A/N: Holy crap, I'm back! Apologies, everyone, but those of you who read my other work know that my new job has been demanding a truly ridiculous amount of my time. But I'm excited to be back, and posting for you guys again! I'll try to keep my updates more frequent, promise!

This chapter is a gift for all of you who asked to see the story behind Fuery's line in the last chapter about there being a choice between Elric kidnappings, and Mustang letting Ed go instead of Al. As always, I love to see requests in the reviews! They give me food for thought, even if I can't get to them all.

Thanks, as ever, to those of you who continue to read this story. I have tremendous love for you all!

I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, and am making no money from this work.

Switcheroo

Never let it be said that Roy Mustang wasn't a learning man. For all that he seemed so set in his ways, the true heart of his successful manipulation was adaptability. Which was why, four hours into a hostage situation that had his entire office on lockdown, he started taking mental notes the minute Havoc dragged Edward through the door.

"Your turn," Havoc said, and there was a bruise under his right eye, just beginning to swell.

Edward, who Havoc was holding by the braid, managed to hiss his irritation and radiate embarrassed shame at the exact same time. It was actually a really impressive display of emotional duality.

"Get a fist to the face, Lieutenant?" Mustang asked, steepling his fingers beneath his chin.

"Well," Havoc said, as Edward elbowed him off and sulked his way toward Mustang's couch. "Not an automail fist, so that's something, I guess." Havoc's face softened as he watched Edward settle for exactly twelve seconds before springing back to his feet and stalking toward the office window instead. "I mean, I get it. No one's asking him to hold it together, really. But, still. Fist to the face. Automatically equals your turn, Colonel."

"It's fine," Mustang said, one eye on Havoc, and one already sliding to where Edward was standing, locked down tight with tension. "I've got him. Go ice that eye, Lieutenant."

"Sir," Havoc said, and Edward didn't even snort a little bit, which meant things were worse than Mustang had been prepping for.

A long, and terribly loud silence filled the room as Mustang pretended he wasn't watching Edward's body vibrate with desperation and Ed gave exactly zero shits about anything at all.

"He is invulnerable," Mustang finally said, soft and almost bored as he sorted through the papers on his desk. Without seeing them. "To an extent, he can't be hurt."

Edward's shoulders snapped tight like bullets hitting walls.

"Only if they don't know," he tossed back. "He's only invulnerable if they don't know our secret, and who the hell would kidnap him if they didn't?"

"You're an infamous alchemist, Fullmetal. Everybody knows who you are, and how the armor that follows you around is important. A bad guy doesn't need to know your secret to know how to hurt you most."

Ed hissed out an impatient breath. His clenched fist tapped restlessly at Mustang's window.

"Yeah, but what happens when they yank off his helmet and see what's missing?" he asked. "Bad guys aren't stupid, Bastard, otherwise we'd catch a lot more of them."

"You have to trust that Alphonse can take care of himself."

"He shouldn't have to. That's my job; it's always been my job."

Mustang didn't turn around. Because this was the kind of conversation that was always lurking beneath the surface between the Elric boys, and of course only a dangerous situation could beat back Edward's emotional allergy long enough for it to bubble to the surface.

"I bet he would say it isn't," Mustang offered, voice carefully neutral.

Ed's fist hit the window a little harder, coaxed a startled groan out of the glass.

"Doesn't matter," he said back, voice as stretched and strained as the window panes. "Doesn't matter, because it is."

And then he fell silent, save for the relentless tapping of his fists against the glass, and Mustang couldn't get another word out of him. Couldn't get past the potential horrors sparking behind Ed's eyes long enough to shove some sense into the thick skull they resided in.

"Watch him," he said to Riza, long after Ed had given up his tapping and taken himself to bed. "Something's wrong, something's broken."

"He seemed all right, Sir," Riza returned, mild confusion furrowing her brow. "A little quieter than usual, but I don't think that's unexpected, given the circumstances."

Mustang shook his head.

