Super belated crossposting! This was written for helmistress/Talliya on tumblr as part of the 2017 GW Secret Santa exchange from the following prompt:

Dear Santa, For Christmas I would really love a fic involving the following: Triton Bloom and Duo Maxwell in any situation ever OR Homey scenes of any of the GW parents tucking in their children. (e.g. The Peacecrafts tucking in Milliardo, Relena, or both, The Darlians tucking in Relena, The Blooms tucking in Cathy or Triton, someone tucking in Mariemaia, etc.) OR Someone having to defuse a bomb to save Christmas.

It turned into a bit of a hodge-podge, but hopefully it provides a little light entertainment on these cold winter nights. :)

A Gundam Christmas Story
by Bryony

The house was nearly dark when Une opened the door and stepped inside, but not entirely. The twinkle of Christmas lights lit a path into the living room. And there, she was gratified to find a small plate piled high with gingersnaps (her favorite) and a glass of eggnog – she sniffed it – generously spiked with rum.

"Don't mind if I do," she murmured, helping herself to a sip and a snap. After all, it was just after midnight, which made it technically Christmas Day. And after the night she'd had, she felt she deserved a treat.

She toed off her shoes then and there, allowing herself a moment to rub her aching feet and wiggle her toes into the carpet before beginning the trudge upstairs in just her nylons.

At the top of the stairs she paused. There was a light on in Mariemaia's bedroom, spilling out from beneath the door. And, she observed, a flicker of movement. Tutting to herself, she opened the girl's door with the same quick efficiency she might employ in enemy territory and was rewarded with the sight of wide blue eyes blinking innocently up at her.

"And just what are you doing still awake?" Une asked her.

"Reading."

Mariemaia raised her book to demonstrate, a thick hardback that she had to hold open with both hands. Une recognized the tome. It wasn't even fiction, but one of her old textbooks from the Academy. What's more, clearly illustrating that Mariemaia knew full well she was breaking the rules, her reading light was a flashlight propped up against her pillow.

"It's past your bedtime."

Mariemaia had the good grace to look at least a little guilty. "I was conducting an experiment." Une raised her eyebrows expectantly; that promised to be an interesting explanation, at least. "Yesterday at school the other children were discussing Santa Claus. They really seemed to think he might be real. So I wanted to find out if I'd be able to hear if he arrived. And also… I couldn't sleep."

Une understood the subtext of that sentence.

She slipped into the room and took a seat on the edge of Mariemaia's mattress, easing the textbook from the little girl's grasp. "Well, this should certainly do a good job of sending you off to Nod, at least," she acknowledged, skimming the dry paragraphs of military history Mariemaia had been poring over. She wouldn't vouch for the dreams they might induce, though. Setting the book aside, she suggested, "How about a real bedtime story?"

"Do you know any?"

Once, such a disbelieving tone, even from a child, might have stung her. On other days, it might have provoked her. But Une was a different person now. She teased back, "I said it was a real story, didn't I?"

"All right," Mariemaia agreed, settling down into her bed, "I'm listening."

"Once upon a time, there was a…lady knight."

"Oh, no thank you," said Mariemaia, "I'm not interested in knights anymore. I'd much rather hear about what kept you at work so late."

Une let out a tired sigh, but there was an indulgent smile at her lips. "Fine, then," she agreed, "that's what you shall hear."

"Man," said Duo, "we just cannot catch a break, can we?"

"It seems not," Trowa agreed. A short distance away from where they huddled loomed the Foreign Ministry building, the subject of their current scrutiny and ire.

Duo scuffed his foot along the ground, kicking up a tiny cloud of de-icing grit from the pavement which drifted over to settle on the patchy snow. He heaved a sigh, his breath frosting in the cold air. "You know, just once, I'd like to have a quiet Christmas. Give that a try. Is that so much to ask?"

Beside him, Trowa raised a hand to scratch his nose, covering a discreet smile. "How come you joined Preventers, then?"

"Sure, sure, real funny. It's just there's this thing I've heard of, called a day off. Apparently people are supposed to have them from time to time. They're supposed to be pretty nice."

"Well, look at it this way. The sooner we take care of this, the sooner you can get back to your…quiet Christmas."

"All right. Run me through it again; how many guys do we think are in there?"

"Intel reckoned about twenty-five, but potentially more than a hundred possible hostages. It's not clear how many people had already left for the holidays. Communication so far has been limited, which doesn't bode well for negotiations having a positive outcome. Most of what we know came from a single security guard before contact got cut off."

"So what's the plan, then, hotshot?"

"Une wants us to sit tight until backup gets here."

"She does, huh? You think she actually expects us to follow those orders?"

Trowa met Duo's eye, a tiny smirk curling at his lip. "Not if she's smart."

"Now that's more like it," Duo crowed with satisfaction. "So come on, what's the plan? You must have one, you're always Mr Prepared."

"I found out about this situation at exactly the same time you did," Trowa reminded him. "There hasn't been a whole lot of time to plan."

