"Bad Company"

Written By: Clara Barton & Kangofu_CB

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said, these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask before reprinting.

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence

Pairings: 3x2

Summary: "The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

This fic is dark. It explores the way the lines between good and bad, black and white are blurred, for those who work from the inside to bring down the bad guys. Clara and I do not, at any point, get graphic in our descriptions, but there is a lot of sensitive subject matter. We have tagged as clearly as possible, and individual chapters will contain individual warnings. As a general rule this fic contains: implied torture, death, description of a human trafficking organization and its methods, the surrounding implications of human trafficking including forced prostitution and what amounts to slavery, drug and alcohol use, and drug trafficking. We understand that these subjects are not for everyone. We have made every effort to be respectful and accurate without being gratuitous or disturbing. The bad guys are bad. The good guys are, sometimes, not much better.

We use a liberal sprinkling of Spanish and Russian in this fic, and neither of us are native speakers of either. We’ve relied heavily on the internet, and so we apologize for any mistakes. We have also included translations at the end of each chapter in the form of footnotes.

"Bad Company"

 

Chapter 9: Ring of Fire

I fell for you like a child,

Oh, but the fire went wild.

I fell into a burning ring of fire,

I went down, down, down and the flames went higher

-Johnny Cash

---

Duo had never in his career burned an op.  He'd had a few go sideways, and one spectacular failure that was a result of bad intel rather than his own actions, but he'd never intentionally ignored a mission directive or abandoned his cover just because things were getting hairy.

The desperate, pleading look on Trowa's face the morning after the pilot meet was another thing entirely.

A thing he couldn't forget about, a thing he couldn't ignore.

And, he bitterly realized, it was why Heero had been so against Duo coming on this op.  Not that he would ever tell him or Quatre that, and not that Heero would have been the better choice.  Heero probably would have been dead two weeks in. Trowa would have been dead in El Walamo, Duo was pretty sure.  Anhil would never have taken Heero on that run.

Trowa was dangerously close to the edge, and teetering towards destruction with every passing hour.  He could see it shining behind the other man's empty facade, and he was starting to think Anhil could too.  Could see something , anyway, the way he had taken to watching Trowa with concern when he thought the other man wouldn't notice.  

Duo stared at the lines of data on his screen - not fucking Minesweeper , whatever Trowa thought he was doing - and contemplated razing the last ten years of his life to the ground.

Making a decision, he reached for the keyboard, typing furiously.  He had less than a week to make arrangements that should have taken months, to parcel out information and evidence, and to get it all to the right hands where it would hopefully be acted upon.  On the other end, it would give Sally only a few days to arrange a difficult and complicated op of her own.

It was going to be damn near impossible.

But, as Merquise had so sarcastically mentioned in the past - he was a Gundam Pilot.  Impossible was kinda their schtick.

A few days later, Salome, in a move that shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did, considering his luck and her mercurial attitude, threw a wrench in all his carefully-laid plans.

"Anhil, you and kotyenok will handle the shipment," Salome announced, a sly smirk playing around her lips.  "The little fox and I will work on our... security issue while you're gone."

Duo felt a cold knot of dread in his chest.  It was too late to back out now. He'd already sent out a dozen data packets, all wrapped in code and disguised as online transactions and streaming services, all while implicating everyone in the compound except Alessandra and Salome.  He hoped she was talking about the still-unknown leak to the Snakeheads, but he could be wrong.

Though if she'd discovered his subterfuge, he doubted she would waste any time exacting the price of betrayal from him, and intellectually, he knew this was just one of those unforeseeable  complications that came from working deep undercover.

"When's the arrival?" Anhil asked, not tearing his eyes away from the game on TV, and barely lifting his lips from the neck of the beer bottle in his hand.

"Two days," Salome answered, already breezing out of the room, heels clicking against the floor.  

Two days.  Just forty-eight hours until the last shipment - or, what he hoped was the last shipment. What Trowa had demanded be the last shipment.  Duo had sent all the details he had to Sally already, but there'd been nothing in response. Not through any of their usual channels. Trowa was already wound tighter than a steel drum, and Duo was frankly unsure what the other man would do if they processed the entire shipment and the Preventers didn't intervene.

He looked across the room to the chair Trowa was ensconced in, and found his flat, angry stare focused on Salome's exit.

Duo hoped Trowa wasn't stupid enough to act on the impulses Duo could see in his twitching fingers and grinding jaw.

The other man, fortunately, made no move to follow her.