"No, that's not…" he trailed off, shook his head, frustrated by the fact that they hadn't seen what he saw. "He's not okay. Where's the screaming, the swearing, the stomping? Whenever he gets taken hostage, we find him by the trail of things blown sky high by his obnoxious little hands."

"A truth you scold him for, every single time," Riza pointed out, voice as dry as dust.

"Yeah, whatever, government funding is not unlimited."

"Sir. We heard you laughing, that time that Edward blew up the statue of General Yu. You closed the office door, but we could still hear you."

"I'm certain that I have no idea what you're talking about. And on a completely unrelated note, blowing up statues is a lot less funny once the paperwork arrives. Even if Fullmetal has a special talent for the creative destruction of inappropriate public figures."

Riza's sigh implied her deep and abiding regret for ever signing on to work with a team of boys.

"Where do you want me tonight?" she asked.

Mustang shrugged.

"Outside his door," he said. "Or maybe his window. Any potential exits, but you still need to be able to hear him, Hawkeye."

"Hear him, Sir?"

"Hear him," Mustang agreed, and there was absolutely nothing like humor in his face as he said it.

That night, Edward's screams woke half the dormitory. Thankfully, Lieutenant Hawkeye was walking nearby and was able to get inside and wake Fullmetal from his nightmare before anyone else could sneak in and see the vulnerability on his face.

….

Edward's eyes were sunken the next day, and his lips bitten to ribbons. There was still no sign of Alphonse, but this time Ed refused to confine himself to Mustang's office. Instead, he holed himself up inside the library, and emerged eight hours later, looking furious and fueled, his eyes wild and his fingers stained with ink.

That night, Major Armstrong caught him trying to sneak out of the dormitories, and watched, for once silent and sparkle-free, as Edward spilled out his desperate and half-deranged action plan in a series of furious rants. His eyes sparked strangely serious as he deposited the furious alchemist on Mustang's office doorstep.

"He's angry," Armstrong observed, as Mustang herded Edward toward the couch with a single iron-clad glare.

"And not in the normal way," the Colonel added. "Not in a way that can be used, or channeled, or made productive. His tunnel vision is getting tighter, the longer this drags on."

"It was dark, the alchemy Edward was planning to use. Destructive."

Mustang sighed.

"We'll have to keep him away from the library, at least until this is over."

Armstrong took a moment to drag his eyes over Mustang's lived-in looking office. At Mustang's uniform, still rumpled and worn from the workday. At the coffee sitting quiet on his desk, and the stack of paperwork half-completed.

"You knew," he said. "You stayed."

"I had a lot of work to finish," Mustang said, and it sounded like an agreement.

Armstrong closed the office door on the sight of Edward settling on the couch, and Mustang ignoring his entire existence like he knew Edward would break under any sort of attention.

….

"Aren't you going to scold me?" Ed asked, a little later. He was on the couch, but he couldn't sleep, not without seeing Alphonse's face.

Or his mother's.

"For what?" Mustang asked as his pen slid across his paper. "For being stupid? If I scolded you every time you were stupid, Fullmetal, we'd never actually leave this office."

"So, that's it?" Ed asked, continuing the conversation solely because he needed a distraction from the terror beating a harsh tattoo underneath his skin. Ed didn't like fear, despised being afraid, but didn't know how to make it stop when it was inspired by family. "I spend the night on your couch, and all is right with the world?"

"You're falling apart," Mustang returned, blunt because people had been babying Edward since his brother was taken four days ago. "Losing stability. I have no use on my team for an alchemist that flies off half-cocked, Fullmetal. If you can't keep it together, I'll take you off of the team until this mission is over."

"Try it, Bastard. Just trying telling me I can't look for my brother. What happens after that is on your head."

"I'll do more than try," Mustang said, calm and in control and hardly even caring as he signed paper after paper. "You may be a genius and a prodigy, Edward, but there are more than enough people who can keep your ass benched right now if we need to."

