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Memories are like water—if you try to grab it, it merely slips away from your hand, smoothly.
*
The worst thing about being in the future, is that everyone else gets to keep their memories safe in a phone. They don’t regard it as privilege, but they take it as granted. Whenever Tony shows Steve a video filled with himself, or whenever Natasha laughs at a text messages she had with Clint, Steve couldn’t hide the anger boiling right beneath his throat. One time, when Steve figured out about something called a voice mail, he completely lost it.
Later night, when Tony and Bruce were off drinking in the lower level, Natasha approached to him, and asked if everything was okay.
Steve tried to push down his anger. How you all take that as granted—to have the voices, faces, everything recorded and to be remembered. When he opened his mouth, all he could say were fragmented words.
“I wish I had… those—I, can’t—don’t remember…”
him
Probably that word was the most important part in the sentence Steve was trying to form, but Steve left that out. It felt like Steve did not deserve to even mention him, as he could only remember him through a footage that’s kept on replay in a goddamn museum.
It seemed like Natasha somehow got the hint of what Steve was trying to say. She leaned into him, petting his shoulder. Steve let out deep breath, knowing, that even though Natasha seemed like she understood, she would never know. At least Steve let her pet his shoulder. Just like he did back in the days.
*
Steve woke up from a dream. It was about him.
He panicked and ran towards his desk to remember, keep everything on a paper, to record— until everything was gone, as soon as he grabbed the pencil. Only the faint voice whispering Steve and a warm feeling left on his shoulder, as if someone had grabbed it.
“Please, please— please…”
Steve tried to go back to sleep, trying to fall into the same dream he had seconds ago. However, even though he tried so hard, the sun, the birds, the neighbors, all of those surrounding him, his world wouldn’t let him to.
For the first time, Steve thought about jumping off. Jumping off the same cliff he had fell. Maybe, really maybe, if they had died at the same place, they’d end up at the same heaven. As if Steve could go to one, when he was a terrible person, who couldn’t even remember his voice, his face, his vibrant—him.
*
“Steve.”
It was him. He knew. He jsut knew though Steve could not see his face.
“Remember me, will you?”
“Why would you say that?”
Steve asked. He lied down, putting his head on Steve’s lap. He bit his lips once, twice, trying to find the right word to phrase his thoughts.
“It feels like—you won’t, one day.”
“Don’t ever say that.”
Steve touched his dark hair. It feels—Steve couldn’t remember how it felt. Though it was probably very soft and warm.
“I am not going to forget you.”
That’s when Steve realized this was a memory, not a dream. Even in his dream, Steve wouldn’t dare to lie to him. And what he just said, turned out to be a lie. Now Steve didn’t even know how he sounded like.
*
He was alive.
*
“I need to find him.”
Sam looked worried. He was keep offering Steve a cup of tea. When Steve declined it, the tea soon turend into a slice of bread, a cup of orange juice, and a slice of cake. Cake? Steve took the cake. His body was craving for sugar. Sam sat down on the sofa, which was placed right in front of one Steve waa sitting on.
Steve ate the cake, while flipping through the file Natasha had given to him.
“Honestly, I’m not sure if you should.”
“Why?”
“Whenever you talk about him, you look miserable.”
Who the hell is —? The voice, soft and warm. Steve recalled the moment he finally got to see him, first time in seventy years, not by that recorded film kept in a museum. Then Steve got to touch him, though it was rather brutal than friendly. Still, Steve desparately touched him, his hair, throat, arm, thigh… But it was not enough. Those few seconds weren’t enough to bring back his whole life back. A life that was patched, composed with him.
“I made a promise.”
“What promise?”
“To remember.”
*
The thing that’s funny, was that now none of them remember the days they had shared. Not Steve, and not him. Steve saw the files of electrocution, memory wipes, and torture. He clutched it to his chest, remembering the forgetfulness.
*
“I don’t remember you. I can’t—“
That day, after an especially terrifying fight between him and left over Hydra agents, Steve came back home bleeding, to see someone.
He was breathing heavily. Steve wanted to hug him, kiss him, fuck him—but he couldn’t move his legs towards him.
“It feels like I should, but I can’t—I just can’t.”
He looked anxious, even frantic. Steve wanted to lean into his warm arms, whispering into his ears that it’s okay. Everything will be okay. Telling him that lives always depended on each other’s, so if it’s inevitable to remember if we stay together.
*
His memories came back. Steve’s didn’t. Whenever he was not in front of Steve, he struggled to recall how he looked like, sounded like.
*
Next time he came, Steve was sleeping. So maybe, Steve had dreamed it all.
But he felt him cuddling Steve, sharing breathes to sleep. Still, Steve couldn't be sure if they had cuddled in the past too. The touch, as relieving it was, those few hours were not enough.
*
“Did you find him?”
The question came when Steve and Sam were eating brunch together. Brunch—turned out to be a thing you eat between breakfast and lunch and was pretty famous among Instagram users. Steve struggled to find an answer. Did he find him? Or was he still chasing those memories he had lost?
“Part of him.”
That was only thing Steve could say. Part of him. And Steve was the one who was guilty for finding only part of him.
