Chapter 9


Hank has nice eyes, Raven thinks. Not nice in a colorful way, or in that I-can-see-right-through-you way. Just nice. Like a doe's eyes. They're gentle. They mean no harm.

Raven's eyes, on the other hand, are piercingly yellow and weird and ugly. She sees them reflected in the door's window – the door to Hank's lab – and shuts her eyes and turns away from the door, heading outside for some fresh air.

There's no way a nice, normal human like Hank (albeit one with large, mutated feet) could ever fall for a freak like her. With or without the finger-toes.


Sean's holding up pretty well, Raven thinks. So are the other boys, actually. The only one who doesn't seem to have everything together is her. She's the sore thumb of Team Mutant. None of them seem to notice how much trouble she's having with just being herself, and that seems to make everything a million times worse. Almost as if they won't see her sorrow for what is is because they feel like it's misplaced – like she doesn't have the right to dislike who she is.

It's frustrating, especially when you're being judged by people who have never had to wake up on the pavement, in the pouring rain, curled up into a tight ball and hoping nobody would notice your odd coloring beneath the old rags you're wearing. They haven't been made to look up at their parents from beneath a body of water, trying to fight off the arms trying to keep you there, trying to suffocate you.

She sees Sean toss a piece of popcorn into the air and catch it in his mouth and wonders if there's some kind of trick to it – if it should be so easy to act like you're happy when you should be sad.


She's walking down the hallway when she hears a crash, followed by a groan, followed by bickering voices.

She follows the sound to Ji- Noah's room, and spots four teenage Mutants bickering over whose fault it is that there is now a large puddle of blue paint on the shiny hardwood flooring.

She wants to sneer and demand to know what's so wrong with having a blue stain on the perfect cherrywood, but in truth she already knows that nobody wants an unneeded blue smear on the surface of something which shouldn't be blue.

It's tragic how easily she can compare the color of her skin to the floor. It allows people to walk all over her, too. It has taken away any sense of self-worth she would have had without it, and it has allowed others to label her as a freak, as below them.

But then Charles is standing beside her all of a sudden (most likely drawn by the commotion as well) and the most delightful sound comes chortling from his lips. Only her brother would laugh at such a situation.

"I kind of like it," Charles states. "How about you guys just paint the floor blue? You could choose a different color for the walls so it doesn't seem too overwhelming."

And any loss of justification for treating her brother as though he doesn't understand has just flooded back into her veins – her blue veins, which are pulsing beneath her blue skin – and she realizes that it's just too overwhelming. There's just too much blue; on the inside and out.

"Hey, if he gets to paint the floor blue, I wanna' paint mine yellow."

The mere idea of painting über-expensive wood floorboards a sickening yellow should be enough to make grandma Xavier roll over in the grave.

"I'm afraid that's out of the question, Alex," Charles replied, voice still laced with mirth. "But if you happened to spill some yellow paint on the floor, completely by accident of course, then I suppose we wouldn't have a choice."

Alex receives the hint and takes off to his own room with the yellow paint.

For a moment, Raven wonders if it would be possible to paint her skin permanently.

"You will do no such thing," Charles says pointedly, even though it's impossible, giving her a strong look that basically means 'I'm your older brother and you will listen to me whether you like it or not'.

She sighs and heads downstairs.


At four o'clock, she finds Erik and Alex in the kitchen, making smoothies. Alex is covered in yellow paint and Erik appears to have some on his back as well, though he's probably unaware of it. The two seem to be getting on well lately, even with Alex' blatant disapproval of most of Erik's methods. To be fair, though, the feeling seems to be mutual.

"Banana blueberry or banana strawberry? Or strawberry blueberry?" Alex asks when he spots her.

"Banana strawberry," she replies, because she doesn't want to put anything blue into her mouth.

"'Kay, coming up." She watches with horror as the teenage Mutant flicks a blueberry at Erik's head and tries to take cover before the pans come flying through the room, but when nothing happens for a total of five seconds, she comes out from underneath the table to find that though Alex' hair may be covered in sugar, no further damage has been done to his person. And perhaps the scariest part of all is that there is plenty of metal within Erik's reaching-distance, and he didn't even have to summon any metal at all. He could have whacked Alex up the head.

