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He wasn't a morning person.
"Well then why did you open a coffee shop?" Kate is a morning person, because Kate can be anything she wants to be, and she can never resist being better at something than him. "What did you think was going to happen?"
Well, for one, he hadn't counted on being the one to get up and make the coffee for everyone else. Bit short-sighted of him really. He grumbled through the early mornings, making sounds more suited to a disturbed bear than a human being, especially one who was supposed to be working in some sort of customer service industry. Kate, as always, absconded to the bakery in the back the minute someone came through the front door, leaving him, like always , at the till.
He'd hired her to be a cashier , and at some point, she'd turned the tables on him and now he had no cashier, but one really good baker. Like, divine. He'd always had a dab hand for pastries but if he could bake like she did at her age, he would've ditched the whole damn country and gone to make Caramel Pear Terrines for the Queen of England. He hadn't even know what a terrine was--he still wasn't entirely sure, he thought that the world began and ended with cheesecake --
"Am I interrupting something?"
She's a redhead and she looks a bit like Kate's cakes taste and it doesn't help him come up with anything clever.
"Uh--what--sorry--can I help you?"
Right. Customer service. He needs to hire another cashier. A morning cashier for morning people. What was he doing again?
"A large double shot macchiato with soy." She said, looking down at her purse to find her wallet. "Please."
Easy enough. She hands her money over and he hands back her change--she's not wearing a wedding ring--and he plucks a mug off the counter, halfway to the coffee machine before he thinks to pause and turn back to her, face scrunched up.
"…Is that for here or to go?"
She looks expectant, like she'd been waiting for him to ask, and if she's annoyed that he made the assumption, she doesn't say.
"It's to go." He nods; of course it's to go. She looks like she's on her way somewhere, all pressed business suit and fancy briefcase that probably cost as much as his coffee machine in hand. She looks expensive. She looks like she drinks only the best coffee, and so, lucky for her, she looks like she fits in right there at his counter.
"Haven't seen you around before." He says, because it's early and the rest of the shop is empty. He's more used to regulars than he is to new customers, and Kate keeps warning him that he has to make new customers to keep the business going, but she's like twelve years old, what does she know? Don't you have a cake to pull out your ass or something?
"You haven't." She acknowledges, and he expects there to be some kind of--follow up or something to that. An explanation for why she picked today--new job, maybe, or trying something new, or something , what was different about today that put her here, but she doesn't offer and so that sort of leaves him at a loss.
He hands her the coffee, and she leaves, and that's that.
***
She's back the next morning, though. First person through the door, the hour still ungodly--Kate hasn't even finished chirping in his ear about Clint, you were supposed to order more flour; Clint, I can't work in these conditions; Clint, you can't bring the dog inside that is a health violation; Clint, where's my coffee I can't bake without coffee what kind of establishment do you think you're running anyway.
"Okay, okay --Jesus Christ, has anyone ever told you that you're annoying as fff--hi--" Shit. She's standing at the counter again, hands folded together over the handle of her briefcase--different suit, same case. Different hair? Had he looked at her hair? It was still red.
"What can I get you?"
Fucking Kate.
"A large double shot macchiato with soy." She has exact change this time. "To go."
Fucking Kate.
***
And so it goes. She's always first in line, and he doesn't attempt to make any sort of stupid conversation because he's pretty sure she doesn't want to talk, and, you know, fair enough. Who does, that early in the morning? Besides Kate. Kate wants to talk all the time.
"You should ask her out." She's looking very smug, despite being covered up to her elbows in flour with something that vaguely resembles a dessert laid out on the counter space in front of her. Her hair is full of fly-aways and somewhere along the course of the day, her apron got stained with an unfortunate amount of chocolate and still, he thinks she's going to make some guy very happy someday. Or girl, he's not judging--a lot easier to threaten a guy, though, give 'em the old if you even consider hurting her I will cut off your balls and make you eat them . What's he supposed to say to a girl? I'll cut off your fingers ? That crosses from overprotective into serial killer territory, he'd get arrested and--
"What? No. Why would I do that? That's stupid--shut up and bake your cake." She's like twelve. What does she know?
"It's a torte! " She says, like that means she won the argument that they weren't having. He snorts and stomps back off to the front of the store.
***
He's seen her every morning for months, and still, somehow, he almost doesn't recognize her when he's fully awake because it's five in the evening.
"A large double shot macchiato with soy." He looks at his handful of exact change and then looks up.
"Hey!" He says, pointing, "It's you."
