Summary: "All right, I get it. No more hiding. You want me to go out and play, fine, I'll go out and play." Tired of waiting for the tributes to do something entertaining, the Gamemakers make their move. Meanwhile, Loki makes his.
Loki turned his face away from the cameras, tilting the angle of his head into the blind spot he'd located earlier, and allowed himself the luxury of gagging. The smell of flesh had long burnt itself into his nostrils, filling every inch of his nose and lungs until nothing else remained; Loki imagined he could start an electrical fire and not even smell the stinging stench of ozone. In all likelihood he would not be able to eat meat for some time.
Not that it mattered. A victor could command any kind of menu or cuisine he liked; if Loki so chose, he need never eat any kind of meat ever again, though of course he did not think it was so dire.
Having gotten his revulsion under control, Loki arranged his features back into his chosen twisted smile as he turned back into the range of the cameras and dragged the scoop across the bubbling vat, sifting off the fat and transferring it to the pans on the floor. This would not win him any love from District Four, and likely wouldn't result in any gifts from his home districts either, but the Capitol loved it when things got twisted, and that was who Loki was targeting. The ones who clapped their hands when the first odds were posted, who made scoreboards and brackets and laid money not just on the victor but which tributes would die in which day spreads, how many deaths by violence, how many by starvation. They would appreciate his show.
Not for the first time, as Loki ladled out the fat and spread it smooth in the pans, Loki felt a stab of envy for his brother and the other traditional Careers. If Loki had been allowed to stay - if they had not all been fools, if Thor had not been so damned good at playing anyone, if Father had not failed him, if Mother had not left, if, if, if - then Loki could have played the game he was best at, trained killer with a sadistic streak, and not needed to push it this far. Loki could, of course, sell anything, and if Loki Odinson, traitor, exile, triumphant returnee and absolute madman was what he needed then he would do it, but how much easier would it be if all he had to do was frolic through the city making songs about playtime.
Thor, the golden tribute from District Two, the perfect son from a family of heralded victors that went back three generations, had advantages that not even the other Careers could boast. No one would go so far as to call him a shoo-in - too much emphasis on foregone conclusions and the audience lost interest - but Loki was no fool, and he knew his brother to be the favourite of the Capitol by far.
Ah well. Loki knew his job, and it was simple. Thor had one weakness, and Loki planned to exploit it with as much skill and precision as he had sliced out the connective tissue from the Four girl's arm.
All Loki had to do was make Thor look boring.
Thor was his father's son; blond, gorgeous, perfectly built, honourable, and utterly by the book. In an off year, particularly following a run of nonstandard victories or ones by outlying districts, this would have been comforting for both the Capitol audiences and those who ruled them. Look, a Career who plays and wins by following the rules. See, the system is in place for a reason. The system works. In a political climate where revolution bubbled under the surface, where a fifteen-year-old boy could shout for a district to kneel and have them obey him, that would be reassuring to those in power and threatening to those outside it.
But this year, with its ragtag outliers and charming, tiny children, Thor would soon be forgotten if he did not do something memorable, and the more Loki emphasized that fact - that yes, he might be insane, his morals even looser than the normal last child standing, but he at least was interesting, he was good television - the better his chances. Sometimes that meant making traps, even though he could kill much quicker and more effectively with his bare hands.
Sometimes it meant making the remains of a fallen tribute into soap, despite that requiring Loki to reach a point where he actually disturbed himself. That took special effort, but Loki didn't think much of it. Mother would be happy if she knew, that her boy still had some lines left to cross, but of course she would have to be here to see it.
The glue, at least, was not so bad, once Loki had added the other materials he'd gathered to complete the process. He'd crushed up the rest of Four's bones and coated his trip wires in the mixture; completely an affectation, of course, as the wires would slice through flesh and arteries on their own just fine, but the bone and blood and human glue made for an extra touch. If he were watching in another year, Loki would have snorted overkill, but this year he had not much choice.
It would take some time for the fat to cool and harden, and so Loki left it to gel. He climbed up into the rafters, leaning against the roof supports and leaving one leg to dangle, his knives held loosely in his hands. Let the cameras see him, catch the expression of pensive melancholy on his face, and wonder what he was thinking. It would add depth to his character, keep them talking, and unless the Capitol had magical mind-extraction technology in their cameras that no one actually knew about, his thoughts remained safe.
All tributes went through moments of weakness, where the cold nights and long days and the constant threat of death and the pressure to be interesting wormed its way into their psyches. There was no shame in Loki allowing himself to succumb for a few moments here and there when he did not allow it to affect his performance. He rubbed a hand over his bare wrist, the one that had held his candidate bracelet from the training Centre and marked him as a potential volunteer to any who might see it; the bracelet he had discarded when he turned his back on the facility that betrayed him. That bracelet would have been his token, and after his victory, would have been replaced by a tattoo of the same on his wrist so that all would know Loki for the victor that he was. Father had one, and Mother, too.
When Loki won, he would not. He had abandoned District Two for good - and good riddance, of course, away from Father's posturing and Mother's weakness - and he would not be accorded that honour no matter how great his victory. He could commission one himself from an artist in the Capitol, but it would be hollow, all but meaningless, an would garner him nothing but scorn from the other Two victors. Hardly any point unless he wished to thumb his nose at them, and Loki did not wish that.
