Archive of Our Own ^beta

Heero Yuy, former Gundam pilot, current Preventer, my partner, was pissed.

It wasn’t that unusual. He probably threw a tantrum at my desk about once a week. That was the price I paid to work with him in the Preventers -- get the best officer in the group, put up with his mood swings.

I couldn’t say I didn’t have my off days, though I didn’t have a tendency to broadcast my anger in how I stalked through the hallways.

“Did you get one of these summons, Chaing?” He threw an envelope onto my desk, ripped open inelegantly. He obviously wasn’t using the letter openers Une had gifted us last month.

“I hadn’t taken a look at it yet,” I said and pulled the letter out of the torn envelope. It was on thick paper stock, expensive, probably real gold gilt in the header. Straight from the Earth Sphere United Nations -- hardly anyone used paper these days, but they liked the drama.

Calligraphy was really a lost art, I thought as I scanned it.

“It says here there was an accident they need us to talk them through,” I said. “That’s simple enough.”

“We’re not expert witnesses, Wufei. We’re suspects.”

I pursed my lips. Maybe this tantrum was warranted. “Do you think... was the Mars attack done with a mobile suit? I wasn’t briefed.”

“Neither was I. I think Une kept us out of the loop specifically.”

“Hm.” That was something I hated, especially from Une. Trusting her in the field was hard enough -- I didn’t have the will to trust her outside of it. Not yet. Maybe never, if I was honest with myself. My therapist told me that it was okay to to have these unresolved ends but I found it trying.

And Une was trying me, trying us really, by letting us get blind-sided by a summons from the Earth Sphere United Nations. And, if the second seal was right, the United Colony Federation.

“Well, I’m fairly certain you and I haven’t committed any inter-galaxy crimes,” I said, handing him back his letter.

“This is bullshit,” he said, snatching it out of my hand.

“I won’t argue,” I said, “but when Vice Minister Relena calls, we’re sworn to answer.”

-

Heero and I have been partners since the war. Since the very last war, at least. Since our Gundam mobile suits were decommissioned and everyone hoped for peace. It was odd, maybe, how much I came to rely on him after working solo for so long.

He and I understood each other very well, possibly too well, which made it hard to be objective about his behavior sometimes. I was sure he had the same problem with me. Une had this problem with both of us and recommended anger management therapy in every performance review we’ve ever had. She was excellent at her job but still dealt with subterfuge too easily.

But that didn’t make dealing with his snits any easier, especially when we were trapped in a high-speed shuttle headed to the ESUN courts. It was stationed in the Sanc Kingdom, the last bastion of pacifism, even though the actual ESUN and the Preventers were located in Brussels, Belgium.

The world wanted peace, but the Preventers military force was getting more heavily armed each election cycle and it didn’t seem like the trend would slow down, despite Relena’s continuing and overwhelming popularity. A terrorist action in space wasn’t going to help her party’s re-election chances.

“I still don’t understand why we weren’t informed of potential terrorist activity on Mars,” Heero said, for the thirtieth time. The shuttle was full of bureaucrats and Heero was pushed uncomfortably against my side.

“Probably because we were suspects,” I said. I sipped some tea and waited to see if Heero would settle down. It was possible. While I appear to have mellowed with age, Heero got more tightly wound, unable to relax if there was something nagging at his mind. The laser-focus was useful on the job but made being his friend a task.

“We were here the whole time! It’s pretty obvious we haven’t been moonlighting around on Mars in-between Preventers jobs.” He hissed this sentence, hands curled into fists on his tray table.

“And who’s to say we weren’t feeding out former colleagues information? Heero, you’re not thinking this through. Not telling us about it gives everyone some plausible deniability.” Try as we might, there was no extracting ourselves from ESUN politics. It was unfortunate, but the Gundam pilots were going to be political figures even if we never did another public thing in our lives.

“I don’t know why you’re so calm about this,” he huffed, settling back against his seat.

“What’s really gotten you this upset?”

Heero sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I...we’re going to be grounded this time. I can feel it. Relena’s going to have to go absolutely by the book, as hardline as she can be without locking us up. Half those guys still think we’re terrorists, you know?”

It took me a second.

“You wanted to transfer up there, didn’t you?” It had been a long time since either of us had been to space. There wasn’t much left up there for me -- the L5 colony cluster had nothing but ghosts and space dust. Heero was antsy, though, some kind of wanderlust that I didn’t understand.

Settling down seemed so much less exhausting than spending years looking for a different place to belong.

“You don’t sound mad,” he said, looking at me. He didn’t sound surprised, though a year ago he might have reason to be.

“Hey,” I said, spreading my hands, “it’s your life. We’ve been partners for a long while, Heero, but I never expected us to work together forever.” And that was true. It didn’t thrill me to think about having to work with someone new, someone who might not...understand. But Heero was free to do what he wanted. If that meant going to space, then he should go to space.

He slumped against his seat. “I like working with you, it’s not that. The job is great. I just. I need something different, I think. A change of scenery.”

I wasn’t quite expecting that rationale -- I’d assumed it was something more like being bored at the Preventers, at busting up weapons rings and drug smugglers every month. This seemed a little more existential. I waited, but Heero seemed to be done talking for the moment. We’d circle back to it eventually, I figured.

-

There was no time to catch up before the hearing started. We were all herded into a booth together, a cramped mix of sports coats and Quatre’s impeccably tailored suit. Everyone looked taller, even though that was probably impossible. Trowa had hit 6’4” at age 19 and remained the lone giant of the group of pilots, though Quatre clocked in at a respectable 5’11”.

The ESUN conference rooms were nicely decorated -- dark wood paneling, a little on the opulent side. The chairs managed to look expensive and be uncomfortable.

It was a long hearing. Most of it didn’t involve us. In fact, almost none of it involved us. The politics of funding a program on Mars was lost on me. I admit, the intricacies of intra-space politics were not my forte; I’d been a scholar of literature and martial arts, before the wars, and I wasn’t much of a scholar now. I still went to a Shaolin studio weekly but I hadn’t read a book in months.

Trowa elbowed me near the end of the hearing and I stopped filling out a Sudoku grid on my phone to listen.

“Mars terraforming is on hold indefinitely,” Relena repeated. She’d grown up, like we all had, and was still growing into it. Her powersuit didn’t have any of the girlish touches she’d been known for. It was navy and severe, matching the straight cut of her bangs. “We’ll support the research but anything that requires labor mobile suits is off the table until this is figured out.”

Her aide, the infamous Dorothy Catalonia, sat calmly by her side, tablet in hand, taking notes. I never knew why she didn’t pursue her own career in politics. She was cutthroat enough, had the connections and the funding, but seemed content to push Relena to the top.

“All Gundam pilots are being confined to the Earth Sphere until further notice.” Relena was standing, back straight. She didn’t look over at us.

Duo crossed his arms, frowning, and Quatre pulled a phone out of his pockets and started typing on it immediately. Only Trowa seemed unperturbed, his posture relaxed. It was hard to read his expression under the bangs.

“The investigation will be lead by Commander Noin and a group of impartial Preventers forces. Any objections?”

There was a long silence.

“Fine. This hearing is adjourned.” Relena sat back down.

-

The room erupted after that, objections that weren’t going to make it onto the table but needed to be stated anyway. I found most lay politicians tedious at the best of times so I tuned it out, instead scanning the crowd.

Dorothy raised an eyebrow, still taking notes on her tablet. Some of the men objecting weren’t worth even two lines of notes, but some of them might pose a problem in the next ESUN internal election. Maybe she preferred to handle the grunt work herself, something she wouldn’t be able to if she was a PM in the system. This way, Relena never got her hands dirty and Dorothy got to put the pressure on her political opponents behind the scenes.

Maybe that did suit her best, I thought, glancing at Quatre. Quatre, for his part, didn’t even glance at her. He, out of all of us, seemed to have moved on the most, taking a spot in the Winner Corporation and being mentored by his sisters. His wounds had healed and he’d walked on.

“You’re squandering our resources. There’s no information that these so-called terrorists even had an agenda or that they’re likely to strike again. Halting the terraforming project just wastes the time of our scientists and the money of the ESUN countries and the colonies.” This was from someone I didn’t recognize, one of the few men lingering past the end of the hearing. People in the wings had already streamed out as well. Hopefully the papparazzi would get bored easily.

“I’d rather ‘squander’ the money than gamble with some of our most brilliant minds, Minister,” snapped Relena. You could hear the air-quotes, which was impressive.

“Yes, well,” he said, angrily, “L1 isn’t going to be so eager to sign up for another ESUN operation the next time around.” The man walked out with his head held high, even though Dorothy smirked at him as she typed into her tablet.

“It’s starting to get interesting,” Trowa whispered to me, leaning forward, arms resting on his thighs.

I snorted. “Yeah, right. It’s all posturing.”

“No, you’d think the colony representatives would be the most spooked by a possible mobile suit attack. Instead, they’re pushing hard for faster terraforming on Mars.”

“L1 is pushing for it,” Duo added, “and they’re pretty plush out there. Maybe they’ve got some hooks into the potential manufacturing that Mars’d open up. The Moon’s filling up, you know, but a terraformed Mars is even more enticing than the Moon.”

Quatre nodded. “It’s possible, or they just don’t want there to be a large Preventer presence in space. L1 definitely already offered their own military services to the Mars colonists, but they were rebuffed.”

“Since when have the colonies been arming themselves?” asked Heero. He was on my left, posture not quite as stiff as Quatre’s but still uncomfortably straight.

Everyone took a long look at him.

“C’mon, Heero,” Duo started, “they’ve been arming themselves as fast as the Preventers can expand.”

“I meant, since when has it been such an open secret?” He almost, almost smirked.

“Ooh,” said Quatre. “They’ve been getting pretty brazen about their purchases, if that’s what you mean. There’s not a lot of intra-space weapons regulation, nothing at all like what’s going on the Earth Sphere.”

The room was getting emptier, but we waited until it was entirely cleared out-- no reason to draw unneeded attention to ourselves when tempers were already high. Relena hated it when the Gundam pilot story hit the newspapers.

“Can we appeal?” Duo asked, ambling down to the floor where Relena still was. He was in a fitted black pants and a slim-cut blazer, black shirt, black tie. His color palette hadn’t changed much since the war, but at least he looked like he had a better sense of style then a priest’s collar. His hands were in his pockets and he took the stairs slowly, looking unconcerned.

