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The problem of five highly-trained, physically and mentally enhanced super soldiers is that they could pretty much break any rules they want with the right motivation, time and maybe equipment (but maybe not). Even laws of physics and gravity if they put their minds to it. Worse than that, all five had become, to some extent, adrenaline junkies. If they weren't given regular opportunities to do truly impossible things and achieve superhuman feats, they started looking for chances in the worst possible places.
Heero took to even-more-ridiculous-than-usual solo missions that should have killed him. Duo taunted terrorists and whack-jobs from increasingly disadvantageous positions. Trowa infiltrated deeper and deeper, treading ever closer to breaking his cover. Quatre concocted more and more ambitious plans that could have backfired on him disastrously. Wufei began challenging everybody to duels. The world held no challenges, so the five of them went looking for them instead, but it was apparent to them all that one day one of those challenges would go too far.
So someone, anonymously, issued a different kind of challenge.
The letters were hand-dropped in their Preventers mailboxes. They contained certain codewords that meant either someone had effectively replaced one of the five former Gundam pilots, or else one of them was choosing to keep his name out of it. In essence, it was a printed invitation to a stretch of uninhabited, un-debris-clogged space where five new-model space-jets would be waiting, begging to find out how fast they could fly in the hands of the right pilots.
Everyone had suspicions. In fact, everyone blamed Quatre. He was the most logical to arrange such a thing, after all, between his resources and his worry for his friends. But Quatre just smiled serenely and refused to admit to anything. He did, however, make it known to the others that he intended to take the anonymous person up on their invitation, prompting the rest to agree.
So they raced in the blackness of space between satellites, customizing their engines on the spot and fighting one another for dominance.
The next month, another invitation arrived for bikes in the dessert. Then submarines in the Pacific. Then an obstacle course on the top of a skyscraper. Then helicopters through a too-narrow canyon.
There was freedom in speed and competition that all five found bizarrely soothing when there was no threat to life or limb besides what they offered each other. Their constant vigilance over the Earth Sphere United Nation, their ever-watchfulness for the sake of peace, their unending battle against war and terrorism, it grated on the five. But knowing that, for one day a month, all of that would evaporate and leave them only themselves, in the quiet of their minds, pressed to their best selves – it gave them a kind of rest.
After six months of competitions, everyone had won at least once, with Heero coming out ahead twice. And the ex-pilots were less tense, less likely to push towards that knife's edge of unhealthy thrill-seeking. Trowa didn't bother to jump from quite such high heights, because he had to be in top form to be ready for the next race. Duo and Heero did not make such reckless charges into a firefight or they could be at a disadvantage in the upcoming round if they were wounded. Wufei was slightly more careful about keeping his distance from his explosives so as not to gain a concussion in the blast. Quatre did not work himself as much to death at either Preventers or WEI so he would be rested in time for the next challenge. After the first year, they stopped getting hurt on missions altogether. The one time Duo had had a sprained ankle and he had lost the next competition horribly, he spent a month fuming.
Having something to drive them gave them back the self-preservation all five had unlearned long ago.
They couldn't live in the world as it was. It wasn't built for five wild spirits, fueled by so much fire no one mission or one war could capture it all. They had to have their own world with their own rules, rules that let them risk life and limb in peace so they might survive to risk even more in real battle.
The races continued on for many years. Once a month, every month, in a new location, or with new technology, or with new twists. From a cross between a paintball-tournament and a deep-sea diving exercise to jet-pack sky-diving, they discovered new outlets for their energies, their powers, and their exhilaration. And they survived.
Their world was dangerous enough. If not for the races, the challenges, the competitions, it would have been far, far more dangerous for them all. Because they risked their lives, they would survive their missions. A paradox, perhaps. But so were they in every way. They had always been safest in danger, after all.
And only Quatre knew, but never ever told, that it was Wufei who had arranged it all.