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Never Too Late	By : Ardra Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male > Heero/Duo Views: 911 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own GW or any characters, names or all that jazz. I so wish that I did, though. No profit is made from this story. Not a penny.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Aithor's note: I don't want to leave all of you high and dry so here's the second chapter. I hope you enjoy the re-write.

Five years passed for the rest of the world. After the dissapearance of their fellow pilot and friend, Duo, the other pilots had become very close to eachother. Every Friday, Quatra and Trowa had the other two, and sometimes Zechs, over for dinner, a movie, and maybe a bit of remanicing over what they missed most about eachother or going over problems that they have because of the wars. They'd become more of a family now than they had ever been before. Wufei once told them that he thought their getting closer was because the missing pilot wasn't around to do anything to them. They didn't have to be on the offensive or defensive all the time and they could just be themselves. This line of thinking often got the others mad at him so he didn't voice it often to them. Even with his words as harsh as they were, the other three knew the truth behind the facade the Chinese male was putting up. Deep down, Wufei knew as well but he would never admit it to anyone out loud. All of them missed their missing friend. Of all the people they had all collectively lost during the war, Duo was the one that effected them the most. Inside, they knew that they weren't getting closer because Duo wasn't around to annoy them but rather they were getting closer because they were afraid one of the others would dissapear as well.
The four of them that were left had joined the Preventers at different times. They all had their reasons for joining and leaving their previous jobs. Heero quit bodygaurding for Relena because he could no longer take the fact that she kept trying to force herself on him. The last straw was when he went to the control room where he kept an eye on the security cameras and found her naked on the consule. Needless to say, he was not impressed and was very angry that she soiled his instraments so he stormed out of the mansion and never returned. Trowa joined the team after realizing that the circus life wasn't keeping him as active and entertained as it should. Quatra joined to get away from his many sisters. He once said something about all their clocks being synctronized. This made Qufei and Trowa laugh but Heero didn't get it. He didn't understand how clocks weren't syncronized and how having them as such was a bad thing.
Today was a very important day. Well, important to everyone in the organization except one. It was Heero Yuy's twenty-first birthday and the party was in full swing in the debriefing room. Agents were all over the place, talking and having their own versions of fun while still making sure to stay within the rules of the organization. Talking, joking and laughing with eachother. Everyone was enjoying themselves save for the man of honor, who was standing off to the side, watching said festivities. He hated gatherings of large numbers of people. It always set his nerves on edge and he didn't like it when he felt like the walls were closing in around him or anything like that. His persian blue eyes scanned the area, hoping to find a less crowded place but there wasn't one. He tensed when Trowa slid up next to him, arms folded over the taller male's chest.
"Congradulations, Heero." Trowa said, smirking knowingly at the uncomfortable young man.
"Hn."
Trowa chuckled, "Why did you choose this day to be your birthday?"
"What?"
"You heard me." Trowa said, rolling his eyes.
Heero was silent at first, seeming to be thinking over his response before he sighed, "This is the day I first met Duo."
Trowa stood up straighter at the mention of their friend's name and looked to Heero, watching him closely, his expression clearly asking the other to elaborate on what was just spoken. Heero glanced at him, hoping he would drop the topic but that wasn't going to happen so he let out a rather frustrated sigh.
"On this day, I first met Duo on the warf where he shot me in the leg because I was going to kill Relena."
"I see. You know, some would confuse that as the day you met Relena."
"Che. Never. I prefer not to remember that I had met her on the same day. I wish I had never met her in the first place." Heero growled, his jaw clenched as memories of his treatment when it came to taking care of Relena came back to him.
"Well, I have better news than to just come over here and bust your balls." Trowa said, looking across the room at something or someone.
"Oh?" Heero asked softly, looking to him then followed his gaze to where Quatra was talking to some of the other agents in the corner.
"I'm going to ask Quatra to marry me."
Heero's head swiveled around to him quickly, looking at him with slightly wide eyes before he smirked knowingly at him, "It's about time you two did something about your relationship. It's only been five years after all."
"Shut up, Yuy."
Heero chuckled before he suddenly stopped and stood up straighter, "Oh, great. Here comes Une."
Looking to the left, Trowa spotted her making her way to them and straightened up as well. Une made her way through the compact of people until she made it to the two and stopped, a rare gentle look on her face.
"Enjoying your birthday party, Yuy?" she asked, an almost wicked smile on her face as she knew that Heero hated parties and social gatherings more than anything else in the world.
