A/N: This is the first AU I started working on, actually. But I wasn't sure which direction to take it until a few days ago. Title based off the song, "King and Lionheart," by Of Monsters and Men.
Note: Some of this dialogue is based off the original lines from the manga. Most have been tweaked, but some remains as is. I don't own it; that privilege goes to Hiromu Arakawa.
1.) Genderswap/Genderbend/Rule 63 (whichever term you prefer)
Queen and Lionheart
In hindsight, kicking the rotting old toolshed probably wasn't the best way to relieve his frustration. But at ten years old, Ross Hawkeye isn't the best at finding healthy ways of expressing himself, something that his throbbing toes can quite heartily testify to. With a groan, he slumps against the trunk of his favorite oak tree and massages his foot, wincing as he probes the tender skin. It'd been just his luck to hit one of the foundation posts, which were anchored belowground in concrete. Walking without limping is something that won't come naturally for at least ten minutes, so he elects to remain where he is and think on what his father had told him just that morning.
"I'm taking on another apprentice." That was all he'd said before disappearing behind the door of his laboratory. In truth, the news doesn't come as a total shock. Ross has seen his fair share of students come and go, grumbling as they left about his father's reluctance to share his secrets. He hadn't minded most of them, but there had been a handful who delighted in taking out their frustrations with their master on the only other person around. It isn't surprising, then, that the young Hawkeye has developed quite the arm with a slingshot. Of course, the bullying isn't the case with all apprentices, but there are enough that Ross dreads every time his father announces a new one.
Ross flexes his toes gingerly, then stands up and grudgingly returns to the house. The chores aren't going to do themselves, even if he'd broken a toe (which, thankfully, he hasn't). God knows Ross's father can't be bothered with the general upkeep, and Ross shudders to think what the house would look like without his daily care.
The Hawkeye House (Estate, technically, but Ross likes the alliteration) is a spacious home that sits just on the edge of town. It's a twenty minute walk to anywhere important, something Ross enjoys. He's a loner by nature; living so far away suits him. It's just the two of them in the house, though, leaving many rooms empty and unused. Once a week Ross goes through the house and tidies each one so nothing grows too dirty, but there's only so much a ten-year-old can do. As a result, the Hawkeye House always looks to be a state of constant disrepair, something that saddens Ross sometimes, but doesn't seem to affect his father. Some apprentices will point it out with a cruel laugh. Those are the ones Ross knows will be trouble.
Even still, Ross spends the next week carefully cleaning the house and preparing one of the guest bedrooms. As he works, he wonders about this newest student his father is taking on. It's been a while since the last one, and truthfully, Ross hadn't expected his father to take another one on anytime soon. Is there something special about the newest student?
No, Ross thinks. He'll be like all the rest, I know it.
The day that the apprentice is set to arrive dawns just like any other. Ross rises early, as he is prone to do, and prepares breakfast for his father. He delivers it to the lab, receives a distracted smile for his efforts, then sets to a few general chores.
Around mid-morning, the brass door knocker thuds hollowly against the front door. Ross sets the last of the dishes on a drying rack and wipes his hands on a towel. It's his job to answer, as his father is usually too busy to be bothered (if he even hears the knocking in the first place). Ross doesn't mind, as it's a chance to meet the apprentice on his own. Many an accurate first impression has been born this way.
He pulls the door open wide, and stops short. The person standing on the doormat is…a girl? Ross barely manages to keep his jaw from dropping. In all the time his father has accepted students, he'd never once taught a girl. Not because he doesn't want to, of course, it's just that girls have never applied. "Had" being the operative word, it seems.
She looks a few years older than Ross, and stands a couple inches taller. Short, choppy black hair falls into slanted black eyes, hinting at a more exotic ancestry. As he watches, Ross realizes that there is something different about this apprentice. Besides the obvious thing, of course. Most of his father's new students dismiss Ross out of hand, or else they look at him with a disdain that warns Ross to stay away. But this one does something much differently: she smiles at him. "Hi, I'm Reyna Mustang. I'm looking for Berthold Hawkeye?"
Ross snaps out of his daze and steps back. "He's in the lab. I'm Ross, his son."
"Right, Auntie told me he had a kid. How old are you?"
"Ten," Ross answers, daring her to make some kind of remark.
Her eyebrows shoot up. "Ten? Wow. You look older."
Ross sputters for a bit, unused to the compliment. "Well—how old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"You don't look thirteen," Ross mutters, though that isn't quite the truth. He isn't sure what to think of this girl standing in front of him, so he retreats to the sharp distance he'd tried to maintain with his father's previous apprentices. After realizing that he's kept her outside for far longer than is polite, he steps back hastily, awkwardly waving her inside.
