Adult-FanFiction.org : Gundam, Beyblade, DBZ, FMA

'Til Death us do part	By : ClareSelley Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Crossovers Views: 896 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or Highlander, and I make no money off this.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Duo stared at the form in front of him with sheer displeasure, stabbing the pen into the letters as he scrawled the required information into the blank spaces. Name. Duo Maxwell. Age. Seventeen. Or so. Can't remember. Born: L2. Somewhere. He blew some loose strands of hair out of his mouth in frustration. He'd already completed this form, or one like it, when he applied for the damn job. Couldn't the medical team just use the bloody application form? Or didn't Preventer headquarters own a photocopier? Date of birth. Sometime in September. I think.

Lifting his head to stare at the secretary until she returned to studying her computer screen, a faint blush on her cheeks visible even with the screen light reflection on her face, he pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, returning to the form. After a few more mundane questions, he turned the sheet over with a groan to see another list of questions, all mandatory.

Are you on any medication? That was an easy nope, as was whether he had any psychological issues such as depression, anxiety, etc. He was sure he probably should have every psychological problem in the doctor's book, he might go slightly insane if someone touched his hair, or he was killing enemies, or so on, but hey, that was just a personality trait, right?

Any ongoing conditions or injuries? Well, he didn't think there was enough room to list the aches and pains left by scars in the war, so he just put the words 'a few' down, and moved on. Do you drink alcohol? He frowned, he'd had a few beers occasionally, and enjoyed them, but not recently, the scrapyard boss hadn't approved of underage drinking, even on L2, so that'd be a no. Recreational drugs. No. He just wouldn't touch them. They messed with his head and screwed with his concentration. He added the words fucking way after the no.

Sexual Orientation. Duo paused, blinking at the sheet, why the hell did they need to know that, he frowned and scribbled none of your business into the gap, the fact that he liked guys was none of the doctor's business in his opinion. The next one was even worse - Last time you had sexual intercourse. The ex-pilot stabbed the pen hard enough to go through the paper and mark the table it was resting on. For God's sake, did they need to know everything? He doubted a few handjobs in safehouses counted though and just scribbled never. He ignored the STD question, moving swiftly on to the next section.

Various other questions regarding epilepsy, diabetes, eyesight, hearing and a host of other conditions that he didn't really understand. Medical dictionaries were not on the required reading list for Gundam pilots and he was pretty damn sure that G wouldn’t have approved him being a pilot if he wasn’t pretty damn perfect physically.

Finally he reached the end of the questionnaire with relief, signing it with a scrawl and dating it before stuffing it in the envelope marked confidential and sealing it up with a quick lick of the flap. "There. Done." he said, rising and stalking over to the secretary's desk. "Is she finally ready to see me?"

The secretary smiled, although it looked a bit forced - Duo Maxwell was not the most patient person to have waiting in your office and the constant tapping, scratching, scribbling out and groaning had been starting to wear on her within half an hour. He'd now been there for over an hour while waiting for the Commander to finish a briefing and the painkillers hadn’t started kicking in yet.

She picked up the phone and pressed a few buttons in rapid succession, "Commander? Are you ready for Mr Maxwell now?" She nodded at the response, almost sagging in relief as she gestured to the door behind her and put the phone down. "She will see you now."

"Thanks," Duo nodded, walking quickly to the door and pushing it open into a plush office with the familiar face he was expecting sitting at the desk. "Une."

"Duo." the woman at the desk stood up, offering a hand to the ex-pilot with a smile, "It's nice to finally meet you off a battlefield." Even her brown eyes smiled at him as she gestured to the chair in front of the desk. "I hope you haven't tortured my poor secretary into madness out there - I could hear the curses from in here."

Duo's face broke into his trademark grin, it seemed that Lady Une really had mellowed a little in her old age, and sat himself into the black fabric covered chair, swivelling it slightly before tossing his feet up onto the luxuriously polished desk. The brown eyes hardened slightly and he quickly removed them with a sheepish look. "I think she'll get over it," he answered with a shrug. "So, what do I need to know to do this job?"

"Firstly, you will address me as Commander, or Agent Gold," Une said, taking her own seat behind the desk and pulling out some papers, "It's for security as well as my rank - you'll have your own code name too." She flicked through the paper work, "Ah, yes, Agent Night." She smiled again, "It's been reserved for you since the Preventers started - we always hoped you'd join us eventually."

"Thanks, Commander," Duo met the smile with another, slightly more wry one - the codename did suit him, even if she'd planned all along for him to join and had Heero and the other two drop hints and send him job application forms for months before he'd given in, or rather Hilde had given in, and basically all but shoved him onto the shuttle with the filled out the application form.

