Author's Note: This entire fic was written in one long wine-filled night. I decided to edit and rewrite it as little as possible - unusual for me, but for this story I feel it's important to present it to you more or less exactly as it poured out of me, with as little commentary as I can manage [we'll see how I do with that; long-time readers know how verbose I am].

Since FFN refuses to adopt AO3's tag system, I'll post chapter-specific trigger/squick warnings as they become relevant.

My name is Bucky Barnes and I am eight years old.

Bucky I don't think you can use nicknames on real contracts

Ugh but Steeeeeve

No Buck, we gotta do this right or it ain't legal

Fine

My name is James Buchanan Barnes and I am eight years old.

My name is Steven Grant Rogers and I am almost eight years old.

That ain't right Stevie you gotta use your real age

Almost eight is my real age, Buck!

Not on official stuff! Or it ain't legal!

You are such a jerk.

My name is Steven Grant Rogers and I am seven years old and Bucky is a big fat jerk

And we promise to always be best friends till the end of the line

Bucky you can't use train conductor talk on official stuff

I can when I'm gonna be a train conductor

I don't think that's how it works

Shut up and sign the contract, punk

Jerk

James Buchanan Barnes

Steven Grant Rogers

Barnes, James B. Letter to Steven G. Rogers. 26 April 1925. MS. Rebecca Barnes Proctor Papers. Smithsonian Museum Archives, Washington, D.C.

Note from Rebecca Barnes Proctor: Steve and Bucky were sent to the principal's office for failing to pay attention in class. When he asked them to explain themselves, Bucky said they were in the middle of something important, and presented their friendship contract as proof. Bucky gave the contract to our mother for safe keeping, because as he said, "Ain't no scrap of paper that's safe around Stevie. He'll doodle all over it if he gets half a chance, and a contract ain't proper and legal if it's got half of Brooklyn drawn on it."

Here we may observe the beginnings of the friendship that would define Rogers' and Barnes' later exploits. Steve Rogers met Bucky Barnes at St. Ann Church in Brooklyn, where they both served as altar boys. They became fast friends, as evidenced by the "friendship contract" to the left; a friendship that would famously last until both men lost their lives at the end of the second World War.

Note the use of "till the end of the line," a phrase which reappears in later letters sent while Barnes was deployed. Though few of these letters have survived [most were lost when Barnes was captured by German forces in Italy; corresponding letters in Rogers' possession were claimed by Howard Stark after Rogers' death and most have not been released to the public], the reoccurring use of the phrase is indicative of what we must assume was a deeply meaningful promise to both men.