Chapter Text
Robin is a lot of things: awkward, clumsy, useless at a lot of things, but one thing that she isn’t is stupid. She knows from the second that she wakes up on Reaping Day, the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that she shoves as far down as possible proof enough, that everything is about to change. She isn’t so much surprised or horrified as she is numbly accepting when the Capitol representative calls her name, loud and echoing and followed by silence as if she was being sent to face the firing squad, which she distantly recognises as accurate as she ascends the steps up to the stage. Her family are poor, her older brother Adam already dead at the hand of the Games and, whilst the people of her district will recognise this as a tragedy for the family, no one is surprised when she has so many slips of paper in the bowl with her name written on them. The sea of faces before her stare back, eyes averted from her own and she knows that the last lingering hope of any potential tribute, for someone to care enough to volunteer for the slaughter in their place, isn’t something she should even consider.
Her district looks at her, hands trembling as she tries to shove them behind her back, silently cursing her lack of pockets due to the stupid dress her mother had made her wear, and knows that this year won’t be any different for District 7. They have barely had a victor in years, continually sending their kids to die, Robin thinks to herself dimly as she is escorted backstage and bundled into the train after a quick goodbye to her family, none of whom had the courage to speak the truth: that she was going to die. They hadn’t had a victor in years, and she wasn’t going to change that.
Throughout the training and the first days in the arena, she knows that her fellow tributes realise that as well. Even Beckett, the boy she had come from 7 with, sees that she isn’t likely to be able to sneak up on anybody or overpower them. She’s strong for fifteen, stronger than probably most of the girls that 7 has sent in recent years, but her experience in the lumber industry only goes so far, and she knows it is not far enough. Still, Robin does what she can to conceal her one redeeming quality, figures that it’s probably better to float under the radar for now whilst everyone had her labelled as just another number on the Careers’ to-kill list. Beckett has a different strategy, scrambling to try and align himself with the Career pack, puffing out his chest and limited muscle as much as he can in a desperate attempt to move down that kill list by at least a couple of entries. Robin watches, and isn’t sure if she should be doing the same thing, isn’t sure if she is being a fool by averting her eyes and swallowing down the bitter taste of pity for the boy. No one is fooled by his attempts except maybe Beckett himself.
As the days progress, with more than half of the tributes dead already and the Career pack slowly eliminating the rest of the kids remaining, Robin knows that she has to pull something out of the proverbial bag if she is going to get out of this alive. She uses the arena and the terrain to her advantage: it isn’t exactly a forest, but there’s a good grove of trees to one side that she can climb for vantage points and plenty of hiding spots throughout the rest of the arena. She’s starving, barely able to keep herself going with the forages she’s found, but going hungry is nothing new for Robin. She knows that her only chance is to wait until the Careers start to turn on each other and try and survive the final scramble to be the last one standing. She had managed to steal a weapon off of another kid’s corpse before the hovercraft picked him up, and the sleek metal of the sword still feels unfamiliar enough in her grip that she knows that her only opportunity lies in making use of the fact that basically no one has seen her since the start of the Games.
Eventually, Robin knows that she has to make her move: the cannon has sounded and the arena echos with the sound of all the muttations that the Capital can throw at them, desperate for their bloody ending, and she knows that weapons are supposed to be extensions of their wielder’s body, but the sword has never felt worse in her hand than it does as she swings it wildly, slicing open the stomach of one of the two tributes left and whirling around to cut upwards, catching the eye of the last who had been creeping up behind her. He screams in pain, stumbling backwards as he clutches at his face and Robin knows this is her one chance even as bile rises in her throat at the slick wet sound that the sword makes when she runs him through with it, finally using her strength, finally showing them that they had underestimated her. Robin has been an outsider since she was born: hiding and scrambling to stay alive in the arena wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle but this, she realises, this is already all too much as the boy’s body crumples to the ground, so suddenly lifeless. Her heart thuds in her chest, as she stumbles to turn on her heel, still so clumsy and untrained and, as she catches a flash of metal in the corner of her eye, Robin thinks to herself that it would be typical that would be what would end up killing her after all this. But she scrambles out of the way just in time, coming up inside of the guard of the girl who had thrust her spear out at Robin, the other tribute caught off balance and the blade is still in Robin’s hand and she barely thinks about it as she raises it again, finding purchase in the same wound she had dealt just a second before, a fistful of the girl’s t-shirt in her hand as Robin makes sure this time that it is a killing blow. Twin cannons sound, a familiar voice announcing that she is the victor of the 70th Hunger Games, but Robin can’t hear anything as she turns to the side, eyes screwed tightly shut, and promptly vomits.
