(A/N: This is a beast. It was not meant to be this long, and I even cut some things. By the time I got to the actual cookie-baking, I was so ready to be done, so I apologize if the end seems rushed. Ugh. I don't know what else to say except that I'm so glad I've finished and can move onto something else. :P)
You're Bleeding
When Oliver said now, he meant now. And she'd promised. Which was how Felicity found herself pushing a cart down the baking aisle of the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon, still in her workout clothes. Oliver trailed along behind her, seeming ill at ease. But then he probably had very limited experience with grocery stores, growing up in a home with cooks and maids and drivers.
She steered the cart to the checkout with the shortest line, but of course it was the line containing a little old lady writing out a check with a trembling hand, and a man with a full shopping cart who divided all his stuff into four separate transactions. Felicity couldn't hold back an impatient sigh. Oliver was just staring into the cart.
"You really need all this just to bake cookies?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I wasn't sure what I had at home, so I got everything. I don't want to have to come back here because I forgot I was out of eggs or something."
"I know I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff," he said, waving his hand over the cart, "but I've watched Raisa bake enough times to know that butterscotch pudding cups aren't typical cookie ingredients." He tilted his head and smiled at her.
"Those are for me, not the cookies," she explained. "I've been craving them. Well, not actually craving them in the sense that I've been pining for days. But when I saw them, my mouth started watering."
"And the egg rolls?" he asked.
"Trust me, we're going to need a snack. These are labor-intensive cookies."
"And all the Diet Coke—"
"—is for me too, okay?" She rolled her eyes so hard that they hurt. "I could've gotten wine, but I've drunk-cookie-baked before, and it's not pretty."
"'Drunk-cookie-baked'?" he repeated, arching an eyebrow.
"Yeah, you know, like drunk-dialing." Felicity pushed the cart forward and began setting items on the conveyor belt. "Only you make a huge mess and burn stuff instead of leaving your exes long, incoherent voice-mails."
Once they'd checked out, Oliver pushed the cart out to her car. She unlocked it, and he looked in the miniscule back seat.
"Good to see the bloodstains are gone," he said.
"Well, I was just going to leave them, but the flies they attracted were kind of a driving hazard."
He grinned at her, and she almost dropped the bag in her hands. Felicity could count on one hand the times she'd seen him smile widely enough to show his teeth.
The drive home was short, but awkward silences were the worst. Her tongue itched to flap and flap about all manner of nonsense just to fill in the quiet, but the more nervous she was, the more inappropriate her rambles would get. So she gritted her teeth and kept a tight grip on the wheel, pretending she was driving through a snowstorm that took all her concentration.
When they reached her apartment building and—miracle of miracles—found a decent parking place, Oliver finally spoke.
"Are you a nervous driver?" he asked.
"What? No." But her white-knuckled grip belied her words. She let go of the wheel and flexed her stiff fingers.
Oliver had never been in her apartment officially, but she was pretty sure he'd visited twice to check on her, the night he'd killed the Count to save her, and the night she'd been shot by Tockman. He faked it pretty well, though, glancing around as if he'd never seen the place. Felicity was neat, so she didn't have to worry about bras hanging from door knobs or a sink full of dirty dishes. Her place was tiny, and between her two jobs she wasn't usually home long enough to mess it up.
"This is going to be interesting," she mused.
"How so?" He was holding all the bags but one, and his muscles weren't even straining with the effort.
"My kitchen is really small and narrow. And I'm on the small side, so it works for me. You, on the other hand, are not even remotely small."
"You think we won't fit?" Oliver peeked through the green beaded curtain strung across the kitchen doorway. "I think we'll fit."
She pushed the curtain aside to allow him to enter the kitchen first. Oliver set the bags on the counter, and she added the one she'd been carrying.
"Okay," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Tell me where everything goes."
"I can put away my own groceries," she said.
"You're tired. I'll do it. Just point me in the right direction."
So Felicity guided him like she had in the grocery store, pointing to cupboards and shelves in the fridge. He also preheated the oven for the egg rolls and retrieved her recipe book from the top of the fridge.
"I could get used to bossing you around," she said. Instantly mortified, she opened her mouth to do damage control, but he cut her off.
"It's only fair, since I boss you around all day and most of the night," he said. "Sweet and sour sauce?" He held up the packets included with the frozen egg rolls. The contents were slushy and pale orange.
"Gross. No," Felicity replied, "I usually make my own. It won't take long."
