Grant Ward is not a true believer (notanazi) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2016-12-17 23:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *briege, *hannah, bucky barnes, grant ward |
Oh there were no words for how much he didn’t want to do this. Of all people the damn Winter Soldier. It was so messed up. But the guy needed help and he was pretty sure he could give it. There was a lot he didn’t know about this, but he knew the basics. He knew he existed. He knew there was a trigger but not even John knew what it was. Sad fact was also that he could look it up on the internet and but he had no plans to do that. He hated that Hydra did things like that to people. Which he supposed was hypocritical but Bakshi had been for a specific reason.
He arrived first, which he supposed was a good thing. Coffee was ordered for both of them and he took a seat at one of the outside tables knowing for a fact Barnes was likely watching him from somewhere. It's what he’d have done in the same situation. What he should have done in this one, but he was the one that had asked for this meeting. He didn’t look around, didn’t make any kind of movement that might have seemed threatening. He just waited. He’d tell Barnes whatever the hell he wanted to know. The revelation about who Grant Ward actually was came just a few hours after he’d agreed to the meeting the next day. Dr. Simmons had given him a brief history of who the other man was after she’d implied that he may have been someone who could help research and possibly work to reverse what had been done to his mind by Hydra over the last seventy years. Or at least find a way to counteract the switch from being flipped again as it recently had back home. They’d already been placed on the same team during the mission involving Narnia, but hadn’t had too much interaction so far since their team was sticking around Atlantis as backup. Finding out that someone from Hydra was here made Bucky wonder if he needed to start utilizing the shows and other stories that were about each of them. He’d resisted up until now because of personal reasons - reasons that shouldn’t have been there if he was thinking like a soldier or an agent. He hadn’t wanted to see himself on screen, so he’d simply made the decision to avoid all of it. But now he wasn’t so sure of that decision anymore. Instead of arriving to the location early, Bucky instead sat nearby in another store across the street and pretending to read a magazine by one of the windows. He waited until he saw Grant take a seat and then the waitress take his order. It was only after the two coffees were brought back that he stepped out of the shop and began walking towards him. He didn’t say anything when he first sat down except for shaking his head and declining anything else to eat or drink when asked by the waitress. Purposely using his metal hand, Bucky picked up the coffee that was already in front of him and drank a sip. It was black and strong, just as he liked it. After a moment, he raised his eyes to look across the table to Grant. He was clearly skilled at hiding his emotions, but Bucky wasn’t sure if he was able to pick up any nervousness about him or not. “What did you want to talk about?” No, he wasn’t going to offer any information from the start. He figured black coffee was the way to go. Drink of choice for specialists after all. And he figured that was as close to a description of Barnes as you could get. He showed no discernable emotions, trained as he had been from his mid teens to hide any sign of weakness, anything that felt like it could be used against him. And he was here with someone he knew could kill him in a heartbeat if he wanted. He wasn’t easy to kill, he’d give the guy a fight but even he had his limits. And that hand, it wasn’t unlike… No, he wasn’t thinking about that. Not now. And definitely not here. He was thinking about how to phrase this. How to do any of this right. How to even start. And bluntness came to the fore very very quickly. Straight and to the point. “Simmons, she told you I had some idea of what happened to you. She told you I had experience with brainwashing, right? And I do, I have that experience direct from the source. I was Hydra. I’m not anymore, and you can ask any questions you like about why, or you can go ahead and assume I’m lying and have some grand plan but believe it or not, I’m willing to help. Because I’ve seen what they do with brainwashing and if I can help at all. I’d like to.” He didn’t know if Barnes knew about what he’d done to Bakshi. That might change the game entirely, but he’d had his reasons, twisted though they might have been. Bakshi had done worse to others after all and Grant hasn’t exactly been feeling generous. Grant took a sip of his coffee, watching for anything, any expression that might have given Barnes away but the guy had just a good a poker face as him. “And so you know? I don’t know your trigger words.. I know they exist. But they were way above my paygrade. And yeah, I probably could look them up online but I haven’t. And I won’t. Take from that what you will.” Bucky had to give the guy points for jumping right into the truth rather than dancing around the subject. For that, he was grateful, because Bucky was the exact same way. He’d rather get straight to the point. As he spoke, Bucky listened with a blank expression as he took everything in. The wheels in