Aggresive Negotiations [12/14]

[shadowcat]

Title: Aggressive Negotiations
Author: 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 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.








She wasn’t sure when she started officially training with members of the X-Men. It was something that she never really noticed, but it happened gradually. When she was cleared for physical activity, she paid more and more attention to how the X-Men worked as a group. It was different than what she was used to because the power in the team was carefully balanced. They all worked well together and while there was always a field leader, each of the team members were valued for their contribution. While working with them in their Danger Room, Dani learned to adapt her powers to the differing ways the X-Men worked. Gradually she was able to start using her powers in more than just an aggressive manner.

And if it hurt to remember that she and Mikhail had planned to take time away from the MLF to better expand her powers in more ways than she already used them, well, she would do her best to bury that bit of pain.

She saw her father often during those days – probably more often than she saw him when she was a member of the MLF. He encouraged her to keep working with her powers to strengthen them and learn what else she could do with them now that she wasn’t on the front lines of the war right now. He was also the one that told her to continue to allow the world to believe she was dead. She needed to heal, and the safest place for her to do that was with the X-Men. They weren’t as much of a public target as he and his people made themselves.

Dani made time to work out every day and there were times that she pushed herself beyond her limits. However, there were times that she couldn’t do anything but throw herself into physically draining activities. These were the times that memories of Mikhail rose up and threatened to choke her with the strength of the hurt they caused.

Unfortunately, these were also the times that her body found new and interesting ways to remind her that she had come close to death and her body would never be the same again.

The first time this happened, she had been working out in the Danger Room in an attempt to chase away the painful memories that were stronger that day. That was when Logan found her leaning against the wall, taking shallow breaths because the muscles in her chest had seized and she couldn’t move her arm. He hadn’t said anything, just helped her get to the Med Lab and stood beside her as Dr. Moira MacTaggert explained what had happened and why.

She would always bear the scars from the betrayal of her MLF team – both seen and unseen. She had to be careful with what she did because she didn’t want her muscles to seize up at the worst possible moment in a combat situation. There must have been something in her face because later, after he helped her to her room, Logan sat with her. When the pain meds started to take effect, he looked her in the eyes and told her that she wasn’t ever going to be seen as being less than anyone else with the X-Men. She had been on the edge of death and had fought back to live again.

“If something happens and there comes a time where you can’t use your body like you want to, there will be other ways to help out. You have your powers and your mind. You don’t have to physically be in the fight to be a part of the team, Moonstar. You’re family now. That doesn’t have anything to do with your physical strength or the depth of your powers. You’re family because of who you are and the strength of your character.”

His words stayed with her the next few days when she wasn’t able to work out in the Danger Room because the pain was so bad and her muscles hadn’t fully relaxed. Instead of working out like she wanted to be, she somehow found herself sitting in a corner of the recreation room. She was reading to a few of the younger kids and using her powers to act out the book for them as she read.

It was the first time since she had come out of the coma that she honestly believed she would one day be all right emotionally. Healing took time, and the healing of one’s heart would take even more time. That day was the first time she believed that she would eventually stop feeling like she was dying inside every time she thought of Mikhail.



It'd been two and a half years since Dani's death, two and a half years of pain. Oh, it'd gotten better, yes, but that just meant that the pain no longer stabbed through him every single time he thought of Dani. No, now it was just a dull quiet ache in the corner of his heart and his mind. He'd forced it to be. He couldn't let grief rule him forever. She wouldn't want that.

"You're looking good, Concussion."

Mikhail looked up. "Tempo," he said, smiling faintly. "So are you."

"Yes, but I'm not the one who looked like shit because of grief riding hard last time we met," Tempo countered bluntly as she took a seat across from him.

The two of them met up every few months or so at the same outdoor cafe in New York, where Mikhail was still living -- though by now in a better apartment -- to catch up on things. And for Tempo, it was a chance to make sure that her former boss was really all right. He'd been MLF, which meant he mattered to her. But more than that, he'd mattered to Dani. Wherever Dani was, Tempo was pretty sure the young woman would find a way to haunt her forever if she knew someone wasn't looking after Mikhail.

And that duty had somehow fallen to Tempo.

"Point," Mikhail allowed, kicking a chair out from the table with his foot. "Have time to join me properly?"

"Today I do, actually," Tempo said, sitting gracefully in the chair.

The server came over to the table; Mikhail waited until Tempo had placed her order -- his was already on the way -- before giving her a faint smile. "I'm doing good, Tempo, I promise."

Tempo made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. "Well, you look like you are, but are you really?"

"I... I am," Mikhail said after a moment of honest contemplation on the matter because Dani's memory deserved that much. "It's not easy, of course, and I still have my bad days, but..." He shrugged. "I'm doing good. Or at least good as I can be, given what happened."

"It's been two and a half years, Mikhail," Tempo said gently. "Girl wouldn't want you to hurt forever."

"I know," he said, not even registering the fact that Tempo had called him by his first name, something she'd never done while they'd worked together. "But all the wanting in the world can't change how long grief takes to turn into something you can actually live with."

"True," Tempo allowed. "Especially since you had a healthy dose of guilt added to the mix."

Mikhail winced slightly. There was Tempo and her usual bluntness. "I did," he said. "I still have it. I always will. I'll always blame myself for not getting to her fast enough. But since I can't go back and change anything, I'll just have to do the best I can to turn that guilt into something I can actually use."

