213 months.
That's how long it's been since the fall of both S.H.I.E.L.D and HYDRA. And that's how long ago it was after he saved his...mission? Friend? Steve Rogers also known as Captain America. He went dark, not having any connections of any kind, trying to piece his memory back together. Without any idea of who he had been before, he had to start from the only source he had.
The Captain America history exhibit.
Yeah it was corny from begining to end, but what really got his attention was a monument. A monument dedicated to him. James "Bucky" Barnes. Born 1925, died 1945. It detailed 'his' life, a life he didn't remember. His supposed friendship with Steve Rogers, his acceptance into the military, his publized missions, and his "death". He didn't remember any of it, leaving him feeling like he had been reading the biography of someone else.
Except...he kept getting flashes. Brief moments when a vision would flash across his mind, that showed people, places, events he hadn't been to or seen. He didn't know if they were memories from his "previous" life or just other missions he had taken and forgotten about. But with nothing better to go on, he'd have to gather information himself.
That led to him traveling across the United States and several countries, searching for hints of what he had been before he'd become the Winter Solider. He'd been to abandoned buildings, warehouses, and safe houses that belonged to HYDRA. All he found were a few remaining files and papers that had slight detail on what he did. Biggest find of all, was a document detailing the assassination of the Howard Stark and President John F. Kennedy. Interesting, but nothing that pointed directly towards him. Aside from those files, he found some old coded communications between operatives of HYDRA. They spanned the globe, but later messages seemed to concentrate on the continent of Japan, which had a new company being founded and climbing at a previously unseen rate. If this were right, it looked like HYDRA had contacted them to find out what the company was really like.
Unfortunately, the messages didn't cover what happened, but it did mention the company name and the city it was in.
MBI, with its headquarters in the capital of Tokyo. If they had HYDRA's attention, then the organization would've posted an agent and safe house there. Another possibility of learning about his past. So with his destination in mind, the ex-HYDRA agent left for the city of Tokyo.
It was with a jerk that he was startled awake. For a moment, Bucky wondered where he was. It took only took a quick glance around, seeing the two seats on his left and the many rows of seats before and behind him filled with people that the male began to realize where he was.
That's right, he was on an airplane traveling that had been traveling from Washington, Moscow to Tokyo, Japan. The landing struts hitting the runway must have woken him up.
His hand consciously went to the covered cold steel of his cybernetic arm. While he could move it and use it, he couldn't feel anything but a cold stump.
A ding filled the air before the pleasant voice of the flight attendant began speaking. "We have now arrived in Tokyo. Please remain seated until the plane has safely docked. Thank you for flying Tokyo air, and have a great day."
Sighing, the male relaxed back into his seat and looked back out the window. Outside was a riot of activity as the airplane he was traveling on made it's inexorable path to the docking station that would connect with the door and allow the passengers to unload. The window was very clear, with not even a tint to it, but he could still see his reflection in the mirror. The sight of his familiar shaggy brown air and brown eyes with light bags around them.
Reaching into the pair of black jeans he was wearing, he pulled out a touch screen phone and turned it on. He'd made sure that no one could track it or the number so they could try and pin point his position. The first thing he did was check the time. It was early in the day, about an hour or so until one in the afternoon. He should have plenty of time to find an apartment or hotel before starting out his mission.
The moment soon arrived when passengers were finally allowed to begin offloading. The brown haired man grabbed the duffel bag under his chair and stood up to his full height. He was very tall, around six feet and looked around his early 20's.
While his right hand, began fiddling around the touch screen, opening up a music application he had downloaded the moment he had gotten it, his left hand set the duffel bag on the table and went into the jean jacket that he was wearing over an equally long sleeved black shirt. He pulled out a small set of earphones, the kind that went directly into the ear, placed one in each ear, then plugged it into the phone just as Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son began playing.
Hefting his duffel bag over his shoulder, Bucky began his own departure from the airplane. Once he stepped out of the extendable hallway that connected the plane to the building, he started scanning for security and ways to get around it so he could leave without being hindered. After checking to see no one around, he grabbed one part of the extendable hallway with his cybernetic arm and pulled on it until a small section of it was big enough to slip himself and his bag through. Once that was done, he looked one more time for any signs of personal coming towards or from the airplane before slipping through. The former soldier dropped to the ground and duck walked to a section of the plane.
