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“Come again?”
Riza Hawkeye let out a long-suffering sigh as she tried to explain the latest office escaped of Team Mustang. In all honesty, she couldn’t really believe it herself. What was supposed to be annual team bonding exercise had descended into madness.
“What do they want to do?”
“Office Olympics,” was her deadpan reply to her oldest friend, Rebecca Catalina, who simply sat there in stunned silence and blinked at Riza…
Then a slow, devious smile spread across her face.
“I know that look,” Riza warned as she picked at her sandwich for lunch.
“I think it’ll be fun.”
“Of course you’d say that.”
She leaned forward in her seat eagerly, lunch forgotten. “Why are you so against it?”
“I’m not against it. I think it sounds fun too. I get excited about our team building days.” She didn’t intend to sound so defensive and noticed how Rebecca deflated a little in understanding with Riza’s reply.
She enjoyed a break from working and bonding with her teammates – her friends – who she loved, just as much as the next person.
“However, you forget I work with children.”
Rebecca grimaced. “Are they that bad already?”
“They were arguing for twenty minutes this morning over who was going to be on each team.”
It had been full on bickering. A ceaseless and inane back and forth, which Riza, at first, genuinely couldn’t believe she was witnessing. But then decided to just sit back and watch, and let nature run its course because, honestly, there was no stopping them. She sat back and enjoyed the show while she drank her morning coffee.
And if she piped up with a comment that would stir the pot every now and then, just to wind them all up, no one really noticed. Well, they weren’t bothered by it anyway.
“It was funny for the first five minutes then Havoc escalated it, and Mustang jumped at the bait, hook, line and sinker, then I had to listen to them argue for ten minutes over ways to make it fair.”
Rebecca snickered. “I could imagine.”
“Anyway, it took them half an hour for a two-minute decision, but we got there in the end. They did very well,” she added solemnly.
Rebecca was laughing when the culprits walked up to their table.
“Catalina, Hawkeye,” Mustang greeted, grinning at them both. Havoc popped up behind him with his own lunch tray.
“Good day, sir,” Rebecca greeted. “I hear you’ve been having fun organising your team building activities this morning.”
His eyes lit up like a child on their birthday, and Riza melted just a little bit.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t as annoyed at them anymore.
“We have. We have the teams sorted. We’d love to have you join us, if you have free time? We need an impartial referee.”
Riza resisted the urge to snort. The hid it behind a cough. Because if there’s one thing Rebecca wouldn’t be, it would be a fair referee.
She’d absolutely adore the chance to wind the boys up as much as she could.
It would be carnage.
And Riza found herself a little bit excited at the prospect. Especially if the mischievous glint in Rebecca’s eye was anything to go by.
“Mustang, I would absolutely love to.”
Riza entered the office and froze, hand on the doorhandle as she tried to comprehend what was happening in their office.
There was shouting – no, cheering.
Lunches lay forgotten on desks as Mustang, Breda, and Havoc stood on the fringes and cheered, while –
Riza really couldn’t believe her eyes.
Fuery and Falman were both red faced and… shuffling? Across the office floor with…
Boxes of paper strapped to their boots.
Her eyebrows crept higher up her head when Falman wobbled and almost stumbled completely – much to both the audience’s devastation and jubilation – allowing Fuery to shuffle determinedly in front of him. His tongue was even sticking out from the corner of his mouth as he hurried forward as fast as he could.
Mustang and Havoc darted around him and held out a red piece of ribbon, allowing him to cross the finish line, which he did, not at all gracefully, and almost keeled over. His poor legs wobbled. Mustang had to grab his elbow to steady him.
Fuery was deposited in a chair and a… paper medal? With a number 1 written on it? Was looped around his neck while Havoc belted out the Amestrian album.
And that’s when they all noticed their audience.
“Oh… Hawkeye.”
They all looked like deer caught in headlights.
“So… This is our team building exercise. This is what you’ve come up with. This is what you mean by your “office Olympics”, and what you spent all morning working on?”
Mustang looked sheepish. “Yes, it’s what we came up with.”
Riza closed the door behind her. Locked it. And shrugged out of her uniform jacket.
“And you didn’t wait for me?”
The whole office whooped and clapped.
The rest of the day was carnage. But in the best way. They had a strong start with their events, Riza had to hand it to the team, and it had only escalated in every way since then.
The paper race was the first event. Followed by a penalty shoot-using a scrunched-up ball of paper as a ball. Mustang had the precision and power, however Fuery took first place with his innocent game of deception. He scored every goal and fooled the goalkeeper every time.
The “paper aeroplane” event was a hit. Probably their best, if Riza had to pick one. Breda was the champion however Riza was a close second.
There was a hurdling event… Which was an experience, to say the list. Havoc wanted to up the ante and started trying to jump over desks which ended up with him sporting a large egg on his forehead from where he smashed it against the floor.
They had the right spirit though.
Falman cleaned up with the coffee race. There wasn’t even a contest. No spills and complete stillness. The man was incredible.
There was basketball shoot-out as well. They’d deliberated on what to use for a hoop for a while, however Falman suggested using a person – someone from the same team would stand across the room and form a circle with their arms. It started off well, then there were calls for cheating (Rebecca never saw any, although there definitely was some arms moving down to make shots go into the “hoop” more easily). Then it swapped to a member of the opposition was the “hoop”, and, well. That caused more cheating arguments than it was worth, so the game was abandoned with Breda as top scorer.
