Dead Memories

9

Chapter Nine

'Steve... wake up.'

For a moment Steve did not remember where he was. Or rather, he thought he was somewhere else. In a different place... and a different time, because Bucky's voice was so familiar. The way he said his name. How he kept his voice down without actually whispering, spoke just loud enough to wake him up, because he knew exactly how loud he had to speak for Steve to hear him even in his sleep.

But then he opened his eyes and reality came rushing back to him. He blinked up at Bucky in silence. It was still good, being woken up by his best friend. His hair, his metal arm, the unusual room, it really didn't matter. He already knew, even at the start of his search, that he wouldn't care that Bucky was a different man. He didn't care if he never remembered. Bucky was still Bucky, memories or no memories. Looking up at him now, his conviction strengthened. He really did not care even a little bit, because Bucky was alive.

'Come on, you gotta see this,' Bucky said, so Steve got up. He didn't sleep much. Even when Bucky very pointedly went to bed and turned his back to him, Steve just laid awake in the other bed... thinking. Trying to figure things out. Because he had a hell of a lot to think about. Well, and there was also the fact that Loki was way too close to his liking. Sleep did claim him after long hours of listening to Bucky's even breathing that came from across the room. Gave him a (false) sense of security. Right now though, he felt it in his bones that it was just a brief and restless slumber.

Bucky walked to the window and waved his hand to urge Steve closer. Steve already saw that the endless blackness from before was gone. It was replaced by orange and blue light that filled the room with colour. Steve rubbed his eyes and walked up to Bucky.

The sight kind of stole his breath away. It was space, but he saw no sun or planets. There were stars, too many to count. It was nothing like the night sky Steve knew and not just because he could never see this many stars in cities like New York or Washington. It was the colours, the blue and the orange, it came from what looked like two enormous clouds, meeting and intervening. It was enormous, motionless, and rather awe-inspiring.

'Is that... a nebula?'

He looked at a lot of pictures taken by space telescopes when he did his research on modern science. Especially after the whole... alien invasion thing. So he was rather sure of what he was looking at.

'Yeah,' Bucky nodded. 'I like it a lot better... than the darkness. It's rare that you can see something like this from here.'

'Is this real?'

Bucky hummed in confirmation. 'We... get close to different corners of reality sometimes, things just filter through. You can catch glimpses.'

'Wow,' Steve couldn't help but say. Nothing in his life was anywhere near close to what he expected when he was younger. His whole life was beyond unbelievable, to be frank. He saw many horrible and amazing things far too unreal for even his wildest dreams. But a sight like this could still shock him in the most positive way. He knew he would remember seeing this with his own eyes for as long as he lived. Especially with Bucky standing right next to him, staring at the very same sight.

x-x-x

Bucky brought them some food again and they ate silently for a while. Steve got dressed, put his uniform back on, while Bucky was gone, but his friend was still dressed a lot more comfortably. It was a good reminder that Bucky did not feel threatened or cautious in his presence. He was still a lot more quiet than he used to be, but Steve did not mind. The silence was amicable, pleasant even. Not at all like Steve would've expected silence between the two of them to be like, back when he was still on the search. Definitely one of the pleasant ones among all the recent surprises concerning Bucky.