[One-shot ~ PG-13] History Lesson

[wingzerosnuggles]

Title: History Lesson
Continuity: Figurative Brotherhood
Length: One-shot
Pairings: 1xR
Prompt: None
Teaser: "You think I'm being ridiculous, don't you? You've always seen me as this silly girl who looks for the good in things when there's none to be found." "Not always. Just most of the time."
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5227951/16/ ... rotherhood

Disclaimer: GW = not mine.

Author's Note: Well, here's another one.

Figurative Brotherhood
by mistress amethyst une

History Lesson
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A Bro at the Office

"Clear browser history" saves jobs.

--taken from Bro on the Go by Barney Stinson with Matt Kuhn, p. 55
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"If you have a logical explanation for viewing pornography during work hours using your work computer, I'd like to hear it," demanded Une. "You must be pretty smug considering you didn't even clear your browser history."

Heero stood at attention before Une's desk, unruffled and not even batting an eye. Calmly, he explained that he was simply going through remnants of the foreign minister's less than wholesome youth.

"I felt no need to clear my browser history since I assumed you would want the activity logged for a report in the future."

"A report?!" gasped Une, pinching the bridge of her nose as a headache came on. "Why would I want a report on your total lack of professionalism? How does that justify you digging through amateur streaming pornography sites on the job?"

"I have reason to believe that less than flattering footage of the foreign minister is being distributed via the internet," stated Heero, using a euphemism as Relena had advised when discussing anything of a sexual nature with a person in authority. "I was simply browsing the most prevalent channel of distribution. Since nude pin-ups of Foreign Minister Richter have been phased out following her decision to run for office, I used connections in the red light district to obtain a copy. It proved quite difficult to find one with no retouching. After studying it, I then started my search, comparing the foreign minister's anatomy in the pin-up to those of several women with blurred faces on explicit streaming video. The task has not been easy but this was of utmost concern to Mr. Loobenfeld."

"Loobenfeld?" interrupted Une. "The head of public relations for the foreign minister? That Loobenfeld?"

"He was the one who gave me the leads," nodded Heero. "He asked me to look up certain videos to verify whether or not the foreign minister featured in any of them."

"And why couldn't he look these up himself?"

Heero cleared his throat. "Mr. Loobenfeld has looked them up along with an investigative team. I've been made part of that team."

"Without my knowledge?"

"I was unaware that you weren't privy to this mission, ma'am."

"Well, now you are," she bit out.

Heero was the perfect picture of calm but he sensed that something was amiss. Still, he knew better than to speak unless spoken to when Une was under duress. Duo had learned that the hard way, ending up with docked wages and an earful of angry German swearing.

"Loobenfeld," she muttered, rage underlining every syllable. "This is an egregious abuse of ESUN resources. I'm going to need to talk to him. All operations are to cease on this mission of yours. You are to clear your computer of everything pertaining to this fiasco. The mainframe has logged it all already anyway. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," barked Heero, making it clear that he knew where his loyalties lay.

"Dismissed."

Upon her command, Heero was out the door, making a beeline for his office to purge his system of everything pertaining to the Loobenfeld mission. How could he have been so gullible?

Sitting down at his desk, he quickly booted his computer and got to work.

"Relena must be rubbing off on me," he thought to himself, pounding on his keyboard and furiously clicking on files in a spur of deletion. "Putting blind faith in people. It only leads to trouble."

He had almost lost his job over misplaced trust. Loobenfeld was going to pay for this. Relena had already found the damned pin-up of Richter two nights ago. Strangely enough, she questioned him about it with amused curiosity rather than anger.

"Why do you have a naked picture of my boss?" chortled Relena, moving to block the television before whipping the poster out from behind her. "You really shouldn't leave things like this lying around, Heero."

Heero practically bolted out of the couch, quickly hitting pause on his nightly viewing of survivalist documentaries. "It's-"

"Evidence for a mission?" she finished, pushing him back down. "Yes, I see. You strategically placed three 'EVIDENCE' stickers to make that clear."

