thearena | The day the earth stood still [closed]

The day after Steve dies Bucky returns to the lab. His spacesuit is no longer pristine white. The pure colour has been ruined not just by the grime and dirt of the arena but the gore from the creatures he had killed and the oil of the turrets he'd disabled. The laser gun from one of those turrets is clutched in his right hand.

In addition to the rest of the mess he's limping and there's a cut on his cheek and the cloth around his ribs looks singed from some small explosion. He doesn't seem to be bothered by these facts, ignoring the injuries he knows will heal themselves eventually to retreat to a corner of the lab, tucking himself in where he has a clear view of the door.

Bucky has no idea how much time has passed since he saw the announcement, he only knows he's very, very tired.

Steve's death had rattled him, knocked him off balance so hard he still hasn't managed to put himself back together again. It doesn't matter how many people have told him that death isn't usually permanent in the arena, that Steve himself has told him about past arenas and coming back. He's seen too many people die, bleeding out over his hands while Sam did everything he could and it wasn't enough, and knowing you don't get a second chance after you failed like that. Over ten years of soldiers dying on him, a lifetime of first-hand experience that people don't come back when they're dead, it's too much for him to really believe, deep down, that it's not the end.

But he's got hope. He's got hope that Steve'll come back, and that's what he clings to when he tries not to remember the look on Natasha's face when they'd watched Steve die, the way he'd had to pry his fingers from Steve's when he'd finally convinced himself he had to let go, how he'd held on a little bit too hard when he'd pulled Natasha into his arms, and put himself into hers.

And more than that, he's got right now. The arena's still going, he's still in the middle of things, and he has too much training and experience to fall apart when there's still shit to do.

When Barnes comes in, Sam doesn't bother to hide his relief. "Hey. I've..." been looking for you, but he trails off when Barnes goes right for the corner, despite his injuries.

Not a good day, then. Sam's betting he found out about Steve, and he carefully sets down the fabric he'd been ripping up for future bandages. He walks along the wall towards the corner, making sure he doesn't block Barnes' view of the door, and leaving a nice, wide open space so he's not trapping Barnes in the corner he'd put himself in. He stops a foot or two away, leaning against the wall.

"Hey, Bucky. This is going to be one of those questions that's pretty stupid if the answer's yes, but I'm going to ask it anyway. You know who I am?"

He lifts his head at the words and takes a... a moment, just a moment, to focus on his surroundings and the fact that he's not alone in the lab. Had Sam been there when he came in? You're slipping, Barnes he thinks in a voice that is too much his own for comfort, wrapped in an accent they burned out of him decades ago.

"Sam Wilson." he says after a moment, "I know who you are."

His eyes slide away again, focusing on a point past Sam, consumed by his own thoughts and continuing to ignore the pains of his body. Damage always repairs itself eventually and pain was a distraction, distractions were not allowed, so pain must not be allowed. He would work through it the way he was supposed to.

When he winces it's from the thought of the conditioning and not the physical injuries he has.

The fact that Barnes actually takes a moment to orient to him, and then goes right back to focusing on something else, well, it’s a pretty good indicator that he’s really not okay right now. Not that Sam’d expect him to be - shit, Sam himself isn’t okay right now - but he can’t just let Barnes sit in a corner and dwell.

For one, Steve’d want him to look after him, and as far as Sam’s concerned, he’s pretty much promised he would. For another, Barnes is a decent guy who’s gone through a hell of a lot of shit. Sam likes him, and he doesn’t want to see him hiding in a corner, alone with his thoughts. For a third, well, he learned a long time ago that focusing on other people is a great temporary fix for helping him cope, and sometimes Sam’s a little bit selfish.

And at least Barnes knows who he is, he can work off that.

“Good, that’s real good. Can you tell me something you’re feeling right now?” Feel isn’t the first sense he usually goes to when trying to gauge how bad the situation is with someone, considering how objective it is, but he’s seen Barnes use pain to try to ground himself before.

It's not what he wants when he's so tired and hurt with the corners of his own mind beating at him, to not be allowed to sink down into numbness and check out for a while. He wants to escape the thoughts of failure and grief, a tidal surge of emotion that is coursing through him sharp enough to hurt. It feels so clear and so potent that he doesn't know what to do with it except try and distance himself.

