Chapter Text
Brooklyn is a revelation.
It’s not that it triggers his memories. It isn’t like that. He doesn’t cross over the bridge and have it all come flooding back in an instant. There’s no pounding in his head, no flashes of memory jarring him like they have in recent weeks. Nothing in his mind reacts specifically to setting foot in the borough where James Barnes grew up.
Instead, he simply knows. Knows where he’s going, knows where each neighborhood melds into the next, knows how to navigate over toward the naval yard, and that the Walt Whitman Library on St. Edwards Street used to be called something else. None of it comes to him, it’s just there, waiting for him to tap into it. A few buildings look familiar, older structures, landmarks that have survived as they were, maybe with an addition or some minor repairs. Others are clearly different, more recent, but they don’t throw him. He doesn’t remember having a life on these streets, can’t imagine himself into his surroundings, but the places themselves – those he hasn’t lost.
If the streets are the same, the people are a strange mix of familiar and new. Walking along, he can see it, hear it. Gentrification. He understands the term, though he couldn’t say where he heard it. Brooklyn seems a patchwork of puzzle pieces – blocks of young professional families with money, just not enough for Manhattan; ethnic pockets where the rhythms of language and accents meld together, Spanish, Italian, Yiddish, Chinese, Korean, a slew of Eastern European dialects that put him on edge; artsy looking kids with tight pants and thick-framed glasses and cardigans like grandpas used to wear in his day; Hasidim with long beards and black suits, the women in modest dresses and shoes with straps. Everyone rubbing up against each other, and not just the residents. Streets filled with old fashioned mom-and-pop shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and everyday kinds of businesses abut blocks of the shiny chain stores he’s seen in malls, with people of every sort making their way through the doors.
Brooklyn is in transition, the way he’s in transition, all the new things layering on top of the old, and he begins to think maybe he’s made a good choice. He thinks he can be calm here, can make a plan, learn what it means to be one of these people going about their lives, no missions or mandates. He thinks maybe, despite the connection to Barnes’s childhood, to Steve, and to the past, that this might be he last place Hydra would search for him. They’ll be expecting violence, anger, revenge. He remembers how easily Steve found him at the site of the fire; it’s the sort of scenario Hydra will anticipate since he failed to report. Lashing out, creating havoc, seeking retribution. Instead he will be ordinary, he will acclimate. He will remain the ghost he was meant to be.
It’s nearly dark when he finds a quiet street, a little dirtier and more run down than most, with an empty building – an older brownstone – adjacent to an alley. It’s boarded up tight, a realtor’s sign posted on the front, but he follows the alley, locates the fire escape, and works his way up to the roof. There’s an attic access, also firmly locked down, but that’s good because it means he’ll have the place to himself, entrance too hard for the average homeless person in search of a place to squat. He, of course, has no such difficulty.
Inside it’s dim, the stagnant air stale smelling, but it’s also dry and relatively clean, as if the residents have only recently moved out. The floors have been divided up, and he peers inside several of the apartments, finding nothing more than empty, abandoned spaces with shuttered windows and disconnected cable wires, some of the doors to rooms or closets missing or removed from hinges and propped against walls. Both the electricity and the water are off, but he’d expected nothing more. Still, it’s peaceful and safe enough. It will enable him to get off the streets at night without spending money. He’s become self-conscious about where he’s acquired his funds, which means making an attempt at thrift until he can come up with an alternative to lifting wallets.
Choosing a small room with several entry points and a window facing the alley, he drops his pack in a corner and begins pulling out provisions for the night – a mostly full bottle of water, the remains of the sandwich he purchased earlier, his flashlight, a gun – and arranges everything to one side. Sitting on the floor, he leans against the wall beside his bag to eat and plan. He feels the blanks in his knowledge of current events, of the last seventy years. So much time spent in stasis, he has missed out on the world, only learning as much as was necessary for him to navigate the parameters of a mission. He knows how to use computers and the internet but not the names of all the presidents since the war. If knowledge is power, ignorance is a series of landmines. The wrong thing said to the wrong person might lead to questions he cannot afford. He needs to learn things – not just how to blend in, to function without handlers – but information, facts.
