WARNING! Lack of (so much) humor this chapter! The missing comedy got switched into angst and unbearably dark plot twists. Sorry.

Prodigy

Chapter 11

Complications

 

Every hallway looked the same. The same warped, stained white tiles speckled with blue and gray, the same gray-beige walls in desperate need of repainting, the same decaying ceiling flaking powder on unsuspecting heads…all a feeble attempt at comforting visitors in a land of sickness and death. The rare window was dressed in sheer curtains that ghosted across the dirty glass like abandoned cobwebs in a subtle breeze.

As they stepped into Trowa’s hospital room, the three could obviously tell there’d been some Winner influence. A single-patient room, fully equipped with a couch and two well-kempt windows held the tall boy’s sleeping form, shirt off and a stark white bandage on his right shoulder. Quatre Winner sat next to the bed, one hand wrapped around Trowa’s and the other cradling his sleeping head against the flimsy plastic back of his chair.

While Duo quickly moved towards his best friend, Heero moved to the other side of the bed, staring at his injured friend’s startlingly peaceful face.

“Hey. Quatre,” Duo said quietly, gently shaking the blonde awake as Wufei sat himself down on the couch, feeling utterly out of place. Aqua eyes snapped open, one hand clutching Trowa’s in a death grip as the other jerked for his shoulder holster once again. “It’s okay, Q. Relax. It’s just us.”

A sigh escaped his lips, and Quatre leaned further back in the chair, his grip on Trowa’s hand loosening, but not letting go. “Thanks for coming, Duo.” His free hand rubbed his tired eyes, and he looked around.

Heero had pulled up a chair on the other side of Trowa, facing the door in what was obviously a defensive impulse. Wufei sat pensively in the corner, eyes betraying an inner confusion. And Duo was by Quatre’s side, his sweet and caring side coming out.

“Hey, how could I not? My best friend’s boyfriend in the hospital, and you expect me to just sit around?” Duo frowned, glancing about the room. “Though I gotta say, I expected Hilde to come.”

“Move, and I’ll shoot.”

“No-!”

BANG!

Quatre winced, hand tensing on Trowa’s. “I didn’t.”

x---x

“Why am I not surprised.”

The arsonist glared up at Noin. “Is it my fault they had a gun? I never knew Winner had a gun on him…”

Noin smiled softly, leaning over her disappointing protégé. “You don’t know much, period.” The slap on the younger woman’s face seared across her cheek, the purple-haired woman not even bothering to guard her back as she returned to her laptop. “You’ve been researching them for how long now? And you didn’t know the heir to the Winner fortune would have a form of protection?”

The arsonist glared at her so-called mentor. “He was rather distracted locking lips with his boyfriend at the time. I didn’t know the tall kid would grab the gun!”

A hand slammed onto the desk. “Exactly. That’s why you don’t take risks. That’s why you don’t plant bombs in public, unreliable places on a whim. That’s why you don’t blow your cover to try and grab an armed heir with a loving bodyguard right there.”

The younger girl’s glare hardened. “I can’t help but notice a drastic lack of Duo here.”

Noin sighed. “That’s because you made Heero protective of him.”

Wide dark eyes blinked. “Protective?”

“And in love, if I’m not as completely stupid as you think I am,” Noin muttered, getting to her feet again and strolling over to the darker window, head hanging low. “Everything’s getting more complicated than expected.”

The arsonist was still staring with wide eyes. “In love?!” She shook her head violently. “No way. No way in hell is Duo in love with him…”

Noin leaned against the glass, purple hair pressed against the pane as she watched the cars drive around below the OZ building’s 9th floor. “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” She turned to see a vacant chair and a quickly closing door.

Sighing, Noin slumped back into her chair. “Hilde, you’re going to get yourself killed one of these days…”

x---x

Duo stared at his blonde friend as he explained the events. Both hands now on Trowa’s, Quatre was speaking rapidly, scared he wouldn’t be able to finish if he stopped for a moment.

