thecapitol | D3 / MCU Breakfast Mingle

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D3 / MCU Breakfast Mingle

Who| Bruce Banner, the whole MCU cast, open to people who live in D3 or would drop in on D3 during breakfast time
What| Bruce is a stress cooker. He made a lot of food during the night. Now everyone has to eat it. MCUers have gathered to help with this.
Where| D3 kitchen and dining area.
When| Early morning after the first night under curfew.
Warnings/Notes| Possibly discussion of past violence. Twitchy old people with tribbles.

Bruce doesn't do well when he feels trapped. He felt very trapped during the night and didn't have even a wink of sleep. So he kept himself busy with cooking.

And boy, does it show.

There is a ton of food, all over the counter and on the table. Some is still cooking in the oven or on the stove. There are familiar things, like crepes and popovers and pancakes and muffins and bacon, but there are also completely foreign things from other countries, primarily from Latin America, Northern Africa, the Middle East, and India. And to go with all of this are a ton of different spreads, some of which are clearly not even from the continental United States.

There is also, of course, hot coffee and cold juice to drink. Or tap water, if that's what you feel like.

Honestly, it looks like the weirdest breakfast buffet ever.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aw, you trust him to not poison everyone. Clearly, friendship is blooming.

Bruce gives Bucky an absent nod when he sees him getting food. It's probably a good thing that the man is actually consenting to be in the company of this clump of overpowered misfits. It doesn't take a genius to tell that the man doesn't seem to know how to deal with people; deciding to sit down with them, even if he doesn't talk much, is a step in the right direction.

Although--and he thinks this with some dark amusement--Bruce has no place commenting on other people being antisocial. Nor on their choice of pets, he thinks when he notices the suspicious purring coming from Bucky's direction.

He puts a plate of lemon poppy seed muffins on the table, near enough for Bucky to take one if he wants. The tribble in his pocket starts to loudly purr in response to Bucky's tribble's quieter noises. Bruce rests a hand on his pocket to quiet it, which doesn't work too well. He really has to wonder how these tiny things can make such noise. And how he ended up with such a loud one.

"Do you want any tea? I'm about to put on a pot."

Bucky has levels of trust, very unusual level of trust compared to other people, but all gain is good gain.

This group of people are, for the most part, the people he feels the most comfortable around. He might even hesitantly place the label of friend on a couple of them, through mutual hardships suffered and actions that proved them to be as they said they were. It's a slow road but Bucky's making the journey with no wish to retract his steps.

Shovelling more bacon into his mouth (bacon, he has learned, is one of the best things about being off the HYDRA diet) he looks up when Bruce talks to him, thinking to chew and swallow before answering. He thinks he prefers coffee over tea but doesn't dislike the latter so he nods. "I would."

If he only knew the old Bucky would have been aghast at himself for drinking tea but that knowledge is either still buried deep or lost completely.

He can hear the purring from Bruce's pocket and looks at it, "Tribble?"

"Tribble."

Bruce reaches into his pocket and pulls the little brown furball, which immediately begins crawling up his arm like the world's cutest (and loudest) caterpillar. "Darcy gave it to me. I think she deliberately picked the loudest one in the bunch." He puts it back in his pocket, where it cheerfully rolls around and purrs. He goes to put the tea kettle on. "What kind of tea do you like?"

He's not even sure if Bucky has a preference, if he can't even remember if he used to cook, but he figures it's better to ask.

Bucky pauses and then reaches into his own pocket, briefly showing his, a ball of black and grey fluff he puts back inside almost immediately. He would let it sit out on the table except that that there are plates laden with food and not feeding the tribble was explicitly in the instructions of caring for it.

It doesn't seem to mind, continuing to coo in the warmth his body heat provides.

"Any is fine." he says, he doesn't consider what varieties there might be to choose from, it's easier just to let Bruce make whatever he wants.

"You're lucky. You got a quiet one."

It is, and Bruce wouldn't dream of saying this aloud, cute to see the serious, hard-faced Bucky with a purring tribble in his pocket. If anyone needed one, that man probably did. "Did Darcy give it to you?" Because she seemed to take it upon herself to give grumpy men fluffy things.

"I'll make some mint tea." He puts on the kettle, adjusting the heat. "It's pretty good with honey, if you've never had any before."

"She took me with her to pick them." he explains, though Darcy hadn't explained why she took more than one herself. Bucky thinks she must not have wanted him to ruin the surprise. "She meant to surprise me but there was a poster in the elevator and I figured it out."

A room full of these purring little fuzzy creatures, Bruce, can you imagine that with Bucky stood lost in the middle of it.

"I don't think I have." he looks across at the spread. "You made a lot of food."

"Makes sense. She left me one with a note. First thing it did was try to crawl up my sleeve."

Bruce would pay to see a bewildered Bucky in a room full of tribbles. Although frankly, he can imagine a lot of people saying the same thing about himself, too, and he wouldn't know what to do in that situation. One was more than affectionate enough.

