app for lastvoyages, round two

[imfollowinghim]

these are the times that try men's souls. the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country;
BUT HE THAT STANDS IT NOW DESERVES THE LOVE AND THANKS OF MAN AND WOMAN.

User Name/Nick: Gwen
User DW: betterdeadthanred
AIM/IM: girlwonder004
E-mail: isthereair@gmail.com
Other Characters: David 8, Peter Parker, Elsa, Jack Shephard

Character Name: James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes
Series: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Age: 27
From When?: After falling off the train in The First Avenger.

Inmate/Warden: Warden. For all his flaws, Bucky is a genuinely good person who has devoted most of his life to protecting his best friend, and more recently, the free world in general.
Item: His dog tags.

Abilities/Powers: So remember how I said Bucky may or may not have some minor superpowers thanks to HYDRA the first time I apped him? Well it turns out, he totally does.

While being held prisoner by HYDRA after the 107th was overrun at Azzano, Bucky was singled out as the next lab rat of one Arnim Zola, who was trying to recreate the super soldier serum that had enhanced Johann Schmidt and Steve Rogers. Obviously the serum didn't fully work - Bucky is no where near as fast, strong or physically perfect as a genuine super soldier - but it did have an effect: Bucky winds up surviving a fall that should have killed anyone else, and is even conscious when he's pulled out of the water. There's clearly something not quite normal about him, and for the purposes of using this as a future plot device, I'm assuming he heals slightly faster than a normal human being (a bruise that might take a few weeks to fully heal is gone in half the time, etc., he's definitely not Wolverine), has a boosted immune system and a higher tolerance to alcohol than a normal human. This is also supported when considering the semi canonical prequel comic Captain America: First Vengeance, where Bucky is seriously ill with pneumonia, and has a head injury and several broken ribs before being tortured by Zola, but then is able to walk back into camp on his own seeming tired, not on the verge of total physical collapse. The off brand serum also probably improved his aim and instincts, but not so much as to be inherently supernatural.

Aside from that, Bucky is a healthy, very physically active adult who's been trained by the US Army and the SSR to be a soldier and a special agent. While definitely not as physically apt as Steve, he can more or less keep up with him and can definitely hold his own in a fight, although isn't necessarily formally trained in any martial arts besides boxing (he's mentioned as having won competitions before the war in First Vengeance), so he's more likely to go in throwing punches like a normal fighter would versus, say, go all Winter Soldier on someone's ass. He's had a lot of combat and leadership experience, and also doesn't crack under pressure, even while being tortured, and is generally an extremely talented and capable soldier. He's got a special aptitude for being a sniper, and is comfortable handling most WWII era US Army issue equipment.

He also can't draw to save his life.

Personality: Up until he shipped out to serve with the 107th, Bucky Barnes had the good fortune of leading a fairly typical life. Sure, he was an orphan with a slight chip on his shoulder trying his best to get by during a period where the economy was in the gutter and the world was at war, but the most he really had to worry about was feeding and clothing himself, paying the rent, and making sure his idiot of a best friend didn't get himself killed taking on a bully twice his size, or get his ass kicked by an asthma attack. He was, and always has been, a realist. Sure, it's nice to think that the good guys always win and get the dame in the end, but that's not how the world works, and it's one of the things that drove him a little crazy about Steve, even if he loves him like a brother. Steve wants to enlist knowing it's the right thing to do, but Bucky knows it'll get him killed, because this isn't a movie, and it's definitely not a back alley. It's war.

That's changed.

Well, in some ways, maybe it hasn't. Bucky is still a realist, and might even border on cynical at this point. But ever since he saw HYDRA tanks roll in Azzano and liquify Nazis and Americans alike with their Tesseract enhanced weaponry, life has gone from a normal, realistic conflict he was comfortable with and could wrap his mind around to something out of a movie, and it's been a really freaking weird thing to adjust to.

But let's back up before we get into that. Bucky is - just as anyone is, really - the product of his environment. Growing up without much by way of parental supervision in a time where society was kind of struggling to get back on its feet in every conceivable way, he had to learn how to look out for himself and that you can work as hard as you can, but things might still not work out the way you want them to. Growing up where and when he did has made him tough, difficult to rattle, generally unwilling to let on any sort of weakness no matter how shitty things are, and helped shape his cynicism and more grounded way of looking at people, and at the world.