“It was after school and Trowa and I were walking back to your apartment and everything was great, but after a couple blocks we could tell we were being followed so Trowa started leading us down back alleys and stuff- he knows the inner city almost as well as you- but then I could see the person and it was Hilde so I turned around to talk to her, but she looked so cold Duo and she was holding a gun, and I had mine, but I didn’t think anything of it- it was Hilde, after all- but then she aimed the gun at us and she just says “come with me” and Trowa just grabbed my gun before I could ask anything and says “move, and I’ll shoot” and I could just shout for a moment, and I reached for the gun but Hilde shot and it went straight into the left side of his chest.” He paused for a moment, still not looking up at the audience he’d gathered. “And I just screamed something at Hilde, I don’t know what, and she just left and I grabbed my cell phone and called 911 and then I called your apartment but nobody was there so I tried every phone number I could think of except my house, and finally I ended up calling Trowa’s house and a lady named Catherine answered and gave me Heero’s cell phone number, so I called him, and…that’s it.”

The grave silence shattered with Duo’s eerily cold voice.

“It was Hilde?”

Aqua eyes snapped wide. “Duo, no. I won’t let you-”

“She SHOT TROWA, Quatre! She’s been betraying us for YEARS! How can you tell me to not go after her?!” His fist slammed against the cheap chair’s armrest, the metal squeaking ominously. “You should be just as fucking angry as I am!”

 

“Duo.”

 

It was Heero who spoke, his hand settling gently on Duo’s shoulder and the usual harsh edge in his voice gone. Duo’s face relaxed from fury to strong anger, and Quatre relaxed slightly.

 

“I do need you to do something for me, Duo,” Quatre said quickly. “I need you to get the notes for me from school.” Three pairs of incredulous eyes twitched towards the blonde, and Quatre’s eyes narrowed at Duo. “How many times have I done it for YOU? Besides, you haven’t been to school for what, three days now? You’ll get expelled at this rate.”

 

“And that’s such a problem,” Duo said blandly.

 

“DUO.” Quatre’s scarily serious face, commonly called his Business Face in his father’s circles, was firmly in place. “You owe me, and I’m making you do this. You have practically the same classes as me anyway, so there’s no excuse for not getting it done.”

 

“Fine,” Duo pouted, and quickly jumped out of his chair and curled onto the couch with a startled Wufei scrunched into the corner. Within a minute, he was asleep, snoring just loud enough to be annoying.

 

The silence wasn’t very long this time, the admiration blatant in Wufei’s voice. “That was quick thinking, Winner.”

 

Quatre’s smile was small. “Duo’s…protective.” He sighed, head slumping down onto Trowa’s bed. “And prone to revenge. And emotional. And impatient. And too loyal for his own good.” He laughed quietly. “But that’s what makes him Duo.”

 

x---x

 

“You know, I thought it’d be weirder coming back to school,” Duo said, a half-smile on his lips. But in the short time Heero’d known him, he had come to see past the smile, past the mask, and go straight for the eyes. And they were still seething with barely restrained rage.

 

“Relax,” Heero stated- advice he himself could have used. Regardless of the fact he’d graduated high school at eleven, the large brick building was daunting. Oh, not from the classes of course, from the students.

 

Heero found himself growling, and certainly didn’t mind when the flood of students edged just that bit further away from him and Duo. He was NOT a people person.

 

Duo snorted, throwing a glance over his shoulder. “Like you’re one to talk. You’re just itching for a flamethrower, aren’t you?”

 

“Cyanide, actually,” Heero bit out as they crossed the dreaded threshold and entered the horror of high school one more time. “Mix it in the cafeteria’s cookies- quick, efficient, and not too messy.”

 

Chuckling, Duo shook his head. “Seriously, how much time do you spend thinking about these things?” The crowd of students continued to part for them, whispers their shimmering red carpet of malice as they reached Duo’s neglected locker.

 

“I don’t think you want to know,” Heero said truthfully, and backed away as Duo easily undid the mundane boobytraps on the thin metal door.

 

“Didn’t that happen in an episode of Buffy, anyway?”

 

Heero frowned. “Hope not.”

