Inbox for Avalon

[morganknight]

You've reached Morgan Knight.
And I'm not here.
Go.

Comments

[ichoosefight]

[ She's silent for another long moment, staring at her ice cream. There's not really a good way to put this. She may as well be blunt. ]

I... started a gang war. Accidentally.

It's not a short story.

[morganknight]

[Mmm. Morgan twirls his spoon in his fingers, contemplating a response.]

Now this may be a crazy assumption, but I'm guessing you didn't accidentally form two gangs and imbue them with murderous intent towards one another. And then singlehandedly committed every murder in the course of the resulting gang war.

[ichoosefight]

[ She sighs and sets the ice cream on the table. Now that it's not gripped to her stomach, she's actually really cold. She continues to steadfastly refuse eye-contact. ]

Actually, it was nine gangs. And I got their leaders all together, and freaked them out until they all started shooting each other. Things just kind of spiraled from there.

[morganknight]

[Morgan, conversely, is not letting up on the eye contact.]

Sounds to me like the gangs did the killing, and you're taking the murderous intent of a whole bunch of people on your shoulders entirely. But you didn't pull any triggers, Steph. You might have been a part of it, but a thousand thousand other parts had to align too, for things to fall out the way they did. Take responsibility for your part. No more, no less.

[ichoosefight]

I know that. I do.

[ The quiet comment is aimed at the ice cream carton in front of her. ]

But I started it. Nothing changes that. If I hadn't been there it never would have happened.

[morganknight]

And if the gang leaders hadn't been the sort to jump to shooting after getting freaked out, it never would have happened. If the gangs weren't full of people to go along into a war, it wouldn't have happened. If any number of circumstances hadn't gone exactly the way they did, it wouldn't have happened.

[Morgan doesn't quite strike the table, but he does slap it, with some weight.]

and damn it, when it comes to murder, the blame lies on the people pulling the triggers, Steph. You didn't take those lives. But if I know what I would have been feeling in your place -- you're blaming yourself because the alternative, that you aren't that important, that you really couldn't have had much effect at all, is even worse. Because you want to make a difference very badly, I know that much for sure.

[ichoosefight]

Is that what you think?

[ She finally looks up at him, her expression as much dispair as indignation. ]

That I'm too scared to admit that I don't matter? You don't think I had that ground into me while I half-killed myself trying to do something, anything to help? It wasn't even my plan that failed! I stole it from Batman when he kicked me out the door!

[ She's not sure when she got to her feet. When she realizes she's standing with both hands propped on the table, nearly shouting at someone who's just trying to help, she shuts her mouth and drops her head.

What's wrong with her? It doesn't matter who did what, or why. It only matters that it happened, and that was five years ago. Why is she here, a universe away, shaking, barely able to look her own boyfriend in the eye? ]

[morganknight]

Considering how angry the thought got you? Yeah, I kinda think that. Or more to the point, I think you want badly to make a positive difference... and you're not so good at seeing how you do.

[Parties to cheer people up. Unstinting, unflinching effort to help others in the midst of crisis. That's what he'd seen from her: strength and determination he could admire. That's how he could stay calm, even as she exploded.]

And I think... given what you just said, that you want others to acknowledge that too. Or at the very least, you deeply hate that you don't get that acknowledgment from others. But what you really need is that acknowledgment from yourself.

[ichoosefight]

No.

[ Her hands curl into tight fists, her refusal adamant, but she lowers her voice considerably. ]

That's exactly how it all started. I wanted to prove I could do something right, and all I did was get a lot of innocent people hurt and myself nearly killed.

[ She doesn't want anything to do with acknowledgement. Rather, she doesn't want to want acknowledgement. She knows she can't prove that she's good enough as she is. You can't prove something that isn't true. ]

[morganknight]

[Morgan shakes his head slightly.] You were one part of something far bigger. That's all any of us ever are. You can't divert a river unless the whole thing's a hair's breadth from tumbling into new banks anyway. And you need to find some self-forgiveness.

[ichoosefight]

[ He's right, she knows he is. She's been telling herself the same thing for years. But how is she supposed to believe it? She's not the only one who blames her. In fact, as far as she's been able to tell, she's the only one who assigns Bruce any blame at all.

Ah- that was it. Minako couldn't understand why Steph didn't just talk to someone about what had gone wrong, and Steph couldn't understand why it was so difficult to explain.

She lets out a long breath, slumping down into her chair again as that frustrated energy drains out of her. Her arms slide out in front of her and her face lands in front of the ice cream carton. ]

I'm such a hypocrite. How can I hold it against anyone when they treat me the same way I treat myself?

[ Her ice cream is starting to melt around the edges. She should deal with that. ]

[morganknight]

Yeah. Now you're getting about where I was, when I started to think things over. [His circumstances had been... pretty different, but the path and the outcome much the same.]

