They take Bucky away.

The announcement of the quarter quell was stated over the wireless, and District 12 was in a flurry for days. No children would be from the district's womb untimely ripped - but the adults of the district would decide on the children they would send in to die. You were probably the obvious choice - no parents to stand up for you, and a complete drain on the district. You couldn't even walk properly, let alone work in the mines. Bucky tried to volunteer for you when the news came - he'd stand a decent chance, he argued, the district might have their first victor if they let him go instead - but they needed him in the mines, and besides which, he was too old, technically, at nineteen. He was angry for you. At least someone was - you still weren't. You figured it was a pretty justified decision, anyway, trying to get rid of you.

But you never intended to die.

Rolling over and exposing your underbelly has never been your style. Sure, your spine is twisted, and you've got flat feet, and you can't hear properly - actually, if you did a body check of everything that was wrong with you, it'd take all night - but goddammit, you will fight to stay alive even if the whole world and your own body fights against you.

And you do. You do win, through sheer fucking luck. You know you're too slow to get to the cornucopia before anyone else, so you don't even try, just stay on your pedestal and look around for an extra second. You grab three packs off the ground - two tributes near you forgot to get theirs entirely, plus your own - and run straight for the tree cover. Years of enduring chronic pain has taught you to ignore anything that twinges or aches, and as a result, while you can't run very fast, you can ignore your body and just keep going. No one even notices you leave - they take your death for granted.

And you hide. And survive. No one comes looking for you - you're not dangerous or desirable enough to be hunted down, and you're good at keeping quiet and motionless whenever a group goes by past the riverbank or under the tree you've tucked yourself away in. The climax of the games comes six days in, while you're still living off the rations from the packs - two careers, from District 1 and District 4, try to kill each other at the cornucopia. The survivor staggers around with a lost arm, searches the sky for a helicopter to rescue him from his own bleeding - finds none. He bleeds out slowly, agonizingly, screeching different names like he's trying to find whoever survived. He never thinks to call yours. Your nightmares are still plagued with his screams.

Returning home feels like a curse. Your whole district is chanting your name, cheering for you, like they didn't send you away as a death sentence. You find Bucky, let him hold you for hours on end, sit in silence with him for almost a full day. "I didn't kill anyone," you tell him, over and over again.

"I know," he says every time, and brushes the hair out of your eyes.

You don't want to be pitied, but you can't stand the thought of being around people, and when you are forced to be in public, you are as sullen and stony-faced as you have been all your life. You thought anger would be easier when you were held in contempt, but it isn't. These people love you, now. And they disgust you.

Actually, you're just (pleasantly) surprised that the Capitol's left you completely alone. From the broadcasts of years gone by, you figured you'd be swarmed with cameras and Capitol reporters and people with a hideous sense of fashion. You're...relieved. For almost a full year, you stay in your newly refurbished house with Bucky, never worry about getting enough to eat or your best friend dying in the coal mines or any of the things that used to plague you daily. You're tortured by a new set of tiny agonies - the dreams, the hallucinations - but it's not as constant, not as persistent, and besides which, whenever you wake up screaming, Bucky is there.

Until the train ride.

And then they take him away.

"Here's how it goes: your victory is straight-up embarrassing to the Capitol," the man in the tan jacket tells you. "You weren't supposed to win. Not even your district wanted you to win. I mean, look at you. You're clearly supposed to die. Wolf meat." You say nothing in response, mostly because of the gag in your mouth, but also because swearing at him has gotten your face beaten in twice in the past two minutes. Your arms are tied to the side of the chair. You've tried to kill him twice already.

"So the Capitol's gonna change some stuff," he continues on, meeting your glare placidly, "fix photos of you, work on painting propaganda, stuff like that. Make you look bigger. Tougher. You know, worth something." He waves his hand at you generally. "And after the train ride, you're going to stay in the Capitol. You're a mentor, now, so that makes sense anyway. And you're gonna say that it's against your religion to have pictures taken of you," he adds importantly, "and you're gonna be humble. You don't wanna be in the spotlight, right?" You jerk your head at him in response. He blinks lugubriously at you, like all this is a huge waste of time. "Of course right," he continues blandly. "And then we're gonna tout you as a hero, and no one's gonna see you again." He motions at his own mouth towards the man on your left, and you can feel the gag loosen. "Any questions?"

"Why the fuck should I trust you?" You snap. You've never been so angry in your life. "Why should I do anything you tell me to? Where's Bucky? What did you do to him?"

"Woah, easy, tiger," he says, waving his hand in the air, and you grind your teeth together. "One at a time. You're going to have to trust me - and you should do what I tell you to - cause we got your friend. You do what we say? He's safe. We've got no reason to hurt him except as a bartering tool. Where is he? Well, on a train, right now." He shrugs. "He'll be in the Capitol, soon. We haven't done anything to him yet. Comply with us, and we can keep it that way." He smiles at you. You want to rip his fucking face off.

"Now, if that's all - " he stares pensively into the air. Waits dramatically, like he's on TV. " - Your train, Mr. Rogers, is outside. Miss Williams will be there to give you your cards and guide you through the different districts. She doesn't know any of this, of course. This discussion is our little secret. Let's keep it that way. Remember," he says, standing, "humility, religion, duty, sacrifice. You care about your friend, yeah? Keep your head down."

