HEADCANON : war Letters .
HEADCANON : war letters .
Prior to his deployment to the Italian Front and subsequent capture by the Wehrmacht troops at Azzano, Bucky wrote letters to his younger sister Rebecca religiously. At the time, she was only sixteen and had been living in a state orphanage in Park Slope, Brooklyn since their fathers death at Camp Lehigh. He also sent letters to Steve while he was training at Camp Lehigh for Project Rebirth, however, Steve wasn’t able to tell him that he had been selected by the USSR or that he had been accepted into the Army due to the secrecy of the project and Bucky was also not able to divulge much information about his duties.
He traded some letters with Connie as well, the pair of them often discussing the state of the war as she was a registered nurse, their letters would switch between casual banter and deep and vulnerable confessions of their struggles and challenges as either nurse or soldier, often attempting to uplift each other’s spirits through written word. One of Bucky’s letters included a pressed puglia that stained the letter purple.
After he and the other United Allies were rescued from the Hydra Prisoner Base, Bucky was reunited with Connie for a short time before he was deployed alongside Steve and the other Howling Commandos and Bucky returned to writing letters to Rebecca whenever he had the chance to sit down.
As before, he wasn’t able to divulge much information about their activities back to Rebecca so most of his letters discussed members non-classified information, usually details about the other Howling Commandos (such as Gabe Jones proficiency at the trumpet and Dugan’s terrible singing), in passing he would mention cities that he had passed through but was no longer residing, and other minor details about the people that he met from the various resistance groups that they worked beside against both Hydra, and Nazi Germany.
He continued to write to Connie as well, though the letters between them were few and far between due to their work.
Following the end of W.WII when the Smithsonian began developing the Captain America exhibit, members of the museum reached out to Rebecca as Bucky’s only living relative. She donated some of Bucky’s war letters to the museum where they picked and chose from those available to them to display for Bucky’s memorial. When Bucky began piecing together his history in 2014, he stole the letters that were on display to help trigger more of his suppressed memories.
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the safehouse was the kind of place no one asked questions about. tucked between abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the city, it was forgotten. lost. much like them. the silence that stretched between them was tangible, the kind that felt as if it were leaving behind a sticky residue. his gaze—sharp, weary—never left her. pale blue scrutinizing the same truth he'd seen in the mirror splay out across her face.
❝ i’m afraid i had no choice in the matter. ❞
it was a familiar story and a familiar wound still bleeding beneath the surface. bucky leaned back slightly, flexing his fingers carefully, his expression neutral. then, after a long moment—maybe too long—he gave a slow nod.
❝ yeah, ❞ he murmured. ❝ i know. ❞ that was it. no absolution, no condemnation. just the weight of knowing what it was like to someone else's weapon. // @staticveil , altered carbon prompt .
tag dump .
. connection . › scott lang .
. connection . › james rhodes .
. connection . › wanda maximoff .
. connection . › vision .
. connection . › sharon carter .
. connection . › tony stark .
. connection . › sarah wilson .
. connection . › yelena belova .
. connection . › alexei shostakov .
im actually so tired of fixing other people's problems while my problems are like gnawing on my bones
the soldier's expression shifted, a hard edge to the way the corners of his mouth tightened as she gave voice to things he'd only ever kept in his head. he felt uncomfortably exposed, as if she were pulling things from his own head, kicking and screaming, into the dim light of the old bulb above their heads.
❝ you know that i do. ❞ he said. ❝ i go every day asking the same things you do. is this the real me, or is it the thing they made me into? will i ever know? is any of this real or is it a dream? did i really do those things? was it even me if i can't say for sure? ❞ there was no easy answer.
❝ if you play that game of what if's, you'll lose every time. ❞ bucky said with the same unconscious resignation reflected in her face. he had nothing to offer her. no answers or absolution, no wise teachings to cure her of her doubts. only the cold hard truth of survival. ❝ you learn to live with it. ❞ it wasn't what she wanted to hear, he knew, because he didn't want to hear it either. no one wanted to be told that they would have to live with the doubt the rest of their lives, that there was no digging it out, no killing it, only enduring.
❝ and if it gets too heavy . . . at least you're not carrying it alone. ❞ quite the pair they made. maybe if they stuck their broken pieces together they'd be able to make a whole and functional person.
the words landed with a weight that settled somewhere deep, pressing against the places she had spent years trying to bury. it would have been easier if he had argued, if he had given her the sharp edge of disbelief, something solid she could push back against. but she knew better — he didn’t deal in false comforts. he had no need for excuses, & it seemed no interest in dressing wounds that would never fully close.
kara exhaled slowly, a breath that felt more like surrender than relief. ❝then you know what it’s like to wake up & not be sure if the thoughts in your head are yours. to second-guess every action, every instinct, because there’s always that whisper — maybe this isn’t me, maybe this is what they left behind. ❞ her voice was steady, but there was something beneath it, something brittle. ❝ & the worst part? even when you fight your way back, even when you know it’s over, it never really is. because what if they were right? what if it wasn’t all forced? what if — ❞ she stopped herself, jaw tightening. that was the thought she never spoke aloud. the one that lingered in the quiet spaces, in the dead hours of the night when there was no mission to focus on, no objective to drown in.
she looked at him then, really looked, & she for a second it was as if she could see it — the same question buried in the sharp lines of his face, the tension in his shoulders. like he understood. not in theory, not in sympathy, but in a way that only someone who had lived it could. ❝so tell me, ❞ she said, quieter now, but no less steady. ❝what do you do with it? the knowing? the weight of it? because i’ve read every philosophy, every myth, every self-help book, & none of them have an answer that doesn’t feel like a lie. ❞
i just think bucky deserves the john wick treatment
HEADCANON : war letters , 2 / ?
