AN: This is my first time writing anything other than poetry or academic papers in about 11 years, so things are a bit rough around the edges, as such I would absolutely encourage critiques. I need help with atmosphere, flow of dialogue, all that good stuff I've neglected.
EDIT: Thank you to my lovely beta reader, SFA for patiently working with me and knocking all the kinks out of my plot. And for reminding me that it's not all about dicks. (It's definitely all about dicks tho)

Rating: M (This is meant to be a character exploration though I do intend to drive it in a more sexual/romantic direction later on. By 'later on' I mean like...give it two chapters.)

Pairings: 1x2 (for now)(get ready for The Pile)

Disclaimer: This is entirely non-profit, I don't own the rights to Gundam Wing.

Two Truths and A Lie

It wasn't that there was too little to do on the shuttle - there was a range of activities created to challenge them mentally and physically for up to 50 years, logic puzzles and AR games with branching answers and narrative options that effectively condensed so many potential years of entertainment into one or two handheld devices - it was more that Duo and Heero had a strain of tension between them that was like tinnitus; in this almost perfect quiet they couldn't ignore it. So instead of playing with logic puzzles after every work period the two would sit down at the small table that made up their shared social space, easily accessible behind the main comm center, and they would talk. They talked about most everything, about what they didn't like, about the Gundams, about the tedium of bureaucracy they were mired in now and whether or not they believed it was the lesser of two evils. The end of shift had become a sort of thought experiment, not so much a "who are you?" but a "who are we now?"

The Gundams played a huge role in these conversations, even after three years they still found the suits to be a dominant aspect of their identities. Or rather, with their different childhoods the two were fascinated by how their responsibility in re-envisioning Operation Meteor had helped propel them both towards who they were today, sharing a similar enough perspective on the world as to decide, after some months of deliberation, that working with Preventer was their best course of action for now. Defending the peace they had fought for being one of the few things either ex-pilot felt had actually been salvaged from the rubble of two wars.

"So let me get this straight," Duo had been fiddling with a pen but he set it down and looked across the table at Heero, who had his arms crossed and was eyeing him stoically. "the first time I offered to fix your Gundam it was like...like a violation?"

Heero studied the other man with his typical stoic demeanor as he played with the pen, but broke eye contact at that description, and began to speak at some middle distance past Duo's left ear. "Yeah, that's one way of saying it, it felt like you were offering to do surgery on me," The confession sounded easier coming from his mouth than it had felt coming to that conclusion. It was a thought that weighed on his mind heavily ever since he had first shipped Wing off to Quatre in that first botched attempt to send the Gundams into the sun, to destroy the icons of a complicated and terrible moment in history.

"That's intense," Duo mumbled, picking up the pen again.

"Yeah," Heero grunted. The conversation stalled as Heero receded into himself with all the tell-tale signs, lowered lids, tense shoulders, ankles crossed. Duo had learned not to press Heero when he shut down and so he focused on the pen and let the other man have his silence.

"That suit was more me than me,"

Duo let out a heavy sigh at that, looked off to the side and crossed his arms. "Man that makes a lot of sense, all the nights I spent sleeping in Deathscythe, having to wake up and start fighting at a moments notice, it was crazy looking back at it,"

Heero closed himself even more at that, though Duo took little notice, having drifted into his own memories.

"I was just..a piece of it," Duo re-focused on Heero. His tone was so soft, Duo had never heard the other man sound so vulnerable. "I was raised to be a piece of Wing, not a person, or barely, I had to be fixed sometimes and it was like being a chip, just a moving part, being outside Wing felt like being exposed, wrong...misplaced,"

"Heero..." Duo wanted to get up and comfort him but decided against it, figuring Heero needed space and to talk it out.

