Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Al called him at exactly between shift changes at First Central Bank, which, he wasn't supposed to but Edward decided to give him some leeway. His younger brother had been consecutively freaking out for the past three days now, and even though he had a strict 'do not call me unless someone is going to die' policy while he was on patrol, Al had never really adhered to it in the first place, even though this was the first time he had called Edward so often. 

Edward shifted back the hood of his red jacket and stooped lower to the building, keeping a close eye on the now guard-free front door. His anonymous tip to the bank’s management to keep smaller dead zones was definitely put into effect (considering they owed him one for the whole Envy situation), but the security guards didn't seem to pay much attention to it. He was annoyed to say the least; he didn’t know much but the bank was becoming the topic of conversation and Ed had no idea why. If there was another bank robbery he was going to scream. While one of the guards refilled his cup of coffee, just barely visible through the window in the break room, Edward pulled out his phone and answered it, cutting off Al's unique ringtone. He really ought to change it from Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' but there was something so right about it being Al's.

"Al," he started to reprimand (like always, not that it never did any good) but Alphonse cut him off before he could even get another breath out. 

"She's going to have to share a bathroom with me," Alphonse nearly hyperventilated, or at least, panicked in the distinct Al way of mildly fast breath. Edward rolled his eyes and held back a sigh. It was the eighth time Al had brought up the fact that their apartment only had two bathrooms. One bathroom with a shower so small it was amazing Ed could fit in it half the time, squeezed into Ed's room, and another with a large tub and shower off to the side in the hallway.  

"We discussed this already," Edward grumbled. "I told you we could just make her stay in my room and I'll take the guest bedroom-"

"But your room is small and dark, and what if she looks underneath the floor boards or in the closet or - just because Winry knows doesn't mean she approves, brother, you know that." 

"Right," Edward answered, and for the eight time brought the conversation back around to the same point. "So, she'll stay in the guest room. Al, do you really honestly think Winry, of all people, cares if she shares a bathroom with you? And besides, you're a total neat freak, she’ll have nothing to bitch about."

The guards finally resumed their posts at the front of the bank, leaving Edward to divert his attentions else where. He stood, stretched, and shook out his free hand, ignoring how it sent tremors of cold up and down his spine. He was going to have to start wearing his arm warmer if the weather kept itself up. It was supposed to be nearing summer, and the nights were getting warmer but not fast enough. Edward was hunched behind rooftop walls, scowling at the bitter cold air that blustered through the streets. 

"Do you think?" Al asked, and Edward grinned, before checking the small police scanner clipped to his belt. There was a red light flashing at the top, and even though he know he shouldn't get excited at the thought of someone in the city performing a crime, he couldn't help his grin widening. 

"Al, I don’t think, I know, alright? Anyway, I gotta go. Looks like someone stole a police car off of 45th."

Al gave an irritable sigh, annoyed like he usually was with the city’s felons. "Yes, that seems intelligent. Don't forget to be back by noon, okay? I don't want to be late picking Winry up."

"Why?" Ed asked, and quickly judged the difference between the two rooftops. Running everywhere was a drag, but until Winry came tomorrow and was able to fix up his bike, he supposed he would have to deal with it. "You gonna finally tell her that you're in love with her?"

Al made a very impressive spluttering sound and must have almost dropped the phone by the clattering sound that echoed through the receiver. "Brother, she's our cousin!" he said, scandalized. Ed rolled his eyes. 

"Second cousin; it doesn't count - anyways, I gotta go."

"Fine, fine," Al sighed. "I'll leave the front door open, even if you never use it. Have fun, brother."

Edward grinned and tugged his red hood back over his hair, carefully clipping it so that it neatly covered half his face. Only with the proper light would anyone ever be able to see through the shadow it cast, covering most of his face. The fabric was perforated with a sheen fabric, letting him see through it. Boots were fastened tight - if he had to run down a police car, he'd rather not trip over a loose buckle - leather pants were snug against his skin (because chances were he was going to be drug after said police car), and one last check to his right arm, carefully checking each appendage for the proper flexibility. Winry would kill him if he ruined his grandfather's automail arm. 

"You know I will," he grinned, and pocketed the phone before jumping off of the roof. 

In contrast to the cold nights, the sun tended to rise higher and higher in the sky these days. By the time the correct bus slowed to a stop in front of them - Al nervously twisting his hands together, Edward inhaling his fourth cup of coffee in the last hour - it was already bright outside, heat beating down on them. Al wore a loose white t-shirt and shorts, enjoying what breeze there was that wasn't stopped by the skyscrapers and towering buildings. Edward wore an AC/DC short sleeve over a long white t-shirt and jeans and while Al's hair was just barely on the ends of 'getting shaggy', Edward's was long and golden thin, pulled up into a high ponytail. To make matters worse, the bus that was supposed to get in at noon was two hours late. By the time it rolled in the parking lot, it was a little past two thirty.

