Inumorph

The coffee, plain and simple, was written in white. Teas and specialty iced teas were written in red chalk. Food was written in blue. Iced, blended drinks were written in green.

The whole aesthetic of the café appeared to be farmhouse chic, which was odd for a coffeehouse in Manhattan, yet it was cozy and comfortable. It transported you from the bustling district in New York City to a small town where everyone knew everyone.

“Hi! Can I get anything started for you?” the barista behind the counter greet you when you shuffled closer, studying the menu with indecision.

“If you’re having a hard time deciding, the Mano dragonfruit refresher is to die for!” Her extra perky smile seemed forced like if she didn’t appear this jovial she would be reprimanded or even written up.

“Sure.” You agreed without knowing what a refresher even was. “Your largest size.”

“Great!” She smiled again and punched it into the register. “And your name?”

“Y/N.” You answered almost too quickly, hoping to get your drink and find a place before Steve and Bucky arrived.

“Awesome! Your drink will be down at the end!” Her perkiness wasn’t solely saved for you, as she greet the next person with the same, bright smile.

After you moved down to the end of the counter on the right, you used your time of waiting for further study the café and the patrons inside. The various array of colours that were skewered throughout the building was refreshing. Even if the development of your coloured vision eventually meant the end of your relationship with Peter, it was nice. You always knew the world would be captivating in full colour, but living in colour was more than you expected or hoped for.

It was a disparity that you were living in, a contrast between how you felt about Peter and your relationship and how you felt about seeing the magnificence of the world in the full spectrum of pigmentation.

“Refresher for Y/N!” your drink was set down and as you reached for it, the barista flashed you a smile. “Have a good day!”

You stared at the drink for a moment, analyzing the deep link colour that bordered on magenta, with clumps of berries in the liquid that sloshed against the clear cup. The straw that was pushed into the drink was green, almost a dark line green, that matched some of the accent colours in the café.

You thanked the barista and gurney, briefly making eye contact with Steve and Bucky before you turned and sat in a booth near the back of the café.

You set your drink down on the table and shuffled into the booth, pressing your back against the wall and angling yourself. You gave yourself the ability to watch the people who had come and left, and the colours of their drinks if they had clear cups.

But more importantly, you gave yourself the ability to see Steve and Bucky.

As was his apparent staple, Steve wore a black leather jacket with white trim stretching across the shoulders. He wore a dark blue shirt underneath with a v neckline and a loose fit that wasn’t as tight as the shirt he wore when you first met him. His hair was styled slicked back, his beard well-trimmed and taken care of. He didn't seem any different than any regular man, save for the fact that Steve Rogers was bonafide gorgeous.

And so was Bucky.

His dark brown hair had grown out again since the last time you saw him a few weeks ago and was now hanging by his chin. He too had a beard, and while it was as neatly trimmed as Steve’s, it wasn’t as thick. Like Steve, Bucky had stuck to the staples of his wardrobe with the red henley he worse and the dark blue, bordering on black, jeans.

You watched as they ordered their drinks and stood near the end of the counter waiting as you had. Only as they were waiting, they were standing close together and whispering amongst themselves.

Seeing them together made you envious of the connection they had. The way they looked at each other, or the way they seemed in each other’s presence was natural and ethereal and it seemed so effortless.

You on the other hand were struggling to keep your relationship of one year afloat while feeling like you and the year spent with Peter was floundering beneath a shipwreck that was leaking oil and on fire.

Were you going to exhaust yourself trying to keep the relationship alive? Were you going to suffer more by putting time and effort into something that was already over?

“Hey, doll,” Bucky took the spot beside you, his arm in that red henley that looked so good on him brushing against your own.

“Hi, Bucky.” You reached for your refresher and slid it back toward you, sipping on the cool and fruity drink. You wait for the cool liquid to go down your throat before you pushed it to your left.

“How are you doing?” Steve sat across from you, setting his paper cup down and shifting in a way that caused his knees to brush against yours briefly.

“Honestly,” you sighed and chewed the inside of your cheek, feeling overwhelmed by the seeming screeching halt your relationship has come to, “I’ve been better.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Steve asked, lifting his cup to his lips but not taking a sip yet.

“Are you sure you wanna hear this? About my relationship with Peter?” you first glanced at Steve then Bucky.

They were giving you the entirety of their attention span. They were listening to you and keeping their eyes on you while you talked. They weren’t pushing you to talk or forcing you to open up about your boyfriend who was not one of your soulmates.

