iPod Challenge: Dani Moonstar

by Caliente

10 unrelated drabbles/vignettes inspired by music: 1. Whatever It Takes; 2. How You Remind Me; 3. Lying From You; 4. You're Crashing, But You're No Wave; 5. Leave Me Alone; 6. Near to You; 7. It's All Over; 8. Always Where I Need to Be; 9. Audience of One; 10. Adelaide –– guest-starring Professor X, Justin Pierce, Forearm, Thor Girl, original X-Force & original New Mutants

10. Adelaide

Author's Note: Mini-vignette set during X-Force v1 #68 (you can see the scene that inspired it if you go to uncannyxmen(dot)net and look at the Moonstar spotlight, specifically on Biography Page 4) and is told from the perspective of Forearm (Michael McCain's "codename").
Disclaimer: Characters mentioned are used without permission and are trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc. I do not own them and am simply borrowing for my purposes. Please don't sue.

You keep giving me signs that you think I wanna see
But you're nothing like you seem
-- "Adelaide" Anberlin

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Michael McCain has been a lot of things in his life—a lot of not so great things, really, though he would never admit that. But he has never felt so betrayed as he does the day Dani Moonstar is revealed to be a covert S.H.I.E.L.D. operative. Part of him hopes she'll just leave and he'll never have to see her lying face again and the rest… the rest is too damn hurt to admit it wants anything else.

She finds him anyway, of course, because that's how the good guys are. Always wanting to speak their piece and explain why their way is the best. Yeah fucking right. She is the liar here, not him! He'd trusted her to be his friend and all along she's been a spy. He should go Hulk on her and rip her pretty head off her neck. That'd show her.

But he doesn't. Honestly, he can barely keep from sulking and throwing a violent fit of some sort. He wants to tell her he was going to ask her out but never had the chance. He wants her to regret that because it's digging deep inside of him. He wants her to feel even an iota of all the crap he's feeling because she deserves the burden, not him. She's the one who was playing them all for chumps.

None of that happens, though. He shakes her off with his dignity in tact, which is probably the best he could honestly hope for. He takes his leave from the Mutant Liberation Front because if they screwed the pooch this badly, there's no way they're going to be liberating anything. As he goes, he can't help but bitterly hope she gets her heart crushed someday. Karma and all that shit.