Disclaimer: Avengers, Hunger Games, and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story
Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.
AN: Apologies in advance to Gale fans, but I just don't feel comfortable with the thought of him becoming an Avenger given his attitude in 'Mockingjay', so I included a certain scene in this chapter as a means of addressing that issue
Falling Hope, Rising Threat
Telling Callie about the events that had taken place in Panem over the last few decades had simultaneously been easier and harder than it had been to tell the story to the Avengers. In some ways, it had been easier to tell the Avengers what had happened to the world when I first met them as the only thing I'd known about them at the time had been Steve's second-hand stories, whereas I had a clearer idea of what challenges Callie and her people had overcome and felt as though we'd let them down by allowing the Games to happen after we'd risen from the ashes of what came before.
On the other hand, when dealing with someone who'd lived most of her life thinking that Earth had been almost completely destroyed by humanity, Callie seemed to be more focused on being impressed by what we'd accomplished rather than criticising what we hadn't managed to achieve. She had been fascinated to learn about some of the discoveries and technological developments we'd made over the years, along with the essential details of our confrontation with the Maestro (I'd made the choice to omit the fact that he was originally Bruce Banner and the fact that we'd had the aid of the original Avengers; I didn't want to reveal that time travel was possible in case people started making awkward demands). While Peeta and I told Callie our own story, Johanna and Prim transmitted a brief summary of Callie's own background to Steve while Finnick took the controls; the autopilot was good for getting around, but the ship needed a live hand at the controls to make real progress.
"This is your base?" Callie said, looking around the Avengers compound with a smile as we finally reached our destination, Finnick giving her a good view as he brought us in for landing. "It's a… well…"
"You can say it; it's basic," Johanna said, flexing her mechanical arm as she stood up to stare at our compound. The whole facility mainly consisted of a few buildings that Steve had compared to something called 'pre-fabricated housing', which were basically walls set up to act as easy-to-assemble houses, but all had been reinforced to cope with the training we'd be carrying out inside the buildings, along with one particularly secure building where Peeta kept and worked on the Iron Man armour when he wasn't using it. Our residences were all a short distance away from the main compound, hidden in the forest around us; we'd wanted to give our homes a chance to escape if anyone ever decided to attack us where we lived, as well as allowing Annie and my mother to work in private as the Avengers trained.
"Well, compared to the stories I've heard of Avengers Tower, I think there are a lot of things that could be considered 'basic'," Callie smiled, before she looked more thoughtfully at me. "So you destroyed a ruthless dictator… and then you retreated all the way out here?"
"We came here for privacy and security," Finnick corrected, setting the automatic landing sequence as he turned to face her directly. "Like the original team, we have no interest in taking charge of anything; we're just here to help the world get back on its feet so that they have a chance to build something better, so we need to have somewhere to go when people aren't making demands of us or when we aren't needed to kick ass."
"Of course," Callie said, before frowning as she looked back at me. "How do you… know about the original Avengers, anyway? I mean, if this President Snow was such a powerful man, I can't see someone like that letting the stories about them survive this long…"
"He did his best," I said, glancing briefly out of the window as we reached the ground. "But we had a few allies he wasn't expecting, like this man right here."
Callie was about to ask who I was referring to when the hovercraft touched down and Finnick opened the door, leaving us free to file out of the ship as Steve walked up towards us, a pair of black gloves hiding his artificial hand.
"Good to see you all," he said, nodding in approval as he took in the team. "I've read Bloodaxe and Widow's report; you should be proud of what you've accomplished out there."
"We do our best," Johanna said, grinning as she tossed a half-mocking, half-serious salute in Steve's direction. "How's tricks at this end anyway?"
"Destined to get interesting soon, I have no doubt," Steve replied, his expression grim as he looked at Johanna before walking up to Callie with a more casual smile. "Miss Cartig, I'm Steve Rogers; it's a pleasure to meet you."
"Uh… pleasure to meet- Rogers?" Callie said, yanking her hand away as she stared at the old man in shock. "As in… but you can't… he'd be… you're not-"
"Captain America?" I finished for her, smiling at her new acquaintance in understanding. "Believe me, I was as shocked to learn his age as you were, but he's telling the truth."
"It's a combination of the super-soldier serum, various artificial organs, and another long period in suspended animation while a friend tried to save my life," Steve explained, shrugging slightly as Callie looked at him in shock. "As you probably guessed, I was the one to bring this little group together when I felt that the time was right for the Avengers to return to the world, but Mockingjay here serves as the field commander; I'm… not exactly qualified to be out in the field any more."
