CHAPTER 48

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I teleported through Bucky's mind as I made note of where his mind was mostly affected. Normally I wouldn't be able to move like this in someone else's mind, but given the mental defenses, or lack thereof, of Bucky's subconscious it was like a walk in the park for me.

HYDRA didn't care about how damaged the mind of their brainwashed soldiers would be, obviously, after the mental therapy and only focused on how far the degree of control went.

Looking at Bucky's mind, I could tell that he was just a brainwash session away from being nothing more than a remote controlled doll. And I was sure the only reason they stopped at where they did was that if had went further, it would have deteriorated his skills reducing his reaction time and creating lags in his motor functions.

'For a terrorist organization they sure were thorough.'

I immediately got to work; since my own brainwave was vastly different from that of Bucky's, I had to proceed with utmost caution. This wasn't like the time I tangled with my subconscious.

I approached the frontal lobe of the cerebellum, the part responsible for decision making, since it was the most corrupted and sent out my brainwaves.

Undoing HYDRA's brainwashing turned out to be a major task since I didn't even get more than 10% done after spending almost three hours inside his head.

I went to sleep after my unsuccessful venture and got to continue the next day.

It was a new schedule to my routine where I would spend hours in Bucky's mind as I experimented with my first guinea pig.

Sometimes I would control his limbs to move just for the fun of it but I didn't take it too far.

I didn't want to develop a Charles-syndrome after all. It wasn't until the fourth day that I was confident to at least have a conversation with the 80 years old man than I removed the anesthetic drip that was connected to him since Clint brought him over.

Suffice to say the meeting did not go as envisioned.

The moment Bucky woke up, he started screaming bloody murder about a nightmare and even attacked me in his hysteria which unsurprisingly didn't end well for him. I could take care of a super soldier with relative ease with my new base strength.

After knocking Bucky out and strapping him to a tree in my backyard, I waited until he woke up before we had a conversation like real gentlemen do.

Well I was the one doing the speaking while he was doing the glaring.

The conversation was… fruitful, if I do say so myself.

….

[Flashback]

"Will you calm down and listen to me?" Draul asked the strapped up super soldier with a harmless smile on his face. Unfortunately, said super soldier didn't feel safe especially with that smile and instead increased his glaring.

"I am calm, so why don't you release me and let's have a proper conversation." Bucky asked his captor and was barely restraining himself, literally, from jumping at the mad doctor/scientist, whatever the hell he was, that sat in front of him.

"I would have liked to believe that but your facial expression says otherwise." Draul said with the same easygoing expression on his face.

"Then do pray these restraints are strong enough to bind me or else I'll be having your head." Bucky hissed out.

"Y'know that temper of yours is pretty much useless in such a scenario, so here's a deal. Stop the glaring or I'm leaving you out here for the night." Draul said while still keeping the disarming smile on his face.

"You think you'll be able to break me you bastard? Do your worst!" Bucky spat out as hatred and vengeance bled from his tone to the scientist sitting in front of him.

Said scientist with the smile still on his face, without saying anything, got up and left the winded up super soldier in his backyard… for the night.

…

Suffice it to say, Bucky was more prone to listening to what I had to say when the next morning came since he had the whole night to get his thoughts together.

His brainwashing wasn't done yet which was evident by the fact that sometimes he'll lapse into his Winter Soldier mode and try to kill me which always ended up with me kicking his ass. Hell, I even used my ice beam, which I recently could do, although not perfected yet, to freeze up the berserk soldier.

After clarifying that I was not an enemy to Bucky extensively, I freed him from his bonds that morning and explained to him the shit about HYDRA. Safe to say Bucky was livid.

I explained to him the part about the brainwashing and while he reluctant and doubtful of me to be anywhere near his psyche, another relapse of his was enough to grant me access to his brain, in a not so creepy way.

We then spent the next few days going over the last of HYDRA's imprint on his head. Other than that, Bucky asked me what I did for a living and I was surprised to find out he thought I was a scientist. Talk about being stereotypical.

I explained to him about HYDRA's concurrent demise, S.H.I.E.L.D hands in it because they did have one, Steve's promising return and whatever I could tell him.

I knew the man was drowning in guilt, over the people he killed and the consequences of his actions.

Heck, he even broke down in tears when he remembered he was the one who killed Howard, a friend, and his wife. It took all I had to stop him from going to apologize to the presently unstable Tony Stark.

"So how are we looking doc?" Bucky asked me as I did the last scan on his brain.

"I'm happy to tell you that you are now de-HYDRA-ted. 100%" I said with a chuckle.

"Not sure if your numbers are correct doc." I sighed as I heard him mutter that under his breath. Dude was a roller-coaster of raw emotions. The mood swings were terrible.

