— CHAPTER SIXTEEN

— AS THE FOLLOWING DAY ensued, Katherine continued to speak only to Bucky, keeping to herself and spending the majority of Sunday in the training room.

Naturally, this caught the attention of Tony, who had been expecting her in the lab after breakfast, because she always spent Sunday with him and Bruce in the lab. It was routine, and when she didn't show up, they Began to worry..

They both knew she had been acting oddly for the past couple of weeks but none of them bothered her about it, that is until Tony talked to Natasha.

"What's going on with Kat?" He asked, slapping his hands down on the kitchen table around lunch time.

Natasha stares up at him, pushing his greasy hands off of the report papers from their last mission. Nobody else had bothered to do the paperwork and Fury was getting on her ass about it.

"What do you mean?" The Russian asks, not bothering to point out that she was busy. "She's fine."

"It's Sunday." He states, as if that word alone should have been the most obvious clue to her. Natasha narrowed her eyes at him.

"She always comes to the lab on Sunday." He explains. "She didn't come to the lab today." He says, confused, worried. "She hasn't even spoken to me since yesterday, and honestly two words doesn't count as a conversation."

"She's a teenager, Tony." Natasha says, shrugging as if it were no big deal while she sifted through paper work. She had just finished Tony's and was starting on Wanda's, she would ask Vision for his once he and Wanda got back from the market. 'She also has better things to do than hang out with two grandpa's' she thinks, but doesn't speak.

"Yes, exactly!" The man says, throwing his hands in the air. "Teenagers hide shit from their parents! She's hiding something!"

Natasha rolls her eyes, starting on Sam's report. "We're not her parents."

Tony gives her a generally offended type of look, and folds his arms across his chest. "I gave her boyfriend the 'What are your intentions' speech," He says dramatically. "that qualifies me as her parent."

Natasha thought he was being a little overboard. "You can go talk to her then." She says. "Parents talk to their children when they think something is wrong."

"Okay, i will." Tony says, walking out with a huff. Natasha watched him with a smirk shaking her head.

"Way to kill two birds with one stone, Nat." She says to herself. She had known that Katherine was acting weird, and was going to talk to her about it eventually, only she kept putting it off, hoping she would get past it on her own.. Tony being Tony was taking care of it though, so she could put it out of her head for the moment.

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"I can't believe they didn't tell me!" Katherine grunts, throwing and landing a rough blow to his stomach, right between his abs.

The force of the blow knocked him back a few steps, mostly because he wasn't paying attention (and because he forgot how strong she is) to the actual sparring.

He had volunteered himself as a human punching bag, to help her get her frustration out.

At first he had really been trying, and the fight had been interesting, but then he had pinned her to the mat, his position putting his face close to hers.
He had lost focus then, as he stared into a her brown eyes, felt her breath fam across his lips, cooling the skin gently.

If he hadn't stopped himself, he would closed the few centimeters between them and kissed her.

He found it hard to focus after that. The sweat dripping off of her body made him think of steamy moments they could have in bed, the thoughts shamelessly running across his mind.

The sensual bouncing of her breasts every time she moved got him next, giving him flashbacks to his dream from the evening before. Which brought him back to the dress..

That damn dress is what did him in, he had imagined it on her again and he didn't see the next one coming, suddenly he was the one being pinned down.

He was on his back, landing harshly on the rough mat with a grunt, Katherine on top of him. The girl was throwing a flurry of punches, moving her hips as she threw her whole body into them.

Normally that wouldn't have been a problem, but she was sitting on a rather sensitive spot and the movement felt strangely like grinding. His wandering mind (and the glorious view of her breasts from beneath her) had put him in a delicate situation and the light, almost teasing movements were only making him worse.

He realized then that he was beginning to get an erection, instantly he put his hands on her hips (more sensual thoughts on his mind as he felt them move against him) and lifted her off of him, nearly throwing her off to the side as he sat up.

"What's wrong?" Katherine asks, looking up at the man with wide eyes. She hoped she hadn't hurt him.

"Nothing..pulled a muscle.." Bucky says, looking at anywhere but her as he tried to fix his basketball shorts.

"Should I go get Tony?" She asks, knowing that wasn't supposed to happen, she sat up a little too fast, causing his breathe to hitch as he realized she was closer than he thought.

"N-no." His voice went up a few octaves, and he stood to his feet awkwardly, holding his boxing glove clad hand near his crotch. "I'll just..take a cold shower..ice it out.." He says, standing tensely to his feet.

