A/N: First of all, I am so sorry about how long it took me to write this. I actually have a valid excuse this time, as in the last month RL got quite horrible and I went through a very difficult situation, but I'm happy to say that all is well and everything turned out even better than I could have hoped for, so yay! I'm fine and everybody's fine lol, and now I'm getting back in the groove of writing.
In other news, this story is nearing the 1,000 mark for reviews and as I write this the count stands at 917. In celebration of this and the fact that I've gotten so far with this story without abandoning it (YAY lol), I am working on a fun little side AU fic involving - big surprise - Bucky and Summer lol. I'll describe it as a modern friends to lovers story but kind of with a twist lol. It'll be kinda short, probably three chapters long, and I plan on posting it once this story officially hits 1k :D I've got the first chapter done already, so at least a third of it will be ready to go by the time this hits the 1k mark, and I'm very excited about it :D And I'm definitely not trying to extort reviews out of anyone or anything like that - in fact, if enough of you asked me, I'd probably start posting it early, so we'll see how it goes and if I can actually hold out that long :)
Thank you guys so much for your continuing support and thank you to midnightwings96 for always being there to help me get back on track when I need it. Big giant hugs to all of you, and I'll see you guys soon! :D
Breathe, Summer silently told herself, closing her eyes and trying to will her racing heart to slow and her lungs to expand and fill with the oxygen they needed. Just breathe. Hold it together.
After managing to catch her breath again, Summer opened her eyes and felt her heart sink all over again as she the reality of her current surroundings sunk in for the second or third time in the last hour. She was in a federal courthouse, sitting in the gallery in the row closest to the defense's table. Her hands were in her lap, fingers fidgeting with anxiety that had no other outlet, and flanking her were Steve and Natasha. Their presence kept her anchored to reality, and their support was something that she wasn't sure she could make it without, especially that day.
Bucky was sitting in front of her at the defense table, dressed in a suit and tie that she had helped fasten for him earlier that morning, and sitting next to Matt and Foggy. He sat straight in his chair, shoulders back and posture confident despite how she knew that he felt underneath his stoic appearance. She knew because she felt the very same way beneath her own, much less convincing mask of calm.
Today was the day for opening statements, and every ear in the room was attuned to the prosecutor as he laid the foundations for his case against the Winter Soldier. His name was Richard Strong, and he was a federal prosecutor with decades of experience putting criminals behind bars. The Attorney General had appointed him special prosecutor back when Bucky had first been arraigned, and every time he spoke, Summer's stomach twisted into new knots.
This was the man who would do everything in his power to make sure that her husband never got to raise their children with her or even celebrate their next wedding anniversary with her. And he spoke with conviction as he kicked off his case against Bucky.
"Let me be clear," Strong said as he addressed the jury, walking about the courtroom with the sort of ease that came with experience. "I know that this is not a simple case. I would never suggest that it is, or that you, the jury, have an easy task ahead of you. This is a complicated and frankly brutal case. And it's going to be a long one. But this is a case about accountability. It's about justice and truth - two things that we, the American people, have been denied for decades by a corrupt and dishonest government. This is our chance to see justice served not just for the families of those affected by this case, but for our entire country. The assassination of our 35th President changed the very fabric of our nation, and the lies that we were fed following his death ensured that our true enemies were never brought to justice. This is our chance to change that."
"The crimes that the defendant is charged with are well-documented, and the evidence that you will be presented with is incontrovertible. You will see in the coming weeks that while this is no ordinary case and that emotions will likely run high from beginning to end... there is one inevitable conclusion, after all is said and done. And that conclusion is that justice must be served."
His remarks over, the prosecutor turned to take his seat back at his own table, and Summer swallowed down a lump in her throat. She did her best to remain impassive on the outside, but it was quickly becoming a losing battle. Natasha noticed this and placed a comforting hand on top of Summer's, giving her a tight smile when Summer glanced up at her in slight surprise. Natasha was not a touchy-feely person, but she knew when a moment of comfort was needed all the same.
She mustered up a smile in return that was really more of a grimace, wondering if this would ever get easier at any point during the trial. This was the start of it all, and it would get far worse from here, but her heart already felt unbearably heavy. She had tried to prepare herself for the last several weeks, during jury selection and then after, but really one could only prepare themselves so much for such a thing as the love of their life being put on trial for crimes that they truly did not commit.
She took another deep breath as Matt stood up from the defense table, walking stick in hand as he prepared to make the defense's opening statements. She had full faith in him as well as Foggy, but she still prayed extra hard that she had made the right choice in hiring them. They were going up against not only a lawyer with infinitely more experience than them, but a lawyer with the full backing and support of the government and Justice Department. It was, for all intents and purposes, David and Goliath.
She could only pray that Matt was good with a slingshot.
