Adventures in Retail

Bucky should have known it was going to be a bad day when some asshole parked in his spot.

He brakes in the middle of the lane and rubs at his eyes a few times to make sure he’s not still asleep. When the damn thing doesn’t dissolve as a figment of his imagination, Bucky groans and slumps against his steering wheel, ignoring the sad honk his shitty old car sputters out. Who the hell even gets here this early? What’s going on?

He glances down at the time. 9:02 a.m. Fucking hell. The mall doesn’t even open for another hour. He knows for a damn fact that the only people here are Starbucks people hardening themselves for a long day of being yelled at over caramel frappuccinos and store managers.

No one should be in his spot. No one but the people from his store even park here.

Bucky squints, trying to see if there was any way he could possibly bully this asshole out of his spot, but he couldn’t even see anything through the heavily tinted windows on the older model.

He huffs and pulls into another spot with too much aggression for a Saturday morning. Bucky doesn’t care.

He can tell this is about to be a long day.

-

“Good morning, Bucky,” Gabe says brightly. Bucky grunts at him. Gabe slides him an iced Americano, and Bucky grunts again out of gratitude. “How are you-”

“Some asshole parked in my spot!” He grouches. Morita rolls his eyes. “I feel violated. I feel cheated. I feel like I’ve been stolen from.”

Morita snorts. “Save it, white boy.” Bucky just narrows his eyes and sips at his coffee because the fucker has a point. “I don’t even know why you tried to claim a specific spot. This is a big ass mall! It’s Saturday. Of course some overambitious parents are gonna snatch it.”

“I’d had a 78-day park streak, though,” Bucky whines. Both of his assistant managers ignore him. “And some monster shattered it. All my hard work. Gone,” he cries, and drops his head onto the desk.

Gabe sighs. “You’re so fucking annoying.” Bucky sits straight up, ready to complain, but there’s a thin stack of papers being shoved into his face before he can really start up his ranting. “Also, you’re doing training today. Try not to scare off this guy, yeah? I’d like to get home earlier than ten to see my kid.””

“Is it time to meet the axe murderer already?” Bucky grumbles. Gabe and Morita ignore him. “I still can’t believe you did that, by the way. It’s just plain dangerous.”

Gabe waves him off. “Why the hell would an axe killer-”

“Murderer,” Bucky corrects primly.

“-come to our shitty little store for a shitty little job making shitty little to no money? You’re being paranoid.”

“Because no one else is!”

Morita shrugs. “If he tries some bullshit, just do your Seal Team Six fighting magic and take him down.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, not even looking up as he looks over the file. “I was a sniper, which means I did all my shit from tens of feet away,” he halfway lies. A handful of… other missions were minor details he could afford to leave out to make his point.

Also, the United States government made it very clear he’s contractually obligated to keep his fucking mouth shut until the day he dies.

“Which means I’m not going hand-to-hand combat with this asshole if he tries anything. I’m letting mall security handle that bullshit.”

“Good thing you won’t have to!” Gabe says brightly. “Because Steven Randall is completely normal and is going to help us fold clothes three times faster. Easy.”

Bucky isn’t buying it. He glares down at the helpless paper in his hands, annoyed at everything and everyone for the time being.

“Alright, Steven Randall,” he mutters to no one in particular. “Let’s see what your deal is.”

-

Steve Randall.

Steve frowns down at the fake drivers’ license in his hand, not for the first time that hour. He rubs at his eyes although he hasn’t had any sort of eye problem in over seventy years. He looks around the car incredulously, as if asking if anyone else can see the bullshit he’s dealing with right now.

“Randall? Really Natasha?” He mutters to himself as he tugs at his now-longish blonde hair, going over his file again. “How bad do you think I am at this shit?”

They couldn’t even give him a better name? It was bad enough they sent him to the middle of nowhere with a cramped apartment and some bullshit backstory about wanting to get away from D.C.

He squints at the briefing on his phone again. Jared Kurtz. Nancy Winderfield. William Darvin. Camilla Black. Ralph Sanzetti. Five low-level Hydra members that are supposed to report to Brock Rumlow, leader of Pierce’s North American Security and manager of a slightly above shitty retail store.

