"I hadn't thought about it that way," Laura says, turning that over in her mind. "As something to be thankful for. It's ... it is good. But it's ..." It leaves her feeling a little hollow, even with warden duties to attend to. She tries to make herself visible and available to everyone when she can, but there's something missing. It's not fulfilling. "I often don't feel like I'm doing real work," she admits, slow and careful, like these pieces are finally falling into place for her as she's talking about it now. "At home, I'm ... I know when I'm making a difference. Changing things for someone, for the better. It's ... tangible. Obvious."
Obvious in most cases, anyway. Sometimes it's less clear, and it's not even always tied to a mission.
"The Enclosure smells wrong," she offers. "It's very good, but it's not real. I ... expect you have the same problems with it?"
Matt laughs, softly, though it's as much self-deprecating as anything. "It
says something, I guess, when it's hard to recognize something like that."
That they should be thankful nothing here generally requires
violence to solve, because he's pretty sure that doesn't necessarily
need to be true. But the people here are, for the most part,
nonviolent; incidents seem more isolated than the alternative.
But, for someone who's used to making a difference by ending a fight...
it's frustrating. He can acknowledge that. It sounds like she can - is -
too.
He hums, pulling out gauze and setting to work on the worst of his cuts.
"It smells wrong, it sounds wrong, it feels wrong... it's - not real. It's
just a little too off. It's honestly about as cathartic as coming
here and working the bags. Less so, really, because it's pretending to be
something it's not." So he's here, and not in the Enclosure.
But that aside, "There's nothing to do. I mean - there are things to
do. We're doing them. But - " he sighs, and focuses for a moment on a
particularly deep cut, letting the pain ground him more than anything when
he presses down to stop the bleeding. "Progress isn't as measurable, and I
think that makes it difficult for everyone, maybe."
"That's it," Laura agrees, as she blows out a long sigh. "I don't ... I don't need charts and graphs, or even concrete data to back up what I'm doing. I don't measure my success by the number of ... people I've turned in, or even how many I've saved. It has never been quantifiable. But ... I can't change things. The system is in place, and it isn't so inherently flawed that people aren't able to work within it. There are measurable successes - for wardens who graduate inmates. For inmates who graduate. I'm ..." Not ready, not good enough, still in need of progress, herself?
"I don't belong here," she admits quietly, less carefully than she ordinarily might speak.
Matt considers everything she says - lets her say it without interrupting,
because he understands. He agrees.
At least, up until that last point.
"Are you sure?" he asks, and just lets that hang in the air for a moment,
before pressing on. "I can't make that decision for you. Honestly, I don't
even think the Admiral can. He offered you the position here, but you were
the one with the power to take it or turn it down. You still are.
"But - consider this. I believe that the people who ask those kinds of
questions - the people who are willing to wonder if they belong here at all
- are the people that do. If you're questioning the best way to
serve yourself and this place, that's a good thing. It's frustrating as
hell," he laughs a little, even though it's not funny, "but I think it's
better than the alternative. Knowing why you're here defeats the purpose.
Doesn't it?"
And Laura listens too. She takes it all in, lets the words sink into her skin and sit there. There's a reason she's stayed, isn't there? Even after people have told her, flat out, that she shouldn't be here. Even after getting the letter from Gabby that reminded her of what she's missing by not being back home.
She still stood by the belief that she was chosen for a reason. That the Admiral sought out her, specifically, to do a job in this place.
"Isn't the purpose to be assigned an inmate and help them graduate?"
"As far as I can tell," Matt agrees. "But then there must be a purpose to being here without an inmate, or he'd just assign us all as soon as we said yes. Right?"
He's... honestly not sure about that. He's been trying to figure it out for himself. Maybe this is just him thinking out loud, in this case, voicing the same concerns.
But sitting around doing nothing, when inmate after inmate doesn't seem interested, and the Admiral doesn't seem inclined to rush a pairing, says something, too. At least, he thinks it does. He hopes it does. "I don't want to think he brings us here just to put us in a holding pattern. And if he actually does... I don't want that to be all of it."
