OKAY! The official pairings for this fic (since I’ve finally committed to them) are (italics means past/ex relationship): 1x2x1, 3x4, 3xMidii, 5x2, 5x13, 5xSally, 5xMeiran (yes, ‘Fei gets around), 6x9, 13x11, 1+Relena, and others, but these are the big(ish) ones. Yeah, if you can’t tell, we’re barely into the story, and there’s no end in sight…(blush). Also, WAY in advance, I officially ask for help from Sally Po fans. I have a bit o’ trouble with getting in her brain, so…yeah.

 

Warnings: Dark-ish (Heero DID get blown up, after all), and 3x4 KISS! OH the joy! Well, it’s kind of 4+3, but hey. Still good. Also, More Profanity than Normal (‘Fei is such a potty mouth...), Sleepy OOC. Length, too; just one long, long chapter.

 

Prodigy

 

Chapter 7

 

Affirmation

 

x---x

 

Fire licked hungrily at the walls, reflecting in Agent Wufei Chang’s wide, angry black eyes. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. The idiots had screwed them all, and he was stuck with-

 

Something rammed him to the tiled floor, and instinctively Wufei turned to land on his back. Violent purple eyes burned at him, and a knife was pressed to his throat.

 

“What the FUCK is going on?!”

 

With a roar, Wufei threw the other boy off him, but the other boy just rammed him into the smoldering wall. The flames teased his skin and clothes, random flickers of searing pain. “ANSWER ME! I know you know something!”

 

He glared at the barely-visible hand pressing the side of his face against the wall. “We can either kill each other, or try to save Yuy,” he growled, and the other boy froze.

 

“Heero.”

 

Training took over and Wufei took advantage of the boy’s shock. Growling, he shoved himself backwards with an incredible amount of force, effectively slamming the braided boy’s back into the opposite wall, only to have a hand grab his tight black ponytail and yank him right next to his opponent. Those same angry purple eyes smoldered at him. 

 

Blackness descended as something hard and very, very forceful smashed itself against his head.

 

x---x   

 

As soon as he’d knocked Wufei out, Duo’s brain switched gears. Heero was in trouble, possibly burning alive, and it was the spy’s fault. Spies had information, so it’d be a good idea to keep him around. But what was more important, the information from a spy who’d just tried to kill him, or the life of a genius who actually might give a shit?

 

Duo snorted. Yeah, that decision took all of four milliseconds. He barely watched Wufei fall to the floor as he took off running into the flames. 

 

After what seemed to be an eternity of running, his feet stopped as he stumbled upon his quarry. “Heero…”

 

The scientist sat against a blank, fireless wall that was actually a considerable distance away from his lab, black ash and smoke clinging to him. Blue eyes glanced back at him, barely noticing his existence as they faded in and out of dark coherency. He blinked, confused, as he whispered “…Duo?”

 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Duo said quickly, not letting himself worry about Heero just yet. The remaining few feet were eaten by a purposeful, quick stride. “Can you stand up on your own?”

 

Heero blinked, and before he could begin to speak began to cough hard, deep coughs that seemed close to dry heaves. Duo, under any other circumstances, would have laughed. That was definitely a no.

 

“Come on, Heero,” Duo tried to coax, grabbing both of the other boy’s arms and hoisting him up onto his feet. The coughing intensified, sending a sliver into the student’s heart. This was bad. “Come on, buddy, we gotta make it out of here.” Close to carrying him, Duo managed to act as a human crutch while also holding Heero upright, thanking whatever divine power listening that they were nearly the same size.

 

But, after four more steps, Heero collapsed, kneeling on the floor through another coughing fit. Before Duo could pull him up again, Heero managed to grab the other boy’s arm, effectively bringing Duo down with it. Hazy, confused blue eyes blinked into violet. “Relena. T-” he was cut off by another coughing fit. “T-tell Relena. Du…Duo…” Eyes rolling into the back of his head, Heero Yuy fell the rest of the way down to the floor.

 

“FUCK,” Duo yelled out, and grabbed Heero by the waist, pulling him towards Wufei and the nearest exit as fast as he could. The fire screamed at his already-sooty ears as he dragged the scientist through the burning halls of Saparta Laboratories.

