Of course this was how it had to end up. Of course.
The room where he and Riza had been waiting was stuffy and hot and filled with excited chatter of dozens of other people waiting to legally announce a new stage in their lives. There were newborns cradled to chests next to families speaking Xingese next to solemn couples standing too far apart to be indicative of any remaining love, next to Roy and Riza. And the military-issued witness who sat bored behind them.
The registry office was crowded to say the least, and with East City being the major town for citizenship claims for those crossing the border from the east and also substituting for those still waiting rebuilding funds after the war… well, it was crowded.
A bored clerk behind a pane of glass called the number that Roy had clenched in his fist, damp from sweat. With stiff legs, he rose from his seat and forced them to move. His heart began to pound as they approached the desk, Riza walking resolutely beside him.
He and Riza had spoken about this ad infinitum, till unspeakable hours, with all the logical pros and cons laid out bare before them. It was nursed with glasses of Roy's favourite wine, and whispered between turns of checkers in Riza's apartment. Neither of them had been ready to get married. They felt too young, too fresh from the jaws of a youth gone rancid to be pulling together a picket fence for two brothers who had been tossed around between parent figures often enough that it didn't seem to mean much for them anymore.
'You need to adopt us, then,' Ed had said down the crackley line from Risembool. 'Granny won't let us and we need parental consent. Just adopt us and give your consent or whatever and we can enrol.'
As if it was as easy as that.
Of course it wasn't. First, Roy had to marry. Only then would the state grant him eligibility to adopt. Even then it would be shaky, their professions as a… as a couple meant that Ed and Al would still be classed as 'at risk' with two military parents who were by nature of their employ likely to die at any moment. But if there's anything the state fills with performative paperwork to mask a lack of care, its children (and the Ishvalans). All they had to do was get Ed and Al and they would be pretty much home clear. To do that, he had to marry Riza.
She had said yes; of course she had said yes. He didn't propose, didn't give her a speech on how she was the only woman he could be with, but when he had called her and reeled off his rehearsed speech about the Elrics' needing parents, she had said yes.
Now, on the day itself, they hadn't said a word. They had simply met outside the office on the dot of their arranged meeting, and stepped inside and waited, and waited, and waited.
It wasn't at all how Roy had imagined his marriage would go. He'd wanted celebration, he'd wanted his friends there, hell he'd wanted to be ready for it. He'd wanted her to be ready for it.
'Here for?' said the man at the desk.
Roy opened his mouth, and nothing came out. His heart was in his throat.
'Marriage,' Riza said, her voice flat and hard. 'We're here to get- to be married.'
'Name?' They man said, pulling open a different ring-binder of files.
'Mustang,' Roy said, glancing to Riza.
She slipped her arm through his elbow, and his heart pounded.
'First door on the left,' the man said, gesturing vaguely to a corridor to the right of the kiosks. Before Roy and Riza had even properly moved away, he was already calling for the next couple.
Entering the room, the fluorescent lights illuminated a room free of character, rough and trodden carpet, a scattering of chairs, and an old registrar with his head bowed over a typewriter on his otherwise empty desk. At their appearance, the man lifted his head and pushed his glasses up his nose. 'Mustang?' he said, glancing at the analog clock on the wall.
'Yes,' Roy said, leading Riza further into the room.
The man nodded and pulled himself to his feet, shuffling to stand at a plain podium in the corner of the room. He gestured for them to join him, and they stopped either side of the podium. The witness silently grabbed a chair and took a seat facing them.
'You may say your vows whenever you're ready, we can start with you, sir.' The man was smiling encouragingly.
He had considered writing his own vows, the suggestion on the tip of his tongue, but it didn't feel right. He had so much to tell her, too much for this moment. One day, he'd ask her to marry him for real, and he'd say it all.
He reached forward, and took both of Riza's hands in his.
Roy nodded to the registrar and began to repeat the vows the man said.
Riza did the same, never once breaking eye contact.
'You may now kiss the bride,' The man said, and Roy's heart leapt.
He leaned forward, and told himself he was being silly when he was surprised to find she'd met him halfway. They kissed, and she squeezed his hands before raising her arms to circle his neck. His hands, shaking, lowered to her hips, and held her. It was the first time they had kissed, and Roy was suddenly of the opinion that this marriage was the best thing he had ever done.
He finally came down from cloud 9 when they parted, and the registrar smiled upon them. 'Please, come this way,' he said, and lead them to the desk.
'Sign these,' the man said, sliding two clip boards over the desk with a sheet of paper on each. The two of them hunched over the forms, having found two discarded pens on the desk, and began to fill out their information. Date of birth, place of birth, citizenship number, registered address, and finally, finally, they were handed a certificate of marriage to sign as the witness stood to sign his parts.
Roy pretended his hand wasn't shaking when he put down his final signature on the faint dotted line, and slid the paper over to Riza, whose delicate and cursive signature wove itself next to his, and they were married as Roy and Elizabeth Mustang.
'Congratulations,' said the man, and they were promptly dismissed.
Exiting out of the darkness of the registry office into the bright winter sunlight, Roy had two things on his mind: I'm married, and I'm married to Riza. The witness disappeared somewhere with a mumbled 'congratulations'. Roy didn't care, he was entirely otherwise occupied.
'Are you sure?' he said as they stopped at the car. It was a question that had been asked uncountable times over the last month. Every time a searing tendril of apprehension uncurled itself from the knot in his solar plexus, he had asked. He knew they could do it. He knew she could do it. Pretending to be married was far from the hardest assignment Roy had found himself enacting, but. Nights lying awake had revealed to him the obscurity of the line between fake marriage and all the actions that came with real marriage. He was really getting married to Riza Hawkeye.
'Yes,' she said, again.
They got into the car and went home. Same house, same as it was as they left it hours ago, but now it was their house for their married life.
There was a loud jingling as Riza placed the car keys (now with a cut copy of Roy's house key) into the little ceramic bowl next to the door.
'Well, we did it,' Roy said and immediately wished he could have said anything other than that. It was bad enough that he had taken away her chance at a romantic wedding, taken away her life as a single woman and her freedom to explore romance on her own terms, but then he had to say that ?
