"Thank you," Wufei said to pilot who had flown him out here. He got an absent-minded wave in return, and Wufei let himself off. He'd gone straight from the shuttleport to hitch a ride with a local military liaison to Zhangjiajie National Park.

Among the towering sandstone pillars, Nataku seemed to belong. Wufei stopped for a moment to take his precious Gundam in, not used to seeing her moving from the outside. As always, a tangle of emotions washed through him upon seeing her: sorrow, mourning, righteous anger, fury.

Regret. So much regret. Even after all these years, the regret was thick in his throat and heavy in his chest.

Watching her move with Maxwell piloting was odd, unnatural. Not because Maxwell's piloting was poor—he was, in fact, a superior pilot to Wufei—but because it was how Maxwell moved, and not how Wufei thought of Nataku moving. People scurried around a bit, picking up broken and damaged bits and pieces of mobile suits while Nataku maneuvered what was left of the Leos into a freight container of sorts.

Her head turned, and Maxwell's voice came from the speakers. "Hey, Whoopsie-daisy! Long time no see!"

Sighing at Maxwell's utter impropriety even as he was relieved to hear his friend sound so upbeat, he said, "Must you?"

Nataku stepped lightly over to Wufei, far more lightly than Wufei could have made her step, and bent gracefully to a knee, her hatch opening. Maxwell came out and dropped to sit on the platform it created, one leg swinging lazily over the side, the other pulled up by his chest. "Obviously," he said, continuing the conversation as if unbroken. "Did you really expect me not to?"

"Whoopsie-daisy?" Wufei repeated, letting exactly what he thought of Maxwell's newest sobriquet show in his tone.

Maxwell grinned down at him shamelessly, reminding Wufei who he was dealing with. "It's cute. You're cute. I thought it was appropriate."

It wasn't just general good humor, Wufei realized. That kind of near-manic good cheer was something he hadn't encountered in a while, but one did not forget that particular flavor of jubilance. At least his qi sense found Maxwell to be bright, much brighter than he'd been the last time Wufei had seen him. A zip line was thrown down to Wufei. Shifting his bag more firmly on his shoulder, he put his foot in the loop and held onto it while it pulled him up, climbing onto the platform when he reached the top. Maxwell turned to watch him, still seeming bemused.

"What?" he asked.

Maxwell shrugged. "You look good. That's all."

Wufei rolled his eyes, then went into the cockpit. He more than half expected to find it blood-spattered despite Maxwell appearing clean, but the interior is as perfectly clean as it has ever been. Not even any dust. Wufei did have to adjust the seat as Maxwell must have moved it. Setting his bag aside, it was easy to forget how small the cockpit was.

"I didn't break your baby," Maxwell said, leaning in the entrance of the cockpit.

Eyes flicking up to him, Wufei caught a bit of black against Maxwell's neck that wasn't part of his outfit. "If that's another bruise on your neck, then I have someone I need to speak with," he said, turning his attention back to the control panels of Nataku.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Maxwell reach up to touch it before tugging up the collar of his jacket. "Not a bruise," he said.

Something about his tone made Wufei pause in his diagnostics and glance back up at him. Maxwell's eyes were distant, and he didn't offer any further explanation. Narrowing his eyes, Wufei says, "Maxwell."

Maxwell rolled his eyes this time, but it was oddly affectionate, as if Wufei were being tiresome but it amused him. He pulled the side of the collar out of the way, and Wufei felt a visceral revulsion as he read Jesus there.

"Did he make you get that?" he asked, tasting a bit of bile at the back of his throat.

"He asked for it. I decided. He had my name too, for what it's worth," Maxwell replied, pulling the collar back into place and making the name disappear.

Had. Wufei knew that Jesus Reyes was dead, and he gave Maxwell another critical look-over.

"Did you have anything to do with his death?" he had to ask, even if he shouldn't. It wasn't his place to criticize, but none of his friends were friends with him because they were afraid of criticism. It might be a very good reason that a lot of people he worked with weren't friends, however.

Maxwell's eyes go flat. "No," he said, hard and cold. "I wouldn't have."

