Steve awoke to the muffled sounds of Les Brown coming from the old record player in his living room. The same record player that was off when he went to sleep in his apartment, alone. As quietly as possible the man slipped out of bed to investigate. He had a hunch as to who it was and sincerely hoped Nick Fury wasn't making a habit of letting himself in to listen to his record collection. Airing on the side of caution Steve picked up his shield before making his way out into the hall and towards the living room. Rounding the corner he spotted a man standing with his back to him admiring the framed art on the wall. He paid no attention to the change of songs on the record instead he focused on the intruder. Although was standing in shadow Steve would have recognized him anywhere.
"You drew this," the intruder said without turning away from the charcoal drawing of an old fashioned cityscape featuring brownstone houses and crowded laundry lines. "I remember that place, right past the ball field. How many times do you think that old lady chased us off her fire escape?"
"At least a dozen, not even your charm could keep her from threatening to call the police." Steve said as he moved from the hallway into his living room.
"You can put the shield down I'm unarmed. If I wanted to kill you I would have done it already. Which reminds me you should really lock your windows before you go to bed, it was way to easy to get into this place." He admitted. "You should be a little more careful there are a lot of people out there who would pay a high price for Captain America's head. I'm surprised I woke you up, with the way you snore-don't give me that look. Just because I have my back turned doesn't mean I cant tell." Steve normally would have had to resist the temptation to roll his eyes but he was on high alert and was too focused on this possible threat to be exasperated by the light-hearted jab. "Even as a kid you snored," he continued, "there was more then one occasion where I considered smothering you. I always wondered how such a tiny guy could make so much noise but then again you were born to big for your breeches so its only fitting I suppose."
"Well," Steve said, "I may snore but I've always been a light sleeper. You on the other hand- you slept like the dead as a kid."
Keep the intruder talking that was the plan. It is what law enforcement sometimes did in hostage situations but not the kind that Steve was ever involved in. Men like Steve were never the ones being held hostage, they were sent in to defeat the threat before they even knew what hit them. This was nothing like freeing prisoners of war or taking out Armenian pirates. He wasn't a hostage, not really, however he knew from past experience that if this man wanted to keep him there then he would have to put up one hell of a fight to get free.
"I may have slept like the dead back then but not any more, I wake at the drop of a hat. War changes a lot of things but you know that probably better then most." He was right.
"Then again some things never change do they?" He asked pulling Charge of The Light Brigade off of one of the built in bookshelves in the room, it was one of over one hundred and fifty films in his personal collections. Each film was arranged in alphabetical order by the year it was released. His collection hosted everything from dramas to science fiction to documentaries he ordered off the History Chanel. "Steve Rogers I can only imagine your face when you found out you could watch pictures in your own home when ever you wanted. You must have spent more time at the picture shows then anyone else in Brooklyn." He put the film back and pulled out another. "This was some picture wasn't it? Remember we took those sisters to see it? They sure appreciated us taking them."
Steve couldn't remember the name of either sister or what they looked like, he hardly remembered it being a date at all. However as if it were yesterday he could close his eyes and remember sitting there in awe as Judy Garland stepped out of her house into the colorful land of OZ. Few things can inspire that childlike feeling of discovering something magnificent for the first time in a nineteen year old young man but the brilliance of Dorothy's blue and white dress, the yellow brick road, and her red ruby slippers took his breath away. In fact he loved it so much he went back two more times while it was in its first run. Over Seventy-five years later every movie was made not only in color but digital high definition providing stunning picture quality. Yet in his mind nothing else in cinematic history has or ever will be as breathtaking as that scene.
Before Steve could say anything about that date another movie was pulled from the shelf. "Ha! Anne of Green Gables? I know you love films but really even you have to admit this is movie was made for the gentler sex."
Yes he was aware that it was what people in modern times would call a chick flick but he couldn't help but pick it up when he saw it at the store. "My mother loved it. It was the last picture we saw together, we went for her birthday that year." Steve admitted it was the only reason he bought the film.
