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"The Darkest Reflection"Written By: Impish Rating: strong R Pairings: main 1+2+1, background 2+3, OFC+5 and
4+3 Category: Duo POV with angst, action, drama and
politics. Warnings: creepiness, more graphic images and
gore Summery: The earth sphere has moved on into an
age of peace, but Duo is fighting battles of his own. He has reluctantly
joined the Preventers, and is surprised to see Heero sign up as well.
With an assassin on the loose and an increase in suspicious activity,
he’s beginning to realize the fine line between genius and insanity,
and how easily it can be erased. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. Surprise!
And none of the songs or titles belong to me, either.
Chapter 3: Something Vague
I was a good twenty minutes early to work this time, Alice informing me that I had a meeting with Une as soon as my official shift began. There were two other agents waiting at the elevator this morning, one of whom I had turned down for partnership, and the other was Sally Po’s cousin. The first was Clov Finn, brother to the stern and self-important Hamm. He was an arrogant sonuvabitch who preached anything Relena had ever said like it was Gospel. Being around the guy for too long tried my patience like nothing else could. I thought even Relena would dislike him, and he thought I didn’t appreciate her infinite wisdom. The irony of his worship did not escape me, and I don’t think it had occurred to him that I might actually know her. Ren Daiyu, on the other hand, was a dear accomplice of mine. Her facial features were similar enough to Sally’s that you could tell they were related, but she was more on the petite side than her taller cousin. Her dark chocolate hair was in a high pony tail as usual. She had a calm, lady-like demeanor and a diminutive, china-doll appearance that served to subdue people into a false sense of security, at which point she performed an impressive number of horrible and outlandish pranks on them. The one person she would never dare practice her mischief on was Wufei, as she was half in love with the man. Go figure. Anyways, as I had been on the receiving end of her jokes more than once, I never failed to take the opportunity in teasing her about her crush. She makes it way too easy for me sometimes. Daiyu noticed my approaching presence just as the elevator doors opened to receive us. “Duo! I feel like we haven’t seen each other in so long!” She gave me a sweet smile and a light, friendly hug. The girl was fond of pretending that she was delicate enough to break if you dropped her, but she could probably take a competitive bodybuilder in an arm wrestling contest. “I heard half your team was put out of commission on your last run. Are you all right?” She asked politely, but not without genuine concern. Her finely slanted eyes studied me with sisterly care. “Yeah, I’m fit for fighting. You just got in from Brazil, right?” I leaned against the mirrored wall of the elevator with an air of levity. Clov watched the both of us in the reflection. And he thought he was subtle. “Yes, just yesterday afternoon.” She said courteously. “I wanted to ask you if that rumor about you getting a Gundam Pilot as a partner was true.” She added, sincerely curious. Clov stopped pretending like he wasn’t listening to the conversation and stared at me acutely without the use of the mirrored wall. His explanation to anyone who would believe him as to why we hadn’t partnered had been lame at best. He actually said that he was “too experienced” for me. Must have got that page from his big brother’s book. Fucking moron. “Yup. Zero One.” I said slyly. “Remind me to introduce you, Daiyu.” I added lightly, indulging myself in the childish urge to just to piss Clov off. The elevator came to a halt, and Clov stalked off in an irate storm cloud, leaving me to give Daiyu an amused glance, which she returned with a subtle smile. “Caffeine?” I asked, gesturing with my head to the break room. She had been in Brazil for about a month, so she was probably still in the wrong time zone. “Coffee would be lovely.” She acquiesced. I grinned at her and tossed an arm around her shoulders, rambling about recent happenings of no importance or consequence on the way to the awaiting caffeine and sugar. Upon entering the break room, we found that Heero, Elise, and an obnoxious low-level agent named Julie Michelson already occupied the room. I really didn’t like Julie Michelson. She was brunette and pretty in a made-up way, and had this terribly purposeful habit of flipping her long bangs out of her eyes. She was very good at putting on as if she were smart when she needed, which is probably how she got a job here, but the extent of her knowledge was repeating something intelligent she’d heard someone else say in different words. Let me put it this way… if she were a goldfish, she’d need swimmies. At the moment, Julie was busy spitting out her coffee. “Ugh, who made this? It’s terrible!” She made a face she probably thought was adorably pouty, but actually translated closer to an angry Chihuahua sucking on a lemon. Elise rolled her eyes in utter exasperation, and muttered despairingly around her own cup, “I just poured a cup and just warned you that it wasn’t any good.” Heero smirked from his position across from her at the table. Apparently, he