A/N: Wishing Kangofu-CB the happiest day of birth. I hope you enjoy this and thank you for letting me write you a thing!

A/N2: Title inspired by the HAIM song by the same name.

A/N3: Always, always thanks to Ro for beta reading and supporting me. You are, quite literally, the best. I also want to thank ChronicWhimsy, who graciously gave me another set of eyes and editing on this.

Warnings: angst, language, sex

Pairings: 2x3

Ready for You

Chapter 3

Post-Human #47

The void of space welcomed the lost children

No promises

No lies

Only the certainty of silence and death for all.

Trowa had picked up the volume of poetry from the library a few days after watching the awful display that Avery had insisted was theatre.

During one of the pleasant interludes that night, Ines and Alice had argued about a Lunar poet, Altantsetseg. She had been one of the earlier Lunar colonists, ironically killed during a poetry reading on Earth when the ancient auditorium collapsed during an earthquake. Alice had insisted Altantsetseg was too focused on the experience of transitioning from life as a Terran to that of a colonial, while Ines felt it was the struggle between the two identities that allowed her work to maintain its relevance. Duo had shrugged and pointed out that no one titled their poetry Post-Human if they didn't think the point was what happened after the transition from Terran to colonial.

Trowa found himself surprisingly engaged with the material. He was, always had been, an avid reader - consuming any text that fell into his hands. Paired with an eidetic memory, it meant that Trowa had quite a lot of literature, and OZ battle plans, floating around in his head. He hadn't expected to like Altantsetseg so much, however, or feel as if she were ripping his experiences from his fingertips and flinging them onto the pages before him.

It was an unsettling feeling, especially since he was, after all, a Terran.

The poem, Post-Human #47, brought back far too many memories of his time in space. Ironically, it wasn't the flashes of memory from his time adrift in an EVA suit after Quatre's bout with the ZERO system. Instead, the poem reminded him of afterwards, of regaining his memories, of learning who he was - and who he wasn't.

He had been, perhaps still was, nothing. Nothing, of course, except promises and lies.

Perhaps-

"What's his name?"

The voice, high and thin, startled Trowa out of his thoughts.

He lowered the book, the actual book because he couldn't help but give in to a no-doubt hedonistic desire to touch the pages, and looked down to see a child standing in front of him.

Her eyes were puffy, and it was clear she had been awake for only a short time and wasn't at all happy to be away from her bed.

She was wearing a school uniform, which perhaps explained her presence on the train.

Trowa closed the book and rested it against his thigh as he looked around. No one seemed particularly concerned about the pre-adolescent child speaking to a stranger.

"Well?"

He felt his lips twitch at her impatient tone, and saw her gesture to the canvas rucksack on the bench beside him. Poking out of the top was a fluffy head and large, dark eyes that blinked sleepily.

Trowa reached out and scratched the head with a few fingers, drawing the dog out of drowsiness.

"Her name," Trowa corrected gently, "is Diana."

"Diana? Diana was the goddess of the hunt."

Trowa felt his lips quirk. The girl looked very pleased with herself for making the association.

"Not quite." Trowa lifted Diana from the rucksack and settled her in his lap. The girl came closer, the lure of the fully-exposed puppy too much to ignore. It was a little unsettling to Trowa, how easily this girl just assumed she could safely move closer, could reach out and pet the dog and trust that no harm would come to her.

It was a stark contrast to himself at that age.

"What do you mean 'not quite'?" the girl asked as she petted the dog, running her fingers through the riot of curls on the puppy's head.

"Do you know who Diana Prince is?"

The girl shook her head in the negative.

"She was a mythological warrior, too. An old-American myth. You should look her up."

The girl gave him a haughty look.

"I will."

She continued to pet the dog, running her small hand over the equally-small body.

"What kind of dog is she?"

"No kind. Or maybe every kind."

"A mutt," the girl said, delighted.

Trowa nodded.

