Chapter Text
His eyelids drift open and he blinks up at the ceiling, thoughts hazy with pain. He hurts. Why does he hurt? He can’t— Why can’t he remember?
He looks around, wincing as his head throbs at the movement. He's in some kind of hospital room, hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV line. There's a black man in jeans and a t-shirt sleeping in an expensive-looking reclining chair by the bed. He doesn’t recognize the man and has no idea why he’d be keeping vigil at his bedside. Caution keeps him from making a sound.
In the warm glow of the recessed lights, the room’s furniture and fittings have the kind of understated luxury only extreme wealth can buy, and all the medical equipment looks state-of-the art. Looking out the long stretch of windows, he sees nothing but high-rise buildings, windows all aglow in the night. Based on the view, and the distant sounds of traffic, he’s at least fifty to sixty floors above street level.
The room door opens and a petite woman with red hair walks in. “You’re up,” she says in a husky voice. Her eyes are warm and full of relief, the eyes of a friend. He doesn’t recognize her either.
The man wakes and blinks a few times before rubbing at his eyes. “Hey, man,” he says, warm and friendly. He sits up in the chair and yawns and stretches, movements expansive and unselfconscious. “You had us worried there.” His smile is wide and sincere and there’s a noticeable gap between his front teeth.
The woman is watching him with a worried frown. “Steve? Are you okay?”
He sits up. He doesn’t like how vulnerable he feels, lying down in the bed with two strangers in the room. The room spins alarmingly and his head begins to pound. He squints, trying to bring the woman into focus. “Who are you?” he says. “Who’s Steve? Where am I?”
The man and woman exchange worried looks.
“You’re Steve Rogers,” the woman says, “I’m Natasha Romanoff, and that”—she points at the man—“is Sam Wilson. We’re your friends.”
“Why can’t I remember anything?”
“You were injured in a fight and you’re now on the medical floor in Avengers Towers.” Her expression is open and placating, but the slight shift in her stance indicates battle readiness. He gets the impression that there’s a steel-trap mind coupled with terrifying competence lurking behind her friendly exterior.
The fight would explain the pain and the memory loss, but something’s still not adding up. Avengers Tower is clearly not a hospital; he’s too high up, it’s too quiet and the room wouldn’t look out of place in a five-star hotel. Why would a privately owned building have medical facilities and why is he being treated in it? He’s not hanging around to find out. He starts stripping off the wires and patches attached to his body. The heart monitor immediately starts beeping an alarm.
The black man, Sam, he reminds himself, jumps up and holds out his arms. “Whoa, whoa, Steve. Where’re you going?”
Steve (Steve?) ignores him. He throws back his blanket and, oh thank god, he’s wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants instead of a hospital gown. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands up, his bare feet sinking into the thick pile of the carpet. The pounding in his head worsens. He grits his teeth at the pain.
Running footsteps approach the room. Natasha intercepts the person and sends them away. A few seconds later, the alarm shuts off. When Sam tries to get closer, Steve glares at him until he steps back, palms up.
“Okay, man,” Sam says, “it’s cool, I won’t get in your way.” He joins Natasha in the doorway.
Steve can only make out bits and pieces of their whispered conversation. Something about Loki. The Norse god...? Maybe he’d heard that wrong. He pulls out the IV line at his wrist. The pain in his head has gotten so bad that his eyes have started to water. Natasha says something about a James and then the phrase ‘help contain the situation’. Sam looks dubious but pulls out his phone and leaves the room.
He does not like the phrase ‘contain the situation’ since he’s probably the situation that needs containing. The door opens and Sam walks back in.
“Incoming,” he says.
“I told you,” Natasha says, sounding smug.
Sam rolls his eyes.
“I'm going to talk to Jane,” she says. She looks over at him, concern in her green eyes. “Please don’t go, Steve. You’re among friends here.” The smile she gives him before she leaves is small and careful.
He’s not sure what to make of her. Sam’s unguarded reaction when he’d woken up and seen Steve seemed genuine, but Natasha’s a lot harder to read. He’s pretty sure she’s telling the truth, but he gets the feeling that people only see what she allows them to.
A tall man walks in soon after Natasha leaves, moving with the coiled grace of a trained fighter. He’s dressed all in black, down to the leather gloves covering his hands. His dark brown hair is close-cropped, throwing his startlingly clear grey eyes into stark relief. There’s a moment of turmoil in his head when their eyes meet, like his mind perceiving the ripples left in the wake of a disturbance that’s long since passed out of sight.
