Bucky slammed his fist into the punching bag in front of him, hoping that he could distract himself long enough to erase the hurt expression on Wanda's face out of his mind. He hadn't intended to cause her pain by mentioning her brother and if he'd known she would react that way, he wouldn't have said anything at all.

You really are an idiot, Bucky.

Making that poor girl cry filled him with a sense of shame and he'd almost thrown his bowl at the wall in frustration. Bucky went back to his room and stayed there until nine o'clock in the morning. He didn't get sleep after upsetting Wanda, which wasn't a problem since his body didn't require much sleep to function. The four hours he'd gotten earlier would do him just fine for the rest of the day. No one noticed him stealthily make his way to Wanda's room. He'd intended to apologize for the words he said the night before, but she wasn't there.

So he made a casual inquiry to Sam, learning that Wanda decided to join Steve for a walk. That filled him with a twinge of trepidation. Steve always went for runs; he wasn't the walking type, even when he was joined by someone else. Wanda was no doubt filling him in on what happened between herself and Bucky.

If he knew Steve, his friend would be coming to talk to him after his walk with Wanda. Everyone on the Avengers team knew that Steve and Wanda were close, kind of like siblings, but Wanda also looked up to him as a mentor. Bucky couldn't blame her because he looked up to his best friend as well.

Steve was a great man who inspired people to be the best they could be and he was the main reason Bucky hadn't gone crazy yet. Sam and Natasha were a part of that too and Bucky appreciated how they sometimes went out of their comfort zone to make him feel welcome. The one person he'd yet to figure out was Wanda.

She was an enigma. For the most part, she kept to herself and didn't talk a lot. She was better at making her feelings known through her facial expressions rather than verbalizing them. In a way, they were alike. He wasn't a fan of talking, at least, not like he was in the past. That was a different Bucky. The Bucky he'd become now was more quiet and unsure of himself.

To be honest, he suspected that was the reason he was drawn to the Maximoff girl. She was a quiet person and preferred spending time with a few people she was close to and shirked away from large gatherings and parties.

Bucky couldn't blame her for feeling like that. He hated big parties too, now. And he found it hard to trust people, although something told him that he'd have no trouble trusting Wanda. He could only hope she wouldn't still be mad at him for mentioning her brother last night.

"I'm not."

The accented feminine voice nearly escaped his notice, but it belonged to the woman he'd been thinking about for several hours so he knew who it was in a split second. He turned to face the brunette and relaxed his fists, letting them uncurl and hang by his sides.

He took in the light blush on Wanda's cheeks, suspecting that she felt embarrassed or ashamed for peeking into his thoughts. But he wasn't angry with her for that. If she hadn't scanned the surface of his mind, she would've read the emotion on his face and still known regardless. She was just that good.

"You're not just saying that to make me feel better, are you, doll?"

Wanda stepped closer. "You already know the answer to that."

True. She wasn't the kind of girl who lied to spare someone's feelings, but she didn't come out ready to attack either.

"Still. I shouldn't have said that about your brother, Wanda. I'm sorry. It was thoughtless and stupid and-"

"How long are you going to beat yourself up about that?" She tsked and put her hands on her hips, looking at the ground before meeting his eyes with her own. "Today is the anniversary of Pietro's death and I was feeling pretty vulnerable when you mentioned him. But...you were right. It's not the same without my brother here."

Bucky placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and let out a breath of relief when she reached up to cover his hand. There was a brilliant sparkle in her green orbs and he brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "You want to talk about it?"

Her brown orbs brightened some. "Over a bowl of cereal?"

"I'd like that."