|
"The Heist "Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, male/male pairings, language Pairings: 1x2x1 Summary: Duo's planning a robbery, considering a reality TV show, and falling for the man who can lock him up for good. Can his friends help him? Can he help himself? A/N: This story takes place in a universe more
like ours today, where the colonies exist on land, not in space, and
where the world is on the cusp of change. Thanks goes to Waterlily
for her tireless editing and thoughtful suggestions throughout. "The Heist " Chapter Six - And I'll Take the Low Road The next morning, Duo called Mr. Treize Khushrenada at the ungodly hour of nine to give him "the what" and "the when" of "the heist" and to find out how much trouble robbing the palace for a reality TV show was going to give the man. Mr. Khushrenada assured him that even the palace would be no problem. Surprisingly, this made Duo even less trusting, more uneasy. The producer should have had some qualms, shouldn't he? And yet... Khushrenada was thrilled with the scope of it! Imagine, televising him pinching the crown jewels under the watchful eyes of the illustrious elite guard! And the frightful circus people would be an added bonus. There would be freaks on display? Duo couldn't say. That was not under his control. And, no, his recording and sound people were the best and would not get into anyone's way. They were very skilled working among the royals. Hardly be noticed! Duo took that to mean they would be under his feet at every turn, but didn't say so. He had a limitation to get the man to agree to: They were not to film the workers moving objects for spring cleaning. That rule was a little more difficult for Duo to get across. From Duo's perspective, this would keep his promise to Quatre and Wufei to leave them out of the filming. He couldn't say that to Khushrenada, naturally, so how he explained it was that the "help" was union and under contract with the palace to avoid notoriety. Apparently, even the film industry bowed to union rules, as Duo had speculated, and on this point the charismatic Khushrenada eventually backed down. That set off another warning alarm in Duo's super suspicious head. He felt tempted to question the producer's motivations, but a combination of having won the arguments and the TV man's plentiful charm caused Duo to let it pass, for the time being, and end the call on an upswing. He would be extra careful, ever watchful, and stick to his plan to dodge all the bullets and get the job done. So tucking away all his reservations so that he could examine them later enabled Duo to work his way to the next item on his "to do" list. Because of the time differential on the L2 colony, Duo trusted now would be a fine time to contact his old pal, Howard. (o) There was a time when Howard was afraid his burglary occupation was on the way out. Cameras. Sticking on poles or hidden in artificial flowers. And not just those but all of it. Security. Tracking. Records on everything. Global Positioning. Radio chips you could swallow. It was getting harder for old timers like him. And from his war experience, he was good at directing others. He had plenty of other marketable skills, like creating faux treasures, or knowing scientists who could and would for a price. The war was over and he had at his beck and call plenty of youngsters with time on their hands and no idea how to market their meager skills. "Howard," he told himself, "it is time you underwent a career change." First, he brought along a younger generation already schooled in computers and the internet. Second, he sent a select few of his brightest to tech schools to get training in the latest and greatest. Duo Maxwell had risen to the top like cream on fresh, chilled whole milk. Duo had been his beacon of hope. (o) Howard was in a rush, so Duo had to put the questions to him fast. "Fire away!" "Um, okay. What do you know about copies of the Sanc crown jewels?" "Everything. Next?" "So, there are bona fide copies?" "Authentic replicas? Isn't that an oxymoron of the first kind? Ha, ha, hah!" Duo played along with a forced chuckle. It was too early in the day for his humor to awaken. "Of course," Howard went on to say, "I made them here in the laboratories. They are kept on display and the actual ones are secured...elsewhere. Anything else? Time is money, boy!" "As you taught me," Duo said. "Okay, how about the framed art in the palace?" "The real stuff is on display." "Any of it copied?" "Anything worth its salt was copied ages ago, and stored off site. Why do you want to know?" "Just... checking what I was told." Duo felt much better having those facts confirmed. Duo thought of something new. "I'm no expert. How can you tell the real ones apart from the fakes?" "In this case it's rather simple." The man paused, waiting for Duo to urge him on. "And?" "A small hallmark-you'd have to hunt for it, because I often hid them-that's the letter '4' in the outline of a paw print." "A '4' in a paw print?" Duo asked, puzzled to see any meaning or symbolism in the mark. "You got it. Four paw. Faux pas? Get it? It's French for an embarrassing mistake." "Oh. Yeah. Cute, Howie. You think of that?" "All by myself." The man chuckled quietly. "I'm going to have to hurry you along now. I'm having a little trouble with a couple fences in the area. I need to bully them around a little, so, unless you have any other pressing questions?" "None. You've been a great help. Thanks." "You are welcome. Oh, just a minute. I knew I had a question only Duo