Hello friends! I hope you're all doing well! :D There is a little bit of slashy material in this chapter; nothing remarkable other than a rather belated realization. It can also be viewed in the context of bromance so there's that. Hope you all enjoy! :D


He decides to leave three days later. Not just leave the island but leave the city, the state, the country. He can't stay here, not anymore. He needs to disappear again, get away from Steve and the city and everything else he'd tried to destroy while Hydra was still in operation. He knows Steve will keep looking for him, he'll never give up now that he knows he's alive, and that's the problem. The worst thing that could happen is Steve actually finds him and tries to get him to come back because if that happens he might actually do it.

He can't risk that though; he needs to be alone because alone is the only thing that's safe. He can't hurt anyone if he's alone and God knows he doesn't deserve anyone kind in his life. He's a murderer, a weapon forged of bone and metal. He doesn't deserve someone like Steve, self-sacrificing and stubborn as he is, killing himself trying to help him. Isolation is the best solution, a solitary existence for a man who isn't real.

His entire life, what little of it he knows, fits inside a single backpack. He doesn't have much, a few shirts and an extra pair of jeans, and a collections of notebooks. The notebooks are the most important things he has and he keeps opening the backpack and peeking inside like he's afraid they'll disappear the second he's not looking at them. They contain his memories, scrambled and disjointed though they may be, and he clings to them like a lifeline.

He's not sure what makes him start writing in them, what drove him to put pen to paper. Maybe it was a way for him to get the memories he couldn't make sense of out in the open, putting them on paper so he could decipher them at a later date. He didn't feel as confused when he did it that way, not so overwhelmed and lost when it came to the memories he should remember but didn't. So he wrote them down instead and they became a window into a life he struggled to accept was his own at some point.

The first notebook was given to him for free. There was some kind of promotion in front of an office building one afternoon and one of the all too eager and excited employees shoved the notebook into his hand along with a business card and a free pen. He took it and stared at the empty pages for a long time, wondering what he could possibly do with it. The pen felt heavy in his hand. He doesn't remember doing it, doesn't recall lifting the pen and writing the words, but there on the top of the first page, written in messy, slightly jerky letters were the words My name is…

He paused after that, not sure how to complete the sentence. He didn't have a name, at least not one he was comfortably attached to enough to write down. Anna had called him James and that was fine but it felt odd for some reason; too correct and formal like a name he had but never used. Steve had called him something else: Bucky. That name felt a bit more familiar but still foreign like he wasn't sure if he should actually claim it or not. The name referred to him but it didn't feel like his own. The Bucky Steve knew was dead, had died a long time ago; it felt awkward to claim the name under those circumstances.

He couldn't decide what to write so he left the page blank and tucked the notebook in his jacket. He opened it the next morning and wrote Bucky at the end of the sentence and for some reason it felt right.

He spent the next several days filling every available page with scrawls and scribbles of memory, fragments of a life he was struggling to make sense of. Some of the entries were short, a few words or a sentence at best.

I had a sister named Rachel.

I lost my first tooth when I was six.

I hate coconut.

Others were longer and more detailed from a memory that was a little more vivid. It still felt odd writing it down, like a half-truth that may or may not become reality once it was put on paper.

My mother was a second grade teacher at Oliver H. Perry Elementary school. She liked teaching math and science.

I had a job unloading crates at the harbor during the summer of 1941. My boss was named Frank Malone. He had three fingers on his right hand from an accident when he was twelve.

My first apartment was in a boarding house in Greenpoint. It was a single room with a broken window and there was a grocery store across the street.

Eventually the first notebook is completely filled, every inch of paper covered in ink and pencil scrawl. It made him feel more grounded, having his jumbled thoughts and memories written down and tangible in front of him. True, some of the entries were crossed out and erased, some scribbled through when realized it was wrong or he was confusing it with something else. But having them down on paper, no matter how sporadic and disjointed they seemed to be, it helped him feel like he was more in control of his life.

