Bishi Pile Challenge:

Major challenge response: Mobile Suits, Anger

Minor challenge response: Information, Veteran

Word count: 2,260

Series: Friends 2: Friends and Enemies

Author: Karina

Pairings: Zechs + Duo, Trowa x Quatre

Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters.

Warnings: No apology given for Aussie spelling, but fair warning given.

Many thanks to Katie for betaing this fic.

Character Challenge:

Chapter 18

He was heartily tired of hearing the 'cheery' recorded voice of the exchange operator informing him the device he was trying to reach was either turned off or out of a service area. With a muttered curse Trowa threw the mobile across his desk, watching dispassionately as it slid across the barren surface and momentum caused it to skid off the edge. It didn't dip towards the floor for a good two feet before it swan dived out of his line of vision. With the carpeted floor it didn't even make a satisfying thud as it hit the floor.

It was a bastard of a day in his opinion.

He was tired. Bone aching tired. The sun was up, well and truly, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up with his lover. Only there would be no comfort found there, as his lover would be absent. There would not be a welcome breakfast ready as he walked through the door; no one in the house answered the telephone and that suggested no staff. There would not be a warm body waiting for him to stretch himself around, and there would not be a satisfying bout of morning sex before he allowed himself the joys of sleeping half the day away whilst Quatre went to the office.

His lover had really done it this time.

Something, and he had no idea what it was, had been bothering Quatre and not just recently, but for an extended period of time. He had been aware of it and he had known it was approaching the point where they were going to have to broach the subject and air whatever it was that distracted his lover. He was aware there was something brewing and he had not pushed.

He knew well enough how Quatre worked.

Quatre brooded. It was one of the cute but annoying as hell habits of his lover. Quatre brooded a lot, but some things were more serious than others and the longer he brooded before speaking up, the bigger the impact was likely to be on them, either as a couple or as surviving Gundam pilots under close government scrutiny.

He was no more pleased by their watchdogs encroaching into their lives than his lover, but there was little they could do about it short of throwing away any chance they had of being considered model citizens. Being allowed to rejoin society without guard dogs dogging their every step hinged on not rocking the boat and giving those in power over them cause to fear them.

What did Quatre honestly think he was doing? This was the sort of behaviour that was exactly what the government in residence feared from them. If one of them acted in a questionable fashion, then they all would be tarred with the same brush.

He wanted the chance to be a normal citizen, but he was no fool. Honestly, he was quite aware of the fact that there was nothing 'normal' about his life to date, and because of that he was finding it harder to cope with 'normality' than he had expected. For as long as he could remember his life had hovered on the edge, if not in the thick of, combat situations. He knew far more about how to kill people than how to live peaceably with them.

It was not easy to let go of the past.

Quatre, Chang and Maxwell had been the ones who had the greatest chance of being accepted back into society and not be branded as dangerous. They had had relatively normal lives; admittedly two of the three had had privileged lifestyles and Maxwell had lived on the streets, but their early lives were far more normal than his life had been. And Yuy... Well, Yuy was by no means normal in any sense of the word and, to Trowa's uncertain knowledge, Heero had never been a real child but a weapon in training.

Heero was about as messed up as you could get, which was why the possibility he might get together with Relena Darlian was less than smiled upon in polite circles. To be wholly honest, they all were messed up in their own individual ways. Messed up to hell and back, but it was the way they were.

'The government is right to watch us, much as I don't like admitting it. We are not normal.'

But being 'normal' sucked. It was boring, repetitious and what about it was so gloriously wonderful that they should strive for the mantle to be claimed as theirs?

'Ah, shit.'

Where had that come from? Of course it was desired to fit in, to be accepted by those around them.

Individually or as a group, they did not have access to the magnificent Gundams, so their threat valuation should be markedly diminished. Yet they were watched as though they had merely hidden away the Gundams instead of destroying them. Mobile suits were no longer combat capable, a shadow of their former glory, used as glorified cranes for massive construction sites dotted through space. On Mars mobile suits made construction of the new colony possible. No longer weapons of war but just another tool to be used in mankind's expansion into space.

And they were banned from even controlling one of those tame suits for fear of what they might be able to do with them.

God damn it! He was angry at the world for not being what he had hoped it would be, at the government for refusing to accept them, for segregating them, and now... now he was furious at Quatre for doing this to them. To him. He had been abandoned, no word of warning, simply abandoned, and he had no idea what was going through his partner's mind. That dumb blonde might be a business genius, but he was still a dumb bloody blonde who over thought things and prematurely jumped to actions...

Ah, dumb blonde? Premature action? Who was the dumb one? Really?

Facing facts, it was Quatre who had proven himself to be their tactician. He had been brilliant, seeing things none of them saw, directing them efficiently... when they had bothered to listen to him. Left up to the group at large they would have failed hopelessly, had Quatre not stepped forward and directed them.

Had he... Was it possible he had not been listening to something Quatre had been telling him? Had he not been paying proper attention to his lover? Had he missed something that might explain what was happening now?

