[Bucky Barnes; R] Uncivil War: Chapter 19 Character/Series: Bucky Barnes; Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: R Notes: This was not meant to be a chapter of only cupcake baking. Oops. Title: Uncivil War- Chapter 19: Start Again, I Heard Them Say Author:yuuo Word Count: 4780 Summary:Without the drugs to keep his mind hazy, Bucky became aware very early of an uncomfortable and strange setting that he was sleeping in, and snapped awake in alarm.
ring the bells that still can ring forget your perfect offering there is a crack in everything that's how the light gets in -Leonard Cohen
Without the drugs to keep his mind hazy, Bucky became aware very early of an uncomfortable and strange setting that he was sleeping in, and snapped awake in alarm.
A TV stared at him, turned off, with a series of cords sliding off behind it, visible between its stand and the entertainment center it rested on, leading to what looked like a Wii U machine.
The sounds of a second person in the room drew his attention to the left side of the room, where the person in question was a lump under the blankets on a second couch.
Steve.
Couches.
Right.
Steve seemed still asleep, so Bucky crept as silent as possible off the couch, grabbed his pillow and the flannel blanket Steve gave him the night before, and tiptoed out of the lounge and down the stairs.
There was a light on in the cafeteria as he slipped past it on his way to the dorms. He wasn't sure who was up, but he'd deal with them in a minute. He had to return his pillow and blanket to his room with Maria. The blanket had been in Steve's room, but Bucky decided to hold onto it as a token of goodwill between them. If things soured again, he'd give it back to Steve.
Maria woke up slightly when Bucky entered, lifting her head off the pillow a bit when he closed the door. She grabbed her phone off her nightstand and stared at it. "It's five thirty, Bucky, what're you already doing up?" She frowned, looking up at him. "Did the couches not work out?"
Bucky shook his head, depositing his pillow and blanket on the bed next to her. "I didn't have any Ativan last night after I got up. I woke up naturally." He frowned. "Either Sharon or Bruce were already in the cafeteria. Wonder what has them awake."
"Is Steve still asleep?"
"Last I saw." He grabbed his own phone, looking at the date. Hm. Thought so. "He'd better stay that way awhile longer, too. I have some baking to do."
Maria looked back her phone, then up at him in confusion. "What does your phone say that mine doesn't to make that make sense?"
He smiled. "Go back to sleep, Maria. I'll wish you a happy Fourth of July when you're up proper."
Maria's uncomprehending look was solid gold, but quickly faded into understanding. "It's Steve's birthday."
Bucky nodded. "It is. He's ninety eight."
Maria's smile was sleepy as she laid her head back down on the pillow. "Go bake whatever you're baking. I'll be along for breakfast at a sane hour." She set her phone back on her nightstand.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Get some sleep. I'll see you in a bit."
He stayed only long enough to get into proper clothes for the day, then headed down to the cafeteria.
It was Bruce that was up and in the cafeteria. No sign of Sharon, so Bucky could only assume that she was still in bed, like a rational person. Bruce, however, was sitting at their usual table with a cup of steeping tea and the broken recorder. He was staring at it like it might talk if he just waited.
Bruce looked up at Bucky's entrance. "I don't think Kitty wanted to talk to us."
Bucky walked over and took the broken recorder, looking at it, studying it with less frustrated eyes. He could fix it. "No, it's not that," he said. "Steve and I were talking in here last night when she blew it across the room. I think she wants to talk and threw a hissy fit that the adults were in here, talking over her."
Bruce busied himself very suddenly by playing with his teabag, bobbing it in the water. "You two were talking?" The wariness in his voice was palpable.
"Relax, it was a good talk," Bucky said. "First time some things got said and actually heard. Still not moving back in with him, but we slept on the couches in the lounge last night."
Bruce very visibly relaxed. "Oh, good, good." Then he looked at the recorder in Bucky's hands. "Can that be fixed?"
