A/N: I have decided to update this fic twice weekly from now on - Tuesday/Thursdays until complete. And again, thank you to my reviewers as, again, I intended to PM people but got caught up completing another 1x2 multipart which I did.

The song for this chapter is In the End - Us (a cover of Linkin Park)

Chapter Fourteen

Time is a Valuable Thing

I set a countdown. It didn't really make me feel any better being that each time I looked at my phone, I saw how many hours and minutes I had left to try and find Heero but damn, I wanted to know exactly how quick time was passing.

Time was an interesting thing. When you have nothing to do, nowhere to be, when you're somewhere you hate it takes fucking forever to pass. Now, when I wanted it to slow down, it was speeding up and shit, I hated how helpless I was. As we had nothing to go on yet apart from my dumb as fuck idea to trace the tattoo in Berlin and as we had nothing better, Berlin it was.

Berlin was a city I'd liked. It was one I'd spent time in to forget like so many damn cities but that time it was just after Wufei's little secret came out about 'Ro being alive and working for him so it was a little tainted by those thoughts. It wasn't like Barcelona where I'd got drunk and screwed around with some guy. It was where I wrote shitty report and smoked and tried to deal with the deceit of Wufei hiding that little nugget from me. It'd been following orders then on his part – and now, now we weren't doing that anymore. It was kinda liberating.

We'd lost another five hours since the last message – travel to the airfield, the flight to Berlin, shit, all I felt was I was losing him in increments but we would've lost more without the private jet, without Quatre's help and while I was still in the mind set of "let me do this on my own", I knew enough that I couldn't this time. Had to suck it up as I'd let Quatre's people hack into my phone so they could try and triangulate the signal and work out a location. I was accepting the help I was offered - see, I had grown as a person. At least a little.

Of course, when we arrived at the airfield it had been a not so happy face to greet us and I'd not entirely been surprised to see Trowa being the one to open the door.

"Need a co-pilot?" I'd asked in faux cheeriness.

Trowa had given me one searching look up and down my body – seeing through the pretence. "You look like hell. Get some sleep."

It wasn't a bad assessment, rumpled clothes, dark bags under my eyes but like hell was I going to sleep, instead, I sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs and started to figure out everything we knew. Wufei took the co-pilots chair, not that I blamed him for it even though being in a cockpit might distract me some but then I guess he wanted to talk with someone who wasn't an overly emotional mess and Trowa was Mr. Stable.

I figured a lot of shit out in my head and none of it was reassuring. Relena was shot to draw us out. Okay, I know this inflates our egos but it's the only action that makes sense. She was shot at point blank range so by rights, she should be dead and all and she wasn't. But Roth knew… fuck, Roth always knew everything he needed to know about me and Heero. And that thought had made me get up and walk to the cockpit to see them sat in silence.

"Do you still have access to the Preventer network?"

Wufei glanced up at me at that. "I'd imagine my passwords will have been revoked immediately."

"You imagine or you know?"

He'd given Trowa a nod and left him in the cockpit as he came back into the plane. It was perhaps no surprise that Quat's jet had access to networks, being that Quat was pretty much The World's Most Powerful Man – copyrighted and trademarked, and Wufei had opened his Preventer tablet, not given back in the haste of our resignations and he 'd been typing in a password while I watched his action.

His eyes had widened as he accessed the network. A word passed his lips and if I hadn't been watching him so closely, I wouldn't have seen "Zechs" murmured. It would've intrigued me if I wasn't so single-minded, that 'Fei assumed Zechs was letting him retain access to the Preventer networks but then we needed it. Damn did we need it so when I'd reached out for the tablet, he'd looked a little disgruntled at my impatience but didn't say nothing as I took it.

"What's your access level?"

"What do you know about access levels?"

"Shit… please, 'Fei, don't you think Heero kept an eye on the Preventer networks and our files? Don't you think we wanted to know if we were being monitored? Don't you think we wanted to know if our life had been compromised? Our playing house?"

The last phrase was a little cruel but I saw Wufei only twitch slightly at the insinuation but he'd answered. "Eight."

I'd blinked. "I thought you'd been demoted."

"I moved departments – it was a choice."

I'd stopped myself from making a shitty comment about blowing Zechs or being good in the sack as I knew I was using some attempt at sarcasm and humour to mask how I felt inside. How shitty I felt. And it wasn't fair but I was feeling like lashing out as some form of protecting myself. And so instead, I'd looked at the tablet and flicked to the personnel files that Wufei had access to – specifically mine and Heero's.

Our files were long and I'd accessed them before. Mainly because I wanted to know what they had on me – wanted to know what people could find out. To see the information archived was vaguely unsettling. To see the videos, the little squares of Heero's face with a date marked underneath, seemed so odd. It was this – this was what Roth had used, this information and I tried to figure out what to watch. When to watch. Wondered what sort of missions Heero had gone on – what sort of trauma's he'd experienced during his years undercover.

