Chapter 225: The Lone Wolf

Chapter 225: The Lone Wolf

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them.

Unfortunately, I'm back at uni tomorrow which means that I will probably not be able to continue with the daily uploads. Starting today, I will return to the previous schedule before summer vacation and upload 3-4 chapters a week instead. There will always upload on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. However, if I'm not too busy, I will upload a fourth chapter on either Thursday or Saturday. It entirely depends on how much work I have.

I'm sorry, the last few months of daily upload were amazing and I was able to progress with the story immensely, but daily upload during university is just unrealistic. Anyway, this isn't the final schedule. After a couple of weeks in uni, I could revise it, so it's not set in stone. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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22nd March 2012, New York City

(James Barnes POV)

If one were to describe Bucky Barnes' life it could easily be summarized in the word, agony. Well, it wasn't in the beginning. In his early days, Bucky was a bit of a playboy who had dreams of becoming an artist. It was something he shared with his childhood friend, Steve Rogers. Everything was fine, until the war happened. It was odd, in a way, seeing everybody volunteering, swept up by tales of heroism and glory. If he was honest with himself, Bucky was swept up by dreams of becoming a hero, of getting some recognition and representing his country and its values in the war.

It was a foolish thing, because not only did war end up being nothing like the stories, but he had also somehow inspired Steve into joining the war as well. Or maybe it was the peer pressure; young men from all over Brooklyn volunteered every day, the moment they turned eighteen, really. Anyone Steve's age that didn't volunteer was considered a coward, which was probably started by the military to get more recruits. Thankfully, Steve was never accepted due to his physical condition and Bucky was glad for it.

Because war wasn't pretty, it wasn't heroic, it didn't bring glory, only death. People died all over the world by the decisions of a few men in suits sitting around in the comfort of their own homes. There were very few ugly things like war, and many times, especially as he was being experimented on by Zola, he cursed the day his foolish younger self was swept up by the propaganda the military spewed.

The woman gave him a pearly laugh, "I wish, Mr. Barnes. While I do have some experience in the mind arts, I am not powerful or knowledgeable enough in the subject to learn how to circumvent your defenses against mental attacks. They're ingrained in your mind, and it would take someone who's a complete expert on the matters of the mind, like Jasmine, to get in. As for how I know, I have been in your exact situation once."

"And did you end up figuring out what she wanted with you?"

"Well, not really. Trying to understand Jasmine is a fool's errand, because sometimes she does something with some very long-term plans ahead, and sometimes she does things on a whim. The truth is, that Jasmine always has plans upon plans with backups of backups of backups. Her plans have so many layers and are so flexible, that if one plan fails, she simply uses another one. Her contingencies are often due to the choices she offers her allies and subordinates. She considers free will to be the most precious treasure anyone could have and her offers for you to get out is a sincere one. She will not mess with your mind or force you to join her group. She might have plans for you, but if you refuse her offer to join, she has other contingencies that doesn't involve you. Truthfully, I don't know what goes on inside my sister's head, but I do know that her offer for you is a sincere one, just like the one she gave me when she deemed me to have passed a few of her tests. It's how she works, after all. She won't make an offer that is imperative to her plans unless she's sure that you'll accept of your own free will."

The former Winter Soldier stood there for a good minute, digesting what Rose just told him, "I don't know why she wants me. Compared to her, to you, with the whole magic mumbo jumbo you've got going, you don't need me, at all. Why did she make the offer at all?"

Rose snorted, "Ah, that's easy to answer, she made it for you."

"I don't understand"

The young witch elaborated, "Perhaps the better question would be why she used you to fight Hydra at all. If she really wanted to, she could have asked me, Wanda, Jean, or anyone really to do this job. It wasn't that difficult, then why do you think she chose to wait until you woke up and were ready to fight, to move against Hydra, and chose to involve you in all these missions?"

Bucky froze when he heard that question. Why hadn't he thought of this before? She hadn't needed him to fight Hydra, not even a little bit. She could have done all of this herself without his involvement at all, especially the mission against the Zola machine thing. He still didn't understand how the scientist put his mind in a computer, and Sayre explaining it didn't clear matters too much.

At his bewildered look, Bucky's companion burst into laughter, "You still don't see it. She did it for you. Do you think she honestly cares about someone trying to kill her? Especially for a business move of all things. She's fought against far worse and far more dangerous people than this group. It doesn't even bother her. No, she fought Hydra, destroyed the entire organization, and gave you an instrumental role in their downfall so that you would achieve your revenge without killing yourself in the process. You were going to hunt them down, weren't you? You were going to find every single Hydra agent on the planet, until you got to the high raking leaders and killed them all, one by one. This path would have almost always resulted in your death, and a lot of innocent casualties. So, she chose to give you your revenge on a platter and see what you would do afterwards, when your revenge is fulfilled, when you're empty of your purpose."

"Why do you trust her so much? Why should I trust her?"

Rose gave him a bitter laugh, "It's not because we're family, if that's what you're getting to. I trust her because I'm one of the few people that she's shown who she is inside. All this apathy, disinterest, she gives off, is just a mask to protect herself from the pain of caring. She's very selective of who she cares for because inevitably, everybody dies, everything ends, and it's sad to watch people pass away, while she watches, like a lonely god. And yet, she perseveres, she still fights and continues to defend humanity. She doesn't do this because she wants to beat someone, blame someone, or hate someone. It's not because it's fun, and God knows it's not because it's easy. She does what she does because it's right, and most of all because it's kind. Because in her core, when you strip away all the bitterness, all the pain, and all the agony she feels at every moment, in the very core of her being is kindness. She is, by far, the kindest person that I have ever met, and probably will ever meet, even if she would probably disagree. That is why I trust Jasmine Sayre. And you should think to yourself, James Barnes, is she a person worth following, is she a person worth your allegiance? Tomorrow, she is going to go through one of the riskiest, and most dangerous gambles she has ever taken in her life. And I want to be with her when she does it, for all of humanity. Because she could have given up, and chosen to die, like I know she desperately wants to, deep down, but she is choosing to sacrifice whatever is left of her for us, and I will be with her to support her when she does. The question is, will you?"

The young woman turned around and walked back into the mansion, leaving a thoughtful man, more confused than he already was.