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"I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie."
It was Duo's motto, and, as his friends had cause to point out to him many times, was applicable to effectively every part of his life. Duo didn't just run when outgunned; he also ran his mouth, ran out of socks, ran a Gundam-only poker game, and ran for office (but only once, and it was on L3, and nobody talks about the debate where he made the moderator laugh until coffee came out of her nose).
The lying thing was a little more complex. Duo did tend to evade ever saying anything blatantly untrue, but his definition of "true" was a little…fuzzy. On this, Duo and Quatre understood one another uncannily well. For Quatre, the words he spoke might or might not be reflective of the total reality, but they weren't often wholly true or false (except when on a mission, when all bets were off and the Arab would lie with a cheerful heart to protect the others). With Duo, a straight question was more likely to get no answer at all or a joke so outrageous it couldn't possibly true – except that sometimes it was.
Hiding, though, that was Duo's real specialty.
Hiding in plain sight, hiding his emotions, hiding out from paperwork and responsibility, hiding a multitude sins under his smile, hiding the keys to the jeep. Duo could hide a mobile suit in a public parking lot and no one would see it. He could hide his fears under so much laughter almost no one could guess at it. He liked to boast that he could steal a colony and hide it under his bed, and his friends just shook their heads but they didn't question him. If he set his mind to it, Duo could hide anything.
But his favorite hiding place ever was not under his bed, or deep in his smile, or in Wufei's pocket or Quatre's briefcase or Trowa's knapsack or Heero's laptop (though that last one, when he'd concealed that surprise with the picture and the pink frosting, that was one of his true triumphs).
Duo's best, favorite hiding place was his hair.
This was something all the Gundams had learned quickly – first, that most of his supplies lived somewhere in that massive braid, and secondly, never ever to touch it without permission. Even unconscious and half-dead, Duo tended to take it poorly when he felt someone pulling on the things he embedded in his hair. In downtime, between missions, his friends might tug the braid playfully or, in Wufei's case, as an admonition, but they never touched it when they knew he had stocked it like a second weapons locker.
At the base of the braid, where it was narrow and accessible, he tended to keep a sharp blade. In close combat, Duo could whip his head around and slash an enemy from behind with just that, and even if it lacked the force to kill, it was usually a very big surprise. Next up the braid was his set of lock-picks, multi-tools, and sometimes a very small flashlight. Then there was another sharp blade, this one oriented where Duo could get at it with his hands behind his back, his elbows or, one memorable evening, with a shoulder-blade and his foot up behind him. As the braid grew thicker, Duo had several small packets of explosive putty, carefully separated and wrapped (or his hair would get all gooey). Near his neck would be a spare clip for his firearm unless the caliber was truly ridiculous.
But it was the single tiny item at the base of his skull, woven into the very beginning of the braid, that Duo valued the most.
Everything else in that long plait of hair was there for a purpose, usually to kill somebody or otherwise cope with a dangerous situation. Everything else in his arsenal was meant to keep him alive, keep his friends alive, and complete his mission. Duo was truly Shinigami, even his braid dedicated to the cause of death. But at the nape of his neck, pressed against his spine where it joined his skull, intimate as a caress, a tiny item was always tightly affixed, woven into the braid itself and near invisible.
From the time his hair had been long enough to conceal anything, it had always been a key.
For many years he had carried a key to the Maxwell Church, even after its burning, to remind himself of what he had lost. During the Eve wars, he had replaced that key with the key that had originally led to the storehouse for his Gundam, his new cause and the one true ally he had to protect with all he was. But now, years from war and working besides the four other pilots for Preventers, the key had changed again.
It was not a standard key, but a digital one, highly encrypted with a randomized sequencer and multiple frequencies. And the key itself held a tiny hidden compartment in which there was another key, this one flat and forged of a dark-colored Gundanium and mostly unremarkable.
The digital key was coded to open about thirty different doors – his Preventers office, the various places Quatre had homes where Duo lived regularly no matter where he was in the ESUN, Howard's house on L2, and it could also open any door coded to the ESUN government or WEI. It was his way into his home, his work, his friends, and the people he had sworn to protect. It was everything that mattered, almost.
The Gundanium key was more than that. It wasn't, technically, a key at all. Well, maybe that wasn't true – Quatre had had it made, so, knowing him, the key really would open something somewhere.
More importantly, it was a message.
"I had these produced," Quatre had said one quiet evening as the five of them stared at the fire in the hearth on a cold night after a day of deadly work. "I realized there are two times we may need to communicate and no other method will do. Take them," he'd handed them out, "and keep them with you always. If you ever leave it behind, on a mission, in your office, in the street, whatever, that will be the signal that you are going in deep or against your will and we should follow you. And we will," his eyes had been fierce, "to the ends of space if necessary, until you take your key back."
"But," Quatre had turned over the one in his own hands, a slightly golden key where Trowa had red, Wufei had white, and Heero had green, "if you ever send this key to me in an envelope with nothing else, not even a note, I will know that you are walking away. Send me the key and I will never look for you again, and I'll cover your trail with everything I can throw at it."
He'd looked up sadly then, eyes fantastically old and weary.
"There's lots of reasons one of us might want to disappear intentionally. Maybe it becomes too much trying to live in the world. Maybe you can't deal with the rest of us anymore. Maybe you're changing sides. It doesn't matter. I cannot ever disappear – I'm too well-known and I have too many responsibilities. But you all deserve the freedom to turn your backs and vanish. I won't ask any questions. I won't blame you. I'll cover your retreat and keep your secret for as long as I live. I owe you all at least that much."
Having an out, knowing that he could escape any time he wanted and Quatre Raberba Winner would protect him, it was the most reassuring thing Duo had ever been told. He privately believed that the Gundanium key, impenetrable to any kind of scan, might also hold a beacon by which Quatre could track him down in an emergency, but he wasn't sure. It wasn't like Quatre didn't have a hundred other ways to find people he wanted found.
But because Duo had this key, both to summon the others and to drive them away forever, he was safe as he hadn't been in his whole life. Without a word he could ask for help or tell them all to leave him alone and he knew without a doubt that either message would be received and respected.
So he hid it at the base of his braid, close to his head where he could feel its weight every moment of the day. If a mission ever went so far south it worked loose, that would send the right message. And otherwise, that certainty of his freedom, that he could run and hide and never be found without ever having to lie to the only people who mattered, he kept that symbol close and hidden too.
When he looked at it the right way, Duo knew all of his hiding was really just another way of not telling a lie by running, and it suited him just fine.
Lucky for him, it suited the four people he tended to run towards just fine, too.