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: I was planning to jump back to Asgard at this point, but it occurred to me that another small-but-significant detail should be dealt with at this stage, and it gave Katniss a chance to talk with Clarke and Lexa about their upcoming plans; hope you like it
AN 2: For the record, now that the fourth season of 'The 100' has concluded, I feel that I should clarify that the events of that season will never happen in this series, as far as the whole 'nuclear reactor meltdown' storyline goes. Snow/the Maestro might have been an arrogant asshole, but he wasn't crazy enough to want humanity to be completely destroyed by that kind of nuclear fallout- even if that was mainly because he wanted to have people to rule over- so he made it a priority to keep the plants in good condition and shut them down before they could become dangerous
Falling Hope, Rising Threat
Walking to the Commander's tent with Clarke, I forced myself not to worry about the increasingly complicated variables of this situation.
Facing the Maestro might have been a challenge, but at least once Snow had transformed all our old problems were reduced to something I could hit; so far we just kept finding more complications and reasons to put off trying to take the fight to the mountain directly. Viewed from outside, my actions might have seemed cowardly, but I knew that every decision I'd made so far in the campaign against Mount Weather had been because I wanted to be sure I knew what we were up against. Fighting Snow had been simple because we'd known going in that anyone in that area would be guilty, but I wasn't going to agree to any kind of attack on Mount Weather when Clarke's report confirmed that there were innocent people in there rather than it being a pure military target. Training with Clarke and Anya to incorporate the Falcon and She-Hulk into our battle strategies was going well, and I was as confident as I could ever be that we could handle the Abomination if the time came for us to fight him, but getting into Mount Weather without killing innocent people just by opening the door was the biggest issue facing us right now.
When Clarke had suggested we send someone in to infiltrate the guards on the mountain's staff, I wasn't comfortable with the choice of spy, but I had to agree with the reasoning behind her decision. I was still working with Clarke and Anya to refine the idea of the three of us and Thor staging our capture at some later date so that we could initiate a break-out from inside the compound, Johanna would stand out too much with or without her artificial arm even if she'd been here to nominate for that kind of assignment, Peeta wasn't capable enough in a fight without his armour for me to feel comfortable sending him into the mountain, I couldn't spare Finnick as he was the most qualified pilot among us and we'd need the hovercraft to get away after the assault was over, and I certainly wasn't going to send Prim in on her own to deal with something this dangerous. There was nobody else in the support staff back at the Avengers compound that I would trust with something this important, I couldn't call in anyone else from Panem, none of our potential allies in the Coalition would be able to understand what we wanted them to do once they got inside the mountain, the adults in the Ark couldn't be guaranteed to go along with any plan we came up with, and most of the remaining delinquents were too impulsive to be fully trusted with something this important.
It was a risky plan, but however I looked at it, even if he wasn't a particular fan of the Avengers after Thor and Johanna had 'abducted' Octavia, Bellamy Blake was the best choice we had to get into that mountain without anyone realising what he was too soon. He still seemed to glare at myself and any other Avengers when he saw them, evidently still angry about us for letting Thor and Johanna taking Octavia away, but Clarke was hopeful that giving him a mission with a clear purpose would quash his concerns that we were trying to covertly take control of Camp Jaha as part of some kind of long-term agenda. Clarke recognised that Bellamy had anger issues, but he was also the only person from her people who clearly understood the scope of the situation facing us and had the necessary experience of life on the ground; everyone else who'd come down in the dropship was more used to following orders than taking the initiative.
The idea of sending Lincoln in to act as a Reaper to take Bellamy into the mountain was another part of the plan I wasn't entirely comfortable about, but Finnick had volunteered to have a couple of meetings with Lincoln to assess his mental condition. The former District Four resident might not be a qualified 'psychiatrist' (I was fairly sure that was the term used in the pre-Panem days), but his insight into people made him the best qualified of the Avengers to conduct that kind of analysis. Clarke had wanted to discuss the plan with her mother, but once I'd agreed with her reasoning, I'd decided that it would be best to get the Commander's 'permission' first, since the Coalition was far larger than the Ark. Panem and the Capitol were too far away to be directly involved in these events, so I saw no point in talking with them about it, but something this risky would require permission from the local authorities if we wanted to make it clear that the Avengers weren't here to just take over.