"The whole point of me being trained to be the perfect soldier was to protect the one part of Wing that was weakest but-" Heero struggled to find the words to express the weight pressed into his chest at the thought of how he had been re-trained so thoroughly be Dr. J at the insistence of the rebel group on his colony scrutinizing his display of human emotion after a botched mission that had destroyed at least one civilian apartment complex and killed a young girl and her puppy. A terrible mistake that had left him with nightmares, with the physical memory of the soft, furry body as he carried it. A faint grimace contorted his face. "I was told I was important because I was the only one," At that he looked at Duo, his gaze piercing, it would have been accusatory but Duo could see a hint of fear in his expression. "Then I met you and your Gundam was the same and I hated you," His voice was so solid with recognition, it only just wavered over the last two words. It scared Duo. "I hated you because your existence meant I was replaceable, when I saw you fixing your suit and saving mine I got-" Heero stopped, breaking eye contact once more. Duo could see him breathing more deeply, a lip twitch suddenly turned into a full on grimace and just like that Duo watched as Heero Yuy began to cry in front of him.

"Heero," This was so foreign to Duo, he always sensed the other pilot had hated him - obviously their first encounter wasn't great - but seeing the vulnerability that hatred was hiding was something Duo never could have imagined. The long-haired man stood up and walked around the circular table, sitting down in the chair closest to Heero. He put a hand on the man's shoulder and left it there.

Heero kept curling in on himself, gripping his forearms, his shoulders rolled forward, chin to chest. When he spoke again his voice was shaky, strained. "I was so scared,"

Duo couldn't take seeing Heero like this anymore and went in for a hug, Heero didn't fight it, didn't even respond, just let the other man awkwardly hold his curled form to his chest so the crown of Heero's head bumped his clavicle. "I was so scared of you," He sighed out, wiping at the tears on his face. "You were human,"

"You're human too," Duo knew that wasn't what Heero was saying, but he wanted to say something, he had to let Heero know that he was listening, that he was trying.

"I'm not!" Heero shouted, sitting up, pushing away from Duo. "I'm not, I wasn't, I'm-" Heero looked anywhere but at Duo, his face wet with tears. "I'm-" He's breathing was stressed, shuddering, his brow furrowed as he looked for the words to encompass the sense that he was missing some vital element of his own existence.

"Heero, buddy, it's ok, I know-"

"You don't, you had a life, you had people the way I never did, I didn't get-"

A vidcom light began blinking at the main station. Duo caught sight of it just out of the corner of his eye, the chirping ringtone sounding off. He left Heero to go answer it. He sighed a little frustrated at the timing of the call and sat himself down in front of the screen in the co-pilot seat and pressed the accept call button."This is shuttle GL-X96, what's your status?" He rattled off automatically.

"Duo, this is HQ, status g- wait, why's Heero crying?" Hilde broke off as she focused on the whole scene on her vidcom.

"That's Heero's business, what's your status HQ?" Duo deflected, a little proud of himself for playing it straight and defending his co-pilot.

"Uh- green, what's your status GL-X96?"

"Green, we've disabled 12 space mines near colony L3 in the past 12 hours, none detected for another 130 kilometers," Duo responded, wishing they were in one of the newer work shuttles where the vidcom screen was on a neck and could be angled so he could turn it away from Heero.

"Did you get in a fight?" Hilde leaned in to the screen, blocking visibility from her end, a move Duo was thankful for.

Duo shook his head. "It's fine, we're just," He sighed and shrugged. "going through a rough adjustment,"

Hilde gave him a look, a stern warning that he couldn't hide vital information, and to her, Heero openly weeping seemed pretty vital. Duo responded with his own, not-bullshit glare that Hilde immediately recognized as the one he used he genuinely could not share something with her, it was a boundary that she always knew to respect. In the background Heero sniffed audibly.

"Good to hear it GL-X96," Hilde said, shifting back to professional mode, their silent conversation settled. "Preventer HQ signing off."

