The Capitol grows incessantly busier and irritating as the time of the third quarter quell draws near. Maria Hill is still being paraded around the president's palace when Steve finally shoves off back to District 12. It is the second time in almost five decades he's ever actually wanted to go home, the fourth time actually returning.

Peggy meets him at the station, flustered and happy, as though this is all something to celebrate through. Steve has to remind himself that Peggy has never really lived through a quarter quell before - she wasn't even old enough to be in the tribute pool at the last one. She tells him she's happy to have him, happy to have some company, happy to see him back home again. He smiles, says the district smells even worse than he remembered. It makes her laugh. Peggy always makes him feel a little better about coming home, even if the thought of remembering his life there makes him sick.

She is the only person allowed to carry him, ever, and even then only for short distances, like from his wheelchair to an actual seat. The Capitol-mandated television in her house sits on the wall directly opposite the couch, unlike in Steve's apartment, where it's shoved to the side of the mantlepiece as far away as possible. It's cold - the winter hasn't yet given way to spring - and Steve carries a blanket with him over his knees wherever he goes. When the excitement of seeing each other again wears down, Peggy is quieter, solemner. She makes two gin and tonics, and they both drink quietly.

"The quarter quells are awful, aren't they?" She says, finally. Steve looks up at her, but she's focused on her drink, and doesn't look back. "I was still a kid at the last one - but I knew all the tributes that year. I knew all of them. They were my friends."

Steve looks to the screen. There is nothing he can say. The games go beyond verbal condolences.

Pepper Potts and Phil Coulson are friends - such good friends, in fact, that Pepper is actually allowed to call him by his first name. Everyone gets the closest to the tributes from their district - holding a shared history is part of surviving in close quarters with each other. They drink in the kitchen. Phil has whiskey straight out of the bottle - Pepper makes herself a dry martini (very dry. Incredibly dry. With lots of olives. Like, at least three olives). Tony was supposed to come by, but he says he's "busy", which probably means he's building more toys in his basement. Pepper complains that she really should've known better - she's known Tony for years, almost twenty years now - and Coulson nods sagely. He doesn't, actually, know much of anything about romance. It's not really his ballpark.

The thought of having to listen to another goddamn announcement by president Snow is enough to make both of them get as drunk as they can on whatever Pepper has in her kitchen, which in turn makes her think that calling Tony is a Really Great Idea. Surprisingly enough, he answers, maybe because he's got a special ringtone for her, or maybe because he's drunk, too.

Tony is, in fact, making toys in the basement, if by basement, you meant lab, and by toys, you meant incredibly dangerous atomic weapons. He's had three beers to match his companion's half-bottle of wine. It's hard enough getting Bruce Banner to leave his house, much less his district. Getting him all the way to Tony's mini-mansion is practically a miracle, which pinned Tony back home. They are drinking. Bruce is welding. Neither of them has the forethought to decide that this is a bad idea.

"Look, Tony, I'm just saying that it's an important announcement and I think we're all legally mandated to watch it," Pepper says, speaking more loudly than she means to, "and if you're not going to watch it, then I'm going to tell you what the president has to say."

"Pepper, please," Tony responds, waving his hands around in the air like she can see him, "since when has that half-dead bag of bones ever said anything important? The TV's on upstairs, so it'll sound like we're watching, anyway."

"We? Who are you with?" In the other room, Phil fiddles around with the television screen. Pepper can't turn it off, but she did figure out how to mute it years ago, which is almost the same thing. Only they don't know how to unmute it, now.

"Banner's here," Tony says, his mouth obviously full of something. Pepper has the foresight to not ask what he's eating. She probably doesn't want to know. "We're adventuring in welding."

"What? How many drinks have you had? Whoever has the blowtorch needs to put it down now," she says. From the other room, a faint 'got it!' and the sound of a commercial springing to life pour through.

"But Pepper-"

"NOW, Tony."

Clint gets home to find Natasha already at his kitchen table. He didn't invite her, but he's aware that he really shouldn't be surprised by now.

"Merry quarter quell," she deadpans, "aren't you going to invite me in?"

He's pretty sure he had three new locks on his door, and considers commenting on this, but withdraws the statement before it makes it to his mouth. He knows her well enough by now. She would've gotten in either way. "Merry quarter quell, Tasha. Would you like to come in?"

"Don't mind if I do," she responds. "Now ask me if I want a drink."

He looks in her hand. She's already holding a glass full of what he hopes is water, but knows is vodka. He sighs. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Your hospitality knows no bounds." She sips gently. "Go make yourself a drink, we'll have something together."

