thewintersoldier:
this is entirely bella’s fault, as per usual.
au; two years after steve wakes up, he finds an amnesia-riddled bucky barnes in downtown brooklyn and promises to do everything in his power to help him. just as bucky’s determination to regain his memory and his relationship with steve begins to disintegrate, he remembers.
Steve’s gaze settles on a man across the bar, deep in his own private misery. Whatever it is that’s giving Steve this feeling of unsettling familiarity, it’s him. Suddenly sure he knows him, somehow, and the desperate urge to flee (for his own sanity) wars with the need to go over there, to know (because he’ll regret it if he doesn’t).
Both instincts are rooted in self-preservation, but Steve’s never run from a fight in his life.
He turns further, ready to slide off the bar stool when something about the warm lamplight on skin reaches into his brain for a memory over seven decades old. Skin on skin and a voice that says his name—his name, not the false ones he gives out to keep his secret—in a ragged, needy tone.
The memory takes his breath away; there’s only ever been one person in Steve’s life who said his name like that and this? This can’t be him. It’s just a memory, Steve tells himself. It’s just a similarity turned into longing.
Because it’s not possible. No matter how Steve is living proof of the impossible made possible, this, this one thing Steve wants, could never be. Steve watched him die, watches him die over and over like it was his only dream in the ice for seventy years. Like it’s his only dream now.
No, this feeling has to be wrong. From this angle, sure, the man bears an uncanny resemblance to his lost Bucky, but he knows it can only be a combination of that similarity and his recent nights of debauchery that jogged the memory.
The man raises his head, not noticing how Steve stares and the feeling that he should let it go and run, run, run strengthens, and—
And… oh god.
Steve’s off his stool and over there in a flash, his beer forgotten on the bar. “Bucky,” Steve blurts. “Oh god, Bucky.”
“Yeah, what?” the guy says, looking up, the jerk of his head as familiar as the sullen tone in his voice.
“Oh my god, it is you.” Steve’s suddenly weak at the knees and he sinks into the seat at Bucky’s side, mind reeling. “How is it even poss—”
“Do I even know you?” Bucky interrupts rudely with a scowl. The familiarity of the expression takes some of the sting from his words.
Still, it doesn’t stop the sudden constriction around Steve’s heart. He’d thought when Bucky said yeah… “I—Buck, it’s me, it’s—”
“My name’s not Buck,” Bucky says flatly, “or Bucky or whatever it is you wanna call me. You’ve mistaken me for someone else.” He looks away, down at his glass, turning it a half-turn in the circle of condensation left on the tabletop, mouth settled into a sullen line.
“James, then. You’re James Barnes.”
Bucky leans forward and hisses, “Listen pal, I don’t know how you know my name, but I’ve never seen you before in my life. Who the hell are you?”
Steve swallows. He wants to reach out, wants to touch, but manages to rein in the impulse. “I’m Steve. Steve Rogers. I knew you a long time ago. We were… friends.” Friends. What a hell of a thing to render what they had down to.
“Steve Rogers,” Bucky echoes. “Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