'Roy, relax,' Riza said, stepping up to his shoulder. She placed a gentle hand on his bicep, fingers feather light to leave nothing more than a gentle warmth felt through his coat. 'It's alright. I'll work on getting my documents updated, and you focus on getting the boys.'
Her words were business, but her tone was soft and low, her voice an easy accompaniment to the silence of the house and the beating of his heart that he was sure to be echoing from his ribcage.
Riza Mustang.
He was afraid to celebrate it, afraid to be happy that he had finally been tethered to this person he had been orbiting like a desperate moon since he'd been able to form his own opinions. If he let himself hold it too close, it could shatter in his palms and leave him bleeding. Riza had said yes to the plan, she hadn't said yes to him.
'Right,' he replied, and allowed himself a moment to mourn when her hand slipped from his arm before stepping away. The phone was on the same little table as the trinkets bowl next to the door, below a window that looked out onto the street.
Riza slipped into the bedroom she had been sleeping in. The bedroom that was soon going to have to belong to the boys, and she was going to move into his bedroom. His house only had two bedrooms.
He dialed the number that was scribbled on the address book lying next to the phone under the name 'Rockbell' and he held the handset to his ear.
There was a moment of crackling as the line went through down to the operator, and then finally it started to ring.
He fiddled with a loose thread on the sleeve of his coat as he pressed the receiver to his ear using his shoulder.
Finally, 'hello?'
'Alphonse,' Roy said. He tried to ignore the shouting from behind him to answer the damn phone properly, Alphonse. 'How are you doing?'
'Uh,' Al said and there was the sound of him moving around a bit and the shouting got quieter. 'I'm alright thank you, Colonel. How are you?' There was more shouting. 'Ed, shut up I'm trying to listen!'
Roy couldn't help a chuckle bubbling in his chest. 'Don't worry Alphonse, I won't be long. I just wanted to let you know that Hawkeye and I got married today, so we're ready to get on with adopting the two of you.' It didn't occur to him until after he hung up that Hawkeye wasn't her name anymore.
'Oh, congratulations Colonel!' Alphonse said as though it were a real wedding he had just announced. Always so polite. Then, to the side, 'brother! They got married!'
There was a scuffle on the phone, and then Ed's voice came barreling through the line.
'So you can adopt us now right? When will we be allowed to enrol in the military?' Ed said, his excitement clipping his words into an eager rush.
'Hold your horses, Ed. Adoption isn't instantaneous, there will still be some time before it's all official but I'll keep you updated,' Roy said.
This earned him a shout to hurry up, an apology from Alphonse, and a joint goodbye from the boys. Even that short conversation had felt like an entire evening's worth of social stimulation and Roy was surprised his ears weren't ringing as he placed the receiver back into its cradle to hang up.
He swiped the dust off the table with his hand. Ever since Riza moved in, he had become hyper-aware of every little thing in his house that might indicate neglect or messiness that might be typical of a bachelor. He knew the worry was unfounded, Roy kept his space tidy and took pride in his neatness, even if some days were better for house chores than others. Riza knew what his place was like. She'd spent hours and hours and hours here as they grew up together, and yet for some reason a spindly self-consciousness had emerged in the back of his mind the day she moved in.
'Seems they took it well,' Riza said. She had taken off her coat and was leading against the doorframe to her bedroom in the trousers and white blouse she had put on this morning. She looked casual, and relaxed, and not entirely different in any way that would suggest that she was a married woman now.
He didn't know what he was expecting for this day, but his palms being so clammy and it all being so… normal.
'They're impatient,' Roy grumbled. He finally took off his coat, hanging it on the coat stand to the side.
'They're children,' Riza reminded him gently. 'I don't want to scare you, Roy, but we are about to have two teenagers in this house and we are going to be their legal guardians. It might do you good to learn a thing or two about children,' she said.
Roy chuckled. 'Those two boys will be fine, they are pretty much adults as they are, and I think treating them as such will be good preparation for the military.'
Riza didn't quite frown, but there was a subtle tightness in her eyes that suggested one. 'Roy,' she said in that voice that also wasn't quite a reprimand. 'I know that you have high hopes for the boys, but they are children. They may take the alchemy exam, but they might not even get into the military for that exact reason, the furher holds that decision above all their skill. Above that, Ed's injuries…'
'They'll get in. The feats those boys have accomplished by even living this long… I know they'll be okay. And if I can watch them from this close, make sure they don't cross any lines, then that'll just count as another link in my chain to the top,' he said.
Riza smiled and huffed a laugh. 'Coffee?' she offered, walking into the kitchen that was off the front room.
'Please,' he said, and followed her.
There was a silence as she put the kettle onto the hob to boil. She busied herself bringing two mugs from the shelf and coffee from the cupboard, already knowing her way around his space. Their space.
Roy lent back against the counter, watching in silence with his hands in his pockets.
'When are you going to tell the Hughes's?' Riza said, breaking the silence.
Roy hummed, a headache forming in preparation for that conversation. Roy had told Maes the plan, disclosed the Elrics' story and how the intention was adoption over glasses of whiskey at their favourite bar a few weeks ago when Maes had come down from Central. Maes, who had started the conversation with somber attention to the boys' plight, flipped like a light switch when he caught whiff of the implication- marriage and children.
'Roy! You absolute bastard you!' he howled, 'A beautiful wife and two kids in a month? I never thought I'd see the day.' He brought a hard clap down onto Roy's back, nearly shaking the drink from both of their glasses.
'It's not like that,' Roy ground out, 'It's exclusively bureaucratic, the boys need consent.'
'It'll be beautiful, Roy, just beautiful.'
'Right,' Roy had said, already tired of the conversation.
'I'll figure out the path of least resistance for it,' he said, 'Might as well make a trip of it on the way to submitting the forms. Will you be coming?'
'Sure,' she said, 'we could have dinner with Gracie, it would be good to ask how her pregnancy is coming along.'
