a_facility application
OOC Information:
Name: Nekky
Age: 21
AIM: xnecronomical
MSN: NA
Y!M: NA
E-MAIL: x_violetprison@yahoo.com
IC Information:
Name: James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, codename Captain America. Goes by Buck, James, or Bucky. Fandom: Marvel Comics
Timeline: From Captain America 616, right after his prison yard fight with Ursa Major in the gulag.
Age: Early- to mid-30s physically. Technically mid- to late-80s, as he was born in 1925.
Appearance: Bucky stands at about 5'9"-5'10"ish, not quite as tall as some of his comrades, and weighs about 260 lbs, some of that because of the weight of his left arm. He has brown hair, cut fairly neatly, short bangs swept across his forehead in a slightly dated style, and his eyes are brown. He looks like a fairly average man in his early thirties, although he's very fit and his muscles are quite defined from years of hard physical training. The only thing out of the ordinary about his appearance is the bionic left arm - it's shaped like a human arm, moves like a human arm, but it's shiny, segmented steel, with a white star in a blue and red circle painted on the shoulder. (At one point, his arm was upgraded to look and feel like flesh on the outside, but recently he was fitted with the metal one again for his imprisonment.)
His costume as Captain America is a little different from his predecessor's. It consists of a bodysuit, mostly black up his arms to the shoulders and up to his waist, where it changes to the iconic red, white, and blue design that Steve Rogers made famous. The blue hood doubles as a mask and is attached to the costume to prevent it from being pulled or knocked off, and it has the standard Captain America decals of a white A on the forehead and little white wings on the sides of the head. He wears a pair of wrist-length, cuffed red gloves, and black folded-top boots. Bucky has several pouches around his waist, and places for a modified sidearm, a combat knife, and other mission gear. When he isn't in costume, Bucky's choices of clothing generally include a workout set (sweatpants and a wifebeater or t-shirt) or a more normal outfit of jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blue plaid overshirt.
Captain America Costume
Casual Clothes
Abilities: Bucky was trained from a young age to be the partner of Captain America during World War II. He was trained to do everything that Cap couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't as a symbol of the United States - namely all the gritty, dirty work behind the scenes. Bucky is a dangerously skilled martial artist, trained by some of the best combatants of his time; he received American training from the military, special training with the British, and extensive training from Captain America himself during World War II, and in the years since 1945, he was trained by elite Russian programs to be a master assassin for the KGB. An Army official once said of Bucky, "He's the finest natural fighter I've ever seen." He's an accurate marksman, a skilled acrobat, a gifted advance scout, and he was also trained extensively in espionage. Bucky is skilled with many different weapons and in hand to hand combat, and he's also extremely talented with the brand of shield fighting (using the iconic shield as a weapon for both offense and defense) that his former partner invented.
Physically, he's in peak condition. His normal strength is Olympic level, and his agility, endurance, and dexterity are near peak level. He's also considered very intelligent and has experience working with different sorts of gadgets. The only 'superhuman' abilities Bucky has are granted by his bionic arm.
Bionic arm: The strength level is superhuman, though not amazingly strong compared to gods and other superhumans. The arm's reaction time is a lot better than an Olympic athlete, it contains sensors that will allow him to pass through metal detectors without setting them off, and it can also shield other metal objects from detection. He can control the arm if it's been removed from his body, or it can be programmed to perform actions on its own while detached (which is totally creepy to watch). It can also discharge bolts of electricity, and an electro-magnetic pulse to disrupt other electronic devices. However, his arm can also be rendered dead weight by a similar EMP, and electricity can be turned on him since metal is a conductor.
Another talent of his is that he's multi-lingual: He speaks English, Russian, German, Japanese, and French to varying degrees of fluency. He's very fluent in English and Russian, good in German and Japanese, but only speaks a little French.