Just the way he learned to do with HYDRA as a matter of survival.

Something he's feeling? He tries to single out just one part of it to voice to Sam, "Tired. I'm tired."

"Yeah, man. Me too." Tired, that's a good one. Really damn tired, since this whole arena started, but especially without Steve.

“You can’t check out on me now, Barnes.” It’s not what he’d meant to say - he’d been planning on asking him when was the last time he slept, or ate, or let someone look at those injuries. It startles him a little bit, because Sam’s pretty good at thinking about what he says before he says it, considering his words carefully, especially in a situation like this.

But then, usually when he’s trying to talk down injured soldiers, he’s not also stuck in a death arena. And he’s not also grieving for the closest friend he’s had since he lost his last one.

“Will you let me get a look at you?”

Exhausted, body and mind and heart, down to what feels like his soul. He's tired of it all.

"I failed." he tells Sam, actually it's more like a confession, said in strictest confidence to a priest (and he knows this but doesn't remember going to church, though he remembers shooting someone in a church). But the point is Bucky's not so sure he shouldn't check out, not after that. Does he still deserve to be around after that? "Again."

At least he's looking at the other man again instead of past him, still huddled in his corner and neither moving to accept or deny Sam Wilson's request. He doesn't need it though, no injury he has sustained is fatal for him and all will heal in time if he lets them. He has experience of that.

He exhales softly at that confession, swallowing past a lump in his throat. “So did I. Again.”

Nothing I could do, it’s like I was up there just to watch. He presses his fingertips a little harder against the metal surface of the wall, feeling out the bumps and dents. Watches Barnes looking at him, instead of staring past him, and reminds himself that the weight of grief is lessened when it’s shared.

He’s not one hundred percent sure if the reminder is for Barnes or for himself.

“There’s more to us than our failures. We can't just stop, even for something as big as this." Sam cuts off from saying that's not how life works, because fuck this shit, it isn't life, nothing about this is really life. "He's not going to want us to."

"Who did it?" he has to ask.

If Sam knows who killed Steve then that is one thing Bucky can do, he can kill the one who murdered his friend. He's good at killing, maybe it's the only thing he's good at anymore. The only thing he's been good at since 1945. Maybe even before then, when the US government put a rifle in his hands and told him to shoot Nazis because he had the ill luck of the draw.

A sound works it's way out of him, somewhere between distress and dark amusement.

"No, he won't." Bucky presses the heel of his metal hand to his forehead, the fingers curling in his dark hair. "It's not right, I'm supposed to... it's not supposed to be him."

“I don’t know,” he admits reluctantly. “If I did, I…” sure as hell wouldn’t be here, but maybe that means it’s a good thing that he doesn’t know. Maybe him being out there, hunting down whoever took Steve from them wouldn’t do any damn good, maybe him being here will. Maybe that’s just what he’s telling himself.

He pushes his hands down the front of his legs, like the motion will clean off the rest of the blood trapped under his nails and in the creases of his fingers.

Steve’s blood, but he can't let himself dwell on that.

“I know. It shouldn’t have been him, if I could’ve made it me, I would’ve in a heartbeat.” Shit, if he’d been just a bit sooner, just a little bit… “But we can’t change it, and right now, we just gotta keep going, make sure next time, we do better. We have to keep going, for him. For us, because we’re stronger than that, we’re too strong to let them win.”

There's a loud bang as Bucky's metal hand impacts with the wall, a small explosion of frustration before he returns it to his hair, curling tighter in the brown strands now.

"He keeps dying first." he says, with less of the Asset's low growl and more Bucky's Barnes frustration, torn by his failure to protect his friend. It's not the first time, it's the third. The first, okay, Bucky hadn't exactly been seeing Steve as his friend then, still too wary of all he represented but it had still hurt to think he was dead, back before he knew they came back to life in this place. Knowing Steve's alive now should be some comfort but it's not.

(or that's wrong, maybe the first time was Bucky's, back when he fell off a speeding train in the Alps).

He shouldn't say these things, should he? Not when Steve could be watching them even now. His words could be hurting Steve but Steve's death is hurting Bucky and he can't deal too well with a lot of emotion at the best of times, not after years of repressing it. Barnes never claimed to be saint. "I shoulda never left his side. Should never leave him alone."

