Archive of Our Own

Roy has many talents, but by far, the one he's proudest of, is his innate ability to tell when it's going to be a good day.  

And today is going to be a good day.

He feels it in his gut when he wakes up and he keeps feeling it (this time in his chest) as he helps himself to some tea and toast for breakfast. He smiles all the way through his commute to work, because he knows that when he starts a morning with a fuzzy tingle at his fingertips, it means that something good will happen.

And lo and behold, he is once again right, because as soon as he steps into the office, he distinguishes amongst the sea of faces one that doesn't quite belong but is always welcome. 

Soft yet well defined features, intelligent gaze, a beyond lovely smile; Riza Hawkeye just can't help being a sight for sore eyes. Certainly the ginger wig does make her appear stranger than usual, but he is of the very correct opinion that true beauty cannot be hidden that easily, much less when one's presence glistens like hers does as she makes small talk with the receptionist. 

As casually as possible, he strolls to her side and leans backwards on the desk. He gets her attention right as Ms. Fenfang hands her the keys to the archive room. Just like that? Wow, they need to start hiring smarter people. Although he doesn't blame the poor lady for giving Riza Hawkeye whatever she wants. He would too.

"Well, hello Elizabeth," he croons. "What brings you here today?" 

She's good at what she does, she really is, because even though her nostrils flare slightly at his appearance, she manages to keep her composure. "Thank you for your help, Ms. Fenfang," she thanks the receptionist in flawless Xingese and turns to him with clenched teeth. "Good morning, Mr. Mustang." 

Not very happy to see him, huh? Must be urgent business. He offers her his most charming smile. "In a hurry, I see." 

"Unfortunately so." 

"No time to chat then?" 

"No," she replies curtly before stomping off as dignifiedly as one can while still being able to apply the word stomping.

He watches her leave with a satisfied grin. Ah, God bless his instincts for being right. 

It might be a deeply terrible habit of his, but he craves a few more minutes with her. It is almost hysterical how addicted he is to her, how impossibly intoxicating her very existence is. He wants to give chase after her, to greedily occupy her seconds and keep them to himself to go over in the nights he can't seem to fall asleep.

He eyes her steps towards the archive room, fully aware of her intentions and that he should probably try and stop her. But God, it's been months since he's gotten the chance to see her and he wants to savor the thrill her cliff gives him for a moment before jumping in. 

Ms Fenfang tugs on his sleeve. "Her name is not Elizabeth, Mr. Mustang," she explains with the patience that only extremely kind elderly women can have. "That's Rose Hermann, an exchange student from—" 

"Amestris, I'm aware," he chuckles. Rose? Seriously? He will have to poke some fun at her lackluster choice of alter egos later. "She and I go way back. Her father was my mentor in chemistry when I still lived in Central City. Elizabeth is but a nickname I gave to her as a child." 

Not the complete truth, but she doesn't need to know everything. 

"How delightful," Ms Fenfang nods out of pure courtesy and he takes it as his cue to take off after Riza.

He catches her at the intersection of the main hallway and the one that will take them to the archive room. She takes a deep breath when she sees him and keeps walking straight. He jogs to keep up with her hastened pace.

"Elizabeth, are you running away from me?" 

"It's Ms. Hermann," she corrects him, hellbent on maintaining her terrible alter ego. "And yes, I am."

"How terribly rude of you." 

"I am busy, Roy." 

"Mr. Mustang, you mean." He smirks at her slip up. His name on her lips is a thing of beauty, but damn him if he won't take every opening to tease her. "I believe we were keeping this strictly professional." 

She just glares at him out of the corner of her eye. 

He takes it as a cue to continue talking, this time in Amestrian so passerbys won't eavesdrop. "So what brings you here? Work?" 

"None of your business." 

"I would say making your every move my business is part of my job." 

"Agree to disagree." 

"Files, I assume," he reclines against the wall when they reach the archive room and she pulls the keys out of her pocket. "On who? Or what?" 

"You've always been too curious for your own good, Mr. Mustang." 

The keys turn swiftly in the lock with a satisfying click. He scrutinizes her face and finds no superficial clues on what she could possibly want here. Emphasis on superficial. He knows better than to stop at where most would stop when reading someone. 

Amestris is all the way across the Eastern Desert. No one would cross it for the fun of it, much less someone whose services are so prized and required like Riza. She's not here on vacation. Amestris visitors are unusual, to say the least, he's sure that any particularly suspicious ones would have been stopped at the border. Then again, according to Ms. Fenfang, she'd come under the guise of an exchange student. Not exactly the most elaborate cover up story: she's in a rush. Amestris is in a rush for something. Information, if her presence here means anything. What kind of information? This records office, managed by the Chang clan, is small, relatively public, easy to infiltrate. No big secrets are kept here. No, those are in the literal belly of the beast, inside the Palace. All there is here are common people's birth and death registers.

And hidden amongst those, there are… 

"You're after the heirs." He lowers his tone. It's not a matter of letting the whole world find out. "The Emperor's children. What do you want from them?" 

Her silence is enough proof.

"Which one is it?" He presses on. "It can't be all fifty of them. Which one do you want and why?" 

"Would you leave me alone?" She has her hand on the doorknob, but doesn't push it open.

"Can't do. Not until you tell me what Amestris is up to." 

"No." 

"Tolerate my pestering then." 

She quickly glances around them, makes sure no one is close enough to see, grabs him by the collar and shoves him inside the archive room. She follows and locks the door again behind her. 

It's dark inside, all lights off. Dark and dusty, he notices when he stumbles against a chest of drawers. 

"I'm flattered, Ms. Hermann, but I prefer blondes," he chaffs while adjusting the cuffs of his shirt and shaking some of the dirt off. 

Do they never clean in here?

"Do you want me to get caught?" She hisses. 

"Well, as a loyal agent of the Xingese Secret Service… Yes."

She unceremoniously pushes him out of the way and starts digging through the different cabinets with the help of a small torch. Her fingers work rapidly through folders and folders of yellowed paper, plucking out what she considers important and immediately discarding it. Nothing there will be useful for her, the records of the heirs aren't kept there.

"Are you after the Emperor's children?" He asks again.

She doesn't bother answering.

"Because if you are, you're not going to find anything there." 

Still no answer.

With a sigh, he opens the bottom drawer of one of the cupboards in the back. "Here. This is what you're looking for." 

She blinks at him. "Do you know exactly what each of these contain?" 

"Only the important ones." 

