This is a story that examines Max's reaction to the events of "Blood of the Dragon," picking up right where the episode left off. Just a bit of character fluff and angst.

Dedicated to citizenjess for inspiring the discussion of what Max was really thinking, and for keeping me on track. I'm so sorry I didn't do this sooner – but I did promise I'd write it eventually! I just didn't know it would take…months. Sorry!

Disclaimer: I don't own Mighty Max. I wish I did. Don't sue me if you do. That is all.

As his friends looked at him with that amused smirk they so often shared, Max silently breathed a sigh of relief. His bravado had fooled monsters, mad scientists, and his mom, but it often failed to trick Virgil and Norman; they knew the signs of it too well. This time, however, they seemed to have fallen for it, or else they were letting him believe they had. Either way, it saved him the trouble of seriously answering the question. But Virgil's query followed him the rest of the day: "What would you have done if Skullmaster had got the Cap before we reached the portal?"

That night, the Cap-Bearer leaned against his pillows, troubled. Sore and tired, his body was used to the sort of energy he had exerted today, although sleep would be a welcome healer to his poor muscles. But his mind could not quiet itself. The images of the whole experience kept running through his head, accompanied by his own uncomfortably insightful thoughts.

"This morning, all I wanted was to be a kid. Dirt biking with Felix would have been awesome, and I really haven't had that much time to myself lately. But then that tape had Virgil's message and I had to go. I was so bummed. Couldn't I have been a kid, just for today?"

His mind fast-forwarded through the almost routine adventures of rescuing Tamoori and accidentally scaling a dragon and winding up on its snout. There was nothing really new there, nothing he hadn't seen and done and bought the T-shirt many times before. But then that image of Norman, seemingly burnt to a crisp by the dragon's fire as he fell limply into the river, rushed through him and he shuddered.

"It wasn't that long ago I had to lead everybody into Skull Mountain to destroy the Crystal of Souls, and I left four of them there to die horribly. Four good people. And then, only last month we were back there again, and it was Virgil who could have died. How many others are going to die before this is over? It was almost Norman today."

Max rolled over and punched a pillow in pent-up frustration. Though he and Virgil had talked at length time after time, and he and Norman had talked as much as the Viking ever did, none of it could assuage the guilt that plagued him. So many people got hurt because of him. It just wasn't fair! Why did it have to be him that was responsible for so much? He was just a kid! Real heroes, innocent people, they all trusted him to save them, and sometimes he couldn't. What sort of person was he, anyway? What kind of hero put so many lives at risk for his own? No one and nothing could be worth it. Least of all some random kid with a hat.

"I think it was the idea that Norman had died that got me," Max realized with a start. "I was mad about losing my fun day, sure, but when I saw him fall, at that moment that it all seemed just too real for me to cope. And then a lot happened at once, and before I knew it I was in front of Skullmaster again. If I never see old Bonehead again it'll be too soon!"

Though he had remained spirited on the outside, taunting his enemies as usual, something in the boy's heart was just not in the jibes this time. It seemed so hopeless: Norman was gone and he and Virgil were absolutely outnumbered by lizard-men, Warmonger, and Skullmaster. And then all Tamoori's people had reacted with such faith and awe, believing in him, counting on him to save them. He couldn't even save himself! Doubt had gnawed at him, even after the moment Norman saved him once again. Fleeing through the jungle, Max couldn't help but feel he didn't deserve to have escaped, or to have so many people rely on him. He wasn't a hero. He just…wasn't.

Of course, the feeling only grew the more he had worried about it. Unlike his usual, confident, strangely-lucky self, Max had questioned his every move. It was out of character for him to have missed the obvious vines that gave them passage down to the beach, and worse not to have remembered that Skullmaster was hot on their tail armed with, of all things, a dragon. Hiding his fears with practiced arrogance, he pushed Virgil as hard as he dared, internally pleading with his mentor to find a way to get them all out safely before anyone got hurt on his account. Max had been desperate for someone else to save the day, someone more reliable, someone who wouldn't screw it up. But this time Virgil could not save them, and neither could Norman. And then Skullmaster was upon them.

