#no one tells you experimental physics is a form of manual labor

[michael-pemulis]

get you a woman who can, should, and will saw a 1 inch steel bar in half by hand

[wightwulf-a]

this is a semi-complete timeline for my canon of my portrayal of bucky. it consists of mcu events/inspiration, comic inspiration, and my own personal headcanons. specific dates will also only be included here and there as the exact timelines of the movies aren’t super clear, aside from years.

DISCLAIMER : events may shift from verse to verse, possibly even not happening altogether. it depends on the plot and the situation. if you have any questions, just ask.

THIS POST IS SUBJECT TO BEING UPDATED OR CHANGED.

1917

March 10 -- James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes is born in Shelbyville, Indiana to George and Winifred Barnes.

1920 - 1929

1920 -- Rebecca Barnes is born. 1923 -- The Barnes move from Shelbyville to Brooklyn, New York. 1925 -- Violet Barnes is born. 1926 -- Bucky meets Steve Rogers. (more info here) 1929 -- Theodore Barnes is born.

1930 - 1939

1936 -- Sarah Rogers passes away. 1937 - 1938 -- Bucky attends art classes with Steve. (Bucky is Not good at art.)

1940 - 1949

December 7, 1941 -- The Attack on Pearl Harbor ; the United States enters the Second World War. December 1941 - January 1942 --  Bucky is drafted into the Second World War ; Bucky trains Steve at Goldie’s Boxing Gym before Bucky goes to an enlistment office with Steve ; Steve is rejected. February 1942 - April 1943 -- Bucky trains at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin (with periodical leaves back to New York) with the rest of the 107th Infantry, where he meets and befriends both Gabe Jones and Dum Dum Dugan ; Bucky is promoted to the rank of sergeant. June 14, 1943 -- Flag Day ; Bucky’s last night before his shipment out to England. August 1943 -- the “Captain America” comics debut to the public, to great success! September 1943 -- The Battle of Azzano ; survivors of the 107th Infantry are captured by Hydra and taken to a weapons facility in the Austrian Alps. October 1943 -- Bucky meets James Montgomery Falsworth and Jacques Dernier, both fellow POWs ; Bucky becomes ill and is beaten by Hydra Colonel Lohmer for his inability to perform manual labor ; the future Howling Commandos band together to orchestrate an accident that kills Lohmer ; Bucky, ill and weak, is taken to Arnim Zola to be used for experimentation. November 1943 -- Bucky and the other POWs held by Hydra are rescued by Steve, now Captain America. November 1943 -- The Howling Commandos are formed : Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Gabriel “Gabe” Jones, Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader “Dum Dum” Dugan, James Montgomery “Monty” Falsworth, James “Jim” Morita , Jacques “Frenchie” Dernier. 1944 -- The Howling Commandos travel across the European theater, performing raids on Hydra bases, weakening their forces. January 1944 -- a new character is introduced in the thrilling “Captain America” comic series: his right-hand and sidekick, Bucky Barnes, a boy wonder! ; overseas, Bucky endures weeks of mockery after being turned into a kid sidekick in these comic books. February 2, 1945 -- during a mission on a train in the Swiss Alps, Bucky unfortunately fell from the train into the Danube river and was presumed dead ; Zola’s experimenting on Bucky over a year earlier is the reason for his survival ; Soviet soldiers find Bucky still alive, taking him as a P.O.W. 1945 - 1949 -- the Winter Soldier Program is born with Bucky as the only subject ; with state of the art technology, the most modern of its time, he is given a bionic prosthetic as the next steps of the program are planned ; they begin the process of testing human cryostasis.

1950 - 1959

1950 - 1954 -- using technology stolen from the supposedly-fallen Hydra, the Soviets begin testing brainwashing technology on Bucky, with underwhelming results ; cryostasis has proven successful in the last decade, therefore Bucky has barely aged within this time. 1954 -- after the KGB is formed, the organization formally joins the Winter Soldier Project and introduces conditioning methods, both accelerating the brainwashing techniques and physical combat training ; the use of trigger words are employed for efficiency. 1955 - 1959 -- Bucky is continued to be trained, conditioned, and tortured ; the title of “The Winter Soldier” is given to him by the KGB ; he loses all memory of himself and his life and is turned into “the perfect soldier”, now an assassin for Soviet use.

1960 - 1964

November 22, 1963 -- Bucky, as The Winter Soldier, successfully assassinates American President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.

1965 - 1989

years unknown -- the Soviets take The Winter Soldier out of cryostasis suspended animation in order to use him to aid in training girls of the Red Room Academy ; The Winter Soldier meets and trains with Natalia Romanova, later known as Natasha Romanova ; they work together on many missions for the Soviet Union during The Cold War.