“Appeal what?” Relena asked. She looked tired. Duo fidgeted, pulling on hand out of his pocket to worry the tail of his braid. Heero used to smack his hand at restaurants, remind him not to do it, and he was scowling from the top of the stairs. Old habits.

“The order to stay on Earth. I can’t...I can’t actually stay here for as long as I think this is gonna drag out.”

Dorothy’s eyeroll was subtle. “Sure,” Dorothy said, “but you’d have to make a good case for it. And running a salvage company isn’t a good case.” Her tone was sharper than I thought it needed to be, really.

“I’m not askin’ because I want to cause trouble for our favorite ESUN presidential candidate,” Duo said, flashing her a smile. His nerves dropped immediately as the charm switched on, and Dorothy’s lip twitched, amused. It was familiar, even as she tried to look disinterested.

“It’s way more selfish than that,” he said. “Sure, I ain’t much use to my salvage business on Earth, and it’s gonna be tough to find a pilot as good as me as a replacement. I’d ask Hilde, but her family...” he trailed off. “But that’s not really it. There’s some other stuff going --”

“Yes, well, this information would have been great to hear before the hearing,” Relena snapped.

Duo was nonplussed. “I sent in a a priori letter just as requested, Vice Minister Peacecraft.” He cocked his head to the side, eyes wide and expectant.

She shot a look at Dorothy, who shrugged. “I’m sure we read it,” she said. Quatre coughed behind me, clearly skeptical.

“Well we’ll consider it,” she said finally. “Good to see you all again.”

Relena left, Dorothy trailing behind her, leaving us alone.

I wanted to ask what other possible reason Duo could have to need to go to space, but he cut me off, abruptly changing topics.

“Quatre, how’s the damage control goin’?” Duo asked, and Quatre shook his head, smiling wryly.

“Well, luckily most of what I’m in charge of can be managed remotely. I don’t think I’m important enough that my on-colony client meetings can’t be handed off to someone else.” Quatre was still on his phone, scrolling through something. “I wish I’d had a little more time to prepare, though, I’m hardly packed for an extend stay Earthside. And I haven’t even begun to set up an apartment here. Do I just stay in Sanc or should I set up shop somewhere closer to our investors?”

“And you two are fine just taking Earth Sphere cases?” Duo asked, looking at Heero and me.

I shrugged. “I don’t have quite the attachment to space that you do, Maxwell.” It was hard for me to think about him having much familial attachment to the colony he was raised on, but it was possible. Nostalgia made people strange.

Heero scowled, which to be honest didn’t surprise me. He looked ready to bolt. “I’m happy to be where the Preventers want me.” There wasn’t a hint of his hesitation from earlier, the bleak tone of voice when he confessed his fear of being grounded.

Duo rolled his eyes. “Anyone want to grab a beer? I need one if I’m gonna have to lawyer up over this soon. Especially if I’m gonna be the only one lawyering up.”

“Some of us have work to return to,” Heero said, and I had to try hard not to roll my eyes too. It was like yawning -- catching.

“Yeah, thanks for not sounding like a condescending asshole there, Yuy. Heaven forbid I take a day off when summoned to an ESUN legal meeting. It’s a wonder my business makes a profit at all.”

“Fine,” Heero said tersely. “Wufei?”

“It’s a long shuttle flight home, so the day is already a bust. I’d be happy to join you -- it’s been a long time since all of us have been in the same room.” It was true. I always forgot how much I enjoyed their company until I saw them.

Trowa shrugged. I wasn’t sure what he did with his time. He looked relaxed, though, tanned and fit, and he was wearing a suit that fit his broad shoulders well.

“Who knows a good place around here, then?” Duo asked as he pushed open the doors. “Maybe we can catch Dorothy, too.”

Quatre laughed.

-

So, while no one came out of the hearing happy, I can’t say it wasn’t nice to see my colleagues again. I hesitate to use the word ‘friends.’ Time changed a lot of things. We weren’t as in touch as we used to be.

“It’s been awhile, huh?” Duo asked as he slid into the booth. He was carrying the pitcher of beer from the bar in one hand and a stack of cups in the other, and Quatre did the pouring swiftly and efficiently. His hands were always the steadiest.

It was almost devastatingly normal, something I’d done with coworkers and friends a thousand times, but something I’d probably never done with these four. We were barely old enough to look at a bar when the war with the colonies and OZ and the Alliance broke out.

“Well, you guys never seem to want to visit,” said Trowa, grabbing his cup.

Quatre snorted. “You live in the smallest apartment I’ve ever seen. I don’t even think we’d all fit in it at once.”

Trowa waved his hand. “There are plenty of great places where I live to go out, though.”

“I don’t know if Boston is really the place for me -- kind of a college town, right? Full of scholars like you?” Duo asked. “I don’t think I’d fit in too good.”

“I’m sure you could find some philosophy majors to impress,” Trowa said.

Duo laughed, and Heero shifted next to me. His grip on his plastic cup was warping the plastic just a little and, not for the first time, I wondered why he couldn’t just get over it.

He’d been through at least four serious lovers since his admittedly disastrous break-up with Duo, yet sometimes just a mention of Duo would set him off in a way nothing else would. It was childish, frankly, and Duo hardly even tried to rile him up, instead treating him coolly. It was strange, actually, watching Duo be detached, eyes scanning over Heero as he looked at the table.

I elbowed Heero in the side.

“You planning on staying there after you wrap up this degree?” Quatre asked.

“You actually planning on wrapping up this degree?” Duo added, and Trowa took a swig of beer.

“Of course.”

“I won’t believe it til I see it, Barton,” Heero said, and then he downed half his beer.

“I could stay on as a post-grad, too, if I wanted. MIT’s not really lacking the resources, and I am a pretty great catch for faculty.”

“They’re still letting kids there work on mobile suit tech?” asked Heero. He looked interested, eyebrows raised.

Trowa frowned. “Nothing military.”

“That suit on Mars wasn’t military, I hear,” said Duo.

Quatre raised his eyebrows. “Oh?

Heero shrugged. “It seems like a project like Mars could use some more security if there’s nothing but engineers and scientists up there. After all, they pulled us into this mobile suit mess to begin with.”

“Better hope a journalist doesn’t hear you saying that,” Quatre said, “Relena still needs you for some photo-ops for the upcoming election cycle.”

Heero frowned but I couldn’t help but chuckle. He did tend to disappear during election season, called away as her personal guard and escort. It was a win-win -- it kept him from getting too restless on patrol, and she got literally the world’s best bodyguard. Plus, she was the only one of his exes he’d manage to stay friends with. Sylvia Noventa wouldn’t even look at him at international functions, though I couldn’t blame her. She’d expected a ring but got dumped instead, a nervous Heero that couldn’t commit.

“C’mon, Heero, you’re her ace in the hole. Who can resist the handsome and triumphant war hero bit?” Quatre was ever the strategist.

“Plus, you’re the only one of us who still looks like they can bend metal in their bare hands.” added Trowa, smirking.

“Hey! I work out,” Duo said, flexing his arm under his suit.

“Yeah, I bet you really intimidate the other middle schoolers in the salvage business, Maxwell.”

Duo laughed. “When did you get funny, Barton?”

“Like I said, you should come visit.” Trowa smiled, and it looked easy.

I wondered how he’d done it.

-

The shuttle ride home was quiet. Heero was tense, and it was a tension I could recognize. Neither of us was in the mood to talk it out. He leaned up against the window, watching the night landscape zoom past us. The ship was mostly empty, commuters already

I thought it’d make me feel more settled, but it just left me brooding. It had been too long since I’d seen any of them, and we’d all been complicit in making excuses. Quatre had his empire, Duo had his business, Trowa had his classes. I at least had Heero, but I wondered how they all seemed so...normal, without someone near them that had been through it.

Having Heero nearby kept me sane. Trowa knew me, had known exactly how I measured my worth back in the Mariemaia debacle, but it seemed like he’d found a different way to push himself onward.

I knew what fighting was and what it left a soldier like after it was over. The newer Preventers officers seemed so young, even though most were my age or even a little older. Twenty-two was young enough that I could do whatever I really wanted to do, like Barton appeared to be doing with his time. But the Preventers were all I could really see myself sticking with, because it was the only place that didn’t make me feel restless. It was the only place that could really use my skills.

Heero...I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way. But he had the same background, and he understood me.

-

None of this introspection kept my mind from looping around to today’s real mystery though: Duo Maxwell. It got me thinking about the last time I’d seen him, when we’d spent real time together.

The last time I saw him, I punched him in the jaw.

He’d just returned from a delivery trip to L3, and I was on some leave after a particularly big sting operation the Preventers had pulled off. It was an illegal weapons ring straight through France to Spain to L2, and had been months of work. Une had practically pushed me out the door to a vacation, sick of me sniping at her and jumping at every doorslam.

I ended up visiting him in London, where he was settled for the moment. I’d never been, we hadn’t seen each other in about two years, and it worked out schedule-wise. He’d sent all the pilots an open invitation once he bought furniture, but I was the only one who took him up on it.

He had a pretty nice flat set up, a one-bedroom with a wide open living room. There was a wall-mounted television and an overstuffed futon, and some prints hanging on the wall. The art was darker than I’d pictured him liking, but I supposed it fit with his Grim Reaper persona during the war. These were paintings, dark and slightly abstract, but I didn’t know much about European classical art.

“So, what do you feel like doing?” Duo asked, tossing my bags over by the futon. “I haven’t spent a lot of time here, to be honest, but I like the view and the front doorman gives great dinner recommendations.”

“Is there a gym around here?” I asked. “I just...I’ve got a lot of energy pent up after the flight.”

He looked over at me and grinned. “There’s one in the building...it’s pretty tricked out. We could spar, for old time’s sake.”

I don’t think Duo has ever beaten me in a straight one-on-one fight. I can admit that, Gundam to Gundam, it’s very likely he could out maneuver me. If he was armed, he’d probably get in the first shot.

But hand-to-hand, it was no contest. Yet he’d never turned me down when I offered, and here he was, offering to match me right after landing on Earth.

“Your funeral,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “Let’s change and go.”

His building’s gym was largely empty. Duo waved at the attendant, who waved back, and led me to the back where there was a boxing ring covered in soft mats.

“You know, I always expect you to get taller,” I said, and Duo barked a laugh.

