Dear Diary,

I really didn't know where to go from there. We were fugitives, Nat and I, and S.H.I.E.L.D. can only search for us at Camp Lehigh for so long before they realize we're not there and, therefore, not dead and still on the run, for that matter.

We couldn't go to my or Natasha's place, mostly because mine is in ruins and her's is way too obvious and I'm sure they're already there.

Hell, I've been here a while and I just realized now that I don't know a damn person that doesn't work for S.H.I.E.L.D., or... at least I didn't until recently.

What about that Sam guy? I'm sure he wouldn't mind, right?

—————

It was pretty early in the morning when we get there, probably 7 or 8 o'clock. I knocked hoping he wouldn't be out on a run or at work or something. Luckily, I saw him approach the glass door and it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.

"Hey, man," he greeted me, a confused look written across his face seeing as both Natasha and I were both there and... considering we both looked a wreck and were covered in dust from the bomb.

"I'm sorry about this," I told him, really meaning it. "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha added, looking worse than I did.

He looked between the both of us before stepping out of the doorway. "Not everyone," he replied, showing us that there really are still naturally good people in this crazy world. We walked in and he shut the door behind us.

Thankfully, he let us shower and clean up so that we didn't look... well, homeless, even though we were.

I had just finished washing up when I walked back into the room he had been nice enough to lend us. "You okay?" I asked Natasha as I stood in the doorway from the bathroom.

"Yea," she looked up as she dried her hair.

Like Hell I'd believe that. I put my towel down and walked in, sitting across from her and looking her right in the eyes. "What's going on?" I continued.

She looked at me like she wasn't sure where to start or if she even could. "When I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D. I thought I was going straight," she revealed. "But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA." She paused and sighed. "I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but... I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," I said with a smile, reusing her line on her, herself.

"I owe you," she answered plainly.

I shook my head. "It's okay."

"If it was the other way around," she started. "And it was down to me to save your life, now you be honest with me... would you trust me to do it?"

"I would now," I replied. "And, I'm always honest."

"Well, you seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing," she commented on what Zola had said.

"Well, guess I just like to know who I'm fighting," I told her truthfully. Besides, I didn't die for nothing- I died for my country... and it's not like I had someone like Bucky to live for, anyway.

"I made breakfast," Sam announced as he walked up and stood in the doorway. "If... you guys eat that sorta thing." He walked out again.

We followed behind him.

"So, the question is," Nat began again after we walked into the kitchen and sat at the table with Sam there, too. "Who at S.H.I.E.L.D. could launch a domestic missile strike?"

"Pierce," I replied, knowing full well that it had to have been him, seeing as it definitely wasn't anyone else.

"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," she pointed out.

"But he's not working alone," I added, knowing it definitely wasn't a one man show. "Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star."

"So was Jasper Sitwell," she realized.

"So, the real question is, how do the two most wanted people in Washington kidnap a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer in broad daylight?" I asked.

"The answer is, you don't," Sam joined in, dropping a file in front of me.

"What's this?" I questioned.

"Call it a resume," he responded.

Natasha picked it up. "Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?" She looked at me. "You didn't say he was a Pararescue."

I took the image from her. "Is this Riley?"

"Yea," he told me.

"I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs," Natasha continued. "What did you use? A stealth chute?"

"No, these" he corrected, picking up another file and handing it to me.

The cover of the file read EXO-7 FALCON. I looked over the images... he was straight up flying, like, with wings! "I thought you said you were a pilot," I brought up.

"I never said pilot," he reminded me with a chuckle.

"I can't ask you to do this, Sam," I mentioned. "You got out for a good reason."

"Dude, Captain America needs my help," he fought me. "There's no better reason to get back in."

I nodded. "Where can we get our hands on one of these things?" I asked, referring to his... equipment, from the image.

"The last one is at Fort Meade," he explained. "Behind three guarded gates and a 12-inch steel wall."

"Shouldn't be a problem," I relayed to him after exchanging glances with Natasha.

We, then, came up with our plan.

It was later in the day when we finally made it back from Maryland's Fort Meade and to the location at which we needed to be. Though, immediately, we started at our goal.

