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Sam’s having a pretty good day.
The morning rush went by without a hitch, there were enough blueberry muffins leftover afterwards for him to snag one before his break, and no one started that pay-it-forward shit in his drive thru line. It’s a respectable 10:30 AM, five and a half hours into his eight hour shift, and nothing’s gone wrong yet.
And then he sees his least favorite customer in the entire world walk through the door.
It’s not that he’s the type to order something ridiculously overly complicated that takes Sam twenty minutes to make and then tips like shit afterwards, no. Sam almost wishes that guy were like that. Sam deals with that daily.
Instead, James is the type to come to his overly priced coffee chain at least once a week and still manage to act like he’s too good for it every damn time.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” Sam asks, fake cheer on his face and in his voice, hoping his annoyance at the sight of James doesn’t bleed through. The guy’s annoying as all hell, but he tips at least a little, which is better than half his customers, and Sam doesn’t want to give that up.
James is scrolling through his phone and doesn’t even look in Sam’s general direction. He never does, talking down instead of out such that Sam’s always gotta struggle to understand him. The only thing that he can ever hear clearly is the disdain in his tone. “Coffee, just black. Nothing else in it. A regular or a medium or whatever.”
Sam would really like to point out that James has been coming here at least once a week for almost a full goddamn year now, and thus should probably know that what he wants is called a “grande” considering Sam, per corporate policy, has to clarify every single goddamn time, but instead he just smiles again, not that James sees it. “Do you mean a grande, sir?”
James keeps his nose buried in his phone. “Yeah, that.”
“And a name on the order?” Sam asks, grabbing the correct size cup and marking it up. He knows James’s name by now, had after the first month, but he asks every week anyway. He’d think of it as petty revenge, but he doesn’t think James actually ever notices the question is passive aggressive.
“James,” he says, handing over just the right amount to pay for his coffee with a 10% tip. He never stays by the counter long enough for Sam to ask if he wants his change back, and the one time he’d asked, practically having to shout across the café, James had just slow blinked at him. “Uh, no,” he’d said.
Sam doesn’t ask now, just breaks the bill so he can put the correct amount of change in the tip jar. He makes James’s coffee quickly and efficiently, placing it down on the counter and calling out James’s name, before he turns back around to make whatever order just came through the drive-thru.
When he turns back around, as always, both the coffee and James are gone.
Sam spends his afternoon catching up on errands and hitting the gym, getting home just in time for him to take a quick shower and throw on jeans and a jersey before heading out the door again.
He arrives at his buddy Steve’s place a cool five minutes before the Saints kick off, and is promptly handed a beer and a disposable plate to deposit pizza onto as he takes off his shoes in the entryway.
Football games with Steve are always a good time: easy camaraderie, free pizza since Steve did the building artwork for the pizza shop with agreed lifetime pizza (within reason) as payment, and the kind of cheap beer Sam loves to get buzzed on, for whatever reason always stuck in next to some fancy IPA Sam’s sure tastes like ass that he’s never seen Steve drink.
“My best friend loves it,” Steve always says, shrugging. Despite hanging out with Steve pretty much weekly for a year now, Sam’s actually never met the best friend, despite him also being Steve’s roommate. All Sam knows is that he’s got pretentious ass taste in beer, he’s almost never home in the evenings, and his name’s Bucky, the poor guy.
When it’s inevitably time for both he and Steve to grab another beer, Sam leaves the IPA untouched as always, or he’s planning to, anyways, until Steve asks him to bring one out in addition to theirs.
Oh? Do I finally get to meet the mysterious best friend? Sam thinks to himself, grabbing the third beer and popping the caps off all of them before he makes his way back out to the living room.
“Sam, this is my friend—“ Steve starts, just as Sam recognizes the broody man sitting on the armchair.
“James?” Sam asks, in disbelief, really not wanting to spend his favorite night a week with his least favorite regular.
