A/N. Hello, everyone! I'm so sorry that this is so extremely late. I didn't even realize it had been so long until I got a review saying it had been a month and my eyes just popped open like "WHAT?". Please forgive me. At least there wasn't a cliffhanger, though, right? So there's that. Anyway, here's the final chapter of Brewing Coffee With Stania. I'm %90 per cent sure I'm going to write an epilogue/after-credits scene so keeep an eye out for that. My next fanfiction project will be an alternating pattern of Civil War stories (to be found on my profile) and a spin-off of the Coffee Chronicles called the World on Fire series, starring my OC Viola Stevenson and her adventures with both the agents of SHIELD, the Avengers, Daredevil, and the Inhumans... duh, duh duh. Interested? Stay tuned to my profile or follow me if you have an account. Or you can follow my Tumblr as well. Once again, I am marvelsbestsuperheroine. I don't post much, but when I do there's a good chance it's about the fanfictions.
Anyway, rant over. Enjoy! :D
Chapter Twenty-One
"We can't just let him roam unsupervised," Natasha was saying. "He's a threat to national security."
"And to himself," Steve added, drumming his fingers on the table.
Some of the Avengers were seated around a large round table, dressed casually but with serious expressions. Sam was there too, sitting at Steve's left with a hand on his mouth and an elbow on the table. The team was making good use of the Tower's latest upgrade, something that had been Pepper's idea, apparently. The Starks had renovated the old training room into what had been dubbed "The Assembling Station" (three guesses by whom). The walls were all made of glass and the abnormal amounts of metal in the room screamed "modernism".
The biggest feature of the room was of course the table, placed in the exact centre with exactly ten plush navy chairs, each with wheels on the bottom, surrounding it. While the table had holographic capabilities, as was to be expected from Stark himself, there was also a projection screen at one end of the room and a projector hanging from the very high ceiling.
Steve, Sam, Clint, Tony, Tania, and Natasha were the only ones seated at the table, all of them clustered to the far side. No one wanted to have this discussion, but it was a conversation that had to be had.
"We understand that, Steve," Clint said, speaking up for the first time. "But we have no proof that he won't go crawling back to Hydra because, for all we know, he could still be under 'The Influence'." He made the quotation gesture almost mockingly.
Jumping on Clint's bandwagon, Natasha agreed before Steve could argue. "There's no way Hydra's completely gone. An organization that lasted that long and ran through as many cracks in SHIELD's defences as it did…" She shook her head and sighed. "We'll be seeing them again. Which means that Bucky has a somewhere to go back to."
"We'll just have to get to him first," Tania said determinedly, holding Steve's hand lightly under the table. She brushed her thumb over the dorsal side of his hand rhythmically, back and forth, back and forth.
Tony frowned. "Let's say we find this guy. We capture him, even though he's as jacked up as Steve is but with the added bonus of a deadly metal arm. We stash him in the Tower. Then what?"
"We break their hold over him," Steve said firmly. There was no doubt or question in his voice.
"How?"
"Cognitive recalibration?" He suggested hopefully.
Natasha smirked. "It's been proven to work two times out of three."
"The point is: we'll find a way," Tania summarized. She was trying very hard to be the optimistic one in this situation. She wasn't normally the idealist, but with Steve so torn up about Bucky, someone had to remind the team (especially Steve) that the future was never truly set.
"Not exactly a foolproof plan from the Man-With-A-Plan himself, but count me in," Clint stated, raising a hand.
Natasha nodded in agreement. "Me as well. Clint and I have some rebuilding to do now that all our old covers and information have been leaked, but if you ever need us, we'll come running."
Steve looked to Sam, who sat at his left. Sam's lips turned upward. "Hey man, whatever you need, I'm there. We'll get your friend back."
"Uh, am I the only one who acknowledges the fact that this guy isn't Steve's friend anymore?" Tony interrupted. "He's a trained killer, possibly the best in the world, and he's done more harm than good at this point."
Steve's glare could cut through steel. "You don't think I know that?" Tania could feel his hand tense under the table.
Tony scoffed. "You seem to be pretending that he isn't."
"Bucky is a person, Tony."
"Yeah, a person who, after all this, needs to be put behind bars for all the things he's done."
"He deserves a fair trial, the same as everybody else."
"Uh," piped up Clint, "What is Stark even doing here?" He asked with a sharp jut of his thumb in Tony's direction.
"Free country," Tony replied wryly.
"Since when does he get a say in what happens to Bucky? He has no stake in this."
"Oh and you do?"
