Winter's Veil || BUCKY X FEM!OC

*CHAPTER 2*

At some point in 2014

EVIE POV:

The bitter tang of coffee wafted into my nose, disrupting my train of thought. I was leant over the sticky scarlet counter, reading a tattered copy of The Hobbit. I anxiously twisted my platinum blonde hair around my manicured finger, immersed in the book. It was a quiet afternoon on a mostly-sunny-partially-cloudy day; the cafe should be rammed with suit-wearing customers that had decided on their ridiculously tiny breaks to have a lumpy coffee from the nearest place, but it was deathly silent.

Although I got paid disgustingly little at this job, it did give me the motivation to carry on with my degree and get an actual job. A prime example would be the customers I had to put up with, there were the Karens who have a god-complex making them think they could scam every crappy cafe they complained at into giving them free cappuccinos and lattes. Then there were the scary business people in their pressed suits and gadgets hooked all over them, who spoke as fast as chipmunks and guzzled their 7 shot coffees like it was a cure for the plague. And don't get me started on the girls who came in with neon clips tangled in their heat-damaged hair and tacky sequin purses stuffed with their 'pocket money'. They always want to buy the latest tooth-decaying beverage Starbucks had released, and every time I had to tell their snotty faces that we're not a fucking Starbucks. It's those kinds of customers who inspire me to get a job that pays well enough that I never have to worry about working somewhere similar ever again.

My dark eyes traveled over the predominantly empty tables, ignoring the stragglers with their hands wrapped around a mediocre cup of coffee as if it was water in the desert. The people in this cafe were nobodies, they all had those eyes that have been shown nothing but the cruelest side of humanity, shoulders slumped under the weight of their past decisions. They bled despair through the absence of hope, a hope that faded before their eyes. That look made my heart shatter, It wasn't long ago I also shared their eyes.

Growing up without parents was difficult, and there were times I wanted to just curl up in a ball and sleep, because sleep meant I could dream of anything and be anywhere else.

I would often skip school in favour of the streets of New York, learning how to pickpocket. I never really understood why I did it besides the initial rush of jittery excitement that set my mind alight, but it was one skill that I had to work for. When you have to grow up knowing that everything comes with ease because of your nonexistent family's genetics, and not truly because of you, you start to think of yourself as a pawn in a half-finished game of chess. This was the one thing that forced me to concentrate and learn, with the sufficient risk of being caught schooling my instincts into needle-sharp points.

That happened for a while until I was eventually rounded up by the police and forced to stay at school, and I had my first lesson in biology. As cheesy as it sounds, I fell in love with it. I finally had something that left me speechless the more I learned about it. It led me from honour programs, to awards, to university, and now here. Working at a cafe. On minimum wage. During the possibly worst soul-crushing, head-banging, day of my life.

My eyes snagged on my coworker's horrified expression, who was clutching the coffee pot and gawking at the archaic TV that hung lopsided above the display menu. At first glance, it looked like the usual drivel that news stations went on about in the late afternoon, until I tuned my ears into what the anchor was saying.

"-ships that crashed in the Potomac have just been discovered to belong to the covert government intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D.-" My chest tightened and the book was long forgotten, my eyes were burning holes into the man's flickering face as I hung on his words.
"-It has just been confirmed from a reliable source that S.H.I.E.L.D. was a front for the deep science nazi division from world war 2, HYDRA, that was previously thought to have been abolished by Captain America. We will now hear from Nancy who is at the Potomac live..."