Work Text:
Today started as an average day, if a bit dreary, thinks Roy Mustang.
Far better it be a bit dreary instead of a bad morning, though. Those usually have him tossed out of bed by Riza at an ungodly hour, case file dictated to him as he goes through his morning routine in ten minutes flat, and driven to the law firm at absolutely illegal speeds in Jean’s car. Instead, the only difficulty had been waking up fully when his alarm rang, not having any sunlight streaming through his windows to assist him. This caused him to nearly nod off during his morning routine and almost stab his eyes with his fingers, startling himself awake. Then he almost face-planted into his mildly burnt eggs. Finally getting coffee into his system woke him up, but all this meant that he opened up his work email app only when he left the house.
Roy frowns down at his phone. Grumman had sent him an email whose header consisted solely of blaring red alarm emojis. Which either meant that it was extremely serious or not important in the slightest. Roy opens up the email. Ah, it was twenty of those emojis. Pretty serious then.
Roy reads through the email’s contents carefully (missing even one word could cause all sorts of misunderstandings later, as he’s learnt from experience), and ah, Grumman wants him to represent the defense in the case against Kimblee the arsonist. Roy is, of course, caught up with the news about him burning down Archer’s house. And his other house. And his summer villa as a bonus. While the acts were, in Roy’s completely unbiased opinion, totally deserved, arson is, in the end, still illegal. And Kimblee himself wasn’t winning any awards for his good deeds considering his previous criminal record. The next few months will certainly be more exciting than usual, Roy sighs to himself as he opens up the email attachments to skim through.
Unsurprisingly, Kimblee’s past will certainly complicate the trial, and Roy begins reading through the documents more thoroughly to get a better understanding of the situation. He starts tuning out the crowded roads around him as he starts paying particular attention to some paragraphs detailing Kimblee’s potential motive (and Roy did not know the two worked together once under Bradley; hopefully Roy doesn’t have to take him out of jail to act as a witness for this), letting his feet guide him across the sidewalks.
Roy is just getting to the part where Archer had once tried to blow out Kimblee’s brains and instead only got an eye, when he feels someone grab the back of his collar and tug hard . Roy stumbles backwards, his phone nearly flying out of his hand from the momentum. He grabs onto it more tightly in a panic, clutching it to his chest, and spins around (to the best of his ability what with someone latched onto his clothes) in a fury. “What the he-” is all that Roy gets out before he actually sees the person and then finds himself bereft of all words.
Roy swears the world slows down in that moment. He watches with awe as rays of light pierce through the clouds and settle upon the miracle made flesh in front of him. Roy tries to burn the image into his retinas, his eyes drinking in the stunningly golden hair, the bright and equally golden eyes, the well-defined jaw, the crisp red suit that should’ve looked garish yet was absolutely riveting on him –
A car zooms by in front of Roy, missing his feet by centimeters. Roy blinks. The world returns to normal motion. Roy looks in front of him, and notices the very active road he was about to absentmindedly walk into. “Oh,” he says numbly.
Roy’s saviour standing behind him snorts. “Yeah, oh ,” the man repeats in amusement.
The man lets go of Roy’s collar, and Roy turns around fully just in time to see him fighting back a chuckle. “Kids these days and their phones,” he says in a joking tone, clearly being a decade or more younger than Roy.
Roy blinks very rapidly. “A-Ah, thank you very much for the save,” he says, trying very hard to recover his eloquence. “I’m quite sure you just saved my life. Please allow me to compensate you, with a coffee, perhaps…?”
The man’s eyes widen slightly and he clearly glances up and down Roy in consideration. “Not that I’m not interested, but-”
A faint sound of an alarm pierces through the crowd’s noise, and the man raises his smartwatch up and winces at the time. “Shit, I’m so late. Sorry, I really need to run. You’ll be here tomorrow? Cool, pay me back then. See ya!”
The young man hurries off after Roy numbly nods to his question, and Roy can only blink and wonder in the aftermath of his presence.
—----------------
Edward arrives at the meeting room exactly ten minutes late. Sheska, of course, is already there typing away at her laptop, and startles at the sound of the door slamming open from Edward’s rush.
“Sorry for being late, Sheska! Had to save an old man from getting run over by a car,” Edward says, slightly out of breath.
“Oh no! Was he alright?” Sheska frets, standing up in concern.
“It’s fine, it’s fine, I caught him before he even walked onto the street,” Edward reassures. “He got nothing more than a bruised ego, if even that.”
“That’s a relief to hear,” Sheska sighs.
