This is the sequel to The Adventures of Bucky Bear, and if you haven't read that one than you might not completely understand what's going on in this story. I wrote this story mainly because I found that absoluletely adorable and hilarious picture up there that I'm using as my cover photo with Sebastian Stan choking a Captain Ameribear (there were people in the background of the original photo but I blacked them out), and since I already had a story idea for Steve having a Bucky Bear, I just HAD to continue that story idea with Bucky having a Stevie Bear :3

Meant to be Humor, again, but it got kind of angsty and Hurt/Comfort-y. Again.

Bromance, but could be Stucky if you want to squint.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of these characters, nor do I own the cover photo. And I don't even own a Bucky Bear or a Captain Ameribear, sadly.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy! ^.^

~ 1 ~

Steve had begged Bucky to stay. And since Bucky hadn't had anywhere else to go, stay he had.

They'd put the couch cushions on the floor ("Just like when we were kids," Steve had said) and had essentially had a sleepover in Steve's living room.

Except that Bucky hadn't slept.

He'd turned on his side facing away from Steve, whom he could feel watching him, and Bucky had purposefully slowed and evened out his breathing and pretended to be asleep even as he stared at the wall and analyzed every possible escape route out of the apartment, and after a while he heard Steve fall into a light, somewhat restless slumber.

And when Steve had unconsciously moved closer to Bucky and thrown a warm arm over him, Bucky hadn't moved. More out of confusion than anything.

Nobody should feel so safe around a coldblooded murderer.

And Bucky knew he was a murderer and was pretty sure he was coldblooded, as Steve's skin was warm, so very warm against his own, like the supersoldier was a living furnace and Bucky had been left out in the cold in the snow, only that he didn't feel cold.

But even with the couch cushions set on the floor, they were far, far too soft, and whenever he tried to close his eyes the shifting blackness was like the starless night sky and he was lying on the clouds, and any moment he would fall through and be sent plummeting down to the ground, screaming his throat raw and bloody.

Steve's warm breath against the back of Bucky's neck made him shiver. Panic was clawing its way through his chest cavity and up his throat, tasting of blood and electricity.

And so carefully lifting Steve's arm off of him, Bucky rolled silently onto the cold hardwood floor that was reassuring and solid beneath him and infinitely more comfortable. Taking a deep breath, Bucky lay on his back and stared up at the blank white ceiling.

His vision swam, and in the black everywhere there was pain-shade of red and disconnected flashes of images he didn't understand, each one like a strike of lightning in the dark, that vivid and that quickly gone that he forgot them before he could even begin to remember, words on the tip of his tongue and ghosts skirting the edges of his mind.

He began whispering to himself: "Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8."

Over and over. And over. And over. Trying to hold onto something.

The ceiling was dark. Slowly, slowly it got lighter—from light black to a dark violet to a chilly blue.

He was hardly even aware of what he was saying or that he was still saying it until Steve stirred, looking up from where he was lying on the couch cushions blearily with his hair tussled and sticking up, his expression pulling in concern as he saw Bucky lying on the floor and staring blankly at the ceiling while he kept reciting his name, rank, and serial number from World War II.

"Bucky?" Steve asked.

The brunette slowly turned his head to look at him, blue eyes glassy and empty, lips still mouthing the words.

"Bucky?" Steve said again, alarmed, as he pushed himself up to his elbows. He had Bucky Bear tucked under one arm.

Dark blue eyes blinked. And then suddenly Bucky shot up into a sitting position, forehead pressed against his knees, metal and flesh fingers tangling in his dark brown hair. He whimpered, high and keening.

And suddenly Steve was there next to him and had put a hand on his shoulder, saying, "Bucky, it's okay, you aren't with Hydra. You're here with me, with Steve Rogers—"

But he was abruptly cut off by a metal fist to the face.

Bucky was hyperventilating, teeth bared and growling like an animal as he leapt to his feet and ran, jumping out the apartment window to the shattering of glass.

There was a mailman standing there on the sidewalk, who had just been carrying a bag of mail up to the apartment complex, but when he saw the feral soldier jump out the third story window and land on his feet, the mailman gave a yelp of fear ("AAAAAAGGGHHH!") and dropped the bag of mail, running to his mailtruck and hopping in, gunning the gas and speeding away down the street.

"BUCKY!" Steve yelled desperately, getting up and leaping out the broken window after him.

Hearing the name, Bucky turned his head to look back at Steve coming after him, and as he did so he failed to look where he was going and tripped over the bag of mail, rolling on impact with the ground and ending up on one knee about to spring back into a sprint.

"BUCKY STOP!"

Bucky made to get back up, but at Steve's voice he crumpled, curling into a ball and staying there, trembling violently.

Steve approached him cautiously. "Bucky?" he said, kneeling down next to the broken man and gently placing a hand on his back.

Bucky. That was him. His name. He knew it was. And he knew that the man—Steve—kept repeating it so that he wouldn't forget.

"Bucky, what's going on?" Steve said.

That name again. His name.

"Forgot," came Buck's mumbled reply. "Forgot forgot forgot..."

Steve kept rubbing his back.

Eventually, Bucky stopped trembling, and he sat up, looking at Steve with haunted, hardened eyes.

"I'm fine," Bucky said tonelessly, shrugging off Steve's hand and getting to his feet. "I'm okay."

Steve stood up too, and just looked at him dubiously for a moment.

"And you said I was a bad liar," Steve remarked.

Bucky's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "I'm fine," he insisted.

"Right," Steve humored him for a moment. He looked around at the mail that was scattered everywhere from the bag Bucky had tripped on, white letters and brown boxes on the gray pavement. "Well, help me carry all this inside, and then we'll get some breakfast, okay?"

Bucky nodded mutely, and the two of them began picking up the pieces of mail, and when they went inside Steve made them deliver all of the mail to their rightful receivers.

