he who hesitates is toast

He tries to speak and can only make a low, strangled sound. Happy is a word almost entirely without meaning for him. Flickers of memory from so long ago and distant that they seem to have belonged to another person entirely flash behind his eyes. That man would know what happy means, he's almost certain, and would be able to feel it.

Not him; not the Winter Soldier. Weapons don't have wants, needs, or emotions, and he doesn't know what to do with everything welling up in him now.

"I nearly killed you," he falls back on, a barely audible whisper.