Author's Notes: Duo convinces the other pilots to enjoy All Hallows Eve with him and there are dire consequences. This is actually version 2.0 of the story. It was originally a AU school fic, but I decided I could have more fun with the canon situation. Unfortunately, this is currently TWT, though it is at least after Heero's time at the circus in Trowa's care.

Content and Warnings: Supernatural, mild language, possible hints of shonen ai, rated PG-13

Disclaimer: This is the equivalent of singing classic rock songs in a school talent show: you obviously don't own them, you're not making any money, and your lack of talent may be a painful thing for others to witness.

Possessing Duo Maxwell, part one
A Gundam Wing 'Eek!' Fic by Tien Mu

Duo slid to a half stop at a corner in the hallway, flung a handful of charges at his pursuers, and bolted further down the hall before the explosion. He checked the labels of the doors as he ran past them. He almost missed the one he wanted, turning at the last minute and hurtling into the doorframe in his hurry.

"Heero, man, we've worn out our welcome. Think you could hurry up?"

Heero was kneeling before a computer console with dead bodies strewn around him and a small puddle of blood was oozing around his knees. He would have been sitting in a chair, but it had been broken, as evidenced by the mangled bits of plastic and bloodied fabric, in the brief altercation that gave him uninterrupted access to the room.

Heero took only a moment before ejecting a disk from the computer. He stood and his knees creaked loudly in belated protest to the position he had been in. He fired once into the processing unit, which sizzled and caught fire in tiny explosions.

"Done."

Duo looked out the doorway, but jerked his head back in when he saw soldiers approaching from the end of the long hall.

"Shit! They're right on top of us. Got any good ideas?"

"Run."

"What? That's your good idea? They'll mow us down!"

Heero stood by Duo at the door, looking at what little he could see through the mostly closed door. Duo looked him over. He had cuts on his arms from taking the hard way onto the compound, over a fence topped with concertina wire. His hair and face were singed from getting too close to explosions and hot artillery. And the finishing touch was a bullet wound to his right knee that made Duo wonder how Heero's kneecap was still in his company.

"Go first and I'll cover you. Take the disk," Heero said.

Duo shoved the disk back at his partner. He grinned, but it was a hard, humorless curve.

"Keep your damn disk, you lunatic. You're a hell of a lot worse off than I am. I will cover you."

"If you are talking about my knee, it will hold up fine."

"That's good to know. Prove it and get the hell out of here while I deal with our hosts."

Heero started to argue further, but Duo jerked open the door and shoved him into the hall. Then there was no time to talk as the soldiers spotted them. Heero set off at a run, but his gait was oddly loping as he favored his bad leg.

Duo ran sideways and backwards as he fired continuously into the oncoming forces. The end of the hall would turn a corner and an exit was right there. They were almost out and the soldiers were dropping rapidly. He checked his position. Heero was already around the corner, hopefully out the exit too.

Duo turned away from his pursuers and made the last sprint for the end of the hall. He turned it just in time to have the bullet graze the back of his neck instead of blasting through it. The force sent him sprawling onto his face as he lost his balance and started to black out from the shock.

Heero saw Duo fall and pivoted on his right leg to return to him. The move seemed to wrench his ligaments and muscles apart and he was losing blood faster now. He hoisted Duo onto his shoulder and returned to the exit. He was making slow time and he knew he would be lucky if the soldiers didn't reach him before he got to the exit, let alone before he made it out of the compound.

Heero's earpiece clicked on as Quatre connected with him.

"Heero, what is your position? The place is like an ant hill!"

"Exit three."

"ETA?"

Heero hesitated. Two minutes? Five? He wasn't sure. Impossibly, he had failed to calculate the changes that would come if they were injured to the point of immobility. Had their plan really been put together so quickly as to miss that? But could he abandon his fellow pilot to make his own escape? Duo had covered him (and the vital disk, he reminded himself) when he knew Heero was injured.

"Heero? Report! Are you okay?"

"ETA unknown. I am injured and Duo is down."

The weak speakers screeched with static when Quatre shouted.

"WHAT? I'm sending Wufei in. Give him two minutes."

Heero was out the exit and he could see the edge of the complex, the light forest beyond it, and, he imagined, Quatre's vehicle, waiting to get them out. Trowa's was on the other side of the complex and would be leaving even now to secure a new safe house. It felt like all of Duo's weight was pushing down on his wounded knee, pressing bone contusion again bone contusion and catching ragged nerves between them. His vision was shutting down around the edges; blood loss was starting to hit him. While he knew he could keep going in that state, at least for a while longer, the limp body over his shoulder seemed to suck energy away from him. Exhaustion was taking its toll as well.

They had been on the move the whole night before and found their safe house crawling with soldiers, somehow alerted to their arrival before it happened. At least the gundams were safely stored at a separate location. But they were forced to flee while the window of opportunity for their mission quickly closed. Heero had insisted that they complete the mission immediately, reasoning that their enemies would not expect them to attack their base when plans had so obviously been shot to hell. He realized now that they would not expect it because it was a damn fool thing to do, a suicidal thing.

