[AU] these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul

[from_the_outside]

They've all entered a kind of tense détente after the ill-advised dinner party. Tony throws himself into work, Sharon and Pepper mostly avoid each other, and Steve, Vision, and Nat continue with oversight duties.

And the thing is... Tony's working it out. 

Not a removal, exactly, but he's getting close, he'd told them, to at least blocking the commands. It's not perfect and it's not a permanent solution, but it's a step in the right direction. It's also a step in the direction of Tony needing to test the words on Bucky himself, and so Sharon and Steve are on extra high alert, keeping an eye out for any indication that Bucky's retreating into himself again. Sharon's mostly moved into the room they share in Steve's apartment for that very reason, though she still isn't wholly comfortable with being in Steve's space all the time.

He's away today, working with Sam and Rhodey on a veteran's outreach program, so it's Sharon who walks with Bucky through the halls of the compound towards Tony's rooms. "It's you and Vision with Tony today," she tells him, and glances across the distance they're careful to maintain when not alone behind closed doors.

"How are you feeling about everything?"

Comments

[from_the_outside]

She smiles back, and comes over to wind her arms around his neck, then leans up to kiss him.

"Nothing too distracting," she teases, against his mouth. "How about a movie?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Probably a good idea," he murmurs, kissing her back. "If we get that distracted, it'll be longer than half an hour."

[from_the_outside]

She grins and reaches for his hands, lacing their fingers together as she steps back.

"Come on, let's go find something to put on."

[nerves_of_ice]

He lets her lead him into the living room and settles beside her on the sofa as they start flicking through the entertainment options. By mutual consensus, they stay away from the news - that's work, or too much like it - and after a short discussion decide not to put on a full movie.

Sharon teases him with something called the 'Great British Bake-Off', and he rolls his eyes at it, but agrees. There's a bunch of seasons available, but she picks something from one of the early ones and they settle back, his arm around her as she snuggles close to his side.

[from_the_outside]

It only takes a few minutes of watching the show to realize that they probably messed up in a few places, but she reminds herself it was a first effort and opts not to worry about it. And the show is so soothing, with its cheerful bake tent and stolidly British contestants, that it's easy to relax against Bucky's side, her head against his shoulder, her bare feet tucked up on the couch behind her, her fingers laced lazily with his on her hip.

It hardly seems like any time at all has passed when the buzzer goes off in the kitchen, and she reaches for the remote to pause the show before getting up.

"Come on," she coaxes, drawing him up with their linked hands. "Let's go see how it's doing."

[nerves_of_ice]

He ambles down the hall with her toward the kitchen, then frowns as they draw close and he gets a good whiff of the air - which doesn't smell like the warm rich scent of cherries and pastry that they'd left before.

"Is that--"

The air in the kitchen's a little hazy. Bucky drops Sharon's hand and moves quickly to the oven to pull the door open - and as he does, he gets a wave of smoke full in the face.

On the ceiling in the hallway behind them, a smoke alarm begins to shriek.

[marvel_npc]

She'd been extremely dubious when Vision told her Sergeant Barnes and Agent Carter were going to attempt to make a pie, and more so when Vision cheerfully admitted that the Sergeant said he didn't have any experience.

"Maybe we should just check in on them," she'd suggested, and so they'd started heading in the direction of Steve's apartment. They'll just walk by, she tells herself. Maybe knock and see if the Sergeant and agent could use any help. Not that she especially wants to spend an afternoon in the kitchen with Agent Carter; Wanda has successfully managed to mostly avoid being around her too much, melting away like a street cat into the shadows when the woman comes around.

But they won't impose, she tells herself. They turn onto the hall where Steve lives – and a few steps later, are greeted by the shrill yell of a smoke alarm. "Vis!" Wanda says, sharply, and lifts herself into the air, red power in her hands, to speed toward the source of the sound.

[from_the_outside]

"Oh no – "

She coughs as acrid smoke billows out of the oven and reaches for a towel to flap ineffectually at the fire alarm, prudently leaving the removal of the smoldering remains of their experiment to Bucky and his metal hand. "What happened?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I don't know!" He yanks the aluminum pan out of the oven with his left hand and dumps it in the sink. One look's enough to tell him the pie's a total loss, and what's more, the oven's still smoking.

Bucky shuts off the heat and crouches down to try to see if something's on fire, then leaps back to his feet as he hears Vision's voice echoing down the hallway.

"Sergeant -- Bucky? Agent Carter?" The man sounds calm enough, but a little more intense about it than usual as he approaches. "I have entered the apartment. Wanda is right behind me. Do you need assistance?"

"It's okay," he sighs, and goes to see if the kitchen window opens. "We're okay, Vision. Stand down."

[from_the_outside]

Vision floats into the kitchen, followed shortly by Wanda, who makes a complicated gesture with her hands that forms the smoke into a bubble. She pushes it toward the kitchen window as Bucky opens it, directing the smoke still lifting from the oven out into the air as Vision prudently turns on the stove's overhead fan.

Sharon, climbing onto a chair, whacks at the smoke alarm until it stops, leaving a ringing silence in its wake.

"So," Vision observes. "Not a successful endeavor, I take it."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky reaches into the sink with his left hand and picks up the pan, displaying the results for all to see.

"Not exactly," he says, dry as desert sand. "Guess I'm better at destroying things than making them."