"Mm." Bucky tapped at it gingerly. "It can, but I think the recording from last night is probably gonna be lost, so we'll have to try again and just make sure none of us are dumb enough to come into the cafeteria overnight." He set it down on the table.
"What about putting it somewhere else?" Bruce asked, turning to keep an eye on Bucky as Bucky walked towards the kitchen.
Bucky looked back at him over his shoulder. "Should work. Find a place. I have baking to do."
"At five thirty in the morning?"
"It's Steve's birthday."
"Oh."
Bucky heard Bruce's chair scrape on the floor, then footsteps following him into the kitchen. "You're baking a birthday cake?"
Bucky shook his head, digging into the fridge. "Nope, cupcakes. He doesn't like regular cake."
"But they're the same thing."
"I know," Bucky said, setting his eggs and butter down. "If you wanna help, you can find those cupcake papers I had Sharon buy a week ago."
He judged how much milk he had; there was plenty for the cupcakes and frosting, but he didn't want to force Sharon out to buy more for dinner on the fucking Fourth of July. Ah well, if there wasn't enough, they'd find something that didn't require milk. There were a lot of things they could make.
"What temperature should the oven be at?" Bruce asked.
Bucky blinked. "Oh, uh, three fifty. Thanks, you didn't have to do that."
Bruce smiled, setting the oven to bake. "I know, but if I'm going to be in here, I can at least turn on the oven and get the baking pans ready." His tea mug was at the end of the counter. He motioned to the sink with one cupcake pan. In it was the mug that Bucky had abandoned at the table the night before. "I see you decided to raid my tea."
"Yeah," Bucky said, digging around the counter for his flour and sugar. "Hope you don't mind. My stomach wasn't the happiest last night."
The sounds of paper scratching against paper and then being tucked carefully into the baking pans was not all Bruce was gonna reply with, Bucky knew that, but he also knew that Bruce was considering his words very carefully.
"Your talk with Steve?"
"Didn't help, no," Bucky admitted, beating the butter and sugar together. "We didn't yell, no names were called, there was no violence. Just unpleasant subjects that made my stomach hate me." He motioned up at the cupboard. "Get me another mixing bowl, will you? I'll need it for the frosting."
"You're making frosting, too?" Bruce dug around in the cupboard. "I've always just used Betty Crocker."
Bucky made a particularly rude noise that he reserved for when he wanted to play the grumpy old man. "I'm older than her, I know this shit better than she ever could." He cracked an egg into the mix. "And to answer the question you didn't ask, yes, I said it was a good talk, yes, it was, but good doesn't mean pleasant. Just necessary."
"It ended with you two on the couches," Bruce said. "Couldn't have been all bad." Then he took a step away from the heating oven to grab his tea. "And you're making him cupcakes."
One egg was poised above the bowl, the second to get folded in, but Bucky didn't crack it yet, thinking. "I always do for his birthday," he said finally. "I'm not going to miss his birthday." He finally cracked the egg in and started folding it into the mix. "Bruce, you're not my therapist, you don't have to try to poke at me."
"I know," Bruce said, sipping his tea. "But you need someone to talk to."
"I already talked to Steve," Bucky said. "And before you say that's not enough, it is this time. I had some old issues as the Soldier that Palestine and Steve's attitude about the Soldier shook up and those are mine to deal with. But nothing between Steve and I is going to get better than it is now without him accepting the Soldier." He started sifting in the baking flour. "I can't get rid of him."
"I don't think any of us disagree," Bruce said, leaning on the counter and watching Bucky like he was trying to memorize the recipe simply through observation. "But what about your issues? Are they going to interfere with that?"
Bucky frowned, carefully measuring in milk by sight. "I have to think about it for awhile before I talk to anyone more than I have. I don't think Steve fully understood."
He wasn't even sure Steve fully understood his own problem that made things a problem in the first place. Steve had words, but fear kept words from forming properly. And he'd never been Hydra, not really. He'd never detoxed alone. He'd never lived in the streets with the fears that both needed to state.
So it wasn't likely Steve had understood.
