Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wanda loved baking. She liked how predictable it was. She liked the way the raw materials turned from lumps of flour, chunks of butter, and bubbles of eggs to a perfectly blended, just-add-heat masterpiece.

She was also good at baking, especially cake, and so for each of their birthday’s, she would make the Avenger’s a cake of their choosing. Steve liked strawberry, Sam and Tony were both partial to chocolate, Clint liked carrot, Natasha liked both dark chocolate cherry and Russian honey cake. Thor loved even the idea of cake so much he didn’t care what she made (Wanda had a feeling there wasn’t a whole lot of cake eating happening on Asgard). Bucky, surprisingly, liked obnoxiously sweet flavors that personally sort of made Wanda feel sick but she made them anyway. In addition to these members of the team, she had also made a cake for Carol, Pepper, Shuri, and Loki (red velvet, coffee cake, coconut, and angel food respectively) when they happened to be passing through for their birthdays. So yes, Wanda was exceptionally good at making cake. 

She had never made a cake for Peter, however, because he hadn’t started living in the tower full time until recently. But she’d seen a date circled in Tony’s calendar in the lab labeled as Peter’s birthday so she thought she’d ask him if he wanted one, even though Peter was still pretty much terrified of all of them, especially her and Nat (Peter had warmed up to Bucky when Bucky had let him stick fridge magnets to his metal arm).

Wanda got her chance about a week before Peter’s birthday, when he was in the living room with Sam playing some video game on the TV.

”Hey, Pete,” she said, “what kind of cake do you want for your birthday?”

Peter looked up from the screen. “Oh, you don’t have to do that, Ms. Maximoff”

God, she really hated in when he called her that. It made her sound like her dad’s mother and Wanda had not liked that lady one bit.

”Just call me Wanda, Peter,” she said. She was tempted to call him Mr. Parker instead but she resisted. “And its not a problem at all.”

”Yeah,” Sam added. “She makes one for everyone’s birthday. She made this strawberry cream thing last month for Steve’s birthday and it was like having an orgasm in your mouth.”

Peter’s face turned bright red and Wanda stifled a laugh as Clint threw a throw pillow at Sam from where he was sitting in an arm chair.

”Keep it appropriate, Wilson,” Clint mock scolded. Sam laughed.

”Oh-Kay,” Peter said, sounding shaky and unsure. “Well I guess in that case…what kind of cake can you make?”

”Any kind,” Wanda said. “Although I can’t promise they’re all orgasm inducing.” She dodged the pillow, smiling.

”Um okay…what about lemon cake? Can you make lemon cake?”

Wanda’s insides froze and she was tempted to say no. She could feel her heart rate speed up, and prayed the FRIDAY wouldn’t tell the whole compound that she—the most powerful avenger and possibly the most powerful human alive—was approaching panic attack zone because of the mention of fucking lemons. Avoid triggers, her therapist was always saying. So Wanda avoided fireworks and small spaces but were fucking lemons a trigger? Did they count? A stupid piece of citrus fruit?

Before she could think too much on this, she forced herself to smile and heard herself say, “Sure thing, Peter, I can make you a lemon cake.” Wanda guessed she’d put on a good enough show because Sam and Peter went back to their game and Clint went back to his book so she just went back to the kitchen to see what she needed to get at the store to make a cake. A lemon cake. God, She hated lemons.

—————

They always seemed to have lemons in Sokovia, even when all other food was scarce. Even when they were starving. There were always lemons. Mostly due to the widowed old lady who lived in the apartment next to them. A lot of black market food selling happened in Sokovia, as any starving country has. Olek, her father, was too good and pure to buy food off the black market, even when all his children ate for days were potatoes. Wanda had watched her mother, Iryna, practically pull out her hair in frustration at her husband’s blindness to the suffering of his own children. Eventually, she found a work around. If she was buying from their neighbor, she wasn’t technically buying directly off the market. Wanda couldn’t even remember the name of the neighbor, just the joy of coming home after school and finding a can of American baked beans or an apple in the cupboard her mother had managed to haggle.

That neighbor passed on some canned goods, sometimes potatoes, but mostly oranges and lemons. So many lemons. When they had scrounged up enough money, Iryna went to the store and bought flour and sugar and made lemon cake. No frosting, just a moist loaf. She measured each ingredient exactly, running the flat of a knife over the measuring spoons so she wouldn’t waste a grain of sugar, a drift of flour. She used every part of the lemon. The juice for cleaning, the fruit for eating, and of course the rind for zest in her precious lemon cakes.