Sitting on the counter is a glass of beer, poured over a lot of ice. On the rim of the glass is a slice of lime, and a tiny pink umbrella. He looks at her for an explanation. She shrugs. "I thought it would make it more festive," she says. He smiles in spite of himself.

"Okay," he says, drink in hand, "let's go watch this son of a bitch make his dumb fucking announcement, huh?"

The TV's already set up, and they sit next to each other on the couch. Clint rests his head on her shoulder. Natasha does nothing in response, but she doesn't push him away, which is as close to inviting contact as she gets.

Sam Wilson is spending the announcement night at his cousin's house, family scattered wildly about the building. Peggy invited him over, too, but he had to decline - family comes first.

Everyone else in the house, after a rousing and explosive dinner, collects around the television to watch. Sam, however, is an adult, and has no children, and so the games really don't affect him anymore. He wasn't even alive for the last quarter quell. Instead, he washes dishes, and listens from the kitchen. Thoughtfully, his cousin turns the television up loud enough that he can hear it over the sink.

Loki is too young to drink, but he drinks anyway, the hard cider that District 10 is so famous for. His mother doesn't mind - she drank at that age. The games are isolating on a personal level. They make you forget how to connect to anyone who hasn't been in the stadium. It's why she still shares a home with her boy. They both know what the dreams feel like.

Out of some childish habit, Loki sits on a pillow on the floor at his mother's feet. Frigga perches on her armchair, like Zeus of Olympus. They are both frozen in place, watching silently as hawks.

The vehement hatred of the Capitol is apparent in their home at all times. It has been present since Loki was born, cradled in the arms of a victor who was forcibly separated from her husband and elder son by the brutality of the districts. It is a family of victors - two from a career district, two from the stables of the Capitol's metaphorical inn. Loki knows his brother is a survivor, too, knows that his father's passing hit his mother hard, but he does not care. The careers are too close to the Capitol for his affection to travel so close, and the way his victory was cast aside as the fourth and final one for the Odinsons stings bitterly in his mouth. His mother was proud - moved to tears - but his father couldn't be bothered to care.

When he was a child, he would sit before his mother for her to braid his hair. Now, her hands are folded on her knees, and his hair hangs loose about his ears. They are too filled with contempt to be bothered with love.

Maria gets home late the night before, her mentor in tow. He rubs her back and ruffles her hair, walks her home. It's surprisingly vulnerable for him, and by the next day, he's back to yelling and throwing things, but Maria remembers. Her sixteenth birthday was the week before the train ride, and he bought her an engraved cigarette case. She doesn't smoke, but it's a nice case, and it was particularly thoughtful. Mostly, Fury just talks about how she needs to win, act like she's proud of winning, no smiling, no crying, stand tall with shoulders back and eyes hard and ahead.

He doesn't come by on the day of, but he calls her, sounds pretty badly hungover. She reminds him of the announcement, and he swears a lot, hangs up on her. She doesn't mind. He lives in a house about twelve yards away from hers, anyway. If she really wants to talk to him, she can just walk to his front door.

Nick Fury, for his part, feels drained. No amount of alcohol in the world could make the train ride easier. It was awful when he did it, and it was awful for Maria now. If he hadn't enforced the "no emotions in public" rule so solidly, she would've been crying maybe every other night. Seeing the lower districts really shook her. Sure, 5 is no career, but watching her hands shake while she delivered the eulogies for 11 and 12 hurt him on a personal level. She's still a kid, and he feels guilty for letting it happen to her. It's hard not to care for your tributes, when you're a mentor. Harder when they live.

The quarter quell is just a firmer kick in the face about the games, a reminder that Maria's a mentor now, that the first games she has to guide new tributes through are the hardest fucking games she'll probably live to see, unless she's like he was. He can remember how young he was during the second quarter quell. He can remember all four of the tributes that year, even if he can't remember their names. At least he was an infant for the first one, at least he can't remember that.

The television blares the Capitol's music loudly. His head hurts. He considers getting drunk again.

The president walks to his podium. A hush falls.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, "this is the 75th year of the hunger games." Cheering. Respectful hush. "It was written in the charter of the games that every twenty-five years, there would be a quarter quell," he continues, "to keep fresh for each new generation the memory of those who died in the uprising against the Capitol. Each quarter quell is distinguished by games of a special significance. And now, on this, the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the rebellion, we celebrate the third quarter quell," More cheering. Another respectful hush. "As a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol," and a dramatic pause.