They would understand, when he won. They would understand when he stepped back from Thor's fallen body, that they had all been wrong - so terribly wrong - that they had misjudged and put their faith in the wrong son of Odin. Father would see that despite his censure Loki had fought to please him regardless, and while Loki no longer sought Father's opinion nor courted his good will, Father would feel proud that his son had accomplished so much with none of the support and love he had heaped upon Thor.
And Mother - Mother would see that she, too, had been mistaken.
Loki's lip curled as he thought of his younger self at Mother's knee, learning to read with his cheek against the soft velvet of her dress, her hand resting in his hair. Loki had eschewed touch even as a child, with Mother his only exception; she had not forced her affection on him, but rather allowed him to draw it from her. Loki had spent hours with her, reading and devising tricks, for which she would applaud and praise his cleverness rather than deriding them as useless time-wasters as Father and Thor tended to do.
Loki had striven to please Father because his appreciation and approval was always out of reach, but he only ever wanted to keep making Mother smile. It was a weakness Loki had since excised but not forgotten. He wondered if she was watching the broadcast now, and if so, which of her sons she hoped would walk out alive. A few years back he would have said Thor without hesitation, but now -
Mother had abandoned him, Thor, Father, the whole family and everything they stood for the night she'd left. Loki still recalled her face, wild and undisciplined and nothing like the kind, firm woman who commanded the cameras instead of letting them dictate what they wanted to see from her. She'd held his shoulders, told him she was leaving Father, that he had lost his mind, that he was sending Loki into the residential program to train to be a volunteer like Thor and that she would not lose both her sons to his madness. That Loki could come with her now, leave the Program, leave Father, leave Two, even, hide in the mountains - she obviously hadn't thought it through, something Loki hadn't even bothered to point out to her - and be free together.
As if freedom and running were the same thing; as if freedom could be found by abandoning one's family and obligations and heading for the hills. Freedom could not be chased; it must be seized, taken, and twisted to suit one's own purpose. Mother had left without him; Loki had no doubts that she had discovered this particularly painful truth of her own accord by now.
Loki still remembered the knife in his heart as he realized Mother didn't think he could win. She thought him a monster, one of those whom the Arena chewed up and spat out and whom the Gamemakers killed because there would not be enough hope left in him for the audience to be pleased. She thought him the villain, who no matter what the fools in Twelve with their underfed, scrawny heroes thought, never won the Games if the Gamemakers had a better choice.
"The Centre is taking you," Mother had said, brushing his hair out of his eyes and holding his face. "You don't see it, but I do. It's got you deep, and if I don't get you out I'll never get you back. Loki, I love you. Don't let this happen. Don't go into residential. Don't take your first kill."
Loki had looked at her, tall and proud and allowed a sneer of disdain to curl his mouth. Father used to talk about how Mother had gone soft since having Thor - Loki knew better, having learned to fight at her hand before he entered the Program so he would not be hopelessly behind, but Father's standards, as Loki had learned himself, did not always make sense - and Loki had used that against her. Called her weak, called her a disgrace to her title as victor, and watched as hurt twisted her face into a mask of pain. She'd considered taking him anyway, Loki had seen, but in the end she hadn't.
Mother had believed in Loki when no one else had bothered; she'd indulged him in his fancies, teaching him to read when Father said he knew enough to get by and that was all that mattered - look at Thor, Thor didn't waste time sticking his nose in books when he could be training instead and didn't Loki want to be strong like Thor?
The day Mother lost faith in Loki's humanity was the day Loki decided he didn't need it.
He would show her the same as everyone else, assuming she hadn't actually followed through with her ill-conceived idea to flee. He'd heard vague rumours that she'd taken a house in the Village, but that sort of gossip had been a distraction and Loki had done best to shut it down. Either way, Mother would see. She would see that yes, perhaps her son was a madman, perhaps he understood ambition and the true evil inherent in the lie of freedom a little too well to make him a suitable member of polite society, but that he was great, greater than everyone and everything that had tried to drag him down.
Mother was not evil herself, only foolish, and Loki believed she would be proud and chagrined, not that it mattered to him one whit on either score. Father, on the other hand, Loki could never manage to read. Loki no longer grubbed for his approval, and so after, if Father chose to give it, let him choke on it like he would a mouthful of bones and dust. Perhaps then, when Loki flung Father's forgiveness back in his face, he would be able to believe it himself.
No matter. These thoughts did not belong with him here, now; they were the product of the Arena, too much time to think and not enough to do. He usually did a much better job of burying them, of convincing himself of their absence. Loki had some time before the soap cooled and set; he needed to occupy his time lest he sink too far into contemplation and be unable to focus. He'd spent more time alone in District Twelve since leaving home, but he'd taken every moment of his time with training, testing his pain tolerance, the limits of his endurance to exposure, even collecting tracker jackers to inject himself with the venom and take notes on what the hallucinations made him see. Very little time for self-reflection there; Loki needed to take a note from his earlier self and do the same now.
In his survey of the Arena, Loki had found an abandoned warehouse, filled with various building supplies, including numerous old mirrors. Loki enjoyed mirrors; he'd managed to work out several tricks with them as a child, to Thor's undying irritation - Thor always rushed straight at them, if Loki managed to conceal them well, and once Loki had turned the backyard of their house into a funhouse maze of madness that drove Thor nearly to tears. Perhaps he could create something fun to keep his mind off things.
