Round 2 Story Post!
Hello, hello, and welcome to Round 2 of the January 2026 edition of Writer in a Cryofreeze! We have 12 amazing stories for you today, so get comfy, make sure youâve got plenty of tissues, and letâs get reading!
Our authors were asked to write a story about Bucky Barnes using the following quote as inspiration:
âYou know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel.â â Haruki Murakami, After Dark
All stories are under 1,000 words, and most are rated for General Audiences. (Two are rated Teen or Mature for Hydra-like violence/torture.)
Your task is to read the stories and then head over to our Google poll before noon NY time on Saturday, February 7, where youâll choose up to three of your favorites. When the poll is complete, the three authors who wrote the three stories with the fewest votes will be given their own shiny new Cyrofreezes, where theyâll stay for the remainder of the event, while the other nine authors continue on to Round 3. In the event of a tie, weâll have a 24-hour run-off poll hosted here on Tumblr that will conclude on Sunday.
Sound good? Any questions? Ready to comply? Awesome! Here we go!
Fic #1 - His Light in the Darkness Rating: General Audiences
Bucky Barnes had spent three-fourths of his time alive being under the control of an evil agency. The last time he had free-will he was following orders in World War 2. Property of the US Army; following Steve Rogers yet again. But that tenure was brief compared to Hydra. Hydra was 70 years of torture.
But that was then. That thing - he didn't even consider himself a man during that time; more of a monster - didn't exist anymore. At least that's what he kept telling himself when the nightmares came, when the screams echoed in his head (whether his own or the screams of others).Â
He felt he would forever be indebted to the people of Wakanda for taking the time to help him. It didn't fully remove the monster in him, but it helped tremendously. His gratitude was indescribable.Â
Bucky had gotten caught up in a sudden rain storm one day after he made it back to Brooklyn from Wakanda. He was just trying to make it home with a few groceries when he heard the tiniest cry above the din of the rain. He was able to track down the cry to a garbage can in a nearby alleyway. Inside the can he found a small gray kitten.
âOh hell,â he murmured. He had nothing to put the cat in except one of his reusable grocery bags. After a few minutes rearranging, he held the kitten in the sack in one arm and his groceries in the other hand.Â
He wasn't sure what he was thinking by taking this kitten home. He didn't know the first thing about kittens. This one looked young too. He stopped under an awning to look up nearby pet places. He located one and once there discussed the kitten, not with an employee, but with someone who volunteered at a rescue. They told him everything he would need to do to help the baby get stronger and thrive. They provided him with links to references to learn about raising cats as well as finding the right vet. Bucky left the shop with more bags and more confidence.Â
Upon bringing the cat home, Bucky gave it its very first bath in the kitchen sink. The kitten cried pathetically. Bucky took the cat - which looked like an angry wet rat - and wrapped it in a kitchen towel. He held it up to eye level and said, âI am no longer the Winter Soldier. I'm James Bucky Barnes and you are part of my efforts toâŠbe a better human.â
His kitten did grow and thrive. She was not a gray cat but a very dirty solid white cat. She had blue eyes like him; he thought that was cool. Feeding her around the clock had driven the dark thoughts out of his head, seeing her grow helped him feel less like a monster. Her purrs calmed his anxiety. He didn't let himself spiral because his girl needed him.Â
A name had been hard to come by. Not Bucky Barnes scrolling name sites for the best cat name. He wasn't going to settle for something basic. He stumbled on the name Alpine by accident and thought that it fit the cat, and maybe it would help to have a positive association with anything having to do with the Alps.
Bucky had concerns with Alpine because she wouldn't always respond to him. He read in online forums that cats were independent and had selective hearing intentionally but he felt this was different. She would chatter to him when she knew he was talking to her but he couldn't rouse her from sleep with noise. His vet told him that she likely had hearing loss genetically. That it was a common trait of white cats with blue eyes. The vet informed him that she could have a wonderful life with a few adaptations. Adaptations. Bucky could relate to that.Â
Alpine thrived and a year later, Bucky didn't know what he would do without her. When the nightmares came she'd cuddle close and he'd wrap his arms around her while she purred and kneaded on his arm. Alpine never knew the monster he once was. All she knew was the man who fed her and loved her and saved her from that garbage can. Alpine knew she once was scared and now she wasn't.Â
Alpine was the light in Bucky's darkness when the memories came to destroy him. She knew how to drive the darkness away. When the voice of doubt creeped in saying that he couldn't do anything good, she was the fuel to remind him that he did. He saved a life when he wasnât in Steve's shadow. He saved a life when he wasnât hurting someone else. He saved a life simply because he was a good man. When the screams drowned out everything in his head, Alpine reminded him that he heard her cries and offered a lifeline when he didn't have to. She may have been a cat but she was Buckyâs best friend.
Fic #2 - What it Costs Rating: General Audiences
Bucky sat at the small kitchen table, cupping a chipped mug. The coffee inside had gone lukewarm again. Heâd already reheated it twice, which somehow made it worse: burnt and thin, like it resented being brought back.
He sipped it anyway.
The apartment was quiet, only pipes murmuring somewhere in the walls. A car alarm rose and died a few streets away. The refrigerator clicked on, then off. He could hear his own breathing, steady enough, even if it felt shallow.
He knew he had to go out. There were things he needed: food, soap, whatever ran out when you werenât paying attention. Heâd been putting it off all morning, letting the hours slide by because no one was telling him when to move anymore. Freedom did that.
The mug was lighter than he expected when he lifted it again. In Wakanda, mornings had smelled like earth, leaves, and something warm cooking nearby. People brought things without making it feel like charity. He hadnât had to choose much. On the run, it had been easier. Anonymous cities, borrowed names, moving fast enough that no one looked twice.
Here, everything demanded a decision.
He set the mug down and rested his forearms on the table. The wood was scarred with old cuts and stains, someone elseâs history. He traced one of them with his thumb without really noticing he was doing it.
Going outside meant eyes. Options. Shelves full of things that did the same job but insisted on being different. It also meant the chance -small, but never zero- that someone would recognize the shape of his face behind the beard and the long hair.
He stayed where he was a moment longer. The coffee had gone cold again.
Cold food had always meant it was time to move. He didnât remember learning that, only that staying never ended well. Then-
A hand fisting his hair, yanking his head back. The MRE packet crushed against his mouth, thick paste forced down his throat before he could swallow. Not enough air. Never enough air between one mouthful and the next. They didn't stop until the packet was empty.
His jaw clenched. The mug was still in his hand.
He set it down carefully and pushed his chair back. Because choosing when and what he ate was the kind of freedom he'd burned too many memories to lose now.
