Disclaimer: I don't own the G boys, I just borrow them from time to time and return them a whole lot happier.
Archive: Gundam Wing Diaries
Many thanks to DBZVelena, Ryouga and Yami_tai for the beta. Also thanks to Yami_tai for the title of this fic.
Dedication: To Velena who gave me the plot bunny for this little gem.
/ Indicates flashbacks /
October. 2003 ShenLong
G watched as the pod faded to a distant speck on the screen, he lowered his head and his lips moved silently, Howard stood behind him lost in his own thoughts. Abruptly G brought his head up and turned. "It's all up to them now."
"I guess it is," Howard replied and followed the scientist from the room.
A few hours later G stood beside a ship in the launch bay, Howard exited the ramp of the craft and stood before the gray haired man. "I'll be keeping in touch, G."
G turned his eyes towards the sweeper. "Keep an eye on him for me Howard."
"I will; he's like a son to me too, G."
G allowed a small smile to invade his lips as he thought back over the past couple of years. Duo had been an eager pupil, willing to learn and endure anything that G and Howard thrust at him. He had slipped into the role of Gundam Pilot, assassin and terrorist with ease. Both men knew that Duo had his own score to settle but hadn't pressed for details, content to know that their pupil far surpassed even their expectations.
No more had been said since that day of discovery as G's tests had turned up negatives. Then when Duo went through adolescence with no signs of anything other than his male side functioning and developing, G had pretty much dismissed it from his mind. The only reminder of Duo's secret appeared to be in the slightly feminine features of his sweet face and the extraordinary length of hair that the boy always kept in a neat and tidy braid. The devotion to that hair had given rise to a fair amount of teasing for Duo and G chuckled inwardly as he recalled Duo's hot and often vocal defense of his hair. It was the one thing that was sacred to the boy and he cared for that rope with a dedication worthy of a female.
Howard's hand squeezing his shoulder brought him from his thoughts and he looked up into the pair of sunglasses that almost seemed to be a part of the sweeper himself. "I'll make sure to keep an eye on him G. I'll always be there for him."
G raised his own hand and patted Howard's. "Thank you my friend."
"You take care now, ya hear?"
G nodded.
"I'll send word when I'm earth side and keep you updated on the system of things." Howard briefly thought about giving G a hug, the man looked so lost with first Duo leaving and now himself, but quickly thought better of it. "Happy trails, old man."
G shook his head and smiled warmly. "Happy trails to you too, Howard."
Howard returned to his ship and G departed from the area to watch the launch from the main control room. As yet another of his few friends was swallowed into the void of space he wondered again if he was doing the right thing.
Duo stared into the most intense blue eyes he had ever had the pleasure of seeing, but the hold on the gun never wavered. He had a job to do and by god he was going to do it. The boy in front of him moved and his finger squeezed the trigger. The recoil threw his arms back but he quickly recovered only to have to shoot a second time.
The rest of the little incident passed in blur for Duo. The shock of the torpedoes exploding against his beloved Deathscythe sending his anger flaring, the realization that the boy he had shot was just like himself and then the horror of possible discovery causing him to flee the scene. He left the boy floating in the water as the alarms at the base sounded and disappeared into oblivion.
The thought of the other pilot haunted Duo. He had made his way to the coordinates Howard had given him and rejoined the sweepers. They had snuck in under the cover of darkness to retrieve Deathscythe from its watery prison along with the other mobile suit and now had both suits safely on board. Duo couldn't shake the vision of those intense cobalt eyes nor that shock of chocolate brown hair. Once he had rendezvoused with Howard he'd patched into OZ communications and monitored their airwaves, he knew they had the boy in a military hospital and shuddered at the thought of what OZ would do to interrogate him. G had not minced words when Duo had reached that part of his training. He knew how ruthless those bastards could be, his mind helpfully supplying him with reminders of the various techniques that G had put him through in order to strengthen his own body and mind against the possibility of capture and ensuing torture. Once he had confirmed that the other pilot was indeed a guest of OZ he began to hack into the computer systems, studying the layout of the base and locating where the pilot was being held. He passed his plan on to Howard who agreed that he couldn't leave the boy for OZ to do with as they wished. So with the plans locked into his photographic memory, his gun nestled against his hip, knives strapped safely to his wrist and lower leg, he picked up the small back pack that contained a limited amount of explosive material as well as a few other goodies and headed for the base, intent on rescuing the pilot.
