2. Blue
Dear Bucky,
Blue used to be my favorite color. I had that blanket my grandmother had crocheted out of whatever scraps of blue yarn she could find. I wonder if that was still on my bed when I enlisted in Project Rebirth. I wonder what happened to the old place, if someone found the key I kept hidden under the brick and went in looking for Captain America memorabilia to auction off. Yeah, I know it was a lousy hiding place, but it lasted a long time, right?
My suit was mostly blue, too. I was wearing it when I took down the Valkyrie, but I wasn't wearing it when I woke up. So of course thinking about that makes my cheeks turn red, because who undressed me? How did they get it off? Was I frozen solid? Yes, typical Steve awkwardness. Some things never change. I'll let you fill in the details.
You know, I liked the blue of the suit. It was just right. Red would have been too bright, too bold, things that I was not. Red would have been too violent. I always said I didn't want to kill anyone, just take the bullies down a few pegs. White would have been too hard to keep clean. Your mother used to get after me if I had a spot on my shirt after dinner. She'd loan me one of your younger brother's shirts-yes, I know, laugh it up, Robert's shirts used to fit me- and wash mine. Robert is a grandfather now, by the way. He named one of his kids James. James Steven Barnes is a lawyer in Jersey. Sorry, I know, Jersey. I told you the world was messed up.
And then you had that blue coat. All the other guys were content with olive drab or brown. Not you. Even as the sharpshooter of the lot, you had to wear that blue coat and stand out. How Hydra never seemed to spot you was a mystery, but then again, by the time we were out on our Commandos missions, the way you could move and fight was… it's hard to explain. Sometimes even if they saw you, you could take a guy out before I could even warn you.
Hydra's weapons had that blue energy glow. I remember that glow reflected in your eyes the first time you fired one of those guns and blew a guy's head away. Well okay, his whole torso. And the legs were just twitching? Yeah, pretty awful even now, and I've seen some stuff. There was the blue blast of light that tore open the side of the train, and left you in your blue coat dangling off the side of a mountain, and then it was just a disappearing speck of blue as you fell.
The sky was blue the day I took down the Valkyrie. It was fitting, since the Valkyries brought warriors to Valhalla after a glorious battle, right? It wasn't really a glorious battle though. Schmidt was too ambitious, and in one giant blue flash he disintegrated into nothing, and the Tesseract fell into the blue ocean miles below. Maybe that's why I survived. Because I didn't fight the glorious last battle.
I'm not so sure I'm very fond of the color anymore.
They found the Tesseract, you know.
Stark did, seventy years ago when they were looking for me. That stings, because Stark was willing to search the whole ocean to find me (and found the Tesseract in the process), but no one could be bothered to search a very particular stretch of mountain chasm in the Alps?
Director Fury asked me if there was anything SHIELD should know about the Tesseract, because apparently some enemy has it now. Not Hydra, not the Nazis… I don't even know who our enemies are anymore. Fury didn't tell me much. Just that I'd be surprised by all that's going on. He even bet me ten bucks. After all I've seen? I think I'll be taking his money.
The Tesseract is pure power, and nothing is more enticing to humans as power: finding it, harnessing it, wielding it, and discovering too late that it's more than you can handle.
I told Fury they should have left it in the ocean.
A little late for that bit of advice, but then again I've always been too late, haven't I.
I don't really like blue very much anymore, but if it gets the Tesseract out of the hands of another power-crazed individual before he can end the world, well… isn't that what I was made for? I'll wear the uniform again. I'll become Captain America again. To tell the truth, at this point I don't know how to be anything else.
Orange was always a nice color,
Steve