Disclaimer: Avengers, Hunger Games, and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story
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Falling Hope, Rising Threat
Sitting in the back of the Quinjet, I wondered if I was ready for what we were about to do.
After spending the last couple of hours talking about Mount Weather and the proposed alliance with the Grounders, in the end, the best that we could do at the time was defer the decision so that we could talk with Clarke's own people and give them a choice in the situation. With the mounting evidence that Mount Weather had access to the only man who'd ever given the Hulk a direct physical challenge, it was clear that we couldn't leave them to gather more power or get a clearer idea what they were working with, but that didn't mean that we liked what we were about to do.
I had never kidded myself that being an Avenger would make everything easy, but I supposed I'd grown too used to riding on my reputation as the Mockingjay to get what I wanted outside of a fight and only having to confront a problem by beating it into the ground. I'd fought to stop Snow to end the war and ensure that the Hunger Games would never happen again; I'd never expected to find myself in a position where I was basically handing someone over to be killed.
The worst part was that I could see both sides of the situation. If I'd agreed with Clarke that Finn should be given a pardon for what he'd done because he'd basically suffered a mental breakdown, I could have felt more comfortable going in with a clear plan, but at the same time I could understand why Anya and her people wanted revenge/justice for what he'd done to that village before Clarke had found him…
Still, even if things were complicated where Finn was concerned, I could at least be sure that Lincoln and Octavia were recovering nicely enough. The former Reaper was apparently doing well, but Prim had insisted on keeping him in the medical wing for a couple of days to make sure that there weren't any side-effects from all the gamma radiation that had been injected into him, and Octavia had made it clear that she would stay by his side until he was well enough to return to the Ark with her. Prim had estimated that it should only take him a day or so until he was well enough to move- she had him on a few transfusions and purging equipment to clear his system of any remaining toxins from the Abomination's blood- but she preferred to be safe rather than sorry.
With the Panem Government now aware of our situation, and therefore aware that we wouldn't be able to respond to anything as quickly as we might before, it had been decided that this was as good a time as any to introduce the Ark- and from them the 'Grounders'- to the full force of the modern Avengers (Prim staying behind didn't matter as I was hopeful that we wouldn't need 'Black Widow' for the current crisis, considering the risk of her finding the Abomination if she tried to sneak into the mountain). Steve had even decided to come with us, leaving my mother to basically deal with any calls for us that might be received before we got back; considering the scale of what was being discussed, we had all decided that his input would be needed even if he insisted that I was still the leader of the team.
"We're coming in," Finnick said at last, breaking the silence that had settled over us as the hovercraft began to descend towards its destination. On cue, the team stood up and moved to gather around the cockpit area, staring as we drew in closer to the remnants of the Ark, still battered but otherwise already showing a marked improvement from the wreck it had been on my first visit. As the ship came to a halt, the door opened and I led the way out, Clarke immediately behind me followed by the rest of the team, Finnick putting the ship on lockdown before he joined us.
Looking at the various people standing around outside the 'building' where our meeting was about to take place, I was suddenly grateful that we'd already sent a message on to the Ark to tell them about the Coalition's terms for the alliance. Granted, I had no way to know that Jaha and Kane had reached here before us, but I was optimistic that they had, if only because it saved me having to worry about everyone's reaction to learning about the terms of the alliance directly; Clarke and Callie had handled it well enough, but at least I knew that they believed in me.
"Hello," I said, nodding grimly at the assembled former Ark residents. "We're… here to talk to your Chancellor?"
"We'll take you," a young man said, stepping out with a gun in his hand and two others on either side of him. It took me a moment to recognise Bellamy Blake, now that he looked a bit cleaner and was wearing what looked like a security uniform, but once I identified him I quickly saw that the other boy was Murphy, although the dark-haired woman with the brace around her left leg was unfamiliar.
"Raven?" Clarke said, looking awkwardly at the girl with the brace. "You're walking?"
"Your mom," Raven said (Now that she'd mentioned the name, I recalled Clarke talking about 'Raven' as the unofficial mechanic for her group before they were abducted; I just hadn't asked for more information at the time to help me focus on the main problem). "She just couldn't treat all of the nerve damage."
"Ah," Peeta said, as we followed the three teenagers into the Ark, the group of people outside looking at us curiously even if they seemed to have been ordered to remain out of the upcoming meeting.
