thearena | Take me down to the river bend [Open]

Who| MCU!Bucky, Elsa and Anna, MCU!Bucky and the Signless, MCU!Bucky and OTA
What| Bucky getting his murder on and also roaming the mall, come say hi
Where| The Marvel store, Centurion Cineplex and other various locations
When| First half of week 3
Warnings/Notes| Violence, death, Bucky's issues

Prompt A: The Marvel Store

The Marvel store has become his home base. Bucky spends every night here, bar something unexpected forcing him to seek shelter elsewhere. He varies his time between resting, pondering over the curious merchandise or taking care of his numerous collection of weaponry, cleaning the knives and gun in a routine that has proven a reliable way to settle his mind, especially in the long inactive hours of the night when sleep often eludes him.

Mostly Bucky chooses to stay in the part of the store dedicated to Captain America though he can be found wandering through other sections. Sometimes, through morbid fascination, he moves to the merchandise dedicated to him, which represents both his past and his current reality. Blue jackets, an old fashioned snipe rifle, stretchy sleeves of ridged silver material emblazoned with a red star and replicas of the black muzzle and goggles he wore as the Winter Soldier can be found here amongst other objects.

Prompt B: Through the mall, specify your own location

Almost every day Bucky leaves the shelter of the Marvel store and ventures out in the mall, patrolling down the levels and then back upwards again. He never does the same route twice and varies the times he visits certain locations, including what part of the day he'll venture into the food court to stuff supplies in a bag to take back upstairs to his allies, in case someone is watching out for him.

He can be encountered anywhere from the locker room on the ground floor to tribute personalised stores on the third. The only place he may avoid is the bookstore, only passing by the outside because even though he and the other Bucky destroyed all their biographies (so he thinks), the place makes him too uncomfortable to venture back inside when he has the choice not to.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

His blood is up and he's abandoned sniping now after the first kill in favour of actively tracking down his prey instead of waiting for it to come to him. The Soldier heads into the Centurion Cineplex, one place he has not explored frequently before in search of another target, bypassing the concessions stand in favour of methodically starting to search through all of the darkened screen rooms.

With his ensemble of dark clothing he blends into every shadowy theatre space, prowling through rows of seats and completely ignoring whatever is playing on the screen as he does.

It's probably best that he ignores the screen, because this is the theater that's dedicated to the miracle of childbirth. Probably not the most fun place to hide, but the Signless had felt for quite some time that the food court was too exposed and too well-traveled, and Kurloz's death only confirmed that. He had to move, and the theaters are large and dark and perfect for huddling in a corner and blending into the shadows.

He now knows more about human reproduction than he ever wanted to, and he's gotten so good at tuning out the sound of the showing that it takes him a few moments to register the nearby footsteps. Crap. The assessment is a pretty grim one: he's weak and tired, with one arm bandaged, unusable, and a ticking timebomb for infection. Even if he were healthy he couldn't -- wouldn't -- fight, and the only exit would require running past whoever is in here with him. That didn't go too well last time he tried it.

Maybe if he can just very slowy, quietly scoot around the outside wall of the theater and around to the exit, he can get out while this person is still preoccupied searching the seats. It's worth a shot... he just hopes the darkness will mask his movement, even with the bright white cotton bandages and the sequins on his skating outfit reflecting the light from the screen.

Something glints out of the corner of his eye in the darkness, the light from the screen catching and reflecting on the clothing of another tribute in the theatre.

Before he even turns towards it the Soldier pulls out one of his hunting knives and hurls it where the other is lurking with his right hand. A second later and he's pivoted to face the target and charging forwards, too experienced to assume the first attack will have done the job. It was more to throw whoever it was off balance and give him an easier opening in the follow up.

The carbine stays on his back this time as he pulls a serrated blade from his belt in anticipation of the kill.

Bucky's aim is good. The knife hits, and even better it hits the Signless's uninjured arm. The other one he can't even feel through the burns, but this one is suddenly lit up with pain. It's not at all enough to completely drop him but it does make him cry out and once and for all give away his position. He doesn't stop trying to scramble away, but his speed is definitely hindered by two mostly useless arms.

This is probably it. He is probably going to die. He is going to die to the sounds of someone clinically explaining the miracle of human childbirth. He cant decide if it's a good thing that he lasted this long or a bad thing he lasted long enough for this to be how it ends.

The cry has the Asset zeroing in on the targets position like a hound on the scent.

Anticipation of a successful operation tugs on decades of well planted mental conditioning, the urge and need to carry out the mission, to do as he was told and please his commanders. In the past months some of that programming has begun to break down, however it's too strongly embedded in his mind to ignore for long, especially in the arena when the objective is clear and obvious.

His headlong rush closes the distance between them in seconds and the Soldier slashes at the targets face with the knife in his right hand, following that strike up with the metal of his left fist aimed at the others chest.

A second line of blood blooms across Signless's face and he would cry out again except that steel fist to his chest has knocked all the air out of him. Maybe if he just keeps still and doesn't fight it will at least be over quickly. This person doesn't seem to be interested in dragging it out, which is a small blessing.

The target is weak, it doesn't fight back against him, only tries to flee and now stays still in a way that somewhat infuriates the killer inside him, the one who wants the fight.

With the target down he spins the knife back into his belt, seizes the man by his hair and whips him round violently before throwing him face first into the wall. His right hand pulls out a length of fishing line, loops it round the left and while his target is stunned from being thrown into the wall throws the line over his head and pulls it taut against his neck.

Oh. This is familiar, he thinks dazedly. Except last time was all the way back in the desert arena, it was sharpened metal twine, and he'd known the person murdering him.

This is maybe a little better in a weird 'still going to die painfully' sort of way. He closes his eyes and grits his fangs. In just a little while he's be back in his own room, whole and healthy without horrible burns and a cracked horn. He'll eat some proper food for the first time in weeks and then he'll find Karkat and hug him for as long as physically possible and everything will be marginally less terrible than it is right now.

The second he's got the garotte around the targets neck the Soldier focuses on pulling it tight as he possibly can and when you've got a metal arm that's pretty damn tight. Even so, he finds resistance he didn't expect, as if the targets skin is thicker than average, slowing the cutting power of the wire in his neck.

Not to be daunted he doesn't relent, using every inch of his height and power to get the job done.

Even tough troll skin eventually has to give way under the kind of assault the Winter Soldier can dish out. It goes quickly after that, a mix of strangulation and bleeding out weakening an already-weak body until it just gives up entirely.

Finally the target goes down.

With stoic efficiency the Soldier unwinds the garrotte from around his fingers but does not tear it free from where it cut through the targets flesh, leaving the fishing line as he lets the corpse slump downwards onto the theatre's floor. He understands there is no need to be concerned with the body's disposal himself and therefore thinks nothing of leaving it where it falls before going to exit the theatre with nothing more than a single puzzled glance at what's happening on the screen before he slips carefully out of the door.

Take me down to the river bend [Open]

Closed to The Signless

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