. Chapter 6 . Breaker

Duo returned to work the next day nursing a headache that should have rightfully split his skull and spared him the agony. Its inexplicable arrival only served to stress him further, and in turn cranked the volume on the pain.

He nursed his head by frowning at some distant point ahead of him as if he were trying to kill something with his thoughts. Needless to say, the home in a state of miniature crisis was the last thing he wanted at this point. But when even sweet-hearted and soft-voiced Michelle was snapping loud enough to be heard from the front door, Duo knew what waited for him through the door was not going to be sunshine. He immediately was directed by Mark to go to the Big Room before the assistant loped off after Strawberry, a red-headed boy who had come from Duo's old neighborhood and currently thought it was best not to wear clothing as he walked about. He dropped his jacket into the chair at the front desk and headed towards the sound of the commotion.

Luckily, as early as it was, most of the orphans were sleeping or lazily wandering in search of breakfast and friends. By the firm, but shrill echo of Michelle's voice coming up the corridor, he knew she was definitely not enjoying the morning, either.

He pushed past the small group of observers with their sleepy ears pricked to Michelle's amusingly rare outbursts, and pushed open the glass door. Judging by Marcus' expression, which had been pointedly void of frightened pity, she was not upset with him. His simple aggravation with a crummy start to the day quickly became cold dread in his stomach when he saw that the two children—who had just been fighting, presumably, by Michelle's cross face—were Cinderblock and the nameless blue-eyed boy. Each was held captive by a firm hand, arms wrenched high above their heads as if proclaiming their own guilt. Cinderblock, looking rather surly and muttering to himself silently, also nursed a nasty split lip.

The blue-eyed child only stared at the floor beneath bowed head. He'd seen that messy hair whorl before.

Michelle turned to look at him, and his hair rose on the back of his neck. Okay, so she was a little mad at him, too.

"Goddamn it, Duo—I told you," was all she growled before letting go of the nameless child and dragging Cinderblock past him. Her outrage wouldn't even allow her to look him in the eye as she blew past. "You talk to him. Neither of you are coming out of here until you do."

The sound of a curse coming from a mouth so normally sweet and gentle knocked Duo off-kilter for a moment, blinking dumbly. That, paired with an infuriated and silent glare, caused him to hesitate, giving Michelle the time to storm out of the door, Cin in hand, and slammed the door.

Duo spun about as he heard the door shut and a menacing click that could have only meant a lock being turned. "What? Wait—wait a minute! 'chelle!"

His shocked expression did nothing to stop her—she blew past the crowd of sneering teenagers with the fury of a mother scorned, dragging Cinderblock along with her to a round of punishment by lecture in her office. Duo could hear the snickers and unison cries of 'Ooooh,' drifting through the glass door. Both towards Cinderblock and towards their headmaster of sorts, who had just been punished by his assistant as if he were only five years old. And there was no use in asking them either.

None were going to risk Michelle's sudden and swift retribution.

That left him here, with those eyes.

Somehow, Duo almost wished for the cramped metal walls of the Gundam's mechanical womb. The controls, the displays, the g-forces, as oppressive and overwhelming as they often were, were familiar, were simple. Emotional complexity was never a question with the art of mechanics and electronics. That pain was reserved for all places outside that womb, and without it, Duo had suddenly become completely vulnerable to the painful teeth of life again. No clearer was that fact than at this moment.

He turned around, pushing all thoughts of days past from his head. They caused all this trouble in the first place.

The nameless child stood rooted to the spot Michelle had left him and rubbed at his wrist like she'd left a rash of guilt curled around it. His head hung so low, ashamed, that he could see the peek of scalp where his uncombed brown hair sprouted at the crown of his head. His feet pointed towards each other, his fingers worried at his skin until they were white from pressure. His knuckles were scuffed a bright pink Duo knew well. It was obvious that there had been a fight, but his clothes were wrinkled in a way that did not come from just roughhousing.

Luckily, the noise of the teenage crowd outside was disappearing as Marcus came by, apparently having successfully wrangled Strawberry into clothing, and ushered them off to classes. Duo gave the hallway a glance, then turned back to look at the nameless child. His neck throbbed as a knot formed at the nape, hard and pulled tight. He did his best to mask the sigh of exhaustion that came as he stepped cautiously forward.

No thoughts. No thoughts.