He stares at the man, curious and wondering. “Who are you?”
“James Barnes.”
The man’s voice, and the way he shapes his consonants—soft and smooth and just a touch foreign—is almost, but not quite, familiar.
“Are we friends too?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
Huh. The way his body’s responding to James doesn’t seem very friend-like.
James gives him a once-over, noting the way he’s leaning against the bed for support. “What’re you doing, Steve?” he says. “You can hardly stand up straight. Why don’t you get back in the bed?”
Steve straightens up to his full height—pressing his lips together to hold back a whimper of pain—then locks his knees so he doesn’t fall over.
James shakes his head. “What are you… five?”
“Hey—”
“You don’t know who you are, or where you are. You have no money and”—James tilts his head in the direction of the window—“it’s the middle of the night. Where’re you gonna go?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“I’m sure you can,” James says, “but how about you figure it out tomorrow. Stay here for tonight. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He feels pinned to the spot by the look in James’s eyes. He has no reason whatsoever to trust James, and yet... “Ok,” he says, “but only for tonight.” Now he just has to get back into bed without embarrassing himself.
“Need a little help?”
There’s a definite hint of sarcasm in James’s tone, but he doesn’t answer, too busy trying to keep his head from breaking open. He’s lost all feeling in his legs and can barely move his arms. Yeah... he’s got this.
He tries to hitch himself back onto the mattress but his arms give out. James catches his elbow before his knees even start to bend. How did he—? Wasn’t he on the other side of the room?
“Idiot.”
“Thanks,” he says dryly.
James holds his arm steady while he climbs back onto the bed. Does it have to be so fucking high . At least James doesn’t coddle him, just provides the bare minimum of help and lets him muddle through. He’s broken out in a cold sweat by the time he’s back in the bed, and his whole body is screaming in pain, but hey, his pride’s mostly intact.
“Get some sleep, man,” Sam says. “You’ll get your answers in the morning.”
His head snaps round at the sound of Sam’s voice. He’d been so focused on James that he’d forgotten Sam was still in the room. His gut tells him he can trust Sam, but he’s not sure he can sleep with him in the room... one too many variables to worry about.
Sam gives him an understanding smile. “I’m gonna go too,” he says, and points an admonishing finger at him. “You better be here in the morning.” He gives James a commiserating look and a quiet “Good luck, man,” before walking off.
James takes a seat in the recently vacated chair. “Sleep, Steve,” he says softly. “I’ll keep watch.”
He wants to argue. He really does. But his body is shutting down and James is keeping watch. He’ll be okay, he can rest… he’s safe…
___
The first thing Steve sees on waking is James. He’s reading a book and has his feet propped up on the bed. In the grey light of early morning, his cheeks look hollowed and there are shadows under his eyes. Even looking worn and disheveled from spending a night in the chair, James is still far more attractive than is good for his peace of mind.
James turns a page with a gloved hand. “Morning,” he says, in a voice rough from disuse.
“You didn’t sleep?” Steve asks. He stretches, working out the kinks in his body. He blinks in surprise. All his aches are gone.
James looks up at him. “Told you I’d keep watch.”
“You should’ve slept. You look tired.”
There’s a flash of amusement in James’s eyes. “And risk you running off in the night?”
“Hey, I said I’d stay put.”
“I’ve heard that one before.” James nods towards the bathroom. “There’s stuff in there if you want to wash up.”
Washing up sounds good. Plus he’ll finally get to see what he looks like. All he knows is that he’s built like a tank. He gets out of bed slowly and teeters a little on his first step. He waves James off when James pulls his legs off the bed and starts to stand up. “I’ve got it,” he says.
“Sure you do.” But James settles back down and keeps a watchful eye on him as he heads for the bathroom.
He shuts the bathroom door and stares at the stranger in the mirror.
Objectively, he's gotta admit he's a pretty good-looking guy. Blond, blue eyes, lean face, symmetrical features. The nose though... it’s definitely been busted up one time too many. His shoulders are broad and his waist narrow, and there are muscles bulging everywhere.
He looks down at himself. One last thing to check. Ignoring the heat in his cheeks, he pulls down his sweatpants and takes a look.
So… okay.
He’s built to scale.
Feeling sheepish, but also—he has to admit—gratified, he shuffles over to the toilet to take a leak.
