𝐈𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞

The shift in energy was palpable and it made the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end. He kept to himself, however with eyes passing quickly between the very obvious regular and the bartenders on the other side. While he wasn’t very obviously a cop, he would intervene if necessary.

Luckily, that wouldn’t be necessary as the situation was deescalated as quickly as it arrived. Kudos to his coworker, but the regular still had that air about him; he looked to have a hair trigger, or at least an aptitude for getting under someone’s skin. Chris made note of his behavior before thanking him for the generosity.

He, however, wasn’t there for drinks. He wanted information, though he could already guess how it might go considering the audience. Chris kept his expression pleasant enough and turned from the patron to the bartender instead. He showed her his badge as discreetly as possible before sliding her the photo — it wasn’t his jurisdiction and he knew very well what sort of trouble he could get into, but this was too important to pass up, especially when he was already in the area.

“I just need to know if you’ve seen this man in or near the premises.” Chris had heard definitely, but he wanted to see if the locals were willing to open their mouths. If not, he’d have to bring it to Jim.

Being the mediator, by Daken’s observations, must have surely left poor Lydia in distress. He only caught a small flash of the other presenting something to the aforementioned bartender. He watched her eyes widen at the sight of something he couldn’t make out immediately. Whatever it was, she shook her head, whispering a few words into the other’s ear, daring not to see if Daken was watching. 

“I would leave if I were you, officer,” he caught wind of her anxious whispers. “No one goes near him. Some of his people might be watching.” 

In spite of her discreet nature, her shift in scent couldn’t be any more obvious. Daken wrinkled his nose at the observation, painted black nails tapping impatiently against the wooden counter. Lydia briefly averted her gaze from the man, glancing over at her former co-worker with a half-hearted chuckle. 

“Sorry, Mr. Matsumoto. I’ll get your order right away. I was just double checking this gentleman’s order.”

Issac drummed his fingertips on the table lightly and watched as Daken struggled with the ‘should-he-should-he-nots’ of lighting his cigarette. “It is a rather nasty habit… but, suppose it is easier to cope with when there are less side effects to deal with.” Issac remarked. “Some of us need working lungs so we can piss off the police and other people.” He chuckled.

“So,” The man kicked back in his seat some. “What else have you snagged since the last time we met? It’s hard to find any score worth the effort in this city anymore. Just cash, cash, and more cash. Nothing of real substance.” Issac mused.

The hell with it, he thought. With a quick flicker from his thumb, Daken ignited his lighter, lighting the tip of his cigarette, biting the urge to curse for giving in so easily. He slipped the lighter back into his pocket, sucking in a breath before blowing a small cloud of smoke from between his lips. He confirmed Issac’s remarks with a small grunt, reaching for his cigarette and securing it between two fingers.

“I do,” he conceded, voice a lower growl; it was a strange thing, in his suit he was violent and vicious, it even came through in his voice. But take him out of it and he’d be quieter, softer and overall more pleasant. He tried not to look into it much.

“But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy sticking it in you one more time.” he added with a smirk. “As I recall, you enjoyed it quite a bit the last time around.” Not that he was looking for another go, but it was fun to bring it up.

“Sisters?” he let the final ‘s’ sound carry on for a few beats, “That’s interesting. Didn’t know you had family, save your old man.” Wolverine, but that was pretty common knowledge by this point. “Now now, I’m not looking for any trouble unless I get paid for it.” he chuckled, “And no one’s paying me to be here.”

“I finally got out from under The Thunderbolts’ thumb. Looking to spread my claws and do what I do best.”  

“You would like to indulge in me again, wouldn’t you? I’m not stupid. I can smell it all over you,” crooned Daken, outstretching a beckoning hand towards the other, daring to stroke an index finger underneath the tip of his chin, encouraging a smirk of his own. Faint traces of lust lingered in the air, primarily from Mac’s end, by his observations. Yes, he remembered the scent vividly, the memories of bare skin pressed hard against their aggressive battle for dominance. 

