Author's Note: Sorry for the delay but life happened and my computer got infected with a virus. This chapter was supposed to be posted Wednesday but what can I say, shit happens. Thanks for being patient and not demanding either KO's or my heads though by looking at the number of e-mails in my inbox, I'd wish you have. Would've been able to judge how much you guys were enjoying the story.

All right people, let's play a little game. At which parts is it my writing and where is it Kibin Okami's? If you can't tell, then we're doing our jobs. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: We do not own Gundam Wing.

Warning: language, violence

Another Day at the Office

The Sanc Kingdom, bastion of Pacifism and the current home for the Earth Sphere Untied Nations for the time being. There were plans to move the representative of the Earth and Colonial government to a different location but for now it would remain in the magnificent city that had once been a warzone.

Now, however, there was no war, no violence. Just peace and—

"Get out of the way!" a very angry man roared through his windshield as he ran and swerved through a red light, causing the intersecting traffic to back and pile up. Practically driving on the sidewalk, the angry man fled from another car that was doggedly pursing it from behind, ignoring all the mayhem that passed by it and causing more along the way.

"You can run but you can't hide," a very determined Duo Maxwell muttered to himself as he jerked his stol—er, borrowed vehicle to a side, sideswiping an innocently parked car that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was tough trying to drive through traffic and chase after a fleeing suspect, a wanted man that had been caught redhanded trafficking illegal weapons by a Preventers' operation. What should have been a in and out apprehension and arrest turned into a bloody gunfight and now a high chase pursuit, something that Duo hadn't planned on doing today.

Hell, the asshole he was chasing shouldn't have been able to escape the scene of his crime as he had and it had been pure luck that Duo had noticed the ditch. Not in the mood to be tracking down this guy, again, and waiting for him to commit some more crimes that endangered the first year of peace since the Mariemaia Incident, the impulsive braided Preventer had taken it upon himself to chase the suspect down and make sure he didn't get away.

William Bryce was not going to get a second chance, not this time.

Bryce made an illegal left hand turn up ahead, nearly causing another pile up, and Duo spun the steering wheel as hard as he could, barely making the turn but smashing his trunk up against the front of a stalled car.

Man, why'd it have to be the middle of the day and most people's lunch break for this to happen? So many people were out and about and in his way that it was making a hard task even more difficult. He could hear the voices of his fellow Preventers shouting out at him from the walkie-talkie at his side but like most things, he ignored this.

Aw Goddamn it! He missed a turn! Bryce had made an unexpected left turn again but Duo wasn't able to take the turn this time. Fortunately, Bryce made a right up ahead, making him return to the previous direction he was heading. Eyeing a car dealership up ahead, Duo thought only about it for a second before pulling into the wrong lane and entering the dealership parking lot.

He ignored the blares of car horns honking at him, honking his own horn in turn at the morons who were standing in his way. They all dodged to a side when it became obvious that he wasn't going to stop and after sideswiping another car, he was heading towards the dealership building itself. He had been to this ripoff place before and knew that the outer walls were made of glass and that it was practically empty on the inside.

It was no surprise then that he crashed through the oversized windows and drove through the building, crashing through the windows on the opposite side. Pedal to the metal, the engine of his car roared as he thundered forth, crashing through the large hedges at the back of the lot and getting right back onto Bryce's tail once again.

"Got you, ya prick," Duo smirked as he slammed down on the accelerator, ramming the front of his car into Bryce's back.

The white headed Bryce jolted forward and he spun around in his seat to glare at his pursuer. Were these Preventers getting crazier? They had never gone to such lengths to capture him before and he was not going to be caught today. He could only step on the accelerator and try and pull away.

"Oh, you want to play, huh?" Duo said to himself with a grin. "Let's play."

Once again he sped up and slammed into the back of Bryce's car, the front of his hood starting to show signs of crumpling. Honking his horn, he pulled to a side and sped up again, slowing pulling up to Bryce's side.

