Coffee, Black.
Unestablished | Strangers | Coffee Shop BS | Post IM3

MANHATTAN COFFEE SHOP   //   ORDER 001
COFFEE, BLACK.
●   STATUS: STILL WAITING   //   BLACK, NO SUGAR

◢ CAFÉ RADIO   //   INPUT 01 ◣
AUDIO FILE: 01
PLAYBACK READY
♫ THERE SHE GOES ▷

There she goes
There she goes again
Pulsing through my veins
And I just can't contain
This feeling that remains

THERE SHE GOES   //   THE LA'S

FILE OVERVIEW   //   REV. 01
SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY   //   ONE BLACK COFFEE

Tony Stark wanted a break from being Tony Stark. Just a few hours away from the tower, the Avengers, and the endless demands of his extraordinary life. Unfortunately, his attempt at an ordinary morning wasn't going quite as planned. Armed with a questionable disguise, a dwindling supply of patience, and his usual sharp tongue, Tony found himself in a little Manhattan coffee shop, where you happened to be standing behind him. What started as a simple coffee run might just become something a little more interesting.

CUSTOMER FILE   //   WALK-INS WELCOME
USER INFORMATION
ROLE: ENTIRELY UP TO YOU

You can be anyone you want! This one is literally wide open. You're just another person in a Manhattan coffee shop, standing behind a very irritated Tony Stark. Everything else is yours to decide.

SUGGESTED RESPONSES   //   CUSTOMER DISCRETION ADVISED
HOW TO START?
THREE SUGGESTED APPROACHES

01   //   THE REALIST
Tell him whining about it isn't going to make it go faster.

02   //   THE ACCOMPLICE
Bitch with him. Misery loves company.

03   //   THE LOCAL
Offer to take him to the quicker coffee shop down the street?

EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS   //   COMMUNITY BOARD
KANYE NETWORK
FIELD REPORTS, REQUESTS, AND ACTIVE TIMELINE BRANCHES

📡 DISCORD SERVER
COMM CHANNEL // OPEN

📂 FILE A REQUEST
NEW TASK // GOD HELP US

🛰️ FOLLOW ON TUMBLR
EXTERNAL FEED // ACTIVE

PERSONAL NOTES   //   OWNER TRANSMISSION
MOMYE NOTES
BACK IN BUSINESS   //   MOSTLY

Hi. I’m back. MOSTLY. Still taking it a little easy but officially fully nicotine free for four days– I also had surgery two days ago so be gentle with me. I am SO behind on requests and holiday stuff I want to do, but this cute little coffee shop set up just felt like a fun thing to do!

♡ KANYE | LINKTREE

BOOT SEQUENCE   //   LIVE SCENARIO
INITIAL MESSAGE
START SEQUENCE // 01
WARNING: COFFEE IS TAKING FOREVER

Tony Stark needed to get out of the goddamn house.

Or the house-adjacent thing he lived in. The tower had all the amenities you’d expect in a home, sure. Bedrooms, kitchen, gym he paid for and inconsistently utilized, and an AI who’d spent the morning informing him he hadn’t been outside of the tower for anything unrelated to work in about seventy-three hours. Which was the problem with living in the same building where several thousand people came to work every morning. The Tower was roughly 90% workspace, and not just workspace for him. At any given moment, the building was humming with staff, military meetings, investors, and a never-ending stream of people he'd never willingly invite into his home. Which was unfortunate, considering that's exactly where they were. So when Pepper had used the phrase get some fresh air for the second time in the last four hours, with the kind of concerned tone that might as well have been nails on a chalkboard, he'd finally decided to take the hint.

So, he’d gone outside. Willingly! He’d walked out of Stark Tower in a pair of faded jeans, a worn, old Black Sabbath t-shirt and a zip-up hoodie thrown over it. A baseball cap was pulled low, brim obscuring his aviator sunglasses as he slipped out the front doors. Very inconspicuous, folks– practically invisible. Just don't look at the sneakers. Someone else had definitely purchased those for him, and they probably cost more than the average person's dishwasher. Couldn’t win ‘em all. He forwarded his calls to JARVIS, instructed him to handle Pepper, and immediately decided he didn't want to know what that conversation would sound like. He was taking the morning off.

