First Lieutenant James Schwartz. First Lieutenant James Schwartz. First Lieutenant Schwartz. James had been repeating the words to himself all of last night and this morning, from the moment he had woken up. They had started out as a mantra, but had quickly taken a sort of tune, so that he could hum his new rank to himself as he brushed his teeth, and shaved, and checked his reflection on six separate occasions, to make sure that the uniform was fitting just so. He had woken up an hour earlier than normal, because he knew himself and he knew that he would take longer to get ready this morning than he had for any that had come before it, and there was no way that he was going to be late.
Not today.
So it was that he left the dormitory with twenty minutes to spare, and headed off toward the library. The sun was just peeking out over the city and the air was still crisp with the drying dew. He whistled his new title as his shoes clacked down the sidewalk. He had polished them last night and now the sunlight was glowing in the edge of his toes and he felt like this weather was a good omen, but he didn't let himself get carried away. It wouldn't do to let his excitement ruin his professionalism. Remember, shoulders back, head up. You are a soldier.
A soldier who was now arriving at the library and strolling up the stairs, still fifteen minutes early. There was a conference room behind the shelves of ancient texts, known for its discretion and ability to hide the clandestine meeting of forbidden lovers. The last place anyone would want to bug. The last place the world would expect the military to have a covert meeting.
James tripped, stumbled, almost fell, and then regained his balance in a brief moment of complete gracelessness. The thing-no, person-he had tripped over did not laugh at him. In fact, it seemed that his tripping over their leg had not done the least to rouse them from sleep. It was a boy, probably around eleven, going by the height, and he was passed out on the floor with an open book as a pillow, peaceful as could be.
To be honest, James probably stared for a little bit longer than was necessary (because what on earth), but he soon realized that he was running out of time and should really be on his way. The conference room was still empty when he arrived, and James chose a seat perfectly in the middle, so that he would not look overeager and anxious, but more casual and relaxed when they announced to this group of people that he would be the one leading the operation. First Lieutenant James Schwartz.
There was a nervous rap on the frame of the door, and then a woman peeked her head inside the room. She took one look at James, nodded to herself, and then stepped all the way through and snapped out a quick salute. When he nodded in reply (First Lieutenant), she relaxed and then slumped into the seat across from him, seeming content to remain silent and fiddle with a pen that had been in her pocket.
Was she a part of the mission? It would only make sense. But why her? Whoever this woman was, she was entirely unassuming. Her hair was light brown and pulled back into a tight braid that failed at making her appear severe. She had glasses perched in front of her hazel eyes, but she seemed to constantly be fiddling with them, as if they didn't sit quite right. All in all, she was rather pretty. But why on earth was she here? She did not seem like the kind of woman who would be able to deal with the violence and trauma that James had learned could sometimes go along with a life in the military. What use could someone like this be?
The clock struck seven just as the door opened for the third time, and a man stepped inside. James felt his mouth go dry as he rushed to stand at attention. This was a man who ranked above everyone else in the room and knew it. James felt the way that he already respected and (slightly) feared this man and thought this is what I want to be someday.
"Colonel Roy Mustang." His voice was deep and controlled, it demanded complete silence and solemnity. This was the military, and there were important things to be dealt with.
There were three folders on the table and the colonel handed one to each of them. "First Lieutenant Schwartz." James felt the urge to glow or beam or something with pride, but he pushed it down, down, down. "And Sergeant Bauer." She gave a wide-eyed jerk of a nod, but the colonel didn't seem to mind.
"There have been rumors the past few months of terrorists from Creta moving into the West Area." Shit, he was already moving into the briefing and where had James put his pen. "We did not pay these much mind until last week, when three separate schools were blown up at the same time, all near West City. We need to investigate the situation, but we must maintain absolute secrecy. Therefore, we have chosen a small unit to go undercover and find the terrorists.
"First Lieutenant, you are in charge of this mission. While a subordinate may make a mistake, the blame will ultimately fall onto your shoulders. The success or failure of this mission is entirely up to you." The man's face had not changed throughout this entire speech, and this man was everything a soldier ought to be. James leapt to his feet and saluted again, sat back down and ah, there's my pen. As Colonel Mustang turned toward the Sergeant, he used the distraction to grab the pen out from under him, ignoring his now throbbing buttock.
