Twenty five, don't recall a time I felt this alive (open)

[tookthewheel]

Who| MCU!Bucky Barnes and YOU
What| Bucky's back in the Capitol and dealing with things
Where| Anywhere around the Tribute Center, specify the location of your choice
When| After arena 12 goes boom
Warnings/Notes| The usual with this guy

Waking up was easier this time.

Maybe it's because he'd accepted and waited for death to come rather than fighting against it as he had before, with the same resignation and understanding of what was going to happen that had made it easier to go into the ice when his missions were done. He can count it as a bonus that waking up in a warm bed was far more pleasant than from the cryostasis tank.

Bucky gets up calmly but still with the feeling something is wrong, more than just how weak his limbs feel again after living a month with his full strength back. A feeling that persists as he heads for the shower first, then irritably shaves off the beard he always wakes up with and is coming to loathe, discovering at the same time that the brand has now gone from his cheek. Venturing into the kitchen area yields leftover casserole from the fridge which he wolfs down quickly before heading out of District 1 with Toro the tribble safely in his pocket. He needs to see his friends, check for himself that they're still here and make sure no more of them have vanished like the first Widow did.

He goes down to District 9 first, then down to the common area to start working his way upwards, choosing to take the stairs rather than the elevator as he moves through the training and district levels before finally emerging up onto the roof. There he habitually heads for his favourite spot to try and let the cold winter air blow out the still persistent cobwebs in his head.

Comments

Commons

[arrogantalloy]

Having died so early in the arena, Tony had been bored mostly out of his mind. While his work on his secret computer was finished and he was just waiting for the A.I to finish booting up and run self diagnosis (The thing was hardly in J.A.R.V.I.S' and was at best more intelligent than Dum-E, Butterfingers, or You, but it wasn't at all free thinking. Not with the power and parts that he managed to get his hands on anyway.). As much as he would have liked to still be at least around the computer for set up and checks, he knew that spending too much time hidden would raise alarm bells. So he started just making himself visible in random places.

Though the random locations were generally due to boredom than being seen.

Today Tony is sitting at the piano, playing a lazy tune. That is until he sees Bucky, and it goes from a tune that really had no meaning to playing Tchaikovsky's March of the Toy Soldiers, pleasantly smirking to himself as he does.

[tookthewheel]

He cocks his head when the music changes, spying Tony as the culprit at the piano immediately. Tony had been the first of them to die, Bucky isn't sure he even made it out of the Cornucopia, just that he didn't see him before the starry sky outside the space station lit up with Tony's face. He's pleased to see him still here after that.

Bucky changes direction and drifts closer, still listening, brow slowly furrowing in thought. "What's this music? I've heard it before."

Not your typical greeting but that uncanny feeling of knowing something without knowing it is irritating enough that Bucky blurts that question out first.

[arrogantalloy]

Tony keeps the music up as Bucky approaches him, Tony looks up at him paying no mind to the keys. Tony's always been good at piano, and enjoys playing them. After all it helps keep his fingers nimble and that's always a good thing to maintain when you're an engineer working with fiddly electronics.

"This is from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker." He grins "March of the Toy Soldiers." The grin is pretty much all he's going to use to tell Bucky he's playing it purely for him.

[tookthewheel]

There's no way he can miss that, Bucky snorts as he realises it, torn between feelings of amusement what he'd call exasperation. By his experience of the man it's a very Tony thing to do.

"It's from a ballet."

He settles his left hand on top of the piano, watching Tony's hands as they play with interest. It doesn't sound much like marching music but there's skill in how the other man hits the right notes without having to look at what he's doing, "I didn't know you could play."

[tasermaiden]

To say that the past few days have been trying for Darcy is like saying water is wet or that Steve Rogers is the most patriotic person ever born (minus George Washington). She still isn't sure which part is worse: that she had to watch multiple friends die all at once when there was nothing that she could do, that Thor was MIA and probably wasn't going to come back, or that Punchy's mysteriously vanished, leaving behind most of his shit and a far too quiet District 6.

It's dumb for her to have lost her shit over a guy, especially a guy like Punchy who she wasn't even dating and just fucking on the (not-so) downlow. But that doesn't stop her from going up to the roof in one of his obnoxiously blinged out hoodies and her comfiest PJ pants with Snuffalupagus the Tribble tucked safely away in one pocket and her Capitol iPod knock off in the other. She's about to put her headphones on as she steps out of the elevator when she sees Bucky.

She knows that this is a terrible idea and it only hits her after the fact, but she rushes out of the elevator towards him before wrapping him in a hug, trying not to breakdown sobbing into his shirt. "I'm so glad you got back safe."

