Ugh. This chapter is awful. So full of pain and torment toward the end. Grr. I promise – it'll be worth it in the end. Read at your own risk.

There's a bit of intrigue added in this chapter. I'm curious to what everyone thinks about it.

Her name was Tessa. She was gentle and kind – a balm to Bucky's tormented psyche.

Barton brought her to visit on the second day of Bucky being on his own. It was a good thing, too. The windowless apartment was growing smaller and smaller. The sounds of the television couldn't distract him from the fact that he was alone. He had become used to the warmth associated with Steve and Darcy, and their sounds. Now, it was as if he were back in the cold of the Winter Soldier. Alone and unloved. Not a person, but a weapon to be brought out and used when needed. Weapons didn't need company.

Barton's phone call, advising of pending company, was a welcome distraction. Bucky absently checked himself in the bathroom mirror, winced at what he saw, then shrugged and called it good enough. The long hair was tangled and greasy, and there was heavy stubble on his cheeks. His clothes were wrinkled because he'd slept in them and not bothered changing when he woke up. He looked like the person who had recently been deprogrammed from being an assassin and was now alone with the thoughts in his heads. A far cry from his lady's man of the past, but if this woman was a sure thing, he didn't have to try to impress her.

Barton's knock distracted him from his own thoughts, and Bucky hastened to stand before the door, staying back so his visitors could enter.

The woman wasn't what he'd been expecting. She was tall, nearly as tall as Bucky, with a willowy frame and wavy blond hair. Unlike the vibrant personality of Darcy, or the steely strength of Natasha, this woman exuded an air of quiet calm. She stepped forward to offer her hand when Barton introduced her, and enveloped Bucky's hand in both of hers.

"You've been through a lot," she acknowledged in a quiet, soothing voice, staring into his eyes. Hers were a soft, welcoming brown. "Forget all of that for now."

Barton knew when he wasn't needed, and withdrew swiftly. Bemused, Bucky allowed himself to be drawn toward his bedroom. All the torment of the past few months swirled within him, desperate for a physical outlet, and just that quickly, he was almost incapable of walking. It seemed like all the angst had flowed south, along with his blood supply.

Thankfully, Tessa seemed to realize he wasn't in the mood for talking. She tended to him with gentle hands and no judgment, removing his clothing. She smiled in wonder at the fake arm, running her hands along the seam where it joined his shoulder, and raising a questioning eyebrow, hands freezing when he shuddered.

"No, it's okay. Just…not used to people touching it."

He felt like a blushing virgin as her soft hands touched him, unable to control the shaking of his body. It had been so long…

She guided him to the bed, pressing him down softly, and stretching out to lie beside him. "Do you prefer to be dominant or passive?" she asked, stroking one hand along his cheek.

Bucky was always the dominant one. Before the war, when he became a Russian assassin, then the Winter Soldier, he was always in charge. But he wasn't any of those people anymore. "Passive," he croaked out. "But…I'm not sure…"

She pushed at his shoulder to get him to roll over onto his back. "Tell me if you need me to stop."

He watched, transfixed, as she slowly removed her own clothing. When her naked body was exposed, she raised an eyebrow at him, as if in challenge. The right side of her body, from shoulder to hip, was covered in shiny burn scars.

He reached out to touch those scars, smoother than he would have thought they'd be. "This happen when you got saved by a S.H.I.E.L.D agent?"

Tessa settled over him, knees on either side of his abdomen, pert ass perched on his stomach. "Yes. There was a giant monster rampaging through Harlem. Everything was on fire, and I was unconscious. The agent pulled me free, got me immediate medical attention so I didn't die. He certainly didn't have to. But he did." Her face fell. "I didn't even get to thank him. The monster, Blonsky, threw a car on him."

Everyone had demons, Bucky reflected. His current demon was located several inches from where it wanted to be, and it was painfully ready to be exorcised. "So this is how you thank him? By helping others?"

She smiled softly. "It's what I can do." She leaned over, one arm reaching out to the corner of the bed, and picked up a little packet. Condoms had certainly evolved since the 40s. They were probably more effective now, too. Bucky stared, mouth open to draw in air, as she tore the packet open and swiveled at the waist so she could roll it on. He nearly embarrassed himself from just that light touch, hips arching up off the mattress.

"Eager," Tessa noted softly, turning back around to face him. "Tell me if you need me to stop."

Bucky couldn't even think coherently anymore, much less vocalize anything. He did manage a guttural groan once he was seated inside of her, and for a few minutes, there was only the sounds of harsh breathing and the slap of flesh meeting flesh. Entirely too soon, he was digging his heels into the mattress and arching up in release. Tessa stayed poised over him, hands braced against his chest.