Before Katherine can say anything else, he's already half way across the room, and a second later she hears him smash the elevator button with his metal hand repeatedly. She watched as he shuffled onto the lift, his hand held in front of his shorts. She was confused, and considered following him but lays back on the mat instead, letting out a sigh.

She pulled off the boxing glove she had been wearing, undoing the velcro strap with her teeth, before removing the other one as well. After undoing the purple wrapping, she flexed her right hand.

The scabs from punching the wall were now gone (thanks to her enhanced healing, the one thing she was thankful for), and bruises were now the only evidence that she had hurt herself at all.

As she began undoing the wrap on her left hand, she thought back to the night she had done that. She had been angry that night, two weeks worth of oppressed fury had overflowed and she let it out the only way she could.

She had felt as if everyone was lying to her, like they had known all along and chose to let her keep floating in wonder about her past, and because of that she didn't want to talk to any of them.

Now that she had talked to Fury, she felt more hurt than anything. Hurt that they would keep this from her after knowing how she felt. She was hurt that Clint (who shared an almost similar childhood after losing his parents young) hadn't told her.

She was hurt, and in her eyes that worse, because when she was angry she knew she could talk to them..but now..she couldn't even find words to say to any of them. Hell, she could barely look at them.

After a while her stomach growls, and she decides it's time to go back up. She stands slowly, her muscles sore from the full out sparring match, and head for the elevator with her shoulders hunched.

As the doors closed, she felt as if she were leaving behind a simpler place, where she didn't have to think about anything other than the three count of punches she was throwing. "There's always tomorrow." She says quietly, leaning back against the wall.

Thankfully the common area was empty, although she faintly heard Natasha curse annoyedly in Russian from the kitchen, followed by a bunch of papers moving, as she walked towards the hallway for the bedrooms.

As she neared her door, she felt too worn out to shower and was going to throw herself on her bed for a nap instead. Only, as she shuffled through the doorway, she found Tony spread out on her bed, staring oddly at a poster Logan had plastered to the ceiling.

"Tony?" He must not have heard her come in, or maybe he was just shocked by how tired her voice sounded, because he jumped at the mention of his name and fell backwards off the bed. Normally she would have laughed at that, but she didn't feel like laughing..she didn't feel like doing anything other than sleeping.

"Hey, kid.." Tony says, clearing his throat as he stood up, fixing his dad sweater and straightening his jeans. "I..uh.." He stumbled through words, trying to figure out how to say what he was trying to get out. "I just..um.." He looks at her, sadness radiating off of her like a heatwave off a blacktop. The tired way her body sagged made him want to wrap her up and never let her go again. "Katherine, are you okay?"

The gel cocks her head at him, how could she answer this? 'I just found out you've been keeping my entire past a secret from me, so no, Tony, I am not okay.'

"You haven't been acting right lately," He says, shoving his hands in his pockets. He rocked backwards on his feet, tilting his head at her. She stared at him nearly blankly, and that scared him more than her fever did. "And I'm starting to get worried about you, we all are.."

Katherine gives him a small smile, which was more like a barely noticeable twitch of the lips, but does not meet his eyes. "I'm fine, Tony." She says. "I've just been really stressed with school, it's starting to take its toll on me."

"Oh.." He says, lips pursed as he furrowed his eyebrows. Something was off about her voice. "Are you sure?"

Katherine gives him a small nod. "Yeah.." She says. "I'm going to lay down though, sleep sounds lovely.."

Tony watched her fall into her unusually unmade bed and pulled her comforter over her shoulders, he patted the top of her head gently as her eyes closed and walked out of the room.

As the door closed behind him, Tony knew that she certainly was not fine and he was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Just as he was about to walk away, the door across from hers opened and Bucky walked out, he was shivering and wearing a hoodie.

The both of them stared for a moment, neither speaking until thy both began walking down the hallway.

"Cold?" Tony asks, staring sideways at him. "You could always turn the heat on.."

"C-cold shower." Bucky says, shivering still. He paled as Tony looked at him weird, coming up with a quick excuse. "Pulled a muscle.."

"Oh.." Bucky went a different direction than him as they walked into the commonn area. Tony stared after him for a moment, suddenly confused. "Wait, you can't pull muscles!" It was too late though, the elevator doors had already closed, taking Bucky away.

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hey y'all, this was originally going to be a lot longer, but I decided to put what I planned in the next chapter instead

sad Katherine hurts my heart