[British and American] Jason Wayne's Struggle

"Soldiers... follow orders... clean... recycle..."

Bucky was muttering something in Russian, and was finally awakened, finding himself in a cold sweat again.

A hand wrapped around him, pulling him into a warm embrace, and someone patted his back.

He whispered, "I had a nightmare again. They controlled me to kill people."

Jason was a little confused, and he slowly responded: "Yeah, I was also controlled to kill people."

“That felt terrible.”

"It's really bad."

It is very painful for people who have been brainwashed to restore their memories. The past self and the self during the brainwashing period will inevitably conflict. The two memories are mixed together, making it difficult for people to distinguish between reality and illusion, past and present, and they are trapped in a maze and cannot tell the direction.

Especially since Bucky is not in his original era. The Bucky who lived in Brooklyn seventy years ago woke up seventy years later, with so many sins that are difficult to wash away.

Jason began to hum a song. His voice was a little hoarse, but it had the power to calm the heart. The soothing tune soothed Bucky's discomfort.

He buried himself in Jason's chest and listened to Jason's heartbeat.

The young man was now like a rope, and every time he was about to slip into darkness, Jason would pull him back and bring him back to the warmth and light.

Jason is like his anchor in this strange time and space, and also like his shield. Jason hides him in a safe place, stands in front of him to block the wind and rain from the outside world, allowing him to adapt to this era more calmly.

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes."

"Well, you are James Buchanan Barnes."

“I’m Bucky.”

"Yes, you are Bucky."

Gradually, Bucky fell asleep again.

Early in the morning, Jason got up very early. When Bucky walked out of the bedroom, he saw him washing up with a cup in his hand.

"Jay, did you take a cold shower again?"

Jason turned around and nodded: "Yeah, what's wrong? Taking a cold shower in the morning will make you more energetic."

Bucky reminded him, “But your period just ended two days ago.”

Jason choked on the toothpaste foam and stammered, "It's because it's over that I dare to take a cold shower."

Because they lived together, some secrets couldn't be hidden, but Bucky was very receptive. After two days, he could naturally carry a garbage bag containing used tampons to throw away the garbage, and put a hot water bottle on Jason.

At this moment, the Brooklyn Prince looked at the Crime Alley Prince with disapproval. The latter was defeated in the eye contact and raised his hands to surrender.

"I have to go out for something and will be back in 40 minutes."

Bucky nodded, picked up the small box on the storage box, and took out a rubber band to tie his hair.

"Come back early and make breakfast for you."

"Oh."

Early in the morning, in a breakfast shop by the sea in Gotham, Jason was sitting in the corner. After a while, Tim came over and sat in the seat opposite him.

"Has he not come back yet?"

"The people are still in outer space. This incident seems to be related to Darkseid. He won't be back in a short time."

Tim took a sip of black coffee without milk or sugar, and looked calm.

Jason didn't have much interaction with Tim after his resurrection, but because Batman went to outer space, he, Tim and Barbara were the only ones left to protect Gotham, so they would exchange information and occasionally act together.

Sometimes Jason would receive an alarm from the safe house, and when he rushed over, he would find that it was Tim who was injured and ran to his territory to look for medicine.

Even the food Jason stored in the refrigerator in the safe house was not spared. Tim ate the long-lasting meat and fast food Jason made without hesitation.

In the end, Jason simply placed a box of instant black coffee in every safe house and stocked up on medical supplies.

No matter what, Tim and he are childhood friends. Now they are superheroes trained by the same person and guarding the same city. Jason doesn't mind taking care of him.

And because Batman has been away for a long time, they are under a lot of work pressure. Jason can still suppress some criminals, but high-threatening criminals like the Joker, Poison Ivy, and the Riddler are existences that cannot be deterred even by death. Even if they do not take action, but just stir up trouble secretly, they can still stir up a lot of trouble.

Gotham has been getting more and more chaotic lately.

Tim looked at the documents in his hand and asked tentatively, "Are you not in Gotham sometimes? I patrol every night, but the frequency of Red Hood's night patrols is not fixed. If you don't show up for several days if there is nothing else, is there something else?"

Because Jason is still the superhero of New York and a busy college student who is completing two degrees at Columbia, this kind of truth must not be told.

"No, it's just that the doctor advised me not to stay up late every day to avoid endocrine disorders. My period was delayed by 10 days last month."

Jason crumpled the wrapping paper in his hand into a ball and threw it accurately into the trash can. He has now become very skilled at using his period as an excuse. His face is getting thicker and thicker. I don't know if this can be considered sad.

