Bucky's Diary

November 14, 1944

If You Would Let Me – Arc North & Hands
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Dear Diary,

This war really has me worried. There's just so much going on with all these different aspects that I wasn't even aware of and... it's overwhelming.

I'm afraid I won't make it to the end, whenever that may be, to actually see the outcome for myself.

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I flopped down on top of him, still in my shirt and my underwear down around one ankle- him looking exactly the same but both of us too exhausted to care.

And, to be clear, we'd just finished fucking loud enough for the whole damn hotel to hear- not that it mattered too much with someone like Captain America to protect the both of us from any backlash... or maybe they all just thought he was just getting all the ladies, who knows.

We laid there for a second, neither of us speaking as we both tried to regain that lost consciousness we seemed to have expended during round two. Eventually, I decided to speak first.

"Steve?" I said, still leaving my head to rest on his chest.

"Hmm?" he answered, his hand running through my hair and making me want to just fall asleep instead.

"Do you think this'll ever end, the war and all?" I started.

I felt him shift beneath me. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just that I'm a little nervous about it. I don't wanna be here forever and, as much as I love staying with you in London, it feels like my luck is running out," I explained.

"Running out?" he answered. "Running out how? Buck, they're not gonna separate us anymore, okay? Peggy knows we're, you know, the way that we are. She'd never let that happen."

"I guess so," I shrugged. "I just don't see any possible way this war could end anytime soon. I mean, yea, the United States is winning and a lot of great things are happening - hell, FDR even won an unprecedented third term - but it's just hard to imagine anything past a week from now with all these immense changes going on left and right."

"No, I get that," he agreed. "And I can see how you feel like that too, but I honestly think we'll be back in Brooklyn in no time."

"You do?"

"For sure," he chuckled. "I'd give it a year, tops. I mean, really, with the way the US is going at it whole-heartedly now, I can't see us still being at war this time next year. I really can't."

"But, what makes you so sure?" I wondered.

"It's a gut feeling," he finally answered after thinking for a while. "We're well on our way to liberating France and Italy, Hitler's on the run as far as I've heard and we're also working on Greece and Singapore and literally so, so many more. It's going slow, but we're picking up speed and, what, just a few weeks ago Belgium was completely liberated. Freeing entire countries is a huge step in the right direction!"

I smiled to myself. "You're right. And you always know just what to say to make me feel better."

"I guess so, but honestly, everything I said was 100% true. I wouldn't lie about where we stand in such a high stakes war," he detailed. "I think we've got this down pat in the next few months so long as we continue as we've already been."

"Now, I think I'd have to agree with you," I said. "Thank you."

"Anytime, Buck."

"Ugh, and to finally get home-"

"Tell me about it," he exhaled. "I can't wait to just relax back in New York and do nothing again, with you, of course."

"Oh, of course," I felt my cheeks tug away at a smile. "I hope it's all the same."

"I'm sure it will be, despite how foreign, yet somehow better, it'll feel."

"That sentence made almost no sense, but I seem to still know exactly what feeling you're talking about," I told him.

"Sometimes, Barnes," he chuckled and shook his head. "Sometimes."

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Who knew Steve was so knowledgeable about the goings on of every damn country in this war? Seriously, I thought that conversation was gonna be entirely hypothetical and just guessing at how this war would end.

He seems to think we're gonna be victorious, and I now happen to agree with him.

~ James Buchanan Barnes