Heero glanced over his shoulder as they ran through the jungle toward their rendezvous point.  The sound of their pursuers was faint, but still audible over the sound of the jungle's unrest, and the blazing roar of the base they'd left behind.  "We have some time."  He amended his statement after the sound of blind fire bounced its way among the trees to their location.  "But maybe not too much."

Duo slid to a halt at the edge of the clearing and scanned the skies breathlessly.  "Come on, come on," he muttered to himself.  "Where the hell-- there!  Goddammit, Barton, cutting it close."

"You know he likes to make an entrance."

He snorted and walked a little further into the clearing to make their presence known, waving his arms at the chopper to make sure he had the pilot's attention before flipping him twin birds.

"You want him to leave without us or something?"  Heero drew up beside him, keeping an eye on their backtrail with his submachine gun still at the ready.

"He's making the drop."  Duo leapt up to catch the twisting line before it could flail itself into the back of Heero's head.   He stepped up onto the dangling rung and secured himself before reaching out to his partner.  "Come on, let's go."

Heero responded immediately, jumping onto the line himself.  As soon as he was on, the helicopter began its ascent to safety.  He shifted his hold to a better grip, knowing that they would have to wait until they had cleared the hot zone before the chopper could finish drawing them in.

"Woohoo!  Hey, check that out!" Duo whooped into his ear.

Heero turned his head enough to see the flaming wreckage of the base behind them.  Good work, if he did say so himself.  Chalk another one up for the good guys.  They'd gotten the go-ahead just as soon as the other team had confirmed the capture of the rebel leader, and then they'd wasted no time in wreaking havoc upon their resources.

"I love my job!" Duo yelled to the open skies.

Heero chuckled and turned back, and not too far into that process had the sudden realization that he was practically head to toe flush up against his partner's body, and rather liking it.  Their boots knocked against each other on the rung they were standing on.  Their hands were both hanging on to the same support ring.   And when he'd jumped onto the lift, slinging an arm around Duo's waist had seemed the most expedient way of securing himself.  Even through the two layers of body armor and assault gear, he could feel the zing of something.

Duo appeared to notice the same thing Heero was noticing.   They looked each other in the eye for a few seconds, squinting past the air rushing by them.  "Well," Duo said, a chagrined look on his face.  His voice sounded quiet and strangely intimate under the noise of the chopper, despite being a shout.  "This is awkward."

Heero answered with an equally chagrined smile.  "No.  Just bad timing."

The helicopter banked sharply to the right to avoid crossing the main road weaving through the forest.  A jeep was waiting there, a bank of missiles in the back poised for fire.  They clung more closely to each other out of reflex, and worried about giving each other shy looks later.

"Where'd you learn how to fly, you clown!?" Duo shouted up at their pilot.  Then he laughed.  "Hey, I've been trying to get some alone time with you for the last week or more!"

Heero shrugged apologetically.  "I know.  Me, too.  Work's been a bit busy lately."

He smirked in the direction of the ruined base.  "You know how sometimes, you wait and you wait for 'the right moment'?  And you wait so long and sometimes, it just never comes?"

"Because there's no such thing as 'the right moment'?"

"Yeah!  Don't you just hate that?"

"In those cases, I think you just have to make your own moment."

"Yeah?  So you think, like, it'd be okay if we had our moment in the middle of a mission?  Dangling tens of meters in the air with enemy fire heading our way?"  The helicopter made another sudden turn, evading the surface-to-air missile shot in their direction.  Duo continued before they'd even stopped swinging around.  He just shouted a bit louder.  "Think that'd be an okay moment?"

"I think it'd be the perfect moment," Heero shouted back.

"Good!  'Cuz frankly, I'm sick of wait--"

Heero made the most of the moment and kissed him.  It was fairly quick, because they were dangling tens of meters in the air, after all, in the middle of a mission, with another round of surface-to-air missiles being prepared.  But it was solid.   Probably because one couldn't do anything but kiss solidly when fighting g-forces while swinging around on a cable.

Duo pulled away with a wild grin on his face.  "We gonna have ourselves more moments later on?"

"Count on it!"

"Good!  Then gimme your gun and hang on to me so I can blow some more shit up!"

Heero did as directed and hung on for the ride.  They'd be in the clear shortly, and then they'd get hauled into the helicopter, but until then, he'd enjoy their moment while it lasted.  It wasn't the moment either of them had expected, but it was theirs, and that was all that mattered.