Disclaimer: I don't own a thing (as sad as that realization is), except for the words I've written.

Warnings: Rated for adult language (Duo's got quite a surly mouth and mind), some violence, and mild adult themes.

A/N: Thank you for your follows/reviews, as always they are so appreciated! I will be out of town on Sunday, so you get this chapter a day early. Enjoy.

Maxwell

Chapter 4: Hate To Say I Told You So

Hate To Say I Told You So - The Hives

Trowa looked up through his familiar curtain of bangs. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming back."

The door slammed behind them. Wufei stared at the man, the corner of his lips quivering upwards. "How'd you get in here?"

Trowa stood and answered with a raise of his brows and a barely perceptible smile as if to say "fucking please." At least that's how Duo decided to interpret it.

"Where the hell have you been, Tro?" Duo asked. It was bizarre to see him after all this time, though he hadn't changed much since the war. He still carried himself on the balls of his feet, agile and always ready. His face had aged, matured like all of theirs had, but hell that was unavoidable, wasn't it? Still, he was the same mysterious Trowa that they remembered.

"Life in a traveling circus is not always a predictable one," he answered cooly. "I was on an outreaching colony when I first started receiving your unrelenting messages."

Wufei let out a single laugh at his comment. "And here I thought you were just ignoring me."

"I realize now the need for all the urgency." Trowa's eyes drifted back to the autopsy image now residing on the coffee table.

Duo stared at him, crossing his arms over his sinewy chest. "You know, I was banking on us finding Quat before you. Thought we might have to wrestle you back here somehow." He grinned roguishly. "But look, here you fucking are, breaking and entering and shit."

Trowa gave the braided man a quietly amused look. "Nice to see you too."

"How did you get in here, Barton?" Wufei wondered, staring at the door which was now closed securely behind them. Humorous images flooded Duo's mind of Trowa scaling the hotel wall, all stealthy and acrobatic as always, flipping around until he was able to climb in through the fucking window.

"A truly great artist never reveals his secrets." The reply was cryptic, but seeing who it came from, the other two men were satisfied. He spoke again, turning towards the autopsy and open laptop. "What have you got so far?"

"You know most of it by the autopsy report," Wufei said, gesturing for them all to have a seat. They did silently and then he went on. "A safe deposit box was found with two flash drives hidden inside. We are fairly certain they belonged to Yuy."

"How certain are you?" Trowa wondered, staring at the discarded device that had been tossed atop the coffee table.

"Seventy-five percent?" The Preventer answered from his spot in an armchair next to the couch. Duo found it wry that he answered in question form; maybe the man really was beginning to think this was going to be a dead end.

"Better get into 'computer security mode,' Tro," Duo said with a grin. "We've only got one more damn try at coming up with a valid password. No pressure or anything." He suppressed the urge to wink. It was something he would have done to Heero, but of course he wasn't here and this whole shitty situation revolved around finding him, so he suppressed it vigorously.

Trowa picked up the notepad Duo had previously been scribbling on. "These are what you've tried?" His eyes studied the words, each with an angry line through their middle.

"Yes. Any other suggestions?" Wufei was becoming hasty again and Duo tried to give him a reassuring glance. Several hours ago they thought they could possibly be the only two actually left in existence. Now there were three of them left in existence and that meant one more mind that knew Heero Yuy. He and Trowa had had some special 'I saved you when you fucking self detonated' kind of bond, so hell, his guess as to a password was as good as theirs.

Trowa thought for a moment, his lips set in a straight line. "It's difficult. If there were more room for invalidity, for guessing, then I would feel a bit more confident in my choices. What do you think we'll find on it?" He looked up, mildly curious.

"Something someone wanted to kill him for," Duo answered, his eyes suddenly dark. He may still have resided with the thought that Heero wasn't actually dead, but then the possibility and those damn fucking photographs wouldn't leave his mind alone either.

There was an almost imperceptible look of understanding between the two men. Losing someone so close, it wasn't for the faint of heart. Duo wondered vaguely if Trowa knew that Quatre was missing or hiding out or whatever the fuck, but he didn't get the chance to ask.

"Do you trust me?" Trowa looked to both men for some sort of approval.

Wufei nodded and Duo shrugged. "I trust you just about as far as I could throw you, Tro. Which is pretty fucking far, look how damn skinny you are!"

