Chapter 3: Paper Trail
He starts writing letters. Doesn't post them, but they're like…addendums to his journal. His journal is his—to him, for him, by him. The letters are, at first, to Steve. But he starts branching out soon enough. He looks up the Commandos' kids while asking forgiveness from his friends' souls for being a little creepy. Gets their addresses, and writes.
The memories come easier when they're going straight from brain to pen to page. Turns out he's full of stories about his once brothers-in-arms, both on and off the battlefield. They go in the letters and they go in the notebook, and hopefully somewhere along the way they find a reason to stay in his head. Part of him is ashamed he ever forgot them; the rest is relieved he can remember them now.
He's wrapping up his letter to Dugan's last daughter in a diner in the middle of a town whose name he never noticed when he realizes he's been writing them with the intent to send all along. Maybe not the Steve ones—he doesn't want to hurt the guy and he knows the letters will hurt—but the others?
So he does. He buys some envelopes, some stamps, puts his own address in the upper left, their addresses in the center, and sends them into the loving embrace of the United States Postal Service. A last-second hesitation has him almost dropping the letters on the ground instead; some kind of fear about censors redacting everything in case German spies intercept them. He posts the letters and tries to remind himself it isn't 1944 anymore.
His address isn't his address anymore either, 'course. Demolished decades ago, replaced with a high-rise apartment complex or two. Thinking about that too much hurts, so he tries not to. He hopes USPS doesn't have a policy of rejecting letters with strange return addresses out of hand.
Letters sent, he keeps wandering the country. His hair starts to get too long, so he stops at a barbershop. Debates getting it cut short but decides against it; biologically, he's probably only a few years older than he was when he fell, if that. No telling how cold sleep and whatever serums HYDRA pumped into him handle aging. There are too many Howling Commandos fans left in the States as that museum exhibit showed. He'd be recognized, or at least taken a picture of and posted for the world to see with a caption about how like himself he looks. Long hair on men is a bit of a fashion now, so he lets the barber trim his into something resembling a style. Then he shaves his beard back down to a shadow because it's getting itchy. He opts not to go clean shaven for the same reason he doesn't cut his hair.
Still, the next time he looks in the mirror, it's all he can do to keep himself from punching it into shards. The Winter Soldier glares back at him. He swallows and tries to inject some life into his face, but he has no idea how.
He leaves the fast food joint he'd stopped in at a swift walk before he can leave a breadcrumb for Steve to find and finds himself pausing by a dealership—Harleys, he quickly sees. There's one on display, placed proudly in the front of the lot.
"Ride like Captain America!" proclaims the ad on the bike's pedestal. And yeah, it's a pretty impressive reproduction of the bike Steve rode on a few missions. Was that one even a Harley, though? He can't remember. Probably not, them being in Europe and all. This one is brighter and shinier than Steve's ever was, too. And for that price, a hundred times more expensive.
Still, a bike is a damn good way to get around when you're one guy, one bag, and trying to keep a low profile. So he wanders in, makes a show of looking around the new section, and finally finds what he actually wants: the used lot. Not a common sight at a proper dealership, but in a town like this he'd be surprised if they sold many new. Maybe they just liked the price of real estate down here compared to the city several miles over. Anyone willing to drive out here for a new bike can probably afford something nice, which would explain the prices.
The saleswoman that finds him is at least light on the fleecing attempts. Maybe because his resting expression is less than inviting; maybe because she just respects other people too much.
"We don't have much for resale, I'm afraid," she says. "Spring to Summer is usually when the nervous parents and recent hires swing through to clear us out." She has a pleasant twang to her voice that isn't common in the area, or Bucky would've heard it from someone else by now. "One trike, but I'm guessing that's not your style."
"Yeah, not really."
She flashes him a quick smile. He manages one back, mind drifting to all the times he struck up a conversation with a dame just because he could. Just because they had that look in their eye like they wanted him to walk over and introduce himself. Just because they walked over first.
"Now, this one's probably the priciest used bike we have, but the Hydra-Glide Revival—"
His skin prickles and it's stupid, it's so stupid because it's just the name of a bike, but the sharp no is out of his mouth before he can stop it.
"Not my style," he adds lamely while the fitful breeze does its best to put his newly trimmed hair in his mouth. Hers is long enough to go in a bun; how nice.
"All right, well, we also have this Heritage Softail if that is more your speed." She stops next to a chrome-heavy black bike. Hardly a touring bike, but those are all way out of his budget. His body can handle a little discomfort and he won't mind the excuses to stop for gas along the way.
He looks over the bike while the saleslady launches into its specs. He can see worn spots on the seat and a few dings and scratches on the engine; nothing that strikes him as particularly concerning with one exception.
"What happened here?" he asks, lightly tapping the right-hand exhaust pipes with his foot. They're just a little bit too new looking compared to the rest of the bike.
"The reason this bike is with us now," she says diplomatically. "Its former owner's parents weren't happy their son took a turn a bit too fast. Too much faster and it would've taken the bike apart."
"Kid, too, I'd bet."
"Yes. Unfortunately, everyone has the right to refuse the learn-to-ride courses we offer here."
He gives the machine another once-over. There's so much more going on with bikes these days, but he can pick through the parts easily enough. The Soldier had to be handy enough to repair any and all equipment on the fly when he was operating alone, after all. Bucky Barnes had done any and all jobs he could get his hands on growing up, too, including helping out at a local garage between shifts on the docks.
