"You just found him outside your window?" Roy queried, glaring at the seething man in front of him, who was now thoroughly tied down to one of his kitchen chairs. Al nodded sheepishly.
"Yeah, he was picking the lock and trying to get in." He verified, taking a step back with a jolt as the man started to scream again in a choppy and foreign language. Even if Roy did understand what he assumed to be Drachman, he was sure he wouldn't be able to decipher the man's words as they were muffled by the strip of cloth tied around his mouth.
They all stood in an anxious and bewildered semi-circle, blinking owlishly at the thrashing man they weren't quite sure what to do with. He had called for a team to bring the man into custody, but they wouldn't be arriving for around another ten minutes.
So now Roy had a crazed foreigner in his living room, and to say he hadn't expected to be in this situation on his Friday morning was an understatement.
"What do you think he's saying?" Havoc pondered, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning forward towards the man with a thoughtful squint.
Roy's eyes darted between Havoc and their captive before he shrugged and turned to Falman.
"Any ideas, Falman?"
The man had an impressively large span of knowledge, so much so it was almost robotic. The team had dubbed him their human encyclopedia, and he certainly lived up to the name, often spewing fun facts when conversations went dry and whenever else he could. His memory was so accurate and precise that if Roy were to ask for information on any case file he had ever read, he had no doubt that Falman would be able to recite it word for word, so Roy thought it safe to assume that perhaps he had picked up another language or two.
The man hummed, eyes narrowing in focus as his chin rested between his thumb and forefinger. He turned to Roy.
"I can understand small amounts of Drachman, sir, but I can't understand what he's saying due to his restrained manner." He droned, assuming his usual stoic and professional tone.
Roy observed the bristled man in front of him, who was fruitlessly struggling so violently against his bindings that the legs of the chair he was tied to rattled and bounced off the ground, the chair threatening to tip over completely if he didn't soon calm.
Flecks of spittle escaped from around the gag with the man's short and choppy words of protest, his breathing hard and shallow. When Roy looked into his steely eyes blue and icy like the country he came from, he could see nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred burning within them, so strong it seemed to radiate out of his eyes and crawl under Roy's skin.
"Very well, I suppose we can remove the gag." He reasoned, taking a few cautious steps towards the man and around the chair. "After all, he can't do any harm with his mouth."
He fiddled with the knot in what appeared to be a strip of bedsheets at the back of his head, letting the two sides fall away from each other. He pulled the fabric out from between the man's clenched teeth, bringing along a nauseating string of saliva.
Roy had been wrong when he said that the man could do no harm without the gag. Very wrong.
The second the man was freed from his verbal restraints, he let loose.
His head wrenched around so wildly Roy was sure he'd give himself whiplash, all while an unholy shrieking erupted from his throat.
Reminiscent of pots and pans banging together and nails on a chalkboard at once, the sheer volume and rigidity of the voice was nothing short of torture. Everyone in the room had their hands clasped over their ears, except for Al of course, considering he had none to protect and was devoid of usual human weaknesses. Even Hawkeye was wincing, betraying her ever-stolid shield.
Roy waited a few moments, the screeching unrelenting and seemingly growing louder, allowing Falman to get a good earful before he replaced the gag. He was sure the man was having no issues with that.
After around thirty agonising seconds, Roy wasted no time in shoving the strip of material back into the man's mouth and tying it back none too gently, double knotting it for good measure.
"Holy shit." Havoc muttered, wincing as he massaged his ear gingerly.
"I really hope you got all that, Falman. I don't think I could stand another second of that." Ed added, looking up from his place on the couch with eyes narrowed in annoyance and a pillow plastered around the back of his head and over each ear. He looked to Falman, whose brow was pinched together in discomfort and thought.
"Hm, well from what I could understand, he's yelling about the downfall of Amestris, the inevitable prevail of Drachma, and something about an all powerful man by the name of 'Igor the Great'." He deducted, stating his findings in a business-like demeanor. Roy's brow furrowed.
"Igor the Great, huh?" He mused, clasping his hands behind his back. "You think he's the one behind all this?"
"Great my ass." Ed interjected before anyone else could respond. "More like great pain in the neck. And leg, and shoulder and literally everywhere else." He grumbled, a metal finger sandwiched in the middle of his book to keep his page while he scowled at the man with much more malice in his face than there ever was when he looked at Roy. He didn't blame the boy of course, he had more than a right to be angry, Roy was angry too, perhaps even more so than Ed. He felt one last twinge of sympathy for Edward and a spark of undying hatred for the Drachman agent in front of him before he buried his personal ties and began to take hold of the situation as if it didn't involve the very life and well being of the boy he loved like a son.
