Aggressive Negotiations [14/14]

[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.








The fight was chaos of the most uncontrolled kind. There was pockets of fighting all over. Mikhail fired off a concussive blast, diving to the side to avoid retaliatory gunfire from Colt.

The most intense side fight was Pyro and Flashover. The girl caught every ball of fire Pyro sent her way and extinguished it, laughing gleefully.

"Damn it, don't taunt him!" Colt yelled. "It'll only set him off!"

Mikhail heard Colt's words and sure enough, Pyro's reaction wasn't a pleasant one -- the younger man sent a powerful wave of fire at Flashover's head; Colt tackled her just in time for the fire to sail over their heads. Mikhail was surprised to see an almost stricken look flash across Pyro's face; it was gone as quickly as it'd come.

The wind started slowly whipping around them; Mikhail knew that had to be Storm. He sent a blindly-aimed blast in her direction, falling back to where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were coordinating... something or other.

"What you need to do is take out Storm and Wolverine first," Quicksilver argued. "They're the ones leading the charge; take them out and the team's weakened."

"Weakened but not broken apart," Scarlet Witch yelled over the wind. "Storm, yeah, but we need to take out that bitch Valkyrie!"

"She's not important," Mikhail tried to interject. "I think the biggest danger is Flashover. She's going to exhaust Pyro and we need him. You know he's not armed to create fire forever. He's a weakness in a fight if they bring Flashover with them and you know it. You knew it going into this and you brought him anyway. Do something about her before he drops."

"Let him," Scarlet Witch said dispassionately. "We need to win. As long as he stays alive, nothing else matters. Exhaustion heals."

God, Wanda was a bitch. Mikhail shook his head. "I tell you, we need to take out Flashover first, then Storm, then Shadowcat and Colt. Valkyrie can go out last. Fit the others somewhere in between."

"What do you know?" Scarlet Witch eyed him skeptically.

"I was with the MLF for years, remember?" Mikhail met her skepticism with his own. "I led a goddamn team. I was no tactical genius, that was your sister's job. But I did pick up a few things from her, and chief among those was take out the biggest danger first."

Apparently Wanda was stupid today as well as a bitch.

"Fine, then," Quicksilver said shortly. "We'll deal with Flashover. You go deal with Valkyrie. Go take her out. Her weapons are wreaking havoc on us, anyway."

At least one of the siblings was in command of their senses, Mikhail noted as he took off across the impromptu battlefield. He'd been given an assignment and he was damn well going to carry it out or go down trying.

He threw himself into a forward roll, dodging more gunfire from Colt -- who he figured had to be running out of bullets by now, even with the extra ammo he'd seen her pull from her pockets at several points. He shot off a blast in her direction, gratified to see it hit her and knock her several feet backwards, slamming her up against a wall.

Now he just had to get past the rest of them, since Valkyrie had parked herself in the middle of the battle and up a little higher than the rest, presumably to give her better aim. He shot a blast at her, then another, and a third. He didn't want to knock her clear off her perch, he just wanted to knock her back enough to make her come down on her own.

Because really, taking her out by knocking her off a six foot high perch was unrealistic. At best, she'd hit her head on the way down. At worst, she'd just be jarred.

And there she went, clambering down. He fired off a short, light burst just to get his point across and then took off towards her at a run. He knew it wasn't going to be an easy fight against her, but Mikhail didn't like easy fights. There was no honor in beating an opponent you could quite easily beat.

His mind had gone on autopilot, as it always did in a fight. It'd be a quick battle, he had a feeling, but it would by no means be an easy one. This was the kind of fight he did best, the kind where he was evenly matched -- or nearly evenly matched, at any rate. He was a better option against Valkyrie than some.



Valkyrie wasn't stupid. She recognized that she would be one of the people the Brotherhood would see as the biggest threat in this battle. There was a reason that she had been in the middle of the combat and then on higher ground. It was easier to power her arrows and fire them from her bow if she was a little higher up than the rest of the battle. She could decide what to charge her arrows with and fire them before anyone realized they'd even been hit. It also gave her a vantage point to see how the rest of the battle was going and to yell suggestions through the communicators.

