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When Steve had woken up it hadn’t been the easiest of things. SHIELD had tried to ease him into it with that phony room but they just hadn’t done their research well enough to fool him. Fury’s approach hadn’t been much better, but at least it had been honest. Steve had gone to ‘sleep’ and woken up in the future. The future. It had taken some getting used to (that was an understatement if ever he’d made one), but people were still people, and the problems of the world today really hadn’t changed all that much from his time. Steve figured some things change, and some things never do.
Living in the future had its perks. Steve would wake up every day knowing medicine was so much farther along than he’d ever dreamed it would be in his lifetime. Cars still didn’t fly, but transportation was cleaner than it used to be. Technology and the spread of information was more than he’d ever dreamed and was dizzying in its vastness. He was grateful for the team and for the safe haven Tony had provided them in the tower. The team gave him a direction and a focus when the world just got a little too foreign for him. Which it did on a regular basis. It was like, every time he learned something new the edges of familiar territory would expand a little. But for every new thing he learned and became familiar with, there were 100 foreign things that threatened to push at his borders and encroach on his territory again. Some days his territory grew, others it shrank.
He learned something new about the world on a daily basis- the internet was full of unknowns and information was everywhere and available to anyone by the bucket load. But there were some things he didn’t expect to be new. Like food. Sure there was food he’d never tried. Steve knew there were dishes from around the world that he’d never heard of, but he was feeling fairly certain he’d heard of the ingredients. Which is why when he walked in on Bucky eating an unfamiliar fruit, he’d been curious. He’d thought he’d known about most fruits. Little did he know how wrong he’d been.
It had started out with Steve walking into the communal kitchen to find Bucky sitting at the counter eating something unfamiliar.
*
“What’cha eatin’, Buck?” Steve asked.
“… I don’t know.” Bucky chewed thoughtfully as he looked at the fruit. “It sorta looked like an apple, but it’s not.” He held it up for Steve to see.
Steve tilted his head. “It’s the color of a pear…”
“Yeah,” Bucky nodded, “weird, right?”
“How’s it taste?”
“Mostly like water. …So, like a pear.”
As the super soldiers were considering what exactly it was that Bucky had grabbed from the fruit bowl, Tony walked in.
“Hey Stark- what is this thing?” Bucky asked, holding it out to Tony.
“Hmmm?” Tony stopped and turned to look at what Bucky was holding. “Oh, that’s a Japanese apple pear.”
Steve nodded. “That must be why we’ve never seen one before- it’s from Asia.”
Tony shrugged. If he remembered right, the fruit had been planted in the states by Asian immigrants during the California Gold Rush. But he didn’t bother to correct them. Things had been hard to come by when they were kids- why add one more thing to that list? They could have all the apple pears they wanted now. Hell, Tony could buy them an orchard for Christmas if they wanted. “Like it?” he asked.
Bucky chewed. “I don’t know. It doesn’t taste like much.”
Steve took the apple pear and bit into it. “You’re right, it tastes a lot like fruity water.” He gave it back to Bucky.
Just then Darcy walked in. “Oooo apple pears! When’d we get these?”
“This morning. There was a fresh batch of them from the suppliers- the seasonal produce has come in.” Jarvis responded.
“Cool! I love these!” Darcy answered as she joined the others at the counter.
Jarvis made a mental note of Darcy’s answer. Darcy was going to have to learn not to say some things out loud- Jarvis had 30 of them delivered to her door in a big basket the next day. The fruit basket had been thoughtful, but she couldn’t eat 30 of them by herself. She’d had to share with Jane and Thor. Mainly Thor. Jarvis hadn’t stopped there though. He’d actually gone so far as to remodel an unused floor for her into an indoor green house of sorts with fruit trees in gigantic planters a while ago when she’d mentioned how much she liked fruit, trees, and green spaces. He’d had several apple pear trees shipped in after he’d learned about her love of them as well. Darcy had no idea how he kept them alive so well (the AI took care of all of the plants since he knew how poor she was at keeping plants alive… RIP Coronel Green, the house plant that Steve had gotten her as a welcome gift when she’d first moved in). They produced some of the best fruit, too.
Bucky pulled out a knife from one the many hidden places on his person (Tony often wondered if Bucky didn’t have some sort of worm hole technology that allowed him to just pull things out of time/space- where else could he keep all those unsheathed knives? Natasha must have had the same tech because slept with them in her pillows) and cut off the part that he and Steve had bitten into. He held it up to Steve, who swooped down with an open mouth, making an ‘aaarrrgh’ noise as he took it with his mouth and chewed the rest of it without bothering to use his hands as he took his sketch pad and went to sit on the couch. Once Steve was taken care of, Bucky started slicing the rest of the apple pear and handing the pieces to Darcy. “Every time I think I’ve seen it all, I see something new- technology aside. I figured I knew all the fruits. Didn’t know these existed until today,” he said to her.
“There’s lots of weird fruits,” Darcy said around a crunchy mouthful. “Right, Tony?”
Tony nodded as he accepted a slice from Bucky as well. “Sure. Grapples, star fruit, dragon fruit, passion fruit, purple sweet potatoes… though I guess that’s more of a vegetable, the kiwano melon, paw paws, the monstera deliciosa-” he didn’t get to finish because the soldiers started bombarding him with questions.
