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flying-nightwing · 4 years ago

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Throne of Blood (2/3)

It’s ya local simp back again with the praise/devotion kink sweating out of this series in waterfalls. I set this on three parts, and potentially a bonus chapter *wink wink*.

This is still marked NSFW for the same reasons as part 1, so minors still DNI

Part 1 in masterlist (Bio + pinned)

Pairing: Jason Todd x fem!reader x Roy Harper

Word count: 4919

Warnings: Same as part 1 babes

“I still don’t believe it”

The sky was clear and the sun was high, reflecting on the crystal white of the snow covering the land. A cold wind blew over the western watchtower, reddening Roy’s cheeks in a similar tint to his coat. He looked down to you and grinned.

“Say what you may,” He replied, pulling slightly the string of his bow twice. “I’m hitting that target, darling”

“So smug” You sighed, twirling the arrow in your fingers before handing it to him. “Let’s see, my dear. One chance, gotta hit the mark”

He only winked and armed his bow, carefully drawing his bowstring. He paused there and closed his eyes, feeling the force of the wind and calculating his aiming angles. You could see in the distance the Wayne Kingdom’s guarding post and a small dot pacing around. Roy reopened his eyes and angled his bow to the right, then up. As he breathed out, he let the string go.

First thing you knew, the little dot fell over the ledge of the tower.

“I…” You mumbled, your jaw going just a bit slack. You couldn’t stop staring at the guard post.

“That’s right!” He laughed, pumping his fist in the air. “I told ya I was gonna make it”

“Well, I know to admit when I’m beaten” You sighed again, looking back at him. His eyes were shining with pride and mischief. “How many golds did I owe you again? 4?”

“Mhh, forget the gold” His cold hand trailed up your neck to rest behind your ear, tangled in your hair. “That baffled expression on your face is more than enough to satisfy my ego”

“Are you sure?” You teased further, letting him invade your personal space. “Your ego is pret-ty big sometimes”

“You’re right” He breathed out, rubbing your temple he was so close to you, his lips were almost on yours. “Maybe there is something you could do for me after all”

“Name it” You said, smiling. “I owe you one, after all”

He didn't answer, only closed the short distance between you two. His cold, chapped lips met yours in a soft kiss as his other hand snaked around your waist. You could feel his bow digging into your back, but you didn’t care. Your hands went around his neck to pull him even closer to you, letting him shield you from the harsh wind. He was so warm, you wanted to stay against him for hours more.

“Did we ever do it on the western tower?” He asked as he pulled back to breathe.

“On the south tower, we did” You nodded, panting. “There was also this one time with Jason on the north balc-- Fuck”

Your eyes shut as he bit the skin of your neck, then sucked on it. “So we never did it on this watchtower” He hummed against you. “Right, because that guard definitely had a field glass. But now he can’t spy on us”

“My Lord, my Lady”

You shut your eyes, trying so hard not to snap at the boy. You could never have a moment of intimacy in this castle, it seemed. Roy recomposed himself first, straightening his back and facing him. He didn’t even look shameful or bashful at all, instead, he was pretty relaxed.

“Yes?”

“His Majesty requires your presence in the throne room” He said, his cheeks slightly pink in embarrassment. “It seemed pretty urgent”

You both shared a concerned glance. Without another word, you swerved passed the boy and walked straight to the throne room. You were a bit far, but you believed you set your record on how fast you could cross the entire castle. Your strides were long and purposeful, and your hands were not far from your weapons.

You ended up in the large room sooner than later, your eyes scanning for any imminent danger. Instead, you found a small crowd of seven people in front of the throne’s pedestal. One of the men caught your attention--and everyone else’s probably--by his looks alone. Tall, dark hair, wide blue eyes and one stunning armor. The blue bird on his chest contrasted the black of the armor, sticking out from the silver gray of his guards. His posture was tensed, but not as much as Jason’s on the throne. You and Roy slowly took your place on his side, finally making you be seen by the handsome man. His eyes found Roy first, and they exchanged a long glance. Then, it was your turn. He studied you for a moment before he turned to Jason again.

“Listen, I don’t want any trouble” He said, holding his hands up. “I’m only here to warn you”

“You could have sent another message if it was that important” Jason sneered. So this was his brother.

“Jason, I’m serious” He rubbed his nose. “Father is done and through with this will he won’t he. He is determined to stop you”

“Let him come” He snorted. “I know his every move, Dick. He can’t touch me”

“He knows that,” He argued, frustrated. “That’s why he issued capture warrants for both of them, effective as we speak”

Jason froze as his brother pointed at you and Roy. His face betrayed no emotion, but you knew a sensitive chord had been hit. You didn’t like how his own father tried to hurt him that way, and it made you angry. How dare he try and hurt your Jason.

“He’s not gonna kill us” Roy spoke, but even he had a subtle uncertainty in his voice. The mighty King Wayne didn’t kill, but this moral guideline might have wavered if Jason had pushed him far enough.

“He won’t” Dick replied. “But it doesn’t mean pain won’t be involved”

“If he even tries, I’ll kill him myself” Jason grumbled. “He’s not ready for--”

It happened fast. Your attention was divided in between the two brothers, so much that you failed to do a visual sweep of the room. You missed the two shadows on the higher balcony, or the draw of a bow that was aimed in your direction. It was the quiet sound of the arrow flying through the air that tipped you off, making you turn on the side by instinct to protect yourself. You felt the sharp steel of the tip pierce your shoulder--instead of your heart--and you fell on your knee. Before you could touch the ground, Roy fired and dropped the two shadows from the balcony before they could shoot anyone else. In a blink, Jason was over you and Dick was barking orders to his men to stand down.

Then came your scream of pain.

“Hey, hey, look at me” Jason called, bringing your attention to him. Your breathing was shallow and you wanted to pass out from the pain. You could feel the arrow tear and burn your flesh at every muscle contraction, and the hot blood slowly and steadily flow down your back. “You’ll be okay. Don’t pass out just yet, stay with me”

“I’m sorry” You rasped out in between two shallow breaths. You were pretty sure the arrow had been barbed by the pain that was pulsing through your entire upper body. "I didn't see him sooner. That was a rookie mistake"

“No, this is on me, not you” Jason’s beautiful face was twisted with guilt. “I-- I didn’t see him, I should have known-- Fuck”

His hands started trembling around the arrow he was holding steady. His hands were red already and you were getting drowsy; you had no more feeling in your right hand already, your entire arm hanging limp from your body. Black dots veiled your vision that was becoming blurry by the second, only dissipated for an instant when Roy appeared in front of you.

“Dick and Commander Garret got it” He told Jason before holding your head in his hands, forcing you to focus your attention on him. “You’ll be fine, but we need to move you. It’s gonna hurt. A lot”

“Can’t be worse” You joked, your voice slightly slurred and your smile resembling a grimace more than anything else. His expression turned sorry while he offered you back a pity smile. Oh, it would be a lot worse.

And he was right. They lifted you easily, both their strength more than enough to support you, and carefully made their way to the side room. You bit your cheek hard enough to draw blood so you wouldn't scream again with every step they took. There, with one swipe of his arm, Jason threw everything off the stone table in the middle of the room, sending flying some probably priceless items on the floor. He didn’t care. They laid you face down, then rushed to stop the blood flow.

“The doctor is on her way” You heard Roy say as you felt fabric pressed around the shaft of the arrow. You tuned in and out of the conversation, unable to keep focus on their voices for more than a few seconds at the time. A nap seemed so good right now.

“How did we not see them--”

“Don’t start blaming yourself again--”

“Well, it’s pretty much my fault if--”

“Jay, we are your guards, we knew--”

“Still! I’m the one who’s supposed to--”

“If you want me to take out this arrow, you’ll need to stop arguing and start helping me--”

“Yes ma’am”

“Sorry ma’am”

Some doctor she was. If only you could see their faces. You felt them working around you, something cold on your skin, followed by the arrow being pulled out of your shoulder. At this point, everything felt the same. Your pain was just everywhere, but now you knew at least the arrow was out. You heard the doctor shoo out Jason and Roy, then you passed out.

---

The tremble in Jason’s hands went away when Roy closed the door of the room behind them. His eyes turned as hard as steel as he faced the throne room, and without looking back, went straight for it. All heads in the room turned at the sound of him coming in again, and he had an idea why they kept staring. Your blood was still on his arms, reddening his skin up to the elbow. His hair was a mess and his eyes read violence. He stopped in front of the still moving body of one of the assassins. Roy’s arrow went through his cheek, but he was still alive. He glanced briefly at the other body, still with two arrows in the throat, then back to the one at his feet. Nobody else dared to move, not Roy, not his brother, not the guards around him watching the scene unfold in front of them.

Roy had a similar posture. Despite shooting in a reflex, his rage had left him guide his aim in the fire of the action. He had known in that split second that the man who fired the arrow didn’t deserve a quick death, that an arrow to the chest like his friend would be a mercy. Instead, he had gone for the painful shot that would leave him alive for the wolf the devour. Besides, it wouldn’t have been fair for Roy to have them both to himself.

Jason bent down and grabbed the man by the back of the neck, dragging him along with him. The man couldn’t talk, only moan in pain as he was forced to follow Jason’s angry pace. Roy wasn’t far behind, eager to see what would happen next. Jason wasn’t a predictable man, especially not when angry. And now, it would be an understatement to say he was furious.

Jason dragged the man through the room, then out of the castle and across the stone bridge. He stopped only when he was out of the fortified gates, where the towns citizens passing by eyed the scene with horror. A crowd gathered around, and Jason waited until there were enough people around to speak. He must have looked insane like this, bloody and disheveled, unhinged and on the edge. He usually wouldn’t have gone in public like this, but he needed to pass a message.

“This man has committed a crime against the crown” He began, and silence fell over the crowd. The man writhed in his hand, but he was too weak to escape the iron grip on his neck. “He snuck into the castle and attempted to kill my personal guard and advisor under a mandate issued by a neighboring Kingdom. If anyone has any idea to follow in his footsteps, this is what will happen. No one trying to claim the bounty will end up any better than him. Somebody fetch me a rope. A sturdy one”

It didn’t take time for one of the guards to come back with a thick rope and give it to him. He kicked the man down and held him there with his foot, ignoring his moans of pain as he worked on a noose. He looped it around the man’s neck and pulled him back on his feet. The sound of his sword sliding out of its sheath was deafening, and even more so the footsteps he took to stand in front of the man.

“Death is too kind for your crime” He muttered. “But it’s what you’ll get today, because I don’t want to see your face ever again. Tell the devil I said hi when he pulls out your guts”

With a quick movement of his sword, he sliced his stomach deep enough for his insides to spill on the pavement. Jason stood there, watching him for a minute before he walked away. He only paused when he was shoulder to shoulder with his guard.

“Hoist him up the gate” He instructed, but there was no place for arguments and the boy knew it. “So he can serve as an example for the rest of them”

Then he kept walking.

---

“Your progress is impressive”

You looked up from the gourd you were drinking from, your chest still rising quickly after the effort you just made. You had stopped outside a little road town and set camp in the woods. Like always, you’d take an hour or two to train with Jason. You had a lot to learn to even get close to an acceptable gap between your skills and theirs, but they were patient with you.

“Thanks” You nodded as you closed the gourd again. Night was setting in soon, announcing the end of today’s training session.

“I think you are ready to choose a weapon of your own” He said as he put back his sword in its sheath. “One’s choice of weapon is personal, and it can be quite telling about its wielder”

“Choose a bow and arrows” Roy called as he came back from the woods, dinner in hand. He had caught four rabbits and a bird. “There’s nothing quite like it”

“See, Roy chose a bow,” Jason explained further. “This tells us that he’s an idiot”

You laughed as Roy rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “Ha ha” He laughed dryly. “You’d look like a clown if I wasn’t your long shot”

“I’m not gonna choose a bow” You shook your head, chuckling. “I’ll leave the exclusivity to you”

You turned around as they kept bickering, looking over to the small bunch of weapons your party carried. Swords, curved blades, barbed sticks and one sharp looking spear were staring back at you, but nothing caught your eyes. That was until you spotted the two bodies laying a few paces away from your camp, reminding you of the two mercenaries who tried to ambush you earlier to catch the reward for your heads. Tried being the keyword, because the two amateurs had no idea who they went up against. Despite their sharp battle axes, they were taken down in a blink. You wandered toward them and picked up the two weapons beside them, then came back.

“I want these ones”

They both turned to you, surprised by your choice. Jason stepped closer to you, gently pushing up your arm so he could have a good look at one of the axes. The double edge was kept sharp, and it seemed balanced. He looked back at you.

“Those are quite heavy weapons. Warrior type, devastating things” He hummed. “You need quite some strength to wield them precisely and inflict damage. Are you sure?”

“You think I can’t do it?” You raised your eyebrow in challenge. He smiled.

“Oh no, I know you can do it. I even think the axes will suit your style” He chuckled, holding your stare. “All I’m saying is you’ll need to put the work into it”

“I’m ready” You lifted your chin up. “I don’t want to feel powerless ever again”

“With these, you won’t” Roy said as he passed behind you. You could just hear the grin in his voice. “Whoever will stand in your way will have no idea what came for them”

---

Jason already hated meetings, but this one had been particularly long. Not only because he was worried for you, but because he was alone. Roy was with you, making sure nobody got to you while you recovered, which left Jason off to bear the entire meeting without at least his favourite people by his side. But it was crucial for him to be there, because it was when he decided the counter offensive to adopt. His troops had been sent across the border, blocking all the roads to his territory. No army could march in without being met with resistance. He was well aware he was escalating the tensions tenfold by doing that, but his father deserved everything that would come his way.

The sky was cloudy, but the weather was nice for winter. He stepped outside, spotting the man in black and blue observing the frozen garden with little interest. At the sound of Jason approaching, Dick faced him.

“Well, you got a grip of yourself quicker than I expected” He hummed, noticing the lack of blood on his hands and his combed hair. He had changed to his black and red armor, leaving behind more formal wear for the time being. “I’m surprised”

“Don’t be” Jason snorted as the two men began slowly walking side by side. “I am aware I have a duty that I must do, no matter what happens”

Dick eyed him without commenting on that matter. “I suppose I am not allowed to leave just yet”

Jason smiled without humor. “That’s right”

“You know I could easily escape on my own”

“And you know if you did I would drag you back here by the neck”

“Obviously” Dick rolled his eyes. “What about my men?”

“Escorted out of my territory with the soldiers who are heading east” He replied.

“Why are you doing this?”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Why, to make our dear father sweat a little” He shrugged. “His golden son close enough for me to strike down quickly if he even thinks of pulling that shit again”

Dick remained quiet for a moment, his head down. He was aware his brother was watching him, looking for any sign of guilt or responsibility in that matter. “You know I would have never let those men tag along with me, right?”

“Do I, now?” Jason hummed. “They used your presence here to sneak in. I’m sure you know how this looks like”

“Jason” Dick sighed. “I don’t want to see you fall. I might not agree with some things you do, but there is a reason I came here to warn you”

He didn’t answer.

“Besides, I would have never tried to hurt the woman you love. I wouldn’t have done that to you” He added. “To you and to Roy”

Jason’s head snapped up, his wide eyes setting on Dick. How did he know?

“It’s quite obvious. Both your reactions were one of love, and there is clearly no competition between you two. It wasn’t very subtle” Dick explained. “And no, you did not say that out loud, but your face did. You forget sometimes I know you both better than you want to admit it”

Jason sighed. Of course, Dick would see it instantly. It’s not like he was ashamed of his relationship, on the contrary, his staff already knew it all about it judging by the number of times they barged on them in compromising situations and he did not worry about them knowing. But he knew decorum frowned upon it and a lot of people who already had something against him would only use it to further their case. He wanted to protect his family more than anything.

“You’re lucky to have them, and they’re lucky to have you” Dick spoke again after a moment. “I hope she’ll be okay”

“I hope she’ll be too, for your sake” Jason turned serious again.

“What does that mean?” He grew wary, straightening his back. Keeping him here was one thing, and he’d quietly stay if it could appease his brother to have him somehow prisoner, but he wasn’t sure he’d accept being threatened.

“Whether or not it was voluntary, you brought those opportunists here” Jason didn’t back down. “If she doesn’t make it, I will rain hellfire on everything Bruce loves, starting by his most prodigal son”

The two men stared at each other in confrontation, shoulders squared and the tension so tight it could be cut with a knife. And that knife was apparently named Roy.

“I think it won’t be necessary,” Roy said carefully, breaking the heavy silence. “She has been awake for a few hours, the doctor is changing her bandages. You should go see her”

Jason looked in between both men, then nodded at Roy. “I guess you two have things to talk about. I’ll leave you to it”

He walked away without looking back, and instead focused his thoughts on you. His feet guided him to the infirmary while his mind was far away from this reality, spiraling down what ifs and worst case scenarios. He paused in front of the door, then knocked and pushed the door open.

“Ah, King Jason” The doctor greeted as she washed her hands. “Just on time. I’ll leave you two in a second”

“Is she okay?” He asked.

“Ask her yourself” She smiled before wiping her hand on a rag and leaving.

You blinked slowly as the voices registered around you. You were feeling tired, but you wanted to stay awake a bit longer to speak to him as well. Roy had spent the majority of the day with you, well past sundown. You turned your head and smiled at him, easing just a bit of concern off his handsome features.

“Hey” Your voice was weaker than usual, and you had no doubt you looked paler too. According to the doctor, it was possible to make a full recovery if nothing got infected before the wound healed at least a little bit. She’d have to check in inflammation as well, but it looked not so bad so far.

Jason couldn’t help but smile back as he reached you and sat on the chair left beside the bed. He brushed hair away from your forehead with the back of his hand, relieved he couldn’t feel the heat of a fever coming out of you. “How are you feeling?”

“Just peachy” You chuckled, then flinched at the pain in your shoulder. “Ow”

“Take it easy” He soothed, caressing your uninjured shoulder. His touch was so comforting, you wished he’d never take his hand away. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner”

"S'okay" You replied. “I know you must have had a lot to do after this shit show”

“Still” He sighed. “I should have just--”

“Don’t start blaming yourself” You frowned. “None of this was your fault. I don’t want to see this expression on your face anymore, now”

He snorted. “Roy said the same thing, you know?”

“Well, he was right” You smirked. “You should listen to him sometimes”

He rolled his eyes playfully. “Of course you choose this time to gang up on me”

“I dreamed about you” You changed the subject before he could find a new way to blame himself. “Well, I don’t know if it was a dream or a vivid display of a memory. Everything was too hazy to make the distinction”

“What was it about?” He asked, rubbing his thumb in circles on your shoulder.

“When I chose my axes” You answered. “It’s a good memory. It did make me feel better”

“If I recall correctly, it was also the first night I kissed you” His tone turned teasing. “First night Roy kissed you as well. Beside the fire as the summer began, right after wiping out the guild members on the edge of the Kingdom of Blüdhaven”

“Hmm, I recall we did more than just kiss”

The soft glow of the fire, three naked bodies intertwined as they moved in sync, breathless moans and wandering hands. Jason had to chase that perfect picture away from his mind before it could lead him somewhere inappropriate for the situation, no matter how he wanted to close his eyes again and let the memory play out in full. You did it on purpose, he knew that much, probably to cheer him up or pull his mind further away from the less than pleasant reality.

“You’re going to kill me one day” He grunted, and you let out a little laugh, careful not to pull your stitches. Your hand found his and you squeezed it lightly, making him look down briefly at your locked fingers. He took a deep breath and sighed longly.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Doesn’t matter” He shook his head, but you didn’t back down your stare. Finally, he caved. “The assassins. They’re dead, and the one that did this to you is… Well”

You could only imagine his death was nothing short of horrible and painful. You didn’t know if finding satisfaction in this made you a terrible person, but you took comfort in the fact that he suffered more than you did. You only wished you had been there to see it.

“But my father, I…” He gulped. “He’ll know what happened here. If he strikes, which will be most likely the case, I’ll need to be ready. He won’t take you, not on my watch”

“I won’t let him take me, or Roy for that matter, away from you” You reassured him. “I’ll be out of this bed in no time and back at your side, just watch”

A small smile stretched his lips. “Always the warrior spirit” He leaned down and kissed your head. His lips lingered on your skin and your eyes fluttered close to prolonged contact. “But you’ll need to take it slow to recover. You need not to rush for me”

“I’ll always rush for you, my King”

You noticed the hitch in his breath and the adoration in his eyes. The crystal shine of tears gave them an innocent glow, one you rarely observed on his face but appreciated every single time you had the chance to. It was easy to forget how young he actually was under all the weight that has been put onto him, he always seemed so much older and stern. You reached your hand for his face despite every single of your muscle screaming against it, and he leaned into your touch, softly closing his eyes. He allowed himself to relax just then, finally convincing himself that you would be okay. You had this gift with him, how you always managed to sneak into his heart and mind and bring him peace. He had been bewitched from the moment he met you, he had known right then and there he was already yours. And the fact that this connection transferred so easily to Roy, that you could make equal space in your heart for both of them only amplified his affection for you. You were their missing piece, and he would do anything--anything for you.

“How did I get so lucky?” He whispered, gently taking your hand on his cheek and kissing it.

“It’s not luck” You smiled. “You took care of me when I needed you the most, I’m only returning the favor however I can”

“She’s quite a woman, isn’t she?”

You and Jason looked up at the new voice joined in, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at Roy’s wide grin. He walked closer and gave Jason’s shoulder a little squeeze, sitting on the arm of his chair. Your shoulder hurt but now that you had them by your side, everything seemed better.

“So, what are we going to do now?” He asked, eying you both. Jason took a deep breath, repeating Roy’s question in his head a few times. He didn’t have much time to think about something concrete, but it wasn't the ideas that were missing.

“Well, this seems to me as a pretty clear declaration of war” He said, slowly trailing his eyes from yours to Roy’s. “We should react accordingly, don’t you think?”

“Hit ‘em hard and fast at the source, won’t matter if they see it coming or not” Roy nodded in approbation. “This is what you were thinking, right?”

A sinister smirk appeared on Jason's lips. It was thrilling and frightening all the same, promising a terrible retribution. “My loves, we’re going to war”

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phis-corner · 5 years ago

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demon’s daughter

I procrastinated a lot and watched both seasons one and three of Young Justice as well as Dangerous Secrets and Teen Titans: the Judas Contract instead of copying the handwritten draft into digital.

Masterlist ◈ Previous ◈ Next

Tom and Sabine are extremely generous, and insist that they are happy to help anyone who escapes the League. The League stopped trying to send assassins to kill Sabine after the sixth failed attempt, and they leave the bakery alone now, which makes it all the better place for Marinette to stay.

She gets the entire third floor of the bakery as her bedroom. It already has a loft bed, desk, and chair, as well as a skylight that leads to a rooftop balcony. The bedroom, however, lacks any sort of personality, and Marinette throws herself into decorating in order to forget the absence of her twin.

When she is finished, the walls have been painted a dark emerald (A/N: #53DOE if you want the exact shade, though I don’t know why you would want it) and the desk and chair are painted black (because dark green goes a lot better with black then white). Marinette purchases a black vanity and dark green chaise with black accents to fill some of the empty space, and buys a new sewing machine and dress form for her designs. She puts up a bulletin board on the empty wall next to her bed and fills it with pictures of her family, and also hangs fairy lights around the room to give it a more cozy feel. (A/N: Basically, her room in canon, but dark green and black instead of pink and white.)

Marinette still feels like something is missing from her room. A quick search on the internet shows that most children and teenagers also have plush animals or dolls in their rooms, so she makes her own. A couple hours later, a row of Gotham’s vigilantes occupies the shelf above her bed, other than Starling. That would be harder to explain away than just liking the vigilantes from her home city, given that nobody outside of Gotham knows she exists.

The decorating takes about two weeks in total. Marinette spends another week and a half learning the Dupain-Cheng recipes and helping in the bakery, and she video chats with her siblings weekly, as well as Jon.

Father is distant again, but Marinette understands. He must see Damian’s features every time he looks at her, the same way she sees Damian in him.

.o0o.

On her first day of school, Marinette safely pulls an old man out of the way of an oncoming car without endangering the macarons Tom gives her to share with her new class.

When the man thanks her, she offers him a macaron even though she wants to rip into him for wearing such an ugly shirt. (Loud Hawaiian print in the fashion capital of the world, the atrocity.) As Marinette crosses the street, she shakes off the feeling that the man was hiding something. It’s not her problem.

Collége Francois Dupont doesn’t have a uniform, so Marinette picked an outfit that represents her to the very core. A dark gray blazer with a black bat embroidered over her heart, a blood red shirt, black flare-cut pants, and steel-toed combat boots. There are numerous weapons hidden all over her body, but the public doesn’t need to know that.

Marinette easily navigates the crowd (paparazzi was much worse) and locates her locker, dropping off the appropriate textbooks before finding the right classroom and entering. She selects a seat in the far back so she can survey the room. A red-haired boy (Nathaniel Kurtzberg, judging from his appearance) sits alone across the aisle from her, but Marinette does not join him.

Another red-haired teacher (why is she followed by redheads wherever she goes? Wallace, Babs, Roy, Princess Koriand’r, and Artemis were more than enough) with a saccharine smile walks in, introducing herself as Mme. Bustier for the new students. They are asked to introduce themselves. A brunette with glasses goes first.

“Hi! I’m Alya Césaire. I’m an aspiring journalist, and I love superheroes! I moved from Nice this summer.” The teacher asks if anyone has any questions for Alya. There are none.

Then it’s her turn. Marinette stands, walks to the front of the room, and speaks in perfectly accented French. “My name is Marinette Cheng. I am originally from Gotham, but I am staying with my aunt to study here in France.”

Alya immediately puts her hand in the air. “You’re from Gotham? Have you ever seen any of the Bats?”

“I have seen a few capes on the rooftops once or twice, but it is not advised to be out in the city after dark.” Marinette replies. She turns to Mme. Bustier, holding up the box of macarons. “My uncle Tom provided me with macarons to share with the class from the bakery. May I pass them out?”

The teacher’s smile almost makes her cringe with the false sincerity. “Go ahead!” Marinette obediently starts handing them out.

“Wait. Your aunt and uncle own the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie and Patisserie? Dude, that’s the best bakery in Paris!” A dark-skinned boy with a cap and headphones exclaims (Nino Lahiffe, the file she read proclaims.)

Marinette smiles proudly, and is slightly surprised to find that it is genuine. “Yes, they do.”

A haughty-looking blonde turns up her nose at the cookies, but her redheaded friend accepts one. Chloé Bourgeois and Sabrina Raincomprix. The mayor and police chief’s daughters, respectively.

Mme. Bustier begins the class, and not long after, Marinette notices that the boy known as Kim is harassing the one named Ivan. Ivan is growing increasingly more agitated as Kim passes him more and more notes, until he snaps.

“Kim!”

The teacher whirls around, shocked that someone interrupted her. “Ivan, what is the matter?”

“It’s Kim! He’s-”

“Principal’s office, Ivan.” Mme. Bustier says sternly, and Marinette feels a flare of annoyance. Ivan wasn’t even given a chance to explain.

“Pardon me, Mme. Bustier, but as I sit behind them, I witnessed the entire interaction, and from my perspective, Ivan appeared to be the victim. I believe you should give him a chance to explain.” She barely manages to keep her voice even.

“What is there to explain? He interrupted my class! Now, Ivan!” Mme. Bustier commands, and Marinette is reminded of a four year old girl, being handed a sword almost as tall as her and told to execute the supposed traitor to the League in front of her. But there is nothing more she can do, so she goes back to discreetly observing the class while pretending to take notes.

.o0o.

When the period ends, Marinette heads to the library. Alya, the other new girl, catches up to her. “Marinette, right? That was really cool, how you tried to stand up for Ivan. You were like a superhero!”

One side of her mouth twitches. “It was the right thing to do.”

The brunette grins. “Well, as Majestia always said, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothi-”

Suddenly, the ground shakes, and something that sounds suspiciously like Ivan roars Kim’s name. Marinette quickly pulls up the security feed from the front of the building on her tablet (thanks, Babs) and frowns.

There’s a large monster made of what looks like rock smashing everything and roaring “KIM!” in Ivan’s voice. As she watches, the monster smashes the camera, cutting off her feed. Magic. There was no other explanation for it. Marinette hated magic. All the Bats did. It defied all logic, everything they knew about science.

Next to her, Alya is checking her phone’s GPS and camera before running for the exit. “Where are you going?” Marinette calls, running after her.

“Where there’s a supervillain, there are always superheroes!” The girl yells back. “I’m going to get them all on video!” Marinette groans.

“Another Lois Lane… You’re going to get hurt, Alya!” But the girl isn’t exactly wrong. The European branch of the League is based in Paris, after all.

.o0o.

The school sends everyone home, and Marinette is halfway across the street when she realizes that today is the day all the League members across the universe go to the Watchtower for the quarterly meeting, and therefore will not hear about the situation in time. She curses in Arabic and runs into the bakery. She can’t get a secure line to the Watchtower from her tablet.

Marinette enters her room and beelines for her computer, but pauses. Someone has been in her room. Tom and Sabine know to not enter, and her instinct, after years with the League, is never wrong. Her eyes quickly scan the room until they fall on a small wooden box with an unfamiliar insignia.

Curiously (foolishly), she opens the box, only to shield her eyes against the ball of blinding pink light that rises from it. When the light fades, she is face to face with a red and black spotted… something.

“Don’t be scared, Marinette!” The thing chirps in a squeaky voice. “My name is Tikki. I’m a kwami, and you have been chosen to be a hero!”