There was another silence then, only collapsing when the kettle started to whistle. Riza turned to make the coffee, plopping a sugar and milk into his, and keeping hers black.
He sat at the small kitchen table as she placed it in front of him, and took the seat opposite.
They sipped at their coffee.
'Le- Riza,' he said finally, 'I… Are you okay?'
A small smile bloomed on her face, and she leaned forward to squeeze his wrist. 'I'm fine, Roy. We're married now, and even if it wasn't what we had expected, we are doing this for a pair of very unique boys. I'm sure we'll be fine.'
He smiled back at her. 'Of course we'll be fine,'
Fine was not the word Roy would have used to describe their situation when the boys finally arrived.
They were dropped on his doorstep by a social worker, who asked him to sign something akin to a delivery receipt and quickly strode back to her car with a polite goodbye to the boys and a wish of luck.
'Colonel!' Alphonse exclaimed. 'Hi!'
Edward stood a step behind him, and held a hand up to wave. 'What's up?' He said.
'Hello Alphonse, Edward,' Roy said, and stepped aside from the doorway. 'Come inside.'
They were loud, and their presence filled up the remaining space in the house. Alphonse stood taller than the hunched figure they met over a year prior, and Edward was striding on two legs as though he already felt at home. At once, Roy's decent sized house felt much cozier. Every time that Alphonse moved, a soft clattering and scraping of metal rang, and even Edward, as he set down his suitcase and stretched his arms above his head, had the subtle clicking and creaking of his automail beneath his clothes.
'This is your place? I expected it to be gaudy to hell,' Ed said, doing a spin in the middle of the front room and appraising the decor as though he had any taste himself.
'Brother, be polite,' Alphonse chastised. 'Colonel, we are really grateful for your kindness in letting us stay with you, and for arranging our adoption. I know it was a big ask of you and the lieutenant.' Alphonse made to bow but Roy raised a hand to stop him.
'You boys just need to focus on passing the entrance exam, the lieutenant and I will sign the consent forms when we need to, that's all this is,' he said. He noticed that Edward had gravitated towards the bookshelf that stretched to the ceiling next to the fireplace nestled into the side of the house. He pulled a book from the shelf and sat on the armchair and began to read, already ignoring everyone else.
Alphonse followed Roy's gaze and sighed. 'Brother…'
'Let me show you your room,' Roy said, deciding to let Ed be for now.
He led Alphonse to the back of the front room, and opened the door to the room which Riza had moved out of the day before. She had made the two twin beds as neatly as if ready for inspection.
'Thank you Colonel, really,' Alphonse said as he placed the single suitcase on one of the beds. Roy didn't ask about their lack of luggage, though he was surprised that they hadn't taken a whole library of their own with them. Even with one of the pair wearing no clothes, Roy had expected them to arrive with arms of sentimental and functional items from their childhood home. It seemed instead that the two of them had decided to bring bare essentials, and nothing more. That made Roy a little more at ease, knowing his house was not about to become a mess of things which didn't belong to him. It seemed almost sensible of the boys to travel so lightly, and he wondered in the back of his mind where that lack of materialism had stemmed from.
'Of course, Alphonse,' Roy said. 'Your brother and yourself have big goals, and if we can help with that then we will.'
'We appreciate it, really,' he said. 'I hope we don't cause too much trouble for you and the lieutenant. Brother thinks so too, even if he won't say it.'
'I'll keep that in mind, ' Roy said, fully believing that Edward would be on hard times to thank someone with sincerity, even having known the boy for a short time.
They left the room and Roy sat opposite Ed on the couch, though Ed made no acknowledgement of the fact as his eyes scanned the book in his hands. Alphonse awkwardly stood to the side, unsure where he fit in until Roy gestured to the space next to him.
In bored curiosity, Roy's gaze wandered to the book Edward had picked up. He expected to see one of the story books he had kept from his own childhood, but instead found the title of a rather advanced alchemy textbook peeking from between Edward's fingers. 'I'm surprised he can be reading a book of that level at his age,' Roy said to Alphonse.
'Surprised?' Ed said, pulling his nose from the pages and lifting an eyebrow. 'Of course we can read books like these, we're not stupid. Al and I read this book years ago, we just didn't have this recent of an edition in Risembool so I wanted to see what the updates were.' He said.
'Which one is it, Brother?' Al said, leaning forward to get a look.
Ed snapped the book shut and tossed it to Al, who caught it deftly and read the title.
'Oh, yes! I remember this, I do remember thinking that some of the analysis seemed a bit dated. I guess living in the rural areas meant we didn't have the most up-to-date stuff.'
'Well as soon as we are state alchemists we will be able to get access to the most modern research and alchemy theories out there,' Ed said, a fierce grin growing on his face and that fire that Roy recognised fully in bloom.
'We'll be able to get our bodies back in no time!' Alphonse agreed, tossing the book back to Ed who leaned over the arm of the armchair and placed it back on the shelf.
'And then we'll be out of your hair, Colonel,' Ed said, plopping back down in the chair. 'It won't take long, so don't get too cosy with us around,' he said, and the grin got a taunting edge to it.
'I wouldn't dream of it,' Roy drawled. 'What I would like, however, is for you to not throw my books around so eagerly. They didn't cost nothing and I do in fact like my things to stay in one piece.'
Alphonse apologised immediately while Edward rolled his eyes and said, 'whatever.'
That first day, Roy explained the situation to the boys while Riza spent the day finalising the various bureaucracies left to tie up at work. Riza had agreed to take the couple of weeks maternity leave granted to families adopting children, nowhere near as long granted to mothers of their biological children. Roy expected that she wouldn't have wanted more than that anyway. It was simply to help settle the boys in. She would help them figure their way around East City, where hospitals, libraries, contacts, and other points of note were. She'd help them get registered in the district and other such things that needed an adult's assistance. This was met by a brief objection from Edward, who wanted to do all these things on their own, but was quickly shot down by Alphonse, who knew that it was a better idea to have someone more knowledgeable help them out.
Roy could feel the growing sense of certainty that Edward, who had always been a fierce boy as long as Roy had known him, may well put up a fight to anything and everything that Roy pitched.
