Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Midnight Raven ❯ Chapter 9

Ohayo! Well, here's the next chapter. I kinda thought it was sappy and anticlimactic so I'm posting two chapters.

I realize it's been a while since I posted, but in that time I have not purchased the G-boys. Darn. I was really hoping that I would. **sigh** Don't sue me. All I own is. . . uh. . . this. **holds up a pencil that's clearly marked `Property of Rutgers University'** ^_^;

~Midnight Raven~

Chapter 10

Several hours later they returned from the mall, laden with bags. They had gotten enough outfits for the mission, plus the necessary accessories: hair dye, wallet chains, a spiked collar for Heero and a tattoo marker.

"I still don't understand the marker. Why do I need a tattoo?" Quatre asked as he plopped down on the couch next to Trowa.

Duo sat down in the armchair as a Wufei retreated to his room and Heero went to start dinner. "Easy, Quat. We give you two matching tattoos that way everybody at the club knows you're taken, and they'll behave themselves."

"Then why not go with real ones?"

Duo blinked for a minute. "A) Ow. B) Gee, let's give Oz distinguishing marks that they can recognize us by. And C) Your cover names are Armin and Alexander-do you really wanna be stuck with those?"

"Good points," Trowa said as he wrapped his arm around the blonde.

`That's my cue to leave. I wonder what Heero's up to.' Duo winked and grinned mischievously at Quatre before excusing himself and wandering toward the kitchen.

"Hail fearless leader!" Duo greeted with a giggle. "What's up?"

Heero was sitting at the table with his laptop in front of him. A roast sat defrosting in the sink.

When he didn't respond, Duo stepped closer and looked over his shoulder at the screen. That earned him a quick "baka" but no further rebuke so Duo read on.

"'The Midnight Raven was established in AC 99. Built to mimic gothic architecture, the Raven features stained glass windows, candled chandeliers, ornate tapestries, and gargoyle statues.'" Duo snorted. "Nothing that I couldn't have told you."

Heero dutifully scrolled down on the document to detailed blueprints. Every door, window, piece of furniture and rug was represented because of its historical value. "Wow. Too bad they don't mark the location of the guards, huh? Anything else helpful?" Duo asked, paying more attention to the blue-eyed boy then the screen.

Heero scrolled some more. When he finally dragged his eyes away from the other pilot, Duo flinched, his breath catching in his throat. "Frankie Takei," Heero explained. "Officially he's just the owner of the Midnight Raven, but I've done some digging. Lt. Takei is the commanding officer of the facility. Judging by his credentials, it's probably a mobile doll R and D lab. And," he said, turning to face the violet-eyed boy, "I have it on good authority that his eyes are those of someone who tortured kittens in his youth."

"Wow. You're good," Duo said, a bit shocked that Heero had read his body language at all, much less that well. `Wait a minute. . . .' "You were listening? And you understood?" He was touched.

Heero made one of his rare almost-smirks. Duo wasn't sure what to be more worried about: his heart, which had received too many shocks for one day, or his libido, at which the shocks were aimed. He smiled and continued reading over Heero's shoulder, memorizing the floor plans and the slightly metallic scent of a certain soldier. Eventually the roast thawed and Duo helped make dinner. `Any excuse to be by him. . .geez, Shinigami's got it bad.'

Dinner mixed and in the oven, Heero wandered off to hack something and Duo looked around for his book. It was, as expected, in front of the TV, the last place he had been reading before he got distracted. Not quite his usual high suspense thriller or mecha manga, he found it surprisingly interesting how Freud theorized about developmental stages. He still snickered a bit about Freud's obsession with sex, but he found life and death impulses fascinating. He was about to reach the wonders of the super-ego when the oven-timer sounded. "All right, dinner!"

By the time he had extracted the culinary masterpiece from the oven, everybody was there and helping to set the table. Dinner was pretty normal, the lovebirds being cute, Wufei muttering to Nantaku, Duo talking about whatever popped into his mind-mostly psychoanalysis with a generous helping of nursery rhymes. There was something bugging him though. Nothing vital, just a nagging feeling that there was something slightly different about Trowa. `Nope, it's not the hair or the expression or the clothes. . . .'

The green-eyed boy politely turned to pass Heero the salt. "Aha!" `Oops, I said that out loud. Damn, and they were actually listening. And they want me to tell them. "Um, nothing." `Nope, that didn't work.' "Just seeing if you guys were paying attention." `Damn, that almost worked.' "Quatre's fault." That just brought confused looks to their faces.

"What's my fault?" Quatre looked indignant.

Duo just gave a do-you-really-want-to-know look.

Apparently he did. Muttering `excuse me,' he hopped up and dragged the braided boy to the next room. "Well?"

"Nothing, I was just noticing the nice decorations on Tro's neck," Duo answered coyly. Quatre turned a pretty shade of pink as Duo slipped back to the rest of his meal.

Okay, there. I did the stupid information-y part of the fic. Now all the important information is out there.