diary of a dialup dinosaur

“I don’t think I remember who I used to be,” Bucky finally said after a few minutes had passed. “I know I look a lot like that guy, but I feel like I’m wearing someone else’s skin as well as someone else’s arm.”

Steve chuffed out a mirthless laugh because this, this he understood better than Bucky could ever appreciate. This had been his life for the last six months, pretending to be someone he wasn’t anymore.

“You haven’t been back very long,” he pointed out. “And everyone has been acting like nothing’s changed, but all it does is make it worse because everything has changed and you’re never sure if you want someone to call you on it or if you want nobody to notice. But I promise you, the longer you’re here, the more the old you and the new you will meet in the middle. And you’ll stop feeling like what you once thought of as home, being among the people who care about you, is such a foreign country.”

He looked over at Bucky, who spared him a considering look back before returning his eyes to the road but said nothing until he pulled over south of Sheffield and told Steve it was his turn to drive.

There were muffled sounds from where Dugan and Monty had gone, but nothing loud or sharp and, moments later, Morita was tapping him on the shoulder and indicating that they should go the same way, which led to a large storage closet with a slop sink and mops along the far wall and two middle-aged men in casual clothes being held in choke holds.

"They don’t know anything about a Sergeant Barnes," Monty whispered in a tone that clearly expressed his disbelief. "They’re being quite cagey about prisoners in general."

Steve exhaled through his nose loudly and held his pistol to the head of the closest one, the one Dugan was holding still and silent. There was no point in playing coy. “Wo ist der Cryostasis Kammer?”