WARNINGS: RATED M for language, YAOI (which means male/male sexytiems)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the boys, the Gundams, the copyrights, or the patents. But the snappy one-liners are mine, all mine (unless indicated otherwise in the chapter notes).

A Little Healthy Competition

Follows "Two out of Three" – Duo and Trowa have obstacles and challenges to overcome before they are official employees of the Preventers. In a word: training. Duo POV.

Training was gonna be hell. I mean, seriously. I could see it in my future already. There'd be blisters and there was gonna be blood. Rope burns, bruises, snot, spit, and sweat. There were gonna be early mornings with cups of very bad coffee and reddened, itchy, watery eyes. There were gonna be late nights of text which blurred and danced away from your every attempt to comprehend it.

But what about tears? That's what you're just dying to know, right? Were there gonna be any of those? Well, not if I had anything to say about it.

"Sonuvabitch!" I hissed, grabbing for the back of my thigh as I stumbled across the white finish line.

Trowa's arm went around my waist and I did my best to help him half-drag me over to the side of the track. "Here, sit," he instructed, lowering me to the turf. "Hamstring?" he inquired but he kinda sounded like he already knew.

I gritted my teeth and nodded. I focused on not letting the tearing, searing pain boil out in the form of a scream. It took more than a twitchy muscle to make Duo Maxwell scream. It took more than a twitchy muscle to make his successor, Joe "JC" Cross, scream, too. Trowa's hands nudged mine out of the way and I just curled my fingers into fists and tried to focus on what a nice day we were having. Or had been having. A lovely day for ripping muscle right off the bone. Ho hum.

"You just have to have such long damn legs," I bit out, giving up on philosophical abstraction as he began an excruciating but necessary massage.

"And you just had to match me stride for stride," he replied.

The hell. Of course I did. "We're partners," I choked out.

"Equality," he murmured softly, clearly keeping in mind that our instructor was fast approaching now that the other members of our training class had all managed to cross the finish line, "does not necessarily mean fifty-fifty in everything."

They were wise words, but I wanted to be as close to being Trowa's equal in every way as I possibly could. "I want it to," I told him.

"I know," he said, and then he was giving a report to our scowling instructor. I summoned up a grin for the occasion and blinked the moisture out of my eyes. The pain was actually getting better now. If I was careful for the rest of the day, I might not even have a limp to show for it tomorrow.

But Trowa wasn't anywhere near done with me. After an afternoon spent taking notes in a sterile conference-room-turned-classroom, he steered me up to our housing unit, handed me a power bar and then went to run me a hot bath. I soaked. I dozed. It was a bit lonely but, what the hell. It wasn't as if I was gonna make Tro sit on the toilet seat and talk to me while I pruned.

When I got out, I discovered why he hadn't come in to check on me. He'd smuggled takeout from the food court up to our room, so I had a hot meal out of paper boxes. Then, he shoved at me until I was sprawled out over our bed as he gave my poor leg a masterful massage.

Oh, Christ was he talented. Let me count the ways...

"Hey, now," I objected playfully when his callused fingers hooked into the waistband of my shorts and started dragging them down. I didn't actually put up any resistance (in fact, I accommodatingly lifted my hips which was a pretty miraculous effort considering the fact that his masseuse skills had turned me into Duo pâté) but since when do I let a good chance to heckle the sexiest man in the universe pass me by? "Injured man here."

"I'll be gentle."

I didn't doubt it for an instant. I argued another point instead, "I thought it was the winner who was gonna get the, ah, spoils."

He tossed my shorts over the side of the bed and, sliding his warm hands up the inside of my thighs, pressed my legs apart with an impressive show of strength and determination. I shuddered. "We both win," he growled against the small of my back.

Whoo boy was he right about that. I'm not sayin' he gave me a thorough or in-depth demonstration or anything, but I finally clued in to why it drove him crazy when I used my tongue. Oh my freakin' God of everlasting bureaucratic hell. Um, wow. Before he was through with me, I was wholeheartedly hoping that they hadn't skimped on the soundproofing in the housing units.

