"You guys should have put me down when you had the chance." He hears Bucky say in the next room. Steve freezes where he is and listens.
Sam Wilson is here, trying to help Bucky with a boatload of PTSD leftover from his time as the Winter Soldier. Bucky is having a hard time of it.
"Why is that?" Sam's voice is steady and careful and gentle.
Steve is suddenly glad he's not the one trying to talk his friend through this, because he knows he'd be awful at it.
"I'm dangerous." Bucky says matter-of-factly, and he isn't wrong. "Steve thinks I don't notice, but I do. I forget things, but I'm not stupid."
"Notice what?" Sam asks. He kindly avoids the discussion of who is or isn't dangerous. Nothing helpful can come of that conversation.
"The bruises." Bucky says, almost too casually. "He's fine when I fall asleep and then I wake up and he's got a black eye and a limp." Steve hears his friend's breath catch and feels guilty for eavesdropping. He can't quite bring himself to stop though.
"I do things without- I hurt people. I hurt the people who care about me. I kick the crap out of my best friend every other night and I don't even know I'm doing it. I'm rabid and… I'm dangerous." He seems to run out of steam there and falls silent.
"Look… Bucky, you're not the first guy to feel this way." Sam says. The couch creaks as he sits down. "You don't want to hurt anybody, that's easy to see."
Bucky sighs. "Sometimes I do."
"It's going to take time. We all have bad days. Sometimes bad weeks... months. You have it worse than some other guys do, 'cause they literally took your choice away. But nobody's gonna do that to you now.
You can choose to get through all the shit in your way and get your life back, or you can let it eat you alive... But the point is it's up to you."
Bucky doesn't answer.
"I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. It may never be easy. But you're a tough guy, and I think you can do it."