Trigger warning: One racist slur, of which no one (including Cap) approves.

… …

For Want of Caffeine

Steve was standing in line at the coffee shop, because Tony refused to come in. (The genius was lounging on a chair outside, doing something with his phone, and signing the occasional autograph. Although, according to Tony, New York natives cared a lot less about celebrity sightings than anywhere else.)

So far, no one had cottoned on to the tall, muscled blond in the Iron Man hoodie (Tony's fault.), wearing sunglasses indoors and a Yankees ball cap (Tony, again. He knew Steve was a Dodgers fan.) being Captain America. He gave it another five minutes or so before someone put together the shape of his torso (The Dorito "meme" was, as anyone could guess, also Tony.) and the fact that Iron Man was sitting outside, at which point someone would pull out their phone and attempt to take sneaky photos, someone else would tell them off, and other folks would get involved. At that point, based on past experience, the manager would do one of three things: ask him to leave, ask the picture-taker to leave, or give Steve his order for free.

If he could make it through the line before that, it would save all involved an awful lot of trouble.

Which translated to his futile hope that the couple in front of him would stop changing their orders to progressively more complicated and strange sounding drinks that were only vaguely relations of actual coffee.

It was around the third change for the man and fifth for the woman that the barista sighed. "Look, I'm sorry to rush you, but we've got a lot of people waiting. Either make your choice, or I need you to move to the back of the line."

Steve smirked, winking at the barista, before glancing down as his phone beeped for attention. Three messages from Tony arrived in swift order.

You know, I have an espresso machine at home.

Or, if you're in it for the pastries, we could have just ordered them in.

I'm a billionaire, and a good tipper. People *like* delivering stuff to the Tower.

Then his head snapped back up when the man at the register snarled, "Listen, you Mexi-trash bitch-"

It was an automatic response (At least, that's what Steve would later claim.) to reach out and grab the guy's upper arm in a grip tight enough to cut off blood circulation. "I suggest you watch your tongue and move to the back of the line, son."

Steve heard the exclamation from a nearby table, "Holy shit, that's Captain America!" but had no time to respond when the female member of the couple spun, chucked her phone at his face, and jumped on him, long, sparkly pink nails aimed for his eyes. "Back off, asshole!"

In the end, the cops arrived to take away the woman on an assault charge. Steve received his coffees and an eclair "on the house", three red scratches across his cheek, a round of applause, a youtube video, and Tony's baffled expression when he eventually emerged from the shop.

"Did your biceps finally incite a riot?" Tony deadpanned.

And Steve bent over, laughing too hard to breathe.

… …

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a/n: As usual, this is All. Kate's. Fault.