Embrace the Fire: The Avenger Games - Chapter 3

[lorata]

Man, I'm really shooting myself in the foot with all these POV characters. Loki's prologue was so much easier. :P



"Well, aren't you just the dearest little thing?" the prep team cooed, fussing over Janet and tugging at her hair, raising her arms to look at her figure.

Janet beamed. These tiny, airy people with their feathery hair and fluffy clothes and delicate wrists would almost look at home in Seven, though not swinging a hatchet or working in the lumber mill -- they would be flitting from tree to tree, chittering at each other and diving for insects. The image made Jan giggle.

"And you're a Volunteer, even!" said one of them, eyes wide.

Jan nodded. "I came here with Hank," she said, then craned her neck, but his team had dragged him away, sputtering and protesting. She wondered if he'd come out covered in glitter and wearing a floofy costume, and tried not to giggle. "Is he okay?"

"Oh, he'll be fine, dear, they're going to make him look gorgeous." The prep time darted around her like hummingbirds as they led her into a room with the biggest bath Jan had ever seen. She gasped. "That's right!" the woman called Felicia exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "It's all for you!"

"It's like a swimming pool," Jan said, eyes wide. She'd thought she grew up in a rich family -- and she had, for District Seven -- but the Capitol was like a whole other world. "How long can I stay?"

"Well, not forever, because we have to get you ready for the parade," Felicia said, pulling out so many shampoos and oils and soaps that Jan couldn't even imagine what they were for. Maybe they had one for each body part. "But later, you can have a nice long soak. For now, let's just get you in and get you clean, shall we?"

They didn't move, and Jan blinked. "Are you going to stay in here with me?" she asked. Even back in Seven, no one had watched her bathe since she was really little, and too young to leave alone in water without supervision. "I'm twelve, you know. I'm a tribute. I'm not going to drown in the bath."

They tittered. "Oh, darling, we're not worried about you drowning. We're here to make you look pretty."

"Oh." Jan thought maybe about arguing, but it didn't seem to make any difference. "Okay, then." She stripped out of her Reaping dress and climbed into the bath. The suds smelled like vanilla, with a hint of cinnamon. She raised her arms and scooped up a handful of bubbles. "I'm going to smell like a cookie!"

"And you're going to look so scrumptious, everyone is going to want to eat you right up," Felicia said, with a slightly crazy grin. She took out one of the bottles and poured the liquid into her hands, massaging it into Janet's scalp. At the other end of the tub, the mauve-skinned Anastasia lifted Janet's foot and scrubbed it with something soft and tickly.

Jan imagined Hank in his giant bubble bath, being poked and washed by a whole team, and she couldn't stop laughing. He wouldn't like it, especially if he came out of the bathroom smelling like a flower or a dessert. Then again. Hank was a boy, and surely they had different smells for boys. She tried to imagine what it might be, but the best she could manage was the deep, earthy scent of the forest after a good, hard rain, when the green growing things seemed greener and everything felt more alive. Jan remembered wiggling her toes in the dirt and watching the birds sing in the dewy air.

She wondered if she would ever see that again. But then Felicia asked her to stand so they could rinse, and the rose-smelling washed over her and made her lose her train of thought.

"She just has to be a bird," one of them whispered to each other. "It would fit the tree theme nicely, don't you think?"

"A hummingbird, maybe," said another. Jan sat up straight and tried to look beautiful. "Or a butterfly!"

Those did sound pretty, but not like the kind of thing that could help Hank. You couldn't even hold a butterfly without them dying. Janet frowned. "I don't like that," she said, but they ignored her, talking about gauzy wings and filmy skirts. "No!" Janet said again, louder, and stomped, and how silly did she feel stamping her foot while standing naked in a bath, especially when her heel skidded and she almost fell and DIED, but she was not a butterfly. She wasn't anything you could kill by touching. She'd volunteered!

"Well, it's not up to us, anyway," Felicia hummed, wrapping Jan in a big, fluffy towel that was the softest thing she'd ever touched, then dressed her in a bathrobe. "We don't do the actual designs, even if I do think you'd be absolutely darling as a dragonfly."

A dragonfly sounded better, at least. Closer to something that people might remember. Still, though.

