"So, Mr. Barnes, are you still having nightmares?"

"James, I asked you a question. Are you still having nightmares?"

"No."

"We've been doing this long enough that I can tell when you're lying. You seem a little off today, did something happen recently?" the doctor pressed further. "Is it (Y/N)? Did you connect?"

"No," Bucky replied flatly, a slight wince in his expression at the sound of your name, still staring straight ahead and avoiding Dr. Raynor's gaze. He couldn't let her see through him, to see the truth that he had been trying almost non-stop since you had walked away, leaving him in the excruciating pain of your disconnect that hadn't abated in nearly six months now. All that his memory would offer him of you was the emotionless look in your eyes as his last sight of you, before you turned away and never even considered looking back. When he had never felt like less and had never needed you more.

"Have you been trying?"

With that, Bucky went silent again, knowing full well that it did nothing but frustrate his therapist, but he didn't care all that much. He wasn't here by choice. This was ordered and put on him as a condition of making sure that he could walk the streets a free man; a free man but trapped in his own personal prison. A free man to wander alone, refusing to let anyone in when the one person he would even consider accepting had so readily cast him aside at the worst time of your life and not exactly his best, either.

Raynor continued to watch him, her own agitation growing with his lack of engagement in their appointment. She knew the one way to get him to say something, so she grabbed her notebook forcefully, staring the man down in challenge.

"Oh, come on, really?" he groaned. "You're gonna do the notebook thing? Why? It's passive aggressive."

"You don't talk, I write."

"Okay," Bucky relented, "fine, I'll talk. No...I haven't been trying to connect to her, but I have tried to call a few times just to see that she's okay. Just a friend checking up on a friend, that's all."

"Is she still your friend?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She definitely didn't treat you like a friend when she all but ripped your heart out and walked away even as you begged her not to," Raynor challenged. "Does that sound friendly to you? Where was she when Steve left? Does she even know?"

"You know, you're a cynic doc," Bucky smirked, though sarcastic in his tone, "of course she knows. I hear that she stays in touch with Sam."

The doctor nodded and reached out, still having a hard time believing anything he offered, "give me your phone." Once it was in her hands, she opened it and began to search for something that might give her a truthful answer when she couldn't tell anymore from what his voice carried. "You've been ignoring texts from Sam, so how do you know that they've been in touch?"

"I can still read them even if I don't answer. Pretty sure he's doing it just to torture me," he scoffed, shifting in his seat to put his phone back once he got her to return it. "You can't blame me for not running out there like I'm eager to grab a beer with the guy."

"Ever consider that maybe he actually cares?"

Bucky paused and gave it a few seconds of thought, running the years of knowing Sam through his mind, replaying the good and the bad and the simply downright annoying. There were a few times when he might have bought into the idea, but they hadn't seen each other since Tony's funeral, and those few moments had faded away to a memory that barely rang true anymore.

"No."

~~~

Every day was the same.

Get up early before Morgan had the chance to steal your few moments of peace, have breakfast on the porch in the quiet of the morning by the lake, the only sounds coming from the gentle waves on the water coming to life from a cool breeze that helped you to wake. The precious moments of your day when you could keep a clear mind to prepare yourself for looking at your daughter all day and seeing Tony staring back through her eyes.

But these moments weren't completely peaceful. Sometimes the silence was deafening, leaving you vulnerable to hear him trying to reach out, and the stillness left you aware of the uneasiness in your stomach and the dizziness you had to keep shaking away. Damnit if Bucky wasn't persistent in trying to connect, but you were just as persistent in keeping him away.

"God, just give up," you whispered to yourself, "take a hint."

You had pulled away from Bucky, and you had thought it was a disconnect that would hold, but somehow, he was breaking through your resolve to stay separate. Maybe Wanda or Stephen was helping him, but you didn't really talk to either of them to ask. It wasn't his fault that Tony was gone, of course it wasn't, but the desire to be around him now felt like a betrayal to your husband somehow so you refused to allow it. Having Bucky connect was a closeness that you would never have again with your husband so you couldn't let him have it either. Even though it was nature that held your souls together, it was also keeping your life torn apart.

"You're up early," a low whisper jolted you from your thoughts. "What's for breakfast?"

"I don't know, Pete, what did you find for yourself?"

"Shockingly, nothing," he chuckled, "so I thought I woke up before you for a change when you didn't have any leftovers for me. Did you even eat?"

"Yep, I'm stuffed," you lied, exasperated at the loss of your peace and quiet and standing to start your actual day. "Sorry I didn't save anything for you, kiddo. Guess you'll have to fend for yourself."

Peter stood silently and watched you walk away, his arms crossed and a skeptical look that he was glad you couldn't see. You looked different. You looked exhausted and in denial of how you were actually doing. He knew that the last thing you wanted was for anyone to be worrying about you or taking it upon themselves to become some kind of caregiver, but when Tony couldn't be here to do it himself, Pete immediately stepped up. If you wouldn't accept him, then he was doing it for Morgan; whatever excuse worked so that you wouldn't kick him out and back home to Queens.

Maybe he was in over his head here. You'd always see him as Pete, the kid that Tony took under his wing and mentored him with the hopes of taking his place someday, but not like this. He was to lead the future Avengers when Tony didn't want the role anymore, not to take over caring for his family in his absence.

His hand hesitated slightly as he reached into his pocket for his phone, a shake in it making it harder to dial a number he had reserved as a last resort. Maybe he wasn't down to his last options just yet, but to see you this morning he decided that it was as close as he was comfortable getting to it.

"Hey," he spoke quietly as the line connected, "I think we've got a problem."

