that showed just a little bit of cheek beneath the elastic.

God, he was a jerk.

But then she sat on his lap, smiling sweetly, innocently, her thumb playing across the top of his collar. His mouth went dry. "It's ten frames, but we can take a break, if you want."

“Ten frames,” she repeats, tipping her head back to get a look at the monitor. They’re halfway through, but she wouldn’t mind a break. It’s selfish, though. She mostly wants a break so she can be close to him like this, to touch him. A part of her wonders if it’s too much too soon, if maybe she isn’t being proper, but she dismisses the idea almost as quickly as she thinks of it.

“The lane will still be here if we go get food?” She asks, watching him swallow. He seems nervous and for a moment she can’t tell if it’s a good nervous or a bad nervous, especially since his hands are just at his sides, so she shifts until she’s sitting on just one thigh and her bare toes brush the floor.

“We can wait until after we’re done,” she assures him, squeezing his shoulder before she stands up and gives him a smile. “Either way, I’m having a really good time.”

Her smile goes a bit teasing and she reaches out to lightly touch the tip of his nose with the pad of her index finger. “Even is you haven’t knocked down all the pins yet.”

He'd just dredged up the courage to touch her, his fingertips grazing the top of her bare knee, his other hand moving to slip beneath her braid to rest against the small of her back, when she slipped off of his lap.

He let out a breath, struggling not to roll his eyes at himself.

"I don't know, we can leave our stuff here. It's not too busy, maybe everybody'll leave it alone," he suggested, snapping his teeth playfully near the tip of her finger, just like she'd done to him.

"We should eat," he decided, getting to his feet and offering her his hand.

Peter’s hand skims lightly across her lower back and it feels almost like a tease. She almost sits back down but decides against it, laughing instead when Peter moves to fake a nip at her finger. Her hand rests against his cheek for a moment as she looks down at him, and then she slides her fingers through his hair before pulling away to grab her purse.

“I’ll get the food since you got the bowling?” She offers, taking his hand with a warm smile and threading their fingers together as they head for the snack bar. They get in line and she swings their joined hands gently between them as she ponders. “Did you have burgers where you’re from? I never had one until I came here. Or pizza. Or ice cream.”

Her eyes are wide as she takes in the menu, and she twists a little to watch as someone walks away with a big tray of nachos. “It made decisions easier, at least.”

"Uh, no, it's cool. I mean, I've got this," he insisted awkwardly, "You can get the next one? I mean, when we go out again. I mean, assuming..."

He trailed off, and despite wanting more than anything to just play it cool, he gave her a nervously hopeful look. He liked her too much to let her think he didn't want to go out with her again.

"We have burgers, yeah," he answered, before the moment became uncomfortable. "The food here's basically the same as it was back home."

Rapunzel wants Peter to feel comfortable around her, and certainly doesn’t want him to be so nervous. At the same time, it does make her feel a little better to know that she isn’t alone in all of it. The hopeful look he gives her is so charming, so hopelessly endearing, that she can’t help but to lean up and kiss him on the cheek.

“That sounds good. I’ll get the next one,” she tells him, nodding as she pulls back to look at the menu and slip her hand into his. “We had some of the same things, but certainly not all. Maybe next time I can cook something.”

Cooking is something that she’s good at, and she loves experimenting with new recipes. Having someone other than a lizard to share it with would make it even better.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger and sweet potato fries,” she tells Peter, leaning away to pull a bottle of iced tea from a cooler next to the counter without letting go of his hand. “And this.”

"Uh, yeah. Okay," Peter said, trying not to read too far into her offering to cook for him, which would mean a date at her apartment, which would mean they'd be alone.

Like, really alone. And sure, they'd been alone before, but the last time, he'd been fucked up and snot-crying and covered in his own piss. Not exactly romantic. In fact, he was still generally shocked that she wanted to go out with him at all, after all that.

Putting in her order, he got himself a bacon cheeseburger and regular fries, along with a coke. They were given a number to take back to their table, and he picked a quiet, corner booth. "Is this okay?"

