After the Past Fades
Title: After the Past Fades
Verse: X-Men movieverse
Timeline: post X-Men: The Last Stand
Author: AngelofSnow
Pairing: Magneto/Mystique
Rating: Eventual M
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. I am not making any money off of this.
Summary: AU, The Cure is permanent. How will Magneto and Mystique deal with being human? Magneto's on the run from the FBI and Mystique has a grudge to settle with him. Can they work out their differences after he abandoned her?
Dedication: To Angeleye02 for reminding me that all these years later I still have readers. Thank you.
Notes: I wrote half of this chapter in 2006 and the second half eight years later in 2014. Yikes! Longest wait for an update ever? Maybe. After watching X-Men: Days of Future Past, I was inspired to elaborate on the mysteriously short scene where Raven and Erik elude to their past relationship. The lovely Angeleye02 kindly asked me to continue this story. As I have always had an outline completed for the story, it's bothered me not to see it continued. I have chosen to include the changes that First Class and Days of Future Past introduced to Mystique's story. So here goes nothing. I am very rusty. This has not been beta read. I sincerely apologize.
Chapter Four: A Jailbird Sings
Mystique had been asleep only 10 minutes ago and she was in no shape to deal with a barrage of 24-hour cable news journalists who were foaming at the mouth for a story. They surged towards her and the two FBI agents who flanked her, overturning barricades in the process. Hundreds of cameras flashed at her, so many, she could hardly see in front of her. Each journalist was trying to shout over another to ask questions. They sounded like a pack of rabid hyenas. Microphones on booms were thrust at her, some even bopping her on the head, while journalists tried to catch her saying anything in reply.
"Is it true you were Magneto's mistress?"
"Are you happy not to be a mutant anymore?"
"Are you planning revenge against the Brotherhood for botching your escape?"
"Was Magneto good in bed?"
"What turned you into a terrorist?"
"How do you feel about returning to jail?"
"Mystique, do you miss your mutant powers?"
"Do you have a secret mutant love child?"
"Are you still in love with Erik Lensherr even after he left you for dead?"
Erik. Mystique thought. Oh Erik. She could not contain the pang of truth in the last reporter's question. He had hit a delicate nerve. And whenever Mystique was hurt by a rude human, she tended to lash out at those who did it.
She stopped walking to the waiting van abruptly, causing the agents behind her to knock into her back. She wheeled to face the offending reporter.
"If you don't take that microphone out of my face, I'll break it in two!"
The reporter holding the microphone was too stunned to move. The look on Mystique's face promised death if he did.
"I'll crack you in half next and I'll enjoy it!" Her voice sounded particularly sinister, and cameras and microphones thrust in her direction eagerly recorded all of it.
Besides Mystique, Agent Menendez heard her threats and acted quickly to intervene on her behalf. He stepped between the reporter and Mystique, ushering her gently with a hand on her elbow to hurry away from the media frenzy that was only worsening. At first Mystique resisted, but when she realized it was Agent Menendez with a worried look on his face, she felt ashamed for letting that reporter get to her so easily. She submitted to his escort and he led her away to the waiting FBI Van.
The other, heavy FBI agent, however, got distracted by a young, curvy blonde reporter for Fox News.
"Is it true Mystique was found in the nude?"
"Yeah, we think Magneto and the brotherhood left her for dead." He said directly to reporter's buxom chest.
Agent Menendez returned and dragged him away.
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Mystique was taken to a Homeland Security complex somewhere in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. At least, she thought it was Homeland Security. The place was remarkably nondescript and security nearly invisible. She speculated she might be at a famed CIA Black Site. Or she could even be at another FBI site. She'd seen the inside of so many prisons over the course of her life as a resistance fighter, the branches of justice were starting to blur together.
With little preamble, she was back in an interrogation room; much like the previous one where she had attacked her interrogator a few weeks before. However, this one was a little more comfortable. The chairs were padded. The overhead florescent light was of the 'soft white' variety. Classy.
Mystique absentmindedly wondered if her better treatment was due to being human now.
"Mystique, what to do you know about Erik Lensherr's plans?" The interrogator asked. This guy was different than her previous interrogator. He dressed a bit better, his suit looked like Armani, and he had a beard. His attitude was no-nonsense just like the previous one, though. And he had no sense of humor.
Nothing really changed.
"I told you. I don't go by the name Mystique anymore. You took away my mutation."
