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Title: Aggressive Negotiations
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
enochiansigils and not_from_stars
Fandom: X-Men
Pairing/Characters: Dani Moonstar/Mikhail Sorokin
Rating/Category: R
Warnings: One scene of consensual sex between a minor who is older than her years and a an adult.
Summary: Danielle Moonstar was raised by Magneto and his Brotherhood and became a member of the MLF at a young age. She met and fell in love with Mikhail Sorokin. But the course of true love never does run smooth and when Dani dies as the result of a mission gone wrong, Mikhail is left to pick up the pieces of his life. Five years pass and Mikhail learns that things are not as they have always seemed.
Words: 31,122
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
au_bigbang 2011. Thank you very much to queenmidalah for the wonderful art and fanvideo she made for us! We've loved writing this story and have very much enjoyed taking part in the challenge this year.
It had taken months for Mikhail to finally make up his mind, to finally decide he had had enough of the Mutant Liberation Front. It had taken another couple of months after that for him to actually get out of the organization and leave while on decent terms with the people in charge. Now, a year after Dani's death, Mikhail was living in a little hole in the wall apartment in New York and hating every minute of it.
He slammed the door behind him as he came in, ignoring his neighbor's angry shriek of protest. The walls were paper thin, you could hear everything. Of course she was going to hear him slamming the door. Hell, she'd hear him quietly shutting it, much less slamming. But it was yet another thing Mikhail hated about the place.
He'd never imagined leaving the MLF. At least, not alone. The rare times he'd actually thought about it, Dani had always been at his side. He hadn't wanted to be anywhere that wasn't with her; he still didn't.
Mikhail was hit with a fresh wave of missing her, a wave that sent him to the refrigerator in search of a beer. Clutching the bottle, he leaned against the counter and lost himself in his thoughts.
He still dreamed about her sometimes. More than sometimes, truth be told. Not a week went by where he hadn't dreamed about her half a dozen times. And she was always on his mind, his quiet motivation to get out and make his life better than it was.
He wasn't so sure he was succeeding at that. In leaving the MLF, he'd lost his support system. He wasn't hurting for money, but if he wanted to remain that way, he had to have a way to bring in money. This had led to him freelancing for just about anybody who needed him. His skills were unique enough that he was never hurting for jobs. He could afford to be picky, too, because he knew he'd never be able to live with himself if he weren't.
Because every time he met a potential client, Dani's voice was in the back of his mind talking him through it, just like she'd always backed him up when she was alive. Oh, he knew it was just his brain working overtime, but he couldn't do anything without that little mental voice that sounded like Dani being right there with him.
He liked that voice.
Taking a swig of his beer, he quirked a smile. Liking that mental voice that sounded like his dead girlfriend was probably unhealthy and a sign of half a dozen different mental problems, but Mikhail didn't particularly care. Having that voice in his head made him feel a little less lonely. A little more like Dani was still with him.
He would move past the pain in time, he knew; already it hurt a little less every day to think of her. But part of him feared that moving past it. Part of him feared that moving past the pain would mean forgetting her, and that was something he would never do.
He took another swig of his beer before heading for his bedroom. It'd been a long damn day and all he wanted to do was change into pajama pants, finish his beer, and sleep for a week and a half. He'd only get two of those three things, and sleeping for a week and a half sadly wasn't one of them.
He changed quickly and stretched out in bed, nursing his beer. Nursing it let him think, let him go over the events of the day. It was the one real routine he had in his life, the one thing that was always the same no matter what. Oh, sometimes there'd be variations -- different beer, different location -- but it was still basically the same.
And it was nursing that beer that let Mikhail's mind inevitably wander once again to Dani, who was never far from his thoughts in any case. These thoughts were softer thoughts, remembrances of the good times. And they'd had good times, a lot of good times. They'd worked well together and had been even better lovers. They'd had the perfect relationship, the perfect balance of work and play.
And then they'd lost it all.
Mikhail sighed, slugged down the last few drops of alcohol, and set the bottle aside. Clearly tonight wasn't going to be a night for remembering the good times.