Not even of how that same determined face had remained turned toward the hot burn of healing metal all during the night while Duo threw his hand in the air, unable to comprehend all those years ago. Not even of how that face might have come to be here now, bowed to the floor, nursing guilt and pain, greatly different but very much the same.

Duo approached the child like he would any other just suffered an upsetting experience. In the years of running the home, he'd nursed scuffed knees and egos alike. He crouched down in front of him and offered a gentle morning smile in the hopes it might get the kid to open up. Right now, the almost violent wringing of his fingers worried Duo.

"Hey, buddy," he said warmly, "are you alright?"

The kid shook his head with a jerkiness only tears brought and Duo's smile spread in honesty. Suddenly, that cold sense of dread was gone and his paternal love was back in full swing, that sense that had driven him to form the home in the first place—that motivation Michelle had seen absent from work lately. He began to wonder why he'd worked so hard to avoid this kid and instinctively reached out to touch his arm, the universal spot of first comfort.

"That's fine," Duo said. "It's okay to not be alright."

The kid made a small, snuffling noise of begrudging acknowledgement, while still studying the carpet with dedicated shame.

He reached back for a small chair to sit in and pulled it beneath him. The gentle smile was growing. "I promise not to be as terrifying as Ms. Michelle today," he promised, feeling a tiny amount of tension leave that tiny frame at the touch. "Do you want to tell ol' Duo what happened?"

Again, he looked up and Duo nearly fell into the blue eyes that greeted him, laced with knots of shame. He readjusted, instead smiling around his nerves, and pushed through. He smothered the urge to compare that face to ones he knew, and instead translated his anxiety into his thumb gently rubbing his tiny elbow. When the nameless child's head hung lower and his eyes sought out the tiles, Duo smiled gently and craned his head in unison. It was then he wished he knew his name.

It was much easier to comfort a child with a name to speak.

He patted his arm and then let his hand fall away. "Okay, okay. You don't have to answer." That seemed to surprise the child, cautiously lifting his chin from his chest. Still he hid beneath a shy curtain of bangs, but it was improvement.

"Listen, I've got a little story to tell you." A slightly raised eyebrow and quirked mouth greeted the child as he lifted his head fully, judging his reaction. Duo took the faint glow of light returning to his expression as an invitation to continue. "When I was about your age, someone told me I stunk like a sewer. I was so mad I couldn't even see straight, and I've never punched anyone harder in my entire life."

A little puff of laughter was inevitable when the child's eyes pop scandalously wide. He wondered just how wide they might go, if he included the fact he'd continued to beat the offending kids until he'd broken four bones and sent them to the hospital—a fact he'd neatly neglected.

"Yeah," he said, grinning and nodding, "I did. Broke a knuckle, even." He lifted his hand to display the fine white lacings of scars riding over his fingers. The original scar had long since faded. Not that it mattered—scars from war were far more impressive, and the child was far too young to realize the difference.

He anxiously put his own knuckles to his lips and piped up around them. "Was your mom angry at you?"

Duo smiled.

"I'm just like you, bud," he said. He reached out and poked him affectionately in the shoulder. "I grew up in an orphanage. I lost both my parents long before I can remember. Luckily, there was a priest and a nun kind enough to take me in before I caused too much trouble. But when Sister Helen caught me, she was so upset with me I thought I would never live to see the next morning."

"Like her," the kid elaborated, fingering the air at his side where Michelle had stood.

Duo nodded and readjusted as his joints complained from crouching too long, coming to kneel and rest back on his heels. "But you know what happened then?"

The kid shook his head, still raptly watching him over his hands.

"Sister Helen gave me a hug and told me to go apologize. And I did." Again, he omitted a few minor details, including the fact the bullying kids had enacted revenge a few days after his half-sincere apology, and he did not fight back. He hid a grimace of recalled pain behind a quick smile. "It can be really hard to do, but it's very important to apologize. You understand?"

He glanced away, weighed by guilt but remembering his fury, his embarrassment. Then, letting out a tiny nasal sigh, he met Duo's eye again and nodded. "Yeah," he mumbled cautiously.

Duo tilted his head then, the opposite corner of his mouth curling in affection. "You sure you don't want to tell me your name, bud?"

Again, he looked away. But it wasn't guilt weighing him down, only remembrance. This time, though, he couldn't tell what memory was plaguing him. Instinctively, he reached out and ruffled his hair in a way Sister Helen had only done once, after calling him inside for dinner. When he had shaken off his own memory, the kid was slouching, eyes down, almost shrinking beneath his own.