Reaching for his keyboard, Duo dutifully passed along the updated schedule and the change to the work assignments, cloaked, as always, in hidden bytes and coded phrases.  It was a risk, sending information out in the middle of the day, but up-to-date information could and did sometimes make the difference between living and dying. Leaning back, he took a deep, shuddering breath, shoving down the gut-churning panic that was trying to bubble up.

All that was left now was more waiting.

Nothing meaningful changed - Salome didn't appear over his bedside with a butcher knife or corner him in the kitchen - while the time passed as it always did. As usual, Duo was sleeping almost none, and Trowa was stomping through the compound like the snarling, vengeful tiger Alessandra had often accused him of being, and they both did nothing but worry . Even when they were curled around each other at night, even when they fucked to the point of complete exhaustion, they worried. Duo about his data transfers, Trowa about the impending shipment, and both of them about after .  

Meanwhile, Matvei did everything he could to make the wait excruciating.  He made cutting comments that Duo ignored and Trowa exacerbated, and took his impatience out on the palomniks .  Veta, especially, was sporting fresh bruises around her wrists and upper arms, and a skittish, withdrawn expression that was unlike her usual surly superiority.  Trowa, Duo knew, was seriously considering whether he could kill the ignorant asshole and get away with it. Duo was wondering if he should be expecting Matvei to ‘find' a stray bullet if and when the Preventers raided.

And still, they waited.

*

Duo was lounging by the pool when he heard the whump-whump-whump that was more displaced air than actual sound. Stealth helicopters, well... weren't.  Duo had piloted stealth. He knew the exact terror of complete silence that was unexpectedly broken by screaming destruction.  The whisper of rotors on the wind was enough to get him moving. Especially because he hadn't actually been relaxing - more like lying still with gut-clenching anxiety - but now he moved. By all appearances, slow and languid, but with hidden purpose.  He made his way back inside to his desk, where he slipped his headphones around his neck and propped his feet on the edge of the workstation.

And proceeded to wait.

After two and a half minutes, he slipped his hands onto the top of his head and interlocked his fingers, watching the dancing numbers on his monitor and the glitch of the security cameras as it repeated every eight point five seconds.  

Bad splicing.

Less than three minutes from the time he walked into the house, the front door burst inwards with an incoming rush of black-suited, kevlar-protected bodies, assault rifles at the ready and shouting orders in both English and Spanish.  Duo never moved, though he was recognized and surrounded almost immediately by three of the masked intruders. He grinned at the shortest of them, rocking back in the chair as though he'd never been more relaxed in his life.

Maybe he hadn't been.

He knew Preventers SOP and gear when he saw it, and he could recognize the subtle marks that indicated rank.  

His gamble had paid off.  They were here. And maybe he was going to solitary until they sorted out his cover story and his real story, but he was leaving this hellhole and he was taking Trowa with him, and that was alright as far as he was concerned.

When the suits poured in, only a few people had been in the hacienda .  Some palomniks , including Veta and Luiza, who were regular fixtures, and Tomas and Javier, among a few other, younger enforcers. Salome had decided at the last minute to join Anhil and Trowa at the mill, something that had only increased Duo's agitation. The shipment was much larger than usual, courtesy of their new pilots' larger transport vehicle, and she had taken most of the remaining enforcers with her as well to help with the processing. Alessandra was in her office, and at the first incursion, Veta had darted into the back of the house, tactical teams chasing after her.  There was the expected gunfire, and a short, sharp shout that Duo thought was Alessandra crying out, but he never moved. Just grinned indolently at the now-five Preventers surrounding him. Listened to the crackle of radios and the pounding of booted feet, and bided his time.

Veta was dragged back after some time, like a spitting, hissing, scalded cat, blood spatter decorating the side of her face and arm as a faceless Preventer zip-tied her hands and forced her into a seat.

" ¿Qué tienes que decir a tu favor? " Duo said to her, jerking his chin towards the gore.

Turning away, Veta fixed her gaze on the Preventer who had holstered their weapon but was still standing between Duo and the door.  Duo noticed that one had the most stripes, and he revised his opinion of Veta's intelligence and powers of observation.

" Tu amigo es un chico muy pesado. Habla por los codos y no hay forma de detenerlo. "

Duo cackled.

Finally, minutes that felt like hours later, it seemed that the remaining enforcers and palomiks had been rounded up, the criminals shuffled into containment vans and the others to temporary medical tents for examination, and the Preventers around him seemed to lose some of the adrenaline-fueled edge they'd been carrying.  With the exception of himself and Veta, everything was secured. Alessandra had been wheeled by on a stretcher, oxygen mask on her face and seemingly unconscious, and Duo's questions about Veta were answered.