“Well, that’s what a childhood on L2 gets you.” He was in a black tank, black shorts, and he wrapped his wrists before getting into the ring. We were both barefoot, and he was a little heavier on his feet than I remembered him being. During the war, he could walk like a cat.

“I assumed it was your tiny cockpit that stunted your growth,” I said, and he laughed again.

“C’mon, Wufei, enough trash talk. Hit me.”

So I took the first swing.

Duo blocked a punch and sprung up with a fist. He’d always be a brawler, short stature aside. 5’7” just wasn’t that intimidating, but he had a hell of a left hook and I wanted to avoid it.

It was good to see him again. It was even good to be fighting him again, something familiar.

We traded glancing blows for a while, finding a rhythm that felt familiar. His footwork was slower than I remembered, but his hits were harder. He’d finally filled out some, leaving behind some of the waif-like vestiges of malnutrition. Instead his arms were lean and muscular, his forearms ropey.

He managed to hook a foot behind mine, but I shifted my weight, knocking him off balance. Before I could think to pull it, I punched him in the jaw and he ended up falling on his ass, holding his chin.

“Hey now,” he said, rubbing at his face. “Now it’s gonna look like I got into a fight.”

I laughed and helped him off the floor. “You did get into a fight.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean. I don’t wanna have to defend your honor when we go out tonight.”

-

Duo took me to dinner after that, a curry shop down the road from his building.

“How’s the salvage business going?” I asked, and he grinned, wiping his mouth.

“S’been good. Government contracts comin’ outta my ears right now -- this terraforming shit is getting real and they need parts, motors, you name it.”

“Mars is where the action seems to be.”

“Been thinking of checkin’ it out. Gravity there’s kinder to little guys like me.”

“No thoughts of going back to the colonies?”

Duo’s look was a little inscrutable. “I’m there enough,” he said, folding his hands in his lap. “I want a place that I can settle down in, not a place I spent my childhood tryin’ to escape.”

I wanted to say, have you tried the L3 cluster? the upscale neighborhoods on L4? But instead I just nodded.

“Sure.”

“Mars seems like a fresh start, you know? No one’s ever been there before, not to live. Its communications with the colonies is kind of shit but that’s also kind of exciting, you know?”

“A brave new world,” I said, and he nodded.

“Exactly.”

-

Thinking about it now, his innocuous comments seemed more relevant. I’d wondered after that why he didn’t go straight to Mars, but he wasn’t lying when he said business was booming. Duo was one of the most sought-after salvager -- his piloting could get wrecks no one else could, and his network of delivery vehicles meant he had jurisdiction at all five Lagrange points. No one else had that kind of skill combined with that kind of reach.

I guess things got busy. Two years was a long time, though.

But it’s true that I hadn’t put much stock in whatever he was saying then. I hadn’t thought about anything too much back then. If it was hard being 16 and a war hero, it was harder being 17, 18, each year getting a little more irrelevant to the cause. It made sense to me why so many vets got into mercenary work, really.

So I missed it, maybe, his reason for wanting to escape to space but not a colony. I was thinking about it now, though -- his need to get to space seemed more desperate than his usual complaints about how being a Gundam pilot would make his life complicated forever.

I wasn’t sure if that was the most important thing to be thinking about, though, when I looked over at Heero brooding. His jaw was clenched tight and he was drumming his fingers against his arm rest.

The other thing I was thinking about Duo Maxwell: he made a fine Preventer but his heart wasn’t really in it.

“I don’t got a lot of good memories of this side of the law,” he’d said once, and Heero’d rolled his eyes.

“That kind of grammar reflects poorly on the Preventers,” Heero said primly. It was an old argument -- when Heero got agitated, he’d go after Duo’s lack of social graces, the way he let himself keep his low-class markings like dropped g’s and crooked teeth. Most things rolled off Duo’s back but Heero could always score a point by saying Duo sounded uneducated. They knew each other almost impossibly well, and neither of them knew how to pull a punch, how to not go straight for the kill.

What Duo said, even as his ears when red with embarrassment, was, “Oh, who gives a shit?”

And that really summed it up. Duo didn’t give a shit about the Preventers. I was actually surprised to even see him at the ESUN meeting and had forgotten to ask about it -- normally he didn’t bother to show up to formal summons.

He’d probably guessed what Heero had -- that we were going to be grounded. And they’d been right. I wondered if Duo was still thinking about Mars, if they’d both end up on that planet eventually without ever talking about it.

-

The next week I was neck-deep in work and researching any potential mobile suit leads when I had a spare moment. Even so, one call was patched through to my desk despite my status as “extremely busy.”

“Look, this better be important,” I snapped, looking over at the callscreen.

I was not expecting to see Howard there. He wasn’t someone I saw often, and certainly not in a suit.

It looked second-hand, but the video-feed wasn’t the crispest.

“I hope you think this is important! Duo’s hearing is today,” Howard said before I could ask. “I’m a character witness.”

He sounded a little proud. “Makes sense,” I said, though I felt that Duo could have tried to pull someone in who he didn’t know during the war. Maybe some of his employees, though reasonably they were probably all ex-Oz. Maybe not the best people to trot out in Sanc.

“What’re his chances?”

“Of a shortened probation period? Depends on how Noin’s investigation goes.”

“No, no, of gettin’ off Earth entirely.”

“It was a mobile suit. With a beam cannon. On Mars, Howard. He and Quatre are the only two who’ve been to space in the past year and we’ve all been grounded as a result.”

Howard adjusted his sunglasses. “So you’re saying things don’t look too great for him, then.”

I shrugged. “Not really.” It wasn’t just him, I wanted to say, but didn’t. It wasn’t just Duo who was chafing under the orders, but there was that niggling again that there was something more to this.

“Well. Thanks for taking my call. I figure I should get a good picture of what I’m walking into.”

“That’s a good move. Good luck.”

Howard waved and then cut the connection.

-

The appeal did not go amazingly, which really only seemed to surprise Duo. He sent out an update email on our encrypted list -- just the five Gundam pilots. Messages were pretty rare, and mostly from Quatre or Trowa, letting us know about upcoming events where we might be expected or an update on tech that was classified but need-to-know.

Duo’s message was pretty short: “Lost appeal, get ready for stage 2 of grounding procedure.”

I’d barely had a chance to read it before Heero materialized at my desk.

“Wufei, we’re getting microchipped,” he said, waving his phone. He slammed a hand on my desk and peered down at me.

“What.”

“Stage 2? Is a way to actually anchor us here.” His eyes were a little wider than usual, normally a sure sign that he was more panicked than angry, and that got to me.

“We’re not under house arrest. Would the ESUN go that far?” I refreshed my email, and then my encrypted email from work. Nothing so far..

“You would be surprised what the liberal wing is willing to agree to. At least, I am,” Heero said. He frowned. “I’m sure we’ll be notified soon.”

“Why put in a tracking chip now? We’ve been former terrorists for years; surely we’ve been just as dangerous.” It wasn’t worth asking where his intel came from -- it could be anywhere from a hacked ESUN account to a phonecall from Relena Peacecraft herself.

Heero glanced around the office to see if anyone was listening, and then he shrugged. “Maybe they’ve just been waiting for an excuse. I’m sure a lot of people will be thrilled.”

“I can’t even say this is unbelievable, then.”

“Yeah. I don’t know if there’s much use in getting outraged about it.”

I laughed. “C’mon, Heero, throwing fits is what we’re best at.”

“Une did rate me pretty highly in that department,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t say I wasn’t outraged, just that there wasn’t much use to it.”

“We could go on the run,” I offered.

“Ha, probably. Would it be worth it?”

“To avoid a GPS tracker? It seems like a lot of work just for them to monitor us staying late at the office every week.”

“Well, no one’s ever accused ESUN of being fiscal wizards.” He ran a hand through his hair nervously. “I wonder if they’ll follow us out of the atmosphere or just shoot us down the second we hit orbit?”

-

Heero was right, it turned out. I wasn’t surprised that he was right, really, but I was surprised that I merited a tracking chip.

One upside was that Dr Sally. Po was in town, so she ended up being in charge of the procedure in Preventers HQ. The on-base clinic was a soothing mint green, with sterile smelling rooms and the capacity for several outpatient surgeries. It was intimidating, at first, but it was alway nice to see Sally.

She was waiting for me in one of the small examination rooms. The end of the war hadn’t changed her much -- a few early grey hairs in her braids, maybe, but I was honestly shocked more of us hadn’t suffered that. She smiled when she saw me and motioned to the exam table.

“Wait, hug first,” she said, and we embraced. She felt solid, warm. I’d missed her while she was away but wasn’t sure if she’d welcome hearing that. I sat on the bed.

“So, not that it isn’t nice to see you Wufei, but what the hell is going on? I go to China for a month and this is what I come back to?” She settled on a stool, instruments laid out on the table/sink beside her.

I shrugged and rolled up my slacks.

“Apparently I need to be GPS tracked to keep me from destroying scientific research on Mars. Everything else is beyond my security clearance.”

She shook her head and opened an alcohol swab. “This seems like overkill. The chip we’ve been sent is two-pronged -- part of it is a GPS tracker, the other part is basically a remotely triggered bomb. You hit the atmosphere, you lose a leg.”

“Wait wait wait, excuse me? What the hell?”

She settled back on her stool and I knocked my heel against the office’s bed. The paper underneath me crinkled loudly.

“Yeah. I guess they’re really serious this time.” She paused and filled with an oversized syringe. “I tried to see if one of the techs could disable it, but...”

“Of course,” I said, waving my hand. “Still, this is...not at all what I agreed to when I signed the paperwork a month ago.” I was alarmed but less surprised than I should have been. “The upcoming election is going to be a bloodbath, isn’t it. If this is what they consider a just precaution.”

“If it wasn’t above my paygrade, I’d say probably. The upside is, the chip isn’t meant to be left in for more than two years. Otherwise it’ll start breaking down and poison you.” She smiled, somewhat sardonically, “That’s probably not a great consolation, is it?”

“Yeah, you’re not really reassuring me, here, Doctor.”

“I’ll buy you a drink after this to calm you down,” she said with a forced grin.

“I guess that’s acceptable,” I said, right before yelping as she jammed a rod into my leg.

“Oh, sorry, this is going to hurt.” She pressed a button and I felt something slide under the skin near my ankle. “I figured you’d rather tough it out than have a numb leg for a couple hours.”

“Sure,” I said through gritted teeth. “But you now owe me two drinks.”

“Deal,” she said, and taped on some gauze.