"Babysitters have never worked before, Bastard."

"Sure, before. When there were two of you, and you weren't half out of your head with desperation. But right now, Fullmetal? You've been caught two nights in a row already, and we haven't even had to try."

Edward fell silent. After a while, he curled his knees up against his chest and dropped his head on top of them. His breath evened out eventually, but he'd barely been asleep twenty minutes before the soft sounds of nightmares started up.

Mustang kept signing, kept his office lamps burning, and the fury in his eyes couldn't be seen unless you looked closely enough.

…

Day five dawned with Fuery and Falman creeping quietly to Mustang's door, and reporting in hushed voices that Edward had been up for hours, and hadn't left the gym at all. Mustang, who had fallen asleep just long enough for Edward to sneak out of the room, nodded and rose from his chair.

"We tried," Fuery whispered sadly. "We really tried, Colonel. But it was like he didn't hear us. And his knuckles were bleeding already, from hitting that bag so hard, and it's been hours since then."

The gym smelled like sweat and iron, and Fullmetal's hands were bleeding through the wraps. Sweat rolled down his face, and the signs of dehydration were there, but his eyes never wavered from the punching bag, barely even blinked.

"Fullmetal," Mustang said, and ignored Falman's instinctive wince as he stepped in front of the bag. Edward's fist halted mid-fly, his unbreakable gaze wavering to Mustang instead. "Let's go."

He unwrapped Edward's hands, and Fuery's face looked half destroyed as the blood-stained bandages fell to the floor. Mustang didn't bother to apply first aid, just dragged Edward along by the wrist to the Mess Hall, slapping a tray down in front of him.

Edward made it about halfway through the meal, forcing bits of food between his lips, before gagging and bolting toward the nearest bathroom. Mustang wrapped what he hadn't managed and bagged it up for later.

"Sir," Fuery said. "He's going to be okay. He has to be okay, right?"

"It's been five days, Fuery," Mustang said, quickly and competently bundling Edward's silverware. "And I can't stop all the horrible things he's imagining, because they might be true by now."

Fuery didn't say anything. Just pressed his lips together tight and helped Mustang herd Edward back towards his office.

….

"I need you to come to Central," Mustang whispered later that night, whispered because Edward was making those soft nightmare noises on his couch again.

"Why's that?"

"He's…I can't…Hughes," Mustang said, and even to his own ears he sounded powerless.

Over the phone, Hughes sighed.

"I'm on a mission," he said. "In the middle of it, and I can't get away. Besides, I hear you're doing just fine."

Mustang's head hit the desk (very quietly) because of course his team was calling Hughes, of course they were. They always did when they were worried, and he'd totally seen Breda on the phone earlier, the traitor.

"I'm not," he protested. "He won't eat, and he barely sleeps, and he's either completely lifeless or ready to run away half-cocked."

"I wish I could say it wasn't what I expected," Hughes said, voice heavy over the line. "But, Roy. Edward's always had obsessions. And this one, it's important, the most important, and of course he can't function when it's missing."

"I know that," Mustang said. "But I'm not helping, because I can't coddle him."

"He doesn't need to be coddled," Hughes countered. "Ed's seen more damage in his life than most people, maybe as much as you and I, and he wouldn't know what to do with being coddled. He needs someone to help him cope, to get it, and that's what you can offer right now. Focus on what you can do right now, Roy, that's what he needs."

Mustang looked over at Edward, hands clenched and head tossing restlessly against the couch.

"Hughes," he said, and it was as helpless as he ever let himself sound to another human being.

"Roy. It's going to be all right."

Not fair, Mustang wanted to chant. Not fair that Fullmetal can need so much from me when I still need to be comforted myself.

"I have to go," Hughes said. "I really am in the middle of a mission."

"Okay." Mustang scrubbed a hand over his face. "Okay. Be safe."

"Of course."