Bucky gave Bruce a sideways glance with an exasperated smile on his face. "And yes, Bruce, you will probably be the one I talk to the most. For someone who insists he's not a psychiatrist, you like picking up the role for us."
Maybe he could get the words out for Bruce and Bruce could try to talk to Steve. Bruce wanted to be psychiatrist, Steve needed the help, too.
Maybe.
Bruce tried to hide a smile behind his cup, but it didn't quite work. "I'm a doctor, I fix people. You guys don't always need the kind of bandaids I can pull out of a box and stick on your stubbed toes."
"You're a good man, Bruce," he said, pushing aside the issue in his brain. With care, he poured the batter into the cups, pausing a couple times to make sure he had the right amount in each cup. Better not enough than overflowing, but really, that one is just gonna be a baby cupcake if that was all he put in there.
"I try," Bruce said, holding out his hand.
Bucky lowered the bowl, batter as evenly distributed as possible, and stared at the out held hand. "What?"
"Give me the bowl. I'll take care of clean up, you make the frosting."
His mouth opened to protest that he had plenty of time to make the frosting before the cupcakes were baked and cooled enough to frost, but he had a feeling he'd lose that one, so with a dramatic sigh, he handed over the bowl. "You're ridiculous."
"And you're funny when you're in a good mood," Bruce said, taking the bowl and heading over to the sink. "And you sound like you're in a good mood now."
"For being up at stupid o' clock, yes," Bucky admitted, turning to his new mixing bowl. He reached for more butter, then paused when something occurred to him. "Hey, Bruce, do we have food coloring?"
Bruce turned on the water, head tilted back in thought. "I think so. When you gave Sharon and I that list for food to restock on, she said 'oh, baking things, got it' and I think she grabbed some because it was in the baking aisle."
"That's a stupid reason to get some," he said, despite its convenience. "Where would it be?"
Bruce looked like a deer in headlights, slowly shaking his head. "I have no idea where she put it. You're asking me to think like her thinking like you, because she would've put it where it would seem logical for you."
What. No. What? "I love her dearly, but that woman has her moments of insanity." Bucky blew out a frustrated breath. "All right, time to scour the briney depths of the cupboards."
Bruce laughed. "You are definitely in a better mood than you have been. Whatever was said last night helped more than your stomach thought."
Bucky opened the nearest cupboard that had his spices , carefully pushing aside bottles and tins. "It was probably more the sleeping on the couch thing," he said. "I missed having him around."
While Bucky shoved aside a tin of cinnamon, Bruce turned off the water and joined him, the dirty bowl apparently forgotten. "I'd ask why you don't move back in with him, but you already said there's stuff to be done yet."
Bucky looked over his shoulder. "Yeah, but we'll get there." He turned back to the cupboard. "Okay, so, it's not with my spices. Where the hell, Sharon."
"Why are we looking for the food dye?" Bruce asked, already investigating another cupboard.
Bucky looked at him, not sure where else to look except the cupboard he checked, and the one Bruce was poking his head into now. "Because I've never given Steve a cupcake with colored frosting. He was colorblind before the war, so he wouldn't have been able to tell what color it was. I just went with white a couple years ago out of habit, and last year we kinda let it slide because that was when Peggy died. I want to give him colored frosting."
"Hm." Bruce looked back out of the cupboard. "Before we go further, we should probably make sure we'd even have the right color. I know she got the basic primaries. What's his favorite color? Since I assume that's the color you're going to use."
"Red."
Bruce turned back to the cupboard, then paused, looked back at Bucky. "And your favorite color is blue, if I recall."
"Yeah."
"And you usually gave him white frosted cupcakes?"
"Shut up and look for the food dye, Bruce."
Bruce didn't continue his line of smartassery, didn't have to, and simply went back to digging around the cupboard, moving aside bags of flour and sugar of varying types. "Oh, here it is. I have no idea why she'd put it with the big things it could get lost behind, but I don't always understand her." He set the red dye on the counter.
