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" Mission: Nerima"Written By: CalicOcat Disclaimer: Duo and Heero and the rest of the
GW gang aren't mine. This story is. Nuff said. Pairings: None yet. Rated: PG 13 Warnings: Swearing, Angst, Endless Waltz spoilers,
Crossover Notes: Post series & Endless Waltz (only a couple of weeks after EW). Unless otherwise noted, all dialogue is in Japanese - so if there's Japanese words sprinkled within dialogue, it's because the language being spoken at that moment is something else. 'Thinking' "Speaking" *** Time passing or scene change
" Mission: Nerima"
While Duo no longer jerked sharply away if Heero brushed
up against him in the hallway or the tight confines of their room,
he hadn't returned to his old wartime behaviour patterns either. Heero
missed those careless pats on the back, the arm slung over his shoulders,
all those little touches that he had always taken for granted in the
past. Oh, he had snapped and snarled about them back then since they
made him want a great many things, things that were inappropriate
for a soldier according to J's training, but he felt their loss deeply
now. ‘J. If you ever turn up alive, I *WILL* kill you. Your training
very He glanced at the window again, his breath catching and his pulse racing as Duo stretched sinuously. Hurriedly, he dropped his gaze to his work again as Duo got up from the bed and walked up behind him. ‘Maybe this time...' he thought hopefully as the longhaired teen stood close enough for him to feel the warmth radiating off of his body. That alone was enough to send his pulse rate skyrocketing upwards after being kept at a distance for so long. ‘Control yourself, Yuy, don't blow this!' "Whatcha workin' on, Heero?" Duo asked, speaking before slowly leaning over his shoulder. As Duo's arm settled gently, cautiously across one shoulder, and Duo's chest pressed lightly against the other, Heero tensed with the effort of controlling his body's reaction to the long-awaited touch. ‘Throwing him down on the bed, ripping his clothes off, and ravishing him is not an appropriate response to a casual touch, Yuy! Don't scare him off!' Feeling the other boy go rigid beneath his careful touch,
Duo's heart sank. It had taken him all day to get up his nerve to
try this and, in spite of his cautious approach, Heero's muscles were
quivering with the effort to control his reaction to the contact.
‘If merely tolerating a cautious touch from me is putting this
much stress on him, obviously I've been reading too much into things
again. Damn it, Maxwell, when are you going to accept it? He's not
yours and never Heero let his breath out in a whoosh and placed his still-quivering hands on the desk. ‘Okay, it wasn't much, certainly not the suggestive flirting I was hoping for, but it's a start. I proved it was safe for him to touch me, that I wouldn't over-react and hit him. It's just going to take a little time to get his trust back. That's all, just a little time.' He firmly pushed aside the tiny, niggling little bit of uncertainty that was insistently telling him that something was even more wrong now. *** Heero slowly climbed the stairs to his room, mulling over the conversation that the five of them had just finished. Really, it had been more like a series of conversations, covering a wide range of topics. Une had handed over the final report on the masked attackers to Wufei earlier that day, but it had contained very little new information. They were all ex-Oz or ex-Romafeller - not exactly a surprise - and none of them were locals. Just like the locals that Ranma's group had questioned, they had been approached and hired by a stranger. They had no contact information for that person, and the description was sufficiently vague that there was little chance of the artist's composite sketches actually leading to finding him. ‘And it took them nearly three weeks and seventy-five pages to come to that conclusion.. . Pitiful!' The pilots had put together their own observations and
written up their semi-weekly report on their own mission as well.