Maxwell could answer." That sparked Duo's curiosity. "Ask away." "How's that local fence been for you?" "Greg the Grifter? Great. He's given me some good deals. Seems fair, not too greedy, and he keeps a clean front that doesn't attract the cops. Perfect dealer of stolen merchandise. Thanks for that lead." "Good to hear. Greg's just out on his own, but he's been in the pawn business with me a good while." "That all?" "You keeping your head above water?" Howard asked, his voice turning warm and concerned to Duo's ear. "Never been better, actually." "That's good. Real good, boy. I just think about you now and then, hoping you've found your way." Howard had supplied Duo and other freedom fighters with weapons and technology beyond their means to pay for, and in return the young fighters had kept many of Howard's trade routes open and clear of Alliance troops. Duo and Trowa and to a lesser degree Wufei and Quatre had been his beneficiaries, but only Duo had failed to integrate himself back into a life without crime. The others all had had trades, skills, or education and a life to go back to; Duo only knew how to live off the streets and steal from the oblivious. They chatted another five minutes and then signed off. The next three items on his list were in the wrong order so he penciled in a couple arrows, altering the sequential arrangement of the items. "Talk to Trowa" only made sense in the afternoon, after conducting his other business. "TV contract" could wait. It was time to meet Wufei Chang's boyfriend. Boyfriend? How did that arrogant ass attract a boyfriend? There was hardly enough "nice" in the guy to be a friend! Maybe it had more to do with his ass?-a thought he tried to bury immediately. Well, then take the name "Mill". It didn't drum up any excitement in Duo. "Milquetoast" was what the name brought to mind. Both meanings worked for him. That of a weak, ineffectual person and of the sick-kid food he recalled from his orphanage years. Toasted white bread, buttered, broken up and served with hot milk. If he was lucky, there would have been a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar on it. It made him shiver just to think about that crap ever having been a treat to him. And the name "Mill" continued to make him think of someone pale, bland and mushy. On first meeting, Duo surprised himself by being right on one out of three of the descriptors. The moment Duo entered the pastry shop that morning he felt a wave of déjà vu. He'd never been in the shop, so it had nothing to do with the interior arrangement. Did the feeling of having been there before been due, in part, to the occupants, he wondered? But, no, one look around and he could see everyone there, which were few. Was that it, though? During the war he had visited the occasional coffee shop, and many had been empty of patrons, or mostly so; people scared to go out or away fighting or too poor for entertainment. Maybe it was that? Duo counted two people working inside and a couple seated at a single table far from an open window, one Wufei. "Over here!" the Chinese man said to him. Duo turned at the sound of the door closing and being locked behind him. He felt a chill run up his spine. The young lady who had locked the door wasn't looking at him. She hung a "closed" sign in the door window. "What'sup?" he immediately asked. Wufei was still standing. "Sit down and I'll explain." Duo took his time strolling over, keeping his eyes on the other man sharing the table. He had to be the boyfriend, Mill. The corner of Duo's mouth quirked upwards. Milquetoast. He was pale skinned, but not bland at all. Stunningly handsome with an air of breeding, Duo thought, with plenty of admiration for the man's physical beauty, and guessed that he must have been tall, because seated he wasn't much shorter than Wufei at full height. Duo estimated him at six and one half feet. Imagining the two in bed with that height discrepancy brought a grin to his face. He held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Duo." "Hello. Call me Mill." They shook hands briefly. When Mill removed his wool cap, a long platinum braid uncoiled and flopped over his shoulder and onto the table. He brushed out his long bangs with his fingers and looked up as he whipped his braid to his back. "Forgive me. Hair does not belong on the table where we eat, but it was very uncomfortable the way it was." As Duo watched the transformation, it made him smile and remark, "I understand completely." He removed his own cap and uncoiled his own long braid. They shared smiles. Wufei tugged at his shorter ponytail with exaggerated ease. "I'm always comfortable." "Aren't we a pair?" Mill said to Duo. Duo laughed and noticed how Wufei suddenly looked less comfortable and more pole-up-his-ass than he had just a moment ago. Duo was struck by another sense of déjà vu, far stronger, enough to make him feel woozy. This time he was certain it had to do with this man he just met. There was something eerily familiar about the man, and then it dawned on him. Mill was Prince Milliardo, who Duo had had a fleeting glance of the day he'd met Heero, but there was something he was missing yet. Wufei suddenly had a grip on his shoulder and an earnest expression on his face. "Duo? Are you all right?" "Get the poor fellow some water," Mill said with a crisp gesture to a waitress. "I'm okay. Maybe it's too early for me." Duo shook his head. "Would you please bring us fresh coffee, and a cup for this young man, too?" Mill asked the water-bearer. After a few sips of