She crosses the room and kneels to look into the drawer. "These are regular birth certificates." She looks up at him, the faint light of her torch tracing circles with golden brims around her cheeks. "Are the royal ones taped to the bottom?" 

"So smart." 

"It's not a very hard conclusion to come to," she shrugs nonchalantly, like it's a regular thing. It probably is. "Why are you helping me if you want me caught, Mr. Loyal Agent of the Xingese Secret Service?" 

"Well, to apprehend you, I need a viable excuse." He crouches by her side and helps her hold the drawer up so she can rip the folder adhered to the lower part. "And I can't just take you in like this. You're good, right? You wouldn't waltz in here without an escape plan in case someone caught you. The 'exchange student' façade is good enough, right? Not extremely brilliant, but I'm certain that if I were to take you in right now, you would slip out of our grasp very easily with some forged passport and a permission to study or something of the sort. They would let you go to avoid any conflict and I would look like a buffoon." 

"You don't need me to look like a buffoon."

"You are hysterical, truly." 

She looks back at the drawer, smiling slightly. A breathtaking sight.

"Anyways, I would much rather catch you red handed and with incriminating evidence on your person." He waves a hand in a little flourish. "And since it would have taken you all day to think of checking this particular spot—"

"That's an exaggeration." 

"—I thought I might expedite the process a tad."

She hums, thumbing through the files. So she is looking for a particular one. Probably would prefer to keep her specific target hidden, but she couldn't just take all fifty papers. That would be difficult to carry without a bag or clunky coat, none of which she is in possession of right now, and their disappearance would be much more noticeable, which is just not how she does things. 

"Who are you looking for?" He asks, leaning an elbow on his knee and resting his chin on his fist. "Which clan is of the most interest to Amestris? The Guo? The Dai?" 

"Please keep guessing if it will keep you out of my business." 

"You seem hellbent on playing the mysterious card today." 

"They pay me to do that." 

"The Zhou?" He peers over her shoulder into the files just as she passes the Zhou De's. "Not the Zhou then." 

She shifts to keep the papers out of his sight and taps his nose lightly. "Didn't your aunt teach you it's rude to go poking around?" 

"She also ran an underground intelligence operation, so we can't really say she led by example." 

"I shall tell her you said that when I get back." 

"You will not." 

"I will, if you are to persist in your meddling." 

"So thin-skinned," he shakes his head. "Won't be a useful trait in your particular field of work." 

Pointedly ignoring him, she separates two files from the rest and shuts the folder before returning it to its previous place. She stuffs them in the pockets of her skirt without letting him see. 

"Thank you for your help, Mr. Mustang," she dusts off her clothes and stands up. "I'm certain you shall be rewarded in the future." 

"Wow, leaving so soon?" 

She doesn't answer and makes a beeline for the door. He follows her, and just as she's about to turn the knob, he pins down her hand with his and forces it to remain still. 

"Roy, I don't have time for this," she huffs. "Move." 

"You know, I did tell you exactly what I planned to do," he delicately pries her fingers off the knob. "Do you remember it?" 

She sighs, but doesn't remove her hand from his grasp. "Take me in with incriminating evidence on my person?" 

"You are an absolute delight, darling." 

"I do intend to resist." She smiles. "I'm confident you were aware?" 

"I am aware of many things," he assures her. "Like, for example, the gun on your thigh. A bit inaccessible. Impractical, if you ask me." 

"I am of the opinion that it is preferable to leave weapons away from quick retrieval but well concealed rather than having them handy and exposed to theft." He loves it when she gets all technical. "Like this." 

The blade he keeps in his sleeve shines in her hand for a single moment. Next thing he knows, it's deeply encrusted in the wood of one of the drawers. He should probably have seen that one coming. Of course she would try to disarm him like that. Damn her eyes for being captivating enough to keep his attention away from his loosened cuffs.

"Ah, amazing," he nods. "And I cannot return the favor without abandoning my core manners." 

Her grin only grows. "You cannot. May I leave now?" 

"May I have those illegally stolen documents back?"

"No." 

"There's your answer." 

Her hand clamps around his wrist and he only has a moment to blink before she twists his arm and rams him into the door. "I really don't have time, so let's do this quickly." 

"Always in a rush." He hooks his foot with hers and throws her off balance and she lets go of him when she stumbles back. "I'm starting to think you might not actually like me." 

He spins, second blade in hand (because what kind of man carries knives in only one sleeve?) and she's ready to block his lunge. When he feints a punch to her stomach, her free hand flies to fend off an attack that never comes. He wraps an arm around her neck and turns her around. She inhales sharply when he tightens the chokehold ever so slightly. He drops the knife and clutches her hand that's still around his wrist to keep it in place. 

"Well, Ms. Agent Hawk's Eye, it appears you have been captured." He rests his chin on her shoulder. "What do you think the reward for apprehending Amestris' best spy will be? Riches? Fame?" 

"You are a terrible spy if fame concerns you." He can't quite see her face, but he can easily match her teasing tone with a condescending smirk. "Riches sound better." 

"Remind me to take you out to dinner with them if they ever release you." 

"Or don't turn me in and take me out to dinner right now?" 

"Humour? Are you deliberately trying to charm me, Ms. Hermann?" 

The cold steel of a barrel pushes his chin up. "No one should ever be above a little seduction in my opinion." 

He understands and slowly relinquishes his hold on her. Judging by experience, it has a silencer on, meaning she could fire and let his body rot in that little archives room for days until someone smelled something strange. So he does the sensible thing: he steps back and lets her fix her hair and her skirt until she looks presentable again. She never lowers the gun, and he doesn't expect her to.

Before opening the door, she smiles politely, in classic Riza Hawkeye fashion. "Wonderful to see you, Roy." 

She leaves him locked in the dark.

Rebecca is reading peacefully in the car when Riza bangs on the passenger window.

"Sheesh, calm down, will you?" She reaches to unlock the door. "Took you long enough."

Riza slumps in the seat. "I ran into some complications." 

"Namely?" Her friend and getaway driver starts the engine and seamlessly joins the traffic.

"Mustang." 

Rebecca slams the brakes and almost causes a spectacular crash that earns her several angry honks. "Roy? Roy Mustang?"

"Please keep driving." 

"Not until you tell me exactly—"

"Keep. Driving." 

With a grunt, she steps on the accelerator again and soon they're speeding off through the streets of Xiaoxing. Riza rolls down the window to feel the breeze and cool off. The small hairs at her nape are sticky with sweat beneath the wig that has been itching for the past half hour. She removes the hairpins keeping it in place one by one, taking care not to lose any of them.