Oh, joy. Her mind grumbles. Marinette stares at the plain black earrings the box contains. “Tikki, I do not know where you came from, but I am afraid you will have to find someone else. I am not a hero, nor do I wish to be one.”

The red kwami zips closer to her face, making her take a step back. “Marinette, you can be a hero! You have a creative, strategic mind, which makes you a perfect match for me! Although, the destruction in you makes you a great match for Plagg too…” Tikki mutters.

A roar echoes in the distance, and Marinette winces.

“There are civilians in danger, Marinette, and it’s up to you to help save them.” The kwami insists.

Marinette sighs. So much for giving up the vigilante life. She can’t even say no to a three inch-tall being. “How do I do… whatever this is?”

Tikki beams. “I knew you’d do it! Okay, listen carefully…”

.o0o.

“Spots on.” The bright pink light from before engulfs her, and when it fades, Marinette walks over to her floor-length mirror and blinks.

“Well, I always hated magic. Is this my punishment? To be a magical girl?” She grumbles as she takes in her new look.

Her skin is now much paler, in order to pass as Caucasian. Marinette’s subconscious must have decided that her normal tone would be too obvious in France. Her dark hair, while the same length, now had red streaks going through it, and her suit (why so skintight?) is red with black spots, with solid black patches on her torso and two-thirds of her limbs. A red yoyo with five black spots hangs off her waist, and a black mask similar to the one she wore as Starling covers the bottom portion of her face.

“What, exactly, made Tikki choose a yoyo as a weapon? Did she even choose the yoyo?” Marinette muses, unhooking said object and giving it a few experimental tosses. Another roar hits her ears. “I should get out there. Tikki said I had a partner?”

Marinette throws the yoyo, and it hooks onto a nearby chimney, working similarly to her old grappling hook. She laughs as she is pulled through the air. It feels good to be airborne again, no matter how much she tries to stay away from this life. But now is not time to dwell on that- she has a job to do.

She guesses that the blonde in an even tighter leather catsuit is her partner. He introduces himself as ‘Chat Noir.’ Well, since he went with Black Cat in French, Marinette chooses ‘Ladybug.’ English, as a reminder of her home.

They follow the destruction path to the stadium and battle the akuma, as Tikki said it was called, for a bit until it becomes clear that close combat will not work. Ladybug calls her Lucky Charm and catches a wetsuit, falling back to scan her surroundings.

“Ooh, is that your power? I can destroy anything I touch, see?” Her partner says excitedly, calling up his Cataclysm and foolishly wasting it on a goalpost, rendering his power useless.

“You only have one use of it, you imbecile!” Ladybug snaps. “Now you have five minutes before you forcibly detransform! Did your kwami not teach you anything?”

Chat Noir grins sheepishly. “I may have gotten a little excited.”

Ladybug huffs. “Tt. Take this seriously, Chat Noir. I have a plan. You will not enjoy it very much. Do not resist.” She wraps her yoyo around her partner and throws him full force at the akuma, who reflexively catches him in its open hand. The right fist, as she suspected, remains firmly closed around what has to be the akumatized object.

She hands herself over to the akuma, clutching the wetsuit, which has been connected to a tap with a nearby hose, and yells for Alya, who is crouching nearby, filming (a Lois Lane indeed) to turn on the tap. She obliges, and the suit inflates, forcing the akuma’s fist open and letting Ladybug drop to the ground, along with a purple paper ball. The akumatized object.

Ladybug rips the paper ball and frees a purple butterfly, which flies away. The akuma turns back into Ivan, and Chat Noir lands on his feet nearby, much like his namesake.

Ladybug turns to see a phone camera shoved in her face, held by Alya Césaire, who asks a flurry of questions.

Years of handling the press comes in handy. She gives the camera a false smile, not that the audience can see it at all with her mask. “I am Ladybug. This is my partner, Chat Noir.” She gestures to said partner, who smiles blindingly at the camera. Right on cue, their miraculouses beep.

“That’s our cue. Bug out!” Ladybug throws her yoyo and launches into the sky, cringing moments later at how cheesy the last part sounded.

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Wow. I have an inconsistent wordcount.

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#maribat #demon's daughter au #my writing

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aquietwritingcorner · 4 years ago

Text

Embers of Revelation

Author: RealityBreakGirl/aquietlearningcorner Word Count: 17582 Rating: T Prompt: FMA Big Bang 2021 Warnings: Child abuse/neglect Characters: Riza Hawkeye, Roy Mustang, Jean Havoc, Heymans Breda, Vato Falman, Kain Fuery, Black Hayate Pairing: Royai Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Family Chapter: 3 of 7 Summary: Tasked by Fuhrer Grumman to investigate a suspected alchemic incident, General Mustang’s team finds themselves stranded in Hawkeye’s hometown. Needing a place to stay, they find themselves taking shelter in her childhood home. However, her past can’t stay buried there, and as revelations come to light, they also bring embers of danger with them. Sequel to Embers in a Wounded Heart AO3 || ff.net

_____________________________

Chapter 3

At some point, Havoc managed to fall asleep for a few hours. When the next morning came, it was without much sign of the dawn. The house itself seemed to be holding something heavy, and Havoc couldn’t shake that feeling. Still, he got on up. His legs were still killing him, but he refused to let them keep him in bed, not after what happened yesterday. Normally Breda slept through Havoc getting up, or at least rolled over and got back to sleep for a few minutes, but today he didn’t seem willing to, and instead got up with Havoc as well. Neither of them said a word, but Breda did keep an extra eye on Havoc, which Havoc couldn’t really blame him for. They made their way down the stairs together, Havoc stopping to look in the living room, Mustang was still there, reclined on some pillows, with Hawkeye still in his arms. Hayate was sleeping nearby them. Havoc and Breda exchanged a look, then both made their way to the kitchen, very quietly. Neither of them wanted to disturb Hawkeye, not after last night.

Fuery was already in the kitchen, it apparently being his turn on watch. He had a much-needed pot of coffee going, and both Havoc and Breda partook in it before helping with breakfast. It wasn’t long into the process of cooking breakfast that Falman joined them, apparently in the same boat as Havoc and Breda as far as sleeping in went. Falman stopped to look at the sleeping pair, and Fuery joined him for a second. Havoc saw Fuery make a beckoning motion, and within moments Hayate was joining them in the kitchen. Soon after the little dog was quietly eating on some leftovers seasoned with a little bacon grease while the other men quietly drank their coffee and ate. No one talked. No one spoke. Everyone kept silent. Finally, though, as they finished up, Falman broke the silence.

“How long do you think we should let them sleep for?” he asked, his voice still soft, almost muffled in the oppression that seemed to hang in the air, the sound of pouring rain adding to it.

“As long as they want to,” Breda said firmly. “After last night, they both need it.”

“Hawkeye especially,” Fuery said, looking down at his coffee. “The way she screamed and begged…” he trailed off. “It was haunting.”

Breda looked over at Havoc curiously. “Look, Hav, I’m not trying to pry, but when you and the captain and general were here last time, did you have any hint of this?”

Havoc frowned, and leaned back in his seat, trying to figure out just what to tell them. What would be too much, and what would be alright? Finally, he sighed and sat up straighter.

“The whole way here, on the train, in town, on the way to the house, Hawkeye gave Mustang the cold shoulder. No, it was more intense than that. It was like she was walking on the border between being angry and outright attacking him. Maybe not physically, but some sort of attack,” he said. “Anytime he tried to show her any compassion or worry, she had sharp words and would jerk away from them. He got really frustrated with it too, although he tried to be calm.”

He frowned. “There were a few times that stuck out, though, when Hawkeye either left, or when I though the two of them were about to come to blows. One time was when I started to ask if her father had taught the general Flame Alchemy. I didn’t even finish the sentence before she was out the door to check on the horses. Another was when the General asked her where her father would keep his notes, and she said something like ‘He never told me where he planned to put his notes. Sir.’ And I got the feeling that there was something a lot heavier to that. I never got clarification on what.”

He looked up at the men. “Mustang did keep looking after her, though. He made sure she wasn’t in her father’s bedroom alone. Her dad apparently died in it, while she was looking after him. And he sent her out of the study at one point and burned something he found after that. He never seemed to expect her to go in the basement. He was real squirrelly about me being down there too.”

“Actually,” he blinked. “It was after that, that things took a turn. Hawkeye disappeared, and we searched to find her. I found her on the roof, and she all but admitted that she used to come on the roof a lot as a child because it was hard to find her there. But while we were up there… well, she broke down on me. We talked a little, although no, she didn’t tell me much of anything, but after that she and the general seemed to patch it up.”

Havoc shook his head. “I don’t have any details on what her childhood was like, and even less on her father. But, well, from what I did learn, it seemed like Mustang was the only bright spot in her childhood, and that her father was a fan of harsh punishments.”

“…do you think that’s what went on in that basement?” Fuery asked, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “Harsh punishments?”

“Even ‘harsh punishments’ shouldn’t leave someone with so much trauma attached,” Breda said. “Not trauma like that. This was… something more.”

“Something a lot more,” Havoc said with a frown. “This might explain a lot about her,” he said.

Falman’s brow furrowed. “I don’t want to analyze the captain too much, not without her permission, but…” he looked up at the other men. “It sounds to me as if Hawkeye was abused as a child. Even before… whatever that was.”

The others shifted uncomfortably, but none of them argued the point.

Finally, Havoc spoke as well. “I think she was also neglected. From the way she talked last time, it sounded like she didn’t always have food or maybe other things she needed.”

“So, he was a crap father all the way around.” Breda said.

“The only good thing I can say, is that Hawkeye told a story about when Mustang was first here, and she was a child swimming in the pond. Mustang stumbled on her, thought she was drowning, tried to rescue her, and Hawkeye thought he was after her. She socked him in the nose and ran back to the house screaming for her father. He apparently drew the line at that and was angry at Mustang until it was all worked out.” Havoc said.

“If the only good thing you can say about the man is that he protected his daughter from perverts, then that’s not saying much about him, since that’s basic,” Breda said. He ran a hand through his hair and cursed. “No wonder she was able to survive Ishval as well as she did. She already had the coping skills that other snipers didn’t.”

“Twice the trauma,” Fuery said.

“Or more,” Falman put in, “depending on what happened in that basement.”

“Yeah.”

The men fell silent and then, one by one, got up to attend to the chores for the day. They went through all of them quietly, not daring to wake either Mustang or Hawkeye.

When Mustang woke up, he didn’t leave the couch or Hawkeye, adamant about not leaving her. Hawkeye had really exhausted herself, Havoc figured, because it was nearing noon before she began to stir. Lunch was Fuery’s soup reheated, and they ate it in shifts, the men having unconsciously agreed that someone should be in there with Hawkeye and Mustang at all times, just in case. It was Havoc’s unofficial turn on watch, and he sat in the living room in a chair, reading a book while the fire crackled in the fireplace. He could hear Breda and Falman talking over plans for exploring and analyzing the basement, and Fuery working on cleaning up the kitchen. But when Hawkeye stirred, his attention snapped to her, and he signaled to Breda. Within moments all had fallen silent, the other three men hovering near the doorway, watching carefully.

“Riza?” Mustang said softly, and she let out a soft sigh and tried to turn over. Of course, being on a couch, she couldn’t, causing her to wake more. She blinked sleepily up at Mustang.

“Mm… Roy?” she said, her voice heavy with sleep and confusion.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said gently. “I told you I wasn’t going to leave you.”

She blinked at him then, and then looked around confused. “Why are we on the couch?” she asked. “And…what’s going on?”

“You cried yourself to sleep on me,” he said. “And I promised I’d not leave you.”

Hawkeye looked around, and Havoc could see that she was still confused, especially when she saw the others gathered in the doorway. With the way they were looking at her, Havoc figured it was clear that something else besides just falling asleep on her commanding officer had happened.

“What’s… what’s going on?” she asked, and Havoc could see her tensing up.

“Riza,” Mustang redirected her attention to him, and Havoc took note that neither of them had moved off of each other. “What’s the year?”

“The… year?” Her brow furrowed, although Havoc thought it was more at the question then because f trying to remember the date. “It’s 1916,” she said.

“And do you know who each of these men are?” he questioned her.

“Yes,” she said, shooting him a strange look before redirecting her attention to each of them. “First Lieutenant Jean Havoc. First Lieutenant Heymans Breda. First Lieutenant Vato Falman. Master Sergeant Kain Fuery.” She named them all dutifully, but the question as to why he was asking her this was clear in her tone.

“Good,” he said. “Now—What do you remember about last night?”

“Last night?” The question seemed to surprise her more than the others, and Havoc saw her take a quick glance down herself, looking for injuries. Finding none, she seemed to refocus on the question. “I…” she paused. “I’m not sure. The last thing I remember was… Let’s see. I finished cleaning. There weren’t any more chores to be done. I thought I heard someone moving around, and I was about to see if it was Havoc. But then I saw that the basement door was open when it hadn’t been before, and something didn’t feel right. I called out for Havoc, but before I heard an answer, I was… I was pushed from behind, and into the basement,” her voice sounded surprised, and there was a trace of something Havoc didn’t want to hear in her voice. It sounded like fear. “I… I tried to get out, but it was locked. I couldn’t escape, and I—” She shuddered. There was definitely fear in her voice now, and in her body language too. “I… I couldn’t… I….” She trailed off, a hand coming up to cover her mouth, and Havoc could have sworn he heard her say something that sounded like “just like the last time” but he couldn’t be sure.

Mustang’s hand came up to stroke her hair. “Do you remember anything after that?” He asked her gently.

She shook her head and lowered her hand. “No. Just… panic. Nothing but panic.” She looked up at Mustang, glanced at the rest of them. “What happened to me?”

Msutang shook his head. “We’re still working some of that out,” he said. “But we really don’t know. What we do know is that when we got back from town you were missing. We found you in the basement and… Riza… you were deep in the throes of a flashback. We couldn’t break you out of it and drug you up here. You eventually recognized me, but thought I’d come back after your father kicked me out.”

She looked horrified. “I—I—” Havoc had never seen her at a loss for words like this, but she didn’t seem to know what to say. “A-and… did I…?”

She trailed off, glancing at him and the others, and there seemed to be something that she was unwilling to say. Havoc both desperately wanted to know what, but also didn’t want to invade her privacy. Still, what could she be hiding? It burned at him.

Mustang glanced at them as well, and then refocused back on her. “Not in so many words. But they know something happened down there. Something very bad.” She made a strange noise in the back of her throat and let her head fall into his chest. Mustang stroked her hair. “You don’t have to make any decisions now. But you will need to tell them something. I haven’t. It’s not my place.”

She sighed, and after a moment, turned her head from where it rested, looking at them with a bone-weary expression on her face and an old pain in her eyes. It was clear to Havoc that she wasn’t currently ready to tell them anything.

“…. Why don’t you let me get you something to eat or drink,” Fuery said, his voice full of kindness. “You both could use something.” Apparently, Havoc wasn’t the only one to see she wasn’t ready yet.

“Yes, thank you, Fuery,” Mustang said, then turned his attention back to Riza, murmuring to her, something too quiet for the rest of them to hear. She seemed to respond, although Havoc had no idea what she was saying.

That was alright by Havoc. They two of them probably needed some time to figure things out, especially now that Hawkeye was back to her senses—something that honestly relieved Havoc.

Mustang got Hawkeye to eat some of the soup that Fuery brought them, but she clearly didn’t have much of an appetite, and the bowl came back mostly untouched, to Fuery’s worried disappointment. Havoc saw Breda give the young man’s shoulder a squeeze at one point. All of them wanted to do something to help, although no one was quite sure what. Mustang and Hawkeye stayed in the living room most of the afternoon, quietly talking things over. No one bothered them. Going in there almost felt like an intrusion to Havoc, and it wasn’t hard to tell that the others agreed.

Around supper time, Mustang managed to cajole Hawkeye upstairs for a shower, although she still looked shaken to Havoc’s eyes. Nothing else to be done, Havoc reheated Fuery’s soup again, and soon the four of them were eating supper. Footsteps caught their ears and Havoc looked up when Mustang appeared in the kitchen. He looked serious and grim as his eyes traveled over all of them. “When you’re finished,” he said, “come to the living room. She’s decided to tell you.”

With that he left, and Havoc exchanged looks with the others. The question of what, exactly, she was going to tell them hung over Havoc’s head, and, with her reaction, he wasn’t quite sure if he even wanted to finish dinner. Uneasy looks passed between all of them, assuring Havoc it wasn’t only him that was feeling uneasy about this. They all knew that Hawkeye had trauma. But it was one thing when it was war. It was another when it was a deep, traumatizing, childhood secret of a close friend, and it didn’t seem to sit well with anyone else either.

As they finished eating, they cleaned up the food, and Fuery took the time to fix a cup for tea before they left.

“For Riza,” he said softly, and Havoc couldn’t really fault him for that. She probably could use it no matter what.

They filed into the living room, Hawkeye and Mustang sitting once again on the couch. Havoc sat in a nearby chair, and the other men settled in as well. Hawkeye was in fresh clothes, this time what looked to be a button down of Mustangs, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair was down, still looking a little damp. Mustang was right beside her, a hand on her arm. The rain outside poured in a steady sound, the fire crackled in the fireplace. The room almost had a feel of a confession to it, and it made Havoc uncomfortable.

Fuery handed Hawkeye the mug of tea before sitting down, and she took it with a murmured thanks, wrapping her hands around it, although she didn’t take a sip of it. And then, they waited.

And finally, Riza spoke.

“My father,” she said, the words feeling heavy, “was an alchemist. This you already know.”

It was something that they knew, but somehow this pronunciation of it seemed heavier to Havoc, as if there was a weight to it.

“I have few early memories of him. I think he loved me at one point, because I do remember him playing with me. But that all changed when mother died.”

No one said a word. Everyone was listening too closely. Havoc found it almost hard to breathe.

“When I was four, my mother died. I don’t remember her, not really. Just… associations. Music. Light. Laughter. Hugs. Flowers. Happiness. After she died, none of that existed anymore. Father threw himself into his work, and I was left behind. I often had to fend for myself, and I learned to take care of myself. Father didn’t care about me anymore.”

She turned the mug in her hands, her eyes staring at it, but not really seeming to see it. “I mentioned that when I broke that plate, I got my first thrashing. I was five. Father had been on a research bender. When he emerged from his study to find that, he was enraged. I couldn’t sit down for days without pain. That, I remember clearly.”

Havoc felt his jaw set. Breda was on the stool next to him, and Havoc could see the other man tense, although there was still a waiting look in his eyes. A realization entered Havoc’s mind. This wasn’t what had her begging in the basement for her father to stop. The thought made him sick. It had to be something worse than that, but what else could it be? Dark possibilities whispered at the corners of his mind. Whether he wanted to know or not, Havoc was going to find out what happened.

Riza continued. “I learned over the years to avoid my father after his research bends. He was always more volatile then. I also learned to fend for myself, to stay quiet, and not to bother father. He was a frightening man. I took care of the house, and of myself, and father took care of his studies. That was how we coexisted.”

She paused, looking down into the tea again. “Money was… sparse. We often did without. I learned to hunt, forage, and grow food. I traded up for chickens and a goat. I sold whatever I could just so we would have a little money that father wouldn’t completely spend on alchemy supplies. It was never enough, though.

One day, father started to take on apprentices. I quickly learned to avoid them, and that most of them wouldn’t last long. They never did. And then, one day, he took on a boy named Roy Mustang. To my surprise, he lasted.”

Havoc switched his attention to look up at Mustang. He could see him sitting there tightlipped, unhappy. He clearly wanted to do something, although what that something was, Havoc didn’t know. It honestly looked like Mustang himself didn’t know.

“Roy grew to be my father’s most talented pupil, and he wanted to share the secrets of his research with him—the secrets of Flame Alchemy.”

It wasn’t as if it wasn’t something that they hadn’t all guessed, but to hear Riza say that her father was the one who evented Flame Alchemy felt like a huge secret had just been dropped in their laps. There was some uncomfortable shifting, and Havoc exchanged a brief look with Breda.

“However,” she continued, “Roy made the decision to join the military instead and father, incensed, disavowed him and kicked him out. After that, father locked himself into the basement, and threw himself into his research in a frenzied way like I’d never seen before. I was afraid that he was going to die down in that basement.”

She paused to take in a breath, and then to swallow, and Havoc tensed up. Bad things were coming. He could feel it.

“I was on the verge of figuring out how to get down to him myself, when he finally opened the door and half collapsed on the stairs. I thought he was dead, and it frightened me, but some water and food revived him. Then he asked me a question that I thought I’d never hear: ‘My Riza, do you want to help me with my work? Can I trust you with it?’ and I, astonished at this, said yes.”

She let out a sardonic laugh and Havoc saw her hands tighten on the mug. “He wanted me. Me! He never wanted me. I was little more than a nuisance to him on a good day. But now he wanted me to help him with his research? He wanted to trust me with it? Of course, I said yes.”

Something about the way she said that sounded like a death sentence, but Havoc didn’t have time to focus on that, not when she was continuing.

“A couple of days later, he took me down to the basement, and he shut the door behind us.”

Havoc stilled.

“He sat me down on the table and gave me something to drink.”

His breath caught.

“It left me feeling groggy and tingly and out of it. And then he had me take off my shirt.”

Dread filled his chest, and the shake her voice made it worse.

“Once that was done, he had me lay down, with my bare back to him. He secured me in place with those ropes.”

Her voice was trembling, and Havoc felt his stomach roll.

“And then he began to draw on my back.”

Havoc blinked. What? What? That—that wasn’t what he was expecting. But from the catch in Hawkeye’s voice, there was something more serious about this then he realized—then any of them realized.

“For hours he drew out his array in perfect detail on my back. And then—”

She cut herself off and, after a pause, sat the untouched tea down. Her face was pained, and no one knew what she was about to do. She turned away from them, letting the blanket drop, and began to unbutton her shirt. Havoc knew he should look away, protect her privacy. He felt like he shouldn’t see whatever it was about to see, that it was something forbidden and dark. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. When her shirt dropped and her back was exposed, he felt his blood run cold and his stomach wanted to expel everything it had ever eaten. In horror, he looked over at the others, each of them looking just as horrified, none of them expecting this.

How could they have?

Covering her back, from the bottom of her neck past the small of her back, and stretching from side to side was a large, intricate, red tattoo, one that was clearly a more complicated version of Mustang’s array. And it was marred by heavy scars.

Her voice shook as she spoke, her back still facing them. “He began tattooing it on my back. I was fifteen, and he was my father. It hurt, it was painful, but I thought—I thought—”

Her voice broke, and they could see her shoulders shaking. “I thought he would love me,” She finally continued, and her voice broke Havoc’s heart. “I thought I was baring a great honor for him. I thought it was something that I could finally do for him. But he never cared for me, just his research and his array. I was still nothing to him, and there was nothing I could do about it. And there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening.”

There was bitterness in her voice, but also tears, and Havoc’s heart, broken thought it was, twisted inside him for her.

“About a year after it was completed, he died. Roy came back, and… I thought… I showed him the array, and he studied it. We thought we could help people with it. But… Ishval happened and I…”

It was clear that her emotions were getting the better of her, but she forged on, shaking her head. “I was the barer of flame alchemy,” her voice was shaking, but hard. It was emotional, but determined. “I chose who to give it to. And after that I swore that there would be no more flame alchemists. I asked Roy to burn it off of me. There could be no more flame alchemists. There couldn’t—I wouldn’t—”

A breath that sounded more like a sob escaped her, and she stopped talking. Her arms wrapped around herself as her shoulders shook, and Havoc could see her fingers digging into her elbows. Only her not-sobs, the pouring rain, and the crackling of the fire made any noise. No one knew what to say or what to do. It certainly explained a lot. It explained why Mustang and Hawkeye were so close. It explained why She was always wearing high necked things and refusing to wear things that showed her back. It explained why she always wore those turtlenecks under her uniform. It explained why she chose to stay with Mustang, so she could keep an eye on the flame alchemy that she had given him.

It’s explained her breakdown in the basement earlier, and why that place affected her the way it did.

The silence stretched, and finally Havoc, unable to stand it any further, pushed himself to his feet. He felt all eyes, except for Hawkeye’s, follow him. He ignored them, only focused on the woman in front of him. Without a word, he came to sit beside Hawkeye, on the other side of her, and reached out to her.

“Let’s get you put back together,” he said quietly, kindly, gently, as he reached out for the shirt. He carefully pulled it up and over her shoulders, guiding her arms back into it and doing up the buttons on it.

“Riza—listen carefully. We love you. We care about you. It doesn’t matter about your past or what you did, or how scared you were then. We still care about you.”

He reached up to gently pull her hair out of the collar line of the shirt.

“Thank you for explaining this to us. You’ve been through a lot more then I could have ever imagined, and at the hands of someone who should have fought to protect you, not sought to harm you. And what he did was harm. It harmed your mind and it harmed your body. But listen, Ri—you’ve got something so much better than that now. You’ve got us. And We’re not going to let anyone hurt you, or use you again, alright? I need you to believe and trust that. Can you?”

Hawkeye’s eyes were locked on his, tears glistening in her eyes. “You’d still… after all of…” she seemed to be struggling for words. “…You don’t think less of me?”

It was honestly not a question he had even considered, and she deserved to know as much. “Never, Riza,” he said. “I think you’re stronger than I ever imagined you were.”

She looked at him, a strange vulnerability in her eyes, something that made Havoc think about his young nieces and nephews, when they knew they had done something wrong that they were sorry for and were waiting for confirmation that they were still loved. Havoc was struck, then, that this was a glimpse into child-Riza, waiting to hear that someone, somewhere, cared about her, herself, who she was, and without condition. It was something that never received then.

Havoc would give it to her now.

“I could never think less of you, Riza.”

They were honest words, spoken as honestly as he could say them. He could tell that she believed him, but she still looked out at the others, uncertainty in her eyes.

No one in the team showed the slightest hesitation in what they said.

Breda nodded and stood, taking a couple of steps closer to her. His hand rested on her shoulder. “It makes me think less of your father. But you? Never, Riza.”

Falman stood as well, coming closer. “Few people could survive what you did as intact as you are. I’m amazed. It makes me think more of you.”

Fuery was already on his feet, crossing over to them, reaching out to take her hand. “Nothing could make me think less of you. I’m in awe, if anything.”

She blinked at them, as if surprised, and looked over to Mustang, who just smiled at her. Havoc squeezed her hand, and her gaze turned back to him.

“You were hurt, Riza, and we can’t do anything about that,” he said. “But you are loved and cared about and valued for who you are now. We’re your family, Riza, and nothing will change that. Nothing at all.”

She was shaking under their hands, as her face started to crumple. She raised a hand to her eyes as she could no longer contain her tears. But these tears, they had the feel of something cleansing, something good. Havoc reached out, and pulled her close, like he had that night on the roof, and let her cry herself out on him again. When she was finished, she wiped at her eyes. They were red, her cheeks splotchy, her hair a bit messy, but Havoc didn’t care. He didn’t think anyone did.

“Th-thank you,” she said to them, emotion still in her voice. “I… thank you.”

For a moment there was silence, until Mustang softly spoke up. “it’s late,” he said. “And it’s been a long day. Why don’t we all go to bed?”

No one objected, and one at a time they took their turn for the shower. Havoc was toweling off his hair when he passed by Riza’s room. He glanced in, and saw her sitting on the bed by herself, that stuffed yellow rabbit in her hands. Havoc figured that Mustang must be in the shower. He wouldn’t have left her alone otherwise. Still, Havoc didn’t say anything. He knew that Riza was aware of him. But he wasn’t going to push his presence on her. Instead, he stood in the doorway, waiting for her to either acknowledge him or for Mustang to come back. He could be patient either way.

“You know,” she said after a few moments, “I don’t think you know how much your words meant to me.” Her voice was soft in a way that Havoc seldom heard it. “I’m, in general, a confident adult. But there are still things that get to me, or that crop up no matter how many years have passed.” She paused again, her fingers rubbing the ears of that that rabbit. “I often feel like I have to prove myself or earn my place—earn that people care about me. I know I don’t, but I still feel that way. I tried to prove myself to Father all my life. I let him brand me, thinking that it would earn me his love. But nothing was ever good enough.”

She looked up at him. “…you love so easily. And what you and the men said tonight… You saw me weak, at probably my weakest, and yet…” she looked back down at the rabbit. “… it means more then you know, what you all said.”

His heart ached for her, and he walked in sitting beside her on the bed. For a moment, he didn’t say anything either, gathering his words. “You shouldn’t have to earn anyone’s love, Riza,” he said, “but you never have to earn mine. I’m certain that you never have to earn the other guys’ love either.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in, giving her a kiss on the head, similar to that night on the roof. “I don’t know if it’s still hard for you to accept or not, but we do love you. Nothing you do will take that away, alright? Nothing in your past, nothing at all.”

She sighed and leaned into him. “I’ll try my best to remember that.”

“We’ll remind you,” he said. “As much as you need it.”

She said nothing, but just stayed leaning against him. Havoc didn’t say anything either, just let them both be. They stayed that way until Mustang came back, and then Havoc left them together. He saw Mustang reaching out to her, and her curling into his arms as he shut the door. Good. They were what each other needed tonight.

Havoc made his way down the hall towards the room he and Breda were sharing, pausing at the stairs. Falman and Fuery were already in their room. Did he hear something? He paused to listen again, but heard nothing, and so shrugged and went on. This place was old and drafty, and Hayate was somewhere down there. He was probably just hearing the dog.

Havoc kept going and entered their room, shutting the door and changing. Breda was already in the bed, although it was clear he wasn’t asleep. Havoc didn’t think anything of it, and so was startled when Breda’s voice, quiet, but intense, broke their silence.

