(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Mystique returns with Myk-Zod!

-x-X-x-

She feels good, all things considered. Really good. Zola and all of his toadies were dead and his experiments were lost for all time. Myk-Zod’s power was… frankly out of this world. And now Mystique shared it with him. She wasn’t as strong as him yet and maybe she never would be to be fair. It wasn’t like they had a road map for this sort of situation. They were decidedly in uncharted territory.

However, Mystique knew one thing for absolute certain… the sun had never felt better beating down on her skin and she wasn’t going to let Myk-Zod go any time soon. That’s why, after they’re done fucking midair next to the destroyed Hydra Facility, she happily accepts when he asks if she wants to return with him.

He’d sounded worried that she might say ‘no’ too… but Mystique wasn’t about to let someone like him slip through her fingers. She needed his help after all… but more than that, she wanted his company.

 Of course, there are consequences to fucking as hard as they fucked. Not only do they leave a bit of a crater behind, with trees blown back in a circle from where they’d fucked so hard that it sent shockwaves pulsing out, but also… they kind of destroyed their clothes.

In the end, they wind up having to sneak into the closest village hundreds of miles away and steal some things to wear. For Mystique this is old hat… she takes garments that aren’t hers all the time in order to disguise herself. However, Myk-Zod clearly feels a little guilty about it.

That’s another reason she feels like she needs to stay with him. Not only is he too powerful for this world… he’s too good for it as well. Sure, he’d hardened himself to kill Zola and everyone else involved in the mad man’s experiments, but it was obviously a very difficult decision for him to make.

Myk-Zod was not a killer. Mystique was. She didn’t necessarily want him to change too much either, but whatever did happen, she would support him through it all the same.

And so they return to the Americans, to the military camp where Myk-Zod has been tinkering and supplying the Howling Commandos all these months. They fly in wearing cozy but rough attire from that village and Mystique puts a brand new face on, one that won’t be associated with Private Raven Darkholme but also isn’t as… unique as her natural blue skin, yellow eyes, and vibrant red hair.

Myk-Zod carries her in for a landing, and from there they carefully enter the bunker. They aren’t sneaking necessarily, but they also aren’t loudly announcing their arrival either. As such, it’s not too surprising to Mystique that they don’t really run into anyone for a moment. After all, her enhanced hearing lets her pick up on the celebrations taking place elsewhere in the base.

The mission must have been successful. Hydra was stopped and Red Skull was defeated. Mystique is glad for that because there was certainly a fear that Myk-Zod choosing to come save her instead might result in half of the world being blown up by Hydra’s bombs.

However… as they move deeper in, she picks up on something else. The sound of a woman crying. From the way Myk-Zod shifts at her side, she can tell he hears it too. In fact, Mystique is confident that the alien man hears it before she does. When he turns and begins walking in that direction, she’s quick to follow.

Arriving at an almost entirely abandoned command center, they come upon a familiar face belonging to a woman that Mystique has never interacted with directly but knows quite well. What’s not familiar is for that face to be streaked with tears, her makeup and mascara run through. They don’t silence their approach, so as they get closer… Agent Peggy Carter looks up at them both, her eyes widening.

“You… you’re back.”

She quickly dabs her eyes with a white handkerchief and rises from her seat. Myk-Zod steps forward and interrupts before she can do anything else to try to clean up her appearance.

“Peggy… what happened?”

Mystique watches as the other woman breaks instantly, her face crumpling. Myk-Zod takes the final step forward and catches her as she collapses into his chest, sobbing.

“T-They did it… they stopped Red Skull… b-but they couldn’t put the plane down anywhere s-safe. Not and ensure the bombs didn’t go off. So… so Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes… they put it down in the ice.”

Mystique inhales sharply at that. They’d sacrificed themselves then. While Myk-Zod was off saving her, Captain America and his right hand man had given their lives to save the world.

To her credit, Agent Carter is a strong woman. She collects herself and pulls away from Myk-Zod’s chest quickly enough, standing up with her back ramrod straight. Her eyes flick past him to Mystique at that point, though Mystique is confident that the other woman had already registered her presence.

“… What about your mission? Did you succeed in stopping Zola?”

Agent Carter’s voice is taut, her tone sharp. Myk-Zod slowly nods in response.