 

Time stretched on, and his strength seemed to slowly seep out into the hungry flames. Duo coughed. “It’s your fault, you know,” he muttered to the unconscious burden in his arms. “I coulda been at my apartment, or at Quat’s, or somewhere with Hilde, or just sitting around- I haven’t gotten to do that for a while, thanks to you, you bastard-but nooo, I have to go be smart for a half hour and get caught up in all this shit.” He shuffled through a burning doorframe, yanking Heero through along with him. Another cough. How far had he run, anyway? “All you do is get me into trouble. Hell, I have plenty of it without you bringing even more crap into my life.” And another cough, this one harder. “And what is this thing of yours with the pink bitch?” He hoisted them both over some fallen wreckage. There were screams in the distance. Duo chuckled. “You really shouldn’t be worth this.”

 

Heero coughed. Another burning doorframe.

 

Duo’s eyes fluttered. God it was hot, and Heero weighed more than anything else he’d ever carried. “You alive?” How long had he been doing this? And where the hell was the fire department?!

 

More coughing. “D…uo…”

 

Somehow he’d ended up on his knees. When had that happened? Heero’s arms twisted around, one dropping onto the crackling linoleum and another barely touching Duo’s side, whispering across it. Blurry, half-conscious blue eyes met violet and a morbid smirk. “Hey.” Duo’s voice was broken by some more coughing. “Always thought I’d-” more coughing “-die doing something cooler.”

 

Heero’s eyes fluttered, mid-faint. “Got to…move,” he whispered hoarsely. “…close.” More hacking coughs erupted from the scientist’s tortured throat, but Heero began to try and push himself up off the floor, using Duo as a support. Finally, Duo managed to stagger onto his feet, leaning as heavily on Heero as Heero was leaning on him.

 

Duo began to talk again, trying to make sure they remained conscious long enough to make it to Wufei and out the door. “I don’t like fire,” Duo’s voice grated over the flames. Another few steps. “It burns things.”

 

A small, feeble smile appeared on Heero’s face. “Like us.”

 

Duo normally would have burst out laughing, even just from the fact Heero actually had a sense of humor, but he decided to half another hacking fit.

 

By now, they were more squatting-walking than actually walking. The smoke seemed to stick to the ceiling like coffee-flavored gum on the bottom of a desk. Their shoulders and arms were wrapped around each other as close to crawled along the floor. When Duo wasn’t coughing, he was rasping out anything and everything that came to mind. And when Duo was coughing, Heero was talking.

 

For what seemed like months, the two scuttled their way through the fiery hall, until they made it to right where Duo had left Wufei crumpled on the floor.

 

The white-clad boy- or, at least his clothes had been white; now they were more of a gray- was still unconscious, and Duo didn’t know if he should be happy or angry with that. “We gotta drag him out,” he croaked. A miniscule nod came from Heero’s ashy head, and the two released each other.

 

Heero crumpled onto the floor the moment he lost contact. “SHIT!” Damn it! His throat hurt, he just wanted to lie down and sleep, and now he had to carry TWO unconscious idiots to his car. Hell, at least the door was only about six feet away…

 

Duo grabbed Wufei first, and deciding that he needed a door prop more than anything else leaned him onto the door. It opened, and Duo took in a deep breath-only to gasp, choke, and cough some more. He didn’t have time for anything else, so he grabbed Heero by the wrist and yanked him out the door too.

 

Not letting go of the injured scientist’s strangely coarse wrists, he somehow managed to pull him all the way to his car (another 40 feet from the door) and quickly maneuver him into the back seat- only to do a double take at the arm lying limply out the door, hanging mid-air.

 

In the late afternoon sun, Duo could make out the telltale white ridges on Heero’s wrist, which followed his veins nearly exactly.

 

Duo shook his head angrily. He didn’t have the time to examine cut marks! Practically throwing himself into the driver’s seat, Duo drove up onto the cement path he’d left Wufei lying on, and threw him into the other side of the back seat. After buckling his seatbelt with shaking hands, the student tore off towards the only secure place he could think of.

