Author's Note: Think things are bad for Heero and Relena? Think again. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Warning: language

Romafellor the Interrogator

In the end, Tsubarov found himself receiving attention for his actions in Nevada only it was not the kind he had been looking for.

Romafellor's hardened eyes bored into the trembling man mercilessly and not amused in the slightest. He knew everything about the in broad daylight abduction and the…unfortunate accident that befell both of the adult Yuys recently and while he didn't give a whit about such matters, he was more peeved about his employee's highly illegal actions that had taken quite a bit of bribing money to soothe over.

That would be money, he made a mental note, coming out of that idiot's salary and next paycheck…

Nevertheless, he had both the boy and the girl, both survivors of the incident in Arizona, and potential witnesses to the fruits of Project Maxwell itself. It was priceless information that would give him a look into whatever it was that his competitive rival Xavien was up to and maybe even take advantage of it to one up Winner. However, a reprimand was still in order. He was still in charge here and he had to show that he still had teeth that he was willing to pierce into any unlucky fool's being.

"I-I-I th-thought you'd be p-p-pleased!" the normally confident Tsubarov stuttered.

"Are you an expert in what pleases me and what doesn't please me?" Romafellor's soft voice asked dryly. "While I am comforted in the knowledge that I have two living witnesses of the Arizona disaster, I am most dissatisfied by your actions in Nevada. You have nearly cost me, no the entire corporation, to loose its hold on the City of Sin itself and for what? A little boy and girl whom you could've had abducted in their sleep and stolen away in the night? But instead, you judged that moment right then and there, in front of a live audience, to perform your crime and that is why I am not…pleased."

"F-forgive, Mr. Romafellor," Tsubarov begged. "I was a-a-a bit hasty in my actions—"

"Hasty is a bit of an understatement," Romafellor interrupted wryly. "No, from what I've heard, it was impulsive and rash, something that is completely unlike you. This company did not get to where it is based on impulsive and rash decisions, Tsubarov. So, to punish you, I have already taken the appropriate measures as I have seen fit. Dock in pay and salary for one year and repossession of a few of your…possessions. Which ones will they be, you'll find out when you get home. I can do worse, much worse but right now we are at an intersection and I want to be sure that the correct path is chosen. Next time, I will not be so lenient."

"I understand," Tsubarov said, bowing his head.

"Make sure it doesn't happen again," Romafellor said sternly, "else there won't be a next time. Now, tell me what you know about those children you brought in…"

---

He had no idea how long he may have been out but when he finally woke up, Heero was groggy, pissed, and the back of his head was killing him with everything throb he felt from it. It took maybe a few seconds for him to clear out the cobwebs in his brain as he recalled the last things he remembered: meeting up with his parents, said parents getting made fun of by some large guy called Tsubarov, and then him attacking Tsubarov for…

His eyes flared open as every detail became crystal clear but he was forced to close them abruptly with a groan since the room he was currently in was too bright for such a thing. He massaged his closed eyelids with his fingertips for a few seconds before he dared to crack open his eyes again, letting them adjust first so that he could take in his surroundings and possibly find that asshole Tsubarov and put him in a hurt locker.

He didn't see Tsubarov anywhere but what he did find was that he was sitting in a wheeled, reclining chair that was positioned against a long boardroom table and seated right across from him was an unconscious Relena.

Relena!

He jolted out of his seat and over the table, rather than going around it, to get to her side, his anger momentarily forgotten as concern for his girlfriend became top priority.

"Relena!" he exclaimed softly as he tapped the side of her face, trying to wake her up and see if she was okay. He felt relief flood his body when the girl emitted a moan and woke up from her slumber, a hand setting itself on her forehead as if she was suffering from a headache of some kind. "Relena!" Heero nearly cried out. "Are you all right?"

"Heero?" the blonde girl asked aloud. "Is that you? Where are we?"

Choosing that moment to ignore those questions, he embraced Relena tightly, planting his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder and taking in her scent with each breath he took. Relena allowed this to prolong itself mainly because she was scared, didn't know what was going on, and needed all the comfort she could get.

