Chapter Text
It started a few weeks after Buck came home from the hospital. The loft still looked almost the same as it had before the accident.
Almost.
The furniture was where it had always been. The familiar smell of coffee lingered in the kitchen. The old couch still had the same worn spot where Buck always sat.
But Buck was different.
For the first time in his life, he was being forced to stay still.
The Diaz boys and May had descended on the loft to celebrate two milestones: Buck was finally off the heavy painkillers, and the doctors had replaced the heavy cast on his leg with a smaller one. According to Christopher, that called for pizza from Buck's favourite place, garlic knots, and enough ice cream to make any dentist cry.
Buck wasn't about to argue.
The loft had become livelier over the past few weeks. Eddie never announced that he was staying more often. Christopher never asked permission before leaving his dinosaur collection scattered across the coffee table.
Somewhere along the way, they had simply become part of the loft. Buck had stopped wondering when they were coming over.
He just started expecting them.
May had quietly become part of the routine too. She'd show up after school with homework, steal half of Buck's snacks, and somehow end up staying for dinner.
Buck didn't mind.
Actually, he loved it.
Other than Eddie and the Diaz family, May and Athena were the only people who had consistently kept showing up. The rest of the so-called firefam had slowly drifted away.
Visits became texts. Texts became the occasional "thinking of you."
And eventually, even those stopped.
Buck told himself he understood.
People were busy.
Life moved on.
He just hadn't expected his own life to move on without them.
Maddie had been a different kind of disappointment. Not because she didn't care. Buck knew she did.
But somehow, even after everything, she still couldn't understand why Eddie had been the person he trusted most.
The moment she'd learned she wasn't listed anywhere in his medical paperwork, she'd taken it as proof that something was wrong.. She still texted him every now and then, usually trying to convince him to make her his medical proxy and power of attorney instead of Eddie.
It wasn't because he loved Maddie less.
It was because Eddie had been there.
There was a reason he'd trusted Eddie with those decisions.
She just refused to accept it.
Buck drummed his fingers against the edge of the pizza box for what had to be the hundredth time that evening.
Eddie looked up from where Christopher was enthusiastically explaining why pineapple absolutely belonged on pizza.
"You keep doing that."
"You've been tapping your fingers on the pizza box for the last five minutes," Eddie pointed out.
Buck looked down.
Sure enough, his fingers were drumming against the pizza box.
He sighed dramatically.
"I'm bored."
Christopher looked up. "You're always bored."
"I know."
"You reorganised your pantry yesterday," Eddie added.
"I was desperate."
"You alphabetised your spices."
"I got halfway through before I gave up."
May snorted into her drink.
"You need a hobby."
Buck gave her an unimpressed look.
"I have a hobby."
"Sleeping doesn't count."
"I'm injured, May."
"Exactly. You're recovering. You need something to do before you drive everyone around you insane."
"I heard that."
"You were supposed to."
Buck leaned back in his chair with an exaggerated groan.
"I'm serious. I'm about ready to start climbing the walls."
"You literally can't," Christopher pointed out.
"...Rude."
Christopher giggled.
May watched him for a long moment.
Whenever Buck talked about cooking, he lit up. He'd spent the last twenty minutes explaining why pizza dough needed time to rest and why homemade cookie dough always tasted better.
An idea began to form.
The thing about Buck was that he always thought he needed to be useful.
He didn't know how to just exist.
Cooking was the closest he'd come to just being Buck lately.
"You know..."
Buck narrowed his eyes.
"Whenever you start a sentence like that, I get nervous."
"You should start a YouTube channel."
Silence.
Christopher gasped dramatically. "Bucky would be famous!"
Buck and Eddie looked at her in perfect sync.
"What?"
"You heard me."
Buck laughed.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because..." He gestured vaguely around the loft. "Who would want to watch me cook?"
"Loads of people watch cooking videos."
"Professional chefs."
May shrugged.
"I watched a guy spend forty minutes cleaning a really dirty rug yesterday."
"...Why?"
"It was oddly satisfying."