"It's me." She acknowledges--now that he's look, she looks exactly like she did that morning. Like she'd just stepped out of the front door and right back in, except it had been about nine hours since then. Did she step out into some kind of hermetically sealed bubble? He didn't understand girl magic. Kate would know. Kate would make fun of him for asking.
"You're here at night." Smooth operator. "That's new."
She shrugs, like he should have expected this in the same way that she seemed to anticipate his surprise. If she thinks it's weird that he remembers her or that he points it out, she doesn't say anything. Which is par for the course, actually, but she's got this look about her that Clint is pretty sure means that she wouldn't have a problem giving him a piece of her mind if she felt so inclined.
"To go, right?" He says, already with the disposable cardboard cup in hand, three steps into the machine.
"For here, actually." She says, lifting her briefcase a few inches like a shrug. "Work to do."
Right. For here. He gives her a stupid smile and picks up a ceramic mug.
"For here." He repeats. "Cool."
Cool.
***
And so it goes again. She shows up first thing in the morning, and every evening at 6:30 like she's being paid to be there. She sets herself up in a corner of the cafe with her coffee and her laptop and she--works, Clint presumes--until 11, as he's sweeping up around her, and then she packs up and goes--home, he's still presuming (he has to presume a lot of things with her). And then she shows up the next morning to do it all again. Same time, same coffee, same chair.
Even he's not that punctual, and he's supposed to own the place. It's as comforting as it is baffling.
Kate very carefully brings up her Layered Cranberry Cheesecake , setting it down in the glass display case before she leans against it, her arms hanging over the front and her chin resting against the top.
"Hey, come on, I just cleaned that--" Clint's protesting and Kate's not listening, jerking her head in the direction of The Corner.
"Wouldn't it suck to work all day like that?"
Clint looked at Kate, across the cafe to The Corner and then down at the mop in his hands.
"Yeah. Wouldn't it?"
"Whatever, Barton." Kate says, dismissing his concerns with a poo-poo of her hands, "You work with me, it's not the same."
He looks at Kate again, before rolling his eyes, jabbing at the floor between her feet pointedly.
"You're right, it's way worse --"
She kicks at him and he throws a towel at her face and by the time he's resurfaced from that, the corner is empty and it's time to go home.
***
"This isn't what I ordered."
Clint looks up again from wiping down the counter. She's holding the cup of coffee, looking at it--she hasn't even taken a sip, he can tell because there's no tell-tale lipstick on the rim, how does she even know?
"Uh, no--" He says, straightening up and rubbing the back of his neck. The dull flush creeping up his neck has nothing to do with anything. "It's--a vanilla bean latte with double shot espresso and soy."
It's hard to tell if she's mad, she has this weird--it's not a blank expression, but damn he wouldn't want to play poker with her. She'd probably take the shirt right off his back and it wouldn't even be in a sexy way. Just pure business. Like a red headed shark.
"I mean, you order the same thing every day--" And it sounds kind of like Coffee Judgement when he says it like that, so he rushes to get the rest out, "--so why not try something new? It's a new roast from my guy in Wakanda and I found it works really well with the vanilla--it's still soy so if you're lactose intolerant you should be fine--you're not allergic to vanilla, are you?"
Maybe he should have asked first. It seemed like the thing to do.
"No." She says, after a moment, almost bemused, "I'm not allergic to vanilla."
Right, okay. So he hadn't almost killed her--that was good, that was a good way to start the morning. Man, that would have sucked; how would he even explain that? I was trying to-- what? What was he trying to do?-- and then I poisoned her with a vanilla bean Wakandan blend, send twenty ambulances.
"It's good." He hadn't even noticed her taking a sip. "Thank you."
He rubs the back of his neck again, the fingers of his other hand drumming against the apron tied around his waist, shrugging it off like it hadn't mattered to him either way.
"Well--you know. That Wakandan stuff, goes with anything."
It actually took him about four days and twenty pots of coffee to get the right ratio of vanilla bean to coffee bean, and she smiles like she knows that even though she couldn't possibly.
***
So it's a new routine then, a different coffee every day of the week--it's might be a lot to keep up with, a new one in the morning and the evening and trying to go without repeating himself-- that's fourteen coffees, Clint, why does the voice in his head sound like Kate--but he manages. It keeps things interesting, and he's really good at coffee.
He sets the plate with the slice of exquisite Red Velvet Bundt next to her computer. She glances up in mild surprise, raising an eyebrow. He inclines his head towards the kitchen, where Kate is leaning out the door and not being subtle at all, waving when she sees them both looking.
"Compliments of the chef. Baker. Kate." He says, with a put upon sigh.
She looks down at the cake, smiling in a curious way that he can't pin down, before she reaches for the fork.
