Work Text:
Steve doesn't need to check his phone to know he’s late, probably even later than he thinks, and he’s decaffeinated, trying to outrun an apocalyptic black cloud that’s hot on his heels and threatening storms.
Rain isn't the only thing breathing down his neck today either. It’s Tuesday morning, which means his Tuesday morning deadline has tiptoed past the point of pressing and has bolted headlong into the realms of urgency.
Steve’s grumpy, that’s for sure, but he’s not stressed as such. He’ll meet the deadline, because if nothing else, he gets shit done. He knows he's good at his job, it's just that some people would like him to be good at it a hell of a lot quicker, and right now his inspiration is running dry. The current job, a concept illustration for a children’s story that’s heavy on both space adventure and morals, is almost complete — there are just a couple of elements that still niggle.
Steve takes the last two steps to his favorite coffee shop at a run and reaches the door just as the water hits, a torrential downpour that catches his heels and the back of his jacket as he crosses the threshold. When the door clicks shut behind him, muting the drum roll of rain, it brings other sounds into focus.
Steve thrives on this, the background noise as he works; the hiss of steam, the mechanical grind of coffee beans, the clunk of the group heads slotting into place in the machine. It’s like a soundtrack humming in the back of his mind like white noise. His brain just works better this way, and it’s not like Maria cares where he works, as long as he gets the job done.
Wanda waves to him from behind the counter before pulling a face which is probably aimed at the man bumbling for change at the till, but could in all likeliness be directed at Steve. He feels the corners of his lips tug upwards either way.
The smile lands oddly, feels strange on his face like the requisite muscles are only just waking up, resisting as they get to grips with the gesture after hours of frowning. Steve groans because it’s 11am and it’s pretty fucking depressing that this is his first smile of the day.
It’s with a sense of unearned triumph that he settles into the last available window booth and reluctantly puts his laptop bag on the table in front of him. He glares at it, knowing what’s waiting for him when he sets it up and opens the file he needs.
The colors weren’t right the last time he looked, and they still won’t be right when he looks again. Burnt orange isn’t alluring enough for the protagonist’s home planet, a kind of siren-song Saturn that draws passing starships into its orbit. Unless Steve gets a timely hit of inspiration, it will stay that way, hostile and fierce, and not at all what the author intended. Steve rubs his forehead. He really needs a coffee.
That’s when he notices a waiter hovering around the table like an answer; Steve’s very own planetary alignment. He all-too-briefly wonders when the cafe started offering table service, but he shrugs it off. Anything that saves him jockeying for position in line is a win as far as Steve’s concerned.
The guy takes the last step to Steve’s table and starts to speak. “Can I get—?”
“Yes!” Steve cuts in gratefully, the word a relieved rush of breath. “God, yes. Double shot Americano, please.”
It’s at that point Steve looks up properly, takes in bright eyes, long dark hair, broad chest, bite-swollen lips, and everything else beautiful that he can’t fully comprehend all at once.
The waiter blinks slowly, and Steve is just starting to think he’s accidentally asked for the guy’s phone number instead of his coffee when the man’s face lights up in a slow grin.
Steve fidgets in his seat, a hot, fat raindrop of lust falling low in his belly. He tries to keep his composure, but a blush sells him out.
The guy purses his lips as though he’s trying to tame a smile and says, “Sure.” His voice is husky and rough, yet it somehow soothes all the spiky edges of Steve’s morning personality. “You want milk?”
A simple yes or no would do it, but Steve hasn’t found his voice just yet. He knows it won't be hiding in the depths of sparkling gray-blue eyes, but at least now he knows exactly what color that planet should be. The guy waits patiently, completely unaware that Steve’s an idiot who thinks that maybe he’s just found his muse.
“No, thank you,” Steve answers eventually, too late to be considered normal, and pulls his laptop out with renewed enthusiasm. If he doesn't, he'll watch the guy’s ass all the way back to the counter.
To the backdrop of chinking crockery and chatter, Steve opens his file and starts coloring. He tries to focus on the job and not the gorgeous new waiter — he must be new because Steve comes in every week, and let’s face it, Steve would definitely remember seeing him.
On his left, a mug is placed on the table. There are words of gratitude on his tongue, but he stumbles in confusion when a plate slides down alongside it. He looks between the man and the plate, where a tempting apple turnover is sitting pretty and begging to be devoured.
“Umm…” Steve glances up to find the waiter standing there with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, looking expectant and arguably more delicious than the pastry. “I didn’t order this.”
“No,” the man says through a huff of laughter. “But technically, you didn’t order the coffee either.”
“Huh?”