This isn't to say that Bucky doesn't have faith in other people, or that he's a person devoid of hope or positive emotion. That's not true at all, he's just not really a dreamer. Before getting captured by HYDRA, his ultimate plans for his life probably involved going back home, settling down with a nice girl, starting a family and getting a job that would keep food on the table, and that was about it. He wasn't going to be a senator, or a movie actor or the president of a company, because he was alright with having a comfortable existence, and didn't really have grand plans for where a scrappy kid from Brooklyn was really going to go once the war was over.

And Bucky does have faith in people, and specifically one person: Steve Rogers, his best friend since early childhood and his brother in every way that counts. It's not hard to imagine how growing up with Steve probably also helped shape his more grounded view of the world. Steve wanted to be something he wasn't so badly, and if Bucky had said sure kid, you can totally take that guy in a fight all by yourself, Steve would either be dead or in a wheelchair. Bucky has been fighting Steve's battles alongside him (or cleaning up the messes left behind) since they were little kids, and while he doesn't share Steve's boundless recklessness, he really does admire his fire. Everyone else looked at Steve and saw a weak little nobody whose own lungs were trying to kill him, while Bucky saw the really exceptional person Steve actually is. He's a great guy, who genuinely cares about other people he's never even met before just because they're being picked on, who wants justice in a distinctly unjust world, and who won't let his own physical weakness keep him down. That's really admirable, and Bucky does really genuinely admire Steve. He would (and did) follow him into the heart of darkness without question or hesitation.

The thing is, Bucky is used to being the boss. He's the grounded, more rational (if still slightly hot headed) one of the two, who often winds up being in a position where he's making the plans and telling Steve what he can and can't do. This carries over into his time with the 107th in Europe: Bucky's a sergeant, which means he's someone who's used to giving orders and having people look to him for direction and support when they need it. No, he's not the one leading the entire platoon, but for a small group of guys, he's still technically their boss, even if their relationship is probably a lot more casual when they're making camp and hanging out waiting for their next orders. He thinks he knows what's best for Steve, and isn't afraid to tell him as such, even though Steve is an adult, Bucky's not his parent, and at the end of the day, he has no control over what his friend does.

While Bucky doesn't necessarily share Steve's reckless enthusiasm for throwing himself into every single fight with an underdog, it's still a trait they have in common. The tie in comic Captain America: First Vengeance explains that they first met when Bucky pulled some bullies off Steve because he admired the other kid's courage. Bucky doesn't like bullies any more than Steve does, and he's a genuinely good friend to people who deserve it. Although he might not be super comfortable showing affection for other people by saying things like I love you or hugging them or anything, he will be there for you when you need it, just expect a relatively emotionally stiff guy from the Forties rather than a hug monster who’s going to be super forthcoming with how much you mean to him. Bucky is a fan of doing stuff rather than getting caught up in emotional discussions, and will be generally awkward if you try to get him talking about it for more than a few minutes. He’s very supportive, but in his own way.

Actually, in general, Bucky is kind of terrible at expressing how he genuinely feels about something if he's upset or worried or otherwise emotionally compromised. He doesn't really come from a time or situation where guys were encouraged to talk about their feelings, and it's just always been easier to hide stuff behind a snarky sense of humor and keep your chin up attitude. That definitely hasn't changed, and barring a complete emotional breakdown isn't likely to.

In all, Bucky before being kidnapped by HYDRA agents was a painfully normal guy, with a realistic idea of how the world worked and what he could expect out of it. He had friends, he was used to being more or less in control of his own little corner of the world, and had no hugely unrealistic dreams to aspire to or be disappointed by. He had a best friend he loved and looked out for, and that was pretty much the only concrete thing he had going for him beyond being alive and being capable of more or less whatever he wanted. He liked his life. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but it was okay, and he was more or less happy.

So, how are things different?

Being captured by HYDRA catapulted Bucky's life from the ordinary to extraordinary over the course of a few hours, and it has taken some huge getting used to. Obviously, being in combat in general would be a huge adjustment, and it was, but Bucky's experience up until that point isn't hugely different from any other enlisted man's. It was terrifying, you saw friends get killed, and it was worse than you'd ever expected it would be, even if Bucky had been planning on it being pretty fucking terrible. But at the end of the day, he was going up against guys with weapons and motivations he understood, that made sense, that weren't all that different from a hundred other wars that were about expansion and world domination. Sure, the Nazis have the legacy of being a little more cartoonish super villain tendencies than say, the Romans or Napoleon, and that's definitely got some roots in truth, but they were just men with guns and rockets.