Personality: Bucky's personality has changed a lot over the years. In his teenage sidekick days, he was cocky, a bit of a joker and quite mischievous when there wasn't immediate danger. He was also known during the war for being able to obtain nearly anything, such as when, at a camp, he 'borrowed' a superior officer's jeep motor to power a projector so the other soldiers at the camp could watch newsreels, which they were surprised he could get in the first place. He's extremely resourceful ("Barnes here could get you General MacArthur's pipe if he had a mind to, and Churchill's tobacco."), likely from growing up during the Depression, when anything and everything was scarce, and from being a war orphan. He could be very serious when the situation called for it, namely on the battlefield, but off the field, he was charismatic, confident, and somewhat of a ladies' man. He has always been loyal to country and comrades; he's patriotic and determined, dedicated to keeping America safe and protecting the innocent.
He's no longer a mischievous teenager; Bucky has grown and matured over the years, and he has been touched very deeply by the horrors of war. Most notably because of his days as the Russian super-assassin, the Winter Soldier. During those days, his personality never quite left him, but the old Bucky was lost to all but a few (notably his current girlfriend, then secret lover, Natalia Romanova). The Russians had turned him into a hard-hearted killing machine, burying his charisma and sense of humor and any traces of happiness under a thick layer of ice.
After his memories were restored and he escaped Russian control, Bucky grew sullen and grim, bitter and ruthless in his own way, wracked with guilt over everything he'd been made to do, though slowly, he came back to the world he had been forced from. The old Bucky started to come through again, especially when he reunited with his lover Natalia, and when he took up the mantle of Captain America.
Currently, his personality is a bit subdued and serious, but the determination, the loyalty, the desire to protect and serve, and the resourcefulness remain. Also remaining is his wit, and he'll still make the occasional sarcastic comment. However, he is constantly wracked with guilt from the things he did as the Winter Soldier, and deep down, there's some part of him that causes him to rush in and do stupid things, because he believes that he deserves to be punished.
History: James Buchanan Barnes was born in 1925 in Shelbyville, Indiana, to George and Winnifred Barnes. A few years after him came his sister, Rebecca. Bucky's mother died when he was a young child, and his father passed away in a training accident in Camp Lehigh, shortly before Christmas in 1937. He was only twelve. His younger sister was sent off to a boarding school, but Bucky persuaded the commanding officer at Camp Lehigh to allow him to stay on as a ward of the state, because like his father, he was passionate about wanting to serve his country in the military. He soon became the camp's teenage mascot, and he often put his charm and resourcefulness to use - during World War II, he set up a rather profitable venture providing soldiers with non-requisition supplies. During his time at the camp, he was also trained extensively in hand to hand combat with British Commandos, by luminaries such as William Essart Fairbairn and Colonel Rex Applegate, some of the finest combatants of that day and the same men who trained Captain America.
While at Camp Lehigh, sometime in '41, Bucky met a young private named Steve Rogers, and a legendary partnership was born. The story Bucky always told people was that he stumbled into Steve's tent one day as he was changing into his Captain America costume, but the truth of the matter was, Bucky was specifically trained to be Cap's partner, to do the things the government didn't want their super-soldier to be a part of openly. It was this, perhaps, that led to Bucky being somewhat more cynical than idealistic Steve, but they were friends from the very beginning - brothers in arms, a bond that soon went deeper than family.
Bucky traveled all over Europe during the years of World War II, along with his partner, in their costumed identites, fighting the Nazi regime for the Allied Forces. It's not known just how many missions Bucky and Steve went on during the time before the end of the war, but the number is no doubt high. Bucky himself served on several teams of superhumans at different points, including the All-Winner's Squad, the Invaders, the Liberty Legion, the Kid Commandos (a team that he himself led), and the Young Allies, though out of those, he only really mentions his time in the Invaders.
His and Steve's last mission of the war was in late 1945. They had pursued a long-time villain they had faced many times before, Baron Zemo, to London, where they discovered him stealing an experimental drone plane from the Allies. They pursued the plane that Zemo had sent on a trajectory to the White House, leaping onto it to try and disarm it. The plane was rigged to explode, though. Captain America slipped off and was plunged into the English Channel, where he was frozen in suspended animation, but Bucky, whose sleeve had caught in the plane, was caught in the blast. He was believed dead for decades, his remains never recovered.