Bucky had done his very best to mentally prepare for this day. It was one thing to wait for the trial to begin and to know theoretically what was on the horizon, but now that the primary proceedings had finally begun and he had just listened to the prosecutor open his case against him... keeping his outward emotionless mask intact became his primary mission.
His appearance was the one thing that he could control. It was why he had cut his hair a few months before, and why he allowed Summer to fuss over his suit and tie and make sure that he looked like an upstanding citizen who had full control over his own mind. It was why he'd had a session with Dr. Connor a few days prior, to help ensure that he went into the trial with the best attitude and outlook possible. He wanted to be strong. He didn't want to sit there and let the world see the fear and dread clutching at his insides in a constant, never-relenting grip. So he stared ahead, paying attention and remaining respectful while keeping every last feeling buried under the surface.
He watched as Matt took a moment before he began his own statement. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts or perhaps listening for something, but before the judge could grow impatient, he finally began to speak.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, facing the jury and starting off with a traditional greeting, "all of here in this room have a long road ahead of us. That's one thing I'm sure we can all agree on. Each of you understands the significance of this case and the historical nature of the crimes that my client has been charged with. I am not going to lecture any of you about how important the outcome of this case is, because none of you would be here right now if you didn't already understand that. I am also going to respectfully disagree with Mr. Strong on one very important point. This is not a complicated case. It's actually the simplest one that I've taken on in my... admittedly relatively short career."
Matt let himself grin just a touch at the end of that sentence, and Bucky glanced at the jury to find one of the female jurors trying to stifle a small smile. What the hell.
"This case isn't a question of forensics or DNA evidence, or even if my client was present at the scenes of the crimes," Matt went on, walking forward a few steps. "Most of us are already aware of most of the prosecution's key pieces of evidence thanks to the SHIELD leak and the nature of 24 hour news cycles and the Internet. What might not be as well-known is the reason why I advised my client to plead innocent instead of not guilty by reason of insanity, which the New York Times claimed was 'arguably the worst legal decision ever made'."
Bucky glanced at the judge, who was listening intently while reading over something laying in front of him. The jury, meanwhile, was fixated on the words of the very green lawyer handling the defense of the world's most prolific assassin. Bucky might have questioned hiring Nelson & Murdock had Steve and Summer not vouched so determinedly for them.
"Let's think about the word innocent. According to Merriam-Webster, the primary definition of 'innocent' is free from guilt or sin especially through lack of knowledge of evil. I want to ask everybody in this room to consider that for a moment. Think about a child who's forced to do something by their parents that they don't want to do. Regardless of how horrible or unthinkable the act, we don't blame the child for the crime. The child is innocent. The child doesn't know right from wrong or understand what it is that makes something evil. We punish the parent for the crime, because the parent is accountable. The parent is guilty, because the parent possesses the knowledge of evil."
"Now I want you to think about that same child. That child knows their own name. They know what year it is. Depending on their age, they know their address, city, state. Most kids can tell you what their birthday is before they can answer what two plus two is. Even in that basic state of innocence, they have an equally basic foundation of knowledge about themselves."
Standing still, leaning only a little on his walking stick and facing the jury like he could see them as clearly as any seeing person in the room, Matt continued, "Now I want you to think about my client. For over 70 years, he was beaten, broken down and brainwashed until there was nothing left of the man that he once was. There's no knowledge of evil when you're a blank slate. There's no knowledge of right and wrong when you're denied even the basic self-awareness of a five year old child. My client spent seven decades having no knowledge of his own name, when or where he was born, or anything outside of what his captors and handlers allowed him to know. And they went to great lengths, through conditioning methods both sadistically crude and sophisticated, to make sure that he knew nothing beyond how to kill, who to kill, and how to submit to their authority."
Bucky's carefully maintained mask slipped just by a fraction. He blinked and looked down, memories of being strapped down and forced to endure countless rounds of unbearable electroshock and waking up to shivering, freezing cold water dripping down on his face from the melting ice in his hair flashing through his mind before he could stop it. But it wasn't even the worst of it. The worst was the screaming - not his own, but of the people that he was sent to kill, the people whose lives he took without even questioning why because it felt right and natural and...
He blinked and shoved those thoughts away. He had to stay present. Dr. Connor had been very keen on reminding him of that.
"Innocence isn't necessarily the absence of a crime," Matt said. "It's actually far simpler than that. Convicting James Barnes of the crimes that he is charged with would be tantamount to incarcerating the murder weapon rather than the person wielding it. It isn't justice. It makes no logical sense. He was the weapon. A living, breathing, mindless weapon. HYDRA was the the finger on the trigger."
