So, this story is from Bucky's POV, and it deals with topics that some readers may find uncomfortable, awkward, or offensive. Just saying. Read at your own risk.

This is the third installment in a series. The first part - When Passed My Friend and Left Me Standing Bleakly. The second part is To Soothe the Savage Beast

The apartment was too small.

James Barnes, known as 'Bucky' to his closest friends, paced his bedroom in extreme agitation. He was grateful. He would never stop being grateful for being rescued from the life of the Winter Soldier. And he loved his two best friends. But in the three months since his 'awakening', the apartment had grown far too small for all three of them.

Or, rather, it was far too small for him, and Darcy and Steve.

Breaking through the rewrite of his mind had been like waking from a long sleep. The last thing he remembered was falling. Then suddenly, there was Steve and Darcy, relentlessly trying to 'wake' him up. He had memories of his other life, as the Winter Soldier. But those memories were dim, as if a dream. Bucky had gone to sleep in the 40s, just like Steve had, and everything around him was new. The dim memories inside of his head helped him adjust, but it was like seeing things through a fog.

Once they had grown more comfortable with each other, Darcy and Steve had returned to their normal patterns of behavior. They were a couple, and while their focus had been on Bucky and his recovery, their relationship had taken a backseat. But once he was more in control of himself, their relationship came back to the forefront.

Steve was nothing like the awkward idiot Bucky remembered around women. He had to believe that Darcy had a lot to do with that. She wasn't going to let someone be awkward around her. It must have been an overload to Steve's poor senses, but he learned how to handle her. It was probably inevitable that he fell for her. He had a thing for brunettes.

Now that they could pull their focus back from Bucky, he frequently noticed them looking at each other. Intense stares that sent a lick of flame into his core. Bucky figured it was the universe getting even with him. Poor Steve used to be the one watching him with the dames. Now Bucky watched and envied.

Enhanced hearing was not something he had, but he didn't really need it. When Darcy and Steve were having alone time in their room, he couldn't help but to hear it. Darcy wasn't exactly quiet. And it was driving him back to insane very quickly. Neither one seemed to realize what it was doing to him.

He had, of course, taken what pleasure he was allowed to as the Winter Soldier, but there was always a reason for it. It was always a means to an end. Desire did not exist. There was only physical gratification, and the completion of a mission.

But Bucky Barnes had desires and wants, and it had been a hellacious long time since he'd been able to fulfill them (70+ years). Being forced to listen to the enjoyment of others was sheer torture, and on those days, his skin was too tight, and he had the desire to break something. If he did, though, Steve would just look at him with sad eyes. Or worse, Darcy would heave a huge sigh, and start talking to calm him down. He didn't want to let them down or disappoint them, so kept everything bottled up.

He also didn't want to jerk off to the sounds of them getting busy with each other, but he was so hard it hurt, and he couldn't even see straight at this point. So he turned his TV up really loud, slid his real hand into his sweats, and muffled a groan as he wrapped fingers around himself. It took an embarrassingly few number of strokes until he was shuddering and convulsing in release.

Bucky flopped back onto his bed, breathing a little fast, and uttered a few silent curses when he felt the sticky wetness on the inside of his sweats. He couldn't keep going on like this. He needed to separate himself from them, and that thought caused pain. They were everything to him. His best friends; the two people who had pulled him from the darkness. But for his own sanity's sake, tenuous as it already was, he had to break free.

Steve would be crushed, he knew. The captain would look at him with those sad eyes, and it would hurt like a sucker punch to the stomach. And Darcy? That would be even worse. She felt sort of proprietary about him, since she had been instrumental in his recovery. She had the tendency to hold things or people she loved very close, and he didn't think she'd be able to let go.

He'd considered Natasha as a relief option, since they had history, but one look at Clint Barton's expression whenever he was around her was enough for Bucky to stay away. Since that decision effectively eliminated his options, he was stuck. Unless he could convince them that he was cleared for unsupervised excursions out in public, he had to endure, or get away.

