#northstar

Shiro’s apartment is a mess.

Dirty dishes, cold mugs of coffee, several pairs of sissors, and a ridiculous amount of string lay around his living room.

Shiro takes a sip out of his coffee as he paces around the living room. His tired eyes diverting from his drink to the mess of newspaper clippings, redacted files, and pictures pinned to the walls of his apartment.

All of the pictures are of vastly different subjects.

An old man feeding pigeons in Mount Royal Park.

A little girl smiling in front of the Eiffel tower.

A teenage boy frowning as he leans against the Great Wall of China.

A young woman kissing another woman old enough to be her grandmother outside a restaurant in Algieres.

To the untrained eye these were all vastly different people, from vastly different times, doing mundane and boring things.

To Shiro though these people—Mathieu Peirre, Alicia Montague, Grayson Morganson, Li Mùyáng, Sarah Westbrooke—were all the same person.

All their little day-to-day activities weren’t as innocent as they appeared, but fronts. Fronts disguising dangerous activities of a very dangerous person.

Raven Darkholme, more commonly known by her mutant alias, Mystique. A terrorist who had thousands if not millions of people’s blood on her hands.

Including that of Shiro’s sister, Leyu.

Shiro got the call in the middle of the day. He was fixing himself lunch, nothing special just a salad.

He didn’t even get to take a bit of it when his phone began to ring.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Shiro groaned and got up from his seat at the table, he walked over to the wall and picked up the reiver.

“This better be important!”

“Shiro?”

Shiro paused, at the sound of the thick German accent on the other end. It could only belong to one person.

“Yes, it’s me.” Shiro said. “Who else?”

“Shiro, I don’t know how to say this, all I can say is that I’m really sorry.” Nightcrawler’s typically playful tone had been lowered to a soft whisper.

“Spit it out, elf!” Shiro snapped. “I don’t have time for mind games.”

Nightcrawler released a soft sigh. “It’s about Leyu.”

“What about Leyu?” Shiro asked.

A while ago, Shiro’s younger sister had joined X-Corps another one of the X-Men’s little mutant military teams. Having just completed college, she joined the team on as a scientist.

“It’s funny.” Banshee told him. “She’s just like you, except with long hair, well longer hair.”

Shiro had known Sean Cassidy for years, they served on the X-Men together. Fought countless bad guys, saved the lives of millions, had hearty discussions about music in between battles. If Shiro were so inclined he might even call Banshee a friend.

They were having another one of their calls, casually catching up on each other’s lives.

“I’ll have you know I cut my hair last week.” Shiro said.

“Too much to manage?”

“It kept blowing in my face while I was fighting.” Shiro explained.

“Yes, but it looks wonderful.” Shiro can imagine Banshee running his fingers through his own long hair. “I take it Jean-Paul wasn’t too pleased.”

“I haven’t seen Northstar in over a month.” Shiro answered.

They had another nasty little break up after Shiro decided he wanted to move back to Japan after Mariko’s passing. They tried long distance, with the time zone differences and they fact that they rarely heard from each other without a phone in between them, they called it quits within a week. Shiro was decently sure that after this fight it would be the last time he ever heard from the other man.

“Oh.” Banshee said.

Thankfully, he left it at that and continued the conversation.

“It’s embarrassing, I’ve called her Sunfire like five times this week.”

“I take it, she didn’t like that.”

“Sun-Pyre, she said it slowly, Sun-Pyre.” Banshee laughed. “She even did that thing you do where you wrinkle your nose and roll your eyes.”

Shiro’s nose wrinkled and he rolled his eyes. “I do not do that.”

“Other than your typical grumpiness, she’s been a real asset to the team.” Banshee said. “You should be proud.”

“I am.” Shiro told him.

There was a sound from the other end of the phone. One of the X-Corps members trying to catch their leader’s attention.

“I’m on the phone with Shiro.” Banshee said, he then turned the conversation back to Shiro. “Leyu just walked in, do you want to talk to her?”

“Umm…” Shiro froze.

“I have to go.” He hung up.

That was the last time he spoke to Sean.

Before he was killed.

Leyu soon to follow.

“She’s dead, Shiro.” Kurt told him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Where is she?” Shiro asked.

“Pardon?”

“My sister’s body where is it?” Shiro questioned.