He doesn’t move at that bang, doesn’t even really flinch. Part because he’s still a little bit disconnected from things, despite his attempt to help Barnes, despite the danger going on around them, and part because he’s just too used to people reacting to grief and frustration.

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter,” he says, voice rough. “Maybe never leaving his side just means you get a front row seat to how it happens.” He doesn’t say ‘or maybe it just means you go out with him,’ because he doubts that’d be a deterrent to Barnes. Hell, it’s not even a deterrent to Sam himself, not right now.

And anyway, that line was quickly becoming a lot less about Barnes and a lot more about Sam, so he cuts himself off there.

“Do better next time. Do better right now, don’t go backwards down a path you can’t change, you can’t do anything but get lost on. Stay here. Go forward, make a new path.”

He moves a little bit closer, risks reaching out to put a hand on Barnes’ shoulder. There’s more he could say, more he feels like he needs to say, but if he doesn’t pace himself he’s going to end up rambling like he can’t control the words coming out of his mouth.

There’s always the chance that Barnes might react badly to the touch, anyway.

No, it wouldn't be. It might even be an incentive. It could be unhealthy how much Bucky's life has focused around Steve since the helicarriers fell but he'd be hard-pressed to tell you if that wasn't true before the train as well. Steve sits in his head, brighter and firmer than anything else, more than any other piece of his past life.

"Idiot could always find trouble, no matter what." he mumbles, piecing it together as he speaks. From schoolyard fights to back-alley brawls and then the war.

It's true what he said to Sam, he's tired, too tired even if he felt any incentive to lash out at the other man. That hit against the wall took the last of it out of him and even he needs to rest eventually before he burns himself out, if that wasn't what he was looking to do anyway but found himself just too well made to die so easily. The hand lands on his shoulder and Bucky, he seems to deflate for lack of a better word, sinking sullen and exhausted further back against the wall.

"Don't think I have a choice."

Sam's not one to talk about any kind of unhealthy focus on Steve, considering how fast he'd invited the guy into his house, strapped on his wings for him, gone back to war, uprooted his whole damn life. He's pretty sure it's just a thing with Steve, instead of something about either Barnes or Sam himself.

"Doesn't surprise me," he mutters back, managing just a bare hint of something not quite amusement, but at least something other than grief.

It's not the first time Barnes has said that to him. Last time, Sam'd agreed, but this time he shakes his head.

"Yeah, you do. You could choose not to listen to me, to give up. Probably the easier option, thinking if he's gone you've got nothing else left, so it doesn't matter. But it's not true." He tilts his head towards the infirmary in general. "You got the rest of them here, you got that kid I keep seeing hanging around you, you got Jet and Albert." Sam pauses, gives a slightly self-deprecating shrug and an equally self-deprecating half-smile. "You got me."

He doesn't think he has any kind of weight that the rest of them on that list do to belong up there with them, but he'd promised Barnes that he was in his corner. He still is.

"So you can ignore me when I keep on chattering at you and give up anyway, or you can maybe let me take a look at you, get something to eat, get some sleep."

Bucky remains unconvinced about that. If he gave up and died now that would be upsetting to Steve and he knows that causing that reaction in his friend is the last thing he wants or could bear, so in a way he really doesn't have a choice. The illusion of choice, he's more than familiar with that concept. At least this time he's imposing it on himself than anyone using it on him.

His jaw clenches tight at the mention of Aang but doesn't bring up that he's dead too. Both dead in the same week and not a thing that Bucky can do about it.

"I'll stay." he means that in more than one sense of the word. "I'll heal soon."

Sleep though... if he can dare to do that after the last time... it would be welcomed.

He lets out a shaky breath when Barnes says that he'll stay, part relieved and part - well, part just that breathing is a little rough right now.

"Okay. Okay, good."

Sam's definitely taking it to mean physically and mentally, so Barnes better mean it that way.

"Yeah, you will. And you'll probably heal faster and easier if you clean up a little, but if you just want to sleep, I won't hassle you." Partially because he's pretty sure Barnes managing to sleep in here - or really anywhere, but here especially - is enough of a feat in itself that he doesn't want to mess with it.

Sleep? Bucky remembers the last time he tried to sleep, when he'd almost killed Steve himself.

