Chapter Text
October 1911
Roy Mustang was at a loss for words. When he was tasked to track down the thief that had stolen highly classified alchemy research from Central Library, as well as a few private libraries including the Armstrong family’s, Roy didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this.
The thief had been terrorizing central for months. Every operation set up to catch him had failed thus far. Every one that had gotten close enough to catch a glimpse of him had all said the same thing. He moved like a gymnast. The way he moved was swift and smooth and whenever the pursuer thought they were about to catch up with him, he disappeared.
In the end it took a lot of planning, courtesy of Riza and Falman, to find a decent place to trap the culprit. Roy figured his disappearing act was the thief transmuting doors in the middle of alleys, so they needed to be sure there was someone between him and the wall.
The plan went off without a hitch and in front of him, circled by Team Mustang, was a small boy with golden hair and eyes. Despite his situation, the boy seemed bored more than anything, lazily raising his hands in surrender as he was instructed.
“Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head,” Roy commanded as Fuery walked up to the boy with handcuffs. The boy complied without any fuss, which Roy thought was strange. The kid had been giving them the slip for weeks now. He almost got away again, but Roy knew how the thief worked by now and planned ahead.
Fuery was about to cuff the boy when a shout rang through the alley, “Brother!” A second later, the apparent speaker, a hulking man in a suit of armor, rounded the corner into the alley. The man had a piece of chalk gripped in one hand, but when he saw the guns pointed at the boy on the ground, the chalk snapped.
“Brother!” The man shouted again as he rushed forwards. It was then that Roy noticed the man’s voice did not match his stature at all. He sounded more like a young boy than the man he appeared to be
“Don’t move!” Shouted Riza as she trained her weapon on the hulking figure. The man paid her no mind as he continued rushing towards the group. Right as he was about to reach the group a shot rang out, sending the man’s helmet flying.
The boy on the ground let out a scream, that may have been a name, but was too anguished for Roy to tell. Roy turned his eyes to the boy just in time to see him pull his arms out of Fuery’s grasp, he flipped Fuery over, crashing him to the ground, and clapped his hands together. The next thing Roy knew, he was encased in concrete. There was a hand coming out of the floor and it had wrapped itself around his torso, pinning his arms to his side. He looked around at his team to see them in the same predicament.
The boy rushed forward, moving swiftly despite his obvious limp. When he reached the man in the armor, sprawled on his back by the force of the shot, and helped pull him up to a sitting position before going off to retrieve the helmet.
That’s when Roy saw it. A quick glance to Riza confirmed she saw it too. He wasn’t a man in armor at all, he was the armor.
The boy let out a sigh, placing his brother’s helmet-head back in place. The kid dropped down to hug his brother, placing his head in the crook of his neck while the armor wrapped its arms around his back.
“You gotta be more careful than that Al,” the boy said, “You can’t go running at people who have guns pointed at you!”
“I’m sorry brother,” the armor, Al apparently, sheepishly said in reply, “I was just so worried when I saw them pointing the guns at you, I didn’t know what to do.” The armor sounded as if it was sobbing.
After a moment the boy left the embrace of the armor, and stood to face Roy’s team. Now that he had ensured his companion, his brother according to the armor, was safe, he looked like he was ready to rage.
“Which one of you,” the boy began, slowly walking towards the team, “Shot my little brother?”
“No offense kid, but are you sure that thing is your little brother? He looks pretty big to me.” Havoc said offhandedly. Roy could see the unimpressed look on Breda’s face, clear that if he could facepalm at his friend’s stupidity, he would.
The boy growled in response, picking up his pace as he marched towards Havoc.
“Brother stop!” Al exclaimed, standing up, “You said if we got caught we would go peacefully.”
The boy stopped in front of Havoc, Roy couldn’t see his face, but it was clear he was contemplating if he could get away with hitting the lieutenant. He huffed and shoved his hands in his pockets, spinning around to walk away, his long braid smacking Havoc in the face in the process.
“I know, I know,” He said, settling down on the ground where he was before. His brother came over and loudly sat next to him. “It’s their fault for pissing me off so much.”
The other boy sighed in exasperation, “Whatever you say, Ed.”
The smaller boy rolled his eyes as he clapped his hands together before placing his palms on the ground. In a flash of blue light, the hands released them before sinking back into the ground, a transmutation so seamless it looked as if the ground was never disturbed. Both boys held their hands out in front of them, wrists together as if waiting to be cuffed.