And as I read the files they had on us, all I could do was realise the biggest weakness we both had and how damn obvious it had been in all our files. Each other. And Roth knew that – knew the reports that Wufei had submitted saying my damn "affection" for Heero, knew the fact that I was stubborn, damn loyal and would do anything for those that I loved. I saw the phrase "martyr complex" at one point and could only smirk. For the people I damned love, I would sacrifice it all. Roth was using this. Using us. And it made me sick.

I'd gritted my teeth together and was restless for the duration of the journey. Trowa had put on auto-pilot and gave us a bag of supplies that I only raised an eyebrow at. The array of weapons was impressive and I'd let out a low whistle. He didn't add anything more than that as shit, I knew Trowa had always been a sneaky motherfucker and I wondered if Quat knew he had access to stuff like that. Or maybe Quat did. Perks to being one of the world's wealthiest men, I guess. But when a new shiny laptop, a tablet and a nice stash of knives and guns was in the bag, I wasn't going to complain. Neither was I gonna complain for the help. As shit we needed it.

Once we landed, it was a case of moving quick and saying a short goodbye to Trowa. As I'd walked off the plane behind Wufei, I took a moment, realising I'd never been that fair to Trowa. But then we'd never be buds, you know, too fucking different but still, I could depend on him. He was someone I staked my life on. And 'Ro's.

"Thanks," I'd said quietly.

"Get Heero back."

"Count on it."

Our journey to the tattoo shop was taken by a cab, helpfully waiting for us on the landing strip and I wanted to say thank you again but I could see the refuelling taking place and knew that Trowa would take off. And we'd already lost time.

The tattoo shop was as I remembered even though it was a long time ago. I'd changed since then. Things had changed since then but it was all so damn familiar. I remembered the day I decided to just go "fuck it" and get the thing as I was done. The Preventer's had had enough blood, sweat, tears and psychological trauma from me for me to just damn it all to hell. I'd been hanging around a boxing gym, getting out some of my pent up aggression there and imagining that I was slamming my fists into Wufei's face at the whole shit of hiding Heero's existence to me and I'd seen a dude with ink and decided that I'd just do it.

And he knew enough English and I knew the tiniest amount of German to make my intentions known as he took me to this shop, the 'Schwarze Katze' and I moseyed at the flash, got across my design idea, watched as the dude drew an elaborate design on a piece of paper and I watched him do it kinda amazed. So walking to the door, seeing the sign with the cat, the words in big ass script, and the tattoo prints in the window, I felt like for one moment, I was back in some time warp where all this shit hadn't happened. Where I didn't know Roth existed. When I'd not been made to go back to L2. And ultimately, I guess, a time when Heero wasn't being tortured for some stupid as fuck reason to get to me.

I pushed the door, the little tinkly bell making a noise as I stepped through and Wufei followed and I could see that damn look on his face. I rolled my eyes. Worse thing I could do than get a few tats, lemme tell you. I'd been so fucked up at that stage I coulda been in a much worse situation than when Wufei found me and offered me the Preventer job. So the ink, the hours in the chair, where I just sat and watched and thought and felt the throbbing pain of needles across skin, had all been a therapy I damn needed. So it felt oddly nostalgic as I walked into the shop, eyes scanning the walls, the large posters, the signs about being over eighteen or whatever.

Huh. No dude at the desk out front. Only the faint sound of one gun buzzing. I glanced back as 'Fei shut the door behind him, the bell tinkling again, and saw that this way on the sign said "closed" so that meant it said "open" the other way so the place… was meant to be open. Meant to have people being inked as we speak. But there was no sign.

It was then I felt a small prickle at the back of my neck, an instinct that told me something was happening and fuck, I was already damn angry. As he fucking couldn't have known I'd come here, right? He couldn't. It was then I was drawing out my weapon from the waistband of my jeans, the handgun Trowa had supplied me with firm in my grasp and Wufei took the hint, drawing out his own, as I walked further into the shop.

There was a sound of buzzing now though not as loud as I knew the sound of when a tattoo gun was going into someone's skin and I swallowed as the back of the shop was dark. There was an open archway into the back where the chairs were and a step down and as I approached I saw the first sign of the shit I expected. A pair of damn feet in checkerboard Vans and I rounded the corner, holding my gun out to see bodies on the floor and blood staining the walls.

The buzzing came from a tattoo gun, set on a low speed, buzzing against the floor and I leaned down to the first body, one of the tattooist who'd worked at the shop and felt for his pulse. Shit, I knew there was no point – I've seen enough bodies to know, you know, as the blood… fuck the blood. The whole room smelt of the coppery tang of blood – so fucking strong it was on my tongue and the only good thing was as I reached down to touch the dude's throat was that he was still a little warm.