"I'm a SHIELD agent dedicated to stopping Hydra in its tracks. That includes getting Bucky back. Why are you here?" His question was accusatory.
Suddenly finding himself on the defensive, Tony leaned back in his chair to feign relaxation. "I'm Steve's friend. Why else?"
"Bullshit. You want to control this meeting like you try and control everything else."
"Boys!" Natasha shouted, one eyebrow twitching in irritation. "Enough. Tony has the technical resources to find Bucky that SHIELD no longer has access to. I asked him to come here. Now play nice."
Seeing that a change of subject was in order, Sam threw his own words onto the table. "First thing's first: how do we find him?"
"What if we let him find us?" Tania suggested. "He must remember something to have saved us. Whether he's completely under his own free will or not is up for debate, but if he remembers something then maybe he'll try and scope out places from his memories. Brooklyn. Germany. Anywhere else he's been."
"It's a start," Natasha commented, shrugging.
"And how do we get him to come with us when we find him?" Sam asked.
"We convince him," Steve answered.
"And if that doesn't work?" Tony's words dripped with doubt.
When Steve didn't reply for a second or two, Tania gave his hand a squeeze and did it for him. "We'll try again."
Tony threw his hands in the air, rolling his eyes so hard that only the whites of them could be seen. "Are you stupid? He'll crush you! You need a back-up plan."
"I'm not going to force him to do anything he doesn't want to do," Steve said. "He's been forced to do enough."
"We're not going to brainwash him."
"We can't take away his free will either."
"Why not? We do it with all the other villains we encounter."
"Bucky's not a villain!" Steve snapped.
"So he's just exempt from everything we've ever done on other Hydra assassins because you knew him as a kid? Come on, Steve. You're being ridiculously prejudiced."
Steve's eyes narrowed. "All of those things that he did were not his fault."
"That doesn't change the fact that he did them!"
"So he should spend the rest of his life in jail because he was put in an impossible situation and forced to do heinous crimes?"
"I'm saying he should be treated as a dangerous and hostile threat to national- heck, international security until he isn't anymore."
Steve and Tony glared at each other across the table, both unwilling to back down. Only Tania's hand on his arm made Steve look away. Their eyes met and he knew that she understood. She turned to face the others. "Tony, can you whip up some sort of restraining device for Bucky? As an absolute last resort," she assured quickly. "We don't want to take away Bucky's consent, but we also can't let him loose on the world by himself. As much as I hate to say it, people could die. And I, as an Avenger, am not inclined to let that happen.
Murmurs of agreement whispered through the room and around the table. Eventually, Steve sighed, his shoulders drooping. "Alright. Tony?"
After a moment of stiff silence, Tony nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
A blue shirt landed in Steve's suitcase, followed by a pair of cargo pants and a couple of mismatching socks. It was as if no care at all was going into the potential wardrobe.
Oh wait.
Tania sighed from her vantage point, sitting on the bed with her legs crossed. She watched as Steve quickly but lazily tossed articles of clothing into his shockingly small luggage, not really paying attention to what he was doing. He had just thrown in his seventh pair of socks when she stood up. "Okay, that's it. Wake up, dear. You're daydreaming again."
Steve blinked, then looked down at the eighth pair of socks in his hands. He looked at his suitcase. Back at his hands. He smiled sheepishly and slipped the last pair back in the drawer. "Whoops."
Tania chuckled and stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his middle and resting her head against his collarbone. In turn, he folded her into his arms and pressed his cheek to her hair. They stood like that for a while, just… enjoying the calm.
"You'll find him," she eventually whispered. "I know it."
He sighed. "I hope so."
"I know so."
He pulled away to look at her. "How can you be so…?"
"Uncharacteristically optimistic?"
He chuckled. "Yeah."
She shrugged, cotton brushing against skin. "Someone has to be."
A large hand slid up her spine to rest against the space between her shoulder blades. "I'm so lucky that I found you."
"More like ran me over."
He chuckled, kissed the top of her head and pulled away. "You're welcome."
She snorted, the answer so unexpected that she couldn't help it. Still giggling, she sat down on the bed again, sinking into the mattress. Steve went back to packing. As the laughter faded, so too did the light of the conversation. "Are you sure you don't want me to come?"
"You have a lot of work to do now that we've decided to buy the shop. It could go off the market any day now and then we'll lose our chance."
"The same thing could be said about Bucky," she said softly.
Steve sighed. "I won't ask you to put your life on hold to help me."
"You know I would do it in a heartbeat, right?"
"Of course. But Sam and I don't have much to go off of right now. It's mostly just scouting locations that Bucky might remember. Boring work."
