There are no strings on me.

I think I might have been human once. I'm not so sure. For as long as I can remember I've been a thing. I think being a thing was easier...

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Ghosts from the Past || Niko and Bucky

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

"Awesome!" Niko said with a big grin as he responded. It was going to be fun going one and one with him again. It had been many years since that last happened, and besides the last time he had been an instructor, not an equal. "I’m kind of pumped for this not gonna lie."

"So uh……wanna race?" She said with a grin as she stretched her legs out. Why not start the sparring or work out session with a little bit of fun. And besides as she told him no one could seem to keep up with her so far. That is other than Steve or the few enhanced people she had come across. 

Niko was gonna have a blast during this sparring session or hell even this race if he was down.

[the-lover-destroyed]

He wasn't sure whether that meant that she trusted him, or whether it meant that she was insane. If their places were reversed he wasn't sure he'd have wanted to go up against the Soldier, much less be enthusiastic about it. But the more he remembered about himself, the more realized that he had never really been a soldier at heart. He'd fought, and killed, out of necessity, not because he enjoyed it. 

He watched her stretch and once again tried to dredge her face out of the mire of his memory. You'll get there eventually, Barnes, he told himself. 

"Sure, why not." He smirked. "If Sam comes by we can lap him in twos."

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Ghosts from the Past || Niko and Bucky

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Niko smiled slightly and nodded to him “I get what you mean. It’s hard to adjust to anything new when this was all you’ve known for so long.” She had been back in the world for years but it was still odd when everything you had known was suddenly completely different. 

"Well i’m sure SHIELD is more than happy to have one of it’s best soldiers back in it’s service. You really are a legend you know." She said looking up at him with a small smile. Even though she wasn’t American, they were still told the stories of how a single crew took down part of Hitler’s biggest regime. And then when she was taken, she had learned of his other legend. But like her he was probably trying to forget what had happened while in service to The Room.

"Hey I know it’s probably an odd question, and you don’t even really know me, but did you wanna spar sometime? You and Steve are the only ones that can keep up with me blow for blow. It’s all right if you don’t want to though. She said with a small shrug as she dug her toe into the ground. That little bit of shyness had never really been stomped out of her no matter how hard they tried. It was just part of her makeup as a person.

[the-lover-destroyed]

Ah, yes. The legend. That was another weird thing about waking up in the 21st century. People recognized him. Sometimes they wanted autographs, sometimes photos. Steve looked like he was used to that kind of thing, but Bucky... He hadn't got that treatment during the war. The version of him they'd put in those damn comics was some fifteen-year-old kid in tights (not the most flattering thing they could have done) so no one had ever recognized the exhausted fella with the thousand yard stare and the bad attitude. When people had come to interview them they'd only ever wanted to talk to Captain America. Nowadays the Winter Soldier was a pretty hot topic and there were a lot of journalists who'd had questions. 

He hadn't talked to any of them. Not yet. He wasn't sure if he was ready for that. 

He smiled, though he didn't know if it came out right. Smiling wasn't something the Soldier had done and he still felt rusty. "Sure, we can spar." He was still iffy about taking anyone on. He'd been avoiding sparring for fear that he'd hurt someone, or that his programming would resurface in the midst of a fight with Steve and he'd do something he'd hate himself for. But if she'd trained with him in the Room...

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Ghosts from the Past || Niko and Bucky

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

"Yeah in a way I guess. They managed to hunt me down and bring me in for questioning. I had managed to save a few SHIELD agents from an attack in Prague a while back so I had gained some credibility I guess." Niko said with a small shrug. She shouldn’t have been that close to the Mother country but it had worked for a bit. Staying so close that they wouldn’t think to look for her.

That was until they had attacked a hotel that she was at. There was some dignitary there that had something that The Room and SHIELD had both wanted. One for all the wrong reasons, and one that seemed a little bit less…..sketchy. So she decided to help out and maybe she would get lucky and end up betting on the right side.And wouldn’t you know it, she had.

"They gave me a chance to wipe out my ledger, and I’ve been working it ever since. Trying to help with what I was given, even if I never get it back to the way it was before, every little bit helps right?" She said with another shrug as she grabbed her water bottle and took a swig. "What about you? You staying with SHIELD?"