A perverse and twisted part of him wondered how Steve and Darcy would handle it if he had a woman visit.

The bathroom was at least far enough away from the master bedroom that Bucky couldn't hear anything, when he finally roused himself to clean up. He decided to take a shower while he was at it, and dumped his soiled sweats in the shower stall with him. Because there was no way he was throwing them in the hamper for Darcy or Steve to find. Darcy had a habit of stealing his dirty clothes when she did their laundry, and Bucky just couldn't live with the thought of her realizing he was shooting off in his sweats by himself. It was humiliating, and he didn't want her to pity him.

One of the benefits (downsides?) of having been injected with a bastardized version of the super soldier serum was that his body's recovery time was very quick. Bucky could only imagine what Steve dealt with, because it could sometimes be highly inconvenient. Especially if there was no outlet for release. So when he started soaping himself, and the inevitable reaction occurred, Bucky just gritted his teeth, and turned the faucet to cold water. Eventually it faded, and he emerged, shivering and cold.

Before drying off, he made sure his sweats were clean, and squeezed the water out of them rather savagely. Then he did dry off, trying not to touch the fake arm too much. It was a reminder of what he had been, and no matter how much he wanted to forget, the arm was always there as a reminder. Strangely enough, Darcy always seemed to touch the arm first. It was a level of acceptance that not even Steve was capable of, and Bucky tried not to think about it too much. His feelings for his best friend's girl were already too strong. He didn't need to encourage himself.

Clean, dry and dressed in fresh sweats, he headed back to his room. The other bedroom door was still firmly shut, so he did the same to his, shutting it behind him. He threw himself down on his bed, turned off the bedside light, and stared blankly at the television. There wasn't much on the television that could engage his attention, but he liked the sound. It gave the illusion that he wasn't alone.

Boredom and lack of purpose were going to send him screaming back into the abyss. Sleeping was probably right up at the top of that list as well.

Sometimes he was able to sleep soundly. Bucky treasured those nights, because he woke up feeling like himself, and like he could do anything. Those nights were in the minority though. There were too many bad memories to leave him in peace, starting with his own death. He had died. Bucky knew that. But the icy water had preserved him, and when he'd been found, they'd resuscitated (resurrected?) him. Like Steve, his body had been preserved, due to the strange cocktail of drugs within it.

Other nights, most other nights, he dreamt of ice and falling, or of hunting and killing brutally. Those were the worst. The memories of his time as the Winter Soldier were uncompromising in their explicit detail. He choked the life out of victims, shot them through the heads, or sliced open their throats. Always, he could feel the splash of hot blood or the desperate hitches as they tried to breathe. Worse, he could feel the grim satisfaction he himself took in completing his mission.

This night was a bad one. There was a man who would not do what his controllers wanted him to do. The Winter Soldier was sent to make an example of him, in a very specific way. The man had a very young daughter, and he sobbed like a baby when she was tortured and killed right in front of him.

Bucky had those memories. They were part of his life, even if he'd not been himself, and to relive them was excruciating. He fought up out of the nightmare, clawing at the bed sheets and blankets, trying to erase the memory and the feel of what he'd done. There were hands on his arms, calling to him, trying to pull him back to himself. When he came back, it was with a choked cry that turned into agonized sobs.

Bucky turned on his side, pulling away from the hands on his arms, and curled into a fetal position. There had been blood. He had been covered in so much blood and his ears still rang with the cries of the father and the child.

It took a long time to pass, and he was completely wrung out when it was over. Darcy was behind him on his bed, arms around his waist, talking softly. Steve was in front of him, on his knees on the floor, torso sprawled on the bed, arms around Bucky's shoulders. Steve's face was creased in grief, and that nearly killed Bucky. Steve shouldn't look like that, not for him.

"It's over, Barnes," Darcy assured softly.

"Buck? You back with us?" Steve raised his head.