 

x---x

 

“…Hello, Wufei,” a voice came through the darkness, and his eyelids rose at a snail’s pace- a drunk snail that kept going in reverse, apparently. His eyes were snapped open when the voice came again. “Chang. Wake up.” Wufei’s eyes opened obediently.

 

First thing he noticed was the boy with the braid straddling a chair right in front of him, malicious purple eyes staring straight into his soul and passing judgment. Second thing he noticed were the ropes tying him to a chair, which was also tied to the refrigerator door in a tiny studio apartment. Wufei looked back at the boy in front of him, trying his best to glare through the throbbing pain in his head (the third thing he noticed). “What?”

 

A grin appeared on the boy’s face. “You’re gonna pay for what you did to Yuy.”

 

Wufei blinked. “I didn’t do it.”

 

“Don’t think denial will get you out of anything, you bastard. You tried to burn him alive!”

 

He snarled. “I didn’t DO IT!”

 

Purple eyes rolled, and for the first time Wufei realized this was just a kid. Possibly an exploitable kid. “Right, and if you didn’t do it, who did?”

 

The agent snorted. “I’m more afraid of them than you by a long shot.” He immediately regretted the words when a violent, malicious glint appeared in indigo eyes. A knife appeared out of nowhere, and red flew everywhere.

 

“FUCK! YOU FUCKING CUT MY EAR OFF, YOU BA-” Wufei cut himself off when he realized the other man was laughing so hard tears were falling. The black-eyed boy’s head whipped to the side, and he cursed again.

 

The knife had flown towards him, and landed just a centimeter from his left ear, ripping a good hole in the refrigerator door- and the ketchup bottle behind it. Fucking KETCHUP.

 

Wufei decided then and there, he did NOT like whoever this bastard was. The intimidation had worked, goddamn it, and in the process he ended up looking like a coward.

 

But, before he could inform the idiot, he found himself (or, the door he was attached to, at least) turned 90 degrees…and staring straight at the form of Heero Yuy, PhD, near comatose in the double bed jammed in the corner.

 

And just as quickly, he was back in the same position, staring back at the same annoyance as before. The only difference was a nondescript can clutched in his hand. “So. Now that you’ve made a complete ass of yourself, tell me who did this, if it wasn’t you.”

 

Wufei glared, but responded. “I don’t know, other than it’s a she, and as far as I know not affiliated with me,” he stated coolly, trying to annoy the man into attacking. But, truth be told, the agent really DIDN’T know much about the other agent. It was a safety precaution, should anything bad happen. His glare intensified. One example of “bad” would be ending up like this.

 

A lesser man would have snarled. Instead, Wufei made a mental note to kick his own ass when he was free.

 

The other man sighed melodramatically. “Well then. I guess there’s no point in keeping you alive.” Wufei smirked.

 

“Oh, right, so that’s why I’m tied to a refrigerator door for a full-term stay.” Violet eyes twitched.

 

“Don’t make me more pissed than I already am. You won’t like what happens.”

 

Wufei sneered. “I do what I want!” A whisper in the back of his head screaming “YOU IDIOT!” was the only warning the spy had before a fist collided with his head one more time.

 

Wufei was knocked out. Again.

 

x---x

 

“Want to go get ice cream?”

 

Quatre nearly jumped out of his skin, one hand reaching out to grab the intruder’s arm in a death grip while the other flew to his shoulder holster…and then he realized it was Trowa. Forcing a laugh, Quatre turned back to his boyfriend, blushing and praying Trowa hadn’t noticed. But, from the amused glint in those emerald eyes, he’d noticed.

 

His forced laugh turned to an uneasy chuckle. “Training,” he explained. Trowa nodded, more than accepting of the answer.

 

“I’ll be careful, then,” he said, serious. Quatre smiled up at him. Somehow, Trowa seemed to understand everything about him without batting an eyelash. Quatre grabbed the other boy’s hand, entwining it with his own. In turn, Trowa gave him a quiet smile. “So, do you want to get ice cream?” Aqua eyes glanced down at his watch. School would be over in twenty minutes or so, and it wasn’t like he’d be missed from study hall, so Quatre smiled and nodded. Trowa smiled. “Great.”