The interrogator looked frustrated.
"Okay, Raven Darkholme. What do you know about Erik Lensherr's plans?"
"Nothing you don't already know."
"Could you clarify that?"
"I was only with him for a minute before… You know everything. I didn't learn anything knew. There's nothing I can tell you."
Agent Menendez stood in the corner of the room, leaning idly against the wall watching the exchange. Mystique wondered how he was still involved with her case. In a way, the kindness and the attention he paid her were endearing. Mystique suspected if she was still a mutant and blue all over he wouldn't treat her any differently. It was sad the world didn't have more people like him. If there were a few more Agent Menendezes… a lot of things would be different. Maybe Mystique wouldn't hate humans. Maybe she wouldn't hate… herself.
Sitting on a chair on the opposite side of the room, Agent Menendez' heavy partner sat eating a doughnut, oblivious to the conversation going on.
"I don't think I'm going to get anything out of her today." The interrogator spoke to a microphone tucked into his collar. He nodded when he heard someone reply through the earpiece in his ear.
"She's telling you the truth; I don't think she knows anything." Menendez spoke up on her behalf. Mystique silently thanked him. She rarely made new friends in recent years. She keenly felt how vital it was she kept on Agent Menendez's good side. Other than him, she had no one now.
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When they brought her to her cell that night, she was a little surprised. It was an old fashioned cell with cement walls, a cot, and bars. No windows, but also no electroshock handcuffs, laser bars, bio monitoring devices, or cameras. The difference in my accommodations clearly shows the different way humans and mutants are treated. I'd bet if I asked nicely for a foot rub, now as a human, I'd get one.
Agent Menendez saw the way Mystique's face dropped as she eyed the low security cell block.
"If it makes you feel good, there will be four agents on guard the whole night." He said softly. And then louder, "If there's anything you need, just ring for the block guard. I'll leave instructions to see that your requests are sent to me."
As he left her, Agent Menendez's weak smile was so kind Mystique wondered if he was a bit taken by her. She wondered idly how an otherwise noble man like Agent Menendez could forget she was a ruthless murderer with no remorse. Did he believe mistreatment justified the Brotherhood's actions and if so, why was he working for the government?
Humans were stupid. That never changed.
It was an unimpressive cell. The construction-worker orange prison suit Mystique wore was the only color in the entire block of cells. Everything else from the cot to the cinder blocks was painted battleship gray. The bars were black, but the sink…
The sink was metal: stainless steel.
It reminded her of Erik and many of the homes and hideouts they had shared throughout the years. He was endlessly seeking out modern places, with upgraded stainless steel kitchens and cold, masculine chrome bathrooms. She had let him have his preferences and adopted his style as her own, nearly without considering alternatives. Could she even remember a hideout she had chosen because it suited her tastes? Did she have tastes? If so, she wasn't sure what they were.
Suddenly, the reality of her situation hit her. She was human. Everything she had known about life and herself was changing. She was in prison, maybe permanently. Erik wasn't coming to rescue her. No one was coming.
She stared at her disgustingly ugly human face in the safety mirror above the sink.
She turned on the water and washed her face to hide the tears she couldn't stop.
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Raven had no concept of how long she had cried. There were no windows and no clocks down in her prison cell. She sobbed so hard at first that she had to sit down. Quickly, she was overwhelmed with hopelessness and lay down on the cot, cradling her knees to her chest like a small child. She missed her scales. She missed being blue. She missed the way her skin would change shape, and a little pulse wave of energy would ripple through her. She could not imagine having felt it for the very last time.
All the while a single moment played over and over in her head. After being hit by the Cure dart, and suddenly reverting to Homo sapiens, she had lay there as a vulnerable human, naked and weak. She had turned to Erik, who for nearly three decades had been her leader, her lover, and her friend. No part of her doubted he would help and nurse her back to health. That everything would be alright. After all, she had taken the dart for him, and he had thanked her for it. He had come through for her countless times before-
"Sorry, my dear, but you're not one of us anymore."
And three decades of partnership were washed away in a split second.
Her tears became dry. When she could no longer cry, her body wracked with hard gasps. Her lungs greedily sucking in air like an injured animal clinging to life. Hours went by. She shook and lay still.
Mystique was dead.
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Raven held the portable phone to her ear with a shaky hand. This was a phone call she had never intended to make in her life. But here she was in a secret federal prison, and the benevolent Agent Menendez had agreed to grant her wish for one phone call.
