-.-.-.-.-. notes -.-.-.-.-.-.-
I do not own FMA, nor do I wish to.
This chapter is rated M.
italics are inside thoughts.
-.-.-.-.-. story -.-.-.-.-.-.-
Ed and Riza had been coming back from a show and not quite paying attention to where they were walking. Each of them laughing and joking as they recapped scenes to each other. Ed had insisted they go out after he'd come back from a backbreaking contract that morning.
If it had happened slowly they probably would have noticed, as it was, they turned one corner and suddenly there were 20 men surrounding them.
Riza had her gun instantly, she always did and the duo moved back to back ready to counter.
"Hey girly," the leader addressed Riza. "We're looking for some fun tonight. Ditch the baby boy and come play with us."
She suppressed a shudder choosing instead to raise the gun higher and put him in her sights. "No."
"Aww, come on, it'll be fun. I promise. We have a whole night of events lined up."
She tuned him out as Fullmetal started whispering to her. "Look, they don't know who or what I am. Activate your tracer and drop it in my pocket, then I'll distract them while you run for it. I can handle these idiots."
"My tracer- Where's yours?" she paused, "Nevermind." Of course Ed had probably tossed it as soon as he was out of Mustang's sight. Fuery had whipped them up for emergencies, the team each voluntarily took one and if they ever needed help they could activate them and hopefully be traced from head office. Ed's had not been voluntary, Mustang had insisted that because he was under age his participation was mandatory.
The sharpshooter grumbled at him as she retrieved hers from her jacket, "Ok, I've armed it and it's in your coat pocket. But i'm not just leaving you."
Ed huffed, "Riza, I'm The Fullmetal Alchemist. I'm better at hand to hand combat than you AND I'm stronger than you. I've held back an army before." Not to mention that the team would kill Ed if anything happened to their marksman. "As soon as you empty your clip, run. That's a command from a superior officer." He thought he did a good job of keeping the nerves out of his voice; he was pretty sure he knew who these guys were and he had to get Riza out of here asap.
She glared back at him, Riza had never heard Ed pull rank on her and knew he was hiding something.
"HEY! Stop whispering over there!" The leader was getting irate. "Guys, get the girl, trash the boy."
Instantly they were mobbed. Riza didn't miss a shot and even with a full clip she was quickly out of bullets. She checked on Fullmetal and saw he was transmuting the shit out of the pavement; fists of rock were knocking guys all over the place. Something was wrong though, Fullmetal was more tired than he should have been. Did she miss something?
"Riza RUN!" Ed staggered a bit then clapped his hands and slammed them to the ground creating a covered tunnel two blocks long heading straight to headquarters. He pushed her in and sealed the entrance. As soon as the the tunnel was closed pain ripped through his body again and he screamed.
The effect was immediate. Electricity shot from his metal limbs through his body and back again. He dropped to the ground and curled in on himself. "Who the fuck brought a taser?"
"I did. And he did. And that guy over there. Actually," the leader walked up, "most of us have one. So useful! You should get one... Fullmetal."
"Fuck." Ed groaned again still on the ground. He couldn't even stand.
"Yes, yes. After that athletic display I now know who you are and you're a much better prize than your girlfriend. She just ran off and left you. How disappointing." He paused, "Well, no matter. You can play with us instead. It'll be fun to bring you down a few pegs." The leader looked away, "Rick, get the cutters, if we remove his metal hand then he's pretty much useless."
Ed groaned again trying to get up but a taser was jammed into his leg once more and everything went black.
Riza ran. She'd heard the zap of electricity. She'd heard Ed screaming in pain. He was down for sure and she couldn't do anything except run. She'd get backup and spare clips and she'd return before anything could happen. She was furious with herself for not recognising the attackers before Ed had forced her out. Focusing instead on a target, she tried to think of where Mustang would be at this hour. He'd been told to finish the paperwork before he went home so with any luck he was still sleeping at his desk in the office. And, if she could keep this pace up, she might even be there in ten minutes.
Mustang was indeed sleeping at his desk. It's not like he could help it. This stack of forms was much more comfortable than the last. Unfortunately it was interrupted when Hawkeye kicked the door in. Papers flew everywhere as he jumped up and out of sleep. "Hawkeye! I wasn't-" but she was already talking. It took a few minutes for him to compose himself and he gathered papers as he tried to listen to her mile a minute speech.
Finally he managed to understand a few words; gang, fullmetal, taser, kidnapped.
He sighed. "Again?" Then he finally looked at her. Shit, she looked beat up. Her gun was still in her hands as if she was too distracted to even remember to holster it. More shocking though were the tears that were sliding down her face.
