Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Coffee Shop AU

HP x MCU crossover

A/N: Just a taste of what's to come. Almost finished with the first chapter, more will be explained in that chapter.

Life Begins After Coffee

- Prologue -

The shift at Black Wolf's started like any other day. Harry spent quite a bit of time making the customers drinks while Bethany manned the cash register. During the times she could manage to slip away for a second or two, she would help Harry make drinks for the waiting customers. They worked mostly in silence, only really talking to each other by calling out orders or the names of the people whose drinks were ready. Harry found that even working like this, was better than cleaning the apartment for his aunt or cooking for his uncle, or picking up after his cousin.

Finally, the rush slowed and Harry and Bethany were able to breathe. While the coffee shop was not as popular as some, they still had their fair share of regular customers who would gladly trade the steep prices and even longer lines for some lesser-known shop, that sold better coffee- at least in their opinion. Harry had never really gotten into coffee, or tea, for that matter, so he couldn't say that the coffee here was better than the coffee there, only that some people swore by it.

"Harry, why don't you take the front for a minute while I make a phone call? I wanted to do it earlier, but that door has been a revolving door since we opened." Bethany said as she moved from the cash stand and towards her office in the back.

"Sure," Harry said relieved that the shop had cleared out a bit.

Now that the rush was over with, and clearing out, Harry was left standing idle or doing a bit of cleaning. It was getting late, but his Uncle had kicked him out of the house anyway after the dishes were done because he had some "important" work to do and couldn't think with him being in such close proximity. Harry had overtly rolled his eyes at that one.

His uncle probably wasn't concentrating anymore with him out of the house than he had when Harry was around.

Hearing a gentle clearing of a throat, Harry lurched from his thoughts. Blushing slightly at his inattentiveness, Harry hastily looked up and saw a well-muscled man standing in front of the counter looking at the menu with a slightly perplexed expression.

"Uh, what would you suggest?" The man asked glancing at Harry with blue eyes before allowing his eyes to stray back to the board. Harry glanced back at the menu to try to decipher what the man was looking at, but the man seemed to be looking at everything instead of just a particular item.

"Me? I dunno, I don't drink coffee, but a lot of people come in here asking for the Chai Lattes."
"Chai Lattes? Are they any good?"
"Yeah," Harry said maybe a little too quickly, before amending, "well I mean I guess they are. People seem to really like them. I could get Bethany, I mean Mrs. Wolf. She's the owner, and could probably tell you more about the kinds of coffee we have here. But I know that it's kind of more on the spiced and sweeter side as it has cinnamon, cloves, and ginger."
"No, that's okay kid,I'm sure you can help me just fine. I'm not big on flavored coffee myself, but a friend of mine sent me down here to get some coffee for him and told me to get something for myself too. Think I'll just stick with black for me, but he didn't tell me what kind to get him."

"Er, do you know what kind of coffee your friend likes?"

"I didn't think to ask. To be honest, I wasn't expecting there to be so many different kinds." The man said a bit sheepishly as if he was embarrassed to admit it.
"Don't worry, I didn't realize there were this many types of coffee either until I started working here," Harry said shaking his head. It had taken him some time to learn all the different types of coffee and the different combinations of cream, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, caramel, and milk that could go into each one. It was a lot and people had all sorts of demands that they expected him to nail every time. It could be rather stressful at times.

"I am not sure about the Chai Latte's though, I don't think I have ever heard him mention them, so maybe there's something else that you could recommend?"

"There's Mocha, it's not as spiced as Chai, and has more of a chocolate taste to it. I think of it as the coffee version of hot chocolate, but again that's just me."

"I'm not sure if he likes chocolate. I'm sorry, I am making this so difficult."

"It's not a problem sir. A lot of people come in not knowing what they want to drink."
"But I remember drinking hot chocolate, I think. That was pretty good."

"We also have regular cappuccinos, which a lot of people like. We can add a sort of flavors to them, but the most popular ones are French Vanilla, Peppermint and Pumpkin Spice, but we only have French Vanilla at the moment."
"Okay, well I think I'll get a French Vanilla cappuccino and a black coffee. Just black please, nothing in it."

"What size?"

"What?" Steve said looking down at the boy in confusion.
"What size of coffee and cappuccino do you want. We have a small, medium, large, and extra-large cup."

"Extra-large for the cappuccino and medium for the black coffee."

Harry rang the man up for his purchase before scurrying off to make the two cups of coffee.

Within minutes he had both ready and was handing them off to the man who had been waiting patiently for his cups of coffee.

The man smiled gratefully before thanking him and hurried back out of the cool confines of the coffee shop and into the hot summer evening.