Angel and herself are sharing a bed. The CIA may have top-notch facilities, but they severely under-estimated how many scrawny teens would actually sign up for this programme, and it's the only bed that was provided.
Earlier that day Darwin had offered the bed to Raven and Angel in a fit of chivalry, which had infuriated Raven. What, were they meant to be weaker just because they were girls? Their little feminine bodies couldn't handle sleeping on the floor? She had made herself look like a muscly guy in his twenties that towered over everyone else in the room, and had asked Darwin if he'd still have given her the bed if she had looked like this. He'd immediately apologised, and she had felt guilty. Alex shot her a look that said he was just trying to be nice, you can sleep on the fucking floor if you want to. Alex could be harsh like that, but maybe she deserves it.
The boys had drifted off hours ago, but Raven has never shared a bed with someone and can't get used to the feeling of Angel's weight, her presence being so nearby.
"Can you, like, change into mutants too?" Angel asks sleepily. They've been asking questions like this for hours now, and Raven finds it's easier to be honest in the dark.
"I don't know. The only mutant I've ever known is Charles, and we kinda swore not to use our powers on one another."
Angel sits up in the bed. "Go on so, you know me now. Do me."
Raven concentrates, and the pretty blond body melts away. She gets smaller, and her vision gets blurrier.
"You need glasses Angel," she laughs.
"Don't talk to me about it. Now go on, see if you can fly."
Raven rolls on her side so she's facing Angel. "I'm in bed Angel. It's two in the morning. I'm not just going to go flapping around."
"Fine, fine," Angel says. "What about Erik? You could do move metal from here. And wow, I look weird from this angle."
Raven pauses. She doesn't feel like she's meant to take Erik's form- she doesn't think he'd approve of it. But what the hell, she's always been curious. "Don't tell him I did this," she says.
"Of course," Angel says, and then rolls her eyes. "C'mon, do it if you're gonna."
Raven takes Erik's form; feels herself grow taller, stronger. Her hair gets pulled in closer to her head and her muscles expand. Her skin goes from blue to pale, smattered with freckles. She smiles with his teeth to Angel.
"Damn, he's fit, isn't he?" Angel says appreciatively.
Raven feels like this is too intimate, like they shouldn't be lying here examining Erik's body. She tries to get back to the matter at hand.
"Do you have something metal?" she asks.
"Always prepared," Angel quips, removing one of her earrings.
Just because she has Erik's body doesn't mean she knows how to access his power though. Raven bites her lip, and flexes that same mental muscle she uses when she changes her body. The skin on her leg ripples back to blue. She sighs.
"I get it, it's hard," Angel says.
"I'm not even sure if it's possible," Raven admits. "Like, I have Erik's DNA now, and the mutation for his power is in these genes. But if that's true, then how do I change back? My mutation genes aren't here."
"You've lost me," Angel says, laughing. "Can't you ask the professor? Isn't this what he studied?"
Charles would know alright, but Raven doesn't know how to phrase the question without him catching on what she was up to. Even without resorting to his telepathy, he usually knew what she was thinking. He'd say this was unethical and that wanting to use other people's mutations too was weaponising her own mutation too far. He wouldn't say it out loud, but he'd also think that it was inherently greedy of her, that she could already turn into anyone in the world, and now she wanted all of their powers too?
"I give up," she says after another few minutes, and turns back to the blonde body.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but why do you always use that body?" Angel asks, gesturing.
Raven has been asked this many times. Usually she shoots out an answer that compares it to being in a store where you can choose any clothes you want, yet you keep going back to the old jumper you love the most. Tonight though, she's feeling brave and wants to tell the truth.
"When I'm me, you know, blue-me, I don't get periods," she whispers, afraid any of the sleeping boys will hear.
Angel leans in closer. "Hey, I'm sorry Raven."
"No need to be sorry. It's handy enough- it's not like I could do around naked all the time if I was on my period anyway."
"True!"
"So the reason I keep going back to the blonde is that I've lived a lot of my life as her. She's normal and pretty and human and her ovaries work just fucking fine. So the plan is, if I ever want kids, that I'd have them as her, because she's the closest thing-" Raven can't continue. A lump has grown in her throat and tears threaten to spill over. She's never told anyone this. Who would understand? What, was she supposed to go to Charles as a scared teenage girl and talk about this stuff?
"Come here," Angel says and wraps her arms around Raven. "It's alright, it's okay, you'll be okay," she says soothingly. Raven will not cry over this. So what if her kids won't look like her, and if they don't have blue skin or yellow eyes? So what if they're not really her children but have the DNA of some other nameless blonde woman instead? She mightn't even have kids anyway. It isn't a big deal.
She tells herself this, but still cannot shake the melancholy that takes her when she thinks of this beautiful blue body of hers, beautiful and useless, able to create so many things and become so many shapes, and yet is biologically imperfect. She is a genetic dead-end, the last and first in her line.
The next morning Angel has look on her face that spells out pity.
"Let's not talk out it, okay?" Raven says as she smooths out the bed sheets, tucking the blankets back into place and tucking that fragile part of her deep away inside.
"Okay," Angel says uncertainly, and pats Raven on the shoulder once and then walks over to where the boys are waking up.
That is the most she will ever get, a pat on the shoulder, a nod that says tough-luck kid. Because even if Charles did call her greedy for wanting to be able to access other mutants' powers, he wouldn't be wrong. Raven is bold and brave and takes everything she can get. But there is one thing that she'll never have, and she has to make peace with that.
"Coming Raven?" Hank asks. She looks up at him and smiles, smiles in that blonde body that will never truly be hers. "Coming."