Birthday II

A portal opened behind the somber teenager, it's sparking warmth a relief against his cold skin.

The Ancient One had returned.

"You made me do this" Tomura said as he stared at what used to be a city.

The Ancient One hummed "No, did I force your palm to the ground?"

"You knew I would do this" his voice strained as his eyes searched, hoping to find something other than death.

"Hmm, I did." She took a step and stood besides him "I guess, you can say I led the wolf to the sheep" she took a deep breath "I did not kill the sheep, but I let it happen"

Tomuras looked into the sky "Do you need me to kill anyone else for you, or can I go home" he said with despair leaking from him.

The Ancient One nodded "You can go home"

Tomura nodded, he turned around and walked through the portal. He was in his bedroom, his eyes went to his phone and he checked the date.

October 27th

Jeans birthday.

That could wait, he needed to clean the blood off his body first.

He filled his bath with steaming water, he climbed in hoping the scalding water could burn away his sins.

He reached over and grabbed a cigarette, with shaky fingers he lit it and took a large inhale.

He shakily breathed out the smoke.

"Fuck"

—-

It was dark by the time he arrived at the Xavier school, Nomu dropped the teenager off and then flew away to defend the lab.

He was wearing his usual style however the quality of the clothes went up a notch, instead of his thin black cloak he had a large thick black feather coat that ran down to the black of his knees.

Then the rest of his clothes were simple, just a black compression shirt and black everything else.

He had a favourite colour when it came to clothes, his eyes fell on balloons in the garden with banners and confetti.

Clearly they were having a party,

Ever since he learned he could drop his mind barrier whenever it was up he could hear the screams. He could hear what Jean or Xavier would if they tried to enter his mind.

So when he was with the Yetis he kept the mind barrier down, it was quiet.

Peaceful.

Now though, it was loud, too loud.

He was only here to drop the meticulously wrapped present off and then leave.

He couldn't trust anyone here

He couldn't trust them to not enter his mind.

So he walked towards the party, his footsteps ringing in his head. He flicked away his lit cigarette and walked inside the loud mansion.

He had to walk between people he didn't recognise, Jeans non mutant friends?

Maybe.

But dozens of people were in the hallway and he felt the sudden urge to drop to one knee and wipe the whole place out.

The music was banging on, it was loud and bright.

He preferred his birthday.

Red silo cups were laid everywhere, on the floor, on cupboards.

He wondered about the kid mutants upstairs, were they even sleeping?

He eventually made his way through the gossiping young drunk adults. Not that all of them acted like adults he thought to himself.

Two people were arguing loudly in the hallway, his eyebrows furrowed and he brushed past them.

Then finally he spotted a familiar face.

"Logan!" He shouted over the music, the man looked drunk.

He walked over to the kitchen counter, it seemed the man intimidated anyone really as he had a solid 4 foot radius around him completely free of people.

He was muttering into his whisky bottle,Tomura could barely hear the man but sat down besides.

He tapped the drowsy man's shoulder "You know where I'm meant to put this?" He held up the present.

Logan slowly looked over and looked Tomura up and down. "Are you a fucking bird?"

Tomura looked down at his feather cloak "Fuck you too, now where does this go?" He shook the present in the man's face.

The man sighed "Give it to Jean" Logan sounded miserable.

"What's up with you?" He bluntly asked the older man.

"I love Jean" the blunt slurring words shocked Tomura.

What the fuck had he stumbled on.

"I do bub" Logan said as he took swig from the bottle again.

He didn't know what to say, he felt weird even talking about it.

"Right, uh are you maybe too drunk?" Tomura asked.

The older man snorted "Yeah maybe, but I'm speaking truth here Bub"

Tomura patted the man's shoulder "Good for you, uh but I'm gonna hand this over and head out" he said to the older man who nodded.

He pushed his way through the crowd and tried to find the source of the music, he figured the source of the music is where the main partying is happening.

Therefore where he might find Jean.

Find her he did, she was dancing in the middle of a dance floor in a green dress, her eyes were closed as golden earrings glittered and her fire coloured hair seemed to have a life of its own as it hypnotically danced around her pale face.

He suddenly felt awkward, too awkward especially as she seemed to be surround by people he didn't recognise and random X-Men.

He spotted a table in the back corner of the room where at least 30 presents sat all in a pile. He pushed through the crowd ignoring anyone who complained and placed his present randomly on the pile and pushed his way back through the crowd.

Time to leave.

He made his way around the mansion trying to found some sort of exit.

He was lost.

He sighed as he pushed through the loud crowds and heard the music banging throughout the house.

Eventually he found an exit and found himself in Xavier's backyard, it was barely lit with the only light coming from the moon and the large pool.

When the door shut behind him, the music lost all of its sound and he could only hear a muffled rhythm.

The pool reflected the moons light perfectly as it added some sort of mystic ambiance to a simple yard.

He made his way to some chairs behind the pool, he turned the chairs away from the house and facing the opposite way at the moon.

He sat down with a sigh and fumbled with a cigarette in his pocket and lit it with his trusty metal lighter.

"I didn't know you smoked" a familiar voice said from behind him.

He heard the woman sit grab a chair herself and sit down next to him. He looked to his left and saw the fire orange hair of Jean.

"I don't smoke" he said as he blew the smoke into the sky above him.

Jean only raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not meant to smoke, when All For One showed up I just tried it as like a bucket list thing, it stuck" he said as he took an inhale of the cancer stick.

The glow of the cigarette lit both of their faces in a soft orange light.

"Can I try it?" She asked curiosity shining in her voice.

He slowly handed her the lit stick and she gently picked it from his fingers and carefully put it in between her lips.

He swallowed almost instinctively as he watched her, she was weirdly captivating.

She coughed and spluttered and the captivating image was broken as he laughed.

"Yeah, I did the same my first time" he said with a smile as she handed back the cigarette.

She looked down at his cloak in confusion "What are you wearing?" She asked with a smile of her own.

He grunted "A cloak" he said with a defensive look on his face.

"Yeah ,a lot of the people in there are talking about you and the cloak actually" Jean said with a grin.

His eyebrows furrowed and he turned to her in confusion. "Why?"

Her eyebrows shot up in surpirse "Well given a Avenger showed up at my twenty first and was wearing some fancy expensive feather cloak, was uh a good conversation starter." She said with her smile turning to a grin when he saw his grimace.

"Yeah, they say you're" she laughed and had to stop speaking "exotic looking" she said as she broke off into laughter.

He couldn't help but laugh aswell, when the laughing stopped he looked up at the moon.

It was quiet, completely silent except for the soft breathing to his left and the music coming from behind.

It was beautiful.