"Hey, Buck." I say. "Something you want to get off your chest?"

"Please get off of me." He asks.

"Of course." I quickly remove myself from his chest and sit next to him, knees pulled up to my chest. He slowly sits up, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Why are you here?"

"You were yelling and thrashing about." I say, shrugging like what I've done is commonplace. "I didn't want you to harm yourself."

"Oh." His eyes widen slightly. "Thank you. For waking me, I mean."

"It's no problem." I say, waving my hand in dismissal. "Pietro did the same for me when

first got here."

A silence falls between us. It soon becomes awkward and I feel an intense need to break it.

"So what were you dreaming about?" I ask. "You don't have to tell me if you feel uncomfortable with talking about it."

"No. It's okay." His tone is hushed. "I'm not really sure what I saw. It was mostly just flashes of memories and images. Everything was so violent and painful and I just..."

His hands move to pull tightly at his hair. His grip is so tight that the knuckles of his human hand are white. His eyes are wide and scared, and I can see tears forming. I can't help but sympathize.

"Bucky, hey, it's okay." I gently and carefully remove his hands from his scalp. "You're safe here."

"But you might not be. Any of you." He meets my gaze, his expression absolutely distraught. I've never seen anyone this terrified in my life, and that's what really scares me.

"Hey, don't worry about us." I take his hands in mine. "The Avengers can take care of themselves!"

His posture stiffens slightly at me grabbing his hands and I quickly release them.

"Sorry." I say. "Force of habit. The team gloms onto me a little bit because they like my extra body heat."

"It-it's okay."

"Do you think you'll be alright?"

"Yes." He answers softly.

I nod and go to leave, but he catched my by the wrist. When I look back at him his eyes are pleading.

"Would you stay with me?"

"Alright." I climb back onto the bed and stick my feet under the covers. Bucky lays back down, but he's still on edge.

When I lay down he quietly curls into my side. This man is nearly a foot taller than me and easily has a hundred pounds on me. He could easily take me out at any moment, yet here he is , curled into my side like a small child. This is a level of vulnerability that he most definitely wouldn't show anyone else in the tower. The intimacy is a little awkward for me, but this closeness is a sign or trust. I decide to steer into the metaphorical skid and push down my discomfort.

I turn onto my side, propping myself up with my right hand I smooth over Bucky's hair with my left He casually drapes his left arm over my side. Surprised, I look to his face to find his eyes closed. I don't think he's totally asleep, so I continue to smooth over his hair. Then I did something my mom would do for me and my siblings almost every night. I sing "The Teddy Bear Picnic".

"If you go out in the woods today, you better not go alone. It's lovely out in the woods today, but safer to stay at home. For every bear that ever there was is gathered there for certain because today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic." I sing softly. "Picnic time for little teddy bears. Those little teddy bears are having a heck of a time today. See them gaily gad about, they love to play and shout, they never have any care. At six o'clock their mommies and daddies will take them home to bed because they're tired little teddy bears."

As my voice trails off the following silence is met by Bucky's soft snores. I smile to myself because I did this. I helped calm the beast. I smiled because, quite frankly, I'm proud of myself.

I try to wriggle out from under his arm, but it's at least fifty pounds. There's no way I could lever it off without waking him at this point, so I give in and sink down onto the mattress.I'm about to nod off when I hear the door open. I look up to find Pietro poking his head into the room wearing a perplexed expression.

"Nightmare." I mouth.

He nods knowingly. I thought he would leave it at that, but he quietly pads over to the bed and climbs in. I shoot him a questioning look, but he just lays down, pressing his chest to my back and slipping his arm underneath my torso. I take his left hand in mine, tangle our fingers together, kiss the back of his hand and pull it to my chest consequently pulling him closer to me. I can feel his warm breath on the back of my neck. Soon the three of us, somehow all squished into my small bed, fall asleep.

Somewhere around 6:30 in the morning a sudden movement shakes the bed and is soon followed by a loud yelp. Slowly opening my eyes and rolling over I see Pietro flat on his back on the floor. On my other side I find an absolutely fuming Bucky.

"Why the fuck are you here!" Bucky nearly yells.

"Why did you punch me out of the BED?" Pietro yells back.

"WHY ARE WE YELLING." I barely manage to make myself heard over the two of them.

They both begin talking all at once about how the other has pissed them off, both of their voices getting louder and louder in their attempts to make themselves heard. It becomes so loud and frustrating to listen to that I lose some control over my powers and burst into flames, successfully burning holes in my blankets, sheets and mattress.

"Shut UP!" I yell. The flames engulfing my hands flare up at the change of volume in my voice.

Bucky scrambles out of the bed and away from me. I step off the bed towards a wide eyed Pietro. Thankfully my floor is concrete. I've already ruined enough of m y room.

"You knew I was fine after checking on me last night. There was absolutely no reason to climb into bed with me." I say, pointing a fiery finger at Pietro. He retreats until his back hits the wall and he can go no further. "Especially when there was a slumbering super soldier sharing the bed."

