Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. If I did the characters would do squicky things and it would be canon.
Chapter 1: An Awkward Morning
Riza Hawkeye shifted in her bed, ignoring the unfamiliar press of a body against hers. The body next to hers mimicked her movements, and eventually settled back with an arm looped around her waist. She smirked and looked at the alarm clock besides her bed. She was mentally programmed to wake up so early, and as made evident by a series of mornings, he wasn't.
5…4….3….2…1…
The alarm rang shrilly, and the body groaned loudly. "Ah, geez, turn the damn thing off, Riza!"
"Stop complaining, do you want to be late for work again?" She pushed him off her, and made a grab for the bathrobe at the end of the bed. He glared at her under a mass of bedsheets, several locks of blonde hair sticking out from under the sheets, as well as a pair of sparking cerulean eyes.
He watched her walk towards the bathroom, wrapped in the thin terry robe. At the doorway, she turned and leaned against the frame seductively, invitingly…and slammed it when he made to get out of the bed and join her.
Bitch.
Jean Havoc twisted in the bed, sheets tangled around his body. Her apartment wasn't much more inviting then the military dorms, and just as sterile. The only homelike touches were the heavy wooden furniture and several feminine items on top of the dressing-table; cosmetics, a jewelry box, and a small dish of hairpins.
He laid back in bed. At least her sheets were incredibly soft and relaxing. The woman had to have some luxuries, after all.
Black Hayate growled at the man in the bed and tugged at the sheets with his teeth. For some reason, he hadn't taken a liking to the 2nd lieutenant. Havoc groaned in annoyance. It was probably the comment about stir-fried puppy when Fuery had first found the animal.
Untangling himself from her bed, Havoc stumbled to the bottom drawer of Riza's wardrobe. He kept some extra clothes there, for their weekday rendezvous. Tugging on a pair of shorts, he glanced over his shoulder at the closed bedroom door and inched towards the window. Salvation, and a cigarette, were just mere feet away…
"Dammit, Jean!" Riza stalked across the room, slamming the window shut. "I told you countless times, no smoking in my apartment! Plus, what if someone saw you hanging half-naked out my window? My…my…" Riza searched for an appropriate word. "My relationship with you cannot be public knowledge! We could be publicly ridiculed, court-martialed, or worse! And as the Colonel's subordinates, do you know how badly this could reflect on him?"
Havoc turned to view Riza, drawn up to her full height, swaddled in a bathrobe, and trembling at the indignity of the current situation. He considered his options. He could fight her on it and sleep alone until she got over her hissy fit, or he could roll with it and apologize.
He chose the latter. Why ruin this beautiful morning, and have a shitty workday?
Havoc smirked, tucking his cigarette behind his ear and saluting to her. "Yes'm. No smoking in the apartment and no climbing naked out the windows."
Riza eyed him critically. "Good." Black Hayate crept up behind her and stood growling at the man before him. She smiled at her pup and gave him a pet before turning back to her wardrobe. "Get dressed, Havoc. You might be a lazy bastard but not on my watch. We have work today."
Hayate gave Havoc one last growl before dutifully following his master. Havoc glared at the back of the retreating puppy and suddenly he was really in the mood for some stir fry.
Riza glared as Havoc waltzed into the office an hour late, bearing a carton of cigarettes and a huge cup of black coffee.
"You're late, Second Lieutenant Havoc."
Havoc offered her as much as of an apologetic look as he could muster, which wasn't very convincing. After a night spent in her apartment, lacking nicotine, he could have stood outside, drinking coffee and smoking a whole pack.
Riza sighed. She hated dealing with Havoc at work the next day. He was usually an ass, and their discreet, need based relationship gave him the right to be her companion rather then her subordinate.
"There's a stack of files on your desk, take them down to the Records room and file them."
"Ah, c'mon Lieutenant—"
"And this time actually file them," she added. "Don't just throw them in a drawer and leave them for Private Sciezka to organize later!"
Havoc tried to match her glare and faltered. No way he could match those eyes. Taking the last swig of liquid from the dregs of his coffee cup, he gathered the armfuls of papers and stalked out.
Riza stretched in her seat as Hayate settled in at her feet under the desk. Back to business as usual.
Taking a sip from her own coffee, she considered Havoc. There was no outright love, more of a mutual respect. She cared for him, she supposed, as a friend, but not a significant other. She sighed and opened the flap of her satchel, pulling out a couple of folders and flipping open the first one.
"First Lieutenant!" Roy lazily hung out the door to his private office, beckoning her.
Riza groaned. What now? Did he forget how to spell his name or zip his pants? She supported her commander, no doubt, but sometimes he required help with the most trival things. Usually, she suspected, he called with pointless tasks just to annoy her.
She pushed back her chair and stood, arching her back and making a slightly frightening cracking sound. Black Hayate looked at her in concern, and watched her retreat towards the inner office.
Roy Mustang sat his desk, unread papers scattered over it, as well as pens, pencils, wrappers, and what suspiciously looked like the makings of a rather large rubber band ball. She offered her a smile, as she stood at attention and offered a salute.
"Lieutenant Hawkeye," Roy began. "I have a task for you this evening. I'm meeting Elizabeth for a date and I'll need a driver."
Riza started to tell him to call a cab, and then his eyes met hers, filled with unspoken meaning. Elizabeth.
"You do remember Elizabeth? Hot as hell, but she can be a real bitch." He watched for her, reaction, slightly amused.
"I remember Elizabeth," Riza said, forming her words carefully. There was something he wasn't telling her.
