[roy/riza; pg-13] A Merry War Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Title: A Merry War Author:emilie_burns Theme: #3, banter (30_Romances) Pairing: Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye Rating: PG-13 for some off-color words and sexual references. Word Count: 1417 Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is copyrighted by Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. This is a work of fanfiction for personal entertainment only. No spoilers, preseries, taking place during the Ishbal War. Jossed. Notes: This was actually supposed to be a completely different 'fic. I started another 'fic (which I'll be posting once I finish it) for another theme here, and a few words started running off in a completely different direction. It's been complete for a few days, but I wasn't sure if I should keep it with the other bit I was doing. After a little more work, I could see they didn't fit together inside the same 'fic anymore, so... two for the price of one! Summary:She saw him before he knew she existed. Her first thought was that he was handsome, but far too much so for it to have any effect on her. He had looked like someone who had stepped out from between the pages of a book, the perfection of imagination manifest. Then a maddening, arrogant smirk crossed his features while conversing with someone else as they left the station for the general's office. Original LJ Post Date: July 14, 2005 @ 30_Romances
A Merry War
"...they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them." - William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act I, Scene I
Riza Hawkeye remembered clearly the day she met him, when the train from Central arrived, bringing in the human artillery, the State Alchemists. She remembered her disdain for all the pomp and circumstance unleashed on the base when the president's favorite toys came out to play. All alchemy was to her was merely a flashy application of science, and remained content in her knowledge that she was just as deadly, if not more, with any gun.
She saw him before he knew she existed. Her first thought was that he was handsome, but far too much so for it to have any effect on her. He had looked like someone who had stepped out from between the pages of a book, the perfection of imagination manifest. Then a maddening, arrogant smirk crossed his features while conversing with someone else as they left the station for the general's office.
She wrote him off then as someone who's ego was directly proportional to his appearance: larger than life. He was gone from her thoughts as he left her line of vision, and she went back to her duties.
***
Whenever he thought about their first meeting, Roy Mustang wondered how he wound up with her so reliably at his side through hell or high water that she may well have been a second shadow. Young, brash, cocky, and still reveling in the glory of becoming the youngest State Alchemist ever the year before, he arrived from Central, assignment papers in hand, and sought out the people placed under his command. When he inquired about the lieutenant, someone pointed her out to him where she sat, across the compound with a stripped rifle in pieces around her. He remembered the description of her skill with a weapon only because he had to think of another way to phrase it when speaking with her.
"She could shoot the dick off a gnat at three hundred meters," was how the captain had phrased it.
If not for her features -- both facial and a bit lower than that -- he might have mistaken her for a boy with her short-cropped hair. There was nothing feminine in her movements as she cleaned her rifle, every gesture crisp, precise, and disciplined. A well-trained dog of the military. But she was still female, and that was one arena in which he excelled.
"Rumor on the base has it you can shoot the hat off a gnat at three hundred meters," he said as he sat down across the table from her while inwardly wincing at the lousy rhyme. She started to put down the oil-dipped brush to stand and salute a superior officer, but he quickly waved it off. "At ease, lieutenant."
Her expression remained impassive as she hesitantly sat down and resumed cleaning the rifle, inserting the long-handled brush into the barrel. "Is that what you heard, major?"
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, giving her a grin that was proven capable of melting any female just as surely as his fire could melt butter.
The look she gave him as she studied him was bland and disinterested. "I suppose they got tired of talking about the other head."
Not only did she shoot him down, she claimed complete victory over the exchange as Roy faltered, caught off-guard by both her impassive reaction to him and the blunt rejoinder. "Er, well, yes. I was trying to be polite."
She had already looked away, resuming her task. "I've already heard it all, generally when they believe I'm nowhere in earshot." She paused then and looked at him again, with the glimmer of a smirk in her eyes. "If you wouldn't mind correcting their assumptions, that would be five hundred fifty meters."
He bit back an urge to laugh, but not at her, although there was a good risk she would assume he was. "You're a real piece of work," he replied.
"Why do you say that? Because I'm not falling over myself at your efforts toward flirtation, or because I know no one here can out-shoot me?"
His grin turned rueful. "A bit of both. Although now that you mention it, I have to admit I'm curious. Are you even interested in men?"
Roy never thought an expression of utter boredom could be more icy than a glare until that moment. "Permission to speak frankly, sir?"
"By all means, lieutenant."
"What I am interested in is of no consequence. You are a ranking officer and there are protocols. What is more, in case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of a war and not a high school sock hop." Her words may have been scathing in their bluntness, but her tone was not. It was matter-of-factly and calm. "While I've no doubt that back home, you likely have as many numbers in a book and notches on your headboard as you do pick-up lines, it is not the aspirations of every woman to get married and raise a screaming brood of children. Now, if you don't mind, I do need to finish cleaning my rifle before the next deployment."
She was nothing like the others. She was on a higher level, and perhaps far beyond his league. It was time for a strategic retreat. He gave her a slight smile as he stood. "You're right, lieutenant, my apologies. Good day."
***
The moment in time in which the Flame Alchemist won her respect followed only minutes behind the moment in which she thought he proved her first impression of him to be correct. She had just been starting to reassemble the rifle when a shadow appeared in her line of vision, and she looked up to find he had returned.
"Roy Mustang, major. The Flame Alchemist," he said, holding his hand out. His tone was level, his expression relaxed yet neutral.
She almost brushed it off as an act, but something in his eyes made her reconsider. She studied him for a moment longer, then put down her gun and wiped the oil off her hands. She stood and shook his left hand with her own, saluting him with her right. "Riza Hawkeye, second lieutenant."
He returned the salute and released her hand, clasping his own behind his back. "I hope you don't find it too forward of me to seek out an introduction. Several people here have spoken very highly of your marksmanship, and I must say I hope to have the honor sometime of witnessing your skill in action."
Riza bit back a smile at the formality of his tone and the underlying sense of genuine respect. "I'm a sniper," she pointed out. "If I'm doing my job correctly, all anyone ever witnesses is a body dropping, followed by a sonic boom from a location where I no longer remain." She resumed her task of reassembling her rifle. "But if you were to find me at a target range someday, I wouldn't object to a spectator."
"I'll bear that in mind." He started to turn then paused, turning back just as she started to salute him. "And by the way, lieutenant..."
"Sir?" Her hand stopped midway to her forehead, and she lowered it again, waiting.
"Your next deployment is not for another forty-eight hours. I hope you're a morning person, because we're leaving for Luiyah City on the fourteenth at zero-five-hundred."
She frowned in confusion. "Sir?" she repeated, this time intended as an actual question rather than a polite acknowledgement.
The major smirked, a nonverbal celebration at gaining the upper hand. "You've been placed under my command. Luiyah City is the sector to which I've been assigned. Any further questions?"
Her eyes remained locked on his for several wordless heartbeats, and his smirked deepened. "No, sir." She saluted him as he turned to depart and sat, only to have to duck her head as a sudden smirk of her own tried to escape. "Oh, there is one other thing," she called after him.
"Yes, lieutenant?"
It took quite a bit of willpower to keep her expression impassive. "It's not women which draw my interest," she replied, answering his earlier question. Then she lost the battle as she felt one corner of her mouth tugging upward just a bit. "But neither do egos."
It was the good sportsmanship, his sudden grin and laugh in response that won her over then. "If your skill with your gun is even just half as sharp as your wit, I'm going to be the safest Alchemist on the field."