Riza arrived just as the sun had dipped behind the terrace building opposite Roy's. As she entered with a bag of groceries and her hair rather windswept from the weather, Roy was surprised to find that the Elric's rose to their feet to greet her. He hadn't expected them to be graceless as children who half-raised themselves, but the two of them had clearly been taught the basics of how to be polite. He thanked whoever had done that task for him.
'Hello, Lieutenant,' Alphonse said as she placed the groceries on the table by the door and shrugged off her coat.
Riza turned and gave a small smile in return. 'Hello Alphonse, Edward. I trust your trip went alright?'
'Yes Ma'am,' Alphonse said. 'Brother slept through most of it, but the train ride went smoothly. We are glad to be here, finally.'
'I'm glad too, I hope the room is alright for you both?'
'It's perfect, thank you.' Alphonse said. 'Can I help with the groceries?' He stepped forward around the couch.
'That would be helpful, thank you. Edward, would you like to come too?' Riza asked as she handed the bag to Alphonse to carry. Edward mumbled a 'sure' under his breath and followed them into the kitchen.
Roy leant against the door frame to the kitchen and watched as Riza handed the boys items and instructed them on where they belonged. She had bought quite a lot of food, Roy noted.
'I hope this will be enough,' Roy said, letting sarcasm drip from the words.
'I wasn't sure what you boys liked to eat, so I got a variety of things to cover some bases.'
There was a pause there where the boys were supposed to reply. Instead, Edward busied himself arranging and rearranging the cans in the cupboard under the counter, and Alphonse stared into the fridge blankly. Or, as blankly as his expressionless armour would allow.
'I'll eat anything,' Edward said eventually, standing from the cupboard and putting his hand out for the next item. 'It doesn't really matter what it is.' His voice held less of the energetic intonation that it had in the living room earlier.
Roy raised an eyebrow at the strange change in energy, which Edward caught and he sneered back. Roy resisted the urge to respond to the obvious goading and instead settled into boredom, letting Edward know that he found his fingernails more interesting than that confrontation. He felt Edward's stare for a few moments longer before Edward turned away.
When all the groceries had been put away, the boys retreated into their bedroom, leaving Riza to cook and Roy to keep her company.
It was that very night when they found out that Alphonse couldn't eat, and the awkwardness around that situation bloomed until Roy commented that the boys could have just told them that before Riza bought all that food and cooked an entire meal and Edward responded with a bitter tongue on how they should have known already.
'You were there.' Edward hissed, his face towards Alphonse's plate. 'You are the only people who saw us apart from Granny and Winry. I thought you knew.'
Roy had nothing to say to that. He didn't realise how it had slipped both of their minds, and Edward had sounded upset- betrayed.
Edward finished his plate and Alphonse's in the time it took for the others to finish theirs, and then he stood and washed all the dishes in silence.
Between the small things like the boys being unused to a lifestyle in the city, and the big things like the two adults being entirely unprepared for two children, things were jolty and unnatural at first. But they all took things one step at a time.
Edward was 11, Alphonse was 10, they had barely even sunk their teeth into life yet, still needing adults to help them with routine and getting enough food groups in their diet. Roy and Riza felt like they themselves were barely out of childhood, the echoes of their own younger selves still living under their skin. Faced with two young boys, the soldiers' fractured ideas of themselves would condense, crystallizing into clarity, and in their mind's eye slowly shift into people who could care for Edward and Alphonse as they needed. But that was a long, difficult, way away.
One of the first things that Roy and Riza learnt was that the boys had a distinct lack of boundaries when it came to sharing a space with other people. They were wild and undisciplined in the house, and this meant that boundaries were crossed without intention and this would result in clashes more often than not. Mostly between Roy and Ed. Riza noted the way that the two of them would butt heads was reminiscent of a pair of brothers who never got along- and brought out an energy in Roy she hadn't seen in several years aside from interactions with Maes.
On the sixth night, a particularly rowdy argument broke out that started with Roy telling Ed that he can't be transmuting the kitchenware to suit his needs and ended with Alphonse having to physically hoist Ed over his arm and carry him back into their room to simmer down. Muffled shouting and Alphonse's 'calm down' voice was heard through the door.
Roy had done the rest of the dishes in a huff and then stormed upstairs to the bedroom he shared with Riza. She was already in bed, reading with the bedside lamp.
Roy still couldn't believe that he got to come to bed with Riza every night, lay next to her, and be so close to her, hear her sleep and start his day with her. The thought still made his stomach tumble, but tonight he was just plain frustrated.
He stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind him and proceeded to collapse and sit on his side of the bed.
'Uuuuuughh,' he moaned into the his palms
'Handle that well?' She said, closing her book and taking off her reading glasses, placing them beside her.
Roy sighed, propped his head up on his elbows and pushed his hands through his hair and held it back from his eyes. 'That kid really knows how to yell for Amestris,' he said. 'All I did was tell him that using alchemy on my property was actually quite rude and he should at least ask permission. He completely blew his top.'
'Did you say something else that might have upset him?' she asked calmly.
'You're not even taking my side?' he replied, all but pouting over his shoulder at her.
'Roy, this is what I meant by being prepared to handle children. Edward is just trying to figure things out just like we are, and sometimes that means we have to just see things from his perspective.' she said gently.
'But what about transmuting my wok is helpful in anyone's perspective?'
'For someone who didn't know how to use a wok. Perhaps because no one taught him how,' she replied easily.
Roy sighed again, and began to get ready for bed. He had to wait for the bathroom because Ed had taken it, and had to reign himself in from causing another row by telling the boy to hurry up.
When Roy finally got into bed, he noticed that the book Riza had been reading and had since placed on her bedside table was titled 'Raising Children in the Modern Age'. As he turned out the lights he thought for the millionth how lucky he was to have his Lieutenant at his side to tackle this next big obstacle that came their way.
In the darkness, Riza turned around to face him. From the gentle moonlight that slipped between the curtains he could just make out the edges of her features. Her eyes were open.