“A purple potato?”
“Yup it-’”
“A…paw paw?”
“Uh-huh-”
“How tiny is a grapple? Do they look like grapes?”
“It’s-”
“Are they crunchy like apples?”
“Yes, they’re-”
“Why’s it called a star fruit?”
“It’s shaped like a star.”
“…What’s a dragon fruit shaped like?”
Tony stopped trying to answer their questions. This could go on all day and the best way to answer them would just be to show them. “Well, that settles it. Jarvis! Order as many different exotic fruits as you can find!” Everyone threw a wide-eyed ‘don’t you dare’ stare at him. Tony back peddled. “Well, ok, maybe not as many as you can find. But order a variety of them.”
“Very good, sir.” Jarvis responded as he began placing orders.
*
The first fruits to arrive were the grapples. Darcy, Jane, Bucky, and Steve were all in the kitchen when Tony walked in with Thor, who was carrying the crate full of them. Setting it down on the counter, Thor picked one up and inspected it. “It is most fragrant- more so than some of the other fruits of this realm.” Everyone took a deep breath- it was true- they smelled really strongly of grape flavoring.
“It’s got a purple tint to it,” Bucky said, holding one up to the light.
“They look more or less like apples,” Steve said, only slightly disappointed that they didn’t come looking more like grapes on a vine. Tiny apples would have been fun to eat.
Jane washed several while Darcy pulled out an apple slicer and made quick work of the ones Jane handed her.
“How the hell is this thing made?” Bucky asked, as he finished his first slice.
“Science!” Darcy responded.
Steve looked at her with some skepticism “…Seriously?”
Tony nodded as he popped a slice himself. “Yup. Of the delicious variety. Food science!”
“They soak them in grape flavor,” Darcy said, looking down at her phone.
Again Steve sounded incredulous, “… Seriously?”
Darcy nodded again. “S’what the company’s website says,” she said as she wiggled the screen at him.
Just then Bucky sneezed. So did Jane. “I think I’m allergic to delicious science, Tony,” Jane said as she and Bucky both sneezed again.
“Yeah,” Tony nodded. “That happens. They make Pepper sneeze too.”
*
When the purple sweet potatoes came in… well, it was a weird day.
“Jesus, it’s actually purple.”
Tony nodded. “I told you they were.”
“Well, yeah, but I figured they were more lightly tinted. Like the grapples. This is like looking at one of Darcy’s purple sweaters.”
“Does that make them fashionably delicious?” Sam asked.
Darcy shrugged. “In a shabby chic way, maybe.”
Bucky considered it before finally shrugging. “I’m ok with that.”
*
Everyone crowded round the counter staring at the latest fruit to arrive.
Clint was poking it with a stick. Darcy was busy wondering where he’d even gotten a stick from in the tower. Did he just randomly keep sticks so that he could poke things with them? That seriously seemed like something that he’d do… but still.
Bucky made a face and crossed his arms. “… I’m not eating that.”
Sam glanced at him with a ‘how do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it’ look. “… Oh come on, it’s just a… a…”
Bucky gave him a look, daring him to prove he knew the name of whatever it was that was on the counter.
Sam gave in. “Tony, what is this?”
Tony, crouching so that he was eye level with the counter, peering at the fruits with his nose resting on the counter on either side of his gripping hands, fingers unconsciously tapping the surface, shrugged. “No idea. Jarvis, buddy, what is this?”
Jarvis’s voice was hesitant. “…I do not actually know, sir… I did not order that.”
Everyone backed away from the whatever it was.
*
Steve made a face. “That smells horrible.”
“Yeah,” Tony nodded. “Let’s just chalk this one up to a no go for everyone.”
“Agreed.”
*
“Well,” Bucky said thoughtfully. “It’s not shaped like a dragon…”
“I’m actually slightly disappointed…” Steve agreed.
Natasha shrugged. “Wait until the star fruit come in.”
“Those are definitely shaped like stars, right?”
The spy nodded.
When the star fruit came in, Darcy baked a cake and put them on top for decoration- in the pattern of the American flag. You know, for giggles. He’d never admit it, but it had actually made Steve pretty happy that they were shaped like stars.
*
In the end, Tony had Jarvis turn it into a monthly event. Sort of a ‘new food of the month’ club. Every month Jarvis would announce a theme and then would have something new delivered during the month. There was still fruit, but he started branching out and ordering random dishes, meats, cheeses, wines, and even spices from all over the world. Sometimes it was well received, sometimes not so much (the monkey brains were not- poor Darcy had taken one wiff and had turned around and refused to come back until they were gone and the entire floor had been aired out by the detox units in the ventilation systems. Clint liked them though.). Things were going well and normal (as normal as this group got) before Tony got the brilliant idea to try making some weird fruit science of his own happen… Bruce had smelled like bananas for a week straight and had refused to talk about it. Tony had kept his mouth shut (mostly) because he knew it had been his fault. Maybe Bruce would calm down in another few months and he could try again (“Come on, Bruce! Do it for science!” “Shut up, Tony.”). The world needed this new brand of science!