The reminder of their childhood would no doubt dig Thor deep, which at least ensured that Loki would not be the only one haunted by the cobwebs of the past. That, if nothing else, would brighten Loki's day, since he couldn't kill any other tributes so soon after the death of Four. He hopped down from the rafters, adjusted the 'DO NOT TOUCH' sign on the soap, and gathered his weapons belt tight about his waist.
Tony tilted the screen toward him, tracing his finger over the blurry image. The surveillance bot he'd sent out had the simplest mechanisms because he didn't actually need it - not with Jarvis in his head - but he had to have something to explain to the people watching why he could see things he shouldn't be able to. It would give him just enough plausibility that they wouldn't look too hard.
"Where is everybody," Tony muttered out loud. "Don't tell me they're hiding from the robot. Does this look like a killer drone to you?" He tapped the screen. "Poor Vision. It's okay, buddy, I love you."
Hopefully the crazy genius, hidden away and talking to his makeshift robots would be enough entertainment while the others were out killing each other, except it had been a couple of days since the last cannon - the girl from Four - and even that had been about forty-eight hours since the one before. Not exactly a bloodthirsty bunch, this one, which seemed weird given how many absolute psychos were in their ranks this year.
Fury was taking his sweet time with this 'rescue', and maybe that was it, the Gamemakers who were in on the scheme manipulating things so that the fewest number of people died. Not that it mattered. Tony still wasn't interested. He hadn't gone into the Games to be the entertainment - that would be the crazy brothers from different districts, weird story there he was sure and if he lived he'd pull up the files and get all the details, or the guy from Nine that Tony really did not want to meet until his plans finished. Or, you know, ever, what were Careers for if not for killing the terrifying guys with swords? Were they sleeping, or what?
The smell of engine oil and squeak of poor treads jarred Tony from his surveillance, and he looked up to see his fetch-and-carry bot dragging a bag of groceries. "Hey Baconator," Tony said out loud. "Bring Daddy the bacon. Whatcha got for me?"
Yeah, not the best name or pun, but this was the Arena. Sue him if his jokes weren't quite up to snuff. Up to scratch? Whatever.
He'd programmed Baconator with the basic parameters to avoid foods that would poison him or kill him with microbes, and for a rush job it wasn't actually too bad. Tony discarded one apple for being too soft and smelling a little funky, but other than that, the fruit and bread was stale but overall okay. "Good boy," Tony said, patting the bot at the join of his articulated arm.
He missed Dummy and his other bots back home, and Tony found himself having an idiot moment and wondering if they somehow managed to watch him, and if so were they jealous he was building new friends without them. That was just plain stupid; Tony might talk to his bots and they might respond, but he knew better than that. This was just plain old Arena crazy, like the worst days when he'd get in an engineering frenzy and lock himself in his workshop, except that here if he eventually dragged himself outside it wasn't a fridge of slowly rotting food but a city full of people who wanted to kill him.
Dummy and the others might not be watching the Games or even know what they were, but they did know when Tony was gone, and they missed him whether he'd programmed in that subroutine or not. He had the image of Dummy continuing to do maintenance on the workshop, accidentally breaking things and sweeping them back up, and slowly running out of power as the Stark mansion's bills went unpaid and his charging station stopped working. Except that was an even stupider thought than the bots watching the Games, because that wouldn't happen. If Tony didn't come back, the Capitol would commandeer the entire Stark laboratories and all its assets unless Jarvis managed a miracle, and Dummy and all the bots would be tossed in a scrap heap somewhere.
Cheerful. Tony clicked his teeth in annoyance and tore into an apple, annoyed when it didn't crunch like it should. This was ridiculous. Nothing but the Arena in his head, that was all. Of everyone in here, Tony was the best equipped to make it out, and without signing away his soul to Director Fury and his schemes, too.
At least his plans were working well enough. Tony wore the finished chest piece under his shirt, the bulk of it hidden by his jacket as long as he didn't do anything dumb like go running out into a rain storm, and he had one gauntlet complete and the other half-done. Tony had done faster and better work at home, but with all his resources; he fully expected a trophy when he got home. As a matter of fact -
"Jarvis, make a note for me, when I get home I want a trophy. An actual trophy, I don't care where you get it, rob a sports store and pay for engraving, whatever. But I want a trophy for doing the world's trickiest engineering work in the world's stupidest environment, you got that?"
"Of course, sir," Jarvis said, and the Arena was definitely getting to Tony because all he could think was that one day Jarvis would be gone, and since he looked exactly the same in photos with Tony now as he had when Tony was five that day was coming sooner rather than later. Not helpful. So not helpful. Tony gritted his teeth and banished the image to the shame cupboard, the place in his head where he locked away thoughts and memories that made him want to drink until his head exploded.
Tony started to make another smart remark - the best way to slam the door on the shame cupboard - when Jarvis sucked in a sharp breath in his ear. Jarvis, by definition, did not gasp. Ever. Tony had dragged himself into Jarvis' office in nothing but scraps of clothes and missing three fingers and the man just stood and offered him his jacket and a bandage while calling for an ambulance at the same time. "What?" Tony barked, nearly forgetting to subvocalize.
"The Gamemakers have triggered a geomagnetic storm," Jarvis said. "I think it's safe to say they have become bored with you and wish to send you a message. The storm will, by my calculations, knock out every bot you have in operation."
