Author's Note: Well I didn't get this posted any sooner, but it is longer. One out of two isn't so bad right? Anyway, any facts are taken from Wikipedia or Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia (the stuff about Kyoto). For this fic you should know that the Antiquary was a very evil man whom Jean Luc ran out of New Orleans after adopting Remy. At this point in my own little alternate universe he was busted by SHIELD. He was not a sorcerer, I don't like mixing supernatural with science fiction all that much, so there will probably not be any magic in this fic. I went into Remy's childhood more in this chapter than I intended to, but oh well. I don't know if there is a University of Tokyo but if there is I'm sure it is no way connected with the X-men and does not accept fictional characters as applicants. Likewise, I chose the University of Tulane because it was the only university I could think of that is in New Orleans, and no slight against it is intended. Like always, constructive criticism and suggestions are appreciated.
Warning: BAD LANGUAGE. Wolvie gets a foul tounge when drinking and discussing crime with an old battle buddy. If bad language bothers you, don't read this.
"OK bub, start talking."
A very slight smile formed on Nicholas Fury's face after receiving his friend's greeting. He responded in a level tone, "Kyoto is the artistic and cultural center of Japan. It was actually spared from bombing during World War II because of its cultural significance. It houses more than 2000 ancient temples and…"
Logan closed his eyes, rested his head against the squeaky leather seat he sat in, and counted backwards from ten, perfectly in sync with the rotation of the cab's wheels. "Why are you stalling?"
"This matter would be better discussed in person."
There was a pebble stuck in the tread of the cab's tires. Logan forced himself to focus on the sound of it hitting the pavement. Where are ya?"
Fury fought the urge to sigh. He reminded himself that he needed his friend's help, but this wasn't a conversation that he was looking forward to. This wasn't the sort of help he usually asked Logan for. It wasn't a simple matter of needing Wolverine's super-human abilities nor was it a case where Fury felt he could just turn the man loose to investigate and deal with the situation as he saw fit. "There is a bar in your hotel. Stop by and I'll buy you a drink."
"You'll buy me several. And lose the historical lecture; you sound like Cyke."
"Who?"
2 Days Ago
Remy slipped silently through the door of a dimly lit room. Skillfully avoiding the light of the moon, which drifted in through the window, he hovered in the shadows by the frame of the bathroom door. "Belle?"
The young woman started slightly. She shut off the faucet and grabbed a towel to dry her hands, although her husband noted that she had palmed a dagger hidden within the folds of the towel. "Remy? Dat you?"
"Oui. Yah allright?"
"I would be if ya didn' scare me half to death creepin' round my hotel like some. .. mm…"
"Thief?" Remy couldn't help a slight grin. Belle wasn't easy to fluster. She didn't blush but the outer edges of her ears would turn slightly pink. A fact showcased by her new, short, pixie-styled haircut. When had she done that? Remy's mind wandered briefly and he wondered if her silky curls would grow back by the date of their formal wedding. Maybe he should suggest she let them. After all, an assassin shouldn't have a tell like pink ears.
"Petty Burglar." Belle returned his grin.
Remy scowled in reply. "Hey now. Be nice."
His playful mood leveled and he grew more serious. "You're in trouble and we don' know how much yet. T'ought it would be best to be discreet." He could tell she had left the window open for his use, but really it was safer to use the door. The hallway was a relatively small area to check for surveillance. Even if Remy couldn't check as thoroughly as he would like without risking tripping over something and alerting people to his reason for being there, trying to canvas the entire area within telescopic range successfully would be far more difficult. Besides, a young American woman meeting a young American student of the University of Tokyo in her hotel room didn't scream criminal activity, but rather vacationing college kids. It certainly didn't scream criminal activity the way climbing in her window would and Remy knew he could pass for being reasonably older.
"D'accord." One thing Remy loved about Belle; she might have enough pride for every aristocrat and politician on the planet, but she wouldn't pursue a pointless argument knowing that she was wrong.
"Belle?"
"What?" Her hair glimmered gold as she entered the main portion of the suite.
"Dink I could get a kiss? Ain't seen ya in almost a month."
"'Course cher."
"Now ya wanna tell Remy what's goin' on?"
" I already told ya. I screwed up. I left evidence and dey know it's me." Her tone was cool and flat, utterly professional, and giving no emphasis to the impatience or frustration within her words.
