There was no real counterargument to that, because Tony had called it exactly as it was. The same. Marginally worse, in some ways, it would be unequivocally worse to live through, because it would be people she knew, a handful of whom she actually cared about. The rest, even if they weren't close, were still not people whose deaths she had any desire to witness, not in general or the up-close look that she was going to get either way. It was years on and she still had nightmares about her own Games, sleepless nights and drenched sheets, it still wasn't over, it had never really let her go, and if it was still like that after those Games, she was clever enough to know what it would be like to live through these, these deeply personal ones. They would never let her go. Never.
That knowledge, though, would be a problem for Future Natasha to live with, and it did nothing to sway the panicked, rabbity heart of Present Natasha, who was desperate for a way out of this, any way out. Stane had appealed to that desperation just as much as he'd appealed to her pragmatism. It was the whole point of choosing her as one of the Tributes this time around; Stane did not leave a margin of error. He had chosen her because he believed she would put her own self-preservation above everything else. Friendship. Love.
She'd told Clint once that she thought Stane knew her better than he did. She hadn't really expected Stane to hand her concrete proof of that.
"He laid it on very thick," she said. "Charming speech, lots of complimentary adjectives about the quality of my character. We could go home, and he would - he said they'd leave me alone, this time. As his personal thank you." The only thing she had ever wanted practically since it had begun, and he'd offered it as though it was nothing, a wave of his hand. She didn't know if she was stupid enough to believe words like freedom when they'd fallen from Stane's mouth. She knew there was no such thing, but the idea of it, walking out the other side into what she had thought a Victor's life would be when she'd been a child -
All of this was more a guarantee than the hope of District Thirteen had ever been. It was the devil she knew. And there was always something to be said for the enemy you understood. She had never been in this for a revolution. She had always been in this for the hope of saving her own ass and maybe the few people she cared about, but if it came down to the wire...
She stretched out a paint-stained hand to settle it on the back of Tony's neck, his body bowed and forehead in his hands. She'd brought him into this, by telling him. It would be on his shoulders now, too, just one more selfish thing she'd done. "I could have tried to use it to bargain," she said, her voice rough, hoarse. "That's all I could think, after he left. I could have said I'd do it if he'd pick someone else from Eleven, if he'd take Clint out of the lineup. That's what Clint would have done if Stane had gone to him. Or - Cassie, or Scott, I could have gotten us some kind of leverage to make it easier for Thirteen. I could have done anything but sit there and try to weigh out if it was worth it."