Heero dragged himself over to a row of bushes and lay in the sliver of space between them and the wall. They were sorely lacking as cover, but they blocked the search lights and created deep shadows. Heero settled Duo over his body, lacking the room to fit side by side. It was windy, with a late October chill, and the bushes let the wind through their branches to freeze the two boys. Duo's body began to shake. He mumbled and shifted a little, not quite conscious. Heero knew it was not cold enough to be dangerous for him, but he rubbed his hands across Duo's arms and back, chaffing warmth into him. Blood was seeping from the furrow in his neck. Heero noted that the bullet had gone deep enough that it missed Duo's braid entirely. Duo would probably be happy about that, despite the fact that it made his injury worse. At least it hadn't hit his spine and caused paralysis.

It seemed like he lay there for ages, sharing warmth with Duo and keeping his mind moving to resist unconsciousness. But he knew Quatre and Wufei were actually only a few minutes away by foot. His earpiece crackled again and Wufei's voice came through.

"Yuy, where in hell are you?"

"Bushes," he answered.

A second later, Wufei was clamoring behind the bushes as well, sweeping Duo off Heero and pulling him to his feet. He now had Duo half in his arms, half thrown over his shoulder. He wedged his other shoulder under Heero's arm to support him. Heero expected to see soldiers somewhere near them, but Wufei was moving with single minded attention to speed, rarely checking for attackers. That was when Heero saw a tan jeep racing along the access road. It came towards them, then veered sharply to the right to follow the road into the trees. Soldiers were racing to the garages, not to them, and taking off after the jeep.

Trowa.

They kept running while he provided their distraction. They hobbled and tripped across the open field of half-dead grass between the building they had left and the perimeter fense. Then a black truck cut off their path.

Quatre braked sharply and jumped out. He took Duo from Wufei and pushed him into the backseat with less care than he would have liked. He was back in the driver's seat when Wufei got Heero into the back as well.

"Go!" Wufei shouted.

Quatre hit the accelerator as Wufei leapt into the vehicle and pulled the swinging door shut. Soldiers were starting to notice that there was a second enemy group and a few bikes were trailing them. Heero slid open the small back window and fired on the men. He took out the front tire on one bike, but with Heero, one could be sure he had been aiming for the man's head. Wufei pried the gun out of his hand and picked off the remaining three easily. He handed the gun back to Heero, who frowned at it disapprovingly, as though feeling betrayed by it.

"Yuy, the next time you decide to attempt a suicide mission, do it by yourself!"

"Not now, Wufei," Quatre snapped. "Why don't you concentrate on making sure Duo lasts until we get somewhere safe?"

Wufei snorted and leaned over the back of his seat to look and Duo. Heero pulled his tank top off and pressed it to Duo's neck, hiding the wound from Wufei's view. But it didn't hide the wide stain of darker fabric down Duo's back and the red tinting his braid.

"He took a shot to the neck. A graze," Heero explained.

"That's a lot of blood. How deep is this 'graze'?" Wufei asked.

Heero grunted. So it was more than a graze. It wasn't going to be fatal, at least. It would be okay if they got the bleeding to stop and could patch him up soon.

"That bad?" Wufei asked. "Does Trowa have a safe house for us yet?"

Quatre shook his head and switched channels on his radio.

"Trowa?"

"Lost my tail. Head west, into town. I'll secure a place and give you the coordinates."

"Roger. Be careful."

They drove until they hit the suburb, then kept going, closer to the heart of town. Quatre continually checked his radio, verifying that it was getting a signal and was on the right channel. Finally, Trowa's voice broke the silence and Quatre sighed with relief.

"Elm and Oak , in the eleven hundred block," Trowa said.

"We just passed that," Quatre muttered.

He tried to make a u-turn, but the truck didn't fit and he had to make two more passes before they were completely turned around, while avoiding being rear-ended by the midday traffic.

"I swear, a carrier ship would have a better turn radius than this thing," he hissed.

He turned down the street, which was lined with standard model houses.

"Which one?"

"1159 and a half," Trowa answered.

"What was that? A half?"

"That's what it says. I'm ditching the jeep. Back in ten minutes."

Quatre peered at the houses, checking the numbers on each one. He found 1159 1/2 right between 1157 and 1163.

"What a ridiculous way to organize houses," Wufei said.

"As long as it's secure, they can tell me it's actually on L4 for all I care," Quatre said.

He wiped his shirtsleeve across his forehead, which was almost dripping perspiration. There was a reason he didn't do get-away driving on a regular basis. He felt like he would faint any moment from the tension. It was less stressful to pilot Sandrock than the blasted two ton truck. At least then he had a massive hunk of reinforced gundanium protecting him.

The garage door had been left open and he pulled the truck into it. There was nothing in the garage at all, so he assumed the house was currently abandoned. Wufei got out and hit the button to close the door, keeping the vehicle from view. Quatre slid Duo out of the truck. The boy seemed to be vaguely aware of what was going on because he wasn't dead weight in Quatre's arms, but he wasn't able to do much to support himself.

