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Roy heard it from Hawkeye, first thing in the morning.
Which, in hindsight, should have alerted him to the fact that it wasn’t a joke. For one, he hadn’t yet had his coffee, and Hawkeye– of all people– knew better than to poke at his funny bone before caffeine. And for another, Hawkeye had never told a joke in her life. Not once. Not even by accident.
“You should be aware that people have started to notice,” Hawkeye said, her tone even as if she were commenting on the weather.
To Roy’s dismay, she punctuated the statement by setting another stack of files onto his desk. His mood, already fraying at the edges, soured further at the sight of the growing mountain of paperwork threatening to swallow him whole.
Roy sulkily looked back down at the document he’d been skimming. “Notice what, exactly? My unmatched efficiency? My dazzling leadership?”
Hawkeye didn’t blink. “Your mate.”
Roy’s pen stopped.
Slowly, he lifted his head. “My what.”
“Your mate,” she repeated. “Edward.”
Roy stared at her for a long moment, waiting for the punchline.
It didn’t come.
“That’s absurd,” he said finally, returning his attention– pointedly– to the report in front of him. “We are not– there’s been no– nothing of the sort has occurred.”
“Mm.” Hawkeye’s expression didn’t change. “Nevertheless.”
Roy exhaled through his nose. “Lieutenant, I think I would be aware if I had taken a mate.”
“I’m sure you would be,” she agreed. “In the formal sense.”
There was something in her tone that made his pen pause again.
“In the… informal sense?” he would regret asking, he felt it in his gut.
Riza folded her hands behind her back. “Courting is not always a conscious process. Sometimes instincts just take over whether we are aware or not.”
Roy went very still.
“That may be true,” he said carefully, “but I assure you–”
A sharp knock cut him off, followed immediately by the door slamming open.
“Hey, Bastard–”
Edward Elric strode in without waiting for permission, Alphonse left behind in the bullpen and irritation already written across his face.
“–your requisition forms are a fucking nightmare, do you know that? I had to go through three different departments just to–” He stopped short, noticing both officers staring at him oddly, and scowled.
“…what?”
“Good morning, Edward,” Hawkeye greeted calmly.
Edward huffed, then turned back to Mustang, clearly intent on picking up exactly where he had left off.
Roy didn’t hear a word of it.
Because now that Hawkeye had said it– now that the thought had been placed, unwelcome and immovable, into his mind– he couldn’t un-notice it.
Edward smelled like him.
It was subtle. He might never have registered it before if he hadn’t been prompted. But now–
Cinnamon, faint and warm, clinging to the edges of Edward’s presence. Not overpowering, not unnatural. Just… there… Intertwined with something brighter. Sharper.
Edward.
And now that he had noticed… he continued to notice. His office also smelled of Edward.
Roy’s gaze flicked, almost involuntarily, to the red coat slung over a chair in his sitting area– Edward’s coat, he realized belatedly. Edward must have left it there at some point, likely without thought and certainly not on purpose, and had forgotten to collect it. Of course. There was a simple explanation. Why would he have left his prized coat here on purpose?
Edward was still talking.
“…and then they told me I needed your authorization again, which makes no sense because– are you even listening to me?”
Roy dragged his attention away from the obnoxious red fabric and back up to his face.
Edward was frowning at him, golden eyes narrowed, entirely unaware of the sudden, disorienting shift in the room and, subsequently, Roy’s entire reality.
“I am,” Roy lied smoothly.
Edward squinted, unconvinced, but pressed on.
Roy listened this time. Or tried to.
But the awareness lingered.
The coat. The scent. The easy way Edward had inserted himself into Roy’s space without his notice. The late nights they spent pouring over mission debriefings, the times Edward would show up completely unannounced like it was the most natural thing in the world, the way Edward reached for things on Roy’s desk without thinking, as if everything here already belonged to him.
As if Roy did.
The thought landed harder than it should have.
Edward was young. Still carving out his place in the world, still straddling the line between reckless prodigy and something steadier, sharper. Roy had plans– ambitions that stretched far beyond this office, this city. Becoming Führer was not a distant dream anymore; it was a path he was actively, carefully building.
There was no room for… this.
For complications. For attachments that could be used against him. For the jokes and harassment that came with being an omega in the military that he had worked his entire career to rise above and prove. Them. Wrong.
For a mate.
Roy’s jaw tightened.
“…aaand you’re doing it again,” Edward said, a growl rising in his throat.
Roy blinked. “Doing what.”
“Not listening,” Edward snapped. “If you’re going to ignore me, at least have the decency to say so.”
“I am not ignoring you.”
“You absolutely are, yo–! ”
“Brother.”
Al’s soft voice cut cleanly through the argument.
Edward turned. “Al?”
Alphonse stood in the doorway, armor catching the light, head tilted slightly as he took in the scene. There was something almost curious in the way he looked between them.
“Sorry,” Al said, closing the door behind him, though he didn’t sound particularly apologetic. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Edward huffed. “You’re not interrupting. Not like he was listening anyway.”
Al regarded his brother for a long moment before his gaze shifted to Roy.
There was a brief pause.
Then, gently, “Colonel… you’ve realized, right?”
Roy felt like the ground had shifted beneath him.
“…realized what?”
Al’s tone remained mild. “About you and Brother.”
“There is no ‘me and your brother’,” Roy said, a touch sharper than intended.
The phrasing– so casual, so unassuming– echoed a little too closely to Hawkeye’s earlier remark to be coincidence. A flicker of suspicion settled in. He couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, the two of them had compared notes.
