Angie ducked into the building, nodding her thanks at the doorman who'd greeted her with a polite, "Miss Martinelli." She really ought to at least learn his name, if not actually talk to the gent once, but the whirlwind of moving in to Stark's place hadn't quite died down yet. Well, one of Stark's places. That man probably had an apartment in every neighborhood. She did appreciate his generosity, even if it came with a bit more public attention than she was used to. She'd taken to wearing one of Peggy's hats when she went out for auditions, a shield against the public eye. It was more psychologically effective than physically so, but every little bit helped. Her thoughts about her latest audition carried her all the way up to their place. Her hands moved of their own accord, slipping the key into the lock and opening the door.
Her purse and jacket hit the floor in concert with the thud of the door closing. She knew she ought to at least hang the jacket up properly, but after the day she'd had she figured she was allowed a little untidiness. She'd performed her heart out at a callback today, earning more than her fair share of jealous looks from the other women there, but neither of the men watching her had so much as cracked a smile or nodded in appreciation. "So much for that one," she muttered, tossing Peggy's hat in her hands. Wait. Why hadn't Peggy come out from behind her pile of paperwork when Angie had come in?
Her head perked up, slow to notice that something was off on account of her exhaustion. She sniffed the air a couple of times. Did that smell like…burning? She hadn't seen the fire brigade outside (though the doorman surely would have mentioned something) and there didn't seem to be any smoke.
Oh.
Peggy.
Angie kicked her shoes off as she made her way to the kitchen in stocking feet. What she saw when she entered the kitchen drew a muffled gasp that melted into a smile. Not only was the kitchen covered in flour (didn't that only happen in cartoons?), but Peggy was standing in front of the opened oven, frowning at a blackened lump in the pan.
Peggy let the pan fall to the counter and looked up at Angie, pouting like a child whose only chance at ice cream has just fallen on the ground. "I just wanted to make you something special," she explained. "You've had a hard go of it lately, and it's your birthday."
Angie reached out to wipe a smudge of flour off of Peggy's nose. "English," she murmured, feeling the day's stress melting away, "We'll make something plenty special later."
Peggy stepped towards Angie, using her minuscule height advantage from wearing shoes to nudge Angie back into the corner of the L-shaped counter. "Is that a promise Miss Martinelli?" she asked, all traces of a pout in her voice replaced by a throaty purr.
Angie took a deep breath, resisting the very potent urge to disregard all propriety and make an even bigger mess in the kitchen. While not a saint, she hadn't considered herself a terribly forward person prior to meeting Peggy, but good Lord if Peggy didn't bring out the worst in her. Or would that be the best? She smiled at the thought, recalling Peggy's offer to "help her relax before the big audition" the previous evening.
When Peggy's fingers reached up beyond the hem of Angie's gown to find their way unburdened by stockings or a girdle...
How her hands drifted along Angie's thigh, teasing in their unhurried movements...
Angie was snapped back to the present by a twinge of pain in her lip, the victim of her own teeth in her memory-fueled daydream. She ducked out around Peggy, consciously working to set her mind on something else. Not that she wouldn't mind returning to that particular daydream, or reenacting it for that matter, but she could use a few minutes to unwind before she was unwound. She spied the canisters of flour and sugar out on the counter and immediately latched on to Peggy's original idea. "All is not lost," she exclaimed, holding the canisters up like a knight who'd found the Holy Grail. A little over the top, but the distraction helped. "You wanted to make me a cake, and so you will." She paused at Peggy's blank face. "With my help of course. I may not be a master baker but I think a Weary Willie cake will do just fine."
Peggy coughed, seeming to choke on a breath of air. "What did you call it?" she asked when her voice returned.
"Don't know why they call it that," Angie explained with a shrug. "Maybe since even a tired person can make it?" She cocked her head at Peggy, confused by her odd reaction. "That mean something different across the pond?" she asked.
"Ah," Peggy replied, smoothing down her rumpled blouse. "That makes sense." She bustled around the kitchen, cleaning up some of the small messes she had made. "We'll need counter space for your lesson after all," she pointed out.