Wanda hadn’t hated lemons then. Actually, it had been Pietro who hadn’t cared for citrus (it gave him mouth sores), but he ate in anyway because he knew food was food and to refuse food would be to refuse life. Wanda liked lemons, and she loved the lemon cake. Iryna’s cooking and baking was often for a practical purpose, so having cake at all was a luxury. And she loved it just the same at the end of March, when her mother made it for what must have been the umpteenth time. She couldn’t remember what it was for. Her father’s work going well maybe, or just because there had been enough money left over to buy the lemons and ingredients for the cake. She hadn’t been thinking about anything but how good it would be to eat a slice of the cake; she and her brother had barely had anything to eat all day, but of course they weren’t saying anything. She hadn’t been thinking fondly about the hands that had made that cake. No. The last thought she had before that bomb dropped on her apartment and killed her parents was how much she just wanted to eat the cake. The stupid lemon cake. And when they had hidden under the bed, Wanda had been scared obviously, but also angry. But not because her parents died. Not yet. But because she would never get to eat that lemon cake.

She didn’t know she hated lemons yet though. She hadn’t even seen a lemon again until she’d come the United States. There had been even less than before after the bombing, and the neighbor who gave the lemons had died, same as Olek and Iryna, and they weren’t exactly growing on trees in New York. In fact, the first time Wanda saw a lemon after the bombing she had been almost 22. Natasha had kicked Steve off grocery duty because Steve kept buying vanilla ice cream and whole wheat crackers. She had delegated Wanda to go instead because Wanda was doing most of the cooking. Wanda had been completely baffled when she’d gotten to the compound and found that Director Fury had put a whole crap ton of super soldiers/superheroes together and not one of them could make a decent meal, so she’d taken over and turned ramen meals into spaghetti bolognese, peanut butter sandwiches into grilled cheese, and TV dinners into actual dinners without ridiculously high sodium content. Wanda had been at the store, running her fingers over potatoes (no eyes in them, each the same size, and more on one display than she’d ever seen in one place during her childhood) when her eyes had drifted towards the fruit section. And right there, next to the oranges, lemons. Fucking lemons. Wanda had felt her whole body tense up. A rush of anger, towards the lemons, and herself. Those lemons had distracted her in her last moments with her parents, and there they were, just sitting there. And then Wanda had a rush of anger towards the whole store. The whole place. With all its fresh food, and boxed food, and canned food and fucking lemons. When she had grown up with nothing, when kids were still growing up with nothing and those stupid lemons. She knew it was really about the lemons. And then she’d gotten sad, and had an urge to knock over the whole display of yellow fruit. She didn’t, but she went home right after. Without potatoes or ice cream vanilla or otherwise. 

And here she stood again, at the store, by the potatoes, staring the lemons down. Why couldn’t Peter like chocolate cakes instead? Chocolate cake was good, and it was easy, and it didn’t have any painful, guilty memories attached to it. But he had asked for a lemon and she had said she would make it. There was really no way out of this. She couldn’t very well lie and say they had run out of lemons at the store. American stores never seemed to run out of anything. Ever. Which was normally very helpful but she found it annoying at the present moment. 

But she pushed that thought aside. And all the others too for that matter. Or at least she tried to. She was going to buy the lemons, she told herself. She was going to buy the lemons and all the other ingredients and she was going to go home and make a birthday cake for Peter. It occurred to her then that she didn’t even know what age Peter was turning. Probably 16? 17? Although he sort of looked like he was 13 so she could be wrong about that too. She probably should have checked before she left so she could buy candles if necessary. 

She walked over to the lemons, picked them up. She had a sudden flash of a cold kitchen in a tiny apartment, her mother standing behind her, teaching her how to tell if the lemon was ripe or rotten. 

“Smooth skin, moja hrdost’.”  My pride. Pride and joy. Wanda was pride. Pietro was Joy.

Wanda shook her head. God, what was happening to her? She hadn’t thought about this in years. She squeezed the lemon, then quickly dropped it. It was probably bruised now, and since there were so many she could probably find another. A pity though, that one had smooth skin. 

