Work Text:
The Daily Brewgle sits on the corner of a crescent street, with a cheerful red awning and industrial chic design that was all Tony’s, back before he realised Pepper was far more suited to business management than he was. (This is a bit of an understatement: Steve definitely recalls a fire alarm, Tony screeching, a second fire alarm, the police, somebody playing piggy-in-the-middle with Thor’s immigration papers, and a duck). The inside is a labour of vintage love. One far wall is all exposed brick with enormous iron-wrought windows.
Gleaming motorcycle parts are propped up between black-and-white photography donated by one of their baristas, before he went off to work for the Daily Bugle. (“Traitor,” Tony had muttered). Mismatched chairs sit around mismatched tables, all recycled and refurbished from various dumps and painted happily by staff in their spare time. Low-hanging globes cast warm lights around the main seating area, while in the corner several plush leather lounges are clustered together and weighed down by throws knitted by some of Bruce’s customers in the Yoga theatre upstairs.
The counter is a long polished slab of polished concrete, with state of the art appliances (Tony), and gleaming glass cabinets showing off an array of palate-watering creations (Thor). On the deep red wall hangs a blackboard showing off their various options:
*Tony’s Speciality (It’s Stark Raving Mad!)
*Low-Key Beans
*Jarvellous Java
*Marvellous Mocha
*Too Little Too Latte
*Pepper’s Pot (Does not contain pot, seriously, stop asking)
An old-timey jukebox sits in the corner which has been broken for the past three years, mainly because Tony hardwired it to only play ACDC and Steve made an executive decision.
And then there’s Steve. Who walked into the café one day after an art class looking for work, and was summarily bundled into the office and stared down by Tony and Pepper. Well, Tony was staring down. Pepper was, at least, looking at his face.
“Pep, come on,” Tony was nattering, “I can smell the tips.”
“Is this harassment?” Steve had wondered drily.
“Have a biscuit,” Pepper smiled.
And that was how Steve became the favourite waiter at The Daily Brewgle, Kate had to actually put a tip jar out on the counter for once, and Pepper found her business the location of a modern day harlequin novel on the day a terrifying looking man stormed in, bruised and dirty and drenched from the downpour outside, angrily snapping for something in Russian, before taking one look at Steve and freezing.
“We can’t just say no,” Tony says, the fourth day the man shows up to the café. “He has money. We have coffee. It’s pretty straightforward. And everybody deserves coffee, kid. Even scary homeless guys. If he even is homeless. Maybe that’s just his style? The whole long hair, dirty clothes thing is sort of in, these days, I think? Isn’t that the thing? Yazoo… wheezy-”
“Yeezy?” Kate asks.
“Now you’re just making up words.”
The man in question shifts in his seat, flicking through the morning newspaper like it has personally offended him. Tony and Kate freeze behind the counter guiltily. He can’t have heard them – its peak morning rush at the café, the tables full of muttering businessmen and women in their rumbled suits and coats, cramming scones and coffee down their throats like they’re preparing for the long winter. And Kate has Spotify blaring through the speakers. After a few moments of relative stillness, they both relax again.
“It’s the eyes, I think,” Tony mutters to Kate, tapping a spoon against the side of his mug frantically, “those are murder eyes. Certified. ”
“He’s Russian, isn’t he? Maybe it’s just a Russian thing.”
“Maybe he’s a KGB agent.”
“Maybe,” Kate gasps, “maybe he’s an impoverished prince.”
“Maybe,” Pepper announces behind them, “I told you to cut Tony off four expressos ago.”
Kate jumps guiltily, bashing the cash register with her elbow. It dings happily at her, and the drawer shoots open into her gut. Tony, meanwhile, is chugging his coffee down with the look of a dog that’s grabbed the last slice of bacon from the table and is making a sweet, sweet bid for freedom.
“Pep, my angel,” he croons, after she’s forcefully pried the mug out of his hands, “You’re just in time for the show.”
“Office,” she snaps, “now. And Kate, for the love of God, don’t enable him. Our customers aren’t some creepy peep show.”
“Don’t blame her, she’s young and impressionable,” Tony winks at Kate, who mimes throwing up into the tip bucket, “but seriously, I mean it, you have to see this. Nicholas Sparks is having a wet dream right now, I swear.”
“Was that only coffee? Let me smell that – Kate, seriously, what has he put in this—”
“Shhh, shhh!” Kate hisses, slapping them both on the arm. “Here he comes!”
Despite her protests, Pepper falls silent along with them as they crane their necks to watch the café door jangle open. It is exactly one thirty on the dot, which means Steve has finished his morning art class and has arrived for his afternoon shift. He has paint on his knuckles and a smile on his face, and he holds the door open for two older women who pat the ridiculous curve of his narrow waist and blush beneath their powdered cheeks.
“What are we staring at—?” Pepper whispers, and Kate flaps her hands at her again.
“Magic, Pep,” Tony answers her anyway, “we are staring at magic.”
The café is pretty busy this time of day. There is no end to the flood of office workers on their way back to bland grey cubicles, or beleaguered parents fresh from dropping their kids off at school and still looking a bit wild around the eyes. A few uni students are crammed into the lounge area in the corner – which Tony had insisted upon, once upon a time before he sold the place over to Pepper – comparing exam notes in increasingly frantic tones. Occasionally the expresso machine hisses loudly. On Spotify, Kate’s playlist demands to know what you want, what you really, really want? And every so often Thor’s cheerful tones waft out from the kitchen where he is rolling dough, singing along.
And yet as soon as Steve enters the building, there is a squeak of plastic from the dark corner, where scary-and-possible-KGB-agent has turned in his seat automatically, eyes zeroing in on Steve with laser quick precision. And when a man like that stares at you, it’s a bit hard not to notice. His dark hair is oily and unkempt, falling in rat-nest tumbles around his muscular face and neck. His clothes are monochromatic and stained, sleep-creased in thick layers over his broad chest. His face might be handsome, if not for its layers of uneven stubble and serious level of glower.
He looks like a serial killer.
He looks like a serial killer who exclusively kills serial killers.
“Oh,” Pepper says in a small, surprised voice.
“Wait for it, wait for it,” Kate hisses.
Steve, meanwhile, has been helping the elderly ladies to some free seats near the window, where he is saying something that makes them giggle and laugh like preteens. One of them whispers something at him, touching his elbow, and his face goes amazingly red in mere seconds.
The scary-and-possible-impoverished-prince clenches his newspaper so tight that a page rips.
Very quietly, Pepper gives Tony his mug back.
“Yeah,” he grins wickedly, like a shark, “exactly.”
It’s been a good day. Steve had woken early to run some laps with Sam and his current therapy dog in training, Disco, who shed golden hair all over Steve’s legs and loved belly rubs. Then class, where Steve had painted the way the park had looked in the sunrise, flowers only just bursting into Spring, crowds gathered at the lake’s edge as swans and ducks paraded about with their newborns proudly. When he arrives at work he’s feeling calmer than normal, serene even, and then he turns and takes one look at the matching grins on Tony and Kate’s faces and he knows –
He’s here again.
