Post by Ray on Mar 25, 2015 19:50:19 GMT -7
(Letter: Sgt. James B. Barnes. NO DATE. Retrieved 17 June 1945. Intended Recipient UNKNOWN. Registered into S.H.I.E.L.D. Archives 3 September 1954.)
I'm sorry.
Okay, you goddamn punk? I'm sorry. There. I said it. And I'll say it a hundred more times, cause god knows I could never say it enough.
I'm sorry.
I should have never left you. I thought that, somehow, I was protecting you. Better me than you, right? I won't pretend like I came here willingly. But I thank fucking GOD that it was me that got picked from the crop. Not you. I guess I thanked him too soon, cause you ended up here anyway.
I want to be so damn angry at you. I want to scream until my lungs burn and my bones shake and my words turn into knives. What gave you the fucking right to show up like you did. Like a goddamn miracle. Smiling down at me like the sun. How fucking dare you risk your life for me. I'm not worth it. I've never been worth it. I didn't want you saving me.
Jesus Christ, all I ever wanted was for you to be safe.
Do you remember when we were sixteen, and we'd managed to scrape together enough dimes to see a show. Something with Ginger Rogers. And you borrowed my jacket because you just wouldn't stop shivering. You couldn't have been wearing it for more than a heartbeat before you found a switchblade in the pocket. I thought you were going to hit me. You started spitting fire, like you always do, damning me for being such a fool. For looking for trouble. “You're going to end up arrested or dead, and who's going to tell your ma?”
I never told you that the knife was never for my sake. The guys down the block had stopped calling you names and started breaking your nose. You'd started learning new ways to hide your bruises, but I always knew when you'd gotten in a fight. You pretended like it was nothing. Like it never hurt you. But it did. I knew it did. And I wasn't going to sit by and let it be.
I wouldn't. I won't.
And that's the truth of it, isn't it?
I'd kill for you. I HAVE killed for you, and I'd do it again as easy as breathing.
You do this, all of this, for justice and what's right. But goddamn if I don't do it for you, sweetheart. The blood and grit underneath my fingernails and the fire in my gut and the pure satisfaction I get each and every time I pull the trigger stopped bothering me a long time ago. Because I'm finally doing the one thing, the one fucking thing, I've ever been good for.
Protecting YOU.
And I'm so...fucking sorry. Because you're right. I'm going to end up dead. From the second I got the lottery, the second I bought that switchblade, the very second I saw you for the first time, I knew I'd die for you. And I'd do it willingly.
So I want to say this once. Just once. Because I'm aching in a way that I never knew could hurt. And if I don't say it here, then...
You used to ask me what love felt like. Truth is, back then, I had no idea. I wanted to believe the movies as much as you did. That love was a skip of the heels and a kiss in the rain and a June wedding.
Well I think I finally have the answer for you.
Love isn't a feeling. Love is a compass pointing you in the right direction.
And pal, you're my true north.
I'm sorry.
Okay, you goddamn punk? I'm sorry. There. I said it. And I'll say it a hundred more times, cause god knows I could never say it enough.
I'm sorry.
I should have never left you. I thought that, somehow, I was protecting you. Better me than you, right? I won't pretend like I came here willingly. But I thank fucking GOD that it was me that got picked from the crop. Not you. I guess I thanked him too soon, cause you ended up here anyway.
I want to be so damn angry at you. I want to scream until my lungs burn and my bones shake and my words turn into knives. What gave you the fucking right to show up like you did. Like a goddamn miracle. Smiling down at me like the sun. How fucking dare you risk your life for me. I'm not worth it. I've never been worth it. I didn't want you saving me.
Jesus Christ, all I ever wanted was for you to be safe.
Do you remember when we were sixteen, and we'd managed to scrape together enough dimes to see a show. Something with Ginger Rogers. And you borrowed my jacket because you just wouldn't stop shivering. You couldn't have been wearing it for more than a heartbeat before you found a switchblade in the pocket. I thought you were going to hit me. You started spitting fire, like you always do, damning me for being such a fool. For looking for trouble. “You're going to end up arrested or dead, and who's going to tell your ma?”
I never told you that the knife was never for my sake. The guys down the block had stopped calling you names and started breaking your nose. You'd started learning new ways to hide your bruises, but I always knew when you'd gotten in a fight. You pretended like it was nothing. Like it never hurt you. But it did. I knew it did. And I wasn't going to sit by and let it be.
I wouldn't. I won't.
And that's the truth of it, isn't it?
I'd kill for you. I HAVE killed for you, and I'd do it again as easy as breathing.
You do this, all of this, for justice and what's right. But goddamn if I don't do it for you, sweetheart. The blood and grit underneath my fingernails and the fire in my gut and the pure satisfaction I get each and every time I pull the trigger stopped bothering me a long time ago. Because I'm finally doing the one thing, the one fucking thing, I've ever been good for.
Protecting YOU.
And I'm so...fucking sorry. Because you're right. I'm going to end up dead. From the second I got the lottery, the second I bought that switchblade, the very second I saw you for the first time, I knew I'd die for you. And I'd do it willingly.
So I want to say this once. Just once. Because I'm aching in a way that I never knew could hurt. And if I don't say it here, then...
You used to ask me what love felt like. Truth is, back then, I had no idea. I wanted to believe the movies as much as you did. That love was a skip of the heels and a kiss in the rain and a June wedding.
Well I think I finally have the answer for you.
Love isn't a feeling. Love is a compass pointing you in the right direction.
And pal, you're my true north.