So why didn't he?

She accepts the glass Alex hands her and places two straws in it before walking back out again. She sips at the concoction, pondering whether things are becoming a little too domestic around here.

When she hears Magneto snarl "Now you asked for it!" from the kitchen, she decides that there's no problem with domesticity.


She discovers Noah, the new kid, lying outside in the grass late at night and walks over to him. He doesn't seem to hear her coming, so she decides to scare the shit out of the kid. Morphing into Charles and making sure she changed her voice box as well, she says, "You should be in bed, mr. Barrons," because he never told them his real last name.

His eyes open and she's shocked to realize how blue they really are. She supposes she'd always known, but she hadn't really payed much attention to it.

"I'm sorry, professor, I'll head in straight away – I suppose I just wasn't really thinking of the time and all."

"Relax dude. I ain't tryin' ta' yank yo' chain or anythan."

"Uh... uhm... ...excuse me?"

"Y'heard me. S'alright, man, you's just chillin'."

"I don't – professor, are you drunk?"

She can't help it and starts laughing, instantly morphing back into her original form. For some reason, whenever she starts laughing, she loses grasp of her mutation.

"Huh? Raven?"

"You should have seen your face!"

"What the hell?!"

She wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes and sits down in the grass. After a while of getting no explanation from the girl whatsoever, Noah sits down beside her and asks, "What was that?"

"My mutation."

"That's pretty cool, you know. Even if you use it for messed up reasons. I'm sure you could do all kinds of sick stuff with that."

"Yeah. I can."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She sighs. "Well, that's not true. It's something."

He waits.

"It's just that I'm tired of having to cover up who I really am. But then, sometimes, I really can't help but hate the fact that this emis/em who I am. It's like trying to cover up the fact that you're into necrophilia or something."

"What?!"

"Yeah, I know. Nobody understands me."

"I think I know where you were headed with your explanation before you threw necrophilia into the jig. Look, Raven, you're beautiful. And I mean drop-dead-gorgeous. I think your natural form is stunning. That doesn't mean that whenever you transform into someone else that that person can't be equally as good-looking. It's just... You know. You've got a very pretty body. And your eyes are like, really intense, dude."

"Aw, I appreciate the fact that you avoided using any words that would make me feel like a sexual object," she says sarcastically.

"At your service."

"And I also appreciate the compliment, kid. I really do. It just doesn't feel like the truth. Not to me."

"What's so wrong with who you are?"

"See, people like you don't understand, because-"

"- No, I mean what. Seriously. Tell me about every part of your body that you think is unattractive."

"Well, for one, I'm blue."

"Sapphires are blue. The sky is blue. The ocean is blue. My sweater is blue. My freaking eyes are blue, and everybody keeps telling me what killer eyes I have. Blue is my favourite colour. I want to paint my walls blue because it always seems to give me a sense of belonging and calm. And because it's a pretty bad-ass tat colour."

She smiles. "Well then how about the fact that I'm all scaley?"

"You call these scales?" He runs a hand over them and pretends not to feel the roughness. "Oh my God they really are scales. These are effing sweet!"

"I'm like a fish."

"A freaking awesome fish!"

She snorts.

"What else do you find so horrifying?"

"My eyes."

"You're kidding me. They're like cat eyes. You can't seriously be telling me you don't think they're bad-ass!"

"Fine. My hair then."

"The colour of fire?!"

"Yes; dark as your very own blood."

"Bad-ass," he chants.

She gets up. "I'm going to bed."

"Raven, wait!" Noah grabs a hold of her arm, and he doesn't flinch back at the chafing. For some reason, that means a lot to her. Even Charles had flinched back at first. Granted, he'd been ten at the time, but still.

"You don't have to keep trying to prove to yourself that you're beautiful so you accept who you are. That takes a lot of character."

She frowns. "Are you trying to tell me I don't have enough character to believe that I'm beautiful?!"

He lets go and backs up a little, shrugging. "I'm just saying that sometimes it's hard to keep telling yourself you're just as good as all the other white sheep when you're the black one."

