Thinking about this au today and how I’d make it JaySteph lol.
Willis dies in the mines, and Catherine of illness leaving Jason on his own having to fend for himself
Crystal was once from the merchant class and kinda like Katnisse’s mom works as a healer in an apothecary she has inside their house. When Steph was little Arthur left and never came back.
Jason stumbles into the apothecary one rainy day and Crystal takes pity on the young sick clearly homeless kid and offers him a place to sleep. Jason and Steph become fast friends and while Steph is in school he goes hunting anything he can to take back to the Browns as a way of helping, and after he’s reaping age he puts his name more times to get tesserae to there with them.
Jason gets reaped at 13 the year of Steph’s first reaping (I’d make them be 1 year apart instead of 2 here) (I also have this comic idea of a conversation they’d have the night before of Steph admitting to him she’s scared bc what if they pick her and Jason trying to reassure her about how he’s gone through this one and nothing happened so it’ll be ok) Safe to say Stephanie and Crystal are devastated by this and are the ones to go say goodbye to him.
Bc there’s no other district 12 victors alive Dick ends up being Jason’s mentor and bc he takes a liking to him, he gives him a Robin pin that was his and said brought him luck on his games. He wins the games by keeping hidden and not killing a tribute until the very end when he ends up pushing a career that was coming after him of a ravine (I think his games would be in some sort of woods that) Bruce ends up taking him in and adopting him afterwards but Jason sometimes sneaks to d12 to go see Stephanie and Crystal (I think he’d convince them to move in to the house he’d be given in the victors village)
Two years later he’d have his fight with Bruce, get a message from a woman claiming to be his birth mother who is in need of help in the outskirts of d12, and the night before the reaping he goes see Steph he’d give her the Robin pin, a kiss and leave promising to be back in a few days (I think they’d be crushing on each other since before he gets reaped but never did anything abt it)
Stephanie gets reaped the next day at 14, and after her name gets called the capitol announces that there’s been a rebel disturbance that has been successfully stopped by the peace keepers and that between the rebel deaths was d12 victor Jason Todd. (There will be angst in this au)
Steph says goodbye to her mom and keeps the Robin pin Jason gave her the night before with her, on the train she meets Dick who stepped in as mentor and instantly recognizes the pin and her as the friend from home Jason would not stop taking about. She wins the games by very loudly refusing to kill anyone after her d12 tribute (dean for fun) literally stabs her in the back and in self defense she ends up pushing him into a poisoned lake. She wins over sponsors by speaking to cameras and surviving by the skin of her teeth when the game makers throw mutts to attack all the tributes and she’s the only one left afterwards (also dick on the outside helps a lot)
Bc Dick and by extension Bruce help her a lot the capitol who hates them considers this punishable (Also I think she’d have a lot of anger about everything that had happened to her in very few days and when speaking to cameras she’d be very taunting towards the capitol not genuinely expecting to get out of all this) and when she gets back to d12 she’d discover that her mothers apothecary burned with her inside. As his late son’s friend Bruce would take her in, in the sense of letting her stay with him and the rest but NOT adopting, she’d make friends with Tim and Cass and also find Barbara.
And 5 years lates with the whole 75th games thing. I think they all be having dinner together when the capitol announces that for this quarter quell the tributes will be chosen among the previous victors
She’d go back to d12 the next day, get on the stage for the reaping as the only female victor and be absolutely devastated and confused to hear the name Jason Todd be called out as a tribute and see a tall man with a prosthetic leg and a familiar face be escorted to the stage handcuffed by peace keepers.
