A/N: This story was inspired by a twitter thread I'd stumbled upon. I hope you enjoy it!
Daisy wasn't quite certain which was sadder: spending Valentine's Day alone or spending it alone in a deserted cafe. She took another sip of her quickly cooling and almost empty cup of coffee and shook her head; it was definitely the former. But, a job was a job and she was determined to meet Coulson's deadline before midnight. At the very least, if she was successful, then he couldn't refuse her the position as head of the Communications Division at SHIELD Technologies.
The progress bar ticked slightly to the right and she rolled her eyes and slumped in her chair; the completion of the execution command was still over an hour away. She tipped her mug toward her and frowned at the distinct lack of caffeinated life force within it. She was going to need to beg, barter or steal if she wanted a refill; she'd used up the last of her paycheque on one of the cafe's delicious gingerbread hearts. At least they had free wifi. Slow free wifi, but free nevertheless.
She glanced toward the counter and wondered if she'd be able to convince one of the baristas to let her improve their router and modem; she was, after all, the only one using it at the moment. The girl barista would probably be easier to convince, the boy less so as he seemed to have a permanent grimace affixed to his face.
"Refill?"
Daisy startled, not realizing that the female barista had approached her from her other side of the cafe holding a carafe.
She made a face. "I'd love one but... " she shrugged. "No money."
The barista waved. "It's fine. On me." As she leaned forward to pour the coffee into Daisy's cup, she noticed that her name tag read Jemma.
"Sorry," Jemma said as she righted herself, her face colouring slightly. "Normally I'm a little better about checking up on customers."
"Busy night?" Daisy quipped as she cupped the warm mug and brought it to her lips. She reveled in the deep, almost intoxicating warmth.
Jemma gave a nervous chuckle and rolled her eyes slightly as she bobbed her head motioning toward the empty cafe. "Obviously not," she replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before giving a quick look over her shoulder.
Daisy narrowed her eyes suspiciously and set the cup down on the table. She was always too curious for her own good. "I saw him go into the kitchen, if that's who you were looking out for."
Jemma's shoulders dropped with relief and she hastily placed the coffee carafe onto the table and slid into the seat across from Daisy.
"I think there's something going on!" Jemma whispered furiously, leaning forward in the chair.
"Oh?" Daisy's gaze guiltily darted toward her executable file, the line barely an inch across her screen. The barista couldn't possibly be referring to… "I really hadn't-"
"He's been acting so weird!"
Daisy frowned, confused. She shook her head. "Sorry? Who?"
"Fitz!" She exclaimed with exasperation as if the name explained everything.
"Who?" This was ridiculous; she was going to start sounding like an owl. "What are you talking about?"
"Him!" She jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen. Oh! She'd meant the other barista. The grumpy looking one. "We kissed." She slouched back into her chair and wrung her hands. "But it was New Year's... and I reckon it might've been the social expectations of the occasion..."
Daisy leaned forward. Things were becoming significantly more interesting by the second. She narrowed her eyes. "Did you like it?"
She paused for a moment before nodding, her cheeks colouring as her gaze fell to the table. "Probably a little too much."
Daisy laughed. "So what's the problem? You could just tell him you liked it." She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "He might also have liked it."
Jemma's face was etched with despair. "He's my best friend."
"Is he?" Daisy had meant it more as an acknowledgement of a fact, but at the same time she could hardly believe that the grumpy barista had any friends at all.
"For years."
"What's the problem then?"
"It's just…" She sighed. "Everything would change!"
Daisy shook her head and willed herself not to roll her eyes. "Listen. It's Valentine's Day. If you want to kiss him, kiss him. If you want to date him, date him. It'd make for a cool how we got together story."
Jemma frowned, her face pensive. "You make it sound so easy."
She shrugged. "Most of the time, it really is."
"It's just… so much could change."
"It might not be a bad thing," Daisy offered.
Jemma opened her mouth to reply but at that very moment the door to the kitchen pushed open, causing Jemma to spring to her feet.
"No," she said loudly and dramatically. "Unfortunately the cookies aren't free, even if it is the end of the day."
Daisy cocked her eyebrow and bit the corner of her lip to stop herself from laughing. She wondered if the cafe was this entertaining all the time.