Probably his parents, Duo thought, and could only draw him out of it with another affectionate, brotherly tap on the shoulder.

"Listen, I'll tell you what."

"What?" The kid asked immediately, blue eyes bright.

Duo smiled as he knelt down, relieving his joints—not as limber and fifteen years old as they had once been—and lifted a finger. "I was gonna tell you 'what,' you impatient little Rocky," he drawled, poking him with a grin. "I never had a name. Still can't remember to this day if I was a Tom, a Greg, or even a Mortimer." He hesitated, and smirked. "Maybe it's a good thing I didn't know."

The kid's slack, worried mouth softened, but did not yet smile.

"Those who didn't know their names, we would pick our names instead. Going through life without homes was hard enough. I was going to name myself Pick at one point."

"Why?"

Duo grinned fiercely, and lifted a small picture, as creased as an elderly man's brow. "Because I was a pretty good pickpocket. Still am."

The kid gaped. No doubt about it—recognition flashed through his eyes and his tiny fingers reached desperately out for it. In the photo, the kid was wrapped happily around a Labrador puppy, exuberant and barely clinging to the bundle of paws and energy They melded around the frayed edges and folded it up and out of sight almost as quickly as Duo had lifted it from his pocket. There it was returned, a haven of safety in a life on the streets, and the kid turned his bottomless blues towards Duo, unsure if he should be impressed or betrayed.

"Don't worry—it was just for effect," Duo reassured him. Michelle and Helen alike would probably strike him across the back of the head for raiding a child's pockets and effectively stealing a beloved keepsake, but neither were there to see, and neither had ever spent their childhood on the streets. Things happened, they were traumatic, but they thickened your skin in the same necessary way food filled your belly. The kid seemed to understand this vague and cruel point of the world to some extent, and he continued to watch Duo with caution and interest, rather than look away in anger or pain.

"I think I would have named you Breaker."

The kid blinked at him, then seemed to stand a bit straighter, staring intently. " 'Breaker?' "

"Yeah. Only the toughest, smartest kids I knew ever got the name Breaker. See, we'd pick our names, but the rest of the kids had to agree on it. Everyone wanted to be named King, but no one ever let him." Suddenly, Duo felt himself smiling again, mirroring the slight curl of the kid's mouth. "Breakers were quick, good fighters, smarter than anyone, and they always got away with everything. You seem like one to me. And if you don't want to tell me your real name, you could have that one instead."

"I could?" He glanced around the room, even peering over his shoulder to see if any unwanted eyes still watched from across the glass. "But doesn't everyone have to agree?"

"Nope, just me." Duo jabbed a thumb toward his chest. "Only street rat here. Only kids who have been on the streets can name other kids from the streets. Call it an exclusive club, but that's the rule."

The kid nodded, his gaze settling on the carpet for a moment. But he was still half-smiling. "Okay," he said. Duo was surprised to see that promising hint of happiness suddenly drop away from his mouth, his expression filling with a sad curiosity usually only known in adulthood. Blue eyes again locked on his and he couldn't resist it for a moment.

("Do a favor for me, Duo.")

"Why did you pick your name?"

Duo stared back at him, his own smile startled off his face. The intensity of his eyes, the depth of tension and sadness in a body so young and a life so freshly begun honestly scared him. The kid stared up at him, waiting for the explanation, for Duo's paralyzed mouth to again reassure him, until Michelle tapping at the glass door before she entered the room interrupted them.

"How's it going?"

She settled against the door as it swung shut. The firm stance of her feet, the weary but even shape of her mouth, and her arms folded across her chest all denoted she was willing to wait until the end of time, should it take Duo that long to resolve his ridiculous fear. Even the copper red of her hair seemed to shine duller, preserving its fire for the long distance haul. Without an immediate response—only two pairs of eyes latched on her silently, half-surprised, and half worried she was there to eat them alive—she arched an expectant brow at Duo.

The pilot recovered quickly. He shifted a little to face her more and smiled his most victorious smile. "Oh, just fine, actually. Breaker and me were just talking. You know, boy stuff."

The kid snapped his head back around, staring at him. Michelle did the same, the other brow jumping to match the other's startled height. "Breaker?"

Duo flashed the kid a wink and the newly appointed Breaker seemed to slip comfortably into the new name—he issued his first sincere smile under the name.