Ugh, I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about Moira in that scene. Clearly a vocal minority of fandom "blames" Moira for what happened and so frequently she's blown off. Even in fic where she's treated well, I've noticed that there's a tendency to overlook her intentions in that scene and her interactions with Erik, and also the shit she lets Erik get away with. Let's start this out by reminding the world at large (I would imagine, since you like this piece, that you already give Moira the acceptable amount of respect XD) of these facts: 1) It is 1962 2) Moira is a lady and a CIA agent. IN 1962.
I don't know the history of the CIA and I know a lot of their shit is covert (I also know that CIA generally = foreign and FBI generally = domestic, so I assume that the CIA thought the Hellfire Club was international and that's why Moira and Levene were investigating it, because I'm sure the XMFC writers took six seconds to google "CIA" when writing it and wouldn't have made a mistake and had the CIA investigating a domestic issue.), but I can't imagine there were a ton of ladies who had that opportunity. In order to be there for this long, Moira has to be tough and pragmatic and smart and excellent at what he does. I imagine the only reason McCone and Stryker let her get away with as much as she does to begin with is because she has a spotless track record and a tendency to be right about this shit.
Anyway, so here we have Moira who brings in Charles, whose goals may not entirely align with hers, but at least their venn diagrams overlap signifigantly. Charles, in turn, brings in Erik, whose venn diagram is pretty much just "KILL SHAW" which overlaps, yes, but his methods make it so that the majority of his is still outside of hers. But fine. She respects Erik--he's been through a lot of shit and he's still going. He's clearly strong and fast and smart and can take care of himself. But she doesn't trust him. She does trust Charles, if only because they need mutants to fight Shaw's mutants and Charles is the expert. Erik ignores her and disobeys her more than once, regardless of the circumstances, which has to rankle. I think the only thing that probably keeps her from punching him in his dumb, smug face is that she knows he's not dismissing her because she's a woman, but because he's an asshole, and even though it shouldn't, that actually makes her feel a little better.
But she trusts Charles to control him. In my headcanon, that's an explicit agreement they have. Once they got back to the motel and Moira called and had someone pull up everything they could find on him, she sat down with Charles and was like, "Look. You can keep him. But you keep him on task and you keep him focused and you keep him on our side. If it looks to me for a moment like you can't control him, I'm cutting him loose."
So here we are at the beach.
Moira has trained for this.
Moira has trained for everything, actually. Moira's had trainings that "weren't recommended for someone in her... position" (a woman) that she did on her own, time and time again, until she got it right. Moira's ready every book on strategy, Moira's mind is as sharp as any male agent's, as anyone's period.
More headcanon. I think I talk about this explicitly in "No Yesterdays on the Road?" But once they begrudgingly agree to promote Moira to field agent, they tried to dissuade her by piling on lots of trainings and shit, or persuading her to skip trainings that were mandatory because of her delicate lady constitution. Moira was better than their shit, though, and did everything she could and some stuff she mostly made up.
1) It is 1962
2) Moira is a lady and a CIA agent. IN 1962.
I don't know the history of the CIA and I know a lot of their shit is covert (I also know that CIA generally = foreign and FBI generally = domestic, so I assume that the CIA thought the Hellfire Club was international and that's why Moira and Levene were investigating it, because I'm sure the XMFC writers took six seconds to google "CIA" when writing it and wouldn't have made a mistake and had the CIA investigating a domestic issue.), but I can't imagine there were a ton of ladies who had that opportunity. In order to be there for this long, Moira has to be tough and pragmatic and smart and excellent at what he does. I imagine the only reason McCone and Stryker let her get away with as much as she does to begin with is because she has a spotless track record and a tendency to be right about this shit.
Anyway, so here we have Moira who brings in Charles, whose goals may not entirely align with hers, but at least their venn diagrams overlap signifigantly. Charles, in turn, brings in Erik, whose venn diagram is pretty much just "KILL SHAW" which overlaps, yes, but his methods make it so that the majority of his is still outside of hers. But fine. She respects Erik--he's been through a lot of shit and he's still going. He's clearly strong and fast and smart and can take care of himself. But she doesn't trust him. She does trust Charles, if only because they need mutants to fight Shaw's mutants and Charles is the expert. Erik ignores her and disobeys her more than once, regardless of the circumstances, which has to rankle. I think the only thing that probably keeps her from punching him in his dumb, smug face is that she knows he's not dismissing her because she's a woman, but because he's an asshole, and even though it shouldn't, that actually makes her feel a little better.
But she trusts Charles to control him. In my headcanon, that's an explicit agreement they have. Once they got back to the motel and Moira called and had someone pull up everything they could find on him, she sat down with Charles and was like, "Look. You can keep him. But you keep him on task and you keep him focused and you keep him on our side. If it looks to me for a moment like you can't control him, I'm cutting him loose."
So here we are at the beach.
Moira has trained for this.
Moira has trained for everything, actually. Moira's had trainings that "weren't recommended for someone in her... position" (a woman) that she did on her own, time and time again, until she got it right. Moira's ready every book on strategy, Moira's mind is as sharp as any male agent's, as anyone's period.
More headcanon. I think I talk about this explicitly in "No Yesterdays on the Road?" But once they begrudgingly agree to promote Moira to field agent, they tried to dissuade her by piling on lots of trainings and shit, or persuading her to skip trainings that were mandatory because of her delicate lady constitution. Moira was better than their shit, though, and did everything she could and some stuff she mostly made up.
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