“Perfect,” Rapunzel replies as she slides into the booth, tucking her dress neatly under her thighs as she does. Once Peter is settled across from her, she takes a small sip of her tea and looks at him with an expression of eager curiosity.

“So, how are you?” They haven’t talked much since her birthday, and that was mostly about her, so she wants to know more. Before he can answer, she reaches out to rest her hand over his on the table, hooking her thumb around his playfully. “You’re almost done with school for the year, right? And then you have one more?”

"Um, yeah. I'm okay. I mean, it's okay. It's school," he said, shrugging. He'd made mediocre grades all through high school, and that hadn't changed in Darrow. It just never had really held his attention.

"I'm, uh. I'm probably going to have to finish up some stuff in summer school. I took some time off, after... you know," he trailed off, wincing around a smile, his thumb curling around hers. "But yeah, just the one more. Then, I don't know. Everybody keeps saying I should be thinking about college, but..."

He shrugged.

“Right, yeah.” She gives him an understanding smile and then twists their hands until she can lace her fingers through his. “You should be thinking about what you want to do, not so much what everyone tells you that you should want.”

That was a hard lesson learned for Rapunzel after a lifetime of being told what to think, but it’s something she believes in strongly now. “You have to follow your dream, but maybe that’s easier said than done if you don’t know what it is yet.”

It’s a little hard to get the lid off of her tea one handed, but she manages to do it so she doesn’t have to let go of Peter’s hand. She grabs a straw and rips off the end with her teeth, and then playfully blows the wrapper in his direction before sticking it into her drink.

“But don’t worry,” she assures him, leaning in to take a small sip of the tea. “You have plenty of time to figure it out.”

"Maybe I'm not really the kind of person who has dreams," Peter admitted, laughing softly as he halfheartedly knocked the straw paper onto the floor.

"I mean, I know that sounds really pathetic, but maybe I'm not meant to do important stuff. The rest of my family was really talented. My mom and my sister were artists, and my dad was this really respected therapist. But I think maybe I'm just, you know. Ordinary."

He shrugged.

Rapunzel takes time to think over what Peter's said, watching him with a soft expression and smiling a little before she replies. She doesn't know much about his upbringing, but she gets the feeling that maybe it was complicated. Maybe he lived in some sort of shadow.

"I don't think that there's anything wrong with being ordinary," she says after a moment, giving his hand a little squeeze. "But maybe you haven't had the time to really figure it out yet. You're seventeen, Peter. It would be very impressive if you already knew what you wanted out of life, I think."

Coughing out an uncomfortable laugh, Peter, grimaced, gently pulling his hand out from under hers as he sat back in his chair.

"Yeah, I know. I know there's nothing wrong with it. But you're making it sound like you think I'm a kid," he pointed out, "And if that's true, then why the hell are we even here?"

Rapunzel blinks in surprise when Peter pulls away, and then feels her cheeks flush with embarrassment at his words. She stays silent and sits back to think over her words, and bites her lip before saying anything.

"I didn't mean it like that," she says shakily, brow furrowed as she wonders how it went wrong so quickly. She didn't mean to offend him, but she also doesn't like how quick he seems to snap at her when she says something he doesn't like.

"Peter, I was just trying to say something helpful," she says in a tone quiet but unwavering. "I wouldn't be here if I thought you were a kid, or if I didn't want to be."

She sighs and slumps back in the booth, brow furrowing again as she looks down at her nails.

"I know, okay? I'm sorry, but I'm not... I don't want to talk about school, and I don't really want to talk about how I might feel differently about what I want to do with my life, once I'm older," Peter said, folding his arms across the table in front of him, a frown creasing his heavy brow.

"My parents, my sister? They were all great. Brilliant and talented and misunderstood. And they're all dead. So, maybe being ordinary isn't all that terrible. That's all I meant."

They'd wanted him, or at least his body, for something, but he had a feeling it was just that... his body. A vessel, just like the manikin he'd found outside the Home.

"Okay, fine. I won't ask about school," Rapunzel says easily, resisting the urge to cross her arms defensively. Peter's mention of his family makes her frown, and she looks back over at him. "Then it sounds like we were saying the same thing."

