Chapter 4 - Asset
While Ed had never met Roy's personal team, he had, thankfully, been to the Central offices before. Actually, he spent a great majority of his days at the office with his father.
Gracia was great, and Ed did babysit her a lot, her and Nina, but he didn't do well sitting still. At the office, he could at least help with tricky translations, broken code, and read a book without Elicia spilling juice on his notes.
That didn't happen as much anymore but Elicia had endless energy.
All that was to say, people at Central were used to seeing him, even the Fuhrer had seen him around before.
But aside from Maes's team, none of them knew he had had automail. When Havoc rolled him into Mustang's office in a wheelchair, everyone and their dog knew he had automail.
It was insanely frustrating, especially as people not knowing it would have been a significant advantage in a fight.
But the news of the youngest State Alchemist ever being named Fullmetal for his automail had stuck.
The first person aside from Havoc to greet him was Major Alex Armstrong, whom Ed had met before but never interacted with.
The giant of a man was in tears as he said, "Oh, Elric-Hughes, all that you've suffered—"
Ed, having heard all the stories of Roy's team called over the well-intentioned Armstrong, "First Lieutenant Hawkeye?"
There was the beautiful sound of a gun being prepped, followed by three shots.
Armstrong was left wide-eyed, back against the wall as he stared at Hawkeye with betrayal written across his moustached face.
Ed grinned at the trigger happy Lieutenant who flashed him a slight upturn of lips.
Roy, or Mustang as he needed to remind himself to address the man by, came out into the room, "Armstrong, don't you have somewhere to be? Lieutenant, stop putting holes in our walls."
"I got it," Ed said, pressing his hands together before reaching out to touch the wall.
The wall lit up and emerged healed.
Armstrong and Mustang stared at him. Not because he had fixed a wall, but because they hadn't figured out yet if he had an array drawn on his hands or arms yet.
If his automail wasn't much of a surprise advantage anymore, at least he had that.
Mustang pointed next to Hawkeye's desk, "We've been tasked with securing Central's secretary. I've put a pile of unsolved cases on your desk, prioritize them, and Havoc and Falman will help you get started on anything worth investigating."
"Yes, Sir," Ed said.
Mustang observed him for a moment before looking over at Armstrong, "Get to work, Major."
It was kind of weird to have a rank as high as an Alchemist who had fought in Ishval. Then again, Maes had said actually killing people wasn't difficult, living with it could be.
Armstrong must have been one of the few who either stood openly against some of the actions in Ishval, and thus wasn't permitted to rise through the ranks, or ashamed, he simply hadn't wanted to.
Havoc rolled Ed to his desk as Armstong found somewhere else to be.
Being used to working at Central command, he found it kind of nice to have his own desk even if his dad's office was another two floors up. So even under the watchful gaze of Hawkeye, he fell into his task rather easily.
It was pretty simple to work on the surface and Ed made two piles of, crime the police really ought to handle, things of mild interest to the military. That took him all of fifteen minutes, but there was a third type of report that was suspicious as hell.
And it took him longer to comb through the purposeful lack of information. Taking notes on all seventeen files that had redflag implicit on every closed case marker, Ed settled on the common denominator, being them all signed off by the same man.
Brigadier General Grand, the Iron Blood Alchemist.
Ed looked up at the cloak, it wasn't yet noon.
Hawkeye had paused to watch him. Ed whistled low to get Havoc's attention.
The man looked up from his own work with a raised brow.
"You have a map of the city."
He nodded, "Several."
"Do you have any with the old sewers marked on it?"
Havoc nodded again, rising to his feet and returning with a small paper map.
Ed reached for a red pen and asked, "Can I write on this?"
"Yeah, that's no problem, Major," Havoc affirmed, leaning on the side of his desk to watch.
Ignoring his audience, the entire office save Mustang in his private office, Ed got to work, comparing his notes to the map, he marked every disappearance or 'accident', or as Iron Blood denoted 'false alarms'.
Ed stared at the map, cocking his head at the doted region. It took him a moment and then he looked up at Hawkeye, "Where are Alchemist labs for State researchers?"
She looked at him, then at the map. She tapped on the map on the border of the city limits, "Laboratory 5 was here, but it was shut down years ago. And Laboratory 3 is here."
The dots were definitely consolidated around Laboratory 5, but there was enough around Lab 3 to be worrisome.
"Ready to report to the Colonel?" Hawkeye asked.
Ed gathered the relevant reports and the map, "Nothing like a conspiracy on a Monday."
Havoc shook his head, while the others craned their necks at their desks.
Hawkeye grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and snapped at the rest of the office, "Major Elric-Hughes just uncovered a major violation in organised crime. I expect the rest of the office to keep up."
Havoc smirked while the others gaped at them as Ed rolled in to see the Colonel.
He might have been in a wheelchair, but at least Mustang had given something for him to prove he could be useful.
Roy stared at Edward and Riza.
When he heard the knock, he assumed it was a reminder or invite to take lunch.
But no.
Instead, the header of reports he had had the team flag some cold cases that might be problematic for Ed to sort through and give a detailed report on, had uncovered a conspiracy of some kind involving Iron Blood.
Roy picked up his phone and rang the familiar number, "Hughes, get your ass down here."
—I thought I told you to give him standard reports to go through.