In all actuality, the explosion only claimed his left arm up to the shoulder, and plunged him into icy waters, where he entered the same state of suspended animation that Steve had. After the war, he was picked up by a Russian submarine, studied for any traces of the Super Soldier Serum that Steve Rogers had been given, and was placed in cryostasis when it came to light that he was just an ordinary human being with remarkable reflexes. He had absolutely no memory of his past, but considerable fighting skill still, and so, in '54, he was thawed and given a new bionic arm, one that was upgraded every time Soviet technology advanced; he was indoctrinated to hate the country he had served so loyally, and experiments turned him into the perfect, soulless assassin, codenamed the Winter Soldier. During this time period, he met and fell in love with a Soviet spy, Natalia Romanova, later the Black Widow, though she was promised to another. He often risked his own safety and the wrath of his handlers just to see her. The relationship ended, though, when Bucky was caught, viciously punished, and placed back into cryostasis until the next time they needed him. It happened multiple times over the years - Bucky was essentially only taken out of the freezer and re-brainwashed when he was needed for a mission, to slow his aging and keep him somewhat mentally stable, and therefore, he has many gaps in his memory.
It's unknown just how many people Bucky was ordered to assassinate during his years as the Winter Soldier, but it was quite a few prominent figures. Over the years, Barnes started to demonstrate mental instability, and was placed in stasis one last time, though when the Red Skull got a hold of a powerful artifact called the Cosmic Cube, Bucky was taken out once more to assassinate the Skull (he didn't know at the time that the Skull didn't actually die). When his mission was done and he was given the Cosmic Cube to put away for storage, Captain America (Steve Rogers, who had been thawed out some years before by the superhero team, the Avengers) met him at the vault and they fought, because Bucky couldn't remember his old friend and partner. Steve used the Cube to give Bucky his memories back, though, and, devastated by the knowledge of all the horrible things he had been made to do, he used the Cube to teleport away, where he went underground to go after his old handler. He was unable to face his dearest friend, and ended up working for a while as an off-the-grid operative for Nick Fury of the organization SHIELD.
When Captain America was assassinated following the Superhero Civil War (a large battle between heroes regarding the Superhuman Registration Act, a conflict Bucky was only minimally involved in), Bucky stole back Steve's unique, indestructible shield, and sought out the man responsible for Steve's death - the Red Skull. He was captured by the Skull, but then escaped, and was placed into SHIELD custody, though he escaped that, too, and went to kill the other man he saw responsible for Steve's death, Iron Man. After they fought to a standstill, Iron Man told Bucky that Steve's last request was for him to find Bucky, and 'save him' - give him the mantle of Captain America.
During the year Steve was 'dead', Bucky operated as Captain America, now reformed and searching for redemption. It was during this period that he also rekindled his relationship with Natalia Romanova, his old flame. However, Steve wasn't dead, just frozen in space and time, reliving his life over and over again. Bucky helped to rescue him and restore him to his body, and gave the shield back to his longtime friend - though when Steve saw what good being Cap was doing for Bucky, he gave the mantle back.
Eventually, Bucky's identity, and his past as the Winter Soldier, were leaked to the press in an insidious plot by the new Red Skull (the old Red Skull's daughter, who took over after her father died during the rescue of Steve Rogers that brought him back to life), and a full on investigation started, complete with a trial, as Bucky was held in an American prison. Just as he was sentenced (a light sentence, probation mostly, due to the brainwashed nature of his crimes), Russian officials burst into the courtroom to collect Bucky, who was already convicted in absentia in Russia for crimes he supposedly committed there - the murder of two Russian citizens. A crime that Bucky doesn't remember. He was whisked away to Russia, and held in a gulag among prisoners that hated him for betraying the Soviets. The inmates attempted to kill Bucky, by pitting him in a fight against his will, versus Ursa Major, another prisoner (and, essentially, a man-bear) - a fight, that Bucky won, though afterward, he was pretty bruised up.
Then he woke up in a white, blank room.
Roleplay Sample - Log:
Prison was never quiet. Prisoners never shut up, James Barnes was finding out. From his cell, he could hear yelling, screaming, jeering, the sounds of fights breaking out - mostly in Russian, but there was a bit of English mixed in. He understood it all, of course, but that didn't make it any less irritating. It didn't make his stomach turn any less. He would have preferred the English yelling, at least, like he was treated to back in the New York prison - it reminded him of home, and right then, he wanted anything that reminded him of home.