"That's the only reason I haven't forced myself to come with you." The chances of Steve finding Bucky anytime soon were slim to none, but as soon as they got any higher, Tania knew she would join Steve in his possibly life-long search.
"I appreciate your support in this, Tania. You have no idea how much." He smiled at her across the room, leaning his hip against the dresser so that he could face her, the packing all but forgotten. "I want this for us. Something to call our own."
Rocky woofed and nudged Steve's calf with his head, asking to be petted. Steve knelt down obligingly and scooped the growing pup into his arms. He scratched behind Rocky's ears as his tail wagged excitedly.
"Besides you, of course," Steve cooed.
Tania felt warm at a the sight of her adorable fiancé with their adorable dog. They were both hers. "I can also get some early wedding preparations done," she suggested. "We still haven't picked a date."
Steve perked up considerably, still mindlessly scratching. "Did you have one in mind?"
She shook her head. "Not really. I've given it some thought, but no decision has been made. I kind of like the idea of a winter wedding, though. Somewhere with a skylight. Maybe at night time. Hopefully it will be snowing. Or maybe in the summer, on the day we started dating. We could have it outside, maybe in the grass or on a beach…" She sighed.
"Those all sound wonderful."
"Any input?"
He tilted his head. Rocky mimicked him. Then: "Summer. The day we started dating could be romantic. What if we had it in the shop?"
Her eyes widened slightly. She hadn't thought of that. It was a good idea. "I'll put it on the list of possible venues," she said and stood up to get her notebook. It was a wedding planner given to her by Pepper that was decorated with purple and white designs. Tania had to say it was suddenly very useful. She limped over to the nightstand and slid open the drawer, pulling out the book and the accompanying pen.
She scribbled in the new venue and date suggestions as more clothes landed in the suitcase. "What about the best man?" She asked absent-mindedly, her hand moving of its own accord and swirling over the entire page in a pattern of circles and miraculously straight lines.
Steve didn't answer for so long that she'd forgotten she'd asked anything at all, too absorbed was she in drawing this strange picture. She almost didn't hear him. "Tony," he said quietly.
Her hand kept moving even as she looked up. The urge to draw disappeared as quickly as it had come and suddenly she could think clearly again. Blinking, she realized how hard that must have been to answer.
Of course Steve would want Bucky as his best man. How insensitive of her to ask. She mentally slapped herself in the head multiple times. In reality, she set the book aside and hobbled over so that she could hug him again. He squeezed her back, inhaling shaky breaths. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have…"
"No," he interrupted. "It's okay. He might not… I mean, even if we find him…" His stare was boring a hole in the carpet. "Tony and I've have our fights, but he's always been there for me. He's a great friend."
"Yeah," Tania agreed. "But if I tell him that, you can't change your mind. He might throw a hissy fit."
Steve chuckled. "I won't." He looked away suddenly.
She could sense his distance. "What is it?"
"Can I…? Can I invite Bucky? To the wedding?"
"Of course!"
"But.. I mean… before we find him… or maybe the others wouldn't want him there…" He shifted anxiously from foot to foot.
She pulled back just enough to look into his face and gently coaxed his jaw towards her. "He is invited and he is our guest. Whoever has a problem with that can kiss my ass."
"But what if he… does something? To- to ruin it."
Ah. The whole "brainwashed assassin" thing. "Well…" Okay, he had a point. Bucky was dangerous. "What are the odds of him showing up if he's still brainwashed?"
"Well-"
She held up a hand. "Don't answer that. Maybe inviting him wasn't such a good idea."
Even though he'd been the one to point out all of the reasons why Bucky shouldn't come, Steve's face still fell.
"But if we find him before then and he goes through a psych eval and is deemed, you know, sane… then he can be a groomsman."
Steve's answering smile could light up a room. It was an expression he didn't wear often. "I love you."
She pecked him on the nose. "I know."
Time went by surprisingly quickly. The coffee shop was bought within a week and renovations started the week after. Despite her still healing injuries, Tania wanted to personally oversee most of it. It helped her feel like she was actually doing something as opposed to sitting at her computer like she usually did. Even then she was hard at work.
She paid for Google advertising and reached out on social media to anyone who'd be interested in working there. With some help from Pepper and Peter, Tania had been able to create a decent photo advertisement to send out on Facebook and other websites. After digging up old paperwork from her student days and brushing up on what exactly got her that business degree, she started looking into the sales part of owning and running a business.
Even after graduation she was still studying late into the night, cradling a mug of coffee in her hands and staring at a black and white laptop screen.
