AN: /u/Bohogal1998 wanted to see Chapter 6 extended and I can't seem to resist these two in the kitchen so this short fic is the result. This chapter is just a longer version of the original Chapter 6.

"I just don't understand it," Tony said, gaping at Ziva's oven, looking utterly bewildered.

Tony had persuaded her that the best way to finish off a day of ice-skating was baking cookies. A proper American winter tradition apparently no matter what your religion was. She'd agreed because it was freezing, abominably so, and, to be honest, baking cookies in the nice, warm indoor sounded good. Very good.

She was now regretting that.

"I told you to stay away from the oven!" she scolded.

Honestly, her partner was like a small child sometimes (read – a lot of the time), especially around things with knobs and buttons. He wanted to try them all. Ok, he wasn't quite that bad but he did want to be involved in every step of the process, always had to know what was going on. It made him an excellent agent but an annoying baking partner. He was never allowed anywhere near her when she was making challah.

"I only turned it up a little," Tony complained. "I know better than to double the temperature or something stupid like that. Movies taught me something."

She did not know what that meant but she shook her head and rolled her eyes anyway. She was actually impressed, if annoyed, she wasn't aware that cookie dough could explode like this. It was not going to be fun to clean up. She couldn't even see properly into her oven; it was that coated in cookie dough. Had they even used that much dough in the first place?

She was pretty sure that something was still bubbling in there. There were definitely suspicious noises coming from in there.

"Is it safe to open?" Tony asked in a loud whisper.

An unimpressed look was directed at him. There was only the two of them in here, why was he whispering?

"You heard those noises!" he said defensively in response to her look. "I don't want to end up with scalding cookie dough exploding onto my face if we open the oven!"

"I turned it off," she pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

That was the logical thing to do, was it not? She had turned it off as soon as she could get herself to the oven when they heard the BANG that came from it.

"That doesn't stop anything cooking. It's still warm in there," Tony argued.

"I know that."

She did know how ovens worked after all. Apparently, her partner did not. This was all his fault in the first place. Why he thought adjusting the temperature was a good idea, Ziva would never know. Scientific curiosity was more Abby's thing.

Ziva tapped her foot impatiently as Tony continued to give her oven suspicious looks. They would have to open the door at some point and she needed to know what mess she was dealing with.

"Are you sure it's off?" he queried, eyes narrowing at her.

It wasn't intimidating in the slightest. It was actually kind of funny and she would have been amused if she wasn't so annoyed.

"Yes," she replied in exasperation and pointed at the knob. "See? That is at zero. That means that it is off."

She allowed a little bit of sarcasm to creep into her tone. Tony took no heed of it as he pressed his ear against the oven door.

"Maybe we should turn it off at the mains," he wondered out loud, looking around her kitchen for a means to do that.

"No."

"But Ziva-"

"No."

He was definitely not going to turn her oven off at the mains. It messed with the settings on in in particular – the time. It would literally not let you set a timer if it was even slightly out of sync. An annoying feature? Yes. But she had to put up with it.

Tony grumbled at her. "If this cookie dough burns my face off it's going to be all your fault."

She gave him another eyeroll for his dramatics. They really weren't needed here; it wasn't like they were dealing with a bomb. She told Tony that.

"It could act like one. Who knows what state this cookie dough is in?" he said stubbornly.

With a sigh, Ziva grabbed the blindfold Tony had used on her earlier to repurpose it as an oven mitt. The oven door was tugged open, both of them choking on the dark smoke that billowed out of it.

Burnt cinnamon and sugar was not a good smell.

Ziva stumbled over to her window to open it, hoping to clear the air – which it did. Slowly. The smoke was awfully thick. What had happened in there? Tony was coughing violently, doubled over. It sounded like he was gagging. Ziva hovered anxiously over him, knowing that this could not be good for his compromised lungs.

"I'm ok," he coughed out weakly, waving her off.

That wasn't exactly the most convincing argument in his favour. Especially since he coughed again. At least the smoke was clearing, she could see her kitchen again. Ziva couldn't help but be impressed that her oven appeared to be in one piece. She half expected the door to fall off its hinges. She took some hesitant steps forward, not really wanting to discover that the dough acted like Tony thought it would.

Thankfully, dough exploding out of a previously confined space when the pressure was released only seemed to be a creation of an overactive imagination. If anything, it sort of oozed out and not even that fast. She caught the dripping dough on her finger before it dropped on the floor.

"You can eat that," Tony told her, popping up beside her – apparently deeming the appliance safe.

Ziva looked down at the very obviously uncooked dough on her finger and raised her eyebrows. She knew people at this raw cookie dough but she never saw the attraction of it. Cookie dough was meant to be baked after all.

"I am okay."

The smell of it kind of turned her a bit. Now that they were close to the oven, burnt sugary smells were not the only smell coming from it. They were definitely the overwhelming smell but not the only. The acrid smell of the smoke was still hanging around and whatever the heat had done had probably scorched

Tony poked his head into the oven and took stock of the damage.

"There's nothing broken," he informed her in an oddly echo-y tone, not coming out of it. "Trays are still in one place," he pulled his head out and coughed before turning back to her. "There's cookie dough everywhere though."

"You did not need to stick your head in the oven to know that," she replied in exasperation.

"Just making sure it hadn't fried your oven," he retorted. "We don't know what cookie dough explosions could do."

"Make a big mess," Ziva said matter-of-factly, she really wanted to tidy it up.

Tony hummed non-committedly at her and reached out to poke some of the inexplicably still oozing cookie dough. He promptly yelped before she could swat his hands away. What had she said about her partner being like a child?

"Hot!"