his mind were turning, but none of that showed outwardly on his face just as Ward managed to keep his own expressions fairly neutral. Before answering or replying to anything he said, Bucky took a long sip of the coffee and let the words roll around in his mind some more. He’d basically confirmed everything that Dr. Simmons had already mentioned to him. Formerly Hydra, not a true believer, and he was familiar with the brainwashing techniques. One thing that caught his attention was the fact that the trigger words could have been retrieved online. Not from the leaks from Romanoff but from the actual events of his life and the movies that were available. He really needed to sit down and view each of the films to see exactly what anyone else could learn about him. “Dr. Simmons mentioned you had a girlfriend that had been brainwashed by them, but you didn’t mention her. Have you seen the process done in person or are you going by what she told you at the time?” The way a person worded their answers was extremely important and said a lot about what they were really thinking. It could have been nothing, but Bucky just went with what was given to him for now. “I don’t presume you’re lying, but I don’t presume yet that you’re trustworthy either.” It was how most people - unless you were Steve Rogers - felt about him on most days too. “Why did you leave Hydra?” Dr. Simmons had given him a brief breakdown, but he wanted to hear it from Grant himself. Simmons had mentioned Kara. He hadn’t known that and it took a moment to figure out how to phrase it. He watched Barnes for a second before speaking. “I’ve seen it done. Seen the process. But Kara had an insight that I obviously couldn’t. She explained a lot about how it felt and I tried to help her rediscover herself. Her handler died, and she had nothing. She didn’t know who to be and I understood that. In a different way than I expect you or she did, but I had an idea.” He understood that. Trustworthy wasn’t a word anyone ever used to describe him. He didn’t want to deceive Barnes but telling him all of it, when he didn’t even understand his own choices, it was going to be interesting. He’d left Hydra. He’d gone back in for Skye, he’d left when he found Kara, he’d gone back when...when he’d lost her. But ultimately the real reason he’d left a group he’d never even believed in traced back to one man. He didn’t like talking about John Garrett. It was still a mix of emotions, there was still some level of loyalty that he hated that he still felt. He’d hidden it behind a cold detachment, a block in his mind where he’d left all that when he’d saved Jemma and Skye from him. He knew what John had done, knew he’d taken a broken kid and made him a weapon. He’d made him hurt the people he’d grown to care about, told him it was a weakness to care. “There was someone I was loyal to. It was never about Hydra.I was never a Nazi, ever believed in superiority or whatever the hell else. It wasn’t about power and it sure as hell wasn’t about ancient goddamn alien gods. It was someone that I owed everything to. Or, I thought I did. The guy took a scared kid with anger issues and made a monster. And I can’t change that. I did things, that, I’m not proud of, but when John died...I made some bad choices. I’ve been so many things since then.” he said, faltering from an anger not entirely of his own design. Anger stayed so close to the surface since his run in with that stupid Asgardian Berserker staff. It was the first emotion he’d shown in this meeting and he cursed himself for his weakness. He took a breath and let the mask drop again hoping Barnes would leave it alone. Probably not. He wouldn’t have. “But that’s not important. None of this is important. Do you want my help or not?” From behind his coffee cup, Bucky watched Grant carefully as he spoke. He noticed the slight change in tone, hint of the spark of anger in his eyes, and even a slight increase in tension of his body. It all subsided and went mostly back to normal once he finished speaking about his past with Hydra, the girlfriend, and his old mentor. John Garrett. The name was another that was mentally added to a list to check into later. Because to find out more about Ward, he would need to know more about his teacher. Bucky’s handlers were different. Alexander Pierce had been one of them, and he’d been killed during the battle in DC. But he’d also had others in charge of him at the time too. That didn’t stop him from walking away once he realized something was missing. He hadn’t felt lost and confused as Ward was describing his friend because he’d been confused in an entirely different way. Just not because Pierce had been killed and the others were on the run. “It’s important. If I’m going to accept your help to try to find a way to reverse or undo what was done to me, then I need to know your motivations and parts of your history. Why you made the choices that you did and why you’re making this one to offer your help to me now. It’s important.” Because he wasn’t about to accept the help without knowing more. He’d be stupid to do that with so much on the line. “What sort of bad choices did you make when he died? I don’t need specifics. Just basics of what happened and why. Was that the lost feeling you said you sympathized with when her handler was killed?” It was understandable, and he wasn’t questioning it. Just curious. “One of the things that happened was