Finally, there was just one box left.

"Bucky, who's that for?" Steve asked.

The brunette just stared at the label, chewing on his lip. His long brown hair had come out of his ponytail and now fell into his face, obscuring his features, features too young to be carrying such a world-darkened expression.

"It says it's for Bucky Barnes," Bucky mumbled.

Steve raised his eyebrows. "Where's it from?"

"It says New York."

"Then it's probably from Stark."

"Stark?" Bucky said, looking up from under furrowed brows. "Howard Stark?"

Steve tried to hide the fact that his breath hitched slightly. "No," he answered slowly, "Tony Stark, actually. Howard's son. Howard Stark is dead."

This didn't seem to phase Bucky. "Everyone is dead."

Frowning, Steve fumbled for the key in his pocket as they came up to his door. "What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"Why would this Tony Stark send me anything?" Bucky inquired instead of answering.

Steve shrugged, opening the door and and stepping inside his apartment, waving for Bucky to come on in. Bucky did, and Steve shut the door behind him.

"Tony does stuff like that. He's even crazier and more unpredictable than his father was," Steve supplied, when Bucky still just looked confused, his lips getting that pouty look they always got when Bucky was making a serious-face.

"It's safe to open," Steve told him. He nodded to the drawer of a desk in the corner, saying, "The scissors are in there, if you want to open it. I'm going to make breakfast. You still like toast and scrambled eggs, right?"

Steve tried for a smile, but it faltered slightly when Bucky made no response.

While Steve went into the kitchen, Bucky sat down on the coffee table and just stared at the box in his lap for a moment. Then instead of getting the scissors, he simply dug in the metal fingers of his left hand and ripped the cardboard flaps completely off.

"Bucky?" came Steve's concerned voice from the kitchen when he heard the sound.

"Bionic arm," Bucky answered.

He stared at the contents of the box.

There was a card with a couple tabby kittens on it. Opening the card, Bucky read:

Hey Frosty, I heard that you liked Capsicle's Bucky Bear, and I figured you could use a little buddy of your own. You can call him your sidekick. I'm sure Cap would get a kick out of that.

Behold, Captain Ameribear!

Billionaire genius playboy philanthropist, Tony Awesome Stark.

Curious, Bucky reached into the blue tissue paper and pulled out a teddy bear; a soft, creamy white teddy bear wearing a blue Captain America outfit and a Captain America helmet, with a cloth shield on its right arm.

Buck just stared at it for a moment.

And then he tore up the card and threw it in the trash.

"You're right Steve, your friend is crazy," he said.

"How so?" Steve asked, as he walked into the room carrying two plates with generous servings of toast and scrambled eggs, setting them on the coffee table.

Captain Ameribear had been hidden behind Bucky's back, and in the brief moment Steve looked down at the plates as he was setting them on the table, Bucky stuffed the teddy bear under the couch.

"Because he gave me an empty box," Bucky said, showing Steve the cardboard box filled with nothing but blue tissue paper.

Steve, sitting down next to him, frowned at the box, rifling through it. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Positive."

"That's not like him," Steve said.

Bucky raised one eyebrow, an expression that made Steve grin.

"It isn't?" Bucky asked innocently. "I thought you said he was crazier than Howard. And Howard gave you an empty box and told you it was for the Red Skull's head."

"That was an April Fools Day joke!"

Bucky's grin was smug, mischievous. "You thought he was serious."

"For only a minute," Steve protested indignantly, before reality clicked in and his eyes brightened. "You remember?"

There was so much hope in his voice that Bucky felt sick.

"Not much," Bucky answered, and Steve's face fell slightly; Bucky definitely felt sick.

"Still," Steve said, brightening again, "You are remembering!"

"I guess," Bucky murmured, eyes glancing down and spotting the plate of hot breakfast. His stomach made a noise, and in surprise he looked down at himself in confusion.

Steve laughed. "That means you're hungry, Bucky," he said, punching his friend lightly in the metal shoulder. "Come on, let's eat."

Reaching for his plate, Steve started stretching out his long legs, extending them past the coffee table and towards the couch where Captain Ameribear was hiding—

Bucky quickly extended his legs faster, parallel to the couch, effectively blocking Steve from fully extending his own.

Steve glared at him, but Bucky just grinned, and Steve shook his head, chuckling, pulling his legs in to sit crosslegged instead as he took a bite of his toast.

When Bucky didn't touch his food, Steve frowned in concern. Swallowing before he spoke, he said, "Bucky, is there something wrong?"

"Feel sick," Bucky mumbled. The aroma of the eggs and buttered toast was too strong—nauseating.

Steve stared at him for a moment. "When was the last time you ate?" he asked.

Bucky shook his head.

"You don't remember?"

Bucky shook his head again. "No," he said. "No."

"How have you survived the past weeks, then?" Steve inquired, frowning further and furrowing his brows.

Hesitating for a moment, Bucky pulled something out of his jacket pocket, setting it on the table.

It was a syringe.

"Nutrient injection," Bucky supplied, as Steve picked it up and examined it. "From Hydra. For my missions, whenever I would start to feel weak."

Looking up from the syringe, Steve stared at him with an expression of sadness that for some reason made Bucky's gut wrench.

"So you haven't eaten since 1945?" he asked, something in his voice quavering, something in his blue eyes breaking.

Blinking, Bucky answered, "I don't know. I don't remember." His brow creased. "I think... sometimes, there was a tasteless formula they would make me eat. But not usually."

He took the syringe from Steve's hands and pocketed it again.

"But you drink water right?" Steve asked.

A pause, then a nod.

"And you experience bowel and bladder movements?"

Bucky snorted, lips quirking at the way Steve had phrased that question. "No, Steve," Bucky said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. "I'm not that human."

Steve's lips twitched. "Okay, well," he said, "Let's just take this slow, okay? Just take a couple bites. You're going to have to get used to eating again, but we don't want you getting sick."

