Well, this is a new one for me. I have read what seems to be all the excellent Gundam Wing fic in the internet, and loved it, and now here I am trying to add to the library of awesomeness. I owe such an enormous debt to authors like Dulin, Keithan, Misanagi, StandingOnTheRooftops, Violet Nyte, waterlilylf, Gecko Osco, and countless others. They blazed a trail of truly excellent and compelling storytelling, and I am humbled to walk that path and hope to offer my own steps to the journey.
On the other side, we have Jonny Quest, specifically, "The New Adventures" version. Sadly there is a fair sight less excellent fic in this universe. Not that there isn't any! But that the story I wanted to tell really hasn't been done in any incarnation that I could find, the characterizations that most interested me were not quite what I was hoping to see, and there's just so little of it. If I missed something good, please send me a recommendation!
This story is meant to be set in about After Colony 198 or so, a few years after the Eve wars and the Endless Waltz movie. I have ported the Quest family and some of their adventures into the Gundam Wing universe almost out of whole cloth, so you need less than the reading of the Wikipedia article to get caught up on that end. On the Gundam Wing side, context is a little more important.
This is an unapologetic 3x4x3 fic. As for anything else, well, I think you can read a few things here, and more as our story goes on. It's meant to be that way. Except that we won't see any Relena (or really any of the girls) – sorry. I'm not a basher, not at all. I just wanted to see our boys on their own.
The story is actually done. It came out super long, something like 150,000 words give or take a few thousand, and more than 300 pages. It went places I never expected. And it brought me a huge amount of joy to write. If I can give at least a tiny portion of that to you, I'll have done my job.
Okay, one disclaimer and on with the show:
I do not own any rights to anything that comes up in this story, Gundam Wing, Jonny Quest, you name it. This is for pure enjoyment and love of the fandom, not for profit. Please don't sue me.
Enjoy!
It was a Tuesday morning around the Quest breakfast table when Dr Benton Quest arrived 15 minutes late with a notebook under one arm.
"What do you think?" Jonny asked, leaning over to Jessie. "Aliens spotted by the Mars terra-forming advance team?"
"More likely some friend gone missing between the L4 cluster and the moon," she whispered back.
"Can't you two just wait and find out?" Race popped his head between the pair, a sly smile on his face.
"Nope. While we may share in curiosity, unfortunately patience is something that has never been passed from myself to either Jonny or Jessie," Hadji said with a smiling superiority as he poured a cup of coffee and handed it to his adopted father.
"You're both wrong," Benton smiled, settling into his chair. He looked around the table, to his son Jonny, breakfast forgotten as he waited for his father's next works. Next to him, equally as eager but with slightly less recklessness in her excitement was Jessie. She had gotten that same unhealthy taste for adventure from her father, Race Bannon, who simply winked and took a sip of his own coffee. Hadji, adopted into the Quest family ten years prior, had never really gained the same devil-may-care streak as the others, but those who knew him best could tell he was intrigued as well, though he waited quietly before bestowing his own excitement.
"Okay, dad. Spill. Who calls you at six in the morning and keeps you talking that long? Through breakfast?" The emphasis on the meal made everyone smile – not because Benton Quest was overly fond of eating, but because if there were two rules in the Quest household they were: no touching, interfering with, or in any way interacting with any and all underway experiments, and no tardiness to meals. Their lives were hectic enough; the routine of eating together was sometimes the only thing that kept Dr Quest from working himself to death, Jonny from wandering too far into trouble, and everyone from going days without actually engaging one another.
"I've just had a call about a symposium to be held in Istanbul discussing new advances in programming and virtual reality. They want me to come and speak, and possibly give a preview of my latest project."
"Great! Are we going?" Jessie wanted to know.
"You're just hoping that dad will have to show you what he's been working on," Jonny laughed.
"You have been pretty secretive on this one, Benton," Race put in. "It's not like you to keep so much of your work from us."
"I know. But this one, the possibilities for its applications to save lives, ease conditions working in space, it's a revolution waiting to happen. On the other hand, the risk is also very great."
"You mean that it could be used for violence?"
"Well, that's true, Hadji, but that's not what I was thinking. Instead, it poses some risk to the user, as the human interface is still pretty unstable. That's mostly why I don't want you kids in there. If you plugged yourselves in and something went wrong, there's no telling what the consequences would be." Dr Quest leaned back in his chair and breathed in the warmth of the steam rising from his coffee.
"This symposium. Anybody we know gonna be there?" Race asked.