He shook them off, sitting up hastily. "I need to leave," he said in a voice hoarse from screaming. "I need to get clear."

He didn't need to look at either face to see the hurt there, but he didn't deserve to be part of their closeness. And it was theirs, not his. He loved them both, but he couldn't keep being around them. He was still broken, and his darkness dimmed their light.

"Tell Fury or whoever to get their security detail ready, because I know they won't let me be on my own without watching me." He pulled his knees up to his chest and slid both arms around them, staring straight ahead. "If they want to restrict where I go, then tell them to get a place ready."

Darcy's hand was warm on his arm. "Barnes?" It nearly killed him to hear the hurt in her voice, but Bucky couldn't do it anymore.

"Tomorrow at the latest," he told them in a dead voice.

"Bucky?"

He couldn't handle that. Not Steve sounding so lost and unsure of everything. Bucky squeezed his eyes shut. "Please go," he said quietly. "I don't want to be around you anymore."

He heard Darcy urging Steve to his feet, but he could still hear Steve's lost little boy voice. "I don't understand. Bucky?"

"C'mon Steve. He needs to be alone right now."

He heard them withdraw, the bedroom door rattling when Darcy slammed it shut. Bucky didn't even need to look to know it had been her. Steve was too hurt, too lost to be angry. Darcy's hurt translated into anger. But it was better that way. Better that they both be hurt but free of him. Safe from what he could do.

He wasn't sure how much later it was when the bedroom door opened again. Bucky looked up in time to be rocked by a slap to his face.

Darcy was coldly furious. "How could you say that to him?" she hissed. "Why would you say that to him? I know it's not true, Barnes, so why?"

He rubbed his cheek. "It is true, pumpkin. I don't want to be around either of you anymore. I feel stifled, suffocated, like I'm only half a man." Oh how those words hurt to say out loud, but it was for the best. They would never be able to move on, to truly live, while worried about him. While being his caretaker.

She slapped him again, tears in her eyes. "I don't know why you're doing this. I know you're lying."

Bucky made himself grin, like he didn't have a care in the world. Like his own heart wasn't shattering into pieces at the thought of leaving them. "You think whatever you want to, pumpkin. I just want to be rid of you two."

A sob escaped her, and Darcy retreated, face creased in sorrow. Bucky forced his face into the impassive lines of the Winter Soldier – no emotion. Inside, he felt like he was crumbling. But he couldn't stay. He didn't want to come to resent them, and forever being on the edge of their closeness would do that. It was better this way.

Romanoff and Barton came for him the next morning.

Bucky hadn't emerged from his room. He couldn't bear to be around either Steve or Darcy right now, so he stayed hidden away. Barton had contacted him the night before with the news that he could move into a S.H.I.E.L.D monitored apartment closer to the regional office. There was a question in the archer's voice, but he didn't voice it. Bucky thanked him politely, and suggested a time when he would be ready to go.

He didn't have anything to pack, except some clothes. Everything else in his room had been gifts from Darcy or Steve, and he couldn't bear to bring anything like that with him. It would be too painful of a reminder of what he couldn't have.

He was hoping to disappear without further confrontation, but when Bucky emerged from his room in the morning, Steve was standing in front of the outside door in full Captain mode, arms folded across his chest, looking grim. Darcy stood off to one side, eyes red rimmed and swollen, but with her mouth set in an angry line. Barton and Romanoff waited by the door, without readable expressions.

"I don't know what happened, Bucky, but this doesn't feel right. I need you to tell me what happened."

Bucky strolled to the kitchen counter, and propped his hip against it, inhaling deeply, corner of his mouth curling up in a hard grin. "I'm tired of being your little pet project, Steve. Or the stray animal you can't stand to leave out on the street, Darcy. Thanks for the smothering, but I'm done with that."

He saw each word hit them like actual blows. Darcy choked back a sob and fled to the bedroom, leaving Steve still in his way. The captain's eyes were narrowed. "Fine. Done smothering. Have all the space you want, because I'm thinking you're not Bucky right now."

