(no subject)
Title: Three strikes and you’re out. Or Three Times Bucky Barnes felt let down by his country.
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Three Times Bucky Barnes felt let down by his country and one time they let him down.
Author’s notes: I’ll be honest and say in my fandom; Steve is the patriot one, the one who believes completely (or mostly completely) in what his country is doing. Bucky is…a little less sure, partly cos of his age, partly cos of his role in the Invaders, and partly cos Steve is Steve.
I know not everyone sees it that way, and this is written mainly cos it wouldn’t shut up.
Note The opinions of the fictional and the non-fictional characters used in this story are belong to those characters NOT the author.
1. When the Red Skull first successfully captures and brainwashes the Invaders, Bucky hasn’t been Steve’s partner for very long.
He’s still only sixteen, but he’s seen more and done more than most soldiers will in their entire career.
Despite that, when he enters the Oval office, having fought his way past all the Secret Service goons, he’s still told to leave the fighting to the grown ups.
It’s the first time he realises that no matter how much training he’s got, no matter how gooder fighter he is, all his country, heck all most people see is a kid.
That’s why he breaks a direct order, to get back the only person for whom he’s not just a kid.
2. Bucky honestly can not believe his ears, when he confronts the soldier in charge of the Interment camp about releasing Dr. Sabuki.
He knows about these camps, the British have them since 1939, to hold Germans in their country, but if it’s thought those Germans could help the war effort, in any way, they’re either released, or a blind eye is turned to their absence.
Dr. Sabuki is openly acknowledged as the only man who might be able to save Toro, who was actually injured protecting this racist idiot. It…It just doesn’t seem fair!
It’s his own anger and frustration that makes him break into a room that reminds him horribly of the Ghettos in Germany, and be all ready to kidnap Dr. Sabuki, when Agent Axis saves him the trouble.
Later, much later, when He, Toro, Davey and Gwenny are sitting together in the back of Namor’s plane, he makes a discovery. He speaks better Japanese than she does!
3. While he’d never admit it to Steve, if he’s on his own, with the Kid Commandos, he prefers British bases.
Segregation is the order of the day, and at American bases, they have to spilt up, him and Toro one table and Davey and Gwenny on another. He’d never really thought about it until he met Davey, but it isn’t fair.
Davey’s a good fighter and a good friend, and there’s no reason for them to treat him that way.
When they’re with Steve, or any of the other invaders, the officers seem to turn a blind eye, sometimes literally to the black boy at their table, but when he’s on his own, they don’t seem to do it.
The first time they were told this, they ignored it, and sat together like they always did. Bucky thinks they got maybe one mouthful down, before they were attacked. By their own side. They fought back, but when the MP showed up, it was the Kid Commandos who ended up being arrested. And when Steve came to fetch them, he was simply told they’d been fighting in the canteen, not the cause of the fight.
However, he can’t honestly argue that the British are any better. Later after the fight Cat comes to see him and tells him that she’s been formally ordered not to interfere again. She had argued that it was wrong, but had been told that if she interfered again, she’d be court-martialed. As he knows that Cat’s the main, at points the only, breadwinner for her family, Davey tells them to leave it be and he persuades the others do the same.
He never asks Steve what he thinks about this, as he isn’t honestly sure he’d like the answer.
And (because I do not believe that he could be used for nearly sixty years and no one pick up on it)
In 1953, an unidentified figure print is found at the sight of the death of a UN diplomat. British Intelligence ran it through their files and got a match.
James Buchan Barnes. Missing In Action, presumed Dead.
This information was never pursed further.