Fifty days. Intel collection. Get in. Get out. No flinging the shield at anyone.

Steve gets out and starts going over the store layout again in his head as he walks into the mall.

-

Two hours later, Bucky’s spirits still hasn’t lifted. He’s ran two couples out of the fitting room, called mall security on three sticky-handed teenager girls, and thrown away more Orange Julius cups than he can count. There’s about ten pairs of swim shorts with melted Oreo ice cream all over them because one lady couldn’t get a grip on her fucking kids.

Apparently there’s a very popular promotion there today. 32 oz Blizzards for only two fucking dollars.

Bucky is about to rip all of his hair out, pull the fire alarm, and send everyone the fuck home .

Now, here he is, discreetly following some asshole he’s 87% sure is trying to steal from the store.

Bucky sighs as he watches the bulky blond move awkwardly in front of him, bumping into tables and fidgeting at everything. He’s conducting a shaky phone call that Bucky isn’t really paying attention to and dipping into different sections he has no business being in (i.e. baby and women’s, but who was Bucky to judge) to fake check stuff out.

These shoplifters were getting worse and worse every day, it seemed.

Bucky’s not in the fucking mood for this. Bucky had his spot taken by some asshole this morning. Bucky’s going to run this fucker out of the store.

“Sir,” he says loudly. The blond jumps, knocking six fucking stacks of fucking polo shirts off the fucking table are you fucking kidding me before turning to look at Bucky with wide eyes. He hangs up his call immediately.

“Y-yeah?”

Bucky is about to open his mouth and give this dude a piece of his mind, but he’s ridiculously good-looking, and Bucky briefly wonders if it would be unprofessional to give someone his number after he kicked them out of his store. “Are you finding everything you need?”

The blond rubs at the back of his neck. “I’m here for training? But I couldn’t find anyone in charge.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “Are you Captain America?”

The blond seems to pale for a bit before cracking a dopey smile and shrugging those massive shoulders. “I get that all the time, but no.”

Bucky grunts and gives him another once over. “Yeah, never mind. The other guy is way more jacked and has that ridiculous Saving Private Ryan haircut.”

Blondie frowns, but Bucky doesn’t catch it as he pulls the papers from earlier out of his back pocket. “But you are Steve, right?”

He nods and extends his hand. “Yup. Steve Randall.” Bucky shakes it and winces a little. This dude’s grip was damn near superhuman. “I just moved from D.C. like a week and a half ago.”

“And you went from the city to this little shit hole because…?”

Steve shrugs, and his smile reminds Bucky of 1950s America, all pies on window sills without as much bigotry. “Needed to get away.”

Bucky takes in Steve’s appearance again and smiles sympathetically. He knew ex-military when he saw it. “I completely understand. Let’s go start your orientation.”

Steve follows Bucky away from the ruined polos. “Is the store always this sticky?”

Bucky scowls.

Fucking Orange Julius.

-

Within twenty minutes, the frigid, irritable, and ridiculously handsome manager Steve met has evolved into a crass, sarcastic asshole that gives him the best interview he’s ever had in his life.

Not that he’s had many. The whole Captain America and symbol of righteousness and truth thing seems to speak for itself recently.

Steve smiles at his own joke while Bucky wraps up the last section of his contract.

“Okay, Steve.” Bucky sighs and closes the manila folder. “Last, and arguably most important, question.” He levels his gaze and inclines his head, fixing Steve with steely blue eyes. “If you were a Starbucks drink, which one would you be?”

Steve, a master tactician and intelligence agent with two lifetimes of training, stalls for nearly two minutes straight.

“Uh,” he says.

“Well?” Bucky presses.

Steve presses his lips together as he drums his fingers on the table. “American pie frapp," he says finally, and Bucky rolls his eyes. “I’m serious! I got one for free when I went to Japan because they kept insisting I was ‘Captain Rogers.’”

Steve doesn’t mention he actually is Captain Rogers.

“One of my friends has a running joke about me being some wholesome American farmer boy, and they all thought it was hilarious,” He explains, and Bucky snickers. Fucking Tony.

“I can definitely see that. Your smile reminds me of the fifties.”

A frown comes to Steve’s face as he remembers the civil rights videos Sam showed him. “I don’t know if that’s a good ro bad thing.”

