Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters in this story. They are owned by Bandai and several other companies, none of which I am part of.

"So then I said I love Dairy Queen, and we went and I had a banana split. Then we sat with the moon roof open and watched the stars come out while we ate our ice cream. After that, he took me home." I sighed into the phone. "It was so nice, Wu."

"Did you kiss him?" Wufei asked, sounding amused. I could imagine the little smirk on his face.

"Wipe the smirk off your face," I said sternly. "I didn't want to seem… easy, you know? Anyway, I did hug him goodnight. And he hugged me back, and told me he hoped he could see me again. So there, Wu-fei." I paused. "Don't you even want to know what kind of ice cream he got?"

"I don't need to," Wufei said, I was fairly sure he was smiling. "Heero only ever has one flavor."

"Oh." 

"Well, congratulations anyway, Duo," came the not entirely unexpected reply.

"Thank you," I started to say, but Wufei wasn't finished.

"…It sounds like you managed to botch that one pretty well."

"What?!" I squawked. "But Wufei, he said-"

"I know," Wufei agreed. "But Duo, how often do people say they want to see their date again and then never call them back? Face it, Braid-Boy. You're still on Date One, and you can't be normal even if you try."

I opened my mouth to yell some more about how Wufei must be the worst friend ever when I got a better idea. "Hold that thought, Wu," I said sweetly. "I have a call on the other line. I'll have to see you at work on Monday. It's probably him now." With that, I hung up the receiver without saying goodbye.

By Monday morning, however, I had decided not to let the unusually silent state of my phone bother me. Obviously I hadn't paid my phone bill. Or the phone lines had become mysteriously severed, and we didn't know yet because the phone company couldn't call us until they fixed it and then there would be no need to call us in the first place. Or-

The phone rang.

Maybe Heero was just busy.

"He's probably just busy, Duo," Quatre echoed my thoughts when I picked up the phone. "He is an upper executive trying to negotiate a merger. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Thanks, Quat," I grumbled. "Is that all you wanted to say? Because I could have thought of that on my own."

Quatre chuckled. "Of course not. I just wanted to see if you had the technical presentation done for the meeting today."

I scoffed. "I've had it done for a week. And I'm not going to forget it, if that's the real reason you called." I tightened my tie. Today it was black and said "This is a tie" in colorful letters.

"I know you won't, Duo. Just like I know you wouldn't be late on such a big day for us."

"Of course not," I agreed with a smile. "I'm never late."

***

According to the Winner Enterprises employee conduct memo, disciplinary action will be taken for anybody who arrives more than 5 minutes late without calling first. Which is why I arrive precisely 4 minutes late every day. The way I see it, if you can't get in trouble, then you aren't doing anything wrong.

The elevator arrived on the executive level, and I glided smoothly out and through the door to the office. The executive level has very smooth, shiny floors that they buff every day. It's perfect for skateboarding on. Wufei says that they wouldn't have to buff every day if I didn't do that, but they buffed every day before I started skateboarding to my desk in the mornings, and I told him that.

"Morning, Duo," Quatre said as I glided in. I tossed him the presentation disk.

"Morning," I sang. "Want to see a new trick I learned?"  I leaned my weight on the back of the skateboard and lifted my right foot, but my work shoes mustn't be as good for skateboarding as my tennies, and the skateboard shot out from under me, almost taking out Wufei in the process.

He ducked at the right time, but I landed on my butt. "Ow," I complained.

"Duo!" He yelled. "You almost broke my paper weight."

"Oh, that thing wouldn't break if you dropped it off the moon," I grumbled, picking myself up off the floor. I walked over to Wufei's desk. "Can I have my skateboard back?"

"He's not usually like this," Wufei was saying. I started to ask him if my skateboard had missed his head when I saw who he was talking to.

Sitting in chairs outside the conference room were a tall man with long blonde hair and the senior executive I had gone out with on Friday night.

"Morning, Duo," Heero said pleasantly.

I started to choke out an equally pleasant greeting when Wufei, who had been starting to hand my skateboard back, made a little sound.

"'This is a tie,' hmm?" he asked, amused. "Do you have pants that say 'These are pants,' too?"

I snatched my skateboard out of his hands. "Funny," I snapped, and stalked back to my desk.

"Well, now that our presentation has arrived, shall we start the meeting?" Wufei asked our guests pleasantly.

"I was only four minutes late," I grumbled as the three of them went into the conference room.

Quatre patted my shoulder as he walked by my desk on the way to the conference room. "Try to have a good day, Duo," he said simply. He closed the door firmly behind him, as he was the last one to arrive at the meeting in the conference room.

I stared at the stained glass in the door for a moment, then, laying my head in my hands, I glared at my skateboard.

"If Wufei just won because of *that*, I'm donating you to a kindergarten class," I told it.

                                                                                ***

"Ooh, Quatre, you'd better get a camera."

"Why?"

"I think Duo's actually…. working."

I decided to ignore them. Maybe they would go away.

"What … *are* you doing, Duo?" Quatre asked after a moment.

I sighed. "Someone in Marketing got a virus and now they all have it. I'm working on a patch."

