sixthiterationlogs | everybody was kung fu fightin;

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everybody was kung fu fightin;

WHO: Bucky Barnes
WHERE: The Inn - Open Space / Fitness Area
WHEN: 06/20/1018
OPEN TO: Benny
WARNINGS: violence / adult themes.

Through all of his time here so far, Bucky's started to develop something of a rhythm. A routine that's so regular it's almost uncomfortable; waking up with the sun, watching it rise through the window in his room. Eating breakfast with the other quiet early risers in the dining room of the Inn, usually by himself but occasionally with company. In the morning before the sun bears down and it gets too hot he likes to run, usually making laps around the town at a pace not quite up to his norm before he got here but fast enough to make even an athletic man balk. He typically does another chore after, usually something he's the most physically apt to do like chop wood or help Clint build whatever he's working on that day. After sweating through his clothes entirely he bathes, changes, has lunch, and does some exploring, cooking, cleaning, whatever needs done.

Not today. Today it's raining, not just a light drizzle but rather scattered thunderstorms that roll through the area, drenching the ground, muddying everything and making running an impossibility. It's the first time his mind's not occupied with a schedule, and a restlessness settles deep into him immediately. It's directly following that feeling that the change happens.

Slowly at first, but gradually speeding, he feels... no, he sees a line forming along the ground. It's beautiful, a blue, pulsating fairy light, a comforting looking thing leading from his table, across the dining hall, and around the corner. He glances around, but nobody else seems to notice it. The one stranger he asks gives him a funny look, and with that established he assumes he's the only one who can see it.

And so he follows it carefully. It may feel comforting, it may scream in his gut that it's the right place to go and he should definitely, absolutely go there, but he's suspicious of it's origins and intentions. It leads him down the hall and toward an open room with plentiful space and only one inhabitant. It's a familiar face, one of the first people he'd met here and one he occasionally sees around the halls.

Benedict stands motionless in a strange pose that seems to flex ligaments most people wouldn't think possible, one Bucky distantly recognizes as something he's seen in the back of his mind, a distant memory when they were teaching him to fight that he's since blocked out. Beneath Benedict's body, the light pulses one final, sure time before fading to a dim, barely noticeable circle around him.

He realizes then that he's been staring for a couple of seconds worldessly and his mouth drops open, head ducks, eyes flit away immediately.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt, I just-" His brow furrows, replaying the events in his mind, eyes flitting to the line and back up again. "You seen anything... weird today?"

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Before he and Kate moved out of the Inn, Benedict prayed in their bedroom. It had been a little cramped, especially since Kate prayed to her own god in there as well, but they happily made do and he never complained.

Now that they have a house of their own, he prays at home. In the spare bedroom, he has created a small altar beneath the window facing the sun as it rises — Kate swears it's East, but he is not sure whether or not that's true, here; does it really matter, though? — and, just as he had at the Temple, he prays there for matins and lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline. The room is perfectly suited to his needs, except for one thing: it is truly too small for him to properly keep up the slow and methodical training regimen he learned at the monastery, the walls too close and the furniture too delicate for him to feel comfortable swinging his body around. What if he breaks something? Kate will probably pretend she is not cross with him, but he would know better.

Instead, once breakfast has been served and his duties are more or less taken care of, Benedict has taken to sequestering himself in one of the rooms adjacent to the dining room of the Inn, its furniture stripped and the room left bare, a perfect spot for him to keep his muscles as limber as he can.

The rain honestly makes him sleepy. Kate has teased him in the past of being just like Miss Hoppity, taking advantage of any opportunity for a nap, and he honestly can't refute her. He and the little cat share an affinity, and not just because of his heritage. He quite likes taking a little rest in the middle of the day with the furry little feline, finding her warm weight on his chest as they lie in the path of a sunbeam very comforting.

Miss Hoppity is safe and sound at home this morning however, and Benedict is forcing himself to pay attention to his forms, trying to imagine what Brother Vincent would say to see him as he is now, married with a profession that would have otherwise been denied him. The old man would undoubtedly have been thrilled to see his protégé so happy, but Benedict doesn't let himself linger too much on thoughts of the monk who trained him at the monastery. Those thoughts tend to lead him down the paths of bad memories.

Curling his fingers into his palms to try and dispel the phantom pains his burns sometimes still remember, he slowly shifts from one form to the next, just barely settling his weight when he hears a voice call out to him.