While the memory itself was pleasant, that’s all it would ever be: a memory. Daken sucked in a breath through his nostrils, dropping his hand from the other’s chin. Not this time, he thought. His smirk softened before he turned his gaze towards the empty streets below them. 

Bucky narrowed his eyes, only succeeding in keeping a fraction of the visible confusion off of his face. He didn’t remember him, not really. There was a nagging feeling that he knew who he was looking at, but nothing was settling in the right place. He obviously knew Bucky, though, so he granted a few more seconds to just watching him. 

It was something in the set of his jaw that finally made it click. Logan. Process of elimination. This had to be his son. Bucky went rigid immediately when he finally realized it, and what that meant. He wasn’t going to let it flood back in full sitting in that bar. He’d spent too long in therapy with Rachel all those months ago to have some kind of damn episode in public. He could keep some things behind doors, even the gruesome ones. Japan had been gruesome. That was putting it…lightly. Still, it didn’t free him of all the tension. 

“…I don’t know about any reputation,” he eventually said. 

For decades, he had been lied to, being told that it was Logan who murdered his mother, fearing the abomination she carried in her womb. Whether it was a truth or a lie, nothing could ever bring back the mother he never knew. Had she survived, there was no telling how different he would be. Being the son of an infamous mutant served him nothing but difficulties.

“You’d be the first then,” he mumbled. “I’m tired of caring if people know or not.”

Now he elected to take the seat next to the man, legs crossed underneath the counter. He rested a relaxed hand underneath his chin, observing gaze diverting to that of the selection of alcohol at the bar. He already caught wind of the imminent tension surrounding them, but he made a promise to himself to keep his composure.

“I understand.” she nodded, “You find comfort in the idea of being guided through life; which, given what you shared with me, it seems you’ve been subjected to, to a large degree.” Beyond what he’d described certainly, but if that was all he knew then she wasn’t surprised that he craved the familiarity and stability of it on a lesser level.  

“On the other hand you’ve also talked about how too much control over your life was detrimental to you. I think you’ve striving for a balance, just like all of us are,” she smiled, “Your particulars are just different from most other peoples.”

Linda was used to clients have varying degrees of emotional reactions in her office, so she wasn’t put off at all as Daken dabbed away a few unshed tears and made himself comfortable again, this was a difficult process so it was only natural really.

“Well, that’s often how it is with family, regardless of how old people get they’re still just babies to their parents and older siblings.” she shrugged lightly, “I imagine they have similar feelings about you too though?”

“There is still the fact that I’m public enemy #1. How the hell am I supposed to find ‘balance’ if people would rather shoot me than get to know me? Is that detail not clear enough?”

Daken shook his head with a defeated sigh. His efforts to resist were faltering. He reached into his pocket to pull out one of his cartons of cigarettes. Surely, she would not have allowed it but the urge grew the deeper they delved into his insecurities. 

Issac leaned  against the bar for a moment and merely chuckled as Daken spoke. “It is admittedly nice having someone you can keep coming back to.” For a moment, he thought about Airen, but it quickly passed as he continued speaking. “Though to stick around for someone that puts off more one-and-done vibes than even I do sometimes?” He gave him a teasing look once more. 

“I know,” Daken snorted, reaching into his pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes. The damn sticks never failed to tempt him every once in a while. He picked up one of the aforementioned sticks between his teeth, securing it tight. He reached into his pocket to search for his lighter, though he admittedly took his time, should he change his mind before he lit the tip.

“Hmm. Perhaps you are right, Daken.” He nodded once. “Osborn was a fool and I don’t know why I ever bothered to follow him in the first place. I could have just stayed in the Cube if the damn Skrulls had not decimated the civilization I had worked so hard to build there…” Noh snarled slightly at that, fist curling and he quickly shook his head. The Cube and everything involved in it was the past and he needed to leave it there. 