Bryce had noticed his advance and had pulled out a gun, proceeding to shoot at him with lethal intent. Duo took his foot off the accelerator and pulled back to avoid the bullets. Growling, he pulled out his own gun but aimed for Bryce's rear tires, hoping to put an end to this quickly. It took a couple shots but one tire was shot flat and Bryce nearly lost control, swerving from side to side like a drunk driver.

Duo swore and pulled back more but not before getting his left headlight smashed first. Despite driving like a maniac, Bryce had managed to get enough control to take a right, smashing into the side of a car broadside but still moving, the rubber of his flat tire beginning to peel and shred.

Duo had a less destructive turn and was hard on Bryce's tail. Shooting his window out, he stuck his gun out and fired at Bryce, shattering the rear window of Bryce's car but missing his target.

Then again, he wasn't trying to kill the guy on purpose…

…yet.

It was only then that the two realized they were heading for a dead end. With buildings to their sides and straight ahead and his pursuer right behind him, Bryce had to get inventive on how he was going to get out of here. Then he spotted an entrance to the subway and knew he had one last chance to get out of this.

Unfortunately, he was going too fast toward the entrance to stop by it and couldn't slow down without risking injury, and then there were the concrete blockers that sprouted from the sidewalk, placed there to prevent automobiles from driving down into the subway. It took a little skill and a lot of effort but he managed to turn his car so that he was skidding towards the entrance, the side of his car ramming into the blockers.

Eyes bulging, Duo slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel, his vehicle running into Bryce's broadside to broadside. Lucky he was wearing a seatbelt or else…eh, he didn't want to think on that.

With blood trickling down from a scrape on his forehead, he noticed Bryce break out from his car and start stumbling down into the subway. Aw hell no. Shoving the driver side door open, Duo unsteadily hurried after his quarry, taking his walkie-talkie from his side and shouting into it.

"I got the bastard heading into the subway, South St. Michael's entrance. Get your ass to all stops and get ready. I don't know which one he's heading for."

Maxwell! What the hell do you think you're—

That sounded a lot like Wufei but he couldn't be too sure. At that point, he was running down the steps into the station, his signal cutting off and dying. Up ahead, he saw Bryce spin around with his firearm ready and Duo threw himself to a side, barely avoiding the shots fired at him. Well, maybe barely was a bit too close. If anything, the end of his one vanity, his braid, got singed by one of the bullets and that was a big no-no in Duo's book. Seeing the end of the long, braided tassel and comical hole that was in the end of it turned the braided one's vision red.

Bryce was a dead man.

Snapping his gun out and ignoring the screams of the nearby bystanders, he began unloading on the fleeing criminal, scrambling to his feet and nearly jumping down the stairs after him. Ducking behind the nearest bench as Bryce returned fire, Duo changed his clip and when Bruce stopped shooting he sprang up and fired back.

Clipping the slightly taller man in the arm, Bryce swore as he whipped around and heading towards the escalators. Jumping over the bench he had used for cover, Duo ran after him, reaching the moving incline just as Bryce reached the bottom and vanished from sight.

"Bastard," he swore, running down the steps. Reaching the bottom, he saw Bryce get onto the nearest train just as the doors shut behind him. "Fuck!"

Picking up speed, Duo reached the last car of the train and fired into one of the windows, leaping through the opening and rolling over the glass that now littered the floor. Getting to his feet, he sprinted towards the front as the train departed, entering into the dark tunnel ahead.

He sped through compartment after compartment, making his way closer and closer to Bryce. As he approached the front of the second to first train car, Bryce took notice of him and spun around, firing a round straight at him. Swearing, Duo threw himself to a side, just out of sight and wince each time bullets ricocheted, passengers screaming in fright.

Bringing a finger up to his lips, he signaled for those in the compartment to keep quiet and not give him away. He heard the hard thumps that Bryce made with each step he took and when he slid open the door that blocked him from entering, Duo struck, swinging out his gun and nailing Bryce in the forehead with the butt of the weapon.

