Chapter Text
General Roy Mustang stared out the window, studying the view and enjoying the brightness of the sun as it beamed down on him. Behind him, his desk was stacked high with paperwork that mimicked the varying sizes and slopes of the mountains beyond the city. Hawkeye would be in soon to push him about it. If he mentioned the similarities, he knew she’d say something like, “The mountains would erode before you finished your work.”
But he just couldn’t take his eyes off the scenery while promising himself he’d never fail to appreciate the small things like that again. Not after being encased in darkness with his only light being Hawkeye’s voice. Without her around, he would never have been capable of doing the things he’d accomplished.
It took a while for him to gain his sight again. Healing Havoc’s legs had been top priority. During the wait, he thought of how fitting it was that he be there. Lingering in the dark when he saw a future so bright ahead of him before. It was a complementary environment for both his actions and what soul he had remaining.
He turned when he heard the door open. Hawkeye entered the office. Seeing her face was the best thing about regaining his sight.
Breda, Havoc, and Fuery weren’t far behind her, their arms full of pink, red, and white items. He was about to tease them but was cut off when they dumped the items on the clear side of his desk.
He glared at the cards, boxes of chocolate, and other gifts of affection women tended to give him this time of year. He thought he’d be spared from it after the Promised Day, now that he was a few years older and less active in the city. He sneered.
“Just what are these?”
“They’re Valentines,” Havoc said. Roy was sure Havoc knew he meant the question as rhetorical.
“Let me rephrase,” Roy said. “Why’d you bring them here?”
“They are addressed to you, sir,” Riza said. He looked over at her as she set some manila folders on her immaculately organized desk. “Did you not ask them to bring your mail to you?”
She spoke sternly, her coolness emitting from every syllable. That tone existed in every conversation at work. And only at work because she declined every offer to hang out with the team beyond a professional setting. She was quiet even before the Promised Day happened. Nowadays she said her throat hurt when she spoke too much. After Ishval’s restoration, she grew even more emotionally isolated from them.
From him.
Roy sat down and sighed, hoping the casual gesture would alleviate some of the heaviness in the room.
It didn’t.
“I guess I did,” he said and flicked a teetering card off the edge of his desk and into the garbage can. He proceeded to sort through the items, discarding all the letters and cards and leaving four boxes of chocolates. He picked them up, walked over to Riza’s desk, and set them there.
She looked up from her work. “Sir?”
“They’re from that place you like downtown. I know you like chocolate much more than I do.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“It sounds like chocolates aren’t the only thing you don’t like, Chief.”
“I despise Valentine’s Day,” Roy said as he walked back over to his desk and sat down. “It’s pointless. People use it to lie to others about how much they love them. It’s a ridiculous day of insincere obligation.”
“Pessimist,” Fuery muttered. Breda grunted in response. Roy heard him but chose to ignore it. The young man was smitten with Sheska, and everyone knew Breda was knocking boots with Maria Ross, much to Denny Brosh’s heartbreak.
“I figured you’d love it since you get all the attention from women,” Havoc said. He didn’t sound as bitter as he was on past Valentine’s Days, and the cause of that was a dark-haired harpy that happened to be Captain Hawkeye’s best friend.
“Though with the moustache I’m surprised you got an—”
“My moustache is not open for discussion, Havoc,” Roy said. Why did people feel such a need to voice their opinion on his choice to grow facial hair?
Someone snickered, but Roy didn’t bother trying to figure out who it was.
“Attention is the last thing I want nowadays. I put up with it in the past because I had to keep up a front. The only reason people even fake love today is out of the hope that if their significant other is treated like a queen or king during the day, they’ll act like a porn star at night.”
“It’s not right to lump everyone as being the same, sir,” Riza said.
Roy turned his regard to her, interested in her view. “Captain, you surprise me. Don’t tell me you genuinely enjoy this holiday.”
She shrugged. “While I don’t like the commercialization, people have fun with it, so I can’t completely hate it. I like to believe most couples out there celebrating are truly happy with each other.
The porn star part, as you put it, is just a bonus.”
Roy stared at her, unsure of how to respond for a few seconds. He’d known Riza since they were preteens and he couldn’t recall ever hearing her mention anything, positive or negative, about Valentine’s Day.
“That’s so nice, Captain! Are you in love?” Fuery asked, earning stares of shock from Havoc and Breda. Did he have a death wish or was he just clueless that Hawkeye and General Mustang equaled the thing.
They were the thing that everyone in headquarters had been secretly betting on for years. The symbol, the paradigm, the perfect representation of a “will they or won’t they” relationship.
She only smiled at him and looked back down at her work. Roy opened his mouth to continue the conversation, but he was cut off by a knock at the door.
Fuery got up to open it. Rebecca came into the office with her arms full of Valentine’s Day items.
“What the hell?” Havoc said, jealousy plethoric in his tone. “Why do you have those?”
