His offer shouldn't have taken her by surprise, but it did, at least enough for some of her muscles to remember function, and she turned her head to look at him. Tea. It was such a fumbling offer, as though he'd read it in a book or had Jarvis talk him through the finer points - this is what you suggest to a person in visible distress, this is how to calm a situation - and it made the gesture endearing. The same breed of endearing as it had been when he'd gifted her with the pornographic carving and that hideous orange necklace made from petrified wood. They tried, she and Tony both, didn't they? When they wanted to, they tried. They were the same in that way, people who were deeply uncomfortable with feelings and who struggled to articulate them at the times when the feelings were genuine. Who had decided a long time ago that they'd work with what they had and tended to get irritated when people pressed for more.
With Tony, it had always been enough for her to know when he was trying. The effort, not the execution, was what she had always given him credit for, whether it was terrible gifts instead of an outright apology or moments like now, when he was acknowledging that he understood he needed to do something, that he just couldn't quite get to what that ought to be. And to be perfectly fair, she had a long history of presenting herself as a person who required nothing from anyone.
It was a strange thing, to be staring down the end of your life and realize that might not have really been the truth. A long history of being whoever it was that someone else needed her to be, and sometimes it seemed like the only things about her that she knew to be true were the things that were ugly. There were a limited amount of days left; maybe right now, she needed something real.
A curly loop of her hair had fallen across her forehead when he'd gently removed the pins from one of the many headpieces; she pushed it back, smearing gold and purple and green into a vaguely shimmering streak down the side of her face. "You're right, we should talk," she said, though her heart was still hammering its anxious staccato beat that had started before the parade and hadn't yet let up. She'd intended to keep her own counsel on this one, but now - well, now she had to trust someone with it. She already knew what Clint would have done with this information, and Tony was - well. Maybe more objective on the subject. And more to the point, easier to trust, given that he wouldn't be in the arena.
"Stane showed up in District 7 two nights before the Reaping," she said, flatly. Better to get it all out at once. "We suspected this one was rigged, but he confirmed - you know how he is, you know how he talks, but it was very clear. He's picking the victor one way or another and he wants me guided into being one of the last two left standing."
She couldn't say the rest of it, the part that had left a sourness creeping up the back of her throat. She couldn't say that she had been sitting here in the dark and actually starting to contemplate it. It was evident enough.