Chapter 1
"Call all your friends
And tell them you're never coming back
Cause this is the end
I would have died
I would have loved you all my life"
Bucky is running. He's not sure when he started but all he can think about is Steve.
Steve.
Have to get to Steve.
Steve will know what to do. What to say to him what to-
He stops his thoughts when he come to the front door of their apartment. He thinks to knock first, he’s not sure why, but he goes against his instinct anyways and opens the door with no announcement.
Shock runs across his face when he sees the scene in front of him. Steve, hisSteve, curled around a man around his height, the lights in the apartment causing his red hair to look like fire against Steve’s blonde. They both turn to him in confusion.
“What the?” Bucky starts. He walks further into the room. “What the fuck is this!” He yells.
Both men stand up together recognition not showing for Bucky on either face. Bucky doesn’t give two fucks about the redhead but is Steve really going to pretend he doesn’t know his own boyfriend when he’s caught fooling around with someone else?
“What the fuck are you doing with him?” Bucky gets closer to Steve’s face and Steve looks terrified.
The redhead gets up, putting himself between Bucky and Steve. “It’s 2018, man. You’re really going to be THAT homophobic?” he says and starts pushing Steve away from Bucky.
“Homophobic- I’m fucking gay you asshole! That’s my boyfriend!”
The redhead laughs and Bucky wants nothing more than to punch the prick but he looks at Steve again, his face pale now and Bucky doesn’t get it. He understands being caught and fear at that but this seems different. He’s acting like Bucky just murdered someone in cold blood in front of him.
“I- I’ve never seen this man in my life.” Steve says to the other man in the room.
“What?” Bucky chokes out. “Steve it’s me.”
“Look I’m sorry, man. I don’t know you." Steve's eyes are wide. He's scared, scared of him. "Maybe you’re getting me confused with someone else?”
“No. You’re Steve Rogers." Bucky says desperately. "Your mom is Sarah Rogers.”
“How do you know my mom?”
“Because I know you! We grew up together we- we” We love each other.
“We grew up together?” Steve questions.
“Yes.”
“When’s the last time you saw me?”
“I don’t know a few days ago. A week maybe.”
Bucky can see there's no familiarity in Steve's eyes. “A week? And before that?”
“Every day for the past 3 years!” Bucky's voice gets louder.
He watches Steve sigh in frustration. “Okay then if we really know each other that well, when was I born?”
“What?”
“If we grew up together and spent most of our lives together shouldn’t you know when I was born?”
“Of course.”
“So when was it?”
Bucky doesn’t know why he fears giving the answer. Surely Steve should know his own birth year even if he didn’t remember him. “19...18.”
“1980?” Steve asks.
“No, no. Nineteen...eighteen.”
“Nineteen eighte- you do realize that’ll make me around 100 years old, right?” Steve says slowly, carefully, as if he was talking to a child. He's no longer afraid of Bucky but Bucky's not sure he likes the change of tone either.
“Yes.” Bucky answers.
Steve breathes in, trying to be patient. “Tell me...do I look anywhere near that age?”
“N-no,” and Bucky can’t look up, can’t look at anything but the floor beneath him.
“So explain to me how I could possibly be that old? I’m trying to be…Look I’m not trying to be a dick but unless you think it’s the 40’s...?”
Bucky doesn’t answer, doesn’t even shake his head or nod. “But you know me.” He says softly, the confidence behind the words not there.
He peaks up quickly to see Steve’s face turn from stern to sad. “I’m sorry but I really don’t.”
Bucky swallows, his heart is in his throat and he shakes his head in confusion. “No. No, no, no, no, no.” He tries to remember, tries so badly to fucking remember but all he could think of was Steve. He knew Steve would help with whatever it was but he can’t fucking remember what it was.
“Steve, please.”
He watches Steve sigh, any panic he had fully gone from his face, at least temporarily. He looks at Bucky with utter sympathy and Bucky thinks well at least this Steve still has that. “Look I don’t know how you got my name but I promise if I knew you, I’d tell you.”
Bucky shakes his head and rubs his eye with the heel of his hand. “I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”
He runs his hand through his hair now and grips his head in frustration. But Bucky does remember. He remembers Steve he remembers a few nights ago talking about ...something...something that worried Bucky. But now Steve doesn’t know him and taking a look at his own hand (the metal one missing) and seeing the grit and dirt, feeling the grease in his hair, his clothes, he’s not exactly sure when the last time he was anywhere that resembled home. A small distraught noise exits Bucky.
“Look, hey it’s okay,” Steve says gently reaching to tap Bucky’s shoulder. The only reason it makes Bucky feel remotely better is that it’s Steve or as 'Steve' as he's going to get. Steve lowers his gaze to try to look at Bucky’s eyes.
“We’ll get you some help okay?”
Panic creeps up on Bucky again and he shakes his head. “No, no. I should go.”
