bracchium | application;

⏵ player information
name and pronouns: Dha
age: 30s
contact:derecho @ plurk, derecho. @ discord

⏵ character information
name: James Buchanan Barnes
canon: Marvel Cinematic Universe
age: Biologically 30-32, technically 99
canon point: Just before being found in Captain America: Civil War
history: before, during, and after brainwashing

abilities:
+Master marksman - Between his time in World War II and his HYDRA training, Bucky is an elite sniper. He can judge factors that will interfere with his shot (i.e. walls in Fury's case and people in Natasha's case) and still make it.

+Master armsman - Before HYDRA, Bucky wielded pistols, mid-sized semi-automatic rifles, and sniper rifles. After his extensive time as the Winter Soldier, he can use nearly any type of weapon, including knives in close quarters and grenade launchers at mid-range.

+Hand to hand combat - Bucky is extremely well trained in close-quarters melee combat. Before enlisting in the army, he was a boxer and his training under HYDRA only increased his finesse. However, his style very much still resembles a boxer's with very little acrobatics.

+Languages - As he mentions when describing the other winter soldiers, he knows up to 30 different languages. OOCly, this will mean that he's very quick to pick up on nee languages, but will largely use English unless he's triggered.

+Increased healing - Due to his experimentation at the hands of Armin Zola, Bucky developed both an increased hardiness and healing. He can fall from great heights, take crippling hits, and grapple with death and survive.

+Super strength - Again, due to his experimentation, Bucky is able to lift airport signs and throw them like they're paper, tear steering wheels out of cars, and otherwise wreak quite a bit of havoc.

personality:
More than anything else, Bucky is loyal. Despite having his brain torn to pieces and slapped back together again, Bucky follows those he trusts. For example, in Civil War, he demonstrates during his surrender and consequent captivity. He surrenders at Steve’s prompting and allows himself to be restrained, despite his latter demonstration of his strength. He was able to break free of his holding cell at any time, but only did so when Zemo began to read the list of words to re-trigger his Winter Soldier programming. Additionally, at the end of the fight in Siberia, when Tony Stark is distracted with Steve, Bucky is at a distance he could flee as he’s been trying to do for much of the scene. Rather than run while Steve is clearly down and out, Bucky leaps to his aid. Even while missing his cybernetic arm, he reaches out to distract Tony to keep him from blasting Steve to bits. On a similar theme, in the fight at the airport, mid-movie, he shields Sam Wilson from a direct hit from Spiderman, showing that he’s capable of helping those he doesn’t necessarily know well.

However, Bucky is loyal to people, not causes. His time during World War II most certainly disillusioned him with the idea of serving some politicians sitting back in their ivory towers. For example, when Steve asks him to be one of his Howling Commandos, Bucky clarifies that he’s following Steve, not the shield. His time as the Winter Soldier only served to exacerbate these qualities, leading Bucky to become dramatically more individualistic than previously. As the Winter Soldier, he wasn’t allowed to make decisions for himself, so in Civil War, we see him making a series of individualistic choices. For example, he runs when confronted by Steve in Bucharest and continues to do so when T’Challa enters the scene as well. As the movie progresses, though, we see him losing his option to make big choices (i.e. choosing to fight or not, choosing whether or not to lead Steve to Siberia, etc). So, he makes a series of smaller ones, most apparently when he speaks (or doesn’t speak).

Bucky is naturally reticent. Even before his brainwashing at the hands of HYDRA, he was one to pick and choose his words carefully. He wasn’t exactly mute, but he certainly wasn’t a chatterbox. For example, after his rescue and return from the HYDRA Weapons facility in the Austrian alps, he doesn’t try to interrupt Peggy and Steve’s conversation. Instead, he sits back until they’re finished and then says one sentence to help boost the morale of the company. After serving time as the Winter Soldier, when he wasn’t allowed to say much of anything outside of briefs, Bucky rarely speaks unless spoken to, with a couple exceptions. Often, even when spoken to directly, he refuses to say anything at all or gives obtuse answers. This is most evident in his interactions with Tony Stark, particularly during the final fight. Tony talks through most of the fight and expresses his feelings very clearly. On the other hand, Bucky remains silent unless he’s asked a direct question by Tony while in a chokehold. Even then, he doesn’t spout off a litany of apologies. Instead, he replies with one sentence and doesn’t elaborate further.

That said, Bucky is not one to take the easy route in life and isn’t satisfied with simple answers. In Winter Soldier, after encountering Steve on the bridge in Washington D.C., he recounts again and again to his captors that he knew the man on the bridge. Alexander Pierce tells Bucky he ran into the man on a mission earlier in the week, but Bucky shakes his head and insists again that he knows Steve. After his escape, he learns to not take anything at face value. In Civil War, he distrusts the authorities who bring him in, he questions his allies, and, at the end, he determines that he can’t trust his own mind either. Additionally, he doesn't like leaving things up to fate. He would much rather take matters into his own hands than let some unknown power control him.

samples: One and Two