"I'm not sure. I didn't check the guest list yet. But if it's half as well-funded as it claims to be, there will probably be a few familiar faces. And maybe I will get the chance to talk through some of the issues I'm having with some other experts. That more than anything else is why I said yes."
"And we're coming with you?" Jonny grinned.
"Yes, I think so. It will be educational, at least, and if I don't let Jessie and Hadji have the chance to hobnob with some of the world's leading programmers and scientists I'm sure they'll put salt in my coffee for a month," he replied with a smile.
"That's settled, then," Race nodded. "I'll take care of the hotel. You deal with the technical stuff, Benton. And you three," he fixed the trio with a look, "make sure you're up on all your studies so you do us proud talking circles around those famous brains."
Jonny, Jessie, and Hadji exchanged looks. A symposium of the Earth Sphere's finest might not have piqued the interest of the average teen, but these three had been chasing after adventure, science, and sometimes the unexplainable for most of their lives. Somehow, trouble seemed to follow the Quest team to the unlikeliest of places, and if this was going to be one of them, they had no intention of missing it.
-==OOO==-
"Quatre?"
Iria peeked her head in the huge office door and looked for her brother. Instead of sitting at the desk, as was his usual position while sloughing through a 10-hour day, she found him at the window, a phone to his ear.
"I'm not sure when I'll be on Earth next," he was saying, "but I'll let you know. And thanks for the call. It's been too long. Oh! Iria needs me. I'll talk to you later. Be safe, Heero." He lowered the phone and turned to his sister.
"I didn't mean to interrupt," she began, smiling.
"It's all right. Heero's not much for communication, phone or vid or anything else. You've kind of got to be there. So, what can I do for you?" Quatre Raberba Winner smiled at his eldest sister, not the smile that put him on so many magazines, nor the smile that won victory in the boardroom, but the one just for his real friends and family. All the smiles reached his eyes – that was his secret – but this one didn't have a shark waiting in the corners to strike without warning.
"Quatre, did you ever meet Dr Benton Quest?" she asked, sitting in one of the chairs near the window. "He was a friend of father's, and they had a great deal in common, both in perspective and in interest."
"I know the name," Quatre replied, sitting beside her. "But I've never met him, I don't think. I've heard of him, of course. Systems design, chaos theory, environmental control advances – he's been connected to some of the greatest breakthroughs in the last two decades of science and technological engineering."
"Well, I happened to come upon a little-known symposium in Istanbul that he will be attending. It has had very little press and even less attention from corporate interests. And I was thinking it might be the perfect opportunity for you to sit down with him for a bit, introduce yourself, get to know him. You know. WEI could always use the contact, you know."
"What are you getting at, Iria?" Quatre asked, not unkindly. His eyes were alight with amusement, but there was the tiniest glint in them that bespoke the fact that Quatre missed nothing. Iria was firmly of the belief that it was somewhat annoying to try to be an older sister to a boy who could read you without effort and manipulate you with a boyish grin. She gathered herself.
"Quatre," she put a hand on his arm. "You have been working for WEI nonstop for the last eighteen months. The little time you've taken off has been spent on your...other interests. You spend all the days you're not in the office or at meetings or at high-end dinners with a set of remarkable but admittedly unusual young men."
"All true."
"You know I love you, little brother. And I'll always be here for you. But I think it might be time for you to have someone to talk to that isn't part of WEI. Or our family. Or your friends."
"What makes you say that?"
"Quatre," she sighed. "I don't...I can't understand you and your friends. What you've done, what you've seen, it's so far from the world I live in. But I do know that a boy your age needs more than board meetings and war memories. Father made mistakes in his lifetime, many with you, but his was a voice you respected. A perspective that guided you. And Dr Quest may be able to be a similar sort of friend to you, if you would let him. He's a father, too."
Quatre stood and moved to the window, wordlessly buying himself some time to think. Iria wasn't wrong about the fact that Quatre had spent almost no time at all with anyone who wasn't a part of his corporate life or his previous life as a Gundam pilot. After the Eve wars, and even before they'd been ended, he had held the reins of WEI, which was more than a full-time occupation. That, plus his status as a sometime-active Preventers agent joining forces with his friends to maintain the peace they had so painfully bought, meant Quatre's life was more than hectic.
He could see what Iria was trying to do. For weeks she'd been trying to help Quatre in her own way, setting up dinners where he was seated with her husband, or with some of those men on the board who were more like mentors than the scheming suits that more often populated the business world. He supposed it was logical. His sister, for all her kindness and compassion and even her willingness to try to listen to him, still came from their very traditional roots. And in those roots was the irrevocable dictum that a boy should grow in the shadow of his father. And Quatre no longer had one in her eyes.
