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Bucky stands in front of the counter, feeling like an absolute idiot.
His hand stopped midair, on its way to the back pocket of his jeans, to where his wallet is. But he can’t move, even though he can feel the impatience from the people behind his back, also waiting in line.
The reason why he can’t move is that he has suddenly found that the barista is incredibly hot. But, he thinks, in a brief and unexpected moment of lucidity, that he can deal with hot people. He’s used to deal with hot people. SHIELD has a lot of hot people and he sees them almost every day so by now, he thinks, he’s practically invulnerable.
So, the first thing his mind goes after his incredible moment of clarity is that the barista not only is hot. He has beautiful blue eyes that are looking at him with a hint of worry. His hair is blond and shines beneath the lights of the café, making it look like liquid gold.
Oh god, he thinks in a catastrophic prediction of what is yet to come.
“Sir?” the man speaks and Bucky has the awful craving of punching himself right in the face. “Sir, is everything alright?”
The man, the hottest man he has ever seen in his goddamn life, is really looking at him in earnest concern. The discovery of the man’s long blond eyelashes only makes his stomach drop like his body can’t get a hold of itself.
“Yeah, I’m fine?” he answers, sounding more like a question than a firm reply. But at least he didn’t stutter.
“Good,” the barista says, giving him a small smile that sends Bucky almost into cardiac arrest. “Then may I take your order?”
His daze turns into panic really quick. He scrambles an answer from his brain, because his thoughts feel like mush and Bucky is not really sure he can say anything coherent right now. Somewhere far away he can almost hear Sam laughing at his pain.
“Uh,” and why is he getting annoyed with himself and his long syllables.
Before, he could feel the annoyed stares of the other costumers in line, but now he can practically feel them wishing him a slow, painful death every second he spends looking like an idiot.
“Sir?” the barista tries again, because he is that nice.
“Black coffee?” Bucky finally spits out. “Give me the largest you got.”
The blond man smiles again and types his order on the computer. “That’ll be three ninety-nine.”
“Yeah,” Bucky takes out his wallet and places a five bill on the counter. The barista takes de money and is about give him his change, until Bucky shakes his head and says to the blonde that he could keep it. The man looks confused and tries to argue, but Bucky shakes his head again, vehemently and the barista has no other choice but to accept.
Someone back in his mind is laughing hysterically and yelling “smooth” at him. Bucky chooses to ignore them.
“What’s your name?” asks the blond man and Bucky stares at him like he just got slapped in the face.
“Uh,” he stutters again because this is becoming the worst and best day of his life, simultaneously. “Bucky?”
The blond man smiles and writes his name down on the sleeve of the cup. “Please wait at the end of the counter.”
Bucky practically marches to the end of the counter, feeling like an absolute idiot. He’s still very flustered from his interaction with the man, even though his expression doesn’t show it. He kind of wants to bury his face in his hands and scream endlessly about how impossibly hot this specific barista is.
And when the kind man shouts his name to give him his coffee, he knows he’s fucked.
.
“You never tried the coffee shop down the street?” asks Natasha, raising an eyebrow. “What have you been drinking this entire time?”
“Uh, instant coffee?” answers Bucky, handing Natasha a bunch of signed papers, and when he turns he can see the absolute disgust in her expression. “I ran out today.”
“You drink that?” Natasha takes the papers. “It probably tastes like boiled dirt.”
“It does not,” argues Bucky, clicking his tongue. “It’s faster than walking down the street and I have no time.”
“I just saw you playing solitaire like ten minutes ago,” Natasha raises an eyebrow again, not believing his bullshit.
“Yeah, I have no time, as I said,” Bucky replies and Natasha huffs.
She is about to leave when Bucky takes a sip of his coffee and then, for a second, Natasha stays still until she lets out a long “ooooohhhh”. Bucky turns around, starting to feel a little bit annoyed, like she just read his middle school diary.
“What?” he demands but the smirk on her face stops him completely. A bad sign.
“You met him,” Natasha says quizzically.
“Met who?”
“You know,” and her smirk grows, as if she knew something Bucky didn’t. “Blond hair? Blue eyes? The barista who receives at least five numbers from different people a day? A feast to the eyes, if I say so.”
“How did you…?” Bucky begins to protest but Natasha raises a finger, silencing him.
“He has a nice handwriting,” Natasha points out his name written with black marker on the sleeve of the cup. “But how odd: he actually wrote your name instead of making a co-worker do it.”
“Wh--?” Bucky sputters but it’s already too late, Natasha turns around and begins walking towards the hall, the distinctive clank of her heels against the floor.
Bucky stares at the words written, his own name, and he decides in that same moment that the coffee from that specific coffee shop is much better than the instant coffee he buys for cheap in his local Walmart.
.
A week later, he’s back.
He has all of his dialogues memorized and he actually took time to brush his hair. He’s stillI in his working clothes, but Natasha had assured him he didn’t look bad. The line to the counter is long and the variety of the people there suddenly makes Bucky realize how popular this barista is. There are teenage girls in their school uniforms, a lot of middle aged women, other men in suits and young college men, all in line trying to buy a coffee from this particularly hot barista.
