The young boy drew the damp rag across the white metal. The rag came away, stained with dirt, but not overly so.
Swish.
He did it again, a repetitive movement. The mecha was really too big for him to clean all by hand, but there was no need to. It was already cleaned, using massive machines that sprayed special mixtures of dissolvers that scoured the dirt off, yet left the metal untouched.
Swish.
But there was a need for the manual washing. The machine didn't need it, but he did. It soothed his soul, took the pain and the sting off the most recent memories. And helped bury down the old ones.
Swish.
The lasers flashing through the sky, utterly destroying. The bombs, screaming through the air, exploding in clouds of red fire. The gunfire. The coldly gleaming knives, wielded by him or wielded by others.
Swish.
It wasn't just washing. Tinkering with anything steadied him. Modifying the targeting system, adding extra power to his weapons, messing around with computers. He needed it. Unlike his teammates, he had no other outlet. No hobbies, nothing but being a pilot. He couldn't unburden himself to them, take the comfort they offered. He had to be strong, as ungiving and cold as the metal beneath his scarred hands.
Swish.
He had never shown affection, not once in his young life. Before he was old enough to kiss and hug his parents, he'd been taken away, given to a terrorist/assassin named Adin Lowe. To be trained to be a silent, coldly efficient killing machine. Even now, he wondered about his parents. Was his mother gentle and loving? Was his father strong and brave? Did he look like his father? Or his mother?
And the most important question, the one he'd been afraid to ask, when Adin had still been alive to answer him, because he was scared of the answer: Why did they give him up?
Swish.
But even as he sobbed himself to sleep in the evenings, his young body exhausted by the ordeals Adin put it through, searching desperately for a scrap of memory of the life he'd led before, of the people who'd loved him- it hadn't been so bad a life.
He'd grown to trust Adin, and liked him. Adin was an anchor. Adin had liked him, looked upon him as a little brother, even though he showed affection in a vague way.
Early on, he'd learned to shut off his emotion while on a 'job', make himself grow 'cold' so that the visions of blood and death couldn't penetrate his defenses and sink ugly claws into his memory.
But after, he'd cried and raged, yelled, laughed and smiled and whooped in excitement, just like any other young boy. Adin even scolded him for throwing temper tantrums back then, he vaguely remembered.
Swish.
But then Adin had been killed. So Dr. J took him in, trained him some more. And it was so much more brutal, it hurt so much, that he'd learnt to shut off his emotions all the time, not just on jobs. That way, no one could wound him. Not on the battlefield, not at the military bases and secret labs he'd called home. What was there to feel for, anyway?
His parents-he hadn't seen them for ten years, and he couldn't remember them anyway. Adin was dead. Any memento of his life before had been taken away; photos, knickknacks, a sketchbook he used to doodle in. No distractions, Dr. J had ordered.
Swish.
And so, the perfect soldier had been made. Forged in the fires of war, from a young boy who'd learned to kill at a very early age.
He was suited to it. No, not exactly suited... He had the qualities that _would_ make the perfect soldier.
He was highly skilled in the uses of all military technology. He was one of the best hackers around. He was a tactical genius. He could make hard decisions quickly, and carry them out. Physically, he was phenomenal, more than a match for the best Olympic athletes who ever walked the earth.
Swish.
And it was these qualities that doomed him to a life of killing, without joy. It was ironic, really- a life without the chance of life, only the chance to end life.
So he didn't treasure life; he considered his expendable. 'Life is cheap...especially mine.' If he'd been so precious, why had his parents given him away, why had Adin left him alone, why...
All he was good for was the mission; the mission defined him, gave him a purpose. Without the missions, he was just so much dead weight.
Without them, he was nothing. Nothing.
Heero Yuy got up, stretching like a cat. He chucked the stained rag inside the pail of dirty gray water. He was done. Wing Zero was gleaming, like he was before Heero started on him, and now Heero felt better-no, not better. It was more that he had banished the memories, again.
After each mission, after the adrenaline wore off and he was reminded that he had to exist beyond the mission, all the memories were back, tickling at his mind, threatening to overwhelm him.
And if he let them in, if he allowed himself to remember and to dwell on what he had done, what he was, what he experienced...he didn't know what would happen. Better to shut off the memories, the emotions, than to risk anything.
Heero knew that he was expendable, only valuable as a soldier. It had been drilled into him ruthlessly, not to be afraid to die for the mission, because the mission was all he was good for.
He knew that; and if he allowed others to see him as he truly was, they would know it too. In fact, they probably did. So why did Duo and Quatre seek to make him join in their informal gatherings, why didn't Trowa and Wufei tell him already that he wasn't welcome, instead of making hope flare, however short-lived, in his heart?
Relena...she was as bad as his teammates. He should have killed her when they first met, instead of allowing her to kill him, bit by bit, whenever he saw her. His heart would give an extra beat, no matter how he tried to control it. He hurt when she hurt, and didn't want to see her saddened, only wanted to see her smile.
And that was weakness. It was something that could keep him from completing the mission.
Heero knew that if Relena were in danger, he'd do anything to save her. And that frightened him. So he tried to push her away, keep her from him, hope that what he felt for the blond princess would fade away. And she'd get hurt, and no matter how he tried to stop himself, he'd do something that would show her, just a bit, how he really felt. And then, she'd follow him, and give him that beautiful smile and try hard, to get him to smile back at her.
But she'd run from him too, if she knew what he was...nothing but a soldier with no scrap of humanity left in him.
If they saw him for his true self…they would leave him totally alone.