xp_logs | Doug and Angie

Yet another person comes pounding on the door to Doug's apartment. He remembers to use the peephole this time, not that it does him much good. A lot more angry words are exchanged.

~Pound pound pound~ Marie-Ange rapped her knuckles against the door briskly. Amanda had keys to Doug's office and had checked for her. He had not been in there, and the doorman had not seen him leave. Which meant he had to be in his apartment. Unless he had gone even more reclusive and started climbing out the window like Spiderman.

Wonder of wonders, Doug actually remembered to use the peephole this time to see who was pounding so furiously. Not that seeing his ex-girlfriend and knowing she was out there did him much good. It wasn't like he could just ignore her and hope she'd go away, much as he might have wished to. She'd probably break the door down somehow. Or get Amanda to somehow let her in. He grimaced and cracked the door open. "What?" he asked brusquely.

Doug's apartment was about as barren as she expected. Ikea bookshelves, a card table with computer parts spread out over it, and the ugliest chair in the world. A chair ugly enough to catch her attention despite how angry she was. Lime green, overstuffed and ... just bad. Bad and awful and it undid all the things she'd stored up wanting to say. And of all the things Marie-Ange wanted to say, "You -hit- him." was not the one she'd meant to. All her plans and carefully prepared words, gone.

Doug folded his arms across his chest. He wasn't entirely certain how Marie-Ange had managed to get his door open enough to get past him. And he wasn't very happy about the fact that she was now inside his apartment, and as a result even harder to get rid of. "Yes," he continued his monosyllabic part of the conversation.

"Of all of the things that you could have done to Quentin, you punched him?" Marie-Ange asked, somewhat incredulous at Doug's matter-of-fact tone. And took a step to the right, her back against the wall, just so Doug couldn't try to stare her into backing out of the apartment.

Keeping her back against a wall didn't prevent Doug from fixing her with a level stare that clearly said he wished she -would- back out of his apartment. "Yes, I did," he replied. "What, you think I should apologize for it?" he asked somewhat incredulously himself, his arms still folded across his chest and a stony expression on his face.

The tone and expression did not fit, not on Doug's face. Not on the Doug she had dated, on the one she thought she knew. On a Doug who could casually turn into a bored courier and help set explosives, perhaps. "I think you know violence is not very often the right answer." She said, praying with slim hope that he might agree. Or recant. Or even apoligize.

"It's not always the right answer," Doug allowed. "That doesn't mean it's automatically the wrong one either." He wasn't entirely sure what it was that Marie-Ange wanted out of him. He wasn't going to apologize for what he'd done to Quentin. As far as he was concerned, the other young man had gotten off lightly for what he'd done. But Mr. Marko had been right about crossing lines, too, and Doug was secretly grateful that he'd been there, or Doug would have been a lot more tempted to cross those lines.

"Since when do you get to appoint yourself the judge and jury and prison guard?" Marie-Ange snapped. "If I had wanted Quentin hit, I could have gone and hit him myself. You gave up any right you had to jump to my defense when you told me it was over between us."

"I was the one that was there," Doug said with a shrug, struggling to keep a thousand different emotions bottled under his calm facade. Seeing her here in his apartment muddled him completely, so that he had no idea what to think, or do, or say. "And I would have done it if he'd tried that on Amanda, or Jennie, or Rahne, or any girl from Westchester U. He tried to take something by force, and that's -wrong-. I wouldn't stand for it when Empath," he refused to even say the Castillian's name, "did it, and I won't stand for it when anyone else does it. It's no better than the date rape stories you hear about at frat parties."

Marie-Ange shook her head briskly, swinging loose hair over her neck. "You hit him because you were angry at him. No matter why you say you were, or who he attacked, it was not you, and you did not have the right to assault him just because he attacked someone else." Her mouth was a thin line, lips pressed together in an expression that would have been called a frown, if had any less control over her emotions.

