Raindrops pelted against my apartments windows, the stale water rinsing through the gutters, splashing out of the sides like a geyser. Puddles collected in the potholes that ran rampant throughout New York's streets, the muddy collections sloshing up with each car tire that drove through them. 

Crowds shielded themselves from the downpour, and from an aerial point of view making it look like there was nothing except a sea of drifting umbrellas. 

The evenings dull lavender light was squelched by ominous thunderclouds. The storm stifling any last remnants of sunlight, rendering the atmosphere lifeless, like tossing sand onto a fire, extinguishing it's fiery resonance.

The continual pitter-patter of droplets tapping against the glass reminded me of hail during a blizzard, and the splotchy grey clouds hung so low that they touched the tiptops of the skyscrapers. Billowing across the buildings in a foggy mess, blackening out some of the city's blinding iridescence. 

It had been a day and a half now, and I hadn't left my apartment, refusing to answer the door to anyone either. I knew that if Steve really wanted to he could oh, so easily break the door down, but I also knew that he wouldn't dare try out of concern that that'd cause a huge rift in our friendship. And, that I'd never forgive him, something he doesn't want. Nonetheless, I was grateful for some privacy, even after being mean, and yelling at him. 

He understood, and I'm sure we could both use each others shoulders to collapse our mutual sorrow onto, but I wasn't even ready to do that. I couldn't face the world right now, let alone Steve. I couldn't bare to see the anguish stitched across his face even though I saw it within my own reflection every time I looked in the mirror. 

The hypnotic soft tune of 40's music played from the record player in my living room, the one Steve found for me at an antique shop. The classic compositions from Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald not even enough to unwind my nerves. 

The euphony suffocating me instead, waning around me, making it feel like the walls of my apartment were closing in on me. 

Never before had I felt so explicitly, so openly weak, disabled from the roots. Actually, I hadn't even cried this much since the last time I lost him. 

Honestly, I don't remember much about that day in the Alps once I jumped from the train against Steve's wishes. Most of it an obscure, vague blur sealed tight within my conscious. I recall surviving the fall, and I spent for what felt like an eternity in the blank canvas of never ending snow. I remember how my tears froze to my face like icicles, and that my body had started to stiffen with the threat of hypothermia. 

I felt like I was in a trance back then with nothing else mattering except finding him, or rather, his body. I remember most, the pain of it all. Like a toxic thorn in my side, a thorn that had now returned. 

My pillowcase was damp with my tears, but I still shoved my face into the satin, my phone on a constant tangent of perpetual calls, and texts. All from Steve, wanting to see me, asking if my shoulder was better, and making sure if I was okay. He was indeed keeping his distance, but his interest remained steadfast, not wavering. 

I glanced at the latest text, the screens refulgence blinding me. He asked again if I was alright, and I threw my phone against my bedroom wall. The cell, of course, not breaking. Stupid high tech technology. 

"Am I alright?" I thought. My husband is alive, sure, but he doesn't even know who the hell I am. Our life beforehand, before everything happened, will be buried with me. Every memory like a cut, every detail like stinging alcohol on that cut. 

I thought about what I said to Steve back in the day, about how I figured my married life would go. Back then I said that I just thought I'd be settling down, that there wouldn't be a war to deal with, well, I'd prefer a war right now. 

I want to go back to the days where I was a nurse, and my husband was a soldier because at least back then he knew who I was. 

I squeezed my eyes shut, more tears spilling out, wetting my lashes, but then I heard the window in my living room shatter. The sharp, piercing sound of glass crashing to the floor in fragments stealing my attention. 

I jumped up from my bed, swiping the handgun from underneath my mattress, and flicked off the lamp on my nightstand, engulfing my room in darkness. 

With my gun poised, finger dancing along the trigger I listened steadily. Footsteps emerged, walking down the hallway, and I saw the shadows figure from the crack in the doorway, inching their way closer. 

Getting ready to fire, I watched as the intruder kicked down the bedroom door, sending the hammered in hinges flying like measly toothpicks. 

