Work Text:
Author: Lucinda
Rated t for teen
Main character: Mystique
Disclaimer: anyone you recognize belongs to Stan Lee & the writers of Marvel Comics. I am NOT one of those writers.
Distribution: Mental Wanderings, PEJA, Luba if she wants it, any list that I send it to may archive – anyone else please ask first.
Notes: comicverse, somewhat vaguely before Hank was kitty-fied.
……………………………..
Mystique wasn’t entirely certain why she’d picked him as her focus. Oh, if she’d been challenged, she could have spouted something plausible and believable, perhaps citing the fact that so few of Xavier’s students maintained ties to the outside world, or how men could so easily be blinded by a pretty face. It would be smooth, sound plausible… and be a lie. The truth was that she didn’t know why she’d picked Hank McCoy.
She could explain her methodology.
Getting close by slipping into the role of one of his fellow researchers wouldn’t work. While she was not stupid, or uneducated, there was a vast difference between the skills that she had and the skills required to work in a top-notch chemistry or biology lab. She’d never had a Doctorate or a Master’s degree in any of the laboratory sciences. She might be able to pass herself off as a Doctor for a brief time, among those who weren’t that close to the doctor in question, but she wasn’t scientist enough to keep up a pretense like that through the lab work, day after day after day. The technicians, clerical workers and janitorial staff that she had the skills to replace wouldn’t be close enough to do more than monitor when he was there and what hours he kept. She had easier ways to learn that than scrubbing floors or typing all day.
She’d considered taking an apartment in the same building, for the proximity and the chance to sort through his things when he was off at the lab. But he was at the lab more often than his apartment, and her skills would let her borrow the face and form of one of his neighbors enough to let her riffle his apartment any time she wanted.
That hadn’t been enough. Not after a little while. She had wanted to get closer, to know more. It wasn’t enough to check his calendar and know where he was supposed to be and when he was away for conferences.
The perfect opportunity had practically fallen into her lap. She’d seen that woman, the reporter that he’d been dating. It had been simple to follow her, to set up a bit of surveillance. Simple to start watching the woman who was close to him, to start learning enough to slip into Trish Trilby’s shoes – size six and a half – and watch him.
That hadn’t explained the raw fury that had filled her, left her muscles quivering and her nails digging into her palms when she’d found out that Trilby was just using him. That she thought he was charming enough – for a mutant – and could help her get any number of good stories.
Only decades of needing plans and knowing just how difficult it would still be to replace the woman had kept Mystique from tearing Trish Trilby into little shreds. She could replace her at the post office or the coffee shop, but not yet at the News Station, not yet when the woman went on dates.
Replacing a reporter was much easier than replacing a doctor.
After she’d followed the woman to a party with some old college pals, Mystique had known that Trilby had to go. Her ‘dear pals’ for good measure. The whole lot of them were shallow, vicious, vindictive, and manipulative…. Which she’d find much easier to tolerate if half of them didn’t think that mutants were a problem and the other half – including Trilby – think that mutants caused more problems than they were worth. She’d given the tall blonde with the feathers tattooed on her shoulder to Sabertooth as a present. She’d packed the mouthy one with the very short dark hair off to a nasty tempered pack of gun smugglers. The redhead – and a more cowardly wench she was hard pressed to remember – had woke up gagged and handcuffed to the bed of one of the local mid-level mafia bosses. Either he’d kill her when he got bored or she’d develop a spine and a temper. The rest of them, she’d drugged unconscious and shipped off to the Orient. She had to do a few things on occasion to maintain her network of contacts, and giving almost a half dozen relatively healthy American women to some of the people that she knew went a long way. Especially since all she’d said was to make certain they didn’t come back, and that most of them only spoke English, and that the blonde with the curls spoke a bit of bad French.
The real Trish Trilby was somewhere near Japan, learning far more than she’d ever wanted to know about Japanese criminal organizations and their recreational habits.
Not that anybody at the news station knew about that. A bit of ranting about inept valets combined with a couple months of observation… she was in. She had become Trish Trilby. Her job performance had been wonderful, and she’d even managed a pay raise. She’d also decided to make a couple subtle changes. She was a little less critical of her coworkers enough to make them less angry and jealous but not enough for them to start wondering about her change of mood. She’d made a couple tweaks in what Trish ate, mostly changing to a better pizza delivery. Small things, things that made her position more secure at the station, made the apartment manager less irritated at her. And she’d fixed that awful rattle and ping in Trilby’s car.
Appearing to grow disenchanted with some of Trilby’s other friends over the next few months hadn’t been too difficult – she’d just let the inevitable squabbles and petty feuds go instead of trying to fix things. It was well worth keeping some of the less annoying fringe associates to stop frequenting that loud club with the awful bands where Trilby and her friends had planned their last party together.
The best part was that Trilby was dating Hank McCoy. He figured that she’d just been nervous at first, that those nerves had finally settled. That she’d been worried that being publicly linked to a mutant might hurt her job. The real Trilby had always evaded the subject. It had taken her a while before she let him persuade ‘Trish’ to talk about her job – how the station manager worried an awful lot about ratings and public approval. How she’d ‘finally decided that there were parts of my life that weren’t under contract’.
While ‘Trish’ hadn’t shared too many details about her mystery boyfriend, she wasn’t keeping it a secret that she had one. Or that he was smart, well-connected, and took her to some lovely events. The more observant people at the studio could tell when she’d had a nice date, or when she was feeling suspicious that something might be wrong, or when he’d been called away for work related things. It was part of her role as Trish Trilby… wasn’t it? Even if it wasn’t, she didn’t want to admit otherwise.
Trish Trilby was a modern, independent, assertive woman. It was only natural that at the proper time, which was whenever she felt it was time, Trish would be the one who took their relationship to the next level of physical intimacy. The fact that this had been Mystique instead of the real Trish was a secret from everybody. She justified it to herself that Trish had already been doing some things with him, that they’d already kissed in a variety of places, already touched all over. It was just a logical progression.
It was a logical progression. It had nothing to do with the fact that she’d been dreaming about the touch of his hands over her bare skin. Taking things further was how Trish would continue a relationship, was all about keeping her cover. It wasn’t because his kisses left her feeling light as a feather dancing on the wind. It wasn’t because…
Damn. It was because she’d wanted to feel his hands running over her body. It was because she wanted to feel him inside her. Because she craved that closeness. Because she savored the feeling of his blue fur against her skin, enjoyed the careful play of his claws over her body.
Her biggest problem was the fact that Hank thought his passionate lover was Trish Trilby, reporter. She’d slipped into playing Trish to get close to him, and it had worked. She was close, was his lover, was his confidant… or rather, ‘Trish’ was his lover.
She wanted to be his lover. Wanted him to look at her, at the real her, and smile the way he did for ‘Trish’. She wanted him to want her for herself. And she had no idea how to make that happen. She’d never had a relationship with a man work when she’d worn her own face.
Mystique wasn’t certain how, but she wanted to find a way. Until then… until then, ‘Trish’ would keep up her relationship with Hank.
End Fascination in Blue.