The Grumpy Sunshine Series

The Bake Sale (Part 1)

Originally Posted: 07/10/2022

The last thing Bucky expects to hear after days away on a grueling, exhausting mission as he rounds the corner into the kitchen are the sounds of complete and utter chaos.

The quiet hum of the oven, the consistent, pained thrum of an overworked mixer, pots and pans being shifted and clattering together, the smell of something burnt clinging to the warm air.

He sighs in resignation, knowing that he probably doesn't want to know.

No, he knows he doesn't want to know.

He's so sure that he doesn't want to know that he turns on his heels to walk away before the curiosity can lure him in. He only falters when he hears you and Sam childishly bickering back and forth, truly only like siblings would. He'd spent the better part of an hour looking for you in the Compound, normally, you're the first one to greet him after he's done debriefing, but today you were nowhere to be found.

And now that he thought about it, he hadn't heard from you all day. Not since your text the night before about potentially cancelling your date for tonight because he'd been gone for so long and you were worried he'd be exhausted.

And just like that, his curiosity gets the best of him.

"Stupid metric system," Sam loudly groans as Bucky pokes his head into the kitchen.

"What does the metric system have to do with you burning chocolate?" you retort, a humorous amount of irritation in your voice.

"How am I supposed to know what a double boiler is? Does it look like I've ever double boiled anything ever?!"

"It definitely doesn't mean you throw it in the microwave! Now we have to start over!"

"We're never going to finish if we start over. Can't we just use it like this?" he asks, trying to scrape the burned bits from the glass bowl.

"Do you hear yourself?" you chide. "We can't use that!"

You're faced away from the doorway when Bucky silently sidles in from behind you. You jolt at the surprise, but the second you feel his familiar touch you relax, your annoyed expression fading as he wraps his arms around your waist from behind you, he murmurs, "What are you doing? I've been looking for you."

"Hi," you hum, the irritation leaving your voice as you speak to Bucky.

"Hi," he greets, his voice a gruff whisper. "What're you doing?"

"Helping Peter for a bake sale."

"And where is the little menace?" he asks with a playful disdain in his voice.

You playfully slap his shoulder as he scans the disaster that makes it look like a bakery threw up on the kitchen island. "You need to let that go."

"No."

"Not that anyone's acknowledged me in the last five minutes, but I have to agree with Bucky," Sam interjects, throwing the kitchen rag down on the island. "I don't even know how I got roped into helping him."

"Anyway," you sigh, shaking your head and rolling your eyes as you ignore yet another one of Sam's sarcastic jabs at Peter. "Pete said he was going to talk to MJ."

"And then he ditched us to go 'patrol'," Sam adds, his voice just above disapproving mutter.

"He's a busy kid," you defend.

"If he's not here doing the work, why should we have to keep going? We're not the ones raising money."

"It doesn't matter, we promised we'd help so we're going to help," you state, pointing a spatula at Sam as a vague threat.