Work Text:
Riza works the room with polished ease. She is not herself tonight, and Elizabeth simply will not do; for now, she is Arianne. Coquette extraordinaire, demure and lethal. She is all hooded eyes and breasts and secretive smirks. And Roy will not stop staring.
He hasn’t taken his eyes off of her since he knocked on her hotel room door two hours ago. She’d never seen a person flush and pale at the same time like that before. His jaw tightened and he gulped audibly, averting his eyes. She reminded him that it was his idea.
Use the Captain to distract him, he suggested. They had an opium kingpin in their clutches, a slithering, sneaky character who had grown comfortable enough to throw a party in his magnificent home. Word had it that he was weak for blondes.
It was his idea. He didn’t have the right to act like this.
Even though he wasn’t acting like anything was amiss on the surface - not really. Fuery would not hear anything out of the ordinary through their earpieces when they conversed discreetly with the team throughout the night. The other partygoers wouldn’t notice the invisible thread tethering them to one another. To the ignorant, they appeared as strangers.
But even now, she could feel his eyes burning into the back of her neck, where an elegant chignon exposed her smooth nape. She knew that when they would inevitably make eye contact, his coal-black eyes would be withering and wanting. She knew that when Mr. Fero’s assistant would ask her to join his boss for a dance, he’d be watching them, glowering from the crowd.
This was his idea. She wants to stamp her foot like a child but fights off the sensation with a deep breath and a glittering smile. He wasn’t supposed to look at her like that.
It was unfair. For all the times she had to stand by as he went on dates - not all of them strictly business after information was exchanged - and she was expected to know her place, it was about time he experienced how that felt. Maybe he wouldn’t be so cavalier.
She did her research on Ivan Fero. Liked amber liquor, fine clothes, and expensive toys. Terrifyingly charismatic. Good to his women. Went through a lot of them. In another life, where they were all ordinary people, maybe he and Roy would have been friends. They'd certainly have enough to talk about.
Despite their research, accurate depictions of his appearance were hard to come by. She had a caricature in her mind, but she was surprised to find that Mr. Fero was handsome, with bright eyes and a white smile. Wavy brown hair and a youthful, energetic countenance. His grin was infectious and she found herself genuinely blushing when his assistant introduced them and he bent to kiss her hand.
The back of her neck felt like it was burning.
“You caught my eye the moment you arrived,” he said. “I’d be honored if you accepted this dance.”
“The honor is all mine,” she said in her too-sweet, practiced voice. “I’m Arianne.”
It was all happening just as they’d orchestrated. After two dances, she suggested whiskey. She intentionally bumped into another guest and spilled her drink all over herself, on her expensive dress. Mr. Fero was kind enough to offer for her to clean up in his office. And, if she wanted, they could talk some more. In private.
Which was how Riza found herself sitting atop a wide mahogany desk with young, confident, handsome Ivan Fero, the city's opiate king, standing between her legs while he licked the dried whiskey all the way from her neck to the exposed swells of her breasts. She was a bit dizzy, a little intoxicated by the thrill of it all until she remembered that her team was listening. They could hear every smack of their lips, every drag of tongues against the skin. She wondered if Roy had ripped the earpiece out yet. She could picture him storming out onto the balcony and stomping on it, drawing attention to himself, red-faced and furious.
It was his idea. He knew what he was asking her to do - even if he hadn’t come right out and said it. If a woman had to entice their target with her body to gain the upper hand in an undercover operation, it wasn’t out of the question that she would have to use it - not just dangle the carrot, as it were.
Her lipstick left obscenely red mouth prints down his neck, trailing down his chest where she’d deftly undone the first few buttons of his crisp white shirt. She worked her way up to his throat where she could feel his voice rumbling there as she kissed him, a thrill traveling all the way down to her toes. She mumbled something familiar against his Adam’s apple, and he answered in kind, though she wasn’t sure what it was. It sounded like a question, and she hissed an assent to whatever it was, hoping he’d drop it and let her work.
“I said,” Mr. Fero repeated, harder this time. Annoyed. “Is that the name of your partner out there? Roy?”