'Roy,' she said softly. 'I'm not claiming to have all the answers on these things, I don't think a single parent in the world has any-'
'We aren't parents, Riza,' Roy almost laughed at the idea, 'we are just glorified landlords until the boys are set up on their own. We don't need to be parents. '
Riza was silent for a moment, and Roy wondered if perhaps that was the wrong thing to say.
'I think you are over-estimating them,' she said slowly.
'The things they know, the things they've done, they don't need parents, Riza. They are competent enough. Edward is immature in disposition, irritatingly short tempered, but Alphonse is mature enough to handle that. Don't you see it, Riza?'
'I see children who have had to grow up too fast because they have made mistakes no one was there to stop them from making.' Riza sat up then, looking at Roy until he sat up too. 'Roy, I'm concerned that you assume that Edward and Alphonse don't need us as adult figures because they have alchemic power.' She paused, pursing her lips. She reached over and grabbed her book off the side table, holding it in her lap. 'Scientists are beginning to understand how the events in our childhood affect us as adults. I don't know much about what Edward and Alphonse have experienced in their life, apart from their mother's death and the… transmutation. But they are not out of childhood yet. They're young , Roy. They need us to make sure they make it to adulthood- many children don't. I don't know how we can manage it, but I'm going to need your help with it, I need you to do it with me.'
Roy was looking down at the book in her lap, barely able to make out the text on the front beneath her fingers. The glint of the gold wedding band on her finger caught his eye.
'Of course,' he said finally. He didn't want to admit how his understanding of the situation had crumbled as Riza spoke, the Elric boys as he saw them shifting from capable alchemists who's voices hadn't dropped yet to farm boys who still needed to grow up before they could be anything.
Many children don't make it to adulthood.
'You are right. I'll try this parenting thing with you,' he said.
The next morning, Roy found Alphonse reading in the living room and Edward at the kitchen table digging into a plate of peanut butter sandwiches. Edward promptly paused his eating when Roy entered the kitchen, placing both fists on the table and glaring as though Roy had committed an offence by simply showing up. Looking at him now, Roy saw at once a motivated fighter, and a boy bracing for a blow. While his eyes were scrutinising, analysing, appraising, the rest of his features were still round and betraying his youth. He began to see under the fire he saw when he looked at Edward what Riza had been seeing all along.
'Good morning, Edward,' Roy said, putting a kettle on the stove.
'Mornin',' Edward replied, visibly relaxing and shoving another sandwich into his mouth.
Roy spotted the empty bread bag next to Ed on the table. Another loaf gone already? Roy almost groaned in exacerbation at how fast Edward was getting through the weekly groceries. For all that Alphonse saved them by not eating, Edward seemed to take double his share at any given moment. It would be halfway through the week when all the easily accessible food (being, food that didn't have to actually be cooked) would have been depleted, after which Roy would be able to hear Edward's stomach growling from across the room until one of them did the shop and the cycle began again.
'Have you always eaten so much?' Roy asked as the kettle began to rumble.
Ed glared at him again and swallowed his bite. 'What about it?' he said, guarded again. 'If you wanted a sandwich you should have said so.'
'I don't want a sandwich,' Roy said, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. 'I'm just wondering how you can be so small and still eat so much.' He turned to take the kettle.
The kitchen chair screeched across the tiles as Edward stood.
A moment later, Roy sat next to Alphonse on the sofa nursing a hot coffee and a bruised jaw.
'Does he have to be so aggressive,' Roy mumbled to Alphonse, confident Edward couldn't hear him from their bedroom.
'Sir, I'm not saying you deserve it, but you did call him short. You know how he is.'
Roy sipped his coffee silently.
Later, Riza taught Ed and Al how to use the cookware properly, guiding their hands and correcting their assumptions with gentleness. To thank her the boys agreed that they would make dinner three times a week on top of their household chores.
'It's equivalent exchange,' Ed had said, looking her in the eye as though daring her to fight him on it. 'You don't need to baby us, we can cook sometimes. It's not a big deal.'
Riza had just smiled and agreed, which had Ed blushing.
Roy noted how Riza had managed to conduct an entire afternoon of instruction with the boys without a single argument, and marvelled at the tact she held as she connected with them.
The second thing they learnt was that although Roy had grown up in Madam Christmas' busy home, and Riza as the only daughter to a renowned alchemist, neither of them had experienced traditional parenting from which to base their expectations. One day they discovered just how scarce parenting had been for Edward and Alphonse too.
That first Sunday, Roy was enjoying a rare moment of peace in the house while Riza was out meeting a friend and the boys were using his study upstairs to plough their way through his library. Roy himself had snuck out a volume of his favourite thriller series and was paging through it as the afternoon sun fell through the front window and warmed his feet on the coffee table.
Just as he was about to piece together the book's main mystery, there came a thump and a scramble from above him.
Wanting to keep his focus on the book and ignore the boys, Roy tried to tune out the muffled sound of Alphonse whining and more thumps.
It seemed, however, that the peace had been irreversibly shattered.
Roy looked up from his book when the clambering became louder. A door opened.
'AL- AL, NO!' Ed was shouting and there were sounds of struggle. 'AL!'
Roy saw Ed's sock-clad feet dangle down over the top of the stairs.
'Give it back, Brother, or I drop you,' Al said, his voice steely and low.
'Al, stop! Don't drop me! This is stupid Al just calm down!'
Ed's feet jerked, and he screamed. Roy guessed that if Alphonse were to drop Ed, he'd come straight down onto the stairs which would either dent his floor with Ed's automail, or break Ed's other leg on impact.
'Al, stop!' Ed yelled.
With a sigh, Roy stood from the couch and moved to the bottom of the stairs. 'What in God's name are you two doing?!' he barked, using his Colonel voice.
When he looked up, he saw that Alphonse had Edward's automail arm clamped in one large fist, holding the boy over the banister.
'Colonel, Ed's taken my notebook and he won't give it back!'
Ed curled his body up and was kicking at Al's arm and head in an impressive display of core strength. 'What does it matter, Al? You weren't using it and I needed to write something down! Let! Me! Down!' Punctuated by clanging kicks to Al's face with his metal foot.