Wufei didn't know if he believed that, but with Reyes dead, there wasn't much to be gained by challenging it. Maxwell was a pragmatist at heart, but he put the people he loved above any law or code. Judging by his reaction, Maxwell loved Reyes.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said because it was the right thing to say, because Maxwell was as good as family. As much as Wufei despised Reyes for putting a hand on Maxwell, for treating him like a thing, a possession, Maxwell loved him, and Maxwell mourned him.

Maxwell snorted. "You're sorry it hurt me. You're not sorry he's dead."

There was no point in denying it. "I can be sorry for anything that causes you pain," he said. "We've all lost far too much. I don't have to like or approve of the man to be sorry that his loss caused you more pain."

That made Maxwell look away. "Yeah, well… no happy ending in the cards with that one," he said, but his voice rang with the sound of someone trying to convince himself rather than the sound of someone who had accepted the truth. "It's Reyes-Maxwell now, by the way."

Wufei stared, trying to wrap his head around that for a moment before the intelligent response of, "Come again?" came out.

Maxwell didn't look at him, gaze fixed at somewhere out in the park. "I married him."

"Was that really necessary?" he blurted.

Violet eyes slid over to him, no censure, no anger, no disappointment, even. He thought it would be easier to accept if Maxwell were frustrated or defensive. The calm acceptance told Wufei that Maxwell knew he would never approve and he stood by the decision anyway. The man was dead, so it wasn't like Wufei's approval or disapproval meant anything anymore. He couldn't threaten the man, couldn't make sure that he never hurt Maxwell. It was done.

Sighing, Wufei pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a tension headache coming on. "Of course you had to," he said, more to himself than to Maxwell. "Was it worth it?"

"You know I try not to do shit I'm going to regret."

"Trying not to and managing not to are not the same thing," Wufei retorted.

"I'd do it again, if that's what you're asking."

Wufei hated when Maxwell got like this. There was no arguing with him, no way of moving him from the place he had planted himself. He rubbed his eyes and then sighed and sat back in the seat. "Then my condolences," he made himself say.

Being loved by Duo Maxwell must be a heady and powerful thing. A terrifying thing, if one actually understood the lengths Maxwell would go to for those he loved. He wondered if Reyes understood, and if he were terrified or if he were the sort of madman who would revel in the destruction Maxwell was capable of.

Based on what he knew of Reyes, Wufei rather thought the man would revel.

He wondered if maybe that was part of why Maxwell loved him, because he was a man who would have embraced all that Maxwell was.

It wasn't his place to ask and, though resigned, the wound was still somewhat fresh, so he decided to change the subject, instead looking around at the destroyed suits around them. "It looks like you had fun," he said.

That got a quirked grin. "Probably a little too much," he admitted. "How did you know when to call, by the way?"

Wufei shrugged. Une had given him a rundown of what Maxwell had been heading into, that suspected Hydra-controlled mobile suits were active in the park. With Maxwell heading into it, he had been sure that it meant piloting Nataku against enemy suits. There had been no question in Wufei's mind that Shinigami would make its appearance. "I figured it had been long enough since you had been in this sort of battle that you would make short work of them."

"I did," Maxwell admitted, but he looked back out at the scenery again as if something were on his mind.

"But?" Wufei prodded when he didn't say anything further. He would never admit that he sometimes missed the Maxwell who had talked too much, though, he supposed, it had rarely been about the things that mattered.

Maxwell's brow furrowed, and he said, "Sam got hurt."

"Sam?"

"The Falcon. Also known as, the one guy who started trying to get close to me in the Tower," he said, frowning.

Ah, Wufei knew what was going on in Maxwell's head now. "It wasn't your fault."

He didn't look at Wufei, but he shook his head like Wufei just didn't get it.

"You are not cursed," he said.

"It doesn't even matter," Maxwell interrupted, but it again sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "Stark and Rogers are going to be horrified, and neither of them are going to want anything to do with me, and this whole stupid experiment will be dead and buried."

He didn't say as it should be, but Wufei heard it anyway.

"Are you sure that they're horrified?" he asked.

That made Maxwell turn to him with a you are not actually this stupid look. "Who in their right mind wouldn't be?" he asked.

"But did they say anything that makes you think they are? Specifically?"

"Everyone was certainly up in arms about me being fucking expedient about killing the guys trying to keep me out of your baby," he said, knocking the back of a fist on the frame of the cockpit.