NOTE : while i am using comic influence here, i will not be acknowledging any romantic or sexual relationship between bucky and natasha during this time. while i am mixing canons and using much headcanon, i am taking influence from the mcu in regards to bucky’s brainwashing. in short, he was in no mental position to be involved in any romantic or sexual relationship.

1986 -- a Soviet scientist removes Bucky from cryostasis without authorization ; the scientist tells Bucky he is going to help him get home to America ; confused, fearful, and conflicted from his mental conditioning, Bucky kills the scientist ; he is found with the man’s body and is immediately put back into cryostasis.

1990 - 1999

December 16, 1991 -- The Winter Soldier is sent to assassinate Howard and Maria Stark in order to obtain Howard Stark’s super soldier serum ; he is successful. 1991 -- in a last-ditch attempt to preserve The Winter Soldier Program after the fall of the Soviet Union, this serum is used on five former-KGB operatives in an attempt to turn them into super soldiers not unlike Bucky ; they are defective however and disposed of ; Bucky remains the only successful subject of The Winter Soldier Program ; Bucky is left in a Soviet base in cryostasis, forgotten.

2000 - 2009

2003 -- former member of the KGB Aleksander Lukin, who inherited The Winter Soldier Program from Vasily Karpov before the fall of the Soviet Union, reactivates The Winter Soldier as he begins to build his buiness, The Kronas Corporation. 

2010 - ?

2012 -- The Winter Soldier is sent to Sokovia by Hydra to assassinate a high-ranking political official and seize a superhuman artifact from the country known as The Cosmic Cube ; he successfully does so with a timed detonation -- there are many casualties ; EKO Scorpion, of the Sokovian Armed Forces, being posted at the site for security of sorts, is sent to either apprehend or kill The Winter Soldier before he escapes ; Colonel Helmut Zemo is among the agents sent ; The Winter Soldier kills most of EKO Scorpion, save for Zemo and one other member. 2014 -- The Winter Soldier resurfaces and sent to assassinate Steve Rogers ; he is unsuccessful when Steve instead recognizes Bucky, this recognition tampering with the programming put in Bucky’s mind decades before ; unbenknownst to anyone else, Helmut Zemo learns of The Winter Soldier’s return and independently discovers the identity of The Winter Soldier, a truth he shares with the public ; exposed, a wanted criminal, and his mind broken, Bucky fails a second time to assassinate Steve, whose life he ultimately saves from drowning ; he begins a life on the run. 2014 - 2016 -- Bucky, now free from Lukin, successfully leaves the United States and makes his way to Europe where he travels around, running from anyone who might be following him ; he never stays in one place more than a month. 2016 -- in yet another act of revenge, Helmut Zemo bombs a U.N. meeting ; Zemo frames Bucky for the bombing in order to flush him out of hiding ; he is found in Bucharest, Romania, where he is apprehended and taken to Berlin by SHIELD ; Zemo, posing as a psychiatrist, triggers The Winter Soldier conditioning, leading him to kill multiple SHIELD agents in escaping ; he is saved by Steve and Sam Wilson and they all soon go on the run ; they are lured to an abandoned Soviet base in Siberia by Zemo ; Bucky and Steve go to Siberia ; Zemo has the intent to activate The Winter Soldier yet again and force Bucky to kill Steve ; Zemo is apprehended by Bucky and Steve and handed over to SHIELD. 2016 - 2018 -- Steve, familiar with Prince T’Challa of Wakanda, asks if Bucky can have sanctuary in Wakanda, as he knows Bucky will be safe and hidden there ; there, Bucky is put into suspended animation while Shuri, princess of Wakanda, devises a way to remove the Soviets’ programming ; over the course of a year, this is done and Bucky is truly on a path of healing and recovery from the years of torture from the Soviets ; Bucky receives a new prosthetic, vibranium arm, designed by Princess Shuri. 2018 - ? -- Bucky chooses to leave Wakanda and return to the United States ; upon returning, seeing that he is still a wanted criminal and terrorist, Bucky turns himself in ; in turning himself in, Bucky is not arrested nor incarcerated at this time, but is willing to undergo monitoring to prove he is not and will not be a threat to public safety or the country’s security ; Bucky is put on trial for his crimes as The Winter Soldier (the trial is not made public -- everything is kept closely under wraps) ; during the trial, the terms of a pardon were negotiated and, when no official verdict in the trial is reached, Bucky is granted a (conditional) pardon ; as a condition of his pardon, he is required to attend mandated therapy to assess his psychological state and to ensure he will not be a public threat in the future ; he is no longer considered an enemy of the state or terrorist and lives as a civilian.***

*** this is my main verse and the time in which MOST threads will be set.