He nudged Jim under the table a little more firmly.

"Even if I was fit as a fiddle, you weren't gonna end up alone ever, far as I was concerned."

He took a few spoonfuls of soup, which was good, very good, but a little rich for him. The enhanced senses he had made super-rich food a little overwhelming, but he wasn't about to let it go to waste. Not how he'd grown up.

"I had a whole speech worked out too, you know. For when you found a dame and wanted to make an honest woman of her. A whole proposal, lookin' to rent a room from the two of you, how I'd help with the cleaning and the babysitting and all that, do my part, you know?"

Because he'd never really planned on having someone. Because the only person, to his mind, that he'd ever imagined putting up with him was Bucky.