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She doesn’t read the first page of personnel reports. The heading of every page is the soldier’s last name and rank and the rest is irrelevant. She works her way through the later pages quickly, making note of transfers and awards, and most importantly discipline and complaints. She reads between the lines, puts together an image of a soldier without ever looking at their age, place of birth, or family records. She sees everything she needs in those later pages. She hires Captain Miles with a general idea of the type of man he is, fair and just, but quick tempered and mildly defiant.
She isn’t wrong. Her first face to face meeting with the man follows on the heels of an altercation with another new hire. She demands to know what happened and the other soldier grunts, “he started it, Sir.”
Her internal lie detector goes off immediately, but when she asks the bystanders they shuffle awkwardly and refuse to come up with definitive answers. She sends them all away, with extra KP for the other, and rounds on Miles.
“So,” she says, quietly deadly, a snake poised to strike, but biding her time.
“Sir.” He replies, quick, sharp, almost respectful.
“You like to cause trouble, do you?” He doesn’t respond and she snaps, “always answer your superior! Do you understand me?” She’s used to being disrespected for her gender, it’s been the basis of most of her personnel conflicts, honestly. She’s bored of it.
“Yes, Sir!”
“And take off those glasses, they’re not regulation indoors.”
The muscles in his jaw tense and he hesitates for so long she’s about to reach up and yank them off her self when he slowly pulls them away from his eyes. For the first time, she thinks she should really have read the first page. Deep red eyes watch her, his face is set like stone, but those eyes are curious. Bright.
“Oh.”
“Yes, sir.”
She steps back and watches him for a moment. The tension is starting to fade, replaced by confusion. When she speaks next, her voice is not quite soft, but reasoned, measured. Level. “What really happened, soldier?”
“I’d prefer not to answer, Sir.”
She bites the inside of her cheek. She’s not happy with that answer, but she’d answered plenty of superiors that way herself. ( “Did he or didn’t he grab your ass, Cadet?” “I’d prefer not to answer, Sir.”) “Very well. Are you injured?” He opens his mouth and she senses the lie before he even utters it. “Let me see, Captain.”
He flounders, “Sir?”
“Would you prefer to go see the Doctor?” She offers, already knowing he won’t go. “She’ll need a lot of information for her report.”
He slowly removes his coat and uniform shirt, even more slowly peels off his thermal undershirt glaring at her all the while. He’s bruised and bloodied, and she’s surprised he’s not exhibiting more signs of pain. She grabs a first aid kit off the wall--they’re all over the fort-- and tends his injuries quickly and precisely. She doesn’t have the best bedside manner and he winces and hisses several times, but he still mutters a quiet “thanks” when she finishes.
“Next time someone comes after you, I want you to come tell me.” She instructs, holding his coat for him to slip into as he tugs his shirt back on. “I’ll keep it off the records as long as you’re honest with me.”
She doesn’t miss his look of confusion as he thanks her again, but she dismisses it with a wave of her hand.
---
She receives the orders of dismissal and clenches them in her first as she calls the personnel office in Central. They call him “the Ishvalan” for the duration of their conversation. She calls him “my Captain”. Names don’t enter into it.
The terms of choice sound technical. She doesn’t believe it for a second.
She’s always been good at history. There’s no time, no story, no culture, where internment camps are a good thing. “Opportunities” for her Ishvalan captain are almost certainly beneath a scalpel. The upcoming “war” will be, at best, a massacre. At worst, a genocide. As a child she’d gone to a military museum with her father. The paintings on the walls were awash with red. The splashes of paint depicting the blood that she knows will soon be shed. The color now reminds her of piercing eyes that track her every movement when they’re in the same room She’s not sure if it’s fascination or distrust.
She’s taken a lot of stands in her career, defied a lot of orders, fought with a lot of superiors. There’s a reason she’s at Briggs and not riding her father’s coattails to a cozy seat the table of High Command, afterall. She hangs up the phone and weighs her options. The orders before her command a course of action of certain death. She promotes him, instead.
He’s angry, disbelieving when he finds out. She feels his presence like a cloud of darkness at her shoulder. But he doesn’t question, doesn’t comment. She waits.
He finally demands an answer as they ride up to the rooftop. She responds with a challenge. She watches his eyes beneath his glasses, barely visible. They flicker to the edge of the roof and back to her face every few seconds. He’s waiting to be thrown off, but she gives him no satisfaction. She orders him to follow her, and he does.
She names the warm glow in the center of her chest, pride; Satisfaction at a job well done. The feeling that flutters in her stomach the first time he trust her enough to abandon his dark glasses as they work late into the night she can’t name. And when he smiles at her, warm and real, she has to close her mind to the name it tries to give itself.
---
It was only a matter of time. She isn’t reassured no matter what she tells herself as the elevator grinds to a halt, ancient pulley squealing noisily. She glances at her adjutant, and he obligingly presses the door button. Nothing happens. The dial above the doors hovers awkwardly between 17 and 18.
