Search for the Soul Gem

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The heroes were all collected around on the couches and chairs staring up at a TV over the fireplace that I hadn't noticed when we first came in. The news was on but the journalist speaking wasn't talking in a language that I understood.

"Welcome back doll, we were getting worried about you and Stark," James leaned his head back on the couch he was in and smirked over at me. I smiled back at him and walked up to the back of the couch that he was sitting on next to Steve and Sam.

"I'm fine. Are you guys hungry?" I asked. They all turned their attention to me, suddenly more interested in me than the news.

"Are you offering?" Clint asked.

"Yeah, what do you guys want?" I asked.

"You don't have to do that Lucy," Steve said.

"It's the least I can do for you guys saving me. I can never hope to repay you but I can make you dinner," I said.

"I'm sold," Sam said. I smiled down at him and looked around the room.

"What do you guys want?" I asked. They all shared a look before anyone spoke up.

"Darling, if you're cooking, I'll eat whatever you put in front of me," Clint said, crossing his arms over his chest and lounging himself back further into the chair he was sitting, dropping his feet to rest on the table in front of him. The rest of the team nodded in agreement and left the choice of food up to me. I nodded at them as I made my way back toward the kitchen. Really, what I made was up to the contents of the fridge and pantry. I went up to the fridge and pulled the fridge doors open. The fridge was shockingly well stocked for being a rental house. There was fresh produce stacked up on the shelves in the fridge and fresh dairy that lined the door and filled the cheese drawer that hung under one of the shelves. Eggs that looked like they were fresh from the coop sat in a whicker basket with a cloth protecting the delicate eggs from the harsh basket. Wrapped in clean white butcher paper were expensive cuts of beef, pork, and pultury. A special drawer with a label in a language I didn't know but with a poorly drawn picture of a fish under it. I pulled the drawer open to get a better look at the fish that were in the drawer. The first wrapped package I saw had a label printed on it in large letters the work Laks. Below it in smaller letter was the work Salmon. I pulled out the package and set it on the counter. The fridge door behind me driffed closed as I unwrapped the package to see how much fish was actually in it. When the package open, five fillets of salmon fell onto the paper. I bit the inside of my cheek as I turned back to the fridge. I opened the drawers again and found another package of salmon. With that, I returned to the other package on the counter. Now I had enough fish for all the heroes in the house to at least have one, excluding me because Banner probably wouldn't let me eat real food yet. I returned to the fridge and pulled the doors open. The produce was all stacked nicely on the shelves and was calling for me to rifle through and find something to go along with the fish. I dug through the fridge until I found basil and spinach. Out of the drawer with cheese, I found a package of feta cheese and added that to the counter with the fish and the basil and spinach. I closed the fridge door and made my way to the pantry. From the pantry, I found sun-dried tomatoes and a package of rice and a reciepe came to mind that I could make for everyone here. I wasn't much of a cook but I'd managed to pick up a few things from my college roommate. Her parents had owned a chain of resturants and she'd worked in the back her whole life. She'd taught me how to make stuffed Salmon one day when I'd complained abut being unable to cook.

"It's really easy. It looks intercate and fancy but really it only takes about 20 minutes cook time and like 4 ingrediants," she'd explained to me as she prepared the ingrediants and I sat on the counter next to her watching her carefully. I hadn't cooked in a long time, so I hoped I still remembered the reciepe accurately. The first thing she'd always told me to make sure that I washed all the produce and meat before you worked with them. I turned on the faucet and ran the spinach, basil, and every fillet under the water quickly. Once they were all clean, I turned off the water and went back the counter. I turned to the oven and studied it closely to try and figure out how to turn on the oven. It looked like a basic oven but the numbers on the oven were in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. I knew how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius but it took a minute. If I wanted to warm the oven to 375°F then I'd need to heat it to 190°C. I turned the dial to heat up the oven and turned to the cabinets to look for a pan. After a few failed attempts, I found a decent sized, oven safe pan. I set it on the counter and went back to the food on the counter. I reached over and pulled a knife from the block and started cutting the fillets of fish in half. Once they were all cut, I placed a pan on the stove and turned on the heat. In the pan, I put the sun-dried tomatoes in the pan to let them simmer for a short minute. While that was on the heat for a minute, I started chopping the basil and spinach. Once those were chopped, I threw them into the pan with the tomatoes and stirred them once. After the three minutes of cooking time, I took the pan off the heat and turned it off. I tore open the container for the feta cheese and dumped it into the pan. I stirred it aroud for a bit until it was decently mixed in and spooned it into the waiting fish. Once they were all filled and the pan was empty, I moved all the fish to the pan. The oven beeped to show that it was heated to the correct tempurature. I pulled open the oven door and dropped the pan into the oven. With the oven door closed, I glanced over at the clock on the wall. In 20 minutes, the fish would be finishing cooking. There wasn't much more for me to do besides throwing the rice into the microwave to steam it and that didn't need to be done just yet. I leaned agianst the counter and looked out at the living room toward the heroes as they watched the news on the TV. From the stairs on the wall, I heard the creaking of someone walking down them.