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Spaghetti Bolognese
It was an affront to the meal. His Mama would kill him if she knew how he was preparing it.
It was the only meal she’d actually known how to cook and they had a weekly Thursday night dinner date in the kitchen when Howard worked late at the office. She’d carry him round on her hip when he was too small to see what she was preparing on the countertops and, when he’d grown a little taller, sit him in pride of place to sound out every word of the passed-down recipe written in her mother’s cursive handwriting.
Of course, Maria knew exactly what the recipe called for – which was a good job when Tony tripped over some of the measurements or skipped down a couple of lines by accident – but she let him play along until he was old enough to help her cook the actual meal itself.
It was definitely the thought that counted, Tony tried to tell himself as he stared down at the meagre ingredients in front of him. He had to work with what he had and what he had wasn’t much. The only tomatoes he’d had in his cupboards were the tinned kind, so the sauce wouldn’t be as good as his Mama’s when she used the fresh tomatoes from the farmer’s market they had to drive out of town for.
He’d only wanted to make something a little special for Steve. Their anniversary had been interrupted by a battle and they’d gone from a romantic meal at a five-star restaurant to suited up and locked in a fight with an alien invader. Given that they were meant to eat out, their kitchen wasn’t exactly stocked for cooking.
“Need a hand?”
Tony lifted his gaze from the two jars of dried herbs he’d been choosing between. Neither were particularly appealing so he was glad of a distraction. “I thought you were sleeping.”
“Woke up,” Steve said, stifling a yawn behind his hand as he wandered over to Tony. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Tony agreed with a roll of his eyes, a fond smile tugging at his lips. He turned back to the dried ingredients in front of him as he waved to the other side of the kitchen, eyes drawn to the way his ring caught the light. “You can chop whichever onion hasn’t gone off over there. I think there’s actually a part of the serum that means you won’t cry whilst you chop it.”
Steve huffed a laugh, trailing his hand over Tony’s hip as he passed him. “Pretty sure that’s not a thing.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out. Dice it finely, please.”
Vegetable Soup
Vegetable soup was easy. Most soups were easy, really. Tony could make most of them with one hand. Chopping the vegetables was sometimes a little tricky with his arm in a sling, but he could stir the vat of broth easily.
After a battle, it was all that anyone needed. A few loaves of bread in the centre of the table and a mountain of pain relievers handed round with the crockery and they were set.
“Can I help?”
Tony looked up from the pot and over to Peter, hovering in the doorway with his arms wrapped round himself. He looked young, so much younger than he was. “You’re meant to be resting.”
“Couldn’t sleep. The pills hurt my head.”
“But they heal everything else.” Tony beckoned Peter over before he turned back to the stovetop. “How do you feel?”
“Like someone dropped a bus on me.”
“Been there. Grab a tomato and stop chopping.”
Peter did so wordlessly, shooting Tony a soft smile as he slid into a chair by the table. “What else do you want me to do?”
“A few peppers, if you’d like.”
“How thick?”
“Whatever you want.” Tony watched Peter out of the corner of his eye, the way that he winced when he reached for a fresh vegetable in the middle of the table and how he moved gingerly with his eyes narrowed into slits. “How bad is it?”
Peter sighed. He worked on carefully dicing his whole pepper before he spoke again. “Bad. I can’t go home. No one can see these injuries. They’re already questioning me and this will push them over the edge of kicking me out.”
“You’re already home,” Tony said lightly, concentrating on adding a few spices to his soup instead of looking back at Peter. He could feel eyes on the side of his face and fought the urge to turn with everything he had. “After we’ve eaten, I’ll show you the papers.”
The pot bubbled, loud in the otherwise silent room. Tony smiled down at it as he stirred in large circles, scraping the side of the vat where the sauce threatened to burn.
“I’d like that.” Peter sniffed a little and let out a muffled curse. “Well. I’m done with these. Can I help you make the bread?”
Rosemary Focaccia
Tony loved making his own bread. When he was a child, their cook would only let him in the kitchen if he promised to be calm and quiet and she’d quickly realised that one way to keep him like that was to prop him in front of an oven to stare at the bread as it rose.
The smell of yeast and the uncooked dough turned Tony’s stomach as he’d gotten older, but there was nothing better than the scent the bread produced when it started to bake. Fresh rosemary only added to that, or maybe even a few cloves of garlic mixed in with the dough.
Focaccia took a long time to knead and for the rising process to get done perfectly, but spending that long watching over it in the kitchen meant that Peter could sit at the breakfast bar to finish his homework and not be alone.
Peter hated being alone. They’d discovered that pretty quickly after he’d moved into the tower with the rest of the team and had all started going almost out of their way to ensure that Peter didn’t have to suffer by himself. It wasn’t exactly a hardship for Steve to sketch in the communal living room instead of his bedroom, or for Sam and Bucky to train on the mats in the middle of the gym whilst Peter ran laps around the edge to get out of his own head.