-

Sally’s visit to Belgium was regrettably short, and there weren’t many big cases on our radar, so there wasn’t much to take my mind off the small, square bomb settling against my ankle bone. Just paperwork and a long silence from my fellow Earthbound prisoners.

You could even see it if you knew where to look.

Heero was obsessed with it, trying to hack it to work as a pedometer, if he could hook it up to his phone to help him get directions if he was lost. I spent a weekend drinking his beer, watching him try to discover if it was radio-controlled and if he could find the frequency.

Despite Heero’s herculean efforts, It was Duo who first disabled the GPS tracking

“Where the hell is Maxwell?” Une demanded as Heero and I ate lunch in the Preventers cafeteria. She cleared a path through the dining area, people scattering out of her way.

The agents we were eating with looked totally spooked, but Une was on the warpath.

“Uh, I assume not in space?” Heero offered after a second.

I shrugged. “At work?”

“You two,” she pointed at us, “better not know shit.” She stormed away.

“That was different,” said Officer Choi. He was new, a couple years older than us, and he’d never been inside of a mobile suit. Despite that, he didn’t seem too alarmed by Une, which could either be seen as brave or particularly stupid.

“It’s more usual than you’d initially guess,” I said.

Heero was too busy poking at his phone, seeing if he could hack his chip at that very moment. The thought of disabling it completely had never occurred to him -- he’d been trying to deactivate the bomb and leave the GPS, not the other way around.

-

Quatre was the next to disable his chip, though he had the courtesy to call Preventers HQ after to let them know he had not, in fact, blown off a foot. (To be fair, Duo had also not blown off a foot, because the bomb would have reported its detonation).

“I’m not trying to rock the boat,” he said in a short vidcall to Une, “but I’ve got to consider my own safety. Staying on Earth puts me at risk. Being trackable on Earth is absolutely unacceptable.”

It was true. The Winner family was unimaginably, unreasonably wealthy. They had a hand in every major non-weapons industry there was, on Earth and in space. Quatre’s sisters all traveled with armed guards, even the ones who didn’t work for Winner Corp. The family had survived as many assassination attempts as it had daughters.

Une was enraged, of course, spitting mad. Her call to Noin on Mars could be heard from two floors down. But the detonation hadn’t been activated in either chip, so Trowa went ahead and killed his too.

“Yeah, just felt kind of weird about it,” he said when he called.

“You just felt kind of weird about an edict from ESUN and the united colonies?” The strain in Une’s voice was almost visible.

Trowa shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere, but I like to minimize risk. You’ll be able to find me in Boston. Hey, I’ll even let you know when I head out of the city, how about that?”

-

Duo, of course, didn’t call, not even after it became standard procedure. He didn’t write, not even on our secure line, not even when Quatre asked him if he still had both legs. He dropped off the grid completely, except he was still running his salvage business from three countries simultaneously. Business had a slight drop since it didn’t have its ace pilot, but his delivery network was still heavy in demand.

He was on the run, except he wasn’t really running from anything, and the Preventers weren’t chasing him.

It actually took Relena to pull Une off the case, about a month after three chips went dead.

“Look, we all know it wasn’t a Gundam pilot on Mars. Leave him alone and he won’t make trouble. The closer to finding him you get the worse it’s going to get for us.”

“It’s not that they’re suspects, it’s the blatant disrespect to our organization and your political power.”

Relena sighed. “It’s just not worth it,” she said, pinching her nose. “Quatre and Duo are very generous in their donations, and you’d do well to remember that.”

Une cut the line in disgust -- just because Relena kept the Preventers flush with cash didn’t mean she liked negotiations.

Heero, later, snarked at me about that. “Not worth it to keep tabs on three of the most dangerous people in the galaxy. Can’t think that her political opposition would feel the same way.”

“Good thing Une is leak proof,” I said. The bar we frequented was near the office and had the right level of noise that it was impossible to zero in on individual conversations. Even still, we both had white noise applications hissing from our phones, inconspicuously placed at the edge of the table.

“Yeah,” Heero said. “So, anyway, how is Sally doing?” He was slowly peeling the label off his beer -- he never ordered anything on tap, preferring to be able to see his drinks being opened.

“She’s fine,” I said. “She’s back in China.”

“When are you going to follow her there, huh?” Heero asked. I raised an eyebrow and took a long drink of my wine.

“I’m sure that if she wanted the company, she’d ask for it.”

“You’ve been dancing around this for a couple of years now -- when are you going to man up and make it official?”

“That’s rich,” I shot back, and Heero just blinked in response.

“I guess you’re right,” he said after a second. “You two just seem to work pretty well. You should go after it.”

I shrugged. “Like I said, if she wanted the company, she’d ask for it.”

“Sure. Okay,” he said, and he rolled the label of his beer in a ball.

-

All of that dubious excitement was about a year ago and things had mostly settled down. Quatre being voted the galaxy’s most eligible bachelor was the biggest news between the five of us. There wasn’t even much fanfare to celebrate the destruction of our Gundams.

That was a good thing in my mind. It was hard enough, moving on from the war as a colonist. But being a Gundam pilot after the war? Was chillingly isolated. The Preventers forces were respected, but people were wary of those who were willing to be armed, who would volunteer for violence in a world that was officially striving for peace.

We were infamous. It started with Maxwell’s face being broadcast to the colonies as a war prisoner and continued, propaganda with our likenesses being used on each side. Now it was Heero being put into a suit and onto Relena’s arm.

The one boon of Belgium, then, Preventers HQ, was being surrounded by other people who had made mistakes during the war. Only the newest, greenest recruits had managed to escape combat in the wars, and they were few and far between.

So being recognized at the local bar was nice, because it was mostly for being regulars instead of being murderers.

“Noin, thanks again for coming by,” Heero said, raising his glass.

“Well, like I could miss your 23rd birthday!” she said, tapping her pint glass against Heero’s. “Besides, I’m not Earth-side for long.”

“What’re you here for?” I asked and she grinned.

“I’m glad you’re here too, Wufei! I’ve got a missing persons case for the two of you to solve.”

Heero slowly lowered his glass to peer at her. “That’s not really the kind of work we do. Also, no.”

“You were always too sharp for your own good.” She was still smiling. “I’ll see you two tomorrow for the debrief. Happy birthday, Heero!”

Heero took a long look at me. “We should get some shots,” he said, and I nodded.

-

“No,” Heero said the next morning. I was just stepping into the conference room, running a little late after a hungover workout.

“Who else am I supposed to put on this case?” Noin asked, tossing a manilla folder at me.

“Why do you guys still print this stuff out?” I asked. “We’ve all got tablets.” I slid into a chair and didn’t open it.

“Why do you even need us to find him? Shouldn’t the Preventers task force have been keeping tabs on Duo?” Heero looked bored, elbow on the table and his head resting on his hand.

Noin shrugged. “Not if he didn’t want to be tracked.”

“What do you need him for?” I asked.

“Classified, but we’ll unground all of you if it’s a success.” She smiled, a little smugly, and leaned back in the conference room chair.

“I’m claiming conflict of interest.” Heero slammed his folder shut.

Noin’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “A conflict of interest.”

“I’m not hunting down a colleague for some mission that’s probably suicide.”

And there Heero was. He was sharper than me at these things, knew Duo better, knew Noin better.

Noin sighed and leaned back in her chair. “You know he’ll agree to it. If we could find him he’d already be here.”

“Wait, you’re serious about not being able to find him?” I asked. “I assumed this was some kind of loyalty test.”

She nodded. “You think I’d come all the way to Belgium from Mars to mess with you?”

Heero snorted.

“Noin, can we have a second?” I asked, and she nodded, stepping out of the room and closing the door.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Heero shrugged, turning the pages in our debrief. “Have you ever been to the L2 colony cluster?”

“No. It’s not really known to be a vacation spot.”

“Duo grew up on Colony V-08744, a place with very little industry, very little employment, and shoddy life support.”

“And?”

“You know there’s more to him wanting to go to space than his salvage business.”

“I did deduce that far. I know he’d mentioned...is he sick?” I honestly hadn’t thought about it since Howard’s call.

Heero stared down at the table, not even glancing at me. “Yeah. Bad gravity, shoddy radiation shielding - his home colony was a floating wreck.” His hands were fists.

“Sounds like a cluster that should generally be avoided, then.”

“Well, they’re not all bad. Hilde and Duo lived on another L2 colony that was nice. Mostly factory workers.” Heero paused, and it looked like he was remembering something, almost fondly.

“So, what does this mean?”

“It means he needs to get off Earth. The gravity here, it’s killing him.” Heero didn’t have a lot of nervous ticks but he started to tear at a corner of our folder.

I wanted to ask him how he knew that, how long had he known that, why hadn’t Duo told anyone about it.

Instead I went to get Noin. We had to talk some things over.

-

Une showed up the next morning, pulling Heero with her.

“You two,” she said, “are going to find Duo, and get him to take this mission, right? Noin told me you seemed ‘hesitant’ yesterday.”

She had her glasses on and Heero didn’t look pacified at all.

“I’m not sure what Duo’s bringing to the table, exactly,” I said. I was the calm to Heero’s inability to mask his own emotions. “We’re both more than capable pilots. He hasn’t seen combat in years. The most logical thing to do would be to unground all of us in preparation for the mission, so as not to draw attention to one of us.”

Heero yanked his arm out of Une’s. It’s hard to remember sometimes that she’s only a few years older than us, despite running the force.

“His expertise is stealth. Between the two of you, how many undercover operations haven’t ended in your cover getting blown and an explosive shootout?”

“There were a few,” I said. “That one time we were in a boarding school went alright.”

“There are only about 500 people on Mars, tops. Several of them are mobile suit experts -- you think your faces aren’t in every college textbook about mobile suits? How about history books?”

“I still want to go,” Heero said.

“Me too,” I added mildly.

“Fine,” Une said, and threw me a credit card. “Don’t take too long.”

-

The thing was, we knew Duo would say yes. Heero seemed positive, and if what he’d told me was true, I knew Duo wouldn’t even hesitate. A slow crushing death on Earth versus a potentially explosive on in space? I knew which I’d choose in a heartbeat.

We started with a call to Trowa, who said Duo had passed by about eight months ago but he hadn’t heard from him since. I wasn’t surprised -- Trowa was too obvious a hiding spot. It was weirdly reassuring to know, though, that he’d stopped to check in with at least one of us before going to ground. I wanted to think that we’d watch out for eachother no matter what.