The memory is sharp, has his teeth digging into his lip and he quickly shakes his head against it. He doesn't want to sleep and risk himself harming anyone else because of his nightmares, it's too risky. On the heels of Steve's death they'd probably only be worse.

"You shouldn't waste your supplies." he's not trying to be noble, just stating what he see's as a fact. Bucky can heal himself well enough so long as bones are set and the gashes aren't too deep, it would be better to their finite resources for someone else who will need them more than he does. His handlers had known that, only administering aid to the Soldier when he sustained critical damage.

He's not surprised when Barnes shakes his head about the sleep thing, but he doesn't push it. ...he's also not surprised at his reaction to letting Sam look him over, but that he can't let be.

"Using them on you isn't a waste, it's not a waste making sure you hurt as little as possible for as short a time as possible." His tone isn't exactly sharp, but it's a lot more opinionated with a little more emotion than he'd usually use. It hasn't gone unnoticed, the way Barnes treats himself and his body. Sam's had a lot of people try to refuse medical treatment out of some stubborn sense of pride, out of nobility or self-sacrifice, but Sam doesn't think this is one of those.

Barnes really doesn't seem to think he's worth it, not if he can still function, and that pulls at Sam hard enough usually. It's worse, when he's still caught up with grief. But he doesn't want to let that bleed out onto Barnes.

"So I won't use up the painkillers on you, it's not exactly a hardship to get more water and boil it. I can clean out the debris and alien gunk and who knows what else at least, bandage you up so no more gets in."

"They wouldn't work." he replies to the painkillers, nodding at Sam's sensibility in that at least. His body would metabolise the drugs too fast in the doses that Sam has, they wouldn't even affect him for a short period of time, probably. It was a point that his handlers rarely bothered to provide painkillers to him except for the most severe of injuries.

Bucky still thinks it's a pointless waste of resources to provide medical aid to him and he has tried to tell Sam so, even shakes his head as the other man insists but gathers from previous experience that he's fighting a losing battle. In truth he doesn't have the energy right now to argue, it's easier to let Sam do what he wants and deal with that.

The most important thing he needs to let his body do right now is rest, refuel and allow his version of the serum to do its job.

He closes his eyes, let's himself drift which either means he really is that exhausted or is a sign of trust towards Sam, whichever way he chooses to take it. "Fine."

There's not a lot of things that Sam gets bossy about, but this is one of them. Habit from when he used to actually have to boss around cranky, injured soldiers in the field, maybe. Or maybe just being a little too protective of his friends and a little too eager to have something to do to help one, after Steve.

"Never going to apologize for pestering you about this kind of thing, but thanks for putting up with me."

There's a part of him that really wants to take that as a sign of trust, but he's... not exactly in top shape at the moment, and he's a little too afraid of reading into things that might not be there, just because he wants them. So Sam does his best not to think too much into it, as he moves over to get water and bandages and the stuff he'd need for stitching, though he doubts Barnes'll have much that'll need it longer than a couple hours. He's not sure how well Barnes heals, but he's had a front row seat to Steve, so he's going to base it off that, maybe err on the side of caution.

After he's got Barnes cleaned up and bandaged the best he can do, he'll step back, let the guy rest however he can.

I don't have much option. rests on the tip of his tongue but they've already been through the discussion of Bucky's ability to make choices and he's not ready to go through it again. Sam isn't HYDRA or the Capitol or anyone like them, that feels like it should be enough on its own to assure him but it's not, not completely.

He pushes down his doubts, so tired and just wanting to surrender for the rest of today. Just a few hours of not thinking or acting, just letting himself rest and trying not to think of how everything always seemed to fall apart.

As Sam goes for the supplies Bucky pushes himself forwards away from the wall, understanding it'll make Sam's job easier for him. He looks expectantly when the other man returns for him tell Bucky what to do.

A few days after Steve's gone and Bucky is functioning a lot better, thanks to some helping hands and soothing words, combined with reminding himself that even with Steve gone he still has a Mission to do. His friend would not want him giving up and abandoning the rest of their group. Bucky might not intend to win himself but that doesn't mean he can't help someone else to.

The best thing he can do to that end is keep himself busy and Bucky is constantly on the lookout for supplies, as well as the small list of priority targets he has (it still stings that Black Tom had escaped him, a fact he remains sore at Thor over). So it's in the middle of scavenging that he first hears it.

Bucky!