“It’d better than bottling it up.” Steve reached out and squeezed your hand.

“You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to. Why don’t you just start with something small?”

Bucky suggested, angling his body toward you.

You felt irrevocably safe with them, and you hardly knew anything about them. It appeared that even just being in their presence was enough to ease you and soothe you. Just being around them felt naturally ethereal and delightful, like you were all puzzle pieces fitting together to create a full and bright picture.

“How was the date after you fixed Stevie up?” Bucky asked first, easing you into the topic of your relationship with a fairly easy transition.

“It was…awkward.” You looked away from them and focused your attention out the window, watching passing cars and people with no real intent behind your stare. “I feel like I’m losing my relationship and the harder I try and clutch at it, the quicker it slips away.”

It was true, you felt as though there was a gorge between you and Peter. When he found out that you had seen Bucky and Steve in the hospital a mere half-hour before you met up with him, he accused you of flirting. He accused you of letting them hit on you.

It opened your eyes to the possibility that Peter was as uneased as you. Or maybe Peter was purposefully trying to create a rift to make it easier on the both of you.

“Do you feel like you’re making the right decision? Holding onto a relationship that won’t last?” Bucky nudged his knee against your own without meaning to, the action jerking you from your mid-daze.

“Honestly, I feel like I’m trying to put a bandaid over a bullet hole or like I’m dropping a cork into a volcano waiting for it to erupt. Ya know?” You sighed and ran your fingers over the water line on the table that was left behind from your drink.

“What else is bothering you,” Steve stroked your knuckles with his thumb.

“Peter can see colour too.” Your frown deepened as your eyebrows furrowed. “He didn’t even tell me. I caught him. He slipped, he…”

You shook your head. There were so many tumultuous factors about your relationship with Peter and it was all just piling on.

“And we never even had pet names for each other. I mean that’s a staple!”

“The kid never called you ‘sweetheart’ or ‘doll’ or ‘love’ ‘darling?” Bucky glanced at Steve before he cast his eyes back to you.

“No,” you shift in your seat, “Peter didn’t want to give nicknames or pet names. He said it’d be better in the long run if we didn’t use them.”

“Do you want one?” Steve reached out and grabbed your other hand, holding and stroking both.

“As friends,” Bucky added, “it could carry over whenever a relationship forms.”

Butterflies burst in your belly.

Your heartbeat skipped and you were hit with this enduring warmth.

“Okay,” you nod eagerly, a smile replacing the frown, “yeah I’d like one.”

Bucky hummed and tapped the table. You moved your attention from Steve to Bucky, from blue-green eyes to solid blue, one handsome face to another.

They were both so beautiful, so breathtaking.

“Back in the 40’s we’d call our dates ‘dames’, ‘dolls’, ‘sweetheart’ ‘darling’, but you…” Steve tilt his head and looked you up and down.

“You look like a ‘baby girl,” Steve spoke the pet name and your body burst with heat. He spoke the pet name and warmth rushed through you from the tip of your toes to the top of your head.

“Baby girl, ” you smiled at the pet name, letting it sit on your tongue, “I like it. Baby girl.”

“It suits you.” Bucky brushed his knee against yours again. “You’re beautiful, Y/N. The world wasn’t entirely black and white before we met you, but having the burst of colour when our eyes met has been the best thing to happen as of late.”

“Thank you for listening to me, ” you glanced at them both, “you’re good friends.”

“That’s all we’ll be, baby girl, ” Steve confirmed, easing the part of you that was still clinging to Peter, “until you’re ready for more. We’ll be your friends and give you any support that we can.”

“You can talk to us whenever you want,” Bucky added to Steve’s sentiment.

They were offering themselves as friends until you figured out what you wanted to do about Peter. They would be your friends, they would be there for support so you could vent or scream or cry.

Whatever you needed.

“Thank you, ” your smile met your eyes for the first time in a long time, “I’ll take you up on that offer. Might drive you crazy.”

“Not if we drive you crazy first,” Steve smirked and winked, “baby girl.”

** **

The only probable way for you to run into them and not have a steady hand on the chances was either a run-in by the elevator or seeing them as patients in the medical wing.

While you were avoiding Steve and Bucky, you had spent a great deal of time with Peter. You’d tried to avoid causing any wider rift between you since the beginning of it was already damaging and acidic enough. You loved Peter, you wanted to be with Peter however it seemed as if you had already lost him.