"Just, get down here," Roy said, hanging up the phone before Maes could respond.
Edward was smiling, "He was the one to train me."
"He didn't train you," Roy said. "This is your first day in the office."
"No, I'm pretty sure everyone here thinks I was an intern. You're the new ones."
Roy pinched his brow.
Maes came in a few minutes later, "Roy, Hawkeye, Ed."
"Hey, Dad," Edward said with a grin.
"What'cha find?" Maes asked.
"Iron Blood signed off on a dozen disappearances and half a dozen dead on impact car accident between Labotaroies 3 and 5. More toward Lab 5," Edward summed up syntactically.
Maes shook his head but asked, "What is your suggestion to proceed?"
"If it has to do with Alchemy labs, a lab that was condemned for illegal research and knowing what constitutes as illegal in Alchemy, I think we should investigate animal adoption centres, pet food suppliers, as well as any further instances of kidnappings, disappearances, or arrests of human or animal trafficking along anywhere that has access to the sewers."
Roy gaped, "You're not suggesting we investigate Laboratory 5?"
"The Brigadier General is your supervisor. I don't think you want to be caught investigating him. But if we can find suppliers, illegal funds, or ill-use of State dollars, we will have due cause to investigate without making ourselves targets. Short of catching Iron Blood red-handed, and even then, we aren't likely to get anything over him. Best case scenario we embarrass him a little finding a black market trade that hopefully leads to proof of illegal use of the labs."
Maes crossed his arms and looked at Roy.
He threw up his hands, "You're sixteen!"
Edward raised a brow at him, "You thought I would rush into an abandoned lab with only suspicion of Brigadier General purposely trying to cover something up?"
Maes grinned and went to lean on Roy's desk, "Do you really think I would let him join the military unprepared?"
"The real question is how many reports has the Major handed in for you?" Hawkeye asked.
Maes and Edward's grins were identical.
"I hate you both," Roy said, only now understanding what Maes meant by Edward being considered an asset.
He was also beginning to get that while Maes had kept his son a secret, he had been training Edward how to best help Roy in their careers.
"I'd be lying if I said rushing in isn't what I want to do, and I might be in more of a rush if I could actually walk right now. But I wouldn't purposely screw you over like that, Colonel," Edward said.
"Alright," Roy said taking a breath. "Lietaintant, get Falman and Fury in here, this is more their wheelhouse than Havoc's. Maes, you want to stay for this meeting?"
Maes was already reading over the reports his son pulled with a frown and sharp eyes.
So that's how his new Alchemist spent his first day, with an investigation a government conspiracy involving his commanding officer and possible human trafficking with a side of animal abuse and crazy scientists who may or may not be dead.
He was blaming Maes for all of this.
Of course, if this led to publicly tarnishing Iron Blood's reputation in Central and before the Fuhrer, then Roy supposed he would have Maes to thank for this headache.
Ed used a can at home where his dad could fret. If he did this at work Maes would simply move into their office and fall behind in his own work.
"Ed!" Nina and Elicia yelled.
Ed was certain that Nina and Elicia would be able to knock him to the ground like Winry did.
"How was your first day?" Gracia asked.
"I think Mustang hates me," Ed answered with a grin. Then he noticed Nina's smile fall.
"Nina, are you alright?" he asked, going to his knees to be eye level, ignoring the flash of bone deep the motion caused him.
"Mommy and Daddy are fighting again," she said quietly as Elicia ran off to help Gracia set up for dinner.
Alexander padded his way over to them on his too big paws.
Ed hugged them both, "It will be okay. Grown ups fight sometimes. Are you going to stay the night with us?"
She nodded.
"Nina!" Elicia called.
Nina gave him a final hug before running ed.
"So Ed," Maes said from behind him.
Ed stood, leaning heavily on the crutch, knowing exactly what was coming, "Yeah, Dad?"
"When I let you come to work, you were paying attention to what would help Roy in his career."
That was the thing about Maes. People saw him as a silly romantic who was obsessed with his family, which hid that he was in his own right a military genius.
He was also the first person in Ed's life who knew what he was going to do before he did. Even Al hadn't been able to keep up with him the way Maes could.
"I knew he was your best friend, and I knew you were keeping us apart because he was ambitious. I wanted a goal and you wanted me to have a childhood."
Maes pinned him with a look, his green eye sparking with frustration, "And you deliberately went against my intentions?"
"No, I learned skills to help me, us, in the future. Because what you and Roy are doing is trying to make this country a better place. How can I not help? What else did you want me to work toward? What are my other options?
"Become an Alchemic researcher and then have my work be stolen out from underneath me and used for weaponry? Either I could go into hiding or the military would be involved in some way because you can't practice alchemy like I do without drawing attention.
"I'd rather be a part of them, and have their resources, than run away from them, with the high probability they would get their hands on my work eventually. So why shouldn't I have learned how to make it through the ranks and help the people I believe in?"
Maes sighed and pulled Ed into a hug, "Just promise me, that you will make an effort to remain safe."
Ed hugged him back, "Only if you promise to do the same."
Maes rested his chin on his head, "I promise."
"I promise too," Ed returned, hugging his dad tighter when he felt the tension seep from his shoulders.
AN: Suggestions for content, desires for ideas moving forward, or puppies?