In this chapter, the_wordbutler and I discuss the importance of coffee. To the characters at least; I personally don't drink the stuff.
It started on a Monday. Those on staff who made it to school early enough to stop in the lounge for a cup of coffee were sorely disappointed. It wasn't the first time the machine had been on the fritz, which wasn't surprising since the coffee maker looked old enough to have existed since the school was constructed thirty years prior.
As the clock inched closer to eight-thirty, Darcy noticed an increase in foot traffic in and out of nearby teacher's lounge from her vantage point behind the desk in the main office. She tried not to laugh out loud like an evil villain at the poor, uneducated masses while she sipped her macchiato. She'd only tried the coffee the school provided to the staff once on her very first day of work, and as a result, Darcy went on a strict coffee binge of premium blends to purge the vile taste of toxic waste from her tongue.
So it was with a faux-mournful heart that Darcy included the news in her morning announcements that day. "Now, kiddos, be sure to be extra nice to your teachers today. Most of them will be suffering from something called withdrawal, because we have suffered a loss this morning: Mister Coffee passed away over the weekend. He was beloved by many around here, and Miss Potts will be available for counseling to those who need it. A memorial will be scheduled for some time in the future once his relatives—the shady microwave and rip-off vending machine, both of the magical, mysterious land known as The Teacher's Lounge, can set up a time. Our deepest sympathies goes out to those teachers who have completely lost all sense of taste and thought his products were a decent way to caffeinate themselves. Those of us who don't believe in drinking sludge will be awake today—thank you, Starbucks."
She paused to smirk at the handwritten note scrawled in the margin of her announcements print out from her boss. "Oh, and, a special note to Mister Stark. Principal Fury requested that you not attempt to resurrect the thing like it's some version of Frankenstein's monster. Students, make sure you rub it Mister Stark's face—I mean, gently remind him oh so politely that Principal Fury said he couldn't fix the coffee machine.
"And kids, if you don't get the Frankenstein joke, ask Mister Barton or Mister Coulson about it. And if you do get that joke, ask them questions anyway. They love answering questions; especially the kind of questions your parents don't like to answer, so make sure—"
"Lewis!" Fury bellowed from his office. "You have anything of use to say?"
"Ugh, fine. Okay, kids, be good and be nice to your teachers, because Mondays are awful enough as it is. And if you don't believe that, just wait. Soon you will reach the age where naps are once again awesome and—"
"Lewis!"
"Okay, fine. Lunch today is hamburgers. Since most of you can't see me just know I did air quotes when I said that. The so-called beef will be accompanied by various side dishes. Bon appetit.
"And this morning, we have a few members from Miss Drew's class to help us with the pledge. Why don't you guys tell us your names, your favorite color, and who you're dating, and we'll get things started."
The pledge, let alone the rest of the announcements, weren't even over before Darcy had an email in her inbox from Tony that with the subject line RE: I have a frakking masters in mech engineering that was sent to both her and Fury. The body of the message contained two words: Challenge accepted.
Darcy, per regulation set up by Tony's wife, forwarded the message on to Pepper to give her a head's up. The guidance counselor's reply pinged its way into Darcy's inbox almost immediately.
At least he remembered to censor his language all on his own. Baby steps. I'll make sure he doesn't burn down the school.
"What are you doing?" Pepper asked.
"I'm engineering," Tony retorted, screwdriver hanging out of his mouth.
"And I'm making sure someone's present to dial nine-one-one when he electrocutes himself," Bruce added, turning a page in the Scholastic book catalogue he was browsing.
In retrospect, Pepper should have suspected that Tony was up to no good when he didn't show up in her office immediately after school and demand any number of sexual favors, but she'd tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, marrying a giant man-child meant enduring his moods and his occasional decision to spend three hours playing Bejeweled in the computer lab. He denied the obsession, but she knew better.
But instinct was a funny thing.
And instinct led her into the teacher's lounge.
The remnants of the coffee machine were littered all over the big table in the middle of the room, screws, nuts, and bolts scattered everywhere. Wires poked out of various parts of dismantled circuitry and Tony's soldering iron balanced precariously on the edge of the table. He squinted and leaned closer to the machine, poking it slightly with his finger.
Pepper leaned to check and make sure it was unplugged, then stood up and put her hands on her hips. "We talked about this," she reminded him.
"No," Tony replied, raising his head. "You talked about it. You talked, you listed reasons, and I considered every one of those very good reasons before deciding that I still have a master's degree and can still fix a coffee maker that's older than most our kids' parents."
