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It’s commonly said that smell is the sense that connects most strongly to memory. Good or bad, something about smell embraces our deepest held memories in a way none of the other four can. It was a thing Bucky knew Then, the time before everything went to shit and his world narrowed to nothingness. It’s a thing he knows Now, when his world has gone back to the size it was, even if that size is a person, and the person is bigger.
When he was a boy, the smell of saltwater and sun-warmed sand were his favorites, summer incarnate, in the same way the stale smell of sweat and the reek of camphor meant winter. One was glorious and uplifting, time spent at the seaside, the mouthy blond who was his whole life always by his side, salt drying on his skin and in his hair, laughter echoing up and down the beach. Winter was the worst, full of fear and hopelessness as he watched Steve battle sickness over and over.
As he got older, his favorite smells changed, taking on the shapes of his desires. He still loved the smell of saltwater and the days spent at the shore, but now he wanted to smell it directly from the nape of Steve’s neck, the join of his shoulder, the crease of his thigh. He added to it the smell of charcoal, smudged on his skin by the pads of Steve’s fingers, their dusty path a map of his love. Turpentine made him smile, because it meant Steve had been into his paints, and painting brought good money which meant more food and medicine for Steve. Peppermint would arouse him for the rest of his days, too many memories of stealing the mints Steve favored right from his mouth etched into his subconscious for any other reaction.
He still hated the smell of camphor, and even in the days he didn’t know himself, he knew that, had lashed out violently when it crept into his nose, and the parts of his brain still clinging to his former self.
Now, he had more memories and more smells to go with them. The gun oil and rosin that was Natasha, the coffee that was Clint. Bruce smelled like tea, which always put him in mind of Steve’s Ma, as well, who did what she could for her son with tea and tonic and tincture, their familiarity woven into the folds of her clothes. Tony smelled like metal, and something he couldn’t pin down, mostly because he didn’t see him enough. They were working on it. Thor was ozone, as you suspect, but also the smell of fresh water, which he hadn’t.
He remembered his mother smelling of lavender, and himself of Bay Rum and Brylcreem, a combination he couldn’t believe he’d thought went well together. He smells like Bay Rum now, thanks to some tiny soap and shave joint up in Williamsburg, and he knows it’s a Smell for Steve when he sees the smile break across his face the first day he comes home with it on his skin.
His favorites haven’t changed, though. Of all the many things that have changed in his life, those haven’t. And after a long day, coming home to the home he has built with his love, he knows they’re waiting for him. The turpentine drifting out of the studio door and down the hall. The charcoal that’s dusting their countertops from where Steve is spread out, capturing the skyline through the window. No saltwater today, but it’s still springtime and that’ll change. But he can smell the peppermint on Steve, from his hair and his skin and his lips. He can smell the past and the present and the future all wrapped up in Steve as he wraps his arms around him, and buries his nose in the crook of his neck, telling him for the thousandth time, “My God, I love the way you smell.”