[tookthewheel]

Bucky is maybe distracted enough, stunned enough and maybe, a little tiny part glad enough to see her, that he doesn't throw Darcy halfway across the roof in shock at the hug. Instead his hands rise automatically, settling on her shoulders as he gazes down at her head and tries to puzzle out what the reasoning for this is.

"Darcy?" he asks quizzically, dazed by what is, he reminds himself, harmless touch, and her expression of relief over his return.

"Are you okay?"

[tasermaiden]

The biggest giveaway that not all is well in Darcytopia is the fact that she looks like a mess. She's exhausted and lacking makeup and she's obviously been crying and her hair hasn't seen a brush since she woke up. It isn't that attempt at attractive bedhead she's been known to rock on occasion, she looks like shit warmed over. And then there's the fact that, from the set of her shoulders and her body language in general, she's distressed and scared. Like everything's suddenly gone wrong. Which, okay, it totally has.

She looks up at him, shaking her head. For once, there isn't an ounce of sarcasm or snark in her voice, there's no playful edge or teasing, she just sounds scared and worried and a little relieved. "No...Thor...he still hasn't come back. And my... other friend's missing. And I thought that maybe...I don't know, they'd go after you too." Okay, maybe it's a little paranoid for her to think that the Capitol's targeting her to make her miserable, but she wouldn't be too terribly shocked.

[reassures]

Nill's come and gone in District 9 at varying frequencies since her arrival months ago, and she's only really spoken with Bucky the one time at the crowning, but it wasn't exactly hard to notice that he was on her floor semi-often, and it was even less difficult to realize that it was almost always to see one of her suitemates.

She's out on the couch at the moment, at a loss for what to do with herself now that she's not spending most of her waking moments watching the Arena, and she lifts her head more out of instinct when she hears the elevator opening.

He must have just gotten back from his "wake up call". Nill makes a gesture for him to give her a moment, and then grabs her notepad, climbing to her feet so she can hold it up for him to see.

I don't think Steve is here right now.

[tookthewheel]

He recognises Nill immediately, despite the fact that they only talked the one time he's glimpsed her often enough when he comes to D9 to not forget her face, even if he wasn't forcibly on point with himself about remembering all the Tributes in the center. Bucky had not encountered her in the arena and he wonders briefly how long she's been back and morbidly but impartially how she'd died. He did not see when her face was arranged in the stars.

Still, he stops and waits at her gesture, impatiently of course in his drive to find his friend and see if he was okay. But then he reads the words she writes and tries not to feel disappointed that he won't find Steve so quickly. He should probably be concerned at his own predictability, he knows that but finds it hard to care.

"He's not?" Bucky glances towards Steve's room, tries to keep his reaction of his face and doesn't quite succeed before looking back to Nill. "Do you know where he could be?"

[reassures]

For Bucky's sake, at least, she does try to stick to quicker writing, even if that makes it a touch sloppier than usual. She doesn't know Bucky or Steve terribly well, but she knows they care about each other, and if Bucky is looking then it's probably important.

I'm sorry. no.
we don't speak very often.
he might be back soon.

Not that she disliked him or anything, it just tended to be that they didn't see each other a lot. Conflicting schedules, especially now that the curfew has been lifted.

D3

[honeyibrokeharlem]

It's a good thing Bucky catches Bruce while he's cooking in the kitchen. Otherwise, Bruce would have probably stayed hiding in his room and pretended to not exist.

There's meat marinating and cooking, there're vegetables sizzling together, and Bruce is rolling dough on the counter, kneading it with his hands when Bucky comes in. Bruce only intends to spare a glance, but he ends up staring. Bruce looks very tired, like he has been sleeping even worse than usual.

"Hey." What does one say to a man they tried to brutally murder?

[tookthewheel]

It hadn't occurred to Bucky, in his compulsive need to check on the members of their team, that this meeting might be strange given what had happened in the arena. He actually doesn't know if Bruce remembers what he does as the Hulk and maybe that's a factor that he should have considered. Even if he didn't everything would have been recorded, able to be viewed as soon as Bruce was back in the Capitol.

"Hello."

Bucky's not too good at opening conversations even at the best of times, without the awkwardness of one participant having almost killed the other. Though he actually does have experience of such conversation, not that it helps much.

"You look tired."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

"Well, you know. Who needs sleep, really?" Bruce's sense of humor has always been black. It's only gotten blacker since he had to cope with the Hulk.

He moves his hands away from the dough, leaning against the counter and giving Bucky his full attention, biting the inside of his cheek as he tries to consider what he wants to say.

"Sorry. For what happened in the arena. You're lucky someone else distracted me, or I would have killed you." That would have upset Bruce deeply. (Me. I. He is usually so careful about referring to the Hulk as another entity, as if it were a malicious spirit instead of just another facet of himself.)

