Kate Bishop (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alsohawkeye) wrote2024-01-11 07:28 pm
alsohawkeye) wrote2024-01-11 07:28 pmataraxion inbox
OPR » 027 » 193
KATE BISHOP
KATE BISHOP
alsohawkeye) wrote2024-01-11 07:28 pm
no subject
She chews as she listens, eyes directed somewhere on the table just between their plates. It looks less like she's avoiding eye contact and more like she's just thoughtful, and she looks up about halfway through to listen more politely. Lips purse at the last, and she spends a moment balancing beans onto a little bit of everything else, eating it with better-mannered neatness than it warrants before finally replying. ]
Yeah, I don't know. I guess that's part of what bothers me about it. I mean aside from the whole 'there is something in my head that can control me' thing in principle being horrible, I just--. I don't know how it works. I don't know if it put all of that there, or if it was playing strings that already existed, you know? Am I actually capable of what I was going to do? And if I'd done it....
[ She trails off, lips thinned to a pale and narrow line as she twirls a fork in the over-medium bit of her egg. ]
If I'd done it, and then fought the compulsion off, wouldn't it be? My fault? If I can fight it off-- and I could, I did, eventually-- then isn't it on me that I didn't sooner? It shouldn't have taken me that long to recognize that it was wrong.
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[ He hasn't thought further than that, admittedly. Remus has his share of immovable principles—kindness is better than cruelty, people are at least roughly equal in value, hurting innocents is bad—but the nuances are patchwork, stitched together as situations call for them, with little holes to allow the people he loves to slip through.
He buys time with a mouthful of beans. ]
You thought you had to to keep everyone safe, didn't you?
no subject
[ It doesn't appear to assuage Kate's guilt or whatever this is that she's feeling, though. She pushes food around on her plate for a minute before finally realizing she's doing it and deliberately eating another bite or two. ]
But people do terrible things for what they think are good reasons all the time. It doesn't make them less terrible. Half the villains I've ever encountered really believed they were going to make the world a better place. I mean it's not-- sometimes people do do bad things for good reasons, sometimes it's the only way to save people. I wouldn't say everyone who's ever killed someone is the same, or the same amount of bad, or something. I don't know. It's just not who I want to be.
no subject
I'm glad you've had the choice.
[ He means it. Maybe it sounds a little pointed, but it's only because he doesn't know how else to say it. If he wanted to make a point, he'd ask what amount of bad he is, exactly. He pushes some egg onto the edge of his toast instead. ]
It wouldn't have been your fault. [ He's had time to pull together justification for the instinct, now. ] You're extraordinary, and that's brilliant, but whatever is doing this to everyone--if someone is holding you under water, you're not to blame if you drown. It's good if you're stronger than they are, but it isn't your fault if you're not.
[ Someone might try to make a similar argument about Peter Pettigrew, but Remus would hit them in the teeth before they could finish it. ]
no subject
And actually blushes, just a little. 'Humble' isn't really a word that gets used to describe Kate very often, but someone else calling her extraordinary and in this context is enough to trigger a brief moment of something that approaches modesty or shyness. Just a moment, and then she picks her head back up from its lean over her plate, mouth pressed into that same flat, thoughtful line. ]
I guess when you put it like that. [ The consideration she's giving to what he's said is both serious and genuine, but it isn't actually foremost in her mind anymore. She fiddles with her fork, rolling the stem back and forth between fingertips for a moment before she speaks again. ]
You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but-- what was it like? How did it happen?
no subject
[ That sounds conclusive, a little weary, I don't want to talk about it--and she did say he didn't have to. But he does want to, sort of. It's more that he's on the tipping point between two levels of friendship, the one where he tries to be there for people and the one where he trusts them to do the same for him, and he needs a moment and a mildly wary glance at her face to decide to cross over. ]
We could stun people, we tried to when we could, but that meant they would get back up. We've only got one prison, and going there is arguably worse than dying. Not to mention he had a whole army of werewolves, and containing a hundred of them every full moon for the duration of a life sentence would be a lot of trouble. [ Which is terrible. But if anyone can say it, it's him, right? ] And the giants.
[ Not everyone would count giants as people, but not everyone would count Remus as people either, so he does. He's staring at a spot of nothing on the table and tapping his fork into his eggs. He notices and stops at the same time he realises he's not quite answering her question. ]
I think the only time I had a clear choice and really meant to do it was after Edgar Bones died. They got his whole family. His youngest was five. Right after that, when we caught a few of them off guard--I'm sorry any of it ever happened, but I'm not sure I'm sorry for that.