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Sam and Bucky have made a habit of stopping in at Barb’s Beans every time they’re nearby. The hole-in-the-wall coffee shop had opened shortly after the Blip, right next door to the apartment building Steve and Bucky grew up in, and served the best coffee and baked goods Bucky had ever had.
Since Pepper had asked the two of them to put in an appearance at the Stark Industries Christmas fundraiser, the two of them had made the trip to New York City for the weekend. Now, Sunday afternoon, they’d decided to swing by for coffee before they flew back to Louisiana. Totally engrossed in a conversation about the Star Wars franchise, it takes Bucky far longer than usual to notice someone approaching (specifically, the amount of time it would have taken for a normal person to have noticed), and Sam doesn’t notice at all until she speaks.
“Hi,” the barista greets nervously, “I’m in college, and I have this assignment for my psych class to find real-world examples of various body language phenomena, and I was wondering if you would mind if I used a picture I just took of the two of you? I’ll totally delete it if you want - and I know I should’ve probably asked before I took it - but you’re like the perfect example of how couples will mirror each other’s body language and habits and I knew that it wouldn’t be authentic if I asked beforehand-”
Sam processes her words faster than Bucky, and cuts her off as soon as he does. “Couples?”
The girl falters. “Oh. Y-you guys come in here together so often, and you seem so close, and, like, the whole body language thing I mentioned- I just really thought you were a couple.”
The two of them are both struck dumb. Opening and shutting his mouth in vain, Bucky tries desperately to find his words. Sam just stares at the girl in shock.
“Can- Can we, uh, see the picture?” Bucky finally asks, mind racing.
Clumsily unlocking her phone, the girl quickly pulls up the photo in question. “Oh- oh, yeah! Of course!”
Staring at the photo, the two of them have identical strings of panicked thoughts running through their minds, and neither realizes it.
“We really do look like a couple, does he likes me too? Does he know I like him? What do I do?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam says finally, “you can use it.”
“But aren’t you not-”
“No, we’re not a couple,” Bucky murmurs. He looks over at Sam with a softness rarely seen in the eyes of the former Winter Soldier. Rarely seen by anyone but Sam, that is. “But, I think- I think we want to be.”
“I think we oughta be,” Sam responds after a moment, a grin slowly spreading across his face. “Do y’all have a first date special?”
“Oh my Gosh!” the girl squeals, “I just helped the cutest couple ever get together! Yes, we do, and it’s totally on me!”
She rushes back to the counter, absolutely beaming. Sam looks back at Bucky, only slightly nervous about the other man’s response. There’s no need, though, because Bucky is smiling the way Sam has only seen in pictures of him from before the war.
“Your sister is gonna love this,” he comments, and Sam feels all his worries leave him as he laughs, and laughs.
“Oh, she and Torres definitely had a bet.”