~~~

Sam had been waiting for this call. It had been six months now since the battle and he had guessed that this would be about the time that you would begin to slip. He had experience in these things, the trauma and their patterns, but also how to approach them. This was unique though, and he wasn't sure for the first time in his career. Part of what was eating away at you was not only the loss of the love of your life, but also the man entangled within your soul that you weren't allowed to leave behind. He had yet to find his own soulmate so he couldn't fully relate, but he still knew a debilitating pain when he saw it.

It was the same man that drove him absolutely insane and who he had been trying his hardest to avoid. The man who argued with him for the simple sake of arguing, and who had the most unnerving and annoying way of staring anyone or anything down until they finally gave up and let him win. The same man who sat across from him right now, watching impatiently as Sam closed the line and put his phone away as if he knew exactly what was being discussed even though he had heard nothing.

"Is she okay?"

"Is who okay?"

"Sam, come on. Don't."

"Don't what?"

"You know what," Bucky groaned, frustrated and leaning back into the chair with his eyes tightly closed. "Don't fuck around with this. I know how much you love to give me shit, and I'm good with that. But this...not this. Not her."

"Fine," Sam relented with a heavy sigh, taking a seat across from him, "that was Pete. He's worried that she's not taking care of herself. Says that all she does is look out for everyone else. He helps with Morgan here and there, but she won't accept it half the time when he offers. Like she's keeping busy just to keep her mind occupied and probably to keep you out of it."

"She did just lose Tony, so it's understandable."

"And you."

"Nah, she made it clear that letting me go wasn't a problem, remember? You were there. You saw it. Hell, you and Steve all but carried me off that field-"

"Sounds like a very touching moment between you," Zemo interrupted as he took his seat on the jet. He crossed between the two men, removing his coat with a careful toss of it away into a nearby chair. "In the few hours that we've been together, I have watched as you have already begun to form a lasting bond, from what seemed to be an insurmountable animosity."

Sam could only stare at the man with a look of confusion, while Bucky offered a darkening stare of a building anger. "We're not doing any male bonding, or whatever the hell you want to call it," he spat in reply. "We're here to do a job and then we're going our separate ways. Your way is to prison."

"You would lose your tour guide so readily?"

"Yes."

"It also saddens me that I will not be able to see (Y/N) again," Zemo sighed. "The last I saw of her was in Siberia, and I did not have the opportunity to offer my apologies for my role in the situation."

Sam turned to face him, with Bucky following suit. "Listen to me, there will never be a day that you see her, you understand? She will never forgive what you did to Tony. You tortured the man just to get your revenge, and it took years for him to come back from that. Who do you think was the one to put him back together?"

"I understand-"

"No, you don't," Bucky stood, rushing forward to wrap his fingers around the man's throat. "Don't think for one second that you understand what you did to them. You'll see her again over my dead body."

"Don't give him any ideas," Sam said quickly. "We just need to figure out how to find who's making that serum so we can get this done and go back to ignoring each other, alright?" The other two men nodded in hesitant agreement, each of them turning away to go back to their own thoughts in silence. "Buck, as soon as we're done here, you need to go to her and make this right, you know that. I can talk to her, but it's just a band-aid solution. She needs this to come from you."

"Hmm," he huffed, disengaging completely, "I'll think about it. Maybe."