"Can't say no to that." She says, although she very well could, it would be well within her rights. But she doesn't, and she leaves a note underneath the plate with For Kate written in thin letters. Kate is unbearably smug and refuses to tell him what it says mostly because she knows that he wants to know so badly.
***
"Natasha." She says, one morning--it's winter now, and it's not even bright out, and somehow that makes her brighter. Crimson red against the snow. He's not a poet; he doesn't even want to be. He stares at her in the middle of handing her the cup of coffee. Natasha--Natasha what?
"Your name." He blurts, and she takes the cup from his hand.
"My name." She agrees, taking a sip--they were into very experimental now, blueberry infused teas and peppermint flavoured whipped cream. Not at the same time though; that had been gross.
"Clint." He says, pointing at his chest like she might not know who he was referring to. She smiles--she never smiles wide, but she smiles sometimes, and it's nice.
"I know." He blinks at her.
"You know?" How did she know? "How do you know?"
She points at his chest, and--right. Name tag. Hi, my name is Clint Barton.
She reaches across the counter anyway to offer her hand. A formal greeting.
"It's very nice to meet you, Clint."
***
"So you just--crunch numbers?"
He's sitting across the table, broom handle being tossed back and forth between his hands. She's stretching in her seat, arms above her head as her neck cracks back into place, and she lets out a long sigh and something close to a laugh.
"I'm CFO--it's a little more than number crunching at this point."
They talk now, and it's nice--she probably gets less work done, but he knows that she's a Russian national (he's not sure if he believes that--where's her accent?) who was recently headhunted by Stark Industries and brought in to right a listing ship. Apparently she's done fantastic, since she still has a job and all. She doesn't say much, still, but he's getting better at reading between the lines and putting together some of the pieces. He's pretty sure she didn't leave on good terms from her last company, and if he had to guess, he'd say that she lives to work.
In turn, she knows that he owns a coffee shop. Clint Barton is a pretty simple guy.
"You like your job?" She nods, the faintest flash of white teeth from behind her lips--she doesn't smile big either. She doesn't do anything big, he's realizing, and that's a change of pace for him.
"What about you?" He looks up from the broom, and she's looking expectantly at him. "Do you wake up in the morning and get excited about coffee?"
He looks contemplative for a moment, letting the broom fall to the side, against the inside of his arm as he leans both elbows on the table.
"Can I tell you something?"
She nods.
"I love it." He says, sounding solemn, "I love making coffee--I feel like it's my life's calling, you know? That's why I go through all the effort--if I mess up, it means I'm just another dude with a coffee shop. It means I've been fooling myself this whole time. And that's why I never mess up."
She looks at him for a moment, head tilting to the side.
"Really?"
He manages to nod solemnly and hold her gaze for another few seconds before he leans back suddenly, with a laugh.
"No--are you kidding? I liked the idea of making my own hours and turns out I'm good at coffee." One big happy coincidence. "Christ, what did you think? A Starbucks killed my parents?"
She laughs big this time.
***
In an unexpected turn of events, she brings a matching red-head with her one night. He's devilishly handsome, even behind the black sunglasses and with the white cane. She hangs onto his arm, but Clint notices that she never steers.
They take up her usual corner, but she doesn't have a laptop and he makes her usual order. Times two.
It's not that he cares for routine or something stupid like that--he's just learned, over the years, that practice makes perfect and they had spent an awful lot of time practicing. He's not sulking, and anyway, the shop is busier than usual tonight, so he wouldn't have the chance to sit and chat with her anyway. Thank God Kate had the night off, or he'd never hear the end of it when he dropped a whole stack of paper cups and had to clean them all up.
"Hey, can I get another one of these?" It's the other redhead, two mugs in one hand and the cane in the other. He's smiling somewhere over Clint's shoulder and Clint moodily thinks what a waste.
"Yeah, sure." He says, taking the mugs--what is he gonna do, say no to new business? He's not an idiot, despite the occasional scrap of evidence.
"I'm Matt, by the way." The man says, and Clint rolls his eyes, shrugging his shoulders.
"Clint."
"I know--Natasha's told me all about you." Is that supposed to be a threat? Matt is still smiling, and it doesn't seem like it's supposed to intimidate him. "Says you make the best coffee in town, and that I had to come see for myself."
Clint snorts at the joke. Matt grins.
"Yeah?" Clint says, begrudging, "And?"
"She was right." Matt says, "She usually is."
Well, they could agree on that, at least. If he knows that much, Clint supposes he can't be all bad.
