Chapter 209: Chapter 209: Winter’s Revenge

Chapter 209: Winter’s Revenge

13^th March 2012, New York City

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

He was able to escape my hold by kicking my hand. He looked at me, with a savage glare, with his adamantium arm up in the air, ready to punch me, “Freight car.”

This was it; I could feel whatever humanity in him disappear, leaving only Hydra’s asset. I could feel him shut down completely. The man stayed frozen with his arm raised, before standing down and giving me a blank look, “Ready to comply.”

“Remove your telepathic protections and kneel down.”

The man did as I asked without even questioning me. He removed a small metal object from behind his ear and knelt down before me.

I gave him a pitying look, “I’m sorry James, but this is going to hurt.”

I grabbed his head and entered his mind properly.

 

(Bucky Barnes POV)

James Buchanan Barnes, also known as Bucky Barnes, opened his eyes. He felt tired, had the biggest headache he ever had in his life. It was worse than anything he had during the war. He stretched himself and realized for the first time that he was in a bed. This was odd, he hadn’t slept in a proper bed in years. His country was at war, and Bucky was a soldier. They didn’t get to sleep in beds, unless it’s hospital beds and they weren’t even close to this large or comfortable.

The second he had this realization, he got up suddenly, preparing for an attack. He looked around and found himself in a large room. It was pretty luxurious with a large closet, that was obviously well made, small tables and chairs that he never saw outside of the movies that he saw during his vacations.

If he was abducted, they wouldn’t have left him alone in a room filled with potential weaponry. Finally, he got out of bed and looked at the mirror. He stiffened when he looked at himself. His hair was a mess, and far longer than the army would ever allow him to have. He looked a little older, but not much, but the glaring difference happened to be the metal arm that replaced his left hand.

“Unsettling, isn’t it?”

Bucky turned around, his arms raised as he was prepared to defend himself. Instead, he found a small woman, barely reaching his shoulders. He had to admit that she was beautiful, with ivory pale skin, pure black hair, and stunning emerald eyes. She was smirking at him, “Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Margaret Sayre, you may have heard of me.”

Bucky wracked his brain for a minute, until he remembered Steve telling him about the scientist woman that helped the doctor that created the Super Soldier Serum. He hadn’t said about her being this stunning though, although he supposed that Steve wouldn’t notice a woman that wasn’t Peggy Carter.

With that memory came another one, telling him that the woman in front of him was assassinated by Hydra, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

She shrugged, “I’m supposed to be many things. But we’re not here to talk about me, as your case is much more interesting. I believe you noticed your new appendage?”

Bucky stifled his angry retort; the army had taught him better than to give in to his impulses, even if the woman in front of him is potentially his captor, “Yeah, how did I get it?”

“That is a very long and complicated story, one that you won’t like. But before we start, I want to make something clear. You’re not a prisoner here. You can, at any moment, leave this place and I will take you anywhere in the world, and leave if you ask me to. Although I don’t recommend you doing that, at least, before we finish our little talk.”

The tension in Bucky’s shoulder released a bit, but it was still there, “Alright, what do you want to talk about?”

The woman, Sayre, shrugged, “It entirely depends on you. What is the last thing you remember?”

“I was on a train, with Steve and the rest of the Howling Commandos. We were on a mission to capture a Hydra scientist. Everything was going well, but one of the Hydra soldiers had a very powerful weapon. he shot at us and made a hole in the train. I remember Steve telling me to hold on. I remember falling. I was supposed to die. Am I dead?”

The woman snorted, “No, you’re not, Mr. Barnes. That is the last thing you remember, because it is the last thing I allowed you to remember.”

Bucky stiffened at this, “Why?”

“Because if you remembered the rest, you wouldn’t have been able to cope. As far as the world is concerned Bucky Barnes died that day. As far as even you are concerned, this is the last time you were Bucky Barnes.”

“Explain.”

The woman gave him a pitying look. Bucky hated that look, “The truth that no one knows, is that you, Bucky Barnes, barely survived that day, due to the experiments Hydra ran on you when you were their captive, before Steve rescued you. You were dying, that’s true, you had lost your left arm before they found you. Hydra found you, rescued you, and on that day, Bucky Barnes died and their weapon, their asset, the Winter Soldier was born.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They used you, brainwashed you, locked up your personality, your very self, in the back of your mind, leaving a blank shell that was under their control. You were given a metal arm and turned into Hydra’s super soldier.”

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The World War Two veteran looked like he wanted to throw up, “But I’m not a super soldier, not like Steve, at least.”

The woman snorted, “Zola had given you a variation of the serum when you were abducted in the first place. It was why you survived the fall. It took some time to set in without Howard Stark’s vita ray technology, but after a few years you were Hydra’s favorite weapon, especially after they went in hiding because of Steve defeating the Red Skull. Even if the war was over, they still used you as a weapon to assassinate their enemies, to kill their opposition.”

“The War is over?” The mere idea was preposterous, that he’d missed the war, that he’d been a slave, a puppet.

Sayre nodded, and Bucky had to ask, “And Steve?”