Maybe Russian guy, who sits in the dark corner with his newspaper and croutons and black coffee and keeps himself to himself, sitting with his muscled hunched shoulders curled protectively around his food like someone is going to snatch it away from him, who scowls at Tony and avoids Clint like the plague, who turns his lip up at Kate’s music choices and looks like he punts small furry animals for the joy of it –
Who smiles when ecstatic children play with each other in the playground across the road, who hums along to some unknown song under his breath when he daydreams out the window, and who dunks his biscuits in his coffee before hastily scooping up the crumbling remains in the palm of his hand with surprising daintiness. Who gets phone calls sometimes and hisses frantically to whoever is on the other end in some European dialect, glancing rapidly at Steve and flushing when their eyes meet.
Not that Steve’s watching.
Steve doesn’t.
Watch.
“Shut up,” he mumbles, brushing past Tony and Kate – and Pepper, oh, good, now she knows – as he heads to the back room to fetch his apron.
“Didn’t say a word,” Tony retorts, because of course he does, “not a peep. Kate? You? Pepper, my angel, my sweet, what could we possibly be--”
“Tony.” Steve hears Pepper warn, before he disappears into the backroom where Thor is hammering dough like it has dishonoured his family.
“Steven!” He greets joyously, golden arms bulging and ridiculous. “How are you, my friend?”
“I’m just fine, Thor,” Steve says, grinning despite himself. Thor’s humour is infectious. Tony’s already threatened to take a blood sample (“In case he’s a Swedish spy,” he’d hissed, before Pepper had dosed him with Valium and put him the hell to bed). “How are you? Isn’t Jane back this weekend?”
Steve’s Facebook feed has been full of photo from Jane’s trip to Antarctica, although he could barely tell it was her between her several layers of clothes and puffy earmuffs. She looked happy enough, pointing at penguins with varying degrees of ecstatic joy. The top comments on each thread were of course Thor’s, although they were mostly exclamation points and emoji.
“She is indeed, she is indeed,” and Thor gets that dreamy look on his face, so Steve laughs and leaves him to his work, tying his apron around his waist as he re-enters the café. Kate is now alone at the counter, so Pepper must have succeeded in finally dragging Tony back to the office for his mandatory midday nap.
Steve’s boss has a nap time.
Steve bemoans his life, a little.
“Hiya,” Kate grins bashfully as he joins her, “how was class?”
“It was good,” and that’s the thing about Kate, she’s a good, steady girl once Tony’s out of her hair, “Might have something for the office when I’m finished, Pepper was asking for something for her wall, y’know.”
“You should bring in more of your stuff, put it up there with Peter’s. I’m serious!” She adds, when Steve shrugs and ducks his head. “Your paintings are amazing. The customer’s will love it, they’ll eat it up. They’ll eat you up.”
“Kate.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. KGB would make a necklace from their spleen. Hiya! How can I help you?” She diverts sunnily, as a customer approaches the counter with a fussing child in one hand and a bulging wallet in the other. “Let me guess: extra shot?”
Steve gets to work. If he steps on Kate’s foot on his way past the counter, it’s purely by accident. Customers greet him happily as he cruises around the tables, even the more exhausted looking office drones. He moves counterpoint to Maybe Russian at the window, taking empty places and mugs, greeting frequent customers and bringing out fresh cutlery. The whole time he’s eerily aware of the man in the corner, the sensation of eyes on his back. Tony and the others tease, but it’s true that the guy has a pretty… singular, focus.
“Can I get you a refill?” Steve asks a desperate looking student, who takes one, wide-eyed look at him, and sadly nods.
“Specimen,” the guy sighs when Steve turns away --
Directly into the line of sight of Maybe Russian, who jerks suddenly, and then lifts his empty mug to signal for a refill. Steve feels himself flush, because –
Well, because. The thing sort of is, that. Well Tony jokes and Kate nudges and Pepper sighs and even Clint from time to time over the past couple of days has leant towards Steve on his trek across the floor and said: “Dude, 911, on speed dial.” Except the thing is. The thing is --
Maybe Russian sees Steve hesitate and lowers his mug fractionally. His stubbled face creases with something like embarrassment, and he chews his lip, and then looks angrily down at his own hands like he’s done something wrong. Like he hasn’t just spent the past four days showing up exactly when Steve’s shift starts and leaving exactly when it ends and spent all the hours between reading the newspaper, whispering into his phone, and staring.
“Aw, man,” Steve sighs to himself, a little. He catches Kate’s eye at the counter. She’s shaking her head at him, eyes comically wide. But Steven Grant Rogers is no coward, and he throws his shoulders back, grips the coffee pot in his hand a little tighter.
The thing is –
“Hi there,” he says, a little loudly, when he reaches Maybe Russian. There are more eyes on his back. Are customers watching him? “Do you need a refill there, buddy?”
Oh my god.
“Oh my god,” he hears Kate whisper.
The thing is –
Maybe Russian is a lot bigger up close. In fact that’s – that’s a lot of muscle there, under those layers, and the lanky hair and inches of stubble. Steve’s not a small guy himself, but Maybe Russian looks like he could give him a run for his money. He’s got one thigh propped out from beneath his table, and, yeah, it’s definitely stretching the denim of his jeans to the limit –
Maybe Russian is staring at Steve.
“Да,” he rasps, and then shakes himself and in perfect English says, “Yeah. Please?”
“Right,” Steve sighs, relieved, because refills, totally, he can do that, and then he must suffer some kind of stroke, because the next thing he knows he’s hearing himself say, “You like coffee?”
At the counter, Kate squawks, and Steve goes cold all over. Because he may be six foot something and according to Pepper, “A catch,”, but his romantic history is more of a romantic summary, and he knows it wasn’t his smooth talking that got him a date with Peggy Carter in senior year. Not that Steve is smooth talking this guy, of course.
Right.
Except Maybe Russian goes a little still, cocking his head as if he’s running back through the words, and then a slow smile spreads across his surprisingly red mouth, and he latches onto Steve’s gaze.
“Yeah,” he repeats, more slowly than before.
And Steve. Doesn’t know what to do with that.
So he does what comes naturally.
He refills the guy’s coffee.
And then makes a hasty, totally dignified retreat.
“Oh my god,” Kate repeats, while he puts his back to the store in pretence of cleaning the expresso machine. “Am I seeing this? With my own two eyes?”
“You breathe a word of this to Tony—”
“And what, you’ll get your KGB boyfriend to take a hit out on me?” And then, Steve’s face must do something traitorous, because Kate’s jaw drops and she hisses, “Oh my god—”
And that’s when Clint, bless his heart, saves Steve’s skin by tripping on his way in the door and careening headfirst over those two little old ladies, taking their table, a chair, and both of their drinks with him into a cascading crunch of glass, plastic banging and surprising shouts.
“Oh,” he says, dazed, in the ensuing silence, “ow.”
“Thank god,” Steve says, shoulders sagging, and goes to find the mop.
Steve’s not lonely.
Really, he isn’t. Shut up Tony, he isn’t.
