Remembered

There wasn't a day in which Steve would not think of Bucky. He wasn't doing it on purpose, something just reminded him of his lost friend; a joke he knew Bucky would laugh at, his favourite meal and every time Steve was trying to draw.

He had lost his old drawings and sketches and he regretted it mostly because there were dozens of pictures of Bucky on them. He was visiting the Smithsonian to see Bucky's smile again, but it wasn't the same. Steve was still having some issues with modern technologies but he would have given up a lot to have a phone with camera back in the 40's so he would be able to capture Bucky's face in their little private moments; all the bits of happiness Steve had to take long minutes to put on the paper would be preserved if he stored them somewhere.

Certainly, the drawings had their charm but what was it good for now when he couldn't see them even though he needed them the most? What were the long hours good for when he couldn't look at his friend's loved face – even if only on a piece of paper? The thing that was driving him mad the most on the photos in Smithsonian was that they were official; everybody could look at them, everybody could see Bucky like this and suddenly Steve felt like he wasn't special to Bucky at all – now he was just one of many of the people visiting the exhibition. Sure, people came mostly because of him, but they adored Bucky anyway. Nevertheless, all the photos there were official and he could download them from the internet if he wanted – which made him feel terrible and he couldn't bring himself to do it, as if Bucky was toy you could buy on Amazon.

He needed to see Bucky how he alone could see him; in the morning after they made love for the first time and he couldn't sleep because he was worried somebody might catch them so he just watched Bucky's content smile. Or when Steve got beaten into a pulp once again, Bucky took care of him and then fell asleep and Steve drew his peaceful smile before going to sleep himself. Or when they returned from a mission when Steve almost got killed and Bucky was mad at himself because he thought it was his fault and he didn't speak to Steve for good thirty minutes. Or when Bucky almost got killed in return and Steve made a moving speech about how much he would miss him and Barnes just smiled and shed tears of happiness. There were thousands of fragments of memories on those papers – full of friendship and love – but Steve didn't see them since the war.

He dropped by at the museum every time he felt lonely, out of time, useless or desperate, which was basically all the time and he stood in front of the panel dedicated to Bucky for long minutes, just standing there and trying to feel connection between himself and Bucky. He realised that if the Smithsonian had some kind of a reward card like it was in shops, he'd already be paid for going to see the exhibition. He knew the words below Bucky's photo by heart and yet he read it every time with tiny, desperate hope that maybe he'll find something in it that would tell him Bucky hadn't died back on the train. He was becoming obsessed with the idea; he was cherishing it within his heart and he kept convincing himself that if Bucky was dead, he'd have to know it.

He wasn't consciously aware that he was doing it, but he was visiting the exhibition like other people went to cemeteries to visit graves of their loved ones. Bucky had a resting-place, there was a tombstone wearing the words James Barnes but Steve knew Bucky's body was never found and thought the grave was empty, fake, insincere. He came to the exhibition to talk to Bucky as he had when they'd been kids, to beg for forgiveness he assumed Bucky wanted, for advice or simply to complain about wiles of modern age such as toilets that splashed automatically.

He was waiting there for long minutes in hope he might hear Bucky's voice again. The thing that frightened him the most was that he almost couldn't recall it. He knew what Bucky looked like because he had the photos to remind him, but there was no record of his voice; the way he'd pronounced Steve's name, the way he'd said 'I love you', the trembling in his voice when he'd tried not to cry. All of it was stored only in Steve's mind and even there it kept diminishing. Steve didn't want to let it go, he remembered he'd thought Bucky's voice was the most soothing thing in the whole world, but he didn't remember it clearly anymore.

Every time he received no answer he became more depressed, sad and lonely because how was he ever going to function again if he didn't have Bucky to help him?

He didn't say a word about it to anybody. They knew he missed his friend but they could never understand how much Bucky meant to Steve, how deep their relationship had gone and that if Bucky died under that train, a part of Steve died there as well. They assumed he had PTSD from the war and spending more than half a century frozen in time and that he was lost in the new times. Both these things were true but they weren't the full reason for Steve's mood. It wasn't like he didn't wish to talk about it; he thought he may even feel better if he did confide in somebody but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He felt like they'd force him to see a psychologist and to talk a professional about the loss of a lover and he wasn't prepared to do that. He did realise they couldn't put him into prison for loving a man anymore, but he had lived in a homophobic atmosphere for too long to get rid of these suspicions.

He also supposed that people would call him crazy if he told them he was visiting an exhibition about his friend almost every day. They would try to help him, they would be supportive but most of all they would pity him and that was the thing he wanted the least. They would never understand that he wasn't trying to bring Bucky back by staring at him, that he wasn't in denial and that he did it all only to remember his best friend and occasional lover because now with his drawings lost there was no other way to keep the memory in his mind and he wanted to remember.

Bucky was the only person who cared about him before he became a soldier if he didn't count his parents, a together with Peggy he remained one of two people who didn't think Steve was completely useless before he became Captain America. He had to remember Bucky because he was the most important person in his life; he wanted to be able to recall their mutual experiences – their clumsy first kiss, Steve's pneumonia, or all of their love confessions.

It was impossible for Steve to fully believe Bucky was dead. Yes, he had seen him fall off the train, but they never found a body, right? If Bucky had survived the fall, he would have told somebody, sure, but maybe he couldn't. If he had survived the fall, he would have been very old if still alive, sure, but Steve was young and if he was, Bucky could be as well. Steve's brain was kind enough to his heart to provide him with an answer for every single reasonable question.

In Steve's opinion, a person was really dead after there was nobody to remember them. Since Steve was thinking of Bucky a lot, Barnes couldn't be dead. And as long as they were commemorated in museums, comics and other media, they would never die. It was a poor excuse but also the only comfort he could get not to go mad in this new, strange world.

If only Bucky spoke back sometimes.