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Entry tags:
neon requiem; app
OOC:
Player Handle: Cerie
Contact:
Pronouns: she/her
Invite/Current Player: Invite Link
Other Characters: n/a
IC:
Character Name: Bucky Barnes
Age: 106
Canon: MCU
Canon Point: Post-FATWS but before Nebula steals his arm in the GOTG Christmas Special
CRAU: CRAU from The Ton - Bucky was there briefly for the Dionysus wine event. He met Aerith there, most notably, and is familiar with the setting and sheer annoyance of Regency rules. I am bringing him without having gone back home between The Ton and Neon Requiem.
History: wow what a depressing life
Personality:
The Ghost. The Asset. Bucky is a man on a journey to rediscover who he is. Unlike Steve, who stayed frozen in ice for 70 years, Bucky was found by HYDRA and turned into the ultimate weapon. The super-soldier serum was used on him along with extensive brainwashing so that Bucky could be controlled by a set of Russian codewords and sent to complete any mission, at any cost. Between these times, he was put back on ice and Bucky has memories that he cannot place, times that he's been merely a passenger in his body while he's done horrific things. He's been the hand to turn the tide of history when things aren't going HYDRA's way - JFK assassination, murder of Howard and Maria Stark, taking out a nuclear scientist in Odessa. Horrific acts for a man who doesn't want to be horrific and it only complicates matters that each time that Bucky started waking up and questioning his programming, he'd gotten frozen again and reprogrammed. There's gaps in his mind that he doesn't think he'll ever recover and, truly, Bucky is a little afraid of what he might see.
It's getting better now. He's been recovered by the Avengers and after a stint by himself in Romania and later, in Wakanda, Bucky is starting to put together his own identity. Before HYDRA and before the war, he'd been kind of a ladies man and the consummate flirt, the smooth-talking charmer to Steve Rogers' earnest man. Some of that is still buried deep within Bucky and can come out occasionally but there's other things, dark things, that make him wary to be close to anyone. He doesn't know when someone is going to inadvertently trigger one of the land mines in his memory and he doesn't want to be responsible for hurting anyone else; he's hurt too many people and the guilt is almost too much to bear.
Bucky wants to be a force for good. When he'd first gotten orders for the Army, he'd been optimistic about his role in the war and had hoped to help America win it. Being a prisoner of HYDRA and the Nazis the first time around cured a little of that wide-eyed optimism but being a part of the Howling Commandos brought it back full force. Bucky wants to do his share in a fight and he wants to make sure the people around him are safe - even if it means pushing them away because he is the unsafe thing.
It’s about making amends now. He’s helped to save the world, sure, but that doesn’t make up for 80 years of blood on his conscience and he has to make up for every bad thing he’s ever done. When he tries to say he’s not the Winter Soldier any longer, people remind him that he is: the Smithsonian, his therapist, the people he’s trying to apologize to. He's not as fragile as he once was and he has a firmer grip on his sense of self but he still stumbles from time to time. He struggles with intimacy because he doesn't know himself, so how can he know someone else? How can he give himself over to another person when he doesn't know what there is to give? How is that fair? It’s not.
Bucky is all about control now. After so long without having control over his own mind and body, he tightly controls everything about himself from hand gestures to speech and he doesn’t give over anything lightly. Anyone who can get past the control issues will find someone with a tender heart but it’s been wrapped in barbed wire to keep everyone away.
Abilities:
Bucky's abilities come from a supersoldier serum created by HYDRA. He also has a left arm made of vibranium, which has been shown to be able to deflect bullets and other attacks.
Inventory: a combat knife and a handgun (gladly able to confiscate those if you wish, I love playing him cranky).
Eternal Reward:
Bucky wants the chance to tell his family he didn't die in the war and that he ended up getting to live a life. He just wants the chance to see his parents and sister again even if it's just a short while.
Goals/Ideas:
The man is a curmudgeon and needs to learn how to trust people. He'd made some progress toward that in canon but he's still not fully adjusted and he definitely needs to work on his people skills. I want him to make some friends that he hasn't known for decades and to be able to learn that people aren't always bad and can be trusted. Something romantic would be a natural extension of this but really and truly, I just want him to be able to get back into the world and live a normal, healthy life (as much as he can in Requiem, anyway).
I would like to get him involved in BEASTFORCE, as that's right up the alley of things he's used to handling in his own world and he likes being able to play the hero even if he'd deny it until he was blue in the face. I'd also eventually like to see him own a small business or have a charity to donate his time to - something completely normal. He lives a very disorderly life so some order for once would be welcome.
Samples: Sample 1, Sample 2
Secret Code Phrase: All glory to the Neon Hypnotoad.