1x2 Firsts Part 03
By Moon Faery
A Round Robin of the 1x2 Firsts ML
*** Same Day as the kiss ****
I finished washing the dinner dishes cheerfully, absently tapping my foot in time to some unnamed love song on whatever radio station happened to be coming in. In the other room, I could hear Heero moving around and shuffling paper. I sounded like he was cleaning or something like it, and was probably going to give me something else to do after I finished the dishes. But even the prospect of scrubbing toilets wasn't enough to get me down.
I'd kissed Heero. Better yet, I'd kissed Heero and lived to daydream about it. Even the fact that he hadn't even mentioned it since didn't bother me a bit. Okay, maybe it did a little.
"Duo, get in here," Heero growled from the main room. My, isn't someone pissy tonight? Deciding that it was better not to keep his Homocidalness waiting, I tossed down the dish rag and waltzed through the kitchen door.
"Whatcha want, Heero?" I asked, almost skipping into the room.
Did I already mention that I'm in a good mood?
He was on the floor, papers stacked in neat, orderly piles. I found myself seriously tempted to kick over those stacks, but resisted the urge. Even though I really wanted to...
"The mission's been altered. You're going in solo."
"Wha?" came my first, very educated and thought out response. "Why?"
"Security's been tightened at the lab. We could conceivably get a single operative in, but not two." For some reason, Heero's monotone sounded distinctly put out, almost jealous. Aw, is Self-Destructo upset that he's not the one who gets to put his life on the line? Poor him. I'll be careful not to hurt his feelings any more.
That was sarcasm, not a lie. Get it straight.
"And so I'm it?" I swaggered over to where he was sitting, hands behind my head and a smirk on my lips. "Well, I guess Death can handle a mission on his own." Rubbing it in, me? Of course. I wasn't pissed over his whole, it-never-happened attitude, but there was no way I was passing this one up.
He didn't even bother looking up from whatever printout he was reading. "You are the stealth expert," he reminded me, voice frosty. As usual. "You're more than capable of completing this mission."
I shrugged. "So next week, I go in, go boom, get out. No sweat."
He finally looked at me. His eyes started at the toes of my boots and worked their way up my body. I felt like a slab of steak in front of a hungry wolf. Who'd've thought that the great Heero Yuy knew how to undress someone with his eyes like that?
By the time he finished with my nose and reached my eyes, I'd turned bright red and had started to sweat. Not to mention that I was turned on again, and it was showing. I was just about to jump him when I noticed something that chilled me to the bone, and made Mr. Winky shrink away like a rich man come tax day. Heero had a distinctly malicious glint in his eye, and a scarier sight I hope never to see.
"Not next week. Tonight."
"TONIGHT?!"
"Tonight. Now, in fact."
What could I possibly say to that? "Well shit."
Heero shoved a pack in my hands, gave me handful of papers, maps and other essentials and shoved me out the door. I didn't even have time to say anything, which is hard to believe, even for me. It looked like the anal-retentive one himself had been ever-so kindly preparing what I'd need to blow the place to hell and back while I was doing dishes. Jerk.
It didn't take me that long to hot wire a jeep for transportation. Hey, I was going to the other side of town! So you want me to walk like a good little thief, or save the world? I thought so.
No matter how I got there, it was only a half an hour before I was trudging through slime and I dun-wanna-know-what to break into OZ's main biological weapons development laboratory. (It's amazing how fast some of those newer model jeeps can go when you're not worried about the speed limit.) I was really missing Deathscythe at this point, but there was no way we could use the Gundams on this one. There was the little problem of the lab being in the middle of the city, and a mobile suit battle was the last thing the local elementry school needed on it's new flower bed. But at least my ol' buddy 'Scythe never had to use a sewer to break into a building. My clothes were ruined, I smelled literally like shit and, above all else, my braid was soaked through. It was going to take me forever to wash it after this little jaunt.
Luckily, I found the manhole inside the labs perimeter fairly quickly. A few unconscious guards and a wringing out of the braid later, and I was in. Have you ever noticed that the bad guys always seem to be hit with a stupid stick when the time comes to fortify their defenses. Someday, one of them is going to realize that sewers are an excellent way to sneak into a place. Of course, that's probably going to happen when Trowa's hair gives into gravity, so I'm not going to hold my breath.
It was pretty routine to skulk around the place and plant little suprises here and there. The hard part was making sure the complex would blow without taking out any civilian areas, but I managed. I am Death, after all. It helped that Heero had little 'X's marked out on the blueprints in red ink, but only a little.