"No," said a voice from the door, and Janet turned. The man had skin like coffee with lots and lots of cream, the only kind that Daddy used to let Jan drink because it would stunt her growth. No hair on his head except a white trim white beard, the style that Jan liked because its name -- Van Dyke -- sounded almost the same as hers, and his bald scalp glittered with jewels. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, lined with black, a swirl of birds flying off his cheek. Janet held her breath. "No, she's not like that at all. This isn't a butterfly who'll get crushed and can't fight back." He smiled. "This little one has a sting. This is a wasp."

Jan clapped her hands together. "Yes!" she cried. This man understood her. His clothes would make all the Capitol gasp, and Hank would have to stop thinking of her like a little girl who couldn't protect herself. "What's your name?" she asked.

He held out his hand. "I'm George." Jan giggled, because it wasn't a silly name like everyone else she'd met here. "And I think we're going to get along fine. Let's make you memorable, shall we?"

Carol screamed. She screamed, even though the cameras would be watching. Even though she'd likely get hit with a tranquilizer in a few seconds. Even though it was too late now, and it wouldn't do her any good. She screamed and wished her sterile room in the Remake Centre had something -- anything -- she could throw or break, but all she had to work with were the smooth grey walls and the smooth grey table and herself.

She did what she could. She flung herself against the walls hard enough to leave bruises -- they wouldn't like that, now would they -- and split her knuckles against the door. She spat out every curse word she'd ever heard, in her house and in the streets and hollered at her by addicts whose advances she turned down and spoken into her ear by the man who'd raped her.

Until the door finally opened and white-uniformed security staff held her by the arms while her remaking team fluttered about like a flock of panicked flamingoes. "Whatever is the matter?" One of them -- Carol didn't know her name, she didn't give a damn about learning it -- tried to put a hand on Carol's shoulder, but she lunged, growling, and the woman startled back.

"You know damn well what's the matter!" Carol wrenched her arm free of the security staff and held it out, showing them the smooth, pale, unbroken skin of her forearm. "This! The hell is this?"

The woman blinked. Her eyelashes had been lengthened to four times their sizes, and she'd affixed jewels to the ends. She looked like an insect. "What's wrong with your arms?" Ignorance. Always ignorance.

Carol stuttered out a laugh. Maybe if she went insane they'd just shoot her instead of putting her through the rest of it. "You know what's the matter!" she spat. "I didn't look like this going in! What happened to them?"

Finally the discomfort was too strong for denial to combat, and the woman cleared her throat. "Scar removal is standard procedure for the remaking. We thought you'd be pleased! They -- well, they were so ugly before, and now look!"

"Yeah, they were ugly!" Carol's chest heaved. "They were ugly and they were there on purpose. Those scars are the only way I got through -- the things I did. They helped me remember. They helped me survive. They're the only reason I'm here and not in a crematorium somewhere!"

"Well, if you were so proud of them, why did you hide them with those big old gloves?" she countered, clearly pleased with herself. She exchanged knowing glances with her teammates.

"Because," Carol snarled, moving in close. The security staff pressed her shoulder in warning, and she backed off, just a little. "Because they weren't for you. They were for me. Unlike you people, I didn't do it to make a statement, but they were part of me, and now I'm not me. Now I'm -- I'm a doll!"

"You had a lot of damage," the woman said, pouting. "We fixed it all up for you. Now you won't need to worry!"

Carol froze. The flimsy gown she wore -- like the one at the hospital that day, the one where the doctor had sneered at her and told her he wouldn't authorize a kit because why would she dress like that if she didn't want exactly what she got -- didn't protect her. She fought the urge to curl into the corner and sob. "What do you mean, other damage?"

"Well, you know." The woman made a shooing gesture to the security team and leaned close, conspiratorial. "Down there." She winked.

Another scream tore itself loose from Carol's throat, making everyone jump. "What, you mean you fixed my hymen, so I could play your perfect Capitol whore?" But she couldn't talk after that, only spew out more invective while the prep team burst into tears and the security man holding her jabbed a syringe into her arm. The world faded to white, then black.

They could fix her scars, but they couldn't stop her dreams. Carol woke up in a different room, covered in sweat and sobbing. Someone's breath caught at the edge of the room, and she sat up, wishing she had something -- anything -- to protect her. Back in Six she'd kept a knife under her pillow. Though give it a few days and she'd have more weapons than she'd care for. A laugh bubbled up in her chest, but she clamped it down. "What do you want?" she demanded.