Heero had eidetic memory. He already knew every inch of the image so censoring it while marking it as evidence was only logical. Two birds with one stone.

"What mission is it?" she asked, cozying up next to him as she rolled up the poster and lightly bonked him on the head with it.

"I'm not at liberty to say."

"Oh, come on. Is it Loobenfeld? The wild goose chase he's got everyone on to look for Miss Octavia's allegedly leaked sex tape?"

"How did you-"

"Never underestimate a politician," she grinned, lightly tapping him on the head with the tube of photographic nudity. "I assume Une will want to talk to you soon."

And sure enough...

"Told you so," taunted a familiar female voice.

Heero looked up from his work to see Relena standing at the door, smiling. He grunted, acknowledging her presence.

"Just thought I'd pop in for a minute," she said. "How did things go?"

"Loobenfeld is guilty of abusing ESUN resources, one of those resources being me," replied Heero with the best impression of nonchalance he could muster as he continued purging his system. "I should have been more astute, done more verification, checked the-"

"You were tricked. That's ok."

The clattering of keys and barrage of mouse clicks stopped. "How? In what parallel universe is that all right? What if I had been tricked about a matter of your safety or-"

"But you weren't tricked about that. We live and we learn. Better to make an error of judgment in something minor."

"I put my trust in him."

"And that's a good thing. Heero, remember when you first started working here? You were an overworked blitzkrieg of paranoia. Always quadruple checking everything. Now, you're starting to trust the people around you. Sure, mishaps like this will happen but don't let that make you lose faith in people."

Taking a deep breath, he looked at her, still framed in the doorway. "Did you come here just to tell me that?"

She nodded. "I wanted to make sure you would be all right."

"I'm fine," he said, his tone dismissive. "You don't want me to stop trusting. I get the point."

Rolling her eyes, she shook her head. "You think I'm being ridiculous, don't you? You've always seen me as this silly girl who looks for the good in things when there's none to be found."

"Not always. Just most of the time."

Crossing her arms, she glared at him. "I could have acted like a typical girlfriend and overreacted to seeing a clumsily censored poster of my naked boss in my boyfriend's possession. I would have been wholly justified."

"So why didn't you?" he said, his eyes now burning into hers. He had to admit that he had been wondering the answer to that.

"I gave you the benefit of the doubt," she explained. "Have you forgotten how you asked me to believe in you? I'm not one to break a promise. Besides, it's when people stop trusting that the world goes to heck. Wars start when countries suspect the neighboring nation of trying to destroy them without getting all the facts straight. Loobenfeld is fairly new. He didn't know about proper procedure, and everyone around him told him it would be ok to ask ESUN for help about Miss Octavia. He meant no harm."

Heero took a breath. "Why didn't you tell me that from the beginning?"

"I'm a politician," she shrugged. "I like to talk, and this seemed like an appropriate teaching moment."

"Relena-"

She hastily looked at her watch. "Look at the time! Here I am saying I'm just popping in, and now I'm proselytizing like preacher on a pulpit. See you at dinner!"

Before he knew it, the only trace of her left was the sound of her heels clicking against the marble floor, fading as she disappeared down the hall.

"Teaching moment," he muttered under his breath, resuming his work. She wanted him to trust, to look for the good in people despite the predominance of evil. He suspected that, one of these days, her wide-eyed optimism would get her killed. It was up to him to make sure that never happened. Trusting people simply couldn't be on his agenda if he was to perform his duties efficiently, could it?

"Have you forgotten how you asked me to believe in you?"

He should have known his words to her on Libra would someday come back to haunt him. He was being hypocritical. He had asked her to believe in him, and she had done so and then some. Didn't he owe it to her to believe in her as well? Let her teach him a thing or two?

He really hated it when he was defeated by his own logic.