"Something smells good," Sam called out from the hallway. "What are you making?"
"I'm stewing chicken," Steve called back. "How was your walk?"
"Good. We went and looked at the tree at Rockefeller Centre, and then walked around Central Park for a while," Sam answered, as he and Bucky came into the kitchen in stocking feet, having left their snow-covered boots by the apartment door.
Bucky, head ducked a little and as silent as he often was, walked over to stand behind Steve, wrapping his arms around him and leaning his head against his back. Steve yelped and flinched a little from where Bucky's metal arm pressed against him, its winter-chilled metal only kept from bare skin by a single thin layer of fabric. He could tell without turning to look that Bucky was smirking at his reaction. "Damn that's cold," Steve said.
"It's pretty chilly out there," Sam agreed. "I'm going to make some cocoa – you want to join us?"
"Sure, count me in," Steve agreed, giving a final stir to the oversized pot and setting the spoon aside before putting the lid back on it. As he moved away to leave room at the stove for Sam to put a milk-filled saucepan on an element, Bucky moved with him, still clinging onto him.
"Rough day?" Steve asked softly. Bucky nodded his head, but didn't speak, just clinging silently to him. Steve wrapped his own arms over top of Bucky's, his hands squeezing lightly in reassurance, and the two of them just stood quietly together for a minute.
Bucky finally raised his head, moving just enough to rest his chin on Steve's shoulder and breathing in deeply. "Is that... is that your mother's chicken?" he asked, a surprised, hopeful tone to his voice.
Steve grinned. "Yeah, it is. And you don't want to know how much walking around I had to do to find a butcher who carried proper stewing chickens and not just those tasteless broilers that's all most grocery stores seem to stock these days."
Sam looked up from stirring the cocoa he was making to grin at Steve. "Now you're sounding like my grandmother, complaining about how nothing tastes like it used to."
Steve smiled. "Well, it doesn't. There's been seventy years of changes to what varieties of things are most commonly available in stores, there's tons of things available now that were pretty much unheard of or only for people with deep pockets back when Bucky and I were kids, not to mention all the different seasonings, preservatives, and additives in everything. I'm not saying all the changes are necessarily bad, I kind of like the variety of what I can choose to eat now, but the changes are definitely noticeable. Pretty much everything is different, whether it's that tasteless foam most people call white bread these days or a glass of milk or a banana."
Sam laughed. "Now you're sounding like some foodie hipster."
"Don't ever look at his Instagram account," Bucky spoke up.
Sam paused in his stirring to turn and look at Steve, raising an eyebrow. "You have an Instagram account," he said flatly. "Since when?"
"Since Darcy," Bucky said, smiling now himself. "Also Twitter and Facebook."
"But no Tumblr. She said I should stay off of Tumblr if I value my sanity," Steve said. "Something about 'RPF' and fanart? He made the mistake of looking," Steve added, jerking his head sideways to indicate Bucky.
Bucky buried his face against Steve's shoulder again, though this time he was laughing as he did so. Sam grinned at the pair of them. "What has been seen cannot be unseen," Sam said dryly as he took a trio of mugs down out of the cupboard, which just made Bucky laugh even harder.
Steve grinned as well, glad to see the change in Bucky's mood. Sam just shook his head and dumped a handful of multi-coloured mini marshmallows in each mug before pouring in the steaming cocoa. Bucky released his grip on Steve to go and pick up two of them, passing one off to Steve before sipping at the other.
"This need tending or can we go sit down somewhere more comfortable?" Sam asked, nodding at the pot of stew.
"It's pretty much done," Steve said, turning to lead the way to the living room. "Just needs to simmer a littler while longer. Then for the party tomorrow it just needs to be reheated before serving."
"Can I make dumplings?" Bucky asked, looking hopeful.
Steve grinned at him as he took a seat on the couch. "I was hoping you'd ask."
Bucky nodded, and smiled shyly back at Steve as he sat down beside him. "Haven't made them since that last Christmas just after Pearl Harbour."
"I remember," Steve said softly. "That's one of the reasons I wanted to make stewed chicken," he said, then turned to explain to Sam. "It was the last Christmas we spent together in New York; Bucky went off to training camp in the New Year, and by the next Christmas he was overseas."
"And you were a show girl," Bucky said, grinning.
"And I was a show girl," Steve agreed, nodding and making a face. "And then we were both overseas, and we were lucky to even have enough ration packs half the time, much less any real food."
"There was that dinner that Stark treated the Commandos to in London that one time," Bucky said.
Steve laughed. "I'd forgotten that. I have no idea what that roast was. Horse, maybe."
"I don't know, I think Falsworth said it might be venison, but it was gamey enough that I'm thinking goat. It was still better than rations."
"That wasn't a very high bar to beat. Remember the D Ration chocolate?"
"Oh fuck, don't make me remember that stuff when I'm enjoying real cocoa," Bucky exclaimed, then looked at Sam. "It was designed to be as inedible as possible, since it was supposed to be eaten only in emergencies."
"I've heard about it," Sam said. "Riley was into military history. He said something about it being designed to taste only a little better than a boiled potato?"
Bucky and Steve looked at each other for a long moment, faces twitching through a series of micro-expressions, then both turned back to Sam. "Sounds about right," Steve agreed.
"If the potato was made of sawdust and glue," Bucky contributed. "You'd break your teeth if you tried to actually bite into it."
"Yeah, to eat it you had to shave lumps off with a knife," Steve agreed. "And it didn't taste all that good. Maybe a little better than some of the stuff civilians were having to eat, but not by much."
"The bread was pretty awful," Bucky said thoughtfully. "People cut their flour with all kinds of things to make it stretch."
"According to Riley the Germans fed their prisoners bread that was made with sawdust and chopped straw."
Bucky made a face. "That would explain the taste," he agreed. "And the texture. I'm not sure which I hated more, the bread or the barley soup."
"Damn. I actually forgot you'd been a POW before you were a commando," Sam said, and shook his head. "Man, Riley would have loved to meet you two. Probably have driven you up the wall with all the questions he'd want to ask about what it was actually like."
"I think I'd have liked meeting him too," Steve said, and both Bucky and Sam had to smile at the sincerity in his voice.
