A/N: Hi! Quickie intro: this is a three part spin-off/companion story of/for The After Gate. It is set in the same universe. I don't know about you but I think the goof from District One deserves his story told!

Disclaimer: I didn't invent the Hunger Games. I didn't invent Marvel. Su Collins did. All hail Su for letting us stick our fingers in her pie.

Part 1

Hey! What's the circumstance

you'll never be great without taking a chance so

Wait, you waited too long

had your hands in your pockets when you shoulda been gone

~Shinedown

Marvel saw her for the first time in the Tribute Parade. She was dark and tall yet somewhat unexceptional, swathed in aqua-blue, shimmery long veil whipping in the wind. Really, the only thing about her that made any impression on him was her sizable crown; sparkly blue, encrusted in pearls and shiny stones and topped in more pearls.

Marvel met her for the first time in the Training Center. She was from District Four, he gathered. She appeared to know exactly who she was and what she wanted and thus was not to be messed with. He paid little attention to the quiet lanky girl.

Marvel noticed her the first time on the brightly lit Interview stage and his world changed forever.

Marvel fell.

She was standing, walking up for her interview with Caesar Flickerman. She was wearing a floaty pink dress adorned with sheer pink roses and he liked how that looked, how the rosy pale shade brought out the smooth dark tan of her legs, the slant of her cheekbones.

He figured he'd never see her in a dress again, so he memorized everything about her, how she looked that night. How her eyelids shimmered over dark reticent eyes. How her waist curved, hugged by that soft glowy fabric. How her black hair curled softly against her bare smooth shoulders. How her voice was pleasant but wary as she talked with Caesar.

He stored it all away safely in his head, because he wanted to remember her. He felt her gravity and it pulled at him.

He needed her closer, very close, so that he could be grounded, like she was, so that the churning inside him would let up. It was idiotic, definitely. But then again it wouldn't be his first time an idiot, would it? And certainly not his last.

As she went back to her seat beside the boy from Four he thought she looked a little unsure and he wanted to run to her, to tell her she had nothing to worry about, that she had it all together, whereas he was just a scattered, stupid loser, a tangle of confusion.

…...

Lots of noise. That was always how he remembered that first day of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games. It started with the boom of the cannon and didn't let up until the majority of tributes were dead or had fled from the vicinity of that evil, hulking Cornucopia.

He looked for her after the violence subsided, but she wasn't anywhere. Not with the dead; not with the living that he could see.

It wasn't as if he could see many. Glimmer, of course, who had come with him from One. (She was mean, could always make him feel lower than dust with a single word.) Cato, big, strong, always angry, and Clove, small insignificant, both from Two.

They started away from the bloody mess, into the woods, and Marvel was glad for Cato's automatic leadership. He didn't know where to go first; he didn't want to make the decisions- he never made the right ones, which ended up in him being laughed at, usually. This time he could end up being killed, which was almost as fearsome.

The little group didn't get very far before he heard a shout, and his heart flipped as he recognized that voice from the night before. She ran up, breathless; dark hair tangled, dark eyes wild.

She did not look so grounded anymore, but he could still feel it, her gravity- it was still there. It settled around her, settled him.

Naturally he spouted the first stupid thing that came to mind, and definitely the worst. "Where's your little buddy?"

Her gaze met his for the first time and his breath hitched, because her eyes were so deadly, yet so beautiful. Just like her voice when she answered; The Cornucopia. After that he tried to shut up because he didn't really want her mad with him; he just wanted her with him.

…...

That night was strange, the strangest he'd ever experienced so far. Faces of the fallen tributes flashed over the sky and he remembered killing some of them, and then he wondered why he felt so wrong about that, for doing what he'd been taught to do. It was unfair, really.

They lay on the hard forest ground, jackets or arms for pillows, and he lay listening to the shifting and rustling as everyone (except Cato, who had the first watch) tried unsuccessfully to get comfortable. He was about to drift off, lack of a real bed notwithstanding, when he heard the tiniest whimper and knew promptly where it came from.

She was crying.

Why was she crying?

…...

They killed another tribute early the next morning. Well, Cato did, mostly. Marvel didn't get to help much.

After that they didn't accomplish much. Clove knifed some squirrels for lunch and the meat wasn't as disgusting as he'd expected.

The Girl- they'd started calling her Four, after her district- was unhappy. He could sense it. Under her defensive sparring with Clove and Glimmer, he could see brokenness.

Once he fell in step with her. She saw that he was watching her and gave him gave him a What do you think you're doing? look but he was on a mission. He ducked his head, being so much taller than her, and asked quietly, "What's wrong?"

"What are you talking about?" she hissed back, darting glances at their traveling companions.

"You were crying last night and you keep trying not to, today," he told her.

She gave him another look, decidedly more evil than the last. "You probably killed him yourself. Quit talking to me."

"The boy from your district?" he asked, hoping she noticed how quickly he'd figured that out.

She tramped on sullenly. Even in her turmoil, she had a calming effect, he thought. She made him feel... okay.

Okay was good.

"Yes," he said, still quietly, "I did." He waited for the condemnation, for her to hit him, to glare him down, to tell him what an incredible idiot he was. Which he was of course. He had forgotten, in the Arena, that he was supposed to be teamed up with the Four tributes. It was just the sort of thing you would expect from Marvel. Stupid boy.

"He was my cousin," she whispered. Her breath jerked a bit. She gave him a level stare. "I will never forgive you. Ever."

...?

No name-calling? No belittling tones?

"You're unbelievable," he said, admiring.

She huffed and looked away.

But he saw. He saw the tiny flame of laughter in her eyes. He smiled, because it felt like victory, even if it was just for now, this moment.

This moment was fine with him.

…...

…...

She didn't know why she was drawn to him but nothing else made sense anymore either. She couldn't see him as a killer but she didn't know why. He had murdered the one person she had sworn to protect, and she was having a very hard time pinning the blame on him.

Because every time she looked at him, she didn't see heartlessness, or brutality. She saw confusion.

Confusion, and- strangely- innocence.

One push is all you'll need...

a fist-first philosophy..

We watch with wounded eyes...

so I hope you recognize...

~Shinedown