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Let it never be said that Roy Mustang wasn’t dedicated to his work. Paperwork, well, maybe not; but his less-than-official, off-hours work? His dedication was absolute. Here he was, after all, trailing a visiting Brigadier General through the streets of East City when he could be tucked away at home in front of the fire, a book in his lap and those ugly woolen socks Hughes had gotten him for the Winter Solstice celebration last year on his feet.
Madame Christmas always said he’d been knocked on the head a few too many times as a child. It was probably true.
Brigadier General Edison halted in front of Harmann’s, which was arguably the nicest restaurant in the whole city. Arguably, because it claimed to serve Drachman cuisine, but as someone who had, a long time ago, tasted real Drachman dishes courtesy of a guest of his Aunt Chris’, he could safely say it didn’t much resemble the real thing. That was probably for the best; the Drachmans liked their food much spicier than the people accustomed to the East’s rather bland selection.
Roy slowed casually to speak to a flower seller on the sidewalk, watching Edison from the corner of his eye. Soon, a woman arrived, bedecked in tasteful jewellery and smiling widely. She and Edison kissed, then she took him by the arm and led him inside.
It was a nice restaurant. The kind of restaurant where the servers would eye you strangely if you asked for a table for one.
“I’ll take a bouquet of tulips, please, ma’am – the pink ones, yes.” He reached for his wallet. “And could you point me to a phone?”
It’s not even a block away. His fingers enter her number by muscle memory; she answers on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Lieutenant? It’s Colonel Mustang.” They’re old hat at this now: the fact that he took the time to identify himself, as if she couldn’t recognize his voice before he even finished his first word, indicated that he was in public, and calling on business. Not military business, too -- although in a way it was.
“Oh – Colonel, hello. What can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat. “Just thought you should know that I may be in late tomorrow. I’m taking Elizabeth to Harmann’s tonight. Unless she stands me up, heh. She’s, uh, she’s a little late.”
On the line, Hawkeye hummed thoughtfully. “Harmann’s, sir? That’s a fancy place, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” he said, smirking a little.
There was a pause, and then: “Please tell me you’re not going to be paying for this out of our budget, sir.”
“I can make no promises, Lieutenant,” he said. He heard a sound from the other end that may have been a smothered laugh. If he’d seen her face, he could have been certain; when Hawkeye bit down a laugh, she never quite managed to hide the way the corners of her lips twitched almost imperceptibly, or the twinkle in her eyes. Well. She couldn’t hide it from him.
On the other end of the line, Hawkeye sighed heavily. “Very well, then. Have a good night, Colonel.”
“I will.”
“Don’t drink too much.”
“I won’t.”
“I mean it, sir, I don’t want to have to come out there and pick you up –“
“Good night, Lieutenant.”
This time, he did hear her laugh, quietly, before she hung up on him.
Fifteen minutes later, a cab pulled up in front of Harmann’s. He’d been loitering near the door, drinking a glass of champagne he’d had a waiter bring him, and thanking his lucky stars that his civilian clothes could pass easily as datewear: nice slacks, a vest, a button-up. He didn’t look particularly different than any of the men going into the restaurant with their dates, and he’d been tailing a potentially-corrupt military official.
“Daydreaming again, Roy?”
His head snapped up. She was standing on the curb, arms crossed and hip cocked in a way that was entirely Elizabeth. Amazing, he thought; how Riza Hawkeye could choose to become so completely invisible as to transform into someone else. This was entirely different to the way she melted into shadows and moved without a sound. This was alchemy in its own right.
Understand the mission. Deconstruct Riza. Reconstruct Elizabeth.
“Daydreaming about you, Elizabeth,” he said, dragging out the name, tasting it. Hawkeye giggled – the weirdest thing in the world, seriously, and all the weirder because he had seen her giggle before but she was a teenager then – and she came to him and tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. Her fingers tightened once around his bicep, reassuringly. At least he hoped it was meant to be reassuring; it could just as easily have meant ‘thanks a fucking lot for dragging me out on my night off, Colonel.’ He chose to imagine it was the former, anyway.
“And does the reality hold up?” she asked, coy, glancing at him through her lashes and then away as they walked through the doors.