“Did you know?” he asked.

“Know what?” Havoc said.

“About… about all of that. What we learned tonight.” Breda said.

Havoc shook his head and sat on the bed. “No. Not at all. I suspected that her father was abusive and neglectful, but I never thought about something like that.”

“Who would have thought about something like that?” Breda spat out.

“Her father, apparently,” Havoc replied.

“Yeah.” They both fell quiet, and then Breda spoke again, his voice full of anger. “How?” he said. “How could he do that? And to his own daughter? Just treat her like—like—like a notepad! Like some sort of journal, he could lock away!” He was struggling not to explode in anger, and Havoc couldn’t really blame him. “She was his daughter! And he took advantage of her, mutilated her for his own good! What did he think was going to happen to her? She’d never be able to do so many things. What if she got married one day? How was she supposed to explain that to her husband?”

“Do you really think he would have just let her get married?” Havoc said. “If he did, it probably would have been just to someone he knew, or maybe even an apprentice, and all it would have been, was an arranged marriage. She’d have been just as used.”

Breda’s jaw worked. “You’re right,” he said. “And none of this is right. I just—” he shook his head. “I don’t know what to think, Hav. This whole thing…”

“Yeah,” Havoc agreed, and sighed heavily. “I think… I think it’s one of those things we’re just going to have to acknowledge and figure out how to deal with. There’s nothing we can do to change it.”

Breda was silent, and then just shook his head, rolling over. “It’s amazing she’s as adjusted as she is,” he said, and that seemed to be the end of the conversation for him.

Havoc didn’t push, but he couldn’t help but turn thoughts over in his own head that night as he struggled for sleep.

The next day, when Havoc woke and went downstairs, he wasn’t surprised to find Hawkeye down there already, working on breakfast. She looked at him, a little uncertain, but he just gave her an easy smile. “Hey, Ri,” he said. “What’s for breakfast this morning?”

That seemed to put her at ease, and she turned back to the food. “The usual. Eggs, Bacon, biscuits, coffee.”

“Whatcha need help with?” he asked.

“If you could start on the bacon, that would be helpful,” she replied.

He eased into helping her, starting on the bacon, and when Fuery came down a little bit later he jumped right into helping them out. The more normal they seemed to act, the more at ease Hawkeye seemed to become. Every time someone new came down the stairs, Havoc saw her tense a little, as if she expected something from them. Every time they treated her normally, she seemed to relax a little more. By the time Mustang came down the stairs, she was pretty much at ease.

Breakfast was an easy affair, giving them all time to relax and wake up. It couldn’t last, though, not with everything that needed to be talked about. Havoc glanced around the cleared off table where they were all sitting. Hawkeye and Mustang were sitting on one side, side by side. Breda was across from them, serious. Havoc set beside his best friend, leaning back in his chair even as Fuery and Falman took places at the ends. It was clear that Breda was going to take command of this questioning, even if it was equally as clear that he didn’t want to interrogate Hawkeye or Mustang. The need couldn’t be denied, though, which they all understand from a tactical point of view.

“Alright, first things first,” Breda said, focused on Hawkeye. “I know that you said that Mustang burned off the most important information, but how much can still be gained from your tattoo, if someone got ahold of it?”

Havoc could hear then implied “of you,” in the question, but, just like Breda, he shied away from that thought.

Hawkeye glanced at Mustang, who was the one who answered. Havoc supposed that made sense. Mustang would have more of an alchemic knowledge and was the one to burn the tattoo.

“Depends on the alchemist,” he said. “It would have to be a highly trained alchemist. Most of what I left were either common or things that people have come up with in the past. The part that draws them together into flame alchemy isn’t there.” His eyes met Breda’s staying steady, although the slight movement of his arm told Havoc that he was holding Hawkeye’s hand under the table. “If someone had the information that’s still on Hawkeye’s back, had access to some of the rare books here, and had the time to study it, then they might be able to figure out flame alchemy. However, there would have to be a lot of things come together for someone to understand what I left.”

Breda nodded. “Alright.” His eyes returned to Hawkeye. “The burns. Do they cause you any physical problems?”

Havoc shifted his eyes to Hawkeye. “They can get tight,” she said, “And painful. I have a special lotion I rub into them, but it’s hard to do it myself. The scars are hard to reach due to their positioning. Roy helps me with it sometimes, and occasionally someone else that knows about it does as well.” She paused. “The deepest parts of the burns, near the center, don’t have any feeling. It’s never been a problem before, but it is something to note. And there is a small amount of contracture that happened when the burns healed. I’m slightly less flexible on my left side then I am on my right, although it’s never caused me any real problems.”

Breda nodded. “Alright. One more question. You said that there were others who know. Who? And are they trustworthy?”

“Yes,” Hawkeye said, and there was no hesitation in her voice. “Rebecca Catalina knows,” she said. Havoc found himself surprised, although he supposed that he shouldn’t have been. “She and I were roommates and the academy. She found out then and kept it a secret for me. Maes Hughes knew. He found out on the battlefield. Roy’s aunt knows. She found out when Roy burned me and helped to care for me while I was healing. Dr. Knox knows as well. He helped to provide care after the burning as well as a few times in Ishval.”

They were grisly answers, at least to Havoc’s mind, but Breda just nodded. “Alright. Thank you, Hawkeye.” He paused. “You… will tell Catalina that we know, won’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

She nodded, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Of course. If I didn’t, and she found out that you knew, she’d be likely to shoot you first and ask questions later.”

She wasn’t wrong about that. “Well,” Havoc said, “you’ve got four more people to watch your back now—pun not intended,” he added at Breda’s dirty look. “Anything that we need to know about what we can do for you?”

Hawkeye gave him a grateful smile and paused, turning it over in her mind. “If I’m desperate, I might ask one of you to help put the lotion on my scars. But for the most part, just make sure that my back stays covered up. I don’t want to show this off, I don’t want to hint at it. The few times someone’s managed to catch a glimpse, I’ve been able to brush it off as scars from the war that I don’t want to talk about, but I’d rather not rely on that too much. I don’t want anyone to think there’s anything on my back. So, if something happens to my shirt, please just make sure that my back stays covered.”

She looked around at all of them, and they nodded. Havoc couldn’t speak for the others, but he’d literally take the shirt off of his back for her. The questioning wasn’t over, though, and Havoc could see it in Breda’s face. He braced himself for more questions that he really wished didn’t have to be asked.

“Another pressing question. How did you end up in the basement?” Breda asked.

They all stilled at that question, looking over at Hawkeye, who had her brow furrowed. “I’ll be honest. The panic that followed afterwards has dulled a lot of the memory. What I told you yesterday is still what I remember. I heard something and wondered if it was Havoc or Hayate. The basement door was open, and I went to close it and I was pushed. I tried to get out, but I couldn’t. I tried pushing on the door, and then I went down into the basement to try to find something to help me, but I was already starting to panic by then.” Her brow furrowed as she thought. “I remember that I didn’t see anything that could, but after that everything turns into a haze of panic and distress and memories.” There was a slight note of something in her voice, and Havoc saw Mustang’s other hand come over to hold hers, to provide some stability.

Hawkeye took a couple of breaths, trying to regain control, and Havoc wished there was something that he could do. After a few moments, she looked back up at them, her eyes serious. “This could be wrong, and just my panic playing tricks on me, but… I almost feel like there was someone down there with me. I can’t tell you who it was, or even if it was real, but it might be relevant.”

“Yeah, it might be,” Breda said. He glanced at Falman. “Falman and I went back to look at the lock after you had calmed. Mustang had taken it out of the door and wall with alchemy. The whole mechanism as out and we could see it clearly. It was locked from both sides.”

“Both sides?” Hawkeye said, shocked.

“That explains why I couldn’t get it open,” Mustang said, although his grip tightened on Hawkeye’s hand

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Hawkeye said. “I wouldn’t have locked myself in there, and there’s no other way in or out of the basement.”

Breda leaned forward. “Are you sure, Hawkeye?” he asked. “We got to thinking about it, and there is no outer entrance to your basement. Given the age of the house, there should be.”

“Actually,” Falman said. “Given the era I think that this house was built in, as well as its size and clearly former stateliness, there should not only have been an outer entrance to your basement, but also a fireplace to help funnel heat up and into the rest of the house. I did some looking around, and I think the possibility of it once having been there exists.”

Both Hawkeye and Mustang blinked at Falman in surprise. Then, abruptly, Hawkeye stood up. “Come with me,” she said and, although it was directed at Falman, Havoc found himself curious enough to follow.

He wasn’t the only one, and then all followed her up the backstairs and to the attic. She only stopped to grab a lamp so that they would be able to see. Once there she handed the lamp off to Fuery and began rummaging through things.

“What are you looking for?” Havoc asked her.

“The last time we were up here, do you remember a large cache of papers and documents? Some were in document tubes. We had to look through them for alchemy notes.”

Havoc blinked. “Yeah, I do. I think…” he moved to help her. “I think we put them somewhere over here.”

She nodded, and they started rummaging through things. Finally, after a moment, she came up with a portfolio that had what seemed to be photographs, papers, and other things stuffed into it, as well as a couple of document tubes.

“This,” she said, “is a collection of items about the house. I don’t know if there are any blueprints in here, but titles, deeds, work orders, photographs, and paintings exist in all of this. Apparently, before my father, if not before my grandfather, the Hawkeyes were fairly conscientious about money. I never had any reason to look at these before, but now maybe…”

Falman looked eager to get his hands on the documents “Can we take them downstairs?” he asked. “There’s more room down there. We can go over them down there and see what we can learn.”

“Of course,” Hawkeye said, and Falman reached and took some of the load from her.

“So if there is an entrance down there, how come we never saw it?” Fuery asked, holding the lamp he had been given up so everyone could see.

“It could have been sealed up a long time ago,” Falman offered.

“But then how come we haven’t seen any recent signs of it?” he pressed.

Mustang was rubbing his chin. “I want to go over that basement with a fine-toothed comb.” He looked over at Hawkeye. “I also want to start a watch. We’ll start standing guard at night to see if anything happens. Fuery,”

“Yes sir?” Fuery asked.

“Get that phone connected. I want a line of communication open and available, just in case.” Mustang said.

“Yes, sir!” Fuery said.

Mustang glanced at the rest of the men. “As for us—try not to go anywhere alone. Make sure that someone knows where you’re going to be at all times.” He looked at Falman. “Either take someone with you when you go out to do your observations, or make sure someone knows exactly where you’re going to be and when you plan to be back.” He looked at Havoc and Hawkeye. “Make sure that you two are careful when you go out to hunt.” He focused in on Hawkeye. “We don’t know if this was a targeted attack, or if Hawkeye just happened to be in the way, but I’m not taking any chances. We’re going to act as if there’s the chance of an enemy in our midst. I want you all to be careful. Do you understand me?”

There was a collective straightening and saluting, followed by heels snapping together. “Sir!” they all responded.

Havoc knew that he, for one, was going to be watching over Hawkeye carefully.

Orders given, Falman and Hawkeye poured over the items in what they had brought down from the attic, searching for any indication of an outer door to the basement, that the basement had once been bigger, or that there had been a fireplace in the basement at one point. Fuery immediately started the inside work that would be needed for the phone, while Mustang, Breda, and Havoc went down into the basement to start searching.

Havoc was not happy to be back in that basement. Unlike the first time, when Mustang had been squirrelly about him being down there, he instead let him look over anything without complaint. Havoc knew the story of it now, and it made him uncomfortable. He looked at the table, not able to see it or the rings in it the same way now. Knowing that a teenaged Hawkeye had been drugged and strapped down to that table by her father, and then tattooed for hours on end—and it had to have been hours, looking at that tattoo. That was not a one session thing. That took many sessions and lots of hours—it made him feel a little sick. He glanced at Breda, who was looking at the table in a similar way, his jaw set into a grim line.

Still, Mustang was managing to focus in and get to work down here, which couldn’t have been easy for the man, considering the woman he loved had been essentially tortured and branded in this basement. So, if he could do that, then Havoc would manage for Hawkeye as well—Even if he was disgusted by the idea of everything that happened down here and wanted to burn it all down.

“So, what are we looking for, Boss?” Havoc asked, forcing the question out of his mouth.

Mustang didn’t bother to look at him, examining the room instead. “Any signs of alchemy. That’s the only way I can think that someone would have gotten in and out of here so quickly and without leaving any signs. Either that, or there’s a hidden door, but I don’t think that’s as likely.”

Havoc noted, he didn’t say that it was impossible. “Got it. Although it’s going to be hard considering all the alchemy you did down here last time while we were looking for that research.”

Breda glanced at him, startled, but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah,” Mustang said. “But we’ve got to try. Look to see if there’s disrupted patterns to the alchemic marks that were left behind. That might indicate newer alchemy.

“Got it.”

They fell quiet, each man looking over and examining the walls. Havoc honestly wasn’t sure how they would have missed anything as big as a false wall or a hidden door last time, considering the way that Mustang had gone over the walls, but something had happened down here. They had to look.

After a few minutes of silence, Mustang spoke up.

“So… you know Hawkeye’s secret now.” He didn’t even glance at them. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to regret that her father’s not alive so I can punch him in the face,” Breda said rather bluntly. Not that Havoc could blame him. He’d like to punch her father too.

“Since I can’t do that, I suppose I’ll do what I can to support Hawkeye,” Havoc said. “It answered some questions about why she’s so careful about her back and all. I just thought it was some weird modestly thing, but now I get it.” He wished it was just some weird modesty thing, honestly.

“…What would someone do?” Breda asked. “If they found out, I mean. Could they really gain any knowledge from it?”

Mustang paused in his examination. “About flame alchemy itself? No, not without it being intact, not easily. A skilled alchemist could probably figure a great deal of it out. I have no doubt that the Elrics could, if they wanted to, for example. But not every alchemist could get enough information off of it. It’s not slight against his intelligence, but I don’t think that Armstrong could, or even Marcoh. It’s… complicated. Complex. It’s not something easily arrived at, or even easily grasped. For Master Hawkeye to have developed it at all…” Mustang shook his head. “It’s truly amazing. Unfortunately, it’s only in retrospect that I understood why he was so against me having it if I was going to be in the military.”

“What was he like?” Havoc asked. “Her father, I mean.”

Mustang frowned and crouched to look at a spot on the wall. “He was taller than she is, with slightly darker hair that hung in his face. He had a hooked nose, and cold, cold eyes. He was pale from being inside all the time. And he was exacting. Demanding. If you didn’t meet his standards, he was ready to get rid of you. He had little use for people that didn’t meet his standards.”

He paused. “He was a cold man as well. Praise from him was hard-won, and he was not a patient man. The only thing he cared about was alchemy, and there were days where he would focus on nothing else, writing and researching in a mad frenzy.”

He looked up at them from where he had crouched. “If you’re asking how he treated Riza when she was young, harshly is putting it lightly. He never cared when she came with bruises or cuts. He never helped her with her work. He expected that she keep the house in good order and have food ready to go. He expected that she would get high marks in school. Once, when she came home with mediocre marks, he hit her face hard enough to bruise, called her stupid, and told her that if she was going to be too stupid to do alchemy, then she should at least be smart enough to do well with the lesser knowledge they were teaching her in school. She worked herself even harder after that to try to bring her grades up. They came up, but he never praised her, never acknowledged her. The most he did was not hit her.”

Breda cursed under his breath, and Havoc shook his head. “Roy…” he said slowly, falling back on informality, “when we were here last time, you sent Ri out of the upstairs study, and then you burned a piece of paper. You said that there was nothing good to be found there. What was on that piece of paper?”

Mustang’s tensed, his face hardened, and his jaw worked, but after a moment, he finally spoke. “It was a formula,” he said, “for human transmutation. But it used another soul to pay the toll to bring someone back. And it was designed to use a child.”

Havoc’s blood ran cold and Breda dropped what he was doing.

“Wait a minute,” Breda said. “Are you saying—are you saying that her father—”

Mustang’s jaw clenched. “I am. He had a formula worked out for how he would sacrifice his own daughter’s life, her soul, to bring back his wife.”

Both Breda and Havoc looked at Mustang, horror on their faces. Havoc knew what it meant to do a human transmutation. They all knew the costs and the consequences. It was horrible enough on its own. But to use a living person as the toll for someone else’s life, and for that someone to be his own daughter? It was unthinkable.

Breda cursed aloud this time, and Havoc felt his stomach turn. He might just go out the barn after this and smoke, just because he didn’t know how else to react to this information.

“Does she know?” he finally asked.

Mustang shook his head. “No. Or if she does, she’s never said anything. But I refuse to be the one to tell her. For all of the awful things he did, he was still her father, and she was still loyal to him. She still wanted his love, and there’s a part of her that still wishes she had had it, even though she knows what a terrible person he was. I’m not going to destroy the last hope she has by showing her something that proves how worthless she was to him. I can’t do that to her.”

Havoc wished he had something to stick in his mouth. A toothpick, a piece of hay, anything. “Yeah,” he said. “I get that.”

“We won’t say a word,” Breda said.

Mustang just nodded, and they got back to work. But Havoc, for all of his shock, could see the weariness in Mustang’s movements, and the outright anger in Breda’s. He himself was angry, but it was overridden by a deep sorrow. How lonely must little Hawkeye’s life had been, with a father that thought of her as little more then something to be used?

Havoc didn’t have any kids of his own, but he had plenty of nieces and nephews. He loved every single one of them and he’d do anything to protect them. He’d give up his legs again to protect them. He’d have protected them from his wheelchair, if the need had arisen! And they were just his nieces and nephews. An important relationship to be sure, but not as important as parent and child. He couldn’t imagine doing anything to hurt them. How could Hawkeye’s father have been so cruel as to treat his own daughter as a consumable? How could he have only seen her as something to use?

Underneath her hard exterior, Hawkeye had a gentle heart. It was soft, and forgiving, and full of care and love. He could imagine a little Hawkeye with shinning eyes and a big smile running up to her father with all the love in the world for him. With gifts and trinkets and all of the things that kids do. What would she have been like, if he had just loved her in return? If that gentle heart of hers had been allowed to bloom and grow? If it hadn’t been stomped on by her father, by other people, by Ishval? Where would her steely resolve, compassion, and gentle heart have taken her?

How? How could her father have done all of this to her?

Havoc had to get his mind off of all of this, or he’d end up marching straight up the stairs and hugging Hawkeye right now. She wouldn’t like it. She wasn’t normally too opposed to hugs, and he had a bit of a pass, being a pretty close friend and all, but she’d know that this one came from the knowledge of her childhood, and she’d take it as more of an insult then as compassion. She didn’t want to be pitied, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Not when it was obvious that she fought so hard to survive and to make her own path in the world. He wouldn’t take that away from her.

So, instead of going upstairs to make Hawkeye feel upset with him, and with herself, he turned his attention back to the task at hand—namely, looking for any signs of either a hidden door, or of alchemy that would indicate that someone had been through here recently. So far, he wasn’t having any luck, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t something that they had overlooked last time.

He knew the signs of alchemy. He’d been alchemist adjacent for so long that by now he ought to have learned something of it. It didn’t mean that he always caught things, or that there weren’t things he just didn’t know to look for, but he wasn’t incompetent. However, he knew that it would honestly be best if Mustang went over the area with a more critical gaze after he finished. He and Breda knew that was what they were here for anyway. They were the first level of search. Mustang would be the next level. It only made sense.

It did make him wonder, though, that, if Hawkeye could stand it down here, if it wouldn’t be better fpr her to help search. She had an above average amount of knowledge. He’d seen her correct the Elrics on simple mistakes before, or act as an intelligent sounding board for them. She had plenty of alchemic knowledge of her own. It all begged another question.

“Say—why isn’t Riza an alchemist?” he asked, still working as he did. “She’s got a good knowledge base for it, right?”

He didn’t turn around or stop, and it sounded like neither of the others did either. He wasn’t sure if it was because they were trying to get through as quickly as possible, or because they were all avoiding emotions.

“She’s got a knowledge base that is well above average,” Mustang said. “She can follow the basics of a lot of high-level alchemy, sometimes more. But except what I taught her, none of that was taught to her. It’s what she’s picked up here and there along the way. It got a lot of gaps and holes in the practical application of it.”

“Yeah, but why?” Havoc pressed. “If all her father cared about was alchemy, I’d think that she’d want to become an alchemist, or that he’d have taught her.”

Mustang was quiet for a moment. “She did,” he said. “I saw her reading alchemy books when she was a child. But it was always in secret and she never, ever, tried. When I asked her why, once, she just shook her head and said that she didn’t have a mind for it.”

There was silence for a moment.

“That’s bullcrap,” Breda said. “Hawkeye is one of the smartest people I know. She could learn it if she wanted too.”

Mustang sighed. “From what I understand, her father did try to teach it to her, once. She was too young to understand most of the concepts, and, when he pushed her to try, she failed. Master Hawkeye wasn’t always very good at explaining things either, especially not when he thought that you should already know or understand something, if its something that, to him, seems simple.” He paused again. “…She won’t talk about it much,” he said quietly, “But I picked up on the idea that when she couldn’t get it, he grew frustrated and beat her.”

Now Havoc did look over at Mustang, and he noticed Breda did too. Mustang was looking back at them. He looked angry, but like it was an old anger that was there, one that he had long ago had to learn to live with.

“How old was she?” Breda asked.

Mustang shook his head. “No more than five or six.”

Havoc sucked in a breath and was suddenly glad that he didn’t have anything between his lips, because he would have inhaled it. Five or six. That was the same age as his niece Libby. Sweet Libby with the braid and the million-watt smile, who loved to hug him around his neck and bring him flowers and play adventures in the tall grass. If her dad every tried to beat her (which he wouldn’t, he was a good man), Havoc would kill him in a heartbeat if it meant saving her. To imagine something like that happening to Hawkeye at the same age filled him with a horrifying sinking feeling.

Breda cursed again, and Mustang turned back to his work.

“It left a lasting impression on her, one I don’t even think she realizes is there, or doesn’t care enough to bother with. I’ve tried to teach her alchemy before, over the years. She has enough knowledge of theory that she could easily do simple transmutations. But there’s a mental block there. No matter what I’ve tried, she can’t do the practical application of it. And I don’t think she really wants to. She’ll try, because I ask her to, but after that? She doesn’t care to. I honestly think she could have been a decent alchemist if it wasn’t for that mental block that was left from her father’s one and only attempt to teach her.”

Breda shook his head again. “That’s… I don’t even have the words for it.” He looked back up towards the ceiling, and then over at the table before quickly looking away from it. “How has she managed to function as well as she does?”

Mustang let out a sigh. “I don’t know. But I do know that what happened to her in her childhood, those experiences allowed her to survive being under Selim’s observation and not able to have a moment to herself.”

“Yeah, but she was so thin by the end of it, and her body exhausted,” Havoc said.

“I know,” Mustang said. “You should have seen her when we first met. She was a thin thing. I always assumed it was because of the lack of food, and the way that she always made sure to give bigger portions to her father and to me than she did to herself. But now I wonder if it also wasn’t the stress of living under her father.”

Havoc shifted uncomfortably. This dive into Hawkeye’s childhood was uncomfortable at the least. It revealed a lot about her, and it explained a lot about her too. But it also felt like prying, and he could see Breda shifting a bit uncomfortably too. The silence stretched on for a while longer, until Mustang let out another sigh.

“Come on. Let’s keep working.”

They worked without finding anything until Falman called down to let them know that supper was ready. They hadn’t quite finished, but they came up anyway, Havoc just then realizing how hungry he was. Hawkeye and Falman still had photographs and paintings spread all over the dining room table, but the kitchen table was free and the other three were in there. Fuery was stirring some pots, and Falman was setting out the plates and cutlery. Riza was tasting something and adding a little more spice to it.

“What’s this?” Mustang said, a bit of teasing in his voice. “And here I thought we were all busy working.”

“We were, sir,” Fuery said, “But I’ve done all the work I can from the inside. I thought I would start dinner.”

“And to be honest, I needed a break,” Hawkeye said. “I didn’t mind helping Kain out.”

Truth be told, Havoc thought that she still did look a little tired, and he couldn’t blame her much for that. Honestly, he was still amazed that she was managing as well as she was—and that she had managed as well as she did the first time they came here. If he had had a past like hers, he would have been more likely to burn the place down then to ever return to it. Something good must have come at some point, though, enough to override the bad. Otherwise, he doubted that she would be here and working as well as she was.

Of course, she had support her with her now. That had to make a difference. She certainly hadn’t had support as a child, and then only Mustang for support when she was a bit older, until he had left. It had to have been hard. Now, though, she had the five of them, plus Hayate. Hopefully it made a difference to her. Still, if she was tired, he found it completely understandable.

Over dinner, the group discussed what they had discovered so far. It was a strike out on all fronts. The only one who had any luck had been Fuery, and that was because he wasn’t searching for anything, just setting up a phone. They returned to their respective tasks after supper, Fuery offering to clean up, but no one had any luck then, either.

However, at lights out, one thing was agreed upon. They needed to set up watches. None of them, Havoc knew, had gotten this far by not being at least a little paranoid—and they had plenty to be paranoid about right now. Alarms and traps were set, and one at a time they took turns taking watch. Havoc roamed the house on his, Hayate accompanying him. It actually worked out well for him, Havoc found, as the walking helped the ache in his legs. Downstairs he could walk as much as he wanted to. Nothing happened on his watch, and after he woke up to walk Falman for his turn, Havoc fell into bed and slept well.

When morning dawned, Havoc was, as usual one of the first ones up. Hawkeye was already awake, but instead of working on breakfast, she was standing in the dinning room, frowning over the document and pictures.

“Mornin’,” Havoc greeted, but frowned at her frown. “What are you looking at?”

“The documents,” she said. “I think they’ve been moved.”

Havoc’s head snapped towards hers. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure,” she said. “Well need Falman to be able to tell us for sure.”

“Tell us what?” Fuery asked, coming into the dining room with them.

“Hawk thinks some of the documents were disturbed,” Havoc said.

All of the sleep in Fuery was gone at that statement. “What?”

Hawkeye shook her head. “Let’s get breakfast started. When Falman wakes up, we’ll ask him to take a look. It isn’t likely that whoever bothered these is still here this morning.”

“Right,” Havoc said, but his frown didn’t leave. Hawkeye wasn’t typically wrong about things like this. Someone or something had been down here, and Havoc doubted that it was Hayate or rats messing with the documents.

Hawkeye was tense as they prepared breakfast. She seemed especially uncomfortable with the confirmation that someone had been in the house, and Havoc found it understandable. So much of herself had already been revealed to them, even without her permission. He didn’t blame her at all for being a little squirrelly about this situation.

When Falman came down the stairs, he was immediately directed towards the dining room where he confirmed that yes, the documents had been disturbed and, even more concerning, that there were items missing. Breda and Mustang came down the stairs just a moment later, and Havoc could hear Hawkeye telling them what they had found. Mustang ordered them all to eat a quick breakfast, and then start a thorough sweep of the house—with the exception of Falman, who’s job it was to determine what in the documents was missing.

There was no dallying at the breakfast table this morning, and the sweep began with thirty minutes of them all being awake. It was a slow, thorough sweep, starting on the first level and working their way up. Nothing was left unturned or untested. Furniture, rugs, walls, they examined all of them.

Which, honestly, brought Havoc to a question.

“Hey, boss—we looked through every nook and cranny of this place the last time we were here. Don’t you think we’d have found something by now if something was hidden or locked or whatever?”

The last time they were here, Mustang had looked into the walls and the floors to see if they contained any hidden research. They had, of course, turned up blind, with nothing to show, but it was what they had done. If there had been any hidden passages to find, wouldn’t they have found them then?

“If it was added after we left, or was something cleverly hidden, I may not have noticed it,” Mustang said. “I wasn’t focused on looking for secret doors after all. I was focused on any notes her that her father might have left behind.”

“Right,” Havoc said. “Still, if there were something up here, I would have thought that we would have found at least a trace of it.”

Mustang frowned. “Yeah. Me too.”

The search continued with very little found. There were no overt signs of an intruder, although there were little things that none of them had thought about before, like bottles being moved or curtains being opened, that none of them had done, but had happened all the same. All signs pointed to someone being in the house.

The intruder didn’t appear to have been on the second floor or the attic yet, and Mustang made sure that the backstairs to both would be impassible for the time being. It would give them only one way up the stairs to guard, which was useful. Of course, the possibility of alchemy being used to take down what he put up was a consideration, and Hawkeye and Fuery rigged several traps that, quite frankly, Havoc was certain he didn’t want to mess with.

By the time dinner came around that night, they were all tired, but still determined. They resolved to leave nothing downstairs, and then started swapping stories of anything odd or unusual that they had encountered over their stay here. Some, of course, were immediately discounted when someone admitted to moving or doing something themselves. Havoc recalled some odd things that he had seen in the barn that he had attributed to the horses or to other animals escaping from the rains, and Falman reported on a few odd things he had seen outside. By themselves, and without suspicion, they really wouldn’t have been things to worry about. But Mustang’s team was good with suspicion, Havoc knew, as it had saved their own lives more than once, and the lives of the country, too.

And still the rain fell outside.

They all went to bed on high alert, ready to snap awake and to action at the slightest provocation. The days of pouring rain and tense moments felt like they were building up to something to Havoc, although he had no idea what they were building up to. All he knew was that it felt like everything was building up to something big, and something important.

The next few days were met with little change. With the thunder and the rain, there wasn’t much else they could do. Fuery said it was too dangerous to try to hook up the phone in a lightning storm. He was just as likely to get hit and killed then he was to get the phone hooked up, and no one wanted that. Falman still went out and made his observations, checking the garden and the orchard for food. Breda and Mustang resupplied their wood pile and secured the grounds as best they could. Havoc and Hawkeye went out hunting, bringing back what kill they could to sustain them throughout these long and tense days.

