thecapitol | open;

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WHO| Ellie and OPEN
WHAT| Ellie doesn't react well to anything, really
WHERE| In the middle of the street, making a scene, then back in the common room
WHEN| just after the interviews
Warnings| physical harm of a child

IN THE STREET
(if you reply to this one, let's keep it to one thread, please!)

Hawkeye was back. That was all the proof she needed, really. They could bring anyone back - even if they were gone - and she was too fucking angry to think twice as she marched out of the tribute center. She had to find wherever the scientists were - whoever they were - find them and convince them to bring everyone back. Everyone.

She was finished with them manipulating her life, making her live horrible tradgedies over and over and then not living up to their end of the bargain. And this was it: she died, for their entertainment, everyone she loved died, but - and this was a large but - then they came back.

After all the shit that they went through, they owed it to them. They brought Pierce back, they could fucking well bring back the rest.

"Where do you think you're going, Tribute?"

She hadn't even noticed them. She had been so fucking determined - reading the sign on every building she passed - that she didn't notice the three peacekeepers stepping in front of her.

"None of your fucking business," She snapped. She hadn't been there, when Eva had died. She hadn't been there when all the shit went down. She didn't know.

Though she should have.

"Want to say that again?" The largest one said, unbuckling his baton from his belt. Unfortunately, Ellie had never been good at self preservation in the face of unjustified authority, and though she took a step back, her face took on a decided grimace.

"Yeah. I will. I want my FUCKING friend back you fucking sack of shit and I don't fucking care what y--"

However, she didn't get through the whole sentence before she let out a strangled yelp, the taser buried into her side and the shock running through her like lightning.

IN THE COMMON ROOM
(Totally open to multiple threads!)

Ellie groaned. Her whole body was sore, complaining darkly against the unnatural current that had made her collapse. She lay on the couch in the common room, someone had put a blanket over her and she must have passed out at some point. She sat up, and groaned again. Fuck. That was such a stupid idea.

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Gossip and news spread like wildfire around the Tribute Tower. It doesn't take long at all for someone to point out to Joel that a teenage Tribute matching Ellie's description just got tased out in the street for mouthing off to a Peacekeeper.

It'll probably be on the evening news.

That's really all it takes for Joel to make a mad dash to Ellie's district suite, bursting into the common room with a worried expression on his face.

"Ellie! What the hell happened?"

"I'm fine," Ellie said with a groan. "Just a fucking idiot, that's all." She winced as she touched her side - still tender.

"Fucking peacekeeper tased me."

In a sort of automatic gesture, he brushed her forehead with the back of his hand, checking her temperature.

"I'll get you a cold compress, or somethin'. You know better than that, mouthin' off to them." His chastisement has very little bite to it, though - it's more weary than anything.

The last month or two have been pretty draining on him, too. Ever since Tess showed up, really.

"Yeah, well, it's not like they fucking tased me for it before," Ellie said a little defensively, settling back into the couch. "And I... I know, okay, I was just--" She cut off, looking away angrily.

"... It was stupid, okay? It was stupid. I know. Lecture over."

"Lecture over," he repeats, moving to the kitchen area to put some ice in a towel, offering it to her as he moves back to the couch. "In case it starts swelling up," he says.

"For what it's worth, I know how you feel," he admits after a moment's thought.

She took the towel, now looking up at him, but gently applied it against the taser marks anyway.

"Thanks," She mumbled lowly, and then sighed. "... Yeah, I know. 'Everybody's lost everyone'. I know. It's just... It's like I can't even settle in this place, you know? People don't even stay fucking dead."

"More like, we're all pretty goddamn helpless here," Joel says quietly. He's helpless to protect Ellie, and Tess, for that matter. To make sure they stay safe, he's doing his best to keep his head down, but he knows that won't stop it. It won't stop Ellie's friends from disappearing.

It won't necessarily stop them from taking her away from him, if they decide to. And that terrifies him.

She looks up and over at him, feeling a bit guilty, suddenly. Before Winter, before everything that had happened, she had almost thought him immortal, for a while. Hard as steel and impossible to kill.

Then, well, he met steel and she found out how wrong she was.

And how very, very easy it was to lose everything, in seconds.

"Not sure helpless just applies to here, Joel," she replied quietly. "... Just make sure you don't disappear on me, okay? You're stuck with me, from here on out."

Even though they both knew it was a promise that was impossible to make.

He perches next to her on the couch, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "Same to you, kiddo," he murmurs.

"Look, I - I'm sorry she's gone." Maybe more accurately, he's sorry Riley being gone has left Ellie feeling so hurt, but it sounds better to say it the other way.

She pulls her knees up against her chest, turning her head away and resting her cheek on her knee so that he doesn't get a chance to look at her face when she replies. "... Yeah, well... Guess it's just things going back to normal." She said quietly.

She just hoped Tess wouldn't go the same way.

Joel pretty much expects nothing less than for Tess to disappear again at some point, which is a big part of why he's still keeping her at arm's reach. To some extent, he sees Tess as nothing more than a dream of some sort, a hallucination that will inevitably come to an end. Someone not to get too invested in if he can help it.

Ellie, at least, he knows is alive.

"She might come back," he says, groping for something - anything - to say that might help. "Hawkeye did. Tess did."

"Yeah, so they can rip her away again? So that they can laugh and be like 'look, she's dead, but maybe for a little while you can almost touch her'? I'm fucking - I'm done. Tess-" She stopped, hesitated, and then frowned, furrowing her eyebrows.