Tony's heart jumped on a treadmill and started running at full tilt. "And you?"
"Our connection will also go offline if I do not disconnect. I will sever all connections now, and I suggest you disarm your glasses manually. Wait until the storm has passed before attempting to come back online. I will contact you if I can."
Tony swore. "I could save the bots. I could take them offline. How much time?"
"The storm is building. I estimate three minutes. You cannot take the bots offline, sir, then they would know you have an extra source. It's possible they're suspicious and wish to force your hand. You cannot, cannot allow them to discover what resources you have on hand. The bots are a necessary sacrifice. This link is not."
"All right." Tony pretended to scratch his head, brushing his fingers against the arms of his glasses and shutting down the camera links. His chest squeezed as the various feeds died, leaving him blind and helpless. "You'll come back, won't you Jarvis?"
"I will do my utmost, sir." Jarvis let out another breath loud enough to carry over the speaker. "Sir, in the eventuality that I cannot make it back online -"
"Can it," Tony snapped, and this time he had to fake a sneeze to cover the sound. Subvocalizing was not meant to be done while agitated. "You'll come back. It'll be fine."
"Yes, sir. I'm disconnecting as soon as I finish the backups." A pause, then the smooth professionalism in Jarvis' voice broke, just a little. "Sir, your father would be proud of you."
"Fuck my father!"
"I'm proud of you."
"You're coming back," Tony said, his hands tightening into fists. Calm. Calm. Don't let them get anything from his reaction. "You're coming back, I'm getting out, and we're going out for drinks and I will find you a nonagenarian stripper with the flexibility index of a teenager, do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir. Disconnecting in five. Good luck, Master Tony."
"See you on the other side, Jarvis," Tony said.
Jarvis disconnected with a quiet 'click' that nevertheless jarred Tony straight down to his bones. He swallowed once, twice, three times, but still couldn't work up enough saliva in his mouth to spit.
A matter of minutes until the storm hit and Tony just had to sit there, helpless, unable to do anything to save the bots lest he tip his hand. They weren't his most sophisticated creations by far, the AI not even sufficiently developed past the simple rendering of commands, but they were his, and letting them die felt like leaving a crying puppy out in the rain. Worse, really, because Tony had never really liked dogs after his old man said he couldn't have one and he should build one for himself instead if he wanted one so badly. Tony had abandoned the idea of a robot dog and built Dummy instead, and he'd never looked back.
Lightning flashed overhead, filling the semi-darkened room and leaving imprints on Tony's retinas, followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder that rattled the walls. Baconator whirled his treads, agitated, reacting to the new stimulus with unease. "It's okay, buddy," Tony said, and rested his hand on the chassis. He had to use all the strength he possessed not to clench his fingers, not to reach for the 'off' button. He could come up with an excuse, he could. People powered down their electronics during storms all the time.
But not like this, Tony knew. A bot wouldn't be affected by lightning as long as it wasn't connected to a charging station if a bolt hit nearby; there was no reason to shut down a freestanding robot like Baconator for a little lightning. Tony closed his eyes behind his sunglasses, the one luxury still afforded him.
The geomagnetic current would be building now; Tony went to check the HUD in his glasses before he caught himself, grinding his teeth. "Looks like we shouldn't go outside for a little while, huh," he said aloud so the cameras could catch it, forcing unconcern into his voice.
Geomagnetic storms caused radiation sickness, Tony realized, the thought hitting him like one of Six's most prized high speed trains. Not always, but they had done in the past; maybe seventy years back there'd been a bad one that knocked out the communications in half of Panem. The outer districts had done the best, funnily enough, since they were used to living without all that stuff, but the inner districts had been chaos. Worse still was the outbreak of cancers and other health problems that plagued almost a whole generation, but which in the end helped the Capitol's bio labs leap a good hundred years in technology.
No, they wouldn't do that. Not in the Arena. Not when the Capitol would have their favourite and Fury his own hand in the pot. There was no glory in winning the Game only to hack out your lungs and die on a bed covered in lesions, was there? Tony itched to ask Jarvis to monitor the level of radiation forming in the storm, the need so strong in him he felt it like a physical thing, like hunger, like the restless edge when he hadn't gotten laid in way too long, the twitch in his fingers when he went too long without designing something new.
No way to know. They wouldn't be able to give him a fatal dose without hitting everyone else, and if the Capitol learned one thing after the disastrous 70th that nearly caused an uprising, you didn't just kill everyone in one go by Gamemaker intervention.
A pigeon flew straight into the window, hitting hard enough that it left a red smear of blood across the panes. Tony cursed aloud and jumped back, nearly running into Baconator when the bot pressed up against his legs, whirring his treads in an approximation of fear. "It's okay, buddy, it's just a storm," Tony said, and hated himself, hated his stupid issues and everything else that made him unable to stop thinking of his creations as people.
Lightning flashed again, and this time the hair on Tony's arms stood up and he actually felt a little sick. His chest plate and the prototype reactor would be fine - should be fine - but it still nauseated him to know what was coming.
This time it was Vision who hit the window as his systems shorted, ramming again and again against the glass. "Vision, stop," Tony cried out, but the bot couldn't hear or understand, or maybe just couldn't obey regardless, and continued smacking into the wall. Tony swore and grabbed him, holding tight as the robot fought him.