Bucky picked it up and looked at it. "Here's my next question. How red does this stuff make things? I'm making buttercream frosting, that's pretty white. This isn't gonna turn out pink, is it?"
"No idea," Bruce said. "Make the frosting, we'll put a tiny bit into a cereal bowl and experiment. That red, it ought to make things darker than pink with enough of it."
"Hopefully. We'll see, I guess."
Bruce made another cup of tea while Bucky worked on the frosting, which really didn't take that long at all. He considered looking for an electric mixer, but he'd eschewed it for the cupcake batter, he wasn't going to use it now. He didn't need that to make good frosting, damnit.
"All right, let's try this," he said after he was sure the frosting was the right consistency.
Bruce pulled out a cereal bowl and handed it over. "No whammy no whammy."
Bucky stared at him.
Bruce waved it off. "Old game show."
"I will never catch up on everything, will I?" Bucky spooned out a tiny bit of the frosting into the bowl and grabbed a teaspoon and the food dye.
"No, probably not," Bruce said. "By the time you catch up on old stuff, more new stuff has come out. Don't worry about it too much, it wasn't a hugely popular game show, I just happened to watch it as a kid a few times."
"Glad I'm not missing much," Bucky said, adding a few drops of dye to the frosting. He stirred it, watching it change color. "That's pink." The red dribble of dye had, indeed, turned an odd shade of pink after being mixed with the white frosting. "Damnit."
"Add a bit more," Bruce suggested. "It might get redder the more you add."
The pink had Bucky less than hopeful, but he tried it anyway. The pink slowly gave way to a sort of red, though not the deep shade that Steve really liked. That might take a lot more dye than he had, and maybe a more professional grade than what could be bought off a normal grocery store shelf.
He evaluated how much dye was left. Enough, he thought, but he was hesitant. "If this isn't enough, I'm going to be giving Steve pink cupcakes."
Bruce smothered a laugh. "Well, pink is just red that hasn't made it yet."
Bucky gave him a dirty look. "I don't want to give Steve pink cupcakes."
Bruce's answer was a shrug. "Well, you could frost just one with that bit of red frosting and that cupcake can be Steve's birthday cake, and the rest can just be white." He looked up at the cupboard. "Or you could add some blue after you've frosted a few and we'll have red, white, and blue. Or is that going to upset Steve too much?"
"He might get grumpy and complain, but he wouldn't be serious about it," Bucky said. Then his eyebrows drew downward. "Maybe not this year, though. Things are still shaky. He might not appreciate the joke."
Bruce patted his left shoulder. "I think you're both missing normalcy enough that he won't be upset. He might actually prefer it to the tiptoeing."
That was a big chance to take, and Bucky wasn't sure he wanted to take that chance. But Steve had asked for the couches, had actually asked Bucky to go back to sharing a dorm, so maybe.
After a moment of deliberation, he decided Bruce's idea was a good one. He set the bowl aside. "Okay, we'll do it that way. If Steve gets pissy, I'm pointing the finger at you."
Bruce smiled. "Blame I will gladly take. If this upsets Steve, he won't take it out on you if he knows it wasn't your idea."
"So we hope," Bucky said. He put a bit more frosting into the bowl with the red dye. "I'm going to make a bit extra with the red stuff. Steve has this thing where he really, really likes this frosting. So he gets extra. Mind splitting the rest and getting that blue dye out?"
"Glad I'm being allowed to help in the kitchen," Bruce said, pulling out yet another bowl and the blue dye. "I'm usually told to go away by you better chefs."
Bucky frowned. "Cooking is a stress reliever for me, and Maria just wants to stay in practice, I think. But if you want a shot at it, I don't mind. You've eaten enough places, you might have something new for us."
Bruce snorted. "Some of that 'something new' I wouldn't feed to people I love. I'm not cruel."
That made Bucky snerk. "Just remember that nothing spicy for Sharon and otherwise don't tell us what's in it. Steve and I will eat most things, we've done some traveling into weird places with weird food too. Me more than him, I think. I still had to eat when I was out on missions, and I was just given local cuisine that had the nutrients I needed in an amount to keep up with my metabolism. And I never asked what was in it, I just ate it. Those were the orders, that was what was given to me, I knew they wouldn't poison me, not when I was still useful."
