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"Without Virtue"Written By: Clara Barton 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: Drama, angst, Character Death, violence,
gore, language, drug use, language, yaoi sex, het sex, language, AU Pairings: 2xSolo, 6x3, 1x2x3, 5xM, 5x H, 4x S,
4x R, 13x 6, 13x?, probably a few more as well. Summary: "When virtue has slept it arises invigorated." - Nietzsche. A darktale of violence, lust, and vengeance in a city without justice.
" Without Virtue"
Ken Tsubarov liked to screw underage girls doped out of the minds. As the City Treasurer he wasn't as visible as the Mayor, the City Manager, or even the City Council members, and Tsubarov certainly took advantage of his relative lack of fame to frequent his favorite brothels and opium dens whenever possible. It made him as predictable as it made him disgusting, and it took almost no effort for Heero Yuy to plan the vile man's assassination. It the grand scheme of things, Tsubarov's death was little more than a message to his owners – to the rest of the Romefeller Foundation – because no sooner would his body be placed under ground than a new, perhaps even more vile and perverted villain would be appointed to fill his position in the Sanc government. But he was on the list, and it was Heero's mission to kill everyone on that list, and so he followed Tsubarov into L1 late one night and waited for him to go up to his usual room at his usual brothel. He waited until the girls had finished their job and left the old man to lounge, naked and content, on the filthy mattress stained from his activities. Heero had learned early on not to judge his marks – it was a lesson Odin Lowe, his mentor, had pounded into his head until Heero could completely disassociate himself from the task of ending the life of another human being. Still, there were times, like now, when he didn't bother to divorce his disgust from his need to do his job. Tsubarov was a bad man, and when Heero, camped on a rooftop a quarter mile away, pulled the trigger on his high powered sniper rifle, it was with relish that he looked through the scope and saw his head explode in a shower of red. It wouldn't take long for Tsubarov's security personnel to find his body, and Heero needed to be as far away from this location as possible when that happened. Since Tsubarov was someone that the police cared about, they would no doubt immediately shut down the area and look for his killer. In an effort to split their focus, Heero had planted explosive charges at a meth lab in the Core. He checked his watch after packing up the rifle and clearing the rooftop. Any second now… Sure enough, there was a resounding boom and a plume of smoke and fire off to his right. Smirking, Heero packed the deconstructed rifle into the small carry compartment on his motorcycle and strapped on his helmet. He was just about to put the bike in gear when he remembered that he was out of milk and cookies. He cursed silently. There was no way he could risk going into a grocery store and being caught on a surveillance camera tonight – it would be one of the first things the cops reviewed, and his face was unfamiliar enough to spark the interest of any cop with two spare brain cells. Then again, Heero was convinced that none of the cops in Sanc had one, let alone two, spare brain cells. OZ and Romefeller didn't pay them to be smart – they paid them not to ask questions. With a sigh, Heero decided that he would have to leave the quarter, just in case, and travel to L2 and grab his traditional pre-bed snack. He was a grown man, and he knew it was a little ridiculous to hold onto the habit, but for as long as he could remember Heero had always had a glass of milk and a handful of cookies before brushing his teeth and going to bed each night. It was a habit that Odin had initially encouraged and later laughed at. But it was the one normal thing about Heero's life, and he'd be damned if, after a night of decent work, he couldn't go out and just buy a bottle of milk and a package of cookies.
