Content warnings: PTSD, depression, torture, suicidal thoughts, internalized homophobia, referenced suicide, antisemitism, minor Bucky Barnes/OFC
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a perfect soldier
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"Together we understood what terror was: you're not human anymore. You're a shadow. You slip out of your own skin, like molting, shedding your own history and your own future, leaving behind everything you ever were or wanted to believe in. You know you're about to die. And it's not a movie and you aren't a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait."
- Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried -
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PRELUDE: the future
This is the truest lie he'll ever tell: there's always time to start over.
{1945 - 2014}
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There are letters in Sergeant Barnes's desk, locked out of sight. No one finds them until after the Valkyrie falls, taking Steve into the northern Atlantic with her. When Peggy uncovers the letters, she almost cries, because no one lines up notes in this way unless they never intend to come home. She personally delivers each one to the Howling Commandos and the sergeant's family.
Mrs. Barnes takes the letter with steady hands, but her smile trembles when she says, "He always was so much like his father. George was a soldier too, you know."
The letter to Steve she can't bear to open, and besides, it isn't hers to read anyway.
So Peggy tucks it away in a folder, right behind the 1A stamp that made a great man into a hero. Boxes it up and hides it away on an obscure, dusty shelf in the basement. If anyone ever disturbs that file, it won't be for a long, long time.
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Phil Coulson has been an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for exactly two weeks when he asks Director Fury for permission to search the old S.S.R. archives.
"Why?" Fury asks. "That shit's a mess. Hasn't been organized in fifty years, and half of it's water damaged."
"Water damaged?"
Fury says, "Don't ask," in a tone that makes Phil stand up straighter.
"Um, yes, sir."
Fury looks at him expectantly, then says, voice slow and careful, like he's speaking to a particularly stupid child, "You didn't answer my question, agent. What are you planning to look for in the archives?"
It takes all of Phil's willpower not to look away when he says, "I'm a fan of Captain America, sir. I was hoping to find his original S.S.R. file."
"A fan." Fury's frown is so disdainful that Phil blushes, but he refuses to show any shame. So what if he owns Cap trading cards? There's nobody better to look up to than Steve Rogers.
"I understand if it wouldn't be appropriate to give me clearance, sir." Phil shrugs, smiles, and says, "I just thought I'd ask."
Fury gives him a considering look. "Go ahead, but if you find that file, bring it straight to me. It might be useful to have."
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Two years after Nick gives Coulson permission to search the archives, he shows up at the top floor of the Triskelion carrying a battered old box that smells like mildew.
"What the hell is that, and what is it doing in my office?"
Coulson grins, wider and happier than any self-respecting agent ought to smile in front of their director, and says, "I found it, sir. Captain Rogers's file."
Nick wishes he still had two good eyes so he could glare at Coulson with both of them. "You've been looking for that file for two years."
"Yes, sir," Coulson says brightly. "In my defense, the archives are huge and in as poor condition as you said they would be."
Nick sighs, waves at the box, and asks, "Well did you at least find anything good in there?"
"I did, sir. I never would've guessed it, but apparently Captain Rogers was rejected by the Army six times from '41 to '43, and looking at the full list of his ailments, I can see why. Did you know that he was color blind before the serum? That's one you don't learn in history class—"
Nick stands up, walks around his desk, and takes the file out of Coulson's hands. "That'll be all, agent."
Coulson's shoulders square, and in a moment he's back to the calm professionalism that Nick has learned to expect from him. "There's one other thing, sir. A letter, addressed to Captain Rogers. It's still sealed, so I imagine that whoever put it there felt that it should be saved for the captain's eyes alone."
Nick dismisses Coulson, takes the letter from its hiding place, and opens it.
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"Read this."
Natasha looks up at Nick, trying to evaluate his expression, but all she sees is the same implacable, harried confidence that defined his directorship of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Then she reads the name on the front of the yellowed envelope and asks, "What is it?"
"A letter to Cap from Sergeant Barnes, dated January 20, 1945." Nick's smile is grim. "A suicide note."
Not much surprises Natasha, but this does. Still, she makes sure not to show it. "And you're giving it to me. Why?"
Nick nods at the letter, then says, "I want you to decide whether or not Cap should have it. Now that the truth about the Winter Soldier is out, there are things he'll want to know. If you think he can handle it."
Natasha pulls the letter out of its tender, time-worn envelope, opens it and reads the whole thing in less than a minute. It takes longer, much longer, before she says, "Well. That's not what I was expecting."
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The day after he's released from the hospital, Natasha gives Steve a faded file folder, ragged around the edges, and says, "There's something you need to see."
Inside his S.S.R. file, Steve finds a letter with his name on it, written in Bucky's juvenile scrawl. Forever frozen in a seventh grader's awkward hand, thanks to the education he didn't get to finish.
It starts with You did everything you could and ends with I've always loved you, same as you loved me. Steve reads the letter over and over, too starved to care that he's swallowing lies.
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