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Chapter Text

Wanda held the rifle in her hands, level and steady. It was a Capitol specialty rifle, one that shot energy instead of bullets. Like everything else the Capitol produced, the rifle was made for cruelty. A stun setting was not merciful; stunning meant the Capitol still needed you. The rifles were often used for torture. It took a lot of work to get this specific rifle into her hands, the barrel facing down President Stane. The resistance in Thirteen only had a few dozen. Until now. Now the Resistance could loot anything and everything from the Captiol. The Capitol may have claimed over a thousand children for the games, the lives of every man or woman who starved while the Capitol feasted, and hell, an entire district, but look – we looted your rifles to kill your leader, we are the Victors here.

Far too much time had passed. Three minutes, four? The crowd waited in absolute silence, but the confusion was palpable. Why didn’t the Mockingjay shoot? Wanda herself wasn’t sure. She wanted to see the man dead. She wanted the red energy to pierce through his immaculate stubble, to rip his heart right out of his chest. The air was too cool (and the memories too harsh) and she resisted the urge to shiver.

(Back in Thirteen, she’d asked Rhodes about the modified rifle. Rhodes always had a mischievous side, but there was something unbearable in watching him craft propaganda. He made the rifle shoot red for the girl on fire. She asked, as impassively as she could, if it would hurt Stane. He looked her dead in the eyes and said “I hope so.”)

(The last time she was in this stadium, thousands of the Capitol’s good moral citizens were discussing whether or not she was going to die in the next week. She wanted to burn the whole building down, but she was the only one on fire).

(She spent hours practicing with the rifle – you can’t miss a propaganda shot. She learned how to use a rifle after the games. Wanda didn’t win by shooting; she was the trapper, the trickster. Yet no matter what weapons Wanda used, at her core she was determined. She kept playing the game long after any reasonable person would give in. It’s what she did. She morphed herself into a flame, ready to burn every last remnant of the Capitol. )

Wanda glared at Stane, at the finely tailored suit they let him wear. That was a significant debate. Should we debase his image or should we force him to wear the same rags he forced upon a whole country? She looked up at President Hansen, in her modest clothes. Once again, she stood in an arena while the President asked her to kill. Is this the world her vengeance created?

Wanda pointed the gun at Maya Hansen, self appointed President, and fired. Her aim was true. Hansen fell from her podium, her head cracking against the floor. Wanda walked away while the crowd went in for the second kill. She walked away as Stane laughed and shouted: “Is this your Mockingjay?”

Chapter Text

Wanda lays next to her brother, feeling the firmness of his muscles, the warmth of his skin. This is their moment, where the world (too cold, too rigid, too brutal) slips away. In this world, things are not perfect. But they will be. This is the world they are revolutionaries. In this moment, the world is no longer the one where they are hungry and tired and working all day to earn a place to sleep. (In the twin’s world, their parents watch eagerly, watch their children become revolutionaries). They whisper stories in each other’s ears, well aware of how dangerous this is. The Capitol could kill them, just for these stories. But the Capitol has tried to kill them twice already.

Sometimes crowds from Twelve cheer them on as they kill President Stane. Sometimes the stories are practical, straddling the boundary between fiction and plans of action. Wanda lures a local peacekeeper into the woods outside Twelve, with the promise of something illicit and sensual. The peacekeeper wanders into one of her traps, just like a rabbit. Pietro kills Stark the next time he visits and runs off so fast he disappears into the crowd. (There are no cameras in Twelve. Fear is enough to quell most rebellious urges from Panem’s poorest district).

Wanda and Pietro started sharing stories when they were ten, a week after their parents –

Wanda and Pietro are 17. They still share stories almost every night. No matter how disparate, the stories have two elements in common. There is no blood; killing is necessary, occasionally relished, but never visceral. Wanda and Pietro are never called for the Games.

