#thread:freshpoison

The end of the war came for the world, but it didn't stop. Not really. A new war began underneath it all. It'd been brewing since the beginning, and it wasn't surprising when all efforts shifted. VE-Day. VJ-Day. This might have end this war for the world, but war never stops. There's always a war to be fought and men to be lost. 

James was given a choice weeks before the end: hang up his uniform and live out his life, or join a new effort against Russia. He was born in war, raised there, that was all he knew. So he did what every other soldier like him did: trained one war for another.

The CIA as you know them now was small and unofficial then. The ask him to give Russia exactly what they wanted: James Buchanan Barnes. They'd been eyeing him for a while. So it'd be easy to get them to capture him and make him their own. 

That's how he ended up in the Red Room, new cybernetic arm, being bounced between the CIA and the Red Room--programing and deprograming his mind, always leaving him with the feeling that he was missing something. James thought he could do this, but everyday he'd have to do the same thing:

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes. My friends call me Bucky. I was born in Shelbyville, Indiana. I was the mascot at Camp Lehigh where I met Steve. In 1944...no that's not right...fuck..." James took a long drink of vodka before trying it all again from the beginning. 

This was his morning. Everyday. Never fail. And after that, it was back to pretending, back to being the Winter Soldier--a soldier without a name, without a past, with nothing.

Today was another part of his weekly routine: evaluate another Black Widow candidate.  So he walked into the general's office to receive the information on the latest girl.

"<Her name is Natalia Romanova...>" Bucky stopped listening. 

Natalia...surely there had to be other people who had this name in the Red Room...right? The general showed him a picture of her, and he could feel his blood run cold. This was it. This could be game over for her. If she remembered him...

The soldier walked out of the office and headed towards the training room, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he moved, trying to think of how he was going to get through this. 

"Shit," he cursed under his breath, dropping his cigarette in a snowbank before heading into the building.

She was waiting for him alone, but Russia had eyes everywhere. There was no way he would be able to talk to her here. He'd have to figure out another way to speak to her in private.