9:
Mettle Valley had lost some of its grit and grime, to Duo's eyes. Maybe it was exposure, maybe it was just the effect of a decent shower being scrubbed off in the cargo bay as he dirtied himself back into the right frame of mind with grease and grime, dallying with a decent dirt fight against Hilde that left her so filthy she had to wash her hands before she could go anywhere near Wufei again. But it just didn't seem as bad. Maybe he'd seen it all, or maybe he just liked living in an illusion of his own design, it didn't really matter either way. What mattered was the small quake of fear and excitement he'd felt last time was gone, replaced with cold, hard reality. Duo hated this place. He wanted to blow it out of existence, and had already calculated just how much explosive would be required.
"Stop imagining blowing up the station. It's already happened once, it doesn't deserve another go."
"Then someone should have done it right the first time," Duo growled, but he let her sit down in the co-pilots chair again and strap in while he went through the docking procedure.
"You should be careful what you say about the Valley."
"More superstitious bull? I didn't think you were the type." But he was busy, pulling the thrusters in and using shorter bursts to maneuver into a free berth, closer to Heero's ship, which he was glad to see was right where he'd left it.
"Have you even stopped to think that maybe Wufei didn't come to the Valley to fight crime and save fair maidens, but because it was L5?" She sounded incredulous, as if she couldn't fathom how he was that stupid, but the tone of voice only made Duo feel even more ridiculous. Because he hadn't thought of that. Not for even a moment. But knowing Wufei, that had certainly had something to do with it. Life is screwed up and got nowhere to go? Go home, even if it's the last place in the universe anyone should go if they're in their right mind. Duo wasn't sure Wufei even had a 'right' mind. The guy had always seemed pretty unstable. And angry...Duo had suggested management classes at some point, but the man had just clocked him.
"You didn't even think of that?" She looked angry and Duo frowned because none of this was his fault, and he didn't deserve her being angry at him. In his opinion. "What is wrong with you? Is this still that bullshit with Yuy and the Incident?"
The Incident. Why did everyone call it that. Not the War, not the Uprising, not the Rebellion. The Incident. Like it was just another everyday occurrence that just happened to nearly destroy everything they had fought for. That had destroyed Duo's little dream of a happy ending. Not that he wasn't happy now, it was just not what he'd wanted at the time. The Incident didn't explain the feeling of betrayal when Wufei took a shot at Heero. It didn't explain the confusion seeing Trowa on the wrong side. It didn't portray the heartache of waking alone in that hospital because the world had to have what the world needed and the people who won that peace got nada.
"Oh God, it is...for fuck's sake Duo Maxwell, grow the hell up!"
He just stared at her, but she was so not done and he sank lower in his seat while he drew them into their berth and set about connecting the ship and she just stood there, bellowing at him.
"You think your life is oh so fucking hard because you got left in a hospital bed without some fucking flowers? Boo fucking Hoo! Wufei has been chained to some bastard's bed for years in agony and he's sitting in there with a damn smile on his face! I've been stuck in clinic after clinic, watching thousands die just trying to undo what some greedy prick has done to them, knowing full well that even if they recover they're never going to be right in the head again. My cousin sits by a window and drools all day, and cries in her sleep all night, but she doesn't even remember her own damn name. Heero has been trailing Relena and having no damn life at all, trying to keep you out of it because they're trying to put a stop to something he knows can't be stopped, and he knows how much the very thought of trafficking upsets you! And you want to complain because people gave you some god-damned space? Get your head out of your fucking ass, or I'll shove it so far up there it'll come back out your fucking neck!"
She stormed off the bridge, leaving Duo staring at space, the ship docked and his head reeling. Hilde had always had a way of telling him what was what, but that was new even for her. She seemed...stressed. He toyed with the ends of his braid, making himself actually focus on what she'd said because while there had been a lot of anger and frustration in it, there had also been a few choice bits of information.
Like the fact Hilde was apparently in contact with Heero, of all people. Like they were friends. And that Heero was helping Relena, maybe, because of him? It was so similar to what Heero himself had said that it had to have at least a grain of truth in it, even if it made no sense at all. Or he just didn't want it to make any sense at all, because then he would have to start watching his ass, just in case Hilde took offense to it.
Worse, Hilde had been having a hard time of it, and Duo hadn't even known. Not because she hadn't told him because that wasn't the way it worked. He hadn't asked. Hadn't so much as picked up a phone to check on her. Or Wufei, or Heero, or Quatre, or the damn Kingpin Trowa. Apparently all he needed to say was 'oh gee, I wonder how the guys are going' in Howard's presence and he could have told him the latest on all of them, but he hadn't. Not even Howard had dared try to tell him what he didn't want to hear.