"Right. The ratio of inmates to wardens is unequal, and has been for as long as I've been here. That points to the need for more wardens - not just to supervise, and not just to be responsible for a single inmate each." Laura sighs again and lies back on the mat, stretching out limbs that finally feel like they've completely healed. "So many people complain about the system, and also say they can't change it. That they've tried. I ... don't even know that I want to try to change it anymore. For a while I was certain that I didn't even want an inmate, and I would devote my attention to ... whoever needed it, I guess."
She takes a moment to just breathe, feeling air in her lungs, feeling the way that her body exists in the space it occupies. She's here. She's solid. She's herself.
She's also not certain that the job - or lack thereof - is the only thing that's frustrating her about being here.
"Do you ..." she starts, and then stops, and then realizes that no, she was on the right track the first time, but her tone is light and gently curious when she starts over. "Do you have anyone important back home?"
Matt considers this - going back to cleaning his cuts while he does so, and maybe feeling the tiniest pang of jealousy at the way she moves, at the way nothing sounds like it did a moment ago. It's awfully convenient, if nothing else.
"Maybe it's not about changing the system, so much as finding the best ways to work within it. I mean - there's no real rulebook, is there? Not that I've been given. I think that's actually good - it gives us leave to try things, without resorting to anything too extreme." Not everything is going to work, of course. But some things might. And none of it actually requires the Admiral, which is just fine, since he doesn't really have a heavy hand in things. "We write our own rules. We decide what should be a rule, and what's working fine."
He pauses, maybe about to go on, about to divulge an idea or two, but she asks him a question, and it warrants answering. If... after another moment of silence.
"I have people that are important to me, yes," he says - maybe a little carefully, but not like he's not trying to answer her question. "Not family, really. But... people don't have to be family to be important."
Although, "I'd kind of messed things up with... most of them, before I left." But that doesn't mean they're not important.
"You?" He has a feeling this question wasn't out of the blue.
She's not ignoring what he says. None of it is wrong. For now, she files it away, to come back to later, once she's processed it. In many ways, it feels like this is the conversation that she keeps coming back to, and the answers are always all the same: it's up to each of them, individually, to decide what they want out of the experience, to change what they can, and ultimately do what they can. There are no right or wrong answers. There are no orders, and there won't be orders.
It's the same problems that Laura wrestled with when she first got out.
She feels, in many ways, like she's that scared teenager again, without a guidebook or any clue how to know what it is that she actually wants with all this freedom. And she's right here, again, with a version of the same man who argued for that freedom in the first place.
But she's older now, isn't she? She's been through more. She's learned. She should have learned.
"I have a sister," she says. "She's thirteen. I would do anything for her." A pause, as she sits up and stretches more, just making sure everything is where it should be. "I haven't even known her for a whole year. I've been away from her longer than I've even known she existed." She doesn't know if she's failing Gabby by staying, or if she's helping somehow, in some backwards, twisted way. "Before I met her, I -- I pushed myself. I tested my healing factor, to see how far it would go. I walked into fire and jumped off of buildings and I stood at the center of explosions and I willingly walked into the most dangerous situations I could find at every chance I could get. I sought it out."
She isn't entirely sure how all of this relates, but it feels like it does. Maybe by saying it all aloud she can lay out all of the puzzle pieces, and maybe Matt can help her put them in the right order. It certainly seems like his puzzle might be the same shape.
"I had team members. I bounced around -- team to team, school to school. I never stayed in one place long and I never kept in contact with anyone after I left. I even have a cousin that I haven't spoken to in ... years."
She needs to know why she's like this. She doesn't ask it aloud. She doesn't know if she can even articulate what the question even is.
Freedom also means responsibility, in a way. Responsibility to yourself,
responsibility to others, and both the luxury and the necessity of figuring
out what you want it to mean. What you want to do with it. What you
should do with it.
And it's a lesson that takes time to learn. Sometimes, it takes a lifetime.
To Matt, though, it actually sounds like she's sort of started to figure it
out. When she says before I met her, he picks up on the fact that
things have changed, since she met her sister. That's a big step, he
thinks, and he's actually not sure whether Laura realizes it or not.
