Chapter Text
Central City, June 1915
The phone rings only once.
“Hawkeye.”
“Lieutenant. Good evening.”
“Ah. Sir.”
He clears his throat.
“I heard you were released from the hospital. I thought I’d call to see how you were settling in. Are you following your doctor’s instructions? Getting plenty of rest?”
“I am, sir. I’ve been in bed up until a little while ago. I was just heating up some soup.”
“That’s good to hear. Is there anything you need, Lieutenant?”
A pause. Her next words are muffled.
“I’m sorry? Say that again?”
“I—”
Another pause.
“Hawkeye?”
“Sir. I’ve…I wanted to go for a nightcap.”
“What?”
“You see, sir… There’s a bar I enjoyed frequenting. Before the Promised Day. But it was destroyed.”
“Oh. Oh. ”
Another muffled sound he can’t discern.
“Hawkeye?”
“I wondered if you might have a recommendation for me. Of… another place I might go.”
“ Tonight ?”
“I know it’s short notice. I’m sorry, if it’s inconvenient for you—”
“No, of course not. I’m… always happy to give you a recommendation, Lieutenant. Let me—” He presses his hand to his eyes. “Let me just think a minute… Okay. There’s a nice bar at a hotel in midtown on Tenth Avenue. It’s called the North.”
“I’m familiar with it, sir.”
“Yes, I thought you might be. Um, when you go, ask for the manager. His name is Mr. Avant.”
“Should I enquire at the front desk, sir?”
“No, go directly to the bar.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Okay.”
“Yes.”
“I… Lieutenant, are you alright?”
A pause.
“Of course, sir.”
A lie.
“I see.”
“Thank you for the recommendation, sir.”
“It’s… I’m happy to help. Have… have a good evening. Be safe.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hangs up the phone and stares at it for a long moment, his brow furrowed. Then he gets dressed, pulls on his overcoat and heads to the North Hotel.
—-------
Hawkeye arrives at the hotel an hour later and enters through the bar as instructed. She asks for Mr. Avant and is handed a room key. Second floor. Room 210. She thanks the bartender and proceeds to the stairway.
She stops at the first landing and leans against the wall, trying to steady herself. She probably should have taken the elevator. She’s still recovering from blood loss, and the physicians had instructed her to take things easy. She’ll be pulling desk duty for weeks even when she returns to work tomorrow.
But taking the stairs means it’s easier not to be seen, and it’s absolutely essential that she isn’t seen.
She’s taking an unacceptable risk to begin with, asking for this, but she can't keep this secret any longer. She’s endured silently for months, and she’s ready to burst, ready to scream.
Get it together.
She takes in a shaky breath and pushes forward.
When she reaches the second floor landing, she peeks through the little window in the door before opening it. The coast is clear, and the room is right next to the stairwell.
She inserts the key in the door with a trembling hand, turning the handle and letting herself inside. She leans back against the door and takes a deep breath.
“Hi.”
His voice washes over her, and a soft smile breaks onto her face despite herself. He looks good, standing before her in a pair of sweatpants and a white undershirt, casual and relaxed out of uniform.
“Hi.”
Roy approaches, holding one hand outstretched. A small circle of gold lays on his flat palm.
She reaches into her pocket and removes her own solid gold ring.
He smiles, takes it from her hand and gently slips it onto her left ring-finger. She slips the other ring onto his.
He holds her hand tightly, then brings it to his lips, kissing over the ring.
“You have the best ideas,” her husband says, his face splitting into a grin. He pulls her into an embrace, and she wills her muscles to stay relaxed against him even as every nerve-ending screams to tense and flinch away. “You’re trembling,” he says with a chuckle she can feel. “You must have missed me as much as I missed you. I missed you so fucking much, honey.”
She pulls away, pressing against his chest more firmly than she intends. She turns from him and goes to sit on the hotel bed. Her eyes flick to the corners of the room, assessing every shadow on the wall. They’re still and silent. They’re only shadows, and she has no rational reason to be afraid of them, but it doesn’t stop a shudder from running down her spine. She wraps her arms around her middle, trying to center herself, to steel herself to say all that she knows she must finally say.
