#robert thread

Bring the Winter Soldier back into the fold. Easier said than done. And that was, in itself, not an easy thing to suggest. Robert was a senior graduate of the Red Room, now. With a long and entirely unspoken record. A ghost. Many of the known Widows were presumed dead, but Robert had never been known at all. He was sanitary in his approach. No trace left.

Which is part of why he had been selected for this task. The other, of course, being that he was the Red Room’s favorite type of spy. The psychic kind. He’d been living next door to Bucky for a few weeks now, but had remained out of sight. This man had trained him, once upon a time. He would be instantly recognized, and Robert knew damn well he couldn’t defeat the Soldier. Even this watered down, weak, version of him.

He had been surgical, spending his nights entering Bucky’s thoughts and unravelling threads. He wouldn’t risk changing memories; too risky to do without being discovered. Instead he altered perception of them. Changed ‘this is the man I trained to be a killer’ to ‘this man looks like someone who’s life I ruined’.

Open to M/F

Though Robert wasn’t an official member of the newspaper’s staff, merely someone that came in to help their art critic with their critiques, he was still invited to their annual banquet. It helped, of course, that he was close friends with one of the editors - Percy Chapman. They had been friends for years, and Robert knew that his friend was the reason that he often questioned his sexuality - though he never acted on it, for he was happily married to his loving wife, Audrey. Still, as he stood near the open bar, nursing a glass of champagne... he couldn’t help but admit that his friend looked damn good in a suit, and he had to shake his head of the thought as he walked over towards Percy. “Well, congrats man... Another year done. How many does that make it for you at this company now? Fifty?” His words were playful, teasing, as he lifted his glass to toast to Percy. “This paper wouldn’t be here without you.”