"OK," I declared later when Trowa was dozing and drooling on my shoulder, "either we move out as soon as we finish training and get our own place nearby—" Which we were gonna make damn sure was decently soundproofed. "—or we're gonna be racking up a lot of frequent flier miles going back to Clifden for our days off." There was nuthin' like a nice buffer zone of countryside between you and your neighbors to really put a guy at ease, y'know?

Trowa grunted. "We're going to be on call for ten days at a time."

I guess that remark was meant to nix the apartment idea. I chuckled up at the ceiling. "Right. I'll sign us up for Air Ireland club memberships."

God knows we'd be needing 'em.

By midway through our first week of cadet school, Trowa and I were getting long-suffering looks from our instructors. You know the look, right? The Christ-this-guy's-gonna-drive-me-to-drink-paint-thinner-mixed-with-hard-liquour look. And not for the reason you're thinking! Tro and I didn't slack off. Not at all. In fact, in the classroom our rivalry was stronger than ever.

"…does anyone know?" our instructor posed, launching the inquiry into the classroom like he was tossing clay pigeons. I didn't know the answer. Hell, I hadn't even heard the question. I'd been focusing on getting an earlier note jotted down legibly in the margins of my training manual.

Beside me, Trowa elegantly lifted a hand.

My response was automatic. My hand shot up, too. Higher and with more dramatic flair than his.

"Mr. Cross?" our instructor prompted.

Shit.

"Um, hold that thought while I check an' see if Armstrong actually knows what he thinks he knows," I said with a great deal of charm. I glanced at Trowa in time to see him roll his eyes at me.

"The fourth amendment to the international armistice of After Colony 199?" he hinted.

I nudged his knee with mine in thanks as I rattled off the corresponding legalese. Yeah, that's my Tro. He never holds a grudge, even when he could. He does, however, keep track of favors. You owe me, his sidelong look said.

And I knew I was gonna be paying up later. I grinned. I was looking forward to it.

It was harder to look forward to lunches spent slouched over our training manuals as we blindly shoved sustenance in our mouths, but somehow those were nice times, too. It was usually just Trowa and me. I guess, with us being married and all, plus with us both already slated to be partners in a permanent flight crew, that sorta set us apart.

And then there were the battle simulation courses. Also known as the BS courses. Probably because they were ridiculously difficult to get through without taking virtual damage that knocked points off your score which gave lots of cadets ample opportunity to loudly object, "This is bullshit!"

Well, I didn't think it was bullshit. I freakin' loved those Goddamn courses. More than was healthy.

"We really need to work on this obsession of yours," Trowa informed me as we suited up for our turn in this week's maze from hell.

I cackled gleefully. "Ya think?"

"Yes. I do." But he was smiling, so I knew he didn't mean it.

Seriously, it was like nothing else in the world to feel my Shinigami stalking the warzone beside Trowa's Silencer. The raw potential that the two of us embodied – the potential to wreak havoc, to destroy, to recreate – was seductive in and of itself, but the adversity made it all the sweeter. This was the blessed state of grace I'd dared to hope for when I'd asked him to marry me four and a half months ago. Little did I know how much I'd come to crave the downtime in between can-crankin' ass-kicking awesome.

Downtime was a distant dream of a forgotten empire now. Now – at this very moment – we were chin-deep in The Course, and it had been brilliantly designed to be an utterly miserable experience. That must be why I loved it so freakin' much.

On this particular assignment, we were sent out in the dead of night. It was cold – an early cold front had blown in that morning – and it was also raining.

I slipped through the night, sensing Trowa just two steps behind as we moved from shadow to shadow, navigating the maze at its lowest level rather than risking an aerial assault by climbing up to get a bird's eye view. There were search lights sweeping over the course constantly. The risk of discovery was too great until we found decent, high-level cover that let us mimic the surrounding environment.

I pressed back into the darkest of the shadows, shoulder to shoulder with Tro. We signed out a plan between us to approach the token of victory which fluttered from the top of the flagpole at the center of the course.

"How d'ya wanna capture it this time?" I waggled my brows at him in the gloom.