"It's not that old," Bruce commented.
"Was it here when you started?"
"I—"
"Yes or no answer, Banner."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "Yes," he answered, "but—"
"No ifs, no buts, no coconuts." Tony pointed his screwdriver at Bruce, then at Pepper, and then at his own chest. "I'm fixing it."
"You will kill someone," Pepper pointed out. Tony huffed into his upper lip and bent closer to the machine. He poked it with the screwdriver this time, and Pepper double-checked to make sure it really was unplugged, just in case. "Ideally yourself, because then I'll inherit your estate—"
"Provided you're named in my will, which you might not be if you keep talking like that," Tony returned.
"—but I'd like it if you didn't take the entire school out with you."
Even as he turned another page in the Scholastic catalogue, Bruce smiled.
Tony, however, did not. Tony scowled like Pepper'd personally insulted his manhood (she'd only done that once, and in her defense, he'd been acting like an asshole and deserved it) and reached for one of the discarded pieces of circuitry. "Saying that I can't repair something as simple as a coffee maker—"
"Never said that," she put in.
"—is like . . . Like. Well. It's like something horribly insulting and completely untoward. Bruce, help me out, gimme a metaphor."
Bruce looked up from the catalogue. "And get on Pepper's bad side? No."
Tony's head snapped up, and he shot Bruce a wounded look. "Banner."
"Yes?"
"The code, Banner."
"What code?"
"Bros before—"
"Do not finish that sentence," Pepper warned, leveling a finger in Tony's direction. He glanced up at her for a moment. She could actually watch him process his options before he dropped his eyes back to the machine.
"Still fixing it," he muttered.
Pepper sighed. "Tony," she said, trying to summon her most cajoling, most supportive tone. Sometimes this was very difficult, given her husband's, well, everything about him, really. "Do you remember our broken vacuum?"
Tony's eyes flicked up. "Yeah, but I don't see how—"
"And our toaster?"
"That wasn't even broken, that was just the after-effects of leaky toaster strudel—"
"And our VCR?"
"In my defense, nobody in their right mind even owns a VCR anymore, a VCR's straight out of the '80s and frankly, they should've died along with acid-wash jeans and—"
"You never fixed any of them!" Pepper declared, throwing out her hands. Miraculously, it shut Tony up enough that she could glare at him. "Tony, every time you've attempted to 'fix' a broken appliance in our house, you have turned it into a smoking, smoldering heap of rubble. I've had to use our fire extinguisher!"
Tony glanced over at Bruce. "That's our safe word."
Bruce rolled his eyes.
Pepper bit back a second sigh. "Tony, please," she pleaded. "Do everyone here a favor and give it up as a lost cause."
"No."
"I said please."
"No thanks, then," Tony retorted. He reached for the soldering iron, picked it up, and then pointed it at Pepper. "Before I cleaned boogers out of keyboard trays and listened to twenty-five different disembodied voices comment on mastery of the QWERTY row, I created. I was a creator."
"And you certainly don't have a god complex," Bruce intoned.
"And I will not let Nick Fury—who, by the way, has probably never created or engineered anything more impressive than a really complicated office supply order form—detract from my creative brilliance." He flicked the soldering iron on. "I will bring life back to this coffee machine, and the first people to drink its sweet nectar will be those who stood behind me in this time of trial."
He ducked his head again. Pepper looked over at Bruce, who shrugged and shook his head. All afternoon, he mouthed.
Pepper rubbed her forehead and then turned on her heel. She knew this was a battle she wouldn't win.
"And," Tony added, and Pepper glanced over her shoulder at him, "I fixed your clock radio."
Pepper rolled her eyes. "It needed a new cord, Tony."
"Still fixed it," he retorted, and returned to his "creationism."
An hour later, she received an e-mail from Bruce that simply read get the fire extinguisher.
And an hour and five minutes later, when the fire alarm went off, she closed her eyes as Fury bellowed, "Stark!"
The PTA furnished coffee the next morning. Word had gotten 'round to the Odinsons of the lack of sustenance at the school. Natasha wasn't sure if the couple heard about the staff's woes from their own children or from their regular babysitter—Darcy.
However they found out, Natasha didn't mind. She walked into the lounge to find Darcy helping Jane set up the cardboard containers of coffee from one of the local coffee shops. "Is that hazelnut I smell?"
Jane turned and smiled. "Yes, it is. And I baked some breakfast casseroles, too, in case you haven't eaten."
