Summary:Nothing like the celebrating the approach of autumn with a batch of freshly-frosted cookies. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Steve's been out doing errands….and for once, Buck didn't come along. When Steve gets home, the apartment is redolent of the sweet smell of cookies baking. They're cooling on racks on the kitchen table and counter, in the shape of autumn leaves….and Buck is running a hand blender in a batch of orange icing. Looks like he had a wild hair to indulge his sweet tooth.
It was one of those odd errands that happens once in a blue moon: new hand towels. The ones hanging in the kitchen have seen better times, a bit tattered around their edges for the amount of love they receive, and Steve (with his eye on the mail) had seen the coupon for the housewares store land on the counter.
He returns indeed to the scent of sweet, light pastries and exhales an appreciate hum even as he kicks off his shoes at the door. "Never could resist a good recipe, huh?" The Captain twinkles towards his husband as he then saunters to the island counter. On a spare area of countertop, he pulls out and lays down the selection of kitchen towels. One green pairing, one pairing with a bright white-on-blue patterning of spots, and the last pairing appropriate for the season: one black, one orange, both with 'BOO' embroidered on them in big letters.
"Made sure they felt like they'd actually absorb something instead of being good for about nothing," he adds as he folds up the cardboard bag to be placed in the recycle bin. Approaching from behind, he attempts to hide the scoop of his finger along the icing-bowl's inner curvature with a loud smooching kiss to Bucky's ear.
A sniper's eyes miss nothing, and they certainly don't miss that. But he only snorts, shaking his head a little. "We needed 'em. I forget, sometimes, just how much money we got. I still think in terms of the war, when I made fifty bucks a month," Buck says. Then he turns his head to smooch Steve on the cheek, leaving a smear of orange icing. "I love this time of year."
Drat, not stealthy enough to fool the Winter Soldier. Steve is unrepentent nonetheless and cleans his fingertip of the frosting with silent gusto. "Mmm," comes the approval for the taste of it, sugary and rich without being teeth-rottingly sweet.
"You 'n me both," the Captain adds as he walks back over to the collection of hand towels. Carefully popping the tags and small plastic hangers from them, he puts them aside to be laundered before use. "Had a coupon for these anyways, so you needn't worry your frugal little heart." He seems to have either not yet realized about the orange frosting smear on his cheek or is wearing it as some badge of culinary honor. In a t-shirt and jeans beneath a light zip-up sweatshirt, he leans back against the counter, palms rolled over its edges. "I assume you'd like some help frosting 'em all."
Those true-blues linger on the cookies cooling on their racks and flicker back to Bucky again. What Steve really means, of course, is 'help eating them as I frost them and put them in my mouth at a rate of 1 eaten to 2 frosted'.
That's what they're for. Fattening supersoldiers…if they could be fattened. "That's fine. I mean, we got money," he says. "I still can't believe how much money we got, honestly." Buck is habitually thrifty, though, those scars of the Depression. "Sure. I think I might make some of 'em red and yellow, but let's use up the orange, first." He gives Steve a grin already tinted orange.
The orange-coated teeth are enough to make the blond soldier laugh and flash a perfectly white grin of his own back. It won't be long before his own smile will shine with an autumnal sheen, surely.
"Lemme get a butterknife 'nd once you gimme that bowl, I'll go to town." — at that aforementioned rate of consumption verses display, of course. Silverware rattles as he opens the drawer and then plucks out his frosting utensil.
"It is amazing though, the numbers in the bank. I check sometimes 'nd it's…" Steve pulls his lips to one side before his face sports a bemused little smile. "It's not that I want to pinch myself, but more like the numbers never make sense for just a snap-second."
He knows how this works. And it's fine. Happy domesticity, the assassin tamed to hand, cyborg housewife. "I do pinch myself. But yeah. I mean, three dollars for a gallon of milk? And we used to be able to get a meal for five cents? I can't get use to it. And nobody using cash…" He has these moments, the whole man out of time thing. "I'm glad you're with me, and you remember what it was like," he says, suddenly more serious, as he starts dishing the cooled cookies onto a tin platter. "I'd….people now don't understand."
