After waking up in 2012, Steve didn’t sleep much.
Not because he couldn’t, but because every time he closed his eyes, it was 1945 again.
It was, the war, the cold, the plane, and Bucky, always Bucky.
The technology, the noise of it, screens everywhere, people moving too fast, information thrown at him like he was supposed to just… absorb 70 years of history overnight.
He would sit in his small apartment with a notebook, actual paper, because to him that still made sense, and he would write things down like a soldier studying a battlefield:
WWII outcome (we won… but at what cost?)
The internet (still confusing)
Pop culture (Natasha insists this matters)
And then there were movies.
At first, he picked the classics, old black-and-white films that felt closer to home.
Then he moved forward, slowly, decade by decade.
The first time he saw him, it was… accidental.
Some random modern film Natasha recommended, he wasn’t even paying full attention at first, until he stilled.
The pen slipped from his hand.
On the screen, an actor turned his head slightly, light catching in his eyes just right and Steve’s heart stopped.
Because for a second it was him.
He leaned forward slowly, trying to focus, same eyes, same mouth, same everything.
It was not exact, it couldn’t be, but it was close enough to knock the air out of his lungs.
“Who is that?” Steve asked.
Natasha glanced at the screen “Oh, Sebastian Stan” she said casually “Why?”
Steve didn’t answer, he couldn’t.
Because how would you explain that the man on the screen looked like a ghost you buried 70 years ago?
That night, Steve didn’t move when the credits roll.
He rewinded the film, watched it again and again.
Until it became a habit, a quiet one, a private one.
He found more of Sebastian Stan’s films.
Told himself it was part of “understanding modern cinema”
But really it was the way his chest tightened and eased at the same time when he saw that familiar face.
Sometimes, it was the smallest things that got him.
A half-smile, a glance over the shoulder, the way his voice dropped on certain words.
It wasn’t Bucky, Steve knew that.
Bucky had a different laugh, a different warmth, a way of looking at Steve like he was the only thing that mattered in the room.
But still, there were moments where it was so close that Steve forgot how to breathe.
He never told anyone, not even Natasha, not even Nick Fury when he inevitably noticed Steve’s “unusual viewing patterns”
It felt too… fragile, too much like admitting that he was still stuck in the past.
One night, after too many hours and not enough sleep, Steve paused a scene.
The actor, Sebastian, frozen mid-expression on the screen, Steve reached out without thinking, his fingers hovered just short of touching the image.
“Buck…” he whispered, the name slipped out like it never learned how to be anything else, he let his hand fall, leaned back, stared at the ceiling.
And for the first time since waking up in this new world, the grief hit him fresh and sharp, because it wasn’t just that Bucky was gone, it was that Steve never told him.
Not in 1943, not in 1945, not ever.
The next day, Natasha found a new note added to Steve’s list, right under everything else, written more carefully than the rest.
Tell people what they mean to you and how you feel about them (before it’s too late)
And still, every night, he pressed play on another Sebastian Stan movie, just to hear a voice that almost sounded like home.