A soft glare came from the Japanese male, which only got a small chuckle from the leader of the organization, "What do you want, Une?"
"Sorry to have to mix business with the party buy I have a mission I need the five of you to undertake."
"Explain." Heero said, looking more interested now.
Heero hated parties, especially if they were parties that were just for him. He didn't like the spotlight or being the center of attention. He would've rathered his birthday went by without anyone but the other pilots saying anything about it. The fact that Une had a mission that she needed them to take was like a God send to Heero. A chance to get away from the party and do something he would actually like to do but Une only chuckled at him.
"Tomorrow, Yuy. I will tell all of you everything tomorrow."
"Then what was the point in telling us that you even had a mission in the first place, then?"
"To tease you. See you and the other pilots tomorrow." Une said as she turned quickly and managed to somehow dissapear into the crowd of people.
"Remind me again why we didn't kill her in the war..." Heero grumbled sourly.
"Che. Like we could get that close to her. Relax. Enjoy the party." Trowa said before he walked off, heading to where Quatra was laughing as he talked with Sally Po.

Outside the door to the briefing room, the remaining five pilots stood, each one wondering who was going to be the brave soul who knocked on the door. They'd heard around that Une wasn't in a good mood today and that something had gone wrong on another mission that another team performed but none of them were sure what had gone wrong or how it was going to effect their own briefing. Quatra looked around at the others but knew that it was going to be him that breaks the little stupor they were in. He reached out and gently rapped his knuckles on the large oak door. The silence that followed the last vibration of those little taps were almost deafening. Each of them wanted nothing more than to run back to their desks, claim that they had forgotten completely about the mission pending but they staied in their place for different reasons.
Quatra wasn't as scared of Lady Une as everyone else was, so he was a given for staying. Trowa wasn't scared of her either, mostly because he was the only one that could probably out run her or tune out anything she could scream at him, it would also help that he belongs to Quatra, and is considered untouchable by everyone in the organization. Wufei's pride refussed to let him run away from a woman like a little child, so he stood there, shoulders squared, his face set, ready to face the devil woman head on. Heero, on the other hand, staied where he was because he knew that if Duo ever saw him running away from someone like Une, he would never hear the end of it. He would have to endure days apon days of torture on how The Perfect Soldier was afraid of a woman half his height, half as skilled as him, and probably lived through less things in her life than Heero does on a day to day basis. He refussed to let reality tell him that Duo wasn't around to mock him so he could run away if he wanted to. Zechs wasn't scared, he just didn't want to be the one yelled at today.
"Come in!" the voice called on the other side of the door, making Heero's blood run cold, she already sounded pissed.
Quatra opened the door and lead the way in. Heero was able to see Wufei's complexion pale a few shades as he moved into the office himself and wanted to smile. After his and Sally's relationship ended a little badly, he's always been tense, watchful in case Lady Une decided to take it apon herself and revenge Sally, for some odd reason. The others could never convince Wufei that since Sally was the one that ended the realtionship, that there was no reason for anyone to try and get back at him, also it'd been about three years since they'd broken up.
The five of them stood before the large desk that the brunette woman sat behind, her reading glasses slipping from her nose a little, making Heero, Wufei, and even Trowa tense at the sight. Neither of them would ever forget the Lady when she wore those glasses during the war, so hateful and evil. That part of her only ever seems to come out when something goes terribly wrong and she ends up having to put her own face in the papers to cover it up. She wasn't much for reporters.
"You wanted to see us, Ma'am." Quatra said, not at all phased by the glasses, but then again, he didn't have too many bad experiences with them when Une was their enemy.
She lifted her dark eyes to them and removed her round glasses. She gently folded the arms and set the aside on the desk, "Yes, I did. I need my best agents on this operation, which would be the five of you."
The two asian boys and Torwa almost visibly relaxed where they stood. She wasn't going to kill them herself. No, she was just going to send them on a suicide mission for the next life time.
They could always handle suicide mission much better than they could ever handle Lady Une. Especially when she was on her 'monthly red demon', as Duo would've put it. Heero almost missed that Une started to talk to them again. Pulling his thoughts from Duo for the second time in the morning and focused on what his supperior was going to say to him.
"I have been recieving intell about an organization that I have been trying to squash for almost five years now. We believe they have been trying to get a political faction into the ESUN." Une explained, sliding a folder full of paper to the five of them.