She smiles at him again. On anyone else the expression might look ingenuous, but there is a spark in her dark eyes that makes him think she is laughing at him. He bites down a scowl and takes her bag, turning abruptly as he leaves her to follow him into the house.
Reyna trails after him, and when he risks a glance back at her, he finds her taking the house in with a sharp eye. This was a person who saw everything, but made you think she didn't, Ross thinks. She is worlds away from the apprentices who saw nothing, but liked to make you think they saw everything.
So when Reyna ends up staying past the trial period of two months, Ross isn't too terribly surprised.
He never planned on going to war. It'd never really been an option, until his father had grown ill and died, and she'd come back to town to take care of everything. She is eighteen now, and on the cusp of entering the Academy. He'd suspected that was her goal, but they both knew that her father wouldn't approve, so neither had mentioned it. Now, though, with his father lying below the ground at their feet, the topic comes up.
"I'll probably be in the military for the rest of my life," she says, watching him from the corner of her eye.
"For life?" he asks, surprised. He hadn't known she was so dedicated to that path.
"Yes."
"Take care of yourself," he says, as the image of her sprawled out on a battlefield pops into his mind. "Don't…" He can't bring himself to say the word.
"You'll jinx me," she says wryly. She sobers and looks at him. "I can't promise anything, you know. I could end up dead in a gutter somewhere." Her shrug is casual, but Ross can read the tension in her shoulders. "But I'd like to think that I can help be a part of this country's foundation and protect its people with these two hands." She holds them out to make her point. "That would be enough for me, I think. It's the reason I wanted to learn alchemy, though I wasn't able to gain sensei's secrets." Her voice is sheepish as she rubs the back of her neck. "Sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up now. It's kind of a stupid dream anyway."
"No." Even Ross is surprised by his vehemence. "I think that's a good dream to have." And suddenly he knows that of all the people to earn his father's secrets, she's the one who most deserves them. "My father said the research he left behind was written in a code that no ordinary alchemist could decipher."
Reyna blinks at his abrupt shift in topic. "So he did leave manuscripts behind."
"No," Ross corrects. "Not manuscripts. My father knew the consequences of leaving his life's work on something that fragile and easily stolen."
"I don't understand," Reyna says. "Then how…?"
Ross takes a deep breath. He knows without a shadow of a doubt that Reyna is the one to give his father's secrets to. But even still, asking the question is difficult. "That dream of yours…can I trust my back to it?" he asks. "I like to think it isn't foolish to believe in a future like the one you see."
Reyna's answer is immediate. "Yes. Of course."
He smiles at her, and she smiles back, but hers is filled with a hint of uncertainty. He knows he's being cryptic as he wordlessly beckons her to follow him back to the Hawkeye House. With every step he takes, he grows more and more nervous, and he doesn't know why. Reyna's already said yes to his father's research, why should he be anxious now?
Perhaps it's where the research is located. It's one thing to hand her a sheaf of papers to decode, another thing entirely to bare his inked skin to her. This feels more…personal.
Reyna doesn't say anything until they enter his room, and he shuts the door behind her. Ross ignores her questions and begins to undo the buttons on his shirt as he passes her. His fingers fumble a few times, and his heart pounds against his ribs. He doesn't know how he'll react to the tattoo, and that scares him a little. But there is no turning back now.
As he continues to disrobe, Reyna splutters as her cheeks flush red. If the circumstances were any different, Ross might've laughed. What he does instead is turn around, sliding the shirt off his shoulders and pulling off the undershirt in one fluid motion.
Reyna's breath hitches as she catches sight of the tattoo splayed across his back in black and orange-red ink. Gentle fingers skim across his skin, and he is forced to hold back a shudder. Silence stretches out between them, and Ross finds himself desperately wishing that she say something.
Finally, she does. "How—how could he do this to you?" Her voice bites at her own words.
Ross turns around. "I consented," he says quietly. "He needed someplace safe to store his research, some place where not just anyone could find it. He trusted me, and he asked me first. I said yes."
It is a half-truth, at least. What he doesn't tell her is how frantic Berthold had looked that night, how spittle had flown from his mouth as he demanded this one last thing from his son. Ross had known his father was sick, most likely dying, and that this had been his father's last request of him.
Ross was fifteen. How was he supposed to deny his father's last wish? He'd nodded his head and allowed himself to be led downstairs, and for all of Berhold's madness, his hands were remarkably steady as he'd begun to transcribe his life's work on his son's skin.