Only when a familiar blonde-haired face walked through the front door of the house did the remaining Preventers around him relax, all but one even going so far as to secure their weapons.

"Agent Po!" Duo called cheerfully. "Long time, no see."

"Maxwell, you are a pain in my ass," she responded, and Duo felt something that had been stretched too thin inside him relax for the first time in months.

"That's the goal," he agreed, slowly lowering his hands to the arms of the computer chair.  "You're pretty far from home, though. Didya come all the way here to see little ol' me?"

Sally snorted, strolling across the room to plant herself in front of the lone agent with a gun in their hand, who immediately lowered it in confusion.

"Nope, just touring the ass-end of Mexico," she snapped back, and Duo couldn't help but laugh.

"Where's your next stop?" he asked encouragingly.  "I know all the good tourist traps."

"Nowhere," she answered, her brow furrowed. "This is my only stop."

Duo froze.  That made no sense.  He'd given them everything . They had to know - had to be aware of the mill and the shipment-

"Fucking excuse me?" he said instead, and planted his boots on the ground and leaned forward in the chair in one smooth motion.  Two of the agents made moves towards their weapons, but didn't lift them. Sloppy. Duo could have killed at least three of them if he'd continued his forward motion and pulled his weapon.  He shook his head. "You know what, fuck this."

He'd already burned this op, and he was ready to burn his entire life to the ground, and he'd be damned-

Duo reached up and yanked at the chain hanging around his neck until it snapped, tossing Sally the data drive attached to it carelessly.

"Merry fuckin' Christmas," he said, standing up.  "That's the entire Snakeheads organization in your hand, in addition to this clusterfuck."  He glanced around at the other agents in the room, all watching him warily, most of them edging hands towards weapons.  At Veta, who was staring at him in frank appraisal, rage in her eyes.

She'd figured it out before the trained law enforcement.  He snorted.

"I'm Duo Maxwell," he started, making sure all eyes were on him, and noticing as Sally's widened in response.  "I am a Level 8 Preventers agent, badge number 08744, and I am getting the fuck outta here." He turned on his heel, striding across the demolished kitchen and out the back deck doors.  He heard the shuffle of footsteps behind him, and knew Sally was following.

She caught him just at the edge of the pool before he slipped into the trees, but only because he let her.

"Merquise is leading the Mill Strike Team," she huffed out, torn between frustration and another emotion Duo couldn't readily identify.  "We hit both locations at the same time to reduce casualties and-"

"You were supposed to grab Barton," Duo said, the words like dust on his tongue.

"He's Merquise's agent-"

"You mean Captain Barbie wants to pose for the press with all the poor colonials he got to save by not getting his hands dirty even once.  I hope he at least shaved that shit off his face."

Duo strode into the trees, ignoring Sally calling him, ignoring everything but the pressing need to be where Trowa was, because there was a lump of lead in his gut still, one that told him this wasn't over.

*

The lumber mill was a madhouse.  The takedown was clearly not going as well as the ambush at the hacienda , with dead enforcers and dead colonials littering the landing pad, and gunfire still audible everywhere Duo turned.  From the looks of things, it was clear that most of the dead colonials had been shot by the Cartel, probably to prevent them from telling their stories to law enforcement.  Not as many as Duo had expected, though, and he hoped most of them had made it to the treeline or Preventers' custody.

He'd had no trouble getting there before Sally's team, though they were undoubtedly on their way if he knew her at all.  But Duo knew all the back roads and all the potholes by the back of his hand now, and he'd taken the fastest car in Alessandra's collection to get there.  No one had stopped him on the way out - probably Sally's work - and he parked far enough from the mill to go unnoticed in the chaos.

Merquise's Strike Team was partially pinned down by the Cartel enforcers, who knew the layout of the multi-level, multi-room compound better than the agents, though the agents' greater numbers and preparedness was slowly turning the tide, as far as Duo could see.  Already, there were several enforcers in custody in a containment van that Duo bypassed as he edged the perimeter unnoticed.

It was easy enough to slip into the complex, between his own skills and the lack of attention anyone had for anything that wasn't shooting at them.  He wasn't wearing Preventers armor, but he was wearing enough black, as usual, to pass muster. It was funny what the human brain would ignore, as long as it was expected.  He moved like he belonged there, and he didn't make any threatening gestures at the agents, and their brains dismissed him as a threat.