The unchanging days, however, provide some opportunities for conversations, whether they were conversations that either party wanted to have or not. Havoc, usually moving about the house to try and help his aching legs, overheard a number of these.

The first one he overheard was between Hawkeye and Breda. They were still taking care of the bulk of the laundry, and Havoc overheard them talking when he was passing through the kitchen one day.

“—not trying to be insensitive, Riza, but I do have a few questions for you.”

Riza sighed. “Go ahead, Heymans. I figured someone would. I should have expected this.”

Havoc could hear the sounds of them continuing to work on the washing while they talked.

“You told us about who had seen your tattoo,” Breda said. “But were there any others?”

Hawkeye sounded a bit confused when she answered. “No. I told you the entire list.”

“That’s it?” Breda pressed. “What about… well… boyfriends and the like?”

There was a beat of silence. “Heymans, there were no boyfriends. When I was living at home, I didn’t dare bring a boy home, even if there was one that would have braved my father’s wrath. My father was a frightening man, and for good reason. And when I joined the academy, boys were the last thing on my mind. It may have been the military, but it was my first taste of freedom and I didn’t want to be tied down by anything or anyone.”

“Right,” Heymans said, and although the answer might have sounded trite to some, Havoc knew better. It was simply him acknowledging her words. “I know that Mustang said that there wasn’t likely to be any alchemist who could learn Flame Alchemy off of your tattoo now, but could they learn anything else?”

Another pause. “I’m not entirely sure,” she admitted. “It’s hard to see my back, and I’m no alchemist. But I think that there are still some basic principles that could be gained from it.” She paused. “I wanted the whole thing gone, but he refused. He was probably right, in the end, but I wanted to be freed from this burden all together.”

“Yeah,” Breda said, and there was a note of understanding in his voice. “Alright, you mentioned that there was some contracture. How much and does it impact anything?”

Havoc heard the sound of something being put down, and someone standing up. And then, after a moment, Hawkeye’s voice. “Not much. As you can see, I can reach a little bit further with my right arm then my left arm, but t’s not enough to truly impact anything. So far, the only thing it’s impacted has been a few moments in training, and I compensated for those. I don’t think anyone even noticed.”

“I didn’t,” Breda admitted. “Okay, any other ailments or problems that stem from that tattoo?”

Hawkeye was quiet for a moment, and Havoc could hear her sitting back down and picking up her washing again. “Well, most of the time it isn’t a problem, but if I don’t have my head about me, then it can be. I’m not fond of needles,” she said, and Havoc winced. Yeah, he bet she wasn’t, and he could hear the awkward shifting of Breda as he likely came to the same realization as Havoc. Hawkeye kept going. “If I have my head about me, it’s about a 60/40 chance that the needle is going to bother me. Me reacting to it is an even bigger difference. But if I have some sort of addling or I’ve been unconscious, then do tend to react poorly to needles in general.”

“Yeah… that makes sense,” Breda said, although it was clear to Havoc he was a little disturbed by the notion.

“It does,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard it at all. “I also have a problem with being held down sometimes. Even with someone I trust, it’s a struggle for me to let most people hold me down. I tend to want to panic and get away from that person or whoever is holding me in place.” She paused. “… Father used ropes, for when I was being unruly, and the idea of being in that position again just does not sit well with me.”

There was a little strain in Breda’s voice when he spoke again, and he had to clear his throat. “Yeah… Yeah that makes sense,” he repeated. “Okay— okay I think that answers most of the questions that I have now. I’m sure there will be more along the way, but for now I have what I came after.”

“If you have any more, ask me, but please just give me a heads up and a few moments first,” Hawkeye requested. “It’s a difficult topic.”

“Of course,” Breda said, and that seemed to be the end of that. Havoc stole away quietly, not wanting to let either of them know he had overheard the conversation.

Of course, that wasn’t the only conversation that Havoc heard between Hawkeye and other members of the team. He happened to be nearby when Hawkeye and Fuery were working in the kitchen, and small talk turned to something more serious.

“You sure are a good cook, Captain!” Fuery said.

Hawkeye laughed. “You don’t have to be formal, Kain. And thank you. I try to make stuff last and use as much of it as possible.”

There was a beat of silence and then “… you know if you ever wanted to talk about it…”

Havoc could almost hear that smile of Hawkeye’s. “Thank you, Kain. I appreciate it.”

“Of course!” Fuery replied. “Anytime, s—Riza.”

For a moment they were both silent and then Riza spoke up. “I made a lot of meals on this stove,” she said.

“Yeah?” Fuery said, encouraging her to go on without interrupting her.

“Yeah,” Hawkeye said. “After mother died, father hardly ever came out. I remember that much. I think he would just fix whatever he could find. But as I got older, I learned to cook and started making the meals. After that, the only time father ever cooked anything that I remember, was when I was healing from the tattoo. He would do it in stages, and while I was healing, he would bring me food, water, whatever I needed.”

Fuery was silent, and Hawkeye sighed. “For a little bit, I was able to convince myself that it was love, that he loved me, but in the end it wasn’t. It was just a desire to see his work completed.” She looked down at the pot she was stirring and shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder…. If mother had lived, and if father had died…. What would be different?”

Fuery was silent as Hawkeye seemed to turn that over in her mind for a moment, and then shook herself out of it. She moved, almost just to be doing something, and started attending to one of the other pots on the stove.

“The past is the past, though,” she said, “and I can’t change anything about it.” She turned her head to look at Fuery again and Havoc could see her give him a smile that didn’t quite seem to be real. It was a smile of “this is how it is” and not one of happiness, which, personally, Havoc found sad.

Fuery cleared his throat, not entirely sure what to say to that. He put a hand on her shoulder for a moment, and then softly redirected the conversation. “So, um, you learned how to cook when you were young. Did you learn from books or did someone teach you?”

She tilted her head back, thinking. “Well, in a way, both. I remembered things that my mother taught me. I don’t remember her teaching them to me, just thinking ‘this is the way Mama did it’ so I had that to pull on. I also was pretty good at reading from a young age, so I would read books and try my best to understand them. Once I started school, there were some classes there that helped as well. And as I got older, I experimented more.”

“Yeah?” Fuery asked, curious.

Hawkeye nodded. “Yes. We didn’t often have much, so I learned how to make things stretch. I knew a lot of the wild plants that were edible, or that would be once you prepared them, and I learned how to grow a garden. I would hunt, too, and trade my kill for supplies. I managed to trade or sell enough off to get a goat and some chickens, so we at least had milk and eggs, if nothing else.”

“Sounds like you made it, even if you had it pretty hard at time,” Fuery said.

“I suppose so,” Hawkeye commented. “It was certainly a very interesting childhood. I wouldn’t recommend most of it to anyone.”

“Well, regardless, sir, I am glad that I got to know you now,” Fuery said.

This time the smile that she returned seemed truer. “I’m glad, too,” she said. “For being able to meet all of you.”

Havoc somehow felt that statement was more than a little true and kept it to himself for the time being.

He was in the living room, reading a book, when he overheard a conversation she had with Falman. They were in the dining room, looking over the pictures and documents.

“Sir, I hate to ask, but… You spent a lot of time outdoors, correct?” Falman’s voice was his typical straight voice, but there was a note in it that seemed to indicate that he knew he was going to tread on sensitive ground.

“I did,” Hawkeye confirmed. “That’s why I know the grounds so well.”

“Of course,” Falman said. “Well, I just… was it because of your father?” the question almost seemed to blurt out of his mouth, and he looked like he wanted to immediately take it back.

Hawkeye sighed and leaned against the table. “Mostly, yes,” she said. “I liked to stay outside because it meant that I wasn’t in father’s reach. He wasn’t close enough to lash out at me. But at the same time, if I was gone for too long, he wouldn’t be happy about that either.” She frowned. “It was a balance, and one that was difficult to achieve.”

Falman had stopped looking at the papers on the table and was looking at her instead. “Did he hurt you?” he asked.

Riza fell silent, and just stood there breathing for a moment. Finally, she spoke. “I learned to read his moods, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything like that,” she said. “He didn’t typically actively seek me out. But if he was angry with me for something, it was best not be around. Or if he had just come out of a research bender. Sometimes it was like he was half crazy then.” Her words almost sounded haunted, and there was a strange look in her eyes that looked like it made Falman uncomfortable. Not that Havoc could blame him, the whole thing was uncomfortable.

“I see,” he said. He looked back at the pictures. “Then I guess that if this entrance does exist, if has to be extremely well hidden.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “If it wasn’t, believe me, I would have used it to escape many things.”

The statement was haunting, and it was clear that neither of them wanted to think too hard on it. Havoc didn’t want to think too hard on it. They turned back to scouring through the papers and pictures and Havoc left them to it.

Of course, Havoc had his own conversation with her. It was bound to happen. His conversation with her happened when he was up on watch one night. He stood at the end of the hall upstairs, looking out the window at the dark and pouring rain beyond. When he heard footsteps behind him, he turned to see who it was. Hawkeye padded towards him, her feet bare and a robe wrapped around her. She joined him at the window.

“Can’t sleep?” he said.

Hawkeye shook her head. “No,” she said.

He nodded and took a drag off his cigarette. Hawkeye looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I thought you were getting off of those things,” she said.

“Yeah, well, after the last couple of days, I kinda needed it,” he said. She hummed. There really wasn’t much arguing about that. They were quiet for a few moments, and then Havoc spoke. “He beat you, didn’t he?” he said. “Sometimes he beat you. That’s why you knew how to get to that place on the roof. That’s why you went up there a lot as a child. And it’s why you can read people so well and you get angry at injustice, especially with children.”

Hawkeye had stiffened up, but she didn’t move from where she was. Finally, she nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice quiet.

He had suspected as much for a while. “How often?” he asked.

Hawkeye shook her head. “They weren’t predictable, not exactly. When he came off a research bender, he was much more likely to be reactionary and hit me for small things. If I wasn’t keeping up with my chores or grades, then he was likely to hit me as well. Most of the time when he hit me, it wasn’t a full beating, just a strike because I’d done something like bother him or didn’t have something ready in time.”

“He called you names, too, didn’t he?” Havoc asked.

Again, Hawkeye stiffly nodded, and Havoc let her speak at her own pace. “Worthless girl was his favorite. So was useless. Part of me wanted to run away, but I was too afraid, I didn’t think I’d be able to survive on my own, and, well… he was still my father. I still wanted his love.”

“Sure,” Havoc said, still puffing on his cigarette. He sighed. “Honestly, Ri, do you have any idea how amazing you are?”

Hawkeye blinked up at him. “What?” she asked, clearly a bit startled.

“I have nieces, you know? Nieces and nephews and I think about some of them. I think about little Libby who loves with her whole heart and has so much fun bringing gifts and playing adventures in the tall grass. She loved climbing all over me and my chair, and I was her knight and her horse in these games. She has such a bright smile and such a gentle heart. And then I think about how your father hurt you, and I just—she’s not even my child, and I can’t imagine hurting her. In fact, if anyone was hurting her, I’d be more likely to kill them. Before or after the chair.”

His frown deepened. “And then I think about my cousin, Ellie, who honestly was more like a little sister to me. She’s 15 and smart as a whip with a sharp tongue to boot. But she’s kind, and eager to please. And I think about what your father did to you, and I just can’t imagine it.”

He reached out then, not able to help it, and hugged her. “Stars, Riza, I’m so sorry that it happened to you. It shouldn’t have. There should have been something or someone to stop it and I just—It had to hurt. It hurt, didn’t it? The tattooing, I mean.”

She was stiff with surprise in his arms for a moment, and then, slowly she relaxed a bit. She was quiet, and then, slowly, her arms curled to hug him back. Her voice was soft as she spoke. “…It did,” she said. “It hurt so much. The painkiller he gave me, my body got used to it, and it stopped being effective. Its why painkillers don’t often work on me. I’ve built up a tolerance. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop, Jean. He just… he kept going and just tied me down so that I wouldn’t move and destroy his work. And it hurt even worse when I finally admitted that he didn’t love me, just his work, and that I was nothing more then a means to an end for him. I—”

Her breath caught, and she let out a shaky sigh. He let her stay there as she fought to regain her composure.

“I can’t imagine it,” he said. “I can’t even begin to imagine all that you’ve been through. I wish that there was something that I could do about it, but there isn’t. But if you need anything—Riza, you know I’m here.”

She nodded and, after a moment, she slowly pulled back. She wiped at her eyes, and they both fell quiet staring out the window for a moment before she murmured a good night and headed back to her room that she was sharing with Mustang.

Havoc had to pass the room they were in on the way back to his own, and in it he could hear them talking. It sounded like Hawkeye was crying, and a bit of guilt stabbed at his heart at the thought that he had made her cry. But then he heard her words.

“—acknowledged my pain. Told me he was sorry that I had been through it, that it wasn’t right for father to have done that to me.”

“But Riza, you know that,” Mustang was saying. “You’ve known it for years.”

“I know,” she said. “But there’s something different in knowing it, and hearing someone who’s outside of the situation say it. Besides… it was different. It was like he was acknowledging ME. Not what happen to me, or that I was a kid and it wasn’t fair, but me, myself and—I don’t know. That means a lot to me.”

He heard a rustling sound, and figured that Mustang was gathering Hawkeye into his arms, or however the books always phrased it. He heard the sound of a kiss, and figured that Mustang was placing one on her head.

“Well, if it made you feel better, then I’m glad for it,” Mustang said. “You deserve so much better, Riza. I wish I could give you the world.”

The words sounded rehearsed, as if they had said them a million times.

“You know I don’t want that,” she said. “But I do want to be by your side through this world.”

It also sounded rehearsed, but neither sounded like something one of them would give out for a play or anything. No, it sounded more like something that two people have said to each other over and over again. It sounded like a way of saying “I love you.”

Havoc stole away then, to his room. His shift was over, and he was going to wake up Breda for his own.

And then he was going to enjoy having an entire bed to himself for a while, because he missed that.

More days passed, still with pouring rain. The thunder let up, though, and Fuery, who had not been about to go rig up anything in the middle of a thunderstorm, felt safer about going out in just the rain. Normally the Master Sergeant wouldn’t have done anything in this weather, but it was what it was, and there really wasn’t any other choice. Havoc could respect that, even if he was questioning the wisdom of it.

Falman, meanwhile, had reconstructed some of the missing work. From what he was able to piece together from both memory and the remaining documents, he was constructing a blueprint of the house to see if there had, indeed, once been more to the basement they there currently seemed to be. He had wondered if the town might have any sort of official record keeping that might lend him a copy of the blueprints or other such thing to help him figure it out. Hawkeye said it was possible, although she didn’t know for sure.

It was when he was taking a break from piecing together a general blueprint, that another startling discovery was made. Breda had been looking through the casefile that they had originally been tasked with when he noticed that something was missing. He had gone immediately to Falman to confirm, and Falman confirmed it. There were pages missing.

“But why those pages?” Falman asked.

Mustang’s jaw was set. “Those pages were specifically on the alchemy that was used at the scenes. It seems our intruder has an interest in alchemy. We need to catch him.”

“But how?” Havoc asked “We’ve not seen him at all. We don’t have a clue where he’s coming from.”

“Not exactly,” Breda said. “We know that he has to have a way in and out of the basement. Otherwise, he couldn’t have locked Hawkeye in there from both sides.”

Hawkeye tensed up, and Havoc found that he couldn’t really blame her for it.

“I need to go over that basement with a fine-toothed comb,” Mustang said. “Until then, no one goes anywhere by themselves, understand?”

A chorus of “yes, sir!” rang out, Hayate even barking along with them.

“Breda, Falman, I want you two to go out and search the grounds. Look for anything unusual.”

They both nodded and headed towards the washroom to get their boots and gear up.

“Havoc, you and I are going to go back down there and look over that basement again.”

“Right.” Havoc replied.

“Hawkeye, Fuery, I want the two of you to go over this house. Don’t leave any place undisturbed.”

“Yes, sir.” Fuery said

“Understood, sir.” Hawkeye replied, a steely look in her eyes.

“Keep Hayate near you,” he said. “He may be able to sense something before we’re able to.”

“Right,” Hawkeye said.

Mustang hesitated for a moment. “If this someone has an interest in alchemy…”

“Don’t worry, sir, I’ll be safe,” Hawkeye said. “I’ve got two reliable partners watching my back.”

Mustang nodded. “Right.”

Havoc couldn’t help but notice the tension and worry in both Mustang and Hawkeye as they turned towards their respective tasks, and he met Fuery’s eyes. The younger man looked firm, determined, and Havoc knew that Hawkeye would be safe in his hands.

The rest of the day was spent searching. Hawkeye and Fuery didn’t find much of anything, except some areas that could possibly be used for entry into the house, and they either took care of them themselves, or saved it to tell Mustang later. Havoc and Mustang didn’t have much luck either. The problem with searching for signs of alchemy in a house that had alchemists living in it and had already been looked over once by an alchemist, was that there were signs of alchemy everywhere. It was hard for Mustang to tell if his previous attempts at alchemy had been disturbed or not, much less for Havoc to be able to tell.

The only exciting thing was when Falman and Breda came back, slamming into the kitchen, Breda bellowing for Mustang.

“General! We found something!” Breda called.

Havoc rushed into the kitchen as well, hand hovering over his gun, just in case. When he got there, he saw Breda with a man dressed in a rain jacket, his head turned away from Breda’s yelling. Breda had his arms in a hold, and Falman had his gun trained on the man. The man wasn’t trying to resist.

“Who’s that?” Havoc asked, not quite able to get a good look at the man. He was about average height and weight, seemed to be wearing the same sturdy clothes most country folk wore, although they were muddy and wet, as if he had just come from spending a large amount of time outside. His coat was tan, and Havoc could see bits of brown hair sticking out from under the hood.

“Good question,” Mustang said, striding into the room. “Where did you find him?”

“Skulking around the edge of the woods,” Breda said. “Not sure what he was doing out that way, but he didn’t come quietly with us.”

It was then Havoc noted that all three men seemed to have a lot of mud on them, water soaking into their uniforms.

“What’s going on?” Hawkeye and Fuery entered the kitchen, both of them looking on curiously, although Havoc could see the sharpness in Hawkeye’s eyes, and the very subtle way her body shifted so she would be able to draw her gun more quickly.

“Breda and Falman found this man skulking near the edge of your woods,” Mustang said.

“Who is he?” Hawkeye asked, and that seemed to get the man’s attention.

“Ms. Hawkeye!” he said, and looked up at her, finally revealing his face. “What do you mean ‘who is he?’? Don’t you know?”

Understanding seemed to dawn in her eyes, and she relaxed a bit, although no one else did, Havoc included.

“Bennet Johnson?” she said.

The man nodded rapidly, as if wanting very hard to confirm that was who he was.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Well, ma’am, I mean, I was just coming to check on the property. With the rain and all, I thought there might be some problems,” he said. He looked back at Breda. “Was I right?”

Hawkeye waved Breda and Falman off, and as soon as they did, the man was stepping away from them, rubbing his wrists.

Mustang watched her carefully. “You know this man, Captain?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I pay him to keep an eye on the property and do any sort of basic maintenance that the house or grounds need. I come out once a year to check on things myself. But he takes care of it for most of the year.”

“I see,” Mustang said, and, although it was clear that he understood, Havoc could see that he wasn’t quite ready to let go of his suspicion. “And do you know him or his family?”

Riza shook her head. “He came to me on recommendation. He’s new to the area and needed work. I was told that he was fairly good with upkeep and repairs and decided to give him a chance. I’ve not been disappointed yet,” she said. She looked back over at the man. “You said you were just coming to check on the house and property?”

Johnson nodded rapidly. “Yes ma’am!”

Breda, who clearly was suspicious stepped a bit closer to Johnson. “Then why did you run?” he asked.

“Because I didn’t want any trouble!” he said. I don’t know you or who you are! Your uniforms don’t mean you’re good people! Don’t you know how many former soldiers or deserters there are who still wear parts of their uniforms? I didn’t want to fall prey to one of them! I was going to head back to town and ask some questions! That’s all!”

It was a reasonable excuse, honestly, Havoc thought. The rain was likely to have caused some sort of damage to the house, and if he was responsible for checking the house, then it made sense that he would come to make sure that the house was in good repair. But something about it just didn’t sit right with Havoc.

Mustang nodded at Breda, and Breda backed off a bit. Falman lowered his gun, but didn’t put it away, Havoc noted. Seems Briggs had taught him a thing or two about action and how quickly it needed to be taken at times.

“Have you noticed anything strange around the house lately?” Mustang asked.

“You mean besides a bunch of strange soldiers?” Johnson shot back. He glanced at Hawkeye, who seemed to let out a bit of a sigh.

“Bennett Johnson, this is my commanding officer, General Roy Mustang. These are First Lieutenants Breda, Havoc and Falman, and Master Sergeant Fuery. We were on our way further south on official business when the tracks became too dangerous to travel. Instead, we’ve been forced to stay here. We didn’t mean to surprise you. I should have warned you about it. My apologies.”

Johnson shook his head. “No, no apologies. I heard about what happened in town. Seemed they’re full up and nearly every place that has a place you can stay is full up. I just wanted to make sure that there weren’t any soldiers or civilians who had decided to take advantage of an empty house. I know how particular you are, Ms. Hawkeye.”

“Thank you, Johnson, I appreciate that. But can you please answer the General’s question?” Hawkeye said.

“Oh! Anything strange around the house lately?” He paused to think. “Well, not in particular. Everything seems about the same and seems to be alright. The strangest thing I can think of is that some of the brick on the backside seemed oddly chipped. But there’s a woodpecker about who seems to be pecking on anything but wood, so I just chalked it up to that.”

Hawkeye and Mustang exchanged looks. “Can you show that place to Breda and Falman?” Hawkeye asked him.

“Oh, sure!” he said. “I mean, I did my best to fix it, but I can show them where it was.”

“Thank you,” Hawkeye said. “And thank you for coming to check on the place. Our apologies for attacking you.”

Johnson shook his head. “It’s alright, Ms. Hawkeye. I get that you were just doing your jobs. Although this isn’t going to be easy to spot.” He turned to look at Breda and Falman. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you right where it is.”

“Alright,” Breda said and motioned for Falman to follow him first. Breda gave Mustang and Hawkeye a look that said he was already calculating something and that he had some words for the two of them later, but he followed Johnson out anyway.

Havoc holstered his gun, but he kept an ear out anyway. Something about this just didn’t settle right with him.

The bricks, it turned out, weren’t really that helpful. He had done his best to close them over, but on the whole, there wasn’t much to be gained from them. Likewise, nothing was turned up anywhere else in the house. By the time that bedtime came around, they were all beat. Showers were quickly gotten, leftovers quickly eaten, and beds quickly taken, except for the man on watch. They were woken up to take their turns at watch at need, and the night stretched on into another dreary cloud filled day of rain, rain, and more rain.

#fullmetal alchemist Big Bang 2021 #FMA Big Bang 2021 #Fullmetal Alchemist #fma #royai #riza hawkeye #Roy Mustang #Jean Havoc #Heymans Breda #Vato Falman #Kain Fuery #black hayate #fan fiction #fanfic

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jeminy3 · 6 years ago

Text

Role Reversal

Another very old thing i’ve finally gotten around to polishing and posting.

This is, (like most of my fics), a collection of things I really wanted to see written about - and a bunch of things I'm very horny for.

Namely: Queerplatonic/Friends-With-Benefits Royai, BDSM with Dom!Riza and Sub!Roy, Roy in a Dress, Riza in a Pantsuit, Other Very Sexy things, with a big bonus of Genderfluid/Transfeminine Roy with Riza being supportive… in her own way.

Pronouns will change. NSFW warnings will show up as necessary.

Read on AO3

Read on Google Docs

If anyone assumed Riza Hawkeye was too straight-laced to enjoy the finer things in life, they were sorely mistaken - she just preferred things a certain way, that's all.

A good example involves her current situation: she's politely refused partaking in any alcoholic drinks during the event she was currently attending, instead getting her fill from sparkling apple cider. She greatly dislikes inebriation, as it never agreed with her in her experience, and she prefers to stay fully aware in her waking life. Besides, the gold-colored drink looks no different from champagne - tastes better too, in her opinion.

In this way she can keep her ever-watchful eyes as sharp as her namesake as she scans the room - a hotel lobby dressed up for a politically-motivated cocktail party - taking note of the building's layout, entrances and exits, where the hotel staff cycles in and out from, and how the attendees and their attitudes ebb and flow as the party progresses.

In a word, she likes control.

It applied to any situation in her life - on the battlefield, in the office, even in her dog's behavior training. She was a force of order in a world of chaos, making sense out of a senseless world, even if the effort was fruitless in the grand scheme of things - if anything, the endlessness of the process was a strange sort of comfort for her.

"The only constant in this world is that it's always changing." One of the few things her father ever said that she actually agreed with.

So whether she was organizing files, lining up gun sights, or in this case, keeping an eye out for either potential danger or her friend and superior officer making a fool of himself, she was in her element.

The aforementioned friend and superior officer, Colonel Roy Mustang, stands not far from her, on the other side of the hors d'oeuvres table they were currently haunting in order to appear as engaged as possible without actually giving a damn.

Newly-appointed Fuhrer Grumman is gathered with the Amestrian Generals and other industry leaders several feet away, chattering endlessly for most of the past hour or so. This event was the latest in many political gatherings that were supposed to strengthen ties between leaders and ensure potential partnerships, but in reality, they were a waste of time. The stubborn, incestuous nature that the Amestrian government's kept up for the past however-many-centuries meant that most of the time, these gatherings really only succeeded in fluffing up peacocking feathers and inflating already-bloated egos.

She never liked these parties. Neither did Roy.

Riza looks at him again. At a glance, Roy appears to be enjoying himself - he's standing at attention, leaning slightly on one hip and balancing a flute of champagne in one hand, head raised with (feigned) interest in whatever the Brass were prattering on about.

But Riza can tell he's anything but relaxed - on close inspection, she can see deepened stress lines around his eyes and nose, his lips pressed into such a thin line they've nearly vanished from his features, and the hand bent behind the crook of his back clenches and unclenches repeatedly, fingers aching for some kind of physical activity, no doubt.

Riza certainly can't blame him for being so tense, after all they went through recently - specifically, the Promised Day and the fallout that's occurred afterwards. It's been difficult to navigate the massive power vacuum left in the wake of Bradley's death, along with everything else about the homonculi and their master, but they're managing as best they can. Cutting off the head of the dragon was a good step, but only that - a step in the long, long climb towards a democracy free of war and corruption.

Things will certainly improve once Grumman lays the groundwork for Roy's ascension - despite personal misgivings with her grandfather, Riza has no doubt he'll do his job well - but for now, it's slow-going. Unfortunately, Roy was never good at sitting quietly and waiting. He'd be a terrible sniper, she says all the time.

Right now, he more resembles a spring wound too tightly, shuddering with anxiety and liable to snap in the form of the wrong words at the wrong time when the wrong person approached him. Which would be awkward at best, disastrous at worst, so Riza decides to circumvent that possibility altogether and approach him herself.

She crosses the distance between them by navigating around the table's end and approaching his front slowly, getting his attention with a nod and gentle smile. He loosens significantly at the sight of her, already a relief for his no-doubt-bristling nerves, and she doesn't miss the small sigh that escapes him as she settles at his side and hooks a hand through the loop of his bent arm.

She looks up at him and speaks low, enough to not be heard by anyone else in the vicinity. "Holding up alright, Colonel?"

Roy snorts softly, and responds in kind to keep up their privacy. "As much as I can."

"Same here," she murmurs. "Remind me when this is over again?"

Roy rolls his eyes in Grumman's direction. "Knowing him? Probably in another hour, at the very least."

Riza groans softly. "Can't we leave? They've clearly finished mingling with our brigade. Breda and Falman are already gone."

Roy blinks. "They are?"

"They slipped out the back when the waiters were refilling drinks for everyone." There's a tinge of envy to her tone, as she'd caught sight of them for a few moments as they left, but only just.

Roy scoffs. "They could have said something."

"Guess they forgot to, in all their eagerness."

"Eager to leave their superiors in the dust. So much for loyalty." Roy chuffs with annoyance, lifting his champagne glass to his mouth.

Riza merely shrugs noncommittally. "Heymans's only as enthusiastic as his people-reading allows, and even Vato has his limits. Who knows, maybe they had plans."

That makes Roy nearly spit up the champagne he's sipping. He clears his throat to recover. "Erm, hm- plans?"

Riza lids her eyes and looks at him through their corners, like she always does to look incredulous. "They're grown men with lives outside of the military, sir, don't be surprised. I'm not."

"Uh- of course, of course," Roy mutters, wiping his lips with a thumb and doing his very best to not look perturbed at the idea of Breda and Falman having unprofessional affairs, bless his heart.

In light of having nothing better to do to entertain herself, Riza decides to needle him further.

She cocks her head, murmuring in a more teasing tone of voice. "You know... we could make plans too, sir. I don't think we'll be greatly missed here anymore - might be a restaurant or two worth checking out on this street... unless you'd rather head straight home, of course."

Roy shifts on his feet, his eyes flitting to and away from her a few times, but he says nothing for a few moments. He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and brings his glass to them again. "Mm. Maybe," he mumbles into the glasswork, taking another sip.

Riza lets her hand in his arm travel up and along it, considering him for a few moments. Maybe, hm? She could leave it at that, but all this talk of "plans" and night-time activities is drumming up a swarm of ideas in her brain with increasingly suggestive detail and fervor. Neither of them are strangers as bed-mates - even now, Riza can imagine clearly the curve of Roy's backside under his suit - but it has been a long while since they spent such time together.