“Take it either way you want, I don’t give a shit,” Bucky says flippantly, rising from the table. Steve doesn’t want to admit to himself how attractive he thinks Bucky being an asshole is. “Let’s go teach you how to make some shirts look pretty.”

-

“You’re a lot better at this than I thought you would be, not gonna lie.” Bucky makes an impressed noise as Steve passes him another stack of crisply folded pocket tees.

Steve snorts. “It’s hard to be bad at folding clothes.”

Bucky shrugs. “I’ve seen everything, trust me. But you’re a natural,” he sighs wistfully as Steve starts in on another pile. “You make it an art.”

“I’m an artist, you know,” and Steve knows he sounds like a huge douche but he doesn’t really care. He’s trying to impress a hot guy.

Bucky hums appreciatively. “I knew those hands were gifted.”

Steve smiles into another t-shirt.

This has been happening all shift. Ever since he apparently determined that Steve wasn’t going to make off with three hundred dollars worth of boys’ joggers, Bucky’s been nothing but sly grins and encouraging touches and charged comments.

He can’t be imagining this. Bucky is most definitely coming onto him.

And Steve doesn’t mind at all.

-

“This is where self esteem comes to die,” Bucky announces, and sweeps a hand over a cramped area with sixteen filthy-looking stalls. Steve blinks. “The fitting room.”

They walk further in, and Bucky ignores the flurries of teens, strollers, and jeans that seem to push and pull at the two of them as they wade to the station on the other side of the room. The chaos stresses Steve out instantly. There’s too many noises and too much movement underneath the dull lights for him to feel truly in control of anything, but he watches Bucky dodge customers and direct traffic like a pro.

Huh.

Maybe this retail thing was going to be harder than Steve thought.

“This is Jared, fitting room lead and guru.” He says, introducing Steve to Jared Kurtz. He looks even smaller and more like a weasel up close. Steve doesn’t like the way Jared is sending annoyed glances at Bucky while slowly folding a shirt. He sends skittish glances around the fitting room, and it reminds

“Steve,” the blond says, and Jared just nods. “I’m seasonal.”

“You seem alright,” Jared says flatly. Steve forces himself to laugh at what he hopes was just a bad joke. “About time they hired someone normal.”

Bucky claps his hands together and pointedly does not meet Steve’s horrified stare. “Cool!” his voice has gone an octave higher, and he’s backing out of the fitting room very rapidly. “Steve, I’m gonna leave you here with Jared for a minute to go file your paperwork. Go easy on him, Jared.”

Bucky doesn’t really sound like he’s joking anymore, and Steve doesn’t have time to question anything before his manager is completely out of sight.

“It’s good to have more guys like us here, you know?” Jared says. Steve scowls, and the shorter man misses it as he turns to shelve another stack of jeans. “Sometimes it’s a little too PC in here.”

“I’ve never really had a problem with that,” Steve says shortly, and sends Jared a look that makes it clear Steve has said all that he’s going to say about the situation.

“That’s a shame, Steve,” Jared spits. Steve narrows his eyes. “I really thought we were on the same page. You’ll come around eventually. It’s time for us to take back what’s ours.”

Steve nearly tears apart the shirt in his hand because really? What was this guy’s problem? Who the hell talks like this?

“There’s an entire network of us, Steve,” Jared promises. He watches a short Hispanic woman put a pair of jeans in the basket market “go-back” and sneers after her as she leaves. “People willing to do what it takes to make things right.”

Steve blinks and realizes holy shit this idiot is really trying to recruit Captain fucking America into Hydra.

“Okay!” Bucky announces, coming back into the fitting room and most likely saving Steve from Jared’s white nationalist rant. “You’re going on lunch. I’ll show you how to clock in and out for that and which cushion in the breakroom is the best to take a nap on. Let’s go.”

Steve folds his last shirt as fast as he can and pointedly ignores Bucky’s judgemental stare as he shoves the haphazard square to the back of the rack.

“You’re really learning, aren’t you, Steve?” he deadpans. “Wave bye to Jared for now.”

Steve raises his hand halfheartedly, and Bucky snorts. “Bye, Jared.”