Roy nodded to Falman and Fuery, who quickly cuffed both boys, before moving to guard one exit of the alley while Breda and Havoc guarded the other. Roy and Riza moved forward in front of the brothers. After a moment of contemplation, Roy plopped himself down on the ground, earning him an odd look from the smaller boy, and a startled squeak from the metal one.
“How old are you two?” Roy asked, looking the boys up and down. Roy guessed the shrimpy one was 8, but the other could’ve been anywhere from 6 to 25 as far as he could tell.
“I’m 11 and my brother is 12.” The armor replied simply, gaining an annoyed look from his brother.
“Alphonse! We said we’d go peacefully, but that doesn’t mean we need to give them all our identifying information!” The supposed younger brother chuckled nervously.
Havoc let out a low whistle from the other end of the alley, “I for sure thought the pipsqueak was 9.”
This just managed to further rile up the boy, Ed as his brother had called him, “What the fuck did you just call me!” He hollered, whipping his head around to face Havoc.
“Ignore him,” Breda said placatingly, “He’s just got a big stupid mouth.”
“Ya got the stupid part right,” He huffed, settling back down to face Roy.
“Pretty impressive alchemy for a twelve-year-old,” Roy said with a raised eyebrow.
Ed continued to ignore him, but his brother, Alphonse, excitedly replied, “Brother’s amazing isn’t he! He does alchemy without a circle like it’s no big deal.”
Roy hummed, filing that information away for later, “And I assume he’s the one that bonded your soul to that armor.” Both boys stiffened at that, ducking their heads. After a moment, Ed spoke up.
“He’s my baby brother.” He said with a shuddering breath, “I did what I had to to save him from my mistake.”
“And what would that mistake be?” Roy questioned suspiciously, which made The brothers both recoiled.
“That’s none of your business.” The older brother replied.
Roy hummed again. These boys were interesting. In all of their thieving, they only ever took books and research, and never anything dangerous as far as Roy could tell. They never hurt anyone, even when they encountered the occasional night staff all that happened was someone ended up with their feet buried in the ground for a few hours. As soon as they were cornered they surrendered, and based on the way they spoke it seemed that had been the plan all along. Then there was the fact that one of them was a soul sealed to an inanimate object. Roy knew what was going to happen when he turned them in. A boy that talented would be swept up by a high-ranking official in a matter of minutes, and as soon as that helmet was removed Alphonse would become a guinea pig for the military. As far as Roy was aware no one had successfully fused a soul to a vessel before, the military would never let that information slip past them.
As Roy thought up all the pros and cons to turning the boys, a plan started to form in his head.
“Alright,” He said, “I’ll cut you a deal.”
Both boys jolted in surprise, even his men seemed shocked by this. He could see Havoc and Breda sharing a curious glance from the end of the alley.
“What kind of deal?” The older one asked cautiously.
“First I need you to answer a question.” Roy said, interlocking his fingers and resting his head atop his hands, “What are you looking for?”
“What do you mean?” Alphonse asked nervously.
“You wouldn’t be stealing research if you weren’t looking for something.” He answered simply, raising his brows.
Ed considered his words for a moment before answering carefully, “We’re looking for a philosopher’s stone, or at least how to make one.”
This would work, Roy thought, a grin spreading across his face.
“I let you off the hook.” He said, finally answering the boys’ question. “You return the books, leave a note saying you're sorry, and I close the case satisfied that the elusive thief came to their senses.”
“And what do we do, sir?” Alphonse asked timidly.
Roy smirked at him, “I have a network of informants all over this country. I think they could benefit from you two joining them.” Ed blinked at him in surprise, clearly not expecting a job offer to become a spy, “All you have to do is research and gather intel, something you two seem to have a talent for.” He gestured to the bag Ed had thrown to the ground earlier when he was caught. The bag was bursting at the seams with ill-gotten reading material. “You get to continue your research through slightly more legitimate means. You just need to share everything you learn with me, and I’ll give you leads, access to materials, and protection from the military.”
The boys shared a look, clearly having a silent conversation. Roy wondered how they could do that when one of their faces was an unmoving mask of metal. Al nodded to his brother and they both faced him again.
“Alright,” Ed said, fire burning in his eye, “We’ll take your deal.”