The corner store was already busy when he pushed the door open. A bell rang overhead, sharp and tinny, and his shoulders tensed on reflex before he could stop it. The place was narrow, shelves packed too close together, boxes stacked wherever they fit. It smelled like coffee, cleaning products, and something fried that had seeped into the walls.
He took a step inside. Then another.
Someone bumped his arm almost immediately, a kid with headphones, eyes glued to his phone, who didnât even look back. Bucky didnât move. The kid did, rebounding off him without noticing, already gone, swallowed by the aisle.
He frowned. No apology, not even a glance.
The shelves pressed in on both sides. Too many labels. Too many colors. Everything shouting for attention. He grabbed the first loaf of bread within reach without checking the brand, then a bottle of soap, then something that looked like it might be toothpaste. He didnât stop to read. Reading meant choosing.
A woman with a plastic basket turned suddenly, catching him square in the arm. She muttered an apology and kept moving.
âYeah,â he mumbled, though she was gone before the word fully left his mouth.
His pulse was up now, loud in his ears. He could feel the space shrinking, every movement around him unpredictable. He tried to keep his pace steady, but it kept breaking, someone stopping short, someone reaching across him, someone brushing past too close.
Maintain the objective. Ignore irrelevant contact. Complete the mission.
The words surfaced in his mind without permission: clear, cold, and automatic. He hated that they still worked. Hated that the Soldat's protocols were the sharpest tools he had to do a fucking grocery shopping. But his body obeyed anyway: muscle memory from places that had been loud, crowded and dangerous for different reasons, now burning itself down just to buy milk and eggs.
He focused on the floor instead. On the distance between the cooler and the register. Short. Manageable.
The cashier glanced at him once, then again, eyes lingering on his face just a second longer than necessary.
Bucky looked away and shifted his weight, already counting the steps back to the door.
Outside, the noise hit him all at once. Traffic, voices, a siren somewhere too far away to matter and too close to ignore. He stepped aside instinctively, letting a couple of people pass before he realized he didnât need to.
He started walking, keeping his eyes on the pavement.
By the time he reached his apartment, he exhaled.
He unlocked the door and stepped inside, letting it fall shut behind him. Silence was already there. Familiar, heavy.
He set the bag on the counter and started unpacking. Bread, soap, eggs. Small things. Normal things.
The kind of things that shouldn't cost what they did.
Not money. Memories.
He'd burned through how many, just to walk four blocks? The MRE packet. The protocols. The coldness of a weapon pretending to be a person. All of it fuel, keeping him upright, keeping him moving when his own will wasn't enough.
He wondered -briefly, uselessly- what would happen when that ran out. When he'd used up every scrap of trauma, every cold instruction, every ghost of who he used to be.
Maybe that's what freedom was. Learning how to move once the fuel was gone.
He closed the refrigerator and stood there for a moment, hands flat against the door.
Outside, the city kept going. In a couple of days, he'd have to do this again.
One way or another, heâd keep moving.
Fic #3 - I Know I Was Something Rating: Teen+
Warning: Early HYDRA experimentation implied, Memory loss/forced suppression/Identity erasure, Emotional distress, Self-harm/Physical injury wound mentioned - Hand gash, imprisonment, Loss of bodily autonomy, Dehumanization, HYDRA captivity, Dark themes..
Thereâs not time now.
Just the same strip of light bleeding under the door, the same wet-cold air crawling up my spine, the same ache where the new arm sits like a parasite; heavy, wrong, bolted to me. Wires burrowed in.
My shoulder throbs in a slow, stupid rhythm. I hold the metal close sometimes, not for comfort..
Thereâs no comfort...
But the pain is something I can map.
Tracing healing scars...
Pain is honest. Pain stays where it belongs.
The rest of me⊠doesnât.
Itâs being taken..
I can feel it..
Feel the missing parts as if someone has scooped them out with a spoon. The edges itch.
I can feel it in my hair, no matter how hard I pull on my scalp I can feel it like worms.. bugsâŠdigging my head..
Eating away..
I claw until my skin burns, trying to press down on the splitting pressure inside my skull.
Maybe I can hold myself together.
Idiot
âRemember...â
Thereâs faces that comes to me sometimes.
People Iâm supposed to know. Who matter..
But I donât know them..
Sometimes I remember names.
Can taste them on my tongue.
Steve. RebeccaâŠ
â3255âŠâ
A thought the inside of my ribs like a fist. An arm slung across shoulders. A laugh. Jerk
I canât hold onto them
Try harder and the fog turns into static.
Static becomes noise.
â3255⊠pleaseâŠ. 38â
Noise becomes rage.
My nails are broken. Thereâs dried blood under the beds of them where Iâve been digging for something that isnât there. Clawing at skin.
My skin is dirty. Wet
Hunger is a constant animal gnawing at my gut, but itâs not the worst of it.
The chair
That fucking chair
Itâs stealing me
Swapping me with another man.
No.. not someone else
Swapping me with nothing.
A ghost something you canât even see.
I can fight a person.
â32557..7..7â
How do you fight an emptiness?
I remember the wrong things nowâŠ
Remember the first time I woke up with the arm, I tried to slam it into the concrete until my shoulder screamed and my teeth rattled. I tried to rip it off with my other hand, fingers slipping on cold metal.
So much blood.
The taste of my own bile.
Hate this metal
I remember the chair.
The chair is not a memory I can lose.
They made sure of that.
Words in a language I donât understand.
I understand the pain anyway.
Iâm always shaking. Always wet with sweat I donât have the strength to wipe away.
Somewhere outside, a door slams. Footsteps. A man clears his throat.
My heart tries to climb out of my body.
Not yet.
Please. Not yet.
The light under the door doesnât change.
I pace the cell until my bare feet raw.
The metal arm swings too heavy at my sideâŠI have to clutch it to my chest like a shield.
I donât know why I keep doing that.
Maybe because itâs attached and everything else is slipping.
â3255âŠ3255â
Where does it all go?
I press the heel of my palm into my eye until bright stars bloom.
The fuel is running out. The fightâŠ
I can feel it.
Every time they take me to the chair, something goes..
I know Iâm missing pieces..
I keep trying but it hurts to try some days..
â325⊠38âŠ38.. please.. itâs in there⊠I know it is..Iâm in thereâ
I punch the concrete until the skin splits across my knuckles and my fingers swell.
But the pain is sharp and clean, for a moment itâs the only thing in my mind.
âPlease remember.â
Then the emptiness surges back in, so does the panic.
If you stop trying they win
I press my forehead against the wall and sob without sound.
