𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 | bucky barnes

47: Cake talk

"Bucky!"

"What? I'm not allowed in my kitchen?"

"Hey, I'm the one with a job."

"I get government money!"

March 10, 2024. Catarina's favorite day of the year. And Bucky's least favorite.  Cat was trying to make Bucky a surprise for his birthday, but when he barged into the kitchen, she had to stop short and stand in front of her mess.  She attempted to push him out of the room, and cover his eyes, but he put his hand in front of hers.  He stood in place, and tried to peek around her.

"No, Bucky!" she said, standing on her tip toes and trying to block his view.  But at six feet (1.8m), he was much taller than her.  He caught a glance of all the things she had been preparing.

"Are you... baking?" he questioned. 

"It was supposed to be a surprise," she said, walking back around to try and make it look like less of a failure.  "I've never baked before, really.  Only once."

"Only once?"

"But I was doing it from a recipe," she said, turning her laptop around and showing it to him.  The screen displayed a recipe for a plain vanilla cake, with the headline EASY CAKE WITH INGREDIENTS YOU HAVE IN YOUR PANTRY!  "So I was going to do it properly.  For your birthday."

"You know I don't want anything for my birthday, Cat.  And you already got me a card, it was already so—"

She cut him off abruptly.  "I wanted to do this for days, though," said Cat.  "I found the perfect recipe, and I knew you wouldn't want much, so I found a plain one, and look!" She picked up a metal mixing tool from the counter.  "I even used a whisk!"

"You're enjoying my birthday more than I am," he said, smiling at her.

"You should enjoy it, too," she said.  She was quiet for a second until she thought of something else. "We should invite people over!  I'm sure some of the other world-saving people would come, and it doesn't have to be a party, it can just be small—"

"I'm gonna stop you there," said Bucky, covering her mouth.  She continued talking through his hand for a couple seconds, then held a pouty face, scrunching her eyebrows in annoyance.  "A cake is more than enough.  I don't want people.  Definitely not."  He took his hand off her face and looked at his palm, forehead scrunched in confusion.  "Did you lick my hand?"

Catarina ignored his statement for a moment.  "No people," she agreed. "And maybe."

Bucky rolled his eyes. 

"Do you want me to go out of the kitchen?" he asked, eyebrows raised. 

"Pretend you have no idea," said Cat.  "Pretend it's still a surprise."

Bucky nodded and turned to go back into the living room.  "I saw nothing," he said.  "We do not own a whisk."

Cat smiled.  "Love you," she said.

"You're adorable," he said, not looking back into the kitchen.

——— ✪ ⍟ ✪———

Catarina's cake was finished a hour later.  Out of the oven and cooled, she frosted it with the recipe's buttercream.  Finally, she used candles she had bought when she purchased the whisk, too— the numbers one, zero, and seven— for his 107th birthday.

Bucky sweetly rolled his eyes when she put the cake on the coffee table.  She ran back into the kitchen to get a lighter.  She clicked it on and allowed the small flame to spread to each of the candles, one by one.  She smiled at her boyfriend for a moment, then went to turn the lights off.