A/N

Hello! –waves maniacally–

Welcome to my first uploaded fanfic ever! I'm kinda nervous, to be honest. I've been writing for many years, but this is the first time I decided to upload a fanfic! Also, since English is not my native language, you will probably stumble across some grammatical and spelling mistakes, though I try hard to avoid them.

So, about the story: I will try to make it a relatively light hearted one (at least when compared to some of my previous work). There shall be humor, fluff, some angst here and there for good measure, and although "romance" is in the tag, this is mainly a story about friendship, and the romance aspect will be a really gradual thing.

I just really wanted to give Bucky some peace and quiet, you know? Poor guy can barely catch a break.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this, because I certainly enjoyed writing it! I will try to update once a month.

XoXo,

Lady Turwaithiel

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs

Of flowers, coffee and plum tarts

Chapter 1: Hello Bucharest!

"How's the apartment sweetie?"

Chloe smiled brightly at her mother's blurry Skype image.

"It's an absolute mess!" she exclaimed excitedly.

Her mom groaned; extra grumpy from having just woken up and still drinking her coffee.

"Can you stop being so damn cheerful? It gets on my nerves!"

"Aren't you the one who always said I should look on the bright side?"

"You have an entire ocean between you and your family, you're in a foreign country where they talk language you can barely communicate in, you rented a shitty apartment in a shitty neighborhood and you have no roommates! What part of this is exactly good?"

"Well first things first, I have an entire ocean between me and my family…"

"Chloe!"

"Oh, you know I'm kidding! I already miss you guys."

"We will probably miss you more. I already have my hands full with your brother. He got into a fight with Madison two hours after you left."

Chloe laughed.

"Well, good luck with that ma!"

"Now you're just being mean. And don't think I'll let you get away without telling me what's up with the apartment."

Chloe stuck her tongue out to her mom.

"Well, it's currently dirty but that will be fixed soon, the floorboards creak like mad, the plaster in the bathroom is cracked and falling, the kitchen is probably 50 years old, the pipes make weird sounds and the crown jewel: the faucet spits out brown water for around a minute after you get it running."

Aurelia Paylor pinched the bridge of her nose in absolute irritation.

"Wipe that smile off your face; you know I was against this. I understand wanting to be independent, I encourage it, but-"

"Yes mom, I know, you wanted me to stay in America or let David help me rent a better place, I know; I don't care. If David wants to fund his siblings, he has two underage ones that have studies ahead of them. I worked my butt of to be able to carry my own weight, and I am proud of it. It's my apartment and I pay for it on my own and if it doesn't bother me that it's old, it shouldn't bother you either, okay?"

Her mom sighed.

"Mom, please, can be drop this?"

"Fine, but if anything happens I swear to God I'm coming all the way to Bucharest and dragging you back home!"

"I'm shaking."

"Chloe Marie Paylor! Show some respect to your mother!"

"Mom no offence, but I've not been being afraid of you since I was like 5."

"Now you're just hurting my feelings."

Chloe snorted. Her mom just let out an exasperated breath.

"So is there anything good about that hellhole?"

"Hey don't talk like that about my palace! If you want to know, it's spacious and it has a lots of light so yeay for my plants, the bed and bathtub are big and I think once I clean up and put some green in here it will look nice! And I have it all on my own. Bonus point. Having no roommate is the best."

"It's dangerous."

"Remember Laura?"

"Oh come on she was one roommate, who else was more trouble than help?"

"Paul. Andrea."

"What did poor Andrea ever do?"

"She destroyed like half of my orchids?"

"By accident."

"Still. A true flora assassin, that girl."

Her mom giggled.

"Are you at least relatively high up the building?"

"Oh, that... That's another problem."

"Please tell me you are not on floor level."

"Nope, I'm on the 9th floor."

"That's good!"

"There's not elevator."

Her mom stared at her and then broke down in hysterical laughter.

"Oh, thank you karma!"

"It's not funny mom!"

"It's hilarious and you know it! Well, on the bright side, you'll finally get some exercise!"

"Yeah that's what I tell myself too. It's carrying stuff up the stairs that gives me nightmares."

"Well, you chose the place, so you asked for it."

"It looked better online!"

"The internet lies."

"Yep, the world is out to get naive innocent younglings like myself."

"I have forgotten the last time you were innocent. Also I don't think you count as a youngling anymore."

"My heart is forever stuck at 19."

"Sure thing honey."

"Anyway, I'm gonna go now, I need to clean up, organize my stuff and then I'll probably drop by the university, see how long it takes me to get there, get the program; you know the drill."

"Okay, I have to get ready for work too. And wake up your siblings; heaven save me. Talk later! We love you!"

"Me too! Tell Billy not to drive Madison up the wall."

"Like that will be enough to stop him."

"Hey at least I try! Bye now!"

"Bye, take care!"

"Will do! Love you!"

"Love you too!"

Chloe pressed the red button on the screen of her rather old laptop and stretched her legs. She looked around her new apartment in slight despair, but soon enough got off of the extremely dusty couch and stretched her back.

"Well, looking at you won't make you any cleaner!" she mumbled to herself.

She pulled her hair up, opened the cabinet and wielded her hoover and duster.

"Birds flying high, you know how I feel…" she sang under her breath.

Two hours and a half later, she looked at her work with pride; floor clear of dust and dirt, all cupboards and surfaces dusted, all plates washed and all clothes folded and placed in the closet, bedsheets changed and good to go, sofa and curtains having years of dust hoovered out of them.

She smiled and headed to the little cabinet to get the mop and all things needed to clean the bathroom and kitchen. The mop was there alright, but all cleaners were quite absent.

"Oh fuck me!" she exclaimed.

She checked every cupboard and bathroom cabinet, but nope. Nothing.