Trowa gave me a tiny grin. "Follow my lead."

Rather than dashing into the center of the course, dodging a hail of paint balls and laser hits, we slunk through the shadows until we came up against one of the debris-covered towers that had blocked our initial approach. A little appropriated rope, a crash-bang-boom from a tumbling stack of slippery-when-wet cargo boxes, and a crushed flagpole later, I was tucking the pennant into Tro's back pocket as we booked our asses back to "base" before the "enemy" launched a counter attack.

Was it wrong of me to liken those times to playground escapades? Maybe. But if the twinkle in Trowa's eyes was any indication, he had one helluva good time, too.

"We're never gonna be able to have a normal date, are we?" I teased him when he backed me up against the wall of our apartment. Hell, the door hadn't even finished sliding shut before my utility belt was hitting the floor and Trowa was peeling my soaked, black turtleneck up my torso.

"It still might be possible," he allowed, tossing my sopping-wet shirt aside. I took advantage of the opening to start in on his buckles and buttons.

"Yeah, well, I guess we'll see about that some other time." We were a bit busy with indulging in a different kind of tradition, one that I was sensing had a helluvalotta potential.

In the team exercises, no one was able to come anywhere near beating Trowa and me, not on accuracy, objectives met, or shortest time. We were lethal. Well, inasmuch as we could be when there were sawdust-stuffed dummies and nylon flags involved. After ten weeks of painfully dry reading, adrenaline-pumping action, and a general lack of time to do anything other than eat, sleep, and take a dump, our final scores confirmed our position at the top of our class. We aced the tests. We finished the Last Day mile with the same time. Trowa scored higher than me in strength training and the high jump. I scored higher than him on the chaotic, solo-op obstacle course, wiggling my way to the lead. So, in the end, we came out neck and neck as far as numbers went.

I'd never been happier to not win. Maybe our competition had been at little juvenile, but I knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, what his physical limits were. I knew how he functioned under pressure, how quickly he integrated data, and what kinds of things were more likely to stick in his long-term memory better than others. And he knew the exact same things about me.

I had no words to express how much that meant to me. Hell, any two strangers could fall in love and get married. It took magic to make two people get each other like we did.

We were ready to be partners. Really ready. For real.

Now we just had the damn induction ceremony deal to endure.

I bit back a sigh as the lead instructor droned on and on about the potential of each graduate and the fragility of peace and yada yada yada. Freakin' hell. Throughout the first thirty minutes of the ceremony, I'd been sitting attentively in my seat like a good little Preventer, happy to be here and eager to serve, but now my brain was starting to petrify in my skull.

Biting back a sigh, I slouched down a bit in my folding chair and reached into the pocket of my Preventer-issued khakis. I pulled out my cell phone and keyed in a brief text message:

/Boxers or briefs today?/

I sent it to Trowa and waited. He was sitting two seats down from me as there was exactly that number of cadets with names that fell alphabetically between ours, so I couldn't hear his cell vibrate from inside his trouser pocket. He leaned forward a bit and sent one of those hot, glittering sidelong glances my way as he flipped open his phone and texted back.

/Behave and you'll find out./

I replied. /You like it when I misbehave./

He answered. /No. I love it when you misbehave./

I smirked. /Ninmu ryokai./

/Cute and evil. Some guys have it all./

/I sure do. And his name is Tristan./

/He must be a lucky guy./

/Definitely./ I sent that message, and then, as the speech-monger continued on and I waited impatiently for the part that was coming up, the part where he announced the top graduate (or, in our case, the top two), I considered Trowa's luck a bit more and added: /Our ranking is the same. No fair they call your name first./

/No one consulted me when they fixed the order of the alphabet./

I teased: /Like it would've turned out any differently if they had./

/Well, this way, you can appreciate the view./

/I have much love for khakis./ Much, much love for khakis. This was a historic fact backed up by precedent.

/Prove it./

/You betcha./

"Tristan Armstrong and Joseph Cross!"