"I'll have you know I'm fucking sexy, alright?! I'm hotter than your mother ever was! YOU could never get a girl like ME!" She hadn't known she had that much anger and hostility inside of her, but then again, she also hadn't known that Noah thought that way about her. "When you're all old and wrinkly, I'll still be my magnificent, mystical self! And I will never be lonely, because I will always have some sort of admirer waiting patiently to be acknowledged by me! But you?! You'll be lucky to get by on a sense of humor!" It's not true, of course; the kid's pretty cute, but that doesn't mean she can't say that he looks like shit on a stick.

But he's laughing. The boy is actually laughing! How dare he!

"See? I knew you couldn't possibly feel as bad about your looks as you say you do!"

She raises a brow. "What?"

"You know yourself that you're beautiful. Why else would you pick out a codename like 'Mystique'? Deep inside, you're proud of who you are. The insecurities you have only go skin-deep."

She's silent. Somehow, when he says it now, it seems clearer than it did before.

"It's easy to hate what you see when you're constantly being confronted by things that are different from you. It's easy to hate your blue hand when everyone around you has brown or pink hands."

"You know, pink isn't really a skin-colour."

"You know what I mean," he states with a huff. "Sable, then. Either way, you catch my drift."

"You know, you're pretty smart for a fifteen-year-old."

"Secret genius, I'm telling you."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't get too full of yourself."

Noah smiles at her and they both head back in.

"I'm sorry for what I said, by the way."

"Hmm?"

"You wouldn't just get by on a sense humor."

"Thanks, Raven."

"Of course, it's really just the killer eyes that would nail you a chick."

"What?!" he squawks indignantly.

"Your physique, dude. I mean, you're like, all bones."

He flexes an arm and angles it so she can see the muscle bulging through the skin. "Do you see this? That's hours of training in the gym for you!"

Snorting, she replies, "That little chickpea? You should ask for a refund on your membership fee."

"Please! You couldn't beat me in a fight if you pulled out all your girly biting and scratching techniques."

"Put your money where your mouth is, kid."

"Fine! I'll bet you fifty bucks that I can beat you in a fight!"

"Alright, be ready tomorrow morning at eight."

"Fine!"

"Fine."

"You'd better come prepared, Mystique."

"Oh don't you worry your pretty little head over it, No-No, I have enough tricks up my sleeve."

"You'll need them, Rae old girl."

"What did you call me?!"

"Nothing at all, Rae. Old girl."

"You're gonna get it!"

"Save you strength for tomorrow."

"Oh, I'll have enough to spare!"

He takes off at a sprint. "You're waking the house!"

"It's a bloody mansion, they can't hear a thing! Now don't be such a pussy and stop running away!"

"Me?! YOU'RE the one actually wielding a knife! Where did you get that thing, anyway?!"

"Well wouldn't you like to know?!"

/SHUT UP!/

"Raven, it's not funny!"

"That wasn't me, you ass clown."

"You mean... that was actually the professor?"

/Children. Please resolve this in the morning. There are people among us who would like to get a good night's rest. Myself, included./

I'm sorry, professor.

Sorry Charles.

/You're forgiven. Now up to bed, both of you. Before you wake Erik./

When they see said angry Mutant head down the stairs trailed by an army of metal objects, they realize it's too late for that.

"Well, it was nice knowing you, kid."

"Likewise. Splitsies?"

"Seems to be the wisest course of action. Though I doubt it'll do more than divide the amount of metal in two."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think the chances of surviving one stab wound or two are pretty critical to me."

A pan sails at her head and she ducks, only just managing to dodge it. "I see your point."

"Peace out!" He heads to the other end of the mansion, tailed by a metal spatula that hits his posterior repeatedly as he runs up to his room.

Raven backs up against the wall, holding her hands up innocently. "You do remember I'm the only girl in this house, right? Just a poor, fragile girl."

"Oh you'll be a poor, fragile girl when I'm done with you, alright!"

"CHARLES! SAVE ME!"

/ Tired. You're on your own this time, sister dear. / And with that thought, she breaks out at a dead run.


A/N: Poor Raven has been ignored a little too much, so I figured 'why not give her some screentime, the poor girl?' Not that any of you really care what I thought, but I'll tell you anyway 'cause I'm annoying like that.