Even so, he wasn't sure a replacement paternal influence was in his best interest. Quatre had struggled with his own father to the end, and finding a man he could now trust enough to treat as such would be more than unlikely. If he truly needed the wisdom of a tried leader, he could always speak to Rashid. But that would probably never be enough for Iria. And, after all, Dr Benton Quest might be a useful ally for WEI, if even half the things Quatre had read were true. He didn't need a father, not exactly, but he could always use more friendly, non-corporate partners, not to mention an appeased sister.
And he'd just finished telling Heero he would try to get back to Earth soon.
"All right," he turned back to Iria. "I'll have coffee with him while he's at the symposium if it will make you happy. I'll even take a few days off from WEI for it."
"I'm glad. I'll have your secretary make the arrangements," she stood to leave. When she reached the door, she looked back over her shoulder at him. "But you get to explain it to Trowa."
-==OOO==-
"Hadji! Hey, Hadji! Where are you? HADJI!"
Hadji slowly opened his eyes, breathing deeply and letting his shoulders readjust after the total relaxation of his meditation. He had only a few heartbeats more of quiet before Jonny came barreling into the upper room of the lighthouse.
"You bellowed, Jonny?" he asked, smiling a little.
"Sorry. I didn't know you were..." Jonny waved vaguely at Hadji's position on the mat. He had the grace to look at least a little sheepish for his intrusion.
"Well, thankfully I was just finishing. What's on your mind?" Hadji settled into a more informal position. Jonny dropped to sit facing him.
"Do you think I can do what Race said this morning?" was the unexpected question.
"If you mean going a whole week while remembering to take out the trash and avoiding constructing impossible room-destroying stuff in the bedroom, then no, probably not," Hadji teased gently. He knew Jonny meant something more serious, but giving him the out to laugh first had always proved to ease him into honesty.
"Thanks," Jonny made a face. "No, the whole talking circles around the scientists at the symposium thing."
"Well, sure. Why wouldn't you?" Hadji asked, genuinely confused.
"Because I'm not...I'm not like you and Jessie. I'm not...I don't think I'm that smart, Hadj."
That was a difficult thing to admit, and Hadji scooted slightly closer, putting a hand on the drooping shoulder.
"Jonny, you're very intelligent. How many times have you reprogrammed everything in the house and the lab? What brought this on?"
"It's just...it's not like when we were kids anymore. You and Jessie, you're more like dad. You're smart, really smart. And, okay, I'm not dumb. But I'm not interested in the same stuff. I know dad would be happy if I wanted to be a scientist like him, but I just don't think I can be. I'm more like Race, you know?"
"I had noticed," the Indian said wryly. Then, more seriously, "Jonny, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You're brave and strong and kind. You're loyal and you are smart in all the ways that matter. Your father doesn't mind that you aren't him made over in a new person. He will support you in whatever you choose to do with your life. I don't think you will ever need to become him to make him proud of you. He does not seem the type to ask you to walk his path just because he is your father."
"I bet you've got a proverb for this."
"As a matter of fact," Hadji smiled, "I do. 'A man whose steps are his own shall never march into a rainstorm.'"
"You know those don't even make sense sometimes, right?" Jonny teased.
"If they do not make sense, you have failed to learn the lesson," Hadji replied wryly. "But in this case, I believe you have. I am confident that your father will not be upset, nor even surprised should you turn away from his science for your future."
"Besides, he's got you for that, right?" Jonny smiled a little.
"Sure." But Hadji's smile wasn't as sure, and of course, Jonny would choose that moment to be perceptive.
"You're his son, too, Hadj. If one of us had to be like him, it's definitely you." But there was something he didn't like in Hadji's eyes, something of the fear of a boy alone in a new world with no certainty they could ever truly be wanted. In a fit of desperation he hadn't felt since he was much smaller and Hadji was so much newer to him, he said quickly, "You know we're your family, right? You know dad thinks of you like a son and everything."
"Yes, Jonny, I do," Hadji admitted. "Please, don't be concerned. I have not forgotten the kindness of your family to let me into your lives, and there is no place I would rather be."
"But...?"
"But," Hadji blew out a sigh, "while I was meditating, I found myself asking questions I have no means of answering. Questions about myself, about my place, my gifts. As much as I am like your father, we both know I am also unlike anyone else."