Heero didn't like to venture too far into L2 territory unless it was for work, and even then he made an effort to keep a low profile and stay off the grid of the local gangs and the strange justice system that L2 had crafted for itself. He pulled off the highway loop into a convenience store just barely in the L2 quarter, alarmed his bike, and cautiously walked inside. An old man in a gaudy Hawaiian print shirt manned the cash register, and two juvenile boys were at the back of the store, ogling pornographic magazines. He quickly located the drink freezers at the back of the store and headed in that direction. Heero stared at the dairy freezer in disgust. Nothing was organic, and everything was at least twice as expensive as it would have been in L1. Eventually, he opened the door and grabbed a quart of whole milk in a glass bottle, thankful that, at the very least, it wasn't in a plastic container. He turned to find the cookie aisle just as another customer entered the store. Unobtrusively, Heero looked him over. He was about Heero's height, lean and muscled, with a long braid of brown hair and a relaxed, open smile on his face. He was wearing black clothes – black shirt and pants with an open black leather jacket over them – and even though Heero couldn't see the bulge of any weapons, there was something about the man that set off warning bells in his head. He mentally marked him down as a potential threat before moving on to the cookie aisle. "What's up Howie?" The man asked and casually leaned against the front checkout counter. "Missed you today, Duo," the cashier replied. "Ah, you know me, I'm not a fan of crowds. I'll go by the cemetery tomorrow, pay my respects." "What are you doing out this late?" The cashier asked. "I thought you were off rotation this month." Duo shrugged one shoulder. "Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd come visit your ugly mug." The cashier nodded and then looked past Duo to the two punk kids rifling through the porn mags. "Don't get those pages sticky, you little shitheads!" He warned. Duo chuckled and glanced towards the kids before his gaze settled on Heero. He looked Heero over with the same intensity that Heero had first regarded him with before turning away with a frown. One of his hands drifted to the pocket of his jacket, the move and pose casual, but it was a clear signal to Heero that Duo had recognized a potential threat and was making a statement. Heero rolled his eyes. These L2 street thugs were all the same – posturing for territory and so embroiled with killing each other off that they couldn't even be bothered to realize that the entire city was going to shit around them. Duo slowly moved down the aisles, until he was on the aisle opposite Heero. He picked out a candy bar and ripped it open with his teeth. He took a large bite and regarded Heero with narrowed, indigo eyes. "You lost there, friend?" Duo asked, absolutely nothing friendly about his tone. "Just buying groceries," Heero muttered. "Don't the stores in L1 stay open this late?" Duo asked, and Heero was a little impressed that he could place his accent so quickly. If he hadn't been on the job tonight – if he hadn't wanted to avoid any detection – he might have taken this opportunity to teach this thug a few lessons in politeness. But now wasn't the time. Before Heero could formulate a decent comeback, the door to the store banged open and four men in black ski masks walked in brandishing guns. "Shit," he heard Duo mutter before he tossed the candy bar away and started walking towards the men. One of them spotted Duo instantly and directed his gun at the braided man. "Hands up, faggot!" The man yelled. Duo grinned, but it was a twisted, feral expression that moved him from a potential threat to incredibly dangerous in Heero's head. Duo held his hands up, but positioned his fingers so that only the middle ones were up, while the rest formed fists. "You fucking –" the man started to charge towards Duo, but one of his companions pulled him back. "Cool it, dipshit," the other man instructed before turning to the cashier. "Money, now." The cashier regarded the masked men with disdain and made no move to reach for his cash drawer. One of the thugs cocked his gun and placed it against the cashier's temple. Duo strode forward, completely unconcerned when one of the thugs started yelling at him. Heero took the opportunity to set down his milk and unobtrusively draw a gun. He looked around, grateful that in L2 there were hardly any working security cameras. "Stop or I'll fucking shoot you!" The angry thug screamed at Duo. "You'd fucking better shoot me," the braided man shouted back just before he launched