“—Bucky,” Steve finishes lamely. “Do you two know each other?”
“He’s a regular,” Sam says, shrugging, succeeding at keeping any of his irritation out of his voice.
“I didn’t think you knew my name,” James (Bucky?) says, actually looking at Sam for the first time in months. “You always ask for it.”
“Corporate policy,” Sam lies. “I’ve known your name for months now.” He pauses. “At least I thought I did. Is it James or Bucky?”
“Both, technically,” he replies, shrugging. “Bucky’s an old nickname, but I usually say ‘James’ at coffee shops or things like that because ‘Bucky’ usually inspires some type of reaction.”
“So Bucky?”
Bucky nods. “So Bucky.”
Steve takes that moment to jump, apparently realizing this conversation was going to get awkward real fast. “Not that I don’t always love to see you, Buck, but why are you here?”
Bucky takes his hipster beer from Sam when he offers it, settling back into the chair. “Nat and Clint had to go out of town for some last minute emergency and Yelena and I both agreed we should just postpone till they’re back. Significantly fewer board game options with only two people.”
“Bucky has weekly board game nights with some friends,” Steve explains, looking over at Sam, “which is why he’s not usually around on our game nights.” He turns back to Bucky. “I hope Nat and Clint are fine.”
Bucky sips his beer. “They said they had it handled, and Yelena wasn’t worried. I think it’ll be fine, just time sensitive.”
Steve nods at that and smiles at Sam just as the game comes back on from commercial break. “Looks like we’ve got three for the game this week, then!”
Sam focuses on the TV, some of his irritation rubbing off when he remembers how well his Saints are doing today. “Looks like it.”
Sam ends up staying well past the end of the game.
He doesn’t have a shift tomorrow, his Saints won by a wide margin, and there’s still a whole case of beer in the fridge, so he lets himself indulge, celebrate a good game.
Steve’s ecstatic, used to Sam declining his offers to stay over on his couch to hang out longer due to early morning shifts, so Sam doesn’t feel too bad about staying longer than what he’d normally think of as his welcome.
Bucky stays out of his room too, to Sam’s surprise. He doesn’t think he actually watched any of the game—nose stuck in a notebook tonight rather than his phone like it usually is at the café—but he drinks a few more of his IPAs and stays put in his chair, which wouldn’t be a problem if Sam was a little less drunk.
“Why do you always come to my coffee shop when you hate it so much?” he asks when Steve gets up to use the bathroom, words slurring just a bit. His good sense catches up to him after the words are already out of his mouth, but he’s too drunk to try and take the question back when he’s been trying to figure out the answer for damn near a year now.
“What?” Bucky asks, looking up, seemingly a little shocked at the question.
Probably should’ve skipped that last beer, Sam thinks when he keeps talking. “You never use the right size words even though I am obligated by my job description to remind you every time, you always look bored and like you have someone better to be when you order, you get all high and mighty about drinking black coffee, and I don’t think you’ve ever said thank you. So why do you come to my coffee shop if you hate it so much?”
Bucky just blinks at him. “I, uh, didn’t realize you noticed all of that.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Of course I fucking notice. I’m an unwilling participant in all of those interactions.”
Bucky puts his fancy beer aside, half-drank. Sam thinks he’s been nursing it for a while. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Sam crosses his arms over his chest and tries his best to raise a single eyebrow despite his currently depleted motor skills. “Because I generally enjoy my job and would like to keep it, so I don’t usually call customers out unless they’re being particularly egregious. Plus, you tip consistently, even if they’re not great tips, so you got that going for you, I guess.”
Bucky looks a little sheepish, maybe a little bit guilty. “I’m sorry, Sam. I guess I just wasn’t really thinking about how all of that might come off.”
“It comes off as rude,” Sam says, slumping down on the couch and pulling a blanket around him. “You should be nicer to service workers,” comes out a little indignantly. “All of ‘em, not just me.”
