The Coffee Shop Girl ~ Bucky Barnes

Chapter 7

Bucky was bored. It was a strange feeling to him as it had been so long since he had free choice of what to do that he had almost been trained out of experiencing the emotion. After all, Hydra had never offered him things to do between missions, either he was in Cryostasis or he was training and being wiped constantly to stop him remembering anything. But now that he was waiting in the Avengers Compound living room - sitting bolt upright on the sofa in the way he always did despite anyone else present reclining back into the soft leather - he couldn't help but wish he was doing something, anything really would be better than this silence which seemed to drift on for an inexplicably long time, though he was sure he could not have been in the room for more than half an hour.

The building was almost empty, what with Sam and Steve away at another one of their therapy sessions and Tony away at a conference for the weekend - though Bucky strongly suspected the man would spend as much of the weekend drunk as he would actually speaking to people - whilst Clint was nowhere to be found (Read: almost certainly exploring the vents) and Pepper was busy running the company. So, the only two people actually making good use of the living space were Bucky and Natasha.

The assassin in question had returned from her mission only that morning, though the way her hair was French braided against her head suggested to Bucky that she may have stopped off somewhere before returning to the Tower. This would make sense because she had really been scheduled to arrive back three days previous, but there had not been hide nor hair seen of her during the time, which was rather disappointing for Bucky as he had hoped to visit the café again.

Bucky brushed a strand of hair away from his own fact, huffing in an irritated manner as it fell resolutely back into place again. It seemed to him that he never stopped tucking pieces behind his ears but they always came back to obscure his vision once more, a fact he found highly annoying.

"I can cut it for you if you want." He heard Natasha's voice come from the kitchen counter, though when he glanced up he could see that she wasn't even looking at him, eyes glued to the phone in front of her, which he could tell she was typing out a message on as her fingers flew rapidly across the small screen. If he hadn't been one of the assassins who helped train her, he would have asked how she knew. As it was, he understood that it was pointless; she actually was just that good at reading other people.

"It's fine," He muttered under his breath, not really in the mood to talk that particular morning. "It doesn't bother me."

Natasha gave a snort of laughter at this, but her face remained stoic when he looked at her. "You keep telling yourself that Barnes and maybe it will come true."

Bucky turned his back to her and scowled, he wasn't having a good morning and the last thing he wanted to deal with was the bold female assassin who never seemed to lose an argument. But a few minutes later, having brushed his hair back multiple times, he was forced to do so again, making him frown deeper as he heard the tap tap tap of Natasha's fingers against the screen come to a halt.

"Fine," He almost growled out, earning only an unimpressed look from Natasha as she looked at him with one eyebrow raised. It was a killer look, the sort that simultaneously made a normal person want to apologise for whatever they had done or said wrong, and fall down sobbing at the person's feet. This was not the case with Bucky as he was no ordinary person, but it did make him reconsider his phrasing; Natasha was doing something nice for him and he knew that he wasn't being particularly grateful considering. "You can cut my hair."

"Come on then," Natasha gestured for him to walk over to her and pointed at the sink. "Get your hair soaked through whilst I go find a pair of sharp enough scissors."

Bucky was immensely grateful for this as he had been rather worried that she would use one of those razors that Tony was fond of utilising to shave his beard into a strange shape. He preferred the use of scissors as that had always been what his mother used when he was a kid, not frequently able to afford the electricity bills. He stood with his head under the warm tap until Natasha returned and his hair was wet through.

"Sit," Natasha instructed him, pointing to a stool in the centre of the kitchen space, which had a wipeable floor and was much easier to clean than anywhere else.

Bucky did as he was told, taking a seat on the chair and waiting as Natasha moved around him, assessing the state of his hair.

"It's a mess." She determined eventually. "Did Hydra never cut it?"

"Once." Bucky told her, not offering any further explanation and thankful when she did not press him for details. It was not a good memory for him, being dragged by his hair towards a small dark room, having a complete stranger yank at his hair and hack off chunks until it lay on the floor by his feet.

"How short do you want it?" Natasha asked, picking up a strand and holding it between the blades of the scissors.

Bucky shrugged, gaining a scathing look from Natasha at his movement, he stilled after that, not wanting his hair to come out completely uneven. "I don't care."

"Right then." Natasha muttered, choosing a length by herself and beginning to snip away at him. It took perhaps ten minutes before she spoke again. "How's that."

She offered Bucky a small handheld mirror that was presumably her own and he looked at his appearance. She had left it long enough at the top that he would be able to style it if he wanted, without it getting in his eyes constantly, and the sides were not short enough that he could see his scalp through the hair.

"Thank you." He told her, voice almost a whisper. She nodded once, before turning to pack up the scissors and comb she had been using.

"No problem." She faced him once more and Bucky could see her in the mirror. "We can head to the café tomorrow if you want. Show off your new style."

Bucky nodded, "I would like that."

Natasha nodded, "It's a plan. I'll ask Katia if she can come back with us because I know she wanted to talk to Barton about something."

"I hadn't known they were friends." Bucky muttered.

"Yeah, they were partners in SHIELD for a while when she worked in the field, and she always helped design his new arrows. She was one of the first people Clint introduced me to when I joined SHIELD, told me she was his sister. It took months before Katia told me that part wasn't true." Bucky had never heard Natasha say so much about her past life, she was usually closed off and tried not to let anyone see through the cracks in her façade, so he stayed silent as she explained, allowing him to see her for who she really was even if it was for only a few minutes. "They were always so close that I didn't even consider them not being related. Now it would seem obvious because she acts like that with so many people. Tony often acts like she's his daughter and even Fury holds a bit of a soft-spot for her. She's about the only person who has ever stood up to him and he respects her for it."

This last piece of information surprised Bucky; he had never met the Director but from what Steve had told him about the man, he was not someone to be messed with. Natasha offered him another smile, seemingly ending her explanation there as she stood and left the room. Bucky continued to sit there by himself for a few moments before rising from his place on the stool and heading towards his own room. Steve and Sam were sure to be back from their meeting soon enough and he didn't know how much more interaction he could manage that day before he snapped at someone.