All right here’s the thing I wrote for @coherentinsanity, whose prompt was: "Bruce attempts to mentor Vision in making Brazilian inspired dishes (or how to cook in general), but Bruce wasn't the best cook to begin with, even after spending a few years making it on his own in Brazil."
Bruce isn’t entirely certain how an android who can practically measure ingredients out precisely to the last atom and keep track of time well enough to never let something under or overcook can manage to screw up a dish as simple as canja. Yet as Bruce gingerly samples a spoonful of the attempt at the Brazilian soup there’s no denying that while it’s... satisfactory, it also doesn’t taste like the soup that had been his comfort food back when he lived in Rio. It’s just... okay.
He’s suddenly very hyperaware of Vision, who’s looking at him expectantly, and almost... nervously, his hands held up in a way that looks like he wants to fidget with something, which is a gesture that Bruce normally associates with himself so it’s a little unnerving to see it reflected in someone else. “Is it all right, Doctor Banner? I followed the recipe you gave me to the letter.”
“Please call me Bruce. And it’s uh...” Bruce scratches at his chin uncertainly. He needs to shave soon. “It’s all right... but you know you don’t always have to do exactly what the recipe says right? You’re allowed to experiment a bit. If the amounts aren’t exact it isn’t the end of the world.”
“Oh. I see.” There’s an awkward silence between. Bruce suddenly wonders if Vision asking him for help in learning how to cook wasn’t a sort of front for some sort of father-son bonding.
Was that what they were? Bruce had helped to create him certainly, but so had Helen and Tony. Then again, Helen isn’t always here since most of the time she works and lives in Seoul while Tony seems to have become more and more reclusive after the Ultron... incident had ended. But even if that does leave Bruce as the only frequently present parental figure, he’s pretty certain he is nowhere near the best one. So the why Vision would want to bond with Bruce is quite beyond him.
Sampling the soup again Bruce raises an eyebrow as he notices something. “Vision, what seasoning did you put in this?”
“Salt, ground black pepper, and parsley, only what the recipe called for,” Vision answers promptly. Bruce shakes his head.
“No, this definitely isn’t parsley. I’m pretty sure this is cilantro. Both taste and smell different. How did you mix them up?”
Vision looks genuinely surprised and abashed, which is an odd look indeed on him. “In my defense, I can’t taste or smell. Or at least, I don’t perceive the world in ways that I would consider equivalent to taste and smell. I don’t even ‘see’ in quite the same way that you do. I can register heat signatures and the dimensions of things and even the frequency of light wavelengths enough to determine the color of objects, but distinguishing between similar looking substances beyond color, general shape, and texture appears to be quite difficult for me.”
He then lifts a hand to his head as if to scratch at some nonexistent hair at the back of his head, but then puts his hand down again.
“Oh...” Bruce isn’t certain how to respond as he’s never considered what a state of existence as a largely non-organic life form must be like. “I guess a purchase of a label maker is in order then.”
At that Vision seems a bit disappointed and Bruce suddenly finds himself adding, “But uh, look, if it’s any comfort, when I first tried to make this, I got distracted by a project while I was waiting for the water to heat up and by the time I remembered the soup, nearly all the water had boiled away. So I’m proud that you did a decent job at something I failed at the first time.”
Vision’s expression clears but at the same time Bruce could almost swear that the edges of his mouth twitch up ever so slightly.
“I’m glad you think so,” Vision says. “But I do believe it’s because I learned from the best.”