"Mais, I need details. Every last minute detail. What evidence? Who has it? How much do you know 'bout what dey doing wit' it?"
Present
"Nick."
"Logan, good to see you." The suited man looked up at his companion. He focused his gaze on the man seated next to him but his glass eye made it seem that he was looking in two directions at once. They were an odd pair. One had graying hair that had begun to thin. The other, actually the elder, was permanently stuck in his prime. One spent his time swamped in bureaucracy, the other traveling through wilderness and engaging in cage fights in remote bars. One discreetly blended in with the patrons around him, while the other stuck out like a sore thumb, but did so with such innate confidence that no one thought anything of it. They were both well-muscled but one was clearly the physical superior. However, if anyone chose to look carefully enough they would recognize that both men possessed a hidden threat of violence beneath their calm demeanors.
Wolverine sniffed his beer. It wasn't a brand he'd tried before and it smelled… different. "You want to tell me what's going on now?"
"Three days ago Ichiro Sakamoto was killed. He was shot in his home just outside of town. The bullet passed through his brainstem. A silencer was used. The gardener outside didn't hear anything. The men I had investigating believe they found the criminal. What do you know about the Guilds?"
Logan snorted. "I've heard of them. You don't actually believe that crap do you?"
"Our assassin is a seventeen year-old girl from Louisiana. You explain it."
Two Days Ago
"So after I finish fightin' wit' de paper shredder I'm behind schedule and I gotta make my exit real quick. Well, the gardener, he didn't stick with his normal routine. Musta t'ought the flowers next ta da house looked dry cause he watered dem a day early, an I stepped right inta da mud. Ruined my new Prada heels."
"Ya wore heels on a job?"
"Stay focused Rem."
Present
"You sure she's your girl?"
"This wasn't a simple murder. We found a wastebasket full of shredded documents that seemed innocent enough until we found a fingerprint on one corner of paper jammed in the shredder."
"One fingerprint?" Logan didn't bother to hide his skepticism.
"It didn't belong to the dead man or his gardener," Nick replied, swirling his scotch.
"Were you able to match it to hers?"
"Well, no."
"You have any other evidence?"
"A pair of footprints in some mud outside the house. Women's size 7; American size 7 stilettos."
"Did you track them?"
Two Days Ago
"After I got past de mud I took my shoes off so I wouldn' leave a trail," Bella finished with a slight note of helplessness. She couldn't believe that she had screwed up in such an amateur fashion.
"Why did you take yo' gloves off ta mess wit de paper shredder?"
"One glove. I didn' want ta get ink stains on my gloves cause dey don' come out and I didn' want ta return ta America with anything incriminatin' missin' case I get checked by customs 'gain. An' I figured dat de shredder would destroy my prints. So I used a bare hand to handle the documents and a gloved hand to operate the shredder."
"Rubbing alcohol gets ink stains out," Remy muttered under his breath. He was trying not to be angry, but how could she be so stupid; risking fingerprints rather than destroying her gloves?
Present
"Why couldn't you match the print?"
"We didn't have anything to compare it to. Since she found out that we were after her, she doesn't touch anything barehanded, but this one bottle of hand lotion in her purse. She wears those cotton spa things in her room. You know, the ones that are supposed to keep your hands moisturized, and she wears 'stylish' gloves when she goes out."
"Can't ya get a print off that bottle? Or better yet, make her give you the full set."
"We don't have anything to compare it to."
"What?" a slight growl escaped Logan's throat.
"Our original disappeared, along with all digital and paper copies."
One Day Ago
"Mornin' cher."
"Mornin' Bella. Hey ya wan't ta go ta da Kyoto National Museum or da Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art first?"
Belle glanced at her husband. He looked rather ridiculous sitting upright in the middle of the bed, with his legs crossed, and his pillow over his face. She paused in her attempts to get her hair to flip out artistically rather than sporadically and grinned in amusement. "Remy ya sure the lamp doesn' bother ya too much?"
"Umm hmm," came the muffled response. The red-eyed teenager was definitely not a morning person.