“Yes… he’s gone now. And all of his research with him. What he was doing there… it needed to be stopped. Nobody will be building off of his work any time soon either.”

Something unreadable flashes across the Agent’s face at that. She seems to chew on Myk-Zod’s words for a moment before finally slowly nodding.

“… I’m happy you were able to accomplish your goals, Mikkel. I assume this is a survivor?”

Her eyes fully move to Mystique at that, focusing on her entirely. Mystique… realizes at that point that she probably should have been feigning more shellshock at this point. It’s not like she’s puffing herself up and acting all cocky or anything like that, but she also doesn’t look nearly as vulnerable, innocent, and traumatized as she probably should given the cover that they want to go with.

That doesn’t stop Myk-Zod from looking to her and nodding as well.

“She is. She was their only remaining test subject. I got her out of there and brought her back here…”

The alien man trails off for a moment, his mind seemingly somewhere else. And then…

“Peggy… will you give me their coordinates?”

Agent Carter jolts, her brow furrowing.

“What?”

A grimace on his face, Myk-Zod shrugs.

“Even if they’re gone… it hasn’t been long since they crashed right? Let me know where they went down and I should be able to get out there far faster than anyone else could. I can retrieve their bodies at the very least… and probably make sure the bombs are dealt with at the same time.”

For a long moment, Agent Carter just stares at him. Then, she slowly nods.

“Y-Yes… I suppose that’s better than… than nothing.”

She moves over to a nearby console and consults with it for a moment before rattling off a serious of numbers to Myk-Zod. The alien man takes them in quickly before giving Mystique a look.

“You’ll be alright here, I hope? I should return soon but until I do, Agent Carter will look after you.”

Having already missed the boat on playing up the frightened victim, Mystique goes with another tack entirely… that of a listless, emotionless shell of a woman. Slowly, she nods, modulating her voice to sound lifeless.

“That’s fine…”

Myk-Zod gives her a concerned look that she’s not entirely sure is feigned, but in the end he’d already told Agent Carter that he would go. So he gives her a final nod, and then the other woman a final nod, and departs from the command center with all due haste.

Suddenly, it’s just the two of them. Agent Carter’s eyes stay fixed on Myk-Zod’s back even long after he’s out of view, but she eventually turns her gaze back to Mystique. Realizing how she must look, the Agent quickly finishes cleaning herself up before clearing her throat.

“I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of things in recent days. Horrible things… but also awe-inspiring things as well.”

Mystique slowly nods. The other woman wasn’t wrong about that, after all.

“… I’m Agent Peggy Carter, but you can call me Peggy. Do you have a name?”

She hesitates for a moment before nodding again and speaking quietly.

“… Alice.”

Plastering a smile on her face, Peggy gestures to the doorway.

“It’s nice to meet you, Alice. Are you hungry?”

Before Mystique can answer, her body does for her, letting out a frankly embarrassing growl. It’s incredibly cliché but now that Peggy mentions it, she is rather hungry isn’t she? She’s just been ignoring the hunger pains… or maybe the sunlight she’d basked in had dulled them. Now though she’s underground in a bunker far from the sun and while she still feels powerful, she also feels hunger seeping into every pore of her being.

Peggy’s smile becomes a bit more genuine at the sound either way and she chuckles warmly.

“Come on. Let’s get you a bite to eat.”

Mystique marvels at the other woman’s strength. It’s obvious from everything so far that Peggy was carrying a torch for Steve Rogers. Now the man was dead and she’d lost her chance. But she kept her tears for private and in this case, seemed to draw strength from helping Mystique. She was a good woman… a good human, even, in a world where humans had always been… more vile than good.

She half-expects Peggy to escort her to the sounds of celebration that she can hear elsewhere in the bunker even now. And technically, they do end up close by after a fashion. But they go the long way around and wind up entering through the back of the kitchens, bypassing the cafeteria where an impromptu party is taking place.

Even the kitchen staff has all but abandoned the kitchen to take part in the celebration, but there’s plenty of freshly cooked food lying around waiting to be snatched up and brought out from the look of things. Peggy gestures for her to have her pick and Mystique soon has a plate loaded up with the best she could find.

She intends to go slowly, to show a bit of timidness… but once she starts eating, she can’t stop. Mystique finds herself ravenous, consuming every last thing on that first plate and then making herself a second as Peggy watches on quietly. Until…

“Zola did something to you, didn’t he?”

