Want: Three things they would do to your character if they were alone. {Markus for Darcy because I'm amused at the thought of him playing dress-up or tittering about crossword puzzles.}
Markus is a complicated man with complex desires don’t judge him, man.
That being said you’re right.
1: Talk incessantly about his family and give you advice.
He would tell Darcy all about his his family members, particularly Kate and Rose (being the closest in age at 18 and 16 to Markus’ 20). Maybe even a bit about Evelyn and what it was like growing up together given the three of them are mutual acquaintances and so it’s an easy topic of conversation. Or what a little demon Kitty is or who the Murasaki’s are and the subtle nuances of Kaname’s personality.
He would also ask Darcy about herself, and probably try to find a way to solve all of her problems before he left. Markus has a lot of natural empathy and a pretty decent head on his shoulders. Despite his lack of personal experience his advice isn’t bad. He does, however, straddle the line between genuinely helpful and fucking annoying.
Which means that she would learn a lot about the horde of people he is related to and the handful of people he associates with outside of that but honestly probably very little about Markus. (Other than that he’s a big idiot who lives vicariously through others.)
2: It wasn’t really his idea in the first place.
This is probably Kate’s fault.
Asking people to spend time alone with him doesn’t generally occur to Markus unless they have some kind of task to finish. Even his relationship with Evelyn was cultivated under the expectation that they would be required to unite their houses and this would be more pleasant if they at least liked each other enough to stay in the same room together.
In light of this and over concerns of Markus’s general disinterestedness, his family members feel the need to “help” him. There is quite a few disagreements on how to help him, and sometimes conflicting camps will find out about one another’s machinations and try to put an end to them.
The ending is always the same.
Team “Markus is engaged and should be trying to make things work with his future wife” wins because he basically rats out Team “Get Markus laid”, finds out that the excuse was a farce and goes home.
Markus is a crafts guy. Mostly little things like repairing toys for younger family members or making bracelets and flower crowns for his younger sisters. Things like this are the most personal thing Markus really has to share with someone given the most of the rest of his life is devoted entirely to the causes and wishes of other people. Showing someone things that he’s made or maybe even making a thing for a person is as far as Markus’ idea of reciprocal intimacy can go. Anything else is just duty, or an extension of his personality.
I like to think he dabbles in painting and other forms of visual art but that he’s not quite as good at that as he is with practical arts simply because I find him unlikely to practice something purely ornamental whether he enjoys it or not. So if you get to see the watercolors you know you’re in.
All of this makes him seem like a pretty boring guy. He kind of is a boring guy (but I hope an interesting character). Markus absolutely does have his own opinions but his empathy is of the kind where he really only asserts himself if it’s important and his actual desires tend to be pretty simple.