Opposite him, the man slides into the booth, light bouncing off his shirt and drenching his eyes with even more blue.
Steve’s eyes dart left and right, looking for whatever it is he’s missed.
The guy waits, nips the side of his bottom lip, and says, “So… can I get my jacket now?”
“Your what? Wait—what?” Then Steve realizes he’s leaning against something. Something leather, with zippers. Something that looks very much like a jacket. Finally it clicks. “You don’t have a name badge.”
The man’s grin widens.
“Oh shit. You don’t work here do you?”
“Nope.” The guy looks so smugly amused as it is, he doesn't even bother to pop the p.
Steve should apologize, grovel, accept this moment of mortification, but this is the exact situation that forces that chip on his shoulder. He’s annoyed with himself, and this guy, with his unaccountably hot hair and breathtaking jaw line that Steve wants to trace with his thumb, and his teeth, and maybe also…
This is definitely a problem. Steve decides to throw some sarcasm at it. “Make yourself comfortable.”
The guy’s grin doesn’t waver, but he does throw a look of disbelief Steve’s way. “Wait, are you actually pissed because I brought you breakfast?”
It seems unreasonable now, but Steve's sticking with it for the time being. It’s probably petulant to come right out and say yes, so Steve ends up huffing through his nose like one of the indignant purple space dragons on his screen.
The guy laughs on a gulp of coffee and Steve wistfully hopes he might do something embarrassing like splutter, if only to break Steve out of the infatuation he seems to be developing.
Steve waits, then sighs as the man recovers with his dignity still intact. Figures.
“You always this much of an asshole when someone does something nice for you?”
Steve meets his eyes when he says, “Yeah,” and hopes his face says, what of it. “But, I genuinely thought… I wasn’t trying to get you to pay for me.”
“Too late,” he replies firmly. “Drink your coffee.”
Steve watches the man lick across his bottom lip, a path he’d like to trace for himself, eyes lingering when he knows they shouldn’t. He hasn’t felt like drawing for himself for months. Now he’s opening a new canvas and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
“I’m Bucky, by the way.”
Blinking stupidly, Steve drags his eyes up from the screen. “Steve,” he offers stiffly in return.
The smile he receives in response is quite possibly the most stunning he’s ever seen.
~
They don’t talk for a full fifteen minutes, but Bucky doesn’t leave either. Every now and then, Steve steals a surreptitious little glance and adjusts the sketch, and his pants, accordingly.
Steve’s squinting at the screen when Bucky shifts, clearing his throat quietly. “What are you doing?”
“Work,” he mumbles, glaring at the turnover which isn’t really fair because it’s not the pastry’s fault that Steve’s obsessing over the perfect lines of Bucky’s hair, the way the strands should curl just a little around his ears.
Bucky makes a noise around his mug. “Wow, don’t hold back,” he snarks, but he doesn’t look pissed at all.
Steve’s eyes flick up. He’s just as startled this time around as the first time he set eyes on him, and every reference check in between. “I’m not telling you my life story. You could be anyone.”
Bucky narrows his eyes and tips his head in consideration. “Alright, first off, if work is your life, that sucks. Second, how do you make friends if you never speak to strangers? ‘Anyone’ has to become someone somehow.”
Steve thinks of a few quick fire comebacks, but they’ll lack the required punch if he can’t look this guy in the eye when he delivers them. Which he can’t, because Bucky’s too damn beautiful. He sits in silence instead.
“Forget I asked,” says Bucky, shaking out a sugar packet and ripping the end with his teeth. He doesn’t put his hands up in surrender, but Steve gets the idea all the same.
“I'm an illustrator,” Steve concedes, more willingly than his tone lets on. “Fiction books mainly.”
“Really?” Bucky’s face suddenly becomes animated as he leans forward on his elbows, voice excited and Brooklyn heavy. “What's that one about?”
“A cute kids book about aliens. It sounds trite, but it’s actually really good. I’ve worked out one of the issues, but there’s still something missing.” He inclines his head to the window where droplets chase each other down the pane; feinting, sliding, mapping paths in a stop-go pattern of rainy day gloom. “I'm not feeling landscapes today.”
Bucky sits there for a while and Steve wonders if he’s zoned out, uninterested.
“Well,” Bucky says after another beat, “it rains on Venus.” He offers the information with a tiny shrug, almost like he's embarrassed, but he expands anyway. “It's sulfuric acid and mostly it evaporates before it hits the ground, but something like that could maybe look good.”
Steve pauses as a little spark ignites and catches. “That’s perfect,” he mutters, sliding his glasses back on. He’s so focused he almost misses the delighted flush on Bucky’s cheeks.
