Dance Dance

On any other night, they would have been wearing black body armor and carrying assault rifles, knives, and grenades. Quatre’s pale hair - and Zech’s too - would have been jammed under black knit caps (knit thoughtfully by Relena, so lumpy and uneven), and Duo would have had black paint smudged all over his boyish face.

Tonight, however, was no mission night.

Still, five gundam pilots watched, as intent as on any surveillance job, while the sixth member of their ranks put some of his training to use.

It had been Trowa’s idea, oddly enough, and even more odd was that Wufei had supported him. Quatre was on the bandwagon easily enough once Wufei threw down some philosophy to back up his point. As soon as Duo learned what the endgame was, he volunteered to handle the majority of the training. Zechs, unsurprisingly, had been the hold-out.

After some strong convincing (wheedling and puppy eyes from Duo, some smooth politician maneuvering from Quatre), Zechs relented, and so there they were, standing on the edges of the dance floor, watching Heero ask a girl to dance. For the first time. For totally non-mission-related purposes. Zechs and Quatre had handled dance lessons, with Trowa putting in his two cents about fighter grace being the same as musical grace. Wufei had selected practice candidates, including Noin, Sally, Relena, and Hilde - they’d all unanimously agreed against Dorothy. Duo had handled the conversational aspect and covered all matters of charm.

Heero had thrown himself into his new civilian training with the same doggedness with which he’d pursued his Preventers training, and there he was, out on the dance floor, asking a random girl to dance.

All five men held their breath without realizing it.


And then Heero tugged the girl close for a waltz.

(300 on the nose; Gundam Wing; technically Zechs was a gundam pilot because he piloted the Tallgeese, which was the original prototype for the other five gundams)