His next most obvious hiding spot was our first real destination, because Heero didn’t want to spook Duo if that’s where he was. We took a Preventers shuttle, because Duo was probably watching flight registries carefully. If he thought we had malicious intent, well, he’d get even harder to find.

-

Berlin was less successful than I’d hoped.

Hilde Schbeiker didn’t look impressed, and frankly I couldn’t blame her.

Her arms were crossed and she leaned against the doorframe. Her stance was casual but her eyes were narrowed, gaze steely as Heero Yuy tried his best to dig himself out of an enormous hole.

“C’mon, he wouldn’t just leave the kid behind without leaving a forwarding address!” Heero finally said, a last ditch effort, and she actually laughed. The kid in the house behind her was playing with LEGOs and ignoring the commotion a few feet away.

“You think Duo’s the father?”

“I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”

“Duo misses him, sure,” she said, and then she held up her hand. A gold band glinted -- old tradition. “But Duo’s the godfather. I been married for four years, Yuy, remember? I’m sure you even got a save the date card, back then. Kid’s not even two.”

Heero shot me a sharp look, but he was on his own.

“Don’t know why you’re lookin’ for him now, anyway. The Preventers didn’t seem to give a shit about him when he needed to go off-world for medical treatment last year. Why the sudden interest?”

Heero couldn’t lie worth a damn, not right to the face of someone he bore a bond with like Hilde. “He’s being offered a pardon.”

“Conditionally, of course,” I said, finally stepping in. “But it’ll get him off-world.”

“Of course,” she said flatly, and then she sighed. “Well, I’ll let him know you dropped by if I see him.”

She did not invite us in.

-

“Why didn’t you cut me off?” Heero hissed when we got inside our shuttle. It was small enough that it could be parking in a residential zone, though not particularly easily or gracefully.

I shrugged. “I assumed you read the report. Or remembered the ceremony.” Or remembered getting wasted and trying to apologize to Duo about doubting his relationship with her was strictly platonic.

It had ended in a fight, thankfully not at Hilde’s wedding reception, but Heero was pretty terrible at apologies so it had ended up knocking over at least one barstool.

Duo, the idiot, thought it was kind of romantic how worked up Heero would get, and it was yet another start to another ill-fated round of dating.

I glanced out the window. Now was a good a time as any. “I especially assumed you wouldn’t let your old jealousies interfere with the investigation.”

I could see Heero’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel as he initiated lift-off.

“I’m not making this personal.”

“I mean, I figured this would happen when you tried to recuse yourself. I just figured you wouldn’t have accused Hilde of having a kid with your ex.”

“They’re pretty close. It could be his, husband or not.”

“That sounds like a pretty personal accusation.”

“Shut up.” Heero’s shoulders relaxed. “Just. I don’t know, okay. If things weren’t so complicated it could have been a good ploy. It wasn’t.”

“We’re going to have to talk about this eventually.”

“No, I’m just going to read the report next time and we’re going to forget that I messed up.” Heero’s index finger tapped against his wheel and he didn’t take his eyes off the vast expanse of sky in front of us.

I heaved a pretty dramatic sigh, I admit. “Sure, fine.”

“Gee, thanks Wufei,” Heero said. He still didn’t look over but he had a half-smile on his face.

“One more though, and we’re going to have to have some kind of real adult conversation about this.”

“Ooh, been awhile since we’ve had one of those,” he said.

It had also been a while since we’d seen or talked about Duo, I didn’t say. The last time I had a talk with Heero “live by my emotions” Yuy about his emotions was when he broke up with Sylvia Noventa out of nowhere. They’d dated for a year, maybe longer, and things seemed like they were getting serious. Relena was going crazy waiting to plan them an elaborate and public engagement party.

Then Heero broke it off. Sylvia broke his car windows. Everyone figured Heero got off lucky, because she could have made it a lot more personal and a lot more political. Property damage, I’d told him, is a way to blow off steam. Besides, you hate that car.

No one wanted to mention Duo then, but there was definitely something haunting Heero’s relationships. He couldn’t settle down, even cheated a few times. He’d take risks whenever I was on vacation, volunteering for things that took him far from Belgium and into the line of fire.

“Just,” I tried again after Heero seemed less tense, “if this is about Duo, or your feelings --”

“It’s not,” he cut me off. “I’ll talk about it when it’s a thing we have to talk about.”

“Sure. Whatever you want,” I said. I may have rolled my eyes.

-

The trouble with this mission was, Duo could literally be anywhere in the world. We visited his apartment in London, which he still owned, but it was empty. The art on the walls was gone.

We contacted Howard, who said Duo was someplace warm but he wasn’t going to tell us much more. It was another night in a hotel in hot, subtropical country. I was on my laptop on one bed, Heero was laying on his back on the other.

“C’mon, Wufei. We’re supposed to be these amazing crime-fighting detectives and we can’t even hunt down one person with a damn bomb in his ankle.”

“It’s not for lack of trying,” I said. I was running a search on known pseudonyms on flight registries. “We could always do the thing where we hire his salvage company.”

Heero’s phone pinged. He’d messaged Quatre a week ago and wasn’t expecting a hit back.

“Have you even tried asking him, Yuy?” was the message. Heero read it outloud, a pretty good Quatre impression.

“His phone was burned,” Heero said, “e-mails bounced back, how the hell am I supposed to ---”

We looked at each other at the same time and groaned. The email list had been silent since Duo’s last message and it hadn’t even occurred to me to use it. I’d assumed Duo had stopped checking it after he didn’t respond to Quatre -- I never thought he might have just contacted Quatre directly through some other channel.

It wasn’t really an email, but more like an encrypted inbox, so anyone who could get into it could see the message. Heero sent out “Where the hell are you?” and Trowa responded with, “Wow, Heero, you’re really laying on the charm, huh?”

Duo hit us back after another week of trekking across equatorial metro areas with spaceports.

“Miami Beach :) “ he wrote, and so that’s where we went.

-

“We’re looking for Duo Maxwell,” Heero said, brusque. It had taken us some time to narrow down exactly where in Miami Beach Duo had set up shop. Duo’s services were perfectly legal, but it seemed that he’d paid off every single unsavory and savory element in the city alike to keep us, and everyone else, off his back.

I was impressed, frankly -- he’d clearly set this place up as a safe haven long before the orders came down from Relena to keep us on the ground. Those kind of relationships with local gangs didn’t come cheaply or easily.

What chafed Heero the most was that everyone seemed genuinely fond of Duo, from the local restaurant owners to the drug dealer that lived down the road from him.

“Duo’s great, yeah,” he’d said, pointing down the cul-de-sac. “But don’t tell him I told you. I figure you’d just knock on every door though and he wouldn’t want that.”

So we’d managed to find Duo’s shop. And now Heero was staring down the person behind the counter.

The thirteen-year-old boy with a name-tag that read “Kevin” squinted dubiously at him. “He ain’t here.”

“Isn’t,” Heero and I said in unison. I laughed and he rolled his eyes. Kevin pursed his lips and tried to look intimidating.

“Well, do you know when he’ll be back? We really need to talk to him,” I said, trying to sound trustworthy, or at least not like a cop. We’d opted for street clothes, though I was about to die of heatstroke since I’d gone with jeans.

It still didn’t work.

The kid shook his head. “You’re cops, right? Duo hasn’t done anything bad. I bet you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“We’re not here to arrest him,” Heero said, crossing his arms. I think he sounded a little disappointed -- arresting him probably sounded easier to Heero than trying to have a protracted conversation with him.

“You could leave a message,” the kid said, still eyeing us suspiciously. “Write something down and then leave.”

“Yeah, we can wait,” said Heero. He slumped down in one of the two cracked plastic chairs in the lobby. Past the desk, there was a door opened to a hallway. Straight down looked like the interior of the house, while another open door faced what looked like a pretty generic mechanic’s station, one with car lifts and arts strewn everywhere. If there wasn’t an enormous low-Earth orbit shuttle engine sitting right in the middle of it, it would have looked like any other junk shop/mechanic’s home of operations.

I once wanted for eight hours to stop a drug cartel, but this was wearing on my nerves.

“Nice place,” I said to Heero. “It’s homey.”

“His employees need work,” Heero said, rolling his eyes, and then he sighed. “But yeah. This is the kind of place he always said he’d get if he ever decided on a city. Florida isn’t what I would have guessed.”

The clock behind the desk ticked loudly. The kid was getting antsy.

“For one thing,” Heero said, “it’s hotter than hell out there.” He was wearing khaki shorts and a v-neck, and was covered in a sheen of sweat. This didn’t really diminish how handsome he was, probably enhanced it. One of the problems with working with Heero Yuy was that your self-image tended to sink whenever suspects or interviewees threw themselves at him with abandon.

I brushed some hair out of my face that had escaped my ponytail. “It’s true. Maybe he picked here to make us suffer when we were inevitably sent to find him.”

More minutes dragged on. The lobby’s single fan was not up to the task of a day in June, and Kevin spent most of his time fanning himself with paper and typing loudly on an older looking console computer.

He finally squinted at us and said, “How do you guys even know Duo?”

“We fought in the war together,” I said, before Heero snapped anything.

“Oh,” Kevin said, eyes wide. “Well. You guys just don’t move, okay?”

“Sure,” I said, and he disappeared down the hallway.

Duo was on the phone when he stepped out, and for a second I was distracted by how pissed he sounded. “No, I’m telling you something that’s been in the paper’s for like eight months, okay?

He looked over and winked at us and then I noticed the cane.

Duo still walked while he talked, pacing, but the gait was all wrong, three steps instead of two. He was wearing shoes inside, which was also pretty unusual behavior for him. I once saw him buy a shag carpet just so he could dig his toes into it.

Heero was frowning, arms crossed. He hadn’t expected this either, even with his more detailed knowledge of Duo’s deteriorating condition.

“Yeah, I said I got you the engine, but you’re gonna have to wait on delivery or pay a courier to come get it. All this shit’s in your contract, just a reminder. Uh-huh. Well that’s real nice, but I gotta jet.”

He clicked his phone off and walked over to us. He was wearing a black t-shirt, and skinny black slacks, with some stylish looking black wingtips. At least that hadn’t changed. There was a brace on his right hand, a bright blue one that splinted his wrist straight.