Trowa took the words as approval enough. He leaned forward from his perch on the couch towards the computer, resting his willowy fingers atop the keyboard. The cursor was still blinking, still fucking taunting all three of them now.

He typed seven letters into the box, hit enter. There was a moment where nothing happened and then all at once a screen popped into view, holding many words in tiny, but very clear print.

Duo swallowed hard. The man had typed: Maxwell.

Several minutes later the braided man was pacing furiously across the hotel room. His muscles were tense as the other two men studied the lists found on the mysterious flash drive.

Those damn flash drives, they were somehow causing him more and more problems rather than making things easier like they should have. Lists and lists of names, no fucking way to decipher the meaning; zip, zilch, nada. Not to mention the new pit forming in Duo's stomach regarding Heero and his incessant need to cause emotional distress even when he was supposed to be dead as a damn doornail.

"Anything?" His words were terse as he stalked over towards Trowa and Wufei. Both men looked up with blank stares that bored into his impatient features. He got the hint pretty quickly. Still nothing. Don't keep asking every two fucking minutes.

So instead of interrupting the great and almighty minds at work, Duo studied the lists of names from behind the couch. The screen reflected off of his indigo eyes as he read each name quickly. None sounded familiar, and yet somehow they all began to sound the same. He squinted; every single name typed onto the computer screen shared the same first and last initials: M.R.

Mason Radcliff, Michael Ramirez, Marshall Rettig, Mischa Rietveld, Max Russo, Miguel Robledo...the list was infinitely endless.

"The fuck?" could be heard from under Duo's breath, but still neither of the other men bothered to respond to him.

Initials. Shit. Someone Heero was trying to find? A code name? Unscrambling some sort of fucked up signature? Just as the flashing names on the computer, the possibilities seemed boundless.

After several more hard moments of silence, Wufei finally spoke up. "Any of these names look familiar to you, Maxwell?" He asked the question without bothering to turn around and face who was being questioned.

Duo shook his head. "Nope. None." His words were slow to leave his mouth as his eyes were still skimming the seemingly ceaseless list. "Why?"

He watched as Wufei shot Trowa a look. What kind of look he was unsure, but it was damn shifty and he didn't like it. Trowa faced him with green eyes. "Could they be a message?"

"A message?"

"Heero seemed to address this to you."

Brows furrowing, Duo shook his head more fervently this time, holding up his hands in front of his chest. "Oh no. I was just his password. Don't go getting all 'find the deeper meaning here' and shit."

"It's a possibility. You have to admit that, Maxwell." Wufei still didn't look up from the computer screen, a clear tension building in his shoulders that seemed uncharacteristic. Duo had half a mind to make an immature and mocking face behind the man's head, but didn't because shit, maybe he was finally maturing. Imagine that.

"Possibility don't make it true. Right now I know just as little as you guys do," Duo replied with a raise of his eyebrows. "Okay?"

Neither actually signified their understanding with the preferred "okay" back, but Duo knew they were dropping the theory shit, at least for the moment.

"It would be easier if we just found Heero and asked for answers directly." Duo stared in surprise as the words came out of the thin line Trowa called a mouth. It made his skin crawl that he couldn't tell when the man was being serious, dryly sarcastic, or fucking joking. Trowa noticed the bemused look and flicked his fingers towards the autopsy still lying sickeningly open on the coffee table. "Don't tell me you really think Heero Yuy is dead." He stared at Duo waiting intently for a reply. Wufei also stared, but at Trowa and in a way that did not hide his clear irritation.

Licking his lips, Duo's eyes shot to the autopsy and back to bottle green. "Well fuck. There's a body lying on that damn table. But that ain't him, Tro. Just like I told 'Fei earlier." He saved a particularly devious smirk for the Chinese man. That little vein pulsed into view.

Wufei said nothing, realizing that even though Preventer had ID'd the body, he supposed he had come looking for Duo Maxwell for a reason. Trowa nodded his head once. "I watched Heero come back from the dead a long time ago. I don't see why he can't do it again now."

"So now what?" Wufei was becoming impatient Mr. Preventer Man again.

Duo shrugged. "Anyone just tried calling him lately?"