The Captain's patrician features echo the solemnity of the moment. "It's still nice to be able to pay with cash at all," he murmurs, his tone begrudgingly agreeing that the times are a-changing. "'nd they might not understand until they're older. We're a couple of dinosaurs as is if you think about it." With quiet, comfortable steps, Steve ends up beside the Soldier and briefly aligns his body to lean against the man.
"But if you start yelling at kids to get off our lawn, 'm gonna have to call you out on it." Reaching in, he snags a cookie and spin-steps away, headed for the frosting bowl. A swipe of his butterknife and a smeared daub of orange and crunch: all gone, straight in his mouth.
"Fat'f really goodf," comments he of the chipmunk cheek, pointing towards Bucky with his frosting knife.
Buck dissolves into laughter. "I knew you'd do that," he says, pink-cheeked. "And you know what, that's fine. That's what they're for, and they're so damned good right off the rack, freshly frosted."
Then, suddenly, there's that *look* in his eyes, the grin gone feral. "We'll have a little left over, I bet. I should paint you with it, pretend you're a big cookie."
"Yef, they are," agrees his other half with a guffaw hidden away by the span of his hand now. Wouldn't want to spatter the baker with crumbs. Steve's eyebrows flick at the sudden distinctive facet of attention on himself. Cheeks might pink on his husband, but there go his ears, distinctive lighthouses broadcasting his charmed fluster at the suggestion. Ah, the curse of Irish skin.
"That's definitely a thought," the Captain allows before he returns to grab another cookie. This one isn't going in his mouth. Rather, with another daub of frosting spread with artful pressure and care along its gently-goldened surface, it ends up hovering before Bucky's face. "Here you go, sweet tooth, the reward of your efforts." Those dimples are weaponized now.
He takes a neat bite, chews, looks blissful. "I love that I can have sugar whenever I want," he says, around that mouthful of crumbs. "I love cooking whatever I want, and not having to worry about getting the old bread or the half-rotten fruit 'cause it's cheap…"
Buck looks down for a second, glances up. "I like our home," he says, almost plaintively.
Expecting the entire thing to disappear in a mirrored hamster-like devouring, Steve leaves it hovering where it is. His hip takes up an easy lean on the island counter's edge again and his laugh-lines soften as he looks at his husband. Sheer, perfect luck, ending up with this man after the mountainous efforts of the world to separate them…
The pale eyes framed and peering up through dark lashes take him through the heart as they always do. Setting the cookie aside, the Captain then gathers up his beau into his arms for a strong, secure, soothing hug. "«It's home because of you, brave-one,»" he murmurs against Bucky's temple in Gaelic before kissing it gently.
There is nothing in the world better than being leaned against that wall-like chest and held in those arms. The one safe harbor amidst all the danger and hostility. The silky dark hair smells of clean shampoo, though there's a distinct tinge of sugar to him at the moment. He leans his head on Steve's shoulder and sighs like a tired animal.
Steve takes up a gentle rubbing of palm up and down the man's back with one hand, leaving the other in its placement just beneath his floating rib. His arms continue to bisect the Soldier's back. He notes, idly, that he placed down the butterknife on the tile and it's left a spectacular smear of orange across the counter's usually pristine surface.
Oh well.
Acting the anchor in a chaotic world is more important than Lysol wipes anyways.
Buck only indulges himself for a moment, then he peels away to go back to frosting cookies. But he's smiling dreamily to himself. Being cuddled by Steve does induce a contact high.
Having banished the fleeting shadows from Bucky's face and now observing him in a state of quiet delight instead, the Captain can count himself content in turn.
Well, not entirely true, he needs to eat at least five more cookies, frosted or not, before he admits to himself that he'll be entirely content. Standing sentinel beside his husband, he takes up the butterknife as frosting paintbrush and is very good about putting down a good number of bright orange leaves instead of putting them in his mouth.
For the most part.