Disclaimers and warnings in first part
Duo took a moment at the security desk, making sure there had been no alarms before exiting the building and crossing the street, a smile stretching his lips when he saw Trowa leaning against a brick wall that connected the diner with the florist next door. “Fancy seeing you here, stranger,” he drawled, mimicking Trowa’s pose, arms crossed over his chest and one knee bent so he could plant his foot on the wall behind him. “I don’t know what you said to Wufei, but it worked.”
“Did he offer you an apology?”
“Actually, he did; shocked the hell out of me, to be honest.” More serious, Duo put his foot down and turned so he could face the tall man, “It means a lot to me that you stood up for me, Trowa. How can I repay you for that?”
Green eyes grew wide for an instant before Trowa shook his head, “There’s nothing to repay. Are you hungry?”
“Yeah, that biscuit from this morning was gone hours ago.”
Once they were sitting inside the diner, Duo couldn’t help but watch Trowa a little closer than he had before. He had never noticed how green Trowa’s eyes were or how there were streaks of blonde mixed in the brunette bangs. Although he wasn’t being obvious, Trowa must have been aware of the scrutiny, glancing up after a moment, “Do I have something on my face?”
Duo could feel his face heat upon realizing he had been ogling his friend, “No, uh…I just…umm…I’m really glad we’ve been able to hang out over the last few weeks, you know? It’s been really…fun.”
A smile tugged Trowa’s lips and he let his eyes drop to his soup and sandwich combo, “I think so, too. It’s been nice to spend time with someone that understands me, even when I don’t say much.”
“I’m an expert in silent communication after dealing with Heero all those years.”
“You made a good team during the war and then when you joined the Preventers. He always said you were the best partner he could hope for. I wondered…” Trowa’s eyes flashed to Duo’s for a moment before looking away again, shaking his head as if to dismiss he had said anything.
Easily able to interpret the unasked question, Duo shrugged, “Why did I quit when we were such a good team?”
“Right; I was surprised when you applied for a job with the Cinq government.”
“It was good being able to work with Heero again, but since he doesn’t go into the field anymore, it didn’t take long for me to feel I was being strangled by my own braid. I considered changing partners, but Wufei and Sally make a good team and there wasn’t anyone else I trusted.”
Pausing, Duo took a long drink of water, feeling the weight of Trowa’s eyes on him and enjoying the sensation more than he should. After clearing his throat, he continued, “I heard Wufei talking about some open positions with the Cinq committee, so I talked to Heero about it. He understood why I felt the need to leave; if he hadn’t, I never would have resigned. When Zechs found out I had applied for any position, he asked if I wanted to be the head of his security team, like you are with Quatre.”
“You didn’t accept the offer.”
“I didn’t want to be responsible for that many people. Zechs was the one that suggested I become his bodyguard. There were advantages to the position that I liked, so I accepted. I’m in charge of me and Zechs and Darby takes care of the security detail when Zechs has a public appearance. It works pretty well for us. I couldn’t do what you do.”
“I do the same thing you do; protecting Quatre is my job.”
“Yeah, but you have to keep up with the goon squad all the time. I’ve always admired the way you can order them around without having to say much.”
“They know their jobs; I’m only there to give them direction when it’s needed,” Trowa’s cheeks were a little red, making Duo smile. Apparently, he had embarrassed the tall man.
“You’re good at what you do, Trowa. So,” Duo poked at the lettuce on his sandwich with one finger, “do you have any plans today? I seem to have the rest of the day off and I know you wanted me to look at your computer. Do you want me to go to your apartment later?”
“You could come over after we eat. You said you needed groceries?”
Thrilled the other man had made the suggestion, Duo nodded, “You could follow me there. It’s right beside a movie store…”
“That sounds nice. I’m sure we can find something we can both agree on.”
They were finishing their food when Duo’s phone chirped, signaling that he had a message. Reading it, he frowned, “It’s the dating agency. Apparently, some guy is available tonight if I want to go out.”
“If you want to go, you can come over another night,” Trowa said quietly, eyes averted.
Duo only had to give it thought for an instant before sending his response back. “You know what? I think I’d rather watch a movie with you. There’ll be other dates, but we can’t miss an opportunity to teach you how to cook, can we?”
Long after they had left the diner, while they were searching the aisles of movie titles available, Duo had to wonder about his actions. Based on what he had read, the man sounded like he could have been an interesting companion, yet Duo had chosen to spend the evening with Trowa over someone else. He decided it was best not to study his motivations too much, afraid of what he would find.
It didn’t take long for Duo to get Trowa’s computer updated, adding a number of programs he thought the tall man would appreciate. Feeling a presence over his shoulder, he tilted his head up, taking a deep breath when he found Trowa standing right behind the chair, bent down so he could see what Duo was doing. The braided man’s brain went blank for a full five seconds, until Trowa looked down at him with a questioning expression. “Uh…I finished updating your computer,” he said needlessly, prompting a smile from the tall man.
“I had assumed you had gotten done, but I can’t say I recall this specific program being on here before or this one,” Trowa leaned over further to point at the screen.