"How's Octavia?" Bellamy asked.
"She's fine," I smiled in understanding. "She's just staying with Lincoln while my sister keeps an eye on him; the… drugs… that turned him into that really took a lot out of him, so we're keeping him under observation until we know he'll be all right."
"Good," Bellamy said, before wincing slightly. "I mean that Lincoln's OK, not-"
"We get it," Peeta nodded, before his gaze shifted to where Murphy and Anya were looking at each other in a particularly grim manner.
"You have a weapon," Anya said, glancing at the gun in Murphy's hand.
"And you're an Avenger," Murphy countered with a brief shrug. "Guess we've all gone up in the world, huh?"
"Let's… not get into that now," Peeta put in, stepping forward to stand between the two before Murphy could say anything else; only the slight hum of his repulsors gave away that he was preparing to fight if things went wrong. Evidently Murphy recognised when he shouldn't push his luck as he stepped back and moved to the rear of the group, simply giving Steve a curious glance without asking any questions as Peeta raised his face-plate, giving everyone a chance to see his face while making it easy for him to leap into action if things turned ugly.
"So," Raven said, looking coldly at us after we had spent a few moments walking down the corridor in silence, "you're the guys who want to hand Finn over?"
"Don't shoot the messengers, Miss Reyes," Finnick smiled at the girl in the manner that had made him the Capitol's darling before their true agenda was exposed.
"And we don't want to hand him over; they made the demands and we're just… going over all options," I said defensively.
"Right," Raven said, before looking at the rest of the team before her gaze focused on Johanna's metal arm. "Holy shit, what happened to you?"
"Our first big threat crushed my old arm," Johanna shrugged, before indicating the girl's left leg. "If we're discussing war wounds, what happened to you there?"
"Bullet to the spine," Raven said grimly. "Abby got it out, but like I said, there was still some nerve damage."
"Ouch," Johanna said sympathetically.
"Can we just… talk to your leaders?" I asked, even as I made a note to have Prim or my mother take a look at Raven's spine once this was all over. I didn't know the full details of what our salvaged medical technology from the Capitol was capable of, but if they could repair most of the scars old Victors had suffered in the Games, it didn't seem implausible that they could do something with Raven's leg.
"Sure," Bellamy said, nodding as he turned to walk down a corridor, followed by my team. As we walked into the conference room where I'd spoken with Clarke and her mother earlier, I wasn't entirely surprised to see the woman in question already sitting at the other end of the table, although Jaha and Kane were a slight surprise.
"We're here," I said, looking at the grim faces of the three-man Ark council at the other end of the table.
"Well," Johanna grinned nonchalantly, "don't everybody thank us at once."
"You're… kids?" Kane said, looking at us in surprise; I told myself not to be offended at the implication that he'd assumed I was a 'junior' Avenger when we met earlier.
"Believe me, we haven't been 'kids' for a long time," Finnick said, his usual smile gone as he looked grimly at the other man. "I had to act as a prostitute for our old government to keep my wife safe, Johanna lost her entire family because she wouldn't play ball, and you don't want to know what Katniss and Peeta had to go through to get to where we are."
"You were a prostitute?" Kane asked.
"Like I said," Finnick countered, his manner unusually grim for his usual approach, "you don't want to know."
"I'm… sure you've been through a lot, but…" Aby began, before she finally registered Steve as he stood behind us, his aged features standing out against the youthful faces of the rest of the team. "And you are?"
"Steve Rogers," Steve smiled, nodding politely at Abby. "You may know me as Captain America."
I fought the urge to smile as all three of the Ark leaders stared at Steve in shock at that last statement.
"…You can't be Captain America," Jaha said at last. "He would have died over two centuries ago-"
"Almost did, actually," Steve interjected with a grim smile. "It took another period in suspended animation, a mass of artificial organ replacements designed by the original Iron Man, and the fact that the serum makes things easier to get me to this point, but it's me."
"Oh my God…" Abby said, staring at Steve incredulously before she looked at me. "Why didn't you tell me you had the original Avenger-?"
"I think I can guess where this is going, so I'll stop you right there," Steve interjected, holding up a firm hand. "Despite what you might think, I am not the leader of the Avengers."
"What?"
