Peggy Carter (Hunger Games AU) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
impaledqueen) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-04-04 02:14 pm
impaledqueen) wrote in thecapitol2015-04-04 02:14 pm
Entry tags:
I will never die
Who| Peggy and D10 tributes; Peggy and Open
What| Peggy is evaluating her new tributes, and in between evaluations she bugs people to spar with her.
Where| Training Center
When| Soon after Peggy arrives
Warnings/Notes| Maybe from violence from sparring?
Closed to D10ers
"I want to evaluate each skill you may need in the arena." Peggy Carter is large and in charge, perfectly composed and stepping like an army woman with a clipboard at her side. Today, her scarf is black, and her clothes are suited for training. "I want you to sit at each station--not just the combat stations, but all of them--and complete whatever task it is set up to allow you to practice. I will time how fast it takes you to complete and take note of any particular problem areas, and we can work together from there to set up a training schedule that works for you. Do you understand?"
Open to All
She's put away her clipboard, but not the training clothes or the black scarf. She's doing a circuit around the training center herself, working at the survival stations, evaluating what she can learn and what she already knows, but most of all, she spends her time with the combat training equipment. Exercise, weights, axes, arrows--and even, though she spends some time staring at them with an inscrutable look in her eye, knives and swords. Work. Work. She goes through it with the methodical air of a woman who's been doing this for a very long time, even if she hasn't been in the arena for years.
But obsessive exercising can't take the edge of for her anymore. She's back in the tribute center, back where her life had been consistently destroyed year after year after year, back where she and Bucky and all of the tributes she had mentored before had scrambled to survive. She couldn't sleep here, and she had to force herself to eat. Not even destroying herself with exercise will remove the horror now fresh on her mind.
Eventually, she abandons the weights and weapons, instead approaching the nearest person. "Do you feel up for a spar?"
What| Peggy is evaluating her new tributes, and in between evaluations she bugs people to spar with her.
Where| Training Center
When| Soon after Peggy arrives
Warnings/Notes| Maybe from violence from sparring?
Closed to D10ers
"I want to evaluate each skill you may need in the arena." Peggy Carter is large and in charge, perfectly composed and stepping like an army woman with a clipboard at her side. Today, her scarf is black, and her clothes are suited for training. "I want you to sit at each station--not just the combat stations, but all of them--and complete whatever task it is set up to allow you to practice. I will time how fast it takes you to complete and take note of any particular problem areas, and we can work together from there to set up a training schedule that works for you. Do you understand?"
Open to All
She's put away her clipboard, but not the training clothes or the black scarf. She's doing a circuit around the training center herself, working at the survival stations, evaluating what she can learn and what she already knows, but most of all, she spends her time with the combat training equipment. Exercise, weights, axes, arrows--and even, though she spends some time staring at them with an inscrutable look in her eye, knives and swords. Work. Work. She goes through it with the methodical air of a woman who's been doing this for a very long time, even if she hasn't been in the arena for years.
But obsessive exercising can't take the edge of for her anymore. She's back in the tribute center, back where her life had been consistently destroyed year after year after year, back where she and Bucky and all of the tributes she had mentored before had scrambled to survive. She couldn't sleep here, and she had to force herself to eat. Not even destroying herself with exercise will remove the horror now fresh on her mind.
Eventually, she abandons the weights and weapons, instead approaching the nearest person. "Do you feel up for a spar?"
no subject
"You move faster in person than on a television screen. I suppose I only expected that." She pours out a cup of water for both of them before holding one out to him. Just because they're in different districts doesn't mean she can't be friendly, right? Not with this new arbitrary, deathless system. She'd normally be tempted to ask where he learned those moves, but from what she's gathered from arena footage, it wasn't anywhere good.
