Chapter 2

The last entry was dated July 30, 2015. The day Steve died. And it wasn't a normal diary entry either. It was a letter.

Bucky,

If you're reading this, it probably means I'm dead – otherwise I would have destroyed this letter after we finished with the whole Thanos mess.

I'm writing this in case I don't survive today. Maybe everything will work out, but maybe it won't. And if it doesn't, I don't want to leave you without anything to help you get through whatever comes next.

I drew a shaky breath. Steve had known, or at least been prepared for, the possibility of his death that day. I had always known it was a possibility – it was for everyone who went into battle – but I hadn't been anywhere near prepared for it.

I forced myself to refocus and keep reading.

First off, I'm sorry. For not saving you from HYDRA and all the horror you went through. For not being here now. I want you to know that I would never leave you if there was any possible way I could avoid it. When I told you I was with you till the end of the line, I meant it. And I'm sorry I've failed you.

Tears blurred my vision, turning the words on the page into meaningless smudges. I swiped them away with the back of my hand. I wished Steve knew I didn't blame him for any of it, that what had happened to me wasn't his fault. It was so like him to blame himself for things he couldn't possibly fix or avoid.

For a moment my thoughts turned to the version of Steve who had pointed me to this letter, but had also left both me and my double in his reality – albeit with both of our blessings. I wondered if my Steve would have traveled back in time to be with Peggy if he'd had the chance, leaving me to my own devices.

Somehow I doubted it. For us, the end of the line had been death, and I chose to believe it always would have been, one way or another.

After I came out of the ice, for a long time I didn't want to make new friends or do new things because I was still longing for the ones I didn't have anymore. I didn't think I could truly live in a world where everything had changed and everyone I'd known was gone. And I didn't want to … forget, I guess, by moving on as if the past didn't matter anymore.

I knew that feeling. I hadn't spent the entirety of my time under HYDRA on ice, but I hadn't exactly integrated into the modern world over that time either. I was proficient with modern weapons and transport and communication devices, but little else about the twenty-first century was familiar to me.

Steve had been my only link between what I'd come from and where I'd ended up, the only familiar face in a sea of new ones.

It took an alien invasion to get my head back in the game, to get me interested in life once again, the letter continued. I realized that even though I wasn't fighting beside the same men and women, there were still battles worth fighting and people worth fighting them with – people worth protecting and loving and caring for. I found a new family in the Avengers, and I realized that they weren't a substitute for you and Peggy and Howard and everyone else.

My family didn't get replaced, it grew.

And that's okay.

It's not a crime to move on, to find new friends and enjoy life even though the people you cared about the most aren't around anymore. If anything, that's what I believe the people we lose want the most for us: Happiness.

I want you to be happy, Buck. I want you to be okay and to live the life you've missed out on for so long, and I want you to make friends with people who will care about you as much as I do.

I had to stop reading again, biting my lip against a sob. What Steve wanted was an impossibility. Happiness was all but a foreign concept to the version of me that had emerged out of the dust of the battle against Thanos. Tonight I had experienced it briefly once more, but it had faded into nothingness with Steve's departure.

I turned back to the letter with a heavy weight in my chest, and found myself reading Steve's answer to my unspoken doubt.

But that doesn't mean you have to be okay with everything that's happened to you. It doesn't mean that as soon as you've read this you need to stop grieving and just get over it and move on. It's okay to hurt, to cry, to be broken and admit you're not strong enough to simply tough your way through every trial life throws your way. Even super-soldiers have limits. I've hit mine more than a few times, and you will too. That's alright. It's part of life.

I know you're hurting right now, but I want you to know that my death isn't your fault. Don't blame yourself for what happened; don't waste your time on what ifs. I knew what I was signing up for when I joined the Army, and I'd like to think I know what I'm doing now. Don't let guilt for events you had no control over destroy you.

Regardless of what the world says, you are innocent.

Please remember that.

Tears fell freely as I continued to read, careful to avoid wetting the diary's pages with them. Steve was asking so much – for me to put aside the guilt of my Winter Soldier years and more – but he was giving just as much, in forgiveness, in encouragement – offering me strength that superseded the reality of his death.

There's a question I asked myself a lot when I lost you in '45 and when I came out of the ice: Why should I keep living? At those times, there didn't seem to be a reason to go on. But I found the answer in fighting HYDRA and in joining the Avengers: Because there are still battles to be fought. Knowing that I still had a responsibility and a duty to stand up and protect those who couldn't stand up for themselves – that was the reason I could carry on.

Find the reason for carrying on, Bucky. Please.

It won't be easy, but there's a reason you're still alive. You have something more than brokenness to offer the world, even if you don't believe it yet. You're more than the skills HYDRA taught you and the serum in your veins.

You're going to have bad days. But you're going to have good ones too. I can't be with you for either anymore, but I know you're gonna make it through this, Buck. You're a survivor, a fighter. HYDRA couldn't keep you from finding your way back to the light, and whatever fear or guilt or grief that you're dealing with now won't either.

I trust you, and I know that someday you're going to be okay.

Maybe not right now. Maybe not tomorrow. But you will be.

I know you will.

- Steve

I set down the diary with shaking hands.

Why, Steve? I wanted to ask. Why did he have such confidence I was gonna be okay – after everything he'd seen of me since I fell in '45? Didn't he understand?

Or did he understand and believe anyway? Hoping because that's what he always did no matter how dark things got. Did he see something in me I was missing?

I somehow drew a breath through the tightness of my throat and gripped the diary hard, its weight somehow grounding me, steading my thoughts and emotions.

Steve had believed in me. He had seen me at my worst and never given up on me. If he wasn't giving up, then neither should I.

"Okay, pal," I whispered to the book in my hands. "I'll try."