A/N: So far, so good. Sorry 'bout the wait, but now school's over. This chappy's about Heero. Trace amounts of background-ness, and filling in the blanks. Enjoy. Review.

Disclaimer: Every time I buy a Coke product, I check under the cap to see if I've won anything. I've bought about a hundred Cokes in the past year, and not once has the cap said, 'You have just won complete ownership and control of Gundam Wing.' I have won about ten free Cokes, but they're gone now /hic/, so you can't have them.

Deadly Beautiful - Chapter Four

By danse

He sat on the concrete floor in the darkness with his arms wrapped around his knees, hugging them close to his face. If he squinted, he could just make out the outline of his sneakers in the very faint crack of light that came from under the door. When he was small, he had been afraid of the dark and would just sit in this same spot rigidly, his eyes frozen wide open with fright, not quaking a muscle, while he silently counted down the hours until he could go back into the light. As the years passed, though, he had gotten used to the inky blackness and now he rarely felt that paralyzing fear when he was shut in this room. It almost felt comfortable in its familiarity.

He yawned, stretched, and pushed stubborn locks of brown hair away from his eyes, which was a pointless exercise since he couldn't see anything anyway. Not that there was anything else to do in here. Adjusting himself so that he was sitting cross-legged, he put his head in his hands and tried to decide how long he'd been in the five-by-five foot cell. Nine hours was his best guess. That meant that in about another hour, they would open the door and put down his first meal since the start of this imprisonment.

That was the best way for them to punish him now. He had a high metabolism and a slight frame, and when they locked him in here, they fed him every ten hours. If they didn't forget about him, that is. Which rarely happened. His stomach growled like far-off thunder in the silence. Just one more hour, he thought, as he curled up into a loose ball on the floor and shut his eyes, trying to pass the time.

A little over an hour later, he was woken suddenly by the clank and groan of a heavy metal door opening. Harsh fluorescent lights in the ceiling outside the cell shone into the tiny space as the door swung out, and the boy had to shade his eyes from the painful glare. His eyeballs felt like they were on fire and white patches swirled and danced in his vision. He heard the scrape of a tray on the concrete as it was pushed inside the cell. He crawled towards the door, squeezing his eyes shut in the light.

Slowly, he peeped his eyelids open and squinted at the tray. Soup, a bun, and a cup of water were laid out. He didn't wait for his vision to clear before starting to inhale his food; he would have five minutes before they took the tray and shut the door, and he had to use the bathroom, too. Two armed guards lounged outside the door, half-watching him eat while they talked disinterestedly.

When he was fed, watered, and escorted to the bathroom, they took the empty food tray and slammed the heavy door shut, bathing Heero Yuy in absolute, smothering darkness. He scooted back against the wall opposite the door and shut his eyes as he leaned his head against the hard wall. Ten hours of confinement had passed. Sixty-two remained before he would be released.

His master, who had a robotic claw for a hand and was known to his subordinates only as J, had been very disappointed in the failure of his last mission and had sent him to this cell-known as the Pit-for three days. Here, he was supposed to reflect on what he'd done wrong and do it better next time. Perfectly. Anything less than perfection from Heero was a disappointment to J. A mistake in the mission was always due to human error, so the best way to circumvent that was to eliminate the error. Heero had been molded since infancy, so he was told, to be better than human. The Perfect Spy, the Perfect Assassin and the Perfect Agent. But he had glitches. Heero was very sorry that he had these glitches and so was J, so he said, because that meant that Heero had to be punished.

Heero arranged his back as comfortably as possible against the wall and mentally replayed the last mission, not for the first, nor the last, time during his stay in the Pit.

It had been a simple assignment: infiltrate the house, assassinate the target and leave without a trace. He'd done it many times in the past without any mishaps. But in the past, he hadn't had any competition for the target.

At first it had gone smoothly. Heero had been dropped off three blocks from the house and broke into the manor via a basement window. He'd made his way up the stairs, avoiding all the ignorant security detail that were posted anti-strategically throughout the first floor, and made it to within fifteen feet of the stairs leading to the bedrooms. He'd crouched behind a chair to quickly check his surroundings before dashing across the open floor to the stairs. He'd been so expectant of seeing no one that he did a double take when he saw the shadow of someone standing by the staircase. Heero hadn't quite smothered a little gasp of surprise and the person turned and crouched, pointing a gun that glinted dully in a sliver of moonlight.

It was a minor setback; Heero had drawn a small bladed star out of a pouch at his side and fingered it absently while he waited for his chance to fix the problem. He'd watched like a hawk as the person, obviously with nefarious purposes of their own, slowly rose to their feet and started to creep towards the stairs. When they were directly opposite Heero, their head was briefly illuminated by moonlight from a high window. He seized his moment and flung the star at the person's temple.

That should have been it. The intruder should have been dead. But she-it must have been a girl, for there was long hair tucked inside her jacket-had dodged the deadly weapon. And then shot him. He'd been caught off guard by the fact that she was still alive and hadn't quite dodged the shot; the bullet had hit his right thigh. The commotion woke the guard in the kitchen, who had rushed into the foyer to see what was going on. Heero had already taken cover behind a piece of furniture and the guard saw only the girl by the stairs. Heero had watched from his hiding spot as she escaped up the stairs, stopping to fire three times at the heavyset man and then running again.

The guard had gone down right at the bottom of the staircase and Heero had crept out of his hiding place as the girl disappeared on the upstairs landing. Seconds later, he'd heard the crash of glass shattering: the sound of his mission being destroyed. He would never be able to kill the girl he was supposed to without causing a bigger disturbance and probably being captured.

He'd gingerly put his weight on his wounded leg, cursing silently at the small bloodstain he'd left on the white rug. Ignoring the pain, he'd retreated to the basement stairs, ready to escape. Someone had shouted from down the hall, but he'd moved quickly and vanished into the shadows before they could catch up. He'd stopped just long enough under the basement window to tie one of his socks tightly around his leg above the wound, to stop the bleeding, and then ran to the rendezvous point, cursing quietly but forcefully all the way.

Heero absently rubbed the bandage on his leg as he remembered the trip back. He was so ashamed. It would probably be a while before he would be trusted with another assignment. He still had well over two days to spend in the Pit. His leg was bothering him in the cramped space.

If he ever saw that girl again, he had a lot to pay her back for. If he closed his eyes, he could still remember what she'd looked like in the dim, white moonlight. She'd had long, braided hair that might have been either dark blonde or brown, and a small, slightly upturned nose which now had a cut on it. Her eyes had been obscured by heavy, dark-rimmed glasses. But he knew enough. If he ever saw her again, he would recognize her.

And she would pay.

A/N: What do you people think of this fic? Love it? Hate it? Wish I'd not even thought of it at all? I want constructive criticism. Please, be honest. And I wish I had a beta reader, but I don't, so I have to check myself. Should I try and find one? Leave a review. And it's on to chapter five…