"What, no brownies?" Darcy pouted.
"It's barely eight in the morning," Natasha replied.
"And?"
Jane rolled her eyes. "Do you know if Doctor Banner is here yet? I wanted to give him a heads up on George."
"What's wrong with Middle Dude?" Darcy asked.
Jane shook her head and flicker of annoyance crossed her face. "Uncle Loki isn't allowed to tell bedtime stories anymore. George's had nightmares since Saturday and has barely slept at all."
Darcy cringed. "He is the worst when he's sleep-deprived. Why didn't you call me to babysit?"
"Your mom said you were busy over fall break."
"Yeah, burning through my Netflix queue. I mean, I didn't tell her that was the reason I was busy, but you still could've called." Darcy paused to take a sip of her coffee. "And she probably told you that because she was hoping you'd let her and Dad watch the kids. Bet you didn't know you were going to have I'm-so-desperate-for-grandkids-I'm-going-to-stalk- the-next-door-neighbor's-children weirdos living one door over when you moved in, did you?"
Jane shook her head, but a small smile edged the corners of her mouth up. "They're not that weird."
"You only say that because they're not your parents. And anyway, Banner should be here in the next few minutes."
Natasha nibbled on a slice of some egg casserole with bacon, spinach, and mushrooms while eyeing her fellow staff members coming in to the lounge. Stark arrived bleary eyed a moment later and stumbled towards the offering of caffeine with thanks to whatever deities he could think of pouring from his lips. Once he downed a cup like a large shot and as he poured himself a second, his eyes drifted over to the hulking blond man standing nearby. Tony scrutinized Thor before pointing a finger at him. "Is this preemptive apology coffee? Am I going to regret not calling in sick? Which one of your kids do I have today?" He paused and pulled out his phone to flip through his calendar. "George. Didn't I hear Rogers say that one threw a fit yesterday because he couldn't find a red crayon?"
Thor nodded, remorse on his face. "My younger son has had difficulty finding rest this week, but that is not the purpose of Jane and I providing you with breakfast this morning."
Natasha watched Tony, the skepticism never leaving his face. "Whatever you say, Fabio." He grabbed a second cup and poured another round of coffee before walking over to stand near Natasha and the food-covered table. He inspected the options a moment before taking a step closer to her. "If you were Pepper…"
"Get her a piece of the one without cheese because she doesn't do dairy," Natasha answered.
"Thank you," he replied before snatching up a section of one of the casseroles. "Banner in yet? He's so easy to mock around Jane that I can pull it off even at this time in the morning." Natasha raised a single eyebrow in a silent request for him to elaborate. Tony sighed and rolled his eyes before continuing. "Bruce has a major nerd crush on the Lady Odinson. Every parent-teacher conference between the two of them when he had Spawn Number One devolved into going back and forth on the latest journals they've read. Why do you think he was okay with have Spawn Number Two in his class this year? He wanted to keep the door open for phone calls and conferences that result in science boners."
"Jealous that someone else is moving in on your territory?"
Tony shook his head. "I only do science boners if machines are involved. Oh! Here he comes—just watch."
Natasha's eyes tracked Bruce entering the teacher's lounge, hair its usual mess of salt and pepper curls and navy dress shirt sleeves already rolled up his forearms even though he hadn't encountered students yet. And sure enough, Jane broke off her conversation with Darcy, who had to beat it back to the office to man the phones.
Natasha watched as Jane talked with her hands, presumably discussing the situation with George. Bruce kept his eyes on the petite woman, serious expression on his face, and he nodded at the appropriate places while fixing himself a cup of coffee. And just as Tony predicted, a moment later, both Jane and Bruce's faces lit up. Natasha could hear bits and pieces of their conversation, but couldn't really follow the discussion on the latest ideas concerning wormholes.
"Told ya," Tony bragged with a smile he quickly hid behind his cup of coffee.
"You should be nice to him. He's the only one on staff that likes you most of the time. And that includes your wife."
"Please, Pep loves me."
"Doesn't mean she always likes you, though," Natasha countered.
"Why wouldn't she like me? I give her mind-blowing orgasms and closets full of shoes. Closets—plural."
"You also leave her food and coffee to grow cold," Natasha replied, giving a nod to the abandoned food and drink Tony'd set down on the table behind them a few minutes prior.
Tony swore under his before grabbing the items and making his way towards the office.
He had to duck around James on the way out of the room. James, who still looked half-asleep, and quickly locked eyes with Natasha. He gave her a small wave as he walked over to her. "What's all this?" he asked.