I heard Quatre start to say something, and without looking, I held out a finger. "Don't say anything. I don't need to hear any clever witticisms about STDs." Quatre is not as innocent as he looks and has a perverted little mind when he chooses to.

"I didn't know they had patches for that," was all he said before wandering back toward his plush little office.

I heard someone else behind me, and groaned. "Wu-" I began.

"Duo, do you want a ride home?" It was Heero's voice.

I started and turned.  Heero's face was unreadable, as usual.

I grimaced. "As much as I would love to sneak out early, it's going to take me at least a few more hours to finish this."

Heero nodded. "I need to work on something too," he said. "Tell me when you're ready." Then he walked away.

I stared incredulously into space for a few moments before getting back to work. With the new found incentive, I worked a little faster than I had expected, and managed to finish the patch, delete the viruses, and install it within a few hours. Then I logged off Deathscythe and grabbed my coat, looking at the clock. Less than an hour to go before I would have gotten off of work anyway. Oh, well.

Heero was talking on a cell phone, but ended the call quickly when he saw me. "That was fast," he remarked. "Quatre told me what you were doing."

I grinned. "I've seen one like that before. I already had an idea what to do, and it worked on the first try."

"Hn." Heero nodded.

There was an awkward silence as we walked to the car.

"So," I said after a minute. "How about the weather?"

Heero looked at me strangely. "What?"

I shrugged. "It was too quiet, so I wanted to talk about something."

"Hn," Heero said. "Duo, did you really hook up a PS2 to the teleconference center?"

I remembered the bet. "Well… sort of…" I mumbled.

We reached the car and Heero unlocked it. "How about programming Wufei's paper shredder to play 'Bye Bye Bye' every time it shredded something?"

I grinned. "Oh, yeah. But-"

"Hn?"

"Heero, I don't do that stuff to be annoying or anything, or even to make Quatre look bad. I do it because it makes work more interesting." I bit my lip.

Heero shrugged. I wondered if I had said something wrong.

"I don't suppose you ever do anything like that," I mumbled.

"Not like that," Heero agreed. "I just messed with go-carts when the kid who was working at the go-cart place was getting someone free from the wall."

I giggled. "I thought about that before, but I never thought of doing it then."

Heero nodded. "It's better to do it when nobody's in line."

I thought about that. "Will you show me how to do it?"

Heero looked at me and the car swerved. I thought I was going to die. "Right now?" he asked.

"There's a go-cart place on 104th. It's only a few blocks east of where I live."

"…With two people, we can be much more efficient," Heero said, thinking out loud.

I smiled. "That's the idea," I agreed. And that's how Operation Mustang began.

                                                                                ***

"Do you know your part?" Heero asked again.

I nodded. "Yes. I want to watch you do it, though."

"You'll get to if you do your part right," Heero replied. "The ride starts in thirty seconds."

I gave him the victory sign and went over to get into a car before it started. There were only five cars in line. Perfect.

The light turned to green, and the cars ahead of me went. I did a warm up lap, and then halfway through the second lap, it began. My foot on the accelerator, I slammed the fastest car into the wall, then turned the wheel so I was facing sideways and caused the best five-car pileup in the history of go-carts.

Both attendants came over immediately to see what was wrong and untangle the cars. I snuck away over to the control panel, where Heero was playing with the timer. Then he flipped open the hood of one of the two unused cars and showed me how to raise the maximum speed.

"Think you can do it to the other one?" he asked. I nodded, and did exactly what I'd seen him do to the other car. He unhooked the gate and we hid inside the fixed-up cars. By then the accident had been worked out, and the attendants were sending the cars back into the pit. As soon as they were all back, Heero and I were off, as fast as possible and laughing, yelling over the engines, our hair whipping in the wind.

We only managed two laps before we were caught and banned from the park for life. But it was the most fun I'd had in a long time. And that's saying something, for me.

***Extra Scene***

This doesn't really happen, but it was requested by andrea ^^. It's at Dairy Queen.

After we got our ice cream (which I paid for, ever the nice and giving one), we sat on the curb outside to eat it. For awhile, we just sat in the semi-darkness, our backs to the restaurant, enjoying each other's company over a soft-serve frozen dessert.

"This was a good idea," I said, looking at my shoes. "I've never really been comfortable in those restaurants that give you extra forks…"

"I could tell," Heero said, and he sounded so nice, that I had to smile back at him. Then, as my eyes met his handsome face, I giggled.

"What?" Heero asked, instantly alert.

I pointed at his face, and then shook my head. I sat up.

"Hold on," I said, still stifling giggles. "I'll get that for you." I set down my ice cream and leaned in, swiping my tongue ever-so-delicately over the spot of ice cream on Heero's chin. I leaned back, licking my lips. "Mmm," I teased. "I think that was better than my own ice cream."

Heero looked astonished. Then his eyes narrowed in determination, and he picked his own ice cream back up, deliberately eating a spoonful.

"So," he said casually after a minute. "What did it taste like?"

"Silly," I said affectionately, "Heero only has one flavor."

"Hn," he grunted, and we leaned in for a long, slow kiss. As our lips met, I couldn't help but think that this was better than ice cream any day.