Chapter Text
Bond circles the training floor, visiting stations as he passes, refreshing some skills he hasn’t used in a while. Fire-starting and foraging, mostly, though he briefly circles by the snare station.
He also speaks to some of the other Tributes, though it goes almost exactly as well as he imagined it would.
“You’re fucking with me,” Chaff snorts, looking him over, though his smile is kind and sad. “James, I don’t want to die in this fucking thing, I’ve been through too much for that. You and yours are radioactive.”
“I know,” Bond agrees mildly. “I wasn’t going to ask, or offer. I just - Ceecee. If you can.”
Clearly, Chaff didn’t expect that angle. He winces, unguarded. “If I can,” he agrees, flicking a glance towards the others - Regina, Sherlock, Mycroft, Johanna. “You’ve really fucked them off, haven’t you?”
Bond’s known him for years; he can hear something in the tone of it, ebbing under the surface. “Or the odds just weren’t in our favour,” he replies, noncommittally; five of them in the Games, all the obvious candidates bar Finnick and Killian. “I’ll leave you be. For what it’s worth: thanks. Been good knowing you over the years.”
“I’m sorry,” Chaff replies, holding all the weight it needs to. “Truly.”
It confirms, to Bond’s mind at least, something of a theory.
Snow has, as far as they know or can infer, a number of aims: Emma Swan’s death; the deaths of as many Holmeses as possible, including those that don’t share the surname; to see all those deaths - ideally - at the hands of other Victors, not from the Arena itself. Panem’s audiences won’t take well to a suggestion of targeted malice, in the current social climate.
That said, it presents the most interesting problem. All the other Victors have their own personal sets of loyalties and friendships, spanning Districts and decades, complicated with odd trauma-bonds or shared experience. Incentivizing them to kill one another isn’t a simple task, muddied by Emma being allied with the Holmeses.
There is nothing Snow could offer that would make Chaff target Emma Swan. He’s born and bred in District Eleven. A survivor, true, but he’s one of the hundreds of thousands of people hoping Emma Swan spells revolution; he won’t attack her.
Chaff would take out the Holmeses, though. If Snow gave him the right offer.
Bond gets the distinct impression an offer has long-since been made. In all likelihood, as early as the Parade, the moment all the Tributes were in place: there was never going to be a traditional Career pack, with Mycroft and Regina split off. There has to be an alternative set, a group capable of standing up to the Holmeses.
If Bond were in Snow’s position, it’s simple: set up Cashmere and Brutus to target Swan, and get every other serious contender - Chaff, Seeder, Blight, maybe Porter - targeting the Holmeses. A promise of better Gifts in the Arena, a better future if they manage to win, in exchange for forming a Career pack and taking out the right people along the way.
“James?” Regina asks, popping up at his side the instant he’s out of Chaff’s range. She’s following along after him like a shadow, reluctant to let him out of her sight. “Saw you talking - you okay?”
Bond gives her a look, wryly amused: they’re in a room half-filled, half emptied in painfully obvious ways. Ember, Luella and Axel - all Morphlings - haven’t bothered to show, nor have several of the older ones. Haymitch is probably busy upstairs, drinking himself into some state where any of this hurts less, which is both understandable and disappointing. Bond always thought he’d have more fight in him, when it came down to it.
The ones who have shown aren’t much better. Mags is cross-legged in the corner, making endless fishhooks; Jim’s perched up on a little ledge like a psychotic gremlin, which is par for the course; the few halfway-capable Tributes are proving their mettle, with whatever sharp objects they tend towards.
Beetee and Wiress are together. Bond can’t work out how to speak to them, especially Beetee. It reminds him too much of Q.
And finally: the people he loves. Filled with stories from a year that felt painfully long, time he’s missed - stories they can’t share now, but will one day have the chance to tell.
Regina looks at him, at Chaff. “I’m so sorry,” she says simply, knowing - without him needing to say a word - the parts that hurt deepest. “I won’t ask.”
A kindness Bond can’t overstate, pain Regina knows she can’t empathise with: she doesn’t like her District partner. Most of the others don’t. Even Johanna is, at best, ambivalent towards Blight.
