they keep calling out

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Who| Sam Wilson and YOU
What| adjusting to the detainment center after being shot down by the Capitol
Where| the detainment center
When| after the power chip liberation mission
Warnings/Notes| talk of death, torture, violence; will update as needed


It could be worse.

Sam doesn’t exactly want to think on the specifics of how it could be worse right now, but he keeps reminding himself of that anyway. He’s still alive, and as long as he’s still going, he’s got hope.

He keeps reminding himself of that even when it becomes obvious that Jet isn’t with him. That Sam didn’t just save Jet’s life only for both of them to get shot down and captured by the Capitol - he saved it only for them to get shot down and separated, and Jet’s being held somewhere else. Somewhere terrible, if the threats they make and the tapes they show him are true - Sam isn’t convinced they are, but there’s always a chance.

And Sam knows - he knows - that it’s not because of him, that he’s not important enough for this, that wherever they’ve got Jet it’s for reasons beyond him and they’re only using it to get to him, he knows their bullshit enough to know that it wouldn’t matter whether he was here or not and that doing what they say isn’t going to win Jet his freedom.

But the part of him that’d do anything to keep his brother safe is a little easier to convince.

When they let him out, to mingle with the other Tributes turned Capitol soldiers, he tries not to let it replay in his mind. Instead he focuses on trying to find a couple of familiar faces, ones he hasn’t seen in too long - at least not without being in the middle of a battlefield.

He’s not exactly too careful about who he might be bumping into as he hunts.

Comments

[sizeofyourbaggage]

"Kinda thought that ended with the games. Guess we were wrong."

He doesn't know what to think of that, that whatever revival mechanism the Capitol's got - whatever it was that those scientists in District Three were working on - it extends even outside the arena. If you die outside of the arena you go back home, that's what most of them had believed. He'd convinced himself that Steve and Nat and Tony were back home, pissed off at not being able to see this war through if they remembered, being their Avengery selves if they didn't. He doesn't know what it means now.

But he can't focus on that now; he's got enough troubles as it is.

"Sure you are. We're all here for fun and games, that's what the Capitol calls war."

[earthborn]

Somehow, that catches her sideways, flat-footed, like getting kicked in the knee. For a second, right before the pain, you think you can take it, you think you're fine, and then that horrible wet snap, the sickening loss of balance, and trying to compensate with lifelong muscle memory only brings more hurt. It's not a joke, but she can't help the surprised laughter.

It was all one war, to her. Eden Prime straight on through, all one big conflict-- cut into chunks sometimes, sure, but this was just another two year detour along the road, in her mind. Suddenly, she sees it from another angle, from Sam's, and suddenly it is hilarious that this is indeed what the Capitol calls 'war'.

Fun and games.

Soldiers who can't die.

Monsters that look like people, and people that act like monsters.

...That are monsters.

The laughter takes on an edge of hysteria before she can drag in the long breath and shut it down. Shepard has to stop, look away and breathe for a moment. Has to force down the memories, red-brown heaps of half-processed remains on slick, almost chitinous surfaces, skin scoured away, muscle thrown in sharp relief, tendon, white bone. The press of the operating table against her back, cold and somehow clammy. The mess hall smells like new linoleum and bad food, body odor, processed air not processed people. Give her a minute here, Sam.

"Sorry, I-- Shit. Shit, I actually miss the Reapers. That's pretty fucked up, isn't it?" Shepard shakes her head, still halfway to bemused, then glances back at him, "Nevermind, I guess I never... don't worry about it. Damn. There might be a point, there."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It's not the first time that Sam's seen that moment, when everything drops out from under you as something that should be a mild comment, a half joke, a barbed exchange of banter, hits a lot closer than you thought. Hell, he's been on both sides of it.

The laughter's not exactly a surprise, and it pulls a laugh out of him in response. It's not exactly funny - all right, it's a little funny - but if nothing else it's a release of pent up tension.

When her laughter starts getting a little hysterical, he shifts, just enough that their shoulders are just barely touching. But he doesn't say anything, giving her a moment to breath and get herself back under control.

"Nah. They're terrible, but they're a terrible you're used to. I miss Hydra, fucked up as that is," he offers. "They're... pretty close to the Capitol, actually, but at least they were the Capitol before it took power." He shoots a small, mostly humorless smile at her. "Yeah. Sometimes I have those."

[earthborn]

"It's the end of the human race, Sam," That slips out, incredulous at her own idiocy. For all she hated the Capitol, for all the mistrust District Thirteen and their rebellion inspired...for all this suffering, it's just human suffering. No matter who wins, or loses, there's going to be a tomorrow.