"Heda," Clarke said, leading me in nodding politely at the commander as we walked into the tent, the young woman sitting calmly in her throne as another man with shaven sideburns and a thick beard stood beside her, in a manner that put me in mind of a bodyguard.
"Falcon and Mockingjay?" the Commander said, looking curiously at us. "Is that the appropriate term?"
"When we're discussing Avengers business, it's probably easiest to call us that," I nodded at her. "How are things going at your end?"
"My… end?"
"Your part in our plan to attack Mount Weather," I clarified. "How's that coming along?"
"We progress," Lexa said solemnly. "While the clans gather, my best scouts are observing the mountain to confirm how many people travel to and from it on a regular basis, and we have identified the primary routes in and out."
"But you can't actually use those routes," Clarke finished.
"Not without being caught," Lexa acknowledged.
"Which is where we come in," I explained. "We want to send Bellamy in as a spy."
"Bellamy?" Lexa repeated, before her gaze shifted to Clarke. "He is your… other leader?"
"He was," Clarke nodded. "I get that you don't have much reason to trust him, but I've spoken with Mockingjay and the other Avengers and we're all agreed that he's our best chance. I don't mean any offence, but to be blunt, none of your people would even understand what to do once they got inside the mountain even if we could give them suitable disguises, and there's nobody else on our side we can trust to stick to our plan rather than try and do things their way who isn't needed out here."
"You have that little faith in your people?" the man standing beside the Commander asked.
"Everyone we have faith in who would be capable of something like this has another role in the plan," I clarified. "We told you that the Avengers are an elite unit- we don't just let anyone onto the team- but that means we only have so many people we can spare for something like this."
"Your plan is flawed."
"How?" I asked the man firmly.
"There is too much danger in-"
"What?" I cut him off with a warning hand. "Trying to stop Mount Weather? In case you hadn't noticed, that whole facility is heavily protected and has some very advanced weapons; this was never going to be safe!"
"We have existed in balance-"
"You've been letting them rule you!"
When the man stormed forward while drawing a knife from his belt, I briefly wondered if I'd crossed a line, but just as the thought crossed my mind, I had already grabbed the shield from my back and used it to knock the knife out of his hand, following the move by holding my shield's edge against his throat.
"Don't," Clarke said, already having drawn a gun from her harness to point it at the man, a show of support that I appreciated despite the little time we'd spent together so far. "You try to touch Mockingjay again, and you will lose that hand."
"You dared imply that I am not loyal-"
"I didn't mean it that way," I corrected the man immediately. "What I meant is that right now Mount Weather are basically the ones in charge of this situation because they have the power and you're letting them set the rules of your interaction with them as they abduct your people for their own ends."
"She… is correct," the Commander said grimly, looking solemnly at the other soldier. "We have never taken their orders, but the Mountain Men have always… set the terms of our encounters with them; we react, but nothing more."
"But it doesn't have to be that way now," Clarke said firmly. "We can help you turn the tables against them, but you have to trust that we can help you."
"And what promise do we have that you will not use this opportunity to put yourself in their place?" the guard said, glaring between Clarke and I. "This alliance is dangerous-"
"It's all dangerous," I countered firmly, refusing to push the shield any further; I was becoming frustrated with this man's attitude, but I wasn't going to start killing people just because they annoyed me. "The world is never going to be perfectly safe, but sometimes you have to have faith that people are here to help you because it's the right thing to do. If you don't want our help, we'll leave, but right now, your options are either let us help you or stand by and let the mountain continue to take people from your clans to sustain themselves, which means that, best-case-scenario, nothing is going to change for your people."
"Best… what?" the guard asked, hostile gaze shifting to confusion as he looked at us.
"The best possible outcome of the situation we're in," I clarified, deciding to step back from the man when I noticed that he had put his knife back into his belt. "I understand that this is… well, I only became an Avenger a year ago and I still wonder at some of the things I've seen, so I can't imagine what it's like for you to have us all taking control of the situation like this."
"We do not fear you-"
"And we don't want you to fear us," Clarke said, looking reassuringly at him for a moment before she turned her attention to the Commander. "As… Mockingjay… has told you, the point of the Avengers is to fight the threats that no normal forces could withstand. We're helping you against Mount Weather because they have access to advanced weapons and an old adversary of the original Avengers that we can't allow out to threaten anyone else, but we also want you to be safe. If all we wanted was the destruction of the Mountain, from everything Clarke's told us, we could send Thor in to smash the doors and we'd have the job done, but we're trying to take it down and keep as many people safe as we can."