At least she had ruined their precious shot of the winning moment, Robin thinks to herself grimly as she wipes at her mouth and swallows down bitter bile, dropping the bloodied sword to the ground and refusing to look down at the bodies of the people, of the kids that she had just killed. Later, the parades and the flowers and the boasts that they always knew she would win will come, but now Robin has won the Hunger Games, and all she can think is that at least it is all over now. She played the game that the Capitol wanted her to, fulfilled her role, and now she gets to be left alone. Robin is finished.
————
Robin isn’t finished. She will never be finished. She realises this, eventually, when they make her a mentor. Bitterly, Robin remembers what she had thought to herself when she first got on the train a year ago, on the way to the Capitol — District 7 hadn’t had a victor in years, but now they do and, of course, they want her as a mentor now. She has to go back there every year, watch kids die the same way that she almost did, that she should have, and just act like it is all okay. District 7’s picks for the year have little hope, but Robin has never been good at not getting attached, and she knows that it will kill her when she has to watch them die, even as she looks at them from across the dining table on the train, the kids shifting nervously and barely looking in her direction. She’s sixteen and she feels so much older, Robin realises, wiping at her brow. The other mentor, Steve Harrington, is the only other young victor left in 7: he won four years before Robin, but had only been thirteen, the youngest victor ever. Despite his easy-going demeanour, she remembers watching as he clubbed one of the Careers to death, and, really, she’s the last person who’s going to hold something like that against him but it serves as a reminder all the same that she’s headed back into the den of vipers and, just because it isn’t into the arena, she isn’t any safer now that she has won.
“I would promise that it gets easier,” Steve breaks the silence on the train, and Robin starts, looking over to him as he continues, “but it doesn’t.” He looks uncharacteristically serious, even from what little Robin knows of him. Steve tries for a comforting grin, but it falls flat and looks just a little too fake to ever be convincing.
“No shit, man,” Robin deadpans, rolling her eyes. She’s glad that the tributes this year have retired to their rooms for the night: it’s just them and the quiet hum of the hovertrain as it skips over the tracks.
Steve laughs. “Sorry.” He shrugs, apparently not bothered by Robin’s bluntness, which bodes well for their apparent partnership as mentors. “How are you feeling about going back this year?”
Robin can’t be sure what he actually knows — a lot of the victors check out of what happens during the actual games if they aren’t mentoring that year, and Steve wasn’t involved when she was sent into the arena. It is very possible that Steve has no idea what happened in her Games, but with the look that he gives her as he asks her, Robin gets the sense that it doesn’t really matter if he knows the facts or the specifics. She supposes that, even if she can’t trust any of them, the victors are the only other people who know how it feel to be the one person out of twenty-four to come home again, to be so changed and so wildly scarred and changed by the experience of literally killing other children that home can’t be home anymore.
Robin swallows hard. She hates being vulnerable like this, especially with people she doesn’t know, but she still can’t quite let all of her usual defences slot fully into place. “I mean, I wish I had been given more time. I’m barely back from my Victory Tour, and it’s not like I’m the favourite victor of recent years.” That would actually be Steve, for a lot of the districts: he’s a kind of likeable guy, apparently, and he never got too much innocent blood on his hand, mostly being forced to kill the tributes who had taken out the rest, like she had. But Robin is entirely underwhelming, it seems a lot of people have realised, and Steve has that charming boy-next-door look that she knows sells well.
True to form, Steve smiles, an attempt at comfort she’s sure though it looks more like a grimace to her, and Robin is left wondering why she couldn’t have had him reassuring her and at her side last year. She’s also sure that she would have found him very grating in the face of her apparently-not-actually-certain death, but at least he seems to care about the tributes, unlike her mentor last year, Julius, who had placed all his hopes in Beckett and hadn’t even really seemed that sold on him either. “The Victory Tour is the worst bit of the whole thing, if you ask me,” and now he sighs, and all that boyish charm disintegrates into something that just looks like exhaustion to Robin, and she is faced with the realisation that he is nothing but a boy forced into an impossible situation, made to play along to survive, just like her. “You have to look these people in the face and tell them that their kids’ deaths were for a good cause, were for a reason, when all they wish is that you were dead so their kids could have come home.”
It’s a painfully accurate description of Robin’s own experience, and she can’t hold back her grimace in response. “Yeah, you’re right.” She sighs, running a hand through her hair. She’s cut it shorter, though it was more her stylists’ choice for the tour than her own. Still, she’s happy enough with it. “But you’re the one who insisted on mentoring this year, which I still don’t understand.”
It’s a thinly veiled request for honesty to someone who owes Robin nothing, but Steve grants her it either way, sighing to himself as he shifts his gaze away. “The kid, he’s friends with someone I promised to take care of. If I didn’t go to the Games this year, to try and make sure that he makes it though, I don’t think I’d ever be able to look Henderson in the eyes again.”