***
Natasha returns alone the next day, but then much to his surprise, Matt starts to drop by too. His hours are much more erratic than Natasha's, but he becomes a familiar enough face. Enough that Clint learns which days are good for coffee experiments (during the week, if he drops in around lunch) and which days he should just stick to the schedule (any time after 7:30 PM).
Natasha keeps to her corner. Matt likes to hang around the counter.
"You know she's not my girlfriend." He says one day, munching on a croissant that's going to leave flakes all down his front. Clint looks up from where he's trying to piece back together the coffee machine after the strange noises it was making that morning. It was supposed to have been cleaned last week, but he forgot and now he's paying the price.
"What?" He says, after too long of a pause, "Yeah--whatever, I know."
He hadn't known. Did it make a difference?
"It doesn't make a difference." Matt advised--Clint sarcastically wonders if he should be paying for the lawyerly advice and Matt laughs.
"I'm just saying--she's Natasha."
Matt said it like a closing argument, and Clint wanted to know what that had to do with anything--but he wasn't going to get into an argument with a lawyer, and anyway, Matt was kind of right.
***
Eventually, the scaffolding of the routine remains in place, but the details are different. Sometimes she sits with Matt and they laugh like old friends; sometimes Clint wastes a whole evening sitting across the table from her. Sometimes, more rarely nowadays, she works. Every once in awhile, he catches her on the tail end of a Skype conversation, speaking in Russian to someone he thinks is named Yakov , and she's sometimes quieter on those days.
He brings her extra coffee, and tries to sit if he can, but sometimes he's run off his feet. He's not sure how or why they got so busy , but it's not a mystery that lasts long when Actual Billionaire Tony Stark comes through the front door, declares his enjoyment of everything and orders three cakes from Kate. Just to have, he says. Kate manages to look smug about it for a week straight.
Natasha smiles in her corner.
It's summer again before he knows it, and without realizing, it's kind of been a whole year since the first morning she walked through his door. Should that be something? Maybe it should be something. He doesn't say anything. Kate sticks a candle in a Strawberry Chiffon cupcake without consulting him and Natasha, before she leaves, kisses his cheek.
"You're in love with her." Kate makes it sound like an accusation , pointing at him with a fork--she'd set aside two cupcakes for them.
Clint considers for a moment, his mouth blessedly full of Strawberry Chiffon-- seriously, why wasn't she in some kind of fancy school somewhere?--before he shrugs.
"Yeah." Yeah, he kind of is. "Who isn't, though?"
Kate sighs, muttering finally , underneath her breath and Clint throws a dish towel at her. Again.
***
It's weird, throwing a party.
August is sticky hot, and he's standing over a grill anyway--the sun is starting to set, finally, and maybe that would bring some relief. The rest of the party doesn't seem to mind as much, and when did he get to know this many people? Matt's around somewhere, and he brought Foggy (which was a real name, apparently), and Kate brought a whole group of friends he didn't even know she had (but she's twelve, of course she has a posse--did he think she just hung around work all day?) and for some reason he's pretty sure Tony Stark showed up with his girlfriend in tow and suddenly the place is happening. There's even a photographer wandering around somewhere.
Natasha sidles up next to his elbow, her red hair pulled up in a ponytail, looking the most casual he's ever seen her--and it's still pretty dressed up. He's not very Fashionable, but he's pretty sure she looks great.
"Steak?" She says, and he nods in the affirmative, and that's all there is. It's the comfortable, companionable kind of silence, the kind she likes to work in and Clint supposes that he does too, now.
"Hey, can I ask you something?" He says, suddenly, turning a steak over with the tongs.
She raises an eyebrow, taking a sip from her beer--he never would have guessed that she drank beer, and then on second glance, it's some brand he's never heard of and it settles the whiplash the image creates a little--before she nods.
"Yeah. Of course."
It's a stupid question, and he knows it is, and so he pokes at the steaks some more and she waits patiently.
"What made you come in? The first time." It's one of those things that doesn't actually matter--who cares how they got here, isn't it enough to just be here?
Wherever here is, a strange new place, characterized by small glances that communicate volumes and shared jokes. He kind of wants to kiss her sometimes, but then, like he said, who doesn't? That's the thing with Natasha, though; he has no idea how she manages it, how she does it, weaving a web so delicate that you don't even notice and all of the sudden, there you are. It would feel a lot like a trap, except it's never been phrased like that, and she's not a spider and he's not a fly.
He could probably kiss her. He's not going to. Not today, anyway.
"The first time?" She says, over the top of her bottle. Something in the question has to amuse her, because the corner of her eyes crinkle like they do when she smiles.
"Well, to tell you the truth--I'm not much of a morning person."
Clint throws his head back and laughs.