Part II: Real Man, Always Thinking With My Fists

I Want to be Back on the Ground

Volunteering doesn't exactly pay the bills, but he doesn't need much. Free meals are offered for those willing to help, and he moves around enough to get a couple of those a day. He can work far longer than anyone else before he gets tired. So, even if he is noticed, no one will mind particularly. The hardest part for him is keeping from showing his real strength – which would undoubtedly attract attention.

Mornings are spent working, with lunch provided. Then he goes to the museum for a while. After the first day, that gets easier. The flashes continue to come and are no less confusing, but he has a better handle on keeping from losing his head. He reads and learns, and then has vivid dreams at night. They often wake him, sometimes screaming. But he doesn't think about that when it's not happening.

He goes back home after the museum to write down memories and do some thinking. Most days, anyway. Some days he is too much of a coward, and just goes to work instead. Using his hands is preferable to confronting the nightmares in his head. Late afternoon and early evening find him at the volunteer site, where he remains until it closes for the night. Dinner is usually also provided, so he finds that he has all his needs met.

"Home" isn't the same place he first broke into – he changes locations every couple days. Some of them are nice, and he has a chance to shower and sleep on a real bed. Others involve sleeping on the floor while listening to the wind whistle through broken windows. He feels safer in the latter, and wouldn't bother with the former if it weren't necessary to keep some semblance of cleanliness to avoid being noticed.

There is a bit of money in the backpack – he initially feels that it is a huge sum, but soon learns that it won't go very far. Against his better judgement, he uses some of the precious resource to obtain more notebooks. There was only one before and it is getting full. Writing his memories down gives them some kind of order and makes it easier to untangle the confusing mess they make of his mind.

Missions are harder to keep track of because they are all so similar. He was awakened, he was given his orders, he was sent out, he killed someone, he came back to the lab. They attached him to the machine – the one that took his memories away – and then he went into cryo. Sometimes the machine was after cryo, but the rest of the experience was about the same. He never knew much about his targets except how to identify them – they told him he was doing great things for his country and his people, but were never specific. So he has no idea whom he's killed or why.

A comparatively small portion of what's come back is of his life during World War II. It is the part on which he has the most information – the Smithsonian focuses on that time period, as does the news. When he manages to see any of it and it happens to be talking about Captain America. Mostly it talks about the disaster with SHIELD – usually immediate effects. There is something he doesn't quite understand about a leak, but it is not often explained in much detail.

There seem to be two parts to his wartime experience – one part before Steve was involved, and part after. The part after is better. He was with the Howling Commandos. They were a good lot – and were fun. Those are the best memories to wake up from – he's usually smiling. The part before Steve came was not particularly fun, though a few of the Howlies were his friends then, too. There was camaraderie in his unit, and there were some good times. But it doesn't compare to being in the elite HYDRA-fighting team.

Most of the memories he writes down come from before the war, living in Brooklyn. They seem like they couldn't possibly be real, especially looking at how the world is now. Was that his life once? Living in a cramped apartment with his family, befriending the neighborhood kid, doing well in school, being an athlete? Of all the things that have come back, those are the ones he cannot believe.