Rebecca pats her knee with urgency. "What's this you said about Mustang?"

"He was at the office at that specific time, can you believe it?" Riza shakes the wig off and hastily throws it in the backseat. "Almost got me—stop doing that face." 

"What face?" 

"You know exactly which face." 

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

As much as she loves Rebecca Catalina, sometimes she just wants to slap that knowing smirk off. 

There aren't many people in the Amestrian Intelligence Agency who aren't aware of the so-called Roy Mustang, a man supposedly born in their country that had switched sides and become Xing's most fearsome spy; an agent so skilled few could measure up to and even fewer could surpass him. According to their records, he had been assigned over one hundred and fifty missions in his nine years of activity, nearly all of which had been successful. Where others sought to separate their personal lives from their work, he wore his given name like a badge of honor, perfectly aware of his untouchable status. He was a walking menace.

There are, however, only three people in the Amestrian Intelligence Agency who know that Roy Mustang had once been a boy with contagious laughter and bright eyes who liked to share his books with Riza and stay up late to watch the stars. He had held her hand under the table when her father went off the rails and listened intently when she taught him how to build a kite.

To the rest of the Agency, the rivalry between Amestris and Xing's best spies had naturally risen from their status as such. For Roy and Riza, it was simply checking in with an old friend in a rather barbaric manner.

And Rebecca knew, which is why she always seemed to find it incredibly entertaining whenever Riza had a run in with him.

"I got the files though." Riza produces the crinkly paper from her pockets and smooths it on her lap before she can get further questioned.

"Always so efficient." Rebecca takes a sharp left turn, because never let it be said she was a careful driver. "What do you think those are for?" 

"I don't know," she drags a finger over the Xingese characters written in old ink at the top of the pages that spell the names of Ling Yao and Mei Chang. "But if I were to guess… Well, the Emperor's health worsens by the minute, right? Maybe these two are heirs Amestris would like to see on the throne." She wrinkles her nose when she sees the birthdates. "Wait, twelve? Fifteen?" 

Rebecca leans to the side to look at the papers. "Hey, let me see." 

"Eyes on the road!"

The car swerves with violence and Rebecca grimaces as she steadies the wheel. "Ouch." 

"Do you want us dead?" She presses a palm to her chest to calm her pounding heart.

"What's with twelve and fifteen?" 

She lifts the files to her friend's eye level so she can take a quick glance without killing them both. "The ages of the heirs. They're children." 

Rebecca's expression darkens. "Those sick motherfuckers." 

Riza hides the files in the glove to fight the urge to send them flying out of the window. She might not approve of the choices the brass makes, but she has seen enough atrocities to know what they do to agents who fail to fulfill duties satisfactorily. It infuriates her, truly it does, to sit back while they move their pawns and let them fall down for a king that lies, still and useless, shielded by towers and power. 

She hadn't thought it through way back then; all she had known was that they needed a good shot and she needed the job. It hadn't been hard. She got many congratulations and a brand new mission two months after. Since the money from the previous one was starting to be scarce, she accepted. Then the next one, the next one, the next one. After six months, she made the worst decision of her life at eighteen and registered as an official agent.

The car pulls up in the small apartment block they have been using as a temporary headquarters. Rebecca shuts the engine and puts a hand on Riza's shoulder.

"Are you going to report Mustang's involvement?" 

Riza ponders for a moment. "No. It wasn't detrimental to the mission in any way. I don't see why." 

"Good." Rebecca unbuckles her belt. "Because Jean told me they're planning to send someone else to off him, again." 

"What did he do this time?" 

"Remember Bresslau?"

Riza scrunches her nose in an effort to recall his face. An inside agent, she believes, who had been entrusted with the fun mission of infiltrating the Emperor's court, which he had achieved successfully after seven months. She hasn't heard from him in a while.

"Let me guess," she sighs. "Knife to the gut." 

Rebecca seems amused. "Slit throat, actually. In the middle of the throne room, in front of the big guy himself. Raven was not very happy about it." 

Riza shakes her head. "Stupid. He's really going to get himself killed." 

"Please," Rebecca laughs. "He has had six assassination attempts put on him, all carried out by Amestris' finest and all of which failed. Do you really think anyone can touch him?" 

"He's not that big a deal," she mumbles, retrieving the papers from the glove.

"Why do you even care if he gets himself killed? Wouldn't that be most ideal?" 

Riza slams the car door at Rebecca's smirk. "It would be." 

"Then why do you concern yourself with his safety?"

"I do not ." 

"Sure." 

"Must you always be like this?" 

"Are you implying I'm not perfectly pleasant just the way I am?" 

"You are, darling." Havoc interjects, standing on the open doorway. "Now would you do me the honor of moving your perfectly pleasant tush inside so you stop revealing critical information to citizens of the enemy nation?" 

"They don't even speak Amestrian!" 

"They might," Riza pipes in, if only to get back at her friend dearest. "You never know."

Rebecca elegantly flips her off.

Havoc ushers them inside, locks the door and double checks. Normally, he wouldn't be this careful, but something about Xing seems to set him on edge. "Hughes is in the living room." 

"Thanks." 

Riza finds him hunched over Fuery, fiddling with the radio. She stands aside so as not to interrupt, but he nods in her direction with relief in his eyes when she lifts the papers to show him.

"Yes, sir, we have acquired the files," he says to the machine. "Agent Hawkeye is right here with them. We'll make sure to send them over by tom—"

"Put her on." Raven's voice crickles through the speakers. 

Hughes eagerly hands her the microphone, takes the papers from her and promptly leaves the room. Fuery gives her a thumbs up to wish her luck. 

"Agent Hawkeye, reporting." 

"Mission accomplished, I suppose?" 

Riza swallows. Raven had always had his own particular way of making her screen crawl, and the static does nothing but further reinforce the feeling. "Yes, sir." 

"Ah, great job, agent." His condescending tone makes her almost feel his heavy, disgustingly warm hand on her shoulder. "Any inconveniences or problems you would like to inform? Any unexpected encounters? " 

The question is deliberate, targeted, like an impatient shopkeeper who knew one of his employees was stealing butter from the pantry and confronted them about it, waiting for them to give themselves away with a lie he could sniff out a mile away. Rebecca stands next to her and shakes her head so slightly. Silent advice: don't tell. She does not care for Mustang, of course, but she has good instincts and it's a good idea to trust them. 