Everything you did at this point felt like putting a bandaid on a cracked foundation.

Including dinner dates like the one, you were supposed to be going on after your shift.

“Y/N, ” the charge nurse stopped you just 15 minutes before you were supposed to clock out, “can you please assist one last patient before you leave? We just had an entire group of recruits come in for burns and deep abrasions and another patient is waiting with the minor abrasive wound.”

You glanced toward the clock, knowing full well that a simple abrasion could lead to more problems. You knew full well that one simple cut could be something more complicated and take longer than 15 minutes, but you couldn’t turn her down.

“Of course, ” you reached for the chart, “who is it?”

The charge nurse already looked exasperated but when you took the tablet from her, there was momentary relief that flashed on her face. That small task was enough to remove some weight from her shoulders, and given the number of recruits that were about to come to the floor, this was the least that you could do.

“Bed 5,” she called over her shoulder, “thank you so much!”

You waved your hand and tucked the tablet under your arm as you moved toward a white metal supply cart. You reached for a pair of blue medical gloves and pulled them on your hands, adjusting the fit on your fingers before you continued on your path toward the 5th bed bay on the left side with the tablet back in your hands.

You pulled back the curtain and stepped inside, your attention on the chart displayed on the tablet. You read the reason for being there, the word ‘abrasion’ and ‘bleeding at sight of injury’ twice over. You knew you would need antiseptic and bandages as well as liquid stitches depending on the injury, which was all in the supply cart at each bed.

“Hi, I'm Y/N I’ll be your nurse today.” You raised your hand and almost dropped the tablet, the portable chart nearly slipping from your grasp at the sight of who was in your care. “What happened to you?”

Steve was the patient, with a strip of cloth pressed tightly against the cut in his forehead, the drying blood staining the cloth used in an attempt to stop the bleeding. When he shifted on the bed, you could see small drops of blood on his shoes that had long since dried as well as some blood staining the SHIELD symbol on his black compression shirt.

“Steve’s a cut on his head,” Bucky spoke from the only other chair in the small bay, one leg crossed over the other and his metal hand resting on top of his knee.

Like Steve, he was wearing a black compression shirt with the same symbol on the left above his pectoral. Now that you could see colours, you were slowly differentiating between the vast shades of one colour that brought such beauty to the works. Bucky’s eyes were blue, but they were light blue and crystalline, they reminded you of the pristine river and lake waters from the mountains. They were so clean and clear, so pristine.

Steve’s eyes were blue, like Bucky’s, however, Steve’s eyes had flecks of green in them. His blue-green eyes were as captivating as Bucky’s, just in a different way.

“Yeah, I gathered.” You quipped, moving away from the bed toward the supply cart. “How did it happen?”

You reached for one of the drawer handles and pulled, small antiseptic packages sitting inside. You grabbed two as well as a small roll of bandages and medical tape, and when you had all your supplies, you closed the drawer again.

“We were training the recruits, ” Steve pulled the cloth away from his cut and placed it beside him on the bed.

“And I’m guessing it didn’t go well?” you grabbed the single wrapped antiseptic wipe and shook it a few times out of habit before you ripped the top off and pulled the wipe out of the package. You unfolded the antiseptic wipe and stepped closer to the bed and closer to Steve.

“It may sting.” You gave him a warning before you reached out and started wiping the antiseptic wipe against his cut, trying your damnedest not to laugh when he hissed under his breath and winced.

“Who knew the great Captain America could be brought down by a disinfecting wipe?” you joked, discarding the wipe in the garbage before you waved your hand in front of the cut to dry it.

“He’s also afraid of needles.” Bucky piped up from his chair in the corner, joining in on the teasing.

“Needles?” you grinned. “Steve Rogers is afraid of needles?”

He had gripped the edge of the bed with both hands, his blue-green eyes were studying you while you prepared the liquid stitches. His attention on you was making your hands shake ever so slightly, given how much time and effort you had tried to put into avoiding the pair of them.

It just felt…natural. It felt instinctual to be near them and that was a direct conflict with what you were trying to save, with Peter.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Steve watched you carefully as you produced a small brush coated with the liquid stitch. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Of course, ” you nod your head and smirked, “it would damaging for the world to know that Captain America’s fear is sterilized medical-grade needles.”

