This is a fan made story. I don't own the rights to Captain America, any of its characters or any characters within the MCU… Much to my disappointment. This will have some violent content and possible triggers. Steve/Bucky slow build relationship. Constructive criticism is welcome but if you don't like it simply because you don't like the line of thinking, please don't attack me for it.

Author's Note: I just wanted to thank my readers for some lovely reviews. It is nice to know that you are enjoying both my plot and writing style.

Warning: This chapter contains some emotionally painful moments and possible PTSD triggers. It also has some light hearted humor and realizations of futility to offset this.

Chapter 6: Inner Turmoil

Bucky was beginning to feel stressed after the meeting with Talbot, Coulson and Daisy due to it bringing so many different memories close to the surface at once. Steve had noticed this and rather than bringing Bucky to join the others for whatever Tony had brought as 'presents' he opted to bring Bucky back to their suite so that he could unwind a little.

"Are you sure I shouldn't come? I mean I am like 80% at fault for the fighting in the first place," Bucky asked, though his heart wasn't in it at all.

"It's fine Bucky. You just rest for a bit. I will come get you when it is time for lunch and you can get to know everyone then. You haven't even been awake for a full day yet. Take it slow," Steve pointed out. He also wanted Bucky to have some alone time. His friend had been glued to his side essentially as long as he was awake and for a good portion of his sleep as well. It was a big difference from the extremely independent Bucky he had known before the war.

"Ok. Don't start any more fights though. I can't really cover your back with one arm," Bucky was only half joking as he said it but he noticed the flash of discomfort that showed in Steve's eyes before it quickly disappeared.

"Tony is the only one I really clash with and he is kinda working to get back into everyone's good graces so I think we are safe for now," Steve responded before leaving Bucky to rest.

Once the door closed, Bucky headed to 'his room' and tightly shut and locked the door before sinking against it. His mind started to flash with different clashing and disturbing memories. The sudden expectation to have to give a statement about everything that had happened had brought forth all the memories. Where they had been carefully laid out and organized by the Asgardian healer before, they now were bombarding his mind in almost pure chaos. The calm he had felt for most of the time he was awake the previous day and this morning dissolved and Bucky felt several emotions fighting violently for control.

Eventually, rage over everything won out and he began to tear his room apart as best he could with only one hand. A half hour of this resulted in an absolute disaster. The dresser was tipped over, the clothing within falling out. The bedding had been torn from the mattress and thrown all about the room. The mattress itself had been pulled off the frame and thrown against the wall. The lamp and bedside table were toppled, the lamp itself smashed. There were even two holes in the wall where he had punched it.

Once the raging was finished, the despair that he was beyond repair took its place. He had left his destroyed room at this point and carefully shut the door behind him, not wanting Steve to see what he had done. He then went into Steve's room and laid down on his bed. Bucky hugged the pillow Steve had been sleeping on the night before close to his chest and began sobbing uncontrollably. Eventually, this led to him falling asleep, curled tightly around the pillow.

Meanwhile, with Steve and the others, T'Challa had had the people who unloaded the QuinJets put all the things Tony had brought as 'presents' into the gym of the facility as there was a high probability of various people wanting to test out the new gear that had been made. Tony had even gift wrapped everything, everyone's presents given their own 'theme'. When Steve arrived he noticed everyone was sitting in a big circle, with all the unopened presents in a pile in the middle, Tony standing in front of it. Even Talbot, Coulson, Sharon, Daisy and all of Clint's kids and wife were sitting in the circle around Tony for some reason.

"Capsicle! Where is your boyfriend? We can't do the real presents until everyone is here," Tony shouted once he arrived, Sam having texted him where everyone was.

"Bucky was a little overwhelmed by everything. He's resting right now. You can give him his later when I go to get him for lunch," Steve responded before taking a seat in the circle between Sam and Clint's one-year-old son Nathan. "Hey, Callum, Lewis, Nicole, Nathan, you guys getting presents too?"

"Yep," Clint responded from the other side of them for his kids who were in too much awe of Steve to respond themselves. "Tony owes them for making it so that I could come home for a long time."

Steve chuckled a little before turning back to Tony who was holding the first of a very large stack of presents, "I guess, if you think it is best. His are mostly designs for a new arm anyway… Well… that and some things we really shouldn't have around small children so it is probably for the best." With this Tony handed the first present to Natasha before grabbing another and another making sure everyone was holding something before letting people open them.