Their last time was... almost a year ago now, actually. Before Hughes' passing, if she remembers correctly... Then it's no wonder she's felt so empty and frustrated lately. And Roy, with the tragedy still weighing heavily on his heart - she can't imagine how he must feel.

But then, perhaps that's all the better reason to bring this up.

Riza's errant hand travels up and along Roy's shoulders, and he tenses slightly at the touch - then suppresses a small shudder as she slide her fingers along his spine, down to the small of his back. (She stops short of cupping his ass - there's people around, after all.)

He's definitely wanting , but he won't admit it verbally... not without more encouragement.

Riza leans in and changes her tone again, this time leaning more into the... enticing side of things, but not dipping into ridiculousness. All the while she keeps her stern timbre, and the result is a special sort of commanding tone used between them only in utmost privacy.

"It's been a long time, sir. I think we're both due for some... release, after all we've been through, wouldn't you say?"

She holds Roy's gaze as she speaks, watches him blink once, twice, several more times, a little slower each time. The start of a flush colors his features, and he works his throat, swallowing despite not consuming anything.

He's thinking about it. Definitely thinking about it. But all he says is, a little hoarsely, "...I suppose."

Still resistant? Well, the man did have a bad habit of denying himself his own desires in favor of overworking himself to the point of exhaustion, out of his own obsessive need to always be working towards his goals in some way, every day, little by little. Whether that be by actual work back at the office, or work on his carefully-maintained reputation via fake-dates with his sisters or deathly boring social gatherings like this one.

It's not the first time Riza's had to push and prod him into taking an actual break from his stresses and let himself loose, and it won't be the last - ironic, when everyone calls her the workaholic who can't relax.

Looks like she'll need to sweeten the pot for him - so, she brings out an old favorite of his.

"You know I hate this dress," she mutters, shifting uncomfortably within the confines of her cocktail dress, nothing more than a tight black tube of fabric suffocating her legs and torso as far as she was concerned. "Chafes me terribly. If it wasn't for parties like this, I'd have thrown it out already."

"Mm." Another noncommittal hum from Roy. He knows this very well.

"...But times are changing, after all," she continues. "Maybe I can get rid of it soon..."

She tilts her head and fixes him with a knowing look. "That is, unless you can find some use for it, Colonel."

Roy's eyes widen slightly, and the subtle color on his face deepens into a distinct blush.

Among the many secrets Riza keeps for him, one is Roy's occasional indulgence in wearing dresses and other feminine clothing. He grew up in a brothel after all, raised by a gaggle of women who enjoyed involving him in games of dress-up and fashion experiments. But at some point in his boyhood the activity grew from a silly game to a rather normal thing, supported and encouraged by his foster family, and he kept it as a private hobby well into his teenhood, when Riza first met him and learned of all this - this is far from the first time they've negotiated the exchange of each other's garments.

He'd kept it up even as far as his Academy days. But alas, when the mountain of military pressures wore him thin - eventually overwhelming him with the tragedy of the Ishvalan War - the activity was shoved into the dark recesses of his shame, and his favorite dresses gathered dust in his closet in much the same manner. Fortunately he could be convinced to try them on again with some encouragement - much like what Riza was doing now.

She quirks her head further, amused at Roy's quiet flustering. "Of course, it'd have to be adjusted for your size. You've said one of your sisters is a seamstress, correct?"

He swallows again, his adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "Ah- Victoria is, yes."

"Good. If we leave now, I can have it dropped off at the Madame's place by morning, and she can have it ready for you by tomorrow night."

Roy forces a chuckle as his eyes jerk to his sides, as if wary of eavesdroppers. "Hah- You act like I've already agreed to this, Lieutenant."

She holds his gaze. "Well, do you?"

Roy opens and closes his mouth, but says nothing, just stares at her. He can't seem to decide on what to say, his eyes twitching this way and that as a hundred questions and counter-arguments seem to flicker behind the lenses of his eyes, his mind an indecisive projector. Finally, he shifts to stare down at his dress shoes, mouth and throat still working, but he tenses his jaw shut.

He needs something genuine. Riza edges closer, snakes the arm at his back around his waist, squeezes gently in more of a side-hug than a teasing grope. She drops both the eroticism and the sternness from her voice, this time aiming for something closer to how they spoke as teenagers, watching the clouds go by as they lay upon the Eastern hillsides of her birthplace.

"I know it's been a while, but- I think you'd look nice, Roy."

Roy relaxes visibly, deflating with a small sigh. He closes his eyes for a moment, no doubt savoring the reassurance, verbally and physically.

When he looks at her again, his confidence has returned, somewhat, in the form of a small, crooked smile.

"Well- I am curious to see if you're right."

---

By the next evening, they've have made good on their mutual promise and laid some exciting plans for tonight, to say the least - Roy for his planned outfit, Riza for... everything else. Neither of them have gone into too much detail, of course. Half of the fun was the pleasant surprise.

After finishing her setup - part of which involved dropping off Black Hayate with a trustworthy neighbor who petsits on the side - Riza received a nervous but eager phone call from Roy stating he's ready to go, so Riza has donned her best pantsuit and now drives through the darkened streets of Central to pick him up.

The suit's far better than the cocktail dress. She sits comfortably in her dark slacks, with a black collared suit jacket of fine material cinched beneath her sternum, revealing an elegant white button-down shirt that's topped with a long, pointed collar bending sharply away from her neck. She complements it with some makeup - enough to doll herself up a bit, but not excessively so - medium-heeled dress shoes, her usual silver double-earrings, and her blonde hair falling freely across her shoulders.

She busies her mind with total concentration on her driving, for now - the temptation is strong, but she mustn't distract herself with thoughts of fondness and excitement over tonight's coming activities. Soon enough, she comes upon the sprawling luxury apartment complex Roy lives in, large enough for each home to qualify as a townhouse more than anything else with their second floors and guest rooms. She settles into its parking lot, humming to herself as she exits her car and makes her way to his front door.

Riza raps on the door with her knuckles. There's a shifting somewhere beyond it, and then Roy's voice calls out distantly. "Come in - the door's unlocked!"

After briefly amusing herself with the idea of Roy being too dolled up to answer the door without spraining an ankle, she opens the door and slowly enters. She's greeted by the sight of Roy's parlor: Like the rest of his somewhat-sparse apartment, it only contains necessary furnishings, a few personal heirlooms and effects, and various books and folios for Alchemy and military research. Ever the extrovert, he spends most of his time at work, out on the town, or in the homes of friends and family - for many reasons, he dislikes being alone.

Roy's lithe form rises from a small couch in the middle of the room as Riza steps over the threshold and closes the door behind her. As she takes in the sight of him, eyes widening, he does a small twirl and rests a hand on his hip.

"So- how do I look?"

Riza stares. She could say that her former dress looks quite a bit different on Roy's person, but that would be a tragic understatement.

There's a new slit down the side for ease of movement, the straps have been cut and re-sewn to loop around his neck instead of his shoulders, and the back's been left permanently unzipped to allow room for his broad upper body. The result is the dress becoming a scandalous open-back halter top, leaving none of his arm and back muscles to the imagination and offering enticing peeks at one of his long legs through the slit. Whatever still covers him clings tightly to his body, maybe a half-size too small for him, but it accentuates every dip and curve to a maddening degree.

And on closer inspection, his exposed leg seems to be encased in a thin, dark sheer legging that rises halfway up his thigh and stops there, offering further excitement in flashes of cream-colored skin near his hip. And- is that a garter belt? Oh my.

It also appears Roy has decided to complete the look with some stylish shoes, an application of makeup, and glittering jewelry. The shoes are black pointed pumps, high-heeled and confirming Riza's suspicion about his ankles, but he seems to be keeping his balance well enough; Small clip-on earrings dangle from his un-pierced ear lobes, tiny red gems hanging from silver chains; His face is lightly powdered to soften his features, and his smoldering eyes have been made even more so by a layer of shimmering eyeshadow and coal-black mascara. Even his lips have been supplemented with a rich maroon-colored lipstick.

To top it all off, his dark hair appears freshly-washed and brushed smooth, not gelled and slicked back like his usual formal attire. His bangs sway above his eyes in a much more harmonious fashion than usual, neatly tucked behind his ears at their edges.

"Y- you look stunning, sir," Riza says, after finding her tongue again.

Roy's thickened eyelashes flutter towards the floor, his cheeks flushing bashfully again. "Thank you. But it's debatable whether I compare to your natural loveliness, Lieutenant."

"Well," Riza pauses to clear her throat, feeling very dry suddenly, "Ahem- I'd disagree there, sir. It's obvious you've gone through quite the effort."

Roy's eyes briefly roll toward the ceiling. "God, was it ever. It's been so long that I had to ask Chris and the girls to refresh my memory on how to do this again. I'm still amazed they were willing to help me so much on such short notice. Especially Victoria - damn miracle-worker, she is. Sailed through the sewing job like a ship's captain."

"It shows," Riza murmurs, not entirely listening. As he spoke, she's taken a few steps closer to further admire the details of Roy's person. Yup, there's definitely a garter belt under there, straps and all. Panties too, most likely...

...She realizes she's been staring too long when Roy clears his throat this time. "You seem, ah... eager, Lieutenant. Shall we get going?"

Riza tears her gaze away from Roy's hips to meet his eyes, where his bashfulness is starting to melt away into amusement as he studies her. She feels a bit like a stray dog caught drooling over glistening cuts of meat in a butcher's shop - probably looks like one too. But really, who could blame her, with such an enticing specimen before her?

She clears her throat again, and, remembering her manners, extends an arm to take Roy's hand.

"Ah- of course. It would be my pleasure, sir."

Roy tugs at the fabric around his hips to allow his legs freedom, and his form is even lovelier in motion as he steps forward (a little wobbly on the heels, but he's managing), and outstretches a hand toward Riza's.

But as she takes Roy's fingers in her own, a thought crosses her mind - rather, an important observation. Roy went through an awful lot of preparation to dress up for tonight, employing both his own skills and those of his foster family... Far more effort than for an actual public outing, where all he really does is clean himself up a bit and throw on a suit, some cologne, and an offensive amount of hair gel.

This is different - there's a sincerity to Roy's beauty here that makes it seem like its achievement was just as much for his own benefit as it was for Riza's. Maybe even more so... As if he's actually... perhaps...

"...Or should I call you 'madam' instead?" Riza asks suddenly, meeting his eyes.

Roy's movements towards her shudder to a stop, and his eyes nearly bug out from his sockets. He stares, frozen, for a moment long enough for Riza to fear that she's crossed a line that should not have been crossed right now.

But thankfully, in the next moment his eyelids flutter, once again downcast and bashful as his blush deepens further, now spreading down to his neck. He clears his throat and struggles to respond. "I- I, uh..."

Again he squirms with indecisiveness, but this time he's faster to settle on an answer. He shakes himself out of his stupor with a literal shake of his head and says finally, "Um- No. No, that won't be necessary, Lieutenant."

Riza resists the urge to sigh with relief, nodding graciously instead. "As you wish, sir."

She takes his hand - her hand, perhaps, if she decided not to take Roy's words at face value, as she usually does.

For a few years now, Riza's held the suspicion that some of Roy's private interests - like his preference for dresses - may be much more than simple hobbies for him. More like an integral part of a blooming identity, bursting to reveal itself as more than simply a man, but locked within his many insecurities and the social cage he's trapped himself within to achieve his goals. At this point, Riza is certain this must be true, at least to some degree.

Who knows, maybe Roy was even more than a woman, extending beyond the usual binary. She always did have a penchant for breaking boundaries - perhaps their heart was as wild and shapeless as a flame, flickering between genders as the mood struck them. It would only be appropriate.

Either way, Riza was ready and waiting to accept this part of Roy wholeheartedly - she couldn't call herself their dear friend and dutiful Lieutenant if she didn't. But she is also patient, so for now, she'll sit by and agree to their preferences like she always does - watching, waiting, until they are ready.

From what she can see now, it's still a difficult thing for Roy to express openly - it's plain as day in his face. His mouth is a thin line again, and his eyes dart about nervously as they leave his home, alert for random passersby. Personally, Riza was fairly certain that no one would recognize him as he is now, especially under the cover of night, but he's justified in being paranoid; if word got out that the handsome, swaggering bachelor known as Colonel Roy Mustang dressed in intensely feminine outfits and had distinctly unprofessional (and un-normative) nightly affairs with his First Lieutenant in his spare time, who knows what kind of scandal it'd start, especially in this tumultuous political climate?

Riza squeezes his hand for reassurance and picks up the pace as they walk down to her car. Luckily, there's no one in sight on this particular night, and the darkened streets are bare and quiet. Still, Roy only sighs with relief once he's seated comfortably in the passenger seat, the doors are closed and locked, and they are safely on their way back to Riza's abode. He breathes more and more easier as they watch familiar streets and buildings pass them by, even more so when Riza occasionally brushes the skin of his arm and exposed thigh with her non-driving hand.

His eyes sparkle with eagerness, and Riza has no doubt that hers look the same.

---

Riza's apartment is much humbler compared to Roy's, even a little cramped in places, but it's all the more cozy. As much as she spends most of her waking life at work, she still makes the most of her private time and space; affording herself all the necessities to live comfortably, but also enough luxuries to please her heart and make up for the lack of them in her childhood.

Despite the lingering evidence of Hayate's presence from a vague musk in the air and hairs on the furniture, she's made her apartment far more appealing as a social gathering place than a stark, stuffy hotel lobby. There's warm, low lighting via candles and oil lanterns (leaving most of the electric lights off), the air is sweetened with smoke from a stick of burning incense on her coffee table, and a radio in the corner scratches out pleasant, jazzy tunes.

The furnishings are equally warm, mostly wooden and in earthy colors to remind her of Eastern forests in the fall, and are kept clean and neatly arranged to allow close but still-comfortable proximities. One could call it downright homely, if not for a few things - like a set of garishly bright yellow window curtains, a glass case holding a collection of cheaply-imitated Xingese pottery, and her personal gun closet standing proudly along the wall of her parlor.

Many people call her odd for these things - Roy is one of the loudest. "You have the strangest tastes, I swear," he says for the umpteenth time as he crosses the threshold, taking it all in before shooting a cheeky grin at her. "You should really bring Edward around sometime, you have a lot in common."

Riza rolls her eyes and pokes him in retaliation. "I'll consider it, sir. Now sit down before you fall off those heels."

Roy puts out his decorated lips in an exaggerated pout. "Pardon me - I am the Flame Alchemist Colonel Roy Mustang, thank you very much," he says haughtily. "And it'll take much more than a pair of shoes to bring me down. I've trained myself well, as you can see."

He turns and saunters away, demonstrating his barely-kept balance by swaying his hips from side to side as if he were walking down a catwalk instead of Riza's hallway. He'd at least get a round of applause for the effort, as he almost sends himself to the floor in his efforts to reach the small dining set that's just aside from the kitchenette. He doesn't bother to mask his relief at not losing his footing completely, smiling and giggling as he takes his seat. Riza can only laugh as well - it's so rare to see him like this, child-like and comfortable in his own skin.

Dinner is retrieved from a set of covered plates on the kitchen counter, a luxurious meal ordered from a restaurant that's famous for its fine dinners and delivery options. They discussed their preferred meals ahead of time, and knowing that Roy dislikes anything charred or flesh-like, Riza serves him a bowl of stir-fried noodles and vegetables on a bed of golden rice, which he enjoys heartily. Riza herself indulges in a perfectly-seared fìlet mignon with roasted asparagus on the side, all topped with a rich, earthy sauce. For drinks, they've cracked open two bottles of Riza's personal stash - more sparkling cider for her, red wine for Roy.

They talk about the finer points of cooking and recent news here and there, but mostly they pass the time enjoying the food and each other's company quietly. When they've finished, Riza leaves their dirty plates on the table to be cleaned later, at the moment much more concerned with joining Roy on the corner-couch surrounding her coffee table to sit and talk more comfortably while finishing the last of their drinks.

Roy is even more relaxed with good food and drink in him. He stretches lightly, then sinks into the corner-cushions with great contentment, a playful smile on his lips as he crosses his legs and twirls his wine glass in one hand. He resembles a large cat lounging upon its perch - so much so that Riza's half-surprised he isn't purring.

She takes her seat just across from him. "You seem awfully content for someone who didn't even eat their fill," she teases. "There was a good portion still left on your plate, and we never even touched the desserts."

Roy's eyes crinkle with amusement. "If I ate all of that in one sitting, I might not fit into this dress anymore. I'm taking a risk as it is."

That seems obvious enough, as Riza watches the dark fabric straining precariously around his bent legs and hips as he shifts in his seat, filling tautly around his now-slightly-wider middle. She licks at her teeth under her lips, savoring the lingering taste of meat there. Despite the food in her belly, her appetite is far from sated.

"It's a shame," she starts, balancing her cider in one hand and letting the other come to rest upon Roy's exposed knee, "How rarely you wear things like these, Colonel. If it were my decision, I'd hate to keep this kind of beauty behind closed doors."

Roy tenses for the briefest moment at the contact, but doesn't move or uncross his legs - a good sign. He smirks at her over his wine glass. "I hope you're not implying that I should dress like this at whatever political gathering we're dragged to next, Lieutenant."

"Well... I think it's a possibility," Riza says. "Perhaps someday, in the future."

Roy sips his wine, not looking at her anymore. "Hm. The distant future," he says, his voice hollow within the glass.

Riza studies him, a bit crestfallen - alas, she can only prod him so much. For now, maybe a more humorous slant is needed.

"I suppose. It would give everyone a terrible shock... good for a laugh, at least."

Roy snorts softly. "God- I can certainly imagine it. Grumman would flip his lid completely if he saw me like this."

Riza snickers. "I don't think he'd even recognize you. Probably try to flirt with you again."

Roy exaggerates a disgusted groan. "I've had quite enough of that from him. For a lifetime, I think."

"No need to worry, sir. I wouldn't let him near you." Riza allows her voice to dip into enticing commands again, and she makes her intentions clear with her thumb rubbing small circles into Roy's legging-encased knee.

His smile becomes knowing. "Defending me from your own family now, Lieutenant?"

Riza shrugs. "We were never close anyway. And it's my job, after all."

"I think we both know that your dedication extends far beyond your sense of duty by now."

Roy sells the tease with a small, sly wink in her direction, ever the charmer. Even Riza isn't immune to his wiles, but she is better at being less obvious about it. Like now, as she resists the urge to giggle and lets it out as a small sigh instead, setting her drink on the coffee table and spreading her hands.

"Guilty as charged. But really, can you blame me?"

She shifts forward to let her hands come to rest upon Roy's legs again, this time squarely on his thighs, especially the exposed one, letting her fingers rub more and deeper circles into his skin.

"You are a... unique sort of individual, after all. One of a kind, even. A very precious commodity."

Roy lids his eyes, watching her movements. "You flatter me, Lieutenant."

"I only tell the truth, sir."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Except the times when you don't."

"Only when it's necessary."

"Like?"

She recalls the first thing that comes to mind. "Like when a pea-brained homonculus thinks they can fool me with an imitation of you."

Roy's eyes squint slightly, unfocusing. There's laughter there, but also something cold and unpleasant.

"Of course," he murmurs. "You've told me of that battle, before I... intervened." He's picking his words as carefully as he picks around the sharp, painful edges of the memory, and all its associations.

Riza regrets bringing it up. She got too caught up in the bantering - it was the most recent and harrowing situation she could think of in which she lied to survive, but still...

She shifts closer, sliding her hands up and along Roy's hips, settling one in the dip of his waist and the other beneath the lip of his dress slit, right into the warmth of his thigh-skin and centimeters away from his ass. The distraction works - Roy refocuses his attention on her again, drawing in a sharp breath and arcing his back forward ever-so-slightly in response to the touch, pushing his chest against the taught fabric of his dress.

"Anyway," Riza murmurs, keeping up the distraction with massaging fingers and the return of her dominant tone, "I'm only being honest. As much as I am your Lieutenant, you are my Colonel. In other words... you are mine."

Roy breathes out, sighing wistfully. "I am?"

"Always."

He lids his eyes and whispers, "Show me, then."

"Gladly."

Riza leans in further, snakes her arms further up and around him as she crosses the distance between them, and catches Roy's lips in her own.

And oh, to taste him again - she missed it so. There's the briefest tinge of unpleasantness from the chalkiness of his lipstick, but it's easily miss-able among the dozens of others flavors that color his mouth and tongue. There's bits of his dinner, bits of the wine, hints of mint and cologne from leftover toothpaste and mouth spray. But mostly it's the warm, sumptuous flavor of his mouth against hers, and Riza eats it up more hungrily than the richest steak money could buy.

Her hands are just as gluttonous. Her light massaging turns into a deep groping at Roy's waist and thigh, the waist-hand circling around to his back to wrap around and draw him in as they shift their bodies closer. The thigh-hand savors the softness of him there, working steadily forward and up until her fingers are slipping under the lacey edge of his underwear and stroking the flesh of his soft, plush ass.

Roy's body was a bit softer than one would assume - a consequence of his drinking tendencies and incorrigible sweet tooth. On top of the occasional temptations of various pastries and desserts, he always has his morning coffee with cream and three lumps of sugar, and takes his evenings' alcohol as fruity gin and sweet vodkas. Despite a daily exercise regimen that he's (mostly) faithful to, he still spends most of the workday sitting at a desk, so the sugars haunt him in the form of a significant layer of fat on his lower stomach, hips and thighs.

Not that Riza was complaining, mind you. Quite the opposite - the extra flesh gives her more of him to savor, and Roy himself enjoys the extra attention, as he always does.

He hums with deep-throated pleasure against her as they keep kissing, shifting and grinding closer and closer. At some point he had the presence of mind to set down his wine on the coffee table and his now-free hands grope Riza in kind, grasping at her waist and lower back through her suit jacket and undershirt (avoiding the area across her shoulders, where she dislikes being touched for obvious reasons).

She allows this for now, caught up in the heat and excitement - they've both tipped their hands before even reaching the bedroom, but again, it's been a while and they've been very stressed lately. So Riza can't blame herself too much when their love-making becomes so feverish that her ass-groping hand pushes a few centimeters too far in its ministrations, and by the time she realizes she's crimping and tearing Roy's dress slit further open, it's too late.

There's a small sh-rrrip! down at Roy's side, and they both freeze momentarily. Riza pulls away and, looking down, sees that her wrist and forearm had tested the limits of what little space was left between the dress and Roy's hip - the small seam that his sister probably took great pains to cut, pull apart, then re-sew, has now been torn and frayed at its corner, its tiny threads stretching and breaking apart around the now-larger area of Roy's exposed thigh.

Riza withdraws her hand, mildly flushed with shame. "Oh- I'm sorry, sir. And after all the trouble you went through..."

Roy, slightly disheveled between his mussed hair, blushing face and smeared lipstick, studies the damage with more bewilderment than anything else - then chuckles with amusement as he meets her eyes.

"It's alright, Lieutenant. No great loss. It was a quick and dirty sewing job anyway, can't be too surprised."

Riza's fears are eased, but only so much. "At least extend my apologies to Victoria; it's her work, after all."

"A work she full-well knew the purpose of," Roy says, his eyes sparkling with something between lust and mischief. "Trust me, apologies aren't needed."

Riza catches her breath. He predicted this? Cheeky devil...

And sure enough, Roy's smile becomes predatory. "Besides, all of this..." he gestures across himself, especially around his greater expanse of exposed skin, "...Always belonged to you first, Lieutenant. It's only appropriate that the owner of a great gift should tear off its wrapping."

For a rare moment, Riza fears she could actually lose her composure for once - she comes very close to deciding to fulfill that proposition with feverish hands and teeth, right here, right now, abandoning all plans and further foreplay. She barely stops herself - and it must show in her face, as Roy's smirk becomes downright devilish as he watches her. Damn him and his wiles.

"You-"

Riza decides not to finish that thought, not quite trusting herself at the moment. Instead she tugs him back in, silencing his much-too-smart mouth with another kiss.

She swallows whatever retort Roy planned on making with ravenous teeth and tongue, supplanting small moans of needs into his throat, even hungrier than before. Her grasping arms and hands all but claw at his exposed back and shoulders, snaking down his backside from the tactically-safer direction of his dress's open back. Her fingers dive down the slope of his spine into the soft landing of his ass again, now with a bit more freedom and easier access.

Roy takes it all in stride, groaning low and deep in his throat and squirming against her ministrations. His skin is flushes with heat and moistens with sweat everywhere that she touches, and his dress's tiny creaks of protest increase in frequency as he shifts, no doubt feeling an increasing need to have it off.

And, to none of Riza's surprise, she feels one of her roving hands brush over a distinct bulge now forming in the front-side of his groin.

The touch draws a needy moan from Roy, and the moment of blind lust ebbs away enough for Riza to reclaim a bit of clarity - she should more seriously consider slowing her advances, now. At this rate Roy will come undone long before she can show what she has in store for him - and make him fall apart in ways she prefers.

She draws away to catch her breath, but doesn't quite relinquish their closeness, hugging his waist and resting her sweating brow against his. Roy is only more lovely in his further-disheveled state - sweat and saliva mix with makeup and strands of hair, sticking and dripping against his features, and at this distance she can see his dark eyes practically sparkling with inner light.

She presses feather-light kisses against the warm skin of his cheek. "Oh, the things I could do to you, Roy," she murmurs against him.

Roy closes his eyes, hums with expectancy. "Tell me, Riza."

"Ah- words escape me," she whispers, slightly breathless. "But I promise, it'll be a night to remember."

Roy hums again, gently nuzzling against the side of her head and pecking at her ear. Riza savors the more-tender contact as they cool off, breaths deepening and heartbeats slowing. But her loins still prickle with need, and there is no doubt that Roy feels similarly.

A few moments more of small, tender touches and she's had her fill. Eager to make good on her plans, Riza shifts away to stand up from the couch, begrudgingly releasing her hold on Roy save for a lingering hand that catches his own and gently tugs his arm up with her.

She bends down to press her lips to his knuckles, meeting his eyes.

"Shall we get started, sir?"

Roy smiles serenely as he rises to his feet. "Finally- for a moment I thought you'd never ask."

---

NSFW warnings: Dom/Sub roleplay, mild humiliation, whipping, spanking, pegging, dirty talk, more gender/pronoun stuff

---

Minutes later, Riza is in her bedroom, relinquishing herself of her clothes and jewelry as she waits for Roy to finish freshening up in the nearby bathroom.

Having hung and folded away her pantsuit in her dresser, she bends further to the bottom-most drawer to tug it open - there, under a discreet layer of towels, is a small menagerie of sex toys and harnesses, freshly cleaned and sanitized, ready for use.

She hums to herself as she retrieves a few in particular for her plans tonight, setting them upon her bedcovers and fiddling with the last of their straps and buckles. She smiles as she hears the soft sounds of rushing water from the bathroom, thinking of Roy, herself, all that has come to these moments.

Over the years, Riza has found that her desire for control applied equally to bedroom activities. As she explored the extent of her own adulthood, she's spent some time here and there quietly scoping out various sex shops in her spare time, especially since their transfer to Central. It didn't take long before she found herself drawn to the BDSM scene - it held inherent power dynamics, gratifying roleplay, and cathartic exploration of feelings and desires in a safe, regulated space, all in a multitude of forms of methods according to one's personal preferences... Simply put, it was right up her alley.

She was private about it, like she is about most things in her life, and fairly sparse. The most she's spent on are a few lingerie items, a phallus or three, and a whipping apparatus. Recently she's added an especially... interesting new purchase to her repertoire, which she's excited to try for the first time tonight - as she finishes the last of its preparations, she sets this particular toy just under the edge of the bed, to retrieve later as a delightful surprise for her partner.

Roy is far from the only one Riza's had - she's had several conquests under her belt (usually quite literally), but there is no doubt that Roy is one of her most favored, and also her latest and most proud achievement; only recently has she finally got him to not only re-embrace his dressing tendencies, but also his enthusiastically submissive sexual preferences. In layman's terms, he is very much a bottom - and like most aspects of his character, this is usually cleverly hidden beneath his surface. But like any buried treasure, it was both delightful and delightfully rewarding to uncover.

It's taken a few years for them to reach this level of comfort with each other - even longer to discover and accept these qualities about themselves.

Those early years were terribly awkward - mostly just terrible. They were still reeling from the slaughter they'd been forced to carry out in Ishval, desperately laying the groundwork for the rash, idealistic plan Roy formed in response, and generally just trying to come to grips with the frightening adulthood they'd been thrust into after their idyllic childhood dreams had been shattered. Sex and romance were far from their minds for a long time - they simply did their best to maintain even a shadow of their former friendship within their new dynamic, remolded into something cold and formal, haunted by specters of death from both the past and the future.

But eventually, Riza's empty heart yearned for sustenance in silent, suffering cries, and Roy drowned his own in so much booze and loose women he was practically dizzy with misery. It figures it would take a team of cheeky subordinates and Hughes' prodding to get them to even acknowledge the tension between them.

Ah, Maes... she misses him so much.

He made this whole "relationship" thing look so easy. Of course, that was all part of the trick - he and Gracia were frighteningly good at hiding their uglier qualities . But just as much, they made it clear how much work a stable, life-long relationship took to stay that way. She learned a lot in her conversations with them.

Such as, how to be unafraid to take the lead in a bedroom situation in which one's doof of a partner keeps trying to top you when it's clear his heart's not into it, but he's fooled himself into believing otherwise. Then how to embrace one's power as you lay upon him, riding him until he's a trembling, starry-eyed mess underneath you, and you can feel a whole world of possibilities opening up between you.

