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Jemma Simmons is all about her routines. She’s the type of person who doesn’t believe in hitting the snooze button, the type of person who lays her clothes out the night before so that she doesn’t have to waste time the following morning debating what to wear.
The type of person who, apparently, forgoes the use of the perfectly good coffee maker sitting on her kitchen counter in favor of stopping at the cupcake place down the street from her apartment.
It’s another part of her routine, something she looks forward to every morning. Something that’s slipped seamlessly into her morning routine for the past several months.
“You only go there because of the owner,” Bobbi had remarked a week before, helping herself to the coffee and cupcake that Jemma had brought for her out of the goodness in her heart. The traitor. “I don’t understand why you can’t just admit it. Think of how much money you would save if you just toughened-up and admitted the real reason you go there every morning.”
Jemma had only rolled her eyes at the ridiculous and honestly misguided advice. “That is not why I go there,” she had protested, indignantly and with a wave of her hand. “And see if I ever bring you another cupcake.”
To which Bobbi had had no reply and had only taken her cupcake and coffee safely out of Jemma’s office.
No, Jemma’s morning routine wasn’t just about the coffee and the cupcake that she usually got to go with it.
But no one else had to know that.
Certainly not the owner of A Cupcake a Day, the perfect little café that had popped up several blocks from Jemma’s apartment a few months ago. In fact, Jemma would much prefer it if Daisy Johnson remained oblivious to Jemma’s true motivation for her daily visits.
Jemma smiles to herself as she rounds the corner and the vibrant pink awning comes into view. She pulls her coat tighter around herself in an attempt to ignore the bite of the early morning chill, her boots crunching against the snow and salt on the sidewalk. Everything around her is bedecked in typical pre-Christmas pageantry: the stores and businesses bearing wreaths and colored lights, the streetlamps and telephone poles wrapped in garland and tinsel. It’s enough to put anyone in the Christmas mood, especially since Christmas is only days away and good holiday cheer is definitely not in short supply.
There’s a massive, glittering wreath hanging across the glass door of A Cupcake a Day and blinking lights in the windows and a stuffed Rudolph enjoying his own stuffed cupcake. Jemma shakes her head at the display as she pulls open the door and the bell rings cheerfully overhead.
There are a few customers already in the store, including Mack, who Jemma has gotten to know from her daily visits to the cupcake shop, and a mother and her little girl, who is standing with her face pressed to the cupcake display case, salivating over all the sugar despite the early hour.
Despite the fact that Daisy is currently folding up the edges to make a box for the mom and her daughter, she glances to the door, her face splitting into a wide grin when she notices Jemma. “Well if it isn’t my favorite customer.”
Jemma rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you say that to everyone.”
“She never says that to me,” Mack remarks from his spot by the window, not bothering to look up from the newspaper open in front of him.
“Sure I do,” Daisy says, shaking her head at Mack even though he’s not paying her any attention. “You’re my favorite customer. There, happy now.”
Mack gives Jemma a look. “She doesn’t mean it.”
Daisy shakes her head. “I don’t,” she assures Jemma. “There’s only room in my heart for one.”
Jemma figures that, despite Daisy’s previous words, she shouldn’t assume that she is the favorite costumer that lives in Daisy’s heart. And what good would that do her anyway? Daisy probably knows exactly how to sweet talk the person who comes into her store every day and spends five dollars on a coffee and a cupcake.
Though, when she thinks about it that way, she’s not exactly a big spender.
Jemma walks up to the counter, shaking her head. “I don’t know how you always have this much energy in the morning.”
“You should see me around two,” Daisy tells her. “I’m ready to crash, trust me. Getting up at three to make cupcakes every morning is a tough life, but someone has to do it.” She sighs dramatically.
Jemma nods. “Where would we be without your delicious cupcakes?”
Daisy shrugs. “I’m sure you’d manage,” she says with a wink.
Jemma decides not to point out that that’s probably true. She’d never had much of a sweet tooth before she had happened to walk by one morning to see Daisy standing outside, advertising for the opening of her new store, handing out coupons and trying to get people to come inside. Jemma hadn’t been able to resist the woman with the messy hair and the bright pink apron, especially not when she’d added a brilliant smile to the mix.