He has no doubt he would have killed Bucky. Even with the drugs HYDRA gave him, even with the metal arm, Bruce doesn't see Bucky as anything near a match for the Hulk. Even Thor, an Asgardian, had needed an F22 to intervene when they fought. He should be angry that Bucky had followed him away in the first place, but the man had probably learned his lesson about respecting Bruce's condition, and it was hard to be angry when he was just so glad he hadn't killed Bucky on top of everyone else. "I'm glad you got out okay."

D4

[actually112]

Aang can't sleep. He can't meditate. He can't even really talk to people that much--he just feels so wrong in himself. He doesn't know when he'll stop feeling that way.

He can't sleep in his bed. He gets nightmares, and when he wakes up, there's no monks or Katara or Sokka or Zuko or even Toph to take comfort in. Yet being near people means that they ask him questions, and he's not ready to answer them yet. So he compromises.

Right now, he's curled up on top of District Four's fridge, fitfully napping where he can wake up and see people without necessarily needing to talk to them. Not the best solution, but it's what he's got so far. So Bucky may need to look around a bit before he sees a little tattooed foot dangling off the side of the fridge.

[tookthewheel]

He does. He goes to Aang's room first after not immediately seeing him in the living room, knocks and hears no answer inside. Ordinarily he would take this as time to leave, to try again later but this time is not ordinary, this time is post arena and the last thing he heard of Aang was his synthesised voice screaming in his ears.

Bucky can't help the inkling of paranoia he feels inside that those screams might not have been entirely fake. He just needs to see Aang and know he's okay, so he explores the rest of District 4 just in case Aang is here but not in his room and by chance spies that dangling foot just before he was about to accept that the kid wasn't at home.

If Aang was awake he's sure he would have come to him, rather than remain hidden up on the fridge. He'd like to think so anyway and not imagine that Aang would hide from him. It seems reasonable to assume his youngest friend could be asleep, which prompts Bucky to approach quietly and regard what he can see of him thoughtfully. A strange place to fall asleep.

He acts on impulse, reaching out with cool metal fingers to tap Aang's ankle.

[actually112]

"Mmm?" Aang's foot sways gently with prod. Then there's the sound of shuffling on top of the fridge before a familiar face peers downward. Aang looks a little like a raccoon, with dark circles under eyes reddened with a lack of sleep (and maybe a little crying, but you won't hear that from him). "Hi, Bucky."

He blinks slowly, sleepily, his voice slurred from not quite having woken from his nap, but he keeps his eyes on Bucky. One of his only still-living friends. They didn't take him away too.

"I'm going to hug you. I hope that's okay."

At least he has the grace to warn the man.

Roof

[metalicarus]

Even with the chill clinging to the air and to everyone staying too long out in it, Jet still found himself on the roof at least once a day for a few minutes up to an hour. He was wrapped up in a long jacket that had a smaller jacket underneath and a sweater underneath that, all tied together with the scarf Albert had wrapped around him before he'd set foot on the elevator.

Since he had a normal human torso, he found he got cold easily. He'd forgotten that.

His usual spot wasn't one place, but the whole of the area right next to the forcefield. He'd move from place to place as he got the itch to, but it was never too far from the edge. One of these relocations brought him close enough to catch sight of someone who brought a smile to Jet's face. He took the scarf off from around his own neck and looped it twice around Bucky's, tight enough to be warm, but loose enough to be comfortable, then settled down near him.

"Yo."

[tookthewheel]

It's cold but Bucky ignores it. He's known far worse in his time. This is gentle in comparison to the ice that held him imprisoned for decades, forcing his body into a hibernation-like state until HYDRA needed him again. It's almost pleasant, cool and cleansing without triggering him into flashbacks of his past.

He can relax a little, trying to push through the fog in his head for the clarity he'd felt in the arena before the explosion claimed him and Sam, wanting it back so very badly.

Despite this preoccupation he hears Jet approach, spies him from the corner of his eye and so doesn't react with anything more than puzzlement when his friend wraps the warm scarf around his neck. Bucky reaches up his hand and touches it with bare fingers, registering the softness of the fabric. "Hey." his voice is a little rough from the cold air, "What's this for?"

[metalicarus]

"So you don't catch a cold. We're mostly human again, that happens to us." He said it with a smile, clearly joking even as the sarcasm laced his tone. Plus, it was just what friends did: watch out for each other.

Jet crossed his legs under him on the bench he'd settled on and stuck his hands in his pockets to try and keep his fingertips warm. "What're you doing up here? You seemed out of it a bit."

rooftop!