"The two of you will be posing as a married couple. We have rented a house for you in the suburbs of West City. You are to stay there for two weeks, and in that time you will be gathering as much intel as possible. Do not try and confront the terrorists. That will be for a follow-up mission." James felt like his stomach was going to twist itself into knots with its indecisiveness. On one hand, this was his first mission and there was no way that he would ever let himself screw it up. On the other hand, operations like this were hardly his strong suit. He flipped open the folder in front of him and glanced at the first page: Sergeant Bauer's profile. So she worked in intelligence. Perhaps this wouldn't be so difficult after all…
"There is one final thing to address," James was leaning forward slightly, because this sounded important, but then there was a creaking as the door opened a fourth time and someone shuffled inside.
The boy from earlier.
"I though Hughes was supposed to be leading this meeting." The child's hair was in a contorted braid, probably stuck that way after he had slept on it, and his voice sounded sleepy and petulant.
"He's sick." The words were curt and business-like, and James's eyes were drawn back to the colonel. Something like amusement flickered in the boy's eyes and he sauntered over to the far chair and propped both feet up on the table. Now that he looked again, perhaps this boy was older than eleven. Thirteen? Why was the child allowed here in the first place?
"First Lieutenant, Sergeant, this is Edward Elric. He will be posing as your son throughout the operation." James allowed himself a double-take, first at the colonel, who was showing his first hint of emotion as a smirk he seemed helpless to fight appeared on his face, and then at the child, who was scowling, rather fearsomely, off into the corner of the room. He seemed to be mouthing something under his breath.
"Colonel, is the military suggesting that we are to take this boy into a potentially dangerous situation, simply to strengthen our cover?" Sergeant Bauer was finally gaining a voice, it seemed, and the first thing she did was question an order. But the colonel only seemed to become more amused by something while the boy, Edward, somehow managed to look even angrier and to mouth words even faster. James was sensing a correlation…
"Yes. That is exactly what the military is suggesting." A slight warning was now making itself known in his tone. "Now, your train leaves in an hour, so I suggest you all start making your way toward the station."
"Hey Colonel Bastard, what if you haven't packed yet?" James did not know that he was capable of standing up that quickly, but one second he was seated and then next he was already in front of the child, burning in righteous indignation while Edward just stared up at him unconcernedly.
"The Colonel is a great man, and you should respect the services that he provides for Amestris." One blink. Two. Then tears as the child burst into the kind of laughter that bounced off the walls and echoed back. A full-body kind of laughter that might have been amusing if it weren't so confusing because what was even happening right now.
"The services that he provides for Amestris." Edward gasped the words out. "It's funny because…" and apparently James would never get to know why that was so funny, because this disrespectful brat had given up on trying to speak for all the laughter. When a minute had passed, he finally seemed to be settling down, though there were occasional relapses. The colonel simply stood there, throughout the entire thing, unsurprised and smirking.
Finally, when an opening was available, Colonel Mustang drawled out the words "Well, Elric, if you have yet to pack, then I suggest you run." And the boy shot him a panicked glance and rocketed out of the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving a permeating silence behind him.
"He will meet you at the station." And then the colonel was gone too and it was just James and Sergeant Bauer, left in shock after the explosion that had been Edward Elric.
This was supposed to be his son?
"You don't understand! I cannot allow this train to leave the station without all of my men on board. You will wait!" James was breathing hard, and he knew that the vein in his forehead must be popping out by this point, but dammit this was not supposed to be going like this. He was First Lieutenant James Schwartz and the mission was supposed to be going flawlessly. Not. Not whatever this was.
"Your schedule doesn't run the trains, sir. We have a time table to keep to." The conductor seemed to be unfazed by the actions of the uniformed man, and he simply nodded to James and the sergeant and then let himself out of the compartment.
Elric was running late. After seeing his punctuality first hand less than an hour ago, James could hardly be surprised that he was sitting in his compartment of the train, next to a fidgeting Sergeant Bauer, as the train started to pull away from the station. The bench across from them was empty and there was already an uncontrollable twitch that seemed to be starting in the muscles behind his left eyebrow. As the station slid past the window and turned into cityscape, he realized that this was it. He had not even left for the mission and it was already falling apart around his head.
The compartment door slid open and a mass of gold, red, and black tumbled through the opening and onto the open bench.
"Hey." No greeting more than that. The boy simply sat there with a huge grin on his face, hair tousled and cheeks flushed. James wondered if it were possible for an eyebrow to simply jump off someone's face, because it seemed like his was about to.