Wanda and Pietro drift off into sleep, imagining tomorrow’s reaping. Their fear is poorly covered by fantasy. The world where Wanda (ever so tricky) and Pietro (ever so fast) steal the peacekeepers batons and the whole of Twelve storms the stage. No one is reaped. How pleasant.

***

Wanda sneaks into the woods before the sun rises. On reaping day her brother doesn’t need to go to the mines; yet Wanda still has to get them food. It isn’t quite a burden. She knows the woods. She knows the trees where she hides her spears and her traps. This has always been easy for her. To walk into the woods and understand (almost too quickly) which plants the animals eat and which paths are safe to walk down. Intuition, that’s what Pietro calls it.

***

It’s dangerous to be dirty on Reaping Day. No matter how poor District Twelve is, reaping is about the glory of the Capitol. Its citizens must wear their best clothes and scrub that mine dust off their skin. Wanda and Pietro can’t quite afford nice clothes. Wanda squeezes into a scarlet dress, one she’s had since she was twelve. It is far too short. Pietro wears the same thin cotton pants he wears whenever he’s out of the mines. They haul in a bucket of rainwater from outside. Wanda washes her hair; Pietro scrubs the dust off his hands. It is not quite good enough, but it will have to do.

(Any other day, Wanda and Pietro would talk. Wanda told stories and Pietro told jokes. But this is the Reaping Day).

***

Pepper Potts stood on the reaping stage with a small smile. Unlike most of the Capitol citizens, she dressed simply, in black. In some other universe, Wanda would’ve found her pretty. Pepper reached into a glass container, full of names. “Ladies first.”

“Karolina Dean. Could Karolina Dean please come to the stage?” Pepper seemed so polite as she asked a girl to walk to her death. Wanda didn’t know Karolina. She felt a small, guilty relief.

Pepper reached in again, “and now, for the gentlemen.”

“Ah, Pietro Maximoff.”

The world felt wrong. Was the sky too close?

Pietro walked up onto stage, not looking nearly formal enough. He didn’t smirk. He didn’t cry. He looked sick.

Her legs. How could she keep standing?

“District Twelve, these are your contestants for the 74th -”

Wanda pushed up to the stage. She knocked over a little girl, right into the mud. Pietro could not die. She could die. Not Pietro. (Her mother would be so sad. Wanda was the responsible one.)

“I volunteer,” Wanda shouted, “I volunteer as tribute.”

She started to feel stable. Air. She could breathe now.

Pepper held her hand over her heart. “A volunteer from Twelve. How unprecedented. And you are?”

“Wanda. Wanda Maximoff.”

“Curious. Come up my dear.”

Wanda felt exposed. As Karolina Dean walked off the stage, relief palpable across her features, Wanda realized how big of an error she’d made. But this is Reaping. There are no second chances.

Chapter Text

Two peacekeepers escort Wanda onto the stage. They walk briskly and she follows, even as mud splashed up onto her shins. There was no need for peacekeepers to threaten her; their very presence was the threat. She ignores the silent crowd and looks towards Pietro. His entire body is lightly shaking with unrealized rage.

Wanda swallows back a lump of guilt and climbs the wobbling steps to the stage. She had made a foolish mistake, thinking she could volunteer for her brother, save him. They would have to save each other. Or at least, if they could spite the Capitol, even by dying together, she could stand tall and steady.

Her district stands steady below her, three fingers raised in the air.

***

Tributes are allowed a few precious seconds to reunite with loved ones and say goodbyes. Wanda and Pietro are separated to wait for their imagined friends and family. The woman they share a shack with – Mrs. Armstrong – isn’t going to show up to mourn their ration share.

So Wanda waits. Wonders how Pietro is passing the time. She stares at the wooden floor and the dingy, water stained pink wallpaper. Typical of the Capitol to not even maintain the room. She tries to school her face away from relief when the Peace keepers come in. And she definitely pretends not to hear them chuckle at her lonely state.