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He doesn’t know where he is.
He’s surrounded by wooden shelves lined with books. The air smells like paper and dust. A library? No, it’s too small and cramped. A bookstore, then. Used ones.
He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to draw back something, anything. A hand reaches into the vast void of his brain and comes back empty. Blank. It’s as if he was just deposited into the universe at this very spot at this very moment. He shakes his head as he presses his palms into his eye sockets, like physical movement alone could somehow shift his missing memories into place.
“Sir?”
A hand brushes against his back, settling on his shoulder. He jumps, shoulders hiking up and back tensing on instinct. He whips around to find an old woman looking back at him, eyes shining in concern behind a pair of glasses connected to a chain.
“Are you alright?” She frowns.
He nods jerkily before stammering out that he’s fine, and when he tries to smile it feels more like an animal baring its teeth. He brushes past her as he beelines for the door. The walls are closing in around him and he needs to get out.
He practically tosses himself out of the shop, nearly colliding with a man dressed in a suit with a phone pressed to his ear.
“Watch it, jackass!” The man spits, and shoves him backwards. Unmoored, he lets the shove push him back against the wall of the building as the man storms off with a huff. He sinks down until he’s sitting on the concrete, legs pulled up until his thighs press against his stomach and chest. He leans his head against his knees, peering out from behind them like they’re shields.
Countless people flow past him in both directions, like giant schools of fish. He’s almost dazed by watching their movement. After a while, his gaze shifts to his surroundings. Cars and people on bikes dart through narrow streets and past towering buildings. He can hear horns honking and people yelling every few seconds. The scent of the bookstore is gone, replaced by smoke and grease.
Most people ignore him, but one woman distractedly shoves a crumpled up five dollar bill at him as she passes and he frowns. First, because of the familiar feeling—deja vu—that strikes him, and second, because he’s not seeking money. Does he look like a beggar? For the first time, he really looks at himself.
He’s dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a set of white Converse that look almost brand new. He has a maroon hoodie on, too, and when he roots around in its pocket he finds a phone and a credit card. The card is shiny and black with gold lettering, clearly one of those fancy, deluxe premiere customer ones or whatever, but there’s no name on it; it’s no help. He fumbles with the phone next. The lockscreen is a picture of a guinea pig munching on a leaf as it sits on a couch, and when he swipes up, it asks for a four-digit password. Fuck. The only other functions on the lockscreen are the camera and the call option, both of which are also useless to him. Who could he even call? The only number that comes to mind is 911, and even thinking about dialing gives him a bad feeling, although he doesn’t know why.
Other than the phone and the card, there’s nothing else. No ID, no wallet, nothing to tell him who he is.
He leans his head back against the brick and sighs. A yellow car speeds past, drawing his attention. Liberty Taxi NYC, it reads.
New York City?
Is this where he’s from? Is this where he lives? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything, and it scares him. He stands up on shaky legs and starts walking.
===
He walks for a while. At first, he follows a group of three—a nice looking family, a mother and a father and a little boy—until he realizes that he probably looks like a stray puppy at best and a total creep at worst. He splits off from them and wanders into a bodega, stomach growling. As he pays for his sandwich and a bottle of root beer at the register with the black card in his pocket, his eyes go to the small TV in the corner.
Someone on the news is talking about the day being saved, a crisis being averted. It cuts to live footage of a giant man with a mustache, dressed in red. He’s talking loudly, animatedly, and then he pulls a small blonde woman into the frame with him. Her arms are crossed, but her eyes are impossibly kind. Something niggles at his brain—
The cashier snaps his fingers in his face, gesturing impatiently for the credit card still in his hand. He apologizes meekly before scurrying out the door and leaving the man and the blonde woman on the screen behind.
===
As the day continues, the sun sinks lower and lower on the horizon. He keeps walking, because it’s all he can do. He feels like he’s a tourist on vacation, almost; it’s kinda fun. But as dusk gives way to night, he feels the fear from earlier creeping back in.
He has the card, so in theory he could try to get a hotel room, but he doesn’t know who the card belongs to or what the limit on it is, and don’t hotels require ID to purchase a room, too? He could probably find a bench to sleep on for the night. Not the safest, but he’s starting to feel like nowhere is safe. People keep looking at him funny as he passes, leery and threatening. He tries to keep his head down, not making eye contact with anyone.
It doesn’t work, though, because soon enough a rough hand is shoving him into an alley and pointing a gun in his face.
“Wallet. Now.” They hiss, face hidden by black cloth with holes for eyes and a mouth cut out.
“Well, uh, I don’t, um, I don’t have—” He tries, hands shaking as he holds them up in the air.
“Just shut the fuck up and give it to me.” They press closer, digging the muzzle of the gun into the underside of his jaw. He swallows nervously, skin bobbing against the cold metal. He just wants this to go away, go away, go away—
The gun is ripped out of their grasp by an invisible force, and it goes clattering against the opposite side of the alleyway.
“The fuck?” The masked figure gasps. When they look back at him, their eyes widen in horror. A strange tint of gold is reflected in them. His own eyes feel funny. They burn, almost tingling. Electric.
They doesn’t get a chance to say anything more, though, because a blur of bright red and blue collides with him, sending him crashing. There’s a thwip sound, and then a white, webby goo has them trapped against the concrete.
He stays frozen against the wall, watching. The red and blue blur comes up to him. It’s a man.
“You alright, buddy?” Red-and-blue says, patting him on the shoulder, dusting him off with a practiced ease, like he’s done this—saving confused people from thugs—a million times. His voice is light and jovial, almost overly so. There’s a mask on his face, keeping it hidden behind red fabric with thin black lines and big white eyes. A small spider is on the front of his suit.
