Needless to say, after a grueling day such as this, Alfred just wanted to face plant into the mattress and not move from that position for about twelve hours. The universe, accordingly, decided to cosmically flip him the bird.
He sprang out of his car, papers for work forgotten, yelling his most creative curses and ran towards his house. His smoking house.
Did I leave the oven on? Or forget to blow out a candle? Well maybe not a candle but there's plenty of equally flammable things in there to compensate. I returned that flamethrower right?
Like the hero he was, he totally ignored the reasonable route of dialing 911 in favor of busting the door down. Thick, acrid smelling smoke billowed out of the kitchen and he had to crouch slightly to avoid the death cloud.
Grabbing a fire extinguisher, he saw whatever the source of the fire was, it was in his oven. He flung the door open and doused the inside until it was completely covered.
Ha! Take that fire!
Alfred sighed and walked back towards the door to try and find the switch to the exhaust fan when he almost had his head taken off. Reacting to the sudden movement coming right at his face, he tried to jump back and ended up falling on his ass. Not his greatest performance but at least he didn't get his face smashed in.
His attacker, surprisingly, was his very confused looking boyfriend. Confusion turned to recognition which turned to amusement tinged annoyance.
"You do realize there's such a thing as a doorknob right? You're lucky I didn't break your nose, you twit." Arthur smirked, offering his hand to pull him up.
He stood and straightened his shirt self consciously and chuckled. "Yes, well, just opening the door wouldn't have nearly enough of a dramatic entrance."
"It wasn't even locked," Arthur said with an eye roll, placing his almost lethal frying pan on the counter. Then he caught sight of the oven, still letting out pungent smoke and panicked.
"Oh what on earth did you do to my poor roast, you git!" he wailed, staring at the burnt lump that may have once been a roast in despair.
"I saved my house, dude. It was on fire!"
Arthur huffed and crossed his arms. "Yes, well. It's definitely not salvageable now. To top it we have a busted door along with the ruined dinner!"
It was then that Alfred actually looked around his kitchen, now clear of smoke and noticed the veritable disaster that had taken place. Pot and pans filled the sink, each containing some failed concoction that could've been called food if you were a particularly hungry alley cat. Each bowl on the counter had contents ranging from inedible to why-in-god's-name-would-you-even-consider-eating-that.
It struck him then that, so caught up in his latest project, he had completely forgotten what day it was. Their anniversary, huh? Alfred was silently astonished the day had so sneakily ambushed him out of nowhere. Well to be fair, he didn't completely forget. He pointedly did not think about that very conspicuous little box he had shoved into his sock drawer because he really didn't think this was the time for that bombshell.
(That's what he told himself anyways. Heroes don't get nervous over popping the question.)
That was for another time. Right now, he felt a grin stretching across his face as he hugged the irate man from behind, who was still grumbling to himself.
"All this trouble for little ole me?" he drawled, leaning on him with his superior height because he knew it annoyed Arthur to no end.
The smaller man huffed and tried to shrug him off. "Yes, because unlike you, I actually need proper food to function."
That got a laugh. "You wound me," Alfred chuckled, seeing the beginnings of a small smile on his boyfriend's face. He also resisted mentioning that Arthur's cooking was by no means proper food. Best keep the smile there for now.
Alfred gave him one last little squeeze before he busied himself with the decontamination of his kitchen. Arthur looked annoyed but made no move to stop him.
He did whine though. "I worked really hard on this dinner and you're just going to throw it out?"
Alfred smirked as he scraped off a pot. The green muck inside all came off in one rubbery piece. "I'm not just gonna throw it out, I'm gonna save us both from food poisoning and the consequential hospital bills."
Arthur rolled his eyes and moved to help. They worked in the relative silence of running water and the clinking of cook ware until Arthur mumbled something he didn't catch.
"Hmm?" Alfred hummed distractedly, in the middle of a fierce battle with something vaguely cheesy that just did not want to relinquish his frying pan.
"I said I'm sorry," Arthur said quietly, not looking up from the sink as he worked.
Alfred stopped what he was doing and looked over. Arthur's face was set into an angry scowl as he scrubbed with more force than was entirely necessary. Ah, he thinks he ruined it all. Time to fix that.
In one smooth movement, he scooped up a handful of soap bubbles and slapped them onto his boyfriend's face. The other man paused for a split second before sputtering and cursing and saying they tasted terrible and he was a bloody asshole and holy shit Alfred really wished he had a camera right now.
His laughter was cut short when he got his own face full of bubbles, this time with complementary dishwater included. Wiping them off his glasses he caught Arthur's smug look and grinned.
"Oh it's on."
Fifteen minutes later saw little to no cleaning and now they had a soap covered and vaguely apple scented disaster in what used to be their kitchen. They were both soaked and winded as they has wound up on the kitchen floor from the soap battle and laughing too hard.
He caught Arthur's attention with a quick kiss that was only slightly bitter since one of them still had dish soap in the equation somewhere and pulled him up into a hug. "You know I don't care about the dinner, babe."
He pulled back and gave the man a blinding smile. "I love you from the bottom of my heart, but I don't trust your cooking. Stay out of my kitchen."
Arthur grumbled and bitched but Alfred could see that little smile and the blush he was trying to hide and considered it mission accomplished. Abandoning the fallout of Arthur's dinner attempt, they changed into old t shirts and sweat pants and ordered Chinese food instead.
They spent their anniversary eating Kung pao chicken and watching movies while nit picking at each other's favorites until the wee hours of the morning. Arthur fell asleep halfway through Jurassic Park and his head came to rest on Alfred's shoulder, Alfred himself shutting his eyes soon after.
Best anniversary yet.