Robin thinks the reasoning over. The male tribute this year is only fourteen, would have been two years behind her at school, and she remembers only flashes of him in the same way that she does of most kids. Still, Steve has this kicked-puppy-like expression as he thinks about Rony, the kid they have to get through these Games, and whoever this Henderson person is. Robin wants to press, and even though she figures it would be a mistake, she does it all the same.
“So, what, you’re here for some kid you barely know?”
Steve scoffs, though it seems to be more weary than exasperated. “I guess so.” He shrugs, expression bashful, and Robin is pretty sure that he has no more idea what he’s doing here than she does. Silence settles after that, but Robin is surprised to find that she doesn’t mind Steve’s continuing company as much as she usually would. He had won his Games through alliances and protected the other younger kids he wound up in there with as much as he could. The Harrington’s were one of the richer families in their district, and, really, Steve had no more business winning the Games than she did. His name couldn’t have been in the bowl that many times, with the Harrington’s hardly being a family that struggles for food, but she also knows that silence had fallen when Steve had ascended the stage, no one willing to stick their neck out for a scared thirteen year old boy. Robin figures their similarities transcend their obvious differences enough to be put off arguing or fighting or anything. Besides, the circus of this year’s Games has only just begun and she is already so tired. It is easy to slip into a restless and fitful sleep, slumped in a chair in the dining hall, still accompanied in the silence by Steve.
The Capitol is just as she remembers it from last year, several of the mentors and past victors from other districts coming up to greet her and Steve, apparently the lingering fame from her Victory Tour doing her enough favours to keep her in their good graces. Robin figures she’ll need all the help she can get to help keep her tributes alive, seeing as she still wasn’t really sure how she had managed it herself.
It’s then that she spots her. Nancy Wheeler, District 3 victor from two years ago. She had volunteered for her little brother, something that wasn’t that uncommon in District 3, as it was still richer than a lot of the lower districts even with the Capitol’s enforced sanctions for helping lead the original rebellion. She’s a mentor again this year, like last year in Robin’s own Games, but Robin had been far too distracted to really take note of her before like she can now. Lots of people say that Nancy is one of the smartest tributes to ever win the game, and Robin is inclined to believe just about anything good about Nancy as she tries to stop her jaw from dropping. It isn’t like she’s never seen her before, with her face plastered everywhere after she won her Games, but there’s something magnetising about seeing her in real life. One thing Robin had always admired was how Nancy subtly told the Capitol to go fuck itself: she could play the girl-next-door-type easily enough and did that in most interviews, but the second that someone underestimated her or talked down to her enough, they quickly learned that Nancy Wheeler’s bite was much much worse than her bark.
Robin doesn’t have time to meet or speak to herself, though she has no idea what that would even involve in the first place: likely Robin stumbling over her words and making a fool of herself the same way that she always does in front of pretty girls. Nancy Wheeler is a very pretty girl. Steve whisks her away to help get Rony and Myla ready for the chariot rides and suddenly the world is narrowing until it is about nothing but keeping these kids alive and Robin doesn’t even think about Nancy Wheeler, not while their ratings are so low and they are struggling to line up any sponsors and suddenly, Rony and Myla are in the arena and Robin knows the way that this ends. There is only one way that it possibly could when the kids are so young, two from the poorer end of their district and barely fed or trained.
Myla dies in the initial bloodbath, a spear through her back because she couldn’t get away fast enough even though she didn’t even try to make it to the Cornucopia. The Careers were just faster. Rony lasts a little longer, maybe because of the sheer force of prayer and hope that Steve pours into him, eyes fixed to the footage streamed all over the Capitol, but his luck seems to run out on the third day when he runs into the female tribute from 5, a terrified look on her face that settles into determination and then crumbles into grief and horror as she looks at the crumpled body of the fourteen year old boy she had just beaten to death, realising too late the cost of survival. Robin feels like she’s back in the arena, the voice of the Gamemaker’s echoing around her once more and the gnawing feeling of shock and revulsion taking root in her chest as blood stains her hands and consciousness.
Robin retreats to a bar not far from the Tribute Centre, one popular with the more disillusioned victors for its more toned-down decor and theme, even in the Capitol. It isn’t much like the places in District 7, not that she has visited bars there much either, but it is different enough to the gaudy and dressed up sadism she is surrounded by during the day that Robin settles into a corner seat all the same. When she orders a drink, she knows that the bartender recognises her face and the fact that she is underage, but simply nods and says nothing as he presents her with the glass. She sips at it, barely, all in an attempt to find something to distract herself with. Steve’s grief and shame is suffocating their rooms, and she feels like she is drowning in her own already, so this is the best, though flawed, solution she can come up with.
