Bucky yawned as he dropped into a chair at the kitchen table.
"Did you actually get sleep?" Steve teased from the counter, flipping through a newspaper.
"Some. Clara's finally sleeping." He leaned his chin into his hand. "Don't think she slept much all night."
Steve pushed the paper aside and stood up straight. "Listen, Buck, we need to talk about Clara."
Bucky turned to Steve slowly, a challenging look on his face that made Steve laugh. "What about her?"
"Look, I know you're doing better, but I just feel like maybe we should find someone else for you to see in the meantime," Steve explained. "Clara's going to need to see someone herself, and I just feel like with the way things are going, it might be a conflict of interest for her, anyways—"
Bucky pinched his eyes shut and held up a hand. "Hold on, Pal," Bucky muttered. He pressed his lips together for a second before leveling a look at the blond man waiting patiently, if not a bit amused, at the counter. "I was fine not seeing someone when we first got here. And what do you mean the way things are going?"
Steve gave Bucky a deadpan stare. "Buck, she's in your bed right now." Bucky rolled his eyes at the implication, and wondered briefly if he was referring to his pre-war ways with women. "And when you first got here you were lucky if you got two hours of sleep. I can talk to Tony or Banner and see if we can find you someone we can trust. It can't hurt. I was more worried about you settling into a routine and working on remembering things before I pushed this issue."
"They could be Hydra."
"Clara could have been Hydra and you trusted her."
"If she didn't have that face I wouldn't have," Bucky hissed forcefully.
"Please just…try," Steve pled. "I had to see someone for six months after they woke me up. I don't know if he's still with SHIELD but I think Dr. Lindley would be good. He was nice."
Bucky looked up at Steve and sighed, mulling it over. He ran a hand through his hair as he said, "If you can find someone you trust. Not Tony. Not Pepper. Not Banner. You have to trust him before I'll see him."
"Why do I have to trust him?" Steve asked, unable to keep the pleased smirk off his face.
Bucky turned away from his friend and towards the TV in the other room playing the news softly. "Because you're the most untrusting person I've met since the day at the river," he muttered, his turn to smirk at Steve's eye roll that he caught in his peripheral vision. "A lot different from back then. If you were this paranoid back then, no way you woulda tried to enlist—what was it, four times?"
Steve gave a small smile and nodded down at the counter as he leaned against it. "Five, actually."
"Hm," Bucky frowned. "I'm missing one." He made a mental note to mark that in his notebook.
Steve turned to a cabinet and pulled out a box of poptarts, tossing them across the kitchen. Bucky jerked in surprise, but caught them easily. He studied the bright art on the box for a minute before looking back up at Steve.
"What are these?" he asked flatly. "Is this what kids these days are eating for breakfast?"
Steve grinned. "Gotta keep up with these young folk."
"You keep making old man jokes at me and I'm gonna start thinking you like getting punched," Bucky grumbled as he opened the box and pulled out a foil package.
"Pretty sure you started it, Pal."
Bucky grumbled about how he should have let the bigger guys teach him a lesson as he read the label on the back of the box. "This is all sugar. And shit I can't even pronounce."
"As most things are these days," Steve laughed, turning to the cabinet and pulling down a mug.
Bucky opened his mouth to respond when Clara appeared in the hall, yawning. He smiled at her, taking in her exceptionally calm demeanor. She wasn't half as tense as she was when he'd found her in the living room late the night before.
"Oh, I love these things," she murmured, sitting at the table next to him and taking the foil package from his hands.
"'Course you do," he muttered, leaning back in his chair.
"What one?" She asked as she pulled the foil open and slid one out. "The blueberry ones are the best, but strawberry is a close second."
"They look disgusting. That's not a breakfast."
Clara shot a grin to Steve. "He's a fan of iHop," she told him and Bucky's head dropped back as he stared at the ceiling. "Did he tell you about his first trip to iHop?"
"You took him to iHop? When?" Steve poured hot water into a mug on top of a tea bag before moving to the kitchen table to join them. He slid the cup in front of her with a clean spoon and a little glass jar of sugar.
"When we were staying at Stark Tower." She laughed at the look Bucky was giving her.
Bucky leaned forward and pointed menacingly at Steve. "Careful, Pal, I know some embarrassing stories about you. We went through puberty together."
Steve grinned. "Key word there is together, Buck."
Bucky rolled his eyes and leaned over to pinch off a corner of Clara's pop tart.
"Good, isn't it?" Clara asked, pressing the mug to her cheek as Bucky popped the piece into his mouth.
"It's like strawberry flavored sand."
"Oh, stop."
As much as it killed him to ask, and Bucky saw the look Steve's face before the words left his friend's mouth, he knew it needed to be talked about. "How are you feeling?" Steve asked, sharing a glance with Bucky when Clara froze before slowly lowering her mug to the table.
"Better," she admitted. "Still a little…I called Pepper last night. She suggested a psychiatrist for me to talk to."
"Clara—" Bucky began stiffly.
"Not that talking to you guys isn't helpful, I just think I need a professional," she finished lamely, feeling small and dumb. She ran her finger around the rim of the cup, not wanting to look up at either of them men. She felt like a failure. She'd been tasked with helping Bucky, and now she couldn't even help herself. What was the point of her?
"Steve was suggesting we find you someone," Bucky muttered finally, letting out a breath quietly.
Steve nodded slowly. "I didn't think to ask Pepper. She went through a lot a while back with Extremis. Don't ask," he muttered when Bucky raised an eyebrow at him.
"I've set up an appointment to talk with him later this afternoon through video chat," she said with a nod. "I'll probably head back to my apartment soon anyways—"
"Nope," Bucky interrupted immediately.
Clara frowned. "Excuse me?"
"I think he just means he doesn't want you to rush being alone just yet—"
"I don't trust her to be alone," Bucky argued.
"Say that again?" Clara demanded, sitting up straighter, but she saw the instant regret on his face.
"Not you, I don't trust everyone else."
"Here's the thing," Clara started in a tone Bucky had come to recognize as her Therapist Voice. "One day, you're not going to be around all the time, and I'm going to have to live on my own again. I have to get over the fear of being alone at some point and it's better to do it now than later down the line when it's harder and the fear is deep."
"She's got a point, Buck," Steve murmured. "We'll be two floors up, in the same building."
Bucky leveled a blank stare at Steve. "Sharon Carter."
"Point taken," he mumbled immediately, "but—"
Clara held up both her hands in a placating gesture. "How about this, my couch pulls out, you can sleep there tonight if it'll make you feel better, but I have to do this."
Bucky considered this for a second before nodding once, wondering what kinds of tech Steve still had from SHIELD, and if some sort of listening device was among them. Briefly, he wished he had access to the arsenal that Hydra had for him…
"Alright, that's settled," Clara mumbled around a mouthful of the last of her poptart. She stood. "I'm going to go shower, then go back to my apartment for my video conference call with this specialist. I'll be fine," she stressed when Bucky's brows dropped. "I'll come back up here when I'm finished."
"She'll be talking to someone that knows Stark, Buck," Steve tried. "If something happens during the call, I'm sure he'll alert someone."
Clara didn't wait for Bucky to respond. She poked his nose as she passed, returning to the bathroom she'd used the night before. She heard Steve chuckling behind her.
"Connie used to do that to you all the time," she heard Steve murmur, his deep voice carrying down the hallway. "You hated it."
"I know."
Clara smirked and shut the door behind her.