After that, it's mostly a matter of communication - "Just keep talking," Maes always said. Which they did, and still do.

But with all their progress, there is still the lingering question of whether this "relationship" of theirs was truly romantic or not. Riza and Roy were definitely more than friends by now, and their mutual devotion to each other was unshakable - and yet, neither of them have felt a great need to commit to the other wholly and completely, no matter what the circulating rumors would imply.

...And besides, the very last thing either of them want is to be tied to each other that way, considering their troubled pasts and already-stifling professional lives - and Roy knows better than to impose such a thing on her.

So, you could call them lovers, sure - but there was still nothing entirely traditional about their coupling. Perhaps it's only fair - they'd always had a penchant for quietly rebelling against tradition.

Speaking of, a lovely image of rebellion finally enters the room and makes himself known with a small cough.

Riza turns to see Roy standing at her bedroom's entrance, freshened up, comfortable, and ready to be at her mercy. He's washed his face clean of makeup, and removed his earrings and high-heeled shoes (his stance is more relaxed now that he isn't balancing precariously on them), but otherwise, he remains fully dressed.

Riza cocks an eyebrow as she looks him up and down - she herself still wears her button-down shirt to cover her back and shoulders (again, for obvious reasons), but leaves its front wide open, revealing her to be wearing nothing else besides her underwear. Her bra is dark and lacy, modest enough to cover half of her breasts, but only that much, leaving a healthy amount of cleavage showing. Her panties appear average, but closer inspection shows them to be of thin, lacy material that leaves little to the imagination in terms of her curves.

It suits her - Riza may appear modest at a surface level, but she is still very much a woman with wants and needs. And now, she acts upon those needs.

She retrieves the first toy of choice from the bed - a long, thin riding crop, made for use on humans instead of animals. Its tip is of a softened leather, nothing that will draw blood or severe welting, but will certainly bring sharp, painful pleasure with enough speed and force. Riza prefers this over a paddle, as she enjoys the long, precise strikes she can create with it. This, and its natural connection to Roy's surname, made it too amusingly appropriate to pass up.

Roy, also aware of this, smiles with amusement as Riza approaches him with the crop in hand, swishing it lightly.

"Finally ready, are you?" Riza teases, easing into her dominant tone as she eases them into their roleplay for the night. "You know I don't like waiting too long."

"My apologies, Lieutenant," Roy replies. "I only wanted to be... properly ready for your enjoyment." His voice and expression is demure, but still holds the ever-present air of cockiness that Riza is always eager to challenge - and eventually break.

She makes this intention clear as she circles him, crop in-hand, touching lightly along his curves with her other hand and drinking him in with her eyes, as if he were a sacrificial maiden brought to the mouth of her cave. She finds herself pinching at the fabric of his dress where the slightly-torn slit is.

She meets his eyes. "Still want me to tear it off?"

Roy flutters his lashes, still smiling. "If it pleases you, Lieutenant."

Riza clicks her tongue, feigning disapproval. "Shameless. You're practically begging for it."

"Not quite, but I am very eager."

Riza shakes her head, chuckling. "Of course you are."

But she begins to think of this more seriously, studying Roy's face, and she can't tell if he's suggesting this out of wine-fueled lust or otherwise. Perhaps he's eager to be rid of the dress so he doesn't end up banishing it to the back of his closet after tonight, like he's done to so many other garments - left to gather dust for months on end when he falls into another depressive spell.

Either way, Riza ultimately decides against it.

"It is tempting... but it'd be such a shame, don't you think? Your sister worked hard to finish it in time, and you do look so lovely in it. I think there's still some... uses to be had." She lets her words drip like honey, watching Roy's smile widen ever-so-slightly as he hears them.

Roy purses his lips and nods. "True enough."

Then Riza draws closer, slipping her hand fully into his hip, feeling the skin of his ass and the lacy edges of his underwear, growling softly. "And don't worry - I'll have you begging yet."

Roy trembles deliciously at the touch, and she doesn't miss the suppression of a moan in his throat.

And so their play begins in earnest - Riza leading with possessive touches, stern commands and flicks of her riding crop, while Roy submits to her with expectant looks and quiet responses, only speaking to answer her.

"Now- I want you to be still, and quiet. You are not just my Colonel, you are my toy - a lovely, pretty toy, to do with as I please. Toys don't move or talk back. And they are not allowed to touch me until I say so. Understand?"

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"No matter how close... or how tempting..." She draws even closer to Roy's front, snaking her arms about his waist and pressing her body flush against his. "You... will not move."

She savors the feel of his body against hers, her breasts pressing against the quickening breaths of his chest, his bulge twitching slightly near her hips. She traces the curves of his backside with her hands as she dips her head into the crook of his neck to breathe in his scent.

"Yes," Roy whispers, strained and breathless. His arms tense at his sides, and the rest of him trembles, no doubt fighting every urge inside him to reciprocate her touch. With her body exposed and in such close proximity, it would be very, very easy.

But, he does not move. After drinking her fill, Riza draws away and smiles up at him, smug. "Impressive," she purrs. "Who would guess that the great Colonel Mustang was so good at following orders?"

Roy relaxes, catching his breath for a moment. "Only when they're from you, Lieutenant," he says softly, fluttering his lidded eyes again. Even without most of his makeup, he is still beautiful - soft cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, full lips and dark hair - and with the light in his eyes and rosy redness dusting his cheeks, he seems so soft, so demure, so... feminine.

Hmm... Perhaps this is another opportunity to prod his insecurities into a more confident light.

"Aw- so sweet. So eager," Riza purrs, rubbing circles into Roy's hips with her thumbs. She watches his face as he savors the sensation, squirming against her touch, barely suppressing small moans and a tiny smile.

She makes her move. "You're such a good girl."

Roy's eyes widen at the words, and his blush darkens - but he says nothing, and doesn't show any obvious signs of protest or discomfort. Actually, Riza can almost hear a small sigh escaping him... Perhaps she was correct after all in referring to Roy as a woman earlier.

The opposite could still be true, of course. Maybe he was just in the mood for being feminized tonight - he did have a thing for humiliation - but if that were true, he wouldn't have spent so much effort in dressing up for the occasion, would have settled for a slapdash mockery of an outfit for the full 'sissy-ing' effect. That and he would have called the 'madam' gesture earlier unwanted, not unnecessary. So Riza feels confident in her first assumption.

But, just to make sure... Riza draws close again, not to tease, but to whisper in his ear. "You don't protest this, do you, madam?"

Roy's breath hitches, throat swallowing. "I- Erm. N- not if it pleases you, Lieutenant."

Riza's hands travel up his backside again, this time to rub comforting circles into his back. "It's not all for my pleasure - it's for yours as well, you know this."

"Mmm." Roy hums nervously, dips his head with a nod to confirm. Whether it's for the feminine pronouns isn't entirely clear, though - poor thing, perhaps his head won't let him get the words out.

Riza sighs lightly, kissing small apologies into his neck and collar bones. "You know our safe words," she murmurs in her normal tone. "Tell me when it's too much."

"Mhm." Roy grunts to confirm again, but this time he sounds more sure of himself - herself, rather. Riza decides she will address Roy as such, if only for tonight, and until she says otherwise. She will be regarded as any other female lover - she is beautiful, after all.

"Good," Riza says aloud, picking up her dominant tone again. "Because you are lovely, madam- ravishing, even."

She continues pressing her lips along Roy's neck and shoulder, tracing the line of the halter-style straps that travel up and to the back of his neck. She catches some of it in her teeth, lifts her hands to the knot holding them together, and in one swift motion, unties the top of Roy's dress so that it falls away around her waist, fully exposing her chest.

Riza is mildly disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to see Roy was not sporting a bra underneath. Ah well.

Instead Roy startles, flushing further, and her arms jerk upward and inward as if ready to cover herself - no doubt ashamed of how unflatteringly not-feminine her body is. Riza stops this with gentle hands on Roy's wrists, maintaining eye contact.

"Like I said - you are one of a kind, completely unique, madam," Riza says. "Always have been. Frankly, I feel honored to have someone so precious in my company tonight."

Roy relaxes at this, eyes softening with warmth and appreciation. And Riza smiles - but just to prove her point, she moves her hands to Roy's breasts, tracing her curves, and teases at her nipples. She pinches one between two fingers, drawing a small groan from her.

Riza watches Roy's face, savoring the way she squirms under her slightest of touches - and then dips, bringing her lips to Roy's captive nipple, catching it in her teeth, lightly licking and nibbling. This brings out more and louder groans from Roy, chest starting to heave from her breathing - and yet she is as still as she can be, still keeping her arms lowered and making no moves to reciprocate the touch.

But Riza only pushes her further - she continues her ministrations as her free hand reaches down and around to the front of Roy's hips, to the small bulge in the fabric between her legs. She grasps at it, feeling the warm, twitching head of a cock, and Roy gasps softly.

"Gorgeous," Riza whispers into Roy's skin, relinquishing her nipple. "So beautiful. How jealous our squadron would be of me, having our lovely Miss Colonel all to myself."

She moves her lips to Roy's other breast, and continues her worship of her partner's chest with her mouth, and of her cock with her fingers, gently stroking Roy through the layers of fabric. All the while, Roy is a twitching, sighing, moaning little mess.

Riza chuckles, and whispers into Roy's other breast as well. "One day, they'll see you in all your glory. They'll understand just how lucky I am. Maybe the whole country will, someday..."

At this, Roy tenses slightly, her moans and squirms subsiding. A pallor seems to fall over her, and she chuckles darkly under her breath. "Hah- That'll never happen..."

Riza stops her movements, relinquishing her hold and drawing away. Giving Roy a glowering look, she raises her riding crop and strikes at Roy's thighs, drawing a small cry from her.

"I said no talking," Riza tuts. "Especially so negatively. Bad girl."

Roy grunts in response, lowering her eyes and head in shame, submission - but it isn't clear whether the punishment was entirely welcome.

Riza reaches up to cup Roy's chin, gently lifting her head and forcing her to lock eyes - a common tactic she uses to assess her partner's state of being without breaking character. It's also handy in her play with Roy, as a way to make her feel smaller, despite how she physically dwarfs Riza by a significant amount.

Right now, gazing into Roy's dark eyes, she sees them to be twitching and slightly reddened with moisture - signs of an inner pain, a great sadness. Something between her words and touches may have brought about another wave of dysphoria in Roy - well, time to remedy that.

"I said you are beautiful," Riza says sternly, never breaking eye contact. "And I am in control right now, so what I say, goes. Understand?"

Roy lowers her eyes for a moment, wetting her lips nervously. Riza brandishes her crop again, now to tap it upon Roy's hip - like a race horse, it is not to harm, but to let her know it is there.

"You are a beautiful, smart, powerful young woman," Riza commands. "And I won't hear otherwise, or you'll get punished again. Do you understand?"

Roy shivers, caught between Riza's hold and her crop, and it would not be unexpected for her to bring out a safe word now - but she instead she relaxes, and meets Riza's eyes again. The gloom that seemed to take hold of her is ebbing away, replaced with that familiar light of confidence that Roy wears so well. Her breathing evens out, and she gives a small nod.

Riza smiles. "Good girl. You were doing well beforehand - I think you're due for a reward."

She releases her hold on Roy's chin and lowers the riding crop, allowing Roy a moment to relax. She deposits the crop back on the bed, leaving her hands free to take Roy by the waist. Another sigh escapes Roy as Riza holds her, then leans forward to kiss at her breasts again. "Come now, I have just the thing."

Then Riza gently pulls her towards the bed, leading her by the waist, almost like a dance - one in which her partner is carefully undressed as they glide across the floor. By the time Roy has been spun about and settled into a sitting position on the bed, her dress has been pulled down to gather around her knees, then her ankles, and then the smooth fabric has pooled onto the floor.

And just as she's been looking forward to all night, Riza sees the full extent of the dark, lacy leggings and garters Roy was wearing underneath, complementing her long, slender legs, complete with a pair of panties that can hardly contain her erect cock by now. She looks positively scrumptious.

Riza casts long, hungry looks across her form. Her hands drink in the sensation of Roy's legs encased in the thin, silky material as they travel down from her knees, then up from her ankles, settling above her thighs where her bare skin peeks out.

Riza hooks a finger around one of the garter-straps holding up the leggings as she locks eyes with Roy again. "My, my- You've certainly dressed yourself up for tonight," she purrs.

Roy flutters her lashes again, and lets her voice heighten in pitch and soften in tone to lean more into her femininity: "Well, of course- a proper toy should look nice for her master, after all."

Riza grins, equally excited from Roy's tease and embracing of her gender. But, needing to keep up the play, she lets her smile turn wolfish. "You're so eager to please - too eager."

Her finger holding the garter-strap pulls away, stretching the material, then lets go, making it snap against Roy's thigh-skin. Roy bristles at the sensation and lets out a startled cry that's clearly exaggerated, then bites at her lower lip, whimpering softly. Ever the actor, she sells it extravagantly well.

Riza stifles a giggle as she rises to her feet. "You naughty little thing - you'll get your just desserts, but I suppose I'll give you your reward first. Lay down on your stomach."

Roy obeys, flashing a coy smile as she lowers herself onto the bed and rolls over, leaving her backside facing up. She folds her arms under the pillow and rests her head above them, arcing her back in such a way to show off as much of her round ass as possible in her new position.

Riza doesn't bother to stifle another laugh as she watches Roy, walking around the bed at the same time toward her nightstand. From it she retrieves a small, sweet-smelling bottle, and pours an oily substance from it into her hands, smelling even stronger. She rubs it between her palms as she joins Roy on the bed, sitting beside the other's hips.

"Since you've been so stressed lately, I'll give you a little massage - then you'll be nice and relaxed for what I have next."

Roy hums in response, rising into a small moan at Riza begins working her oil-encased hands into her shoulders. She works her way down, rubbing out the remaining knots of tension in Roy's muscles, all along her spine until she's reached her hips. She pinches at the beginnings of a larger person's love handles peeking out above Roy's pelvis, and when she looks up again, she sees that Roy has sunk so deeply into her pillow she looks almost half-asleep. Which won't do at all - Riza quietly unhooks Roy's garters, pushes down the hem of her leggings, widens the leg-holes of her panties, then takes a firm hold of Roy's asscheeks with both hands.

Roy startles back into awareness, moaning and twitching her hips as Riza kneads her asscheeks vigorously, clearly not for any clinical reason - merely to revel in the smooth, soft roundness of them, so much like perfect little balls of dough.

"Mmm," Riza hums, "You naughty thing - I keep telling you to lay off the sugar, and yet here you are, with your chubby little ass."

She eases up on her ministrations a little, giving Roy a chance to catch her breath and respond. She turns her head on the pillow to not-quite look back at her. "You know I can't help my tastes, Lieutenant - I simply won't settle for less."

"'Settle,' hm? Getting uppity, arent' we?" Riza growls. "Time to put you back in your place, then." And she demonstrates by drawing back, lifting an arm, and striking Roy's exposed ass with an open-handed slap. The little dough-balls jiggle deliciously with the force, and Roy cries out in both surprise and arousal, tensing and arcing her back.

"Oh, do you not like that? Too bad," Riza tuts, and spanks her again, then again for good measure, drawing a similar response each time - a jolt that sends Roy's body writhing, and a thrill of excitement through Riza's being.

"I've been nice to you so far, but you're far overdue for some punishment," Riza says, standing off from the bed and wiping off her oily hands on a nearby hand-towel. She retrieves her riding crop and stands by Roy's bedside, towering over her prone form.

"Oh no- please don't," Roy whimpers, exaggerating it as usual, as she can barely hide the excited smile that plays at the edges of her lips. Riza doesn't doubt that her own face looks the same. This kind of roleplay has been a favorite of theirs for several years, though tonight's exploration of Roy's gender has put an exciting new twist on it. Either way, Roy's protests are only a part of the play - never take her at her word, after all. If she really wanted to stop, she'd use their safe words.

Riza smiles devilishly. "You've been a very bad girl." And with one hand bracing against the small of Roy's back, she lifts her riding crop and begins whipping it vigorously against Roy's ass.

Whack! Whack! "You've been hanging around far too many other girls - you're just like them now. A proper slut, aren't you?" Riza's dirty-talk is as relentless as her blows. She relishes this role - it's ideal for satisfying her needs and venting her frustrations, considering the hardships she has endured, and will only continue to.

Whack! Whack! "And you love this, don't you? I can see you getting harder down there. Simply shameless." Roy's ass turns pink, then bright red in color as the blows continue, and her cries only grow in pitch and frequency. Soon she's making muffled groans into her pillow, face fully buried into it.

Whack! Whack! "Just look at you - your big round ass out in the open. Just imagine if the others saw you like this - the whole team coming in one morning and seeing you bent over your desk."

Whack! Whack! "Even better - imagine we're at another one of those parties, your slutty ass on full display for everyone to see."

Roy bucks her hips, hissing through her teeth. "No, please," she says, "Ah- anything but that-"

WHACK! An especially hard blow. "Quiet! You know you'd love it, you little whore. You're imagining it right now. All those guests, all those Generals, everyone looking at you so hungrily."

Roy dips her head back into her pillow again, stifling a loud groan.

Whack-whack! "Your reputation ruined in an instant - instead everyone knows Roy Mustang as the biggest whore in Amestris, putting out for anyone to get what she wants. Instead of the top you're going straight to the bottom, under every cock they plow into you. But don't worry- I won't let them touch you, not one of them. Not until I've had my fun first."

Another strike, and then a few more, and now Roy was just writhing against the bed, clutching her pillow like a lifeline, ass cheeks resembling a pair of ripe tomatoes, her cock wetting her panties with precum. From what Riza can see, her eyes are squeezed tightly closed and leaking a few tears - she was reaching her limit.

Riza gives her one last whack for finality, but without the usual force, more of a love-tap than anything else. "There- have you learned your lesson, little lady?"

She pauses to allow Roy to recover - and herself as well, letting her arm rest and her adrenaline and arousal to subside. The silence sinks in for a few moments.

Roy pants, breathing herself back into coherence. When she can speak clearly, her voice is watery. "N-no... Please, Lieutenant, give me more. I've been so bad- the worst..."

Riza chuckles, but she's slightly concerned - normally Roy would play along and say she's had enough. "Aw- but your poor little bottom looks so sore," she says, petting at Roy's bright red backside.

"I need it," Roy murmurs into her pillow. "I- I deserve it." Her voice is quiet, near-whispering, and edging dangerously close to a sob. Ah- she's dipped back into her self-loathing, poor thing. Maybe the roleplay went too far again...

Riza changes her petting to a soothing rub, and her tone to something softer. "Easy, now- I say whether you've had enough. I'm in charge, remember?"

She rubs at Roy's backside, gently, massaging away the tension that's recollected there - soon Roy is relaxing again, and she hums in response. "Mm..."

"Tell you what," Riza continues, "Be a good girl and hang in there just a little bit longer, and I'll give you what you really deserve."

Roy seems to perk up a little at this, shifting her head to glance behind her. As she does, Riza retrieves another bottle from her nightstand - from it, she pours a cool, slick liquid onto her hands, and she rubs her palms together to warm it with her body heat.

She notices Roy's eyes brightening across the bed, and Riza grins. "That's right - time to make you nice and loose. Spread your legs for me."

Roy obeys, even more enthusiastically than Riza predicted - she not only spreads her legs, she shimmies them to and fro as she hooks into her panties and leggings with her thumbs and shrugs them down, pushing them down to her knees and exposing herself fully.

"Oh ho," Riza chuckles as she approaches Roy again. "Trying hard to be a good girl again, aren't you?"

"Only for you, Lieutenant," Roy responds, in a voice that's somewhere between a sweet little housewife and an amateur prostitute, maybe both at once.

Riza can only laugh. "You're adorable," she says, dipping into sincerity for a moment. This colors Roy's cheeks with another embarrassed blush.

She reddens further as Riza gently spreads her ass with her hands, giving easy access to her hole. "Now, don't come yet," she warns. "Only when I say you can, or you won't get your reward."

"Yes," Roy breathes.

And Riza enters her, carefully, with a lubed finger - she stops as Roy hisses and tenses, waits for her to adjust. Once she feels the muscles relax and Roy gives a signal, Riza pushes in further, and repeats the process until she can fit a second finger inside.

Roy makes all sorts of noises and movements in her efforts to not come - she even arcs her back and lifts her hips so that her dribbling cock hangs limply in the air between her thighs, denying herself any physical contact.

Luckily it doesn't take very long until she's ready - there's hardly any resistance once Riza pulls out her fingers. She pats Roy's ass affectionately. "What a good girl... Stay right there."

And now Riza finally pulls out what she's been waiting all night to use - her latest and most prized toy so far, a strap-on harness and dildo she'd hidden just under the edge of her bed. She steps into it and begins clipping it on, stifling another excited giggle. "Now, turn around."

Roy rolls onto her back in time to see Riza tightening the strap-on and giving an experimental tug on the dildo - when they lock eyes, the roleplay breaks down for a few moments as they flash each other giddy, excited grins.

This is slightly new territory for both of them - in the past, Riza would usually pump a dildo in and out of Roy by hand, sometimes plugging it in while stroking her off to finish. The mechanics aren't so different here, but the manner of applying them definitely is, and they're both equally excited for it.

Riza is quick to clear her throat and get back to business. "Ahem- that's right, I'm going to fuck you just like you want, you little whore."

Roy's eyes grow to saucer-width, practically sparkling, and she nods enthusiastically. Riza applies a layer of lube to the dildo, then steps forward, smiling as she watches Roy scoot herself closer to the foot of the bed. She dutifully lifts her knees, allowing Riza to take hold of them and pull her panties and leggings off of her legs completely, leaving her completely naked and oh-so vulnerable.

Riza lifts Roy's knees to rest on her shoulders, grasps her thighs, and carefully guides the tip of the dildo toward Roy's entrance - all the while brimming with excitement and arousal at this new position. She pushes the dildo inside with one hand, uses the other to brace Roy's thigh, all the while glancing between it and Roy's face to make sure she isn't hurting her. She pauses when she notices Roy wincing, continues when Roy nods to urge her on, and soon enough, half of the dildo is securely inside. Then, with a hand still covered in leftover lube, she finally takes hold of Roy's cock, hot and tremulous in her grip.

Roy was moaning loudly at this point, more from pleasure than pain, squirming around the dildo with a need for more friction. Riza takes ones last opportunity to tease her. "Yes - you love it, you slut. You can come now, but you wouldn't have much choice in the matter with such a big cock in your ass."

"Oh, please," Roy whimpers.

Riza smiles. "Told you I'd make you beg."

And slowly, Riza begins bucking her hips, working the phallus deeper and deeper until she's buried it to the hilt inside her partner. Then she carefully pulls out, gives a moment for them both to breathe, then works it back in again, and in this way she slowly and carefully fucks Roy at an easy rhythm as they acclimate to the toy. All the while she strokes at Roy's cock lightly, and just as slowly.

And Roy just writhes against her, twitching and moaning with an open, lolling mouth, her sounds lilting back and forth in time with their movements. She does her best to keep pace with Riza's movements in the grind of her hips, even as she aches for more, occasionally bucking against her in silent pleas for more. Her hands twitch uselessly at her sides 'till she digs her fingers into the bedsheets beneath her, grabbing fistfuls of fabric in a vicegrip.

"Please- harder, please," Roy whines between sharp gasps of breath, not quite looking at anything, her eyes glazed over with pleasure.

Riza can only comply. She hums with satisfaction as she picks up the pace, faster and harder in both her thrusting and stroking. Soon she's pounding Roy senselessly, the haze of lust taking over completely as she gives into the raw, primal nature of their copulation. The slapping of skin, the deep grunts and moans, the all-consuming heat - the appeal of this action for natural phallus-owners is crystal clear to her now.

Riza's only regret is that she can't feel anything through the dildo - she could more accurately hit Roy's prostate otherwise. But going hard and deep like this seems to do the trick just fine, and she gets more than enough pleasure from just this - the feel of her hips slamming against Roy's, her cock pulsing against her fingers, watching her come undone just beneath her.

By now, Riza's own womanhood was throbbing within the confines of her undergarments, because on top of everything else, the base of the dildo presses deliciously against her clitoral area every time she thrusts forward. She can feel her cunt wetting into the fabric of her panties, and again she half-wonders if she may lose her composure before Roy for a moment.

Only a moment, as the evidence is to the contrary.

Roy is completely senseless now - body shuddering, eyes rolling back, mouth hanging open with loud, strained cries. Any words she's saying are barely coherent, but they seem to be the usual - 'god,' 'yes,' 'please,' and 'more.'

The 'yes'es become more pronounced as Roy approaches her edge, squeezing tears from her eyes as her wails grow into high-pitched whines. Riza's nearly breathless with the effort of her thrusting, but she finds the lung capacity to choke out one last command.

"Yes, yes- come for me, Roy."

And with one last, deep thrust and a hard stroke of her cock, Roy finally does, and hard.

Her body locks in place for a moment, then shudders violently as shockwaves course through her, undulating her spine and rocking her trembling hips and thighs. Her throbbing red cock sprays copious amounts of cum across her chest and stomach, and her cries rise into a loud, long scream of pleasure that peters out into a deep, satisfied groan.

The reaction is so intense that for a moment, Riza's instinct is to fear she's hurt her - but then she remembers that Roy hasn't had this kind of action for nearly a year, on top of the drawn-out foreplay. And besides, she's always been embarrassingly loud.

Breathless as she watches her, Riza gently squeezes droplets from Roy's shuddering cock as she rides out her tremors, at the same time pulling her hips away to remove the dildo, resisting every urge in her to keep thrusting toward her own climax, not wanting to overwhelm Roy further and having a better idea for that anyway.

She briefly presses her lips to one of Roy's thighs. "Beautiful... absolutely gorgeous... You did so well," she whispers, a little hoarse.

She forces her trembling hands to lower Roy's legs, then unwork the belts of her strap-on to pull it down and off. She kicks aside the toy unceremoniously - she'll clean it later. For now, she has a much more pressing need. She crawls onto Roy on the bed, grasping along the curves of her body - Roy feels so relaxed beneath her hands that she's surprised she can still feel bones inside her, not having turned to mush from the heat enveloping her entire being.

Trembling and weaker in the hips than she predicted, Riza drudges up the last of her composure to make one last demand as she straddles Roy's stomach. "Huff- We're not done yet- You- you still have a mess to clean up, slut."

Roy hardly notices her, still swimming in the sea of post-orgasm bliss, but Riza nonetheless begins tugging down her panties, a significant wet spot in their center. She stands on her knees to pull them down and fully expose her dripping cunt, and at this, Roy finally takes notice.

Riza scoots closer, moving her hips up and past Roy's chest. "Time to - huff - use that whore mouth of yours for something useful- Ah- Pleasure me, Roy." Her tone falters toward the end, between her exhaustion and her precariously-desperate need.

Roy's eyes widen, but she grunts and nods, probably too tired and hoarse to respond verbally. She adjusts herself to grab Riza's hips, savoring her curves with her hands as she urges Riza's slickness closer. Then she's sitting squarely upon Roy's face, her legs spread out across her pillow as her lower lips meet Roy's own.

Roy's silver tongue wasn't just skilled in conversation, and begins to eagerly demonstrate the many techniques she employs to garner so much popularity with women in her suave bachelor persona. She quickly parts Riza's slit with her tongue, darting at and around her clitoris and drawing shockwaves from her; she moves down to her vaginal opening to stroke along its rim to bring her shivers; and all the while, her fingers work themselves into the curves of Riza's ass to tease at her other end.

Roy works faster, deeper, employing every part of her mouth to service her partner, and Riza is quickly reduced to a moaning, twitching mess atop her. She grasps the bed's headboard to brace herself against Roy's ministrations, and as much as she'd love to draw this out and savor it further, the coil in her belly and sparks in her veins are already too tight and hot to be denied their climax.

Then Roy begins sucking upon her clitoris, and any attempts to continue their play, or speak at all, fall apart as quickly as Riza does. Her orgasm quickly crashes through her and leaves her as a deep, loud groan, stars speckling the back of her darkening vision.

And yet Roy is relentless, continuing her licking and suckling as Riza trembles and wails above her, lapping up her juices like a hungry animal. Perhaps she was enacting some kind of revenge, or was simply insistent on giving Riza some fraction of the pleasure she'd dished out - either way, Roy continues eating her out for a little while more, overstimulating her until she's too tired to continue.

Roy signals this with a gentle push, urging Riza off of her. She does so, all but flopping onto the other side of the bed as Roy scoots herself back towards her pillow and catches her breath. Riza has to close her eyes for a while, so great is her exhaustion - she stops short of falling asleep, however, forcing her eyes open to check in on Roy.

Roy is a sight to behold now - naked, hair a mess, skin splotchy, face and chest covered in semen and fluids, not to mention the welts and oils decorating her backside - and she is only more beautiful than before. Her half-lidded eyes hardly register the world around her, dark and sparkling like a night in the clear-skied countryside, pooling with leftover moisture and a deep, satisfied pleasure.

"Roy." Riza speaks softly to get her attention. Roy opens her eyes fully to look at her, and the sparkle of her eyes brightens further.

She rolls to her side and extends her arms to wrap around Riza's shoulders, drawing her in for a hug. "Thank you," Roy whispers hoarsely. "Thank you so much."

Riza chuckles against her chest. "So you enjoyed yourself?"

"Yes- God, yes. More than that, I- You were right. I... I needed that."

Riza pulls back her head, enough to meet Roy's eyes again. "Even calling you 'madam?'