"Believe me, I understand your reasoning, but it's flawed," Steve explained. "These days I act as the administrator and tactical advisor for the team, but even with the serum giving me a boost, I'm in no state to go into the field, and this isn't my world anyway."
Still looking at the three Ark leaders, Steve walked forward slightly to place his flesh hand on my shoulder, looking at the three before us with a firm stance. "This is the world that Mockingjay grew up in, and this is the world she has sworn to protect; she is the leader."
"Really?" Kane said, looking at me like he was still trying to decide if he should be incredulous or impressed.
"But… but you're Captain America!" Doctor Griffin said, looking at Steve in shock.
"And America isn't here any more," Steve replied solemnly. "I'm proud to say that I brought this team together, but it's not my place to decide what kind of world they should rebuild; if I tried to force them to rebuild America just because it's the world I liked, I'd be no better than Schmidt or Loki, forcing my view on the world when I don't like what I see. Mockingjay lived in this world, so I trust her to know what it needs where it matters the most; whatever you might think of her, she is the leader."
Once again, I was impressed at the respect that Steve could command when he wanted it; these three had only grown up with distant stories of when his team failed, and they still respected him even as he told them to defer to someone else.
"All… all right," Abby said at last, nodding solemnly at the seven Avengers and our small guard as we all sat at the table. "So… who are you all?"
"You've already met Clarke and Mockingjay, of course," Steve said, indicating the two of us before he continued. "Allow me to also introduce Iron Man, Bloodaxe, the Mariner, and She-Hulk."
"She-Hulk?" Abby repeated, looking at Anya in shock. "You-you're a Hulk?"
"You never mentioned that-?" Jaha began, looking sharply at Clarke.
"It's new," Clarke and I said almost simultaneously.
"It's a combination of all the residual radiation she and her ancestors have taken into their systems since the war, a transfusion from me, and I think she has a distant blood tie to the original Hulk," Steve put in, even as I looked over at Anya to confirm that she didn't mind us talking about her when she was in the room. "We're as sure as we can be that it's not something that can be passed on, and we didn't set out to change her in that manner, but as long as she's here, she's on the team."
"After all," Johanna said, tapping her metal arm, "when the last gamma-powered psycho we fought did this to me, we'd be stupid to turn down a chance to work with another one."
"A Hulk did that to you?" Kane asked.
"He called himself the Maestro, actually," I put in; I wasn't going to tarnish Bruce's memory any more than Snow had done already. "But yeah, he crushed Johanna's arm in our final battle, and some of our… allies… were able to create that new one."
"One of you lost an arm in your first fight-?" Jaha began.
"And we've since cleared out several remaining enemy strongholds with just the four of us and the occasional 'boost' from Thor," I cut in. "Trust me, we can handle this."
"Thor's alive?" Kane asked, looking at me in surprise.
"He was seen as a god once; even if he's just an advanced alien, the end result is that he doesn't die easily," Finnick smiled. "He's a bit busy back on Asgard these days now that he's king of the place, but he's available if we need an extra oomph."
"And we're going to need that here," I said, looking grimly around the table. "Apart from their known soldiers, the Reapers, and that acid fog thing, we've recently learned the disturbing information that the inhabitants of Mount Weather are creating the Reapers using the blood of Emil Blonsky, AKA the Abomination."
"The who?" Bellamy asked.
"If you've heard of us, I take it you've heard of the Hulk and what he was capable of?" I asked, giving Bellamy a moment to nod in confirmation before I continued. "The Abomination once nearly beat the Hulk to death."
To his credit, Bellamy just blinked at that statement, even if he was clearly shaken at the proclamation.
"So… Mount Weather has their own Hulk?" Jaha asked.
"If they're using his blood to create the Reapers but haven't deployed him against the Coalition yet, I can't be certain he'd be willing to fight for them if he was released, but I equally doubt he'd be willing to fight for us," Steve explained. "When he got his powers, he went on a rampage through a large portion of New York just because he could; we have to assume that he's a threat if things turn ugly, which means we're going to need Anya's strength."
"Which means we're going to need the Grounders to mount this kind of assault," Clarke finished.
