This man, this mission had changed everything that the Winter Soldier thought he knew. This blonde man swore that he knew the assassin, that they had been like brothers once. Flashes of a life that didn't feel like his own came to him but that was all that they were. Nothing felt real. Nothing felt coherent. Nothing seemed to fit.
He was like a puzzle that couldn't be put together again. Too many missing pieces. Too much blank space.
How was he supposed to figure out who James Barnes was when even he wasn't sure where to start?
This wasn't what he had wanted or what he had expected. This had never happened to the assassin before. Walls felt like they were crashing down inside of him. Not once but each time he saw the blonde man again. He fought harder because of this. There was nothing but the mission.
And then a handful of words were spoken by the blonde man and it was like a switch flipped in the assassin's brain.
"Because I'm with you to the end of the line."
Had he said something similar to the blonde man before? The words felt familiar, like a warm blanket. Like an old friend. He wondered if that was what this man was to him. An old friend. Despite the fight, it was that thought that pushed the assassin to pull the blonde man, broken as he was, out of the Potomac after the Helicarrier crashed. It was that thought that stirred something that felt like sympathy in the assassin and although that was at war with everything else he had been taught, the dark-haired man left his opponent - his mission - on the banks of the Potomac before walking away.