"Sir. I was with Fullmetal earlier and we were attacked and I only had one clip and they tasered him and my tracer is in his pocket if it hasn't been blown up and do we have the sonar here?"
She didn't wait and ran back into the main room rummaging through the boxes from their recent office move.
He followed her out of his office, "Slow down lieutenant. Who has Fullmetal?" She looked at him then through his office door at the blue file to the side of his desk. Mustang followed her gaze and swore. "I'll call Fuery, you call Havoc. Get Havoc to call Breda and Falman. I'll find the sonar."
Riza calmed down a notch. Orders meant there was a plan and plans meant they were doing something.
Fuery was the first to arrive as he was only staying in the barracks and together they found the sonar. He set to work setting it up and had Fullmetal's signal within minutes. Hawkeye and Mustang set to work on a plan of attack while Fuery found the exact address. When Havoc, Breda, and Falman arrived Mustang laid out the plan.
It looked like they'd dragged Ed to an old waterfront warehouse. Not very original, but on the plus side, not too far from their current location and it would be easier to round up the bad guys.
Havoc was still in high spirits. This wasn't Ed's first kidnapping and most of the time he'd got himself out of the situation before they'd even known he was in trouble. "Sir, who's taken him this time?"
Mustang hesitated, he didn't really want to answer but gestured to the file he'd brought out anyway. The blue file, the one about the lethal group of kidnappers and rapists they'd been chasing for over a month.
Havoc laughed nervously, "Trust the chief to put an end to our case the second he gets back into town." but his face fell and the tension in the room increased. "What do they want with him anyway? Their entire victim list is women."
Riza was anxious and jumpy, she felt guilty even though she knew she hadn't had a choice. "They were after me but Ed distracted them and blocked me from helping." She looked down at the floor when Mustang looked at her, there was something missing from the story. The group they were looking for never took hostages. If a man tried to save his girlfriend and she got away then they just plain murdered him in the street. They didn't drag him back to base.
Mustang shook his head, they didn't have time to debate motive, "Havoc, you're with Hawkeye and me. Breda, you're with Fuery and Falman in his car."
They arrived at the warehouse with the cars on idle and the headlights cut. As they got closer they could hear Fullmetal's yelling. The General almost laughed, at least he was giving his captors a hard time. Then suddenly the yelling was replaced with a piercing scream. Mustang was sure he'd never heard the boy scream like that before. Actually, thinking about it he wasn't sure if he'd ever heard him scream at all. And definitely not like this, it was a mix of anger and pain and fear. Mustang was starting to get angry. Whoever the fuck was causing his youngest subordinate to make that sound was going to be seeing the inside of a cell through a black eye very shortly. He had to wait though. The rest of his team needed to cover all exits before he could bust in the front door and beat these guys senseless.
Finally Jean signaled that everyone was in place and Mustang slipped in the front door. They had to find Fullmetal first before they raised suspicion. His team had been ordered to quietly dispatch anyone coming or going and Hawkeye was diligently doing the same at his back as they crept through the warehouse. Fortunately, it was a warehouse, so there were only about four small offices and then the one big storage area.
The offices were easy to clear, three were empty and the fourth was a break room with only two people in it, so that left the large storage area. Roy had been about to tie up the two but Hawkeye got in the way and just shot them. He frowned at her but let it slide, he could figure out what was up with her later. They headed silently toward the end of the hall. It was crucial they find an entrance without getting caught, the more people they could take out at once the better.
Through the small window in the door they saw some crates just off to the left. They could sneak in and duck behind those to get a good layout of the room. Hawkeye opened the door a fraction and slipped out. Mustang was right behind her. Well, he was, until he took a look around the storage area.
When Mustang laid eyes on the scene he had a second to be confused before the reality of the situation became clear. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut.
There was Fullmetal. Hanging naked from the ceiling by his-nope, that's definitely a her. She was hanging by her wrist from a rope tied to the ceiling. He was tempted to believe it was someone else entirely but he couldn't mistake blonde hair, gold eyes and two automail appendages for anyone else. She was still yelling and screaming, her feet dangling a few inches off the ground. There were about 50 men around her and many of them were pressing tasers into her and laughing. Her automail arm was missing a hand and hanging limp; her flesh arm was supporting the weight of her entire body and the two automail limbs. Mustang knew each of those weighed about a hundred pounds, and they appeared to be useless due to electrical shortage. Fucking hell, they've had her for only an hour and there's already so much damage. Most of her skin was bruised and the tasers had left small burn marks all over her body. The skin that connected to her automail showed signs of electrical burn as well.