So maybe he had some bridges to mend. He could accept that. It wouldn't be fun, but it was doable. But she really didn't need to lose her head at him like that, so he stayed on the bridge sulking for an hour longer than he had originally intended, and this time he was more than happy to admit he was sulking.
"I need to go out. I shouldn't be longer than an hour." They barely looked up to acknowledge him and Duo left them to it, trusting them not to do anything stupid like try and leave the ship before they discussed as a group just how they were going to go about that. Or, at the very least he trusted Hilde not to do anything stupid, and he knew first hand she could tie a knot even Wufei wouldn't be getting out of.
He went straight to the gun runners, in a roundabout way just in case, though no one followed him or really paid him any attention at all. Old Duke was delighted to take the money card off Duo's hands and Duo was more than happy to give it up. He took his cut with a delighted grin and a little more thanks than was necessary and Duke agreed to get him another job asap. As criminal gig's went, Duo suspected it was one of the easiest in history, but he wasn't stupid enough to think they were all like that.
Satisfied his cover was once again re established, he headed for Heero's ship, once again taking a roundabout way, noticing a few eyes turning his way curiously but for the most part passing by invisibly. No alarms went off to indicate he'd hit anything, but Heero was waiting for him by one of the external hatches when he dropped through it and all Duo could do was grin.
"Welcome back."
"I would say I'm glad to be back, but...I'm not." He shrugged and Heero just shook his head. Duo could have sworn he rolled his eyes but Heero moved quickly, leading the way to the bridge and taking a seat.
"You've been doing some decorating," Duo whistled low under his breath, looking around at the mind map Heero had been making on the wall. Small clues from the folder, but new pieces of information too. Images, names, locations, coordinates, values, amounts...there was a lot plastered on the wall that Duo couldn't make add up without knowing exactly what it was for, but it was obvious Heero was using the same technique Wufei had been. Maybe trying to pick up where Wufei had left off in an effort to figure out where Trowa was.
"Mind maps were never your style," he observed softly.
"Still aren't," Heero agreed. "Marie likes them."
"It disturbs me that you're using a teenager to help you plan things."
"We were teenagers once too," Heero pointed out, but he was smiling now, amused and Duo just folded his arms across his chest because he didn't want to be Heero's amusement for the day.
"What exactly are you planning?"
"Nothing in particular, just trying to trace steps." Wufei's, Trowa's, Heero didn't seem fussed. He just wanted answers and Duo could more than understand that.
"Do you find this whole thing a bit...weird? I mean, it's Trowa, right? So it's weird?"
"You two never really did get along," Heero chuckled. "Too much alike."
"The hell? I am nothing like Trowa Barton!" That would make him weird, and he was not! He spun his chair lazily, glaring at Heero every time his face came back into view.
"It's weird," Heero acknowledged at last. "But I don't think we think so for the same reasons." And he was laughing, soft and a little self deprecating but laughing nonetheless. Duo just stared, aware it had been a very long time since he had really stopped and listen to that sound. It had been rare, back then, and he couldn't help but wonder if that hadn't changed either, or if Heero maybe laughed for other people now.
"Happy to entertain," Duo grumbled, but he was pleased by it, and that just made him feel stupid. He should not have been happy to have Heero laughing at him.
"You always entertain," Heero agreed softly, sounding more serious than the words would have suggested. "If not how you at first assume."
That had him stumped, and for a while all Duo could do was stare, reminded of Hilde's rant and the quiet promises he was trying not to make himself.
"How's Wufei?" It was the note of genuine curiosity and concern in Heero's voice that really set Duo's nerves on fire and he sighed, shrugging a little because he honestly didn't know the answer.
"Says he's fine." And they all knew he wasn't, so there wasn't a whole lot of point to listening to the guy until he realised they could see straight through him and started speaking truth. But the likelihood of that ever happening was so slim Duo saw no point in entertaining the thought. Heero was nodding, and Duo didn't need to ask to know he agreed.
"Keep an eye on him."
"Don't need to," Duo muttered and it sounded darker than he had meant it to. It certainly got Heero's attention and he sighed, shrugging and trying to explain. "Trowa apparently arranged for Hilde to hitch a ride with me from L1. Hilde who also just happens to work part time in a Haze rehab facility."
"And transports Ceuron drugs?"
"As a day job? Yeah. Sometimes. How did you know that?" Duo eyed Heero dubiously, not entirely unconvinced the guy wasn't at least part robot. It would have explained a lot of things. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.
