Till the End of the Line: Our Now | Stucky Fanfic

Chapter Three

"Sorry?"

The falcon groaned, leaning against the steering wheel. "Can we at least call the authorities? Get them to put out the fire so we can get to the hotel? I'm exhausted and I want a real bed to sleep in, not some stale ass pleather car seats."

Steve pulled out his phone. "I think so, it's pretty much gone. There's still a bit of flames, though. We can't leave until they get here."

"Fine with me. Just get them here."

Cap called the authorities and had someone meet them at their "secret" location. Once they got the all-clear to leave, the soldiers booked it to Berlin, where Steve had gotten them a room at a lowkey motel.

Sam shouldered his duffle and slammed the car door shut. "I still don't get why you have to put us in motels when we can afford to stay in luxurious hotels for a night or two."

"Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Motels are easier. They don't draw as much attention and it's safer for everyone involved."

"I don't even want to know where your logic is on that one." Sam snatched the key from Steve's hands and unlocked their assigned room. It was a simple motel, pretty standard to the ones they were used to. "I call this bed," Sam called as he face-planted on the first bed.

Steve rolled his eyes. "It's all yours." He closed the door gently and set his bag on the end of his own bed. Steve sat down to peel off his boots, listening to the creak of the springs. Something wasn't right, though. It was off; not broken, but off. He started to bounce, zeroing in on what was causing the noise.

"Oh my god, Steve. Fucking stop!" Sam groaned, blindly throwing a pillow at him.

The pillow fell at his feet. Steve sighed, "Hang on, something isn't right."

Sam sat up. "What the hell did you expect? It's a cheap motel, not the Ritz."

"It's not that! It's like something's blocking it." Steve dropped to his knees and turned to his bed, lifting the mattress with one hand as if it were a pillow. "Do you see that?" He pointed to the upper right hand corner, where a tear protruded from beneath the spring.

"Yeah, I do actually. There's something in the mattress, but I would not put my hand in there," Sam, the ever-so logical friend, suggested. The only issue with suggestions is simply that: they're suggestions. You don't have to take them. At least, that's how Steve saw it.

The captain reached in, despite Sam's whine about how serum or not he'd need a tetanus shot after this, and pulled out a leather book. He let go of the mattress, the springs creaking as the were dropped back in place. Steve cleaned the cover, but didn't see any writing or titles. "Looks like a sketchbook or a journal," he commented as he started to flip through the book. Sure enough, it was a journal filled to the brim with scrawled notes.

"Did you just find someone's diary?"

Steve shook his head. "I don't think so. Looks more impersonal than a diary. Less format and more reminders." He opened to a random page, where the date was written over and over again in an aggressively slanted font.

His stomach churned. There was something familiar about the way the 't's were crossed that made Steve want to cry.

He flipped to another page, this one with a simple paragraph about the writer's daily tasks. Steve grimaced, skimming over the brutal slaughter of a rabbit for the author's meals for the day.

"Whoever wrote this must have-" Steve didn't let Sam finish. He gasped, his eyes growing wide as he flipped to another page.

It was covered in a sequence of numbers, similarly to the date page. They were scrawled everywhere in sizes of all kinds.