Project: TESLA || [The Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes ★ Fanfiction]

Wind of Change

The future's in the air
Can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the window of change
-Scorpions 

Author's Note: Any text in italics should be considered spoken Russian.

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Bogota, Columbia; 04 June, 1983

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James Buchanan Barnes had been a good man once. A charming, handsome man who had no shortage of companionship, at least for an evening. He was always far too much of a gentleman to take many steps beyond a night of dancing, though there had been a couple of women that he'd truly fancied and had gone too quickly with, but those sorts of things never seemed to work out in the end.

He stood resolute, the barricade between the bullies of Brooklyn and his underdog best friend, Steve Rogers, a small, unassuming and sickly man who could take a punch but get back up just to lose his fights in the end. James had been the type to read fantasy novels and attend science expositions and be voracious about learning, though he was the first to perfect playing the clown.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor changed everything. The event had woken the fire of patriotism in many men that day, none more so than James Barnes whose father had served before a terrible accident took his life.

Being carefree and quick with his jokes was an easy defense mechanism that built his rapport with his men, and it had been his natural marksmanship and innate leadership qualities that found him at the rank of Sergeant by the time the 107th deployed. That one December day at Pearl Harbor had carried him into a life he would live and then die only to return as a villain.

He had been HYDRA's weapon for as long as he could remember, when he even could remember. He had been treated like a dog, handled like a dog, and behaved like a marvelously-trained dog. He had a forty year track record of pleasing his handlers, assassinating his targets, abducting others, training those who were especially promising. As someone would come to say, he'd shaped the century.

Currently, he was looking at the teenage girl he was meant to watch over while Alexander Pierce dealt with State Department business at the embassy in Bogota. Right that moment, The Winter Soldier was the attack dog for the most precious thing in his current handler's life -- Pierce's thirteen year old daughter.

Tessa Marie Pierce had been born on 16 March, 1970, the only child of Alexander Pierce. She had her mother's near-platinum hair, but her father's blue eyes. She was a beautiful girl with a rather charming personality -- at least now while she was still young -- and a propensity toward learning everything she could about the world around her. Just like The Winter Soldier, she would come to shape the future years, though no one yet knew what that would mean.

Tess sat nearby, a book between her hands where she'd tucked her tiny self into the space where the arm met the back cushion of a very comfortable couch. Teeth gnawed at her lips as her gaze searched each new line of text with eagerness. She paid no attention to the Soldier who now guarded over her, his face obscured by goggles and a mask that covered the lower half of his visage.

She had seen that face before. She was often with her father when he visited various locations around the world. He had never showed her the darkest parts of his job, but he had raised her in the values that fell into line with HYDRA. She attended a private school where, she would come to learn, taught an entirely different view of things than normal schools around the world.