Heero was sitting forward, running a hand through his hair and looking into the distance at nothing at all. Duo knew it for a sign he was thinking, and thinking hard, which usually meant Heero knew something he didn't and was just trying to put the pieces together before Duo figured it out. To get one up on him, or something. It pissed Duo the hell off, but he wasn't completely stupid.
"I think I know how Trowa runs his business, and I think I know why he's doing it."
There was a reason? That should be good! Duo just sat, expectantly, because at that point nothing would surprise him. Heero just sighed, but if he'd expected a verbal response he really should have known better. Duo was flaming pissed at Trowa, and until someone gave him a damn good reason to be otherwise he was going to stay that way.
"He's using the circus." Heero pulled out a flyer that clearly had a photo of Catherine tossing knives. At Trowa, in a very updated version of his clown outfit. He didn't look all that funny anymore, in Duo's opinion.
The mask was what he noticed most, because it stood out against the tight black of his new costume. The purple star and red lips were gone, a thing of the past left to draw their attention to what was going on. But it had been replaced with an ornate harlequin mask that still took up half his face but looked expensive and dangerous. It was black instead of white, with bright red accents that looked as if the face had been painted on in blood, and intrinsically wound through it all was a gold chinese dragon. Trowa's hair hung around it in soft, dark waves, looking gentle, at odds with the one green eye that glared out between his bangs. Trowa looked furious, in the way Heero had once looked furious, struggling to maintain a cold mask while underneath everything raged. Duo knew the expression too well not to see it.
"Telling me he's using the closest thing he has to a family to traffick drugs isn't helping my opinion of him any," Duo mumbled, but he couldn't pull his gaze away from the image in his hands. If he'd been asked to draw a thousand versions of what he thought Trowa might be in the future, this would not have been among them. This reminded him more of the spider-clown in IT coming out to devour small children in suburbia than of the sweet hearted silent barrier standing between conglomerate businesses and the latest endangered species. This wasn't the man who had up and left the Winner residence over an argument in defence of dolphins.
Which meant either the image was a lie, or the dolphin sham was a cover. He already knew it was; had known the moment Heero said it. Trowa Barton might not be in love with Quatre Winner, but he loved him just as fiercely as he wanted Wufei, of that Duo was certain. The whole thing had reeked of a cover, Duo just hadn't wanted to believe it because everything about it made him mad. Just like Trowa had known it would.
Just like the image did, because whatever Trowa was doing it was destroying him and he didn't even seem to care. Had thrown himself into it willingly, and taken his family in with him, because he hadn't been able to trust Duo to do the same. Had needed to use trickery and mystery just to get Duo to take a look. He'd had to fool all of them to even make them consider putting a hand into shark infested waters to maybe help him.
And that hurt. It made Hilde's words sink that little further into his blackened, burnt heart and breathe a little more life.
"Circuses are inspected once a year for possible violations, but otherwise don't have to do customs like everyone else. It's not financially viable for them to have to pay the fees every time they change colony, so they get a yearly fee and investigation and otherwise move freely between."
Duo hadn't known that. He knew some organizations got around it like that, but he hadn't known circuses were among them. He had no idea what politician had thought it would be okay to give Carnies, of all people, free reign across boundaries. They weren't exactly the most savoury characters, far as he knew.
Unfortunately, it was very likely the businessman or men who had authorized it knew damn well what they were doing. In the end Duo just sighed and finally looked away from the poster and back to Heero.
"Let me guess. That law was pushed through by Georgio Sahar." Which was how Trowa had known where to start looking. He knew it had it, because Heero just smiled wanly and shrugged. Duo sank lower in his chair and put the poster over the ship's controls, where he could still see Trowa's one good eye staring at him from the corner of his own.
"That's a how," he pointed out at last. "Not a why."
"Quatre." Was all Heero said. And it explained nothing at all. Heero just sighed and ran a confused hand through his hair and Duo knew talking about it was hard; that Heero was still sorting through the facts himself and hadn't actually spoken to anyone about it. He was struggling to get the information into a frame that allowed others to understand. To break it down to the bare basics so Duo wouldn't need to read all the information and decipher what it meant. That would cost them time, and Heero was big on saving time. Liked to take others who might slow him down out of the picture just to save a little of it.
It was hard, pushing the bitterness down.
"Quatre," he prodded and Heero just nodded.
"You're right. It's weird. Trowa would never leave Quatre because of an argument over a dolphin, that's just..."