Sitting back and idly swinging his legs Duo was pissed. He glared again at the other boy and growled softly. A simple thank you wouldn't have gone astray, most people were only to happy to be rescued from the clutches of OZ; but not this sullen boy. Duo pushed his bangs out of his face and sighed. He'd risked his neck sneaking into that base to break this guy out, given him a parachute and a way out and what did the guy do? Fucking left it to the last minute to pull the damn ripcord!
Duo couldn't believe it and had screamed at him, trying to get him to see sense and stop his suicidal plunge. It had worked and the chute had been deployed, but not without damage. Duo shuddered as he remembered the way this guy had set his broken leg; not a grimace of pain or anything else had passed over his face or through his lips as the bones grated back into place and were bound there. Just who did this guy think he was? Superman?
Duo had long ago given up on conversational attempts, after all, one sided chatter was new to him and after several minutes of it he decided he didn't much care for it and so he had left the other pilot to his own devices, namely repairing his Gundam. The sweepers were taking care of Deathscythe and Duo trusted them implicitly to fix the damage, he would fine tune it himself once they had finished, but this guy.... he wouldn't let anyone touch his suit.
Duo both admired and despised the pilot.
He wanted to know his name, know where he came from, who his trainer was and what his missions were. He was eager to have a friend of his own age to talk to, to share things with, plan missions with, but each time he tried to be friendly he was rebuffed with grunts or a single syllable word... namely 'Hn.'
He was becoming quite good at cataloging the various ways the word 'Hn' could be pronounced, but it still rankled that the guy hadn't so much as said a simple thank you for all Duo's efforts in saving his ass. Giving the Asian boy another look and trying to point out yet again that he had his work cut out for him in fixing his suit by himself Duo wasn't surprised to be given the brush off once more. He turned and left the deck, going below to amuse himself in his own way and try to figure out why he suddenly cared so much about this dark haired pilot.
Time passed and Duo caught up with the Japanese pilot a few more times. He discovered that there were five of them altogether, all around his age and all supposedly working for the same goal. He'd met the others, but so far the friendship was still new. He finally learnt the name of the mysterious pilot he'd rescued and despite the constant rebuffs at his attempts to get to know the pilot known as Heero Yuy, he found himself intrigued, fascinated and eager to learn more about him.
He also discovered a new emotion.
He had fallen in love.
The battle he was waging now was a futile one and Duo knew it. He was out numbered and out classed. He knew what he had to do but hesitated. He hadn't had the chance to say good-bye. With a heavy heart, but the condolence that he would at least have taken a large contingent of OZ with him, he flipped the cover to the red button and poised his hand. The pain in his heart outweighed the pain of his injuries and squeezing the trickle of a tear from his eye he screamed down his com unit as his fist connected with the self destruct button.
Nothing happened.
"Fuck!!" Duo yelled and punched the button again.
The suits sensed his defeat and swarmed upon him, Deathscythe didn't stand a chance.
Duo awoke completely disorientated, his head throbbed and his eyes swam as he tried to clear his vision, attempting to remember what had happened and just where the hell he was. He tried to move only to find his legs and arms held firmly in place. His sight slowly cleared and he took the chance to turn his head and gaze around him. He was strapped to a table, wrists and ankles held firmly in place by metal clamps. Well that explained the reason for his lack of ability to move. He ached in numerous places from the wounds he'd received in the battle as the reality that he had been captured sank into his fuzzy mind. "Great! Just fucking great Maxwell," he chided himself. "You can't even self destruct properly."
"I see you are awake."