[Morgan reaches out to slip a finger under one cheek, trying to lift her head a little.]

That was when I started to think that maybe, if the people who loved and cared for me saw some value in me, I could try to see some in myself. And right about when I started realizing there's never a point in life where you switch from doing 'wrong' to doing 'right'... that every day is learning to do a little bit better than you did yesterday.

[ichoosefight]

[ She looks up at him with eyes like an abandoned puppy. ]

Well... mostly they haven't.

[ There's an oxymoron in there, but she hasn't seen it yet. ]

[morganknight]

People can love you, care for you, see the good in you, and still think you can do better, you know. But that starts with yourself. [He strokes a thumb over her cheek, still leaning over rather uncomfortably. But never mind that.] You need to know yourself. The best you can. Without lies, without deceptions. Honest truths, both the good and the bad. You're a flawed and imperfect person the same as everyone, but a wonderful and special person too. You can see both of those, and know both of those to be true -- it's not one or the other!

[ichoosefight]

[ She looks away again, considering.

For a long time she knows they didn't think she could do better. Otherwise they wouldn't have kept trying to make her quit. Babs at least had stopped that, and Bruce... was Bruce. But Tim only seemed to see her value when she was wearing a costume, and even that had taken a long time after her 'death'. Cass... even when Cass made a point of getting in her way, she was never cruel about it. She supposes that's the advantage of having a friend who can read your emotions like a book.

Morgan sees the good in her, though. Kipposhi seems to as well, though he doesn't point it out as much. What do they see? What about her is good? Her mind still feels like a hurricane, trying to drag her into the past.

She sighs again and sits up enough to start scooping the melted ice cream up from the sides of the carton. ]

I don't know what I see right now.

[morganknight]

Y'know, it's better to know you don't know than to think you know and be wrong.

[Morgan sits up himself, sticking a leg out under the table to kinda hook his ankle around hers in lieu of other contact. Another hefty bite, a moment to think and swallow, before he speaks up again.]

It's a little weird here because so many people are heroes and decent folks and used to exactly the sort of stuff we do, but -- how many people do you know, out of the seven billion on Earth, who'd have spent so much time and energy as you did, in a collapsed city, trying to save people despite all the odds?

[ichoosefight]

[ She starts counting them on her fingers, limiting the list to only people she knows personally. She gets up to 8 before pausing. ]

Does it count if most of the people I know are heroes?

[morganknight]

[Okay, give him a moment to suppress his eyeroll.] I'm talking about everyone ever, Steph! Average people on the street included! Go out into a city of a million people and tell me how many people you'll find to do that stuff.

[ichoosefight]

[ Look, she knows a lot of superheroes, okay? If she doesn't count them, she can't count villains either. That leaves... not a ton of people. ]

Okay, fair. I did have a boyfriend abandon me during an earthquake.

[ That bar might actually be too low now. ]

[morganknight]

...dick. [Come on. Who could abandon Steph, let alone in an earthquake? She's the sort of girl who'd either be running out to help people in a serious one, or -- well, look, Morgan always has an undercurrent of naughtiness running through his head. He can't help it, he's got a lot of physical energy to put to use.
If he were better at hiding his thoughts, that might be more excusable.] I sure hope your standards have gone up since then or I have some serious self-reflection of my own to do!

[ichoosefight]

[ Steph scoops up the last of the melted bits of her ice cream as she wonders what he's thinking about. ]

...I dunno. Robin was kind of a jerk too, but I'm not exactly blameless there.

[morganknight]

[Hopefully she won't be horrified, come the day when she finally figures out what that particular look in his eyes means. But skipping that for the moment...]

If it helps, I have really, really good taste in girls. Figured that out pretty quick after a couple of idiotic mistakes of my own. So you can rest assured you're a member of really elite company!

[ichoosefight]

[ She raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. ]

Not the most convincing endorsement.

[ She's in too dark a mood still to smile, even though she isn't especially serious. ]

[morganknight]

You wouldn't say that if you knew my first real love and my wife. You'd be all, 'Damn, I'm on their level? I'm one of the greatest girls in the history of girldom.'

[He might be phrasing it silly, but he's not joking. Truth is, Steph actually beats both of them handily in a few areas, making for a sort of very easy and very comfortable compatibility that Morgan likes quite a bit.]

[More seriously, though, Morgan smiles her way.]

I don't think you're perfect or flawless, but I really do think you're pretty damn terrific. You have qualities I really like, and ones I really admire, too. No joke, no lie, no exaggeration.

[ichoosefight]

[ Her lips quirk in what might be a smile by comparison to her previous expression. She doesn't think he's lying, not really. But it could be exaggeration, or just seeing things that aren't really there. ]

Well, you don't have to worry either. I've gotten very good about punching jerks.