This is a fan made story. I don't own the rights to Captain America, any of its characters or any characters within the MCU… Much to my disappointment. This will have some violent content and possible triggers. Steve/Bucky Established Relationship. Constructive criticism is welcome but if you don't like it simply because you don't like the line of thinking, please don't attack me for it.
Chapter 10: Team Work
Steve and Bucky took Rebecca to the main floor for the first time. She looked around in a little awe of the excessive, over the top appearance of the place. Steve directed her and Bucky immediately to the kitchen. He immediately opened one of the cabinets and pulled out a cookbook that was eerily familiar to Bucky.
"Is that what I think it is?" He asked, a little stunned.
"My mom's cookbook? Yep. I'm thinking about copying everything over into something a little less fragile since it is kind of old. Maybe add some of my own, but I think Rebecca should learn the recipes in here. Keep the tradition alive," Steve smiled at the thought. "Besides, I want the kids used to real cooking, not the super processed stuff that's so frequent today."
"Fantastic. What are we making?" Bucky asked eagerly now. Rebecca seemed a bit confused but went with it.
"I thought we could start with something simple. Spaghetti and Meatballs?" Steve looked to Bucky.
"That is going to be a mess to clean up after eating," Bucky pointed out.
"But we're cooking, that means someone, probably Bruce and Helen, will be stuck cleaning up. Those are the rules," Steve smirked.
"I can live with that. What am I on?" Bucky was happy to go with it.
"Meatballs, you teach Rebecca that. I will get the sauce started and show you both how to do the pasta since the technology has advanced quite a bit since the days of rolling it out by hand," Steve responded before pulling out some aprons. He handed Rebecca Natasha's apron and Bucky got Bruce's. He made a mental note to get them both aprons so they don't have to borrow others.
After that they pulled out all the ingredients that would be needed. Bucky happily dumped the pre-ground meat into a bowel and walked Rebecca through all the other things that went into making a good meatball.
Steve, meanwhile, chopped onions and garlic before putting them into a pot with olive oil to caramelize. Once they were ready, he opened cans of ground tomatoes and tomato puree and put those into the pot, stirring it until it was mixed properly. He chopped up herbs and added those as well. He gave it a stir before lowering the temperature to let it simmer.
Bucky and Rebecca were taking the mixture they had made and turning it into balls. Steve got out a pan and started searing them on all sides, while keeping an eye on the sauce. Once all the meatballs were cooked on the outside, they all went onto a pan and into the oven to finish cooking.
He directed Bucky and Rebecca to wash their hands well as he pulled out the stuff for the pasta. This was the amusing part for both the adults as they talked the eight-year-old through the process of mixing the pasta dough. She stood on a stool to be at the right height and it was mostly Bucky talking her through the process as Steve was keeping an eye on the sauce and then setting up water to boil.
When it was properly mixed, Steve had set up an electric dough device that Steve showed Bucky how to run through for the process of thinning it to the right thickness. Bucky immediately pointed out how much easier this was which earned him a kiss. When it was the right thickness, Steve and Bucky showed Rebecca how to cut the noodles to the right width. They went into the pot of boiling water, Steve pulled the now finished sauce off the stove and the fully cooked meatballs came out of the oven.
"Oh my, are cooking lessons going to be something regular because, I will volunteer for clean up if it always smells this good," Bruce stated as he came out of the elevator.
Bucky started cutting veggies to make a salad for a side as well. Bruce watched as Steve slipped a bit of the sauce to the side for him before dumping all the meatballs into the sauce and making sure they were all fully coated.
Rebecca was now bouncing up and down, "I don't know what we just made. Yes, I heard what it's called but I don't know what it is. It smells good. I don't know how I know it smells good I just do."
Bucky chuckled, "You have good instincts, kid. This was always a favorite of mine back before the war. Steve's mom had the best recipes and she taught them all to me and Steve."
"Okay! This was fun," Rebecca smiled. Everyone else slowly filtered up to the main floor. Natasha was speaking to Natalia in Russian now that she knew her daughter could already speak it. She corrected the little girl occasionally on the pronunciation of some words but was generally pleased. Tony handed Joseph off to Maria as soon as he saw her and she looked clueless as to what to do with the sleeping baby.
With supper finished, Steve left it to Bucky to get everything into the appropriate bowels and showed Rebecca how to set a table properly. Helen took Joseph from Maria and put the boy into a bassinet next to his equally asleep twin. Natalia and Sarah were secured in booster seats. When everyone was seated, Bucky brought the food over and started serving out the noodles in appropriate portions. Steve felt a level of relief at the knowledge that Thor had returned to his place living with Jane.