"Free food and coffee. Don't ask questions, just take advantage of the situation."
He gave her smirk. "Applying the rules of your love life to breakfast?"
"Shut up," she replied with a quick smack to his chest, causing him to laugh. She downed the last of her hazelnut coffee. "I'm off to bus duty. So is Steve. Who also likes coffee. You remember Steve, right? The guy across the hall you drool over and—"
"Okay, your turn to shut up now," he hissed at her before bumping her shoulder with his upper arm.
"I'm just saying, he might appreciate you taking some coffee out to him. Or you manning up and asking him out for coffee instead of dancing around the idea for weeks on end."
"Get away from me."
"Love you, too."
"So, who are you screwing?" Carol asked.
Natasha didn't break the warrior pose, but Carol swore she teetered. She sent Carol a dark look as they shifted into the next stance. "I'm going to pretend I heard you wrong."
"Please. At this point, everyone knows you're getting it somewhere." The woman next to her, a pretty dark-haired thing with olive skin and a budding baby bump, shot Carol a suspicious look. Carol smiled and wondered whether she could flip the woman the bird while her hands were flattened to the mat. "You can come clean to me."
"When's the last time you kept a secret?" Natasha asked.
"I keep secrets just fine."
"Until you can leverage them against something you want."
"Yeah, but that's voluntary, not because I'm a gossip." They switched poses again, and Carol wiped sweat out of her eyes. She sometimes suspected she was starting to get too old for this bullshit, given that the college girls on the far right side of the room were giggling while Carol's tank top was nearly soaked through. "You've got Rogers wetting himself," she informed Natasha.
Natasha twisted to glance over in her direction. "What?"
"He's convinced you're making it with the hot new thing." They followed the instructor and switched legs, and Carol swore she heard something pop when she stretched. "I keep telling him he's wrong, but—"
Natasha burst out laughing.
She drew the attention of about half the room, plus the death-glare of the instructor. For a moment, Carol wondered if it was heat stroke or something, because she could count on one hand the number of times the other woman'd actually laughed that loud. Then, Natasha shook her damp curls. "Steve thinks I'm sleeping with James," she said in a tone of disbelief.
"Or about to." Carol shifted into the next position, this one with only one foot on the mat, and stretched her arms over her head. "He's been in sad-puppy mode about it for a couple weeks. He plays a good game, but I think his number one concern is over who Bucky wants to sleep with."
Even with her head tilted toward the ceiling, she could tell Natasha was watching her. "Steve."
"What?"
"James wants to sleep with Steve," Natasha explained, and that was precisely when Carol overbalanced and fell over.
"What do you mean, he wants to sleep with Steve?" she demanded in the locker room of the health club five minutes later, cold water dripping from her face. The instructor had sent them both out: Carol for falling over like a demented caribou with an inner-ear problem (all splayed limbs and sputtering), and Natasha for laughing at her. She tugged the band out of her hair and shook it out before sticking her face back under the tap, aware that Natasha was looming behind her, hands on her hips. When she came up for air, she turned on her friend. "This whole time that Steve's been pouting his way through all your flirt-fests—"
Natasha rolled her eyes. "I do not flirt with James."
"—Barnes has wanted to climb into his pants?" She leveled a finger at Natasha. "And don't give me that. You flirt with him like the next three items on your to-do list are all Bucky Barnes. I just figured you didn't screw friends."
"I don't."
"Except for whoever you are screwing," Carol pointed out, and leaned down to splash more water on her face. God, she hated hot yoga sometimes. Then, she flicked off the taps and dried her face on her still-damp tank-top. At least it was as much water as sweat, now. "Rogers is an idiot," she decided.
"No worse than James," Natasha pointed out, leaning her hip against the next sink over. "Since he's figured out that being out isn't actually an excuse—"
"What, did the Barton-Coulson grabass Olympics not give that away?" Carol tossed in.
"—he's just sat and waited."
"Like a teenager who doesn't know how to ask the class hottie to prom," Carol agreed with a nod. They started over toward their lockers. "Rogers almost had a coronary when I called him out on the whole thing." She shook her head. "Apparently my 'ask him for coffee, you're hot and he's not blind' pep talk was lost on him."
Natasha nodded for a moment as they dragged out their bags and started stripping out of their yoga clothes. "James won't make the first move," she said after a few minutes, dropping her sodden tank into her gym bag. "And if Steve keeps dragging his feet, he'll give up."