"It started as a plan," Max admitted to himself, "to stall for time and hope we'd make it to the portal before I actually gave him the Cap. But, the more I explained, the more real it felt. What I said about not being a hero, about just wanting to go home and be a kid, it was all true."

It was a stark, sobering realization.

"For a second there, if Skullmaster hadn't talked to himself for quite so long, I probably would have handed the Cap over to him. I just didn't want to do it anymore, didn't want to watch people get hurt because of me. I didn't want to be responsible for all this anymore. I still don't. I still don't think I can do this."

The boy-hero rolled again, until he faced where the Cap sat on his nightstand, looking as common and un-magical as always. Just a weird piece of cloth, he felt somehow that he was being measured by it. Despair in his recollections burnt anew and Max, the unconquerable, unafraid, undefeated Max, felt his eyes get hot with unshed tears.

"I did want to give him the Cap! I'm not a hero! I'm just a kid! I'm never going to be worthy it. And people are still going to get in the crossfire, maybe people I care about. And it'll all be my fault! Why didn't I give it away when I had the chance?"

A hand made savage with repressed angst and frustration and not a little pain whipped out sideways, striking the Cosmic Cap from its place. It rolled and skipped over his dirty laundry, ending somewhere upside-down on the floor amid a pile of socks, school-books, and one of Thor's multiple nests scattered throughout the room. Even across the messy space, even treated in such an undignified way, Max still felt that something in its ancientness was watching him.

"I'm not a hero! I'm just a kid! And this isn't a game where I can start over if I get it wrong. If I screw up, people get hurt and die, real people! Adults can't even run the world right – how can one lousy kid save it?" Max was unconscious of the fact that he was sitting up on his bed now, feet twisted in the sheets, actively shouting at the object that was a symbol for so much worry and responsibility. He pushed a fist into his eyes to hold back the burning tears that danced there.

"It's your fault, you stupid Cap! I should have given you up when I had the chance!"

The words seemed to reverberate in the otherwise-quiet room. The whole house suddenly felt incredibly empty, without even his mother's comforting presence; she would not return from her trip for another few days. He was alone. Max felt himself bend under the weight of duty, the heaviness of so much riding on his young and narrow shoulders, and he instinctively curled in on himself, looking for solace in his familiar bed and blankets. Somewhere inside his blazing anger and frustration and shame, a soul-deep fear and regret was beginning to grow.

"I should have given it up, but I couldn't. I wanted to, but I couldn't. Because that would have been worse. I just…I wish I could pretend I was a normal kid again, ignore all the stupid summons and the rest of it. But if I do that…"

Max trailed off, his eye landing on a photo on his desk across the room. Though he could not quite make it out in the dim light cast by his bedside lamp, he knew what it looked like by heart: himself, his mom's arm draped over his shoulders, smiling goofily from the base of a pyramid. It had been taken when he was just Max, before he had been named the Mighty One, on one of his mom's trips. His face was turned towards the camera, alight and eager and cheerful, but his mom's eyes were only for her son. Though he had never quite figured out what the face she was making meant, Max felt that the photo had captured something real of his mother's feeling for her son.

"If I give it up, people like mom will get hurt anyway. And kids like Felix won't be able to go dirt-biking; they'll be running for their lives from Skullmaster's monsters. Kids like Bea will spend all their time trying to figure out how to stay alive." He sat back up, his breathing, rushed from the outburst, slowly calming down. "If I give it up…"

Max finally looked to where the Cap had landed on his cluttered floor. Even now, that feeling of being weighed remained.

"I'm just a kid," and his voice was pleading. "I just…I just can't be the right one for this."

The boy sighed heavily, hanging his head. The Cap would never answer him; it wasn't as though the thing could talk. But he longed for an answer anyway, an absolution, even a bit of comfort. Anything was better than the sinking feeling of shackles closing around his soul. Colder than the coldest iron, responsibility and duty and sacrifice bound him now, and they held power over him that even Skullmaster at his worst could never have claimed.

