Chapter Text
"are you, are you, coming to the tree?"
-
A rusting metal swingset.
The sound of waves crashing against algae-covered rocks and tightly-packed sand, slowly drawing particles away until, in a few hundred years, there will be no beach left.
Men and women shouting at each other as their boats pull away from shore and dock alike, rowboats and sailboats and dinghies that have no chance of weathering the coming storm.
The roll of thunder accompanying deep gray storm clouds blowing in from the east, billowing up over each other as if they're fighting to be the first to reach land and wallop everyone heading out to sea.
A sheet of long, sandy-blond hair, buffeted around in the pre-storm wind. Abby's freckles, her white-toothed smile, her tan skin and clear laugh. It rings off of the cliff, down to the jagged rocks below, up to the slate-colored sky as her legs pump her back and forth on the swing. It creaks with every movement, far past its replacement date, but nobody seems to care enough to fix it.
Abby's laugh cancels out the squeaking metal and angry shouts, anyways.
She sounds like a bell, Harley thinks absently, gently pushing her back and forth as she pumps a pair of short legs. A ringing bell, like the ones from the old church.
And she does. Despite everything they've been through and everything yet to come, she is happy and loud and so unapologetically Abby Keener.
Abby is eleven now. In the past year, she's shot up in height, but the rest of her grade in school still towers over her head-and-shoulders. The rest of her hasn't grown much- stick-thin and long-legged, she looks like one of the white egrets that fly their way back and forth across the rivers in District Four. She's young, gangly, too thin to be healthy.
But then again, don't they all?
Harley had started growing at eleven, a bit later than Abby, but when he'd started? He hadn't stopped. It had taken him years to finish and, now that he's finally reached his final height, he stands above nearly everyone else in the district. A strong, capable boy with what's shaping up to be a moderately bright future.
After all, he's nearly eighteen now. The reaping is on the horizon and his birthday is just beyond it, so if he can just dodge this one and make it through, he'll never have to feel the paralyzing fear of knowing how many times your name is in that glass bowl and hoping beyond all hope that somebody else's is pulled.
Abby starts next year, that dark part of his mind hisses. Even if you're out, she'll still be in. She won't be safe.
He pushes it down. All he can do is move forward and pray that it isn't his sister.
Another gust of wind blows across the cliff. Harley lets go of the swing for a moment, pulling his jacket tighter around his chest and arms, and steps over to the edge. Peers over it, at the crashing waves and white foam below. At the gray water that stretches on for miles under a gray sky in a gray world.
This is his future, fishing these oceans and these rivers until his boat capsizes and the waves pull him under.
He looks up, blond curls blowing about his face and into his mouth as the storm moves closer and closer. He really does need a haircut at this point; it's been months and if he doesn't want to wear it in a ponytail (he doesn't, he really really doesn't) he has to go ahead and chop it off.
He'll just ask his other when he gets home.
A fat drop of water lands on his nose. Drips down the bridge before falling off, splattering onto the ground at his feet. Another hits his shoulder, the crown of his head, his lip. The wind carries a chill, turns the rain sharp and cold.
This isn't a summer rain, humid and warm. Those are the storms where you can splash in puddles and get your feet wet without catching cold.
No, this is a winter storm, and it's coming fast.
"We need to get inside," Harley barks, ignoring the pang of guilt at Abby's disappointed frown. "Storm's coming."
"I want to stay," Abby says. Nevertheless, she takes a flying jump off of the swing at its arc and lands on her feet. Mud from the last storm splatters against the toes of her white canvas shoes.
He's going to have to clean those.
Harley takes her hand in his, lacing their fingers together, and tugs her along at a light jog as they make their way down the winding cliffside. Pebbles skitter beneath their feet, but the surrounding trees- pine, he thinks, but he's never been very good with remembering that- take the brunt of the wind.
It's warmer down here. Sheltered. Safe.
The path down to Four's biggest coastal town and, subsequently, the Keener home, is long and cuts straight through the docks where boats are anchored. Despite the coming storm, there are barely any people mooring their boats; everyone is out on the water to try and bring in their quota of fish for the day. Harley has no doubt that, come morning, there will be reports of missing people. Later this week, a boat or two will wash up.
It's a sad reality. He dreads the day when he hasn't made his quota and has to go out on a stormy ocean.