~
Steve gets absorbed in beguiling blue planets and portrait sketches alike, darting from one file to the other with a twitch of the mouse when he panics that Bucky might be able to see through the back of the monitor and catch him out.
When he next looks up, the rain has lightened to a steady pitter patter, and Bucky is watching the world outside with a dedicated fascination.
Steve follows his line of sight, wants to see what he sees, but his eyes are only focused on the short range, the boundaries of which seem to encompass a half meter radius around Bucky. On the glass, the raindrops join together, slide faster.
“So you’re not a barista?” Steve asks, if only to get Bucky talking again.
“Actually, yes,” the guy smiles, turning to Steve as though he wasn’t as lost to the view as Steve thought. “Not here though. I’ve just moved back into the neighborhood.” He shrugs. “I'm avoiding unpacking, but don’t tell my conscience — it thinks I’m here because I don’t know where I packed the coffee.”
Steve grins. “Your conscience is gullible. Everyone knows you should always label the kitchen box.”
“Well, exactly.”
Steve’s brain skitters and he wonders if it's possible to absorb Bucky’s laugh into his skin. Like lifting a stuck stereo needle, he shakes his head and goes to ask Bucky where he’s moved from, but his phone interrupts.
“My boss,” Steve says off-hand, flicking the phone an inch to the right where it proves to be just as irritating. “She probably wants to know what my status is on this job.”
“What is your status?”
“Annoyed.”
Bucky laughs in surprise, fizzing Steve’s blood like a caffeine hit.
“She can wait. The client doesn’t want to see the first concept until tomorrow anyway.”
“I can leave,” Bucky suggests. His tone is light but Steve can tell he's sincere. “If I'm, you know, intruding.”
Steve laughs. He can't help it, because technically Bucky is intruding. But so is Steve — this was Bucky’s table before it was his.
Steve’s still chuckling, and Bucky is narrowing his eyes on a smile as though he doesn't quite know what to make of it.
“No,” Steve assures him, maintaining eye contact. “You’re alright there.”
They hold each other’s gaze, unclear if they’re flirting or just engaging in a standoff, until the spell breaks when Steve misjudges the distance to the table and puts his cup down a little too forcefully.
Bucky grins. “I'm distracting you though, right?”
Keeping his smile under wraps, Steve reaches for the sugar, wondering if his back and arm are flexing in the same way Bucky’s did earlier. Steve can feel Bucky staring, and takes a little while longer finding the right sachet.
When he turns back round, he catches Bucky in the process of pretending he’s been reading his book all along. The last bitter edges of Steve’s bad mood evaporate like acid rain.
~
At some point during the last third of his coffee, he leans back, looks at the art as a whole and nods with satisfaction. He's not too proud to admit that the sci-fi rain is the detail that really makes it.
Bucky looks absorbed again, this time in his book, and the truth is, Steve wants him back.
“So, you live…?” He trails off, unsure where he wants to take the sentence now Bucky’s eyes are on him again.
“Nearby?” Bucky offers when Steve fails to finish. “Alone?” he adds as an alternative in a low, teasing voice.
Steve ducks his head. He knows he’s blushing a little under the attention. He's waiting for the guy to notice, to drop the flirty banter and the punch line, and leave with the half eaten pastry. Instead Bucky is tucking a strand of hair behind his ear and he almost looks a bit charmed.
Steve watches Bucky’s fingers run through his hair again, then follows the sweep of his cheek back to his eyes. They're bluer now. It could be the bright beam of sun cracking through the clouds, but it could equally be mischief. Steve finds himself moving to adjust the gray-blue orb on his screen; he’s going to need a shade from somewhere amongst the palettes he's previously used for Mediterranean seas and butterfly wings.
Meanwhile, he still hasn’t finished that damn sentence. “Whatever you want to tell me,” he shrugs with a crooked smile to match, “I could be anyone.”
“Or someone,” Bucky says, flicking his eyes up to meet Steve’s with an air of punctuation. Bucky closes his teeth down on his lip, and Steve feels the sharp pinch as he mirrors the action. “I live two blocks from here.”
“Cool.”
Bucky grins through a squint, playfully mocking. “Very cool.”
Steve rolls his eyes, for lack of something smoother to do, and Bucky laughs.
“It’s really nothing,” Bucky continues, rubbing his knuckles along the scruff of his jaw. “An empty shell and a pretty shitty one at that. I need to get furniture. I don’t even think I actually packed coffee so my conscience can rest easy.”