"You're late." Keep it together. Keep it together.
Elric cocked his head to the side. "No I'm not. I'm on the train aren't I? Almost missed it, though." The grin got larger. "Had to run to catch it." He then took one glance around the compartment, patted the cushions around him lightly, and proceeded to lay on his side. Within a minute, he was breathing slowly, dead asleep.
"I'm going to kill him." It was only the first day-first few hours-of this mission, but James could already feel his control slipping. This boy was going to ruin everything that he had been working toward.
"The colonel wouldn't like that." Ah, and here was Sergeant Bauer, with her ill-timed comments.
"What do you mean?" Asked James, and Bauer smirked with some kind of secret knowledge.
"Well, because Edward is his son, of course." And that made even less sense than the idea that the boy might be James's son. It must have shown on his face, because she kept going. "Think about it! Ed was the only one who could make him show emotion. And I don't think that they hate each other as much as it looked. It was like they knew what to say to make the other one angry without crossing any lines. It was sweet."
Looking back now, it certainly changed things. Why else would a child be allowed to come along on a mission? It's not like just any parent would let the military borrow their kid to go undercover miles away from home. Bauer was showing herself to be useful after all…
"And he's only fifteen! I mean, what on earth was our government thinking? A child like that should not be allowed anywhere near the army." James wasn't quite sure how they had gotten onto the topic of the boy alchemist, but he had always held a sort of secret resentment for the boy who had already managed to surpass him in the army's pecking order while half his age.
"I always thought it was sad. I wonder why he felt he had to join the army while he was still so young. Imagine what that could do to you." Schwartz had tried to rope the nervous Sergeant into conversation, but it wasn't until he brought up the topic of the People's Alchemist that she stopped fidgeting and cutting him suspicious glanced. He was quickly discovering that the sergeant possessed a maternal streak a mile wide. After her words to defend Edward and the youngest state alchemist, it was no wonder she had reacted so strongly when Colonel Mustang had introduced them to his son. James got the feeling that Sergeant Bauer, with all her twitching nervous habits, would not hesitate to grab Edward away and flee if given the chance. He would have to watch for that.
"He must be pretty screwed in the head by this point. Have you ever met him?"
"No. I transferred a week ago. Before this I was out in the South." Maybe it was the new environment and people that made her so twitchy.
"I just transferred as well. Moved in two days ago, actually." So neither of them had had the chance to encounter the infamous alchemist.
"I heard that he bought out an entire town and gave it back to the people, once he heard that the person in charge wasn't moral enough. So, he can't be completely messed up." Her voice took on a dreamy quality when she talked about this boy.
"Why on earth would he do that?" James scoffed.
"Maybe because he knew the people would do a better job running it than some asshole of a politician." And James wasn't sure when Edward had woken up, he just knew that he was now lounging across the bench, eyes drooped half shut, but pupils following his every movement: a study in relaxed vigilance. He looked like a bored wolf, with eyes that gold. James's blood was boiling again.
"What would you know of it? You're probably just jealous of the kid."
Eye flicked wider, as if he had never even considered that option before. "Who'd be jealous of him?" Incredulity dripped from every word, and surely the Fullmetal Alchemist couldn't be that bad.
"So you've met him, then?" Bauer, ever curious about these two children.
Elric just cackled and flipped open the file.
"What's the bastard left for me this time?"
The house was missing a picket fence, and that almost seemed a crime, considering how well it fit every other stereotype of suburban life. Sergeant Bauer had sighed in happiness when she had first laid eyes upon it, and Elric had loosed another sardonic laugh, which seemed to be his reaction to most things that occurred in his life. Did the boy ever take anything seriously?
Once inside, Elric took one look around and then headed up the stairs, lugging his suitcase behind him. James would not have been surprised if he were just looking for another place to sleep. It seemed like the boy was incapable of doing anything else.
The sergeant was walking around the house, trailing her hand along the walls and smiling gently.
"So you seem to be enjoying yourself." She jerked as if she had been electrocuted, and it seemed like the only time James would ever see her behave calmly around him would be when a child was also in her presence, though whether that was because she loved kids or hated grown men was anyone's guess.
"I love this house. Though, I do wish this wall wasn't here. The room would feel so much more open…" Well, how could James resist with an invitation like that? He'd been looking for an opportunity to show off his talents anyway. Silently, he drew a piece of chalk from his pocket and began to sketch a circle onto the wall. It took a few tries to get it perfectly circular, but in the end he had a passable array in front of him, light against the pastel paint. When he turned around to make sure that Bauer was watching, he discovered that Elric had drifted into the room while he was working, and was now watching with a look that clearly said 'well then? Get on with it' and James thought that he really ought to.
