He didn't remember her. There was no emotion on his face when he found them on the bridge. What little of his face that could even be seen beneath the mask and goggles hadn't changed even a fraction. And when the goggles had been removed, there was nothing in his eyes. While memories had risen of a dozen fights training with him as they played their game of cat and mouse had interspersed her reality, he had been rooted to the moment. To the fight they were in now. She hadn't be brave enough at first, to try her tricks against him. Thinking as soon as she saw that metal arm with the familiar red star that he would be two steps ahead. Like he used to be when she tried a move on him a second time. But there was nothing in his face. And he had fallen for the pathetic trap of playing a recording on her phone. She had missed him in that moment. Missed the brilliance and familiarity of their fights so many years ago. It had always been fierce and brutal between them. And he had reacted like no other man ever had before. And if she was being honest, since.
As his cold metal hand had wrapped mercilessly around her throat, memories of the past had been overwhelming. The feel of the smooth surface sliding against her flesh as it trailed down her torso and warmed against her as it slipped inside her. Hearing him grunt, not from the exertion of trying to throw her off him as her legs wrapped quickly around his neck and choked the life from him. But from passion as he pressed into her, the heat of his breath across her bare skin. He slammed her into a car then and even that didn't jar her from the pervasive memory that was consuming her.
She had missed this. The feel of him pressing her harshly against a wall burning in her mind and driving her killer instincts away as she just longed for a moment to be back in the simplicity of the red room. A fighter and her instructor.
But she had shocked him with her bite. And the moment had broken. Whatever tie had linked them together in the past was severed. Their days of throwing themselves into the fight against each other in mock combat had transformed into real life. With politics separating them in a way that hurt. And she had been jealous. That the horrors that had plagued their lives then had been wiped clean from him, never to cause another nightmare again. The scars wiped from his mind even as they still lingered on his skin.
She had to back away as Steve had taken over the fight. Leaving her alone in a way she hadn't felt since they had first sent him away. She stood and watched them fight for a moment, feeling for all the world a small child abandoned in the orphanage.
The memories had been shoved down as she struggled to finish the job she was on. The one tied to her real life. The pain of being the one to remember once more, when everyone else had forgotten the path that brought them here. And the longing to finally be the one to forget because at least then it wouldn't plague her. The constant what-ifs that consumed her days.
And the feeling that she was the lucky one for once. Because when she looked at him, she didn't only have the nightmares. Didn't only have the bruises and broken bones that had healed too quickly. The warmth of his body in their shared bed chasing away the bitter cold that had seeped into her bones all winter long. And when he looked at her there was nothing there. That chunks of her life might be missing but this was one thing she held on to.
Because he didn't remember her… but she remembered him.