[the-lover-destroyed]

He shrugged. "Probably. I mean, it's where I started out. It was the SSR then, and I was technically part of their army muscle, but... SHIELD's founders were my friends. And they're bringing the fight to HYDRA, so i figure it's better than being a lone wolf."

He didn't mention that a good part of why he stayed was that Steve was there. He liked to pretend that he was adjusting well-- after all, there were so many things about the twenty-first century that were wonderful and he didn't want to sound like some grumpy old man pining for the old days, but it was difficult. It was hard to come back to reality when the world had changed as much as you had. 

Everything he knew about being a man had changed. It should have felt freeing, but instead he felt like he was playing a game he didn't know the rules for. He also should have been over the moon that people like him could get married now, but after so long without proper human contact he knew it would be a long time before he was ready for that kind of thing-- if ever. There were so many things to get used to. Some were fun, like electric coffee grinders, Ipods, computers that fit in your house, video games, foreign food, television. Others were annoying. Some were downright confusing-- why the hell did people take a photo of their coffee and put it on the internet for everyone to see? They all came in the same cup. 

There were disappointments, too. Segregation might have been gone but he'd seen plenty of racism around. Women had come a long way, but he still saw sleazebags hanging out of cars yelling vile things at them. And in some states, business owners could still refuse service to queers. Then there was this whole Global Warming thing that Bucky didn't fully understand yet. And Howard had promised flying cars. Where the hell were the flying cars?

"At this point I don't really know what else I'd do."

[brokeprotocol]

It was wholly obvious that Barnes wasn’t willing to back down, to give his guard even an inch. It wasn’t surprising. The guy had been screwed over by HYDRA, totally and completely. Brainwashed, with a machine, rather than a situation and a twisted sense of loyalty. The machine had all the finesse of Garrett, but was largely more effective. Really, it exempted Barnes of his crimes, in the eyes of, well, most everyone. It would be nice to have that kind of excuse, if it weren’t for the violated, dug-around feeling it probably left behind.

At least with Garrett, Ward could pretend his head wasn’t that screwed with. That he held on to some modicum of self-ownership.

He’d made bad decisions. He owned them. But that wasn’t a pass, and he knew it. Didn’t make it any easier to resist the urge to tense up at the venom in the other man’s words. There wouldn’t be a fight, of that Ward was - had to be - sure, but the angry line the other’s form made? Made it hard to keep that in mind.

"Listen, Sergeant?" Probably too familiar to say that, but saying ‘Barnes’ sounded much too familiar. "Person, thing? It’s HYDRA. If you’re not upper brass, if you don’t make decisions, like Pierce? Whitehall? Rumlow? You’re nothing but a number and an asset. You don’t get to make decisions to benefit anyone but the guy you answer to." He bit his tongue on the words ‘But they wiped you like a bad hard drive, so you wouldn’t know that’. Did seem wise.

[the-lover-destroyed]

Despite the months since he'd last been in HYDRA's clutches and the logical part of his mind that told him that Ward was on their side, it still came as a surprise to Bucky that he wasn't struck. If he'd shown Rumlow or Garrett-- and he could remember Garrett enough to know the special kind of hell that Ward must have been privy to-- that kind of insolence he'd have been beaten for it. 

Objectively, he knew that all the tortures, all the abuses, all the violations, had been performed by, or on the orders of, the men who ran HYDRA. Johann Schmidt, Arnim Zola, Vasily Karpov, Aleksandr Lukin, Alexander Pierce, Brock Rumlow; they'd been the ones to make his life hell. But he could remember every man and woman who'd ever been a part of his ordeal-- they'd called it operation and maintenance. There was a euphemism for you. Not all of them had been innocent little underlings. A lot of them had enjoyed themselves... Too much. 

"I didn't answer to them... I belonged to them. I get that you weren't free to decide any more than I was, and I get that people are going to give you more flak for it than I'll get because your brain wasn't fried." He bit the inside of his mouth. Now that his emotions were back at the surface, it was harder to contain them. His anger was one of the hardest things to keep on a leash. "What I'm saying is that you had the option to defend yourself. If some punk took a swing at you, you could swing back. Me...? I don't fight back. If I defend myself, I'm punished. If I flinch, I'm punished. If I say no..." He'd done that once. The memory of what had been visited upon him had made it almost impossible to say the word again, even though all Steve had asked was if he'd wanted a coffee. "And if I don't like where their hands go... Tough. My body, my brain, was theirs."

