"Does it really matter?" Bucky asks in turn, brows arching. Logically, of course, he knows it does, if not to him, then at least to Steve; otherwise, they wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. They could just carry on as they have for the past couple of months, dancing around the more sensitive issues, relearning each other's habits without delving into their underlying causes.

"I mean, hell, it's a blank slate, right?" he adds, Zemo's words forever echoing in his head. What, wonders Bucky, were the odds that moments after he'd been told he didn't deserve a blank slate, he'd land offshore of an island called Tabula Rasa? "My past is supposed to be wiped clean, anyway. Erased."