Dear Diary,

I decided to make a little pitstop today, to see a friend.

I feel like I deserve at least that after losing so many.

—————

I made my way to The United States Department of Veteran Affairs... the VA, as Sam called it just a few months ago. I said I would stop by, right?

I made my way to the desk and asked for him, telling the woman there that I was looking for a friend (Sam), trying to impress her like he said he wanted me to do. She seemed impressed too, to which I smiled and walked in the direction she told me with a thank you.

"The thing is, I think it's getting worse," I heard a woman said. "A cop pulled me over last week. He thought I was drunk... I swerved to miss a plastic bag. I thought it was an IED."

An Improvised Explosive Device? A bomb? These veterans they... they're having a meeting for, what, exactly?

"Some stuff you leave there," Sam started. "Other stuff, you bring back. It's our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase, or in a little man-purse? It's up to you."

I decided to wait outside the meeting to talk to him after it had finished. He approached me after shaking hands with everyone there.

"Look who it is, the running man," he said to me, referring to the whole 'on your left' thing, I suppose.

"Caught the last few minutes. It's pretty intense," I admitted.

"Yea, brother, we all got the same problems," he explained. "Guilt, regret."

"You lose someone?" I asked.

"My wingman, Riley," he told me. "Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op. Nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before. Until an RPG knocked Riley's dumb ass out of the sky... nothing I could do. It's like I was up there just to watch."

"I'm sorry," I answered, really meaning it, and speaking from experience.

"After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?"

I nodded. "But, you're happy now, back in the world?"

"The number of people giving me orders is down to about zero, so, Hell yea," he told me. "Are you thinking about getting out?"

I shook my head. "No... I don't know. to be honest, I don't know what I would do with myself if I did."

"Ultimate fighting?" he proposed, making us both laugh. "Just a great idea off the top of my head. Seriously, you could do whatever you wanna do." he paused. "What makes you happy?"

Bucky.

"I don't know," I replied, really unsure about that whole topic. I mean, what's my purpose of even being here anymore if he's not here with me? Hell, he and I were supposed to be old and grey by now, together.

I, then, made my way home... or, at least the temporary apartment they assigned me in D.C. and parked my motorcycle at the side of the building like usual. Walking up the stairs once inside, I heard a woman talking.

"So sweet- that is so nice," she said, as she was on the phone, leaving her apartment with her laundry. It was that Nurse, Kate, from down the hall that Natasha was trying to set me up with a few months ago. "Hi," she greeted me as I passed her and waved. "I gotta go though... okay... bye. My aunt- she's kind of an insomniac," she told me. "Yea."

I smiled at her, thinking about what Natasha said. "Hey, if you want- if you want... you're welcome to use my machine," I told her, regarding the laundry basket she was holding. "Might be cheaper than the one in the basement."

"Oh yea?" she played along. "What's it cost?"

"A cup of coffee?" I told her, taking a leap of faith... seeing as I still wasn't exactly sure about the whole being-with-a-woman thing.

"Thank you, but, uhm... I already have a load in downstairs and, uh, you really don't want my scrubs in your machine. I just finished a rotation in the infectious disease ward, so-"

"Ah, well, I'll keep my distance," I smiled, putting my hands up.

"Hopefully not too far," she continued, confusing me further. She didn't want to go out with me but is still... you know, doing that? What?

We both started to walk away from one another when she turns around again. "Oh, and I think you left your stereo on."

"Oh... right. Thank you," I replied, knowing damn well I most certainly did not do that.

"Yea."

I looked back at the door and decided perhaps it'd be better if I literally went through the window because, well, if there was music playing in there, that meant there was someone in my apartment. I had to be safe, so I made my way around the building and went in through the window.

I grabbed my shield from the room I entered into and crept quietly towards the music, careful to keep an eye out for anyone inside and about my apartment.

Upon looking about the corner, I saw that it was Nick Fury waiting for me, so I let my guard down a little bit.

"I don't remember giving you a key," I mentioned to him.