However, Raven knows . Somehow, she is sure of it. If she lies, he will know, and who knows what he will do to her. So she bites the bullet. "I had a minor run-in with Mustang." 

Everyone starts at the words. Havoc's hand twitches over the gun at his waist, as if he almost expected the devil they were speaking of to pop out of thin air. Fuery, ever so expressive, goes slack-jawed and pale. Hughes makes no discernible movement, but she can still see the tense line of his shoulders. Rebecca just shakes her head and shuts her eyes.

"Interesting." Raven is pleased and it sickens her.  He adds nothing else, and neither does Riza. "Did he prove himself a challenge?" 

"No, sir." She's never had any qualms about dishonesty.

"Wonderful."  The compliment doesn't quite land. "I was hoping you'd say that, because there's a new assignment for you, agent."

"Yes, sir?" 

"We want you to kill Roy Mustang."

Roy is admittedly impressed by Riza's pettiness. Trapped in a room, really? She's always been smug, but this might be taking it one step too far. 

In honor of her awe-inspiring vindictiveness, he grants her two carefully counted minutes to get lost before he picks the lock. While his pocket watch completes its second round, he picks up his blades (he might be many things, but messy is not one of them) and looks through the rest of the heir files. The heirs of the Yao clan and worse, the Chang clan are missing. His blood runs cold and he shuts the folder and puts it back in place. 

An intern raises an eyebrow when she sees him run out of the archives room covered in dust, but he pays her no mind. He almost tears the front door from its hinges upon opening it. There has to be a phone somewhere. Any phone, where is the phone? Ah, in that corner.

He slips a few coins in and dials a number he knows by heart. It rings twice before a young voice answers.

"Hello?"

Roy immediately sighs in relief. "Mei. You're okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Princess Mei Chang, seventeenth daughter of the Emperor, heir to the throne, a fucking brat. "I'm not defenseless, you know."

"This is the last time I worry about you."

"Why were you worried about me at all?"

He glances to both sides before deciding that no, he will not give her vital information in the middle of a bustling city. "Something happened," he says cryptically. "Hawks are emigrating early this year."

Mei drops something on her side of the line. "What?"

"Send someone to pick me up, we have to talk." He squints to read the name of the street in the little map beside the phone. "Oh, and have someone contact that Fu guy from the Yao clan as well."

He gives her the address, hangs up and sits on the sidewalk to wait and ponder. Files, files, files. They're not uncommon targets. God knows how many he has had to steal over the years. However, he'd always been tasked with more sensitive documents: orders to kill, new operations, Amestris' plans for Creta, Drachma, Xing. Never something as mundane as first names that were already available to the public anyways, birthdays and parentage. And even that last one is obvious: half of it makes them important, half of it is nothing but a bearer whose identity would be lost to history. 

And why would they send Riza, Riza, of all people? He's sure there are a lot more expendable agents they can throw away on small missions like this. In fact, he's pretty sure he wouldn't have recognized some other newer agent. Weird as it might sound, someone else would have handled the theft much more efficiently than her. So why? And why exactly on the day he was supposed to be in that exact office? Did they not know? Doubtful. His visits were scheduled. Anyone worth their keep could have found out within two weeks. If Riza didn't know, it's because she had no time. He gets up and makes another call. After pulling a few strings, he gets confirmation that Ms. Rose Hermann had arrived at Xing barely two days ago. If he pushed a bit more, he could even find out where she's staying, but he doesn't. It's their unspoken pact: never go after each other. Never look for the other, never pursue beyond their casual encounters. So he hangs up and sits back down.

It's upsetting, truly. Roy is not the type of man to get upset about anything as it kind of defeats the purpose of his entire job, but this? It worries him. Far from him to fear for Mei's life, but if Amestris decided they wanted her dead, and they sent her to do it, he isn't certain he will be able to protect her. 

A car turns the corner and honks to get his attention. The window of the backseat rolls down and Mei waves at him. Xiao Mei imitates her from her shoulder.

"Get in, flop, we have to talk."

His knees crack when he gets up. The girl's eyes light up and he glares at her. "Not a word," he warns her, opening the passenger door.

"Getting old, agent?" 

"Die, brat." 

"That's no way to talk to a princess, you know?" Mei crosses her arms and meets his eye in the rearview mirror. "I can have you beheaded." 

"No, you can't." He knows it pisses her off to have to sit in the backseat, so he flashes her a condescending smile. "Now, my liege, would you be interested in discussing the possibility of you being assassinated in the next week or do you prefer to threaten me again?" 

That catches her attention. The driver's too. He gestures to the latter to keep driving and fills Mei in on everything that happened in the archives room. Well, not exactly everything . Only what she needed to know.

As he speaks, she retreats into herself, clutching her hands on her lap. She knows what the codename Hawk's Eye means. She knows what her missing file means. He notices the way she pulls on her sleeves, a nervous tick she'd developed to make sure her own blades are still there. (He suspects she picked it up from him and isn't all that happy about it.)

It strickens him to remember she's still a kid, barely twelve and already carrying the world on her shoulders. So he does his best to be the adult she needs, because God knows no one else will. 

"Hey," he adds. "It'll be fine, I promise you." 

Xiao Mei's head bobs in agreement and leans against her cheek to lend her support. She straightens her back and nods, determined. "Why do you want to warn the Yao, anyway? Their heir is none of our concern. In fact, we would be better off without him." 

"I'd agree, but I don't like anything Amestris cooks up." The driver spins the wheel and soon they're parked right in front of the Yao residence. "Besides, I like the kid and his bodyguard. They've got spunk." 

Mei rolls her eyes. She does that too much for a girl so small.

The Yao residence, located in the east part of Xiaoxing, is not among the most luxurious. No, opulence is reserved for the Zhou and the Dai, the clans that'd used their wealth and power to give the Emperor their concubines before anyone else. By the time the twelfth kid had come around, the riches had long faded and given way to rags. Still, the building and its oak walls manage to appear regal and respectable. 

There are worse clans to make deals with. Roy would rather willingly turn himself in to Amestris before negotiating with the Wu, for example. But the Yao, as closed off and extreme as they are, can be reasoned with. And he knows Fu. The old man would die for his ward. He wouldn't oppose a fair warning, even if it came from him. A guard with a covered face stares coldly as the front gate opens for them. Three people, sporting their own masks, wait for them on the perron. Mei frowns when she lays eyes on the one in the center, a slender young man in a yellow jacket who lifts a hand to greet them.

"Ah, Mustang."

Roy offers Ling Yao a respectful bow. "My lord."

