Title: Things Removed
Fandom: X-Men (Mostly original trilogy movieverse, bit of 616-verse in there)
Word count: 1747
Characters/Pairings: fem!Magneto, bigender!Mystique, a bunch of other characters in a flashback. Past established-relationship Magneto/Xavier.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: none that I can think of?
Thanks to: stalkedbychibis for invaluable brainstorming assistance.
Author's note: in 616 canon, Erik named himself after his future wife Magda's brother, because he thought he would be safer with a less Jewish name. In genderbend-verse, Magda was named Erik and Erik was named Magda, so the person we know as Magneto calls herself Magda Lehnsherr. Cleared that up?
Summary: Magda doesn't like dresses, Raven doesn't like ties. They meet in LA after a successful round of pro-mutant violence. Magda is still adjusting to life as a gay mutant terrorist.
Magda is watching the news in an apartment in Newark while the fires are still burning in Manhattan. She waits until she sees the view switch to Los Angeles, then she picks up the phone and dials. She doesn't relax until she hears Raven's voice on the other end of the line.
"Mission report," she says. The words are new to her. She reminds herself that this is serious, not a spy game.
"Went off without a hitch," Raven says, sounding exhausted but triumphant. "There's one governor who isn't going to be going on national television talking about dissecting mutants again. You?"
"The building's in rubble. No casualties yet."
There are questions in Raven's two-second silence- do we care about casualties? what kind of destruction are we after? but Raven knows it's not the time for such a challenge. Magda appreciates that, particularly since she doesn't know the answers herself. "Let's hope my second mission goes as smoothly. If it does, I'll pick you up at LAX."
"I'll see you there," Magda says, and hangs up. She watches the news for another minute, and then she picks up the bag of clothes she left here goes into the tiny bathroom to change.
She looks at herself in the mirror. In a faded yellow sundress and faded red lipstick, she looks like someone's aging mother. Her height and bulk make her gangly when forced into unattractive clothing. She looks unrecognizable. Weak and human and pathetically feminine.
Good.
Her hands don't shake at all when she rests the suitcase on the pavement, lets the taxi driver load it into the trunk. Of course they don't. She's not that old. Yet. And her hands are strong, good hands, callused by so many years of working as a mechanic to pay the bills for a two-person apartment in Manhattan.
The taxi driver tries to engage her in conversation. "You heard about that explosion up in NYC? Seems the HQ of that group, the Friends of the People, somebody mailed them a bomb or something. The radio won't shut up about it."
Friends of Humanity, she stops herself from correcting him. "I wouldn't know about that," she says, forcing out a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. "I never watch the news."
"Good idea. Probably better on your nerves," the driver says. He could be a mutant. She has no way of knowing. All the little signs she's so attuned herself to over the years, they're no good at detecting someone who doesn't want to be noticed.
Even if he's not homo superior himself, though, he probably knows someone who is. Somebody's child that no one talks about any more.
He could be gay. She has no way to tell that either.
They pull up to the airport. She tips him too much, and he wishes her a safe flight to Minneapolis to see her grandchildren.
There's a moment, checking in, where the girl behind the desk looks at her passport for a second too long, and Magda can't stop her mind from racing. They shouldn't have a picture of her face, not yet. They will in the future, she'll make sure everyone knows what Magneto looks like, once the Brotherhood has a base, once she knows for sure Wanda and Pietro will be safe- how quickly could she get out of here, if she was recognized? It would be easy- these places are made of metal. But then what? She could steal a car, try and drive to California-
"Have a good flight, Ms Lehnsherr," the girl says.
The plane is half empty. A stewardess comes around with peanuts and plastic-wrapped magazines. Magda takes a second to enjoy the view when the girl bends over to answer a question from the nervous old man in the row across. Then she looks down at her magazine and pretends to study the safety information. She tries not to think about the last time she wore a dress.
The first thing Magda does off the plane is find a restroom to change in. She emerges much more comfortable in a dark gray suit that emphasizes her wide, muscled shoulders, her hair freed to fall in off-white cascades down to her collarbone. She walks out and Raven is there waiting for her back at the gate, casually beautiful in the form of a dark-skinned young man. She recognizes him by the gold tie she gave him six months ago; it dangles loosely around his neck, undone, a touch Magda appreciates as she looks him over. "Hello, darling," she says, kissing him lightly on the lips, like a wife in a fifties television show.
