It’s always the same.
Every Wednesday morning, he enters the comicbook store, looks for the weekly editions and goes to the cashier. Holding his coffee in one hand, he leaves the comics under the cashier and gives the clerk a crooked smile. The clerk's world stops for a moment, but he mantains the posture and just keeps registering the comics one by one. These new Fantastic Four editions are... Well, fantastic. And today, sporadically, he’s taking a X-men edition, too.
Typical nerd he is. But he’s not the chubby kind with pinky chicks and glasses. No. He’s handsome. Too handsome for the clerk’s mental sanity.
He has incredibly blue eyes, so deep it seems to see through your soul. Dark and slightly long hair occasionally in a loose bun, today is completely loose. Well-trimmed beard and a smile that blows anyone’s mind. And he surely knows it, because he doesn’t seem to have a problem using it on his own favor.
“Twenty bucks.” The clerk says after registering all the comics with the speed of a sloth just so his customer stays a bit longer. “And this X-men edition is the best.” And of course the cheap talk was also just part of the plan, because truth is he hasn’t read it yet; the comics arrived this morning. But nobody needs to know that.
“You’re fast,” the other says while adding, as he always does, a pack of mint chewing gum on the cashier, “but that’s the perks of working here, right?”
“That one's on the house.” The clerk puts the chewing gum together with the comics in a paper bag. God, if Mr. Moore ever knew that every Wednesday his clerk gives mint chewing gums away to the handsome comic guy, he’d be in trouble.
“Thank you, Steve.” He answers after giving the clerk a $20 dollars bill and one of those devastating smiles. Their eyes locked together for a few seconds and then he left, carrying his coffee and a few comics that, the clerk has no ideia, he doesn’t even read. Of course the comics are just a good and very convenient excuse for him to visit Mr. Moore’s comicbook store every single week. Definitely, he doesn’t go there because of them.
“See you next week, Bucky.” And it becomes a silent truth that Wednesday become Steve’s favorite day of the week. And for several weeks that follow, the routine is the same. Except for the fact that one day, it ends.
This is the first Wednesday that he doesn’t show up. It’s almost 6pm and Steve still feels some euphoria everytime the door tinkler rings to announce some costumer is entering. But none of these faces are familiar. Defeated, he takes off his green apron, closes the cashier and decides to call it a day. Bucky won’t show up. It was a wasted day.
The next Wednesday takes what it seems to be a century to arrive. The hours go slowly during the day and then again, he doesn’t come. Nor in the next week, or in the other. And at this point, Steve already gave up waiting. Wednesdays aren’t his favorite days anymore. To say the least, he happened to hate them now.
But Wednesdays were bounded to be special days on Steve Rogers life, and it wasn’t a coincidence that Bucky Barnes had come back in one of them.
“Do you still sell that mint bubblegum here?”
That voice was too familiar to Steve. It’s near 6pm and he’s organizing some magazines before closing the store, and he doesn’t know if it’s the fact that he wasn’t expecting to see him, or the fact that he hasn’t send orders to the bubblegum supplier for weeks, considering that Bucky was the only one to buy them – well, he never really bought one -, but Steve’s heart was beating fast now. So, he turns to the cashier just to find the bluest eyes he had ever seen staring back at him and his favorite smile.
Under the cashier, Steve expects to see the last editions of the comics that Bucky didn’t buy on the past weeks, but there’s nothing. Today there’s no coffee, too. And to say the least, there’s something different in his eyes. Steve doesn’t know what it is, but something in his stomach gives him a weird feeling. It’s not bad, but it’s weird.
“Ahm,” Steve doesn’t know where the hell his voice went, but this is definitely not how he had imagined this moment, “of course, here it is.” It’s all he can force himself to say when he finds the only pack of mint bubblegum hidden among all the strawberry ones, as if it was there just waiting for him all this time.
“Thanks.” Bucky says at last, and his only instinct is to take a $1 dolar bill from his wallet and and leave it on the cashier; apparently, that one wasn’t on the house this time. He doesn’t wait for change, nor does he wait for Steve to say anything, he just takes the bubblegum pack and places it into his pocket after shoving one into his mouth and turns around to leave. “See you, Steve.”
The irritation on Bucky’s voice was crystal clear and it takes a few seconds for Steve to process the moment. This bastard disappeared for weeks! He doesn’t have the right to be mad at me for not knowing what to say when he comes back. And the next thing he knows, it’s that he’s getting rid of his apron and walking fast towards the door Bucky had just gone through.
“Bucky,” he yells and the other turns around before turning the corner, his surprised face giving way to the frown with which he was leaving, “why did you come?” and apparently all the irritation that once was in Bucky’s voice, now was present on Steve’s inquisitive tone. He’s more than just a little pissed. As silly as it sounds, he feels like he deserves an explanation.
If the enormous gumball that Bucky pops before slowly going back to chew the gum again is an answer, Steve isn’t sure. But truth is Steve isn’t sure about anything now, except for the huge determination that leads him towards the other to stop him just a few inches from Bucky's face. This is the closest to Bucky he had ever been.
“For all those Wednesdays I've waited for you to show up, but you disappeared out of nowhere. So why did you come back now if won't even buy one of those goddamn comics?” Steve asks, stumbling on words before locking his eyes on Bucky’s, as if demanding an answer. And just like before, for the long seconds that followed, Bucky didn’t say a word. But for Steve, silence was also an answer.
He’s about to drop it and convince himself that all those flirts and smiles and looks exchanged for far too long were just bullshit he created on his mind, when he suddendly feels the mint refreshing breath against his mouth. Bucky’s hand takes place on his nape while the other pulls him close by his low back, and Steve's world spins in slow motion for a minute. With his eyes closed, his thoughts vanish away and all he can feel now is the sweet taste of Bucky’s lips while their tongues dance pleasantly togehter. His heart pounds fast in his rib cage, hammering his ears as the air is quickly stolen from his lungs in a kiss that, this time was exactly how he dreamed about.
“You thought I come here every freaking week just for the comics?” Bucky says in a strand of voice against Steve’s lips when he’s short of breath, leaning his forehead agains the other’s in an attpemt to catch his breathe. The slightly broken contact allow them to lock their eyes and Steve conteplates his sight for a moment.
“I thought it was for the free chewing gum.” Steve answers with fake innocence, a simple smile curving his rosy lips upwards when the evening sun reflects its rays in Bucky’s blue eyes with a genuine grace.
“Oh, come on, Steve. They sell this shit anywhere. And to be quite honest, it tastes awful.” Bucky’s laughter is immersed in its own joy and it just makes Steve want to kiss him again.
“Don’t be mean, it’s not that bad...” And the smile on Steve’s lips makes it clear that’s not the bubblegum taste he’s talking about, even though the mint taste in their first kiss would be forever recorded in his mind.
“And what is it supposed to mean?” Bucky cocks one of his eyebrows and for God’s sake, Steve feels like a 15 years old teenager falling in love for the first time. And, well, he is.
“It means you owe me at least thirty bucks. And that I hope next Wednesday doesn’t take so long.”
But none of them would have to wait that long. After all, Steve’s shift was over already and the night had just begun anyways.
And later that night at some restaurante somewhere in the middle of the city, Steve was watching Bucky and listening patiently while he was effusively telling the story about how he had given up buying those comics when he thought that Steve would never notice that it was just a blatant opportunity to see him every week, but that something had brought him to that side of the city today and made him enter the store to see his favorite clerk once more. And while Bucky was finishing his story just by confessing that he had never really read one of those comics, Steve carried a passionate smile in his lips and the certainty that, hell yes, he loved Wednesdays.