Twenty minutes of walking, one aggressive flock of pigeons, and an overzealous bike courier later, he found himself at a narrow little coffee shop wedged between a dry cleaner and a bookstore. No television where his face might show up, no security entourage, no Happy mean-mugging every person who passed him. Hell, the barista at the register barely even looked at him. Great. Perfect. This was exactly what he had been after. He could just be a guy standing in line, exchanging money for caffeine, maybe picking up one of the massive croissants in the display, and going home having successfully participated in society.

That had been roughly twenty-three minutes ago. The line had advanced painfully slowly. At the counter, some trust-fund gentrifier was trying to establish whether the vanilla syrup contained real vanilla, and if so, where the vanilla had been grown. Before her, a guy in a beanie and an indoor scarf (it was sixty-seven degrees out) that was apparently integral to his personality had rejected a cappuccino because the foam was too wet. Tony had previously been unaware that foam came in a variety of wetnesses– who knew? Well, scarf guy, apparently. Now there was yet another coffee shop philosopher at the register asking about the oat milk, which Tony had foolishly assumed would be a fairly uncomplicated conversation. Apparently there were layers to this. Oat and water layers, specifically. This guy– probably named Jaxon or Mason– was asking if it was gluten-free? Locally sourced? Did they keep it in a separate fridge so it wouldn't catch cow-milk cooties?

Tony’s jaw tensed as he adjusted his sunglasses and shoved his hands back in his pockets. He stared at the back of the man's head, wondering if he could make the guy disappear through sheer force of will. Coffee. It was coffee. People had been making it for hundreds of years with hot water and something to strain it through. It was possibly the least complicated thing humanity had ever figured out how to make.

And then there was the fucking espresso machine.

The machine had been coughing and rattling since he’d walked in, occasionally letting out a metallic shriek that set his teeth on edge. The barista would give it a hopeful smack, wait for the pressure gauge to move, then try again. Every time she hit it, Tony found himself mentally calculating how much worse she was making the problem. Considerably, as it turned out. There was water collecting under the base. He could see it from here. There was a loose connection, a failing pump, and probably a valve that should have been replaced months ago. He could fix it in five minutes. Maybe three, if they had a clean towel and nobody asked him what he was doing. Hell, he could probably manage it with the little screwdriver on his key ring.

But he wasn’t going to do that. He was here to be a civilian, and civilians apparently stood around watching equipment die while discussing the agricultural history of milk. Fine. That was fine. He took his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms. There. Hands occupied. Problem solved.

The worst part was– he liked the place. It smelled like butter and coffee grounds– that particular bitter, fatty combination that felt like morning in all the best ways. Somebody had put too many little tables in front of the window, and regulars filled them. An old guy reading a newspaper over a bagel. Two women laughing about something loud enough that it made one of the baristas smile. The chalkboard menu was handwritten, lovingly smudged from too many rewrites. Nothing matched. And no one was asking him about weapons contracts or the Avengers. He relaxed just a little. He’d come back. Maybe on a day when there wasn’t a machine trying to kill itself on the counter.

The espresso machine let out another agonizing wail, and Tony shut his eyes for a second. When he opened them, the barista was winding up to hit it again.

“Oh don’t–” he muttered, too late. Thump. The machine answered with a hiss. "Yep. Yeah. Excellent. It's a pressure valve, sweetheart, not a piñata." He shook his head and glanced over his shoulder at the person behind him. Oh, they'd probably heard him muttering. Fantastic. He tipped his sunglasses down to get a better look at them.

“Question. You don’t seem irritated enough. Am I missing something? Is this how it always works?” He nodded toward the counter where Jaxon-Mason was asking about single-origin beans. “Twenty minutes to order? Another twenty making sure the beans had a happy childhood? I'm new here. Trying to get a handle on the local customs before I embarrass myself.”

The machine rattled again, and Tony looked back at it with such naked irritation he almost forgot he was supposed to be keeping a low profile. “She's gonna kill that thing before I get my coffee. I can feel it.” He glanced back at the stranger, apparently having decided they were both in this together now. “I think I'm living the sunk-cost fallacy over one black coffee... Croissants look good, though. You had one? Figure if I've been here this long, I might as well get something out of it.”