There's a humming in the restless summer air (open)

[tookthewheel]

Who| MCU!Bucky Barnes and OTA
What| Bucky's having issues, he deals with them by punching things
Where| The training level
When| Couple days prior to the jailbreak
Warnings/Notes| Violence, trauma stuff

Bucky is here under two objectives.

Practically, he needs to practice his familiarity with his body's limitations in this place, he must keep himself sharp and ready because there is a mission soon that will require him to be in top form. However there is a personal need beneath it, something new for a man like him. He needs distraction and rather than allow it to be given to him by others he has made another of his growing list of choices and come here of his volition.

They made him act to stop him thinking, then put him away into storage when those actions were done after a fresh wipe to ensure he remained in pristine condition, like a child's toy lovingly sealed into its wrapping. Though Bucky is done with wipes and cryo tanks he holds that first part to heart; if he acts he will have no time to think and there is a lot he would rather not think about. The things that are disturbing his sleep at night.

So Bucky takes to the training level of the Tribute Centre, making use of the many and varied options it offers. The training dummy's are mercilessly pummelled; various weaponry is put through its paces in expert hands; the holographic targeting practice is something he warms to quickly, throwing knives with deadly precision at multiple light-constructed opponents. If someone asks him, maybe he'll even agree to spar.

Comments

[risewithit]

At first Skye had been unsure how to approach the Training Center; she needs to keep up her training with or without her SO, but she doesn't want to show off what little she can do and what the limits of that are. In the end, the arrests made her decision for her. She's going to be in the field whether she consents to it or not. She needs to be ready.

When she gets there she notes Barnes (no, not that one, the other one) out of the corner of her eye, but she's got a lot to do and not a whole lot of time to do it in. Even if she's curious about how some of the dummies look as if they've mauled by orcs.

There's only so much she can do on her own, without May here to partner with her, but she can at least go through the basics she's pounding into her muscle memory. She wraps her hands, goes through her warmups, then sets in to work the bag. Her hits are solid, steady, and she settles into a rhythm. One, two three. Jab, cross, jab.

[tookthewheel]

It's surprising what he can pick and realise that he knows how to use without remembering how and when he learned it. Maybe it's instinct and a general programmed in sense for efficient killing or maybe Hydra really did decide to account for every possibility. Seventy years is a long time after all, even if he spent most of it in cold storage.

He looses the spear with skill an Olympic competitor would envy and watches as it skewers a dummy completely, feeling pleased with the result. Bucky flexes his fingers afterwards and turns for another when he notices Skye over at the punching bags.

It's a small surprise given their first meeting that she is not without some skill at what she's doing. Clearly she's practiced before and that gains his interest. He almost doesn't think about doing it as his feet carry him her way, moving quick and quiet to stand nearby, so quiet in fact that she might get a surprise to suddenly find him there observing her.

[risewithit]

It doesn't take long for her to realize she has an audience. She's always been aware of her surroundings, but lately that sense has been growing even stronger. And here, she's even more guarded.

"You could say hi," she says when she pauses to steady the swinging of her back, "instead of just standing there staring."

[tookthewheel]

He considers for a moment before doing just that. "Hi."

Bucky takes another few steps forward, resting the palm of his metal arm on the back of the punching bag she's been working with. It's a small gesture, putting possible the deadliest part of himself there. "You fight?"

Not expertly he thinks, there's something raw in her movements, it speaks of someone still in the process of learning. Possibly she could be faking that, laying down the groundwork of deception in the arena but it would take someone very skilled to do so for one as experienced at reading combat body language as he is.

[risewithit]

"Hey," she tosses back as she shifts her gaze to look at him. Her eyes catch on the arm, widen in open, unmasked shock--and it's Mike she's thinking of, Mike lying in a hyperbaric chamber, Mike waking up and slowing being turned into more machine than man. The craftsmanship of Barnes's arm is different, though--she can tell that much without an engineering PhD and a stint through SHIELD Hogwarts, thanks--but that might not mean anything.

She knows a weapon when she sees it.

But she nods in thanks, settles back into her stance, and returns to hitting the bag. Her movements are slower, more concentrated this time. "Sort of," she says in the breaths between punches. "Trying to, at any rate."