"Mrs. Rogers, God bless her soul. To this day I've never had an apple pie better then hers."
When he thought about it, Steve could still taste her homemade pie. Only for special occasions did she make the dessert. No matter how hard times were, without fail, every year on his birthday he would wake up to the warm smell of cinnamon and apples as the pie baked in the oven. Then on the day marking his sixteenth year there was no apple pie in the oven when he woke up. Two months latter he woke up to find that he no longer had a mother. Apple pie was still his favorite but its taste had become bittersweet.
The song on the record switched yet again.
"Bucky why are you here?" Steve asked, "I know you did stop in at four in the morning to browse my picture collection and chat about my mother's baking skills." It was the subject they were both dancing around with the pretense of friendly conversation. The men both know what happened the last time they met and incase they forgot Steve still had the scars to remind them. The face off between the Winter Solider and Captain America was perhaps the first time either of them met their match, it should have left one of them dead. It didn't though and now they stood in a dimly lit living room of a small apartment in Washington DC each waiting for the other to make his move.
"Doris Day wasn't she a beauty?" Bucky asked as the female singer's voice joined Les Brown and his band. "Gonna take a sentimental journey. Gonna set my heart at ease. Gonna make a sentimental journey. To renew old memories" Slowly he stepped out of the shadows and turned to face Steve. He looked different from the last time they'd met. He was freshly shaved, his hair was cut it was not as short as it once was but it looked neat clean and his metal arm was covered by the sleeve of his light weight jacket. He looked like your average man in his late twenties but men in their late twenties shouldn't look as weary as he did. It was more then exhaustion that plagued Bucky Barnes.
After a moment he spoke, "My memories have been coming back, things before I fell, before the war, from childhood even. Sometimes they don't feel real like they just fantasies or they belong to someone else but then others feel so real it's hard to believe I ever forgot them." He reached his hand into his jacket and Steve instinctively raised his shield bracing for attack but it never came. Instead Bucky revealed a thick spiral notebook that looked as if it had seen better days. "I've been writing them all down," He continued, "trying to figure out what real and what isn't but I can't tell any more. I thought of going to some sort of doctor about it but I've had enough people poking around my mind for one lifetime. You're then only person who would know if this is who I really was or if my mind is playing tricks on me."
Bucky held the notebook out to Steve who cautiously accepted it as if it might self-destruct on contact. It didn't. "It is going to take a while for me to get through all of this and you look like you need sleep." Steve told him. It wasn't untrue but the he didn't think he could manage to relive memories that often crossed his mind with Bucky watching him so closely. He may be unflappable but even his nerves of steel could only handle so much.
Bucky insisted that he was fine but they both knew that he was lying through his teeth. "Come one, I'll even throw my couch cushions on the floor for you. It will be just like when we were children; I'll even throw in a blanket. I won't even make you shine my shoes for it." Steve offered with a smile. In return Bucky let a ghost of his own smile tug at his lips. "You know pal, right about now that sounds like a pretty good deal."
Fifteen minutes latter Bucky Barnes was sound asleep, awkwardly curled up on a couch that was a foot to short for his body to lay comfortably. Steve on the other hand was wide awake as he sat down with his cup of coffee and Bucky's note book in the arm chair next to his record player. The sky was just starting to show the early signs indicating the sun would be rising soon. On a normal day he would be waking up soon to go for a run. Taking a sip of his drink he mused that if he couldn't lace up his sneakers and take a few laps around the capital then jogging his memory could count for today.
Hi there! So this is something that was inspired by that flash back scene in Captain America: The Winter Solider. Im not sure exactly how many chapters its going to be yet but I've set up a few plot lines already and have planned out the ending. I'm going to try my best to keep this as accurate for its time period as possible but if I do get something wrong feel free to point it out to me. I do not however support the use of racial, ethnic, or homophobic slurs even if they were socially acceptable at that time.