Chapter Text
Swiping your credit card and stuffing the ticket inside one of the fabric bags, you gather your things to exit the store. After making the headcount of what you are carrying, you step back and look at the cashier.
“Oh, did that promotion of the Avengers’ stickers end?” The man glances back at you, tilting his head as if he didn’t hear what you said.
Smile in your lips, you begin to ask again, but he spins around, picking some packages from below the cash register. “I’m sorry!” he says, hand stretching with what you asked, “We usually only give those to children or parents, so I didn’t think…”. The phrase is kept incomplete as he smiles nervously. Furrowing your brow, an elongated okay leaves your lips as you pick the stamps and exit the store.
You don’t give it much of a thought, or so you say to yourself. Embarrassed from the previous day, you don’t ask for the stickers again when you get checked out. And with how often you visit that shop, it is plain weird. The thought is constantly there: I’ll tell the cashier, it’s no big deal, just some stickers. Nonetheless, as stupid as it is, that short motivational speech in your head ends up in nothing. Chickening out every single time, quick in your step as if the worker were going to chase you, it’s the only outcome of the interaction.
“It’ll be 14.92 dollars!” the cashier gets you out of your mind, prompting you to take some cash out of the purse. It is too late, you shouldn’t have been so quirky and pick out some other food in your apartment. Yet, here you are, hoodie so ugly and big that swallows you whole, and a bag of Doritos along with some other things —but the orange treat is the important one— on hand.
“Oh, are you still collecting the stickers?” At that, you look up to the man, finding two big brown eyes staring right back at you. You don’t know why you nod, when no, you aren’t anymore since you last talked to him. “Yes? Then I have a present for you!”
He disappears behind the counter, only his shiny jet black hair visible as he trashes with whatever is in there. His head rises a bit before fully coming up, looking around the store as if he was trafficking with drugs instead of literal Avengers’ stickers. He smiles, cheeks getting fuller as he discreetly hands you an incredibly large amount of silver packages. Your eyes grow wide, both hands coming up to retrieve the ‘present’. The packages slip from your finger, his hands are twice your size and even him wasn’t doing a good job in holding them.
“They give us a new box in the morning,” he chuckles, doe eyes fixed on how you try to stuff your sweatshirt’s pocket with the stickers, “and we always have lots of them before closing so…”.
The next time you step into the grocery store, your eyes search the cashier without permission, attention attracted by him like a magnet. It is late again, the almost empty store being the scenario of your night grocery shopping spree, and the man is strolling around relocating some misplaced items. Your list is almost down to two or three items when he catches your gaze, he waves at you, a polite smile settling on his lips. Waving back, you resume your task with a light blush spreading through your cheeks that you earnestly hope isn’t easy to see.
Ready to leave, shopping list fully crossed out plus some sweet treats, you decide it is time to go and pay. However, when you are nearing the queue, the black-haired man passes by your side, opening a new check-out line. He beckons you to it, hands in front of him and laying on the conveyor belt. The cart rolls in front of you as you get closer “You aren’t selling me drugs, right?”. As you get the food out of the cart, he finishes setting himself up on the register. “I don’t know what you are talking about…” front teeth peeking out in a cute grin, he gives you a sidelong glance.
Days pass, your night trips to the store taking a new important part on your schedule. You may be only picking up some veggies or a bottle of milk that you clearly didn’t forget on purpose just to visit the cute guy —and if you are getting these stickers which you wanted too, well, that is a good deal—, but you will always strike some small talk.
You haven’t gotten much information about him, though. Maybe it is because you are surrounded by food, but your conversations always get reduced to that. No matter how many times you try having a chat, it will always lead to either this recipe of his that involve Cheetos and cheese sticks —and that you desperately need to cook one day—, or how he loves these sweet baby carrots from this specific brand that you can’t find anywhere.
It is even worse because at some point in those conversations he must have said his name right? Well, you can’t seem to remember it.
The man knows yours though and instantly calls for you when he sees you around the store. He has been complaining how you don’t, saying how awful is for you to ignore him until he goes and talk to you, and that is not fair. So the new strategy is to sneak behind the cashier to jokingly scare him, or sometimes bump into him as if you didn’t know each other, steadily waiting for him to whine a “You aren’t getting a present today!” —which is an empty threat, but let the man live.
You can only hope his boss replaces his lost name tag one day, until then, this is how it is going to be.
“So, party tonight, huh?” He points out, taking a second glance at you. You smile brightly, even if you just put together your favourite black jeans and a tight top, you are looking good today indeed. “Is it so obvious?”, a stupid question when you are also laying two bottles of alcohol and a bag of ice cubes in the conveyor belt. His grin grows, teeth peeking out as he tilts his head. “Be careful, okay?” he threatens once he checks everything out, stickers prisoner in his hold.
At first, you don’t get what he is talking about, but a second later you can’t help but melt at how cute he is being. “Is my drug dealer worried over some alcohol?”.