The second notebook came much like the first, given to him for free on the street in front of a college campus. He started writing in it almost immediately, filling up the pages just like he did with the first one. This one is slightly different than the first, though. While the first one was filled with random thoughts and memories, scraps of information that might eventually come together in the end, the second notebook was filled with everything he knew about Steve Rogers.

It started off simply enough, the first few pages filled with everything he read at the Smithsonian and the sundry other sources he consulted regarding the Captain. He wrote down where he was born, wrote about his childhood and where he grew up. He wrote about him joining the army, becoming the leader of the Howling Commandos, sacrificing himself at the end of the war. He filled pages with how he was found, how he became an Avenger, how he exposed Hydra's corruption of S.H.I.E.L.D.

He wrote down everything the general public knew about Steve Rogers, filling the first half of the notebook in less than a day. The second half was not public knowledge; the second half was filled with things he remembered about Steve, the personal, more intimate memories that couldn't be found scrawled on the walls of a museum.

Steve's favorite color is green.

Steve likes apples.

Steve stuffed his shoes with newspaper so they would fit.

Steve is double-jointed in his left wrist.

Steve broke his ankle in the second grade.

Steve got accepted into art school but couldn't afford to go.

Steve's mother was a nurse.

Steve has a mean left hook.

Just like the first notebook, some of the entries were longer and more detailed but unlike the first notebook, there were more of them when it came to Steve. His own life was still hazy and blurry but he knew Steve. His memories of Steve were clearer than anything else, vivid and sharp like pictures on a page instead of words. He filled up pages upon pages with memories of the Captain, every minute detail finding its way onto the page.

Steve has an x-shaped scar on his right hip from tripping in the park and landing on a stick.

Steve sold charcoal sketches at a carnival one year to buy his mother a birthday present.

Steve has flecks of green in his eyes. You can only see it when the lighting is right.

Steve broke a rib when he get in a fight against Ricky Salas.

Steve is a stealth cuddler at night; he also generates heat like a furnace.

Steve smells like clover and cinnamon.

He keeps a few photographs tucked inside the notebook, glossy pages from magazines and enlarged polaroids from local libraries. He stares at them for a long time, willing the memories to keep coming if only to remember Steve. He feels that even if he remembers nothing else from his life, as long as he remembers Steve that would be okay.

Steve is my friend.

The decision to leave is almost physically painful. For every one reason he can think of to stay (there aren't many) there are roughly ten others compelling him to leave. The biggest conflict is Steve himself. He wants to stay because of Steve but he also wants to get as far away from him as humanly possible at the same time. He knows leaving is the right decision but the idea twists like a knife in his gut.

He distracts himself from these warring thoughts by collecting the money he needs to leave in the first place. It takes a while but it's not impossible. A few of his former employer's bank accounts are still open and he knows enough about them to remember their information. Stealing the money isn't the hard part; collecting it is another story. Someone collecting a couple of fistfuls of cash from an ATM is enough to draw suspicion and he has to be wary to not show his face on camera for fear of being recognized. It's a slow process that takes about a day and half but eventually he has the money he needs.

With the money in hand the only thing left to do is get out of the city. He stands outside of Steve's apartment for twenty minutes that morning, well before daylight when all the sidewalks were still empty. He stares up at the darkened window, silently memorizing the pattern of the curtains. He unzips the flap of the backpack and pulls out one of notebooks, flipping it open to half-filled page toward the back. There's a pen already tucked between the pages, holding the place for his next entry. He uncaps it deftly and scribbles a single line onto the page.

I love Steve Rogers. That's why I'm leaving.

He flips the notebook closed again and slips it back into the backpack, zipping it up and tightening the straps over his shoulders. His whole life exists in one backpack filled with notebooks and photographs and memories of a man in red, white, and blue. He turns and walks in the opposite direction, away from Steve's apartment, away from Steve's block, away from Steve.


Thanks for reading guys! :D