He falls asleep before he hears Bucky’s reply.
Sam’s up and at ‘em before Bucky wakes up the next morning.
He and Steve go out for a run—Sam somehow not hungover—and they’re mostly silent during. They grab coffees to-go on the way back, making light conversation about how the season’s going and Steve’s next big art project, and Sam tries desperately to silently convince himself he didn’t actually call Bucky out while drunk last night.
Steve’s apartment is closer than Sam’s is, so Sam drops him off at the door, grabbing his backpack with yesterday’s clothes from the entryway where he’d left it.
“Don’t know what you did in the five minutes I was in the bathroom,” Steve says, in lieu of goodbye, “but I think you left an impression on Buck. I think he might end up being even more of a regular at your coffee shop now.”
I doubt it, Sam thinks, already mentally taking Bucky’s consistent 10% tips out of his monthly budget as he walks back to his own apartment.
When he gets home and unpacks his backpack, he finds a folded up piece of notebook paper at the top. I’ll be nicer, I promise, is written on the top, and Sam unfolds it to find a drawing of himself, apparently very intently watching the game, a beer chilling in his right hand.
Bucky had decided to make up for all those coffee shop runs he spent not looking at Sam in one night, it seems.
He puts the drawing in the seldom used bottom drawer of his nightstand for safekeeping.
Sam almost manages to forget about all of it through the next week, too preoccupied with extra busy shifts, Facetimes with his sister and nephews, schoolwork for his master’s, and trying to run or hit the gym every day.
He is very forcefully reminded of his own drunken rambling when none other than Bucky himself walks into his coffee shop at 9:47 AM on Friday morning.
Sam’s surprised, had figured he’d probably never see Bucky again unless he happened to run into him at Steve’s, had thought maybe he’d even try and convince Steve to switch their game nights to his own apartment, but here Bucky is anyway, waiting in line to order coffee like always.
He actually looks at Sam this time: no eye contact, but he’s obviously speaking to him, easily enough for Sam to hear, which makes everything easier. “Uh, hi,” he says, a timid smile on his face. “Can I please get a black coffee, grande?”
Sam smiles back at him, trying to go for not-awkward. He’s not sure he succeeds. “Name on the order?”
“Bucky.”
Bucky says thank you when Sam hands his drink off to him later, but neither of them mention the conversation from the other night. After he’s grabbed his drink, he leaves, off to do whatever Bucky does after he gets his coffee.
He tips 25%.
Bucky comes in a lot more frequently after that, usually towards the end of Sam’s shift instead of in the middle.
Sam stops asking him for his name every time and starts ringing up his order as soon as he walks in like he does with some of his other regulars. Bucky starts genuinely smiling when he walks up to the counter, and usually will stay a minute or two longer after he grabs his drink to ask Sam about this or that if it’s not too busy.
He still comes in one day a week during mid-shift and leaves right after he grabs his drink, and Sam figures those days he has something he has to do after, but on the other days, Bucky comes later and later until he’s right at the edge of Sam’s shift. On those days, he’ll sit at a little table for two, bent over the little notebook he’d had when he’d joined in on Sam and Steve’s game night, and Sam assumes he’s drawing various people that come in and out of the shop.
After about a week of this, Sam starts to join him when his shift ends.
He finds out Bucky went to art school with Steve and that he’s been doing freelance graphic design work since he got home from deployment; he’d enlisted after art school. They bond over military stories and similar life experiences, and little by little they get to know each other well enough that Sam can call Bucky a friend, rather than “Steve’s best friend who also happens to be a pain in my ass.”
“Friend” is a much easier title when people ask (and Steve does, repeatedly, getting the biggest smile on his face when Sam admits that yeah, they probably are friends by now).
They settle into an easy routine, and they don’t ever mention the night Sam got introduced to “Bucky” rather than James, at least until the day Sam brings it up about two months later.
“Are we ever gonna talk about the elephant in the room?” he asks out of the blue one day when he joins Bucky at the little café table after his shift.
