There is a familiarity in writing to you like this. Secret, scattered thoughts on paper, pretending I am speaking to you. I think I once confessed many secrets to you, before burning every secret to ash.

I think this letter, I will keep. It seems stupid to destroy memories, after fighting so hard to regain them and then fighting again to keep them.

These days, writing thoughts down is the only way they remain permanent. I… forget. Easily. It is difficult to follow a thought to completion; harder to recall an idea once it has been thought. Research and recall indicate that this is due to repeated electroshock and brainwashing. HYDRA did not want a thinking weapon. But something kept repairing thought and memory, almost as soon as it could be destroyed.

It is… hard, without the Chair. There was pain, but also… clarity. I miss that. The silence in my head, after a wipe. It was simple, then, to get through a mission. Now I feel… crowded. There are too many shards of thought in my head, too many distracting whispers and images. I do not know if I can trust any of them. I do not know how many are real, how many are gifts from HYDRA.

I write them all down. I hope to eventually track down enough research to be able to distinguish what is real.

I remember you. I know your name, your code name. I researched you: in libraries, in museums, online. Most of it is clearly propaganda; much is speculation and assumption. Some of it sparks more images, things I cannot easily identify as true – the light of a campfire on your face, watching your hands sketch a map and wishing you were drawing something else, seeing a wrinkle between your brows and wanting to smooth it away.

Thinking of you makes my chest hurt. An ache, as though I had been kicked in the sternum, though no one is around to touch me. Something twists and constricts beneath my ribcage, even though I am not injured or impaired.

I should be concerned by this; an ache like this could indicate a mission-endangering injury that must be attended immediately before returning to the field. But the same shards of thought that give me the ache tell me that this is a pain I was once very familiar with. It is not an injury, and it will pass.

I dream of you, Steve Rogers. When I manage to sleep, I dream. Often I see the people I have killed; sometimes I dream of needles, restraints, the Chair, training. But sometimes, I dream of you. I do not know if these dreams are memories. Are dreams ever real? But I dream of you, and sometimes the nightmares cease.

I dream of sitting with you on the precipice of a canyon. The air is warm and dry, and we sit beside a campfire. There are stars in the sky, and we throw pebbles into the canyon, counting the seconds until we hear a faint plop as the stones hit the river.

Research indicates that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were born and lived in New York. There are no canyons in New York. Is this a planted suggestion from HYDRA? Why would they want me to sit and throw rocks down a canyon with you? If ever I am able to see you again, perhaps we should not be near any canyons.

I do not know why I persist in writing to you like this. The shards of memory that may be my former self indicate that you never received any of the letters I may have written. They were all burned upon completion. I do not remember the purpose of this ritual. What secrets could my former self possibly have that were unsafe for you to see?

Research indicates that James Buchanan Barnes was Catholic. The Papists have a tradition of Confession; a belief that telling one's sins to a priest somehow grants forgiveneness for wrongs committed. This is clearly the naïve hope of imbeciles, as there is no greater force in the universe who cares for the actions of men.

But I would confess to you anyways, Steve Rogers.

I have killed. I do not know how many people, but I know my hands will never be clean of blood.

I have lied. I have cheated. I have held hatred in my heart. I have served the worst kind of evil.

I do not remember who I am.

There are shards in my head. Slivers of memories, images that may be truth or lie. I do not know which is which.

There is something in me that wants to pick and choose what I want to be truth, even if it is fiction. I think this force wants to turn me into something better than what I am. This force tries to group shards together, to form them into a shape that may be James Barnes.

I think you are the glue holding the shards together.

Author's Note: This letter exists because of Sebastian Stan and the goddamn Backpack of Sadness.

We're now post-Avengers 2: WTF Did You Just Do [I accept no other title]. While Steve is training the New Avengers at the upstate compound, Bucky is probably somewhere in Eastern Europe, keeping his head down [and trying to get his head on straight].