Let Me Love You

Potential

Tony's POV

"Where is she?" I ask, thrashing around in my restraints. I notice my suit has been taken off and begin to worry.

"You've been out for quite a while; I'm sure they've rescued her by now. She's not really much of my concern at the moment." The dark-haired woman speaks.

"When I get out of here I'm going to-"

"Let's not say something we'll regret, Stark." She waves a finger at me.

"What did you do to her?" I ask through my gritted teeth.

"I'm sure you've heard of the Extremis Virus."

"Only theoretically, nobody's been able to actually-" I stop speaking when she picks up a syringe filled with an orange liquid. "No." I whisper.

"Yes." She smirks. "It was a hard process. It took multiple tries until we got the perfect culture for it, but Kate's been a great help. She took nearly 20 separate injections all in the name of science." She examines the syringe in her hand. "Although, any other person we tested on didn't make it past the second one. Which is why we're so invested in your dear little girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend." I spit, pushing the heartache away.

"Oh! Then I guess she won't mind if I-" She begins to walk toward me but is cut off when the door gets blasted in. The blast sends the syringe in the woman's hand flying, breaking against the wall. We both turn to find a fully combusted Kate in the doorway. "It's.. beautiful!" The woman smiles at the sight of Kate.

Kate's head turns toward the woman and she throws a blast of fire in her direction, sending her against the wall. Kate then turns to me and her skin fades to its normal color as she runs over to me.

"What did she do to you?" She asks, caressing my face in her hands.

"Nothing, you came just in time." I say, smiling at her. The rest of the team runs into the room and immediately remove the cuffs on my hands and ankles. Once I'm free, I wrap my arms around Kate.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Steve says.

"Not yet." Kate says, pulling away from me and striding over to the case of syringes. She grabs the last two remaining doses and smashes them on the ground before turning back to us. "Now we can go."

As we walk out of the building, Kate doesn't leave my side. She even sits next to me in the jet. This clearly bothers Steve but she doesn't seem to care. A while later we arrive at the tower and all go into the living room, realizing that the mess was still there but the bodies were gone.

"Oh yeah.. Sorry about all of this." Kate says, looking down.

"It's alright Kitten, you had to defend yourself."

Kate's POV

After cleaning up, we all sat down on the couch to unwind. Sam put some weird movie about blue people with tails on for us all to watch but I couldn't focus much.

"Tony?" I ask, turning my head toward him. "Can we talk?"

His head turns toward me, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. "Yeah, of course." He stands from the couch and we walk out of the living room and into the elevator to go up to our floor. "What's up buttercup?"

"Is it true?" I ask straight out of the gate and he gives me a confused look. "You saved me from then the first time all those years ago, right?" I ask, he slowly nods. "Did you keep me in the mansion and cut ties with me for all those months just to protect me?"

He eyes widen. "How did you-?"

"That's not important." I cut him off.

He sighs and looks down. "Yeah, it's true. I know it was a stupid idea but I didn't know how else to protect you. HYDRA was on your scent and I couldn't risk-"

I cut him off by pressing my lips to his and he slowly wraps his arms around me. "Thank you." I whisper, tears forming in my eyes.

The elevator dings and the doors open so I pull away from him as we step off.

"You should get some rest, Kitten." He says, stroking the back of my hair with his hand. I nod, giving him a small smile. He glances down at my lips and smiles at me.

"If you need me, you know where to find me." He says, kissing the top of my forehead before turning away and going to his room.

I sigh and turn the other way to go to my room. Once I'm there, I change out of my suit and into an oversized T-shirt that I'm pretty sure is Bucky's. I lay face down on my bed and sigh into my pillow as I think about everything that happened today.

Steve's POV

"You alright punk?" Bucky asks after Kate and Tony leave the room. "They're probably just talking about the mission."

"Yeah and after that they'll have makeup sex." I clench my jaw.

Bucky punches my arm in disapproval of my comment. "She looked exhausted, I bet you she's in her bed right now."

"Or she's in Tony's." I roll my eyes.

"Go talk to her." Bucky says sternly. I look at him, staying put, and he raises his eyebrows at me. "Fine. Maybe if she's not with Stark she'll settle for me." He smirks, standing up from the couch.

I immediately jump to my feet and push him back down on the couch, making him chuckle. I glare at him before walking to the elevator.