Bucky!

Steve and Aang's voices, one after another ring out and echo down the halls. A chill takes shape and becomes solid in Bucky's stomach in the wake of them. He's hearing things, he has to be but not a minute later they call again, louder and more insistently. They keep calling to him until, in what is almost a daze, he follow the sound into a room despite knowing it will almost certainly be a trap.

It is but not the kind Bucky is expecting.

When he cautiously enters the room they are calling from he finds two small round robots and on registering his presence the voices grow louder and louder. It sounds so much like Steve and Aang that Bucky is frozen in place, shocked as the words fly at him, questions and requests and playful jokes that echo in his ears. It's cruel, and wrong and the fact that these things even exist is a violation but he can't move or bring himself to do what he should do, destroy them.

Instead he stands and listens.

Edited 2014-12-20 17:50 (UTC)

Bruce is worried about Bucky. Steve is the man's compass, and with Steve gone, he seems lost. In the arena, that could turn into something really bad. (He would be lying if he said that worrying about other people doesn't help him--doesn't keep him from thinking too hard about how his anger is progressing.)

So he keeps an eye on Bucky and notices when he wanders off. He doesn't intend to follow him--just check to make sure he hasn't found any angry aliens or something.

And then he hears the voices. Steve and some little boy. Shit.

Bruce doesn't run or otherwise show his alarm. He walks. He hears the voices--playful, gentle, even bantering with each other like any human would (a lot of old man jokes for some reason), but he knows from experience how the happy voices can quickly turn around and become downright evil. There is very little as jarring as hearing your friends blame you for their deaths, insist that they had been imprisoned in the balls by the Capitol and would die if you broke them, call you a monster and play on every vulnerability they would know about.

He nudges the door open with his foot and leans against the threshold, looking down at the orbs warily past the frozen assassin. "It's not really them. They'll say it is, but there's nothing in there but circuitry."

"I know..." he started, sparing a glance backwards towards Bruce when the other man entered, enough to know an enemy hadn't slipped in at his back.

God, and God he thought in ways he didn't before, words he'd abandoned and had purged out of his system except for when he had to play the part running through his head. The weeks in this arena kept turning and he kept thinking, clearer than he had before when the Mission wasn't directing him in what to do. He thought and he remembered, Steve's voice and now Aang's.

You don't look so good, Buck.

Hey Bucky, want to see a neat trick?

"Shut up!" he snapped suddenly at the orbs, rocking backwards a step, his metal hand reaching and catching the edge of a table, forcing dents into the metal with his fingertips. "Shut up."

He wants to keen towards them at the same time as being repulsed by what they are, a mockery of the people he cares for.

Bruce presses his lips together. He's tempted to just kick the orbs away, but they'd come back somehow. Seeing their reactions to dead friends is just too entertaining for the Capitol to leave it alone.

"If you break open their casing, I can disable them no problem. They're full of parts we could probably use." Keeping voice soft but clinical. Not acknowledging how sickening it is to hear Steve and a little boy talking from soulless robots. Not feeding into Bucky's distress. Giving focus.

"They're just sophisticated recordings. The people they are imitating are probably back safe in the Capitol away from all of this." Because as long as they stay interesting, death isn't really death. Steve and the boy are probably still as safe as they can ever be, back in the Capitol where there aren't any aliens to kill them or robots to taunt them. Bucky may need the reminder.

His voice never wavers. Soft and calm.

His words seem to do nothing but spur the little robots on. Of course, they're here as instruments of torture, just the same as anything else. Anything to break them down and make the Tributes down and make them more entertaining. He's getting a better grasp every time of how entertainment factors into it, marking the difference between his new captors and the old ones.

Their methods weren't dissimilar but they had different goals with what they used those methods for. HYDRA broke him down to build him back up in their image, the Capitol just seems to want to break them, make them snap and enjoy the pain that came from it.

"They're safe, I know that, I--" he clenches his jaw and shakes his head, "We need to shut them up." his voice sounds different to normal as he steps towards the orbs, doing his best to ignore their questions as he grabs the one talking like Steve first.

Just a second of effort with each, then Bruce can do his part and it'll be over. It seems easy and he's woefully under prepared for the scream that erupts from the little robot as he pries off a panel of its casing with his metal fingers, a scream unmistakably in Steve's voice. Bucky immediately drops the machine like he's been burnt, backing up with a horrified expression on his face. "Shit!"