"All you need is time." I patted his shoulder as I went to grab a drink and poured one for the both of us.

"Have you thought of what you want to do?" I asked the distraught soldier as we shared a drink.

"No. Everything is different, hell even the windows are. I used to think that after the war I'd go back to working a bar or something else but not this." He said as he shook his head, the depression rearing its ugly head once more.

"Well no need for you to rush it. Take a year or two to settle down and figure out what you want to do with the peace you fought for." I wasn't a psychologist but even I could give decent advise every once in a while.

"I think I'll do just that doc." He said with a chuckle before he downed the contents of the glass and made his way to the gym I rarely ever use.

Working out was a way to burn not just calories but stress and most mental plagues. It was an output most men use to get over their everyday bullshit rather than keeping it bottled up so I approved of his self-prescripted therapy. It looks like I'm taking the doctor role too seriously.

I downed my own glass and made my way to my workstation which was a room I dedicated to all my cyber welfare.

It was filled with screens of different sizes as I use them for my research and reading or just coding. The hacking programs I was creating was coming along splendidly while I had already finished up the codes for my Fmail and ViewTube.

The Fmail was as good as done and I was already starting to work on ViewTube. These two would be the first of the jumpchains of subsidiary companies under my name.

I was also working on WhatsApp which was like a cooler version of Messenger and Instagram. These were the apps that I wanted to release in the coming years when Facebook gains enough traction to stand as a giant media platform.

I was sure that before 2010, I would be one of the top ten billionaires of this country. And it would all start with Facebook and Facemail.

Marky was releasing them this week and soon after, the ads window I had purchased would start running their courses.

I also spent most of my time reading on other subjects when I'm not training or helping debug Bucky. I didn't know why I was reading all these, but my mind refused to be empty so I could only swallow whatever knowledge I came across.

I read mostly mechanics and metallurgy since I had the hope of one day creating my own weapon so I read whatever I could find. I even read the scientific reports HYDRA had on their past projects just to satisfy my crave for knowledge.

I even bought books, something I never thought I'd do, and made a small library in the corner of the room just for light perusals.

While I was not any where, light-years away in fact, from the levels of Reed, Tony, Selvig and Bruce, I could say with confidence that I was catching up.

In a few years, I might even be able to surpass them. Another avenue I looked at, was the part that could strengthen me further but unfortunately I didn't find any.

The Extremis project was more than a decade away, and apart from the semi-inviolability, it had no benefit to me. The only highlight of it was the ability regrow limbs which was something I would have loved to get but unfortunately it would be years before the research was completed.

Eating the heart shaped herb was just asking for World War. There was no way the stuck-up-in-their-own-cage Wakandans would ever agree to such a thing. Not to mention that it was completely useless to me. It provided no benefits whatsoever that I didn't already have and surpassed.

The same with the radioactive spiders. If I had to wait ten years just to get spider powers then there would have been no need for me to escape HYDRA this early on.

What was that you said? Adamantium skeleton? I wouldn't touch that shit not even with a 20 mile pole. What the heck is it gonna do? That was even forgetting the fact that my regeneration was not yet as strong as the Wolverine's as I'm pretty sure I can't shrug off an atomic bomb yet so the possibility of me surviving the procedure was in the negatives. I mean, Logan almost died during the procedure and I'm not sure if counting on my adaptive power were enough of an insurance to survive.

And besides, apart from the fact that it can't be molded again when cooled and its ultra level of denseness, I see no objective reason for me to want an Adamantium skeleton.

The best possible way was the broccoli serum and I've already got it. I was getting stronger everyday from just using my powers and not to mention the potential plateau of that beast. Coupled with my adaptive and evolution abilities I doubt my potential was lower than that of the Hulk's.

Like I said, all I need was time to grow, adapt and evolve.

I ended reminiscing there and left my study/workspace.

"Hey Bucks, I'm going into town. Wanna tag along?" I called out to him.

"Yeah, I'll be down in a sec." Came the reply.

Bucky came down in minutes and I drove us to a restaurant I frequent most of the time.

"Why do you like this place? It's too loud, open and unsecured." The Winter Soldier shook his head in disapproval.

"First of all; this place is nice and the food tastes great. Secondly, that's the deadly assassin in you talking." I chastised him and he snorted.

"Whatever." He turned away as his eyes glanced across the restaurant be he landed on me just to see my amused smile. He sighed before he slumped his shoulders in surrender as he tried his best to relax and not let paranoia cloud him. It was not his fault as most of his actions were reflex and subconscious actions he used to do when he was still the Winter Soldier.

I looked at him and after confirming that he managed to relax to a degree I told him the reason why I brought him out.

"Steve woke up."