[Markus isn't trying to turn this into an interrogation, but defensiveness might not be something surprising after all is said and done. A hand comes up to rub at his eyes, briefly.]
I'm asking because I want to know what happened. I was uncomfortable trying to put pieces of the story together from hearsay alone.
[That being said-]
And I was worried, getting Stephen's message out of the blue. And I guess I still am. Are you comfortable with talking about it?
[ is she comfortable? she's not sure. whether markus means to be or not, he functions effectively as a member of council for the displaced, someone that a great number of people respect and rely upon for level-headed advice and leadership.
if he's asking to understand for himself, that's one thing. but asking to understand to then apply that knowledge to the wellbeing of the collective whole ... well. that's more complicated. ]
i'm not comfortable feeling like someone's getting ready to put me on trial, markus. should i be looking up my fifth amendment rights here?
[Maybe the lines of communication are being crossed. Maybe Markus can easily toss whatever influence trails behind him out the window for the sake of a one-on-one with a friend. And maybe it isn't fair, and a little naive, to believe others should be able to do the same.
Her name slips out via incomplete message, his human mind betraying the way it's attempting to throw sentences together so that she understands.]
Who said I'm putting you on trial? In the end, I'm just an outsider looking in and I can't throw any judgment your way.
[ fine. she'll talk. but she only half believes him that this is "just a friend" talking. she'll have to wait and see how things shake out before she really believes that's possible. ]
he attacked prompto in new tokyo.
[ she doesn't know how much markus already knows. ]
i wasn't around when he got injured. illya took care of him, but he was concerned enough about the injuries to tell me after the fact.
i'm the one who brought kovacs to the safehouse. i wasn't going to let him think it was fine to just attack the rest of us. i went over there to talk to him.
[ 'talk'. okay, yell at. maybe put the fear of god into. she'd been angry, a little blinded by it; good intentions had melded into forcibly dragging his hungover body onto the floor, only to be washed away when he'd hit her in the face. (and, okay, maybe she elbowed him in the nose first, but he deserved that.) ]
he didn't want to talk. and then he used his shitty ability to try and kill me, so i knocked him out.
[He does know that much. He also knows that Kovacs and Prompto had apparently settled the matter themselves, and thought nothing more of it until now.]
So no one went into this looking for a fight?
[Though tempers have a tendency to flare, especially when taking friends or loved ones into account. He feels like a few steps might be missing in the explanation.]
And because he didn't want to talk, he went straight into attacking you?
have you met him? if he's breathing, he's ready to fight.
[ and so is daisy. ready and capable — only she's kept most of that under wraps by sheer virtue of not having an enemy to fight these days. beyond the una raid, there hasn't been a problem that hand-to-hand combat will solve. ]
he hit me in the face, markus. he's lucky i just knocked him out.
Stephen said that he’s not an active threat to any of us. And if he and Prompto were on good terms by the time you approached him, why would he have gone on the defensive?
If you provoked him, Daisy, I’m not here to scold you about that. I just want to know the truth so I know where everyone stands in the situation.
he went on the defensive because he attacked an innocent kid, markus. whether or not prompto's fine with it doesn't make it any better.
i went to talk to him. it got out of hand. it won't happen again.
[ because no one is backing her up for trying to protect someone she cares about, so daisy's doing the thing she always does: retreating, pulling away, and pretending it's for everybody else's best interest when it's really her feelings (and her pride) that are hurt. ]
[Her promising that she won't try to do the same again. Markus isn't trying to couch this as a reprimand, and realizes that the point is getting lost in all the questions.
So, instead-]
I just want you to be careful. To think before a situation escalates like this again. I don't want you or anyone else hurt, Daisy.
[ get hurt. because she won't do it again. she won't stick her neck out to protect someone who doesn't want it, not when it means getting lectured by everyone she considers a friend. she's honestly surprised she hasn't gotten a disappointed message from peggy and fitz by now — but then again, maybe it's below their paygrade. ]
[It feels unfinished, dissatisfaction on both sides. Markus doesn't want to leave this hanging, but he wonders if a resolution -- with so many fresh injures, both physical and mental -- can really be garnered in one day.]