Mystique freezes up, looking over to see the other woman with her arms crossed over her chest and a calculating look warring with pity on her face. Slowly, Mystique puts the plate down. She’s not necessarily afraid of anything that Agent Carter might do to her. However, she is afraid of what she herself might have to do and how Myk-Zod will feel about it when he gets back.

“… You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’ve already spent the past several months lying to my superiors about Mikkel. You’ve seen everything he can do, right? Nobody really knows about what he’s capable of outside of a handful of people.”

Peggy pauses… and then continues on.

“Except… Zola took his blood while he was still a Hydra Prisoner. That’s why Mikkel wanted to find him so badly. And if he injected you with anything… you’re probably feeling pretty strange at this point.”

Mystique considers that for a long moment before shrugging. Peggy huffs, her face twisting into a crooked smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“There’s also the fact that someone got Mikkel the information about both bases. Not just where Zola was hiding, but Red Skull and his plans too. That was you, wasn’t it? You aren’t just a test subject at all, or at least you didn’t start as one. You were captured… a target of opportunity.”

Clever woman. Very clever.

“And if I was?”

“Like I said, you don’t need to be afraid of me. I’ll help you if I can. Just say the word.”

… She believes her. Mostly. There’s a part of Mystique that can’t help but feel like Peggy Carter might actually secretly hate her. Maybe that’s just her projecting onto the other woman, but it feels like there’s an underlying simmering anger within the female Agent. After all, if Myk-Zod wasn’t busy saving Mystique’s life, he could have gone with Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. And if someone of his power had gone with those men to stop Red Skull… they wouldn’t be dead right now.

But Mystique certainly wasn’t going to point that out on the off-chance that she was right and Peggy did secretly harbor a grudge towards Myk-Zod and by extension her over that sort of thing. Instead…

“I’m not afraid of you… and I appreciate the offer. But I think… no matter what happens next, my place is at his side.”

She doesn’t have to clarify who ‘he’ is in this situation. Peggy simply nods, not looking happy about the answer but seemingly accepting it.

“I understand.”

Whether she does or not or whatever she might have said next… it winds up not mattering in the end. Because there’s a sudden shout of surprise from the cafeteria they’re next to, the sounds of celebration and carousing coming to a screeching halt as silence follows the shout.

In an instant, Agent Carter is marching over to the kitchen doors and pushing through them to see what’s happened. Mystique follows after her at a slightly more sedate pace, snagging one last bite to eat as she goes.

What they find… is a room filled with absolute silence as everyone stares in the opposite direction of them, towards the large opening that marks the cafeteria’s entrance. Standing there, covered in bits of ice and still shivering a bit but nevertheless moving and breathing under their own power… are Captain Steve Rogers and Sergeant James Barnes.

Behind them, somehow managing to appear small and unassuming despite being just as giant as Steve and Bucky, is Myk-Zod. With an inscrutable smile on his face, he gives the two men a slight push, causing them both to stumble forward before catching themselves and straightening up.

That’s all the crowded cafeteria needs. A dull roar of noise fills the air as men and women alike begin to shout and scream their happiness over the survival and arrival of their heroes.

Myk-Zod moves around the edge of the room towards them as Steve and Bucky are swarmed in an instant. He arrives after a moment and shrugs at Peggy’s poleaxed expression.

“They were still alive, somehow. They survived the crash and were buried in the ice, but it just slowed down their hearts to a crawl, it didn’t kill them. I was able to deal with the bombs and get them out of there and back here.”

Peggy’s mouth opens and closes a few times… but before she can find the words to reply to Myk-Zod, Captain Rogers pushes through the crowd and arrives before her, a goofy grin on his face like even he can’t believe his luck.

“Agent Carter. May I have this dance?”

He holds out a hand to her and Peggy just stares at it for a moment before lunging forward and doing one better. She grabs Steve by his lapels and yanks him into a deep kiss followed by her wrapping her arms around his neck and hoisting herself along the length of his body so she can thoroughly makeout with him.

The room is filled with cheers and catcalls at this and even Mystique has to admit that the mood is infectious enough to bring a soft smile to her face as she presses herself close to Myk-Zod’s side.

Yes… Myk-Zod really was too good for this world. But she had to admit… she quite liked that about him.

-x-X-x-

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