[brokeprotocol]

"Take my word, don’t take my word. It doesn’t really make that big of a difference to me. You won’t be the first one to say that, and I highly doubt you’ll be the last."

It was becoming a whole lot harder to care about the distrust when it came with that kind of venom, but Barnes had a different level of righteousness attached to his. For one, he’d been used by HYDRA like just another gun. Commiserating over their shared experience, though, didn’t seem likely. “Not a Nazi,” he repeated, tone more worn than when he’d told Skye. “Not saying I didn’t do bad things for the guy… Really bad things, but I was never a true believer.” Everything he’d done had been for Garrett. Hell, he hadn’t even known what he’d signed up for until he was five years in debt to the man.

Did that make it okay? No. Of that, Ward was very aware.

[the-lover-destroyed]

He could tell Ward was telling the truth. HYDRA may not have used him as an interrogator, but he'd been one for the SSR back in the day. And while he couldn't remember much of those days, his sense for truth and deception was still sharp. The fact that Ward wasn't lying didn't make him feel any better, though. His hackles remained up. He'd fought with every scrap of will he'd had to resist HYDRA and he hadn't given in-- become their tool-- until they'd stripped those scraps away. They'd had to make him a thing. It pissed him off to no end that despite where HYDRA had come from, despite what it stood for, there were people who'd signed on and done their bidding, true believer or not.

He knew he should be able to forgive them if they were willing to change sides. After all, it was only the true believers who had made his life hell. People like Pierce and Rumlow, Zola and Lukin. Those who weren't devoted to the cause didn't get to see the Soldier. But he couldn't help but resent those who hadn't stood up and said no. He hated that there were those who would compare him to those looking for forgiveness, those who'd joined of their own volition. He'd fought to the last and they'd had to tear him out of his own body to make the body do what they wanted. 

Not everyone can do that, Barnes. It's not fair, you know that, but that's the way it is. Not everyone's willing to die for the cause.

"Must have been nice to be one of the people, instead of one of the things." He had a hard time keeping the anger and bitterness out of his voice. There was still part of him that expected a stun baton to the gut or a backhand to the face. 

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Ghosts from the Past || Niko and Bucky

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Niko nodded her head gently. She knew the struggle of remembering, she had been through it herself and it felt like dragging your body through sludge wearing a thousand pounds of gear. And she could only imagine that it was worse for him. “Yes I was with them.” She couldn’t help the shudder that passed over her as her mind went and thought about that place.

"I was one of the only other people to make it through the training to be injected. You and Natalia were there when I woke up I think." She said tilting her head to the side. That time was still a bit fuzzy to her but she could remember him clearly. "I know you probably don’t remember but that’s ok. I know what they put you through. I’ve been through it myself." She said with a small smile. 

Niko could remember them being out on the range shooting. Him acting like a drill sergeant, her the private trying to impress the big man. Hell he had been the one to teach her distance shooting, and was the reason she’s as good at it as she is.

[the-lover-destroyed]

The realization that the Red Room, that HYDRA, had done to others what they'd done to him sat like lead in his blood. He wanted to be relieved that he wasn't alone. That someone else in the world knew what it felt like to have memories burned out of your brain; to be left with nothing but the instincts and base reactions imprinted in the primordial parts of your brainstem. But he couldn't find it within himself to be happy about it. No one should have had to go through it and it was bad enough that they'd done it to him. 

He knew that if she'd been there in his days in Russia then he would remember her faster than he would have if she'd been from his more distant past or from his brief escape in '73. The easiest memories to get back were those from right after a wipe; those that were printed on tissue that had escaped the searing, scarring electricity. Those neural pathways took less damage and healed faster. Which was why all his conditioning had been performed after wipes. It also meant that the first memories he'd regained had been some of his worst. He was always pliant and obedient after a wipe and most everyone who'd worked for HYDRA had known that. The first memories that had come flooding in during his first weeks of recovery had been very unpleasant. 