If the Capitol wasn't so inherently terrible, maybe you wouldn't mind it. They get you hearing aids, and a proper inhaler, and some medicine for your stomach and your migraines and your liver, and a cane with a wider base so you can actually lean on it without making a balancing act every step of the way. They offer you a wheelchair, and you tell them to fuck off. You'll use a chair when you're dead.

But the Capitol drives its way under your skin like a fierce selection of determined insects. Its citizens, for example, are fucking terrible, hideous abominations of what humans should be. They have surgery to look like anything, claws and whiskers and bigger eyes and extra eyebrows and god knows what else. They explode with colors you can't even fucking see, get in the way of human decency. To mock them in the pitiable way you can, you let them laud your presence in a loose grey suit. It was your father's, and on you, it hangs big and ugly.

But that is all the resistance you can have. You don't know for sure if Bucky is even still alive, if he wasn't just shot in the head the minute you were out of earshot, but if he is, you'd eat your dignity just to save him. If you knew staying alive would get him killed, you'd...you'd've...

You don't know.

And you will never see him again.

"You're Steve Rogers?"

You've had this exact same conversation with every set of tributes for the past twenty-nine fucking years. The boy stares at you with a furrowed brow and a scowl. The girl seems less interested in you and more interested in the egg on her plate. When her eyes do occasionally swivel up to meet yours, they're open and interested, eyebrows raised, but this rarely lasts more than a few seconds. "Yes," you say, leaning with some exhaustion over your cane, "I'm Steve Rogers."

The boy scowls. "You don't look like Steve Rogers," he says, petulantly. He can't be older than twelve - a stubborn age. The girl is maybe fourteen or fifteen. A young set, this year, which is going to make it especially hard on the parents, but a lot easier on the district.

"I hate to break it to you, champ," you say dryly, "but the 'Steve Rogers' you're thinking of doesn't exist. He's propaganda that the Capitol made up. I'm the only real Steve Rogers, and I look exactly like I look."

The boy's brows furrow harder. The girl looks up from the remains of her egg for a solid thirty seconds, and you look to her. She would have been very pretty when she grew up. Too bad.

"Then who really won the first quarter quell?" The boy is still working.

"Me."

"Bullshit!" The boy jumps up from his seat, startling the cutlery on his plate. "There's no way you won it, you're bullshitting us! Look at you, you're...you're tiny, my grandmom could beat you up!"

"I have no doubt," you say serenely. You're not going to waste anger on a stupid kid throwing a temper-tantrum. "Now, are you going to finish your breakfast or not?"

The boy makes an impetuous cry, whirls around on his heel and storms out into another car of the train, doors opening before him and shutting behind him. You sigh gently and lower yourself into your seat. The girl blinks at you twice. "May I have another egg, please?"

You blink back. You haven't heard manners since you were forced to use them, long ago. "Help yourself," you say, waving to the various plates on the table, "the Capitol's got no shortage."

There's a long silence as the girl helps herself to another egg, and again to a second one. She's on her third when she looks up at you again. "Youare Steve Rogers, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Like the one in all the pictures and on the posters and everything?"

"Yes."

"How come you looked so much bigger when they took the pictures, and you're so much smaller now? Did something happen?" She looks almost worried. You smile blandly.

"No, nothing happened. But I was never that big guy," you say, shaking your head, "I've always been this small."

She furrows her brow intensely. Her eyebrows nearly touch. "So how..." she turns down to contemplate her egg, turns back. "How come you look big in those pictures and things?" She asks, and you realize she's genuinely confused. "I mean, I understand how in the drawings and paintings they could just draw you with more muscles and things, but there's photographs, and you look big in those, too."

You lean your head to the side. "Photographs can be fixed," you say, patiently as you can stand. "The Capitol has technology designed to fix up photographs and change the way things look."

She contemplates her egg, and then, to your discomfort, she contemplates you. She's a thinker, you realize. She's trying to figure you out. "So how did you win?" She finally asks, eyes going serious. "I mean, no offense - and obviously, you're not who you were when you were eighteen - but I don't think you beat the games with brute force or anything. So how did you do it?"

You blink. Shake your head. "Luck, I guess," you say, because it's the only truth you can tell. "I don't know. It was a long time ago, and no tributes between then and now have ever listened to my advice before."

"I don't think that's the kind of thing you forget," she says, growing steely. "I know I haven't got much of a chance, Steve, but I bet you didn't have much either, and I don't want to die."

She's a survivor. Like you. You bite the inside of your cheek - can't lead her down the same stupid path you went down. "You understand," you say, glancing around for a guard or the escort or something, thankfully finding no one, "that when I did it, everyone who was close to me was kidnapped or killed."

"I don't care," she says, and then, apparently realizing this is the wrong thing to say, amends "I mean I do care that that happened to you and I'm very sorry, but if you're trying to protect me, it's a lost cause. They can't hurt me like that. There's no one that I love." She reaches across the table, places her hand in front of you. "Please, Steve," she surges, "I want to live."