“Yeah. Thanks, man.” He mumbles, still in shock. His eyes feel normal now.
Red-and-blue, the man, the spider, spider-man? turns to go, but then he pauses. “Hey, I think I know you. You’re that Bob guy, right? With the New Avengers?”
“You—you know who I am?” He gasps.
“Uh, yeah. You were on TV, dude.”
“No, no, I mean you know who I am!”
Sharp white eyes widen. “Oh, boy.”
===
“Are you sure,” Spider-Man repeats for the hundredth time, “that you haven’t been mind whammied? A wizard didn’t curse you—or maybe massively, majorly fuck up a spell?”
“I already told you, I don’t remember anything. It’s like I just randomly woke up somewhere in New York.” He—Bob, apparently—pouts, tucked against Spider-Man’s side as they swing throughout the city, back towards the giant tower where he lives, supposedly. It would be fun, if he hadn’t discovered how terrified he is of heights. He’s had to keep his eyes closed the entire time, because even the briefest flash of the city below has his stomach rolling and his breath coming fast.
(“Sorry I don’t have a paper bag to give you,” Spider-Man had said. “but this is a budget airline.”)
“I think…I think there’s something wrong with me.” Bob says shakily, turning his head even further inwards and away from the air rushing past them.
“There’s something wrong with everybody, if you think about it.” Spider-Man hums.
“No, I mean, like, seriously wrong. I can’t even remember who I am. You said I have a whole life with these people, and I don’t know any of it.”
“Well, the good thing is that you have people who care about you in the first place. Not everyone gets that.” He says, his last sentence taking a flatter tone. “And I don’t really know your friends, not like—” He cuts himself off. “I know they’re heroes. So they’ll do whatever they can to help you.”
Once they get close enough and run out of buildings to swing on, Bob has to cling to the other man’s back like a monkey as he sticks to the side of the tower and crawls up. As if this day hasn’t gotten any weirder.
Spider-Man deposits Bob gently on the tower’s landing pad, and then he pauses, looking around the tower. As if he’s searching for something, almost. His white eyes shrink, somehow bittersweet despite the purposeful lack of detail.
“What is it?” Bob frowns.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Spider-Man sighs, shaking his head. “I’ll see you around, Bob. You’re gonna be alright.”
And with that, he takes a bounding leap off the tower, disappearing into the night.
Bob raises his hand and waves goodbye a second too late.
There’s a hiss of a door sliding open, and then someone yells his name. A force collides with his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He freezes for a second, but then he realizes that it’s a person currently burrowing into his chest, their small-but-strong limbs wrapped around him.
“Where. Were. You?” She demands, and it’s her. The blond woman from earlier, this time in casual clothes rather than a tactical suit. “You can never scare me like that again, do you understand?”
Her voice is thickly accented, unusual and so uniquely—
“Yelena?” He mumbles, still unsure.
“Yes, Bob.” She says, the same way someone would say no, duh. She hesitates for a moment, and then her face goes from exasperated to concerned. She lifts her hands, sandwiching his cheeks between them and holding him still so that she can look at him more closely.
“What are you—” He protests through his squished cheeks. “You don’t have to—.”
“Yes, I do.” She interrupts flatly, but her lips are downturned, sad and trembling, and he can’t fight against a face like that.
===
Bob fidgets with the new bracelet around his wrist.
It’s a reinforced plastic band, kinda like one from a hospital, but harder to remove.
His memory came back that night, jogged by being in a place he knows with people he knows better than anyone. But the team had decided to take precautions.
It lists his name, his conditions, and Yelena’s phone number. Like he’s a fucking lost pet that has to be returned to his owners.
They changed his phone, too: removed the passcode requirement, for the next time he forgets everything about his own life like a moron.
His memory was already terrible before, and blackouts were typical for him, but not to this extent. They think that it’s an amped up version, just like how the experimentation dialed everything else about him up to eleven. Of course his memory loss was included.
He’s been pouting for the last week, burrowed into either the sofa in the living room or his bed. Yelena has been content with leaving him be, happy to see him tucked away safely at the tower under their watch, while Walker tried to get Bob to accompany them on various errands, but eventually gave up after his nth refusal. What’s the point of going out with the risk of his mind short circuiting on him, leaving him a drooling, confused mess? Not to mention the risk of him using his powers accidentally, like he did with the guy who tried to rob him. Sure, it was just a gun that time, but what if he destroys a city block next?
Better to stay here, still pathetic and useless, but at least not a danger to himself or others.
The couch cushion shifts beside him, and he looks up to see Bucky.
“No, Bucky, I already told Walker that I don’t want to go to the store.” He grumbles.
“I don’t care about the store. I care about you.”
“I’m fine.”
Bucky gives him a flat, disbelieving look. “And that’s why you’ve been parked on this couch all day?”
“I’d rather be here than out there. I don’t want to…to embarrass myself like that again, or hurt anyone.” He tugs at the plastic on his wrist. “So I think I’m just gonna keep sitting here with this stupid bracelet.”
Bucky firmly pulls his hand away from the bracelet. “It’s not stupid.”
“Well, I’m stupid.” He sounds like a little kid but he doesn’t care.
“My memory isn’t the best, either.” Bucky says.
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” Bucky reaches inside the collar of his shirt and pulls out his dog tags, holding them out for Bob to see. “These have my name on them, just like your bracelet. For a long time, I didn’t know who I was. I still don’t, sometimes. These help. Needing reminders doesn’t make me stupid. The same goes for you, alright?”
Bob presses his lips into a line and sniffs, nodding. “Thank you, Bucky.”
“Anytime.” Bucky says, patting his back as he gets up. “Come on. It’s a nice day outside. You don’t wanna miss it.”