No response from the former Winter Soldier.

"Just a couple bites," Steve coaxed.

Bucky stared at him for a moment, face unreadable, before he picked up a piece of toast, sniffing it cautiously, before taking a small bite.

If he'd thought the smell was overwhelming, the flavor of it was an atomic bomb in his mouth. His blue eyes widened. He tried a bite of eggs.

"Do you like it?" Steve asked.

The flavors of the eggs and toast reminded him inexplicably of sunlight, of mornings in a small apartment kitchen, of carrying plates to the table and hitting a skinny blond boy with a piece of toast when he said something teasing, the words of which he couldn't recall.

That same voice, in the present: "Well?"

Bucky pushed the plate away. "I feel sick," he said.

But Steve's expression made him feel even worse.

"I'm going to get some fresh air," he said, getting to his feet, even as he realized that without his leg in the way Steve would be able to see Captain Ameribear.

So as was getting up, Bucky slipped, one of his legs sliding partly under the couch and kicking the teddy bear out the other side.

"Bucky, are you alright?!" Steve asked in alarm, suddenly standing next to him and helping him to his feet.

"Yeah," Bucky said, pushing Steve away from himself and then, widening his eyes as he looked behind Steve, he abruptly dove over the back of the couch and rolled (picking up Captain Ameribear as he did so), dashing out onto the balcony.

When Steve looked behind him to see what Bucky had gotten scared by, all he saw was a mirror on the wall, his own baffled face looking back at him.

Outside, Bucky hung his head and clutched the teddy bear to his chest.

"That was a close call," he murmured, almost completely silent. "We're going to need to find somewhere safe to hide you, Stevie Bear."

~ 2 ~

When Steve came out onto the balcony, Bucky stuffed the bear into his jacket.

When Steve put an arm around him and ruffled his shoulder-length hair, Bucky let the bear drop from the balcony into the ornamental vegetation below, then told Steve that he was a punk so that he would be too busy laughing and calling Bucky a jerk to hear the bear land.

When Steve suggested Bucky go inside and take a shower, Bucky complied, closing the bathroom door, turning on the water and then exiting through the window and dropping to the ground.

He retrieved Bucky Bear from the bushes, stuffed him back into his jacket, and walked away.

He was a few blocks away from Steve's apartment and heading towards the place he'd been staying for the past couple weeks, when he felt someone's eyes on him.

Turning, he saw a black man with dark sunglasses approach him. Bucky noted that the man carried assorted concealed arms on his person: a couple guns, a knife, a few other odd gadgets.

The man's face was familiar, even without the eyepatch.

Bucky ceased walking and narrowed his eyes as the man stopped before him.

"Soldier," the man greeted.

"I killed you," Bucky answered—confused, unsure.

"You shot me," the man corrected. He held out a hand. "The name's Nick Fury."

Bucky eyed Fury's hand for a moment, but the man's body language wasn't threatening and he hadn't so much as a twitched a muscle towards reaching for one of his concealed weapons, so Bucky shook his hand with his right; his left was tucked away in a pocket, the arm keeping Captain Ameribear pinned tightly against him.

"James Barnes," Bucky replied, meeting the man's gaze unflinchingly. "But you can call me Bucky."

Fury raised his eyebrows. "Steve found you, I see."

"You heard," Bucky corrected, tilting his head slightly. "You knew."

"Does Steve know you're out here?" Fury asked, putting his hands casually in his jacket pockets and leaning back against the brick wall of the building next to them.

Buck's gaze flit to the man's hands, the right one of which had settled around a cellphone.

"No," Bucky said, looking back up at the man's face.

"You do know that he's gonna flip when he finds out you're gone, right? He gets stupid when it concerns you."

"Then maybe you shouldn't tell him," Bucky answered.

In his pocket, Fury's hand unclenched from around the cellphone, and he scrutinized Bucky for a moment.

Bucky cut right to the chase. "What do you want?" he asked pointedly. "Steve's not working for you anymore."

"No, he isn't," Fury agreed, reaching into the front pocket of his jeans and pulling out a business card with an email and a phone number, holding it out. "But if you ever want work, just give me a call."

Bucky took the card with his right hand, glancing at it. "As an assassin?" he asked, looking up with his chilling gaze.

Cars rushed by, loud, but no other pedestrians were out, and the two men had resumed walking as to not appear conspicuous.

Bucky made sure that Fury stayed on his right side, next to the street, and away from the teddy bear he was still holding under his left arm.

"If need be," Fury said casually. "But not explicitly. Espionage, data recovery, attack missions, saving the world. That sort of thing. You have talent, soldier, talent that can help make the world a safer place."

"Yeah," Bucky said, his voice cold and distant even in his own ears, "That's what They always told me, too."

"Look," Fury started, "This is different than—"

But Bucky cut him off.

"I've shaped the century," Bucky said, voice quiet. "And you want me to do it again."

"Listen, I know you're lost, but I can help give you direction—"

They'd come up to an alley, and Bucky abruptly dropped Captain Ameribear with his left hand and caught it behind him with his right while he simultaneously grabbed Fury around the throat with his metal arm and, dragging him into the alley, slammed him against the wall, grip tightening.

Bucky's eyes as he stared at the man were more black than blue, and his expression was washed of all human emotion.

Fury gasped, struggling to breath. "—I can help you get back at Hydra," he choked out, "Everyone who has ever hurt you—"

Bucky let him drop, and while Fury sat there against the wall, trying to regain his breath, Bucky backed up, staring down at his metal hand with something between fear and horror and contemplation.

His gaze moved back to the black man staggering to his feet, and, gaze hardening again, Bucky crumpled the business card up in his left hand and shoved it back against Fury, snarling, "I don't need your help."