More than that, though, he wanted out of here.
But this was the trajectory of his life. Once he started to adjust, to build a new life, to pick up the pieces and start to put them back together, once he started to be HAPPY, something would change in an instant and throw his world back into chaos, into misery. It happened every single time. This hopeless incarceration was just the latest in a long string of the universe pelting him from every side with proverbial stones.
The prisoners wouldn't shut up. It was the screaming, the clamoring of animals in cages searching desperately for a taste of something that wasn't brutality or the bone-chilling Siberian air. Bucky was one of them, but he refused to be like them. He knew he wasn't really different, he was here because he had done a lot of terrible things just like the rest of them (and he could practically hear Steve in his head when he thought that, saying fiercely, "No, it wasn't you. You were brainwashed and forced. It wasn't YOU."), but Bucky wasn't going to do anything but try to get through this as quietly as possible, to keep his head down. Anything else, at least until Steve or one of the other Avengers came bearing good news, was an exercise in futility; there was no point in wasting his energy.
He could feel a twinge in his muscles. Confinement wasn't going to be good for him in the long run, he thought, rolling off the hard, cold bed he lay on to slip into push-up position. He moved his left arm against his back (It wouldn't do any good to work it. It wasn't like the metal would get any stronger without programming he couldn't do.), and went through the motions, lowering his body until he was centimeters from the floor, pushing back up, back always military straight. One, two, three, four.
Maybe this was an exercise in futility, too, working out to keep the thoughts of home and the horrible memories he had of Russia out of his head.
It seemed so pathetic, for Captain America to be homesick, but Bucky was. He wanted his apartment, he wanted a good go in the gym, wanted to sleep in his own bed and go for a run through New York City instead of laps around a prison yard, wanted to drink real coffee. He wanted to go out to dinner again at that little diner he liked, wanted to indulge in an old-fashioned chocolate malted and make faces at Natalia as she sipped her smoothie and teased him about his age. He missed his costume. He missed the weight of his shield in his hands. He missed night-time patrols, stopping crimes, chasing down leads and showing the evils of the world what was what.
But most of all, he wanted Natalia, and he wanted a cheeseburger. Amazing how important small things sometimes seemed.
Bucky was startled out of his thoughts, though he didn't jump, just moved to his feet calmly when a guard unlocked his cell with a brusqueness he was growing used to. The barred door clanged open. "" he said in Russian, tone leaving no absolutely no room to argue.
He was going to argue anyway. "" He would never be the Winter Soldier again. Not now that he had just started to redeem himself for everything that had been done with his hands.
The guard gave him a cruelly amused smile, full of crooked yellow teeth - a smile that spoke of ill omens and death. ""
Roleplay Sample - Journal:
[When the video feed begins, there's a clear shot of a brown haired, somewhat bruised-up looking man in his early thirties. He's glancing around the room at first, expression fairly calm and flat, just slightly curious. He's already changed from the prison jumpsuit he showed up in to the pair of jeans and the blue plaid button up he found in the closet, and he's already pretty well gotten the hang of the 'berry in his hands. The first thing he says is mumbled under his breath.]
Toto, we're not in Russia anymore...
[He has no idea where he is, how many people are here, what sorts of people are here, who might know him or not. So, whlie he speaks calmly and almost casually, his words are carefully chosen and his thoughts are going ninety miles an hour, rushing through his head. Possible escape plans, methods of recon. He probably should be panicking, but Captain America doesn't panic, and besides, at least he's out of that hellhole gulag.]
Hello? My name is Buck... Stevens. If anyone is listening to this broadcast, any information on my current situation would be appreciated. I'm not quite sure where I've ended up.
[Boy wasn't that an understatement?]
Questions? Comments? Crazed and creative statements? Those go here.
How is his bionic arm going to be handled? Since it can technically be considered a weapon, is it going to be taken away from him, or just have most of the 'extra' features (EMP, electrical discharge, superhuman strength level) disabled or downgraded? It's all good either way, I'm just wondering.
