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Looking back, Bucky should have realized that the measurements were off on the ingredients list. Maybe they had been doubled somewhere along the way; maybe the recipe was honestly just meant to create hundreds of cookies. Whatever the reason, there was no doubt about it. Bucky had made way too many cookies to eat.
By the third tray, he figured that he’d have to send some boxes off to his family. By the fifth tray, he was considering calling up Thor (who, he assumed, would be more than happy to help him consume them all). By the time he had pulled the tenth tray of cookies out of the oven, he was starting to doubt that he’d ever be finished.
Picking up his phone, he dialled Steve’s number.
“I really hope you’re hungry,” he said, the moment Steve picked up.
“I could eat.” Steve responded, a little confused. “Why?”
“I have hundreds of sugar cookies,” Bucky told him, “And I’m already getting sick of them.” He looked at the half-eaten cookie in his hand, internally debating whether or not it was worth it to take another bite.
“That sounds like the opposite of a problem.”
Bucky groaned. “No. Trust me. This is a problem.”
He heard the smile in Steve’s voice when he responded. “Well, at least it’s a problem I can help with. I’ll be over soon.”
The moment that Bucky let Steve in, his oven began beeping shrilly. Steve raised his eyebrows.
“You’re still making more?”
“I have no choice,” Bucky told him, “I still have half a bowl of batter left. Not counting the batter I froze for later.”
Steve’s mouth twitched. “Now I’m really curious about how many cookies you’ve actually made.”
Bucky shrugged, turning and walking back into his kitchen. “See for yourself.”
It was even more blatant, when Bucky re-entered the room, just how difficult his situation was. The cookies were spread over every inch of his table, and extra trays were perched, laden with more treats, on every flat surface in sight. There was a muffled laugh from behind Bucky, and soon Steve had slipped around him to grab a cookie from the pile on the counter.
Bucky watched as he took a bite. “I haven’t decorated them yet, either.”
Steve shook his head, squeezing Bucky’s arm. “I’ll start making icing.” He began opening the cupboards and pulling out some icing sugar, flipping it over to read the label.
The two of them worked in tandem, Steve turning on the radio so that he could hum along to the holiday music as he squeezed the coloured icing on to the golden-brown surface of the cookies. Between both of them, they packed a good twelve tins full of fully-decorated cookies. The rest of them had been abandoned, still without icing or sprinkles, when Steve had collapsed on one of the chairs.
“I see now why this is such a problem.”
Bucky joined him. “Ahh, but I thought that it was ‘the opposite of a problem.’”
Steve grinned at him. “I may have slightly underestimated how many cookies you had. When you said hundreds, I thought that that was at least a small exaggeration. How many did you want to make?”
“Enough for five people?”
“Yup,” said Steve, grabbing another cookie and eating it. “You missed that mark. But I have an idea.”
“Do you?”
“We are going to package these cookies,” Steve said, matter-of-factly, “And send them off to the rest of the Avengers.”
Bucky tilted his head. “And what sparked this idea?” There was a spark of mischief in Steve’s eye that seemed less than innocuous.
Steve stood up, searching amongst the piles of cookies for a moment. Finally, he found what he had been looking for.
Holding up a dick-shaped cookie, he snickered, “I think this is an appropriate gift for Tony, don’t you?”
Bucky lit up.
Steve wasn’t done, though. “Why do you even have that cookie cutter?”
“Barton thinks he’s funny,” Bucky said, as way of explanation. “I’m thinking that he should receive some of those ones, too.”
Steve nodded seriously. “Definitely. Pass me an empty tin, will you?”
Bucky obliged, and Steve began piling the dick-shaped cookies in, carefully arranging them so that they could all fit. When it was entirely filled, Bucky took the tin from Steve and tied a ribbon around it, attaching a piece of paper to it, on which he carefully scribbled a note.
Reminded us of you.
Steve picked up the tin, weighing it in his hands with a satisfied expression. “There. Tony will love it.”
“Pepper won’t,” Bucky added.
“True,” Steve acknowledged, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. “But to be fair, she’s had to put up with a lot of strange shit with Tony. I’m sure a couple of cookies won’t even register as strange. Though, as far as I know, Tony never baked a couple hundred extra cookies by accident.”
Bucky’s jaw dropped. “I really hope that wasn’t directed at me, Rogers.”
Steve leaned closer, his eyes glowing with laughter. “Why? What would you do about it, Barnes.”
“Well, over the years, I have learned a couple ways to shut you up,” said Bucky, tugging Steve up so that they were both standing. And when Bucky leaned in to press his lips against Steve’s, he did, in fact, shut up.