Bruce would like to think he was prepared for the scream, but nothing really makes you prepared to hear something like that. He winces, his hands twitching to slap over his ears, but he forces his hands to stay at his sides. Calm. It's not real. It's a synthesized recording.

But now both of the robots are screaming. The little boy voice babbles pleas and attempts to reason. Like the robots have figured out their intentions and intend to torture them into complacency.

"Break the chassis and I can disable them," he repeats, having to raise his voice over the noise, making an effort to take long, deep, meditative breaths. Block out the screams. He's done it many times before. Not too different from tending to large groups of sick and dying people, really. Block out the screams of families, work as hard as you can, move on without thinking if the current patient dies so you can save someone else.

It's not real, it can't be real. Steve never screamed, he can't remember Steve screaming. Not even when they were kids and he broke his arm in a fight. Aang -- he doesn't know but he can't deal with it, he needs to escape but he also needs to destroy these abominations against his friends.

There's an order.

Maybe Bruce didn't mean it that way but he takes it as one. Orders are easy, so easy to follow. Orders make the world simple, requiring only obedience from him. The Soldier can do that. This is the mission, destroy the casing of the robots and he'll do it.

Pale, blank-faced, Bucky moves to the Steve-orb first and rips off its outer shell before moving to repeat the process with Aang's.

Bruce immediately picks up the Steve-orb, his mouth in a grim line as the robot starts addressing him, too--Banner, I thought you weren't like this, I thought you weren't a monster, Bucky don't let him do this to me--and spreads out the various wires inside with his fingers before finding a chip inside and yanking it out with more force than necessary.

The robot goes quiet, and any lights flashing inside of it go out.

He flinches hard at that cry, that plead from the Steve-bot but doesn't break to it. His part with that one is done and a moment later Bruce mercifully silences the voice. One down, one to go.

Aang is as bad, his voice is so young and it hurts him to hear it that way, setting off unpleasant echoes in his head of other young voices pleading in ways he doesn't want to pursue, ways he shies back from. His fingers rip off the casing, sweat trickling down his temple from the mental strain of holding himself together before he wordlessly thrusts the second robot towards Bruce, a silent plea in his eyes to make it stop.

He sees the plea. He nods and takes the robot, balancing it under his arm as he works his fingers through the wires.

Bruce hasn't met the boy, but it still hurts to hear what sounds like a child pleading for his life. No, no, I don't want to die yet, Bucky I thought we were friends, don't let him do this, I'm not going to come back, please I don't want to die on and on and on. Crying and screaming. Bruce scowls, concentrating on breathing as he digs to find the circuit. The robot starts making breathy, panicky breathing sounds, like it's become short of breath despite not breathing, and it lets out a blurted, teary--Help me!--before Bruce yanks the damn chip out and crushes it in his fist. The voice stops short. The room is silent, and Bruce needs to keep breathing.

"Well..." He takes another deep breath. "He sounds like a cute kid."

He'll need to meditate before he can cannibalize the parts. Breathing. Air. In and out. He glances at Bucky. "How are you holding up?"

Bucky is trembling, the sort of fine nervous trembling that belies someone fighting to stay still and not lash out. He wants to yank the orb back and stop the noise, the threats of the Capitol through Aang's voice and the panicked breathing like he was having a asthma attack and didn't that just hit more of Bucky's buttons. He could scream himself for all the good it would do.

He keeps quiet, he keeps still and finally there is blessed silence.

"He is..." he manages, hoarsely, taking a deep breath to try and calm his racing heart down, reaching for the grounding techniques Sam had tried to teach him before the arena. Childishly he wants his tribble but that's far and away impossible right now.

Somehow, Bucky is aware enough to know better than to lie right now, "Not great."

Bruce risks a look at Bucky. The man looks terrible. If Bruce is shaken, he doesn't want to imagine how Bucky feels right now.

(He'd never admit it, but Bruce really wants his tribble too right about now.)

Breathe. In and out. Bruce takes a glance at the room, then at the hall outside of it, judging them safe from any immediate threats before slowly sitting on the ground, rolling the silent orbs gently into a corner for the moment. "I'll show you how I calm down from stuff like this." He pats the floor in front of him with one shaky hand. "Take a seat. This should help."