He shivers even though he's not cold. "I'll take it."
"Great!" she claps her hands together. "Let's head inside to start the paperwork."
Ah. He'll have to figure out something for his identity. Or be charming enough and put down enough cash that they won't care.
Steve nudges open his apartment door with his hip, doing his best to juggle his groceries, his mail, and his keys. Super strength can't fix a shortage of hands, and despite his best efforts his keys slip from his fingers and clatter to the floor just inside the door.
"For Pete's sake," he grumbles, kicking them in further so he doesn't step on them while he maneuvers his way inside. He shoves the door closed with another hip check and sets his groceries and mail on the counter before anything else can escape. He stands there for a second, staring at the countertop like it'll have any answers for why he's alone in his apartment getting groceries and mail and dropping his keys instead of tearing up the road on the hunt for his best friend.
Oh, right. Because every single trail had gone stone cold weeks ago. Thanks, countertop. Real helpful.
The old tags tucked under his shirt press against the fabric. He tugs them free and runs his thumb over the stamped letters and numbers. Finding them had been a relief; the place they'd been found, a new source of anger on his friend's behalf. A friend who is still nothing but weeks-old rumor by the time Steve catches a whisper of his whereabouts.
"Those his tags?" Sam asks, stopping by the shelf Steve's now leaning against as his legs threaten to fold beneath his weight.
"James B Barnes," Steve reads, confirming. He frowns. "Something's wrong."
"What?"
"His serial number. It's not right."
"Let me see." Sam peers close. "Looks pretty standard to me. What's wrong with it?"
"He enlisted."
"Huh. Not according to the military, he didn't."
Bucky had been so proud to enlist after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He'd done it practically as soon as he could, boasted about the things he was gonna do across the pond. Even his Smithsonian exhibit extolls his virtue in enlisting. But his tags? His serial number? Steve'd never paid attention to it before, but that first number: 3. That isn't the number of an enlisted man. Bucky had been drafted.
Right from the start, he'd never had a choice.
Steve sighs, fetches his keys, and locks the door before putting his groceries away. He sets aside a package of grapes. Once everything else is put away, he washes them and picks them off the vine. Into a bowl they go, a snack while he sorts through his mail. It's so mundane it aches. Is Bucky eating? Taking care of himself? The comfort of finding no trace of him in every HYDRA base he tears through is limited by the fact he's struggling to find a trace of his friend anywhere.
There's not much mail to speak of; mostly junk. Impressively wasteful, the catalogs and magazines and coupon strips that somehow find their way into his mailbox despite him never signing up for any of them. There's a little comfort in them all being addressed to "Current Resident."
"Get an address, get junk mail," he muses, popping another grape into his mouth.
Buried amid the noise is a letter from Peggy, which makes his heart soar. In her waning moments of lucidity, when a phone call doesn't work, she often pens him. Her handwriting is shakier than it used to be, but her wit is just as sharp.
This letter is mostly a response to his last message, encouraging him to keep looking for Barnes despite the dead ends, followed by a wry note that she'll keep her eyes peeled. Smiling, Steve sets the letter aside for a response he'll write later—hopefully when some act of divine providence has dropped a lead in his lap and he actually has news for her—and polishes off his grapes.
The letter from Peg reminds him of the other threads to his past still lingering all these years later. His COs and the Commandos are all dead, but their children, for the most part, aren't. Swimming in nostalgia, he doesn't feel his phone buzzing until the third ring. He pulls it from his pocket, checks the caller in a motion that isn't quite reflex yet, and frowns at the coincidence.
After aliens invaded New York, he'd been feeling this same nostalgia, maybe a little guilt for waiting so long that literal aliens invaded before he got around to it, and gone on a tour to visit his friends' kids. Took him weeks to track them down, longer to wrestle with the question of whether they'd even want to see him. He was just a guy their dads had served with for a few years. In the end, he'd gone, and been better for it. Gabe's son even recorded the whole conversation, saying he wanted to preserve every story of his dad he could find. The burden of an archivist, apparently.
So he isn't shocked that Naomi Morita is calling, but he's surprised. He answers, she speaks, and the floor opens up under him. Her words stick in his brain as fragments.
"I got a letter a few days ago."
"Return address is weird."
"Stories about my dad."
"You didn't mention some of these before."
And then, when his silence is becoming more than polite:
"Are they true?"
He fumbles, thanks her, explains that yes they are as far as he remembers. Then she poses the hardest question: "Do you know who sent this? Avery said he got one too."
Jones's kid too. He takes a shaky breath, trying not to let the spark of hope flare too bright and burn out. "I have a guess. You don't need to worry; I think he means well."
She's still sounding confused when they say their goodbyes but Steve can't give her the explanation she deserves. He immediately rings Sam, though it takes him two attempts to correctly tap his contact because he's so wound up.
Bucky sent her a letter. Did he send them all letters? Does he remember?
"You got any idea what time it is?" Sam groans from the other end of the line. Steve glances at the clock. Two a.m., meaning a cool eleven p.m. in Naomi's California, but Steve's awake like it's two in the afternoon.
"Morning, Sam." His voice sounds calm to his own ears. Professional. As far from how he feels as it could possibly get. "I have a lead."