CHAPTER 47

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The next day I drove the new car I bought, courtesy of Clint – a 1967 Shelby Mustang, to Harvard to meet Marky to run over the final details of the app we were making.

While Marky was happy about how the app was going to be a success, what he thought was within the grounds of Harvard and hopefully other colleges and universities across the country. That was the reason he was glad to sell 57% of Facebook to me for 70,000$, thinking he lucked out on an app anyone with enough tech knowledge could create and sold it to an opportunist for 70 grand.

I arrived at Harvard after a two hours drive and met up with Marky and took him to a restaurant where we rented out a private booth and hashed out all the kinks we had in mind.

The Facebook app was already done, only the aesthetics of it were remaining. The theme was that of the old Facebook which I came up with since the interface was better than what Mark coded.

It was after we finished everything that we went out for the legal proceedings, contracts, company documents and whatnot. It was after everything was over that I told Marky about the Fmail since I would be using our brand name to promote. And just like I thought, he didn't seem all that interested in the idea since he was sure Facebooks popularity would be that of Fmail, which was true… in Harvard sure, but in the world and social importance ranking, I highly doubt it.

While this world maybe technologically advanced than my former one was, said technology was not let out to the masses. In fact just S.H.I.E.L.D's technology alone was 3 – 4 decades ahead of anything that was released to the general population. So the age of technology the masses had was not that different from my past life's.

While Marky was to use Harvard as the advertising ground for Facebook, I went with the media. I paid for ads to be run at news stations and paper companies. I didn't have that much money needed to broadcast it to the entire country so I settled for the hub of it. What better place to advertise something than New York?

I dropped Mark off at his dorm and went ahead with my plans as I drove back to New York.

I went to every news paper company, TV and radio stations I could find and paid for the ads to be run on the evening window before and after the 9 O'clock news. That alone took the bulk of my day.

I was able to cover two runs for both the Facebook and Fmail apps on every station and paper that accepted the proposal, which was over 15.

With that done, I drove back to my abode and called Fury. I was running low on cash and the council still hadn't approved of my compensations for taking care of their HYDRA problem. All I needed was a few million bucks, maybe just 2, and we were square. But no, they wanted to find a way to wrestle me into their jurisdiction.

It got to the point when I started receiving calls from some old fogeys who were trying to be intimidating. They stopped all together after I grew tired of ignoring their calls and called one a limp dick bastard and a slew of whatever sailor vocabulary I could evacuate from my mouth.

Maybe that was why they didn't want to pay me. Not like I actually cared. I still had almost 500 grand in my account and that wasn't going away anytime soon.

When I got home I remembered a problem I still hadn't fixed; Bucky.

I didn't know what to do with the Winter Soldier. Fury said they still haven't been able to undo HYDRA's brainwashing which was to be expected since the their brainwashing wasn't just some tic-toc clock illusion but a mechanical one, thanks to Arnim Zola.

The codes that were used in the brainwashing was created by Zola, where they would send infected waves into their victims brains and rewrite the mental psyche. There was no way Bucky would get fine even if he visited a psychiatrist or therapist.

Since Cap would soon wake up, I figured it was time to undo Bucky's brainwashing, but the problem was how.

The only psychics I knew who could very well help was Charles, Jean and Emma Frost.

Charles was out by a long mile. There was no way I could in good conscience bring someone to him for help after what he did. That was under the scenario that I didn't kill him first.

I doubted Jean could do it. She wasn't that strong of a psychic the last time I checked. I was able to catch on to her mental probing after all. And also I didn't want to be anywhere near Charles so that was that.

And lastly Emma Frost. This wasn't even an option. There was no need for me justify why it wasn't one. I didn't know which comic iteration of Emma was present in this universe and I didn't know her personally to ask for a favor so that avenue was a no go.

She did have a some kind of institute in Massachusetts the last time I checked though. But even that wasn't enough of a reason for me to seek out the White Queen of the Hellfire Club.

So the only psychics I knew were not an advisable route which left me with the hidden option – me.

'Fine, I'll do it myself.'

I wasn't a psychic mind you, but that didn't mean I couldn't help when it came to brain stuff. The only vouch for my skills I needed was me shutting down Charles mind with just my primary mental defenses. I might not be a psychic, but I doubt anyone could tamper with the brain like I do.

Since Bucky's brainwashing was probably the same thing they did to me, it made me the perfect person to undo it but the only problem with that was connecting to Bucky's mind. If it was before then I was sure I wouldn't be able to do it, but since I could now freely emit energy gave me the confidence to at least try.

"Hey Nick, wanted to ask you for something… or rather someone." I spoke as soon as Fury picked up the call without giving him a chance to get a word in.

"Who? And let me just tell you I'm not lending you any of my agents." Fury said while I just shrugged.

"Doubt I would need them for anything anyway. I want you to transfer Bucky to my place, I want to see if I could help undo his brainwashing." Fury was about to say something but immediately shut up after hearing what I said.

"You know someone who could help?" He asked in a low voice.

