Author's Note: Happy holiday, my loves. This story was written for Marvelously Magical Fanfiction's Enchanted Wonders 2018 Collection. I had a lot of fun whipping up this little one-shot for you. Enjoy and have a great holiday season!
Thank you to SquarePeg72 for alpha reading and GaeilgeRua for allowing me to use her grammarly subscription to beta read this. Any other mistakes you find are definitely my own. Much love, xxDustNight
Disclaimer: All non-original characters, plot points, and information belongs to those at Marvel Studios, Warner Brothers, or J.K. Rowling. The story plot and dialogue belongs to me. I do not write for profit.
It's all about the Frosting
Pairing: Bruce Banner/Pansy Parkinson
Rating: T
Summary: Pansy is frantic about trying to get all the cookies baked for the cookie exchange. Bruce enjoys the frosting a little too much.
Prompt: Cookie Exchange/Accio
. . . .
It's all about the Frosting
. . . .
"Exactly how many dozen cookies do we need to make again?" Bruce casually asked Pansy as she sifted out who knew how many cups of flour.
Pansy threw Bruce an annoyed look as she tried not to lose count in her head. "Far too many in my opinion. Whoever thought this cookie exchange was a good idea obviously never baked more than two dozen cookies at a time."
"We should have started this a week ago," Bruce pointed out, tugging the bowl of green frosting toward him and giving it a stir. "So there's Tony and Daphne, Nat and Harry, Hermione and Thor, Jane and Theo, Bucky and Ginny…"
"Clint and Astoria, Steve and Neville, Blaise and Wanda, Ron and Darcy, George and Pepper, and Sam and Luna," Pansy finished listing off all the couples that were going to be at the party tonight. "I'm never getting this all done," she groaned.
"Eleven dozen cookies… We have to make eleven dozen…" Bruce slowly sat down on one of the kitchen stools. "We're going to be here all day."
"Twelve," Pansy corrected, pointing a spoon at her boyfriend. "We have to make a dozen for ourselves too." She paused and laughed before resuming stirring the bowl of sifted flour, salt, and baking soda and powder. "That's one hundred and forty-forty tree cookies I need to cut out, bake, frost, and decorate."
"Damn…" was all Bruce could manage in response. Already their kitchen looked as if a flour bomb went off. The cleaning people were going to have a field day with this later that evening. Absentmindedly, he lifted the spoon he'd been using to stir the frosting and gave it a taste. "Alright, what can I do to help?"
"As the cookies come out of the oven, put them in the refrigerator for ten minutes," she instructed, now shovelling dry ingredients into her creamed butter, sugar, and egg mixture. "Then, take them out and add a thin, even layer of the green frosting before adding a few candy ornaments. Easy."
"I can do that," Bruce said with a laugh as he settled in to help. "If I can save the universe how hard could this be?" He ignored Pansy's judgmental stare and took another swipe of the frosting as a treat before getting started.
"You say that now," Pansy warned playfully as she began to knead the dough for rolling. "Just wait until we're five dozen in and both ur back are killing us."
Everything went wonderfully for a while, both baking and decorating in comfortable ease with one another. Unfortunately, that was all about to change… After putting the last two dozen cookies into the oven, Pansy decided she'd help Bruce with the decorations. Wandering over to the kitchen island, she reached for the frosting bowl and found her mouth popping open in surprise. The bowl was empty!
"Damn it, Bruce," Pansy said in exasperation as she held up the empty bowl. Thrusting it toward him, she demanded, "Did you eat all of this?"
Bruce gave Pansy a wide-eyed look and then tried to smile. His lips were tinted green, and it had nothing to do with the Other Guy. "Uh… It was delicious. I didn't realise I'd eaten it all. I was sort of distracted while putting the candy ornaments on the cookie trees."
"Don't you know that it's all about the frosting when it comes to sugar cookies?!" Pansy shrieked, throwing down the bowl and hurrying to see if she had any more ingredients to replicate what she'd lost. "Without any frosting, no one is going to want to eat them! We still have four dozen cookies to frost!"
"I'm so sorry, Pansy," Bruce said honestly, setting aside his candies and standing from the stool. He walked over and wrapped his girlfriend in an embrace to hopefully stave off the tears of frustration that were about to come. He kissed the top of her head and then looked down into her frowning face. "We can make more. There's still enough ingredients scattered around here, I'm sure."
Bruce began wandering around the room, lifting things at random and hoping to make amends for his mistake. Pansy watches him for a few moments before sighing heavily. It stopped Bruce and caused him to turn to her with a questioning stare.
"You know what?" Pansy said staring around at their devastated kitchen. "Bugger this. I'm using magic. Accio!" From the other side of the kitchen, buried under a mountain of discarded baking trays and bowls, came flying an old cookbook. Pansy grabbed it as it soared into her hand and dropped it on the counter in front of them.
"What's that?" Bruce asked, peering over her shoulder as she opened the stained book and began rifling through the pages.
"My grandmother's magical cookbook," she answered, slapping her hand down on a page. "Here it is!" Then, she waved her wand around, muttering the incantations on the page.
Bruce watched in awe as the kitchen came to life on its own. Confectioners sugar, butter, and vanilla began mixing itself in a bowl, a spoon stirring without a hand. Green food colouring was added, and then cookies were being frosted without Pansy or Bruce having to do a thing. Chuckling, Bruce pulled Pansy close once more and kissed her cheek.
"Why didn't we do this from the beginning?" he asked, amazed that the cookies were now decorating themselves. He always enjoyed when she used magic to do things around the apartment.
"I thought it would be more fun to spend time together," Pansy admitted, turning in his arms and gazing into his eyes. "It was, but I really detest baking. My gran used to have me come over to bake, but she'd use her magic spells and then we'd play games instead."
"Games, huh?" Bruce said with a little smirk. "I don't know about any games, but I do know the two of us could use a shower… What do you say?"
Smirking even more than her boyfriend, Pansy slid up into her tiptoes and placed a lingering kiss upon his green-stained lips. "I do like the sound of that. Come on." Bruce merely laughed as he was dragged to the bathroom and his frosting lips kissed and cleaned.
Together, Bruce and Pansy managed to forget all about the frosting debacle as they instead enjoyed the company of one another in the shower. It took quite a while for them to get clean from the mess of the kitchen. Or so, they would tell their friends when they arrived slightly late to the cookie exchange party. Later, their friends would comment on how much they loved their tree cookies… Especially the frosting.