Cecelia was never a fighter. Bond’s once-Mentor, a woman he’s always cared about, a mother of three: she’s not joining for training, spending her last days writing letters upon letters to her family. Ones to say goodbye, ones to open in years to come - when her children hit milestones, when they grow, as they grow. All the things she knows she won’t be alive to see.
That, in a floor riddled with half-remembered children Bond has never managed to keep alive. Thirteen Games spent Mentoring, but Bond has never once brought home a Victor.
It’s probably better that way.
“Poisons?” Bond suggests, nodding towards the table.
Regina agrees, a half-step behind him all the way.
-
Emma bites her nails, knees tucked up to her chest, watching the other Victor-Tributes training.
She is so screwed. So, so, so screwed.
At least she’ll probably die fast. Every single person in the room can clearly kill people. Easily. So easily Emma is going to have nightmares about it, at least in the days she has left to have nightmares, looking at people she’ll be trapped in an Arena with who can use weapons in ways that make last year’s Careers look like idiots, even the ones who aren’t even using the weapons but are busy at the survival stations.
Emma knows she should probably do the survival-stuff too, but she’s a little busy with the realisation that she is so screwed.
“... oh, for goodness’ sake,” Mycroft snaps suddenly, rounding on his brother, who’s been bugging him for the last forty-five minutes. “Fine. Fine. This once, then you will desist for the duration of the week, is that entirely understood?”
Sherlock lets out a hiss of triumph. Johanna Mason - who’s been wrestling - looks over in delight. “They’re doing it,” she yells over to Regina and Bond, who’ve been huddled at the poison station for a while; other Tributes pause, confused, while Mycroft and Sherlock set to bickering with several attendants.
“I’m hardly going to allow actual harm,” Mycroft points out to one of the attendants, “however, insofar as this skill set, I imagine myself and my brother exceed the bounds of your experience - kindly allow us to practice? If you wish us to wear protective equipment, I’m quite sure that is a viable compromise.”
Emma watches blankly, in disbelief, as they get dressed in padded stuff, holding thin little swords. Johanna and Bond and Regina all club together to watch, a load of the others also moving closer, curious.
“Regina…”
“Of course I’m refereeing,” she tuts, eyes bright with enthusiasm, before Mycroft can get a word out; he looks very, very martyred. “Stop whining. Now, both of you, standing back - and, when you’re ready…”
They stand, swords at the ready. Sherlock’s grin is all teeth; Mycroft’s got no expression at all, settling his weight back.
The sudden flurry of movement takes Emma by surprise - it’s so fast. Sherlock moves like quicksilver, darting around like he’s given up on having normal limbs that move in normal ways; Mycroft is relaxed everywhere but his eyes, parrying like he’s bored - like he can predict Sherlock’s movements before they happen.
Emma did some of this sort of thing with Ruby, back in Ten. Fighting with swords, attacks and parries and deflections and all those things, fancy words to explain things that Mycroft and Sherlock can clearly do in their sleep, like the swords are just parts of their bodies, effortless.
Yeah. She’s so screwed.
“A hit,” Regina calls, grinning - the pair step back on her order. They’re barely out of breath. “One to Mycroft. Ready?”
Sherlock laughs like he’s having the time of his life, a sound so musical it distracts Mycroft for a half-second as he veers back in, their swords clashing brightly.
“... one all,” Regina calls; Sherlock crows with satisfaction, Johanna egging him on from the sidelines. “Both of you, behave - boys, let’s go again…”
They’re a family. They can fight really well and they’re a family and there’s only one winner.
“Hullo,” a voice murmurs from behind her; Emma tenses. “Relax, darlin’. I’m not one you need to watch out for. Not now, anyway. Maybe not at all. Haven’t decided yet, y’see.”
Emma looks at Jim Moriarty, who watches the Holmes brothers, something hungry in his expression. “I don’t want to ally with you,” she reminds him quickly, before he can get any ideas.
Jim snorts, loud and unpleasant. “Didn’t ask y’to,” he points out, sitting next to her. “Nah. Allies and that, not my scene. I never had many friends, never got the knack of it. I had my Sebby, ‘course, but I’m not… I’m not like them, not really. Never was, never will be. Are you?”
The last, he says with a sharp look at her. “... I don’t think so?” Emma replies, trying to make any of this make sense. “Maybe?”