“It’s on it’s way to Tokyo, the last I heard they’d be landing at Haneda Airport.” Kurt told him. “Listen Shiro if you need—”

Beep.

Shiro hung up the phone and grabbed his coat, ready to fly down to the airport.

Shiro glares at the blue face taunting him from the portrait as he jams a pin in it’s forehead.

The image of a thick slash against Leyu’s throat flashes though his mind.

He presses the pin against Mystique’s neck.  

He looks forward to doing it in real life.

He walks away from the board and plucks the files Nightcrawler sent him off the table. He coninues to pace as he shuffles through them.

The last time anyone had seen her was in Europe, but Shiro thinks he has her tracked to New York.

He’s just not positive yet.

After hours of grueling conversations with diplomats, threatening interns, and bribing state officials, he now has to wait on a call from the Japanese Embassy in Washington.

Detective work is exhausting.

Shiro flops onto one of the chairs and stairs at the celling.

One more hour.

He just has to wait one more hour.

It can’t be that bad right?

At the roof of the penthouse, a blur flashes by the empty pool.

Jean-Paul skids to a stop just before he falls into the thick body of cool water sitting under the setting sun.

He had run all the way from New York to Tokyo in less than five minutes.

An embarrassment to his record.

Not that Jean-Paul cares about his record as he jiggles the door to the buildings entrance, snapping the lock in two as he waltzes through the double glass doors.

His mussels groan as he leans against the elevator wall, he jerks forward to click on the button for the tenth floor. The elevator slowly lowers itself down.

On the short ride from the roof to the next floor, Jean-Paul struggles not to fall asleep.

It’s not the run that’s exhausted him, no. Jean-Paul has been tired for a long time. Ever since the death of his sister Jeanne-Marie.

The Beaubier twins relationship was a difficult one to say the least. They had been separated as infants, only to be reunited as adults when they were recruited to join the Canadian superhero team, Alpha Flight. They had gotten along at first Northstar finding Aurora just as adventuring and daring as he was. However when he went to visit her at the school she worked at Jeanne-Marie was a completely different person. No long a boisterous and extroverted superheroine his sister was a meek and introverted schoolteacher.

He later learned the cause for this Jeanne-Marie being diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

As the months went on Jean-Paul’s relationship with both of his sister’s alters deteriorated. Jeanne-Marie not liking most things about him and him blatantly preferring Aurora over her. Aurora meanwhile began dating their teammate Sasquatch, regularly turning her attention to him rather than her brother. Top it off with the crude jokes Jean-Paul made about Aurora, their relationship soon crumbled.

He had been hoping after his near-death experience, a brief visit to Asgard, that their relationship would improve.

Now he was never going to know.

Aliens attacked Canada, the government sent Alpha Flight out to stop them.

Aurora…she vanished in the attack.

After the invaders were vanquished there wasn’t even a body to be buried.

Jean-Paul insisted that she wasn’t dead, that his twin had to be out there somewhere. He begged and pleaded with the Avengers and Dr. Strange to find his sister, but no such luck.

Jeanne-Marie was gone.

He would never see her again.

Something squirms inside Jean-Paul’s chest as memories float in his mind, every single conversation he’s ever had with his sister playing at one.

“Given the strange tastes of your Aurora persona, I assumed you had romanced yourself to safety.”

“I said some foolish things. I offended you. That was never my purpose you must know that.”

“I knew you would call me for help sooner or later, sister. What ever else you might say.”

Jean-Paul’s stomach churns as the elevator comes to a halt.

It’s hard to believe that he said those things.

He knows that he said those things, it was undeniable him, but they were all so cruel, so callous.

Is that something a man who truly loved his sister would say?

Or that of a man who had been devoid of attention?

DING!

The elevator doors slide open and Jean-Paul steps inside Shiro’s apartment.

He glances around; the whole place is a mess.

Pillows lay on the floor of Shiro’s unvacuumed carpet, empty coffee mugs litter the scene, it looks like Shiro’s been on some sort of crafting bender. Cutouts from newspapers, sissors, push pins and paper clips, yarn.

Was Shiro coping with their breakup by scrapbooking?

That was a new low, even for him.

Jean-Paul wanders around the room; the television is oddly enough tuned to some station in New York. Discussing something about Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

He turns away from the wreckage on the screen and comes face to face with something more disturbing.

A corkboard.