The bowl of meat free sauce went to Bruce, the vegetarian, and the rest of the sauce and meatballs was passed around to the rest. Rebecca was allowed to serve herself but Steve and Natasha served Natalia and Sarah. Steve cut Sarah's food into small bits and let her wreak havoc on the food in front of her. Natasha debated about doing the same but then decided to enforce utensils for her slightly older daughter. She still made the pieces small though.
"So, I was thinking, we could invite Clint and his family to live here too. If I recall correctly, Laura has a master's degree in business, and their oldest is Rebecca's age so she will have someone to be friends with," Natasha commented as they all started eating.
"What does she do now?" Tony asked, seriously considering it.
"She works from home, because of the whole Clint being super protective, but it is as a senior executive for Google. She can't really move higher due to her working from home but I am sure she would like a chance at more," Natasha responded, correcting Natalia's hold on her children's fork.
"I could work with that. You think that she would agree to be my PA with Steve?" Tony asked, Steve rolled his eyes but didn't object.
He had actually learnt pretty quickly how to manage his own investments for the back pay he got from the army when he came out of the ice. Thus, he had a substantial amount of money now. He realized that was probably a good thing too, having four children now.
"Are you going to ask Steve if he wants to be your PA?" Bruce decided to come to Steve's defense.
"It's fine Bruce. I've caught up on as much as I can in the past six years. These days I spend most of my time managing my portfolio in the stock market. It's really simple once you figure out how it works. As long as Tony doesn't expect much more, it shouldn't be an issue," Steve sighed. "Though I expect good pay. I got a family to support."
"Oh, you'll have great pay. Bruce, would I be able to persuade you to take over most of the management of R & D?" Tony assured before looking to his friend.
"I'm not sure I am qualified for that," Bruce looked uncomfortable. "Maybe Cho would be better."
"We could be co-directors," Helen offered to the reluctant man. He sighed before nodding.
"You really meant it when you said that you wouldn't let Stark Industries consume you like it did your father, didn't you," Natasha asked, glancing at her daughter.
"Yes, I did. Natalia will never have to wonder for a second if her old man loves her. She will know it," Tony was dead serious on the matter. "On that note. I think I need to stop drinking. Alcohol kills the liver and I want to stick around for the kid so I think it might be a must."
Everyone except for the children and Bucky stopped moving. Tony let the silence reign for a moment before continuing, "Yeah, I can acknowledge it. I have a problem and I need to do the right thing. Alcohol was one of my father's vices, it is one of mine but I don't want it to be my daughter's."
"If you're going to do this, it has to be done right. We should treat it like any addiction. That means we need to remove all temptation of it," Bruce looked directly at Tony.
"Easy. Steve, will you help me clean out all the alcohol from the shared floor, mine and the labs? That's step one, right? Just don't dump it all down the drain dramatically. It's the good stuff. Save it for special occasions or something when I'm going to have the world watching me, everyone else can have it, just not me. Also, put it somewhere I can't find it and I can't guess where it is," Tony looked at the table, refusing to look at anyone.
"I'm proud of you, Tony. You're doing a good thing for your daughter," Steve finally says into the quiet and Tony gets a funny look in his eye before it disappears and the tension is broken.
Everyone has finished eating by this point so Helen and Bruce stand to start collecting plates. Natasha gets a washcloth to wipe Natalia's face and hands clean. She had gotten distracted because of the conversation and Natalia had eaten with her hands as a result. Bucky did the same for Sarah, the little blonde squirming happily from the food she had eaten.
"Oh. Before I forget again. There is something interesting that I found in the girls' files. I decided to read through them completely, to see if they were documenting everything they did to them. They were by the way, but there was an interesting entry from about four days ago. Rebecca, would you care to tell everyone what you, Natalia and Sarah did?" Bruce looked to the eight-year-old who blushed and shook her head.
"What did they do?" Steve asked confused about where this was going.
"Apparently, Natalia is an expert hacker. She and Rebecca hacked into the main systems for the base and then tried to escape, Sarah apparently was acting as a diversion," Bruce looked extremely amused.
"We weren't trying to escape," Rebecca spoke quickly. "We weren't leaving Joseph and George behind and we knew that Sarah and Natalia wouldn't be able to get over the perimeter fence anyways. They only thought we were. What we were doing was sending all of our files to all the other Hydra bases. We had overheard some of our handlers talking about how you guys kept taking out Hydra bases, so we figured that if a group of superheroes saw a bunch of files of little kids being experimented on, they would come rescue us. Natalia also inserted a bunch of different viruses into the base computers so that if the perimeter alarms got tripped, it would make all the base systems malfunction. Like the intercom system didn't work and the alarms didn't work and the electric locks malfunctioned, they couldn't communicate with the other bases, stuff like that."