Fu nods in his direction, eyes squinting behind his mask. "Welcome." 

Fake niceties are all Roy would have offered him too, so he accepts them without rancor. Lan Fan, Ling's other bodyguard and renowned spunky child, says nothing, instead opting for the non-verbal option of placing a hand on her belt. She clearly keeps weapons there, so he smiles at her in approval. It does not amuse her.

Ling eyes his bodyguard indiscreetly (he must be stupid if he thinks Roy is not going to notice) and then waves at Mei. "Little sister. Delightful." 

The only reason she doesn't perform some horrible physical gesture is Roy's warning elbow to her shoulder. "This wasn't my choice. You can die for all I care." 

"How dare you talk to him like that?" Lan Fan erupts. 

"Silence, you—" 

"Would you care for a cup of tea?" Fu cuts them both off before they can throw hands in the middle of the staircase. "Please, follow us." 

He leads them to a small room to the side. Lan Fan shuts the door and stands before it, cold-livered and silent. Roy glares at Mei, who seems to be seething with rage and two seconds away from stabbing someone. She huffs, but behaves. 

They sit and do all the mundane things one does during tea: make small talk about the weather, the Emperor's health, whether they'd like sugar or cream, until Ling and pokes at the elephant in the room.

"A man as busy as yourself would not demand an audience with so little anticipation had an emergency not arisen." The boy produces a white rectangle of paper out of a pocket: Mei's (undoubtedly rude) telegram. "May I ask what the occasion is?" 

"If you'll allow me, I'll be direct, my lord." Roy sets down his cup on the table, the rim still damp. "I have reason to believe your life and safety might be at risk." 

Fu, who had yet to touch his tea, takes off his mask. His face is more wrinkled and grayer than when he last saw him, and concern makes him appear several years older. And he looks outraged. "So that's what you've come to do? Deliver a threat? From who? The Chang? " 

The scowl he gives Mei is enough to make Roy's blood boil, but he refrains. "Oh no, I do not meddle with clan politics," he assures the old man (although he will later reveal in secret that the Chang do indeed remain his favorites). "This is from Amestris." 

Amestris . The timeless buzzword that would never cease to tense the shoulders of every citizen of their beautiful country. He tells them about the missing files and his suspicions and theories. Once again, he doesn't even need to explain what the Hawk's Eye presence means.

"Double your security, just in case," he finishes off by recommending. "If you see anything suspicious, retreat. Should you see a blonde Amestrian woman with dark eyes, report to me immediately."

Lan Fan chimes in for the first time. "To you, specifically?" 

"Yes, to me. I believe with, and pardon the arrogance, most certainty that I am best suited to deal with her." 

"Kill her then." 

Roy turns to Fu. "Excuse me?"

The old man scratches his chin in deep thought. "This woman has presented nothing but danger to our country. Disposing of her seems to be the wiser choice." 

"You speak of it as if it were a mere walk in the park," Roy rebutts, his pulse picking up. "You may not be aware, but countless agents have been lost in the attempt to dispose of her. And I do not mean rookies fresh out of training. I'm talking about war-hardened people who could have effortlessly assassinated the Emperor themselves had they wished to. The Hawk's Eye is not a joke." 

Sweat drips down his back, uncomfortably cold against his hot skin. His shirt is not the cleanest after the archive room incident, but now it's wet and clings to his body. The image of Riza, lying cold in a pool of her own blood is a terrible one. Riza, dead. Riza. Dead. Riza. Dead. It's a hypothetical, and his entire job is about hypotheticals, but he has never contemplated this one. He has never had to. She was too good for that. No one, except maybe him, occasionally, had come even close to capturing her, let alone killing her. And here waltzed in this old man, casually suggesting he be the one to do it. No. Impossible.

"You did say you were the one best suited to deal with her,” Fu continues. “So why not deal with her permanently? Strike the evil at its root before it can spread any further.” 

Somehow, even with his mouth so dry his tongue feels like paste, he manages to speak. “I do not believe I have the clearance to act out on an assassination by my own will.” 

“That should be the least of your concerns, agent.” Ling scratches his chin. “I’m certain any one of us,” and he gestures between himself and Mei, “could get you the necessary permits in less than four hours. Bureaucracy won’t be a problem this time.” 

Lan Fan nods vigorously, but Mei remains quiet. Roy’s never talked to her about the encounters, so she’s never seen Riza in person, but she knows he had been close to her, she knows where he came from better than most. It’s almost as if she’s scared of agreeing it would be the better choice. It would warm his heart if it weren’t frozen at the idea of having no excuses left to refuse the request to kill his one and only.

“Anything you would want to add, Mustang?” Fu asks, his tone suspicious.

Oh, great. He straightens his back and bares his teeth in one of his most confident smiles to keep his most painful feelings hidden behind the curtains. “It would seem like we’ve got a plan."

"Are you sure you can go through with this?" Rebecca asks for the ninth time in the past hour. 

Dropping the case report on the bed, Riza turns to her. "Would you quit it already? I have a job to do and I'm trying to read."

"If only you had answered, I wouldn't have to resort to being so annoying." 

"I already answered." 

"A lie isn't a proper answer." 

Riza massages her temples. "Becca, please, just take the hint. I obviously don't want to talk about it." 

"You have to," Rebecca insists, taking a seat next to her. "You do realize what they asked you to do, right?" 

"Of course I do." 

"How do you feel about it?" 

"Scared," she admits. "I've never fought him for real. I never tried to kill him before, so I have no idea how he'll react." 

"Not quite what I meant." 

"Well, what else do you want me to say?" Riza says defeatedly. "That I don't want to kill him? That I'll desert over this? That it's going to kill me as much as him?" 

Rebecca wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a hug. She closes her eyes and hides in the warmth of her friend. Even though she might not understand where Riza stands, she's willing to lend a shoulder to cry on and a hand to run through her hair and that's good enough. 

"I can do it for you," she offers. "Nobody needs to know." 

"No offense, but he'd get you before you could get him." 

"I know, I know, but you're my best friend. I'd do it for you. If Jean helped me, then perhaps…"

"I won't ask you to kill someone for me. Much less Mustang." 

"Fucking Mustang," Rebecca mutters under her breath and Riza laughs for the first time since they'd gotten to Xing.

"Fucking Mustang." 

Riza allows herself to bask in her friend's embrace for a few minutes. She forgets how hard her job is, sometimes. Havoc would say it's because she's so darn good at it and then throw in a bad joke that would have been hurtful to anyone else but her for good measure. 

