Jurassic City - Network

I'm honestly not sure how to live without a war.

I remember, when Wanda got in my head, I saw things. Things that I had always thought I wanted. Peggy. The idea of Peggy. Settling down after the war and having a family. I thought, back then, that I could have something like that. I still don't know if those were things I actually wanted or if it was just knowing that I was expected to want certain things.

People have this idea that I'm a good person. That I'm moral and righteous and that people should aspire to be like me. I don't understand it. The only time I've ever really felt alive or complete is when I'm fighting. Even when I was sick and thin and got the shit kicked out of me in every back alley in Brooklyn, I only really felt like life made sense when I was fighting. It's probably screwed up. I don't know. I wanted to go to war and I wanted to make a difference, and I told Erskine that it wasn't that I wanted to fight, but I think I was lying to him.

Maybe it's because I lost so much time, but I don't think I ever really left the war behind. I'm not sure I even know how to. It's all there, in my head. All that happened. All the people I couldn't save. And I have to wonder what was the point of it all. I gave up everything to stop HYDRA, only to find out that I hadn't stopped anything. That HYDRA had thrived. That people I cared about had died. That SHIELD, the organization the people I loved built, had fallen to secrets and lies and corruption. That my best friend, my brother in everything but blood, had been turned into a weapon and used by them. That none of it really mattered. I'm so tired and I don't know how to do anything but fight. I just keep waiting for the next battle because it's the only thing that makes sense in the world.

I'm stuck. In the ice too. I feel like I'm constantly too cold. I feel like I can't even breathe sometimes. I can barely take a shower without remembering the crash. I dream about it. About losing Bucky. About losing everyone. And I don't know how to deal with it most days. The world is so different than I remember, but it's the parts that are the same that are the hardest. The violence and the war and the intolerance and all the things we fought to change. What was the point of it all? Most days, I just can't see it. I wonder a lot how much America would want me as their hero if they knew I'm an angry, disappointed queer man who doesn't give a shit about reclaiming this idea of America some of them have built up in their head.

But there are people. Good people. And they make it almost bearable. I have friends who have my back. I have Peggy, who I never thought I'd get to see again. I have Bucky, who is a better man than he'll ever admit to being. I have Nat, who makes me laugh when I thought I forgot how and who gives me shit and is a better friend than I deserve. And there's Sam, who I'm so grateful for that I don't have the words. Who makes me want to be better. Who understands me. Who makes me feel good on my worst days. And as terrifying as it is to think about loving someone when I'm so convinced I'm going to lose everyone, I think I'm in love with him.

I have never felt more useless in my entire life. I thought I felt useless after Whitehall died but this is worse. So much worse because I don't know how to help the man I love. I know everyone hates us and while I'm okay with that he isn't.

It kills me to see him withdraw into himself every single time one of you yells at him for simply trying to talk to you. He's suffered enough, he isn't asking for forgiveness or acceptance he just a chance to prove to you he's changed but you're all so focused on trying to make him suffer for what he's done that you can't see what you're doing is nothing compared to what he's doing to himself every single time he tries to reach out.

I don't want him to talk to any of you but he can't stop caring, even if you all hate him he's never going to stop. Because of everything you people have said to him he has decided he's better off trying to isolate himself from everyone, including me. I swear if anything happens to him because of this I will never forgive any of you.

We never meant for things to go as far as they did back home but no one can change the past. Everyone makes mistakes, its human nature but punishing us for the rest of our lives is just stupid and exhausting. I can't keep doing this, I'm exhausted and I don't have the energy to fight anyone anymore. I just want to live my life in peace with the man who helped me find myself again. Is that really too much to ask?

Everyone keeps giving Daisy's friend a hard time but... he's right.

I know I should want to go home. That should be the normal reaction for someone trapped in an alternate reality that seems to involve dinosaurs and a city in the middle of nowhere. But I don't. I don't because home is going to shit, everything I've ever known is in tatters and resurrected as a laughable ghost of itself, and the world is about to implode on itself because it's not equipped to handle the monstrosities about to be unleashed on it.

And the only people who might be able to do something about keeping it all in check are too busy dropping cities from the sky.

So. If anyone happens to end up needing something fixed, I just took over the local repair shop. And if anyone's got any special needs or requests, I build, too.

I never really looked forward to weekends before but I suddenly find myself really looking forward to them here.

[ Filtered to Ward ]
I think I may have found Bear's costume for Halloween. Though I'm worried he might get a little bit too hot in it. Thoughts?

And how do you feel about spending all day tomorrow curled up together?

[ Filtered to Mack]
Have you accepted it yet?

Yeah. No. I refuse.

I have this sneaky suspicion that Clint is to blame for this.