Name: Nekky
Age: 21
AIM: xnecronomical
MSN: NA
Y!M: NA
E-MAIL: x_violetprison@yahoo.com
IC Information:
Name: James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, codename Captain America. Goes by Buck, James, or Bucky. Fandom: Marvel Comics
Timeline: From Captain America 616, right after his prison yard fight with Ursa Major in the gulag.
Age: Early- to mid-30s physically. Technically mid- to late-80s, as he was born in 1925.
Appearance: Bucky stands at about 5'9"-5'10"ish, not quite as tall as some of his comrades, and weighs about 260 lbs, some of that because of the weight of his left arm. He has brown hair, cut fairly neatly, short bangs swept across his forehead in a slightly dated style, and his eyes are brown. He looks like a fairly average man in his early thirties, although he's very fit and his muscles are quite defined from years of hard physical training. The only thing out of the ordinary about his appearance is the bionic left arm - it's shaped like a human arm, moves like a human arm, but it's shiny, segmented steel, with a white star in a blue and red circle painted on the shoulder. (At one point, his arm was upgraded to look and feel like flesh on the outside, but recently he was fitted with the metal one again for his imprisonment.)
His costume as Captain America is a little different from his predecessor's. It consists of a bodysuit, mostly black up his arms to the shoulders and up to his waist, where it changes to the iconic red, white, and blue design that Steve Rogers made famous. The blue hood doubles as a mask and is attached to the costume to prevent it from being pulled or knocked off, and it has the standard Captain America decals of a white A on the forehead and little white wings on the sides of the head. He wears a pair of wrist-length, cuffed red gloves, and black folded-top boots. Bucky has several pouches around his waist, and places for a modified sidearm, a combat knife, and other mission gear. When he isn't in costume, Bucky's choices of clothing generally include a workout set (sweatpants and a wifebeater or t-shirt) or a more normal outfit of jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blue plaid overshirt.
Captain America Costume
Casual Clothes
Abilities: Bucky was trained from a young age to be the partner of Captain America during World War II. He was trained to do everything that Cap couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't as a symbol of the United States - namely all the gritty, dirty work behind the scenes. Bucky is a dangerously skilled martial artist, trained by some of the best combatants of his time; he received American training from the military, special training with the British, and extensive training from Captain America himself during World War II, and in the years since 1945, he was trained by elite Russian programs to be a master assassin for the KGB. An Army official once said of Bucky, "He's the finest natural fighter I've ever seen." He's an accurate marksman, a skilled acrobat, a gifted advance scout, and he was also trained extensively in espionage. Bucky is skilled with many different weapons and in hand to hand combat, and he's also extremely talented with the brand of shield fighting (using the iconic shield as a weapon for both offense and defense) that his former partner invented.
Physically, he's in peak condition. His normal strength is Olympic level, and his agility, endurance, and dexterity are near peak level. He's also considered very intelligent and has experience working with different sorts of gadgets. The only 'superhuman' abilities Bucky has are granted by his bionic arm.
Bionic arm: The strength level is superhuman, though not amazingly strong compared to gods and other superhumans. The arm's reaction time is a lot better than an Olympic athlete, it contains sensors that will allow him to pass through metal detectors without setting them off, and it can also shield other metal objects from detection. He can control the arm if it's been removed from his body, or it can be programmed to perform actions on its own while detached (which is totally creepy to watch). It can also discharge bolts of electricity, and an electro-magnetic pulse to disrupt other electronic devices. However, his arm can also be rendered dead weight by a similar EMP, and electricity can be turned on him since metal is a conductor.
Another talent of his is that he's multi-lingual: He speaks English, Russian, German, Japanese, and French to varying degrees of fluency. He's very fluent in English and Russian, good in German and Japanese, but only speaks a little French.
