No More Kindness
"I can't believe we're having this conversation! You for real think I'm going to go to Relena's for a party? After what she did on New Year's Eve?"
"It wasn't pleasant for me, either! But that was over a year ago! And she didn't know—"
"She fucking knows, Heero. She absolutely knows."
"I never told her about us."
"Well maybe you damn well should have so you'd stop giving her all the benefits of doubt and stop pretending that she doesn't fucking know!"
Violet eyes were raging as Duo stood in Heero's apartment, angrily putting his hoodie back on. He was getting ready to walk out, but that was the last thing Heero wanted him to do. He thought they'd have a nice evening together with a home cooked meal. They were supposed to go over specs for the motorcycle Duo wanted to build. Other people might find that boring, but Duo loved discussing engineering projects and Heero was able to follow, contribute, and enjoy how much his baka lit up. It was something they could do together and they hadn't really seen each other outside of work since falling back into bed together almost two weeks earlier.
It was supposed to be a nice evening to get back on track. It wasn't supposed to be this.
"Duo, you know why I don't want to—"
"No I fucking don't. Your excuse about liability seemed reasonable early on but I'm sick of this. I want us to be a regular couple. At this point I hate when you're kind to me in private."
"You hate my kindness?"
"Yes!"
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"Every gesture of affection feels like a trap, Heero!" They both froze at those words, Duo because he hadn't planned on saying them yet and Heero because he couldn't understand. Duo steeled himself and continued. "It's like you don't even want me, and you're sweet to me in private just to keep me around. To keep someone else from having me and to keep me from moving on."
"What're you—"
"I used to think everything would be okay if the others could only see who you really were." Duo looked emotionally exhausted. "But I don't know who you are anymore. I don't think the gentle and loving guy I came to know is fake. I know he's really you. I know your feelings aren't lies. But I can't deal with that part of you if he comes with the asshole who ignores me in public and lets his jealous friend so fucking obviously try to steal him away."
Relena. Heero couldn't believe he meant Relena.
"She's not interested in me!"
He watched Duo stare blankly at him. It was unnerving, and he felt his skin suddenly crawl under the weight of Duo's eyes.
"You know, I kind of believe that. She used to be obsessed with you, but now she keeps trying to set you up with someone else. Since she couldn't have you, she wants to make sure whoever does meets her standards. And in her eyes I'm street trash you should've thrown away after Meteor."
Heero bristled.
"You're not trash! Stop even alluding to you being trash!" He took a deep breath and steadied himself. Emotions were hard for him when they came in intense waves. "And she's not a hateful person." The hollow laugh from his partner fueled him to elaborate. "She's not! And she never would have kissed me if she knew we were together. She says it was just a friendly—"
"Stop buying everything that pinché embustera says!"
"Stop insulting her!"
"You think she kisses all her other friends like that? Or does she conveniently not have any?"
"You're being rude!"
Fury radiated off Duo, and Heero suddenly felt he'd crossed a line he didn't know was drawn. The shift in his partner was visible. Something snapped, and Duo was not going to hold back. His voice, when he spoke, was deadly.
"I've spent years holding my tongue and not telling you about Relena's bullshit because I didn't want to ruin a friendship you, for whatever reason, find value in. Because I don't want to dictate your life to you. Because I trust you to make your own decisions. But fuck me, Heero! I'm not going to torture myself! I'm not going to her fucking party as your platonic bestie, and I'm done playing nice. You go if you want. Don't involve me!"
Heero spoke quickly just to keep Duo from storming out as the other man reached for his shoes, clearly intending to leave. He didn't take time to think about his words.
"She said I can bring someone, and you're the only person I want to—"
Duo whirled back around.
"A plus one, Heero. She means for you to bring a date."
Silence hung between them, so thick it felt tangible. It was Duo who broke it.
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
What could he say to that?
A terrible feeling came over him when Duo closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. That was never a good sign. That was a warning he would soon hear something he didn't want to hear. It made Heero nervous.
"Listen." Duo opened his eyes, pain clearly showing through. "You can take me as your date, or you can not date me. Those are the options. I'm not going to watch as you get set up with countless people she approves of while I dutifully wait for you to give a damn about me once we're behind closed doors. I'll go, but only as your date. Otherwise I'm done."