It hadn't taken them nearly as long or as many pages, but it was also
a pretty pathetic set of results. There had not been any incidents
of inexplicable damage since they had arrived in Nerima until two
days ago, when a large hole had inexplicably appeared in the outside
wall of the girls' locker room. Either no one knew anything about
it or no The only part of the conversation that Heero had genuinely been happy about was Duo's answer to Quatre's query about the partnership with Hilde. ----- Flashback Begins ----- "I turned her down. It wouldn't have been fair to her in more ways than one," the braided teen answered. "Me being a Gundam pilot cost us a few jobs when I was just yard manager, being a full partner would have been even worse for business. Hilde suggested that I be a semi-silent partner, have a stake and a say but not put my name out front. It might have worked a bit better, but it still wouldn't have been fair to her." "Why not?" Quatre asked curiously. "If she was willing to take the risk of having a Gundam pilot as a partner..." Duo flushed in embarrassment before replying, "Quat, she really wanted more than a business partnership. She said she was willing to settle for business partner and friend, but I saw the way she watched me when she didn't think I was looking. Even if she thought friendship would be enough now, it would've eventually been too uncomfortable. " Forestalling the next question before the Arab could even speak, he said, "And no, I wouldn't have changed my mind on that part. She's like a kid sister, even if I wasn't already..." He cut himself off abruptly, shooting an almost undetectable glance in Heero's direction and flushing again before finishing simply, "I could never have thought of her that way." ----- Flashback Ends ----- ‘I just don't understand why he still doesn't touch me, let alone flirt with me. I've caught him watching me once or twice and I think it's longing that I'm seeing in his eyes, but I'm not completely sure. The only thing I can think of is that I did something wrong that one day that he *did* touch me - I just don't know what!' Feeling decidedly frustrated and discouraged, Heero entered his room. ‘Duo's helping at Ucchan's this afternoon, so I should have a safe window to call Relena without him walking in on the conversation. .. Maybe she can figure out what I did wrong.' Waiting patiently while Pargan wandered off to find his employer, Heero ran through the events of the past few weeks yet again, finding nothing else that stuck out as a possible source of Duo's reticence. "Hello, Heero! So, how are things going? Any progress in the Duo-hunt?" the Darlian girl asked eagerly. "Hello, Relena. Frustratingly. And yes and no." "Oh. Oh dear. Tell me what happened." "Four days ago, he finally touched me. He walked up behind me while I was working at my desk, spoke to me, then leaned over my shoulder and placed one arm on my other shoulder. I did not over-react; I did not elbow him or hit him or say anything insulting or upsetting. He left the room to go for a walk. He has not touched me again since." "You've told me what you *didn't* do - so what *did* you do, Heero." "Nothing," he admitted. "I froze." Remembering Heero's talent for understatement, Relena narrowed her eyes and said, "Define ‘froze'." Reluctantly, he said, "Tensed to the point of shaking." Slapping her forehead with her hand, Relena drew her hand slowly down her face, parting her fingers enough to peek through as she said, "That is *not* ‘nothing', Heero. Congratulations, you've now managed to convince him that you can barely stand him to come in contact with you." "It was either that or throw him down on the bed and ravish him, and I was pretty sure that the second option was not an appropriate response to a casual touch!" he shot back defensively. "Generally speaking, no, but in this case, it would
probably have been the better choice," the girl managed to respond,
though her face was rather flushed and her eyes rather wide. "Heero,
you said before that he told you part of the reason he gave you such
a hard time when you were trying to make up for the party was that
he was tired of always being the one making all the effort. And once
again, you've left it up to him to make the effort. Then, when he
*did* finally make another attempt, you didn't even respond to it
in a way that would make your real feelings clear! Except that by
*not* responding, you've given "*Shit.*" Suddenly suspicious, Relena demanded, "Heero, have you done *anything* since the last time we spoke? Specifically, have you straightened him out about the nature of our relationship? Namely, that I consider you my incredibly frustrating block-headed kid brother?!" "He hasn't asked again!" "*HEERO!!* Tell him! Or I swear, I really *will* come there, tell him *everything* that you have told me starting with that interesting conversation a year ago that began with ‘I like you, Relena, but I love Duo Maxwell' and ending with this conversation right now, then lock the two of you in a room together with a bed and a tube of lube and leave you there till you get this relationship straightened out!" Heero was almost as red with embarrassment as Relena by the time she finished speaking. "I don't believe I just said that," she mumbled, hiding her face behind her hands. "I don't believe you did either," Heero managed to choke out. "But if that's what it takes, I *will* do it," she threatened, straightening her spine and suddenly looking every bit like the "Queen of the World" she so briefly was. ‘No, that wasn't a threat - that was a promise,' the other teen realized, suddenly feeling much more motivated to take the initiative in his ‘relationship' with Duo. Relena threw a quick glance at her wristwatch, then said, "Sorry, Heero, I've got to go. I have to catch a shuttle to L1 for disarmament talks with another White Fang splinter