A corkboard with a million and one pictures cut out on it. Newspaper clippings detailing terrorist attacks, the Death of Sean Cassidy—wait Banshee died? When did that happen?—the assassination of Graydon Creed, and several photographs of everyday people going  about their day-to-day lives.

In the center of it all a photograph of a usual looking woman. She had light blue skin, deep red hair, golden eyes, and a malicious smirk covering her face. A pin pressed through her neck attaches the photo to the board.

Jean-Paul knew who she was of course. You had to be especially daft to the news not to know who she was.

Mystique, long time adversary of the X-Men.

Why was Shiro after her though?

Jean-Paul takes a step forward hoping he can gather clues when—

“Ah!”

“Ugh!”

He’s tossed over the coffee table, slicing the sleeve of his uniform on a pair of sharp sissors, string tickling his face, and coffee staining his shoes as the table flips over.

Jean-Paul tries to punch back against his attacker but finds his hands pinned above his head.

An arm jabs into his throat and the attacker lets out a throaty cough.

“What are you doing here?”

Jean-Paul relaxes as he opens his eyes and realizes whose above him.

“Hello, Shiro.” He gives him a smile.

Shiro groans at the sight of the man underneath him and moves to stand up.

“Northstar.” He grumbles.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” Jean-Paul remarks as he dust his suit off. “It’s very—paranoid chic.”

Shiro glares at him. “What the hell do you want?”

“I wanted to see you of course.” Jean-Paul remarks. “Although now I’m regretting it.”

The last time Jean-Paul saw Shiro he had grown his hair out long, however he seemed to have taken a pair of sissors to it in recent weeks. He had also been wearing a samurai suit laced with solar panels and wires. He had also traded that out for a house coat. Japan’s number one hero had certainly seen better days. Shiro’s cheeks were sullen, his skin shiny with sweat, dark bags hung under his eyes.

Shiro was walking around as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Slumped forward like he was bound to crash at any second.

Jean-Paul was frankly surprised that he was still standing up.

“So, what’s with the board?” His blue eyes dart to the cork board in the corner of the room.

Shiro rolls his eyes, he was in no mood to listen to judgement from his ex-boyfriend. Especially when his ex-boyfriend looked like that.

Jean-Paul had groan his hair out rather long. Black and white hair running down his back like a stallion. Although Jean-Paul didn’t currently have the majesty of such a beast to pull it out. His hair looked greasy, bits of dandruff hanging around his scalp, split ends on the edges of the hair strands.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Shiro asks. “Especially considering you just broke into my home!”

This wasn’t the first time Jean-Paul had come to check up on Shiro unannounced. Nor was it the first time he had done it while they were broken up.

However Shiro was feeling rather angry today and was in no mood to deal with Northstar’s antics.

“I’d hardly call it breaking and entering.” Jean-Paul says. “I didn’t even have to go through the window this time.”

Not that he cared.

“Get out!” Shiro points to the elevator. “I don’t know what you want nor do I particularly care!”

He leans over and wraps his hand around the coffee table’s leg. He pulls it down and it lands on the carpet with a thump.

Jean-Paul attempts to help, picking up the sissors and tossing them on the table’s surface.

The speedster proceeds to crawl around the floor picking up push pins, string, and paper clips. A small trail of string leads him over to the couch. He begins to tie it around his middle and pointer finger, when his eyes spot something thick and large wedged underneath the couch. He reaches his hand forward and slowly pulls it out.

The manilla folder, he now holds in his hands, his chalk full of papers, he flips it open.

Shiro’s eyes widen when he sees what Jean-Paul has in his hands. “Stop, put that down!”

Which is more incentive for Jean-Paul to read it.

Pinned to a series of papers is a photo of a woman with a large gash in the center of her throat. Long dark hair covering her bare chest, deep dark eyes staring lifelessly into the camera.

Name: Yoshida, Leyu

Age: 22

Species: Mutant

Sex: F

Weight: 125lbs

Height: 67 Inches

Cause of Death: Asphyxia

Jean-Paul can’t read any more of the file as Shiro rips it out of his hands.

“You had no right!” Shiro tosses the folder onto the coffee table as he grans Jean-Paul’s shirt collar and twists it. “No right to show up at my home, insert yourself in my life, and go through my things!”

Shiro lifts Jean-Paul off the floor and shoves him off to the sofa.

“Get your hands off of me!” Jean-Paul snaps tossing Shiro’s arm off of him.