“Certain people? I see. I am in a similar situation, I suppose. I came back from an interstellar expedition to check on my friends - one in particular. Now it seems that I am to extend my stay here for his sake. I do not mind it though. Not for him.” Noh spoke.

“Osborn was always full of shit, but his son wasn’t that bad a guy,” hummed Daken, shrugging his left shoulder. The team had its fair share of people with some cause but in the end, it was always Norman pulling the strings. He reached into his pocket, pulling out and staring at the pack of cigarettes in his hand. 

Damn those urges. 

He listened again to Noh at the implications of a certain individual, sans a name. A smirk ran across his lips and he finally reached into the carton to pull out one of the sticks. 

Eoin @illusorybutterfly​ and I are always chatting about how Chou’s influence affected Daken in his childhood. In Daken’s bio, I made the change that Chou was the one to end up raising Daken instead of Akihira like in the comics. Itsu’s death and Logan believing that Daken didn’t survive is still canon. Now, here’s my summary on what Daken was like at certain ages up until he was 13, when Romulus took him to Canada.

Disclaimer: Mentions of violence and racism.

Chou sighed and shook his head at the pair of them. U~otchā, like himself, had been hard and cold before Akihiro entered their lives. Now they both had discovered softer sides they didn’t know had existed before. Him, a father… a decade ago the notion would’ve been laughable. How fate made a fool of them with every passing day.

“Surely you know this already, my son?” he replied, “You are destined for a life above what those children shall live. Thus, you do not learn as they do, you do not play as they do and you do not fail as they do.”    

Romulus had left Akihiro in his care to mold a weapon, teach him how to fight, to protect himself, to hide, move through the world unseen and turn nature to his advantage just as he could with ease. But, along with that came love, the boy was not a soulless remnant, and Chou could not treat him as one.

“Perhaps one day. You are not a normal human, Akihiro, you are so much more. Like myself, that can isolate you. But no one is destined to be alone forever.” he reached a hand out and rested in on U~otchā, “U~otchā found me and I him. Then we both found you.”    

Every so often, he’d hear his father remind him of what he’s “destined to do.” The details were almost always vague, leaving him with more questions than answers. With all of the training he was completing, he never figured out exactly what purpose he had that required his skills. Despite his efforts, there were instances when he detracted his focus, hearing the distant sounds of the radio followed by children laughing and conversing with one another.

Lorna began pulling out the different take out cartons for them to choose from. It was always work for Lorna. Living in the compound meant that she never had a moment for herself. She would often go into Star City but it was always for business or reflection. It would be nice for her to let loose, enjoy herself, but she told herself she couldn’t afford that luxury. There was too much at stake for her to slip up like that. 

It was the small moments like the one with Daken that reminded her she needed a life too. “Everyone pisses you off.” She countered, “That’s nothing new.” She motioned to the spread on the table for him to take. Lorna sat down in one of the rickety wooden chairs as she began to dig into her sesame chicken. “Sounds really kinky. You sure this isn’t some sex club you wandered into?” She joked. Lorna leaned back in her seat giving him a once over. “What happened?” She was honestly curious. It was like a soap opera of drama she liked to tune into on a regular basis. 

What has taken place behind closed doors were kept that way for a reason. Not even his closest friends were safe, should they ever find out about his work in the docks. The idea that he needed no one else other than his ‘father’ was a belief so farfetched. As such, those arguments persisted followed by an aggressive dose of the “silent treatment” on the old man’s end.

Returning his thoughts to the present, Daken observed the spread for a brief moment. Not since he was spending time with one of his sisters did he consider ordering take-out. Lorna’s gracious gesture couldn’t be ignored, though. After a brief pause, he reached for the carton of chicken teriyaki with rice. 

“I wish it was something along those lines,” he snorted, grabbing a pair of disposable chopsticks next to the carton he picked up. “Not really. People are still causing a stink over what happened between me and Bobby. Like, can’t people fucking let it go? That was last summer. I don’t care anymore. He and Kurt are dating now. Who fucking cares?”