Mystique watched Rogue and Pyro spar. She watched her protege run and duck, and avoid the flames until she manipulated Pyro on top of her. She watched as the younger woman trapped him in her bare hands, pulling out his powers and making the flames of what was still burning grow just for the fun of it. She watched the man pull back, throw flames at her before realizing her skin was retardant now, like his. He braced the ground for a moment, fought to catch his breath while Rogue circled him. She watched as they fought hand-to-hand.

Rogue's fighting style had advanced quite a lot. She still threw her punches with a lack of grace, but had learned to dodge and pull an opponent toward her with the swing of their own body weight. Pyro doesn't stand a chance in hand-to-hand. She has him pinned against burning rubble in a matter of minutes, and calls it with a hand against his face.

"Zap!" She joked. Pyro pulled her in by the waist and they laughed together.

"Maybe you should try on someone with more finesse." Gambit offered. Pyro glared, but Rogue ignored him.

"That's what I offer her." Mystique couldn't help batting away his comment.

Gambit smirked. "That's not what I meant, unless you got some secrets waiting to spill."

It was hard not to groan when he talked sometimes. Everyone knows what you meant.

"Stop being disgusting." Rogue chimed in. "Mystique, after-session session?"

"You want a performance review?"

Rogue nodded, but she had something else in mind. "Excuse us, boys." Gambit left and Pyro gave her a forehead kiss on the way out. "Performance review. How am I doing?"

"You're improving."

"Good. Do you want to go on a picnic?" There was a beat. "To bond…"

"That would be nice."

"Good." Another beat. "Now? I have it all ready."

"If you have it all ready, I suppose we can go now."

"I just wanted to do something for you to say thank you for taking me in and showing me the ropes, and being such a good friend." Rogue was in full hostess mode. She felt like it should have come naturally being from the South and all, but she was so young when she left she wasn't sure she actually knew what she's doing. But Mystique was being polite, and so she guessed she's doing good enough.

"I'm just glad you seem to be fitting in better."

"Because I stopped skipping lunch." Rogue laughed. Pyro was always so serious about that.

"Among other things. You're going on missions, gathering intel. You're really part of the team now. I'm proud of you."

Rogue felt awash with pride at that. She guessed Mystique is just saying what bosses say to encourage their employees, but she wasn't sure how much between them is just business anymore. "Glad to be helping." She paused, weighed the moment.

It was nice out. The sun was strong enough that it counteracted the cool breeze, and they laid out on a big wool blanket that was less itchy than Rogue would have imagined. All those years and she was still getting used to cold weather culture.

"Why can't we leave it alone?" Rogue knew she shouldn't ask, that she'd probably just get the party lines read out to her like a script, but she thought things were different now, that they were different. "Why can't we just let there be a treatment, a cure, whatever it is?"

"You can't be serious." Mystique sneered. She seemed annoyed, seemed to want to just dismiss the thought, sweep it away before it can do damage.

"I am. People should have a choice."

"There will be no choice!" Mystique's scales shivered, her skin turned pale and her hair dark. She was beautiful, actually. "This is what they made me. There is no choice. They shoot, and they cure or they kill."

"Wouldn't you rather be cured then dead?" The words were out before she thought of the third option, because of course her mind still didn't revert to murder on instinct.

Mystique wasn't holding back, words fell out of her in paragraphs. It's us or them. We can't afford to be powerless. You don't choose how you're born, but live and die, and you can't be cured in between. We'll never be them. You're just depowered, not human. They don't forget. Word, words, words, and none of them were the party line exactly.

She was livid, and Rogue wondered what it was like for her during the in-between, when she was depowered and white instead of blue. Was she poor? Probably, her vast wealth was under every name but her own. Was she safe? Probably not, without her powers or the Brotherhood to protect her. Where had she lived? How had she lived?

Rogue realized how lucky she had been to have the mansion to go back to, a family willing to take her in either way, and that they had only done that because that family had been made of mutants. There was no going back to Mississippi. She'd thought about it, packed even, but she hadn't been stupid enough to think she could just roll back into town with Cody there to tell the tale of what she'd done to him. No one would understand. That wouldn't have changed. The Cure had changed nothing.

"Would you get cured again?"

Rogue was drawn back to attention by Mystique's accusation. She said no as a reflex, knew there was only one right answer, but she couldn't help but consider it out of habit.

"And what if it had been permanent, like they'd promised you?"

"I'd want my powers back."

"Of course you would. You were always going to. Being cured didn't make you safer, it made you weaker. You don't need to be cured. None of us do. We need a society where we're safe and we can teach each other—you needed to be taught—and the only thing that's stopping us from building that society is them."

Mystique didn't look done. She was shaking in that body that wasn't not hers. But she didn't keep talking either.

Rogue reached out. She had that awareness of the older woman's white skin the way she always did in those moments right before contact. Their eyes locked, and Mystique morphed back in a turn of scales when palm hit shoulder.

"Sorry I asked."

"Are you with us?" Mystique covered Rogue's hand with her own.

"I am. I just… needed to talk it out. I guess I never really thought about what it would have meant to have been shot with one of those cure guns." Rogue had, but she wasn't going to admit that at the time she hadn't cared. Staring at Mystique, she realized that it wasn't just that she hadn't cared about her, but that she'd only cared about herself back then.

Mystique nodded. She was satisfied.