The person cleared their throat, and Carol relaxed, just a fraction, when she recognised her district partner. Unless that guy was a real sociopath, she didn't think she had to worry about anything from Steve. "Stay on your side of the room," Carol said.

"Yes ma'am," Steve replied immediately. "I just, I'm sorry. You were crying out. They're coming to wake you soon, to get us ready for the parade, you know. You missed the Reapings."

"I don't give a fuck about the Reapings."

Steve chuckled. "I figured that much." He sat in a low crouch with his back against the wall, arms draped across his knees. "Listen, uh, I know it's probably too early to be talking about strategy, just -- when we're in the Arena, I think we should separate."

Carol ran her fingers over her forearm, still not used to the absence of puckered scar tissue. "What, sick of my company already?" She meant it light-hearted, except she didn't think she could do that anymore. The words twisted in her chest.

"No!" He sounded almost anguished, and Carol would have laughed if she remembered how. "No, I just -- I don't want it to be you and me, at the end. I don't want us to be the final two."

"You don't want to kill me, you mean?" Carol asked, studying the outline of his form in the darkness. It was a pretty funny thought, really. "You hope I die somewhere else so you don't have to do it. A little optimistic, don't you think?"

"I just don't want to think about it, all right?" Steve said, his voice getting an edge to it. "I just don't want to have that choice. It's tempting to stick together, but sooner or later, one of us would have to attack the other. Believe me, I'd let you kill me, if it was down to it, except --"

Carol let out a slow breath. "Except you promised that boy you'd come home."

Silence, then -- "Yeah. I did."

Carol didn't know what to say to that, though really, what could she possibly say.

"They fixed my asthma, you know," Steve said, and Carol blinked. "Yeah. During the Remaking. Did something to strengthen my lungs, said I'll never have to take an inhaler again. I guess it wouldn't look too good, having a tribute who runs five steps and then passes out from coughing. And one hand, I guess I should be grateful, but on the other -- they don't have the right to do that. To -- to change me."

Boy, did Carol understand that one, but they'd already done they're whole bonding thing, and Carol wasn't eager to do that again. Especially not with cameras all over the place. At least the train hadn't been bugged, she was pretty sure.

They sat in the darkness, not speaking, until Carol finally pressed her hands to her eyes. "Fine," she said. "Might as well go back out there before they break the doors down. YOu know, with their tiny, tiny fists."

She still couldn't see him in the darkness, but a smile tinged his voice. "You never know, I think Cordelia has diamond fingernails. Not fingernails with diamonds on them. Fingernails made of diamonds."

"God help us all," Carol said, an ancient oath that people said pretty much ironically nowadays, and never where the Capitol could hear. Well, screw them. What were they going to do, kill her?

Tony lounged on the table, naked, waiting for his stylist. They'd left him a horrible hospital gown, and even though it was longer than the standard issue ones back home, he kept expecting to turn around and see his ass hanging out. Not that that would be a crime or anything, but a man had his dignity, and so Tony had tossed the robe entirely.

The door hissed open, and a stunner of a redhead slipped through the door. Tony had been hoping his stylist wouldn't be a crusty old granny who'd seen the world, and it looked like he still had some cache in the karma department. "Good afternoon, Mr. Stark," she said, and to Tony's dismay she kept up the professional stance and the faint, polite smile, not even giving him the satisfaction of rolling her eyes.

Tony huffed and sat up. "Hi," he said. "We who are about to die salute you, or something. What's your name?"

She couldn't be more than twenty-four, which was right in the middle of Tony's usual spread -- too low for MILF and cougar territory, but definitely, assuredly, no-need-to-sneak-a-look-at-her-ID legal -- but her pupils didn't even dilate. Impressive. "Virginia," she said. "Now, Mr. Stark, I think we should talk about your costume for the parade."

"Virginia? That's a terrible name. I don't like Virginia. It sounds like cologne for old men, or cigarettes." Tony leaned back and studied her. Professional, this one, not fazed by him or his attitude. Young, sure, but this wasn't her first Game. "Let's call you something different. Ginny? No, that's horrible."