The enforcers knew him.  If any of them saw him, they wouldn't, hopefully, be inclined to shoot.  Though he was under no illusions about his current popularity. Someone might take it into their head to be rid of him, if they thought he was an easy target.  Matvei, for example. But no one did.

He made his way through the twists and turns of the old mill quickly, heading for the most defensible location - a room in the southwest corner of the building.  It had too many entrances, but one of them led to a long hallway that exited the building almost directly into the forest, and couldn't be opened from the outside.  Salome wasn't stupid, and neither were Anhil or Trowa, and Duo was betting that they were both with the woman, and aware of the tactical advantages. Duo knew Trowa wouldn't actually let Salome get away, but he did think Trowa would play his role as long as it benefitted him, and until Preventers had a clear win, it benefitted him to play the loyal guard dog.

The farther he got into the complex, the quieter and less messy the firefight became.  Preventers hadn't penetrated quite this far, and Duo slowed his own pace in response, rounding corners carefully with his weapon drawn and ready.  By the time he got to the small hallway that led to the office he'd laid all his bets on, Duo hadn't seen anyone from either side in at least five minutes.  Either they were in this room, or he'd missed them in his initial search and would have to double back.

The murmur of voices he heard as he approached the turn reassured him, relieved some of the tension in his shoulders, though he didn't relax his guard or his weapon.  Trowa's deep rumble was audible, though he couldn't make out the words, and he heard Anhil respond with something short and sharp.

Duo saw the exact moment Trowa's cover was blown.  The moment as he turned the corner, still unnoticed by the room's occupants, and watched as Merquise stepped efficiently through one of the three doors in the room with his weapon at the ready and sighted Trowa down the line.  Then he hesitated , a clear jerk as his gun fixed on the tall former-pilot, whose attention was a split second behind noticing the blond-haired man's entrance, and then it snapped away before coming back.  Trowa didn't notice, but Duo did. And so did Salome, who was positioned firmly behind and to the left of Trowa, taking advantage of the natural cover, with a gun in her hand.

Salome noticed Merquise's reaction, marked Duo's entrance to the room - when he was supposed to be at the compound, for fuck's sake - and Duo could see the quick and devious calculation behind her ice blue eyes.  

Duo felt the familiar spike of fear curl in his gut.

He turned, pointing his weapon at Merquise, because fuck him, that's why -

The blond-haired Preventer went down in a flurry of curses and a splatter of blood, and Duo glanced up in surprise to see Anhil swinging around from where he'd shot the other man to point his weapon at Duo before lowering it when he recognized him.

"What the fuck are you doin' here, Maxwell?" Anhil barked, but before Duo could answer, Salome huffed a delightfully murderous laugh.

"Oh, isn't it obvious?" The question was rhetorical, her eyes glinted with fury, and Duo knew he was fucked.  Knew Trowa was fucked too.

He'd always known he was probably going to die on an op, but he'd selfishly hoped he wouldn't take Trowa down with him.  Duo wondered with despair why he'd ever thought it wouldn't come to this. To Trowa's death and the fault firmly at Duo's feet.  

Her chin jerked, and Duo felt, a split-second later, the responding tug on his hair as the braid he'd worn for most of his life - first, proudly, and then with resignation - was unceremoniously yanked.  Duo held still, ignoring the burn along his scalp, and refusing to allow his head to be pulled backwards.

Duo threw a last gambit, playing fast and loose with the truth in the way only he could.  "Compound's overrun. Thought I could be more help here." He didn't look at Trowa as he said it, his eyes firmly on Salome.

"I find that very hard to believe, izmennik .  Put the gun down, very slowly, or I put a bullet in your lyubovnik , da ?"  She'd moved up behind the other man, and Duo couldn't see the gun anymore, which meant it was pointed very firmly at Trowa's back.  "You too, kotyenok ."

Duo held the gun up, both hands in a classic ‘I surrender' gesture, and visibly flicked the safety before leaning down to place it on the ground to his right.  Predictably, whoever had him from behind - and he was betting Matvei, given the viciousness of the gesture - put a boot in his knee to force him to a kneeling position.  It made his hair tear even more forcefully at his scalp, and the pain of it actually brought tears to his eyes that Duo had to blink away.

Fucking hair.

Fucking life.

Fucking fuck .

He met Trowa's eyes, finally.  The sound of the ongoing firefight raged around them, only mildly muffled by the walls, but for a moment, it all faded away as their gazes met.  Trowa's green gaze was almost relieved, resigned in a way that destroyed Duo's soul. Trowa tossed his gun aside, lazy and unconcerned, and too far out of reach when it landed.