And here she was, halfway nostalgic about being exterminated.

"I spent some time comparing notes with Rogers, you know. We've both got our fascists, but the Reapers..." She trailed off, trying to find the words, laughter all dried up, but the shaking hysteria still crawling up her back, "Take Hydra, Cerberus, whatever, they're people. They might hate you, for whatever reason, but it's like this. The Reapers don't even hate us. They farm us. Cook us alive down to component parts and build weapons out of us, I've seen it. I've watched it happen. Earth is enemy territory, now."

She was looking at the door as she spoke, across from where they were seated. The security camera was a dark eye, there, and the peacekeeper guard a baleful presence. It was a comforting hostility, not straightforward, no, but understandable. The Capitol might do terrible things, callously, and for its own ends, but no matter how often they dug their fingers into flesh and brain-matter, they couldn't become more than merely human.

"And, every battle, it's some ugly new machine, and then it twitches wrong and you realize that they're still alive in there."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

There's a quiet pang of loss when she says Steve's name, but though he sits with it for a moment before he lets it go, he doesn't let it interfere with listening to her.

Before he became an Avenger, before he was brought here, there might be more of a sense of horror at what she's saying. And there still is, because it's pretty damn terrible, it's just - maybe it's that he isn't surprised. After Loki and the Chitauri, after Ultron, after Initiate and Terezi and Albert and Jet... no, it doesn't surprise him.

He watches her out of the corner of his eye instead, the way she emphasizes certain words, the way she grounds herself in right now, the way the edge of hysteria still seems like it's creeping in, barely held at bay. This isn't the first time he's say on the floor with a soldier like this.

"Still a terrible that you're used to. I'm sure as hell not saying we should trade the Capitol for the Reapers, but." He shrugs one shoulder, the one not leaning against hers. "Shit like that, it becomes your new normal, and sometimes you don't know what to do when it's gone. Sometimes you miss it."

There's a moment of silence, then he asks, "How long you been fighting them before you came here?"

[earthborn]

"Invasion proper, that's only been a year," She said it offhand, as if it had been anything less than absolute hell, "But before that, they had their slimy fingers in our places..."

She stops, thinks a moment, tries to remember. Back home she could simply look up the date, ask EDI, ask anyone. They knew. Two years, twelve days, missing time. Missing life. When was the first time she saw a Husk, saw the awful black bulk of Soveriegn rising like an impossible insect over Eden Prime?

"Five years, I think, all told," Then she looks at him, and sees it, all empathy and gentle eyes, and her expression closes off hardens itself into an unbreachable bulwark. Never again, "I'm fine. A lot of people have it worse; at least I got to do something about it."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It's not all that surprising, when she shuts down and pulls away from him - at least emotionally - like that. He doesn't pull back, but he doesn't try to bring her back in, either.

Instead, he quirks a smile, dry and humorless. His tone matches it, something not quite irreverant, a little bit at odds with the way his eyes stay warm.

"And here I thought you were gonna play war story olympics with me." Which he guesses she still kind of is, just in the opposite way. "You know, I always wondered - who decides what worse is? We got a judge somewhere looking over everyone's worlds and ranking them?"

He runs a hand over his jaw. "War is war. There's nothing pretty there. And yet here we are fighting, because there's not really anyone else and even if there was, none of us know how to sit our asses down and let someone else handle it."

[earthborn]

"Tell you a secret," She's back to pretending to be companionable, though the smirk treats her eyes like a five-mile no-man's zone, "I always win that game. And I know why I'm fighting."

She wasn't fighting because there wasn't anyone else. Of course there was someone else. There were hundreds of someones, both here in Panem, and back home. Some of them were even on her crew, people she trusted to take up the mission, to keep fighting the good fight after she was gone. People here, to fight their own damn war.

She was here, the Capitol would hear, because she knew a winner when she saw one. Because she was a good little drone who knew which side of the bread was buttered-- this side. The Capitol side.

But maybe Sam, and anyone with sense would remember; Shepard knew, she was here for one reason only, and that was because way back, some pissant in a white lab coat had decided it might be fun to own her like a pet. The only reason Shepard or anyone else not born here was here was because they were brought here, and kept here, because they were interesting. Entertaining to kill, to study, maybe.

Right and wrong had nothing to do with it. And neither did war, really. This was about treating people, like things. That's where it started.

"Nice seeing you again, Sam. Stay out of trouble, will you?" She levered herself against the wall and stepped off towards the narrow little rat-hall towards the cells they called bunks, "...If you can."