Not-Virginia-That's-Awful smiled, the expression appropriately polite, amused, and no-nonsense. "My father used to call me Pepper."

"Let's just be glad he didn't call you Garlic," Tony said. "Or Coriander. Did you know, the flower of the coriander is supposed to represent lust? I saw it in a book once. I wonder if that counts for the spice, too."

Pepper-not-Virginia cleared her throat. "If you please, Mr. Stark. I think we should talk about your image. The parade is the first time that the audience -- and the sponsors -- will see you for real. You have a very short time to make a very big impression. We can't waste it."

"Well, if you want to make a big impression…" Tony trailed off and gave her a grin, though it would be better if they hadn't taken his shades.

This time Pepper did roll her eyes, though it was more like an upward flick than anything. "Mr. Stark, I'm sorry to tell you, but some things are best left to the imagination to avoid disappointment. Shall we?"

Well, he'd walked into that. Tony gave up trying to rattle her and reached down for the gown, slipping it over his head. He gave her a toothy grin. "There, I'm decent. Ready to behave, Ms. Pepper."

"Thank you." She folded her hands. "I spoke briefly with your mentor, Mr. Stane. He thinks your -- special brand of charm will win you sponsors, but it won't help you with the other tributes, especially those from the Career districts. They'll need a reason to fear you, and bluffing them isn't going to cut it. I agree. I think we need to remind them exactly what the Stark name means."

"And what is that, exactly?" Tony asked, curious in spite of himself.

"Power," said Pepper, matter-of-fact.

"Kind of stealing the thunder from District Five, aren't we?" Tony asked her. "You see what I did there, with the power and the thunder? It's because they produce --"

"Not that kind of power. Mr. Stark --" Pepper gave him a hard stare. "I've been in this business longer than you might think. I've seen my share of tributes, and while I recognise that babbling is how you keep your nerves under control, I would appreciate it if you could deal with the jitters in a fashion that doesn't make me want to kill you before the Games even start."

Tony shut up, though she'd got the nerves thing wrong. Tony just didn't like silence; he blasted music while tinkering in his workshop for the same reason. He never understood how people thought it was calming; in Tony's experience, silence was the loudest time of all. He saluted instead of giving her a snarky comeback, the sacrifice of which he hoped she'd appreciate. "You gonna make this work with the girl, too?" he asked. "Unless you're going to dress her like a dam, because I don't think she's stopped crying since we left the city."

Pepper pursed her lips. "Your costumes will complement each other, but they won't be identical. The point is to showcase the strength your family name gives you, without making it into a crutch. We're going to go with something bold, something the audiences won't be able to look away from."

She showed him a sketch. Tony swept his eye over the designs, the plates of maroon and gold covering most of his body, the pulsing blue over the heart. A perfect mix of the electronics District Three was famous for and the secrets that both Tony and his father had been working on. Maybe he wasn't as subtle about that as he'd thought. "Huh," he said, impressed, and Tony Stark might have a lot of flaws, but he gave credit where credit was due. Usually to himself, but there were always exceptions. "An Iron Man to succeed the Iron Monger, huh?"

Pepper's smile looked a little more natural this time. "Something like that."

"I think we can work with that," Tony said. "I don't suppose we could give it sunglasses?"

"I think that could be arranged."

All of this would be so much easier on drugs. Not that living with veins full of crystal meth had made his life peachy before, or anything -- he wouldn't be clean right now if it had -- but Bruce missed the confidence, the delusion of empowerment, that he was untouchable and unbreakable. After all, he was going to die anyway, who who cared if he got aggressive and lashed out, and he didn't even need to worry about withdrawal. He wondered what the Gamemakers would think if he spent the whole time in training brewing up a batch.

If nothing else, the other guy wouldn't have felt so completely stupid in the costume the District Five stylist had come up with. Bruce fought not to cross his arms as he stood, waiting, in the chariot, wearing nothing but a pair of spandex shorts. Though at least they'd backed off a bit with Jenny, the little girl who'd been Reaped with him, giving her a full-coverage one-piece bathing suit-looking thing in white, to contrast with Bruce's black. They'd each been painted scalp to toenails with grey body paint that glowed toxic-waste green when the light hit it.

"What does this have to do with power?" Bruce had asked, confusion and exasperation overwhelming his crushing sense of indifference for once.

