InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "There are voices in my head"

Grant Ward is not a true believer (notanazi) wrote in wariscomingcom,
@ 2014-09-23 11:16:00

Entry tags:

baelfire/neal cassidy, bucky barnes/winter soldier, davina claire, grant ward, james rogers, jemma simmons, steve rogers/captain america, tony stark/iron man

Didn't expect to hear myself being debated when I was waiting for coffee.

This what I should expect for the next however many months?

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ex-HYDRA.

bucky
2014-09-23 09:39 pm UTC (link)

There are some people who are different. Even people who are part of the machine. There are people who believe in doing the right thing enough to tear themselves down when they realize they're part of the problem. Maybe you met one of them. I couldn't tell you. But I did.

It's hard to say. There are things I remember about myself and things I put together from what I read in my own goddamn SHIELD file, and I'm not sure which is which. The old stuff comes back easier than the new stuff, but none of it's clear. I don't know why that is. But I'll tell you what I know.

Far as I can tell? It was about the kid. Everything I ever done since i met him was. I spent the better part of 28 years trying to keep him out of trouble. Didn't start when I got the draft, or he joined the army. Finishing the fights he started. I may have taken my first life in the army, but it was a near thing, sometimes. Weren't his fault, though. I've probably always been this way. I was a fucked up, angry kid. And you don't grow up half-homeless and orphaned in Brooklyn during the great depression without some scars to show for it. But he was my bright spot. And if one of us was gonna get our knuckles bloodied, it was better me than him.

World doesn't have a lot of good people in it. Sometimes the fucked up people have to get a little more fucked up to let them stay good.

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ex-HYDRA.

notanazi
2014-09-23 11:16 pm UTC (link)

They were good, they are. There's just a lot they don't understand. Or overlook because its easy to do that.

You defended him, cause he was your friend and that's what you're supposed to do. Practically family, right? So you became the guy that was always there for him and that just stayed the same in the army. And hell, maybe it did you good. I did try the army, apparently I didn't have the dicipline for it back then.

I didn't do it to let people stay good. I did it to save a life.

Didn't end up saving him.

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	ex-HYDRA. bucky 2014-09-23 11:33 pm UTC (link)
	I did, I guess. But I don't know that either one of us wound up better for it. I think we both would have been better off I'd died over there before he had a chance to join up. Maybe I could have used my last words to guilt him into staying home. Quit trying to sign up. But maybe not. Turning him in sure as hell didn't work. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ex-HYDRA. notanazi 2014-09-24 12:19 am UTC (link)
	You'd rather have died? You don't think you have a shot here, both of you? There's a lot in the past but you can figure it out. Not like you don't have the time (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ex-HYDRA.

bucky
2014-09-24 12:30 am UTC (link)

Yeah. I would have. If you die over there, you're a hero. Nobody has to know what war does to you. That it made you hard. That it made you the sort of person who can act without mercy. They get to live their whole life thinking you died how they remembered you. If you come back, though. Everybody who goes comes back wrong. Not just me. Everybody. There's nobody who can kill a man and have it do nothing to him. It does less every time. But the first time it does something.

It would have been better for him. If I'd died before he joined up. He'd have died years ago. Old age or asthma, or one of the myriad other things that was begging to take him. But while he lived, he'd have found other people who loved him well enough. He'd think of me sometimes, and lay flowers on my headstone every Armistice Day. But it would have been a good life. While he lived, he'd have been happy. Or happy enough. He never would have had to see what the world does to people. What it did to me.

There's things worse than dying, Ward.

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ex-HYDRA.

notanazi
2014-09-24 12:37 am UTC (link)

Turns out I didn't need a war for that. Oh I was in warzones plenty. But usually for a specific mission, get in, get the job done, get out. I'm not sure what killing did. Maybe it took a toll. It was always something that needed to happen. SHIELD, HYDRA, both I guess, you get the orders, you go, they die.