 

“Why Dr. Yuy, did you just make a joke?” Duo jammed a few textbooks into Heero’s arms, his entire torso consumed by the locker. “Hmm…think that qualifies more as a quip. Maybe a jibe…AHA!” Duo victoriously held up a scratched-up notebook, the tattered remains of a black cover clinging feebly onto the cardboard cover.

 

Heero looked at him blandly.

 

“Whaaat? It’s for notes,” he retorted, hugging it defensively to his chest. Then, after a moment’s consideration, he gently placed the notebook on top of Heero’s pile of hardback tomes, grinning at him.

 

Heero just looked at him.

 

He wasn’t used to seeing Duo so…chipper. His passion and danger and raw emotion seemed to be lightly scraped under a glass mask of smiles, like Relena with her jam and bread at tea-parties, and he didn’t really know how to deal with this. Anger, confusion, wariness, defensiveness, even lust he (relatively) knew how to deal with. But these fake hints at the deeper, true emotions? It was like playing with unlabeled chemicals. Blindfolded.

 

Heero smirked. Sounded almost…fun.

 

At the menacing smirk, a wary smile gripped Duo’s lips. “Eh…Heero?” The smirk deepened. “Uh, don’t combust anyone who doesn’t deserve it, okay?”

 

The way Heero’s eyes were glinting didn’t help his nerves one bit.

 

And then Duo was up against the closed locker door, books flung aside and smashing into an unfortunate freshman and oh god Heero’s MOUTH was THERE and it was so delicious with the gentle, demanding movements of Heero’s atrociously perfect lips and such soft hair and pretty, pretty scientist and then his eyes slammed open when the pyromaniac’s tongue started teasing at his teeth-

 

Which was when Heero found himself on the tile floor, panting just as hard as Duo and completely ignoring the traffic jam their public display of affection had brought about. The gob-smacked crowd just gaped as Heero gathered the books from the hall, a satisfied smirk on his lips. Duo had his eyes closed, back still against the locker door as he tried to calm down.

 

When the crowd finally started moving again, Duo’s furious indigo glare almost made Heero apologize.

 

Almost.

 

“Come on,” Duo growled, grabbing Heero’s arm and practically jogging away from the scene of the crime. “We’ve got physics.”

 

x---x

 

“I don’t understand you.”

 

Quatre’s voice snapped Wufei’s concentration, and his head turned towards the bedside. Cool aqua eyes were sizing him up, weighing each individual part and trying to find a verdict on the whole.

 

Wufei glared at him. “You don’t need to.”

 

He smiled slightly, and shrugged. “That’s true. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to.” Quatre stretched his shoulders out, even though one hand always remained clasped with Trowa’s. “Like, for instance, why you’re here instead of with Duo and Heero. That seems kind of counterproductive to saving Duo’s life. At least, to me.”

 

“He asked me to stay,” Wufei replied, coal black eyes returning to the door. “It’s a way to start repaying my debt.”

 

Quatre’s head tilted to the side. “And if one of your comrades walks in and demands you return?”

 

Wufei snorted, head twitching back to the blonde. “I kill him, grab Barton and run.” His eyes returned, again, to the door. “And they’re not my comrades.”

 

The finality of the sentence didn’t escape Quatre. “You don’t mind betraying them, then?”

 

This time, their eyes clashed. “Every one of us has betrayed something.”

 

Quatre’s eyes had turned cold. “And your honor is worth that sacrifice to you?”

 

“It’s not honor,” Wufei snapped. “It’s justice. One action deserves an equal, one sacrifice deserves another.” With an aggravated growl, his head turned back to the door, hands clenched into fists. “Honor is something thought up by suicidal, prideful idiots that just get themselves killed.”

 

The silence was deafening.

 

Quatre hesitated, torn between the words and silence, but finally found his resolve.

 

“How long have you been infatuated with Duo?”

 

Wufei twitched.

 

“Go to sleep, Winner.” His voice was low and quiet. “I’ll wake you when they’re back.”

 

And eventually Quatre let himself fall asleep, Wufei’s glaring presence at the end of the room more comforting than he thought it should be.

 

x---x

 

Despite public opinion being the exact opposite, Duo Maxwell was, in fact, not having a good day.