The two sit down and continue with some lighter topics before finally getting to the actual purpose of the meeting.
“I’m sure Mr. Armstrong has told you already, but your performance evaluations this quarter have highly exceeded expectations, especially considering your work in Tucker v. Tucker,” Sheska says. “With that in mind, we’ve been thinking of transferring you to Ms. Hawkeye’s team.”
“Hawkeye? Isn’t she one of the top paralegals here?” Edward asks, astonished. “I don’t think my credentials are that good to already get into her team.”
Sheska blinks owlishly at him. “Edward, you’ve only been here for half a year, and you’ve already helped close out sixty cases. Your notes are impeccable, the witnesses have had only compliments about you regarding your interviews, and you’ve even spoken with Mr. Grumman about ways to improve the firm. Some of which he’s actually implemented. You’re far more than qualified to join Ms. Hawkeye’s team, and clearly she agrees.”
“Way to list everything out,” Edward mumbles, embarrassed. “Alright, so what exactly is going to change with this?”
“Well, moving to Ms. Hawkeye’s team means you won’t be working with Mr. Armstrong anymore. Let’s see, you’ll likely be assisting her with Mr. Mustang’s cases, or Mr. Marcoh’s…”
Edward frowns, trying to recall what he knew about those two as Sheska continues on. “Hmm, Mr. Mustang got assigned Archer v. Kimblee recently, but I’m not sure you’ll be assigned to that one, given how high visibility it is. Maybe Dante v. Eckhart…?”
“Wait, wait, Mustang? Roy Mustang?” Edward interrupts.
“Um, yes? There’s only one Mustang that works here,” Sheska says.
“ He got assigned Archer v. Kimblee? You sure he’s up to the task?” Edward wrinkles his nose.
Sheska blinks, confused. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“You know when I joined there was that big archiving project? I had to read a bunch of Mustang’s old case notes, and they’re horrible . The guy should go be an artist with how much he doodles instead of writes. Seriously, does he pay attention to any of his meetings?” Edward says, leaning back in his chair in a huff. “Those case notes were only like, a year old too. I can’t imagine him getting that much better so fast, to the point of becoming a partner. Honestly, he probably only got the promotion because of that whole mass firing when Grumman became head of the firm and - uh, Sheska, are you okay?”
Sheska’s face, having completely drained of color, was looking directly above him. Edward blinks, and tilts his head upwards to look behind him.
Hmm. That upside-down face seems very familiar.
Edward moves his head back down and spins his chair around to get a better look. Yep, it’s the older man from earlier. Edward had been very tempted at the time at the prospect of a coffee date with someone so handsome, but unfortunately work had called, and now it’s looking like it was a good idea that he refused.
“Hey man,” Edward says seriously, crossing his arms and glaring at the stranger. “Asking me for coffee was cute, but following me to my job is really uncool. Get out of here before I call the cops on you.”
The man looks at him in extreme bafflement. “Uh,” he says, before giving a glance behind him - oh hell no, is he looking at Sheska? He better not be thinking about pulling anything with her!
—----------------
Who is he and why is he here? Roy asks with his eyes. And is he single?
Aaaaaaaaaaaa , Sheska responds.
—----------------
“Didn’t you hear me? Scram!” Edward says loudly, jumping to his feet and cracking his knuckles, fully ready to throw down. The man visibly startles, registers the threat of physical violence, and throws out a “Right, I’ll just be on my way” before hightailing it further into the building.
“Hey, wrong way, idiot!” Edward yells after him, sticking his head out the door and about to chase after the man when he hears a whimper from behind him.
He immediately turns right back around, concern about Sheska overriding his anger towards the man, and sees her directly face-planted into the table. “Sheska, you okay?” he calls out, heading to her side of the table. “The guy kinda looked at you funny back there. Did you know him too? If he also creeped on you, I’ll punch him in the face before handing him to the cops-”
“ Edward ,” she wails. She suddenly sits right back up, nearly colliding with Edward’s nose if he didn’t jump back quickly enough, and grabs him by the shoulders. “Edward. Edward, why did you do thaaaat.”
“Do what?” Edward says back, extremely confused.
Sheska has her face in her hands now. Oh no, she’s seriously distressed about something. Maybe the guy was actually her boyfriend, and he’s just misunderstood everything? The coffee date offer from earlier must’ve been literally just for coffee and Edward looked too far into it like the idiot he is. “Uh, I can call him back, if you want…?” Edward asks awkwardly.