As he turned his back on the former Shield director, Bucky brought his right hand that was holding Captain Ameribear up to his chest, then crossing his left arm over and hugging the bear.

His fingers itched to whip out one of his guns and shoot the man in the head; he hugged the bear harder, thinking of Steve's trusting, caring expression, of Steve telling him, "You're a good man, Buck. You can get past this."

To Fury it just looked like he was hugging himself.

"The only reason you're still alive is because of Steve," Bucky said coldly. His body was shaking, but his voice wasn't.

Then he ran down the alley and didn't look back.

~ 3 ~

By the time he was several blocks away, Bucky had forgotten all about his mission to hide Captain Ameribear somewhere.

He was in a park when he finally stopped running and glanced down at the watch around his right wrist, realizing that he'd been gone from Steve's apartment for twenty minutes.

He's been pretending to take a shower for twenty minutes. Soon, he knew, Steve would get worried and check on him.

So Bucky turned around and started heading back towards Steve's apartment.

That was when he felt it—the presences, following him, targeting him.

He could feel where the cross-hairs were lined up on his figure—not to kill, just to incapacitate, so they could bring him in. Hydra.

Before the triggers were pulled, Bucky whirled around, pulling out a gun in each hand and aiming at his attackers, knowing that they wouldn't want to start a gun fight. Gun fights were loud. They brought attention. Hydra did not want attention.

Bucky accidentally dropped Stevie Bear.

A moment later, and he was surrounded. Though they kept their eyes on him, they agents couldn't help but notice the teddy bear at his feet.

"Бросьте оружие! Это приказ!" One of them shouted. Drop your weapons! That's an order!

Bucky looked down, his voice a whisper. "Да, сэр." Yes sir.

Bucky put awaythe guns he was holding, and the agents relaxed slightly and a couple came forwards, one of them picking up Captain Ameribear.

"Что это?" the man asked. What's this?

Bucky's eyes flashed. "That's Stevie Bear," he answered in English as he lashed out with a knife.

"He's a secret. So now I will have to kill you."

And as chaos exploded like a grenade, the Winter Soldier was in his element; a force of nature, a well-oiled weapon, a killing machine. He kicked in faces, broke necks, slashed jugulars, stabbed brains through the eye sockets.

Over two dozen Hydra agents, dead within five minutes.

Bucky stood there amid the carnage for a moment, covered in blood that was not his own and having not even broken a sweat.

"Damn it. I liked this outfit."

Making sure to wipe his metal hand on his pants first, Bucky picked up the Captain Ameribear from the ground where he fortunately had remained undamaged and unbloodied, and after sticking the bear high up in a tree where it wouldn't be seen and Bucky could retrieve him later, Bucky started jogging back towards Steve's apartment by way of all the shadowed alleys where the dark red glistening on his black outfit wouldn't show.

He pulled out his own phone as he ran, plugging in a number he'd caught only a glimpse of.

"Fury," he said, when the other man picked up after the first ring. "There's a mess in the park. You might want to get it cleaned up."

And then Bucky hung up before Fury could so much as speak a word.

When Bucky made it back in through the window to the bathroom, he stepped into the hot shower in his clothes, grabbing a bar of soap and beginning to wash the blood out.

Glancing at his watch, he realized he had supposedly been in here for half an hour.

He must have really liked long showers, if Steve hadn't checked up on him yet.

Apparently he was right, because Steve didn't check in on him until fifteen minutes later, when the water was beginning to turn cold.

"Bucky, are you alright?" came Steve's voice. "I know you've always liked long showers, but you've been in there for forty-five minutes now."

No answer.

"Bucky?" Steve asked again. When he again didn't receive an answer, he opened the unlocked door and came in, seeing Buck sitting there in the tub with the water falling on him like rain, still with his clothes on, his knees pulled him to his chest, his eyes blank and sightless as he stared straight ahead.

"Oh Bucky," Steve said, as he walked over and turned off the water. "You do know that you're supposed to take your clothes off when you take a shower, right?"

He helped Bucky to his feet, saying, "Now let's get you toweled off and in some dry clothes, okay?"

"I don't want to go back," Bucky said in a dead voice, as Steve handed him a towel.

"Go back where?" Steve asked. He grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants from his closet and handed them to Bucky. "Here, put these on."

"Hydra," Bucky said, as he changed clothes mechanically. "They're still out there. Looking for me. They lost a valuable weapon, and they want it back."

"I won't let them get you, Buck," Steve said with conviction, and his tone dropped an octave, blue eyes flashing. "I promise."

Bucky was in dry clothes, but his hair was still dripping, so Steve grabbed the towel began to dry his friend's hair by throwing the towel over Bucky's head and ruffling it energetically over his hair.

"Steve!" Bucky yelped, batting him away. "You're going to get my hair all tangled!"

"It needs to be cut, anyways," Steve supplied with a grin as he stood back and threw the towel at Bucky's face.

Bucky caught it, glaring, his brown hair now feathery and sticking out all over the place.

"No cutting," he said severely. "Not yet."

Steve held up his hands. "Okay, we won't cut your hair. You should at least brush it though. It looks like a bird's nest."

"Oh, and whose fault is that?"

"Not mine?" Steve tried, grinning lopsidedly.

Bucky threw the towel at him. "You're a punk," he said, as Steve caught the towel.

Steve just chuckled at him. "Jerk."

Biting his lip, Bucky glanced down. "I don't remember when we started that," he admitted ashamedly.

"Honestly?" Steve said with a small smile, "Neither do I. It's one of those things that just kind of... happened, you know?"

Bucky was silent for a moment, staring at his clasped hands—one metal, one flesh, with the metal one feeling no colder.

"Steve?" he asked, looking up through his sticking-everywhere hair.

"Yeah?" Steve said expectantly.

"Where's the hairbrush?"

~ 4 ~

Bucky had Good Days, Bucky had Cold Days, and Bucky had Bad Days.

