MYSTIQUE.

As Raven moved the blanket, Irene reached forward and gently pulled the it over her a bit more. She felt their hands brush together and instinctively reached for her wife’s, grasping it lightly before giving it a squeeze. “I have everything I need. I’ll be fine.”

The vulnerability she was feeling right now made her uncomfortable, but she could handle it on her own for a little while. Seeing Raven like this— doting, worrying, soft— it was different, but not unwelcome. Irene was willing to open up to it more after Mystique returned after the meeting later. But for now, focus was needed.

“I know this might sound a bit ridiculous coming from the woman who was just resurrected, but I’m more concerned with you right now.” Irene was tired. Overwhelmed was an understatement. But that could be dealt with by simple means— resting, eating, drinking. Everything else was much more complicated. “We have a lot to be angry about, but there is a time and a place for it. How are you feeling about the Meeting? About facing all of them?”

It felt like a lifetime had past between when the present and when Raven had last seen the face of her wife. Neither wore their age on the faces. There were no wrinkles, no soft folds of skin as it loosed and sagged with age. Raven looked as she always had; as in, she looked like someone on the cusp of being someone else. Second skins had so often covered her own ever since she had lost Irene that she could almost place her sins on them and not herself.

Irene was, though tired and pained, as radiant as ever. She looked as when Raven had first met her, before age had taken its brush to her face and warped her appearance. The shapeshifter had loved her then. She loved her now. She had never stopped loving her, and love did not come easily to Raven Darkholme. Even her son was a distant figure, both content to live separate lives. While Raven would never demean her wife and treat her like she was breakable, it was hard to not be concerned. Her own resurrections came from traumatic deaths that had been brief. It was nothing like the long slumber and sharp reality that had slapped her wife when she had opened unseeing eyes.

Her fingers instinctively curled around Irene’s for that fleeting moment, body reminding her that touch in this capacity existed. There was fondness, there was gentleness. It was not all razorblades and revenge.

“You don’t need to worry about me.” She reassured her. “Worry about Charles Xavier. I’ll face them the way I always do. Soon, he’s going to have to face me and I will not be lenient.” That would be later, when they were ready and Destiny could take her seat at the Council. Raven still had a few loose ends to tie before they reached that point. “You know that I’ll do anything for you, Irene. Don’t you? Even though you’re making me soft. A shame, isn’t it?”

That was her flaw, what had the potential to ruin the woman who had spent her entire life learning how to adapt and avoid. Destiny had been her weakness and she had just brought her back into the game. She’d do it again. She’d do it a hundred times. To hell with Charles, Xavier and Krakoa. Raven would watch them burn in the end. There, in that moment, Raven could push them from her mind. She had what she needed.

“You can’t be surprised to see me.”

They hadn’t announced her return to the world yet. It was these quiet moments shared between just the two of them that Raven was living for. Irene, her wife. Destiny, the one person in the world she would do anything for. They had taken her from Mystique but Charles and Erik – grandiose, pompous gods – couldn’t keep them apart. Not forever. Not even if Moira Mactaggart was involved.

“Do you need anything?”

It was with an uncharacteristically gentleness that Raven rearranged the blanket slightly to cover Destiny. She hadn’t seen her young in so long outside of her memories. What would have felt like a dream was tainted by the stink of Krakoa. It needed to burn. Of that, Raven knew. It was only a matter of time.

“Believe me, I sympathize with you, Raven. But I’m afraid I don’t have any help to offer you. Meddling with mutant affairs is the last thing on my list of priorities right now.”

“I don’t know if I would call it perfect. Every nation has its flaws, right?”

“What’s got you so upset with Krakoa?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t live there.” Clint pointed out, raising an eyebrow at the mutant’s words. “You seem upset.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with all of that, but I’ll stay out of it. I don’t know if it’s really my place to speak on Krakoa.”

“It seems pretty nice from the outside looking in. But then again I’m probably the worst person to judge that sort of thing.”

“Sounds like you have some frustrations with Krakoa.”

“you see, history is much more fascinating than you’d expect it to be.”

“That look in your eyes— I know what it means. I see it everywhere I go. You want to ask me something, yet you hesitate. Why? Are you afraid I might hurt you?”

“afraid?” mystique laughed, appearance rippling .

“Well, it’s a sandwich. Not as nice as night-pizza on a rooftop but— food is food.”

“Nope, stop right there. Before you say anything— this is just as confusing for me as it is for you. Scratch that— this is way more confusing for me. So just- don’t say anything stupid, alright?”

“Unless you want to meet your maker, I suggest you move.”

“I presume you’re here for a reason?”