Bucky looked at his daughter with approval. Tony started laughing, "So your escape plan was to make Hydra think you were escaping but really you were sending a massive S.O.S. signal. That's smart. You're my second favorite kid now."
"I don't know what an S.O.S. is but it was a call for help," Natalia spoke to the group as a whole for the first time. Steve looked in surprise at the soft tone of her voice. Considering the rough nature of her parents, it was odd hearing something so gentle from her.
"That, my little angel, is exactly what an S.O.S. is. A call for help. So, when we came and got you, that is why you all came so easily. You were expecting us. I guess that makes sense," Tony smiled at the little girl. "At least the right people got the message. Did you know that we were your parents?"
"Rebecca knew that he was her daddy," Natalia pointed to Bucky before continuing. "She said we had to make sure the intercoms couldn't work or they would use them to catch him. I didn't know you were my daddy."
Bucky nodded approval, "Well, fortunately, we found out a way to keep the intercoms from taking control of my mind, Rebecca, but good thinking. You planned for everything. You even used teamwork, using everyone based on their skills. That is the thinking of a leader. That is also probably why they put those trackers and listening devices in too. You showed that you were capable of making a plan to escape so they likely weren't taking chances."
Steve agreed and went and found an empty box, "Yep, it's likely that was why they were split up too. Now, we need to ensure that Tony can use his skills for a long time to come."
Tony only half reluctantly stood and began helping Steve ferret out all the different bottles of liquor from various places on the floor. Once the box was full Tony did one last surprising thing, "F.R.I.D.A.Y., no matter how desperate I become, no matter what I say in the future, under no circumstances are you to inform me of where Steve takes all the alcohol. Also, you are to check my blood alcohol every time I enter the Tower or any building I own. If there is any in my system, Natasha and Steve are to be informed immediately, and by any, I mean even the smallest amount. These ordered are to go into your main proto-calls. They are not to be removed by anyone, even myself. If I try, you are to inform Steve and Natasha. Is that clear?"
"Yes, boss," F.R.I.D.A.Y. confirmed.
"If he attempts to order alcohol by any means, deny him access and inform myself and Steve as well," Natasha added, realizing the loophole.
"Boss?" F.R.I.D.A.Y. questioned.
"Do it," Tony said without hesitating, nodding to Natasha.
"If he tries to create alcohol or bring it onto any Stark property as well," Bruce offered up, realizing that Tony knew how to make his own.
"Do it," Tony stated firmly before F.R.I.D.A.Y. could even ask. "In fact, if it has anything connecting me accessing or consuming the stuff in anyway, alert Steve and Natasha."
"Yes, Boss," F.R.I.D.A.Y. confirmed again. Tony sighed as he watched Steve locate a few more boxes and filling another with the bottles. He then let Tony lead him to his floor to collect them from there.
Bucky looked at Natasha, a bit confused, "How bad was Howard's drinking that Tony is this adverse to it now that he has a kid? It didn't seem that bad during the war."
"From what Tony's said, apparently losing you and Steve during WWII really messed with his dad. Supposedly, Howard Stark spent a lot of time and money trying to find Steve when it ended, he went off the deep end. Drank constantly. Eventually, he and Peggy Carter founded SHIELD, they even made you and Steve honorary members. You were listed as the first SHIELD Agent to fall in the line of duty," Natasha answered. "This is for the best, really. It's the right choice for Tony and for Natalia. I will probably give up the stuff too. It really isn't good for a kid to see their parents drinking."
"Guess Steve and I got lucky then. We don't have any reason to drink. We can't get drunk," Bucky chuckled. "That will probably stand true for the kids as well."
"That's certainly one way to look at it," Natasha stated. "Well, I should get Natalia cleaned up and changed before giving her over to Tony for the night. We decided to trade off nights which I will definitely need. I think he set up a bed in his lab for her. I hope he has headphones too."
Bucky watched as Natasha left. He then turned to Bruce and Helen, "Mind helping me get the kids down to my floor?"
"Sure, I should probably show you how to give the boys a bath. Babies are a little different from small children," Helen smiled. "Tony should have gotten everything needed for that."
Bruce didn't respond so much as he picked up Joseph and headed for the elevator. Bucky retrieved the still messy Sarah from her booster seat while Helen collected George. Wanda waved them off and finished the clean-up of everything. Most of the dishes went directly into the dishwasher.