We had Sam call Jasper Sitwell on his cell phone, having it show up as if it was Alexander Pierce calling him. Don't ask me how the Hell we did that because I can barely even tell you how a cell phone works, or even what it is for that matter.... We made sure to track Sitwell's whereabouts, too, so that we would be in his location when we called- our plan was seemingly perfect.

"Yes, sir?" Sitwell answered.

"Agent Sitwell," Sam started. "How was lunch? I hear the crab cakes here are delicious."

"Who is this?" he questioned, sounding almost threatened and... angry.

"The good looking guy in the sunglasses, your 10 o'clock," Sam said. "Your other 10 o'clock... there you go."

"What do you want?"

"You're gonna go around the corner to your right," Sam directed. "There's a grey car two spaces down. You and I are gonna take a ride."

"And why would I do that?" Sitwell argued.

"Because that tie looks really expensive," Sam answered. "And I'd hate to mess it up." Sitwell looked down at his tie, where Nat had pointed her gun. I was with her and we were wired in and listening to the whole conversation.

After we got him into the car, we drove him to a building to which we had roof access. I walked him to the top and kicked him out onto the pavement on the roof itself.

"Tell me about Zola's algorithm," I demanded, walking after his rolling body.

"Never heard of it," he replied, out of breath, as he put his glasses back on.

"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?" I asked, continually walking at him with Nat at my tail.

"I was throwing up," Sitwell said. "I get seasick." His feet hit the edge of the roof and he nearly fell, but I grabbed hold of his lapel and pulled him up to my face. "Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because it's really not your style, Rogers."

"You're right," I agreed. "It's not. It's hers," I stepped aside. Nat walked up and kicked him right off the rooftop.

He screamed as he plummeted towards the ground helplessly.

"Oh, wait," Nat turned to me. "What about that girl from Accounting, L- Laur- Laura..."

"Lillian," I corrected her. "Lip piercing, right?"

"Yea, she's cute," she pushed at me.

"Yea... I'm not ready for that," I admitted, knowing that there was no way 70 years was enough time for me to move on from him.

Just then, Sam flew up towards us with Sitwell screaming in hand and dropped him before us. Sam, then, landed behind us all.

Before he even stood, Sitwell put his hand up and surrendered the information I requested earlier. "Zola's algorithm is a program for choosing Insight's targets."

"What targets?" I asked.

"You," he said. "A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City... Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange- anyone who's a threat to HYDRA... Now, or in the future."

"In the future? How could it know?" I continued.

He started laughing. "How could it not?" he yelled. "The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught Hydra how to read it," he stood and looked between Natasha and I. "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns- emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores! Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."

"And what, then?" I needed to know.

"Oh my god, Pierce is gonna kill me," he whispered to himself.

"What then?" I demanded.

"Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list," he informed me. "A few million at a time."

It had to be at least 3 p.m. before we finally forced him back into the car after the interrogation and made our way onto the highway and towards the Triskelion. We needed to shut those damn things down before they got up and running tomorrow morning.

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks," Sitwell complained to us from the backseat of the car next to Natasha.

"Then why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" Sam suggested from behind the steering wheel.

She leaned around my seat and practically spoke into my ear. "Insight's launching in 16 hours. We're cutting it a little close here."

"I know- we'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly," I explained, displaying how we'd save time.

"What?" Sitwell yelled out at me. "Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea."

We all heard a loud thud at the roof of our car. An arm swiftly reached into Jasper's window and pulled him out of the car as he screamed. He was thrown into oncoming traffic on the other side of the highway and crushed by a Mack Truck.

Natasha jumped into the front seat after getting a better look at who the attacker was and grabbed my head, holding me between her arms for protection. The person above us had been shooting at us with a gun through the roof. I reached for the gear shifter and pushed us into park, causing the car to come to an abrupt stop in the middle of the highway.

A man flew off the car and straight onto the highway in front of us. His metal fingers screeched across the concrete as he came safely to a stop and looked directly at us. He was in all black gear, including a face mask and eye protection. That metallic left arm, though... gave it all away.

It was the man that had killed Nick Fury - The Winter Soldier.

Nat pulled out her gun to shoot him through the windshield, but then a massive truck came at us from behind and started pushing us towards him- she dropped the weapon at my feet.