I'd just finished planting my last little bundle of joy and destruction when I got my first interruption of the night. People were coming down the hall. People in heavy, loud boots, I might add. Remember what I just said about the IQ of bad guys? Add heavy boots on guards to the list of bad ideas they've had. Naturally, I ducked into a door before the came around the corner. All I had to do was wait for them to finish tramping through the hallway and I was home free, right.
I'm just never that lucky, am I?
For some reason, the guards decided to stop a few feet away from my little room and talk about their love lives. Loudly. Colorfully. I never wanted to know that a person could do something like that.
At this point, I had two options. Kill them, and raise an alarm, or find a distraction. Number two won out, and I started checking out my surroundings for things to make go boom.
It was an ordinary lab setting. Beakers, tubes, bunsen burners and microscopes all doted the counters. Geek paradise. But none of that really mattered, because I'd found my distraction. In a tiny little cage in the back of a room was a little black bunny rabbit. Bingo.
It didn't take much effort to set Bunny loose, since they hadn't even bothered to lock its cage. There were a bunch of notes in scientist-ese gibberish stuck to the side of the pen, which I ignored completely. I didn't need to know what they'd been doing to the poor thing, I just needed to know how fast it could run.
Which turned out to be pretty damned fast, actually. I cracked the door and didn't even have time to blink before Bunny decided to try and break the sound barrier. Naturally, the guards took one look and ran off after it. They never even stopped to wonder how it had escaped.
Once again, I crept down the hall and back to my little sewer. Well, almost to my little sewer. About halfway there, I almost tripped over something small, black and fuzzy. I'd been followed. Irritably, I made like I was going to step on it, but Bunny but jumped backwards into a corner. It didn't scamper off like I expected it to, instead choosing to stare at me with big, black, cute little eyes.
I'll admit it. I have a weak spot for small, cute survivors. Hey, I used to be one, so I know how tough it can get out there all by yourself. And Bunny did save my life, after all, even though it probably didn't mean to. But after putting all that together, there was no way I was going to leave it there to become a crispy critter. So I scooped Bunny up and stuffed it down my shirt for easy carrying. It was small enough that it fit without pulling my shirt out of my pants.
That was not one of my smartest ideas ever. It took forever for the claw marks on my ribs to vanish.
Back down the manhole and into the sewer. Yay. Bunny seemed to like it less than I did, because his clawing got much worse. And he left a pellet. Ew. But this time I knew the way better, so it was a short slog back to the jeep, and from there to a half mile distance to watch the fireworks. I think Bunny fell asleep at that point, because I didn't get any more scratches for a while after that.
The apartment was dark when I got home to find that Heero was waiting up for me, all alone in a dark living room. I could feel his glare, across the room and in that dark. Aw, I feel so loved. Well, I would have felt loved if Bunny hadn't chosen that moment to wake up and poke it's head out between the buttons on my shirt. Between that dark room and the back shirt, I don't think Heero noticed the odd bulge in my stomach until it sprouted ears.
"Duo?" he asked, soundly like he was choking on something. The light was suddenly flipped on. I was almost to blinded by the sudden brightness to notice the way Heero's eyes were bugging out. Almost. "Why is there a RABBIT in your shirt?" At least he didn't sound angry, which was better than I'd hoped for.
"He followed me home?" I tried, putting on my most adorable smile and pulling Bunny out of his burrow to cuddle. He cuddled very well, I might add.
He didn't seem to know how to react to that one. "We can't keep him."
I was expecting that.
"Why not?" I shoved Bunny into his arms, watching the rabbit work its cute magic. Heero visibly melted. Okay, maybe not melted, but he started to give in. For just a second, he was perfectly still, just staring at Bunny with an almost soft _expression on his face. And then he looked at me, and my heart skipped a couple of beats, breaking a speed limit or five. A warm little feeling worked its way up from my stomach. IT wasn't one of those "horny teenage boy" warm feelings (although I've been getting plenty of those lately, especially with all the time I've been spending with Heero). No, it was one of those feelings that just screamed beautiful. He was looking at me with the same look he's had when I kissed him, pure wonder and a little awe. I wasn't ready for what came next.
"Duo..." The moment shattered, and Bunny was gently placed back into my arms. The only thing that kept me from dropping him was reflexes. "We'll buy rabbit supplies tomorrow." And then he kissed me.
It wasn't a big thing, really. Just a quick little peck on the lips, but I was back on Cloud Nine. I didn't even notice when he took the rabbit away from me and walked into the kitchen until the doors closed. When I finally realized that I'd been standing there for five minutes, there were only two thoughts on my mind.
Number one was I smelled like rabbit droppings and sewage, and needed a shower. Number two was that the shower needed to be a cold one.