Roy blinks, once, twice, breathes out slowly. "I... Yeah. Yeah, even that."

Riza smiles. "So I guessed right."

Roy laughs, a weak, breathy sound in her throat. "I think you officially know me too well, now."

"I only do my best, madam," Riza says, a breathless little tease.

"You certainly do - and you are. You're the best, Riza," Roy whispers, giving her a half-hearted but nonetheless tender kiss to the lips - which is wet and tastes of Riza's own essence, but she pays it no mind.

When they pull away, silence settles in again, and they simply lay there, watching each other breathing, drifting slowly towards unconsciousness - until a thought crosses Riza's mind. Truthfully it's more like a small worry that's plagued her all through their copulation, and she feels the need to voice it before she falls asleep and forgets it completely.

"Um- I should ask. What should I call you?"

Roy, almost half-asleep again, opens an eye. "Mm?"

"I mean- if you're serious about... this," Riza gestures vaguely, "Is there another name you would prefer?"

Roy closes her eyes, squeezes both, then wipes a hand across her face, groaning softly. "Erm- I don't... really know, honestly. It's still..."

She blinks a few times again, and when she leaves them open, there's that distant, burning look in her eyes, the one she wears every time she snaps a flame into being - no, this is different. This is quieter, more introspective. She's searching inside herself, but not for any Alchemical formula or dark, terrible memory.

"...I'm still figuring it out," she says finally. "Roy is still fine, I don't really mind. I mean, I'm not even sure if this is even... well, a real thing. Maybe it's just for tonight. Or nights like this - you know, just for the roleplay-"

Riza silences her with a finger to her lips. "I get it," she chuckles. "Whatever it is, you don't have to justify it to me, you know."

Roy smiles around her finger, but there's something sad in her expression. "I know- I think I'm justifying it to myself more than anything."

Riza hums sadly, moving her hand instead to brush aside Roy's mussed bangs. "I'll only ask what I always do - talk to me. Tell me everything - or at least, anything I can do to make this easier. I don't want to have to push you again, like tonight."

She cups Roy's cheek with her palm, and Roy sighs and leans into it, closing her eyes. Her throat moves, but she says nothing - perhaps nothing more needs to be said, for now.

"Listen- whatever you are - or want to be - I will support you. Always. Just like I promised," Riza says, just to put it in words that Roy can hear, making it absolutely clear and unshakable.

Roy opens her eyes, soft with moisture again. "Even into hell..." she murmurs.

"Even into hell," Riza echoes, and she withdraws her hand and lays back, letting her eyes be pulled shut by the waves of exhaustion and bliss that still lap at her. She watches Roy one last time as her vision unfocuses and drifts into dreamless sleep.

Her last conscious thought is of Roy - her, him or otherwise - and how lucky she feels to be the retainer of such a proud, beautiful flame.

END.

#royai #trans roy #trans royai #sub roy #dom riza #jeminy3 art #jeminy writes

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fullmetalscullyy · 6 years ago

Text

hit and run - chapter 14

summary: Riza Hawkeye is a thief who is trying to get by in Victorian Central. Hard times fell on her family, tuberculosis claiming her mother and then her father when she was a teenager. Now, femme fatale Riza steals to put food on the table for herself, her canine companion - an abandoned puppy who just won’t leave her alone - and two brothers with circumstances similar to her own. However, dipping her hands into the pockets of the rich and famous is always a dangerous game.

rated: m | words: 3895

title: “hit and run” by lolo

read on ao3 and ffnet

Edward was jerked awake by shouts. He shot up in bed despite the sleep trying to claim him and return his mind to unconsciousness. “Al,” he called, nudging his brother’s leg in the bed next to him. Alphonse stirred with a quiet whine but burrowed back underneath the sheet. Blinking away sleep, Edward ripped open their bedroom door and was met with a sight he didn’t expect.

There was a flurry of activity outside the door. People were moving in both directions up the corridor of the Madame’s mansion, some walking with another, others running. There were orders being shouted, street names, and people equipping themselves with weapons as they moved. They were all heading in one direction – towards the Madame’s office.

“Ed!” Rebecca was hurrying up the corridor towards him. “Get Al ready,” she ordered. Her eyes were filled with determination, but there was relief in her tone, her eyes wet. “They found them.”

Edward didn’t need to be told twice. He knew exactly who she was talking about. He nodded once and ran back in his room, the door closing softly behind him. He begun to change while nudging Alphonse’s leg harder to urge him awake.

“Al, wake up.”

“No…” he whined.

“Al, they found them.”

“Who?” he asked sleepily, finally cracking open an eye at his older brother who was already dressed and pulling his jacket on over his clothes.

“Mustang and Riza.” There was a brief pause as Alphonse processed the information then he surged upwards and out of bed, beginning to get dressed. Edward opened the wardrobe filled with their personal effects and begun arming himself. He paused on one knife in particular. It was a knife Riza had given him shortly after she took them under her wing.

Use this as a means to protect yourself, she'd told Ed. I never want you to have to take a life – and I will do everything in my power to stop that from becoming a reality for you – but always look out for yourself and your brother.

I’ll always protect you Edward – Alphonse too. I’ll always watch your back.

Edward gripped the handle tighter, his resolve strengthening. It was time for them to look out for her.

Alphonse was dressed and fully equipped in less than two minutes. The two made their way to the Madame’s personal office together, moving through the now nearly empty corridors.

They were stopped at the door but not by anyone. They froze in surprise when they saw the amount of people who’d amassed in the office, who were there to fight for their friend and bring her home. People milled about, speaking with one another so there was a low buzz in the room. The atmosphere was determined, the people agreeing with one another and formulating plans.

“Ed!” Rebecca called, beckoning them over with a hurried wave.

“Are all these people here to help?” Alphonse asked in wonder.

Rebecca nodded. “They are. Although, their main interest is probably Roy.” Edward frowned. Mustang wasn’t the centre of the universe, unlike what some people thought here - Edward had heard many women whispering and giggling about Roy as he moved through the mansion before he’d disappeared. There was someone else involved here too.

Hell, he and Alphonse had almost joined Riza. They’d almost been caught by Kimblee’s men when they’d exited the storm drain back up on the bridge. Edward had grabbed Alphonse and dragged him over the wall of the bridge, down into the street below where the crowds were gathering, many screaming people’s names or fighting through the throng to try to either escape or find someone. They’d lost them in the chaos. Rebecca had found them and sent them packing back to the Madame’s mansion, not taking no for an answer, while she went to recon the area. They’d sat for hours for any news, both their stomachs filling with lead when Rebecca and Gracia returned without Riza, both looking defeated and fearful. Mr. Hughes had wrapped his arms around Gracia and comforted her, whispering things softly in her ear. Rebecca had no one, and looked like she’d needed a hug, but Alphonse had already beaten Ed to the punch. Edward had guessed correctly, because she hugged Alphonse tightly and didn’t let him go for some time.

Mr. Hughes was the one spearheading the search for Mustang and Riza. He’d stressed for both boys to call him by his first name, but it felt so wrong. He felt too much like a father figure to them. Both brothers had come to the conclusion one night after the first meeting of the rescue operation. They’d lain awake that night, both too wired to sleep, and in a brief moment of hilarity, they’d both come to that conclusion together, laughing and amused. They didn’t know their real father, so had no one to compare Mr. Hughes to, but there was no other role in their life that he fit into.

Needless to say the search had been relentless. They’d been missing for three days but now, it appeared they’d been found. Mr. Hughes stood at the Madame’s desk, with the woman herself standing behind it at the back, overseeing the operation.

“Everyone,” Mr. Hughes called to get the room's attention. The murmur stopped almost instantly, the only sound was fabric rubbing together as people turned towards the man in charge. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice, and at this time of night too.” It was currently four o’clock in the morning. The sun was only just beginning to peak over the tall hedges that surrounded the edge of the Madame’s property. “We really appreciate that,” he added, gesturing between himself and the Madame. Edward had learned that Mr. Hughes was Mustang’s partner. They worked every job together, leaving them feeling more like brothers than friends.

“Mustang is family, there’s no way we would miss this,” someone called out.

“Not to mention miss the opportunity to take down that bastard!” another answered. There was a murmur of agreement around the room with others voicing their support with shouts for Mustang. Mr. Hughes tried to calm and quieten them down, but to no avail. Edward began to feel indignation on Riza’s behalf at the show of support for Mustang. While he was pleased all these people were willing to help, she was out there too –

“Not to mention Miss Riza,” a woman called out over the cacophony of noise. The sounds of agreement were louder than they were for Mustang. “We wouldn’t leave her in the hands of that bastard.”

Edward shared a look with Alphonse and Rebecca, feeling emotion swell in his chest.

Ever since coming here and ever since their disappearing, it seemed everyone had forgotten about Riza. Everyone talked about Mustang-this, or Mustang-that, never about her. She deserved it as much as anyone.

“Everyone, settle down!” Mr. Hughes barked out. Once it was quiet, his voice softened. “We’re here for both of them, and thank you for your show of support.” Mr. Hughes glanced over to Edward. “I know her family appreciate your desire to see her back home safe and well.” Another murmur of agreement swept the room and Edward had to blink away tears and take a deep breath. Maes commanded the attention of the room once more. "All right everyone, let's get down to business."

-------------------------------

Roy had to watch the men come and take Riza away three more times. Fury and hatred burned inside him so brightly every time they took her and brought her back looking worse for wear. The emotions were almost suffocating him, leaving his chest heaving with breath as he bit his tongue so he wouldn’t make Riza’s situation any worse than it already was. All he could offer Kimblee’s men was a glare.

She wasn’t back from her third trip out of their cell yet.

It didn’t save his wrists though. They were getting worse with every passing day. Numbness had set in first, but now there was a dull ache and his skin felt like it was burning. Infection was probably rampant but it was nothing compared to the treatment Riza had received so he didn’t complain. They would jerk angrily in their restraints when he was feeling frustrated and angry – sometimes he wouldn’t even realise he was doing it – but Riza’s touch always calmed him. She'd run her hands over his and it felt like a salve to the burn that was ever present. If he was being perfectly honest, he wasn’t fully relaxed until she was next to him. He hated to ask it of her, but without asking, every time she was brought back she would shuffle her way painfully over to his side. It would soothe his heart rate and belay his worry because the steady presence of her weight leaning against him would calm him right down after seeing that she was as okay as she could be.

His heart beat painfully in his chest every time he heard her laboured breathing. When she passed out that was what he’d focus on because there was nothing else. After the second time she was taken away a wheeze had become apparent in her breathing and that did nothing for his frustration and despair.

He’d also realised he’d come to care for her more than he thought. Every time she was shoved to the floor, Roy watched on, furious at the treatment, but powerless to do anything to stop it. He’d begun to hate himself for his helplessness and his stupidity at getting caught. Riza was paying the price for that and Roy had already decided he’d never forgive himself for it. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t forgive him either. Riza had shushed him and told him not to worry about it – among a myriad of other things he blamed himself for – but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He’d preached to her for months about how he’d always have her back, and that she should return to the mansion and accept the Madame’s protection because they’d all watch out for her. Where was that promise now? When she was being taken away and harmed against her will and he was trapped and tied to a fucking wall, stuck, unable to help her?

Roy definitely didn’t deserve her forgiveness.

The door opened as Riza returned from her third excursion. Roy straightened his spine in anticipation, eyes eagerly watching to see if she was all right, but he froze when his eyes settled on her.

Riza was forcefully walked – well, limped would be the more appropriate word – into the room with a knife at her throat. Her eyes were cast downwards and there was an expression on her face that didn’t sit right with him. She almost looked defeated… Roy’s stomach sank.

“Riza?” he called to her, trying to get some kind of reaction, but there was nothing. Not even a flinch.

“It’s no use,” the man beside Riza and her captor stated, voice bored. “On your feet,” he ordered. Roy stared at him defiantly, not moving. When he’d waited too long, the knife was pressed harder against her throat and drew blood, causing Riza to gasp quietly at the sharp pain but she never lifted her head.

“Wait!” Roy cried, instantly feeling horrible. He’d fucked up. Again. “Okay, just... wait. I’ll get up.” It was an arduous affair – his wrists screaming in protest as the metal felt like it was grinding against bone – but he made it. The man walked over and released his shackles from the wall, wrapping the chain around his arm so it wouldn’t drag on the floor and tugged on it, indicating Roy should begin walking. Roy hissed in pain – the movement unexpected – and protested. The man responded with another sharp tug. Roy grit his teeth but began to move. Riza was released from her restraint, but again, there was no reaction. Her eyes remained on the floor as they walked, her movements mechanical.

“Are you all right?” he murmured. Nothing. Worry began to pool in his gut, eating away at him along with the dread that was already present from the moment he’d set eyes on her again. Her expression was so vacant, only responding to pain. Her eyes never lifted from the floor, never responded to his questions. They continued to walk in silence, even the men escorting them offered no sharp warnings or commands.

Roy warily eyed an ornately carved oak door. It looked incredibly out of place within The Vaults. Something this lavish didn’t look like it belonged next to the weeping walls that oozed both water and another questionable green liquid. The men stepped through, bringing their prisoners with them, and Roy felt his blood boil when he set eyes on Kimblee for the first time. His lips curled into a snarl, but it was quickly stopped with a tug on the chain attached to his wrists.

“Mr. Mustang,” Kimblee greeted smoothly, a smug smile on his face. Roy glared at him but opted to remain silent. He didn’t think his wrists could survive another assault. They already felt like they were going to snap. Whenever his captor tugged on that damned chain he saw stars dance in his vision and felt like he might black out with the pain. It stole his breath away. “How nice to meet you again.”

Roy wanted to scream and yell at the bastard, but just glared. He’d quickly learned to keep his mouth shut. “Kimblee,” he stated coolly.

“My apologies we’ve not met before now. I’ve been… preoccupied.” His gaze flicked over to Riza and Roy stiffened when he saw his sleazy smile grow even wider.

“What did you do to her?” Roy snarled, unable to keep it in any longer.

“I did nothing,” he replied smoothly. “But she’s been broken. Finally.” His eyes leered at Riza and Roy jerked the chain in anger to try and tear his eyes off of her. He was so angry he didn’t even notice the pain.

“What did you do?”

Kimblee’s eyes flicked towards the man holding Roy’s chain. In the next instant it was pulled tight, leaving him gasping in pain, his breaths stuttering as he felt his vision greying. There was still no movement from Riza. “I already answered your question.” The chain was still tight and it forced Roy to his knees. He was bent over, panting for breath, eyes on the floor swimming beneath him.

“Just… Leave her alone,” he panted.

Kimblee shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. She slighted me before and had to pay. Now, she has.”

His words stirred something inside Roy’s brain. The vacant look on her face, the lack of response, the defeated look in her eyes… Had Kimblee…?

She’s been broken. Finally.

Roy surged to his feet, charging at Kimblee. In his mind he had visions of wrapping the chain around the man’s neck and squeezing until there was nothing left between the metal. The lunge caught his captor by surprise and he lost his grip on the chain, allowing Roy to get closer than Kimblee probably wanted him to. There was no thought to his actions. His hands were bound together so there was no way he’d be able to attack him, but Roy was blinded by his anger and his hatred. This man before him had done inexcusable things to Riza and he needed to pay for it.

Arms grabbed his elbows, clamping down and pulling them backwards, hard. The shackle was pressed into his stomach, pulling his wrists apart but he was too far gone to even notice any pain.

“Take him to the white room.”

Roy was dragged backwards, struggling against his restraint, snarling. “Fuck you, Kimblee,” he’d shouted. “Riza!” Still no reaction. “Riza, please! Answer me!” Nothing.

Kimblee stood in one fluid movement and approached Riza, placing a hand on her shoulder. She flinched at the contact but didn’t move away. Roy’s fight waned for a second as he watched, realising that Kimblee probably had broken Riza and done the awful thing Roy thought he’d done.

“Please,” Roy whispered as he was dragged out of the room.

“You will watch this, my dear,” he heard Kimblee murmur lowly to her.

Roy had failed. He’d failed to watch her back. He’d failed to protect her from Kimblee, resulting in something awful happening to her. Seeing that defeated look, those broken eyes… Roy knew what Kimblee meant by ordering his men to take him to the “white room”. He was going to die, and although he felt the panic rise in him at the prospect, that primal response to that news was wiped clean by the horror of what he’d done to Riza, or failed to do for her.

Said “white room” was indeed, painted white. There was an incredibly strong smell of disinfectant and chemical that made Roy gag. A myriad of weapons lay on a table and there was one chair in the centre of the room, equipped with leather straps to restrain him.

This was it.

Kimblee’s hand still remained on Riza’s shoulder possessively as they entered the room. Roy was finally freed from the metal chain and he gasped in pain as air rushed over his battered wrists. He looked down at them and blanched at the sight. The skin looked like it was beyond saving. It was worn thin and bloody. Where the shackle had sat, the skin sat lower, like the metal had slowly rubbed away at the skin, almost hitting the bone.

“You have two minutes with your wife,” Kimblee sneered before all the men left the room, leaving just the two of them. As soon as their backs were turned Roy stumbled over to Riza. He’d forgotten he’d referred to Riza as his wife as a cover. He had a fleeting thought, in what was supposedly going to be his final few minutes alive. Oh, how I wish that was true.

“Riza?” he asked quietly, cupping her face in his hands gently. His wrists protested at the movement but he ignored it. His head dipped, trying to catch her eye, but they were still focussed on the floor. “Riza, please, talk to me.” The request came out as a whisper, a hint of a sob in his throat as he begged her to respond to him.

He felt helpless. There was so much he wanted to say at once, but didn’t have the time. A small voice in his head whispered that he didn’t deserve to get all of it out and reveal his true feelings for the woman in front of him.

Roy wrapped his arms around her shoulders, eyes squeezed together tightly when he realised her arms were still hung limp by her sides. Still, no reaction from her. He bit back a sob, biting his lip as a tear rolled down his cheek.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, unable to hold back the emotion any longer. “I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through. You didn’t deserve it. You haven’t deserved any of this, and yet, you took it in your stride and told me not to worry about you, told me it wasn’t my fault, when it was.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he continued, voice cracking. “So I won’t ask for it. Know this, though,” he added, pulling away and placing both hands on her shoulders, bending at the knees so he could look into those vacant eyes. Oh, how he’d grown to love those eyes… “At first it may have been out of guilt that I helped you, but recently it’s been out of love.” He stopped when he saw her twitch. Did she just…? “I love you, Riza Hawkeye,” he stated passionately, desperately watching for a reaction. There was another twitch in her body. “I suppose I always have, I was just too dumb to realise it.”

The door creaked open. Roy quickly pressed his forehead against Riza’s. “I love you,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve to, but I do.” Footsteps as his captors entered the room, signalling the start of his demise while tearing him away from a bubble he wanted to live in forever. “Never forget that. Please." He pressed his lips to her forehead. Roy’s eyes never left Riza’s face as he was hauled towards the chair in the centre of the room. He watched as a tear rolled down her cheek, feeling some relief that he’d managed to get through to her.

Hands forced him into the chair roughly, strapping his forearms and ankles to the chair. His eyes never left Riza as the men who restrained him left the room.

There was a loud thud from behind the door. The man behind Kimblee turned in confusion, hand rising to his belt to arm himself but he never got the chance. He was knocked backwards and bumped into his boss, causing Kimblee to stumble forwards. He whirled in a rage as Roy’s chest swelled with hope. Riza’s head snapped up, eyes meeting his and burning with the same fury Roy had felt minutes ago. She burst into action, flicking a knife into Kimblee’s back. He cried out, staggering forwards before turning with a snarl on his face, meeting Riza’s cold gaze.

“You bitch,” he growled.

“You bastard,” Riza shot back in a snarl. It was like a switch bad been flicked, and she was back to her old self. Roy was still struggling to comprehend it.

Kimblee took one step forward but was knocked flat on his stomach by none other than Vanessa. Roy blinked at the sight before him, too stunned to even move. His adoptive sister was kneeling all her weight on Kimblee’s back, restraining him, while Riza stood over his body, a hidden weapon drawn, no longer the puppet she appeared to be just moments ago.

Was she…?

Was she all right after all?

Roy felt relief surge in his chest and tears collect in his eyes. He let out a breath in a rush. It appeared Riza had only just then remembered he was there. She spun around at the sound of his exhale, eyes meeting his before she hurriedly limped over. With shaking hands she undid the straps. Once free Roy shot up from the chair, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He buried his face in her hair, breathing it in despite the days worth of dirt, dust, and grime, all the while feeling the urge to burst into tears.

“You’re okay?” he breathed, relief making his limbs shake as her hands gripped his body tightly.

Riza nodded against him. “I’m all right,” she replied, voice a whisper. “I’m sorry –”

Roy shushed her. “It’s all right. You’ve come back to me. That’s all that matters.”

She pulled away, eyes full of unshed tears. "It was just an act, I'm sorry -"

He cupped her cheeks in his hands like he had before, but this time it was with joy by his side, not despair and worry. He ignored the shake of his hands as his injured wrists protested at the action. A soft smile graced Roy's lips because he was just so damn happy that she was all right. Kimblee hadn't broken her like he'd boasted. Riza stopped her apology in its tracks, eyes focussed on his expression instead. "It's all right," he soothed. He removed one hand, brushing her fringe off her face and tucking a strand of her short hair behind her ear. His head dipped and Riza rose to meet him, pressing her lips against his hard in the kiss, her hands moving to grip the front of his shirt, fisting it in her palms.

"I love you too," she whispered back to him, causing Roy to bundle her tightly in his arms, never wanting to let go.

#royai #royai fanfic #royai fic #royai au #emma writes #hit and run

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raywritesthings · 7 years ago

Text

Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home? 11/11

My Writing Fandom: Arrow, The Flash Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Quentin Lance, John Diggle, Felicity Smoak, Thea Queen, Roy Harper, Moira Queen, Joanna de la Vega, Dinah Lance, Eddie Thawne Pairings: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen, Thea Queen/Roy Harper Summary: Oliver returns to Starling City after the Undertaking only to discover that he’s not the only one who has absented it; Laurel Lance has seemingly vanished with barely a trace for the last four months. As he struggles to piece together the mystery of what caused her to flee the city they both call home, Oliver must also ask himself if he can make things right after leaving the woman he loves a second time. If he can find her at all. AO3 link

It didn’t quite feel real yet, that it was all over. Or that it was just beginning, really, with Olivia truly here.

Laurel had held her new baby daughter for as long as she’d been allowed before the doctors and nurses had whisked her away for checks and tests. She’d been so small and fragile-looking, but they’d all been surprised by the apparent strength in her lungs when she’d emerged screaming into the world. The pain of labor had lifted for a brief instant as Laurel had laughed at the sound.

Everyone was cautiously optimistic. Her daughter seemed in perfect health for being so premature, and she was happy to remain in the hospital as long as the doctors wanted to ensure that wasn’t merely a fluke. Laurel felt too tired to really go anywhere else, truthfully. All the plans she’d been tentatively forming of what she would do once the baby arrived, how she would make a life for them work, none of it was remotely ready just yet. And everything had changed now.

“Your father called. Twice now, actually,” her mother had told her shortly after the birth, probably to take Laurel’s mind off of waiting for news about Olivia.

It had worked. “What did you tell him?”

“The truth,” had been her mom’s simple answer. “He’s not angry, honey,” she’d added when Laurel had been too afraid to voice the question. “Just relieved to know you’re safe.”

“Is he- is he coming here?”

“Not right away. He was at the hospital—”

Laurel had felt her heart stop. “Is he okay?”

“Yes, it was just a checkup. He’s asked Oliver to come down in the meantime.”

“Oliver,” Laurel had echoed. What did that mean? How much did he know? Did he want to know?

But he was on his way. That had to be good, didn’t it?

She’d occupied the hours waiting between spending time with Olivia and resting fitfully whenever she was advised to. There was just too much on her mind to really settle into any kind of sleep.

Her mom had come back in and left again only a few minutes ago after telling her Oliver had arrived. She’d said she would send him along and have them move Olivia back into the room.

So this was it. After so many months of hiding, of worrying and wondering. Laurel tried to remember what she’d meant to say to him back when she’d first found out she was pregnant. Then she decided it hardly mattered; things were far past that point anyway.

Laurel closed her eyes and focused on taking deep, even breaths. She was almost as nervous as when she’d been preparing for the early labor, only this time she couldn’t hold her mother’s hand or even a well-meaning detective’s. This was something she and Oliver really did need to do together, and on their own.

There was a slight tickle at the back of her throat, and she coughed a couple times. The scratchiness seemed to come and go ever since the night she’d gone into labor, but the doctors and nurses assured her it was probably just a bit of soreness or a slight cold at worst. She supposed lying out in the rain for who knew how long was bound to leave her feeling a bit under the weather.

There came a light knock on the doorframe, and Laurel blinked her eyes open. Oliver looked almost the same as when she’d last seen him all those months ago. A little tired, a little sorrowful, a little bit peaceful. Basically, a lot of holding himself together.

Laurel didn’t even have to try to smile. “Hey.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“No, come on in,” she said with a lazy wave of her hand. “It’s past time, really.”

He crossed the room in a few steps and took the empty chair at her bedside. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. They just didn’t have much in the way of painkillers because of all the people brought in after the explosion, so I screamed myself hoarse during the birth,” she told him, gesturing to her throat.

“Oh. You know, I was wondering why you didn’t quite sound yourself.”

She could see he was striving for a lighter tone.

“Sure you didn’t just forget what I sounded like?”

Oliver shook his head. “I held onto that voice for five years. Six months wasn’t hard.”

Laurel looked down. There were times now, ever since Oliver had first come back, that he nearly overwhelmed her with the intensity he held inside.

“I should probably say I’m sorry that it was that long.”

When she glanced up briefly, he didn’t look angry. He was just watching her.

“I did try calling, but I, uh, couldn’t quite make myself talk.”

Oliver nodded. “I remember.”

“How did you know?”

“Because I have been the person on the other end of that phone call,” he said. “There was, once, I had this opportunity to get in touch with someone. On the island. It wasn’t exactly safe, but I couldn’t help myself. You were the first person I tried.”

Laurel blinked in surprise. “When?”

Oliver smiled ruefully. “It was nearly five years ago now. I couldn’t say anything just like you, even if there was so much I wanted to say.”

She tried searching for some memory, some moment that had slipped past her long ago totally unnoticed, but could come up with nothing. She supposed it didn’t matter. Oliver had found his way back regardless.

“It just starts to feel insurmountable,” Laurel agreed. “The time that’s passed. I convinced myself that the last thing you needed was to be mixed up in this. Or that you wouldn’t want to be. I thought everyone would be so disappointed. And things seemed so dangerous and complicated back home, especially with your mother’s trial and all the anger people had surrounding that.”

“That’s why you left,” he realized, brow furrowed in thought. “You thought if people found out I was the father, they might do something to you and the baby.”

“That was probably what pushed me to do it. I guess I was worried about what people would think in general.” She sighed. “I’m not ashamed of her, I just know I should’ve been more careful. It’s the first thing my father’s bound to say once he gets over the shock. And I just wasn’t ready to face that on my own, so running away…”

She trailed off as a nurse entered the room with Olivia. Her baby was still half-asleep, tired from all the crying she’d done once she was born. Laurel could sympathize.

“I was asked to bring this one back to mommy. Would you like to hold her?”

Laurel sat up a bit straighter in the bed, but as she did so her eyes slid to Oliver. He was staring at Olivia utterly enraptured, like he’d never even seen a baby before.

She didn’t even hesitate in making the call. “Actually, I think daddy wouldn’t mind a turn.”

He looked back at her, seemingly in shock that she would grant that kind of permission. Laurel gave a nod, hoping to encourage him.

“Alright then,” said the nurse. She passed Olivia over slowly, though not as slowly as Oliver was to take her. He looked as though he’d just been handed the most precious thing in the world, which in Laurel’s opinion he had been.

The nurse fussed a bit, showing him how to hold her properly. Oliver let her, even though Laurel was sure he’d have remembered how from Thea. That whole first year after the Queens had brought her home, Oliver hadn’t been able to keep from bragging about his new baby sister. She’d thought it was the sweetest thing, but the look on his face right now was threatening to top it.

There was a long silence once the nurse had left, though it wasn’t exactly an uncomfortable one. Oliver was far too preoccupied with the baby to talk. The more Laurel watched them, the more the guilt at staying silent for so long seemed to eat at her.

Laurel cleared her throat as softly as she could manage. “Oliver, I really am sorry.”

He managed to tear his gaze away from Olivia for a few moments. “Laurel, you’re not the only one who’s ever tried to hide from the people whose opinions matter most to you.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, that sums it up pretty nicely. Where’d you get that one?”

His mouth opened, then closed, and at last he shrugged. “Myself, in a way.”

She decided to let that one go without comment. “I wasn’t just hiding, though. I hid her from you, too. And that wasn’t fair.”

“No, what wasn’t fair was that I left you to deal with this alone. You tried to reach me, and I didn’t listen.”

“I didn’t try reaching out to my father or Joanna or anyone actually in the city, either,” she pointed out.

“Six months ago no one in the city would have been happy to hear about this. With mom’s trial and Queen Consolidated about to collapse, they would never have left you alone.” Oliver shook his head. “You were doing what you had to to keep her safe. How could I blame you for that?”

She imagined if she felt up to it and he wasn’t holding their daughter, she’d have jumped into his arms and kissed him. But that was how they’d got into this mess in the first place. Laurel sighed.

“Oliver...you know this doesn’t fix everything that’s happened between us.” She kept her eyes on her hands as they toyed with the edge of her blanket. “If anything, it makes things more complicated.”

“I know,” he agreed quietly. “And I know it’s always been complicated. But I swear to you, Laurel, I am ready for that this time.”