“What is it?” he asks, instantly alert, his face dropping into a frown as his brow wrinkles. “Are you in pain? Your neck? You didn’t try to walk here, did you?”
She shakes her head.
“You must be exhausted. Have you eaten? We can order room service, or—”
“Roy.”
His eyes widen at her tone, and his face pales. He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall before her.
“Tell me.”
—-------
The Countryside Near Hawkeye Estates, February 1905
“What will you do now?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Riza looks down at the tombstone with a frown. It’s hard to summon up sympathy for the father who never loved her.
A hand fits itself cautiously into hers, squeezing gently.
“You don’t have to figure it out alone. I said I’d do anything for him, but you must know I’d do anything for you, too.”
She meets his eyes with a small smile.
“You would?”
He leads her from the cemetery, back to his own car.
That night, she shows him the secrets of flame alchemy, inked into her skin by her Father. That night, he asks her to marry him.
She accepts.
—--------
Central City, June 1915
Riza looks down at the floor, and she feels her whole body start to shake. She’s dreaded and longed for this moment for seven months that lasted an eternity.
“There’s something I have to say,” she manages. “And I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?” His arms fall to his sides, and he kneels before her, pulling her hands into his. “Of me?”
“Of how you’ll react,” she murmurs. “You’ll—this is going to change everything.”
“Between us?”
She nods, unable to look up at him as tears gather in her eyes like boiling water.
“Honey, I love you,” he says. “Nothing could ever change that. Haven’t we been through enough for you to know that?”
Maybe he’s right. They’ve been through so many kinds of hell together already. War. Separation. Injury. Death itself was unable to separate them.
Maybe this won’t either?
She can’t be sure, and that’s terrifying because she’s never been unsure of him. Even when he left for Ishbal and his letters stopped coming. Even when she met him on the battlefield and saw how he’d used her Father’s alchemy. Even when they’d agreed to keep their marriage a secret, that she would become his adjutant and bodyguard, push him to the top of the dogpile, and fight by his side so he could become the Fuhrer and try to right some of the wrongs they’d committed together. Even when his gamble to expose the corruption in the military to high command ended in ruin and the separation of their team, and all the plans they’d made together through the years seemed like they’d never come to fruition.
Even when she held a gun to the back of his head in the tunnels under Central City and begged him not to go where she could not follow.
Through all of it, she has always known that he loves her with an intensity and a ferocity that burns brighter than his strongest flames.
“You’ll never look at me the same way again,” she chokes, fighting the tears.
“Riza.” He cups her cheek in his hand, and she flinches. “What—?”
“Please don’t touch me,” she breathes, and he freezes, drawing back.
“Okay,” he says slowly, his confusion evident as he rocks back on his heels.
She takes a shuddering breath, covering her face with her hands. The wedding band is cold against her skin.
She holds her hand out in front of her face, staring at the circle of yellow gold that shines in the dim light of the hotel room.
Her hand aches with the weight of it.
Slowly, she pulls it from her finger and holds it out to him.
“ Riza .”
His eyes are wide, his lips parted, and he shakes his head.
“Just hold it for me,” she says quietly. “I need… I need to give you a report, sir. As Lieutenant Hawkeye.”
He takes the ring and sits down on the floor, leaning against the wall.
“You’re scaring me,” he says quietly. She knows he’s trying to hold her gaze, but she can’t look at him while she says this.
He should be scared. She’s terrified.
—-------
Mynar, Amestris, May 1909
His hands are gentle as he cleans the wounds, bandaging them with efficiency. He kisses the nape of her neck.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs.
“Don’t.”
She begs him not to apologize, just as she had to beg him for the burns in the first place.
“Okay. Okay.”
He helps her lower herself onto her side on the hotel bed, and he stretches out next to her, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear.
“So how is this going to work?” Riza whispers.
He sighs.
“Well, I’m being promoted,” he says. “War hero status and all that.”
His smile is bitter and doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Congratulations.”
Her tone is flat. She knows the rank means nothing to him anymore.