She found a few that would do, all the time pushing the voice of her mother out of her head, and the image of lemon cake. On impulse, she looked up a recipe for lemon frosting on her phone. Peter would probably want frosting. Wanda didn’t care for frosting; it was too sweet. But at least for this cake, she could hide it with the frosting so she wouldn’t have to look at the cake head on. 

She turned to go to the cashier but found herself immobilized, standing before the display with a lemon in each hand, afraid to move. Why? She didn’t know. But her heart was speeding up and her breath was coming in short little gasps. She took a deep breath and did what her therapist told her to do in situations like these. 

You’re safe. There’s not bombs. You’re not trapped. Wanda whispered to herself, quiet enough that the shoppers nearest to her wouldn’t look at her like she was crazy. It didn’t help much but at least it got her feet unstuck. She still didn’t move. She was staying by the lemons. By choice. Jeez, maybe she was crazy after all.

Be an adult, Wanda. It’s just a lemon. Go buy the fucking lemon.

So Wanda took a deep breath and moved towards the cashier and bought the fucking lemons.

——————

Wanda normally enjoyed baking, but right now she was really not. She stood at the counter in the kitchen of the compound (the warm kitchen) holding her breath so she wouldn’t have to breathe in the smell of lemons. Her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t even grate the zest correctly. Twice juice sprayed over her fingers and she froze. Just calm the fuck down Wanda. It’s a lemon. All that shit happened a long time ago. You’re fine. Her thoughts ran in circles. 

Survivor’s guilt was what her therapist called it. Wanda felt guilty that she’d been thinking about lemon cake just before her parents died, that was it. Put it that way it sounded really stupid, so Wanda hadn’t told anyone but Natasha, and even Nat didn’t have all the details. She didn’t know the way Wanda felt every time Steve made lemonade in the summer, or when Pepper cleaned with Lysol rags, or when Sam bought lemon scented dish soap or, even worse, laundry detergent. Every time she so much as smelled it she felt like throwing up, and seeing lemons weren’t much better. Natasha knew enough though, so when she walked into the kitchen to find her girlfriend frozen at the counter with a lemon in her hand she crossed the linoleum in three steps and quickly took the lemon out of Wanda’s hands.

”Hey hey hey, breath with me, lyubov’, you’re alright.”

Wanda hadn’t even noticed her breathing speeding up until Natasha slipped her hands around Wanda’s waist and pressed a kiss gently into Wanda’s neck. 

“I’ve got you. It’s okay,” Natasha whispered softly.

Wanda nodded slightly, breathing more deeply now.

”Why are you working with lemons, babe’?”

”Peter’s birthday cake. He wanted lemon,” Wanda whispered back quietly.

”I thought you didn’t ‘do’ lemons, love?” Nat asked. Wanda could practically hear her eyebrows raising. 

”I don’t know, I just don’t ‘do’ lemons.” Natasha titled her head at the end of Wanda’s explanation of no ice cream.

”Because of all the stuff that happened with your mom,” Natasha prompted.

”You make it sound like we’re estranged. We can’t be estranged. She’s dead.”

Natasha pulled Wanda back from the counter and led her into a chair. “Alright, love, tell me what I need to do with these lemons.”

”You don’t have to, Nat,” Wanda said weakly. “I can do them myself.”

”I never said you couldn’t, but I don’t think you should,” Natasha said. “And besides, I think I need more baking practice.” She quirked a smile at Wanda and Wanda couldn’t help but return it. She’d always been helpless to Natasha’s smiles.

So slowly she talked Natasha through making a lemon cake. Natasha executed everything with an adorable amount of serious concentration which made Wanda smile even more. When she was done, Wanda braced herself and then peeked into the bowl.

”That looks about right, spider, good job.” 

Natasha slide an arm around Wanda’s waist and pressed her lips against Wanda’s. “Think I could be your sous chef?” She breathed in the barely there space between their mouths.

Wanda smiled and slipped her arms around Nat’s neck. “We’re baking, sweetheart, not cooking.” She pressed another kiss to Natasha’s lips. “But sure.” 

Natasha bore down harder, slipping her tongue into Wanda’s mouth. Wanda kissed back, her hand slipping up Natasha’s shirt, traveling along her back, before she broke off and lightly pushed Natasha away.

“We still have to bake it, spider,” she said, smiling. Natasha groaned.

”Can’t that wait?” She asked, pulling Wanda to her, towards her bedroom.

”I guess,” Wanda said, breathing a laugh. “I guess it could wait a while.”