Tim blushed.

"Well, that's something we should pay attention to. Stephanie and Barbara often stay up late, but they're fine. Is your endocrine system unstable because of your physical condition?"

Jason responded, "I guess so. I tend to have unstable dates when I stay up late. By the way, are you and that little girl named Stephanie a couple? Why haven't I seen you two act together recently?"

Tim tried to calm down: "We broke up. She said we were not suitable. You and Talia broke up too?"

"Well, we're not suitable for each other."

Tim patted Jason on the shoulder. "It's weird. We're not as philandering as Dick, so why are we both dumped by our girlfriends?"

Jason said in a dark tone: "...Is it appropriate for you to mention Dick's infidelity in front of me?"

Not suitable.

Tim shut up, remembering that Jason and Dick also had a relationship.

Tsk, speaking of which, every time Tim interacts with some female superheroes, he has to be careful not to mention Dick, because many of those female superheroes have had a relationship with Dick.

This is really annoying. Why do I keep running into Dick's ex wherever I go?

Jason took off another micro locator from his shoulder and smashed it on Tim's head, then stood up and left. He was unwilling to travel with Tim often. Given this kid's personality, every time he traveled with him, Jason would have to work hard to clean up the extra gadgets on his body.

When Jason got home, he saw Bucky busy in the kitchen.

"What are you doing?"

"Fried beef patties."

Bucky put a washed plum in Jason's hand, then put a piece of browned pie on a fork and brought it to Jason's mouth.

"Be careful of the burn."

Jason blew on it twice, took a bite, and his eyes lit up: "It tastes good."

"It was sent by the mutants. I just fried it."

Bucky poured Jason another glass of freshly squeezed apple juice: “Supplement vitamins.”

Jason held the plum in his left hand and the juice in his right hand, and smiled: "Got it, brother."

To be honest, Bucky is more like a brother to Jason than Dick. Although he doesn't talk much, he will interfere with Jason's unhealthy lifestyle habits and bandage his wounds when he is injured.

Jason thought that if he really had a brother, it would probably be like Bucky, so he once jokingly called Bucky "bro", and Bucky would naturally touch Jason's head and respond to the name.

This is the third month since they started living together.

Bucky's mental state has improved a lot. He can go shopping and go to work on his own. Last week, he and the aunts from the orphanage took a group of children to the park to play for a whole day and took many photos to show Jason.

In addition, Bucky would share the housework with Axel. Axel was only one meter tall and could not reach high places when cleaning, so Bucky would do these things. In addition, he also had to hang clothes, pillows, quilts... He was very diligent, and Jason was also a clean person, so the two men kept the house clean.

Jason had lived alone for a long time, and although Bucky's arrival made the bed a little crowded, it actually didn't feel bad.

With someone to accompany you, eating together, watching movies together, chatting together, fighting for the toilet in the early morning, and brushing teeth together, the house will be lively and feel like a home, making you want to go home. If you live alone all the time, even if you go home, you can only say goodnight to the furniture. In that case, Jason might as well be patrolling outside all the time.

Also because of his irregular work and rest schedule, his menstruation was indeed not very stable. Once he didn't have his menstruation for three consecutive months, which scared Talia. She almost thought that someone had made him pregnant. But after a check-up, she found out that it was due to endocrine problems that caused the endometrium to not thicken, so he naturally had no menstruation.

But to be honest, since Bucky came, Jason has been going home more often, his schedule has become more regular, he eats well, drinks well, studies hard, and his physical condition has improved, so his weight has increased to 177 pounds.

Bucky's weight had increased to 270 pounds. Because the apartment they lived in was quite old, every time he entered the elevator, the elevator seemed to shake, which made Jason very uneasy. He had to find a property management company and pay for the elevator to be repaired.

Before Jason left, he thought of something: "Bucky, I have a game this afternoon. It's the NCAA finals. If we win, we'll be the champions. Do you want to come and watch?"

NCAA is the college football league and is very popular throughout Milpitas because Coach Barron, the coach of the Columbia University team, has gathered a group of talented people. The team's strength has risen from the bottom of the league to the level of a championship-winning team, and the final will definitely be broadcast live on TV.

Bucky asked about the competition venue, but finally felt that it was too crowded and easy to be discovered, so he decided to stay home and watch the live broadcast.

"I watched your game with the kids from the orphanage."

Jason was a little disappointed: "Okay."

……

On the court, Jason took the ball thrown by the deputy team leader Oden and started a magical run on the court.

