Part 3:
Yeah, I'm messing around with their ages, and yes, there is a reason (albeit a bad one) for it (mostly cause I wanted to, but there is another reason). I'm saying that at their first meeting (where Duo tries to shoot Heero) Duo is thirteen and Heero is fifteen. I also don't know how long the wars including endless waltz are supposed to last, so I gave them two years. It doesn't really matter, but it explains their current ages being two years after the end of the original wars, Duo: 17 and Heero:19.
***
Heero looked up as someone knocked at the door to the safe house. Quatre and Trowa were already there, going over blueprints for new mobile suits, so it left Heero one alternative, the wrong one...
"Come on in Wufei, the door's unlocked." Heero turned his attention back to his own mobile suit plans. OoO! Double beam cannons!
"WUFEI?? I didn't think my knocks sounded so uptight..." the strange yet naggingly familiar voice trailed off as Heero's hand clamped around the intruder's throat, he was about to crush the person's windpipe, but then froze. The girl's sunglasses had been knocked halfway down her pert nose, and he found himself drowning in huge amethyst pools. The only other person with eyes that color was...
Quatre and Trowa rushed into the kitchen, "Heero! We heard a... Duo?!?"
"I run and hide but never tell a lie." Duo croaked.
Heero abruptly released Duo, whom he was holding by her neck a good foot above the floor.
Heero too had grown, and, at nineteen, he stood 6' tall, well muscled, and, if possible, even more gorgeous than the fifteen year-old waif he had been when Duo had first fallen in love.
Heero stood there in shock. Almost impossibly wide, long-lashed violet eyes...check. Wide, cheery smile, innocent heart-shaped face, long, silky braid... check, check, check. Trademark silver crucifix, check. However, the fact that it was nestled between two fair-sized breasts was a problem. Duo is male, and this Duo is certainly, utterly female.
"B-but, what? How? Why?" he sputtered pointing at Duo, more specifically, her chest. "B-but...you're a guy!"
She rolled her eyes, "I never swam or bathed with you guys, I tended my own wounds. Actually, I'm surprised that after living with me for so long, no one figured it out!"
"But...but..."
"You didn't REALLY think all the hormone suppressants were for my height... did you?"
"But.. But... But..."
"So I was flat when I was fifteen!" Duo rolled her eyes again. "Y'know, for a perfect soldier, you aren't very perceptive." She sighed and brushed her bangs off her face. "Look, Quat-man, did you have any plans for me?"
"Sure thing," Quatre said and led Duo out of the workshop.
Heero stood there in total shock. After Duo left, he realized that while 13 year old Duo was annoyingly attractive, 17 year old Duo was absolutely stunning.
The absent Wufei chose that moment to enter the safehouse, to encounter, for the first time in his recollection, a completely stunned Heero. "What did I miss?" he asked. Trowa simply smirked, as if to say, 'you'll see...'
****
I was shaking and my heart was pounding, but luckily, it hadn't given out yet. I survived my first real encounter with the object of my obsession in two years. I mentally slapped myself for re-appearing on the scene instead of just leaving myself on-call for missions. There was no real point of hiding out with the others until our new mobile suits were built anyway.
He's gorgeous, my hormones added.
I don't think I'll be able to avoid it any longer. I'm in love with the most attractive, dangerous, and utterly uncaring person in the world.
In short, this sucks.
Quatre was practically bouncing off the walls in the excitement of seeing me again. "Let me look at you Duette!" he squealed, (yes, squealed, there is no other more manly word for it, sorry Quatre.) using his pet name for me. He made me take off me coat and do a few fashion spins. He stood there, jaw agape. I put my hands on my hips and stared at him petulantly ( is that even a word? It sounds right though...) this was happening all too often today.
"Duo..." he whispered, in something akin to awe, "Duo you're beautiful."
Well...this was different.
Eight years of ignoring my budding womanhood, from the beginning of my training, had taught me to completely disregard my appearance. No one had ever sincerely complemented me on my appearance before. I was pleasantly shocked, and, for once, I didn't have a snappy comeback prepared. "Thanks Q-kun."
