Work Text:
When everything started settling down and the dust in the wind wasn't all that heavy, Bucky sat on a bench in central park and watched the world go by, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. It looked so different, all of it. The buildings were taller, almost all of them made of glass. They'd set him up with an apartment and he had to report to what remained of SHIELD, the SHIELD that one Natasha Romanoff had kept together while half of the world was away.
He didn't know her. He remembered shooting her twice, fighting with her, meeting her once he got better in Wakanda, and the look on her face when he started fading into nothing. Steve told him about her, told him about how she'd helped find him. Sam didn't know her that well either, but he had rave reviews as well. She seemed nice, like the kind of person he'd be friends with.
But he didn't know her at all. So why was it that in his dreams, he'd see her smiling at him, calling his name. Not Bucky, no, James. He could hear her so clearly as if she'd whisper it in his ear in the dark so many times. Why did he know she liked the rain and know that she used to dance? And why did he not feel like himself all those times he'd remember her? Like he was seeing another person's memories before his eyes - another Bucky?
It was hard to make sense of it all. Between the whole getting dusted thing and the coming back thing, time travel and Steve returning as an old man, and everything in between--nothing made sense.
When he finished people watching, he walked into the new SHIELD office where a memorial was erected. One for Tony Stark, the man whose funeral he attended, the man who saved all of them. Another for Natasha. She didn't have a funeral, apparently. She didn't have a family other than the one she created for herself. The fact made him sad but he didn't know why.
He traced her name with his hand, trying to figure out where his memories of her were coming from, if they were even real. There was a pang in his chest he couldn't make sense of. When he felt someone watching him, he pulled his hand away. It was Steve. He never thought he'd see him this old. He barely made it out of high school alive.
"Something's bothering you," the old man said as they sat down for a late lunch in a diner down the street.
"You're going to send me to the loony bin if I told you what's been bothering me," he smiled and took a bite of the burger he'd just ordered. One thing he appreciated in the twenty-first century was the food portions. They definitely weren't in the depression anymore.
"Buck, I freakin' time traveled to save the entire universe. I'm sure whatever it is isn't as crazy as that."
"It's about--" he paused, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. They'd been over the place lately, littered with memories of a woman he never knew. "Natasha."
"Nat?" The brightness in the blonde man's face dimmed a little. He sighed. "I miss her."
"That's the thing, Steve. I do too." Bucky frowned, looking down at his plate. "I've been having dreams - recollections. Memories. Ever since I came back."
"Memories? From when you were the Winter Soldier?" Steve was getting confused, but honestly now that he was saying it out loud, it was confusing him too. Nothing was making any sense.
"Yes. And no. Past and present. I'm in them, but they don't feel like they're mine." They were so vivid, too vivid to be implanted memories. No, Hydra didn't implant memories. They took them away. All they've done since they took him was take his memories away.
"That doesn't make an ounce of sense," Steve leaned back against his seat, watching Bucky closely. "What do you do in those memories with Natasha?"
Bucky looked out of the window, trying to recall the most vivid ones, the ones he'd spend days thinking about. There were a lot of them, like he'd spent a whole lifetime with her. "We'd fight, but not really. We'd spar is more like it. She'd look young in those memories, we'd be in Russia. I didn't know who I was but she'd look at me like it didn't matter."
He didn't want to disclose what usually followed after that. It didn't feel right, like he was prying into a dead woman's private matters. But he remembered how soft her hands would feel when she touched him, how she tasted when he kissed her, how she felt against his body.
"She liked the rain," he muttered. First one to get spotted pays for breakfast. "No pancake houses."
"Buck--" Steve looked concerned but not all that alarmed. "Did you know Natasha when you were the Winter Soldier?"
"No - I don't know. Hydra fucked me up, Steve. Whatever Shuri managed to bring back is all I know, aside from this..." He rubbed his face with his good hand, frustrated at himself. "These memories only started coming back after I did from the dust, after she..."
"But you said it didn't feel like your memories."
"Because they aren't. Maybe somehow, somewhere, another Bucky Barnes lived this life with his Natasha." I don't believe in two coincidences. "The universe just fucked up and managed to give his memories to me. It sounds crazy, I know. I warned you."
"I don't think it sounds all that crazy. Like I told you, weird stuff happened."
There were tears in his eyes, he could hear her voice so clearly. You always did impress me. Random things, whispers, whole conversations. A whole life. "The other me from whatever the fuck timeline these memories are from-- the Bucky who spent a whole lifetime with her, who loved her..."
I love you, James Buchanan Barnes.
"It's okay."
"If he hopped into this universe and found out what happened, it would crush him. I know because I feel like there's a gaping hole in my chest where she should be."
You're a good man.
Steve went silent, not knowing how to console his friend. Bucky went back to staring out of the window, seeing clear images of his hand in Natasha's walking down the street, giggling like a couple of lovesick fools. In a different universe, Bucky Barnes was loved by this woman. So loved. He didn't know if he was jealous or not, but he was relieved that there was a version of him out there that got to live a life like that.
Survival. People don't understand.
I do, James. You know that.
"I wish I knew her," he whispered after a while.
"You would have liked her."
"I know."