Trouble Incarnate

by Nix Winter and Amy the Evitable

Disclaimers: We don't own Gundam Wing, alas.

Notes: I'm just playing around. I'm working on Duo 21 and Soul too… Soul's taking me a bit as I need to grow a little emotionally before I can do the next bit or maybe I need to just get brave and do it. Duo 21… I really just want to write the bit where Heero saves Duo.. I know I should write some huge fight scene in between, but Heero's been in a million fight scenes and all I really want is him saving Duo from the bad guy he thought had killed him. /whine

Warnings: Profanity! Relena's in this fic and she's a good guy, and has grown a lot

Pairings: 1x2x1, maybe 5xR, 3x4

Chapter One

Relena Darlian had been many things in her life. A coward was never one of them.

"Come on, baby," Duo taunted, both fists up, soft padding wrapped around his knuckles to remind him to pull his punches. "You gonna hit me or just expect me to fall over because you've got big tits?"

They were in the large open garage area they'd turned into a dojo, Relena, Duo, and Wufei. It wasn't much of an apartment building, at least not much to look at, and Duo wasn't sure who owned it, Relena or Quatre or if they took turns. He didn't care. It was secure enough for Heero. Quiet enough for Wufei. Decadent enough in the penthouse for Quatre and Spartan enough in other places for Trowa. Maybe it was kind of a trust between them that had grown up during the war that had them all together after. It was hardly the place Duo would have expected Relena to apply for an apartment, which she hadn't really, but just moved in on him.

"My tits aren't big," she growled and moved in on him with a quick sliding footstep that she'd learned from a kung fu class she'd taken. "Is it really necessary to be so very crude?" Her punch was solid and landed against Duo's chin, but didn't move him back at all.

He grinned, violet eyes full of friendly fire. "You think my chin is so vulnerable?"

Her face never wavered, blue eyes locked with his, and he never saw her knee rise, just hard enough. His eyes crossed, his 'pride' rammed up all the way to his throat and stuck there. "Nope, but your ego is…" She stopped speaking.. her eyes wide, as she looked down to find a hard plastic blade against her bare midriff… and she knew if it had been real, it would have been buried in her. "Damn."

She gave Duo a good shove with both hands and he went over backwards on the thick training mats. "'Lena… you want bruises… I can do bruises for you."

"Well, I'd get better faster, wouldn't I?" She asked, looking over her shoulder as she activated a cooling pouch for Duo, which she tossed to him and he snatched out of the air.

Then she turned to Wufei, her black training pants soft, but not fading in the slightest. Her shirt was more a large sports bra, but her body was harder, leaner than ever in her life. Her hair pulled back in a prim pony tail, and she bowed to a Chinese ex-freedom fighter. "Captain Chang, please give me a chance. I am devoted to this path in my life."

"Crap, 'Fei, kick her ass for me? I can't get her to see sense," Duo complained good naturedly. "She can't be a Preventer. Her face is plastered on our damn money for god's sake."

"Oh? As if your face isn't just as well known," she shot back to Duo. "I have worked for peace with my whole being, just as you have. I have only had my words to guide the world. I wish to work for peace and the safety of the world. I want to be a Preventer."

One dark eyebrow rose slowly, dignity with his outrage. Black eyes looked at Duo, who grinned, comfortable with himself, mostly enjoying the look on Wufei's face.

Wufei was Une's right hand man and Une had said that if Wufei would allow Relena to join as an agent, she'd approve. That was like asking Heero to dye his hair pink and play violin on a street corner. Duo had tried to explain. He had.

Wufei stood up and slipped out of his Preventer uniform jacket. "Miss Darlian, Preventers is open to all and you will not be treated preferentially due to your previous familial or political status."

Duo had moved himself off the training mats and he thought Relena looked smaller, more fragile than he'd gotten used to seeing her. He wasn't quite sure how they'd gotten to be friends, real friends. He'd always thought of her as an obsessed culture victim with too much money, but there hadn't been much going on the day they'd really met. She'd shown up a his apartment and just.. sat and watched vid with him. Why him? Why his vids, he still wasn't sure. Maybe he smelled like Heero lust too.

That had been the day she'd stopped having Heero lust. It had been two months after the Earthsphere election had gone to a very able young woman that wasn't Relena. Relena couldn't have won; she hadn't even run. Someone else did just fine taking care of the world.

Relena had taken up sleeping on Duo's couch. The world didn't miss her that much.

Duo didn't say anything. Didn't tell anyone she was there. He went out every morning with a bagel between his teeth and his uniform mostly on. The world was a whirlwind of living.

Heero was his partner, oblivious as always to anything other than just catching bad guys, but Heero. With Relena in his apartment, Duo had quietly moved down to Heero's second bedroom. God, Duo had been so in love with Heero, would always be.

Then one day he had come home and found Relena wearing a pair of his sweat pants, a raggedy tee-shirt, lifting one of his weights. He'd just stood there and realized that well.. she had grown into someone he hadn't expected when the world's spot light got off of her.

That was a year before this show down with Wufei. Duo'd done his best to talk Relena out of it. Hell, some days he tried to talk himself out of being a Preventer, but he was good at doing things that most people couldn't and it was just how he really could help the world.

"It seems you're giving me special treatment now," Relena sneered, backing onto the mats. "Did you warn Duo that he wouldn't get treated differently before your boss signed off on his commission?"

Wufei had fleshed out from the boy he'd been during the war. A Chinese warrior with his honor intact and his understanding broader now, he stepped onto the mats with a woman he wouldn't have given the time of day as a person during the war. Wufei knew very well that Duo Maxwell had done all he could to dissuade this woman over the course of the last year. When Maxwell had made her sleep on the roof for a week with nothing except protein drinks and water, fiber bars, Wufei had almost stepped in.