"And Steve won't do anything until he's sure Bucky's interested." Carol twisted her hair up and secured it with an elastic band. "At least, I assume. I've never seen him make a move on anyone."
"You went on a few dates."
"'Dates.'" Carol made sure to include the finger quotes. "We went out to dinner twice. I thought I'd have to scale him like Mount Everest to get a goodnight handshake." She reached for her t-shirt, then paused. "But I think this is different."
"Why?" Natasha asked, tugging on her jeans.
"Because in the whole time he's worked with us, I've never seen him crush so hard and long on somebody." Carol shrugged. "I mean, Stark noticed. And if Stark noticed—"
"It's like somebody's set up neon signs," Natasha finished.
"Exactly." Carol slid into a fresh pair of sweatpants—no use putting on jeans just to go home, shower, and sleep—and then looked over to Natasha. "We need to fix this," she decided.
"How?"
"I don't know how. But you're an evil mastermind and I'm a bully—"
"True," Natasha agreed, and Carol did flip her off this time.
"—and we can probably con them into it." She tied the drawstring on her sweats and let her hands fall to her hips. "I'm not above threats."
"I've threatened to tell Steve a dozen times," Natasha replied. Carol wasn't sure how she managed to look perfect after thirty minutes of hell, but she always did; her hair was damp, maybe, but she mostly looked glowy and healthy. "James keeps either steering me away or calling my bluff."
"Sure," Carol returned, waving a hand, "but that's one-on-one. I'm talking two against one."
Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You have a plan?"
"I have several."
They grinned at each other before gathering up their bags and heading out into the parking lot. Carol would forever deny how good the cool air felt on her sweat-sticky skin. She opened her trunk and tossed her gym bag in before looking back at Natasha. "Just for the record," she commented, "I know you're getting laid, and sooner or later, I'll bully you into telling me who the culprit is."
Natasha laughed from inside her own car. "Good luck with that," she called, and waved before driving away.
Bucky walked into Xavier's and squinted as his eyes adjusted from the rare October sunshine to the dark environment of the dive bar. The payday happy hour was larger in size than normal thanks to Darcy organizing a memorial service for the coffee machine to take place at the same time. Rumor had it certain principals had slipped the office manager a twenty each to provide for the first round of pitchers.
Once everyone had a glass of something in hand, Clint stood up on one of the barstools. Phil, unsurprisingly at his side, rested one hand on the back of his husband's calf. Clint looked down at him. "You know I'm going to be able to balance pretty easily up here, right?"
"I do," Phil answered with a smug grin.
Clint rolled his eyes. "Oh, but I'm the handsy one? Sure."
"Quit flirting!" Tony yelled from across the room.
"Alright, fine," Clint continued, raising his voice over the music and TVs of the bar. He held up his glass, and the other teachers followed suit. "Dearest coffee machine, we thank you for the days you've gotten us through and wish you the happiest of afterlives in small appliance heaven. To the coffee machine!"
The noise of cheers and clinking glasses filled the bar. Bucky felt a hand come to rest on his elbow and looked over to see Natasha at his side.
"C'mon, we've got a table over here," she told him before dragging him by the arm behind her, nails digging into his skin.
Bucky's eyes followed their path, and he felt his feet grow heavy. The table in question was a four-top and half of it was already occupied by Carol and Steve. "What are you doing?" he hissed through his smile when he realized Steve was looking over at him.
"Helping you get laid. You can thank me later."
Bucky sighed as he took a seat between Carol and Steve, Natasha walking around the table to sit opposite him.
"Barnes," Carol greeted with a nod and a dangerous smile.
"Hello, Carol," he said back while trying to fight off the nerves he felt building in his stomach. Bucky'd heard stories over the years about Natasha's friends that she worked with, and Carol always sounded like an intimidating woman. He was not fully prepared for just how intimidating she could be, and he had a dreading sense that he was about to get schooled on the matter.
"Hey, Bucky," Steve greeted.
Bucky returned the other man's grin for a moment before they both broke eye contact and took a swig from their glasses. Bucky was pretty sure he caught Natasha rolling her eyes in his peripheral vision.
"So, Barnes," Carol started, "Nat here tells me that you were in the Army. On Halloween, we get to wear costumes. I'll wear my old BDUs if you will."
"You were in the Army?" Bucky asked.
"No, please—Air Force. And you did not just seriously roll your eyes at me."
Bucky raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "Yeah, I'm sure it was really hard for you spending all day sitting inside of a plane."