"Thanks," Jemma mouthed as she stepped backward before spinning on her heel to return back to the counter and Fitz.
Daisy shook her head to herself and glanced at her progress bar. It still hadn't made very much progress and she was starting to wonder if she was going to wind up spending the night at the cafe.
She wasn't sure if it had been five minutes or twenty minutes that had passed but after a less than challenging game of solitaire, she'd fallen down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories while she continued to wait. She'd been so engrossed in reading the subreddits on the Watchdogs that she'd lost track of time. Her progress bar, she noted, had barely made it past its halfway point.
"What did she say?"
Daisy looked up as the grumpy barista- Fitz- took the chair across from her. His short curls were practically standing on end, evidence of a man who'd been tugging on it far too much.
She blinked and held back a knowing grin. "Sorry?"
"Don't play the innocent," he hissed, looking quickly over his shoulder. "I saw Jemma talking to you from the kitchen." She could feel his leg bouncing nervously under the table, the floor quaked with the vibration. He was clearly anxious. "Did she say anything about me?"
Daisy looked up and toward the cafe's front counter; Jemma was nowhere to be seen. Fitz had, evidently, seized the opportunity to launch his own inquisition. "Should she have?" she replied coyly.
He banged his fist against the table in frustration. "Bloody-!" He leaned forward conspiratorially. "I just wanted to know if she'd said anything…About..." He bobbed his head and cleared his throat.
She lowered the lid of her laptop slightly, leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. She really shouldn't tease him, but he was making it so easy. She batted her eyelashes. "Like what?"
He rolled his eyes. "I'll give you a free biscuit if you tell me."
"Like a biscuit-biscuit, or a cookie?"
"A cookie."
Daisy considered his offer. The cafe's ginger cookies really were spectacular and free was quite the offer in light of her recent lack of cash flow. But what about girl code?
Fitz reached across the table and tapped his knuckle against the back of her laptop's screen. "Don't think I haven't noticed you siphoning off of our wifi for your little executable adventure."
Her eyes grew wide. He was bluffing; he had to be. No one this side of Los Angeles knew how to-
He flashed his eyebrows knowingly, daring her to counter him. He was telling the truth.
Damn it. Out the window with girl code then.
"Fine," she relented, with a grumble. "Deal."
"Spill."
"She's freaking out about your kiss." She mumbled. "On New Year's."
Fitz scrubbed his palm against his face, his cheeks noticeably paling. "It freaked her out? Like, in a bad way?"
She shrugged. "No clue. It's just the impression I got. Listen," she continued, sincerely as she leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "I don't know either of you. But it's Valentine's Day. And is there really a better time to take a chance on something then today?" It was cheesy and she knew it, but maybe the gruff, sour-faced barista was a closet romantic.
He seemed to mull over her advice; uncertainty, or perhaps fear, was written across his face.
After several beats, he straightened his shoulders forcing his back ramrod straight and shook his head. "She wouldn't want to ruin our friendship."
He sucked in a deep breath and opened his mouth to say something further, but the kitchen door swung open causing him to startle. "So- a cookie then? Chocolate chip?" He rose to his feet as if sitting at a table with a stranger had been the most normal thing for him to do.
Daisy bit the corner of her lip. "Ginger," she cracked, willing the tears of laughter not to spill down her cheeks.
"Fitz, can you come here for a moment?"
Fitz's gaze snapped toward Daisy for a brief second and she could see the obvious panic on his face at Jemma's call.
"Go," Daisy mouthed to him. With her encouragement he seemed to collect himself. He straightened his shoulders and with a sharp nod, he headed toward the counter where Jemma was standing.
Daisy tried ever so carefully to adjust her seating so that she'd have a better view and made quite the dramatic display of pulling her legs in and adjusting herself so that it appeared as if she was getting ready to accomplish serious work.
She wished she could hear what they were saying, but the annoyingly jazzy elevator music that played over the loudspeaker dulled their voices. Daisy strained her ears, her head tilted as if the very act of becoming an inch closer to the action might bring their voices into focus.
Jemma's palm was pressed to her chest and Fitz wrung his hands together at his stomach. Something was happening, Daisy just didn't quite know what.
