"Oh, come on," Tony burst out, letting his hands fall forward a bit - a rough, pleading gesture - without raising his head. The cool of her hand on his neck was nice. He was loath to dislodge it. But he could still turn his head and peer up at her, his brow furrowed in impatience. "You could have used it to bargain for Clint's life, and he would have walked right out the door knowing he picked the wrong winner. You're damn right that's what Clint would have done. That's why he didn't bother going to talk to Clint." He couldn't have said why her self-reproach set off so much ardent resistance in him; the easy answer was probably that the flaws she was naming in herself were all his, too, and he didn't much like to hear them called out for what they were. But it wasn't like he was wrong, either, was it? Why did these have to be flaws? Couldn't they just be tools? They'd kept him alive for decades - and other people, too, damnit. Why should he be sorry? "You did the right thing. You kept your mouth shut and you let him think he had your number - whether he did or not, who fucking cares, it doesn't matter. Now we have another card to play. We need as many as we can get."
He straightened, rolling his shoulders, shifting on the bed to turn, to open himself to her. It was harder, in the dark, to read her face, but somehow it felt more genuine to him to sit here with the lights off - as though they could finally, really talk, their colorful outer layers drained and all but neutralized. The paint along her arms just looked black, like rot, like dying veins.
"It's an option," he said, softer. He reached across her to curl his hand behind her elbow, his thumb resting in the soft crook of her arm. "One way or another - we can use it. We have some other options, but we need to take a look at all of them. For the rescue, Thirteen has some - parameters. Conditions, more like. There's a couple hiccups with that plan that we need to talk about. But, look, once it's all on the table, maybe we pick one - or maybe we can play both sides for a little while. I know we can," he amended, a few maneuvers already sketching themselves out in his mind. If the Gamemakers had instructions to favor her, she would become an invaluable weapon against anyone they needed to remove; she would only have to find way to force a head-to-head conflict, and ... But that was for later. "But what this means, now, is that whatever happens - you're getting out."
And that was important to him. It was a simple fact that had taken him too long to realize, had required two or three major blows to his sense of security even to begin to settle into place; it was something he hadn't seen for what it was even when he'd been burning with it, when the thought of her battered had made him idiotic, when the idea that she might stumble and fall on his political machinations had made him selfishly, stupidly reckless. She had always been the one who needed the least from him. It made perfect sense, given who he was, that, in the end, he should wind up wanting to hand her the most. "I didn't pick you because we look fabulous together on camera," he said, perfectly even, quiet - far more self-possessed than he felt. There was always, always this massive canyon between what he was saying and what he meant, and he had never figured out how to cross it. It made him feel like there was an empty echo around all his words, like they landed in space with no one to catch them. Like he couldn't shout loud enough to get them to the other side. "Whatever happens, whatever we pick - you know there's no promises. But down to the last thing I can do about it - you're getting out. So don't -" He swallowed, a little thwarted, his mouth pulling to the side in discomfort as he looked down at the streak of darkness on her arm, rubbing pointlessly at it with his thumb and succeeding in nothing but spreading it further. "So let's not treat that card like it's a fucking deuce, huh?" Let's not talk about it like it's something you can just bargain away.