"Today, Mr. Barnes is no longer a weapon. He broke through his conditioning after the fall of SHIELD and has been recovering ever since with the help of family, friends, and a board certified psychologist. He has worked with the Avengers over the last few years out of a desire to atone for his past and use his skills to save lives rather than take them. He has a wife and two kids. He is not a danger to the public. He's a victim, as much as HYDRA's victims were. And I have faith that you, ladies and gentlemen, will reject the call to set a dangerous precedent of victim-blaming. Because if, as Mr. Strong told you, this case is about truth and justice... we will achieve neither by sending an innocent man to death row. Thank you."
After closing his opening statement, Matt walked back to the defense table and sat next to Foggy, all while Bucky blinked and let out a long, quiet breath. Listening to arguments both for and against him highlighted the ever-simmering war within himself, his dueling urges to blame himself and defend himself never reconciling the way that he wished they would. He wanted to believe in Matt's words and on some level he truly did, but there was always that voice lurking in the back of his mind telling him that no matter what anyone said or thought, blood would always be on his hands and it would always be his fault for not breaking the conditioning and putting an end to it.
With his almost inhumanly sharp hearing, Bucky heard when Foggy leaned over and whispered nailed it in Matt's ear. Only time would tell if that was truly the case, but one thing that Bucky knew for sure was that at the very least, his legal team truly did believe in his innocence. Inexperienced as they were, maybe they really were his best shot at freedom.
Later on that day, after the day's proceedings had come to an end, Summer hugged both Matt and Foggy in the halls of the courthouse and thanked them for believing in Bucky as much as she did.
She thought that the opening statement had been perfect, and she decided to never again doubt her decision to hire them. They were way better than any high-priced shark of an attorney would have been, and she made sure that they knew she thought that of them.
Outside of the courthouse were reporters, naturally waiting to try to get a statement or two from the now-notoriously tight-lipped man on trial. He never spoke a single word to any of them, instead holding Summer's hand almost painfully tightly as he stared past all of the vultures and steered them to the car that waited for them. Today was no different, but when Bucky slipped his right hand into Summer's left just before they walked out of the courthouse, she had an idea.
She walked behind him and then settled at his left side, looking him the eye as she took his metal hand in hers and intertwined their fingers. It was hard enough for him to show it in public at all - after a lot of debate and hesitance on his part, Bucky had decided to not disguise the limb during court proceedings - and she wanted to make sure that the world knew how accepting she was of all of him.
He understood perfectly without her having to say a word. He leaned in and kissed the side of her head through her hair, and then they stepped outside.
The next day, when several news articles that she read online contained zoomed in photos of their linked hands, Summer wasn't surprised one bit. She did, however, take inspiration from it and write a post on her blog commenting on the matter. Accompanying the post was a photo that she took specifically for it, of his hand lying palm-up while her smaller hand laid within it, their fingers loosely entwined. The name of the post was simply Acceptance, and it was an answer to a number of comments that she had seen expressing disgust or bewilderment over the courthouse photos.
The post received an overwhelmingly positive response. Wives of vets and others with artificial limbs appreciated Summer's words, and Summer was more than grateful for every last bit of support that she could garner for Bucky.
But she also knew that she could write all the blog posts in the world and it likely wouldn't change the outcome of the trial. What could was the upcoming weeks of testimony, and those began in what felt like the blink of an eye.
Week one
The first week saw two very important witnesses take the stand - Nick Fury and Natasha.
"Director," Strong said as he approached the witness stand where Fury sat looking appropriately blank but as unimpressed as ever, "you don't exactly have a history of honesty when it comes to co-operating with the courts or the government. You are aware that you're under oath?"
Fury's one eyed, mildly amused glare said all anyone needed to know about how he felt about the prosecutor. "I am."
"You are also aware that during the months you kept Mr. Barnes in your employ, you were breaking quite a few federal laws?"
"Considering the fact that I've yet to be charged with a single crime," Fury replied, "I'm gonna decline to answer that question unless you've got an arrest warrant in your pocket."
Strong continued on unimpeded. "You sent the defendant out on field missions while he worked for you, is that correct?"
"It is."
"And what sort of process did he clear in order to be approved for such work?"
"Full psychological evaluation," Fury replied. "Extensive medical testing, interviews, field simulations. Same standards you guys have at the FBI, only more rigorous considering we deal with enhanced humans."
"Right, of course. Enhanced humans who don't answer to the law but rather to you instead, Director. Do you believe that this is acceptable under the law?"
"No, I don't believe that. What I know is that we live in a world that the men who wrote our laws never could have dreamed of, and keeping it safe means doing what we have to do."
"Doing what we have to do," Strong nodded. "Right. So you would ask us, the American people, to trust you with all of this power and trust your judgement when you want to put the Winter Soldier on the streets even though just a couple of years ago he was responsible for the deaths of at least 15 SHIELD agents and several civilians? Should I remind you that you were very nearly one of those casualties yourself?"