"Absurd," Duo put in and Heero nodded his head in agreement. Quatre had shot Trowa to hell with the Zero system and left him to die in space and the first thing Trowa had done upon regaining his memory wasn't to go book himself into a psych ward. Nope, he'd run straight back to Quatre's side to make sure the murderous imp was alright. Nothing, especially not a damn endangered species of dolphin, would have taken Trowa from Quatre's side. Wufei, maybe, but Duo had his doubts about that as well.
"You're sure Trowa was sleeping with Wufei?"
"Oh, that one I'm certain about," Duo chuckled darkly. And no way in hell was he ever admitting how he knew it without a doubt.
"Harem's aren't unusual in Quatre's culture," Heero murmured softly and it made Duo laugh, a little incredulous.
"Shouldn't it be Quatre doing the sleeping around then?"
"That's not...I just don't think he'd have as big a problem with it as I originally thought. After thinking about it." And looking at it that way, Duo found he might agree. Quatre didn't seem to have a problem with anything that made Trowa happy. Things that upset Trowa...Quatre had a problem with those.
"So, what? You think Quatre ordered Trowa to become drug Kingpin of the universe and Trowa obediently went and did it, so he could find Wufei?" That didn't make a whole lot of sense, certainly no more sense than the other theories they'd come up with. But Heero was shaking his head.
"I ran a check on Quatre's transactions over the past four years. Since the end of the war he has purchased nineteen subsidiary companies that fall under Ceuron's umbrella. He has a man on the board of twenty seven of Ceuron's other subsidiaries and a share in more than ninety percent of the whole umbrella's shares."
"He's been infiltrating Ceuron?" That changed things. Duo sat up fast and snatched at the printout Heero had made, flicking through the pages and staring at the places Heero had highlighted. Small transactions, compared to the mass of business Quatre did on a daily business. Easy to hide things that seemed to mean nothing even when combed over with a fine tooth comb, unless you knew Wufei had been investigating human trafficking in the Valley at the same time Quatre made that purchase, or placed that man in that particular company at the same time Wufei traced a sale to that branch.
"Wufei was working with Quatre?" It made no sense at all. Why would Quatre work with his lover's lover? Shouldn't he hate Wufei? At least be angry or frustrated with him? Unless of course, as Heero suggested, Quatre didn't actually have a problem with it at all. If maybe the relationship hadn't been Trowa sleeping with Quatre, and Trowa sleeping with Wufei, but rather Trowa sleeping with Quatre and Wufei?
"My brain hurts," Duo muttered, really not wanting to have to think about the sex lives of his friends in that detail. He glared at the circus poster and the eye looking out at him and frowned.
"It makes sense," Heero pointed out sternly and Duo had to agree. It made a lot more sense and explained away a lot of the things he'd been placing under the 'too weird to contemplate' category in his head.
"It still doesn't explain Trowa becoming drug Kingpin."
"Heero pulled up something on the laptop and turned it so Duo could see. A press release, with Quatre grinning and waving happily to the reporters after the announcement had been made. A drug his subsidiary of Ceuron was very happy to finally be releasing after successful trials. Something for Parkinson's. A cure?" Duo read it more seriously, not seeing a correlation at all and looking to Heero for a hand.
"It regenerates cells that produce dopamine that Parkinson's kills. But in a healthy person it has adverse side effects, increasing the number of dopamine cells in the body."
Duo kept reading through the side effects and finally just laughed, sitting back in his chair and howling because he couldn't believe they had done it, and by solving a completely separate issue at that.
"It's a cure for Haze," Duo spoke it out loud, just testing it. He didn't want to believe it, didn't want to get his hopes up. Because if you couldn't have docile slaves the industry would change damn fast. If your slave suddenly starting fighting back, you would have trouble on your hands.
"Not so much a cure, it won't reverse damage done, but it will stop Haze having an effect," Heero agreed. Effectively giving an addict their life back, Duo knew. It also looked suspiciously just like the tablets of Haze that were ground down and brewed into the concoction they injected into victims.
Too much alike.
"They're going to distribute it as Haze," Duo realised, staring at the laptop with wide eyes and clutching the collection of Quatre's transactions so hard in his hand the paper was crumpling and he didn't care.
Worse, they had brought him in on it at the last possible moment, making sure it was going to work, that it was all going to happen before letting him have a small taste of the victory. They had to have been working at it for years. He thought of Wufei, or curling up on the bridge of the Reincarnation and hiding his tears against his knees while Wufei screamed in agony in the next room, unable to do a thing. He imagined what those years had cost Wufei, and Trowa and even Quatre to a degree, and he knew they had done it alone. Not even because Duo wouldn't have believed them or trusted them to pull it off. But because they hadn't wanted him to feel the pain while they tried.