“Oh, calm your tits,” she said to her blond boyfriend.
“You have that many admirers, Lieutenant Catalina?” Roy asked. “Proves my point about Valentine’s Day. It’s all lies.” Roy was half-joking about her while standing by his initial point about the day. He and Rebecca bickered like siblings, but he’d trust her with his life.
“Hardy har har!” He saw a flicker of amusement flash on her face at the insult. She walked over to her best friend and dumped the gifts on Riza’s desk.
Riza looked at the items and then at Rebecca. “Why are you putting them here?”
“These, Captain Riza Hawkeye, are all yours. They were on your gun locker and on the bench in front of it. They were blocking my way through.” Rebecca huffed. “Not a single one of them was for me. Maria Ross is bringing the others.”
“Oh…” Riza said, clearly flummoxed by the gifts.
“There were several dozen notes. I read them since I figured you didn’t care. Most of them were asking you out. One wanted to know if you’d be interested in slicking his barrel, if you get my drift. For some reason, he didn’t put his name on that. Defeats the purpose of asking really.”
“It’s probably because he didn’t want his dick shot off,” Breda said.
An odd feeling washed over Roy. He hated seeing all those Valentines on her desk.
From other men…
“Wh…why?” Roy asked, earning everyone’s eyes on him. “Why would anyone give the Captain Valentine’s Day gifts?” He didn’t realize how that sounded until it passed his lips. He saw a hurtful expression flash on her face. “Oh! I…I didn’t mean it li—” He didn’t know how to recover from that.
The sound of the lunch bell reverberated throughout headquarters, but everyone remained still after hearing Roy’s words.
The tenseness broke when someone knocked on the doorframe to the open door. They all looked in the direction of the sound.
Colonel Aegis Renault, all six foot three of him, stood at the door with a grin that Roy wanted nothing more than to punch off his face. “Am I interrupting a meeting?”
Roy knew Renault was deliberately being a bit of an ass by asking that. Anyone would have enough sense not to conduct a meeting with the door to an office wide open. Roy took it as a veiled insult toward his intelligence.
“No, what can we do for you,” Roy asked, nearly gritting his teeth as he spoke.
He stepped into the room and ran a hand through his dark brown hair. Roy could’ve sworn his blue eyes sparkled when he looked at Hawkeye.
“Do you have plans for lunch, Captain Hawkeye? I’d liked to discuss something with you if you’d care to join me.”
“No, I don’t have any plans. I’d be happy to go to lunch, sir,” she said and stood. She grabbed her purse, and without casting a backward glance, left the office.
“Have a good lunch,” Renault said before following behind Riza.
Have a good lunch. Roy mocked in a sharp derisive thought.
Rebecca grabbed the table beside her and her eyes widened. “The hell?” she whispered.
Havoc muttered something Roy didn’t care to figure out.
“He’s got big brass balls,” Breda whispered to Fuery.
Roy clenched his teeth and reminded himself that setting fire to Renault wouldn’t be good for his career.
“Well,” Rebecca said. “Can’t say I was expecting that. I swear she could collect men like shoes if she wanted.”
“You all can go,” Roy said. Dejectedness and anger simultaneously swirled in him. He needed a long walk and some fresh air before he made the misjudgment of following Hawkeye and Renault during his entire lunch break.
Everyone stood and headed for the door.
Everyone except Rebecca
“You coming?” Havoc asked her
“In a minute.” She grabbed his arm. “Shut the door on your way out,” she whispered to him. “I have some things to say to Mustang.”
“Don’t get yourself in trouble,” Havoc said.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “He won’t do shit.”
“Suppose not,” Havoc replied.
When the door clicked shut, she whirled around and glared at Roy. He had an eyebrow raised and his arms folded.
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Roy heard their conversation and knew what was about to happen but nodded anyway. He deserved whatever she was going to say. “Go ahead.”
“What the hell was that? What you said to Riza was…What were you thinking?”
His posture slouched and he sighed. Her reaction was the same Maes’ would’ve been if he’d been there. “Catalina, my words came out wrong.”
“Ya think?” she snapped, her voice just under yelling. “You didn’t even try clarifying what you meant either!” She lifted two fingers to rub the top of her nose. “God! You might as well of handed her to Renault naked on a platter.”
“You act like you don’t want her with him,” Roy said.
She growled like a cat about to attack something. “I don’t. I want her to be happy. I don’t want to see both of you pining for each other anymore either.”
He straightened. “I do not pine. And Riza can go to lunch with Renault if she wants. It’s not my place to tell her what she can and can’t do. I will apologize to her when she comes back though.” He stood and grabbed his coat. He slipped it on. “If we’re done here, I’m going to go get some lunch.”
He walked past her and opened the door.
“Please, General Mustang,” Rebecca said. “Tell her how you feel before it’s too late to do it.”
Roy left the office without responding.