“He was able to fight his way to the Red Skull and defeat him. Unfortunately, he had planned on destroying entire cities with some kind of Hydra missiles. Steve was able to redirect the plane and crash it to the Arctic, saving millions of lives in the process. He stayed frozen in the arctic, assumed dead for seventy years until he was found by an expedition less than a year ago.”

Ah, so at least Steve was still alive. Wait a minute... “Seventy years?”

She nodded, “Yes, I’m sorry to say that it’s the year two thousand and twelve. You missed quite a bit, Mr. Barnes."

"How? I don’t look like a ninety year old man”

The woman snorted, “No, you don’t. Don’t worry, it’s not the serum, you’re not immortal. Hydra just kept you frozen unless you were needed for a mission. Don’t worry, you look precisely your age.”

It took a few minutes for Bucky to digest this information, until he asked, “Why did it take so long, didn’t Steve destroy Hydra?”

I nodded, “Yes, he did. Unfortunately, after the war, an organization known as SHIELD was created from the remnants of the SSR, by Peggy Carter and Howard Stark in an effort to protect the planet. This was good and all, but they had the frankly idiotic idea of integrating former Hydra scientists into their ranks, in an effort of helping the ‘good guys’. Of course, those scientists started Hydra once more, in the middle of SHIELD, without them knowing. They survived through SHIELD and became even more influential than they were under the Red Skull. These are the people who had you captive.”

“And how did I escape?”

The woman snorted, “You didn’t. You were just ordered to kill my current identity, and I took offense to that. I recognized you and chose not to kill you. I knocked you out and started to heal that damaged mind of yours.”

“Who are you, really? You didn’t say anything about you being frozen. Are you really a hundred years old? How did you fight me if I really am a super soldier?”

The woman burst into laughter, “I’m a lot older than a century, kiddo. The world is a far bigger and weirder place than you can imagine. I’m in charge of making sure that the human race doesn’t blow itself to smithereens. Creating the super soldier serum was necessary at the time. And don’t worry, it had nothing to do with Rogers, it’s more that the possibility of super soldiers would keep scientists and weapon manufacturers guessing for almost a century without a single result. It was a distraction from creating too many super weapons. You don’t know what they managed to create despite this.”

Bucky chose to ignore what the woman just said. It wasn’t the time to process the information, so he chose to focus on what happened to him. He could think about the existence of immortal super women later, “And you were able to heal my mind?”

She nodded, “It’s a bit of an oversimplification. The human mind isn’t some little wound that could be healed with the use of some band aids. It’s a very complex web of connections and memories. Your memories are still there, the good and the bad ones. The problem was, that what Hydra did was make sure that you associate any memory of Bucky Barnes to intense pain, leaving only an empty shell that could be very easily commanded. Your core, your personality, your identity, is primarily created through memories. Removing every single one would be like killing you, turning you into a newborn, a shell, that can be easily controlled. They then put commands, trigger words in that shell, made it the primary consciousness, and gave you the skills necessary to perform their missions. After every mission they would program you again, turning you back to that blank state, to that asset. You would forget the mission you just did, like you did your previous identity, leaving only the asset, to be commanded by whoever said the trigger words.”

Bucky was horrified by what had happened to him, but he let the woman continue, “What I was able to do, was remove the core personality, the one that was modified by Hydra and slowly started to trickle in your memories from prior to your fall. You started to redevelop into Bucky Barnes. As for the other memories, I can’t constantly keep them suppressed. They’re a part of you. I mean I could, but it wouldn’t be good for your mind, especially with years’ worth of memories and experiences, horrible as they may be. I was able to remove the memories of the reprogramming and the brainwashing, for your sake and to prevent you from falling due to them again. As for what you did while under Hydra’s control, that is something that you’ll have to deal with. You’ll slowly start to remember your missions, the lives you’ve taken, nothing more.”

“Was I this bad?”

The woman nodded, “Yes, you were.”

Well, at least Sayre was being truthfully blunt with him. It’s better if he had the current information before doing anything. But before she could get out, he asked her, “My friends?”

“The Howling Commandos lived their lives as celebrated heroes. They had children and grandchildren. I don’t know if they’re still alive, but you still have Steve who joined a team of superheroes. And James Howlett, another long lived individual, he's amnesic but his working as a teacher for students with certain abilities.”

Bucky chuckled at that, “Really, James, a teacher?”

The woman nodded, “Survival training, I think. He terrifies his students as far as I know. With that said, you’re going to have to decide what you’re going to do now that you’re in your right mind.”

Here it is, the sales pitch, “I assume that you have a proposition.”

The woman nodded, “Yeah, you could leave and join Steve’s team, although you wouldn’t be very welcome when they realized that you shot one of his teammates and killed another teammate’s parents. You could go join Howlett, although he goes by Logan now. He wouldn’t remember you, but if you explained yourself he would be understanding, or you could go your own way and do whatever you want.”

“Just get to your offer already.”

The woman snorted, “Fine. Hydra happens to have angered me slightly. I don’t appreciate the attacks and the assassinations, which is why I’m going to bring the fight to them. Do you want to join me?”

It didn’t take Bucky too much time to choose. It was an easy decision after all.

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