"Like me, then." Her gaze was solely focused on the soft fur between her fingers as she spoke. "Don't know who my parents are, or where I came from. Don't look like anyone I know."

Trowa wasn't entirely sure how to respond to her words. The matter-of-fact way that the girl said them reminded him too much of himself.

"How old is she?" the girl asked in an abrupt change of subject, her tone brighter.

Trowa shrugged one shoulder.

"I'm not sure. I found her a few weeks ago. Too young to be on her own."

He wasn't sure if he was talking solely about the dog, and the sharp look the girl gave him made it clear she sensed his double meaning.

"Well. She's cute. Diana's a good name." The puppy licked and nipped at her fingers, and the girl giggled in delight.

Trowa found himself smiling a little at the sound, at the sudden levity.

"Anyway. Altantsetseg is so boring. We had to read her last year. You should try Yasmine Fares."

Without waiting for any comment, the girl patted Diana on the head and then flounced off.

Trowa could only stare after her, watching as she made her way to the end of the car and then turned to go down the steps to the lower level.

Diana whimpered, and Trowa looked down at her.

"I have no idea," he murmured, and scratched her head.

After resettling her in his bag, he picked the poetry book back up and tried to read more of it. The encounter with the girl, however, had left him unsettled, and he wasn't able to properly focus on the words or their meaning.

By the time the train arrived at his stop in Brooklyn, Diana was asleep again and Trowa had given up on reading entirely. Instead, he stared out the train window at the view, watching the morning traffic.

Diana gave a slight whimper of protest when Trowa picked up the bag and adjusted it on his lap. He could feel her settling herself again inside and, as he had grown accustomed to doing over the past few weeks, made sure to walk as evenly as possible as he left the train and merged into the foot traffic.

It was a seven-minute walk, these days, from the station to the woodworking shop.

Cheek & Cove had been around for more than three hundred years, passed down in a family of carpenters since before Terrans had started to leave Earth. They specialized in furniture, and prided themselves on doing everything 'unplugged' - there were no power tools in the shop at all. It occupied the same site that it had been founded upon, an ancient and huge brick warehouse that had been gutted centuries ago and rebuilt and gutted again in a cycle of evolution and rebirth ever since.

Ever since Trowa had first walked into the place, almost six years ago, he had felt at home. It had the constant energy of a hanger and the carpenters had the camaraderie of a mercenary troupe, the tradecraft secrets guarded as tightly as if they were circus acts.

They had tested him, and Trowa, used to being tested, had immediately been put at ease, had proved himself bizarrely knowledgeable about the types of wood and furniture styles they interrogated him about.

On his first day, he had promptly made a fool of himself by using a planer instead of a sander, and Harlan, a grizzled Master Carpenter, had muttered all manner of insults under his breath as he dressed Trowa down and then made him redo the work with the correct tool.

It was a mistake, but, as Harlan muttered over coffee later that same day, it wasn't like Trowa had killed the wrong man. Just used the wrong damn tool. Like a fucking idiot.

There were three Master Carpenters who worked in the shop, two journeyman carpenters, the Shop Foreman, two resident designers, a draftsman, and then Alison Haeney, this generation's owner of the shop. And Trowa, the lone apprentice.

They usually had two, but there had apparently been an incident with the other apprentice a few months before Trowa began to work there, an incident that no one much cared to speak about but one that meant the company's drug testing policy became a lot more stringent.

It wasn't until the second year of Trowa's apprenticeship that another apprentice was hired, and by then, Harlan had more or less adopted Trowa as his fucking idiot and Trowa had spent the remaining years of his apprenticeship working directly with Harlan, soaking up all of the older man's knowledge and growing used to, and perhaps even fond of, his gruff manner.

Trowa had stayed on at Cheek & Cove after being promoted to a journeyman, despite the offers he had had from other shops, all of whom seemed to prize the experience of a C&C carpenter, even though, to Trowa's knowledge, C&C was the only large-scale shop left in the city that built without power tools.