"Sure. You can do things nobody can, like the meditating thing and the astral projection thing and a bunch of other neat stuff. That doesn't make you less of a Quest. Just more interesting," Jonny pressed.
"Yes, but my questions cannot be answered by your father's science. Nor by Race's practical rationality, nor by Jessie's and your enthusiasm for both. For all I have a life here, a part of my soul is still a stranger. And there is an unsettling feeling growing within me that fears I will never find my answers in this life I lead."
"Hadji," Jonny's voice had gone serious and soft. "If you have to wander the stars to find something, we'll never stop you. Heck, I'll go with you if you let me! We've been through everything together, Hadj. You're my best friend and the best brother a guy could ever ask for. And that's going to be true whatever you do or wherever you go. But," and his light blue eyes blazed into the brown ones before him, "don't ever doubt that you are one of us. You are. You're a better Quest than me sometimes. And we wouldn't be family without you. Besides, aren't you always telling me that you're exactly where you're supposed to be? Sounds like a good time to believe it."
Hadji closed his eyes as a small smile lit his face. He was a young man and men don't cry – he'd been told that as a child before the kindness of the Quests who believed differently – but he allowed his breath to hitch once as he leaned forward and let Jonny grip his shoulders comfortingly.
"Thank you, my friend."
"Well, thank you for listening to me whine about the wrong things," Jonny returned. "I came up here feeling down and now I feel fine. And so should you. Come on – Jessie's got dinner duty tonight, so we might as well go heckle, ahem, I mean help her with it, huh?"
"One of these days that karma you are building up is going to come and exact its revenge and I'm not going to do a thing to stop it," Hadji grinned, allowing Jonny to pull him to his feet.
"As long as it doesn't come in the form of that awful soup-stew-thing-with-noodles-and-sauerkraut Race made last month, I think I can handle it!" the blond laughed back.
Their companionable walk down the stairs soon became a race and they blew into the house with the wind, giggling and gasping, and both feeling better as they burst in the door of their home.
-==OOO==-
When Iria had said that Quatre was the one to "explain" this plan to Trowa, she hadn't fully grasped what the conversation would entail. She had assumed that Quatre would be explaining that he would be going on a business trip and Trowa would have to stay home because it wasn't his place to be there. In the long list of things his kind but slightly distant older sister didn't understand was his relationship with Trowa. It wasn't that Quatre had chosen to pair himself with a man that caused her consternation, though the same couldn't be said for others of his sisters.
No, what Iria had never managed to comprehend was why Quatre chose someone like Trowa.
"You could have anyone, man or woman, on L4 or L1 or the whole of the Earth Sphere, anyone you wanted," she'd said, eyebrows raised. The other colonies didn't make her short list of possible candidates, of course – they were not to the Winner standard. "Even if he did serve in the war with you, what makes a no-name pilot an appropriate match for the heir to the Winner line? He has no family, no connections, and even if you look beyond all the material things I know you despise, he does not even know how to live in our world, in our society. How can Trowa ever be an asset to you?"
"Iria, I love you, but I will not justify this to you or anyone. Trust me, sister, that what Trowa carries within him is beyond worthy. He is an asset to me in every way." Quatre had turned away, but before he'd left her to her startled thoughts he'd said, with rather a harshness in his voice, "And if you ever refer to Trowa as 'no name' in my presence again, I shall not forgive you."
That was a year ago, and while Iria had softened to the young man her brother loved with time, she understood them little still.
As Quatre opened the door to the apartment he shared with Trowa, he felt the familiar rush of emotions greet him before the man himself appeared.
"You're nervous," was the first thing Trowa said, following Quatre as he divested himself of his briefcase, shoes, and suit-coat.
"Sometimes this bond is very annoying," Quatre teased back.
But he also meant it literally, though not as it applied to Trowa. Quatre's "space heart" as he'd called it had only grown more and more powerful until he was reliably able to read and gauge the emotions and sometimes even the motivations of anyone around himself. It had taken a fair bit of research, and then a large amount of practice with Wufei of all people, before he could control the input of so many hearts around him. Wufei still held many teachings from his own family line, and such gifts had not been totally unknown to them. Shielding and mastering his abilities had been trying for the young Arab, doubly so when trying to live a life as CEO of WEI and also as a sometimes-active Preventers agent when particularly specialized skills were needed.