[a_minute_younger]

Gary has gone to new levels of distraction. One would think that recaps of the twelfth Arena's final moments would be enough to keep him occupied, because, goodness, those final moments were certainly something else, but there's remains that persistent dread of knowing that his friends still in there have just died a horrible, painful death. At least, that's what people keep telling him. Gary is starting to believe them and he doesn't think he likes it. Watching it once was enough.

Instead Gary has chosen to spend his morning on the roof, with ample devices to keep himself entertained. His presence is easy to recognize: the sound of a game's music precedes him, a large teenager walking backwards along the rooftop's outer edge, with a handheld gaming system inches from his face and a pair of headphones connected to something else in his pocket. Elsewhere, Rasputin the tribble roams freely in and between the gardens. The fuzzy creature scoots across Bucky's path as he comes out of the stairwell and huddles under a bench.

This is around the same time Gary notices him. "Kind of cold to just hang around out here, isn't it?" calls the child who is hanging around out here in the cold. His tone is flippant, but his smile and the fact that he bothers to take out an earbud says that he wants the company. "What's up?"

[tookthewheel]

Bucky notices tribble before he notices Gary, though he takes its presence as a sign that there is another person up here. It's hard to find the roof unoccupied, given it's a favourite escape for the vast majority of Tribute's from the building and city below them.

With care he steps over the tribble even as it makes for the cover of the bench, unwilling to risk even a small chance of stepping on the creature. His own emits a curious warble from inside his pocket at the presence of another of its kind and Bucky absently pats it as he looks at the teenager talking to him.

He doesn't know this person, though he might if he took a look at the Cornucopia footage with presenters commentary, and is therefore wary of why he is talking to Bucky.

"It's not that cold." he answers neutrally. "It's better up here than inside."

[a_minute_younger]

Gary has the astounding ability to take information and filter out all of the negative things about it simply by pretending that it doesn't exist. Yes, he's gone through the playbacks of his time in the latest Arena. Yes, he has a name for his assailant. Was his full attention on the television at the time? Of course not. Did he remember his name, or even look up to see his face and related footage that would clue him in? Not in the slightest. A closer look at Bucky makes Gary squint--he definitely gets the impression that he's seen him around before--but otherwise he's chipper and oblivious as ever.

"Ah, yes," Gary sighs wistfully, resuming his backwards walk around the roof's outer lip. He maintains a remarkable sense of balance. "Inside, with the central heating and Internet access and booze that flows free as the river. I see where you're coming from! Hard life, huh?"

Rooftop

[carnagecarnival]

Snow wasn't a thing he'd ever seen on Alternia. The sort of cold he felt of the oceans, and deserts in the coldest nights of the dark season only then compare to that what comes with the human winters. Frozen water forming indistinct sculptures, flat plains turned to sleek glass, all the air shimmering with snow, and the lights of the city reflecting off the swath of it all to cast orange into the sky, like it's being near the dawn hours. It's all a sort of miraculous what leaves him breathless.

Alongside the cold what bites like ocean depths. But that's not enough to stop his already cold ass self.

He's glad for the end of the curfew. It was always nice to come back here, to the open air above the buildings, in place of a shore to see. In some ways, it was better; motherfuckers only came about joining to do the same, talk, or any other thing what ain't getting down for the cull.

He turns his head as Bucky joins him up on the roof and offers a smile, thought little more for now. He checks Bucky off on the mental list of those returned and not.

[tookthewheel]

Bucky knows cold more intimately than most. He still feels the chill bite into him when he emerges onto the roof but handles it better than most would, especially when he's not overly dressed to be outside in this sort of weather. So it's still a minor shock to his system when the elevator doors open, a brief reminder of the steel and glass that was his only reprieve from dealing out death on a leash.

But it's not the hibernation-inducing freeze of the cryochamber and after that brief moment he gets a hold of himself and walks out through the doors. It only takes him a moment to spot the Initiate and, after seeing the smile sent his way, decide to make his way over to the troll.

Bucky's boots make the barest noise through the light layer of snow which has managed to accumulate on the ground and he sticks his right hand in his pocket with Toro the tribble to keep it warm, the left needing no such precaution. "Hey."

[carnagecarnival]

"YO, SUP," He returns, already pleased to have more company. There's something about the human man, something different every little time. It's as watching slow growth break through driest earth.

He lifts his chin in gesture to the whole of Bucky. "You're looking well, brother," He points out. LOOKING AS ALL TO BE OF WELLNESS SEEMING."

A rare thing, that. Most motherfuckers came out of arena looking worse for wear. Looking worn and tired and heavy. It wasn't physical none, the only physical bit was everyone looking younger all of a fucking sudden. It was an internal weight, or glow in the opposite case.