He took in the midnight blue dress she’d chosen, short-but-respectable in the leg and slit up the thigh. The fabric was so dark that when she was still, the gap disappeared entirely. A few thin silver chains hung around her neck, complementing the earrings she’d chosen – frail, dangly things, unlike her usual pair. What really caught his eye, however, was the glossy sheen of her lips, and the subtle, mocking curve of them. To anyone else, she’d simply be smiling pleasantly, but Roy knew better.
“The reality exceeds, Elizabeth,” he said. He wasn’t lying.
A waiter appeared as if from thin air to escort them to a table. He tried to lead them towards the back, but Hawkeye delicately got his attention and, with a few words about ‘wanting to catch the last of the day’s sun,’ had him depositing them just a few tables away from Edison. The table was, as per Hawkeye’s request, beside a window, and Roy’s mouth went a little dry when she sat down in a sunbeam and her hair lit up like liquid gold.
“So, Roy,” she said, oblivious, and she rested her chin on her palm and smiled up at him. “Tell me about your day.”
“It was pretty boring, really,” he said. “Some bigwig is in town from the North. I was on my feet all day, running around, fetching files and grovelling for the higher ups. You don’t want to hear about it, I promise.”
She laughed, more Riza than Elizabeth. “Doesn’t sound so different from my job, actually. Except I can almost guarantee my boss is worse than yours.” He gaped at her, none of it feigned, and she laughed again. “Hush, Roy, I’m just kidding with you. You’re military, your boss must be absolutely awful.”
“The literal worst,” he agreed.
“And anyway,” she said, and she sipped her water casually, “my boss really isn’t that bad.”
She met his eyes, and the corners of her lips curved up over the rim of her glass.
Their waiter returned, bringing with him menus. Riza settled in to peruse her options, but Roy leaned back in his chair, let his eyes drift half-closed.
“Aren’t you going to eat something?” she said, her voice quiet and laced with subtle concern.
Roy shrugged. “You pick something for me,” he said. She nodded, and turned back to the menu. Roy let his eyes rest on her, taking in the gentle curl of her hair over her collarbones and the way her lips pursed as she considered their options. He watched her through half-lidded eyes, but his focus drifted to eavesdrop in on Edison’s conversation.
“Briggs has Drachma under control,” Edison was saying. “And Drachma has Briggs under control.”
Now what could he mean by that? Roy let his eyes close further, filtering out everything but Edison’s voice.
“Pride will be your downfall, darling,” his date said, laughing. Edison laughed too, the loud boom of it drowning her out.
“You’re such a worrier,” Edison said. “But there’s no need.”
Roy’s ears perked up.
“I do worry,” the woman said, her voice weighted with concern. “What good woman doesn’t, when her man is in the military?”
“I’m safe as houses. Don’t fret over me, you’ll get wrinkles.”
Roy rolled his eyes. If he ever said that to Riza, he’d be on his ass in under five seconds, no questions asked, and he’d deserve it, too.
“But darling, you’re here so infrequently. I can’t help but –“
Warm hands closed carefully over his own, startling Roy from his stupor. His eyes snapped open to find Riza throwing a warning look his way before turning to face their waiter, who was approaching from the left.
“Have we decided, then?” the waiter asked, leaning over the table to light the candle next to Roy and Riza’s joined hands with a match. The sun, Roy realized, had begun to set. The room had darkened significantly while he’d been spaced out, and only a final few rays drifted through the window to dance in patterns on the tabletop. The strong lines of their joined hands were lit in red.
Riza ordered for both of them. Roy kept expecting her to release his hands, but she never did; what’s more, she looked completely casual and at ease about it, while Roy’s heart was pounding in his ears. He felt all of sixteen years old again suddenly, awkward and wrong-footed and a good three inches shorter than his teacher’s daughter.
The waiter left and, for once, Roy found his mind completely blank. He was sitting in a restaurant across from Riza Hawkeye, at a table lit by romantic candlelight. She was holding his hands, her thumb absently drifting back and forth over his knuckles. There were violins playing somewhere, for god’s sake. He should have been attempting to listen in on Edison again, or passing information to her in code, or something, but all he could think was that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and that it was becoming a problem.
Her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around his.
“So,” she said, voice light, “have you been following that new radio drama on Central Radio?”
The message was clear: keep it together. This is fine. We’re fine. Keep your mind on the mission. Mine certainly is.