Eddie chuckled into his beer. "You could teach people."
Buck frowned. "I don't know enough to teach anybody."
"You made Athena admit your brownies were better than hers."
"They were not."
"They absolutely were," Christopher declared.
"They were close," Eddie amended diplomatically.
May pointed accusingly at Buck.
"See?"
Buck shook his head.
"I'd get, like... ten views."
"Wanna bet?"
He narrowed his eyes. "You're awfully confident."
"I've done research."
"That somehow worries me more," Buck admitted.
"If you lose," she continued, "you make me a batch of your salted caramel brownies."
Buck pretended to consider it. "That's a pretty steep price."
"They're really good brownies."
"They are," Eddie agreed.
"And if you win..." May straightened. "I'll give you Mum's brisket recipe."
Buck nearly dropped his slice of pizza. "You're kidding."
"Nope."
"May."
"What?"
"You'd betray Athena's brisket recipe over a bet?"
"I'm confident."
Buck stared at her. "You scare me."
She grinned.
"So?"
He looked between May's smug expression, Eddie's amused smile, and Christopher, who was bouncing excitedly in his seat.
"Deal."
Christopher pumped both fists into the air.
"Yay!"
The idea should have died there.
It didn't.
Two mornings later Buck found himself standing in his kitchen with a bowl of flour, three eggs, and an inexplicable craving for crepes.
He spent five minutes trying to decide where to put his phone.
Too high.
Too low.
Too much counter.
Not enough counter.
Finally he settled for a stack of cookbooks and hoped nobody noticed.
He stared at it.
"This is stupid," he muttered.
He hit record before he could change his mind.
"Hi, I'm—"
He stopped the recording.
Deleted it.
Started again.
"Welcome to..."
Delete.
Attempt number three somehow managed to be even worse.
Buck scrubbed a hand over his face.
"Okay."
Deep breath.
He pressed Record again.
"Okay, so this is a little awkward," he admitted with a laugh. "My friend May is convinced people actually want to watch me cook. I think she's completely wrong, but she challenged me to prove it, so... here we are."
He gestured towards the ingredients.
"I'm Buck, and today we're making crepes. I'm trying a new recipe, so hopefully we don't burn the apartment down."
Somewhere between whisking the batter and flipping the second crepe, he forgot the camera was even there.
He talked through every step.
Forgot to measure the vanilla before pouring it in.
Dropped an eggshell into the batter.
Burned the first crepe.
He held it up to the camera.
"This one is... what we call a learning experience."
He should have been embarrassed.
Instead, he laughed.
It had been a while since he'd laughed at himself instead of at his own bad luck.
For a few minutes, he forgot about the cast on his leg. Forgot about the weeks of being stuck on the couch. Forgot about how much he hated needing help with things he had always done himself.
He was just cooking.
The second one turned out much better.
By the time he plated the finished stack with strawberries and powdered sugar, he was smiling.
He looked at the phone.
A long silence followed.
"I... actually don't know how people end these."
Another pause.
"Uh...Enjoy?"
He stopped recording.
Editing the video turned into an unexpected rabbit hole.
Buck spent the rest of the afternoon watching tutorials on jump cuts, audio levels, thumbnails, and something called colour correction.
Apparently making videos was a lot more complicated than pointing a camera at food.
By the time he finally uploaded it, it was almost midnight.
He stared at the title box.
Making Crepes | Easy Breakfast Recipe
Good enough.
The description took a little longer.
Hi! I'm Buck.
Thanks for watching.
Hope you like crepes.
Simple.
Before he clicked publish, Buck hesitated.
It was ridiculous.
It was just breakfast. Just crepes.
But for some reason, sending it out into the world felt strangely vulnerable.
Then again, May had dared him. And Buck never had been good at backing down from a challenge.
He clicked Publish.
The laptop made a soft chime. His video was officially online.
Buck smiled to himself, closed the lid, and headed to bed.
"Well," he muttered as he switched off the kitchen light, "I guess I owe May an 'I told you so.'"
He never saw the notification that appeared on his screen a few moments later.
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