Those would be the best memories

[actually112]

WHO| Aang and Bucky (MCU)
WHAT| Aang has powers to show off to Bucky. And games to drag him into.
WHEN| Soon after the beginning of the arena.
WHERE| Science labs.
WARNINGS| Little boys trying to make grown men act like kids.

Aang is having the time of his life.

He has his bending. There's a bunch of puzzle rooms full of things to play with and robots that he has no reason to worry about hurting. There's water, there's air, there's fire--a complete lack of nice earth, but some rocks that he can sometimes get his hands on.

All he needs is someone to have fun with, but he can enjoy himself before he finds someone to drag into it. At the moment, he's sitting on a ball of air and scooting on it from wall to wall up to the ceiling while frustrated turrets try to shoot him down, and his laughter bounces off the metal walls.

Comments

[tookthewheel]

The turrets are distracted by Aang which makes his job easier.

A metal hand reaches from the shadows and with extraordinary strength crushes first one turret, then another. Bucky casts his disapproving gaze Aang's way without needing to say a word as he moves fast and quiet, faster than any normal man could, to wreck every single one of the robots. The last one let's out an electonic screech as his fist strikes through its center, then it's dead and sparking like all the rest

Finding Aang taunting turrets was not the surprising part given that the boy seemed to live to court danger. The surprising part was that he was doing it while riding on a ball of air.

Even the Winter Soldier is surprised by that.

"Aang." he shakes off broken scraps of metal and wire from his fingers as he steps forwards.

[actually112]

Aang hears the dying cries of the turrets before he hears Bucky. He looks down (or up, as it were, since he's upside down on a ball of air on the ceiling) when he hears his name, then gives a big grin, as if he hadn't just been taunting a whole pack of potentially lethal robots.

"Hi, Bucky!"

All at once, the ball of air disappears and he's falling to the ground, his arms outstretched like a bird, and before he can hit the ground and break something, a gale of wind pushes itself from the floor to greet him, slowing his descent until he lands lightly on the balls of his feet.

"The bending's back!"

As if it isn't obvious.

[tookthewheel]

Good thing, because Bucky tensed up and looked ready to dive forward and catch him before Aang saved himself from a hard collision with the ground. The former-Asset's eyes are a little wide in surprise at what he's seeing.

"All Tributes superhuman abilities have been returned." he says at first, looking Aang over in case of any injury still. "... bending is different than what I expected."

[actually112]

It's because Aang apparently lives to slowly kill Bucky with little heart attacks every day.

"Isn't it great? Look!"

Aang is in show off mode right now. With a bright grin, he swoops his arm and stomps the ground, little crystals and minerals flying from the robot carcasses before coming to surround him, compressing their circle until they're flying around his open hands. "They use rocks in the robots. Not too many, but I can still bend them." And with a flex of his muscles which travels down his forearms, little flames burst to life on his palms, crackling cheerfully, and their light is caught and refracted by the crystals harvested from the robots. They cast brilliant lights on Aang's face. "And there's water in the walls. I'd show you waterbending too, but I think I'd probably break something important if I tried taking the water out of the walls."

He starts looking at the room, already distracted (because he has his bending back and he's very excitable okay), perking up as the fire in his palms goes out and the fragments of rocks fall to the floor. "I wonder if there's water in the next room."

He looks at Bucky again, a positively devilish smile on his face. "I bet I can get to the next room faster than you."

[tookthewheel]

Bucky's life wouldn't be complete without some little punk trying to indirectly kill him that way.

There's no way he can't on some level be impressed by the skills Aang is showing off and internally Bucky is rapidly reassessing the boy's abilities to fight and defend himself when this bending is in effect. It probably shows on his face too, eyes widened and mouth hanging slightly open until he gets a hold of himself. There might be plenty of strange occurences like that in Bucky's homeworld now; aliens, God's, a man who turned into a giant green rage monster... but Bucky had slept through all of that and probably wouldn't have been allowed to remember it even if he hadn't, so seeing Aang wield the elements with such apparent ease definitely surprises him.

"Aang--" he starts, then stares as if he's not sure what he just heard, talking dubiously. "You want to race?"

[actually112]

"Weeeeell, you just took out all the robots in this one, so I guess it's not fair if this is all of the race. Last one to get to the room after the next one is a rotten owlcat egg!"

