Cant breathe, this is amazing!
Can I use it for inspiration?

"He is, all at once, a war criminal and a war crime." Oh, Bucky. :(

Thank you for posting.

Perfect one-shot, loved it! It really captures the idea of Bucky as an ordinary soldier who thought he might die, but not like that, and those little snippets of his earlier memories are so precious.
Also the way you linked death and mercy and Steve coming to find him was very clever, tragic and dark but perfectly fitting.
I think my favourite line might have been "even his sins are not his own", though, because that's just his tragedy in a nutshell - how do you make amends for something that you did when it wasn't your fault?
Brilliant story, going to my favourites Keep up the good work.

This is really good, and I'm always trash for an angsty/sad Bucky fic like this. My only pointer would be that in the sentence 'he pushes away the thoughts and pushes his hands deeper into his pockets', you could maybe use a different word the second time to stop it sounding too repetitive.

"They're like shards of glass, and where they land in him, he bleeds."
Awww the feels :'(

Geez, this is beautiful. Haunting. The line 'even his sins are not his own' hit so hard... and the line 'He is, all at once, a war criminal and a war crime.' was genius too. Wow. Good job.

I don't know what to say except that this story tore out my heart and was so achingly beautiful it took my breath away. Amazing job once again.

"He speaks Romanian and many, many other languages, but none of them belong to him. One day he wakes up and remembers nothing at all of French or Japanese. His mind shifts like sand. If it is an hourglass, he is running out of time."

"When he enlisted, he knew that the war might take his life.
But not like this. Death is supposed to come quickly."

"His mother used to tell him not to make those sad eyes at her, trying to get something out of her."

"He is, all at once, a war criminal and a war crime. He is half man and half machine, maybe more than half. He's afraid to know how much."

This is so good. That constant thread of ownership, as he tries to figure out his own personhood again and what is his and what isn't; what is him and what isn't, is great. There was a line somewhere where you wrote "even his sins aren't his own," and that adds a whole other level of intrigue to Bucky's state of mind, because you made me consider how perhaps it would even be easier for him if he KNEW he was at fault. If he knows that his deeds were not his own, then he knows he cannot be forgiven them, really-because they are not his to be forgiven. There cannot be any absolution that could make him feel Good again. The issue calls back to his conversation with Steve in the jet in the film. And it also makes the struggle he lives with very real; how can he heal if he cannot even take ownership of the things that are hurting him and the hurts he has inflicted? And when he DOES take ownership of that guilt, how can that be any healthier, bearing the weight of that violence when he is not the one at fault? The paradox-that he wants to be forgiven but also doesn't because he knows clearly his own crimes are wrongs that were done to his self via his own hands-is so compelling and horrifying. You tackle it so well here. And of course the solution is Steve-the only person who understands wholly what Hydra did to Bucky, because he's the only person alive who knew Bucky Before. And then, even when Steve does show up, he's still not going to get it quite right: his attempt at absolving Bucky will be "It wasn't you," and as you draw out so beautifully here, a giant part of Bucky's problem is that he knows that is both true AND not true. It wasn't him-but it was. And that's why he has to write it down. And that's why he is both dreading Steve and fixated upon the inevitability of Steve's arrival. When Steve shows up, that's going to be Change. In your story I get the sense of Bucky biding his time, awaiting and hoping for and shying away from death all at once, not inviting it but not running either. And Steve himself is mixed up with this attitude towards death because he similarly will signal an End to Bucky-an end of whatever his life in Romania has settled into and the beginning of a reckoning. Something he both wants and doesn't want because he wants justice but no resolution is ever going to be fair no matter how he tries.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of rambling to say I loved this and that it made me think many thoughts. And I am so happy you're writing Captain America fic again!