Craning his neck over his shoulder but otherwise remaining stock-still, he lifts his eyebrows at Bucky as he stands in the doorway. "I do not believe so," he says mildly, letting out a slow breath and sinking into the form before slowly shifting into the one that follows. "What do you mean by weird?"

Edited 2018-06-20 23:41 (UTC)

The shifting from one position to another definitely sparks something in his mind, a memory, an echo of something he can't name. Whether or not it's exact, he can't say for sure, but it's definitely similar to something he's seen, perhaps something he knows. Benedict answers without looking, but Bucky doesn't need him to elaborate. A pulsating line on the ground would be impossible for him to miss even like this, and it's the kind of thing one wouldn't have to clarify.

At any rate, it diminished significantly. Not completely gone, but enough not to be a nuisance, enough that maybe he thinks it will go away as abruptly as it came. If Benny didn't cause it, though, then why does it lead to him?

He shakes his head, dispelling the question.

"Nothing, I didn't mean to bother your..." And then the word hits him, the name for what it his Benny's doing, and he lights up a bit. "Is that tai chi?"

In the past, when he has been asked this question, Benedict has simply refuted it. He has never called it 'tai chi' before, so no, that is not what he does. However, something about the look on Bucky's face when he asks the question has him prevaricating slightly, simply because he doesn't want to dim the spark of recognition he sees in the other man's face.

"Others have called it that," he agrees, somewhat. "The monks did not call it anything. It was just part of our training as novitiates."

He shifts into a deep lunge, feeling the muscles of his legs slowly stretch, a tingling warmth spreading through his limbs as the loosen and awaken with each new motion. "Are you familiar with it?"

Monk he says, training he says, and only then does he remember the brief summation of his history that Benedict gave on his very first day there. A lot had gone on, a lot of information lay tucked away in the recesses of his mind, and a look of understanding filters across his features. He watches with something of a guarded expression as Benedict lunges, memories like ghosts or familiar smells tugging at him without ever coming to full fruition.

"I think so," He mutters, an indecipherable quality to his voice, brow knitting a little. "Or something like it, anyway. Usually they- it wasn't so peaceful for me."

He skirts the initial route that sentence was going to take, shifts it subtly to give away fewer of the cards he holds close to his chest.

He watches Bucky with a curious tilt to his head for a moment, trying to parse that sentence. It's obvious he changed his mind about what he was going to say mid-thought, but while Benedict is curious to know what it was he was trying to say before he thought better of it, they hardly know each other well enough for him to feel comfortable prying.

So instead he just hums quietly, accepting what he was told at face value, and then straightens.

"Would you like to join me?" He rolls his shoulders down and back, standing barefoot in the middle of the room in just an undershirt and his scrub pants, looking for all the world like this is a perfectly normal conversation for him to have. "I am happy to continue. Or, if you'd prefer, we could aim for something a little more...vigorous?"

A man of Bucky's stature is clearly used to exercise. Coupled with his general air of a combat veteran, Benedict doesn't think he's too far off the mark to assume that he was a soldier of some sort, and so is used to training his body in a way that is hard to do alone, here in this habble. "I would welcome the challenge."

In Wakanda he'd spent most of his time frozen, but for the brief period of months he'd been out he'd tried to stay active. Farming, mostly, working with his hands just like here, but there were a few things farming couldn't help. For that, he'd had T'Challa occasionally but more often he'd had the Wakandan warrior women who were more than happy to help keep him on his toes. They called him the White Wolf, and often spoke ominously that there'd be a time he'd be called upon, that he'd need to stay sharp like the claws of the beast after which he'd been named.

Here, he had no one for that. He's almost fallen into a stupor, a dumb idea that he wouldn't or shouldn't have to fight any battles. He knows with deep resignation that it isn't true, knows that once they find a way out of here he'll need to be ready to rejoin Steve on the battlefield. Knows that Thanos and all of his disciples are still threats, and suddenly feels like he's wasted valuable time he could have been spending preparing. He could be using this gift to his advantage, getting better, more in tune with himself- or at the very least, not letting himself become lax.

The blue line upon the floor pulses again, seemingly as though in agreement.

Maybe that's what it's for. To remind him of what he has back home, and that the only meaningful skill he has to offer Steve is his ability to fight by his friend's side. Steve, he knows, would disagree but Bucky has always been a little more grounded and realistic about these things.

