He sees it all too late, when it's already happening, and doesn't find the time to brace himself for the impact against the table. It takes the breath from his lungs, but Walter's fingers are still twisted in the folds of the other man's jacket. When the stranger comes crashing down atop him, their combined weight is too much for the replicated construction of the piece of furniture. Wood splinters underneath them, and he howls a choked expression of pain and rage when the next thing his back finds is the floor of the dining hall.

Walter has been in a scrap or two in his lifetime. Boyhood spats that left him and his compatriots with a few bloody noses and far more stories to tell. Offenses easily forgotten as the sun set and the next day brought new dreams and ideas. He's never been in a legitimate fight before, but that flame in his belly wants it just the same. Like a rising darkness within him, Walter finds himself overtaken by the urge to see this through. To pound every amount of bile and grit and self-loathing into the face of the man with the stern eyes and heavy scowl. He shapes his fingers into a fist and drives it towards the jaw of the stranger, the other hand still holding him close. Refusing to let him get away even as he seeks to beat him back.

He doesn't hear the boots of the officers as they converge upon the chaos. Walter can barely see past the red in his eyes, but he feels himself split apart from the man, and then a heavy arm bracing around his chest and hauling him backward. He's ushered to his feet and nearly before he can find them under him, dragged toward the doors of the hall.