On his Good Days, though he always carried a constant darkness behind his eyes, he was eerily like his old charming self, cracking jokes, teasing Steve, walking with a confident swagger and grinning so bright it lit up the room like a disco ball.

On Cold Days, Bucky was stiff and distant and calculating, prone to violence and quick to anger, striking out like a rattlesnake, but he was lucid.

On his Bad Days, Bucky was a hysterical mess and half the time didn't know who he was or where he was or what was going on. He would cry, sometimes. And Bucky had never been one to cry. Ever.

But Steve had gotten used to this and was now what one might call an Expert on Dealing with Bucky on Any Given Day.

But Steve had other responsibilities, and sometimes he would have to leave on missions with the Avengers.

When this happened, it was Sam's job to watch out for Bucky.

And this day, he'd realized very quickly, was one of Bucky's Bad Days.

"Why can't I come with you?" Bucky had asked, angry and confused, when Steve had been getting ready to leave that morning. "I can help you."

"You're still too volatile," Steve explained, wincing slightly, genuinely apologetic. "And this mission is probably going to end up getting press coverage, as it's going to be fought out in the open."

So Bucky watched him leave, face forlorn and lips getting that distinct pouting look that they get.

Steve had realized it was going to be a bad day, for as he hurried out the door (albeit reluctantly), the advice he gave Sam was: "If things look like they're going to get really bad, make him some hot chocolate. It usually calms him down a little bit, gives him something in the present to focus on. If you lose him, remind him where he is and who he is and who you are and let him know he's safe."

And then Steve was gone and Sam sat down next to the man on the couch, who was staring at the door and shaking.

"He'll be alright," Sam told him, voice soft but certain. "He's a tough guy."

Bucky shivered. "That's what they always said, the doctors at the hospital."

"And were they right?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, looking down, his still-too-long-hair-according-to-Steve curtaining his face. "He always pulled through. But then he would always get sick again. And he would be stuck in the hospital because he couldn't breathe and was coughing up blood again."

"So you know that he'll come back, and that he'll be alright," Sam said, softly, reassuringly.

"That's not the problem," Bucky murmured. His fingers threaded through his hair, tugging.

"What's the problem?"

Bucky shook his head, clenching his eyes shut. When he spoke his words were hardly more than a breath.

"He's my anchor."

Shaking, Bucky whimpered, "I'm not always like this... the walls crack, and I can't stop the memories flooding out and sweeping me away, and it's always the Winter Soldier ones that are most vivid, because I was trained to notice and remember every detail, and the memories never had time to fade before they were locked away... and the memories of Bucky, of before the war, those are warmer but they're blurred at the edges, soft... and the other memories are so, so sharp... my head hurts..."

"Hey, you're going to be okay," Sam said, putting a hand on Bucky's left shoulder, feeling how cold the man's skin was, so different from Steve who was always so warm. "Would you like some hot chocolate?" Sam offered.

Bucky didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, so Sam took it as a yes and went to the kitchen to start heating up the milk.

The pounding behind Bucky's eyes got stronger, making him wince and clench his eyes closed. He put his face in his hands, murmuring to himself, "No, no no no no no no no no no no..."

He collapsed, curling up on the couch, trying to keep from whimpering. Tears were streaming down his face.

"Steve...?"

But Steve wasn't there.

So reaching a trembling hand behind one of the couch cushions, Bucky pulled out his Captain America bear and hugged it tightly. Stevie Bear's fur was soft, so soft, and he didn't complain because he had no air to be choked out of him and no bones to be broken.

"I'm sorry," Bucky whispered, to nobody in particular, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry..."

If Steve had been there, he would have rubbed Buck's back and told him, "It wasn't your fault, Buck. You didn't murder those people. Your body might have, but it wasn't your mind, it wasn't you. You were being used as a weapon. When someone is shot, is it the fault of the gun or of the man who pulled the trigger and aimed it?"

Or if he was stuck in the memories of the experiments, the shock treatments, the punishments, Steve would hug him close and whisper, "It's okay, Buck. You're safe now. You're with me. I won't ever let them hurt you again."

But Steve wasn't there. So Bucky hugged his Stevie Bear and tried to hear Steve's voice in his head.

But all he heard was: "Grab my hand!"

And all he felt was falling.

When Sam came back into the room, he found Bucky curled up in a ball on the couch and shivering, trembling like the last autumn leaf hanging on a branch about to be blown away.

"Whoa, man, it's okay," Sam said, setting down a couple mugs of hot chocolate and sitting next to Bucky and rubbing his back like he'd seen Steve do numerous times. "Just relax. Deep breaths."

But when Bucky bolted upright and opened his eyes several minutes later, they were wild, darting around his surroundings uncomprehendingly.

"It's okay, you're safe," Same reassured him.

Bucky's void eyes snapped to Sam's face, and Sam realized with a start that he did not recognize the man behind them.

"I'm Sam, Sam Wilson," Sam continued. "I'm a friend of Steve Rogers. We're in Steve's house right now. Your name is Bucky Barnes."

Bucky blinked, blue eyes lightening. "...Steve?" he whispered.

"Steve's not here right now," Sam explained, "But he'll be back soon."

And that was when Bucky realized that he was sitting on Steve's couch in Steve's apartment with Steve's friend right there looking at him and that he was still holding Stevie Bear in his hand, but that Sam was so busy looking at him that he hadn't noticed it yet.

And Bucky wasn't completely sure why he felt the need to keep Captain Ameribear a confidential secret, except that neither the Winter Soldier nor James Buchanan Barnes had ever needed to find comfort in a stupid stuffed animal and even broken he had a reputation to keep up and no they were going to hurt him, and so he scrambled backwards and fell over the arm of the couch, legs tangling in a blanket that Sam had draped over him and causing the fabric to flail everywhere as he skidded Captain Ameribear across the floor where it slid under Steve's desk.

