Title: Just Add Cinnamon
Rating: K+
Word Count: 1,900+
Characters: Wally/Artemis
Summary: Megan asked her for help, then stuffed a recipe for apple pie into her hand and told her to make four. So.
Prompt: pie
For: XxNeonShadowsxX. I honestly don't know what this is, but I hope you like it anyway!
Just Add Cinnamon
There are a lot of things that Artemis is well-trained in and has years of experience with. Anything on the battlefield she's typically amazing in.
Anything in the kitchen she typically sucks at.
She knew she would eventually have to learn to cook when she lived on her own, but her mother usually made their meals and when she was in the hospital, her dad did because he didn't want her or Jade to waste food or mess anything up.
And when her mom came back in her chair, Artemis offered to help around a little more than she'd been doing before, but her mom just kept trying more and more recipes (which Artemis thought was her way to cope with her accident and like, prove she was still able to take care of them) and there was never any need for Artemis to learn how to cook.
She didn't really realize how spoiled she was in that sense until Megan asked her for help, then stuffed a recipe for apple pie into her hand and told her to make four.
So.
She braids her bangs out of her face, piles the rest of her hair on her head and clips it into place, then shrugs out of her blazer and drapes it over a barstool so she can pull out one of the Megan's aprons from the drawer and pull it on. She feels totally out of place as she looks at the ingredients and walks around the kitchen to pull out everything she needs.
If she follows the directions carefully and just pays close attention to everything she does, she should be fine, right?
Whatever, she's going to start, anyway. It can't hurt. (Well, actually, yeah it can. They can wind up with a summer picnic without any apple pie for dessert.) She figures she can attempt to be efficient and bake two pies at once, since the oven is big enough and it's already going to take her a few hours at it is.
So she washes her hands at the sink and begins the prep work.
... ...
Two hours later—after measuring everything out, making the crust and sticking it in the fridge to cool, peeling and slicing all of the apples, mixing the filling, blending the topping together, then putting everything into a pan as instructed and repeating all of the steps again—she has two pies in the oven and is already at work for the remaining two.
Megan had better love her to death for doing this.
"It smells good in here, Megs."
Artemis looks up and sees Wally walking in, tipping a bag of chips upward and catching the crumbs in his mouth.
As he crumples the bag in his hand, he looks at her and arches an eyebrow. "No way," he laughs, and Artemis rolls her eyes as he opens one of the cupboards and throws the empty chip bag into one of the trash bins that are down there. "I didn't know you could cook, babe."
"I'm baking," she corrects. "And thanks for that vote of confidence."
He's laughing again and walking over to her, eyes scanning over all of the food—well, ingredients—she has spread out along the counters.
When he reaches for one of the apple slices on the cutting board, she whacks his hand away. He looks like he's about to protest or complain or something, so she jams the tip of the knife into the board so that it's sticking up and he blinks widely at it and then at her, and yeah, she knows how scary she can be sometimes if she wants.
(But whatever, the fact that the guys are all a little bit afraid of her makes them listen when she needs to cut through all the testosterone, so duh she's going to use it.)
"Is this all for tonight?"
"Yeah, so don't eat until I'm finished, and then you can have all the scraps you want."
He frowns. "But you'll probably use all of the apples." She just looks at him, and he sighs, "Which you planned on, of course. You're mean."
"Quit pouting," she tells him. "Megan probably wanted me to make four pies because you and Uncle Barry will have your own."
"Great! I'll take part of mine right now."
She glares and swats his hand away when he starts reaching for the apples again. "It doesn't work that way."
He gives her this look that always tells her that he's going to try and defy her, and sure enough, she totally sees it coming (well, not literally, because obviously) when he quickly snatches up a few apple slices into his hand and then sends all of this wind around her as speeds to get away before she can get her knife in her hand again or something.
Except, in his haste, he sort of knocked around the ingredients and ended up sending flour from the open jar flying in the wind he created, right into her face, and she coughs a little and swipes some before it gets into her eyes.
There's a second of silence, and then Wally mutters a curse under his breath and maybe it's because she can tell his mouth is full, but it just irritates her even more.
"Wally!" she snaps, slapping her hand down onto the counter and making him jump a little.
"Sorry, babe," he mutters quickly. "Are you okay?"