had tried some of the insufferable coffee as well, judging by the untouched Styrofoam cup at his elbow. “I see you’re all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, children.” I quipped, making my way to the oh-so-unbearable coffee. “Morning Eli, Yuy.” I nodded in greeting at each of them, doing my best to completely ignore Julie. If I encouraged her at all… I might be forced to actually have a conversation with her. “I see you’ve met Elise, Heero. That’s Ren Daiyu.” I jerked my thumb at her while I poured my coffee. “She’s Sally Po’s cousin, and she wants to screw Wufei.” “Duo!” She gasped in momentary horror. My car is so going to pay for that. “Coffee?” I offered, all innocence. She narrowed her eyes at me. Whatever she was plotting, it was going to be painful. “Half a cup. If the coffee’s really that bad, I think I’ll chance clogging my arteries with cream.” She said sweetly, and gracefully sat, taking the offering of coffee as temporary payment in place of the eternal suffering of my soul. “Coming up!” I exclaimed with gusto, pouring hers first, and then mine black. I handed Daiyu her cup settled down at the table next to Elise in order to avoid Julie, who had sat strategically next to Heero. “Catch Sandman, yet?” I asked Elise as a conversation starter. “Nope, not yet.” She responded absently as she dumped half the sugar into her coffee. Heero added another half-and-half to his cup, stirring it half-heartedly with a couple of those crappy little straws. “Sandman’s resurfaced?” He asked, curiosity coloring his voice. That woke Elise up. “What do you know about Sandman?” She asked quickly. He shrugged. “The same as anyone else; practically nothing.” She pursed her lips and muttered a mild curse. She looked frustrated and exhausted. I gave her a sympathetic sideways look and chugged my coffee in one long gulp. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I instructed absently as I stood and poured myself another cup. Elise cringed just watching the sludge pour out of the pot. I didn’t sit after drinking it down, and just poured myself more. “Duo, I think if you drink any more coffee, you’re going to need a filter instead of a heart.” Elise intoned unenthusiastically, setting her own drink down and shoving it away. The noise Daiyu made was the closest to genteel a snicker could have been. “Yeah, how do you even sleep at night?” Julie asked. I winced when she flipped her bangs. She had to have a terribly empty feeling… in her skull. “Come on, Eli, sleep is just a symptom of caffeine deprivation!” I joked with much more enthusiasm than she had managed, and checked the clock on the wall. “We should head upstairs, Yuy.” He lobbed his barely-touched coffee into the garbage, and I tossed my empty cup in behind it. He nodded to the ladies in farewell, and I waved back at them on the way out. Sandy glanced up from her impeccably tidy and zealously
ordered desk outside of Une’s office. “Good morning Agents
Yuy, Maxwell. The commander is waiting.” We entered Une’s office, finding Colette and Marcos already there, along with a new guy I had never seen before. He was wearing a uniform, and looked fresh out of the training program, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. His hair was spiked and bleached at the ends, giving him the appearance of one who might be a fan of loud and satisfyingly raucous music. He was seated in an extra chair that had been pulled from the wall, as Colette and Marcos were already seated in the two chairs in front of the desk where Une sat. The commander’s hands were folded placidly, her face unreadable. There were no more chairs, so I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, and Heero took his place next to me. “Special Agents Yuy and Maxwell, this is Agent Greg Burns. He is your replacement on the team, Maxwell.” I could only imagine what this guy was thinking, being fresh out of training, to find the guy whose spot he was filling was at least three years younger than he was. “You and Yuy are being placed on another case shortly and the team will be carrying this one to completion. I want Burns to hear the theories that I’m sure you have in the irregularities you all experienced in France.” Irregularities. That was mild. I didn’t wait for Heero’s newfound speaking skills to kick in. “They had armed men and an escape plan. They knew we were coming.” I said bluntly, crossing my legs and arms casually. “Only the teams with Preventer agents came across problems. The agents who infiltrated didn’t run into anything like that, so the suspects never knew we went after that information. The locals didn’t know about that part of the mission, either. So either the locals have a leak, or they were involved to begin with.” “What would the locals have to gain by alerting the suspects? And why would the suspects not just run when they were warned in the first place, before the Preventers were even called in?” The new agent pointed out. At least I wasn’t getting replaced by a complete dumbass. “Why call in the Preventers at all?” Heero asked quietly. There was a momentary silence. “It may be that their primary target was the Preventers, but that supposition leads us to even more questions.” Marcos quietly pointed out. “If that was the case, then was it a particular agent, or the entire organization that they were after? It doesn’t make much