It was impossible to know what Winry would look like as she hopped down from the bus. It had been four years since she had gone away to college for mechanical engineering, and now she had come to nearly too big, too bustling Central to get a degree in medical engineering. When she had left Ed and Al after she had come to visit, her hair had been cut short to her ears, and said ears were still red from being pierced so that she could wear Ed and Al's going away present: a pair of black balled earrings. For the past three birthdays he and Al had sent pair after pair after pair along with a group photo but she had never sent any pictures back. 

She had been on the chubby side as a child, easy to bruise and even easier to bring to tears. At times it seemed that the only person to ever calm her down was her Grandfather Alphonse, brother to Ed and Al's Grandfather Edward (also their name sake). During their teenage years she had died her hair every color imaginable, enough to make her parents scream, never helping their strained relationship . As it was, if she stepped off the bus with a red Mohawk, Ed was sure her parents would somehow feel it all the way in Florida and have a heart attack.

Yet, through all the ups and downs, Winry had a safe spot in Edward Elric's heart as 'best friend' and a permeant spot in Al's heart as 'dear god he's been in love with you since you were three years old how can you not see that'. 

Al, of course, saw her first. Where Edward would have struggled to pick out Winry in the flooding crowd, no matter his observational skills, Al could pick her out no matter what she looked like in just seconds. Edward suspected that he had a compass somewhere in the back of his mind, except that instead of north, it pointed out Winry.

"There," Al breathed, and moved forward, hand tight around the chocolate bar they had walked all the way to the mall for. The expensive kind that probably broke Al financially. Edward moved after him after a second, shoving his way through the people that were moving in the opposite direction. He could see her now, hair a startling platinum blond and long, pinned back into a ponytail, but it was cut in layers so the front part of her hair and bangs were hanging loose. 

Jean shorts and a white tank top, with a thin leather jacket over it, and white gladiator sandals. Alphonse nearly stopped in his tracks trying to take all of her in as she struggled to pull her two humongous duffle bags off of the bus, a nearly as big backpack strapped over his shoulders. 

"Is that a tattoo?" Edward called in greeting and Winry jumped, spun on her heel and grinned, before extending her right foot forward. Right on the side of her knee was neat blue star. 

"Do you like it?" she questioned, and grinned. "The boys gave it to me for graduation."

The boys, Edward assumed, were the group of bikers that she had mentioned, who came into the auto-shop she worked at. Casually, he leaned over and shoved Al, whose brain started up again as he moved forward, ripping his gaze away from Winry’s bare leg. 

"Here!" Al said, and shoved the chocolate bar into Winry's hands as he picked up one of the duffle bags. He stopped for a second when he got it hefted over his shoulder. "No, wait, I mean-"

"Hi, Al," Winry laughed, and transferred the chocolate bar to her other hand so that she could hug him tight. It only took a second before Al responded, nearly squeezing the life out of her. Winry didn't seem to mind; she usually hugged like she was trying to get the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube anyway. As she held on to Al for dear life, Ed could see the collection of metal earrings that ran up and down her ears. He had wondered which pair she was going to wear but it looked like she was just going to wear all of them. "Ugh," she groaned. "I missed you guys."

She let go only to attack Edward, who flailed for balance but obligingly let her hug the stuffing out of him as well. "Yeah, well," he said loudly. "We were doing just fine without you, gear head."

Winry pulled back and glared, and he tensed for the hit but it never came, instead she pulled away and lugged up her other duffle bag before throwing at him. 

"Come on," she demanded and started off towards the bus station. "I'm starved. I'm feeling for some chicken."

Edward rolled his eyes out of habit, but trailed along after her. Al was only two steps behind him, and quickly over took him, stumbling along side Winry with a bright smile. "So, what have you have been up to?"

"Oh, nothing much," Winry dismissed. "Graduated last month, parents cried and completely embarrassed me in front of everyone, got a tattoo and got accepted here, spent a fuck long time getting my papers to go through so I could get over the border." Her grin was wide and white. "Ugh, it's going to be great living with you guys again though, like when we were kids? Where's your bike, Ed?"

"In the garage, right now. Front's fucked, and it won't start. You’re gonna take a look at it for me, right?”

Winry rolled her eyes. “That depends on whether or not you can pay my fee.”

“You’re living with us for free!” Edward stared at her, scowling. She grinned, and poked out her tongue at him.

“That’s not my problem,” she said as she chided him with her finger. “Besides, you shouldn’t have wrecked it like that in the first place, and don’t you have insurance on it? Why do I have to fix it?”