Angie chalked Peggy's odd behavior up to being just as affected by their earlier closeness as Angie herself was. She set herself to gathering the necessary ingredients that Peggy hadn't pulled out, thankful to see that there was just enough butter left. She pulled out a small pot and set it on the stove to melt the scrape of butter together with the sweet chocolate. "You see the sifter anywhere, Peg?" she called as she rummaged through the cabinets. Stark seemed to have a kitchen implement for everything, though she doubted that he ever cooked. "Looks like a little bucket with a weird—"
She turned around to see Peggy standing there proudly holding up the requested item. "Is this it?" she asked.
"That's it," Angie replied. "Funny that Stark's got one with cute little ducks painted around the edge though."
"There's no accounting for taste," Peggy said with a shrug, though she couldn't quite hide a smile at the duck motif. "Though I'd likely pin this decision on Mr. Jarvis."
Angie spared the pot of melted butter and chocolate one last stir to ensure that it was fully melted together and plucked the sifter from Peggy's hands. "Sifting: your first lesson!" she proclaimed. "One cup of flour, one cup of sugar, and one and a half teaspoons baking powder, sifted into a bowl."
Peggy filled the measuring cups under Angie's watchful eye, moving about as though the ingredients were nuclear material and not baking material. She dumped them into the sifter and shook it over the waiting bowl. "Just wiggle it about a bit, right?" Peggy asked, glancing over at Angie.
Angie quickly said two Hail Marys in her head, trying to banish the thought that lay at the intersection of "Peggy" and "wiggle." She shook her head, more for her benefit than for Peggy's. "You've got to pull the little lever there as you hold it over the bowl," she told her, pointing at the sifter's handle.
Peggy lifted the sifter up to look for the handle, forgetting that it still had the sugar and flour mixture in it. In the brief moment it was hovering over Angie it drifted down like snow, the dusts of flour falling against her blouse in streaks dotted by glinting sugar granules. "My apologies," Peggy said, moving the sifter back to safer territory. "Over the bowl, I've got it."
Angie brushed her shoulder off, managing to do little more than increase the flour smudges. She reached her right hand over to the sifter, moving to a more comfortable position behind Peggy. "It's right in the handle," she reiterated, wrapping her hand over Peggy's. She gave the lever a few quick pulls, determinedly staring at the flour falling into the bowl and not focusing at all on the feel of Peggy's hand warm in hers. Knowing that the red of Peggy's polished nails matched the red of her lipstick didn't mean a thing really.
When she withdrew her hand from around the sifter she thought she noticed a slight hitch of hesitation before Peggy resumed sifting. She picked up the pot of melted chocolate off the stove and stirred it while she waited for Peggy to finish. Peggy had been behaving awful strange since Angie had gotten home. The burned cake, now that was believable. But the complete clumsiness and lack of observation about how to make the sifter work? That didn't seem like Peggy at all. Well if this was a game, Angie wasn't about to lose. To heck with waiting for later. "Can you taste this for a second, Peg?" she asked, projecting what she hoped was an Oscar-worthy air of innocence. She wasn't the only one who could see through nonsense. "Just want to make sure I've got the consistency right."
Peggy turned around, opening her mouth up for the spoon in Angie's hand. Her face froze when she realized that it wasn't a spoon Angie was offering, but rather her finger, a healthy dollop of cool chocolate on the tip.
"You may speak spy," Angie told her, her smile softening the gentle rebuke, "But I speak Peggy. You don't need an excuse for me to want to be close to you."
Peggy didn't verbally react to Angie calling her out on her not-so-clever deception, opting instead to slide her mouth down Angie's finger, swirling her tongue around to lick up every last speck of chocolate. "Delicious," she murmured. "Just sweet enough to satisfy my sweet tooth."
"I aim to please," Angie said, not even pretending to hide the satisfied smirk on her face. "Oh, and don't worry about my birthday," she added, placing the pot back on the counter.
"What?" Peggy muttered, her mind clouded by the desire that shown so clearly from her eyes.
"Have you got a length of ribbon around here?" Angie asked, eyeing Peggy's waist. "I know just what you can tie a bow on for me."