Clearly, months later, she still hasn’t figured out a way to resist her.
“So your usual?” Daisy asks, bringing Jemma back to the present. A present which still, thankfully, involves the opportunity to enjoy Daisy’s messy hair and vibrant smile. “What kind of cupcake today?”
Jemma says what she always does, “Surprise me.”
The cupcake doesn’t matter as much as the person selling it to her.
Daisy grins at her, turning back to fulfil Jemma’s order. Jemma reaches into her purse, digging out her wallet, trying not to stare so openly at Daisy as she watches her work. Daisy always seems so sure and certain as she works behind the counter, making Jemma’s coffee exactly how she likes it, grabbing one of the smaller boxes already folded and ready.
Daisy smiles at the little girl still staring longingly into the case. “Which one do you think my friend wants?”
Jemma smiles faintly at the terminology, though there’s a part of her that wishes that Daisy had used a different word to describe her.
So what if Bobbi had been right about the real reason for her daily visits? So what? A woman has the right to pine away in peace while eating a cupcake she doesn’t even really want, doesn’t she?
The little girl scrunches up her nose, considering the cupcakes like she hasn’t just been staring at them. Finally she points to a chocolate cupcake with pastel pink frosting and a dusting of pink sprinkles across the top. “That one,” she decides.
Daisy plucks it from the case and sets it gently into the box. “Great idea.” She hands the box and coffee over to Jemma. “If you don’t like it, blame her.”
Jemma lifts an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I blame the baker?”
Daisy scoffs, waving her hand dismissively. “The baker accepts no form of liability,” she assures Jemma.
Jemma always hates this moment, after she’s paid and gotten her coffee and cupcake and has no reason to hang around anymore.
Unless she actually told Daisy…or asked her…or…
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jemma says instead, managing to wave goodbye with the hand holding the coffee. “Thanks for the cupcake.”
Daisy waves. “Don’t forget we’re closing early tomorrow,” she says, “since it’s Christmas Eve and all.”
Jemma nods, though it doesn’t really matter. She has her routine and she’ll stick to it, thank you very much.
Even if that routine involves a coffee and a cupcake for breakfast.
Of course, Jemma doesn’t actually eat the cupcake for breakfast. Sometimes she doesn’t eat it at all, pawning it off to Bobbi or Fitz or someone else in the office. Other times, she’ll just save it for lunch, indulging a little bit and thinking about the woman who baked the delicious pastry.
Which is exactly what she’s doing, hours later, while sitting at lunch with Bobbi and Fitz and Elena, only half listening to the conversation going on around her. Jemma runs her finger through the icing, popping her finger in her mouth and nodding along to Elena’s story to make it seem like she’s listening rather than just daydreaming.
Of course, daydreaming about Daisy while at work isn’t exactly something new for her. She often runs through conversations with her, imagining asking her out to dinner, getting to know her. Imagines what it would be like to kiss her…if it would be as sweet as the frosting currently melting on her tongue…
Jemma blinks, shaking her head at herself. Maybe a little less daydreaming is in order…
It seems like a blessing when Anne Weaver, the head of their department, walks into the breakroom and smiles brightly at them. “Just the people I wanted to see,” she says, which doesn’t seem ominous at all.
“Don’t forget the holiday party is tomorrow,” Anne continues. “I know it’s Christmas Eve but I hope you can all make it, even if it’s just for a little while.” She rolls her eyes. “Mr. Quinn is ‘suggesting’ that you at least make an appearance.”
Elena lifts her eyebrows, exchanging a look with Bobbi. Anne pretends not to see. “And we still need some volunteers to bring a few things,” she says.
“Can’t Quinn just buy it all?” Bobbi asks. “He’s like a millionaire, isn’t he?”
Anne decides not to answer that particular question. “We still need a few side items…humus, chips, things like that. Oh, and Jemma,” she says, and Jemma tries to focus at the sound of her name. “I thought it might be nice if you could bring some of your cupcakes. They always look so pretty and they taste delicious.”