"You are correct," Wufei said, bowing slightly in apology before his hand snapped out, backhanding Relena hard across the face. His strike connected and she fell, but into a roll, which she came out of, face bruised, fists up. He gave her a slight bow of his head and moved in on her again.

She blocked the next two blows, and jumped, catching him by surprise with a front shape kick to the nose. Blood flew and Duo scratched his neck, repositioned his ice pack, upper lip between his teeth. It was less than a second, till her second foot connected to Wufei's forehead and she arched her back, flipping from her hands back to her feet.

It was like some cheesy movie, except that Duo's the one who showed her that move, against a wall, not against another of his friends.

Pissed, Wufei staggered back, blood running down his face, ruining his shirt, and he got serious. A moment later, he had Relena on the mat, his forearm at her throat, and ice in his eyes. "You can be my secretary," he said, "Woman."

"Isn't that special treatment?"

"Or you can be Maxwell's partner," Wufei hissed, still pinning her.

"Oi! I have a partner," Duo growled. "Put her with Vlad."

Wufei rose, black swan grace, and pointed a finger at Maxwell. "You wanted this."

Looking back at Relena, he hissed, "I will assign you to the deepest reaches of the colonies where no one even knows who you are."

"If I can help there, I'll go," Relena said, chin lifted, refusing to rub her throat. "I have been what other people thought I ought to be all my life. Now I'm going to be what I think I ought to be!"

"Are you certified with firearms?"

"Everything that Duo is!"

"Buster cannons?"

Red flashed over Relena's cheeks, more from anger than anything else. "Of course not! Can many of your agents pilot a suit?"

Their eyes locked, and Duo wished he had a camera. That look between them would be worth something. Then his attention shifted and he found Heero across the room, leaning in the other door. Heero. Duo's heart raced. It wasn't like Heero would ever feel for him, and he knew, it wouldn't matter. He'd go on loving Heero and being happy just to be close to him as they worked. Duo smiled at Heero, his heart in his throat.

Wufei followed Duo's gaze to Heero, leaning against the doorframe in apparent nonchalance. "Yuy! This is ridiculous. Say something."

"Something." It was never easy to be certain with Heero when he was attempting to be humorous and when he genuinely lost by a colloquialism. The problem was heightened by the fact that Heero approached learning casual humor with the same intense seriousness he had put into learning piloting, and never seemed to find his own jokes worthy of a smile. "In fact, quite a few can pilot suits. Oz suits. But it's not a requirement, Chang. She's put more hours into hand-to-hand against Duo than most of our trainees would be willing to face."

Heero slanted a look over towards Relena and Duo. "Or did you think I didn't notice when he started sporting bruises I couldn't account for with his work activities?"

Duo blushed, brushed brown hair back from his face. Just what he wanted... to be sitting there with an ice pack on his crotch, knowing Heero Yuy was watching.

She turned to Duo, looking sheepish. "You okay?"

He moved the ice pack behind his back. "Oh, yeah, fine. Someone just sucker punched me and kicked my balls out my nostrils, that's all."

Relena put her hands on her hips, smiled, realized her face already hurt from where Wufei had hit her. Then mischief sparkled in her eyes and she turned towards Heero, and bowed. "Heero, I am deeply indebted to both Duo and Captain Chang, but I must also ask of you a favor which is of great importance."

Duo looked at the door, thought about making for safer ground, moved the ice pack to his head.

The slight hints of a smile around the edge Heero's eyes disappeared, and he straightened up from the doorway, reverting to his usual fighting-ready posture.

"What is your request?"

Relena bowed again and then looked Heero in the eyes as an equal about to ask a favor. It was hard to ask, and she knew Duo was really going to be angry about this, but he had helped her with what she'd wanted and she was going to help him. "I understand that there are many facets of your personality that I will never know nor understand, and I respect you with every fiber of my being, so please, I ask that if my request causes you offense, that you will direct that to me, and not against my friend."

"'Lena," Duo growled, pushing himself up, wondering if maybe she'd got him worse than he'd be okay with when she kicked him, "Hush. Heero, I'd like to take you to dinner, like, like a date."

Wufei groaned. "Agent Darlian, training on Monday at 0500. I will work with you personally. Maxwell, she's right. It's your ego."

Duo wrinkled his nose and felt like the butt of everyone's jokes today.

Heero gave Duo a sideways look. "That's your favor? Not to be angry at Duo because of his request?"

Relena considered. She'd really hoped that Heero wouldn't be angry at Duo because she was asking, but Duo had beat her to it. "I sincerely hope you will not be angry at him because of his request," Relena politely. Part of her wanted to get very manipulative verbally, and part of her just wanted to go put some ice on her own face.

Duo blew air into his cheeks. Maybe part of him was afraid Relena did still want Heero. Heero - and most of the time Duo could read Heero like a book from the slightest movement, but right now, the man was hiding everything. Duo didn't know if he was being played or if Heero was about to tell Wufei that Duo needed to be partnered with his mouthier, higher than mighty, bitch of a friend. Okay, she wasn't that bad, he knew, he was just pissed that she'd interfered, and if it went badly with Heero… damn, Duo's face went pale, he didn't know what he'd do.

"Ryokai." Heero nodded, and turned to Duo. "Assuming you do not chose a time when I am otherwise engaged, I will accompany you to dinner. On a like-date."

Yeah, that was definitely Heero trying to be funny.

"And Agent Chang -- I will be very displeased if you make another attempt to assign my partner to someone else."

Worry turned to exuberance and color blushed up over Duo's face, and his grin was toothy and unconstrained. Dinner with Heero, on a like-date, and shivers went over Duo's shoulders. The energy built until he threw both arms over his head and cheered, "Hot Damn!"

TBC