himself forward, and Heero saw the silver glint of a knife just a second before it disappeared in the thug's neck. Duo grabbed the gun from his hands before the body even hit the floor and trained it on the man intimidating the cashier. "Put your gun down," Duo ordered in a quiet, deadly voice. The other two thugs turned their guns on Duo. "You're outnumbered," the leader pointed out before digging the gun deeper into the cashier's skull. "So why don't you put your gun down and step away before my friends kill you." Duo sneered, but kept the gun steady. Heero thought through all of the possible ways this scenario could play out. Already one thug was down. If Duo caused any more trouble, they might decide to kill everyone in the store. So Heero had two options: pull a gun on the thugs and help Duo; or pull a gun on Duo and help the thugs speed up this process. He was leaning towards the latter, because it was the safest and quickest way for him to get the hell out of this place and never come back. But then one of the boys at the back of the store panicked and made a run for the door. One of the thugs started to unload the entire clip of his submachine gun, spraying the boy's body with bullets and arcing his aim far enough that Heero felt the burn of a bullet passing through his side. Duo took the opportunity to shoot the leader in the head before turning his gun on one of the remaining two thugs. Without conscious thought, Heero aimed for the other. "Get the fuck out of here right now," Duo growled, "or I swear to God I'll show you a side of L2 justice you've only ever had nightmares about." The wild look in Duo's eyes, combined with two guns trained on them, seemed to have the desired effect. They started to walk away, but Duo turned his gun on the one that had killed the kid. "Not you, mother fucker," Duo said. "You're about to make some new friends." "But you said –" he started to speak and Duo lashed out, kicking him in the groin. "I was speaking to this asshole," Duo snapped, "the one who hasn't yet signed his own death warrant. The one who needs to get a fucking move on it." Not needing to be told twice, the thug fled, abandoning his partner without a word of protest. "Call Robby, he's on rotation this month," Duo instructed Howard. He kicked the thug again, this time delivering a blow to his right knee that sent him sprawling to the floor. Duo put a booted foot on his throat and kept his gun steady on his head. "Alex," Duo said, speaking in a tone that sounded soothing. "Alex, I need you to check Mike's throat for a pulse." He was speaking to the last kid, still at the porn rack, now openly crying. "Alex," Duo repeated. "You gotta look out for your bro, man. You gotta check his pulse for me." It looked like the boy was in no state to breathe, much less check the undoubtedly dead body of his friend. Heero started forward, but Duo's gun was up and trained on him in a heartbeat. "You stay exactly where you are," Duo ordered. "Don't fucking move and keep that gun where I can see it." Heero found it interesting that Duo didn't order him to toss the weapon. He allowed it to fall loosely around his index finger, but Duo kept his gun trained on Heero. "Alex. Pull it together, buddy." There was a hint of steel to his voice now, and the boy was finally galvanized into action. Heero couldn't see him over the aisle as he crouched down and checked the body, but he could certainly hear his choked sobs. "He's not… he's not…" "Okay. It's okay, Alex. You did good, man. Now I gotta ask you one more favor, then you're done, okay?" Alex stood and ran a hand over his face, wiping at drool and snot. "Mike's Dad is gonna be over at the bar on 9th, right?" Alex nodded. "You gotta go get him. Tell him to get his brothers and to get here as soon as he can, okay? You don't have to tell him anything else," Duo quickly added when Alex looked panicked. "Can you do that for me, buddy?" Duo asked. Alex nodded jerkily. "Good. Get going." Alex took off without another word, running out of the store and out of sight. "Robby's on his way," the cashier said into the silence after Alex's departure. "Good." Duo stomped down on the thug's throat, presumably in retaliation for him trying to move, and Heero heard the man groan in pain. Duo repeated the motion a few more times, a vicious snarl on his face, before he speared Heero with his gaze. "Now, friend, our introductions were cut short. Who are you and why are you in my quarter?" Heero looked between the cashier and Duo. The cashier looked just as interested in Heero's answer as the man who had asked the question. "Heero Yuy," he said after a brief mental debate. He didn't often give out his real name, but