Remember

|6| You Could At Least Remember Me

pov bucky~

After such a long day of trying to remember something - anything - about the life I'm told I used to lead, we finally went home.

Home, a word that doesn't really seem to resonate well with me seeing how I feel like I don't have one.

The man with the glowing blue chest (Tony, was it?) told me that while I stayed at the 'Avengers Facility in Stark Towers', Steve and I would share a room. I find this to be incredibly dumb, seeing as there was obviously enough room for the both of us to have our own spaces.

I ended up staying in bed and missed dinner and was actually asleep by the time he made it back. He then slept in the king sized bed to my right.

• • •

I woke up to a bright white, quiet room. I heard a bit of rustling behind but didn't feel up to looking quite yet. It sounded like a drawer opening, then fabric moving, then the drawer closing again... shit, it's just that Steve guy.

I turned around, still buried in the white covers, and tried to get a feel for what was actually happening. With me, at this point, everything was a blur. I feel like I can't trust my own mind, nevermind my eyes, to tell me the truth. It really is quite unfortunate.

Steve didn't look at me yet, as he was holding a grey shirt in his hands, trying to get it to be right side out so that he might be able to put it on.

I felt like my eyes were faking me out. Okay, fine, the man is fit and tall and very obviously physically active... but, Christ, there's no way he's actually that muscular. I mean, look at him. There's no way that that is at all natural. 

I know how far past my physical limits my body has gone to get where I am, but in this moment as I allow my eyes to wander up and down his seemingly perfectly sculpted body, I realize that I must look like a scrawny prepubescent man-child next to him.

Then my eyes met his gaze. He was smiling, probably because he had just caught me staring at his muscular body. "Mornin'. Sleep well?" He asked.

"Mhmmm," I mumbled, trying to play off the fact that I had just been busted.

"That's good," he replied, buying my line of complete bullshit. Then, neither of us spoke for a good few minutes. I let my eyes close again as he finally stopped fiddling with the shirt and placed it neatly onto the bed before him. "Hey, Buck?"

"Yea?" I replied groggily, as my eyes slowly flickered open. I looked at him through blurry eyes for a second before he spoke again.

"Do you... d'you feel something?" He asked cautiously.

"Something? What does that even mean?" I retorted, confused as to what he meant.

"Do you feel something - anything - right now? And by that, I don't mean anything about anything. I mean... about, er, between us."

"Us?" I questioned, more confused than before.

"Just, look at me again." I did. He waited. "What do you feel?" I stayed silent as a result of the fact that I simply had no idea what to say. "Nothing? Seriously? After all this time?"

"I'm sorry," I said, yet again. It felt like I was always apologizing for not remembering what he had hoped I would. It's strange, because I don't feel any grief about it, or at least I shouldn't because it simply shouldn't be relevant to me right now... though there's a part of me that feels like it's being cut open when he makes that face, when he's upset because of my lack of remembrance.

"No, no... it's not your fault. It's my fault for trying to push you to remember. It's too early on in your recovery process, maybe, to be trying stuff like this," he said. "I just- it's just so hard for me, Buck, and I know you don't understand why just yet. I just really hope you will, eventually," he admitted.

"What do you mean 'stuff like this'?" I asked, curious as to what game he was playing.

"The whole 'no-shirt' thing. I thought it might force you into-"

"Force me? What are you trying to do, Steve? Really. Because, I'm starting to think you're not the man everyone is saying you are, either."

"I want to tell you. God knows I do... I just don't want to ruin everything. I feel like I'm being so selfish with this whole thing because I've learned to lose you... I can't afford to do that again. Living with that grief and that guilt for so many years... it feels like it's killing me and I can't help but think that you could at least remember me, if not anyone or anything else."

I looked at him for a moment unsure of what to say and debated whether or not to just lay in bed for the rest of my life. When I closed my eyes I heard him take a in a long, troublesome breath.

"Bucky... look at me," he requested, again. I couldn't open my eyes as they had been clamped shut, so I squeezed them closed tighter until it hurt. I knew it would crush me to look at his sorrowful eyes, even though he was a complete stranger to me at this point. "I- back then, I mean, we..." he stumbled with his words. "We were... in love, Buck."

I felt my eyes shoot open and I couldn't look away from him. It felt like every moment in my life was supposed to, just there, flash before my eyes and bring everything back. It felt like I was going to remember as butterflies filled my stomach. I felt compelled to tell him that I knew him- that I really did.

But that's the problem, isn't it? Because after all of that, after everything and all his efforts and explanations and declarations of past feelings and heartbreaks...

I really, really don't.