[ because it doesn't really seem like it matters what she says, not when the problem is not daisy's own well-being or her emotional state or even whether or not she's happy with the outcome, but rather the impact on the displaced as a whole. it's that she's let people down, disappointed them, embarrassed them. risked something that matters more than herself.
markus doesn't have to say it for the feeling to wash over her all over again. strange said it for them both. ]
i'm not sorry i did it, if that's what you want me to say.
I don't want you to feel anything beyond whatever's already going through your head.
[A point that Markus will always abide by, the idea of someone telling another how they should feel hitting too close to home. Never wanting to throw that kind of weight around, he feels the need to clarify.]
I just want you to understand why I was, and am, worried.
At the time, I know it felt right, and it probably still does. [Righteous indignation. Markus would be lying if he said he wasn't familiar with the feeling.] I just want you to know how it could've been worse, coupled with the knowledge that it could've been avoided, too.
I'm not upset with you.
[That sounds an awful like "I'm not mad, just disappointed", doesn't it? Maybe it's not an inaccurate summation, not really.]
[ there is an obnoxiously long pause between markus' final line and daisy's own reply, one filled with her quiet fuming and mocking verbal repetition of his words. he's worried because she could have gotten hurt. that on its own doesn't bother her. she's used to being dismissed and underestimated, used to people thinking she can't take care of herself.
but it's markus' insistence that she could have done better — the insistence that mirrors strange's admonishment that she should have known better — that really gets under her skin. it doesn't feel like a friend. it doesn't even feel like a boss.
it feels so foreign to daisy simply because she's never had a father figure to be disappointed in her. not until coulson, anyway, and she misses him too much for the comparison to be anything but painful and sharp in her head. ]
sorry to disappoint you. i seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
[Though assuming tone from text is always folly, Markus doesn’t think he’s wrong when he hears that deprecating edge to the words blinking at him. Another pause, another assessment — the word ‘disappoint’ seems to flare brighter than the rest, and Markus finds himself unable to deny it outright.]
I can’t speak for anyone else who’s already reached out to you.
[He thinks of mentioning Prompto, that he’s not very happy, but pushes that aside. It isn’t his business.]
You said you’d be careful, and I trust you to keep your word. I won’t hammer the point home any longer if you don’t want me to.
[ that, at least, is nearly immediate. she doesn't need any more lectures, certainly doesn't want them. if she can stem the tide now, so much the better. ]
but i won't turn down actual company, if you're interested in more than just giving a lecture
[ a small, but no less sincerely offered, olive branch of sorts. show her you still love her, markus!!! ]
[Tension or no, as if their friendship would change based on this one incident alone.]
If you’re feeling put up it, of course I want to see how you’re doing.
[The point having been made, whether or not it sticks will be seen sooner or later. For now, he can leave his fretting disapproval at the door and just visit her as a friend.]
Need me to pick up anything to eat or drink on the way over?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
I'm asking because I want to know what happened. I was uncomfortable trying to put pieces of the story together from hearsay alone.
[That being said-]
And I was worried, getting Stephen's message out of the blue. And I guess I still am. Are you comfortable with talking about it?
no subject
if he's asking to understand for himself, that's one thing. but asking to understand to then apply that knowledge to the wellbeing of the collective whole ... well. that's more complicated. ]
i'm not comfortable feeling like someone's getting ready to put me on trial, markus.
should i be looking up my fifth amendment rights here?
[ does the bill of rights even exist? ]
no subject
[Maybe the lines of communication are being crossed. Maybe Markus can easily toss whatever influence trails behind him out the window for the sake of a one-on-one with a friend. And maybe it isn't fair, and a little naive, to believe others should be able to do the same.
Her name slips out via incomplete message, his human mind betraying the way it's attempting to throw sentences together so that she understands.]
Who said I'm putting you on trial? In the end, I'm just an outsider looking in and I can't throw any judgment your way.
I'm here as a friend, that's all.
no subject
he attacked prompto in new tokyo.
[ she doesn't know how much markus already knows. ]
i wasn't around when he got injured. illya took care of him, but he was concerned enough about the injuries to tell me after the fact.
i'm the one who brought kovacs to the safehouse. i wasn't going to let him think it was fine to just attack the rest of us. i went over there to talk to him.
