Disclaimer: I own nothing Captain America-related, not even Bucky Barnes…though I might consider asking Marvel to loan them and the rest of the Avengers to me for a while. Until then, only original characters and plots/ideas are mine.

AN: Sorry the last chapter was boring –I sort of had a bit of writer's block, and that was what popped out. This time, though, there's more stuff happening, with special appearances from some familiar faces. Enjoy, and please don't forget to review!

Chapter 12: Emotions Run A Bit High:

Even from across his room, Bucky could feel those cold, lifeless black eyes staring at him. It was very unnerving. He didn't know what Anna meant to accomplish by it, but it was supposed to help him in some way or another.

Sighing, he went over and picked up the stuffed animal. It was a dog, and was somewhat cute. 'At least it isn't one of those overly-adorable children's toys with big cartoon eyes,' he thought to himself, shuddering at the thought.

He couldn't have borne it if it were –those were not something he really liked. If it had turned out to be one of those, he might even have thrown it out the window and into the bushes next door. Then, when Anna asked what he'd done with it, he would have gladly made his excuses.

Looking at the animal, he shook his head and smiled. If Anna had presented the toy a mere few months ago, while he'd still been under HYDRA's influence, he'd have ripped the animal apart and crushed it with his metal hand.

He didn't feel that way now.

In the week that followed their first day out, Bucky had felt a sort of glowing warmth inside him. Anna's gentle, nurturing care had managed to soften the hard, emotionless shell HYDRA had built up inside him in order to make him the perfect weapon: their unfeeling Winter Soldier. Now, he was a different man.

Rather than taking swings at walls, or shooting bullets into whomever or whatever had upset him, Bucky channeled much of that anger away via a punching bag, or shouting things in Russian when he was alone. He had lately realized that most of his anger and frustration had been due to HYDRA's handling of him, and their efforts to suppress who he really was. His former self had been fighting to get out, but HYDRA had placed many mental walls within his brain, and wiped his mind so often that nothing ever got through –not until he'd seen Steve Rogers again.

But it wasn't really Steve who had caused all the changes within him. It was Anna whom Bucky credited with all of his positive feelings, though he believed their first hug had been the key. The hug had sparked something inside his heart, and it was a sensation that he liked very much.

That was why, when Anna had presented the closed box to him, asking him to open it, he'd done so. After his fingers had pulled open the cardboard box and torn away the tissue paper, he'd stared at the toy within with a confused, incredulous look on his face.

Anna had snickered a little, but Bucky knew it was because she was only amused with his reaction, and that it wasn't out of meanness.

"Uh, what is it?" he asked, straight out.

"It's a husky," she said, watching as he stroked the soft faux fur. "I had a thought a few days ago, and decided to just go with it."

Her idea was that he could use someone (or something) to talk to, if he felt that he couldn't talk to her. She explained that children often told their troubles to toys, mostly when they felt no one would listen, and to get things off their mind.

"Plus, toys don't judge or lecture you," she said, half joking. "I know there are times when I just want to vent my anger and frustrations aloud to a sympathetic ear, but not have to put up with someone telling me to just 'get over it.' It's good to complain aloud, and with a toy, you don't have to worry about upsetting the listener."

For a moment, Bucky was against this. He already knew that Anna was more than willing to sit and listen to anything he had to say, no matter what it was. He was grateful to her for that, and for the advice she would offer him whenever he asked for it. She was a warm, solid presence he trusted.

And yet, he understood her suggestion. There had been times where he wished he could complain out loud, but not to Anna. As much as he trusted and liked her, Bucky didn't think it was right for him to place more burdens on Anna's shoulders. She already had too much on her plate, and to be quite honest, the stuffed dog was a thoughtful gift.

Even though it was tempting to tell her to have the thing, the pleading look in her eyes had caused him to give in and agree to keep it anyway.

So, here he was, looking at a stuffed dog that was looking right back at him.

But it wasn't a cruel look, or one with disappointment or fear in it –it was actually almost friendly and welcoming, even if it was only two black buttons. That little smile stitched onto the muzzle actually seemed to make it friendlier.

Searching through his memories, Bucky tried to see if he could produce one involving any possible pets he might have owned. Thanks to his and Anna's efforts, the memories were still flowing, but very slowly. In spite of his best efforts, he was only successful part of the time. If Anna hadn't been there to encourage and comfort him, Bucky would have given up a lot sooner on trying to retrieve those memories.

Still, once in a while, he could bring a memory forward after a struggling through the ones he already had, all in the vain hope that one memory would connect to another. That occasionally worked, but not often.

Now, as he tried to recall if he'd ever had a childhood pet, he focused on the memories that he'd pulled up before, namely ones in which he played games with a young Steve Rogers. He hoped that by focusing on his childhood and playing outdoors, he might trigger a memory involving a pet, such as a dog or cat.