"Falman, I assume you'll remember what you've heard, write it down if you need, just don't lose that information." Roy ordered, earning a curt nod and a sharp 'yes, sir'. His eyes scanned over the rest of the members of his team. "Everyone else, remember the name 'Igor the Great' like your life depends on it and find out anything and everything you can about it and it's significance."
They all gave him a stiff salute, looks of determination and unquestioning loyalty printed on their faces. It was then that the small team had arrived to take their feisty captive back to Central Command.
They moved to untie the man from the chair, but Roy stopped them with an outstretched hand and an exasperated shake of his head.
"The subject is extremely volatile and will lash out given the chance," He explained, weighing his next words. "You might as well just take the chair." He sighed, his words light and airy with frustration.
The man would without doubt use any freedom he would regain to his advantage, and Roy wasn't about to risk it. He just wanted him to be carried away and be safely disposed of behind bars and locks far away from Ed. Roy had tied the man down securely, pulling the knots tight with a certain kind of strength only provided by anger. He didn't expect the man to just up and escape, but he still didn't feel comfortable with him being in the same room as Ed.
If he had to give up a kitchen chair to reinstate Ed's safety as fast as possible, he would do so gladly. He was probably in need of a new table set anyway.
The two young soldiers were visibly puzzled by their instructions, but knew better than to question the wisdom of a superior officer. So with one person on either side, they heaved up the chair along with the thrashing man, his quick movements from side to side nearly knocking them over several times as they began to hobble out the door.
The sight would have been comical, if it weren't for how dire their circumstances truly were. Roy didn't have it in him to laugh when Ed's life was on the line. He couldn't indulge in mirth when he had already been so close to losing him so many times.
He couldn't let his guard down for even the splittest of seconds. He couldn't fail Ed, not again.
As soon as the two soldiers carried that wretched man out of his house, Roy threw the door closed and made haste in re-securing all of his locks, undoubtedly startling the two men on the other side. Roy felt guilty for only a single fleeting moment, before he decided that if they could handle the man's dyed-in-the-wool chaotic boughs of hate, they could handle a little door slamming.
He breathed a sigh of muddled anxiety and relief, turning his eyes to Ed, who had spent the entire time trying to ignore his surroundings and continue reading his book, muttering something about 'important newly developed alchemic arrays that may be beneficial to his research'. Roy smile fondly as the boy turned another page of the tome, his brow lowered and lips pursed slightly in concentration. Even in the midst of a hazy cloud of pain and what can only be explained as utter entropy, Edward Elric still had it in him to study.
It was just like him to revel in levity until he could hide no longer, brushing off anything that came his way no matter how serious it may be and trading his fear for nonchalance.
Roy sighed. He could only hope that with time would come healing, and maybe one day the boy would begin to realize that strength didn't have to mean bottling everything away. One day, he would see that fear and pain had never and would never make him weak, and were only the tedious truths of what it meant to be human.
Until then, Roy would be there.
He would be there to mutter soft reassurances, he would be there when the world became to much to bear, he would be there when it became difficult to stand up and weather even the gentlest of breezes.
He would be there to pick up the pieces whenever everything inevitably came crashing down, and he could carry the glue when it all needed to be built back up again.
And on the day it all becomes clear, he would be there, soaking up the sun on the greener side of it all as it dried away the sheen of rain from his skin and finally thawed the bitter chill deep in his bones.
He swore on everything he had and everything he lived for, he would be there, despite it all, no matter what.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Sdlanka, Drachma...
Igor wasn't an impatient man, but it had been nearly a month since he had sent several forces in to secure his prize, and they had all either come back empty handed, or they didn't come back at all.
Not that he cared, they were just pawns after all.
He rocked in his chair, seated behind his desk in front of the room's only window, a mere sliver of light peaking through from between the drawn curtains and shining through the smoky room like headlights on a foggy morning.
He steepled his fingers and rested his elbows on his desk, looking over the mission outlines and reports he'd read several times that day already and finding nothing helpful from them, though he hadn't expected anything different.
"The mission has failed, sir. Agent Ivanov has been apprehended by the Amestrian Military." His secretary informed him, not a sliver of emotion shining on her face. Perhaps she was hardened by the life of war, perhaps it was just blind loyalty to a man who promised her better things. Nonetheless, she listened and followed orders without so much as a bat of her eyes, no matter what. For that reason, Igor kept her close.
He scoffed, resting his chin on his intertwined fingers.
"Useless, the lot of them." He sneered, shaking his head disapprovingly. "And here I thought I trained them well."
He sighed, taking a long drag from his smoldering cigarette as if it would quell the anger building in his chest.
"What do we do now, sir?" The secretary asked, her voice flat and monotonous and devoid of emotion as always. Igor hummed.
"What do we do now?" He echoed, blowing out his breath of smoke and tapping the ash off of the end of his cigarette. He sighed wearily, but there was a twinge of determination hidden in his breath.
"We wait."