thearena | All this nature and I forgot my toggle.

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All this nature and I forgot my toggle.

WHO| The MCU Cast and anyone who passes by!
WHAT| The Avengers make it through their first week!
WHEN| From the middle of the first week to the start of the second week.
WHERE| The caves near the river.
WARNINGS| Talk of death, animal slaughter. Clint.

Tony knew three things.

This wasn't his week. He wasn't dead yet. And it was a really relaxing feeling to be once again surrounded by Avengers in an arena.

While it took them all a few days of crossing each other's path and in at least one instance of one of the team actively trying to Kill Tony, they all for the most part found themselves together making a little camp in a small but defensible cave for them all to sleep in while still able to defend it. To be honest, Tony hated the idea of the cave for very understandable reasons, but made do by trying to sleep as close to the entrance as possible.

The camp had started with Tony and Steve, after Steve had found Tony ~~cowering~~ hiding in a crevice which he used to escape Thor who had only had Tony's extinction in his mind. After that the others came close enough to happen upon it on their own, or by coming across each other during scavenging.

During the week, most of them seemed to get something from Bianca Del Rio and others, none of it remotely unwanted. Tony was especially glad for the fire starter kit, and made a mental note to make sure he gives her those sill booklet things of free foot massages from him. Because right now, that kit was the only thing making him feel of any use, because everything else so far is really escaping him.

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Tony has been spending most of his time by the fire armed with nothing more than a stick the length of a baseball bat and a folding knife, which he's using to remove the leaves and sprouting branches off his stick to make it look more like a weapon and less like an improvises broom. He's focused on it for the most part, but he's still jumpy after his encounter with Thor so sudden loud noises near by have him tense and looking up every time.

"I could really use a coffee about now."

"And I could really use a few sticks of dynamite to throw at the edge of the arena, but we can't all get what we want."

Bruce is next to Tony, using his own knife to carve a bone from a deer they had caught earlier. The hide of the animal is being stretched and dried by two beams of wood towards the back of the cave, the sinew and tendon and organs are being dried, and the meat is being smoked in a makeshift smoker made of stone--it won't be well done, but it will be smoked enough to be preserved--so he's using his time to turn the bones into useful things. Things like needles.

He eyes the stick Tony is trying to sharpen, waffling between offering help and just letting the man be.

"Do you want any tips for that?"

Tony raises a sly eyebrow at Bruce for saying that. Either he's embracing this whole outdoorsy experience and being gruffer for it, or he's getting to really not love the arenas. Sarcastically he refuses to believe it's the latter, if only to amuse himself.

"Coffee keeps my hands steadier than dynamite. Experience has proved that much."

When he actually takes in what Bruce is doing he forgets about his stupid stick and gets curious at Bruce's hands as he watches them work and by association not hearing at all what Bruce asks.

"So. What. You're doing a whole Hannah Montana thing, where you're mild mannered Banner in the city, but actually Bear Grylls in the wilderness?"

"Hannah who? Don't answer that." Guess who has no interest in getting caught up with teen celebrities after ten years away from the states.

Bruce keeps his eyes on his carving, forced to squint from his lack of reading glasses. It would be nice if he could take those into the arena without them being destroyed. "It's easier to survive in civilization, but there was a long time where I stuck as much to the wilderness as possible. I picked up a lot of skills from other people who lived similarly. Eventually, it got too hard to survive alone."

He doesn't specify whether it was physically too trying to constantly hunt for food or too psychologically torturous to have absolutely no human contact. He had tried to completely cut himself off from society, but even for all his grumpiness and introversion, Bruce is human and has human needs. The isolation had been driving him insane.

Tony nods. At first not entirely sure how to reply to that, and just watches him carve.

"I'm starting to feel you are the physical embodiment of Discovery Channel. And I'm going to admit it, this excites me a little." He shakes his head with a grin. "You're one hell of a deep and interesting well, my good doctor."

He knows that there's something potentially dark behind the 'too hard to survive alone' but Tony doesn't want to approach it. Not only is almost everything happening being recorded in the arena, it's also something deep within Bruce that he feels like he shouldn't disturb unless Bruce wants to talk about it.

Tony Stark showing respect for the fact that some things are personal? The devil will be skating to work today.

"I live to please," he says with a hint of good-humored sarcasm. "I can show you how to do some of it. Then you can be the next Discovery Channel man."