"Right…" Callie said, looking at Steve in stunned silence before she looked back at me. "He's the… ally you just mentioned, right?"
"One of them, but the only one that really matters right now," I confirmed. "Steve convinced a few other people to let us come together as a group, but after Snow was dealt with, most people are pretty much content to leave us alone so long as we keep helping out."
"It's mostly just clean-up at this point, but hey; whatever stops them starting up the Hunger Games again, right?" Johanna put in, smiling as she looked at her axe.
"Right…" Callie said, looking slightly apprehensively at the District Seven winner's weapon before looking at Steve. "So… what can I do for you?"
"Well, the team sent me a brief summary of your story on their way here, so I'm aware of the essential points of your history as you've revealed to us so far," Steve said, looking at Callie in a firm but reassuring manner; only my long experience with him over the past few months allowed me to notice the slight tension in his shoulders that hinted at his disapproval of what the Ark had done in the name of survival. "Based on the reports your station received from the children on the ground, what did they have to tell you about these… Grounders… in terms of their weapons capabilities?"
"The general impression was that they're… well, a bit primitive, to be blunt," Callie explained. "We never heard reports that they had anything more advanced than swords, bows and arrows, but their main advantage lay in their sheer weight of numbers compared to the children, as well as their obviously greater experience at living here."
"OK, so we're just dealing with big numbers rather than big guns; I can work with that," Johanna said, swinging her axe as she grinned at the thought of the upcoming challenge. "That should be interesting…"
"We're not going to attack anyone until we've tried to find a diplomatic solution," Steve said firmly. "Believe me, Bloodaxe, I understand wanting to make sure nobody picks up where Snow left off, but so far nothing we've heard suggests that there's anything more going on with these 'Grounders' than isolated locals reacting to a perceived attack on their territory, so there might be a way to solve this that doesn't involve killing everyone in that area who didn't come from the Ark."
With his point made, Steve stared firmly at Johanna for a moment before he turned back to talk to Callie. "From what you've told us, I'm guessing that you obviously had minimal control over where anything actually landed, but I suppose you have at least some idea where the children would be?"
"Well… we were trying to set them down near an old military base," Callie said, after a moment's pause for thought. "Like I said, we didn't know what Earth would be like, so we'd hoped that if they could reach Mount Weather, they could use the supplies they found there to support themselves…"
"Mount Weather?" Steve repeated, looking at Callie curiously. "You were trying to send them to the old base at Mount Weather?"
"Yes," Callie nodded, surprised at the sudden increased intensity in Steve's stare when he'd heard the name.
"Is that a problem?" Finnick asked, noting the slight tension in our mentor's manners.
"I'm not sure," Steve said, shaking his head uncertainly. "It sounds familiar… I think Fury mentioned he was keeping something there once…"
He paused in thought for a moment before he shook his head. "Sorry; it's gone."
"Gone?" Prim asked.
"I mean that I can't remember why it was important, or if it ever was," Steve explained, looking apologetically over at my sister. "It's been a long life, after all; I can't be expected to remember everything."
"Any ideas?" I asked curiously.
"Apart from the fact that we need to do more research before I make a decision, nothing yet," Steve answered, before he turned to address the rest of us. "All right, we know what we're dealing with, and we know approximately where they were going; even if the children didn't make it to Mount Weather itself, we have to assume that they landed in the area."
"Exactly," Callie said, looking urgently at him. "We need to get going-"
"Not just yet," Steve said, looking apologetically at the other woman. "I appreciate your concern for your people, but these computers weren't built with detailed maps of that area, and the old networks have sustained too much damage over the years for me to just call up a map like that. Not only do we need to move the rest of your people to our medical facilities, but I'll need some time to access the satellite records of where the Ark fragments fell and then re-calculate Mount Weather's location; Beetee can help me with that, and he should be on his way soon enough."
"You called him already?" Peeta asked, looking at Steve in surprise.
"It's nothing to do with doubting your skills, Peeta; it's just easier to cut to the chase and get in our most experienced computer expert for something this complex," Steve said, looking reassuringly at Peeta before he turned to address the rest of us. "In the meantime, you five need to go over what we have so far and both prepare to deal with any potential problems while determining what to do about the rest of the Ark fragments; until further notice, the Ark is our priority."