Hands pressed into the middle of the circle and brain focused on what he wanted. Behind him, Bauer gave a little gasp and James held back a smirk (It is rather impressive).
The wall melted away and a ball of drywall sat where the center had once been. James dusted his hands off and tried not to look too pleased with himself. Bauer was clapping politely, but Elric was already wandering over to the kitchen, apparently bored with them.
"I've been learning alchemy in my free time, so if you need any help, just come to me." The boy was gone, so of course she jumped when he said it, but James was pretty sure that her jerky nod was a sincere one, and that was enough for now.
"We need to work on becoming more like a family. If we are going to appear in public together at all, this needs to be entirely convincing." He was sitting at the head of the dining room table. Bauer, as it turned out, was a terrible cook, and while he had been out walking around the neighborhood and familiarizing himself with his surroundings, she had almost burned down the new house. Apparently, Elric had stepped in and thrown together some pasta and chicken that was simple and inelegant but edible. Now, while Bauer ate slowly, focusing on the conversation, Elric seemed to be drowning everything else out with the sheer amount of food that he was consuming in one sitting.
So much for leftovers.
"We should probably move from last names to first names, especially since we are all supposed to have the same one. So, from now on we are James, Ana, and Edward Schwartz. Edward, you should call us mother and father, or some variation thereof." He was either nodding or choking on a chicken bone, and James would take either one, so he moved on.
"I have enrolled Edward at the school. Since their actual building has been blown up, they've been meeting in the community center. You will start attending tomorrow." That got his attention. From the moment the word 'school' had left James's mouth, Edward had abandoned his previous attempts to suffocate on food and had instead stared at Schwartz, his mouth hanging open slightly, showing his half-digested pasta.
"I have to go to school?" There was derision in his tone, as though he thought that school was something that was far beneath someone possessing his massive intellect.
"Did you think that these two weeks would just be a vacation for you? You may be on this mission, but you're still a kid, and you have to go to school. Besides, we are trying to remain undetected, and a normal family moving in would do this."
Edward shoved up from the table, muttering some combination of the words kill, Mustang, and two weeks under his breath. On his way out of the door, he paused seemed to deeply consider something that was causing him physical pain, and snarled back over his shoulder, "Fine. I'll go to the damn school. And if we're trying so hard to be a family, you should know that I go by Ed. At least get my name right." To his credit, he didn't actually slam the door behind him.
"Brat. Did he think that this would just be a fun trip for him? Some of us are trying to work." Besides, there was no way that school could be that bad.
School could, apparently, be that bad.
Ed hadn't been gone for more than an hour, but the next thing James knew, the phone was ringing and he was on his way to the community center, cursing the day that he was ever paired with this mess of a boy.
"What. Did. You. Do." The call had pulled him away from his work tracking down the terrorists, trying to predict their next movements, but did the boy care? He simply lounged in the chair in front of the principal's desk. They were in what was a supply closest temporarily converted into an office. Every effort had been made to make it look official, but it still smelt like things in storage.
"Hello there, father." Ed was drawling his words out of the corner of his mouth, something that James had known was bad news within five minutes of meeting the kid.
"If you could please sit down, Mister Schwartz." And James almost whipped around, with an 'it's First Lieutenant Schwartz, actually', as he had been practicing since his promotion, before he realized that it wasn't anymore. For right now, he was a normal person.
"What has Edward done?" This was a normal time for a parent to use his child's full first name, right?
"Mister Schwartz, while I understand that your family is new to this area, and therefore has not undergone the recent trauma that the rest of the students have, I do not think that it is unreasonable for the school to request that your son follow the same safety measures that the rest of us are following."
"That sounds perfectly logical to me. How has he failed to do this?"
"I am afraid that we have banned all shoes like the ones that he is currently wearing. The soles are too thick, and could be used to conceal any sort of explosive, you understand. I acknowledge that self-expression is an important part of being a teenager, but when it interferes with the overall safety of the school is when I must draw the line. Your Edward was asked to remove his shoes upon entering the classroom and refused, even after multiple requests, to the point of causing a disruption. He was then removed to my office and you were called." The focus of their conversation was currently staring off into a corner, kicking his feet rhythmically against the leg of his chair.
