AUTHORS NOTE: My love for James Buchanan Barnes is terrifying everyone I know. I have no regrets. This drabble is just one of my outlets. Sorry it's not very long. I'll probably write more one shots because I'm trash so review and all that jazz if you'd be into it.

Men like him were wicked. Men like him were sadistic. If you were at the other end of a knife, or feeling the creep of a gun barrel, in the hands of a man with a reputation like the Winter Soldier's – you'd see glee in their eyes. Maybe they'd laugh. Maybe they'd draw it out. Maybe they'd make you beg for your life.

Howard Stark saw it in Long Island before he died. Natalia Romanoff saw it in Odessa as she was shot.

There was no malice in his movements, only ice.

There was no hell fire in his eyes, only decayed grey.

When he got you – because he would always get you – it was through the simplest outcome he saw at the time. This was not a game to him. This was not murder to him – because you were not life to him. The Winter Soldier only had missions. When they say he does not care. They mean he can not care.

Men like him were poisoners. The Winter Soldier was poison.

When you are at the other end of a knife, or feeling the creep of a gun barrel or the cold of his metal grip – you know you are not looking at a man like him. You are looking at the weapon of a man like him. He just happens to be holding a gun at the time. You aren't looking at a person. You aren't being killed by a person. You're being killed by a corpse bred in shell shock. And it is the last thing you will ever see.