He hung up, and Mustang listened to the dial tone for a long time, because he wanted to scream. Wanted to kick and shout that no teenager, no child, should ever have to rely on a person like him, someone who'd done the things he had.

After a while, he breathed deep and set the phone down. He rose from his chair and went to get another cup of coffee.

Because that was what he could do right now.

….

Of course, Hughes hadn't mentioned that the mission he'd been in the middle of had been locating Alphonse Elric.

So, when the call came in the next morning, just as the sun was beginning to track pink streaks across the sky, that Alphonse Elric had been recovered unharmed and was asking for his brother, Mustang watched the fixed stare fade from Edward's eyes like a magic trick.

"Al," Ed repeated.

"He's fine," Mustang said again. "A little banged up, but the rebel faction that took him has been arrested, and he's anxious to see you."

For a brief moment, everything in Edward bowed, and shuddered, and Mustang thought he might be about to vomit again.

But then his back snapped straight.

"Okay," he said. "So, are we going to go see him or what, Bastard? I know getting off your ass is a foreign concept for you, but I've had enough of this bullshit waiting game, you know?"

Like normal. Like nothing had ever happened.

When Ed saw Al again, a bit dented and weary-sounding but indeed in one piece, Ed socked him on the shoulder and scolded him for being stupid enough to get caught. Al laughed and shook his head, and argued that it wasn't actually his fault, since his kidnappers hadn't even been after him in the first place.

Like normal. Like Edward hadn't just spent the better part of a week deteriorating and desperate inside Mustang's office.

"See?" Hughes said, obviously exhausted but also viciously satisfied as he leaned against the wall at Mustang's side. "You did just fine."

…..

Because this was their life, Mustang and his crew made it maybe five weeks before another kidnapping-specific incident.

("You can't just call it an incident," Fullmetal would inform him later, as they watched Fuery and Breda color in a new box on the Kidnapping Chart. "Hostage situations are a special thing for us. I mean, we don't have a chart for weird, robot-loving alchemists like the one we smacked down last week, right?")

Mustang had followed Ed and Al on a mission, which was not hovering, no matter what Riza's almost-smiles and Havoc pitying snorts implied. He was going simply because it was a situation that called for delicacy, and Fullmetal still acted like that particular concept was a rather entertaining party joke.

Only it went south as quickly as it should have been saved, again, because this was their life.

"Listen," the rogue alchemist said, dirty and desperate with one careful finger poised above Alphonse's blood seal. "I don't want to hurt anybody, really. I just need to get out, you see, and I need leverage against the military to do that."

Beside him, Ed was tensed like a runner on the mark. Mustang doubted that he was even hearing what the alchemist was saying. All of his focus, all of that prodigy-level attention, was fixated on the circling thumb, tracing Al's seal almost absent-mindedly. That focus, to the exclusion of everything else, was something Mustang could recognize now, having dealt with it the last time Alphonse had been in danger.

The last time. When Ed had punched things until he bled, barely slept, and started researching the same dark alchemy that had led to his downfall once before. The same dark alchemy that he should have shied away from, just on principal.

"If you need leverage," Mustang said, slow and careful because the air was dangerously still. "One suit of armor isn't going to do you much good."

"Don't lie to me, Mustang," the alchemist said, and pressed a little harder on the seal. Beside him, Ed made a noise that somehow embodied panic and pain, and Mustang clamped preemptive fingers down around his wrist. "I'm an alchemist, not some common street thug. This armor is the Fullmetal boy's brother. And if I snap his seal, there won't be enough of him left to stuff inside a body. That seems like perfectly serviceable leverage to me."

"Brother," Al said, soft and scared but still so strong. "It's okay. I'm okay. He won't hurt me, because then he won't have any leverage at all."

But Ed still wasn't listening, couldn't hear, apparently, over the terror pounding inside his skull.

"The armor might be important to the boy, but we at the military have no use for it," Mustang said, voice so calm even as he cringed inside. "There's a reason only one Elric was made into an alchemist. Snap his seal and you still won't clear the building."

