AN - Just some of the Captain's thoughts.
Suggested Song: The Last Goodbye - Billy Boyd
No one ever noticed how hard it was to keep going. They noticed his faults, his failures, yes. Did they notice his struggle to keep up with technology? Of course. They knew how hard it was to be a superhero and live their own lives as well. They didn't know how hard it was to be a leader and live your own life. They also didn't know how hard it was to not know how to lead your own life away from the mask, and Steve didn't know how to put the mask behind him. Sometimes, he was certain that Steve Rogers had actually died in the ice, leaving nothing except Captain America behind. To be no one to the world if not Captain America because Captain America is all anyone ever wants
The worst part? That's not what made it hard to keep going.
What made it hard to keep going, was the ghosts across his memories. He always had someone's face hovering just behind his eyelids nowadays, just waiting for the times when he collapses from exhaustion - for he has long since given up on trying to sleep by choice - and
when he does finally slip, he leaves the land of the living behind him, and he sees all of them.
Dum Dum, Gabe, Jim, Montgomery, Jacques, and Bucky. The brother that he had always wanted. Bucky had saved his life more times than he could count, and when it really mattered, he couldn't repay the favor.
But now, now they had found him. Alive, hardly aged. Under Hydra's control? Yes, at first. But now? Now Bucky had saved his life. Again. Bucky and Steve had both fallen, 70 years apart, yes, but still. When Steve fell, Bucky was brainwashed, and only barely recognized him.
The one thing that made it the hardest to sleep since they had found Bucky? The one thing that made it so hard to continue leading? The one thing that repeated over and over in his head like some sick mantra, making sleeping, leading, and overall living difficult?
When Steve fell, Bucky jumped after him.