something told him that honesty was absolutely the best policy when dealing with this man. "I ran out of milk and cookies." Duo looked at him in disbelief, but the cashier gave a cackle of a laugh. "They ain't got those in L1?" The cashier demanded. "I didn't want the attention." Duo's eyes narrowed. "Hey, Howie, you catch that news story about those meth labs getting blown up in the Core earlier tonight?" Even though he was speaking to the cashier, Duo's eyes never left Heero's. "Yeah, I saw it on the scroll," the cashier responded. "Don't know how it would affect the milk and cookies in L1 though," he added. Duo grinned at that, but slowly lowered his gun so that he was pointing it back at the thug under his feet. "Maybe you should learn to go without midnight snacks in the future," Duo told him. "Habit," Heero responded while he put his own gun away and reached for the milk and cookies. There was a sudden rush of activity at the door that had Heero pulling it back out, however, as six men filled the entrance to the store. Two guns immediately focused on Heero. "Whoa, whoa, it's cool, Robby – Tracy! He's with me." Duo shouted at the two men with guns. Reluctantly, they put the weapons away and surveyed the bloody carnage at the front of the store. "Jesus fuck, Maxwell. What the hell did you do now?" One of them asked. Duo shrugged. "Alex told me you needed me, Duo," another man pushed his way to the front. "You know I'm off rotation this month." Duo nodded solemnly. "It's Mike. He's…" But the man had clearly seen his son's body. He pushed past Duo and disappeared from Heero's view. "He the one that did it?" One of the other men asked. All of them bore a faint resemblance to the man now weeping openly on the floor. "Yeah," Duo said and kicked the thug on the floor one last time for good measure. "But he ain't a local." Robby and Tracy scowled at that. "Where's he from, then?" One of them demanded. "Dunno," Duo said. He looked over at Heero. "Any ideas, hot shot?" Heero put away his gun, feeling stupid, and finally approached the two bodies at the front of the store. "Check for tats," he offered. This close, he could see several nearly healed cuts around Duo's mouth. Duo nodded in agreement and knelt down to jerk off the mask on the thug under his foot and then ripped open his shirt. "Fuck me," Duo muttered. "Any of you recognize this?" Tattooed on the man's right pectoral muscle was a circle with three dots above an M. Heero shook his head, as did the other men. "'Fraid he's not going to be doing too much talking," Duo said after a moment and finally removed his foot from the man's throat. He rolled away, gasping for air and making strange, choking noises. "It's okay. We don't need to hear him talk while we kill him," one of the men assured Duo. They pulled the thug to his feet and dragged him from the store. Duo looked over at Heero and frowned suddenly. Heero followed his gaze and saw that he had bled through his t-shirt. He instinctively covered the wound with one hand. "You need my help with any of this, Robby?" Duo asked one of the men. He shook his head. "Nah, get out of here. I'll take care of the clean up – but come by soon so I can get the report taken care of." "Will do." Duo turned to Heero. "C'mon, buddy," he said. Heero scowled at him, unsure what the invitation indicated. Duo rolled his eyes. "Howie, put his damn milk and the cookies on my account, will ya?" He asked the cashier. "Sure thing, Duo!" "Now, c'mon," Duo said again and started to walk from the store. Not entirely sure why, Heero followed him. "That your bike?" Duo asked once they were outside. "Yeah." "Think you can ride it?" Heero frowned and took a deep breath. It didn't feel as if the bullet had hit anything vital, but he was feeling extremely light headed. That said, this was L2 – he doubted that his bike would be safe for an hour on these streets unattended. Duo rolled his eyes again and opened the door to the store. "We're leaving my buddy's bike here for the night," he shouted inside. "Keep an eye on it." He turned back to Heero. "No one will touch it," he promised before reaching out and grabbing the milk and cookies from Heero's grasp. "Now let's get you somewhere so I can look at that bullet hole in ya." Heero frowned as Duo started to walk away. "Why are you doing this?" he had to ask. Duo gave him a crooked grin. "I'm out of milk and cookies too," he said with a chuckle. Heero decided that the man was a lunatic, and he definitely didn't appreciate being made fun of. All the same… he had bled for that milk and those cookies. He wasn't about to let some asshole just walk off with them. Angrily, Heero started to follow Duo deeper into L2.