She almost chokes on her whisky, though, when she spots a flash of unmistakable dark hair and pale porcelain skin. The arch of Nancy Wheeler’s neck is unique, as is the flushing that covers Robin’s face as a result. The girl is tucked into a booth opposite Robin’s own, alone and head bowed, and before she can even think through the action, she is crossing the floor and settling into the seat across from her. Nancy blinks as she looks at her, like she’s trying to decide if Robin is even there in the first place, and the way that she screws up her nose when Robin tries for a smile isn’t the most reassuring response, but she forges ahead all the same.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about your tribute. About Dean.” Rony had run into him on the first day, but was lucky enough to be spared by him, a boy who was older and bigger and smarter and could tell that he didn’t have to kill Rony to survive these games. Dean was also just killed by the Career pack, the same day as Rony died. Robin can feel her expression falter, the grief and anger bleeding though as she clears her throat and looks away, Nancy’s gaze turning into something calculating that she can’t bear the weight of. “Rony was never gonna make it,” and Robin hates the way that her voice cracks on that simple truth, but she continues, “but Dean spared him all the same. Gave him a few extra days. He was kind.”
Nancy is silent for a moment, for so long that Robin almost gets up to leave, her stomach churning with embarrassment, but then she shrugs, expression unreadable. “Maybe. But Rony’s last days were lived in terror all the same. So. Not much of a gift.”
Robin doesn’t know what to say to that, but cracks an empty smile all the same. “I guess, but I think if you had asked Rony in that moment, he would have been pretty thankful.” Nancy’s lips quirk as she shrugs, conceding the point and Robin doesn’t feel the same urgency to get up and leave as she did a moment ago.
“I saw your Games last year,” Nancy eventually says and now it is Robin’s turn to let her expression sour. “You were a pretty surprising victor.”
“Lots of people either seem to agree or try to convince me that they knew I was going to win all along.” Robin grimaces at the thought. As if she, some scrawny kid from 7, was ever really predicted to stand a chance against the Careers. “I got lucky.”
Nancy shrugs. “Maybe. There were a lot of moments that even you probably don’t realise happened where your hiding places were almost found or the Careers talked about hunting you down. But you did well, making them underestimate you.”
Robin scoffs. “I am pretty sure it’s just estimation, nothing ‘under’ about it.” Nancy cracks a smile, a genuine one now, and Robin’s breath catches in her chest. It feels like such a shitty thing to eventually make her light up like that, but she’s thankful for it either way and, like a fool, finds herself desperate to figure out how to make Nancy smile at her like that again.
“I think you do yourself a disservice, Robin.” Nancy shrugs, and it’s the first time that she’s said her name, the syllables tumbling so carefully in her gentle cadence and Robin feels herself blushing. “You were smart. You won. There’s a reason.”
“You’re the smart one. Strategised your way to victory,” Robin comments, leaning back as she twists the glass in her glass, Nancy’s stare evaluative over the table in the dim light of the bar. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing if you will.”
Too late, Robin realises that’s the kind of thing that would usually make someone like the girl before her to raise an eyebrow or tell her to fuck off, but Nancy just laughs, shrugging shamelessly. “District 3 isn’t a Career district,” she says, “and it’s not like I was that well trained or anything. I don’t know if wolf applies.” But her eyes are flashing and Robin knows that Nancy is under no illusions when it comes to her own capabilities. Robin swallows hard and tries not to think about just how attractive she finds that kind of thing. “Besides,” Nancy continues, a bashful smile only half suppressed, “it doesn’t matter how you win, just that you do.”
Robin isn’t sure if she agrees, not with the way that she watches the more famous and beloved victors, those with influence and power, barter their way into good sponsorships for their tributes, sponsorships that save their lives more often than not. Still, she’s pretty sure that trying to argue with a pretty girl is a bad way at making her like you, so Robin just smiles, raising her glass barely an inch off the table to tap its rim against Nancy’s own. “Here’s to making it out, then. If we ever do.”
Nancy’s eyes flash with something, and Robin knows that she understands. “Here’s to hoping,” she murmurs back, gaze not breaking from Robin’s, and she can only hope that Nancy misses the way that she has to swallow hard.
They meet a few more times after that night, Robin trying clumsily to offer some comfort when Nancy buries her head in her hands the night that the female tribute for District 3 dies, and it doesn’t take a genius to realise why so many of the victors check out when they can. Sure, they aren’t fighting in the arena again, but Robin is pretty sure that watching other kids fight and die, trying desperately to train them to hold their own when they have barely any chance of making it out, is a worse fate than just losing the Games. Still, even if her life before is over forever now, there are certain things that make life as a victor manageable. Sure, she can count on having something to eat now, instead of starving most nights, and has actual clothes instead of her older brother’s old ones that only made her feel more like a ghost of him. In actuality, though, the best parts seem to be Steve and Nancy. She may not have known either of them long, Robin knows that and knows that she’s getting ahead of herself, but something about both of them just seems to click into place for her, be that Steve’s stupid antics that are supposed to distract both of them from the horrors they are supposed to partake in, or the warm look in Nancy’s eyes when Robin says something dumb and flushes in the way that makes her gaze trail down her neck. Sometimes, the lightness that spreads through her chest is just enough to stave off the darkness.