Kurtz just frowns at him as they leave.

“HR said there wasn’t enough evidence on him,” Bucky says before Steve even opens his mouth. He turns his head to find Bucky eyeing him knowingly. “Trust me. He says just enough slick shit to piss all of us off but not enough to get his shit rocked.” He sighs and stops their tour through the store to help an elderly woman find the jean skirts. Steve watches him, all boyish grins and easy charm, and feels his professionalism unravel even more.

“That’s why we stick him in the fitting room,” Bucky continues when he’s back by Steve’s side. “He can’t really do much in there. Just leave him alone.”

“Leave Jared alone.” Steve tries not to frown as much as his mood wants him to. “Got it.”

He makes a mental note to keep an eye on Jared.

-

“And this is the breakroom, but you already knew that.” Bucky pushes the door open to reveal four teenagers laying across each other on a dirty futon, all glued to their phone screens.

The three girls don’t look up at the sound of Bucky’s voice, but the boy does a double take when he sees Steve, brown eyes growing wide. “Holy shit,” he breathes, and sits up off of the East Asian girl’s legs to get a better look at Steve. “Is that Captain America?”

Bucky scowls and points at him. “I’m telling Aunt May you swore.”

“C’mon, Bucky! Please!”

He ignores the pleading and leads Steve further into the room. “No, it’s not Captain America. Why would he come to this shithole?” Steve asks himself the same thing. “This is Steve. He’s new. Be nice to him and don’t stare at his muscles too long, but if you do, don’t make it obvious.”

“Got it,” the Middle Eastern girl says, eyeing him. Steve fidgets.

Bucky snorts and turns back to him. “These are my kids. That’s Jubilation Lee, also known as the human pretzel. Watch out for her.”

She throws a lazy peace sign in Steve’s direction. He returns it out of politeness.

Next, Bucky motions to the two other girls sitting close together. The Middle Eastern girl whispers something to the white girl with jet black bangs that makes her laugh. “That’s Kamala, the world’s best future brain surgeon, and Kate, the world’s best future queen pin.”

Kate throws her arms around Kamala and smacks a wet kiss to her cheek. “We’re in lesbians together,” she informs Steve. Kamala hides her face in her hands, and Steve wants to pinch both of their cheeks.

“You’re absolutely right you are,” Bucky coos sarcastically. Kate just hugs her girlfriend tighter. “How the hell are all of you on break right now? There’s probably four million people in line right now.”

“Wade said he had it,” Peter answers innocently. He misses Bucky’s incredulous look as he shoots off a text, presumably to that kid Steve saw him necking before his shift. “He’s handling everything himself because he said he, and I quote, ‘wanted to get the best out of this kicker before it stops his heart.’”

Bucky sighs. “We need to start drug testing. That little cutie pie is Peter, by the way.”

Steve waves, and Peter ducks his head. Teenagers.

Jubilee boos. The brunet looks at her disapprovingly. “So what do you really do, Steve?”

What was with everyone here and these eerily invasive questions? Not for the first time that day, Steve nearly blows his cover. “I’m sorry?”

She gestures to Steve’s too-tight tee. He told Natasha this size was too small. “How do you look like that and end up working at a place like this ?”

Steve looks down at his arms as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“I like the gym.”

“I’m sure you do. How old are you?”

“Enough, Jubilee,” Bucky sighs. He turns to Steve. “He’s too old for you, and obviously wouldn’t make a good sugar daddy if he’s working here anyway.” Steve fidgets.

Jubilee throws her hands up defensively. “I didn’t even do anything! I can’t ask questions? I’m not even the worst one!”

Kamala hums. “Peter hasn’t stopped undressing Steve since he came in here.” Her girlfriend nods as Peter sits straight up again and instantly starts defending himself.

“You’re blushing, Pete. No one even said anything.” Kate accuses.

“I’m not! It’s just hot in here!”

Jubilee cackles. “Lie again, white boy!”

“You have an hour for lunch, Steve,” Bucky says, interrupting the teens’ increasingly obnoxious exchange. “Make it count. You can cry and take a nap now, but soon we’re going to be in the trenches at the register.”

Steve shrugs. “Can’t be that bad, right?”