Bucky, bless his heart, looks adorably confused. “What elephant?”
Sam lays his bag up against the table leg and plops down into the chair. “The night when I got drunk like three months ago and scolded you for being a shitty customer.”
Bucky sets his notebook down. “I don’t know if that’s an elephant. I was being an asshole, you called me out after some liquid courage, and I hope I am no longer being an asshole.”
“I feel like it was enough of a shift in our knowing each other that it counts as an elephant. I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up since I woke up the next morning.”
Bucky takes a sip of his recently refreshed black coffee. “Look, I’ve been particularly bad with most people since I came back. It’s partially an anxiety thing, and I’ve been working on it with my therapist, but my anxiety is still no excuse to be an asshole. Which I know I was. If anything, I should thank you, because I ended up getting my head out of my ass, often receiving better service because it turns out people are way more willing to help when you treat them kindly, and I got a really great friendship with a really cute barista out of the deal.”
Cute? Sam thinks, but Bucky continues before he can say anything about it.
“It’s not an elephant, Sammy, I promise. More like a well-needed kick in the pants, which worked. And for the record, I did think I was too good for this place, and now I’ve realized that it’s pretty great actually. Good atmosphere, good black coffee even if it’s not what you’re known for, and some pretty fantastic staff. Even if your playlist isn’t always what I’d choose for myself.”
Sam gives him a positively affronted look. “I know you’re not ragging on Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Lionel Richie in my coffee shop, Bucky Barnes,” he says, and the conversation about that night is essentially forgotten.
Sam considers the matter settled.
The next afternoon, Bucky leaves his notebook behind.
He gets a call from one of his clients with a fire drill in the form of a moved up deadline, and he rushes out of the coffee shop with an apology and a goodbye to Sam.
Sam notices he’s left it behind when he clears the table to head home, so he puts it in his backpack and shoots off a text to Bucky. You left your notebook on the table. I got it, don’t worry.
It takes a while for Bucky to text back, most likely in a meeting with a client or ignoring his phone in favor of work. About two hours later, though, Sam’s phone buzzes.
Thanks, Sam. I would’ve freaked out once I noticed it missing.
Sam looks over at his backpack, the notebook carefully placed inside so there’s no risk of bending any pages. Yeah, I figured. I rarely ever see you without it.
Bucky doesn’t get back to him, so Sam just shrugs and gets back to cooking dinner.
He’s just sitting down at his little table to eat when Bucky texts again. You can look inside it if you want.
Sam hadn’t even thought about looking in it when he’d found it, and he’s kind of surprised Bucky’s offered to show him now. He tends to shut the notebook any time Sam gets close and Sam never asks; he’s entitled to his privacy.
You sure? he texts back, a little wary. Don’t want to cross any boundaries.
The reply comes back almost immediately. Been meaning to show you for a while anyway. This worked out lmao. Easier if I’m not there.
And now Sam’s damn curious. He puts his fork down and stares at his backpack for a heartbeat before pushing his chair away from the table and grabbing the notebook out of his backpack.
He brings it to the other side of his two person table, enough of a distance away from any food or drink, and sets the notebook on it. He runs his hand over the front of it, feeling the nice leather, before he opens it up.
The first drawing is one of Sam, smiling and handing over a drink to a customer. It’s a good likeness, a little shakier than the one Bucky had given him that night at Steve’s, and he realizes when he looks over it a second time it’s dated about six months before that night.
He flips to the next page and finds a bunch of portraits and pieces of people in action; he spots Steve, Bucky’s friends he knows he plays board games with, some people Sam’s seen around the VA and he knows are recent vets. There are drawings of people Sam’s sure are strangers to Bucky: people he’s seen out and about, at a park or a mall or a restaurant.
There are a few more of Sam in the earlier pages, but once he gets past that night at Steve’s, he features heavily.