Dear Home : The Lost Letters of Sgt. James Barnes
Discovered decades after World War II, these letters—written by Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes—offer a rare and intimate glimpse into the heart of a soldier. Though history remembers Bucky Barnes as war hero, these letters remind us that before the legend, there was a young man writing to the people he loved. This collection invites you to read not just history, but memory.
March 20, Somewhere Dry
Hey Steve,
I'm writing from a little sun-blasted nowhere in ██████. You'd hate it here. It's too dry, too hot, too many bugs that think you're part of the scenery. It's not all bad, though. The sunrises are something else.
We rolled in not long after ████. The big brass called it a success, but from down here in the dirt, it doesn't feel like anything's close to finishing. We're on clean-up detail. Recon mostly, sweeping through these ██████ tucked into ██████. Every now and then we hit a pocket of resistance, holdouts or worse, stragglers who don't even know the war moved on without them.
The guys in my unit are solid. Green, some of them, but learning fast. You don't get the luxury of being slow out here. There's this private named Mendez who swears he can hear artillery fire in his sleep. I told him that's normal. I didn't mention that I do too, or that sometimes I hear it even when I'm wide awake.
Being out here has me thinking about Brooklyn a lot. Remember that time we got jumped in that back alley carrying that old lady's groceries? You took that punch like an idiot, I crushed the bread loaf when I fell, we both walked out of there soaked in turbid water. Half the squirmishes feel a lot like that. A little bloodier, and a little louder. But getting out with all our appendages attached.
Do me a favour and check on Rebecca for me. You know how she gets when she's on her own.
Take care of yourself, Buck.
he leaned back in the booth, the vinyl creaking under his weight and his gaze steady on her as she studied their surroundings. he let her words settle, let the silence stretch between them, thick as the late-night air. i see a place that doesn't need me. he knew that feeling well. places like this didn't wait, didn't give a damn who walked through the door or who never came back.
she searched his face, looking for something, but bucky had spent years making sure people found nothing. still, she pressed, peeling at the edges, pulling at the threads to get to the center of it all. ❝ it's part of the idea, ❞ he acknowledged, ❝ you sit down, you exist for a while, and none of it hinges on who you used to be. ❞ he tapped a finger against the table absently. ❝ no history, no past weighing you down, just now. ❞
there was more to it, other bits and pieces he was able and willing to share, but not yet. for now, he wanted her to sit with it. the concept of existing in a space that so many others did as well. the waitress, a woman pushing late fifties with greying hair around her temples and a friendly smile despite the shadows of exhaustion around her eyes, poured them both cups of burned coffee and encouraged them to view the specials menu. he thanked her. mundane. ordinary. human.
her gaze swept the room, taking in the flickering neon sign reflected in the window, the linoleum scuffed from years of tired footsteps, the old man nursing a cup of coffee like it was the only thing tethering him to the world. it smelled like burnt grease & something sweet, like pie left too long under a heat lamp.
❝i see a place that doesn’t need me.❞ the words felt like they weren’t meant to be spoken aloud, but they slipped past her lips anyway, quieter than she intended. her fingers curled, then relaxed against the edge of the table. ❝but you brought me here anyway.❞ a beat. a breath. ❝why?❞
she searched his face, looking for something — an answer, maybe, or proof that he had one. there was something careful in the way he watched her, something patient, like he knew she’d get there on her own if he just gave her time. but she didn’t want time. she wanted to understand.
her gaze dropped to her hands, the way they rested against the tabletop, steady but foreign. ❝places like this…❞ she started, then exhaled, shaking her head. ❝they exist with or without us. people come in, sit down, drink their coffee, complain about the weather. it doesn’t matter what we’ve done, or where we’ve been. we could disappear, & this place would go on like we were never here at all.❞
her voice was even, but there was something frayed at the edges of it. she wasn’t sure if she wanted to believe it or if the thought of it terrified her. her eyes found his again. ❝is that the idea?❞
ᵃⁿᵈ ⁱ ʷᵃˢ ᵗʳᵃᵖᵖᵉᵈ. ⁱ ᵃˡᵒⁿᵉ ʰᵃᵈ ⁿᵒ ᵇᵒᵈʸ.ⁿᵒ ˢᵉⁿˢᵉˢ. ⁿᵒ ᶠᵉᵉˡⁱⁿᵍˢ. [ . . . ] ᶠᵒʳ ᴵ ᵃᵐ ᵃᵐ. ᴵ ᵃᵐ.
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