"Don't you have your own army?" Jaha asked, looking at the assorted Avengers. "I appreciate that you're… very good at your job, but if your people are more advanced-"
"We're also still working to rebuild an entire social structure after almost a century living under the thumb of a superhuman psychopath," Steve said, indicating his artificial arm. "Believe me, I'd be using every favour I'm owed to get our army over here to help you if I thought it would help, but right now we don't have the resources to spare to go after Mount Weather on that scale.
"Besides," Finnick put in, now leaning back in his chair as he spun his trident in an outstretched hand, "you don't need an army; you've got us."
"Children," Jaha said simply.
"They are 'children' who have already killed a nigh-on indestructible psychopath and been protecting this country for the last few months as an elite strike force," Steve countered. "If you can't respect them, then get out of my sight."
The cold condemnation in Steve's tone was more than enough to put Jaha off his argument, the room sitting in silence for a moment until the former Chancellor of the Ark broke it.
"Look… in the end, respecting local rules isn't the issue here," he said. "If we let a child get slaughtered-"
"OK, you want to start acting all indignant about that, don't shoot a hundred teenagers down to Earth in the first fucking place," Johanna cut in, glaring at Jaha. "You didn't care whether they lived or died then, so don't act like you can start worrying about one just because you've got the space. It's easy to be moral when you've got it easy; the reason Mockingjay there's in charge is because she never took the simple option to save her own ass."
I was so touched by Johanna's sudden statement of faith in me that I suddenly realised that she had even phrased it in the best possible way. I'd tried to play Snow's game when he'd threatened other people, but when it was just me on the line, I'd always stood up to put myself at risk to do what I felt had to be done, whether it was saving Prim, not killing Peeta, or trying to save Peeta, even before I'd become an Avenger.
"Besides," Steve said, "now that you're on the ground, you're going to have to adapt; whatever you thought while you were on the Ark, you're coming here to rejoin society, not to rebuild it."
"He's right," Clarke nodded. "We're just going to piss everyone off if we try and enforce our standards on them; if we're going to live here, part of that means respecting local laws."
"OK, why is nobody saying that we do this the easy way?" Raven suddenly cut in firmly. "We give them Murphy."
"Excuse me?" Bellamy and Murphy said, both glaring over at the injured mechanic.
"They were both there; nobody's going to know the difference-"
"No," I said firmly, standing up to draw attention to me before Anya could react. "We're not going to save one person by handing over another; if you're going to trade lives like that, you might as well let Mount Weather finish their work."
"What?" Bellamy looked at me in confusion.
"Mockingjay's right," Clarke said, her stance firm despite the tremor in her voice; I had to give her credit for accepting my point despite her emotional investment in this topic. "The whole reason we're rallying against Mount Weather is because they've decided they're more important than us; if we start deciding one life is worth more than another, we're doing what we resent them for."
"And how's what they're asking us to do any better-?"
"Because the Coalition want to avenge those killed by Finn's actions according to their legal system; you just want to hand Murphy over because you don't like him," Steve said, looking solemnly at Raven. "I understand your feelings, Miss Reyes, but that doesn't change the facts of the situation; Finn killed eighteen people of his own free will, and he has to face some kind of punishment for that."
"Couldn't we just… say we're going to put him on trial?" Kane asked uncertainly. "If we punished him ourselves-?"
"My people would not accept that," Anya interjected. "Your judgement of the situation would be doubted given your past views on my people; we must judge him."
"When you already know what the sentence is going to be?" Raven asked bitterly.
"If death has no cost, life has no worth."
"Fair way to look at it," Johanna nodded at Anya before looking at Kane. "No offence, but I wouldn't trust you to be fair right now and I'm trying to like the guy they want to kill."
"You're judging Finn for something he wouldn't-!"
"Believe me, we talked about that back at your base," Johanna continued, her tone unusually solemn as she looked at the younger woman. "We get that he wouldn't have gone that far is he was thinking clearly, but we can't just let him go off scot-free for killing eighteen people because he went a bit nuts."
"I can't send a child to his death-!"
"We're not asking you to," Steve said, looking sympathetically at Abby. "We're asking you to respect the justice system down here and let the Coalition have what they want."
"You're the Avengers; can't you just-?"
"Our help is not conditional," I said firmly, reaching over to place a hand on Anya's shoulder before she did something we'd all regret later, even as I looked at Kane to make sure he understood what I was about to say. "And Clarke might be on our team now, but so is Anya; we're here to save both of your people from Mount Weather, and that means we aren't going to take sides in this mess when there's a bigger conflict."