HYDRA is something else entirely. HYDRA is a genuine comic book or movie villain that just did not exist in real life up until this point, as far as Bucky was aware, and for someone who's been so grounded in an almost black and white world of aggressive normalcy, this is a huge game changer. Suddenly, it's not just normal people fighting over a piece of land, it's a crazy organization that knows no loyalties except to itself declaring war on everyone, regardless of what country they're from. The fact that he's never even heard of them before their tanks and guns rolled in kind of blew open a door into a part of the world Bucky had never even considered existing, and it's not something you can just choose to turn away from and pretend you're not aware of. Things are more complicated than they ever were before, and suddenly, having a normal, boring life just doesn't seem possible, because how can you turn your back, go work in some bank and pretend you don't know about all of that?

Throw in being rescued by a guy in a star spangled suit that turns out to be your best friend as he always should have been - healthy and whole and someone people look up to and want on their side and respect - and you've really got a doozy of a personal earthquake going on there. Anyone who tells you that Bucky is genuinely resentful of or hates Steve as Captain America is just flat out wrong. Bucky would - and actually did, in every way that matters - die for Steve without thinking twice about what it would mean for him, and he would absolutely do it again if it meant Steve was safe. Steve is the best thing in Bucky's life, the only family he's got, and like hell does Captain America suddenly negate all those years of struggling to get by together.

That said, it is still a huge adjustment. Suddenly, Steve is the one people are looking to for orders, while Bucky has turned into more of a supporting character. Steve's right hand man, but not the guy calling the shots for the first time literally ever, and sometimes, that stings a little. Sometimes, it stings a lot. It's also just weird to have to share him with other people, or be the one people aren't paying much attention to, so the adjustment's been strange and occasionally awkward and frustrating, but he doesn't hate Captain America or what he's done for Steve. That said, Bucky's always been someone who's been reluctant to admit weakness or insecurity, and Captain America has kind of made that worse, because he does definitely resent feeling like a damsel in distress Steve has to haul ass to rescue. If anything, it's made him more likely to clam up and deflect and get grouchy if people poke him about how he's doing, because he doesn't want to look like he's playing catch up, and doesn't need anyone's pity or worry. Steve shows he's aware of that in their final scene together - he knows Bucky's still extremely capable, and doesn't try to baby him, which does help ease some of the tension. Besides, friendly competition can be fun, and a legit kid sidekick Bucky is not. If Steve actively tried to put him in that role, there would be a lot more resistance, back talk and general frustration, but as Steve respects him as a friend and teammate, things between them are generally as they've always been.

And he does have some stuff that he just flat out doesn't want to talk about. Obviously being at war changes anyone, and there are plenty of things from before his encounter with HYDRA that Bucky's not eager to revisit or talk about with anyone, but being captured, tortured and experimented on has officially gotten boxed up and packed away in a corner of his mind labeled "I never want to think about this ever again," especially because at this point, Bucky probably can put two and two together about what Zola and Schmidt were doing to him, and quite honestly? That's terrifying. The SSR doesn't seem to keep what Steve is and how it happened super secret amongst its own members, and since Bucky is now one of them and Steve is his best friend, he definitely knows about Erskine and how he was killed, and if Schmidt and Zola were planning on basically tossing Bucky aside to die when they were done with him (which is presumably what they did to everyone else, as Dum Dum and the others say no one's ever come back from where they're holding Bucky), they wouldn't necessarily have kept quiet around him, and Bucky doesn't need to be fluent in German to understand the word "Erskine", or that the other people they experimented on are all dead. Actually experiencing what HYDRA's capable of makes the whole fight a bit more personal, too, and probably helps him get to the point where he's more willing to fight dirty to take them down.

All of this combined has led to a fairly different Bucky Barnes than the one who first left Brooklyn to fight Nazis. On the surface, he probably seems more or less the same to people who are familiar with him - he still laughs things off and jokes and flirts with women - but there's a sort of edge to him that definitely wasn't present before he got grabbed by HYDRA. He's seen friends die, he's been tortured, and again, he's had his whole world view turned on its head. There's this whole new enemy to fight, and now Steve is right in the middle of it. And Steve - to Bucky - still kind of sees this as a back alley fight in Brooklyn, or some black and white thing where the good guys are definitely going to win and always, always do the right thing, and Bucky knows it's not that simple.