"I hope I am not interrupting anything."

The voice, the unfamiliar and unexpected voice, ended their moment quicker than Duo changed personalities and the two teens' heads snapped up towards the opened doors of the boardroom where a short, elder man stood. They hadn't even heard those doors open and the old man watching them with cold blue eyes that seemed to look straight through them and into their very souls.

"Who are you?" Heero demanded, his nostrils flaring like a bull.

There wasn't even a sign of a smile pulling on those lips. Nothing warm or comforting was uttered either when the man began to speak again. "And here I thought everyone on the planet knew who I am. I haven't heard anybody ask me that question in decades."

"That still doesn't answer my question," Heero retorted, standing up to his full height, easily towering over the man.

Nothing, not even the raising of an eyebrow. The man did, however, stroll away from the doors that had closed behind him long ago and headed towards a vacant chair that he took a seat in, getting comfortable in it and crossing his legs. Again, Heero tried to intimidate the now seated man by straightening his back and crossing his arms over his chest.

"If you think that you're daunting me, boy, you might as well stop right now," the man said dryly. "I've had bigger and better men do that and not once have I ever been intimidated. The only thing you can do right now is take a seat and answer some questions I have for you."

"Not until you tell me who you are," Heero growled.

"Back to this are we?" the man replied. "I have but one name and no others. You may call me Mr. Romafellor and Mr. Romafellor only."

"Mr. Romafellor?" Heero repeated, raising an eyebrow. Mr. Romafellor…why did that name sound so familiar?

"Romafellor as in the Romafellor Corporation?" Relena spoke up, her voice a little shaky.

"Correct, my dear," Romafellor answered. "I am the owner, the founder, and the head of the Romafellor Corporation, one of the largest firms in the world. However, what I am is not of consequence and what you know is."

"What we know? Stop speaking in riddles," Heero snapped, loosing his patience. He felt Relena tug on his clothing but he ignored it. He wasn't about to let some old man push him around, not after all the shit that he had been through up to now.

"It's not a riddle," Romafellor said, his soft voice the poster child of patience. "As I said before, I have some questions and you have the answers to said questions. What is so difficult about that concept to grasp? Do you have any mental deficiencies that I am not aware of?"

"Why don't you tell me, 'Mr. Romafellor,'" Heero snarked.

"Very well then," Romafellor said. "You are Heero Yuy, a Japanese American that is seven-eights oriental and one-eight white Caucasian. You grew up and live in the recently vacated community of Boulder, Arizona, have traveled all the way to Las Vegas, Nevada to reunite with your parents who were supposedly attending a conference held by my company. You are seventeen years of age, have experienced multiple broken bones when you were just a small child before you bulked up by lifting weights and doing other various strength-building exercises, becoming the first freshman at your school to join up immediately with the varsity football team, skipping junior varsity altogether. There besides you is your high school sweetheart Relena Darlian, the girl that you love and hope to marry some day. Relena is a bright young girl attending what used to be the Boulder Independent School District who is quite bright and possesses a lot of potential should she choose to tap into it. Only a few weeks ago, she turned seventeen years of age, her favorite color is pink, and she enjoys shopping with her best friend Dorothy Catalonia and doting on her ever devoted boyfriend who would be you."

Heero could only gape at the only monologue, unable to comprehend how an individual could know so much about him when he had just only met him a few minutes ago. Not only that, he knew things about Relena as well and she had hardly spoken this entire time.

"How do you…?" Heero's voice cracked.

Romafellor only shrugged his shoulders while still in his seat and said, "I make it my business to know things. It shouldn't be a surprise that I know about you since your parents used to work for me for years. However, I don't know everything and while that can be excused under certain circumstances, you both have knowledge that I don't have and I want it. So let's skip the chitchat and get down to business. I am a very busy man and I have had to readjust my entire schedule to fit this little meeting into it so will you please not waste any more of my time."