As he walked into the shop that morning, still a little uneasy after his encounter with the girl on the train, Trowa noticed that the two new apprentices were huddled together by one of the work tables, backs to the entrance and shoulders hunched.

He arched an eyebrow at Sarah, the shop foreman, who stood by the doorway to the small lounge where they kept the coffee pot. She was sipping from a steaming cup and keeping a weathered eye on the pair of apprentices.

Trowa walked over to her, removing his bag carefully as he did.

"Morning, my precious," Sarah cooed.

"I thought we agreed not to use pet names at work," Trowa responded.

Sarah rolled her eyes at him and set down her coffee to reach for Diana, taking the puppy from Trowa's bag and letting the dog lick her cheek.

"What did they fuck up now?" Trowa asked, jerking his head back towards the apprentices.

Sarah snorted.

"More like, what didn't they fuck up now," she muttered. She set Diana down and the dog headed for the canvas-covered, sawdust-stuffed pillow that Harlan had made for her.

Trowa had been hesitant about bringing Diana to work, but after leaving her alone in his apartment for two work days and coming home both nights to find the place a disaster, he had asked Sarah for permission.

She had surprised him by smiling - which wasn't all that rare - and then clapping her hands together enthusiastically - which was. A shop dog had apparently been a dream of hers for some time, ever since the last one died fifteen years ago.

Even Harlan, gruff and muttering warnings about Diana pissing on the floor or chewing up his good Brazilian heartwood, had made the dog bed and left it in the lounge for her.

Trowa made sure Diana had food and water, stowed his bag, and then poured himself a cup of coffee.

He joined Sarah in watching the apprentices.

They were no longer hunched together, but had moved to opposite sides of the work table and seemed to be in the process of trying to correct a project layout.

"Is that Harlan's bed frame? For that couple in Taiwan?"

Sarah nodded.

"Yep. He told them to have it marked out for cutting by the time he came in this morning."

"Why do they look like they're fixing a mistake?"

"Because Roger forgot Harlan said they were using Shitage Kama joints, so he marked it up for dovetails."

Trowa winced. That was a time-consuming mistake. And one that, had it not been caught, would have resulted in them having to scrap the entire project and start again.

He shook his head.

Sarah snorted again, and arched an eyebrow at him.

"Don't think you weren't just as dumb. I remember how Harlan used to bitch and moan about you over beers. 'This kid's never going to learn. Fucking idiot keeps trying to use the ball pein to put in gimp pins.'"

Trowa glared at her, but Sarah just continued to smirk.

"I was young."

"Uh huh. Just like them." She sighed and shook her head. "Someone should go over there and help them before Harlan gets here and makes them cry again."

Trowa nodded in agreement.

Sarah kept looking at him.

"Oh. You mean me?"

"Do I look like I'm not far too busy?" She didn't move from her position of leaning against the doorframe and holding her coffee mug.

"No, ma'am," Trowa answered immediately. "Far too busy."

She smirked again and, as Trowa started to walk towards the two apprentices, Sarah went into the lounge and called out Diana's name.

After Trowa managed to get the apprentices back on-track - when Harlan arrived, his muttered imprecations were slightly less colorful than they sometimes were - he went back to his own project for the week.

As one of the two journeyman carpenters, Trowa did much less of the 'grunt' work than the apprentices, and usually had his own projects to work on. Sometimes he assisted the other Master Carpenters, and sometimes he was saddled with keeping the apprentices from burning down the shop or cutting off their hands.

His current project, a huntboard commissioned by an L5 financier, was made from bois de rose. A rosewood native to Madagascar, it had nearly gone extinct until some entrepreneuring botanists on the moon found out that the lower gravity environment, combined with the ability to perfectly control soil acidity and humidity, was the perfect environment to grow endangered Terran plants.

The irony of working with wood grown in space was not lost on Trowa. Nor was the sheer amount of labor required to work with the exotic rosewood. It was a hardwood, and not particularly easy to work with for anything other than turning or small inlay work.