Personality: Bucky's personality has changed a lot over the years. In his teenage sidekick days, he was cocky, a bit of a joker and quite mischievous when there wasn't immediate danger. He was also known during the war for being able to obtain nearly anything, such as when, at a camp, he 'borrowed' a superior officer's jeep motor to power a projector so the other soldiers at the camp could watch newsreels, which they were surprised he could get in the first place. He's extremely resourceful ("Barnes here could get you General MacArthur's pipe if he had a mind to, and Churchill's tobacco."), likely from growing up during the Depression, when anything and everything was scarce, and from being a war orphan. He could be very serious when the situation called for it, namely on the battlefield, but off the field, he was charismatic, confident, and somewhat of a ladies' man. He has always been loyal to country and comrades; he's patriotic and determined, dedicated to keeping America safe and protecting the innocent.
He's no longer a mischievous teenager; Bucky has grown and matured over the years, and he has been touched very deeply by the horrors of war. Most notably because of his days as the Russian super-assassin, the Winter Soldier. During those days, his personality never quite left him, but the old Bucky was lost to all but a few (notably his current girlfriend, then secret lover, Natalia Romanova). The Russians had turned him into a hard-hearted killing machine, burying his charisma and sense of humor and any traces of happiness under a thick layer of ice.
After his memories were restored and he escaped Russian control, Bucky grew sullen and grim, bitter and ruthless in his own way, wracked with guilt over everything he'd been made to do, though slowly, he came back to the world he had been forced from. The old Bucky started to come through again, especially when he reunited with his lover Natalia, and when he took up the mantle of Captain America.
Currently, his personality is a bit subdued and serious, but the determination, the loyalty, the desire to protect and serve, and the resourcefulness remain. Also remaining is his wit, and he'll still make the occasional sarcastic comment. However, he is constantly wracked with guilt from the things he did as the Winter Soldier, and deep down, there's some part of him that causes him to rush in and do stupid things, because he believes that he deserves to be punished.
History: James Buchanan Barnes was born in 1925 in Shelbyville, Indiana, to George and Winnifred Barnes. A few years after him came his sister, Rebecca. Bucky's mother died when he was a young child, and his father passed away in a training accident in Camp Lehigh, shortly before Christmas in 1937. He was only twelve. His younger sister was sent off to a boarding school, but Bucky persuaded the commanding officer at Camp Lehigh to allow him to stay on as a ward of the state, because like his father, he was passionate about wanting to serve his country in the military. He soon became the camp's teenage mascot, and he often put his charm and resourcefulness to use - during World War II, he set up a rather profitable venture providing soldiers with non-requisition supplies. During his time at the camp, he was also trained extensively in hand to hand combat with British Commandos, by luminaries such as William Essart Fairbairn and Colonel Rex Applegate, some of the finest combatants of that day and the same men who trained Captain America.
While at Camp Lehigh, sometime in '41, Bucky met a young private named Steve Rogers, and a legendary partnership was born. The story Bucky always told people was that he stumbled into Steve's tent one day as he was changing into his Captain America costume, but the truth of the matter was, Bucky was specifically trained to be Cap's partner, to do the things the government didn't want their super-soldier to be a part of openly. It was this, perhaps, that led to Bucky being somewhat more cynical than idealistic Steve, but they were friends from the very beginning - brothers in arms, a bond that soon went deeper than family.
Bucky traveled all over Europe during the years of World War II, along with his partner, in their costumed identites, fighting the Nazi regime for the Allied Forces. It's not known just how many missions Bucky and Steve went on during the time before the end of the war, but the number is no doubt high. Bucky himself served on several teams of superhumans at different points, including the All-Winner's Squad, the Invaders, the Liberty Legion, the Kid Commandos (a team that he himself led), and the Young Allies, though out of those, he only really mentions his time in the Invaders.
His and Steve's last mission of the war was in late 1945. They had pursued a long-time villain they had faced many times before, Baron Zemo, to London, where they discovered him stealing an experimental drone plane from the Allies. They pursued the plane that Zemo had sent on a trajectory to the White House, leaping onto it to try and disarm it. The plane was rigged to explode, though. Captain America slipped off and was plunged into the English Channel, where he was frozen in suspended animation, but Bucky, whose sleeve had caught in the plane, was caught in the blast. He was believed dead for decades, his remains never recovered.
