Chapter Four: A Reality Check at the Door
He was sliding the deadbolt into place the moment the door clicked shut. Locks wouldn't mean much if the others were determined to gain re-entry but their presence still calmed him. Duo waited by the door listening as four sets of footsteps faded down the hall, then waited another few minutes just to be sure they were gone. The whole process was an eternity of staying perfectly still and entirely on edge. Duo wasn't even sure he remembered to breathe.
Eventually he turned his back to the door and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. He pulled his knees up, draped his arms out and over them, and hung his head. As he fell into position he let out a heavy sigh. It was exhausting to keep up an angry front for more than a few moments and he'd just managed it on and off for almost 45 minutes between getting caught at the hospital and having his home invaded. He leaned his head back against the door with a soft thud and closed his eyes, unsuccessfully willing that ever growing tension in his body fade away.
That was the part he never could master. Relaxing his mind was easy enough. But relaxing his body? He wasn't even sure he knew how. It didn't matter where he was or what was happening because the underlying tension never faded and hadn't for years. Did he know how to relax before the war? Probably not. Maybe a cautious street kid would never really be able to let down enough guard to truly decompress. But at least that meant his whole body hurt now instead of just his chest.
Perhaps those doctors were right about his problem being muscular-skeletal.
A soft chuckle escaped his lips when he remembered the duffel bag on the floor a few feet away and suddenly realized that moving was now pointless. After telling his former friends where he lived Une torched all her previous credibility, and that was a problem.
If he wanted to keep his job, which he did, Une would need to know his location. But with her confidentiality compromised, anywhere he went those four would know within the week. He could find a job somewhere else but it wouldn't be as engaging. Another job wouldn't use even a tenth of the skills he learned with hard work and blood. More importantly it wouldn't pay nearly as much as he'd become accustomed to and thus would jeopardize his financial obligations. Though he was certain his tracks in that regard were covered he shuddered to think of how Une's attitude might change upon discovering just how financially dependent he was on his job. He'd never be able to threaten quitting again.
Suddenly he felt his stomach drop out from under him. After this would his job remain the same? Could it possibly go on as before, or would the position he fought to secure for himself evaporate before his eyes? The thought that Une might integrate him into a team with the others nauseated him, but he closed his eyes tightly and suppressed that feeling. Going in to HQ would require a lot of energy. But at least being angry with Une should be simple enough, as he was genuinely furious she'd betrayed him. Staying angry when she inevitably tried to appeal to his emotions and claimed her actions were for his benefit would be harder.
Keeping his job would be his top priority. If Une demoted him he'd use his savings to make up any differences in expenses. If he had time he could freelance for supplemental income. He rarely met Une at HQ but maybe—
Duo jolted when two crisp knocks sounded from the other side of the door. He knew that knock. Unprepared as he was for the forthcoming conversation he managed to pull himself off the floor with significant effort and steel himself before undoing the deadbolt and opening the door.
"Hello, Maxwell."
He nodded slightly as he answered "Une" and stood his ground by blocking entry to his home, with one hand braced on the door frame and the other still gripping the handle.
She tilted her head a little and peered at him critically from behind her glasses. Her voice took on the tone of a mother about to scold her child. "Are you planning to let me in or would you prefer to speak like this?"
"I dunno how long you plannin on talkin?" He'd meant to sound casual but his words came out as a threat. He could feel his muscles tighten as her expression softened.
"Okay. We can do this here." She adjusted her glasses as her eyes quickly ran up and down to take him in and Duo could feel how she was judging him. Her voice was soft, and it was clear she was choosing her words carefully given their lack of privacy. Though the hallway was empty it was still a public place and she was a cautious woman. "Duo, you've spent too long running away from the people who care about you and I think today was a good thing. I'm not sorry I gave them your address." He frowned but she didn't appear to notice. "I am sorry for compromising your trust in me. It was hard earned given how we met and if this means we take a step backwards…"
Une stopped talking as Duo stepped aside and pulled her into his home, shutting the door. For just a second she looked surprised, and that was enough to give Duo an edge of satisfaction. His boss was not a woman who startled easily. He took the opportunity to speak quickly and forcefully while she was a little off guard. "You've never apologized to me before and you certainly never broke the line of professionalism with me before, so why're you suddenly acting like my mom?"
They stood there staring at each other for a moment and Duo would've felt badly for her if he wasn't still so angry. She looked hurt. Or as hurt as he'd ever seen her.
"I appreciate that you don't know what a mother is like so I'll let that slide, but you seem to have forgotten what friendship is like while you've spent the last several years doing your best to remain completely alone. With this in mind I'll be as direct as possible." She moved one step towards him and fixed on him with razor sharp focus. "I've been your sole point of contact for nearly four years and I'm not blind to what the isolation has done to you. Your work is exceptional, Duo. But it's not good for you."
