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"Hey John, what's for dinner?" Ava asked from the breakfast bar.
"Gnocchi," John said, as he cut spirals of lemon rind garnishes with the care of someone grimly diffusing a bomb, "with a creamy citrus sauce, snap peas, bell pepper, herb du provence, and pine nuts, but pine nuts aren't in the budget apparently--" John paused to glare at Bucky, (Bucky pretended not to notice and didn't look up from the tablet he was holding a foot away from his face) "--so we're gonna use walnuts," John said.
"No almonds?" Bucky asked innocently, putting down the tablet. "I think they're closer to pine nuts, and we have almonds."
"Almonds aren't real nuts. Too . . . milk-like. Walnuts are real nuts," John said. "What?"
"I didn't say anything," Ava muttered, a little smirk on her face. She went back to her black octopus crochet.
"John, I think we need cookies," Yelena said, also from the breakfast bar.
"I'm making dinner," John said.
"Hmm."
"I mean, I agree with you. Alexei!"
"Huh?"
Alexei looked up from where he was setting the table.
"We need cookies!" John said.
Alexie thoughtfully put down the last drinking glass. He nodded to himself. "I think you are right," he said.
"We have the ice cream sandwiches," Bucky said, back on the tablet. "Bob chose them."
"Do we really like those though? They taste like petroleum products," John said.
"Well . . ." Bob said, "I like them."
"We're not all used to eating rats out of prision toilets, Bucky," John said.
Bucky paused.
"Wow," Ava said, "was that a bit much, John?"
"You think the Winter Soldier ate?" Bucky said dryly.
John scoffed.
"Okay, I bake cookies," Alexei said. "What type do we want? Hm? Dad's Spicy Grape?"
"No!" Yelena hid her face.
"But the fruit and and, the, the spicyness? And reduced fat! Yelena, so good for you! And yummy yummy yummy. Hmm? I'll make us Spicy Grape."
Alexei cracked out his favorite reduced fat cookbook.
"They're disgusting. We all hate those ones," Ava said.
"I like them," Bucky said.
"Is mature taste," Alexei nodded. "Very grown-up pallet. . . " he waved his arms around, "flavour colours."
"Flavour profile," John said, "and they're disgusting."
Yelena slumped lower on her stool.
"You know John," Bucky said, putting down his tablet, "when you get older you're testosterone will start--" Bucky mimed a crashing plane, "and things will get better. Maybe then you'll start liking the good cookies. Lean into it."
"Dude, you're physically basically the same age as me," John said.
"You weren't chemically castrated," Bucky said, returning to his tablet. "Life's better on the other side, John."
"Hey!" Alexei barked, mock serious, "what's that you say about me?!"
"I'm saying you and I are in the real prime of our lives," Bucky said.
Alexei flexed his bicep. "Look at that muscle," Alexei said.
Bucky paused whatever he was doing on the tablet to squeeze Alexei's bicep. Bucky nodded. "Strong like a thousand oxen."
Alexei chuckled and slapped him on the back. "Good man." Then he turned it into a side hug and gently crushed Bucky against his chest. "I make you spicy grape cookie."
"Dad, they're raisins. You mean raisins."
"No, Lena, those are plum. I mean dried grapes."
"Dried plums are prunes," Yelena said.
"It's dried grape, I call it grape cookie. Very clear, no confusion with silly things 'raisin' or 'prune'."
"Ugh!"
"Oh Lena, you know I'm your dad. It's my job to make you crazy! Come on. I need you to get the margerine out. We need a quarter cup of margerine."
"Butter," John corrected, passing Yelena the butter, "and it's dinner time. Eat food, then make cookies."
"Yessir," Bucky said.
"So these are potatoe noodles?" Bob asked, taking a plate from John.
"Exactly. I made them myself."
"We know," Ava said.
"This looks good, John," Yelena said.
"I like the snap peas," Bob added.
"Thank you," John said, preening a little.
"You make Italians very proud," Alexei said, spearing a few gnocchi on his fork.
"I'm not Italian."
"You can still make them proud."
"Where are you from?" Ava asked him.