“I think y’are,” he shrugs, tilting his head to the side, his accent somehow really unnerving; like it can ebb into her bones, steal away her thoughts. “Upstairs, downstairs. I never fit, Emma. You know?”
Regina and Mycroft and the others, they all call her ‘Miss Swan’, and she hates it - right up until this moment, when she really wishes Jim Moriarty wouldn’t say her name, and make it sound like something edible.
“I never fit either,” Emma tells him uncomfortably.
Jim hums something, a snatch of a melody Emma doesn’t recognise. “We all die alone,” he murmurs, watching the Holmes brothers fight, a horrible longing in how his body bends in towards them. “Doesn’t mean we have to die lonely.”
Sherlock and Johanna laugh in layering unison, Regina’s teeth sharp in her smile, Bond’s eyes warm with amusement; Regina catches her looking, lighting up with a smile, like she’s genuinely pleased to see Emma there.
“A hit,” Jim murmurs absently, about a second before Mycroft taps Sherlock’s side. Emma’s eyes widen, looking at him sharply; Jim just gives a lazy smile, which is maybe the creepiest thing Emma’s ever seen in her life. “Be seein’ you, Emma Swan.”
Jim ambles away.
He has a point. He’s creepy as anything, but he has a point: they want her as an ally, Regina’s been calling her for months - they’re friends, and all the rest aside, Ruby told her she had to make friends.
Emma is going to die - but she doesn’t have to die lonely.
“Hi,” she announces, when they stop for lunch. “So, I’m - hi.”
It isn’t fair. Regina looks so happy to see her, for no good reason. Emma’s been ignoring her all damn morning. “Don’t let the idiots scare you,” she comments, probably because Emma can’t stop looking at Mycroft and Sherlock. “They seem scarier than they actually are, I swear.”
Emma spears a piece of chicken. “Um - so if you want to, you know. Ally,” she manages eventually. “How’s that going to, you know. Work?”
Regina looks at her. Emma thinks she’s amused, but it’s hard to tell. “We try to keep you alive, you try to keep us alive,” she replies drily. “The rest, we’ll figure out on the way. Sound like a plan?”
“Not really?”
“Fair enough - Mycroft’s the one you want for plans,” Regina admits, “but if you’re in, we can think about strategy properly. Get a plan in place, decide how we want this to play out; I told you, it’s your call. So: how about it, Miss Swan? Allies?”
Regina’s voice is the only thing in the whole goddamn building that Emma knows how to trust - so she looks at her plate, not at Regina Mills-Holmes-Victor-person, and lets out a breath through her cheeks. “I… you know I’m not, like them? I can’t fight like that, I’m not a fighter-person, or a… strategy person, I don’t…”
“Emma, breathe,” Regina reminds her, just like their phone calls: she tells Emma to breathe, and she can suddenly remember how. “Okay. Look - how about we take some time today, hmm? Get to know each other. I know Mycroft’s hard to get a read on.”
Emma’s giggle is small and unsure. “You think?” she returns, trying to remind herself - again and again - that Mycroft’s a rebel. He isn’t Snow’s. “I… yeah, okay. Okay. Let’s, do that. What you said. Just, promise me your husband won’t kill us all in our sleep?”
“Of course not,” Regina tuts, smiling without looking at her, snipping the tip of a vegetable off with her front teeth. “Mycroft would do it while you were wide awake, if that was what he wanted to do - but he doesn’t.”
Emma snorts, and finally, Regina looks at her properly. Amused and detached and warm and complicated.
“Welcome,” Regina smiles, her voice wrapping around Emma, certain and definite and competent. A single person who might actually know what to do, how to make this make sense.
Emma knows she does better alone, always has, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be.
Allies. “I don’t want to let you down,” Emma manages suddenly, seeing Peeta and Prim and Rue; the last allies she had, people she couldn’t save, even though she tried so hard. “I want to. Ally, I mean, but I - I’m not like you, and I don’t want to let you down…”
Regina takes her hand. Emma’s so startled by it that she stops talking. “I know,” Regina tells her quietly, sincerely. “And we don’t want to let you down, either. Sure, it’s complicated - all we can do is try, okay? Maybe you can’t fence - you can sure as hell hunt, which we all suck at. We’re a good set of fighters, sure, but we need you too.”