She looked up at him and was briefly stunned by the conviction in his eyes, the promise there, the way he held Olivia so securely like he could protect her from anything. But a part of her still had to ask, “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I can’t afford not to be. Being Olivia’s father, it’s not something that I could back out of or run away from. You both deserve more than that.”

Laurel wanted to believe him. She always did.

She cleared her throat yet again and asked, “Okay, so...where do we go from here?”

“Well, we both know about her now. And we both want to be her parents.”

Laurel nodded. “I think that’s about as far as we should define that relationship. At least for now.”

“You don’t want—”

“I don’t want to rush into something only for it to fall apart and cause some kind of split,” she explained. “Olivia needs us. That has to come before anything else.”

Oliver blew out a breath but didn’t argue. “I still need you in my life. The both of you.”

“And so do we,” she replied, hoping to assure him.

He smiled and relaxed in his chair a little more. “I guess the big question is whether that’s here or in Starling.”

Laurel frowned. “Oliver, you can’t just pack up and move. You’re running Queen Consolidated.”

“I could commute,” he offered stubbornly. “Whatever is best for you and the baby.”

He really was something else sometimes. “Your whole family’s in Starling,” she began slowly. “And...I miss my dad. I miss Joanna, I miss my life. It’s time for me to be a big girl about this. Time to go back.”

“If you’re sure.”

She nodded once.

“Okay.” A smile spread across his face as Olivia gurgled something only intelligible to her. He bounced his knee lightly, which their daughter seemed to like. Laurel wasn’t sure she could remember smiling this much in the longest time, but she also didn’t think she could stop.

“I guess I need to make some calls,” Oliver said, regret coloring his tone. “Your dad was the one to send me down here. And mom and Thea don’t know anything yet. Is it okay if—”

She didn’t even let him finish. “Of course. Olivia’s their family, too.”

“Thank you.” He kissed the top of Olivia’s head and stood, carefully passing the baby to her arms. She couldn’t deny being greedy to hold her again, even if she’d been the one to suggest Oliver get a chance.

“I will be right back.” Oliver paused, then slowly brushed some of her hair back to press the lightest kiss to her cheek.

Laurel couldn’t help smiling up at him as he pulled away and left the room.

“So, what do you think?” She asked her baby. “That was your daddy. He loves you. He only found out about you yesterday, and he already loves you. That’s how special you are.”

Olivia blinked and gurgled again, about the extent of her review. Laurel nodded along very seriously.

“In a little while you’re gonna meet the rest of your grandparents and your Aunt Thea. And they’re all going to love you too, of course.” She hoped, anyway. Oliver’s family she could count on. Laurel was still incredibly nervous about seeing or even speaking to her dad again.

Whatever happened, she was going to make sure Olivia was surrounded by people who did care about her. Laurel never wanted her daughter to ever question if she was wanted.

It wouldn’t be easy going home, but the fact was that it was her home. She had felt torn about leaving it in the first place, but now that most of the anger towards the Queens had died down it seemed unimaginable to even think of raising her daughter anywhere else.

After all, if the Hood could make a comeback in Starling City, why couldn’t she?

She could take her time in finding work that would both help her new family and others now that she knew Oliver was behind her on this. Laurel had no intention of taking advantage of the Queens’ money, but she wouldn’t deny the relief at knowing she wasn’t under so much pressure. Maybe it wasn’t in quite the way she’d ever pictured, but they were a team once again. Laurel tried to quash the bubble of hope that was determinedly rising inside; one thing at a time, and Olivia was first.

“I’ll get to spend more time with you than I thought I’d be able to,” she told her daughter. “Never mind that you’re here a whole two months early.”

Olivia made a sort of humming sound. Her eyes were drifting closed, and Laurel knew she probably ought to enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasted. Once Olivia was asleep, she’d put her to bed and get that water she’d been craving. She hadn’t wanted to bother Oliver for one while he was here and cause him to worry. She’d troubled the people she cared about far too much already these past few months.

“We’ll make sure you get plenty of time with your dad, too. You will love him. I know I do.” She leaned in close with a grin and whispered, “But that’s our little secret, okay?”

—-

Oliver left the room and immediately wanted to re-enter it. It felt wrong to be without Laurel and Olivia. But there were things that needed taken care of. If he wanted to have a secure plan in place for his daughter, he could put aside his own feelings for the time being.

And it was important to get ahead of the media. The minute they touched back down in Starling with a baby in tow there was bound to be talk, and that was not how Oliver wanted the rest of his friends and loved ones to find out.

Olivia was going to be in the spotlight almost from the beginning of her life. He could understand Laurel’s desire to get away from that during her pregnancy, and for a moment he wondered whether it was wise to give up that anonymity. But he didn’t want to hide either of them away like some dirty secret, a separate part of his life.

So many people he wanted to and truthfully needed to speak to. A part of him wanted to shout the news from the rooftops. Another part of him knew that would be the stupidest option possible.

With great difficulty, the more rational side of his mind won out, and he contemplated who to call first. Oliver’s first instinct was his own family, but he had come here initially on Quentin Lance’s behalf.

Decision made at last, he took out his phone and dialed.

Lance was slow to pick up, but as soon as he did he was asking, “How’s Laurel? Is the baby alright?”

“I just finished talking to Laurel. And I have seen your granddaughter. Congratulations.”

“A girl. Well, can’t have too many of those, huh?” Lance let out something of a chuckle that turned into a light cough. Oliver heard him take a sip of what he hoped was water before the question came. “What’d Laurel name her?”

Oliver paused there. It was Lance’s right to know his granddaughter’s name, but he deserved an explanation first.

“Officer Lance, there’s something I need to tell you. But I’m not sure how.”

Again, Oliver hesitated.

He heard the man give some kind of groaning exhale. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the father.”

“...Yes.” There was no point denying it.

“And you- you didn’t know before you took off for wherever?”

“No,” Oliver said immediately. “I wouldn’t have left in the first place if I’d known.”

Lance thankfully let that drop for the moment. “Let’s see, nine months back — well, no wonder she thought I’d be upset.”

“It’s not like that. The baby is two months premature,” Oliver informed him. This was something he knew was bound to come up in the media upon their return home, and if he could spare Laurel any grief over her own father’s assumptions, he would. “I don’t know how much Laurel said, but shortly before he died Tommy broke up with her and moved out. It wasn’t until a few weeks after that we—”

“Alright, alright, spare me the details, I get it,” Lance grumbled. “But, uh, thanks. I- I should know her better than that.”

“I’m sure Laurel knows this hasn’t been easy for you.”

“Is she coming home?”

“She wants to.”

He heard Lance let out a breath over the phone. “Good. I — that’s good.” There was another pause. “And are you two…”

“We’re not making a decision on that right now.”

“Well, where’re Laurel and the baby gonna live?”

Oliver blinked. That wasn’t an issue he’d thought to address till now. “We haven’t discussed it. I’d prefer if they came to stay at the Manor, though. It’s less accessible to the press and others.” He’d have to be careful about wording that invitation; the last thing he wanted was Laurel to think he was trying to trap her into a de facto relationship.

“Yeah, well it’s got a better record for break-ins than her apartment. I’ll try and talk her round.”

“Thank you.” Oliver still wasn’t exactly used to Lance being this helpful. It was a new enough change that it caught him off guard from time to time.

“Hey, if my girls are coming back to this crazy town, they’re getting the best,” Lance said. There was the muffled sound of someone on the other end of the line; most likely a nurse or other hospital staff. “Listen, I should be out of here in the next day or so. I’m gonna try.”

“Take as long as you need. We’ll be here.”

“What did Laurel call her? The baby.”

“Oh. Olivia. Olivia Dinah.”

Lance huffed out another laugh. “See why you wanted to square things first, then. Wouldn’t have needed my old badge to figure that out.”

Oliver grimaced. “Well, you deserved the truth.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell Laurel that, will you?”

“I will.”

One down, and he wasn’t even sure if it was the toughest. He’d survived being on the end of Lance’s disapproval many times; he wasn’t sure if he could do the same when it came to his own family.

But he also needed his family with him on this. So he made his second call.

This time, it was picked up sooner. “Oliver?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“How is Laurel?”

“She’s good.” He thought of her back in that room holding their little girl, a tired but no less radiant look on her face, and had to resist the urge yet again to go back in. “She’s really great.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You never actually told us where you were going, sweetheart,” his mother reminded him after a pause.

Oh. “Right. I’m at Central City General. Laurel was staying with her mom. But she’s okay. It wasn’t anything with the explosion. It’s, well.”

Oliver took a breath.

“There’s something I need to tell you, and, mom, you might want to sit down.”

“Oliver, is everything alright?”

“It is. It’s not bad news. It’s, well, think of it as sort of a Christmas present I got you.”

“Well, I’m as happy as anyone that Laurel’s been found, but something tells me there’s more to it than that.”

“There is.” He took a deep breath, then said, “You are a grandmother.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

“I know it’s not the best way for this to happen,” he started before she could even begin. “But it still feels right to me. God, you should see her, mom. Actually, you and Thea should come down. You won’t know what hit you.”

“I’m quite familiar with the feeling, actually,” she replied. He could hear the dryness in her tone.

“Right.” Oliver drew in a breath. “I’m not sorry this happened.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t think you should be. But a baby is a far different responsibility than anything I can safely say you’ve prepared for. And there’s some choices you’ll have to make.”

Oliver said nothing.

“Does she have a name yet?”

“She does. Olivia Dinah.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Will you and Thea come down to see her?”

“Of course,” his mother said. He released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d still been holding. “Do you want to speak to your sister or shall I?”

“Um.” He thought for a moment. Thea would have endless questions, and he was trying to make each of these calls brief so he could get back. “If you don’t mind, I’ll talk to her when she gets here.”

“I understand. You’re needed elsewhere. And congratulations, Oliver. Being a parent is the most daunting challenge you will ever face — but it’s also the most rewarding.”

He smiled. “Thanks, mom. Hope I haven’t made it too much of the former for you.”

“Oh, you keep me on my toes. Today is no exception.”

“Let me know when you get in. I can’t wait for you both to meet her.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

He ended the call, not entirely sure how he was feeling. Happy that his family would be meeting their newest member, of course, but he’d also been given a lot to think about.

His mother was right. If he wanted to keep his promise to Laurel, he needed to make her and Olivia his first priority. Not the company, not the Arrow, nothing was more important to him. There were going to need to be some changes in his life.

With that in mind, he knew he had one more call to make. Oliver was unsurprised when he only had to wait seconds for it to be picked up.

“So what happened? Thea said you went to see Laurel.”

“I did. I would have told you myself, Digg, but it was important I get here as soon as possible.”

“And she was in Central. She alright?”

Oliver glanced back at her and Olivia’s room and nodded though his friend couldn’t see it. “Yeah.”

“Are you?”

He blinked. “Yeah, of course.”

“You just sound like you’re reeling, Oliver.” Even over the phone, Digg could read him.

“If I am, it’s because I am happy,” he stated firmly. “I’m — Laurel was pregnant. That’s why she left.”

He heard a heavy exhale on the other end of the line. “Oh man, Oliver—”

“I know. I know, John, I screwed up. But we’re going to give this a try. I need to give this a try. This is...this is my family now.”

Diggle was quiet for a long moment. “What are you gonna do?”

“Laurel and I are discussing it. She wants to come back. As much as her mother has been there for her through this, Starling is her home. And I cannot picture raising a family anywhere else.”

“And what’s this mean for your night job?”

Oliver thought. He didn’t feel like getting into an argument with Digg on the phone. And a hospital corridor really wasn’t the place. “That is something I will have to discuss with you and Felicity when I get back.”

“Alright. Well, speaking of Felicity, you mind doing her a favor while you’re there? She found Barry in the hospital records.”

“Barry?” Oliver blinked, looking around as if expecting the scientist to suddenly appear in the maternity ward of all places.

“Yeah, he got checked in after the explosion. He’s in the ICU, but that’s all she can find out from here.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He remembered Dinah mentioning Laurel’s early labor was being put down to the shock from the particle accelerator explosion; it was a miracle that nothing else had happened to her or Olivia. Apparently Barry had not been so lucky.

“Do you want me to tell her?”

He pulled himself back out of his thoughts. “Tell who what?”

“Felicity. About the baby.”

He hadn’t really put much thought into that, how more than this immediate circle would find out. Felicity was a friend and teammate, and he knew she wouldn’t appreciate learning about it with the rest of the public when they returned.

“If I’m not back within the week to talk to her myself, then yes. I would be grateful if you told her.”

“And what are you going to tell Laurel?”

Oliver didn’t bother to suppress an eye roll considering his friend couldn’t see it. “One thing at a time, John.” It was clear Digg wasn’t going to be willing to let the issue of the Arrow drop anytime soon. “Look, I’ll make sure we get back as soon as we can.”

“Alright. Well, for what it’s worth, congratulations.”

A smile was pulled from him only somewhat grudgingly. “Thank you.”

He hung up for the final time and rubbed at his temples. He had family coming in, friends pressing him for answers, and a hospitalized acquaintance to check on. Oliver wished not for the first time that he could freeze the varied moving parts of his life in place if only for a few moments of peace.

One part of his life stood out in particular: the Arrow. He knew what his teammates would want him to decide. It would hardly have changed since their trip to retrieve him from the island two months ago. But was juggling that with the company and a new baby even feasible? And that was only the least of his misgivings.

What he had told John and Felicity was still true; he did not like what he became whenever he put on that hood. And to go out there threatening or even torturing people, risking his life again and again — could he bring that back home to Laurel and their baby? He didn’t think he knew how to be the father Olivia deserved if he forced himself to go back there every single night.

The mirakuru was something from the island. That made it his responsibility. He could not in good conscience sit by and let the man in the skull mask spread that horror through his city. But once he was stopped…

Oliver let his mind drift back to a time very similar, when he’d thought Malcolm Merlyn outmaneuvered and his mission near an end. How he’d gone to Laurel to finally make things right between them, a union that had resulted in a daughter.

It was a life he could have only dreamed of on the island and a life now so very nearly in his grasp. Ever since the Undertaking, he had felt adrift when it came to his vigilante work, without purpose. Was it really so selfish to just let go? Allow the legal system due course? Wasn’t it his vigilantism that had caused so many of the problems the city now faced?

He could not be Oliver Queen, father, and the Arrow, dark vigilante. Those two identities pulled at each other, and he could not hope to maintain both. And if one had to go at the expense of the other, there was not a choice to make.

His feet, which had been slowly carrying him down the hall to the elevators, stopped and turned back towards Laurel and Olivia’s room. Barry could wait for the time being; he no doubt had family of his own who wouldn’t appreciate an interloper. And Oliver had his family along with — for the first time in so long — a future.

It was time to think about truly living in the light.

—-

Quentin hadn’t known what to say when the fancy black car had pulled up in front of the hospital once he was finally allowed out of the doors. Queen’s bodyguard had gotten out of the driver seat and opened the side door for the family’s matriarch.

“I believe we’re headed in the same direction, Officer.” Moira Queen had looked as refined as he remembered her being before all the Undertaking business. He wondered if news of the baby had even ruffled her feathers for a moment.

“Suppose so, but, uh, I’ve got to pick up some things at my place. I’m not packed.”

“Of course. There’s certainly enough time to make a detour.” She gestured with one arm for him to get in, which he had a feeling was not exactly up for debate. It beat hailing a cab, anyway.

Quentin discovered almost immediately upon sliding in that Thea Queen was also waiting in the backseat, though across from him. Her mother placed herself at her side and once the driver had gotten back in they were off.

“Have you gotten to talk to Laurel yet?” The girl asked him.

“No,” he answered shortly. Quentin wasn’t sure why he’d been holding off exactly. Maybe it’d just be easier to do it face to face. Maybe it wasn’t going to be easy at all and he was just putting it off for as long as possible. Maybe he hadn’t figured out what he was going to say in the first place.

When they arrived outside his building, he waved off any assistance in packing. Wasn’t like he was lifting anything heavy. He threw the first few shirts and pants he came across in his dresser into a bag along with various other necessities, then made his way back out front to the car.

They were soon on their way after that to the airport. Quentin had been planning to take the train seeing as it’d be cheaper, but he had a feeling his expenses were being covered.

The youngest Queen — or second-youngest, now — was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. Hard to believe around this time last year Thea Queen had been a girl spiraling into hard substance abuse, yet now she ran a business and was an aunt.

“They didn’t send you any pictures, did they?”

It took him a moment to realize it was him she was talking to. “Uh, no.”

She shrugged, not too upset by his answer. “Figures. Ollie says he wants us to see Olivia in person first.”

“Trust me, Thea, it will be worth it,” said Mrs. Queen. “There’s really no experience like it. I still remember when Oliver came to meet you like it was yesterday.”

Quentin thought he knew what she meant. Laurel hadn’t understood too well what had been happening, having been all of two, but she had been very excited to go see her mom in the hospital. He had placed her on his lap and then had taken Sara in his arms to show her how she was to hold her baby sister. Laurel had listened with a very serious expression as he’d explained that she was a big girl now and needed to be responsible and set a good example for the baby, that he and Dinah would need her help around the house more now that there was another infant to look after. She’d been a toddler without tantrums from that moment on, and Quentin had felt so proud back then.

Now he leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. He’d always put so much on her shoulders, hadn’t he?

“Quentin.”

He blinked his eyes open. Mrs. Queen was watching him carefully.

“I hope that’s alright. It occurs to me that we’re all something of a family now.” Her smile turned slightly chagrined. “I’ve had my share of harsh words to say this past year, but I wouldn’t want that to get in the way of things. Not for your daughter or our granddaughter.”

Well, jail time certainly hadn’t dimmed her regal way of doing things, had it? Quentin inclined his head. “Your son isn’t the person he used to be. I’m ready to let things stay in the past so long as he keeps doing things right.”

“And that is more than fair of you.” She leaned forward in her seat just slightly. “While it’s not exactly the way I would have preferred it to happen, I had always hoped Laurel would officially become part of the family. She’s far better for Oliver than I think she realizes.”

“She’s better for most people, yeah.” He watched the woman — Moira, he guessed, if they really were doing this whole family thing — smile at his words.

“We’re here!” Thea Queen was unbuckling her seatbelt before they’d even pulled up to the curb and had the door open quicker than Queen’s bodyguard could get to it.

He instead unloaded both women’s luggage from the trunk and passed Quentin his bag.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come along, Mr. Diggle?”

“Thank you, ma’am, but Oliver asked me to keep an eye on things while he was gone,” the man answered. “Somebody’s got to head up the welcome wagon when they bring her back, anyway.”

Moira nodded. “Well, make sure to take some time for yourself and your family for the holidays.”

“I will, ma’am. Thank you.”

He tried to get some sleep on the plane, but his mind didn’t seem to want to quiet down. It was like all he could do was count down the remaining minutes and miles separating him from Laurel and the baby. He still couldn’t think of what to say.

They got a taxi from the Central City airport to the hospital. Quentin didn’t think he’d ever get used to this sort of VIP treatment, family or no.

None of them had Laurel’s room number. He should have thought to ask when he’d had Queen — well, Oliver — on the phone. Moira enquired at the front desk, which was just as well since she didn’t look like her nerves were all shot to hell the way his were, and was soon leading them to an elevator and down the corridor of Central City General’s maternity ward.

In the final steps his mind seemed to draw a complete blank, and anything he might have prepared flew right out of his head. Quentin cleared the doorway and stopped, Thea Queen nearly colliding with his back.

“Oliver,” Moira was saying. Her son had looked up at their entrance and moved to greet her. In a chair by the vacant bed, Dinah smiled and gave a wave with the hand that wasn’t cradling a little bundle to her chest.

But Quentin only had eyes for the room’s remaining occupant. His daughter.

She turned slowly to face them, her eyes meeting his for the briefest moment before dropping to the floor.

He managed to force out past the lump in his throat. “Laurel.”

Quentin watched as she bit her lip, then raised her head once again. “Dad.”

He swayed forward a step the same time as she took one and then in a blink his daughter was in his arms.

“I’m sorry. Dad, I really — I’m so sorry,” Laurel was gasping in his ear. She was clutching onto his jacket as if she feared any moment he might push her away. The realization started a stinging sensation behind his eyes.

“Laurel- honey, listen to me.” As gratifying as it was to know that she’d considered what she might have put him through, he knew if he didn’t get these words out now, he never would. “I’m sorry.”

Her grip slackened and she pulled back to look at him. “What?”

“You didn’t feel like you could count on me, and I — well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know why.” He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. “There’s a lot of how I’ve treated you the last five years that I’ve been thinking about since you left, and I’m not proud of it.”

She was shaking her head. “Dad—”

“Just- just let me finish. Now, I’m not happy you did what you did, but if I’d been better to you maybe you wouldn’t have done it. And none of that changes the fact that I am just so, so relieved to know you’re safe and you’re coming home.”

She hugged him again and he held on tight, trying his damndest not to actually cry in front of all these people. Sure, they were all family now, but he wasn’t about to let them see that.

After a long moment, Laurel pulled back and wiped at her eyes. “Would you like to meet your granddaughter?”

He felt his breath hitch and could only nod. Laurel smiled and turned away to the others. The Queens were all stood in a huddle around Dinah, who had passed the little bundle to Oliver. He left the group and stepped forward without needing to be asked.

“Olivia, this is your grandfather,” he said to the baby in his arms. Quentin found himself leaning forward without even thinking about it, desperate to get a better look.

She was small, so much smaller than either of his girls had been. He was almost afraid to take her, she looked so fragile.

“And she’s healthy, right? Even without the two months?”

“Uh-huh,” Laurel answered. “Actually, the doctors said it’d be riskier to delay things once my water broke.”

Quentin found one of her tiny fists just poking out of the blanket she was wrapped in and laid his hand over it. “But look at her! Look what you did. Oh, she’s beautiful, honey.”

He didn’t realize he was swaying slightly until someone caught his arm. That someone turned out to be Oliver.

“Officer Lance?”

“Dad, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just a little unsteady on my feet still, I guess.”

Laurel and Oliver were on either side of him, leading him to sit in the vacated chair.

“Mom said you were in for a checkup,” Laurel said, an audible frown in her voice.

“Well, we couldn’t have you worrying while we were still waiting for news about Olivia’s health,” Dinah answered for herself.

“I’m taking things easy, and I��m on medication,” Quentin tried again to dismiss. “Got a little worked up is all. Hard not to, meeting my first grandchild and all.”

“I think she’s gonna end up with Ollie’s eyes,” Thea declared, seeming to sense the need for a distraction. “I mean I know most babies start with blue, but they’re just so pretty. And she’s definitely got your nose, Laurel.” She turned and embraced Quentin’s daughter, her eyes squeezing shut as she added, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, Thea,” Laurel murmured back. “I missed you guys so much.”

“It really is nice to have everyone here,” Dinah said as she watched them. Then her smile faltered. “Almost everyone.”

Quentin could only stare. Sara. Sara didn’t know. She was out there hiding from that awful League, never dreaming she was an aunt.

Those five years he’d thought Sara dead, Quentin had acted as though the world had stopped. Life couldn’t go on without one of his girls, could it? But here was the proof that it had gone on. And she was missing it!

He had to get her away from those people, for her sake as well as the rest of them. Olivia shouldn’t have to know the kind of grief they’d been feeling for a daughter who wasn’t dead. Dinah and Laurel had both suffered so much over it, and Quentin himself was only beginning to try and recover. Sara needed to be here at home, where she belonged, no matter what some cult of killers said.

No matter what, his family was going to be together again.

—-

There had been very few times in the last six years Moira had ever truly felt at peace. This was one of those times.

Things had quieted down for the most part. The Lances had gone to Dinah’s home in order to start packing their daughter’s things along with the scant baby supplies that had been bought. Laurel had gone for a walk around the hospital for a bit of exercise and to stretch her legs, which Oliver had offered to accompany her on. He’d claimed a need to check on another of the hospital’s patients before Laurel was able to do more than protest she didn’t need a babysitter.

Moira shook her head to herself. Whether or not her son’s excuse had been legitimate, she had a feeling he’d be sticking as close to Laurel as his schedule allowed from now on. Their daughter was only bound to heighten his protective instincts. He was too much like her that way, Moira was willing to admit.

Her baby boy had grown up long ago, but she wasn’t sure the truth of it had hit her until this exact moment.

Olivia had been left in her and Thea’s care for the moment, and Moira cradled the new baby in her arms the same way she’d done both her children, marveling at the innocence with which a baby saw the world. Well, Olivia wasn’t strictly seeing it at the moment, being fast asleep, but the innocence was there all the same.

There would be a lot of questions upon their return. She’d need to talk to Oliver and possibly Jean about how they wanted to handle the inevitable media storm. Their options on how to spin their story were somewhat limited.

Moira of course respected Oliver and Laurel’s decision at the moment to not be romantically involved. It was the mature thing to do for Olivia’s sake. She did also worry, particularly for Laurel, how the public might perceive the arrangement.

And she was well aware of what her son truly desired.

“I want to do things right this time,” he’d confessed to her while the others had all been occupied elsewhere. “No matter how long it takes. So I want you to know, mom, that someday — I don’t know when yet — I am going to ask you if I can have your engagement ring. And I hope you’ll say yes.”

“Well, sweetheart, nothing would make me happier than to see you with a family of your own. And I admire your commitment.” She’d pursed her lips and continued, “If you’d allow me a piece of advice — however qualified I am to give it — nothing is more important to a relationship than honesty. The more secrets you keep, the less able your partner is to rely on you or be relied upon, no matter how much they might want to. I know the lies are what cost me Walter.”

Oliver had nodded solemnly and said a quiet, “Thank you, mom.”

Only time would tell if he heeded her words. Moira wasn’t exactly doing so herself at the moment, either, but she’d resigned herself to her vices. It wasn’t too late for Oliver to break his. He’d already done so with Thea, and she knew the happiness he sought with Laurel would only come once he opened himself fully to her. Even if his fears were pushing him to do the opposite.

“I wish dad could’ve been here for this.”

Moira looked up sharply, but the meaning behind Thea’s words caught up to her just in time. She schooled her alarmed expression into one of calm and understanding.

“I know, sweetheart. I doubt Robert could have ever been prouder.”

Of course her mind was now, as it ever seemed to be, on Malcolm.

She had yet to hear from him since their last confrontation and could only hope he was far away evading the League he had abandoned. Perhaps it was too much to hope that he had gone so thoroughly to ground that news of Olivia would never reach him.

But the balance had shifted. Moira had now added far more to her family, far more vulnerable spots that could be exploited.

How might Malcolm use her granddaughter against her, this fragile newborn life? What if he tried to steal her away the way he felt she’d stolen Thea? What if he killed Oliver out there one night to deprive this baby of her father?

She could only hope this Ra’s al Ghul would be enough of a deterrent, at least until she could come up with another plan. Regardless, she would protect this child as she did all her children with whatever she had to her last breath.

Olivia slept on in her arms, blissfully innocent and unaware. Moira kissed the top of her head, vowing to shield her from Malcolm better than she had her father.

“Thea, do you mind holding her for a minute? I think I could do with some air.”

“Yeah, course mom.” Thea took Olivia eagerly, cooing at her and making faces. It was hard to remember that her daughter wasn’t just as innocent as the baby, though both were totally unknowing of the danger that hung over them all like a shadow. She almost couldn’t bear to watch, and she turned and left the little room.

The walls were closing in, and not for the first time Moira wondered if she hadn’t been better off in prison.

—-

He looked up as the door banged open, but didn’t even bother to reach for a weapon.

“That’s not the behavior I’d expect from Starling City’s mayoral candidate.”

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian Blood wheezed. He took a moment to collect his breath and straightened. “But Daily’s information is correct. Officer Lance left for Central yesterday to see his daughter. She’s just given birth.”

“Has she?” He thought for a moment. Not exactly the answer he’d been expecting, but if, if there was a chance—

“And it was just her father going to see her?”

“No.” Sebastian gave one form shake of his head. “He was seen leaving the hospital with the Queen family.”

He felt...something. Not happiness — no, he had not known happiness for some time, and doubtless he never would again. This was certainty. Certainty that he had just won.

“This is good news.” Surprising, perhaps, but undoubtedly good.

He’d had his theories as to Miss Lance’s disappearance and whether or not Oliver was aware of the reason. It seemed now that he had been, though he wondered as to the man he had once thought of as a friend’s reasoning in revealing her whereabouts along with the child’s, no less. He had seen the mirakuru in use in his own city and seemingly decided it was no serious threat.

That was his own folly.

“You really think we can use this to stop the Arrow?” Sebastian asked, drawing him back into the present.

“The Arrow cares for Miss Lance a great deal. Her child will be afforded the same care, there is no question.”

He watched as Sebastian’s lips curved into the slightest frown. “Should I prepare my men for an attack?”

He held up a hand. “No. Give the new family time with their child.” It was better that way. Let Oliver have just a taste of the happiness he had denied Slade, only for it all to be ripped away when he least expected it. Then and only then he might do his one-time brother the mercy of ending his suffering.

Sebastian seemed relieved. He’d formed a curious friendship with Oliver. It was nothing of concern as of yet, and Sebastian would follow his orders so long as Slade gave him his promised city.

“Leave me,” he said, and watched the man scurry from his sight.

Now alone, Slade Wilson allowed a smile to stretch across lips that had had no reason to smile for years. So Oliver thought he was safe? That he was allowed peace, love, a family of his own?

The arrogant fool.

#lauriver #laurel lance #oliver queen #laurel x oliver #quentin lance #moira queen #thea queen #slade wilson #john diggle #dinah lance #green arrow #black canary #arrow #my writing

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