At the defense table, Bucky's eyes flickered down and away for a moment. Strong was referring to the mess in Washington D.C. during the SHIELD debacle, and Bucky had indeed caused those deaths.
HYDRA caused those deaths, he mentally corrected himself, though his conviction there was... unsteady .
"Let me tell you what I believe, Counselor," Fury said, looking Strong square in the eye. "I believe that if you and the Attorney General want to throw Barnes in prison, then you'd better arrest Clint Barton and Erik Selvig immediately and charge them with aiding Loki during the Chitauri invasion. But I never heard even a peep out of anybody calling for that after the attack on Manhattan. Why is that?"
"As far as I'm aware, the circumstances were very different in their cases."
"They weren't," Fury replied. "The only difference was the fact that they were brainwashed by magic where Barnes was brainwashed by more traditional methods. The other difference is that President Kennedy and Howard Stark were very visible targets who the government has to punish somebody for in order to feel like they've still got some credibility with the public."
"The truth is actually a lot simpler than that," Strong replied. "We have the assassin in custody and we are prosecuting him accordingly, despite the efforts of men like you who would prefer to parade dangerous men and women around in costumes rather than follow the rule of law. Can you truly argue otherwise?"
"If not for my dangerous men and women in costumes, Manhattan would be the capital of Loki's new world order and you probably wouldn't be here trying to prosecute an innocent man right now," Fury replied.
Ignoring that comment, Strong asked Fury one last question before the court took a recess. "Did Mr. Barnes ever exhibit erratic or unstable behavior while on your payroll?"
Fury paused for a moment, thinking over how to best answer that question. "Yes."
"Can you elaborate?"
"Absolutely. I can tell you that the erratic behavior he occasionally displayed was identical to every other war veteran I've ever worked with. I won't tell you he's not damaged or suffering from one hell of a case of PTSD. But so are a lot of Americans, and what they need is help, not punishment."
Strong nodded. "So previous trauma is an excuse for murder?"
"It is when the trauma in question was still in progress during the time of the murder and involved literally frying Barnes' brain on a regular basis until he forgot how to say no. I'd say that's a pretty damn good excuse."
With that, the prosecutor excused Fury and the court took a recess. When they returned, Natasha took her oath and was next to take the witness stand. She was dressed sharply for the occasion and sat in a manner similar to Fury, shoulders back and confident with not a trace of doubt anywhere on her face.
"Miss Romanoff, you know something about conditioning and mind control, correct? If my understanding of your history with the KGB is accurate."
Natasha eyed the prosecutor with a well-practiced neutrality and replied, "That's a fair statement."
"Was your experience similar to that of the defendant?"
She paused and thought for a moment before replying, "Yes and no. I was a child when my conditioning began. It was easier, in a sense, for my handlers to manipulate me. It was more of a case of implanted memories and subtle, constant conditioning rather than machines and experiments and electroshock."
"Right. Do you consider yourself to have been making conscious decisions when you killed for the KGB and the others you worked for, or was it all the conditioning, as the defendant is claiming was the case for him?"
"To be perfectly honest, my own personal history is a lot more complicated than his and I would not use it as a reference. I was never a hero who fell into the wrong hands and became a weapon."
"I never said you were a hero," Strong replied somewhat pointedly. "What I am asking you is if you were aware of right and wrong while you were under Soviet control and carrying out their assassinations."
"I was aware of the concept of right and wrong, yes, but my understanding was completely backwards. And after a certain point, I stopped caring. That's the nature of brainwashing. It's easier to cling to what you know and trust than break through the lies and face what you've done."
"So, could you say with 100% confidence that, in the case of Mr. Barnes, he carried out every mission fully under the control of others with zero knowledge of right and wrong? Do you, as someone with firsthand knowledge with the art of conditioning, believe that the sort of total innocence that he is claiming is possible?"
"In his case, yes," she replied. "You can't strip a person of their identity and autonomy and then tell them they're ultimately responsible for their own actions."
Nodding and turning, pacing a few steps that were seemingly meant to be dramatic, Strong turned back to her and said, "I suppose one of my main concerns is the fact that while these arguments are compelling, we simply have to take your word for it. None of us are in your head, or Mr. Barnes's head. Can you give me one airtight reason why any of us should believe that he truly had no awareness of the evil of his actions?"
Natasha glanced at Bucky as she thought, her eyes briefly flickering to Summer always sitting faithfully behind him in the gallery along with Steve, and then she replied, "Well, anyone can say anything. I could preach at you all day and it wouldn't convince anybody of anything. Ultimately it comes down to actions, and I would suggest that the jury find their answer to your question by looking at the big picture. In HYDRA's hands he became an enemy to the United States - and many others - but each time he's had the freedom to make his own choices, he's always chosen right." She paused and then added, "And that's more than I can say for myself."