Zechs grabbed the folder and flipped it open, looking at the first page, "Do you think they have been successful?"
The door opened and another man walked in. He was in plain clothes of a t-shirt and jeans, his head was slightly balding, the rest of it was salt and peppered. Crow's feet deepened his eyes but he still looked more cocky than wise with this feature.
"Sorry I'm late, ma'am. I didn't get the memo that the time of the hearing had been changed." the man said.
Heero had to supress a groan of frustration at the sight of the man. His name was Harry Wormwood, and he was the biggest asshole Heero had ever met in his life. He believed he was better than everyone in the organization, even the pilots. His biggest boast was how he shot down the Gundam Deathscythe during the war. He liked to believe that he was the reason that Duo Maxwell went missing five years ago, that the ex-pilot was afraid of him and what he could do. This kind of thinking always gave the other pilots and itch to just punch the man as he knew nothing of the man he was trying to judge.
"Good thing you arrived, Wormwood. We were continueing the briefing without you. You can ask your other team mates later what you missed. I am in no mood to repeat myself today. As I was saying, as far as we know, they haven't gotten anyone in. We believe that Relena has been doing a decent enough job on keeping them at bay in ESUN."
"So you need all of us to play scanner to a bunch of incoming deligates for the upcoming Senator's elections?" Quatra asked, taking the file from Zechs and flipping through it himself.
"No. The commander believes they are doing something more sinister." Zechs said, looking at Une as she thread her fingers together and rested her chin on them.
"We have recently captured one of their operatives and have recieved some alarming information. Somehow, it is unclear as to how, this faction has gotten their hands on lay outs for the colony L2, and blueprints on how to build a new line of Mobile Suits. Gloating, the operative even claimed they have a Gundam somewhere."
All five of the pilots looked up at her, Quatra having the most expressive look on his face of pure shock and terror, "A Gundam? A real Gundam? Where would they get plans to build one? The only plans for such a project were destroyed when we self-detonated all our suits, and how would they get that much Gundanium Alloy without someone noticing and alerting us sooner?"
"That's what has me worried so much about this thing. We weren't able to get too much information out of the operative that we had captured before he bit through his own tongue and killed himself in interogation. We haven't been able to get any news on their boss other than the operative refered to him as 'The Lord'. We don't know anything else but that, not what his real name is, what he looks like, nothing.
"Where do we start, then?" Wufei asked, taking the file from Trowa and leafing through it.
"The man was able to tell us of a building near by that the faction owned and used as their main base for this city. Apparently, they have bases all over the Earth Sphere and the several dozen colonies." Une explained as Wufei read about the building and studied the pictures that were on a few pages into the file.
"Are we sure this trail isn't false?" Wormwood asked, snatching the file when Wufei tried to hand it to Heero.
the Japanese male glared at the other man before turning his attention back to Une, "As sure as we can be. He wouldn't tell of where they got the plans, who's building it, where they were or anything. there have been no massive charges for the metal in seven years. the last was an order that Heero had placed to rebuild Wing Zero. Since then we've monitors all the purchasing and selling of Gundanium anywhere in the world and on the Black Market. No one has ever order more than a few pounts and the biggest shipment since the end of the wars was seven pounds to a shuttle company that were testing the prototype of a new Shuttle model."
"Objective?" Heero asked, snatching the file from Wormwood so he could finally look through it.
"This will be a two part mission. The six of you are to go under cover and infultrate the ranks there. I want the building cased. I want a complete and extensive lay out and I want the place watched like a hawk for a month before we go in. I want everything that you can think of doing, I want you all to be sure that it is done. Got it?" Une asked, her tone sharp and clip.
"Yes, ma'am." all of them chorused in an almost militaristic fashion.
"Dismissed. And, Yuy, if I find out you have been fighting or unintentually sabatoging the mission, you will be on training duty for a month."
Heero swallowed hard, glancing at a smug looking Wormwood as he left the room, once the others were gone and it was just him and the Lady, he turned to her, "Ma'am, no disrespect but you know how I feel about that Wormwood asshole. How he talks about himself and about Duo."
"Duo Maxwell took himself out of the picture, Agent Light. He decided to leave and take a life of his own somewhere else. Maybe it's about time that you stop waiting for him and let people have their own opinions." Une said, leaning back in her chair.
"I can't."
"You can. You just don't want to because of your feelings towards him."
