Shiro & Scott, Friday afternoon

[x-sanfuaiyaa.livejournal.com]

Scott calls down Shiro to discuss his involvement in the mission in Wyoming. Some secrets are revealed.


Shiro pointedly ignored the looks from his fellow mansion inhabitants as he awkwardly ambled down the corridor to the elevator. His ankle was healing fine but he still couldn't put too much pressure on it, and he refused to use any crutch. He breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped into the elevator, taking him down to the sub-basement, and had no qualms flying over the reinforced metal floor to the situation room. "Cyclops," he greeted as he entered, gently floating over to the center table where he took a seat. "You wished to see me?"

Scott was wearing a neutral expression, but as Shiro sat down, one hand went up to rub at the scars on his side of his face briefly, a gesture that most of the X-Men had learned years ago to interpret as an unconscious nervous mannerism. "Yes. I did. How's the ankle?"

"Recovering. I hope to regain full mobility shortly." Shiro folded his hands on the table before him and looked straight ahead at Scott. Not at his face, though. He couldn't.

And that was as telling as all the other small things that had provoked this conversation, Scott thought. "I wanted to talk to you about your mission report from Wyoming," he said softly. Non-confrontationally.

In retrospect, one would have to be a fool to not have seen this coming. Shiro had fooled himself. What could have tipped off Scott? At least there wasn't a telepath present. "What about it? Did I forget to check a box?"

"I'm not sure I'm clear on the chain of events surrounding Alpha's death." And they really needed a name for the bastard, even in death. The government was undoubtedly working to identify his remains. "Could you take me through it again?"

Shiro took a moment to calm himself before he spoke. "I pursued him, per Skin's indication that he was trying to escape," he said. He sounded like this was a routine he'd memorized. "I caught up to him and punched him once or twice when one of the child operatives attacked me, giving him opportunity to flee again. This was the girl who injured my ankle. She nearly destroyed my armor, but I managed to subdue her and continue my pursuit. Three other children operatives had found Alpha first, though, and killed him before I arrived to subdue them."

"Were they fleeing?" Scott leaned one arm against the central console as he watched Shiro. "The operatives, I mean. When you arrived."

"No. They were ripping him apart." He almost said "killing him" but stopped himself. He cracked his knuckles noisily to relieve the tension building in his clasped hands. "Two ferals, one tank."

"Then they were still engaged with Alpha when you arrived."

"Correct." A beat. "He was dead by the time I arrived."

Scott's eyes narrowed very slightly. "Odd," he said quietly. "That they would continue to rip him apart if he was dead. There was a whole lot of 'moving along to the next target', with the other operatives."

Shiro frowned. "Well, this was the man who had turned them into monsters. I would imagine that they had more to say to him."

Scott let that point pass. For now. "I'm wondering about the verbal report you made at the time, too," he went on steadily. "That it was a 'victory'?"

"Was it not? The person responsible for Taygetos was stopped and the organization was crumbled. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the children could be saved and the operation considered a success."

"Some might say that bringing him to justice would have been a better end," Scott countered. The ironic thing was that he wasn't honestly sure if he would be one of those people. His concern here wasn't for the dead man, but for Shiro. Whatever had happened, being dishonest about it - and he strongly suspected that was what was going on here -wasn't the right response.

"Arguably," Shiro conceded, his gaze falling down to the table. It was a struggle to even look up past Scott anymore. "That worked out well for Apocalypse, ne?"

"Not the same thing, Shiro, and you know that. Alpha, whoever he was, was an ordinary human being. Keeping him in custody wouldn't have been much of a challenge, I should think. After all," he went on grimly, "who would have come to rescue him?"

"Given how little we know of him, who can say? Some other Mistra-wannabe? An ally of Trask's?" Shiro shook his head. "Irrelevant, though. His justice was meted out by those he violated. He deserved what he received."

Yeah, he'd been right to be concerned. "Mm," was all he said for a moment. "Shiro," he went on finally, "is there anything else you want to add to your report?"

Shiro didn't reply right away. He'd come clean to Jean-Paul easily, but as much as he admired Scott (or maybe because of that), telling the truth to him was much harder. "I do not wish to add anything officially," he said finally.

Scott grimaced briefly. "Well, we're not the military, so why don't I just drop the official crap and say that I suspected you had something more to say all along."

"Why do you want me to say what you already know, Cyclops?" Shiro finally looked up at Scott, and the second their eyes met he recoiled as if hit. "I let him die. I found him and did nothing to stop it. And I lose no sleep from that decision."

"Could you have stopped it?"

"I could have stopped the children, I think. I do not know if he would have survived. His wounds were severe when I arrived."

"Difficult situation," Scott said quietly. "I... don't really know how I would have handled it, in your place."

"You are the one who said to not take this personally," Shiro replied rhetorically. He looked away again. The shame was too much.

Scott straightened in his chair, fingers tapping on the console against as he thought. "Suffice to say," he went on, "this is something you're going to need to deal with. I think you should take some time off training, and talk to Charles."

"I see." It was less than he expected. X-Men don't kill, after all. But technically he wasn't the one to pull the trigger. Technically. "I told Jean-Paul. I . . . I thought he deserved to know."

"I can't deny that there are less... just ends, for someone like that, than dying in the way he did," Scott said quietly. "But I know two things. Firstly, you didn't kill him. But secondly, you're not okay with what you did do. And you can't be in the field until you've resolved that."

"Wakarimashita," Shiro nodded. He felt let off easy, all things considered. "You say that you do not know what you would have done had you been there, but I do not think that is true. What would you have done?"

Scott looked away, letting himself take a minute or two to think about that. "I would have had that moment too, I think," he finally said, quietly. "Maybe it would have been long enough to let exactly what happened happen, in the end. But I think, if I'd been able to shake it off, I would have tried to stop it. Not for his sake. For theirs."

"The children's," Shiro repeated hoarsely. His hands fell off the table and onto his lap where, hidden from Scott's sight, they trembled. "They must be . . . Do you know how they are faring now?"

"It's still very early on in the assessment process for them," Scott said gently. "We'll know more in a week or so, I'd imagine. But Shiro - you didn't add to what those particular kids are going to have to deal with, that's not what I meant. That's Trask's fault, hers and no one else's." And she had paid for it, as he understood. "We can hope that maybe, with everything she was doing to them at the time, they don't remember it."

"Maybe they ought to be spared, like Jean-Paul was." Shiro ran an unsteady hand through his hair and pulled himself awkwardly to his feet. "I will speak with Professor Xavier about this."

"I think that'd be best." And obviously, rather vitally necessary. Scott could see that just by looking at the younger man. "Shiro, I'm not... angry, or disappointed. I'm concerned. We all have to live with the things we face out in the field. Some times that's harder than others."

"I will do my best." Shiro pushed himself back into the air to leave the situation with whatever grace and dignity he maintained. Which, as far as he was concerned, wasn't much.