The queue is actually very fast, due to three of the blond man’s co-workers stepping up to help him. People went in and out, moms with their steaming coffee and teenagers with their sugary frappes.
And then, he suddenly is standing in front of the cash register with a very handsome man smiling at him.
“May I take your order, sir?” he asks and Bucky wants to run to the exit door, but he holds his breath and prays to all the gods to help him.
“Yeah,” Bucky speaks, slowly. “I want a… black coffee, no sugar, the largest one you got,” he pretends to look at the prices instead of the man’s face.
The man types his order on the register. “That’d be three ninety-nine, please.”
But Bucky already knows that and he takes the exact amount of money and places it on the counter. He’s still not looking at the barista, faking interest on his other co-worker, a young woman with a high ponytail.
The man hands him his receipt and Bucky braces himself for the question.
“Bucky, right?”
Bucky whips his head so fast he gets dizzy. He was not expecting that. The man is still smiling at him so he has no other option but to nod and try to not look like he might just blush.
And just as Natasha predicted, he hides behind the register just a bit and writes his name.
It’s only his second time in there and Bucky is being already treated like a regular.
“Please wait at the end of the counter. Thank you for your purchase!”
Bucky awkwardly walks to the counter and wants to take out his phone just to text Natasha about the recent and unexpected development, but he refrains from it.
Instead, he watches as the barista, whose name he still doesn’t know, takes orders and hands receipts to the other costumers. However, just as Natasha said, he lets his co-workers write the names on the sleeve. A lot of costumers shoot him a look that Bucky doesn’t know how to interpret.
The same girl he pretended to be watching earlier calls his name and leaves his coffee on the counter. Bucky opens his mouth to thank her but the girls smirks the same way as Natasha did one week earlier and shakes her head.
“You’re a lucky one,” she says and Bucky tries to not look flabbergasted.
“Excuse me?” Bucky replies but the girl only offers him a smile.
“You might not want to throw that cup to the trash.”
.
Now Sam has joined them, holding his mug filled with tea. Natasha and he are surrounding Bucky, their curious looks making him even more confused.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“Of course you don’t,” replies Natasha.
“Oh, what’s happening?” asks Sam.
“Do you know the coffee shop down the street?” begins Natasha.
“Yeah? The one that is very popular with teenage girls and tired-looking moms?” Sam raises an eyebrow, still not understanding.
“Yes,” Natasha points a finger at Bucky’s cup. “Look.”
Sam’s stare goes from Natasha to Bucky’s cup and a perfect ‘o’ is formed on his lips. Bucky tries to glare at him, failing miserably.
“I see now,” Sam says. “And what is he waiting for?” he asks, talking about Bucky like he is not right there in front of his face.
Natasha looks at her nails.
“He’s waiting to stop being a pussy.”
Bucky groans but she isn’t wrong. He’s already sweating at the prospect of taking the sleeve off and reading whatever the hot barista wrote. It surely isn’t a bad thing, but it could also be an awful joke ran by the employees of the coffee shop.
It could be a lot of things and Bucky isn’t sure he wants to know.
“You are telling me that that person wrote Bucky’s name and he still hasn’t gone back to ravish him behind the counter?” Sam chuckles.
“He’s been there for thirty minutes now. I think he needs a little bit of… Oh, you know what?” Natasha suddenly snatches the empty cup out of Bucky’s hands and he is seconds late to stop her. She takes off the sleeve and on the other side, there’s something written that makes her go “oooohhhhh”. Bucky tries to take back the sleeve, but Sam body-blocks him and he collides against the hard shoulder of the other man.
Sam also takes a peek of whatever is written and also goes “ooooohhhh”. Both of them nod at the same time and Bucky groans.
“Please, give it back,” he says and Natasha shakes her head. She then shows the interior of the sleeve and Bucky’s heart is about to stop.
Steve. The name of the hottest man he has ever seen in his life and his number.
He is still looking at the number so he doesn’t notice when Natasha takes out her phone and types the number.
The familiar sound of the phone calling a number fills the room and Bucky panics.
“What? What do you think you are doing?” he spits in a hushed voice.
“I’m tired of you looking like you don’t know what to do with yourself,” she whispers back and hands him the phone. “If you don’t ask him out on a date, I’m coming back and kicking your ass.”
She then hands him the phone and exits the small break room. Sam follows her after he has winked at Bucky and given him a thumbs up.
Bucky almost jumps when a deep, gentle voice speaks on the other line.
“Hello?”
“Uhmmm,” he begins, feeling like an awkward teenager talking to his crush. “I think… you wrote your number on my coffee cup.”
Smooth. He wants to bash his head against the wall and pass out so he can avoid further embarrassing himself.
However, the man named Steve laughs.
“Oh, yeah, I did that.”
Bucky opens his mouth to speak but Steve interrupts him with another laugh.
“I’m free this Friday, what about you?”
Bucky smiles.
At least Natasha won’t kick his ass now.