[tookthewheel]

The way her eyes widen is not unexpected, she might have seen it on videos of the previous arena but apparently Skye hasn't watched those yet. It's a common enough reaction to the sleek design of metal which is marred only by the red star near the shoulder. He thinks once it stood for something but that's as far as he considers it, it's part of the arm, it's always been part of the arm for whatever reason it was put there.

It's curious how people seem to shy away from actually asking him about it though, even though he thinks they want to. They avoid it like it makes them uncomfortable (and that it might be for fear of making him uncomfortable is not a thought that ever crosses his mind).

Bucky's hand is an unintentional brace to the punching bag as she hits it, his eyes track her technique, assessing it. "You're new at this."

[risewithit]

"Pretty much," she says. When she'd first started her physical training, she'd complained. Loudly. She hadn't wanted to take it seriously because she was used to being an anonymous presence comfortably behind her computer screen. Now she's found there's a strange sort of comfort in the way she can feel her muscles pulling taught beneath her skin.

The next time she gets herself in over her head, she'll be more prepared than she was before.

"But I'm trying not to be."

[tookthewheel]

"It's better than many." Those who weren't fighters at all, the ones who refused to try, to kill. Bucky doesn't know why they're here, why the Capitol would bring them. He's seen a large variety of killers and fighters, men and women and creatures beside who knew their business well. Those could put on the show he's been told the people here want but the others, what entertainment did they provide?

Bucky turns his wandering thoughts back to Skye and her efforts. "What do you know?" he asks.

[risewithit]

She still hasn't processed the reality of the arena looming over them. All that kill or be killed Battle Royale crap--it's too surreal to be real, despite all of the footage and personal accounts to the contrary. When her thoughts wander to it, though, there's a nervous twinge in her gut. She's a fighter; she's not a killer. It's one thing to pull the trigger on an icer. It's another thing entirely to pull it on a real gun and watch someone die knowing you're the one who did it.

But for now, it's about the mission. Help Barnes 1 and Murdock get Romanoff out of prison, and go from there.

But she considers Barnes 2 before she answers. She barely knows him as anything other than a name on a wall and in a history book, but she's thrown herself out on a limb and decided to trust the other Barnes despite...all of the arena footage to the contrary. Because he was Captain America's partner, and Coulson believes in Captain America.

He seems to be genuinely trying to help, so she tells him. "I can disarm somebody trying to kill me, and I'm not a bad shot."

[tookthewheel]

If it was put to him he would not think he was trying to help. He wants to know because he must know, he must know everything he can about the tributes he is ostensibly against. He had to know which ones were dangerous in intent or skill, or both.

More rare are those he can believe would not attack him or the allies he has.

"Shooting won't help you. They do not give out guns that I know." he shakes his head. "They are too quick for what they want from us." the Soldier casts his eye over the room, over the vast array of weaponry to be found there. A bow was closest but one of the few things he has no training for. "You need to be able to kill."

Bucky's not sure why he's telling her. Wasn't it better for him not to advise this woman? But she was not a threat to him, he doesn't think. She had not presented a threat so it was... okay?

[risewithit]

He's a murderer. She can hear her own voice so clearly in her own mind, can hear Mike answering back: He is. Are you?

No, she tells herself. No, she is not a murderer, she never will be, she refuses with every fiber of her being. She won't let this place make her be; she'll find a way out before it gets that far.

Her next punch cuts to the bag with more viciousness, more feeling. She's not angry at him, but what he said hit a nerve.

[tookthewheel]

She says nothing but he reads the reply in the sudden burst of aggression against the punching bag. Bucky thinks back over what he just said to try and pinpoint what brought it on. That there would be no guns? Or... that she would have to kill?

The simplest way to find out is to ask. "I upset you?"

[risewithit]

Her eyes dart up to him, then back away. She pulls her lip between her teeth, lets go and throws a few more punches before she replies.

"Not your fault." She doesn't quite smile, but the corner of her mouth lifts in something like self-deprecation. "Everybody's got skeletons and tripwires." Hers just feel raw, still.

[tookthewheel]

Bucky's eyes flicker at that. Those words hit as deeply into him as his own hit into her.

Others would ask her what was wrong, what it was that was bothering her. He doesn't, racked with uncertainty on how to proceed, emotions aren't his are of expertise.

Some things here, however, are. Weaponry and the knowledge to use it chiefly among them, it's as good a diversion as any.

"Learn to throw knives."