Belle's amused grin turned devilish as she eyed his exposed torso. "Do we hafta go to dose stuffy old museums?" she asked as innocently as she could, "if we're goin' ta do the tourist thing can't we at leas' visit a garden?" She knew it was much more sensible to visit the museums. Remy was supposedly in Japan to study art history. He was actually in Japan because Jean Luc wanted him out of New Orleans until the wed…. er… to fine tune his skills under the tutelage of the highest ranking guild thief in the world and further his martial art studies. Belle could not resist teasing him though. While she didn't mind visiting museums and appreciated art as much as the next person, she didn't enjoy it the way he did. He always made he think of the proverbial "kid in a candy store." She was always slightly afraid that he'd get anxious and try to shove the Mona Lisa in his back pocket. He'd probably get away with it too, she mused with a smile. It would take hours to pry him away from the paintings once he found an exhibit he liked.
"It'll be easier ta lose and spot anyone following' us in da museum."
"We could jus' stay in de hotel room. Give dose peepin' toms an eyeful."
"Hehn?"
Present
"It disappeared," Logan was beginning to think this whole situation was a hoax. SHIELD did not lose things. It also did not get outwitted by teenage girls.
"Yes," Fury was silently praying that Logan would be the only one he had to admit this to.
"Are you telling me that our 17 year old assassin is also a master hacker and thief? Or does this fall under the genius theory of guild too?"
Fury cleared his throat and signaled the bartender to refresh his drink.
Logan groaned, "Don't even answer that. Do we know anything else about this girl? Her family? Does she have a record?"
"She's been caught shoplifting a few times, but charges were never pressed. Daddy always paid the store owners off."
"It's an awful big leap ta go from shoplifter ta cold blooded killer, but at least that rules out the master thief theory. She's not the one that destroyed the evidence."
"The interesting thing is that a few of the times that she got caught the stolen merchandise vanished from her pockets and reappeared on the store shelves before they got her all the way to the security office, and she didn't pass the shelves."
"So she had an accomplice. One that she's known a long time. When was her first offence?"
"When she was 12."
"And the first time the merchandise mysteriously found its way back to the shelves?"
"About five months later."
"So were talking about a childhood friend then. Someone more talented and more experienced, at least at picking pockets. Possibly convinced her to steal in the first place."
"Or someone older, supposedly 'training' her."
"Nah, wouldn't have allowed her to get caught. Besides, why train an assassin to steal? Who are the girl's friends?"
She has a few school friends in New Orleans, none with records and none who seem to fit the bill, but the day before our evidence disappeared her boyfriend showed up in Kyoto."
One Day Ago
"Twenty feet back, blue suit, green polka dot tie."
"Ya sure," Belle whispered as she paused to inspect some handbags. She had suspected him too but couldn't be sure. These men were so well trained that she was beginning to feel rather paranoid. She could no longer tell her pursuers from the regular pedestrians. She trusted Remy's empathy, however, to give them the edge they needed. He was normally very adamant about not using his powers for work, but his empathy couldn't be detected, much less traced the way his explosive abilities could, and he couldn't help picking up some of what went on around him, so if it was necessary to protect Belle and himself he would do it.
Present
"Boyfriend?" Logan started his seventh beer, "don't tell me he's a damn kid too."
"15."
"Where the hell did he come from? He couldn't have gotten here from New Orleans so fast"
"Tokyo. He's in a study abroad program at the university, art history, but he takes most of his classes in Japanese."
"What's a fifteen year old doing in college?"
"Child prodigy I guess. Home-schooled for a few years then enrolled in a special early-admission program at Tulane University. He's also taken courses in linguistics, several different foreign languages, electrical engineering, and computer science."
"He have a record?"
One Day Ago
"Now, mon amour why don' we check out what dis city is really known fo'?" The two criminals had spent the entire day touring the city and had figured out which two areas of town were most densely populated with their pursuers. One being near their hotel and the other presumably near the local base of operations of whoever was chasing them.
"And what dat, cher?"
"Geisha."
Present
"No record, but a rather interesting personal history."
"Define interesting."
"Do you remember the Antiquary?"
Logan was instantly alert, the hackles on the back of his neck raised, "Yeah, I remember the bastard, awful hard to take out for such an old man. Real sick piece of shit too. What's he got to do with this kid?"
"Well the kid's adoption records include a physical description of the boy. Red on black eyes, very distinctive. Ring a bell?"
"Not really, I didn't look into the details of that case very closely; just took the creep out. I didn't want to know more about him."
Fury quoted from memory, "The demon-eyed child was of particular interest to the Antiquary. Out of all his possessions…" here Fury couldn't help the disgust that slipped into his voice, "…the demon child was his most valued, reputably bordering on obsession, and one of the only children to successfully escape the Collection."
