Watching the clock as the minute hand ticked forward, clicking the hour to midnight, Raven Darkholme turned her attention back to the humans around her. She sighed as she leaned over the bar, dissatisfied and waiting. She clicked her black-painted nails by the ashtray and contemplated lighting up another cigarette to pass the time so that she could feel her mortal life drain from her. It was a strange sensation and one she had become morbidly fascinated with since she'd been shot and purged of her mutant identity. It was the only thing that reminded her that she was still alive since Erik had abandoned her to live her now expiring life as a human.
The thought of Erik never left her mind. Except instead of wanting to defend and fight along side of him, she wanted to assassinate him. Her new life was mediocre at best and the obsession of killing him for what he had done to her was the only thing that motivated her day by day. But because she couldn't use her usual methods of transformation and sneak attack, she had to bide her time and be more careful in locating him while meticulously planning her attack. Only then could she successfully execute him.
Raven lazily scanned the room and watched her clientele as they drank and laughed amongst one another. They were despicable creatures and it made her sick to her stomach to be among them, let alone serving them, but she was convinced that this was all temporary. Her only hope in this pathetic world she was now living in was that the cure would eventually wear off so she could establish herself as the new leader of the Brotherhood.
"Hey, Raven!" A gruff man called out to her from the end of the bar.
Gripping the counter with her nails and swallowing the pang of disgust in her throat, Raven turned around to the regular and acknowledged him with a bitter glare. He shook the empty beer bottle by the neck, and she complied with his unspoken request by replacing it with a new bottle on the counter.
Raven turned around to throw away the empty bottle, but stopped cold and held her breath at the sight of who was approaching the bar. It was Storm and after a worrisome glance around, Raven realized that she was alone. She was so shocked to see her that the empty bottle slipped from her hands and fell to the floor. She gasped and jumped back to avoid being cut by the flying shards of glass. As she bent over to clean up the mess she'd created, Raven nervously wondered if Storm had recognized her. Could she have known that she was Mystique beneath the pale skin and dark hair?
"Excuse me," the soft-spoken woman said, addressing the bartender hesitantly from the counter. "Can I get a drink?"
"What would you like?" Raven asked, standing up from the floor, but keeping her distance.
"Whatever you have on tap is fine," Storm replied softly, looking up from the bar and watching the bartender as her short, black skirt hitched up her thighs slightly when she leaned over the sink to fetch a clean glass.
Carefully pouring Storm a drink from the tap while watching her from the corner of her eye, Raven realized that she didn't have a clue who she was. And now that she thought about it, how could she have known? As far as Raven knew, only Wolverine was able to identify her in her many forms, but Storm didn't possess the heightened senses like him or anything similar. Nor had Storm ever seen Mystique in her original, human form.
Sliding the dark ale-filled glass down the bar until it met with Storm's hand, Raven caught the mutant's familiar, dark eyes and suddenly felt less inferior to Storm than she had before. Because of Storm's unawareness, Raven now had the upper hand despite being powerless. She took half a second to smirk at the woman knowingly and then walked to the other end of the bar to serve another waiting customer, leaving Storm alone. She anticipated letting the Mystique in her out to play but she was in no hurry to raise Storm's suspicions right away.
As Raven inattentively served her other customers, pretending to be interested in what they said to her, she thought about Storm. Here she was, the new leader of the X-Men, in her bar alone and drinking with no idea that one of her greatest adversaries was amongst her. It was deliciously ironic. Raven glanced back down the bar and watched the white-haired woman drink quietly and alone. It was obvious that she was depressed over the loss of nearly everyone she'd ever known, and in the midst of her mourning, the future of the X-Men and Xavier's Institute now rest upon her shoulders.
Mystique never understood why Storm stayed with the Professor all those years in the first place. Charles had always believed that humans and mutants could co-exist in peace, but Storm had always been mistrustful of humans and that attitude was not so different than Mystique's. Now that those who had shared Charles' naïve and ludicrous beliefs were gone, Mystique could only hope that Storm was conflicted about whether she should continue the legacy of Charles Xavier or if she should try a new, more realistic approach that was more in line with her ideals.
But Raven was still a human and though she hated to admit it, she would need protection and help in order to kill Erik so that she could assume power over the Brotherhood. She knew just the mutant she could manipulate in order to fulfill that goal, but she would have to form an alliance with Storm before enticing the young Rogue to help assassinate their co-enemy. Storm was impulsively short-tempered, but if Mystique could just get her to see things from her point of view, they could be an unstoppable partnership.
She felt a sense of malicious power come over her at the thought of forming such an alliance with Storm. She licked her crimson-painted lips and was increasingly more hungry for the powerful opportunity that had just waltzed into her bar. Storm had never been more vulnerable than she was right now and Mystique thrived on others' inadequacies. Storm was so unsuspecting it was almost sexy. Raven turned around to her bar and selected one of the top shelf bourbons, poured herself a shot, and swallowed it.