But the truth is the mantle of the Hawk's Eye gets heavier on some days, especially with Roy around. He has his own particular way of making her feel her title at her very core. She doubts he despises his own name when he's with her. The perks of not using any nicknames, perhaps? She could never do something like that. Riza is what her friends at home call her, what Rebecca barks whenever she gets upset about something, what Hughes refers to her as whenever he needs to gush over his wife and daughter; and what he called her when they were kids and didn't know any better. It could never be anything else. 

"Can't you talk to him?" Rebecca suggests after a few minutes of silence. "Explain your situation to him…"

Riza huffs. "Seriously? 'Hey, Mustang, leave your job and desert everything for me. I was ordered to kill you but I couldn't, tee-hee'. Be a little more realistic please."

"Ha- ha ."

Maybe it's for the best. Roy is dangerous. There's no ignoring the fact. If it's not her, it will be someone else. There will come a day where someone does outmatch him and he'd die slowly and painfully. Yes, all the better if she's the one to do it, she decides, breaking away from the hug and rubbing her nose (it's runny, slightly). She'll make sure he dies in a good way.

A soft knock draws their attention. Hughes pokes his head through the door a moment later. "Riza, can I have a word with you?"

Rebecca jumps from the bed immediately. "I'll give you two some space."

Hughes waits until she is out of sight and has closed the door behind her. Only then does he sit down and bury his face in his hands. "You won't like what I have to say."

"I know," she sighs. "Out with it already."

"You're really gonna do it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

He chuckles dryly. "I suppose you don't if you appreciate the life you've built. If you don't, you have two: run or die. I could never ask you to do either."

"But?"

"But it's Roy ." He gestures wildly, like the name deserves special emphasis. "I just can't wrap my head around the idea that he'll be dead soon. Yeah, he hasn't really been here for the past decade but he's always been somewhere. We could arguably find him if we wanted to. And after this, we'll only find him six feet under."

"You don't know if I'll be able to do it yet," she says halfheartedly. "Maybe he'll kill me first."

"Please."

"I know." She's been saying that a lot and it's not really a good thing. 

"Half of me wants to ask you not to do it," he confesses. "The other half saw this coming years ago and knows I can't stop it."

"It wasn't going to last," she agrees. "We wouldn't both make it to old age. We'd kill each other at some point. I guess this is that point."

He takes the report and thumbs through it. "So tomorrow night, huh?" 

"At the Winter's Ball," she nods. "All of the heirs will be in attendance. Stealing Ling Yao and Mei Chang's files was only a bait to make Mustang suspect we'd want something to do with them and lure him to the event. He's fond of the Chang princess, it would appear."

"That sounds like good old Roy, alright." His glasses slip down his nose, revealing the grief-stricken eyes behind. Although he has never met with him as much as she does due to working more in intelligence than in the field, the few encounters they'd had through the years made it apparent that nothing really changed for them, even if life threw a desert and international conflict between them. His mouth twists into a grimace. "This feels wrong."

"Tell me about it."

"Wanna desert together?"

"Only if little Elicia comes along."

"Did I show you the picture we took for her fourth birthday?"

Yes, he did, but she lets him show her again, if only to distract her from the gun on the table she has yet to reload.

Roy waits outside Mei's room as she gets ready for the ball. Once again, he checks every pocket he has to make sure they all carry at least one blade. The inner compartment of his coat also holds a revolver. Never let it be said he's one for guns; they're too loud, too showy, too impersonal. But if Riza figures out he's trying to kill her (is he, really?), he needs a backup plan.

In the depths of his heart, he begs she won't show up. Maybe they wanted the files for something else. He tries his hardest to convince himself of that ludicracy, but they can't risk it. Although Riza is… well, Riza, there's no way in hell or Earth that he'll let her kill Mei. Although technically his loyalty lies with the Emperor, he would readily throw his life away for the Chang clan and their princess. He sincerely has no idea when he became so attached to the little girl, but she is his problem now and he has to protect her at all costs. 

Even if it means taking Riza's life.

The door creaks when Mei pushes it open. Her pristine white hanfu might be what makes her look several years older, but he thinks it's actually the profound wrinkles between her eyebrows. He bows to cheer her up. For some reason, seeing him putting himself at his rightful level (whatever that is) always puts her in a good mood.

"Your Majesty."

She waves her hand. "Don't do that." 

"Do what?" He feigns innocence, still not rising.

"Pretending you do respect my title." 

"You offend me, Your Majesty." 

"Let's get going," she huffs and he laughs only a little.

They make their way to the ceremonial carriage that will take her to the Ball and he helps her climb into it. When she breathes in with more intent than he would prefer, he squeezes her small hand in his own.

"Don't worry," he reassures her. "Nothing's gonna happen to you. I'll be right there with you." 

"What if you don't get to me in time?" Mei asks. "What if she gets me first?" 

"She'll get me before she gets you, I promise. If she does show up, she'll never be a concern again." 

"Are you sure this is okay?" She whispers. "Can you do it, really?" 

He contemplates his answer and decides that a lie would be the most merciful one. "Don't worry about me. I'll do my job as I always do. I've never failed you before, have I?" 

"This is different." 

How is she so knowledgeable of his heart? He lets go of her hand, pats her in the head and closes the door of the carriage. "Try and smile, princess. Tonight's supposed to be fun." 

The horses trot away and soon he's standing alone in the Chang residence. All the servants sleep at this hour. Lord Chang is already at the Ball, having gone earlier to introduce his granddaughter. He watches the house and wonders, for a single second, what would happen if he ran away and never saw it again. He can't go back to Amestris, never, but they say Aerugo is very nice this time of year. No one would ask him to kill the love of his life there, would they?

He shakes his head and the hopeful delusions disappear like the mirages of the desert. 

A chauffeur beckons him to a car and he gets in. The car takes a shortcut and five minutes less to reach the Imperial Palace. He can't bring himself to pay attention to its grandeur today; the revolver weighs too much in his pocket.

The Ball is filled to the brim with colorful vestments and reeks of opulence. Fine ladies flap their fans to each other and the band executes an orchestral arrangement of a popular folk song the name of which he can't remember. The Yao heir is already there, charming his way closer to the seat of his Emperor. He can't see the old man and the spunky kid, but they must be having dinner on the rafters, alongside every other bodyguard brought in. Mei has none other than himself, her self-proclaimed babysitter. Such a pity he chose espionage as career path, the ceiling beams must be lovely.