In all actuality, the explosion only claimed his left arm up to the shoulder, and plunged him into icy waters, where he entered the same state of suspended animation that Steve had. After the war, he was picked up by a Russian submarine, studied for any traces of the Super Soldier Serum that Steve Rogers had been given, and was placed in cryostasis when it came to light that he was just an ordinary human being with remarkable reflexes. He had absolutely no memory of his past, but considerable fighting skill still, and so, in '54, he was thawed and given a new bionic arm, one that was upgraded every time Soviet technology advanced; he was indoctrinated to hate the country he had served so loyally, and experiments turned him into the perfect, soulless assassin, codenamed the Winter Soldier. During this time period, he met and fell in love with a Soviet spy, Natalia Romanova, later the Black Widow, though she was promised to another. He often risked his own safety and the wrath of his handlers just to see her. The relationship ended, though, when Bucky was caught, viciously punished, and placed back into cryostasis until the next time they needed him. It happened multiple times over the years - Bucky was essentially only taken out of the freezer and re-brainwashed when he was needed for a mission, to slow his aging and keep him somewhat mentally stable, and therefore, he has many gaps in his memory.
It's unknown just how many people Bucky was ordered to assassinate during his years as the Winter Soldier, but it was quite a few prominent figures. Over the years, Barnes started to demonstrate mental instability, and was placed in stasis one last time, though when the Red Skull got a hold of a powerful artifact called the Cosmic Cube, Bucky was taken out once more to assassinate the Skull (he didn't know at the time that the Skull didn't actually die). When his mission was done and he was given the Cosmic Cube to put away for storage, Captain America (Steve Rogers, who had been thawed out some years before by the superhero team, the Avengers) met him at the vault and they fought, because Bucky couldn't remember his old friend and partner. Steve used the Cube to give Bucky his memories back, though, and, devastated by the knowledge of all the horrible things he had been made to do, he used the Cube to teleport away, where he went underground to go after his old handler. He was unable to face his dearest friend, and ended up working for a while as an off-the-grid operative for Nick Fury of the organization SHIELD.
When Captain America was assassinated following the Superhero Civil War (a large battle between heroes regarding the Superhuman Registration Act, a conflict Bucky was only minimally involved in), Bucky stole back Steve's unique, indestructible shield, and sought out the man responsible for Steve's death - the Red Skull. He was captured by the Skull, but then escaped, and was placed into SHIELD custody, though he escaped that, too, and went to kill the other man he saw responsible for Steve's death, Iron Man. After they fought to a standstill, Iron Man told Bucky that Steve's last request was for him to find Bucky, and 'save him' - give him the mantle of Captain America.
During the year Steve was 'dead', Bucky operated as Captain America, now reformed and searching for redemption. It was during this period that he also rekindled his relationship with Natalia Romanova, his old flame. However, Steve wasn't dead, just frozen in space and time, reliving his life over and over again. Bucky helped to rescue him and restore him to his body, and gave the shield back to his longtime friend - though when Steve saw what good being Cap was doing for Bucky, he gave the mantle back.
Eventually, Bucky's identity, and his past as the Winter Soldier, were leaked to the press in an insidious plot by the new Red Skull (the old Red Skull's daughter, who took over after her father died during the rescue of Steve Rogers that brought him back to life), and a full on investigation started, complete with a trial, as Bucky was held in an American prison. Just as he was sentenced (a light sentence, probation mostly, due to the brainwashed nature of his crimes), Russian officials burst into the courtroom to collect Bucky, who was already convicted in absentia in Russia for crimes he supposedly committed there - the murder of two Russian citizens. A crime that Bucky doesn't remember. He was whisked away to Russia, and held in a gulag among prisoners that hated him for betraying the Soviets. The inmates attempted to kill Bucky, by pitting him in a fight against his will, versus Ursa Major, another prisoner (and, essentially, a man-bear) - a fight, that Bucky won, though afterward, he was pretty bruised up.
Then he woke up in a white, blank room.
Roleplay Sample - Log:
Prison was never quiet. Prisoners never shut up, James Barnes was finding out. From his cell, he could hear yelling, screaming, jeering, the sounds of fights breaking out - mostly in Russian, but there was a bit of English mixed in. He understood it all, of course, but that didn't make it any less irritating. It didn't make his stomach turn any less. He would have preferred the English yelling, at least, like he was treated to back in the New York prison - it reminded him of home, and right then, he wanted anything that reminded him of home.
