Marco Polo
By angellwings
"Are we at the grocery store?" Lucy asked as Wyatt parked the car.
"Yes, we are," Wyatt said with a grin. "I've seen the fridge at your apartment. It's awful. It's all leftover take out."
"I like leftover take out," Lucy said as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Clearly," Wyatt said with a chuckle. "But maybe some real food would be good too."
"So, you're making me go grocery shopping?"
"Someone has to," Wyatt told her with a smirk. "You won't do it on your own."
"You know," Lucy told him with a quirked brow. "I did live pretty successfully for several years before I met you."
He laughed. "Yeah? Did you always live off of takeout?"
"No," she said in a hesitant and unconvincing tone.
"Right," Wyatt said with a chuckle.
"There's no point in buying groceries if I can't cook them," Lucy said with a roll of her eyes.
"You can learn how to cook. Everyone can," he told her.
"Nope. Not me. I've tried. It always goes badly," Lucy said with a light laugh. "Last time I tried I ended up burning everything and then I had to order carry out before Noah showed up for our date."
Awkward tension filled the car as it always did when Noah was brought up. Lucy was never sure why mentioning Noah made things awkward but Wyatt always tensed up.
"Yeah, well," Wyatt said with a gulp as he pointedly looked away from her. "That doesn't mean you can't learn. You just need the right teacher."
She bit her bottom lip and nodded. "Right, like you?"
He quirked a brow at her with a grin. "If you want."
She lifted a shoulder with a casual air she didn't really feel. "It might be fun."
"Okay, so we'll start tonight," he declared. "We'll buy the groceries and then make dinner."
Her eyes widened. "Tonight? So soon?"
"No time like the present, Professor," Wyatt told her with a smirk. "Can't give you time to chicken out."
"Chicken out?" She asked with a playful glare. "I would not chicken out."
"Uh huh," he said with an amused grin.
She rolled her eyes and opened the passenger side door. "Let's just get this over with."
They decided on a simple dish to make and gathered the ingredients as well as a few other things for Lucy to keep in her apartment like fresh vegetables and fruit to counter the junk food in her pantry. But at some point Lucy vanished. He turned down the bread aisle and she was gone. He panicked at first but then rationalized it was more likely she wandered off. The stock girl on the bread aisle must have noticed his unease, however, because she gave him a strange look.
He noticed he'd fisted his hands on the handle of the shopping cart and he felt how tight his jaw was. His teeth were grinding and he'd frozen in the middle of the aisle. Yes, he must have looked crazy to this teenager stocking bread and bagels.
"Sorry," Wyatt told the girl as he cleared his throat. He wasn't sure what he was apologizing for other than worrying he'd scared her. "I'm just missing someone." He glanced down the aisle and then behind him. He'd have to talk to Lucy about wandering off in a public place while Rittenhouse was out there.
He went to pull out his phone to text her and realized he'd left in the car. That was smart. What if Agent Christopher called? He hoped Lucy had hers, at least, so Christopher could reach one of them. But that didn't solve his problem of locating her. He smirked to himself as he remembered one particular summer evening with Rufus and Jiya at Lucy's apartment complex pool. They'd played a game then that he'd tried his hardest not to enjoy so much. But it was an almost innocent excuse to touch Lucy in more than just a fleeting small way and he didn't get many of those.
It might work. Worth a shot, at least.
"Marco!" He called out loudly. The stock girl jumped and he gave her an apologetic smile.
A moment later a familiar voice could be heard in a faint reply. "Polo!"
It sounded far away. Like other side of the store far away. He shook his head in amusement when he realized what that meant.
He looked at the stock girl with a smirk. "That came from the wine section, didn't it?"
She chuckled and nodded. "Sounded like it to me."
"Of course it did," Wyatt said with a playful roll of his eyes as he turned back down the aisle and headed toward the other end of the store.
He reached the wine section and, as he'd guessed, found Lucy debating between a bottle of red and a bottle of white.
"I should have known," Wyatt said with a laugh.
"I'm not learning how to cook without a little alcohol to make it less stressful," she told him.
"You could have said something first," he told her with a more somber expression. "I had a brief moment of panic when I realized you were gone. Scared some poor teenage employee I think."
Lucy winced and gave him an apologetic glance. "Oh god, I'm sorry. I didn't even think about that," she said. She understood that he'd been worried about Rittenhouse without him having to explain it. "I did try to text you when I realized I'd left without warning."
"That one's my fault," he admitted as he scratched the back of his neck nervously. "Left my phone in the cupholder in the car."
She grinned slightly at that. "A lot of good that does us."
He wanted to grin back at her but the panic he'd felt a few aisles back was still lingering and he had to get something off of his chest. "Seriously, though, Lucy. I know you've always been very independent and taken care of everyone else but...you have to let me look out for you. I need to know you're okay. I'm not saying I have to be a part of everything you do but...I just need to know you're safe. Okay?"
She watched him carefully as she placed the bottle of red back on the shelf and then joined him by the cart. Her eyes never left his as she placed the bottle of white wine inside the cart and then came to stand directly in front of him. "I am safe, Wyatt. I'm fine."
"This time," he said with a sigh.
She reached out and pried his hands off the cart. He didn't realize his hands were still fisted around it until she'd struggled to pull him away from it. She held both his hands in hers and softly ran her thumbs across his knuckles until his hands relaxed in hers.
"You're right," she said quietly. "I am used to taking care of other people. My mother when she was sick, Amy…" she paused and took a deep breath. "Amy tried to look after me in her own way and my mother spent more time pushing me than taking care of me. But I've never had someone worry over me like you seem to. I forget that I have that now. I'm sorry. I'll try to remember. I promise."
"Thank you," he said as he released a relieved breath. Why exactly was he always so intensely concerned about Lucy? And when exactly did that first start? He could feel all the tension that had coiled in him since he first noticed her missing melting away at her words. It amazed him that he was so easily soothed.
She released his hands and then took his place in front of the cart. "So, do we need anything else, chef?" she asked teasingly. "You know, before you make me try to cook this stuff? It's your fault if we burn down my apartment. I hope you know that."
And just like that they were moving on. He smirked as he fell into step beside of her. He expected nothing less. But maybe, once they got back to her place and started cooking, they could finally get back around to all of that "possibilities" talk they'd started. The only way to figure out why and how Lucy affected him the way she did was to give whatever they had a real chance. They were long overdue.