"I thought the Avengers were heroes," Raven said, coldly glaring at us. "And you're going to just sit back and let Finn die when you could save him-!"
"We're here to save you all from the threats no conventional force could stand up to," Finnick said, abandoning his usual flippancy as he looked back at Raven. "We get why you're upset, but this is a trial of a convicted criminal by the people who wish to sentence him; it's not our place to get involved in that."
"Nice words," Murphy said, glancing over at Clarke. "Considering that you're with the person who set him off-"
"Stop," I said, slamming the shield face-down on the table as I stood up, glaring coldly at Murphy. "You do not get to accuse anyone of doing anything but what they are responsible for. Clarke isn't to blame for anyone's actions but her own; even if Finn thinks that he can justify what happened because he was looking for her, he did because he chose to do it."
"Even when he felt he had to?" Bellamy asked.
"Mockingjay and I had an entire nation waiting for one of us to kill the other and we chose to defy their orders," Peeta put in firmly. "We made our choice then, despite the risk; Finn chose to kill those people because it was easier to channel his own frustration against others rather than accept it and wait."
It wasn't how I would have chosen to discuss our past with these people, but looking around the table, I appreciated the new edge of respect in Abby and Kane's eyes as they looked in my direction. Jaha still seemed sceptical, but I was grateful to see that at least two of the people I was trying to talk with appreciated that I knew what I was talking about.
"Believe me, I get why you're upset," Steve said, looking around the room at the three adults. "You thought that you could come down here and repopulate Earth, and instead you're having to integrate into a larger community than you ever believed. All we can do is offer you every apology that we didn't know you were there earlier, and assure you that we're going to do what we can to save your people… but in the end, you need to recognise that you can't just ask for Finn to be spared because you don't like the local customs."
"And would you be saying that if it was one of you down there?" Raven asked.
Whatever response we might have made to that was cut short when the door opened and a guard came in, looking anxiously around the room before his gaze settled on Abby
"He's gone out!"
"Out?" Abby repeated, standing up and staring at the guard in shock. "Why-?"
"Hold on a minute…" Finnick said, looking anxiously at his watch. "When we were flying here, we passed over a large group of people; I didn't really clock it at the time as they didn't have anything that could be a threat, but if they kept going at a steady pace…"
"You believe it to be my people?" Anya asked.
"Here and ready for their pound of flesh," Finnick said grimly, before looking back at the guard. "And I take it 'he' is this Finn guy?"
The guard's brief nod was all that was needed for Raven to get to her feet and hobble out of the room as fast as possible, leaving our unofficial guard to hurry after her while the Avengers and I followed at a more gradual pace, Clarke walking between the two groups.
As we emerged from the remnants of the Ark, I was surprised at how dark it had become so quickly; I'd known that we were some distance from any of the Districts, and it had been getting on a bit, but even in the Games or when I was out hunting I'd never been somewhere so devoid of natural light. The Ark was still working on exterior lighting, but the sight outside the gates was easily visible, as various Coalition warriors stood outside, torches in their hands, a young man I recognised as Finn tied to a stake in front of the gate.
"Death by a thousand cuts," Steve said grimly, from his position behind us. "Never struck me as the best way to go."
"What can we do?" Peeta asked, reaching up as though ready to snap his face-plate back into position. "I get that this has to work, but there must be something-"
"Let me try," Clarke said, looking around the group before she focused on Anya and me. "I know what he did, but… he's still one of my people."
Anya stared at Clarke in silence for a moment before she nodded, leaving me to give her a similar nod of confirmation. With that, Clarke turned around and activated her thrusters, flying into the air before coming down on the other side of the wall without even activating her wings. For a moment I worried about what was going to happen, but quickly reminded myself that I had to trust Clarke if our new team was ever going to work; after all the time we'd spent talking about this alliance, she wouldn't try and take Finn away…
As she spoke with a form I thought might be Lexa, I couldn't be sure what she'd said.
As she walked up to the pole where Finn had been tied up, I didn't know what she was going to do.
When she stepped away from the pole with a knife sticking out of Finn's chest, I knew what she'd just done.
I just hoped that enough people in the Coalition would understand it as well…