"Now, all your forms are fine, and Dr Sally Po, Agent Water, will be giving you your medical after this meeting. I assume you've finished your forms?" She waited for his nod before continuing, "That will take place on F-two-R," she paused, laughing at herself softly, "floor two, room eighteen. It's hard to get out of the habit of military numbering. Here's your security pass, the photo is the one you sent with your application, if you need a replacement, the details will be in the folder in your office. Your uniform will be delivered to your hotel room tonight - please at least try and remember to wear it. The last thing we need to discuss is your partner."

"Partner?" Duo frowned, "I don't need a partner."

Une sighed, running a hand through her hair, this had been hard enough with Heero, "Duo, you're under eighteen. Legally it's difficult to even employ you - we have a special dispensation from ESUN given your... unique... background. But they've insisted that all of the Gundam pilots are partnered with a legal adult until you turn eighteen, no exceptions."

As Une spoke, Duo stood up, his eyes flaring, "I do not need a fucking partner, Commander." He hissed, the turn of phrase evoking interesting thoughts even as he leant over her desk menacingly. "I was a Gundam pilot, during which time I carried out missions that grown men would be terrified of. I was the best at stealth and infiltration out of the five of us. I piloted Deathscythe. I do not need a bloody partner!"

Une stood up, also hunching forwards, right into her new employee's face, her eyes frosting into a ferocious look that Duo remembered from the war. "Heero has a partner. Wufei has a partner. Trowa had a partner until he turned eighteen last month and joined the infiltration unit. You. Will. Have. A. Partner."

"And what about Quatre?" Duo growled back, "Does he have a babysitter too?"

"Mr Quatre Raberba Winner is busy running the Winner Corporation. Mr Winner has many bodyguards, some provided by this organisation. And the correct term is partner. A partner is not a babysitter. And you will have one." Une sat down and brushed her hair back calmly before swivelling her chair around to face a corner of the room that Duo hadn't even looked in, "Agent Cloud, please come and meet your new partner before I have to call security to remove him until he calms down."

Duo cursed, he was losing his touch if he hadn't even scanned the room when he entered, and he had a feeling that Une had noticed his lapse. Sitting back in his chair, he swivelled around to take in the man that was walking towards him, holding a hand on a nicely muscled arm out.

Light brown milk chocolate eyes that he could dive into, a strong athletic body, shoulder length dark brown hair that looked ready to run his fingers through and a warm smile. Well, if he had to be partnered with someone then at least it was someone vaguely good looking. "I'm Duo Maxwell," he said, smiling brightly as if he hadn't been cussing out the commander bare moments beforehand, reaching out to take Agent Cloud's hand. Maybe having a babysitter won't be so bad, he thought with an internal smirk, enjoying the solid grip and firm handshake with an entirely unprofessional warmth. "I can't keep calling you Agent Cloud?" he asked out loud.

"Duncan, Duncan MacLeod," the man said, an easy smile on his lips, before frowning slightly at the braided boy's expression, "Is something wrong?"

Duo shook his head, dismissing the puzzlement from his face. "No, I was just, surprised by your accent, it's not one I've come across before. L2 is mainly American, and I've heard Chinese, Japanese and European, but I can't place yours?"

"Ah, it's Scottish. There's still a small group of people on L4 that keeps the old Gaelic alive, and I come from there. It's hard not to get an accent when you grow up in an area where everyone talks in it."

"L4? You've heard of the Winner family then? Quatre, he runs it now, is a good friend of mine."

"Who hasn't heard of them?" Duncan replied, "They only run half of the entire ESUN corporations, and the whole of the colony. Although I'd be interested in hearing how you know Mr Winner - I know the history of the war, but it's always interesting to hear a more personal account." He turned to Une with a courteous half bow, "Commander, if you will excuse us? I'll show Duo our office."

Une nodded, already buried in her paperwork, "Of course. Good luck." She didn't qualify precisely who needed the luck, but she wished Agent Cloud all the luck in the world with the ex-pilot as she fished around in her desk for painkillers once the door had closed.

To be honest, she was relieved the pair had hit it off - it had taken time to find someone who could well, cope, with Duo Maxwell's personality profile. The braided pilot had given some, you could say, interesting answers to the profiling questions, along with some that were downright rude and others clearly evasive. If he had not been one of the Gundam pilots, she probably would have rejected his application on that alone. The personal statement had been better - but she suspect Hilde had been involved in proofreading both that and the standard part of the form. It had turned out that there had only been a handful of agents who'd been remotely suitable as a partner to the exuberant L2 pilot who were also able to be moved from other projects, and Agent Cloud had been their first choice. She just prayed that his patience would last the few months left until Duo turned eighteen – as well as they could figure from his rough birthday - and could work on his own as he wished.