“I added some things I thought you might like; I have these on my computer at home and at work. They make my life easier,” Duo forced his gaze back to the screen. “This one is a tracking system you can put all of the Winner vehicles on; it’s a good way to keep up with all of Quatre’s employees. This way you can make sure they’re using the company cars for business and not…anything else. I can help you log each vehicle to the system later if you want, but I thought you might want to start with the cars you use to transport Quatre. It’ll help you see that no one has taken any of them without you knowing, cutting down on the possibility of tampering with the vehicles.”
“That could prove to be very helpful.”
“Yeah; when I first installed it at the Cinq building, Zechs had to fire eight employees because they were using the cars for things that were definitely not business relations, unless they were trying to improve company morale by visiting either mistresses or each other away from work.”
“What is the other one for?”
“It will give you a direct link to the Preventers criminal database. Now, those annoying background checks will take ten minutes instead of five hours. They have the most comprehensive database of known criminals in the Universe, with fingerprints and eye scans included. If someone has been arrested in the last fifteen years, in any law enforcement organization, the file will be on here.”
“Duo, do I want to know where you got these programs?”
The braided man snickered, not insulted by the question at all, “They belong to the agency, but I have permission to use them. Une has granted me permission to use them, as long as I’m not using them to play with the general public.”
“Have you used them to play with the general public yet?” Trowa asked with a knowing smirk.
“Maybe once or twice, but nothing that would have created lasting damage. I did use it a few times to check out the people I went out on dates with, but I stopped doing that after I realized it didn’t tell me a damn thing that was helpful. I mean, yeah, they weren’t criminals, but that didn’t mean they were sane, either.”
“Are there any other surprises on there for me to find later?”
“Nah; I didn’t think you’d find the nude pics too interesting,” Duo teased.
Trowa moved back a step, “That depends on who the pics are of, I suppose.”
Not sure what to say about that, Duo remained quiet as he shut down the computer. Seeing that the tall man had already made his way to the kitchen, he rose from the chair and followed, stopping to lean on the door frame as Trowa got the ingredients they had bought at the store, smiling when Trowa picked up a small jar of parsley leaves and stared at it with a frown. “They don’t bite, you know…and you can’t glare them into submission.”
Setting the jar on the counter with a smile, Trowa gave a small shrug, something Duo had never imagined the tall man doing before they had gotten to know each other better, “It never hurts to try. Are you planning to put those on the steak? I don’t think I like that idea; if I wanted leaves, I’d eat a salad.”
“They’re for the potatoes, Trowa, not the steak.”
“Why are we putting leaves on the potatoes?”
Moving into the kitchen fully, Duo found the potatoes in question, dumping them in the sink to be washed. “You use salt and pepper, right?”
“Yes.” Trowa handed Duo a knife without waiting for the braided man to ask, eyebrow lifting when Duo spun the knife in his hand.
“It’s the same concept; the parsley is just an additional seasoning to give the potatoes more flavor. How do you not know any of this? What have you been eating for the last twenty-five years?”
“With the mercenaries I ate what I could find, during the war I ate what I could find, and since then I’ve been surviving on microwave meals unless we go out for dinner or I’m on a date,” Trowa shrugged again as he leaned against the counter beside Duo, eyes following the deft motions of the knife as they peeled skin off vegetables. “I’m actually very surprised that you cook as well as you do; I never would have expected it from the way you normally eat when we’re at a restaurant.”
“I cook good foods, so sometimes I indulge a little when we go out. If I ate like that all the time, I’d be the size of a house. I like grease, but I don’t like the idea of being fat.”
“You could eat everything in sight for a month and still not get fat,” Trowa snorted. “I guess that’s one reason I was so surprised to see how healthy you eat when you’re at home.”
Duo snickered, “Yeah, it takes a lot of work to keep me in shape like this,” he teased as he handed the knife and a potato to the other man, turning away to get the steaks from the fridge.
“Whatever you’ve been doing, it works for you,” Trowa said quietly.
Turning slowly, Duo saw the small smile as his heart pounded against his ribs. Assuming the other man was joking, he forced a smile, “I gotta say that the microwave meals don’t seem to be hurting you, either.”
“It’s nice that you noticed, but it’s also nice that you offered to teach me how to cook. I really do appreciate it, Duo.”
Glad that the awkward moment was over, Duo rolled his eyes and took the knife from Trowa’s hands, stepping behind the man to demonstrate the proper way to peel the potato, taking guilty pleasure in the way it felt to be so close to the tall man as he put his arms around Trowa. “If you do it this way, you keep more of the potato and you don’t have to use so many. Try to keep as much potato as possible; a little bit of skin isn’t going to hurt anything,” he explained as he ran the knife over the vegetable in Trowa’s hand, very aware of how still the other man had gotten. “Finish these and I’ll show you how to cut them up into chunks before we put the parsley on them. I’ll marinate the steaks,” he added as he moved away from Trowa.
They worked in silence for several minutes, until the tall man spoke up, “Am I doing this right?”
Glancing over, Duo smiled as he watched Trowa meticulously cut the potato into small pieces, doing the same to his own without having to look. “Not so small. Other than that, you’re doing perfectly.”
“I have a good teacher.”
Duo felt his face flush at the compliment, wishing that hearing so little didn’t mean so much. Realizing it was going to be a long night, he ducked his head and tried to concentrate on what he was doing so he didn’t cut off his finger.