Heero's stomach dropped at her words and his throat tightened up. How did she know about his feelings for the missing ex-Deathscythe pilot? Only Quatra, Trowa and Wufei knew about that and none of them would tell someone else to where it could get back to Une. He'd been in love with the missing man since the end of the first war and that wasn't information he wanted just anyone knowing about, "Ma'am."
"Let him go. Move on. Live your life. There are more than enough women and men in the world that you could choose from. I admire your diligince for your work, but sometimes you get yourself riled up too much for someone who probably doesn't even want to see you again. He dissapeared from everyone's life without so much as a good bye or a P.O. box."
Heero's jaw clenched in frustration, so many emotions running through him in such a short amount of time. He could feel the anxiety building up inside of him, the need to run tugging at his heels and he was almost tempted to let the urge take him. He relaxed his hands, not realizing he had clenched them and now had four crecent shapped, angry indents in his palm. He forced himself to swallow air and shook his head, turning so his back was to his commanding officer, "No one would ever be him. Just like no one would be Trieze for you."
With that, Heero turned and allowed his fight or flight instincts take over. He left the room quickly, the door closing soundlessly behind him. He strode with almost determined steps back to his office that he shared with the other three pilots. In there, the three were already there and looked at him. Immediately, Quatra seemed to know what was on his mind and gave him a sympathetic look. Trowa glanced to his lover then back to Heero, that one glance told him everything he needed to know about Heero's current state of mind. With a soft sigh, the taller male stood, walked over to Heero's desk and went through one of the drawers.
"Don't."
Trowa stopped his movements and looked up at Heero, his face emotionless as he gripped an orange pill bottle with a white cap, "Don't argue, Yuy."
"I don't need one." Heero growled, stomping over and snatching the bottle from his friend.
The green eyed man looked down at his hand that was now empty then at Heero again. He studied his face as the pill bottle was replaced into the drawer. Heero was always like this when something was brought up about Duo and he didn't know how to deal with it. It's been this way for five years but he still tried to fight when he needed to take his medication. He was on a few medications that were to help him through some disorders he picked up from his life as the Perfect Soldier but the fact that he still tried not to take them meant that he wasn't getting any better and he was trying to deny that there was something wrong with him. It was a bad idea to have something like this going through Heero's head after the last time someone made him this upset.
"01, do not argue with me. Take a pill or I will stuff it down your throat."
Ex-Wing pilot's jaw clenched, his glare in full force as he stared down the taller male but it wasn't going to work. Trowa didn't ever back down and it didn't look like he was going to do it now either. Trowa was always very forceful when it came to Heero's treatments, almost the same way that a mother would be with her sick petulant child. It was useless to fight, but Heero always tried and failed. Grunting softly, he went back into the drawer and withdrew the bottle. twisting the cap, it popped open and he poured a single, innocent looking pink pill into his palm. Quatra appeared at his side, holding out a bottle of cold water. Nodding in thanks, Heero popped the pill and downed half the bottle of water.
"Why do you still fight me, Heero?" Trowa asked, taking the bottle from the Japanese male.
"Because if I don't, I might become dependant on these pills and I don't want that. I'm not a junkie."
"It's not abusing drugs if you actually need them, Heero. We have told you this many times." Quatra said, a frown on his innocent face.
Heero said nothing as he put the pill bottle back into the drawer and closed it soundly. The blond looked to Trowa worriedly as Heero sat in his chair, pulling papers to him to get started on planning the next few weeks. Shaking his head, the brunette motioned Quatra away from Heero so he could get to work like he wanted to. He hesitated for a second only to join Trowa's side across the room where they had their desks set up beside the other.
"So how are we doing this?" Wufei asked, walking away from the copy machine that he had been using to make duplicates of the file Une had given to them then handed each of them a copy of the file.
"We need a couple of us to infultrate the building as new recruits." Heero muttered as he flipped his file open to the political plans that were so old, he didn't bother to finish reading them. He flipped the page again to a picture of an eight story tall building sandwiched between two equally tall buildings. The face of it was suppose to be painted dusty blue, but the paint was peeling and coming off the red bricks that lay under the paint. This made it look more run down than the other two buildings. It didn't really look like a building a bunch of people looking to start a new war would have their headquarters in.
"Starting without me? Thinkin' you can get one up on me. Well, I'm already three steps ahead of you all." came a voice that made Heero snap the pencil that was in his free hand.
