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It wasn’t like Darcy hadn’t known her girlfriend was a mutant. It had been one of the first things Raven told her with her head held high like she expected to Darcy to just walk out as soon as she heard.
“I’m a mutant.”
“Okay?” Darcy said. She waved her hands nervously. “Like, I’m sorry, I just don’t really know what to say to that.”
Raven stared at her. “You can hate me for it if you want, but I won’t apologize.”
“What?!” Darcy squawked. “Oh, god no! Why would I hate you? My boss is dating a literal alien!”
Still, even though she’d known about it, there was one thing Raven had never told her. Well, there were a lot of things, but there a couple big ones. First, Raven had never told Darcy her real name, insisting only that Raven wasn’t it and she had to use that name for security purposes. Secondly, and the one thing that was driving Darcy crazy with curiosity was that Raven had never told her what her mutation was.
It was none of her business of course, and Darcy wasn’t going to just ask, but she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a part of her that desperately wanted to know every time Raven disappeared for a weekend on “official business” or got a phone call from some stranger with a weird name like ‘Professor X’.
However she felt, Darcy thought she had done a pretty good job of keeping it to herself, at least until the day she was caught in a superhero battle on her way back from work. “Frickin’ New York!” she screamed, ducking into an alley. “Why can’t the aliens attack somewhere else?”
She crouched behind an upside-down dumpster, hoping that whoever was causing telephone poles to warp and buildings to shudder wouldn’t cause something to fall on her head, when a woman ran into her alley.
She looked familiar, which was weird because she was entirely blue with red hair and yellow eyes. Darcy frowned, trying to compare faces and match them to this lady who was obviously some sort of mutant or hero or something. The lady looked around the corner at all the chaos, took a deep breath, and then her skin melted into someone else entirely, clothes and all. She walked out into the crowd and disappeared.
Darcy stayed behind the dumpster until there was no more yelling and then got up and walked onto the street. The Tower, she figured, was probably the safest place to be – the biggest target but also one with the most protection. She was stopped halfway there by a crowd of people led by a man in a wheelchair.
“May we ask you a few questions, my dear?” he asked.
“Yes,” Darcy answered.
“Excellent,” he said, smiling like he’d known what she was about to say. “First of all, did you happen to see anyone with unique abilities around here recently.”
Darcy raised an eyebrow. “I work in Avengers Tower,” she said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
The man nodded. “Mutants,” he clarified. “Like,” he looked straight at her, “Raven Darkholme.”
“How do you know about her?” Darcy demanded, one hand already reaching for her taser.
“I should have introduced myself. My name is Dr. Charles Xavier and these are my students.”
Darcy dropped her hand. “You’re Professor X?” The man sitting in front of her looked nothing like the man she had imagined from the conversations she’d had with Raven.
“Yes,” the professor nodded. “Now, did you see Raven anywhere recently?”
“No,” Darcy answered.
Professor X looked at her speculatively like he’d asked a rhetorical question and gotten an answer anyway. “Very well,” he said. “If you do see her in the near future, can you give her a message from me?”
Darcy was about to agree when he spoke again without using his mouth. Tell her, his voice said inside her mind, to consider wisely who she unveils herself to.
“What the hell?” Darcy shouted. “Who are you people?”
One of the people behind Professor X stepped forward, a man with some of the most defined muscles Darcy had ever seen, and if she wasn’t taken…but she was. He was wearing a white tank and in answer to her question he growled, “We’re mutants.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Darcy responded. “I mean, who are you with? Working for? What’s your goal here?” What sounded like a small explosion happened a couple of streets over and she pointed in that direction. “Like that! What the hell?!”
Professor X regarded her calmly. It was almost getting on her nerves how nothing seemed to unnerve the guy, like he’d seen it all or – Like I can? His voice asked in her head.
“You’re a telepath,” Darcy gasped.
“Got a problem with that?” the ripped guy asked.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “I’m dating a mutant,” she sighed. “And, no, this is not actually relevant and I don’t know why you care, but either way could you please let me get through to the Tower?”
“Why, so you can reveal us all to the Avengers?” a girl from further back in the crowd asked. Her red hair had a white streak in it which in any other circumstance Darcy would find extremely cool but not right now dammit!
“No!” Darcy snapped. “Because I need to get to work!”
Professor X looked her in the eye one more time. Darcy didn’t feel anything but she got the distinct feeling that this guy could see all her thoughts and memories as easily as someone rifling through a filing cabinet. “Very well,” he said after a moment. “If you do see Raven, however…” he let his words trail off.
“Yeah, I’ll give her your message,” Darcy said.
Someone else in the little knot of mutants might have started to say something but just then the telephone poles on both sides of the street started bending like trees in a high wind and cars parked along the road started lifting off the ground. “Ah,” a deep voice said. “There you are, Charles.”
A man dressed in purple and red was floating several feet off the ground, everyone was staring at him, and no one was paying attention to Darcy. Taking advantage of the distraction, she ducked down a side street, looped around the newly-renewed fight and got to the doors of the Tower.
