JAMES BUCHANAN BUCKY BARNES

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𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙣: 𝘽𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙮 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙧, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘽𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙣 𝙙𝙖𝙮

i have been writing bucky for a long time, and in all of that time i have been fixing what the mcu canon has given us and wrestled with what pieces of the 616 i include. a long time ago, @valorxus and i had a discussion about the impact each and every tragic thing in buck’s life effected him and i netted out with him being three distinctly different characters all wrapped up in the guise of james buchanan barnes. so i’m going to lay a little timeline out here, along with who bucky is at each point in his entirely too long life.

please note – this is MY canon for buck, and i in no way expect this to agree with other people. i have claimed canon divergence for a very long time with him, and have really just shaped him to be my own version, with his core personality very much intact.

𝐉𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐁𝐔𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒 𝟏𝟗𝟏𝟕 - 𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟒

Commonly referred to as Buck or Bucky ( though the nickname first came from the lips of Steve Rogers ) James was an orphan from a young age. He met Steven Grant Rogers at the ripe old age of six, and the two became inseparable the moment he saw Steve pushing around his bullies. He’ll spend the better part of his life finishing the fights that Steve starts ( and really, it’ll be his whole life ) and he’ll regret none of it.

He’s a closeted bisexual man living in the 30′s and 40′s in good ole Brooklyn New York. He works in factories and helps sustain a household so Steve can continue to pursue his art. The war doesn’t matter to him. It never did. What mattered to him was the sound of Steve’s laughter on a sunny summer afternoon and the fact that only Steve could provide him the space to be himself. Almost always smiling, almost always sassing, he never hated life.

He only enlists because someone had to watch out for Steve.

The war itself doesn’t change him. He’s just as full of sass and life in the 107th as he was before. He’s resilient, able to withstand nearly anything thrown at him. A natural leader. All fantastic candidates for HYDRA to create their own super solider.

Being found by Steve, working with the Commandos, falling from the train… it was all part of the plan.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄 / 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟒 - 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟒

No longer James Buchanan Barnes, The Soldier is a cruel twist of fate for the man. He is turned into a machine, the arm being the least of his worries. The super soldier serum that HYDRA had placed into him earlier settled into his being, allowing room for scientists to begin tweaking at him as quickly as a day after his fall. HE WAS AWAKE FOR ALL OF THE TWEAKS THEY DID TO HIS BODY. This all will come back to him, in time. ( While his most forefront nightmares are the things he did to others during this time, the scariest of them all will be the phantom pains. ) First they strip his body, then they strip his mind.

It takes HYDRA’s top scientists almost two years to fully perfect the brainwash they do on their greatest soldier. In those two years he is tortured, electrified, submerged, half put into cryo, physically beaten, and mentally diluted. The Soviet Union, the money behind the operation, finds that the longer they freeze his body, the longer control they have on his mind. Mixing the freeze with trigger words… they create the perfect MACHINE.

The Soldier is everything Bucky Barnes was not. He’s obedient, a soldier and a follower, listening to the commands of his superior officer. They succeeded in creating the perfect weapon. They introduce him to the Red Room as a training officer.

Natalya Romanova becomes the exception to all of his rules. She nearly breaks him free of his programming, the pair prepared to escape the tortures that their Soviet captors have seen to set upon them. Of course, they’re caught, and OF COURSE, they’re frozen. But it will come back to haunt HYDRA and the USSR that one agent could break him free.

In truth: He was always fighting his programming internally. They thought he was ready to be released to work with other agents. He wasn’t. He’s stronger than they gave him credit for. So they up their game, and from the 70′s on, he works completely alone.

𝐁𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟒 - 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐃𝐀𝐘

After the fall of the hellicarriers, and leaving Steve to fend for himself safely on the sandy shores, Bucky finds himself completely lost. No longer certain who he is or ever was, he sets off on a journey of self discovery that will take him decades to piece together. Before the events of Civil War, he hides away to protect himself and those around him. He has no idea if he’s capable of resorting back ( though once he remembers the recall list he knows in his heart that he can be pulled back in and that SCARES HIM to no end ) so he finds it better to stay away from people.

The phrase i don’t do that anymore lingers for him as a statement to his desire to change himself from the monster he’d been made into. He doesn’t yet understand what he needs to do or can do, so hiding and running makes the most sense. He steals petty cash and finds ways to counterfeit his way into places to sleep. He doesn’t stay anywhere too long, and he drinks unnecessary amounts of Russian vodka. He has passports that he picks up along the way, and other old spies and contacts he’s able to trace in order to keep himself under the shadows. He’s doing a great job too… until he’s framed for terrorism.

We all know what happens then. A wild hunt through the world that ends with an epic battle that is about so much more than just Bucky’s freedom. In the midst of Tony throwing well earned punches at his face, he realizes if he is going to heal, he needs to move out of the way. The fight belongs to those prepared, and he no longer has the DRIVE to fight like a soldier. He may never again.

He DOES NOT GO INTO CRYO IN WAKANDA. While he struggles to trust himself while he’s healing, he does trust the Wakandas, and therefore knows if he breaks, someone will do the right thing. Shuri ( along with the key scientists she trusts with this mission ) creates a new arm, and creates a unbreakable patch for his mind. No longer is he hiding from his memories, and NO LONGER can a list of words trigger him to kill.

He doesn’t enter another fight until the Infinity War, instead spending time enjoying the peace brought by the Wakandan countryside. Again, we all know what happens in IW, the snap takes him away for five years. I fully don’t believe in a plot where those who were dusted lost those five years, rather they were TRAPPED together in the stones. When they’re released again, it is not to come back with five years missing, rather five years to explain. But it doesn’t matter. They win.

Though there will always be other fights. He knows that. He knows his fight is never over. After all, he’s a good soldier. He still does what he’s TOLD. ( just by the right people this time. ) Steve replaces the stones back into their timelines, but he does not stay with Peggy. He comes back to the present day and he retires, he and Bucky getting an apartment in DC at first, and then eventually they will settle in Brooklyn. It’s not much, but it’s enough for them. They have each other… and Sam. And Sharon. They have a team. The Bucky everyone knew starts to come back. He’s less cold, and allows himself onto a journey of forgiveness. First, to himself. Then? To the world.

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I will give preferential treatment to these blogs! This does not mean I won't write with others who write these muses (in most cases) but I have plotted fairly extensively with these people and will give them first dibs. If you want to be on this list, message me!

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