thearena | [Closed] When everyone's dropping like flies...

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[Closed] When everyone's dropping like flies...

WHO| Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes (MCU)
WHAT| A man and a Buckling mope and bond.
WHEN| After Steve kicks the arena bucket.
WHERE| Level two.
WARNINGS| Talk of death

Tony is really starting to feel the effects of lasting in the arena. Sure, he watched Steve, and Thor die in previous arenas from the outside... While drunk. But now, on the inside personally seeing Bruce just bleed out on him as he desperately tried to fix it, knowing it wasn't going to happen. Being told that Dave had died in an equally terrible way, and just a few short hours ago Bucky and Tony came across Steve, or at least his body. Each time there was nothing Tony could do to prevent it.

It was Yinsen all over again.

It was all those innocent soldiers dying because he was too wrapped up in himself to realise that he was the cause of their deaths.

After Bruce's death, Tony had been a little more reserved. Dave's had him introspective. But Steve had him damn near silent. Full of intense focus, but nothing to really focus on, not enough data no clear thing to fight, none of the right resources to work with. It wasn't the first time Tony felt so adrift at sea but he had to admit it's not at all a feeling he wanted to ever feel again. He wasn't alone in the Arena, he was still with Thor and Bucky. However, he was so used to being alone that instead of turning to the others for solidarity and solace, like a normal well-adjusted person. He withdraws into himself.

As it is now, Tony is sitting off from the others, still keeping close enough in case someone decides to take advantage of his seemingly less observant state, but still enough to give him obvious distance to let himself brood of the people he's temporarily lost. There has been just as many he's met but doesn't know too well or only heard they died in passing. Though at this moment he's to mentally numb from not just being in the arena, but the near brain melting alarm that till has his ears ringing and muting most of what he hears, but also from those who have died he has actually let himself become attached to for various reasons.

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If Tony had been near silent since they discovered Steve's death wrong, wrong and not him, not the way Steve should die, alone then the man who trailed at his heels made him look positively chatty.

Bucky was so silent in stride, let alone in lack of speech that it would take glancing backwards to know for sure he still followed. He did though, he followed Tony like a lost shadow, like a drowned man clinging to a piece of driftwood in a tumultuous ocean.

He'd failed. Failed spectacularly, he didn't understand why he kept failing. He'd never failed before, not when he was the Weapon doing HYDRA's work but now he seemed to fail at every turn, useless and broken. He needed recalibration and repairs because when they found Steve's body he hadn't been able to think, hadn't been able to move as his mind fogged up and there was an unknown tightness in his throat. He doesn't know what to do with the Mission gone, with his friend gone.

Bucky Barnes wouldn't have reacted that way, he would have yelled and sworn and cried, lashed out. The Asset didn't, the Asset turned quiet, trailing behind a point of familiarity in search of desperately needed guidance without having the words to voice it.

He thinks about this as he walks, simultaneously grateful and hateful of his own distorted ability to feel, tightening both his hands into fists -- and the metal one lets out an electronic whine at the motion.

For the most part, Tony had been trying to ignore Bucky constantly being in his shadow since they found Steve. But it was getting harder and harder to do.

Especially when he's so used to just being on his own. He scrubs his face in irritation, because dealing with the fact he's had to see the deaths of two people who certainly didn't need or deserve to die the way they did let alone at all, he can't also deal with a shadow that breaths as well.

"Would you please stop being just behind me. I feel like you're going to do something to my person, sit down or go stand behind Thor and breath on his neck."

His tone is snippy.

"I..." Bucky tenses as he's rounded on, but doesn't drop his gaze or look away, instead looking at Tony uncertainly. "I ain't going to do anything to you."

He has no intentions of hurting Tony, not that intentions helped before -- but that had been an accident, lashing out in fear. This is... this is different, he doesn't want to be alone, floundering in the wake of what they'd discovered. Tony is an ally and the arena is dangerous, there's still a directive to follow to keep their allies safe.

Maybe he can still do that.

Tony stares at him for a long moment, he knows that Bucky doesn't have the intention to hurt him at all. That doesn't make him being where he can't immediately see him, especially in the arena, still makes Tony very anxious.

He also narrows his eyes a little. 'ain't', looks like Brooklyn's starting to fight back the programming.

Ultimately he just shakes his head.

"That just meant stand where I can see you. You're making my hair stand on end, Pinocchio."

"Oh." he acknowledges after a moment. The little sound escaping him with as much notice as 'ain't' did, a slip of humanity poking its head through as undeniable emotion beat at the walls of programmed in behaviour, slipping through the cracks.

Bucky moves forwards, placing himself at Tony's side with a comfortable gap between them so the other man can see him.

"I wasn't supposed to walk next to anyone." he says quietly, as way of explanation. It was one of the small insidious ways HYDRA had worked to exert their dominance over him.