“I don’t get it! You don’t speak to me for a month, not a single peep out of you for weeks, doing everything you can to avoid me—”

“I did not do—”

“And suddenly you care!” Shiro yells. “You finally decide to check up on me and it’s too late!”

“I don’t know why I even bothered!” Jean-Paul pushes himself off of the couch. “I try to do something nice for you and it’s not even worth it half the time!”

“Maybe it would’ve been worth it if you showed up earlier!” Shiro snaps. “Not wait until I’m in the middle of something and just make a mess of things!”

“You’re so mean to me!” Jean-Paul shouts. “Ever since we met you’ve been nothing but awful to me. I give you chance after chance after chance and you still fuck it up!”

“I fucked it up!” Shiro snarls. “Of course, I fucked it up! Not you, never you!”

“You don’t tell me anything about yourself!” Jean-Paul rebuttals. “We’ve been dating for what three years—”

“Four!”

“That makes it worse!” Jean-Paul says. “We’ve known each other for that long and you never mentioned you had a sister.”

“It was none of your business.” Shiro points to the elevator. “You have five seconds to get out of my house Northstar!”

“Or else what?”

Shiro grabs the back of Jean-Paul’s shirt and tries to steer him towards the door only to be met with.

SLAM!

Jean-Paul’s fist collides into Shiro’s nose, there’s a crack as he stumbles backwards. He grips the arm of the couch for support.

Once his vision begins to clear up he pounces.

Shiro and Jean-Paul go sailing over the sofa, spinning around the floor as they knock into the corkboard. Pins, newspaper clippings, and photos flying everywhere as they kick and punch and scream at each other.

Shiro’s fingers burn against Jean-Paul’s exposed skin, as the speedster nails him in the eye. Shiro knocks Jean-Paul’s head into the wall in retribution, Northstar kicking him in the knee as punishment.

They go at this for a while, kicking, screaming, and hitting each other. Nails digging into each other’s skin, Jean-Paul rips the sleeve of Shiro’s robe, Sunfire tears through the hole in Jean-Paul’s sleeve, Jean-Paul slaps Shiro in the face stunning him for a moment as he goes to get up. Only for Shiro to pull him back down.

Jean-Paul’s head hits the carpet as Shiro pants above him. Shallow breaths rack their frames as they try to claw at each other. Eventually Shiro gives a deep sigh and let’s himself fall beside Jean-Paul.

Now that they’re not at each other’s throats, Jean-Paul and Shiro take a moment to inspect the other’s injuries.

Shiro’s upper lip and mouth are stained with blood. His right eye is slowly turning purple. He gives a shaky sigh as he observes Jean-Paul.

The speedster is healing faster than Shiro, accelerated metabolism easing the pain in his wrist as he loosens his grasp on his left hand. The cut above his eye turning a dull pink but still visible.

Jean-Paul leans forward and kisses Shiro.

Shiro kisses him back.

“I missed you.” He murmurs as Jean-Paul runs a hand through his hair.

“I missed you too.”

They pull themselves off the rug and begin to clear up the room. Jean-Paul sweeping up the shards of broken coffee mugs and Shiro collecting the parts of his corkboard when the phone rings.

Shiro tosses the pieces of paper and pins, before rushing into the kitchen.

He snatches up the phone and holds it up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Is this Sunfire?” A voice asks.

“Yes, this is he.”

“This is Yukio Suzuki from the Embassy of Japan in Washington D.C.” The woman says. “I’m calling to tell you we’ve found records of the woman you’re looking for.”

“You’ve actually found her?” Shiro asks. “Your positive.”

“The documents will be delivered to you on Monday, goodbye.”

There’s a beep as the phone hangs up.

Shiro groans.

Great now he was to wait until Monday.

Jean-Paul is dumping the shards of glass into a trash can as Shiro exits the kitchen.

“Who was that?” He asks.

“No one.” Shiro lies.

Jean-Paul raises an eyebrow.

Shiro gives a sigh. “The Japanese Embassy in the States, they’re helping me track down Mystique.”

“Is she the one who murdered your sister?” Jean-Paul asks.

“Yes.” Shiro states simply. “I’m going to return the favor.”

“You’re not facing Mystique alone.” Jean-Paul says.

“What makes you think you can stop me?” Shiro asks.

“Who said I was stopping you?”