"Do I look okay?"
Honestly, she could care less if there's flour in her face. She's obviously not afraid of getting dirty or anything considering all of the training and missions they have on a daily basis. She's more pissed off that Wally disobeyed her and now she's going to have to clean herself because of him, too.
And she knows she surprises him as much as she surprises herself, because he doesn't even try to speed away as she reaches into the open carton, and then she's flicking her wrist and sending eggs against his chest, splattering his shirt and nailing his hand full of apples in the process and instinctively making him drop them to the ground.
He sort of just stares at the mess of apples and runny eggs on the ground before snapping his head to look at her and crying needlessly, "My apples!"
"Maybe next time you'll try listening to me."
She knows she shouldn't have said that, though, because this is Wally and of course he's going to react like he always does.
He lets out this frustrated huff and speeds up to her, dipping his hand in the bag of sugar, and she closes her eyes and mouth just in time before he's tossing some at her face. She uses the back of her hand to wipe the mixture of flour and sugar away, but ends up smearing it over her cheeks and only manages to clear enough to open her eyes again.
And really, she doesn't stop to think of how long it took her make the dough for the pie crust when she reaches behind him and smashes some against the back of his neck, making him gasp a little. She takes more into her hand, though, and smears it so that it covers his neck and the side of his face and gets in his hair. Then because she's on a roll, she uses her other hand to take off a chunk of butter from the tub and smash it over the clean half of his face.
She pulls back a little and shakes her hands out, flinging bits of butter and dough around, and she makes the mistake of looking down for a second because then he's reaching past her and something thick and sticky is pushing smeared against her, and she looks down at herself to see the pie filling oozing its way down the inside of her shirt.
She shudders at the sensation, stomps her foot on the ground and growls, "Wally!" as she takes a handful of ground cinnamon and tosses it at his face. She's sticky and powdery and gross, and the kitchen is a mess and she's going to have to remake everything for the other pies, and she's frustrated with Wally because this is his fault and he didn't listen.
And Wally's just staring down at her with this blank expression (or he could have an expression and she just can't see it underneath the gunk on his face) and she huffs a little and crosses her arms and demands, "What?"
But he just smirks a little and dips his head down to press their lips together and she hates that all he has to do is make this appreciative sound from the back of his throat and she already starts to be less pissed off with him. His tongue darts across her lips and he murmurs, "Tastes sweet," before kissing her harder.
Except when she sets her hands on either side of his face and parts her lips, she tastes a mixture of dough and butter and wrinkles her nose before pulling away.
"What?"
She swipes her thumb over his cheek and makes a face as a chunk of butter falls to the floor. "Kissing you just feels like a heart attack waiting to happen." Yeah, she realizes how she sounds, but she treats her body as a temple and doesn't mess around when it comes to her health.
"Yeah, I always figured my kissing was that amazing."
She rolls her eyes as he laughs. She should've figured he'd make a comment like that.
He tries kissing her again but she leans her head away, then starts stepping back when he keeps trying move forward to kiss her. "Cut it out, Wally," she laughs, feeling the small of her back hit against the counter, and she puts her hands on his shoulders to keep him away at arm's length. "I'm not kissing you while you're still covered in butter."
"Oh yeah?" he asks in this challenging voice, but the timer on the oven goes off less than second later and she smiles triumphantly. "You got lucky."
"Considering that I'm a complete mess right now, I wouldn't call myself lucky."
She knocks him away with her hip, and he laughs and goes to turn off the timer as she opens a drawer and grabs two pairs of oven mitts. She hands a pair to him, pokes both pies with toothpicks to make sure the apples are tender, and then slips on her mitts and pulls one out while Wally gets the other.
They set them on the counter closest to the living room, away from the mess they just made, and Wally pulls a mitt off of his hand and places it on the small of her back.
"They look delicious, babe."
"Thanks, but that doesn't get you off the hook. After we wash up, you're helping me with the last two."
He rolls his eyes and grumbles, "Why can't we just have two?"
"Fine. We'll just have two, and then you and Uncle Barry will have to wait for everyone else to get a slice before you guys get your dessert, if there's still some left."
"You're mean."
She laughs, pulls off a mitt and whacks his arm with it just because she can, and he's smiling as she says, "I know."