wanda maximoff (fears) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-03-05 19:28:00 |
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It seemed as though it had lasted forever, but Ren was finally in his final semester of university. He still wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to do with his degree once he finished. He had once thought of becoming a police officer, like his father had been, but the older he got, the more he realized just how ill-suited he would be for a job like that.
At least Ren had saved most of his required electives for his final year. He hadn’t planned to get caught up in the strangeness of the OC over the last year, but taking mostly lower level courses was easy. He had a paper due for his Biology of Oriental Medicine class due, and so he was going through the library trying to find some information. He turned the corner in one of the stacks of books, and barely managed to stop himself from running into a woman who was standing there.
“Oh, sorry.”
Wanda rather liked the library, she liked the feel of the knowledge there, she like the hushed atmosphere, she liked the smell of books. She disliked when other students didn’t respect the reserve system for the private study rooms which meant she had to go and find a table to transfer most of her notes from her books to the study journal.
It wasn’t anything against the library system, she knew the open spaces were just as good, it was just that she focused better in the private rooms.
Which was probably highlighted by the way that she stopped on the way to a table to read the spines of some books with interesting titles and forgot she was on the corner of a stack. She avoided dropping anything, and was thankfully able to not get run into -books into her side tended to bruise. “Oh no, my fault.” She gave a sheepish smile, hugging her books closer, “I obviously chose to stand in a silly place.”
Ren shook his head. “You can’t help where the books are shelved,” Ren said. There’d always have to be some at the end of the stack. “I should be more careful when I walk.”
She figured, if they were both of the same disposition, they could spend the afternoon explaining why it was their own fault and apologising for something entirely normal. At least, Wanda knew that she could do that, very easily.
“Let’s just call it an almost collision to be wary of and appreciate no one got hurt?” Since it would’ve been exceptionally easy to do.
“I can do that.” It really did make more sense than the two of them standing around trying to take the blame for something that had, essentially, been blameless. He glanced at the stack in front of the woman, catching the title of one of the biology books that he had been hoping to check out. “Excuse me, I just need this one book,” he said, reaching past her to grab it.
Wanda made the motion to step back, letting some distance between them so that he could get what he was reaching for. Wanda didn’t take the moment to look behind her though, and ended up elbowing someone in the chest. She was whispering hushed apologies as the other person just kept going and she blushed with a small sheepish smile. “Looks like not everyone managed to avoid the collisions.”
Ren gave her a small smile. “It is pretty cramped in here,” he said. He was almost surprised that more collisions didn’t happen in the stacks. “Are you okay?” he asked, just in case. It didn’t seem like it had been a hard collision for either Wanda or the other guy, but it was better to check just in case.
Cramped was right, but then it was a big campus, and everyone had to study at one point or another. “Oh, yeah, I’m okay.” It had hit her funny bone, enough to cause slight tingles, but nothing that hurt. “I hope he doesn’t have a bruise on his chest tomorrow, that would just be unfortunate.” But it wasn’t like Wanda got his name, or a good look at him, so it was unlikely she’d ever really know.
Ren smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Ren said. “It takes a little more than that to bruise most people.” At least, from his perspective it had looked more embarrassing than painful. “I should probably let you get back to finding what you were looking for though,” he said. He had the book he needed, at least.
“And I should let you get back to studying,” Wanda gave a small nod and pushed her hair behind her ear, at least grateful that things hadn’t been too embarrassing over all.