"I probably outrank your ass," she threatened. "Don't make me order you to do pushups on this disgusting floor for the next hour."
"You should do it anyway," Natasha encouraged.
Carol grinned. "I should. Let Steve watch what it's like to be in the military since he didn't get to join."
Bucky turned and gave the other man a surprised look. "Seriously? You couldn't enlist? You look like you could be the posterboy for the military."
Steve ducked his head with a small grin for a second before answering. "I didn't have medical clearance." He opened his mouth to explain further, but thought better of it and took another drink instead.
"Well," Carol drawled, "Steve, you've already pumped me for all my military stories. Maybe you should try pumping Bucky and see what you can squeeze out of him."
The look Steve shot her was quick and murderous, but it quickly faded to a polite but barely-there smile. Bucky caught Natasha biting her bottom lip to keep from grinning too hard at Carol's word choice.
Bucky stood from his stool. "Next pitcher's on me. Nat, why don't you come with me to make sure I order the right thing?"
She elegantly rose from her seat and sashayed next to him all the way to the bar. "What the hell are you two doing?" Bucky asked once they were out of earshot.
"Steve wants in your pants," she answered.
He let that sink in a moment while Natasha ordered a pitcher for the table. "What? Since when?"
"Since you felt the same way about him apparently, but you two are both are too scared to do something about it."
"How do you know?" he asked while sneaking a look around her back to the table to catch Steve picking at the nachos Carol had ordered for them to share.
"Steve told Carol, Carol told me."
He rolled his eyes. "Have we become our students? Are we playing telephone during recess now?"
Natasha smacked him in the chest. "Do you want a chance at Mister Tall, Blond, and Perfect or not? Steve hasn't done anything because he thought the two of us were together."
"Gross."
"I know, right? But since we are definitely not having sex—"
"We are not," Bucky pointed out, "but I would still like to find out who you're banging."
"—you should make it obvious that you're interested and ask him out already," Natasha said, flat out ignoring his comment.
The bartender set the pitcher of beer down in front of him, and Bucky threw some cash down on the bar. "You're sure?" he asked quietly.
"James, when have I ever lied to you or led you astray?"
"The bar is going to close before I finish answering that question, and that will only include the times I was sober enough to remember the ways in which you've wronged me."
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Man up, James. Don't make Carol and I kidnap the two of you and lock you in someone's basement tied to each other until you finally come to your senses."
"You're terrifying. You know that, right? Because you say that like you've already rented the van needed to haul our unconscious bodies around."
The next two hours passed by quickly in pleasant conversation. Eventually the staff members began trickling their way out of the bar and on home for the weekend. Once the four of them had their tabs settled and made their way out to the parking lot, Natasha guided Carol to walk ahead of the two men. Bucky heard them begin to debate whether or not they needed to find a new place for hot yoga after this week's incident.
He slowed his pace a little and was pleased to see Steve match it. "So, um," he started as he scratched the back of his neck, "we still haven't gone out for that coffee."
"Oh, we haven't, I guess. Is there a good time for you?" Steve asked.
"Tomorrow morning works for me."
Steve shook his head. "You live thirty minutes away. I don't want you to have to drive all the way over here on your day off."
"Steve," Bucky said, stopping in his tracks and lightly taking hold of the other man's elbow so he did the same. Bucky waited until Steve turned and looked at him. "I want to. It's not an inconvenience. It's something I want to do."
Steve's eyebrows rose, and half of his mouth kicked up in a grin. "Yeah?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah. How's ten o'clock sound?"
Steve nodded. "I'll see you then."
"Is it as bad as you thought?" Bucky asked as they sat down at a table.
"No, it's worse," Steve replied, and smiled when Bucky laughed.
Prime Roasts was run out of an old gas station and smelled like motor oil and coffee all mixed together. The music reminded Steve of something out of a safari documentary, no two pieces of furniture matched, and the baristas all wore their hair in dreadlocks. Steve stared at the menu for five minutes before ordering, all too aware that Bucky was watching his back and trying not to laugh.
Steve was pretty sure the baristas were trying not to laugh, too.
He'd spent ten minutes in his car waiting for Bucky to show up, feeling like an idiot the whole time. He'd worn a blue-checked shirt and khakis, looking more like he was headed to work than out for coffee, and he was pretty sure his hair would survive a tornado for all the gel he'd applied and reapplied. He knew he was trying too hard, but first impressions were kind of important.
Bucky showed up in jeans and a shirt with just a few too many buttons open, and Steve'd felt both better and worse at the same time.