The office was a spacious room on the fourth floor, with deep plush carpets much like in Une's room, a rich red wine colour that Duo's mind immediately noted would hide blood nicely, with narrow windows all along one wall looking out onto the city below.

"Wall to wall windows would be a security risk," Duncan answered, seeing that Duo was eyeing the strangely shaped windows, although that had already occurred to the stealth expert. "There's shutters in the columns that move across if needed, and the ones at either end are fire windows - there's a ladder in the window sill if you need to get out." Tossing a thick blue folder onto the empty desk in the room, which Duo was pleased to note included a comfortable black swivel chair just like the one in Une's office, Duncan sat down at the other desk. "If you read that, it should tell you all you need to know about the building, including the fire regulations, emergency drills and a rough outline of the job." He paused, noticing his new partner was already buried in the folder. "Your appointment with Dr. Po is at 4pm, in about an hour."

"Oh, cool, you have three restaurants? And a pub on site?" Duo exclaimed, causing Duncan to roll his eyes before settling down to his work, and, as he guessed, frequent comments from his new partner.

Half an hour later Duo looked up from the folder, having digested all the interesting bits and glanced over the rules and regulations which were, in his opinion, boring and obvious. It wasn't as if he wasn't trained to deal with crises. The computer on the other hand was brand new and too tempting for the new Preventer to resist. Slipping the folder to one side, he flexed his fingers over the keyboard, the login screen blinking at him.

Duncan sighed with relief when the clock ticked round to five to four and decided that he'd pick up a pair of headphones on his way into work the next day. his partner had been cursing at the computer for the last half hour and he hadn't the heart to tell him that one of Ice's first jobs in the Preventers had been to work on the computer security and it was almost a rite of passage in the organisation to try and hack into the system - no one had succeeded yet.

"For fucks sake, who wrote this damn security system anyway?" Duo muttered, typing yet another command into the command prompt he'd eventually managed to get up after ten minutes of trying. "It's worse than 'Scythe's system and that's saying something as I helped write the fucking thing."

"Duo, maybe you could drop the cursing when you see Dr. Sally in five minutes?" the Scot asked as Duo took a breath. "And if you drop into Agent Ice's office on the way back, I'm sure he'll give you access to the system."

"Agent Ice being?"

"Oh, I think you know him."

With a groan of realisation, Duo spun round, "Heero fricking Yuy, right? No wonder I couldn't get in - his security's tighter than a virgin's arse." At Duncan's raised eyebrow, he felt faint colour flush over his cheeks and he whirled around, his braid whipping behind him as he made a sharp exit, grabbing his medical questionnaire on the way out. Maybe the medical wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as he thought.

Floor two was sealed off from the rest of the building, only the hallway and reception was open to the general staff. From his quick memorisation of the building plan, there was a lift and large set of stairs at the back of the building exclusively for the hospital floor. Presenting his shiny new pass at the reception, he took a seat on the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

A few minutes later Sally poked her head out the door, the familiar curls pulled back into a neat and serviceable ponytail. "I know they're uncomfortable Duo, but they're hygienic. If you'd like to come this way?"

Duo grimaced, he didn't think he'd been squirming that much, but rose gratefully and followed Sally through to an examination room.

"You have filled in your questionnaire?" the ex-soldier asked, reaching for the brown envelope with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry - it can't be worse than some others I've seen."

Duo passed the envelope over with slight trepidation. The woman had been a formidable fighter herself when she was with the Alliance and he wasn't quite sure he wanted her touching his body. The fact that her lips twitched as she read through the document wasn't helping.

"Right, Duo, I just need to clarify a few things. If you wouldn't mind taking a seat?"

The doctor smiled in what Duo assumed was meant to be a reassuring way as he took a cautious perch on the bed. He'd not been in a medical room since G had dragged him off for his original medical all those years ago. "You know I'm not too comfortable in hospitals, right?"

"This won't take more than a few minutes," Sally reassured him, "Just a few questions, a couple of injections from the answers you've given already, and then we'll be done. You can do the physical fitness test in the gym with your partner later - I know Duncan goes there daily, so he can show you around."

"Get it over with then," Duo sighed, shifting himself on the bed uncomfortably, removing his braid from under his rear and wishing he'd tried to answer the questions a little less flippantly.

"Right, there's no problem with date of birth or anything like that - you, and the other pilots, have unique circumstances, and the Preventers have clearance to employ you. You're slightly short for your age, but that's nothing unusual in a pilot, especially one who spent most of puberty in a mobile suit." She ticked off various items on a clipboard before frowning at the sheet. "And please try and work on your handwriting, you're worse than Wufei." Peering at the other side she nodded to herself, "Sexual orientation, we only need to know that for our equality records, and if you don't want to say, that's fine. If you've never had sex then we don't need to test you for STDs. I'm assuming Professor G wouldn't have passed you as a pilot if you had any of the other conditions, or if they were serious. Although if you do get any problems, please do come and ask for an appointment. Now, the only thing I have to ask is about your mental state. You're not having any nightmares, anxiety or depression at the moment, or suffered them in the past?"