"Look at you," she'd said, gesturing at Bruce's arms, nearly half the size of Jenny's waist. "If you don't scream 'power', I don't know what does. Why add extras when you say everything on your own? It would only take away from the effect." Well, at least she hadn't made him go out naked.

"What about the green?" Jenny picked at the collar of her suit.

"Nuclear power is the strongest, most pervasive of all," the stylist said, tossing her head. "They're not going to be able to look away from District Five this year, oh no!"

The other guy would probably enjoy this. Bruce didn't remember a lot of his meth rages, but for some reason the day he lost it and nearly killed a classmate for laughing at him stuck with him. Not so much the feel of the bones giving way beneath his hand as he sat on the guy and pounded his head against the pavement, but that he hadn't been able to stop laughing the whole time. Even when the teachers pulled him off and held him back. During his comedown he couldn't get that out of his head. Bruce shook it off.

"I don't feel very powerful," Jenny whispered, the triumphant music and Caesar Flickerman's voice-over nearly drowning her out. She wrapped her hand around two of Bruce's fingers, and he'd never felt so clumsy and so helpless at the same time.

The other guy wouldn't care about a little girl with a head not much bigger than his fist. He wouldn't know that her favourite drink was grape soda, wouldn't have listened to her talk about her dreams to become a lawyer on the train to the Capitol. Bruce felt a ghost of the old rage stir up inside him when he looked at her, because she'd ruined everything. He'd planned to step off the platform early and kill himself, because why not -- the Capitol didn't like that, and usually punished the dead tribute's family, but Bruce had no one -- except now he couldn't, because now he did. Jenny would never make it out alive, no matter what he did, but Bruce couldn't leave her to face it alone.

Stupid. But the sort of thing that made sense, when you considered just how much cosmic baggage Bruce had hanging over his head. He didn't really think trying to save a little girl would make much difference to where he ended up -- if he even had a choice -- but it couldn't hurt, at least. The other guy would probably find that thought funny, too.

They'd put Jenny on a box, because otherwise she'd barely see over the top of the chariot, and even then, she only came up to his shoulder. Bruce glanced at her, at the sparkling green filaments they'd twisted into her black hair so it glowed under the light. Likely as not, Bruce would see her stretched out in a pool of her own blood soon enough, but he'd be damned if he made it easy for them.

The chariot ahead of theirs moved out. Bruce took a breath, and he crooked his arm so Jenny could rest her hand on his elbow. Whether this 'power' scheme worked or not, the contrast between them would be enough to turn a few heads, at least. "Here we go," Bruce said.

At the last second, Jenny got a funny look on her face, then scrambled up the front of the chariot and onto Bruce's shoulders. He nearly toppled in surprise, then shrugged. "Sure, what the hell," he said, and Jenny laughed, bracing herself with her hands on his head. If even one person looked at them, remembered they were sending kids into battle to the death and woke up hating themselves -- well, nothing would change, but it would make Bruce feel the tiniest bit better.

"Can't you give me anything?" Sam's stylist pressed a hand to her forehead like she was fighting back tears, or maybe giving herself a headache. "If you don't, I'm going to put you both in overalls and you can forget about getting sponsors. Come on, anything."

Sam's stomach twisted for a second in guilt, but he shoved it away. Not his fault he didn't ooze charm like the kids raised in career farms; not his fault he spent his days in the orchards, picking fruits until well after sundown, instead of learning how to smile properly. He shrugged. "After my parents were killed, I joined a gang," he said, trying but not really to be helpful. "We skipped work and stole things. Beat up a few Peacekeepers. Stopped that, though, when they killed a friend of mine. Went back to the fields."

"Yes, well." She sighed. "No offence to you children, but your district is impossible to work with. How can I make agriculture interesting? How can anyone? No wonder everyone just gives up and does the same old thing every year."

The little girl, Sam's district partner, spoke up. "He can talk to birds," she said, and Sam swung around to stare at her. "We all use mockingjays to pass messages, like when to end a shift," she continued. "But him, he talks to birds. I've seen it. And they listen to him."

Sam blinked at her. "I didn't know you watched me," he said. It made him feel naked, somehow, knowing that someone had seen him with Redwing. He'd thought those moments were private. "I didn't know anyone saw."

