Gundam Wing

London Alleyways

Warnings: very slight angst, difficult accents, period fic, AU, intrigue, humor, semi-large age differences, OCs

Chapter 09: The Hardest Button to Button

Duo yawned and stretched. His back was stiff and his neck was sore but other than that the morning was shaping up to be just dandy. His dreams had been plagued with deep blue and warm chocolate; it was disconcerting to say the least.

Grumbling to himself as he brushed out his abnormally matted hair, Duo tugged on his clothes and lightly cursed under his breath as the sounds of Henry and Freddy bickering floated down the hall on their way to the kitchen for breakfast.

This was no different from any other morning, Duo reflected, except for one thing.

Duo stood up straight and cocked his head to the side listening. A strange absence of sound was the only thing he heard and it was so absolutely out of place. Frown firmly in place on his brow, Duo stepped out of his room and glanced up and down the hallway.

"Ivan? Oscar?" He had half expected them to fall from the ceiling or swing up and over the banister in an ambush, but nothing happened.

It was very unusual for them to be quiet at any time and Duo was beginning to worry.

Hurrying his steps he looked into the rooms as he passed them and over the banister as he jogged down the stairs. Any number of horrible things the twins could have gotten into running through his brain, horrible possibilities of what would happen if they stepped outside and got caught by the wrong person.

Heero's study doors were closed. They were normally wide open and Duo sighed in frustration. If the twins were messing around in Heero's study, so help him, Duo was going to fillet them.

He threw the doors open with a scowl on his face. "Ivan! Oscar!"

A startled snort from the couch made him jump and whirl around to see a pair of booted feet hanging over the arm of the couch.

He walked around the lounge furniture and growled at the sight before him.

Three pairs of sleepy eyes stared at him in confusion. "Duo? What ya doin'? It's bright." Oscar rubbed at his eyes and wriggled around against the back of the couch then snuggled closer to Heero and tried to hide from the light filtering in from the open door and the drawn curtains.

"Oscar." Duo's jaw was gritting. His brain was working a mile a minute and his fists were clinching in furry and hurt. "Ivan."

Heero's heart dropped to the floor through the couch when the dots connected and he realized the conclusion Duo had wrongfully jumped to. "Duo it's not-"

"Get your filthy, rich hands OFF of my boys!" Duo practically screamed, startling all three into a sitting positions and displacing Ivan off the couch to land awkwardly on his feet.

Heero hastily got to his feet and helped Oscar off of the couch. "Duo calm down."

"I will not calm down!" Duo stomped his foot on the carpeted floor. "Ivan, Oscar, get away from him."

Both boys blinked surprised at their guardian. They had never seen him so irate. "Duo please-" Ivan started but was silenced by a fierce glare.

"Get away from him. Now!"

Heero could take Duo's anger pointed at him. He could take the yelling at him, and the hurt and furry in Duo's eyes when they were looking at him, but he would not let Ivan and Oscar carry any of his burden.

He stepped in front of the startled and confused boys, facing Duo head on, messy hair and all. "Duo! You may be as angry as you want at me but do not take any of it out on them."

Heero's cold hard voice chilled Duo out of his abrupt rage. The dark fog clearing, Duo finally took the time to look.

The twins grabbed each other's hands and stepped around the side of Heero. "Nothing happened, Duo."

"Honest." Ivan exclaimed.

"We were…" Oscar lowered his eyes, "afraid of the thunder."

"Heero, he said we could stay with him in the study." Ivan glanced at Heero with an admiring shy smile. "Till we weren't scared any more."

Duo was perhaps more startled in that one moment than he had been in the whole of his life. The twins never smiled at anyone unless it was in mischief, prior to mischief, or post mischief. But there they were, smiling at Heero.

He looked at the nobleman meeting his steady gaze then turned back to the twins and immediately felt ashamed.

"Ivan, Oscar. Go up stairs and get ready for breakfast." The furry had seeped from his voice, his shoulders were slumped and he struggled to give the still shaken boys a small smile.

They began to walk toward the doors of the study and patted Duo on the shoulder as they passed. Both young men waited till the boys' foot steps faded up the stairs before their eyes met once again.

Duo broke eye contact and glanced over at the couch. "You didn't-"

"No, Duo." Heero sounded tired but ever so slightly amused. "They were really bothered by the storm. I couldn't just let them continue on in that vain."