Once a tactician, always a tactician. Her earlier training always came in handy during skirmishes like this.

This wasn't her first fight against the Brotherhood, but it was damn well the first one she had been involved in where both Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were directing the attack. From the way things were going, they shouldn't have both tried to be the tacticians. In a battle like this, you needed one tactical person, one leader and the rest there to make sure the plan was carried out.

That was clearly something the Brotherhood were lacking and something she planned on taking full advantage of. She scrambled up onto a broken wall and tapped her headset. "Shadowcat! I have the chip they were looking for."

"Good going, Valkyrie. I'm on my way to --" The blast shaking her perch cut off whatever it was Kitty was going to say. Oh, she knew who that was. She had seen him use those blasts on other people before, after all.

"Never mind, Shadowcat. I'll hold onto it as I have a new situation to deal with. You get to Colt and Flashover!"

"Val --"

"I've got this. You get those two away from Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Let Storm and Wolverine work offense while you work defense! Tell Colt she can deal with Pyro at another time."

She tapped off her communicator and scrambled down off of her perch to get on more even, steadier ground. By the time her attacker came around the ledge, he was met by the tip of Valkyrie's spear scraping alongside the front of his shoulder as she used the momentum to flip over him and kick at the back of his knees.

She crouched for a moment, waiting for him to get his equilibrium again. Then, instead, she straightened her stance and got to her feet as she kept a careful eye on him, She was glad that nothing could be seen of her through her full face mask because the last thing she needed was for the man she was fighting to recognize her and send up the alert. She knew she wasn't in real danger from Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, they wouldn't dare risk their father's wrath if they harmed her.

However, Concussion was another matter entirely, The two of them had been intimate and inseparable for years and even if no one else would recognize her face five years later, he would. That was something that neither she nor the X-Men could afford to deal with right now -- not when they needed this chip to prove voter fraud over the newest attempt to get the Mutant Registration Act passed. So the mask stayed on and she made sure that if she had to speak, she used the voice distorter that Hank had affixed to the insides of her costumes and uniforms.

These days, she rarely left the grounds of the Institute without wearing some kind of mask or using another one of Hank's gadgets to disguise herself. They helped and they made her feel less exposed when she left the Institute.

She waited for Concussion to face her, twirling the spear in her hands lightly. True, she could have just stabbed him in the back with the spear and left him to deal with psionic ramifications in that manner, but she was a different person than she had been before. Even if she had new weapons and new powers, she wouldn't attack someone's back. The X-Men had taught her too well for that.

Even if there was still a lot of unresolved anger and pain in her where he was concerned.

And so she waited for him to turn around, carefully out of his reach, balancing on the balls of her feet in case he was stupid and tried to take her out with a blast at such a close range.

She'd seen him do it before, but she was almost counting on him not doing that. The fact that they sent him after her meant that they thought she was the bigger threat in this fight. If it had been any other time, she might have found that thought amusing. Right now, though, she didn't have room in her mind for amusing.

Right now, she needed to put him on his ass so that her team could get away with what they had come for.

Personal satisfaction would have to wait until a later date, she understood that. She could almost hear Wolverine barking that reminder at her. He didn't need to worry, though, not right now. She would do what she needed to do and no more than that.

She had a job to do and a team to protect.

Mikhail spun around, bringing his hands up. He could fire easily from any position, but he wasn't going to underestimate Valkyrie.

Valkyrie didn't say a word to him, just watched him, her stance appearing to be relaxed.

He took a couple steps back, hands still staying up. She might've appeared relaxed, but that was quite probably deceptive. Valkyrie knew what she was doing, he knew from everything he'd heard about her.

She still didn't speak, just twirling her spear in her hands as she watched him carefully. She wondered if his first attack was going to be with hands or feet,

He moved suddenly, sending a blast over her head at the same time he moved in with a kick.

She let the kick connect, using his foot to pivot so that she could swing the butt of the spear at his back.