They walk outside. Magda takes in the palm trees, the warm air. Raven shows her to a beautiful dark blue convertible, and almost opens the door for her before she gives him a stern look to make him think better of it. They drive out of LA, and turn onto the Pacific Coast Highway as the last light is bleached from the sky.
"You pulled off the second mission?"
"Perfectly. All five prisoners escaped from the compound."
"So there are eleven of us now, counting Quicksilver and Hex."
"Ten. One of them didn't want to hang around, and I thought it might be better to let her go- we don't want members who aren't dedicated." It's a statement, not a question.
Magda agrees, but she doesn't say anything because she doesn't need to. Instead she leans back in her seat and rolls down the window a little. The sea air revives her.
"Raven," she says after a while, "can I ask you a personal question?"
"Of course," Raven says. It's beginning to lightly rain, so he turns on the windshield wipers as they round a corner. The lights of the coast are spread out beneath them. "I reserve the right not to answer, naturally."
"I've noticed you're usually male when you're alone with me. What's the reason for that?"
She sees him shrug out of the corner of her eye. "I haven't thought about it much. It's usually not something I consciously think about. It just depends on whether I'm feeling more male or female at the moment."
"So you've said."
"If I had to come up with a reason, I'd say I can subconsciously sense you respond better to masculinity."
"Because I'm an old dyke?" She's surprised at the faint bitterness she can hear in her own voice.
Raven shrugs again. "Because you think masculinity is associated with power." His voice is quiet and calm.
"Are you saying it isn't?"
"I don't have an opinion."
"You never do."
"That isn't accurate. I believe in the cause."
"Yes," says Magda, and the comfortable silence settles back into the car. Magda starts composing a speech in her head, something to rouse the new troops. She doesn't indulge herself by thinking of the children, and she certainly doesn't let herself consider how unimaginably far she is from New York.
"Ah-hah! I think I've captured one of the enemy!" Sarah yells.
Pietro shrieks as she tickles him. "Stop it! Help! Somebody help me!" His shrieks dissolve into laughter as she swings him up off the ground and around in a big circle.
"Do you need rescuing?" Wanda asks, anxious. She grabs Sarah's legs, and they all three collapse into a heap on the grass.
"How'd you get me anyway?" Pietro asks. "You can't even see me." He tugs at the black band around Sarah's eyes and she swats him away good-naturedly.
"You make a lot of noise. And I still have longer legs than you, remember."
Magda watches them from the shade of a nearby bench. Her fingers absentmindedly push Charlotte's wheelchair back and forth. On her other side, the woman herself leans into Magda's shoulder with a contented sigh.
"They seem to be getting along well."
Magda doesn't take her eyes off the rolling figures. "Miss Summers should have some of her sight back by now. I can't believe it's taking me this long to come up with a suitable material. I'll work on it some more when we get back."
"Don't kill yourself," Charlotte reprimands, voice sharp. "Sarah has managed for over a year now. She is willing to wait a little longer."
"We gave her hope, my dear," Magda says. "That is a grave responsibility. John, if you must smoke then please do not do it in a play ground."
The red-haired sixteen-year-old's only response is to blow another cloud directly in her face.
"Very funny," says Magda while Charlotte coughs. "You seem to be under the misapprehension that simply because I am no longer your teacher-"
"You're not my mother either," John snarls.
Magda feels her temper getting the better of her. "No, she's the woman who pushed you onto us, isn't she? Who apparently doesn't care about your upbringing enough to even see you at holidays-"
"Magda," Charlotte hisses. "Enough."
John's face is very pale, with red blossoms in his cheeks, each freckle standing out. "Forgive me for wondering why I have to listen to you when you don't even live with me any more. When you abandoned all of us, except the two brats. They don't even like you, you know. They're terrified of you."
The cigarette lighter ripped a hole in his jeans, and a second later Magda was crushing it beneath her fingers. "Get out," she snapped. "And if I ever see you with a cigarette again I'll stuff it down your insolent throat."
FINE, both women hear him yell mentally. Didn't want to hang around anyway, and he's gone in a dramatic flurry of telekinetically disturbed autumn leaves.
Charlotte rests a hand on Magda's shoulder. I
t's a difficult age, she tells her. And the instability of his powers is affecting his mood swings, I'm sure of it. He'll adjust.
Magda is starting to find the constant voices in her head very irritating.
The children are still playing on the grass, oblivious. They roll in the grass like they think it's still summer, like they haven't even noticed the brown leaves falling from the trees, the hint of a chill in the city air.