"I'm American."
"Okay, like, before that."
"Really, I'm American. My family's actually part of the Mayfair Club. Come from hearty pioneer stock."
Bucky grimaced.
"Yeah, stop there before you give Bob the ick," Ava told John.
"What?!"
"What are we talking about?" Bob asked.
"Nothing. Never mind."
After dinner, cookie production swung into motion.
Alexei took the lead, delegating nut chopping to Bob, vanilla finding to Yelena and dried fruit selection to Ava.
"Yelena," Alexei called, "how do you set oven?"
"What? --N0, dad you just turned on the stove top."
Alexei patted around the stove top. "No, it's all cold."
"Dad, you turn it on and then you can turn the individual elements on here in the corner. Look, here's the oven, then you do bake, and then you can set--no that's the timer, set to--"
"--350," Alexei supplied.
"There, now it's set to 350."
"Thank you Lena."
"That's okay."
Sugar, mollasses, butter, egg, ginger, cocoa, raisins, walnuts, chocolate chips--it came together in a thick lumpy beige dough.
"John!" Alexei called.
"I'm on the phone!" John called back.
Alexei crept in with the bowl and baking tray and silently balanced them on John's lap.
"Make the cookies," Alexei wispered.
John distractedly glared at him, but started making them with his free hand.
Alexei crept out.
Back in the kitchen, Yelena, Bob and Bucky were eating ice cream sandwiches.
Alexei shook his head in disgust. "Parenting book says you will eat food you help make. What is this? Hm?"
"I'll eat them," Bucky said.
"Don't be a pick me," Yelena said.
Alexei passed Ava the spoon to lick.
"Ava likes it," Alexei said.
Ava took a lick.
"Ava does not like it," Ava said.
"I'll eat it," Bucky said.
"There you go depression child," Ava said, passing him the spoon.
Bucky audibly ignored her and licked the spoon.
Alexei checked his watch. "Bob, can you go get the tray from John?"
"Sure," Bob said.
Ava and Alexei shared a conspiratorial look once he'd left the room.
"I don't see it," Bucky said dryly, without looking up from his spoon.
Yelena paused. "What, you think John is gay?"
"Tell me he doesn't look like a toxic bisexual," Ava said.
Alexei nodded knowingly. Bucky tilted his head in kind of an 'eh,' way.
Bob walked in and they all snapped back to doing nothing very innocently.
The cookies went in the oven.
"Are we finishing the movie tonight?" Yelena asked.
"What movie is it again?" Bucky asked.
"Dude, you chose it," Ava said.
"Does anyone else want hot chocolate?" Bob asked, throwing his ice cream sandwich wrapper in the garbage and flicking the kettle on.
John came in, then, looking a little haggared.
"I'll take a hot chocolate," John said.
Ava and Alexei shared a knowing look. Bucky rolled his eyes without moving them.
Soon the smell started spreading through the penthouse. Wafts of tortured gingerbread faintly permeating across the suites.
Alexei got the glasses of milk ready.
Bucky got the first one off the tray.
He pulled them out of the oven, disloged them with a fork he found on the counter and took a bite. He imediately burnt his mouth and spat it out in the sink.
"Every time," John said. "Can you not feel heat with your arm?"
Bucky looked forlornly at the chunk of cookie in the sink. "I hit a chocolate chunk. It was almost fine."
"Next time, Comrade Barnes, next time," Alexei said, patting his back and passing him his glass of milk.
The cookies were as terrible as Yelena had predicted. She tried one, just in case her pallet had 'matured'.
It had not.
Ava and Bob completely gave them a pass. They were smart like that.
John had half of one and fed the other half to Bucky, who muttered something about his body not being a garbage can, then ate it anyway.
They settled on the couch with their cookies and milk and hot chocolate, (making sure Bob and John were sitting next to each other) and finished Bucky's bad movie, only to find it was the first in a series and ended on a cliff hanger. Alexei and Bucky finished the cookies between the two of them, and then Bucky complained about how the sugar was bad for his inflamation, and went to bed. All around it was a very good evening.