It’s still early when he finishes eating, but he barely slept the previous night and then there was the tension of the meeting with Steve, and he’s walked all day. He stretches out on the floor, angling to use his bag as a pillow, drawing the gun in so it’s at the ready, and closes his eyes. He’s been sleeping hard, on the ground outdoors more often than not, but the sudden sense of déjà vu comes not from the past weeks but from some other time, and unlike the painful jolt of other memories, it seeps into him like fog. He imagines a faint wheezing snore just above and behind him as he turns on his side, trying to get comfortable, and he falls asleep to the familiar sound of Steve breathing as it echoes faintly through time.
~*~
The outside of the library might look mostly the same, new name aside, but the inside has definitely changed. He can’t remember the last time he actually went into a library, but he’s pretty certain they just had books and newspapers, maybe a few magazines. Technology seems to have taken over since then. There’s no sign of a card catalog, but a bank of computer terminals sits where he thinks it once was. Next to the check out desk are more computers, with a sign above indicating you can check out books yourself. Still more computers line the rear wall of the main room, several people seated in front of them. When he wanders closer, he can see two of them are using the internet, while the third appears to be typing something.
He knows you need a library card to take books home, and he suspects he needs I.D. to get one so it’s out of the question, but no one ever used to care if you read the books and newspapers in the library itself. He wonders if you need a card to access the computers, or if maybe they charge a fee. It would be good to be able to use the internet sometimes.
Deciding it can’t hurt anything to ask, he makes his way over to the information desk. A dark-skinned woman with very straight white teeth smiles as he approaches. Her hair is arranged in tiny braids all over her head with small shells woven into them, and he’s tempted to ask how she got the shells to stay, but then he’s never understood how dames got their hair to do all the fancy things they do.
“How can I help you?” she asks. Her accent isn’t one he recognizes. Maybe a little bit French, but not quite. It sounds like music.
“Hi,” he says. “How do the computers work?” he asks. “Do you have to pay? Or do you need a card?”
Her smile broadens. “No, nothing like that,” she says. “The computers are free to use for all library patrons, whether or not you have a library card. You need to be eighteen or older for the ones here in the main room, and we do ask that you limit yourself to one hour per day, because we only have the four terminals and many patrons who wish to use them.” She reaches to one side and picks up a clipboard. “There’s a sign up sheet for each terminal,” she says, “and you can see when they’re available. Just sign your name to whatever hour you’re interested in.”
“Thank you,” he says softly. “Are they all hooked up to the internet?”
“Yes. And they have most professional programs you might need if you’re working on a resume or presentation. We do charge if you need to print,” she says. “Ten cents a page. Black and white only. But you can always save a file and take it to a copy shop if you need color.”
“Okay, thanks for your help.”
“You’re very welcome. If you’d like more information about the library, there’s a tour at ten-thirty,” she says, pointing toward a sign near the doors. “Meets right there.”
“Do you give it?” he asks.
“Oh no, I stay here behind my desk,” she says with a smile. “But Hannah’s giving the tour today. She knows everything about the library.”
He manages a smile, the muscles of his face feeling stiff. The library isn’t very big, just the one floor, and it seems like he can see most of it from where he’s standing, but she’s been nice and he doesn’t want to disappoint her. “Maybe I’ll check it out,” he says. It’s not like he’s got much else to do.
It’s past ten already, so he takes a closer look at some of the computer terminals, reading the instructions for the ones that let you search for books, then wanders back to where the tour starts. Hannah turns out to be a youngish woman with a shy smile, but she doesn’t seem to mind that he’s the only one there for her tour and, as promised, she knows a lot of things about the library. Some of them don’t really apply to him, like the rules for the children’s section, but she points out where the newspapers are and that the older ones can be accessed by computer, and explains how he can request books be delivered from other branches if they don’t have something he’s looking for. She also lets him know how easy it is to get a library card, confirming that they require some form of I.D. He just nods.
After the tour, he settles at a desk with the newspaper and carefully combs through both the national and international reports. It is like coming into the middle of a story, everything already in progress, nothing making sense. Some areas of the world are mentioned often, others not at all. He works his way through several papers, but the information feels like a jumble. His attention returns over and over to the articles about the strife in Ukraine, and the Russian intervention. He cannot tell if it’s important because he knows he spent time there, or because the current events have their own meaning.
~*~
TBC