“Do you sometimes wish that you hadn’t won?” Robin asks Nancy, the last night of the Games. The male tribute from 2 had won, a classic ending as the Careers can only be usurped so many times. Nancy frowns, genuinely considering the question, and Robin feels her heart beat a little bit harder at that. She hasn’t even asked Steve this, too ashamed to when he seems so determined to make the most of what he came out of the Games with. But Nancy doesn’t judge her, doesn’t flinch at the prospect. She just tilts her head and thinks.
Eventually, she shakes her head, though it isn’t firm or convincing by any means. “Not necessarily, but I see why you would. I volunteered for my brother, to keep him safe, and if I had died I still would have kept him safe, but this way, I am still here for him, you know?” Robin nods, ignoring the pang in her heart at the memory of watching her older brother die in his Games.
“Makes sense,” she says instead, smiling weakly. Nancy is smart though, more observant and perceptive than anyone she has ever met, though it isn’t surprising. “What, you don’t think it was worth it?”
Robin shrugs, helplessly, and feels a burn in her throat at the vulnerability she is about to show, but it’s like trying to stop running down a hill — the momentum is all against her. Nancy is difficult to read most of the time but she’s never appeared to judge or shame Robin in the way that most people do, in the way that she is so used to. “Not exactly. Steve’s worth it, sometimes,” Robin jokes, before falling back into a more serious expression, “but my parents never got over my brother’s death in the Games. They were expecting me to die. I think they would have been secretly glad for it, too — one less mouth to feed on a salary that can barely support two people, let alone three.”
Nancy frowns. “Isn’t it different after winning, though? It’s not like you have to worry as much about food.”
Robin smiles, a little sad. “True, but it doesn’t magically make it so that my parents can look me in the eye again. I think I remind them too much of what they’ve already lost. What we’ve gained doesn’t matter. Besides, even forgetting them, I’m not sure if winning is worth becoming a pawn.” It’s as explicit in her disdain for the Capitol as she can get in their current setting, the roof of the Tribute Centre, and Nancy nods. She reaches a hand out to cover Robin’s, and she has to take a deep breath at the way that her heart races when her skin touches Nancy’s. She isn’t used to people caring, isn’t even sure if Nancy does, but she looks up as Nancy smiles softly at her and Robin feels a lump in her throat all the same. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring the mood down,” she jokes and Nancy scoffs, grinning at her. The tension of the moment is broken, but Robin’s chest still fills with warmth and light.
“It’s fine, Robin.” They sit like that for a while, hands overlapping in the dying summer air, letting their grief for all that they could have been in another life wash through them. Robin eventually clears her throat, rising to stand. The sun has long since set, and Nancy’s skin looks even paler in the silvery moonlight, practically glowing in the dim night. She has to flick her gaze away for a moment as she pleads with herself to get a handle of this.
“I should probably go. Long journey and all.” Nancy nods, though Robin isn’t sure if she sees or just imagines the flash of disappointment that she could swear crosses the other girl’s face. She stays seated, legs dangling over the edge of the roof’s ledge, and, with her head tilted up at Robin, blue eyes wide and unblinking, she has to take another hard swallow. Her mind drifts from that, though, as she remembers that this will be the last time she sees Nancy for a long while.
An unexpected shot of pain runs her through at the thought. Robin shoves her hands into her pockets, lingering in the space beside Nancy for a second, reluctant to leave. She was never meant to feel like this, Robin thinks to herself, both regretting and treasuring the warmth that her heart radiates when she makes eye contact with Nancy. “Are you coming back next year? To mentor again?” Nancy’s voice is pitched low, a little hoarse, and Robin shrugs.
“I guess so. The older victors are tired. They’ve seen too many die, I guess. I think Steve is, either way, so I suppose I will. You?”
Nancy doesn’t say anything, just nods wordlessly and carefully. She rises now, coming up unexpectedly close to Robin. She realises now, dimly, that she is a head taller than the other girl and her breath catches in her throat as the urge to duck her head just enough to catch Nancy’s lips with her own floods through her. In her pockets, her hands curl into fists as she forces herself to look down at her shoes, sighing deeply before she looks up again. Nancy’s expression is surprisingly sad, her eyes filled with an emotion that Robin can’t identify. The shorter girl leans in closer, gets up on her tiptoes until Robin is almost sure that she’s about to kiss her, but her lips only land on her cheek. Robin’s breath shudders in her chest and she knows that Nancy can feel it. The feel of the shorter girl’s lips on her skin is so gentle, so much more careful and caring than Robin would ever have expected she could deserve.