Natasha, Sam and a Dr Cho are waiting for him when he comes out of the bathroom. He leans against the bed and listens in stunned silence when Dr Cho tells him about Project Rebirth and Captain America. James nods his head whenever Steve looks at him for confirmation. It’s only when Sam shows him the before and after photos that he starts to believe that he’s nearly a hundred years old and that he’s this Captain America supersoldier person.
“So I’m an Avenger,” he says. Sam and Natasha nod. He points at Sam and Natasha. “And both of you are Avengers.” Sam and Natasha nod again.
“There are a few more,” Sam says, “but they’re staying away for now. Some of them can be a little much to spring on a person, amnesia or no amnesia.”
From the looks they all exchange, that’s something they all agree on.
“What about James?” he asks, nodding at where James is standing a little apart from the rest of them, arms folded and staring at the floor.
Natasha slants a glance at James. “He likes to pretend he’s not,” she says.
James says something to her in… Russian? She raises an eyebrow and her lips quirk as if to say, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’. He gives her a flat-eyed stare but doesn’t say anything else.
He looks back and forth between them. There’s an unusual vibe between them, and they share certain similarities; the fluid and purposeful way they move, the wary watchfulness of people that life has not been kind to, and eyes that look far older than their years. He wonders, and not just for reasons of simple curiosity, what kind of past they share. Don’t get distracted, he warns himself.
“Why can’t I remember anything?” he asks.
What follows is a long explanation involving names like Loki and Thor. They show him phonecam videos and news footage of him fighting someone wearing a helmet with ridiculous-looking horns that makes him look a little like a beetle. How is it not falling off his head? Magic?
But then again, he’s in no position to judge since his suit is basically the American flag and his only weapon is a glorified frisbee. He winces at the bright blue flash that sends him smashing into the side of a building. It’s surreal, watching the footage, knowing that the person on the screen is him, but having no memory of it.
“How do I get my memory back?” he asks, eyes still on the screen.
“Thor’s pretty sure the effects are temporary,” Natasha says. “He’s spoken to a few other sorcerers in Asgard. They recognize the spell and say you should be back to normal in a week or two, but they’re not sure whether your serum would affect that. They’re also trying to find a counterspell that can reverse the effect immediately.”
“That’s not a very definite answer.”
Her smile is apologetic. “I’m sorry we don’t have anything more concrete to tell you, Steve,” she says. “Thor’s doing all he can to fix this.”
He frowns and folds his arms. “But there’s a possibility this might be permanent.”
“It happens to the best of us, Rogers.” There’s an edge to Natasha’s voice when she answers. Then she blinks and the mask slides back in place. “I’m sorry,” she says in a conciliatory voice. “We really are trying, Steve.”
“Steve.”
Everyone turns to look at James.
“It’s a lot to process,” James says. “Maybe you should go home and sleep on it. Give it a day or two.”
“I think Captain Rogers should remain here under observation,” interjects Dr Cho.
“No.” If he’s not going to get any answers, then he wants to go home, wherever that is, and try to figure out who he is on his own terms.
“I’ll stay with him,” James offers.
Dr Cho and Sam both stare at James in surprise. Natasha, though, she’s smirking and looking very pleased about something.
“I think someone needs to explain what’s going on,” he says.
“I told you, I won’t let anything happen to you,” James says. His gaze is clear and unwavering. “I meant it. Ask me anything you want, I’ll do my best to answer.” He holds up his hand to forestall Steve’s questions. “Let’s get out of here first.”
“Okay,” he says at last.
Dr Cho is reluctant, but she finally agrees for Steve to go home as long as James is there to keep an eye on him. Then, James has a short conversation with Natasha in Russian, their heads close together. Their faces are serious, and Natasha nods a few times before giving him an understanding smile.
“Hey Steve,” Sam says, pulling his attention away from James and Natasha, “trust me on this, alright? Do not google yourself. You’ve got a lot of fans on the internet, and some of the stuff on there?” he shakes his head with a wry smile, “best viewed with some perspective.”
Natasha’s grin is wicked. “It’s sound advice, Steve. I’d take it.”
He looks at James, who’s assumed a suspiciously bland expression. “Definitely don’t google yourself,” James says.
Sam stands up from where he’s bent over a large, oddly-shaped bag near the door. “Head’s up!” he shouts, and heaves something at him.
