[This time, when he squeezes, it's out of gratitude. A complex gratitude, certainly, because a dark and ugly part of him wonders if that's really true, if anyone would really have stepped in to save him. No one did, after all. That simply wasn't his reality.]

[Then again, people like Steve are few and far between. He didn't used to believe they existed, but he's been proven wrong, and in this moment Steve's doing a very good if unwitting job reinforcing heroic categorization. Looking at him now, it's easy to believe he really would do something like that. So even if it wasn't him — maybe some child someday will benefit from the look on Steve's face right now.]

. . . Thank you.

[It's quiet, but earnest. He's thankful for a lot of things Steve's doing for him right now, but this statement might be the most significant. Even retroactively, someone thinking what happened to him is wrong is . . . very new. Because Riley did, but not like that. She knew it too well.]

[His thumb skates over brand-new inhuman knuckles, gaze thoughtful as he once again wars with himself over omitting some things. Not after all of this, though. It would be such a waste.]

She met an Italian man. That's why we moved to Napoli. I saw even less of her after that. [Matter-of-factly:] He beat me. The less we saw of her, the more he beat me. He said he didn't like the way I looked at him, things like that . . . and I was bad in school because I didn't speak Italian yet, and no one wanted anything to do with the weird Japanese kid. They didn't want me there. No one did.

[Softly, he sighs. This is . . . the part that was so easy to explain to Riley and so hard to explain to anyone else. He tips his head to look at Steve, open and vulnerable and in pain.]

Have you ever . . . I don't know. Wanted to disappear? To just not be anymore?