And if definitely wasn’t a problem for Tony to dig out the recipe books that had been sent to him after their cook had passed away and flick through them to find an old Italian favourite that would take him a good couple of hours to perfect.
Cookies
Cookies were a staple in Tony’s recipe book. There were many different varieties, so many tweaks that could be made to each batch to make a different cookie type for any occasion.
“–so that’s why Ned isn’t allowed into the theatre practice room anymore,” Peter said in-between bites of a pecan and chocolate chip cookie. “So we can’t go in to see Madison when she’s in there. We have to meet in the math rooms.”
Tony nodded along as though he’d understood any word Peter had been babbling on about. “Right.” He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d asked to prompt Peter’s longwinded explanation, but he didn’t mind the company.
“Oi, Spider-kid.”
Peter jumped comically at the voice from behind them and Tony shot an arm out to catch him before he fell off the breakfast bar he’d perched himself on. “Jeez, what – oh. Black Widow. Ma’am, I didn’t, I’m sorry, I–”
“Gym,” Natasha said, throwing a thumb over her shoulder to show where she wanted Peter to go. “Spar session. You’re ten minutes late.”
Peter’s eyes went wide and he scrambled for his phone, paling when he realised that he was, in fact, late. Tony couldn’t hide his amusement and snorted loudly, earning himself a dirty look from Peter and an unamused eyebrow raise from Natasha.
“And don’t think you’re getting out of it, either,” Natasha said to him. “Steve is already down there with Thor. They could do with a third. A mediator of sorts.”
“Oh, no.” Tony shot a faux-upset look towards Peter before grinning at Tash, “sorry, but these cookies just aren’t going to bake themselves, now, are they? Pete’s good for the job, though. Practical experience and all that.”
Peter’s glare was about as powerful as a newborn kitten’s, but it tugged at Tony’s heart nonetheless. Giving him a smile, Tony reached for the batch of raspberry cookies he had just pulled from the oven and counted out ten.
“A special treat,” he said, urging Peter off the breakfast bar and herding him in Natasha’s direction. Setting the cookies on a plate at his side, Tony winked at the kid. “For when you’re finished. You’ll need to get your sugar levels back up.”
Rigatoni Pasta Bake
The only difference between Tony’s preferred version of a pasta bake and the classic that Ana had taught him as a child was that his was a bit more adventurous. It served to make things just a little bit more exiting. Everything he did was done with a flair of the dramatics, so it made sense for cooking to follow the same lines.
Making his pasta bake was an excuse to throw everything in his cupboards into the mixture. A hundred different varieties of cheese for the topping, ground beef and sausages for the filling and whatever vegetables he found in the back of the fridge to make the meal just a tiny bit healthy. Tony loved to make it, loved to spend an entire afternoon shaping each piece of pasta if he really wanted to get out of his head. Experimenting with different sauces was his favourite – a tomato sauce for a rainy Sunday afternoon, a cheese sauce for an evening in front of the television, a mushroom and white wine sauce for a romantic evening in.
His pasta bake was the first meal he’d made when they’d finally adopted Peter, legally and truly. Maybe a small part of him had been wanting to show off, but Tony had really cared about making sure Peter had a real square meal. Something to help him recover from the small scrapes he’d gotten in his night-time brawls, to repair some of the damage of malnourishment from his pervious home.
It was something so simple, but made with so much care.
Apple Pie
As stereotypical as it may have been, Steve loved apple pie. It had been something of a staple in his household when he’d been growing up and his mom had made it whenever they managed to get the fresh ingredients needed. Steve spoke so fondly of her hours in the kitchen, telling how he was often too ill and weak to do much more than sit at her side and watch, that sometimes Tony felt as though he’d been there too.
Sweet pastry wasn’t Tony’s favourite thing to make, so he chose to keep it for really special occasions. The sort of days where he wanted to spoil Steve a little, wanted to make him feel important and loved and all the things that Steve made Tony feel every day.
Tossing out the apple cores and scraps he’d collected on the side of his chopping board, Tony settled in to decorate his pie. He preferred the open-top approach, liking to cover his filling with thin slices of apple and a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar instead of more pastry. Lost in thought, Tony startled when Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist and pressed a kiss to his neck.
“Happy birthday,” Tony murmured as he fell back against Steve’s chest. “Wasn’t expecting you up just yet. Thought I tired you out last night.”
“Hm. You did a pretty good job, but the bed was empty. I don’t like it when the bed’s empty.”
“Sorry, darling. Wanted to make this for your birthday breakfast.”
Steve nosed at Tony’s shoulder, dropping kisses to the bare skin there. The first thing Tony had found on their bedroom floor when he’d woken at the crack of dawn was a workout shirt of Steve’s. Given its size, the material hung off Tony’s frame. It wasn’t practical, but it was cozy.
