Day One. Late Afternoon.

Pepper fishes.

Pepper cannot remember another time in which she was as ecstatic to see another human being as now. The moment she sees a familiar head of dark emerge from the trees, a grin spreads over her cheeks. The breath lodged in her chest, the one she was unaware of until half a second ago, suddenly releases and it feels like the sky lifted from her shoulders.

A familiar face, a caring face, a friendly face. A face from home.

Tony's face.

"Catch anything yet?" he greets.

She shakes her head. Her grin flickers and falters. "No," she admits.

"No? Come on, Potts, that's supposed to be your specialty."

"It's not the most reliable of hunting methods, Tony. And I'm not from District Four," she says in defense. "Who's that?"

Her nod indicates the blond on Tony's right, and Tony has to glance to the side and study the young man for a whole two seconds before answering. He faces forward again to reply.

"Steve Rogers. District Six. He's useful.. Probably." Again, he turns to Steve to address him straight-on. "You're useful, right? I hope."

"Yeah. I'm useful," says Steve with a bite to his tone.

Pepper tries a consoling smile for Steve's sake before rolling her eyes toward Tony.

"What'd you do?" she says.

Tony blinks. "Do what?"

With a smile, Pepper tells Steve, "I'll apologise for whatever he's done, be it annoying or whatever."

"I'll be fine," Steve says and reciprocates the smiling. Is that a good-natured smirk she can detect? "I can handle a little annoying."

"What?" tries Tony, still processing the apology alongside Pepper's implied meaning with 'what did you do'. Pepper catches a grimace on her friend's face, or was that a disapproving frown, but it is gone so quick, she half believes she imagined it. But odd expression aside, Tony continues with his train of thought: "What do you mean, 'what'd you do'? I didn't do anything!"

"You always do something."

"Oh, come on! Always?"

"Yes, always!"

"I don't think that's really all that fair. Do you think that's fair?" He poses the last sentence at Steve but, instead of waiting for a reply, bulldozes on. "It's not fair.–"

"It is fair. It's totally fair.–"

"Guys," Steve interrupts, or tries to. His contribution is brushed aside by both tributes of Five.

"I don't always do something."

"Name one time you didn't do something totally Tony-like."

"Tony-like? Wow, really feeling it right now. The love. You feel it yet?"

Pepper shakes her head. "You're impossible, you know that?"

In Tony's moment of stunned silence, the boy from Six tries to interject – "Guys. We should be looking for supplies, finding food." – but the bickering tributes pay him no attention. It is mainly Tony is who ignores Steve's logical next step. Pepper shifts her chin away from the young mechanic, hoping to confirm the suggestion with a kindly order, but Tony comes to his wits once more to reply.

"I seriously thought you were going to say handsome or something."

With a deadpan expression, the ginger attempt to bore a hole straight through Tony's forehead with nothing but an unwavering stare.

"Guys?" Steve tries again.

"Adorable? Extravagantly good-looking?"

She shakes her head, shares an exasperated look with Steve, opens her mouth to say something related to survival,–

"I mean, I'll take impossible. I guess that means unattainably attractive."

"No. It means what it means."

"So… not attractive? You're sending me some mixed signals, here, Pep."

"I'm not send–!" She takes a deep breath. "Honestly, how are we friends? How were we even friends back home because sometimes – honestly, sometimes – I feel like wiping that stupid smirk off that face!"

Tony blinks. Another moment of silence ensues.

"I mean…" He searches around for the word, using those doubts she know he has as fuel for his false ego and romantic appeal, "you could try." But his enticement doesn't work on Pepper.

"Tony. You, are, unbelievably, impossible. End of discussi–."

She falls silent. Tony blinks, frowns, and tilts his head some to one side. Confusion rewrites his face to greet her sudden decision for silence. He's gone, she thinks. He just left. Tony opens his mouth, no doubt to say something profoundly dumb (for such an intelligent person), when he catches the nothing in his periphery and looks at the spot Steve once stood. He and Pepper lock eyes and at once their banter falls away, swept by the river, whisked downstream.

He's gone, the two of them think.

Where to? Why? They know not. They know only one thing:

He's gone.