That the client wanted an entire huntboard made out of it was ludicrous - and Trowa had known the moment Sarah described the project that he would be saddled with it.

Harlan's arthritis meant that he took on more and more of a mentoring role in the shop, and the other two Master Carpenters were each heavily involved in crafting entire furniture suites for two different clients. Which left Trowa and Mohammad, the other journeyman carpenter. Neither wanted the project. But Mohammad, who hadn't apprenticed with C&C and had only just been hired three months prior, was still enough of a wildcard that Sarah had been hesitant to trust him with such an exorbitantly expensive project.

After a week, Trowa was nearly done with the project. His hands, his tools, and his sweat-purpled stained t-shirts and rags told the story of just how done he was.

The piece was gorgeous, but as Trowa worked on sanding down the varnish he had applied the previous day, Trowa would not be sad to see it wrapped up and shipped off.

Over the next few days, he would have to varnish, sand, varnish, sand and repeat until he had built up six layers of varnish, as per the client's wishes. Harlan had had mutterances about that too - something about just submerging the damn thing in an aquarium.

It was lunch before Trowa had the huntboard sanded and wiped down completely in preparation for its next coat, and as he washed his hands off, he heard some commotion over by the entrance of the shop.

He turned at the sound of Diana's enthusiastic yapping and saw her running from the lounge to join Harlan at the shop entrance, where Heero Yuy stood.

The two apprentices, busily sweeping up, stopped to stare.

Trowa smirked. They were new enough that it was the first time they had seen Heero, and they were young enough to look at Heero Yuy and see only the face of freedom and peace, and not the man or the suffering he had experienced.

Harlan, on the other hand, was used to Heero Yuy, to the way the former Gundam pilot dropped by unannounced every few months to see Trowa. He was also old enough to have seen what war did to men and to children, and to respect Heero for who he was now more than for what he had done then.

Trowa dried his hands off and watched Heero and Harlan shake hands, watched Heero slip Harlan a small, brown package before leaning down to scoop up Diana.

Heero hadn't met her yet, Trowa realized, as he saw Heero's lips curve upwards and heard him laugh.

It was still a rare enough sound that the purity of it made Trowa's heart constrict a little.

He approached the group by the door, shooting the apprentices a hard look that finally made them stop staring and return to sweeping.

Harlan and Heero were speaking in low tones while Heero scratched just under the dog's ears.

When Trowa came up to them, however, both men stopped and Harlan huffed, muttered something about staying sharp, and walked off.

Trowa arched an eyebrow at Heero.

"Please tell me you weren't asking him about me again?"

Heero didn't look at all apologetic as he shrugged.

"Someone has to make sure you don't cut off your hand."

Trowa rolled his eyes but decided not to engage. It was, as he was reminded constantly, a losing battle to argue with Heero or Cathy about his ability to fend for himself.

"I brought food." Heero indicated a paper deli bag on the floor.

"Good. Because all I have is leftover pizza." He held up a hand to forestall Heero's favorite diatribe. "Don't. You don't have to eat it."

Heero gave him a smug smile and then lifted Diana.

"Who is this?"

"Diana. I found her in the alley near my apartment a few weeks ago."

Heero nodded.

"Cathy will be happy that you have someone to take care of."

Trowa rolled his eyes again. He was eternally grateful that Cathy and Heero, for all that they got on, had no interest in a romantic relationship. The two of them teaming up would result, he was sure, in far too much stalking and meddling.

"I need to take her out, and then we can eat."

Heero nodded and passed Diana over. Trowa accepted the dog and led the way to the other end of the shop, to the door leading to the old lumber yard, overgrown decades ago but now the perfect place for Diana to go about her business.

Trowa waited patiently, enjoying the sight of her romping through the moss and wild-growth, chasing after a stray cat who could have no doubt decimated Diana in a fight but chose to retreat instead.

Back inside, he found Heero sitting at his work table, a small feast spread out on top of the folded deli bag.