"You with SHIELD now? Like Nat?" He sidestepped the memory question. It still bothered him that he couldn't remember people or places. He couldn't even remembering shooting Kennedy or Howard Stark. Maybe that was a blessing. Finding out he'd assassinated a President had been enough of a blow, but finding out he'd done in a friend had been worse. 

[avengingkatebishop]

"Different better or different worse?"

"News sources lying is probably a tradition at this point."

[the-lover-destroyed]

"Well... I suppose they don't talk about blacks and queers like they're the scum of the earth anymore. That's an improvement. And they don't fling slurs at the Japanese anymore. News is news, instead of an opportunity to tell people how to behave... It's different better."

"Unless you're on FOX, then it's just more of the same. At least in my day they could get their facts straight while they were being racist."

[cxprxgers-blog]

"I’d appreciate it if you didn’t"

"Rather not explain to the curator how another suite got destroyed."

[the-lover-destroyed]

"Sorry."

"So the future doesn't have anything for getting blood-stains out o' clothes? They can send a guy to the moon but they can't clean your uniform?"

[avengingkatebishop]

"I know, their shows are such a disaster."

"Apparently it’s as hard as it is for them to use common sense."

[the-lover-destroyed]

"Well, common sense has never been as common as they'd have you believe. But... I don't know, the news used to be different."

"At least when they lied they did it on purpose."

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Ghosts from the Past || Niko and Bucky

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. It is him. There he was standing in front of her again. It had been so many years since she had seen him face to face and it was almost to hard to swallow. She saw the glance that he gave her and knew that look well. It was something that she did to everyone the instant she walked into a room. It had been hammered into her to always be prepared.

"I…..I know you…..you……you trained me James. It was a long time ago, but you were there when i was turned into this." She said with a gesture to her body. She was referring to when she was serumed and put through all that training. James and one other person had been there from the start.

Then it clicked in her head. With all the memory stuff that they did to them, especially him, there is a chance that he won’t know her. And that thought broke her heart, but she at least had to try. “It’s Padshiy……Niko.” She said using a nickname she had gotten in the beginning of her training. She hoped that it might jog a memory or something because the blank look she was getting was tearing her up.

[the-lover-destroyed]

Niko. Niko. The name set that prickle ablaze in the back of his head-- the one he got when he knew he should remember something. Damn it, you can do this, come on. It had been like this when Steve took him to see Peggy. It had taken him twenty minutes to get even the most rudimentary memory back into his head. 

He took a deep breath. Talk to her, like you did with Steve and Peggy. It'll jog things.

"You were with the Красная комната?" He watched her face, looking for something, anything to remind him. He remembered Karpov as a shadowy presence; a paradox of respect and iron-fisted dominance. He had expected perfect obedience, and while he'd treated Bucky like a human being, he still hadn't treated him well. He remembered Lukin-- a spectre of pain and horror. He'd feared Lukin almost as much as he'd feared Zola. And he vaguely remembered a swirl of red hair that might have been Romanoff... There'd been others... Hadn't there?

[cxprxgers-blog]

"Turns out the Smithsonian had more then one of these to display." 

[the-lover-destroyed]

"I promise I won't put holes in this one."

[brokeprotocol]

"Do you see me promoting the HYDRA party line? Unless I’m missing it, I haven’t been running around spray painting the logo all over every available free space."

"If we’re comparing FOX news and HYDRA, I’m on board. Need you to keep in mind, here, Sergeant, my involvement only went so far as keeping my SO alive, by whatever means necessary." Never mind that, in the end, he’d failed to that end, and couldn’t say he felt a lot of remorse about it - at least, not anymore. "I didn’t even know you existed."

[the-lover-destroyed]

"Forgive me if I don't take your word on that." 

"HYDRA's spent the last seventy years lying to me, so I'm not really in the mood to trust someone who used to goosestep to their drum. Even if he did feel bad about it later." 

He swallowed, his eyes darting to the floor for the briefest of seconds. Keeping his SO alive... How many people did you kill in cold blood just 'cause they pointed a gun at Steve? What makes that any-- no. You never joined Red Skull Youth; at least not of your own free will. You wouldn't. Not even for Steve.... Would you?

No. The difference was that Steve would never ask him to do that.