Duo sighed and collapsed onto the arm of the couch, shoulders slumping. "They have never been able to handle storms." He rubbed at his forehead, suddenly so very tired.

Heero nodded and ran his fingers through his hair trying to force it into some kind of semblance of order. He suddenly realized his shirt tails were un-tucked and his vest was hanging off of one shoulder. "The boys told me about their parents. I simply listened to them and offered them comfort."

"I-… I realize that now." Duo looked up with pleading eyes at his host. "I'm so very sorry I accused you of- of-"

"Stop." Heero gave the shy young man a reassuring smile. "I don't take offense to you protecting Ivan and Oscar. Please, don't apologize."

Smiling at him, Duo sighed in relief. He had come close to over stepping the boundaries with Heero. He had come close to jeopardizing everything. But strangely enough that wasn't what had made his heart drop into his stomach. It was that thought that Heero had formed an attachment someone other than him.

"I am going to apologize to the boys." Duo stated. "They didn't deserve how I snapped at them."

Heero simply nodded.

They both sat in silence for a moment before Duo asked, "They told you about their parents? It took them months to trust me enough with their story."

"I couldn't begin to tell you why they decided to gift me with their confidence, but I will say that I am honored." Heero shifted from one foot to the other.

"As you should be. They don't open up to anyone. Ivan and Oscar only told me their story when I found them hiding from the first storm that had come after they joined us."

"They are good boys, Duo."

"Aye, they are." Duo's lips curved into a tender smile. He couldn't help but feel a fatherly pride in all of his boys.

"You know," Heero hedged, "They think a great deal of you."

Duo looked confusedly at Heero.

"They think the world of you." Heero restated. "They said that you were a family now. That you were their family."

His breath caught in his throat and Duo had to clear it before he felt steady enough to speak. "They would have to think quite a lot of you too, Heero. I haven't seen them take to anyone so fast as they have to you and your friends."

Heero's heart swelled inside his chest. It ached with the emotion that statement brought. "I have never been so glad to have almost been mugged than I am now."

Both young men chuckled lightening the mood. Duo glanced at the noble man in front of him suddenly realizing just how wonderfully a smile lit up Heero's face.

Clearing this throat he stood up from his perch on the sofa arm. "I should be checking on Ivan and Oscar. Making sure they aren't making mischief this early in the morning."

Heero nodded then blushed all the way from his neck up to his ears when Duo turned back from his stride out the study doors. "And I believe you need to get cleaned up as well. If anyone were to see you looking like that, your virtue may be in question."

Duo smirked to himself as Heero's embarrassed sputtering followed him to the bottom of the stairs.

After getting his sputtering under control and willing his blush to recede, Heero glanced at the point in the door way were the golden brown braid disappeared.

Oh, yes. He had never been so glad for his bad luck that one afternoon those few weeks ago.

Knocking on the door Duo waited for the quiet "Come in," before he pushed it open. Standing in the doorway he watched as Ivan yanked a comb through Oscar's hair while Oscar had his foot propped up on the vanity as he fussed and pulled on the laces to his shoes.

A fresh wave of happiness as well as shame washed through him. Duo loved all of the members of his small gang with all his heart. He had never lost his temper with any of them and had always listened when they spoke, but that morning he had done neither of those things.

He had let his feelings of fear, betrayal, and anger overrule his judgment and the twins had paid for it. Resisting the urge to rub at his chest, Duo thought back to how exactly he had felt when he had stepped into the study and seen the three of them curled up on the sofa.

After protecting the younger boys from everything that can happen on the messy streets of London, Duo always had to act quickly, jumping to the correct conclusion meant the difference between life and death at times. Obviously he had found the wrong conclusion, but the feelings were still there.

You rarely saw a gentleman near their parts of the city unless they were lost, dead, or looking for a little bit of entertainment; the kind that made your skin crawl and your stomach lurch. Duo had felt fear for his boys and anger at Heero for betraying his trust. That betrayal quickly melting into an acute spike of pain in his heart.

Perhaps since the first time Heero had stumbled into their alley Duo had been slowly growing more and more attached to him. He cared what he thought about him and his gang, watched when he entered and left a room, listened to his words as they floated from his soft elegant lips. Duo already knew all this about himself, but he had no idea just how deep his feelings went until that morning when he thought that Heero had found those feelings for someone else.

He realized that was completely ridiculous, obviously, but he couldn't help the way he felt and it only made him feel even more ashamed of the way he acted and what he thought of the situation.

