A/N: For Crown of Winterthorne, as a bribe for more of her AMAZING Westworld 2x3 fic.
A/N2: Title from the song by Stars
A/N3: Always, always thankful to Ro for beta reading and friendship. You are amazing.
A/N4: Okay, here's the deal. Writing is tough, especially for me. Over the years I've been lucky to have incredible people support me and tell me how much they enjoy my work, but I've also had those comments and reviews that just completely derail me and make me wonder why the hell I'm doing any of this or why I'm enough of an idiot to think anyone would even care.
So, no, this is not an update on any of the many WIPs I have going, and if you don't enjoy this fic then I am sorry.
But if you do, even a little, I cannot express how much it means to me to see that someone took the time to leave a review. Even if that review is "thanks" - it has a HUGE impact.
ALSO: THANK YOU SO SO SO SO SO MUCH to everyone who has left a review for this on and AO3. I seriously… I LOVE you all and am so so so grateful. I know I don't always respond, but I am just… I'm so very very happy every time I see one and I feel SO good about this story and I'm so happy people like it and just… thank you. Thank you.
A/N5: POVs are going to switch back and forth between Duo and Zechs. Might be two chapters in each or just one, depends on the pacing.
Warnings: angst, language, violence, sex, death, blood
Pairings: 6x2, others…
Midnight Coward
Chapter Seven
Getting into the building was depressingly easy.
After almost a week of surveillance on Merquise's apartment building, Duo had managed to assemble a rough schedule of the man's traffic patterns. It wasn't great - if this had been a less time-sensitive op, he would have taken at least another week to establish the man's routines - but it was functional. Especially since it became very clear, after the first two days, that once Merquise left his apartment for the day, he didn't come back until early evening at the soonest.
When Merquise left on Friday morning, escorted from the lobby to his car by a burly man who strained the seams of the cheap, dark suit he wore, Duo made his move.
He knew he wasn't getting in through the front - even if the porter who had been on duty the other night wasn't there, Duo was confident this was the kind of place that kept photos and records of people they didn't trust. No one would be opening the door for him.
So he went around back, hopping over a few fences and upsetting two neighborhood toms in the middle of a fight, and lounged against the back wall of the apartment building and lit a cigarette.
He'd never liked smoking, never thought the Terran custom was anything other than stupid and suicidal, but after years of hanging around Trowa Barton, Duo had learned the usefulness of it.
And sure enough, after an hour of waiting, the back door opened and a line of women ranging in age from young to elderly came out of the building, chattering away.
A dark haired woman was with them, slower than the rest, and she was the only one to glance at Duo with more than passing interest.
He smirked at her, taking out the cigarette and blowing out a stream of the acrid smoke. And she leaned towards him or it.
"Morning," he greeted her, before taking another drag.
She looked from him to the departing line of women, and then back at him.
"Morning."
He held out a fresh cigarette to her and, after a pause, she took it and placed it between her pale lips.
Duo leaned over and used his own cigarette to light hers, noting the way she blushed at his proximity.
"Nice day to clean up someone else's shit, huh?" he muttered as he settled back against the brick wall.
Her lips twitched, but she shrugged noncommittally.
"You're right," he agreed with a sigh. "Never a good day for that."
Her lips moved again, but she covered the smile with an exhale of smoke.
"Which one of them do you deal with?"
"The Bergens - 2C," she said with a shrug. "It was fine before, but they had twins a few months ago and now it's…"
"Puke and poop everywhere?" Duo guessed.
She grimaced and nodded.
"Oh yeah," Duo smirked. "They're the ones with that - whaddaya call it -" he made a vague gesture with his hands, roughly outlining a rectangle, and made a face at the same time, "in their living room?"
She laughed.
"You mean the piano bookcase?" she suggested.
Duo nodded.
"Yeah - so weird, right?"
She nodded in agreement and rolled her eyes.
"Susan said that the Wong guy - I think he's 4B? - has a coffee table made out of an old mech suit. All of these people are weird."
Duo nodded again.
"You ever been up to the penthouse? That guy - it's like he's living in some pre-Colony European mansion or something," Duo muttered.
The woman shrugged one shoulder.
"Probably. He's old world royalty. Ludovica cleans for him - he treats her well. Better than the rest of them treat us," she added with another grimace.
"No puke or poop up there, I bet," Duo agreed.
She smirked at him, and flicked her eyes over the worn coveralls he had pulled on over his clothes, her gaze pausing at the toolbelt slung low on his hips.
"Hugo is sick?" she asked.
Hugo was, Duo had to assume, the maintenance man for the building.
"Nah. Boss wanted me to come by and check out the incinerator."
She made a face, but nodded in acceptance of the excuse.
Duo sighed and straightened up. He snubbed out the cigarette under his boot and sighed.
"Which I should probably get back to before someone chews me out for screwing around and flirting with a pretty girl instead of doing my job."