And so he shifts, crossing his arms carefully, surveying Benedict's form to try and gauge his skill. Not so much worried that he couldn't win in a fight, but rather how badly would Benedict be hurt in the process? Could he even keep up? Tai chi and general athleticism alone weren't enough, and it's not a sense of pride or haughtiness that has him thinking it either. It's just that a normal barroom brawl with a regular guy wouldn't even constitute a workout.

"You any good?" He asks finally, figuring he may as well be blunt with his skepticism. Sorry for the rudeness, pal, he really does like you as a person.

If Benedict considers Bucky's question rude, he doesn't show it, lifting one shoulder in a laconic shrug and letting his lips curl in a smile.

"Good enough for a commendation from the Spirearch himself," he replies, knowing that it won't mean much to someone not from Spire Albion, but not knowing how else to summarize his combat history. He could go into specifics, describing the mission he had been given by the Spirearch, his fight against the silkweavers, the final, desperate last stand against Cavendish and her Auroran Marines, but again, he knows it will mean nothing to the man in front of him.

How odd it is, to be so far removed from everything he has ever known.

Istead of trying to explain himself further, he simply drops into a defensive stance, a far less peaceful motion than his previous stretching had been, and extends an open hand to Bucky, beckoning him closer.

"Come. I will go easy on you."

He doesn't give any illusions of knowing what the hell a Spirearch is or what that commendation is worth, what matters is Benedict seems to think that's a good enough recommendation and his self-worth about the subject is apparently high. That's something, at least, but not enough to totally eradicate Bucky's skepticism.

It's fortunate that Bucky had dressed under the assumption that the weather was nice, he's wearing what he might have worn for a run, loose pants and a sleeveless shirt, nothing that could hinder the movement of the metal appendage attached where a seam might have impeded it. It's the perfect attire for such an occasion, so there's nothing holding him back except doubt.

So he huffs, an amused little sound. Who precisely will need to go easy on who? He slips further into the room fluidly like a cat, rounding the other man, eyeing him warily. "We'll see about that."

Once in range, he settles on his toes, uncertainty in his posture, fingers curling, shoulders tense, and rather than swinging feels the need to ask, "Sure you're ready?"

He straightens a little when Bucky creeps closer, still not quite looking like he's on board with this plan, and gives him another one of his confident smiles.

"Bucky." He's not stupid enough to shift entirely from his defensive posture, but he does relax his stance a little. "I am stronger than I look." Which is saying something. He's not quite as broad as Bucky is, but Benedict is a tall young man, and even after two years of enforced idleness, his body is still corded with muscle. Now that he isn't dampened the way he had been when he first arrived, now that his body has been returned to him as it was supposed to be, he feels entirely confident that he can, at least, hold his own in a friendly match with another fighter.

"I am ready."

"Okay," He relents, obvious reluctance in his tone. If something goes awry, if he hurts the other man, at least his concern had been voiced and was on the record.

He hesitates only a second before striking out; it's an obviously pulled punch, a quick right-hook with a flesh arm that lacks his full strength or speed, lacks any real intention. Before he'd been in the war he was a boxer, welter weight, three time champion. Somewhere back home has ma had the trophies to prove it, but they're long since lost in a country drastically changed. His hook, while reserved, is still a technically sound punch. It's a good gauge here, a good measure on whether Benedict falls above or below the scale he'd consider average.

His expectations aren't super high.

Benedict can see the punch before the swing even starts, the muscles of Bucky's arm bunching and his feet bracing themselves slightly differently to allow for the shift in his weight.

His pupils blown wide but his eyelids narrowed, Benedict dodges the punch easily, taking a lightning-quick step to one side to avid the blow and then taking the opportunity to reach out and tap the side that was exposed by Bucky's uplifted arm, just a light press of his fingers to the fabric of his shirt, more to prove a point than to land a counter strike.

He says nothing, though, just lifts his eyebrows and waits for a real hit to come his way.

Edited 2018-06-21 00:50 (UTC)

Fair enough, he thinks, and the sentiment spreads across his features in the form of a jerky tilt to the head and a twitch of his eyebrows. If he can dodge a punch and be that sassy about it, Bucky can step it up a notch. That's the only warning Benedict gets before he moves for real this time, a one-two with his right initiating but aborting half way through, a fake-out for the real follow-up with his left, a strong hit from a metal fist and an immediate brace on the back foot as he anticipates recourse.

