And here's chapter three; I think that I'm going to updating this every Thursday from now on . . . we'll see how long it goes on for (or how many diabolical things I can come up with them to do to each other ;) ). Thank you so much to everyone that's been reviewing, glad you're all enjoying it!!

Mutually Assured Destruction

Chapter Three - Second Strike Capabilities

Tynan

"He what?!"

"All four of the doors on my car and the trunk glued shut . . . he is so lucky that I don't have to drive to work."

"I might as well have not come today, I'm waiting for the nice man with the electric saw to finish making a great deal of noise so that I can get a new telephone in my office and order a new desk."

" . . . We can't let them get away with this."

"Them?"

"Oh come on Relena, do you really think that Duo had no part in this?!"

"I suppose you're right."

"Yes, so now that we're in agreement, what are we going to do about this?"

- - - - -

Heero couldn't help but feel slightly accomplished; it wasn't even 8:30 in the morning and he'd already managed to ruin two people's days. Generally he didn't like to gloat, but that overwhelming sense of accomplishment kept getting to him. On some level he couldn't take too much pride in his work, it had really been too easy. Duo had been more than willing to leave their garage unlocked and prepare the industrial strength epoxy solution he needed from the supplies at Hilde's shop behind their house.

Getting into Relena's office had been even easier; Mrs. Bolling was a very sweet old lady who adored Relena, and therefore also adored the man who was responsible for keeping her safe. Bearing these facts in mind, he tried not to take too much pleasure in thinking about what the expressions on each of their faces must have been . . . but he still couldn't help but smile.

Duo, on the other hand, was making no such attempt. "Aw man, I wish we could have seen the looks on their faces," he doubled over with renewed laughter, "Hilde's totally gonna kill me, but this was so worth it . . ."

Heero smirked to himself, there was just something so sweet about revenge.

- - - - -

"Remember, it has to happen the same time."

"You're sure this will work?"

"Trust me, he leaves the same time everyday."

"What if he's got extra work left over from taking the time to glue my car and your desk shut this morning?"

"Heero Yuy doesn't fall behind on work . . . and after watching them cut my desk apart all morning, I've been waiting for this since lunch."

- - - - -

There was a knock at the door and Duo couldn't help but be annoyed; he was literally on his way out the door and now someone was going to come dump a mountain of paper work on his desk that just had to be taken care of by tomorrow morning. However, when the door did open he wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or worried.

"Hi Duo." Hilde's voice was sweet and quiet, she looked . . . dare he call it repentant?

Regardless, he couldn't afford to let his guard down. "Hilde, babe," he began cautiously, but couldn't help the smile that crossed his face. To his surprise she didn't try to smack it off of him.

Instead she sighed and shrugged her shoulders in a defeated way, "Alright, you guys got us, I'll admit it."

Duo's eyes bugged, "You will?!" but he quickly regained his composure, "I mean of course you will." he continued, sounding more confident. Hilde let her eyes fall to the floor and Duo couldn't help be feel a little bad, "Aw, come on babe, don't feel bad . . . I mean you and Lena never really had a chance once Heero set his sights on you."

She smiled the tiniest bit, "I guess you're right . . ." she began to cross the room and crawled into his lap, her legs straddling his waist and she leaned in close to his ear, "But I know you had something to do with all this . . . Heero never could have done all this without you . . ."

Duo couldn't help but allow his own pride to swell, "Well, I mean come on Hilde, you know Heero's basically hopeless without me."

"Mmhmm, we should have known better than to think we could get away from you." she began sucking on his earlobe, distracting him from the point he was about to make . . . whatever it had been.

"Yeah," he answered thickly, "you two never, umm . . ." she moved down to his neck, "I, uh there wasn't anything . . ." All rational thought went by the wayside as she began unbuttoning his shirt.

- - - - -

Heero closed his eyes and let the hot water pour over his head and onto his shoulders. He liked to stay late and get his daily workout in when most of the other daytime personnel had already gone home. As was often the case the gym had been near empty and the locker room even more so leaving him to exercise and shower in peace before heading home for the night.

He turned the taps on the wall in front of his so that the water flow diminished and stopped. He shook out access water out of his hair and wiped it out of his eyes, as he reached outside the stall for the towel he had hung on the hook when he entered . . . and quickly discovered it was not there.