Emma stares at her stupidly. Regina’s hand is warm, surprisingly soft. “What’s… what’s fence?” she asks tentatively.
“Fencing,” Regina explains, smiling - but not laughing at her, even though Emma’s already flushing. “Sword fighting, what the two of them were doing. That style, it’s called fencing. Useless damn skill, to be honest, but looks showy. District One all over - they talk big, sure, but…”
Regina tells her all about fencing.
Emma decides to trust the only person in the room who hasn’t scared her yet.
-
The afternoon descends into what is, effectively, an exercise in trying to get the least-trustful and most-emotionally-incoherent teenager Regina has ever encountered in her entire life - a list which very much includes Sherlock, Johanna and Mycroft fucking Holmes himself as excellent comparative examples - into a position where she won’t freak out and do a runner the second the klaxon sounds.
Regina can’t help but be fond. Emma Swan is a girl of two extremes - either she’s giving rebel salutes and angry speeches while wearing a dress that would give most sane people nightmares, or she’s standing around looking overwhelmed by more or less everything, mumbling circular arguments on repeat with no real filter.
It’s frustrating, sure - but it’s honest. Regina has spent enough time with people who hide what they’re feeling or thinking, good or bad: Emma is exactly what she says on the tin. There’s something lovely about it.
“Mycroft - Emma’s considering allying,” Regina explains directly, leading Emma straight up to join him; he skipped lunch - something she intends to yell about later - and is, instead, hovering around the snares. “I suggested it might be best for us to get to know each other, before we go any further.”
It’s only in the reflection of Emma’s eyes that Regina remembers exactly how Mycroft looks, to people who don’t know him - most notably, the fact that his face almost never shifts out of a fixed mask, arrogantly dismissive as a type of default expression.
Regina’s used to seeing beneath, or ignoring it; Emma, on the other hand, is not.
“Entirely reasonable,” Mycroft nods, voice completely detached. “With due awareness of your hesitation, would you be averse to strategising somewhat?”
Emma just stares, unimpressed. “A-what?” she asks bluntly.
“Apologies,” Mycroft sighs immediately, holding all the weary chagrin of somebody who has grown over-reliant on people translating on his behalf. “Let me rephrase: I wondered if you may like to consider strategy. As you have no doubt ascertained - seen - we all have specialisms, insofar as skillsets; yours being, I imagine, both your strength and swordsmanship?”
“I don’t trust you,” Emma tells him. It isn’t even hostile - just direct. “I’m not… I mean. You’re swords too, I guess?”
“I am passable with most Arena weaponry, though specialised in rapier and dagger; I tend towards medium-range combat rather than direct where possible,” he explains, meeting her honesty face-on with his own. Regina smiles to herself. “My notable deficits are in long-range weaponry; I also would not tend towards archery unless pressed.”
Emma’s confusion is visible: Mycroft used a crossbow the last time, it’s one of the most famous images from his Games - Mycroft Holmes, fourteen years old, crossbow in hand and lips stained with blood.
It is also exactly why Mycroft would prefer to avoid archery if he can. The Tribute he’d shot with a crossbow took a long while to die. Regina knows the shape of Mycroft’s nightmares better than most could hope to.
“But…”
“Regina is by far superior with a bow and arrow,” Mycroft interrupts calmly; Emma’s eyes narrow, but she thankfully doesn’t press the point. “I have also seen her wield a mace with alarming precision.”
“One time,” Regina retorts, seeing the dancing humour in Mycroft’s eyes, “don’t listen to him, Emma - I was always small, ranged was my specialism, though they taught us a lot of good tricks back home for hand-to-hand. You know I used a flamethrower, once? Those were the days…”
Maybe that was a step too far; Emma’s looking terrified again, beneath the inch-thick layer of unfiltered suspicion. “I’m a target,” she tells them. “I mean - we all know that, right? I’m, it was always going to be in the Arena, so like… you’ve got people you want to keep alive. If I’m a target…”
Oh bless her heart, she thinks she’s Snow’s biggest target - it takes everything in Regina’s body and soul not to cackle like a hyena.
“Your consideration is appreciated,” Mycroft nods, his own smirk curling faintly in the corners. “That said - both for the avoidance of doubt, and for your awareness - you are most certainly not the only target of significance.”
