Work Text:
Bucky woke to his phone nearly ringing off his nightstand. He reached a blind hand over to grab it, swiping to answer without even looking at who was calling.
“Happy anniversary!” Steve yelled through the speaker before Bucky could even mumble a greeting.
Suddenly awake, Bucky sat up, hair in his eyes and blankets tangled around his waist. “Happy anniversary, doll,” he said in an attempt to sound as if he hadn’t completely forgotten about his and Steve’s first anniversary.
“So,” Steve said, “any plans for tonight?”
“That depends,” Bucky said, trying desperately to come up with something. Hoping he hadn’t forgotten about any other plans that night, he continued. “What are you doing tonight at seven?”
Bucky could practically hear Steve’s sunshine smile when he responded. “I think I’m going to my boyfriend’s house.”
Bucky laughed. “I’ll see you then.” They said their goodbyes and Bucky collapsed back into his pillows. He glanced at the clock on his phone and grimaced, highly tempted to just go back to sleep and deal with his own lack of planning later. But, considering that there were only nine hours until Steve would be there, and that Bucky currently had absolutely no plans, that wasn’t really an option. Alright, he could figure this out.
***
He couldn’t figure this out. Bucky got as far as the mall before he remembered a conversation from the week before in which they had agreed not to get each other gifts. Why he thought that was a good idea, Bucky didn’t know. Bucky cursed himself for ever suggesting it to Steve and tried to think of anything else he could do.
New plan: he could take Steve to go see a movie. Still in the mall parking lot, he looked up the theater on his phone and quickly scrolled through the list of movie showings. There were only a couple movies that looked interesting and they had already gone to see one of them the previous weekend. He tapped on the other movie to see showtimes, and very nearly threw his phone out the window. The only showing was nowhere near seven o’clock, and he couldn’t just ask Steve to come over at a different time. At least, he couldn’t if he didn’t want to admit that he had only come up with their plans that day.
Okay, plan number three: a quick scroll through Pinterest for inspiration. He typed ‘anniversary ideas’ into the search bar and considered his options. A lot of the things he found were DIY gifts, but he just can’t do crafts. He couldn’t do that to Steve. Steve would pretend to like whatever passable-but-not-quite-great thing he made, Bucky would just be embarrassed, and it wouldn’t be fun for anyone. Either that or Steve would actually love it and Bucky would still be embarrassed, so that’s out.
The only other thing he saw was ideas for homemade dinners. That was absolutely not a good idea. Bucky had a reputation . He should not attempt to cook anything, especially not for anyone that he liked as much as he liked Steve.
***
That’s when Bucky, noted terrible cook of anything more complicated than pancakes, found himself in the grocery store, staring at a wall of vegetables. When he made the decision to drive there wasn’t immediately clear, but he took it as a sign that he should try one last time to make a decent meal.
Apparently committed to cooking, he quickly found an easy-looking recipe for spaghetti and garlic bread and bought all the groceries he needed, stopping at the last minute to pick out a bouquet of sunflowers, Steve’s favorite flower as well as a symbol of adoration and longevity; exactly what Bucky wanted to convey.
***
With only a few hours until Steve came over, Bucky was starting to get worried. The recipe that he was attempting to follow suggested that he let the sauce cook for one to four hours, and he had about three to let it sit. Spatula in hand, he stood over the stove eyeing the tomatoes and chopped onion in the pan nervously. He wasn’t exactly sure what the instructions intended for him to do, but he made his best guess--mostly based on years of watching cooking competition shows--and followed it. He added garlic and a few other ingredients before panicking a little and picking up his phone.
“Sam. I need help,” Bucky said as soon as his best friend picked up. “It’s my anniversary today.”
“Happy anniversary?” Sam said.
“Thanks, but that’s definitely not why I’m calling,” Bucky said without elaborating, having been distracted by an overturned carton of mushrooms.
“Okay?” Sam asked when it was clear that Bucky wasn’t planning on continuing. “What do you need?”
“Well, Steve was like ‘you don’t have to get me anything’ so I thought it would be a nice surprise if I cooked us dinner instead,” Bucky said. “But-”
“But you can’t cook,” Sam interrupted with a sigh. The sauce started bubbling a little too much, so Bucky quickly switched to speakerphone and set his iphone on the counter. He cursed under his breath and picked up a spoon. Why did he think this was a good idea?
“What are you making?” Sam asked.
“Spaghetti,” Bucky said. “I thought it would be easy!”
“Alright, Bucky, you can do this. What are you doing right now?” He explained what was going on and Sam laughed at him but explained what he was meant to do. Bucky thanked him profusely and hung up before getting out his meager supply of nice plates and silverware to set the table.
***
By the time Steve got to his house, Bucky thought everything was going well. He presented the flowers he bought with a flourish, laughing as Steve offered his own bouquet of Bucky’s favorite flower. They stepped inside, the scent of something delicious filling their noses.
“Something smells good,” Steve said.
“I may have actually cooked,” Bucky said, grinning.
“Wait, really?” Steve asked. He had been the unwilling recipient of Bucky’s attempts at cooking before. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t try that again. And it smells so good!”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to sound so surprised. I thought I should do something special for our anniversary,” Bucky said. “Now sit down, it’s almost ready.” Steve obligingly sat and looked up at him expectantly. Bucky left and came back carrying two plates piled high with delicious-looking spaghetti.
They were halfway through their actually pretty good dinners--complete with undeserved and frankly inappropriate compliments from Steve--when Steve looked up.
“Did you leave the stove on?”
Bucky dropped his fork and moved to stare up at the ceiling for a second. “I, uh, I made garlic bread, too.”
He got up and walked into the kitchen with Steve close behind. There was smoke leaking out of the oven. A quick glance at the stovetop confirmed that Bucky had left the broiler on high when he sat down to eat. Bucky sighed dramatically and pulled open the door.
Smoke billowed out, the fire alarm started beeping, and it was soon obvious that the former garlic bread was actually, literally on fire.
“How did you manage that?” Steve asked, laughing and looking for a dish towel to take the pan out of the oven. “Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I’m impressed. It takes skill to set bread on fire. And seriously, if this is the worst that happened, I’d call it a successful date.”
Bucky stared at the flames for a minute longer before finally walking away, never looking back and never speaking of it again.