A pair of peacekeepers, armed to the teeth and still as statues, stand by the gate that leads into town. Harley subconsciously pulls Abby into his sides. Keeps his eyes on the path of loose white gravel. Grits his teeth and braces himself as they pass, but the peacekeepers must be ready to go home, because they let them by without a fuss.
Tomorrow is the reaping.
Everyone, peacekeeper or not, just wants to go home and savor their last night before the games- and the Quarter Quell, nonetheless- are set into motion.
The town is quiet. Made up of wooden shanties, crumbling buildings, and empty market stalls, it looks like a ghost town. Now and then, as Harley and Abby pass, a pair of small faces will poke out of dusty windows only to be pulled back in by frantic, trembling hands.
Normalcy has long since been forgone.
The Keener home is at the edge of town. It's the only house Harley can remember- as far as he knows, he's never lived anywhere else. The windows are cracked, the porch is covered in spiderwebs, and the antenna that serves as their television's connector barely works- it fizzes out when they're watching news programs, but never when the games are on. No, those are an entirely different ballgame.
Harley shoos Abby inside, shucks his muddy shoes off to be cleaned later, and steps inside before closing and locking the door. His coat goes onto its hook, right next to Abby's and his mother's, and his socks go on the firescreen to dry.
Abby plops herself down on the couch and pulls one of her schoolbooks off of the table before opening it and starting to read. She's smart, hardworking, committed. Everything Harley wasn't at her age.
Macy Keener sits at the kitchen table with a large bolt of fabric strewn across her lap and a needle clenched between her teeth. What looks like a tablecloth is starting to take shape- probably something for one of the town clients. On his way across the kitchen, Harley plants a gentle kiss on her wrinkled forehead before filling a saucepan with water from the tap.
If the redness around her eyes is anything of a hint, she's been crying. Still is, actually, judging from the water pooling at her lower lashline.
"How was your day, mom?" Harley asks. He sets the saucepan on the stove, brings it to a boil, pours in a helping of dry noodles from the cupboard. Their last box.
Macy just shrugs, pulls the needle from between her teeth, and stitches another few inches of the tablecloth before shaking it out and holding it up for them to see. Harley nods- it's a pretty blue color, had probably cost a few month's worth of wages. But that's okay, because it's almost Games season.
They're allowed a few frivolities now and then.
"Looks good," Abby says. The sound of rustling paper fills the room as she flips another page in her book and pulls a sheet of notebook paper out of her backpack, starting on her homework. "It'll look nice with dandelions."
She's right. Yellow and blue are her favorite colors. In the spring, there will be flowers on the table and fresh salad and food that can't be found year-round, and Harley's sure that it'll look beautiful.
The noodles boil slowly but surely; the sound of hissing bubbles joins the rustling. Harley watches the pot carefully, strains out the bubbling water, and slices off a fat pad of butter from their last stick. Abby puts her book down to help him plate their food. Macy stays seated.
She hasn't been the same since their father left. None of them really have, but Macy's change had been by far the most drastic and had come at the worst possible time. After he had disappeared in the night under the guise of getting medicine for Abby, who'd been running a high fever, she had shut down- depression, the doctors had called it.
Harley didn't care very much what they called it. She had disappeared into herself just like her husband had into darkness, leaving Harley to take care of Abby and fend for himself during a Games season when he'd been eight years old.
Macy had left just like Adam Keener.
It had hurt worse.
"You can't do this right now," Harley says lowly, watching Abby to make sure she doesn't hear. "We need you."
"I'm not trying to."
He rolls his eyes and sets her plate down, gently pulling the unfinished cloth from her lap. "Try not to."
"I am, Harley," Macy says. She sounds so frustrated that he almost feels bad, but he's frustrated, too. He's been dealing with this on his own for so long, and he's so sick of being the parent.
"Try harder."
She doesn't respond- just picks up her fork and shovels an inordinate amount of noodles into her mouth, jaw working angrily. Harley rolls his eyes again before pushing his chair out from the table and sitting. Slides Abby's plate over so she can eat, too. Takes a deep, deep breath.
They'll be sending out the announcement later tonight, when they're ready to go to sleep for a last night's peace. The seventy-fifth Hunger Games, the third Quarter Quell, the worst part of the year. The season where your television runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, lest you miss something important. Like a violent death.
They don't turn off. People tried not to watch, so the Capitol made it impossible for you to avoid. Even when Harley's trying to sleep, he can hear screams and crying and so much pain emanating from the living room, giving him nightmares and making it impossible for him to get a decent night's rest.