It turned out that the braided menace lived in the abandoned, burnt out shell of a church. From the outside the place looked like a disaster zone – charred timber and soot covered stone barely standing – but as Heero followed Duo up a set of steel reinforced stairs he realized that it was all a cover. Duo opened a door at the top of the stairs and ushered Heero into what could only be described as an alternate reality. The dirt and poverty of L2, the remains of the church – all of those were blocked out by high end brushed aluminum walls, a spotless wooden floor, and enough high tech gadgetry that Heero's fingers involuntarily reached out to the nearest control panel on one wall. With a smirk, Duo slapped his hand away. "No touching until you've been house trained," Duo said with a warning in his voice. His words and tone irritated Heero, but they couldn't overcome his sense of wonder at all of this. Who was this lunatic and just how had he managed to purchase this gear, install it, and keep it a secret? Which led Heero to a far more disturbing question – why did Duo trust him enough to bring him here? Heero started to reach for his gun, but Duo had a knife out and resting against his throat before he could complete the gesture. "Nuh-uh. You're injured, buddy. Here, I'll just hold onto that for you." Duo pulled the gun out of his holster and then gave him a thorough pat down, taking Heero's other two guns and his three hold out knives. The only thing Duo didn't take was the pen in Heero's pocket, and he was grateful for that small oversight. If it came down to it, Heero was more than prepared to kill the other man with that as his only weapon. Duo put the weapons on a side table and gestured for Heero to sit at the low bench beside what had to serve as his kitchen table. "Take off your shirt," Duo instructed as he pulled off his jacket and revealed the dual shoulder holsters and the two Five-SeveNs they held. Heero gingerly followed Duo's orders, less because it was an order and more because it was the logical course of action for treating his wound. "Not too bad," Duo remarked as he looked over Heero's chest. He walked over to a row of cabinets, sink, and refrigerator and pulled a clean towel from a drawer and ran it under the water. He came back, but instead of handing it to Heero he knelt down and started to clean the wound himself, probing gently at the area and even looking apologetic when Heero gave a hiss of pain. "I could pull one of your guns right now and shoot you in the head," Heero mused absently and realized he really had lost a fair amount of blood if he was chatting about killing someone. Duo smiled lopsidedly. "Probably," he agreed before reaching around to Heero's back. "Good news is it's through and through. Bad news is… you've lost a shit ton of blood." "It didn't hit anything vital," Heero added. Duo arched an eyebrow. "Are you a doctor?" "No, but I know enough about anatomy to know that I'll be fine." Duo shrugged. "Probably," he said again before rising to his feet. Heero watched as he tossed the bloody towel into his empty sink and lit it on fire before rooting around for a first aid kit. As Duo patched him up, Heero stared at the flames, mesmerized and baffled. "You're burning the evidence." "Unless you want to keep it as a souvenir?" Duo offered but made no move to rise from where he sat in front of Heero, patiently and meticulously stitching up the bullet wound. "Those are good," Heero couldn't help but comment as he noticed how small and even the stitches were. "Yeah, I guess I can play doctor a little bit too," Duo agreed. It was another half hour before Duo finished stitching up his front and back and put bandages over the wounds. The braided man sat back on his heels and nodded at his handiwork. "Should heal pretty cleanly." "You've had experience with this type of injury before." On occasion, Heero had been forced to stitch his own wounds, but he had never been able to manage the precision or patience that Duo had just demonstrated. He was willing to bet that the other man had plenty of experience – and likely not on himself. "Friend of mind liked to get filled with lead on occasion," Duo said with a careless shrug. He picked up Heero's discarded shirt. "Want me to wash this for you?" He asked. Heero frowned. "Why the hell are you doing this?" "One good turn deserves another, don't it?" Duo asked lightly. Yet Heero was confident it was more than that. L2 had some crazy ideas about justice, but inviting a stranger into your very high-tech, very illegal home wasn't covered in any code Heero knew about. "Why'd you blow up those meth labs in the Core?" Duo asked. Heero