Trowa arched an eyebrow at the spread.

It shouldn't have surprised him that, after the war, Heero - in his quest to find out just what it meant to live his life without the focus of battle to keep him directing his every move - had become more than a little hedonistic. He didn't throw money around, and he still lived the kind of bare-bones existence that meant he could throw most of his possessions in a bag and clear out of his apartment in less than ten minutes, but he did tend to obsess over food.

He accepted the glass bottle Heero held out to him, arching an eyebrow at the label, Rose Lemonade, but wisely deciding not to comment on it.

"Turkey, brie, argula and dijon mustard on oat bread or lavender chicken salad on rye." Heero held up the two options.

"Lavender chicken salad?"

"It should go with the rose lemonade."

Trowa decided that, if he could survive all that he had, he might as well try the chicken salad. Otherwise, Heero would sit there and eat it with his smug little smile and make all kinds of appreciative noises and comments.

The first bite was surprisingly edible, but definitely not something Trowa would have ever picked out. Or was likely to eat again.

Heero waited until Trowa was halfway through the sandwich before launching his attack.

"I didn't realize Duo was your type."

Trowa choked on the bite of chicken salad and glared at Heero. The smirk aimed at him indicated that his former comrade had timed his comment hoping for exactly that reaction.

"I don't have a type," Trowa said after a sip of the lemonade.

"Clearly."

Trowa arched an eyebrow at the darkly-muttered word.

"Have you ever dated?"

"Have you?"

"I've been on dates."

"State dinners don't count."

It was Heero's turn to glare.

"She can't just waltz around and go to cafes or bowling alleys on a whim," Heero pointed out.

It was true, and Trowa knew it wasn't fair of him to prod at the far-too-complicated relationship Heero and Relena had.

He sighed.

"How is she? I saw the newsreels, the attack on L3 and her speech afterwards."

Heero nodded.

"It's not been easy. These last few months...she and Quatre are working on some economic conference. WEI is going to do a lot of capital investments in the L3 sector."

They both knew that was little more than a bandage for the open wound that L3 had become ever since the fall of the Barton Foundation after the Mariemaia incident.

"Back to Duo," Heero said, refusing to let Trowa dodge the issue.

"What about him?" Trowa sighed.

"You've been dating him."

It made sense, now that Trowa finally thought about it, that if Heero dropped in to visit him every few months, he was likely to do the same with Duo. Trowa just hadn't realized, before three weeks ago, that he and Duo even lived in the same city.

"We've been on a few dates."

Trowa wondered what Duo had said to Heero. He knew the only way he was likely to find out was to be blunt and just ask Heero what Duo had said, but he wasn't willing to reveal just how curious he was.

"He likes you. He didn't think he would."

Or, Heero being the bluntest of all instruments the world had ever crafted, would just come out and say it in a way that made Trowa wish he hadn't.

"That's… convenient. Since we're dating."

He wasn't entirely sure how to pick apart what the hell that even meant. Duo hadn't thought he would like him?

Heero shrugged.

"I worry you two have too much in common."

This entire day had left Trowa feeling more and more off-balance. This conversation with Heero was almost more than he could handle.

"I don't think it's something you need to worry about. We've only been on three dates." Four, according to Duo, who insisted the terrible coffee experience was a date, no matter how much Trowa scowled and argued otherwise.

"And how many dates do you usually go on before you lose interest?"

"I'm not sure it's me who loses interest," Trowa muttered. He finished off the sandwich and took another sip of the lemonade.

He wanted to be irritated with Heero and this whole conversation, but, as usual, Heero's open lack of concern for social niceties or dancing around problems or feelings made it wholly impossible for Trowa to not think about the point Heero was making.

Heero was still looking at him expectantly, and Trowa sighed in frustration.

"What do you want me to say? No, I don't usually see the same person more than once. Yes, we have a lot in common - most of it awful. I like him more than I thought I would, too. Do you want details? Debriefings? What?"

Heero snorted a laugh.