Whether it's a tap on the shoulder or a real swing this time, he won't get caught off guard again.

He's ready for the dance.

It's been a long time since Benedict has tested his mettle against an opponent, especially one so skilled as Bucky clearly is. His life in this habble has been alarmingly sedentary; he's kept up with his exercises himself, but he hasn't really trained with another person since before his arrival. His days now tend to focus more around the care and keeping of his beehives, the tending to the kitchen garden, making sure the Inn runs smoothly and remains clean and habitable. All that, and the time it takes to maintain a happy marriage, and Benedict is not left with too much time on his hands to train his body the way he used to when he was at the Temple or in the Guard.

Still, he's quick enough to block the second punch that comes his way, catching the swing from Bucky's metal arm and blocking it with a grunt at the force of impact — his friend is strong — his feet shifting beneath him to keep him light enough to dance away from anything unexpected but still give him enough of a solid foundation from which to launch a counterstrike of his own.

Normally, against humans, he can rely on his innate speed to give him an edge. With Bucky, he's not sure he'll be able to.

Bucky hasn't been on his A-Game since he's arrived. The serum in his blood is dulled and nullified, otherwise perhaps this fight would be even shorter than anticipated. Even without it, though, his body is at it's peak, the very limit of human physicality, and his metal arm only adds a few notches to that strength. Without the serum he's still fast, still strong, still well-trained, and he was expecting the counter before Benedict even initiated it.

And so he twists, lithe and fast, dodging around the extended arm as it ghosts by his chest. Shoots an arm out to grip it by the wrist and another to jab against Benedict's shoulder, fully intending on using Benedict's own weight and motion against him to knock him off balance or flip him over.

Bucky is faster than he had expected, as well as being stronger, and he realizes his mistake the moment he makes it, his body overextended and vulnerable. Sure enough, a strong hand grabs his wrist, the other jabbing straight into his shoulder, and he grunts quietly as the hit is absorbed by his body, considering for a split-second what to do before simply allowing his momentum to drop him to the floor, his legs snapping around the man's ankle to trip him up and bring him down as well as Benedict flips himself with a supple twist of his body and rolls out of range.

Bouncing back up onto his feet, he huffs, lifting his arms in a defensive posture, waiting for Bucky to get back up as well so they can continue.

He feels that leg, muscle memory knows the intention, and it works in a way, though perhaps not the way Benedict intended. It keeps Bucky from following up on the offensive and shifts him into defensive. The hold is relinquished, and instead his body twists, rounds in the air into a subtle backward flip to avoid being downed and vulnerable. He lands on his heels easily, and Benedict better be up soon because he's spring boarding off of them to go for a powerful metal shoulder to the other man's chest.

He is on his feet quickly, thankfully, just barely getting settled before Bucky launches himself at him with his metal side leading, his shoulder braced like a battering ram heading directly for his chest. Benedict twists, managing to avoid getting hit head-on, jostled slightly by the passage of Bucky's body, and brings his elbow down hard towards the back of the other man's neck, more forceful than he means to be but acting on instinct alone, now.

That elbow's a good blow, an unexpected one that forces a grunt out of him. He uses what he can of the force of it to tuck in on himself so that he can bodily roll through the motion, bracing that metal palm flat on the floor to slow his momentum once he's in a crouch. He's on the back foot now, lips parted, waiting for the follow-up that's sure to come before he gets a chance to retaliate.

Instead of pressing his advantage, Benedict backs off, taking a few steps back and re-balancing his weight on the balls of his feet, dancing a little between them to keep himself light and ready to move in any direction at the drop of a hat.

In a real fight, he would have attacked when the opportunity presented itself, pressing to ensure a victory. But this is just a friendly matching of skill, he does not wish to turn sparring between two friendly acquaintances into something more serious. Not that he thinks he will be able to seriously hurt Bucky, but because he would like to think they were on friendly ground and he would like to keep it that way.

He recognizes the end of round one when he sees it, and rises a little from is crouch. Knees stay bent though, hands come up, because it isn't over and round two is likely to start just as quickly as round one had. This time, he thinks, it's Benedict's turn to initiate on the offensive, and so he moves slowly, carefully, on the balls of his feet.

"Not bad," He admits, a quirk on his lips, the ghost of a friendly smile that never really takes place.