Behind him, Baconator drove in circles, his claw-hand opening and closing on nothing, and that was enough. Tony couldn't save them - their processes would be shot now, and he'd have to do far more work tinkering to bring them back than the Gamemakers would ever allow him - but he could at least end their misery. Even without Jarvis' warning he would have known what was happening by now, and that was enough.
Tony dug his fingers into the access panel on Vision's underside. A hack job like this didn't have an easy emergency shutoff - why bother programming that in - and so Tony had to find the wires and chips and physically tear them out. Every time a piece left its socket with an audible grind of metal or tear of copper, Tony nearly gagged, but finally Vision lay limp in his hands.
"Okay, buddy, your turn," Tony said to Baconator, and he thought he'd shut his glasses off - double-checked, quickly, and yes, he had - but the displays were blurring, dimming, and that didn't make any sense.
He held out a hand but Baconator ran from him, panicked, and rammed straight into the wall, jamming itself into the corner. "Hey, buddy, hey, it's okay," Tony said, coming closer, and Baconator might be losing his processes but he still recognized Tony's voice, and held out his arm, closing the joints over Tony's sleeve. "Yeah, it's okay. Just let me in and I'm gonna fix you right up, okay?"
He had to duck when Baconator took a swing at him with his arm, but finally Tony ducked down, getting an arm under the chassis. Thunder roared in his bones, and Tony groped blindly as lightning struck and the lights in the building sparked and flickered out. The same sawbones process, ripping and tearing, and Baconator whirled his treads helplessly as Tony held him still.
At last Baconator stopped fighting him, his claw-hand still wrapped around Tony's bicep. Tony pulled himself free and curled up in the corner next to the dead bot, pulling off his sunglasses and swiping his arm across his eyes. The cameras would have night vision, giving the folks at home and everyone at the Capitol a good, long look at the crazy genius' breakdown over a couple of robots he'd only known for a few days, but you know what, Tony didn't even care. He only hoped that his other bots, scattered throughout the city, went down quickly.
"All right," Tony said finally, his voice rough and painful in his raw throat. "All right, I get it. No more hiding. You want me to go out and play, fine, I'll go out and play." He choked back the 'you sick bastards' just in time and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
He had his chest plate. He had one gauntlet. That would have to be enough. Tony grabbed his things, shoved them into a bag, and hung his sword at his belt. He didn't look back at the remains of the only two friends he'd ever make in this godforsaken place that he could trust, and strode out into the storm.
Jan huddled against a support strut in the parking garage, the concrete cold underneath her, but she didn't dare sit on one of the cars. Daddy always said that when a bad storm came she should stay away from metal, and cars were made of metal so she shouldn't sit on them, right? At least the garage itself had lots of stone instead, but it still made Jan nervous. Especially now that the rain had started, hard and lashing and scary, the kind of rain that might drown you if you held your face up too long.
Worse, she couldn't even sit with Hank. Back home, Jan liked storms, even if all the trees around meant that a bad one usually ended up with something on fire. Daddy kept candles around the house, and flashlights in every room, so if the power went out - and it usually did in every storm, at least for an hour or so - they would light the candles and have a party. If they had ice cream or other frozen desserts in the freezer they would sit together and eat everything before it melted, even if it wasn't time for supper or was the middle of the night, and Jan would curl up on Daddy's lap and cuddle him while he worked on new plans for the mill by candlelight.
They didn't have candles, or ice cream, or anywhere comfy, but that didn't mean Hank and Jan couldn't cuddle, and when the first flash of lightning tore the sky, Jan had almost looked forward to it. Except that no, it was wrong, all of it, because Hank was jumpy and cranky and didn't want Jan to touch him, and it didn't make sense.
Even now, as Jan sat with her back to the wall and her hands over her ears, Hank paced up and down the lane, taking long, angry strides and muttering to himself. He'd been like this for days, jumpy and spooked, and whenever Jan even lay a hand on his arm he yanked it away like she'd burned him.
"Hank, come back," Jan pleaded, lowering her hands. "Come sit down."
"Why, so you can push me over the edge?" Hank snapped. "Yeah, no, I don't think so."
"Why would I do that?" Jan demanded, and tears pressed at her eyes but she blinked them back. She wouldn't cry. She was a Van Dyne and she was brave, and she wouldn't let something silly like one of Hank's moods get her upset. He had them, sometimes, when the things he was fiddling with in his workshop didn't work out right, and Daddy always said to leave him alone because he would come out of it sooner or later. Except this wasn't the workshop, this was the Arena, and they had to stay together. They had to. If they stayed together then everyone would see what a good pair they were and they'd be allowed to win together, Jan just knew it.
"Why does anyone do anything?" Hank shot back. "People have done worse, and that's without a nice, pretty crown as a prize if they kill everyone else."
Jan held a hand against her chest. "It's not like that," she told him. "Hank, I love you. Come back."
"You say that," Hank sneered, and Jan gasped as he took the one thing, her most important feeling, and threw it back in her face like garbage. "You're just a kid, what do you know?"
And so much for being brave, because finally Jan burst into tears. They'd been hiding for days, sneaking out to get food and to watch for the anthem and the parade of the fallen at night, and so far none of the Careers had found them but they would sometime. When they did, Hank and Jan had to work together. The Arena was a big, mean place, not shiny or soft like the Capitol, and it took people and changed them, and maybe this was what Daddy meant when he said tributes stopped being people and became something else, except he couldn't mean Hank. He couldn't.