Despite the pain in his heart the twins had come first and Duo had reared like an angry dragon to protect what was his; and in the process harmed the ones he was trying to protect.

"Hey boys," Duo smiled shyly at them as they carried on with their joint effort to get ready for the day. "Can I speak to you both for a minute?"

"Sure thing Duo." Ivan smiled already having forgiven him for the event downstairs. Yanking the comb one last time he frowned at his own hair in the mirror and tried to run the battered thing through it.

"Can you make it quick though?" Oscar stuck his tongue out of his mouth as he tightened the bow in his other shoe till it was just right. "We're starved!"

Chuckling Duo stepped into the room and sat down on one of their beds. "I'll try." He waited for them to finish up the last touches on their new and complicated clothes before he patted the bed on either side of him.

The twins sat down and looked at their friend and protector. "Duo," Ivan began, "Heero was just making us feel better."

Glancing down at his hands, Duo nodded. "I know. He explained to me that you both came down because of the storm, that you told him about your parents."

Oscar stared at Duo's fidgeting fingers. "Heero's real nice for a rich gentleman, Duo. He didn't do nothing."

Sighing Duo raised his head and met Oscar's eyes. "I know. I shouldn't have panicked like that. And I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."

Ivan raised a hand and patted Duo's shoulder comfortingly. "It's alright, Duo. You worked really hard to protect us on the streets. We understand."

A burning started from behind Duo's eyes. It seemed as though he had run through more emotions that morning than he normally did in a three days. "When did you two get so smart and 'understanding'?"

"We've always been like this!" Ivan chirped with a wicked smirk.

"We just prefer for people to underestimate us." Oscar grinned like a fox

Laughing out right, Duo grabbed them both in headlocks and ruffled their barely combed hair into complete disarray. "You two are something else!"

"Duo!" They struggled against his unmovable hold. "You're going to wrinkle our shirts!"

"Oh!" Duo let go with a very amused smirk barely contained in the face of their vexation. "I'm sorry. We wouldn't want your shirts to get wrinkled, would we?"

They stood up in tandem and marched away from their grinning protector. Glaring at him from the doorway they scolded, "We don't want to look as wrinkled as you are!"

Duo glanced down at himself and seeing that his clothes were practically pristine he jumped off the bed growling, "You little twerps!" and chased them laughing and giggling down the hall toward the kitchens. It never occurred to him to wonder about that fact that he and his gang, a bunch of street roughened kids, were no longer worrying about where to get their next meals or if they were going to freeze to death that winter, but if their new white button down shirts were wrinkled and if they were going to pass Lord Chang's next math quiz.

If he had thought about it, his chest would have become painfully warm and his heart would have ached with pride and happiness. But as it was he was chasing the twins through an enormously fancy London townhouse and anticipating a veritable feast for breakfast.

Wufei rang the bell at Heero's door and waited for Howard to open it as he scowled at the day in general.

He hadn't slept a wink the night before, or the night before that, or the night before that. Ever since the brunch at Quatre's and the…moment in the library with Freddy, Wufei had been eaten up inside. His conscious was chiseling at him and it was affecting his day to day life.

The patients he counted on to get through his life and weather his father and uncle's presence was gone and his concentration was shot. On the fourth day of miscalculating and mislabeling business letters he finally turned everything over to his assistant and took a break before he put Dragon Industries in jeopardy.

It had been impossible for him to stay at his own house after that. His father and uncle had not been happy with his absent mindedness and voiced their disappointment loudly and violently. He was carrying a bruised cheek, split lip, battered pride, and overnight bag with a weeks worth of clothes to show for it.

The prospect of begging his friend for a room to stay in a while he got his head back on his shoulders was lowering, but he couldn't think of anywhere else he would rather be at a moment like this. Of course, the thought of seeing Freddy almost everyday and having to deal with his fear and loss of trust in him was painful, but he would do his best to mend bridges and keep himself in order.

Howard opened the door and paused at the sight before him.

It had been quite awhile since Lord Chang had come around to teach the kids, but he knew that wasn't the reason for his visit today just by looking at him. Leaning forward and snatching the Prince's bag from him, he said, "I'll get Heero to meet you in the study."