She figured he could handle the microwave, so while she made the sauce and set it to simmer, he softened the butter for the icing in stages. Seeing Oliver make himself at home in her kitchen was weird in the sense that it was totally natural when it shouldn't be. With one she stirred the sauce, and with the other she reached for her phone and turned on her iTunes. She had a carefully crafted cooking playlist that she was pretty sure didn't have anything too embarrassing on it.
Felicity wasn't kidding when she said the cookies were labor-intensive. She and Oliver ate all the egg rolls while they baked a double batch, sliding tray after tray in and out of the oven. The kitchen was hot, even with the window thrown wide open, and it could have gotten all awkward and sweaty, but they managed to dance around each other in the narrow space, so it was just sweaty. They didn't talk much, and it didn't feel strange. Just questions and instructions.
As the last tray of cookies cooled, Felicity grabbed a can of Diet Coke from the fridge and showed Oliver how to mix the icing. It drove him crazy that she didn't use measurements for this part, and he wanted to know how she learned to do it and how she could just bake by instinct without making any mistakes, but she could explain none of those things to his satisfaction.
When Oliver grabbed a whisk from the drawer, she kept her mouth shut. She thought whisks were a huge pain, and she wasn't even sure why she still had one. Whisks were for restaurant chefs and Daleks. Hers was old, and the handle was broken. It had probably come from her mother's house. But he was trying to help, and she could just make him clean it later.
He attacked the bowl of powdered sugar, melted butter, and vanilla. Obviously he'd really been looking forward to the stirring part. A smile crept slowly across her face as she shamelessly ogled the play of muscles in his arms. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned as he caught her staring. Her smile was replaced by a flush of crimson, and she took a big swallow of her Diet Coke, choking a little.
"Um." She rose up on her toes and tried to look over his shoulder. "Maybe you don't need to stir so vigorously?"
"Just trying to get this stupid white crap to mix in," he grumbled.
"Powdered sugar."
Felicity bumped her hip into his, moving him aside a little so she could inspect the bowl. To her surprise, there was something . . . red. A red dot marring the creamy surface of the frosting, which looked as if it was the perfect consistency. She looked over at Oliver, who was holding the whisk in a death grip, like it was a weapon or maybe the throat of someone who'd really pissed him off.
"Are you—Oliver, you're bleeding," she said, peeling his fingers back from the whisk. A drop of blood hit the tile floor, and blood coated the whisk's broken handle.
"I ruined the frosting." He almost sounded as if he was going to cry. "Do we have to start over?"
"You're bleeding, and that's what you're worried about?" She shook her head. "Come here." She pulled him over to the sink and ran his cut finger under a stream of cold water. Paper towels stemmed the bleeding, and he held them in place over the wound while she threw away the broken whisk and went to the bathroom to look for bandages.
Every inch of counter space was covered with cooling cookies, remnants of their egg roll dinner, and dirty utensils. Felicity shoved the frosting bowl to one side and made Oliver rest his hand on the counter, palm up, so she could apply antiseptic.
"My hands shake a little bit," she explained. "It's easier for me when I don't have to worry about a moving target."
"I didn't know that."
"Felicity's Fun Fact of the Day." She applied the bandage, wincing a little as she pressed down on the cut. "They're Wonder Woman bandages, sorry. They're all I have."
"It's just a little cut," he said, his fingers briefly curling around hers. "I'm more worried about the frosting."
Felicity looked in the bowl. It was a very tiny drop of blood, and it was just on the surface. She used a spoon to scoop it and the frosting around it out of the bowl. She dropped the spoon in the sink and quickly ran some hot water over it. Staring at and thinking about blood was starting to make her legs wobbly. Or maybe it was the heat.
"Stupid whisk," she muttered. Her legs did give way then, but Oliver caught her. He tightened his grip on her waist and set her up on the counter she'd just cleared.
"Lean over and put your head down," he said.
So Felicity sat on the counter feeling ridiculous bent double and trying not to slide off while Oliver threw out the contaminated icing, started over, and then frosted every last cookie.
"When I said this was going to be a lot of work, I didn't plan for you to do almost all of it, really," she said, sitting up. It was probably too soon to hop down from the counter, so she just leaned her head back against the cabinet behind her and closed her eyes.
"Oh, I don't know," Oliver said.
When he squeezed her shoulder, she opened her eyes to find him standing in front of her, holding out a frosted cookie, his blue eyes sparkling.
"I'm starting to think it'll be worth the wait."