Both men gave him a baffled look. But hell, it was so stupid it might just actually work, right? Without receiving a verbal response, which was becoming the fucking routine around here he guessed, Duo grabbed for Wufei's cell phone lying on the couch arm next to him. He expected an objection, but to his slightly saddened surprise Wufei still said nothing.

Duo slid his thumb against the front screen to unlock it and then with deft fingers he found Heero Yuy's contact. There was a moment when he felt he aught to be startled that Wufei had all of their numbers, sans Duo's nonexistent one, programmed into his cell phone, but then he remembered he was a fucking Preventer keeping tabs on everyone.

The phone rang. And rang, rang, rang, but no fucking answer. It didn't astound him, but still he was highly disappointed. Would have been damn fun for Heero to pick up just so he could rub it in the other two's faces.

And then, after he pulled the phone from his ear, he thought about how scary it would have been for Heero to pick up. Shit terrifying, and yet...

Duo dialed again, his comrades having gone back to analyzing the mind boggling list of names after his great defeat the first time. The phone rang. And rang, rang, rang-

"Chang?" The voice was low, deep, resonant velvet. Duo's breath caught in his throat. He hadn't heard that voice in over three years and yet it still had that comforting effect on him. His muscles slacked for a fraction of a second before the panic of the situation set in. What the hell was he supposed to say to a fucking dead man?

"Heero?" His own words shook as they made their way through to the other line. He could hear noise, like the other man had quickened his breaths. There was a pause, a hesitance and both Trowa and Wufei were staring back at him wide eyed now. But then the line clicked into sharp silence.

Two time zones away in Moscow, Russia it was two hours later and a very furious dark haired man was awakened by the sound of his cell phone ringing, not once but twice, at this ungodly hour. For him this was rare and quite irritating.

On the fourth ring of the second phone call he answered, staring at the screen in slight disbelief before doing so. Never had Wufei Chang tried to contact him at such an odd time and especially not when he was as deeply undercover as he was now. Being a consultant for Relena Darlain's security staff was not an easy job, especially when her life was in jeopardy. But sleep would have to wait; if his Preventer comrade was contacting him, risking life and limb at waking the often temperamental man, then it must have been pretty damn important.

He hadn't heard from Chang in several months now so his voice must have held a curious undertone when he'd answered, still half asleep. There was no answer at first and he thought about hanging up thinking maybe the call had been a mistake. What made him second guess his tired theory was that this had been the second call placed that morning; there was no mistaking that.

And then a voice that did not belong to the Chinese man he pictured in his mind crept through the phone and into his mind. Shit.

He was going to hang up. He had to hang up. No one was supposed to know where he was or what he was doing. Not Chang, not Une, and especially not Duo Maxwell.

If it had been Chang, like he'd imagined it should have been considering the call was from his line, he would have feigned an excuse and told him he was currently unavailable. It would have worked, it always worked.

But then he felt like the air was being pushed from his lungs. He hadn't felt this vulnerable and helpless in a long time. And it seemed an even longer time ago that he had heard that voice. That infuriating yet soothing and utterly irresistible voice.

He thought for a moment of the photographs he had received several weeks ago. The root of his work, of his sudden upheaval, of his lists, of his own safety, of Duo's safety. So many words began to manifest on his tongue.

And then, he hung up.

Duo desperately needed sleep after the day he'd had, so of course his mind kept his body restlessly tossing all night long. Fucking photographs, fucking autopsy, fucking Preventers, fucking password, fucking Heero.

As the sun began to rise over the horizon and light started to filter into the double room he and Trowa were sharing in the Preventer funded suite, the man rubbed his eyes, stretching his tight and tired muscles over his head. There was a movement from the other side of the room and Duo turned on his side to face an already awake Trowa tucking sheets under his mattress and smoothing the top with agile hands.

"You know, there's a maid service for that," Duo said to him, still slightly groggy from his uneasy night.

Trowa shrugged. "Force of habit."

Duo snorted out a laugh at the slightly eccentric man. Trowa didn't have a shirt on and when he turned, the braided man could see deep scars winding across his back, raised and a slightly lighter color than the rest of his skin. They reached all way to the top of his neck and down to his lower back in an uneven pattern. Looked fuckin' painful, at the time of injury at least.