ice water followed by a few scorching sips of coffee, Duo seemed better. Wufei judged him to be well enough to eat and ordered a variety of pastries, rolls, and spreads. "Okay, so you are who I think you are, right?" Duo asked the tall blond. "If you mean the Prince of Sanc, then yes." Mill cast a look in the direction of the kitchen and smiled more. "Good. I need a croissant this morning." "And you're new in the title. How's that been for you?" Duo asked, actually curious about the man. "An adjustment." He acted as if that was all that needed to be said. "Why don't you tell him a little about yourself?" Wufei urged his boyfriend. "I like ties," Mill said, turning a wry smile toward his boyfriend. "You do?" Duo asked, amused, thinking bondage ties, and turned to smirk at the stuck up Chinese man. "That's not at all what I meant," Wufei moaned. "Oh, let him tell!" Duo chirped. He was liking this not-so-stuffy member of nobility, even though in the back of his mind there was still this tiny cry of warning. "Ever since I moved into my rooms at the palace, I have ordered ties via a catalogue that lists hundreds of varieties. This form of temptation should be illegal. Now that I can, I have a mind to do something about that." He and Duo laughed, while Wufei shook his head and mumbled about ridiculous conversations. "Oh, yeah! Outlaw them all! I'd do away with the strangulation devices, if it were me," Duo commented. "I should, but I like them, you see. Not to wear! To look at and a little just to touch. I find I really only need four or five new ones, but as I order the count rises to three dozen. Every one sounds better than the last, and they are so cheap-" Duo barked out a laugh to that. "Compared to houses, yeah." "Yes, well, it doesn't seem right to deny myself the pleasure of owning them just because I have no room to spare in my armoire." "Oh, surely you can fit an extra six dozen ties in somewhere! Put in a new addition?" Duo said, bringing the two of them to raucous laughter. Wufei clicked his tongue and pushed things around on the table to make room for all the food he'd ordered. "That's enough stupid talk." "Don't be jealous, love." Mill reached over and dragged the smaller man onto his lap. There was a little scrap- Wufei poking and slapping yet completely being over-powered by his patient, willful boyfriend- and in the end Wufei allowed and endured a mind numbing kiss and then resettled himself in his chair. "Hmmm," Mill said with a lick of his lips. "I might have to try the raspberry filled Danish, to go along with my delicious, buttery Chinese, pardon, I mean croissant-." Wufei's face turned scarlet, the heat of embarrassment threatening to burn blisters. "As nice as this all is," Duo said waving a hand at the laden table. "There's some serious business to go over. And I'm gonna start by putting a stop to any plans Wufei here has to involve you, and then follow that up with a thanks, but no thanks, nice to meetcha, and catch you later." Duo stood and finished off the last scrap of a roll with a swig of coffee. "I know all about your plans and I want to help." Milliardo motioned for Duo to sit back down. "You swore to keep this secret." Duo shot an accusatory glance at Wufei. "It's my call." "I didn't tell him anything compromising!" Wufei declared. "Gentlemen, please! Let me explain." Duo shrugged. Why storm out so soon? There was more to eat and he could listen a little longer before emphatically telling them both "no!" "Okay. But make it quick." "Relena and I feel we are, well, a princess and a prince from another time-a vanished age-but we are world-wise enough to notice we are in the wrong century." Mill gazed over Duo's shoulder into the distance. "This is starting out like a long story I once heard: 'they were both aristocrats and unlike as they were alike'," Duo interrupted. "And I gotta short attention span. This is getting us nowhere. Sorry, prince, but-" "Sit down!" Mill commanded and Duo dropped as ordered. "Yes, sir, geez..." Mill was an arid man, tall and spare with an authoritative bearing when pushed to reveal it. "I am a military man first a prince second. The noble name Peacecraft," he shooed it away with his hand, "Isn't really mine. Oh, I'll admit my father had been a king, but the aristocratic formation he ascribed to was, to my mind, some Sanc nonsense my father meddled with. Nothing more. I wanted nothing to do with governing an out of date monarchy, or being groomed for the job, so at thirteen I exiled myself to the forces, reporting to a new general, tutored by the Duke, my father's brother, and whose wife, I believe, was my mother, but that's another story." "And I'm sure one for a rollicking good time, but I haven't got time for-" Duo didn't get half up this time before Mills' expression forced him back into his seat. "Go on." "It was the last I saw of my half-sister until very recently. Relena was reared as a coddled princess, and, so far, has avoided being married off to various men from good families that had known each other forever." "That might have something to do with the fact that she's got a thing for gay guys who work for her and she shouldn't be interested in. Just my guess here, though." This time it was Wufei who kicked his leg. "Listen!" "What she and I have in common is a certain ruthless competence. The days of petty office politics and family connection as ways of getting things done are over. The forces at hand want to replace us. Out with old and corrupt and in with the new and equally dishonest. Now the issue