-

“Shit,” he sighs some sixty-three minutes and forty-two seconds later, and punches the back button again.

“Yeah, just undo all of that,” Bucky advises boredly. “You’re charging her fifty dollars for that pair of leggins right now.”

“I tried to undo already,” Steve nearly whines. He narrows his eyes at the antique monitor in front of him. “It just keeps doubling the price.”

“Cancel the transaction completely and scan all of it again.” Steve looks incredulously between the giant mountain of clothes taunting him in five different bags and his indifferent, sadistic manager. “There’s not a lot we can do here without me just bailing you out with a manager override, and you can’t always do that. You got this, Steve.”

Steve winces. “I’m not sure I do, Bucky.”

“Gah,” says the antsy baby in the arms of their long-forgotten customer, who’s watching the exchange with rapt attention, credit card already snuggly inside the chip reader although they were about ten steps away from that so ma’am if you do it now you’re going to have to do it again and it’ll make this entire interaction longer could you please take it out.

Steve sends Bucky one last pitying glance and is met with stubborn silence and pushy gestures. He breathes, and slowly rings everything back up, making sure to double-and-then-triple check the three coupon codes and rewards account before proceeding to the final screen.

He breathes a sigh of relief as the receipt comes spurting out, long and completely correct.

“Sorry about that, ma’am,” Bucky laments, stuffing a handful of extra coupons in one of her bags. “It’s training day, and this purchase was a fantastic learning opportunity.”

She sends him a tight smile, and Bucky braces himself for a world-class berating. “It’s quite alright,” she says, and casts a flirty glance up at the flustered blond. “We call have to start somewhere. You gentlemen have a good night.”

“We all do, don’t we?” the brunet mutters, more to himself than Steve or the lady in front of him.

Steve smiles that stupid aw shucks smile, and she’s instantly putty in his hands. Bucky doesn’t blame her.  “Thank you again. Have a fantastic evening.”

“That went a lot smoother than I would have thought,” Bucky says, brow furrowed as he watches the mom and baby toddle out of the store.

“...Was it supposed to go worse?” Steve asks. He didn’t see why. It was a simple mistake and he corrected it the best he could.

Bucky snorts and shakes his head. “With her type? It almost always does.” Steve frowns. “Get your mobile ready to check out on the device. Gonna do some housekeeping on this one.”

Steve draws the product from his back pocket and starts punching in his employee number. “Well, being polite can get you far, I guess.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “And looking like you do doesn’t hurt, either, Steve.”

Steve scoffs. “She wasn’t that bad. Although, you could have just done your manager magic and gotten her out of here seven minutes earlier.”

“You needed to earn it, Steve.”

Steve head shoots up from the mobile. Bucky had to have heard how that sounded.

He sends him a secretive smile before turning back to the register, and Steve’s brain comes to a screeching halt as he feels a stupid smile forming on his own face.

Oh .

Shit.

Oh shit.

“C-can you give me a minute?” Steve says, and avoids Bucky’s eyes when he looks over and frowns at the high octave the blond’s voice has suddenly decided to take on. “I need to use the bathroom.”

Bucky glances at the short line before turning back to the monitor. “Sure,” he murmurs, reaching for his walkie. “Just come back soon. I’m the only one allowed to hide in the bathroom.”

Steve still finds time to laugh a little at that as he places the mobile down and hightails it to the toilets.

“Get it together, Rogers,” he orders as he splashes water on his face. “We’re here on some hardcare government shit and you have a crush . You’re entirely too fucking old for this.”

Steve throws a couple more punishing handfuls into his nostrils before he marches back to his station, intent on not flirting with Bucky for the rest of his shift.

That mission goes to shit as soon as he sees the way that Bucky’s got his hip cocked behind the counter.

Those jeans do wonders for the ass.

Bucky glances at him as he comes back to the register. “All good?”

Steve feels like his stomach is about to fall through his ass. “All good,” he lies.

“Good to hear!” Bucky gestures to the customer in front of them. “He wants to do an online return and an in-store exchange for these eight sweaters. You have to manually do the skew numbers manually. Also, he doesn’t speak that much English.”

Steve blinks.

Bucky grins.