Riza's heart plummeted into her stomach as she realized what she must have done. Had to have done based on his reaction. Put a familiar face and a different body into her mind’s eye to soothe the guilt, help her enjoy it. He knew.
She pulled away from his neck with a loud pop and pulled herself together, leaning back onto the heels of her wrists while she regarded him with blank, unfeeling eyes. He might as well have figured it out, but he didn’t act yet. Her chest was heaving and her legs were spread wide. He was agitated now, his bright eyes hardened into something sinister, but they slithered up and down her body, serpentine.
Ivan Fero wanted her. He wanted, she could tell, to sink his teeth into her thigh, exposed by the slit in her dress. He wanted to crush his mouth against hers until they were both swollen and her lipstick was rubbed clean off. She could feel the lust pouring off of him in stifling waves, and suddenly it occurred to her that Roy had done his research on Mr. Fero as well. He knew he’d figure it out. He knew she was the only one who could distract him long enough, could make him want her enough, not to kill on the spot when he’d figured them out.
It was all his idea.
“You know who I am,” he said lowly. “And when you’re in the line of work I am, you make a point to learn who your enemies are.”
Still, the man seemed conflicted. Weakened.
“Am I your enemy, then?” she asked between panting breaths. A devious smile crept onto his face.
“I was hoping not,” he said, squeezing her thighs hard. He hiked her legs around his waist and she drew him in, kissing him so hard they could barely breathe. His tongue slid into her mouth and she drew him back with her arms around his neck so that she was pressed with her back against the desk. She raked her fingernails down his back and he groaned hotly in response, smoothing his fingertips up her dress to caress the backs of her thighs. She was surprised at the high, breathy mewl that slipped unbidden from the back of her throat at the discovery of such a sensitive spot.
Ivan Fero was entranced. Despite the dangers around him. Despite that, she knew that he knew that she was the enemy, sent to dispose of him. He knew, and he’d let his guard down. Such was the power of her femininity over him, and she uttered “don’t stop” into his ear in the most wanting moan she could muster. If his groan was any indication, she had him. And she’d said the code word just in time.
Their man was too far gone to notice the door creak open. Breathing too heavily to notice the whining of the floorboards behind him. Too concerned with sucking on her neck to feel the pressure on his collar before the Brigadier General hauled him away from his adjutant and flung him hard into his office door. Ivan Fero looked like a man who had overestimated his invincibility. Like a man who felt confident in his safety with three heavily armed personal guards stationed outside his door, and many more throughout the party. Like a man who said he’d done his research but hadn’t tempered his hubris. Hadn’t counted on the Hawk’s Eye and the Flame Alchemist.
The party outside the office doors was eerily quiet. If the team was on schedule, they had cleared the mansion and it was currently swimming with officers stripping the place top to bottom. Roy read Mr. Fero his rights with his back facing her, still trembling with barely contained rage. He cuffed his man roughly and kicked him to the side while she smoothed out her dress and hair, wiped helplessly at her mouth. The evidence was fresh and red still against Ivan Fero’s neck and chest.
She felt guilty for just a moment. Despite the jealousy in Roy’s eyes that made her want to comfort him, made her want to press her forehead to his and tell him it didn’t mean anything, it didn’t change the fact that he’d made this decision. She hadn’t argued - she was a good soldier. He gave an order and she followed it. Ensured their success. Did what she needed to do. He knew this.
She swept out of the room and into chaos, barking orders to her team who responded with a snappy “Yes, Captain!” and skirted past her to collect Mr. Fero. She strutted across the emptied dance floor toward the open-air balcony to watch the action below under the cover of night.
She felt this presence before he cleared his throat. Before he draped his heavy black overcoat across her shaking shoulders. She sank into that warmth, instantly calmed, and sated just standing there with him. He folded his hands behind his back and stared out into the city with her, eyes tracking the forces below questioning guests, and handling reports.
“Excellent work as always, Captain,” he said. His voice was clear and hard. Formal, professional. Like he hadn’t been trembling just minutes before. Like he was detached.
She matched him in kind with a stiff word of thanks.
Then, so softly she nearly missed it he rumbled, “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t regret it,” she replied, sure of herself. “It was a good plan.”
