InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I CAN FEEL THE TREES!"

steve rogers ★ captain america (priceoffreedom) wrote in jurassiccitynet,
@ 2015-11-05 01:12:00

Entry tags:

alphonso mackenzie, grant ward (mcu), natasha romanova / black widow (616), peggy carter, steve rogers / captain america (mcu), tony stark / iron man (mcu), wanda maximoff / scarlet witch

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.

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	survives 2015-11-05 06:45 am UTC (link)
	The part of America that wants that isn't the part that needs to be fought for. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	priceoffreedom 2015-11-05 06:48 am UTC (link)
	I never know what to say to you. Maybe you mean well or maybe you're a decent person, but I look at you, and I see HYDRA. And that means something different for me than it does for a lot of people. Because I fought HYDRA during the war. I saw the horrors and atrocities they committed. And maybe it's not fair, but I can't really let go of that. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

survives
2015-11-05 06:56 am UTC (link)

I'm not a decent person. I'm a mess of obligations and orders, of regrets and cowardice, and badly formed attempts at redemption that blew up in my face. I was HYDRA. I am HYDRA. I will be HYDRA. I'll always end up back where I started because there's nowhere else to go. It's not fair. But none of it is.

If life was fair, I never would have ended up in the position for them to recruit me in the first place.

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priceoffreedom
2015-11-14 12:06 am UTC (link)

You know, it sounds like you make a lot of excuses. There are probably reasons. There always are. But whatever brought you into HYDRA, it's up to you to make your own choices moving forward. And I think you're not going to be able to unless you deal with that. You have an opportunity here that you wouldn't have anywhere else. You get to start over. And maybe you don't deserve that. Maybe you do. That's not up to me. But it is up to you to embrace that or to keep holding on to your past.

Life's not fair. Anyone who says it is, they're bullshitting you. But it gives you chances, even if they're completely bizarre.

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survives
2015-11-14 06:18 am UTC (link)

People keep saying that I do. And maybe they're right, but they never feel like excuses. They feel like solid obstacles, things being dropped down in my path that I can't navigate around. Things that people keep saying shouldn't hold me back, shouldn't influence or alter my decisions, that have no bearing or weight on anything, but that I can't see as anything but.

Because I kept making the choices that I thought would lead be back in the right direction, but all they did was end up pushing me further and further away. And I don't understand how. I don't beyond that I just don't know how to do the right thing... so why even try if no one is going to tell me what I keep doing wrong?

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