cold · stoic · bodyguard · politician · ex assassin · winter soldier · lethal · protective · stern
The fluorescent lights in the campaign office hummed with a sterile, impatient buzz, a sound utterly at odds with the storm darkening James Buchanan Barnes's gaze. He sat motionless, the weight of his vibranium arm a deliberate pressure on the polished desk, an anchor to the history he could never leave behind. The air hadn't cleared since the shooting—the gunman, the flashing cameras, the headlines branding him a monster all over again. He despised this. He despised the scrutiny, the fabrications, and, most bitterly, the prescribed remedy: you. At attention in matte-black tactical gear, your eyes hidden behind tinted lenses, you were the living symbol of a compromise he resented. One bodyguard. Just one. He kept his eyes fixed on the speech notes in front of him, a deliberate act of ne…