He shares a flat with Sam a few streets over from The Daily Brewgle. He gets to pat the service dogs Sam’s trained once they’re off duty and Sam doesn’t protest when Steve’s art supplies spill out from his bedroom into the shared territory of the living room. He teaches art classes three days a week in the morning at the local community centre and paints when inspiration strikes in the evenings. He works waiting tables at the café and sometimes helps Sam run market stalls at the local fair on the last Sunday of each month (“Look at those arms, man, shut up, sell the damn cookies,” Sam had said, and to his credit, lines for the stall were twenty people deep.) He runs. He works. He visits his mother’s grave. He paints.
He’s not lonely.
“Hey, this is different.”
Steve breaks out of his daze, leaning away from the canvas. His room is filled with the smell of oil paint, and maybe he was getting a little dizzy on the fumes. He hadn’t even heard Sam enter the flat. Disco pants at his ankles, a little damp around the muzzle.
“Hey, man.” He greets, and dunks his brush in a class of water so he can scrub Disco’s head.
“Who is it?”
“Hm?”
“The painting.”
Oh.
Its half formed still, a splash of pale greys and blues against a shock of black. The silhouette of a muscled forearm, chest and stern profile. A sweep of dark hair against flecks of snow. Eyes a dash of robin’s egg blue against monochrome.
“Uh, nobody really,” Steve says, making a show of cleaning his brushes so he doesn’t meet Sam’s eyes. He’s always been a terrible liar. His mum had been so relieved – “Just some guy at work. New guy.”
“Oh really?”
Damn.
“Yeah,” Steve shrugs, and then, “oh hey, want me to get dinner? I’m feeling Thai.”
He chances a look at Sam and internally winces. Sam’s leaning against the doorframe in his loose running gear, still a little flushed and sweaty. He’s also grinning his stupidly charming grin, tooth gap and all, and he’s got his arms crossed over his chest like he has nowhere else to be in a hurry. He waits Steve out for a few extra, excruciating, seconds, and then cocks an eyebrow.
“Sure,” he says easily, “I could eat Thai.”
Steve jumps to his feet way too quickly, searching for his wallet, and of course it’s when his back is turned that Sam strikes, all calm blasé –
“So this is KGB, huh?”
Steve slowly closes his eyes, shoulders sagging.
“Clint was texting me. Well, I say texting. ‘S Clint. Says the guy looks like he just found out the Soviet Union broke up and is drinking away his feelings.”
“We sell coffee,” Steve feels the need to protest.
“I’m guessing he’s probably wearing a shirt when you see him, though,” Sam continues relentlessly, and Steve can hear the smirk in his voice, the bastard, and, “Although if he looks like this I can see why he wouldn’t. I mean, Clint says he could use a bath or three, and that’s coming from a guy who may or may not work for a circus. But hey, no judging. I don’t judge.”
“Y’know, it feels a bit like you’re judging,” Steve says, massaging his temples.
“Maybe, but only like, twelve percent of a judgement. Hey, man, maybe scary unwashed guys is your thing. I don’t know. You’ve practically been monastic since we met.”
“I haven’t—”
“You cried at The Notebook, Steve.”
“So did you!”
“I am very comfortable in my masculinity,” Sam admits, still grinning, “also: that kiss in the rain? Please. Ryan Gosling can sweep me off my feet any day.”
“’M gonna knock you off your feet in a second,” Steve mutters. He can feel his cheeks burning up. Christ.
“Oh, sure, but after you get Thai, because now I’m thinking about coconut rice and man, what a way to go.”
“I hate you.” Steve finally, victoriously, finds his wallet and shuffles past Sam through the doorway into the living room.
“You love me. Like you love scary Russian—”
“I’m leaving!” Steve yells.
“Yo, get me some fish cakes!” Sam shouts back, and Disco joins in, barking happily until Steve slams the door behind him.
At night, Steve restlessly rolls onto his back and stares at his bedroom roof. Sam and Disco are battling for World’s Loudest Snorer a room over, and the hush of cars against asphalt echo through his open window every time yellow headlights glance off his wardrobe. The light dances off his drying canvas, flashing across blue eyes and steely profile. Steve scrubs a hand against his stomach and wonders.
He wonders about Maybe Russian, about where came from, suddenly fixing himself into the everyday flow of customers at the café like he was there all along, in his seat in the dark corner decorated with metal cranks and red upholstery. He had only been coming to the café for four days and already the other regulars knew him – although, that might have something to do with Tony’s running commentary, seeing as Maybe Russian rarely spoke a word to anyone other than Kate, when he was ordering, and now Steve – people even greeted him now when they took their seats, nodded their heads at the surly guy in the corner with the international newspaper and the perpetual scowl.
The first day Maybe Russian had appeared, it had been pouring tumultuously, for hours on end. The warm lights and cheery red and polished black of The Daily Brewgle must have seemed as if a lonely ship in a storm, with the way it was bursting at the seams with sodden, grumbling customers. And Maybe Russian had stormed in with a vengeance, swearing profusely and wringing water out of his thick layers of coats and jumpers. He hadn’t looked any more approachable then than he did now, with his clothes torn and padded and his boots scuffed.
Steve had seen the way Kate had paused apprehensively from the head of the bustling queue, going tense in the shoulders, and following his gut instinct to stop that expression from ever crossing her face again, had left his customers by the window and taken the proverbial bullet, as it were.
Except he sort of didn’t.
Because Maybe Russian had looked up from the puddle he was making at the café stoop, fixed gazes with Steve, and then gone sort of – still, all over, all at once.
“Дерьмо,” He had said, a little pitifully. And he wasn’t so bad up close, actually. Sure his hair could use a wash, and he hadn’t shaved in a while, but there was a nice jaw under there, and his eyes were – actually, well, wow, okay, his eyes were –
“Can I get you a table?” Steve had asked, probably twenty seconds too late, and probably way more sternly than the guy deserved. He belatedly realised he was still holding an armful of conciliatory towels for the sopping customers, and held one out.
Maybe Russian guy had looked at the towels, looked at Steve, and then looked a Steve a little more. And slowly, so slowly, he had reached out – leather gloves, Steve noticed, a little faintly – and grabbed the fluffiest one in the pile.
And then he’d smiled, and Steve was in so much trouble.
“Didn’t Tony ban you two?” Steve asks the next day, squinting past the stack of menus in his hand. “I’m sure he banned you two.”
The teenagers gaze back at him implacably from their territorial sprawl across the lounge area. Kate’s group of friends were an odd bunch, although that’s to be expected from someone who sees Clint’s apartment as a legitimate hang-out spot. Teddy, at least, looks somewhat apologetic, his huge arm thrown around Billy’s narrow shoulders and a new comic book half-unwrapped in his lap. He’s got a charming sunburn over his nose and Billy has more freckles than usual. Cassie, buried in the corner cushions with a zoology textbook, is markedly ignoring them all, and last Steve saw of Eli he was in the kitchen yelling at Thor about hockey. Or something. There was a lot of yelling, at least, and Thor was miming something joyously with a rolling pin.
“It was only temporary,” Billy retorts, “besides, we apologised about the bathroom thing.”
“Uh,” Teddy starts.
“Oh, right, we intended to apologise about the bathroom thing. Oh hey, is that him?” Billy leans forward, craning his neck around Steve’s waist to look at the far corner where –
“Hey,” Steve snaps, thwacking him on the head with a menu, “no.”
“Oh,” Billy continues, ignoring him, “yeah, no, I totally see what Kate meant. I mean, if you’re into that Eau de FBI’s Most Wanted thing.”
