"Because I know you," I tell him, even if he doesn't believe me, even if he still thinks I'm blind. I would be afraid to say the wrong thing, would pick at my words like shattered glass, but I don't know that I have the energy. The truth will out, anyway, however I parse it.

"Because there are people who do the hard things that no one else can do, the things that aren't fair or pretty or match some definition of honorable, but they do them because someone has to. Because people like me can't. You're not a bad person, Bucky, you're a hero. And you were one before you picked up that shield." Unlike me, but I don't say that.

"What was done to you, what you were made to do, that wasn't your choice. And it wasn't your fault. The Winter Soldier wasn't your doing, Bucky. It wasn't. Your. Fault."