is survival." Duo stared into the grey eyes of the other man. "So you say." "I do." "You said you didn't want to be king, but here you are, parading about greeting the fawning crowd about to be crowned? I don't see where this conversation is going. Or how you help me." "I don't want the crown for me. For Relena, and for her to set aside the power associated with it. She wants to pull Sanc into the future, remain a figurehead and put more government control into the people's hands." "Which people? Lots of people wanna part of the action." "You have heard of the New Alliance, certainly?" Not them! If the prince was considering handing over control of Sanc to them, well, Duo knew his days in town would be numbered. There was no kingdom large enough to hold both the old enemies of the state and the New Alliance. The rebel fighters that had fled to or remained in the peaceful Sanc would be hunted down and eliminated. He was sure of it, because it had happened in other places. He narrowed his eyes and gripped the table, ready to fight or run for his life if it came to that. "I've heard plenty," Duo said, "and dealt with the old organization." "Nasty brutes, the original Alliance. I can assure you my knowledge of them exceeds yours." Duo and Mill's eyes locked. There was something about the man, Duo thought, which had bothered him from the start. Military men, for sure, always rankled something in him like a festering sore spuming poison, but there was more to it that just that. Was it something in the pose, the bearing of the man? Not his face, that was new to him. "Those are not the leaders we want in control," Mill said. Waiting a moment and then smiling again. "Do you recognize me yet? We did meet, indirectly, a few years ago under far less comfortable conditions." Cover his face with a silver helmet, put him in battle, and Milliardo became the man Duo had known from the war as Zechs Merquise. But that man had died! Duo had been there and seen the enemy vehicle spin out of control and off the cliff and he had read the reports! "Um, if you are who I think you are then you should be dead, which means," Duo's eyes widened in horror as his mind took the next leap, "you're a zombie!" "Dear God," Wufei moaned, his head dropping to the tabletop. The only one who thought the idea was funny was Zechs, who laughed. "I never thought of it that way!" With a pleading look in Wufei's direction, he asked, "You never said...if you minded." Wufei twisted his head, still firmly planted next to his plate, and met the soulful stare with a constricted, beady-eyed glare of his own. "You are far too handsome to be a zombie, and you know it." "Well, there you have it, Duo. You must be in error." "Or maybe with you it works the opposite. You know, the mask covered up the falling apart bits of you face and then you died and came back all... fixed." Duo grinned with the knowledge of having figured it all out. "That would explain things, don't you think, love?" Wufei brought his arms up over his head, covering his ears, and moaned as he rocked back and forth. "So," Duo turned serious in a flash. "What did ole Fei-man here tell you about our...plans?" Mill raised a single, platinum eyebrow. "Only a bit about returning some art to rightful owners." Duo nodded, urging him tell him everything he knew about the job. "The paintings are real, but any are removed for cleaning or restoration, or to protect the delicate surfaces from wall paint or cleaning products, a reproduction is installed in its place so there are no telling empty spots. We remove the real pieces and put up the false, was my understanding. And I promised my dear Wufei that I would help carry anything he wanted in from or out to his company's vans, didn't I darling?" Wufei lifted his head and gave one feeble nod and then returned to hiding. Zechs patted his head affectionately and looked directly at Duo. "I'm completely at your disposal." He winked, causing Duo's scalp to prickle. "Professionally speaking, of course." "Uh, huh." Duo gathered his wits a moment. The other man was fully aware of his attractiveness, Duo could tell, and was probably pretty effective at using it to distract others. Well, not this man, Duo thought, not this time. He was too finely attuned to tricks to let someone pull anything over on him. "You understand not everything is going to L5, just those things that belong to them?" "Naturally." Mill's smile twisted to sly. "And the Sanc Kingdom can't ceremoniously return it to them because we acquired the art in trade for weapons prior to the war. I know my history, Duo." "Okay, sorry, just making sure we're on the same wavelength here." "We are. But why stop at pilfering a few paintings? I have security clearance throughout the palace, and all the government buildings of Sanc." Was the man a mind reader or had Wufei slipped him a few stray pieces of forbidden information? Duo shot Wufei a sharp look, but the other man had curled in on himself and was worthless. "I'll be televised burgling the joint. That enough for you?" Mill laughed as if he thought it was the funniest idea ever. "Yeah, well, yuck it up all you want. I wanna think it all over. Chew over Zombie Zechs a bit and get back to you later." What he wanted to do was talk things over with Trowa. If Mill/Zechs was on the level and trustworthy (was that even possible?) could he assist in the Treasury break-in? Duo thanked one of the girls on his way out the door, and then heard the lock engage again behind him. That had been a very, very strange encounter.
|