Steve reaches up and snatches it out of the air before he even has time to process the warning. It’s the shield. It’s a lot heavier than it looks and yet he’d automatically compensated for that when he’d caught it. He slides his arm through the loops fixed to the back and swings it a few times. The heft and feel of it is familiar in his hands and it feels like an extension of his arm.
“Still got the moves, Cap,” Sam says, and salutes him with a smile.
He can’t help but smile back.
___
After getting breakfast with James and Sam, he still needs to wait for Dr Cho to give him a physical exam before he can leave. So it’s a couple of hours before a Stark Industries car drops them off at his apartment in Brooklyn.
The apartment is bright, airy and decorated in cool sea tones. The background sounds of traffic are familiar and soothing. And yet, the apartment feels… empty, somehow, impersonal. No little tchotchkes cluttering up the shelves and side tables, everything neat and tidy, if a little dusty. He turns a full circle in the living room.
Who is Steve Rogers? The apartment doesn’t offer much insight... and that’s kind of an answer in itself, isn’t it?
James is standing by the door, holding a duffel bag. Natasha had handed it to him with a murmured “Courtesy of Tony” and that sly smile of hers. James had stared at the bag as if it were full of snakes, which served to make Steve very curious about Tony.
She’d also passed Steve a temporary phone to use while someone named Jarvis runs a brute force attack to crack the password on his own phone. “Of course you got the memo on how to select a strong password,” she’d said. The phone is sleek and light and has an ostentatious ‘A’ etched into the metal casing.
“Your room’s this way,” James says, and leads him down the corridor that’s to the left of the front door. There are two doors facing each other at the end of it. James opens the door on the left. “That’s yours.” He points to the door opposite. “I’ll be in there.”
Steve nods absently as enters his room and leans down to prop the bag holding the shield against the wall. His bedroom is pretty bare. Empty walls, neutral tones, everything squared away, military-tidy. The only thing that stands out is a sketchbook on the bedside table.
“You always liked to draw,” James says.
When Steve picks up the sketchbook, James backs out of the room and closes the door behind him. He wants to call James back, but he doesn’t want to impose. He sits on the bed and starts to flip through the sketchbook. It’s pretty thick, and the paper is very good quality. The oldest pictures are dated from five years ago, which would make it about the time he came out of the ice. There’s a city skyline, a beautiful woman with dark lustrous eyes and full lips, a handsome, laughing man that’s—
It’s James... but a very different James. Full of bravado, brimming with life, a look in his eyes like he has a joke he wants to share. So different from the man he’s just met, who’s quieter, almost guarded, and with eyes that are sadder and older.
He pages through the sketchbook, hoping to find answers for the change. There are random doodles and idle sketches of birds and children playing on the street, hands, and then an old woman, radiant and still beautiful. He flips back to the drawing of the woman in the earlier pages. He’s almost positive it’s the same woman. It’s the eyes. Even muted by time, her eyes are still the same, full of warmth and intelligence, and such strength of spirit.
Another mystery to solve. He carries on turning pages. New faces of people he doesn’t recognize except for Sam and Natasha.
Again and again, there are sketches of the laughing man—it doesn’t feel right to call him James, this man from the past—sometimes just eyes crinkled by a smile, the face nothing but a rough sketch, sometimes a detailed study of his face, jawline lovingly shaded, sometimes a rough sketch of him in motion, full of energy. There are also sketches of a man more like the James he knows, less vibrant, hollow-eyed and thin, dog tags visible in the open collar of his shirt.
Then sometime in 2014, the drawings stop, only to pick up again a year later. He recognizes James, even though his hair is almost brushing his shoulders. The sketches are almost all unfinished and in all of them, James is looking off to the side, his posture closed-off and wary. And unlike the assured lines of the earlier sketches, there’s a hesitance to the lines of these drawings, an unsteadiness in the artist’s— his— hand.
The laughing man starts to show up again. He feels oddly angered by this. Like it’s a betrayal of the James now , a man who’d fought through some kind of personal hell, and emerged as someone who'd stay up all night keeping watch just so his friend would feel safe enough to sleep.
The next few pages contain a few more drawings of the laughing man, but interspersed are drawings of James in a new setting. His hair goes from long to short and there’s more animation in his face. There are a few drawings of him with Natasha, heads close together, hastily sketched. He doesn’t linger on those.
The last drawing in the book is of James, dated nine months prior. It’s drawn in fine detail, down to each individual whisker on his face, and it’s all but finished except for his eyes. He stares at it, unsettled. What did he see in those eyes that he couldn’t bring himself to put down on paper?