A frown answered Marie-Ange's. "Yes. I was angry at him. I was angry at him for trying to take something with his power by force. And it wasn't like I went there planning to hit him. I thought he might be having problems with his power after I figured out he was a mutant. I only hit him when he tried to use his power on -me-." While all of it was true, it wasn't precisely the -entire- truth.

"There is such a thing as police brutality. You see it on the news all the time. Perhaps you should read about it." Marie-Ange said coldly, gesturing at Doug's still half-empty bookshelves. "I am sure you could find something at the bookstore, or order it online, and save yourself from having to come out of your nice safe hiding place."

A few cracks started to show in Doug's uncaring facade. "Police brutality leaves people in the hospital and sometimes crippled. I gave Quentin a black eye. I hardly think the comparison is apt." His tone was definitely a bit more waspish. The crack about hiding places had hurt. But that was his business these days, not hers.

It was hard to keep going. Part of her said to drop it, to apoligize, and hope that Doug would ... something. Take her back. Want her back. Not shove her out of the apartment and slam the door in her face. "You... you know better. You were.. You fought off Manuel, I think you could have fought off Quentin. Without hitting him in the face," Marie-Ange said slowly.

Doug wasn't entirely sure what it was that Marie-Ange was expecting to get out of him. "I had no idea how powerful he might or might not have been until he tried. What if he'd turned out to be some sort of super-telepath, even stronger than Professor Xavier?" he asked. "What would I have done then? Better to give him something to concentrate on -other- than using his power on me."

Marie-Ange snorted in a entirely derisive and unladylike fashion. "Obviously he was not as powerful as Betsy, or that thing that possesed her. He did not manage to get what he wanted out of me. Or did that not occur to you until after you beat him up?"

"I did -not- beat him up," Doug retorted. "I hit him once in the face, and not that hard. If I'd wanted to beat him up, I would have beaten him up. One punch does not a beating make." He shook his head. "And what the hell is it you want of me anyway? Do you want me to -apologize- for it? Why?" He honestly had no clue why Marie-Ange seemed so upset at him.

"I want to know since when do you resort first to punching people in the face!" Marie-Ange answered, louder than she'd have liked. Probably loud enough to carry outside to the hallway, she thought. And worried. She didn't want to get Doug in trouble. She just wanted him to see why she was so upset.

"I didn't resort first to punching him in the face," Doug shot back, but in a quiet tone as opposed to Marie-Ange's loud one. "I went to talk to him. I figured out that he was a mutant because of the...apparitions, and I thought that he might be having some kind of trouble with his power. I don't like him, but I was willing to put that aside if he was in trouble. Then I found out what he did, and yes, I was angry. But I didn't punch him until he tried to use his power on me. I defended myself."

"You could have brought him to the school without laying a hand on him and you know it. I still say you were angry." Marie-Ange said, shaking her head. "You cannot tell me you did not want him to hurt. Not without lying."

Doug shrugged nonchalantly. "Yes. I could have, but I didn't. And the only thing that got remotely hurt was Quentin's eye. I think he got off easy, considering what he tried to do. The results don't matter, the intent does. He intended to force you to go out with him by using his power. And that was -wrong-." He grimaced and put emphasis on the last word. Doug's ethics could be remarkably gray on some subjects, most notably hacking, but there were still things that you did not do. And forcing a woman in any fashion was at the top of the list.

"How is it different that intent does not matter when you wanted to make him hurt for what he did?" Marie-Ange retorted. "You have stopped other people without punching them in the face? What made Quentin so different from that Viking warrior in Asgard?"

Doug was not going to pinch his nose in frustration. He wasn't. It was a very close thing, though. "I put that warrior in an armbar because he was trying to punch me. I punched Quentin because he was trying to use his power on me. I reacted to the situation as it presented itself. Believe me, there was plenty more punching in the brawl in Asgard." His mouth quirked wryly.

