Assistant

Part 16

Nat watches you go into Bucky's room. She walks over to Steve's room and knocks on the door.

"Come in."

She opens the door and walks in closing it behind her. He's sitting on the bed looking at the floor, elbows on his knees.

"You ok?"

He looks up, surprised that she was the one coming in. "I...I will be."

"Want to talk about it?" She sits next to him nudging his shoulder.

"Is everyone else angry with me? I definitely did not handle that well."

She smiles, he's always worried about others before himself. "They're a little confused as to what happened. But no one's mad except Bucky. Clint and Sam are both annoyed that they were clueless but you know how those two are. And Tony says he just doesn't want to know."

Steve nods "Well, at least there's that."

Nat looks at him. "Steve, you've been mean to her, hard on her and distrustful of her since the first day she got here. So, I'm trying to understand why you're upset she chose Bucky."

"I'm...I...I was angry at myself for being attracted to someone I didn't think I could trust and I took it out on her. It feels shitty that she needed to sleep with me before she told me there was no chance for me. I... for some reason I thought I might have a chance, but now...I really think he'll be better for her."

"Wow. That was insightful. I didn't expect that."

He smiles at her. "I've been thinking about it since she walked out on me after....we... well, needless to say I realized pretty quickly that was the conversation coming."

"It doesn't make it any easier."

"No, but it's better than being blindsided I guess. I do think that given a little time, we'll good be friends."

"Good because we need both of you." She leans in and gives him a side hug. "Ya know, it probably won't help right now, but even though I love you both, I don't think you'd make a good couple."

Steve gave her a puzzled look. "Really?"

Nat shook her head. "You're both too nice and sweet. You each need someone who has a little bit of bad to even you out."

Steve smiled, "I can be bad."

She patted his cheek. "Sure you can." She got up and walked to the door. "Have a good night, Rogers."

He chuckled to himself, wondering if she realized by saying a little bit of bad described her perfectly.

**

The next morning is Saturday and without going to work you have too much down time. You promised Bucky you'd stay away and make yourself scarce. You're waiting to go to the kitchen until you know that Bucky would be in the training room. To kill time you're sitting in your room reading, when you're interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Both Nat and Wanda walk in. Nat plops down on the chair across from you. "Hey"

Wanda gives you a sympathetic smile, "How did it go?"

You sigh, "Steve accepted it. He said he felt used, which is totally understandable but he seemed ok. Bucky was not happy. If I read the situation right, he was most angry that I was the one to initiate everything with Steve. But he's so hard to read, so I... I don't know."

Nat raises her eyebrows. "Wow, so you told him everything. I'm proud of you."

"Well, I didn't go into graphic details but I was honest with him about how everything went down. I mean I'm not going to tell him about every kiss, touch and thrust, that would be weird."