Sexy, as well, apparently, if the hardness pressing against his ass was anything to go by.
“Pie for breakfast?” Steve asked, hooking his chin over Tony’s shoulder as his hand shot out to snaffle a piece of apple floating in the bowl of warm water at Tony’s elbow. “How lucky am I?”
“Of course it’s pie for breakfast,” Tony said, hands working quickly to place the apple slices on the top of the very-nearly finished pie. He kicked at Steve’s ankle for punishment of the theft, but couldn’t find it in him to be too mean. “It’s not every day you turn four hundred and seventy-three.”
Standing as close as they were, Tony felt Steve’s laugh vibrate through him.
“Demon.”
“That’s me,” Tony replied happily, laughing with Steve and tilting his head to one side when Steve bit at his neck in retaliation. “Now, get off me, you brute. Let me stick this back in to brown.”
Moving back a fraction, Steve’s hands danced over Tony’s stomach. “How long do we have?”
Tony sighed happily when the pie was in, his eyes falling closed when Steve swapped from biting to sucking a deep bruise just above his pulse point. “Long enough.”
Indian Potato Pie
“Here, try this.”
Whatever Steve had been about to say was cut off by Tony shoving a forkful of potato-filled pastry in his mouth.
“Well? What do you think?”
Steve fanned his mouth. “I think it’s hot,” he said through the mouthful of crust. “Did you cook this with lava?”
“But what about the texture? The filling – do you think it needs more of a kick? I only put in a small amount of chilli flakes this time and a lot less ginger than I did before. I think I liked it better last time.”
“Tony,” Steve reached out and caught Tony’s hand, taking the fork from him before twisting their fingers together, “this pie is perfect. You’ve been making it since you were a child. You’ve perfected it so much you could make it in your sleep.”
“No,” Tony said dismissively, turning back to the counter and peering at the unbaked pie on the side. “I think it needs more salt. You can taste it in the crust. Let me just redo the pastry.”
Steve used his grip on Tony’s hand to pull Tony into his chest, wrapping his free arm around Tony’s waist to hold them close together. Tony gave up without a fight, his shoulders slumping as he rested his hand on Steve’s chest.
“Please stop worrying,” Steve whispered. “Replace the bit you shoved in my face and pop it in the oven. It’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Steve ducked his head and caught Tony’s lips in a sweet kiss. “I know you and I know our son. He wouldn’t be bringing someone home unless they were special to him. There’s no way we can scare them off. Not with a pie, at least.”
Recipe Book
The book had taken him years to complete. Tony had started it as a young boy when Jarvis had bought him an empty journal for his fourth birthday. For the first few years of its existence, Tony had hidden it under his bed just in case Howard ever entered his room and caught sight of it.
Every page had been handwritten, carefully crafted letters spelling out the words of each recipe (and most of them had even been spelt right because Jarvis had helped him).
There were sections of his Mama’s recipes, the ones she’d passed down to him from her Mama and even her Mama’s Mama. Though Tony had never gotten to meet either of them them, he’d known even as a child that that was pretty important.
Ana Jarvis had a section as well, one with special Hungarian recipes that Tony had needed a lot of help to spell. He’d shown Ana one day, down in the kitchens. He’d pointed out all the best bits that he’d coloured in the colours of Hungary’s flag and Ana had started crying. Tony had been horrified and started tearing up himself before she promised him that he was a lovely little boy and she was crying because she was so very proud of him. Even as an adult, Tony remembered that he’d gotten a huge hug that night before bed and an extra special plate of lemon squares brought up to his room – made just for him!
As he’d gotten older and his book had gotten fuller, Tony had carefully moved it from journal to journal, cutting out pages and sticking them back into the next edition with slight amendments or scribbled changes to quantities. It was his pride and joy.
“You’re going to take care of this, aren’t you?”
The child stared at him with wide eyes, so big they were nearly popping out of their head. They didn’t speak a word, but their head just about wobbled off with the velocity of their nodding.
“You’re going to listen to Nonno when he tells you what to do in the kitchen?”
Another round of silent nodding and Tony laughed, bending down to his grandchild’s level. Holding out his arms, he let his precious recipe book rest in the palm of his hands, ready for the taking.
“Go on then, bambino. It’s yours.”
Tiny fingers curled over the edges of the stained and battered book, complete concentration etched all over the child’s face. The love Tony felt threatened to beat right out of his chest and he reached out to flick his grandchild’s nose.
“What shall we bake for your first try? I’m pretty sure there’s a good recipe for mini cupcakes in there, somewhere, and I need an assistant chef.”
Tony had no qualms about handing his book down to the next wave of Starks. His children had grown up in the kitchen working tirelessly next to him to feed their teammates and friends, their siblings and their partners. It was time.
The kitchen was the heart of the home, after all.