"I do," I lied, "Don't know if he'll agree to it tho." I clarified just in case I failed.

"If it's you then that's more than enough." Fury said. I didn't even knew he trusted me like this.

"I'll have him transported before the day blacks out." Fury said before he cut off the call.

With that out of the way I waited for the transport package since I had nothing better to do.

The transport van rolled into my compound a few minutes past 6, with Clint driving it.

"Nick finally demoted you to the errand boy huh?" I joked as he alighted the van and went to roll out the package.

"Ha ha, very funny." He said sarcastically.

He rolled the sleeping Barton who had drips attached to him, probably to keep him under.

"So what have you been doing ever since?" I asked him as he left the stretcher in the middle of my living room.

"Nothing much other than cleaning the scrubs you left us." He said as he went to my bar to grab a light drink.

What Clint meant was the remaining HYDRA bases around the country. Fury and I were the only ones who knew where exactly the bases were located. I didn't trust Fury's bosses with that kind of information and after the recent Pierce incident, neither did he. Same with the HYDRA network.

Since Zola wasn't around to monitor who was using it, I was able to log on most of the times and snoop around undetected. What Fury and I found on that network was mind boggling to say the least. In comparison, the world was a piece of log lying on the ground in the middle of the forest all log-y and woody. Nothing wrong about it.

But the moment you lift up the log, all you'll find underneath are the worms and whatever insects and termites you could find. That was HYDRA. The worms of modern day society.

Fury had Clint, Agent Hill and other agents of S.H.I.E.L.D clearing out bases all around the country and confiscating their tech and whatever plans they had cooked up.

From what I knew Whitehall, Strucker and many other notable names were already apprehended, well the former died after I found out he was the one who made those monsters. There was no reason to leave him alive.

"You have any plans of helping us out?" Clint looked at me as if I betrayed him with my 'hands off S.H.I.E.L.D' policy.

"Maybe when I travel around since I would be doing a lot of that in the coming months. There's nothing wrong with popping in and out of a base every now and then." I said with a maybe gesture of shrugging my shoulders.

"So what do you plan to do with this guy over here." Clint pointed as Bucky as he asked that question.

"Try to undo his brainwashing, hopefully." I answered him without giving out any specifics.

"Then I'll be out of your hair. God knows Fury's gonna call me in the next few minutes if I don't check-in at the post." Clint said as he finished his drink and walked out the door as he made to drive out.

After Clint left, I looked at the sleeping Bucky as I drew a chair near his stretcher.

After taking in a deep breath, I brought my hands to his head and closed my eyes as I concentrated.

I didn't know what and how to do what I wanted to do, so I treaded with extreme caution. For all I know, I could mistakenly swap our minds and bodies which would suck major.

I tried to spread out my senses the same way I did when I fought and tried to connect with Bucky with it, keyword being tried.

…

'It doesn't work!'

I don't know how many hours I've spent trying to connect to Bucky's psyche but all of them ended in failure. It was like I was doing something wrong.

I removed my hands form the sides of Bucky's head and placed one of it on the middle of his third eye.

I tried other methods after that, but none seemed to work, but no matter what I did wrong, I felt I was getting something. It was a small fleeting feeling, maybe it was just my optimism, but I held on to it and tried again.

I tried another approach after I felt like I was doing it all wrong.

Since the energy in my body was property-less, it meant I could use it in any fashion so that was what I did. I tried using the energy in my body to boost the mental powers of my brain and immediately, a grating migraine assaulted me.

I felt dizzy as the world around me gained more vibrant colors. I could see, hear and smell things from all-around the mansion. The more I felt these things, the more the vertigo assaulting me grew which prompted me to reduce the amount of energy I was sending to my brain.

The moment I did that, the strain on my brain lessened as the headache became milder. Not focusing on that, I brought my hands up to Bucky's head once again and tried connecting to it.

It felt as if I was on a roller coaster as the world spun and turned before I felt myself being sucked into what felt like a murky room.

'Huh? This is way different than what I imagined.' I thought as I saw what I could call Bucky's consciousness in this murky room with me.

Different from my preconceptions about how other human's consciousness would look, Bucky's looked unamusing. If mine could be compared to the size of a soccer stadium with different hues of kaleidoscopic lights running around, then Bucky's would be like a house with Christmas lights all over it.

'So my mind is truly different from that of a normal human. Is it just compared to humans or mutants in general?' I thought as I gazed at Bucky's sub-consciousness.

Bucky's subconscious had no defense whatsoever to an intruder, which I think was the same for almost anyone, since Wanda was able to mess up the minds of the entire Avengers group. The only person who could muster a slight resistance was Thor and even then he still succumbed to it.

'The mind really is important.' Seeing how Bucky's mind was unprotected made me really thankful that I went to heaven and beyond when creating my mental defenses. If one of the best psychics on earth couldn't break through it even with Cerebro then I doubt any of your run of the mill mutant or arcane masters could.

'Well then, time to purify a corrupted mind.'