Before the plane left from Washington and Moscow, he managed to slip a separate bag into a section of the plane. It had been hidden close to the landing gear where it would be out of sight. He opened the section and pulled out a roundish duffle bag that he slung onto his back before checking the components.
It contained a DWM Luger P-08 9mm Pistol; with live, rubber, and tranquilizer rounds. Also there was a patented S.H.I.E.L.D Night-Night gun with a few magazines for that. There was also a combat knife and finally the shield. Captain America's shield.
It was disc shaped with a five-pointed star design in its center, within blue, red, and white concentric circles. It was composed of a unique alloy of Vibranium, steel, and an unknown third component. Basically, it was virtually indestructible.
He didn't steal it, but after saving Steve's life he found it floating adrift and decided to take it as a memento/reminder of what he used to stand for. Of what he fought for.
Shaking off his thoughts and strapping on the duffle bag, Bucky looked around. He didn't feel like clearing customs, not to mention they'd detain him for having enough ammo to attack a small army. So that meant sneaking past security.
With that in mind, Bucky went to find a hole or blindspot in security.
After finding a hole in the fence surrounding the air field and walking towards the nearest train station, Bucky brought a ticket using cash and boarded a bullet train to the capital of Japan. As the train raced across the land at over 260 mph, his eye caught a newspaper on the seat next to him. He picked it up and saw the headline:
Major cooperation, buys out city. Soon to rename it Shinto Teito
Eyebrow raised, Bucky started reading the article.
Since the company appeared out of nowhere 20 years ago, MBI has managed to become the top number one company in the world, rivaling Stark Industries. Their CEO, Minaka Hiroto, has become one of the richest men in the world, and has made remarkable progress in the field of medicine and technology, patenting a large number of inventions. Until recently, it looked like the company would come to spread across the globe.
What has changed is that MBI has made a startling purchase of the capital of Japan, Tokyo, and is renaming it to Shinto Teito. How and why the company has done this has left many people scratching heads, as the company refused to comment. It is known that the city is to be put on lockdown and all foreign embassy representatives and political figures are being requested to leave until further notice.
Bucky stopped reading from there since the rest of the article seemed to go into the possible economical and political impacts of the city's closing.
On the one hand, this reminded him from back in WW2 when Germany took over all the neighboring countries. Only instead of buying them out, they invaded and subjected them to their will. It seemed like people had only changed their methods of getting something from obvious to subtle. It also made him question what kind of people let a corporation buy the capital of Japan and do whatever they wanted with it.
The answer: greedy, shortsighted, corrupt idiots who couldn't tell when something would come back to bite them in the ass.
Still, it mattered little to him, and it would matter little to HYDRA agents that may still be there. And even if there were none, there would still be safe houses that needed finding. With that in mind, Bucky started making plans to find a place to lay low while looking for his targets.
With that in mind, he spent the rest of the train ride checking for apartment listings.
Once the train came to halt, shouldered his duffle and strapped the bag containing his weapons onto his back. While walking down a flight of steps, he accidentally bumped into someone. Said person, which was a black haired kid around his late teens, nearly fell down if it wasn't for the former soldier's fast reflexes that caught him.
"Thanks."
"No problem." Bucky replied, straightening out the kid who went along his way, muttering something about a college test.
The Winter Soldier went along his way until...
"AH! Get out of the way please!"
Bucky looked up and had just enough time to see that the girl falling before him was a brunette that had extremely large breasts. She then smashed into the assassins stomach with enough force to send him crashing into the ground and creating a decently sized crater.
"Ugh... what the...hell...?" Bucky blinked as he saw a tight, toned and shapely rear clad in white panties. If this girl was some kind of angel, then she was the clumsiest angel he had ever met. Wow, even for the 2000's century that was dated. "You alright?"