She didn't know the phone number of any lawyers off the top of her head. She had never used one as part of the Brotherhood. As a mutant, she had always had extra-legal means available to secure her freedom.
But with her life in shambles, a plain ugly human body, and what could easily be a permanent stay in a top secret federal prison facility, she could think of only one person who would not only be sympathetic, but would have the ability to help.
"Hank. Hey, long time no see." She giggled nervously, like the adolescent girl she had been when she knew Beast as just Hank. "It's Raven. I've been cured – I'm human."
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Within a few hours she was sitting in a conference room, wearing no restraints, and talking to the Secretary of Mutant Affairs. Alone.
It was funny what a little pale skin could get you.
"Raven, I don't know what to say. I'm- I'm," he stuttered like a nervous teenager, "appalled that the Cure was used as a weapon. It was never intended to be."
There was so much sadness and missed opportunities clearly written on Hank's hairy blue face that it stopped Raven from speaking. She studied her old friend's blue skin and brawny body and tried to remember the awkward teenager who had had such an innocent crush on her.
His skin had turned blue trying and failing to achieve a cure that when perfected decades later would rob her of her blue skin. The irony wasn't lost on her.
"Are you going to take it?" Her voice was small and hesitant, completely un-Mystique-like, and Hank noticed.
"I'm thinking about it. I…" he looked away ashamed. "I used to want to be normal so badly. You remember. Fitting in consumed me, even when my only visible mutation was my silly feet. Then, I had to go and experiment on myself." Hank laughed, and Raven could swear there was a twinge of bitterness.
"And when I visited Worthington Labs, where they keep the boy, I got a small glimpse of what it would be like, to look like everyone else again. When I was near him, I reverted and… looked human." Hank paused as if remembering the strange miracle of watching his blue hand morph into a plain human one.
They weren't Mystique and Beast, adversaries, anymore. He clutched her hand in his larger, blue hairy one when the emotion overcame him. "I wanted it badly. But when I saw my hand, normal like a human's hand, I didn't recognize it as my own."
"This isn't my own." Raven gestured to her pale skin and black hair. "Nothing has ever felt so foreign." Hank was sympathetic, so Raven continued, "I've been blue for most of my life. I barely remember before my mutation developed. I didn't even know I had black hair. I remember it being lighter as a kid."
"You always appeared as a blonde if I remember." Hank said.
"I had heard somewhere blondes have more fun." Raven smiled.
As they spoke, it was like the decades rolled back, and they were in his lab again, studying her mutation. Raven felt a sudden friendship even though they had been fighting on opposites sides of a war for decades and had barely spoken since the Reagan administration.
"You were right Hank, all those years ago, about my cells aging slowly. I look pretty good for 67." They both laughed, but it was short lived.
Hank looked at her, really looked at her. And thanked god she hadn't tried his formula back in the 60s.
"I think your black hair is lovely if it's any conciliation." It wasn't and Raven's look confirmed that. "I must admit, Raven. I changed my mind long ago and agree you look best in blue."
It could have been a romantic moment. But after so many decades and so much bloodshed it wasn't. It was tender, however. And Raven's heart strings pulled a little to remember the insecure teenager Hank had been and how proud she was of the man Beast had become. Though at one time, he had hid the blue skin his accident had given him, he did the opposite now. He boldly wore it well serving in the President's cabinet. She hated that he worked with the humans in a futile attempt to ignore their prejudice.
But, at least he was comfortable in his skin now.
"You're not going to take it, are you?" She did not need to mention the Cure by name. It would hang at the forefront of her mind every day for the rest of her life.
"No," Hank whispered.
"No one should take it. It'll be teenage mutants who turn to it, and they'll regret it later in life. You know that." Raven was surprised by how calm she had become, talking with Beast.
"Yes, but it isn't our place to decide for them."
Raven wanted to continue to argue. The words nearly tumbled out her mouth that they shouldn't even have a choice to destroy their gift. That allowing them that choice implied they should want to be human. But, she stopped herself. Arguing with Hank would serve no purpose.
And Erik was right. This wasn't her fight anymore.
"I want to make a trade: my intel for my freedom."
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Notes: This chapter has not been checked by a beta reader. Please PM me or review with any mistakes you discover.
Preview: Will Raven really sell out the Brotherhood, her life's work? Will she get out of federal detention? What will she do if she did?