Suddenly Ed stopped yelling, too terrified to move. A few of the men had approached her and were running their hands over her skin. Squeezing her ass, licking her breasts and neck and face. One ran his hand between her thighs causing her to kick out with her working leg. It collided with the intended assailant but another man grabbed her ankle and held it out of the way so the pervert could continue.
Immediately the abuse stopped and she noticed the jackass had a bullet hole in his head. Hawkeye was here!
"Hah! You're fucked!" She yelled horsely at them, "I was going to warn you but I didn't want to ruin the surprise". Her false bravado was more for her sake than anyone else's. Mustang could hear the tremble in her voice and was quickly losing his self control. It was too much to think about right now and because anger was already present it jumped straight into the driver's seat. Fullmetal was his and she was being tortured. The fire was already beyond his current capacity for containment, this was only going to get worse.
She watched as the men closest to her caught fire. Then more of them. Some had bullet holes in their heads and then they were on fire. Usually she wanted criminals to face justice and imprisonment but this time she couldn't bring herself to feel anything. Flames were jumping all over the warehouse, crate to vehicle and to crate again, and whenever some misguided thug got too close to her they were incinerated.
Her saviors were still running toward her and as they finally came into view she realised their shapes were blurry because she had been crying. Only when they got closer was she able to read the emotions on their faces; Hawkeye was angry and Mustang was deadly. When her eyes finally met with his she understood his intent; no one he saw as an enemy was leaving here alive.
As Mustang got closer Ed's injuries became clearer and he tried to catalogue each of them before lifting her up and burning through the rope supporting her. Her arm fell limp beside her as she pressed her forehead to his chest. "Just in time Mustang."
She took a deep breath and relief flooded through her, she found she couldn't even bring herself to call him names.
Then the shock hit her and she started shaking, no! she couldn't break down yet. there was work to do! She shook her head and tried to take another deep breath to steady herself. The shaking hadn't stopped but she didn't focus on that, they were still in danger and the building was burning down around them. She swallowed her some of her fear, "We'll have to remove my automail. It's melted together in some places and completely unsalvageable, plus I'll be lighter to carry without it. Also," she winced "it seems my left arm has no strength left." She paused again, "Wait, first I need to be sick. Riza? Help?"
Hawkeye didn't hesitate, taking Ed from Mustang's arms she helped her lean over a few paces away, holding her hair back while the younger girl emptied her stomach until she was dry heaving. There were bruises around her neck which showed up very clear and very dark now that there wasn't hair covering them, Hawkeye exchanged a look with her superior while trying not to accidentally touch the area. With a few more hacks and coughs the girl spit out the last of the bad taste, "Ok, m'ready."
Mustang didn't respond but when she looked up at him it seemed to be more about keeping his rage in check than him not having anything to say. She watched him as he helped Riza set her on her working leg and followed his arms as he wrapped his long coat around her. The military grade cloth was rough against her damaged skin but she'd rather be covered. They should be heading outside soon anyway. Where had her clothes gone? She put her arm through the jacket sleeve and tried to hold the coat open so they could remove her false limbs. She braced herself just before the General disconnected her arm and seconds later her leg came off as well. Tossing the metal away he pulled the coat closed around her then scooped her up and left the building. Hawkeye followed closely behind.
They exited through a different door so they could find Havoc and it turned out he'd caught the leader trying to escape. When Ed caught sight of the man's face she flinched away and pressed a little closer into Roy's chest.
That was enough conviction for Mustang. He broke the guy's legs and Havoc dragged him back into the burning building with the others. Despite the man's gruesome fate, seeing the source of her torture being dragged off by Havoc made her feel lighter. Much lighter. Almost peaceful, her eyes started sliding closed. Knowing it was just her brain shutting down now that she was safe, she let herself pass out. Someone would wake her if there was trouble… she was pretty sure anyway.
The General knew he still had some cleanup to do and reluctantly handed Ed to a returning Havoc. He needed to do a round of the building and dispose of anyone the others had found trying to escape. When Havoc finally looked at Ed, his eyebrows shot up in shock. He would have shouted but Mustang shook his head and motioned for them to go to the car before running off around the corner.
As he came up to each exit he dismissed his team with a signal to head for the cars. If there were captured thugs he threw them back into the building and melted the door closed. He rounded the building to the front and started to hear sirens in the distance. Better leave before this required explaining.
His crew was ready to go. Breda had arrived just before Mustang and at Riza's instruction, took off in Falman's car with Fuery and Falman. They were not to go to the office and instead go straight home and await orders. Roy made sure Havoc was in the back seat of his car with Ed still in his arms and then jumped in the font before Riza took off. He still hadn't said anything and focused hard on the remains of the building to make sure it was burning as hot as it could. He'd make damn sure there would be no evidence in that entire mess.