Iâm so tired
The tears are hot. My throat wonât open for the noise. They taught me that early.
Names are dangerous.
Names are how you belong to something.
Belonging is how you remember youâre human.
Iâm a person
Iâm still a person
I slide down the wall, metal arm clanging against the floor.
Across from me, on the far wall, there are stains. Old ones. New ones. Dirt and blood and something darker that never fully washes away.
Iâve stared at that wall so long I could trace the cracks blind.
Thereâs something there I didnât notice before.
Maybe I noticed it a hundred times and forgot.
A word.
Painted, smeared, written wet and red. The letters are crooked, desperate. The last line drags down written by a weak hand.
Itâs fresh enough to shine.
It shouldnât be.
No one gives me anything to write with.
I crawl closer, dragging the metal arm with me, the weight of it scraping across the floor.
The word stares back.
Bucky.
The room tilts.
I read it again.
Bucky.
The letters mean nothing.
My chest hurts, tight pressure. I press my forehead to the wall beneath the word, smearing my face into cold concrete.
I want to scream. Nothing comes.
My whole body shakes. I want to claw the letters off the wall, to swallow them. I want to be whatever that word is supposed to be.
But my mind is a room they keep emptying.
The fuel is gone.
the grief, the panic, the sheer, sick exhaustionâŠ.
I slide down the wall like my bones have decided theyâre done holding me up.
My hand comes up to my face without permission.
The tears sting.
Gash open on my palm.
Wide. Ragged.
The blood on the wallâŠmine.
Why canât I remember?
But my mind is a room they keep emptying,
Iâm so tired.
The metal arm drags heavier across my lap, as if itâs growing weight on purpose, as if it knows I donât have enough left to carry it. My shoulder burns. My whole body feels hollowed out, split open, scraped clean.
I stop fighting and lie down on the floor, cheek to cold concrete,
I donât know what Iâm trying to save.
Fic #4 - I saw her in a dream Rating : General Audiences
- Bucky ? (He moans in his half-sleep as he feels Steve's hand stroking his hair.) Go to sleep, sweetheart, you're literally falling asleep.
He didn't want to fall asleep. He just wanted to rest his eyes for a few moments, nestled in his husband's arms. Steve is warm, so warm. Steve's hand continues to stroke his hair, and Bucky wants to stay there forever. Warm and safe. But he doesn't even protest and forces his body to move, Steve's hand slipping into his before his body presses against his, his arm wrapping around his waist. Again, Bucky doesn't even protest and lets his partner lead him into the bedroom to help him slip under the heavy weighted blankets covering their bed, falling asleep the moment his head hits the pillow.
He managed to sleep. A little, not for long. He never manages to sleep for very long. This time, he managed to sleep for three hours before being woken up. Three hours. It's not enough. It never is. Bucky's eyes burned, his heart pounding too hard in his chest. This time, he wasn't awakened by yet another nightmare. Long brown hair pulled back into a bun that made her look much older than she was. A blue dress, her favorite, that had belonged to their mother when she was younger. Rebecca's lips are stretched into a wide smile as she reaches out to him, inviting him to dance. Further away, Alice and Felicia are dancing together, laughing, looking so pretty in their green and brown dresses. The music is coming from the radio, but to Bucky, his little sisters' laughter is the most beautiful melody in the world. The former Winter Soldier closes his eyes, feeling a tear roll down his cheek. He remembered his little sisters. After years of not being able to remember their faces, the sound of their voices, or the sound of their laughter, he finally remembered his little sisters.
Little sisters he had loved - adored - from the moment they came into the world. Little sisters for whom he had strived to be the best big brother possible, even raising them on his own after their parents died. Little sisters he had seen leave the family nest one after the other to live their own lives. Talk to him about them, about their lives in Brooklyn. That was all he had asked Steve when they had the opportunity to be alone together for the first time since their reunion. Steve had talked about everything and anything, hoping that his words would trigger his memories. Any memories. The super soldier carefully slipped out of bed and out of the room to curl up on one of the sofa cushions, his gaze fixed on Alpine's small body curled up at the other end of the same sofa.
He missed his little sisters so much. And the joy of finally being able to remember them without relying on everything Steve had told him couldn't erase his guilt at having abandoned them. It's not your fault. You never wanted to abandon them. If he were awake, that's probably the kind of thing Steve would say to him. As if that would help, make him feel less guilty... It never did. The guilt was constant, and Bucky had stopped fighting it. He had accepted that he would feel guilty for his past actions for the rest of his life. He had accepted that he couldn't enjoy a single good moment without feeling guilty almost immediately. How dare he feel even an ounce of happiness after spilling so much blood ? After destroying so many lives ? On his pillow, Alpine shifts position without waking up, exposing his belly. And Bucky struggles with the urge to cry. Even though he had accepted feeling guilty for the rest of his life, that didn't stop him from wanting it to end. He was tired of feeling guilty every damn second of every damn minute of every damn day. He was tired of feeling guilty for mistakes Hydra had forced him to make, leaving him to pay for the rest of his life.
- Bucky ?
Bucky wipes his cheeks when he hears Steve call him. He doesn't want to show him that he's crying. His husband comes and sits down beside him, stroking Alpine's head when she meows in her sleep, before putting his arm around his shoulders and pulling him close.
- Talk to me, Buck.
- I dreamed about my little sisters. They were all there, dancing... Steve, I remember my little sisters...
Rebecca's lips stretched into a wide smile. Alice and Felicia twirling around together, laughing. He didn't want to cry, but he couldn't help it. What did it matter if he cried in front of Steve ? Itâs Steve, and Steve would never judge him for it. His companion's hand rests on his hair and back, stroking them, encouraging him to let go. He finally remembered his little sisters, and he missed them all so much ! Steve talks to him - something about how people's memories are the fuel that keeps them alive? No matter how important those memories are, they're just the fuel of life ? - but Bucky barely listens, his body shaking with sobs. And when he finally falls asleep once more in Steve's arms, it's praying with all his might to dream of his family again. He has little sisters to dance with...
Fic #5 - The Maintenance of Bucky Barnes Rating: Mature Trigger warnings: violence/torture (not extremely explicit, but it's there)
HYDRA calls him The Asset, even if heâs refused that name for years now.
Speak about him as if he is a rifle being cleaned, devise and clarify which slices to pull apart and put back together until the frantic heartbeat of Bucky Barnes turns into clockwork. To HYDRA, he is nothing but a collection of mechanical sub-assemblies that require periodic stripping. They scrub at the stubborn stains of his loyalty to his home until his soul is vacant.
