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Chapter 48

Five Years Since the Snap

Dear Bucky,

I think I'm doing a little better than I was when I last wrote. Don't get me wrong, the world is still shit. Quiet, grey... Sad. It's just such a sad place. There's no colour, no spark, no energy. Even the stars seem to be a little dimmer than they once were, even if you can see them in the cities now, with the reduced light pollution, they aren't as bright. We're trudging on, but it's been a long time since we saw any vibrance. I miss it.

I'm still surviving, maybe getting a little closer to living. Not quite swimming, but I'm treading water just like you taught me. I think I let myself sink a little over the last few years, but I'm keeping my head above water now. Just about.

I'm not agonising over not having a purpose as much, I think. I'm not sure I have the energy to agonise over anything. I know HYDRA is gone, I know the Winter Soldier Programme is dead and buried, and I'm not searching for any long-lost relatives. There's no big bad to go after, no end goal that I'm striving for. Sure, it leaves me alone with my thoughts more often, but I'm not special. The whole world is in the same boat. No one knows what they're doing.

It means there's no big news to share. Day to day life is just... What it is.

Steve and Nat are trying, I guess. He's running these group counselling sessions in Brooklyn, Natasha is still trying to hold the universe together from behind her desk, I'm just flowing between the two, trying to help where I can. A few weeks at a time in the Compound, a couple at the apartment in Brooklyn. Neither are home, but both have people who make me feel like I'm close to home. I think they're a bit scared of me casting myself adrift again, but I've realised how much I need them both. It took a while, but I know you wouldn't want me to be alone. Natasha points me in the right direction when there's a job that calls for a bit of extra strength or mechanical know-how. Steve always seems to have some sage piece of advice, but I'm not sure how much of it he follows himself. He says the world is in our hands, but none of us really know what to do with it. It wasn't perfect the way it was before, but it was still ours. And yours. And everyone else's that got taken.

They're keeping me anchored, anyway. I'm safe.

Jeez, I'm really going heavy on the nautical metaphors here, aren't I? Sorry, you'd roll your eyes at me if you were actually reading this, but you'd smile, I know you'd smile.

I still miss you every day, Bucky. I still love you as much as I ever did. It's been five years since I told you that in person. Five years, can you believe it? Some days it feels like a hundred. Some days I wake up and I've dreamed about you, and it feels like you've only stepped out of the room for a moment.

I dreamed about you last night. In my room in the Compound, which is silly, because I know you were never there. You were just laying beside me in bed, but I could hear you breathing. I could feel the dip of the mattress under your weight, your warmth. I could hear your arm making those little whirrs when you moved. You ran your fingers through my hair and I swore I could feel it, Buck. I woke up crying again.

I think about your arm a lot. About how you only had it for a day, but it was taken with you. The rifle got left behind, but your arm went with you. I wish I could tell you that to your face. I wish I could tell you that those stupid space stones knew the difference between a part of you and a weapon. I wish you'd known that. You were always so afraid of your body being a weapon, but in the end it was just you. I think about that so much.

Maybe that's why I answered that email from Pepper – I don't think you ever met her, Buck. She's Stark's partner -wife? Honestly I'm not sure. I heard they had a kid a while back. Anyway, she's nice, and she's still running the company quietly. She asked about the prosthesis designs I'd done in Wakanda, asked if I'd be able to adapt them for a market that didn't have access to Vibranium. It seems Stark Industries wanted to broaden their offerings in the medical field. And I didn't jump at it, not at first. Because to be honest, everything linked to Tony just feels... Soured. I tried, I really did, but after we figured out that we couldn't reverse the Snap it seemed best if we had nothing to do with one another. I understand, though. I wouldn't forgive me for what I did to him.

But then I thought about you, and your arm. I thought about how you'd worked so hard to accept yourself without it, and how important it was that you could choose to make it a part of you again when you were ready – even if that choice was taken out of your hands in the end. I figured it's not my place to deprive people of that choice just because I'm scared of how much Tony Stark hates me. I tweaked the plans for Pepper and handed them over. Maybe in a while I'll start to see some of my designs out in the world. That'd be a nice legacy to leave, I think. Something positive.

None of them will look as cool as yours though, don't worry. I'd never replicate that design for anyone else.

I'd never have the time to worry about symmetrical biceps for anyone else, anyway.

There is so much I wish I could share with you Bucky, things that happen in a split second and I almost look for you, to see if you'd laugh, or smile, or shake your head. So many little things that I forget about before I get back to writing to you.

You haunt me, Bucky Barnes, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I know you'll haunt me until I close my eyes for the last time, and I'm so glad you will. I'm so glad I knew you. I'm glad I got the chance to love you, and I'm so grateful for the fact that you loved me in return.

Still, I wish we'd had longer. I wish we'd had as much time together as we've had apart. I wish I could just talk to you, for five minutes. I wish I could hear your voice again. I haven't heard your voice in five years, I don't have a single recording or video... I can't quite remember what it sounds like. I'm so sorry.

It's still not fair, Bucky. It never will be.

And that doesn't change, no matter how much I write.

I still love you, I always will. 

[A/N: A little short and sweet one to bring the timeline up to a very convenient place... Is this the last letter? Who knows? X]