The smell of smoke and melting metal bombarded her senses as she laid flat against the pavement below, coughing from the thick, polluted air that was rapidly fanning out from the explosion behind her.
Heero was quicker to stand than she, though he too coughed and squinted, the ash from the blast stinging at his eyes. He pulled her up after a moment, though she stumbled on weak knees as he led her by the arm to a small park away from the still-burning building behind them.
She covered her mouth as he set her down again, his vision clearing as he assessed the scene they had just narrowly escaped. The ESUN North American headquarters in New York had apparently been attacked by suicide bombers, though the identities of the attackers were still in question; he suspected, though, from the style of the attack, that it had been carried out by the remaining, more radical members of Epyon de Telos that had escaped arrest by the authorities a month ago. Thankfully, he noted, their strategic incompetence had only managed to destroy part of the building's basement, the rest remaining relatively intact. It appeared that there would be few casualties due to the late hour and sparse number of occupants in the building at that time, but Heero was simply thankful that he had managed to retrieve Relena in time from her temporary office on the second floor.
Emergency vehicles and personnel along with local police forces moved into the area within minutes, and where Heero might have run back into the building in the past, eager to find the perpetrators first, he knew that his current duties kept him glued to his current position. He tore his gaze away from the scene once it appeared that the situation was under control, turning back to Relena's curled-up frame leaning against a tree close by. He noticed that her work-ready, light blue skirt suit had been ruined during the escape; of course, however, she didn't pay any mind to such a thing, her eyes instead fixed worriedly on the burning building.
He observed in silent consternation several cuts on her hands, legs, and face, not to mention dirt smudging her once-perfect light brown hair. The bun she had tied her hair into that morning was undone and her matching blue bow missing entirely. Her nude stockings were also ridden with tears and holes, and it seemed that in each torn area, there was a small cut on the skin beneath. The various injuries drew him back towards her in an instant, and he inspected them carefully, making sure not to infect any of the wounds with his own, dirtied hands.
Relena was admittedly a little shocked when she first felt his light touch on her skin, the sensation jolting her out of her anxious state over the sight less than a hundred metres from them; and upon seeing how concernedly he stared at her small, insignificant cuts, her heart only raced faster. She swallowed a little more loudly than intended, wanting to curse as she felt her cheeks get hot from his closeness. Her reaction even made him look back up at her with some confusion, the boy soldier unused to the young minister being so finicky in his presence.
However, when she turned away from him, unable to meet his stare (lest her face burn off entirely), he seemed to grasp her discomfort, and he retracted his hands from where they inspected her lightly-bleeding knees. He pulled up the bottom of his white dress shirt from under the waistband of his trousers, ripping off two long strips from it and wrapping one around each cut across her knees, the pressure of the makeshift bandage on her wounds making Relena wince.
"That should stop the bleeding for now," he informed her, and she nodded, looking at him appreciatively as her blush died down.
"Thank you, Heero," she said quietly. She reddened again when his eyes met hers, continuing in a slightly more awkward way: "I mean, for everything. You're always saving me, it seems."
He shrugged indifferently. "You have to be protected."
Relena kept herself from stiffening at his robotic answer, forcing herself to smile instead as she continued in a quieter tone.
"Still . . . I'm glad it's you doing it."
Confusion flashed across his usually stoic features as he considered her last comment, though, after a moment, he seemed to absorb her meaning, and his stare relaxed somewhat.
Although he said nothing in return, Relena could have sworn, as their gazes locked, that he had accepted the small drop of affection for him that her words had inadvertently revealed. There was something in those Prussian blue depths that reminded her of the way he'd looked at her all those months ago, just before he'd pulled her towards him out in the darkness of space.
She paused, smiling with pinking cheeks, and wondered if he had seen the same thing in her gaze—and if he, too, remembered it as vividly as she did.
YOU ARE READING
Slow Burn
Fanfic[Gundam Wing A/C; a 1xR series of vignettes post-Endless Waltz.] He had always been conscious of the fact that she—Relena Darlian Peacecraft, Queen of the World—loved him, and him alone. And yet that was the problem, since he could never give her wh...
