Prompt: Baking cookies with Wanda

You were making your way through the compound with Taylor Swift's "Tis' the damn season" playing in your headphones and a box in your hands.

Wanda had been staying in her room all day. You didn't blame her. You couldn't imagine what it felt like to lose a sibling. Especially one that was there for you when nobody else was.

It wasn't like she always did this. It was just every now and then when she'd start reminiscing. This was going to be her first Christmas without her brother.

You decided you were going to try to lift her spirits.

"Come in," Wanda said quietly in her faded Sokovian accent from the other side of the door.

You hadn't even knocked yet.

You turned the doorknob before pushing the door open and poking your head into the room, "Hey. How are you?"

Wanda was sitting on her bed watching some sitcom on the television. "I'm fine," she replied. You knew better.

You shut the door behind you and sat next to her on the bed.

Wanda just looked down at her lap so that you wouldn't see the shine of tears in her eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?" You whispered.

"There's nothing to talk about," she said as she looked up and smiled at you.

"Wanda-" you started. "I already told you, I'm fine," Wanda insisted.

You pursed your lips as you thought to yourself, "you're not fine. but that's okay."

And you knew she'd heard you by the way her eyes fluttered shut.

Deciding that it was better to distract her from the topic, you lifted up the box that you realized you were still holding. "Look what I got!"

Wanda tilted her head, "what's that?"

You blinked at her as if it was obvious, "They're Christmas cookie cutters!"

"What do you do with them?" She asked.

"Cut. Cookies," you deadpanned.

Wanda burst into laughter. "What's so funny?" You asked.

"Your facial expression," she said through giggles.

You gawked in mock offence, "Oh yeah? You should see yourself right now."

Now you were both caught in a fit of giggles.

Wanda was wiping tears of laughter out of her eyes when you got up and reached for her hand.

"What?" She asked.

"We're gonna go make cookies," you said shaking the box.

Wanda smiled softly.

•••

"Okay we're going to need unsalted butter, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, eggs, baking powder, salt and flour," you shouted to Wanda who was in the pantry gathering ingredients.

Luckily you guys already had everything you needed thanks to Bucky's recent interest in baking.

Wanda, who now had her brown hair tied back and a polka dot apron on, came out of the pantry carrying all of the items from the list.

You preheated the oven to 350° Fahrenheit before making sure your hands were washed.

"Okay it says 'in a bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth, at least 3 minutes.' Although I'm not entirely sure what it means," you said as you reread the line again.

Wanda snickered.

"Huh?" You looked away from the book to see what was so funny.

She cleared her throat, "Nothing."

You arched your brow.

"It's just...it said cream," she tried to hold back more laughing.

Trying not to laugh yourself, you contemplated smacking her with the spatula, "Wanda! We are professionals."

"Yeah professional dumbasses," Sam joked as he entered the kitchen and grabbed a bag of chips before walking away like nothing happened.

You rolled your eyes despite the shit eating grin on your lips, "Anyways..."

Wanda took the bowl and began mixing the butter and sugar until it was a light paste like texture.

"Now it's saying to beat in extracts and eggs," you said in confusion. Wanda gave you a look to which you threw your hands up in defense, "Hey, don't look at me. I don't understand any of this pastry talk either."

The two of you decided that whisking the ingredients in would have to suffice.

"In a separate bowl, combine baking powder and salt with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients," you read.

You started measuring the ingredients and putting them in the bowl one by one. When you tried to pick up the bag of flour, it let out a puff of smoke.

Wanda laughed as you coughed. When she wasn't looking, you turned around and tossed the bag up making flour go into her face as well.

Her jaw dropped in shock before she grabbed a handful of flour from the bag and threw it at you.

You ran around the kitchen counter trying to escape her wrath, but it wasn't enough. Whisps of red circled the now floating bag of flour as it was dumped right on top of your head.

"Wanda!" You shrieked.

"I think we're going to need a new bag of flour," she said without an ounce of remorse.

•••

Finally, the two of you had gotten everything in the bowl and we're now mixing the dry and wet ingredients.

It was forming a thick batter that you could now knead. Wanda cleaned off the counter and made sure it was dry before putting flour down so that the dough wouldn't stick.

The two of you took turns kneading the dough until it was perfect.

Once you were done, you divided the dough into two batches and gave one to Wanda. You both rolled out your pieces of dough onto the floured counter until they were the right thickness.

You ripped open the box of cookie cutters to find another bag inside that was impossible to open. Wanda got the scissors for you.

The cutters were finally laid out onto the counter. You chose the Christmas tree one, the bells, the reindeer, and the snowflake. Wanda decided on the snowman, the stocking, the gingerbread man, and the candy cane.

You both placed the shapes onto the dough and pressed down on them to cut out the shapes.

When everything was finally cut to your liking, you placed all of the pieces of dough onto a pan with a cookie sheet and placed them in the oven for 8 minutes.

You spent the 8 minutes cleaning up the measuring cups, bowls, and utensils you'd used during the baking process.

The timer went off and Wanda immediately ran to the oven. She used her magic to lift the pan out and place it on a rack so nobody would burn themselves.

After letting the cookies cool for a while and watching some tv, the two of you came back to decorate. You pulled out a small bin of premade icing, sprinkles, edible confetti, and more before setting it on the counter.

Wanda was staring at the decorations like a kid in a candy store.

"Alright, if we're ever going to eat these cookies you need to stop making googly eyes at the icing." You joked.

Wanda smirked at your comment before picking up one of the icing bottles and decorating a cookie.

•••

You sprinkled some gold edible confetti into Wanda's hair.

"What are you doing," she said as she concentrated on decorating the last cookie. Hers were so much neater than yours. She was very precise about how they looked whereas you only wanted to know what they tasted like.

"Decorating you," you replied nonchalantly.

She suppressed her laughter as she carefully added some sprinkles on her gingerbread man cookie.

"Ta da!" She clapped her hands once she'd finished.

"They look amazing!! Now let's eat them," you said impatiently.

Wanda laughed and the two of you grabbed a cookie for yourselves before taking a bite on the count of three.

You closed your eyes in delight, "Why is this the best thing I've ever tasted?"

Wanda nodded in agreement, "We should definitely open our own bakery."