He grinned, then cleared his throat. “I tuned in for the first time last night, actually. I didn’t really pay close attention, though. How about you?”
Riza smiled before answering, and her grip on his hands loosened. Her thumb began brushing across his knuckles again, gently.
The evening continued on in this way, maintaining light, mindless conversation while keeping an ear on Edison’s conversation at all times. Edison quickly lost all sense of inhibition as the night progressed; he spoke recklessly, albeit quietly, about how paying out to the Drachmans was keeping down the body count, in a roundabout way, while his dinner partner ooh-ed and ahh-ed. He certainly made himself sound heroic, although Roy suspected the reality wasn’t quite so magnanimous.
“But -- in the drama -- do you know why the traitorous employee decided to start selling corporate secrets to the rival firm?” he said, quirking a significant brow at Riza over the meal their waiter had just served them.
She smiled. “Roy, you've got to listen more carefully. The writers at Central Radio are just fantastic -- if you space out for even a second, you’ll miss information crucial to the plot.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving it off with a lazy hand. “So you do know?”
She smiled and leaned in, crooking a finger to invite him in closer. “The employee,” she said, her voice low, “gave the rival firm company secrets so that their own production could increase and improve. Then, his company’s father corporation would have to put more money into them to keep up with their rivals.”
He started to grin. “So the father corporation put money into his company, and he, what, he siphoned some off for himself?”
“Clever man,” Riza said with an Elizabeth giggle, leaning back and away. Her eyes danced in the candlelight, every bit as engaged and triumphant as his own.
With this information procured, they both began to let their cover slip. A rookie’s mistake, but understandable; Edison’s conversation had turned to lighter things, and their full attention was no longer required. The atmosphere in the restaurant invited a quiet intimacy that came all too easily to them, anyway, and soon they were leaning across the table towards each other, discussing the latest news from Central over a shared dessert. It was only sheer luck and a gut instinct honed from experience, that made Roy look up when he did, and realize Edison was looking right at him.
Roy affected a startled look, and then nodded casually at Edison. Riza’s head was bent over the cake, her guard lowered for once, and she hadn’t yet noticed that they’d been spotted. At least, with the way they were seated, Edison couldn’t recognize her. She’d put herself in the seat between Roy and the target, and also with the best view of the door, in case any further trouble came in. All Edison could see of Roy’s “date” was the back of her dress and her hair, not her face. That would really be a problem.
Roy reached for his wine glass, and took a casual sip, thinking through his options. As he put it down, he let it bounce lightly against the table, twice. Immediately, Riza’s eyes flew up to meet him, although her posture and her body language – relaxed, slightly distracted – didn’t change at all.
“Have I mentioned how beautiful you look tonight?” he said, offering her a lascivious grin. “Every man in the restaurant has his eye on you.”
“Really?” She bit her lower lip thoughtfully. The expression was playful but her eyes, locked on to his, were alert. “Well. If that’s the case, I should make sure I look my best. I’m going to go freshen up my lipstick. Don’t you finish that cake without me, Roy Mustang!”
And with that she was off, her purse clutched in one hand, moving in a way that was decidedly un-military. Roy, sinking back into character, let himself watch the sway of her hips until she vanished from sight.
“Mustang! Fancy seeing you here!” Edison’s voice boomed from only a few paces away, and Roy faked a jump, slamming his knee audibly into the table. Edison laughed. “Easy, son, don’t hurt yourself.”
“Thanks,” Roy said. He slouched into his chair, letting his legs fall open and his bearing become casual-verging-on-insubordinate. “I thought you’d gone back to Briggs already.”
“Not until tomorrow,” Edison said. He had one arm around his girlfriend, who he squeezed congenially. The woman let out a high-pitched giggle. They were both, Roy realized, more than a little drunk. “I wanted to get in as much time as possible with this one.”
Roy smiled dumbly, nodding.
“Say,” Edison said, and he frowned. “Have you heard about that fella running around Central? The one who’s killing State Alchemists?”
“My date and I were just discussing it,” Roy said, and he forced a smirk. “She’s a worrier. Women, right?”
Edison laughed again. “Tell me about it!” He grinned widely, inviting Roy to share in his mirth. “Ah well. Just part and parcel of being a military hero, huh?”