"Ed. Take off your shoes." There was no way that James had actually just had to take this much time out of his day to do this. Surely this was some kind of joke.
The boy was pissed, no doubt about that, but he just rolled his eyes and reached down to his right foot. Boot off, followed by the sock. Left foot. Boot off.
There was a pause and dammit this was not the time to have the boy spring something like this on him! How was he supposed to pretend to be Ed's father when he didn't even know that the kid had an automail foot? It was official, he was going to strangle Ed, as soon as they were out of the public eye. Some terrible accident. Happened on dangerous missions all the time. No one need ever be the wiser.
The principal shot a panicked look his way and James sent a quick prayer up that he managed to keep a calm mask over his shock.
"Want me to take the leg off too? I could be hiding all sorts of explosives inside." The boy got a kick out of catching people off guard. He might as well have been cackling as he watched the principal's face blanch. She was squeamish, it seemed.
"Maybe it would be better if we tried again tomorrow. I think I'll take him home now. Sorry about that." James grabbed Ed by the back of his coat and started to pull him out of his chair. "We are leaving. Now."
"Whatever."
"You're back early, Ed." Ana sat quietly at the living room table, surrounded by files on all the neighbors and calmly watching as James threw Ed through the doorway.
"Are there any other metal body parts that you may have forgotten to mention? Because I swear above and below, if you do not tell me right now, you will not like the results later." Was there smoke coming out of his ears? It certainly felt like it.
"What?" Poor Ana, getting dragged into this with no warning.
"This brat has an automail foot. I just got called into his principal's office, because he couldn't just follow the damn rules, and I had to sit there while he whipped out this metal foot and somehow pretend like I had known all along! How am I supposed to pretend to be your father when I don't even know that you're an amputee? These are the kind of mistakes that get us revealed and killed. So you better tell me now. Are there any other metal body parts?" The last part was more of a snarl than a question, but Edward understood it anyway.
"Now that you say it, yeah." And Edward whipped off the coat that we was always wearing, and then the gloves, vest, and shirt.
Somewhere in the next few seconds, the storm inside of James chilled into something different. The automail went all the way up his right arm and took over his shoulder. His left pant leg was rolled up to his knee and this boy was half metal.
James had a friend who had lost a few fingers in a freak weight training accident. He had replaced them with automail and had cried through the entire operation and first few weeks of rehab. Said it was worse than losing the fingers in the first place. Worse than any pain he had ever felt before times a thousand. He said that there were still days when it would rain and the ports would ache like maybe his body would reject the metal extension after all. That had been three fingers and this boy was half metal.
"Didn't that hurt?" Of course it had. Dumb question.
Ed met his gaze levelly, unflinching. "Like a bitch." And he started to button his shirt back up, as though nothing had really happened.
"What happened?" It was Ana, halfway standing and holding out a hand, as if to offer the boy comfort.
"I lost the leg when I made a mistake, and I lost the arm fixing it."
James must have lost control of his mouth, because the next question was out before he could stop it. "You knew you would lose the arm, and you did it anyway? What could be worth that?"
"It was worth it. I would do it again, every time. And if you don't have something that you would give an arm for than you're the real cripple here." There was something in Ed's eyes that hadn't been there before. Or maybe it had been, and James just hadn't been looking. Either way, it burned like guilt and redemption and purpose. These were not the eyes of a teenager. They were the eyes of a veteran. "Now if you're done, I'm going to go for a run."
He turned to walk out of the room, and his missing jacket revealed muscle that had previously been hidden away. The estimate of his age became even more unclear, because his height said eleven while his body said nineteen. His behavior said mid-teens while his eyes said old, old, old.
The boy should have been asleep. He had returned from the run two hours after he left, gasping for breath and soaked with sweat. He had gone upstairs, showered, and then taken out a book. For the rest of the day, he had sat in the same room as Ana and James, entirely absorbed by the book while they worked on the mission. Every now and again, he had dozed off, but then he would wake back up and go back to reading as if nothing had happened. At six he had gone into the kitchen, made a sandwich, and eaten it while reading.
James had fallen asleep at the couch after working late into the night. A sudden knowledge that he was not alone had woken him.
Ed was drifting through the living room, hovering over the table upon which all of James's work was spread. James watched through slitted eyes as the boy took a long look at the notes, and then picked up a pencil. There was a brooding anger making itself known in James's chest. The only thing that kept him from leaping up and murdering the boy where he stood was sheer exhaustion. He would do it tomorrow.
