I hope people realize that HYDRA didn’t teach the Winter Soldier anything. It’s not like they gave him an arm and then gave him a couple dozen classes on how to kill his enemies. Yes, Bucky has considerable fighting skills due to his back alley brawls with Steve, and exceptional marksmanship as a sniper, but he didn’t learn to be that fast because HYDRA gave him a crash course on how to defeat your enemies.
Because what they probably did was give him an arm and their half-baked version of the super soldier serum and then threw him into a cage with animals, or at the very most and possibly later on, some of he best martial artists or fighters they had. Bucky wasn’t taught any of those fighting skills, he didn’t have any of that before his fall.
He wasn’t taught, he learned.
He was shoved into fight after fight not to teach him but to probably test his durability with his serum, figure out what his limits were. And when he got fed up enough with it, when he was tired of hurting, he got up and he fought back. And it wouldn’t be some miraculous fight, not at first, he’d go down broken and bleeding after his first fights but the first time he got someone down and beat them to a pulp, it wasn’t pretty. It was horrific. Like watching a rabbit beat down a fox.
And that is probably when Zola decided that this fine specimen would no longer serve as a testing grounds for the supersoldier serum, but as the Fist of HYDRA itself.
And then the fights started to get easier, and shorter. He’d come out with less and less blood on his face and less broken bones, not because the serum was helping or doing its job but because he was. The bodies would look less and less battered, less like a wild stampeded and more calculated, more precise. He was getting better. He was turning into a masterpiece. Faster, stronger, smarter, better, better than he ever was before.
What HYDRA taught him was how to survive but James Barnes learned himself how to fight. How to analyze his opponents, how to find their weaknesses, how to be the perfect assassin, the Smithsonian didn’t put his school grades in there for nothing, he was intelligent. He probably has massive array of techniques that have no names or definitions because he came up with them himself. All of that was him. And when he was given weapons, he took them, because they made the job easier. It kept him from using his arm as a battering ram and that, he felt, if he could feel at all anymore, was mercy.
As much of the Winter Soldier is terrifying, he is more so because he adapted. He wasn’t taught anything, he has no rules to follow, no techniques one could learn, he’s unreadable because every single action he made up himself. And he adapts fast. He’d always be analyzing. Always watching. Learning. Copying. He was a killing machine, yes, but he built that up from the ground. HYDRA gave him the tools, but everything else he did, that was him. That was Bucky.
And keep in mind that probably also during this time, he was holding on for Steve. His memories are leaving him behind, but he’s holding on, desperately. He keeps going through the fights, he keeps fighting because he knows he has to stay alive for Steve, for Steve, for Steve.
He’s bloodying his fists with people he had to kill to survive and every day he falls deeper into the hole of what he’s becoming. Who he’s becoming. How many people he’s killed. And sometimes he sees Steve’s body lying there and not a strangers with that same red blood on his hands. And sometimes he’s terrified of the idea that when Steve finally does come for him, what will he see? Will he be too covered in blood to recognize him and shoot him down before he could speak? Would Steve even recognize him? Or would he be terrified of him? Horrified? Disgusted? Bucky isn’t sure which one is the lesser of two evils.
And then HYDRA thrusts that damn paper in his face giving up the search for Captain America and that’s his first fight when he rips his opponents head clean off. When he realizes just how lost he is. Just how alone he’s going to be. That death won’t even find him now.
That’s he’s going to die alone and at these bastards hands and he knows that even if he’d be allowed the grace to die someday, he won’t be going to where Steve is.
PHOENIX — Tennessee lost the reigning SEC player of the year down the stretch against the nation’s top-ranked team.
The Vols still had the Admiral to lead them.
Admiral Schofield hit a 3-pointer with 24 seconds left and scored 25 of his 30 points in the second half, helping No. 7 Tennessee knock off top-ranked Gonzaga 76-73 in the Colangelo Classic on Sunday.
A few people have suggested that I should have beat my attacker more after I downed him, instead of running. To be honest, it didn't even cross my mind. I'm a very peaceful person by nature, and I did what I had to do for my own defense. Once the threat was neutralised, there was no need to keep fighting, so I ran to safety. In addition, even though the guy wasn't very big, he was still bigger than me (5'3" and a half vs. 5'8"-5'9") and he had a knife. If I had stuck around and kept going at him, he could easily have gained the upper hand once he regained his feet. The thing that worked in my favour was the element of surprise, because most attackers don't expect small females to fight back.
You never quite know how you would react in a real-life situation like that, and my basic instinct was "fight or flight." The entire confrontation only lasted maybe 20 seconds, and it wasn't anything heroic or dazzling like in the movies. There wasn't any dialogue aside from "I want your stuff" and "HEY!" There probably wasn't even any blood, aside from the little bit from the cut on my knuckle. And let me tell you, punching someone that hard HURTS. My hand and wrist are still a little sore.
Someone tried to rob me when I was walking through Widefield park earlier this evening. Yes, I know, I'm really stupid to have been walking alone at night. I'm okay, wasn't hurt aside from a split knuckle. Thank you to Black Lotus Kung Fu studio for teaching me self-defense, because those guys probably saved my life tonight. The guy grabbed for my purse (missed) and then my hair, but he got my bandanna and pulled out a big chunk of my hair as the bandanna came off. Came at me with a knife so I parried as I kicked him in the groin and punched him in the sternum. Threw my drink at him as he was going down, then booked it through the tunnel under the road and hid behind the bridge until the police got there.