Tony kept offering to pay for this or that or everything, but Tania would have none of it. She and Steve had made this investment together and they were going to work hard to get that money back. But Tony was determined. She would occasionally find that he had paid for something (usually something small) without her knowledge or had paid the construction workers to stay longer to get the job done faster. She would then glare at him and mumble under her breath but what's done was done.
October faded into November and the last streaks of warmth flickered away like dying flames. Brittle cold and biting winds swooped in and preyed on the citizens of Manhattan, nipping at their exposed skin.
Tania's leg and chest were healing nicely, the wounds scarring. The coffee shop was also healing nicely, if Tania said so herself. Renovations were over halfway complete and she aspired to open after New Year's.
Many calls came in about the various positions at the store and she conducted many interviews with dozens of applicants. Surprisingly, Peter had been one of those applicants.
"I need a job," he replied when she asked him about it. "Aunt May keeps nagging me to start making some money and get some responsibility and… uh… yeah. Wait, this isn't part of the interview is it? Cause I can sound much more professional than that."
Unsurprisingly, at least to Tania, Peter landed the job of barista/waiter. It was a minimum wage job, but a job nonetheless. Both he and Aunt May were thrilled.
It turned out that Peter wasn't the only familiar face to apply for a job.
Viola's name appeared on one of the many resumes Tania was going through. When she'd reached out via phone call, Viola confessed to having been contacted by Clint about applying. "He knew I was out of a job because of the whole 'SHIELD-Hydra' thing, so he sent me a link to your website."
Well at least Tania knew she had a very good reference.
Viola also landed the position of barista/waitress.
When Tania wasn't preparing for the grand opening of the shop, she was fretting over wedding details. She wanted Steve's input on everything, but Steve wasn't here. He was still out searching for Bucky with Sam. He'd been gone for over a month and she missed him like crazy, but they called each other every other night for chats over coffee, most of which would be spent discussing the upcoming wedding.
The official date was July 30th 2015, tentatively to be held at their coffee shop around sunset. The colour scheme was NOT going to be red, white, and blue (despite many snickers arguing for the contrary). The colours were actually going to be either navy, blue, and yellow or emerald and gold. Or gold and peach and pale green. Or purple and gold. Heck, why not red and gold because Steve was a Gryffindor? Okay, so colours were up in the air at the moment.
They decided that they wanted a small wedding. Less than fifty people for sure. All of the Avengers were invited, of course, as well as various allies such as Peter and Happy and Sam and Rhodey. Tania had managed to video chat with Graham one day to invite him.
He looked different. The quality of the video was not the best, but she could easily tell that his hair was shaved into a buzzcut and there were bags under his eyes. He seemed to carry himself a bit smaller, a bit wiser, but he was just as goofy and smiled just as brightly as she remembered.
He agreed to walk her down the aisle after his tour ended in the spring.
Their parents were not invited. It hadn't been a hard decision to make, but it had been a depressing one. She had cried alone in her room for a quarter of an hour over it. She hadn't cried over her parents in so long that she felt like a kid again, only without a younger brother to pretend to be happy for.
Later in the month, Tania, Pepper, Natasha, Betty, and Jane went dress shopping. They left the store empty-handed on the first try, but with a better idea of what the bride wanted.
It took Tania a long time to decide between Pepper and Natasha for maid of honour. While Tania and Pepper had been very close since the moment she'd walked into the Tower, when Tania moved to Washington with Natasha, the friendship seemed to have switched over. Eventually Tania decided to go with Pepper because part the maid of honour's duties was to help plan the wedding and Pepper was much better with that kind of thing. Natasha assured her that she wasn't at all offended.
Tania had to ask Steve four separate times what kind of cake he wanted, constantly rebuffing his attempts to say, "Whatever you want is what I want" or "I don't have a favourite flavour" or "I'm not used to the luxury of deciding". Eventually he caved and meekly chose chocolate.
November became buried under the thick snow of December and money was starting to get tight. They had no income as of yet AND they were planning a wedding. It was during a particularly stressful night of looking at financial statements that Tania agreed to let Tony loan her some money (with Steve's consent, of course) until the shop was up and running.
It was so easy to keep busy with everything coming up and everything she had to do - easy to stay distracted. She hadn't seen Steve in two months and Steve had so far had no luck in locating Bucky. He'd thought he'd caught a trail once or twice, but both had gone cold too quickly. From the few times she'd spoken to Sam, he seemed to be getting tired of trekking across the globe on a wild goose chase. However, he gave no inclination of wanting to give up.
