The words are haltingly spoken, maybe, but well spoken, too. I watch Bucky recite part of that passage that had burned itself so indelibly into my memory, so young, and remember saying the rest of it to Peter on a Manhattan roof top. I believed it, then. I believe it now, I know I do. I just don't feel that I do. They mean so much, these words. To hear them from Bucky's mouth seems like they should mean even more. But all that stirs is a sense of disappointment, in how I ended things, how I let them end, how far I let them get in the first place and how I couldn't see any other way. It's a far pricklier wound that tires me out more quickly and drastically than the one in my shoulder.

The look he shoots me is significant, but I don't react to it. I look down at the book in my hands, turning it over, then almost casually discard it back atop the pile.

"That's how it goes," I echo.