"Shit," Bucky groaned when he could speak. "I'm sorry."

The giving goddess sitting on his pelvis smiled down at him. "I'm not here for myself. I'm here for you."

She held true to that statement throughout the night, sometimes being dominant and sometimes passive, whatever Bucky needed. She was exactly what he needed to help soothe his turbulent thoughts and relieve the tension that had been building in the months since he'd come back to himself. The tension that had been exacerbated by Steve and Darcy's relationship.

By morning, he was completely exhausted, but in a good way. Bucky sprawled out, conscious of the drying sweat on his body, and thought fleetingly of getting a shower, but couldn't bring himself to get up.

Tessa was pulling her clothes back on. It looked like she was preparing to leave, and the thought of being alone again left a sour taste in Bucky's mouth. He propped himself up on his elbows. "You don't have to go," he offered hesitantly.

Her smile was a touch sad. "I do have to go. There's someone else who needs me later today, and I need to sleep and recuperate a little bit before then." The smile widened. "You have a very short recovery time. I wasn't expecting that. You'll make someone very happy someday, if you allow yourself to."

That was too insightful for someone who'd been in his presence for only half a day. Bucky swallowed hard, hoping he didn't look as pathetic as he felt. So damn needy, and not wanting to be alone. "Thank you, for helping me."

She smiled and walked back over to the bed to lean over and press a kiss to his cheek. "It was my pleasure."

He didn't bother to get up to see her out. It was only a few steps from the door of the bedroom to the outside door anyhow, and he didn't want to be staring after her like a drowning man. The click of the door closing, shutting him back in with himself, was very loud.

He did finally rouse himself to shower, washing off the sweat of the night's pleasure. It had been very enjoyable, but he was left feeling empty. The brief comfort of a woman's embrace quickly ebbed when realizing that the only reason she'd been with him was because someone had asked her to.

After the shower, it became inevitable. Bucky had to sleep. He hadn't. Not since leaving Steve and Darcy, but the marathon bout of physical activity had drained the last of his reserves, and not even his stubborn will could keep him awake anymore. Even an enhanced body needed to recharge. He might actually need to eat soon too. But not before sleep.

Barton stopped in a couple of times a week over the next three weeks just to chat, or so he said. Bucky wasn't stupid. Steve or Darcy or both had probably asked the archer to check up on him. They were probably getting quite the juicy reports, because he was a mess. The silence was deafening, and without other people talking to him, the guilt and voices in Bucky's head were too loud to be drowned out. When they got too loud, he broke something, and the clamor in his head receded for a little while.

The apartment was a mess.

He was not expecting, and therefore was completely unprepared, for a visitor from S.H.I.E.L.D's upper echelon. Bucky was working out, doing pushups on the living room floor, when he heard the door being unlocked. S.H.I.E.L.D tried to maintain the illusion that this wasn't a cell, but the door could only be locked or unlocked from the outside, so that illusion had failed within the first day.

Barton always texted before one of his visits, so Bucky had no idea who was entering his space. He sprang from a prone position up into a wary crouch, hand reaching out for a broken piece dinner plate that had been thrown against the wall.

The man who entered, with two S.H.I.E.L.D agents acting as his guard, was older, clean cut, wearing a suit. A bureaucrat then. Bucky unwound from his crouch and stood, folding his arms across his chest, but not relinquishing the shard of broken plate in his hand.

"What do you want?"

"Sergeant Barnes. You've been enjoying S.H.I.E.L.D hospitality for some time now."

No attempt to introduce himself. The arrogance of a bureaucrat too. The two agents flanking him…didn't really look like agents. More like mercenaries. Bucky's internal alarms went off. He didn't like this.

He shrugged. "Since S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't trust me on my own, I don't have a choice but to enjoy the…hospitality." He spit out the word, so they would know what he thought of it.

Suit smiled, and it did nothing to quell the feeling of wrongness in Bucky's gut. "Nothing comes for free in this world, Sergeant Barnes. Considerable resources have been expended on your treatment and upkeep. It's time for you to start earning your keep."

Bucky's eyes narrowed, and every instinct in his body went on even higher alert. "What did you have in mind?"

"There are enemies of S.H.I.E.L.D that need to be eliminated. You have talents unique to that problem."

Bile rose in the back of Bucky's throat so swiftly he nearly gagged. "No, actually, I don't. The Winter Soldier did, but the Winter Soldier is gone." He used every bit of self-control that he possessed to keep his body from trembling. He had been afraid of this. Afraid that someone would want to utilize his death dealing skills.