They'd been sparing his feelings. Shielding him.
He thought of Heero then, and waking up in the hospital and the loneliness that had devoured him. He'd been so caught up in his own sense of betrayal when he saw Heero on the television that he hadn't once stopped to consider the other side of that coin. What it had cost Heero to walk away, and why he'd done it.
He couldn't think straight. He had needed to make sure Duo was safe. He'd just acted on instinct, done the only thing he knew how. Protected. To the point of persecution. Duo wanted to wrap his hands so tight around Heero's neck there would be no way to pry them loose, but his hand came up to his lips instead and if he closed his eyes he could just remember it. The way Heero's lips would brush against his, warm and surreal as he slipped past him to get into his Gundam.
He'd almost forgotten what it felt like but while he sat there, remembering it he could feel it again. Warm and soft and full of a promise, feather light and fragile. A question waiting to be answered...
Duo's eyes flew open and Heero was right there, arms braced on the armrests of Duo's chair, eyes wide and fixed on Duo's, nose to nose and breath gusting softly against Duo's upper lip.
"Please tell me I don't have to wait any more." His voice was barely a whisper, more like air that somehow managed to crawl into Duo's mind and become words and Duo heard a whimper escape his own lips before his hands were up, wrapping around Heero's neck and dragging him down, back into the circle of arms that he hadn't thought remembered what it was like to hold and be held but they did.
Heero fit against him as he always had. Perfectly and his own arms wrapped around Duo just as tightly, as if they hadn't stopped holding each other that way. As if Duo hadn't done everything in his power to block them all from his life, as if they had never existed. He'd thought them oblivious to him, that they had moved on without a second thought and he realised that he had wanted to believe that. Had maybe in some way needed it, to learn how to live himself after the war. Maybe Howard had seen it, maybe he'd understood, or maybe Duo really had just been that much of a prick whenever his wartime companions were mentioned, but Howard had tried to keep the link available, even while keeping it hidden and Duo knew he was going to have to thank the man, even as he bellowed at him because Howard had done it too.
Shielded. Protected. Defended. When there wasn't an enemy that could do any more damage than Duo had done to himself.
"You swear you never meant to leave me there?"
"I meant it," Heero countered, but it pained him to say it. "But only until everything was over. Then...then you were already gone."
Duo had never been patient, and had always been impetuous. It hadn't surprised either of them, yet it had hurt both. Duo wondered if he was ever going to manage to find a way to make it up to Heero, but doubted it. He couldn't give Heero those years back any more than he could grant them back to himself.
"I'm sorry. I was just so..." Hurt. Devastated. Lonely. Destroyed. The defenses he'd had to build around himself to hide it and make sure it never happened again had been more than he'd anticipated. Heero had been deeper than he'd thought possible, and in the end the wall had blocked out the world with only a window for Howard to peek through.
"I love you," Heero whispered and Duo knew what it cost him to say it. Had always known how hard it was for Heero to break down his own well trained defenses to let such omissions slip. "I've always loved you. I loved you then, I love you now and I've loved you every day in between. I'll love you tomorrow, and fifty years from the day after tomorrow. Just let me in?"
Laughing shouldn't have been his response, but it was and Duo just pulled him in close, cradled him there against his chest and said 'yes'. Hilde's words were screaming in his ears, and Marie's desperate 'what the hell happened to you?' Wufei's strange looks, like he wasn't sure what he could say without Duo running for the hills. Howard, telling him to take the Gig or leave. All of them putting themselves on the line, finally pulling back from their point positions and letting Duo slowly crawl out of his self imposed trenches.
He had so many apologies to make he could already feel the headache. Worse, he couldn't explain even to himself now why he'd done it. It had seemed to make so much sense at the time, and then too much time passed to do anything about it. But he couldn't deny that time had passed, any more than he could pretend Heero had an entire life he knew nothing at all about.
"Let's just try out tomorrow, then we'll see about those fifty years," he admonished softly, not even sure why he was trying. Maybe because Heero wanted it so badly, and he couldn't say no to something they both wanted. It had been easy when it was just something he wanted himself.
"Okay," Heero agreed softly, pulling back and Duo saw the effort it took to pull back, to relax and realise Duo had agreed. That there was a chance. That Duo wasn't pushing him away any more. Then he smiled and Duo just stared, lost to it.
"Okay. I can do that." Mission accepted? Duo just grinned.