Steve feels himself staring, watching the way Bucky smiles, devil may care, and how he stretches his arm over the back of the chair, shirt fabric stretching even more. He wants to kiss him, wonders what it would feel like to help that shirt out a little. Thinks that maybe the daydream of holding Bucky’s weight to a wall with his hips as they moan into each others’ mouths is the hottest thought he's ever had.
Opposite him, Bucky remains unkissed, picking up stray sugar crystals from the rim of his mug with a tongue moistened fingertip and delivering them into his mouth. He doesn’t even seem to realize he’s doing it. Steve gapes while a whole new daydream gatecrashes his mind.
Steve needs to occupy himself before he loses it completely. As he slides across the bench, Bucky startles.
“Cutting out on our date?”
“Call me old school, but this isn’t what I’d call a date.”
Bucky leans back, all broad shoulders and sunshine smiles. “What would you call it?”
“An embarrassing misunderstanding.”
“The start of every good rom-com,” Bucky intones.
Steve sucks on his cheeks to keep his lips from curling with amusement, and pulls his face into an expression of disagreement. “You witnessed it too, right?” He bends to grab his wallet and hide his smile. “I'm getting another drink.”
“Cappuccino, please,” Bucky orders casually. Steve looks at him incredulously. “I’ll take a muffin with that.”
“Will you?” Steve challenges. Part of him is tempted to tell Bucky to get his own coffee just to be a jerk, but he genuinely likes the guy. “Eat in or takeout?” He tries to hide any inflection that might expose his preference either way.
“Well your stuff’s still on my jacket so I guess it depends on what you're doing,” Bucky smirks, shameless about his lack of subtlety.
Steve turns to the counter with a smirk of his own. The queue is clear when he gets to the till. Wanda is leaning on the worktop, chin in hand, following Steve’s progress as if she's been watching their table for far too long. Her knowing smile says it all.
Steve sighs. “He told you didn't he?”
Her lips turn down in a parody of sympathy for approximately two seconds before they curl back up again. “Seriously, Steve. Since when do we offer table service?”
“I know, I know,” he groans. He feels like he's trying to convince himself as much as Wanda.
Her low giggle follows her as she moves to start the drinks, but she still glances over her shoulder especially to tell him, “We could have a lot of fun with this.”
He tries for his best deadpan tone when he says, “We could, but let's not.”
She turns her delighted grin back to the milk.
With Wanda busy, Steve finds his gaze pulled back towards the window, drawn by the gravity of one particular booth where a shock of morning sun has barged through the storm clouds to frame Bucky’s shoulders and spill in his hair.
Steve sucks in a breath. There's an easy way out if he wants it, but he's not really one for easy.
~
Steve returns to the table with fire in his belly and a decision made.
As he approaches, Bucky looks up and around quickly, hair flicking away from his face with a little whoosh. Steve can't help wondering what it would look like fanned out on his pillow.
Steve puts a takeout cappuccino in front of him with one hand and holds out his leather jacket with the other.
Bucky’s brow flickers into a frown, eyebrows drawing in because he thinks this is his cue to leave. He blinks like he’s startled and disappointed and trying not to show it. It’s obvious he’s wondering whether he’s misread this entire encounter.
Steve doesn’t like being on the instigating end of that look. “Figured if you wanted some help unpacking those boxes, we better get the drinks to go,” he says, lifting his own takeout cup.
Bucky’s frown wavers, transforms into another full beam smile; the best yet. “You can help?”
“I think I can lift a few boxes,” Steve says, tilting his head and his smile.
Bucky skips the obvious joke about Steve's bulk, doesn't even look him up and down, and Steve’s impressed. “Nah, I meant because of your deadline.”
“I, uh, actually finished the job,” and yeah, Steve's a little bit shocked himself. He opens his mouth to speak again, words ready and willing to help him dig his grave, possibly force a foot in there too. “You umm, helped. You know... inspiration.” He pauses, can’t look in Bucky’s direction because nothing good will come of him seeing Steve blush. “Or something,” he adds, before clearing his throat.
Bucky doesn’t laugh like Steve thought he might. His voice is still playful, but softer, when he says, “Does that make me your muse?”
Steve groans, follows the grooves of his cardboard cup with a finger to stop himself reaching over the table. “Thanks for making this infinitely worse. Do you want my help or not? I’ll unpack anything but your underwear,” he jokes. “I don't wanna sort through that box.”
“You might when you see what's in it,” Bucky purrs with a filthy grin.
Mind tripping happily, Steve finds he doesn't actually want to argue with that.
“Sorry, should strangers not say things like that?” Bucky teases.
Steve’s lips are ready and willing to play out a responding grin. “Shut up, Bucky, we’re going.”
The way Bucky rushes to his feet makes Steve laugh all the way out the door.