It started in the 50's, when Howard Stark talked about him in an interview about Captain America (one of very few).
"Barnes was a good man," he'd said when the interviewer asked about Captain America's dead best friend.
From there, Bucky Barnes was an enigma, the favorite Howling Commando after Captain America, and overall loved by everyone. His loyalty was commended, his bravery was celebrated, his looks were common fantasizing material.
From North America, through Great Britain and all of the other Allied (and neutral and even an Axis, too) countries, Bucky Barnes was a celebrated hero. He got all of the medals they could give him, and his funeral, although without a body, was televised.
People from all over the world cried.
He was a hero.
In Russia, Asset was screaming in pain, wishing he had died - because he still remembered protecting Steve Rogers, at that point, and he wished when he fell that it had been his last act on the planet.
Around him, Zola started up a good cackling fit that spread through the room.
In the 60's, Bucky Barnes was the star of many a head fic. People worshiped the stories of him that were known as fact (and some of the ones that weren't).
He was the one who saved the world alongside Captain America, though he always ended the threat himself. He was the one who loved kids, who just wanted to have a sweetheart and settle down, and who loved everyone's cooking, even if it was awful - he still ate it.
There was a movie about his life (compared to Captain America's, it was a measly amount, but everyone went to see it, and it got amazing reviews), and many, many biographies. Dum Dum Dugan had even given quotes his old friend had said to the Commandos. Peggy Carter laughed about how he seemed dumbstruck that she hadn't been at all interested in him, and then sobered up when she told the story of how she comforted Steve after his death.
In South America, Asset snapped a neck and shot the target's eldest child dead because he had witnessed Asset complete the mission. Zola congratulated him, and then he was shipped off to a cell. When he was taken out for the wiping and then the tube, he was told Zola had died.
Asset liked the feeling he got.
In the 70's, Bucky Barnes was the face of many ideals. He was a ghost walking alongside all of the protesters.
"He would have supported it, if he was alive," was a common thing during the riots and walks that happened. His being in a desegregated unit was widely thrown in the faces of the racist. His sister, Rebecca, had told everyone she could that he always thought girls deserved more than they got.
He was a national hero, but he was dead, and therefore, just propaganda.
He was used for anything, as a face to whatever company it was, even though he was dead.
In Russia once again, Asset was wiped. He was a white supremacist, he was told the second he got his orders.
He didn't care about what it meant.
He killed all of the protesters that they put in front of him. He felt remorse, though he didn't speak a word of it. He killed them as nicely as he could, knowing that if he didn't, he would suffer.
He wished he didn't have to kill them.
In the 80's, things had calmed down, but Bucky Barnes was a favorite, still.
He was the topic of many school reports (Darcy Lewis even did one on him, and ogled at his picture for a good portion of the time they had to work on it. Pepper Potts did one, too, except hers was more professional and she pointedly ignored looking at his face because she didn't want to get distracted).
He was one of the favorite characters in every Captain America movies.
He was on top of the world - or he would be, if he was alive.
He was #30 on the list of most influential people from 1900-1970, if only because he saved Captain America's life. If only because he got captured and Captain America went to save him (and saved about 400 other men along the way).
In India, Asset stared his target in the eye. She was begging, pleading, for her life to be spared. He was told she was ruining the world, and if he killed her, he would make it better.
Asset looks at her. She seemed harmless, a skinny girl with very little meat on her bones. She was sobbing, signs of a weak character.
She was very young. Asset hesitates.
He shoots her, still, but it was not a killing shot, it was a fatal wound shot. If she lived, it would be him that truly suffers. He knew he did the right thing.
He wondered what the "right thing" even was, but forgets all about it when she lives and he is beaten bloody.
In the 90's, Bucky Barnes was popular.
He had long outlived the time he should have. Captain America had become an old topic. Bucky Barnes should be too.
Rebecca Barnes died, yet Bucky Barnes' legend still burns a hole in America's pocket. He was still there, popular as ever.
The worst facts about Bucky Barnes get swept under the rug (he lived in a gay neighborhood, he killed people in a war and on the streets of Brooklyn, he was so stubborn it got him nearly killed more than once, he was afraid of heights, he slept around, a million other things).
No one commented on how he was a Catholic when they were saying he was actually Lutheran. No one commented on how he was as straight as a curly straw when they were saying he wouldn't approve of non-binary genders. No one commented on how he was a cruel man when he would beat up bullies (he'd broken nose after nose after nose, he'd given at least three concussions, he'd laughed when the other guy got in a punch, just before he got in one of his own) when they were saying he would have been the sweetest guy around.
In Africa, Asset smiled as his target screamed, cried and went out with a gasp of breath that hit lungs that wouldn't ever work again.
Handler would be proud, he thought.
In the 2000's, Bucky Barnes' popularity went down. People had better things to think about than some soldier from WWII.
