Chapter Text
Bucky Barnes had a knack for faces. Always had.
Maybe ‘knack’ was even an understatement if he really thought about it.
Even back when he was in the Army out in the desert with fifty pounds of gear on and sand blowing in his face, he always knew exactly who was under the helmet. Knew them by name. Sometimes by stance. Almost always by voice— those were hard to forget. Sometimes he still heard them late at night when he tossed and turned to long-lost terrors.
But he figured he wasn’t the only one.
His way of remembering, of memorizing and assessing helped with his new job, though— the odd waking hours and the restlessness did too, if he was honest. But the morning rush always came with new faces to catalogue and orders to memorize until Bucky, co-owner of Barnes & Wilson cafe, could recognize the regulars by the time the overhead bell rang.
But not this morning.
This time when the bell rang, Barnes came up short, not recognizing the flash of red hair, curled and slightly frizzy from the summer heat. Those soft eyes landed somewhere on the scale between hazel and green. And that bright, gracious smile as she thanked the man who’d held the door open for her.
Did he always notice these things in other people? Or was this new?
It was hard to know when his skill stopped and his feelings took over, snapping himself out of the short daze and snapping back to the cash register. He watched her mull over the menu, fingers covering her lips as they drummed in deliberation. He’d guess she’d land on a latte— something sweet, maybe spiced. Definitely caffeinated.
It was an off-hour— just after the 9am rush when people were desperate to get their first hit before they had to hoof it over to the office— so he could indulge a little indecision.
“First time?” Bucky finally asked, watching with an amused grin as her eyes snapped back to his from the menu board above his head. Her hands stopped the pensive shuffling of rings from one finger to another as a bashful smile painted her face.
“Am I that obvious?”
James chuckled, “Nah, I’m just good with faces.”
“And he’s always here,” Sam added in with a smirk, arms full of a freshly-roasted bag of beans he was working on grinding. “Pretty sure the man never sleeps.”
Bucky could’ve decked him, picking this time out of any to pop in. But he settled instead on tossing his tea towel across the bar and at his head. His new customer chuckled behind her hand at the sight, stacked silver rings glimmering in the light. It was a beautiful laugh, a little high and breathy.
Clearing his throat, he tried to steer them back towards professional, “So, what’ll it be?”
“How about a chai latte?”
He couldn’t help the way the corners of his lips flicked up into a victorious smile, silently patting himself on the back for his caffeine-laden sixth sense. Grabbing a cup from the stack beside him, he flicked the cap off his sharpie and returned to the register.
“You’ve got it,” Bucky quipped. “Name for the cup?”
“Wanda,” she replied. That was a name he didn’t hear often, but somehow it seemed to suit her. Then, with a little cock of her head, she added, “And to who do I owe the pleasure?”
He didn’t mind the way she surveyed him, sizing him up from the stained apron he was sporting to the mess of hair hiding under his branded ball cap.
“James Buchanan Barnes,” he replied with his best smile, hoping he’d made the right kind of impression. “But it’s just Bucky around these parts.”
“Bucky,” Wanda said, sounding like she was mulling it over. “Nice to meet you. I’ll see you around?”
“He’ll be here,” Sam quipped again.
The only reason he didn’t side-eye him was it got another laugh out of Wanda, who grabbed her cup off the bar and headed towards the door. He might have watched her take a first sip of the drink, shoulders slumping in relief as she smiled into her cup.
He’d wonder when she’d be back, but the thought flickered from his brain as the next customer approached the cash.
Thankfully, against all the lack of hope that Bucky had, that wasn’t her last time at the shop. Wanda stopped by twice more, always with the same order, along with a rotating pastry selection Sam had managed to up-sell her on during her second visit.
Bucky didn’t always get to man the cash while she was in, but she always said hello to him— by name—and every time the bell sounded out overhead as she left, Sam would take the opportunity to haze him about when he was going to ask her out.
Without fail.
“You know it’s not like that,” Bucky’d insist, hiding his bashfulness behind a flash of teeth and a breathy chuckle. “She’s a pretty girl. I’m basically a hundred— there’s no way it’d work.”
“You’re not wrong about that,” Sam said with a low whistle, fighting back his own gap-toothed grin. “When was the last time you even went on a date?”
Bucky didn’t want to dignify that with a response, but Natasha apparently had a lot to say on the matter.
“Hm. About a year ago, by my count,” she mused. “It was that disaster… Didn’t she take you clubbing or something?”
“Oh yeah,” Sam chuckled. “The one that made you wait out in the cold for an hour and stole your jacket. What was her name again?”
“Can we not analyze my love life during work hours?” Bucky groaned, tossing another dirty rag into the laundry basket and reaching for a fresh tray of blueberry muffins. The last thing he needed was a reminder of what his sad, empty apartment already told him every time he went home.
“He has a point, you know. It’d take at least a week to unpack all of that,” Natasha murmured to Bucky’s sigh.
“You two are the worst,” Bucky groaned. “It’s a wonder I haven’t fired you yet.”
Sam snorted, “Like anyone else would put up with your grumpy ass.”
OK, maybe he had a point— not that he would ever say as much out loud. He mentally scratched the ‘fire these assholes’ point off his to-do list, vowing to circle back, on the whole, getting a social life thing at some point.
But those two weren’t about to let him off that easy.
From then on in, Bucky took the ribbing with a healthy dose of silence, the fury practically radiating off of him as he tried to ignore their banter behind the scenes. Somehow that only made things worse, with their teasing coming at all hours.
Even some of his regulars started to get in on the action, taking note of the redheaded girl that stacked her jewellery and lived off chai. They’d purse their lips to hide a smile, maybe stuff a couple extra dollars into the tip jar for his trouble and offer a sympathetic look when Sam and Nat got especially vocal.
It was getting so bad, Bucky was starting to worry she’d walk in and catch them talking about her and then that’d be it— and something inside him was scared at the thought of her never walking through that door again.
“They’re still giving you a hard time, huh?” Peter asked, reaching for his half-coffee, half-hot chocolate on his way to class. “For what it’s worth, I think she’d say yes.”
“You a mind reader now, Parker?” Bucky all but griped.
He let out a nervous chuckle, “No, but I see her around campus a lot. She seems nice, and I’ve never seen a boyfriend— or girlfrie— partner?”
“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Bucky soothed with a soft smile as he slid him a chocolate chip cookie for good measure. “I’m just grumpy and hopeless. Have a good class.”
Peter quickly swiped the treat off the bar with a grateful grin and shot a “Thanks, Mr. Barnes!” over his shoulder as he left.
Bucky could only shake his head and laugh.