*
“You made a promise!”
When he yelled at Steve, he was crying. His tears had swelled his eyes into piercing red. His voice shivered, blurring its original form. It was Steve’s fault. Everything was goddamn his fault.
*
Steve made a promise, a promise, to remember him, to not forget him. But whenever he asked him things—how did I sound like? How were our days? Steve couldn’t answer. And it was Steve’s fault.
*
Maybe what Steve was trying to find was just those good old memories. Not him.
He accused Steve for it, for not looking at him, but chasing something beyond him, buried in the past.
Then he left and did not come back.
*
The worst thing about being in the future, is that everyone else gets to keep their memories without a doubt. For Steve, 2013 felt like years ago, when 1940s felt like yesterday. However, those days with him, it was blurred as if someone had tore it out.
Basically his memories faltered like this: the war felt like yesterday, guns shooting, people dying, the thick texture of blood—yesterday. While him, the warmth ran away if Steve tried to chase that memory. He was so fucked up. And he knew it.
*
"Maybe, you should focus on the present."
"But I made a promise."
Natasha never suggested again.
*
“We can find an apartment and live there. Only you and me. No one else.”
Bombs were blowing outside the tent. Steve could tell he was terrified. Some of the memories, Steve did not witness, from the lab in Azzano, were imprinted in his steel eyes. Still, he talked over and over, drawing the peaceful and sound picture of that apartment with his words. His hands were busying loading gun, but despite the hurriedness and brutality those hands carried, his voice was warm and soft.
One of the commarades fell down, gun shot on his chest. Before another one fell, Steve asked.
“Where?”
“Bucharest.”
*
"You pulled me out of the river. Why?"
"I don't know.”
“You’re lying.”
Ah—Steve, badly so badly, wanted to hug him, kiss him, fuck him. Pin down his body onto the bed, kissing his temple softly, whispering the words he won’t forget—-ever. Steve wanted to engulf his scent, making sure he wouldn’t miss the feeling of it even they have to depart from each other once again.
However, he looked too vulnerable for Steve to make such an action, so Steve simply gave up with the idea. He looked so unsure of what was happening to him, around him, that it made Steve to desperately wish for a chance to tell him everything will turn out fine.
But did Steve deserve to be the one to soothe him? Steve didn’t know.
“This could be it, Steve.”
A sudden cry fell out from his mouth.
“This one could be it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Only you and me.”
Steve was confused, unaware of what he was trying to say. His eyes quickly filled with water. Only you and me. He repeated—you and me, Bucharest.
*
“It’s called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Cap.”
Once, back in the days, Tony had told Steve.
“A what?”
“The one’s that fucking up your brain.”
Steve looked at Tony as if he was speaking a foreign language. Tony sighed, noticing the need to explain further.
“Yesterday, you talked about how you had gone for a dance with the Commandos few weeks ago.”
Nervously, Steve fidgeted the pen he was holding. Tony poured coffee on his mug and sipped it once. With a quick satifsying smile, he opened his mouth again to talk.
“And sometimes, you seem distant. As if you are chasing the wrong.”
“As if I am chasing the wrong?”
“Yeah, Cap. Cause sometimes, PTSD fucks up your brain real hard.”
*
There never was a promise.
*
“Steve.”
Again, it was him. Though this time, Steve could see him with clarity. He was smiling.
“It feels like you won’t forget me, ever”
“Why would you say that?”
Steve asked. He lied down, putting his head on Steve’s lap. He bit his lips once, twice, trying to find the right word to phrase his thoughts.
“Even if I die first, and eventually you forget me—”
“Don’t ever say that.”
Steve touches his dark hair. It feels—it feels rough and sticky due to a long run he just had, circling the park near Steve’s apartment.
“—It feels like you will always be my side.”
That’s when Steve realized that promise was not a memory, but a fake one, all this time.
“I have a strong feeling. This—all this memories don’t matter, really. What matters is that.”
You’ll be with me, till the end of the line.
*
Steve remembered him yelling, You made a promise—no, You need to stay.
It was not when Steve could not remember, it was when Steve asked him to leave because he deserves better.
When he yelled at Steve, he was crying. His tears had swelled his eyes into piercing red. His voice shivered. It was never about that promise. It was about staying.
*
“We could run.”
Steve suggested to him, before he stepped into the airport.
“We could go back to Brooklyn.”
His eyes lit up with hope, but it soon diminished when he sighted other armed men.
*
“I can’t trust my own mind.”
His arm was gone, and he looked more vulnerable than ever. Steve could read despair from his eyes, or maybe it was resignation?
“Or you could stay, just you and me—”
Steve suddenly opened his mouth. He—even himself—did not know what he was trying to say.
“You and me, in Bucharest.”
Steve held his hands. He looked up to Steve, with a faint shock in his eyes.
“It was never about remembering, right?—I’m so, I’m so sorry. I just had to stay and I—“
He leaned into Steve, as if he was trying to soothe him. He whsipered something Steve couldn’t quite catch, but Steve didn’t care. He pressed his lips on his lips, slowly breathing into what he had desired for so long.
“Stay with me, will you?”
Steve asked, tentatively. He answered,
Bucky answered.