"Bucky!" Sam exclaimed, rushing over and helping to untangle the other man from the blankets that were eating his legs. "Whoa man, calm down!"

"No no no no no no no no no," Bucky was saying hysterically, because even now when he knew he was in the present, the memories wouldn't leave him alone.

"I have hot chocolate for you," Sam said, taking a mug from the table and pressing it into Bucky's flesh hand so that he would be able to feel the warmth.

Bucky stopped rambling and looked down at the hot chocolate in his hand, the swirling light brown drink in the bright orange mug.

His eyes flicked up at Sam, then back down at the mug, and crossing his legs Bucky brought the mug to his lips and let the warm satin chocolate slip down the back of his tongue. He took another sip, feeling it start to burn away the ice in his veins, soften the roughness of his throat from the echoes of screams.

"See? We're okay," Sam said, more to himself than anything, as he took a sip of his own mug of hot chocolate.

Bucky wrapped both his hands around the mug, and even his bionic arm could feel the heat through the nerves it had been so painfully connected to.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sam asked gently.

Bucky shook his head, and so Sam let the topic drop.

After a while, once they'd both finished their drinks and had sat there in silence for a few minutes, Sam got up to use the restroom, and Bucky offered to put the mugs in the sink.

When Sam left the room, Buck went over to Steve's desk and scooped Captain Ameribear out from beneath it, carrying the bear to the kitchen with him, where he washed out the mugs and set them on the drying rack before turning and scanning the kitchen.

Now, where could he hide Captain Ameribear this time?

He settled for sticking him behind the cereal boxes in a cabinet, knowing that he would have at least until the next morning to find another hiding place.

Shaking his head slightly, his lips quirked. It was like playing Hide and Seek Tag.

That had been one of the only games that Steve had actually been good at, better than most kids actually, up until the point where he got spotted and had to run. But he'd always been very creative at hiding spots and very good at sneaking between them without getting noticed.

Sam came into the kitchen and leaned against the counter across from Bucky.

"So, how are you feeling?" Sam inquired.

"Etterbay," Bucky answered.

Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Ouyay owknay igpay atinlay?"

"Evestay aughttay emay," Bucky shrugged, giving a small simper. "Itway asway atelay andway Iway ouldn'tcay eepslay. Evestay aidsay atthay Onytay aughttay itway otay imhay."

And for the rest of the day the two of them only talked in Pig Latin because it was ridiculous, and when Steve returned late the next day, Sam and Bucky were still conversing in Pig Latin, because it was still ridiculous.

"Onjourbay Evestay," Bucky grinned when Steve opened the door. "Ommentcay éaittay alay issionmay?"

"Ennuyeuxway," Steve answered immediately, as he closed the door and collapsed on the couch still in his Captain America outfit, which sported a few burns and scuffs, tilting back his head and heaving a sigh.

"Ouaisway estc'AY aivray," Bucky snorted.

Sam looked back in forth between the two in utter confusion. "Atwhay areway ouyay ayingsay?" he asked.

Bucky and Steve grinned at him.

"E'reway eakingspay igpay atinlay inway Enchfray," Steve explained.

"Onay airfay!" Sam complained. "Iway on'tday eakspay Enchfray!"

Bucky and Steve laughed at him.

(Bucky hoped Steve wouldn't notice that there was a stuffed teddy bear behind the couch cushion he was leaning against.)

~ 5 ~

Steve and Bucky slept together like brothers.

Neither of them could stand the soft bed, so they slept on the couch cushions on the floor or sometimes just the hardwood floor itself, and they would use each other as pillows, curled together like cats.

And Steve was always right there when Bucky had a nightmare, when Bucky started screaming or sobbing or lashing out, and Steve would wake him up and calm him down, and if Bucky couldn't fall asleep again then they would spend the rest of the night talking, often with Steve recounting stories from their boyhood.

Except, Steve was also Captain America and Captain America had responsibilities not just to Bucky but to the world, and so he wasn't always there.

And when he wasn't, Bucky would sleep with his Captain Ameribear, because even just that reminder of Steve helped a little when he woke up not knowing where he was.

And sometimes he could scream and throw the bear against the walls again and again and Stevie Bear would let him, taking every blow without complaint like Steve had on the helicarrier, until Bucky would remember and break down and curl up and murmur that he was sorry, he was so, so sorry, he'd almost killed Steve and Steve was his best friend and he'd hurt him and he was sorry...

But sometimes the bear didn't help, and once, when Steve had been gone, Bucky had ended up destroying the couch so that it looked like it had been attacked by a giant cat, and there'd been a hole in the wall from his metal fist and the mirror was broken and any piece of furniture that wasn't also broken was upturned and strewn about, and Bucky had gotten himself cut up and bloody and he didn't remember what he did.

Steve had found him crumpled and bleeding out on the floor, whimpering something in Russian with tears crystallized in the corners of his eyes.

So after that, Steve installed a device he'd gotten from Tony that looked like a regular fire alarm but would monitor Bucky's breathing and heart rate and send a ping to Steve's or Sam's or Natasha's phone.

Bucky didn't know this at first, of course, but he figured it out quickly enough.

Steve was gone and Bucky was asleep, restlessly, tossing and turning and breathing raggedly, hugging Captain Ameribear tightly, when he was woken by a hand shaking his shoulder, a feminine voice saying, "Bucky, wake up."

Sitting bolt upright, drawing his knees to his chest, dark eyes wild and sockets webbed with shadows, Bucky saw Natasha kneeling there beside him.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" he asked, blinking, voice low and raspy with sleep and the panic that still laced through his taught frame.

"You were having a bad dream," Natasha answered. "And though Steve wouldn't mind having to replace all his furniture again, I don't think he wants you to hurt yourself."

