Chapter Text
I’ve been reading about focus and memories. I have a little trouble with both. // sometimes I think I’m someone and then this thing will tickle the back of my mind. I used to shut it out but apparently if I want to know who I am, I need to focus on it. It isn’t always pleasant. Then again, it isn’t always a nightmare either. // I’m writing my thoughts as an exercise – I read it in one of the books – they’re not organized here, or in my head. // I’ve been torn apart. I see a snapshot of what I should be but I’m missing so many pieces. There’s a golden head with shining blue eyes, smaller and larger – why can’t I focus on one or the other? The big one called me his friend. I know I got angry about it. It was just a mission, how dare he presume? I have no friends, but yet there’s that little guy… hair and eyes so similar, tough enough but he’s not that big. Steve. Steve’s my friend, but “Steve’s dead” That’s what they said. Showed me proof. “Bucky” – he said it with Steve’s voice. He told me something only Steve would know. “til the end of the line” an those bruises around similar eyes – I’d seen that before. I still don’t know what to think. They say little Steve ended up physically as big as he’d ever been in his weak an sick heart and somehow I should know that guy but that much focus hurts. //
More reading. I found some memories along with it. The factory. He was bigger. I was hurting, strapped down and drugged. Aching and frightened and his sunshine lightened the dark. Then the fucker said it only hurt a little? To be torn apart and remade into something 2 ½ times his original size? I lay there for days (?) in pain, fire searing through my veins? Scratch that soldier; you never would have wanted to know he felt pain – which is why he lied. He did lie, right? I was am a soldier, right? It was war? As in “all’s fair in ….” So all those things = fair. It was just war. I was fair. No, never that. I was a weapon, before them; before him. Why didn’t he just stay put? I told him to stay put. I hope he does this time. I don’t want to see him. I know he lives – I pulled sunshine from the murky depths. I also buried it there, but I reconsidered. I saved sunshine for another day. Just not today. //
I’ve done some terrible things. They said it was in the name of freedom but I’ve been on the internet as much as into books and Hydra opposed freedom. They lied; a heartless lie – unlike Steve’s lie about his transformation. They were squeezing my heart. He was preserving it. They were good at it. He never was. He just cannot lie to save his life. I can. It bothers me some because I’d rather emulate sunshine than pain. // There’s a part of me that says that my actions today, the way I seek out those hydra bastards and mow them down are founded and fair, then a part wonders, what would he do? That fair-haired paragon of moral virtue… then I hear he’s doing exactly that – mowing them down – and I feel… good. Calm. I wonder, though, is he broken like me? Has his virtue escaped him? Are we both monsters or is it just me? //
On that day – when I nearly buried the sunshine in the river, I killed men. I nearly killed one who was protecting Steve – Bird…. Wings…. He flew, he fell, and he landed. We all fell that day. He landed on his feet. I saw him today. It’s the closest they’ve come. I was able to elude him – I can’t see them. Not yet. But I think I might want to someday. They’re close – I’d better pack up. Hydra is dwindling – we’re bound to run into each other. I wish they would leave it for me. It’s not his damn fight. Not that that ever stopped him before. //
I’m not sure I deserve the gifts my recent memory discoveries have been giving me. They’re all tied to that punk. I dream them. I tune out and they come to me. I’d welcome nightmares. I know I deserve those. //
I read constantly when I’m not rooting out hydra scum. I read that therapy can help. I don’t know about that. Where I’m from, you keep your shit to yourself… but, the reading has been helping. Writing this crap down has been helping. If the book is right? Odd jobs to keep a roof over my head and keep me fed won’t support some “shrink”. I don’t know if I like that term. My head’s been messed with enough – letting – inviting someone in? What could be worse? That. That is what is worse. I never put it in words before but here goes: I felt the ice. It tore into me. I was listening to some music – what I don’t know – with my headphones when the sensation overtook me. I tore them out so that the zap wouldn’t get in my brain again. The clamping sensation didn’t stop. I froze and fell. It was cryo all over, wipe and freeze. I panicked because I thought I’d escaped. I was set free by the falling sunshine. I was on my way to me and I was captured again. Yet after the freeze stopped, there I was on my knees in the middle of the sidewalk. Headphones at my feet; the terror had been real; I was bound, in pain and bracing for hell and then I was weeping and exhausted in a puddle alone. I made a call. It wasn’t suicide prevention I needed but that was the number on the pole. I told them, “I’m not trying to kill myself, I really ain’t. I’m a veteran” I heard my voice croak. It was a crying man’s voice “I need help”. I got a number. I dialed. You know who was on the other end of the line? The bird-man. I almost hung up when I placed his voice in the right memory. //
I looked at this shit so far. “Sam” had asked if I reread anything I’d written down. Honestly I hadn’t… until now. I just did. I have to be honest now. Sunshine is Steve. I do know this. It just feels less painful to avoid his name. Bird-man is Sam. I also fully understand this but I think it’s just funnier. He doesn’t know who he’s talking to. He just thinks I’m some traumatized vet, which I am, so my phone therapy isn’t being jeopardized at all by lies. I tell the truth as I’m ready to do so, with his permission, I might add. Do I feel guilty? No. I’ve worse things assigned to that emotion.