“Edward. That was Mr. Mustang,” Sheska says.
“...What?”
Sheska lifts her head up and points out the door. “That. Was Mr. Mustang.”
Edward takes a moment to process her statement. “Mr. Mustang, as in, the Mr. Mustang we were just talking about? That I might be working with in the future?”
Sheska takes a deep breath before grabbing her laptop and typing furiously on it. Not even a minute goes by before she flips it around and shoves it at Edward. Front and center is an employee profile of Roy Mustang, who’s profile picture is identical to the man Edward just chased off. Sheska clicks a button and the screen moves to the next slide because apparently this is actually a Gaagle Slides presentation Edward is viewing.
The next slide contains what is essentially Roy Mustang’s resume, using only the cases he’s done over the past year. None of them are all that high-profile, which explains why Edward hasn’t heard about any of them, but they’re nothing to scoff at either. The next several slides contain snippets of Mustang’s case notes for several cases, and what in the absolute hell that amount of improvement should be illegal for someone who’s been in the field for so many years with nothing to show.
“How the fuck did he get this good,” Edward demands. The laptop is playing one of Mustang’s opening statements and Edward thinks he might be falling a little bit in love. He’s so mad right now.
Sheska responds to Edward’s question with the long and complicated history of the Grumman Law Firm that used to be the Bradley Law Firm, the kinda-sorta coup that revealed Bradley had ties to the mafia and thusly kicked him out and into jail, letting Grumman take the head, and Roy being the lynchpin for all this by laying low and pretending he was highly incompetent while gathering all the evidence he could. It’s so utterly absurd that Edward completely accepts it as fact, because otherwise Sheska would have to be completely delusional and Edward has too much evidence saying otherwise.
So. Edward is very smart. Really, he is. He can take this vast swath of new information Sheska has presented to him and extrapolate a very clear conclusion. “…Fuck. I’m so fired.”
Sheska buries her face back into her hands and nods.
—----------------
Today has been a horrible, no good, very bad day, Roy morosely thinks.
After the entire fiasco in the meeting room, Roy had quickly fled the scene and ran into his office. Acting like that was honestly less out of fear for his physical well-being and more out of concern he was going to say or do something completely inappropriate if the man kept looking like he was going to punch him in the face, and he really did not want to traumatize poor Sheska like that.
It was good that he did so in the end, because the first thing Roy did was look up the man on the employee directory and consequently finding out he was Edward Elric. The Edward Elric, the up-and-coming paralegal that Riza has talked about with a faintly excited twinkle in her eye (her equivalent of jumping ecstatically with joy) the past week as she considers what cases to put him on once he’s on her team. Which means that the man would soon be working directly under Roy.
Well. Not directly under, Riza doesn’t report to Roy so there wouldn’t actually be any issues if he was interested in Edward, but there was enough of a power imbalance that Roy immediately backed away from the idea of taking the first step. It’d have to be Edward to approach him if anything were to happen.
Which, given what Edward was saying earlier, would be highly unlikely. Sure, Edward will find out the reality of the matter once they’ve worked together long enough, but until then Roy will have to deal with the fact that Edward hates him and thinks of him as some lazy bastard who got all his promotions by sleeping around. Which is exactly what Roy wanted people to think back then, and he doesn’t regret his actions, but that doesn’t mean he can’t mope about it.
And even supposing they get past that, first impressions are, well, first impressions for a reason, and Roy can’t imagine he’ll be able to be anything more than a work acquaintance to Edward after all this. The thought does not help Roy’s mood.
He sighs and collapses melodramatically onto his desk. Nothing short of a miracle can save him from this mess of a day.
—----------------
“Ms. Hawkeye, please help us,” Sheska pleads.
Hawkeye looks down at the flustered woman clinging to her chest in surprise, having been completely waylaid by her in the hallway.
“Of course. What’s the issue?” Riza asks, gently placing one hand on Sheska’s shoulder.
Sheska babbles something incomprehensible and points into the meeting room beside them. Riza glances over and – hm. She’s relatively certain that this is Edward Elric, but good lord his profile picture does not do him justice. He is absolutely one hundred percent Roy’s type, to Hawkeye’s dismay.
Beside Edward Elric on the table is a laptop, which is displaying pictures of bouquets. Apology bouquets.
Riza closes her eyes and takes a deep mental breath. If Roy doesn’t have something to do with this she’ll pay Havoc lunch for the next year .
“Alright, tell me the situation,” she says to the other two as she closes the door to the meeting room, and resigns herself to the fact that the next thirty minutes will not be work-productive in the slightest.