Bucky smiled, with a lot of teeth. "Or maybe I just started being Bucky again." He stood, and raised an eyebrow until Steve moved. "See ya, Cap."

Barton and Romanoff flanked him as he left the apartment, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. They remained silent until the three of them entered the elevator.

"That was harsh," Barton told him.

Bucky didn't even acknowledge that. He was being stared at, quite intently, by Natasha. She saw too much, knew parts of him too well.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. "Sometimes it helps."

That was a little closer to the truth than Bucky wanted anyone to be. He swallowed hard and shook his head. "Am I allowed out on my own?" he asked.

Her stare was unnerving. "Not unsupervised. S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't trust your recovery that much, yet."

Bucky clenched his jaw hard, hands unconsciously forming into fists, immediately noting the tensing of the two agents escorting him. "How about visitors?"

One elegant red eyebrow climbed in question. "Doubtful. Do you really think Steve or Darcy will come to visit you?"

He shook his head. "Not them. Not anyone involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. Just…" He clenched his jaw again. Damned if he would articulate that he needed to get laid.

Barton got it. The corner of the archer's mouth twitched up in a grin. "I think it can be arranged," he assured. Then, when Natasha looked at him, "Don't worry about it, Nat. It's a guy thing." He nudged Bucky with his elbow. "We'll talk then. When there aren't any judgmental ears around."

Natasha's sour expression almost made Bucky chuckle. "There should always be judgmental ears around you, Clint, because the only judgment you have is poor."

"I resent that. Occasionally, it's only questionable."

"By whose standards?" she demanded. "Stark's?"

Barton's face creased in disgust. "Awe Tasha, that wasn't nice."

"Whoever said I was nice, Hawkeye?"

Their bantering helped soothe the anxiety that was gnawing at Bucky's gut. Of all the terrible things he'd done in his life, deliberately trying to hurt the two people who had saved him was the worst. He couldn't erase the visual in his head of Darcy's expression crumbling, and the tears that immediately followed. Steve hadn't shown nearly that level of emotion, but that only meant he was keeping the hurt inside.

He remembered a time, dimly, of having that level of ease with Natasha. She went by Natalia then, and hadn't yet been broken. He had played a large part in breaking her spirit. But something in her still had hope, and she was dependent on him. Since he had done nothing to discourage that dependency, he was deemed flawed, and taken in for re-conditioning. Bucky couldn't really remember that part, but he had a very clear memory of trying to kill her. That had been his assigned mission. He had failed, and she had then failed to kill him, which was always seen as a flaw on her part. Still, she was valuable enough that they decided not to kill her for her failure. He was shipped off to cryostasis, until they might have need of him again.

He missed having that level of comfort with someone. All he'd had was the time before the war, when he was a playboy, showing all kinds of dames a good time, and protecting his asthmatic, puny best friend from his own altruistic beliefs. It was a dim memory of a magical time. Once he became a soldier and went to war, that was over. He was one of many - cold, scared, and just hoping like hell that he'd live to come home.

Hope almost disappeared when his unit had been captured. Caged and worked like animals, their hope slowly dwindled as no attempts to free them were made. Fear blossomed as men were taken to the isolation ward and never returned. There was no comfort to be had. Bucky longed for the days where he could lose himself in the warmth and softness of a woman's touch.

When his time came, when the Hydra soldiers dragged him out of his cell in the earliest hours of dawn, Bucky abandoned hope. He knew what being taken to the isolation ward meant. It was a painful death sentence. Schmidt's mad doctor, Zola, liked to conduct experiments on the Allied soldiers. No one knew the nature of those experiments, because no one ever came back from them. Bucky was going to find out, but the knowledge would die in painful torment with him.