Then again, a lot of nights ended with remembering his loss.
He figured the nights always would.
That first year was hard for Dani.
She had to learn to make her body work the way she wanted it to again. It was during her recovery that she was able to tell the X-Men what had happened to her and who had caused the wounds that almost killed her. While she was working on getting stronger, she spent a great deal of time talking to the people that had rescued her and hidden her so that she didn’t end up dead.
“Why?” It was a question she asked a lot over that first year of recovery. This time, when Hank McCoy made her get back into bed for rest, she asked the rest of her question. “Why did you risk so much to keep me alive?”
Kitty shook her head and smiled at her. “It’s what we do, Dani. We save lives when we can. When we found you in that exploding building, Tam and I weren’t just going to leave you there to die.”
“But I wanted to die,” she said softly, laying back against the pillows as the medic assigned by Dr. McCoy checked her over and made sure she took her medications.” “I wanted to die that day when you found me.”
“No you didn’t,” Kitty disagreed. “You thought you did, but you really didn’t. If you did, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Kitty,” Dani’s voice was sad. “You’re wrong. I did want to die. Sometimes, I wonder why I didn’t. Then I remember that Logan forbid me to die and he can be pretty damn scary.”
“Rachel told us you would hear us talking to you even though you were in a coma. It helps having a telepath and a celestial avatar as your friend.” Kitty smiled slightly. “Very few people disobey Logan and get away with it. He’s practically raised me and Tam.” She studied Dani’s face for a moment and saw the deep sadness in her eyes again. “Talk to me, Mama. Tell me why you wanted to die so badly.”
Dani shook her head. “First you tell me why you and Tam keep calling me Mama. I’m not that much older than you.”
The other girl shrugged and gave her a smile. “Because it suits you. You’re like a mother wolf sometimes. Even when you were barely able to move when we were on the Shi’ar ship, you got all snarly and fierce whenever someone you didn’t know came near Tam or I. One of their healers said you acted like a mother trying to protect us no matter how badly you were hurt. We started calling you Mama and even when you were sleeping, Rachel and Tam said that you felt like you needed to watch out for us.”
“I’m used to watching out for the people on my team.” Dani swallowed, closing her eyes for a long moment. “When I was with the MLF, I was one of their best tactical planners and I never lost a person on my team no matter how dangerous the mission was. I would never leave any one behind. It was one of the first things I learned from my dad.”
Kitty nodded. “I can see that. Magneto is very protective of his people.”
She sighed. “Does he know that I’m alive, Kitty? Does he at least know that I didn’t die?”
“Of course! The Professor contacted him as soon as we brought you back to the mansion. We weren’t going to let him believe that you were dead. He visited you before we took you to the Shi’ar. In fact, he gave the Professor his permission.” Kitty squeezed her hand gently. “He loves you, Dani. We’ve seen it. In fact, he was the one that told us not to let anyone know you survived the attack. He thought it would be safer for you if the MLF believed you had died.” She smiled. “Now, talk to me. Tell me the truth about why you wanted to die.”
“Because nothing could have been worse than the fact that it was my boyfriend who ordered my death.” Dani’s voice caught and she swallowed several times. “I was on the floor and I was already going in and out of lucidity. Reaper and Suwa were with us on that mission and it was them and Strobe that attacked me. I kept calling for Concussion but he didn’t come for awhile.”
“Concussion was your boyfriend?”
A tear slid down Dani’s cheek. “Yes. I loved him for a couple of years and I thought he loved me.”
“He didn’t?”
“That day when he finally came, it was to make sure that the job had been carried out. He said that they had been right and that sleeping with his second made him weak.”
“Oh God, Dani.”
Dani took a deep breath. “He left me there to die. He told me that I was wrong about him and that he had lied all of that time when he told me he loved me. All of those years we were together he was just using me until I wasn’t needed any longer.”
“What a bastard!”
“When he left me there, all I wanted to do was die. He hurt me much more than Reaper’s blades did. Reaper missed my heart, but Concussion tore it out.”