“Ours is a hard life,” Roy said, and he winked. Edison threw back his head, laughing.
“You know, Mustang,” he said, “I’ve heard some things about you over the last few years that weren’t exactly complimentary, but -- you’re not bad, son. You’re okay.”
“Glad to hear it,” Roy said. He leaned in, gripped by a sudden idea. “Elizabeth’s fretting aside, I am – well – I do have a stake in these recent events, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Edison snorted.
Roy sent up a quick prayer to any god or gods that might exist and might still be willing to deal with him. “Any chance you could put in a good word for me in Central? I’d like to play a part in this case.” Edison shot him a look, a harder look than he ought to be capable of given the way he’d been swaying on his feet and chortling not thirty seconds ago. Roy gave him a disarming smile and lied through his teeth. “Gotta protect my ass, right? And I don’t trust others to do that for me.”
“You’re a smart man, Mustang.” Edison hiccupped, then said, “I’ll be passing through Central on my way to Briggs. It might be possible for me to stop in, have a word with a few old friends.”
Triumph gripped Roy in a heady rush, but he kept his grin easy and relaxed. “Thanks, General. I owe you one.”
Edison waved him off with a loose hand. His date leaned up to whisper in his ear, and Edison guffawed. “Alright, alright,” he said. He turned back to Roy. “We’re off. You have a nice night, Mustang.”
“You too,” Roy said. “Safe travels.”
Edison nodded distantly, and then they were gone. Not half a minute later Riza slipped back into her seat across from him. “Make a new friend?” she asked.
“Coworker,” he said, as if she didn’t know it already. “He seemed friendly enough though.”
“Really,” she said. She quirked an eyebrow, and he grinned, letting some of the triumph he was feeling leak through. She smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Mmm.” He lifted his wine glass, and after a moment she raised her own and touched it to his. “It’s good to have friends in high places, Elizabeth. There’s nothing better for job security than reliable friends -- and reliable information.”
“To job security, then,” she said, and she smiled. Roy heard the unspoken part -- to job security, and to moving forward and upward, and to removing the corrupt from power. Starting, soon, with Edison.
She held his gaze as she brought her glass to her mouth and sipped, her eyes glinting in the candlelight, and Roy found himself suddenly flustered. He sipped his own drink carefully. With Edison gone, this was no longer a mission, which put them into dangerous territory. Not uncharted territory, per se -- it wasn’t like they were, either of them, unaware of what was between them. That awareness, though, was somehow more heady in the moment than uncertainty would have been. Roy’s heart drummed fast in his chest. Riza took another drink, and a drop of wine beaded at the crease of her lips for a moment before her tongue darted out to catch it; he watched her do it, and he felt her track his gaze.
Dangerous territory, indeed.
He averted his attention to the last few bites of cake left on the plate between them. He manoeuvred some onto his fork, but when he delivered it to his lips he barely tasted it, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts.
They’d never pushed the unspoken boundaries between them before, not really. Any and all breaks in military rule regarding fraternization were done for the sake of their own, personal mission – late night meetings at his house were held solely to discuss their plans, and once the planning was adjourned for the night, she vanished without a trace. They’d only pulled this particular gambit a few times before, and every time they’d been able to leave before their target. They’d kept safely within the lines they’d set for themselves when she first swore to follow him.
Edison was gone, and the mission was over. But Roy was still sitting across from Riza, with candlelight and violins and cake and a million other things shouting “this is a date” in his face. Was this acceptable? Were they okay? Roy put down his fork and looked to Riza, who was still watching him, but her face was inscrutable.
Roy tapped his fingers against the table nervously, then cleared his throat. “Riza,” he began, but her eyes widened then narrowed into a glare. He realized his slip-up immediately -- damn. He swallowed. “Elizabeth,” he corrected himself, but she was already folding her napkin primly and reaching for her purse.
“It’s getting late, Roy,” she said, in the higher, airy tones of Elizabeth. “That Lieutenant of yours will be mad if you arrive at work tomorrow and you’re not well-rested and alert, right? We should probably call it a night.”
Cursing himself for a fool, Roy smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Right as always, Elizabeth. Let me pay the bill and then we’ll hail you a cab.”
She nodded shortly, and he waved down their waiter.