Jemma looks at the cupcake sitting beside the rest of the food, no longer in the box Daisy had put it in that morning. “Oh, no, I don’t-”
“If we all come together, it’ll be a great party!” Anne says, seemingly oblivious to Jemma’s attempts to point out that she doesn’t exactly make any of the cupcakes she’s always bringing to the office. “Can’t wait to see you all there tomorrow!”
Elena scoffs, going back to her lunch. “I’ll put in an appearance,” she mutters. “It counts as long as someone sees me, right?”
Bobbi nods. “Definitely.” She leans across Elena to steal a handful of chips off Fitz’s plate, swatting his hand away when he tries to reclaim them. “Jemma? Are you okay?”
Jemma furrows her brow, staring at the offending cupcake on the table in front of her. “Did I just get volunteered to bake cupcakes?”
“I don’t think it’s considered volunteering if you’re being forced to do it,” Elena remarks.
“I’ve never baked a cupcake in my life,” Jemma says. “Let alone anything that’s going to look like…this.”
Stupid Daisy’s perfect, stupid, delicious cupcakes.
Fitz pats her on the shoulder. “You’re a genius,” he says. “How hard can it be?”
This is the mentality that Jemma tries to force herself into the following morning when she prepares her kitchen to becoming cupcake baking central. She is a genius and she has the PhDs to prove it. Baking is pretty much just like chemistry anyway. There’s no reason she shouldn’t be able to whip up several batches of cupcakes to bring to the work party tonight. It hardly matters if they don’t look exactly like Daisy’s. No one is going to notice.
It doesn’t take long for Jemma to earn a completely new appreciate for Daisy’s perfect, stupid, delicious cupcakes. She has no idea why someone would want to wake up at three every morning to bake cupcakes, and she definitely has no idea how someone manages to do such a thing.
Her kitchen is a mess by the time she pulls one batch out of the oven and they definitely don’t look as appealing as what she sees in Daisy’s bakery case every morning. Jemma wipes her forehead with the back of her hand as she considers the crispy, slightly blackened tops of the cupcakes. This is fine, she decides, completely fine. Clearly the baking times on the box are just a suggestion -she can learn from this for the next batch.
Jemma’s next efforts to bake edible cupcakes don’t go all that great either. The cupcakes are lumpy inside, the batter hardly mixed properly and sticky in places.
Attempt number three doesn’t look much better. They taste decent, far from sweet and sugary but still worth nibbling on…assuming that you share Jemma’s penchant for less than sweet sweet things.
Jemma is a genius. And she’s more than capable of knowing when she’s been beat and smart enough to come up with an alternative plan.
Which, honestly, Jemma thinks that she should have done in the first place.
If Anne wants her to bring Daisy’s delicious cupcakes to the party, well, Jemma knows exactly where to get them.
She hurries up to the vibrant pink awning just as Daisy is stepping out of the shop and locking the door behind her. “Daisy!” Jemma can’t stop herself from shouting Daisy’s name. “Wait!”
Daisy turns to look at her in surprise, lifting her eyebrows. “Oh, hey. I was wondering where you’d gotten off to since you didn’t stop by this morning.”
Jemma takes half a second to dwell on the fact that Daisy noticed that she wasn’t there before blurting out, “I need to buy three dozen cupcakes.”
Daisy looks at her for a beat before her smile starts to falter and her brow knits together. “Like…now?”
Jemma nods. “Yes. I need them for tonight’s office party because my boss thought I was the one who made all the cupcakes that I’m always bringing into work and I tried baking them myself but it’s a lot more difficult than I thought.” She takes a breath. “So I thought if they want your delicious cupcakes than they’re going to get them.”
Daisy is still staring at her and that’s when all the pieces start to click into place. Jemma glances toward the store, already dark and closed up, the sign on the front flipped to closed. “Oh, crap,” Jemma mutters, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Christmas Eve. You’re closing early.”
“Technically we’re already closed,” Daisy says, wincing at the words. “And I didn’t make as many cupcakes as usual so they’re all already gone.”
Jemma sighs, her shoulders slumping forward. “Oh bullocks,” she grumbles. “I suppose fourth time might be the charm…”
Daisy grins at her and it’s enough for Jemma to momentarily forget all her troubles. “Or…” She slides the keys back into the lock and opens the door with a flourish. “I have another idea.”