"Hold on a moment; you're going to decide what to 'do' about us?" Callie asked, looking sharply at Steve. "We came here for help-"
"And I'm not going to turn your people away, but I'm equally not going to just leave the future to chance," Steve explained. "As I'm sure Katniss has explained to you, we've been through a period of great social upheaval in the last few months, so if we're going to have a new wave of people suddenly arriving here, I'd like to make sure that nobody's going to do anything stupid, which means we need to find them as soon as possible."
"Exactly," Finnick said, looking reassuringly at Callie. "Trust me, we'd like to bring in some new faces to this mess too; we just need to make sure everything's under control."
Even if I didn't like having to treat refugees as a potential problem, I had to acknowledge my wider responsibilities as an Avenger; we just didn't have the resources to cope with a new wave of people and a new conflict if there was going to be any trouble…
As I walked into my room later that day, I had to admit that we were doing well. A quick visit to the infirmary confirmed that my mother was keeping an eye on the Ark residents and our new patients were all recovering well enough, and after today's training session, I felt fairly confident in thinking that, whatever else we were these days, the Avengers were working out as a team.
We might not have had to deal with any truly superhuman threats ever since the original Avengers had returned to their time, but I was concerned that it would only be a matter of time, which had prompted the creation of the training system we used most of the time. It generally relied on myself, Johanna, Finnick (and occasionally Prim; I wanted her kept out of combat but I had to acknowledge that she might end up in a fight some day) practising in a VR simulation similar to the technology used by the Capitol when preparing us for the Quarter Quell, pitting us against a wave of virtual opponents armed with only our standard weapons.
However, we took care to include at least one additional 'practice bout' for the team each day, where Finnick, Johanna and I attempted to attack Peeta while he was wearing the armour, the older two Victors armed with long poles while I used a set of blunted arrows. With Peeta our strongest available member, we had concluded that this was the best way for us to practice our skills in the event of facing another superhuman opponent; the mock weapons helped to ensure that we didn't do any actual damage to the Iron Man armour with our real weaponry, but they were all equipped with small 'paintballs' on the business ends so that we could confirm where we'd struck Peeta after the fight was over. Peeta also kept his repulsors dialled down to their lowest possible level during the fights, allowing the blasts to be felt without actually hurting anyone, and only flew on a few rare occasions while otherwise fighting as though we were all restricted to ground level, but it was generally an excellent method of getting in some extra practise.
Of course, Thor taught us a few extra tricks when he came down to assist us in our latest missions, and I liked to think that he'd be there if we ever really needed him, but at the same time, I had to remind myself that he was a king of his own realm and couldn't really afford to spend too much time here on Earth if he wasn't needed.
Glancing at my inbox, I was slightly disappointed to see that Steve didn't have any real updates for us on the Ark situation, but I wasn't entirely surprised to see another new message from Gale.
Of everything I'd accomplished since Steve asked me to be an Avenger, the only thing I regretted was the loss of my friendship with Gale. He'd become a member of the new Peacekeepers after most of Snow's appointed leaders had been forced out, the new group working to keep the peace in each district by rotating from one to the other on a monthly basis with holidays home if requested for special occasions. Gale enjoyed the work and the chance to see other Districts, but he seemed to be convinced that he could do more, sending me messages asking if he could be 'assigned' to the Avengers every other week.
Despite our long history, I had repeatedly told him that it wasn't going to happen; he might be a strong fighter, but he just didn't…
I was ashamed to admit it even to myself, but in the end, despite all that he'd done for me over the years, I'd come to realise that Gale didn't deserve to be an Avenger.
I'd once asked Steve why he'd consented to let Johanna stay on as an Avenger after our first assault when she and Gale had similar temper issues when it came to the Capitol and Gale had been 'disqualified' due to his anger. Steve had explained his decision as the result of his belief that Gale's problem lay more in the fact that he was just angry at everything the Capitol represented, where Johanna had focused her anger on Snow and the agents responsible for killing her family, and actually seemed to be happier now that Snow was gone.
Gale might be a trained Peacekeeper now, but every time I met him I could still see traces of that old anger burning inside him, wanting to lash out at the Capitol that had kept the Districts in chains for so long…
I was ashamed to admit it, but every time I learned which District Gale was working in now, I kept an eye on the news from that area in case of reports of Peacekeeper brutality. It wasn't that I didn't trust Gale, it was just… I just wasn't sure if I could trust his anger to stay focused.