They stood there quietly for a long few tense moments before he sighed.
“I hated it. Hated even suggesting it.”
Riza cleared her throat. It felt raspy and unnatural passing through her still-swollen lips. She fought the urge to touch them. Wondered if they’d bruise.
“What’s done is done, sir.”
He laughed humorlessly. “I nearly compromised the entire operation.”
She glanced at him quizzically. “How’s that?”
He regarded her with a wan smile, and for the first time, she noticed how he seemed to waver on his feet. She realized instantly that he was just a bit tipsy, and it didn’t take her long to connect the dots. He’d been angry. He’d tried to cover his emotions with drink, and it’d nearly cost them - but she had no way of knowing just how close.
“You can’t - do that,” she chided, goosebumps returning in full force. The night was chilled, but the way he was looking at her was downright sinful. The hunger had returned, but he stood still and controlled. “We have to do things sometimes. Things like this.”
“I know,” he acquiesced. “It doesn’t get any easier.”
She swallowed thickly. “Did you...did you hear?”
His nod was minuscule. “Everything.”
She mentally replayed the evening, starting with Roy’s strangled expression at the sight of her party finery. Donning her new personality. Swinging her hips as she walked with Fero’s searing hand on her lower back to his office. Grinding into him, tasting him, wishing so badly that it was...Roy.
Shit. She’d said his name.
Is that the name of your partner out there? Roy?
She straightened and cleared her throat again, the goosebumps fading with the new presence of a very tangible heat.
“It had to be believable,” she whispered, though she knew she owed no explanation. He understood. “Arianne can do a lot of things I can’t. But not that.”
He didn’t reply but seemed to be mulling over her words with great care. Still, the weight of her error was starting to sink in more and more.
“Who else heard?” she asked. There was a hint of desperation in that question that made her feel small.
“No one who would do anything about it,” Roy responded quickly. “Just our men. And they--”
“Right.”
They already know, is what he doesn’t have to say.
She busied herself pulling the pins from her hair, already disheveled and misshapen from her work. She worked the kinks and curls through her fingers, unaware of Roy’s eyes trailing to her yet again. Tipping her head back, she let out a deep sigh, enjoying the night breeze as it curled around them.
His breath hitched suddenly. “Riza, I--”
She bristled in anticipation at the sound of her given name, but they’re interrupted before he can utter a word by one of Riza’s soldiers, who has found something fantastic in Mr. Fero’s personal office. As Captain, she led her own group of hand-picked men and women for this operation - with Roy’s input - and with the hubbub dying down and the mansion thoroughly sacked, it’s time to collect. Roy excused himself curtly as she accompanied her team into the office. When they’ve wrapped for the evening and she dismisses her team, he’s nowhere to be found.
She went back to her hotel room alone and found herself standing outside his door, adjacent to hers. She isn’t sure how long she stood there but she couldn’t bring herself to knock.
The train ride home is a gloomy affair, and she cannot put her finger on why. Roy has been sullen since she met him in the lobby that morning after she had knocked on his door twice with no answer. She sniffed at his late arrival and wordlessly pressed his train ticket into his hand. She didn’t reprimand him, didn’t scold. She decided that if he wanted to be cold, she had no issue enjoying the silence between them, and waited for him to lead the way. She watched his back like always.
They sit opposite each other in their private train car. He looks positively sour as he stares out the window into the grey morning, while she pointedly ignores his moping in favor of digging into the files they’d seized the previous evening.
Though her mind is occupied she finds herself growing increasingly irritated, distracted. It is clear something is bothering him, and normally he’d have no qualms coming right out with it, nor would she hesitate to ask. But she’s annoyed. Annoyed knowing that it’s likely to do with their relationship - or lack thereof. Roy is sulking. She can’t stand when he feels sorry for himself. Not when there is so much to do.
She is perusing a stack of coded messages between what she thinks must be Fero and his supplier when she clears her throat.
“I’ll need you to look over our expense reports from the trip first thing tomorrow morning."
“Mm,” Roy grunts.
“You’ll also need to be ready to meet with the other Generals tomorrow at 9 a.m. sharp for your monthly round table. I have your schedule for the week; you should review it while we’re on the train so I can make any adjustments immediately.”
