Normal
A/N: This one-shot is set during X-men The Last Stand, after Mystique was depowered, and before Hank's last meeting with the President. When one considers their relationship in First Class, Hank's outrage at the incident on the prison truck does acquire a deeper significance, which I intend to explore here...
"I promised myself I'd find the cure...you have no idea what I'd give to feel..."
"Normal..."
Secretary of Mutant Affairs, Henry 'Hank' McCoy, stared at the report in his hands with disbelief.
No, it couldn't be, he thought to himself.
The report, which had arrived on his desk that morning, concerned an incident which had taken place on one of the prison transports holding mutants. The transport had been attacked by the known mutant terrorist, Eric Lensherr alias Magneto, and his associate John Allerdyce alias Pyro. During the escape attempt that followed, one of the prisoners, a certain Raven Darkholme alias Mystique, had been fired upon by one of the guards (who was subsequently incinerated by 'Pyro') with a weaponized form of the 'Cure' and had instantly been stripped of her mutant abilities...
And now, Hank stared with even greater shock at the photographs of the prisoner, Raven Darkholme's new human appearance...her new 'normal' appearance...
Normal...
Hank sat back in his chair, and then with a cry that was almost one of anguish (and it may well have been), buried his head in his large furry hands...
And his mind raced back to those distant days so long ago now...days which had forever changed his life fundamentally, in more ways than he could imagine...
It was a bitter irony, he reflected. A cruel irony. Possibly the cruellest God had ever devised, if indeed there was a God...
He remembered Raven. Innocent, sweet, naive Raven...tired of hiding from the world, tired of hiding from herself...
He remembered how eager she'd been for his serum...how she believed it would solve what Charles had, somewhat dismissively, termed as her 'cosmetic problem'...
And then he remembered that night when she'd refused the cure he'd offered her...preferring to remain what nature had intended her to be...
"Humanity should aspire to be more like us"
And when his 'cure' had backfired upon him, turned him into a literal 'beast'...she had loved him the more for it...even though he, in those early days, had loathed his monstrous visage...
She was tired of trying to be normal...she was tired of hiding...she wanted to be free...and Eric had offered her freedom...
For a long time, Hank had hated her...for abandoning Charles, for abandoning him...but over time, he'd grown to understand. He could never condone the terrorism she and Eric endorsed, but he could understand her need to be herself...contrary to her earlier misguided wish of being 'normal' that he'd encouraged...
And now, in the cruellest of life's ironies, she had been granted her earlier adolescent wish...she'd become 'normal'...against her will no doubt, but still...normal...
He hated himself now. Hated himself for becoming part of the system that had deprived this woman the right to be herself...hated himself for looking longingly at the hand temporarily turned to flesh rather than fur...hated himself for wanting, for even thinking, about wanting the Cure...for wanting to be 'normal'...a normalcy that would in fact be an abnormality for people like them...
People like them.
They were different. There was no doubt about that. He was different, no matter how hard he'd tried not to be, without avail. And he didn't belong here...
"We don't belong here...and that's nothing to be ashamed off..."
Angel had been right. He didn't belong here...and it was time he went back to where he did belong...the only place he had ever belonged...
And as he began composing his letter of resignation to the President, Raven's words echoed in his head...repeatedly, incessantly...like a mantra...which he supposed it was in a way...
"Mutant and proud"