Wormwood walked in, his posture as cocky as ever, giving all of them a smirk that told all of them that he thought he was the most important person who had ever graced this office. Wufei rolled his eyes, handing the older man a file of his own, only to have Wormwood toss it aside like it was unimportant to him. Quatra glanced to his lover then sighed softly as he walked around his desk and perched himself on the edge of the corner.
"What do you mean, Wormwood?" Trowa asked calmly, his face not betraying the annoyance and anger he was feeling as he wasn't a big fan of this man either but he was the organization's top ten agents so Trowa put up with him.
"I alread know how to infultrate the building and I just need three of you to do it."
"And you were put in charge of this mission, when?" Heero growled softly, glaring daggers at Wormwood as Zechs entered the room.
"I've done these things for a very long time. Maybe even before any of you were born. I know what I'm doing. You don't seem to have a clue." Wormwood said, motioning to the copied file that Wufei gave to Zechs.
Zechs gave Wormwood a sideways glare before he sat in a spare chair, flipping through the file himself. Quatra slid off the desk, his left hand gripping the edge almost hard enough to turn his knuckles white as he took a calming breath.
"Harry, we're meant to work together on this mission. There is no one person in charge. Even if there was, it would have to be voted on."
"Che. All you pansies would vote for the one you think would hurt ya if ya didn't." Wormwood sneered, looking pointedly at Heero.
"Yuy would never intentionally attack us. Your argument is invalid." Wufei said, gently lowering himself into the chair behind his desk.
Heero felt a swell of pride in his chest that he was being defended and not made out to be a bad guy as the last time he ever physically harmed one of the others, he wasn't in his right mind. He'd been trying to deny that he had a anxiety problem so he refused to seek help until one attack had him punching Quatra in the gut just because he'd touched him. That was something he never wanted to see happen again. No one deserved his retaliation when he was in a bad space. He felt even better when Wormwood turned his glare onto Wufei, who just looked at him boredly.
"As I was saying, we need a couple of people to ge into the organization as new recruits." Heero said, making his self busy by twirling a pencil between his fingers and reading the words on the printed papers before him.
"Trowa should be one of them." Quatra pipped up, looking to his lover.
"Why?" Wormwood asked, frowning deeply at the blond.
"Because Barton is the best of any of us in infultrating organizations. He can slip in, gather information and sabotage the place before anyone ever realizes who he is." Wufei said, nodding his head to Quatra, showing that he agreed with what he had said.
Wormwood was about to open his mouth when Zechs cut him off, "What about you, Wufei? You're almost as good if you were willing to wear one of those face masks."
"Augh. I'm alergic to the adhesive that they use on those things. I wont need a mask, my face will swell like a damn party balloon." Wufei grumbled, shaking his head.
The allergy to the adhesive would cause blothes on the skin that would quickly give way to becoming small patches of hives where it was touched. Extreamly bothersome and itchy. Truthfully, Heero liked it when Wufei got one of the masks done because it was always a riot to see how he would try to scratch the itchy patches of skin without 'seeming too weak to take a few itchy patches'. Once again, it would be his ego getting in the way of his life.
Zechs chuckled softly, "Just a suggestion. You could always use Benadril for it."
"He hates it. Says it tastes like ass." Heero chuckled as Wufei turned his glare onto him.
"That is not what I said, Yuy! I said ass would probably taste better!"
Quatra blushed and covered his mouth with his hand, trying not to laugh as Zechs burst into boacious laughter, holding his sides as Heero smirked triumphantly at the now crimson and sputtering Chinese boy.
"T-that's not w-what I meant! Nataku, you all need to get your mind out of the gutter!" Wufei snapped, which only made Quatra burst into laughter and Zechs wipe tears from his eyes.
Trowa gave a small smile as Heero continued to grin like a madman. The only one who didn't seem to be enjoying torturing the ex-Shenlong pilot was Wormwood, who was scowling at all of them.
"We have less than a week to plan this and you fags want to swap escapades?" He growled, sufficiently killing the laughter.
"What did you just call us?" Quatra demanded, any kindness in his voice was gone. He hated that word with a passion and made it his personal mission to beat the shit out of anyone who used it. Especially if they used it to describe his lover or friends.
Trowa glared at Wormwood, placing a comforting and calming hand on Quatra's shoulder, "We all would appreciate it if you did not use that word or any phrase that is derogative to homosexuals."