"Duo already gave me those. I can't believe you sat through that piece of shit play." Heero shook his head and took a sip of his own drink, some kind of ginger-ale that was bitter enough for him to make a face as he swallowed it. "And then you took him to a jazz concert?"

Trowa shrugged away Heero's smirk.

"It was in the park."

"Uh huh. And the cooking class?"

Trowa felt heat on his neck and cheeks, and glared at Heero.

Duo had made a comment last Saturday morning, at the park listening to the jazz trio while they ate pastries and drank coffee from the cafe from their, Duo insisted yet again, first date. It had been a throwaway remark, about wanting to learn how to bake, and Trowa, who had been tasked with deciding their next date after shooting down Duo's hopefully-joking suggestion of going to see a different play written by a different friend, had found a pastry kitchen near their apartment that gave classes.

"Was not in the park. That wouldn't have been optimal."

Heero snorted at the retort and shook his head.

"You like him more than you thought you would?"

Trowa shrugged.

"Yeah."

Heero rolled his eyes.

"And?"

"And we get along. And we don't have everything in common." Which had certainly provided ample opportunities for casual arguments between them. In fact, Trowa had been surprised to realize after an almost heated disagreement about refugee resettlements on Mars on Saturday, he actually enjoyed debating things with Duo.

"Really?" Heero asked.

"Hm. Did you know he was raised on L2? I, on the other hand-"

Heero shoved him, nearly upsetting Trowa's balance and sending him off the worktable. Trowa managed to catch himself and smirked.

"He doesn't care for scat, which is a disappointment."

Heero choked on his sip of ginger-ale, and Trowa stared at him.

It took Heero regaining his breath and still looking at Trowa with a red face and wide eyes for him to realize what Heero had thought he meant.

Trowa shook his head.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Yuy. I'm talking about jazz."

Heero, however, continued to look wary.

"We haven't even done anything more than kiss. I'll let you know when we get into the discussion about which kinks are on or off the table."

It wasn't entirely true. After the cooking class, when Duo walked Trowa home, insisting that he could be just as much of a gentleman as Trowa, the kissing had led to a fair amount of over-the-clothes groping that had been rudely interrupted by the catcalls of a passing elderly woman.

Heero balled up the wrappers from their sandwiches and started to clean up the space. He had a look on his face that Trowa recognized, from years of having it directed at him, that meant Heero still had more to 'fix.'

"Are you going to give me some warning about breaking his heart or something?"

Heero sighed.

"No. It's not my place. And he can take care of himself. And getting your heart broken is something that happens, apparently."

Heero sounded a little bitter, and the words just a little off.

Trowa smirked as he realized why.

"You gave him the speech about not breaking my heart," he said.

Heero glared at him.

"I didn't put it that way."

"Hm. What way did you put it?"

"I just pointed out that neither of you has a good record with… people."

Trowa snorted in amusement. It was, after all, true. Still, it was a very Heero thing to say. Funnier still, since it could apply to the man himself.

"And his response?"

Heero gave him a look.

"He promised not to shoot you."

Trowa had to laugh. He could, surprisingly, easily picture Duo saying exactly that. No doubt he had had his arms crossed and glared at Heero while he did so.

"Then I promise not to shoot him either."

"Just… be careful. There's a reason you don't date, and there's a reason he…"

"He what?"

But Heero shook his head instead of answering.

"Just be careful."

Trowa was both grateful and frustrated that Heero closed the subject of Duo and Trowa's burgeoning relationship and spent the rest of the lunch break talking about Wufei, recently promoted to section chief of a Preventers station in South America.

After Heero left, Trowa spent the afternoon applying another coat of varnish on the huntboard. The work was mindless - one long, smooth stroke after another after another - and Trowa turned Heero's words over in his mind, trying to tease out the meaning of what he had said, and what he hadn't said.

Heero's warning to be careful - Heero Yuy, warning him to be careful - rattled around in his head for the rest of the day.

-o-