Thick as Glue

Written as a part of a challenge over at Ao3 where the aim is to exclude the word "the" from the fic. It was harder than I thought :D

Disclaimer: Characters, not mine.

Summary: Duo makes a tiny mistake and got Heero (and himself) into a bit of a mess. Duo POV

'Hn' I heard a surprised grunt from outside of Deatchscythe and I leaned out from my perch inside of her cockpit to see Heero standing by my workspace. My workspace where I had left some broken parts for Deathscythe. Some broken parts that I had glued together using industrial glue, that were now attached to Heero.

'Oh shit.' I murmured and contemplated staying hidden inside of my mobile suit, but I knew it wouldn't work for long. Besides, Heero was already turning towards me, and I cowered in trepidation.

'Duo.' He said, obviously annoyed, and I gulped.

'Hey man.' I forced myself to jump out of Deathscythe to go stand next to him. He raised an eyebrow and demonstratively turned his hand upside down. I'm afraid to say that I chuckled as that infuriating part stayed stuck on his hand. Unfortunately, that didn't give me any bonus points with Heero, and his glare turned icy. Actually, it turned icier, as it had already been below freezing. He turned his hand back around to observe it closer.

'Look, man,' I said, 'I should have some adhesive remover here, alright?' I started looking through my tool kit.

'You should have had it in a vice.' He muttered as I was throwing my tools to left and right, trying to find something I could use to get his hand free.

'I thought it had dried, okay.' I grinned, still finding it all rather humorous. 'I made a mistake, so kill me.'

'Hn.' He snorted as though I'd actually said something smart, and I looked at him warily. Actually, I wouldn't put it past him to try and kill me after this.

'Just get it off, Duo.'

'Yeah, um… about that.' I swallowed tightly and I could swear his jaw became set in stone. I was quite sure that I was in a deep pit of trouble. 'I can't find it.'

Heero sighed and, even though he is strong, even he will get tired from holding onto a heavy piece of metal for an extended period of time, so he leaned his hand on my table. My table, where I'd left that twice-damned glue without a lid, which he had apparently knocked over when he'd first gotten stuck.

It was his mistake this time.

'Um, Heero.' I muttered, and he raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. 'You might not wanna put your hand there.'

He looked down and groaned when he saw what I had already noted. He tried to rip his hand away, but it was too late. He had already gotten stuck and I chortled loudly.

'Sorry! Sorry, man. Look, we'll get it off. I'll go check if anyone else has anything we can remove it with.' I was still chuckling, but somehow, Heero just seemed to get more and more angry.

'Don't worry, Heero. I've got this.' I promised, although I didn't feel so confident I would be able to get it done in a… reasonable amount of time. Actually, maybe it would be better if I let it take some time. It would give him some time to cool off. Or possibly, it would give him time to think of a hundred ways of killing Duo Maxwell. I bet he was already at number twenty.

So I stopped worrying about it and went into action, running up into our safe house.

'Guys!' I called loudly, but was met by an eerie silence. So I ran into each and every room, cursing as I found all of them to be empty.

'Well, shit.' I muttered and sat down right where I'd been standing, and put my chin in hand, planning my next move.

I thought about running, but when I considered it more, I remembered that I hadn't seen either of our cars when I ran from Heero to find Quatre, Trowa and Wufei, so they were probably out running errands, using said cars. So running obviously wasn't an option, although I did spend a moment considering how far I would be able to get on foot before they would catch up to me. It wasn't far enough. But I did come up with something, I just wasn't sure how Heero was going to take it.

I finally gathered my courage enough to get back out, and join Heero again.

'Well?' He asked icily as I came in.

'They weren't there.'

'Then why were you away for so long?'

'Well… I had to get this.' I smiled hesitantly as I showed him a welding machine. He raised an eyebrow.

'Duo…' he said warily, 'you are not using that on me.'

'Well, usually adhesives will come right off if you just apply enough heat. And since it's industrial strength, I figured a welding machine would be a step above a regular hair-dryer…'

'Duo…' he glared and I gulped tightly. 'Shut up.'

'So… you don't wanna know what…'

'I said, shut up.' He said, surprisingly calm.

'I could at least use it to let you move around again.'

'And what good will that do, except risking burning my hands off?'

'You're right.' I sighed and started to play with my hair. I do that when I'm nervous, and I was getting very nervous right about now. That's when I felt it and I realized what a fool I was.

'Of course.' I chuckled to myself and brought my lock picks out from my hair.

'You have lock picks in your hair?' Heero asked incredulously, but watched me with badly hidden interest as I bent down to pick Wufei's toolbox open. I knew he had some adhesive remover.

'Best place to hide them. No one ever looks there.' I grinned and gave a small shout of glee as I heard it click open. I'd have to remember to tell Wufei to get himself a better place for his tools later.

Now, Wufei's toolbox is in a whole lot of a better order than mine, and I found what I was searching for quickly. I narrowed my eyes as I looked at it and I turned it over. It looked an awful lot like my adhesive remover. Wufei would never let it get dirty, whereas I didn't have quite as bad a case of OCD as he did. It was definitely mine.

'Duo?' Heero asked, almost sounding concerned. Then again, I'd be concerned too if I was stuck to a table.

'Coming, man.' I grinned and got to my feet, adhesive remover in hand. Heero blew out a small breath in relief, and I even thought that I saw a small twitch of his lips.

'Don't worry.' I said as I applied it generously to his hand. 'It will only burn a bit.'

'Duo!'

'Well, what do you expect?' I asked. 'It's industrial strength glue. It's not gonna come off without some heavy duty solvent.'

He took a deep breath, almost looking as though he was counting to ten. Oh shit. I wondered if he'd gotten to a hundred ways of killing me yet. He was probably at least on number sixty-eight.

'Look, Heero, it's probably gonna take this a while to work, okay? I'll just…' I muttered and started inching away from him. Unfortunately he is quick, and he used his free hand to grab my shirt tightly. I gulped.

'You're staying.' He growled and I nodded slowly.

'Whatever you say, man.' I shrugged, pretending to be completely unfazed by it all. 'Look, I know you've told me hundreds of times to keep a better order at my workspace, but… what were you thinking, grabbing a hold of that shit?'

He raised an eyebrow, and only then did I realize that it was in fact kind of stupid to blame him when he had me in a place where he could easily kick my ass.

'I was curious.' He confessed, and it was my turn to raise my eyebrows.

'Curious? What of?'

'I haven't seen this part in Wing.' He said, looking embarrassed.

'It's because I made it.' I shrugged. 'It's an amplifier. I couldn't get G to install one into Deathscythe,' I chuckled in rememberance, 'so I built one and fitted her with it without his knowledge.' I grinned.

'I should have known.' Heero snorted in amusement with a small shake of his head.

'So… anyways… I'm sorry, dude.' I shrugged and he looked at me intently. Those blue eyes of his can gaze right through to your damn soul.

'I won't kill you.' He said, and I breathed in relief as he moved his, as of now unstuck, hand away from my homemade amplifier. I probably wouldn't be able to fix it anymore, but I could always build a new one.

He started to walk away but turned around before he went outside.

'I won't kill you… this time.' He said with a smirk and left me looking after him.

I took a shaky breath. Well damn, I'd just dodged a bullet there.

I left as well, after placing my bottle on top of Wufei's toolbox. His toolbox that was very demonstratively unlocked and wide open.

I wasn't going to tell him that he needed to get a better lock for it.

He's smart after all; he'd figure it out.