He taps the bone in his hand with a smart rapping sound. "I learned this trick pretty early on. I came across a family who saved money by making most of their utensils from the bones of their dead animals. They showed me how to do it after I managed to clear up a nasty infection their son had."

"I already am. Except my domain is the 'how it works' programs."

He gives Bruce a grin, then shifts his focus to the bone and his explination. It makes him grin more, because as shy and suspicious the good doctor can be about things and people, not surprising after what he's had to live through, it seems he never shys away from helping people.

"That sounds. Well, sanitary. Wait, how did they make a fork?... Or a spoon?"

"Don't talk to me about sanitation. I've seen way worse than bone tools."

Bruce is, at heart, a good person, regardless of what he tells himself. The easiest way to get him somewhere is to tell him someone needs help that no one else can give, and that's how Natasha nabbed him for SHIELD.

"It's pretty easy, if you know how to do it. Usually it's a combination of carving and attaching bones to each other. I can show you, if you want."

"Do I even want to ask what's worse than using dense calcium sticks as tools?"

As much as Tony doesn't want to, he does pull a face at how much the idea of carving bones and attaching them to each other makes his skin crawl, after all he's full of bones and can feel everyone of them itch at the thought of anyone carving into them.

"I guess it's something I could look into."

He really doesn't want to, but really he needs what ever edge the others can supply hi with.

"Use your imagination." He's sure Tony can think of less sanitary things than that.

Bruce gestures to the knife he's carving with the knife given to him by a sponsor. "Watch and I can show you." He starts his work again, and as he does, he speaks. "Generally it's advisable to make a handle out of wood and twine, but you can leave part of the bone unsharpened and use that as your handle in a pinch. Only in a pinch, though. If you try to stab anything with that kind of knife, your hand would slide over the blade and cut you. If you have a bone, you want to remove anything from it, like muscle or flesh. Then you try to wash it a little so you can get rid of little bone shards and any bacteria that might be especially infectious."

Unless Tony asked him to stop, he would go through the entire process slowly and carefully as he worked.

"This could work better."

Bucky comes into the cave shaking off water from the rain with a visible expression of distaste (rather like a disgruntled oversized cat). He's relearning how much he dislikes the cold at a rapid pace in this arena. A few month without being shoved into a freezer when he wasn't needed had been a luxury.

Before he begins peeling off his outer layers to let them dry near the fire, he pauses to offer out on of his big hunting knives to Tony. The blade is bigger and sturdier than the one on the folding knife and since once side of it is serrated it might do better for sawing through some of the thicker branches on Tony's stick.

When the knife is offered Tony stops and looks at it giving it a look as if it insulted him before looking at Bucky.

"Yeah, I have a peeve. I. Really don't like being handed things."

Of course Tony knows that this reaction of his is a really weird, stupid issue to have. But for someone who never had a lot of any actual control over his life, it developed as something that he could force control over. He wouldn't take what was handed to him, he would take it in his own time.

Bucky stares back down at him, his eyebrows creeping up towards his hairline at the pronouncement. He then looks considerately at the knife in his hand, draws it back, then tosses it down with a quick flick of his fingers to land, point stuck in the ground, by Tony's leg.

That might be amusement in his eyes before he unzips his parka and drops it to the ground by the fire, before sitting down to tug off his wet boots.

"Why's that?"

"Huh?"

The question actually throws him. After all, people normally just accept that he doesn't like it and move on, either because they don't care to ask or assume he's just going to give some long answer that could end up confusing.

"Ah. It's. Something I've done since I was, 10? I think."

He glances around and runs a hand through his hair, obviously not answering the question correctly.

Bucky finds it an unusual habit, hence the questioning. He tries to reason what could be behind it and can only come to the conclusion that Tony might have a belief in there being potential danger in being handed objects. Yet that shouldn't follow through to people he considered friends or allies, should it?

He gets his boots off, slightly miffed his trick with the knife didn't get more of a reaction, before sitting with his legs crossed in front of the fire. The wave of sudden heat makes his toes and fingers tingle in a way that's not entirely unpleasant.

"You don't remember why you do it?" If it started young then that's entirely possible, he knows not all memory loss happens because of circumstances like his own. Sometimes it was natural.

"Don't talk to me about coffee." Dave moans, shuffling himself a little closer to Tony in the most awkward manner possible. He's wearing about three parkas and he has a blanket wrapped around him as well. Say what you will about how annoying he can be, the sponsors certainly seem to like him with all the gifts he's being given.

