In Every Atom, Broken, Is a Name [OPEN]

[celebrityskinned]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo and open
WHAT| Venus shows people where the blind spots are.
WHERE| The corner of Castor and Juvenal.
WHEN| After Lonestar's post.
WARNINGS| Likely some mentions of torture and suicide.

Venus does the perfect approximation of just lounging at a bus stop, playing on her network device and checking her receipt for all the things she bought at the jewelry store. Capitol citizens passing by pay her no mind, except to sneer at the brand across her cheek. She knows she should be wearing it like a badge, but no amount of conviction seems able to stop her wincing every time that look of disgust crosses someone's face.

She feels strangely detached, as if she's spent all of her energy either in berating herself for her laundry list of recent mistakes or in acting like they haven't brought her down. She knows that there's chaos around her, and yet she feels like the shrapnel and debris in the air misses her, that the wind doesn't touch her. She knows that she should feel the hum in the earth as the water behind the dam reaches a breaking point, and yet there's nothing. Nothing but the sun beating on her face, her scarred, ugly face.

She's accomplished nothing here. Even Wyatt and Maximus' safety was incidental to anything she did. She has a fistful of locations where someone, anyone might go forth and make fire with a spark that she's to dim to light.

She sits there, browsing some tabloid on her device, and she waits.

Comments

[sizeofyourbaggage]

"Sounds familiar." That, Sam's had some experience with, growing up, in the military, and even at the VA. Some people are willing to work really hard not to have their preconceived notions disproved.

Of course, all of that was on a way smaller scale than what he's looking at now.

"If I was going to judge you for something, it'd be for what you do to your coffee," he teases gently, then turns more serious, glancing at her sidelong. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, Venus. But if you ever want to talk, I'm a pretty good listener."

[celebrityskinned]

Venus looks a bit sheepish for a moment. "I have a sweet tooth, alright? But I don't want to put on weight so, you know. Splenda. Splenda to the gods."

She doesn't know how to take him offering her that shoulder to cry on - she knows he'd probably be good at that listening thing, given how tactfully he's taken the glimmers of darkness in their conversations so far. She's had two years here to rack up an impressive list of follies and losses, twenty years back home.

So she's somber when she tells him "I hope that the fact that you hang out with soldiers means you'll still have that offer open when you eventually see all that footage of me breaking the necks and slitting the throats of innocent strangers."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

His grin widens a little. "So do I sometimes, but I just put chocolate chips in my pancakes." That coffee did not deserve that, man.

Sam's quiet for a moment after her comment, thinking it over. He isn't going to insult her by replying immediately that it doesn't bother him - that kind of answer that quickly after something like that is rarely sincere.

"Everyone's got a past, and you're right, the people I hang with have more of one than others. Hell, I'm still working on dealing with mine, I'm not going to hold anyone else's against them. So yeah, it's still gonna be there."

[celebrityskinned]

"Who says I don't do that too?"

She tries not to wince too obviously. That's what people talk about, reform, as if there's a clean line between who you were and who you are. As if overnight you can find all the answers waiting for you like tooth fairy money under your pillow. So she folds her arms a bit as she walks, lips pressed together, eyes ahead.

"I got a past and present. We ain't all Steve Rogers in the Arena."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

"Sweet tooth that bad, huh?" he asks when a chuckle.

Sam nods at her response, shifting her bag to his opposite hand, still watching her out of the corner of his eye as they walk.

"And you got a future, too, and it's probably going to be filled with the things you're supposed to have left in the past. I'm still gonna listen." He pauses, then adds, "Besides, Steve Rogers is a hell of a guy to measure yourself against. I should know, I've tried it."

And his lungs hated him all day for it.

[celebrityskinned]

"I got my reasons." Long, complicated reasons. She'll tell him the story of how she only just got tastebuds back two years ago when they have a long time and she has some tissues at her disposal.

Maybe there'll be a lot of tissue-confessions someday. Maybe not.

She glances over and meets his eyes now, a genuine question there. "How did you measure up?"

[sizeofyourbaggage]

There's another nod at that, and he lets the conversation go. He's made the offer, and whether or not she decides to take him up on it is up to her.

And then he gives a soft huff, because that's... a hard question.

"A hell of a lot slower, that's for sure." He smiles slightly, shoulders twitching a little. "Steve's a hero, and not just because of the costume and the shield. He's the kind of guy who - well, who makes you want to measure yourself up against him. I just do what I can."

[celebrityskinned]

She nods again, listening. She's good at making people understand that they're being heard; it's some innate part of her body language that she could never explain, the charisma that she couldn't cultivate and that she was blessed to always have had.

