Chapter 225: The Lone Wolf

22nd March 2012, New York City

(James Barnes POV)

If one were to describe Bucky Barnes’ life it could easily be summarized in the word, agony. Well, it wasn’t in the beginning. In his early days, Bucky was a bit of a playboy who had dreams of becoming an artist. It was something he shared with his childhood friend, Steve Rogers. Everything was fine, until the war happened. It was odd, in a way, seeing everybody volunteering, swept up by tales of heroism and glory. If he was honest with himself, Bucky was swept up by dreams of becoming a hero, of getting some recognition and representing his country and its values in the war.

It was a foolish thing, because not only did war end up being nothing like the stories, but he had also somehow inspired Steve into joining the war as well. Or maybe it was the peer pressure; young men from all over Brooklyn volunteered every day, the moment they turned eighteen, really. Anyone Steve’s age that didn’t volunteer was considered a coward, which was probably started by the military to get more recruits. Thankfully, Steve was never accepted due to his physical condition and Bucky was glad for it.

Because war wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t heroic, it didn’t bring glory, only death. People died all over the world by the decisions of a few men in suits sitting around in the comfort of their own homes. There were very few ugly things like war, and many times, especially as he was being experimented on by Zola, he cursed the day his foolish younger self was swept up by the propaganda the military spewed.

He was ready to quit, honorable or dishonorable discharge, or he could just abandon his post, one day. He had promised himself in that lab, that if by some miracle he was rescued, he would go home, away from the death, away from the war. And then he was rescued by Steve Rogers of all people. The small wimpy kid that Bucky protected all his life had broken into a Hydra camp, alone, and saved his life.

James loved Steve like a brother, but he knew that the boy had been broken inside since a very long time ago. His mother kept showering him with tales of his heroic father during his whole childhood, a man who according to the woman could do no wrong. It was nice at first, but they were obviously the delusions of a widow who had created an image of her husband as a hero of justice, something that a young Steve absorbed like a sponge and always tried to emulate. Because why else would he pick fights with people far stronger than him and refuse to run away until he physically couldn’t move anymore.

It was worse when Steve’s mother died, he was like a broken shell. All his life, all the boy had was tales of his father, and taking care of his mother. He was broke, alone in the world, with nothing but stories of heroism in his head. Steve didn’t have a bad bone in his body and that wasn’t a compliment. In truth, Bucky was especially glad that he was rejected from the army because the boy would have killed himself in the first enemy engagement even if he was physically healthy.

Still, seeing the frail young man turn into a tall muscular heroic figure was nice, but with Steve joining the army even as a super soldier, someone had to keep an eye on him. Because while he looked changed on the outside, he was still the suicidal boy with heroic delusions about the world on the inside. So, Bucky went back on his promise to himself to protect his brother in everything but blood. And what did it get him, in the end. He was nothing but a freak with a metal arm that was brainwashed into killing people. It was horrible enough when Sayre had told him what happened, but the nightmares painted another picture. The sights of people dying around him was horrible but what was worse was the fact that his memories had no emotions. He was barely more than a machine. He only had the mission in mind. Truthfully, James would have preferred death over servitude, and the fact that Sayre had saved him and cured his mind, made him extremely grateful to her.

She had admitted that she wanted to use him to get rid of Hydra, and he had acquiesced. Any opportunity to kill these fuckers was a plus. Even then, it only took a couple of missions for Hydra to fall down in flames and no one even knew what happened. It was beautiful in its execution, the way she planned their downfall so expertly, the way she had seen their moves coming.

But James was tired of fighting, of the death around him. And that was the worst thing, Sayre had given him an out. Complete freedom to live as he wanted. Bucky clenched his hands, still marveling at the new arm that the woman had made for him. It was so lifelike from an outsider’s perspective and for himself. He had his sense of touch back, his sense of temperature. It was like his arm was never gone. And she had given it to him, in exchange for a few missions where he practically only directly killed one person, one that he was glad to have done it, considering he was the leader of the organization who had brainwashed him. In exchange for all of this, she had set him free, given him all the tools he needed to have a life of his own. A new identity, some money, the location of his remaining friends. It was everything he hoped for when he wanted to quit the army. And yet, for some reason he didn’t jump at the chance. Was he still controlled by the programming somehow? Was it Sayre who was messing with his thoughts and wanted him to still work for her?

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He had no idea, and James walked around in this manor trying to make sense of the woman who had saved his life. She was impossible, both in nature and in powers. She could practically do anything she wanted, why would she need him at all?

Somehow, he ended up in the garden, where another woman, Sayre’s sister, Rose, sat watching the lake, contemplating something. Somehow, she was Sayre’s sister, but was around thirty years old. Truthfully, Bucky stopped trying to make sense of it and just accepted it.