sense to attack the entirety of the Preventers on such a small scale.” “I can’t imagine how they would know which agents I would send.” Une said, shaking her head. “That part of the country has never been much of a problem. I don’t understand why the locals would have any sort of grievance with the Preventers. We’ve never really had to go into the area before.” Colette added. “You might be able to answer a great deal of these questions by reviewing the information Yuy and I retrieved in the first phase of the assignment.” I pointed out. Une shook her head. “It was a bust. The data erased itself the second we looked at it. You two will remain available for input. The team will keep you informed on a need-to-know basis. Escobar, le Fevre and Burns, you are dismissed.” When the door was closed behind them, Une looked carefully through the papers on her desk, and vaguely gestured to the chairs before her. “Have a seat.” Not in the mood to play games this morning, I plopped down in the one closest to me and furthest from the door, and propped a shoe on my knee. Heero took the other chair with much less personality. Une finished shuffling and looked up at us. “From the reports supplied, you both acted extremely well during the assignment despite the unexpected elements. I am pleased with your work, even if the case did not end as smoothly as might have been predicted.” She closed the report and pushed it aside. “I’m issuing you an office and putting you on a new case immediately.” She pulled out a second folder. I rolled my eyes. “Strongly recommending” my ass. “There has been increased activity around an old base on the coast of Guatemala.” I stiffened immediately, my chin tilting down and my bangs shadowing my eyes. “It was abandoned by the Alliance when Oz took over, but never used after. You are to scope out the situation and find out what’s going on, and report back or act accordingly. Details are in the files.” She slid the folder across the desk to us. “You have two days to prep before flying over. You’re using Preventer transportation. Questions?” “Where’s the new digs?” I said, leaning all the way back in my chair, looking up at the ceiling. “612.” She closed the folder soundly. “You’re dismissed.” Heero took the folder and we left. We stopped by my old office I’d shared with the rest of the team, and Heero helped me carry my shit to the new room. He opened the door and we peered in over the top of our respective boxes. I looked around the underwhelmingly small space and dropped the box in my hands on one of the desks and sighed without reservation. “Oh well, I guess I should just be glad I’m not in a room the trainees could use for hazardous terrain training anymore.” Heero made a noise that I might have thought was a laugh, had it not came from Heero Yuy. I gave him a sideways glance. It was going to take me a while to get used to this… We spent the remainder of the morning burying ourselves in the file Une had given us and doing preliminary research for the upcoming assignment. At about noon, there was a knock on our new office door, and it was Wufei who entered, looking both distinguished and casual in his Preventer uniform in a way that only Chang Wufei can. “It’s good to see you again, Yuy. You are most welcome.” He bowed his head slightly in Heero’s direction. Heero smiled faintly at him. “Good to see you again as well, Chang.” Wufei then turned to me and inquired, “I trust you are well, Duo?” “What brings you to our closet?” I asked blithely, grinning at his politesse. “I was wondering if the two of you would like to join me for lunch. Nothing special, just down stairs.” Leave it to Wufei to extend a formal invitation to the cafeteria. “Ace!” I replied enthusiastically. “I gotta get out of this shoebox.” The cafeteria is more like college food than high school. By this, I mean that no one complains about the quality and there are plenty of options, so there’s pretty much always something for everyone. Today, the first thing I saw in the buffet was grilled cheese sandwiches, so that’s what I got. That and a coke, for one can never have too much caffeine. Unless you overdose, you might have had too much if you overdose. We sat in a table in a corner, and I let Wufei and Heero carry the conversation while I watched the people move behind them and toyed with my sandwich. They caught up a bit on times past, and Wufei mentioned his next case wasn’t going to require too much traveling. “Sally and I have another ongoing investigation. It’s not really in our range of expertise, however.” He said casually. I snapped to attention. Was he asking for Heero’s help? “There’s a hacker who’s been getting into the Preventer network and meddling. Calls himself ‘Poseidon.’ He never damages, takes, or even looks at anything of great importance. But he does get in, and rearranges things.” Heero shrugged. “Probably some fool teenager bragging to his friends that he gets into the network.” I quirked an eyebrow. Wufei, too proud to ask for help, especially after being told his perp was probably a tech-oriented schoolchild, switched the topic immediately to something inane I had no interest in following. A group of forensic scientists were sitting down by the windows, and the computer guys were already seated at their usual table. A cluster of low level agents that included Julie were a few tables down, a distance that they thought was out of earshot. “He is sooo hot!” One of them, a redhead, was saying. Grace Kynaston, I thought her name was. “Mmm, which one?” Julie asked with equal interest. Grace swooned. “Take your pick. It’s so unfair! How come when Duo finally gets another partner, it’s a new guy?” Oh, look at that. They’re talking about us. “I know! I mean, give the rest of us a shot at him!” I felt my cheeks go hot, and hoped they were referring to Heero. “Well, I think the new guy acts a lot like Barton. I guess Maxwell really does go for that type.” A new voice added, coming from an agent rather gossipy for a guy, Morrison. Julie gasped girlishly. “You don’t think that rumor’s true do you? I mean… that Duo and Trowa were…” Morrison snorted, sounding like his mouth was half-full of food. “Partners in work and play? Come on, doesn’t it make sense? I mean, why the hell else would Trowa leave so suddenly, and at the exact same time Duo was demoted? Une had to have found them out.” So people were still talking about that… interesting. “No way. There’re office romances all the time and no one’s left, or even gotten in trouble.” That was Grace again, who, surprisingly enough seemed to have a head on her shoulders, despite the many hours she spent around Julie. “Yeah, but it happened right after that mission. You know, the one where that girl died? Maybe Une thought whatever happened to make it go wrong had something to do with their… attachment.” “You’re still not making sense. Why would Une promote him again? And then partner him with a guy that looks like that, who is, according to you, his type?” Grace negated. “Yeah.” Julie chirped, her tone indicating how appealing she found the argument for us not to be together, then continued in the spirit of her usual brilliance. “Why would she set up the same situation again?” A new voice joined the group with the slam of tray on table. “Guess what I just heard.” I identified him as Agent Barberini. “That Duo Maxwell and Trowa Barton were in fact having a sizzling affair?” “Um, no. Dude, that’s so last year.” Is this place really nothing more than a glorified rumor mill? “Maxwell’s new partner, Agent Yuy, was Gundam Pilot 01.” Dumb question. I stopped listening then. Thankfully Elise and Luke had arrived to distract me, looking for an open space when Elise noticed Tony Driver in her shadow. An exasperated expression flew to her face as she frantically looked for escape. Tony was the Tech Supervisor, and he loved Elise. His feelings were not reciprocated. Not because he was bad looking or nerdy, but because he was a prick who thought he had game when all he had were terrible pick-up lines. Taking pity on her, I waved Elise and Luke over. Elise owed me big time. Once for the Sandman thing, and now for making me sit with her partner. Tony was terrified of Wufei because of his wartime reputation… not to mention that lipstick incident. She was safe with us. Relieved, the tall girl slid in next to me, with a quiet, “For the love of all I hold dear, thank you.” I smirked and patted her hand. Luke glared at me. “How rude of me, Luke, I didn’t introduce you to my new partner.” I said with false graciousness. “Luke Miller, this is Heero Yuy.” “Oh.” Heero said significantly, eyes flickering only briefly to the other man. I was glad it had more than gotten around HQ who exactly Heero Yuy was. Luke stared at him wide-eyed. I grinned devilishly and poked at my sandwich, which now lay defeated in the center of the plate. “We had a lead on the case.” Elise said in an attempt to break the tension I had created. “Had a lead?” I asked. If she really thought they had something she would have said “have a break.” “Yeah, we thought we had a trail on the poison, but it was a dead end. This Sandman guy loves to play games.” “Yeah, well I wish he played video games or something instead of cat and mouse.” Luke scowled. Elise ‘humphed’. “I wish I had played video games as a child. My mother wouldn’t allow them- too violent, she said. I ended up spending my time reading my dad’s notes on serial killers.” “You know, that explains so much.” I said seriously. The comment sparked a conversation of games played as children. Heero and I omitted from the conversation for obvious reasons, but he was comfortable inserting comments here and there. I let my attentions wander elsewhere again. Tony was sitting by himself a table down, staring longingly at Elise. A guy in a mechanic’s jumpsuit was getting up from a table by the windows to dump his tray, and Hamm and Clov were sitting at the table closest to the door. Clov stared directly at us. I met his gaze head on, and he broke the eye-contact quickly. I looked to the entrance, where Marcos was just walking in with the new guy. My gaze was drawn to the table next to Hamm and Clov’s, where a man in a baseball cap sat. I frowned. He had been sitting there since we came in, but his plate was untouched. He looked up at me, and I could have sworn his lips said, “Nicely done.” “What about you Duo? What was your favorite game as a kid?” I blinked, caught off guard for a moment, trying to remember a time in my younger years when I could actually be called a “kid.” Quickly covering my momentary lapse, I answered carefully, “Hide and Seek. We… played that one a lot.” Heero and Wufei looked at me sharply, I guess picking up that my