—----------------
Roy allows himself thirty minutes to have a deep and thorough moping session before eventually lifting his head off the desk, slapping a hand atop the nearest paper stack and dragging it closer. Roy squints at it. It’s Riza’s “finish this by the end of the day or I will shoot you” paper pile that she places on his desk every morning an hour before he arrives. Roy contemplates if death is more preferable at this point, and decides that Riza would hardly let him off that easily. It’s easily the best distraction Roy’ll get from the mess that was this morning thus far, so he sits up with a sigh and gets to work.
It’s probably the most focused Roy has ever been on paperwork. Riza would’ve shed a single tear if she saw him then. By the time the morning was over, half the stack was already finished, and Roy would’ve punched straight through his lunch hour scribbling away if he wasn’t startled out of his concentration by a hesitant knock.
Roy squints at his office door. The only people who visit him during his lunch hour would be Riza or someone else from the usual friend group, coming in to kidnap Roy and make sure he doesn’t starve himself. They wouldn’t normally knock though, instead barging in regardless of Roy’s protests. “Come in,” Roy says, straightening his posture and plastering a business smile on his face.
The door creaks open and Edward shuffles in nervously. Roy feels his brain short-circuit. Outwardly, he smiles pleasantly and discreetly pinches his leg under the desk. Nope, he’s awake alright. Shit, that means he needs to think of something intelligent to say. “Hello, can I help you?” Yeah, his brain cells definitely went on vacation for that one.
“Yes-actually, no. I mean, I,” Edward verbally flails, and spends the next several seconds visibly struggling to find the words before failing miserably and slamming a paper bag onto Roy’s desk, nearly toppling his pile of papers. “HERE, HAVE THIS. Alsoimreallysorryaboutearlierpleasedontfireme,” Edward says, shoving the bag closer to Roy.
Roy holds the bag by reflex. “Thank you. Why would I fire you?” he asks, confused, as he looks inside the bag.
A divine-smelling tuna sandwich and a french press coffee peeks out. Roy instantly forgives Edward for whatever it is he’s done. Edward meanwhile is now physically flailing in front of him. “What do you mean why ? I smacktalked you in your face and then tried to chase you out of your own workplace!”
Oh, was that what he was doing back then? Roy was completely distracted by the unexpected sight of Edward mere minutes after their fateful meeting at the sidewalk, at his workplace no less. So he was not paying any attention whatsoever on what Edward was talking about with Sheska, and really only got on board with the conversation around the time Edward was threatening bodily harm to him. Well, whatever he said Roy probably deserved it. “Oh, that? No worries, I forgive you for it.”
Roy takes the coffee cup out of the bag and inhales a very normal amount in one go. Ahhh, cream and sugar and delicious, delicious coffee. Gracia’s coffee was the best. “What,” Edward says. “That easily?”
“It’s clear that you’ve never had something from Gracia’s before if you’re asking that,” Roy says as he sips happily from the cup.
“That’s cute, but you’re a lawyer. Aren’t you supposed to be all, I dunno, more strict about compensation and stuff?”
“You’ll find that I don’t particularly enjoy having my work life and personal life intersect like that,” Roy comments.
“I think the fact that me trying to punch you at work means it’s part of your work life,” Edward points out.
“I think the fact that you saved me from becoming a road pancake this morning means that unless we’re literally talking about work, it’s part of my personal life,” Roy counters as he reaches into the bag for the sandwich and takes a bite out of it. “And as the person accepting the apology I believe I get the final say on the matter, so you’re not allowed to argue against it.”
“That’s not how this works at all?” Edward asks, befuddled. “ I’m the one giving the apology so clearly it’s me who knows what the apology is for!”
“Don’t you know that it’s the victims’ perspective that’s most important, rather than the perpetrator’s?” Roy sighs sadly while he finishes off the sandwich.
“I- You-” Edward twitches violently, and stares hard at Roy for a whole minute before flinging his hands into the air. “Fuck, you really are a fucking lawyer!” Edward shrills.
Roy would really like an award to commend his efforts on not taking that easy opening Edward dropped into his lap. As it is, Roy’s too distracted by bursting out laughing, and is immediately startled by it. How had his mood improved so much just by exchanging a mere few sentences with Edward?
Roy coughs lightly as he gets himself under control. “In conclusion, your apology is accepted. Is there anything else you need?”
“I don’t agree with your decision and demand a retrial,” Edward says angrily.