Suit's eyes narrowed, and his smile turned hard. "Those skills are still with you. It is easy enough to condition you to utilize them again."

"Get out," Bucky snarled. His arms unfolded, coming down to his sides, ready for action. Would they try to take him by force?

Suit's eyes flickered down to the plate shard still clenched in Bucky's fist, then back up to his face. "Disappointing, Sergeant. Ah, well….you haven't had enough time yet to truly consider my offer." He cast a quick look around. "I suspect that at some point, doing anything will be preferable to staying here. I prefer to have your compliance in this. It makes things…easier. I'll be back."

"Don't bother!"

Bucky didn't relax until the door shut behind them and the lock re-engaged. Then, he just stood there for several minutes, shaking in suppressed fury, trying to overcome it, but it was rising like a tide inside of him.

With an enraged cry, he set about systematically destroying everything in the apartment with as much violence as possible. Was this what Steve's intervention had shielded him from when he first recovered? Would S.H.I.E.L.D have deprogrammed him only to reprogram him for their own purposes?

He was vaguely aware, at some point, of someone opening the door. His reaction was pure instinct – Bucky threw a cabinet door at the intruder. Red hair flashed in his vision as the intruder dodged and then darted toward him. Fight instincts kicked in, and he sent a barrage of household items toward the intruder, but she was fast. In a complicated move, she dove at him, legs winding around his and bringing him crashing to the floor. Bucky tried to roll away, but those legs locked around his neck, cutting off his air supply.

"Stand down, Barnes," a voice hissed in his ear. "It's Natasha."

It wasn't until his vision was beginning to go gray that his fight instinct told him it was okay to stand down. Bucky slumped, and Natasha immediately released her leg lock on his neck. Air rushed back into his lungs, and he coughed violently until it eased.

"What happened?" she asked, sitting up behind him and bending over so he could see her.

Bucky didn't answer, just curled up into a ball. She was S.H.I.E.L.D, and probably here to present Suit's idea in a different fashion. Knowing Natasha, it would be a practical presentation that he would be hard pressed to refuse. After all, what does a former assassin do for a living?

"James?" She had taken to calling him that. He was no longer Yasha, and didn't want to be reminded of that time, and Natasha respected that. The few times she had used a first name with him since his recovery, it had been James.

"Get out," he said dully. "Tell them no. There's not anything they can say to convince me."

"Who?"

Ah. Playing ignorance. Apparently, she was to be the sympathetic ear in opposition to Suit's hard-ass proposal.

"Get out," he repeated.

There was a long moment of silence, but then finally he heard her rise and depart. The click of the outside lock engaging was very loud.

Tearing apart the apartment hadn't made him feel any better. He was lonely and haunted, with only his own thoughts for company. Bucky finally managed to drag his sore and slightly beat up body into his bedroom, but the pillows still held a slight scent of Tessa, reminding him that he was a freak and desperately alone.

The sound of the outside door opening didn't even rouse him. He simply didn't care right now. Bucky threw the fake arm over his eyes and resolved to ignore whoever was coming in to brave the wreckage. He heard careful footsteps coming closer to the bedroom, winding their way through the debris littering the floor.

He smelled it first – the warm, fragrant scent of pumpkin spice coffee. It sent his stomach plummeting toward his backbone in despair. He couldn't deal with this right now.

"Barnes?"

She was inside the bedroom. The smell of coffee, of his salvation and peace, was overwhelming. Bucky turned on his side away from it.

"Your hand…" she trailed off.

It was streaked with blood, he knew. The skin of his knuckles had split after repeatedly punching unyielding objects and tearing apart breakable things, and blood had run down his real arm. It didn't matter. Bucky wanted to be alone with his darkness. He didn't want to dim anyone else's light.

"Go away, pumpkin." His voice was strangled, hoarse from screaming in rage and loneliness.

"God, Bucky." He twitched. She didn't call him Bucky often. Hardly ever. A hand fell on his real shoulder, warm and forgiving. "Why did you do this? What's wrong? Why did you push us away?"

He stiffened. Us. That's why he pushed them away. They had something he apparently never would and it was painful to be around. He could remember when he was the most important person in Steve's life. At the beginning of his recovery, he was first in both of their priorities. But gradually, as they saw he was back to stay, their focus shifted back to each other and he was left alone in the cold again.

"Go away," he said again, eyes squeezed shut.

"No."

