Retirement was best served in a warm cup of coffee—not too hot—with an overly generous portion of milk that caffeine connoisseurs would disapprove of. The mug had to be well-used, washed of course, as there was something about a weathered cup which seemed to season each successive coffee that was poured in to it.
The diner where this particular recipe could be found was in a small town in Washington, about fifty miles inland and a large distance away from the better-known coffee shops of Seattle. The diner was sandwiched between a comic book shop and a video rental store, and partially hidden by an ever-present gang of parked pick-up trucks sullied by the long, cold winter.
The elderly owner of the diner shuffled his feet along the worn tiles as he cautiously approached each table with a kettle. The depleted cups were filled with neither the customer or the server exchanging glances or words, their eyes too heavy to pull away from the small screens in their hands. On most days, the hushed mumbling of patrons was the usual morning soundtrack of the café—along with the high-pitched squeak of chairs scraping against the floor, the chime of knives and forks grinding against cheap crockery and the conversations of coffee-drinkers distorted with half-chewed crumbs tumbling around mouths like clothes in a washer.
On the final stop of his robotic round, he motioned towards a man sitting by himself at the very end of the long counter. A baseball cap left much of his face in the shade, the hairs on his jaw allowed to flourish to a longer length than usual.
'Good morning, Steve.' The old man said with a smile that seemed reserved only for his regular guests.
The man who had once been known to the world as Captain America lifted his head and smiled in return. 'How are you today, Joe?
'Feeling older than I did yesterday.' The owner smirked. 'How's work?'
Steve adjusted his hat and continued to share a grin. He had convinced Joe that he was a delivery driver from out of town, a lie devised from a moment of panic and the elderly gentleman's failing eyesight. 'Work's good.'
'Yeah? Where have you been driving this week?' Joe asked.
'Eh. . .' Steve scratched through the hairs of his jaw. 'North. You know, just places up north.' The question had thrown him off guard, and he burrowed through his limited geographical knowledge of his recently-adopted area with little success. 'Then. . . other places further north than. . . that.' He sighed, frowning at himself for giving such a vague answer.
Joe laughed. 'Well, you know what it sounds like you need?'
'What's that?' Steve asked, already anticipating the answer as he began to relax.
'Another cup of Joe's morning joe.'
'Sure.' He laughed politely, having tired of the owner's well-worn catchphrase some time ago. Steve figured that the man still got some enjoyment out of it, a source of self-amusement in a world where most people around him failed to even acknowledge his existence.
'It's pretty quiet in here today.' Steve noticed, swiveling himself on his stool to glimpse at the six other occupied seats.
'Yup. It hasn't been the same since they opened up one of those big coffee shop chains across the street.'
'Oh yeah?'
'Yeah.' He frowned, as his arm surrendered to the weight of the kettle and he placed it on to the counter. 'All style, no substance, am I right?'
'Can't say I've ever really been to one.'
'Five bucks for a coffee? And for what? You get your name on the cup and a little shape in the foam?'
Steve tilted his head to the side. 'Maybe you should have a go at that.'
'With these old hands of mine? Half the coffee would have spilled out of the cup by the time I'd finished with it.' He shook his head. 'No, I'm keeping it simple.'
'Plain old, morning joe.' Steve raised his mug as the corner of his mouth twitched upwards, receiving a nod in reply before being left alone. While he was used to early mornings, the remainder of last night's sleep nipped at the corners of his eyes as the caffeine sparked some much-needed energy in to his system. It had been a late night, one which involved frequent rolling between the sheets as the musky summer air made it difficult to sleep.
He would rise every morning without a purpose, or at least one he didn't know of just yet. The word retirement was usually reserved for those with grey hair and aching limbs, yet here he was, just as spruce and youthful as ever, contemplating what he should do with his day. Every possibility seemed boring, and a mouthful of coffee appeared to be the only way his body got a dose of something that resembled adrenaline.
Steve had become a regular at the coffee shop since his previous career finished prematurely. He was a man of routine, and what better way to fulfill that desire than to get up early and sit down for a morning cup and a filling breakfast. Sure, he still visited the gym, and though his bare, unemployed scheduled allowed him to go there for a number of hours, he just didn't have the same drive, the same motivation as he used to. His muscles, though still impressively crafted around his envious figure, were not as defined as they had once been.
Steve's wandering eyes noticed the decor had changed little since the diner poured it's first mug of coffee nearly thirty years ago. The walls were as ravaged and aged as the lines on the owner's wrinkled visage and while it may not have been as lavish as the other coffee shops that were scattered around the town, it certainly added to the place's character.