Fortunately, the security guard on duty was Mike and he recognized her. “Lewis, what the hell is going on out there?” he shouted, opening the door just wide enough to admit her before slamming it shut again.
“Aliens,” Darcy said flatly, scanning her security badge. “Or maybe mutants this time? Either way, they made me half an hour late for work. Jane is going to kill me.”
“She won’t even notice,” Mike said with a chuckle, scanning her through. “Have a nice day, Lewis.”
The rest of the day passed without incident and Darcy was able to make it home just fine. She buzzed into her apartment and kicked off her shoes with the intent of making herself a cup of noodles and relaxing on the sofa. Her fantasy of a nice, uneventful evening was abruptly derailed when she came face to face with herself.
Standing in the middle of the living room was the same face she saw in the mirror every morning, right down to the way her lips curved just a little higher on one side than the other.
“Hello,” Darcy Lewis said to herself.
The copy, or Darcy 2.0 as she had already named it, looked confused. “You aren’t screaming.”
Pausing for a moment, Darcy started ticking off her fingers as she spoke. “Well, number one, if you were an evil clone here to kill me, you wouldn’t be waiting so nicely for me to arrive. Number two, if this was some sort of kidnapping plot, we wouldn’t be chatting. Number three, there is a shocking lack of equipment here for any kind of experiment. And number four,” she paused to think back to the mutant she had seen in the alley, “I think I saw you this morning, Raven.”
Without a word, Darcy 2.0 started to shift and melt. Hair grew, limbs got longer, the face morphed and stretched, and soon Darcy was looking at the blonde girlfriend she had grown to know and love. “Darcy,” she said in her regular, slightly husky, voice.
“Hey, Raven.” There was a pause and then Darcy remembered the other weird thing that happened today. “I ran into this old guy who could read my mind and he had a message for you.”
“Charles.” Raven said in a tone that made the name sound like man who keeps ruining my life. “What did the wonderful Professor X have to say?”
Darcy shrugged. “He told me to tell you something about being careful who you unveil yourself to or something like that.” She shivered, remembering the sensation of having him in her head. “Dude’s kind of creepy.”
Raven rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. Still, not as creepy as some of us.”
Darcy shivered, remembering the encounters she’d seen and lived about aliens and heroes, and now mutants were added to that ever-growing pile. “Anyway, did you know what he meant?”
“Probably just looking out for me,” Mystique sighed, moving to the kitchenette at the back of Darcy’s apartment. “He’s always wanted to make sure I was all right,” she explained, pulling a glass out of the cupboard, “even when he felt horribly conflicted over my life choices.” The last bit was so quiet Darcy could barely hear it over the running water.
“What?” Darcy sputtered, walking up to the counter. “It’s none of his business!” Personal privacy was something she took very seriously, especially after the Agent Ipod fiasco.
Raven looked over, her smile almost impressed. “I knew there was a reason I decided to trust you,” she muttered. She took a long drink from her glass and walked back to the middle of the room. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something and then closed it again.
“Raven?” Darcy asked hesitantly.
Shaking her head, Raven took a breath and changed. Pale skin and blonde hair morphed into pale skin and dark hair. The last to change were her eyes and then Darcy was staring at herself again. “This – is what I am,” she said when the transformation was complete.
“Whoa,” Darcy said. “I mean, that’s awesome, super cool ability! Do, uh, can I ask what your name is now?”
“It’s Mystique. That’s my mutant name.”
“Your real name,” Darcy mused, remembering their long-ago conversation. “Do you want me to use it?”
Mystique shrugged. “You can use whichever one you want.” She paused, her cheeks turning pink. “It doesn’t sound so bad when you say it.”
“Okay.” Darcy nodded. “Does that mean that this,” she gestured at her girlfriend, “is your mutant power?”
Mystique cracked a smile. “Mutation,” she corrected. “It’s a gene thing. But yes.” She shifted again and there was the blue figure Darcy had seen in the alley. She smiled again, a hard look in her yellow eyes. “Still don’t hate me?”
“Oh god no,” Darcy breathed. Besides all the other things she’d just learned about her partner, Mystique’s true form was sexy. Darcy could see every curve outlined and her skin looked amazing with all its different textures. “I could never.”
“You don’t know what I’ve done,” Mystique warned.
Darcy snorted and grabbed Mystique’s hand, running her fingers over the back of it. “Half the Avengers have committed war crimes, probably. Including Captain America. Nobody cares, babe.” She brought her other hand up to card through her girlfriend’s hair. “Let’s not talk about that now, though.”
Kissing Raven had been amazing, but kissing Mystique was even better. There was a newfound confidence there. She leaned into Darcy like she wanted to show her who was boss and reassure her all at once, tracing her tongue over Darcy’s bottom lip and then nipping at it with her teeth.
Darcy put one hand on Mystique’s face, tracing her thumb over her cheekbone. So sexy, she thought, before Mystique pulled her close and bit gently at her bottom lip, her tongue mapping the inside of Darcy’s mouth.
It could have been a moment or an hour later that she let go. Darcy blinked at her and whispered the only thing that came to mind. “Wow,” before pushing her onto the sofa and straddling her lap to show her girlfriend just how unintimidated she was.