"You're off the leash, puppy. You can walk next to whomever you like now"

He offers dryly, because Tony himself has never been one to like walking behind others, or having them walk behind him when there was no need for them to be like that.

He looks at Bucky now that he's in line with him, he looks like Tony feels, and he half wonders if he's showing it himself.

"Steve said--" he starts to say, then abruptly cuts off, looking away suddenly to the side.

Steve's death is too raw in his head to comfortably talk about yet. He couldn't help it though when Tony concurred with what his friend had told him too, the words coming out before he even thought about them.

It takes a couple moments before him to look back again, a couple deep breaths in an attempt to steady himself. "You're right." he says instead. "I still forget."

Tony's jaw tightens when Bucky says Steve's name, and pointedly doesn't look at him for it.

He's never been good with dealing with death, after his parents had died his drunken and debauched exploits were in the paper more than they had been before, and if Yinsen hadn't of died, Tony wouldn't have been so determined to make sure everything burned, just his weapons.

But Steve hadn't really done anything to deserve his death, other than get trapped and slowly bleed away without anyone there for him. Something becoming a recurring theme for him.

"Well there's no blue fairy here. So remembering and becoming a real boy, all on you." He snips back before roughly running his fingers through his hair. He knows he probably shouldn't be so sharp to Bucky, he is still working around being reprogrammed, but it's not something he wants to be gentle about right now.

Blue fairy. Real boy. Pinnochio.

Any reaction to the connection though is overshadowed by a sharp bust of irritation at the way Tony snaps at him. He has to fight the urge to round on the shorter man and tries to bite back words behind his teeth, almost choking on them. He fails.

"Shut up."

It's not a shout but there's clear emotion in it, a rough growl of words that belong to a man and not a machine as Bucky stares Tony down.

Tony blinks at him as he's told to shut up. Okay he wasn't really used to Bucky actually using emotion at him so it is certainly a surprise. Sadly it's not really doing his own mood any better.

"Excuse me?"

He comes back with in a flinty tone, but doesn't make any other physical reaction other than to look irritated. At least it's distracted him from moping.

"Don't..." he starts, grimaces, "Don't talk to me like that."

He's working well on that 'real boy' thing, isn't he. Getting riled up, defending himself instead of clamming up and backing off.

The line of his shoulders is tense, his hands tightened into fists.

He licks his lips in frustration and scowls a bit. Then shakes his head, and waves a dismissive hand.

He can't. Taking out on people is something he does occasionally do, but people who are very used to him and ignore him, he can't do it to Bucky, there's so many reasons as to why he shouldn't do it. So instead he just sags down onto a near by bench. Then sighs.

"It's not been a good week."

Bucky was waiting for the retort, perhaps for the punishment for speaking out of turn and he doesn't expect Tony to sink down the way he does onto the bench, like any fight there might have been suddenly went out of him.

Cautiously he moves after him, not sitting down himself but occupying the space close-by in front of the other man. "No." he concedes, "It hasn't."

He feels tired, more than he knows. His human fingers drift over to the metal arm, recount all the hurts he's suffered so far and lingers on the people already gone. "I don't know what to do."

Tony shakes his head when Bucky admits to know knowing what to do, not in the 'get this thought out of your head' way like before, it's more of a head shake to imply he doesn't know what to do either. Then he slowly runs his hands through his hair leaving his hands at the back of his neck, fingers entwining in themselves.

"Can't get the variables for this one." He mutter's before dropping his hands and looking at the floor in between Buckys leg. "No blueprints to work with." he lets out with a breath, sounding tired and defeated.

Slowly Bucky crouches in front of him, he feels slightly despairing that Tony has no answers to give him. He wants direction badly right now, a mission to follow in the wake of losing Steve.

He needs -- what would Steve want them to do? He tries to think about it. He thinks Steve would want him to keep protecting his friends.

"You can try and win." he suggests.

His body doesn't move, though his eyes do flick up to Bucky as he suggests that he tries to win.

"No armor, barely what's left of a useful weapon?" Tony opens his hand to show the very scrappily put together one use repulsor device that was wrapped around his hand and wrist. That would very likely give him serious burns the second he used it.

"The fact I'm still alive now, well I was watching everyone die from the capitol pretty early on last time." Tony clears his throat and pushes back down a stubborn wire from behind the little repulsor.

He does straighten up a little regarding the other in full now.

"Don't worry Barnes, I'm not really good at giving up."

Bucky's eyes flicker down as Tony speaks of the weapon. The words dance on the tip of his tongue because, after all, what is he but a weapon? No, he's more than that, he's also a man. He's supposed to be a man, he tries to remember it but it's hard, especially in the arena, especially now with the unwanted emotion of grief pulling him down.

It would be easier to be a weapon. "You have me."

