BUCKY BARNES & SHARON CARTER
LOW - END GAME SPOILERS | COMPLETE
He was in the shower when it happened. Instead of waking up with a start, Bucky felt like he was being transported out of his body and into another version of himself that was lightyears away. In flashes, he could see, feel, and hear what happened from the time he showed back up in Wakanda to fighting Thanos to saying goodbye to Steve. Bucky leaned forward and pressed both hands into the tile of the shower wall and stood underneath the hot water as it beamed down on his head and neck. His breathing was hard but steady, and his eyes stayed closed as he tried to get a grip on what all of this meant.
They’d done it. After being given the basics, he still didn’t understand exactly how they managed it, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Steve and the others had found a way to bring everyone back that Thanos had snapped out of existence, and just like that Bucky was given his third life. It was a lot to process, but luckily for him, he’d had a lot of practice in processing memories. Not only because of the first time this had happened about a year ago but also because he’d struggled to remember everything about himself for two years before the entirety of his life really started to sink in and become more than facts read in a book or in a file. Sometimes those memories had trickled in but other times he’d wake up with a sudden influx of them. This time it was somewhere in between the two.
Once he was dried off and dressed, Bucky checked the network and his suspicions were confirmed. Like last time, everyone else had received similar memories. He checked in with Steve and a couple others, but soon after he knew he needed to get out for a while. Forgetting the fact that he’d just taken a shower and his hair still damp, Bucky attached Roo’s leash and headed out the door for a jog. Nothing to really get his blood flowing, but it was better than sitting around. And he didn’t really want to be around too many people back at the base either.
The more he thought about what happened, he kept coming back to the last moment he remembered: seeing an older, time-traveling Steve sitting on the bench. Bucky had known. He knew where his friend was going and that the hug he was going to give him would be his last. His best friend had left the present to return to the past to find his girl. And he was gone.
A large part of Bucky was happy for him, and he knew that Steve deserved that happiness after sacrificing so much of himself for others and the fight. Another part was jealous that he couldn’t go with them. They were both men out of time, but the difference was that Bucky had off and on lived those years as someone else. Then there was another part of him that was upset that he’d left at all. Had left him. Steve had helped to give Bucky his life back, but in a lot of ways, Steve was a gigantic piece of that life. He was going to have to figure out what that life looked like without him.
He’d slowed down to a walk after entering the park. It was early enough that the dog park area was mostly empty, so he unclipped the leash from Roo’s collar and let him chase after the squirrel that had caught his attention. Letting out a sigh, Bucky stood and let the memory flashes keep replaying in his mind. Sooner or later he would have to finally be in a place where he wasn’t having to play catch up again and again, right?
Sharon hadn’t had on of those memory dumps since Breck and she’d kind of wondered if it was ever going to happen again. She’d also forgotten about the headache that usually accompanied having a couple of years of memories just shoved in your head, especially when a part of those memories involved turning to dust and then suddenly coming back to life five years later.
She’d planned to go into the office for a few hours, despite it being a Saturday, but Sharon knew there was no way she was going to be able to concentrate on work while these new memories were swimming around her head. She checked the network first, seeing Steve’s post. It wasn’t really a surprise that this had happened to seemingly most of them and after quickly checking in with Steve, she headed out of her house. She knew Bucky well enough to have an idea of where she would find him, assuming he’d had the same experience as she had. She didn’t have to know about the choice Steve had made to stay back in time - something she hadn’t witnessed in her own memories - to be sure he would want some air after another one of these memory dumps. They could be a lot to process, no matter what the content of the memories were.
“Hey, you,” she greeted him with a little half smile as she found him in the park. “You okay?” They weren’t as close at home and she didn’t know everything he’d been through there, but she knew him well enough to see that he was struggling with something.
A familiar voice alerted him, and Bucky turned from watching his dog running around the park chasing poor squirrels and saw Sharon walking towards him. He gave her a small smile and felt himself relax a little. There was a lot on his mind, but it was always a nice surprise seeing Sharon. He didn’t remember seeing or hearing of her in the new memories he’d received, but that might have been something Steve was more aware of than him. Bucky didn’t have the years of memories leading up to the fight with Thanos to sort though.
“Yeah, I just needed to get some air, so I decided to take him for a walk,” he said and nodded over to where Roo was still running around. The dog had grown a lot since he’d gotten him during their time in Breckentale, but he still had a lot of puppy left in him. A dog wasn’t something he ever thought he’d want, but Bucky was glad that he’d made it back to Atlantis with him.
“How are you? A lot happened, yeah?” There was a lot for all of them to unpack aside from coming back.
Bucky hadn’t really featured much in Sharon’s memories, either - she hadn’t seen him since she’d brought the guys their equipment. She’d run into Steve and the others while they were all on the run, but so much of home had felt like a long time ago for her, at least until these memories. Before this, the last real update she’d gotten from home had been back in the real Breck, some time before coming to Atlantis.
“Yeah, it was a lot,” she agreed, pausing to smile at Roo. She and Bucky hadn’t been together in Breckentale, but the dog had been easy to fall in love with once they were back in Atlantis. The memories had been a lot, but something about watching Roo chase squirrels around the park made her feel a little lighter.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. She didn’t know everything he’d gone through in those memories, but it had been pretty obvious that it had been a lot for everyone.
It was strange. The memories from the first upgrade had hit him harder than this round had. The impact the first time had been pretty universal all around. The dustings had affected everyone. Not always exactly the same but still very similarly. This time, the memories of coming back, the fight, and the realization that some had been lost were hard in a different way. And then there was his conflicting feelings on Steve returning to the past and staying there.
“I’m not sure,” he said thoughtfully. “I mean, I’m alright. Better than most all things considered. It’s just a lot to unpack between coming back after so long and then all that happened afterwards.”
He paused for a moment, unsure exactly what she knew and didn’t know. Some she’d probably gathered from checking in with others but maybe not everything. “What was the last thing that you remember from the new memories?”
Sharon hadn’t been a part of the battle against Thanos, either time. Truth be told, she hadn’t even known it was happening at the time. She’d been on assignment when she turned to dust only to reappear in the same place to find the mission was long gone and five years had passed. She’d caught up on what had happened as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t in time to make it to any funerals; just in time to mourn the losses on her own.
She nodded, understanding what he meant. It was a lot to live through - more time for her than for him, she knew, since she hadn’t gotten the memories nearly everyone else had last year - but it had ended the the world relatively safe, as far as she could tell, even if the price for that safety had been high.
“I flew back to pay my respects, after the funeral,” she offered, suspecting that he would know what she meant even from that vague explanation. “It’s a strange experience, feeling like you closed your eyes only to have 5 years pass in the blink of an eye.”
“Yeah, it really is,” Bucky said quietly. It had happened to him twice now - not including the decades of memories he’d received after being out of cryogenesis long enough. It sounded like she was caught up with him in the timeline, though he wasn’t sure if she knew about Steve yet. That wasn’t something he was going to bring up yet since he was still processing it himself. He’d mention it to her in a day or so if she didn’t mention it before then or find out from Steve himself.
“It’s nice to know that if we’re ever sent home that we won’t be sent back to nothing.” He’d accepted what happened and was at peace with it, knowing that his life was here now. Finding out he was no longer dead in his home timeline meant the future was wide open.
“How about breakfast?” He asked her after a moment. They could sit outside with Roo and have a quiet morning. After the memories, that was just what he was looking for today.