Dani closed her eyes again, trying to keep the tears at bay. She hadn’t cried much even when the pain of her recovery had been enough to make her want to scream. However, reliving those last moments with Mikhail was enough to make the tears start to flow. She had loved him so much and had thought they could leave the MLF one day and have a life together. Knowing that everything that she felt and believed had all been one-sided was something that hurt more than she ever expected to hurt.
She knew that Tamsin and Kitty believed they had done the right thing by saving her life and taking her with them, but sometimes she wasn’t sure they had done her much of a favor. Nothing that she was going through with her physical recovery was causing her as much pain as her broken heart was causing her.
Mikhail had developed a reputation for working with damn near anybody and everybody if he thought it was worth it. Not if the price was right, if he thought it was worth it. Which meant that he'd worked for some rather unorthodox people simply because they'd pulled at his heartstrings somehow.
This meeting, though, wasn't one of those meetings. This was Mikhail taking leave of his senses entirely.
This was Mikhail being approached by the Brotherhood.
When he'd first gotten the call, he'd half thought it was a practical joke and half thought that Magneto was finally planning to kill him. But he'd arrived at the arranged meeting place only to discover that he was in luck, that he was meeting with one of Magneto's lieutenants.
Almost a pity, really. Now he'd have to wonder if the next time contact came from the Brotherhood it meant his death.
But until then, he would take their job -- and their money, he noted with a wry twist of his lips as he tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket. If they were willing to pay, he was willing to be paid.
"I trust there are no further questions," the woman -- Wanda, he'd learned her name was -- said with a twist of her lips that some would call a smile and others would call intimidation.
Mikhail called it intimidation. Luckily for him, he wasn't all that easily intimidated. Or seduced, he noted as Wanda's smile turned almost flirtatious in the blink of an eye. Her moods were enough to give him whiplash and he'd known her less than half an hour.
"No," he said evenly. "No further questions. If I have any, who may I contact?"
"Myself, of course," Wanda said. "I am your contact on this assignment, after all."
Oh, lucky him.
Chapter Ten || Chapter Twelve
Author:
enochiansigils and not_from_starsFandom: X-Men
Pairing/Characters: Dani Moonstar/Mikhail Sorokin
Rating/Category: R
Warnings: One scene of consensual sex between a minor who is older than her years and a an adult.
Summary: Danielle Moonstar was raised by Magneto and his Brotherhood and became a member of the MLF at a young age. She met and fell in love with Mikhail Sorokin. But the course of true love never does run smooth and when Dani dies as the result of a mission gone wrong, Mikhail is left to pick up the pieces of his life. Five years pass and Mikhail learns that things are not as they have always seemed.
Words: 31,122
Notes: Written for
au_bigbang 2011. Thank you very much to queenmidalah for the wonderful art and fanvideo she made for us! We've loved writing this story and have very much enjoyed taking part in the challenge this year.It had taken months for Mikhail to finally make up his mind, to finally decide he had had enough of the Mutant Liberation Front. It had taken another couple of months after that for him to actually get out of the organization and leave while on decent terms with the people in charge. Now, a year after Dani's death, Mikhail was living in a little hole in the wall apartment in New York and hating every minute of it.
He slammed the door behind him as he came in, ignoring his neighbor's angry shriek of protest. The walls were paper thin, you could hear everything. Of course she was going to hear him slamming the door. Hell, she'd hear him quietly shutting it, much less slamming. But it was yet another thing Mikhail hated about the place.
He'd never imagined leaving the MLF. At least, not alone. The rare times he'd actually thought about it, Dani had always been at his side. He hadn't wanted to be anywhere that wasn't with her; he still didn't.
Mikhail was hit with a fresh wave of missing her, a wave that sent him to the refrigerator in search of a beer. Clutching the bottle, he leaned against the counter and lost himself in his thoughts.
He still dreamed about her sometimes. More than sometimes, truth be told. Not a week went by where he hadn't dreamed about her half a dozen times. And she was always on his mind, his quiet motivation to get out and make his life better than it was.