the thing John worried about most. I was weak. I...fell for someone. Skye, or...she’s Daisy now. She was beautiful, and kind, and she said she saw a good man in me and I wanted that to be true. Oh she hates me, how could she not, I lied to them all, but there was a place, one like this where I made her see, where she gave me a chance and she loved me. We were together and John, he came there, he was dead, he’d been dead, but death didn’t matter there, he tried to pull me back and he nearly managed it, he just, he had a way of making me listen, making me loyal. But he tried to hurt her, and Jemma, and I couldn’t...I couldn’t let him and so I put a bullet in his brain. And it nearly broke me but I did it for her. But she doesn’t remember that here, she remembers back home where I kind of, I guess I transferred my loyalty to her, I loved her. And she hated me. I went back to Hydra to get information she needed, she didn’t ask me to, but they were more than happy to have someone of my skills back and it was pretty nice to be wanted again. But Daisy, she shot me, I helped the team, helped her, and she shot me because she didn’t trust me and I figured that was that, she’d made it pretty clear.” He didn’t know why he was telling him any of this. But he supposed it lead up to Kara, and she was the real question here, why he’d helped her. “Kara was SHIELD, she was good, and loyal and she was betrayed by her own, sold down the river because they didn’t check what safe houses were occupied, they put someone in deep cover when Hydra started purging and to get in they needed to give Intel. The Intel was her safehouse. She was taken, brainwashed, broken and she was sent after me, her last orders were to kill anyone she found but she found her handler dead and it broke her. She had nothing, she was no one anymore and I wanted to help her. She wasn’t my girlfriend until much later, I helped her find the real Kara and I liked who I found.” He wasn’t going into the rest of it, with Coulson kidnapping Kara, holding her as ransom so he’d help, May, with the bullets, with watching her die bleeding from wounds he’d accidentally inflicted but his hand closed tighter around his coffee. “Does that answer your question? I want to help you because no one should live like that, because you deserve your own autonomy and yeah, I’ll be honest, selfishly because you’re the damn Winter Solider and I figure if I help you, you don’t kill me and you keep Cap from doing the same.” He watched Bucky trying to gauge any possible reaction. “I can’t talk about any more of this, not today. You can ask again, you can look my story up, that’s not even close to all of it but I answered your questions. Do you want my help, Barnes, or have I just told you my life story for the hell of it, a conversation starter maybe?” Listening to him, watching him, Bucky could sense the anger. He got it since sometimes he struggled with it too, but it was in a different way than Grant did. He hadn't grown up angry. He hadn't needed that outlet. They'd both been taken advantage of but in completely different ways. Effective ways, sure, but different. Bucky's anger usually stemmed from frustration and anger towards the people he remembered in his dreams. Sitting back in his chair, Bucky had finished his cup of coffee and kept his eyes locked on Grant for half a minute or so. Partly because he was still working out the thoughts in his mind but also just because he could. Because he knew it would likely make Grant uncomfortable. The only change in his expression was a raised brow. Finally, he actually cracked a slight smile. “Steve would never kill you. It's kind of his thing. Sit you down and have a much longer talk than we're having right now and make you talk about how you feel? That, he'd do.” The smile was gone about as quickly as it came, but he wasn't shooting him a blank stare anymore either. “I could have killed Steve on that helicarrier. Have you seen it? Do you know what happened that day?” He asked but didn't wait for an answer. “My mind was gone. I didn't know who he was other than that he was Captain America and therefore the enemy. Stopping him was my main and only objective. But he stopped fighting back. He threw away his shield and let me nearly beat him to death. As a soldier, it made no sense. He was standing there telling me he still believed I was his friend, and he wouldn't even defend himself. I don't know why I stopped or why I pulled him out of that river. I still don't except for maybe realizing that I wanted to know more about why he believed in the person he said I was enough to die for it. In the days or weeks before coming here and he found me, he still believed that I was a good man. That I wasn't the weapon they created. He's wrong though. I'm still that weapon. And you're still the guy with anger issues that need to be dealt with. We're not good men, but others see differently sometimes. They believe in us when they probably shouldn't.” It wasn't meant as judgement or condemnation, but just how it was in Bucky's eyes. Bucky's eyes darted around and watched a few people pass by on the street. When he spoke again, his attention returned to Grant. “Yes, I'll accept your help to try to figure out if there's a way to change this.” A pause. “I don't trust you, but I believe you. So, yes, you've answered my questions for now.” He was unnerved by the pause. Of course he was. He