He glared at her, and pointedly ignored Al’s widening smile. “As I have told Al at least a dozen times, you know why.”

“Brother stopped a bank robbery by crashing his bike into their get away van,” Al explained, and Winry’s lips twitched. It had been over a year since Al and Ed had broken the news to her, but it was obvious she still wasn’t taking it well. There had been exactly thirteen lectures, forty-seven angry phone calls in the middle of the night, three tearful rants about Ed nearly dying after Alphonse was forced to call her because you couldn’t make phone calls yourself when you were in a near-coma, and three livid shouting matches that came after said tearful rants because Ed had to explain, why, exactly he couldn’t go to the hospital.

(‘The first place they’re going to check is the hospitals, and besides Al wants to be a doctor so I’m just giving some practice - holy fuck, Winry, okay, okay! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’)

Winry was frowning at him, crossing her leather-jacketed arms across her chest. She looked half-way to a rant, before she visibly deflated. “Were you hurt?”

Edward tensed, and waited for the outburst. Sometimes it was like a volcano; the longer the build up, the worse the explosion. “Uh, no, not really. Skinned my arm when I rolled off, but-”

“If you hurt that arm,” Winry growled, and grabbed at his right hand. She felt it up and down through his shirt, probably looking for any breaks or dents. He knew she wouldn’t find any; one, because he actually did take care of his prosthetic limb, he really did, and two, because any time he had seriously dented it he had fixed it before anyone could notice. 

“The arm is fine,” Edward wrenched his arm out of her grip. “Relax, gear head.”

“He has been taking care of it,” Alphonse spoke up. They stepped over the edge of the station, and Winry took a second to search through the collection of fast food restaurants along the strip, before leading them towards a barbecue stand. “Really, he has, Winry.”

She studied them suspiciously, before turning on her heel and getting in line. “I’m going to take Al’s word for it. I’m not taking Ed’s word at all.”

“What - that’s not fair, come on! He said the exact same thing I did!”

“But, he’s not you,” Winry pointed out, and turned to the vendor, ordering, and completely ignoring Edward’s look of disbelief. He got over it in a few seconds when it was his turn to order, mainly because Ed could get over anything (with very few exceptions) in a few seconds when someone offered him food. “Tell me about your day jobs, then,” Winry said, waving a hand as she accepted her plate of barbecued chicken.

“I work at the university hospital,” Al said, taking his plate before Edward could steal half of his food. “Final year in med school, so, you know, paid intern.”

“Top of his class,” Edward gushed, grinning proudly. “Only person in the history of the school to get a medical degree at twenty-two. Probably the fastest, too.”

Alphonse turned an interesting shade of red, and stared down at his plate of food as they walked towards an empty bench along side the road. The bus station was located in the very heart of Central City, near the park and university, but barely visible by both. Only now could they start to see the very beginnings of the university’s campus, huge maple trees lined up the streets, and a more casual feel to the air. 

“I’ve been in college since I was sixteen,” Alphonse muttered, holding back a grin. “I just finished my undergraduate faster than others.”

“Either way, that’s pretty impressive,” Winry grinned, before leaning back and sighing. “I wish I was done with school. I mean, I could be, but I got three more years before I get my PhD, you know?”

“But,” Alphonse said, quickly. “You’re doing medical engineering too, that’s a whole ‘nother degree right there. So, you’re pretty impressive too.”

“And then you have Edward,” Winry grinned, shoving Alphonse. “Who graduated school in four years with a degree in theoretical physics and yet works as a crime scene technician. I’m sure your grandpa would be ecstatic that his legacy is currently working for the very people who try to kill him on a daily basis.”

“One,” Edward rolled his eyes. “The police aren’t the ones with the shoot to kill order, that’s the shit-heads in the military. Two, leave my job alone, alright? I’m good at it, it pays well, and it gets the job done. Evidence is the basis of truth and I need the evidence one job gets me to do the other, okay, Grandpa would understand.”

Winry scowled. “You’re worse than our grandparents were. ‘All is one, one is all.’ ‘Equivalent exchange.’ What was that one Grandpa Edward used to say whenever we were acting up?”

“‘There’s a whole other world outside of our own’,” Edward and Alphonse spoke. Edward lifted his lips to smile wryly at the both of them, before continuing on his own; “You can’t live with your eyes closed, pretending that your world is the only one that matters.”

“Yeah,” Winry sighed. “You really took that one to heart.” She slapped him on the shoulder roughly, ignoring his outcry of pain. “But for fuck’s sake, I’m nearly positive he didn’t mean ‘become a vigilante and get in trouble whenever you can.’”

“I don’t get in trouble whenever I can,” Edward protested, chewing through his food. “If anything, trouble finds me.”

