Lessons in Rule Breaking and Other Reader-Inserts*Steve Rogers*Reader*

The Recipe for Love - Pt.1/1

Also known as 'The Making of Love'.

The words Bucky said were nothing but innocent, truly. Except they wormed their way into your brain and now you're worried you're not enough.

A proper woman should be able to cook for her man.

Too bad you're a walking kitchen disaster; you'll just have to try in favour of your relationship with Steve flourishing, won't you? What could possibly go wrong?

-.-.-

I'd say I attempted this to be short and it turned out longer than excepted, but seeing as that is a recurring theme with my fics, it seems ridiculous to point it out. Heh, done it anyway.

Also, due to unbearable fluff in this fic, I consider it my annual Christmas fic, because my brain is too in scrambles and there's no way I'm gonna write anything else that would actually be Christmas-themed.

Enjoy :))

-.-.-

The Recipe for Love

He had been gone for a week now, in the middle of nowhere in Bulgaria, while you stuck to your paper-pushing as you sometimes jokingly put it. And the truth was, you were truly missing him.

You always did.

It had been a year since your occasional meetings in the hallways of SHIELD's headquarters, where you worked as a part of the surveillance and decryption team, turned from small talks to something much more. That charming smile of his could get him just about anywhere; and your heart was no exception, letting Steve Rogers in with a welcoming drumroll and fireworks, because he was such a gentle soul despite what he had been through that you let yourself fall in love embarrassingly easily.

Steve surely didn't seem to mind, working his way deeper and deeper into your heart, owning it all and giving you his own in return.

He was everything you could ever dream of; not a perfect man perhaps, but an undeniably good one.

You were far from a perfect woman; however, Steve was always the one to tell you that you were perfect for him, making it so clear that you couldn't but believe him. When he had offered to move in together only four months into your relationship, you hadn't even hesitated, reassured by his confidence in what you two had. It didn't even seem too fast, considering how seriously he was meant to take a relationship given the time he had been born into.

Considering all of this, there was little space left for doubt; you hadn't been so happy in a very long time.

And then Bucky Barnes opened his big fat mouth and messed it all up; not that you could blame him, because he was only being honest, giving you the piece of information without a single drop of foulness in his intention.

"So, Steve's coming back," he threw into a conversation you had fallen into after a random encounter (or was it? With him, you were never sure anything was random) and you felt your lips automatically curl up in a smile.

"So I heard. He should be here in the late afternoon, but he told me I shouldn't expect him home till eight. He even asked me not to wait up for him here," you said, not finding anything strange about it.

Steve was considerate – one could never tell how long the debriefings would get, so sitting in the office chair, waiting possibly for endless hours, that was simply something he wouldn't allow.

Plus, he apparently enjoyed coming home and finding you there, which was more than okay with you – you could understand. Home tended to feel warmer when there was someone waiting for you; when he could, not being away on the mission god knew where, he would make sure to wait for you as well. It was the sweetest thing to come back home to him after a long day; imagining being on a mission for a week or longer, it must have felt like heaven.