“Woah, woah. Look, hey.” He walks towards Bucky again despite the redhead in the room looking at Steve like he was the biggest idiot. “This Steve...you trust him right?”
“I - yes.”
“Okay well I might not be him but you can trust me. Do you trust me?”
Bucky is really not sure if he can but he’s also not sure he cares. He nods to the one person that knew him the most, treating him like a stranger.
“Good. We’ll help you.”
“Help him? Shouldn’t we all the cops or something he broke in,” The redhead interrupts.
“We’re not calling the cops. Look he’s clearly ...not well and I don't think cops will help.” He practically whispers to the guy. Bucky might be losing it but he could still hear (if he was even the one that was actually “losing it”).
“Christ,” the redhead grumbles. “America’s hero to everyone.”
Steve ignores the redhead and turns back to Bucky.
“Okay, kid. What’s your name?” Steve’s voice directed towards him.
Kid? He’s about to say Bucky when he stops himself. “James.”
“James what?”
“James Barnes.”
“Okay James Barnes.” Steve accepts the name and then stops “James Barnes…James Barnes” Steve thinks. “Wait, why does that sound so familiar?”
Bucky’s heart is in his throat. He remembers. Steve remembers him. Bucky isn’t going crazy Steve knows-
“Wait aren’t you that POW that went missing?”
What? Missing? No he was just at Tony’s not too long ago. Wasn’t he?. He thinks. Why can’t he remember anything besides what happened 10 minutes ago?
“I...I don’t know.”
“Hey, look up James Barnes real quick, babe.” Steve says and Bucky’s eyes shoot up at the pet name but it’s not for him.
He watches as the redhead rolls his eyes and types on his phone. “James Buchanan Barnes. Here.” He says and hands the phone to Steve.
“Hmm,” Steve looks at the phone and back at Bucky.
“What should we do? Bring him to the psych ward or something?”
Bucky swallows and looks to any exit that might be near him but realizes in his current state Steve, and the man he was with, could easily take him down.
“No. I don't know. This was issued by Stark right?”
“Uhh sort of but shouldn’t we-”
“Well we’ll just bring him to him. See what he can do to help.”
Stark. Well at least it’s someone Bucky knows. Though they don’t get along the best but at least it was something.
“Are you sure?” The redhead continues.
“Yeah Tony has more than enough stuff to help especially with running the new SHIELD.”
“Right...well then maybe I should take him in?” The redhead offers.
And Bucky’s heart races at the thought of being alone with the other man, he’s not sure but something didn’t sit right with him. If Bucky was this “missing POW” shouldn’t the man treat him with more respect? Though okay he did just blindly bust through their door and yell that his boyfriend was actually HIS boyfriend.
“Nah I got it. I have to talk to Tony anyway.”
The redhead sighs dramatically, clearly annoyed. Bucky thinks, if Steve didn’t have him couldn’t he have at least chosen someone better?
“Fine. Call me if you have any,” and he stares straight at Bucky. “Trouble.”
Though given the circumstances Bucky is truly shocked when Steve offers to drive him, even letting him sit in the front seat.
“When’s the last time you ate?” Steve asks him and Bucky really wishes he could give him an answer.
“ 'M not sure,” Bucky says. Steve just nods and mentions some fast food place they’ll stop by on the way to Tony.
Steve turns on the radio when the silence and awkwardness between them was getting too heavy. He flips through his presets with some confusion and Bucky gasps at one particular song.
“What? You like this song?” Steve asks and Bucky waits. He’s not sure why he had that reaction. But then he listens and closes his eyes.
“Heaven, I'm in heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek”
Him and Steve. Steve was smaller then. It was years before the serum. Bucky is holding Steve close to his body as they sway gently to the music. And Bucky is humming the words near Steve’s ear, face in Steve’s hair. Steve's grip on Bucky's back was strong despite him being in the hospital the week before, he can almost feel Steve's fingers gripping his shirt now.
“We used to dance to this,” Bucky blurts out, his eyes still closed, trying to relive the memory still but then the music shuts off abruptly and Bucky is left in shame and embarrassment. “I didn’t mean-”
“When? In fucking 1945?”
He doesn’t tell Steve that the movie it belonged to actually came out in 1935. He doesn’t tell Steve that going to the movie was actually the first date they had that wasn’t disguised as a double date. He doesn’t tell Steve because Steve doesn’t remember him. Steve doesn’t remember anything that had anything to do with him.
“I’m sorry," Bucky mumbles.
Steve frustrated, turns the radio back on and flips through the station but it’s more of the same music. From the same time period.
“Someone’s been fucking with my presets.” Steve says, he’s angry. At the radio? At Bucky? He’s not sure.
Steve settles on something that was a little too loud for Bucky’s nerves but Bucky is too afraid to say anything else.