Bucky narrowed his eyes, gaze flicking to the keys in her hand, then to her face, her eyes reflecting yellow from the streetlights outside the window.

"How did you know?" He demanded, eyes scanning the room.

That's when they landed on the 'fire alarm'.

"It was Steve, wasn't it? Steve set up that gadget and then asked you to monitor me," Bucky spoke, gaze moving back to Natasha's face.

"No, actually," Natasha said smoothly, "I volunteered."

"What am I, a child to be babysat?" Bucky asked bitterly.

"Well, you do look pretty cute when you pout your lips like that," Natasha said as she sat down on the couch cushions next to him.

And Bucky suddenly realized that he was clutching Stevie Bear to his chest with both arms, beneath the blanket that was draped over his shoulders; he knew it would be hard to slip anything by the Black Widow, but Steve wasn't there and he didn't think he could let go of the bear at the moment.

Natasha traced a finger over the cushion, not looking at him. "I know what you're going through, you know."

"I know," he said, clutching his bear tighter. "I knew you. Before."

Natasha stiffened imperceptibly. Bucky noticed.

"I remember the Red Room," he continued, and Natasha went absolutely rigid. "I remember training you. I remember working with you. I remember loving you, as much as I remembered how to love. I remember shooting you and not feeling anything."

He paused, looking down at his knees sticking up beneath the blanket, and when he spoke his voice choked and nearly died.

"I'm sorry."

A hand on his knee, and Bucky flinched on reflex, looking up to see Natasha staring at him with a serious expression.

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "We were being used, the both of us. It wasn't our fault."

Bucky looked down again, chuckling without mirth. "How many times do you have to tell yourself that before you actually believe it?" he asked quietly.

Sighing, Natasha let her hand slip from his knee, leaning back against the couch.

"A lot," she admitted. "And you don't actually start feeling any better until you start making something better out of your life, doing something that helps people, benefits the world."

"By doing the same sort of things we did to hurt people?"

"By doing what we're best at," Natasha said, shrugging her shoulders. "Somebody needs to do it. And Steve may see the world in black and white, but for you and I, we know the world is full of shades of gray."

Bucky didn't say anything, just carefully extracted his arms from the blanket's grasp, letting Stevie bear drop to the cushions, and shoved the blankets (and Stevie Bear) away from him into a crumpled pile and stood to go get a glass of water from the kitchen.

He was wearing just a pair of sweatpants, and as he crossed the dark room the light from the windows flashed across his metal arm and the heavy scarring around where it connected to his lean and muscular body, and the lighter scarring that spanned across his entire chest and right arm from his last panic attack.

When he came back with the glass, he sat down next to Natasha against the cushionless couch, letting the silence settle over them like dust and cobwebs.

A couple times Bucky would swallow and take a breath like he was going to say something, but then his lips would press together and he never did.

After a while Natasha said, "Hey, do you want some hot chocolate?"

"Steve seriously needs to stop spilling my weaknesses to everyone," Bucky muttered with a groan, and Natasha laughed as she got up and walked to the kitchen to start preparing the drink.

Bucky took the opportunity to stuff Stevie Bear in the laundry hamper, before joining Natasha in the kitchen, fishing a bag of chocolate chips out of the cabinet, while Natasha heated up a small pot of milk on the stove.

"You could just stick it in the microwave," he pointed out. "It's quicker."

Natasha snorted, as she poured in the cocoa mix. "If we're drinking hot chocolate, then we're drinking hot chocolate. I don't know why you boys always keep it so chilly in here."

Glancing down at his bare chest, Bucky frowned. "Yeah well, I don't get cold," he retorted, "And Steve is a fucking furnace."

That made Natasha snort.

"But if we're drinking hot chocolate," Bucky said, throwing a handful of chocolate chips into the pot, "Then we're drinking hot chocolate." He grinned. "Так что берите, что." So take that.

"And you take that," Natasha said, handing him the wooden spoon and gesturing for him to stir the pot of hot cocoa. "'Cause I'm going to raid your refrigerator for whipped cream. If we're drinking hot chocolate, then we are drinking hot chocolate."

"In that case, you might want to grab the chocolate syrup, too," Bucky offered. "And maybe the caramel sauce and walnut pieces."

~ +1 ~

Steve had finally, finally gone on that date with Sharon, after Natasha had recruited Bucky to her cause and the two of them had pestered Steve mercilessly and relentlessly.

Which still hadn't worked, until Bucky had eventually offered, "Tell Sharon to bring a friend, and I'll double-date with you."

So that was how Steve ended up at a coffee shop sitting across from Sharon and next to Bucky who was flirting easily with Steve's date's friend.

Bucky was wearing a black coat, gray beret, and white gloves like a gentleman, while Steve was more casual in a blue t-shirt and jeans.

Steve and Sharon shared some semblance of a conversation where they would tend to lapse into awkward silences that were broken with Steve's self-conscious chuckle or Sharon's attempt at finding something to talk about that didn't concern Shield.

"So, Ladies," Bucky grinned after a while, leaning back in his chair as the waitress removed their finished drinks, "Do either of you know if there are any ballroom dancing classes to be taken around here?"

Steve shot him a brief glare that Bucky ignored.

So essentially, Bucky set them both up on another date, and set Steve up to learn how to dance as well, which was, as far as Bucky was concerned, hitting several birds with one shot.

"So, how was it?" Bucky asked, elbowing Steve as they walked back to the apartment.

Steve let out a breath through his nose. "I don't know," he said.

"But you think she's attractive," Bucky pressed. "And she thinks you're attractive."

"Bucky—"

"I hope my date didn't see that I started freaking out and bent that metal spoon," Bucky continued, pulling the crippled object out of his pocket and glancing at it with a grimace. "Sharon might have to find another friend to bring along."

"With your charm and 'garish good looks'?" Steve snorted, "I doubt it."