"GL-X96 signing off," Duo responded, ending the call. When he got up from the sign in Duo saw that Heero had managed to get some paper napkins, a few of them were wadded up on the table in front of him, his chair turned slightly so his back was facing the comm center. He wouldn't look at Duo when he sat back down beside him. The moment had been jarringly cut off and neither of them knew how - or even if - they wanted to return to it. Of course Duo spoke up after a tense few seconds. "I'm here," He said simply, not knowing what else to say. "I'm here," He put what he hoped was a comforting hand on the other man's upper back. Heero didn't move but his breathing was noticeably calmer.

"What was it like?" Heero said in a soft, flat tone after a few seconds.

"What was what like?"

"On your colony, as an orphan," There was no question to his voice, just Heero's straightforward eerily honest tone with a raw edge to it.

Duo thought for a bit, removing his hand from Heero's back, putting it behind his own head. "I dunno, it was rough, lotta fighting, times were tough, but y'know, we managed," He shrugged, trying not to remember anything specifically.

"What was it like living with other kids," Heero pressed on.

"I mean," Duo scratched the back of his head, letting out a breath. "kids are assholes but we looked out for each other, and Father Maxwell and sister Helen were always there for me," He shrugged again, trying hard not to show how uncomfortable he was talking about himself. The memories started to form in little clips and he added absentmindedly. "other kids pulled my hair a lot," Heero chuckled lightly at that and Duo felt a wave of relief. "Heero..."

Heero looked at Duo over his shoulder.

"I- I think you're human," Duo offered weakly, not quite sure what he even wanted to say.

Heero snorted at that, shaking his head. "That's not the problem," he sighed. "I don't know what is,"

"Oh man," Duo let out a little laugh at that. "You and me both,"

The tension eased considerably and both of them sat up a little more, unwinding. Duo stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles, side glancing at Heero who had turned his swivel chair to its neutral position , putting Duo back in his line of sight. "Thank you," He said simply, looking Duo straight in the eye, expression inscrutable though his eyes were still red rimmed.

"No problem," Duo felt some caution, his expression nonplussed. He watched as Heero stood up, gathering his used napkins in one hand and walked to the doorway of his bunk. "Goodnight," He said as the automatic door opened before him and closed behind him in a small rush of air.

"Goodnight," Duo said to the closed door. He stayed up for another hour, just listening to the background hum of machinery, thinking about everything just enough for it to become a sort of mental white noise.

In his small room Heero found himself drifting off within the hour, a unique kind of fatigue pulling him down into a dreamless sleep.

"Two truths and a lie," Duo explained after they had cleared away 'dinner'. "Is just what it sounds like," he took a swig of beer. "you tell two truths and one lie - in whatever order - and the other person has to figure out the lie," he shrugged at Heero's slightly skeptical look. "It's a team building exercise, get people to open up about themselves and learn about what their co-workers, or whoever, prioritize,"

Heero drank his own beer, looking pensive. "We already know each other," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but these are small details like..." Duo thought for a second. "Alright, here's one," smirking, Duo pointed the neck of his bottle at Heero across the table. "When I was seven I stole an uncut diamond from the pocket of a diamond smuggler, I once fought off a rabid dog and got thirty stitches on my arm, and when I first met Professor G I made fun of his hair,"

"You never fought off a dog," Heero responded quickly.

"Aa!" Duo jeered, setting down his beer and pulling the sleeve back on his left forearm, pointing to a small grouping of scar tissue which, sure enough, looked like the bite radius of a dog. "Hell of a rabies shot too, y'know they get a huge needle and inject it straight into your gut?"

"Yes." Heero said simply.

"...Oh," Duo faltered slightly.

"I got attacked by a raccoon when I slept in the ambulance I stole the first time I landed on Earth,"

Duo stared at Heero, a little incredulous. "Really?"

"I didn't properly lock the back, I woke up to a mother raccoon crawling on me," Heero shrugged, standing up so he could lift his shirt and show Duo the right side of his abdomen, maybe two inches above his hip. A clear ring of pink scar tissue dots stood out against his more pale olive skin.