And inside his ribcage, Bucky is burning through his reserves. A body is only as good as its power source. Buried beneath years of torture, hidden by the weight of the heavy metal limb on his left side, Bucky attempts to keep existing simply by clinging to the only fuel that remains. You.
He sits in the chair, the leather straps biting into his wrists. A shadow behind glass, Dr. Zola discusses voltage units and speaks about recalibration. Some words have begun to lose meaning to him, but not those. Heâs sure they wonât ever let him forget them.
Bucky closes his eyes, aware that he doesnât have much time.
âYou know what I think?â Your voice sounds distant in his head, a ghost echo in the sterile environment of the Siberian bunker. He sees you sitting on the fire escape, the Brooklyn summer air thick. A stray ginger cat is balancing itself on a nearby railing. âI think that cat is actually a disgraced prince. Heâs too dignified for that dumpster. Tomorrow Iâm going to buy him a tiny piece of ham, and if he bows, Iâll know Iâm right. You have to help me make him a little crown out of tinfoil, James. Itâs only polite.â
Bucky feels the ghost of a smile try to pull at the corner of his mouth, a malfunction in the machinery. Memories of you do this to him. You, who used to make his smile easy back home, before the war. Now, they are the only thing that keeps him together. The embers that allow him to reach past the blood of the men he killed yesterday in the snow, past the screaming wind of the mountains.
Bucky reaches past, like he has done for years now, running on fumes, and grabs the most mundane thought he can find. Another one; how soft your thumb felt against his knuckles when you held hands at the picture show. Itâs not a big memory. Not an important day, a birthday or the time he was shipped out. Just your touch, and the way youâd subconsciously rub a specific spot on his hand when the movie got tense.
Fuel. A memory like that can keep him alive for a little longer.
And then the electricity hits.
It isnât just pain. Thereâs the sharpness of the voltage through his muscles, unyielding, but even worse is the hot-iron hand reaching into his skull and trying to pry open his soul. His body buckles against the restraints.
He fights. The smell of your soap comes, shoving the memory into the furnace of his mind. Burn it. Make fuel out of it. Lavender and strawberry, because you always smelled like God himself had sent you down to him. Dr. Zola yells something behind Bucky, and the machine connected to him roars.
A beat, and the soap is lost. The fire turns to ash, and the core of him begins to freeze over.
âIncrease the output,â another voice commands.
Bucky feels a scream tear through his throat, but he can barely hear it over the thrum of his heart. More fuel. He reaches for the memory of the light in your kitchen. Not the morning light, not the Sun. Rather, just the dim glow of the single bulb over the sink where you washed dishes while his arms enveloped you in the warmest embrace.
The yellow light flickers and dies as the machine surges.
This is the price of maintenance. To keep himself breathing in his body, he has to sacrifice the memories that make Bucky Barnes worth being. A man heating a frozen house by burning the furniture. Eventually, there will be nothing left but the floorboards. The cold.
The machine cools down as two guards move forward, faces hidden behind black masks. One points a gun straight at Bucky from a safe distance. âAsset?â he says, firm. âReport.â
Bucky doesnât answer. Blue eyes staring ahead of him, at no one in particular, maybe at the wall, maybe beyond it.
All of it is gone. The kitchen light, the soap, the touch. Who were you? He remembers a silhouette, something that used to feel like "homeâ. But the face begins to blur, like a photograph left in the rain. Thereâs still something there, though, a small, discarded thing, left forgotten in a small corner. The sound of your laughter when Bucky had tripped over his own feet on the way to your door.
A small thing, too trivial. Bucky doesnât remember your face anymore. But when the guards drag him back to his cell, he clutches that sound to his chest like dying coal. Keeps it tucked away, shielded from Zola, from the machine. For now, heâs still Bucky. He has enough fuel to avoid becoming the Asset for one more day.
Fic #6 - Even when I doubt you, I'm no good without you RATING: General Audiences
Working at night in museums wasn't an unpleasant experience after all.
It was just you and history, jealously guarded within a huge and elegant space, something that could easily take your breath away.
There were days you felt like Larry Daley in 'Night At The Museum', wandering the halls as if the past itself had chosen you as its only witness. Some nights, you would just stop and wonder if any of this would come back to life, like in those films.
Then, one day, when you least expected it, you witnessed a piece of Captain America's history become real.
You never imagined that it would put a gun to your back, the coldness of a metal hand covering your mouth and stopping you from screaming.
"Stay still," a voice ordered quietly, steady but not with cruelty or authority. You swallowed under his mouth and nodded slowly, feeling his hand leaving your mouth soon after, allowing you to breath.
"Take me to a place," he continued, his words slow and calculated, as if he was more like a walking machine than a human.
You cleared your throat, painfully aware of the gunâs weight at your spine even though he hadnât pressed it any harder.
âWhere?â you asked, your voice barely holding together.
You felt the absence of the gun behind your back, and he pointed with it to a distant spot in the room.
Without asking, you silently agreed, guiding him toward the spot heâd indicated. The walk felt long and endless, each step swallowed by the quiet â neither of you daring to speak, barely daring to breathe. You had no idea you were escorting the infamous Winter Soldier, carefully concealed beneath layers of clothing, his presence alone radiated torment and rigid control, a man held together by discipline rather than peace, haunted by a past he no longer remembered.
After long minutes, you stopped. A large, bright panel opened among you, one of them you barely saw due to the endless people walking cross to it. There was a large black and white picture of a young man, his dress perfectly polished and looking at the public with eyes full of life and hope for a better future.
Then, you read the black letters opening the panel:
James Buchanan Barnes. The only member of the Howling Commandos to give his life during the war.
You felt him freeze, his breath abruptingly stopping. It was only when you turned your head you saw something flickering in his eyes - a raw, painful recognition.
"You⊠seem to know this person, sir," you murmured, afraid to receive a harsh reaction from him. Instead, the Soldier looked at you, and for the first time he seemed tired.
"I do," he replied with hoarse voice. "It was me."
From that night onwards, it became the Winter Soldier's â or rather, Bucky Barnes' â custom to visit you, trying to piece together bits of a past that Hydra had meticulously buried deep in his brain. You made sure your surveillance shifts coincided with every night he showed up, offering him personal guidance on the part of the exhibition.
With a little notebook on his hands, he started to note every notion he apprehended from your words and the documented materials, holding himself to those newfound memories like a lifeline. And as a certain level of trust grew between you two, he used to tell you about what he could remember that wasn't written â like Peggy's meticolous work ethic, the crazy exhibitions Howard Stark used to set, or how Steve used to wear big shoes by putting some rolled newspapers inside.
Bittersweet memories that made Bucky's heart nostalgic of the man he was and guilt of the monster he became.
