With all respect to the people of Wakanda: they've turned metallurgy into a technologically marvelous art form and have made the most appealing scenario in which Bucky Barnes could hide from the world. The problem is more that Bucky can't hide from the world for long. Oh, he knows why he should... the words in his brain, the bits and bobs of the Ten Rings and neo-fascists and old-school fascists and run-of-the-mill crazy people with an interest in history and remnants of HYDRA all spinning on the same blue ball as he is means that he's going to run into the wrong crowd eventually, even if he does his level best to vanish into obscurity.
But Bucky itches to be in the world. To be doing something to make it a better place, after he unwittingly made it a worse one for so long for all the worst people. He's had some time to sort through the shit in his brain, to figure out what was real and what wasn't, to sort out the few times he had lucidity and feeling and wasn't just a machine, to try and pin them on a timeline based on history, location, what he was up to. It did happen, the lucidity, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s or so, which is... distressing in a new millennium to have the realization that it's been roughly fifty years since you've had a thought that wasn't part of a preprogrammed set.
You know. On top of all the other trauma about the entire situation.
All this to say: he leaves Wakanda. He doesn't leave without saying goodbye (to the children), and he doesn't consider the sort of concern this might bring up amongst his super and over-powered peers. He is a man on a mission.
That mission is to make the world slightly better than it was before he started hiding.
It was rough, definitely, the travel from the heart of Africa to Eastern Europe but he'd practiced handling the worst of it in Wakanda's crowded cities. Got used to the press of other humans, of semi-disappearing in a sea of people when he's built to stand out or vanish completely. To act normal, more or less. He knows what people act like when they're afraid, and when they're not; when they're bracing for the world to end and when it's just another day.
It didn't really occur to him that anyone would bother coming to track him down, at least not until he'd gotten really into it.
"It" being the improvement project. Sure he could've gone after multinational corporations, or become the vengeful boogeyman in greasepaint again... but corporations are actually difficult to dismantle in a meaningful way if one is neither the government nor willing to assassinate an entire board of directors (no matter how much they might deserve it, in his opinion, okay?) and he's not trying to raise the wrong red flags here. He'd do more harm than good before other people got called in to handle it, and so. It. The improvement project. AKA routing a small valley from the chokehold the local mobsters have everything in.
no subject
With all respect to the people of Wakanda: they've turned metallurgy into a technologically marvelous art form and have made the most appealing scenario in which Bucky Barnes could hide from the world. The problem is more that Bucky can't hide from the world for long. Oh, he knows why he should... the words in his brain, the bits and bobs of the Ten Rings and neo-fascists and old-school fascists and run-of-the-mill crazy people with an interest in history and remnants of HYDRA all spinning on the same blue ball as he is means that he's going to run into the wrong crowd eventually, even if he does his level best to vanish into obscurity.
But Bucky itches to be in the world. To be doing something to make it a better place, after he unwittingly made it a worse one for so long for all the worst people. He's had some time to sort through the shit in his brain, to figure out what was real and what wasn't, to sort out the few times he had lucidity and feeling and wasn't just a machine, to try and pin them on a timeline based on history, location, what he was up to. It did happen, the lucidity, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s or so, which is... distressing in a new millennium to have the realization that it's been roughly fifty years since you've had a thought that wasn't part of a preprogrammed set.
You know. On top of all the other trauma about the entire situation.
All this to say: he leaves Wakanda. He doesn't leave without saying goodbye (to the children), and he doesn't consider the sort of concern this might bring up amongst his super and over-powered peers. He is a man on a mission.
That mission is to make the world slightly better than it was before he started hiding.
It was rough, definitely, the travel from the heart of Africa to Eastern Europe but he'd practiced handling the worst of it in Wakanda's crowded cities. Got used to the press of other humans, of semi-disappearing in a sea of people when he's built to stand out or vanish completely. To act normal, more or less. He knows what people act like when they're afraid, and when they're not; when they're bracing for the world to end and when it's just another day.
It didn't really occur to him that anyone would bother coming to track him down, at least not until he'd gotten really into it.
"It" being the improvement project. Sure he could've gone after multinational corporations, or become the vengeful boogeyman in greasepaint again... but corporations are actually difficult to dismantle in a meaningful way if one is neither the government nor willing to assassinate an entire board of directors (no matter how much they might deserve it, in his opinion, okay?) and he's not trying to raise the wrong red flags here. He'd do more harm than good before other people got called in to handle it, and so. It. The improvement project. AKA routing a small valley from the chokehold the local mobsters have everything in.