"Ain't that what we're all doing?" Her laugh isn't mirthless, but it's close. "Hey, there's a book I wanted to pick up, so if we could stop by the store that'd be good. I'm getting all cultured these days."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Oh, yeah, Sam definitely notices that. Some of the people he works with - the best ones - have that about them, the kind of thing that makes you feel like what you're saying really matters. Sometimes he even manages it himself, he thinks, but she feels like a natural.

"That's what it feels like, some days more than others," he agrees, but his smile is genuine. Then he chuckles a little, waggling the fingers of the hand not holding her bag at her. "Yeah, let's do it. I still got a free arm, might as well."

[celebrityskinned]

The bookstore isn't far away, and when they're in, the cashier behind the counter appears to be one of the only citizens they've run into so far who hasn't fixed Venus' brand with a hateful glare. He even says hello with no discrete glance at her purse.

"Hey, I need to fix my makeup, can I get the bathroom key? I got like, lipstick on my teeth."

Venus knows the only safe place to talk in this store - in practically this whole city, it feels like - is the bathroom here. She just doesn't know exactly how she's going to get Sam in one without drawing attention to them.

She grins and winks, turning on that natural charm, that flirtiness she perfected in front of cameras and for auditions. She takes Sam's free hand and squeezes it. She bats her lashes less for his eyes than for anyone who might be watching. "Let's go somewhere a little private, okay?"

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam might not be a spy, and he might be a little out of his element when it comes to this whole covert thing, but he can still recognize that they've switched almost completely over from 'mostly genuine' to 'putting on an act to avoid suspicion.' He goes with it easily.

His grin slowly widens in that universal sign of a guy realizing they're about to get a little luckier than they'd originally shot for, and he laces their fingers together.

"I'd have to be a very stupid man to say no to a question like that."

[celebrityskinned]

Venus does one of those close-mouthed, coy giggles that translates well to camera but seems altogether too smug for a girl of her demeanor. And directs Sam with her hip more than with her hand to the bathroom.

Once they're in, down a little hallway and inside a single-stall that seems a bit dingy for Capitol standards, she drops the act. Unusually, her Georgian accent comes back a bit harder than usual, too. She looks Sam in the eyes. "There are no microphones or cameras in here. I can't say the same for other bathrooms. Pretty sure the cashier's on our side in the long run, because he don't chase branded Tributes out."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam drops the act when she does, untangling their fingers and switching the bag to his now free hand as he leans a little against the stall.

“Good to know. How’d you find out, about this place?”

[celebrityskinned]

She looks in the mirror and musses up her hair a little bit, then starts applying makeup. Rumples her shirt slightly, talks at his reflection in the mirror instead of him.

"I'm used to showbiz, right? Reality TV? Well I went through a bunch of their footage and looked for places where they were using dubs or angles the cameras couldn't possibly get to. Places where juicy conversations cut off and need to be faked. It's taken, um, about a year now, honestly."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

“Smart.” He’s a little bit impressed, there - he’s not certain he would have thought to do that. Maybe eventually, but again, he’s a little out of his depth with this stuff.

“People’ve been dropping hints to me about what’s going on behind the scenes, as much as they can, but I’m guessing there’s still a lot I don’t know.”

[celebrityskinned]

"I'm out of the loop. Everything I been doing lately is independent. But I know what happened before this." Her face shutters off for a moment. Something in her eyes gets dark and distant. Her lower lip trembles a little in spite of being here, safe, in a place with no cameras.

"Before you got here, the head of the Peacekeepers was assassinated. They rounded up all the suspects and took them to prison, and some of us tried to break in and get them out, and- and we all got caught. And interrogated. I'm not trustworthy under torture." She gestures to the scar on her face. "I want to help, but I'm not smart enough or strong enough to be a good asset. That's why I need to get this information out."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam doesn’t know her well enough to know if she’s the type who needs to be left alone when she shuts down like that, or if she’d appreciate some kind of grounding touch. He’s learned not to act on a guess unless it’s urgent, but - he’ll have to remember to ask, when he’s not so distracted by what she has to say.

“Heard a little bit about that, too. Steve and Barnes have one.” And Sam should have been there, backing them up, but there’s no point in dwelling on things that he can’t control, so he does his best to let that thought go. Chances are he couldn’t have done more than get caught, too.

“I’m having a hard time with you telling me you’re not good enough, when you got this kind of information to get out in the first place.” And for a lot of other reasons, too, but he’s being matter-of-fact here. He just needed to get that out of the way. “I don’t know who I can help get it out to, but I’ll take any information you have.”