The alchemist froze, face pale with indecision, because if any game belonged to Mustang, poker was definitely it.

"But we want to negotiate," he continued, voice as soothing as a lullabye. "We're not unreasonable, and this doesn't have to be a messy thing. Take Fullmetal instead. I promise you that none of our own will fire on a state alchemist."

"Colonel," Al whispered. "Colonel, what are you doing?"

Mustang thought about Ed's ravaged face, thought about his shaking shoulders and blood-stained hands as he curled up on his couch, and ignored Al's horrified question.

"Think about it," he said instead, speaking directly to the alchemist. "Think about how much the military has invested in Fullmetal already. Letting him join the service so young. You don't think the Fuhrer will do anything to protect his prodigy?"

The alchemist's eyes widened. His fingers scraped carelessly down Al's metal sides, but his eyes had fixed on Edward. Mustang could see the calculations flying behind his eyes, quick and sharp.

"No tricks," Mustang added, because pressure could always be applied. "Like I said, we want to negotiate. I just want you to make sure that you've got the right bargaining tools before we start."

"Fine," the alchemist said. "Send Fullmetal to me."

Mustang tightened his fingers on Ed's wrist.

"This isn't my first negotiation," he said, almost lazily. "I'm a little bit smarter than your average military bureaucrat. Take your fingers off of the armor's blood seal, and I'll send Fullmetal your way."

The alchemist tapped a considering finger against the seal instead, and Alphonse made a noise in spite of himself.

"I thought the armor meant nothing to you," he said.

Mustang shrugged.

"That's what I said," he agreed. "But the brother still holds weight with Fullmetal, and I won't be leaving you with all the power, no matter what kind it is."

The alchemist considered. Eventually, he nodded, and pulled his hands away from the seal.

Mustang loosened his fingers from Ed's wrist, although they felt heavier for the releasing. For the life of him, he couldn't explain why letting go felt so much harder, and why his throat felt thick as he gave Fullmetal a nudge in the back.

"Go," he said, when Ed looked at him with confused eyes.

"I don't-"

"Listen, Fullmetal, the last time your brother got kidnapped, you moped on my couch for a week," Mustang said. "Really, serious moping, and I sort of need my office mope-free to get any work done. So, get over there, and let me keep your brother safe, because I can't stand any more of your emotional feels all over my couch."

He shoved Fullmetal again, because for some reason it was even more difficult to let him go now that awareness was filling those golden eyes.

"I," Edward tried again, and then actually smiled a little. The clarity in his eyes tightened Mustang's chest like a fist. "Yeah. Okay."

He walked, slow and careful in the alchemist's direction, eyes fixed on the alchemist's hands, lest they wander back towards Al's seal. Once he was within grabbing distance, he held his hands in the air.

"I'm here," he said. "But you need to let Al go."

"Brother," Al whispered. "Brother, don't."

The alchemist flipped his eyes in Mustang's direction, quick and calculating, and the Colonel could see that he was weighing the benefits of keeping both. But Mustang made sure to keep his face as lazy as a yawn, and betray exactly zero of the concern he felt for Alphonse.

With a quick, careless snort, the alchemist shoved Al away. Al's armor hit the ground with a dull-sounding thud, and fast as a blink, the alchemist had fashioned a set of ropes to keep Edward's hands apart and therefore unable to perform alchemy.

"Brother," Al cried, shifting to his metal knees.

"Al, go," Ed hissed, and then stumbled as the alchemist tugged on his ropes.

"You should be able to clear the building now," Mustang said. "Send us a list of your demands, and we should be able to reach a deal."

"I certainly hope so, Mustang," the alchemist sneered, and gave Ed's ropes one more tug for good measure. The look on Ed's face promised murder, so much murder, and Mustang could have laughed to see it. "Because if you don't, your prodigy dies."

"Understood," Mustang said, and then cocked an eyebrow at the younger alchemist. "Don't do anything stupid, Fullmetal."

