It was always late at night while Bucky lay awake in bed, unable to sleep once again, that the memories and regrets came pressing down, suffocating in their intensity, and he wished a little guiltily that he’d never remembered the life he once had, the person he once was all those years ago.

Once upon a time, Bucky was real and not the shell of a human that Hydra had made him through drugs and torture and death — against his will, unknown at the time, but still at his hands all the same — and once upon a time, he’d been somebody’s friend — Steve, his brother in everything but blood, who still believed in him so much it hurt — and all the pain he’d suffered over decades and decades was nothing to looking up to a dark ceiling, knowing that the Bucky of now was neither of those things, not really, and might never be again.

He wasn’t that person of his memories anymore, no matter what Steve might have to say about it, and honestly the worst part was seeing day after day how the way that Steve saw him was different from the way the world saw him was different from the way Bucky saw himself, especially late at night like this, and it seemed like none of those visions would or could ever align into a Bucky Barnes who could sleep through the night.