His front pocket suddenly gave a sharp trill before easing into the theme song from the X-Files. Alphonse and Winry both gave him unimpressed stares. Edward scowled.

“It’s not trouble,” Edward grouched, sliding his phone out of his pocket and answering it, turning away from his brother and second-cousin. “It’s work. Hello? ... No, right off of 16th? ... Same pattern as the others, then. It is my day off, you know that right? ... ... ... What do you mean you have an ID, no-one else had an ID - how did you ... ... give me twenty minutes.” He hung up, scowling. “I have to go. Al, you got Winry right?”

“Brother,” Alphonse hissed. “It’s your day off. You’re not supposed to be working today, that’s not fair!”

Winry raised an eyebrow, clearly torn between joining in the reprimands and the fact that more often than not, she’d be a hypocrite keeping him away from his work. (How many times had they found her lying face down in the middle of a pile of car parts?)

“Apparently there’s an ID for this vic,” Edward said, before he began to beg. “Al, you know this is my case. I’ve been searching for this guy for the past two months and he’s never once let us have an idea who he’s killed. Please, please, please? I’ll be home for dinner. I’ll bring Chinese food from that diner you like. Promise?”

Alphonse stared, then shifted his gaze over to Winry, who smiled at him, before he deflated. “Fine. You better bring the vegetarian plate this time instead of like last time when you ‘forgot’.” 

“I won’t,” Edward shook his head, getting up from the bench and darting his gaze up and down the street for the nearest intersection. “I gotta go call in for a ride. Winry, for god’s sake, please take a look at my bike when you get home. I can’t do this whole walking this for much longer.”

Winry flipped her loose hair over her shoulder and huffed. “I’ll take a look at the damage. If I like the food you bring, maybe you won’t have to walk to work tomorrow. Looks like it’s gonna rain soon - you don’t want to walk through that.”

Edward grinned at her, pulling out his phone to call the precinct for a pick-up. “Knew I could count on you. See you guys tonight, then.”

The sky had turned grey and the weather boiled with humidity before Edward hopped out of the police car he had gotten a ride with. The crime scene was stuffed in a back alley behind a butcher’s shop and an apartment building. It had already been taped up and around the corner Ed could see a small crowd that was slowly growing bigger. The smell was bad enough but the garbage dumpsters were nearly full up and down the alleyway, leaving a hot, stinky, well, mess.

Edward flashed his ID card at the police officer standing outside of the yellow tape, only to have the woman stop him.

“Boss wants to see you,” the woman instructed, pointing towards the hasty white tent that had been set up over the body incase the rain started. 

“Which boss?” Edward questioned, raising an eyebrow. The woman grinned wryly at him, nearly devoid of any humor except the ironic kind.

“The big boss. Got a special interest in this case, you know?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Edward questioned under his breath, ducking under the tape. “‘sides, it’s like we’ve got our very own serial killer.” A clearly fake Western American accent: “By golly, it’s must be Christmas.”

“Good,” the woman called. “Means I should be getting my raise soon!”

He laughed and waved at her before carefully walking along the already marked walkway. A blood trail that stained the alley floor for a few feet was visible. Probably had hair and fibers if the body was dragged, and a dead body weighed more than people expected, fingernails tended to rip when latched that deep into the flesh, maybe there was some left?

Not likely, Edward knew. The past five bodies had little to no trace evidence, and with ruined hands and mutilated faces, it wasn’t as if he could slap some pictures on the side of a billboard and ask ‘do you know me?’ One of the younger technicians started when she saw him, hurrying to her feet to walk over to the quick set-up table off near the side and offer him latex gloves.

“Thanks, Beth,” he murmured, because he had a hell of a time writing down her last name and he had stopped using it all together, catching her quick, wide smile, before he was turned around and facing an older man in a suit. “Ah,” Edward grinned. “Hughes.”

“Edward,” the man greeted. He had a smile ready, but there were obvious tension lines at the corner of his mouth and eyes. Ed braced himself for a barrage of photographs, but instead of whipping them out, he gestured towards the body. “Fifth body.”

“I know,” Edward sighed, turning on his heel to stare at the body. The skin on the face was ripped beyond any recognition, red and horrible. The white dress shirt was stained red from the blood that still flowed sluggishly down it’s neck. “How old?”

“Looks like less than two hours,” Beth spoke up. “Single knife wound upward, past the rib cage, into the heart. Lacerations around the wrist and bruising around the neck. Broken fingernails, too. He fought.”

“There’s that,” Edward said, and crouched, rooting through the large tackle box that Beth had next to her, before pulling out a pair of tweezers. He carefully lifted the collar of the shirt away to stare at the almost distinctive hand-like bruising. “Coroner get here yet?”