"All you need for cleaning is in the cabinet…" she mimicked her landlord's voice under her breath.

I think I saw a mini market in the corner when the bus dropped my off.

With a sigh, she put on a hoodie, wore her shoes and out the door she went.

On to my mighty quest to find some bleach and Ajax!

Truth be told, she was not even remotely angry; she was too excited to be. The apartment was old and perhaps a bit of a mess, but she didn't mind; in fact she liked it. It was clear that the place had seen many dwellers and old places like that had long storied behind them. They felt warmer, more hospitable.

She loved her old, worn couch that god knows how many people had sat on, had seen movies and had slept and had fights and had cried and made love on. She loved the creaking floorboards that so many feet had walked and danced on and the kitchen that had seen good cooks, bad cooks, meals for two or groups for friends or an old woman's simple dinner.

She definitely did not love the stairs. But what can you do.

She finally reached the ground floor, opened the door and walked out on the street. Looking around she found that at the left corner of the street there was indeed a mini market.

She entered happily, greeting the clearly bored out of her mind cashier in broken Romanian.

And then she faced her biggest challenge yet: she barely recognized any of the cleaning products. And the labels were in Romanian.

"Oh great."

She turned back to the cashier and smiled as brightly as she could.

"Scuzaţi-mă…"

The girl raised her head. She was a pretty girl, petite, with a small pouty mouth, big blue eyes and a blonde pixie cut. She looked like a fairy; but an intensely bored one at that.

"Vorbiți engleză?"

"Yes. Do you need help?" she answered in perfect English, albeit with a slightly thick accent.

"Oh thank God!" Chloe sighed in relief "I need some cleaning products, but I can't read the labels, could you please help me?"

"Sure. What are you looking for?"

"Some all-purpose-cleaner, bleach, oven cleaner, glass cleaner, toilet cleaner, generally all the basics."

"Okay…" the girl said and got up behind the cash register.

"Are you the only one working?"

"Unfortunately. The other girl got sick and the manager only shows up around afternoon."

"Not very nice…"

"Nope!"

Chloe followed her back to the cleaning section and paid attention as the girl showed her what was what.

"Here for tourism?" the girl asked.

"No, I'll be staying for two years; for my Masters degree."

"Oh? Which University?"

"The University of Bucharest."

"Really? I go there too! What are you studying?"

"Ethnology, Cultural Anthropology, and Folklore."

"In English, I suppose."

"Yeah!" Chloe laughed "My Romanian is not there yet. Your English is excellent by the way!"

"Thank you!" the girl said "You'll find that most people our age do speak rather fluently, though."

"That's awesome. And a relief to be honest."

The girl nodded.

"So what about you? I mean, what are you studying?"

"Psychology, final post-graduate year." said the girl and surprised Chloe with a proud smile.

"That sounds great!" she smiled back.

"It is. I love it."

Now that she had warmed up to her, Chloe decided she liked the girl. With her pixie cut, dimples and no-shit attitude, she reminded her of her best friend, Sophie.

By this point, they had gone back, the girl putting all the things on the cash register.

"Do you need anything else?"

Chloe paused. She decided she needed to introduce herself to her neighbors; establish a spirit of good will.

"Ingredients for cookies."

The girl nodded and brought everything needed.

"Thank you." Chloe said as the girl started scanning her stuff.

"If you don't mind me asking, how come you came here for studies?"

"Scholarship. Not expensive life-style."

"Yep, I see." she nodded.

At that point a new customer entered the shop, and Chloe hurriedly paid in order to let the girl do her job.

"Thank you so much for the help!"

"No problem. Enjoy Bucharest!"

"Oh I intend to!"

The client cleared his throat behind them.

"Oh sorry! Again, thank you so much!"

"My pleasure. See you at the University!"

"Sure thing!" she smiled brightly "I'm Chloe, by the way!"

"My name's Annika." she smiled and narrowed her eyes at the sound behind her "If this old man keeps clearing his throat I will shove a pack of pastilles down that thing."

Chloe laughed and waived at her as she left; humming a song as she walked down the sidewalk and entering her building.

"It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's new life for me!"

First day and I already made an acquaintance. Things are looking up!

Then she saw those accursed stairs.

Somewhere around the fifth floor she stopped to catch her breath, regretting the past year when she chose Netflix over gym.

"You can do it girl!" she said to herself and started once more the perilous path of the staircase.

Finally, huffing and cursing, see reached her floor and dropped her bags in front of her door as she searched her pockets for her keys.

The sound of a door opening and closing came from behind her and she turned to see the back of a man locking the door of the apartment diagonally next to her own.

Oh, a neighbor! I should make a good first impression!

The man locked the door and started to turn around as she straitened her body.

"Bună ziua!" she said with a bright smile.

The man turned around and looked at her.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

He seemed to be in his late 20s to early 30s; he was tall and very, very fit. Long dark brown hair, steel blue eyes; 5-o'clock shadow and full lips.

She blinked away her surprise and swallowed nervously as the by far best looking guy she had ever laid eyes upon gave her a scrutinizing look from head to toe; making her cheeks light up red.

Oh God I look like a mess. Am I wearing the dirty sweatpants? I'm wearing the dirty sweatpants. Oh for fucks sake stop staring at me, I look horrid!

Finally, after an agonizing second of complete silence from him, her new neighbor nodded politely.

"Bună ziua."

He turned and headed towards the stairs while Chloe entered her apartment, shut the door, dumped her stuff on the floor and look over her new home with a dazed look.

I am never, ever, leaving the house with dirty sweatpants again.

Then she headed straight for the laptop; cleaning and university be damned. Her apartment had just gotten a glorious upgrade, and her friend Sophie was about to be excitedly screamed at.

Song in the chapter:

Feeling Good –Nina Somone