She watches him, feeling trapped in this awkward moment, and a sudden movement in the corner of her eye makes her visibly jump. It's just the server setting down their plates, and Rapunzel gives the girl a tight smile and a thank you before she takes a sip of her tea.

"These do look good," she says once they're alone again, trying to push past the awkwardness.

"Yeah," he said, looking down at their plates, even though last thing he wanted to do was eat. Picking up a fry, he nibbled at it halfheartedly, his stomach churning guiltily.

"Rapunzel, I'm sorry," he blurted, as she set down her glass. "I don't..." He floundered, because he couldn't give the excuse of saying he didn't know what was wrong with him. He knew exactly what was wrong with him.

He tried— he fucking tried just to have some normality, but he still had this black cloud hanging over him, and even when that wasn't the case, he'd never known how to keep from saying stupid shit all the time.

Edited 2019-06-02 22:56 (UTC)

"I'm sorry too," she says after a moment, softening slightly as she looks up at him finally. "Maybe I pushed too hard."

She knows that her usually unfailing optimism can sometimes get to people, maybe especially people like Peter who have seen so much darkness. She can't change it, though, even if for some reason she wanted to. And so she smiles at him, showing all is forgiven.

"So, does my being older actually bother you?" She asks, mostly teasing as she smiles him and reaches for the ketchup. "Because really, it's not much of a difference."

"No, you didn't," he promised her, even if it felt a little like she had, if only to Peter, who felt most of the time like an animal trapped inside a cage that just kept getting smaller and smaller.

"You didn't. But, um. Some of that stuff is kind of tangled up with things that are... hard to talk about," he admitted, offering her a lopsided smile as he reached out and handed her the ketchup, since it was closer to his side of the table.

"What! No, no. I just... I thought maybe it bothered you."

"Well, if I ever make you uncomfortable, please just tell me," Rapunzel says in a gentle request to not be snapped at again. Still, it's a minor upset that she's happy to let pass as long as they both learn something from it.

She takes the ketchup with a smile and squirts a small pile on the edge of her plate before picking up a knife and cutting her burger in half so she can handle it better. She has to laugh fondly at his response, and she looks up at him as she lays a paper napkin in her lap.

"It doesn't bother me. I wouldn't be here if it did," she assures him. Where she's from Peter would already be getting married off and working hard, and she'd be edging closer to being an old maid. He's old enough. "I like you, Peter."

"Yeah, I know. I like you, too," Peter said, offering a thin smile. "Sometimes I wish we'd met somewhere else. Or before all the stuff with my sister. Or maybe that you hadn't seen me piss myself that one time."

His lips twisted into a self-deprecating smile.

"I was never all that great at it, but I can't even pretend to be cool around you," he admitted with a soft huff of laughter.

Rapunzel watches him speak and smiles a little, keeping her gaze on him for a few minutes before she gets up and comes around to his side of the booth. She slides in next to him and takes his hand to hold under the table, lacing her fingers with his and squeezing.

“Peter, I like all of you, not just the pretty parts,” she tells him, smiling softly over at him. “And as for that other thing, I have no idea what you mean.”

She winks at him to try and lighten the moment, because she knows that he’s embarrassed but she doesn’t judge him, not after what he had to see.

Rapunzel lifts their hands and rests them on the table, brushing her thumb back and forth across the back of Peter’s. “I don’t want you to pretend to be anything. For what it’s worth, I already think you’re pretty cool.”

Choking out a laugh, Peter gave her a good-natured roll of his eyes, catching her thumb with his own and pinning it playfully to the back of his hand.

"Yeah, well, maybe your judgement isn't that great," he said, looking down at the table to hide his faint smirk.

"Luckily for you," she teases with a wink, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. And then a few more little pecks along his jaw to try and make his smile a little bigger. After one last kiss to the corner of his mouth, she sits back and gives his hand a squeeze before letting go and reaching out to slide her burger across the table.

"Looks like I'm posted up over here now," she says, smiling over at him before lifting her burger half and taking a dainty bite. "I had a burger with an egg on it once. Amazing."