Chapter Text
A loud cha-chunk that echoed throughout the room, and the fluorescent lights began to flicker on, one by one, illuminating a massive but empty room. The floor and walls were a dull gray concrete, with only one door. A shadow tentatively loomed around the doorway as a helmeted head carefully peered into the warehouse’s interior. The figure held one hand against the side of his navy blue helmet and whispered, “Tony, this is Cap. Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear.”
Captain America looked back at his group - Natasha and Clint - and they both nodded, signaling they had heard Tony.
“T’Challa, are you in position?”
“Of course, Captain.”
Steve glanced up at the ceiling as though he could see beyond it, into the sky where he knew Tony, Sam, and Vision were circling to keep an eye on the exterior of the building. On the other side of the structure, T’Challa, Bucky, and Rhodey were on backup just in case something went wrong. Though, as he squinted back into the empty room, there didn’t look like anything that could go wrong.
He frowned, brow knitting, and asked, “Tony, are you still getting the same energy readings from this place?"
“Yup. In fact, if anything, the signature is getting bigger. Whatever’s in there, you’d better be careful.”
Steve stood square in the doorway, if warily, to survey the whole room.
“Do you have the schematics for the building?”
There was silence and some clicking, then Tony replied, “I’ve got them in front of me now.”
“Is there some kind of basement? Something underneath this room? Because as far as I can see, there’s nothing here.”
Another pause. “...it doesn’t look like it.”
The worry lines on Steve’s face grew deeper and he looked back at the rest of his team. Clint shrugged, baffled expression clearly showing even in the semi-light, and Natasha’s frown matched Steve’s.
Steve looked back at the space in front of him, then said cautiously, “I’m going in.”
“Steve, look, I know I’m one to talk, but is that a good idea? I mean, the readings I’m getting from this… whatever it is, they’re crazy.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
He took a cautious step forward into the room, holding his breath expectantly. When he didn’t turn into a thousand snakes or spontaneously combust, he took another step. And another. Nothing dramatic happened, and Natasha and Clint began to slowly creep into the room behind him.
“Anything, Cap?” Tony’s voice asked over the intercom.
“Not yet,” Steve replied, voice echoing eerily against the cold concrete walls.
“According to my maps, you’re right over the signal now.”
Steve looked down at the ground between his feet as if it would suddenly yield answers. “There’s nothing-,”
He didn’t even have half of his sentence out before Natasha called out, “Cap.”
Steve turned to look at her and she gestured towards the corners of the ceiling urgently. Steve’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what Natasha was talking about, then they shot wide open as he saw the faint distortion in the air, as if the corners were hot… or if someone was gassing the room.
“Okay, everyone out.” Steve barked, already sprinting towards the exit and shepherding the other two in front of him. But before they were even halfway there, the door slammed shut with a clang. Steve gritted his teeth and huffed out a frustrated breath. Stupid. Number one rule of any mission, if you’re going into a room with one exit, you leave something to keep the door open. With the door closed, the gas would get to them quicker. He had to find a way to get them out.
“Tony, can you still hear me?”
Static was the only answer to his question and Natasha cursed quietly under her breath. Clint laughed shakily and murmured his agreement.
“Okay, let’s think logically here…,” Steve said, shaking his head to get rid of the fuzziness that was suddenly clouding his thoughts, “if we want to get out of this, we’re going to need to… need to… um…”
His vision dimmed around the edges and Steve slapped himself across the face, though his muscles seemed to weaken by the second. He turned to the rest of the team to see that Clint had already crumpled onto the ground, though Steve unconsciously noted he was still breathing. For now. Natasha was swaying dangerously and blinking frequently, eyes glazing over as she stared at Steve. Steve grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to say something, because he had something important to say, about five seconds ago, but it was gone now and he was sinking, his eyes were closing, and Captain America was collapsing onto the ground.
---
Above the warehouse, Tony called frantically, “Cap? Cap, can you hear me?”
Nothing but dead air.
Tony cursed vehemently and Sam called, “Should we go in?”
“No, no, T’Challa’s team can handle it,” Tony said reluctantly, though he stared at the building as though he’d love to repulsor-blast his way in. “Are you still here, T’Challa?”
“Yes,” was the laconic answer.
“Check in every thirty seconds, okay? We need to know what’s going on and if you find the others.”
“Understood.”
Thirty nervous seconds passed, then T’Challa voice crackled over the intercom. “We’ve made it to the doorway. The door is open, and the lights are on… and I can see the other three. They look like they’re breathing, but they’re not moving.”
“This is a trap. This is like the number one trap in the villain's handbook. T’Challa, whatever you do, don’t go in there.”
Static.
“T’Challa?”
Static.
“Rhodey? Barnes?”
Static.
Vision, Sam, and Tony hovered anxiously for a minute, then Tony said, “Screw it. I’m going in.”
“Okay, but don’t go through the doorway. In case it’s a portal or some magic shit that’s killing off everyone,” Sam warned.