As we neared him, he jumped on top of the car again and reached into the car through the windshield, yanking the steering wheel from Sam's grasp. "Shit!" he yelled and looked at me as if I could help him.

Nat had reached the gun, so she shot at him, but he'd already jumped onto the massive vehicle behind us. We started swerving out of control as we kept getting hit. I grasped my shield and told everyone to "Hang on!" as I pushed the door open and pulled them out with me. The car flipped in the air and we fell out of it, landing right in the middle lane of the highway.

Before I even knew what was going on, I was shot with a missile by the mysterious man and flung off the highway- and into a bus full of people on the road below. The bus flipped over after being hit by another car immediately thereafter, too.

I heard explosions coming from above me- on the highway, and eventually stood from that incredible fall. Then, the bus was being shot at and it seemed like it was a machine gun- I managed to get out and land on my shield, which I then used for protection.

One of the three shooter had already been shot dead, so I started walking at the man with the machine gun. The second man was shot- I reached the last man he was taken down from above. I looked up and it was Sam with a gun, shooting from the highway.

"Go! I got this!" he yelled at me.

I started running in the direction of destruction. I saw Natasha get shot in the distance and knew it had to be him- I ran at him once he came into sight, my shield in front of me.

He saw me and turned, punching my shield with his metal arm- the noise was incredibly loud and echoed for a moment. He pushed it out of the way and kicked me to the ground from the car we'd been standing on. He then shot at me briefly before coming down himself, too.

I saw he was missing his eye protection as his blue eyes stung into my skin like tiny shards of glass.

I ran around him as he shot at me and eventually punched him and went at him with my shield, which he then grabbed and stopped me mid-movement, much to my surprise. We punched at each other and fought somehow at the same level.

He felt like me.

Then, my shield was in his hands and I was on the ground looking up at him. I ran at him and he threw the shield at me, but it missed. He pulled a knife on me next- damnit, Howard; you said HYDRA wasn't gonna attack me with a pocket knife.

We fought and I kept the knife away from me, somehow, and kicked him into a nearby car and managed to dent it. I then ran at him and kneed him at his stomach, though, he just kept coming at me. I threw him to the ground and he stood up with a vengeance- his metal arm whirred as he grabbed my neck with it and pushed me back and over another car.

I couldn't even put my finger on it, but there was something about him that threw me for a loop. It was like mint and wood and a smell of outside that was familiar, but almost as if it had all been lost in translation and was glitching too much for my own recognition.

He jumped over it and came at me, though, I was lucky enough to have seen it coming and to have moved out of the way in time.

Christ, this guy was relentless... but, the adrenaline was pushing through my veins like flames.

He kicked me into a van after fighting me with the knife a little while longer- then he went straight for my face. I pushed his arm aside long enough to get out and grab my shield.

It's crazy how the warning signs can feel so incredibly like the butterflies - the real ones - those that I haven't felt in years. It was almost exact.

He stood from the ground and punched me. I drove my shield into his metal arm and heard it faulty, then hit him with it in the face, throwing him off guard. I then grabbed him around his head and threw him over my shoulder, sending him tumbling away as his mask fell to the ground.

He faced away from me and I tried to catch my breath. He took his time gathering himself, too. This game we were playing... I felt like I'd finally met my match. Like this was where I'd finally fall for real, and with no resurrections this time, either.

I looked at what I was dealing with... at that metal arm of his. At that star that somehow seemed to define him in ways I could only imagine. It was like I was finally seeing him for the first time. He was muscular like me and probably as tall as me or taller. His hair went to his shoulders and it was this brown like the ashes of an oak tree.

His face came into view.

I lost my breath and my thoughts as my heart fell to the floor and melted into a massive puddle of nothing. I flashed back to that cold January day - I saw him fall, it couldn't possibly be him, could it? I remembered that the world went black and white in the Alps after I'd failed to catch him- and now, for the first time since then, I felt the color pour back into my surroundings and begin to swirl about him... the star on his arm was somehow more brilliant of a red than it had been before and his eyes became more intense and everything seemed clearer. 

