James, because he hasn’t felt like “Bucky” in decades now, was uncomfortable. He wasn’t going to say “nervous” because that was a feeling that was tortured out of him for as long as he forgot the name “Bucky” which… was something that he thinks his therapist would pale about… again.
Either way, there he was, in a suit that made him feel ridiculous (when was the last time he wore one of these?), with his hair pulled in a ponytail (his lawyer tried to convince him into cutting it but it hit a little too close to how…annoyingly, and a bit eerily if he was honest, Steve tried to have him do the same thing) and without his Wakandan prosthesis (he agreed with his lawyer’s advice on this, it probably is not a good idea to show up with a metal arm that could kill grown men with its pinky, even if it’s not HYDRA’s), all to be a witness on Steve’s trial.
By his side were Wilson, the archer, the guy that could grow, King T’Challa, the woman with the red mist and the redhead that he recalled to have fought with twice but he could also remember some hazy images, he was still fighting her, but it felt less hostile… training? Before James could really try to place her, he was called to the stand.
He sighed a little. James was completely cleared of all charges barring probation and mandatory psychological help (which he completely agreed is very much necessary, doesn’t matter what Steve says) as long as there were no incidents and waiting for psych evaluation by the end of the probation which duration is dependent on the results and said incidents. It was all very straight forward and redundant-y sounding, by the end of his trial even his lawyer deadpanned at the jury’s choice of phrasing.
But when he, very predictably, was called to be a witness for the rest of “Team Cap’s” trials, James once again had to put up with his lawyer dictating his fucking wardrobe.
He didn’t want to be there, but he did fight alongside these people, so perhaps this is the least he could do.
James could vaguely remember the good times he had with the Howling Commandos. Teammates should be there for each other.
“Please state your name.”
“James Buchanan Barnes.”
So it went with seemly routine questions, at least to James they were, from both: the defense and the prosecution. He truly didn’t understand the, for him, out of place reactions that his answers gathered from the rest of the… everybody.
“So this Zemo possessed the trigger words in which case you would have no say in your own actions and barely remember about what was ordered afterwards?”
“Yes.” Short answers – yes or no as much as you can, straightforward, don’t answer rhetoric questions, don’t talk back to the judge but “try to show some emotion”… but James was pretty sure that the last one was about his defense.
“Then why face him in an environment where another five Winter Soldiers would also be in his command?”
“My judgment was impaired.” That was already covered in his own trial and James saw no need to change his answer…since it was the truth.
When he said to Stark that he remembered everything it wasn’t a lie, but all his memories were jumbled and fragmented, out of order aside from the fact that his therapist and his lawyer many times emphasized that James couldn’t have stated that after all, how would he know if he truly remembered “everything”? And James could only blush, ridiculous when putting it like that but people don’t remember what they forget.
Considering his frame of mind, “deciding” to do anything is not something that James could legally do after the trigger words are used.
“Yes, but why do you think Mr. Rogers decided on it?”
And that was something that his therapist asked him and his lawyer prepared him for.
“I cannot answer for Mr. Rogers.”
His tongue burned with the plain need to speak his mind but… he still had some loyalty left for his misguided and dangerous friend to ask his lawyer for the best way to at least buffer the inevitable.
His honest opinion? Captain America got so much undue propaganda to up morale and then everybody believed Steve to be dead that any flaws were completely written off.
But Stevie? The Steve Rogers he remembered? No one would be crazy enough to leave judgment calls on a fight to him. Granted, he did got better. Instead of training, experience in the field made his orders in the heat of a battle improve.
The real problem was that Steve had no concept of strategic retreat. Giving any kind of quarters equaled giving up, losing or admitting defeat in his mind, so he jumped into any fight without considering how to get out of it. And that was so unreasonable that James got really worried whenever the Commandos seemed to forget that Steve was fallible.
Why does he think Steve decided to confront Zemo with the worst possible choice by his side? James had a few ideas, such as Stevie doesn’t really think before leaping… without a parachute. Or Stevie never backed down from a fight regardless of what kind of missions his team was best suited for… or unsuited for.
“Right.” The prosecutor drawled, “So you also can’t answer for Mr. Rogers about his choices in the team he built for the Siberian Soldiers?”
“That would be correct.”
“What about a personal opinion? With the benefit of hindsight, do you think a brainwashed Super Soldier whose trigger words were in Zemo’s hands, an unknown, two Baseline humans and a former Hydra volunteer were the right picks for this fight?”
James opened his mouth and closed it again, now frowning in confusion, “I’m sorry, what?”
“What part is causing you confusion?”
“What Hydra volunteer? I didn’t volunteerfor Hydra, they captured me and tortured me for seventy years.” James fought not to grit his teeth at the idea that he would skip to a line and wait to sign his name for Hydra’s ‘greater good’.