He felt the bed dip behind him, and arms slid around his shoulders. A face pressed into his back, and Bucky shuddered. This was torture.

"Natasha said you needed us. She said it was bad, that you were letting it consume you. Why, Barnes? Why did you leave us?"

'Us' again. She didn't realize. Bucky pulled away from her and slid across the bed, popping to his feet on the other side. "I don't know how Steve put up with it, before the serum. He's a stronger man than I am, I guess. I can't stand being the unequal part of the group. So take your 'us' and go."

She didn't say anything for a while, standing silently on the other side of the bed. Bucky didn't turn to see her. He didn't want to see her. He just clenched his fists, wishing she would go.

"Is this what you really want?" she asked softly. "You want to be alone, locked in a windowless apartment, watched by S.H.I.E.L.D agents constantly."

"It's better than the alternative." Constantly casting his shadow on their light. Of course, he wouldn't stay locked in here for long. Suit would come back for him, take him in for re-conditioning so he could become an assassin for S.H.I.E.L.D. He would be let out on assignments, and locked in when not needed. Hell, they might as well put him back in cryostasis when not needed. He would become exactly what Steve and Darcy had saved him from.

Really, what other future did he have?

The gentle hand on his arm nearly undid him. The coffee that appeared in his line of sight was salvation. Bucky seized it, ignoring the startled eep from Darcy's mouth, and drank the whole thing without stopping. It burned his mouth and throat, but he didn't care. The taste was a reminder that someone cared about him, Bucky Barnes, and not the Winter Soldier. It was also a reminder of what he didn't have.

"You need to go, pumpkin."

Instead, she wrapped her arms around him from behind. "I miss you. Steve misses you. You became a part of our life, a huge part, and then you just left us."

"I'm not your love child," he whispered, remembering her joking of just that once or twice. "I can't, Darcy. I can't be around the two of you."

"Why not?" she cried into his back. "Were we that horrible to you? I don't understand! Steve doesn't understand. He misses his best friend."

Bucky slumped, hands sliding over her arms, and beginning the painful process of unwinding them from around his torso. "I miss both of you," he admitted. "But I don't want to be around you anymore." Better to cut the ties, before he was programmed to be a S.H.I.E.L.D assassin. S.H.I.E.L.D would probably erase them anyhow. The thought closed his throat in despair. He didn't want to lose them, but he couldn't imagine that S.H.I.E.L.D would let them stay in his head. They would be a distraction to him completing his missions.

The sob from behind him was agonizing. Bucky turned slowly, and drank in the sight of her. The tears streaming from her eyes nearly killed him. "Don't cry, pumpkin. It's for the best."

He wasn't expecting her to burrow into him, arms pulling free of his hands and sliding around him in a tight hug. "Best for who, Bucky? I'm miserable. Steve's miserable. From the looks of things here – you're losing what you fought so hard to gain. So how is it best?"

He stared down at the top of her head, trying so hard to deny the feelings he felt. Slowly, against every smart thought in his head, his arms rose to slide around her shoulders. He felt the little sigh she gave as she pressed even closer. He wanted this moment. Wanted to treasure it until it was taken away from him. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to her hair, inhaling the familiar fruity scent of her shampoo. For a moment, he could imagine that she was there just for him, that there wasn't a giant elephant named Steve in the apartment with them.

Where was Steve? Why would he trust his girl to come see the crazy man by herself?

"Where is Steve?" he asked softly, mouth moving against her hair.

Darcy's arms tightened around him. "He's doing some publicity thing with Stark for the Avengers."

"He hates those things."

"But he understands why they need done. Please come back with me, Barnes. Please. Seeing you like this would kill Steve."

The moment passed. Bucky straightened, muscles going rigid, closing himself off. "I said no. You need to go, pumpkin. Thanks for the coffee. Haven't had any since I left."

Darcy felt the difference, and slowly pulled back, tilting her head up so she could look at him. Bucky steeled himself, wanting to get lost in her eyes, but never forgetting that she only came to him via Steve. He flinched when one of her hands rose to slide against his cheek.

"Go, Darcy. Go back to Steve."

She stepped back, lower lip trembling in an effort to hold in tears. "Can he…can he come see you?"

Bucky turned away from her. "It's better if he doesn't, pumpkin." Let Steve remember Bucky, before Bucky was turned back into a killing machine. It was only a matter of time.

He heard her quiet huff as she tried to hold in a sob. Then she moved away and the outside door opened and shut behind her. To Bucky, it was like the nailing of a coffin lid.

He threw himself back down on the bed, wishing desperately that he had never been awakened. It would be so much easier…