Ah, finally! We stood and approached the stage, Trowa leading the way and me appreciating the view. At the summit, we saluted; we accepted the congratulations and certificate of appointment; we stepped to the side so the next cadet could be called. We were officially Preventers. I was tempted to search the crowd, but I knew I didn't have to; Heero, Quatre, and Wufei were out there in the audience somewhere. And as soon as all the beribboned rolls of fancy paper were handed out, Trowa and I were gonna be joining them.

It all came together in this moment: at long last, not only had we become colleagues of men we respected and trusted, but Trowa and I were now, officially, a team. If the wedding had been the prelude, then this was the chapter in which the hero suits up before going out and kicking ass to awesome theme music.

When we were excused from the stage, I made sure Trowa and I got a bit "lost" in the crowd. I tugged him around the corner of the bleachers of the gymnasium and came up with an excuse to mess up his neck tie just so I could try to fix it for him.

"And you call me insatiable," he rumbled when I let him have unfettered use of his mouth.

There were lots of great comebacks for an opening like that, but what I said was: "Short attention span."

"And impatient," he reminded me and then rewarded me with a kiss.

My manic snorts of humor disrupted it, though. "We're making out under the bleachers… in uniform!"

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is. I can see Wufei."

"Does he look happy?"

"Er…"

But we needn't have worried. Wufei didn't tell on us. Hell, he was too busy pretending he hadn't seen my hand on Trowa's ass.

"If this is a preview of your navigation abilities aboard actual aircraft, I may have to resign myself to taking the train," he drawled with one of those sour expressions that made me want to poke him in the belly just to see if he'd squeak. Y'know, before he killed me with his bare hands.

"You hear that? No faith," I complained to Trowa. "No faith at all."

Trowa smirked and dared to suggest to Wufei, "Maybe our course wasn't off at all."

"Which is far more disturbing a scenario to contemplate," Wufei rebutted.

"Congratulations!" Quatre enthused, squirming under the stands to give us both a back-slapping hug at the same time.

"Th-thanks," I coughed. A motion near Wufei drew my gaze and I found Heero looking at us with this weird, exasperated grin on his face.

"I am not going to ask, so let's get going," Heero decreed and then turned on his heel to march out of the gym-turned-auditorium. Wufei fell into step with him and Quatre pulled Trowa and I along with impressive tenacity.

Our friends were awesome. They were deadly, highly-intelligent, and loyal to a fault. They were the best. They were also cutting into my celebratory time with Trowa.

I tried not to let the pout show.

"Disappointed?" Trowa murmured in my ear as he held the door open for me.

"Do I have reason to be?"

He shrugged. "Look at it this way: you'll have three beers' worth of time to decide which wicked way you want to have with me."

"Three beers. You've got yourself a deal."

I knew I wasn't imagining the feel of his hand ghosting over my hip as I passed. Oh, yeah. He thought he was so fuckin' stealthy. Well, we'd just see about that. I was the Stealth Master and I had the time it'd take to drink three beers to prove it.

I grinned and Quatre bumped my elbow, giving me a look that invited me to share the joke. He might get it, but I didn't particularly wanna clue him in. I just shrugged apologetically and tweaked Trowa's belt buckle when no one was looking.

Yeah, a little healthy competition was good for us. It was damn good.

And so was everything else.

NOTES:

This fic was inspired in part by another comment courtesy of TB, who remarked that (given Duo's upbringing) he may have been proposing something more along the lines of a "power" partnership with Trowa when he'd proposed marriage because, for Duo, a male/male partnership would make sense in those terms. Growing up on the streets, Duo would have seen a lot of power games being played out between people and I believe his version of an ideal relationship would be one in which both people brought something of equal value to the table, so to speak. And, where Duo comes from, those offerings would be directly related to survival and self-empowerment. So, that's the deal with "A Little Healthy Competition." I'm not suggesting that Duo doesn't love Trowa (far from it), but this "power" partnership is really important to Duo. As he says, "Any two strangers could fall in love and get married" which is what he and Trowa did, but he doesn't want that to be the be-all and end-all of their marriage. For Duo, marriage is for life and life is about facing down adversity without flinching.