Most of the drawings after that are from the coffee shop, which isn’t surprising considering Bucky draws there about four days a week now. What is surprising is that probably only 40% of the drawings are of whatever customer happened to catch Bucky’s eye that day.
The rest are all of Sam.
Sam making coffee, Sam drinking coffee, Sam talking to a customer, or changing the music, or cleaning off a table someone left particularly crumb-filled. Sam smiling and laughing and frowning, and everything in between.
The lines are all careful, even more so than the drawings featuring others around the shop which are already impeccable for something Bucky sketches in his free time. Every drawing of Sam almost feels intimate, even if Bucky was rarely ever the one interacting with him in the drawing.
Bucky’s voice calling him “cute” the day before rings in his ears.
Oh, he thinks. So it’s like that.
He flips through the rest of the pages, his stomach flipping a little at how much care Bucky puts into each one, and grabs his phone.
These are beautiful, Buck, he writes. Thank you.
Bucky doesn’t respond all night.
Sam spends the entirety of his next shift antsy as hell.
His coworkers notice—unsurprising since he looks at the clock about every three minutes. He wants more than anything for it to be near the end of his shift, so he can ask Bucky about the drawings and maybe the feelings that he thinks go with them.
“You extra eager to see your boyfriend today?” his coworker asks, and usually this ends in a playful eye roll, and Sam assuring her Bucky’s not his boyfriend.
“Something like that,” he says instead, a little thoughtful.
She immediately starts to ask him questions, but Sam just shakes his head. “I’ll tell you later. Promise.”
She looks like she’s about to keep pestering for information, but she must see something on Sam’s face because she accepts it without questioning any further. Sam just goes back to watching the clock between customers.
To his disappointment, when the clock signals the end of his shift, there’s still no sign of Bucky.
He packs up his stuff real slowly after he clocks out, hoping Bucky might have just lost track of time, but twenty minutes after he shift ends he has to face the music: Bucky hasn’t texted him back since last night, and he’s not here.
He decides to text him one more time, looking down at his phone to pull up their chat as he walks out the door.
And straight into Bucky.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” Sam starts before he looks up and sees who it is he’s run into. “Bucky.”
“Sam,” Bucky says, steadying Sam from the run-in with hands on each of his shoulders. “You okay?”
Sam nods. “Missed you at the end of the shift today. Was just headed home.”
Bucky uses his grip on Sam’s shoulders to shift them both slightly so they’re not blocking the entrance and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. This new deadline was crazy and I’ve been working non stop since last night trying to get it done. Rushed over here as soon as I submitted.”
“It go okay?”
Bucky nods. “I think so, I guess I’ll know when the client gets back to me tomorrow.” He kicks a little pebble that came loose from the asphalt of the parking lot. “So, about my notebook.”
Sam smiles. “It was gorgeous, Buck. I get why you were nervous to show me, though. A person’s art reveals a lot about what they feel about a subject.”
Bucky’s gripping his hands tightly together, something he only ever does when he’s on his way to overwhelmed. “And what did it tell you?”
Sam looks down at his watch, just like he’s been doing all day. “You might be too late to ask me for coffee, but I don’t think you’re too late to maybe ask me to dinner. Your art hinted you might like to.”
The tension bleeds out of Bucky. “Would you do me the honor of going on a date with me, Sam Wilson?”
“I’d love to, Bucky Barnes,” he smiles, a little cheeky. “What do you think? Coffee maybe? That’s a normal first date idea.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “I do know a pretty great shop with a pretty cute barista, but I actually had a different restaurant in mind. Maybe on the second date.”
Sam takes his hand. “Looking forward to it, baby.”
The next night, Bucky takes him to a different coffee shop that inexplicably has a dog named Lucky wearing an apron behind the counter.
Sam’s of the opinion his own coffee’s better, even if the barista is pretty cute, but when he looks across the café table at his very favorite customer, he thinks he definitely can’t complain about the company.