He looked different with the stubble and the long hair but there wasn't a doubt in my mind, now, after realizing why his eyes alone have had such an impact on me. I didn't even know what to do in this moment. I was frozen and simply stunned like nothing I've ever experienced before.

He looked at me and his eyes drilled a hole into my skin making me feel like I had to say something - anything - but couldn't.

"Bucky?" I faltered.

"Who the Hell is Bucky?" he challenged, pointing his gun directly at me.

Either you're a damn good liar, or you're not lying.

Sam flew up behind him and kicked him down before I was shot. Hell, if he would have shot at me, I probably wouldn't have even been able to move out of the way. There wasn't even a possibility now that I could fight him.

I turned to look at him as he stood up. His eyes looked wild and bewildered, like there was something rifting his thoughts but he didn't know how to voice it. He looked back at me and held my gaze for a moment before the blues of his eyes shifted as his thoughts seemed to waver.

As he looked back, I saw his face fill with rage as he shot at me. I put my shield up as a massive missile flew from behind me and directly at him. I wanted to run to his side and protect him like he had for me all those years, even though I knew I was as good as dead if I did.

I looked back and it was Natasha - she's the one that said he was a ghost. I looked back and he was gone, as if she couldn't have been more right.

No - I'm the ghost, I called his name - he looked right through me.

I was lost and speechless and I heard sirens but none of that mattered anymore, did it? He's alive, somehow, and I am too. It's a miracle. A scientific anomaly.

A mass of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vehicles belonging to the S.T.R.I.K.E. Force pulled up. Rumlow started yelling, "Drop the shield, Cap! Get on your knees!"

I slowly put my shield on the ground and put my hands up.

"Get on your knees!" they all were shouting at us as they swarmed the area, armed and ready to shoot. I suppose we were wanted dead or alive at this point, huh?

"Get down, get down!" Rumlow ordered again. "Get on your knees!" he kicked my leg, lowering me to the concrete. "Down!" he said like I was some sort of animal. "Don't move."

They started handcuffing me, but I was in another world. I couldn't get his face out of my head... it really was him, it had to be.

"Put the gun down," Rumlow ordered. I heard news helicopters above us and that had to have been the only reason why he was showing mercy. "Not here... not here!"

They loaded us all into an armed vehicle and started taking us back to the Triskelion. I had to tell them about what I'd figured out, I just didn't know how or when.

"It was him," I started, feeling like I might tear up. "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."

"How is that even possible? It was, like, 70 years ago," Sam said.

"Zola," I replied, looking down and thinking about the fact that the 107th had been captured back in the '40s... I saw him hooked up to that device and he was rambling on about that sequence of numbers; how could I have been so stupid? "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must've found him and-"

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Nat assured me. I knew she was just trying to make me feel better, though, It had to have been my fault. I had no one else to blame.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky," I told her.

"We need to get a doctor here," Sam said, referring to the bleeding bullet hole left behind on Nat's left shoulder. "If we don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out here in the truck," he told the guard.

The one held up his electricity stick... I don't know what it's called... and threatened Sam before striking the other man with it and kicking him unconscious.

"Agh," a woman's voice groaned, taking off the helmet she was wearing. "That thing was squeezing my brain." It was Maria Hill. She looked at Sam with confusion. "Who's this guy?"

After we explained, we melted a hole in the base of the vehicle and jumped out. Maria led us to a van, where we then drove and drove and drove all the way to the middle of the woods to take care of Natasha.

"GSW, she's lost at least a pint," Hill announced to the man coming to help. It was Agent Wilson.

"Maybe two," Sam added.

"Lemme take her," Wilson said.

"She'll wanna see him first," Hill told him.

We walked down the hall and into a room that had been forged of drapes and nothing more. There was a hospital bed and, on top, Nick Fury, alive and breathing.

"About damn time," he said. We all sat and he began to explain what had happened to him. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache."

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," Wilson added.

"Let's not forget that," Fury joked. "Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open," Nat mentioned. "Your heart stopped."

"Tetrotoxin B," Fury explained. "Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" I asked. "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful," Hill informed me.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury summed up. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

Later on, in the next room, Nick was going through some files on Pierce and was, presently, holding up a picture of him from a while ago.