“Little bit.” His added comment pulled a laugh from you, something small and quiet but lighthearted nonetheless.

“I’m done adding the liquid stitches.” You stepped back to the bedside rolling tray and grabbed a packaged sterilized bandage. “You need to keep this on for about a day and then it can be removed.”

When you stepped back to him, you had the bandage in one hand and the crumpled package in the other. You threw the package toward the garbage and then you pressed the bandage against his wound, reaching into your left scrub pocket to grab the medical tape.

“I have to ask,” you ripped a piece of medical tape off and placed it on the left side of the bandage to hold it in place, before securing the other side, “how did the great captain America injure himself?”

You pressed the tape into his forehead as gently as possible, smoothing it down and using that as an excuse to hear the story.

“Couple of new recruits thought it’d be funny to steal one of Stark’s new inventions and bring it to the session.” Steve shift on the bed, brushing his hand against your elbow as he moved. “Caused an explosion and some of the shrapnel got me in the head.”

“They essentially stole a grenade and set it off as a joke?” you shift your weight from foot to foot. “Real intelligent agents you have.”

You rolled your eyes and started the process of putting away the equipment you’d used. As you closed the third drawer and moved back to grab the tablet to complete the chart, your attention was drawn to the bed where Steve had now stood from.

“Am I going to live?”

“You’ll survive relatively unscathed. Although I think I’d keep my distance from arrogant recruits with grenades, ” you smiled again, “as a rule of thumb.”

“You’ll live to see another fight, ” Bucky clapped Steve on the shoulder, “how many different nurses have patched you up in the day?”

“None this pretty, ” Steve shot a look your way, which had given you pause as you were finishing up his chart.

“I have to agree, pal.”

“Y/N, ” the charge nurse popped her head into the room, “Peter’s waiting for you. Want me to finish the chart?”

The announcement that Peter was here and waiting for you, had introduced an air of uncomfortable awkwardness that made you want to tuck tail and run. The announcement that your boyfriend who was not your soulmate was here to take you to dinner, while your two soulmates were in front of you, had you very conflicted. You were conflicted between the ease of flirtations that seemed so natural with Steve and Bucky, and the year you’d spent loving Peter Parker.

“It’s okay,” Steve spoke the answer to the question you didn’t want to ask, “you don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“You should go,” Bucky spoke after, reassuring you, “we’ll catch up later.”

“Y/N?” she called, “do you want me to finish the chart?”

You swallowed and dove further inside yourself for a brief moment. You set the tablet back on the table and stepped away, still half in a daze.

“Yeah,” you finally mumble, “yeah I’m almost done. I’ll go… I’ll go end my shift.”

You turned on your heel and moved from the bed bay, stealing a glance back at the two super soldiers before you ultimately left the area.

And went to find Peter.

** **

“Peter-“

“I know you can see colours. I knew the moment it happened.” He mumbled again, staring at the crack in the table you’d bought together.

“It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” You moved around the table to his side, wrapping your arm around his back while your other hand rest on his left shoulder. “I love you, Peter.”

Your contact with his body had physically drew the tension from him, although that is where the ease stopped. Despite his shoulders and body being ridden of tension in his shoulders and his chest, his emotional apprehension was on the rise. It was hard to miss, almost impossible not to feel the chill exuding from Peter as the pair of you tried to grapple with the shaken pillars of your relationship.

How did you move past this? How did you return to a place before you saw colours and before you found out that two of the avengers were your soulmates? Were your heads in the clouds and your hearts in naivety?

Could there even be a place to come back to? Could the relationship pan out even with the recent event of meeting your soulmates hanging above your head?

“I love you too.” He turned his head and spoke into your hand on his shoulder. He pressed his lips into your palm after you’d opened your hand, giving you the smallest glimmer of affection that was more than enough for the moment. “We’ll make this work.”

The sentiment of the message was sweet and hopeful, yet it felt empty. It felt as if you were going to just be biding time until inevitable set in and broke you apart.

“Of course we will.” Your tight lipped smile and forced positivity had only added to the overcast sense of grim outcomes. “Did you want to go to Stark Tower together?”

The question felt like a buffer, a monotonous event that would bring anymore awkwardness to the already complicated situation. It was an offer to share a ride with the boy you’d loved for the past year, to be in each others presence while not addressing the elephant in the apartment.

“You start today?” Peter frowned, his eyebrows furrowed.