Trowa had given up, accepted his fate.

Then Matvei yanked on his hair again, and Duo saw the flicker of rage behind green eyes that made Duo think there might be something there left for fighting too.  He blinked in rapid succession, and Trowa's eyes widened as he realized that Duo meant to do something, something incredibly dangerous and stupid, and he wasn't wrong.

Merquise was down for the count, making pained, wheezing noises twenty feet away.  Anhil was staring between Duo and Salome in confusion that was going to rapidly resolve into understanding at any moment.  If there was a golden opportunity for making a move, now was it. The idiocy of thinking that, because Duo didn't have his gun, he was unarmed - well, that was going to come back to bite them all in the ass.  If Duo was going to go out, it wasn't going to be on his knees execution-style. Duo was going out the same way he'd presumably come in - kicking, screaming and covered in someone else's blood.

He let his arms go loose by his sides, casual-like, and grinned his best smile at Salome.  The cold, dead one that probably still gave a handful of former Oz officers nightmares.

Everyone always went for the hair.  They always thought it was his weakest point, thought he was attached to it in some meaningful way.  And maybe he had been, ten years ago, when he'd been on a quest for vengeance and wore it as a tribute to the only kindness he'd ever known.  But in the intervening time, it had come to represent something else entirely. A distinguishing feature that allowed him to be something that Sister Helen would have abhorred, he figured.  She wouldn't, Duo knew, be proud of the things he'd done wearing his hair in the braid she'd made for him. The reminder he didn't deserve.

A flick of his wrists, and the knives sheathed to his forearms dropped into his hands and he was turning, slashing, the weight of his hair disappearing almost instantly thanks to the razor-sharp blade.  There were strands of it hanging in his face now, but Duo ignored them as he struck upwards. A quick glance confirmed his suspicion that Matvei had been the one to grab him, even as the other man stared in shock at the length of brown hair wrapped around his fist, and then at the blade embedded in his chest, just below his sternum, shoved up and under the bone.

Duo didn't even pause in his turn as Matvei crumpled to the ground, already dead though he didn't know it yet, and flung his remaining knife at Anhil.  Alessandra's favorite lieutenant had never been a stupid man, and he was already in the process of raising his gun to point at Duo. There was a shot, but no bullet struck him, and Duo's blade flew straight and true, to embed itself in the vulnerable edge of his thigh.  Non-lethal, Duo hoped, because he wasn't sure Trowa would forgive him for killing the guy, but he'd aimed for Anhil's still-weak right leg, and the other man collapsed as expected.

Rolling to the side, Duo came up with his gun in hand, safety off and pointed in Salome's general direction.

And realized where the gunshot he'd heard had originated.

Trowa was lying in a pool of his own blood, and Salome's blonde and pink curls were flying behind her as she dove through the open door at the far side of the room, the one that Anhil had been positioned in front of.  Territory they had already secured.

She was getting away .

Duo couldn't bring himself to give a fuck.  Instead, he scrambled across the empty space separating him from Trowa, sliding to his knees, gun still in his hand.  He dropped it in favor of reaching for Trowa, his other hand diving into his pocket for the little black button he'd been carrying ever since Trowa's post-coital confession.  Fuck it, fuck this, fuck everything .  He tapped the hidden button without even looking, the groove easy to find after weeks of nervously fiddling with it.  He tossed it aside, reaching instead for Trowa to put pressure on the bleeding wound in his gut, even though he knew he wouldn't manage to put a stop to this bleeding, even though he knew Trowa was bleeding just as much or more from the entrance wound in his back. He just wrapped his hands on top of one another and leaned .

"What the fuck, Barton, don't you fucking die on me, you goddamn asshole," Duo muttered, pressing harder, and Trowa groaned, blinking up at him blearily.

Duo nearly cried in relief.

But Trowa was pale, grey, and his stare was glassy in a way that Duo had seen too many times, on dead and dying men.

He reached up, fingering the strands of hair hanging around Duo's face in confusion.  

There was a commotion behind the door Salome had disappeared through, but Duo ignored it.  If he was going to die, he wanted to be looking at Trowa when it happened. If Trowa died, Duo didn't want him to do it alone.

"What in the fuck have you done to your hair, zvezda ?"

Duo choked back a sob as the pool of blood he was kneeling in spread, and Trowa's hand on his face grew slack.

Chapter 11

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