"There's the girls, though. They might ask questions."
Bucky looked back at him. "You know all you have to do is say 'just eat it first' to that, right? That's how my parents handled it, that's how Missus Rogers handled it. I know you're nobody's parent here, but that's the best way to deal with fussy eaters."
"I thought you weren't a fussy eater," Bruce asked, stirring the bowl with blue frosting. That was coming out much better than the red had wanted to.
Bucky set aside the bowl with the red-not-pink frosting and started rinsing the dishes that were no longer needed. "I wasn't, but I was curious, and some of my younger siblings were fussy. If they knew what they were eating before they tried it, they might not've given it a chance. There were a few things that Rebecca refused to eat ever again after finding out what was in them, even though she'd enjoyed it before. I was fine with it."
"You and Steve are like human vacuums," Bruce said in an amused tone, adding a bit more dye to his bowl of frosting.
Bucky shrugged, loading the rinsed dishes into the dishwasher. They'd get a proper cleaning once the cupcakes were done and frosted and the rest of the dishes could be thrown in there. "High metabolisms, non-fussy eaters. Steve's always been adventurous, and my excuse was that I understood that humans had evolved to eat about anything, so my system could probably handle whatever was put in front of me. Our ancestors did a lot of experimenting."
Bruce wiped the spoon he'd been using on the edge of the bowl to get off the excess frosting before handing it over. "I remember you were raised in an atheist family. Sounds like that led to a lot of science in the home."
Bucky took the spoon. "Yeah. Mom was a former Christian, became very apathetic about the whole issue sometime before she married Dad. Dad was an evolutionary biologist, he was very firm on making sure we learned proper science instead of hearing creationism as a plausible alternative to how life changed over the years. So I learned a lot about human evolution and how that impacted what was safe for me to eat and what wasn't. Humans aren't quite as capable of handling everything in sight like our ancestors, but we're an omnivorous species evolved from animals that would eat literally anything they could find. Shit, Bruce, we eat borderline toxic vegetables for fun."
Bruce laughed. "Bucky, I'm a medical doctor who's treated patients in places you probably wouldn't consider sane to go to. Believe me, I know all about what we're able to eat to survive." Then he moved to lean sideways against the counter to face him. "Although I wonder which vegetable you were talking about. There's a lot of them."
"I was thinking peppers," Bucky said. "Capsaicin may kill Sharon, but there's a lot of people who think it's the best shit in the world."
"And people think humans would be the weak species in science fiction and fantasy."
Bucky shook his head. "One of these days, I'm gonna find a book or series that treats us as one of the scarier species in the galaxy, rather than the weak ones that everyone laughs at behind our backs. That day is not today though." He frowned. "I want the damn internet back so I can find some new books. I'm getting bored of rereading what I already have."
"We're all tired of the isolation," Bruce said. "But as long as you and Steve keep making progress, we might get out of here soon."
"That'd be nice." Not a subject Bucky wanted to think too much more on that early in the morning. Time to change the topic. "Have you checked the video from downstairs yet?"
Bruce shook his head. "I'll go do that now, get that out of there before she throws another temper tantrum."
That left Bucky alone with his thoughts, Bruce gone very quickly. He was a scientist eager to see if an experiment had produced any useable results, Bucky wasn't surprised that he had disappeared out the door so fast.
But it'd meant Bucky's only company at six in the morning was baking cupcakes and patriotic frosting and a sick feeling in his gut that the cupcakes might not be welcome, or that Steve would take it as moving faster than Bucky actually was. Steve wasn't really a needy person, but he was lost in Hydra and scared, and Bucky couldn't protect him and had too many angry issues of his own to be able to be there for him like he wanted and it was just a big mess. And Steve might take last night's 'just tonight' to have been decided against and Bucky would just come home.