With that he shifts, sitting down himself on the bench, cradling his left arm across his lap. "Though I'm damaged."

He failed to protect Steve, this means he can't win or else risk not being in the next arena. It's better he try and see one of the people Steve valued through to the end instead.

Tony looks at Bucky when he says he has him. Making the connection between weapons and then just snorts.

"I'm pretty sure that describes our whole group." He says nothing for a moment before looking at the damaged arm. "I've got some improvised tools left. I could probably do something with it, maybe."

He offers tentatively, his chest aching a little in warning about what happened last time Tony encountered Bucky's arm. But Tony needs a distraction and really at least he offered this time.

Bucky looks at him, trying to assess whether that statement connects to either his own statement of being damaged or being a weapon, or both. It doesn't matter he thinks, they still function for now.

The offer is one he knows he should listen to and though he has been wary of Stark since that first disastrous attempt to touch his arm he notes and is thankful for the fact that this is not said as a given. It is dependent on Bucky to decide whether to accept and allow the assistance or not.

His eyes travel down to it, pulling back the cloth sleeve to reveal the damage better. Some of the plates are bent and unable to move smoothly, blackened around the edges from where the blonde woman had been digging the scissors inside. That was only cosmetic damage though, the real issues were further inside with the circuitry that kept sending small shocks up through the arm and into him. Trying to fight with the arm like this had already proven dangerous, he had almost been taken out of the arena earlier because of it, would have been but for--

Bucky takes a breath, two, gauging himself. He can do this, it is necessary and he makes the choice, no one else.

"Please."

He watches quietly as Bucky lifts the sleeve, while the owner of the arm looks at the superficial damage, Tony does too. And for the most part he knows he can't do much with any of that, he'd need more tools for that.

When permission is given, Tony moves a little to get a better look at the arm, but doesn't move to touch it right away. He's caught up in assessing what he can see, working out where can be opened to work on it and what should be left alone.

Then delicately Tony starts to touch and prod at it, slowly working out the best places to open and look into.

"It wont be a great job, understand. I only have makeshift screwdriver and pliers. But I could probably fix the reaction times and try and get you a smoother movement again."

Bucky concentrates on taking slow breaths, of reminding himself this is as far from HYDRA's treatment as he could be. He is not restrained or under guard, there are no men with guns or drugs, there is not the chair and if he needs to he is perfectly capable of stopping Tony on his own. If he is in danger at the moment it is because they are in the arena, not for allowing the man to take a look at fixing his arm.

"It's fine." he replies to the assessment, "I only need to be able to fight with it." As it was now the arm was more a detriment than an asset to his capability.

He lifts his head and gazes around them. At this stage in the game there are fewer players to come across them, still if they are going to engage in what could be a time consuming activity they should relocate to somewhere more secure. "We should find a better place for you to work."

"Well if nothing else I can get you a maneuverable blunt object with it." His voice is low as he get's to work on fixing the arm, showing his mind isn't completely on the task about talking about things that isn't what he's immediately doing.

He screws a few loose things down and then starts working on twisting together a wire that had been severed.

"The best place for me to work right now, is New York." He squints into the arm for a second before rubbing off some soot char from something that sparked. "So for now. We have to make do with... Here."

He continues to busy himself with the arm, annoyed that he really can't do more than a cheap patch job.

"That's usually what it's for." Bucky replies. It seems to be a pattern of what jokes he makes to be disguised as factual statements.

He watches Tony at first but the sight of the man's fingers digging into the arm's innards soon proves too disturbing to keep an eye on. Bucky instead lifts his head and looks over Tony's shoulder, then at their surroundings, keeping an eye out for danger.

He could try insisting they move again but he feels too exhausted to argue further, deferring to Tony's judgement. "New York is where you live?"

New York filters into the idea of Brooklyn, the place he was supposedly born.

Tony huffs his own amusement at Bucky's reply, it still doesn't have all the amusement it could have to it, but it along with letting Tony work on his arm does help bring some of Tony's levity back.

He's oblivious to Bucky's preference to watch for danger than watch the other man dig around in his arm, there was at least some part of Tony that would have understood the feeling if he had been aware of it.

"Born there, well. Long Island, grew up on 5th Avenue. Ran away to Malibu, then came back after someone...' He frowns at a bit of wiring out of his reach until he pulls out his makeshift pliers and starts to pull it out. "Uh. Blew it up. So I came back to New York. I had a tower there anyway, so it made sense."

Long Island. 5th Avenue. He knows those places, he remembers those names though maybe he had never been there. "Blew it up?"

There's a story there, he's somewhat interested in knowing what it is.

"I'd like to go to New York." the desire wasn't known until he said it. It makes sense, it was where he had been born and grown up before the war. Maybe there he could find more of his memories in something familiar. "You own a tower?"

"Uh. Yeah, various missiles were fired into my home from about 4 helicopters. Which was rude, but technically my fault."