"So what are we gonna do then? Make like Heero and wing it?" There was a pause, followed by stifled laughter. Trowa was bent double, literally slapping his thigh with mirth, something which up until that moment Duo had thought to be only a figure of speech. He shook his head. "Really, Tro? Today's the day you develop a sense of humor? That must have been the worst joke I ever made."

Trowa straightened slowly, dabbing his eyes as he recovered from his fit of laughter. "I don't know, I thought it was pretty good."

"Yeah, and I'm sure Une would be thrilled to see you're taking this so seriously."

"I'm serious," Trowa insisted, sounding vaguely affronted at the implication he was anything but. He made a production of arranging his face back into something more appropriate, more serious, and reached into his bag. "There is one other thing. The security guard we were in contact with said the intruders got in under cover as carolers. They were all wearing these." He withdrew a lumpy, festively wrapped bundle and tossed it in Duo's direction.

Frowning, Duo tore into the paper to reveal a sweater much like the one Trowa was wearing, but in red, and patterned with Christmas baubles. "…I don't get it."

Trowa snorted. "It's a Christmas present. For you. From me."

"Oh man. Trowa, I mean, I'm touched. But I feel bad, I didn't know we were doing presents. I didn't get you anything."

"Hey now, that's not true. You gave me your cold just last month, don't you remember?"

"Heh. Yeah, well, in fairness that was more of a re-gift. See, Wufei gave it to me first."

"You also bought me a sandwich a few days ago. And a beer the last time we went out after work."

"What, are you keeping a running tally or something?"

Trowa ducked his head, hiding a grin. "No. I just thought I should…let you know it was appreciated. It's been good this past year, working with you and Wufei. It's been…nice. Having friends."

Duo rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, looking from the sweater to Trowa and back again. "Yeah," he agreed, "it has been nice. Better than I thought it would be, working for Preventers."

"I got gifts for everybody, though, so don't let it go to your head; it's not like you're so special."

Duo laughed and pulled the sweater over his head. "Sure. Of course. You know, it's gonna be a job getting into the Foreign Ministry building wearing this."

"I reckon you're up for the challenge."

Trowa didn't try very hard to hide his presence in the Foreign Ministry building, but he didn't have to: the halls were deserted. He had at least expected a little more difficulty from the initial entry, but a broken window had taken care of that for him. The sound hadn't even attracted any notice. He had to think that meant the intruders had, for some reason, decided to completely disable the security mechanisms rather than turn them to their own advantage. That, he thought, was a good place to start. Reactivating the cameras would give him an overview of the whole building and fill in the intel which had been sorely lacking.

Rounding the next corner provided his first encounter with the enemy: Two men, about five meters away, looking very surprised to see him.

The corridor didn't offer much in the way of high ceilings, but no matter. A cartwheeling target was still more difficult to hit than a stationary one, and let him build up some decent momentum.

"What the -"

"Shoot him!"

Too late.

A punch to the solar plexus sent one of the two men reeling, which let him take out the legs of the other. He relieved the downed man of his gun in time to turn it on his compatriot just as the other man was recovering. "Drop it," Trowa told him. The wheezing man did so, his gun clattering to the floor. Trowa retrieved that weapon also, securing it in his waistband.

Then, from behind him, back the way he'd come, he heard something. It was there and gone before he could identify it. Footsteps? But when he looked back, no one was there.

Frowning and vaguely unsettled, he turned his attention back to the two men in front of him. "Where are the hostages being held?"

Duo had a passing familiarity with the layout of the Foreign Ministry building, sufficient enough to find his way to two or three key locations blindfolded if he had to. One of those key locations was the break room on the third floor. Throwing open the door, he was unsurprised to find a man wearing a sweater much like his own pouring himself a cup of sludge-like black coffee. Looked like Trowa had been right about the Christmas jumpers.

"Hey, pal, fix me a cup of that stuff, too, huh? I could use a pick-me-up."

The guy cocked his head at Duo uncertainly. "…Vic?"

"Uh, no," Duo admitted. He let his switchblade flick out into his hand and grinned. "But how about you tell me your name?"

The guy's face went white and the mug in his hand dropped, cracking against the countertop on its way to the floor, where it shattered and sent shards of porcelain scattering with a flood of coffee. He started to scramble away, but his feet slipped on the wet floor, and then Duo was right there – with a friendly supportive arm thrown over his shoulders and a knife at his throat.

"Hey now, what's the rush? We're just getting to know each other. I want to know all about this sweet little setup of yours and just what you're planning to accomplish here."

"I… I…"

"See, what gets me is that we worked hard for this peace, you know? We earned it. So I really want to know what makes you think it's a fine thing for you to walk in here and try to trash everything. And you think I'm just gonna let you?"

Suddenly, a strangled scream echoed from out in the hall, then cut off as abruptly as it began.

The other guy's eyes met Duo's and his face seemed to get even paler, if that was possible.

