Amnesia

C2: Now

Dreams are filled with flashes.

I rarely get actual sleep, just these flashes of memories and pain.

They don't stop until I wake up, which is why I never sleep.

Steve catches on and shakes me out of my trance, holding on for dear life as I fade back into reality.

"Buck?" He whispers into the darkness.

"What?" I mutter.

"You were um... dreaming again?"

"Oh sorry."

"It's okay. What happened?"

What happened? His follow up question every time I wake up. Tonight not being an exception.

"I... It's... it's nothing you need to worry about...I'm sorry I woke you, you should go back to bed." I rub my hands over my face.

"Are you sure?"

No not really...

"Uh yeah I'll be fine." I respond unconvincingly.

"Okay..." He whispers as he gets up and walks away from the couch where I sleep, back to his bed.

I sit up and look around at our little apartment. Steve's bedroom right beside the kitchen, which both fall behind me on the couch in the living room. There's a bathroom in Steve's room, the only one in the entire place, I don't know why they put it there of all places, but I can't complain it's a place to live, it's cheap, and they don't ask questions.

I run my hand through my hair and take a deep breath, leaning back against the cushions. The couch isn't the most comfortable thing I've been on, but it's better than Hydra's cement floors ever were. Steve offered when we first started staying here for me to have the room, but I couldn't take it. I don't know if it was just the feeling of actually being comfortable that bothered me, or an overwhelming feeling to make sure Steve was happy. I don't care what it was, I'm perfectly fine with the little brown couch that I have.

I spend most of my nights like this... curled up on the edge of the couch screaming at some piercing pain in my head, most of the time Steve runs to me, but sometimes I just find a corner to tuck away into so he won't hear me.

It's usually Hydra.

Flashes of blood, victims, training, torture, shocks that used to run through my body...

But tonight... it was different.

Tonight I saw pain, but it wasn't Hydra... it was the war.

My helmet was falling off as I grabbed my gun tightly in my hand.

Another grenade went off next to me as my body was launched a few yards forwards, caught up with another soldier next to me.

We sank down behind a pile of dirt, cringing as our tired backs rubbed against the surface.

My heart was racing as the bullets from the other side ripped past us, the scene of a bloody battlefield growing.

I held on to my helmet and closed my eyes. Images of Steve smiling and my sister laughing, haunted my head as I shook them away in despair.

"Why did I ever sign up for this?" I whispered.

"That's a hell of a good question Barnes, but now is not the time... we need to move!" The man beside me responded.

I rolled my eyes back and winced as another grenade struck in front of our mound.

'Just get through this and you can get back to Steve and Caroline... just get through it...' I thought to myself as I stood up to run behind the man.

'Get through it.'

'Get back to Steve and Caroline.'

'Come on Bucky you can do this.'

I told myself lies as we shot out into the darkness.

'Get back to Steve.'

The light of gunfire faded out along with the screams of men in front of me.

The dreams I usually had weren't like this... I was always in physical pain, usually of Hydras doing, but this time it was something else... it was emotional... I hurt to go home... it wasn't of any wound, it was out of my heart.

I longed to go home.

That's all I ever wanted...

And I never did.

I never did get to see Caroline. I don't exactly remember who she was, but I know she meant a lot to me. I see her occasionally in memories of a family, but never anything more. She's just another blur in my endless fuzz of memories.

I sigh as I get up off of the couch, and walk over towards the window covered by drapes. I pull them back to look at the alley below, dark and lonely with nothing but a dumpster and a few cats.

I smirk looking at the dumpster below... I once found Steve in an alley like this, beaten up and clinging on to the wall. That scrawny little kid always thought he knew what he was doing... What I would give to go back to those days. The days when Steve getting into alley fights, was all I had to worry about.

But now it's different...

Now I'm a Hydra trained assassin with half of his memories, living with a fugitive hero who is my old best friend and a symbol to the nation, in a run down apartment in the middle of Queens, not to mention, also in the 21st century.

If anyone were to tell me this was going to happen 90 years ago I would've never believed them... I mean with due reasoning, this is crazy.

But I guess for us...

Crazy is just a new normal.