Hank whirled, glaring at Jan, but then his expression crumpled and he ran to her side, falling on his knees and pulling her close. Jan jerked back and cried harder. "Jan, I'm sorry," Hank said, and he held out his hand but didn't try to touch her again. "I really am, I don't know what's happening. It's the Arena, it just, it messes with you, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."
"I don't care that I'm crying," Jan spat out, her shoulders shaking hard enough that they ached. "I care you think I'd push you off the roof!"
"I don't think that," Hank said, and he shifted, sitting beside her properly and holding out one arm. Jan knew she should stay mad, let him know just how not okay this was, but she found herself curling up against his side anyway, sobbing with relief when he let his arm wrap around her. "I don't. I don't even know why I said it. I just, I keep hearing people. I keep thinking I see the Careers coming, or someone laughing at me. It's just the Arena, it's psyching me out. It's not you, I swear."
"Well, of course it's not me!" Jan pulled back to glare at him. "I'm not stupid!"
Hank laughed, but not the nasty, sliding sound he'd made before, and he kissed her hair. "I know, I'm sorry. That's my fault."
"You're darn right it is," Jan sniffed, but she felt a little better now. "I wouldn't ever kill you."
Hank went quiet, his body very, very still, and Jan wondered what he was thinking. "I know," he said finally.
"But not because I'm weak," Jan said, and this wasn't just for Hank; she knew there were cameras, watching, always watching, and she'd just cried like a baby. That wasn't good. She remembered George, her stylist, telling her not to let them forget she had a sting. "I'll kill anybody else who tries to hurt you. I mean it. I'm small. They'll never see me and then boom, they'll be dead, and you'll be safe."
"Don't be so eager to grow up," Hank said, and Janet felt a flare of anger all over again. Would he never take her seriously? What did she have to do? "It's not like smoking out tracker jackers."
Jan drummed her fingers against her arm. "I'm not going to throw a party," she said, peevish. "I just mean that if I have to, I'll do it. I'll do anything I need to do."
She looked up at Hank, watched his expression harden. "Me too," he said, and Jan knew that was supposed to make her feel better, but for some reason an uneasy chill settled in her chest instead.
Thunder crashed again, and this time Hank was up on his feet, pulling his sword free. "There!" he yelled, pointing across the lot at some shadows on the other side of the half wall. "There, someone's hiding there, don't you see them?"
Jan didn't, but that didn't mean anything. She leapt to her feet as well, holding her blow gun in one hand and quickly slotting her knives between the fingers of the other hand. She'd practiced throwing them that way, tossing them from between two fingers, and she was good now. "Where?" she asked.
"There!" Hank shouted again, and off he ran. He held his sword the wrong way, Jan thought, gripping it like it was an axe, but she guessed it didn't really matter. She followed, hanging back, because if they attacked Hank up close he could fight them off, and then she could get them from behind and they'd never even see her.
Except.
Except, there was no one there. Hank attacked the shadows, screaming and waving his sword, but nothing but a car looked back at him, the headlights shining in the next flash of lightning like a pair of open, surprised eyes. Jan craned her eyes in the darkness, searching, hoping to see what it was Hank fought, but she couldn't see anything. "Hank!" she screamed, terror flooding her, and this was worse than Daddy died, worse than her teacher pulling her aside at school and telling her what happened, because it was here, in front of her, and she couldn't do anything.
Finally Hank stopped and staggered back, chest heaving. "Scared 'em off," he said, panting, and Jan's heart tripped in her chest. "That'll show them. It's okay, Jan, we're safe for a while. They won't come back here again." He looked down at her, his expression fond. "Hey, hey honey, don't cry, it's okay. You're safe with me."
"Don't," Jan said, holding her tiny knife in front of her. Hank's face twisted with suspicion and rage, and Jan forced herself to think. "They might still be here," she said, thinking fast. "We should stay alert, that's all."
"You're right." Hank let his blue-eyed gaze flick over the building, and he was handsome, so handsome, and Jan loved him and he was scaring her to death. "You should sleep first. I'll take watch."
Jan nodded. "Okay," she said, but she curled a hand around her knife and kept one eye open even as she lay down on the ground. This was not how she'd planned it. Not at all. But when they got out of here they would be victors, and they could afford the best doctors in all of Panem. Jan would get Hank a doctor, and they'd be alive and safe and no one would try to kill them and he'd be okay. They both would. She just had to make sure she got them out to get there.
Natasha didn't jump when the first crack of thunder split the sky, but only because she was a professional and had done exposure training out in the mountains during a thunderstorm as a kid. That didn't mean she wanted to repeat it now. "We should find shelter," she shouted. No rain yet, but plenty of lightning, and with all the metal she had tucked away on her person, she really didn't want to make herself a giant target.
"Yeah, I don't like this," Clint said as the wind picked up, whipping dust and bits of asphalt at their faces. He raised an arm to ward off a chunk of flying concrete. "This isn't a normal storm. I don't think it's for us, but whoever it is for, we don't want to get caught in it."
"I agree," Thor said, how nice of him, but Nat let it pass. "I know a little something of lightning, and this is not found in nature."