“Would you like me to try and pry it open, Sir?”
She nods, “let’s try it.” It takes five minutes for her to give up, sweating and struggling, her shoulder pressed against Miles’. She steps back, surveys the elevator. Briggs has elevators large enough to drive a tank into, but this isn’t one of them. The little elevator is reserved for senior personnel, enabling her to move through the Fort unhindered. Except, she’s been putting off having repairs done until a more convenient time.
“There’s not a repair hatch,” Miles remarks, even though she’s already noted the absence, “this elevator doesn’t have a big enough platform on the roof. Repairs are meant to be done from the floor above.”
“I see.” He’s been nagging her about getting repairs done, and she notes the subtle tone of “I told you so” in his otherwise-respectful comment. “Someone will notice our absence soon enough.” She sinks to the floor and wraps her arms around herself. There isn’t any heating in the elevator, and mostly it’s fine, but she’s starting to notice the cold.
Miles lowers himself across from her. “I have coffee, if you’d like some, Sir.”
“Thank you.” She takes the thermos and sips it gratefully. “No need to call me ‘Sir’ just now, Miles, it’s only the two of us.” It’s a dangerous thing, she thinks, as he quirks a brow at her.
“Alright, Olivier.” He says after a moment.
She almost chokes on her coffee. “You-”
He smiles a little too innocently, “is there a problem?”
“No.” She matches his confidence, “I just wasn’t expecting first names, er-” she falters suddenly. Miles isn’t his first name. She knows this, but it’s never bothered her before. The silence goes on long enough that she can’t play it off.
Miles tilts his head. “We’ve known each other how long and you still don’t know my name?”
“I’m sure I’ve just forgotten.” She fibs, fixing him with a cool, steely look. “Remind me?”
He smirks, “how about you guess?”
“It’s too cold in here for guessing games.”
Miles’ smirk grows and he crosses the small elevator to sit next to her, his arm shifting around her shoulders. “Warm enough?”
“When did you get so bold?” He glances away, a hint of pink on his cheeks belying his smirk. She leans closer to his chest, feigning pursuit of warmth. “If I must guess, will you at least give me a starting letter?”
She feels his deep chuckle as a rumble in his chest before she hears it. “Nope.”
“Such insolence, um, Henry?”
He snorts with laughter. “Not as such.”
“Tch!” She elbows his ribs sharply, “Xavier?”
He’s laughing again, “you’re so-” he hesitates, trying to calm himself, before giving in and snickering, “not even close!”
His laugh is creating swarms of butterflies in her stomach. She doesn’t feel like a general, or even a soldier; she feels like a young woman meeting her crush at the drug store ice cream counter. Her tone is light and flirty, “Maybe you need to incentivize me.”
Did she really just say that? She’s already cringing when Miles shifts his upper body away from her. She holds back a string of expletives; she’s crossed a line and she knows it. With any luck, Miles will laugh it off as a joke and it won’t create any awkward tension. She’s on the verge of apologizing when he cups her chin and turns her face up toward him.
He leans down and she’s thrown just enough off guard to simply stare, as his lips come closer. They miss her lips, though, and his sideburns tickle as they brush against her cheek. “I thought you’d never ask,” shivers race down her spine as his deep whisper fills her ear, “Olivier.”
For a moment, she’s staring at him, dumbfounded. The moment passes and she smacks Miles firmly in the center of his chest. A thousand reproaches die on the tip of her tongue. She started this, and he’s watching her with uncovered eyes, and she sighs, letting go of her need to be General Armstrong.
“Mira.”
“Hmm?” He tilts his head curiously.
She leans against his chest, “it’s my middle name.” She tilts her head to smirk up at him, “Clarence?”
He chuckles. “Where do you get these names?”
“I have a sister named Strongine.”
“Unfortunately, that’s still less embarrassing than my own name.”
“Seriously?”
He blushes. “It’s pretty bad.”
“Igor?” He shakes his head. “ Ulf? Bernard? Rainer? Romeo?”
“The heck?”
“You know, Romeo and Juliet? No?”
“Why would my name be Romeo?”
“You said it was embarrassing.”
He narrows his eyes suspiciously, “you’re just messing with me now, aren’t you?”
Her smile is as toothy and innocent as a crocodile. “I’m still waiting on that incentive.”
Miles’ lips are softer than she expects as they press against hers. She closes her eyes, wrapping an arm around his neck. His hand tangles in her hair, and then he pulls away, surveying her face from a distance of inches.
“Oh!”
A smile blossoms on his face, “a kiss for every guess?”
She smirks. “Whatever you say, Rupert.”
---
When Buccaneer pries open the broken elevator doors, and finds them, curled in each other’s arms, hair tousled, and sleeping peacefully, he can only shake his head and snort.
“Took you long enough.”