There were names for all of them. Bucky had heard them all, used them the way most of the people he knew did. Disparaging and snide though they were, it was easy - he was one of them. Different District, different insult, but it wasn't any different. He used them with people from the Districts, not with the Capitol, usually - it was inclusion, not mockery. But Loki didn't know him, and Bucky didn't really know Loki, either. Miscalculations were inevitable - especially when Bucky was still re-learning this, how to deal with people again, outside of the narrow scope of Capitol presentation.
He heard the sound though, head cocking, not sure of where it came from, but knowing he said something wrong, somewhere. Bucky didn't ask, just hesitated, that fraction too-long beat that was Bucky's easiest slip up, along with the flex of his metal hand.
The truth was that if Bucky had thought it would work, he'd have begged for mercy. He'd have walked whatever tightropes he was told to for the sake of helping Steve, even if meant just an easy death. Because there was no real miracle to hold out for anymore, other than a half-baked revolution rising up in the space of a couple of days, ousting the whole of the Capitol leadership and halting the Games. So - no real hope. But Bucky didn't think that would work, and he wouldn't ask for it. Loki had a mother in the Arena. They wouldn't give him that much power over the shape of it, knowing that, and even if they did, all his mercy would go to Frigga.
Bucky didn't want mercy from him. He wanted anger. He wanted the snapfire of the guy who'd been afraid but still mouthed off to him when Bucky was unstable enough to snap his neck. That guy was about to lose a mother, was a castoff from 2. That guy might be pissed off enough that he could be a help.
Bucky watched the flowerpots vibrate with the slam of the bottle, reaching to touch one at the edge, steadying it, though it didn't come close to tipping. He dropped his hand away just as quickly. "They'll make you talk about it. How proud you are, what it's like to come from a family like that. Way they make us talk about our kills. Way they'll ask us what it's like to mentor people we've known for years," Bucky said quietly. "It's smart, right? Makes for good watching. Shit for the people at home to eat up?" He shrugged. "It's cruel, and you shouldn't have to do it." Bucky hesitated and then tilted his head a little. "They shouldn't get to make you watch this, same as they shouldn't get to make them go back in."