The woman had noticed his arrival and spoke up, “I know the look on your face, Mr. Barnes.”

“Please just call me Bucky. And what look are you talking about?”

“You’re trying to make heads or tails out of Jasmine and her intentions.”

Wait what? “How do you know? Can you read minds too?”

The woman gave him a pearly laugh, “I wish, Mr. Barnes. While I do have some experience in the mind arts, I am not powerful or knowledgeable enough in the subject to learn how to circumvent your defenses against mental attacks. They’re ingrained in your mind, and it would take someone who’s a complete expert on the matters of the mind, like Jasmine, to get in. As for how I know, I have been in your exact situation once.”

“And did you end up figuring out what she wanted with you?”

“Well, not really. Trying to understand Jasmine is a fool’s errand, because sometimes she does something with some very long-term plans ahead, and sometimes she does things on a whim. The truth is, that Jasmine always has plans upon plans with backups of backups of backups. Her plans have so many layers and are so flexible, that if one plan fails, she simply uses another one. Her contingencies are often due to the choices she offers her allies and subordinates. She considers free will to be the most precious treasure anyone could have and her offers for you to get out is a sincere one. She will not mess with your mind or force you to join her group. She might have plans for you, but if you refuse her offer to join, she has other contingencies that doesn’t involve you. Truthfully, I don’t know what goes on inside my sister’s head, but I do know that her offer for you is a sincere one, just like the one she gave me when she deemed me to have passed a few of her tests. It’s how she works, after all. She won’t make an offer that is imperative to her plans unless she’s sure that you’ll accept of your own free will.”

The former Winter Soldier stood there for a good minute, digesting what Rose just told him, “I don’t know why she wants me. Compared to her, to you, with the whole magic mumbo jumbo you’ve got going, you don’t need me, at all. Why did she make the offer at all?”

Rose snorted, “Ah, that’s easy to answer, she made it for you.”

“I don’t understand…”

The young witch elaborated, “Perhaps the better question would be why she used you to fight Hydra at all. If she really wanted to, she could have asked me, Wanda, Jean, or anyone really to do this job. It wasn’t that difficult, then why do you think she chose to wait until you woke up and were ready to fight, to move against Hydra, and chose to involve you in all these missions?”

Bucky froze when he heard that question. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? She hadn’t needed him to fight Hydra, not even a little bit. She could have done all of this herself without his involvement at all, especially the mission against the Zola machine thing. He still didn’t understand how the scientist put his mind in a computer, and Sayre explaining it didn’t clear matters too much.

At his bewildered look, Bucky’s companion burst into laughter, “You still don’t see it. She did it for you. Do you think she honestly cares about someone trying to kill her? Especially for a business move of all things. She’s fought against far worse and far more dangerous people than this group. It doesn’t even bother her. No, she fought Hydra, destroyed the entire organization, and gave you an instrumental role in their downfall so that you would achieve your revenge without killing yourself in the process. You were going to hunt them down, weren’t you? You were going to find every single Hydra agent on the planet, until you got to the high raking leaders and killed them all, one by one. This path would have almost always resulted in your death, and a lot of innocent casualties. So, she chose to give you your revenge on a platter and see what you would do afterwards, when your revenge is fulfilled, when you’re empty of your purpose.”

“Why do you trust her so much? Why should I trust her?”

Rose gave him a bitter laugh, “It’s not because we’re family, if that’s what you’re getting to. I trust her because I’m one of the few people that she’s shown who she is inside. All this apathy, disinterest, she gives off, is just a mask to protect herself from the pain of caring. She’s very selective of who she cares for because inevitably, everybody dies, everything ends, and it's sad to watch people pass away, while she watches, like a lonely god. And yet, she perseveres, she still fights and continues to defend humanity. She doesn’t do this because she wants to beat someone, blame someone, or hate someone. It’s not because it’s fun, and God knows it’s not because it’s easy. She does what she does because it’s right, and most of all because it’s kind. Because in her core, when you strip away all the bitterness, all the pain, and all the agony she feels at every moment, in the very core of her being is kindness. She is, by far, the kindest person that I have ever met, and probably will ever meet, even if she would probably disagree. That is why I trust Jasmine Sayre. And you should think to yourself, James Barnes, is she a person worth following, is she a person worth your allegiance? Tomorrow, she is going to go through one of the riskiest, and most dangerous gambles she has ever taken in her life. And I want to be with her when she does it, for all of humanity. Because she could have given up, and chosen to die, like I know she desperately wants to, deep down, but she is choosing to sacrifice whatever is left of her for us, and I will be with her to support her when she does. The question is, will you?”

The young woman turned around and walked back into the mansion, leaving a thoughtful man, more confused than he already was.