"I-I did not think-"

"Exactly!" I cry, throwing my hands around in exasperation. "You didn't think. I was in an extremely volatile situation and you just inserted yourself into the middle of it!"

"And you." I hiss, climbing back over the bed to confront Bucky, leaving behind a flaming duvet. "You need to learn to keep your anger under control. If you need to punch something, use a fucking punching bag and not a sleeping Avenger."

Bucky just nods, his eyes nearly as wide as Pietro's.

The smoke from the duvet fire finally reaches the smoke detector, setting off the fire alarm. The sprinklers soon follow, extinguishing my vestigial rage. The sound of pounding feet reach my door, which is flung open, revealing Steve, Tony and Sam.

"What happened here?" Steve demands.

"I lost control." I say. "These two started fighting and i couldn't handle it. Both of them are fine, but the bed isn't. Sorry to cause unnecessary alarm."

Steve, Tony and Sam just stand there looking from me to the bed, to the two idiots and then back again.

"I'm going to the gym." I grab a change of clothes to replace my singed one and push past the gathering crowd outside my door. Stepping into the elevator I run a hand through my soggy hair and sigh heavily.

I escape to the gym and change my clothes. I can't believe I lost control like that.That

hasn't happened in months. Even when I was with Hydra I had more control than I did just minutes ago.

I clip up a punching bag and start hammering away. I can't afford to lose control like that again. The situation wasn't even all that stressful. It was because of all of the clashing emotions slamming around in that room. I got frustrated and overwhelmed and I lost control. I can't afford to do that. If I lose control again I put everyone in the tower in danger.

I punch and kick, harder and faster, getting lost in the movements. For the second time in a week someone makes the mistake of placing their hand on my shoulder.

I immediately reach back, grab the mystery human by their hand and arm, and flip them over my shoulder onto their back. I scowl down at them, breathing heavily, only to find steely-blue eyes. Quickly realizing that I've just thrown Bucky to the floor, I release his arm from my grasp and back away from him, hands raised.

"I'm so sorry!" I exclaim. "I had no idea it was you, and you put your hand on my shoulder and and instinct took over. Oh man, are you okay?"

"How did you do that?" He whispers.

"What?"

"How did you do that?" He repeats, his voice marginally louder.

"Do what?" I step slightly closer to him.

"You took me down so easily. How?"

"Like I said yesterday. I was taken into Hydra. They pumped me full of shit, three quarters of which I couldn't identify. One time I came out of the haze and I was able to do all sorts of super soldier type stuff." I offer him a hand up and haul him to his feet. "Nothing anywhere near the things you and Steve are capable of, maybe half your strength, but it's enough."

"That's crazy."

"Well whatever it is I am is so I guess that fits." I snap my fingers, igniting a small flame, and flick them to extinguish it.

A silence falls between us and I continue to ignite and extinguish small flames like a living lighter. Bucky stands transfixed , staring intently at my small fires. After a while I can't take the quiet anymore.

"Why are you here, Bucky?" I ask shortly.

"Hm?" The curtness of my words snaps him out of his trans. "Oh, I wanted, well, needed to apologize for the way I acted earlier. I overreacted and the violence was unnecessary."

He looks down at his hands briefly and the back up at me. His face wears almost the same expression as last night when he had asked me to stay with him, now this time begging for forgiveness. It makes my heart break.

"I forgive you." I say softly. "I'm sorry for literally blowing up at you. I promise, I don't do that regularly."

"We provoked you. It was our faults." He says, like he's still apologizing.

"A little, but I let myself lose control." I wave my hand in dismissal. "Sorry if I scared you at all."

"Actually..." He trails off for a moment. "Actually I wasn't scared, mostly startled. I was attracted to your fire. Something about your powers feels familiar."

"Huh. Maybe our paths crossed in our times with Hydra." I muse quietly. "Afterall, there are still some things I don't remember from that space in time."

"I thought you hadn't been wiped."

"Hmm? No I was. A lot actually." I slowly lower myself down onto the floor and Bucky follows suit. The look in his eyes is urging me to continue. "I was really pretty young when they first wiped me. Because I was so young my brain was more resilient and my memory came back rather quickly. They had to, well they probably wanted to, wipe me a lot because I kept regaining my memory. It got to the point where they would wipe me after every mission. They did it make sure I couldn't form attachments or become an informant if something were to go wrong"

"(Y/N), I'm sorry." His voice is just above a whisper. "I had no idea. I didn't know."

"It's alright. No one knows. If we could keep it that way it'd be great."

"No one knows what, (Y/N)?" Pietro's voice floats through the door of the gym.

"No one knows just how much Captain America merch I've got hidden in my room." I respond, my face completely straight. I don't want to lie to him, but he doesn't need to know about my memory loss.

"Really? I did not think you would get more than the action figure, life size cardboard cut out and shield replica." Bucky snorts in amusement as Pietro lists off my nerd paraphernalia.

"Guess you've still got some things to learn about me, Maximoff." I haul myself off the floor, retrieve my singed and sodden clothes and head for the exit. Before I leave I turn and throw Pietro a wink. "Try to keep up."