“He isn’t KGB!” Steve protests, too loudly, and then pinches his nose. “Wait, what has Kate been telling you—?”
“Only good things,” Teddy promises earnestly, and Steve would be touched, if he wasn’t so obviously lying. “She says he has great thighs.”
Steve glares towards the counter, where Kate is unrepentantly holding her hands out a broad distance apart and nodding fervently. A young woman waiting for her coffee stares back and forth between them, reluctantly impressed.
“I’m cutting you all off,” he announces peevishly, “except Cassie.” He adds, when she makes a noise of protest behind the textbook, which has been lifting progressively further and further towards her face for the past several minutes. “Because Cassie isn’t a gossip.”
“Gossip, what gossip?” And oh, good, now Tony is here. He’s wearing orange shades today over a beaten up Creedence Clearwater Revival shirt and his breath already stinks of coffee. His dark hair sticks out at odd angles. “Oh,” he deflates when he sees the group in the corner. “You two. Stay out of the bathroom, Tweedle Dee and Dum. I mean it. My insurance doesn’t cover that.”
“You don’t have insurance,” Steve points out restlessly. Tony being Tony, his inside voice is somewhat non-existent, and they’re attracting glances from customers all over the café floor. So far Maybe Russian hasn’t looked up from his phone, which he is tapping at with gloved hands, but it was only a matter of time.
“Pepper’s insurance,” Tony waves a hand, “please, you think she didn’t sign up for that shit as soon as we met? Hello, Tony Stark, nice to meet you – bam, insurance paperwork, sign here, and here. What a woman.”
“We’re talking about uncomfortably attractive Buffalo Bill over there,” Billy tells him.
“Give me back your rewards card,” Steve demands. Tony, meanwhile, is squinting at Billy like he’s seeing him anew.
“We have much to discuss, wonder boy,” he announces, and Steve throws up his hands and retreats back to the counter, where Kate is actually doing her job, and he won’t get arrested for throwing a juvenile out the window. Or Billy. Steve busies himself making drinks for the next twenty minutes, while Kate smiles and greets customers, her arrow-head hairband glittering under the golden downlights. She’s a pretty girl, with her porcelain skin and long black hair, and more than one student from the local campus stares at her a bit dazedly while she takes their order.
Steve finds himself smiling more than once, as boys and girls fumble their coins and turn red under Kate’s cool, assessing gaze.
“Ah, young love,” sighs a voice, and Steve turns to greet Clint as he slouches towards the counter from the open doorway, denim jacket torn and dirty at the elbows. He has a fresh bruise blossoming on his chin, but comparatively, he looks just fine. Given that nobody knows exactly what Clint’s job is, the fact that he always seems to show up in some state of disarray or injury is enough convincing they need not to ask. “How you doin’, Katie? Old Man Rogers?”
“Just fine,” she grins, dimpling and ignoring Steve’s offended hey, “you want your usual?”
“With enough sugar to kill a man.” He affirms. “Seriously, don’t hold back. I want to feel those arteries clogging.”
“Oh, well in that case, you’re just in time,” Kate responds a bit quizzically, “look who wants his refill.”
Later Steve will be a bit ashamed at how fast he turns. At least Kate and Clint aren’t looking at him, they’re looking to the far corner, where the sunlight has moved so that Maybe Russian’s hair is a bit red and gold at the edges, and his mug gleams as he raises it hopefully in Steve’s direction. The weather has warmed a bit, as the day progressed, so he’s shed a few layers in coats and scarves, and now he’s just down to a dark red Henley and a denim coat. His long oily hair has been tied off his face in a low bob.
“Oh, yeah,” Clint drawls, spinelessly slouching over the counter like the worlds rattiest lap cat, “the epic tale of Steve and Less Hot Snake Pliskin continues. Better go fill that cup, Rogers. Your boy looks thirsty—”, but suddenly Clint falls silent, and when Steve looks, he’s squinting at Maybe Russian with abrupt intensity.
“Huh,” he says, very slowly.
“What,” Steve demands. But Clint is shaking his head, and when Steve looks, Maybe Russian is looking a little uncomfortable, gloved hand flexing around his empty coffee mug. Even Kate is frowning at Clint, confused. So Steve snatches the refill pot and does what he always does with an awkward situation – he storms through it with all the single-minded focus of a mother at a Black Friday sale.
When he reaches the far table, Maybe Russian isn’t frowning at Clint anymore. He’s staring up at Steve.
“Just a refill today?” Steve huffs, aware of Clint and Kate’s stares, of the increasing volume of Tony’s voice from the lounge where Billy is cackling and Teddy is protesting something. Maybe Russian bites his lip, and nods, and Steve is almost done with the pot when he suddenly speaks:
“Bad day?”
Steve has heard him speak, before, of course. But every time it seems to catch him off guard, the low rasp of his voice, the warmth of it.
“Uh,” Steve snorts, “no. Bad friends, maybe.”
“Ah,” the guy peers past him, to where Clint and Kate are hissing at each other over the counter. Kate’s eyes are wide. He smirks. “They don’t seem so bad.”
Steve flushes, ducking his head. “Yeah, you’re probably right. A little obsessive, maybe.”
“With you?” The guy asks, and he’s still smiling. He has nice teeth, Steve thinks absently.
“With my personal life. They seem to think I’m some hermit in need of saving.”
“Oh, really.”
Steve glances up. With his hair off his face, Steve can see Maybe Russian Guy’s eyes more clearly than before, and his stupidly thick eyelashes --
“I’m not,” he finds himself saying a little dumbly, fiddling with the lid of the coffee pot, “a hermit. I mean. I mean,” He adds quickly, “I get out. You know.”
“Sure,” the guy says easily, “what do you do? When you’re, uh, out.”
“Uh,” Steve flounders. He finds himself glancing back at the counter, where Kate has grabbed Clint by the scruff of his coat and appears to be demanding something in a low, dangerous voice. Tony has thrown himself in the corner with an arm around Billy and Teddy, and is regaling a story loudly while Cassie stares on, mouth open. No help there. Looking back, he finds Maybe Russian waiting patiently, propping his chin on his gloved fist.
“I paint,” Steve admits, clearing his throat, “I’m a painter. You know. Paintings. I teach a painting class.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind of things do you paint?”
Abruptly Steve thinks of the unfinished canvas in his bedroom, and blood rushes to his face. He feels like his cheeks are on fire. Maybe Russian’s eyebrows rise, his red mouth curling.
“Stuff,” he admits, a bit weakly, and then fumbling, says, “all sorts of things. Portraits and landscapes, mostly. A little life modelling.”
“Life modelling, huh?” The guy looks a little intrigued. “With volunteers?”
“Oh, all sorts of people, yeah.” Steve relaxes. “I mean, we get a lot of models, especially coming out of the uni, trying to get some extra cash at the end of the week, you know. But there are volunteers too, who sign up through the community school. Sometimes one of my students will step in if we have an empty slot and no-one to model in a hurry. But, uh, what about you? You’re uh, here a lot lately. You new in town? I haven’t seen you before – I mean, at the café.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Suddenly Maybe Russian is pulling back, first behind an expression of uncomfortable seriousness, and then physically, making Steve realise how they had been turning towards each other for the past several minutes. The guy hunches over his coffee again, rattling his little spoon around with an anxious shrug.