A sudden flash of lightning streaming across the night sky lit up my room for an instant, silhouetting the man with it's white light. The stormy glow cast across his face, reflecting against his silver metal arm with a red Soviet Union star tattooed onto it. 

Immediately, I lowered my gun, wanting so much to run up to him, and hug him, this tormented man who has no clue who I am, or was to him. I wanted to kiss him, tell him I love him, and reassure him that everything would be okay. That against all odds I'd stand by him. I wanted my words to pull at his heartstrings, and matter to him rather then just be inadequate ramblings. 

"Why are you here?" I piped up, noticing that he wasn't carrying any weapons. 

"Who are you?" He asked, urgency bound within his tone, his oceanic pools aglow in the thunder stricken night. 

"The question is, do you know who you are?" I countered, dropping my gun courteously down onto the carpet, indicating trust. 

Though within the blink of an eye I was slammed against the wall, his metal hand securely fastened around my neck, feeling like a mixture of a birds talons, and a swords blade. 

My jugular vein tensed, and shook under his grip, my esophagus spasming. 

"Tell me!" He warned, and I choked. 

"O-Okay. Y-Your name is James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. Sergeant in World War II, bestfriend to Steve Rogers, Captain America." 

"Who are you?" He interrogated again, gripping tighter around my neck, his metal imprints embedding into my throat, and I coughed, the strangling feeling like my lungs were shriveling up from lack of air. 

"Y-Your wife, Rebecca Barnes." I spoke in short breaths, my vocal cord strained. 

Immediately, he let go then, causing me to fall to the floor, and gasp violently, sucking in the oxygen I needed. 

He hid his metal arm behind his back, almost as though he couldn't trust it even though it was apart of him. His expression a mix of despair, and turmoil. Like within his head he was battling himself. 

"Prove it." I heard him say, and I stood back up, my neck stained red with his metal fingerprints. 

"Fine." 

I rummaged around the drawers of my nightstand, searching for the belongings I had retrieved from my combat vest before it was sent to Washington D.C. Leaving one of the three items in the drawer I pulled out the other two. 

"You want proof? I could go all day, telling you about your life, and our marriage, but I doubt you'd believe me. So, here's physical proof."

I held up a rusted chain with two silver rectangles strung from it. 

"Here's your dog tags. I found them in the Alps while searching for you after you fell from the HYDRA train." 

He took them, and stared down at them before tossing them carelessly to his side while I fought back tears. The fact that my own husband was standing here, looking directly at me, but didn't remember me was so heartbreaking that it made me feel like I was dying from the inside out. 

"Fine, if you still don't believe me then maybe seeing you, and me happy together will change things." I handed him a small golden framed photograph of us on our wedding day within it. 

The same frame that I took with me always whether in my purse, nurses uniform, or war outfit. The monochrome image of him smiling at me, hugging me tightly, and me laughing, my rose wedding bouquet in my grasp. I remember clearly that photo being taken. Steve took it for us when we weren't looking, and he said that we looked so happy together. 

I watched as he stared at it, his face stern, unreadable, until I saw a single tear trickle down his face. A small crack appearing in his brainwashed barrier, causing him to grimace. 

Holding onto his head with his hands, flashes of incomplete splintered memories materializing in his mind. 

He shouted, as if he was hurting, and it hurt to remember, to attempt to breakaway from the control. He ducked to the floor, more screams emitting from his throat, and I crouched down beside him. 

Tilting his chin up so that he was looking at me my hands threaded through his longer brunette tresses. For a moment, he melted, as if his subconscious knew me, and knew the familiarness of my touch, but it didn't last long. 

"James, what happened to you?" I asked, setting off a nerve. 

He then slapped my hands away, backing up from me, and he looked so afraid, afraid of what exactly I didn't know, but it consumed him. 

"James..." I murmured out, extending out a hand for him to hold, wanting to help him shatter his brainwashed fortress, but terror had devoured him, closing him off again. 

I had so many questions to ask for I was clueless as to what was going on inside of him, but before I could wrap my arms around him he left. Leaving me once again alone in my bedroom, in the darkness. 

"The cruelest thing..." I thought again. "Is being forced to forget..."