“First day working as medical staff at Stark Tower.” You let go of him and shuffled into the kitchen, dragging your feet toward the fridge. You grabbed the white handle and pulled, bending over to gaze at the contents inside before you decided on a ripe apple and a bottle of fiji water Peter brought home the day before.

After selecting your items and balancing them in your arms, your turned around to talk to Peter only to find the place where he once was, empty now.

“You see in colour,” Peter called from the living room, beckoning you with his voice.

As you crossed the distance, a smile broke on your face when you saw Peter standing in the living room in his full Spider-Man get up. He was posing for you with the familiar smile you loved most, on his face.

“Tell me what colour my suit is.” He placed his hands on his hips, watching you with playful flirtation.

“I can do that,” you walked toward him with renewed pep in your step. You stood in front of him and slid your hands up his chest and onto his shoulders, your eyes wandering the pattern of his suit and the colours that had been brought together to form the impressive technological apparel that had saved Peter’s life more than once.

“The shoulders are red with black details that make the suit itself look like spiders webs.” You touched and traced the black lines as you spoke, your attention on the way he filled out the spider suit and the feel of his tight muscles been the your hands.

“There are two blue bands that break up the red on your arms,” you touched the blue against the red, proving your point.

“There’s more blue?” Peter asked, his hands moving to your hips where he lightly squeezed.

“Yes,” you inhaled sharply, your eyes moving down his body toward his lower half, “from your waist to the middle of your calves are blue. From the middle of your calves to your feet are red with black detailed lines like the upper half.”

“We’ll make it work,” Peter brushed his thumb across your chin to lift your head, “it’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

** **

“Are we going to talk about it?” Nat smirked while she was leaning against the bar side of the communal area the Avengers shared. Since the party, and their full ascent into fully coloured vision, Natasha has been on them relentlessly to try and get a peek into their brains.

“The kid has been dating the girl for a whole year,” Clint spoke from the lounger in the centre of the room, looking back at the two with a similar smirk to Natasha’s.

“And she’s a baby,” Natasha’s grin widened, “really robbing the cradle aren’t you boys?”

“She’s 20 Nat, almost 21.” Bucky spoke in defence of their situation.

“She’s not legal enough to drink and she’s barely legal enough to vote.” Natasha looked Steve up and down, with a raised eyebrow.

“She’s working here.” Bruce had quipped, looking at the tablet in his hands before he looked up. “She’s working on the medical floor as a registered nurse. Given your reputation, I think you’ll be seeing a lot of her.”

Bruce was speaking of Steve and Bucky’s penchant for getting into trouble where they was none, though the jab could’ve been aimed further toward Steve since the man couldn’t run away from a fight.

“We’re not pursuing anything.” Steve stood his ground and cut the silent accusations short. “The kid is a relationship with her-“

“It won’t last long.” Clint cut Steve off, pushing himself to sit up further. “We all know how the soulmate connection is. Even if you’re on the other side of the world, you’ll be drawn together eventually. No matter how hard you try to fight it.”

“She’s in a relationship, Barton.” Steve unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water and lift it to his lips. “We’re not going to interfere-“

“Its inevitable. Whether you want to interfere or not, there is a connection that won’t be ignored. They can try to push it off all they want, eventually one of them will break.”

Steve hummed after he swallowed, his eyebrows knit together. He slipped into a space of deep though, a place in his head that pulled his thoughts toward Peggy.

Steve and Bucky were able to see half colour when they recognized each other as soulmates. When Steve met Peggy, he had wished that his vision could’ve shifted to full colour. He wished that he could’ve seen the bright flashes of pigment that was described so heavily by those who had already met their soulmates and in book written exclusively on the topic.

When he didn’t see colour, and neither did Peggy, there was a part of Steve that was disappointed. There was a part of him that was almost distraught over not being able to have this woman who was breathtaking and confident, so sure of herself, as his soulmate.

He wanted Peggy.

Bucky wanted him. He had only ever spoke of Steve when he was alive in the 40’s, there was no connection to Peggy other than one of friendship.

“It’s inevitable,” Steve mumbled under his breath, chewing on the words.

Inevitable. Steve and Peggy were never meant for each other.

If fate would inevitably bring two soulmates together, than fate could inevitably separate two people who were never meant for each other.

“Eventually the relationship will fail as the connection between the three of you grows.” Bruce glanced from Steve to Bucky. “And there will be no turning back.”

** **