He closes the sketchbook. What had happened to James? Was it something related to the Avengers? He pulls out his phone, tempted to google James. Then guilt comes creeping in and he puts it away. James is in his apartment for no other reason than to take care of him. If he wants to know what happened, the right thing to do would be to ask James himself.
And then, of course, there’s the other thing. So many drawings of James done over a period covering five years. It’s kind of hard not to draw some conclusions from that.
___
James is standing in socked feet and shirtsleeves, grilling cheese and ham sandwiches when Steve comes out of his room. Something about the scene feels so right, and he has a sudden overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around James’s waist and press his face into the space between his shoulderblades.
He’s taken two steps forward before he catches himself. He can’t just accost James in his kitchen. And what he’d wanted to do didn’t even make sense; for the position to be possible, he’d have to be—oh. He’d have to be a lot shorter… say around 5’4”.
“Can you get the plates?” James says over his shoulder.
James turns to look at him, and he can feel himself turning red.
“Sure,” he says, trying to act casual. Why the hell is he even blushing? It’s not like he did anything. He sags with relief when James turns back to the stove after nothing more than a curious look.
While he sets the table, he can’t help sneaking looks at James. All his movements are purposeful and tightly controlled, with no wasted motions. His gaze travels down James’s body and gets hung up on the glove he’s still wearing on his left hand. He can’t help picturing it, the contrast of that black glove against his own fair skin, and heat curls in his gut at the thought.
Fuck. He needs to stop. James is his friend. He takes a calming breath before going to help James serve up the sandwiches.
“Can you tell me about,” he hesitates, unsure what or even how to ask, “about me?” They’re sitting at the breakfast table, nothing left of their stack of sandwiches except for the crumbs on their plates. He still wants to know why everyone was surprised by James offering to stay with him, but he should probably work up to that.
“What do you want to know?”
“What kind of person am I?”
James taps one finger on the table while considers his answer. “The kind of person who’ll paint a giant target on his back and walk out onto a battlefield.”
He’s seen the uniform and the shield, he can’t argue with that observation. “Doesn’t seem very smart.”
“It’s not,” James says with a level look.
“Why do I do it?”
“Fuck if I know.”
He stares at James in surprise.
James sighs and slants him a remorseful look. “Because you can’t see a wrong without trying to set it right, no matter the personal cost to you. Because you’d rather get shot at so someone else doesn’t have to. Because you can’t stand to see someone get hurt when you can do something about it.” He leans back in his chair. “And since the Army gave you that ridiculous body, happens there’s a lot you can do about it.”
“Well, sure,” Steve says, “that just seems like the right thing to do.” Soldiers the world over did the same things all the time. He doesn’t see why that should earn him a title like ‘Captain America’, even with the enhanced abilities. It just seemed like… hubris.
“Of course you’d say that,” James says, resigned.
“How about us?” he says. “How did we meet?”
“You know how you were born in 1918?”
Steve nods.
“Well, I was born in 1917,” James says. “We’ve known each other since we were kids.”
That surprises a laugh out of him. “We’ve been friends for nearly a hundred years?” Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. James is like him… he’s not the only one.
“Were you part of Project Rebirth too?” he asks.
An odd look flickers over James’s face. “No,” he says, “I have a different version of the serum.”
“Why a different one?”
“Different selection criteria.”
James’s voice is toneless when he answers, like maybe his experience with the serum was not a pleasant one. Steve wants to know more but he doesn’t want to dredge up bad memories, so he drops the subject.
“So you’re the only one who really knows who I am,” he says.
“Not quite.” James looks uncomfortable. “I had… an accident. Lost my memory too, funnily enough. Didn't get everything back.” James notices him looking at the glove on his hand. He pulls it off to reveal the hard cold gleam of metal. “Lost something else, too.”
Steve reaches out without thinking, but stops just before he makes contact. “May I…?”
There’s an unreadable expression on James’s face, but he nods and pushes his sleeve to mid-way up his forearm, revealing more metal. He places his hand palm-down on the table with a metallic click.
Steve traces his fingers over the articulated joints of James’s fingers and the grooves on the back of his hand where the plates of metal meet. The metal is cool to the touch, and he can feel slight imperfections on the smooth surface of the plates as he glides his fingertips up past James’s wrist, little dents and scratches. There’s a slight mechanical whine and then the plates of metal shift sequentially, like a wave, the movement disappearing under the sleeve of his shirt. Steve sucks in a surprised breath. It’s hypnotic and fascinating and beautiful.