Those words hurt.
"Don't accuse me of not caring. I always care about you, Duo."
He knew he made another mistake when Duo nearly recoiled.
"Yeah well it doesn't fuckin feel like you care, Ro. It feels like I'm disposable. And I'm not gonna let you distract me again. This is it. The last fucking straw. Make a goddamn choice." He slipped his shoes on, not bothering to lace them. "You said this thing at Relena's is a week from Saturday, so figure your shit out by then!"
Heero watched as Duo opened the door and abruptly left. He didn't look back.
Part of him was glad Duo immediately went out of town for work.
He needed time to think. Time to clear his head and come to terms with things he'd been avoiding. Time to, as Duo put it, figure out his shit. There would be no overnight success, no instant and massive shift of behavior, but there could be steps to get there. How he felt was not in question. He only needed to grow as a person. That would be easy, right?
He'd really put off growing. Procrastinating meant he'd wasted a little more than a week, and Duo would be back later in the day. Somehow, he'd still not made a move in relation to the party at Relena's.
Deep down he knew there was no way he'd be able to give Duo the public affection he wanted. Not yet. But taking the step to show affection to their friends would go a long way while he unlearned what his training taught him. He suspected this should be enough for now. He could tell their friends about the relationship, their trusted friends, who would not use it to cause harm and would keep their confidence. Then he could seek therapy to sort out his fear of strangers discovering his weakness for Duo.
Weakness.
Was it even a weakness?
Was Duo not the source of immense strength for him?
These ideas, contrasting one another starkly, were both valid, and both reasons therapy was likely needed.
Therapy was something Duo silently nudged him towards. Not once did he directly say go to therapy but he did at times mention how useful it could be, and how common it was. Wufei went to therapy for years, and Heero was pretty sure he still did. Trowa didn't, though he couldn't figure out why not. Quatre he wasn't sure about, having seemed so open and in touch with emotions in general he wasn't sure his friend would benefit from therapy.
Duo never said a word about seeing a therapist himself, and Heero wondered sometimes how a person so strongly in favor of mental health support could ignore his own needs. It wasn't like Duo was without issues or traumas that could benefit from professional help. He was afraid to bring up the topic. Maybe one day they'd be in a place to talk about Duo's past, and his traumas, together.
Unfortunately, a lot of things in their lives kept falling into the one day category.
For now he needed to focus on the first step to truly coming together as a couple. Before telling the guys and disrupting his everyday life, before possibly ruining their partnership at work when Wufei inevitably explained regulations and relationship disclosures, he needed to square things with Relena.
Duo told him he could take him as his date to the party today, or not date him. Heero was holding out for a third option.
It was an all day event, with people coming and going. A sort of open house party, the likes of which were security nightmares, but that wasn't his job today. He didn't have time to consider threats to Relena's safety. The only threat he needed to deal with was the potential end of his relationship. Before all else, before even Relena, he had to secure his relationship. Duo was set to arrive home in the late afternoon, and he was expecting his answer then. Hopefully he'd accept that third option Heero was about to implement.
The party was under way when he arrived. In the mid-afternoon sun Relena's guests were enjoying good weather and playing outdoor games while food and drink circled. He spotted her talking with some people under the shade of a tree, and in turn she looked up and saw him approach.
"Heero! It's nice to see you, I'd like to introduce you to—"
"Relena, we need to speak. In private."
She gave him a confused and critical look that didn't quite accept his words.
"First let me—"
"No. In private. Right now."
He walked away without looking back, expecting her to follow. By the time he turned around he was well into her garden, the guests all too far away to overhear. She had, indeed, followed him.
"Heero, that was a little rude. All I wanted—"
"It's rude of you to keep trying to set me up with someone."
He saw something flash in her eyes, but he wasn't sure what it meant. She tilted her head a little and put on her most sweet voice.
"I just think you'd be happier if—"
"I'm very happy, Relena."
"But you could be happier with someone to love who loves you back."
He couldn't quite place what was off with her. She looked and sounded genuine and sweet but there was a nagging voice, indistinguishable in recesses of his mind, trying to tell him something. He steeled himself and took the step he hoped would ease Duo's mind.
"I already have that, Relena. I haven't been single in a long time, but for security reasons we haven't exactly gone public with that information yet."