The faintest of smiles graces Shiro’s lips.

If there was one thing he could count on Jean-Paul for, it was devotion. No matter what, he was always willing to drop what he was doing if it meant assisting Shiro.

Arguably one of his better traits.

Shiro takes the broom from his hands. “Go take a shower, I’ll finish out here.”

“Are you trying to tell me something, mon chou?”

“Don’t call me that.” Shiro snaps. “And yes, I’m telling you that you need a shower.”

Jean-Paul rolls his eyes but nonetheless heads out of the living room.

Jean-Paul helps himself to the shower in the adjoining bathroom to Shiro’s bedroom. Lathering himself with expensive soaps and generally trying to make the experience as quick as possible.

When he’s done rinsing out his hair, he steps onto the bathmat and dries off. Glancing at the reflection in the mirror.

He and Jeanne-Marie, despite the differences in their genders, looked so much a like Jean-Paul thought for a moment he saw his sister in the mirror.

However that wasn’t the case.

Aurora was gone and he was never going to see her again.

When was the last time Jean-Paul saw her?

What did he say to her?

Did he say anything to her?

Did Jeanne-Marie say anything to him?

He racked his brain, but it came up empty.

He tosses on a pair of Shiro’s clothes and steps into the bedroom.

He doesn’t want to think about it right now.

Shiro flops into bed as hears Jean-Paul exit the bathroom. He tries to fall asleep as Jean-Paul tosses and turns next to him.

He can’t.

Not because of Jean-Paul’s movements, but because his mind is too busy flooding his head with memories.

The last time he had seen his sister in person, she was eight and Shiro was barely eighteen, watching people exit his father’s funeral, as two armed guards stood next to him eyeing him carefully, so he didn’t run away.

Not that Shiro would try to. Even if he wasn’t sandwiched between two officers, running away would be pointless.

He didn’t have anywhere else to go.

As the room cleared out, a little girl approached him.

Back then she had short dark hair, chubby cheeks, and stout limbs. She rushed over to Shiro, her black skirt swinging as she did so.

“Hi!” She waved.

Shiro didn’t answer her, he just stared back at her half expecting the guards to brush her off.

Instead she stood their before adding:

“What’s that around your neck?”

Shiro’s face paled, as his eyes drifted down to the bulky yellow collar strapped around his neck.

A loan from the US to Japan, it was supposed to keep him from using his powers, while the courts sorted him out.

It did a good job at that, Shiro could barely raise his arm without getting shocked.

“Leyu!”

A woman with long dark hair, wearing an expensive black dress ran over to the little girl.

“You can’t run off like that.” She chided.

“Mama, I wanted to say hi.” The little girl was forced back as her mother grabbed her hand. “You said he’s my brother.”

Shiro’s heart nearly stopped (and he would have so much preferred if it did) as he realized who this woman and her daughter were.

Emika Yoshida and her daughter.

His father’s second wife and his second child.

Shiro had never met them before this, his uncle only informed him of their existence around Leyu’s birth.

Emika’s eyes widened at the sight of Shiro, and she went to push her daughter behind her. “Yes.” She muttered. “Yes, I did say that.”

She didn’t bother to address Shiro as she dragged Leyu to the car. The little girl turned and gave Shiro a smile wave as she stepped inside the black limousine.

He doesn’t care that Leyu was twenty-two when she died. Whenever he tries to picture her, all Shiro can see is an eight-year-old girl lying in a pool of her own blood.

His chest heaves as he squeezes his eyes shut and buries it into his pillow. Ignoring the heft of his chest, or the salty tear rolling down his cheek.

Jean-Paul can feel Shiro crying.

Not the movements of the bed as sobs creep out of the chest. Not the body next to him rocking as snot burbles in it’s nose. Not the feeling of fingers synching around the pillow as the person next to him tries to keep their please quiet.

Shiro doesn’t do any of that.

However, Jean-Paul still knows.

He places his hand around Shiro’s arm.

“I miss my sister too.” He mutters.

When he says that Shiro knows he’s not talking about the distance from Tokyo to Montreal. He understands that Jean-Paul is referring to a much greater distance.

Neither of them sleep that night.

Jean-Paul keeps his eyes trained on the knob of the bathroom door. Not saying a word, as Shiro gazes at the window. The blinking lights of the street below reflecting off the soft glass.

They pretend the other is asleep.