He had spoken to the office and learned that Quatre had made changes, drastic changes given Quatre was something of a control freak, and clearly intended to be absent for some time. With a few deft calls and instructions Quatre had quickly and neatly divorced the company from whatever actions he was about to take, and though the government would investigate the company and its ties with whatever storm Quatre was brewing, they would find no links. He knew his lover too well to think that Quatre would make his employees suffer for his plans.

It had to do with Maxwell. And Marquise. He was not delusional, Quatre was too smart to act half assed. Whatever it was he was reacting to, he must have had measures in place to facilitate this sudden action and not discomfort any more people than was necessary. Which meant he had to have been making plans for some time before this incident with Marquise.

So did it actually involve Marquise and they were misinterpreting this entire business?

But no message? No communications with him? That was just wrong. They were lovers and he knew Quatre as no one else would. He would not simply vanish without leaving him some sort of message.

He was missing something.

He had checked his email accounts, those known to the government watchdogs and those known only to a very select few individuals, namely only the other pilots. Nothing. Nothing at all. No messages, of any sort, on his mobile, on the internet, or on the little used answering machine at the house. Of course there would not be, leaving an obvious message to be found was just begging the government to take action against them.

To compound matters he had discovered that a good half of the Magunac Corps had vanished. From the brief calls he had made it was a choice selection of the best of the Corps that was absent, which meant Quatre had the willing assistance of Rashid to perpetuate his vanishing act.

The whole thing was getting bigger the longer he thought about it. If Rashid was involved then there was nowhere on the Earth, or in space, that Quatre feasibly might NOT be. The resources he could tap into would be next to unlimited.

Maxwell had vanished quite efficiently. There was no plan for him to go to ground on their return, but he had disappeared before they had even landed. Somehow Quatre had to be involved in that. Duo was quite capable of doing so on his own, he was sneaky as hell, but the helo he had been flying had been returned to the hanger by an unknown pilot. The pilot of the machine had not matched Duo in height, weight or colouring, so it was not Duo in disguise, but to Trowa it had all the hallmarks of the manipulating sleight of hand he knew Quatre was so good at.

Duo's sudden disappearance was just one more indication that Quatre intended to use his resources to stay under the radar for a long period of time.

If any of their number had intended to go rogue, he would not have picked it to be Quatre. Duo, yes. Hell yes. He had made no bones about his discontent and his desire to thumb his nose at the government, but he had made no move to incite action either. Duo, like the rest of them, had limited options after the peace settled into place. Quatre must have been making plans for months, perhaps longer, for them to vanish so effectively in so little time.

It was all just so wrong. Nothing about it made any real kind of sense.

"Anything?"

Une stood in the doorway of the office, looking almost as bad as he felt. Yes, she was neat and tidy, the epitome of the professional business woman, but for all that perfection she gave off an air of being... well, frazzled, for want of a better word. She had not taken any time to rest either, merely freshened her appearance for the start of another official working day, an indication of how serious she considered the disappearance to be.

Her part in this he was not at all satisfied with. She had told him Quatre had visited her, that they had talked, but as yet she had not explained that visit to his satisfaction. What she had said of that interview did not seem enough to warrant his lover taking off to places unknown. And what the hell was Quatre's interest in Zechs Marquise, Milliardo Peacecraft anyway?

Trowa fought to keep his teeth from grinding. That man was the bane of the world's existence. Even when it was not his fault, it was still his fault... Somehow. And now he was not making any sense even to himself. He needed rest. Not just a distraction but a few solid hours of downtime so his mind could refresh and find a new aspect to tackle this conundrum.

"No. Everything I have tried has failed. I can't find a trace of him. Yet." Yet. He would find his lover. He would.

Une inclined her head. "Yet."

"When I get my hands on that idiot I'll..." He squashed the aggravation and ran a hand through his bang, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "He must have said something in your interview with him that could help me track him down. My options are limited and until I understand what it is that set him off, I'm at a disadvantage."

Cold eyes glinted, narrowing. "I've told you the pertinent details, Barton."

Joy. She was going to be playing her own games and still expect him to pull miracles out of thin air. It was one aspect of Une that he hated. She demanded action, but she was stubborn and if she dug her heels in over the details of this meeting with Quatre, then she was handcuffing him and throwing a shackle around his feet to boot.

"You've told me what you think are the pertinent details of your conversation, but something you don't recognise as being 'important' may be what I need to move forward with the investigation."

As if that would weaken her resolve. He knew too much of her reputation to think it would sway her in the least. She was a prideful, stubborn woman who closely guarded her secrets. She no doubt considered whatever they had talked about to be delicate material, and highly dangerous if she would tell him no more.

Une straightened, turning her back to him. "Use what I've given you, it's all we've got. Take a few hours of down time and get some sleep. Maybe a fresher outlook will bring something to mind. "

He stared at the closed door and ground his teeth as he fought to unclench his fingers. He would have to pay his dentist a visit at this rate.

Karina Robertson 2012