3 Journal
Extra chapter because these are just so short. -BB
Steve felt a little better about everything now that Hydra was down. He could feel everyone relax, just in the slightest of ways, and there seemed to be less tension even in the very air. And now, Steve thought, Bucky doesn't have anything to be scared of ever again; no one to hunt him or hurt him or drag him out of his bed at night. And he felt like it made up, just a little bit, for the way Steve let him down years ago on that train, even though he scolded himself viciously after thinking it and told himself that it absolutely did not.
Bucky's journal sat in Steve's bedroom, on the table beside his bed, and Steve kept telling himself he was going to get up the courage to open the cover again and see the black, but so far, it had gone untouched since the first night he read from it in Russia and it's words had sent a deep fear through him. The truth was, Steve still felt a little bad holding it, despite the fact that Bucky wanted him to read it and that he had given it to him. Steve still looked down at it in his hands, glanced at it on the table across the room, and remembered how personal it was to Bucky. It was so private. Steve looked at it and often found himself remembering standing across from Bucky, holding it out to him, and then seeing the desperate venom in Bucky's eyes as he snatched it back. It had never been something that Bucky even wanted Steve touching, but then he was writing in it in front of him, then teaching him Russian out of it, and then putting it in his bag and saying nothing and letting Steve just… have it.
And Steve understood, he did, because he had faced death so many times and had done the same thing to Bucky. During Steve's sicker days, Bucky had graciously accepted pages of art and beloved books and even Steve's shoes once (the shoes being just until Steve got better and asked for them back) because Steve remembered how desperately he wanted to leave something behind. How desperately he wanted to give Bucky something to remember him by. So when Bucky handed him that book, Steve didn't argue, even though he felt awash with protestations. Instead, he just felt grateful that Bucky trusted him with this thing, wanted to share with him. As unworthy as he felt, he was too touched in the moment to hate himself.
But despite all this, or else because of it, Steve had been avoiding the journal. He didn't look at it, or think about it, and heaven forbid he read from it. So when he looked at it that day, the urge to open the cover again took him by surprise. Maybe it was curiosity, or some morbid masochism, or even just the fact that he knew he owed it to Bucky, Steve sat down on the edge of his bed and grabbed the journal and opened it.
The first few pages were the same black mess that Steve had witnessed earlier. He could barely read through some of it, and he recognized cyrillic in some places, but he squinted and tried to pick out what he could. And of course, a lot of it was simply incomprehensible. The words ran together and there weren't a lot of complete sentences, just thoughts and scrambled emotions, but Steve read what he could.
A lot of it talked about him. He saw his name everywhere, written neatly or scribbled out or in block letters or smudged so bad that he really couldn't quite tell.
saw steve at starks place and went back to his apartment with him, Bucky wrote. he was gonna show me his art and it hurt i could feel everything crushing -and then garbled Russian that Steve couldn't read well enough to understand- i just feel like i owe it to him owe him this memory i but im not i don't have enough to give him so i just left.
Steve didn't know how to feel. He set the book back down on the table and leaned forward to scrub his face with his hands and remind himself that they were all okay now, everything was okay. And Bucky had his memories and he was slowly connecting to them again and he was okay and he'd promised Steve that he wouldn't cut him out and Steve needed that promise as much as Bucky did. Especially now.