-

“Last customer is gone, Bucky,” Kamala calls over the walkie hours. Steve hears cheers from various sections of the store, and he laughs as he continues hanging button-ups.

“Fuck yeah! Let’s pack this bitch up and blow this popsicle stand!”

Morita comes on almost immediately as soon as Bucky’s vulgar message goes through. “Didn’t  we talk about swearing on the channel?”

Steve hears Bucky groan from near the women’s shoes nearly fifteen feet away. How did he do that so loudly? “Fine, fine,” he laments. “Ladies, gentlemen, and nonbinary folk, please expedite your recovery missions so we can blow our operational popsicle stand well before twenty-two hundred hours. Old man’s orders.”

“Ooh, the G.I. Joe jumped out,” Jubilee says, and Peter’s snickering is loud enough in the background to come over the speaker.

“It’s funny how everyone can fold clothes and run their mouths at the same time,” Gabe warns, and the channel stays quiet after that.

Steve finishes his section, straightening out what he can on his way to the back room. He glances in the fitting room and frowns at how completely trashed it is. “Jared?” He calls. No response.

He’s sure Jared would appreciate some extra help in here, and starts to walk in when a rough hand claps down on his shoulder with way more force than necessary. Steve turns slowly, willing his fists to unclench.

“Don’t worry about this, big guy,” Brock Rumlow grunts, making an appearance for the first time for all of Steve’s mission. Steve watches the hand on his shoulder until the shorter man takes the hint to remove it. He regards Rumlow coolly, takes in his sunken eyes and dark hair and gruff appearance. He looked too menacing to be a retail store manager. “Jared’s got it.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “It’s a mess in there,” he argues. Rumlow looks increasingly annoyed as the blond doesn’t leave. “We’ll be in here all night if he has to do everything himself.”

The manager bears his teeth in what is probably supposed to be a smile. He reminds Steve of the wolves in the 1944 Italian winter. “Jared is really possessive of his fitting room. Has a thing about being the only one in there after closing. You shouldn’t question it.”

Steve opens his mouth, ready to go back and forth a bit more now that he was even more suspicious, but Bucky’s voice comes crackling over the walkie. “Can we please have some more backup in the shitshow that is the girls’ section right now?”

Rumlow’s creepy smile gets even wider. “Go handle that. You’ll actually be useful there.”

Natasha would kill him if he punched Rumlow out right now, which is why Steve sets his jaw and walks away without another word.

He feels Rumlow’s eyes on him until he turns the corner.

-

“Bye, Steve!” Bucky says, waving off their last employee for the night. If he watches that ass all the way until it turns the corner, who could prove it?

Gabe clucks his tongue next to him. “You’re unbelievable.”

Bucky turns to him, affronted. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re a whore, is what he meant,” Morita corrects, not even looking up as he marks something off on a clipboard. “He hasn’t even been here a full week, James.”

“You sound like my mother,” Bucky whines, and starts going over his own numbers. “I didn’t even do anything!” He says when he feels Morita’s gaze on him.

“Yet,” Morita shoots back. “Remember when you hooked up with Brock? Look how lovely that turned out.”

Bucky cringes. “Don’t remind me. I was young and foolish then. I’m grown now.”

“You were grown then,” Gabe adds.

“I’m more grown now, thank you very fucking much Peanut Gallery Jones.”

“Grown enough not to do something you know you shouldn’t, right?” Morita interjects. Bucky doesn’t answer him. “Because if you fuck this up and Steve quits and we’re back to being understaffed, I’m going to kick your ass.

Bucky rolls his eyes. When did everyone start getting so fucking dramatic?

“Repeat after me: I will not fuck the new guy,” Gabe orders. Bucky mumbles it under his breath, looking at his shoes, and Gabe has to kick him in the shin hard for the brunet to sigh and repeat it louder.

“Again."

“This is homophobic.” Bucky accuses.

“Again.”

“Fine, god dammit! Since I’m not allowed to have any fuckin’ fun,” Bucky pouts, sounding a lot like Peter. “I will not fuck the new guy. Happy?”

Morita and Gabe smile at him. “Perfect!” Morita chirps. “Glad to know we’re all on the same page. Bucky isn’t fucking the new guy. Let’s get these books finish so I can smoke away my problems.”