He doesn’t respond, and Riza grits her teeth. She is about to snap at him when he suddenly springs up from his seated position and exits their compartment with a swift click of the door. Riza's expression is akin to someone who’s just been clubbed over the head, frozen and mouth ajar, aghast at his behavior. Cursing under her breath, she locks her work into her suitcase and storms out of the compartment after him.
She stomps through the neighboring meal car to no avail. He isn’t at the bar cart like she’d thought, so she makes an about-face and nearly sprints through the private compartments until she reaches the cargo. It’s cold and rickety, but she can see his silhouette leaning over the iron railing outside the cargo bay, and her face reddens in anger.
Jaw tight, she wrenches open the door and is greeted with a blast of cold air, her coat forgotten in their compartment. She shivers in her sweater and tweed skirt, and it takes all of her self control to not let her teeth chatter when he faces her.
“What the hell is this!?” she demands, forced to yell over the racket. “Explain!”
He clenches the railing in a white-knuckle grip but doesn’t make a sound. Instead, his pinched expression melts into something forlorn and profoundly sad. She finds her fury fading into worry.
“Roy Mustang,” she tries again, her voice wavering. “You’d better have a good explanation--”
“I can’t do this anymore,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry, Riza. I can’t.”
Her shoulders slacken and she swallows thickly. They’ve known each other for a long time, and she’s sure she has some idea of what he can’t do anymore. All the same, she needs to know.
“Do what, sir?” she asks gently.
The utterance of the honorific lights a fire in his eyes, and she barely has time to take another breath before he surges forward and crashes into her. His lips are hot and needy against hers, consuming her with unbridled want, a stark contrast to the bite of cold metal against her back. He drags his tongue against her bottom lip and she opens her mouth to him, burying her hands in his hair.
It occurs to her, as he cocks his head to deepen his kisses, that they are wrapped around each other on a very unstable, very windy train platform. He seems to have the same revelation and has begun grabbing and pushing at the door handle, and suddenly they’re tumbling backward into the cargo bay. He wrenches the door closed with his other arm still hooked around her waist and pushes her up against a heavy pallet laden with wooden crates. She grabs him by the lapels to pull him back and they kiss messily, all tongues and lips and needy whimpers, gentle bites, and unspoken secrets now out in the open.
He slows their pace, allows them to stop to catch their breaths while he rests his forehead against hers. Between heartbeats, he peppers soft kisses across her face, but she doesn’t allow him to go far. She rests her cold hands against his neck, drawing him back for something slower, more languid, while her thumbs trail up and down his jaw.
“I owe you an explanation,” he says finally after their breathing has evened out and she’s coaxed him to lean against her. “After last night...knowing you wanted me too...it was too much. I kept thinking about going back to normal after everything. Working together as we do, as if…” He trails off. “I don’t think I can do ‘normal’ anymore.”
Riza chuckles. “Our lives have never paired well with convention.”
“No,” he agrees, and his shoulders slump just a bit. He tips her head back with his fingertips so that his mouth can meet her neck. The sensation is so electrifyingly good that her jaw can’t help but drop.
“The fraternization laws,” she laments weakly, but it’s a half-hearted excuse. As if they could turn back the clock now. As if they wanted to.
“I don’t care,” Roy growls into her neck. “Not anymore.”
“We have work to do,” she tries, and he pulls away with a fond smile on his face, staring at her with such open adoration it makes her chest ache.
“The work doesn’t matter much if I have to sacrifice you,” he asserts. “It doesn’t. Believe me, it doesn’t.”
She purses her lips to argue, but he cuts her off with another heady kiss.
“We have to think this through,” she says through his kisses, and he pauses, chuckling.
“I am sure you’re right,” he agrees. “And we will. But as it stands, we’re four hours from home. And I’ve not had my fill of you yet.”
She can hardly argue with that and lets out an uncharacteristic squeak of laughter as Roy pulls her away from the crates and drags her into the residential car, back to their empty compartment. As they flip the lock and draw the blinds, and Roy’s warm body is pressed against hers, Riza realizes with elation that going back to normal was never an option, to begin with.