The shop was pretty busy for a Saturday, so they crammed together at a tiny table in the back corner, one with mosaic tiling and a lot of dings from being knocked around. Steve caught himself wondering if he could find something like it for the house before Bucky knocked their knees together under the table. "Sorry," he said, but Steve got the impression he wasn't that sorry.
"I didn't expect it to be so popular," Steve commented, curling his hands around his mug. (The barista'd informed him testily that they didn't believe in paper cups.)
Bucky grinned. "Are you kidding? This is hipster heaven. Every art student in a ten-mile radius does the walk of shame right through those doors."
Steve bit down on his own smile. "And you'd know?"
"Hey, I still remember college. You could stand in any room on the west side of our dorm and watch them come wandering back from the upperclassman housing over by the art building."
"You're exaggerating."
"Maybe, but you'll never know." He shrugged, easy and casual, and Steve tried not to laugh. "This'd be a pretty good place to segue into your experimental art student past," he added after a sip of coffee.
This time, Steve finally laughed, a little louder than he meant to. Bucky's grin softened around the corners, something warmer, and he avoided letting the warmth sink into his stomach. "I was pretty boring in college," he said. "I double-majored in studio art and art education. Sometimes, I'd just catch a quick nap on the couches in the art building foyer before going back down to the studio."
Bucky cringed. "Ouch."
"My back agrees with you." Steve grinned around his next swallow of coffee. "I never really embraced the whole college experience."
"You didn't miss much," Bucky assured him with a wave of his hand. "I dove right into the 'no parents, no rules' mentality freshman year, even with ROTC watching my back. Nat and I came up with this whole system: if I knew I was going out, I'd give her five bucks to bring me bad dining hall coffee in the morning, and she wouldn't tell me what stupid shit I did the night before."
Steve laughed. "How well'd the system worked?"
"She never held up the 'wouldn't tell me' part of the bargain."
The warm way Bucky said it, along with the smile, made Steve's own grin start to slip. He watched as Bucky sipped his coffee across the table and then as he glanced out the window, momentarily distracted by some teenagers shrieking into a cell phone outside. For a moment, Steve wondered whether his worry about clothes and hair was stupid, and if Bucky and Natasha were still—
Well. Whatever they were on their way to becoming.
When Bucky glanced back in his direction, he forced himself to keep smiling. "You and Natasha are really close," he observed.
Bucky shrugged. "Yeah, I mean— Yeah, there's no denying it, is there?" He turned his mug in his grip for a few seconds. "Before I met her, I wasn't a big believer in the whole 'found family' thing. But we sort of ran into each other at the right time, you know?" He glanced up from his coffee and met Steve's eyes. "She doesn't have a lot of people who have her back, I'm from the kind of family where 'stranger danger' isn't really a thing we worried about, and we sort of clicked." He smirked briefly. "I think I spent two-thirds of our college benders promising I'd marry her if I ever turned straight."
Steve nearly choked on his next sip of coffee, and the hot liquid burned the back of his tongue. He coughed as discreetly as he could, fully aware that his ears were burning bright red.
Bucky frowned at him. "There's no way that was weird," he said after a beat. Steve hastily put down his coffee and cleared his throat. "Barton's practically a pride parade, and—"
He paused after the "and," frowning slightly. Steve waited for a second or two, but when the other man didn't immediately pick up the dropped line, he shook his head. "Not weird," he promised, scratching the back of his neck. He couldn't quite meet Bucky's eyes. "I, uh, I'm just trying to imagine admitting that in college without being slugged."
Bucky's frown deepened. "By Nat?"
"No!" Steve squeaked. The embarrassment crept up his neck in the form of a blush, and he dropped his eyes to his mug. "By people. I wasn't—" He shook his head again. "I didn't have a great time in school," he said after a few more seconds. "I met a lot of bullies. Even in the first year or so of college."
When the silence between them got to be too much, Steve looked up to find Bucky staring at him. His expression was slack and blank, like Steve'd just started speaking in Latin or tongues. "You," Bucky repeated.
"Yeah."
"And bullies?"
"Yeah."
"When you have all that?" Bucky gestured vaguely up and down Steve's body with a flapping hand, and Steve knew that he was losing his valiant battle against his blush. He forced an embarrassed smile, feeling suddenly inconspicuous. "With the arms?" Bucky pressed when he didn't answer. "And the shoulders? And the broad—"
"Those are new," Steve interrupted. Bucky dropped his hand back to the table. Steven wondered if he could hide under it, because he felt his heart thrumming from the line of compliments. "I used to be pretty scrawny."
