Barnes stood in the door to the kitchen, angry through the grogginess in his mind. His cybernetic arm was locked with the elbow crooked and fingers curled. The weight of the metal structure tugged his torso down, and the muscles where it attached were numb and slack.

Rogers sat at the kitchen table, back turned so he faced the window. The curtains were pulled, as they had been in Barnes' room when he awoke. Rogers was holding something.

There was a long silence between them, and Barnes' anger at the state of his arm resolved into a sick chewing feeling in his gut that tugged darkly at his memory. He blocked the thoughts and stepped toward Steve in silence. His left arm swung stiffly at his side.

Rogers made a thick sound, and Barnes froze with one hand on the available chair at the table. Steve held a lidded plastic tube in his hand.

I've seen that before, Barnes realized, and turned to the Soldier for explanation. The Soldier was silent.

Rogers cleared his throat. "Is it you?"

"...Yeah it's me."

"Was it you last night?"

Barnes hesitated. "It was my idea."

Rogers' face was steely, controlled. "Then tell me." He stood the vial on the table, and the pill rattled. "Was this for Jenkins, or was it for you?"

Barnes waited for the Soldier, but he explained nothing, and chewing feeling curdled in the back of his throat. Steve's sunken demeanor told his what the pill was for. Clumsy words sought an explanation he didn't have - didn't want to have. "The gun - was for Jenkins - " His breath caught in his throat.

Rogers looked to Barnes, but Barnes broke eye contact and stared at the poison tablet.

Barnes' words tangled in his mouth, and a choking fear rose him. The Soldier. The Soldier was the only explanation, and the soldier could - at any moment - His face contorted as he felt the Soldier seeking control. With squeezed breath he managed, "There's someone you have to meet."

And then he was pushed,

back,

back, watching.

The Soldier straightened beside the chair, his face relaxing into a carefully focused calm. He looked from the vial to Rogers and spoke in uninflected Russian.

"We haven't had the pleasure. I am the Soldier."

He was silent a moment, then, sharply; "I might offer my hand but you seem to have disabled it."

Steve opened his mouth, searching the Soldier's face for some hint of what this meant. The Soldier stared back, expression hardening a little.

"You look for answers."

Rogers' face furrowed in confusion. "Yes," he answered. The Russian syllable weighed strangely on his tongue.

The Soldier looked to the vial. "The cyanide was ours." He looked sharply back to Rogers. "I kept it from your friend." The Soldier's right hand moved, as if to take the vial. "I would not have let him suffer. He would have known only the success of our vengeance, in our moment of death."

Rogers made a small sound, and the Soldier turned on him, eyes dark and critical.

"It upsets you? Then you do not see that it is mercy, Rogers. What is left for us in this century? A life in hiding? In prison? While those that made us suffer escape suffering themselves? Justice is all that is left, and the end of our suffering in death." The Soldier snatched at the vial but Rogers slapped it away. It clattered against the wall and under the table, and for a moment the bewildered expression of Bucky played across Barnes' face.

"Buc."

He blinked at Rogers. "I thought we'd just come back here and...it'd be okay." Bucky's expression sunk in dismay. "I'm sorry Steve. For what I am." He gritted his teeth.

"You see, your friend is a weak man," the Soldier cut in. Bucky recoiled. "Afraid of death. Afraid to suffer." His mouth curled into a bitter smile. "He despises me. He does not know the good I have done him."

Steve saw Barnes on his knees, thrashing, begging, and the captain's distress sank into pity. He spoke quietly, with unintimidated sympathy. "Who was it, last night, on the floor?"

The Soldier met the accusation with dead eyes.

"You're still their soldier, aren't you? Why do you let them do that to you?"

The Soldier opened his mouth, but said nothing. And then Buc emerged, shaken and unfocused. He raised his eyes after a moment, and in disbelieving wonder murmured, "He left."