ok so the first thing that comes to mind is, of course, buckyâs minor regenerative healing factor, courtesy of zolaâs super soldier cocktail. iâve mentioned it before but, as i said, itâs minor. thereâs not a whole ton that can be said about it?? but if youâre curious you can read more about it HERE.what i will talk about, though, is his mind. because physically, cuts and scrapes are no big deal for him. but his regenerative healing factor doesnât stop at a bad bruise or a bloody nose. this is something else iâve discussed before but not in a whole lot of detail so now seems fair enough : for seventy years, through all of hydraâs brainwashing, buckyâs mind was literally working 24/7 to repair itself.the nature of buckyâs brainwashing was very painful for him, as we see in winter soldier and the very beginning of civil war. a machine like that probably caused like micro-traumas to his brain. and because of his regenerative healing factor his mind was always trying to fix itself after all of this. as a result of this, his was always remembering things. always. but a lot more things come into play when you think about that, too. because while he was constantly recalling things, he wasnât able to process them all the time. hydra actually put up road blocks to keep his mind from processing any possible memories he might have. thatâs what the trigger words are for.the memory suppressing does just what it says it does : it squashes the memories down just long enough for the trigger words to be pulled out. and what the trigger words do is actually keep him from really thinking about any memories. because the trigger wordsâ real purpose are to essentially make him emotionless ; they prevent him from becoming attached in any way. thatâs what made him such an effective assassin. he didnât really care who he was killing and he didnât care why. the second he would question a targetâs very character or nature thatâs when hydra would know something is âwrongâ. because his human emotions would be coming out to play and they didnât want that.weâve seen how effective the trigger words are. they literally turn him into a machine. he can mow down armed guards like no big deal when heâs under that influence. but of course that programming doesnât last forever. we see that his consciousness will affect the programmingâs duration (i.e. bucky falling into the river in the helicopter in civil war) but i also imagine that, after a certain period of time, their effects would wear off. and thatâs why it was always hydraâs highest concern to have him complete a mission and then put him back in cryostasis as soon as possible. and if they canât do that then they wipe him again and go back in with the trigger words.his mind would be trying to work against all of this. and it wouldnât be a conscious thing. every time he remembered something (which was typically just a flash image or a voice in his head â typically something vague) he would be very confused and sometimes even startled. bucky would have no idea that his mind is repairing itself but his regenerative healing factor is literally the reason we see him, in winter soldier, remember his fall and being taken to hydra by kgb agents.by extension, when heâs in wakanda and recovering, his recovery treatment is also very stressful to his mind â you can read more about this HERE. for the average human this might have been way worse. it very well could have driven them crazy. but buckyâs mind was able to handle it, to an extent. he did have to go through a lot, both physically and mentally, but his mind was more durable (which sounds like a really indelicate way of phrasing that) so his mind would be mending itself at the same time itâs sort of being stretched thin. but because of the nature of his treatment, which is basically just demolishing all these walls that were put up, it would be a little unbalanced. the negative side effects would sometimes overpower his mindâs restoration â it was a slow process. but as the programming was removed and the walls were taken down, the restoration was able to catch up to the side effects and ultimately overpower them. so it was much more difficult at the beginning.
