Work Text:
Heero paced restlessly. He didn't know he was doing it – if he had noticed, he would immediately have drawn himself completely still as was the way of the Perfect Soldier instead of venting his frustration like any first-mission rookie. But he had been waiting for Quatre for three hours, and the tiny anteroom in which he was permitted to wait was windowless, near devoid of furniture, and two floors down from where Quatre's meeting was being held.
It was, in short, not a good strategic position.
Heero's internal clock alerted him moments before his watch beeped that the time to check in had come. It was one of the conditions of his agreeing to this idiotic meeting – Quatre would check in with him regularly or, so help him, Heero would come to find him. Even Quatre had agreed that might be wise, given that he was negotiating the takeover of a major rival corporation, one with historical ties to organized crime, and would be promptly removing every single person Preventers confirmed to have participated in criminal activity.
Heero raised his phone and made the call. It rang out.
"Kuso," he swore angrily. Then, as instructed, he called again. Two missed calls was the signal that Quatre needed help.
"This is Quatre," came the familiar voice on the third ring.
"Status?" Heero asked shortly, an uneasy feeling building in his stomach.
"I thought I made it clear I was not to be disturbed," Quatre said, a little distractedly.
Heero felt his eyebrows rise. That was not in any way the plan, and Quatre knew that.
"Just tell me one thing," Heero said quickly.
"Yes, I can answer one brief question," came the response, and now Heero could hear certain layers to his tone that only someone who knew him well would have caught. On top of it all, he sounded calm and collected, but there was a hitch underneath it that spoke to nerves. And yet, it wasn't the kind of nerves that Quatre usually expressed. The ex-pilot of Sandrock simply did not experience fear in the boardroom, no matter what the business deal.
But under all that was a different tone, one only four other people alive might catch – the slightest smoothness and rapidity of speech that only came out when Quatre were manipulating the situation, a holdover from ZERO's influence. Which meant he was pretending to be afraid, and therefore pretending to be pretending to be calm.
Heero's patience shattered and he practically growled, "Do I need to come in hot?"
"Yes, I think that would be very appropriate for the occasion. Please set it up with my assistant. I have a guest waiting. Thank you." And the line cut out.
Heero reached into his pocket where there was another communicator, so much more than just a phone, and without even drawing it out he keyed a code and flipped a switch. "Set it up with my assistant" could only mean Quatre wanted him to alert the others.
That done, Heero drew his gun and, visualizing the entire layout of the building, which he had of course memorized beforehand, left his stuffy anteroom to get upstairs where his friend was waiting.
Heero didn't bother to eliminate targets on his way up – starting a fight in the hallways could endanger Quatre; instead, he needed to ensure Quatre's safety first and then all bets were off. A buzz from his pocket told him his message had been received, but the others were still some distance away. By the time they arrived, either he would have succeeded, or he would have failed and no rescue would matter anymore.
After ducking through the stairwell and ascending the two stories, he peeked into the hallway that led to the large conference room in which Quatre should be. There were four men outside the massive wooden doors, heavily armed.
Heero slipped from the stairwell into a nearby unlocked door which opened into a restroom. It was simple enough to kick a ceiling tile loose and climb into the crawlspace. Within moments he was above the four of them. He drew a second pistol, not his more familiar Glock, but this one armed with a different kind of ammunition.
Four silent shots later and the four guards had crumbled with tranquilizer darts sticking out of the tops of their oblivious heads.
A bang from the room below startled him. It was probably just someone pounding on a tabletop. Probably.
"It had better be," Heero ground his teeth as he dropped back into the hallway, stowing the tranq gun under his jacket against the small of his back and making a last check of the Glock. If he had failed, if he was too late for Quatre, no man or woman would leave the building alive.
Just before he kicked open the door, Heero grabbed his phone and called Quatre once again. The ringing in the room beyond was all the distraction Heero needed.
Between one heartbeat and the next, Heero had kicked in the doors and opened fire. Several men turned to him, drawing weapons, but he had already advanced into the conference room, eliminating the first row of them with incredible speed. He was four steps past the doors when a rough shout arrested him.
"Enough!"
A large, ham-fisted man had put a gun to Quatre's temple. He held the young Arab with thick fingers tangled in the back of his shirt-collar, and Heero could see the silk tie digging deeply into Quatre's throat.