When the silence stretched, James realized several things. Many in the court, the judge and jury included, were looking at him in disbelief, like he was saying that cows fly. But the rest of Steve’s team were…
Barton, the archer, looked like he had a headache, like he couldn’t focus on anything, not even what was happening around him.
Wilson and Lang looked just as confused as James himself felt.
And then Maximoff, the only woman, and Steve were… they were…
“Mr. Barnes,” he turned to the prosecutor, whose voice turned gentle for the first time since he began speaking, “are you aware that Ms. Maximoff volunteered to be a Hydra agent at the age of eighteen and in 2014, Hydra successfully turned her into an Enhanced with Loki’s Scepter? In 2015, Ms. Maximoff’s first encounter with them was when her twin brother fatally injured Mr. Barton, their second meeting was when both siblings were getting Vibranium from Ulysses Klaue, she mind controlled most of the Avengers and triggered the Hulk into attacking Johannesburg, their final meeting was when they were working alongside Ultron in Seoul, South Korea.”
He couldn’t look at Steve anymore. Because of how uncontrollable their team was, Maximoff, Barton and Steve were participating via transmission.
“Is that true? She is Hydra?” his ears were blocked, James knew that he was talking but it was muted. His breath was louder than his voice.
“She didn’t meant it! She’s just a kid, a misguided kid!”
James didn’t know what his face was showing but suddenly the court was being cleared of civilians. The Vision was carefully approaching him, his mouth was moving but James couldn’t hear it, all his focus was in Steve.
Lil’ Steve. Who James always saw as another of his younger siblings. Whose heart was too big for his body. And yet…now it seemed to be the contrary.
“She can control minds?”
“That’s just what she can do, not what she is!”
“Did you know?”
“Bucky, please listen to me! She was just a kid, she didn’t know what she was doing!”
Flashes took James’ mind.
That chair. The shocks. Not being able to control his own body.
After so many missions, so many times in that chair with his brain turning into mush and the he could no longer remember who he was anymore.
It was a cycle of pain, the mission, and then the ice. And then all over again.
James looked up to see Steve’s screen. The lil’ punk was still yelling, begging.
His eyes landed on the witch. That’s what they called her. Scarlet Witch and now James knew why.
Hydra did this. They destroyed his life. They stole his life, his mind and his body. There was nothing left for him anymore.
They even stole Steve… Stevie, that was always dragging peace and tranquility from James but that he couldn’t help but just be there for his friend.
Steve was his friend… wasn’t he? Steve wouldn’t do that to him, would he?
Punk didn’t answer him yet…
“DID YOU KNOW?!”
Looking defeated and haunted, Steve finally answered him, “Yes.”
When James calmed down enough, he would try to think about it rationally. There could be a thousand and one explanations.
The most probable one? The Hydra woman did something to Steve’s mind.
But in that second, in those rage and desperation fuelled moments, all James could think was that Hydra took everything from him. Even the only person he had in this new and strange world that was the future.
Stevie, whose entire military career, his dream, was about taking Hydra down, was now defending Hydra, fighting alongside them.
Worse still, he made James fight alongside Hydra! Side by side of a woman that gladly signed her name to those monsters, those monster that gave her, one of their little recruits, the power to manipulate minds! What need the chair had now? They had her!
Bands were restraining his movements and it took James a second to identify them as Vision’s arms. He was kicking and screaming and fighting with all his might but Vision didn’t move a single inch. They were both kneeling on the ground and the synthezoid seemed to weight a hundred tons.
“You… did this.”
“Sargent Barnes?” Vision worried voice penetrated the fog, but James’ attention was on Steve.
“You knew! You did this… I was your friend.” The fight left him and it was only then that James felt the tears running down his face. The betrayal was burning his chest and he could barely take in enough oxygen. He clutched Vision’s arm with his remaining one as if it was the only thing anchoring him.
James stood by Steve’s side through thick and thin. Even after Bucharest when he could barely tell up from down, he followed Steve, he had his back. He trusted that former twig because James thought he knew Steve.
And that was how it ended.
“I was your friend.” He whispered again, “Why did you do this?”
“B-because… because she deserves a second chance. Because I got to know her and she is a good kid, because she is my friend.”
The former Winter Soldier felt a prickle in his neck. Sedatives, his mind supplied but before losing consciousness, James wanted to say his piece, because there was no going back from this, not from something like this.
“So was I.”
In that half a second before everything went dark, James saw Steve’s expression crumbling, palling, there was also shock and… familiarity? Or something close to it, like this wasn’t the first time Steve went through it, but still hurts just like the first time. And James felt no satisfaction from it, no just desserts, he was just cold, like he was back in the ice.