ever marching as to war

They should've. They friggin' should've. There was no guarantee their little science experiment would work. Even with Stark in that room, they couldn't have known... I'm not suicidal, but I was a liability... A real threat... Swear to God, if I'd been in their shoes...

"Steve never would have let them," he says instead, voice laden with a different conviction than his thoughts, if no less certain. It's the loudest he's been so far, pushing through the chaos of his mind to focus on the present instead of the not-so-distant past. But he knows -- knows that he could've held a gun to the head of every man, woman, and child on this Island, and Steve still would have thought he could be saved.

Bucky sighs, suddenly, frustrated. "I just, I don't-- This was supposed to be gone. The triggers, all of it-- They took 'em out of me... I was promised."