Max suddenly remembered the beginning of his adventures with Norman and Virgil, that day when everything he ever thought he knew about himself and the world had changed. When he had laid eyes on his basement for the first time, he had been certain that he did not want to go after Skullmaster, no matter what, that the hero-gig was not for him. But the lavabeast that came for him, taking Virgil instead, had had other ideas. He remembered what he had said when he had decided to take the portal to Skull Mountain to rescue the errant fowl.

"I guess a chosen one's gotta do what a chosen one's gotta do. Well, here's to saving the world, and mom, and my friends. And Virgil."

Moving slowly, the boy crawled out of his bed and crossed the room. He stood looking down on the Cap that caused so much trouble, feeling frustration still pulsing inside. But what he should have known today, what he had always known from the start, was that his own feelings didn't matter enough. Oh, it made a difference whether he was upset about this destiny thing or not, but not enough of a difference to count. In the scheme of things, even Max knew that one kid's unhappiness was a very small price to pay for the safety of the world.

"I almost gave it up today, almost handed it over to Skullmaster and walked away," he said quietly, and this time there was chagrin as well as a quiet yearning in his voice. "But I couldn't. Because if what Virg says is true, the world needs me too much for me to turn my back."

Max bent down and, hesitating only a moment, picked up the Cap once more. He held it almost reverently before carrying it back to the bed. The boy felt quiet inside, though not much better about things. The storm was over, but the damage remained.

"I wanted to give it up. I still do. But I won't." He jammed the Cap onto his head roughly, but there was no mistaking the tiny tingle that ran through him when he was rejoined to it. Max had learned that his destiny had a way of making itself known.

"I won't give it up. And I won't let anyone else die, either. I'll just do what I do…and hope it's enough."

--==OOO==--

"Do you think he'll be okay now?"

Virgil turned from his perch on the branch to look at the Guardian. Norman's usually impassive face was piqued with something – worry, perhaps. The Lemurian could understand his feelings. After all, they had agreed upon seeing Max to his door that they should perhaps put off their own journeying and make sure their young ward was quite all right. Something about the day's encounter had shaken the boy, badly, and both knew it. Thus the evening spent watchfully in a tree outside his window.

"I'm not sure, Norman. We ask more of him than has ever been asked of a boy in this world before, I think. It's a terrible burden."

"You always make the Mighty One's destiny sound like an honor, not a burden," Norman pointed out.

"True. But you of all people know that honor and duty are usually one in the same." At a gruff nod, Virgil continued, "The world needs him so desperately, especially now with Skullmaster loose. And I believe he is finally coming to terms with that. But I still think he doesn't realize how important he is."

The ancient fowl looked back through the window to see Max settle down to sleep, his tired young body finally taking over from his exhausting emotional state. It was probably no accident that the Mighty One was actually sleeping in the Cap.

"Come, Norman. We have to get to Brazil by next Friday and I still have to arrange for the message he will receive." In spite of his words, Virgil made no move himself. After all, Lemurian fowl did not fly; in point of fact, he needed Norman's assistance to get out of the tree in which they had been sitting for the last few hours.

But the Guardian turned back towards the Cap-Bearer's bedroom, an uncommon hesitancy in the stalwart Viking.

"You're sure he'll be okay?"

Virgil hid a smile. For all the big and burly warrior Norman was, he had a tender heart, and that heart went out to the Mighty One. After all, the Guardian remembered well what it felt like to be young and needed, yet powerless when it mattered. He had had his own bitter experience coming to grips with the chains of sacrifice and duty.

"In time. And until then, he still has us."

Satisfied but not mollified, Norman nodded. Grasping the back of the Lemurian's toga, he jumped from the branch, landing silently and with perfect ease on the soft ground below. As Virgil began to lead the way towards the bus station which would carry them to their next adventure, the Guardian looked back at the darkened windows of Max's room.

"Sleep well, Mighty Max. And may you find some peace in your dreams."