"Ow... I should have known that building was way to high to jump off of..." The girl mumbled as she crawled off of him. Now that Bucky got a better look at her he saw that she was a well-endowed young woman with short, brown hair and a well developed body figure. It consisted of a short red skirt and upper clothes that resemble the traditional clothing worn by the miko. She was also wearing a pair of red gloves that looked like they were used for battle.
The girl turned around and the Winter Soldier got to see a face that looked way too cute and innocent. "Oh, you're the person who caught me, aren't you? Thank you very much," she said with a warm smile.
"Its fine." Now that he knew she was ok, Bucky was anxious to leave before he drew attention to himself. Before he could ask the young girl to remove herself from his person, his sixth sense kicked in.
"Get down!"
He pulled the girl close to him as he threw themselves over to the side just when a bolt of lightning struck their previous location. Looking up, his eyes wandered up the side of a building to see two beautiful women – twins from the looks of them – in leather bondage costumes.
He mentally face palmed himself.
The girl which he saved got up on her feet and looked into said direction with the two twins looking back.
"You can run all you want, but nothing will come of it," the one of the left said. She was wearing a dark purple leather suit.
"So just fight us and we'll get this over with quickly," the other one said. This one was wearing a red suit of the same make.
"I can't! At least, not right now!" the brunette that had run into him said, clenching her fists as she looked at the two with a mild glare. From the way she spoke to the pair, Bucky was able to glean that these two girls had been chasing the busty shrine maiden. He wasn't quite sure why, aside from the fact that theses twins apparently wanted to fight the brunette. Of course, that brought out a whole new line of questions. Why did these girls want to fight the one who had landed on him? Was there something going on in this town that he was unaware of and had just randomly stumbled across.
If so that would a):Really bite since it was only his first day here and b):Put his mission to a screeching halt.
"That's too bad, because we're not stopping until we defeat you." Electricity began to form on the two girls hands, light purple sparks that crackled as it shot off their hands in miniature bursts.
Thinking fast, Bucky noticed a man hole just a few feet to the side of him. He then rolled over to the side and picked it up with ease. Not saying a word, he hurled it like Steve's shield at the two twins. Said twins took noticed as they side stepped away, the lid just missing them as it imbedded itself into the building. Having them distracted, Bucky grabbed his things and the brunette's arm and started to run. The brunette in question was taken back by this for a moment, before she to started to sprint with him.
"Hey!" One of the twins hollered. Before either of them could persue the two, a cloud of smoke exploded from the imbedded man hole blocking their line of sight and irritating their throats so they coughed violently.
Bucky used any back alley or shortcut he could to get away from the two girls that had attacked. Once he got a few blocks away he'd have to find someplace crowded to blend into.
"Excuse me!" His thoughts screeched to a halt as he then remembered about the girl. "Not to sound rude, but you're kinda hurting my arm." Rounding another corner into an alley, he stopped and let go of her arm.
"Thank you." The girl then flexed her arm a bit before jabbing it into the air. After nodding in satisfaction, she put her arm to the side and bowed to the waist. "Thanks for getting me away from those two. They've been chasing me all morning."
"Why?" He asked shortly. He'd never been one to speak more then what was necessary.
"Well it's kinda difficult to explain." The brunette rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.
Bucky snorted softly. "Ok then." He then picked up his bag, turned on heel and began to walk off.
"Hey, wait up!"
Bucky grumbled as the busty brunette ran up and started walking on his side.
"What do you want?"
"I want to repay you for helping me."
The long haired soldier shook his head. "Sorry, not interested."
"But you saved my life. I'd like to repay you for your kindness."
"And I'm saying you don't need to."
"But I-"
Bucky noticed the girl's face turned red and her breathing pick up before her eyes rolled up and her body went limp. Before she dropped to the ground, he caught her and checked her vitals. He sighed in relief as he found them normal, but now he was left with a predicament. Bucky could leave her here and possibly let her be discovered by those two women or taker her with him, and she becomes his responsibility. With a groan, he picked her up and carried her bridal style.
"And things were supposed to be simple."
Little did he know, things were about to become a lot less simpler.