Written to: Besaid Island (Remastered) - Final Fantasy X OST, some minor spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Wabi-sabi: The discovery of beauty in imperfection; the acceptance of the cycle of life and death.
Bucky traces over his metal arm nervously, wondering where the veins and sinew and bone of his old flesh arm have gone, if they can still feel his phantom touch, if they are still in a position to remember that they were once his.
His head feels slick and fuzzy, and that woman with the red hair and the bright - too bright - smile, comes walking in, holding a comb. He looks forward as she instructs, holds a dark gaze in the mirror, mute, lethal, and he starts, his hair catching in the teeth of the comb. That cannot be him. Absolutely not. The person in the mirror is frighteningly angry, frighteningly sad, and that most certainly is not him. Right? But it cannot be anyone but him; there can't possibly be too many people in the world with metal arms. As he watches, curling his left hand into a fist, he finds the reflection's right hand curling into a fist against its thigh, cold metal fingers burning through his jeans.
He looks over the reflection's shoulder at the red-haired woman, gnawing at her lip - Natasha, he realises with a start, wondering why he has not remembered this, and then wondering with a lump of worry in the pit of his stomach why he doesn't feel about her the way he used to. He starts trying to work up the nerve to tell her, because it is inevitable that they will part ways before too long, when he catches a glimpse of the diamond-studded band around her finger.
"I...married you?" he asks, and even his voice is strange, deep and rough and jagged around the edges. "When did this happen?"
She laughs, nervous, quick, not like Natasha at all, and he looks at the mirror again to find her trying to hold back tears. "You didn't marry me," she says, and Bucky is not sure to be relieved or upset. "Another man did. You've met him before. Remember? Clint Barton. Hawkeye. Purple Cupid?"
He tells her that he remembers, and she smiles, watery, dragging the comb through his matted, snarled hair, but both he and she know that he is telling a lie.
"Why are you combing my hair?" he asks after a few moments, when the tears don't brush her lower eyelashes, when the gnawing worry in his stomach has started to throb away. "Where have I been?"
"You've been sick," she says for a moment, a hiccup in her voice, and Bucky wants to turn to her, wrap her in an embrace, but she is not his anymore and he cannot bear to look in the mirror at her sadness, at that silent, mute stranger staring back at him. "I'm cleaning you up to see someone. What's the last thing that you remember?"
He wants to tell her, it is on the tip of his tongue, a flash of blue eyes, pearly white smiles, blonde hair messy on a pillow, but he is afraid that if he says them, they will hang in the air like bubbles, beautiful and clear for a single moment, before popping away and leaving him with nothing except the soft mist of memories past stinging his eyes. He wants to tell her that he remembers French toast and dark roast in the mornings, laughter, wants to tell her that the last thing he remembers is not that white blinding pain that he still feels every time he breathes too deeply.
He braves a glance at her over his shoulder, finds that she is crying silently into her hands, and wishes that he had something, anything else, to say.
The man that visits him later has blue eyes the colour of the sea in the evening, and deep black circles under his eyes, and he stands with his arms hugged close to his chest, his fingers twitching, wanting to touch and not wanting to at the same time.
The words come easier this time. "I've missed you," Bucky says, and feels relief and some intense, curious joy as the man's eyes light up and he smiles, white and bright. He doesn't know why he's said it, but it feels right, and the man's reaction confirms this.
"Oh my God, Bucky, I've missed you," the man says, and then all of a sudden he is hugging him, arms tight around his waist, hands - both flesh - pressing against his shoulder blades, and Bucky turns his head slightly to the left and breathes in shampoo and soap in the other man's hair as he hugs him back. "I've missed you so much."
"I've missed you, too, -" and this is where the words stop, because Bucky finds the words slipping past his mind, and he cannot find this man's name.
The man pulls back, and there are tears in his eyes, and Bucky swallows past the growing lump of dread in his throat.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, suddenly ashamed. "I...I can't remember your name."
The man sighs, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, and staying very still for a moment. Bucky can see the slight twitching of his shoulders, wants to reach out and hug him again, but he keeps his hands to himself. Waiting.
"It's okay," the man says, pulling his hands away from his eyes. He laughs, choked, and Bucky wants to tell him that he doesn't mean to hurt him, that he doesn't mean any of this, but the man's image has gone blurry and he can just barely make out silver tear tracks beginning a slow descent down the man's cheeks. "Oh, don't you cry, too, that's really not fair, come on, now," and hands on his cheeks, calm, broad, slight calluses at the fingertips.
"We'll just have to start over," the man says, and Bucky swallows his tears, focuses on his face again. "It's okay, we've got all the time in the world. I promise. Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Or The Winter Soldier and Captain America. I'll even let your title come first on the comics for a year." When Bucky doesn't smile, the man rolls his eyes, laughs again past his tears. "Okay, a decade. You've always been picky."
Bucky closes his eyes, reaches up to his face to thread his fingers through the man's. Thinks. Waits for the word to come back from where it's rocketed past his synapses, out into orbit.
"...Steve?" he asks, opening his eyes to find shock and joy written all over the man's - Steve's - face.
"Yes, that's right," Steve says, smiling and laughing and crying. "I'm Steve, and I'm your boyfriend."