Nancy settles back onto the flat of her feet, a small, soft smile on her face as her features are painted with a quiet sorrow. “I’ll see you next year, Robin.”
There isn’t anything she can do but nod, struck dumb and mute, and Nancy laughs quietly to herself as she lays a careful hand on the plane of Robin’s chest, lingering for a moment before skirting gently around her. Robin had gotten up to leave first but it is Nancy who presses the button for the elevator, slipping inside and keeping her gaze locked with Robin’s own until the doors slide shut.
————
At home in District 7, the months pass slowly. Robin technically never has to work again, but she finds idleness impossible to deal with. So, she joins the men in the forests sometimes, making sure that the money she would be paid for the labour is distributed to the rest of the men instead. They leave her alone, baffled by the choice to work when she has a victor’s fortune to rest on and terrified by the mark of death she might still carry with her even after escaping the arena. District 7 don’t treasure their victors the way that the Career districts and the Capitol does: they give her respect and peace, but they avoid her more than anything else. Robin is just fine with that, she tells herself. Steve joins her most of the time, but he barely seems to carry the label of victor anymore, able to blend in and endear himself to the men with barely a care, though he spends more time by her side than anything else. She asks him, once, why he bothers.
He looks at her, surprised, before laughing a little to himself and deflating into a sad smile. “You’re my friend, Robin. Besides, we are gonna have to work together for a long time: why not keep up the habit?”
When they can, though, they avoid the forests and the work and choose to train. Robin isn’t always sure why, especially when she’s half-dying after a run or laid flat on her back, panting, when Steve pins her easily. She got out of her Games, after all, her time for fighting is supposed to have come to a close. Still, she reasons that it’s never a bad thing to be able to handle herself in a fight, nor for her to actually be able to train and advise the kids that get drawn out of the bowl next.
“Wow, you really suck at this. How did you even stay alive?” Steve remarks as he stares down at Robin’s prostrate form, her chest heaving as she gasps for breath. She flips him off with what little energy she has left.
“A lot of hiding, mainly,” she huffs out, scowling when he laughs and nods, remarking that that made sense. “Fuck you, Steven, I’ll be better than you in no time.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’m like two years older than you, Robbie.”
She gets to her feet, glaring at him a little. “You’re shit at encouragement, Harrington, has anyone ever told you that?”
Steve laughs, shoulders relaxing as he gets ready to spar with Robin again. They’re not using weapons for the day, instead practising unarmed hand to hand combat. At least she’s getting stronger, Robin thinks to herself as she settles into a ready position. Though not that much, she remembers, as her back promptly hits the mat again when Steve sweeps her feet out from under her rather easily. “You’re a dickhead,” she tells him, eyes closed and groaning as she listens to him laugh above her. Eventually, he helps her up again, and the training continues, the world reducing to nothing more than the movements she was trying to ingrain into her muscle memory.
Her family move into Victor’s Village with her, better fed and no longer worked to the bone, and Robin watches as they lighten as the days stop dragging by. It feels like she’s looking at them from the outside, though, like a pane of foggy glass. They get to move past the years of neglect and ghosts as much as they can, whilst Robin has a future full of training teenagers to die for an oppressive Capitol laid out before her. She pulls away from them, as much as there is anything to pull away from after so long of being nothing more than a reminder of her older brother to them, and spends all her time with Steve. Robin tries not to think about the Games as much as she can, but when she does it is Nancy that she focuses on — her pale, delicate skin, the way that her smile crooked just so when Robin made a fool of herself and the duck of her head as she tries to hide her laughter. It feels like the more that Robin tries not to think about Nancy, the more that she can’t shake her from her head. Eventually, she gives in and stops trying.
When the Games roll around again, she finds herself on the train once more, trying fruitlessly to comfort and reassure the new tributes, to tell them that she’s going to do everything she can to keep them alive. It’s not a lie, but it might as well be for how little chance it has of coming true. Steve sits beside her, more earnest than her as she finds her conviction lacking. She’s not quite sure how she can be the more jaded one when he has been doing this for longer. She pins it down to the indomitable hope that seems to spring eternal from Steve, usually to her great annoyance.