"Why didn't you-"
"Kiss-"
"I hadn't-"
"You never said-"
It was just snippets and it told Daisy absolutely nothing except that they certainly weren't discussing the evening's coffee sales.
Her laptop made a sound, drawing her attention down to its screen. A red warning flashed across the screen. "Executable cancelled. No wifi detected."
A frustrated, angry groan worked its way from her chest and out her lips as she pounded her fist against the table. Both Fitz and Jemma, looked at her, their discussion momentarily paused by Daisy's outburst.
"Is everything okay?" Jemma called out cautiously.
Daisy stood, exasperated. "Where's your modem?" she demanded.
Fitz's mouth opened and closed, unable to respond.
"Modem?" she repeated, irritation clearly evident in her voice.
Fitz pointed toward a door that was marked "office" that was a few feet behind the cash register.
"Good. Fine. I'll be there," she gathered up her computer and made her way behind the counter, making a point to grab a ginger cookie as she passed. Balancing her laptop in one hand, she held the cookie between her teeth as she pushed open the office door.
With the door open, she took the cookie from her mouth and turned back toward Fitz and Jemma. "This-" she said, motioning between a startled Fitz and Jemma, "better be fixed when I'm done in here. I expect something… well, good, when I come back out. I need a reward for this garbage wifi that I've had to put up with."
Their stunned faces stared back at her as she released the door, closing herself in the office.
Daisy made short work of fixing the modem, and within seconds of rebooting the system she could see the completion bar begin to move at a more reasonable rate across her screen.
She gathered up her laptop, careful not to disrupt the program and hesitantly opened the office door. She poked her head through first. The cafe was just as empty as she'd left it, with no other customers and, she noticed with a deepening frown, no baristas either.
Daisy walked out from behind the counter, her brows furrowed with confusion. Fitz and Jemma were nowhere to be seen.
She returned to her table and put her laptop down; the executable file was near done transferring and she'd managed to meet Coulson's deadline with time to spare. She decided to spend the remaining minutes in search of the two baristas; she couldn't leave without knowing how it had all turned out.
"Hello?" she called out softly, mindful of the sound of her voice. She didn't want to interrupt if they were… No. it was best she didn't think about what exactly they might be up to.
"They're baking cookies," she muttered to herself. "Just baking cookies."
She crept around the cafe. It felt as though she was in some horror film where the killer might attack round any corner. Except, instead of a killer, it was two frustrated-and-in-love baristas.
Just as Daisy was about to rise up onto her toes to peek in through the kitchen window, a sound from behind the door stopped her in her tracks and caused her to fall back on her heels. Her eyes widened as her ears focused in on the sound; her brain scrambled to make sense of what she was hearing.
In a flood it became very clear exactly what she had been seconds away from witnessing first hand. Her hand flew to her mouth and she held back a horrified squeak.
"Nope!" she declared aloud to the room before spinning in spot and marching back to her table, her head shaking. Thankfully her file had processed while she'd been searching for Jemma and Fitz, so she quickly closed the lid on her laptop and tucked it into her bag. Without a second glance, she exited the cafe silently wishing the two new lovebirds well.
It was a good week before Daisy even dared to return to the cafe. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she couldn't resist the lure of their famous ginger cookies. That afternoon though, it was much busier and Daisy was forced to stand in line. She could see both Fitz and Jemma working behind the counter, but neither seemed to take notice of her. By the time she finally got to the counter they'd disappeared entirely.
She ordered her ginger cookie and coffee and moved off to the side to wait, hoping they'd reappear. After a few minutes, a tattooed barista came out from the kitchen and handed her a larger than normal paper bag alongside her coffee. Daisy stared at the bag, confused.
"I just ordered one cookie," she explained, holding up the bag. "This is probably for someone else."
"They told me to tell you to look inside." The barista shrugged and turned to begin filling the next order.
Daisy unravelled the top of the bag and looked inside. There she found a good dozen heart shaped ginger cookies with a frosted one set carefully on top. She picked it up to look closer at it.
On the heart was the outline of two birds, their beaks touching. A hastily written "thank you" was curled atop their heads.
She grinned widely. "I knew it," she said aloud to herself before stuffing the cookie into her mouth and taking a well earned bite.
.:FIN:.
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