For once, you contemplate her. Brown curls, brown suit-skirt, clean white shirt in between. Completely practical. Her eyes burn straight into yours, and you realize she wouldn't have grown up to be 'pretty', she would've grow up into a fucking dragon. You sit back in your chair. "What's your name, girl?"

She sits up like she's been formally addressed. "Peggy, sir," she says, "Peggy Carter."

"Well, miss Carter," you say, "finish your egg, and then maybe we can talk about staying alive. Strategically speaking."

She lives. Peggy lives, and for once in your life you know you did something right. She's shaking when she sees you next, but she's even smaller than you anyway and she buries her face in your neck. And she thanks you, that's the part that confuses you - her eyes are streaked with tears and her face is crinkled out of its perpetual prettiness, but she hugs you and she thanks you like you've done her a great service. When she peels away, her makeup is everywhere, but she's smiling. "I have to go home," she tells you, sniffing, "Steve, come with me, no one's seen you in years, maybe the next tribute will listen if they know - "

"Peggy, they can't know," you say, shaking your head, "you know they can't. I have to stay here." Her face falls, and you try to smile encouragingly. It's easier to smile right now than it usually is - you don't, uh, get hugged that often. "Listen, it sounds terrible to you because all the Capitol people are in the center right now," you add, "but it's a lot easier when I'm alone. I'm the only person on the 12th floor for most of the year. And I'll come by for the train ride," you mention helpfully, "that's about a year from now. And then you'll be a mentor, and you'll see me whenever you want."

She sniffs, like she's trying to recollect her dignity. She has to, before she gets on the train back home. If you had a handkerchief, you'd give it to her - as it is, you just tap your fingers awkwardly on your cane. "You won't be alone," she says suddenly, and with all the deftness that fourteen-year-olds have, kisses you on the cheek and slips out the door.

You have no idea what that means. You don't understand young women at all.

Peggy convinces you to use the wheelchair. Not all the time, she says, just sometimes. You feel like a parent being wheedled into accepting your age by a teenage daughter. The chair is convenient, if ugly. You hate it. Peggy says you will learn not to mind it, as though the wheelchair is an undesirable but unavoidable fiancee who your family will eventually force you to marry no matter what. At least the tributes center is handicap accessible, she reminds you. There are elevators everywhere, and ramps, and things like that. This doesn't really make you feel any better, but you like Peggy - she's the first person you've liked in almost thirty years - so you bite your tongue instead of telling her to fuck off, and you do what she says.

They remodel the center when you're too damn old to walk around reliably anymore. The elevators are officially about half the size they used to be, cylindrical and sleek and standing room only. It's incredible, really, how the Capitol keeps thinking of new and inventive ways to screw you casually, like they aren't aware they're doing it. Peggy's working with the tributes - they never trust you, and she struggles with teaching - so she rarely has time to help you when she's up here. So mostly you struggle on your own, which generally means calling in favors or ordering takeout, because you can't get out to buy food yourself.

But you can't help yourself from getting hellfire pissed every once in a while, and if you've got your cane with you, you make a damn strong attempt to dent the doors. And when you're drunk, even slightly, it's easier to just swear loudly at it.

And one time, when you're going at a door like the creatures of hell are at your back, you meet one of the other tributes. Not one of your own - from the next floor down. He shouts at you from across the hall, and you shout back, maybe a little ruder than you really needed to be. At least he accepts when you tell him to get closer - your eyesight's always been bad, but now it's just atrocious. You refuse glasses, but those are probably inevitable too.

The boy - more like a young man, but you always think of the tributes as children - is black, which almost startles you. The Districts are very pointedly segregated by race, you've noticed in years gone by, and there are almost no black people in either District 12 or the Capitol. He's very...well, he's seventeen or eighteen, but he might grow up to be very handsome. He's also uncomfortably tall. If you could stand up straight, you probably wouldn't come up to his shoulders. But he wants to help you - he's pointedly eager about doing whatever he can - and he's polite, and it kind of startles you. You haven't seen manners in the games since Peggy.

He gets you downstairs, you get his name. Sam Wilson, he said, you think. Right, Sam Wilson, District 11. You don't know what he was doing on the 12th floor, but you decide it's better not to ask. He's willing to learn - totally open to new information - respectful - you could rely on him. You could rely on him to win, even, unlike the new stubborn set of idiot tributes District 12 gave you. And he's so helpful and willing. You want him to win. You could make him win, if he listens.

The glass bowls are enormous, and they both hold a single slip of paper, resting at the bottom. Miss Williams stands between you, as blond and pink as she was fifty years ago today, only far more tired. When she smiles, her lips seem to part up and down, rather than across her face - as they always do, every year, at the reaping. You almost suspect she doesn't enjoy it.

"As always, ladies first."

Peggy is stonefaced, arms folded crisply behind her back. She is prim and put together and ironed into something clean and she deserved so much better. She doesn't glance at you when you pull yourself to a pained stand, leaning heavily on your cane, and you don't look to her, either.

You won't be alone.

And so we turn our gaze forwards - onwards and upwards.