Let Me Love You

Discovering

Bucky's POV

"You should talk to her." I say, nudging Steve as the elevator doors open to our floor.

"Not tonight." He says, walking forward and going straight to his room.

I sigh and shake my head. I look down the hallway to my right and see the light escaping from underneath Kate's door. I look back down our hallway to see that Steve already retreated to his room. I take a deep breath and walk down the hallway before knocking on the door, which opens to reveal a puffy-eyed Kate in her pajamas with clothes half put away in the closet and drawers.

"Sorry, I'll keep it down." She sniffles.

"That's not why I'm here." I say, she furrows her eyebrows. "Can I come in?"

***

"So you're from HYDRA too?" She asks, I nod. "Is that where they.." She gestures toward my metal arm and I nod again. "I'm so sorry."

I've spent the past hour or so getting to know Kate and telling her about myself as she finished putting her things away.

"You've got nothing to be sorry about doll." I smile softly at her. "What do you say we both get some rest and tomorrow morning we start training?"

"Training?" She asks.

"Don't you want to know what HYDRA did to you? The only way to find out is to explore your abilities." I explain.

"Alright. But only me and you." She argues, I agree. "Goodnight Bucky." She smiles at me, giving me a hug before I leave her room and walk to my own.

If it wasn't for Steve crushing on her, I'd totally have her in the palm of my hand. Maybe he's not into her anymore. I smile at the possibility and open my bedroom door to find the man himself standing in my room with his arms crossed. Shit.

Steve's POV

"Where were you?" I ask as Bucky closes the door. "It's almost 3 in the morning."

"Why are you in my room?" He argues.

"I wanted to talk to you.. About Kate." I look down, dropping the tough guy act. "I feel terrible. I accused her of such a terrible thing and acted like a jerk towards her without even hearing her side."

"Don't be so hard on yourself bud, it caught all of us by surprise." He does his best to comfort me. "I was just talking to her." He admits and I look up at him. "She's hurting and confused. She doesn't really know what happened to her other than being injected with that stuff and beaten." He looks at me. "She needed you, pal. She needed you to tell her everything was going to be okay after hearing the news, but that's not how things went down."

I feel a sharp pain in my chest and stand up. "I need to talk to her."

Bucky stops me as I reach for the door knob. "She needs to rest. Try talking to her tomorrow."

I sigh and nod, knowing that he's right. I walk across the hall to my bedroom and eventually fall asleep after overthinking my situation.

Tony's POV

I wake up around 5 am to a knock on my door and groan, ignoring it in hopes that whoever it is will go away. Instead of another knock, the door creaks open and I turn to find Kate's standing behind the door.

"Kitten?" I sit up. She walks over to me after closing the door and I realize that she's crying. "What's wrong?" I ask, holding her close to my chest. "It's okay, it's alright."

I hold her for a while until she calms down and eventually falls asleep in my arms. I pull the blankets up to cover both of us as I hold her in my arms. Not too long after, I fall asleep as well.

I can't help but feel like things are finally falling into place. This is the way things should be, how they always should've been.

Kate's POV

I wake up the next morning with someone's arms wrapped around me. I turn my head to see Tony fast asleep and smile, remembering how comforting he was last night. I look at the time to see that it's almost 8 and carefully get out of bed.

I make my way to my room and change into workout clothes for training. Just as I finish putting my hair up, there's a knock on the door.

"Come in!" I call, tying my sneakers. I hear the door open and turn to find Steve standing there. I clench my jaw to stop myself from crying at the sight of him. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to apologize." He says, clearly hurt because of the way I greeted him.

I look up at him and quickly look away. "I promised Bucky I'd train with him today." I say, walking past him and towards Bucky's room.

"Really? I was actually about to-"

"Just with Bucky." I cut him off, not daring to look up at him.

"Hey doll." Bucky smiles as I bump into him in the hall. "I was just coming to get you." He notices Steve behind me. "Is everything alright?"

"Yup. Let's go." I say, grabbing Bucky's hand and pulling him into the elevator.

"What was that about?" Bucky asks once we're alone.

"He came to apologize, I didn't really feel like seeing him or listening to him." I shrug.

Bucky sighs. "He means well, shortcake."

"Shortcake? Is that my new nickname?" I ask, stifling a laugh.

"Yeah, came up with it myself." He smiles proudly. "Pretty good, right?"

"Whatever you say... boo bear." I laugh, making a nickname up for him on the spot. His cheeks turn red as the doors open on the training level.

We begin sparring, him obviously going easy on me, when he gently pins me on the mat for the 20th time.

"I don't think this is working." I groan, sitting up before he helps me to my feet.

"We'll take it day by day, doll." He smiles. "Let's go get something to eat."