She wasn't sure how long she could stand there and listen to Doug try to twist this around into him being the hero. That he'd done the right thing, that he had zero remorse about giving Quentin a black eye. "And the situation was not half about you being angry that he tried to use his power on me? "

Doug wasn't sure how long he could stand there and listen to Marie-Ange harangue him. That he'd done the -wrong- thing by hitting Quentin. He was tired of her need to be perfect, and tired of her willingness to ignore things about him that she didn't like. He had a temper, true, but it wasn't like he went out picking fights. "It was half to try and keep him from using his power. And yeah, half because I was angry at him for trying to force you. But I'd have been just as angry if it had been Amanda, or Rahne, or Jennie, like I already told you."

"Why should I believe you?" Marie-Ange asked, steel in her voice hiding that she was slightly disappointed that she didn't matter any more than anyone else. "I do not believe you. I do not believe that anyone who spent so much time considering himself my white knight would -not- want to hurt someone who hurt me. Why should I believe you?"

"I have no idea, since you've obviously made up your mind not to," Doug shot back with just as much steel in his voice as Marie-Ange. "So what exactly is the point? Why did you come here?" One of his hands clenched, his nails digging into his palm to try and keep him from losing his composure.

Marie-Ange smirked. "Perhaps I just wanted to see if you were able to defend yourself. I see you've managed some backbone, at least." It was easier to just snap back at him, then to say everything else she was thinking.

Cocking his head forward, Doug screwed his eyes up in concentration and shook his head bemusedly at Marie-Ange. "You make absolutely -no- sense sometimes, do you know that?" If she wanted backbone, he'd give her backbone, all right.

Marie-Ange rolled her eyes, and made a mocking mouth gesture with one hand. "Yes, I am well aware that you and everyone else think I am spooky. No one needs to remind me, my lack of anyone who spends time with me outside of Amanda reminds me well enough." The pang of loneliness that hit her stomach -hurt-. She'd thought she was okay, not talking to... much of anyone at all, and now she wasn't.

"Stop putting words in my mouth," Doug half-growled. "I said you don't make any sense. I didn't say that you were spooky. There's a difference. And I never cared about you being spooky, either." It had occasionally made her difficult to deal with, but it had never mattered to him. He'd loved her. It startled him, slightly, to hear the past tense in his own thoughts, but their relationship was -definitely- past tense.

"No, all you really cared about was having a pretty girlfriend so that you could.." Marie-Ange snapped.. "Could parade me around like some kind of trophy, so that you could be better than people who you looked down on."

Doug snorted indelicately. "Are we going to rehash -that- argument again? Because I think we both said everything we need to. Said it at high volume in front of the entire population of Xavier's, in fact," he continued coldly. "You were more than a trophy to me. You may not believe it, but you were. Emphasis on 'were'." His arms were folded tight across his chest again, but that was because he needed to have something to hold onto, even if it was himself. Otherwise he...wasn't sure what he would do.

"You had a fine way of showing it." Marie-Ange retorted hotly, turning away angrily, before Doug could see her blinking away a few tears. "You talked about it enough, your 'hot red-haired girlfriend". You said I thought I needed to be perfect, what was I supposed to do except be well dressed and always perfect when all I was to you was a doll to be shown off?"

"I was wrong." The words came out hard and flat. "I wasn't the only one who was wrong in the relationship, but I was wrong. I'm human. I make mistakes." Doug's voice came out emotionless, but that was only because he was keeping a chokehold on the emotions running rampant through his head. "If all you came over for was to beat me up about the mistakes I made, get out." He smiled, but the expression had no warmth or humor in it. "I can do that just fine on my own, thanks."

Marie-Ange shook her head slowly, and turned back around. "Fine. I .. This is .. " She shrugged defeatedly, staring down at her feet. "I will leave you alone."

"-Thank- you," Doug replied exasperatedly. He waited until Marie-Ange had left the apartment before closing the door firmly. He stared at his hand where it sat on the doorknob, then slowly sat down with his back to the door, trying to come to grips with the emotional maelstrom seeing her again had stirred up.