[celebrityskinned]

"Well, you also weren't there to see me botch a prison break and get two people I love get punished for it." She brushes off his attempts to comfort her because she might just break down if they start to argue it. There are more important things to discuss now.

Venus lists off a series of locations that she's been storing in her head ever since Enjolras prudently burned the map she made; her fingers flick up as she counts off over twenty, and her face contorts with visible frustration when she can't seem to remember the last on her mental list.

"Sorry, I can't- I can't remember where the last two places are. But that's not all. There are some people who escaped to District 13, the District they're claiming they destroyed ages ago. There are two men there, Maximus and Wyatt, that are good people to their cores. Like Steve. You can trust them if you get in contact."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

That’s a brush off, and he knows it, but he drops it anyway. Now’s not the time to argue the point, yeah, but he’s still going to fix her with a look that hopefully says he still doesn’t agree. He’s gonna come back to that.

He doesn’t want to write any of that down, so he does his best to commit all of them to memory as she lists them off.

“District 13, that’s where the rebellion they’ve got going here is centered?” He’d assumed as much from what he’d read on the Lonestar post, but can’t hurt to confirm it. Sam nods when she gives him the names, then adds, “Thank you, for trusting me with this.”

[celebrityskinned]

"I think so. I don't know. I haven't been in the loop."

She nods. "I'd say you should be flattered, but I'm giving the information to a lot of people. I'm hoping- I'm hoping people here are more coordinated than they look. And that no one's going to go running to the Peacekeepers and give up these spots to get brownie points."

So far, treachery has been thin on the ground for Tributes, but Venus doesn't trust it. You don't last in Hollywood if you take everyone for their better nature.

She tries to lighten the mood, shrugs her shoulders and smirks a bit. "You should be flattered when I compliment you for other things, instead."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

“Do you know who is in the loop?” Initiate, apparently, from what Sam’d read, Steve and probably the rest of the Avengers, maybe Jet and Albert - it’d been hard to figure out through text, when understandably few people were dropping names.

He quirks a tiny smile when she says that, but yeah, he gets it. “Me, too. Maybe I haven’t been there long enough to see the coordination, or people’re real good at hiding it-” Which is a great thing, actually. “-but I’m hoping it’s there.”

That smile grows when she smirks, and he leans in a little to bump his shoulder lightly against hers. “Half the time I’m flattered just by you talking to me.”

[celebrityskinned]

She shakes her head. "There were a few of us- we were just dumb kids. I guess we thought that with enough enthusiasm and some pretty speeches, the government would just let us waltz on into their cabinets. They declined to bring a lot of people back. The others, the French kids, they're still around but they're disorganized. And I don't know what everyone else was up to."

The empty rooms in each District that are now being filled up with new faces that don't see the old ghosts. The Avoxes do a good job of cleaning out all the personal effects, masking the old scents with detergent, bleaching out the carpet where other people's shoes tracked mud.

At some point she started considering herself a veteran in this world. Maybe that's why they understand each other.

She reaches over and squeezes his hand. "I think that might be why there's such a high turnover rate here. If people get too organized, they fray the net."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Just dumb kids. Sam doesn’t know a lot about trying to infiltrate or overthrow a government, taking down Hydra and SHIELD aside, but he does know something about how that feels. Dumb kids with enthusiasm getting in way over their heads, thinking nothing could keep them down.

It’s a really hard thing to be wrong about.

He squeezes her hand back, absently running his thumb over her skin. “I’ll remember that,” he says softly. “Another one of those things I’m going to have to practice at.”

[celebrityskinned]

"There are only six people still in the Arenas who've been here longer than me, Sam. I'm a marked woman." She laughs, but it's grim, and she gestures again to the brand. "Literally. Any one of these next Arenas could be my last one."

She looks down at her hand, as if sadly expecting him to realize how intimate the gesture is and stop, and then the slightest smile quirks at the corner of her mouth.

"Although that's true for everyone, I guess."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

“So you’re a veteran, and you’re still kicking. Not a lot I respect more than that.”

The arenas aren’t the same as war, but honestly, from what Sam’s heard and seen - they’re not different enough to not be in the same genre. Maybe that’s just because war is what Sam knows, and he’s approaching this as one, as a soldier, but he wouldn’t know how to change that even if he tried.

He doesn’t let go of her hand, though. They’re talking about the likelihood of dying pretty soon, here, it’s kind of an intimate conversation.

“That’s… a feeling I’m kind of familiar with, arena context aside. Is that why you’re doing this, in case the next one is your last?”