suspected Barnes was messing with him, but it didn’t stop the fact that that one well landed blow with that arm and he’d be dead. And he’d just told the guy he had been Hydra. But the worry didn’t show. He remained every inch the specialist. He kept his eyes on Barnes until the other man spoke again. The brief spike of relief also hopefully hidden. Though as it happened the smile was actually more unnerving and he didn’t know what to do with that. He was probably right about Rogers, he knew the man better than anyone. “He’s a full on hero. I didn’t work with heroes. Rogers couldn’t hurt you, no matter what it looked like you’d done he wanted to help. He wanted his friend back, he wanted answers I suppose.” There might have been a hint of bitterness in his voice. He’d wanted help, he’d cried out of it until eventually he’d realised people like him didn’t get it. So he’d become the monster they’d painted him as. The villain in their little fairytale where good was good and bad was bad and he was worst of all. There had been other routes he probably could have taken but he hadn’t been able, he hadn’t seen. Only with the clarity he’d gained in Lawrence had he seen that. “He wouldn’t give up on you. I don’t know why exactly beyond he’s the shiny heroic Captain America. I didn’t know until long after what had actually happened, the day we revealed ourselves within SHIELD I was, pretty occupied. Managed to do some damage while keeping my cover but it didn’t last, wound up in a cell with nothing and no one, being told John was dead.” It had been a dark few weeks after than and he had the scars to prove it. “Don’t compare us Barnes, you’re like her, like Kara. You didn’t have a choice, I...they say I didn’t but there was no machine, no trigger words. He made me a weapon, that’s what I know, but it’s not the same at all. You are a good man, a hero. There’s a Wall of Valour in HQ, or, y’know there was, before it came down, anyway, you were the first name there. James Buchanan Barnes, Howling Commando. Hero. You can get that back. Kara was an Agent, and she was a damn good one. I’ve never been good. I don’t even know where I’d begin anymore. I help where I can because there are people I owe debts to, ones I can’t ever repay but there are also people I can’t forgive, won’t forgive. That’s hardly heroic.” He couldn’t handle the comparison. They weren’t the same. They were so far from the same. “Don’t trust me. You shouldn’t. But trust Simmons. Trust that she wouldn't have asked you to work with me if she didn’t think I’d help. And trust my not altogether altruistic reasons. You believe me so that’s enough. We’ll work backwards, figure out how the words change things for you. Kara said it felt like a cloud. A dark cloud washing over you that she couldn’t run from no matter what she did. She said she was clawing on the inside of her own head and couldn’t escape until, she...didn’t want to anymore. Happy to comply.” he glanced up trying to gauge Barnes’ reaction to the description. “Sound familiar?” “It wasn’t the first time. You know the story; everyone knows the story of how he busted into that Hydra base all by himself and rescued all of us. That’s the story everyone knows, but it didn’t start when he became Captain America. It started when we were kids when he wouldn’t stop getting up when a guy three times his size was kicking the shit out of him. He doesn’t give up on anyone, not just me.” Although Bucky knew that when it came to him, Steve’s instincts were amplified. Grant didn’t want to be compared to him, but he just shrugged, not arguing the point. Bucky didn’t see himself as a hero - not anymore. Sergeant Barnes may have been the hero, but this version of him? The one that had become the Winter Soldier and remembered everything he’d done while under someone else’s control? He sure as hell didn’t feel like anyone’s hero. “I’ll never get that back. Reversing what was done doesn’t erase the past.” Every time he looked at Tony Stark reminded him of that. His face may have had a haunted look for a moment as Grant described what his girlfriend had experienced, but he quickly pushed past it and kept up the usual clear expression. “I trust Carter. Sharon, I mean. She vouched for Dr. Simmons who believes that you can help. For now, that’s enough.” He thought again how it felt for the words to seep into his mind one by one until it was taken over. It never mattered who said them, just the order that they were said. “It was more intrusive than a cloud, more abrupt and harsh, but I understand what she meant by it. The rest, though, yeah. It sounds familiar. Though I wouldn’t exactly call my compliance as ‘happy;’ there wasn’t any emotion involved.” He didn’t give any hints that he was uncomfortable talking about it, but the memories and logistics of the wipes and brainwashing were about as easy to talk to him as Grant’s past was for him. It was something he was going to have to get over if he was going to commit to working through this with not just him but Dr. Simmons and possibly other doctors. He wasn’t sure what he expected from Barnes, but stories about young Steve Rogers weren’t exactly it. Not in this situation. “I know, some of that anyway, the leader of the team I infiltrated, he was a pretty big fanboy when it comes to your friend, had trading cards, comics, all of it.” If there was a hint of bitterness in his voice he didn’t remark upon why. “He sounds