Abby sleeps on the front porch during Games season. It's the only place she can't hear the television.
Macy doesn't seem like she's affected anymore.
Harley has watched seventeen games now. He remembers nearly all of them, nearly every death, and every single victor. This is his first Quarter Quell, and he can already feel that it's going to be a bad year. He just doesn't know how.
Last year's Games had been some of the worst that he'd ever seen. It had been set up in an arena that was made up of a series of tributaries; they'd reminded him painfully of his own district. That's probably what the Gamemakers had modeled it after. Poisonous snakes, spiders, and twenty-four bloodthirsty teenagers roaming about with murder on their minds.
Miles Morales, Gwendolyn Stacy, Harry Osborn, Quentin Beck, Peter Parker. Those had been the big names, the ones to watch.
Miles, Gwen, and Harry had died early on. Harley had missed Gwen's death, Harry's had been quick and painless (arrow to the abdomen, done-and-done), and Miles' hadn't been aired. All Harley had seen was the body.
Abby had cried for hours over him. He'd been twelve, just two years older than her, and she had wanted nothing more than for him to make it out.
Quentin Beck, District One, and Peter Parker, District Two, had been the last two standing. Harley had covered Abby's eyes and turned away as Parker had gripped Beck by the neck and held him underwater for over ten minutes, until he'd stopped breathing and his body floated downstream to be picked up by a hovercraft.
They'd left the house after that. Macy had told Harley that the boy- that's what she called Parker, who had only been sixteen- had looked like stone, staring up into the cameras with cold eyes and bloodstained hands until they had cut out.
Harley had seen pictures of the staredown later. He can't remember very well, looking back on it, but the darkness in Parker's eyes had been chilling. Unforgettable. Standing there with red streaks on his shirt, cuts up and down his arms from Beck's nails, lips set in a firm line like he'd just been given some moderately bad news, he hadn't looked like a child.
He had looked like a monster.
But that was kind of how the Career tributes were, Harley figured. He'd never met one, but the victory tours always ran through Four and he had seen them from afar a few times. They always looked powerful, dangerous. Inhuman.
He hoped to God he'd never have to meet one.
Just as he finishes his plate and sets it in the sink to be washed, the television crackles to life. His stomach drops- this is the last thing he wants to do right now- and he can feel the dread growing, dangerous, insidious, unavoidable.
"You don't have to watch," Macy whispers, already on her way over to the couch. "I can tell you what happens. You don't have to watch."
Yeah, he does. He really, really does.
Abby grips his hand between both of hers, fingers thin and bony. She's shaking, Harley realizes, trembling where she stands.
He leads her over to the couch and sits her down. Gently pushes her books to the floor. Sinks into the cushions on her right so that she's nestled between himself and Macy, winding an arm around her shoulders and holding her close.
The television fizzles on.
The volume crackles.
The announcement begins.
"Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the pre-reaping announcements for the third Quarter Quell!" The Grandmaster says in a bubbly, overly-happy voice. There's blue paint on his lips, his eyelids, his forehead. He looks like the clowns that Harley used to be scared of, and it only makes his hatred grow. He inches closer to Abby as if it'll protect her.
"We're looking forward to a very eventful year, full of twists and turns and- hopefully- blood!" The audience laughs; Harley doesn't. "Before we get to the announcement of our special changes, however excited we are for everyone to find out, we have an important change to our Games requirements. If everyone could listen in-" at that, he leans closer and places a manicured finger over his lips- "that would be absolutely lovely, because we're sure this is something you're going to want to hear."
Not really. Harley inhales deep through his nose, exhales, calms himself down. Abby does the same.
"This year, as a special kind of treat and acting on instructions directly from President Thanos himself, the reaping criteria have been changed! The base year has been dropped-"
Just like Harley's stomach as he looks to Macy, eyes wide, bile creeping its way up his throat-
"To involve all child citizens above the age of eleven! Happy Hunger Games, everyone. And now, on to our original programming-"
He barely makes it to the window before his stomach empties itself and he throws up in the bushes, head spinning, still reeling.
She was supposed to be safe.
She was supposed to be safe.
Vaguely, he can feel calloused hands gripping his shoulders and pulling him back into the house, helping him onto the couch, pressing a glass of lukewarm water into his shaking, shaking hands. Macy is blurry, blonde-gray hair wispy around her eyes. She's crying; he can see water dripping down her cheeks and onto her blouse. Abby's crying, too, gripping his side and burying her face in his shirt. Her tears seep through the fabric and onto his skin.