Unfortunately, Bryce recovered much quicker than Duo had anticipated and had grabbed him by his arm. Pulling him into view, Bryce nailed him with a wound up punch that caused him to fall onto his back. Moving quickly, he rolled back onto his feet and proceeded to tackle his enemy just as the man was aiming his pistol at him. Falling into the first car, Duo straddled Bryce's stomach and hit the man's gun away, the weapon sliding under a seat, and began repeatedly punching him in the face.

Bryce threw him over and off him and rolled onto his front before pushing himself back up, blood streaming from his nose. By then, Duo was also back on his feet and was twisting around to aim his gun at the criminal only to get it knocked out of his hand as Bryce rammed him with his shoulder. Duo's back slammed into one of the many pipes that stuck up from the floor and connected with the ceiling, his head ringing against the metal. He ducked under an incoming punch and he landed his own into Bryce's gut.

Bryce's elbow came down harshly and nailed him in the back of the head, causing the braided one to see stars for a moment and pain to whiplash through his neck. Grabbing him by his shoulders, Bryce swung Duo into another pole and then brought his knee into Duo's chin. Swinging another punch, Duo caught it and slammed the limb into the pole, breaking the arm and kicking a foot up into Bryce's groin.

Water leaked from Bryce's eyes, but didn't give him the time to wallow in pain as he grabbed the older man's head and head-butted him. Of course, then Duo found out that that may have not been the best thing to do as he was hit with a wave of disorientation, his brain rattling around in his head.

Then he felt a foot in his gut followed by a fist hitting him in the right cheek, causing him to stumble away until he completed the fall to the floor, stopping next to the conductor's booth which was conspicuously empty. Rubbing his head, he glanced up to see Bryce making his way to one of the guns; there was no way Duo could reach him in time without getting shot.

Snapping his head towards the conductor's booth, he spied the emergency brake lever and an idea popped into his head. Without pausing another second to consider what he was about to do, he grabbed the lever and pulled it down harshly.

The sudden stop threw Bryce backward, or forward depending on how you looked at it, the man flying in the air to come to a sudden stop against the emergency front door, his head slamming into the glass and leaving a spider web of cracks behind as he slid to the floor unconscious.

"That's gotta hurt," Duo muttered to himself, eyeing the unconscious criminal.

---

As it turned out, they had gone through a couple stops before Duo had put on the brakes. After a few trial and error attempts, he finally had the long hunk of metal pull in to the next stop, the station teeming with Preventers who had figured he would turn up here when the train hadn't continued on its thundering track.

Opening the doors and allowing the scared shitless citizens to evacuate into Preventers custody, he dragged Bryce by his the back of his turtleneck behind him like a sack of potatoes, exiting the train and swaggering towards the nearest agents to drop off his prize. Of course, things were just about to get interesting…

"Maxwell!" a very irate Chinaman bellowed, stomping his way towards the braided one.

"Uh oh," Duo muttered. "Alpha male at ten o'clock."

"That has to have been the most reckless, as well as the most unprofessional stunt, I have seen you pull since you joined Preventers day one yet." At this point it seemed as though the vein in Wufei's forehead would explode as his blood pressure skyrocketed to proportions that would worry most people. Unfortunately, to Duo who had known Wufei for quite a long time now, he found this as not that big of a deal as he just groaned and turned to face his comrade already prepared for the oncoming rant of the century.

As Wufei continued for quite some time, Duo continuously checking his watch, as he awaited the end of this tirade and listening with half an ear as Wufei accounted the damage that was caused by Duo's "reckless nature" as Wufei put it so diligently. He also made quite the scene as he went over all the possible ways that Duo could have failed the mission and might have endangered the lives of the subway passengers as well as his own.

When it seemed as though the color in Wufei's face was back to an almost normal shade, Duo squared off with his fellow Preventer and gave him a big shit-eating grin. "Feel better now Wuffers?" After this Wufei's left eye twitched at the use of the braided one's favorite nickname for him. "Didn't know you cared that much. I feel ten times better now, thanks man."