[ 'talk'. okay, yell at. maybe put the fear of god into. she'd been angry, a little blinded by it; good intentions had melded into forcibly dragging his hungover body onto the floor, only to be washed away when he'd hit her in the face. (and, okay, maybe she elbowed him in the nose first, but he deserved that.) ]
he didn't want to talk. and then he used his shitty ability to try and kill me, so i knocked him out.
no subject
So no one went into this looking for a fight?
[Though tempers have a tendency to flare, especially when taking friends or loved ones into account. He feels like a few steps might be missing in the explanation.]
And because he didn't want to talk, he went straight into attacking you?
no subject
[ and so is daisy. ready and capable — only she's kept most of that under wraps by sheer virtue of not having an enemy to fight these days. beyond the una raid, there hasn't been a problem that hand-to-hand combat will solve. ]
he hit me in the face, markus. he's lucky i just knocked him out.
no subject
If you provoked him, Daisy, I’m not here to scold you about that. I just want to know the truth so I know where everyone stands in the situation.
no subject
i went to talk to him. it got out of hand.
it won't happen again.
[ because no one is backing her up for trying to protect someone she cares about, so daisy's doing the thing she always does: retreating, pulling away, and pretending it's for everybody else's best interest when it's really her feelings (and her pride) that are hurt. ]
no subject
[Her promising that she won't try to do the same again. Markus isn't trying to couch this as a reprimand, and realizes that the point is getting lost in all the questions.
So, instead-]
I just want you to be careful. To think before a situation escalates like this again. I don't want you or anyone else hurt, Daisy.
no subject
[ get hurt. because she won't do it again. she won't stick her neck out to protect someone who doesn't want it, not when it means getting lectured by everyone she considers a friend. she's honestly surprised she hasn't gotten a disappointed message from peggy and fitz by now — but then again, maybe it's below their paygrade. ]
don't worry about it.
no subject
That's all, then? Leaving it at that?
no subject
[ because it doesn't really seem like it matters what she says, not when the problem is not daisy's own well-being or her emotional state or even whether or not she's happy with the outcome, but rather the impact on the displaced as a whole. it's that she's let people down, disappointed them, embarrassed them. risked something that matters more than herself.
markus doesn't have to say it for the feeling to wash over her all over again. strange said it for them both. ]
i'm not sorry i did it, if that's what you want me to say.
no subject
[A point that Markus will always abide by, the idea of someone telling another how they should feel hitting too close to home. Never wanting to throw that kind of weight around, he feels the need to clarify.]
I just want you to understand why I was, and am, worried.
At the time, I know it felt right, and it probably still does. [Righteous indignation. Markus would be lying if he said he wasn't familiar with the feeling.] I just want you to know how it could've been worse, coupled with the knowledge that it could've been avoided, too.
I'm not upset with you.
[That sounds an awful like "I'm not mad, just disappointed", doesn't it? Maybe it's not an inaccurate summation, not really.]
no subject
but it's markus' insistence that she could have done better — the insistence that mirrors strange's admonishment that she should have known better — that really gets under her skin. it doesn't feel like a friend. it doesn't even feel like a boss.
it feels so foreign to daisy simply because she's never had a father figure to be disappointed in her. not until coulson, anyway, and she misses him too much for the comparison to be anything but painful and sharp in her head. ]
sorry to disappoint you. i seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
no subject
I can’t speak for anyone else who’s already reached out to you.
[He thinks of mentioning Prompto, that he’s not very happy, but pushes that aside. It isn’t his business.]
You said you’d be careful, and I trust you to keep your word. I won’t hammer the point home any longer if you don’t want me to.
no subject
[ that, at least, is nearly immediate. she doesn't need any more lectures, certainly doesn't want them. if she can stem the tide now, so much the better. ]
but i won't turn down actual company, if you're interested in more than just giving a lecture
[ a small, but no less sincerely offered, olive branch of sorts. show her you still love her, markus!!! ]
no subject
If you’re feeling put up it, of course I want to see how you’re doing.
[The point having been made, whether or not it sticks will be seen sooner or later. For now, he can leave his fretting disapproval at the door and just visit her as a friend.]
Need me to pick up anything to eat or drink on the way over?
[How’s her appetite while she recovers?]
no subject
[ let her eat her feelings and also not chew too much because her jaw still hurts from where kovacs punched her in the face ]
i'll pay you back
no subject
No need. My treat.
See you in a bit.