Strong raised an eyebrow and then replied, "Thank you for your honesty, Miss Romanoff. Would you consider him a potential threat to the public, given his past and instability?"
"I think that any person can become a threat to the public given the right circumstances," she replied smoothly. "He's no more of a threat than Steve Rogers or myself."
"Maybe that's the problem," Strong said before ending his line of questioning. Natasha glanced at Bucky again before leaving the witness stand, and she gave him an almost imperceptible smile in reply to his equally imperceptible look of gratitude.
Week two
"Captain," Foggy said as he approached the witness stand, no trace remaining of the starstruck man who had once asked this very witness for his autograph, "you dealt directly with my client when he was still under HYDRA's control, is that correct?"
Steve, dressed in a fine gray suit and hyperaware of every last word out of his mouth, replied, "That is correct. Until HYDRA tried to have me killed, I still believed that he had died in 1945."
"Were you immediately aware of the extent of his brainwashing, when your paths crossed?"
"Yes," Steve nodded. "As soon as I saw his face I said his name, and he didn't recognize it. He didn't recognize me. He had no awareness of anything beyond completing his mission."
"As someone who knew Mr. Barnes since childhood and arguably better than anybody else currently alive," Foggy went on, "do you believe that he was able, in any capacity, to control his actions as the Winter Soldier? Was there some part of him that you believe might have been aware and still functional, however slight?"
"Absolutely not," Steve replied. "I looked in his eyes when he was still under their control and there was nothing there. They made sure of that. We've recovered files and video footage from HYDRA raids that show how whenever he would question orders or show a sliver of remembering anything, they would hit the reset button and make sure it didn't happen again."
"The jury will be viewing that footage soon," Foggy noted. "You've been with him throughout almost his entire recovery, following the fall of SHIELD," Foggy went on. "Does he ever exhibit unprovoked violent tendencies or suffer relapses, for lack of a better term?"
"No," Steve replied. "There's flashbacks and nightmares and the... classic signs of shell shock. PTSD," he corrected himself, remembering the modern term. "But if you're asking me if he ever wakes up one day as the Winter Soldier and tries to attack at random, no, he doesn't. He deals with the same things as everybody who's been to war. It's just... amplified. And that's expected, considering the extreme things that he went through."
A few more questions later, it was Strong's turn to question Steve. As it turned out, he really only had one question that he felt was necessary in order to make his point.
"Captain Rogers, if I understand the chain of events correctly," Strong said, "you were willing to place yourself in a watery grave at the bottom of the Potomac before you put a stop to your old friend's killing spree. Can you give the jury a single reason as to why you feel that they should listen to your very obviously biased opinion of Mr. Barnes?"
Nonplussed, Steve replied, "Well, it's like Mr. Nelson said - I've known him longer than anyone. I've known him since we were kids. I know better than anyone who he is and what he's capable of and what he's not capable of. Am I objective? No, I guess I'm not. But that's not really the point here."
"No, the point is that you are asking the jury to make the same questionable gamble that you did when you let the defendant nearly beat you to death in a disintegrating helicarrier. Is it not true that without your accelerated healing, he would have accomplished his objective to kill you?"
"I don't see how that's relevant to this case and whether or not he's accountable for the crimes he's charged with," Steve replied.
"It's relevant because so far the defense's primary tactic is to tell the jury to take the word of highly biased witnesses that Mr. Barnes is as innocent of these crimes as a child would be," Strong retorted. "Now I'm not charging that he willingly defected to Soviet Russia or that no mental manipulation occurred because the evidence clearly states otherwise. But Captain, if the Winter Soldier had been anyone else, someone whose face you had never seen before, can you truthfully say that you would defend that man as vigorously as you are defending your friend?"
"Yes I would," Steve replied. "I've spent my whole life doing what I can to stand up to bullies and protect innocent people."
"You're calling the federal government a group of bullies?"
"No, they're something worse," Steve replied without flinching or even considering mincing his words. "In this case, they're cowards."
While the trial wasn't televised, journalists sat in the gallery on a daily basis and took notes that they would report on later after court was dismissed. Steve's branding of the government as cowards struck a nerve with some, but to the surprise of some, many in the general public seemed to agree with the notion. Faith in the government was even lower than it had been in previous years, and while the trial was obviously an attempt to change that, it didn't seem that there was much tangible success on that front just yet.