"Yeah, well, I had a lot of time on my hands last night." A lot of time that wasn't used for sleeping. "Tony calls it stress cooking. I call it getting rid of all the food before it has a chance to go bad." That is his story and he's sticking to it.

"Darcy said it would do mellow me out." he said, thumb brushing over the tribble in his pocket so it gives an extra happy coo. "That it would be like a therapy pet." Bucky never even heard of those before, or tribbles for that matter. But he certainly can't deny that he feels more relaxed with the creature nearby. "She's... odd."

Bucky doesn't doesn't argue Bruce's explanation though he doesn't believe that this much food could be in danger of going bad so quickly, if that's what Bruce wants to assert is the reason Bucky will go with it. Even if privately he can believe Tony's idea, given the amount of stress the curfew has been giving him since it started. "It's good."

"Darcy? Yes, absolutely."

But a good kind of odd, he supposes. He appreciates the tribble, even if he'd prefer not to admit it.

"They're good for people with problems, yes." It's the most delicate way he can phrase 'they're good therapy pets for trauma victims.' He doesn't want to directly confront the fact that they're all messes in here, but he can indirectly imply it. "Do you think yours has been helpful at all?" His definitely has been.

Bruce appreciates Bucky's discretion. Tony or Natasha would be the only ones allowed to get away with needling him about that, and only one of them got away with it because Bruce had actual affection for him. "Thanks. If you find something you particularly like, I can show you how to make it. Most of this stuff is pretty easy, anyway."

Bucky looks thoughtful, taking the tribble out of his pocket again and this time rolling it back and forth between his mismatched hands, something which the tribble seems to enjoy if it's excited trills and coos are anything to go by. Looking down and watching it, the strange, happy little creature with no eyes or ears or mouth that could be discerned, he knew he it had been. "Yes. It helps."

It kept him sane in the long dark hours of the night, stopped him from doing anything stupid and lashing out.

He nods slowly, watching the tribble still. "Thank you." It's always nice to be asked if he wants to learn something rather than be told he must and Bucky considers if there's anything he has eaten today he would like to cook for himself. Everything really but especially... "Pancakes?"

"Good."

Bruce takes a moment to watch the man play with his tribble. The little cooing thing shouldn't be as cute and relaxing as it is, but he has to admit that even the sound of someone else playing with one eases some of the tension in his shoulders. It must be something in the way they purr.

It definitely helped him out last night as well. Between that and obsessive working on projects and cooking, he managed to not break something overnight.

"Pancakes are easy. I could show you how to do that now if you want. I suggest eating your food before it goes cold before we do that, though."

At the cooing, he unconsciously pulls out his own tribble, which starts trying to climb his arm again. It seems determined to strike a purring trail all the way to his shoulder.

If Bruce looks attentively enough he might notice the flicker of amusement that passes through Bucky's eyes as he watches the other mans adventurous tribble try to climb Mount Banner. Then he's nodding in agreement and gently slipping his own pet back into his pocket where it can do no harm so he can pick up his knife and fork to finish his current plateful of breakfast. "Okay."

The only one who seems to object is the tribble, which makes something of a disappointed warble at the game being over for now, despite that Bucky still manages to focus on clearing his plate with dedicated efficiency.

"I'll by by the stove."

Bruce decides to just let his tribble be. It is still determined to get to his shoulder and loudly purring when he turns to tend to the oven. By the time Bucky's ready, Bruce will have already put out the ingredients and materials to show him how to make a pancake from scratch. And the tribble will have reached his shoulder and will be happily purring in his ear. It sounds like the happiest lawnmower alive.

Bucky stops to set his plate dutifully in the dishwasher before he comes up beside Bruce at the stove, his eyes flicking to the tribble on Bruce's shoulder with that amusement still in his eyes. "It likes being high up."

Then he looks back down, making note of the ingredients and memorising them in the same moment.

"Personally, I think it's just trying to make its purring even more annoying." It wasn't actually annoying, even right next to his ear. If it were, he would have locked the creature in his room or put it back in his pocket. There isn't even any pretension of annoyance in his voice--instead, he absently pets the purring tribble before stepping aside to give Bucky a good view of the ingredients.

"First thing you have to know is that it's pretty easy to make a pancake once you remember what you need. You put the dry ingredients in a bowl, mix it, then put in the wet ingredients and mix that. Then you pour as much batter as you want on the pan and flip it once it's cooked halfway through. But if you want to make a really good pancake..."

He picks up a sifter, holding it out for Bucky to take and examine. "I suggest sifting your flour before you use it. Once or twice should be enough. That makes the cake fluffier. You should also take out your eggs and milk early so they get down to room temperature and don't seize up the batter when you're mixing. Melt the butter before you put it in the batter, add a splash of vanilla if you're feeling fancy... easy. You can throw in blueberries or something too if you want to. Want to try?"

Bucky reaches up without thinking, brushing his fingers against the soft fluff of Bruce's tribble. The hesitance he would show towards touching a fellow person is non-existent when it comes to touching the animal and he looks a little more relaxed as he pets it. "It's very loud."

The petting only spurs the purring on.