He chuckles, serious stance lost as he hands you the stamps “I know this is much more addictive, but”. “You tell me! That smell of ink…” you retort, taking a big exaggerated sniff off the packages. “No need getting drunk! Just open a few in a closeted room and vibe!” he raises his hands, palms in the air implying how true it is.
It isn’t until the Avengers’ stickers promotion is almost coming to its end, that you go up to the big display stand located close to the entry of the store. Painted in blue and red with a few silver stars, the structure rises with shelves filled full of cups, toys and posters from the last movie. Those stickers exactly weren’t what got your attention —not at first glance at least—, the promotion announcing some great prizes for whoever gathers a certain number of some tiny stamps that were also present in those packages you have been collecting.
This sensation of pride blooming through yourself as you pick one of the plush toys and hug it close to you, shouldn’t be there. You are no child.
Still, with a smile in your lips, you make your way through the store looking for the doe-eyed man. You have been coming at this time for a while now, so even the man finds himself glancing around for you. He is too slow though, as you get around an aisle, just in time to make him jump out of his skin with a booh! The man rolls his eyes, his wavy hair falling a bit too long on them. “You want me dead, don’t you?”. With a smirk, you refrain from answering, opting for watching him lean in one of the shelves as he recovers his breath dramatically.
Gazing at how your hands hide something behind your back, he opens his mouth to ask but gapes and consecutively pouts when you shush him. Getting the plush toy in front of you, arms up in the air as you show it off, you make a small victory dance —that you regret a second later. “I knew you’d get Iron Man!” he laughs.
The cashier leads you to check you out, the small stuffed toy in his arms while you sneak some groceries for tonight’s dinner.
“Maybe I should keep it,” he ponders, the tiny iron man still in his arms even as he scans your things, “After all, this was all thanks to my hard work!” he signals to the sheet of paper you give him, fully covered in the stamps you need to retrieve the prize.
“You wish!” you chuckle, stretching your hand to get the toy. “Oh, so you get what you want and leave, huh? You’ve been playing me all this time…” he fakes cries leaning as far as he can from you. “I’m not leaving you anywhere, what are you rambling about?” you keep putting away the food, not giving the man so much as a side glance in disbelieve.
“That now that you got your iron man, you won’t be visiting me again… So cruel!”
Your mind stops for a hot second because you didn’t even think of that. The guy had indeed given you that piece of advice about coming late so he could gift you some more cards, but you also started getting to the store when there were fewer people so you could talk to him. However, now that the promotion is about to end, it is common sense to start making your shopping spree at a more normal time, as you always have.
Yet, what surprises you is that he is kind of asking for you to keep seeing him, right? Keep coming later so you two can talk or whatever. You aren’t making it up…, right?
You tilt your head, hands stopping their work of slipping the food in bags to stare at him. Furrowing your eyebrows and shrugging, you assure him “I’ll keep coming, what are you saying?” you mumble, even if you are not so sure yourself.
The man smiles at that, his cheeks getting puffier as he scrunches his nose. Seeing him that happy of meeting you again makes you internally cringe, how can you be so careless of not remembering his name? But you mirror his expression nonetheless, getting your things together and readying yourself to leave. He insists on seeing you out today, something about how he will carry the plush toy because you are already lifting too many bags. Such a gentleman, huh? Even though you could clearly move everything by yourself, you let go an “okay, sure”, that stupid smile permanent in your lips.
It is silent in the way back to your car, you had parked as close to the entry as you could, too afraid to leave it far off from the lighting of the parking. This part of the town is calm, and now that you don’t travel by bus, you are that more relaxed of going out late at night, yet you are never too careful.
After packing everything in the trunk and making once again your headcount of your phone, keys and purse, you lean back in the car. It is a chilly night, the frozen metal of one of the doors digs in your bare arm and you take a second to watch the tall man. He is fiddling in his position, looking at you as if waiting for something magical to happen. Still, only the sounds of cars passing by and the occasional breeze of air interrupt the silence.
“What are you thinking about?” you ask, genuinely curious of how much of a loss of words he is in.
It would have been a weird situation, truthfully, if he had been anybody other than, well, him —even if, once again, you can’t help but scold yourself about forgetting his name. If a cashier had told you he would come along with you to your car, had made the same silly excuse the man in front of you had made and had stood there so silent and nervous; you would be running by now. Red flags would have been popping in your head like neon lights by now because you are no idiot.
On the other hand, when you take in the image of the man hugging that iron man, long hair threatening to cover his eyes and that cute frown in his lips, you smile. How can he go out looking that cute? Because if you haven’t say it before: he is that cute by himself. In this stance, you can only be nervous about what has him so silent, with how bouncy he always is. Yet, the cashier only shakes his head, hand stretching to give you the plush toy “I should get going”, and he actually starts walking back to the store. A bit confused, you shrug, guess he was just bored.