But then she asks him a question, and it's both easier and harder to answer
it first. He lets out a little breath, but maybe that's just because he's
put pressure now on one of the deeper cuts that's still bleeding, if
sluggishly. "I haven't always been completely honest with them." His smile
is wry; "Partly in the same way that I'm not completely honest with
everyone here." In the way that he is more honest with Laura, in the
way that he lets her see how helpless he's not. She reminds him of
Elektra, in that respect, even if the relationships are completely
different. She still plays that role, and he trusts her to play it, and
he's grateful he can trust her to do it.
"And..." Now he laughs, but it's as sad as it is amused. "When my ex showed
up again, I sort of let her go to my head. Among other things." But that
just sounds so... superficial. "I'd have done anything for her. I
did do nearly anything for her. And I didn't care what else it cost
me. I'm - not sure that I do, still, but it's cost me a lot."
It's funny. Jedao wanted secrets out of him, but it's Laura he's willing to
tell them to. Maybe she needs them, if in a different way. "Your sister.
You'd do a lot for her, too." It's sort of a question, but it's not
entirely.
"I would." Laura answers without hesitation. Gabby shares her DNA, her origin, and most of her powers, but she carries her trauma differently. In some ways she's more innocent than Laura ever was, but Laura has no illusions about being able to completely shield her from the world. She can guide Gabby in ways that no one was able to guide her. She can be a better mentor than Logan ever was.
It isn't as though the bar is very high.
"What if you started being more honest with people here?" Laura suggests slowly. "Is there a reason you need to hide it?" She doubts it; there are so many people from so many different realities where different things are possible that she's fairly sure it wouldn't faze anyone at all.
"That's as good a reason to keep yourself together as any," Matt says. If you're having trouble keeping it together for yourself, sometimes other people give you the reason you need, until you can get your feet back under you again.
But as for the question... it's a reasonable one. It is. He has to laugh a little, mostly because, "I don't know? At home, yes. I don't think I know how to not hide it, really," he admits, after a moment. "And even if things are different here... people already treat me differently. Sometimes, it's better to have it be the different that I can predict." And maybe take advantage of, but he keeps that part to himself. It's selfish, and not entirely applicable here, at least. Not when he's just Mat Murdock. "I don't know what they'd do about it, if they knew."
He doesn't laugh again, but instead, smiles wryly. "I can tell when people are lying, when they're telling the truth, when they're scared, just by the sound of their heartbeat. Most people... wouldn't be okay with that." Maybe Laura won't be. But she's the person he's decided can know, so he's willing to tell her, now.
"I know," Laura says plainly, then backtracks to elaborate. "I mean - I know that you can tell when people are lying. The ... other you could, too." Though she'd hardly call herself friends with that Matt, she was at least aware of some of his abilities, if only because that specific one had been cited right in front of her, once. "Most people like to hide behind walls that they build," she goes on, and she's not really exempting herself from that generalization. "They want to be able to control what other people know about them, and present themselves like good - like they're right," she amends.
Not everyone cares about being perceived as a good person, but most people really don't want to be thought of as being wrong.
"I'm not suggesting that you make an announcement to the network, but maybe your own walls don't have to be so thick."
"You must've known him pretty well," Matt muses, quietly. Well, that, "Or maybe he was just more open." He can't say whether he would be, under different circumstances. He can't say he wouldn't be, either.
Besides, "They do," he agrees. "And they can, because most people can't tell. It's fair that they don't like it when someone comes along who can."
And either way, "It was just an example, anyway." He laughs softly. "Maybe they don't, but I really don't know how I'd feel if they weren't. Maybe that's it." Maybe he likes having his own walls to hide behind, too. Maybe he doesn't let that many people through them, but maybe that's just his nature. He isn't sure whether it's something he ought to change.
"I never thought that I was coming here to change myself," he admits - not because he will or won't, in the end, but more just being honest, laying that out there. It's the truth.
Laura shakes her head. "I was just a ... client," she explains, and that doesn't feel like the right word, but it's the closest one that she has. "I was told that he would know if I was lying when I gave my testimony. That's all that could be ... confirmed. There were other stories. Rumors. That world is ... different."