[from_the_outside]

"Hey," Sharon says, stepping down from the chair. She keeps her voice light, though what he says saddens her to the core. "This is at least as much my fault as yours."

Wanda, having finished venting the smoke, is crouched down in front of the open oven, studying it. "The juice leaked out," she says, and steps aside to show them the blackened, sticky mess on the oven floor. "That's what burned."

She gives the attempted pie a carefully neutral glance. "But this was just your first try, right?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He gives Sharon a small shrug and a rueful look. Bucky sets the pan back in the sink and crouches down on his heels beside Wanda to study the damage.

"Whew. That'll take some scrubbing," he observes, then glances sideways at her. "Yes, first try. Usually I stick to things that you can make in a skillet on the stovetop."

[from_the_outside]

"You can just run a self-cleaning cycle," Wanda tells him, her voice soft. She studies the pie itself, noting Sharon has no idea what; all of their mistakes that added up to an oven full of smoke instead of pie, she guesses.

"You can trust Wanda's expertise," Vision tells them. "She has become quite the amateur baker."

"Vis, please," Wanda says, but Sharon can see the faint pink staining the tops of her cheeks. Wanda dips a finger into the juice leaking from the sad puddle of pastry and filling that never became a pie, and her eyebrows lift. "The cherries are good," she says, encouragingly, and looks between Bucky and Sharon. "Do you have more?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Lots," he says, simply, and goes to pull out the rest of the cherries in their bowl, displaying that instead of the wreckage of the pie-that-wasn't.

"They are good," Bucky adds. "I don't know if you ever go down to town or not --"

From what he's seen, he's not sure Vision and Wanda leave the compound that much at all.

"--but Agent Carter was kind enough to come with me this morning after the session with Tony. There was a farmer's market."

[marvel_npc]

Wanda looks from the bowl of glossy, plump cherries to the disheartened expressions on the faces of Sergeant Barnes and Agent Carter to the sad attempt at a cherry pie.

It's actually quite easy to tell what they got wrong: there was too much liquid, they didn't line the oven, the pastry seems to be melting instead of crisping, they didn't cut vents into the top, the oven was probably on too high...

She looks at Vision, who raises his eyebrows knowingly at her, and feels as though he, too, is seeing the innocent, disappointed bewilderment in these two normally competent people and recognizing that that only human reaction to it is sympathy.

"I could show you how to make one," she says, before her nerves can get in the way. "A cherry pie, I mean. If you want. Since you have so much fruit left."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky's smile is startled at first - then spreads across his face like sunlight at dawn.

"You wouldn't mind? I'd hate to be any trouble."

He glances at Sharon to see her opinion.

[from_the_outside]

She'd put up with a lot just to be able to see that smile of his, but her own sense of injured pride has kicked in, and she'll be damned if she closes out the day without successfully making a pie.

"Please," she says, laughing. "Save us from ourselves."

Wanda looks a little surprised, but glances at Vision and receives an encouraging smile. "All right," she says, and casts a wry glance at Steve's oven. "We'll use the community kitchen."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Probably a good plan," Bucky agrees, a little ruefully, and closes the oven door. "I'll turn this on the - self-cleaning cycle, you said?"

He studies the console until he finds the right setting, and programs it to start. "Hopefully that'll be done before Steve gets back."

[from_the_outside]

"It should, no problem," Wanda says, in her soft Sokovian accent. She looks a little askance at Sharon, then appears to brace herself. "Come on," she adds. "Bring the cherries."

Sharon picks up the bowl and gives the rest of the kitchen a rueful glance. "I guess we probably don't need anything else from here."

[nerves_of_ice]

"We need flour," Bucky says, with a wry, amused look at Vision. "That wasn't down there, we found."

He picks up the bag. "Hogan showed me where the pantry stores are, so if there's anything else we need that's not in the community kitchen, I can go get it."

To Wanda, he adds, "Thank you for this. I really appreciate it."

[from_the_outside]

"I would be faster," Vision points out, and Wanda nods.

"I think I have everything else we need in my own kitchen," she says. "But Vis, will you grab some tapioca from the pantry? Cornstarch is fine if there isn't any."

"We should bring the cream, too," Sharon reminds Bucky. "That at least I can make without disaster."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Right." He pulls it from the fridge, then gives the mess in the pan a dubious look. "I'll... just let that finish cooling before I get rid of it."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon gives the not-a-pie a sad glance and shakes her head, then follows Wanda and Vision out of the kitchen, the bowl of cherries cool in her arms.

Once they reach the hall, Vision nods to them all politely, then drifts rapidly off in what Sharon assumes is the direction of the pantry, leaving them alone with Wanda, who seems to tense, very slightly.

Sharon's not sure why, exactly; she really hasn't gotten a chance to get to know the young woman at all. But she can still give Wanda something else to focus on, right?

"So, any idea on where we went wrong?" she asks, light and smiling. "Aside from, um... everywhere?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He can tell Wanda's nervous, and given his previous conversations with Vision, he's pretty sure he knows why. Maybe being around Sharon will help. In the meantime--

"Don't hold back," he tells Wanda, with a warm, reassuring smile of his own. "Both Agent Carter and I can take it."

Wanda gives him an uncertain glance, almost searching, and then says, "Maybe a a few things, from what I saw? For one, um. Did you drain the cherries?"