“Heero Yuy and Chiang Wufei!” he said, beaming. He leaned heavily on his cane, standing in front of us. Other than that, he didn’t look too much worse for wear-- circles under his eyes weren’t uncommon, and the sharpness of his cheekbones was the same as its always been.

“Come on back, I’ll put the kettle on and you can tell me what the hell the Preventers need.

“Hey, Kevin -- you’re good working the desk?”

The kid gave him a proud salute and a nod, and Duo saluted back and led us into his home.

-

“You’re still terrible at making tea,” I said as I sipped the cup Duo handed me.

He wasn’t, really, not anymore, but it was a long-standing argument.

Duo grinned at me anyway. “Oh, I scald it just to annoy you.’

He settled into an armchair while Heero and I sat on the couch. I recognized a few art pieces hanging on the wall from his London flat and frankly was impressed that he’d managed to keep so much of his stuff from home to home. I’d assumed he was more vagrant than that, dropping everything and rebuilding when he had to.

“What brings you two to my very well protected and private abode? I’m not about to be arrested, am I?”

Heero looked like he was visibly gearing himself up to talk to Duo, and for the first time I considered that maybe Heero wasn’t just being childish. He might legitimately not be over it.

“We’re here to offer you a deal from the Preventers.”

Duo looked surprised. “Why did they bother sending not one but two whole agents to my house for that? Couldn’t they have, you know, dropped me a note?”

“You’re a hard man to find,” I said.

He grinned, a little mischievously. “Are you serious? I barely covered my tracks on this. Preventers must not have thought they’d need me.”

“They probably didn’t think they’d need you,” Heero snapped, and Duo’s smile dropped almost immediately.

“You sure know how to make a boy feel needed. At least you guys figured out that all you needed to do was ask. Hilde says go to hell, by the way.”

“I bet,” I said.

“So what’s the deal. I can guess, but I’d like to hear it straight from the gift horse’s mouth.”

“You do a mission, you get ungrounded. Full space access, and they take the bomb out of your ankle.”

“So...what’s the mission, then?” Duo put his tea down on the coffee table and rested his arms on his knees, leaning over.

He looked fine, sitting like that. If this is how we’d greeted him I never would have suspected there was a single thing wrong with him.

“It’s classified.” It sounded like it hurt Heero to give up even that information.

“Don’t you two have like, the highest security clearance possible? Or did you just resort to hacking when on the job?”

“Why waste talent?” I asked and he laughed. Heero glared at me, then at Duo.

“I need you two to take this seriously.”

Duo grabbed his tea again. “I’m not sure why. You know my answer’s yes. It’s going to be yes no matter how dumb this mission is -- and I bet it’s going to be dumb.”

“It could be,” Heero said begrudgingly. He sighed. “No, you’re right. It’s dangerous and predictably dumb, as only a plan straight from Noin and Zechs on Mars could possibly be.”

“I probably have to infiltrate something on Mars, don’t I? It’s definitely something on Mars. Infiltrating a supposed terrorist cell?”

“You know a lot considering there hasn’t been any news from the Mars surface in about seven months,” I said.

“Not on the Earth Sphere,” he said mildly. “You guys should know better than most how the communications from the colonies can be manipulated. Information from Mars takes so long to get here it’s like a game of telephone with how accurate the final report’ll be.”

“That’s fair. I don’t actually know much about the mission aside from those facts, though. And we’ll be with you for backup,” I said with a smile.

Duo looked genuinely surprised. “Wait, you volunteered to go on a dumb, potentially suicide mission with me?”

Heero was looking at the floor when he replied, “Yeah. I wouldn’t want your contact to be. To not be qualified.”

For a second I thought about making a joke and asking if they needed privacy, but I realized I wasn’t the only person who’d been thinking heavy thoughts since this debacle started. Also, I was morbidly curious as only a bystander could be.

Duo coughed. “Well. I guess I’m in. You knew that, though. You guys gonna give me a couple days to wrap up the last of my deliveries?”

“Yeah, we’ve already blown enough time, what’s a little longer?”

“Oh man, I bet you guys got the expense card too, huh? Dinner is on Colonel Une tonight, boys -- I know just the place.”

I grinned. This might be fun.

-

The trip back to Belgium was without incident, but I was sad to hear that Sally wasn’t in town to remove and deactivate the GPS chip.

The chip removal was more grotesque than I was expecting. There was a local anesthetic this time, but I was still alert and conscious to watch the doctor carefully slice through my skin and flesh, shift a tendon aside, and retrieve a small explosive device.

“I trust that’s inert right now, and you aren’t doing surgery with a live bomb, right?” I asked. The nurse giggled nervously. “Sure thing,” the doctor said.

I was not relieved, and I let them know.

Duo was limping even more noticeably after his was removed, grimacing when he stood up and thought no one was watching him.

“Well, with the chip gone,” Une said the next day, “you’re pretty much set to head out whenever you want. We’ll provide a shuttle and passports, etc. You both know the drill.” She smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Duo.”

He grinned back, grabbing her hand and kissing the top of it. “The pleasure’s mine.”

-

The next morning we set off. I let Duo handle the take-off -- I hadn’t piloted in years, and his handling was as deft and as fast as ever, even if his hands shook a little and moved a touch more slowly.

The shuttle ride to Mars was going to take a fews day, because it had to go slow and not draw any attention. The ship was empty except for Duo and me. Heero was staying behind, meeting us later. Plus, the less he was seen with Duo, the better.

Regardless, it had been a long time since we’d last been in an enclosed space. The last time we were both convinced we were about to die.

Now it was possibly only one of us, and he seemed mostly unfazed.

“Une is trusting me with a lot of shit, huh?” he asked. “I mean, you’re my only chaperone. What assurance does she have that I’m not going to kill you and then escape into one of the colonies?” He seemed intent on watching space move around us.

I gave him a sidelong glance. “Probably the assurance that I’d kill you before you could even start on that plan.”

He laughed. “But seriously, you guys this lax with all suspected and former terrorists?”

“I think she makes an exception for us.”

He shrugged. “And yet, here we are, the wrongfully accused. Presumably, anyway.”

“Not funny, Duo.”

Duo shot me a wide grin.“I’m just trying to be realistic here.”

What I had missed about Duo sometimes was a sense that life could still be fun, spontaneous even. He didn’t disappoint. The second he’d set up the auto-pilot he pulled a bottle of tequila out of his bag, and two shot glasses.

“Let’s go, Chiang.”

I knew that in the morning I would curse this tendency but at the moment I was too busy wondering when the last time I’d had a tequila shot was. It was probably with Sally on one of her trips back to Belgium -- she liked going out and having fun, and always insisted I go with her.

I obviously wasn’t going to complain about that.

The last time we’d all gotten drunk, really off our face drunk, we’d managed to trash a hotel room, lobby, bar, and restaurant, and Heero and Duo (not to mention Quatre and Trowa) were still together.

It didn’t take too many shots for each of us to start feeling a little confessional.

“We were all such shits back then,” Duo said, head in his hands. The bottle was about a third gone -- he could still drink me and probably the rest of us under the table. I briefly wondered if that was wise, really; I’d seen his bag of pills. But it wasn’t my place to ask so long as he didn’t think it would affect the mission.

“This is not wrong,” I said. The shuttle seats were comfy, and the autopilot was smooth. I didn’t think it would be any trouble to get us to Mars manually if we needed to, even hammered.

“God, Wufei. Why’d we stop hanging out? You’re fun.” He leaned all the way over the aisle from where he was sitting to punch me in the arm. “No wonder Sally’s so into you.”

I barked a laugh. “Yeah, whenever she remembers me.”

“Hey, she’s been doing some good work in China.” He paused and took a swig from the bottle, grimacing. “Plus, now that Heero wants to go back to space, you could go with her.”

Sally Po and I were certainly less tumultuous than the other relationships the war had spawned, but I mostly believed that was due to the transient nature of our relationship. Every part of it was fun because it wasn’t permanent.

It was not a subject I could talk articulately about at the time.

“Let’s talk about Heero for a minute,” I said, leaning over to grab the bottle. I wasn’t sure why we were in a shuttle built for a normal passenger list but it was fun to sprawl out in the first class seats.

“God, what more can I say?” Duo tilted his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. “I feel like we had enough uncomfortable arguments in front of all of you guys that you know everything that happened there.”

“I think he’s missed you. I think he’s definitely been missing you more since that hearing.”

“By missing, you mean something totally different, right? Because normally people who miss you try to contact you and then don’t spend all their time alternating between glowering and babying you.”

“Okay, maybe missing you was too polite.”

“You really think Heero’s still all fucked up about it?” Duo flung his arm out and waved it at me to get the booze. I took a drink first before I handed it over.

“You’ve seen how he acts around you.” Piloting the shuttle didn’t require a lot of thought, and we were just sitting around, talking, after take-off.

“I just assumed he finally grew into the giant prick he always pretended to.”

“He can be difficult...but that’s not all he is, and I know you know that. “

“I don’t know shit about him now.”

“He’s mellowed out. But it’s not like you were an angel during your run together.”

“Sure,” Duo said, “we were both basically dicks.”

I laughed. “I don’t see what’s different now.”

Duo frowned. “That’s exactly the problem, right? We’re grown-ups now, Wufei, but whenever I’m around him I feel like a kid again.

“And I don’t know if you remember what it was like being 15 but it was kind of shitty. There’s a certain bravado in knowing you could die at any moment but it doesn’t make relationships that last very long.”

That made me think of Sally, again. I wondered if our dalliances weren’t our own way of recapturing that feeling of reckless fear.

“I guess...I don’t know, I don’t really believe in soul-mate kinda shit, but it felt right at the time.” He paused. “But then again everything feels crazy when you’re fifteen.”

“I thought I knew everything then,” I said, and leaned the seat back with a loud thunk.

“God, what were we even doing.”

“Playing soldier, mostly,” I said. “No, that’s uncharitable. Being soldiers.”

“Well, at least you turned out alright. You and Quatre seem to have moved on with all your brain parts intact and ready to go.” Duo paused. “I guess Quatre and you got all your crazies out during the fighting -- it was something that caught up with the rest of us later.”

“I don’t think Trowa’s really all that traumatized.”

“Dude is a circus clown, and I think he’s on his fourth degree. You don’t think that’s some PhD-level avoidance?”

“You might be right. At least he seems happy.”

“Hey. I was pretty happy before I got my grounding orders. I don’t have to be dating anybody to feel good about my life.”

“I...I really thought Trowa and Quatre would have ended up together.”