"Good. Tell Havoc to take the car and pick up Elizabeth and I at Wayland Square, she's going to meet me after work around seven tonight." Roy sat back in his chair, and he could practically see the tickings of her brain as she committed the details of the mission to memory: 7PM, Wayland Square, Havoc driving. "You know," he added as an afterthought, "I really hope she wears a miniskirt."
Riza resisted the urge to pull out her handgun and shoot him. Roy watched her fingers twitch, amused, before he turned back to the issue at hand. "Oh, and Lieutenant, I only have these files for you," he gestured to a short stack on his desk. "You can leave whenever you finish."
"Yes, sir." With a nod, she gathered her papers and turned to retreat. As she bent over his desk, Roy looked at her suspiciously. As she turned to walk out, he had to ask.
"First Lieutenant, what the hell is on your –" He was cut off by the door slamming.
Dammit. Well, he'd ask her tonight.
Colonel Roy Mustang had a mission for his team. An anonymous report on his desk informed him of an ongoing investigation in Central that he had neither approved nor been told. Military supplies had gone missing; weaponry, ammo, and sweep of missing silver State watches, stolen from state Alchemists all over East and Central. Someone, or a group, was hoarding a whole lot of artillery and a whole lot of alchemical power.
That's what didn't fit, to Roy. If they were taking the amplifying pocketwatches, they had to have an alchemist. A freelance alchemist, bitter from failing to become State? A group from within the military already, planning a mutiny?
Roy suspected the latter, especially considering the anonymous report on his desk had to have been delivered internally.
Well, tonight seemed to be as good a night as ever, especially if he got to see Hawkeye in civilian clothes.
"Maybe she'll take that advice and wear that miniskirt," he mused. Snickering to himself, he settled back in his chair and closed his eyes, preparing to do what he did best at work: sleep. "That'll be the day…"
Riza dropped the stack of files Roy gave her on her desk. The first few were pretty standard, and then she found something interesting.
Reading the first couple of pages, she scribbled some notes in the margins, and then paused. Something about the report seemed wrong. But she couldn't place it. She didn't remember that investigation, at all. Or even if their department had been involved with it.
"Er, Lieutenant?" Kaine Fuery looked down at her from the edge of her desk, both nervous and concerned at the concentrated look on her face. Riza snapped her head up to look at him, and he jumped back. "I just wanted to know…the papers you finished…can I take them down to Records? For Havoc to file?"
"What?" She looked down at the nearly-finished stack on her desk. "No, I'll take them myself after I finish these last few."
"Yes'm."
Riza turned her attention back to the papers at hand. She'd never heard of any missing military artillery. Flipping through the last couple pages, she found a note, scrawled in Roy's careless script:
"Lt. H –
There was never any investigation on missing artillery. Get Pvt. S to give you all military acquisition forms, as well as any forms submitted by commanding officers authorizing supply transfers.
Tell no one of this. Seems to be an internal job. Bring all data tonight."
Riza tried to wrap her head around this. And more importantly, what was Roy planning? She'd have to wait and see. Meanwhile, she might as well go inform Jean of their change of plans for the evening.
"Roy has another date?" Havoc groaned, cursing the luck of his superior.
"He's going on a date with Elizabeth. Remember, the shopkeep?" Riza tried to explain, exasperated.
"Eliza—" Havoc stopped short, realization dawning in his eyes. "Dammit!" He slammed his head against the filing cabinet as Riza watched, bemused. "He always gets my dates away from me!"
Riza patted his arm comfortingly. Anyone who'd overheard Havoc's outburst would be suspicious of nothing. She couldn't have asked for a better cover.
She perched on Sciezka's desk in the Records room, deep in thought. She hated the filling in the random roles Roy assigned her. The thick-framed glasses gave her a headache, and trying to hide her long blonde hair was a hassle. And a date? With Elizabeth? What the hell was Roy thinking?
Havoc regarded her critically, and dropped his tone to a more comforting level. "Hey…Riza?" He laid a hand on her arm, chewing on his cigarette butt. "Are you all right?" Secretly he hoped she was going to tell Roy to go fuck himself, she didn't want to play Elizabeth…but if Roy had a mission in mind, damned if Riza would say no.
Riza started and jerked her arm away, glaring daggers at the man. "I'm fine," she hissed, rising from the desk. "Damn it, where is Sciezka? Private Sciezka!"
The younger woman poked her head out of the storage room door. "Lieutenant Hawkeye! I'm so sorry, I was in the back pulling out some new files…" Riza offered the woman a smile as Sciezka rummaged through the files on her desk. "Is there anything you need?"
"Yes. I need all military supply acquisition forms for the last fiscal year."
Sciezka smiled at her, confused. "Whatever would you need those for? Usually the only people to ask for those are from the Financial Department."
Riza blinked. It was an honest question, but at the moment she resented the other woman's nosiness. Instantly a lie bloomed in her head. "The heads have been after Roy to make our department more cost-efficient. Between property damage and everything else, we're the most expensive division in the military!"
Sciezka laughed and turned away, flipping open a cabinet and thumbing through the files. "Hm…I think this is it." She withdrew a file heavier then a brick and twice as thick. Riza groaned. "You wanted all the files for the last year, haven't you?" Sciezka asked, fearing she misunderstood the task. "These are all of them…"
"Thank you, Private." Riza took the pile, amazed at the weight. "I'm sure Roy will be thrilled to read all this."
Havoc slammed the last drawer in the cabinet with an air of finality. "I'm going back to the office. I'm through playing secretary, I got my own paperwork to do."
Riza eyed him, annoyed. "Fine, go. Roy dismissed me early, I'm going home."
Havoc watched her turn on her heel, and stalk out of the room. God damned Colonel, being able to order Riza on a real date.
He chewed on his cigarette butt. Tonight was going to be interesting.