“What was that?”
“Recalibration,” James says. “It does that sometimes.”
“Is it okay—I mean, can I ask about it?”
James shrugs. “Sure, Steve. I don’t mind.”
“Can you feel it when I touch you?”
“Not much on my arm,” James says. “Mostly the palm, and especially the fingers.”
He trails his fingers back down towards James’s hand, movements slow and gentle. He turns James’s hand over and glides his fingers over the palm and fingers, drawing imaginary swirls and lines. The pounding of his heart is loud in his ears.
“Can you feel this?” he asks.
James nods.
“What does it feel like?”
“You know when you’ve been out in the cold for a while,” James says, “and you don’t have gloves on, how your hands get numb? Then when you touch something, you can sort of feel it, but it’s… distant. Something like that.”
“How far up does it go?”
The fingers on James’s hand curl close and he slides his hand off the table. Steve leans back in surprise, only then realising how close he’d moved towards James.
“Far enough,” James says. Then he pulls his shirt off in a smooth, sinuous motion.
Steve sucks in a shocked breath. The metal extends up past James’s shoulder joint, covering part of his clavicle and upper chest. There’s a faded red star painted on the deltoid, an inverse twin to the star on his shield. Thick ropy scars radiate out from where the underlayer of metal appears fused to James’s skin.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, voice coming out gruffer than he intended.
James shrugs. “Don’t notice it anymore.”
“So that’s a ‘yes’.”
“It's okay, Steve,” James says. “It’s—It’s my arm, y’know? And it’s a good one.” He pulls his shirt back on. “It’s worth a little pain,” he says, head turned away from Steve.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says, “I was out of line. It’s an amazing piece of tech.” He reaches out slowly, giving James time to pull away, and strokes his finger over James’s hand one last time. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.” There’s a sad, wistful sort of look in James’s eyes when he answers.
“Why did everyone act so strange when you said you’d stay with me?”
“We’re not,” James hesitates, jaw working, “we’re not as close as we used to be.”
When James doesn’t elaborate further, Steve says, a little hesitantly, “Did we argue?”
“No. Nothing so simple. I wasn’t… asleep like you for seventy years. I was… operational.” —What did he mean ‘operational’?— “I’m not the same man you knew before you went into the ice, Steve. I guess you could say we grew apart.” James pushes his chair back from the table. “Let’s clean up.”
“I—okay,” he says, caught out by the abrupt end to the conversation. “I’ll wash up since you cooked.”
James nods and goes into his room, closing the door behind him. Steve swallows a sigh. He was kind of hoping James would keep him company while he worked.
___
James is still in his room when Steve’s done with the clean-up, so he explores the apartment looking for more clues about himself. His fridge is pretty bare but his freezer is well stocked with ready-made meals, and there are lots of take-away menus stuck to the fridge door. His bookshelves, which are oddly dust-free compared to the rest of the apartment, contain a mix of non-fiction books. Most of the books look like assigned reading for someone playing catch-up: military tactics, world history, technological advances, culture, mostly covering the years he was in the ice.
Only one book catches his eye, an art book with its brightly colored spine, a book that he could picture himself reading just for the pleasure of it. He pulls it out and opens it. There’s an inscription on the front page: Live a little, Rogers. Nat. He stares at it for a long moment before returning it to the shelf.
He moves to his bedroom. A glance around confirms it to be just as bare as he remembered. He closes his eyes and pictures the room. The image in his head is a perfect replica of the actual room, down to the little chip on the corner of the bathroom door and the number of screws bolting the chin-up bar to the bathroom doorframe. Eidetic memory, they’d told him. That must come in handy in his line of work.
He walks over to the chin-up bar. Curious, he grabs on and pulls himself up. It’s effortless. He tries it using just one hand. Still effortless. He hangs there for a moment, and then tries it with just his index finger hooked over the bar... effortless. He let’s go and that feeling of surreality sweeps over him again.
He opens his cupboard and inspects the clothes inside. Mostly blues, grays, and tans, some black, nothing bright. A few jackets, including a weathered brown leather one. All the clothes have a classic, timeless look to them.
