Work Text:
Tony tends to forget about trivial things like eating and sleeping when he’s working. He doesn’t really do it on purpose. He knows people need to have food to keep them alive. But coffee is totally food. And green shakes are the only things he actually trusts Dummy to make that won’t poison him, so good enough, right?
For some weird reason, according to Pepper and Steve, that’s not good enough. Go figure. Steve has a little more luck with it than Pepper, if only because he can physically manhandle Tony away from the workbench and stand threateningly over him until Tony eats the sandwich he brought down.
So since Steve started living in the tower, Tony has developed marginally healthier eating and sleeping habits. Not like a normal person, but he’s eating more solid, balanced food than he has since boarding school.
Work is more important than food. When Tony gets in the zone, he really gets in the zone, and when Tony Stark really gets in the zone, fucking magic happens. So weigh the options. Create something completely amazing and innovative and new that blows the minds of the entire world or eat French toast upstairs that was cooked by Asgardians that are still learning how to turn on the oven.
It’s a tough one.
However, there is one food related event that can draw Tony away even from his most intense work. One thing that trumps all other activity. One marvelous occurrence that makes even gods weep at the culinary perfection. That something is when Steve bakes apple pies.
And it totally isn’t even just about the Americana jokes.
Although those are pretty great.
Tony sits at the kitchen bar, chin in his hands as he watches Steve bustle about the kitchen. Clint and Bruce sit on either side of him, mimicking his posture as they bask in the knowledge of what the future is going to bring them in just an hour or so.
“It’s no one’s fault but your own, Steve,” Tony says, continuing on his earlier vein of commentary that Steve absolutely has no right to get huffy when they comment on this particular baking habit of his. “I mean, Captain America baking apple pies.”
“It smells like America in here,” Clint says almost dreamily.
“Really, the only thing that could make this better is if you were wearing the uniform,” Tony says, and Steve looks up from shoveling filling into the perfect pie crust for a brief second to offer Tony a very unimpressed glare.
“I mean, like, if they made an America scratch and sniff sticker, it would smell like this,” Clint keeps going.
“He’d still have the apron and the oven mitts, wouldn’t he,” Bruce asks Tony, indicating with his head towards the red gingham apron Steve is wearing. It’s actually Darcy’s, but Tony’s never seen her actually wear it. In fact, other than turning on the coffee pot, he’s never actually seen Darcy create something edible.
“Bruce,” Tony says, turning a pointed look to the other man. “Bruce.”
“I just want to make sure that absolutely no factors are being overlooked,” Bruce says, and accepts the fist-bump that Tony offers.
“I mean, can you imagine if they made a shampoo that smelled like this,” Clint asks. “I’d eat it. I would eat that shampoo.”
“I swear, Steve, it’s like America threw you up,” Tony says. “Or—or like you hatched out of a bald eagle’s egg, and Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty adopted you to raise in their own image.”
The look on Steve’s face when he turns around from putting the pie in the oven suggests that if he had his shield on hand, it would suddenly be acquainting itself with Tony’s face. And as long as it didn’t hit his mouth and impair his ability to eat that pie in fifty-five minutes and counting, allowing for time to cool, Tony can live with that.
“Not to mention that your birthday is the Fourth of July,” Bruce adds. “That’s just—that’s just fate.”
“Or a cologne,” Clint is still going on. “What if it was a cologne? Screw those bath salts. Apple pie cologne would be the number one cause of cannibalistic face eating the world over.”
The entire time the pie is baking, Steve stands at attention in front of the stove, a spatula in hand. One would think that a pie guard wouldn’t be necessary, but there have been more than five separate incidents of pie theft before the thing is even out of the oven. Steve no longer takes chances and no longer trusts.
When the timer dings, Bruce and Tony make grabby hands at each other, leaning over the counter to watch with wide eyes and drooling mouths as Steve takes the pie out. Clint is clinging to a tub of ice cream, a spoon ready and waiting in his mouth. Steve sets the pie carefully on the cooling rack and reaches back to turn off the oven.
That’s when the attack comes.
The lights suddenly go out. They aren’t blinded, because it’s only three in the afternoon and there’s plenty of sunlight streaming in from the windows over by the breakfast nook. But it does throw them off enough that they aren’t really sure which direction the projectiles are coming from. There’s cracks, but nothing hurts. It’s madness, and there’s something—is that fucking glitter—that’s getting in their eyes and mouths.
Two dark figures in black catsuits dart in. Clint cries out in surprise as the ice cream is wrestled from his arms, and Steve hits the floor when he doesn’t manage to land the tackle against the perpetrator who has liberated the pie from the rack.
Through the heavy haze of red and gold glitter and confetti, they only are just able to make out Natasha and Bucky standing in the doorway that leads deeper into the tower, the pie and ice cream held high above their heads triumphantly. “For the Motherland,” they cry, and as suddenly as they came, they’re gone again.
It’s silent in the kitchen for all of two seconds before the Hulk bellows, “COMMUNISTS TAKE HULK’S FREEDOM PASTRY!”