Ed woke up warm and comfortable, so maybe that's why she didn't realise there was an arm around her waist. As her brain started to function she opened her eyes to try and get her bearings. This had to be Roy's house, his smell was all over it. As she looked around she realised she was wearing Roy's clothes as pajamas, then finally, that she was in Roy's arms and in his bed. Her heart skipped a beat and she found she liked it. She started to snuggle in closer, it was a little hard to do while missing an arm and a leg- her memories came flooding back. The pain of the tasers was quickly replaced by the fear and revulsion of being tied up naked, hung from the ceiling and groped. They had been licking her! Her stomach was already empty but that didn't stop her body from convulsing.
"Shh shh. It's ok Ed. I've got you." Roy's arms pulled her in closer and tucked her body into his more firmly. "I'm here. Deep breath Fullmetal. Breathe in." She was so embarrassed, and she couldn't stop shaking. She was being weak in front of Mustang! "Focus on me Ed. I've got you." and he was being so nice. "Come on Ed, just listen to my voice. I'm here." Her brain wouldn't shut up so she tried to focus like he said and listen for once.
Eventually she was able to stop convulsing and hyperventilating but wasn't so lucky with the shaking or the tears. "They took my hand. They zapped me until I couldn't move then they took my hand!" Roy felt his anger rising again but knew he needed to let her talk. He had to be calm to help her stay calm.
It didn't work though, she felt the muscles in his arms and chest tighten up and correctly interpreted his rage. She took a deep breath, "Sorry Sir. I'm a bit out of it. Can I give my report later?" Mustang's eyes went wide, "For fuck sakes Ed, now is not the time for reports." Nevermind that she'd left the military when her contract expired a few months back. She was still mumbling, "But you need your report..." Clearly her brain wasn't functioning properly. He pulled her in even closer, "Rest Fullmetal. We'll deal with all that later." Besides, there didn't need to be a report. He'd pretty much erased all the evidence, and there was no one to convict. because he'd killed them all. He squeezed his eyes shut. He'd deal with that later too. His subordinates were his first priority, even if they weren't his responsibility anymore.
Ed woke up again a few hours later. Mustang had learned his lesson the first time and stayed in bed with her. When he had tried to leave earlier she'd lasted two minutes before she started crying and shouting. He berated himself for even trying to get up. There's no way she didn't have nightmares before tonight and there's no way tonight made it better.
She went through the same pattern: happiness, realisation, fear, disgust, confusion. Then out again into unconsciousness. Each time the confusion was a little less and the fear was a little more subdued. There was another emotion he knew they'd have to get through later. Guilt. Guilt for making him kill people. For being the cause of their deaths. He didn't see it that way but knew she'd try to take the blame for it even if they did attack and abuse her. He'd try to make her see that it had been his choice to let the anger take over, and his inability to control his rage that had killed them, not her.
Thinking back he was a bit shocked that he'd been that far gone. He'd been upset to learn Ed had been kidnapped again, but that was before he had seen her tied to the ceiling weighed down by her automail, bruises and burns covering her entire body, those men touching her like that…
fuck, i almost lost it again. he couldn't picture it without the same emotions flooding his system. He took a few moments to calm himself. It was ok now, Ed was here, in his arms. Safe.
She was starting to wake up again. Her body turned slightly and she buried her face in his neck. "I'm sorry Mustang." He sighed, here it was, as expected. He cut her off, "No Ed. None of this is your fault. None of it."
"But you had to-"
"NO! Listen Ed, I've killed a lot more people for a hell of a lot less. I wish I could have found you sooner."
Her voice was quieter, "I could have been stronger."
He growled, his voice was deep and right next to her ear, "Ed, come on. You're ridiculously clever. Stay with me on this. Strangers abducted you. They hurt you." not too specific now mustang, don't need to recap a night of trauma "and they're gone now. I'm not happy with what i did, but I'm very happy that you're safe. In no way could any of this be your fault."
She stopped arguing but didn't remove her face from his neck. If she was still letting him comfort her then she was still a long way from being herself.
"Ed is short for Edaline." He felt her lips smile against his skin. "Tell me a story Roy, I like your voice."
Yup, it'd be a while before Fullmetal was back.
He didn't hesitate, "Sure thing Ed.
Once there was a dashing young prince and he was known as the Flame Alchemist." He smiled when he heard her giggle. "He was the sexiest prince there ever was and he knew that one day he'd become ruler of all the land."
