bucky barnes imagines

lxxiii. POLAROIDS

A/N – So, I saw this prompt and thought it was pretty cool. This isn't really a proper imagine, just a quick idea, I guess.

You missed the forties.

Everything was so simple before the war; you'd give anything to go back, to relive the moments that were now reduced to fond memories. Sneaking out with your best friends, playing pranks on your teachers at school, trying not to laugh at Steve after he insisted that he could handle the rollercoasters at Coney Island, slow dancing with Bucky in the kitchen at three in the morning...

Bucky.

Nothing was the same without him. Even after the passing of several decades, you still couldn't bring yourself to ever take a train anywhere because it reminded you of him, of what had happened that day, of the way he'd been taken from you so cruelly when the two of you should've had your whole lives ahead of you. Of course, you still had Steve but, as rude as it sounded, that wasn't enough. It never would be.

You just couldn't let it go. You'd sit for hours sometimes, sifting through your old photo albums, smiling at familiar images that you'd taken of your friends, polaroids that had faded to black and white long ago because almost everyone you once knew was gone. Those photos were all you had left of the years when you were still yourself, before the war, before the super soldier experiment, before losing the love of your life.

There was just one photo album that had remained unopened – leather bound, carefully decorated with hundreds of drawn on hearts, two different dates written in cursive in the top left hand corner. The date when you met Bucky for the first time, and the date when he'd asked you to be his girlfriend. His 'best girl', his 'doll', his 'sweetheart'.

You could never bring yourself to look at those photos – the pain would be too much, you knew it. However, today, on what would've been your anniversary, you'd decided to give it a go. So you sat on your bed, the door locked, a glass of wine clutched in your right hand because there was just no way you could do this sober.

You started to cry as soon as you picked up the first photo. It was of you and Bucky at one of your favourite restaurants, on your first official date. You remembered it fondly; you'd somehow clumsily spilled your food all over your shirt, so he'd given you his jacket. Always a true gentleman, cliché or not.

You were careful to go through all the photos involving both of you first; because you were still alive, those snaps were in colour, and you had to prepare yourself a little more to see Bucky on his own, in monochrome. But, after an emotional hour or two of reminiscing, you finally flipped to the next folder – candid shots that you'd taken of him when he wasn't looking.

At first, you couldn't help but smile, tears simultaneously soaking your face and running down to your neck. A polaroid of Bucky at the beach, his hair tousled and damp, his sunglasses crooked as he ran towards the sea.

It took a few seconds for your smile to disappear, replaced with an expression of shock, confusion, but above all else, hope.

Because the ocean was a vivid blue, the sand was golden, Bucky's swim shorts were an unmistakable fluorescent red. He was the only person in the photo, and he was in full colour.

He was alive.