[fic] Eternally Bad Students
Title: Eternally Bad Students
Fandom: Arrow
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Pairings: Felicity Smoak/Oliver Queen
Characters: Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen
Word Count: 1001
Summary: Oliver Queen is awesome at projectiles. This doesn’t necessarily include pizza dough.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to Yavosaur for the prompt!
It takes Felicity twenty minutes to realize why Oliver Queen was kicked out of four schools. There’s probably more to it, but the truth of the matter is that when you really get down to it, Oliver Queen sucks as a student.
Which normally would be fine. He has many other stellar qualities-amazing ones, like the fact that he survived five years of hell and came back and is still a genuinely Good Person, or that he can hit any moving target with any projectile you give him, or the fit of his leather pants-so really, he should be fine making it through life. But he’s terrible at being a student, and even worse, he’s distracting her, and the class was her idea in the first place.
“Why are you taking notes?” he whispers as the instructor goes over the proper ways to sift flour. “There’s a recipe. Madam Stewart said she was going to send it to us after class.”
“Because instructions are boiled down to the basics and I want to be able to get all of the details. Smell, texture, taste.”
“You have an amazing memory. You can recite pi to the two hundredth place.”
“Six hundredth. And shh, I’m trying to listen.” Because she can feel him smiling, Felicity punctuates the order with an elbow to the ribs.
Madam Stewart catches the movement but apparently not the fact that Oliver was being a pain because she gives Felicity a disapproving look. Felicity sighs. Of course the boys are going to be prized in this class: the school must not get many casual male students. Half of the men look like they’ve been dragged in by their girlfriends. That’s what Oliver must look like the others, actually, but he’s not her boyfriend. He’s her bodyguard. And she hopes they catch the Jackal soon because she is really, really tired of getting cigarette-burned Barbies with glasses drawn on their faces on her doorstep. Any more hijinks like these and her landlord is going to raise her rent.
“You just got in trouble,” Oliver points out, ever helpful.
She narrows her eyes at him. “I know your PIN number and withdrawal limits.”
“So?”
“And your social security number, and your bank account number, and the password of that file you think I don’t know about. You better nice to me, bucko.”
“You’re missing a lecture on cornmeal.”
“Am I? Damn, that’s important.” She turns back to face Madam Stewart again, eyes wide. And she knows he’s hiding a smirk behind his hand now, but the corn meal is important. Ever since she moved, she hasn’t had Dewey’s Pizza except whenever Oliver has business that takes them to that part of town. So it’s either learn to make the best pizza she can produce or she’s stuck chewing the cardboard that calls itself Tatarelli’s. She gets enough cardboard in her diet, thanks. Despite her vehement protests, Queen Consolidated won’t update their vending machines. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” Oliver affects an innocent look.
“The handsome smirk thing you’re doing. Stop th-I meant the smirk thing. I didn’t say handsome.”
He raises an eyebrow instead of ignoring her gaffe, and she’s embarrassed, but she can’t help but admit she likes that. She likes playful Oliver best. Well, not playful-he’s never quite up to that, but he can be droll and amused and sometimes even happy. Either way, that’s the Oliver she likes best. Bad Student Oliver, however, she could take or leave.
He folds paper darts during the lecture on letting dough rise, which he flicks at her with his floury hands when they actually attempt the dough. When they set the dough off to the side to rise and turn their attention to the homemade sauce, he shows off with the knife, dicing the tomatoes into funny shapes and using the pieces to spell out “S.O.S.” and “HELP!” He even punctuates, which is her influence. And when Madam Stewart casts an unimpressed look at Felicity for the caricature of her face made out of tomato pieces and basil leaves on the table between the two of them, Oliver cheerfully throws her to the wolves.
She’s setting his phone to Swahili next time he’s on the Salmon Ladder. It’s one language he can’t speak.
When it’s time to take the dough out and shape it, Oliver brightens. “Finally,” he says, removing the damp paper towel from the top of the bowl.
“You’ve been waiting for this bit the whole time, haven’t you?”
He kneads the dough the way Madam Stewart has instructed, though he’s a little rough, his big hands pushing the dough around way too much. She’s a little jealous of that blobby lump of dough, but thankfully her brain shuts her mouth up before that little trinket of sheer humiliation can come tumbling forth. “Yes, I have,” he says.
“Why’s that?”
“Because,” Oliver says, balancing the stretched dough out on the top of his fists, even though Madam Stewart has specifically cautioned them against actually tossing the dough yet, “this is, at its very core, a projectile.”
“Uh-huh,” Felicity says, pushing at the dough with her fingers, trying not to let it rip.
“And I am awesome,” he says, and flings the dough, “at projectiles.”
Felicity watches it happen in slow motion: he tosses the dough far too high and it spins, wobbling oddly to one side and listing. It comes down just as fast as it went up, skipping Oliver’s outstretched fists entirely and landing squarely on his forehead.
Felicity promptly loses it, laughing so hard that she ends up clutching the edge of the cooking table to keep herself upright, red in the face as Oliver lifts one corner of the dough and grimaces at her. In retaliation, he throws a handful of flour at her, and things only escalate from there.
When Madam Stewart issues an invitation to never return to the Starling City Cooking School, it’s to both of them this time.