Duo's head jerked as the door opened and someone entered the room. His eyes narrowed and he shut his mouth quickly.
The person moved about the room, quiet sounds filtered to Duo's ears and he recognized the noises. A shudder passed through his body, along with a tremble of fear. The person walked towards him and paused at the side of the table, placing a metal kidney dish to one side. Duo's eyes met with those of his captor for the first time.
"You won't get anything out of me," he growled as he set his chin in defiance.
The captor chuckled. "I'm pretty sure you will soon change your mind." The man reached into the kidney dish and extracted a needle. He fitted it to a syringe filled with a yellow fluid.
Duo's eyes widened as he observed the actions. "Wh - what are you gonna do?"
The man paused and stared at his prisoner. "I want to know who sent you, who you are fighting for, who gives you your orders... and you are going to tell me."
"Go rot in hell," Duo spat.
The man sighed. "I didn't think this was going to be easy." He lifted the syringe and removed the cover to the needle, gently pushing the plunger a little way and releasing some of the fluid from within. He picked up an alcohol swab and rubbed it briskly over Duo's arm. Placing a rubber tourniquet over Duo's biceps he tapped at the vein, encouraging it to swell.
Duo did his best to try and pull his arm away. He knew he couldn't dislocate his wrists enough to slip out of the clamps and he couldn't get to his trusty lock picks either so he tried to rotate and twist his arm as much as possible. It only served to annoy his captor.
His arm was grasped roughly and held in place. The needle was brought to his now prominent vein and eased into the vessel. The plunger went down and the fluid seeped into Duo's bloodstream. Removing the needle the man released the tourniquet and stepped back, dropping the used utensils into the kidney dish. He turned and looked back at the pale, sweating pilot.
"What the fuck did you inject into me you bastard?"
"Nothing much." The evil smile was in place. "We know how you Gundam pilots have been trained to withstand interrogation so this is just a little concoction that will help to break down your defenses and make you a little more... shall we say, amiable to answering our questions."
Duo's breath hitched as several scenarios ran through his head, none of them pleasant. "How?"
"Oh, you will find out soon enough but I guess it won't hurt to tell you. This drug will act upon your nervous system. It tells your brain to release hormones into your blood stream that will enhance the feeling of pain."
Duo swallowed... hard. Shit!
"The mere action of such as a pinch to your skin will be enhanced ten fold. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate any further, you're an intelligent boy, you should be able to figure it out."
Shit! Shit! Shit! Duo knew he had a relatively high tolerance to pain, G's training had seen to that. He also knew he had a certain resistance to drugs as well but this was something new and he didn't know if his body would be able to block off the effects. Unfortunately at the moment he didn't have any way to escape and therefore avoid finding out.
"Once we have the information from you that we require I promise you the end will be swift." The man stared at Duo. "I'm sorry it has to be this way but you gave me no choice. You brought this on yourself."
"Go fuck yourself." Duo turned his head to the side. His future didn't look all that damn rosy at the moment but he needed to think, to try to find a way to either escape or kill himself before they could implement their little plan.
"It will take a while for the drug to invade your system completely, so rather than keep you here the guards will take you to a holding cell." The man moved to the com unit on the wall and pushed a button. "He's ready to be relocated."
The door slid open and four heavily built and well armed guards entered the room. Duo found himself bodily removed from the restraints only to have handcuffs slapped on and be dragged from the room and down a corridor to a cell. He was dumped unceremoniously inside and the door locked behind him.
He picked himself up off the floor and gazed around. There wasn't anything in the cell that could be of use to him. A small cot bolted to the floor and a window high above were his only companions. With a sigh Duo shuffled to the cot and curled up on it. He was exhausted. His eyes slid shut, a short nap was in order while his brain tried to figure out how the hell to get himself out of this mess.
His breathing evened out as sleep claimed his weary body, the drug in his system began to infiltrate his brain causing the various glands to begin secreting their fluids. Deep inside his abdomen, a long defunct ovary stirred slightly, and a follicle began the first stages of formation.
tbc....