"I hope you understand that now I'll want to spar until I learn how to pin you." And that might not happen for a very long time, but she'd be okay with that. She is careful to phrase it as somewhat joking, somewhat serious, though, to give him a chance to politely decline any future sparring. She wouldn't want to come on too strong.
no subject
Bucky accepts the cup with a grateful nod and raises it to his mouth, subtly pausing to smell the water first, then tip it so the water runs over his tongue and back into the cup. Only when he's mulled over the taste and found nothing unusual in it does he truly take a drink. Normally he'd bring his own bottles bought from the outside but he doesn't want to around any suspicion from her by refusing to drink the water from the cooler.
"You're a good opponent." he replies after a moment, "I'm fine with that." he needs someone who can challenge him, it's the only way he has a chance of improving to the point of being able to help one of his friends win. One of his other friends, that is, now that Tony has won. "I don't see mentor's sparring, normally."
no subject
"Excellent. I look forward to our next match." Which may just happen to come after the water break, if he feels up to it. She should just leave him, thank him for the match and go, but she doesn't want to. Now that she's talking to him, it feels nice to be able to be with someone who looks and sounds so much like her Bucky.
"Usually, mentors don't. I'm not sure if I've ever seen one besides myself do it." She rests one hand on her hips as she drinks the water, her eyes flicking around at the training area. So many memories made here. None of them good. "I'm not sure what they expect victors these days to do, but during the classic games, we were expected to pick up a hobby after we won since we didn't have to work anymore. Camera crews would come into our homes to report on them and everything. Most people would do something crafty, but I found training to be more fulfilling. That ended up being my hobby." Training in everything. Basic strengthening and conditioning, martial arts, knives, and sometimes she'd charm a peacekeeper or two into letting her try out their gun at a state firing range. Anything to make her feel like she has the power to defend herself even if she doesn't.
no subject
In honesty, some of that is actually just the day to day care that people put into themselves but that he'd forgotten after years of ice and a prep team who took care of him. They strictly regulated his diet and health. His personal appearance had never been a concern either unless it was a necessity for a mission, something where he was required to pass within the public view without arousing suspicion.
"Practical." is what Bucky says when Carter finishes talking. It to his eyes a far more worthy endeavour than almost anything else. He can't help the way his face pulls in distaste at the idea of camera crews invading someone's home or quarters. Bucky felt uncomfortable enough with the idea they were watching even when he couldn't see them. Having a camera and crew in his face? That was a nightmare and a reason why his escort literally had to march him to any publicity event if they wanted him to attend.
"I haven't seen that here."
no subject
When he pulls a face, she has to cover her mouth to hide the amused smile and the soft laugh that escapes. It's an instinctive gesture, one that she had back in D10 and she still sometimes pulls when her laughter is genuine and not for the sake of cameras.
"Count yourself lucky. It was terrible." She shakes her head and waves a hand absently, as if gesturing to a non-existent camera crew. "At least once a year--far more often if your hobby was popular--a crew of stylists and cameras and interviewers would waltz into your home and start fixing everything up. They would move all the furniture around, change your lighting, make everything look the way they thought it should. And then the stylists would dress and groom you." She's smiling at the memory, but it's a rueful smile, the sort people have when they're recalling something truly and yet humorously awful.
"They wanted me film me sparring with makeup, styled hair, and whatever impractically tight-fitting clothing the stylist liked that month. Then they would cut the cameras and style me all over again for another take if I started to sweat. It took days for them to get all the footage they wanted that way. I'm lucky that the Capitol isn't very interested in fights that aren't to the death; lack of demand to see my hobby made the crews leave me alone. I'm not sure how much longer I could have gone before strangling a stylist."
no subject
Bucky isn't concerned that she might not want to admit that where Capitol ears could hear, it wouldn't change the fact that the citizens weren't interested in following her that way. No, the citizens had a new distraction now in the form of the off-world Tributes who almost never stayed dead.