And then there are the two Captain America suits; one is a replica of the suit from the footage, and the other is mostly navy blue with white accents and discreet red panels on the sides. He pulls out the navy one and holds it up. It’s... pretty badass.
He goes through the bureau next. More grays, blues, blacks and neutrals. Seems like the only time he wants to draw attention to himself is when he’s fighting.
Then he discovers a flat box hidden at the back of his underwear drawer. Inside, he finds a plain black hair-tie— James used to have long hair, he thinks—a set of dog tags stamped with the name James B. Barnes, and a nine-inch long knife with a matte-black serrated blade and black handle. It’s sleek and perfectly balanced and wouldn’t look out of place in the mouth of a shark. He flips it a few times, but it doesn’t feel familiar in his hands the way the shield does. It’s not his, but he’s pretty sure he knows who it belongs to.
He puts everything back inside the box and slides it back into place. That’s when he notices the black t-shirt. It’d been rolled up and shoved behind the box. He pulls it out and holds it up. It’s soft and worn and stretched out of shape. From the way it’d been hidden, he’s pretty sure he knows who it belongs to as well.
All these things, he’d kept them as mementos of James.
There’s a knock on his door and the sound of it opening. “Hey, Ste—” he shoves the t-shirt back and slams the drawer shut so fast he almost clips the tips of his fingers “—ve...”
He spins around and leans back against the bureau with his arms folded. His body language screams ‘GUILTY’ and James picks up on it straight away.
He studies Steve with a gleam in his eyes, his body a sinuous line where he leans against the doorjamb. “What’s in the drawer, Steve?” he asks, a teasing lilt in his voice.
“Nothing,” Steve blurts out. “Socks.” And then, because he's an idiot, “Underwear.” His cheeks feel like they’re on fire, and from the look on James’s face, he really doesn’t want to know what James thinks he has in there.
James shakes his head and smiles. It’s a small, lopsided thing, but his eyes are warm. “You wanna watch—?”
“Yes.” He’s out the door before James finishes the question.
___
Steve’s half concentrating on the documentary that’s on. The only thing that’s registered is that the narrator sounds like he’s about to pass out from asphyxiation. He’s too distracted by James in the armchair next to him, and the way the exposed metal of his arm coruscates in the flickering light of the tv.
The metal plates do that eerily beautiful shifting thing, and he looks up to find James watching him with a curious expression on his face. Shit. How long had he been staring at James’s arm?
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Your arm... with the lights”—he makes a vague motion with his hand—“it’s beautiful,” he finishes lamely.
One corner of James’s mouth tips up in a quizzical smile. “It’s okay,” he says.
The doorbell rings, breaking the moment. It’s a man in a Stark Industries uniform with several bags of groceries. They take the bags from him and set them on the kitchen counter after sending him off with their thanks.
“That’s a lot of food,” Steve observes.
“The serum accelerated your metabolism,” James says, “so now you need to eat every few hours. Better if it’s protein.”
No wonder James kept feeding him. And now that he thought about it, he was getting a little hungry, even though they’d eaten not long ago. “Is it the same for you?” he asks.
“To a lesser degree.”
They work together to put away the groceries, moving around each other like a dance performed so many times the steps have become ingrained, instinctively knowing where the other is at all times. That ease continues while they make a pot of pasta sauce. They fall into a comfortable rhythm and Steve feels a pleasant tingle every time James brushes past him, and maybe he doesn’t move out of the way as much as he could.
He runs the tap over the tomatoes in the sink and glances sidelong at James. “I looked through the sketchbook.” The staccato rhythm of James’s chopping falters. “There’s a drawing of an old lady. Who is she?”
James resumes his chopping. “Peggy Carter,” he says. “You two were in love during the war. Hell of a woman.” In the sudden silence, James says in a gentle voice, “She passed away last year.”
His hands still. He doesn’t even know how to feel about that. He’d loved a woman, and he can’t even—there’s just… nothing left. Not even an echo of emotion.
A hand clasps his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Steve.”
“I can’t even feel sad, James.” He turns to look at James. “I don’t even know enough to feel sad.”
“I know,” James says, voice soft with understanding.
Steve wants to curl up with shame. If anyone would know, it’d be James.
“Give your team some time, Steve, you’ll get your memories back. Two weeks at the most, right?”
And that kind of put things in perspective. He’s guessing James lost his memory some time in 2014? James has been dealing with it for two years now, so the least he can do is to handle it for the time being.
“Yeah.” He assays a smile. “Sorry.”