Snapping to attention, he stuck his head outside the curtain and gaped in annoyance at the empty wall. Drawing in a breath he sighed and pushed aside the shower curtain, stepping onto the tiled walkway and making his way towards the laundry area; he was pretty sure that no one else was here, and even if they were . . . well this was the men's locker room, nothing they hadn't seen before.

As he continued to the end of the row of showers Heero turned the corner and made his way past the many rows of lockers considering as he went what might have happened to his towel. He had heard someone while he was in the shower and assumed it to be a fellow colleague, but if they had taken his towel it must have been the cleaning service.

He stopped in front of a narrow door, which opened to the laundry area, which was ordinarily stacked with clean neatly folded towels, which were piled on the many shelves that lined the room . . . which were all empty. Heero walked to the center of the room, naked, dripping, and bewildered; there was no way that the cleaning staff had suddenly decided to remove all of the locker room's towels Something was clearly going on here.

He practically ran back to his locker at a frantic pace, but he already knew what he would find there. Sure enough, it lay open, empty of everything but his boots, his car keys, and his wallet.

'Relena.'

He had committed one of warfare's greatest flaws and underestimated his opponent. He had not anticipated any sort of retaliation from the long declared pacifist, certainly not so bold a maneuver, but she had used the element of surprise to her advantage and struck a crippling blow. Regardless, he would strike back, he would make her understand that when it came to battle, to war, she was no match for him.

However, in the meantime, more immediate problems had to be dealt with. He was still completely naked, alone in the men's locker room of Preventers Head Quarters and all of a sudden feeling very exposed and completely stranded. She had left nothing that he could possibly cover himself up with and somehow he did not feel that walking back up to his office wearing only what God had given him was the best way to command the respect of his colleagues and subordinates.

As much as it pained him to, he had no choice but to call Duo and get him to bring down some clothes. As soon as the thought stuck him, it was dismissed; Relena had taken his cell phone as well. In a regretful way, he was almost proud of her, she had really thought of everything.

Well actually, not quite everything. Heero smirked to himself as he remembered the internal usage phone that was mounted to the wall just outside the locker room door. It was easily in view of the public, but if he was fast enough he could lean out of the door, grab the receiver, pull it back into the locker room, and call Duo from there.

Reaching his arm out to snatch the phone from its mount had been easy enough, slightly more difficult had been dialing Duo's extension without being able to see the key pad, but he had managed, though he also managed to shut his arm in the door in the process. He waited patiently while the phone rang, praying that Duo was still in his office and that no one would notice the phone cord sticking out of the locker room door. Just as he was about to abandon hope, there was a 'click' on the other end.

"Duo Maxwe – "

"It's Heero."

"Heero!" the other man sounded relieved to say the least, "Man, thank God you called, I've been trying to get you on your cell phone for like half an hour!"

Heero tried not to sound bitter, "There's a problem with my cell phone . . ."

They both began talking at once.

"Hey man, could you come up here, I need a favor."

"I need you to come down to the locker rooms."

Both stopped and responded in unison: "I can't go anywhere."

Heero looked at the phone in disbelief, "I'm not joking around Duo, I need you to come down here and bring me some clothes!"

Duo made something like a choking noise before he sputtered into the phone, "S-she got you too?! Aw man . . ."

Heero felt his blood run cold and dread filled his stomach, "What do you mean 'got me too'?"

He could almost feel Duo scratching his head in that nervous manner of his, "Well, ya see . . . well Hilde showed up before," Heero let his head fall against the wall, "And, okay yes, I'll admit it: she totally played me!" He sounded angry now, "She came in here looking all sad and pretending to be sorry so that she could take advantage of me!"

"Take advantage of you?"

"Yeah! Well okay, I mean . . . I thought that she was sorry!!!"

Heero drew his head back from the wall and let it fall into it again, as Duo continued, "Anyway, so umm . . . well she's, ya know . . . and well afterwards I was, well I kinda dozed off in my chair . . ."

"Duo?" Heero's voice was threatening but calm.

"So yeah, I came to and she had left and umm . . . well all of my clothes were gone . . . actually so was everything that I could have you know, used . . ."

Heero hit his head against the wall again. So this is how they were going to play, well game on girls.

"Hey umm, Heero?"

"Yeah?"

"So uh . . . when we manage to get out of here, can I come crash at your place?"

"Wha – my place?"

"Well I'm sure as hell not going home after this!"

Oh yes, from here on out, this was war.