something to be warned of if you’re seeing references to an old story of mine, #bittercoffee, pop up on your dash and you consider having a read: early chapters are extremely non-inclusive.
there’s blushing, there’s ponytails. sadly no “milky white thighs” but there are other references that paint the reader as being white. back then, i wasn’t self-aware of my habit to interject my own race into reader fics!
it’s remedied in later chapters, but i think a warning is good.
to this day, i am still throwing kisses to the stars for that one anon who sent me an ask that helped me see the error of this writing habit! it kick started a great conversation about diversity/lack-there-of in reader fics and i’m forever greatful. i love you, anon!
in later chapters, and especially now as i write chapter 23, this fic is meant to be as neutral and inclusive as possible for a female!reader fic. on this note, if i ever use a turn of phrase that you could see as being outside the realms of race amibguity, let me know!
Łatwo dać się ponieść życiu i zapomnieć, że trzeba poświęcać czas tym, których się kocha. Nieważne, czy to ktoś z rodziny, czy przyjaciel. Naprawdę powinniśmy pamiętać, jak ważne są więzi i szczerość. Ludzie nie zdają sobie sprawy, jakie są istotne, dopóki sami nie staną w obliczu śmierci albo po śmierci kogoś bliskiego nie poczują się winni.
Bronnie Ware “Czego najbardziej żałują umierający”
Bitter coffee is a murder mystery dating sim, which means the goal of the game is to find love with one of our many charming characters while also trying to catch a murderer on the loose!
summary: bucky picks up coffee for you both one morning.
pairing: post-endgame!bucky x gender neutral reader, est. relationship
rating: t for some fluff + kisses + bucky’s mental health
a/n: it’s about time i wrote tooth rotting fluff for buck about coffee, huh?
He doesn’t like tea. Coffee, though, is good.
It has to be black. Maybe one sugar if he’s feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about life -- maybe if he’s not drowning at the bottom of Panic Bay, chained to a cinderblock of guilt by the swells of past-life haunts; maybe if he feels deserving of something sweet for once.
It’s not often, but today is one of those days.
He likes his coffee hot -- hot enough to scald his tongue and remind himself he’s alive.
He read about a condition on the internet once -- Cotard's syndrome, where you think you’re dead or rotting or not real. He found the idea of a putrefying soul to be awfully symbolic; that’s how he felt all those years ago, braindead and better off dead. He was a walking tool, pumped full of hatred and benzodiazepines and worthlessness and amphetamines. He was nothing but a rage filled corpse on a choke chain with nothing to live for but the peaceful sleep of a deep freeze.
... Coffee.
The barista is staring.
Bucky Barnes blinks, clearing his throat as he muscles his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and speaks slowly.
“Uh, a large hot coffee, one sugar,” his focus darts to the menu, dark eyes narrowing as his face twitches into one of concentration as he recalls your order from memory, “And, uh, a small iced salted caramel mocha, almond milk, no whip.”
The two coffee orders couldn’t be more different -- he figures that’s poetic, too, like the whole corpse-soul thing, but more romantic. A lot more romantic. He shakes his head and pays, pulling a pained, tight-lipped smile as he lingers by the pick-up counter.
You’re a lot like your drink order. Sweet and full of nuances. You’re familiar to him, like the words of the order, and the times he’s heard it roll right off your tongue like a laugh stick with him.
You’re patient -- though that doesn’t necessarily reflect in a coffee order, but it does in the way you always make sure he has room to breathe during the morning rush at the cafe, the way never fret when you hold his metal hand, the way you ask if you he wants to step out for fresh air when the small space gets too small. You don’t look at him different when he takes you up on the offer, you don’t pity him like some wounded stray, when he needs space.
You just greet him with a smile as sweet as a salted caramel mocha, offering his coffee and a kind touch of the hand.
It was a madhouse in there.
You validate his anxieties and treat him like he’s human, and after years of feeling anything but, he drinks it like up like he’s got a caffeine addiction.
(He does have one. You do, too. Hence his eight o’clock coffee run while you’re still in bed two blocks down from the cafe, tangled in the sheets. He knows you’ll need it as much as him in an hour.)
"Two coffees for... uh, Becky?”
If you were here, you’d be in stitches.
Bucky, with a casual nod to the barista, gathers the drinks and heads out the door -- into the fray of the modern world.
He’s gotten better at living in it, really, but it is hard to not be on ice and passive in this life. Steve gets it -- but Steve’s not Bucky and Bucky’s not Steve and they’re both super-soldiers out of time but they’re different.
Steve isn’t skittish. Bucky is.
Habit had him feeling like he was always two beats from up and running -- even as a full-time Avenger.
You changed that.
He turns up the steps of your building, taking two of them at a time. He juggles with the coffee in the lobby, punching the button for the fifth floor with his elbow. The routine of this moment is something he’s used to -- but, with having been gone these last two weeks on a mission with Sam... He missed it.
He missed you.
You wake to three soft raps of metal knuckles on your apartment door.
