#post-tfaws

- Maybe Bucky had wandered into a record store, not really looking for anything in particular. It was almost deserted, save for a group of teenagers in a listening booth, taking what he considered to be Too Many selfies.

- He skimmed the aisles, running his fingers over worn titles he’s never heard. He turned the corner and discovered the most extensive collection of 30s-40s music that he’d seen in Brooklyn. Not that he had been searching. Alright fine, humor him. He hates how music sounds on smartphones. It’s far too polished. He could be found in there most afternoons from then on.

- The record store is run by the most wonderful old woman named Stella (picture Al from Deadpool but kinder, and not blind lmao). Constantly running around helping people find even the most niche, buried music in the shelves. She quickly got used to Bucky rolling in around 2:30, bee-lining to the 40s section, and staying there for hours on end.

- A little after Bucky discovered the place, he noticed a sign in the window. STORE CLOSING SOON! 30% OFF ALL INVENTORY!

- His face dropped at the prospect of losing the only source to true nostalgia he has. The cheery bell rang as he stepped in, contrasting his mood. He went over to 40s and sat down a little harder than normal.

- over the course of three weeks, the percent of discount kept climbing, 40, 50, 60. Now it showed 75%, the paper peeling where it had been taped over again and again. A month into his routine, one of the lightbulbs had gone out above Podcasts and Audiobooks. Stella, grumbling under her breath, “man I am too old for this”, went to get the ladder used to stock the high shelves.

- She came back, the ladder literally twice her body length, wobbling dangerously close to a new record player display.

- Bucky, seeing all of this, stepped in before something broke. He quickly crossed to the other end of the store and steadied the ladder. A frazzled Stella looked up at him with a breathless “Thanks boy,. I’m not as strong as I was 20 years ago it seems!” He answered with a nod and a small smile. He helped guide the ladder over to the Podcast section and prop it up.

- Bucky didn’t wait for permission, just took the light bulb gently from Stella and skittered up the ladder. He removed the burnt out one and pocketed it. Stella only stares up at him with a fond look.

- As he screwed in the new bulb, Stella calls up him. “You got a job?” He grimaces while facing away from her. He turns and answers. “Been a little hard to find work lately.”

- Stella pauses for a moment, considering. Bucky finishes with the lightbulb and looks down at her. Seeming to make up her mind with a small nod, she says, “well, you’re in here every day anyway. Your search is over. If you want a job, you start Monday.” She walked over to the front window and tore the paper sign down, crumpling it up and tossing it in the garbage can behind the counter.

- He does start Monday. He gets there early and stands outside, waiting for Stella to open up. The dark sky slowly turns blue as he sits there. He’s got nothing better to do.

- Weeks pass and he falls into an easy rhythm of working there. It’s nice to have a little extra cash on him. The monthly payments from the Stark foundation stretch thin real fast. Stella trains him on all things records, where everything goes in the store, how to work the register, and maybe the most important: the basics of what to do about unplaceable feelings for a certain VA therapist.

- her advice can be summed up by her yelling at him during one super dead Tuesday shift. “Just call him back you idiot!! You’re never gonna deal with any of this until you just face him again.” She only gets a frustrated sigh from Bucky in response.

- “Kid, if you don’t call him I will”. She pins him with a look that says she’d really, really love to do that, if only to light a fire under his ass. Anything to get him to do SOMETHING. “I’ll call him after work, I promise”, Bucky says, an air of defeat in his voice.

- “you’ve been saying that for weeks, Barnes”, she calls from the back.

- He thinks of snapping back but reconsiders, fearful of her ruthless bitch slap. She’s only used it once, when he got overwhelmed during a Saturday rush and accidentally snapped a very expensive ABBA record in half.

- He’s gotten a lot better with handling the records. He spent an entire shift in the children’s listening section, surrounded by things that were already scratched to hell. When Stella first sat him down and showed him everything, he came up to an obstacle he didn’t expect in the slightest.

- “you’re gonna need to take off those gloves. They’ll scratch the records for sure. Handling this stuff is all about gentleness and dexterity.” He looked down at his hands, seeing no way of lying his way out of this one. Stella wouldn’t fall for ‘poor circulation’ anyways. She was staring at him, waiting. He pulled the right glove off. Then the left.

- He braced for screaming. Prepared mentally to be fired from the only job he’s ever liked. Instead, Stella just nodded and said “huh, well that would explain the ladder. I knew it felt too light.”

- She moved on, giving him clear instructions on how to hold the records so they wouldn’t get scratched. He wasn’t hearing any of it. She didn’t care. She didn’t even look surprised. He couldn’t believe it.

- He wore the gloves less and less at work. Any other employee that saw him either didn’t notice or didn’t care. They were all teenagers pretty checked out of what they were doing. It was just a shitty summer job to them. To him it was an escape from the hustle of mission and after mission. His life had always been so fast. Now it was slow enough for him to notice things. It was a little jarring.

- Customers that came in were very rarely freaked out too. The only person who really irked him was a middle aged man who kept asking about the Soldier. As soon as he recognized Bucky he knew this guy was gonna be one of the bad ones.

- “so what was it like,, Y’know being under the ice?” “Do the code words still work? Seventeen. No I guess they don’t, huh?” “I bet you could get a lot of girls if you showed off that arm more, hehe.” And finally, the last question he asked before buying his shit and leaving.

- “You know, my friends all say that the Winter Soldier would make a waaaay better Captain America than Sam Wilson. He’s so weak in comparison to you. Why didn’t you just take up the shield?”

- Bucky runs his card and hands it back to the man in a crumpled useless ball. His normally cheery work expression drops into a dangerous scowl. The malice in his voice doesn’t match the words. “Have a nice day”.

- The man leaves without another word.

- Stella lets him sit in the back until he’s calm enough to be back out in the shelves again. That’s the very rare occasion though. Most customers are pretty chill.