More than that, though, he wanted out of here.
But this was the trajectory of his life. Once he started to adjust, to build a new life, to pick up the pieces and start to put them back together, once he started to be HAPPY, something would change in an instant and throw his world back into chaos, into misery. It happened every single time. This hopeless incarceration was just the latest in a long string of the universe pelting him from every side with proverbial stones.
The prisoners wouldn't shut up. It was the screaming, the clamoring of animals in cages searching desperately for a taste of something that wasn't brutality or the bone-chilling Siberian air. Bucky was one of them, but he refused to be like them. He knew he wasn't really different, he was here because he had done a lot of terrible things just like the rest of them (and he could practically hear Steve in his head when he thought that, saying fiercely, "No, it wasn't you. You were brainwashed and forced. It wasn't YOU."), but Bucky wasn't going to do anything but try to get through this as quietly as possible, to keep his head down. Anything else, at least until Steve or one of the other Avengers came bearing good news, was an exercise in futility; there was no point in wasting his energy.
He could feel a twinge in his muscles. Confinement wasn't going to be good for him in the long run, he thought, rolling off the hard, cold bed he lay on to slip into push-up position. He moved his left arm against his back (It wouldn't do any good to work it. It wasn't like the metal would get any stronger without programming he couldn't do.), and went through the motions, lowering his body until he was centimeters from the floor, pushing back up, back always military straight. One, two, three, four.
Maybe this was an exercise in futility, too, working out to keep the thoughts of home and the horrible memories he had of Russia out of his head.
It seemed so pathetic, for Captain America to be homesick, but Bucky was. He wanted his apartment, he wanted a good go in the gym, wanted to sleep in his own bed and go for a run through New York City instead of laps around a prison yard, wanted to drink real coffee. He wanted to go out to dinner again at that little diner he liked, wanted to indulge in an old-fashioned chocolate malted and make faces at Natalia as she sipped her smoothie and teased him about his age. He missed his costume. He missed the weight of his shield in his hands. He missed night-time patrols, stopping crimes, chasing down leads and showing the evils of the world what was what.
But most of all, he wanted Natalia, and he wanted a cheeseburger. Amazing how important small things sometimes seemed.
Bucky was startled out of his thoughts, though he didn't jump, just moved to his feet calmly when a guard unlocked his cell with a brusqueness he was growing used to. The barred door clanged open. "" he said in Russian, tone leaving no absolutely no room to argue.
He was going to argue anyway. "" He would never be the Winter Soldier again. Not now that he had just started to redeem himself for everything that had been done with his hands.
The guard gave him a cruelly amused smile, full of crooked yellow teeth - a smile that spoke of ill omens and death. ""
Roleplay Sample - Journal:
[When the video feed begins, there's a clear shot of a brown haired, somewhat bruised-up looking man in his early thirties. He's glancing around the room at first, expression fairly calm and flat, just slightly curious. He's already changed from the prison jumpsuit he showed up in to the pair of jeans and the blue plaid button up he found in the closet, and he's already pretty well gotten the hang of the 'berry in his hands. The first thing he says is mumbled under his breath.]
Toto, we're not in Russia anymore...
[He has no idea where he is, how many people are here, what sorts of people are here, who might know him or not. So, whlie he speaks calmly and almost casually, his words are carefully chosen and his thoughts are going ninety miles an hour, rushing through his head. Possible escape plans, methods of recon. He probably should be panicking, but Captain America doesn't panic, and besides, at least he's out of that hellhole gulag.]
Hello? My name is Buck... Stevens. If anyone is listening to this broadcast, any information on my current situation would be appreciated. I'm not quite sure where I've ended up.
[Boy wasn't that an understatement?]
Questions? Comments? Crazed and creative statements? Those go here.
How is his bionic arm going to be handled? Since it can technically be considered a weapon, is it going to be taken away from him, or just have most of the 'extra' features (EMP, electrical discharge, superhuman strength level) disabled or downgraded? It's all good either way, I'm just wondering.