Pietro, Clint and Natasha found new uniforms made from a weird cloth in their boxes. Steve's first box held the complete Star Wars saga and all the Star Trek series and movies, original and reboot included. Sam was holding what looked like a state of the art gun cleaning kit. Wanda was holding a weird looking crystal and a booklet that Steve couldn't tell what it was about. Vision held a book on human etiquette throughout the ages. Coulson, Talbot and Laura all refused to show what was in their boxes, but guessing from the blushes on their faces it was embarrassing for them. Daisy and Sharon were looking at the fancy looking necklace and earrings with absolute confusion as to why anyone would give those to them until Tony explained that it had embedded recording capabilities. Both women smirked, having amble uses for such types of jewelry and carefully stowed them away. Clint's kids all got the latest in hand held gaming systems. T'Challa also refused to show what he receives but if he was embarrassed it didn't show.

This continued for a full hour, sometimes people blushing and refusing to show what was in the boxes and sometimes showing off new gadgets or uniforms that Tony still hadn't explained his reasoning for. Once all the presents besides the ones for Bucky were opened, Laura took her children and their new games and toys back to the suite assigned to the Barton family before Tony would talk about the uniforms.

"Ok, so, now that the children and spouse who could be traumatized have left I will explain the uniforms. General, Coulson, I am mainly doing this in front of you so that you will look to me for your future outfitting requirements for special missions. This is a new synthetic poly-carbonate cloth that I upgraded from a previous design that Stark Industries had been working on before we discontinued all war related projects. It is light weight, water-resistant, can withstand temperatures of up to 600o F without the person wearing it from feeling the effects and most importantly, it is 100% bullet proof. My point being someone could throw a grenade at you, have it explode against your chest and you MIGHT get a bruise. The kind of injuries Pietro got during the whole Ultron fiasco? A thing of the past. I have been working this since that mess and it is finally ready. It is also comfortable to wear and can be made into pretty much anything. Undershirts for suits, ladies' dresses, the under clothing for my armor, all your uniforms, it is extremely versatile," Tony finished and finally sat in the gap left by the Barton children's exit.

They all sat for several minutes, each examining and thinking before Wanda spoke, "Thank you Tony. It is nice of you to have taken our safety so seriously. That being said, what is this?" Wanda held up what looked like a weird head band.

"It is for your head. In part to help keep your hair out of the way and in part to keep your pretty little head intact. Plus, doesn't it really bring the whole outfit together?" Tony responded, smiling.

"I suggest you keep yourself to designing new suits for yourself and leave fashion to someone who actually knows what they are doing. I can keep my head safe as it is," Wanda shot back, her voice completely serious before using her magic to tear the headdress to shreds. This caused Tony to pout but he got over it fairly quickly.

"Well, now that that is over, Capsicle, may we bring your boyfriend his presents?" Tony smiled his best attempt at a charming smile.

"He isn't my boyfriend and I guess. It is getting close to lunch anyways," Steve blushed lightly at the boyfriend bit but moved on quickly.

"Sure, you go and infiltrate Nazi prisoner camps singlehandedly for shits and giggles. I totally believe that," Tony's words brought out an even deeper blush on Steve's face and had a few of his teammates wondering why. Sharon was reevaluating her decision to have come at all after that deep a blush.

"He has been my best friend since we were kids," Steve finally responded picking up some of the boxes intended for Bucky and leaving with them.

"Yeah. Cap, you do realize you can be someone's best friend and still hold something much deeper than that right?" Tony collected the rest of the boxes and followed Steve.

"Ok, did anyone else catch that blush? Is Captain Rogers GAY FOR BUCKY BARNES?!" Daisy asked rather loudly once the Tony and Steve were gone.

"Well that would explain why my attempts to find him a girlfriend were all epic failures. Of course, now that I think about it, I have never really noticed him checking me out like every guy but Clint and Phil," Natasha reasoned looking like she had just finished putting a very complex puzzle together.

Phil himself was sporting a rather curious expression that Daisy had to snap another picture of him, this one captioned 'Coulson realizing Steve/Bucky may actually be a thing' and sending it to the rest of the team. Talbot also wore a similar expression so she got one of him too and then one of Sam and Clint wearing looks of pure shock as if they just realized something so painfully obvious that TONY had realized it before them. Wanda and Vision shrugged but didn't comment which made Daisy even more suspicious of why they were acting like it wasn't a surprise at all. Pietro looked confused, which considering that he had had very little interaction with anyone who wasn't Wanda wasn't that surprising. After the fifth picture Daisy had sent via mass message May texted back saying they didn't need play-by-play of everything that happened while she was with the Avengers. Mack then immediately texted as well contradicting May and demanding more details as she collected them.