After ten minutes of struggling, however, nothing came up. Feeling slightly discouraged, Bucky decided to give it a rest and go downstairs to see what Anna was up to. Today was one of the rare times that Anna had given him a day off, and he was curious as to what she did while he kept busy. He wanted to give her some time and space to herself, but after seventy years of having his curiosity discouraged by HYDRA, he couldn't help but want to know things.

Slipping downstairs, he listened to find out where she was. Not the exercise room –that was his domain. Anna went there to find him, not vice versa. The rest of the floor was eerily silent. In fact, the whole house was.

'She isn't in her room,' he thought to himself. He'd walked past her open bedroom door himself, and hadn't seen any sign of her.

After careful thought, Bucky realized that the silence was the clue he was searching for.

Anna was a great lover of music, so she was always tapping her foot, a pencil, or her fingertips on whatever surface was nearby. Usually, no matter where he went in the house, all Bucky had to do was follow the rhythmic tapping. Since she would never leave the house without him, Anna was obviously still here.

The only place she could be was the theater room, which happened to be the only sound-proof room on the first floor.

Quietly making his way there, Bucky knelt and pressed his ear against the metal plating around the doorknob. It was the weakest point of the door, and he could hear Anna's voice talking to someone. Stiffening, he wondered who had dared to visit the house, and why she had let them in.

His mind instantly wondered who was stupider: the visitor for coming over, or Anna for letting them into the house?

His left hand clenched in anger, but that anger immediately gave way to fear –namely, the fear of accidentally losing his temper and hurting Anna. He had no fears about being hurt or killed, but the thought of anything bad happening to Anna - worst of all, by his hand - was enough to make his entire body go cold.

'I might be getting better at keeping a hold of my temper, but I could still hurt her if I lost control,' he told himself, not for the first time.

When he felt his grip on his emotions was sound, Bucky stood up, his mind firmly telling his hands to relax. Slowly, it did so.

And just in time, since the next thing that happened was Anna opening the door and finding him standing there.

It was supposed to have been a nice, calm day at the house. She'd given Bucky the day off, and had fully intended to lose herself in one of the new books she'd ordered and been dying to dive into.

Then Natasha Romanoff had called her cell.

"Agent Coulson wants a report on Barnes's progress," the female SHIELD agent flatly told Anna as soon as she'd picked up. "Be down in the theater room, and fully ready to talk with him in ten minutes."

Luckily, Bucky was still in his room, and hadn't heard. He also hadn't witnessed her racing around her room in a panic before going downstairs, her mind struggling to come up with something to report to the Director of SHIELD –who also happened to be her boss, and could possibly have her dropped into a remote jungle somewhere simply because she wasn't doing a good enough job.

'I am doing a good job,' she told herself, trying to be positive as she shut the door of the theater room behind her.

Not long after the door was closed, an image appeared on the large-screen television. Director Phil Coulson sat behind a large wood desk, slightly reclining in a black leather office chair as he looked into his computer screen. Behind him was the SHIELD emblem, huge and proud in black and silver. To his left was Natasha Romanoff, who was in a black suit with a white shirt, arms crossed and a gun resting comfortably at her right hip.

"Miss Wallace," he greeted her, a smile on his face. "Thanks for meeting me on short notice. My schedule just opened up a bit of time, so I thought I'd call and get a report on how you were doing."

Anna smiled back, still slightly nervous at having to make a last-minute presentation. Speaking in front of others terrified her –doing so in front of the head of SHIELD was even more so.

"It's no trouble, sir," she hastily assured him. Swallowing down her nerves as much as she could, she bluntly said, "I'm afraid I'm not sure how to proceed from here. I've never had to make a report of this type before. Should I start, or would you like to?"

He actually looked amused. "That's alright. I'll start off with asking how the two of you are doing so far?"

She shrugged. "Not too bad. It was a bit rough at the beginning, but we've managed."

Phil gave her a look. "I understand you've made a few improvements to the place?"

Anna blushed, suddenly realizing that she'd made some adjustments to the house that probably should have been approved of by SHIELD first. "Yes, sir. I helped turn the downstairs study into an exercise area for Bucky. He needed a way to work out his negative emotions, and that seemed like the best option."

Natasha nodded. "That's a good idea. I'm glad you thought of it."

"Me, too," Phil agreed. "Now, has there been any progress in rehabilitating him? Any sign of his past memories and personality coming through?"

Whew, that was a big question, and Anna spent a good half hour telling Phil everything that had happened in regards to Bucky. The Director was surprised that Bucky had managed to actually get through to some of his memories, and that the Winter Soldier was quickly heading down a more positive path towards being his old self.

"He's not completely the old Bucky, though," Anna warned. "He's doing well, but there's still a lot of work to be done."

Phil gave an understanding nod. "We don't really expect him to completely revert back to his previous self. He's done a lot of bad things, and even though HYDRA managed to wipe his memory once in a while, he's still got a lot of emotional and psychological baggage. No one ever fully comes back from things like that."

