I'm Here | ✓

32 - Choices

I tilt the knife in the sunlight, running the rag across the blade to erase smudges and fingerprints. It practically shimmers, and I slip it carefully back in its sheath. I clip it to my jeans right behind the exposed gun holster for my Glock. My other guns are in the backseat, freshly cleaned and loaded.

"You sure you don't want one?" I offer to Steve, who has his arms crossed behind his head in the driver's seat. I remember storming a Hydra facility with him once, and he used a gun then, I think. "Have you even used one since, what, '42?"

He shakes his head. "Yeah, but new tech is confusing. The shield works fine. Don't need to reload it or worry about recoil so much."

I consider this for a moment. I prefer using actual weapons, but I feel like I've used his shield. I know I used it in Siberia, but I'd rather not think about that. There's a faint memory, barely more than a wisp, and it frustrates me that Hydra took so much of me out of me. "Did I ever use your shield... back then?"

I can see Steve freeze up a little bit, but his eyes are still closed. After a second, he responds. "I imagine so. I know the rest of the Commandos played with it occasionally and got pretty good at it, but nobody used it as their primary weapon besides me. It was more symbolic than anything."

I nod, wondering more about what Steve was nervous about than how he answered. I study him for a moment, trying to remember anything that would make him react to my question like that. When would I have used his shield?

I can't recall.

I remember something else instead, something I would've rather forgotten.

Steve looks at me, concerned. I can see his eyebrows furrow across the table, but I resign to staring at my palms.

"It's getting harder," I whisper.

He nods like he knows, but he doesn't. He's got a shield, not a gun. He wears red and blue and people see him coming. Not me. That's what gets me. I hide and wait, a silent threat they never see. Maybe that's cowardice, or maybe it's stealth, but either way, it feels illegitimate.

"It'll always be hard. War is over-glorified. There are always winners and losers on both sides, and sometimes that means sacrificing a little bit of ourselves so that we can save people we've never even met."

He doesn't understand. Within a year after he got the serum, he started growing up, and I could see it. He says inspirational words like that, about battle, but he wasn't drafted, he wasn't dragged away from home to a war he didn't even want to fight. He chose this; I didn't get that luxury.

I shake my head and throw back another swig of my bourbon.

"That's not it." I take a breath. "The thing is, I don't feel anything anymore. Every time I hit my target, I feel nothing. No remorse, no regret, no consideration for the other side. I don't know what I'm turning into, but I hate it."

Steve reaches across the table and sets his hand carefully on mine. I don't react, just keep staring into the amber liquid in my glass and wonder why I'm going numb.

"Don't do this to yourself, Buck," he murmurs.

"I have to. I don't care where I'm at; in a Brooklyn back alley, defending you against some bullies, or Germany, shooting up a Nazi base." I finally muster the courage to look him in the eyes. "I have to, Steve. Erskine made the fight personal."

Steve still doesn't understand how it feels to be on this side of the trigger. He'll never understand the guilt of not even remembering the things you did to other people. I hunted, I tortured, I murdered. Steve never even wanted anyone dead in the first place when he first entered the war.