“Me too!” Duo’s head snapped up off the seat. “I thought for sure they’d be married by now. Instead Quatre’s like the universe’s most eligible bachelor.”

“I like that Trowa has decided to become a scholar.”

“You jealous that he’s hitting the books? Weren’t you learning poetry and shit growing up?” Duo was squinting at me, like the thought of a child learning anything like poetry was completely alien to him.

“Maybe. I’m not sure I’m cut out for that life anymore.”

“It’s not like the Preventers doesn’t offer plenty of perks, like they’d pay for tuition and shit.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy to go to night classes with the type of high profile cases Yuy and I normally wrangle. Plus...I don’t know if I could.”

“Could what?”

“Just step back into that kind of life. I left it behind. I left everything behind.”

Duo took a drink and sat silently for a moment.

“Yeah. War takes a lot from you. Sometimes I worry that I can’t...I always thought I’d find love after the war, you know? The Heero thing...we didn’t plan that. It seemed natural to buddy up again as roommates like we did when we were undercover -- I guess he found me tolerable enough to live with.”

I couldn’t help the wrinkle-nosed expression I gave him at that and he laughed.

“I bet whatever horrible thought you’re having about me involves me being a giant slob.”

“It’s possible.”

“Whatever man, I’m like a neat freak. He could barely do laundry -- although just getting him clothes was kind of a chore. He looks like he’s learned how to dress himself, though.”

“I think it was the combined effort of you and every person he’s dated since that’s led to him being able to wear something other than biking shorts in public.”

Duo snorted. “God, those shorts. I was gonna burn them.”

I hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Fashion wasn’t really a priority of mine, but we all seemed to have moved in different directions as we aged. Heero’s current look was European hipster, more of a product of Sylvia than any real decision on his part. It worked for him.

Duo seemed to be settling into some kind of casual goth wear, which was at least less weird than a priest’s collar.

“15 seems so long ago. AC 195, man. What did you think you’d be doing at 23 back then, Wufei?”

“I thought I’d be dead,” I said

“Yeah,” Duo said softly, “me too.”

There was a pause, and then Duo started laughing. I couldn’t hold back, and that’s how we ended the night, laughing hysterically as we headed to Mars.

-

The next morning was grim.

“Wufei,” Duo asked from the pilot’s seat, “do you think I’m gonna die on this mission?”

“It’s possible,” I said. “This hangover is about to kill me.”

“I’m not really the crack pilot I used to be, though I guess I’m still okay with a little salvage jet.” HIs body was slumped and the seat over-reclined, and he stared up at me with his hands folded over his stomach.

“I don’t know much about your role in this mission,” I said and tried to drink orange juice from out kitchenette.

“Can you even imagine being in a mobile suit right now?” Duo yawned. “It’d tear me apart.” He held up his hands, which were trembling.

“You’re just getting old, old man,” I said. “Nataku...she’d keep me safe.” That wasn’t quite what I’d meant to say, but I supposed it conveyed intent.

“Deathscythe was never a smooth ride.” He paused. “Wasn’t your Gundam’s name Shenlong? I know you called her Nataku...what’s with that?”

Though he may not be the most graceful in social situations, there was one thing Duo Maxwell understood better than the others -- he understood pasts.

“She was my wife,” I said, and I slid into the co-pilot’s seat. I was thankful, a little, for Duo’s tendency to avoid eye contact.

“Interestin’ name”

I smiled. “Her name was Long Meilan. She was a better fighter than me, and I. I wanted to take that with me, I guess. Nataku was the goddess she named herself after, a warrior to protect a warrior.”

“That’s a respectable name for your suit, then. More than respectable. Thanks for telling me,” he said seriously, even as he looked bleary eyed and rumpled.

“We were just children, god. Who marries at 14 anymore, even in the colonies?”

Duo shrugged. “Doesn’t seem that weird to me. It’s not like anyone was gettin’ much older on L-2, at least not on my colony.”

“Hmph.”

“S’just facts, man. The plague years made everybody want to get married young, live as much life as they could as fast as possible.”

“Is this where I say the war made us all grow up too fast?”

“Well it is why I’m so good at drinking,” Duo said, and he winked.

-

The next few days of the flight were less dramatically confessional -- Duo appeared to have spilled his guts completely that first night, and me that first morning. The one thing I did want to ask him about was his mysterious ailments: the cane, the wrist brace. I didn’t screw up the courage to until the last day, not wanting to offend him by drawing attention to an obvious weakness.

“Did you hurt your wrist recently?”

“Oh, the brace? My joints have gone to shit.”

“Is it...what caused it?”

Duo shrugged and rechecked the coordinates. He was babying the autopilot, but it was something to do. I’d spent the afternoon reading a book Sally recommended.

“Radiation. Shitty gravity regulation. Malnutrition. Bad luck. Who knows, man? It’s like, my joints swell up, and they hurt. And walking hurts. And sleeping hurts. And everything hurts when I’m on Earth.

Put me up in space, though, my body knows what to do with that. Some of the damage is done, permanent. Fucked up the knee in the war and it’s never gonna be the same, but I don’t need a cane in the shuttle when we’ve got the gravity running on 80%.”

“Why didn’t we know about this?”

“I mean, I didn’t until we were like, 19? My body was like an elastic band before that and then everything stopped working so well. It’s probably because my stint in the Preventers was the longest time I’d spent planetside in my whole life.”

He paused for a minute, flexing his wrist and looking thoughtful. “I love Earth, you know that right? I’d stay there if it wasn’t killing me.”

I didn’t really know what response he was expecting from me, so he kept going. “I mean, it beautiful there. But I just...everyday was so much work, Wufei. As if adjusting to the whole world changing wasn’t enough.”

I nodded. I didn’t get it all, but I understood enough.

“And I didn’t mean for it to be a secret. It wasn’t, really -- Heero knew.”

“But he never said anything,” I said, “not until this mission came up.”

Duo got a wistful expression on his face, almost familiar. “Well, no. That’s his way of being nice.”

-

Mars was bleak. It was a vast expanse of breathtaking landscape that was absolutely dead.

The colonies of the L5 cluster were known for their lush grassland, small forests, and excellent sky and weather programming. Belgium wasn’t quite that way, but the neighboring countries all offered exquisite countrysides.

This, this wasn’t even comforting like the darkness of space.

“It’s kinda like the moon,” Duo had said, “like, the parts that aren’t a giant mall.”

I didn’t really have a good basis of comparison -- I’d never visited the moon. L-5 and Earth were crawling with life; the most sterile places I’d been in were Oz holding cells.

“Huh,” I said instead. We were in a bus transport to the one city on the whole planet. Duo was dressed in a mechanic’s coveralls, me in a suit.

I was supposed to blend in as an engineer, Duo as a mechanic. Heero would be joining us in two weeks, as himself.

Heero was good at undercover ops when he needed to be, but in such a small population, he’d draw attention. It was his face plastered all over the news, after all, as a

Noin suggested that Duo try a disguise, but Duo shook her off.

“I think the limp’ll throw anyone off the case. Besides, this is my area of expertise. How many times did you think the braid would get me busted? And how many times did it?”

Noin sighed. “Fine. Fine, I guess we did call you in for your expertise. Do whatever you want.”

-

It was weird having Duo so suddenly and intimately back in my life, but it was nice. I hadn’t been around someone I could talk that freely with in a while -- the constant proximity to Heero tended to encourage self-censorship.

I was escaping my colleagues by hiding out in Duo’s mechanic’s bay. The current mechanic was on medical leave, mostly just hanging out with his daughter, because of some burns sustained in the attack. There were lower mechanics around, but Duo basically had the run of the place since real work had been postponed.

He spent most of his time fixing generators and building, weirdly, clocks.

“I like them,” he said, “I made a bunch when I got my certificate in mechanical engineering.” He handed one to me -- it had a black face with glow in the dark numbers, and red hands.

“I didn’t actually know you got certified.” The clock ticked loudly.

“Well,” he said, “I figured sitting for four years of college was going to be a waste if I already had the skills. I just tested my way into certification.”

“Oh, I remember now. Heero was appalled at your lack of dedication.”

Duo laughed. “No way. He was pissed I didn’t want to go and have a normal college experience with him. But there wasn’t a nice way to say, hey, staying on Earth seems to be really fucking me up. I can’t say that I was real sensitive when I did eventually tell him.”

“Yeah, just so you know, you haven’t gotten the delivery down quite yet.”

“Okay, so maybe there isn’t a good way to say it at all. But I’m kind of looking forward to him coming, I guess. I’ve missed you guys.”

“You seem to have an entire colony eating out of your hand.”

“Naw,” he said, sitting up and wiping his hands off on his coveralls. “They all think they like me, but they don’t really know me. You guys, you guys know me. There’s a difference in what kind of friends you can make, you know? I wouldn’t tell that drug dealer down my street about, say, the Zero System.”

I thought about that. “I don’t know if I’ve told my friends much about that.”

“Yeah, but you’re living in Preventers HQ. Everyone there gets it on a level you won’t find many other places. Maybe a couple of the colonies on L1, but.” He stopped. “I like being able to see that sky, you know?”

That I could understand.

-

I didn’t expect the mission to be so boring. I was beginning to suspect that’s why we’d been sent, because we were the only ones experienced enough to just wait it out without breaking cover. Still, pretending to be engrossed by sprinkler system designs was torturous.

“I’m runnin’ point here, so try to reign in some of that natural obstinance, you two.”

Heero had finally arrived after three weeks. Duo had already integrated himself flawlessly into the local culture -- the cooks loved him, the plant people loved him, the four kids on the planet were enamoured with him and spent hours in his mechanic’s space talking to him. It was kind of sickening.

“So what’s going on? Give me the intel,” Heero said. We were in Duo’s quarters -- the whole colony was under an atmospheric dome, but it was enormous. The living quarters was a huge, flat complex with single rooms for everyone who was unmarried. They were like college dorms, with a twin bed and a desk and a shared bathroom in every hall that fed right into the water treatment plant.

“Nothing, basically. No one knows shit about the attack, though everyone’s still pretty spooked about it. Noin and Zechs already did interrogations of every person here, which I sent you to read on the plane.”

Heero nodded. He seemed to be working hard to get over his stiffness around Duo, and the mission was a good focusing tool. They weren’t making eye contact yet, but it was a near thing.