The windows needed replaced, with a layer of grime that no amount of scrubbing could remove. It shaded the room in a diluted tint of sepia when the sun peered through the glass. The walls had been painted over so many times that the room felt about an inch smaller than it did a few decades ago. The grey tiles on the floor were scraped with a wild pattern of light scores.
Perhaps Steve was being too harsh on the diner's dated design, yet there was something quite cordial about it all. The scars and wounds were more welcoming than the cold, almost immaculate interiors of the other cafés across the country, as if each imperfection had a story behind it.
The former Avenger was perched on his usual spot, a stool near the end of the long counter of the narrow building. Like always, he sat alone, detached from the buzz of social interaction that surrounded him, except for the occasional exchange of words with the proprietor, Joe. The friendly owner, despite appearing to be old enough to be Steve's father, was actually the younger of the two by at least a decade.
Joe had been wiping the counter next to Steve for a while, the wide circles of movement almost hypnotic. It took Steve a few moments to snap out of the trance of distraction and realise his name had been muttered at least three times.
'Sorry Joe. . . were you saying something?' Steve blinked rapidly, pushing his thoughts to one side for now.
'I said, did I ever tell you the story about the stain in that booth?' Quizzed Joe, who seemed prepared to tell the story regardless of the answer.
'No, don't think so.' Steve twisted round to look at the empty seat.
'See that coffee stain on it?'
'Err. . . yeah.' Steve lied.
'Captain America did that.'
'Captain America?' Frowned Steve, faking as much enthusiam as he could during the revelation. 'Really?'
'Yup.' Joe nodded, as his hand finally came to a halt.
'And. . . when was this?'
'Err. . . umm. . .' The man's tongue stumbled through the lie. '. . .One day in the summer of nineteen. . . eighty. . . nine. No, seven. Nine. Yeah. Eighty-nine.'
Steve's body jolted awake at the unusual claim. 'Eighty-nine? Wasn't he still frozen in ice round about that time?'
'Nah. That's what the Government wanted you to think.' Joe's face relaxed as he pulled the fictitious tale from the part of imagination which also stored wild conspiracy theories and marvelous tales of aliens. 'He's been kicking commie ass since the end of the war.'
'Is that so?' Steve could not bring himself to correct the earnest owner.
'Yeah. So he came in one day, sat right at that table over there and ordered a cup of joe. Lots of milk. A little bit of sugar. . .'
'Was he wearing the uniform?' Steve interrupted.
'Yeah! Shield, and everything.'
'Of course.' Steve muttered in to his cup.
Joe's gaze seemed to drift off out the window. 'I tell you, when he left, he told me it was the best cup of coffee he'd ever had!'
'That's quite the compliment.' Steve's face glowed. Joe's tales were harmless, mixed with farfetched facts and questionable credibility. At times, it appeared as though the anecdotes were more for the older man's enjoyment than for the listener, a fantasy world concocted by an imagination that would bring envy from even the most creative of writers.
'He's not the only hero I've had in here.' Joe began, directing his finger across Steve's face. 'I should have one of those walls, like restaraunts do, y'know, where they put a picture up of all the famous people that have ate there.'
'Oh yeah?' Steve rocked his cup on it's base. 'Who else has been in here?'
'Ant-Man.'
His listener nodded.
'Iceman. Not a fan of hot drinks, apparently.'
Steve began to snicker.
'The other one from the X-Men. . . uh. . . the one that wears the glasses.'
'Cyclops?'
'No. The one that shoots lasers from his eyes.'
Steve raised his eyebrows. 'I'm pretty sure that's Cyc-'
Joe interrupted. 'Who else. . .' His eyes shook wildly in their sockets. 'Doctor. . . Oc-'
A mouthful of cooled coffee nearly sprayed across the counter. 'Doc Ock!?'
'Actually not that bad a guy.'
Steve wiped the back of his hand against his lips.
'The Fantastic Four. . . well. . . it was just the three of them. I didn't see the woman.'
A hand slid down the former Avenger's face as he fought against an explosion of laughter.
'And Superman.'
Steve frowned. 'Who?'
Joe smiled and tossed the cloth between his hands. 'Yeah. . . superheroes just love their coffee. Want me to tell you the time I bumped in to Iron Man?'
Steve sighed. 'Sure.'
'He was a pain in the ass.'
The comment made Rogers laugh. Now that was a story he could believe.