The spear hit the small of Mikhail's back, making him stumble.

She spun around, trying to sweep his legs out from under him and take him to the ground.

Mikhail was too quick for her, though, and he regained his balance, quickly backing away a few steps.

If he could have seen her face, she would have given him a small smile. Instead, she shrugged slightly. Being in a serious fight with Mikhail was a hell of a lot different than she remembered sparring and training with him to be.

And in a serious fight, he was much more deadly -- and vicious. That was nothing new, though; she'd certainly seen that side of him more than once.

She didn't say anything, just moved her spear from hand to hand as she watched to see what his next move was going to be. She was too close to him for his powers not to screw him up, too, but she wasn't going to take any chances on that and she started sending power into one of her hands without moving it.

Mikhail balanced a ball-shaped charge on his open palm. It was risky, something he'd only started learning how to do after Dani's death, but if there was a time to take a risk, it was now. He had to salvage this mess of a mission somehow. And make a mental note not to work with the Brotherhood ever again if it was going to involve Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver on the same mission. If they'd let him plan, this would've been over and they'd have won.

"I wouldn't," Valkyrie warned in a husky voice. "You won't like the consequences." She was pretty sure she could bring up the psionic shield in her hand before the ball of power could hit her. Pretty sure. She also started charging up the spear she held. If he wanted to play, she was willing to play.

"I've been hurt worse," he said with a shrug, taking a mental deep breath before whipping the charge at her.

Valkyrie's hand came up and in it was her power, shaped into a perfect shield that swung the blast back at Concussion. She had warned him not to do that, after all.

The blast hit Mikhail and knocked him back, flat on his ass. He should have expected that, he noted as he got to his feet, a little surprised that she was actually giving him time to get up.

She did give him time, but only so she could back off and send a blast of power at the rocks around them so that she could clamor up on them. She had seen a problem and that meant she had to stop Concussion long enough to get to where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver had Flashover pinned down.

"Sorry to cut this short," she said in that husky tone. "But I've got to go. I'm sure that we'll fight again and I'll get to kick your ass in a much better situation." She let out a shrill whistle at the same time that images started coming to life around Concussion. Figuring out what was real and what was an illusion would give her enough time to get to Flashover.

Figuring out some of it was easy, but some of the images were much harder to figure out. It was that hesitation that gave her time to move.

Flashover screamed, putting her rage into her fire and trying to direct it at Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, both of whom just laughed at her.

Valkyrie pivoted and ran towards Flashover's scream, her powered spear knocking Scarlet Witch back just enough for Brightwind to land and for Flashover to scramble onto the winged horse's back. As Valkyrie leaped onto her horse in front of her, an attack from Quicksilver knocked her head back, causing a rip in her face mask. Valkyrie's head jerked towards Concussion's line of sight as Brightwind started to lift off the ground. The jagged tear in the face mask allowed Concussion to see a cheekbone, part of an eye, and bronze skin.

He knew those features, though, knew them well. Five years had done nothing to erase the memory of those features.

But how was it possible? She was supposed to be dead. All he could do was stare in shock.

As Brightwind rose up out of range, Valkyrie brought her bow to lay over his neck. She took only a moment to aim and then an arrow embedded itself in the dirt between Concussion's boots, crackling with the red and purple power that was tinged with black. She had learned more control over her powers and had learned to do so many new things -- including the message she was now sending to him. Once that was done, Valkyrie checked the battlefield to make sure all of her people had gotten to safety. Then, nodding once, she hung her bow across her back and took off on her winged stallion without looking back at him.

Mikhail was oblivious to everything around him. The yelling, the fighting, all of it was only vaguely registering to any part of his brain at all. He was too busy focusing on the fact that Dani wasn't dead.

She wasn't dead.

He had a job to finish doing, and he was going to do it, but as he shook his head to clear it all he could think was that if she was alive, then maybe there was hope for them. Not that they could reunite, because clearly she thought he was with the Brotherhood and she was with the X-Men, but that there could be an actual resolution to things.

But only time would tell.





Chapter Thirteen ||