His eyes are stinging.
He wants to cry.
Somehow, though, he can't muster up the strength to force his tears. He just... sits, still and scared, and watches as the Gamemaster tells them that boys can now volunteer for girls and the tesserae has been cut to avoid unnecessary name add-ins, as the camera pans to a nervous man carrying an envelope, as they open it and pull out a piece of paper.
"I love you," he chokes out, pulling Abby into a hug. "You're going to be okay, they're not going to choose you. It won't be you. I swear. I love you, I love you."
Dimly, he hears her telling him that she knows. She loves him too. Everything is going to be okay.
But all he can pay attention to is the paper being unfolded and the movement of the Grandmaster's lips.
"This year, for the Quarter Quell, a single victor will be reaped from each district in addition to the two child citizens. This is to remind the districts that, even when they think that the strongest among them fight only for them, there are no sides to be taken. When in the arena, even your heroes will hurt and slaughter the weakest among you to survive. The only heroes are the Capitol," he says with an air of finality. "We fight for you. Your victors will fall from glory just as quickly as your predecessors fell from their rebellion."
Audio cuts out. Fades to black. Harley is left staring at his reflection in the screen, eyes wide and haunted as he grips Macy and Abby like he's their last protector.
Maybe he is.
⇿
Shaking hands.
Blood.
A low gurgling sound, muffled by three or four inches of water, as bubbles fly to the surface and pop.
Quentin's hair floats around in the water, soft and deep brown, whirling around with streams of red from an open cut on his left cheekbone. His green eyes are wide, insane, animalistic. He wants to live. Wants to win. Wants to go home to his family.
But he killed Harry and Miles and Gwen. He is Peter's biggest competitor- his only competitor at this point.
He is the only thing that stands between Peter and freedom, and he is not going home.
Peter presses down harder on Quentin's neck, forcing it into the gravel of the stream bed, and grits his teeth against the urge to let him up and run. He wants nothing more than to look away as green eyes cloud over, as the bubbles slow to an unsteady stream.
Quentin is still struggling. His fingernails, overly-long and jagged, dig into Peter's forearms with a renewed ferocity. Blood drips down his skin and into the water, mixing with free-floating particles of sand. He can't feel the pain, can't feel the fear, can't feel the intense sadness and anger that will rip through his body in thirty minutes time when he manages to break out of shock and falls apart in the hovercraft.
It is with a detached apathy that Peter forces his fingers under Quentin's chin and, ignoring the hands scrabbling at his skin, waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Until, finally, after what feels like a lifetime has passed, his final opponent closes his eyes and goes slack under the water. The bubbles stop rising to the surface. His hands, limp and still, splash back into the water. Peter waits for a few minutes to make sure he's finally dead before dusting his hands off and stepping back to stare down at Quentin's body, head tilted to one side.
He isn't feeling anything.
He can't feel anything.
Quentin looks small in death, just like Harry and Miles and Gwen had. His body lies half-in, half-out of the water until, with a gentle nudge of his foot, Peter pushes him further in so that his body can drift away.
It feels appropriate.
Peter wants to drift away, too.
He steps back once, twice, finally ready to turn away and leave this arena, but suddenly the body in the water is morphing into that of an older man with graying hair and a black bruise on his forehead and wide, familiar eyes and he's screaming, screaming, screamingscreamingscreaming-
It's his fault.
It's his fault.
It's his-
"Peter, honey, it's just a nightmare. It's just a nightmare." Hands shake his forearms, but these are gentle and small and soft. Familiar. "Baby, wake up now. You've gotta wake up, baby."
Peter gasps into consciousness, eyes wide open, and reaches up to grip his chest with both hands like he wants to rip his heart out of his ribcage. His fingers twirl into the fabric of his sweat-soaked shirt and, all of a sudden, he realizes he's crying. Open-mouthed sobs that hurt his chest and his head and his heart.
He's been crying a lot lately. It's probably the mind-numbing terror of knowing that the anniversary of your descent into madness is marching closer and closer and you can do nothing to stop it.
So he's not totally crazy. Just a little bit. Maybe.
He hasn't decided yet.