She rolled her eyes but blushed again.
Duo grinned at her and walked towards the door she and the other cleaning ladies had used to exit the building, but as he approached he reached into his pockets and made a show of searching for a key.
"Mother- shit. I left my keycard in the basement on that- I am such an idiot! That dick at the front desk is going to give me so much shit for this. Urgh, I did not need-"
"It's okay," the woman spoke up, and moved towards him.
Duo looked over his shoulder and saw her reaching into a pocket. She pulled out a keycard and waved it at him.
"My hero," he breathed.
She smirked and used her keycard to open the door.
"Let me buy you coffee? Or lunch? Or a weekend in Vermont? I need another hour here, but then-"
"Sorry. I've got a boyfriend. And you're a little too handsome for me."
Duo had to laugh.
"Is there such a thing as too handsome?"
She looked him over, from head to foot, and then arched an eyebrow.
"Yes, there definitely is. But thanks for the cig. We'll call it even."
She held the door open for him and he blew her a kiss, which she swatted from the air with a wave of her hand before putting her cigarette back in her mouth.
Duo let the door close and then shook his head.
Too easy.
It was a wonder no one had murdered Merquise here.
Duo used the service stairs to get to Merquise's apartment, climbing flight after flight and silently cursing the man for being pretentious enough to live in a penthouse apartment in a fifteen storey building. He could have risked the service elevator, but he didn't know if it, like the front elevator, was manned.
He had worked up a sheen of perspiration by the time he reached the top, and had to reflect that he needed to start running again or his PT recertification times were going to be way too slow for Duo to give Wufei shit about his own.
Picking the lock for the service door into Merquise's apartment was, once again, depressingly easy.
As soon as Duo was inside, he slipped out of his boots so that he didn't track any dirt over floors that had no doubt just been polished by Ludovica.
He did a cursory sweep of the apartment, marvelling again at the sheer size of the place and the ostentatious furnishings, and then he got to work.
Merquise was hiding something, probably a lot of somethings, and if he wasn't about to start talking, Duo would resort to other tactics to find out just what the man was up to.
He had managed to sweet talk Jayesh in R&D out of a half-dozen of the Preventers brand new surveillance bugs, beautiful little cameras that were nearly translucent centimeter squares less than 1.5 millimeters thick. Duo spread them out over the apartment, setting up one in the living room near the phone system, one in the bedroom, one in the foyer and another in the library, placing it so there was a direct line of sight to the computer monitor. Jayesh had warned Duo that the audio was stellar but the video still very grainy on these prototypes, so if he needed to see something clearly, he needed to get as close as possible.
After setting up the cameras and checking the feed for each on his datapad, Duo sat down at Merquise's computer.
He had actually taken Duo's advice and had new firewalls installed - and the coding style was so different from the others that Duo doubted it had been the same tech. He smirked and proceeded to circumvent all of the new security and access the data that he hadn't had time to look through thoroughly on his last visit to chez Merquise.
Ideally, a data dump would be the best idea, but Merquise had his system setup to record all incoming and outcoming files. If Duo wanted to wipe that log, the very absence of routine system updates would clue Merquise - or his tech - into the fact that someone had been snooping.
So Duo would have to do things the very, very old-fashioned way.
He searched for all notations of financial transactions and Merquise's travel log over the last two years, and scribbled down names and places on a scrap of paper.
He was clicking through page after page of quarterly fiscal reports that made Duo want to scratch out his own eyes when his phone alarm started to ring.
Duo was caught off-guard by the shrill bleating, and actually threw himself to the floor under the desk before he realized what it was.
"Maxwell, you are a fucking idiot," he muttered to himself, as he fished the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.
Appointment with Marisi.
Shit.
The psychologist hadn't been kidding when he said that his cooperation required Duo to do weekly appointments with him. Duo had already had two calls from Marisi's office to remind him of the appointment, and even Wufei had stopped by Duo's depressing cubicle yesterday to tell him that he had better not blow off the damn thing.
With a groan, Duo got back onto his feet and started to exit out of the computer and wipe down the keyboard.
At least Merquise's apartment was only a short subway ride to Marisi's office. It meant Duo had plenty of time to get out, go over two blocks and ditch his coveralls and ersatz toolbelt in a dumpster, and grab a cup of coffee so that he wasn't at the mercy of Marisi's questionable barista skills.
Of course, that didn't mean that he wouldn't be at Marisi's mercy regarding other things. Other things far, far more painful than overly-sweet, decaf coffee.
By the time he reached Marisi's office, Duo was five minutes early and the slow churn of anxiety in his belly had spread.
Marisi welcomed him into his office with an open, friendly gesture and a sympathetic smile. No false cheer, no 'pleasure to see you' - just the unspoken order to sit and make himself miserable.