"I see a lot of things," she said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "I've tried talking to the birds, but they don't answer me. Not like you."

"Hm, I like that," the stylist said, tapping her jewelled finger against her mauve-tinted chin. "We can't use mockingjays, obviously, that's too controversial, but the bird thing, we can work with that. It's still in keeping with the district's theme, but it'll be fresh, different." She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at Sam. "You'll make the strongest impression, since you're the bigger one, so we'll have to do something different with you, something to make you striking." That last she said to the girl. "How do you feel about dyeing your hair?"

The girl touched her hair out of reflex, then shrugged again. "Sure," she said, then smiled. "How about white?"

"Oh, yes, that would be so striking," the stylist gushed.

So they'd have they'd have their mockingjay after all; Sam gave the girl a small smile. "I'm sorry," he said, fighting a rush of embarrassment. "I don't remember your name. I'm … not good with people."

"I know," she said, and smiled. "It's Ororo." Ororo turned back to the stylist. "I think you should make him a hawk," she said. "That's the kind of bird he has."

"Falcon," Sam corrected her, without meaning to, but Redwing became cranky if people got it wrong. He'd spend a whole hour preening and pulling at his feathers. Sometimes Sam thought he probably was at least a little crazy, but he'd take being crazy if it meant he could guess what Redwing was thinking. It wasn't magic, at any rate. You just had to spend a lot of time with a bird and really listen, that's all. No different from the people from Ten who said they could understand their horses.

"That could work, but we'd have to change the colours, of course, to make it truly outrageous. Nobody's going to pay attention to something brown." She tilted her head, looking kind of like a bird herself as she studied them. "I'm thinking red and white, maybe a hint of gold or silver for you --" she said to Sam, then clapped her hands and pointed to Ororo -- "while you can be a little cardinal! Won't it be darling?

Ororo caught Sam's eye and winked. He wished now he'd noticed her back in Eleven; Redwing would've liked her.

Wanda grinned as her chariot drove out into the City Centre. She kept her eyes narrowed, allowing only a hint of teeth, one side of her mouth quirked higher than the other. Up ahead the District One tributes -- dressed in a surprisingly restrained skintight black leather ensemble with glittering jewels all over -- stood stock-still, not waving or acknowledging the crowd at all; Wanda rolled her eyes at them. If they wanted to forgo actual personality for an attempt at being intimidating, let them. At least Wanda didn't have to worry about Na-what's-her-name stealing the title of most iconic redhead this year. The girl from One had barely even cracked a smile the whole time. Well, whatever.

Wanda, on the other hand, knew she rocked this parade, even with Wonder Boy, God of Dumbass by her shoulder in his gold and red armour and that stupid helmet. They always gave everyone bizarre headgear, but Thor's thing with the silver wings over his ears had to be one of the weirdest she'd seen in a while. They'd left his arms bare to showcase the muscles of the masonry district, though everyone watching would have to know Thor had never spent a day in a quarry in his life.

Thor turned to her. He had to know she didn't intend to be his backup this time -- that when people remembered District Two in these games it would be for her as well as, or even more than, Thor -- but it didn't change his attitude. He gave her a grave nod. "May the odds --" he began, but Wanda cut him off.

"Oh, knock it off," she said. "You're so by the book, it's almost sad. Shake it up a little."

"There's no call to be rude," Thor said. He turned back to the cameras and raised one fist, pumping it in the air to the sound of tens of thousands of people calling his name. If they chanted Wanda's name she couldn't hear it, but that was partially bad luck -- much easier to yell 'Thor' than 'Wanda'. It just sounded better. She'd have to come up with something else before the interviews. Meanwhile, Thor raised both arms and turned to make sure all cameras got a good view.

Honestly, sometimes Wanda thought Thor had been cut out from the pages of the District Two playbook. She rolled her eyes, then flicked her blood-red cape over her shoulder and tossed her head. Her stylists had foregone a full-out helmet for a red mask that at once echoed both devil horns and her father's famous helmet, back during his Games, though the red PVC corset and heels were all Wanda. She looked like the angel of death clothed in the blood of her victims, reminding everyone that District Two was just as much about maintaining the Capitol's power as it was about providing a good show.