May, ashy brown hair swinging around in the bright lights, lowers herself to the mattress beside Peter and wraps her arms around his shoulders as he cries. Absently, he can tell that she's crying, too. He can't do anything about that, though.
It must be hard to watch your only living family member morph into a monster in front of your eyes.
She's probably having a hard time with that.
"Time's it?" Peter asks groggily, rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hand. " 'S it late?"
"You slept in," May confirms. "It's three in the afternoon, baby."
"And you let me?"
"You seemed like you needed it." A pause. "And... I knew how hard today would be for you. I figured it would be easier for you to sleep through it."
She sounds guilty. Why should she be? Why would today be hard for him? Peter rakes his mind, eyebrows furrowed. Goes through every possible conclusion before he happens upon the only possible one that could mess May up like this. The only one that could mess him up like this.
"Quarter Quell," he mutters, still wiping tears away. "Today's the announcement?"
"In two hours."
The confirmation sends his heart plummeting into his stomach. He barely holds back the wave of sickness that hits him, placing his hand on his forehead and rubbing as gently as he can to push the incoming headache back.
"Oh."
May smiles, nods, blinks her tears away. "Yeah, baby. It's okay."
"Right."
It doesn't feel okay. In fact, Peter feels like he's never going to feel okay again. He feels like he wants to bury himself six feet underground with the rest of the tributes- with Gwen, his district partner; with Harry, the first friend he had managed to make upon arrival to the Capitol; with Miles, who he should've worked harder to protect.
With Quentin.
In the end, even though Peter had been forced to act as judge, jury, and executioner to save his own skin, Quentin had not deserved to die. He had killed more ruthlessly than nearly everyone in the arena except Peter, had destroyed families and homes and friendships that should've lasted so much longer.
But he hadn't deserved to die.
I can't close my eyes without seeing him, Peter wants to say. I can't sleep without seeing him. Them. All of them.
But he doesn't.
The voices clamor inside his skull, fighting to make their way out and destroy the others. He hears them all the time- every waking and sleeping moment of his life. They overtake his own thoughts, force him out of himself. Take him over. Peter Parker is a machine, and a broken one at that.
A broken killing machine.
Sometimes he can't even hear himself.
Instead of telling May, instead of seeking the help he so desperately needs, he smiles and nods and thanks her quietly. She does the same- smiles, nods, tells him it isn't a problem. Her lips curve downwards as she stands and leaves the room, closing the door as quietly as she can to avoid startling him.
He can't deal with loud noises anymore, either. It's the last on a long list of new defects.
"May," he says, but it's too late. She's gone.
Peter is alone.
He sinks back into himself, closes his eyes, and lets the voices sweep him away like water.
Time is fluid.
Blood is fluid.
In Peter's mind, time is the same as blood- everywhere and nowhere and very, very red.
He doesn't know how long he waits, seated stock-still in his bed, still tangled in the bedsheets from tossing in his nightmares. His eyes are open, far away, and his mind? His mind is in the arena.
His mind never left the arena.
The sheets are soft between his hands. He doesn't know what kind of fabric this is, but it's much better than the sheets on his bed in their old house. Victor's Village has it's perks, he supposes. Perks won through violence.
That's interesting. He doesn't normally think of things in a work-and-gain way.
Peter just moves.
Forward.
He tracks the arc of the sun in the sky until it disappears from view, fading behind the treeline. He knows that this means that the announcement is going to air in a few minutes, but he doesn't really care. He's played this game before and, technically, he has a few years left before he can finally try to leave this behind.
Is his name still going in the bowl? If you're still a kid, do they put you in again?
He doesn't know. Doesn't care.
Ah, well.
May comes to get him when the television turns on automatically. She has to help him disentangle his legs from the sheets, picking him up like a little kid and helping him down the stairs. His right leg is still stiff and hard to walk on from an injury he took in that last fight with Beck.
The doctors think he'll recover physically. Peter knows he's never going to be able to move as fluidly as he used to; his joints are stiff, tired, and overworked from flying through the arena.
May sets him down on the couch and helps him cover his legs with a heavy quilt before sitting down behind him and winding her arms around his shoulders. He leans into her touch, gripping the comforter with tight fingers, and watches as the Capitol seal shows up on the screen. As the program begins. As the Grandmaster appears.
He'd been wearing red during Peter's year. He's blue now.
Peter doesn't like those colors anymore.