"Wait here," Duo told him and backstepped his way into the corridor, leaning out and checking both directions. Nothing. Deserted.

He always did have the feeling the Foreign Ministry building might be haunted. Shrugging, he stepped back into the lounge.

Duo and Trowa arrived at the central lecture theatre at roughly the same time. "Fancy meeting you here," Duo remarked.

"You got blood on your new sweater," Trowa pointed out, doing an admirable job of looking as if that hurt his feelings.

"It's not blood, it's spilled coffee. It'll wash out. And you're looking a little mussed there yourself. What happened to your hair?"

"I don't want to talk about it." The intrigued look Duo levelled at him promised that he would be talking about it very soon. Trowa cleared his throat. "By my reckoning we're expecting ten to fifteen combatants inside. Our priority needs to be getting the civilians evacuated without casualties. We should try to draw fire to ourselves."

"Yeah, yeah," Duo muttered with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "Two of us against fifteen guys with guns, I'm not liking our odds. Even if they are crap shots. I was hoping we might be able to get some leverage or something, but I still don't even understand what these morons want."

"People don't always have clear motivations. But we can still make a difference here."

"Yeah," Duo agreed, "let's go."

They burst through the doors and separated, diving for cover. There were two men and a woman on guard in their section of the theatre who sent up the alarm. There wasn't much room for maneuver; they couldn't take cover amongst the seats – the skeleton staff of the Foreign Ministry that had the misfortune of working over Christmas were lined up there in the central rows.

Keeping up a steady stream of curses under his breath, Duo managed to take down the man nearest him before getting cornered behind a support column. Trowa appeared to be…somehow using the other man as a springboard in an effort to launch himself up towards the balcony level.

Suddenly a voice from the front of the stage cut through the chaos. "STOP!"

By that point Trowa was midway through the air, so there wasn't a lot he could do to slow down, but remarkably, everyone else in the room went still and there was a blissful moment in which – for once – no one was trying to kill them. Duo risked a peek around his column towards the stage.

There was someone else down there, approaching what was obviously the leader of this sorry band of misfits.

It was…

It was Une!

"Stop right there!" the man in charge repeated. "Not one more step. I have this place rigged to blow!" He triumphantly displayed the detonator in his hand, with his thumb hovering warningly near the button.

Duo sucked in an alarmed breath.

Up above, without making his movements too obvious, Trowa began to cast about, looking for the potential bombs.

Une was not deterred. But true to the man's command, she didn't take a single step - it was more a flying tackle. They went down in a splay of limbs. Duo and Trowa watched, impressed, as, following a brief scuffle, Une emerged from the fray, detonator in hand.

She stood up and calmly brushed herself off before announcing, "If everyone could please make their way to the nearest exit…" Then her eyes found Trowa and Duo's and narrowed. "Barton, Maxwell. Your orders were to wait for backup."

"Yeah, but we didn't think you were going to be the backup!" Duo protested. "We were just expecting some doofus."

"Sorry, commander," Trowa spoke over him, offering a crisp salute.

Looking at the orderly procession of people departing the lecture hall, Duo whistled. "Damn," he said, "looks like you just saved Christmas!"

"And that," Une concluded, smoothing the covers up under Mariemaia's chin, "is why I'm home so late."

Mariemaia blinked sleepily up at her. "It was a very good story, but did that really happen? How do you know what Trowa and Duo were doing before you arrived?"

Une chuckled. "Is questioning your guardian's honesty the best way to get onto Santa's nice list?"

"No, but… why would I be on there anyway? Besides," Mariemaia added defiantly, "I don't believe he's real anyway. The people at school are all mistaken." She looked up at her guarian anxiously. "Aren't they, Une? He's just… a trick, to make sure little kids behave."

Une found herself unsure of what to say. But it was obvious what all this talk of Santa Claus stood in for, so perhaps it was best if she simply went for the root. "The events of last Christmas," she said, "were not your fault. And while it is important to reflect on our past actions, we cannot allow ourselves to be defined by them forever. We must allow ourselves to grow past them. Do you understand? I know that you're sorry for what happened-"

"But that's just it, though," Mariemaia interrupted with a cry. "I'm not sure that I am sorry!"

"What do you mean?"

"If Dekim and I hadn't… If we hadn't fought, then I wouldn't be here with you."

The way Une's heart caught in her chest at those words was unexpected, but enjoyable. She reached for Mariemaia's hand and gave it a squeeze. "That's different," she said. "I'm not sorry you're here with me either. I'm very glad. And I wouldn't change that for all the world."

At last, Mariemaia appeared mollified. She settled back against her pillow and smiled. "Goodnight, Une. Merry Christmas."

"Goodnight." Une leaned in and pressed a kiss to Mariemaia's forehead, expecting her daughter's eyes to be shut and ready for sleep when she drew back. But instead, the little girl was once more looking at her suspiciously.

"Is that eggnog on your breath?" she accused. "I left that out for Santa."