He bristled. "Since when do you care what's good for me?"
"Get your head out of your ass, Maxwell!"
He didn't know how to react to that. Une rarely lost patience.
"I've watched you withdraw, I've watched your friends search for you, miss you, grieve your absence because you're too stubborn to talk to them. I've placed you on overlapping missions and rescue missions hoping you'd cross paths. And I'm tired of that game. So now that it's over you're going to engage with them. You will suck it up and you will make it your mission to reconnect on any level, even if it's just professional, or I'll terminate your employment and you'll never work for or adjacent to the Preventers again."
The pain and tightness in his chest resurfaced while Une scolded him like a badly behaving child. He couldn't help thinking that regardless of what Une claimed she really was acting like his mother, or maybe given her age an older sister. Tears that he avoided since the hospital were now stinging and welling up in his eyes and to his joint horror and relief she appeared to notice. It caused her annoyance to fade into something softer and kinder. Then she reached up and brushed aside a lock of his hair that had gone astray sometime earlier without him noticing.
"You look terrible, Duo. Please get some rest and eat something substantial. Take tomorrow off and meet me in my office the next day. I expect you to look more like yourself by then." She turned towards the door and opened it to let herself out, stopping before moving into the hallway to softly say "You're too good to continue down the path you're on. There are people who just want to love you. Consider letting them. Don't turn them away."
It was when the door clicked shut that tears began to silently fall from his eyes. He was angry at Une for not backing him up but he couldn't deny the warmth inside him that begged for a chance to embrace the kindness she displayed. Though she was gone he still felt the light touch of her hand and it dawned on him that he couldn't recall the last time anyone touched him other than to harm or medically examine his body. His throat began to tighten and close off in the telltale sign that he needed to cry when his mind jumped to the last time he'd felt an affectionate touch. That last person to hug him and tell him he was loved before he truly retreated from everyone…
He found himself sitting in his armchair, though he had no memory of how he got there. In a daze he glanced slowly over to his door and saw he must have locked it automatically. Sometimes when he got suddenly and infinitely lonely he would complete tasks on auto pilot and lose time. Over the years that lost time came in smaller increments, but it never really went away.
Hilde once described that experience to him as "tempo rubato." She'd gotten really into music for a while. It was one of her many obsessions to try and forget the trauma of the wars, and in her excitement she felt a compulsion to gush about everything she learned. Duo loved seeing her enthusiastic about anything, and "tempo rubato" became shorthand between them for spacing out and then catching up.
Lose track of a conversation and quickly fall back in line with it? Tempo rubato. Space out and catch back up to complete the task you were supposed to be doing, on time? Tempo rubato. That Hilde helped coin the shorthand he used in his brain for that very specific type incident always gave him a bittersweet feeling. He remembered the laughter in her voice as she said "Life has a tempo that keeps going with or without you. When you break from it and slow down or speed up, you eventually need to adjust and come back home to that original tempo."
He never bothered to check if that was even a correct comparison, but he didn't really care. It was fitting, and made him feel close to her when he felt lonely.
But he couldn't think about her right now. He needed to center himself and pull himself back into the present. Losing time was not helpful. With his entire life turned upside down he owed it to himself to get his shit together. His cheeks felt red hot as he took in a shaky breath to steady himself and focus on what was important.
First, Une didn't fire him and made no mention of shifting his employment into another position.
Second, his income was secure and thus his obligations would continue to be met.
And third, she didn't demand he befriend the others, though she did demand a working relationship.
That made him freeze. What would a working relationship even look like? Duo didn't have an office at Preventers. He didn't even have a full time ID badge. His was designed for temporary access, granted or denied each time he came to the building. How was she expecting him to have a professional relationship with agents who openly worked cases within Preventers guidelines from offices that were their own? If she thought she'd pair them up on missions she was changing his role for the organization and there would be an argument in their future. But how else was she planning to establish a professional relationship between himself and the other Gundam pilots?
Right now he didn't want to think of it. He didn't want to think of anything and thankfully his body reminded him that he was still in pain and needed to relax himself or else he'd only feel worse. A surprising amount of strength was required for Duo to reach for the earbuds sitting on his coffee table and place them snugly into his ears. Shifting, he pulled his phone from his pocket and synced the two devices before accessing a playlist he made specifically to unwind after difficult days. As the first song played, its familiar and steady beat already working its magic to sooth his heartbeat into a calm rhythm, he used everything in him to leverage his weight into a standing position, take a single step towards his couch, and collapse. Immediate aches confirmed that lying down was exactly what he needed to be doing.
Tomorrow he would make a plan. Today he'd focus on the music as it lulled him slowly into a meditative trance that would hopefully, eventually, give way to real sleep.