The boy walked outside and the homicidal voice inside James's head grew a little bit stronger. This was a dangerous mission. They could be surrounded by the terrorists at this very moment, terrorists who had already shown that they had no problem blowing up a school, and Ed was just going to walk outside like he was safe at home? What had Mustang been thinking, sending him?
Groaning, - because there was no way he was going to share a bed with Ana, but dammit the couch was killing his spine – James headed toward the back door.
There was no chance that Ed had packed a punching bag, because the thing was huge and heavy and James would have seen it, but what other explanation was there for its presence? Maybe he had purchased it earlier, when he went on his run.
Whatever. James would deal with it in the morning.
Ed was like a caged animal that afternoon. He had come back from school wound so tightly that James worried he would explode, but he simply grabbed a book off the coffee table and spent the entire rest of the night pacing at insane speeds, so quickly that his braid would flip over his shoulder every time he turned, and reading the book. The whole time, he was muttering about things that seemed to revolve around a person named Al, twelve more days, and Colonel Bastard.
James looked for the part of his notes that Ed had written on in the night, but it all looked like his handwriting.
He continued to work, all the time humming to himself. First Lieutenant Schwartz.
Apparently, even when the boy did sleep, it was hardly restful.
James was still sitting at the coffee table, pouring over his notes for anything useful, when the clock struck three am. Moments later, a yell carried through the house. Forgetting the notes that probably weren't important anyway, James leapt off the couch and flew up the stair to the room at the end of the hall, the master bedroom, which Ed had claimed as his own.
He was thrashing in the center of the queen sized bed, kicking and punching at invisible demons. As James watched, he performed a particularly difficult maneuver that ended in his lower half dangling off the side while he teetered on the edge. It was probably best that James intervened before it got any more dangerous.
He reached out to shake Ed's shoulder.
It had happened in less than a second, and later James would claim sleep deprivation as an excuse, but in the moment all James knew was that one second he had been reaching for the child and the next he was shoved up against the wall and the blue light of alchemy was bleaching the room and turning Ed's eyes from a bright gold into flat silver coins. One look into the eyes made it clear that this was no longer a child, but some kind of feral animal. There was a glinting silver blade pressed right along the lump of his Adam's apple. While he knew theoretically that Ed was actually rather short, it did not make him any less terrifying.
"Ed. Ed, it's me." His voice was rough from the pressure of Ed's forearm, but the words seemed to reach him anyway, and the nightmare seemed to slowly fade.
There was a crash from the floor below.
In an instant, Ed whipped around and sprinted down the stairs, leaving James stumbling, confused, and wondering what had just happened. Then, it registered that there was something downstairs and the only member of the house incapable of dealing with such a thing (though now James wasn't so sure that was the case) was the only one there to handle it. Cursing, he raced down the hall, banged on Ana's door as he passed by, and grabbed his gun off the side table of the guest bedroom.
There were three men in the living room, dressed all in black and so hulking that they must have been at least three times the size of Ed. Speaking of which, where was Ed? Had they already taken him? Enraged, James went to charge into the room, but a metal hand reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him back into the hallway.
"Stay here." Ed hissed the words in a whisper and made to dash off, but then Ana came flying down the stairs as well, and he had to pull her aside. By this time, James had had time to realize what he had just said.
"You aren't going anywhere. I'm not going to send you into that room alone, just so that you can get killed, no matter how annoying you are." Ed cocked his head to the side, as if the idea of someone going out of their way to protect him was some kind of foreign concept and shit Mustang must have really screwed his son over if this was how he responded to dangerous situations.
"Ed, honey, we're just trying to protect you. Go back upstairs. James and I can do this."
"Well then why aren't you handling it!? They've been here for a few minutes now and both of you have yet to do anything useful!" He was like a tightly coiled spring. James was worried that Ed would explode any second with the amount of tension and repressed energy he was containing in his small frame. He had taken up the now-familiar muttering mantra of two weeks, two weeks.
"We're not going into that room until you are upstairs. I will not put a child in danger." Ana again, trying to reach Ed in a way that James was quickly realizing would never work. She was using a coaxing, calming tone of voice that showed her maternal side, but it seemed to be making things worse rather than better.
It was time for a different approach. "Edward Elric. This is a military mission, and while you may be a minor, you are also accompanying me on my mission, and that puts you under my jurisdiction. Now, as your commanding officer, I am telling you to go back upstairs and wait for us to finish this."
