Work Text:
It was nearly three in the morning when he heard the heavy stomp of combat boots on wood. He jolted up in his chair, having dozed off while looking through that day’s reports. He looked around, trying to process the unformed and incoherent sense of panic forming in his skull. His thoughts moved sluggishly, trying to identify what had woken him up, how he had fallen asleep where he did, and why the sound of combat boots should be unsettling to him.
The solid thumping of a hand against his door pulled him out of his stupor and he stumbled to his feet, bracing himself against the table. Maybe it was some kind of emergency, some new kind of monster or tragedy come to chase away the last few hours of rest before daybreak. He felt a deep-buried sense of weariness as he made the trek to his door, clumsily pulling his coat off its hook as he went.
The blue wool chafed the sleep-sensitive skin on his neck, and he was nearly ready for work when he finally opened the door to find—
“Hawkeye?”
She stood before him in the washed out light of the lantern hanging above his door. Her face was drained of color, eyes rimmed red with what he was sure was fatigue rather than tears—or at least he thought so, because when was the last time she’d cried—
“Hello,” she said, bringing his disastrous train of thought to an abrupt end.
The tone of her voice gave him pause. It was a hollow greeting, and her voice was a little empty, a little awkward, and a little desperate all at once. He mused that if there was ever anyone who had mastered the art of cramming all kinds of personalities, emotions, and abilities that should be mutually exclusive into one body, it was her.
“Hello,” he finally said blankly, at a loss for what he was supposed to say or do. He was still operating on less than optimal alertness, and he found himself feeling a stupidly out of place sense of relief at her presence. If there was any driving or fighting against ungodly creatures to be done, she would make sure he didn’t topple over midway through it.
She stood there in silence and he noticed she wasn’t in uniform. She wore her old trench coat, and when he looked to see if she was wearing any gloves to stave off the early winter chill, he saw her hands were painfully white and shaking in the bleached light.
“Hawkeye, what the hell—“
As he stepped forward to pull her into the house she drew back, pressing her hands to her face and shaking her head back and forth. Sudden panic shot through his body, hammering against the tired nerves in his arms. He reached out again, hoping she wouldn’t launch him over her shoulder in some kind of judo throw, and found a painful sense of guilty relief when she let him clasp his arm around her shoulders and tuck her against his side.
He led her over the threshold and steered her past the paper-littered work table in his living room to his kitchen. He smothered his sense of enjoyment at the feeling of her strong body cradled against his in vulnerability. He hated himself for his sense of relief in her weakness, her ability to be tired and overwhelmed like him. Most of all, he hated himself for the selfish and entirely improper solace he found in them being enclosed, safe, and cut away from the uniforms and obligations of the outside world.
He flicked the lights in his cramped little kitchen on, flooding the messy space with a yellow glow. He hoped she wouldn’t notice the stacks of coffee mugs teetering at odd angles in his sink, or the steadily growing pile of dishes and tupperwares filled with the remnants of frozen dinners that his mother and sisters had sent to him in acknowledgement of his cooking and self-care inadequacy.
He led her to a chair in the middle of the chaos, pulling it out for her and lowering her into its security. He immediately felt the absence of her warmth against him as he bustled around, trying to clear the table. When he glanced over at her while shoving salt shakers and half-drunk mugs of congealed coffee in his refrigerator, he saw that she had leaned her elbows on the table and clasped her lowered face in her hands.
“Hey,” he said in what he hoped was a soft tone, heading back to her and lowering himself into the chair across from her. “I thought I was supposed to be the sleep-deprived mess in this partnership.”
She just shook her head from side to side and he watched her in growing distress as she continued to stare at the table. He finally gathered the resolve to reach out and wrap his hands around her wrists in a gentle grip. She shook her head and resisted a bit as he tried to pull her hands away from her face, but she finally gave in and let him set their hands intertwined on the scarred wood of his table.
“Riza,” he whispered, made solemn by her grief. Her eyes were bright red with tears, the bags beneath them a dim and tired purple.
She sniffed and let out a wet, self-deprecating laugh. “God, I’m so sorry about this. I promise if I was in my right mind I wouldn’t have—“
“No. This was the best place for you to come.”
She looked back up at him, and when her gaze locked on his face the edges of her eyes crinkled as a new wave of pain flowed through them. She tugged her hands out of his and began to crisply smooth the wetness from her face.
“I suppose a bar would have been more acceptable. It seems to be the more-used option.”
He tried a crooked smile. “You just would have ended up calling me the same way I’ve called you after I’ve had one too many drinks. Really, you just saved yourself the trouble and the hangover.”
She tried to roll her eyes at him in her old air of exasperation. They sat for several moments in silence, appreciating the peace and warmth of his kitchen. He’d learned by now that when Riza let herself be vulnerable, pushing her would lead to nothing more than her skittering away back behind her walls. He sat patiently, trying to quiet his desire to cross-question and problem solve. Nothing was that simple when it came to this.
As if he really ever knew how to deal with anything when it came to her.
“I’ve forgotten my mother’s voice,” she finally said. Her eyes were locked on the table, pointed chin resting on her hands. “I had a nightmare, just one of the silly ones.”
She glanced up at him self-consciously and he nodded to let her know that he had translated her ‘silly’ into ‘regularly occurring’ and that he had his own ‘silly’ nightmares nearly every night.
“I, er, well, she had Envy’s voice.” She shifted further back into her chair, glancing away at his window. “And when I woke up…”
She broke off, pressing a hand to her mouth for a moment, as if holding back some of the words she did not want to voice just yet.