Why they couldn’t just use the plastic paper bin as their hoop, Riza didn’t know, however she would definitely bet it wouldn’t have been as interesting.
They’d taken a short break and now we out the office into their first team event.
The calibre of events had escalated.
Their team had full use of one of the training buildings today. They’d been given tasks by someone higher up – but as Havoc said, they all sounded boring, and they’d go ahead with “the Olympics thing” instead. They weren’t being supervised anyway. No one would care, really, and Riza agreed – the military issued tasks did sound boring. Why would they do trust fall exercises, when Havoc had procured access to the training paintball guns that were stashed in the firing range?
Riza didn’t want to know what he’d promised grumpy, old man Jones in the firing range in order to procure them, but she was impressed.
“Paintball isn’t really an Olympic sport though, is it?” Fuery cocked his head and looked down at the piles of paint.
Havoc shrugged. “It’s close enough. Unless you want to go and do sharpshooting,” he beamed, innocently, knowing full well both he and Riza would mop the floor with everyone else.
Breda seemed to know it too – and wanted to win – because he very quickly fired off a “nope!” and picked up a paintball gun and ammo, striding away and calling to his teammates, Fuery and Mustang.
“We’ve got this in the bag,” Havoc grinned.
“Paintballs hurt when they hit you.” Falman frowned down at his gun.
“We’re the best shots here.” Havoc clapped him on the back. “There’s no chance we come out of this with a speck of paint on us. I’ll make sure of it.”
It was a little frightening seeing his maniacal glee, but Riza couldn’t mind too much. She was almost a little smug as she watched Mustang and Breda trail off their makeshift paintball arena, multicoloured spatters of paint on their chests.
They wanted to play paintball. They couldn’t be too despondent about it when they put the two sharpshooters on the same team.
Rebecca was cackling and having the time of her life as well as she watched it unfold. Riza was sure that if she could, she’d have pulled up a little folding chair and brought some snacks. She wasn’t so much refereeing as she was watching the antics.
It was all rather glorious.
“You shot me.”
Riza spun, smile already on her face.
She’d left on their break to wash her hands. Poor Havoc had a bad taste of karma, because while he was laughing at how badly the other team had done, he’d dropped a box of paintballs onto his boots and a few had splattered.
Then the other team had started laughing and they were all insufferable… In a fond, kind of way.
Riza had wiped the paint off as best she could, listening to Havoc quietly and glumly mumble about how they were his favourite shoes.
In the washroom, Mustang stood in the middle of the room, glaring at her with his hands on his hips.
She could tell he was trying his best not to smile. One corner of his mouth even twitched up before he reset into his super serious frown.
His breathing was laboured after their previous round and his hair was dishevelled, with some strands plastered in waves to his head with sweat. There was even a streak of neon green paint in it.
She found she really like this look on him. Not the petulant pout and sad puppy-dog eyes, but the dishevelment.
It was working for her.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she replied as solemnly as she could while fighting back a grin.
To which, he scoffed and scowled, looking away. “You’re not even sorry about it.”
She pushed off the sink behind her and stepped in close. Really close. And Roy’s head snapped back to face her. He blinked slightly in surprise, but his mock indignation fell from his face almost immediately and he grinned at her advance.
“I’m sorry.” She was more sincere this time. A thrill went through her stomach when she ran her hands up his chest, over his firm, warm muscles, and heard his breath hitch. “Do you need me to kiss anything better?”
Her innocent question transformed him.
Roy cleared his throat. “There might be.”
She hummed and stuck out her bottom lip, watching his gaze dip and get stuck on her lips. She ran her hands over his chest one more time, just to really make sure there were no bumps or bruises. Her exploration was very thorough, of course.
“Riza.” Her name was a breath over his lips.
She pecked the corner of his lips. It left him chasing after her with a frustrated huff. Riza followed the line of his jaw up to his ear, pausing and leaving him waiting in anticipation.
“You have paint in your hair,” she whispered.
His whole body shuddered, but Riza snickered when he huffed in her ear.
“I think that was you.” The reply was a quiet murmur. Goosebumps rose on her flesh and this time it was her turn to shiver.
“No, I would never.” It had been her. Her paint was neon green, and he was sporting a rather fetching blob of it. “That doesn’t sound like something I would do.”
Roy narrowed his eyes at her. She knew he’d seen the mischief in her eyes. It had been fun today, getting to be playful and enjoy their silly collection of games together. And this little moment was the icing on the cake.
She pecked his cheek and moved away.
“I’ll get you back for this.” Even he couldn’t contain his grin at their little bit of banter.
“We’ll see,” she laughed. “It’s going to be so much fun when we beat you.”
His smirk was arrogant. “Is that what you think is going to happen?”
“I know it will… sir.”
His eyes widened slightly at the word, given the context and the way she said it.
“I’ll be giving you a performance review later then, Lieutenant. Much later.” He added the last part quietly, aware of potentially listening ears.
“I look forward to it.” She spun and walked away. Riza knew he would be watching her go, so added a little more sway to her hips. It would give him a taste of what was to come “later”, when he arrived at her apartment.
… Plus, thoughts of later, and what that might entail, may just distract the Colonel enough that he couldn’t focus during their next game.
…
She was competitive.
She wanted to win gold.
They could have a big celebration together… “later”.