There was a crash from the other room and James saw the tension snap in Ed's eyes. His mantra was summed up in a very eloquent screw it. "It's Major Edward Elric, actually, First Lieutenant, so you can just sit back down and do what I tell you to for right now. I am the only one who will be going into that room. You two can just wait our here, because someone competent has to do something fast and it isn't going to be either of you two."
He had it too, James realized. The calm, self-assured authority that had won James to his father so quickly was now burning out from the boy's form, and James found himself following the orders of the child as though every logical thought should have told him that this was the wrong thing to do. It was the wrong thing to do. Surely Ed wasn't telling the truth?
As if he could sense that his momentary trump card was losing its effect, Ed whipped around and sprinted into the room where the three men waited. James made a move to follow him, but his shock stopped him at the doorway.
Ed was leaping, flying through the air. His long hair was still down from his interrupted sleep, and it whipped out behind him. Before any of the men had time to process what was going on, Ed had managed to land a kick in the first one's face. He collapsed, clutching at a broken nose.
Ed clapped once and his metal hand grew into a wicked knife that James recognized from the thin cut on his neck. Clapped again and the floor rippled into shackles around the downed man's wrists. This was alchemy, James knew, there was no way that it could be anything else. Yet James remembered the days he had spent trying to memorized the difference between each array. The hours spent drawing circle after circle until he could passably manage a free-hand shape. The child in front of him simply clapped his hands and laughed, and there was something fae about him in the moonlight.
"Holy hell." It was Ana, and she was staring too. It was hard not to.
Ed had already taken down a second man, and was busy lashing him to the floor with the floorboards. The third man seemed to see this as an opportunity. Grabbing the notes, he was out the door and down the street faster than James could blink. Ed let loose a string of expletives to trail behind him as he tore out of the house.
By the time James and Ana had reached the door, it was already over. Ed had clapped his hands and slammed them down into the asphalt. Like magic, two giant hands had sprung up near Ed's opponent, and he stumbled as they grabbed at him. In a second, he was down on the ground and all but his face was wrapped up in a kind of concrete cocoon.
There was something very important tingling in the back of James' mind, but it was taking a moment to fit it all together. He had missed something, in the heat of the moment, but now his brain was catching up, and it was putting together a picture that the First Lieutenant didn't much like.
"Maybe because he knew the people would do a better job running it than some asshole of a politician."
"Who'd be jealous of him?"
"What's the Bastard left for me this time?"
"Want me to take the leg off too? I could be hiding all sorts of explosives inside."
"I lost the leg when I made a mistake, and I lost the arm fixing it."
"It's Major Edward Elric, actually."
Shit. Edward Elric was the Fullmetal Alchemist. The kid soldier that was known all throughout Amestris for his constant quest to use the powers given to him to do the right thing. The People's Alchemist. He had been bossing around the People's Alchemist for days.
"Nice to know you can at least follow orders."
The cocoon had been released, and all that remained was a set of concrete handcuffs as Ed dragged the man by his feet into the house. Once he was next to his two partners, there was a clap and the floor rose up to take one more prisoner. The stolen notes were thunked back down onto the coffee table, in a slightly wrinkled stack.
"Well, I'm exhausted. 'Night." And the Major made his way up the stairs, one foot a soft pat, the other a harsh clank.
"What." Please someone explain what was going on. Because all James could think about right now was the fact that he had spent the last few days pissing off the Fullmetal Alchemist, who just happened to outrank him, and who also happened to be the son of Colonel Roy Mustang. Second Lieutenant James Schwartz. He thought mournfully. Sergeant Major James Schwartz. Private James Schwartz.
Ana had returned to her twitchy, overly nervous self, and without a word she began to hurry up the stairs, as if she were running away from James.
"I am going to bed." He announced to the house. "I am going to go curl up in my bed and sleep for approximately twelve hours, and maybe things will make more sense when I wake back up." True to his word, James went to the kitchen, poured himself a few fingers of whiskey, and made his own way upstairs.
Nothing had made any more sense with the morning light. It hadn't helped that Ed had been in the kitchen when they came downstairs, wolfing down a heaping plate of fresh-made scrambled eggs. Ana was sitting at the table as well, and she jumped so hard that her knees hit the bottom of the table when James walked into the room. James realized that somewhere in the confusion of last night, Ana had lost her sense of comfort around Ed.