“Well, I tried and I couldn’t remember what she really sounded like.”
He stared at her, humbled by her trust in him. All he had known of her mother was a grave in a cemetery far away from her father’s, and a silent void that spoke of the distance between father and daughter. Roy had caught himself wondering once if Riza had looked like her mother, and if that was why her father had tattooed her burden on her back. So he didn’t have to face mother and daughter when he left behind his secrets of mass destruction.
“Riza?”
She looked up at him, swiping away more embarrassed tears. “Yes?”
“Do you remember when I knocked over that Xingese vase when I came for my lesson that one morning?”
She stared at him blankly for a moment, and then the warmth of memory spread across her face, loosening her lips into a smile and relaxing the lines of tension on her forehead and the sides of her eyes.
“That’s right! Oh, I really thought you were in for it. That was father’s favorite vase.”
“And do you remember trying to glue it back together?”
She threw her head back and laughed, and when she looked at him again her eyes were lit joy and brightness, the reflective tears still left behind making them luminous. He had to catch his breath when she started speaking.
“Of course I do,” she said. “And once I got it all back together, flawlessly I might add, you went and utterly bungled it by trying to transmute it back together—“
“Hey, I was a beginner!”
“You made it into a giant ceramic glob. We had to bury it in the backyard because you were so scared—“
“Hey, you know that was completely rational! Your father was a very scary man.”
She grinned at him a moment longer, white teeth flashing and eyes smiling at him. He suddenly felt as though he had stepped into a world where there was no war, no guns, and no bloodied palms and scarred backs.
Then she processed his words and a shadow passed over her face, hollows deepening and memories seeping back into the liquid brown of her eyes. “Very scary,” she affirmed softly. “Very scary indeed.”
Regret tore through him instantly. He hurried to try and make it right again. “You scared me, too.”
She looked up at him, one brow raised in half-hearted disbelief. “Oh, really?”
He leaned back in his seat and laughed. “Of course you did. You know, I had never really interacted with someone who wasn’t related to me of your… Well, er—“
A corner of her lips rose up in wry amusement. “Is the word you’re searching for gender?”
“Yes,” he said in relief. “That.”
She laughed and pressed a hand to her face. “You were so silly and awkward. You know, sometimes I miss it. You’re so smooth-talking now. With everyone.”
He felt a large wave of tenderness swell in him, and before he could shove it back down he said, “Not with you. I think I’ve been walking around with one foot in my mouth since day one with you.”
She smiled at him, eyes softening. “Good,” she said quietly. “I like it that way.”
They stared at each other for a moment, the silence becoming more tentative and open. He licked his lips nervously, suddenly worried about what he might say in the early hours of the morning, drunk off sleep deprivation and memory.
“You know, Roy, I think—” She looked back down at the table, stopping herself and clearing her throat. “I think you might be the best thing that happened to me.”
He felt like he had just been lit on fire and pumped with adrenaline all at once. His eyes glued to her face, and when she looked up with a slight edge of embarrassment in her eyes and quirked lips, he felt a surge of regret and longing so potent that it was enough to make him question whether his plans and ambitions were all worth it.
If it was all worth it when she could sit here with him in the dead of night, laughing over old memories with messy hair shining gold and skin glowing warm in the the light of a cramped kitchen.
He opened his mouth to say something to that extent, but she interrupted him, a sad and knowing look on her face.
“You don’t mean it, Roy.”
He shook his head. “Riza, I’ve meant everything I’ve said and everything I’ve ever wanted to say to you.”
She buried her face in her hands and laughed. “We’re so messed up.”
He stared at her and let the ache in him throb a moment longer, fill him with a bit more courage, and then he was ready to tell her—
“No, don’t,” she said. “Not tonight.” She looked back at him and shook her head, her loose hair swaying side to side. “Not tonight,” she repeated softly.
He let out a long breath, forcing himself to stand from the table. “Come on, then. You take my bed and I’ll take the couch.” He tried not to feel frustrated and betrayed, knowing that she was right and that he would understand why she was right in the morning.
Maybe she had rubbed off on him, and he had grown more capable of fitting all kinds of mutually exclusive feelings and obligations inside his mind at once.
She followed him silently out of the kitchen and up the stairs, their boots making subdued thuds as they went. He knew they would be right back to this standard in the morning. She would go back to her house, put on the rest of her uniform, and go back to watching his back. Never in his line of sight, never more than an overwhelming and all-consuming sense of safety and security and home at his back. And if he ever turned around and searched for more of it, or delved a little too deeply into what he really wanted, then he wouldn’t be able to move forward again.
But, God, would that really be so bad?”
He gestured at his unmade bed and turned away, trying to shuffle back downstairs without her picking up on any of the conflicting desires shoving around inside of him.
“Hey, Roy?” Her voice was strained and tense. He turned back to look at her, and felt a crushing sense of relief when he saw what he felt in her eyes and the desperate set of her face. “Would you mind if you stayed up here with me if I promised not to—“
“Of course.” His voice was rough with gratefulness and relief and just about everything he could have never found a name for.
They silently slid underneath the covers, and he said nothing when she fit herself into the hollow of his body. She said nothing when he fit his chin over the top of her head and his arms settled over her, hands resting at her back and in her hair.
To acknowledge it with words would be a reason to drift back to their separate, proper spheres.
They silently decided it would be alright to spend just one night facing each other rather than back to back.