“What are you talking about?” Jemma asks, watching as Daisy walks back into the store, flipping on the lights.
“Well hurry up,” Daisy says, beckoning for Jemma to follow her. “Cupcakes wait for no woman.”
Jemma enters the shop and Daisy locks the door behind them once more before heading toward the kitchen.
Quickly, Jemma shakes her head, hurrying after her. “Daisy, no, I can’t…I can’t expect you to make me three dozen cupcakes from scratch and-”
“Oh, I’m not,” Daisy assures her, grabbing an apron off the hook and tossing it in Jemma’s direction. “You’re going to make them. I’m just here to help.”
Jemma looks at the apron in her hands and then back at Daisy. “It’s Christmas Eve,” she protests. “I’m sure you have so many better things that you can be doing.”
Daisy scoffs, taking another apron off the hook and slipping it over her head. “Better than hanging out with you and baking cupcakes?” She rolls her eyes. “I think pizza and Die Hard can wait a little while longer.”
Jemma feels a warmth start in the center of her chest and spread down to her stomach. Daisy actually wants to spend time with her outside of their usual, all-too-brief morning interactions. Daisy is actually giving up her afternoon to help her bake cupcakes.
This is a welcome turn of events if Jemma has ever seen one.
Jemma puts on the apron as Daisy starts gathering the ingredients, laying them all out across the stainless-steel countertops. “I feel awful,” Jemma says with a sigh. “Everything is already so nice and clean and-”
“Look, there are two things I’ll never say no to,” Daisy assures her, plunking a mixing bowl down in front of her. “And the first is baking cupcakes.”
Jemma lifts an eyebrow. “What’s the second?”
Daisy shrugs. “If I tell you that, I’ll have to kill you,” she smirks. “But I can give you all my secrets to baking the perfect batch of cupcakes.”
Daisy comes to stand beside her and Jemma sends a silent prayer of thanks to Anne and Quinn for tonight’s stupid office party. Jemma turns to her and smiles. “I am all yours,” she says and can only hope that it sounds like she’s talking about cupcakes and not life.
If Jemma isn’t mistaken, Daisy’s cheeks actually flush with color, but it’s hard to tell because she’s turns her head away and focuses on the ingredients in front of them. “So let me guess, you were trying to make cupcakes out of a box, right?”
Jemma scoffs. “Daisy, I couldn’t even do that properly, what makes you think I could possibly bake them completely from scratch?”
“See, that’s your problem,” Daisy tells her, handing over a measuring cup and a bag of flour. “The best cupcakes start from scratch. That way you can get creative, give them that personal touch.”
“Oh, I definitely did that,” Jemma assures her, measuring out the flour as Daisy instructs, “my personal touch was that allusive burnt flavor.”
Daisy grins. “Right, that’s my favorite.”
Jemma rolls her eyes as she measures out the sugar. “I’m sure you’ve never burnt a cupcake in your life.”
Daisy shrugs. “Hey, everyone has to start somewhere,” she assures Jemma. “You don’t get to be a famous pastry chef without burning a few cupcakes.”
Jemma smirks. “Famous?”
Daisy pats her chest, above her heart. “In here, Jemma, in here.”
Jemma shakes her head, watching as Daisy adds in the butter. “Well, I think you’re pretty fabulous.”
“You have to say that since I’m helping you bake cupcakes for your party.”
“Well, that is pretty fabulous,” Jemma agrees. “But I’ve thought you were fabulous long before now.”
Daisy looks up and her and Jemma swallows, resisting the sudden impulse to take the words back. She manages to swallow around her attempts to take it back, to explain it away. What she said was true anyway. Maybe it’s about time that she started admitting how she felt about Daisy.
Daisy smiles, slow and slightly hesitant. “Yeah?” She cracks an egg on the side of the bowl before handing one to Jemma to do the same. “I mean you aren’t terrible yourself.”
Jemma bites the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. “I’m sure you say that to all the people you bake cupcakes with.”
“Only the ones with promise,” Daisy assures her, pushing the bowl slightly closer so that the egg yolk doesn’t fall onto the counter. Jemma grimaces but Daisy pats her shoulder. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“If you say so,” Jemma says, cracking another egg. This time she manages to get the yolk directly into the bowl. “I don’t know if I really have the touch for it.”