She froze, her face holding that sweet smile he was beginning to dislike. He knew her well enough to see her brain working, quickly calibrating how to word something as diplomatically as possible. He often witnessed this when she spoke at work, but rarely if ever saw it in relation to their friendship. He didn't have a lot of time to question just what she was tiptoeing around.
"That's lovely news, Heero! You must introduce us sometime, I promise to keep things confidential."
That voice in his head grew louder, but he still couldn't make out whatever message it was trying to convey.
"I don't need to. You've met. I'm in a relationship with Duo."
There was another shift in her demeanor, so subtle he almost missed it. The voice in his head finally broke through with a clear message: She already knew. Duo was right, she knew you about your relationship.
As that knowledge clicked into place he saw her withhold frustration. That was another thing he'd witnessed many times. She was upset with him, and the causality was clear. No matter how sweet and kind she remained on the surface he knew she was unhappy. And it dawned on him, in a rush, that she knew exactly what she was doing when she pulled him away from Duo to kiss him at the stroke of midnight. He recalled her looking out onto the balcony where they'd left Duo just before she reached up and kissed him.
Duo was right.
"I'm surprised, Heero." Her sing-song voice suddenly became grating. "You never appeared particularly close. Are you sure it's a relationship? Sometimes people sleep with friends because their physical needs line up, but that doesn't make it a romantic relationship."
A confident man would have denied her accusation. A good partner would adamantly stand by his feelings and tell her how much he loved Duo. But Heero was not yet that man. Instead he shot her a look that caused her, after years of ignoring his threats, to physically recoil. It wasn't much, but she did shrink back from him, and that was satisfying. His voice was monotone and harsh when he spoke.
"I told you I'm in a relationship, Relena. I never said I'm having casual sex with a friend. Stop trying to set me up with people, and do not interfere with my personal life. If I have to choose between you, I will choose him."
Without waiting for a response he turned to leave the party. She was no longer his concern. Duo would be home within the hour and he planned to tell him all about his conversation with Relena and present his third option: Tell their friends they were together, keep it from Preventers for as long as possible, and if Wufei made a fuss about rules and regulations put in for a transfer of partners without mentioning why. In the meantime, he'd go to therapy to sort out his fears. And hopefully the combination of regular therapy and letting their innermost circle know they were a couple, which would allow him a safe group to try showing affection around, would be enough to prove Duo wasn't the problem, he was.
Duo once apologized for nearly ruining Heero's image because he showed affection.
He once packed his own hoodie into Heero's luggage to assert his place in his life.
He referred to him as not that bad while on a call with Hilde.
He held back his emotions in what he thought were his last words because he didn't want to violate Heero's stupid rules.
He put up with receiving his first public affection from a very drunk partner who embarrassed rather than validated him, and somehow still thought he was the one who embarrassed his partner.
He thought he was trash, and with the way Heero failed to meet his needs it made sense. It hurt, but it made sense.
In every instance he could think of, Duo was not the problem. And he hoped that in showing their friends how much he loved his braided baka he could begin to heal the wounds he caused. From what he determined, many couples started out affectionate in public but did not reveal their relationship to friends and family until they felt there was something more to it. They waited to know they were going somewhere. Heero surmised he and Duo were kind of working in reverse. They'd first show those most precious to them how they felt, then work their way to the general public.
He refused to promise more than he was able to deliver. But he could deliver that much. He could arrange a night for all the former Gundam pilots to get together and he could admit to them, with Duo by his side, that even the cold and emotionless Pilot 01 had feelings.
Progress was possible, if only to show Duo his value and see him smile again.
Duo never showed.
Heero called and texted, but didn't got a response. Since Duo was coming off a longer mission it was possible his flight got in late. It was also very possible he was too tired to deal with their relationship drama and wanted to sleep off exhaustion before tackling their problems. Though he was disappointed, because he'd missed Duo, he sent a text.
Hope you got in safely. Get some rest, we'll talk later.
No reply.