His hand drops to pay attention to his newest cooking lesson and take the sifter from Bruce, turning it over in his hands. "I liked to have banana pieces with them before." he nods and moves forwards to give it a go, frowning. "But they don't taste right anymore."

Bruce instinctively tilts his head away from the hand. It could easily be interpreted as giving Bucky more room to pet the tribble, but in reality, it's just something he does--avoid possible physical contact.

"Try having it purr like that in your ear all day. You'll have a whole new definition of loud." Seriously, it sounds like the happiest little chainsaw.

"The bananas don't taste right anymore?" Bruce watches Bucky work. He doesn't expect to have to jump in, since pancakes are generally simple, but he's ready to if Bucky finds himself stuck. "That might have something to do with all the genetic engineering that's gone on with food since the forties. There was a baby boom after the second World War was over and they had to develop plants that could support the growing population. A lot of older strains were phased out for ones that had greater return." Oversimplification, yes, but that kind of stuff is closer to Betty's field of expertise, not his.

Bucky doesn't think Bruce really minds, if he did he'd move the tribble away rather than letting it keep perching on his shoulder, purring away to itself. Since his intent is to touch the tribble only and not Bruce he'd feel no insult if he did know the true reason for the movement of the other mans head away from his hand.

"No, they don't. They're not the same." he says more firmly this time, more like a sulking little kid than anything. One that had his favourite treat stolen from him. "They were better than they are now. I don't like the ones they have here."

He's learned this to his despair some time back when he'd picked up a banana, peeled it and bit into it before immediately spitting out the bite he'd just taken in shock. "They shouldn't have changed them."

Bruce honestly doesn't mind like he pretends to. He likes the tribble. The purrs are soothing.

"Like I said, they needed to switch up crops to get better yield. Bananas aren't the only ones that were changed since then."

On one hand, he's a little amused by how the man seemed to be sulking over bananas of all things. On the other hand, it's a little sad that not even fruit is familiar to him anymore. He wonders how the man got to the modern day without aging or knowing how the food had changed; had he ended up in an glacier like Steve?

"The strain of bananas you remember might not be extinct, though. It'd be easy enough to look up." He keeps his eyes down at Bucky's hands, using their little pancake lesson as an excuse to avoid eye contact. It's become a bad habit of his, avoiding eye contact, especially when he's having a conversation that is something other than purely professional. "How aware are you of what went on in the last seventy or so years?"

He doesn't want to pry, but that seems like pertinent information, and he won't press for anything else. He's just trying to think about exactly how much the man needs to catch up on.

"Everything seems to have changed since then."

He's looking down at his hands as well.

"Not much." the answer comes honestly, spoken in a way that's almost detached from the picture the words paint. "I was kept in storage for most of those years and they would wipe away my memories of when I was taken out."

Just like that, Bucky hands over some details of how he survived into the 21st Century to Bruce.

Bruce pauses, frowning as he watches Bucky work. Excuse him? Storage? Memory wipes? Who the hell had been fiddling around with the head of an American soldier? What was the point of that?

(Suddenly, Bucky's lack of basic knowledge made a whole lot more sense.)

Intrusive questions dance on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows them. Instead, he just asks, "Who did that?" Voice light and casual, like they're talking about the weather.

Bruce doesn't know. He hadn't given the fact he might not have been told or found out from the others much thought before now. It's still surprising to have his privacy respected that way, to have any privacy at all.

His eyes flicker for a moment at Bruce before he answers, "HYDRA."

Bruce, more than anyone, appreciates the importance of privacy. It's not like he was going to ask around about it behind Bucky's back.

"Ah."

There are a lot of implications there. A lot of possible reasons a Nazi organization would hold an American war hero for seventy years. None of them are good.

This explains so much of his behavior and demeanor.

"Did you get out by the time you were taken by the Capitol?"

Only one more question. He won't ask for the story, for what he did or had done to him. All that matters is if the man out from their thumb now.

"Approximately two weeks before."

A brief two weeks of freedom. A mess of detoxing from the drugs HYDRA had kept pumped into his system and meandering through Washington D.C with little to no direction, aware enough only to ditch the uniform he'd worn for civilian clothing and rid himself of his more conspicuous weapons. He remembers the tail end of it best, when he'd began to follow the news and research the man he'd saved, an action which had led him to the Smithsonian museum and his own face plastered on a wall.

Then he'd been brought here and any designs of freedom or revenge for what had been done to him had gone out of the window, possibly forever.

"Must have been hell showing up here, then."

Only two weeks out of a possible seventy years of freedom, and then suddenly back under someone else's control.

He looks at Bucky, his face hard to read. It explains a lot. It doesn't explain everything, since there are a lot of details missing, but it explains a lot.

"If you want, I could show you how to cook something else. I have a lot of ingredients lying around that need to get used." He won't pry into it. He can give a distraction instead. Then, once they're all back home and out of the murder games, they could deal with HYDRA and the aftermath of Bucky's captivity.

D3 / MCU Breakfast Mingle

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Sounds like a good place to stop?

yep!