Tony mockingly saluted, then flew lower and stood on top of the roof, hand-repulsors letting out a faint whine as they powered up. A thin blue beam began to cut a circle in the top of the warehouse, then there was a loud boom as the thick slab of concrete fell inward. Although Steve had turned on the lights and T’Challa had reported them as being on, the interior was now completely dark.
“Tony…,” Sam said nervously, eyeing the dark room apprehensively. Tony shot him a reassuring thumbs-up and gently lowered himself into the darkness until all Sam could see of him were the small blue disks of light that powered his suit. Vision knelt on the roof next to the hole so he could peer in, and Sam circled overhead reluctantly, vigilantly eyeing the perimeter, but also sneaking looks at Tony’s improv entrance. A flash of blue light from the inside and a shouted warning over the intercom, garbled by interference, caught Sam’s attention. He swooped overhead and peered into the dark, then tapped the side of his goggles to switch into the thermal sensor vision, cursing himself for not doing so sooner.
He perched on the roof next to Vision, seeing only Tony’s motionless heat signature in the building, and asked, “Do you know what happened?” Vision shook his head silently and leaned further forward, but then reared back, one hand clapped against his neck as an electrical zapping sound filled the air. Sam bent over him as Vision convulsed, but then realized he would be directly in line of whoever or whatever had done this. Even as he danced back, a sharp hiss cut the air next to his ear, something pricked his neck, and Sam fell, collapsing over Vision.
---
A loud cha-chunk that echoed throughout the room, and the fluorescent lights began to flicker on, one by one, illuminating a massive room with four bodies strewn haphazardly in the middle. A man strode through the single doorway, dressed in an all-white suit, the color broken only by a green bowtie and his bright red hair. His platform shoes (an attempt to make himself appear taller) clicked against the floor as he strode to the collapsed superheroes, flanked by three henchmen.
“Last four, right?” he asked, grinning in a way that wouldn’t have been so psychopathic if he hadn’t been standing with four unconscious humans at his feet. One of the other men nodded an affirmative as they started dragging the bodies away. The leader stood with his hands on his hips, beaming triumphantly around at the empty room.
After a minute, one of the previous three men walked into the room and started to say something, but the white-suited man shushed him accusatorily, saying, “Can’t you see I’m gloating?”
“Sorry, Arcade,” the henchman intoned, and waited quietly for a few minutes before Arcade finally sighed and turned around. “Alright, what was it you wanted to ask me?”
“Should- should we start the brainwashing process?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”
“Well, you know, there was that whole thing, where we tried to brainwash that guy and it didn’t work…”
Arcade sighed and placed one hand on the man’s shoulder. “Listen here-- what’s your name?”
“Jay, sir.”
“Okay, well, Jay, I’d like for you to have some more faith in the things we do here at Murderworld Enterprises, mkay?” Arcade said docilely, but just as Jay began to relax, a vicious smile crossed Arcade’s face and he continued, “Otherwise you might find yourself needing to search for a new job. Or a headstone.”
Jay paled. “O-okay, Arcade.”
“Good, good,” Arcade murmured, turning back to grin at the wall again.
---
The first thought Bucky had when he woke up was, Ow. His head was pounding and his mouth tasted like he’d eated a box of cotton.
The second was, Where the hell am I? He flailed slightly in an attempt to find an answer to that question, and realized his arms and legs were moving over something soft.
The third was, Ow, again, as a loud voice began to speak somewhere overhead, triggering another bolt of pain through his skull.
As his consciousness slowly drifted back into his body, Bucky struggled to sit up, swallowing heavily and squinting up at the three bright lights around him before realizing they were drones, all focused on him. He glowered up at them and tried to grab them, but they nimbly darted out of his reach. Giving up, Bucky looked around at the terrain around him. He was in some kind of forest, trees towering around him. The floor was covered with fallen leaves and birds chirped overhead. His back was pressed up against the wall, and as he crawled away from it, not yet steady enough to walk, the wall shimmered and seemed to disappear. As Bucky touched it, the wall warped strangely under his fingers and he realized it was a screen. He stared up at the sky, wondering if that was a simulation as well, then reasoned the voice must be coming from there, since he couldn’t see speakers anywhere. Where was he? For that matter, who was he? He looked down at his body, hoping to find some answers to where he’d come from, but his plain olive green t-shirt and pants offered no answers.
The voice continued on and Bucky honed in on it, hoping to find some clues to his predicament. “-first Murderworld conducted with the (original) Avengers, hosted by me, the one and only Arcade.” Avengers. A faint chord of recognition stirred in his mind, then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. The sky rippled and changed, proving that it was also a simulation, and faces began appearing, accompanied by the same voice - Arcade, he assumed. Bucky watched impassionately as these unfamiliar people passed on the screen, all dressed the same as him.