 

First, it was physics. He’d been just fine with the stares and whispers brought on by Heero’s little “love spasm” that morning, since those were rather common when it came to a teenage ex-con with purple eyes and a braid the length of a bike, but of course dear Dr. Yuy had to correct the teacher. Five times. And all the while, he was Holding His Hand.

 

And then when they’d gone to Spanish, Heero had decided to finally shut up about his obviously advanced knowledge of every single thing in the known universe, and instead amused himself by trying to GROPE HIM for the entire hour and a half of class. It was only after Duo stood up in his chair and slammed Heero’s head into his desk that he stopped, and that had made Profesora Benson quite unhappy.

 

But of course in English, the one class Duo liked (and, coincidentally, the one class Heero hated), Heero Yuy had begun to draw, his Sadistic Smirk in full force as he tore through page after page of loose-leaf. When Duo had finally gathered up the courage to look, Heero had apparently been expecting it, and began to flip the pages in rapid succession to show a full-motion cartoon of Heero and Duo blowing up the school and then celebrating in rather inappropriate ways in the bottom right corner as the explosion morphed into the scarily realistic charred remains of the building.

 

The teacher hadn’t been too pleased when Duo had fallen over laughing, and then proceeded to get into a full-out fistfight over the bottom right corners of about 73 pages of paper.

 

Lunch had actually gone surprisingly well. Heero had been eerily silent, although that damn scary smirk of his STILL had yet to disappear as he ate lunch with sterling table manners, regardless of how long and hard and loud Duo ranted at him. It was only after he crossed into the “If-You-Talk-About-This-We-Die” area of Heero’s transgressions that Heero shut him up.

 

With his lips.

 

Which, of course, gained him another punch in the face and another degree of smugness to the smirk that made Duo just want to…to…KILL HIM, the smirking, sadistic, intelligent, downright EVIL bastard that made his life more of a living hell than it was even before that damn equation made his life add another bit of suckiness to itself.

 

Duo glared venom at the far-too-satisfied Heero. “I hate you.”

 

And Heero just smirked right back. “Poor baby,” he cooed back (which was just fucking CREEPY). “What can I do to help?”

 

“YOU DAMN WELL KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP, YOU FUCKING BASTARD,” Duo exploded, and the room went dead silent, aside from several pairs of rapidly shuffling feet hurrying towards the exit.

 

The smirk vanished, replaced by the usual Heero, albeit an eerily concerned-looking one, and Duo sagged in relief.

 

“Don’t do that EVER AGAIN,” Duo growled half-heartedly, his head gently thunking onto the tabletop. “It was fucking SCARY.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Heero said quietly, and if Duo hadn’t been used to how quiet he occasionally talked he would have missed it. But, he just waved the apology aside with his hand, shaking his head as he turned back towards the normal (THANK GOD) Heero to his left.

 

“Why were you DOING that, anyway?”

 

In response, Heero grabbed something from a pocket and put it on the table, head quickly turning away at Duo’s eyes. Duo looked over the tape recorder/player, confused.

 

“It’s something Noin gave me,” he said. “Use headphones if you’re going to listen to the whole thing.” With that, Heero simply stood up and left the room, glaring at the gawkers in the cafeteria.

 

Duo watched him go, eyes tracking the demolitions expert until he was out of the massive room. Frowning, he turned the volume of the tape player as low as he could, holding it against his ear as he pushed the play button.

 

“- andards, you see, though my manners…so-so.”

 

A pause. Laughter, and polite applause, and Duo’s face began to turn white as the far-too-familiar words continued on.

 

 “In dating there’s only a few things I must see:
Intelligence, Kindness, some kind of degree.
Well, okay, I admit, the last is th-”

 

He snapped it off, breath harsher than he’d expected. After all, it was only a poem, right? A poem…entirely about Heero…

 

Things started to make almost scary sense. The flirtation, the forwardness; hell, even the good table manners- all of it was mentioned in the damn poem.

 

And Heero had heard it.

 

“FUCK!” Duo screamed, and shoved the tape recorder into his battered backpack, ignoring his books and the remains of his lunch completely as he ran out the door after Heero.

 

x---x