Duo laughed at that. "Oh man, I had no idea, that's crazy,"

"Did the dog die?" Heero asked after a few seconds, catching Duo off guard. The other man's demeanour shifted immediately and he turned his head to the side, grabbing his beer.

"It did, yeah," He said, shoulders tense, tone a just slightly defensive.

"I'm sorry," Heero said just as simply as he'd asked the question. There was a long period of silence where Heero calmly nursed his beer and Duo, slightly curled in on himself, tried to convince himself to say anything.

"How do you do it?" He said finally, still not looking at Heero.

"How do I do what?" Heero stood, taking his empty bottle to the recycling shoot and retrieving another two from the small fridge, popping off the caps. He set one down next to Duo's 1/4 full bottle before sitting back down.

"The other night, when you just...opened up," He looked up at Heero, expression somewhere between frustrated and concerned. "How do you let it all out?"

Heero let the question sit between them for a bit, the silence making Duo's stomach twist into a knot.

"I was told to always act on my emotions, it's just something I've always done along with all of my other training," He paused. "It was a way of making sure I never burned out, never became useless to my Gundam," Heero stated at the neck of his beer.

"I still can't believe you think you're useless," Duo muttered just under his breath, unsure of what it was he was feeling towards the other man. It couldn't have been jealousy...

Heero shrugged at Duo's comment, looking off to the side. "That was part of making sure I didn't get in the way of my Gundam,"

Duo stared at Heero and all the information seemed to click into place, Heero wasn't raised; he was built. He was built to be just part of Wing, a pilot, but more (or less?) than that. He was meant to be the mind, the heart of his Gundam, one step removed from being an AI. "You...Heero you-" He stopped, searching for the words to describe his disbelief, memories of their first meeting flooding back to him with the clarity of his new understanding. "How did you feel when we destroyed them?" He asked in a soft voice, almost afraid to get an answer.

Heero didn't answer Duo immediately, didn't look the other man in the eye, but his expression went completely blank they way Duo had only seen it go a few times before when things went very wrong during missions. "Like my skin was being peeled off," Heero's voice had a hollow tone to it that almost made Duo shudder. "I kept having this nagging feeling like I had left something vital inside the cockpit, but I knew it was just me...I knew it was just-" Heero's voice hitched and Duo saw his eyes mist over. "everything I am is part of a Gundam," his lip trembled, brow furrowed. "I'm not human." Heero whispered.

Duo felt a sudden wave of anger towards Dr. J, who created Wing, who had effectively created Heero. "Fuck that," He growled before he could stop himself.

Heero gave Duo a mild look of surprise at that.

Duo shook his head. "I'm sorry, it's just fucked, I hate it - who does that," Duo killed his beer and reached for the new one. "You're human, Heero, you're so fucking human," He said, with a conviction Heero remembered from their more dangerous missions. Those times when the only thing getting them through a large scale ambush was determination. And now Duo was using that tone with Heero, looking the other man in the eye, his jaw set, his eyes clear. It made Heero believe him, and not for the first time the perfect soldier was struck by Duo's strength, the intangible but real strength that Duo always had simmering behind a smirk or a bad joke. He was giving that to Heero who just looked back him in stunned silence, unable to respond.

"You're fighting your whole upbringing to be human," Duo pressed on. "You're so-" He stopped, face screwed up in a frown. "You're like-" He let out a frustrated sigh, setting his beer on the table so he could scrub at his face with both hands. "Dammit 'Ro, you're uber-human,"

Heero looked at Duo in stunned silence for another several seconds before he started laughing, a chuckle that grew to a belly laugh that almost doubled him over.

Duo joined him, realizing how ridiculous it had sounded, how over-the-top it had all been.

"Y'see," Duo said after a while, regaining his composure a bit. "What's a Gundam need with laughter?"