"Do you need help with him? I know Maxwell is heavy," Wufei said with a stiff attempt at humor.

"I'm okay. Just get Heero in and we can put our friends back together."

Duo muttered and moved a little more purposefully.

"Hmnavee," he mumbled.

"What did he say?" Wufei asked.

"I think that was 'I'm not heavy.' Oh, poor Duo. He always comes out hurt the worst."

"Perhaps if he used his head more often, he'd stay out of trouble."

"Wufei, that's not fair and you know it. Duo doesn't go looking for trouble. Well, much, at any rate. He just seems to have bad luck."

"Hmph. He antagonizes the enemy too much."

"I, ah, must admit that's true."

The garage connected directly to the house, first into a small laundry room, then to what would have been the living room. There were scattered sofas and chairs, but they were covered with white sheets. All smaller pieces of furniture and usual household items were gone and these seemed to just be waiting for the final stage of moving out.

Wufei eased a barely functional Heero into a fat recliner and brought the foot rest up so that his leg was out straight. Quatre laid Duo out on the sofa on his stomach. He ran back out to the truck and brought back their med kit. He pulled Duo's braid aside to see his neck.

"Well, Heero was fairly correct in his assessment. It isn't that deep."

"Stitches?" Wufei asked.

"No, bandages should be enough. I think it's just the trauma and blood loss that are making him so groggy. Thank Allah it wasn't deep enough to nick his spine or-"

"Winner, do not get worked up. He will be fine. Bandage the wound and let him sleep it off. Since we can't feed him right now, Maxwell's other cure-all will have to do."

Quatre nodded and pulled out the bandages and antiseptics he needed, then pushed the kit over to Wufei.

"How is Heero?"

"Just a through and through-" Heero started to say.

"Shut up, Yuy, and let me work. I don't know how you kept your knee cap on. The bullet went between it and the joint. But you're right. It's a mostly clean through and through. You truly cannot be human if you have that sort of resilience."

Wufei filled a syringe with an analgesic and dosed around the wound. Heero tried to reach for the syringe.

"I don't need that," Heero stated.

"Suffering needlessly does not make you a better man. Do not interfere with my work again or I will find a way to knock you out without further damaging your already unstable brain."

Wufei said all this without looking up from his work. He pressed at the edges of the wound, testing the level of numbness, and started placing neat sutures to close both sides of the hole. Heero fumed in silence, but eventually gave up his stern look as a waste of precious energy. Across the room, a sliding glass door slid open and Trowa slipped in. Quatre looked up from his almost completed bandages and smiled.

"Trowa, I didn't even hear you come up. Did everything go okay for you?"

Trowa nodded and looked over his two wounded team mates critically.

"How are they?"

"They'll be okay. If Wufei doesn't kill Heero before he finishes helping him."

Trowa nodded to Heero when he saw he was actually awake.

"Making life difficult for your nursemaids again, Heero?"

Heero grunted, but there was the faintest hint of an embarrassed blush on his face. Wufei growled and knotted off the last suture.

"I resent being called a nursemaid, Barton. Maybe I should stitch your mouth next."

Trowa held up his hands in defense and backed away.

"I'm going to check the house again," he said.

Quatre smoothed down the last piece of tape on Duo's bandage.

"Wait, Trowa, I'm finished here. Let me go with you. Wufei, you'll watch them, right?"

Wufei nodded and Quatre trotted after Trowa into the kitchen. Wufei soaked a piece of gauze in antiseptic and tried to clean the assorted cuts and scrapes over Heero's arms, but he took the swab away and started cleaning them himself. Wufei sighed and settled his back against the side of Heero's recliner, closing his eyes.

"How could any infiltration mission go that far awry? What happened in there, Yuy? And how did they know where we were going to stay beforehand?"

"Obviously, the doctors have a leak in their system," Heero answered.

"Someone tipped Oz off? Are you sure it isn't just that nosy onna?"

Heero bristled.

"Relena has never been this far ahead of us. And it takes time before Oz realizes who she's following each time."

"Incompetence all around, then. And in the base?"

"Our timing was off. We were supposed to enter between guard shifts and follow their route to the main computer. But there was a second set or they changed their path after covering half the compound because we ran right into them."

"That was all? You should have been able to take care of a few sentries."

Heero nodded. His eyes were closed and it looked like he was just moving in his sleep.

"The first group must have heard the gunfire and they caught up with us. We were delayed and by then, half the base knew about us. Duo kept them busy while I got the files."

"And you were both shot?" Wufei snorted. "You're getting careless, Yuy."

The jab got no response and Wufei look back and up at Heero. His head had dropped forward, making his unruly hair overshadow his face completely, and he was snoring very slightly. Wufei smiled, though the only change seemed to be in his eyes. Wufei hunkered down into a more comfortable position on the floor and rested his head on folded arms. Though he would not go to sleep while charged with watching his comrades, he allowed himself a few moments of relaxation.