Aang, bursting with even more bubbly energy than usual (if that's even possible), taps Bucky's metal bicep like he's tagging him before rushing past. It's such an instinctive thing that he doesn't even realize he did it. Then he's running, much faster than should be humanly possible because of the wind moving with him, and he uses the air expertly to supplement momentum to get him over pits and traps, sometimes even using it to run on the walls. With his bending, he's a thousand times more slippery and maneuverable than without.

Hurry up, Bucky, or you'll get left behind.

[tookthewheel]

"Aang!"

He calls the boys name, startled for the briefest moment before his reaction time kicks in and Bucky launches himself forwards. Aang is faster than he should be and it becomes clear soon enough he is using his powers to speed himself along but Bucky is no slouch either and Aang is going to find it a challenge to beat him.

The renewed serum pulses through his veins, racing in time with adrenaline to spur him onwards, moving faster than any normal human adult has a right to. Where Aang uses the air to propel himself forwards Bucky simply leaps, propelling himself off the ground or against the walls, using the metal arm to get handholds that shouldn't be possible or simply smash obstacles aside.

He's not thinking of it as a race, not to start with, he's thinking of it as making sure Aang doesn't run headfirst into danger alone. Yet as they rush forwards some of that mindset slips, letting the part of him that finds it thrilling raise its head and take notice.

[actually112]

"Bucky!" Aang calls back with bright, bubbly amusement, trying and failing to mimic Bucky's disapproving tone. The man is definitely no slouch--faster and stronger than maybe any other nonbender Aang has met, which he hadn't expected, but that just means that there might be a challenge to be had!

"Is that all you got?" he teases before jumping off the ground, letting the wind help him rise before landing on a high platform. "I thought I was supposed to be the old man!" His laughter rings in the room before he swirls his hands and creates another ball of churning wind, throwing it under himself so he can ride it along the walls.

[tookthewheel]

"Not by much, kid." Bucky grouses as he chases him, not even a little out of breath at this point.

This is running like he hasn't in months, this is stretching his body to all its well cultured abilities. He realises with a start that he's enjoying it, even though he's unsure he can actually keep up with Aang or beat him (and when did he actually start thinking about beating him as a priority? Racing is not supposed to be a good idea).

Ig Aang was a target -- he is not a target -- he could slow him down, take him out... but in a race where the priority is not to harm then Bucky is finding himself outpaced. He's a little irked, as he is supposed to be superior, so they always told him to be, but not to the extent he can't appreciate Aang's skills and abilities that allow him to outpace the Winter Soldier.

They hurtle into the next room, Bucky bare seconds after Aang.

[actually112]

Aang, for his part, is having a blast. No reservations about it. He's never seen anyone keep up with his air scooter on foot before, so color him pretty darn impressed.

The new room is fresh full of puzzles and angry turrets and robots and--

"Hey, they have water!" He sounds positively gleeful at the prospect. In the middle of the room, there's a wall-to-wall pool of water, which is probably somehow incredibly dangerous and meant to be an obstacle that a person could use fancy physics to get across, but Aang has an air scooter. He just scoots across the water, his scooter skimming the surface and leaving ripples.

As soon as he touches down on the other side, he stops the scooter and lands lightly on the balls of his feet, pausing briefly in what is probably an ill-advised underestimation of his opponent. Several turrets in platforms above begin to hum and turn to shoot at him, but he crouches down and snaps his arms outward. With the motion, the water behind him rises, like it's growing arms, and the arms turn to ice mid-air before stretching to stab the offending turrets through their cores.

Yesssss it's good to waterbend again. As Aang makes his air scooter again, the turrets start twitching and sparking. "Oh, I think the water's electrified. Don't touch it!" The ice melts away back into the pool of water, leaving the remaining turrets to try to avenge their fallen brethren.

[tookthewheel]

Threat he calcuates as soon as they're in the room, immediately throwing himself to the right as he enters that has his metal elbow make a clunking sound on the floor. It does help him avoid a spray of laser fire, though, all the better to be alive to see Aang take out about half the turrets by literally moving the water with his powers and frying their electronics.

It's effective, he'll give him that. "Noted!"

That's about all the pause he gives before he runs again, avoiding another attempt by the turrets to kill him and leaping against the wall, planting his feet onto the surface and rebounding off it in a spring that takes him behind the killer robots. They're not very good at turning around, which allows him to repeat his earlier performance and start dismantling them with his cybernetic arm.

He feels distinct satisfaction at each electronic death rattle. With them gone he takes a moment to collect himself and get his eyes back on Aang.