Three muscular men from the enemy team rushed over to surround and attack. Jason dodged one of them, then jumped up to avoid a sliding tackle from another, and finally turned around and avoided the muscular man in front of him.

Oden yelled, "Protect the captain!"

So other strong men from Columbia University also rushed over to block for Jason. At this time, Jason had already run half of the court. He saw an open space where Oden was, and he threw the ball directly to Oden.

Oden took the ball and immediately passed to his teammate next to him. That teammate was none other than the 110-meter hurdler that Coach Barron had recruited after he was beaten black and blue by the coach of the track and field club.

I saw the guy running as fast as he could, crossing countless obstacles, and with the help of his teammates, he scored a touchdown!

At this moment, Columbia University completely washed away the shame of being a weak team that anyone could step on and became the champion! The whole audience cheered!

Because the victory was so beautiful, Jason couldn't even escape after the game. He was carried by the coach and teammates to a nearby bar to celebrate.

Coach Barron hooked his arm around Jason's shoulder and said, "Come on, Jason, you've been a bachelor for so long, and you still don't come out to have fun with others. Aren't you bored?"

He pointed at the cheerleader not far away and said, "Do you see that girl? Kelly, the prettiest one on the cheerleading team. She likes you. There's fire in her eyes when she looks at you. Go ahead, conquer her and enjoy the passion and love of youth!"

Jason: "...I have always been enjoying my youth."

His youth was full of passion. He had been fighting criminals every day since he was 13, fighting in the hail of bullets.

As for love, he had been in love twice, but both times failed for various reasons.

In the end, it was Kong Kenan who showed loyalty. After knowing that Jason was not good at drinking, he stopped the man twice for him, allowing Jason to find an opportunity to sneak away.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he walked out of the back door of the bar, he saw a group of people pulling a well-dressed young man.

"Come on, Harry, this is interesting."

"Give it a try? Anyway, your family is rich, so it's okay to play with this."

The boy had blond hair, blue eyes and a red face. Jason could tell at a glance that he was drunk, and the things the people around him stuffed into his hands were obviously not good stuff.

He stepped forward decisively and shouted: "Hey! What are you doing!"

"None of your business, man. Get out of here."

The group of hip-hop delinquents were not of good character either. They came over and tried to push Jason, but Jason grabbed their wrists and twisted them, causing them to let out a sharp scream.

"You know what? People who dare to touch me usually end up in a bad way."

Jason snapped his fingers and beat up the group of disobedient kids in the back alley of the bar. Of course, he didn't use too much force, but he made sure they couldn't get up for a while.

After everyone was knocked to the ground, Jason walked over to the young man and found him leaning against the wall in a daze.

Jason sighed secretly, squatted down, and waved his hands in front of him: "Hey, boy, are you okay? These people are not good people, and what they give you is not a good thing, do you know that?"

Harry looked up at the handsome young man, curled up his lips and grinned: "I know, they want me to try the poison burp!"

He burped, reeking strongly of alcohol, and tried to get up, but staggered and sat on the ground, obviously too drunk to even stand steadily.

Jason was helpless. He asked the other person his name and where he lived, but he got no answer. In the end, he could only pick up the man and prepare to take a taxi to a nearby hotel.

Otherwise, this kid is so delicate and tender, it would be really unsafe to leave him outside. What's more, he looks about the same age as Peter and is obviously a minor, so Jason can't just ignore him.

He waved for a long time on the street and finally stopped a taxi. The driver frowned when he saw the drunk boy.

"Hey, he's not going to throw up in my car, is he?"

Jason took out a few Franklins from his wallet and handed them over. The driver stopped talking.

As the vehicle started moving, the young man suddenly began to sing softly.

"He goes where no one has gone

He went where no one had gone before

But always

But one day

Aherocomeshome

The hero will return home..."

After singing a few lines, he paused and whispered, "Today is my mother's death anniversary. I want to go to Gotham, but my father won't let me."

Jason looked surprised. He asked, "Why are you going to Gotham? It's very dangerous there lately."

The boy shook his head, covered his forehead and groaned, then replied incoherently: "I want to find the second Robin's grave and ask him to sing in my dream again."

Jason froze.

He shouted, "I miss my mom, I want Robin to hug me and comfort me, because my dad will never come to hug me!"

Jason looked at the boy's face and found that the boy did look familiar. Those people seemed to be calling him "Harry".

A small figure emerged from Jason's memory, and Jason remembered that he had come into contact with this boy before. At that time, he had not yet experienced death, and the boy was still a child. Later, he also had contact with this child in the golden-orange desert.

He is Harry Osborn.