He scouts the faces around him, trying to spot a familiar one. He finds several, most of them unwelcome but also unimportant. Blonde hair is rare, so she would probably wear a wig. He'd have to be on the lookout for dazzling brown eyes. 

"The seventeenth Princess Mei Chang has arrived!" 

He turns just in time to see her bow at the entrance. The Emperor, as senile as ever, nods in her direction. A few people clap, and that's it. The smaller clans never got too much clout. He follows Mei with his eyes until she gets lost in the crowd. No suspicious enemy spies near her or the Yao kid. Yet.

A server offers him a glass of baiju and he accepts it. Drinking is not very advisable, but swirling the liquid around in its container does something to calm his nerves. When he gives the room another sweep, his fingers come very close to snapping it to pieces.

Riza Hawkeye is many things, but he would have never pegged her as the type to stroll into the Xingese Winter's Ball undisguised, blonde hair in plain sight, wearing a dark figure-hugging dress that reveals more of her back and shoulders than he ever thought he'd see. 

Fuck.

He rushes to her as she casually looks around, pushing and probably upsetting some people. If she as much as spots Mei once, it might just be over for the girl. Her eyes go wide when he grabs her wrist.

"Elizabeth!" He croons, trying not to let his voice crack. It's a weird request to make of a  dead woman walking, but he asks anyway, "Dance with me."

Riza's heart breaks when Roy, as dashingly handsome as ever, ushers her away to a more private sector of the party, one where there aren't as many onlookers and a gunshot won't be heard as much. The music diminishes with distance but it doesn't disappear. It sounds like a cruel tune.

"Roy," she breathes.

He starts, but pretends he doesn't. Taking hold of her waist, he places them in a dancing position and begins to spin her around. "Delightful to see you so soon after last time," he says through gritted teeth.

"Okay, cut it out," she hisses. "What's wrong?" 

"Why are you here?" 

To kill you.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" It's the reply she goes with instead. "You have to stop asking me what my mission is every time we meet, I can't just disclose that kind of—" 

"Are you here after the heirs?" 

Oh, right. That's what he thought she'd try to do. She'd managed to catch a glimpse of the kids on the files she stole and pointedly decided to never touch a hair on their heads. They looked even younger in person. There's a small relief in not having to harm them.

"No." 

He tightens his grip on her. "Don't lie to me about this. Are you here to kill them?" 

"When have I ever lied to you?" She retorts. "I might not tell you everything, but I have never told you a single thing that wasn't true."

He scrutinizes her face and he's so close it feels like a knife to the chest. How come they touch each other through death and violence? Even their gentleness will eventually give way to blood. Screw Amestris and Xing and their underground war and the duty that binds her to putting a bullet in his skull.

"Can you promise me," he mutters, "that you're not here to do anything to Mei?" 

"Yes. And I won't hurt the Yao kid, either. You have my word." 

He visibly breathes easier and relaxes. His forehead dips on her shoulder, the fever of one skin against the cold chill of the other. "Thank God." 

She freezes. 

His nape is exposed, vulnerable. The mission could be over in five seconds. 

Too many people around, she reminds herself. Even one witness is enough. She has to wait a little longer. It's a mercy. 

Say your goodbyes.

"Roy?" She cradles the back of his neck, as if her hands could protect it instead of harming it. "Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine." He reemerges and gives his best smile, although it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Are you?" 

"Why wouldn't I be?" 

"You're a little tense." 

"It's you, stressing me out." 

"Glad to see I have such an effect on you," he says, twirling her in a perfect circle.

When she returns to his chest, his heart is beating like crazy inside it. Since when does it do that? Since when does hers do it, too? She supposes her case is justified: she's about to kill him. They could stay here, dancing like it doesn't matter and they're nothing but loved by the other, but his gaze makes her lose all the courage she had so much difficulty finding in the first place. She has to finish this quickly.

"Can we talk?" She swallows. "Alone?" 

"Should I expect a swooshing love confession?" He teases, but leads her to a deserted side room where he will die.

She takes a seat on the cushioned bench by the window while Roy lights a lamp in the corner. The gardens of the palace are beautiful. There aren't any like them in Amestris. Xingese gardeners must be simply better. There is a gun strapped to her thigh, again, with a silencer, again, but this time, one of the six bullets will leave the chamber.

"What happened?" He asks. "You never want to talk to me on the job, and don't try to say you're not on a job because I will laugh in your face." 

"I—" Was ordered to kill you. She can't say that. So she does what she does best: she plays the part of the spy that she's never played on him before, "—miss you."

"What?"

He looks so genuinely taken aback she almost confesses right there and then. Instead, she holds out a hand to him. He takes it and lets her make him sit down next to her, confusion smeared all over his features.

She strokes his knuckles. It comes easy to her, too easy for it to be something she is so not used to. Indulging in unknown impulses and telling herself it's what the mission demands and nothing more. She needs his eyes off her to get her gun and by the looks of it, it's going to be a little harder than usual, because he's gaping at her like she grew a second nose.

"Just that," she shrugs, weirdly unconvinced that it's a lie. "I miss you. Is that so hard to believe?" 

"No, but it is hard to believe that you would just say something like that, out of the blue, for no reason." 

Damn him.

"I'm tired, Roy," she admits, and that is actually true. "I've been doing this for eight years already. I've killed enough people to fill in that big ballroom over there. I haven't had a moment of peace since I was eighteen." She looks up to him, eyes glossy for extra effect. "I've wished we could go back to when we were kids so many times I've lost count already." 

"Things were easier back then, weren't they?" He finally gives in to her touch and rests his head on her shoulder. She caresses the first vertebra with her fingers, suddenly unsure of everything she's doing. "You taught me how to build a kite." 

"You got all tangled up in the spool. How did you even do that?" 

He chuckles. "No idea." 

They fall silent for a few minutes. His breaths become more even as he starts to doze off. Too risky of a move, even if they were just vulnerable with each other for the first time in years. She knows him well enough to know he probably isn't even drowsy yet. He would never fall asleep on her. If she tries to reach for the gun now, her hand wouldn't even get close enough to grab it before he discovered her.

The part of her that had been so adamant about the mission begins to die. She doesn't want to kill him. Shocker. Maybe it's the way he clutches her waist with intent, maybe it's his skin or his soft sighs or his hands or his heart or maybe it's hers. 

She would hold onto him forever if she could, because she wasn't able to all those years ago.