“Stuck in traffic,” Hughes spoke up. “Got your usual, figure it might help.”

“Damnit, Hughes,” Edward bit out, looking up, no real heat in it. “Russell’s on holiday, he’s supposed to be spending time with Fletcher before the kid flies to London.”

“Hey, he sounded pretty fierce about being the first one to look at the body,” Hughes pointed out, holding up both his hands. “‘Sides, you don’t like Maxwell.”

“That’s because Davis is a freaking idiot,” Edward muttered under his breath. Beth giggled under her breath, and he grinned quickly at her before shuffling down to the body’s feet. Two shoes, once shined, now horribly scuffed. “He was dragged. That doesn’t make any sense.” He stood and frowned. “Why kill him and then drag him a few feet away.”

“To hide him better? If he left him where the blood trail began it’d be partially visible from the street,” Beth said, worrying her bottom lip. 

“That’s not this guy’s MO,” Edward shook his head. “Christ’s sake, vic number two was left in the middle of a park in the playground, this guy doesn’t care about hiding the crime. You said two hours?” At Beth’s nod, Edward scowled. “He wasn’t dragged then. He dragged himself, trying to get away. Those must be concrete burn on the knee of his pants.”

Hughes turned towards the blood trail began and followed it’s direction towards the other end of the alley way which was currently cut off by two parked police cars. “Why go that way, then? The street is that way.”

Edward ran a latex-gloved hand across his chin. “Hard to say. Maybe’d it be better with a visual. Beth, be our vic. Go stand where this starts.” She nodded and moved to the beginning to the blood trail, and Edward turned towards Hughes. “Be the killer. On the other side. Blood splatter looks like the killer was facing south, and our vic was facing north.”

Hughes nodded, and moved, standing in front of Beth. Beth did her best to mimic what their victim would have been positioned like when he was first attacked, and carefully raised two hands to her face, sliding her fingers upwards into her bleach-blond hair and huddling away from Hughes as Hughes lifted his hand into air, mimicking a knife. Edward slowly walked down the length of the alleyway, looking for whatever compelled their vic to drag themselves away from what could have been salvation.

“You said you had an ID,” he called, and saw Hughes shuffled out of the corner of his eye.

“Matthew Halsey. Twenty-two. There’s a distinctive birthmark on the back of his hand, he’s been missing since last week Saturday,” Hughes called. Edward scowled. Same age as Al - it was always more difficult when he saw the similarities between a crime scene and his brother. 

He stopped suddenly, blinking down at the single gum wrapper in the center of the alleyway. He looked around for the culprit, scanned the dumpsters for anything similar, but two of them were full with cardboard and the other three were closed. No chance for anything to fly out and contaminate the crime scene. Logically it knew that couldn’t possibly be relevant, but people didn’t throw out random pieces of a puzzle because they didn’t fit the game.

“You’re being attacked,” Edward spoke out loud. “Viciously, someone with a knife, and you’re hurt. You’re wounded; and you know that if you make it to the road you’ll be safe, so what the hell would make you think you’d have a better chance crawling in the opposite direction? What would make you so sure?”

Edward looked back to Beth and Hughes, still frozen in place, to the body, to the single gum wrapper. The more he thought about it - a gum wrapper someone had to have put there, recently by the clean look of it, empty and white. He blinked at it, before staring back at Hughes and Beth.

“Unless you knew you had a better chance,” he said, and they relaxed to look at him. “Unless there was someone else here. Someone Matthew Halsey knew and trusted and hoped would help him. Get me a camera.”

One of the police men standing guard walked over a few steps to hand Edward a camera. He knelt and took two quick pictures of the gum wrapper, before carefully retracing his steps. 

“Who’s the detective on this? I gotta tell them-” he cut himself off at the wince on Hughes’ face as the man came closer. Edward frowned. “What?”

“No detectives,” Hughes spoke. Edward blinked.

“The hell do you mean, ‘no detectives’. Who’s gonna solve the fucking case, then, Hughes? Mary Poppins?”

“Not exactly,” Hughes shrugged, and Edward narrowed his eyes, taking a step back. 

“Wait - why the hell are you here? You weren’t here for the last body, why would you-”

“Matthew Halsey is a soldier; a sergeant, to be exact,” Hughes cut in, smiling apologetically. “Which means that the military is now involved.”

“No,” Edward breathed, eyes widening. “No-”

“Yeah,” Hughes grimaced. “We’ll be working on this case with-”

“Don’t say it.”

“Colonel Mustang and his department.”

“Fuck,” Edward threw his hands over his face. “Fuck. You said it. Hughes - what the fuck? Why-”

Hughes shrugged, still a bit apologetic. “I couldn’t do anything about it in the first place.”

“Bullshit!” Edward exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air. “Why the hell is it Mustang? Why do you hate me?”

