Who: Mystique OTA What: On a stakeout. When: 12/13, mid-morning Where: Starbucks, somewhere in NYC. Rating: Probably somewhere around PG-13.
There was no season Raven hated more than winter. The temperature in hell, she’d decided, probably hovered somewhere between twenty and thirty four degrees Fahrenheit. She’d not really had to worry about the temperature for many lifetimes, but now if she wanted to leave her home on even the warmer winter days, she had to wear layers upon layers of clothing. It was like being trapped and slowly squeezed to death. She’d (unfortunately) gotten used to many things about her new body, but she still hadn’t gotten used to needing to cover it so wholly for at least three months out of the year. It wasn’t that she’d never been able to feel cold before; in fact, she’d been in much colder places and felt every moment of it, but she’d never been affected by it physically. Now, though… now, she had entire boxes full of gear designed to protect her fragile, disgusting body from the temperature outside.
After doing a quick pass at drying her hair, she tossed the towel toward the hamper in the corner of the room and stood in front of her closet. She pointedly avoided looking at herself in the mirror beside it as she plucked the requisite layers of clothing from various hangers and drawers. Even though she was still so very much more comfortable naked, she absolutely despised seeing the pale expanses of flesh that were reflected now. Reaching back to scratch an itchy spot on her lower back, she turned to get dressed, making a mental note to buy some lotion. That was another downside to her current predicament. Random skin dryness in the middle of winter. It was so much more expensive, being a flatscan. After tugging on pants, she went back to scratching the itch, frowning. Being a flatscan was a lot itchier, as well. She turned again to reach for a bra, and caught a glimpse of her back in the mirror.
The itchy spot was blue.
She backed closer to the mirror, craning her neck to get a better look. It was blue. There was absolutely no mistaking it, and she ran her thumb across the patch, eyes squinting toward the mirror as she flaked off another piece of skin nearby, revealing more blue. Smooth blue, but it would be smooth on that part of her body, and she smiled. Maybe the day wouldn’t be awful, after all.
Raven dressed quickly. As much as she would have loved to stand there all day, seeing just how much of her skin she could flake off from that spot, she had work to do. Very high paying work, even if it was a little bit too domestic for her liking. Cheating husbands weren’t exactly the kind of thing she liked to waste her time on, but when the price was as good as it was... and he was an anti-mutant rights organizer... and she’d been given the go-ahead to actually kill him if it turned out he was cheating (and most likely would either way)... well, she could definitely make an exception.
There was a cold smile on her face as she exited her building, and she noted that it made her doorman appear even more terrified of her than usual, a fact which only made her smile wider. Fifteen minutes later, she was at her destination – a Starbucks across the street from the man’s office building. She pulled her laptop out and settled into a seat, preparing herself for another boring morning of learning the man’s schedule while obnoxious baristas gave her snide looks for not ordering more of their overpriced, under flavored drinks.