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"I've agreed to leave my wife because of you, Dr. Grey. What else would you ask of me?"
Every head in the outer lobby of the office that should have belonged to Senator Kelly pivoted to stare at Jean. She had thought that her appearance here might make an impression; this just wasn't the one she had counted on. It served her right for forgetting who she was playing with. She wouldn't make that mistake again.
Walking toward the person who wasn't Senator Kelly, Jean graced the entire room with her patented, Who? Me? I'm a good girl! expression. That one got quite a workout when you went through adolescence expecting your mind to be read if you even looked like you might be up to something. "The Senator is just trying to get me in trouble with my fiancé," Jean said.
"Now, Dr. Grey," not!Kelly answered, with a full-throated laugh. A large, masculine hand touched Jean on the shoulder as the figure ushered her into the office. A hearty, jocular voice said, "I have a feeling you and Scott have quite enough trouble that has nothing to do with me." The heavy door swung shut, and Jean felt paralyzed, wondering, How did Mystique know we were having trouble? Where did she hear about Logan?
Then the doubt passed. Every couple had their little fights. Mystique was only saying something that would bring whatever doubts Jean had been harboring to the surface. I won't forget who I'm dealing with again. She looked at the hand still resting on her shoulder. It was scaly and blue.
Jean flinched. Mystique didn't let go. "I'm disappointed in you, doctor," she said, still speaking in the Senator's voice. "Disappointed, but not surprised. You've always saved your greatest empathy for the mutants who could pass as human."
Jean's instinct was to go on the defensive, to righteously invoke her friendship with Hank, and -- well, Hank, and who the hell was Mystique to talk about passing as human, anyway? Looking like something she wasn't was precisely what Mystique did. But Jean, for all her redhead temper, could sometimes learn from experience. Instead of snapping back, she let her palm spread gently over the ridges of Mystique's hand. "It isn't that at all," she said, and added, "Raven."
It was Mystique's turn to jerk away at that use of her human name. Feeling an advantage to press, Jean said, "I just didn't expect you to give up your secret so quickly."
"What secret?" Mystique stepped back, keeping her golden eyes trained on Jean. "You knew I've been impersonating Kelly. That was clear enough when you sent your irradiated private eye dog yapping after me. I'm just sparing myself the tedium of watching you agonize over whether to read my mind. Charles wouldn't."
"You think Charles is some white knight who lets you walk all over him because he'll never bend the rules?" Jean demanded. "You don't know him as well as you think you do."
Mystique curled her lip. "Charles wouldn't agonize. He'd just do it. And no one knows him better than I do. I'm just trying to figure why he would send you."
"Who says anyone sent me? I came here by myself."
"By yourself?" Mystique's eyes glinted as she took this in. "That means that neither Charles nor your Boy Scout fiancé nor your – whatever the hairy, bad-smelling one is. None of them know where you are?" Her voice fell to a whisper, and now it was very much her own. "So I could snap your neck and none of your beloved boys would know what happened."
"You wouldn't do that," Jean said, evenly.
"Because I'd never blow my cover?" Mystique shifted into Kelly's form again, and spoke in his voice. "It just materialized in my office! It must be the one that attacked the President. Why does Xavier persist in harboring the few bad seeds among the mutant population?"
"You'd never hurt me," Jean answered, "Because Erik would never forgive you." It was a horrendously low blow. It was also true.
Mystique scowled, tired of the game, but she stayed in Kelly's form. "What do you want, Grey? I'm a busy man."
"I just wanted to see for myself."
"To see?"
"Yes. When I talked to Jessica, the private eye you met – she was upset that Scott and Charles and I – that we basically knew what you were doing and we let it happen. Like we could reap the benefits of your actions and not take any responsibility. I got angry at first, but I realized she was right. So I'm here to see. If you're really using Senator Kelly's influence to make the world better for mutants, then it would be silly for us to act like we don't have a stake in that. I didn't tell Scott because he might find the suggestion distasteful. Even Charles might."
"But not you."
"I don't know yet," Jean admitted. "But I'll give you a chance to show me."
"So you can go back and report to the X-Men?"
"For right now, Mystique – let's keep this between us."