He half-listens to the first part of the announcement, only managing to catch the gist of the situation- they're sending in a bunch of children this year. Opening the gates for tiny little babies to join up. Eleven-year-olds. Practically toddlers, he thinks, ignoring the catch of May's breath.
It's the same assistant as last year who brings up the envelope containing this year's Quarter Quell specifications. Brad. Peter remembers Brad and the way he wore his glasses and helped him up onto the stage for his interview after he'd had a panic attack.
He likes Brad. Doesn't love him. He's decidedly tolerable.
The Grandmaster takes the envelope delicately, pulls the paper out, and grins a whole-faced grin that makes Peter's spine crawl. Suddenly very much aware and grounded, he pulls his knees up to his chest and sits ram-rod straight. May's hand falls from his shoulder.
She's crying again. She needs to stop doing that. It's going to make him cry, too.
"This year, for the Quarter Quell, a single victor will be reaped from each district in addition to the two child citizens. This is to remind the districts that, even when they think that the strongest among them fight only for them, there are no sides to be taken." Peter had taken only one side during his stint in the Games, and that had been his own. "When in the arena, even your heroes will hurt and slaughter the weakest among you to survive. The only heroes are the Capitol. We fight for you. Your victors will fall from glory just as quickly as your predecessors fell from their rebellion."
"The hell?" Peter mutters, turning the program back and replaying the announcement. "May, what did he say?"
"They're- they're reaping a victor, baby," she sniffs. "He said someone's going back into the arena."
It takes a moment for his synapses to fire and connect. The words don't make much sense- back into the arena is not something that he can handle right now. It's just not in his dictionary. He doesn't understand.
"Say it again," he orders, painfully aware of how hoarse his voice is. "Say it again, May."
She does as he says, repeating it tearily. The words don't change.
"They're reaping a victor."
Reaping a victor.
Reaping a victor.
Victor.
Victor.
"I'm a victor." Peter takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm a victor."
May sobs once and nods before leaning in and pulling Peter into a tight hug, burying her face in the crook of his neck. "You are, Peter. You are."
Blurrily, he feels her rubbing his shoulders as she cries and tells him that everything is going to be okay. She's been telling him that a lot lately, and he doesn't think she's right. How can things be okay in the end when he's been put through the things he's had to do? How can he deal with this again? What can he do to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Compartmentalize. He's going to compartmentalize and lock everything up in file cabinets and leave it alone.
There are ten living, active, healthy District Two victors up for reaping. Three who've managed to sink into their respective traumas and can barely walk in straight lines. Seven dead.
Statistically, Two has the most victors. Highest kill count. Possible tributes train from age ten to get stronger, faster, and better with weapons. Peter has known from a very young age that he was going to go into the Games, so when his trainer had told him it was his year, he had volunteered.
It wasn't that he'd wanted to. It was just the way things were- they told you to go, you went. Didn't matter if you lived or died. The strongest competitors had the best chance of giving their District honor and a good name.
Peter had played his part like the well-trained lapdog he was, and he had been left to pick himself up when they'd gotten bored with him. Apparently, they're not done quite yet.
He wants to be safe.
Some part of him, deep down, knows that he's not.
A one in thirteen chance isn't small enough to grant him that.
⇿
The day Morgan had been born was the best day of Tony Stark's life- he can say that with absolutely no doubt, because it's true.
She had come into the world a crying bundle of soft brown hair and squinted eyes. He had loved her the minute he'd seen her, and holding her for the first time? That jolt of euphoria is something that he thinks about daily. Watching Pepper cry as she held her daughter, hair messily pulled out of her face, still breathing heavily from the pain, he had known.
He'd made it out of that arena once and for all.
Tony had been sixteen when he'd been reaped for the Forty-Fifth Hunger Games, barely missing the bloodiest Quarter Quell to date. He'd been devastated- after all, District Eight rarely had victors. When he had stared out at that crowd, praying for one of those silent, drawn faces to speak up and save him, and hadn't heard a word?
That was when he had realized that there were no heroes in this world.
He certainly wasn't one; he'd been lauded as a savior by his district after being the first survivor in years, but he had never accepted any of the praise. He had simply continued to live, never to thrive. Had continued to fight for himself.
Until he had met Pepper, life had been a fight and a fight only.
After Pepper, everything took on a new meaning.
Colors were bright again. He could hear the birds again, could hear laughter and music and insects buzzing in a way he had never been able to after those Games. Pepper had brought him back to life and kept him there, and he would never be able to thank her enough for pulling him out of the dark place his mind had become. He'd met other victors and knew that some people didn't have someone to save them.