And once those words collided, a dulled pain crushed him.
"Every time I look at him," Bucky said one night, his gaze resting on his younger face, "I see a person I'm not anymore. I saw freedom, thriving, a man whose motivation would burn down the world. And now, seeing this," he murmured, looking down at his ungloved metal atm, "I see anything but what they shaped me into."
"BuckyâŠ" you breathed, and he continued.
"How can you be so kind at me, and seeing far from the Hydra's brainwashed puppet? How can I be the same person of that guy who helped Captain America and stood by his side until the very hend?"
You felt his breath ragging, his eyes glimmering with sorrow, "How can I live with the memory of the people I killed haunting me?"
A long silence stretched among you, so real and yet so painful. Neither of you spoke, all the words you wanted to say died easily in your throat.
Then, you reached for his hand â the metal one, fingers clasping softly. Bucky froze, but didn't dare to retreat his hand; he felt strangely releaved to see you didn't flinch.
"You know," you said softly, "my mother used to say that no matter how we try to bury them, or brush them away. Memories will return when you least expect it. It's the kind of "fire" that keeps us alive, that makes us look back and realize how much we grow up and left behind."
"You may have lost James Barnes during the way, and others let the Winter Soldier to take his place," you raised the other hand, placing it steadly on his racing heart, "Try to create a new fuel. Let both of these words collide and be just Bucky."
Your words left Bucky stunned, the honesty of them causing a shift inside him.
His eyes dropped to where your hand rested over his heart, as if he needed proof it was still there, still beating for him.
He finally clasped your hand gently. "Just Bucky," he simply murmured, and a ghost of a smile appeared on his face.
In the darkness of that night, James Buchanan Barnes and the Winter Soldier were buried forever.
And Bucky Barnes was finally born.
Fic #7 - Amends by Closure Rating â General Audiences
After dealing with the Flag Smashers and the tough love from Sam Bucky knew that in order to accomplish his goal of giving closure to others he needed to fill the blank spaces in his memory. Bucky wanted a method that felt less clinical and hostile than his sessions with Raynor. Sam sent recommendations for hypnotherapy. The first candidates he met didnât appeal to him so when he found himself going to an in person consultation he wasnât feeling optimistic.
The moment he stepped in your office everything from the decor to your appearance had him relaxing slightly. After exchanging names you warned Bucky before proceeding any further that you expected honesty and commitment because anything less would be a waste of time for you both. Encouraged by your frankness Bucky had agreed immediately.
A few months passed. Bucky found it a slow and incredibly frustrating process. Especially since he already knew the memories of his time as the Winter Soldier which seemed appear the most. But there were small achievements. He could remember moments with the Howling Commandos. The giggles of his little sister when they played together as children. His parents teaching him to dance. The day he received his orders to be shipped out. But he wanted more of the good and less of the bad.
During one particular session you watched sadly as Bucky slept on the couch. His arm was flexing and whirring as sweat beaded on his forehead. You could only let the trance continue until he lurched into a sitting position with a cry glancing around until those blue eyes landed on you.
When his breathing settled you shifted in your seat but before you could ask the memory was new he growled âAnother assassination.â His hands tugged at his hair. âI remember every single person. Theyâre in my dreams all the time. Iâm so tired of seeing them during these sessions.â He slumped forward. âI want to remember something good.â
The vulnerability of his words and body language broke your heart. It took everything for you not to reach out and comfort him. Unless he requested physical contact it would be a breach not only of his boundaries but your profesionalism. Instead you tried to choose your words carefully.
âI understand itâs frustrating Bucky. What you have to remember is that you are making progress, whether the memories are good or bad.â
Bucky sighed. âI knew making amends would be hard. But I never thought itâd be like this.â
You bit your lip. âBucky I know youâre trying to provide closure for others. But what about your closure?â
His body tensed. âDonât need it.â
âI donât believe you.â
âFine. I donât want it.â
âBucky-â
âDonât you understand? I donât deserve closure. All those people are dead because of me. Remembering them is my penance.â
âThose people are dead because of Hydra. You were programmed to follow their orders without hesitation or choice.â You knew Bucky thought lowly of himself because of what heâd been forced to do. âBut James Barnes deserves closure too. The young man who went off to fight a war. Hydra captured, tortured and brainwashed him under their control to commit the most horrendous acts without a choice. He got caught up in something far bigger than anyone could have imagined.â You watched as Bucky trembled with restrained energy. âBucky unless you find your own closure then you will never truly feel youâve made amends.â
With a grunt Bucky leapt up and slammed the door as he left the room. Guilt washed through your body. You pushed too hard. Bucky told you he wanted your services because of how you were upfront in a respectful way and offered suggestions rather than giving orders. Despite his reservations Bucky was making progress. Progress you had now potentially set back especially if he never came back.
The next day you were scribbling at your desk when a gentle knock sounded. The last thing you expected was to see Bucky standing in the doorway shuffling awkwardly.
âBucky.â
âHi Doc. Um. Do you have a minute?â
Your heart melted when he looked ready for your immediate rejection. Instead you waved him in and he sat opposite you. âIâm sorry for the way I left yesterday.â
You sighed. âWe promised to always be honest with each other. Iâm not sorry for what I said. But I am sorry I said it. I crossed a line.â
âYou were right.â Buckyâs elbows rested on his knees as he explained.
Bucky stalked blindly down the street only focusing how you said about how he deserved closure. Shuri, Ayo and even TâChalla had said the same thing while the Wakandans helped remove the effect of his trigger words. Back then his only focus had been ensuring the Winter Soldier could never again be activated.
It was then he heard familiar noises. Fists against flesh. Sounds of being pushed around. Cruel taunting laughter. Following the commotion he saw some teens in an alley acrosss the street. They were grouped around someone, probably their target. Before he could move to help another kid came barreling past him and ran into the group tackling two of them to the ground.
âLeave âem alone!â
Bucky quickly crossed the street as the new kid and the groups victim both worked furiously to fight the bullies until they were the only two left standing.
âI had it handled.â
âNever said you didnât.â
Bucky couldnât help smiling at their exchange. Sounded like him and Steve. Shaking his head he called out to the two kids. âYou both ok?â
âYes sir, thank you!â
âI dreamt last night Doc. Not a nightmare. But a memory. How I met Steve.â A hint of a smile graced Buckyâs lips. âIf Steve believed that I could be saved - could be forgiven - then I should too.â
âIâm happy to hear that Bucky.â
âAnd⊠Iâd like to schedule our next session. I want to remember. The good and the bad.â
Fic #8 - Equal Weight Rating: General Audiences
He never seems to remember they're there until he feels them.