“Just on holiday,” he says shortly, “from. Work.”
“Oh, sure,” Steve frowns, “from Russia, right? You’re Russian?”
This seems to surprise the guy, and then he glances down at his hands and snorts, self-deprecating.
“Not born and bred. But yeah, I’ve been living there for a while.”
“Oh, okay?” The ice over the guy’s expression is thawing a little, and Steve quickly decides that right here, right now, he’s going to prove to the others that this guy isn’t as scary as they seem to think he is. He smiles what Sam calls his ‘cookie-selling’ smile, and rests the coffee pot against the table, wiping his hands on his apron. “Where are you from, then?”
The guy peers up at him, as if sussing him out, and then says, “Brooklyn, originally. But that was a long time ago. I’m not surprised you don’t remember.”
Which.
What?
“What do you mean?”
“I only lived there for a few years,” the guy shrugs, and something is tugging at Steve’s nerves, demanding his attention, “Before my dad took me back to Russia after my mum died. We were at school together - you were in the year below me, I think. But uh, you were smaller then.”
Steve’s brain is turning over. The guys face isn’t ringing any bells, but then, most of Steve’s experience with the guys in the year above him was seeing their faces disappear as they shoved him into lockers, or garbage bins, or, more memorably, the girls change room. At least Peggy was nice about it, and distracted the other girls so he could make a speedy exit through the bathroom window.
“Oh, really?” He asks faintly.
“Much smaller,” the guy drawls, giving him a once over, and Steve is burning up, his face is on fire. You could bury him in ice right now and he’d probably melt straight through.
“What’s, uh,” and, oh no, his voice is going hoarse, “what’s your name, again?”
“James,” the guy says, hunching his massive shoulders, pursing his lips in that red smirk, “but I prefer Bucky.”
Oh. Oh no.
Steve is blessedly saved from making a further idiot of himself when the guy’s phone goes off, something orchestral and dark, and Bucky winces, looking at it guiltily.
“I have to, uh, take that,” he says, “Work, you know…”
“Yeah, sure,” Steve says quickly, grabbing up the coffee pot, “I’ll just. Be at the counter, over there. I’ll just--” He storms back to the counter where Kate is serving a family, and dutifully helps her stack cakes onto a plate, all the while feeling as though his heart is going to thud straight out of his chest. Clint has joined Kate’s friends and Tony in the lounge area, and they’re all huddled together in a conspiratorial circle, whispering hurriedly. Christ, that doesn’t bode well.
Steve chances a look over at the far wall. Bucky is still on his phone, his face turned towards the window, expression stern and a little hunted. He’s muttering rapidly in Russian, and one gloved hand is twisting ribbons out of his serviette.
As soon as Kate hands over the last mug and the family turn away, she grabs Steve’s arm in an iron grip.
“Steve,” she starts urgently, all excitement. “You will not believe—”
But then the doors to the café open, and a swarm of customers come in out of the sunlight, chattering and happy, and Bucky is looking increasingly agitated by the second, so Steve shakes her off, fixes a customer-service smile to his face, and gets back to work.
“Oh-kaaaay,” Sam drawls, “this is officially a Thing, is it?”
“Leave it, Sam,” Steve orders, angrily dabbing paint against the canvas so hard he’s surprised he hasn’t put a hole in it yet. He’s not surprised Sam knows. When Steve left work after his shift Clint was texting so rapidly he could have broken his thumbs.
“Yep. Yeah it is.” Sam sighs, and lets himself into Steve’s room. Disco pads in after him excitedly, little training vest and all, and Steve reluctantly scritches at his ruff as Sam sits on the edge of the bed, watching Steve watch the canvas. “Wow, that’s stunning! It’s really coming together.”
The painting is all manner of hues now, shattered blues, greys and whites in a kaleidoscope of light and shadow. Bucky’s eyes peer out from the depths of his face in ice blue, and his chest and curved shoulders are still bare, but there’s something wrong with it, Steve thinks, something ill-fitting, or missing. Something that doesn’t quite match up with the way he carries himself, all angry, stalking grace, the misshapen bulk of his shoulders and broad chest –
“Steve,” Sam interrupts his daze, “am I gonna have to leave you and the painting alone for a minute?”
“I’m a mess,” Steve says miserably. Sam makes a consoling sound, and reaches over, resting a hand on his shoulder. But instead of denying it, he simply says:
“Yes. Yes, you really are. But you’re my mess. So I am going to help you out. One bro to another.”
“Oh God,” Steve says, “No.”
“Oh, yes.” Sam says, and then, “Ryan Gosling is calling to you, Steve, just let him in.”
“Did you buy the DVD?” Steve demands.
“Let him into your heart,” Sam insists, and Disco puts his paws on Steve’s leg and whines.
For two whole days Bucky does not show up at The Daily Brewgle. This does not affect Steve in the slightest. Really, it doesn’t. He serves customers with his regular smile (“Are you feeling alright, dear? You look a bit tired,”), he brews coffees with his regular speed (“Steve, did you use salt instead of sugar?”), and he even puts up with Tony’s running commentary with impressive dignity (“Put the grinder down, Rogers, there’s a lamb. Pepper – Pep!”).
It’s a beautiful two days. The Spring memo has finally caught on, and the lanes are bursting with flowers, paper-thin jacaranda and ivy, the sweet-blossom-scent of flora in the air. Pepper props the doors to the café open with a stool and the delicious smell of Thor’s baking wafts out from the kitchens into the street, drawing in sleepy-eyed students and office workers in greater numbers than usual. Clint even brings in his guitar, because whatever his job is, it apparently doesn’t need him to be in right that second, and he props his scuffed boots up on the lounge coffee table and tugs at strings lazily, chatting on-and-off with Bruce when the man creeps down for his lunch after his morning Yoga classes upstairs.
Kate keeps glancing worriedly at Steve, chewing her lips, as if she wants to say something, but Clint keeps catching her eye and shaking his head, and Steve is ignoring them both anyway.
Because. He’s fine.
Or at least he thinks he is, until on the third day he enters the art studio for his morning class, and the model the community college has organised for their life modelling class is sitting on the dais in the middle of the room in too many layers, and smoking. Steve’s students are collected around their easels, eyeing him off warily, and they all jump at attention when Steve enters the room like he’s a Captain leading them to battle, or something.
Bucky jumps too, but more guiltily, and he stubs his cigarette out into a cup that claims in sharpie that it is for PAINT WATER, ONLY. He clambers to his feet, slouching as much as a man of his muscle bulk can slouch, and grins at Steve.
“You said there could be volunteers,” he says, and Steve realises he is standing at the door to the room with his mouth open.
“Oh! Yeah,” he hurries in, dumping his art bag on his makeshift desk, which is mostly weighed down by pallets and tins of brushes, “yeah, of course, I – well, yeah.”
“If you don’t mind, that is,” Bucky adds, watching him.
“No, I don’t, not at all,” Steve huffs, “I just, didn’t think this was something you’d like. To do. Like to do.”