"First week back on the job - how did it feel?"
The question took Duo a little by surprise. He had thought Marisi would start off by reminding Duo of the question he had asked last week, the words that had tortured Duo ever since.
How many more times will you be able to kill Kate Munoz over the next fifty years?
Duo had even figured out his answer, had stood in front of his bathroom mirror and practised saying it long enough to do so with a straight face and empty eyes.
"I, uh, it's been… fine."
It hadn't, of course, been anything approaching fine.
The elevator huddles - agents moving as far from Duo as they possibly could - had continued. Lunch in the mess hall had been interesting - the two days that Duo had tortured himself with it before giving up and going to one of the food trucks instead. He had never experienced walking into a room and all conversation coming to a complete stop when he walked in - not a room full of more than fifty men and women, at any rate. People moved to different tables when he sat down, and the baleful glare of Reynolds speared him from across the room as the ex-Alliance man watched Duo resolutely take his time eating the bland food. There were perks, of course - people cleared out of the locker room when he went to change, and abandoned the free weights in the gym when he approached so he didn't have to wait his turn. They also abandoned the shooting range when he appeared, Charlie apparently the only person outside of Jasmin in Forensics and Jayesh in R&D who could stomach being within fifty feet of him.
There had also been some mediocre hackers who had taken it upon themselves to remind Duo of just how hostile the entire Preventers staff was towards him. Three times now he had sat down in front of his computer and, after logging in, had found the background on his desktop to be a full screen image of Kate Munoz's obituary.
"Fine is a word that means very little," Marisi mused.
Duo sighed and looked over at the large, smooth man.
"Yeah, well… I can't exactly spill operational details to you, can I?"
Marisi arched an eyebrow.
"You aren't the first law enforcement officer who has sought out counseling. Not only is what you say protected by our doctor-patient relationship, but I know when not to press for more details. I have also been granted a rather high civilian security clearance by your station chief."
Wufei. Doing his level best to torture Duo any way he could, it seemed.
"Well, I didn't exactly seek out counseling," Duo had to mutter.
Marisi's lips moved into what might have been a grin.
"No, you didn't. But since you find yourself here, why not take advantage of the situation? Tell me, what relationship do you currently have with the agents involved in the… incident that led to your suspension?"
"You mean the seven guys who jumped me in the locker room?"
"You hospitalized four of them."
Duo shrugged again, and forced himself to lean back against the too-soft couch and appear relaxed.
"Old habits die hard, I guess."
Marisi arched an eyebrow.
"They were - most of them, anyway - Alliance. Two were OZ."
"Ah. And you were simply reverting back to a war-time instinct to destroy your enemies."
"I-" Duo started to defend himself, but Marisi was right. They were his enemies. They had been before, and they clearly were now as well.
Even Han Reynolds.
"Have you had any interactions with them since returning to active duty?"
"Not really." Not after that first day and the near-fight he and Reynolds had gotten into in front of Wufei. Not since Reynolds seemed to be watching Duo's every move at Preventers HQ, and all of his subordinates took their cues from him and stayed far, far away from Duo.
"And before the incident, before Kate Munoz's death - what relationship did you have with them?"
Duo sighed.
"I don't know. It was… fine. We worked together. We didn't go out for drinks or anything, but it was… it was fine."
"Mm."
Marisi didn't look like he was buying it.
"Look, I've never had… friends in the agency. I'm responsible for a lot of deaths, a lot of damage - I did some awful shit during the war, and there aren't that many people who were unaffected by me. Especially in Preventers. They don't want much to do with me, and I don't really want much to do with them. The… the incident didn't really change that."
It had, of course. It had made everything so much worse. But there was no need to start whining about that to Marisi. To anyone.
"Was Munoz a friend?"
And there it was, the dagger of pain and hatred that went all the way to Duo's core.
He swallowed and had to clear his throat.
"She…"
"You were her training officer, weren't you?"
Duo nodded.
"Her second TO. The first… she didn't get along with him so well. I took over, and we… we got along."
"But you weren't friends?"
"No. I- yeah. Yeah, we were friends." Duo had let Munoz drag him out to a few bars, a few clubs, had let her egg him on until he danced with the men who flirted with him and he had been her wingman, had casually shoved her into Anna at a bar one night and watched with a smirk as they tried to clean Kate's spilled martini off of each other. And Duo had been at their wedding, had danced with them both and had had to choke back unexpected tears when Kate told him she and Anna wanted to name their son after him. Henry David.
"Do you have friends outside of work?"
The question shook Duo out of the dark, suffocating memories.
"I, um. Not here." Not since Wufei had put him on leave. Not since Duo had made a fool of himself by getting drunk and showing up at Wufei's apartment in the dead of night and Wufei had taken pity on him, had taken him to bed and touched Duo like he wasn't scum, like he wasn't the most pathetic colony rat Wufei had ever encountered. Not since Duo had woken up the next morning and fled before Wufei could say anything, could do anything.