She's careful when she speaks again, after listening to what Matt has to say, taking it all in and processing it as best she can. She knows how difficult it is to let down one's walls, especially when one isn't prepared to do it.
"I didn't think I was, either - but that's still what happens. This place changes people."
Matt just hums, but - it definitely sounds like a different world, not in
the least because people like Laura exist. Then again, he can't say for
sure that people like her don't exist in his world, only that he's
never run into them.
But he does know that he agrees with the rest of what she says. "It does.
Maybe it was foolish to think that wouldn't apply to wardens, too," he
says. "Although maybe it's what we need - the type of people that come
here, that sign on... we're here for change, and you can't necessarily have
that without changing yourself, too." Although the amount you change
yourself... that depends on the person. "I know that it would be easier
back home, for the people I care about, if I gave up this."
He indicates between the two of them - this being sparring.
Fighting. Being Daredevil.
"But you can't," Laura says, with a certain degree of familiarity. "I know.
I tried, too - I did not want to be what they made me. I couldn't ... just
keep killing. So I don't."
But there's more. As honest as she is with herself, and with other people,
about her own past, there are still things that she keeps close to her
chest. Things that would probably scare people if they knew them, and scare
herself if she ever admitted it out loud. "But ..." And she takes a deep
breath, her heart beating fast not from deception, but from its exact
opposite. "I can't deny what I am. I fight. I'm meant to. I have to. But I
can choose who to fight, and why. I wield myself," she adds,
with a soft, dark laugh. "The problem being here is that there's nothing to
fight. Not like this."
And even the practice in the Enclosure, or their sparring sessions here,
aren't enough to sate the need that was built into her. They're just
exercises. There's no purpose to them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Gym Spam!
Obvious in most cases, anyway. Sometimes it's less clear, and it's not even always tied to a mission.
"The Enclosure smells wrong," she offers. "It's very good, but it's not real. I ... expect you have the same problems with it?"
Re: Gym Spam!
Matt laughs, softly, though it's as much self-deprecating as anything. "It says something, I guess, when it's hard to recognize something like that." That they should be thankful nothing here generally requires violence to solve, because he's pretty sure that doesn't necessarily need to be true. But the people here are, for the most part, nonviolent; incidents seem more isolated than the alternative.
But, for someone who's used to making a difference by ending a fight... it's frustrating. He can acknowledge that. It sounds like she can - is - too.
He hums, pulling out gauze and setting to work on the worst of his cuts. "It smells wrong, it sounds wrong, it feels wrong... it's - not real. It's just a little too off. It's honestly about as cathartic as coming here and working the bags. Less so, really, because it's pretending to be something it's not." So he's here, and not in the Enclosure.
But that aside, "There's nothing to do. I mean - there are things to do. We're doing them. But - " he sighs, and focuses for a moment on a particularly deep cut, letting the pain ground him more than anything when he presses down to stop the bleeding. "Progress isn't as measurable, and I think that makes it difficult for everyone, maybe."
Re: Gym Spam!
"I don't belong here," she admits quietly, less carefully than she ordinarily might speak.
Re: Gym Spam!
Matt considers everything she says - lets her say it without interrupting, because he understands. He agrees.
At least, up until that last point.
"Are you sure?" he asks, and just lets that hang in the air for a moment, before pressing on. "I can't make that decision for you. Honestly, I don't even think the Admiral can. He offered you the position here, but you were the one with the power to take it or turn it down. You still are.
"But - consider this. I believe that the people who ask those kinds of questions - the people who are willing to wonder if they belong here at all - are the people that do. If you're questioning the best way to serve yourself and this place, that's a good thing. It's frustrating as hell," he laughs a little, even though it's not funny, "but I think it's better than the alternative. Knowing why you're here defeats the purpose. Doesn't it?"
Re: Gym Spam!
She still stood by the belief that she was chosen for a reason. That the Admiral sought out her, specifically, to do a job in this place.
"Isn't the purpose to be assigned an inmate and help them graduate?"
Re: Gym Spam!
