The drone of Stane's voice didn't stop. What stopped was Tony's voice, irreverence quieted by a buildup that Jarvis didn't want to hear. He'd never participated in the Games, obviously. It hadn't even been a risk for him, being born and raised in the Capitol, well removed from seeing the Games as a threat. They were a spectacle. Entertainment. A privilege to be associated with in any way, from participant to organizer and all the people between, from the stylist whose only job was to worry about buffing nails to the greatest Gamemakers. His father had aspired to be one of the latter, and his mother had been the former, and they'd both died because of it, caught up in a risk that no one had seen coming until it was too late.
Jarvis felt like that again now, like he'd missed seeing the jaws around him until teeth snapped shut and left him bleeding. Existing pool of Victors. That was what he'd said, and Jarvis tried to make sense of the words, but there was no ready comprehension on his face. He was actually looking at the screen now, or at least his eyes were fixed in that direction, but he wasn't tracking the envelope and box as both were whisked away.
Existing. Victors. Which meant Tony. Tony, whose health was precarious on a good day. Who hadn't seen physical exertion outside of some fairly acrobatic bedroom activities in years. Who had volunteered for a district that hadn't produced enough Victors to make the odds even remotely comfortable, assuming this wasn't all rigged to eliminate Rogers and anyone who looked sympathetic to him.
Tony, who would die and leave Jarvis alone, likely to follow within a handful of days. At best.
Swallowing, he jerked forward, snatching at the remote dangling from Tony's hand so he could turn off the television far too late to avoid hearing a shared death sentence. "No."
Only the one word. It was no less useless than anything else he might've said.