Every step sends a soft metallic clink through the lining of his jacket, a sound too light to be a weapon and too persistent to ignore.
He stops at the edge of the square and slips his hand into his pocket, expecting lint, maybe a receipt. Instead his fingers close around cold circles of metal - different sizes, different edges, ridged and smooth, each one a different weight.
He turns one over with his thumb. The face stamped into it means nothing to him. The year does. Heâs been in three countries since then. Maybe four.
He doesnât remember collecting them, and he doesnât remember deciding to keep them.
Only that theyâre there, that theyâve been there for a while. An increasing weight against the pocket lining that stretches the delicate seams and weakens the thread.
The fountain sits in the center of the square. Water spills from tier to tier in a steady thrum, catching the yellow glow of the underwater lights, and breaking it into shimmering ribbons.
There are already coins scattered across the stone basin - dull copper, bright silver, wishes glinting at the bottom like small, sunken stars.
A couple leans over the edge, laughing. The woman squeezes her eyes shut before she throws her coin, her lips moving around a silent hope.
There's a child too, a kid of maybe five, who holds her coin aloft ceremoniously before running at the fountain and launching it into the water with a very specific wish.
âI wish for a unicorn!â She bellows.
Bucky smiles at the joy in her voice and then looks down at the coins in his palm.
People throw them to ask for things. Luck. Love. Another chance. It's been the same for thousands of years, he read once before.
He tries to remember the last time he asked for anything at all and comes up empty.
The metal is warm from sitting in his palm. He rolls it across his knuckles, a trick he'd practiced over and over during the war.
He listens to the quiet rush of water, the distant hum of traffic, the faint echo of the little girl's laughter already fading into the night. Around him, the city moves on.
He steps closer to the fountain.
The coin leaves his fingers almost by accident, a small silver arc that catches the light once before it disappears with a soft, hollow plink.
The sound is swallowed quickly, absorbed into the water and the coin joins the pile of other offerings, indistinguishable from the rest.
For a moment, he waits to feel lighter.
Nothing happens.
He tries another coin, more recent currency this time - not an old Lira or Peso - a Euro.
He idly wonders if the value of the coin matches the value of what he's trying to shed.
The coin somersaults in the air, flicked between his index finger and thumb. It makes a bigger splash. The reflections in the water distort and twist in the ripples.
He sees a puddle instead, deep and stained red. At his feet lay Hydra agents.
He blinks the image away and pulls more coins from his pocket, lining them up on the stone.
Each one a memory.
They took them from him once. Now he was offering them up himself.
He flicks the next one in with purpose, a strong pitch with his feet planted and his arm wound back.
A command in a language he still understands too well.
The echo of boots in a corridor that never ended.
Cold metal restraints biting into skin that wasnât allowed to heal.
The coin clips the cherubic statue and vanishes beneath the surface.
Another follows.
Snow.
A rifle heavy in his hands.
Not his own.
His pocket grows lighter.
He keeps going until the line of coins in front of him shortens, until the small pile in his hand becomes two, then one.
Each splash sounds the same. Each ripple widens, then collides with another, then disappears.
The fountain takes them all.
Copper, silver, meaningless denominations and currencies - they all sink to the bottom.
He waits after the last one drops.
The square is quieter now it's getting darker. The water keeps spilling from the tiers of the fountain.
He slides his hand back into his pocket out of habit.
There arenât many left. Enough to clink when he shifts his weight.
He laughs quietly. Of course there are more. There are always more. Different years. Different countries. The same night on repeat.
He pulls one more free and studies it in the low streetlight. The edges are worn smooth. It could have passed through a thousand hands before finding his. It could pass through a thousand more.
Memories are like that, he thinks. Circulated and exchanged. Spent and returned.
Some are worth more than they should be.
Some are worth nothing at all, but are still impossible to throw away.
He turns the coin over in his hand.
It's a dime.
This one brings a kitchen into focus - a humid day, the smell of cornbread and shrimp. It doesnât hurt the way the others do. It doesnât burn. It warms him.
Not all of them are bad.
He closes his fingers around the coin and slips it back into his pocket.
The fountain doesnât need all of them. He doesnât need to give them all away to lighten the load.
She's waiting at the edge of the square, bathed in golden light.
âTwelve Euro for gelato,â she chides, slipping the change into his pocket.
When they walk away, the coins still jingle with every step - a softer sound now. The weight is still there. It probably always will be.
But the seams hold.
Fic #9 - Locked Inside My Memory (And Only You Possess the Key) Rating: Mature Warnings: Vaguely described torture, dehumanization, language
Thrashing.
Screaming.
Sobbing.
Pleading.
âJames Buchanan Barnes, 32557038. SergeantâŠJames Buchanan BarnesâŠ32557038. I amâŠJames Buchanan BarnesâŠâ
Bucky was on his knees with his ankles and wrists bound behind him. His surroundings were unclear, out of focus, but no matter how much he blinked, he couldnât get his vision to correct itself.
He tried to move, tried to engage the muscles in his thighs to push himself up. If he could get anywhere, could only just see around that corner, maybe there was an exit.
It was important that he kept track of how long he had been here. To stay sane, and to figure out when help might be coming.
Steve, Steve, Steve.
But he kept falling unconscious, or worse, being taken away by the âdoctors,â with their cruel smiles and sharp tools and soldering irons. They all spoke German, except for when they taunted him. They called him a useless whore, a failure, a monster. The words coupled with the all encompassing pain conspired to shake everything out of his brain.
Time and reality slipped away so easily under their knives and cruel words. He even thought he might be starting to understand German. The same words came up day in and day out, feeling like harsh insults and sticking to the inside of his gummy mind.
It could have been ten hours, ten days, or ten weeks before Bucky started to doubt his memory. Had his name actually been James? He couldnât remember anyone ever calling him that. And was it 32557038? Or 32557048?
The next time he was able to hold onto anything tangible, he had been moved to a different room. This one had a barred window in the corner, but no light was coming through. He was underground, he assumed.
His thirst didnât make itself known until he realized that there was a bowl of dirty water on the floor just within his reach. The need was suddenly an undeniable fact.
Too desperate to hesitate, he stiffly moved towards it lapping up every drop that the shallow bowl had to offer. His lips burned as he drank, cracked and bleeding, and his stomach twisted as the water fell on absolutely nothing. When was the last time he had eaten? He couldnât remember them feeding him anything.
âDas Tier,â A gruff voice spoke from somewhere, and Bucky couldnât be sure that he wasnât imagining it.