'Not until you give it back!' Al began to shake Ed which caused his legs to slip from Al and Roy barely avoided getting brained by flailing limbs.
'Ow! Al, stop, that hurts!'
'Enough!' Roy shouted, the sound echoing off the walls and inside of Alphonse. The boys stilled in response. 'Alphonse, put Edward down. Edward, give him back the notebook. End this quarrel immediately and without complaint or so help me I will make you regret it.'
The boys looked at him, before a hesitant 'yes, sir' came from them both. Alphonse lifted Ed back over the bannister and placed him back on the ground, and Ed pulled the notebook from under his tank top, handing it back.
'If I hear a peep from either of you before dinner time, there will be consequences. Understood?' Roy tried to put as much force into those words as he could to make up for the fact that he would then need to think of some consequences, but he could deal with that later. His headache was coming back full force, and he wanted to go lie down more than anything, so when the boys uttered another 'yes, sir,' and slunk past him into their bedroom, he was excited to do just that.
Roy was about to give himself some parenting credit when the boys obeyed, until he went to check on them hours later and realised that their silence was attributed to the fact that their bedroom was empty, the open window sending the curtains flapping in the breeze.
Fair enough, really.
It wasn't until the sun had set and Riza had returned did he hear Alphonse's armour clamber back into their bedroom and the window be slid shut. Moments later, the door was flung open and Edward emerged, heading upstairs without a word to Roy.
'Just wait a minute,' Roy said, standing from the couch. 'Where have you two been?'
Riza closed her book and looked up from the armchair.
Edward turned to look at Roy with one foot on the bottom step- clad in the thick sock that Roy had given Ed to wear over his automail foot to prevent it scuffing the wooden floors since Ed had arrived with the habit of taking off his shoes every time he entered the house. Not common practice in the city but he imagined it came from growing up in a muddy valley. Unfortunately there wasn't much to be done about Alphonse's feet but he had promised to be careful.
'Huh?' Edward said, stepping back into the living room. 'We just went out. You said you didn't want to hear us. Is there a problem?'
'And you didn't think to tell me first?'
'Why would we have told you? You were pretty explicit. 'Sides, we are back now anyway.'
'Back from where?' Roy demanded.
'Hold on,' Riza said. 'The boys have been gone this whole time? Roy, I thought they were upstairs studying.'
Roy looked at her. 'I told them to go to their room and they left through the window. I want to know where they went.' He aimed the last part at Edward.
Edward shrugged. 'We just wandered around the neighbourhood, we met some kids and played some games with them. Why do you care?'
The words sounded confrontational, but Edward sounded genuinely curious. By then, Alphonse had heard the conversation and had joined them in the living room.
'You boys cannot simply leave the house whenever you please without telling one of us,' Riza said. 'I expected you were upstairs and to find out that in fact you were "wandering around the neighbourhood", how would Roy or I know how to find you in an emergency?'
'Sorry, Lieutenant,' Alphonse said, suddenly sheepish. 'Normally, Teacher or Granny don't mind much when we leave the house, as long as we're back by dinner time, I guess we just didn't think to tell you.'
'What kind of teacher doesn't keep tabs on her students like that?' Roy said, exasperated.
'Teacher was strict when she was with us, but otherwise she didn't really mind what we did. She left us on an island for a month to see if we could survive it a couple of years ago.' Alphonse said. 'So, I guess she figured we'd be alright wherever we were.'
Edward laughed. 'I still can't believe we did survive… I've never felt worse in my life.'
'Well this is the first I'm hearing about this,' Riza said, standing from her chair. 'An island? How old were you?'
'Yeah, I was like 9 I think,' Edward said.
'Who trains children in alchemy? Who trains children like that?' Roy asked. He tried to imagine two small blond-haired boys shivering through long nights for a month before an adult comes to take them back to bed, and a new sort of fear of the Elric's resourcefulness settled in his chest.
A sombre understanding came next: Riza and he were survivors because they'd been forced to be; the Elrics were survivors because they'd been taught to be. The difference was like a chasm in that moment, and yet on each side stood a ferocity that could meet eye to eye. Forged through necessity and honed by desperation, that ferocity had become an armour for the Elrics, one which Roy could see clearly in Edward's tight shoulders and Alphonse's sharp tongue.
'To be fair, we did beg until she relented to train us, she wasn't so happy with the idea of training children, she…' Alphonse paused, and then continued, 'her name is Izumi Curtis, she lives in Dublith. I'd say you could meet her some day but she doesn't really like state alchemists at all, so best not,' he said, laughing a little.
Edward snorted, 'I would love to see it though.' He turned and began to walk up the stairs.
Alphonse followed him. 'Brother, do you think we should call her? I wonder how she's doing…'
'And tell her what?' Roy could hear a hard edge enter Edward's tone. 'We're living with dogs of the military and trying to become one ourselves? And look at us, we've broken almost all of her rules. She wouldn't want to hear from us.'
'But, Brother-'
They closed the door to the study, and the conversation carried on where Roy couldn't hear it. He turned to face Riza, just to confirm that she was the same level of shocked as he was.
'Well, it makes sense with the boy's skill level that they have had some kind of training…' Riza started, unsure where to finish.
'An island, though?' Roy said. He shook his head, and decided that actually, considering all that, the Elrics would probably be alright roaming this nicer area of East City.
The third thing they learnt was that Edward and Alphonse were a unit, and they operated on a level that eluded Roy and Riza and yet seemed as natural as breathing to them.
When the group of them had finally found a moment in their busy schedules to go and see the Hughes', it had been a few weeks since the Elrics had moved in. Maes had called Roy frequently enough at work to catch up on the situation (catch up here to mean Maes gushing about Gracia's pregnancy and dotted with questions about Roy's situation), but Roy had been looking forward to spending time with his best friend over some alcohol.
The boys would be there too, though, so he probably shouldn't go overboard with that sentiment, not to mention Riza, but he would see how the evening went.