Dr. Connor testified the day after Steve did, closing out the second week's testimonies. He painted a clear and credible picture of his longtime patient, not attempting to sugarcoat the struggles with dissociation, depression, and anxiety that Bucky had been consumed with when he had first allowed Steve and Natasha to drag him to the psychologist's office. As frank as the doctor was, he was also very firm when he said that while Bucky was still a work in progress, he had come miles from where he had once been and was, in his professional opinion, innocent of the charges that he was facing. He described Bucky as a traumatized and permanently altered ex soldier who would never be what he once was, but also a morally conscious man who wanted to atone for his past while living a quiet and peaceful life with his new family.
The prosecutor in turn attempted to paint the doctor as an Avengers apologist who was in too deep with the lawless group to see the full picture. He pointed out differences in Connor's assessment versus that of the top psychologists at the Bureau who had evaluated Bucky after his arrest. The former painted a forgiving and sympathetic picture, where the latter described a man who was unstable and uncooperative and potentially very dangerous.
Weeks three and four came and went after that with more evidence and more testimony, and Summer watched Bucky grow more restless and disturbed by the constant back and forth of the prosecution's offense and the responding defense. He was barely sleeping and she could hardly get him to eat half the time, and the kids were picking up on both of their parents' stress levels despite Summer's efforts to insulate them from it all. David kept to himself most of the time, his main companion being Loki the kitty, and Adelaide never ceased to cry every day when Summer and Bucky would kiss her goodbye and leave her in someone else's care until they returned from court. Then at night, both kids would usually sleep curled up in bed with their parents, almost like they feared they'd disappear at some point during the night.
The first time Adelaide ever shook her head no, it was while Bucky was handing her to Darcy so she could take her for the day and he and Summer could head to court. But little Addie grabbed the lapel of his suit jacket and pulled, wailing and shaking her head vigorously as she clung to him with all of her might. Bucky looked heartbroken as he gave in and cradled her back to his chest, the little one and a half year old girl chanting dada and still crying as she locked her little arms around his neck and refused to let go. Summer had watched as Bucky walked away with her for a moment, comforting her and whispering things to her that made his eyes shine a little bit, and then Summer knew why this was so hard on him. One day very soon, he might have to hug and kiss her goodbye for good.
It was impossible to ever relax or have a true moment to breathe when the trial loomed over the family like an enormous cloud that stretched from one corner of the sky to the other and couldn't be escaped. Summer still had to work her regular job to keep them afloat while keeping up with her new public image and doing what she could to gain more support for Bucky, and almost every breath she took was influenced in some way by the trial. Every happy moment they could capture had a twinge of sadness that came with it, as neither Summer nor Bucky could bring themselves to say out loud what would become of them both if they never got to have those sorts of moments again.
The funny, charming, self-assured personality that she had watched bloom over the years within Bucky seemed to evaporate under the stress that he was trying to cope with. He and David were similar in that sense, retreating into themselves further the harder things got, and she didn't try to change that. Everybody had their ways of coping, and hers was working herself to death in order to have minimal downtime where she'd be left with nothing to do but think and worry.
Then, during the fifth week of the trial, Matt and Foggy suggested a tactic that made Summer do nothing but think and worry. After weeks of witnesses either vouching for Bucky's innocence or questioning it, Foggy was the one to point out that the jury hadn't heard more than two words from Bucky himself in any capacity. There were no interviews, no statements, nothing to go on aside from what others said about him. And while that was fine, Foggy wondered if hearing directly from Bucky himself would better convince the jury that he was, in fact, an actual human being and not the ruthless killer that the prosecution was painting him as.
It was still relatively early in the trial, and the move was risky considering Bucky would have to face Strong's cross examination while on the stand, but after several days of debating the matter, Bucky somewhat reluctantly agreed to the idea. Summer was equally reluctant in giving her support, but she saw the logic of the idea. The public knew her and Steve and Natasha, and Matt and Foggy were in quite a media spotlight of their own these days, but nobody knew Bucky. Changing that, at least for the jury, could go a long way in showing them who he really was.
Bucky "practiced" with his lawyers for the better part of a week before they officially called him to the stand. When the day came, Bucky was even more quiet and lost in his own head than usual.
Inside the courthouse a few minutes before court would be back in session, Summer fixed Bucky's tie as they waited in the halls. Steve was there along with Matt and Foggy, and a number of others were also on their way. Natasha would be there momentarily with Wanda, everyone aware of how difficult the day may prove to be for Bucky and wanting to show their support.
Summer, meanwhile, simply couldn't stop fiddling with his damn tie.
"Damn it," she groaned, pulling and adjusting the knot to work out imaginary imperfections for the fifth time, and Bucky was growing rather tired of it.
"It's fine, leave it," he muttered, staring off into space and second guessing his decision to testify with every new breath he took.
"No, it's not," she replied under her breath, refusing to stop. With how few things in life there were that she could control in any capacity, she had to control the things that she could - even if they were as insignificant as making sure Bucky's tie wasn't rumpled or tied unevenly.