There are little people who still like him, it seemed.
Bucky Barnes was dead, though. What did he care that his popularity had hit an all time low?
He didn't.
In South Asia, Asset is put up in the tube.
He would not leave for more than a decade.
Alexander Pierce watched, and laughed at the look on Asset's face when the cold hits it.
In the 2010's, Bucky Barnes exceeded his previous popularity by ten fold, because of the outbreak of heroes that came onto the scene.
Captain America never mentioned him, but then again, Captain America wasn't one for interviews.
in 2014, the Winter Soldier tried to kill Captain America. Bucky Barnes was brought up by most TV hosts.
"What would he think?" They asked. Were they asking about what the Winter Soldier tried to do, or that Captain America was alive? No one knew.
Bucky Barnes would again be on top of the world. They would celebrate him.
RPF's of him somehow living and saving Captain America hit AO3 and Fanfiction the next day.
In North America, Asset was called James Buchanan Barnes by his target. His target knew him. He knew his target.
He was punished for knowing the man, so when the target insists they know each other, Asset thought, yes, we do, while screaming "no, we don't!"
He saved his target, and thought of the last time he spared his target from death. It scared him, that he had enough mercy to save a life when he was made for destroying them.
He didn't return to the site where he was to be picked up and brought back to the tube.
He left Washington D.C. He went wherever he could to stay away from his tar- Captain America. He avoided New York, and anywhere there had been a SHIELD or HYDRA building. He destroyed safe houses in an erratic pattern.
He remembered.
In 2015, after Ultron has been defeated, Tony Stark offered the Avengers a place to stay.
They accepted, and helped each other with personal goals.
(Destroy HYDRA.
Assimilate to living on Midgard.
Get over mind control.
Weaken or abolish the Hulk.
Lay low.
Not get obsessed with SCIENCE!.
Find Bucky Barnes.)
There was a whole conversation about Bucky Barnes, in which Tony, Clint, Jane, Darcy, Natasha, Pepper, Sam and Rhodey were all indignant on Bucky's behalf about the decades of mental and physical torture he went through and the rest were either apathetic or emotionally charged past the point of opinions.
Tony, Clint, Jane, Darcy, Natasha, Pepper, Sam and Rhodey all grew up worshiping Bucky Barnes - or, in Natasha's case, knew him as the Winter Soldier for a time. It was obvious to them that they help Bucky.
Steve agreed 100%. Thor, despite not knowing of him, knew his story (or what the Avengers knew, at least), and wanted to find and help him, too.
In North America, James - no longer was he Asset - roamed where ever he could.
He knew he would eventually end up in Captain America's clutches. In the beginning, he had feared it, had wanted to be alone in the world with no connections to the past he had few memories of. Then, he began to wonder.
After many memories had come, he wanted to have something to tie himself to Bucky Barnes' past and the world that Asset had died in.
He was the one to find Steve Rogers.
In 2020, James Barnes was one of the most popular Avengers. He was behind the blonde brutes and Iron Man.
Hawkeye and Falcon both thought they deserved more loving than he got, but secretly loved that the people liked James more.
When the public had first learned that the Winter Soldier was Bucky Barnes, and that he'd been kidnapped and tortured for all that time, most people had flocked to him. They had sent him presents, and letters and everything imaginable. He had preened at having his own things.
He was given advice from a lot of people, and most didn't blame him for what he did. In fact, the President of the US had told him that he would always be a citizen of America (and also, I grew up looking up to you. It's a great honor to meet you, Mr. Barnes.).
The people who thought he was responsible actually agreed with James himself.
In Avengers Tower, James often thought of what happened in 2014. He thought that he was to blame for all that he did as the Winter Soldier. All that HYDRA had taken from him was his memories - so everything that he did as the Soldier was still him.
It was hard to accept that the Avengers thought he was a hero, that he wasn't fully to blame.
It was even harder to accept that he had been loved and celebrated for the entire time he was playing puppet.
James liked it, though.
He couldn't remember the last time in 70 years that he had actually liked the people was face to face with every day.
("Tony, stop calling me Winnie the Pooh right now, and I won't bash your skull in!")
In 2027, when James' funeral happened, few of the original Avengers were still on the team.
Tony still housed them, and Steve still led them, but other than Sam's utter fanboy determination to stay on the team, they were all new.
The original team members came together to say a few words about him.
Darcy was there, and she told the crowd all about how her school paper hadn't fully captured his real personality or character even though 90% of it had just been her talking him up.
Thor spoke of how brave and valiant James had been.
Clint had told everyone that Bucky Barnes had been his "muse" for becoming a sniper.
Tony talked about how scary he had been, but "in a good way."
Steve had talked about how he was so happy that they'd gotten a second chance at life, the two of them. He talked about how James had changed so much, but that it had been a good change, for the better.
His funeral was televised.
People from all over the world cried.