“But basically, as far as I can tell, no one on-planet is a terrorist. I’d almost be willing to say it was some kind of programming experiment gone wrong that blew up the lodges at the outskirts of town, but the existence of the beam cannon on their agriculture-focused suit really doesn’t suggest that.”

“And no one’s left or arrived other than Noin and us three?”

“Nope.” Duo pulled out his laptop. “A lot of emails were sent that night but I couldn’t get into everyone’s system. Was hoping you could pick up where I dropped off?” He studiously stared at his screen.

Heero nodded, examining his shoes.

“Am I even here for any particular reason?” I asked.

“Well, I like the tire-tread design you came up with,” Duo said, grinning. “Besides, you volunteered. And I think the head of hydroponics is totally sweet on you. You should go for that.”

For the first time in what I think was years, I could feel myself blush. Duo cackled and even Heero laughed.

“He’s still hung up on Dr. Po,” Heero offered, and Duo nodded.

“Well, just keeping you up to date on all the relevant intel.”

“But nothing to do with the attack has come up?”

“Nope. I’ve heard absolutely nothing important. Nada. Zilch.”

“I think we should do a scouting mission of the nearby terrain.”

Duo took a look at Heero. “That’s actually a great idea. But I’m flying.”

Heero didn’t even attempt to fight it, which was a surprise.

-

I didn’t go with them on their fact scouting trip. Heero reported back that there were a lot of interesting things happening outside the dome -- they’d found evidence of an unauthorized take-off and landing, for example -- but there wasn’t anything they could use, yet.

“Mostly I’m just wondering how you didn’t strangle each other.”

Heero turned pink, which was so delightful I actually clapped my hands. “Oh? What did happen then?”

“I just. I get it now,” he mumbled. “I get what I fucked up. Duo knows what he fucked up but I think he’s probably known that forever. I didn’t know that before.”

“So you were the reason he left the Preventers.”

Heero frowned. “They wouldn’t station him off world, and he’d have been benched if he told them what was going on. It was a big fight.”

I watied for him to continue. That was something new to file away into the case book in my mind labeled “The mystery of Yuy and Maxwell’s break-up.” It was mostly fights, fighting in public, yelling, wall punching, and that time Duo throw a glass into a door. Obviously these are all indicators of an unhealthy relationship, but they’re harder to listen to when you have nothing to compare it to but a literal wartime hook up.

The fights they had got personal but always seemed that way as a deflection tactic, but I never knew what they were protecting. Maybe different things. Certainly Duo’s secret was out now, as he skipped along the corridors in different Mars buildings, spry in a way he wasn’t on Earth.

“I didn’t realize I missed him,” Heero said finally.

I fought the urge to bury my head in my hands.

-

“God, everyone here loves him, don’t they?” Heero asked me at lunch.

Duo was charming the security scientists at the moment, his eyes bright with telling a story. I was wondering what stories he had that were that funny, but maybe gallows humor is the norm on an experimental space colony.

“It’s pretty sickening,” I said. “The kids hate me.”

“Hey,” Duo said as he swung by our table, “can one of you get me the water treatment plant’s data? I need to do some checking.”

“Fine,” Heero said. “At least it’ll be something to do. Zechs is probably more boring than this entire planet combined.”

Heero then turned and looked Duo straight in the eyes, or at least he looked very near to Duo’s face.

“Starting to rethink asking to be stationed here?” Duo looked slightly unnerved but he returned the look, staring at something right past Heero’s shoulder.

Heero coughed, startled. “Uh. I’m actually not sure. There’s a lot...it depends on how things shake out.”

“It’d be nice to have a friendly face here.” Duo said it cautiously, and Heero didn’t smile or frown in return. “I mean, someone who isn’t Zechs.”

“I don’t mind Zechs,” I said, interrupting the weird tableau of facial expressions happening before me.

“You would like him,” Duo said. “You two are big on honor and shit.”

Heero laughed and I almost choked on my sandwich.

-

The gym was probably the most technologically up to date area, because everyone on-planet was required to log a certain amount of hours exercising lest their bones deteriorate too quickly. Everything else was solved with supplements and a few weekly shots to stave off other negative effects. Duo seemed wistful about the whole thing and didn’t ask about how recently these modes of coping with non-Earth conditions had been developed.

Other than the gym, there were only a few places to hang out if you didn’t want to be standing outside, looking through a warped dome at a dead planet (I mostly did not). There was one bar, and it only served beer made with air-grown hops.

t wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever had to drink but it took a lot of it to get hammered, more than you’d expect in the lower gravity. Heero and I met every other day to shoot the shit and complain, and that was nice and familiar. I was starting to miss our other coworkers, though, not to mention my friends at the Shaolin studio. And Sally Po.

“So,” Heero said. He’d brought us a pitcher of beer, and I was drinking as fast as I could. There were no bottles to be found on Mars -- too heavy to ship and too awkward to try to make glass.

“It sounds like you have a confession to make.”

Duo took Heero on a tour of the robotics lab to check it out. I was expecting them to be at each other’s throat the whole time but Heero looked unscathed.

“Duo uh, apologized for always being ‘such a dick’ to me after the break-up.”

I peered at him. “Didn’t you get the locks changed at the apartment when he was at work.”

“...Yeah. Duo stole my car though, so I think that’s even.”

“Your cars have terrible luck,” I said.

Heero frowned, eyebrows knitting together. “Anyway. I missed this. The two of you, even if this is the most mind-numbingly dull assignment since that one where someone was stealing cement trucks in Oslo.”

“Is this the first time you two have spent any time together post breakup?” I asked. I knew Heero and Relena still socialized but Duo certainly wasn’t ever at those parties. I’d somehow assumed that they’d inevitably had to interact at some point, but maybe that wasn’t the case.

“We had to stop communicating entirely for a year because it would get too emotional. Also I was dating Relena so. That would have been shitty to both of them.”

“You can’t go on a pilgrimage of apologies. Trowa warned me about those.”

Heero laughed. “No, no, you’re right. I just. You’ve got a whole life back on Earth. Friends. A girlfriend. People who aren’t Preventers.”

It actually was a shock how true that statement was. I’d never thought about it, that I had actually manage to cultivate a life that wasn’t just shooting guns.

“I should call Sally when I get back,” I said, and Heero nodded vigorously.

“Yes! Yes, call Sally. Call Sally now, maybe. Or tonight.”

-

On week five, my phone buzzed. “I think I got a lead; meet me tonight.”

“A semi-colon?” Heero asked, looking at his. We were walking to the water treatment plan together for a tour.

“Hey, your texts always look like someone with half a keyboard sent them,” I said.

“I don’t have a good response to that.” Heero shrugged. The tension in his jaw was starting to return, but only barely, after he read the text.

“Exactly.”

-

We met up that night.

“So is it the scientists? The group from Malta?”

“Nope,” said Duo. He was under a generator that was going to be sent to the other side of the encampment. The mechanics’ station was actually the perfect place to rendezvous; we’d never found it bugged and it was mostly empty.

“The L3 hydroponics experts. Those guys are shifty as hell.” Heero was leaning against a case of equipment, arms crossed over his chest. He was in a PReventers uniform,

“Naw, those guys are just plant scientists. They’re bound to be weird.”

“What the hell did you call us here for!” Heero banged a fist against the chest of drawers. To his credit, it was the first time I’d seen him lose his temper in weeks.

“So emotional,” Duo said, almost cheerfully.

“Most of our co-workers describe me as ‘cold.’ It’s come up on some of my performance reviews.”

“Well it might be easy to get that impression when your primary emotion is rage.”

I snorted. I couldn’t help it, really.

Heero, though, I wasn’t expecting him to laugh.

“So who is it?”

Duo rolled out from under the engine. He looked...he looked better. I guess I hadn’t realized how haggard he’d actually looked before. He had grease smeared on his cheek.

“They’re not on Mars anymore.”

Heero huffed. “Okay, this is going to be a grandiose explanation, I can feel it. Let’s just go have it in Zechs’ office so we don’t have to hear it twice.”

Duo pouted but agreed.

-

“Zechs! I always forget you’re alive,” Duo said, grinning. He shoved out a grease stained hand that Zechs took a second to shake.

“Uh. Yes.” Zechs’ office was overly dramatic, dark wood paneling he must have flown up with him and dim lamps. Noin was leaning against an oversized desk.

“Great, well. I’ve solved your weird little mystery without even once having my life threatened, and I’m happy to offer my piloting services as a contractor to the Mars terraforming project.

“Do go on,” said Noin.

“So you had a stowaway. My guess is someone who was relatively competant scientifically, but they had the beam cannon imported in -- there are scorch marks that indicate there’ve been at least one unauthorized launch and one unauthorized landing about 15 miles out of the colony.”

“So at least no one on-site is building that kind of weaponry.”

“Nope!” Duo said cheerfully. “But anyway, you had someone on the planet not on your roster. The information from the water treatment confirms it, and the guy left right after the attack or hasn’t peed in months.”

“I’ll be happy to assume the former, thanks,” said Zechs.

“Anyway. That’s pretty much it. Resume terraforming, pardon all Gundam pilots, Wufei goes home and proposes, everyone wins.” Duo clapped his hands together.

Noin stared. “Really? You think that’s it?”

“Well,” Duo said, “no, probably not. Probably I’ll have to eventually fly some shitty ship out and track this dude down, and it’ll be a big conspiracy, or White Fang, or disgruntled Martians, and it’ll be a big ordeal.”

She nodded. “Okay. That sounds more likely You’re not off the hook yet.”

“But Wufei should definitely propose, right?”

“You have been seeing Sally for a while,” Noin said, “it’s probably time for yout o make an honest woman out of her.”

“I am in no way comfortable with this much scrutiny on my personal life. What about you, Heero?”

Heero was suddenly very interested in the designs on Zechs’ desk. “I was thinking I could stick around, probably.”

Duo grinned. “Wait, really? Are we friends now?”

Heero gave Duo a sort of incredulous look. “Yes?”

“Quatre is going to be so pleased,” I said.

“Do you think he’d throw us a party? I bet Winner Corp. parties are huge.”

“Also,” Duo said, “here.” He threw a stapled bundle of paper at Zechs. “I’ve already written out your exclusive contract with my salvaging company, because we’re already doing 80% of the work, and the other 20% of your imports appear to be overrun by terrorists.”

“Welcome to Mars,” Noin said, and she shook their hands.

I was going to miss them, but I had a feeling I’d be paying Trowa a visit soon. And maybe I’d bring Sally along.