Once the bill was dealt with, Riza got to her feet, and Roy followed. She hesitated for a moment, then reached out and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. Roy smiled, relieved; she couldn’t be that annoyed with him for nearly blowing their cover after all. He let her lead him through the tables and out the door. The air had become brisk while they ate; once outside, a cool wind ruffled Roy’s hair, undoubtedly making it look even more ridiculous than usual. He sighed despairingly, and Riza shot him an amused look and a smirk.
She left him for a minute to go call a cab at the payphone. Roy waited near the restaurant doors for her, keeping a cautious eye peeled for any sign of trouble. Just because Edison had seemed clueless didn’t mean he necessarily was. It was always better to be paranoid than invigilant.
Riza returned at a brisk pace. Her cheeks were pink with the cold, Roy noticed; in his long-sleeve shirt, jacket, and pants, he honestly didn’t feel it much. “How long will it be?” he said.
“Not long.” She quickly glanced around them, her gaze landing on the night strollers and casual passerby. Her jaw tightened with irritation, then she folded her arms across her chest and tilted her chin up, staring at the moon. “What a beautiful night it’s turned out to be.”
“How sad I had to spend it in such bad company,” Roy said, bumping her shoulder lightly with his own. It would have been nice to have had a moment alone, to drop the charade. But that was rarely in the cards for them, whether it was the facade of mild hostility and irritability they held at work or this lighter, flirtier one.
Riza smiled at him, understanding the gesture for what it was, then laughed. “Mine, or the Brigadier General’s?”
“Oh, yours, obviously.”
She chuckled again. A wind whipped by then and she shivered. “Damn,” she said, frowning slightly. “I didn’t even think to bring a sweater.”
“It’s unlike you to be forgetful, Elizabeth.”
“Well, right as I was leaving, I got a call from some idiot I know. I was distracted.”
He nods with a sheepish grin, acknowledging the hit. This was all a little last-minute. “Here,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket. “Let this idiot make it up to you on that other one’s behalf.”
“Roy,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He held the jacket out towards her. “Please? It’s not like I need it. I’m dying in all these layers, honestly.”
She gave him a skeptical look, but nodded and allowed him to step in and drape his jacket over her shoulders. As he was about to step away again, though, her hand slipped back to twine her fingers with his, keeping him close. She sighed, then leaned back subtly. Roy swallowed as the curve of her back pressed into his chest.
Quietly, almost inaudibly, she said, “You just had to put your foot in your mouth, didn’t you? We were having such a nice time.”
“Sorry,” he said, grimacing. He kept his voice equally low. “We can’t all be naturals at this undercover stuff like you, Hawkeye.”
She chuckled, letting her head tilt back slowly until her hair was brushing his cheek. “You’re not that bad, Colonel.”
“Thanks.”
Bright lights appeared in the distance as her cab turned around the corner and approached. Riza sighed and stepped away from him. Her fingers disentangled from his; she shrugged his jacket off from around her shoulders.
For just a moment, Roy entertained thoughts of the impossible. He imagined her reaching out to him, pulling him into the cab, taking him home. Riza pressing him into her doorframe and kissing him, tugging him into her apartment by the collar of his shirt, following him down into her bedsheets. Her lips on his. It would be so easy. He was Roy, and she was Elizabeth, and the cab driver -- their only witness -- wouldn’t know any different.
Riza turned and handed him back his jacket with a crooked smile. He wondered if she was thinking the very same thing as him.
“Thanks for a lovely evening, Roy,” however, was all she said, and she leaned up, with a hand on his shoulder, to press a very careful kiss to his cheek. Then, before he could say another word, she was ducking into the cab, and then she was gone. The taillights blinked once as the cab peeled off and around the corner, almost like a goodbye, leaving him alone on the curb.
Roy shivered suddenly. It felt a good deal colder without her warmth so near to him. He sighed, and tugged the jacket over his shoulders, not bothering to thread his arms into the sleeves. He could smell faint traces of her perfume. A light wind blew by him, and it chilled the spot where she’d kissed him; his skin felt slightly sticky there, and he suddenly realized that her lipstick must have left a mark.
He had a long walk home, and it would probably be best used considering how best to act on the information they’d gathered tonight. He had a sinking feeling, however, that most of it would be spent thinking about her.
Roy rolled his eyes at his own foolishness, and began to walk.