He wasn't so sure he was succeeding at that. In leaving the MLF, he'd lost his support system. He wasn't hurting for money, but if he wanted to remain that way, he had to have a way to bring in money. This had led to him freelancing for just about anybody who needed him. His skills were unique enough that he was never hurting for jobs. He could afford to be picky, too, because he knew he'd never be able to live with himself if he weren't.
Because every time he met a potential client, Dani's voice was in the back of his mind talking him through it, just like she'd always backed him up when she was alive. Oh, he knew it was just his brain working overtime, but he couldn't do anything without that little mental voice that sounded like Dani being right there with him.
He liked that voice.
Taking a swig of his beer, he quirked a smile. Liking that mental voice that sounded like his dead girlfriend was probably unhealthy and a sign of half a dozen different mental problems, but Mikhail didn't particularly care. Having that voice in his head made him feel a little less lonely. A little more like Dani was still with him.
He would move past the pain in time, he knew; already it hurt a little less every day to think of her. But part of him feared that moving past it. Part of him feared that moving past the pain would mean forgetting her, and that was something he would never do.
He took another swig of his beer before heading for his bedroom. It'd been a long damn day and all he wanted to do was change into pajama pants, finish his beer, and sleep for a week and a half. He'd only get two of those three things, and sleeping for a week and a half sadly wasn't one of them.
He changed quickly and stretched out in bed, nursing his beer. Nursing it let him think, let him go over the events of the day. It was the one real routine he had in his life, the one thing that was always the same no matter what. Oh, sometimes there'd be variations -- different beer, different location -- but it was still basically the same.
And it was nursing that beer that let Mikhail's mind inevitably wander once again to Dani, who was never far from his thoughts in any case. These thoughts were softer thoughts, remembrances of the good times. And they'd had good times, a lot of good times. They'd worked well together and had been even better lovers. They'd had the perfect relationship, the perfect balance of work and play.
And then they'd lost it all.
Mikhail sighed, slugged down the last few drops of alcohol, and set the bottle aside. Clearly tonight wasn't going to be a night for remembering the good times.
Then again, a lot of nights ended with remembering his loss.
He figured the nights always would.
That first year was hard for Dani.
She had to learn to make her body work the way she wanted it to again. It was during her recovery that she was able to tell the X-Men what had happened to her and who had caused the wounds that almost killed her. While she was working on getting stronger, she spent a great deal of time talking to the people that had rescued her and hidden her so that she didn’t end up dead.
“Why?” It was a question she asked a lot over that first year of recovery. This time, when Hank McCoy made her get back into bed for rest, she asked the rest of her question. “Why did you risk so much to keep me alive?”
Kitty shook her head and smiled at her. “It’s what we do, Dani. We save lives when we can. When we found you in that exploding building, Tam and I weren’t just going to leave you there to die.”
“But I wanted to die,” she said softly, laying back against the pillows as the medic assigned by Dr. McCoy checked her over and made sure she took her medications.” “I wanted to die that day when you found me.”
“No you didn’t,” Kitty disagreed. “You thought you did, but you really didn’t. If you did, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Kitty,” Dani’s voice was sad. “You’re wrong. I did want to die. Sometimes, I wonder why I didn’t. Then I remember that Logan forbid me to die and he can be pretty damn scary.”
“Rachel told us you would hear us talking to you even though you were in a coma. It helps having a telepath and a celestial avatar as your friend.” Kitty smiled slightly. “Very few people disobey Logan and get away with it. He’s practically raised me and Tam.” She studied Dani’s face for a moment and saw the deep sadness in her eyes again. “Talk to me, Mama. Tell me why you wanted to die so badly.”
Dani shook her head. “First you tell me why you and Tam keep calling me Mama. I’m not that much older than you.”
The other girl shrugged and gave her a smile. “Because it suits you. You’re like a mother wolf sometimes. Even when you were barely able to move when we were on the Shi’ar ship, you got all snarly and fierce whenever someone you didn’t know came near Tam or I. One of their healers said you acted like a mother trying to protect us no matter how badly you were hurt. We started calling you Mama and even when you were sleeping, Rachel and Tam said that you felt like you needed to watch out for us.”