Every stroke of the needle became a burden Ross would have to bear, and he had understood the inheritance his father had left him. Berhold's dying wish for his son would bind him for the rest of his life.
But he doesn't tell Reyna this. Maybe he doesn't have to.
A muscle in her jaw jumps, and she looks at him with her dark eyes. With a start, he realizes they're almost the same height now. "He shouldn't have given you that choice," she says. "You're fifteen. This isn't something you should have to worry about."
"Neither is my father dying, and you see how that turned out." His words come out sharper than he'd intended, but Reyna seems to understand.
"Yeah. I know."
"So will you take it? My father's research? I'm entrusting it to you."
She worries her lip, but Ross already knows what she'll say.
"Yes. Yes, of course."
The code is one an average alchemist would not be able to crack, but Reyna is not an average alchemist. It takes her mere months to decipher the clues on Ross's back, and then it's off to the Academy and the State Alchemist program. Not long after, Ross follows. He doesn't have much of a choice really, since he's got no living relatives and no sizeable inheritance to live off of. For a boy his age and station, the military is the only option he's got left.
And he's good. All that target practice on cans (and the occasional unruly apprentice) had sharpened his aim and his eye, something that becomes apparent when a rifle is placed in his hands. He rises up the ranks of his trainee class, and for better or for worse, the brass take notice. It's during his last year as a cadet when they send him out into the field.
He never planned on going to war. But he is a solider, and that is what soldiers do.
As foolish as it may have been, Ross believed he would never see Reyna again. Yes, they were both soldiers, and she would be on the same battlefield he was—but she is a State Alchemist by this time, he a lowly cadet. A sniper cadet (and so unofficially ranked higher than the others), but still a cadet. The chances that they would cross paths are slim to none.
And yet that is her pale skin he sees in his scope, and that is her messy black hair dusted with sand and dirt. Ross vaguely recognizes the man she talks with, but he is more preoccupied in scanning the surrounding area than he is with her company. Reyna's being careless, he thinks grimly. They haven't totally cleared this sector yet; there is no complete guarantee of safety. What is she thinking, talking so openly and unreservedly?
His vigilance pays off as white hair and white cloth flicker in the corner of his scope. An Ishvalan leaps out from behind a cluster of desert stone, a silver knife winking in the unforgiving afternoon light. His mouth is open in a war cry that Ross can't hear, and for that he is grateful. It's enough that he must watch his victims die in the crystal-clear sight of his scope; he doesn't want to add their death throes to his guilt.
It's with less regret that he lines up the shot and pulls the trigger now. He wonders if that makes him a bad person, that he can so easily end a life when defending a fellow soldier. After all, isn't that just what the other side is doing? Protecting their own?
He shakes off the morbid thoughts that cling to his brain like flies cling to the corpses he makes and reloads his rifle. He knows better than to assume that it's safe now, so he slides another bullet into the gun and settles back into his prone position on top of the crumbling old tower.
Reyna's looking in his direction as he peers through the scope again, and he has to remind himself that she can't see him from this distance. Her companion says something and tosses off a salute to the tower. Ross assumes the gesture is a thanks for him, and wonders how far his reputation has spread. He tries to ignore the bitter taste on his tongue. He doesn't want to be known for his body count, but it seems that that is the only way to be famous in war.
Hours that feel like minutes later, a tap on his shoulder relieves him of his post. Ross nods silently to the sniper that takes his place, his joints creaking and popping in protest after hours of lying prone. He tries to ignore the apprehension in his stomach, but it's a fruitless gesture. He's nervous at seeing Reyna again, and he doesn't know why.
In the end, she in the one who finds him. Ross doesn't have the energy to seek her out, and opts instead to sit by a faint campfire that chases away the chill of the approaching desert night. His eyelids droop with exhaustion and melancholy, but it's not a novel expression—every other soldier in the camp is wearing it. Some hide it well, some don't. The ones who have discarded it are the ones to be wary of. They are the bloodthirsty, the ones who take secret—or not so secret—pleasure in watching the enemy fall. Ross hasn't met many like that, but he's heard enough stories to know that he never wishes to.
A light tenor calls out to him, and he lifts his head to see the man Reyna had been talking to. Hughes, he thinks his name is. "Thank you, for earlier today. I take it you were the one who made that shot, right?"