Heero shrugged, still chuckling slightly, his shoulders shaking as he sat back with a grin on his face. "It's not that clear," He said, letting out a long breath. "I was encouraged to express my emotions openly when not piloting, it's a weird headspace where I know it's right to express all this stuff but is it because of my training, is it part of just being efficient?" Heero's tone got more and more level as he explained himself. "Is it normal? I don't see any of you compartmentalizing the way I do,"

"Heero," Duo leveled at the other man. "I'm fucked up, I was fucked up before my scientist got to me and I'll be fucked up until I die," He took a swig of beer, relieved at the lack of tension. "There's not a good metric, the fact is that your guy? He did the best he could to make you emotionally stable," Heero opened his mouth to respond but Duo put his hand up. "And yeah, I get the point of that training, but now? Now that the Gundams are gone and we have jobs? With vacation days? You've got a foundation to grow on as a person, a real, stable, possibly sane human person," Duo shook his head in awe. "Man, Heero, you're solid,"

"Solid," Heero echoed, smiling.

Duo nodded. "You're human, Heero Yuy," He said, tone soft.

They finished drinking in a playful sort of quiet, a light chuckle coming from one or the other occasionally. When the sign in call came in Heero answered it as Duo disposed of their empty bottles. He could hear Heero's tone had shifted perfectly back to its automatic, professional style. He could imagine Hilde mentally debating whether or not to bring up the crying incident as they ran through protocol. The sign in ended before she could muster up the courage- or she just decided against it- though Duo had a feeling she would press Heero when they returned to HQ.

Heero sat at the main station for a few seconds longer after signing off, his expression distant. When he stood up and went back to his usual place at the table Duo eyed him curiously. "Here's one," Heero said, looking over at Duo standing beside the recycling shoot.

"Hm?" Duo raised his eyebrows slightly, unsure of what Heero was referring to.

"When I was ten I accidentally kicked Dr. J in the groin when he was giving me a vaccine, I used to think sex was illegal and for two years I had a dog named Popcorn," The smallest smirk played on Heero's lips as he eyed the other man in mock-challenge.

Duo stared at Heero, unable to deduce what could possibly be true about any of that. "You...kicked Dr. J in the balls?"

Heero shrugged. "I got freaked out," He stated simply.

"So...you didn't..." Duo thought carefully, eyeing Heero, unable to keep a grin off his face at the ridiculous notion he was grappling with. "No, you could not have thought sex was illegal," He snorted.

Heero's smirk turned into a grin.

"No way," Duo's eyes went wide. "Seriously?!"

"I didn't have a dog named Popcorn," Heero said by way of admission.

"What?" Duo burst out laughing. "How?!"

Heero chuckled along with Duo's laughter, shaking his head and shrugging. "Reproduction was described to me so clinically I thought they were two separate acts,"

This sent Duo into a whole new fit of laughter. "This is so like them!" He cackled, tears at the corners of his eyes. "Oh man, this is priceless!"

The time passed in a light tone from that point on. Duo was even able to reminisce and share some of the less morbid anecdotes from his childhood on L2. He was surprised by how genuinely interested Heero was in hearing about the "pranks" Duo and the other orphans used to play on each other as well as unsuspecting strangers. Afterwards, in his bunk, Duo realized that Heero may have been relieved to know he grew up almost similarly, maybe not as socialized, but he was still allowed to push the limits of his world with little consequence.

Duo thought Dr. J, considering he had given Heero a surprising amount of coping mechanisms, had indulged Heero's young mind to the best of his abilities while training the child soldier. The thought gave Duo a sense of relief. He'd met Heero at the height of the other man's stress; on a new battleground, mission gone awry, just trying to clean up loose ends the most efficient way he knew how. That first impression had really biased him- had biased them both- Duo realized, made him assume Heero was reckless, even suicidal. But now it all made sense and Duo was glad to know at least one of them was going to be ok, really ok. It was probably the most altruistic moment Duo had ever had.

Duo didn't remember his dreams during that sleep cycle, but he woke up with the feeling he used to get when a mission went smoothly.