Daisy shrugs. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”
“And where did you start?” Jemma asks as Daisy measures vanilla to pour into the batter.
“My dad, actually,” Daisy says. “He was a doctor and he used to bake to relieve stress.”
Jemma frowns slightly. “Was?”
Daisy shrugs but doesn’t elaborate on the subject. Instead, she shifts the topic of conversation to baker’s secrets, things to do to make the batter stay moist and fluffy even after baking. Jemma nods every so often, watching Daisy as she works, pretending to be the perfect and most studious pupil. Honestly, she doesn’t care all that much about the secret to making good cupcakes and soft batter. She’s just enjoying watching Daisy work, listening to her voice in the otherwise empty kitchen.
The part of the baking process that Jemma excels at is scooping the batter into the paper cups and arranging them in the tin. And then it’s on the next batch: a completely different recipe for a completely different flavor.
“You’re spoiling my colleagues,” Jemma tells Daisy as she adds in citrus flavoring. “I was just going to stick with your basic vanilla and chocolate.”
Daisy waves a dismissive hand. “Go big or go home,” she says. “You can start on the batter for the next batch. I think you’re starting to get the hang of it.”
Jemma scoffs but does as instructed, pulling over the flour and sugar. “Thanks for the vote for confidence.”
“What can I say,” Daisy says with an overly dramatic sigh, “I am a great teacher.”
Jemma grins, shaking her head. “Seriously, Daisy, thank you.” She looks over at her, meeting Daisy’s gaze. “You’re a life saver. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Daisy waves her comment away. “You would have figured something out,” she assures her. “I’m kinda flattered your first thought was to come to me.”
Jemma swallows and nods. “Well…you are the expert.”
That sounds better than admitting that her thoughts are often about Daisy.
Before she knows it, there are three batches of cupcakes in the oven and Jemma is almost disappointed. She’s not exactly ready for her afternoon with Daisy to come to an end.
Thankfully there’s still the matter of cleaning up the kitchen and frosting the cupcakes once they cool. At least Jemma feels like this is something she can do; cleaning an industrial kitchen isn’t all that different from cleaning her own.
“So Die Hard is an interesting choice for a Christmas movie,” Jemma remarks as she wipes down the counters. “Not much of a Love, Actually girl?”
Daisy shrugs. “I mean, who doesn’t love Bruce Willis?” She asks. “Now if he was in Love, Actually then we could talk.”
Jemma snorts out a laugh. “That would be an interesting movie.”
“He definitely would have handled that cheating husband,” Daisy assures Jemma, pointing a finger at her. “You can count on that.”
Once the counter is clean, Daisy hops up on the edge, studying the cupcakes in the over across from them. She pats the side of the counter beside her and Jemma lifts herself up to perch next to her.
“It’s kinda nice, I suppose,” Jemma says finally. “And relaxing. It definitely wasn’t when I tried to bake at home but…”
Daisy nods. “Yeah, it is nice. Especially like this, when everything else is quiet and there’s no one else in the shop and I can kinda just…” She waves her hand toward the glowing oven and empty kitchen. “That was one of the major things I learned from my dad was that baking could be a great way to get rid of stress. It helped at St. Agnes.”
St. Agnes. Jemma knows the name of the local group home only because she’s absently participated in fundraisers through work or at the grocery store. Not because she’s ever really had any reason to think about the place.
“Though that was the one thing the sisters loved about me,” Daisy adds. “Whenever I got in trouble they put me on kitchen duty like they thought they were punishing me, not because they just wanted me to bake for them.”
Jemma smiles. “A definite perk for them.”
Jemma wants to say something more, wants to ask Daisy about herself, wants to encourage her to keep talking. But the timer on the oven goes off and Daisy hops off the counter and Jemma is almost relieved because she misses the smile on Daisy’s face and the brightness in her eyes.
“Now,” Daisy says, after putting the cupcakes into the cooling racks, “we make the frosting.”
Jemma barely manages to stifle her groan. “Of course we make the frosting from scratch too,” she grumbles. “Why am I not surprised?”