If she did, then they would get Rebecca first, a somber voice in her mind reminds her. Then Hughes, his wife and his daughter. They wouldn't stop there: Havoc would be next, Fuery, her grandfather, the rest of her squadron back home. The image of their bloodied bodies is enough encouragement to go on.

The day he left Amestris still stings, so she draws it out of the deepest corner of her memories, in hopes that the pain would make it easier. He hadn't even faced her before abandoning her. He had left a letter with no addresses or seal. She recites every word in it by heart: lots of I can't do this and I need to know more ; only one I'm sorry.

Next time she'd seen him, it had been through a rifle scope. 

She shifts her head, tilts his chin up and presses her lips to his. He doesn't hesitate to correspond, and he tastes bitter and tragic and bloody. She retrieves the gun from its hiding spot and slowly, because she wants to be sure she's really going through with it, she raises it up to his neck.

He snatches her hand before the barrel touches him. His eyes turn steely as he pulls away. 

"So no one should ever be above a little seduction, huh?

The metal of the gun is cold and her mouth is hot and his heart breaks. Roy is almost thankful for whatever is happening. Now he gets to pretend he killed her in self defense.

"You were never after the heirs, were you?" He snarls. 

Her expression morphs from surprise to cold resolution. "No." 

"What's your real mission, Hawk's Eye?" 

The trigger clicks when she lays a finger on it. "I think you know." 

Roy leaps out of the way of the first bullet. She stands up, gun aimed straight at his head. He opens his arms, grinning in bitter frustration. "Well, would you look at that? We match." 

He unsheathes the first knife from his sleeve and throws it at the same time she fires her second round. The bullet and the blade collide in the middle and they veer in different courses, the former into the fine-papered wall and the latter out of the open window. He chances a quick glance at the door. Too far away to run, too much noise outside to be heard and rescued. It would seem he might just have to do his job this time, because he sure as hell isn't going to leave the room cold.

"For the record," he pulls out another knife, "you started this." 

He closes the gap between them, slashing at her ribs. Ideally, he'd make it clean, but the grievance of being attacked first and with no hesitation burrows in his chest and whispers to make it hurt.

She dodges and kicks for his head twice, once with each leg. He manages to avoid the first one; the second one lands square in the space between his wrists when he crosses his arms in front of his face. She takes aim again and the gun swerves up with the recoil of the shot. The wall right above his left shoulder gets drilled instead of him by pure luck. If she keeps bombarding him like this, he would bleed out soon enough. 

On the other hand, she only had three bullets left, so he charges again.

"You know, I never signed up to kill you," he comments, swiping his knife to her face. The real target is the top of the spinal cord at the back of her neck, but if she wouldn't turn out, this would do. "Life is funny." 

"Oh, please." 

She grabs his wrist and yanks it down hard. He wastes no precious time trying to fight her; he rams his free hand against her jaw. Her head snaps back violently and she stumbles back until she crashes against the wall.

When she opens her mouth, blood dribbles out. "You always knew one of us had to go."

Her next shot does hit. One moment he's fine, the next fire flares up his right arm and there's a hole in his best suit. Adrenaline surges through his body and the pain pales before the grief of Riza's smoking barrel. He switches the hand with which he holds the knife, letting his wound stain the carpeted floor unattended.

"I'll see you in hell then, sweetheart." 

Each minute that follows is a blur. There's animal ferocity in each attack. He ignores everything but his own impulsive movements, ready to slit something vital and precious. He forgets that it would be a pleasure to be killed by a woman like Riza Hawkeye and that a world without her isn't one he wants. 

He's always lived for the sake of it. Everything he's ever done is to live. He won't stop now. Does she even want to live as much as he does? He doesn't think about it. He just boils and seeks the red flag on her neck that will signal victory. 

At some point, he finds his revolver in his pocket. Her eyes go wide when he fires at her for the first time instead of the other way around. The bang returns him to reality. 

How can he be shooting Riza ?

She rips the revolver from his hand and spins it to point it at him. He finds a final knife in his bloody sleeve and blinks. When he opens his eyes, she's pinning him to a wall, barrel digging into the soft flesh under his jaw, and in his thumb there's the familiar unsharpened edge blade he's pressing to her throat. He grips her wrist to try and pull the gun away from him, but she doesn't budge.

A beat passes. No triggers are pulled and no skin is gashed. His vision of her focused face shakes with each ragged breath. There's blood smeared on the inside of her lip. Had that been him?

"I— I can't…" He stutters, trying to apply some strength to the weapon, to move it to the left or to the right, to do something , but he looks into her eyes and realizes something fundamental. "I can't do this." 

He loosens his grasp on the knife and it clatters to the ground. Her unwavering eyes soften to the point of tears and the hand that holds the gun falls limply to the side. She slumps against him, forehead over his sternum. 

"They'll have your head if you don't kill me," he mumbles. "Just do it. Please, save yourself." 

"Do you think I wouldn't have if I could?" She sounds exhausted. Maybe that hadn't been a lie after all. "I can't. Not to you." 

He laughs humorlessly. "How did it ever come to this? How did we ever put ourselves in a situation where we would have to kill each other? Why?"

"I don't know," she admits dejectedly. "Maybe when you left without me."

Her words startle him. "What do you mean?"

"Why did you run away on your own?" She finally looks at him again. He dabs at a wet spot in the corner of her eyes and smudges blood all over it. "You know I would have followed you into hell if you had asked."

There are so many regrets in his heart at that moment and all he can do about them is cup her face and lean his forehead against hers. 

Hurried steps outside the room stir them both into action. 

"Leave," he urges her, tucking a strand of her behind her ear. "We'll figure something out later, I promise."

She nods. "I'll come find you." 

"Alright."

She hesitates for a second before kissing his cheek. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Me? Stupid? Please." He waves a hand dismissively. "Go."

She jumps out of the window with her typical grace. A few guardsmen burst into the room, alarmed and looking around to try and piece together what had gone down there. He sneaks out behind their backs so they don't ask any questions and hides in a restroom. 

The mirror reminds him his arm is still bleeding out, and a sharp pang of pain follows. After tying one of the fine towels to the wound, he washes his face and clothes the best he can. Obviously he can't go back to the Ball like this, so he makes his way silently to the car. His chauffeur lifts his eyebrows, but starts the engine without a word.

"Where to, sir?"

"Home, Jia. I've had enough excitement for one night."

"Court, huh?" The man jests as the car slithers down the streets of Xiaoxing.

"Yeah." He catches a whirl of blonde hiding in an alleyway out of the corner of his eye. "You could say that."