"The male and female tributes are to be reaped…from the existing pool of victors in each District."

The world is quiet for a brief moment. Then, chaos.

Peggy sits, rigid, face stark white, lips hanging open. "You son of a bitch," she hisses, through clenched teeth. "You son of a bitch, you son of a bitch," and suddenly she is standing, shrieking, hurling her glass through the screen to watch it break on the wall beyond. "No! No, you fucking, you sick son of a bitch, no!"

Next to her, Steve merely crumples. He curls over his own knees, arms wrapped around himself like he's being torn apart in the gale of her rage. She screams, swears, hurls the bottle of gin against the wall, angry tears streaming down her face. Lowers herself to the ground. Buries her face in the blanket on his lap. He runs gentle fingers through her hair. "You won't be alone," he whispers, like it's an old secret they passed to one another in youth. "I'm sorry, Peggy. I'm sorry."

The plate in Sam's hand shatters on the floor before he realizes he dropped it. Blearily, as though in a dream, he stumbles out the back door, out the backyard, runs from the house across the roads and the alleys into the fields on the edge of the city, runs among the grain, falls to his knees. He will not return to the house for another half hour - when he does, he will clean up the shattered plate and finish doing the dishes in silence.

"Well, he's giving some bullshit about how no one is as strong as the Capitol, so the thing for the quell...is..." Pepper stops mid-sentence. The phone slips out of her hand, bounces on the floor. She moves her lips silently, but she cannot make a sound. Phil is transfixed, frozen in shock. From the phone, Tony calls Pepper's name in increasing confusion and panic.

In two minutes, Phil's phone will ring. Neither of them will make a move to answer it. They stare at the television, like they're waiting for another announcement calling the first one off, saying it was a mistake or a joke or something, anything, to make it stop being real. Nothing comes.

Frigga cries out in a pale shade of desperation - her son, silent at her feet, rests his head against her knees. She braids her fingers through his hair. "My boy," she wails, "my boy."

Maria covers her ears with her hands, gasping for air like there's none left in the room. She thinks, maybe, she should scream - but she can't get the air into her lungs for it. Instead, she stumbles towards the door, down her front steps into the night.

Across the street, Nick Fury flips over the table his television is stationed on, breaks a bottle on the floor, and grabs his coat on the way out of the house. He doesn't need it - Maria, stumbling along the ice outside her home, will. He gets to her before she can get to him, throws the coat around her shoulders, pulls her close against him. She wails softly into his shoulder. "Easy, Hill," he whispers, staring hard at the lights in her house, "this isn't public. You clock out if you need to."

Clint scrambles to his feet like he's ready to do something drastic. Natasha sits still. Nothing shakes Natasha anymore, really. Her eyes are wide and her face is pale, but next to Clint, who drops his drink, swears loudly, flips a chair over, swears more, and storms off into the kitchen, she is as calm as a tree in a gale. In ten minutes, the cacophony of Clint's rage will pass into a soft moaning - only then does she stand from her spot and follow him to the kitchen.

He is sitting in the corner, knees to his chest, head bent. Quite possibly, she thinks, he is crying. She sits next to him, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he leans into her. "There's a lot of tributes from District 7, you know," she says, and sets her head against his. "The most of any non-career. We might be safe." No response. He is definitely crying, she notes with some distress. "If they choose you, I'll volunteer. We'll go down together." Still nothing. This is not Natasha's area of expertise, even with Clint. She looks around for something, anything, to make him stop crying. "There's vodka left," she settles on, finally, "You wanna get drunk?" There's a pause in the snuffling. Then, a tiny nod. She rubs his back.

No one answers the goddamn phone. Tony calls Pepper three times, Coulson twice. Bruce suggests calling other victors, but Rogers is out of the house, Fury won't pick up, they're both too scared of Natasha to try her phone, and the Odinsons are frankly kind of uncomfortable to talk to. They're stuck on it for almost ten minutes before Bruce remembers that they actually have a television going upstairs, and that the announcement is so important, it'll probably be rerunning all night. Tony gets up the stairs first - it is his house - and starts jumping through channels. In three minutes, they find the first rerun of the announcement.

They watch, transfixed. Tony makes spluttering noises, like he's just been doused in frigid water - Bruce starts laughing. "Fuck this," he says, through heaves of breath, "fuck this goddamn country." He sinks into a chair, buries his fingers in his hair, and laughs. Doors slam in the rest of the house, and he knows that Tony is gone.

Onwards, later. First, let's go back.