"I need something grande, espresso and full of sugar stat. One to dip my toes in and one to drink." He commiserates, then he looks tiredly at the sky as if hoping a sponsor will express post a fresh cup of coffee somehow. "Fuck winter." He says, because saying fuck snow seems like a bad idea.

When Tony looks up at Dave there is a silent second before he actually laughs at Dave and all those layers, because it looks both ridiculous and something you only see on TV.

"Did you get them all on yourself or did someone help?"

Tony doesn't try to stop or distract Dave from getting closer, partly because it goes against his pride to back away from anyone, but also because if he's wearing that much then it's not like he can steal any of Tony's heat all that easily.

It's also funny to watch.

"Never really enjoyed the season either. But I don't think I've really had to deal with this much cold." He looks up and watches the snowflakes fluttering in the air.

Dave purses his lips when Tony of all people practically starts cackling at him. This is precisely why he almost ignored all of these sponsor gifts. He made it about two hours before even a fragile ego like his could suck up the idea of looking stupid in lieu of being warm instead.

"What's it to you?" He asks, clearly bristling at the humorous scrutiny. He just wanted to talk about coffee, Tony. Why are you so cruel? He manages to make his way closer, ridiculously or not.

"I've seen snow like. Once before. On a snow planet with frogs." That was the place where he got shot multiple times through the chest. Universally uncool, he thinks. "As a Texan with copious lava experience, I would not say no to some sort of Amazonian wonderland for the next Arena."

"Well the first thing that comes to mind is cute. And cartoonish. So that's what it is to me. I'm serious though, did you have help getting into all of those?"

He looks at Dave curiously while still grinning.

"Wouldn't say no to a hotter location, it's making me kind of miss Malibu." After Tony reflects for a moment on the ruins he at one point called home, he blinks and then raises an eyebrow. "Snow and frogs?"

Tony is getting the mother of all unimpressed faces at his comparison, Dave shakes his head and wraps his arms a little tighter around his knees while he shoots the older man a look through the side of his shades.

"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. Point is, my nipples aren't about to cut glass and my heart is beating at a normal pace." He pats his chest, which he can't really feel through his jacket. "I could go for Malibu. Or a tropical island with a nice beach to not swim in." He burrows in a little more on himself as he paints a warm picture. "Yeah. Remember that game I told you about? Well. Once Earth went boom me and my three friends all go our own thematically fitting planets for some fucking reason. This girl had frost and frogs." And he just doesn't mention his unless Tony asks.

"Frost and Frogs." Is all Tony repeats still trying to think about how a planet would look being predominately froglike and frosty, then shakes his head.

"Do I even want to know yours?" He asks as he decided to poke at the fire, knocking a log down causing embers to burst upwards and towards the sky.

"Wouldn't happen to be the planet of angst and bad art, would it?" Yes Dave, he saw that drawing of him.

"Yep. It is exactly what you're picturing but like, ten times colder." He mutters, the mere memory enough to make him hold his palms out in front of the fire. He draws them back a little when Tony pokes at the logs, shoulders hunching when the other man throws shade on him out of nowhere.

"I'm surprised you can see anything from the planet of beards and overcompensation." He grumbles that to himself, but he'll take the bait and elaborate a little more. "Heat and Clockwork, actually. All metal and lava and full of nakkadiles and stock markets."

He takes in the idea of the coldness of this Frost and Frogs planet easy enough. After all he does know what it's like to be pretty damn cold, amplifying it isn't much of a stretch for him to know there's not much of change of him enjoying that feeling.

"Keep the beards groomed and you can see the horizon." He smoothly answers back, he ignores the overcompensation part because everyone accuses him of that. "Hang on, Stock markets seem weirdly out of place somehow." He's also curious about what a nakkadile is, but he's not even sure he wants to ask.

Tony can't really talk about overused and cliche jokes when he's pulling the angsty card on a teenager in a murder-sport dystopia. It's low hanging fruit and he knows it.

"Nakkadiles are keen investors, brah. That market was stocked as fuck." He likes to make it seem like he doesn't understand money or investments, but.. "My first foray into using my powers was wiring money through time and reaping the sweet rewards of interest over time. If Doctor Who weren't such a pansy ass he might have the money for a sleeker box."

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