Bucky slowly blinks down at Bruce, like he's taking a moment to process what he's being told before he sits, almost collapses, down like a puppet with its strings cut. His body feels far too tight, especially around his chest. There's a vice around his lungs that's on the verge of making it impossible to breath.

The whole world seems too sharp, painful to look at.

"What do I do?" he asks, a small tremble in his voice.

"Get comfortable. Keep your back straight. You can close your eyes too, if that doesn't make you too uncomfortable. I'll keep an eye on what's going on around us." Bruce understands if Bucky doesn't want to keep his eyes closed inside of an arena, but if he chooses to, he can trust Bruce to make sure nothing sneaks up on them.

"Then focus on the feeling of breathing." Bruce deliberately slows his voice down. Makes it lower. Calmer. As soothing as he can manage. "Don't try to control your breathing. Just feel it. There's a lot of noise in your head right now, but don't pay attention to it. Don't let it distract you from the breathing."

Close his eyes? He doesn't know if he can, even with Bruce's word that he will keep watch on the area around them. It's not that Bucky doesn't trust him to keep his word, the man has proven himself as an ally before, but that he is all too aware of the many present dangers that the arena holds.

Then again, if he goes into a full blow panic attack here Bucky will be no good against anything, whether his eyes were open or not.

Taking the initiative to compromise he lowers his gaze down into his lap, keeping his eyes on his hands instead of his surroundings. For now this is the best he can do on that front.

Next the breathing. Bucky tries to do as Bruce asks and not listen to the part of him inside that wants to rail against what he's just witnessed. It's easiest to count. One, two, three... they're too quick and short but he's trying. Five, six, seven...

Eyes on hands. That's still better than Bruce was really expecting.

Bruce makes a point to make his own breathing slow. Something else Bucky can count, if he's so inclined. Something to help the other man time his own quick, panicky breathing.

"While you concentrate on that, start sweeping out any other thoughts you may have. Clear them out. You might not be able to do it perfectly your first time. That's fine. Don't get frustrated. If they're not leaving, just keep concentrating on the breathing, and they'll eventually go on their own."

They flick to the side a couple of times before Bucky resolutely makes himself stay focused on his hands. Yen, eleven, twelve...

He's listening, breathing and slowly but surely that is starting to calm down. That might be a hitch now and again when the memory of the robot orbs spikes but the progress is inevitably moving towards Bucky calming down.

Don't think. Don't think. Like when he was waiting for the target, his sniper rifle in his hands and his only focus was on what he was to do. Nothing else mattered, so push it all out of mind.

Bruce lets them stay in silence for a while. Just breathing. He waits until he himself has forgotten the sound of screaming children and teammates.

"Counting your heartbeat until it's slowed down can also be helpful." Bruce lets out a soft puff of breath. "Once you have cleared out your head, try clearing it of the counting too. It's okay if you can't make your mind completely blank. It usually takes a lot of practice."

He's quiet again, giving Bucky room to work on it himself. He keeps an ear out for any sound of something approaching them, but otherwise, he focuses on his own breathing, on his own peace. Over the years, he's gotten good at meditating. He feels his own heartbeat slowing to a crawl.

"You can stop whenever you're ready. We're not in a rush, though. Take all the time you need."

Bucky gives a tiny nod but otherwise doesn't respond.

He counts, he breathes, he stops counting and then he just is for a while. It's not as hard to sink into himself, to find that space away from the horrors as he might have initially imagined. Probably he's done it before when he needed to escape, when he just needed to be as horrors were carried out around him.

It takes half an hour before Bucky lifts his head again, about all the time he can let himself have when around them is constant danger. He looks at Bruce and licks his dry lips before speaking. "Thank you."

"Any time." He means that.

He stands up, brushing himself off before picking up the two silent robots. "I do that every morning when I wake up, and then every evening before I go to sleep. If you want to join me for either, you're welcome to."

Then he starts walking back to their base.

Bucky believes him. In his time with Bruce he's never known the man to lie, not once.

He watches him pick up the robots, still feeling that revulsion at their existence but understanding that Bruce could put what they were made of to good use. He nods to the offer and trails after the other man back to laboratory.

The day the earth stood still [closed]

for Sam

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For Bruce

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Ready to wrap up?

Yep!