misao_duo

, Preventer-ness and Mission-ness
Spoilers: not a single one. This takes place after Endless Waltz, Heero and Duo are Preventers.
Author notes: beta-ed by the most lovely and very wonderfull cristal (thank you so very much my dear)

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‘A kiss to make it better’

            The expression had turned into one of our many ‘intern jokes’, born by chance in the middle of a critic and completely inappropriate moment for something like that. Obviously, things like that were quite common and expected in my partnership with Duo Maxwell.

            Maybe the unexpected part of that little ordeal was the fact that it was me who came up with the joke, instead of my partner.

            We were in the middle of a mission. Duo was assigned to work in the field while I would be staying in one of the Preventers vehicles near the place where things were happening, checking video feeds and giving out coordinates. 

            Our suspects – that at the rate things were happening, quickly gained the status of ‘target’ – started shooting while I was finishing my last preparatives to get in the field along with the second team of agents and, suddenly, I heard Duo’s voice over the little communication device I had inside my ear. He sounded like he was in pain.

            ‘Maxwell!’, I answered immediately, knowing he could hear me through a similar device in his own ear. ‘Status?’

            ‘I’ve been hit’, he answered right away, breathing with difficulty. By the sounds he was making, I could tell he was trying to keep on moving as fast as he could, but by the erratic rhythm of his breathing there was no way to be sure if he was going to be able to keep going like that for much longer.

            ‘Where?’ was the only word that left my mouth. My mind started running in circles, figuring possible ways to rescue my partner. It wasn’t common for Preventers to be hit, since the uniform used for missions included a bulletproof vest. If Duo was shot, the wound could be possibly a dangerous one.

            The mere thought of a wound of any kind was enough to make a chill run down my spine and my hands get unstable  for a second or two.

            ‘Duo! Where?’ , I repeated some seconds later, wishing with all my will that he would just answer me.

            I listened to his elaborated breathing for some seconds and then, ‘On my foot’, he said. ‘I was hit on the foot...I don’t...I’m not sure if I can make it to the meeting point.’

            There was no way I could rescue him in time, and if Duo stayed where he was, he would turn himself into an easy target. I had to find a way to get him out of that building, to make him move, and fast.

            ‘Heero...I really can’t...’, he started, and something in the tone of his voice told me I didn’t really want to hear the rest of that particular sentence.

            The chill on my spine spread to the rest of my body when I was faced with the possibility of Duo being intercepted by someone. In that moment, many feelings and thoughts danced through my mind, the strongest of them all being fear. Fear that Duo wouldn’t come back safe, fear of not hearing his voice ever again... but then, fear wasn’t something I could allow myself to feel in a time like that.

            I decided to cling to the feeling I had hope would help me get through it.

            ‘Listen to me Duo’, I yelled impatiently, ‘you put that damn foot of yours on the goddamed floor and drag your stupid ass to the point 563P right this moment, do you hear me?’

            Anger. Duo had no right to abandon me yet, not yet, not in that way. I knew that yelling would most definitely get a reaction out of him, it would stir him into action of some kind. All I could hope for was that his indignation would be strong enough to make him move, and do something about it.

            ‘Heero!’, he answered immediately, his breathing heavier with each passing second. ‘I’m in no condition to...’

            ‘No condition?’, I answered without letting him finish properly while I finally ran like a bullet to the point I had just told him to get to. ‘C’mon Maxwell! Don’t tell me you can’t deal with a little scratch on your foot!’

            ‘Heero...’, there was a dangerous warning in his voice, I could feel it, and the knowledge that my efforts were resulting in something  put a sarcastic little smile on my face. We were really idiots if a mere challenge was all it took to push us forward like that.

            ‘What’s the matter?’, I said, sarcasm dripping off of my voice, ‘You want me to go there and kiss it to make it better?’

            ‘You will be kissing my fucking knuckles once I get to you, you bastard!’, was the answer I got, and, for the first time in my whole life, I was glad to be insulted and threatened.         