"Who, me?" Edward said, and his smile was all teeth. "When have I ever?"

It was heroic, really, that Mustang was able to keep his face straight.

"Colonel," Al said, scrambling up to his side. "Colonel, don't let him…we can…"

But Ed and the alchemist were already gone, disappearing down the darkened corridor, the alchemist with a sharp tug and Ed with a curse-filled complaint. And Mustang had to put restraining hands on Alphonse's metal shoulders in order to keep him from following.

"Don't!" Al cried, sharper than Mustang had ever heard from him before. "Let me go! How could you…you just let him go! We could have handled it, I am not weak, I could have done something, you didn't need to trade us!"

Mustang didn't say a word. Just let Alphonse struggle, and breathed deep over the fact that this anger, this was feeling that could be channeled. This was the affirmation that he needed to know that his call had been correct.

"You're supposed to look after him!" Al continued to shout. "Because I know that I can't all the time, I thought you were working with me to keep him safe. That's why we trusted you in the first place!"

"I am looking after him, Al," Mustang said, softly. "You might see that later."

"All I see is the big hole where my brother should be standing!"

"Enough," Mustang said, but not without kindness. Because this might not be Ed-levels of bad, but it still must be painful. "Al, enough. He's gone, it's done. Now let's go figure out how to get him back."

And despite Al's frozen, stony silence, Mustang walked out of the building feeling like maybe he'd lived up to Hughes' praise after all.

….

Predictably, it all came to a head three days later, when Ed escaped his ropes and brought down the building the alchemist had been keeping him in.

"I want to be surprised," Mustang said to the younger alchemist, who was standing in his office, still covered in dirt and dust. "I really want to be surprised, Fullmetal, that there is yet another demolished building decorating your rather colorful resume. And yet, I just can't seem to muster it." Mustang dropped into his chair, tapped his fingers against his chin. "Why d'you think that is, Edward?"

"They told me Al isn't speaking to you," Edward answered, head cocked just a little to the side.

"Yes, well." Mustang gave his chair an absent spin. "I think he might actually be plotting my demise. But in the nicest way possible. Assassination by kittens or something."

"He's angry with you. For letting me go."

"Wow, are you going to scold me too? Two Elric scoldings, however will I carry on with my life?"

"It was the right call."

Mustang boggled. Smoothly, of course, to the point where it didn't much look like boggling at all. But the spirit of boggling was definitely there.

"I…did you just use the word 'right'? To describe one of my decisions?" Mustang tipped back in his seat. "I actually…have no idea what to do with that."

Ed snorted, scooped some of the building dust out of his hair.

"Yeah, whatever, don't get used to it." He kicked one of his feet against the carpet, with which he appeared to be having a rather intense staring contest. "You're right, like, one percent of the time. Maybe. I'm just saying." He scowled and kicked his foot again. "I'm just saying that maybe you do see some things. Bastard."

Mustang kind of wanted to make fun, of Edward's pink cheeks or maybe the way he delivered words of praise like they caused him actual physical pain. But he glanced at his couch, thought of a too-young boy with bloody knuckles, curled up and chasing nightmares, and cleared his throat instead.

"I need to see Al," Ed continued. "Let him fuss at me for a little bit; it makes him feel better. I'll let you get back to crying over your mission reports."

He turned and booted out the door, without making eye contact once.

"They'd be significantly less tear-stained if I didn't have to report anymore buildings blown up from the inside!" Mustang shouted after him.

Alphonse did indeed start speaking to him again, later that day, although there was something menacing in that metal brow. It made Mustang smile (secretly, of course) and clap a hand on his armored shoulder, even if it wasn't completely welcome yet.

And then he called Fullmetal short, in front of the entire office. Just to get things back on the normal track.

And Edward. Instead of blowing up, he tipped his face up to the ceiling and scowled silently instead.

And Mustang recognized it for the acknowledgement that it was, and it made him smile (SECRETLY) even harder.