Bucky's jaw actually dropped. "No."
He nodded. "Peter Parker scrawny," he promised.
"See, now I know you're shitting me," Bucky accused. He pointed a finger across the table, and Steve raised his hands in defeat. "Because even if you weren't right off the cover of Men's Health—"
"And you only read it for the articles?" Steve asked.
Bucky broke his commentary to laugh. He shook his head. "I don't believe you," he decided, and went right back to his coffee.
"I promise, it's the truth," Steve replied. A tiny part of him wanted to posture and present himself as more together than he really used to be, but he figured he'd gone too far for that. He cupped his hands around his mug. "Bullies liked an easy target," he said after a few more seconds, "and a sick, scrawny kid fits the description." He shrugged. "I really didn't grow into 'all that' until college."
Grinning at his finger quotes, Bucky shook his head. "Well, if we'd gone to school together," he decided after a few seconds, "I would've kicked their asses for screwing with you."
Steve smiled slightly. His grip tightened on his mug, and he was suddenly aware of how closely Bucky was watching him. Even when he lifted his own coffee to drink, Bucky's eyes tracked him, and Steve felt as though he'd just been shoved under a microscope's lens.
He shifted a little and wet his lips. "And if they'd screwed with me for admitting the kinds of things you admitted to Natasha?" he asked carefully.
Bucky paused, his mug halfway to his mouth. "Still would've done some ass-kicking," he said after a beat, "but I would've probably asked for your number after."
Bucky's mouth quirked into the smallest of grins, then, and Steve lost himself to his smile and his too-warm face. "That would've been the fastest way to scare me off."
"Yeah, but I'm persistent," Bucky insisted, and Steve was pretty sure the next knee-knock was actually on purpose.
When they finished their coffee and stepped out into the October cool and optimistic sun, Steve glanced over to catch Bucky grinning at him. "So," he commented, their shoulders almost brushing as they crossed the parking lot. "You survived."
Steve chuckled. "By the skin of my teeth, maybe."
"You wanna do it again sometime?"
He punctuated it by pressing their shoulders together for a split-second, and Steve felt his mouth go dry. Bucky stopped and looked over, and for the first time in their whole morning, Steve discovered he didn't know what to say. They'd talked about sports, about teaching horror stories, about favorite movies (The Wizard of Oz had come up again), and Steve'd never once felt nervous or out-of-place.
Now, he couldn't come up with anything to say.
Bucky noticed almost immediately, because he shrugged at the silence. "We don't have to," he said, shoving his hands into his back pockets. "I mean, P.R.'s pretty hardcore, we could—"
"I'd love to," Steve blurted.
Bucky stopped in the middle of the sentence, his lips still parted, and Steve watched as the corner of his mouth quirked up into a little grin. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Steve admitted. He felt the rush of red creeping back up his neck, but he didn't try to rub it away this time. "Or, if driving all the way out here for coffee's a little much—"
Bucky rolled his eyes. "Again?"
"—we could try lunch." Steve swallowed. "Or dinner."
He wondered what exactly the protocol was on first-date kisses when you weren't sure it was originally a date, because the way Bucky's mouth curled into a smile was maddening to the point of unbearable. Steve felt his fingers itch to touch, and he curled them into loose fists. It'd been a long time since he'd been on a date that wasn't forcibly arranged by one of his female coworkers (and with another of his female coworkers).
He liked the sort of shy, heady feeling. Especially when he got to watch Bucky wet his lips.
"Dinner," he decided, and Steve felt the nervousness in the pit of his belly uncurl. When he smiled, Bucky smiled back. "Definitely dinner."
"You say definitely, I'll hold you to it," Steve warned.
"You can hold me to anything," Bucky replied. He paused a beat after saying it, though, and Steve was sure that his cheekbones reddened. He dipped his head, huffed a laugh, and then reached out enough to touch Steve's upper arm.
Except it turned into a squeeze, too long for just friendly, and it took all of Steve's self-restraint not to reach forward and kiss him.
"I'll see you Monday," Bucky said after a minute longer, and then slowly released Steve's arm. "And we can start planning that dinner."
"I'll start planning it before that," Steve promised, and Bucky grinned as he walked over to his car.
They waved at each other one more time, and when Steve climbed into his car, he realized he was grinning like an idiot. He wanted to stand on the feeling at least until Bucky pulled out of the lot, but he knew it just wouldn't work.
So he didn't bother trying.
