Rain hits the canvas roof like it’s angry. The tent smells like wet wool and gunpowder, the kind of stench that settles into the back of your throat and stays there, no matter how many times you spit it out. The worst part of war was the waiting.

Bucky’s sitting on the crate across from you. He doesn’t say anything for a while. Just watches the canvas flap shift in the wind. You glance at him. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, which is accurate. You haven’t, either.

“You remember Brooklyn?” he asks, suddenly.

The question lands like a flare in the dark.

“Which part?” you ask, voice rough.

He shrugs. “Any of it.”

You do. You remember cheap coffee on street corners and kids throwing rocks at trains. You remember newsboys shouting headlines in the cold. That was three years ago.

Bucky leans forward, elbows on knees.

“Sometimes I can’t tell if I remember it or if I dreamed it.” He says it so quietly that for a second, it doesn’t sound like him.

You nod. You get it. The war eats memory. It chews on the soft things until all that’s left is instinct and hard edges. He pulls something from his pocket and tosses it your way.

A photograph. Black and white. A little bent at the corners. A snapshot of before, he’s younger in it, even though it was probably only a couple years ago. Grinning, sleeves rolled up, arm around Steve Rogers, both of them looking like they owned the street behind them.

You hand it back. He doesn’t take it right away. Finally, he says, “If we make it through tomorrow, I’m writing home.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you were sentimental.”

He shrugs again. “I’m not. But… someone should know I was here.”

Outside, the thunder of distant artillery rolls through the ground. You and Bucky sit in silence again.