He wanted to. He really really wanted to. He loved Maria, loved spending the night with her, and they had just gotten everything arranged to live together for a short stint, but part of him already wanted to pack back up and move back across the hall.
But Bucky wasn't sure how strong his grip on his other side was. How easily he could control that issue that was deeply rooted in his brain. Steve needed to accept the Soldier before Bucky could fully deal with that little demon enough to be safe sharing that small of a living space with Steve. And he was just across the hall, Steve could always wake Bucky and ask for the couches if it was really bad.
To be honest, though, he knew it was always bad. The night was always the worst. It would be better for Steve's sake if he just moved back in. At least, on the surface. But putting the Soldier that close to someone who'd rejected him wasn't smart. Bucky couldn't shake that. And it'd just end in more fights and undo any progress that had happened last night.
Bucky idly poked at the red-not-pink frosting with his spoon, trying to convince the ghost that Steve got it, that it should be okay again. But without hearing it from Steve's mouth, the Soldier would never believe that. Bucky would never believe it. He'd try. He'd want to. But there'd been a breach of trust that still stung.
Goddamnit, Bruce, get back up here with that camera.
"Do I smell something baking?"
Bucky looked up at Steve's voice, pushing aside the bowl with the red frosting and stepped out into the kitchen doorway, blocking any attempt at getting in. "You're up early."
"You're up earlier," Steve said.
Steve still had his pillow and his blanket in hand, the blanket trailing behind him like a dress's train, and his hair was a rumpled mess. Even without the bedding, it would've been easy for Bucky to tell that Steve had pretty much just literally rolled out of bed.
"I wasn't drugged to sleep like usual," Bucky said. "Before you worry about anything in here, go take your bedding up to your room and at least brush your hair and wash your face. You look like hell."
Steve grunted. "Flatterer." He stifled a yawn. "Fine, I'll go clean up and get dressed." He squinted at Bucky. "But you're telling me what you're making when I get back."
"Go on," Bucky said, not committing to that statement one direction or the other.
With another grunt that sounded more like a zombie's groan, Steve turned and left, the blanket slowly following him across the floor. Hopefully, by the time Steve was done in the bathroom, he'd be awake enough to be anal about making the bed and that'd give those cupcakes a bit more time.
"Bucky?" Bruce's voice this time, sounding dismayed. Bruce entered the room before Steve's blanket had finished leaving. He paused, looking at Steve. "Oh. Uh. You were going to go get dressed?"
Steve's voice was muffled by the wall, but Bucky heard a 'what happened?'
"Go get dressed," Bruce said, looking down at the camera in his hand. At least, Bucky thought it was the camera. It looked more like a pile of plastic. Great. "Wake the girls."
Shit. Really?
The rest of that blanket disappeared quickly, while Bruce carried the melted remains of the camera over to Bucky.
"I think that temper tantrum might not've necessarily had anything to do with just you two," Bruce said, holding the camera at a different angle. It was a complete mess, like it'd been flash fried.
Bucky sighed. "Well, that ruined my morning. I guess I'll try to fix the recorder, give it one more night, then contact JARVIS to see what he has in his databanks for this. Probably not much, but there's gotta be more than what we're doing. I'm not ready to try to delve into hocus pocus. Not quite that desperate yet."
It was Bruce's turn to sigh. "Yeah." He scowled at the pile of melted plastic in his hand. "I was looking forward to seeing what this might've caught."
"Fire, it looks like," Bucky said.
Bruce gave him a dirty look.
Bucky shrugged. "You left that door open." He glanced back into the kitchen, judging by smell if the cupcakes could handle him going up to the workroom or not. He decided against it and turned back to Bruce. "Mind going up and getting my tools? I'll work on the recorder after the cupcakes are ready. Someone else can cook breakfast."
"I'll do it," Bruce said. He eyed the ruined camera. "I guess I'll leave this up there for now until we figure out a safe way to dispose of it."
"We'll take care of it later. Go get my tools. I have cupcakes to rescue."