“Had to be Mustang, Edward,” Hughes said, and his voice was just a bit harder now. “Anyone else, god forbid we got saddled with Archer, would have taken the jurisdiction from us and claimed it as their own.”

Edward recoiled, nearly hissing. His fists were clenched tight, and he could feel a headache coming on from how hard he was grinding his jaw. Even though the most experienced sailor could have lost himself on the seas that were Edward’s hatred for everything Colonel Mustang, the idea of loosing his tie to the entire case far outweighed it. If Edward Elric lost hold of the ‘Scarface Killer’ case, then Fullmetal would barely hang on. As it was, Edward was scrounging everything he could for evidence to help. If he lost his access...

“You calm now?” Hughes questioned. “Do you need to do a breathing exercise? Gracia does these yoga poses that might help, be the tree Ed, be the tree-”

“If you don’t shut up, I don’t care if you’re my boss, I will rip your arm off,” Edward growled without breathing, before closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. “We get the body.”

“We’re already getting the body,” Hughes pointed out. “They’ll be using a lot of our facilities. They’re short staffed because of the conflicts up north.”

“I am not sharing my lab.”

“We can work for that.”

“Or my techies.”

“We might have to compromise on that one,” Hughes winced. Edward opened his eyes and glared.

“They don’t get Beth,” he pointed towards Hughes. “Or Russell. I’m still head forensics on this.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Hughes said, cheerfully. “Besides, now we’ll have access to military files we didn’t have access to before. Who knows, maybe they’ll help speed this along!”

“They better or else this is just another way the military is being completely useless,” Edward grumbled, and Hughes caught him around the arm, pulling him a step closer.

“And,” Hughes said, tone completely devoid of the teasing from before, serious and sober. “Certain night-time prowlers should most likely keep their distance from this case for the time being. We all know how Mustang gets when he senses Fullmetal’s involvement.”

Edward stared at Hughes, before sighing and wrenching himself out of Hughes’ grip. “Ugh, fine. You’re worse than Al. Why’d I tell you, anyway?”

Hughes wrapped his arm around Edward’s shoulder, pressing down onto him. “Because you’d never have gotten this job if you didn’t? And you’d never lie to your dear Uncle Maes?”

“Yeah, fucking right,” Edward said, shrugging off his arm. “When’s the bastard getting here then?”

“Soon. I’m supposed to meet him, give a press statement, and then get my ass back to the office.”

Edward grinned. “Good. We don’t want your kind here anyway. Pencil pusher.”

“You’ve wounded me,” Hughes said, shaking his head. “Don’t mock me. This pencil pusher is making sure you’re not the most hunted man in the city.”

“‘suppose there’s some perks to you being commissioner,” Edward sighed. “Though there are very, very, very little. Now, get, I have a crime scene to process.”

Hughes scrubbed his hand across the top of Edward’s head before the younger man could stop him, before grinning and walking towards the group of police men gathered near the edge of the crime scene, holding back the crowd. Edward watched his back for just a moment for before turning back to Beth and another crime scene investigator who were currently fingerprinting what was left of them. He was from the graveyard shift, someone Ed had only see in passing, but Edward knew Sarah, searching through the dumpsters, and Eric, who was running over the alley ground with a UV light. 

His mind strayed as he focused on the basically routine job of processing the scene. Anything worth noting was photographed and bagged, blood was chipped up from the concrete, and Edward felt his knees start to lock as he basically crawled along the concrete.

“We’re not going to get much out of these finger prints, not that we need them now. Military’ll have finger-prints and dental records,” Beth muttered, dropping the paper back into her tackle box. “Maybe Russell’ll be able to tell us something?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Edward said, distracted as he carefully studied the blood trail. “If he fought there might be blood here that’s not from Halsey. Pretty impossible to separate it out, though.”

“Who knows?” Beth questioned, cheerfully. “Maybe Fullmetal’ll get a lead and solve the case for us.”

“And let him get all the fun parts?” a voice spoke up from behind them both, coming under the cover of the white tent. “Perish the thought.”

Edward froze, eyes closing as he carefully counted his breath, before he stood. Once he was sure he wasn’t going to attack on just pure instinct, he turned and leveled Colonel Mustang with an unimpressed look. He was wearing a dark grey greatcoat over his uniform: a white dress shirt and dark blue pants with a matching jacket that buttoned up the front. His black tie was tucked neatly into the jacket, and not a single hair was out of place in casual disarray. Edward really, really hated him, mainly for the tightening in his chest that never failed to build whenever Ed saw him. “You’re supposed to talk to Hughes.”

“Already did,” Mustang said, pulling a pair of latex gloves before kneeling next to the body. “Filled me in, but there’re four files waiting for me back at the police station that I’m going to have to read before tomorrow morning. Bruising around the neck?”

