Chapter Text
Ben Wyatt has been in love with Leslie Knope since freshmen year.
During his first year of high school, his mother moved Ben and Stephanie away from Partridge, Minnesota. When Ben was in middle school, his mom remarried to a lawyer. Greg was nice at first, he even bought the family a (new) dog. Everything was going great until about one month before they moved when Henry was home for winter break and saw Greg with another women.
One month later, the family was packed up heading to Indiana. Julia Wyatt had an old friend there — Andrea Dwyer — who suggested they moved to Pawnee. The best part was Mrs. Dwyer "has a son who is just the same age as you Benji."
Thus began his friendship with Andy Dwyer. "Burt Macklin" became his first friend in Pawnee. Soon enough he became friends with other people like Tom, the kid who wore suits to school everyday, and April, the 7th grader who always hung out with them.
Though, there was one person his mind always came back to, Leslie Knope. Ben and Leslie were never friends but they always had history with Robert Knope together. Mr. Knope, Leslie's father, taught all AP classes for history (not including "History of the Raccons in Pawnee") and was the supervisor for Model UN.
Now four years later, Ben and Leslie were finally paired on a project together.
Leslie didn't know Ben very well. He was only the cute guy who always raised his hand in History.
"Today, we will be doing a project on one of Pawnee's greatest treasures. Li'l Sebastian."
After waiting for everyone to stop cheering, Mr. Knope continued on, "this project is worth 50% of your grade and will be replacing your midterm. This is a partner project. However, both partners are responsible for doing their own work."
Everyone groaned. Partner projects meant you had to work with other people. No one liked this unless you were paired with Leslie Knope, class president.
Anyone paired with Leslie Knope never had to do any work cause she already had it done three weeks before. She also shared the credit for the project every time.
"Now, each of you will be picking names out of this hat."
One by one everyone stood up to pick names alphabetically. Justin Anderson, the stuck up kid who dated Leslie junior year, went first. "Lindsay."
Eventually, it was Leslie's turn. Ben's name hadn't been picked yet so there was a good chance they might be partners.
"Ben."
Is he dreaming, he's pretty sure this is a dream. There is no way Leslie actually picked his name.
After all the names were drawn there was still 40 minutes of class left or as Mr. Knope called it "planning time."
"So, we should probably decide when and where we're going to get his project done," Leslie said as she sat down next to him where Chris usually sits.
"Well don't you normally have research put together by now."
"Yes," she starts, "But my dad never told me we were doing a project on Li'l Sebastian and the extra credit is the make a paper mache version, which is fine if you don't want to do it, I can just do everything."
"Woah woah woah, calm down Leslie. Just because I'm not from Pawnee doesn't mean I can't help with this project on the pony."
"Mini Horse," she whispers then sighs, "sorry, its just i'm used to doing all the work myself for partner projects."
"Hey, it's okay, so am I. Alot of the people in these class aren't willing to do most of the work, but it's their funeral not ours, okay?"
She nods her head and brightens up again to start talking about logistics and what colors the slideshow presentation should be until the bell rings.
"So, I have a Model UN tournament after school today, but maybe we can do something this weekend?"
"Oh, so do I! I didn't know you did Model UN Ben?"
"Yep, been doing it since Freshmen year."
"Well maybe we can do some work on the bus. I usually sit next to this freshmen named Allison but she started dating Greg Pikitis last week."
"Sure we can definetly do some stuff on the bus."
At lunch Tom was edging him on about the History project. "Dude your with Knope, that's amazing."
He's 99% most of his friends know about his crush on Leslie. Only because freshmen year he told Andy about it. Now where was Andy. Oh yeah making out with a Sophmore at their lunch table.
Two more classes later he was sitting on a bus next to Leslie Knope. During the two hour bus ride, they didn't get much done. Leslie spent so much time asking him questions for some reason and he just had to ask why.
"I'm not sure, it's just I've known you since freshmen year, but you've always been the kid who raises their hand all the time in history. I mean I never even knew you did Model UN til today."
Hours later, after sucessfully winning a Model UN conference, the team headed home. Both Ben and Leslie sat in the same spot as they had before. 30 minutes into the ride, Ben felt something on his shoulder. Leslie had fallen asleep next to him and used him as a pillow instead of the window next to her. Ben smiled at her before looking back at his phone. Unknowinngly, Robert Knope was starring at him a few seats up.