I don't really buy the fan meta that Bucky went to Europe to fight "for Steve", particularly because pre-serum Steve obviously still needed him in Brooklyn to bail him out when he got in over his head. I definitely think the idea of having Steve home and safe to go back to when the war was over was comforting, but I just don't see it as a motivation for shipping out in the first place. However, once Steve is actually in Europe, I do think that changes Bucky's motivation from generic fighting for freedom to fighting for Steve first, and everything else second. Bucky might not need to look out for him in all the same ways he used to, but Steve still clearly needs someone to watch his back, and Bucky is totally willing to be that person, even if that means accepting some of the more uncomfortable parts of being at war so that Steve doesn't have to. Captain America needs to be the person kicking down doors for heroic rescues, not the person doing the dirty work, and so that job falls to Bucky. While HYDRA is obviously evil and planning on doing a lot of terrible things, it still doesn't change that looking through a scope, pulling a trigger and watching someone's head explode is a pretty gruesome specialty to have, and Bucky is pretty grimly aware of this, but he does it because it has to get done, and it's better he do it than Steve. He's expendable, Captain America isn't, and keeping Steve safe has been his mission in life basically from the day they met, this is just a different version of it.

While he's not an entirely emotionless automaton when it comes to following orders (yet), Bucky is definitely a good soldier and knows he doesn't necessarily need to know all the answers or reasons behind a mission before he's sent out to complete it, or even afterward. He's a team player, and has generally adapted to military and then special forces life pretty well. I think it's a stretch to say that he enjoys his work, but I do think it's something he's accepted as a necessary part of protecting what he values, whether that be Steve or just the free world in general. His experience in masking emotions, putting aside personal difficulties and not being afraid to fight quick and dirty in Brooklyn's back alleys also helps him be a better soldier, because it lets him put aside personal feelings and focus on the task at hand. Thus, he might not have been as gung ho about life in the military as Steve was, but it's what he's good at, and it's what needs to get done. Despite (to the best of his knowledge, anyway) dying, he doesn't have a lot of regrets about the life he lived, and will probably be - at least outwardly - very comfortable with the life he led and what ended up happening to him.

In all, he's a good soldier, and a good man, but some of the brightness and comparative innocence he hadn't really realized he'd enjoyed back home has been beaten out of him by HYDRA, effectively needing to learn to be a cold blooded killer, and the strain that comes along with your world being turned upside down. He still has his friend's backs, he'd still die for Steve and he still seems like a relatively normal person, but there's no going back to that normal life he'd had before he'd shipped out. While his future used to be decidedly average, assuming he survived falling off the train or decides to ask the Admiral to bring him back to life, his future is now irrevocably linked to the abnormal, and while it's something he's accepted, it's changed him.

Barge Reactions: First off, I'm wiping most of Bucky's memories of being here the first time I played him. He was on board for the better part of a year, and the only thing I'm specifically keeping is a memory of being Ben's warden and all the stuff that entails. (Which I've discussed with AJ and she is cool with.) He'll remember other things vaguely, like the whole place is something he's dreamed about a lot and only remembers bits and pieces of. Because of this, he'll likely react with some bafflement and confusion when the weirder parts get tossed his way, but do his best to adapt quickly instead of just staring and wondering why this all seems really familiar while also being extremely fucking strange. While he'll probably adapt pretty quickly to some of the technological advancements, in that he's obviously familiar with televisions and radios and things like that, a lot of the more supernatural elements will be pretty mind boggling, and he'll take a bit to adjust to the concept of talking with aliens and fiddling around with things like robotics and who knows what else. He's relatively tolerant, but he is a guy from the 40's, so there's likely to be some cultural misunderstandings at least initially that he'll learn from and continue to adapt to.

As a warden, Bucky will probably take a more protective, older brother approach to a younger inmate, while an older one will probably get more of the hard working soldier. He'll have a hard time being a legitimate therapist with someone, in that talking about "how does that make you feel" is kind of out of his area of expertise, but he'll be far from an inattentive warden. He'll want to work out and go on runs together, and emphasize having a schedule and something to do to keep busy. He's definitely more of a gruff, lead by example person most of the time, isn't one for giving up, and he'll have his inmate's back unless they really cross a line with him.

Because he's coming from a relatively traumatic point in canon without his usual support system and has fuzzy, inconsistent memories of the Barge, he might go back and forth on perfectly hiding his baggage and totally overcompensating to try and hide it, thus making it all the more noticeable that he probably is kind of drowning and really needs help. He likely needs to talk to someone experienced with psychological issues and mental health, and will need to relearn how to live something close to a normal life now that he's mostly off the battlefield and away from everything he's ever known. Basically, he's going to fit in just fine. c:

Path to Redemption: --------

History: Bucky on the Marvel Movie Wikia, warning for Winter Soldier spoilers.