The bitter taste of regret, for a life he didn't get to go back to, was so thick in his mouth that he choked as they dragged him to his fate. One of the strongest feelings of regret was tied to Steve. Steve would inevitably die by some punk's hand, trying to be noble without realizing that his body couldn't support his ideals. He'd always been there to support Steve. They looked out for each other, and as Bucky was being strapped down to a table, he wanted to see his best friend one more time. He wanted to tell Steve to be smart, but to keep being a great man.

Then there were needles and knives and the burn of chemicals in his veins. The dwarfish face of Zola became his own personal hell, and Bucky just wished he'd die faster. He learned, intimately, how much pain the human body could take before the spirit broke and he answered any question asked of him. But that didn't stop the torment. There was only more pain, more needles, more knives, and more chemicals.

When Steve's face appeared, looking down at him in horror, Bucky rejoiced. He was dead, or in a state so close to it that Zola couldn't hurt him anymore, because Steve was there to stand between Bucky and pain. He patted Steve's cheek when his arms were released, and then had to frown in confusion when Steve helped him stand up. Steve was huge!

"What happened to you?" he had to know, tongue barely working. It was swollen and dry, and Bucky couldn't even get his feet to work as Steve hauled him assay from where he'd been tortured.

"I joined the army," his best friend quipped.

It was a salvation that Bucky wasn't expecting. He began to have hope again as he and the rest of the Howling Commandos followed Captain America on a Hydra search and destroy mission. They could have normal lives again, once the war was over. And, miracle of miracles, Steve already had himself a girl, even if neither one of them would admit to it. Bucky was worried at first, because who wouldn't like Steve now? But Peggy Carter's eyes, while appreciate of the physical, grew impossibly warm whenever Steve's character shone brightly. And Steve confessed that she had looked at him the same way when he was an asthmatic shrimp.

Bucky could only hope that he'd find someone to look at him like that. But he was terribly afraid that the outside was all dames ever saw of him. His inner self wasn't nearly as shiny as Steve. Still, there had to be someone, somewhere…

Then, they went after Zola in an icy highland, and when Bucky tried to be Captain America, all his heroics got him was blown out of a train. By some miracle, he managed to grab onto a railing on the side of the train that had been blown open. Steve appeared moments later, reaching out to him, but the railing, buffeted by the air from the train's speed, snapped free, and Bucky fell, screaming out his rage and regrets. He squeezed his eyes shut, because he didn't want to see what he was falling into.

A hand seized his wrist, stopping his fall, and his eyes snapped open, only to find that he wasn't dropping into an icy abyss. He was in an elevator with Romanoff and Barton, crouched on the floor, with Natasha holding tight to his real arm. Her eyes were wide, and her hair was a little disheveled. Barton was slumped in the corner of the elevator, blinking, with a bloody nose.

"That was a bad one," the redhead remarked. She had seen it once before, where a memory from the past took over. Back then, Bucky hadn't been himself, and didn't know where the memory came from or what it was about.

He slumped, arm still in the air, still tethered to reality. "You caught me," he noted hoarsely.

Natasha tugged on his arm, pulling him reluctantly back to his feet. "I didn't want to find out what would happen if you hit bottom. I don't think Clint could handle it."

Barton wiped at his nose. "Not many people surprise me, Barnes. Congratulations. You're in a very small group that includes a god." He accepted a helping hand up from Natasha, who hadn't let go of Bucky's arm yet, keeping him anchored. The archer's eyes held a grudging respect as he slid up the side of the elevator until he was completely upright. He rotated his jaw gingerly, and then shrugged. "Nasty elbow strike you have, Barnes. Damn metal arm."

Bucky looked away. "Sorry Barton."

When Natasha was sure he was firmly back in reality, she released his arm. "Why don't we take the stairs?" she suggested. "The down motion of the elevator probably isn't helping."

Probably not. Bucky nodded, noting for the first time that the emergency stop on the elevator had been pulled. Natasha's doing, he was willing to bet. She knew about triggers, and must have realized instantly that the dropping motion of the elevator was one of his.