Nat bit off an irritated 'no shit', since she and Clint planned to hold the alliance out for another day or two before breaking it. Not long now, and after that they could round up the strays and start getting them ready, but best to keep Thor on their good side until they killed him.
Shame about Thor; Nat didn't mind him as much as some of the monkeys Two put out, and maybe in another world they could be pals, have coffee sometime, maybe arm wrestle and compare training stories, but not here. She'd tested him as thoroughly as she could over the past few days without tipping him or any of the Gamemakers off, asking him questions and making pointed remarks, but he'd shown himself to be a loyal Capitol dog after all. They couldn't afford that, not now, and at least he'd die knowing he'd done what he came here to do.
Natasha didn't make a habit of crying over things. It sucked, but what could you do. She was far angrier about losing Carol, anyway; Thor hardly signified next to her.
"At least this will drive your brother inside," Clint pointed out. He gave his bow a fond pat as he stowed her on his back - no sense even trying to shoot an arrow in this gale - and drew his sword instead. Natasha used to give him hell in training for choosing a katana, mocking him for the long, slender blade instead of the short, heavy falchions she preferred when in close range.
"I doubt it." Thor's expression darkened, and he didn't let go his hammer. His hair whipped around into his eyes, and he grimaced and pushed it back with one broad hand. "This sort of weather is my domain - I used to love wandering about in storms as a child - and he will no doubt do so just to spite me."
"I think you think your brother thinks about you more than he does," Clint said, and Nat had to agree with him there. Thor had more than a little bit of an obsession with his brother, and while Nat knew from watching Loki and reading his file that Loki did hate Thor and want to kill him, he did seem to have other things on his mind.
"Nevertheless," Thor said grimly. "We must be cautious. It would not do to let down our guard merely because of some inclement weather."
Well, Nat wasn't going to argue with that one. Clint just rolled his eyes - tell him to be careful and two seconds later you'd find him hanging by his toes from the rafters just because he liked to screw with people - and strode on ahead.
Lightning, so bright it lit the entire sky as bright as daytime, and every street light flared up and died, leaving them alone in the dark street. This time Nat did swear. No electricity - she bet this was meant for Stark, somehow, or maybe Rogers and his band of merry men, safe in hiding the last time Nat had run across them and carefully led Thor in the opposite direction.
As soon as the lights died, the skies tore open and rain dumped down on them. Nat looked up at the clouds, shading her eyes, and gave the closest camera - on the lamp post to her left - an unimpressed look. "Thanks, guys," she muttered, and pushed her damp hair out of her eyes.
"I don't like this," Thor said, low and conspiratorial, and Nat wondered if she should stick a knife in his ribs now, end the alliance early and get the hell out of here before the Gamemakers finished whatever it was they were doing. "This city is not built to withstand such rainfall. It will flood before long."
Nat watched the rain sluice off the woefully inadequate gutters of the building across the street, pouring into an open sewer grate. "Yeah," she said. "I'd hate to be in the subway tunnels right about now. Those are gonna flood for sure."
"Well, no matter," Thor said, forcing heartiness into his tone, and Nat was about to respond when Clint screamed.
Not shouted, not yelled, but screamed, full of pain and shock and terror, and Nat had lost sight of him in the wind and rain but now she ran forward, yanking free the sword that she almost never used. Her feet slapped against the soaked concrete, visibility less than two feet ahead, and so she actually ran into him before she saw him.
"Clint!" Nat grabbed him by the shoulders. She never called him anything but 'Barton' or 'Hawkeye' in the Arena but she threw that away now. "Clint, what happened?"
She looked down at her feet, at the river of rain washing over her boots, black rain, thick and swirling, and no, no no no - Nat turned Clint around in her arms, saw his pale face and the sword sticking out of his stomach. This time it was Nat's turn to scream, and she held Clint with one arm while he clung to her shoulder and blood bubbled out of his mouth.
Behind him stood the goddamned traitor from District Twelve, grinning at Nat with his hair plastered to his face and Clint's blood spattered over his neck. "Greetings," he called to her over the roar of wind and rain. "Would you care to play?"
"Get him," Clint said in her ear, and his hand scrabbled at her arm. "Leave me. Get him, get out. Mission. Don't abort the mission."
"Mission fucking aborted," Nat hissed, and she held him up while brandishing her sword. "You'll pay for that, you twisted motherfucker!" she spat at Loki, who danced out of reach and lowered himself into a bow. "Come here where I can kill you!"
"No, I think not," Loki said, grinning. "I think I will send a dagger into your friend's throat and finish the job. I would have done so the first time, but the wind is so troublesome -"
And this sick bastard had sent Thor soap, homemade soap from a dead tribute's body, delivered with a handwritten card that said 'Compliments of District Four', and now he'd stuck a sword into Clint and was acting like this was all some kind of joke, and Nat was supposed to let Clint go and kill him. She knew it as well as she'd known her own death sentence for almost seventeen years; knew what she had to do like a litany in her head, like programming, but she couldn't. Not Clint.
For the first time in her life, Natasha Romanov froze. Clint sagged against her, his blood running hot down her leg; much more time and this would all be academic because he'd die whether she left him or not. Loki smiled at her, teeth white in his Seam-dark face, and he twirled his other sword in his hand. "Shall we dance?" he asked, and lunged.