Romafellor's soft voice had started just like that, soft but with a brand of quietness to it. However, the more he spoke, the more a certain hard edge appeared into it, one that promised things that would more than likely make both Heero and Relena's stay here a most unpleasant one should they choose not to cooperate.

"What is it you want to know?" Relena finally asked, scared. "What do we know that you don't?"

"That, my dear, we are about to find out," Romafellor replied, his voice completely soft once more. There was even a gentleness in it but all those who knew this man knew that it was false. There wasn't a bone in that small body of his that had any gentleness, or even kindness, unless you counted his close family, in it. Unfortunately for Heero and Relena, they did not know this and were strung into the web this professional was weaving.

"Before I can ask my questions, I will have to tell you a little story so that you can understand precisely what I'm looking for. You see, it has come to my attention about a certain…program that one of my rivals has been investing in. You could say it's a weapons program of sorts, the kind of weapon that will change everything about how wars are fought and violence is instigated. A few years ago, I had been involved in such a project as well, one that turned out to be an utter failure. We were trying to create a new kind of combat suit, one that protected the user from any and all threats while dispensing destruction and harm to those facing it. The project was plagued with so many bugs that I had to shut the whole thing down and call it a failure, something that I do not enjoy doing. A few months ago, I learned of this other project from a reliable source that my competitor, XAI, was involved in a similar weapons program. Upon hearing about this, I thought to myself, why not wait and see what XAI would come up with first and when the time was right, take the project over for Romafellor and enjoy all the benefits that would come from it.

"Xavien, however, is a very paranoid person and has gone to great lengths to hide his work from me. In fact, it was only a few days ago that I learned about the basics of this Project Maxwell, a weapons program designed to take normal everyday people and turn them into superhuman soldiers, the next generation of weapons. Ironically, the basic equations and formulas Project Maxwell is based on were the same ones that I had turned down before, twenty years ago to be precise."

"And what does that have to do with us?" Heero asked.

"It is because of Project Maxwell that your hometown was annihilated," Romafellor answered, expressing no emotions as he saw horror imprinted on the two teens' faces. Soon, though, that horror changed to realization, as if what he had said triggered recognition in them.

Bingo.

Psychology was truly a great thing to behold. To be able to predict other people's behaviors was an asset and back when Romafellor was just entering the world of business and had first heard about this new field of science, he had invested quite a bit into it and look at him now, one of the most powerful people in the world. Every word he made, every motion his body undertook, all of it had a purpose, one that was designed and calculated to bring out the maximum amount of emotion from a person and Romafellor himself had always been a good reader of body language.

Whatever the mouth tried to lie about, the body always betrayed. Always.

"Have I struck a nerve?" he asked pleasantly. "Do not be afraid to say anything, speak whatever it is that is on your mind."

That snapped the two out of their spells but it was the more resistant one that spoke up. "Is there anything else?" Heero said.

Not what he was looking for but if there was any word that could describe Romafellor, it was adaptable. He decided to give them more information not because he liked hearing himself talk but he knew that the two wouldn't last very long afterwards. Not that he was planning to have them killed, mind you, it was just that the world was a very hard place and with no support or structure, these children would simply die off like an endangered specie.

Survival of the fittest, what could he say? Children like these two with their typical ideals knew nothing of how hard life really was. Life had shaped him into the very man that he was today and he had adapted to it until he became it. Morality was for those who had the time to consider it but it was nothing more than a social inconvenience that was overlooked and stepped over all the time.

"It depends," he told them. "If you mean how Project Maxwell is able to produce superhuman abilities, I'm afraid to admit that I do not know how it is done. That's where you come in. From what my information tells me, you two were still in your hometown the day it was destroyed. What did you see? How did things progress that resulted in the town's destruction? You have the answers I am searching, children, so please, answer at will."

"Where did you get all that?" Heero demanded. "How do you figure we would be able to answer your questions when we know so little?! You know more about whatever is going on so can't you just guess and leave us alone?!"

"Once you answer my questions," Romafeller said. "Now tell me, and don't lie to me since I know the truth, what did these 'weapons' look like?"