Al hummed, unconvinced. Edward’s head was on a swivel as it looked between the two of them, thankfully not seeming to catch on just yet. He could still prevent this situation from worsening.
Roy could feel Hawkeye watching him.
“I think,” she said after a moment, “that what Alphonse is referring to has become fairly evident, even if you somehow haven’t noticed it yourself.”
“It is not evident!” Roy insisted.
Edward looked between them, growing increasingly irritated. “Can someone explain what the hell you’re all talking about?”
Silence stretched.
Roy could dismiss it. Laugh it off. End the conversation here.
He should.
Instead, he said plainly, “They seem to be under the impression that you and I have… formed a bond. One that has garnered attention.”
Edward stared at him.
“A what.”
“A mating bond,” Hawkeye supplied (un)helpfully.
Edward went red so fast it was almost concerning. “That’s– what? No! That’s ridiculous!”
“See?” Roy said, turning to the Lieutenant a bit too quickly. “Ridiculous.”
“Completely,” Edward agreed, bristling. “We’re not– I haven’t been– why would– ”
He broke off, flustered, clearly unable to even finish the thought.
Roy should have felt vindicated… relieved, even.
Instead, that same strange awareness lingered. The denial he and Edward clearly shared felt… fragile… temporary.
Al said nothing more, but Roy could feel it– the quiet certainty in the way he stood there. The same certainty Hawkeye carried.
As if they were both simply waiting for Roy to catch up.
Edward muttered something about idiots and paperwork and stormed out a moment later, slamming the door behind him.
The office fell quiet.
Roy exhaled slowly.
“This does not leave my office,” he ordered.
Hawkeye inclined her head. “Of course, sir.”
Alphonse’s body was turned as if to follow his brother, but instead he lingered for a moment longer then added softly, “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, you know? You and Brother are very alike.”
Roy didn’t respond. He was suddenly very conscious of the weight of his tongue in his mouth.
The Lieutenant ushered Alphonse through the doorway and they both left the office, closing the door behind them with a soft click. Then, Roy was alone with his thoughts.
For several long minutes, Roy remained behind his desk, staring at nothing.
A mate.
The word didn’t settle in his mind– it exploded, splintering through him and rattling around in his head like a ricochet bullet.
Mate.
The word dragged up everything with it at once, a tangle of instinct and panic that made his thoughts stutter. Something deep within him reached– sharp and aching and impossible to ignore– some buried, instinctive part that desperately yearned to be loved. To be wanted.
Every part of his omega was suddenly screaming… for Edward.
Edward.
Too young. Too impulsive. Too unpredictable.
Too visible.
Roy’s heart rate spiked.
Omegas were weak. Dependent. Useless without an alpha. He had spent his entire life grinding that assumption into dust– every accomplishment, every promotion, every relationship– professional or otherwise. He had carved himself into someone untouchable, someone no one could dismiss simply because of his secondary gender.
And if this– if Edward– became his mate–
All of that would go away. They would look at him and see it anyway.
Not a colonel. Not a leader.
Just another omega who’d finally given in.
The thought turned sharp in his chest, something dangerously close to fear.
He couldn’t afford this. Couldn’t afford the distraction, the vulnerability, the scrutiny that would follow. He had plans. Control. A future that depended on both.
But the instinct didn’t care.
It pressed in anyway, relentless and certain, threading itself through every thought until Roy couldn’t separate it from his own mind– until he couldn’t tell where it ended and he began.
Roy pushed back his chair abruptly and stood.
He needed air.
The bullpen was quiet, only a handful of his team remaining. Roy barely registered them as he stepped out of his office, his thoughts still circling, tightening like a coil–
– and then he saw him.
Edward was leaning against one of the desks, mid-argument with three of his men. His hands moved as he talked, ever-expressive. There was a flush still lingering high on his cheeks, but his earlier irritation had shifted into something lighter.
Breda said something– Roy didn’t hear what it was over the roaring in his ears– and Edward laughed.
It was unguarded.
Radiant.
For a moment, everything else fell away.
The future. The risks. The careful, endless planning that had defined Roy’s life for as long as he could remember. Everything but that moment.
Edward, alive and vivid in the afternoon light, steady in a way Roy hadn’t fully noticed before.
Not just grounded, but confident– utterly certain of himself, of where he stood, of the space he occupied. There was nothing fragile in it, nothing fleeting. Edward faced things head-on and didn’t back down; he never had. He had built his name on that stubborn certainty, on forcing the world to reconsider what it thought it knew.
And somehow–
… he had done the same to Roy.
His breath caught.
Because this– this wasn’t a complication. It wasn’t a weakness waiting to be exploited, or a threat poised to unravel everything he’d built. Edward wasn’t something that would destabilize him.
He was something that would hold him together.
The realization came all at once, quieting Roy’s mind. The sharp edge of panic dulled, replaced by something steadier, something far more dangerous in its certainty.
Edward wouldn’t be something Roy lost himself to.
He would be something Roy could stand alongside.
Something unyielding at his side. Someone who would meet every challenge, every doubt, every whisper– and refuse to bend under it. He would be the force to raise Roy above it all.
The tension in Roy’s chest eased, not gone, but transformed into something thrumming with a steady calm energy.
Something simpler.
Something that, perhaps, had been there all along.
Roy exhaled.
Across the room, Edward glanced up at that moment, catching his eye.
For a split second, his expression shifted– surprise, then something knowing, almost fond.
He didn’t look away.
Neither did Roy.
And just like that, the weight of it settled– not as a burden, but as something unmistakeable. Inevitable.
Roy had spent years building his future with careful, deliberate hands.
This, he realized, was never something he was meant to control.
Only something he was meant to find.