Duo shook his head, "We did things in the war, but it was the war, things happen during war we might not want to do, but we were soldiers, we did them. I'm not having any bad memories or side effects from it if that's what you're asking."

"Oh, Duo," Sally sighed, half reaching out to touch his knee before pulling away. "You were so young - the trauma might not hit you for a few years. If you ever need to talk, we have qualified psychiatrists here."

The braided pilot shook his head, letting his purple eyes flash his irritation at the woman. He'd done what he'd done and there wasn't anything to do about it. Sure some of it had been unpleasant, and some of it nasty, and that business with Pierson had been downright weird, but he was a soldier, had been a soldier, and he'd done what he was trained to do, it was as simple as that. "I don't need sympathy, Dr. Po, I'm fine. Now can I get these injections and go?"

Sally just sighed again, already turning towards the counter. "According to your form, you've never had any of the standard injections?"

God he hated injections. OZ had used them during the war to cut down the number of street rats, as well as a torture method on captives, and it was all he could do not to stalk out the door right then and there to grab the first shuttle back to L2 and the safety of the scrapyard. Except then he'd have to face Hilde and he wasn't sure whether the injections or his friend was worse. "Well, I had whatever G injected me with, God knows what that was, and I had a tetanus one when I started working in the scrap yard, the boss wouldn't let me start working until I did."

"Right, then this one is for influenza and this one rabies. You'll need to come back in a week for the hep B one and this final one for measles, mumps and rubella. They're all standard ones that you should have had years ago. To be honest I'm surprised they've not managed to eliminate half of these diseases by now, but needs must. Now, would you rather have these in your arm or your posterior?"

Duo blinked, "Er, I'd much prefer my arm, I think," he replied, rolling his sleeve up quickly. There was no way that he was going to let the woman near his arse. He looked away as the doctor approached him with the sharp pointy objects and closed his eyes as he felt the pinch of the needle sliding in.

A few moments later and the second pinch was over. "There, all done." The doctor's voice was far too chipper for Duo's liking as she swabbed the site and pulled his sleeve down. "That wasn't hard, right?"

"I'm not five, Sally. Did you want to give me a lollipop too?" Hopping off the bed, he caught the sight of a figure standing by the door and his violet eyes met onyx as Wufei stepped around the corner. "And don't you start, 'Fei."

"I was just stopping by to see my partner, Maxwell," the Chinese pilot said, glaring at his fellow ex-pilot at the nickname, walking into the room. "We've got a mission tomorrow - she took valuable time away from preparation to come and do your medical, so I hope you appreciate it. Is everything alright?" The last was directed at Sally who was packing up her equipment.

Sally smiled warmly at Wufei, "I'll head up to the office shortly. I need to file Duo's medical forms away and then I'm done."

"I'll wait for you." As Sally exited the room, he turned to Duo, "So Maxwell, have you got your codename from the Commander yet?" He gave a slight bow, an ironic eyebrow arching up as he spoke, "I am Agent Dragon while Sally is Agent Water."

"Suits you. Agent Night myself. So, are you two dating, 'Fei?"

"It's Wufei, Maxwell." The black haired boy looked towards the door that the blonde had left through, a small smile touching his lips despite the earlier growl. "And what myself and Sally do in our spare time is nobody's business but our own. As long as it does not interfere with our job then there is no issue. It's not like it can be formalised for a few months yet anyway." His head whipped back around as he remembered who he was talking to, a heated blush rising to cover his face. "And don't you breathe a word of that, Maxwell. Not to anyone, you hear?"

Duo grinned, he'd missed teasing the Chinese dragon and it appeared to his delight that all of his friend's buttons were still intact and he was just as touchy as ever. "Why, 'Fei, you've not told her, have you? You've got the hots for Dr. Po and you've not even told her. You know, I think she likes you too, the way she looks at you. Maybe I should just slip a few words in for you?"

"Don't you dare, Maxwell!"

Duo just winked, slipping out of the office as the other door opened, announcing Sally's return and distracting Wufei. He supposed he really should go and read the procedures and guidelines and at least attempt to act like a mature adult. And at some point find out what he was actually going to be doing in this place apart from being poked with needles. Oh, yes, and visit Heero to finally get access to the damn computer system. Once he was in, he was certain he could pay the Wing pilot back for the stupidly complex security somehow.
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

'Til Death us do part