Sample Journal Entry:
[Bucky is not the most frequent poster or talkative warden, especially not after that. Port had reduced him to near radio silence for days, even though he's still going through the motions of his usual routine - you've probably seen him in the dining hall at regular meal times and heading to and from the gym and CES - so it's not until well after he's had time to regroup does he even consider making any snappy comments to the ship at large.

He's not talking about port, though. That's already been carefully boxed up and tucked away in a corner labeled "Never Thinking About This Again", and he fully intends on keeping it that way as best he can.]

You know, [He's not really sure where he's going with this, or what made him think of it, but it probably doesn't matter.] A guy back home promised we'd have flying cars in the next couple years. Gotta say, kinda disappointed with all the other stuff you guys've thrown together in the last seventy years, no one's mentioned that yet. I get it, there was a lotta other stuff on people's minds, but come on. Give a guy something to look forward to.

[Not that there's much of a future in store for him right now, but it's not something he's been overly chatty about with anyone, really. Just another thing he'd rather not spend too much time thinking about.]

And before you say "we've got the internet", remember that'd be a lot more impressive if the Admiral actually had it on board.

[And then, seemingly completely unrelated to anything else but actually more relatedly than he'd like to admit, he adds:]

Does anyone have gum?

Sample RP:
Considering the last two years of his life had turned into something out of a comic book, he's not sure why he's surprised that his death is turning out to be much of the same.

The ship had crashed. Literally, crashed, and while people had warned him that this kind of thing happened, it's one thing to hear someone say it and it's another to actually live through it. Some of the more science minded guys - and boy, does he miss Howard right about now - have stuck by the wreckage to try and get the damn thing up and running again, and while some of the others have wandered off to see the sights and find the people who'd gone missing in the crash, Bucky's got other priorities.

They're not alone on this planet. He's known that since he woke up after the crash (and he thinks he can remember another time, a different crash, but doesn't know if it's a memory or something else), and it got confirmed when a couple people reported back on the network that they'd run into hostiles, ones who were apparently more than a little pissed to find humans hanging out on their world, however temporarily or accidentally. And hey, that's fair. This isn't their world. They don't belong here. But the fact is, they're exposed and vulnerable, and they need to get the ship up and running again so they can go, and they can't do that if these aliens are gonna be snapping some necks, grabbing people and dragging them off to their sugar mines and disintegrating others who weren't as cooperative. He's had the plan in mind before he'd even really processed that he knew what he had to do, and it had taken only a couple minutes to find the perfect nest and set up shop.

Still, it's weird after months of so much downtime - during which he was pretty sure he was actually going to go crazy - to be back to lying on a sheltered hilltop looking through the scope of his rifle, wearing his Commandos jacket and waiting for that perfect moment to release a breath and pull the trigger. Slipping back into old habits had been as instinctual as breathing, except this time, it's goddamn aliens he's watching for through the trees and jagged rock formations, not HYDRA agents or Nazis.

There's a squad moving through the trees now, creeping too close to the Barge for comfort. They're strange looking creatures, vaguely reptilian, with armor normal bullets apparently can't penetrate. There's a gap between the helmet and the neck plate though, and once he's found it, there's no hope for them.

He wonders vaguely if he should be more concerned that he doesn't feel any guilt when the first one drops, or the second or the third. He doesn't think of himself as a bad person - not really - but he doesn't know this enemy, hasn't seen first hand what they're capable of. This isn't really his fight, not the way it had been back home.

It's still a war, though.

He waits to be certain there aren't any others before typing out a message to the others guarding the scientists, leaving the comm out, screen dimmed when he's finished. He'll pack it away for good when the sun (or is it two suns, here?) goes down, because there's no way he's letting some stupid piece of technology give away his spot.

This is Barnes. The squad's been taken care of, no sign of other hostiles.

Special Notes: This is my life now. u__u

A Note About Canon Point/Winter Soldier Canon: I know this app includes stuff confirmed by the new movie and I submitted it before the 4th, but none of it is necessarily absent from First Avenger except by omission, and we all knew this stuff - with the exception of the retcon of them being orphans as little kids, Marvel wtf make up your minds - was coming as soon as we saw the lab equipment in First Avenger. Bucky himself isn't going to be aware of anything unusual/specific to the plot of Winter Soldier until well after May 4th, and so this is essentially the same exact canon point I took him from last time I played him here in terms of what his life has been like thus far and therefore is really not "new" canon. Hopefully that makes sense and is Kosher!