Those were the saddest ones. The kids without anyone to hold them up, who ended up falling through the cracks of their memories and turning either into shells or monsters.
No, Tony had escaped that. He was never going to be able to forget it. But he was home free.
Morgan was the second love of his life. He was able to watch her grow, change, morph into a beautiful girl and a beautiful teenager and a beautiful young woman.
She was reaped at seventeen. Tony remembers falling into Pepper's arms when he'd heard her name called from that godawful microphone. He remembers telling her that, even though she's not going to want to kill and hurt and fight back, she has to. There's no choice, plain and simple, and if she sees the chance to come back, she has to take it.
Morgan loses her left hand.
Morgan leaves part of herself in the arena, just like Tony had.
But she comes home, and over time, she mends.
Just like Tony had.
They understand each other in a way they hadn't been able to before her reaping. Tony holds Morgan when she wakes up from nightmares, helps her out of panic attacks, teaches her to write with her non-dominant hand. Morgan gives him tissues when he cries after flashbacks and talks him down from every mental cliff he manages to get himself onto.
Pepper holds them both together. She is, in essence, the glue of their family. The only thing keeping them rooted to the ground.
They aren't a perfect family- damaged, terrified, hurting- but they are, in the end, whole.
That's the only thing that matters, right?
At least they feel pretty whole right now.
Tony sits up on the couch, blinks the sleep out of his eyes, and glances over to look at his wife and daughter. They're asleep on the other end of their Capitol-issued L-shaped sofa, Morgan nestled under Pepper's chin, identical expressions of peace on their faces.
They look so much alike- Morgan has Pepper's facial structure and birdlike, tall build. She'd gotten Tony's hair, eyes, and skin tone, but in the end she looks the most like her mother.
She's twenty-three now. Twenty-three, and Tony's baby. His beloved, broken baby.
This is the first dreamless sleep she's had in a while. He needs to make sure nothing interrupts it.
They don't move for what seems like hours- the sedentary lifestyle tends to take over those who haven't ever been exposed- and Tony is perfectly happy to sit and wait it out. These are fleeting moments, rarely caught and even more rarely enjoyed.
The reaping announcement is scheduled to start in a few minutes and Tony, even though he knows they'll kill him when they wake up, isn't planning on waking up his wife or daughter. They don't need to see this, and if they ask later, he can give them his own watered-down version of whatever happens. They've been through enough, dealt with enough, watched this enough.
He can take it for all of them. No problem, no stress.
It'll be easier this way, Tony tells himself. It probably won't. Does that really matter, though?
The consequences of his actions are for him to deal with and him alone. Morgan and Pepper don't need to have a part in this.
Like it knows what he's thinking of, the Capitol seal blurs into being on the screen of their television set. The raw feeling of anger that fills his chest, hot and burning, is familiar- he feels it every time the people who did this to him are mentioned.
The Grandmaster, clad in blue-paint makeup, is the first to appear on the screen. Tony's been watching him since he was young, after he had replaced Flickerman, and he hates him. Thanos' first cowardly lackey, right up there in the front runners for gamespeople, and the second person on Tony's list of people to shoot.
His very personality is grating. Tony wants to wipe that smug grin off of his face.
"Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the pre-reaping announcements for the third Quarter Quell!" God, Tony despises his voice. "We're looking forward to a very eventful year, full of twists and turns and- hopefully- blood!" Sick bastard, like this stuff doesn't kill people and destroy families. Tony's met some of the other victors- the younger ones from the most bloody games- and he knows that he was lucky to get his year, to avoid the worst. The Games have gotten worse and worse over the last decade and, if Tony's impressions of the kid victors is accurate, they're all messed up in the head.
He listens, brooding, as the Grandmaster announces the lowering of the age requirements- they're sending babies in, dear God- and goes on and on about how excited he is. Like these aren't death traps. Like they aren't killing kids.
And then he gets into the Quell announcements and Tony almost passes out, because he can't catch every word without wanting to actually die. Reaping victors. Reaping victors. Reaping victors.
They've managed to lower the age requirements and bring the most deadly killers into the arena all together in one Games announcement. The kids' life expectancies are dropping as Tony's heartbeat elevates, because there are three District Eight Victors.
Tony and Morgan are two of them.
And Morgan is not going back into that arena.