"No need." Quatre said waving his hands, "Just stating the truth."
I'm ashamed to say I actually blushed.
"Anyway," Quatre continued, "I'm glad you got here so soon! You have a mission!"
"Oi! Q! Already? If you don't love me anymore, you could just ask me to leave you know!" I exclaimed, falling easily back into my old role.
Quatre looked mortally offended. "No! Duo if you don't want..." he began frantically before I cut him off with a laugh. He relaxed, "I want you to go undercover with Heero at Alliance Prep., a school for rich brats and whiny wannabe's. I should know, I was invited to enroll. The parent of these kids are some of the most powerful on Earth or the colonies. Your mission is to infiltrate, befriend, then extract as much information as possible. Best case, we find out who, what, where, when, why and how in time to nip the terrorists of the month at the bud. Worst case, you're made some very powerful connections."
I nodded, a worthwhile mission. "So, who am I?" I asked, reverting to war mode.
"Maxine Solo." I grinned, Q grinned back. "I thought you'd like the name," he continued. "Distant relation to the Cinq royalty. You'll take the females and the junior students. Heero is Odin Lowe, he'll take the male seniors and the staff..." Quatre would have finished briefing me if Wufei hadn't opened the door.
He stood there in open-mouthed shock. I swear, if that happens ONE more time today... well, do the words jell-o, green dye, five pounds of cooked noodles and every Llama within a 500-meter radius mean anything to you? As anyone can see, I'm starting to get annoyed. Wufei mouthed, "Duo... onna?" unable to choke out anything else before unceremoniously passing out on the floor.
"I think he took it rather well." Quatre said, before beginning to laugh.
"You do have a camera, right Quatre?"
"Yup."
"Perfect." We both smiled evilly.
****
Heero was getting annoyed.
For two years Heero had lived with Duo. TWO YEARS and he had never suspected a thing. All this time spent coming to terms with his muddled sexuality and it turns out Duo is a woman! Heero pinched himself a few times, then smacked Trowa for good measure.
Trowa, not knowing the reason behind Heero punching him, he punched Heero back in the arm, then walked off, muttering about the effect of Duo on his brain. Yup, Heero concluded, rubbing his tingling arm. That hurt, so this wasn't a dream- or a particularly weird nightmare as he had hoped. Trowa was right though. Duo had that effect on people, she was a loud, powerful, and incapacitating drug, but fortunately, she seemed to have that effect on most people so Heero didn't feel QUITE so stupid. HER
Her.
She.
Duo.
It was still very weird for Heero to be thinking of Duo using feminine pronouns.
Oh well, he had a mission tomorrow, he hoped it was something fairly long. Long enough to logically sort this whole situation out. He didn't want to act before he finalized a conclusion. Whenever he acted blindly on emotion, the results were nearly always bad.
He winced, Relena.
He'd felt bad doing it, but telling her off and shooting her in the foot had seemed like the only option at the time. Well, Heero concluded, Duo had just left, leaving him adrift in a turbulent sea of confusing and unfamiliar emotions, and Relena had kept following him around, glomping him at the most inopportune moments.
Plus, she bugged him.
After that, they didn't speak for a year. Surprisingly (or maybe not so, seeing as he had shot her in the foot) , she had gotten over him rather quickly and she had matured a little due to her postion. When Heero stopped sulking and called her up to apologize, they had actually become pretty good friends. She actually gave pretty good advice. He high position and stress forced her to change from a ditzy, self-centered idealist stalker, to a mature, calm, and independant peace-loving realist, with a biting wit and a slightly sardonic sense of humor.
Much to the astonishment of all who knew her, she actually became likable.
Yes, he decided, picking up the phone, it was definately a good time to call Relena. Aside from Duo or Relena, he would be the first to admit that his social skills were rather lacking, and he was smart enough to know when he needed help. He stoically began to dial.
Review...*whimpers pathetically* ...please review,
so what do you think???
Next chapter: Wufei wakes up and Relena gets called!