He could almost feel a kinship with this woman; he thinks about strangling his stylists often. Actually, Bucky thinks about that and worse about many Capitolite staff and Peacekeepers. If he could he'd rip his way through the lot of them to get himself out of this enslavement.
no subject
Yes. Yes, it was a strategy. She could have kept the obsessive exercise a secret, but she hated the camera crews, so why not just declare it her hobby? There's nothing treasonous about saying she finds camera crews in her home to be uncomfortable.
(It would be best if Peggy didn't share the true extent of her fantasies about Capitolites. There is violence and rage that inspires a certain amount of creativity in them.)
"Luckily, I doubt you have to worry about it. Things like hobbies and victory tours were used as filler for Capitol television for Hunger Games enthusiasts, since we would only have one game that would last for a week or two every year. Now that they have the never-ending game, there's no need for filler."
no subject
Bucky's ended up somewhere between the vicious killer and the emotionally stunted, damaged prisoner in the eyes of his fans. He knows because his escort told him so and, on the couple occasions he actually looked at them instead of throwing them straight in the trash, his fanmail. The letters either contained encouragement for him to kill more or were filled with offers to take care of him that ranged from uncomfortable to completely bizarre. Needless to say they all went in the bin eventually no matter their content and he's never taken the time to respond to a single one.
He'd probably be quite on board with Peggy's violent fantasies.
"How long has the never-ending game been going on?" it occurs to him he's never asked that question before. Going from once a year to constant was a large change.
no subject
She finishes up her water and throws the cup in the trash before leaning against the cooler. "It was pretty surprising to everyone. Before, Quarter Quells were just made special by a change in how the tributes were chosen or the number there would be. Suddenly not only was there a change in where the tributes came from, but a change in the very structure of the game. But I suppose that it wouldn't be very cost-effective to pull an entirely new batch of tributes from different worlds every game." Thus why they were allowed to stay alive.
Does Peggy believe for a moment that this Quarter Quell was actually what was arranged by the creators of the game? Not at all. The Quarter Quell was arranged this way to respond to the rush of rebellious activity that came with the 74th Hunger Games' winners.
no subject
He's under no illusion, had it explained to him in fact, that the true motivation behind the Hunger Games is control and whatever brought about the significant change that Carter is describing is also about control. Three years though, that's a long time. Bucky himself has been a captive of the Capitol for ten months, almost a year. It feels longer sometimes, like the border between the Capitol and HYDRA was blurred, almost non-existent.
The sad thing is that, all things considers, his life is still better now than it was before.
"It seems better for the Districts." not having to sacrifice their own children year after year. No, now strangers who weren't allowed to truly die did the job for them.
no subject
District 4 is harder for her to pin down because their tributes weren't always careers, but 1 and 2 had probably had grumbling in their ranks. Not that she really has asked the people of the districts how they feel about it, or any of the career victors. There's generally a tangible divide between the career victors and everyone else.
no subject
He feels repulsed at the idea of children training to be in the arena, wanting to do this. They had died doing this, so many of them, believing it was the right thing to do. It's a disturbing thought.
no subject
There's a soft, nearly imperceptible lilt of bitterness there. The Capitol had always favored Districts 1, 2, and 4. They didn't have to starve and scrimp and bleed the way the outlying districts had to. They didn't have to send twelve-year-olds to the Games to die.
"But he would know its internal goings on better than I would. I'm afraid I haven't visited District 1 recently." Mostly because she can't, but regardless. She throws away her now empty cup, rolling her shoulders gently. "Do you feel up for another round at the mat, Mr. Barnes?"
no subject
It might be that Sergius had been lying, in an effort to play on his Tribute's sympathies and inspire them to try harder to win. Bucky wouldn't have been surprised to find that was the case, as a winner in a District brought fame to everyone involved. Capitol people seemed focused on what they could do for their reputations and ego's more than anything else.
Bucky finishes his water and follows suit. He rolls his metal shoulder, which is the one more liable to stiffen up where it turns to flesh these days. "You're on."