“Ready to enter the belly of the beast once more?” Steve asks her as they wait for the tributes to be ready for the chariot ride. Robin shoves him, rolling her eyes, deeming it unnecessary to reply properly as she shrugs, leaning into him a little. She would deny it to anyone who asks, but it’s a little difficult to not chase the small comfort that she can. Robin feels Steve’s frame soften slightly, the tension lessening as he wraps an arm around her shoulders. “You never know. If you managed to win, I’m sure they can too.”
“Fuck you, Steven,” Robin snorts, scoffing under her breath. People can make fun of the way that she played all they like, but she will never regret limiting the blood that stains her hands. It feels like too much already, why would she want more? Contrary to the Capitol and the Careers’ way of thinking, Robin doesn’t find any glory in killing.
Steve knows this, laughing under his breath. It’s a well worn joke between the two of them, and something that she doesn’t take offence to, when it's from him. It would likely be a different story if it was coming from anyone else.
She lets her gaze dart around the hall as they wait, telling herself that she isn’t searching for Nancy, that she’s just trying to find something of actual interest amongst all the pomp and circumstance, but the excuse falls flat even within her own mind when she does finally catch sight of Nancy, the girl standing beside Jonathan, the other mentor from her district. Her breath stutters in her chest, and she’s pretty sure that her heart rate skyrockets. Steve doesn’t seem to notice the way that she suddenly tenses, but Nancy’s eyes meet her own and it’s like the whole word stops in its tracks. Robin’s vision narrows until there’s nothing but the most beautiful girl that she’s ever seen. Nancy raises an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth curled into a faint smile, and Robin suddenly becomes aware of the fact that Steve and her definitely look like they’re flirting. She flushes red, and watches as Nancy laughs to herself, shaking her head fondly. Relief floods through her as it seems that she doesn’t care at the way that she acts with Steve, and Robin finds herself looking forward to being able to see Nancy that evening. For now, though, she has to turn her attention to the tributes she’s been charged with, giving them some last minute advice and telling them to keep their heads strong and up as they ride through the crowds.
“The one thing that you can’t show is weakness,” Steve tells them, and Robin finds herself nodding.
“If you get added to the ‘easy target’ list this early, no amount of training will change that label. Blend in but look like you’ll put up more of a fight than at least some of the other tributes.” Terrified expressions ingrained into their features, the two kids nod, and Robin notes, with a sinking heart, that there might not be much point to the advice. Their inexperience and lack of training is practically painted across their faces — they might as well be wearing flashing signs advertising themselves as easy hits for the Careers. All that she can do is hope that they can give them enough tips and tricks to skate by the bloodbath and make it at least a few days in the arena. There’s usually something that tips the balance eventually: they just have to make it to that point.
That night, she meets Nancy in the bar that they first talked in. Robin lets herself imagine, just for a moment, the idea of establishing traditions with Nancy, the prospect of having worn in jokes and familiarity with everything about the other girl. It feels unbelievable, until she watches the smile of Nancy’s face grow as she spots her approaching the booth that she has tucked herself into.
“Hey,” Robin says as she slips into the opposite seat, cursing herself for getting tongue-tied the second that the word leaves her mouth. Nancy laughs, raising her eyebrows.
“Hey yourself, Buckley. Didn’t bring your boy toy with you?”
Robin rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing as well and it suddenly feels like no time has passed at all since the last time that they saw each other. She had been worried about it being awkward, about the prospect of Nancy realising that a friendship, or potentially more, between the two of them can only lead to disaster, but that seems to be unfounded as Nancy pushes a whiskey glass over to Robin’s side of the table, apparently having bought her a drink. “I knew you were going to bring that up,” Robin grumbles, kicking gently at Nancy’s leg under the table, grinning when she squeaks and retaliates.
“Asshole,” Nancy points a scolding finger at her, before leaning back in her seat and raising her eyebrows. “So, what’s going on there, huh, Buckley? You leading me on?”
Robin’s breath catches in her throat, and she practically chokes on it as her eyes widen. Nancy only looks satisfied, watching with a wicked grin as Robin tries to get a handle of herself. It’s the first time that anything between them has been explicitly addressed. They’ve never even really called themselves friends out loud. Robin isn’t really sure if this is happening, if she’s lucky enough to be able to call this thing between them a possibility. Robin can’t help but grin, Nancy’s expression softening until some rare fondness sneaks into the set of her mouth and the gleam of her eyes.
“Honey, Steve and I are just friends. I’d never do you like that,” Robin drawls, choosing to avoid the vulnerable route until they’re a little more settled into the evening. Nancy smiles at her, and something unspoken but sufficiently understood passes between them in the moment.
“So, what do you think of the tributes this year?” Robin tries, grinning when Nancy scoffs and glares at her playfully.
Her voice takes a reproachful tone when she speaks, but Robin knows she doesn’t mean it as she watches the way that her eyes gleam and dance. “You know we shouldn’t talk about our tributes. It would be a shame if I start to think that you’re just flirting with me to try and get me to reveal all my secrets, huh?”