He's... honestly not sure about that. He's been trying to figure it out for himself. Maybe this is just him thinking out loud, in this case, voicing the same concerns.
But sitting around doing nothing, when inmate after inmate doesn't seem interested, and the Admiral doesn't seem inclined to rush a pairing, says something, too. At least, he thinks it does. He hopes it does. "I don't want to think he brings us here just to put us in a holding pattern. And if he actually does... I don't want that to be all of it."
Re: Gym Spam!
She takes a moment to just breathe, feeling air in her lungs, feeling the way that her body exists in the space it occupies. She's here. She's solid. She's herself.
She's also not certain that the job - or lack thereof - is the only thing that's frustrating her about being here.
"Do you ..." she starts, and then stops, and then realizes that no, she was on the right track the first time, but her tone is light and gently curious when she starts over. "Do you have anyone important back home?"
Re: Gym Spam!
"Maybe it's not about changing the system, so much as finding the best ways to work within it. I mean - there's no real rulebook, is there? Not that I've been given. I think that's actually good - it gives us leave to try things, without resorting to anything too extreme." Not everything is going to work, of course. But some things might. And none of it actually requires the Admiral, which is just fine, since he doesn't really have a heavy hand in things. "We write our own rules. We decide what should be a rule, and what's working fine."
He pauses, maybe about to go on, about to divulge an idea or two, but she asks him a question, and it warrants answering. If... after another moment of silence.
"I have people that are important to me, yes," he says - maybe a little carefully, but not like he's not trying to answer her question. "Not family, really. But... people don't have to be family to be important."
Although, "I'd kind of messed things up with... most of them, before I left." But that doesn't mean they're not important.
"You?" He has a feeling this question wasn't out of the blue.
Re: Gym Spam!
It's the same problems that Laura wrestled with when she first got out.
She feels, in many ways, like she's that scared teenager again, without a guidebook or any clue how to know what it is that she actually wants with all this freedom. And she's right here, again, with a version of the same man who argued for that freedom in the first place.
But she's older now, isn't she? She's been through more. She's learned. She should have learned.
"I have a sister," she says. "She's thirteen. I would do anything for her." A pause, as she sits up and stretches more, just making sure everything is where it should be. "I haven't even known her for a whole year. I've been away from her longer than I've even known she existed." She doesn't know if she's failing Gabby by staying, or if she's helping somehow, in some backwards, twisted way. "Before I met her, I -- I pushed myself. I tested my healing factor, to see how far it would go. I walked into fire and jumped off of buildings and I stood at the center of explosions and I willingly walked into the most dangerous situations I could find at every chance I could get. I sought it out."
She isn't entirely sure how all of this relates, but it feels like it does. Maybe by saying it all aloud she can lay out all of the puzzle pieces, and maybe Matt can help her put them in the right order. It certainly seems like his puzzle might be the same shape.
"I had team members. I bounced around -- team to team, school to school. I never stayed in one place long and I never kept in contact with anyone after I left. I even have a cousin that I haven't spoken to in ... years."
She needs to know why she's like this. She doesn't ask it aloud. She doesn't know if she can even articulate what the question even is.
"How did you mess things up?"
Re: Gym Spam!
Freedom also means responsibility, in a way. Responsibility to yourself, responsibility to others, and both the luxury and the necessity of figuring out what you want it to mean. What you want to do with it. What you should do with it.
And it's a lesson that takes time to learn. Sometimes, it takes a lifetime.
To Matt, though, it actually sounds like she's sort of started to figure it out. When she says before I met her, he picks up on the fact that things have changed, since she met her sister. That's a big step, he thinks, and he's actually not sure whether Laura realizes it or not.
But then she asks him a question, and it's both easier and harder to answer it first. He lets out a little breath, but maybe that's just because he's put pressure now on one of the deeper cuts that's still bleeding, if sluggishly. "I haven't always been completely honest with them." His smile is wry; "Partly in the same way that I'm not completely honest with everyone here." In the way that he is more honest with Laura, in the way that he lets her see how helpless he's not. She reminds him of Elektra, in that respect, even if the relationships are completely different. She still plays that role, and he trusts her to play it, and he's grateful he can trust her to do it.