Heero was about to lose his temper again, fed up with everything. Was it too much to ask for a normal life? Was it? Before he could tell Mr. Romafellor just where he could shove it, Relena spoke up first.

"They looked like normal people," she answered, willing to do anything to get out of here. She didn't like this man, didn't like the way he was looking at them as if they weren't even human. They were like bugs in a collection being studied by the collector, in this case, Mr. Roma—whatever his name was!

"'Normal people?'" Romafellor repeated. "Explain."

"Relena!" Heero protested.

"They look like you and me!" Relena exclaimed, shivering as she got lost into her memories. "They held Heero against his will, threatened to hurt us, made Dorothy buy them clothes—"

"So they have intelligence, interesting," Romafellor muttered to himself. Glancing at the girl, he said, "Continue."

"They…they held Heero hostage," the girl continued to recount, "and then the next day, they got into a fight with those other boys, and one of them shot fire from his hands, and—"

"Are you saying there are no uniform abilities?" Romafellor interrupted again.

"Relena, you don't have to do this," Heero said quietly to her.

Relena shook her head at her boyfriend. "No, he can help Heero. He may be creepy but he can help! I know he can! Isn't that right?" The last was spoken to Romafellor to which the elder man nodded solemnly. It wasn't as if he didn't have the heart to tell them the truth, he just didn't see any reason to tell them. It wouldn't have been the first time he lied to someone.

In fact as he continued his interrogation, the girl's words blending into one another, plans began to form in his head. Xavien wasn't going to be the only person to benefit from this; he would make sure that he got his piece from this pie and this time he wouldn't toss it aside.

---

"You really didn't think this one through, did you?" Trowa said conversationally in front of the small campfire.

"Fuck you," Solo growled, arms wrapped around his knees and eyes smoldering.

"I should have stayed back at the church," Dorothy mumbled to herself as she suppressed a shiver.

It was true though, Solo hadn't thought this one through. Leaving the Maxwell church in the middle of the day instead of waiting for the next morning and without any kind of supplies on hand hadn't been the brightest solution but the blond was too determined to find Duo.

Of course, when it came to being single-minded about something, all of the blond's usual habits were thrown out the window. He blamed it on Project Maxwell since it made him invincible and all.

Yeah, just blow over the fact that he has his occasional bouts of denseness…

"Wonder why da Japan guy didn't join along," Solo said aloud, more to just say something than anything. Now that he was in the midst of his memories of day long past, he recalled Wufei refusing to join them and the blond did not recall his reasons why since he hadn't been paying attention at the time.

"Probably to skip out on such a marvelous trip," Trowa answered.

"That was an insult, wasn't it?" Solo said, glaring at the other.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Trowa shrugged as he summoned another log of wood out of the ground and put it into the fire, striving to fight away the chill of the night. "But you know," he continued, "we're going to have to find a way not to freeze to death tonight if we want to stand a chance at finding Duo."

"Smartass son of a bitch," Solo mumbled.

"Did you say something?" Trowa asked serenely.

"Fuck off," was Solo's reply.

"And you speak so well," Trowa replied. "However, that still doesn't solve the fact of our current problem, oh great leader."

"Stop rubbin' it in," Solo muttered. "Fine. Ya want ta see a solution? Well here ya go!"

Without further prompting, he snaked his arm out, grabbed Dorothy, and proceeded to drag her towards him, the blonde fighting every inch of the way until she was pressed up against his body with a blush on his face.

"There," Solo said triumphantly. "Nothin' like a little body heat ta keep ya warm! Wadda ya say ta that, eh?"

Trowa only shook his head and chuckled but made no attempt to comment on it. Taking this as a sign of defeat from the other, Solo smirked victoriously and made no move to shove Dorothy away from him. Dorothy, however, was still blushing but not because of proximity with the blond. Well maybe she was, but for all those girls out there, wouldn't you be doing the same thing if you were being pressed up against a muscular superhuman while shivering in the middle of a desert at night?

Needless to say, she didn't notice that Solo made no attempt to shove her away from him or at least push her away like times previous.