A large man entered the cell, keeping as far away from Bucky as the small space allowed, and crossed his arms. This man was different from the others, different from his torturers wearing white coats and brandishing knives and drills. The only weapon that this man had was a handgun holstered at his side.
âYou drink the water like a dog. Good dog.â
Bucky whimpered lowly and closed his eyes, willing this monster away. It was probably just a figment of his imagination, another cruel trick that his mind was playing on him.
He wasnât sure if heâd opened his eyes or if they were still crusted closed, but he swore he saw a flash of light blond hair, then a bony frame in the shadows where the much larger man had been.
This vision was familiar and felt like safety, warming his chilled bones from the inside out. He was drawn to this small man like a sunflower to the sunshine, overcome by the need to get closer. He saw pale, scarred skin with bones far too visible underneath, and hands covered in charcoal and blood. He heard a low voice, whispering promises and secrets for just the two of them.
Then Bucky saw nothing but the color blue, and endless blue like the sky on a clear day. The color was so vast and so deep that he thought he might fall into it. His body would sink ever-so-slowly, held by warmth as if heâd dived into a tropical ocean on a far away island.
He couldnât be sure, but he thought someone might be touching him, a sensation so different than anything heâd experienced from his captors so far. The hands were firm and gentle, resting on his shoulders like they could ground him to reality. An indeterminate amount of time later they were on his face, holding onto him as if he was something precious, and he wanted to cry.
He was nothing. They had taken whatever he had been from him. There had been a name, and a number, and something to fight for, but all of it had slipped through the cracks, lost in the blood and the starvation and the cruel, insistent words of his captors.
No matter how far Bucky searched the depths of his mind, he couldnât remember any names. Faces were fuzzy, hard to match up to bodies and experiences, and there was a high chance that every face he remembered was simply one of the doctors that had seen him that day.
Bucky rubbed his eyes, finding his hands tied in front of him rather than behind his back, and nearly sobbed at the mercy. Maybe they could tell that he was confused past the point of being a threat.
As his dirty palms cleared away the grime keeping his eyes crusted shut, he saw that there was sunlight coming through the barred window this time. He wasnât underground, because he could see outside. The outside world still existed, and the air was cold, even colder than it had been when theyâd gone out dancing on Christmas Eve, just him andâŠ
Steve.
There was the name. The face came soon after, and Bucky held onto it with every ounce of willpower that he had left in his fractured mind. He could remember. He could keep this. This was what he was supposed to be fighting for, this scrawny, mouthy man who had spent their entire lives fighting like hell for no good reason.
He had to get home to Steve.
Fic #10 - memento RATING: Teen WARNINGS: Mild cursing. Brief discussion of war/killing during war (WW2 typical). Minor allusion to sex. Mild canon-typical violence (HYDRA, Winter Soldier).
The night autumnal air in Azzano bites his breath, misting white fumes with each steady exhale. Itâs colder than the day, as October counts down towards colder days, but he canât feel it -- not with how his muscles are primed, ready, armed for the fight prepped for any minute now. His entire body burns with tension and its frustration of waiting and inaction. Word spread throughout the 107th that Nazis were drawing closer; chances are theyâd stage a night-time assault, tonight.
His fingers squeeze, then release, around the chilled metal and warmed wood of his M1903. Nervous reflex. Bucky hates it.
The other men around him each share in the same unease. Soft clinks of metal, sticks and earth crumbling underfoot as people shift. An occasional cough. Hushed whispers, passed orders or complaints alike, donât matter.
But nothing from the scouts. For better or worse.
It will be a long night regardless.
Another exhale, drawn out as Bucky focuses the shadows around them, as if to pierce through them to find the bastards lurking in their murk. And not let his thoughts roam to his gal back home. Anything besides her.
But heâs wearing her hand-knitted socks now, feet dry and warmed by her care. Has her dark blue muffler made for him shoved in his army pack for the upcoming colder months. A photo of her -- the best one featuring her twinkling smile and bright eyes that black and white canât dim and strip away -- tucked within his body.
Pride and honor and good olâ fashioned patriotism is what got him to enlist, but those fade, and fade cruelly with each passing minutia of soldier life, with each Nazi killed by his hand. It is the thought of her that burns like stubborn embers resting within his heart that keeps him going.
He can paint a pretty picture of her living in her Brooklyn flat with her family, with Becca running in and out of the cozy place as if she belongs there too, all safe and sound and surrounded by desserts she experiments with. Of her giggling at the next Archie comic or shaking her head at the latest pulp magazine, ready to share her thoughts, even if itâs just to the air around her. Of her gentle teases and fiery scolds, especially the ones directed at him in her righteous anger. Of her shy, tender kisses, of even softer skin flushed warm with the aftermath of their heated passion, and her vow come his final night beside her -- more sacred than marriage oaths and church confessionals -- that sheâll wait for him to return.
It is enough. It is more than enough, for now.
***
Bucky hunches over his black notebook in the dim light of his Bucharest apartment. Its pages are tabbed in sections with colorful dividers, and filling up with a scattering of his thoughts (his memories). A haphazard method of trying to wade through his internal chaos to make sense of it all, makes sense of what remained and what emerges afterwards.
He remembers HYDRA, its tendrils puppeteering him towards committing atrocities and obfuscating its damages behind the lie of their âbetterment of the worldâ. Remembers the pain they put him through, like cutting through healthy flesh to rig his new metal arm without a shred of empathy towards his screams. Remembers the faces of his victims, how their eyes betray their fear and panic before death robs them of even that.
He remembers Steve. Best friend from Brooklyn, their days as carefree kids running through the streets when Steve wasn't sick, as mischievous teens who spent their money stupidly on burnt pizza and worse attempts of wooing ladies, and into adults who had to weather the storms of another global war. He remembers even Captain America, their missions in the War and his fellow Commandos who followed alongside the First Avenger to dismantle HYDRA's domination.
But he doesn't remember her.
Not truly.
Ghosts of smiles and scolding hit him whenever he sees the couples out on the Bucharest streets, where he tries to not linger his gaze on their happiness for too long. The occasional wind whispers his name in a coaxing tone before the memory disappears like the breeze. Cinnamon, sugar, flour: their scents taunt him as he picks the best plums or orders mici from the street vendors he wanders into. And he ignores the bleeding ache in his chest as another random-but-happy woman triggers memories that insist on staying dead.
Now, he wasnât much of a drawer like Steve was, but, every now and then when the nights get quiet, quiet enough for the Romanian capital, he sketches a few lines across the paper in ways that feel right. Slowly sculpting graphite into remembering a forgotten face for him.