“I’m used to watching out for the people on my team.” Dani swallowed, closing her eyes for a long moment. “When I was with the MLF, I was one of their best tactical planners and I never lost a person on my team no matter how dangerous the mission was. I would never leave any one behind. It was one of the first things I learned from my dad.”
Kitty nodded. “I can see that. Magneto is very protective of his people.”
She sighed. “Does he know that I’m alive, Kitty? Does he at least know that I didn’t die?”
“Of course! The Professor contacted him as soon as we brought you back to the mansion. We weren’t going to let him believe that you were dead. He visited you before we took you to the Shi’ar. In fact, he gave the Professor his permission.” Kitty squeezed her hand gently. “He loves you, Dani. We’ve seen it. In fact, he was the one that told us not to let anyone know you survived the attack. He thought it would be safer for you if the MLF believed you had died.” She smiled. “Now, talk to me. Tell me the truth about why you wanted to die.”
“Because nothing could have been worse than the fact that it was my boyfriend who ordered my death.” Dani’s voice caught and she swallowed several times. “I was on the floor and I was already going in and out of lucidity. Reaper and Suwa were with us on that mission and it was them and Strobe that attacked me. I kept calling for Concussion but he didn’t come for awhile.”
“Concussion was your boyfriend?”
A tear slid down Dani’s cheek. “Yes. I loved him for a couple of years and I thought he loved me.”
“He didn’t?”
“That day when he finally came, it was to make sure that the job had been carried out. He said that they had been right and that sleeping with his second made him weak.”
“Oh God, Dani.”
Dani took a deep breath. “He left me there to die. He told me that I was wrong about him and that he had lied all of that time when he told me he loved me. All of those years we were together he was just using me until I wasn’t needed any longer.”
“What a bastard!”
“When he left me there, all I wanted to do was die. He hurt me much more than Reaper’s blades did. Reaper missed my heart, but Concussion tore it out.”
Dani closed her eyes again, trying to keep the tears at bay. She hadn’t cried much even when the pain of her recovery had been enough to make her want to scream. However, reliving those last moments with Mikhail was enough to make the tears start to flow. She had loved him so much and had thought they could leave the MLF one day and have a life together. Knowing that everything that she felt and believed had all been one-sided was something that hurt more than she ever expected to hurt.
She knew that Tamsin and Kitty believed they had done the right thing by saving her life and taking her with them, but sometimes she wasn’t sure they had done her much of a favor. Nothing that she was going through with her physical recovery was causing her as much pain as her broken heart was causing her.
Mikhail had developed a reputation for working with damn near anybody and everybody if he thought it was worth it. Not if the price was right, if he thought it was worth it. Which meant that he'd worked for some rather unorthodox people simply because they'd pulled at his heartstrings somehow.
This meeting, though, wasn't one of those meetings. This was Mikhail taking leave of his senses entirely.
This was Mikhail being approached by the Brotherhood.
When he'd first gotten the call, he'd half thought it was a practical joke and half thought that Magneto was finally planning to kill him. But he'd arrived at the arranged meeting place only to discover that he was in luck, that he was meeting with one of Magneto's lieutenants.
Almost a pity, really. Now he'd have to wonder if the next time contact came from the Brotherhood it meant his death.
But until then, he would take their job -- and their money, he noted with a wry twist of his lips as he tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket. If they were willing to pay, he was willing to be paid.
"I trust there are no further questions," the woman -- Wanda, he'd learned her name was -- said with a twist of her lips that some would call a smile and others would call intimidation.
Mikhail called it intimidation. Luckily for him, he wasn't all that easily intimidated. Or seduced, he noted as Wanda's smile turned almost flirtatious in the blink of an eye. Her moods were enough to give him whiplash and he'd known her less than half an hour.
"No," he said evenly. "No further questions. If I have any, who may I contact?"
"Myself, of course," Wanda said. "I am your contact on this assignment, after all."
Oh, lucky him.
Chapter Ten || Chapter Twelve
