Time meant nothing to Bucky. He'd passed through the last 70 years as a ghost, his memories coming to the surface just long enough for him to scream in grief when they were ripped from his skull again. His sleep was murky and when conscious he had trouble deciphering what was memory and dream.

My name is James Buchanan Barnes….

I have three younger sisters…..

Rebekah is the baby…..

I'm from Brooklyn….

Steve Rogers is my best friend…

Present tense, because he couldn't bear acknowledging that life was gone. "Is and "was" had a lifetime between that he'd been robbed off. His entire life was scribbled illegibly into a ratty notebook because, apparently, he was also a lefty. He rubbed his shoulder where metal met skin. Phantom pains still racked him where he lost his arm at the elbow and further up at his shoulder where the Soviets took it completely. At night, he still wiggled his fingers. Not the prosthetic ones, effective enough to wrap around the same delicate throat that he once kissed, after clumsily brushing red strands of hair out of the way. I recognize you. No, the ones that once danced across piano keys and could feel the heat of a woman's skin when laid against her back.

There were some things that time couldn't erase.

Steve reached out a shaking hand to touch the stump, but pulled back. "You sure about this?"

The question had a plaintive tone. Bucky smiled wistfully. "I can't trust my own mind. Until we can figure out how to get all this stuff out of my head that Hydra put in there, then maybe going back under is the best thing for everybody."

What was six months? A year? Another 70 years? He belonged nowhere, from a past that was gone and a future that no longer existed for him. Time would march on, while he floated, frozen in it. His best friend was crestfallen, looking much like he did the night before Bucky left for the war. They'd stood in the crowd at the World Expo enthralled by Howard Stark, and the future looked so bright.

Bucky swallowed. While time didn't matter, there were some things that grew heavier the longer they were carried. "Hey Steve do me a favor, would you? Tell Tony I'm sorry." His voice wavered slightly and dropped to a whisper. "Howard was my friend too."