[actually112]

Aang is trying to concentrate on the race, but it's hard when there's just so much fun to be had. He had never appreciated how much fun bending is until it was taken away.

So he might be getting distracted by breaking robots.

He breaks some of them by just pulling the pieces of stone and minerals from them. Stomping the ground, drawing his arms in, and with the motion, minerals used in circuitry and infrastructure punch their way out of the robots' chassis, but it's boring to break them that way. He wants to do something creative, because bending is just as much based in creativity as it is in skill. So without looking back, he evaporates water from the pool, making a visible cloud of steam that he swirls in his hands, hardening the steam again into sharp points of ice over the tips of his fingers. With a flick of his wrist, the ice flies off his fingers, driving their way through the glass of a few turrets' 'eyes', driving into the circuitry and short-circuiting them. He does this while he runs, but he's slowed by his distractions and fun.

[tookthewheel]

Bucky pulls his arm out of the innards and starts watching Aang destroy the rest with his bending. It's fascinating to watch and the assassin couldn't even begin to try and understand how it worked. It made Aang, a young, skinny child into a potentially formidable opponent.

If he can do that to robots then Bucky can't help but wonder what he could do to people.

But before he goes down too far with that train of thought another interrupts it, another which points out that there is a race still on and while Aang is busy focusing on destroying the robots the lead in that race is waiting to be taken. It's an impulsive, mischievous thought entirely unlike the Soldier, only felt once before at the Crowning when he chased Steve with the paint gun. He could win this.

He still lingers until he's certain that Aang will not be harmed before bolting onwards ahead of him.

[actually112]

If Aang were so inclined, he could obliterate a human with very little effort. There are a lot of ways to do it--bend a stalagmite out of the ground beneath a person and impale them, bend the sweat on a person's skin to rip through their flesh, bend flames on a person's clothes, force enough air into their mouth that their lungs exploded... He has the skill and the creativity, but he is far too gentle to even imagine it.

"Hey!" He notices when Bucky races ahead. He hadn't expected it, since the man seemed to only humor him with games, so he can't help a laugh escaping into his voice when he calls, "Cheater!"

Of course, it's not at all cheating to take advantage of him not paying attention, but details. He's still laughing when he starts running properly again, the wind pushing him along just as it had before, but Bucky's got a head start.

[tookthewheel]

Aang failed to specify any rules against such action so Bucky's going to take full advantage of that. He can tell, he thinks, that Aang isn't actually displeased with his choice to take advantage of his distraction.

It's a race and he's going to win if he can. There's a competitive streak that belongs to Bucky Barnes somewhere in there.

He needs to make it to the next room as with his powers Aang is quicker than Bucky is, his head start has bought him a few seconds only. Making a beeline for the door he sams his hand against the access panel and waits impatiently for it to open, reaching with metal fingers to try and help it along.

[actually112]

Aang's laughter quiets as he concentrates, bolting so quickly that wind and dust pick up and make a cloud behind him, but with the headstart and the metal arm forcing the door open, Bucky gets in just a fraction of a second before Aang soars past.

He skids to a stop a little way's in the room (actually skids--a cloud of kicked up dust swirls up from his feet all the way to his waist), and he starts to laugh. It's the same bright and happy laugh that he has normally, but there's this strange sense of the air and ground pulsing without anything actually moving at all, like he's infused the elements with his joy and the world's laughing with him. Even when he isn't bending, there's a tangible difference between him with and without powers.

"Man, that was fun! Okay, you got that one. You're pretty fast." For all his competitiveness, he can admit when he's bested.

The turrets in the room all began to make the mechanical noises that came with turning towards them, recognizing organic lifeforms and aiming for them. Aang spared them a glance, still bouncing on the balls of his feet before he shoots Bucky a sly smile.

"Buuuuuut I bet I could break more of those things than you can."

[tookthewheel]

Bucky can feel the triumph coursing though him, a sense of accomplishment he'd usually solely attributed to the successful completion of a mission, target down and no complications. This feels better because no one got hurt, it's just him and Aang in a friendly challenge.

Any doubts he might have had about that are swept away when his young friend doesn't get angry at Bucky winning (not that he'd ever think it of Aang but there's a subconscious expectation...) but instead smiles and moves on to a new game. In return Bucky gives him a shadow of a smile and nods, "We'll see."

Then he's flinging himself to the side to avoid the laser fire and using the cover of lab table to skirt the room and get closer to the turrets.