group. I'll call you when I get back, and I expect to hear that you've made some progress with Duo by then! Bye!" With that, the vid-phone went blank. ‘Damn. So I really did blow it again. I never even thought of him interpreting my reaction, or lack of it, that way. Shit, Yuy, you really are a complete asshole. Now what? I hope Duo doesn't get home too early, I need some time to figure out what to do. Make that a *lot* of time. And maybe some help. I wonder if Quatre will give me some advice if I grovel?' *** "So, what've ya got for me, ‘Biki?" Nabiki couldn't quite suppress a small grin at Ranma's eager question. The Tendo household might lack the luxury of a vid-phone, making do with a regular, old-fashioned voice-only phone instead, but she could clearly imagine the look on her "little brother"'s face. Those bright blue eyes would be sparkling with curiosity and he would be bouncing slightly from one foot to the other, overflowing with the energy of a challenge. As usual, Ranma had taken on life at high speed, deciding in a matter of days that he liked the five ex-Gundam pilots and would do whatever he could to help them out. Which of course meant dragging her and the rest of the Crew along with him. She had suspected in advance that he would take to the
02 pilot. Ranma and the L2 teen both used cheerful, happy-go-lucky
masks to hide their darker moments, but also had a primarily genuinely
cheerful approach to life despite less than easy pasts. Though Duo
was the only one that had been accepted as an actual friend so far,
and was quickly moving towards "family" status with the
entire Wrecking Crew (Tatewaki and herself excepted, of course, since
they weren't home at the moment), Ranma had indicated that they would
not necessarily be adverse to taking in the rest of the pilots as
well, given a little As far as the 05 pilot went, Ranma had told her, "Not
now. Too much hostility, I think mostly ‘cause of ‘Kane
and I continually scrapping, based on what you found out before and
some stuff Duo's told us." Nabiki hadn't really thought about
the arranged-marriage commonality until Ranma brought it up, but it
made sense that the apparent hostility between Akane and Ranma would
anger the volatile L5 boy, considering how short-lived his own disastrous
marriage had been and how tragically it had ended. ‘Maybe when
Cologne gets back,' she thought. ‘Chang may be a bit more understanding
once the true The unapproachability of Pilot 01 was not surprising but still disappointing, Nabiki mused, particularly for Ranma. After all, he could easily empathize with a childhood spent in training - particularly harsh, sometimes brutal, training. That he had made it through his own with his easy-going personality more-or-less intact had less to do with the trainer and more to do with the fact that Genma was never able to completely eliminate the influence of outsiders - particularly the various monks and martial arts masters that they had spent time with over the years - in the way that Heero's trainer had apparently been able to. And Shampoo's insight into the particularly warrior-oriented aspects of training had already proven useful in smoothing over the breach between Heero and Duo. It was unfortunate that circumstances - Ranma's insight into Duo's academi problems, the martial artists' too-convenient interference with the ambush on the first day of school - had made Yuy so suspicious of the Wrecking Crew before they ever got a chance to get to know each other but, hopefully, Duo would prove to be the bridge between his suspicious teammate and the Nerima group. "‘Biki? You there?" Drawn back to her present task by the query, she answered, "Yes, Ranma. Sorry, just thinking a few things over. "I've set the wheels in motion for getting you declared an emancipated minor." She shook her head, disappointed at her previous oversight. "I should have thought of that myself before but at least, since you're already so close to being legally of age, it should be little more than a rubber-stamp request at this point. "As far as your other request goes, I've got a few things for you, but this is a much more complex tangle than I thought initially." Nabiki could almost hear the snap as Ranma's formidable concentration latched onto her comment and he demanded, "What do you mean?" "So far, three of the pilots' most vocal detractors can be traced back to Romafeller ties. There are several more that I'm still working on identifying since they have only spoken up in closed sessions and my source has to be very careful not to set off any alarms in hacking into the records. Not only do I need to keep from having this traced back to me, I have to make certain that no one discovers it and blames the pilots," she explained. "There are other leads showing up as well - ties to L5 and to China, but also ties to one of WEI's biggest competitors. Whether all these leads will pan out or not remains to be seen." "So we're either dealin' with a group of individuals workin' towards a common goal - discrediting the Gundam pilots - or a bunch of individuals each tryin' to achieve a goal - discrediting the Gundam pilots - and just coincidentally helpin' each other out, but nothin' organized about it," Ranma summarized. "And the fact that they *are* Gundam pilots may just be a convenient excuse; the real motive may lie in who certain pilots are *outside* of their role in the war." "Exactly. And, Ranma..." Nabiki hesitated, weighing the benefits and drawbacks of mentioning this last point just yet, before slowly continuing, "...it may not be coincidence that the Nerima ‘inexplicable damage' issue came up so conveniently and that the pilots were sent to investigate it. "Those ties to China reach back many, many years,
but they lead back to the general area of the Musk, Phoenix Mountain,
Jusenkyo, and Joketsuzoku. "
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