scowled at the question. He still didn't understand how Duo had managed to make that connection so fast, but Duo already knew far more about him than almost anyone else alive. It was dangerous. Duo sighed and took Heero's shirt over to his washing machine, threw it in, and started it. He turned around and looked at Heero for a long moment. "I've seen you before," he finally said. "I recognized your face, back at the store." That had Heero tense and anxiously reaching into his pocket for the pen. "Last May Day at the memorial park – there were a bunch of speakers and one of them, Jay Null, was almost killed. Guess a sniper was targeting him or something? Then out of nowhere this guy rushes the stage and saves the old man's life, pushes him down just in time. That guy was you." Heero closed his eyes. It would have been one thing if Duo recognized him from a hit – but the fact that Duo remembered him from that – from the one time that he had directly disobeyed Odin's orders… not only was it dangerous but it was also humiliating. "So I'm just wondering… what line of work are you in that has you saving old guys one day and blowing up meth labs the next?" "Saving Jay wasn't a job. Killing him was. My boss was the sniper and I went against the mission and saved Jay's life instead." Duo arched an eyebrow. "Why?" "Jay Null was one of five men who worked to create the modern infrastructure of Sanc." "Okay…" "He knows everything about the electrical grid, the sewer systems, the roads, the internet – all of it." Duo frowned. "Really?" "He and the others, yes." "So why was he going to be killed in the first place?" "He sold out. To the Barton Foundation. He planned to assist them in a bid for power. Our job was to stop that from happening. I… thought Romefeller could use some friendly competition instead." Duo's eyes crinkled in what Heero could only assume was genuine mirth. "I like the way you think, Heero Yuy," he said with a shake of his head. "I'm not sure that's a compliment," Heero muttered before he could stop himself. Duo actually laughed at that, a deep baritone chuckle so infectious that Heero had to fight to keep a straight face. Duo walked back to the kitchen and regarded the milk and cookies he had left on the counter. He pulled two glasses from a cabinet and split the milk between them. He walked back to the table and set the milk and cookies between them and sat down opposite Heero. "So, this meth lab… you got something against drugs or dealers?" "Romefeller and OZ," Heero answered after taking a sip of the milk. Duo nodded. "Yeah, I know how that feels." Heero looked around the room again. "Is that what all of this is for?" he asked. Duo grinned. "This? Nah. I just like to play video games and stuff." "You're a terrible liar," Heero muttered. Duo shrugged one shoulder. "Yeah, but I'm still not sure I can trust you – after all, you've spent all this time thinking of ways to kill me with that damn pen in your pocket, haven't you?" Heero scowled, which only made Duo chuckle. "Relax, buddy, if I was you I'd be doing the same." "So you aren't planning on killing me?" Heero asked. He could tell that Duo would be a tough fight, especially in his current condition, but Heero was almost confident he could take him down. "Not so much. You're too interesting to just kill off. 'Sides, if you spend all your time going around blowing up shit because you're mad at OZ and Romefeller then that almost makes you a friend of mine." "I'm not sure that I want you for a friend," Heero muttered. "Me either," Duo agreed, and any trace of humor left his face. For just a moment, he looked completely and utterly lost, a hopeless tinge to his strangely colored eyes and a downward pull to the curve of his lips that looked unnatural. Slowly, Heero reached across the table and opened the package of cookies. The movement seemed to shake Duo out of whatever dark mood he had fallen under. He took a few cookies for himself and munched on them quietly. "You ever wonder what this city could be like, without OZ and Romefeller and Barton?" Duo asked idly. "No," Heero answered bluntly. "There will always be an OZ or a Romefeller or a Barton. Humanity…" "Is full of humans," Duo finished for him. Heero nodded in agreement, grateful that Duo had immediately understood what he was trying to say. "Yeah," Duo said with a sigh. He finished off his glass of milk and returned it to the sink. Heero decided that now was the time to make his move – Duo seemed distracted and had his back turned to him. Silently and quickly, he rose from the table and closed the distance between himself and Duo and shoved the pen against the other man's jugular