Ross stands up and pulls his hood away from his face. "It's been a while, Miss Mustang," he says, ignoring her companion's words. "Though I suppose it's Major now. Do you remember me?" He hopes it's a foolish question, hopes that she still remembers the boy she caught bullfrogs with, back in the creek behind the Hawkeye House. But he knows war changes a person, and he wouldn't be surprised if he's been pushed from her mind.
But her eyes narrow, the bags underneath growing a darker shade of purple. "How could I forget?" she murmurs.
"You two know each other?" Hughes asks, looking utterly bemused.
"His father was my alchemy teacher," Reyna says, still watching Ross with equal parts horror and relief. "We spent time together growing up."
Hughes looks between them, a shrewd expression on his face. "Well, then, I'll leave you two to catch up. Have to make a report anyway." He tosses off a wave as he walks away, and Ross is alone with Reyna.
Reyna tilts her head in a gesture. "Let's walk a little."
Ross follows after her this time, and he wonders when their roles had switched. Now she is the one who leads, and he is the one who follows.
They talk of many things: of Reyna's days at the Academy, of Ross's. He brings up the subject of his father's alchemy tentatively. He knows it will be a sensitive topic to her, but it is one they can't shy away from. And judging from the way Reyna's knuckles turn white, and the way her eyebrows draw together, she knows it too.
"How is that something meant to help the people is being used to hurt them?" Ross asks. "I don't understand." He knows Reyna doesn't either, knows she can't explain it, but he needs to say it out loud. If he can put his confusion and conflict into words, perhaps he can sort through it and find some splinter of peace to carry around with him. It's a microscopic hope, but it's there nevertheless.
"We're soldiers," Reyna replies tiredly, and he wonders how often she's asked herself the same question. "It's not our place to question our orders."
"I know," Ross says, and he does.
"We fight because we have to, but I won't let go of my dream," Reyna tells him. "Maybe after all this is done, we can try to rebuild a better nation. We can try to stop anything like this from ever happening again."
And there it is, that splinter of peace he's been looking for. Reyna, however much this war has hardened her, is still that determined dreamer he knows her to be. She has a vision for this country, and she's hasn't yet let it go. If she can hold onto it after all she's seen, after all she's done, then he thinks that maybe he can too.
He carries this hope with him, tucked into his pocket so that he might pull it out every now and again, to examine it and remember why he's doing the things he is. And at last, at long, long last, the bitter days of screams and bloodshed draw to a close.
Ross walks among the chaotic debris of Ishval, equal parts grateful and guilty. What right does he have to celebrate, when so many—oh God, so many—have none?
His steps falter, and he realizes that what he had mistaken for a broken doll is, in fact, a child. He is no less broken than the toy Ross thought him to be, and his throat swells at the sight. This, then, is to be their legacy here. Death and destruction and utter devastation.
No. Not his legacy. Not Reyna's. They will become more than this, they have to become more. And he will start now, with this child, because if he cannot even grant him this last peace, then what point is there in walking out of this wretched, sunbaked land?
It takes hours of back-breaking, sweat-slicked labor. The desert ground is unyielding, so he settles for piling rocks upon the impossibly small body of the Ishvalan child. When all the stones are in place, he wedges a thick, gnarled branch of wood into the top, a twisted perversion of a grave marker. But it is something.
Sitting back on his heels to observe his work, he can't help but feel that it isn't enough. What use is one grave for one child? It is a small consolation for the havoc they've wreaked across this land. But Ross had been so consumed by the need to do something—now that it's done, he wonders if it was a selfish act, meant to assuage his own guilt. The longer he sits there, the less certain he is of his true motives.
Footsteps crunch the ground behind him. "Aren't you coming?" Reyna asks. "You'll be left behind."
Ross doesn't turn around, choosing instead to contemplate his makeshift grave a little longer.
"A fallen comrade?" Reyna asks.
"No," Ross says, turning to face her. His voice is hoarse from the desert sand and dust. "An Ishvalan child. He was shot and left to die here. Alone."
Reyna looks away. "Let's go. It's over."
Ross makes no move to get up. "On the outside, yes. But who knows how long it will stay with us?" They both know the answer, of course. The horrors of what they've done here will never stop lingering in the backs of their minds.
"I believed in your dream," he says. "And I trusted you with my father's research. I chose the Academy, hoping I could help others like you wanted to. Even if it wasn't what I wanted, I can't hide from what I've done. It won't bring back the dead." But he can do something, and so he balls his hands on his knees and asks the favor he's been saving throughout the war: "I want you to burn my back."
Reyna's refusal is immediate and stuttering. "What are you—there's no way—I can't!"