The Commander looked thoughtfully at us for a few moments, her guard staring inscrutably at us from the side, before she nodded.
"You say that your plan requires you to send in a spy," she said at last. "What would his purpose be?"
"Based on Monty's information, we've provisionally identified the area where they're keeping the Abomination, but we need hands-on information if we're going to work out what we can do about him before they decide to let him out, and we also need to know where the mountain's key rooms actually are," I explained. "Bellamy's our best candidate to get in there without drawing too much attention to himself, and we're talking with Lincoln about the possibility of having him… pose as a Reaper to help Bellamy get in."
"For what purpose?"
"So that Bellamy will just look like another prisoner," Clarke explained. "Once they're through the gate, Lincoln can create a distraction so that Bellamy can get into the mountain, find a disguise, and then work out the best plan of attack from inside; he'll have a radio so that we can talk him through anything he doesn't understand immediately, and nobody in there will know he's out here."
"Is that safe?"
"As safe as anything," Clarke answered. She had spoken with us about the risk of Lincoln being essentially 'addicted' to the blood samples that Mount Weather used to create the Reapers, but had also expressed faith that he had the necessary personal strength to overcome any residual addiction. I still wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea, but we all knew that there was no better candidate than Lincoln to pass himself off as a Reaper when we didn't know how closely Mount Weather paid attention to their numbers. "No plan's perfect, obviously, but we're working on every loophole we can think of, and anything's better than just sitting here until someone inside that mountain gets jumpy and decides to let the Abomination out before we're ready.
"I know you haven't really seen how dangerous Anya can be in her current state," I said, taking up the story myself, "but I've seen what something like the Abomination can do in a fight, and even if I think we have a good chance of stopping him in a direct confrontation, I don't want to give him the opportunity to get out if there's anything we can do to keep him contained."
"You would fight the mountain when they control something that dangerous?"
"I'm hoping they're not crazy enough to let something that dangerous out of the box to deal with our forces when they don't know that you have the Avengers on call now," I informed the man grimly; the more I spoke with him, the more I was reminded of some of the people at District Thirteen who had opposed my plans with the Avengers just because they didn't see why I was doing things that way. "That's why we need to send someone in to confirm where the Abomination is before we mount our attack; if there's any way to keep him wherever they've trapped him, we need a man on the inside to find it."
"And then?"
"Then," Clarke smiled, "we confirm where everything important is inside that mountain, send in our primary strike team to take down the mountain's defences from the inside, and follow it up by having your armies and ours mount another assault from the outside."
"And that will end the Mountain?" the Commander asked.
"Allowing for factors such as whatever other external defences they have to send against us and however many men are available to attack us," Clarke added. "There are more details to refine before we're ready to attack, but we will be ready for them."
It was unlikely to be that simple, but at the same time I knew that there was nothing more we could do about this situation. The mountain might not be as dangerous or individually powerful a threat as the Maestro had been, but with the weapons they had in there, with or without the Abomination, we had to take the mountain out before they decided to turn their firepower against the rest of the country. As I grew in my role as the leader of the Avengers, I had become more determined to judge people by their actions rather than their pasts, but after everything Mount Weather had done to those they considered inferior just because they lived a primitive lifestyle, I wasn't comfortable letting them reach a point where they would be able to spread beyond that mountain.
Whatever the risk of unleashing the Abomination, we had to stop the mountain now…
"For what it's worth," I put in, feeling the need to reassure the Commander of something I could guarantee, "Anya's integrated well into our team, but she's made it clear that if it comes down to a choice between obeying me or obeying you in any big decisions… she'll obey you."
The Commander didn't reply to me verbally, but the slight nod and smile she gave me was enough to show that she'd understood why I'd told her that much.
The odds against us were going to be a challenge, but we seemed to be forming a good balance between our team and the Coalition, and anything I could to assure the Commander and others of our good intentions had to help that goal. Anya was proving to be a good addition to the team, but I didn't want her to feel like she was in a position where she felt that she would have to choose between us and her people, so the best way to do that was to make sure she understood I would never put her in that position on purpose.
So long as the Commander and I never had any major disagreements about what either of our sides had to do in a crisis, we should be all right, but I liked to think that Anya was coming to respect me as a leader in my own right despite her greater physical power compared to the rest of the team…