Stucky Bakery AU to Benefit HIAS
To honor the victims of the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, I’m writing fics and doing tarot readings to benefit HIAS, an incredible organization that’s done so much good for refugees around the world. @sergeant-barnes asked for a Stucky bakery AU. Thank you for your generosity, sergeant-barnes!
Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes | Rated G | 1145
A vampire pushes the door to The Pastry Place two minutes before they’re supposed to close on the Saturday before Halloween.
“I need one hundred and fifty ladyfingers before midnight,” the vampire says, looking exhausted beneath his pointed teeth and slicked back hair.
“Shouldn’t you have to ask permission to enter?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow, then looking back down to the cookie he’s halfway through icing. It’s an intricate skeleton design, something he’s trying hard to perfect before a big order for a company Halloween party next week. Icing isn’t his best skill, so he’s gone through quite a few misshapen skeletons, though this one is looking okay.
“What?” the guy asks, voice sounding more like “wut" in deadpan confusion. He obviously wasn’t expecting Steve to respond to his question that way.
“You’re a vampire. Don’t vampires have to ask permission to enter a new place?”
The guy blinks. “Obviously not,” he says.
There’s a beat and then Steve snorts. Honestly, he’d expected the guy to get flustered and deny being a vampire. Apparently they both surprised each other.
“Ha ha,” the guy says, still in that charming deadpan voice.
“Why do you need one-hundred fifty ladyfingers by midnight?”
“It has to do with a redhead, a bet, and a Halloween party that begins at the stroke of midnight.” He pauses. “Look, I know you’re going to close in…” He looks down at his wristwatch. “Negative two minutes, but I have cash and I look devastating when I cry. You’re the last bakery open in town. Please help me.” He blinks a few times, like he’s trying to work up some tears. It doesn’t appear to be effective.
“Your watch is four minutes fast,” Steve says, setting down his icing. “We still have two minutes before close.” He takes a good look at the guy; he does have very devastating eyes, even if he can’t seem to cry and they’re coated with some bad costume make up. “I’m going to charge you twice my normal rate,” he says.
“And you need to go get me coffee from the place I like down the street. It’s going to be a late night for me.”
“And I’ll need it in writing that you will not, at any point this evening, attempt to suck my blood.”
“That’s obviously a blow given how delectable your neck looks underneath that pink apron, but if that’s what I need to do to get these ladyfingers, then I am willing to do that. Where do I sign?” He smiles, revealing the false vampire teeth he has on. “And should I do it in blood?”
Steve smiles. He’s beginning to like this vampire.
Forty-five minutes later, Bucky has his fake teeth out and on a napkin as he sits on the bakery counter, happily eating a messed up skeleton cookie. Their no-bite contract — signed by both parties in red pen — sits next to him, drafted on the back of a crumpled up receipt. Steve’s hard at work on the ladyfingers — the kind of recipe that’s easy peasy for him at this point in his baking career — and Bucky is providing entertainment. Or, that’s what he calls eating Steve’s skeleton rejects while making the occasional observation.
Even though Steve typically prefers a more solitary work environment, he kind of likes having Bucky there, asking him questions about the process.
“So you don’t bake at all?” Steve asks when Bucky starts asking him about how he learned the baking basics.
Bucky shakes his head. “Not really. I can find a way to fuck up a box mix.”
“Just switch out the oil for melted butter, milk for water, and add an extra egg. That’s how you elevate a box mix.”
“So now I know the secret to your bakery?” Bucky asks with a raised eyebrow.
Steve levels him with an unimpressed look. “I make everything here from scratch.”
“I won’t sully your good name to the papers, don’t you worry.” He pauses. “I fuck up the box mixes,” he adds, a little sheepish. “I think I’m doing them right, but something always goes wrong. It comes out like a pancake or bubbles over. The thing is, I can cook decently. I’m no Wolfgang Puck but I can feed myself. But as soon as I try to bake something, all hell breaks loose. I’m outlawed from doing it in my apartment kitchen. My roommate’s had to help clean up too many messes.”
“You follow the instructions?” Steve asks, inserting the last ray of raw ladyfingers into the oven. He sets the oven for eight minutes, then looks over at Bucky.
“And you don’t try to mess with the measurements?”
“Never.” Steve raises an eyebrow. “Scout’s honor!”
Steve frowns. “I’m not sure what it is, then.” He pauses. “We have time, if you wanted me to decorate the ladyfingers as actual fingers.”
Bucky perks up. “Would you?” he asks.
Steve nods, then gets to work setting up his icing.
“So is there a secret?” Bucky asks a few minutes later.
“No, to baking. A general secret. Something passed down from generation to generation that I just don’t know.”
“There are plenty of baking secrets out there, some of them good, some of them bad.” Steve’s heard plenty of bad ones through the years, many of which include applesauce. “But I don’t think there is.” He pauses. “Well, maybe something about the power of love.”
“Yeah, it’s just like anything you do. If you love it, you’ll get better at it. I love baking and I love sharing the things I bake with people I care about.”
“People in general,” Bucky says, which makes Steve look up. He shrugs. “I may be a fan of this place. You’re just not usually at the cash register.”
Before Steve can think up a response, the oven dings. He takes out the trays of ladyfingers, which appear to be cooked perfectly.
“We’ll need to let them cool,” he says.
“We’ve got time.” Bucky looks down at the ladyfingers, then up at Steve. “Hey, if you wanna see some people loving your stuff, you could come with me to the party.”
“This isn’t some way to get me into a dark alley to bite me, right?” Steve asks.
Bucky shakes his head. “We signed a contract, didn’t we?” He pauses. “Unless you want to get into a dark alley and be bitten, because that could definitely be arranged.”
Steve blushes, but he doesn’t say no.
Next Halloween, Bucky makes the ladyfingers for Natasha’s party in their shared apartment. It took a lot of time and patience to get Bucky comfortable enough with the process to go out on his own, but when Steve bites into one of the ladyfingers, he can feel the love.