Raising his chin in the face of his humiliation, Wufei folded his cane under his arm. "Thank you, Howard." Stepping into the house he strode quickly and without diversion passed the main parlor where the sounds of the younger children practicing their reading with Hilde reached his ears, passed the sitting room where Sally was instructing the twins, Solo and Freddy in history made his shoulders tighten, and finally into the study.

He came to an abrupt stop as Duo looked up from his book at his entrance.

A smile began to bloom on his face then wilted prematurely when Duo got a good look at Wufei's bruised face. "Lord Chang. What happened?"

The humiliation flared enormously and Wufei, for the first time in his life, looked down when in the presence of another being. "Good morning, Duo."

Duo's heart suddenly ached for the regal man as he stood in the doorway looking nothing like the snotty, spoiled, intelligent man Duo knew him as. Standing from his seat on the sofa Duo gestured him inside. "Come have a seat, Wufei. Would you like some brandy?"

Flicking his eyes up in surprise Wufei strode into the room struggling to keep the feelings of shame from overwhelming him. In addition to his failure with the clan business as of late, he owed Duo an apology and explanation for the way he treated Freddy, for his… feelings toward Freddy. "Thank you."

Walking over to the table against the wall, Duo poured three glasses and brought two back to the sitting area with him, handing one to Wufei seated in a club chair. Resuming his place on the sofa, Duo watched the Chinese business sip at his brandy in silence. "I'm not going to tell you that I'm happy about the way you treated Freddy, Wufei."

Just barely stopping himself from cringing, Wufei nodded and turned to face him head on. "Understandable. I would just like to explain myself."

Duo sat back in his seat and sipped at his brandy. "I'm listening." He didn't think Wufei wanted to discuss his physical appearance with him, that was not why he was there, nor was he there to discuss Freddy, but Duo needed to know and now was better than later.

"I haven't-…" Wufei stopped and glanced down at his drink, suddenly wondering why Heero wasn't there yet. "Fredrick is a very intelligent and amazing young man."

"I know." Duo nodded. He could tell that Chang was having problems communicating, but there was nothing he could do to ease his discomfort.

"It has been quite sometime when I have a met anyone as interested in philosophy and history as I am. Before that Heero and I had always been eager to debate the subjects together, but two people can only debate the same things without monotony for so long." Wufei gulped down half his brandy before he continued. "Fredrick is such a fast learner and a vivacious conversationalist; it has been very hard for me not to indulge in a transcending of our pupil-tutor relationship."

Duo could almost chuckle to himself at the awkwardness of the poor Prince. He would have eased his worry somewhat if it hadn't involved Freddy. "Freddy has grown quite fond of you, Wufei."

Snapping his face toward Duo, Wufei tried not to let his heart skip at that statement. "I had not realized just how fond I had become of him until the brunch at Winner's house. I suspect you already know what happened in the library."

"Freddy mentioned it." Duo sipped his brandy slowly. "He also mentioned just how highly he admires and respects you, Wufei."

"What?" Looking at the young man, once a street urchin, in front of him Wufei almost stammered, "His opinion of me has not been tarnished?"

Shaking his head, Duo gave him a light smile. "Freddy still thinks you walk on water." Then he leaned forward and turned his smile into a threatening snarl. "But betray his trust or hurt him in any way and I will gut you."

Wufei could hardly believe his ears. "Duo. You don't- you're not-," He stopped and swallowed. "I don't understand."

Duo finished off his drink and stood to refill it. "Freddy has feelings for you. I suspect his feelings are returned on some level and I will not stand between you two. I trust Heero's judgment in your character as I trust my own." He turned back to the stunned business man. "Do not betray my trust, Wufei. Freddy had a hard life. It is not mine to tell, but if and when he does confide in you, do not let me regret not killing you while I had the chance."

Suddenly Wufei's stomach sank to the floor. Duo and his gang stopped being uneducated pupils with rough edges and Wufei had begun to see then as intelligent young people. But he was suddenly reminded that they had lived on the streets, fought for food and life, and survived in the bilge of London. The thoughts of the things Freddy might have had to do and see to stay afloat out there had him paling.

Just as he was about to respond to that, the study door opened and Heero stepped in looking haggard and annoyed beyond belief.

A/N: OK. So Reeeeeeeaaaaaally long wait for an update. I'm terribly sorry for that. I had forgotten that I didn't finish this chapter and neglected to look in the London Alleyways folder to make sure everything was kosher. So to make up for my over sight I made this one especially long! Aren't ya'll happy?! JK. I hope ya'll like it! Review please!