"This wasn't done long ago," I said, the disgust in my voice barely contained, "they're not even damn cold."

Wufei made a noise low in his throat and I glanced over to where he was beside some kid… I say kid, as shit, he looked sixteen and I guessed maybe he was one of the clients as he wasn't one of the tattoo artists I'd seen. I confirmed that as I stood up, walking over the pools of blood, and stood behind 'Fei, to where his head was bowed and I saw the kid had some unfinished ink on his abs. Meant to be some traditional pirate ship thing, I guessed, as I saw the outline of the mast and other shit and then my eyes narrowed. As I saw another fucking tattoo. A message.

"Fuck," I whispered and in anger, I was slamming a fist into a goddamn metal cabinet, feeling my knuckles bruise at the impact. Damn if I cared.

It was then I turned to see the guy who'd done my ink, his beard matted with blood that had come from his mouth, probably when the blade pierced his lungs and the tattoo gun was near to him, his hands still in latex gloves from doing his last tattoo. The last tattoo he'd ever do and fuck, it was my fault that he was dead.

"Where is it?" I growled and Wufei looked up sharply and I realised he'd written down what he'd seen inked into the kids chest into a small notepad.

"We should get out of here," he said, his voice level and he got to his feet, straightened, his posture damn perfect.

"That's all you got to say?"

"We've contaminated the crime scene and the local police could arrest us. We move."

The words were level, unemotional and I was not okay about that. That there were three bodies in this room and the only reason they were fucking corpses was that they had the unfortunate luck to meet my scrawny ass at some point in their damn lives. And shit, the kid getting his traditional pirate ship hadn't even fucking met me. Poor asshole. Always getting people killed, that's me, might as well just give the fuck up on life.

"This happened because of me," I said, my voice loud as I saw the sprays of blood, the bodies and it was all just another time it was my fault.

"It happened because Roth's a sociopath. You didn't kill these people."

"I didn't need to." My words were of a defeated man. As shit, there it goes happening again. Everything I fucking touch turns to dust. "It still happened."

My eyes looked at the kid, the innocent kid involved in this situation and his unfinished tattoo and fuck, I couldn't speculate as I didn't know shit, but he'd probably not lived his life – not done all the things that I'd done and now he was dead. Didn't deserve it.

Wufei's hands were on my shoulder then he jolted me, shaking me out of my self-pity and I looked up to meet his eyes.

"Maxwell, none of this is your fault. Roth did this. Roth kills people. Roth is torturing Heero because he is a sociopath. Everything does not revolve around you," he said, voice steady, "now we need to get the fuck out of here before the local police arrest us for this."

The word 'fuck' made me blink as I didn't recall him ever using it and I nodded, dumbfounded as he slid his gun away. "Move out."

The old military term seemed to work, re-igniting my brain into mission related thoughts and I was following 'Fei, my own gun tucked back into the waistband of my jeans, my leather jacket over the top. I looked back before we left the shop, listening to the faint sound of the tattoo gun, feeling like I could still smell blood in my nostrils and I turned forward, following Wufei, the bell tinkling like a death toll as we left, blood sticking to our boots.

It was only once we were away, in a shitty hotel room, the laptop we'd acquired from Trowa on the cheap floral patterned sheets did Wufei input the numbers he'd written down. I stood by the window, smoking through the opened glass and he'd only raised one defined eyebrow as I glared back in response. I didn't give a shit right now – hey, 'Fei was no Heero, checking up on my heart and health but he still could make his opinions known with only the slightest of looks.

I looked at my reflection and scowled, finishing the smoke, putting out the butt on the dirty windowsill and throwing it to the alleyway below. It was then I turned around, walked slowly across the room to where Wufei had open a highly detailed map.

"Where is it?"

"A shipping container in Westhafen in Moabit."

"Huh?"

"Westhafen – the largest port in Berlin."

"I don't need a fucking geography lesson," I retorted and came up behind him, seeing the laptop screen and a little blinking dot located over a satellite image of a shipping yard. I took in the image, wondered for a second if we were tapping Preventer's feeds and then walked across the room to my go bag, rifling through it for what I thought I might need. "What are you waiting for?"

He hadn't moved as I grabbed for weapons, as I grabbed for whatever I thought would be useful.

"It's a trap. Yuy won't be there."

"We don't know that, please 'Fei," I said, damn near begging, unable to meet his eye as I felt like I was fucking losing it. "If this was someone you loved what would you do?"

"Go. Confirm. I'd have to know."

I nodded. "So you'll come with me?"

'Fei didn't answer, only got to his feet and walked over to his own bag, grabbing a weapon. It may be a trap and it may be a set up but fuck, if there was any chance Heero was there, I would go.