Chapter Text
She came in everyday of the week and during the work week it was the same large black coffee with room for cream and sugar. On Saturday she orders the super sugared special and on Sunday she had Natasha recommend her tea. Because of her, Natasha made a recommendation board for the days she wasn’t in the shop. She didn’t even know her name until she found a notebook at her usual window side table.
Carol, she thought. Of course, it’s something as sweet as Carol. There was an email written underneath the name. She decided to send an email to let her know she could come by the shop before tomorrow if she needed it. She wrote and rewrote the email. Should it start with ‘Dear Carol’? That sounded a bit too formal, but it is an email… She never told me her name but this is her notebook so she knows her name is in it so she’d know that’s where i got her name from right? Right?
What she ended up sending a half an hour later was this:
Hey this is Nat from Sweet Revenge. I found your notebook on the table after you left. You can swing by anytime to pick it up. I live above the cafe, so I’ll be around after hours if you need to get it before I open up tomorrow.
She sent the email on its way and immediately had some regrets. What if it was here before she sat down and just left it alone? Or maybe it was a friend’s notebook? No, this handwriting looked like hers. She wrote some notes on napkins before with a lot of words I don’t know. Since it is hers, I should’ve told her some kind of flirty line about her name. Like ‘the name Carol really sounds like music to my ears’… Nat cringed at the thought. She loved using cheesy lines and when she used them on Carol, she seemed to like them too, gave her a good laugh, but that one was just bad. Receiving no email back within the first 10 minutes, she went back to closing up the cafe. Once she got home, she showered up and got ready to watch some TV before bed. She heard the ring of her phone.
Hi Nat,
Thank you so much for finding my notebook. I’ve been looking for it everywhere! Could I come by to pick it up in the next hour?
-Carol Danvers
Aerospace Engineering PhD student
Nat looked at the time it was near midnight at this point, but she likely stay up anyway. So she sent a message back
Sure, no problem. I’ll be in the shop.
Nat made her way down and decided to brew a cup of chamomile tea. She grabbed one of the ceramic pots and and started to heat up some water. She measured out the loose leaf tea and put it in the pot. Once the hot water was in the pot, she wrapped her hands around the bottom. She could feel the heat seep into her palms. Her fingers skimmed over the top and the heat that came off teetered on the edge of painful, but there was something soothing about the feeling. The only other time she could feel something so intense in contrasting was when Carol looked her in the eyes. Brown eyes are the most common in the entire world but Carol’s eyes were something out of this world. No matter the look on her face, those eyes lent a warmth that Nat hadn’t felt in ages, let alone a tired stranger that just asked for an extra shot of espresso.
Nat wondered if she could understand a single thing in that notebook if it would explain why her eyes had that effect. She removed one hand from the heat and flipped open the notebook again. There were numbers and diagrams on these pages and she wonders if this is what she needed an extra shot for. She poured the tea into her cup and wrapped her hands around the warming ceramic.
She nearly knocks the pot over hearing the knocking on the door, but she did knock over the cup. She turns to see Carol waving through the door. Oh, those eyes. Nat waved her in while she swiftly moved the notebook out of the way of the spill. She then quickly ran to the back to get a rag to clean up.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Here let me help” Carol said as she pulled out the tissues from her jacket and laid it down on the spill. Wiping at the edges to keep it from spreading.
“No, no. It’s fine just a small spill.” Nat used the rag to clean up the rest and Carol tossed the tissues. “Thank you so much for letting me come get this so late.” Carol said as she picked up the notebook.
“I was burning late night oil anyway.” Nat looked up from the table and their eyes locked once again. Carol gave her a smile and that warming feeling on her cheeks turned into burning.
“This tea smells wonderful. Which one is it?” She asked. This gave Nat the perfect excuse to look away. She looked down at the pot as if it had any kind of label.
“Candy Chamomile, would you like to try some?” She offered.
“Yes, I’d like that.” Carol sat down and realized that this was her usual seat. Nat set a cup in front of her and poured her the sweet drink. They talked until the pot was empty and made another to keep going. Nat had to be up at 6, but she only got 3 hours of sleep.