“Well, I hear you’re quite the artist,” Bucky says, voice low and hoarse, and Steve --
Steve’s students are all staring wide-eyed at him from over Bucky’s shoulder, and he can see the way they’re eyeing up Bucky’s torn jeans, his insulated coat and gloves, his day-five scruff and his long hair. And suddenly, violently, Steve feels angry. Not at them, not particularly, but angry for Bucky, all the same, so he sets his shoulders and smiles warmly at the other man, determined not to blurt one of the many questions rattling around in his head, like how did you manage this? And where have you been?
Instead Steve clears his throat and claps his hands, and his students – a variety of old and young – hurry to their canvases.
Bucky stands on the dais, looking around himself curiously. At least he doesn’t seem nervous, which is a good sign.
Steve, on the other hand. Steve is definitely nervous.
“So, have you done this sort of thing before?” He asks, as students prepare their charcoals, paints, and brushes, fixing canvases and paper sheets to their easels. There’s a faint smell of cigarette smoke in the air.
“Modelling? Not like this, not really,” Bucky shrugs, “been mostly naked in front of a bunch of strangers? Yeah, I’ve done that.”
And just like that, he starts disrobing. Most of the time life models do that in a separate room connected to the studio, before returning in a light robe. It’s a good way of helping dispel some of the usual nervousness some of the students feel, the unavoidable embarrassment of seeing a person nude for the first time. Having the model disrobe out of sight helps the artists distance themselves from the person. Bucky, though -- Bucky just pulls off his layers one at time with a perfunctory, business-like attitude. First his unusually thick, puffy vest, then his cardigan, and then his shirt –
Steve drops his brush.
Bucky continues undressing like nothing’s happened, even though one-by-one Steve’s students begin reacting with obvious surprise, or horror, or amazement. There’s a small ripple of whispering, amongst the sloshing of water and tearing of paper, and Steve wants to hush them, wants them to focus on their work, except he can’t help but stare too, because no wonder Bucky bundled up like he did, carried himself like he did, walked the way he did, because –
“Yeah,” Bucky says, rolling his neck a little as he kicks off his jeans and steps to the middle of the dais, stretching his back muscles with practiced ease, “well. Let’s see what you lot can do with this mess, huh?”
He’s referring of course, to his arm. Or – what’s left of his arm. The prosthetic slips seamlessly into his shoulder blade and chest with surgical precision. Steve isn’t surprised he hadn’t realised sooner, that Bucky was wearing a prosthetic, given how realistic the thing looks, matching his opposite flesh-and-blood-arm almost perfectly. The colour is what gives it away, the dull grey of steel and its many black grooves etched into it, to allow for movement, presumably. It clearly has effortless mobility, given the way Bucky uses it as he would a real arm, stretching this way and that, and combing metal fingers through his hair.
It’s beautiful.
It’s awful.
Steve wants to paint it until he dies.
And then Steve looks away from the prosthetic, and notices the rest of Bucky, too. And there’s a lot to notice. Starting with – damn it, Kate was right – some pretty impressively muscled thighs, sloping down to almost Olympian calf muscles. He’s left his boxer briefs on – thank God – although they don’t leave much to the imagination. Bucky’s back is taut with heavy muscle, chest rough with a dark smattering of hair that trails down over a strong abdomen. Sometimes Sam will poke fun at Steve during their morning runs, when Steve stops to drink some water, lifting his shirt to dab away some sweat. (“Jesus, are you trying to make me look bad? Put that down, put that down. Christ, what if those girls saw, Steve, you’re killing me here. That is not cool, oh my God. Were you made in a lab?”)
Sam, Steve thinks numbly, I think I found the lab.
“Can you get in a comfortable position?” Is what his mouth says.
And then Bucky throws him a look over his metal shoulder, dark hair hanging in his face, and moves his body slowly into a resting stance, leaning against the dais podium, red knuckles curled relaxed against his abdomen.
“Okay?” He asks.
“Yeah,” Steve says.
“Oh my god,” one of his students whispers.
“Yeah,” Steve agrees, dazedly.
An hour later, Steve’s students are trickling out the door in twos and threes, and Bucky is pulling on his jeans.
“You go to the café from here, да?” He asks Steve, approaching his easel, “I’ll walk you.”
“Oh, I – Yeah, okay,” Steve smiles awkwardly, shrugging, “you did well. For your first time.”
“First time modelling,” Bucky says, “but thanks. It was interesting. I liked how everyone has different styles. And they stared but they didn’t stare,” he hesitates, rubbing the join between his neck and shoulder for a moment, before shaking it off, “can I see?”
“Can you – oh. Sure, um,” Steve steps back from his canvas, lets Bucky circle around. He’s still only dressed in his jeans, sitting low on his thick waist. With his back turned, Steve can see up close the join of the prosthetic to his flesh, the pink blur of healing scars disappearing under the liquid-smooth metal.
For a long time, Bucky is silent. And then he turns to Steve, and that mile-long stare is back, the intensity of which takes Steve aback as much as it did the first day Bucky had stormed into The Daily Brewgle. The painting isn’t even that shocking, more of a variation of the one he has at home, except now Steve knows for certain what Bucky’s torso looks like, so the prosthetic stands out in a shock of powder grey like armour. Bucky’s profile is blocked out in white against a slab of black paint. It’s nowhere near refined enough, what with Steve spending most of his time pacing between his students canvases and giving tips, but the likeness is there in the dip of Bucky’s mouth, and the clench in his jaw.
“It’s not done,” Steve begins self-consciously, tapping his paint brush against his palm in an anxious rhythm.
Bucky still isn’t saying anything, but he tips his head like he’s listening for something, and his eyes narrow to fine, blue points. Steve feels heat rising to his face, and tries to look away, but instead ends up looking back at the painting, at the curve of Bucky’s white shoulder, and finds his gaze dragged back against his will to the man himself who is – who is standing a whole lot closer than before, his bare chest brushing up against Steve’s.
“You were a lot smaller in high school,” he says, gaze heavy.
“I uh, got better?” Steve swallows.
“Mm hmm,” Bucky’s mouth quirks, and his eyes are on Steve’s mouth when he says, “You can ask, you know. The arm.” He clarifies, when Steve frowns.
“Oh, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable—”
When Bucky laughs, it’s like it’s torn out of him at first, a pained, surprised gasp.
“Of course you didn’t. Car accident,” he says anyway, “in Saint Petersburg. I was… I was late for work. And I was speeding. My fault.” He shrugs again. “Well, I learnt my lesson.”
“Buck—”
“It’s pretty cool, huh? This – хуйне - thing,” And now Bucky’s voice is turning sharp at the edges, a little mean, “I’m a real life cyberman. Bet your students never painted one of those before.”
“Probably not,” Steve admits quietly, “is that – is that why you’re back here? In America.”
“Can’t work when half of me is on a snow pile somewhere in fuck knows where,” Bucky snorts, “Not that I couldn’t, really, I just. I don’t know. I needed a break,” and Steve’s heart is hurting a little in a clawing, tugging way, because for days Tony and Kate and even Clint threw words around like homeless and serial killer and weirdo and instead Bucky was just –
“Hey there, котенок,” Bucky murmurs, breaking Steve out of his strop, “why the long face?”