She held her head up and didn't shy from the cameras, grinning until the audiences would be absolutely wetting themselves. The crowds roared. "Well done," Thor murmured to her, as though praising a particularly gifted pet. Wanda smiled at him and imagined driving a knife into his eye.

"I think you're taking too much of a risk with this one, sir," Coulson said in an undertone.

Fury turned his head back and forth as the various images flickered across the screens. "I don't."

He knew Coulson was too much of a soldier -- the textbook District One golden boy, really, too bad about that strong moral streak -- to roll his eyes in front of Fury, but he'd likely be doing it inside his head. "I know that, sir, or you wouldn't have chosen him, but are you sure he has the strength to pull it off? You might be better off with one of the others. Both Two and Three are much more charismatic at this junction."

And vaguely sociopathic, a useful enough skill to be sure, but not what they needed now. Fury shook his head. "I'm still not sure about Two. He might be in too deep; I can't tell if we'll be able to turn him. And Three --" He blew out his breath in a sigh as the cameras zoomed in on Tony Stark, teeth flashing in a smile as he blew kisses to the audience. "If we can get him, he'll be invaluable, but we have to reach him, first."

"He does seem a little more self-centred than the others," Coulson admitted, a man of understatement as always. Fury snorted, but left it at that. No, while Stark would be invaluable if they could convince him to join their side, he would not be the appropriate frontman.

Fury held his breath until the chariot for Six appeared on the screens. Clad in an eye-catching costume of red, white and blue based on the pin he'd brought as a token, Steve Rogers certainly made the most sheepish and reluctant-looking potential leader of the people that Fury had ever seen. Then again, that was exactly what the people needed. They didn't need another dictator to crush them under their heels, even in the name of freedom. The face of the rebellion had to persuade, not bully, and Rogers' abashed sincerity was part of that.

"He looks scared to death," Coulson said, referring to Rogers, and his tone held a measure of reproach. "And once he finds out about the Arena--"

"Good," Fury said. "They'll respond to him better if they remember this moment and see him grow."

"Assuming he does."

"He will," Fury insisted. "He just needs something to fight for. Look at the way he volunteered for that boy; he was obviously terrified, but he put it behind him and did what needed to be done. That's exactly what we need to galvanise the people. Someone who struggles, but comes through in the end."

Coulson nodded, though his brow furrowed, indicating he wasn't yet convinced. "At least his demands will be less ridiculous than Stark's."

Fury could only imagine what Stark would ask for in return for his cooperation, and really, he didn't want to. Some headaches should be saved for the future.

"Shame about the Twelve boy," Coulson said, tracking the progress of the parade with a practiced eye. "Wouldn't take much to turn him against the Capitol completely, after what happened in Two, but there's no way to guarantee he wouldn't spin right around and betray as well. If anyone is only in it for himself, it's that one."

"I'm not so sure," Fury said. Loki Odinson stared directly at the cameras, having an uncanny ability to tell which ones would be focused on him at any given time. The result would make the audience shiver in their seats. If he'd stayed, if he'd had all the camera training that Thor had, he'd be formidable indeed -- and if Fury had been permitted to give him the few extra nudges he'd been planning before Loki lost it and got himself expelled, they would have had the perfect spokesman.

After years of watching Loki, of studying him and the way he fought, the way he thought and acted, Fury knew that the boy did, in fact, fight for a higher purpose than mere glorification, but the question was, could Fury turn that to his own purpose. At the moment, he couldn't tell. At this point, Fury couldn't even vouch for Loki's sanity, not anymore.

"I'm going to approach Stark and Rogers for sure," Fury said, and Coulson nodded. "I'd like you to talk to Banner. We could use him, but I don't want to set him off, and you're less threatening-looking. Recovering addicts are always unpredictable." Though easy to control, if it came down to it, though Fury's long-dead mother would roll over in her grave to hear him thinking such things. "As for the others, we'll have to watch them during training. We'll recruit them during the Games, if we have to."

Coulson hesitated, then evidently decided speaking his mind was important enough to warrant risking an unasked-for opinion. "Are you sure we need this many involved? The more we alert, the greater our chances that someone will betray us. Since we only need to make sure Rogers gets out alive, it might be best to focus on that and forget the others."

"I said we'll see," Fury said, and that ended that.

Either way, the people -- and the Capitol -- were unlikely to forget these Hunger Games for a long, long time.