“No retrial allowed,” Roy says automatically. “And…I thought the entire purpose of this exercise was for me to accept your apology?”
“ No! ”
Now Roy is completely lost. “No??”
“I mean, yes! I-ugh,” Edward says, suddenly losing all energy.
Roy watches Edward collapse into the chair in front of Roy’s desk. “I’m very lost,” Roy says.
Edward lets out a deep sigh. “Okay so. I was kinda hoping to come in here with the lunch and you being angry and going this isn’t enough and I could then go oh okay how about I buy another lunch for you and you’d go okay when and I’d go how about Saturday and you’d figure out that I was asking you out on a date and you’d still be interested, at least you looked pretty interested when we were on the sidewalk so then you’d say yes and we’d figure stuff out from there but then you derailed everything and none of that happened and- Yeah.”
Roy takes a moment to parse through that ridiculous run-on sentence. “So…your end goal was to both apologize for your actions and to get a date out of this,” Roy checks.
“Yes,” Edward says mullishly.
Huh. “Edward, while that’s an interesting plan, it makes a horrible premise for a relationship,” Roy points out. He’s very giddy about the fact that Edward is still interested in dating him, but. Yeah, no, that plan is not well thought-out in the slightest.
“Shut up, it made sense in my head,” Edward grumbles. “And you’re a nice guy, s’not like you’d take advantage of me or anything.”
“Didn’t this whole issue begin because you thought I was a horrible person?” Roy muses.
Edward waved his hand in the air. “Sheska pulled up a buncha your cases, and then I Gaagled you for an hour, so. Yeah. Definitely don’t think that anymore.”
“That’s good,” Roy says.
A very awkward silence falls over them. “So…I guess I’ll just go then,” Edward says slowly after a couple minutes.
Please don’t leave. “I suppose so,” Roy says, because he is nothing if not a masochist.
“Right,” Edward says dejectedly, and gets up to leave. “Oh, sorry,” he says, nearly running into Riza on the way out.
Hawkeye glances down at him and his visibly despondent mood, then over at Roy.
Seriously? Riza eyes.
Please don’t kill me, Roy eyes back.
I’ll do you one better , Riza mentally sniffs. “It’s fine Edward. I was hoping to catch you some time today,” she says out loud, and Roy strongly prays for a hole to open up beneath him.
“Oh, uh, sure. Do you need me for something?” Edward asks, clearly trying to edge out of the room and failing horribly due to Riza deliberately blocking the only exit by standing in the doorframe.
“Yes. Are you available at-,” Riza quickly checks her phone, “6pm this Friday?”
“Uhhhhh yes, but don’t you think that’s pretty late for work-”
“Great. Roy will see you at Rose’s restaurant at that time. I’ll send you the address,” Riza says, tapping away at her phone.
“What,” Edward says.
“Riza no,” Roy begs.
Riza looks Roy dead in the eye and taps one final time on her phone. Both Roy’s and Edward’s phones ping, because of course she would send out text notifications. Roy looks up and wonders if the sky could kindly eat him as Edward pulls out his phone in confusion and blanches at the sudden Friday night event. “Why does this event last for 12 hours??” Edward shrieks. “Wait, before that, you can’t just set a date for two people like that! He’s not even interested!”
“I know Roy better than he does, and he’s very interested in you,” Riza says very bluntly.
“She’s right,” Roy sighs, giving up on anything celestial saving him from his best friend’s machinations. “My interests in you haven’t changed in the slightest since we first met this morning.”
“Oh,” Edward says.
“That’s all I needed to check with you, Edward,” Riza says, putting away her phone. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow for your onboarding.”
And then she leaves. Roy and Edward stare at each other. “So, I’ll see you on Friday?” Roy asks, to be sure.
“Probably earlier, depending on what case Hawkeye assigns me to, but. Yeah, I’m free,” Edward says.
“Wonderful,” Roy says. “I’ll pick you up?”
“Hell no, we can just walk over after work.”
“It’s an hour long walk from here. I’ll pick you up at your desk.”
“Sure, whatever.”
The two idiots go back to staring awkwardly at each other. Finally, Edward snaps. “Oh my fucking god, just,” he mutters before charging forward and around the desk. He grabs Roy by the lapels and hauls him forward, and it’s not so much a kiss as it is a mashing of lips with their noses barely avoiding collision, and afterwards once Roy has time to contemplate it, he’s saddened to find that he considers it one of the best kisses he’s ever had.
“Friday, and I’ll kick your ass if you bring any flowers,” Edward threatens, then stomps out of the room.