"Yeah well, once she figures out either that I'm the Winter Soldier, that I randomly lose it and start crying or trying to kill people, or that I'm not serious about a relationship, you know she'll dump me," Bucky said with a shrug. "Besides, you know I'm just going for you, right? You coward who will single-handedly dive headlong into a Hydra base and tear them apart but won't go on a date with a pretty girl by yourself."

"Hey—" Steve started indignantly, but was cut off when the phone in his pocket beeped. Frowning, Steve pulled it out of his pocket, glancing at the text from Natasha and groaning.

Bucky put an arm around Steve's shoulder and leaned over to look.

/You and Sharon are cute together/

/She seems like a keeper/

Steve groaned.

"I hate you guys," he grumbled. He turned his head to look at Bucky, who was still hanging on him.

"I'm going to get you back, you know," Steve said.

"Oh, and how are you going to do that?" Bucky asked, raising his dark eyebrows.

Steve put his arm around Bucky's shoulders and grinned. "By making you sit still for hours while I sketch you."

"Oh no."

"Ohhhh yes."

"Are you going to make me take my shirt off?"

"Do you want to take your shirt off?"

"You did say you wanted more practice drawing muscles..."

And so that was how when they got back to the apartment Steve went to go get his sketchbook from the drawer in his desk; only Bucky intercepted him, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder.

"I'll get your sketchbook and pencil," he said, "You go set up where you want me to sit."

"Nah, I don't trust you," Steve teased, pushing past Bucky. "You'll throw it out the window or something."

"No I won't!" Bucky protested, diving after him as Steve opened the drawer, but it was already too late.

Steve had found Captain Ameribear.

Blinking, Steve took the bear out of the drawer, looking at it a moment before turning his gaze to Bucky, whose blue eyes were wide like a deer caught in the headlights and were starting to glisten wetly.

Steve's lips twitched. "This yours?" he asked, holding the white-furred and blue-suited bear up.

Instead of answering the question, Bucky snatched the bear from Steve's hands and clutched it tightly, which was kind of answering it.

"Hey, it's okay," Steve said quickly, as Bucky looked about ready to bolt. "You know I still have Bucky Bear."

Bucky's terrified stare turned to a glare, which Steve found infinitely better.

"How long have you..." Steve started to ask, before he blinked, realizing something. "Oh. That was what Tony sent you in that box a few months ago, wasn't it?"

When Bucky spoke, his voice was low and menacing. "If you so much as breath a word about this, then this is what I'm going to do to you."

And with that Buck pretended to choke the Captain Ameribear, making an exaggeratedly vicious face and snarling exaggeratedly as he did so. Then he looked up at Steve in all seriousness.

And Steve burst out laughing.

"Okay," he gasped, clutching his side as Bucky's expression turned to annoyance, his lips pouting, and Steve laughed all the harder. "I won't breath a word. I promise."

Straightening, he looked at Bucky with a grin. "Can I draw a picture of you with the bear though?"

"No," Bucky said firmly. He threw Stevie Bear over on the couch where Bucky Bear was, then threw his gloves, hat, jacket, and finally his shirt over there as well, before turning back to Steve with a cocky smirk.

"But you can draw a picture of me with my shirt off."

"Alright," Steve chuckled, retrieving his sketchbook and pencil from the drawer and turning back to his best friend, saying, "Sit over there in the chair by the window so we get some nice lighting. You want me to xerox a copy for Natasha when I'm done? I'm sure she'd get a kick out of it."

Bucky snorted, blowing a strand of long dark hair out of his face. "Yeah, and I'm sure her boyfriend would too. Have you seen that necklace she's always wearing?"

He walked over to the window and sat down in the chair there, leaning back, right arm draped over the back of the chair and left resting on his knee.

"I'm not going to smile, though," he said. "Do you want an 'I-am-going-to-kill-you face' or an 'I-am-going-to-kill-you-slowly-and-painfully face'?"

"Are those my only two options?" Steve asked as pulled up a chair to sit across from Bucky and settled down with the sketchbook on his lap.

"Yes."

Steve sighed, looking at Bucky with his pencil poised. "The I-am-going-to-kill-you face, then."

"You sure you don't want the slowly-and-painfully version?"

"Yes."

"Shame. Natasha says it's cuter."

"Are you sure I can't draw a picture of you with the bear?"

"Fuck you, Steve Rogers."

Steve laughed. "You're a jerk, you know that right?"

"Just start drawing already, punk," Bucky groaned, tilting his head back in exasperation. "Because I can't promise that I won't actually try to kill you."

"I can't draw you if you keep moving, you know," Steve pointed out.

Sighing, Bucky tilted his head back up to glare at Steve, stilling like a sniper waiting for the perfect shot, saying merely, "Don't be scared to draw the scars."

And then there was only the sound of Steve's pencil scratching black graphite across the white paper, with gray smears of the eraser.

When Steve finished an hour later, he turned the sketchbook to face Bucky, asking with a small, hopeful smile, "What do you think, Buck?"

Bucky whistled appreciatively. "You know Steve, I think you could retire as Captain America and become an artist."

"Yeah, sure thing," Steve rolled his eyes, but smiled nonetheless.

Getting up, Bucky stretched his arms above his head, his back cracking. "But not until we cut off the rest of Hydra's heads," he added. "Because I've got an empty box to put them in."

[EDIT]: Okay, so originally I had it stated here that I was not going to continue this storyline... but I lied. There is now a sequel to this, which is a chapter fic, called The Misadventures of Project Heracles about Steve and Bucky (with some help from Sam, Natasha, and Fury) eradicating Hydra and running into some problems along the way - from tear gas to shoes that don't fit correctly - that call for some creative solutions.

Because I couldn't help it XD I am totally obsessed with Steve and Bucky. Like, I have seen CA:TWS in the movie theater a total of 5 times now X3

Anyways, please leave a review and let me know what you think!