Widow padded to the front door. "Steve's back. I think he'll be glad to see you've opened up."
"He okay?" Barnes asked after a brief silence, still staring at the photograph. How could they make me forget if they're dead? The figure - the Soldier in the photo was doing something to the body. Removing something from the dead man's jacket.
Steve stepped in with a rustle of paper bag and the rhythm of his familiar regime - unlace and set his casual walking shoes in their appropriate spot, hang the coat and hat. He passed through the living area to the kitchen.
"Hey Buc."
"-Hey Steve."
Widow followed Steve into the kitchen, speaking quietly. Barnes gave a sigh and set his head back against the cold window glass, staring at the trimmed white ceiling as if it might condescend to swallow him up. What's she got to say that I can't hear? His arm recalibrated once, then again, and he felt its heat conducted through metal nerves, spreading like an intolerable rash that burned against the fabric of his shirt.
It was a set up. Somebody was setting him up. And who in the world was left to trust?
He lifted his head as Widow made to leave.
"Do I get to keep this?" he asked, waving the print at her.
"That," she hefted a folder from the bar table and flopped it onto his lap. "And more. Just don't drive yourself crazy with it, Barnes."
She gave him a skeptical look and shouldered out the door.
"Do you want seconds?"
Over dinner he continued to examine the photographs.
"Yeah okay." Steve ladled the stew.
"You think I did this?" he asked, picking the armed figure out of the scene, as if Steve hadn't seen it before.
"Yeah Buc, and of course I'm grateful that you'd-"
"Steve that's not me."
"I don't blame you for - "
"Steve."
Rogers set his fork onto his napkin and stared at Barnes with the rehearsed composure that he hated to use. "Okay, tell me Buc. What is this about?"
Barnes pushed aside his stew with his metal arm and its crude manners. He laid three photographs on the unfinished wooden surface and pointed to the first.
"This is the dumbest framing I've seen in years. I know this. I've framed people." He handled his past with a fickle mixture of revolt and embarrassed pride. "First, these guys, they were my doctors. Scientists. Nobody that'd be going after you. They weren't following you. They were planted." He stabbed a finger at the second photograph.
"So second, I never killed anybody for my own reasons. And when this happened, what, last Sunday? Nobody was leading me around. I was autonomous. I wouldn't do that. These guys did - to me and I had a plan for them but I wasn't going to -ing kill them. That's what they'd expect me to do."
"Third I don't remember a thing of this. So would you stop thinking I did it." He folded his arm.
Steve looked to his stew for support, then spoke quietly.
"Well Buc, we say you did it because we got these images as it was happening, and stopped you as you exited the scene. So that's why we think it was you."
Barnes said nothing.
"But honestly Buc, it's like everything else. It's done. It's somebody else's work."
Barnes's face furrowed in anger. He stabbed a carrot from his bowl and waved it dangerously at Steve. "Yeah it's somebody else's work, and don't go telling me about him. This is HYDRA Steve. It's a frame. For what, I don't know. But hell, I'm not letting them get me for anything." He popped the carrot in his mouth.
"They think you died in the crash, Buc. They can't frame you when you're dead."
"Well you got these photos, didn't you? They're probably in the line just like everything else. Everybody knows."
"Online." Steve stared at the images warily. "I don't know."
Barnes glowered. "Yeah you do, Steve. That's why I'm going to figure this out. I'm not letting them get me for anything."