"And..." Now he laughs, but it's as sad as it is amused. "When my ex showed up again, I sort of let her go to my head. Among other things." But that just sounds so... superficial. "I'd have done anything for her. I did do nearly anything for her. And I didn't care what else it cost me. I'm - not sure that I do, still, but it's cost me a lot."
It's funny. Jedao wanted secrets out of him, but it's Laura he's willing to tell them to. Maybe she needs them, if in a different way. "Your sister. You'd do a lot for her, too." It's sort of a question, but it's not entirely.
Re: Gym Spam!
It isn't as though the bar is very high.
"What if you started being more honest with people here?" Laura suggests slowly. "Is there a reason you need to hide it?" She doubts it; there are so many people from so many different realities where different things are possible that she's fairly sure it wouldn't faze anyone at all.
Re: Gym Spam!
But as for the question... it's a reasonable one. It is. He has to laugh a little, mostly because, "I don't know? At home, yes. I don't think I know how to not hide it, really," he admits, after a moment. "And even if things are different here... people already treat me differently. Sometimes, it's better to have it be the different that I can predict." And maybe take advantage of, but he keeps that part to himself. It's selfish, and not entirely applicable here, at least. Not when he's just Mat Murdock. "I don't know what they'd do about it, if they knew."
He doesn't laugh again, but instead, smiles wryly. "I can tell when people are lying, when they're telling the truth, when they're scared, just by the sound of their heartbeat. Most people... wouldn't be okay with that." Maybe Laura won't be. But she's the person he's decided can know, so he's willing to tell her, now.
Re: Gym Spam!
Not everyone cares about being perceived as a good person, but most people really don't want to be thought of as being wrong.
"I'm not suggesting that you make an announcement to the network, but maybe your own walls don't have to be so thick."
Re: Gym Spam!
Besides, "They do," he agrees. "And they can, because most people can't tell. It's fair that they don't like it when someone comes along who can."
And either way, "It was just an example, anyway." He laughs softly. "Maybe they don't, but I really don't know how I'd feel if they weren't. Maybe that's it." Maybe he likes having his own walls to hide behind, too. Maybe he doesn't let that many people through them, but maybe that's just his nature. He isn't sure whether it's something he ought to change.
"I never thought that I was coming here to change myself," he admits - not because he will or won't, in the end, but more just being honest, laying that out there. It's the truth.
Re: Gym Spam!
She's careful when she speaks again, after listening to what Matt has to say, taking it all in and processing it as best she can. She knows how difficult it is to let down one's walls, especially when one isn't prepared to do it.
"I didn't think I was, either - but that's still what happens. This place changes people."
Re: Gym Spam!
Matt just hums, but - it definitely sounds like a different world, not in the least because people like Laura exist. Then again, he can't say for sure that people like her don't exist in his world, only that he's never run into them.
But he does know that he agrees with the rest of what she says. "It does. Maybe it was foolish to think that wouldn't apply to wardens, too," he says. "Although maybe it's what we need - the type of people that come here, that sign on... we're here for change, and you can't necessarily have that without changing yourself, too." Although the amount you change yourself... that depends on the person. "I know that it would be easier back home, for the people I care about, if I gave up this."
He indicates between the two of them - this being sparring. Fighting. Being Daredevil.
Re: Gym Spam!
"But you can't," Laura says, with a certain degree of familiarity. "I know. I tried, too - I did not want to be what they made me. I couldn't ... just keep killing. So I don't."
But there's more. As honest as she is with herself, and with other people, about her own past, there are still things that she keeps close to her chest. Things that would probably scare people if they knew them, and scare herself if she ever admitted it out loud. "But ..." And she takes a deep breath, her heart beating fast not from deception, but from its exact opposite. "I can't deny what I am. I fight. I'm meant to. I have to. But I can choose who to fight, and why. I wield myself," she adds, with a soft, dark laugh. "The problem being here is that there's nothing to fight. Not like this."
And even the practice in the Enclosure, or their sparring sessions here, aren't enough to sate the need that was built into her. They're just exercises. There's no purpose to them.