like someone that’d grow up to be a hero regardless of what that serum did to him.Hydra never quite replicated him. Not in the same way.” he mused as he listened to Barnes. “You’re his friend, of course it’s amplified with you. He’d do anything for you, that was pretty much a given as soon as I realised who the Winter Soldier was, it all fell into place. Why he wouldn’t let it go, why Pierce wanted him dead. Never got why he sent you. I’d never have sent you against Rogers, too much of a risk.” He probably shouldn’t have gone with tactics but it was true. It was a mistake to pit old friend against old friend and assume nothing would go wrong. If it was meant to wrongfoot Cap, fine. But an asset like that you didn't send against his oldest friend. You’d send him after Sharon, after Wilson. “Hydra was ego. By that point, Pierce, Von Strucker, I don’t even know if they believed in anything other than their own need for power and control. I don’t think many of us ever expected we’d reveal ourselves, not that quickly anyway.” He sighed, trying to put what he was thinking into words that wouldn’t sound ridiculous. “I told Kara what I’ll tell you. You weren’t responsible. Yes, you’ll feel that guilt but you were literally gone. You were just him. You remember, she remembered too. Everyone she’d killed. But they took your free will. They took everything from you. Kara had it bad but you...they kept you going for what, 70 plus years? Wipe after wipe. I know you’re taking the blame for it, but maybe step one is realising you need to fight back, you want to balance the scales a little more, get out from under what they did and then put some checks back in the hero column.” He thought about the description. Abrupt and harsh. It wasn’t like Kara described it but then it made sense. “Maybe with you it was harder, the amount of times, the level of mind wiping they had to do. Kara, it was more like, I suppose she was submerged, she was still there, so were you, but maybe the technology had improved enough that it felt different. It was like picking memories out of nothing. I’d found pictures of her family, her mother, and the recognition took time but there was nothing at the start. She helped me get out of a situation because I told her I could help her. Told her I’d save her. Though that’s not how it worked out in the end, I do think I got her out from under Hydra’s control. Part of me thinks her orders died with Whitehall and I got left with a blank slate I just had to find the woman underneath that.. With you, it's embedded so deeply that anyone can do it..with the right words.” He might need to ask about the words. But that could come later. For now he needed to establish a working relationship. “Sharon I know pretty well, she’s good people. And Jemma’s...she’ll help you. She wouldn’t have sent you to me unless she thought I could do something. Tell me though, you said you remember, all of it, all the things you do, but does it feel like you’re watching and can’t stop yourself, or do you not care until you come out of it and then it hits you. I’m just trying to get a read on how this works for you.” During the months he'd been in hiding, Bucky often wondered why they used him too. In theory, he should have never been seen by Steve face to face if he'd completed the objective as intended. There was a reason he'd only been a rumor. A ghost. “No, they never replicated him but not for lack of trying. They didn't seem to understand that the person who underwent the transition was almost as important as the formula itself.” His own transition was somewhat different than the original formula, and the others… well, he remembered how vicious and hard to control that they'd been. “Most Hydra agents following the war were in it for power and control. The underlying ideologies were there, but most didn't hold the same passion. Or they held a vendetta against those in SHIELD.” Listening to Grant talk about how he felt guilt but needed to start moving forward. That the Winter Soldier wasn't him. Bucky didn't say anything, but thought that he sounded a little too much like Steve in that moment. He wasn't going to say that out loud though. But he'd heard the same speech from Steve and even a little from Tony when they'd had their talk. Tony hadn't understand why Bucky had taken responsibility for the death of Howard and Maria Stark. It was hard, probably impossible to explain, but he doubted that feeling would ever go away. Not when he remembered all of them. “They probably wanted to stick with what worked. Or mostly worked anyway,” Bucky remarked about the sort of technology used during his wipes. Seeing a waitress, he beckoned her over for a refill. He would have loved something stronger if they were going to get more into specifics, but the coffee would have to do. Not that anything stronger would have affected him at all anyway. He took a sip before answering. “At the time, I didn't care. Even when… when it was someone I should have known. If they allowed me to stay out of cryostasis long enough to remember anything, then it would hit me. Otherwise, nothing.” He paused. “When I dream, it's being unable to stop myself.” “Is that why? He was able to handle it cause he was that kind of person whereas any of us would die in the attempt. It was really just the hero thing?” he asked actually fascinated by the whole idea. He didn’t understand the science, never had, never