They piled into the car to make the couple of hours' drive to Central, Roy and Riza dressed up formally enough for a dinner but casually enough to be among friends, and the boys dressed as they always were.
For a moment, Roy had wanted to say something about a dress code for Edward, but he had thought back to the single suitcase on the bed that first day, and wondered if Edward even had any other clothes than the black tank top and jacket that he wore constantly. He was bundled in his red coat against the door in the small space that Alphose granted in the car, and Roy figured that he had to just pick his battles.
Riza was driving, and for that Roy was thankful, he had never been the best at it and so he was quietly relieved that their unspoken agreement regarding driving extended to their domestic life.
They had the radio on for background noise while the boys chattered amongst themselves in the back seat.
They weren't speaking quietly, but Roy wasn't particularly interested in what they were saying. He was more interested in watching Riza drive out of the corner of his vision, and every time her hand would come down on the gear shift he would see that wedding band. Even now, after weeks of being married to the one woman he would have chosen a million times, he found himself surprised that he actually had her. And she had him.
Last night, he had found himself in the throws of a dream which was beginning to spiral into something darker, when he was woken gently by a hand on his shoulder and her forehead pressed there. On his back, his heart went from a shivering trepidation of a nightmare to the calmed rhythm, and he drifted easily back to sleep with the back of his knuckles barely brushing her thigh.
It had been in his mind all morning, and now, sitting next to her in the car, he wanted to take her hand and hold it. It would be a nuisance, though, as she was trying to drive. Instead of that, he busied himself adding snarky comments into the conversation on the back seat as he saw fit.
'Bold of you to assume you'd even fit into a military uniform,' he said, smirking over his shoulder at a smouldering Edward.
'Bold my ass, like I'd ever even wanna wear somethin' so ugly anyway,' Edward said, sticking his nose up and crossing his arms. His rural accent came out thicker when he got wound up, and Roy enjoyed getting that validation for his efforts.
'He's right though, Ed, they probably don't make uniforms in your size, I wonder if they'd even do mine...' Al added thoughtfully. 'Suppose we'd be allowed to be full state alchemists if we don't wear a uniform?'
'If we're good enough they'd have to let us in, who cares about what we wear?' Edward said.
'IF you're good enough,' Roy goaded, and turned around as Ed erupted into a cloud of colourful insults, happily letting the kid explode behind him. He did, however, steal a glance over at Riza, at which point his triumph for winding Edward up deflated. She had caught his eye briefly with a look that was wholly and entirely disappointment. Even as she turned back to face the road, he heard her voice in his head saying 'I wish you wouldn't wind him up so much, sir,' as if she had telepathically said it herself.
He sat back against the passenger seat and looked out the window at the passing buildings.
It wasn't long after that when he heard Edward start snoring from the back, and he turned to find the boy slumped against the car door, mouth open and hands loose in his lap, looking extremely childlike.
Alphonse must have noticed him look over. 'Sorry, Colonel, Ed just falls asleep wherever he is if there's nothing to occupy him.' Then, to Edward, as he jostled the boy gently with the flat of his spiked elbow. 'Brother, come on, close your mouth when you sleep.'
Edward just grumbled unintelligibly and maneuvered himself to lie his head on Alphonse's lap, folding his arms over the steel to form a cushion and falling right back asleep. This time, he didn't snore.
Roy stole a glance back up at Alphonse's face at that moment, and found a tender look in the soulfire of his eyes as he adjusted Edward's coat. When they had arrived, Roy had found it difficult and jarring to be faced with Alphonse's steel features when conversing or spending time together. Over time, though, that barrier had slowly dissolved. Roy could still clearly remember the moment he noticed the emotion that Alphonse held in his eyes when defending Edward in a particularly heated debate; for a moment, Roy could see the boy inside, eager to impress and full of enthusiasm, behind the cold face of the armour. Next had been his body language. The boy could rise tall and confident and shrink to a humble smallness as quickly as a butterfly. This was another tell that Roy had learnt by which to understand Alphonse. At times like these, he was grateful to be able to see the boy's heart as he wore it on his sleeve, when he was allowed a moment to care for Edward without getting his head bitten off by Edward's aggressive pride.
By the time they'd finally gotten to Central, Ed had awoken and was eager to get out of the cramped space of the car. When Riza finally pulled to a stop in front of the Hughes' house he was out of the door before the engine was off. Alphonse was slower to exit the car on account of his anxiety of damaging the thing with his armour.
When Roy knocked on the door, he heard Maes' excited voice muffled from the other side before the door was flung open. There, beaming from ear to ear, was Maes in his gaudiest purple blouse that he saved for special occasions.
'Hellooooo Mustang family!' he said, stepping aside and flourishing his hand aside. 'Please, let me not keep you waiting a moment longer. Come inside!'
Roy heard Edward emit some aghast squeak and Alphonse was chuckling quietly.
Roy led them into the front room, where Gracia was waiting with a gentle smile on her face.
'My, hello everyone, hello boys,' she said, directing the last part at the Elrics who slunk in behind Roy and Riza.
'Hello Mrs Hughes,' Alphonse said, 'I'm pleased to meet you. My name is Alphonse, and this is my brother Edward.'
Edward was keeping an eye on the rambunctious man that was smothering Roy and Riza in hugs but spared a moment to wave at Gracia. 'Hello, nice to meet you, ma'am.'
'Please,' she said, waving a hand in dismissal. 'Call me Gracia.
The boys seemed to gravitate over to her, Roy noted, and she entertained them with conversation and questions that stayed tactfully away from anything significant. They seemed relaxed around her instantly. Roy, though keeping an eye out for any trouble the boys might cause, allowed himself to focus on his conversation with Maes.