Beth cleared her throat (and ignored Edward’s hissed ‘traitor’ as she shook the blush away) and knelt next to Mustang. “Lacerations on the hands and wrists, concrete scrapes on the knee of the pants. Bruising looks like hand-like. Single upward knife wound to the heart. He bled out.”

“Not before he tried to crawl away from his attacker and to someone else,” Edward added, crossing his arms. “Face wounds happened before he died, same as the others. Blood splatter indicates that the kill was over there, or the knife wound at least,” he pointed to the beginning of the blood trail, “so, whoever did this probably ruined his clothes, or was wearing something over them.”

“Shame,” Mustang murmured. “Halsey was a good soldier. Well, if you’re done with the body-”

“What?” Edward blinked. “No, I’m not done with the body - our coroner will be here any minute.”

Mustang stood and blinked at him, before smirking. “That’s nice, but I brought my own.”

“No,” Edward shook his head, stalking forward. “Hell no. My crime scene - you can’t just take the body-”

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Mustang said, a hint of irritation lining it. “It’s going to your facility. You’re going to get access to the same information, my coroner is here-”

“Because it’s not your fucking crime scene,” Edward hisses. “Russell’s worked on all four of the bodies, if there’s a similarity he’s going to be the one to point it out, and he’s going to be the coroner working this.”

“Russell,” Mustang spoke, unamused. “Russell Tringham. The botanist.”

“By skill, he’s a coroner by trade,” Edward muttered and cursed the fact he had ever told Mustang about Russell. “And he’s the only one who’s gonna be touching this body so back the hell off, Mustang.”

“You do know I’m the lead investigator on this, right?” Mustang questioned, raising a dark eyebrow. 

“You could be the President of the United fuckin’ States - look, there’s Russell now.” Mustang turned to look, and there was Russell, shoving his way through the crowd, before flashing his ID card at the police officer on duty. The coroner’s van was right outside of the crowd, and Russell was almost struggling with his duffle bag. “You’re late,” Edward called.

“Ah, you’re here,” Russell greeted, setting down his duffle bag. “No wonder you’re so short; they are called vacation days for a reason, they help the mind and the body grow.”

“Fuck off and die,” Edward said, cheerfully. “You’re supposed to be on vacation too.”

“Well,” Russell said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves and crouching next to the body, picking up it’s hand. “You know me. Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet. Still a bit warm. Knife wound, into the heart. Probably what killed him, but...” He pulled out a ruler and carefully measure along before sticking it in the wound. It stuck up at an angle. “Knife was two inches across and six inches long.”

Edward shifted at his distracted tone and ignored Mustang stepping closer to him to give Russell more room. “What?”

“Blood in the hair,” Russell murmured. He carefully lifted the head up to feel the back of it. “Yeah, there’s a heavy blow to the head. I’ll need to open it up to see the full damage.”

“A blow to the head?” Edward questioned, confusion evident in his voice. “None of the other’s had that.”

“Yeah, well,” Russell shifted. “This is - the shape’s weird. It’s almost-” He held up his hand up, fingers spread. He looked up at Edward, and then to Mustang. “This is the shape the blow is in.”

“That’s how big the blow is?” Mustang questioned, bemused. Russell shook his head.

“No, I mean, my hand fits perfectly in the concave. Like someone smacked him so hard his skull just...indentured. Definitely going to have to open it up to see the full damage.”

“Huh,” Edward muttered, and took a step back. Something scratched at his memory, something relevant he was sure, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “The force needed behind that - if it was a human hand.”

“I’ve never heard of a weapon in the shape of a human hand,” Mustang pointed out, dryly. “But still, no-one should have the power to do that. Not without breaking their own hand.”

“I’ll take the body back the lab. There isn’t much I can do here,” Russell said, reaching in his bag to pull out a thermometer. “Let me just -” He carefully pulled up the body’s shirt and stuck the end of the thermometer in. Edward shifted while they waited, Mustang turning to look down the alleyway, before Russell made a small sound and pulled the metal stick out. “Huh. This body defiantly hasn’t been here for more than three hours. I’ll get a more accurate reading back at the lab.”

“I’ll ride with you,” Edward said, stripping off his gloves. 

Russell gave him an amused look. “Still haven’t fixed your bike yet?”

“It’s getting there,” he shrugged, and rolled his eyes. “Am I getting a ride with you or what?”

“Sure,” Russell shrugged. “We can grab dinner on the way.”

Edward blinked. “Wait, what? What time is it?”

Mustang turned back and checked his watch. “Just turned six o’clock. I got here just about an hour ago.”