"Back in Brussels?" Marisi prodded.
Duo nodded.
"Yeah. And up in space."
"Friends that you speak to often?"
Duo shook his head in the negative.
He hadn't spoken to Hilde in almost nine months, and he knew he needed to send her a message, should check on her. He hadn't spoken to Heero since the last time he and Relena had been to New York, four months ago. Hadn't spoken to Quatre since his annual Christmas video call. And Trowa… it had been… fuck. Duo couldn't even remember the last time they had spoken.
"Are there any organizations, any clubs you are part of? Any social activities you engage in?"
Duo had to snort a derisive laugh. Marisi raised his eyebrows.
"No," Duo sighed. "No social activities. I'm not… I'm not very good with people. With civilians."
Marisi looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Have you ever tried going to a veteran's support group?"
Duo stared at him.
"Are you… are you serious?"
It was painful enough to sit here and talk to Marisi; or rather, try to not talk to him. It would be so very much worse to be surrounded by his former enemies and listen to them wax poetic about the glory days before the warm or to talk about the trauma they had suffered at his hands.
"You really think I can just show up at a support group and sit around while a bunch of… veterans," Duo managed to catch himself before saying something worse, "talk about all the shit I did to them?"
Marisi frowned, but he didn't push the point.
"There are support groups for law enforcement as well. People who have had similar experiences to yours and-"
"Similar to- Look, Dr. Marisi, there is no one who's had similar experiences to me. I mean, there are maybe- maybe four people who have been through a fraction of what I've been through, who understand just how fucking dark humanity can get and-" Duo abruptly realized he was wrong. There weren't four other people who knew. There were, he had to admit, five.
Zechs Merquise, selfish, narcissistic asshole that he was, clearly knew just how fucked up the world was and just how culpable he was in the general shitty state of things. The look in his eyes, the twist of his lips and the vehemence of his words in the bathroom at the funeral home rang true, hit home for Duo.
"And?" Marisi prompted patiently.
"And… and it's not something you talk about. It's not… There's no group therapy for surviving the worst shit humanity throws at you and then becoming the monster you were always afraid of."
That was saying too much, and Duo regretted it instantly, even before the speculative glimmer in Marisi's eyes sent off warning bells in his head.
"What is your opinion of the other former Gundam pilots?" Marisi asked.
On-edge now, knowing he had been far too honest and wary of continuing the trend, Duo shrugged.
"I think they… are all productive members of society."
"And you aren't?"
"I… I'm trying," Duo offered.
"If you weren't a Preventer, what would you be doing?"
It was a question Duo had asked himself time and time again over the years. A question others had asked him as well.
He remembered Kate asking him that, once, early on in their partnership. They had both had a few too many beers, had played five rounds of darts before Kate grudgingly admitted defeat and Duo hadn't been able to answer her. Hadn't been able to think, in his drunken state, of what he could possibly do that wasn't working for Preventers, that wasn't trying to repair the damage he had wrought.
"Nothing good," Duo muttered.
"You didn't join right away. You waited a few years - what did you do in the interim?"
"Worked at a scrap metal yard on L2. With a friend."
"And why did you decide to change careers?"
Duo decided that soft, round Marisi with his smooth, dark skin was too insightful, too strategic. The man should have been an OZ interrogator.
"After the war… things weren't great in the colonies. This was before the Winner Outreach interventions. When the local governments were still… When there wasn't much people could rely on. I was working out of L2, but I got around, hauling junk from all over the Earthsphere and I… met a bunch of people. I saw all of the damage, all of the things we'd broken in the name of peace. And I did the right thing. I joined Preventers because I had a debt to work off."
That, and Trowa Barton was a manipulative bastard who had asked Duo for a favor, had used Duo's connections to get himself embedded with a smuggling group that Duo had worked with for more than a year, a crusty group of anarchists who had no love for Terrans and who Duo had always respected. A group that, it turned out, had been smuggling weapons to a handful of reactionary terrorist groups that had used those weapons to stage a minor revolt on a mining colony that had led to the deaths of almost three hundred civilians. A group that Duo had bought from, that Duo had supported and trusted. A group that had splashed even more blood on Duo's already-drenched hands.
And from there, it had all unraveled. Duo had started investigating some of the other groups he worked with, had opened his own damn eyes and realized that he was aiding people who were working their asses off to put an end to the peace that humanity was so desperately clinging to.
"And how long will it take you to work off that debt?"
The look in Marisi's eyes made it clear that he already knew what Duo's answer would be.
This debt wasn't the kind of thing it was possible to get out from under. It would be something Duo dragged with him for the rest of this life, would be the thing that no doubt finally did him in.
"Fifty years?" Duo managed, with a wry, despairing twist of his lips.
-o-