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize," he started. "He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility." He tossed the picture onto the table. "See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

I looked down at the image. There were words on it; a description.

PEIRCE, A
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF MEETING
9/18/92

I looked at it for a while. Pierce was younger in this and he... it felt like I was looking into a mirror. Why on Earth did he look so much like me?

"We have to stop the launch," Natasha jumped in.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore," Nick joked, opening up a briefcase.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"Once the helicarriers reach 3,000 feet," Hill began, turning her computer towards us to provide a better visual. "They'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized."

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," Fury stated.

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work because if even one of the ships remains operational, a whole lot of people are gonna die," Hill clarified.

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA," Fury pointed out. "We have to get past them, insert these server blades- and maybe, just maybe we can salvage what's left-"

"We're not salvaging anything," I interrupted him loudly. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We're taking down S.H.I.E.L.D."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with this," he argued.

I couldn't stand for this. As of now, S.H.I.E.L.D. was harboring HYDRA and that's not okay.

"You gave me this mission," I reminded him. "This is how it ends. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave?" he questioned rhetorically. "I noticed."

"How many paid the price before you did?" I came back, specifically talking about Bucky.

He was silent for a moment. "Look, I didn't know about Barnes," he tried to defend himself.

"Even if you had, would you have told me?" I asked defiantly. "Or would you have compartmentalized that, too? S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA... it all goes."

"He's right," Hill backed me up.

Nick looked between all of us. Nat's expression seemed to have been of agreement. He glanced at Sam. "Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower."

He looked back at me. "Well..." he sighed. "Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

—————

I don't even- I can't.

Now that I know he's out there, I can't just sit here and wait for him to show up again... especially if he's gonna go and try killing me all over.

Why was he even doing that, anyway? I mean, I know him better than anyone else on this damned planet, or, at least I used to. Who has he become? What has he gone through? How the Hell is he still a twenty-something-year-old? There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much to say.

These things I wanted to tell him, I knew would hurt him now, so I decided to bury them inside and let them hurt me.

He isn't ready for me yet, I suppose, as that's the only reason I'm willing to accept. I can't bare to think of a world in which we both exist but simply cannot be with one another. It's insane and driving me mad.

At least now I know I don't have to be afraid of loving him because I know one day I'll see him again - the real him.

I just hope it's soon... I can't do this anymore. Living without him thinking he was dead was one thing, but now? Now that I know he's alive and breathing just as much as I am? I can't let this go, I can't.

My God, I miss the way we used to be... but at least, now, we have a very real potential for something. It doesn't even feel real, honestly. Like, if someone would have simply told me about having seen him, I would have never given it a second thought.

But I saw him. I looked right at him and felt everything rush back to me faster than the speed of light. Like electricity chasing through my veins and busting across my heart, sending it thudding against my chest and roaring in my ears like something I hadn't experienced since 1945.

The worst of it all was his eyes. That one place I always knew I would recognize as home. They were always that chilling ice-blue, but never in my God given life did I think they would look as they did today. They're dead and hurt and lost, nothing like anything Bucky ever was or stood for. The only reason I can think of behind this is that it's him, but somehow altered... disoriented and adrift within his own mind and sense of consciousness.

He's not in control and he would hate that more than anything.

That, of course, had to be why he faltered. He wanted to know me. He wanted to remember that which he had, somehow, forgotten or misplaced.

The look in his lurid eyes was so incredibly wicked that I could practically see the blood dripping from that menacing ledger of his. The hellish expression on his face read I WILL ALWAYS FIND YOU in capitalized, bold black letters linked with spiders' webs and leaking dark red blood as if to be as sinister to say that running would be to no end so long as his dangerous, vile self had any say in the matter.

But I knew that wasn't who he was. I knew that, by looking back at him with the most childlike candor possible, he'd see past his self-made forest of fog. The unblinking kindness splayed out across my face read i will always find you in lower-case, cursive white letters sprouting alongside minuscule colorful flowers and glistening beneath the sun shining anew as if to be as tenderhearted to say that he could do with me what he wished until the end of time but I would never stop loving him.

As if to say, when you find you, come back to me.

~ Steve Rogers