Chapter Text
Raven asked at last, feeling quiet and small, "Could you pass me my robe?"
Erik said, sitting beside her at the edge of the bed, his face cool yet intent, "You don't have to hide. Have you ever looked at a tiger and thought you ought to cover it up?"
Raven looked down at her hands. She let that moment, those words seep in. Then she looked up at Erik, and she made up her mind. "Don't exoticize me, Erik," she said. She was hurt, and she was angry--after Hank's rejection of her natural form, who wouldn't be--but for the first time that evening, she found that the one she wanted to punch was Erik. "I want to be seen as beautiful--what girl doesn't? But I want to be beautiful as me, whatever I look like. Okay, Erik? I'm beautiful because I'm Raven Xavier, not because--not because my blueness makes you think of tigers. Don't exoticize me."
And then she climbed out of bed, naked, and went to get her robe.
She was living in an estate full of idiots.
Erik was watching her as she left. She wasn't sure he completely understood what she had been trying to say, and even as she closed the door to Erik's bedroom behind her, something in her heart ached.