Chapter 18: Insight

Dear Bucky,

I've tried to start this letter so many times but I can't seem to get it right. I keep crossing out what I wrote and starting over. I keep looking over my shoulder. I'm not writing this on the internet; rather, a little notebook I can carry with me that's more of a journal, since you'll never read any of this. Did you know people keep journals on the internet? It feels like nothing is hidden anymore. Nothing is private, and even everything we want to keep that way is somehow exposed, a raw nerve to poke and prod at.

I've said before I don't know what to make of Fury, and that I'm always a little suspicious of Natasha, regardless of how decent she can be. When she's out of the field she's almost a friend. When she's in the field, she's almost an enemy. I have a team, and it feels like Fury pits us against one another. At least I have Rumlow for backup. This time Natasha nearly got us all killed. It should have been a simple rescue; in reality I was the distraction so she could proceed with her own mission-that Fury gave her.

Fury calls it compartmentalizing. But I can kind of see where Tony Stark was going when he said he had to have all the variables. I can't lead and deploy a team of we're not really a team, just a group of people who happen to be going to the same place on the same quinjet. That's something Fury doesn't quite understand.

Fury showed me some concerning stuff yesterday when I called him out on it. He calls it Project Insight. What SHIELD is proposing could bring about world peace, he says. It's being proactive, he says. I think about fighting in the war, and all of the reactive things we had to do, and what could have been different if we'd been able to take out Hitler and Schmidt the moment we knew they'd be a threat. I suppose I'd never have become Captain America. I probably would have died of TB or been crippled by polio or something (which has been eradicated, can you believe that?). You'd still be alive. It's strange to think of what could have been if we'd stopped them before they even got started.

I went to visit with Peggy. She always had a way of seeing the world that was different, out of the box and critical, but not cynical. I kind of hoped she could give me some insight into things. She was one of the people who helped me realize I was more than just the dancing monkey in tights. She defied Philips for me; she got Stark to help me rescue you. She knew what it was like to have everyone tell you "No, you can't" and then go ahead and do it anyway. I'm not quite sure where I fit in right now. I was a soldier. I followed orders because I knew the end goal. Now I don't know the end goal, and I'm not sure I want to; but I don't like the orders either, and I'm not sure if it's worth being insubordinate.

Peggy's advice was… not as comforting as I'd have liked, but then again she lived through and saw more than I have. "Sometimes the best we can do is start over." I know she did that, after the war was over. And while it wasn't what I wanted to hear, she had a point. Maybe I'm trying to keep going the way I was, when I have to accept that things are too different to keep going. I have to start over.

But I'm stuck in a rut that I can't come out of. Heck, I even look the same, and I think that confuses Peggy. I never changed; she did, and the world did, and I was frozen for seventy years. Even the snow and ice shifted around the Valkyrie, but I stayed the same. When I visit her now she looks at me and while she's lucid for the start of our visit, it's not long before we're emotionally back in the forties once more.

Usually I go home after, or work out or run or ride my motorcycle aimlessly: things that let me be alone with myself and think about it all.

This time I think I needed something different, so I took Sam Wilson up on his offer and headed down to the VA. His meeting was in session already, and some of the vets were talking about coping with being back in the world. I researched the wars that happened while I was under and Bucky… our fathers saw some terrible things. We saw some horrible things, especially with Hydra involved. I know it was naive to think that ours was the war to end all wars, but the wars Sam's generation are fighting, and coming back from (if they're lucky) are downright horrific.

"We all come back with baggage," Sam told them. He didn't look at me, but his words definitely hit home. "It's up to us if that's a giant suitcase or a little man purse," he added with a grin that made people chuckle, me included. I added 'man purse' to my notebook for future research.

Sam talked with me for a bit. He treats me normally, and is one of the only people who acknowledges that I am indeed a US Veteran, who's fought in overseas combat. He knows, unlike other people, what that can do to a person. "The number of people giving me orders has dropped to… none," he told me with a smile. But he also told me about losing his best friend in the middle of combat.

Sam's probably been to the Smithsonian exhibit (I went again, by myself this time, and took it all in). He's probably read about me in history books, or at least on the internet (make note to ask him what he's read about me on the internet. Or… maybe not!). He probably knows about how I lost you. But he didn't ask. And I didn't say anything, and he never mentioned it or pried. "It takes time for us to open our bags," he said. "Some people unpack everything soon as they're done. Others keep those bags packed and locked away and get freaked out if they think people are going to try to unpack it for them," he told me with a shrug. "I just help people realize what sorts of bags they're carrying or storing, and help them decide how they're going to deal with it."

I think I may need to start coming down to the VA more often. I realized I haven't stopped fighting. I went down into the ice fighting. I came out and had to start fighting. And I haven't really stopped since. Maybe it's time to take a break. Take a breath. Unpack the bags, and start to live again.

Pensive,

Steve