Steve Rogers sat quietly sketching in their Wakandan hideaway so graciously provided to them by King T'challa. He had just found the perfect angle at which to draw the famous panther statue, sketching it because to him it felt like a new Statue of Liberty, the country had certainly been a refuge when he and his team were being persecuted, and he wanted to honor it.
He was enjoying himself very much when suddenly a door slammed and his peace and concentration was shattered. " Steve! What the Heck happened to jelly beans in the future!?" Bucky exclaimed as he came running and gagging into the room.
" What do you mean what happened to jelly beans?" Steve asked, setting his notebook down with a sigh, the drawing would just have to happen later. Bucky fixed him with a disbelieving stare and shoved the offending sweets into Steve's hand.
" Try them, they are wrong. They are so very wrong Steve. What have they done to them?" Bucky asked with dismay, wiping his flesh hand over his still tearing face. Steve gave Bucky a concerned look and simply out of curiosity, took a jelly bean, a blue one and chewed.
Bucky looked on, waiting for Steve to reach the same decision as he, that the future had officially ruined jelly beans, and that he was not crazier than he believed himself to be.
" Well?" Bucky pressed, not seeing how his friend could stomach the horrific flavor.
" They taste fine to me Buck, maybe it's an effect from the cryo?" Steve suggested thoughtfully.
" Steve, No. Did your taste buds fall off while you were frozen or something? Because there is no way these can taste fine, they taste like rotten eggs and vomit!" Bucky exclaimed in disbelief.
" Well try another Buck, I don't know what to tell you, the one I had tasted like fruit." Steve explained gesturing to the candies on the side table. " That serum must'a done something to your tongue Steve, made even rotten food taste good." Bucky muttered.
" Well how about we both give it a try okay? We will each take one of the same color and taste them." Steve suggested, picking up a jelly bean.
" I can't believe I am doing this. Deal." Bucky agreed picking up one as well.
It had to be the luck of the draw, it was the only thing that made sense as Bucky cringed and coughed through his third jellybean while Steve remained unaffected if not concerned at his friend's reaction to identical looking jelly beans. Bucky's head hit the couch with a groan, hair fanning out around him.
" I call it, must be Stark. He must still hate me and is getting revenge by chemically engineering candies into gross junk in an attempt to drive me mad." Bucky moaned.
Steve could not help but laugh despite the still fresh wound the shattering of the avengers had caused. " I hardly doubt he would if he could find you Buck." Steve chuckled.
" I have an idea." Bucky said, suddenly getting up and heading towards the kitchen. "Whatcha doing Buck?" Steve asked as Bucky rummaged around in the kitchen drawer.
Coming back with a knife, Steve flinched just the slightest amount and tried to stop it, but Bucky saw anyway.
"Don't worry Steve, I'm all me now. That boogieman Winter can't get you anymore." Bucky said regretfully. Steve was just happy Bucky was being able to clearly understand the two parts of him and that he was not Winter, as Bucky had taken to calling his former alternate trigger induced personality.
" Your keeping him on the ropes." Steve said proudly.
" Yeah, now let's get back to trying to show you that I'm not crazy about these jelly beans." Bucky said cutting one in half and handing it to Steve with an assured grin, knowing that Steve was now going to understand what he had been going on about.
Steve took the innocent looking bean and chewed it.
" I still don't.." Steve's eyes went wide, " Oh my Gosh this is disgusting! Tastes like Dugan's sock!" Steve exclaimed and gagged, running over to spit in the sink and fervently hoping that it was not against the customs of Wakanda to do so.
Bucky appeared by the sink. "See, I told you there was something wrong with em." Bucky said patting Steve on the back.
" And when did you eat a sock Steve? I know rations were lean sometimes but no one should resort to eating socks."
Steve coughed. " Not on purpose, Winter of 43', took a nap and Dugan thought he would play cute with waking me up. Oh, Those should be illegal, Why aren't those illegal!?" Steve said as he spit again, the foul beans were gooey and stuck in his teeth.
" I don't know pal, the future is weird." Bucky said with a shrug of his new Vibranium arm.
Meanwhile..
Sam Wilson and King T'challa are laughing their heads off in a security room, watching the feed to the communal hall where the new avengers have taken residence for the last month and a half.
Sam cannot believe it had worked as well as it did, he had picked up some Jellybelly beanboozled jelly beans as a prank for Steve months ago when they had been searching endlessly for Bucky with no luck.
He had wanted to introduce Steve to some of the "Gourmet" candies of the 21st century and With Bucky in the picture and not Winter, Som thought it was necessary to give them both a lesson in modern culture.
All he had to do was pour the candies into the communal sweets dish and make sure to tell T'challa's subjects that it was " American cuisine" and they, after a thorough chemical analysis, had given it the go ahead.
" This is incredibly childish Mr. Wilson, but I can let it slide for now." T'challa said with a broad grin as his eyes remain glued to the screen. " See, I told you it is fun to trick this pair of grandpas." Sam said smugly.