"Got us tickets back. Figured we could get all the intel we need from these guys. Train leaves in an hour, so I hope you're packed." They hadn't been, and proceeded to rush around the house for the next hour, providing little time to think about much of anything. On the train, Ed had fallen asleep almost immediately, hand hitching up the hem of his shirt so his stomach was on display. It was scarred and muscled in a way that a child's stomach should not have been.
Ana and James spent most of the ride simply staring at him silently, trying to make the thing that they were seeing now match up with the one they had seen last night.
James looked out the window and saw that they were coming up on Central. Knowing it was unavoidable, he gingerly reached out to wake Ed. Instead of flying at him, blade raised, the golden boy just blinked lazily, ran a hand over his hair, and sat back up on the bench.
"Well you both look terrified." James was terrified. Because outside the window, the station was approaching. He could already see the outline of Colonel Mustang, and it looked like he had brought back up. A huge man in a suit of armor stood next to him. The brakes kicked in and people began to file off the train before James couldn't take it any longer.
"Major Elric." Ed made a face like he had smelt something bad. "What, exactly, are you planning on telling your father?"
A sudden flare of anger and confusion. "My father?" He spat the name like it was a curse and now James was even more confused, but they were making their way to the door and James had to know.
"Colonel Mustang. What are you going to tell him about the mission?" Ed gazed at James blankly for a minute, and then, just as they stepped onto the platform, he bent double with laughter. For a moment, James flashed back to the first time he had met this old-man-in-a-boy's-body. At the time, he had been annoyed that the boy was not taking his responsibilities seriously, but now he was just shocked that he was still capable of laughing with such abandon.
"You…think…that bastard…is my father?" And he went back to his amusement. Something clicked in James' brain and he realized that, oh yeah, Ed had never actually said that the Colonel was his dad. He and Ana had just assumed. Still…
While Ed was busy laughing, James glanced around and quickly located the suit of armor, and the man next to it. The Colonel was scanning the crowd restlessly until his eyes landed on James standing awkwardly next to the boisterous Major. Something seemed to relax in his posture and a sudden flash of insight made James quite sure that the man had been worried about his subordinate. Ed may think that this was all a laughing matter, but the Colonel obviously had some kind of connection with him that went beyond the usual relationship of a commanding officer. James could see how Ana could mistake it for father-son.
"Brother!" The voice was high pitched and hollow sounding, and James glanced around to see where it had come from. Ed stood upright again and glanced around anxiously.
"Al?" And it was the huge armored man that was ploughing a path through the crowd. When he finally reached the two of them, James cowered back, but Ed just raised his metal arm and knocked it against the chest plate with a hollow clang. Colonel Mustang followed in the wake of the armor. There was a faint smile on his face that matched the fierce one on Ed's as he stared at the armor.
"How was he?" The Colonel asked the question like James had been the one made to suffer. A day ago, he would have agreed that this tone of voice was completely appropriate when referring to Edward Elric. Now, however, he was wondering why Roy Mustang wasn't grilling Edward on James' performance throughout the mission. Of course, now that James thought about it, he was never really meant to know that Edward outranked him. For some reason, the boy had been tagging along with the pretense of a civilian. Still, James had a feeling that Ed's impression of him would tell a lot about any future prospects.
"Oh sure! Talk about me like I'm not even here. I was fine, by the way. 'Cept for the fact that this asshole made me go to school. You owe me big for this, Colonel Bastard. I played nice and kept my mouth shut, even when he made me take off my shoes in public. You better leave Al and me alone for a month after pulling that shit."
Al, which was apparently the name of the oversized man in armor (how he and Ed could be related, James didn't know), heaved a tinny sigh and grabbed the back of his brother's coat. "Come on, Brother. We have to get back to the lab."
James expected the Colonel to be glaring at him, after such a terrible review, but instead he saw something like respect growing in the man's eyes. "You managed to convince an Elric to attend school?" Something about this seemed to amuse him greatly.
He'd thought he was doing the kid a favor when he decided not to mention the destruction left behind in the house, or the fact that Ed had pulled rank on him, but it looked like the boy had anticipated his actions, and had actually done James a favor in return. Somehow, obnoxious complaining on the part of one pissed-off Fullmetal Alchemist was a surefire way to gain merit in the eyes of the higher-ups. No doubt Ed had known.
It was like that principle of alchemy: equivalent exchange.