Bucky could have crushed bones with that grip. It hurts, but Steve doesn't feel it. Merely looks at him, a faint line between his brows that's all the indication he's willing to surrender in public to show how close he is to just breaking down. Bucky said that to him once when they were under fire, and for some reason their firearms kept jamming. It turned out later that the ammunition was faulty, and they were lucky they hadn't blown themselves up in the process. We're lucky the Germans are lousy shots, Steve had said at the time, and not a second after he said it he took a bullet to the thigh. A ricochet, just a fragment, but he remembers Bucky's hands pressed down over the wound as he said, when have we ever been lucky? with the wry gallows humour so many people adopted in that War.

The air feels heavy in his lungs. "We were lucky that day," he says, very quietly. "The Germans always were lousy shots."