Tony and Steve made their way quickly through the halls, Steve now actively ignoring Tony who was making a rather valid and unsettling argument on why Steve was clearly in love with Bucky. When they reached the door Steve actively glared at Tony which finally shut him up, much to Steve's relief. Tony, carrying less, opened the door and they set the boxes down on the breakfast bar, Steve looking around to see if Bucky was in the Living room area or terrace. Once it was clear he wasn't Steve walked over and peaked into Bucky's room, only opening the door a little and turning on the light only to rapidly turn it off and pull his head out. Steve was concerned by what he had said and his face showed it but he didn't speak as he went over to his room and turning on the light there found his friend tossing about rather violently in his sleep. He closed the door quietly before returning to Tony at the bar area.

"Bucky's asleep right now. Lunch is in a half hour. Why don't you go on ahead and we will meet you there when it's time to eat? Bucky is always a bit grumpy when he just wakes up. We can do the whole present thing after, yeah?" Steve's voice made it clear he was avoiding something he didn't want Tony to know.

"He got overwhelmed didn't he? It's ok. I get it. We can do presents whenever he's up for it. No pressure," Tony responded quickly, realizing exactly what Steve was trying to keep him from knowing. "It happens. He has been through a lot. I'll go and let the others know."

Tony's quick exit both relieved and worried Steve. Relief because Steve didn't need to push him to get out but worried because Tony seemed to understand exactly what was going on and that was only possible if Tony had also been there at some point. Steve eventually just shrugged it off, knowing that Tony wouldn't want to talk about it if he had been there and thus there was nothing he could do. He could focus on helping his friend though, since Bucky did seem to want it, much to Steve's surprise.

When he re-entered the room he noticed that Bucky seemed to be almost fighting the pillow he clung to and so he decided to approach his friend slowly much like he had the night before. Once he got to Bucky, he carefully lowered himself and inched slowly closer to him. Steve carefully eased the pillow from Bucky's grip resulting in Bucky attaching his only arm to Steve instead. He was careful to keep his breathing even as he slowly eased Bucky's head and then torso into his lap. Bucky had calmed in his sleep once he was attached to Steve rather firmly. Steve then began running his hand through Bucky's sweat soaked hair and whispering soothing nonsense to him. As with the night before, a few minutes of this resulted in Bucky waking and slowly becoming aware.

"Steve? What are you doing here? Weren't you with the others?" Bucky asked as he pulled away from him rather reluctantly.

Steve let Bucky pull away but grabbed and began examining Bucky's bloody knuckles, "We finished. Tony wanted to give you the stuff he made or bought for you but I made him wait until after lunch. You think you will be up to it?"

Bucky blushed, in part because Steve was holding his hand was weird, and he actively told himself it wasn't a 'good kind of weird' without really believing it. The second part was that if Steve was asking if he could handle it, that meant he had seen Bucky's room. He thought for a moment before realizing that whatever the Asgardian had done was once more in control and he felt much calmer and more stable, "Yeah. I think I can handle that. The… ah… the… a lot of memories surfaced at once because of the meeting about the pardons. Sorry about the mess." He offered lamely at last.

"It's ok. T'Challa was actually expecting something like that to happen. He said he was putting either super sturdy stuff or stuff so cheap that it would be nothing to replace in there. I didn't get a really good look because I needed to kick out Tony, but we can tell T'Challa what needs fixing or replacing later," Steve was trying to be comforting. "Next time though, maybe you should just have a go at a punching bag. I can brace it for you and you can just beat the shit out of it without any worries. Now, come on. Let's get your hand cleaned up before lunch."

Bucky nodded again and followed Steve into the bathroom where he pulled out a first aid kit, showing T'Challa really HAD expected and planned for that very thing to happen. Steve expertly cleaned and bandaged Bucky's hand lightly. Both knew that it would be healed fully by the next day and thus that was the last they thought on the injury.

Author's note: For those who haven't watched SHIELD, May and Mack are pretty main characters, though they will only be getting brief mentions while Coulson, Daisy and Talbot are with the Avengers.