"I like Hawkeye, I like Tess. I would rather have them around than not. You know that. And I know it must be tough as shit for you but... Her and Hawkeye -- it's different from- from Riley, for me. You know it is."

"Yeah," he says after a moment. He may or may not actually get it, but that's beside the point. Keeping Ellie safe and with him, is the point.

"I'm doin' what I can to get us out of this," he assures her.

"... Yeah, I know. I know you are. I just - what if this is it, Joel? What if this is all we fucking get, as some fucking puppets for some freak fucked up show? I like having a bed, that's awesome, and I like not being attacked by fucking infected every day or having cannibalistic assholes after me - at least most of the time - but I still... Sometimes, some parts of this? Some parts of it are almost worse. And it's almost always the parts that I should be thankful for."

He winces a little at her words, giving her a slightly pained expression. "Don't. I've already got Tess tellin' me she'd rather be dead, I can't -"

His brows furrow and he shakes his head a little. "We've been through worse than this, we'll figure it out. We just gotta keep our heads on straight."

Someone has to. And sometimes, he feels like he's drowning, himself.

"That's my fucking point though," She says, not willing to be pacified, and wincing as she wrenched too quickly upward - the sudden shooting pain making her feel nauseous.

"That's-- that's just it, Joel. Things aren't going to get better, they're going to get worse. You know as well as fucking anyone that people with this kind of power over people's lives... they like to use it. We can't just buckle down about this."

"Ellie."

He grips her arm gently, just above the elbow, and gives her a significant look. "This ain't the time or the place." This isn't private, there are cameras everywhere. She just got tasered, for Christ's sake, she doesn't need to get into any more trouble.

But that doesn't mean Joel isn't quietly making a few plans of his own.

Unfortunately, the taser had the opposite affect than was meant, and despite being in severe pain, the anger slightly overshadows it.

She wrenches her arm out. "I just meant the fucking petition," she lies, but then again, now that she's thinking about it, it's half true. "I want out, Joel. I want to do it."

He lets her go, doesn't fight it. "Okay," he says, pacifying. "Okay. We'll do it. You, me and Tess."

He doesn't, at this point, expect any of them to actually succeed, but that's not really what he's saying, anyway.

Since when did he start speaking in fucking code?

The first rule of being a spy: don't get noticed. Or at the very least, get noticed in just the right ways. When she wanted to get Tony Stark's attention, she'd used her skills to make sure he was watching. But generally, Natasha keeps out of the way. She blends in with the crowd. It's the best way to get the information she needs, and get the job done before slipping right back into the shadows.

So her first instinct upon seeing the scene in the streets should've been to keep on walking. Lord knows she's done worse things in her lifetime than ignore the actions of an oppressive regime. Natasha grew up in Russia in the middle of the Cold War. She knows a little something about dictatorships.

But she doesn't. Maybe it's Steve's influence. Maybe it's just. Something she does now that she's trying to atone for what she's done. Saving people, instead of killing them. Either way, Natasha is there when the peacekeeper raises his arm for the second blow, quick as a flash. She's pulling the girl away by the shoulders before the man can bring the taser down for a second blow.

"You should rethink that. She's probably...what, hundred pounds - at best. Too much electricity and you'll kill her. And bringing us back to life - that's a waste of resources. They're probably better spent on something else."

It's better to mask this as cold rationality. She knows how these people work. Sentiment is weakness.

( ooc | i hope this is okay! if you need me to tweak anything or go a different route, please let me know and i'd be happy to change it! )

[ooc: it's perfect :) ]

Ellie nearly collapsed in the strangers arms, twitching as the pulse shook through her. She was still awake, still aware, but not of much more than pain, and the fact that someone - somehow - caught her.

The Peacekeepers glared at Natasha, scowling, and as if just to prove that they could, kicked Ellie hard in the heels before turning their backs and stalking away.

It would have been simple to take him out. Twist his wrist, turn that taser on himself. Punch through the gap between armor and helmet. Crush his windpipe. The rest of the guards would have been more of the same. But that would have been raining hell down on both of them, so Natasha doesn't react when they kick the girl one more time. It's better than another taser blast.

She still has one arm around the girl, but she looks like she's ready to collapse at any moment now. "You need to stand. Right now."

It's not uncommon to see people lounging around in the common room, but to see people totally wiped out and napping is a little weird. Next thing she knows, she'll probably have photos of her sweet little naptime everywhere. Or some asshole might draw on her face, which admittedly Dave contemplates as he makes his way over.

He approaches quietly before she starts to stir and moves to slide himself down so he can sit on the floor and lean on the couch in a totally unsuspecting manner. Now that he's closer, he remembers that he's talked to her before and that she's pretty damn cool. With how out of it she seems, it'd be a dick move to draw on her face. Maybe he can hang around and make sure nobody gets the same idea.

Leaning his head backward, he stares at her through his shades with a raised eyebrow when she starts to stir. "If you think couches are great, you're gonna love these things we have called beds upstairs."

"Here's some water," she said, a few feet away. She was lounging on a seat right now, looking concerned. "You took a pretty nasty fall. Side of your face is even bleeding a little."

She was actually NOT feeling all that casual about it. When she sound her like that in the streets it shook her up. For one fleeting moment she thought the Capitol had decided to punish her further. Luckily she was over that.

"You feeling better?"

It was fairly obvious that Ellie didn't trust him, made it blatantly clear that while dealing with him being around she didn't strictly want to be friends. Although seeing her on the couch raised a few questions, one being the fact that she looked like someone who had a rough encounter.

"Bad day?"

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