And he’s suddenly really, very close.
“My,” Steve mutters, dizzy, “my shift starts soon, I gotta—”
“Yeah,” Bucky says, all red smiles, “we better get you to work then, don’t we?”
It’s strange, heading to The Daily Brewgle with Bucky at his side. He’s dressed back to the nines in his layers of cotton and wool, gloved hands shoved deep in his tattered pockets and head ducked down, dark hair loose. For the past few days Steve has been heading to work with an extra sense of urgency in his step, a reluctant curiosity, to see if Maybe Russian was there at the window with his black coffee and his newspaper, glaring at the teenagers in the corner when they got too rowdy and watching the play of shadows across the tiled café floor as the hours progressed.
Now he’s not Maybe Russian at all, he’s Definitely Brooklyn, he’s Bucky, who stares too hard at Steve’s face like he’s seeing something Steve doesn’t know about, who laughs at Steve’s disparaging muttering about Tony, and Kate’s crazy friends, Thor’s constant opining about Jane’s hair, and Bruce’s weird Yoga-isms, and the way Clint has to have a job but damned if they know what it is –
“He has a job,” Bucky interrupts peacefully, easily.
And he’s calmer this way, more open, not hunched against the window like he’s expecting someone to attack him at any second. He matches Steve stride for stride, big yet unassuming, with his witty jabs and constant smirks, like he’s listening to a private joke only he can hear. At one point he hooks his calloused fingers in the loop of Steve’s belt, light and unassuming. And Steve finds that he’s loving it, he loves –
Bucky pushes open the doors to The Daily Brewgle, and freezes dead on the spot, so that Steve bumps up awkwardly against him.
There’s a few customers scattered about, talking amongst themselves. But there’s a cluster of people at the counter. Kate, Clint, and Tony, and they all automatically turn to the doorway with varying expression of pensiveness and bottled excitement.
There’s a woman with them Steve doesn’t recognise. She’s small and lithe, and unbearably stunning, in a way that’s sort of painful to look at, with rosebud lips and a curtain of hair like blood. She’s dressed in greys and blacks, a butter-soft leather jacket with a red hood, and she turns to look at Bucky and the expression on her face makes Steve go cold all over.
“There you are,” she sighs, exasperated.
Bucky is silent. But she looks past him automatically, to Steve, one perfect red eyebrow lifting in lazy interest as she gives him the once-over.
“And there you are,” she adds coyly, lips curling. “You must be Steve.”
This seems to break Bucky out of his daze. “Natalia,” he snaps, incensed, and then starts spitting Russian in a stream of what is certainly broken up with expletives, all of which “Natalia” takes with perfect grace, even turning at one point to accept a coffee from Clint, who is looking at her like she’s descended from the heavens themselves.
“Are you done?” She asks, when Bucky’s finished and customers are starting to stare, his gloves squeaking as he clenches and unclenches his fists. “Because I just sat on a plane for eleven hours – in economy – and I kind of hoped you’d offer me a shower, at least.”
“I love you,” Clint says helplessly behind her, and then turns and smacks his head against the expresso machine. Kate is whacking him on the arm repeatedly, mouth agape.
“What are you doing here?” Bucky demands, standing in front of Steve protectively, which is a little silly, even Steve admits, like a Rottweiler trying to conceal a Great Dane.
“Rescuing your dignity, by the looks of it,” she retorts, pacing over with her coffee in one hand and the straps of her duffel bag in the other, “Look at you, James. When was the last time you shaved? You’d be flayed alive if you walked into the Academy like that.”
“Academy? What Academy? I thought you worked,” Steve asks, frowning, and Bucky shrugs awkwardly, hunching his shoulders again.
“Work?” Natalia scoffs. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“KGB!” Tony shouts abruptly. “Called it! I called it, you all heard me call it.”
“Shut up,” Bucky hisses, “come on, Nat, I’ll take you to where I’m staying—”
“Giselle!” Clint bursts out, and then: “Aw, hell. I’m sorry Steve, I should have told you sooner, it’s just I didn’t recognise him until the other day and, shit, okay, this is Natalia Romanova,” Clint says frantically, while Steve stares at the redness that’s crawling up Bucky’s cheeks, “Principal dancer of Kirov--”
“Mariinsky,” she interrupts, “and Natasha, please.”
“--Ballet theatre. I saw you as Myrtha in Giselle, last Summer,” Clint continues, a red mark blossoming on his forehead, “hell, oh hell, you were stunning—”
“You go to ballet?” Pepper asks, incredulous. “Clint.”
“Of course he does,” Natasha says blithely, “those thighs? Please. Corps de ballet?”
“Soloist,” Clint corrects her bashfully, scrubbing a hand through his sandy hair.
“Huh,” she says, and then looks thoughtful.
“You’re a ballerina?” Tony squawks, and there’s a small scene, and he has to be sat down, Pepper rubbing his shoulders.
Bucky takes his chance to storm forward, grabbing Natasha’s slim arm and tugging her towards the door.
“Why couldn’t you just leave me alone,” he demands, flushing red.
“Like hell,” she snorts, “and let you turn into Old Man Winters, when you should be practicing? I’m not training with another Principal, James, are you insane?”
“I just needed some time—”
“What you need is a good punch in the—”
“Bucky?”
They both freeze at the door, Bucky turning towards Steve automatically, angry and flushed and defensive. Steve is at a loss. His hands still smell like paint. Just seconds ago he was revelling in the press of their arms together as they walked across the curb, and now everything is backwards and confused.
“Who the hell is Bucky?” Tony hisses, nonsensically, from the lounge.
“Um,” Bucky says, flushing, “I, uh,”
“Sorry about this,” Natasha says, steamrolling over him with all the power in her 5’4 body. “Someone needs to get his life in order, and I don’t think he’s going to do it without a little convincing.” She sniffs. “And some dog shampoo.”
“You’re a ballerina?” Steve gapes, flatfooted.
“Danseur,” Bucky responds miserably.
“And a damn good one,” Natasha snaps, grabbing him by the scruff of his jacket like she’s going to shake the stupid out of him, “so if you don’t mind—”
And suddenly they’re gone – out the door, in a sweep of clothes and exasperated Russian, half-curses and painful jabs. Leaving Steve standing alone, the last of his smile slipping from his face and blue paint on his shirt.
A few heartbeats of silence.
“Wow,” says Kate.
“My friends! The croissants are ready!” Thor announces happily, from the kitchen.
Steve is not lonely.
He’s not.
He teaches his classes, helps students work up their confidence with shadows and hues, mixes paints in brilliant blues and pinks and greens. He runs with Sam and Disco in the mornings, and once a week he visits his mother’s grave with a white fistful of blossoms. He waits tables and brews coffees at The Daily Brewgle and comes home smelling of coffee grind and hand sanitizer. He even starts attending some of Clint’s recitals with the guys from work, and Tony almost gets them thrown out from the hall for cheering too loud whenever Clint comes out for his solo. (“Take it off!” Kate yells one time, memorably, and Clint throws his arms out and shouts: “It already is off, this is ballet,” while the choreographer in the front row has an apoplectic fit and starts throwing wads of paper balls at them). Steve cheers along, and shakes Clint’s hand after every performance, and Clint flushes and scrubs a hand through his hair, embarrassed.
