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While watching Sam play with local kids on a beach in Indonesia, Steve grabbed pen and journal from his backpack, but he didn't continue writing on the daily travel diary for Bucky, instead he ripped out a page.
--
Dear Tony,
It's been four months since I last sat down to write you, and I can't know if you even read the first letter. I can only hope you gave me that chance to speak, but I can understand if you didn't.
Still, I am taking my chances and writing you again.
You're a smart man, and I have no doubt that you'll find out where this letter got send from within the first two hours of holding it in your hand, but I learned a lesson or two from people who don't want to be found in the last years. So by the time you get this, Sam and I will have moved on, to another city, another country, another continent, we don't even know ourselves yet.
I know you have questions, I know you want answers and I owe you hundreds of apologies, but I need some time for myself. And I know how selfish it sounds, how undeserving I am of this wish, but I'm no longer Captain America. I no longer have any responsibility against my country or any government in this world. Captain America died that day in Russia, and if that isn't symbolic enough for the politicians I don't know what will be.
The only responsibility I have now is towards my friends and myself, and I'm including you in that as well, despite everything that happened. Tony, you will never stop being my friend, you haven't in the past and you won't in the future. You are Iron Man, and he is you, and you only had the good in your heart, you wanted to make things right.
And I saw that too late.
Iron Man and you are one, but I'm not Captain America. Steve and the Captain, that were always two different people, and in this new world, you were the first I let that see. But somewhere in the last years, and I don't even know myself when, that difference got lost. Maybe it was the aliens, maybe it was Hydra within Shield, maybe it was Ultron, I don't know, but somewhere along those months, Steve stopped existing and Captain America seemed to be everything I am.
But now he is dead, retired if that word fits you better, and I can finally breathe again.
It's not an apology, it never could be, I never want it to be one.
I know what I was doing. I know what the consequences would be, I just chose to ignore what I saw for our future, and that is a decision I will have to life the rest of my life with. It's a choice I made that will cost me more sleepless nights than it already did. So why am I writing you this? Because I need you to know that you're not alone, I need to show you that you're not struggling with the guilt alone.
We both made mistakes, we both ripped the Avengers apart. This guilt is ours, and when the time is right, we will have to work together to fix this. But I can't at the moment, not now. And it is a lot to ask of you, to hold your head up, to be there when the world needs a hero, but I needed to go.
I need to find out who Steve Rogers is now before I can even think of helping anyone else. Even Bucky, I had to let him go, had to let him make his own choices, because what I was doing to him wasn't fair to anyone in the end. He needs help, and I couldn't give that to him, but you can't either. He is safe, well protected and there are people taking care of him, he can't hurt anyone right now, and that is everything I will tell you. You won't be able to find him, and the same goes for Wanda.
And the Tony I know, the Tony who was my friend, he will read this and be relieved, because if he can't find them, nobody will, especially not Ross.
We will work through this, I promise you that, Tony, even though I know that promises aren't worth much from me anymore. Maybe in six months, maybe in a year, maybe in three, we will sit at one table again and work through what happened. Together. Without politicians or generals throwing in their opinions. That is the one wish I have right now for the future.
But until then, all of us need time. Time to heal, time to understand.
I didn't want people to get hurt, you have to believe me in that, but Bucky is everything I have left of a life I was ripped away from, Tony. I never chose to wake up in the future, I never chose to be an Avenger, let alone lead them. It's been a rollercoaster ride that never stopped, that never stopped to give me any chance to find the breaks. I didn't choose for Bucky to become Hydra's puppet, and neither did he. I'm still free-falling, can't even see the ground under my feet, everything is still out of control and I wish I had an answer to anything, but I don't.
All I know for sure right now is that Sam is here with me because he chose to be and that the world still has so many places left for us to see.
I know this letter is a mess, even more so than the last one, but this is how my head works at the moment, and maybe that you can understand.
You still mean the world to me, your friendship still is the one thing that kept me sane after New York. You were my grounding weight, and alone for that I owe you a lifetime of servitude.
I forgive you, Tony, because now I can see better what you wanted and that it was the right choice in many parts. Not in everything, but I think we both know that the day the two of us agree on everything is the start of the end of the world.
I hope you are safe.
And that one day, you can forgive me, too.
Steve
--
"You know, I am still asking myself if the tears are a good or a bad sign."
Steve smiled, folding the finished letter and tugging it into the front of his backpack to be send off later, before he wiped a hand over his face. Sam sat down next to him on the blanket, knocking their knees together.
"It's a good sign, I think." Steve answered him quietly and Sam snorted, fumbling around his backpack for something, Steve guessed the bottle of water. They needed to buy new ones soon.
"That means a lot coming from the person crying, buddy. You okay?" Sam wanted to know and Steve was quick to nod, which in turn prompted brown eyes to narrow at his face.
"I'm okay, Sam, just thinking." He explained and Sam hummed in understanding.
"You okay with a little break in thinking? Because that boy over there invited us to dinner with his family and I'm kinda starving." He pointed over to a boy who couldn't be older than twelve, waiting patiently further down the beach.
"Sure, sounds great. Can we find a mail service before we go tomorrow?" Steve asked and helped Sam back to his feet before packing their stuff together.
"Definitely."