They caught up with work, Roy learning that whispers of a promotion were circling around Maes and his excellent performance in crime scene detective work, which Roy was chuffed to hear. His friend deserved to rise 5 ranks, but starting with one was good enough. He shared how he and Riza had been spreading 'leaked' information about their long term relationship which had caught like tinder to flame, and gossip had circled back to his office successfully. Everyone in his team knew the basics, but the specifics of the Elrics' situation was still confidential. Their conversation wound more and more into normality, and soon Roy was laughing with his chest in a way that he rarely did without Maes there to encourage it. Somehow, the two of them had grown up enough to have dinner parties together, a definite improvement from the solemn drinking sessions they had shared a few years prior, and Roy felt a twinge of something soft and happy at the fact both of them had made it this far. In the throws of a particularly hilarious tale of a receptionist at Maes' dentist and a fish tank that got knocked over, Roy was having to wipe a tear from his eye and caught the gaze of Edward, watching from across the room. It was a neutral sort of watchful, but it caught Roy a little off guard. Having been spotted, Edward turned back to Gracia, Riza, and Alphonse at the table and didn't look back. Roy brushed it off, but didn't forget.
When lunch was ready, they all collected around the dining table and took their seats as Gracia brought out the food. Roy noted, without outwardly showing it, how the four of them had automatically paired up and sat in a pattern similar to their seating arrangement at home: Ed opposite Riza, and Alphonse opposite Roy. As he waited to be passed the accompanying wine from Maes, he wondered when they had even taken up assigned seats at their table at home. It had come so naturally that he didn't notice until now how the other seats at his own kitchen table had become symbolically 'off limits' to him as a result of their belonging to another member of the house. Another member of his... family.
After pouring his wine, he stood to thank Gracia and Maes for their hospitality and clinked glasses with everyone before they all tucked into the wonderful pie that Gracia had made. He noticed immediately that Gracia had given an Alphonse a serving too. By chance, he caught the look that Edwad and Alphonse shared at that moment.
Edward was looking at Alphonse with a fierce determination. Whatever the question was in the interaction, Edward clearly already had an answer and was immovable on it. Alphonse, for his part of having an expressionless face, took only a moment more to agree with his brother and resigned to his seat. Alphonse did not touch his plate for the meal, not even to pretend to eat as he sometimes did in polite company. Edward, for his part, was inhaling his food until he swapped his plate with Alphonse and finished that off too.
Roy tried to keep his eyes off the Elrics, not wanting to bring too much attention to the awkward situation, but he did notice Gracia glace at Alphonse a couple of times over the meal. He was suddenly unsure whether Maes had told Gracia the whole truth about the Elrics, and hoped for her pride in her cooking that he had. Personally, he couldn't imagine keeping that kind of secret from Riza, nevermind his own wife.
Oh, right. He'd forgotten again. They were one in the same, and for the second time that day he was overtaken by the urge to reach out and take her hand, and for the second time that day her hand was, sadly, otherwise occupied.
When everyone had finished (which had Edward and Alphonse waiting for a while with empty plates and more comfortable to enter the conversation) the boys were quick to offer to clear up. Gracia allowed it and thanked them, but Roy watched them step into the kitchen with the plates and glasses and not emerge for a suspiciously long time. Refusing to acknowledge the small bubble of anxiety that bloomed at the idea of the Elric's causing chaos in his best friend's home, he politely excused himself from the table to check on them. Approaching the kitchen, he overheard the conversation the boys were having between themselves. Stepping in, he kept his movements silent. He was inaudible over the clanging and clinking of the dishes as Alphonse washed up and Edward dried.
'I don't like it, Brother, we should have told them. It was awkward,' Alphonse said.
'We should not have told them. Al, you need to get it through your thick skull that we can't go around telling people about what happened to us. We stick to our story. You're in alchemy training, I lost my limbs to the war. That's what will keep people from asking questions, that's what will keep you safe.'
Alphonse was quiet. Roy could tell he was conflicted, and he paused to look at Edward. Edward noticed and put down the kitchen towel. They looked at each other, like back at the table, and Edward reached out to knock against Alphonse's armour twice, the sound ringing.
Alphonse was, somehow, satisfied with that response, and continued washing the dishes.
Roy wondered what was shared in that moment. For all the tenderness in the action, it seemed that the brothers could read beyond words when it came to one another. It seemed so easy for Edward to reach out to his brother, when to everyone else he was guarded and distant. Edward's ferocity had ground on Roy during the short time they had been living together so far. Witnessing the gentleness and openness Edward was capable of sharing with people he cared about had Roy overcome with a soft feeling, something feather-light in his chest, as he thought about one day becoming someone with whom Edward and Alphonse could be open like that.
Roy chose that moment to let himself be known, knocking on the doorframe. 'Just checking you aren't creating chaos in this kitchen unsupervised.'
Edward glared. 'Who needs supervision? We're just doing the dishes. Go back to the table.'
Roy huffed a laugh, and did just that.
Later that evening, after Riza had finalised the paperwork for her change of name and address and they had returned home, Roy reached out and took her hand as they sat on the couch reading together. He laced their fingers together, and found that reaching out to someone you knew would reach back wasn't something to fear. He mentally thanked Edward for that fourth and unlikely lesson.
A/N: Hello! This fic is heavily inspired by Littlemisswolfie's post of the same premise and I couldn't resist giving the idea a shot myself! I absolutely recommend her Mustang Family AU posts on her tumblr for an excellent read- she's brilliant.
This is largely a self-indulgent piece which I thought I'd share to see if anyone else was interested; FMA is my oldest fandom which I have written for (I started writing for it in 2011, known then by AllyPallyCally1! A decade already!) and I am full of happy feelings contributing again to a fandom which has sustained me since I was 12 years old. To make sure I have improved my writing at all in all those years, thank you to the ever-supportive chasingconstellations on AO3 for beta-reading this chapter despite having never watched FMA. I'm cross-posting this on AO3 too, but I thought I'd hit up my OG fic site too.
Just a note on the timeline- I'll be following the 2003 plot for the first part because of the depth that 2003 goes into the events that Brotherhood brushes over, however overall I indend this fic to follow the Brotherhood/Manga plotline.
Please let me know if you enjoyed this first chapter so I can know if this is something I should keep up or keep to myself, and I always appreciate feedback. Or, come rant about FMA with me on tumblr atomic-bobo, I'd love to chat.
Thanks for stopping by! Have a good day!