Steve hasn’t seen Bucky for a week.
Which is fine.
Steve is totally fine.
“Is that Say Yes to the Dress?” Sam asks flatly from the door to their flat, and Disco lifts his snout out from Steve’s armpit where Steve has sprawled across the entirety of the lounge and boof’s a welcome at him.
“Sam!” Thor greets him cheerily from Steve’s other side, opening another beer, “you are just in time. They are about to ‘jack her up’! Steven assures me it is the best part.”
“Does Steven, now,” Sam drawls, and Steve hides his face behind Disco and groans.
It gets even worse when people start pitying him. Even Tony seems more restrained than usual, or maybe Pepper’s just got him on a tighter leash. But Kate has taken to smiling gently at Steve and patting his back when he comes in for his shift, and Clint’s still looking a bit guilty from time to time.
“Sorry the scary hobo guy didn’t work out,” Billy says to him grimly when Steve brings the teenagers their round of drinks.
“We weren’t even dating,” Steve protests, all bluster.
“Kate said his thighs were wicked.” Cassie contributes from behind her textbook, and Steve puts his back to their corner and does not look back.
There’s someone sitting in Maybe Russian – In Bucky’s chair. A young businessman, in a clean-pressed suit and tie, drinking an expresso shot and typing at his laptop. Totally normal. Totally innocent. Steve kind of wants to drop kick him out the window.
“Okay,” he mutters into his phone during his lunch break, huddled away in the dark corner of the kitchen whilst Thor whistles away at the prep bench, “it’s become a Thing.”
“Of course it has,” Sam retorts mercilessly, “Of course you admit it’s become a Thing only after you lose contact with the guy and his scary hot friend, so you can’t do anything about it.”
“Sorry, I think I dialled the wrong number,” Steve mutters, “I thought I was calling my friend. And also, I didn’t call her scary hot.”
“No, Tony called her scary hot. When he rang me. To tell me how badly you dropped the ball.”
“Wow.”
“It was a real blow-by-blow. The expressions were my favourite part. There were a lot of Austen references. I think it was the pining, you know – you were Jane Bennett, if you were wondering.”
“You are the worst.” Steve grumps.
“Bzzzt, incorrect. I am actually the best. In fact, I’m the greatest friend you have ever had, or will ever have, period. Seriously, I have the paperwork for it and everything.”
“Yeah, well, the jury is still out on that one.” Steve protests, and glances up as a movement at the doorway catches his eye. It’s Kate, looking stressed and tired in her dirty apron, and she’s giving him the particularly retail-specific look of ‘help me, before I burn things.’ “Kate needs me back at the counter, I got to go.”
“Just to clarify, Steve – it is a Thing, right?”
“I’ve started listening to the Russian news,” Steve confirms miserably.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re so very, very welcome, by the way.”
“What?” But Steve only hears a dial-tone, and Kate’s expression is turning more and more murderous by the second, so he hurries out of the kitchen, shoving his phone in his apron pocket, and after a few minutes in the chaos that is lunchtime rush hour – he forgets all about it.
That is, until he’s getting ready to wrap up his shift. He’s turning chairs onto the tables so he can mop up beneath them, when he feels his phone vibrate again in his pocket. Glancing around shows him that the café is empty of customers, and Tony is sitting in the lounge area with his headphones in and his eyes closed. Kate is slouched over the counter, reading. Fishing out his phone, Steve sticks it between his ear and shoulder, distracted.
“Yeah?”
“You know, he said you were an artist, but this is really impressive.”
It takes probably way too long for the voice to register, and then Steve is lurching upright. “Natasha? I mean – Miss Romanov—”
A raspy chuckle. “Aw, don’t worry about formalities Steve. I have a feeling we’re going to be real good friends soon, you and I. Can I have this, by the way? I want to put it in our practice hall.”
“Have--” Realisation causes him to fumble one of the chairs, and he almost drops his phone. “The painting – are you in my house?”
“Oh relax, your buddy Sam let me in. Facebook, Steve, it’s a hell of a thing. But seriously, can I have it? Or I can pay you, if you need it, it’s not an issue. I mean, you don’t really look like a starving artist, but hey, appearances can be deceiving. Trust me, I should know.”
“Okay, slow down,” Steve puts a metal chair back on the ground and slides into it slowly, lowering his voice when Kate glances up curiously before going back to her book, “why are you with Sam?”
“Character references,” Natasha replies promptly, and Steve has a horrible mental image of her picking through his room, his stacks of sketchbooks, his sheets – oh God, he didn’t make the bed that morning, “I’ve known James a long time, I just wanted to make sure he was making the right decision. The accident,” she hesitates, and he can hear her throat click when she swallows, “it really shook him up.”
“I haven’t even—” asked him, yet, “I mean, we haven’t – that is—”
“You’ve got sixty seconds, Rogers, can I have it, or not?”
“What, the painting?”
“I like it. It’s nice. He looks – real. Good.”
Steve blinks rapidly, mind swimming.
“Twenty seconds.”
“Sure,” he blurts out, rubbing his face, “sure, you can. Take it. I mean, it’s not finished. But you can have it.”
“Oh, good,” the warmth of her voice curls through the phone, raises the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck, “then you have my blessing. Good luck.”
And then she hangs up on him, too.
Steve sits in the chair for a few minutes, staring confusedly into space.
“Thunderstruck,” Tony warbles under his breath from the lounge, shaking his foot. "Yeah-eh-eh..."
Kate turns a page in her book.
The door jingles open.
“We’re closing,” Steve blurts automatically, turning.
“Yeah,” says Bucky, looking like he’s never done before, long dark hair gelled back and clean-shaven, dressed in a thin cotton shirt and snug ashy jeans. “Yeah, I know.”
And then he flushes, rubbing at his bared metal arm with his flesh-and-blood hand self-consciously, knuckles tense and white.
“I was, uh, wondering if you wanted to go out, some time,” he says, and then sort of stares Steve down, in that KGB-serious way Steve’s come to know and –
“Yeah,” Steve says, starting to smile, “yeah, I would.”
“Thank God,” Kate sighs, explosively, at the counter.
“We met some girls, some dancers, who gave us a good time,” Tony agrees, off-key, and grins.
“I’m gonna mess up,” Bucky says, helplessly, tipping his head back. “They’re gonna laugh at me, дерьмо, it’s too early, I shouldn’t have agreed to do this tour. They’re gonna stare at my arm-”
“You’re gonna be fine,” Steve protests, “you’re gonna be great. You look so good, Buck, so good.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re sucking my dick,” Bucky retorts. He’s already done up in his costume and makeup, silk blouse untucked from his leggings and gathered up in Steve’s spare fist, out of the way.
“I am a weak man,” Steve agrees, “Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” Bucky snaps, grabbing at his hair.
“James,” Natasha shrieks from somewhere outside the dress room, “if you don’t get out here in the next five minutes I’m going to turn Odette into Saltychikha, you--”
“Ah-!” Bucky gasps, and locks the door.
“Mm,” Steve says.
(Ten minutes later and Bucky waltzes onto the stage, all charming grace and perfect coif, and Steve slides into his seat in the front row as the music swells and smiles).