"Summer, it's - will you please stop?"
"I'm almost done, I just need to -"
Her words cut off when Bucky physically took her wrists and gently pushed her hands away and quietly snapped, "Stop." She looked up and was surprised to see genuine irritation in his eyes, and she might have been hurt if she hadn't been aware of the fact that he was carrying the world on his shoulders and that she had been mothering the crap out of him lately.
"Sorry," she nodded, letting her hands drop to her sides. She looked away from him, and he instantly looked regretful for having snapped at her, but then Steve's hand was on his shoulder and he lost any chance he could have had to say that he was sorry.
"Ready?" Steve asked, and Bucky nodded wordlessly. "Remember, you don't have to do this. It's not too late if you want to change your mind."
"I'm not changing my mind," Bucky replied quietly. "It's the right move." He paused. "I think."
Steve nodded, patting his shoulder again. "Just keep your head on straight, okay? Strong's gonna try to play on your guilt and you can't let him do that. Don't let him get in your head."
Steve nodded, and then having overhead the conversation, Matt interjected, "He's gonna try to win the case based on whatever happens today. It's that important."
"I know," Bucky replied. "I can do it."
Steve nodding and Matt accepting that answer, Bucky then turned to Summer and took her hand in his. She gave him a small smile and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "Sorry I snapped at you."
"Oh gosh, no, don't be. I'm sorry for getting on your nerves," she smiled back, wrapping her arms around him in a short hug. "I love you."
"Love you too," he murmured before pulling away. He offered her a tight smile that was almost a grimace, and then it was time to head inside the courtroom and wait for the judge.
The couple walked in hand in hand until they had to part ways. Summer took her seat in the gallery and Bucky at his next to his lawyers, and they both hoped to God that disaster would not ensue once the proceedings began.
Matt and Foggy took turns questioning Bucky, and it went off without a hitch. Everything went largely as they had practiced, with Bucky answering questions about the torture and brainwashing that he had endured at the hands of HYDRA. Bucky confirmed that he had been awake at least some of the time during the procedure that attached his now-infamous metal arm, though his memory of the operation was fuzzy. He recalled being put into cryo-chambers and recounted what he could remember of the thawing procedures, and at multiple turns, the lawyers would ask of his self-awareness during these events. The answer was always the same; he knew nothing aside from what his handlers told him and "programmed" him to know.
Matt then played the video footage of Bucky's debriefing following the death of Howard Stark. It was no easier to watch than it had been the first time, when Bucky had watched it at the tower following a HYDRA raid, but it was a piece of key evidence and it backed up Bucky's claims. The jury watched with visible horror on a few of their faces as on the screen, Bucky sat confused and mumbling to himself as he slowly came to realize that he had once known the man that he had just caused the death of. The now-deceased Alexander Pierce tried to assure him that he was doing good work and that it was impossible for him to have known the considerably old Stark, and that Bucky needed to trust them. But as his memories continued to threaten to break through to the surface, Pierce's tactics changed and HYDRA's brutality was showcased.
Bucky looked away from the screen as he was forced down into that God-forsaken chair and held there by multiple agents. He struggled in the midst of his panic, biting one agent who tried to shove a bite guard into his mouth and killing several others with his bare hands they continued to try to subdue him and force him into submission. It was a losing battle, of course, and it ended the way that quite a few of his memories did - with screams, pain and agony, and the loss of what tiny fraction of his identity that he might have recovered had the machine not reset him back into the emotionless and nameless assassin that he once was.
Most of the jury was horrified to have seen the memory-wiping process firsthand. Summer, sitting in the gallery as always, couldn't help the several tears that fell from her eyes after the screams in the video finally subsided. Wanda, who had never seen the video before, had the same expression as most of those in the jury.
"As you can see, ladies and gentleman," Matt said, directly addressing the jury, "Mr. Barnes's actions as the Winter Soldier were not made of his own will or with his own consent. For anyone who doubts the truth of that statement, I welcome them to volunteer to undergo the same treatment at the hands of the same kind of people and see what kind of decisions they're capable of making after."
And with that, Bucky was then the prosecution's witness. Matt sat back down with Foggy, and Strong wasted no time in standing up and getting started, as if he'd been waiting impatiently for this moment all week.
"Mr. Barnes," the prosecutor began, "have you recovered all of your memories or only some?"
"Some," Bucky replied. "A lot. Not all."
"Do you remember your family at all? Growing up? Going to school?"
"Yes," Bucky replied.
"Joining the Army?"
"Yes."
"Serving and being captured in Austria?"
"Yes."
"Do you have any memory of the fall that was believed to have killed you?"
Bucky, strong as he was, still let his eyes drop briefly before he nodded and muttered more quietly, "Yes."