"Toss that over here or Mr Winner will be very sorry," the man ordered. At the slightest nod from Quatre, Heero lowered the weapon. But he noticed the blond's fingers twitch and understood the signal. He lobbed the Glock onto the broad table that dominated the room, close to the man and Quatre.
The man shoved Quatre forward, never letting go of his collar, and grunted "Pick it up and give it to me."
Heero hid his expression as Quatre stumbled forward, his falsified body language screaming that he was locked up with terror – if Duo had been here, he'd have been laughing himself silly at the sight. Quatre's feet almost went out from under him in his shaky haste to comply with the man's orders, even as he had to stretch hard enough to make himself gag to reach the gun where it had landed. The Arab certainly knew how to put on a good show.
Heero took a quick inventory of the room. Besides the ringleader who held Quatre, there were only two others still breathing. Simple.
The moment Quatre's fingers closed on the Glock, both ex-pilots moved.
Heero threw himself down and to the side, pulling his tranquilizer gun as he did so. He popped up from behind a chair long enough to hit the two remaining guards or board members or whoever they were. He knew without looking that Quatre was handling the leader.
Quatre had almost sighed with relief when the man shoved him towards the gun. He'd played the role of a frightened captive for the last hour, hoping for this exact outcome. So the moment Heero's Glock found its way into his hand, Quatre, CEO of WEI and media and business darling, became Quatre, leader of the Maganacs and former pilot of Sandrock.
He'd pivoted in place, heedless of the tight grip on his collar and shot a single bullet into the man's underarm, straight through the heart. Death was instantaneous.
As soon as Heero had dropped the other two, he appeared at Quatre's side. The blonde was standing back up – the leader's death hadn't been enough to free him from that unpleasant grip and he'd had his head near torn off when the man went down.
"Status?" he demanded.
"I'm all right," Quatre said breathlessly, and he coughed a bit. Heero frowned darkly at where there was a broad mark on Quatre's throat from the man's strangling grip, and he noted that the pale windpipe looked badly bruised. If the man hadn't been dead already, Heero would have strangled him – slowly – for that.
"Time to leave," was all he said, though.
"Agreed." And with almost serene slowness, Quatre gathered up a few slightly blood-splattered pieces of paper and packed them into his briefcase. "Unless you have a better idea, I do have an extraction plan."
"Of course you do."
"I thought there'd be more of them than this, honestly," Quatre said conversationally as he snapped the briefcase shut. "That's why I came to this meeting without the usual assistants and vice presidents and such. This," he gestured at the seven bodies throughout the room, "is a much less hostile reception than I expected. Fairly low-key, really."
"If this is what you consider 'low-key,' we are going to have to work on your frame of reference," Heero gave him a tiny smile, a mere crack in his composure.
Twenty minutes later, the two of them had engineered an escape from the building which required eliminating only two more guards and a bit of Quatre's fast-talking to convince one poor secretary to lock herself in the bathroom to wait for the Preventers assault that would likely arrive an hour after the nick of time, as usual. As they slipped from the side door and down a steep embankment to the underground parking garage, a nondescript beige van pulled up.
"Oh, man! Did we miss all the fun?" Duo asked, bouncing out the door almost before the van had stopped fully. But no one missed the sharpness of his gaze as it roved over the two, nor how his eyes narrowed dangerously at the clear mark on Quatre's pale throat and the blood droplets marring the white business suit.
"If you like," Heero offered, pushing Quatre into the van and giving a single nod to Wufei, who relaxed fractionally, "you can take the next shift."
"All right!" Duo cheered.
"Don't be so excited," Trowa put in from the driver's seat, looking intensely at Quatre himself as Duo hustled Heero into the van, wary and watchful. "Because the next time he goes out in public is probably going to be to deal with the press on this."
"Last time I stood as bodyguard against the press corp, I had to put my fist through a camera," Wufei added disgustedly.
"It's fair, though," Heero said over Duo's melodramatic and gleeful anticipation. When everyone turned to him (except Trowa, who was now driving them at much higher-than-legal speeds to a secure location), he shrugged. "Quatre Winner protects half the Earth Sphere with what he does as CEO, not to mention Zero Four's watchfulness in Preventers."
Quatre blushed, and the others nodded seriously. After all, what was more important than guarding the guardian of so much peace and hope and power and influence himself?
Especially when they all knew he would protect them right back – every single time.