In the end, as Steve had said to me during our first conversation on the subject of Gale, Gale only wanted to join us so that he could keep killing the enemy; Johanna was on the team because she wanted to ensure that the kind of people who had risen to power under Snow would never have a similar opportunity. I doubted I'd ever be comfortable with her choice of codename, but I could appreciate the fact that she didn't just go out there swinging the axe; whenever we got into a fight, Johanna always seemed to focus on finding the soldiers who clearly enjoyed their work before going into action herself.
As much as I wanted to believe in my former partner, I couldn't shake the fear that if I had put Gale in a similar position, he would have just dived in and killed everyone because they had been working with Snow.
Right now, however, I had bigger things to worry about than my more distant relationship with Gale. Beetee had dropped in on our training session to confirm that he'd arrived, but since then there hadn't been any sign of activity from him or Steve, even if the lights in our facility's monitoring room confirmed that someone was active in that building. After I was satisfied that we'd trained as much as we could without starting to just push ourselves to exhaustion, I'd called the session off for the night; if Beetee and Steve were still working on things this late, I had to assume that they'd have enough respect for us to give us the chance to rest unless something really urgent came up.
Considering how late it was now, I was fairly sure that we wouldn't be called on unless something urgent came up, which meant that I was going to take the opportunity to focus on nothing more important than having a good few hours of sleep. Shrugging off my uniform, I collapsed onto my bed, sighing in relief as I wrapped the covers around me.
We might be dealing with a complex visit from outer space, but right now, I was just going to have some rest…
The next morning, after a decent night's sleep, the five of us gathered in the facility's main observation area alongside Callie, as Steve and Beetee revealed the results of the previous night's search.
"So… Mount Weather's active?" Callie said, looking at Steve and Beetee in surprise at their news. "The kids made it-?"
"We can't say," Beetee said.
"Why not?" Finnick asked. "I mean, if the base is active and you haven't heard from it before now, must be because someone just got there, right?"
"Unfortunately, that's not the case; while we can't hack the database in depth at this distance, I was able to access the facility's activity records," Beetee explained, looking grimly at his fellow former Victor. "There's definitely something in Mount Weather, but it can't be the kids Callie's people sent down; what I have been able to access confirms that Mount Weather's been active for at least the last year or so, and Callie confirmed that the dropship with the children only arrived here a couple of months ago."
"Which means that there's someone else out there we need to find out more about," Peeta said grimly.
"Precisely," Steve confirmed. "Even before the cataclysm, I'd be concerned about this situation; as it is, the idea that someone's been operating in a supposedly abandoned military base for the last century or so, with full access to nuclear weapons and no signs that they're aware of or interested in contacting the rest of the world…"
"We have to assume the worst?" I asked.
"And find out what's going on in there as soon as possible," Steve said, his tone grimmer than before at my assessment of the situation. "We've already dismantled most of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile; I'd rather not have to worry about some unknown group possessing that kind of firepower when we know nothing about them, and then there's the issue of contacting the rest of the Ark to think about."
"So, we thinking of paying these guys a full-frontal visit to 'explain' the situation, eh?" Johanna smiled, reaching over to pick up Jarnbjorn and give it a twirl in her artificial hand. "I can go with that-"
"Only a small team at first," Steve corrected, glaring over at the self-titled Bloodaxe. "We have theories, but we don't know what the situation is over there, and I'd rather not send the whole team in until I know they're needed."
"In other words… we want to make a direct impression without looking like we want to start a fight?" Peeta asked uncertainly.
"Precisely," Steve said, before he turned to look at me. "Katniss, take Peeta, get your equipment, and prepare a hovercraft for departure; I'll join you soon-"
"You're going with them?" Finnick said, looking at Steve in surprise. "I thought you said you were-"
"Normally, you'd be right, but since we're investigating an old military base, if there's anything in there, I'm the person best qualified to find our way around it," Steve said firmly. "If we had more intel and Prim had more training, I'd suggest that we take her as well, but as it stands neither of those conditions apply, so I'm taking out our current powerhouse and our leader to demonstrate our capabilities."
"Sounds like a plan," I nodded at Steve in approval, smiling slightly as I noticed Peeta's brief discomfort at being referred to as a 'powerhouse'. He might not have been qualified to be an Avenger on his own merits, but Steve and I both agreed that he had been the right choice to 'inherit' the armour after Tony left, as his own fear of the power he now possessed would stop him from ever abusing it.
I just had to wonder what we'd find when we got there…
AN 2: OK, for those fans of 'The 100' who are waiting for their moment, I can assure you that the main characters of that series will be joining this story as of the next chapter; I've had to make some mental adjustments to the timeline to accommodate these events and what we saw in the show, but I think the result will work out