#i picture this as being part of my post-endgame fixit au

[chaossmagic]

writing prompt: stucky trying a new recipe together. Something that implies they're going to be around a long time to eat it. Like jam or pickles.

"You sure you got enough there, pal?" Steve asked, leaning in the doorframe of their kitchen, wiping the last flecks of tacky paint residue off his hands. He rolled the paint-stained cuffs of his flannel shirt up to his elbows as he crossed the room to where Bucky stood at the stove, stirring an enormous bubbling pot of blackberry jam. More pans with smaller amounts were littered across the countertops; a row of clean, steaming jars sat on the table, ready to be filled.

"Ha ha," Bucky snorted with sarcasm, giving the jam another stir and sticking in a vibranium finger. He pulled out a purple-jam-covered fingertip and inspected it carefully, tongue poking out as he concentrated in a way Steve thought was utterly sweet and very, very adorable. Clearly, it wasn't the right consistency yet, because he frowned, wiped off his hands, and went back to stirring. "I thought you were out of terrible ideas when you gave up the shield. Guess I was wrong." He turned off the stove and turned to face Steve, arms crossed in front of him. But Steve could see the teasing in his eyes, the faint twinkle at the back of the deep blue, the frown that didn't quite reach his lips, stained faintly purple along with a smear of blackberry jam on his nose and more purple stains on the fingers of his right hand.

"Still can't believe you're practically a farmer's wife now," Steve joked, stepping closer to him, smelling the sweet fruit and sugar on him, layered on top of his cologne and the wax he put in his hair these days, making the soft spikes shine. "James Buchanan Barnes, gone all domestic in his old age."

"Fuck off, punk, you're older than me," Bucky retorted, fake-wriggling away as Steve pressed his face into his neck and kissed him all over the exposed skin of his throat and collarbone. He felt Bucky's hands come up to thread through his hair, now longer and thicker than it had ever been - even more than when he'd been on the run those years, and getting a decent haircut was out of the question - and stroke the soft golden strands fondly. Steve eventually straightened up and wrapped his arms around Bucky's waist, grinning.

"Guess we'll be eating blackberry pie for a while then?" he asked.

"Be eating it longer than that time all we had was cabbage soup twice a day for a month," Bucky replied. "When was it, winter of '37? You know I can't stand the sight of cabbage soup now 'cause a' that. You try to get me to eat it, I'll puke."

Steve grimaced; he definitely remembered that solid month of nothing but increasingly-questionable quality cabbage boiled to death in broth that nothing but a single carrot and a tiny piece of onion in it. He didn't blame Bucky for completely avoiding the stuff now, even though culinary tastes had come along way since those days.

"Well, pie is definitely better than cabbage soup," Steve said, pressing a kiss to Bucky's forehead. "Especially when my beautiful, talented husband spent his day making it because I'm the idiot husband who suggested that planting fruit trees might be a good idea."

"We'll be eating blackberry pie till we both drop dead," Bucky said.

"That's an awfully long time," Steve said. Then he smiled. "I can't wait. We've earned it."