"Nataku is not my baby," Wufei corrected, getting an eyeroll but continuing. "Did they say anything else?"

"No, I just got a lot of 'we try not to kill people,' hypocritical bullshit. They kill people all the fucking time. Is it really worse just to shoot someone instead of smashing them to death against something?"

To Wufei's mind, it was actually kinder to just shoot someone than to break them the way Maxwell described. Maxwell's kills could be brutal, but they were always clean. There was a kind of mercy in that. "They… are enhanced," he began, picking his words with care. "And perhaps it is different to watch your child do things you, yourself, are not proud of?"

Maxwell didn't look convinced. "It's whatever," he said, a thread of anger in his voice this time. "Their jobs are fucking dangerous enough. They don't need to throw me into the fucking equation anyway."

Wufei suppressed a sigh. He knew how Maxwell was when he got into one of these moods, when he convinced himself that he was an active danger to whomever he cared for. He wished that he knew a way to convincingly argue against Maxwell's superstitions, but the best counterexamples he had were the pilots, and all that pointing them out did was make Maxwell even more anxious.

"Are you going to run again?" he asked instead, running at the issue from a different direction. The building anxiety, the certainty of his own bad luck, and Stark's apparent censure were certainly a powerful combination, one which was exceedingly likely to send Maxwell fleeing under far better circumstances than he was currently enduring.

Eyes looking out at the scenery again but probably not seeing it, Maxwell paused before answering. "I don't see any damn reason to go back if he's just going to tell me to forget we ever met."

The resignation was thick in his voice. It echoed with older pains, older losses. This relationship was new and—if Wufei knew Maxwell half as well as he thought he did, which was quite well, thank you—fragile. Maxwell might be right about Stark's reaction, about being thrown out, but Wufei somehow doubted it. In his experience, Duo Maxwell was not someone people willingly gave up or left. He thought it unlikely that, as surprised and frightened as Stark may be, he would give up Maxwell without at least some kind of discussion. Of course, Maxwell's intention to run was in large part to avoid said discussion.

Wufei was not going to let him. "He is your father—"

"Which means fuck-all to—"

"And you will do him at least the courtesy of meeting with him to confirm that he wishes you removed from his family and his life," Wufei continued, interrupting Maxwell as he'd been interrupted. "I know that biological family means little—"

"Nothing."

"—To you," Wufei continued as if Maxwell hadn't interrupted yet again, "but give the man who searched for you for over a year the benefit of the doubt."

Maxwell's expression twisted into a rather childish pout, though Wufei had no doubt the irritation that fueled it was real enough. "It's not like he's going to give me the same courtesy," he muttered.

"We shall see when we return to New York City," Wufei said in simple reply. He'd be lying if he said it weren't satisfying to catch Maxwell off guard enough to startle him.

"We?" he asked, sounding confused.

"Unless you have some compelling reason for me not to, I intend to return with you. I would like to meet your so-called 'father,'" he admitted, turning his attention to finishing running the diagnostics.

It was silent for long enough that Wufei glanced up to check that Maxwell was still there. He was, still looking stunned.

"As gratifying as the goldfish look is on you, why are you so surprised?" Wufei asked.

Maxwell scratched at the nape of his neck. "I just… you've got better things to do, I'm sure—"

"Than to meet the family of one of my dearest friends and give them, what did you call it? The 'shovel speech'?" Wufei asked, knowing perfectly well what it was called, and no less irritated by how well the nomenclature fit. "On the contrary, I understand I would be remiss if I did not accompany you."

Once, it probably would have earned him Maxwell rolling on the ground, holding his sides from laughing so hard, but though it did earn a hearty chuckle, it faded far more quickly than Wufei liked. Duo climbed in, wedging himself into a nook that really wasn't meant for anyone, but at least a bit of an affectionate grin continued to play at his lips.

"I missed you, 'Fei," he said, leaning his head back, looking suddenly exhausted. "Why don't you close her up so we can finish cleaning up this mess. We gotta find a better place to hide your baby before we can talk about going to put the fear of justice into Tony Stark."

"She's not my baby," Wufei corrected, but there was no real irritation in it this time.