"Flamin' hell."
The Previous Evening
"What's so special about the Geisha?" Belle asked. She wanted to do something constructive and fast.
Her lover turned to her, mirrored sunglasses reflecting the light of the streetlamps, and smirked, "they keep their lips sealed."
Present
"You sure it's the same kid?"
"The descriptions match."
"The adoption records?"
"Obviously fake. The papers themselves are very well done forgeries but the typical accompanying records are missing."
"Such as?"
"Medical records, psychological evaluations, social worker reports. It's obvious that whoever created the adoption records could have made them infallible, but didn't think it was worth the effort."
"Probably assumed no one would bother to check on the welfare of a mutant kid," Logan assessed darkly.
"Well, no one has."
"Any idea where he was between the Collection and the adoption."
"No records, expect a brief two-month stay at a Catholic orphanage. He was picked up off the streets by the elderly priest who ran the place, and ran away after the priest died of natural causes. He didn't get along well with the other children."
"He didn't get along well? You mean he was bullied cause he was different then got chased off when the old man wasn't around to keep things in line."
"Most likely."
The Previous Evening
Shortly after the dinner provided by their gracious hostess, Remy excused himself to lie down because he was "feeling a bit queasy." He was shown to a room where he could be left in peace and Belle remained in the company of the Geisha to be entertained with songs and poetry. Remy slipped out of the building unseen into the shadows of the night and hid watching the man tailing him and Belle. If his calculations were correct the shift would change soon and he should be able to follow the man back to his headquarters.
Lady Luck was smiling on the young thief that evening and he only had to wait five minutes to put his plan into action. He stole through the night like the thief he was and pursued his pursuer.
Present
"How long did the kid live on the streets?"
"He escaped from the Antiquary when he was about seven and was adopted at about ten."
"That young? Shit. How old was he when the Antiquary got him?"
"Two weeks."
"Damn."
Much Earlier That Morning
Remy drove back into Kyoto on his borrowed vehicle. He had been lucky that this "SHIELD" organization had a land base in Japan and had not yet sent any paper files to their main base floating somewhere over an ocean, near as he could tell. You had to love the age of electronics. People got lazy about keeping hard copies and there was much less footwork involved. A little program whipped up by a bored Lapin had worked quite nicely to destroy the electronic evidence and fry their computer system, along with their communication system. Remy was a little confused as to why a major anti-terrorist, world peace protection agency was so concerned with Belle's relatively minor crime. She wasn't exactly plotting world domination.
Present
"Anymore questions?" Fury asked Logan, checking his watch. He really needed to get going.
"Yeah," Logan stated, catching Nick's gaze square in his good eye, "why is SHIELD involved in this? Couldn't you leave it to local law enforcement?"
"Sakamoto is rumored to have discovered some pending environmental catastrophe, due to the unethical business practices of a few companies in Japan and abroad."
"A bit of pollution is bad enough to involve SHIELD?"
"It's far more serious than a bit of pollution, we are talking about a serious and immediate global threat, but we don't know the specifics. The documents pertaining to it were shredded. The remains also disappeared last night."
Early That Morning
Remy slipped into the Geisha house and gave his wife an empathic nudge as he lay down. A few moments later she came into to room with the Geisha to collect him and take him home.
Present
"The boy's a mutant. What are his powers?"
"We don't know."
"You don't seem to know much. Is the girl a mutant?"
"Not to our knowledge."
Present (Elsewhere)
Remy idly scribbled away in his notebook, when he felt a wave of alarm from the blonde across from him and heard his lover hiss at him, "Remy, your socks are glowin'!" Remy concentrated on bringing the energy slowly back into his body, "Je suis desole," he whispered with a blush. He didn't make mistakes like that often; not since his powers were new. Belle breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the thin cotton return to its natural dull white and glanced around to make sure no one else had noticed before scooting over to him and wrapping her arms around him. He rested his head on her shoulder, muttering again about being sorry.
Present (Bar)
"So where are they staying."
"In this hotel of course. I booked you the room right across from theirs. Have a nice stay," and with that Nicholas Fury got up and left. He paused outside the entrance and added, knowing Wolverine's advanced hearing would pick it up, "don't forget to stay in touch."
AN II: The poll for whom Remy should end up with is still open, now adding the options of no-one, and no-one specific (aka casual dating).