"Other than that, things are okay," Anna told them. "I would like Bucky to get out more, though. Natasha sort of indicated that we shouldn't go out much, if at all, but being locked inside a house all the time can't be good for him."

She hesitated before making her suggestion. "There is a backyard, but even if it isn't a very big one, Bucky and I might be able to come up with something we can do with it."

Phil and Natasha exchanged a look. Anna waited several agonizing seconds, wondering if she'd said the wrong thing, before Phil gave a small nod. "Okay, you can try something with the backyard. Maybe put up a large tent or something that people can't see into, and put in a workout area."

"Or one of those exercise pools," Natasha suggested. "There are pools that are small, but which keeps a person in one place while they swim. We can have our people install one in the next few weeks, and it might help him a bit more, having a variety of exercises."

"As for going outside: I don't think it's a good idea just now," Phil firmly declared. "He might seem stable now, but I don't want to risk him losing control in a public place and causing a scene that we'll have to clean up."

Anna felt like she was going to be sick. Did they know that she'd already taken Bucky on a day out in the world? Were they testing her, to see if she'd admit to doing something they already knew about? Or if they truly didn't know, should she admit what she'd done?

'It's probably best to admit it now, and beg for forgiveness later.'

"Um, sir?" Anna tentatively said. "Um, I'm afraid I already took Bucky out…to a café…for breakfast…a week or so ago."

Everything went seriously quiet as Phil looked at her. Anna swallowed hard as he quietly said,"I think I'd like to talk with both you and your roommate." It was definitely an order.

Lucky for her, when Anna opened the door, Bucky was already standing there, almost as though he were waiting or searching for her.

"Oh, thank goodness!" she said, taking his right hand. "Come on; Director Coulson wants to talk with us."

Confused, Bucky followed Anna into the room, and looked up at the large television that hung on the wall. While Agent Romanoff looked calm and collected, Director Coulson looked somewhat upset.

"I understand that Miss Wallace took you on an outing a week or so ago," the Director said, looking at them through the screen. "Is this true?"

Bucky did not like the other man's tone. "She did," he admitted.

"That was not a very smart thing to do," Phil stated. "We need to keep you secret and keep Anna safe. We can't do that if you're going outside while HYDRA and a dozen world governments and spy agencies are out looking for you!"

Bucky's left hand clenched. "It's not Anna's fault! I asked her to take me outside because I can't stay caged up in this house forever. The weeks of being holed up inside this house were starting to drive me crazy, and I needed to get out there and do something."

Glancing over at Anna, Bucky tried to keep his temper in check. "I think you should know that she is a very good-hearted, responsible person. She takes good care of me, and makes sure that I have everything I could need. When we went out, I looked out for her –the last thing I want is for her to be harmed. We're a good team."

The Director clearly did not like being contradicted. "It was still a bad idea, and you should have cleared it with me first. My first priority is to keep Anna safe, and keeping you out of sight goes hand-in-hand with that. If someone had seen or recognized you, HYDRA would be all over the city in no time. Then SHIELD would have had to act, and that would expose us to the world, which is the last thing we need to do right now, since we're not supposed to exist!"

Natasha cleared her throat. "I also happen to know that there was almost an incident involving Mr. Barnes and a male civilian during that day out." She looked over at her boss. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it, sir, but nothing came of it, and the agents keeping an eye on them could have easily handled any situation that could have occurred."

Everyone looked over at her. "You have people keeping an eye on us?" Anna asked, looking surprised and, oddly enough, rather insulted. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "It's SHIELD, Anna. Think about it." She then turned towards her boss. "And they're right. We can't keep him locked inside the house forever. If we wanted him imprisoned, we would have shut him up in a deep hole somewhere and treated him like a prisoner. We have to let him out once in a while; otherwise he'll get frustrated and lash out. If he ends up hurting Anna, what are you going to tell her parents –or worse, her cousin? I don't think Adena would be happy to hear that you endangered a member of her family, do you?"

The scowl on Director Coulson's face deepened as silence stretched out for a good long minute. Finally, the Director turned towards Anna. "I'll let it pass, this time. But you're not allowed to go out again until I give you permission, do you understand? That might not be for a while, so consider this a punishment and a warning."

Anna hastily nodded while Coulson continued. "In case you decide you need it, I'm giving you permission to put up a tent or sheltered area in the rear yard for whatever purpose you need it for. If you'd like, we'll assign SHIELD workmen to set it up, so that you won't have to worry about outsiders walking around inside the house."

Bucky wanted to ask what he was talking about, but chose to stay silent as Coulson told Anna that he was glad they were getting along, and that if they needed anything else, to just call or contact Agent Romanoff.

With that, they signed off, leaving him alone with Anna once more, his anger still bubbling slightly under the surface.

AN: A slightly shorter chapter this time, but more to follow next week. Please be kind and review? Thanks.