He watched as Trowa finished making the bed up, probably doing a damn better job at it than any maid could anyways, and then grabbed a change of clothes, shutting the connecting bathroom door behind him, the sound of the shower turning on several seconds later.

The night before, the three men had sat in utter silence shadowed with doubt and denial for at least an hour after the inconceivable phone conversation, or rather lack of conversation. This whole time Duo had vehemently believed that Heero was alive and kicking, but somehow hearing him on the phone had almost made him realize how crazy it must have been to actually call a presumed dead man. They had all been thinking the same thing when they'd attempted to drift to sleep: how can someone be on an autopsy table, fingerprint ID'd, and then answer his cellphone at the same fucking time? It gave them damn chills just to think about it.

Sighing, Duo decided that if he was awake he may as well commit to the whole shebang, so he pulled himself out from the sheets and padded out of the room, clad in dark plaid boxers and an old, threadbare t-shirt, towards the suite's living room.

"Fuckin, Heero," he muttered under his breath, rubbing the back of his head as a splitting pain began to run through the center of his brain. For a while he thought that maybe he had dreamt the voice, the sultry all too memorable voice, but shit, then he remembered that the only dreams he had nowadays were fucking nightmares.

It amazed him that still Wufei seemed to have an answer that contradicted everything he had thought, and now definitely knew, to be true. He had fucking talked to Heero, how could that damn Preventer pretend like he was still lying in a morgue somewhere? But still, he knew there was some sort of underlying part of the Chinese man that had to believe it. Hell, like Trowa said, he'd come back from the dead before.

Of course, Duo thought, there could be ulterior motives behind Wufei's excessive belief in Heero's death. But it would have been a stretch, even considering he and the Preventer did have somewhat of a history. Shit, but that wasn't something he wanted to think about now; it had been years, surely there was nothing left to be discussed and certainly Heero's existence, dead or alive, wouldn't bring up those fucking impulses again.

There was a small coffee pot sitting atop a thin table against the wall several feet from the front door. Drawn to the thought of caffeine Duo made a beeline for the appliance, popping in a pod that would make a single cup of coffee. As the water brewed into a steaming cup of aromatic, liquid crack, he walked towards the couch in hopes of finding a news channel on the large flatscreen hanging on the wall, but he stumbled over an object on the floor beneath his feet.

Shit. It was deja vu, nauseating familiarity, his fucking seedy hotel room all over again. Duo's eyes slowly fell down to the sickening manila envelope, his bare toes still standing on it's corner. Suddenly he couldn't stop his hands from shaking. Damn fucking nerves, why was this happening to him?

He picked up the envelope, and now less tentative than before, tore it open. He'd stupidly expected it to hold images of himself and Heero leaning on each other, kissing, or even fucking. But it damn well didn't matter because that's not what his eyes fell on.

The photograph captured the moment perfectly and if it had been him with Heero it might have made his heart skip a beat with happiness. But it was not him. No it sure fucking wasn't, but it still made his heart skip a beat. Holy fucking shit.

Trowa had his arm under Heero's shoulder, holding him close, too close. Their faces were closer than he'd ever seen them, a flushed look on Heero's features, his eyes half shut in weakness that made Duo's fists clench. The image was zoomed in, grainy and shadowed, but hell, it didn't matter. He knew, he fucking knew. He'd been in that same position many times before. All too fucking familiar.

A guttural growl left his mouth and he couldn't stop the impulse to run into that damn little hotel bathroom and drag that stupid fucking bastard out by his stupid fucking hair so he could beat him into a bloody pulp. Of course he fucking sided with Duo on the validity of Heero's death. That motherfucking-

A sharp wrap on the door interrupted the thoughts that seemed to be suddenly bursting into flames in his mind causing figurative smoke and steam to blow from his ears. For a moment the murderous thoughts towards Trowa became second in his mind only to the knock on the door. Not even bothering to look through the peephole, which was probably not the best idea considering the uncertain and shitty circumstances he had been experiencing lately, Duo ripped open the door.

There was a moment after his eyes first made contact with the man standing on the other side of the threshold where he almost forgot how to breathe. His disposition started first at confused, then surprised, then fucking pissed off beyond belief.

And then, with power he did not know resided inside of him, Duo pulled back his impulsive arm and thrust it forward into the fucking unsuspecting face of Heero Yuy.