Benedict inclines his head slightly at Bucky's words, a sense of wariness keeping him from relaxing too much. "I am a little more out of practice than I thought," he admits, circling Bucky just as slowly as he's circling him.

Once it becomes clear that Bucky isn't going to be making the first move this time, Benedict looks him over with a calculating gaze.

Knowing it's highly unlike he will actually hurt the man, Benedict allows himself to launch himself at him with the full strength of his limbs, a coughing, leonine sound not too far from a roar bubbling up his throat as he swings with an uppercut he fully expects to be blocked, his opposite knee slamming up to hopefully hit something soft and unprotected. He's aware he's at something of a disadvantage, being barefoot, but it's not enough of a problem to bother him.

The roar is unexpected, as made evident by the ever so slight widening of his eyes. Catches him off guard enough that he doesn't quite duck the uppercut so much as angle away from it. It catches his jaw and rattles his teeth, splits his lip, and triggers something inside of him that moves faster than his mind could possibly think consciously. His forearms slam down on the knee, and then in he twists to bring his elbow up in the same breath to jab into Benedict's throat. Whether or not he's successful, he'll be coming in with his metal arm for a series of flurrying shots to the ribs, a rapid-fire series of events that all seem to come from a visceral place deep within him.

If he had time to think, if he wasn't reacting on instinct from that throbbing hard uppercut to the jaw, he might have slowed things down a little and been more conscious of the kind of damage he could be doing. He isn't thinking now, though, he's just reacting.

Edited 2018-06-21 02:20 (UTC)

He's surprised when the blow lands, surprised enough not to pull back as he tries to knee him, allowing the action to be blocked and just barely managing to avoid getting his larynx broken. Bucky's elbow still connects with his throat, but it's more of a glancing blow than an actual hard hit, hard enough still to force him to cough in an attempt to catch his breath, knocking him off-guard enough to be too slow to truly evade the flurry of punches that follow.

He blocks them as best as he can, tucking his arms in close to protect his ribs, suddenly realizing that he might have, perhaps, gotten in over his head here. He has no gauntlet to fall back on if worst comes to worst, and Bucky is far stronger than he had anticipated he would be, not to mention he seems to be an entirely different man than the one he had met before, someone darker and more focused.

He head-butts him, forcing him back just long enough for Benedict to try and regroup. Knowing how fast Bucky is, he doesn't give himself time to consider if his next move is stupid or not, and instead just reaches out for his right wrist, grabbing it hard with his left hand, his leg sweeping out to catch Bucky's ankles again and trip him to the ground so Benedict can try to pin him.

By the time the last of his punches glance off of Benedict's ribs, he has time to acknowledge that perhaps he's gone a little too hard and fast here. That perhaps the elbow to the throat was a little too much for a friendly sparring session, because not all men are built like Steve Rogers. It brings him falter, brings him back to his senses and distracts him just long enough to take a full-force head-butt to the face. Fortunately it's a little too high up to break his nose, but god damn, nobody wins in a head-butt.

He grunts, recoils, and is subsequently taken down. Had he not second guessed himself, had he not allowed himself to become distracted by worry, perhaps he'd still be on his feet. Instead, Benedict pins him with his remaining good arm just as the first hint of blood peeks out of his nose from the contact. He goes down hard, jaw aching, still disoriented from the sheer blunt force of Benedict's thick fucking skull.

He's not going to stay down for long, if the way his metal hand slams into the floor is any indication.

Head-butting someone is never fun. The aftermath of one always leaves his head ringing, feeling a little bit like he's taken a gauntlet blast to the face (even though he knows full well that would result in him no longer having a face; perhaps it's a good thing that he hasn't had his gauntlet or his sword since he arrived here). He normally avoids such a tactic in a fight, but it had seemed like the best option to take in the moment, and it had won him a few seconds of peace.

He's not stupid enough to think he can hold down that metal arm even if he tried, and so he doesn't, keeping his grip on Bucky's right wrist and slamming his free hand down onto his chest, the heel of his palm striking his sternum. It's not much of a blow, honestly, but part of him is wondering if any blow at all will be enough to deter the man he's managed to pin beneath him.

Honestly, he's surprised the ruckus they're making hasn't drawn a crowd. This is certainly not normal for the Inn at this hour.

His palm connects with Bucky's chest, the fingers of his left hand tightening their grip, and a strange sort of jolt goes through him, like he's been walking around in stocking-clad feet and touched a doorknob.

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