By afternoon on Sunday Duo should have slept off any mission, but he still wasn't answering his phone. He would have dropped by Duo's apartment, but Relena came by his place unexpectedly. She apologized for her behavior, though it did little to lessen his anger. Once it became clear she already knew he was seeing Duo, he found it difficult to forgive her kiss, or her many attempts to set him up with someone she pre-approved. He also found it very difficult to digest her assumption that he'd used Duo, for years, to release his own sexual tension. They argued for the first time in a very long time. Afterwards, when she left, he couldn't tell if he wanted to curl up next to Duo for comfort or retreat and be alone.
Are you free? I missed you, and we can talk later if you like. I can wait for you this time.
No reply.
With a heavy heart, he turned to his bedroom and collapsed onto his bed to think. Checking his phone every half hour didn't magically make Duo respond, but his partner deserved time to decompress. Eventually he logged into the Preventers network and checked for any data on Duo's mission. He wasn't worried when he found nothing. Some assignments were too sensitive to be posted, and he'd have to check with Une for details. He really didn't want to bother her, and by the time he logged in he realized he'd be seeing Duo in about 12 hours anyway.
The real problems began when Duo didn't show up to work. Neither Trowa nor Wufei heard from their friend, so Heero headed to Une's office. Her secretary informed him she was off site in a meeting and would arrive in another hour.
Without wasting time he left the building and drove directly to Duo's apartment. He was standing in the middle of the living room when a man knocked at the front door and introduced himself.
"You're Duo's friend, right? I'm the building manager. Caught you on the security camera and rushed over. You here for his things?"
Heero turned to him, silently. The man was probably in his mid forties, and he looked too friendly. He sounded much too friendly. How could anyone be so jovial at a time like this? His words were hardly registering through Heero's shock.
"It's just that he left so quickly, and took off with just one bag. Rent's paid up to the end of the month but I don't know what to do with all the furniture and personal items. He put notes on everything to mark it as free. I have to admit I gave the TV and gaming system to a kid on the second floor, his parents struggle but they're good people and the kid deserves some nice things, you know? And I gave his tea kettle to my elderly mother. The other kitchen items I took for the communal space for parties and board meetings." His voice became increasingly unsure as he spoke. He looks uneasy with Heero there. "So, uh, Duo give you a forwarding address or something?"
Heero knew Duo was gone for good when the one photo he kept of all five Gundam pilots from the end of the first war was missing. His go-bag was often taken on missions but the photo remained at home. From the looks and sound of it he took very little with him. Duo probably donated most of his belongings, but there was no knowing what was already distributed by the building manager. Only furniture and bedding appeared to remain. He gathered his wits to respond, since the man was staring at him.
"I have no further information."
"Ah. So, uh, I'm not sure you're allowed to be in here without—" He stopped mid sentence when Heero gave him a withering look.
"I won't be long. Leave. Now."
The man cleared his throat and complied, mumbling something to himself.
Closing his eyes and focusing on breathing, Heero tried to figure out just how long Duo planned this escape. Was it months? Weeks? Things were rough between them for a while, but they still had good moments. He didn't think it was so bad to make Duo leave, let alone without a word. Maybe he just moved to another apartment, something closer to HQ. It was possible he just didn't mention it because, well... Heero didn't know any good reasons Duo would fail to mention a move, let alone fail to leave a forwarding address. Was all of this last minute, like the building manager seemed to think? Was Duo even away on a mission?
Heero snapped into action. He walked into Duo's room and took a deep breath. Distraught, he picked up Duo's pillow and held it close. He could smell his shampoo and that underlying scent of Duo himself. Taking the pillow with him, he promptly left. Une would have answers, and she should be back at HQ shortly.
Heero was stunned.
"Can you repeat that, please?"
The small frown on Une's face spoke volumes. "Agent Maxwell resigned his position. He took a short leave of absence and then abruptly resigned via email this morning." Her eyes softened. "We haven't even processed the request yet. I thought you would know something about this, being his partner. It's unlike him to leave when you have pending cases, though he said he wrapped up his contributions to the best of his ability. If not, I'm sure we can arrange something temporary to fill in the gaps."
He was never on a mission. Duo was never on a mission!
For Heero, the news was devastating. He had a hard time wrapping his head around it, and struggled to maintain an outward show of indifference. After failing one too many times, Duo was gone. The man he loved was gone. And if he didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be. Not with his skills at stealth.
Worse, he had a head start.
The world suddenly felt impossibly bleak.