The Blame Game

He could feel his second lieutenant's glare burning through his skin and burrowing into his brain. Riza Hawkeye glared at him a lot recently, but Roy usually didn't have to ask her why she was, because it was usually fairly obvious. Today's glare, though, baffled him a little, but pride kept his curiosity at bay. The whole week had passed and he'd been growing accustomed to her glares in regards to Edward Elric. He could tell she was disappointed with his recruitment of a child, but she was not without knowledge of his reasons for it.

There must have been a universal maternal instinct in every woman, because the glares didn't let up. They were blameless, but Roy received them anyway, for all their passion. That was probably why he never called the woman on it. The only other explanation for his silence probably had a gunshot attached to it, anyway.

Roy chanced a glance up from the sheets on his desk, skimmed through and signed on all the right dots, feeling the desire to tell Riza that, for once, he was actually doing his work and that she should really relax that trigger finger of hers, and saw something different in her eyes.

"Lieutenant?" He called out into the office. Havoc and the others looked up at him for a moment, but quickly returned to their work and what looked like card games when they realized it was Hawkeye's attention he wanted.

"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel?" There was that telltale clipped tone she used when she was angry. The feeling to drop the subject was tempting, but that different something he saw in her eyes was, for sure, blame.

"Have I done something wrong?"

"No, sir," the woman replied. He watched her for a few more moments before she realized something must have given her away and she looked away. If he hadn't known her for as long as he had, the motion could have been easily ignored, but he saw her finger give a nervous twitch.

Roy sighed. Really, women were something else. "Please, come in and shut the door, Lieutenant."

Unquestioningly, Hawkeye moved to the two doors and pushed them closed, locking out the workings of the outer office. She moved to stand before his desk at attention, the pose lasting for merely a second before Roy waved it off. Even at ease, the woman was straight backed and intimidating.

"What's bothering you, Lieutenant?"

The woman stood silent for a moment, lips firmly clamped shut as she fought with the desire to expel whatever vile thing he'd done back into his face, or to go against what could be considered and order and maintain her stance.

Finally, after a deep, cleansing breath, his second lieutenant look him directly in the eyes, as confident and strong as ever, and said, "Major Elric has almost finished with boot camp."

The headache that came upon him was so sudden that Roy couldn't quite keep back the annoyed groan. Of all the things, he was getting blamed for the punk kid's mandatory training? "Yes, I'm aware of that. What, exactly, seems to be the problem?"

When she spoke again, the waver in her voice unnerved him. "I don't like watching children handle guns, sir."

Of course, any sane soldier, let alone a sane woman like Hawkeye, would be outraged by twelve-year-old Edward Elric, freshly anointed Fullmetal Alchemist, handling a fire arm. The kid was a child and looked younger than he actually was, and who in their right mind would allow it?

Roy Mustang did.

"Lieutenant, you know very well that if I hadn't suggested the military to him, he'd be even worse off than if I—"

"That is not the issue, sir," the lieutenant's eyes lit up with blame again and Roy stared into them with confusion. There was that furrow of her eyebrows, that all-too-familiar glare resurfacing. Instead of appearing relatively harmless, if not angry, than from across the office, the close proximity made the glare all to similar to a lioness's gaze and he was trapped in it.

A thought finally came to Roy and something in his stomach hardened before going cold. "Second Lieutenant Hawkeye, where were you most of this morning?" Oh, he'd definitely stumbled onto something with the way her rustic eyes seemed to darken another shade towards red.

"I was at the shooting range, sir, helping to train the new recruits as per your recommendation to the generals," she answered briskly.

As per your recommendation.

Oh. Oh, damn.

Roy knew that while Hawkeye did not approve of Edward Elric's involvement with the military, she had resigned herself to it. He also knew that Hawkeye didn't like children using guns; she wasn't even a fan of adults with guns. They were weapons designed to kill and the flimsy illusion that they could defend was seen as nothing but a sham in the woman's eyes. And here he had nonchalantly signed her up for this shitshow without a thought...and then forgotten...

"I see," Roy said at length. The paperwork on his desk seemed particularly interesting at this point. "Thank you for your honesty, Lieutenant. You're dismissed. Please, shut the door again on your way out."

The woman saluted him before she turned on her heel and left to return to her own work, which would not doubt be finished before everyone else's even with this slight delay. As soon as the doors clicked shut into place, Roy released a sigh that was much heavier than he'd gotten used to.

He just hoped she'd forgive him for this screw up at some point. Maybe he could switch her out and put a second instructor in her place? It wouldn't erase the memory of a little boy with a rifle (and he knew, oh, how he knew about children with rifles, four feet tall and dark skinned and redredredred eyes), but it would surely be a consolation.

Right?

A/N: It's okay, Hawkeye, Ed doesn't like guns, either.