"I'll say what the fuck I want." Wormwood said cockily.
Showing why he was called the Lightening Count, Zechs moved in a blur, snatching Wormwood by his colar and pressed him hard against the wall, his usual silver/blue eyes now dark and stormy with anger, "The fuck you do. You ever disrespect these men again, I will end you and your career. Got it?!"
Wormwood flushed white, looking at the angry man nervously then nodded his head quickly as he was allowed back onto his feet. The others watched with smirks of their own, it was rare that Zechs stood up for anyone but himself, Noin and his sister but when he did, he wasn't a force you wanted to toil with. When he threatened to end someone and that person didn't take the warning, they really were never heard from again. Kinda like the old Godfather movies or something similar to it.
"How do they get new people to join them?" Wufei asked, changing the subject while Wormwood collected his wits and Zechs returned to his seat.
Heero flipped to the previous page in his file, "Protest rallies." he grunted then flipped back to the page he was on, "Basically current members go out in the rallies and recruit people they find who would be interested in joining their cause."
"How are we going to get them throught that? Everyone knows our faces, and thos that don't will see our faces at these little 'Anti-Relena' rallies. The former Gundam Pilots are usually the main attraction when it comes to the Vice Foreign Minister and her talks of peace." Quatra said.
"We'll have to get some different identities done." Heero said softly, "Especially the two of us that will be infultrating the base."
"I still say Chang should do it with Barton." Zechs said then smirked at Wufei, "Even if he has to eat a little ass to do it/"
The other three burst into light laughter as Wufei turned purple, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. Realizing he was being overly embarassed again, he tried to hide his blushing face by ducking his head onto the desk, his arms going over his head like a shield.
"Aw. Wufei." Quatra cooed before he was given the bird.

Through most of the next week, they had very little if any trouble with Wormwood. The jobs were dished out as they were according to the skills they had. Trowa, Wufei and Wormwood were going uner cover as operatives in the organization. Heero, Zechs and Quatra would be doing recon outside the building, documenting everything that happened on the outside while those three worked on the inside. A month later would find the pilots have fallen into a routine that ran like clock work.
In the morning until the evening, Heero would be perched in a window that was across the street from the headquarters. He wrote down everything that he saw; when a car would pull into the building's parking spots, discriptions of those that got out of the car would look like, and anything else that he thought would be important information that his team needed. Quatra would man the recording devices that were expertly hidden on the three on the inside. Zechs would alternate between running for food or tuning the equipment then, after eight hours, they would switch jobs for another eight hours then switch again until it ends up with who was on what in the beginning again.
To Heero, the place seemed more of a hang out for the lackies of the organization than a place where high ranking members would be. He mostly ever saw one man coming and going from the building. He arrived around two in the afternoon every day, like clock work. He would be inside anywhere from an hour to two hours, then leave again. He looked like a business man to Heero, a plain old every day businessman who looked sorely out of place in the rather run down building. He was always wearing a suit, a tie, white shirt and black shoes. One would call his outfit a monkey suit. His shoes were polished perfectly, his shirt and jacket ironed straight, and his unidentifiable hair laid slicked back on his head by some sort of gel.
After he spent up to two hours in the building, he would come out with the same exasperated look on his face, get into his black Jaguar and tear down the street like someone would be shooting at him any second. His leaving would signal the leaving of one of the large, bumbling men to leave, dissapear down the street for an hour and return with bags of take out tha would be enough to feel twenty people.
By the end of the first week, Wufei had confirmed Heero's suspician and reported that there was at least seventeen people inside the building at one point and all of thm were in charge of something else. It was a mixed group of big, stupid men that were most likely the musceals, a few people that would be working on computers and some wise guys sitting around an playing poker on the second floor. While he confirmed the comings and goings of the man in the suit, neither he or Trowa knew what he did at the building. Every time the suited man would come around, someone would make them busy and they miss their chance to see what he was up to before he would leave.
Wufei had tried to follow him a couple of times but each time he was close to going down the stairs to the cellar where the man would go, someone would stop him and have him do some mundane work. By the time he would finish the task, the suited man was gone. Trowa once went down to where the man goes by himself one day and found a chair sitting in the dark facing the farthest wall as if it were something that needed to be watched. No one ever talked about the man and no one seemed to think that his comings and goings every day were a big deal. In fact, they could almost set their watches by the time the man would come. Wufei reported that he had no idea what the man did in that 'basement' but what ever it is, it was giving him a hard time.
