He shivers under that brief touch, about as fragile as the last dead autumn leaf clinging to the branch of a tree. Bucky looks up at her and relief floods his expression. At least he has this.

The exact amount of time it takes for him to talk again is hard to tell, at least from his perspective. Minutes? Hours? He's in that uncomfortable mindset where time feels relative, his thoughts untethered and flooding him with every awful emotion that he wishes he didn't have to feel. Yet he doesn't cry, not yet anyway.

Bucky finally talks and his voice sounds like he smoked a cigarette for every year he was the Asset and not Bucky Barnes, strangled by the oncoming wave of grief and helplessness. "I... I always tried to keep him out of trouble." Phrasing it so, so carefully. "Since I met him. He was getting hit on by a couple kids twice his size, standing up to 'em for... I don't remember what. I jumped in, and then I kept jumping in. Didn't stop him from finding trouble though."