Regina looks at him, raising an eyebrow. “Should we be saying that out loud?”
“I hardly see that it matters, at this stage,” Mycroft replies lightly, while Emma looks between them, stunned. “Miss Swan is more than intelligent enough to have noted the pointed Reaping of almost everybody I care for; hence my reassurance - you needn’t be concerned that allyship would compromise our life expectancies any more than they have already been compromised.”
“... because you resigned a few years ago,” Emma fills in, though her eyes are tight with suspicion; she’s clever, Regina realises - putting things together, piece by piece.
Mycroft dips his head in a dignified nod. “I think it reasonable to state that President Snow remains unamused by my withdrawal from his government,” he says airily; Regina loses the battle, snorting with laughter. “Regina, dear, behave.”
“Dare I ask?” Sherlock comments, while Regina’s still giggling. “You sound like you’re choking. Stop it.”
“A pleasure to see you as always,” Mycroft sighs, ever so slightly melodramatic. “Sherlock, Miss Swan is considering allying with ourselves - kindly attempt to behave like a grown up, if you would be so kind.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes petulantly, looking over Emma. “Spar?” he offers. “Padded, obviously. We don’t want to kill each other too early.”
“Sherlock.”
“Fine, fine: Emma Swan, would you be so very kind as to not dismember me or my idiot family the moment we enter an Arena - which you won’t, you’re not the type - and whilst we’re all here with some time available waiting for you to inevitably decide you’d prefer to stay around people who are both competent and tiringly good people, for the most part, perhaps you might be interested in learning some skills beyond ‘throwing things and hoping they hit’. Yes?”
Emma only gapes for a half-second. “You’re an asshole,” she states, decisively and accurately.
Sherlock smirks. “They’re the ‘tiringly good people’,” he agrees. “I’m the bitter, vile addition they entertain for dramatic effect. Jo, too. Be grateful we don’t have Finnick available, he’s so ‘good’ it’s nauseating - I suppose you’ll do passably as his replacement. Have you attempted tridents before? Come along.”
It takes a solid second or three for Emma to sift through Sherlock’s customary nonsense enough to figure out she’s just been given a backhanded compliment, at least of a sort, though it’s hard to tell for anybody who isn’t used to Sherlock. “You know what? Fine,” she huffs. “Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
“I doubt it,” Sherlock shrugs loftily, but his smile is one of his gentler variants. “Few things surprise me. Mycroft’s even worse for it. Jo, I’ve picked up the stray - we’re going sparring.”
“I’m busy,” Johanna hollers back, stripped down to her underwear and midway through being thoroughly floored by one of the trainers.
Emma tightens her jaw, looking over at Johanna. “I’m not getting naked.”
“Pity,” Sherlock retorts blandly. “Not obligatory, despite appearances - Jo, kindly put some clothes on, then join us?”
“In a goddamn minute, Holmes.”
Sherlock smiles, sauntering off into the distance - Emma gapes at him, fired up with indignation, but nonetheless stalks off after him.
“Isn’t it marvellous when the children get along so nicely,” Mycroft muses aloud - which kills off the very last bits of Regina’s self-control, laughter overspilling everywhere.
Regina knows she shouldn’t find any of this funny. They’re in the Quarter Quell, going into an Arena designed to kill them, Gamemakers watching from the gallery - including Plutarch, the asshole - and all she can find to do is laugh, like any of this is somehow normal or acceptable.
Mycroft’s smile curls with affection; with love. “Perhaps we might explore foraging in somewhat more detail?” he suggests. “Miss Swan’s skills notwithstanding, I would prefer that we had some ability to survive on our own merits.”
“Hell will freeze over before you willingly cover yourself in mud and wait for a bunny rabbit,” Regina teases, laughter still light on her lips. “Though I’d pay good money to see it, all the same…”
“I think we’ll leave that to Miss Swan,” Mycroft agrees, curling his lip in the slightest hint of distaste, teasing her with it; he raises her hand to his lips, pressing a dry kiss to the back of it. “Excellent work, I might add.”
Regina shrugs, warm in the light of Mycroft’s compliments, rare and precious as they are. “I try,” she agrees, his hand remaining in her own, equal and opposite.
They approach the foraging station side by side, perfectly in-tune, as they always are.