Heero jot down the last of his notes and closed his notebook. Once it was secure, he climbed out of the window and fetched a small hand mirror. Using the sun's reflection, he cast a light into the window he knew Wufei would be in, signaling him that it was time to go for good. They've had no contact save for the occasional disposable cellphone call or notebook exchange in the whole month. Even with the calls, it was just reporting information then getting off the line before someone would notice one of them talking about something they weren't suppose to. After a few minutes, he received a flash of light from the other building, the signal that Wufei had gotten the message and they would be out soon. Heero helped Zechs and Quatra pack up the supplies and load it into the van that was on the other side of the building, down an alley way where no one would notice the already black vehicle. Once that was done, all that was left to do was to wait for their three agents that were on the inside.
"Where are they?" Zechs asked as he stepped up beside Heero to look down the street at their target.
"Relax, Marquise." Heero grunted, straightening when three men left the building and headed their way.
One of the men stood taller than the other two, his skin pale, his hair cut short in a deep red color; Trowa. He had wanted to do something different and even went as far as to get a wig professionally done for this job. Not that getting a hair cut would've sufficed. No. Quatra liked his bangs the way they were and almost had a two year old fit when Heero was trying to convince the ex-Heavyarms pilot to get them cut. It was quite a sight, really. Immediately beside him, slightly shorter with blond hair and tan skin was Wufei. It was hard to get a match for his skin tone but the rage for young men their age was hair color that didn't match their obvious heritage. This was good news so Wufei didn't have to get a mask done for his face. The last was a fat, balding man that almost waddled his way over to the group of them, which was Wormwood. Trowa handed something to Heero as he slipped into the alley, keeping to the shadows as he began to peel the wig off his head. HIs actual hair was plastered to his skull so that it wouldn't be in the way of the wig. The agent had dried almost rock hard and didn't let a single strand of hair move out of place.
"Are we done?" Wufei asked as he climbed into the van, followed shortly by Trowa.
"Yes. Now all we have to do is give Une this information and we'll be able to go into the building in a week." Quatra said as he finished getting a wire off Wormwoof and put it away, sliding the tape into a marked evidence baggie.
"Thank Nataku." Wufei sighed, sounding both tired and irritated.

A week later, Une's office was full to bursting with atleast fifty operatives, including the ex-pilots. All of them had rather stern looks on their faces, and you could probably cut the tension with a knife. Heero felt his shoulders itching to move, and he rolled them. Even after this long, he still wasn't used to the tension not being broken up by someone, anyone. He hated that this was going to continue through the whole meeting. He decided that since all Une would be doing is reciting what they'd learned in the month. Heero had memorized all of it during the month, he knew the building as well as Wufei, Wormwood and Trowa did now, and intended to keep from being lectured on something that he already knew.
He allowed his thoughts to travel to five years ago, and the regrets that he held in his chest. He let his mind wander to his life. It wasn't really much of a life right now. All he had was the apartment that he shared with Wufei to avoid having to pay the full amount of a rent, and a cat that he'd named Wing, Wufei had a cat himself that he named Nataku. Needless to say, all of them were still having a bit of trouble letting go. He worked with only Wufei for a while when he first joined the agency, almost a full year before Trowa came into the program, bored out of his mind with Quatra on his heels.
His whole life was basically going home, eating, showering, sleeping, working and going to Quatra's Friday functions. He hated it, but it was the best that he could do right now. Once again, his mind traveled to how his life would've been like if he'd told Duo how he felt about him. Heero wondered if Duo would've shared the feelings. Maybe they could've started a relationship. Maybe they could've done better with his life other than just work and living off the basics.
"Agent Light will lead the team going in the front, being consoled by Agent Fire and Earth. Understand?" Une asked, glaring around the room as she asked the last question.
Heero shook his head a little to knock his thoughts out of his head. He had missed the whole debriefing in his day dreaming about his life.
"Yes, ma'am." Heero found himself being deafened by the men and women all shouting this at once.
"Excellent. The assault will begin tomorrow. Be ready to move out in 0800 hours." Une barked, glaring still.
"Ma'am." Everyone barked.
"Dimissed." Une said, almost smiling as everyone bumrushed the door to get away.

Ardra: What do you all think? I hope you enjoy this new version of this chapter. I would love to hear reviews and see what you all think about it.
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