"If I can't atone for what I've done here, at least let me prevent it from happening again!" Ross cries through gritted teeth. He has borne so much for so long, and now his desperation is leaking from him. "Make it so there is no other flame alchemist. So that these secrets can never again be used."
He turns to her now, and the look on his face is so raw that Reyna almost looks away. But she doesn't, and they look at each other for a moment. "I told you I consented," he says, finally telling her the truth. "But that doesn't mean it isn't hard. I don't want this burden anymore. Please, sever the ties holding me to my father and his research. Let me be Ross Hawkeye. Please." His eyes are fierce now, and maybe it's the "please" that does it.
Reyna sighs heavily and resigns herself to the task. "I know how much I'd have to burn without crippling you. This battlefield has, at least, given me that much control."
They do it that night, before they're to ship out. Ross is stretched out on a cot, laying on his stomach, shirt discarded. Reyna sits on a chair next to him, gloves on, supplies at the ready. Her breathing comes ragged, and he realizes the enormity of the task he's given her.
"Please," he says once more. "Take away what you must. I want to be free of it."
"Okay," she says. "Brace yourself."
He clenches the sheets in his hand. The snap of gas igniting barely registers as the pain hits, and while he knows Reyna is being very specific in the sections she's erasing, the lancing burn coats his entire back. He grits his teeth hard enough that his jaw creaks, but he doesn't cry out.
Later, after the bandages have been applied and he's been ordered to rest, a small hand slips into his. He is too tired to squeeze it or hold it properly, but she lends him her strength just the same.
He falls asleep with her hand in his, and wakes up holding it. Neither talks of it the next day.
They go their separate ways after that, but it isn't for long. Ross graduates from the Academy at the top of his class, while Reyna is assigned a promotion and a post in Eastern Command. He hears about it from word of mouth, and aside from a small smile, he doesn't much react to the news. There is no reason for him to, he thinks. Now that the war is over, she can begin her work in reshaping this country, like she wanted.
What he doesn't know is that he'll be by her side to do it.
He isn't expecting the summons to her new office. Though they have been thrown together enough times that he really shouldn't be, anymore. He certainly doesn't show any surprise as he steps through the door and approaches her desk. War has schooled him in the control of emotions.
Reyna doesn't say anything at first, merely rakes her eyes up and down in an assessing once-over. There is not a single flinch or fidget as Ross meets her gaze head-on, and Reyna's head tilts in the slightest of acknowledgements. Aside from that, her expression is stony.
He is being tested.
"I'm surprised you're still here," she says. "After what happened in Ishval. You're staying with the military then?"
He nods. "I made my choice when I joined the Academy. I've decided to keep the uniform."
"Your specialty?" As though she has to ask.
"Guns." Because there is a sense of clinical control behind the stock of a gun, despite his hatred for the killing act. Guns are precise, guns are exact, and he is good with them. More than good. He is the best.
"Guns are good," Reyna says, eyes like granite. "They put the killing at a distance. Away from your own hands."
Ross says nothing.
"It's a lie, is what it is," she continues coolly. "Are you going to continue lying to yourself about how clean your hands are?"
"Someone has to dirty them," Ross answers quietly. "Better the soldiers than everyone else. I'll bear that burden so they don't have to. You're an alchemist, you know the law of equivalent exchange. In order for future generations to live in your dream, it is soldiers like us that must pay the toll through guilt and bloodshed."
Reyna steeples fingers and absorbs Ross's words. He doesn't spare a thought as to if they were the right ones to utter. That is how he feels, and Reyna will have to take that as she will.
She stands up suddenly, pushing back her chair and scattering the papers on her desk as she leans forward to look him in the eye. "I'm thinking of appointing you my aide."
Ross blinks in shock.
"I want you to be the one to watch my back," she says, straightening up and crossing her arms behind her back. "You know what that entails, then? Watching my back means that you're free to shoot it at any time." She pauses. "And if I stray from my path, I want you to do just that. You'd have the right."
Ross maintains his professional façade, though inside he is reeling. Of all the things Reyna would ask him, this had been the furthest from his mind upon entering her office. He hadn't realized that she trusted him this much, and it's just now setting in how deep their ties may run.
"Will you follow me?" she asks, and once again, he catches sight of the woman who sees everything.
"Yes," he answers, and there is no hesitation. "If you asked me, then even into hell."
She will ask him that question again, and again, and again. With every obstacle they face, she will ask him if he will follow her.
He will never say no.
A/N: I was originally planning on making this longer, but I liked the way it ended here. Maybe one day I'll come back and extend it...