version of the game involved hiding from figures of power and menace and setting explosives. “I always thought Hide and Seek was boring.” Miller said as he sawed away at his plate of beef. I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. What, was he trying to score man points or something? “Not the way I played it.” I said, a little more tersely than I had intended. Was he always an idiot, or just when I was around? I stood up without elaboration, my empty glass in hand, and said, “I’m getting more to drink, anybody want anything?” There was a general negative, so I escaped to the fountain machine. I looked over my shoulder back at the tables. The man in the cap was gone, and I hadn’t even seen him leave. I pursed my lips. Was I imagining things now? Or was something else going on? When I returned to the others, Marcos and Burns had joined the group and the subject had changed. “You’re from London, right? I heard they have a killer music scene.” Greg was saying to Elise. “Actually, I went to an all-girls boarding school in the country run by nuns. We didn’t frequent the scene too much.” “No shit? All girls? That’s hot.” Greg joked. Luke looked like he was trying to figure out how to kill the new guy and make it look like an accident. I studied him happily out of the corner of my eye. This guy was going to be fun to have around. “All-girls school is not nearly as sexy as guys think it is. We really weren’t just some chicks in uniforms so boy deprived that we got horny enough to make out with each other.” “Yes, but there’s a good chance that you did get horny enough to lower your standards, which is good enough for me.” Greg winked and caught a french-fry in his mouth. “What’s so funny?” Daiyu asked, sliding in next to Greg. “Are you seriously just going to eat a salad?” Luke said, reviving an old discrepancy between them. “Luke, you can eat a poor, defenseless animal if you want. Eat Bambi in Thumper sauce, for all I care. But I am not going to start killing cows because it tastes good.” “There’s nothing wrong with eating meat. The cow’s already dead.” He waved his forkful of cow in her face, and she swatted it away. “Yes, but that’s not my fault because I’m not contributing to the market.” She said, pouring non-Thumper dressing on her salad. “Will the fighting never end?” I asked sarcastically. “Oh, shove it, pretty-boy.” Luke grumbled half-heartedly. Heero snorted. “Duo’s pretty the same way a Dessert Eagle .50 is.” Well. Coming from Heero, that is a compliment. That night, I lay on my side in bed, staring at the wall. I don’t even know what I’m doing here, why I’m still hanging on. Why hold out? Why pretend I don’t know what’s at the end of the line? As always, I’ll just swing, pull myself up so I can fall again. I am unsettled. I am displaced. The room was still except for the ticking of the clock on the nightstand. I was cold, but didn’t bother to pull the thin sheets up around me. I just lay there, listening to the constant, hollow noise. It seemed to echo around me, loudly inside my head. I could have moved the clock, but it wouldn’t have mattered. My alarm clock was digital. The noise was imagined. Everything was cold. The air, the sheets, my skin. There was an absence of heat that sunk straight down into my soul. I had a vague urge to get up, move around, and give up on sleeping, but my body felt cast. So I stayed where I was, unmoving, eyes staring whole and open at the blank, bland off-white of the wall. Even white looks grey in the dark. My mind wandered from that numb place it always seems to go, and I thought about Heero’s eyes. I remembered his eyes years ago, in a time and place that will always be hazy to me. I guess it was the drugs they had me on, but the conversation is unsteady in my memory. The room around me, and especially the feel of my body, was muted and weak. Even the drugs couldn’t deter the pain if I tried to move, though. Through all that deadness of feeling and memory, I could still picture his eyes perfectly. He was supposed to kill me. I needed him to kill me. But he didn’t. And then, there I was, barely able to form replies to what he said to me. I guess there is something about Heero Yuy that refuses to allow the weak to die. Protector of the Innocent, that’s what he is. He knew I was far from innocent, but in my feeble state, could not bring himself to kill one so incapacitated. I saw it in his eyes, that need to protect one incapable of protecting himself. I had never felt weaker. I wanted him to pull that trigger, so badly, if only to prove I wasn’t helpless. His eyes were different, though, in the hospital. The rest of my world had faded to obscure shades of gray, but his eyes remained that intense, hauntingly brilliant blue. A color so true that no word could justly match it. I thought about his eyes now. He had changed in so many ways. His body was taller, stronger, and his face was defined, sculpted. Even his manner was more relaxed and… something I couldn’t quite place in the air of his countenance. But his eyes, his eyes were the same. “Why did you come back, Heero Yuy?” I whispered into the darkness. The ticking had faded into silence at some point. I wanted to look at the clock to see what time it was, but stayed still. “What brought you back to me?” I slept four hours that night.
~Now and again it seems worse than it is, ~ * ~ |