"Did you hear anything I just said?" Wufei heaved a groan as he glared at his long-time comrade and friend. Duo just grinned back and repeated back everything he said and even went as far as to justify each point made and, as always, left Wufei no choice but to agree that there was no other option. "You're still as insane and reckless as ever."

Duo just chuckled and replied in kind. "If I remember correctly, it was you who got me to join Preventers in the first place buddy." He had a point there. After a long break of calming his nerves with deep breaths, a mantra in his head saying "calm down, breath, don't shoot him," he began to relax. Of course he wouldn't have shot to kill, just a shot to the kneecap perhaps to keep Duo from causing more trouble and anxiety to his already frayed nerves.

Finally after a long wait where Duo tried to decide whether he should reconsider taunting Wufei or maybe give him a few more verbal poking of the stick to the already aggravated Chinese man, Wufei gave a small smirk as he gave his own version of an evil look. "Let's just hope Une doesn't tear your head off when we get back to headquarters."

At this Duo jerked as though stung and gave a small whimper as he thought about that. "Damn it! Now why'd you have to go for a low blow like that?" It wasn't stated as a question but more of a statement of complaint, maybe even a whine.

"I only aim to please o' insane nutcase." The evil smile Wufei sported didn't fade one bit and it gave the braided one the feeling that the guy was not a bit sympathetic to his plight.

This time Duo's eye twitched as he muttered. "Killjoy."

---

While Wufei had remained at the subway station to make sure that the perimeter remained secure, Duo went back to headquarters. Due to Wufei's insistence, it wasn't him who would be driving but another agent. Looks like they wanted to be sure that no more property damage was made on the way back.

Passing by the car dealership, Duo was not the least bit repentant; he had been wanting to get back at those fuckers for selling him a piece of shit car that looked new but fell apart after one week. He just hadn't gotten around to doing it though and this had been completely coincidence.

Honest.

So as he emerged from his motorized escort and into the Preventers' garage, he was greeted by a few mechanics that had heard about his…er, exploits by now. It didn't help that the news was showing footage of his chase on the small TV in the break room and he had the humility to scratch the back of his head sheepishly. Okay, so maybe he went a little overboard today.

Usually, agents like him would report to some sort of desk on one of the upper levels or into a private office and fill out a report, bureaucracy at work and all, but no one told Duo Maxwell what he could and could not do. Well, almost, but that was a story for another time. He had his own private space reserved close to the garage and when he wasn't filing out damage reports, he was there with the other mechanics fixing stuff or doing some engineering shit.

He liked doing nitty-gritty stuff, so sue him.

Entering into his "private office," he slung his gun holster onto his desk and carelessly tossed his safetied gun onto it. Falling back into a comfy, rotating chair that Quatre had been so kind to buy him a couple months ago, he spun on it for a full rotation before stopping to stare at a hanging mirror that he had put up.

Most would say that he was narcissistic from the way he would be caught staring into it several times a day. Truth was, he wasn't that vain. Sure, he knew he was good-looking and sex-on-legs, no need to remind him of that, but there was a different reason for that mirror.

The reason why he stared into several times a day was so he could see himself. Confusing, right? The 'himself' you are thinking of is not the self that he is looking at. The self that he desperately sought was not of the fun-loving, damage causing, trouble prone joker that many thought of him as but a self that was more simpler, more basic.

Sometimes he could swear that he could see himself, who he really was, but he had been this joke for so long that he had begun to forget himself in it. There were times where he wished he could be himself, not that he wasn't a fun-loving, adrenaline junky (that he was) but that—

"Looking at yourself again?" a deep baritone spoke from the doorway, a faint hint of teasing in it that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Slipping on a cheeky grin, he spun his chair so that he faced his most recent visitor. "Be still my heart!" he exclaimed melodramatically. "Since when did you get back in Heero?"

"Not long," Heero replied, not moving from his spot in the doorway, his shoulder leaning against it quite casually. Duo found himself get lost as the Japanese man's blue eyes stared into him and it was only after the other had finished speaking that Duo realized that he had blanked out.

