Borrowing gifts

Mystique’s yellow eyes gleamed with wicked curiosity as she lounged back home on the couch while Destiny was at the Quiet Council meeting, squinting her eyes as she felt the woman’s powers from a distance. The invisible threads of the link hummed beneath her skin like new nerves, waiting to be tested. At their shared home, Raven was looking at the television as it played a newscast. But she wasn’t really watching it. Her mind’s eye was paying attention to something far more important.

“Show me,” Raven whispered, voice low and commanding. “Let me see what you see.”

She flexed the connection the way she might flex a finger. Irene gasped sharply, her body going rigid for a heartbeat before relaxing again, waving off the other council members who asked if she was alright. Mystique closed her eyes and then opened them again.

The world unfolded.

Her perception went beyond normal vision—it was deeper and more layered, like a rushing torrent of possibilities. She could envision their bedroom in a few minutes: the newborns waking, tiny blue fists waving for milk. She also saw Irene get up to care for them, then pause to admire her reflection, try on new outfits, and spin happily. Later that morning, she glimpsed the Quiet Council chamber — Shaw’s smug look as he leaned in to speak, and the subtle psychic tension from Emma as she observed “Destiny” a moment too long. She even caught glimpses of Shaw’s private activities when alone: tentative plans involving Orchis, quiet ambitions, and the taste of future power on his tongue. But it was never linear, not in a proper way. Every time she looked into the future for specific people who caught her interest, it played out just a bit differently.

Raven’s breath hitched. A slow, predatory grin spread across her face.

“Oh… Irene,” she purred, not opening her eyes. “This is delicious.”

She pushed deeper, testing the limits of the link. Time branched and twisted around her. In one thread, she saw herself waddling through Krakoa’s gardens later that afternoon, belly already rounding again with the night’s conquests, the largest she had ever seen herself. In another, she watched Emma Frost corner them in their home, arguing, threatening, proposing — the details kept shifting.

Mystique chuckled softly, her voice warm and content. She sensed Irene’s foresight as an additional set of eyes—more acute and far-reaching than her own heightened senses. Gently, she mentally drew a particular thread closer: their upcoming hunt tonight.

She saw the neon-soaked fraternity house. Saw the two of them disguised as bubbly cheerleaders, hips swaying as they walked through the crowded rooms. She watched herself straddle one boy after another, laughing as orgasms crashed through her. Then the arrogant one — tall, drunk, handsy — grabbed her hips and growled that fatal insult.

Raven’s grin grew fiercer as she watched the moment replay over and over again. His muffled screams echoed down her throat while the rest of the party remained unaware.

She opened her eyes, pupils blown wide with delight.

“I can see it all,” she breathed. “Every delicious possibility. Every mistake they’ll make before they even make it. And best of all…” She leaned up and breathed in sharply. “I can steer it.”

Irene shivered hard, a soft moan escaping her as the link thrummed between them again, and her powers were restored. Pretending to sip from her drink at the table, Destiny continued the meeting, giving a knowing smirk.

Mystique’s smile, in turn, was positively wicked.

“Tonight,” she promised, voice velvet and steel, “we’re going to have so much fun.”