from behind with one hand and using his other to pull one of Duo's guns. As soon as he had the weapon, Heero started to back away, the gun trained on Duo as the braided man slowly turned around, both of his hands up and a look of amusement on his face. "I guess you don't want to have a sleepover, then?" Duo asked. Heero stared at him, thrown by the indifference the other man showed to having a gun drawn on him. "You probably shouldn't walk around L2 this time of night without a shirt on," Duo said and laced his hands together behind his head and leaned back against the counter. Heero frowned. He hadn't considered that. "Top drawer on the right," Duo instructed with a nod. Cautiously, Heero backed towards the drawer and eased it open, half expecting some kind of trap, but the drawer was full of neatly folded button up shirts. As he pulled one of the shirts on, Duo started to chuckle. "What?" Heero asked defensively. "Nothing, nothing. Sorry. Just thinking… this time last week I was on the other end of one of these things… funny how life twists everything around." Heero decided that the man was definitely mentally unstable. He walked towards the door and collected his weapons, carefully putting them back in place. "Just leave my gun there, would ya?" Duo asked with a friendly smile. "No, I think I'd like a souvenir after all," Heero told him. The smile left Duo's face and he started forward just as Heero slammed the door closed and took off at a sprint. He expected to hear Duo's footsteps pounding down the stairs after him, but there was silence. Still, he constantly looked over his shoulder as he made his way back to the convenience station. His bike was, as promised, completely untouched. Heero started it up and rode away, vowing not to return to L2 for as long as he could.
He was almost late for work the next morning, arriving just as the digital clock in his office turned to nine. At five after nine, the phone at his desk rang. "Heero Yuy," he answered immediately. "My office. Now." Heero hung up the phone and stood up from his desk. He tapped a few buttons of the keyboard of his computer, engaging the screensaver and locking down the hard drive from external attack. He straightened his tie, made sure his glasses were evenly balanced on his nose, and made a feeble attempt to brush his unruly hair back from his forehead. Drawing a deep breath, he opened the door to his office and strode confidently down the hall to the door marked ' City IT Administrator' and below that a smaller sign 'Odin Lowe', and knocked briskly. "Enter," a deep voice called out. Heero opened the door and then closed it behind himself. He stepped forward and stood in front of the broad desk and met the eyes of the man behind it. "Your mission went according to plan." It wasn't a question, so Heero didn't bother to respond. "Yet you failed to check in after eliminating the mark." Heero bowed his head. "Yes sir," he agreed. "No excuses?" "None, sir." "If you aren't prepared to –" "I am prepared," Heero interrupted angrily. "I fulfilled the mission and I left the target site without incident. I am prepared." He held the dark blue gaze of the man behind the desk, refusing to flinch or look away. "Collateral?" Odin asked after a moment. Heero shook his head without hesitation. There had been no collateral damage at the site of Tsubarov's execution, and Odin certainly wasn't interested in knowing whether or not Heero had sustained any injuries. Of course, Odin would definitely be curious about Duo Maxwell and the strange hideout he lived in. But Duo was right - one good turn deserved another. "None," he clarified when Odin continued to hold his gaze. "Very well. Your next assignment." A file folder was shoved forward on the desk, and Heero picked it up. He flipped open the folder, revealing a single strip of paper, no larger than the fortune inside a Chinese cookie. "Zayeed Winner," he murmured and then frowned. "He isn't on the list." "You said you were prepared. Perhaps you were mistaken?" A hand reached out for the folder. "No, sir, I'm prepared. I just… don't understand." "Your job isn't to understand, your job is to eliminate the marks you are assigned. Some of those marks are on our list. Some are for financial gain." Which meant that either OZ or Romefeller had put a hit out for Zayeed Winner's life. Heero put the file back on the desk but held onto the small strip of paper, putting it into his pocket before turning to leave. "Heero." He stopped, but didn't bother to turn around. He recognized that tone of voice all too well. "Don't let me down, son." "Yes, father."
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