"Of the dozens of murders believed to have been carried out by the Winter Soldier," Strong went on, "how many of those do you remember?"
"Some," Bucky replied.
"Which ones?" Strong asked.
Bucky hesitated. "... 12 or 13 of them."
"Is it 12 or is it 13?"
Before Bucky could reply, Foggy was speaking on his behalf. "Your honor, objection - irrelevant and badgering."
The judge paused before nodding, "Sustained. Make your point, Counselor."
"Yes, your honor. You see, I ask because when the Bureau raided the defendant's home, we recovered a very worn notebook buried pretty deeply among his possessions. This notebook was written in both Russian and English, and it appears to be a journal of sorts. Did you or did you not write down your memories as you recovered them?"
"I did," Bucky replied, stomach twisting slightly. He didn't like where this was heading.
"Did your therapist have you do this?"
"No, it was my wife's idea," Bucky replied. She hadn't been his wife back then. In fact, she had suggested he write down his memories before they had even shared their first kiss.
"I see. There's a lot of dark stuff in this notebook. You wrote down your memories of some of your old targets, correct?"
"Yes," Bucky replied through slightly gritted teeth.
"One of those targets was seven year old little girl at her birthday party, wasn't it?"
Bucky refused to look the lawyer in the eye. Heart starting to race, he muttered, "Yes."
Foggy glanced nervously at Matt, and then at the jury. Summer and Steve were both trying to stuff down their inner panic, staying cool on the outside while they were both bubbling with anxiety on the inside.
"Why did HYDRA have you kill an innocent child?"
"I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I never knew why, with anyone. All I knew was the mission."
"And you never questioned why a little girl with, in your own words, 'blonde hair and big blue eyes with an even bigger smile', would be your 'mission'?"
"No. I didn't." He paused. "I couldn't."
"But you sure seemed to think twice about killing Howard Stark, at least after the fact," Strong remarked. "Why was that?"
"I almost recognized him," Bucky replied. "He said my name. I didn't know it was my name, but he said it and it... it triggered... something."
"So you recognized the very aged face of someone you were acquainted with before your fall," Strong said, "and your instinct told you that killing him was wrong. Why didn't that same basic human instinct stop you from killing an innocent child?"
"I don't know," was all Bucky to think to answer with. He would never feel a deeper sense of shame than he did for that particular little girl's death. It was incomprehensible, the evil of that act.
"Is it possible that you were more than aware of the difference between right and wrong and simply chose to do the easiest thing and follow your orders?"
This time Matt objected, but the judge overruled him and told Bucky to answer the question. He forced himself to reply, "No. All I knew was my mission."
"Right," Strong nodded. "Except in the case of Steve Rogers. You failed that mission because you didn't want to kill your friend, correct?"
"I did almost kill him," Bucky said in disbelief.
"That's not an answer to my question."
Bucky exhaled sharply, frustratedly, and replied, "I didn't kill him because I was confused and he said something I thought I remembered. I didn't know he was my friend. He kept saying he was but it didn't make sense, nothing made sense."
"Still, you made a choice," Strong pointed out. "And this was while you were still under full conditioning. If you were capable of making a choice then, how were you not capable of making a choice during your dozens of other missions?"
Bucky had no way of answering that. He just didn't know. "I don't know."
"Do you think that it's possible that you do know and you simply don't want to come to terms with your own culpability?"
"No," Bucky answered somewhat weakly. Strong was indeed playing on his guilt, and he was doing a damn good of it. Bucky already deeply regretted taking the stand.
"Can you give us any assurances that you are not still under HYDRA's conditioning and therefore no longer a threat?"
Bucky's head snapped up sharply. "What?"
"According to ex-HYDRA agents in our custody, HYDRA liked to install safeguards and key words in their more mentally compromised agents. Shutdown codes, trigger words, 'reset buttons', if you will. Can you prove that none of these 'codes' are still active in your own subconscious?"
Bucky furrowed his brows, just the very thought of such a thing existing deep within his mind sending a thrill of panic through his veins and his very skin. "I... no, I can't prove that, but... no, I don't think so. I've never had anything like that happen."
"Right, well, the trigger could be any word in any language. You could be fine one minute and snapping the neck of the person closest to you in the next if they say the wrong word. Any word. Motherland, Khrushchev, maybe Sputnik..."
The minute the word left the prosecutor's mouth, before Bucky could so much as breathe or understand what was happening to him, his eyes rolled in the back of his head and every muscle in his body went limp as he simply and literally shut down. He fell forward, slumping over the witness stand and his head and upper body dangling precariously off of it. It was exactly the result that the prosecutor had been aiming for.
And just like that, the entire courtroom immediately erupted into complete and utter chaos.
A/N #2: ehehehehehehe *hides*