Fandom: Arrow
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Pairings: Felicity Smoak/Oliver Queen
Characters: Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen
Word Count: 1001
Summary: Oliver Queen is awesome at projectiles. This doesn’t necessarily include pizza dough.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to Yavosaur for the prompt!
It takes Felicity twenty minutes to realize why Oliver Queen was kicked out of four schools. There’s probably more to it, but the truth of the matter is that when you really get down to it, Oliver Queen sucks as a student.
Which normally would be fine. He has many other stellar qualities-amazing ones, like the fact that he survived five years of hell and came back and is still a genuinely Good Person, or that he can hit any moving target with any projectile you give him, or the fit of his leather pants-so really, he should be fine making it through life. But he’s terrible at being a student, and even worse, he’s distracting her, and the class was her idea in the first place.
“Why are you taking notes?” he whispers as the instructor goes over the proper ways to sift flour. “There’s a recipe. Madam Stewart said she was going to send it to us after class.”
“Because instructions are boiled down to the basics and I want to be able to get all of the details. Smell, texture, taste.”
“You have an amazing memory. You can recite pi to the two hundredth place.”
“Six hundredth. And shh, I’m trying to listen.” Because she can feel him smiling, Felicity punctuates the order with an elbow to the ribs.
Madam Stewart catches the movement but apparently not the fact that Oliver was being a pain because she gives Felicity a disapproving look. Felicity sighs. Of course the boys are going to be prized in this class: the school must not get many casual male students. Half of the men look like they’ve been dragged in by their girlfriends. That’s what Oliver must look like the others, actually, but he’s not her boyfriend. He’s her bodyguard. And she hopes they catch the Jackal soon because she is really, really tired of getting cigarette-burned Barbies with glasses drawn on their faces on her doorstep. Any more hijinks like these and her landlord is going to raise her rent.
“You just got in trouble,” Oliver points out, ever helpful.
She narrows her eyes at him. “I know your PIN number and withdrawal limits.”
“So?”
“And your social security number, and your bank account number, and the password of that file you think I don’t know about. You better nice to me, bucko.”
“You’re missing a lecture on cornmeal.”
“Am I? Damn, that’s important.” She turns back to face Madam Stewart again, eyes wide. And she knows he’s hiding a smirk behind his hand now, but the corn meal is important. Ever since she moved, she hasn’t had Dewey’s Pizza except whenever Oliver has business that takes them to that part of town. So it’s either learn to make the best pizza she can produce or she’s stuck chewing the cardboard that calls itself Tatarelli’s. She gets enough cardboard in her diet, thanks. Despite her vehement protests, Queen Consolidated won’t update their vending machines. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” Oliver affects an innocent look.
“The handsome smirk thing you’re doing. Stop th-I meant the smirk thing. I didn’t say handsome.”
He raises an eyebrow instead of ignoring her gaffe, and she’s embarrassed, but she can’t help but admit she likes that. She likes playful Oliver best. Well, not playful-he’s never quite up to that, but he can be droll and amused and sometimes even happy. Either way, that’s the Oliver she likes best. Bad Student Oliver, however, she could take or leave.
He folds paper darts during the lecture on letting dough rise, which he flicks at her with his floury hands when they actually attempt the dough. When they set the dough off to the side to rise and turn their attention to the homemade sauce, he shows off with the knife, dicing the tomatoes into funny shapes and using the pieces to spell out “S.O.S.” and “HELP!” He even punctuates, which is her influence. And when Madam Stewart casts an unimpressed look at Felicity for the caricature of her face made out of tomato pieces and basil leaves on the table between the two of them, Oliver cheerfully throws her to the wolves.
She’s setting his phone to Swahili next time he’s on the Salmon Ladder. It’s one language he can’t speak.
When it’s time to take the dough out and shape it, Oliver brightens. “Finally,” he says, removing the damp paper towel from the top of the bowl.
“You’ve been waiting for this bit the whole time, haven’t you?”
He kneads the dough the way Madam Stewart has instructed, though he’s a little rough, his big hands pushing the dough around way too much. She’s a little jealous of that blobby lump of dough, but thankfully her brain shuts her mouth up before that little trinket of sheer humiliation can come tumbling forth. “Yes, I have,” he says.
“Why’s that?”
“Because,” Oliver says, balancing the stretched dough out on the top of his fists, even though Madam Stewart has specifically cautioned them against actually tossing the dough yet, “this is, at its very core, a projectile.”
“Uh-huh,” Felicity says, pushing at the dough with her fingers, trying not to let it rip.
“And I am awesome,” he says, and flings the dough, “at projectiles.”
Felicity watches it happen in slow motion: he tosses the dough far too high and it spins, wobbling oddly to one side and listing. It comes down just as fast as it went up, skipping Oliver’s outstretched fists entirely and landing squarely on his forehead.
Felicity promptly loses it, laughing so hard that she ends up clutching the edge of the cooking table to keep herself upright, red in the face as Oliver lifts one corner of the dough and grimaces at her. In retaliation, he throws a handful of flour at her, and things only escalate from there.
When Madam Stewart issues an invitation to never return to the Starling City Cooking School, it’s to both of them this time.