And it is enough. It has to be more than enough, for nowâŠ
Fic #11 -Finding His Voice Again Rating: General Audiences
Buckyâs apartment in Bucharest wasnât built for warmth. It was the kind of place where light struggled to settle, which had nothing to do with the newspapers taped over the windows. Everything there had a purpose and nothing more. Comfort didnât matter, and it didnât really feel right. He hadnât earned it yet.Â
So, why bother adding pieces of himself to the space when he didnât know who he was anymore?
He sighed to himself and opened his journal. He almost left it on the shelf where he found it, but something urged him to buy it anyway. There were too many broken pieces in his mind, and he had to find a way to put himself back together.Â
Writing things down was dangerous. A liability if it fell into the wrong hands. But he didnât want to forget. Not again.
Not you.
Never you.
His hand trembled as he flipped back a few pages. He ran a finger over the dried ink, the handwriting sloppier than some of his earlier entries. He had been so excited to write down what he saw.
I met you today.
You helped an older woman carry groceries to her apartment. You smiled at me like you didnât have a care in the world. You smelled like plums and something sweeter when you brushed past me.Â
I donât know why youâre here.
I donât know why I want to know you so badly when knowing isnât safe.
Bucky lifted his head, perking up when he heard footsteps down the hall. His shoulders fell when he realized it wasnât you. He quietly flipped to another page.
I saw you again.
You didnât notice me at first. You were arguing gently with the cashier over the price of bread, insisting heâd made a mistake when he kept repeating the total. You were right.
You smiled when you won. Nothing smug or triumphant. It was more like a relief. Maybe you were glad the cashier cared enough to make it right. Or maybe youâre like me and trying not to spend too much money.Â
Which was why you surprised me when you spotted me and offered some of the bread.
I almost didnât take it. No one gave things away for free. Everything had a price, or strings attached.Â
But not with you.
Why canât I stop thinking about you?
Bucky ran a hand through his hair. He needed to cut it again. He didnât trust anyone but himself with scissors. Anyone could use them as a weapon.
But he had a feeling youâd be gentle if he ever asked.
You stopped me in the hall today and asked how I was doing. It caught me off guard. Iâm not used to people wanting to make small talk with me. I donât have my younger selfâs charm anymore.
Sometimes I remember that I was charming.
I talked a lot longer with you than I expected. I think part of it was because you didnât look at me like I was a ghost. Or a monster.Â
Youâre beautiful. Youâre easy to talk to. You made me laugh.Â
And I made an excuse to end the conversation and rushed into my apartment because I wasnât sure what to do with that.
Buckyâs chest went tight. Now and then he thought of Steve Rogers and fragments of simpler times would come back, when heâd laugh without restraint and the world didnât seem as cold. HYDRA had taken laughter away, along with his voice.Â
The journal was helping him speak again in a way.
You bought yourself flowers today. You said you wanted to brighten up your place. You added with a shy smile that you didnât have a boyfriend to buy you flowers.Â
Not anymore.Â
I should buy you flowers. I should make sure your apartmentâs safe. I should stay away from you.
Because Iâm scared. Not of HYDRA. Not really. Iâm scared of losing something good before I even have it.
I really donât know why I keep writing these things down. Youâre not a mission. Youâre not mine. Wanting to know you, wanting to remember you, it doesnât make sense.
But when I think about you, things slow down. The noise in my head goes quiet for a minute. It doesnât hurt.Â
The thought of you makes me feel okay.
Bucky stared at the page. HYDRA taught him that with every new memory he gained, they took more away. They never let him have hope. They never let him have anything.Â
The journal felt like tempting fate, like he was daring the world to take something from him again.Â
But like everything else in his apartment, it had a purpose.Â
It was his voice on those pages, one they could no longer silence. His memories hadnât disappeared for good. They were still there within him, fragmented yet somehow intact. Remembering didnât have to feel like a punishment. Writing them down didnât have to fill him with guilt.
And wanting to know you didnât have to make sense as long as he was happy.Â
Bucky shut the journal and set it on top of the fridge, hiding it in plain sight. He grabbed his jacket and took one last look around before he left. He practically sprinted down the stairs, determined to buy you the best flowers he could find.
He wasnât sure what heâd say when he knocked on your door later, but he wanted to find a way to open up to you. He wanted to form a new memory with you. Something he could write down later and look back on when he wanted to feel okay.Â
It wouldnât absolve him of his crimes. It wouldnât bring back the years he lost. But it would give him some sort of hope. Heâd still have his voice.Â
And that was enough for today.Â
Fic #12 - distant warmth Rating: General Audiences
You can see the way his eyes grow distant sometimes. He never talks about it, and you never pry. You know better than that by now.
âLeave the past in the pastâ is a phrase he used to repeat like a broken record before you learned never to ask. He says it was to spare you from the weight of all the torture he endured, but you suspect that in reality, it was to reassure himself that he doesn't have to revisit that time, more than it was to save you from it. Not that he needs any excuse to avoid the topic - if he told you outright to let it be, you'd most certainly respect his decision.
That never changes, though. The memories he never dares share with the world outside - perhaps in fear of judgement, perhaps out of his own shame - lurk in the darkest alleyways of his mind, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. You never see that moment approaching.
You just see him.
You see him, and you know. You know by the way his entire body goes still, and how quiet he suddenly gets, like a forest mere moments after a storm, silently settling in the newly found calm.
Except that he doesn't settle, and it is not calm he finds after the storm passes through.
So you sit beside him on the edge of the roof, feet dangling freely over the ground so far beneath you. His gaze is focused on the city unraveling before you as a whole, not any specific part of it. Yours is focused on him.
You notice the little things. How his brows pull together, forming a deep crease between them. How his lower lip quivers slightly, either from the cool breeze dancing across both your skins or from the train of thought he let himself get lost in.
You know as you watch him that this is one of those moments. You see the past knocking on the door a fraction too loud for him to be able to ignore it.
You tap him on the shoulder. Once. Twice. Like saying I'm here without having to say anything at all. You wish you could do more for him, help him with more than only your presence, and you will - if only he wants you to.
But that is not a choice for you to make. So you settle for the little pieces and glimpses of him that he lets you see, and you hold onto them like theyâre the last rays of sunlight to ever come.
He turns his head and looks at you briefly. Your hand falls back down, fingers gripping the edge of the roof. You smile, he doesn't, but his hand finds solace on top of yours. His fingers intertwined with your own.
That small gesture is enough to keep you hoping, that maybe, one day, the shadows of his past will stop following him in every step of the way. That maybe, they won't affect him as much as they do still. And that maybe, he'll one day let you see all of him. Even the ugly parts.
And that's it! Thanks so much for reading all twelve stories, our authors appreciate your time and attention!
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