Bucky ignores both of them as he crunches numbers.

He was so going to fuck the new guy.

-

“How was work, honey?” is the first thing Natasha says to him when Steve starts the video chat. He rolls his eyes when Sam starts laughing in the background.

“It was fine. I had a great time folding clothes and being nosy and restraining from punchies literal Nazis in the head.” The two on the other end make pleased noises, and Steve barely refrains from flicking them off. He did not have self control issues. “What are you guys doing up anyway? Isn’t the time different there?”

Sam huffs off screen before appearing behind Natasha, arms crossed. “It’s like an hour difference, old man,” he teases. Steve flips him off. “We’re fine.”

“Oh so I’m the asshole for trying to make sure you’re getting a good night’s sleep?” He shoots back. Sam just sticks his tongue out before disappearing off screen. “Thank God he’s gone,” he says loudly, and grins when a brown hand comes back in front of Natasha to shoot him the bird. “Now we can do our top secret spy shit, Nat.”

She shakes her head, a small smile playing at her lips. “You two are ridiculous. What did you find today?”

“Rumlow is the manager in charge of updating most of the displays, so I’m guessing that’s how he managers the smuggling. The other three in charge don’t often touch his shipments. He brings the same three or four employees in each week for some early morning shift that’s over before the store’s even open.”

“Any of our suspected friends?”

“All of them. Kurtz seems to be his right-hand man with a handful of racial aggressions of his own.” Natasha grimaces. Steve nods. “I know. He’s always in the fitting room during closing, and is particularly bent on being the last person in there for the night.”

“And what about Winderfield and Sanzetti?”

Steve thinks for a second. “The cashiers? Apparently very territorial about their stations. Lots of card malfunctions on their machines. Probably some sort of laundering going on there, too. I can get you the register numbers so you and Hill can see if there’s anything fishy about any of the transactions. I haven’t seen Black yet, and Darvin isn’t on the schedule any more. We may need to do a quick check up on him.”

“Got it.” Natasha sits back in her chair, stretching like a cat as she smiles at Steve with lidded, emerald eyes. “Look at you! Being all stealthy.” He rolls his eyes, but that sort of praise actually means a lot from someone as sneaky as her. “They’re getting sloppy. This’ll probably be wrapped up in no time. You’re halfway done.”

He isn’t as excited for those words as he thought he was going to be for some reason. “I guess I am,” he murmurs. “I better stay the full time, though. You know how Fury is about changing plans.”

Natasha sees right through him. “Is someone making friends?”

Steve feels his cheeks heat up. “Something like that.”

-

Bucky finds Steve putting together an online order the next day.

“Vanilla bean frappuccino with two pumps of white mocha syrup, two pumps of raspberry syrup, two scoops of freeze dried blueberries --which I’m shocked they had, by the way-- double blended with two scoops of blueberries and whipped cream on top.”

Steve looks up from his mobile to send Bucky an inquiring look. “Excuse me?”

Bucky is smiling around a green straw as he looks up at Steve, who is definitely not watching his pink lips suck on a terrifyingly sweet-looking drink. “That’s how to make a pie frappuccino at Starbucks,” he explains. He hesitates, then shrugs. “Figured it was the closest thing to what you got in Japan. I brought you one.”

It shouldn’t make Steve smile as hard as it does. “I appreciate it. What do you think?”

Bucky’s lips close obscenely around the straw as he takes a long suck, eyes shutting as he lets out a low moan. Steve’s mind is already replaying that moment hundreds of times over by the time the brunet looks at him again. “It’s exactly what I thought you’d taste like.”

Steve nearly swallows his tongue.

Bucky looks at him through his lashes and what the fuck does that mean before sliding the blond his own drink.

“It takes like unicorn shit and diabetes, but there’s coffee in there, I swear,” he promises, not noticing how Steve is alternating shocked looks between the frap and its bearer. “It’s Saturday, and we have a two-day sale. You’ll need it. Trust me.”

He only gets to enjoy watching Bucky walk away before Jim comes over the radio to ruin it.

“Steve, can you help these nice ladies get seven shirts off of the top rack in the men’s tee shop?”

Steve sighs.

This was going to be a long mission.