“As a lieutenant colonel, I’ll be able to build a team of my own, to request officers I want to work under me.”
She nods, biting her lower lip.
“They told me I’ll be graduating with honors—promoted immediately to lieutenant, second class.”
His eyebrows raise.
“That’s unexpected.”
She nods.
“It’s still not enough of a jump in rank. If I stay in the military…”
“Then don’t,” he says. “Just quit and be my wife.”
She shakes her head.
“You’re going to be climbing the ranks, working in politics. You want me to be a military wife? To go to charity events, socials? Organize a garden club? That’s not me, and you know it.”
After the crimes she’s committed, she has to try to do more to make up for them, to be more.
“Then be a different kind of military wife. Just be with me.”
“I owe two years of service, no matter what. Even if I quit after that, what do we do for those two years?”
He sighs.
“I can have the records buried,” he says quietly. “Hughes can help—they’re putting him in Investigations. It’s just a local courthouse. Since you lied on your application, nobody has to know the truth. There won’t be any official record of divorce, we’ll just—”
“Divorce?”
She tries to sit up, but her back aches, and she hisses in pain.
“Easy,” he grumbles, placing a hand on her shoulder until she settles.
“I don’t want to be divorced,” she murmurs, and he closes his eyes.
“Of course you do,” he says bitterly. “After what I’ve done out here? How could you not want to be rid of me?”
“As though I’m any better?” she shoots back.
They stare at each other for a long moment, tense. Finally, she breaks the silence.
“No matter what, the records have to be buried,” she says. “Otherwise, I’ll be court-martialed for lying on the academy application, and that will reflect negatively on you.”
He nods, and Riza continues.
“But does that have to mean a divorce?”
“It means we were never actually married,” he says, shrugging. “Not on paper.”
“Is that how you feel, though? Like it never happened?” she whispers.
“You know it isn’t.”
Roy traces her cheekbone with his thumb, and she leans into his touch.
“What else can we do, though?”
“I’m sorry I got us into this mess,” she mutters. “I just—”
“It’s not like I gave you much choice,” he soothes. “To just stop writing like that. It wasn’t fair to you. I don’t blame you for trying to find me. I’d have done the same thing.”
After their marriage, she moved to Central with him and stayed with Christmas while Roy earned his State Alchemist’s license and went off to war, filled with youthful idealism about protecting his country and the people he loved.
He’d been quickly disillusioned on the battlefield. At first, he wrote to her, but she’d been able to tell almost at once the letters were full of lies—false optimism and stupid stories about the other soldiers in his unit.
When the letters stopped altogether, she’d been desperate. His name didn’t appear on casualty lists. Nobody at Central Headquarters had cared about the complaints of one lonely young wife in the midst of a war, and all her requests for information were ignored.
Christmas had helped her with a fake identification card, and she’d enrolled in Central Military Academy under the name “Riza Hawkeye”, though her legal name was “Elizabeth Mustang”. A soldier’s wife would never have been allowed to enlist, and she’d been unable to think of any other way to find him. She’d waited long enough.
“So you serve out your two years,” he says. “And maybe after that…”
“I don’t want to be separated for two years.”
They’re not okay, either one of them. She’s not sure how they’ll survive the aftermath of this war if they’re forced to be apart. His new ambitions are the only thing that keep them both breathing, the only thing they can work towards to try to outrun their sins.
“We don’t even know where you’ll be stationed,” he says grimly. “I’ll be in East City, but they haven’t told you, right?”
She shakes her head, then narrows her eyes.
“You said you’ll get to build your own team?”
He nods.
“What if you put me on it?”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because that would ensure I end up in East City.”
“Yeah, but we still couldn’t be together. It’s worse if you’re my subordinate.”
“I could help you, though,” she says quietly. “If I were part of your team, I could work with you. I could be your bodyguard, even, your adjutant. We work well together, Roy. We always have.”
“Honey, I’m not going to deny you’d be brilliant,” he says. “But I don’t see how that helps us if you don’t want to be divorced.”
She frowns, biting at her lower lip.