James shakes him lightly by the shoulder. “Nothing to be sorry for.” He nods at the tomatoes in the sink. “They’re not gonna wash themselves,” he says, and goes back to chopping onions.
Steve starts washing tomatoes. “What was she like?”
“Carter? I don’t think I knew her well, ‘cause I don’t have many memories of her. Just impressions, really. Smart. Didn’t suffer fools gladly.”
Steve looks up. Something about the way James said that last bit… But he’d already turned away to scrape the diced onions into the pot.
Steve looks back down. “There were drawings of you as well.”
James freezes.
“But I won’t ask.”
“Thank you,” James says. Steve can just make it out over the sound of running water and the onions sizzling in the pot.
The apartment is soon filled with the comforting scent of the red sauce as it simmers over a low flame. It’s what he imagines a home smells like.
James disappears into his room again when they finish up in the kitchen. Steve swallows his disappointment and wanders aimlessly around the apartment. The second time his feet bring him past James’s door, it opens to reveal a quietly amused James. He slips past Steve with a side-long glance and settles down on the couch to read, something cat-like in the sprawl of his limbs.
Should he—? Oh. James picked the couch. He’d used the armchair earlier, but this time, James picked the couch. He gets the art book from the shelf and settles in next to James. He doesn’t sit as close as he’d like to, but still closer than is strictly polite. A slight motion catches his attention, James rubbing the corner of the throw cushion with the thumb of his right hand. It’s not the first time he’s noticed James doing something similar, like his fingers are constantly seeking out texture. It’s an unusual habit for someone who’s otherwise so still.
He doesn’t ask anymore questions. There’s no point picking at his past when he has no context to process anything, anyway. He’ll leave it for the next few days, at least, and just enjoy his time with James.
By the end of the day, he’s sitting close enough to James that their shoulders are touching. They’re watching an old episode of Star Trek, socked feet propped up on the coffee table, sharing a bowl of popcorn between them. James’s company isn’t exactly restful, he’s too aware of James for that, but he feels… complete, like a long-misplaced puzzle piece has finally been slotted into place.
___
There’s a cold wind blowing in his face, chilling the tracks of the tears on his cheeks. He’s somewhere high up and moving fast. He’s… he’s lost something, leaving it further and further behind as he hurtles forward. His heart feels like it’s cracking in two. It hurts so much. He wants to fall too. He wants to let go and—
“Steve. Steve, wake up.”
Someone’s calling him. It’s... James…? But that’s not right…
He opens his eyes slowly. James is leaning over him, face drawn and his eyes full of worry. With gentle fingers, James brushes away the tears on his cheeks. “Your name is Steven Grant Rogers,” James says in a low voice that soothes the jagged edges of his heart. “It’s 2016, you’re having a nightmare, you’re in your apartment.”
“James...” he whispers.
“Yeah, Stevie,” James says, “it’s me.”
He fists his hands in James’s t-shirt and curls in around the hollow ache in his chest, pulling James till he’s curved over him.
“It’s okay, Steve.” James wraps his arm around Steve. It’s the metal one, and it’s cold, and heavier than he expected, but he doesn’t care. He breathes in James’s scent, a mix of his soap and the faint metallic tang of his arm and something that’s just James, and his chest begins to loosen.
When James shifts back a little, he panics and his hands tighten on James’s shirt. “Please,” he whispers.
James hesitates.
“Please,” he whispers again.
“Okay, Steve, I’ll stay.”
He shifts to make room for James, turning on his side with his back to James, silently asking to be held. James slides in behind him and curls himself around Steve, pulling up the covers to ward off the cold. He shouldn’t make James to stay, but he just… he just can’t bear the thought of James leaving him right now.
James lays his metal arm tentatively along Steve’s side and Steve flinches in surprise when its cold surface comes into contact with the skin exposed by his bunched up t-shirt. “Sorry,” James mumbles, and starts to pull away.
Steve tangles the fingers of his left hand with James’s metal ones, and pulls his arm tightly around himself. James exhales and finally relaxes. The warmth of James’s breath against his neck sends a shiver chasing down his spine.
With the solid bulk of James’s body behind him, he can finally catch his breath again. The ache in his chest dissipates and the heat of James’s body dispels the chill that had felt bone-deep. He closes his eyes with a sigh.
Just before sleep reclaims him, he almost imagines the sensation of warm lips brushing against the back of his neck.