Work Text:
Beneath: Second Hand Children
by Duointherain
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing
Note: The kids are sophomores in university.
The harsh January sunlight lit up the windows behind Maureen’s desk. She sat in her chair, some slightly yellowed paper held gently with both hands. Time passes too quickly sometimes. When Duo had first met her, she could have been thirty, a new mom, a stroller in the coat check, but four years later, he was six inches taller and maybe she’d stopped coloring her hair. Her shoulders were a little bent, silver at her temples, wire-rimmed glasses resting on her nose. After another moment of silence, she set the paperwork down on her neat and slightly Victorian themed desk, templed her fingers and looked right at Duo, “Where did you get this? Why did you get this?”
Duo, who was smarter than he was cautious, grinned brightly, ear-to-ear. One of his front teeth was still growing back in, after an unfortunate moderate speed impact with his steering wheel. “We got it out of the bank! We won’t let anyone hurt you!”
Maureen took a deep breath, coughed just a bit, elegant fingers, slender but with the knuckles larger than they’d been once, as if worry just kind of clung there, aging a person right up. She turned her attention to Rey, her precious first child. In her memory, she could remember the tiny little girl clinging to her in those first nights after assassination had taken her first parents away. There was a bond with that that made them stronger than simple birth. “And you? You participated in this?”
Rey Darlian’s smile was still like little Relena’s was, but with more of an edge to it. Her hair was trimmed neatly, shorter than the other two. The three of them were a set and there were only so many feminine electrons between them. Maureen rubbed her tongue over her teeth, trying to push down all the things she’d say to anyone else. “It was my idea,” Rey said proudly.
“I see,” Maureen said. This is what comes of wanting intelligent children who could grow up to rule the world. If she’d picked some strays out of foster care, she might still have a couple of Ferraris and more years left in her life. “Heero?”
“I managed the security systems,” Heero said and there was that little tiny smile that Maureen loved so much. That was what broke through her rage. Duo and Rey were her kids, her responsibility, her hope for the fucking future. Heero just made her happy.
She leaned back in the chair, pulled her glasses off and rubbed her nose. “You three are the best musketeers.” After another moment, she put her glasses back on, smiled her best ‘everything’s cookies’ smile and asked, “How difficult would it be put this back, no one knows? No chance of discovery?”
“Wait?” Rey said, head tilting in confusion.
“What?” Duo asked, one hand chopping against his palm. “This was some badass shit we did, Mom! Like we were Marvel characters! Rey’s Natasha! Heero is Dr. Strange, controlling the world by the power of his mind!”
“Modified zero system interface,” Heero explained.
Maureen picked up her pen and jabbed it in Heero’s direction, “That’s dangerous, Heero Yuy! You can’t do that kind of thing. Certainly not on my behalf! Are you okay?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Heero said, the very slightest touch of color coming into his cheeks. “I’m well.”
“I’m very glad to hear that. Rey! What if you’d gotten hurt? Shot? I assume you were dodging bullets and running up walls then?”
“Naw,” Duo said, shaking his head, “No one even knew we were there. Look, this shit bag ex-husband is not going to blackmail you anymore. We’re going to take care of you. You’re our mom!”
Said ex-husband was the current Minister of the Industry. Winner’s power was overt and new money. The Darlians were more like entrenched mafia and old, old money. “That’s a fact,” Maureen said. They might not have shared genetics, but they shared so many traits and she couldn’t have loved them more under any circumstances. “My darlings, please, each of you sit down.”
“Mom, did we do something wrong?”
“Sit down.”
“But we were careful! No one will ever find out.”
“I am glad for that,” Maureen said. “I am now and ever proud of each of you. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to break into the most secure building in the Earthsphere.”
At that point, Rey and Heero were sitting. Duo though stood there with his hands on her desk, those violet eyes searching her face, looking for answers as to why this didn’t play out the way he had thought it would. “Why aren’t you happy?”
“Duo Maxwell Darlian, SIT DOWN.”
His eyes went to a near pale blue as he dragged the last big chair over and sat down.
“Heero, can this be put back, safely? Easily?”
“No Ma’am. I exploited a flaw in their security, but I fixed it on my way out.”
“What the fuck, Heero?” Duo asked leaning forward to look at him.
Maureen pointed a finger at Duo, gave him a glare that almost turned her eyes purple. “Quiet.”
Rey kind of looked out the side of her eyes at him. The two of them were more like twins than Maureen ever would have wagered.
“Dick was not blackmailing ME,” she said.
“What?” Rey asked, hands on the armrests. “What?”
“You heard me,” Maureen said firmly. “I know you think the world can be managed with reason and niceties, but sometimes, claws are much more effective. None of you are children anymore, though I don’t think you’re fully adult either. While I have never felt more loved, and I can not express enough how much I love each of you, taking action without clearing it through me has caused me,” she paused, as if to add in a couple spoonfuls of salt to the mix, “difficulties.”
Duo slumped in the chair. “You were blackmailing him.”
“Quite successfully, for nearly forty years.”
“It’s a good thing we didn’t take the other boxes,” Heero said pragmatically.
“Indeed,” Maureen said enthusiastically. She pointed at Duo, “And you’re the Hulk. I can see Rey as Natasha, smart, able, beautiful, and powerful. I can also see Heero as Stephen Strange. He’d die a million times to save us. You’re Dr. Banner, brilliant and maybe a little misguided, and when things go wrong, you turn into this purple-eyed boy who just smashes.”
Duo sank a little lower into his chair, chin drooping to his chest, “Hulk smash.”
“Duo, look at me,” Maureen said softly.
He did, tears glittering at the edge of his too pale eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Listen to me. You are exactly the son I wanted. You are my legacy, you and Rey, and even you Heero. You are what I have spent my life for. I love you and I’m proud of you. There is no one else in the Earthsphere who would, let alone could, rob the First Earth Bank for me? That is a gift that is beyond price. Don’t it again. There is no gift better than you three staying alive and being happy.”
“I’m sorry,” Duo said again, devastated that his gift had gone sideways.
“It was my idea,” Rey said, also fighting off tears.
“I came up with the plan,” Heero said, wishing he could cry too. It felt like he was missing something, some essential part of being human because he couldn’t. He didn’t feel bad about what they’d done. It was an excellent mission, even if they hadn’t had all the information. If Maureen was blackmailing someone, she clever and admirable for having set it up so that the person she was blackmailing would take the blame if discovered. That was very clever. Heero was deeply impressed. “I’m bad too.”
She turned her face towards him, eyes sparkling with a mix of pride, mischief, and adoration. “Yes, Heero, very naughty,” but her words spoke of love and pride and acceptance.
Then he was crying, though that amounted to tears without the accompanying body language. “I’m not sorry,” Heero said, sniffling a little bit then. “I’d do it again.”
Maureen coughed again, pulled a delicate handkerchief from her sweater pocket. “Now, my darlings, I wish to have dinner with you all. Go and dress properly. It is my birthday and we will celebrate! I love you all.”
Up out of their chairs, they hugged her, accepted her pats and hair caresses, a pat on the cheek, her smiles.
As soon as they passed the sensor on the stairs and she knew they were out of even Heero’s earshot, she called Martha. “Send Joel to visit Dick, please.”
“Understood.”
Backup plans are always useful.