“In this half of the arena, we have the ones taken in battle. Tony Stark, aka Iron Man,-” a bearded man, groggily staring around, obviously having just recovered from whatever they had been given,
“-Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon-,” another man, this one fully awake and trying to swat at the camera that was filming him,
“-the Vision, aka the Vision-,” the voice laughed at its own “wit” as the sky displayed a blank-eyed android, hovering aimlessly in the air,
“-James “Rhodey” Rhodes, aka War Machine-,” another man, still passed out on the ground,
“King T’Challa, aka the Black Panther-,” awake, staring up at the cameras and squinting,
“Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow-,” a woman with bright red hair, already standing, though leaning shakily against the wall,
“James “Bucky” Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier-,” his own face, staring stupidly up at the sky, mouth wide. As soon as he saw his image, Bucky snapped his mouth shut and glared at the camera-drone.
Arcade laughed and said, “Some spunk in that one. And then, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America-,” a blond man, standing on his own and glaring defiantly into the camera, and Bucky’s stomach dropped. He knew that man. How was that possible? As he thought back, he realized that he knew all of them. The sky changed to display a man passed out on the ground that Arcade introduced as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, but Bucky was busy trying to figure out where he knew these people from. After a minute, it clicked. Of course. These were his competitors. He must have met them somewhere. Reassured, he tuned back into the broadcast.
“-these are the ones who we had to find ourselves! No easy task, let me tell you, especially with the ones who ran. Without further ado, let me introduce you to the other members of the Avengers!”
“Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch-,” asleep, sprawled on the leaves,
“Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man-,” a teenage boy, looking blearily up at the sky where his image was being displayed, then glancing around self-consciously as he realized he was on the screen,
“And last but certainly not least, Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk!” another asleep man, this one with the only tattered remains of a shirt, worry lines creasing his face even in sleep.
“Each contender will be pitted against the others in this Murderworld arena, however, Arcade isn’t totally unfair, let’s even the odds a little bit!”
One of the drones in front of Bucky swooped forward, a small hatch in the bottom of it opening. A package dropped at Bucky’s feet and he picked it up, turning it over. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a standard piece of twine. Bucky tentatively tugged at the strings and the knot came loose, paper falling apart to reveal two reasonably sized daggers. Bucky picked one up, twirling it lightly in his fingers, then looked up at the sky as new images began to appear.
It was a slideshow of pictures rather than a video, each one taken when the person had opened their “gift”. Most of the objects he didn’t recognize. For the Iron Man, a red and yellow gauntlet and what looked like a breastplate with a hole punched in the middle. Why anyone would want armor with a hole in it, Bucky didn’t know. Captain America had a circular shield with a star and rings of color, and a brown utility belt. Bucky couldn’t see if the belt pouches had anything in them from the picture, and he made a mental note of the fact that Steve Rogers could have some other object. His own picture went by, and the next one showed Sam Wilson holding what appeared to be a metal backpack, confusion written plainly on his face. Good. If he didn’t know what he had, that gave Bucky an edge. The young teen, what was his name, oh yes, Peter Parker, had two metal bracelets that he had clipped around his wrists in the picture. Bucky squinted at the picture, trying to make out the use of such a thing, but the image yielded no answers. Bruce Banner knelt on the ground with an unzipped backpack in front of him, the camera angled so that they could see what appeared to be energy bars inside, but nothing else. The one Arcade had called War Machine had a shiny gray helmet placed on his head, and Bucky frowned. It must have some sort of ulterior function than only protection, for it looked more cumbersome than helpful, at least from the outside. The next three people - Black Panther, Black Widow, and Hawkeye - all had weapons. Clawed gloves, another sort of wrist weapon, and a bow and quiver with arrows, respectively. The last picture flashed by before Bucky had a chance to count the arrows in the quiver, and he added Clint Barton to his list of potential threats. Then he noted that neither the synthezoid nor the Scarlet Witch had appeared. There were two reasons for this that Bucky could think of - either they were both so powerful already that they were the ones the others needed an edge against, or Arcade wanted those two in particular killed earliest. Bucky wasn’t sure which one made him more nervous.
Arcade’s voice again. “Now that we’ve given most of you a little boost, let’s lay down the rules for this little hoedown, shall we? You’ll notice that you’re completely enclosed. Any attempts to break free will be… unfortunate for you, to say the least. You will battle each other and the arena’s terrain for the cameras. Harm a camera and there will also be consequences. Alliances are allowed, and if you prove to be suitable entertainment, a viewer may even give you a gift - a leg up against the competition. There may also be hidden treasures in the arena - those are up to you to find. One last thing - the last person alive will be the only one to leave.” He laughed, a high titter that echoed through Bucky’s ears long after Arcade had stopped laughing. “Are we all clear? Good! Now, get out there and remember the number one rule - have fun!” He burst out laughing again as the sky faded into black and then reset to a natural blue. Bucky looked up at the cameras and plastered on a grin that he hoped came off as dangerous. Then he drew a shaky breath and looked around. Time to hunt.