 

They clambered into Trowa’s trusty sedan, and took off at a safe but above-average speed. “So how much training do you have,” the green-eyed boy asked, and Quatre blinked, wary.

 

“Enough, I guess…why?” Trowa shrugged.

 

“It just seems like everyone has their secrets, is all,” he said. In anyone else, Quatre would have though it was just simple thinking aloud. But, in even the small amount of time they’d known each other, the blonde had learned that Trowa Barton NEVER said anything he didn’t think needed to be said. From small talk to science (Quatre was interested in psychology, while Trowa was an up-and-coming zoology student).

 

But, before Quatre could ask what the comment had been about, Trowa had pulled up to a small stand- practically a shack, really- next door to a sunny park. There were sirens in the distance, but there were always sirens around when you lived in a college town.

 

“What’s your flavor, dearie?” A gentle middle-aged woman was smiling down at him expectantly. Honestly, Quatre couldn’t even remember getting out of the car he’d been that out of it.

 

“Oh, um, strawberry, please,” he finally said, shaking himself out of the mental stupors that seemed to jump on him randomly. The woman scooped a less-than-healthy helping into a cone and handed it to the heir.

 

“Oregon blackberry,” Trowa said calmly, but the woman had already scooped him the cone of pink-purple ice cream, handing it to him with a teasing smile. “Thank you.” She beamed at him.

 

“You’re always more than welcome, Trowa. I’ll put both of them on your tab.” Another two slash marks went on an already surprisingly full piece of paper, “BARTON/BLOOM” written neatly on the top.

 

They found their way to a comfortable bench easy enough. The weather had warmed up considerably since that morning, and a pleasantly cool breeze seemed to whisper through the cracks in the wooden bench.

 

“What I meant was that everyone’s so fond of hiding the truth,” Trowa explained, shocking Quatre into thinking telepathy wasn’t that unbelievable. “Duo, Heero, you, me; we all do it without even thinking. And it’ll probably end up hurting us.” Quatre nodded.

 

“Lies do that. It’s one of the reasons Duo and I try to tell as much of the truth as possible,” Quatre agreed, and started on his ice cream just as Trowa did on his own. The blonde frowned. “What is that ice cream, anyway?”

 

Shocked green eyes met his own mid-lick, Trowa’s nose getting a dollop of dessert on it. “You’ve never had Oregon blackberry?” Quatre shook his head, and the cone was immediately thrust into his face. “Eat. NOW. Or you’ll be missing out on one of the best things in life.”

 

Quatre grinned, and quickly leaned forward to lick a bit of the renowned ice cream off Trowa’s nose. When that was done, a blushless Quatre took the offered ice cream cone, biting half of it off and chewing happily. “Mmm, that’s good.”

 

Meanwhile, Trowa was redder than the approaching sunset. “What part?”

 

A falsely pensive look appeared on Quatre. First, he checked the flavor of the remaining ice cream with a good lick. After a “Hmm…” of decision, Quatre leaned over again and gave Trowa a quick kiss on the lips. Another “Hmm…” followed, giving Trowa time to turn ever redder, and Quatre shrugged, looking a tinge embarrassed.

 

“I’d say it’s mostly you. This ice cream’s horrible…”

 

They stared at each other, letting the remaining ice cream melt without a second’s thought.

 

“You insulted my ice cream.”

 

“I thought you’d be-”

 

Quatre was cut off by the hum of his cell phone. His EMERGENCY cell phone. He was up off the bench and on his phone in a heartbeat.

 

“Duo? What’s wrong?”

 

The voice on the other line sounded haggard, tired- not the usual Duo Maxwell, for certain. “Ugh…you and Tro up for some babysitting? One’s in a coma and the other’s getting beaten unconscious every time he wakes up.” A yawn. “And after dragging these bastards through fires and shit, I deserve a nap.”

 

Quatre grabbed Trowa’s hand, and began to pull them back towards the car. “We’ll be there soon.” They climbed in, and Duo yawned again.

 

“Thanks, Q. See you soon and all that shit.” Duo’s phone hung up, and Quatre’s followed suit.

 

x---x