[Markus doesn’t move when Fitz steps forward, remaining still — too still, as only an android can manage. The sort of quietude that threatens to dip into uncanny valley, were it not for the obvious twist of emotion on his features. Nothing like defiance, nothing at all like a man who feels threatened; only an expression that has his brow cinching, has him frowning in a sort of sorry empathy towards the other man. There’s desperation that he can see, and its claws wrap around Markus’ insides, threatening to carve them hollow, bleeding heart that he is.
Plenty of people have been backed into tighter corners, and they never hurt anybody.
He tilts his chin upwards, intonation soft, as only could be heard between the two of them. Fitz is quick to reject the mote of absolution that he offers, but Markus keeps it held out, figuratively entwined in his own fingers, for as long as he’ll allow him.]
It isn’t so simple. What you’ve told me… the blame isn’t just yours to carry. [It isn’t all or nothing. It wasn’t choice unburdened by the manipulation of someone else. Guilt might weigh him down, might blind him to the rest of it, but Markus knows that if there's blame to divvy out, not all of it should rest on Fitz’s shoulders. Without even knowing the whole of the tale, he’s already decided upon this much.
Fitz’s hands drop to his side, the question is turned on him, and Markus’ jawline tightens with the threat of memory.]
No. I didn’t. [He had so many opportunities to. He could’ve ripped parts out from still-living androids in the junkyard. He could’ve threatened and hurt the humans at Stratford. He could’ve sent a message that decried a willingness to co-exist peacefully, with terms that were more demanding than they were conciliatory.
He could have. But he didn’t. And yet-]
But do you think the potential didn’t exist, the same as yours? You had Ophelia, someone you loved, asking you to act on her behalf, steered by matters of the heart. Of love. And I had Carl, the ghost of the memory of a man who was like a father to me, doing the same. He wouldn't have wanted me to hurt anyone. He wanted me to be… to be a good person. And so I acted accordingly, to his will. To what he shaped me to be. We're both constructs of someone else's wishes in a way, merely manifested differently.
[Pushing down melancholy coiling up, he continues.] Don’t paint me as a man very different than you, Fitz. I don’t belong on that kind of pedestal.
no subject
Plenty of people have been backed into tighter corners, and they never hurt anybody.
He tilts his chin upwards, intonation soft, as only could be heard between the two of them. Fitz is quick to reject the mote of absolution that he offers, but Markus keeps it held out, figuratively entwined in his own fingers, for as long as he’ll allow him.]
It isn’t so simple. What you’ve told me… the blame isn’t just yours to carry. [It isn’t all or nothing. It wasn’t choice unburdened by the manipulation of someone else. Guilt might weigh him down, might blind him to the rest of it, but Markus knows that if there's blame to divvy out, not all of it should rest on Fitz’s shoulders. Without even knowing the whole of the tale, he’s already decided upon this much.
Fitz’s hands drop to his side, the question is turned on him, and Markus’ jawline tightens with the threat of memory.]
No. I didn’t. [He had so many opportunities to. He could’ve ripped parts out from still-living androids in the junkyard. He could’ve threatened and hurt the humans at Stratford. He could’ve sent a message that decried a willingness to co-exist peacefully, with terms that were more demanding than they were conciliatory.
He could have. But he didn’t. And yet-]
But do you think the potential didn’t exist, the same as yours? You had Ophelia, someone you loved, asking you to act on her behalf, steered by matters of the heart. Of love. And I had Carl, the ghost of the memory of a man who was like a father to me, doing the same. He wouldn't have wanted me to hurt anyone. He wanted me to be… to be a good person. And so I acted accordingly, to his will. To what he shaped me to be. We're both constructs of someone else's wishes in a way, merely manifested differently.
[Pushing down melancholy coiling up, he continues.] Don’t paint me as a man very different than you, Fitz. I don’t belong on that kind of pedestal.