            That day Duo got to the meeting point five minutes after I did and was taken immediately to surgery. Later, when I went visiting, taking with me reports, congratulations from commander Une and having one of my hands completely bandaged due to some unexpected events that had happened during the mission, he thanked me, saying that I always knew exactly what to say to him during extreme situations.

            ‘The mere idea of seeing Heero Yuy kissing my foot was enough to make me run as fast as my legs would take me’, he said jokingly.

            ‘Don’t you worry’, I told him, ‘next time, I will make sure I get shot in the ass so you can pay me back.’

His laugher filled the room, and I couldn’t help but smile at him.

            On that day, we established the expression between us and from that moment on, in every mission, in every new wound that one of us got, there was the promise of retaliation.

‘C’mon Yuy’, he would say, ‘Will you let that little, ridiculous excuse of a wound slow you down?’, to which I usually answered with a grunt.

‘Want me to kiss and make it better?’, he’d say in a ridiculous baby’s voice, and even though our mutual bullying was completely idiotic and made no sense to any other agent that happened to hear the exchange, to us it worked like a true calling. Like an ultimatum that said in no uncertain terms that we would always get back to each other’s side.

The expression had become a common occurrence in our missions for some time when the accident happened.

Me and Jones were in the middle of a car chase, Duo and Wufei were inside one of the three other cars that were on the way to a point where they would intercept the fugitives. The plan was to make a barrier near the town limits to stop the car we were chasing from advancing any further.

The fugitives had other ideas, though. One of them shot one of the tires of my car, making the vehicle lose control and crash. The last thing I felt was something hitting my right side. The pain made me pass out. 

I woke up to the sound of a voice whispering near me, and some pressure on my forehead.

‘Wake up, wake up, wake up, please, please, please, please...’ the voice said, and I opened my eyes slowly, not recognizing my surrounds immediately. All I could see was a blur.

‘Please, please, please, please...’ the voice kept saying, and I finally realized who the voice belonged to.

‘Duo?’ I asked, my voice raspy, making my throat hurt.

The pressure on my face immediately ceased. Duo had had his forehead against mine and his face suddenly came into focus when he put a little distance between us to look at me properly.

‘Heero? Oh thank god!’, he said, taking my face in his hands carefully, and kissing my temple. That simple contact made heat rush rapidly to my face. My partner then went back to touching his forehead against mine, closing his eyes and sighing in relief.

‘Duo?’, I asked in a whisper, not wanting to ruin the strangely intimate moment with words.

‘Yeah Heero?’, he answered, not opening his eyes.

‘I...can’t feel my legs’, I told him.

‘They have you sedated’, he said calmly, stroking his cheek against my face tenderly and making me close my eyes to fully appreciate the moment.

‘Does that mean I’m going to be in a lot of pain soon?’, I asked with a sigh, rubbing my face against his almost instinctively. It felt so good...

‘Don’t worry’ , he answered me, putting some distance between us again and  holding my face with both of his hands. ‘You are going to be just fine. And you know, I can always kiss you to make it feel better’, he concluded with a little smile, giving me a look that said much more than what the light twitch of lips and the careless tone in his voice did.

I sent him a look that was equally serious and loaded with meaning, and we stayed like that for a moment. I could clearly see that Duo was having second thoughts now, his expression changing into a light frown while he bit his lips slightly, probably wondering if he had accidentally revealed too much.

‘Do you promise?’, I asked.

I saw the exact instant in which his expression changed, opening up in the most beautiful of smiles.

The next moment, my vision was blurred again when Duo’s face got closer to mine. I closed my eyes and felt a light pressure on my lips, drowning in the wonderful sensation that enveloped me completely.

‘I will kiss every single inch of your body on the first chance I get if that makes you feel any better.’, he whispered against my lips, his forehead against mine once again.

‘I can hardly wait’, I told him, rubbing our noses together sweetly , and sighing.

The last thing I felt before falling asleep again was Duo’s smile against my face, and his voice, softly in my ear.

‘Neither can I, Heero’, the voice said, ‘neither can I.’