No, I'm sorry but you were making sense till that. There's a lot worse than death. But dying, actually dying. I've felt it, and I watched someone else live it. A slow death, day by day loosing just a little more of the drive, of the life in him. Trying everything he could to stop it, just trying to save himself from a fate he didn't deserve. Every part of him breaking down, bit by bit, every organ failing, clinging to life until you can't anymore. That's dying.

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ex-HYDRA.

bucky
2014-09-24 01:13 am UTC (link)

The thing killing does, really, is that it makes it easier to do it again. It's one of those lines most people will never cross. Like everybody's got some absolute right to be alive until nature takes them, nobody else should get to take that from 'em. They say it's hard, but it's not hard. That's the thing that strikes you. That it's easy. That you do one thing, you pull one trigger, and you take a person out of existence. Somebody just isn't there anymore because you decided they weren't gonna be. Maybe it's not the killing that changes you. Maybe it's just knowing you can do it. Kind of takes the last bit of shine off of life when you realize there's nothing standing between anybody and their last breath. And that you're the sort of person who can take it from 'em. Maybe it's just the self-awareness that don't sit well in a soul. Maybe that's what they were trying to get around with me. But I always knew what I was. There's some things you just know without remembering. I knew him. And I knew there wasn't anything left here worth saving, but you try telling that to him. He doesn't listen for shit.

I guess you got a point. I never really watched anybody die slow. Everybody I knew who died, I made sure it was quick. Watching somebody die never did anything for me.

If it was Pierce, though. Pierce of Zola or any of the men who took me. They'd die slow. And I don't care what that says about me.

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ex-HYDRA.

notanazi
2014-09-24 02:42 am UTC (link)

They're always shocked when its easy. I was told it would be. Didn't believe it at first, not till I did it. I honestly never thought about the people I killed, maybe I should have, maybe that's the normal thing, think about their names, why they had to die, if they had family. But it wasn't my job to think of that.

Life doesn't have a shine. Some people don't see the dirt surrounding them, but its there. No one's life is really that charmed. But Rogers, he does seem to believe in you, and I guess that's something worthwhile, having someone that believes in you.

It was someone I didn't want to see die. I guess I didn't get the choice so much in the end.

You'd have every right to and I wouldn't try to stop you for a second. Not with either of those.

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ex-HYDRA.

bucky
2014-09-25 08:32 pm UTC (link)

I don't know what I thought about. Nothing, I guess. Or so many things that nothing ever managed to stick out. Head's a goddamn mess these days, but it was worse then. At least now I know what to focus on. I only ever thought about it when it was in front of me. i nearly fucked up a mission once when the guy's kid ran out in front of him. So I didn't shoot. Had to go back and clean up after myself. Insubordination, they called it. Not killing a child to get to her father.

I guess what they did to her was probably worse than dying. See, I wasn't the only HYDRA project like me. You weren't around during the Cold War. You were never stationed in the USSR. You never saw the Red Rooms.

No, that's true. I guess it's that some people see the world for what it could be, and the rest of us are stuck seeing it for what it is. Just some shithole. Just as bad as it always been.

Yeah. You know, I'd still kill you too, if you give me a reason. I'd make it quick. I wouldn't take any pleasure in it, but it wouldn't be hard. Not because I think you deserve it anymore than I do. I think we'll both get what's coming to us, one of these days.

If anything, it's a favor. The gift that means you won't be gettin others, as they say. Living like dead men is no kind of life, and that's what we are, isn't it? That's what we're doing. Once HYDRA's gone, there's nothing keeping me here.

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ex-HYDRA.

notanazi
2014-09-26 12:21 am UTC (link)

I don't think I would have either if I'm honest. Kids, it shouldn't be part of what we do. But honestly there are some that wouldn't have hesitated. At least you knew that, on some level you knew your line.

I heard. I know its not the same. But I heard the stories.

Of course you'd kill me if you had a reason. Same as I would if I had a reason. Far as I can tell, neither of us have that, so we're good for now. If it changes, well, it changes, and maybe one of us gets out of this living dead thing.

Pretty sure I already lost everything that matters. Before coming to this place.

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