Robin raises her eyebrows in mock horror. “Nancy, I would never do such a thing. Besides, I never said we should talk about our tributes.”
The night passes easily between the two of them, neither pushing the boundaries too much on the first night seeing each other in so long, but Robin leaves the bar feeling buoyed, hope blooming in chest for the first real time in two years. The kids are well in bed when she gets back to the Tribute Centre, slipping through the door as quietly as possible, but her effort is wasted when she realises that Steve is sitting on the sofa in direct view of the door, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. “Hi, Robbie, where you been?” He asks, tone dripping with force casualness.
“Okay, I know what you’re going to say,” Robin tries, smiling weakly, but, for once, Steve doesn’t soften. “I never meant for anything to happen between me and Nancy, Steve.” As she says it, Robin realises how true it is. She never imagined getting herself into this position when she first entered or when she became a mentor. The life of a victor was supposed to be a quiet, peaceful one. This was shaping up to spell the opposite for her future.
Steve sighs. “I know, Robin. I could tell what you were doing last year, I’m not blind, but I figured you would talk to me.” Robin swallows hard, but the taste of bitter guilt sticks in the back of her throat.
“I’m sorry, Steve. I should have told you.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, “so that I could have told you that the Capitol won’t like this and that this is just going to end badly.”
Robin frowns as she watches an expression flit across Steve’s face that she doesn’t see much: fear. “What do you mean?”
Steve sighs again, wearier this time, and Robin collapses next to him on the sofa as he looks away. “The Capitol demands control of their victors. Presiden Brennan doesn’t like being undermined, and the victors are his to do what he likes with. You already know that the Games never end, yeah? That doesn’t just mean being a mentor. We have to do whatever we are told to do, Robin. And that is usually to act as a reward for someone.”
Robin doesn’t have to guess to realise what he means. She can feel her expression crumple in on itself, devastation working its way into her chest and up her throat until she feels like she’s going to choke on it. “Steve, have you-”
Her question peters out, but Steve shakes his head. “It’s come close a few times,” he says grimly, “but I’ve managed to talk my way out of it till now, because I was young. Now that I’m nineteen, I doubt that it will be long before I can’t say no anymore.” Fury claws at Robin’s insides and she’s never felt more like burning the Capitol to the ground that she does now. Maybe when her brother died, but Steve is as good as by now, and it's the same grief and anger that bubbles up at the thought of anything happening to him.
“You're missing the point, Robin,” Steve insists, facing her fully now. “It isn’t about me. What do you think will happen if he finds out that the two of you are together, or whatever? It won’t be your family that they threaten you with, like the rest of us. It will be her. He’ll hurt her, Robin, and he’ll kill your family, if you don’t do what he wants.”
Suddenly, Robin can’t take it anymore. She finds herself on her feet, barely aware of the face that she had risen from the couch, hands shaking. “I get it, Steve. I get it.” The hollowness of her voice surprises even her, and Steve’s expression floods with something that looks like sympathy. She makes to leave, but he catches her hand easily, stopping her in her tracks and making her turn to look at him once more. The frustration in his face bleeds away, leaving only concern behind, and it’s difficult to keep the anger and the devastation and the rage at bay when he looks like that.
“Please, Rob. I’m just worried. Just, be careful, alright?”
Heart in her throat, Robin nods, but, as much as she intends to follow Steve’s warning of caution, she also knows that the time where she would be able to walk away from Nancy has long gone. As much as she doesn’t want to get hurt, or to put either of them in any sort of danger, her heart is well and truly in this game and there’s nothing she can do to pull it out. She’s along for the ride now and she supposes that the only thing that she can do is try and make sure that no one else finds out about her and Nancy. She’ll do anything to protect the other girl, and if it gets to the point where she has to call this off then she will, but, until then, Robin is selfish and she can’t deny herself the first shred of happiness she has managed to snatch from the world since entering the Games.
That night, she sleeps fitfully, finding herself awake and staring at the ceiling at 4 am and wishing more than anything that she could have Nancy curled up around her right now. She imagines the warmth of her frame, the softness of her delicate skin that Robin already feels like she’ll never forget, having memorised the feel of Nancy’s fingers on her own skin and the electricity that it sends coursing through her. When she finally does fall asleep for the last time, it is Nancy’s face that flits through her dreams, Robin feeling like she is chasing a ghost, all the images slipping out of her brain when she jolts away, but her throat is raw and sore like she had been screaming and her hands are clenched into fists in the sheets. Robin collapses back onto the mattress, screwing her eyes shut as she tries to keep the tears at bay. She has no idea how to keep control of this situation, not while everything feels like it is slipping out of her grasp.