He gives Bucky a short glance when he expressive a want to see New York.

"Well it's probably a lot different than how you don't remember it. Taller at least." He taps his pliers against his lip thoughtfully before going back to work. "Can't be sure about which one was cleaner though, there's a certain level of objectivity when you think about it. I mean we don't have people with polio, but we've got smog."

He pulls back from the arm.

"How's that? Let me know if it needs more work." He pauses. "All 90 floors are mine, yes."

"Who?" he almost suspects HYDRA by default to do something like that except it seems far too overt for them. If they'd wanted Tony Stark dead they might have sent him or a similar assassin, or worked through a front.

He considers for a moment, "James Buchanan Barnes was born in Brooklyn." that's about as much answer as he can give for his desire to return there. Maybe he's hoping something could be triggered by returning to his home, maybe it already has by the need to go back there.

From the sounds of it though he might not find the familiarity he'd be looking for.

Bucky sits up straight and lifts the arm, moving it through the series of simple exercises designed to range through it's full dexterity that the technicians had taught him to do. It moves smoother than it did, with less ugly grinding noises though he can tell it is still not perfect. It's fine, Tony had said not to expect it to be and so long as he can fight with it as he said before Bucky will cope. "It's better."

"What do you need 90 floors for?"

"Uh, someone from my past. That I didn't even remember until he wanted to kill me and make Pepper 'better', like she could be better than she is. All the wrong priorities."

He shakes his head to move the thought on, because Killian really wasn't worth his time.

"I know where you were born, Barnes. It's in the school books and on The History Chanel. Believe me. Where you and Cap grew up isn't at all a mystery, even if it is to you."

He watches Bucky test the arm out, his eyes catching things that he could fix with every movement, if only he had the tools resources and time to do it.

"Well it's my company headquarters and home, so really I have a great need for 90 floors, though really since some remodeling it is technically less than 90 floors, but I'm just going to go from my original plans that had 90 floors."

Not HYDRA then, perhaps. He doesn't speak the thought aloud, like saying the words might summon HYDRA's ghost to proceedings and he has enough issues with how it follows him around as it is. It's hard not to see their hand everywhere, in everything.

"I remember." Bucky says after a moment, of course, the museum. "So many people know my life better than I do." it comes out more bitter than he would have intended as he clenches his metal hand into a fist, a flash of emotion escaping his Soldier facade.

That explains it. The tower wasn't just his home but his place of business.

"Don't feel bad. More people know about my life than I do at times. Unnerving and creepy at times. But really when you are essentially a prominent historical figure. People are going to not only know about you, but write papers on you too."

Tony gives him something of a sympathetic look before gesturing to bring the arm back so he can do some finishing touches then close everything back up.

"But you remember your life. You know who you are." Bucky says to him with a furrow between his eyebrows. He shakes his head, clearly rattled by the idea, like it was just striking him how prominently his past featured in American history despite what he'd seen at the Smithsonian. "It was so long ago."

But people still remembered him... though surely not as much as they remember Steve, as they know Steve after he came back from the ice but Bucky Barnes isn't forgotten. He wonders what all those people would think if they knew what he'd done after giving his life in service for his country.

Obediently he does as Tony asks, moving the arm back where Tony can comfortably reach it.

Edited 2014-11-03 21:19 (UTC)

"Mostly because Pepper, and J.A.R.V.I.S don't let me forget." He offers dryly. Because really, there is a lot of difference between himself and Bucky.

As he gets his hands back on the arm, he clicks a few things back into plays and pokes around a little more to do his final tweeks then makes sure everything is all closed up.

"There we go, lighting rod, right as rain."

He doesn't know who those people are but he mentally equivalates them with Steve, Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, when Tony puts it like that. Friends, they must be.

Tony finished what he's doing and Bucky stands up afterwards, turning the arm in the joint, nothing how much more smoothly it moves. "Thanks. We should move back to a secure location now."

"And in here, where is that going to be?"

Tony gives him a bland look, because really, no where in the arena is secure. At least not in Tony's eyes. He pockets his makeshift tools and stands while wiping his hands on his pants. There really wasn't that much that needed wiping off, however it was a habit formed from all those yers of working on cars and robotics.

Despite what he's said he's clearly going to follow the one with ingrained militaristic knowledge to what he considers secure.

It pauses him momentarily, his eyes searching across the space around them before he amends what he just said. "Somewhere more secure. Enclosed and defensible."

Bucky looks back at Tony to make sure he's intending to follow before starting to walk. They're still alive for now and he's going to do his best to keep it that way for as long as he can.

Running a hand through his hair, Tony stands and looks around at what's left of the area they're in.

"Lead the way, Tonto."

Is all he says as he closes the distance between them.

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[Closed] When everyone's dropping like flies...

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