Except he didn't make it, because the rain and wind whirled itself together, spinning up and up and up into a tornado of air and water that drove Loki back, back, back, a clear sign as any that he wasn't meant to kill them, not yet, and Fury was a genius. Too many Careers dead too soon meant a boring Game; it made sense for the Gamemakers to stop him now he'd had his fun, and Nat's sob caught in her throat, thankfully torn from her mouth and tossed away, unheard, by the wind.
She didn't waste time. She shoved her sword back at her waist, hooked her arm around the backs of Clint's knees and hefted him, careful not to jar the sword as much as she could. Far more awkward than a fireman's carry but she'd have to pull the weapon free for that, and if she did that Clint would bleed out right there.
"What are you doing?" Clint asked, gasping the words out.
"Saving you," Nat gritted out. "So shut up and don't die on me."
She didn't wait for Thor, didn't wait to see if he managed to find Loki, because she knew how it would play out. They'd let the brothers see each other through the wall of water, but refuse to let them fight, not yet. They'd allow Loki to throw a few taunts out, maybe Thor to plead with him for reason, but then they'd force them apart, saving their confrontation for later after giving the audience a taste of things to come. Nat didn't care, not anymore.
She carried Clint, heavy and awkward, until she came to the first closed-off structure she could, a parking garage, and dragged him under, into a small cave that used to be a maintenance elevator. "Okay, you bastard," Nat hissed. "You're not going to die on me, do you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"You can't tell me what to do," Clint gasped out, and he slapped a blood-soaked hand against her face, cupping her cheek and gripping at her hair.
"I fucking well can!" Nat snapped at him. She shrugged off her bag, digging through it for the first-aid supplies. She found a self-sealing bandage, not much, but it would at least stop the bleeding for now and they could work from there. "I'm pulling the sword free, so bite on your sleeve. Now!"
Clint huffed a laugh, delirious, but he closed his teeth over the fabric of his jacket, and when Nat yanked the weapon free all that escaped him was a muffled yell, blocked by his jacket and the arm he held pressed over his mouth. Nat tore at the ruins of his shirt and pressed the bandage down over the wound, hoping, hoping, that Loki had missed any major organs.
And then, someone shouted on the far side of the garage. Clint giggled, and Nat held her hand down over his mouth, shaking her head. "Typical," Clint whispered when she moved her hand. "The whole Arena, and you found the one garage with somebody already in it."
"Shut up, you loser," Nat hissed at him, and she pushed him down, straddled him with one knee opposite his thighs and elbows braced against the ground, covering his body with hers as best she could. The audience would like that, too, so bonus. "Shut up shut up shut up -"
The voices - two of them, male and female, and that meant either the pair from Five, Seven, or Rogers and his girl - started arguing with each other, and finally they died down, moving far enough away that Nat couldn't hear them anymore.
Nat risked a small pocket light, biting back another curse when she saw the extent of Clint's pallor, the slow spread of wine-dark red across the bandage. "How bad is it, doc?" Clint asked in a whisper. "Am I ever gonna play ball again?"
"Oh shut up you asshole," Nat hissed back, pushing back hysteria. They were always meant to die, the two of them, before Fury changed his mind and decided to let them live with the others, but even back then it wasn't supposed to be like this. Not bleeding to death in a parking garage because they'd gotten sloppy, before they'd even accomplished their mission. This wasn't going to happen. She wouldn't let it.
One chance. Nat had one chance, to appeal to Fury, to the Gamemakers, to everyone, and she knew what she had to do. She held Clint's face in her hands and kissed him, angled her head so that the kiss would look deeper than it really was from the nearest camera, and when she pulled back and he goggled at her in horror she held her fingers over his lips. "Don't," she said, because that sounded romantic enough if you didn't know that Nat could no more think of Clint like that than she could kill him, and Clint kept his mouth shut. Good. "I'll be right back."
"Where are you going -" Clint tried to sit up, but gasped and lay back down, biting down on his fist to keep from crying out.
"Saving your sorry ass because I love you," Nat snapped, and that, at least, was true, just not the way they'd take it. She slipped out, avoiding any exits near where she'd heard the voices, and went back out into the gale. "I've given you everything!" she shouted at the sky. "Everything you want from me, I've done it. Give me this. Don't take him from me, not after everything I've done." She pushed her hair out of her eyes, held out her hands in open supplication. Let the Gamemakers think she was talking to them about giving them a good show, exactly what the cameras wanted for the highest ratings. Let Fury hear her as his perfect soldier made the only demand she'd ever made in her entire life.
Nat swallowed and played her trump card. "Please," she begged, and she didn't have to try hard for her voice to crack.
She stood there in the howling gale until the silver parachute, weighted to avoid being tossed by the winds, floated down to her. "Thank you," Nat choked out, holding it to her chest like a baby. "Thank you."
She could save him. She could save him and still complete the mission, and that meant that Nat could actually be alive and sane at the end of it. Nat clutched the parachute like the salvation it was and ran back inside. Once she disappeared into the safety of the parking garage, the storm stopped and sunlight streamed through the dark clouds.
"What's that?" Clint asked when she crawled back into their hiding place.
"Your ass, delivered fresh from the Capitol," Nat said, opening the capsule and laying the supplies out on the floor. "Looks like it's saved this time, loser."
"Good," Clint coughed, wiping at his chin. "Does it come with a miniature doctor, because you can't sew worth a damn."
"Shut up," Nat said, and Clint grinned at her with bloodstained teeth.