Though, making the frosting turns out to be much easier than making the cupcakes themselves. The process is relatively simple, though she lets Daisy handle all the little touches that make each type of frosting unique.
Jemma runs her finger along the edge of the bowl, unable to help herself. “Okay, I think this might be the best frosting I’ve ever had.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” Daisy says with a smirk. “You’ve still got some of it right here.”
She taps her finger against the bottom of Jemma’s lip and Jemma feels her heart give a leap in her chest and she lifts her eyes to meet Daisy’s. It would be easy to kiss her right then, she thinks. It would be perfect, exactly what she’s always wanted to do.
But Jemma hesitates for a moment too long and Daisy’s gaze shifts away from hers, her finger falling away from Jemma’s face. Jemma tries to ignore the stab of disappointment, mentally kicking herself for being such an idiot. She wipes at the frosting with the back of her hand, shaking her head at herself.
They manage to retain the largely jovial atmosphere in the kitchen, though Jemma can’t help but wonder why they put all that effort into cleaning the kitchen when it seems like they’re just about to get it messy again, trying to stuff the frosting into piping bags and get it onto the cupcakes.
“You make it look easy,” Jemma grumbles, watching as Daisy effortlessly moves from one cupcake to the next, swirling on the frosting with perfect flourish.
She’s only managed to frost three cupcakes and that took a painstaking amount of focus.
“Practice,” Daisy assures her. “It’s all in the wrist.”
Jemma tries to twist her wrist just so but squeezes the bag too hard and gets the frosting on her fingers. “I do not think I’m cut out for this.”
Daisy hands her a rag, smiling at her. “You’re being too hard on yourself,” she says. “It’s cupcakes, not brain surgery. No pressure, I promise.”
No pressure, right. Good advice for cupcake decorating and possibly other aspects of life…
Jemma clears her throat, glancing back at Daisy. “Now you’re the one with frosting on your face,” she smirks.
Daisy frowns, confused. “Really? How? Where?”
Jemma brushes her finger against Daisy’s cheek, leaving behind a streak of frosting. “There.”
Daisy smiles faintly. “That’s cheating.”
This time, Jemma doesn’t let herself hesitate. She doesn’t let herself second-guess Daisy and her impulse and the things that she wants. She just leans forward, kissing her.
The kiss is somehow sweater than Jemma imagined that it would be.
Daisy grins, letting her forehead rest briefly against Jemma’s. “I think about kissing you most mornings when you come into the store.”
Jemma lifts an eyebrow. “Only most mornings?”
“Well sometimes I think about asking you out,” Daisy admits, her cheeks flushing slightly.
Jemma nods, pursing her lips, tasting Daisy and frosting on her tongue. “You definitely should do that.”
Daisy grins. “Jemma Simmons, would you like to go out with me sometime?”
Another nod from Jemma. “I would love to.”
Their second kiss is longer and lingering, but somehow just as sweet. Jemma thinks she might be imagining things, but it somehow seems like the exactly way that a kiss with Daisy Johnson should be.
They manage to finish frosting the cupcakes and Jemma works on cleaning up from the latest endeavor as Daisy carefully packs the cupcakes away. “In regular Tupperware,” Daisy assures her, “so people don’t think you bought them. You deserve the credit, after all. You made them.”
Jemma scoffs. “That’s generous.”
Daisy shrugs. “You did. I was just here to help.”
Despite the promise of an upcoming date, Jemma still feels unwilling to leave, unwilling to say goodbye to Daisy. As she stands on the sidewalk, watching Daisy relock the store behind them, she asks, “Do you want to come to the holiday party with me tonight? I know it’s short notice and it’s no Die Hard but…” She trails off hopefully.
Daisy purses her lips as she seems to consider the offer. “You know, there are two things I can never say no to,” she remarks. “The first is baking cupcakes. The second is a beautiful girl.”
Jemma rolls her eyes. “Cheesy. But I’m flattered nonetheless.”
“I think Die Hard can wait,” Daisy says decisively. “John McClane will understand.”
“Well hopefully I can be a better date than Bruce Willis,” Jemma remarks.
Daisy grins. “Somehow I don’t think it’ll even be a contest.”