Maxwell waved him off, closing his eyes as he settled in, and Wufei closed the cockpit, making Nataku stand in a smooth, effortless motion. Maxwell hadn't been wrong, after all; there was work to do before the requisite death threats could be delivered.

"Have you seen the news, my darlings?" Hilary asked, squeezing himself between Oliviana and Heero where they were seated on the bench. Heero shook his head, bemused and well used Hilary's enthusiasm.

"The news?" Oliviana asked, leaning around him slightly to meet Heero's eyes. He rolled his eyes at her but couldn't keep the small smile from playing at his lips.

"The—" Heero's ears rang and he missed the next thing Hilary said.

"What was that?" he asked when the ringing cleared.

Hilary turned and looked at him, curious. "There was a—" The ringing set in again for a moment, but cleared in time for him to catch, "—in Zhangj-ji-ji National Park."

Shaking his head, Heero corrected, "Zhangjiajie National Park."

"That's what I said—Zhang-ji-ji." Hilary looked at him oddly "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine, why?" he insisted.

"Because I said—" The ringing was back and sharper, and Heero winced. "—and you only cared about my complete inability to speak Mandarin." His eyes narrowed. "You didn't hear me, did you?"

Heero tugged at his ear for a moment before he said, "Something in Zhangjiajie Park?"

"A—"

This time, the ringing was so sharp, it made Heero bend at the waist and cover his ears

"Heero!" Oliviana's concerned voice was the first thing he heard when the ringing cleared, and he was surprised to look up and find her crouched before him. She cupped his face and looked at him with worried eyes. "Are you okay?" She moved her hand from his cheek to his forehead, and he waved her off.

"It's fine," he said. "I'm fine. Just… my ears keep ringing."

"Your ears?" Oliviana asks, sounding confused. "It seems to happen every time Hilary says—"

Whatever she says set off worse than a ringing in his ears, it was piercing this time, throbbing like a sudden migraine setting in, and he dropped his head into his hands.

"Okay, that's it. We're not talking about this anymore."

"But it's just—" The pain ebbed enough that Heero cracked eyes open enough to catch Oliviana waving a harsh, silencing finger in Hilary's direction. Hilary put his hands up defensively. "Okay, okay. I won't say the G-word again."

The pain faded enough for Heero to sit back up cautiously. "The G-word?" he asked.

"Don't," Oliviana snapped before Hilary could even open his mouth to reply.

"You heard her," he said, eyebrows raised in an don't look at me expression.

Heero sighed, the last of the migraine going as quickly as it had come, and he sat back.

"I think we should take you to the doctor," Oliviana said, standing, watching him carefully.

Carefully stretching his neck to see if that would help limit the chance of another migraine spiking, he said, "I'm fine. Really."

"You went white," she replied, not at all convinced. "It was… it was like at the bar, when you forgot, only worse."

Heero didn't remember what happened at the bar, despite repeated attempts to remind him. The information just seemed to keep slipping between his fingers, as if trying to grasp sand.

Oliviana seemed to realize that because she sighed. "When is your appointment with the neurologist?"

"Neurologist?" Hilary asked, alarmed.

"It's just… precautionary."

"You've been losing time—real time—for weeks now," Oliviana said. "You're starting to scare me."

First time, then whole conversations, now specific words. He was getting worse. It was starting to scare him too, if he were honest.

He gave Hilary what he was sure was more grimace than a smile when he said, "Liv's worried."

Hilary looked worried too. It didn't make Heero feel any better.

"I think we should—"

"It's fine," he said, feeling like a broken record. "Just… not a good topic of conversation, apparently."

Oliviana and Hilary exchanged a glance, and it was never good when they were on the same wavelength.

Folding her arms, Oliviana said, "If you're sure…"

"I'm sure."

She frowned again. "If you have another reaction, I think we need to go to the emergency room."

Holding in a frustrated sigh—it wasn't like they'd be able to do anything—Heero turned to Hilary and said, "Don't even."

Hilary batted his eyes. "Moi?"

"Yes, you," Heero said at the same time Oliviana did. It was enough to break the tension and have them all chuckling. Oliviana sat back down on Heero's other side, and he didn't think for a moment that they were done talking about this, but for now, she was letting it go.

He wondered what the word was, but he didn't dare try to find out.