"You mind repeating that?" he asked, embarrassed. "I didn't quite get that."

The corner of Heero's lips quirked upwards. "You know you should pay more attention. What if you happened to be on a mission?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Duo grumbled as he pushed himself back into his chair, folding his arms childishly. "'I might get myself killed' and all that shit. Now can you repeat yourself?"

"I said that I had gotten back," Heero said, still not moving. "I also said that I've been hearing stuff about a car chase. Anything you'd like to confess to?"

Duo flushed. "The guy was getting away," he mumbled. "Not my fault he decided to go through downtown Sanc. We've been after this guy since Mariemaia and I didn't feel like letting him get away this time. If we can't get him on weapons trafficking, we can at least get him on kidnapping or some shit like that."

"A lot of people could have gotten hurt," Heero stated. "This isn't like those movies you like to watch."

"It should," Duo grumbled.

"It isn't," Heero said. "You need to be more careful."

"I know, I know, you're worse than my parents," Duo interrupted, waving the matter aside.

"But…" Heero trailed off, looking a bit uncomfortable for some reason, "I would've done the same had it been me and not you."

Duo smirked. "Coming over to the Dark Side, eh?"

"The Dark Side?" Heero blinked, not understanding the reference. Duo had the sudden urge to smack his forehead.

"You really need to get out more," he said wryly. "If you can't get a Star Wars reference, you ain't been living."

"What?" Heero asked.

"Excuse me, you haven't been living," Duo corrected himself, cursing himself for falling back into old street speech for a second. He didn't want to make a bad impression on one of his closest friends here and nothing could do that any better than admitting that you grew up on the streets eating from a garbage can.

For some reason, people always lost their respect for you once they learn about that.

Feeling that things had gotten awkward and as was his current nature, he spoke, "Wanna sit down? No sense standing there, and all."

"Sure," Heero shrugged as he pushed himself out of the doorway and took a seat, not putting his feet on Duo's desk as the braided one had so often done to his whenever he came up to visit.

"Not gonna get comfy?" Duo inquired as he leaned further back and propped his feet on his desk.

"I'm good, thank you," Heero said stiffly, his eyes not leaving Duo's booted feet.

Duo raised an eyebrow. It was clear that this guy had no concept of how to hold a conversation. It was times like these where he felt sorry for him; what had he gone through to become a Gundam pilot in the first place? He didn't want to image what J had done to him to get him to be so…socially retarded? No, that wasn't a nice thing to say…

Still, that was where he came in, right? He was the one that talked a lot, didn't he? This should be no problem whatsoever. Yeah…eh…what should he talk about again? Hmm, that was a tough one. Ah well, guess he'll have to pull something out of his ass like always.

"What's the word on the Pink front?" he asked conversationally. If there was one subject that always works…

Heero rolled his eyes at that. "Wanted to see me as soon as I got back. I didn't go, obviously."

"My, my, my, guess who's pulling a me," Duo chuckled as he cupped his hands behind his head.

"Guess you're growing on me," Heero said, an uneasy chuckle in his voice as if he was unsure of what he was saying.

"I'll bet," Duo agreed, purposely ignoring that uneasiness. When it came to being sociable, Heero wasn't the expert he was in everything else. Lack of confidence and whatnot. "You wouldn't be the first either. I had Quatre talking like me during the month we spent together during the war."

"Really," Heero said, not looking pleased at that statement for some reason.

Fortunately for Duo, he was good at picking up those subtle clues and inflections in other people's voices. Unfortunately for him, however, he was unable to say or do something about it as a light knock at his door caught both of their attentions and focused them straight at another member of the small and exclusive club that was the Gundam pilots.

Goddamn it, Trowa really knew how to break a moment, didn't he? Or at least interrupt it.

"Sorry about this, but Une wants to see you," Trowa spoke, his quiet voice loud yet soft. As Heero began to stand up, Trowa added, "Not you Heero. Duo."

Don't ask for whom the bell tolls indeed…

"And I thought I was the one who led people to their deaths," he muttered.