would. But he had to admit to being impressed that it was something so simple that made Cap who he was. He hadn’t seen it like that, but there it was. “Most Hydra agents were, I mean we didn’t all know who each other were when we were in SHIELD, it was easier that way, helped you keep your cover better, but a few, we knew about. When we needed to. Some were just happy to sign up, promised a world, a place in the new order, others were threatened enough that they stopped fighting and I guess I have a whole other bracket. He took more coffee when Barnes did, watching him and noting the reactions, miniscule though they were. “So when they put you back under they'd wipe you? Every time?” he clarified, wishing he could be shocked by such a concept. But this was Hydra science. And he’d stopped being shocked by how far they’d do a long long time ago. “You have your memories. Maybe it’s still a work in progress but you have them. Breaking the conditioning will be harder, making the trigger phrase obsolete and I can imagine getting the psychologist involved would be an idea. She’s a good doctor. I see her.” he said simply, not elaborating on why, not really needing to he supposed. “From what I was told, the formula intensified a person’s personality. It was why it went so wrong with Red Skull. And why they chose someone like Steve rather than an individual who was already skilled in battle or particularly strong. It was why Erksine chose him - because he knew that he would stay true to himself.” That was at least how Steve explained it to him when Bucky had asked one night how in the hell he’d been chosen for the project when he’d been denied so many times when he’d volunteered for the army. Steve had downplayed it of course, but Bucky had been able to read between the lines. “Most every time, yes. There were times I wasn’t out of cyrogenesis long enough for it to make any difference, but otherwise the wipes would happen and then I would be put back under after my… services weren’t needed any longer.” From missions to training to protection, the Winter Soldier’s services varied over the years. He was a little surprised that Ward revealed that he saw the psychologist here, but in a way it made sense. Bucky was hardly the type of person to want to share his experiences, but he imagined that he’d have to start if he wanted to reverse the conditioning. “Then I suppose the next step is to speak with this doctor and start there. Running tests.” It made sense, certainly explained Red Skull. The guy by all accounts had been crazy even compared to the rest of Hydra. Him and Zola. He’d never bought into it, the whole Hail Hydra thing, even at the end, when he’d finally given in, it hadn’t been him. He understood that now, and it made sense that someone like Rogers was given the serum. He really was the all american hero. And if he’d been that before the project had even started, of course he’d be that after. “I knew they’d tried to replicate, and I knew about you. Not who you were but that you were an asset to Hydra. Beyond that they said nothing, it made it easier if no one person knew all the information about everything we did. We were supposed to kill ourselves if we were captured to preserve the glorious cause or some bullshit. Whoever knew about you, they kept it quiet.” He listened to Barnes’ answer, nodding. “So, mission, debrief, wipe. I heard someone say once that the brain is a computer, you can delete things but you can’t completely ever destroy everything. And you’re still you, they couldn’t destroy Bucky Barnes, so there’s a way back. And I’ll help you find it. First though, we talk to Claire, we run some tests. We do the basics. And go from there.” He finished his coffee fairly quickly after that, it was starting to cool down. “Thanks for letting me help you. You didn’t have to take this chance.” “Not so much unlike SHIELD or even the military. Everyone has their own level of clearance or need-to-know information. I don’t think that everyone I worked with or was assigned to always knew who I really was. Some did. Pierce knew, Rumlow knew.” Bucky was familiar with the expectation of killing yourself if captured or caught. He’d never been put in that position when he was under the mind control, so it never applied. He also knew that he would have done so without a second thought if it had ever come to that. Bucky knew that there were still parts of the old him left. He wasn’t so far gone or self-hating enough to think that he was nothing like he had been before, but he wasn’t the same. No one expected him to be the same. He was some hybrid of Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier. He nodded in response to the plan. Talk to Claire, run tests, see how his brain worked. He could handle that for now. “I did need to take the chance. There’s too much at risk for me not to take it.” Bucky nodded in confirmation again and was satisfied how the talk had gone even if he didn’t completely feel comfortable with any of it. Not because of Grant or his past - although he would still be keeping close eyes on him - but because he knew moving forward with this would open himself up to vulnerabilities and that went again most every instinct he had. After another glance around, Bucky stood from his seat. “I’ll be in touch.” At that, he walked off down the street back towards headquarters to get an update on what was happening with the mission. |