You sit straight up, bed-head hair like a halo as confusion pours off you -- that sound is one you know well, one you cherish, one that has you feeling like one of Pavlov’s dogs. You spring up, falling on the way to the sound as you scramble with excitement.
You pull the door open so fast, Bucky feels the air move.
Your face is glowing with a pure sort of happiness that makes him regret ever hating himself. It clears out the soul-rot, burns out the wallowing self-pity. Your smile is a panacea for every ailment in the book, starting with his emptiness.
Your eyes bounce across him. His smile is sweet, like the small salted caramel mocha in his hands.
“You’re... You’re back...?”
Bucky supplies a sheepish chuckle. You’re a mess, hair wild and t-shirt hiked over your hips. There’s a dark ring of slept-in mascara under your eyes, one sock missing from your feet.
“Yeah. I was gonna call, but --”
"You know I like surprises.”
It rushes out in an awed breath.
Bucky nods.
“A-And coffee?”
“The barista called me Becky,” he mutters, “So I hope it’s worth it.”
His face is coy as you let him in, closing the door and following him to the counter with the sweetest smile in the world. He places the drinks down and shrugs off his jacket.
Time stops when he turns around and you catch him in an excited, thankful kiss -- he feels whole again, like he’s seeing the sun after a week of rain. Bucky can’t help but laugh, lips curving upwards as you snake your arms around his neck and mimic his smile; his hands scale your ribs, happily finding the curves there.
He lifts you, then, easily, and props you up on the counter.
“Did y’ miss me?” he asks in a rush of confidence, moving between your legs and drumming his fingers on the counter. His blue eyes are warmer than usual, lacking their usual echoes of nightmarish memories. This morning, they’re like a clear summer sky.
You drop your head back as you laugh -- it’s like thunder on a summer evening. Your fingers pass along his jaw, scaling the stubble there and winding into the stray strands that have escaped his bun.
“Yeah,” you mumble, swinging your legs, “I did.”
The touch is reverent.
He moves at the same time you so, pulling away to take a long sip of your respective coffees.
Bucky watches with a smile playing at his lips, eyes drinking in the action like he’s trying to memorize it. It’s sugary sweet, like the coffee.
When you kiss him again, you taste like a salted caramel mocha.
ID FUCKING DIE FOR THE WAY U WRITE BUCKY!!! i read all of bitter coffee in one night and u have no idea how badly i want bucky to RAW ME
a/n: did someone say more bittercoffee, i heard more bittercoffee
Routine.
Routine, routine, routine.
It helps Buck -- helps him settle into the new space that’s your apartment.
The alarm goes off at 6am, he gives you two kisses on each cheek, and you drag yourself from bed to make him coffee (always black, always hot, always in his mug), while he throws on clothes from his backpack to go work-out with Sam and Steve.
He downs the coffee in one go.
More kisses (three to be exact, one by the coffee pot, one by the kitchen counter, and another as he’s out the door), and he catches the 6:30am train to three stops down from Avengers Tower. He jogs there, warming up, and by 10am, he’s done.
Done with the routine.
He can now, objectively, without remorse or anxiety, live his life.
You’re wrist deep in lab-work when his caller ID lights up your phone, vibrating it along the lab bench. You blink down at your current situation, one hand stuck in the corpus callosum of a pig brain as you try to plant the interior monitor-node in the right spot. Cursing, you pluck your fingers from the mess and snap off your glove.
Ahh, masters programs.
You pluck the phone up, answering slowly.
“NYU Biomedical Butcher Shop, serving brains and babes, how can I help you?”
Bucky’s laugh is throaty. “Hi, I’m looking to speak with the ol’ ball an’ chain --”
“Oh, huh, your girl, right,” you chirp, swinging on the stool, “She’s a little busy fingering a brain, can I take a message?”
“I was thinking a dinner date -- haven’t had one of those in a while.”
Your brows perked. “Oh?”
“Oh,” he affirms, “Milkshakes, maybe.”
Bucky can see you, in his mind’s eye, melt a bit at the mention -- the sound you make on the phone only confirms it. He laughs a little to himself, absentmindedly pushing on the punching bad before him. In the ring to the back of the gym, Sam and Steve are sparring.
“... And maybe a movie?”
You can’t help the grin that’s planted on your face. You blink up at the ceiling. “Anything you want, Buck. Anything.”
“And maybe a late night drive...?”
“Someone’s had a good day, huh?”
“Great,” he smiles, “Just tryna put the cherry on top.”
Your brow quirks. You drop your voice to a low mutter despite the empty lab. Into the phone, you smirk. “Can I be the cherry on top tonight?”
Dobrze znam to uczucie, gdy ktoś podcina Ci skrzydła, bo wie lepiej, co dla ciebie jest dobre. Gdy wmawia Ci, że Twoje marzenia są nierealne. Twoim zadaniem jest ustalić granice. Twoje życie i Twoje zasady. Musisz się tego nauczyć, bo nawet ludzie, którzy Cię kochają mogę Cię skrzywdzić.