“We could keep it a secret,” she says quietly.
He takes in a quick breath.
“That’s…a very bad idea.”
“I know.”
“If we were found out, both our careers would be ruined. We could go to prison for that, Riza.”
“I know.”
“We’d have to be so careful. We couldn’t live together. We’d have to be… it would be so hard to be around you in an office all day, every day and know that you’re my wife, but you’re… not?”
“Only I would still be your wife. I am your wife. We promised forever, Roy.”
“I know that,” he says. “I meant it.”
“So did I.”
“So what… we stay married but not married? And we work together, but we don’t actually get to be together? How does that—”
“We can be together,” she says. “We just have to be careful about it.”
A ghost of a smile crosses his face.
“You’re saying we’d just have to… sneak around? Like having an affair but with each other?”
She nods.
“Chris would help us. We could meet at the bar on weekends off.”
“We’ll work together as superior and subordinate all week, then be together as man and wife all weekend?”
“I mean, probably not every weekend.”
“I love it,” he says with a chuckle. “It’s a terrible idea, but I love it. And I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
—---------
Central City, June 1915
Riza puts her head in her hands, trying to compose herself, and he waits, silently. She can feel his intense gaze. She knows the moment has arrived, and she has to tell him now. It’s already gone on too long. They swore to each other they’d always be brutally honest when it’s just them, no matter what.
How is it that the words have burned in her throat and her chest, trying to claw their way out against her will, but now they stick like glue, choking her?
“Riza.”
“Hawkeye,” she corrects, looking up at him with a glare. He glares back.
“I’m still wearing my ring,” he grumbles. “You wanted to meet tonight. Honey, please just talk to me.”
“Take yours off, too,” she begs. “I… I can’t do this as Riza and Roy. Please.”
Tears are sliding down her cheeks now, and he slowly slips his ring from his finger and places it on the nightstand beside hers.
“Fine,” he says. “Then I’m giving you an order to tell me what the fuck is going on, Hawkeye.”
It’s exactly what she needs, and the blockage inside her finally breaks open, the words tumbling out in a flat voice. It’s just another report to her commanding officer, like the thousands she’s given him before.
“While I was held hostage by Wrath and Pride under the guise of being the Fuhrer’s personal assistant, the homunculi engaged in psychological warfare, Sir.”
He sits straighter, his hands fisting at his sides, and she sees his quick wince. It must hurt his hands. He’s going to be hurting so much worse by the end of her statement, but she advances relentlessly before she loses the fragile thread of nerve she’s managed to pluck up.
“In addition to placing me under his command, they used a variety of methods to try to break my will and my spirit. They wished to control me, Sir. They wanted to prevent me from communicating with you covertly. Obviously, Sir, you're aware that their methods were unsuccessful.”
This, she has clung to. Stubbornly. Desperately.
She did not break.
She played her role in the Promised Day, and they survived in part because of her . It was all worth it, because she did not break.
“What methods, Hawkeye?”
It’s not quite the bark of an order, but there’s an edge of panic in his voice.
“Sleep deprivation,” she begins to recite, knowing that she’s building up to an awful conclusion that he hasn’t even imagined. “Deprivation of food and water during my shifts, which were far longer than standard—frequently up to 48 hours.” As she speaks, she sees the muscles of his jaw grow tighter, fury building on his face. “I was monitored almost constantly by Pride during my off hours, so I had no privacy. Which is why I was so careful never to contact you and to rebuff your attempts at contact, sir.”
He nods, shortly. She knows he assumed as much when he learned of Pride’s abilities to creep along as part of the shadows. She takes another shaking breath and stares at the wall over his head as she deals the final, painful blows.
In that moment, she’s certain her marriage will never be the same. He’ll never look at her that way again.
But she has no choice. All her choices were ruthlessly stripped away.
“There was torture, Sir. I was restrained and beaten. Interrogated.” Her heart thunders as he makes a sudden motion, sitting up on his knees as though he’d approach her, but he stops himself.
“Sir.” She marvels internally that now the moment has come the tears have fled. Her voice is flat. Toneless. “I was raped.”