Before, Steve had remembered every detail of his life. Sometimes too well, enough to stop him in his tracks and destabilise him for a minute while his mind raced with memories. Sometimes not enough, blurry images and echoes while he was doing things that felt somewhat familiar, his heart aching with the creeping feeling that he was forgetting. The truth was, he didn’t want to forget any of it. No matter how painful it was to remember, no matter how many times it drove him to sit on the shower floor for hours, until the water was icy and he was finally numb, no matter how many nights he lost sleep because of it, he never wanted to forget. There was some things he tried to remember, thought about them as often as he could to make sure those memories wouldn’t leave him. The words of the song his Ma sang to him to sleep the night of his father’s funeral, the feeling of excitement he used to get when he went to the pictures, the swooping sensation seeing Peggy for the first time had given him, the moment he got out of that machine and he felt like a better version of who he had been.
And then there was Bucky. Oh god, Bucky. Steve lived in memories from their old life, before it all began, before the war, before they died. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact time he remembered meeting Bucky - he was just always there, even when he wasn’t, a constant in his life when nothing else was. There were times he’d remember Bucky’s face when he came home to their tiny apartment, the way his eyes lit up and his smile grew wider, the way their lips would brush and his hands would trace the small of his back and Steve had to pretend like his skin wasn’t on fire from his touch. Bucky burned. He burned bright and he burned everything around him. He made things better. And he’d burned so hard that one day he burned out. And after he died, after Steve discovered he was sober as hell and there was no escaping the feeling of his ribs cracking, killing him from the inside out, he had never felt weaker. And it took all he had to convince himself not to burn out, too.
It was years later when Bucky turned up at Steve’s apartment, one that Steve had never felt quite right in, and stood on his doorstep with heavy eyes and words that seemed to choke him as he tried to say them. Steve had never been so determined to make him stay, to show him he could, they could have a life together. Steve’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking as he grabbed Bucky tightly, like he was scared he would vanish if he held on too loosely. His voice wouldn’t work as he pulled him inside, not even waiting to hear an explanation, tugging him to his chest and burying his head in the crook of his shoulder. He could feel just how hard Bucky’s heart was pounding, fluttering furiously against Steve’s chest as Steve muttered things into him that he couldn’t hear and he didn’t need to. Bucky knew. And it was that - that familiarity, that want for something else for so long it’d felt like a hole in his chest, that faint memory of a past life, the tiniest promise of a new one, that made him let his head fall onto Steve’s shoulder, aching with longing. And suddenly, there were two people that should be ghosts in an old Brooklyn apartment that seemed to fit them just right.
‘Buck.’ Steve lifted his head finally, eyes red, as he split into a grin that was relief and sadness and disbelief and him. His hands were still around him, so tight, so comforting, not wanting to let go. And god, Bucky couldn’t look at him anymore. Look what he’d done to him - Steve, who had always been so happy, so together, so full of life. He had darker circles than Bucky did under his eyes and Bucky had felt the knots in his neck and shoulders as soon as he touched his skin. He’d broken him.
‘Steve, don’t - ’ And Bucky had pulled away, pushing himself further abruptly. Steve’s smile dropped, his eyes wide with worry, still shining with tears as he moved in.
‘Buck - ’
‘Look at you!’ Bucky choked out, finding that he was crying, too. ‘You’re a wreck, because of me. Because I left you on that riverbed and disappeared for years. I shouldn’t have come back, I shouldn’t have come back to you - ’ Bucky turned, not thinking about anything than the fact that his metal arm was heating up, something it did nowadays when he was stressed or upset, now that he didn’t have people fixing it up every few hours. He couldn’t remember the last time it was cold. His mind began to race, panicking, thinking of all the things that could go wrong.
‘Buck, no - ’ Steve’s voice broke as he said his name. ‘You’re back, you’re here and I’m so happy.’ He grinned, swiping at a tear on his cheek.
And the thought that he could make Steve so happy and so sad at the same time felt like a physical blow. They were right back to four years ago, when Steve refused to kill Bucky, but Bucky would have done it in a heartbeat without even knowing who he was.
‘I can’t be here.’ Bucky was shaking his head frantically, pieces of hair falling out of the knot he had pulled it in in. ‘I thought . . . we - ’ he broke off, eyebrows knitting together and tears falling, but he still refused to look at Steve. ‘I hurt you.’ His voice was soft, so quiet that if it weren’t for Steve reading his lips he wouldn’t have heard him.
And he didn’t know what to say. And after a minute of standing in silence, Bucky’s chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to calm down, trying desperately to silence the memories that wouldn’t leave, Steve realised he didn’t need to say a thing. He had been living in his head for so long, he had forgotten that Bucky had been too. And Steve hadn’t wanted to leave the memories of his old life behind, but Bucky had to. And his heart missed a beat as he realised, and finally understood,that he had to as well, because leaving behind those memories meant he and Bucky could finally start again together, making new memories that they wouldn’t worry about forgetting. Steve moved in and took Bucky by the hand, pulling him in and letting their foreheads rest against each others. Bucky was unshaven, lines around his eyes from insomnia and jumpy when the slightest disturbance happened, but he was here, and he was alive, and he was Bucky. And Steve would gladly give up all of his memories to make sure he’d never forget this one.
It was ten months later when Steve saw it. Bucky was making dinner, hair in a messy bun behind his head and laughing at something Steve had said. His heart stopped when he saw it, that tiny sharp light in Bucky’s eyes when he looked at Steve, his grin not fading, his remark back so quick, so lighthearted, so reflexive, so easy to make Steve laugh with him. Bucky burned, and he burned so bright that Steve felt himself burning again, too.