Re: Military lockdown: Cat & Matt
Matt was still finding his way around rebuilding old relationships and forming new ones. He hadn't realized he'd been ignoring her, nor would he ever have expected her to care. Somehow, though, he had managed to hurt her by being out of contact, and he hadn't realized until now what a mistake he'd made. Did everyone talk all the time? He was no good at it. If anything, he brought nothing but problems to her door.
He could handle her claws - he wasn't surprised by them. But he was confused, and didn't pretend he wasn't. "I wasn't ignoring you." That she didn't understand that was beyond his fluctuating social comprehension. He didn't remember enough of their time together, enough of her, to know exactly why it hurt her. He remembered enough to know it did, though.
Logic and strategy might have dictated one thing, but he had been under - decades and decades, wake up, back to sleep, be somewhere and nowhere again, without memory, without thought. The grip of his metal arm on the table tightened. She could know what it was like to be owned, but not for that long. "There was no deal." There never would have been. If he'd come in earlier, they still could have jerked his strings, easy as anything. "For you. Maybe. Not for me." He had no leverage, nothing to bargain with. Anything they gave him had to be taken on faith, on trust in them he would never have.
He didn't answer her question about who he was thinking of. She knew. He could trust McRory, but not for this. Steve could kill, and whatever he said about pacifism, he would always be capable of that. But it had to be right, for him. For the right reasons, at the right time. He wanted to believe that Steve would understand. But it had been too long.
He watched her settle in. The fire in his eyes had banked. The kids must be able to take care of themselves, or they wouldn't be here - and they weren't really what this conversation was about, or her little tangent.
But she was hurt - he'd hurt her, or compounded hurt from someone else - and wasn't taking what he said seriously. His emotional life always seemed more alive when he was around her, old emotions moving fluidly over their stilted, more present shadows.
He knew she was being harsh to ensure he had no illusions about his captors, but that wasn't necessary. Anyone, even good people, tended to give into temptation when they realized the kind of power they had over someone else. This was complicated. It was about the two of them, and old threads snipped off, about chaos and the mayhem he'd create if things went wrong. Obligation and pain, and affection. He chose to believe there was still some of that, or she could have let him rot.
"Not stupid enough. To think anything makes up for it," he said. "But. Not being good. Not doing good before. That doesn't mean it's pointless to do some now. Not for either of us."