They took the stairs the rest of the way down to the lobby of the apartment building. There were six other S.H.I.E.L.D agents waiting for them outside. Bucky recognized them. They had all, at one point or another, been on guard duty while he had been at S.H.I.E.L.D. They knew what to expect from him should he attempt to escape.

"Fury holds a grudge," Barton explained, at Bucky's pained look. "It will take him awhile to forgive the assassination attempt."

Understandable. Bucky was on his best behavior as he ducked into a black SUV with Barton and Romanoff . He didn't say anything to anyone, ignoring Natasha's worried gaze, and just paid attention to where they were going, so he could retrace the path if necessary. In case he needed to get back to Steve and Darcy. If they would even ever want to see him again.

The apartment was of average size, sparsely furnished, well inside a secured building. There were no windows. For one moment, ever fiber of Bucky's being cried out against going back into confinement, but then he remembered the torment of staying with Steve and Darcy. And he couldn't do that either.

Natasha seemed to feel guilty about it. She couldn't meet his eyes. "It's been fully stocked with food, drinks, and supplies. You should have everything you need."

Not everything. Bucky looked over at Barton, who curled one side of his mouth up in a grin. The archer waved off the other S.H.I.E.L.D agents, and aimed a pointed stare at Natasha. She frowned at the two of them, but finally herded the others out, with an angry stomp to her booted heels.

Barton made himself at home, settling onto the sofa and kicking his booted feet up onto the coffee table. "So…I've been around Rogers and Lewis when they start to get all touchy and start staring at each other like they're mentally undressing each other. Can't be comfortable to be around."

Bucky leaned against the closest wall, staring into space. "No," he agreed shortly.

Clint nodded. "Based on personal experience, it takes a little while after your mind is your own again to start feeling normal…urges. And it might be really strong when that happens."

Bucky looked at him. "You've been programmed before?"

He didn't miss the way Barton's face went still. That was usually the reaction of someone who had lived through the worst type of abuse or torture. Bucky would know. He'd lived through it, and handed it out.

"The god that surprised me? Took over my mind. Turned me into the perfect tool against S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers. A lot of people that I worked with died because of that." Barton's eyes flicked to meet his. "This is also how I know that it takes a while for Fury to forgive an assassination attempt. I shot him in the chest."

Bucky blinked. "He survived. Maybe you weren't trying hard enough."

The archer snorted. "He was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time. He survived your attempt too."

"I wasn't trying to kill him. I was trying to draw out Captain America."

"That didn't work out quite the way you were expecting."

Bucky snorted. "No. But I'm glad it worked out like it did. Now…"

Barton grinned hard, stretching his arms up over his head. "There's this woman I know. Not an agent. She was saved by a S.H.I.E.L.D agent once, and since then she's been…available. She's has had experience being around agents with our…unique...issues."

This had to be one of the most uncomfortable conversations Bucky had ever had. "So she knows how to keep herself safe?" Because that was a huge concern. He didn't know what he would do in that situation. It had been a long time. A very long time.

Barton nodded. "Yeah. If you want…I'll contact her."

Bucky was curious. "She's not…picky?"

The archer rolled his eyes. "No. She's willing to help any agent that might need…help…that way. Gender isn't important either."

Well if that didn't make his pants a little tighter, imagining some girl on girl action. The part of him that remembered his time as the Winter Soldier didn't even blink, but his core identity hadn't ever even really considered something like that. At least, not as anything other than a wild imagining. And he desperately needed the help this woman could offer. Taking care of things himself wasn't very satisfying, and the sounds of Steve and Darcy's enjoyment kept echoing in his head.

Bucky nodded. "Yeah. Please."

Barton popped to his feet. "Okay. I'll set things up. She has automatic clearance for this type of thing."

"A S.H.I.E.L.D approved camp follower?" Bucky asked, using the only term he could think of to describe it.

"Something like that, yeah. Try not to go stir crazy here, okay?"

That was going to be an issue, but he'd deal with it.