"Yeah, it's pretty ugly." Duo turned the hand mirror, this way and that, with a grimace before he tossed it back to Hilde. "So, what?"
Hilde chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, after catching the mirror deftly, and replied, "It's just that Heero hasn't seen it. Maybe someone should... prepare him... you know?"
Duo scowled at her and the burn, covering one side of his face, looked even uglier. "He has been told."
Fumbling with his Preventer tie, Duo slammed his locker closed, and then faced the small woman squarely. "Just what are you trying to say, Hilde?"
Hilde looked unsure of herself and then bulled forward. "It's... shocking. Heero knows you were burned, but... Duo, I don't want to make you feel worse than you already do about this, but..."
Duo shrugged. "It's going to heal, eventually."
"Not completely," Hilde pointed out. "Maybe he should know that, too."
Duo leaned against a hand planted against the lockers and looked down at Hilde in exasperation. "It's going to peel. It's going to look raw. It's going to need bio patches to keep down the scarring. When it's all done healing, one side of my face is going to look rougher than the other. If you think Heero only cares about my face..."
"He's... well... he's always saying how handsome you are," Hilde replied in a small voice. "I'm just... afraid... for you. I don't want to see you get hurt."
"Hilde, this is stupid." Duo rolled his eyes and turned his back to tie his shoes.
"Sightseeing, Hilde?" Heero asked as he approached with a smile.
"Heero?" Hilde was startled and apprehensive.
"You are in the men's locker room, Hilde," Heero pointed out. "I think there's rules against that."
"I am feeling sexually harassed," Duo chuckled as he straightened and turned to face Heero.
Heero grimaced. "That looks like shit, Duo. You need to learn to duck quicker."
Duo snickered and hugged the man. "If my newbie hadn't stood there like an idiot, when the bomb went off, I wouldn't have had to save his ass."
"Heero!" Hilde exclaimed. "How can you say that?"
Heero blinked at her, confused, and then turned back to Duo. "Hurt?"
"Like hell," Duo admitted.
"Down time?" Heero asked sympathetically as he hooked an arm around Duo's waist and headed for the door into headquarters.
"Nope," Duo grinned. "That's why I'm here. I'm good to work."
"Good, because after work, I want a proper home coming," Heero told him. "That last mission was crap on a cracker."
"Crap on a cracker?"Duo laughed. "You've been listening to Jenkins again, haven't you?"
"He has a million of those stupid sayings," Heero complained. "I had to listen to him for a solid two weeks."
Hilde watched them disappear through the door and then let out a breath that she hadn't known that she had been holding. "Guess their love is more than skin deep," she muttered.