Work Text:
This is a magical time in your life when wishes are granted and dreams come true. It may seem that good luck is following you, but actually these happy times are your just reward for being a loving and wonderful person. Your angels are asking you to enjoy your life and have more fun!
“Alright!” Steve clapped his hands, “I need to bake cookies for my book club meeting tomorrow. Wanna help?”
Bucky hesitated. “Yes, but I thought I wasn’t allowed in your kitchen anymore after the Great Potato Incident of 2017.”
“By help, I mean sit on the counter and keep me company without getting anywhere near the oven,” Steve said.
Bucky smiled. “Of course.”
***
“Could you hand me the one cup cup?” Steve asked. “No, the one for the dry ingredients… yes, that one! Thanks.”
Bucky watched as Steve filled the measuring cup with flour before leveling it, adding it to the kitchen aid mixer, and refilling it.
“So, how many cookies you making?” he asked.
“I was thinking a double batch,” Steve said. “So like, six or seven dozen?”
“Why in the actual hell does your book club need that many cookies?” Bucky asked, incredulous.
“Well, I figured we could keep one or two dozen, too. I know you love them,” Steve explained.
Bucky swore he felt his heart grow three sizes. “Thanks,” he said, quietly.
“Sure. Now hand me the salt, please.”
Bucky did. Steve glanced at it and then stopped.
“Buck. This is baking powder,” he said.
Bucky looked. “Huh. Good thing you checked, I guess.”
Steve laughed. “Yeah, it is. That would’ve messed them up a little,” he paused, listening. “Bucky! Are you eating the chocolate chips again? I need those!”
Bucky froze with his hand halfway to his mouth, a guilty expression on his face.
“Nope. I am not, in fact, eating the chocolate chips. This is, uh, quality control,” he said, shoving another handful of semisweet chips into his mouth.
Steve grabbed the bag out of Bucky’s hands. “I need this entire bag, plus the bag of milk chocolate, for these cookies I’m making for you. Please don’t eat all the chocolate.”
Bucky sighed dramatically. “Well, when you put it like that ,” he said, relinquishing both bags of chocolate chips.
The chocolate chips went into the mixer as Bucky stared longingly after them. As Steve turned around to find a spoon, however, Bucky grabbed a bit of dough and stuck it in his mouth.
Steve turned back, spoon in hand, to an innocent-looking Bucky sitting on the counter. He eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t comment. He spooned thirteen even balls of dough--number thirteen is for quality control, okay?--into offset lines on a cookie sheet and stuck it in the oven, setting a timer for eight minutes.
While Steve was preoccupied with setting the timer, Bucky stole another piece of dough from the mixer and ate it quickly. He was still licking his fingers clean (damn metal plates, with all their dough-catching grooves) when Steve turned back around to start spooning dough onto another sheet.
Bucky tried to play it off like he was just getting something out of his teeth, but he knew Steve knew. But Steve didn’t say anything, so Bucky figured he didn’t mind.
Steve continued to ignore Bucky’s thievery as he stole a bite every time Steve went to put a new tray in the oven. Bucky felt so absolutely loved in that moment. Look at him, with a boyfriend who let him steal cookie dough. Take that, everyone. He deserved this.
Soon enough, Bucky reasoned that Steve really didn’t care that he took bites of the dough every so often, and grabbed a piece while Steve was looking.
“Bucky! Did you just steal my cookie dough? There are baked cookies right there!” Steve said.
Bucky was dumbfounded. Did Steve really not notice before? He decided Steve was probably just messing with him. “It’s not the same,” he said, reaching into the bowl for another bite.
Steve looked actually offended. “How long have you been eating my cookie dough?” he asked.
“Uh, the entire time? I thought you knew,” Bucky said.
“No? Why would I continue letting you eat the dough? I need that dough,” Steve pouted.
“Look, take as many as you need to your book club thing and we’ll keep whatever’s leftover,” Bucky said.
Steve rolled his eyes. “Fine, but no more dough for you.”
Bucky put his hand over his heart. “Deal,” he said, immediately grabbing another bite as soon as Steve turned his back. Steve, of course, was endearingly oblivious.
“Why do I let you help again?” Steve wondered aloud as Bucky burned his tongue on a cookie that had been out of the oven for less than a minute.
“B’cause you love me,” Bucky mumbled through a mouth full of steaming hot cookie.
Steve smiled a little and nodded after a second, pretending to think about it. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Without breaking eye contact, Steve leaned over and took a bite out of the cookie in Bucky’s hand.. Bucky, indignant, crammed the rest of the cookie in his mouth.
Chewing defiantly, he said, “Get your own cookie!”
Steve laughed and grabbed one that had been on the cooling rack for a while, eating half of it in one bite.
“Well, that was the last batch of cookies. Thanks for your help,” Steve said, somewhat sarcastically. He put his hands on Bucky’s waist to pull him in for a soft, cookie-flavored kiss.
Bucky, still on the counter, with cookie in hand, couldn’t believe that his life turned out as it had. He had a metal arm, a sunny kitchen, and a beautiful guy to bake him cookies, even after the aforementioned potato incident (nobody told him he had to poke holes in the potato before putting it in the microwave. fight me). Maybe not where he expected his life to be, but as Bucky looked up at Steve he couldn’t imagine being half so happy in any other life.