In consequence, Quatre had found himself more and more aware of Trowa in particular, but all the Gundam pilots to a certain extent, able to pick up on their emotions even at a distance. And, to his surprise, he had learned that when he was in physical contact or relative proximity with Trowa, his own emotions became shared as well, allowing them a certain amount of communication. At moderate distance, Trowa could sense Quatre, though he could only pick up strong, raw emotions. The only other person with whom Quatre shared more than the average ability to read empathically was Heero; it was Heero's "death" that had sparked an initial and powerful connection between them, and as Quatre's abilities expanded, that connection had strengthened too.
But with Heero on Earth, that part of his heart was quiet, leaving him with the soft amusement and curiosity of his beloved.
"Tell me," Trowa said gently, placing a hand on the back of Quatre's neck both to calm him and tighten their awareness of one another. Trowa had adapted well to being the object of Quatre's ever-growing empathic abilities; then again, his life had never been calm or normal, so this was a more pleasant twist of fate than most he'd seen.
Quatre did, spilling out the unexpected call from Heero (with the former pilot of Wing Zero insinuating that he had come upon a situation that might need the attention of the only people Heero actually trusted) and the conversation with Iria. He explained her well-meaning but perhaps misguided desire to set him up with a father figure and mentor, and his own reasons for agreeing to the meeting.
Trowa listened patiently, waiting until the words had all found their way through Quatre's too-fast brain. Then at last he said, "I think you're dismissing Iria's point too easily, but that's of course up to you. Still, there aren't many powerful pacifists left either on Earth or in space, and Dr Quest is well-respected. And if the symposium is of interest to him, it might well be worth your time as well."
"I'll only be gone a few days," Quatre said, feeling his own nerves tighten as he came to the crux of it.
"No." Trowa's face was still and set, and only through their bond could Quatre read the slight amusement behind the firm determination of his face and most of his feelings.
"First of all, we were meant to go see Cathy that week, and we can't both cancel on her again, not after the last time."
"She'll be fine. She understands."
"Secondly," Quatre said a little desperately, "if I do attend the symposium, you would be bored to tears waiting for me in the shadows the way it always happens when I make a prolonged public appearance."
"I'm sure I can find something to do."
"Thirdly, I'm pretty sure Heero will kidnap me at some point for whatever it is he wouldn't say over a line he hadn't personally secured, and there's no way of knowing how that will go..."
"A perfect reason for me to be there with you to back you up. Or to cover for you."
"Trowa!" Quatre sighed exasperatedly.
"Face it," Trowa said, a small smile belying the hearty warmth running through their bond, "you just don't want me there solely because you're worried about me for some unknown reason. Now tell me that reason so I can dismiss it and we can start planning."
"Trowa," Quatre's bright eyes met Trowa's green and he got lost for an instant before remembering himself. "My sister is manipulating me. Or trying to. It doesn't work when I'm aware of it, of course. What she wants is for me to meet Dr Quest and have him take me under his wing and help me find my way or something. Without you. And I don't...I don't want you to have to play that game with me. You shouldn't have to deal with Iria's plan, and you shouldn't have to dance around me and Dr Quest while I sound him out. If he is as good a man as I hope he is, he won't be a problem. But if he isn't? I don't...I don't want anyone else to make you feel like you don't belong in my life."
The protective anger on his behalf, and the sorrow for the uphill battle Quatre was waging to earn Trowa's place amidst his family (not to mention a few rounds with the press) flared in his heart and Trowa brought their foreheads together. Quatre was always trying to shield him from everything, from the members of his family who weren't as well-meaning as Iria, from the public, from anyone who might remind him once again that he had nothing to offer the prince of the Winners.
"I love you, Quatre," he said simply, closing his eyes and breathing in Quatre's breath. "And I'm going with you. Because sometimes you need to remember that I'm not afraid to let you defend my honor, as Wufei would say, but I'm also not afraid to do it myself. Besides," and he opened his eyes and smiled, "I'm not letting you run off with Heero without me. Who knows when you'd come back?"
Quatre smiled. The fact that his bond with the Japanese ex-pilot was so strong could have been a point of contention in their relationship, but it wasn't. Trowa could feel Quatre's love – he knew he was safe and that Quatre would never leave him, no matter what was between him and anyone else. Trowa found the whole thing rather funny, since Quatre saw Heero as a brother to be protected and respected, and he knew Heero saw Quatre in exactly the same way with a lot of Heero's trademark paranoia thrown in.
"You're amazing," Quatre breathed.
Trowa leaned into the bond and let their emotions speak for them both. Wrapped up in so much love and care and trust, words weren't needed anymore.