"You really think I'd need one?" he asked in all seriousness, sitting up. "My wife kicked me out."

"I didn't know you were married," I continued the conversation, my words and his intermingling with the 1940s-era music playing on the record player beside him.

"A lot of things you don't know about me."

"I know, Nick. That's the problem," I told him honestly, turning the lamp on with the switch on the wall nearest me. He, then, reached into the lamp and turned it off manually, signaling me to await whatever it was he was about to tell me.

He pulled out his phone and started typing. He then showed me what he had written. EARS EVERYWHERE, it read.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash," he went on, showing me his phone screen yet again afterwards. It said SHIELD COMPROMISED.

"Who else knows about your wife?" I asked, really asking about S.H.I.E.L.D. having been compromised.

"Just..." he held up his phone again YOU AND ME. "... My friends."

"Is that what we are?" I questioned, a straight face plastered on.

"That's up to you," he replied.

Just then, out of nothing, something came flying through my wall and struck him down as he yelled out in pain. I looked out the window as I dragged him away into safety, and- I thought I saw something out there on the roof of the building next to mine.

As Nick struggled to breathe, he reached up and grabbed me. I looked down and he opened his hand. "Don't- trust anyone," he said as I took the flash drive from his possession.

My front door forcefully opened. "Captain Rogers?" a woman's voice called. I recognized her voice, as it was Kate from down the hall- but, how did she know me as anything other than Steve? She walked around the corner and made eye contact. She was holding a gun. "Captain, I'm Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Service."

"Kate?" I looked at her, confused.

"I'm assigned to protect you," she explained.

"On whose order?" I demanded.

"His," she replied as she saw Fury sprawled out on the floor. She went to the floor and tested his breathing. "Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. I need EMTs," she spoke into a radio.

"Do we have a 20 on the shooter?" the dispatcher answered as I walked over to the window to get a better look at the man I thought I'd seen before. He was still there, but was now running away.

"Tell him I'm in pursuit," I told her.

I took my shield in hand and stepped back, away from the window and ran at it, making my way across the street and into a window on the same floor of the building across the street from me.

I ran through the halls, following him to wherever he was running.

I busted through doors of wood and metal and glass, sprinting actually as fast as I could in order to catch up. I jumped on desks and broke walls and, in the end, jumped through another massive glass window at the edge of the building.

I rolled it off and landed on the roof of the building next to it. He was there- he was getting away!

I threw my shield at him with all my might and, without hesitation, he spun around and caught it in his hand... his silver hand which had been connected to his silver arm. An arm made entirely of metal?

He looked at me as he held my shield arms length away from his face with this look about him. Sure, a black mask covered the bottom half of him, hiding his lips and nose and cheeks, but I could still see his eyes. There was black war paint smudged across them, making them seem to glow where they remained even more so in all of their blue iciness. His brown hair was long and was blowing ferociously in the night wind.

In that moment, the world seemed to stop spinning.

Without even a second thought, he wound his silver arm back and threw the shield at me with full force, pushing me and forcing me to slide back on the floor I stood upon. I held it in my hand, that which he had just in his, and looked up.

He was gone.

I ran to the edge of the building, but he was nowhere in sight.

—————

I don't think I could have dreamt up a crazier day than that if I tried! I mean, you really can't make this shit up.

At first, I was concerned for Sam and all those vets, then it was whatever that relationship was supposed to be with Kate (or, Agent 13), then it became Fury and whether or not he'd live... and in the end, it all came down to one man.

The man in all black with the metal arm. He was there one moment and gone the next, like an apparition. I couldn't even be sure if he was ever there at all or simply a figment of my imagination, though, Fury was in critical condition, so it had to be true.

Yet, that image of him in stuck in my head. That dark brown hair and black mask, black uniform and smudged makeup... and that look written between the lines.

He was like me, I thought, but he was somehow different.

He's wicked - the worst thing is, I knew I saw it immediately within those hideously dead, ominously lustrous, mysteriously compelling, ice-blue eyes - but I didn't want to believe it.

~ Steve Rogers