She was so busy that the strange urges to draw hadn't even bothered her. Even when it became an obsession, she knew she needed an outlet for all the stress so it didn't really bother her. Sure, it was strange that she was drawing the same abstract design over and over and over again, but she figured it was some psychological impulse.
Dr. Niallo seemed worried when Tania mentioned it to her on the phone. Still, Tania didn't have time to worry about it. She had a million other things to fret over in the coming months.
And then Coulson called.
It was a short conversation, clipped and to the point.
"Have you been having any strange urges to create a design made up of circles and straight lines?"
"Yes."
Phil was silent for a bit. "I'm gonna have to call you back."
It took him a week, during which Tania was now actively worrying about her strange habit and also wondering how to beg Steve to come home in time for Christmas. He probably wasn't even aware of the date. Maybe she could get Sam to do it…
"It's called GH-325," said Coulson on the Starkphone. "It's a SHIELD-issue cure meant to save an Avenger's life should they ever…" He cleared his throat. "It was used on me back when Loki came to Earth. The first time," he added as an afterthought. "It's constantly in my system and when Dr. Banner gave us that transfusion…"
"I got some of it," she finished. "But what does that have to do with my drawings?" She had to have at least a hundred of them. The scariest part was that she couldn't bring herself to throw them away. Even the thought made her begin to sweat and shake nervously. All of the pages were stuffed in her closet, piled almost to the ceiling in stacks.
Coulson laughed breathily. "Well, let's just say it has something to do with alien DNA and a secret underground city that may or may not be Atlantis."
She barked out a laugh. "Oh wait, you're serious."
"Unfortunately I'm quite serious. Various people have been injected with GH-325 and have reacted differently to it. You got it secondhand, so the effects haven't been as strong. But I think we have a cure."
"Well, what is it? What can I do?"
"I'm truly sorry to say this, but nothing. I'm doing some research and I'll let you know when you've been cured."
"What?" How was he supposed to cure her if he wouldn't come see her? Before she could question him on his odd choice of words, he hung up. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get into contact with him. She would just have to wait for his call and learn to deal with her "new" addiction.
Somehow she didn't think her therapist would be pleased to learn about aliens and underground cities being the cause of her habit. Dr. Niallo would probably call her out on her "bullshit excuses".
What was Coulson even doing with his life anyway? Ever since the fall of SHIELD, he had been mostly off the radar, barely contacting them and not speaking much about how he occupied his time. The Avengers recognized his secretive tendencies but didn't call him out on it. They trusted him, Clint and Natasha especially. So they didn't pry.
A week before Christmas, Steve came home.
It was a glorious reunion, full of holiday cheer and homemade baked goods courtesy of Clint and Natasha. The lounge was decorated to the nines with green and red and silver and gold and there was a humongous tree in the centre of the room, right over Loki's imprint in the floor. Already a couple of presents had gathered underneath the branches. The Avengers had decided on a Secret Santa this year to avoid having to buy so many presents for each person.
They had a gorgeous family dinner in the dining room, to which Sam and Happy and Rhodey were invited. They had marvellous turkey (several of them, actually) with the typical stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, and all the traditional foods, followed by log cake and all washed down with spiked eggnog, courtesy of Tony.
They sang loudly and somewhat off key to Christmas carols on the radio and Steve and Tania brought down their record player to dance to older holiday tunes. Soon everyone was dancing and laughing.
Tania had never felt more at home in her entire life.
On Christmas Eve, Steve coerced her into going to church with him. She felt awkward, having been raised without a religion and therefore unsure of the presence of God, but she sat quietly and listened politely to everything. Many wishes of happy holidays and merry Christmas were exchanged and Steve and Tania walked home hand-in-hand.
Christmas morning was filled with groggy rubbing of eyes and at least a dozen cups of coffee to go around. Clint was like an overexcited puppy, bouncing the entire couch that sat five other people. Some were annoyed, others amused, but no one could bring themselves to dampen the mood.
Presents were exchanged. Tania's secret santa gift giver had been Jane, who had gotten her a lovely pair of silver earrings shaped like small eagles with big sapphire eyes. "Because you're a Ravenclaw," she'd said with a grin. Tania beamed right back and put them on immediately, realizing belatedly that they matched her engagement ring.
Tania had drawn Sam's name and had gotten him a rare poster of his favourite band. It had taken some digging (and hacking on JARVIS' part), but it hadn't been too expensive (just hard to find) and in the end Sam had really liked it so it was all worth it.
On Boxing Day, Tania returned home from shopping with the girls to a voicemail from Phil. "Congratulations. You're cured."