"You've been working a lot, haven't you?" Tempo asked, not entirely randomly. She knew how Mikhail operated. His default reaction was to throw himself into work; she'd seen it often enough during their MLF days when things hadn't gone right.

"I have." he nodded.

"Anybody interesting?" She couldn't help trying to pry.

"Nice try, Tempo," Mikhail said, laughing softly. "I applaud the attempt."

"Had to try." She shrugged. "You wouldn't tell me, though, if you'd worked for anybody interesting."

"Wouldn't tell you what I'd done, anyway." Because he made no bones about the people he'd taken assignments from.

"So basically, you wouldn't tell me anything good."

"Right in one." Mikhail grinned at her.

Tempo shrugged again. "Like I said, had to try."

"I'd worry about you if you didn't."

It was easy banter that didn't mean much of anything in the long run, but it was the little things like this that'd kept Mikhail rooted to his life, that even now kept him from falling apart entirely.

"Met anybody?"

"Jesus, you're really just playing blunt with me today, aren't you?"

"Where's the fun in doing anything else?" Tempo countered, falling silent as her order was brought out and set in front of her.

Once the server had walked away, Mikhail said, "The only woman I've met who's made me consciously note her attractiveness has been Wanda, that was over a year ago, and I was never interested in her because she's too crazy for me."

"Plus you still love Dani."

Mikhail nodded. "Mostly because of that."

Entirely because of that, because if he wanted to be with someone, he wouldn't care about their mental state.

"Wanda Maximoff can't help being a little wacky," Tempo said with a shrug, taking a sip of her coffee. "But yeah, she'd be a poor choice to move on with. Being A: crazy and B: Dani's sister and all."

"Where in this conversation did I say that I wanted to?" Mikhail said. "All I said was that she's the only woman I've seen in two and a half years who's made me look at her and think she was beautiful."

"You're noticing people again," Tempo said with a satisfied nod. "Even if you don't want anything more, at least you're noticing that kind of thing about people again."

Except Mikhail wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. It felt too much like a betrayal of Dani and her memory. Especially since the first person he'd noticed had been her sister.



Three years after coming out of the coma and starting a new life, Dani started doing more and more with the X-Men. She was going out on missions with them, even though Professor Xavier had been concerned about someone catching sight of her and alerting the MLF that she was alive. Avoiding an all out war between the MLF and Magneto’s people hinged on Dani being safe and if the MLF spotted her in public, that safety would be put at risk.

Kitty and Tamsin solved part of that dilemma by getting her a new costume created that included a mask. They hadn’t decided on a code name for her, yet, so when they were out on a mission she was just called Mama. Some of the others in the team thought it was funny, but few outside the close friends Dani had made dared to say anything about it. One thing that had been quickly established was that Dani would fly into a rage to rival Logan’s if someone looked like they were a threat to her new family – especially any of the kids that had somehow become hers.

Xavier and the other telepaths said that it was a residual effect in Dani’s mind that had carried over from the attack on her. Something in her mind had been triggered to rise up when someone she loved was threatened or attacked. Rachel thought it might be her subconscious trying to prevent an attack on someone she cared about because of what she had gone through. Jean thought it was a way for Dani to try to atone for the harm she herself had caused when she was a member of the Brotherhood and later a leading member of the MLF. Xavier thought it might be a new side effect of her powers since they were still learning everything about them and how Dani could affect people when she wanted to. Betsy didn’t care what caused it. She thought the others should just leave Dani alone and quit trying to analyze everything she did.

There were many reasons that Dani had started to see Betsy as a type of big sister to her. There was also something about her that reminded her of her lost friends, Tempo and Locus. She missed them so much, but the closeness she had developed with Tamsin, Kitty, and the others helped to ease that a little bit. She understood why they had to believe she was dead, but she hated the idea that she had caused them pain.

It didn’t matter that the choice had been taken away from her when Reaper and the others had attacked her and left her to die. As long as her long time best friends were still working for the MLF, Dani had to stay dead to them.

However, death took on a whole new meaning when the X-Men and several other mutants were kidnapped to Asgard and the Valkyries ended up recognizing Dani as one of their own.

It started when one of their winged stallions was rescued by Dani and then he attached himself to her. The women she met explained that it meant she was his rider and she was a Valkyrie -- a chooser of the slain who claims the spirits of fallen warriors to take to Valhalla.

Dani wasn’t sure how to take it and didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

Despite feeling like she belonged among the other Valkyries and with the stallion, Brightwind, she couldn’t turn her back on her friends that had given her a chance to live again. She spent a great deal of time in the wilderness while she and the X-Men were in Asgard. She knew that there would come a time where she needed to make a choice with who she was.

When the fight for the freedom of Asgard was completed and the mutants were returned to their homes, Dani went back to Earth with the rest of them. As much as she had come to love her new friends, she belonged with the X-Men right now.

To her surprise – and the surprise of the rest of the X-Men , Brightwind came home with her. Apparently, he had chosen her to be his bonded rider and a Valkyrie. He would stay with her until she was ready to return to her place in Asgard.

It was her experiences in Asgard and with Brightwind that led Tamsin to select Dani’s new codename among the X-Men.

Valkyrie.

She would learn later just how much had changed for her when Brightwind chose her to be his rider.




Chapter Eleven || Chapter Thirteen