[usingthebritishness]

On the run II Jemma and Bucky

[usingthebritishness]

"He was able to escape, but I don’t know how far he got. The comms cut out. I assume he was able to make it, but I guess we won’t really know until we get back to base." It worried her, but she also knew that if anyone could make it out it would be one of their agents. Shield agents were few and far between these days, but it wasn’t like they were without any skill. He knew what he was doing. 

The hallway was… problematic to say the least. Too many windows. She could see the annoyance written on his face. He didn’t want to chance it, but it was their only shot.

She gestured down the hall, “I run really fast.” She assured him, “We have to do it.”

[the-lover-destroyed]

"I know we do." That's what he was worried about. If it had been him, he'd have parked himself right across from this window and waited. It'd be an easy shot. Too easy.

He tapped the small black circle on the side of his goggles with his left index finger. The toggle was keyed to the different fingers of his prosthesis and each one controlled a different setting. His view out the window washed with green as the nightvision activated. Nothing. He switched to thermal with a tap of his ring finger. 

Sure enough, crouched in a spot the nightvision hadn't been able to illuminate, was a sniper. The minute they went out into the hallway, he'd have them. "Good to know they're not all idiots," he muttered, unholstering his rifle. He'd have to be quick. "There's a sniper on the roof across the street. Don't move." He flicked off the safety. "Я буду убивать маленький дерьма."

He hadn't even realized he'd switched to Russian. He took a deep breath; let his world narrow to the gun, his finger on the trigger, and the view through the scope. In one fluid motion he stepped out into the hall, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and fired. The HYDRA sniper fell.

"We're clear."

[avengingkatebishop]

"I like to think that the people who watch FOX News watch it solely to laugh at how awful it is, but who knows."

[the-lover-destroyed]

"I'd hope so. I caught one of their morning news shows... It was such a train-wreck, I couldn't look away."

"They need fact-checkers or something. How hard is it to pick up an atlas or a dictionary?"

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Ghosts from the Past || Niko and Bucky

[fallendragonov-blog-blog]

Niko almost stopped in her tracks, did someone seriously just say that to her? She had passed every other person out on the path and then there’s this guy coming up and getting in her running mood. She couldn’t help herself and sped up a bit to get up passed him. “On your left.” She said with a smirk.

But that smirk quickly faltered when she saw a metal glint in the corner of her eye. She turned her head and her jaw dropped. It was him. Da Zimniy soldat. Her voice barely come out in a whisper as she stopped in her tracks. “James? Is that you?”

Niko had heard rumors that he was back in action. And that might have been what started the SHIELD fallout. But she almost didn’t believe it because it didn’t really seem like his style, or rather what people normally used him for. It was usually for a one target kind of thing. Not a whole organization.

If he was back, what did that mean for her? He had trained her at one point and there was some sort of loyalty there. But would he be the same? Hell is she even the same anymore? 

[the-lover-destroyed]

Боже мой. Is she seriously going to race me? He knew he could outrun her if he wanted to show off, but that'd be rude. Of course, going easy on her because she's a dame wouldn't go over well either. Not now that he was in the twenty-first century. Hell, the gals back in 1940 hadn't liked it either.

When she spoke, he almost tripped and skidded to a halt. Alarm bells were glaring like klaxons in his head. She knows you... How does she know you...? Idiot, your arms on show. The whole damn neighborhood would recognize you... She called you James. None of the HYDRA goons ever called you James. The point was to make you forget... Except... Karpov had called him James, sometimes. Lukin preferred demeaning nicknames like Petrushka, but Karpov... He'd called him James. Even though the higher-ups like Strucker and Zola had insisted that he stop.

His memories were still fuzzy. He knew there were others in the facility where Karpov and HYDRA had kept him. He knew he'd spent less time in cryo, but the details were slim. 

He turned, checking the woman for weapons before he'd even looked her in the eye. "How do you know my name?" He asked, his voice low. Please be a history buff. Please be some nerd from the Smithsonian.

[brokeprotocol]

"Generally? Making big blase statements and trying to find a scapegoat for the American problem…"

[the-lover-destroyed]

"And HYDRA didn't do that? I seem to remember them deciding that free-thinking Americans were the American problem."

"Oh, and there were those blase statements about my work being a gift, and giving the world the freedom it deserved. Those the blase statements you were talking about?"

[the-lover-destroyed]

"Do people actually take FOX News seriously? Is this what constitutes journalism these days?"