“Oh god,” Edward breathed, holding a hand to his head, mild panic setting in. “Al’s gonna kill me and then Winry’s gonna bring me back and make me watch her destroy my bike. Russell, you gotta take me to that Chinese place on Central Boulevard. Please.”

“You know I can’t,” Russell scowled, and moved out of the way as two technicians rolled a gurney past him. “That’s in the clear opposite direction from here.”

“I hate you and you’re a traitor,” Edward hissed. “If I run I might be able to get back before they decide to kill me.”

“I’ll drive you,” Mustang spoke up, and raised his eyebrow again when Edward stared at him. “I don’t mind if it’s out the way. I’m a bit hungry myself.”

“I’d rather walk,” Edward started to murmur under his breath, but Russell pinched the back of his thigh from his sitting position, glaring at him when Edward yelped and turned to yell at him. Edward started at him, offended, before he hissed, “Traitor. Fine, fine, you can drive me.”

“Great,” Mustang said, nearly cheerful. “Car’s over here. I’m in the mood for lo mein, to be honest.”

“I’m gonna get you back for this,” Edward hissed at Russell as he slowly walk backwards and glared at him. “You just watch for it.”

“Goodbye, Edward,” Russell called. “See you tomorrow.”

“Traitor!” Edward called, one last time, before he ducked under the yellow crime tape and maneuvered through the dwindling crowd towards Mustang’s car. He had never seen it before and Edward had never been good with cars - that was Winry’s division - preferred motorcycles, but it was obvious that Mustang’s car was on this side of ‘wow’ with a side of ‘are you fucking kidding me’. “It’s a Mustang.”

Mustang (the person, not the car) looked up and nodded. “It is. ‘53.”

“You either have a sick sense of humor or really, really bad taste,” Edward murmured, before he gave a small dry laugh to himself. “Oh, wait, what am I talking about? It is you, after all.”

“If you must know, I lost a bet with Hughes. I did laugh when I first bought it, though,” Mustang shrugged, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the car. Edward slid into the passenger seat. It was clean, which he wasn’t sure he was expecting. More often than not he usually couldn’t expect anything Mustang did, which was usually a major point of aggravation.  “You mentioned a Winry. Girlfriend?”

“Ew,” Edward shuddered. “One, none of your business. Two, god, no. Extended family; second cousin. Three, Al’s been head over heels for her since he realized what being head over heels means. Did I mention the ‘ew’?”

Mustang carefully pulled out onto the road and merged with traffic easily. “Excuse the prying. I just don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention anyone in the...romantic light.”

Edward’s jaw tensed. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that I managed to tell you everything that’s happened to me since we last talked, over a year ago.”

Almost impeccably, Mustang’s hands tensed around the steering wheel. “Touché.”

“Turn here,” Edward inclined his head, and Mustang looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

“If I turn on Main I’ll hit traffic,” Mustang pointed out. Edward rolled his eyes and said, “Just turn here, Mustang, alright? Freakin’ trust me for once.”

He caught Mustang’s reflection in the window, just the quick hint of a tired smirk, before they were turning left. The street was nearly empty. Mustang stared, eyebrows just barely drawing together. “Huh,” he said. “Main’s usually completely packed.”

“That’s what everyone else thinks,” Edward shrugged. “So everyone avoids it at six. Just wait a few minutes, though, it’ll fill up real fast. You’ll wanna turn on 20th, though, diner’ll be right on the other side but 21st’s a one-way coming this way.”

Mustang, surprisingly (and for once) did what he was told. They turned the corner onto 20th and turned on Central Boulevard, before turning back onto 21st and parking in front of the self proclaimed ‘Chinese Food Palace.’ Edward unlocked the passenger door and got out, sticking his head back in the car as he turned around.

“What do you want?” Edward questioned, and Mustang reached into his pocket for his wallet, digging for it as he answered, “Lo mein, sweet and sour pork, and a box of fried rice? For Hughes? Two lemonades, too.”

“Put your wallet away,” Edward scathed. “You drove me, I buy the food. Equivalent, yeah? I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

Mustang started to protest, but Edward closed the door on him, leaving the man still searching for his wallet and he skipped over the parking lot divider and pushed open the door to the restaurant. The maiter’d or whatever the Chinese version of a maiter’d was at a podium set into an alcove, off of the side, barely visible from the main room.

“Sit or pick up?” the man asked, holding up a notebook. Edward shook his head.

“Order out.” When the man was ready, Edward rattled off his order: one vegetable platter, two boxes of lo mein, two boxes of sweet and sour chicken, two boxes of white rice, one box of sweet and sour pork, two lemonades, three sodas, one box of fried rice. The man nodded and turned, most likely to drop off his order with a call of ‘ten minutes.’

Edward moved over to the set of wooden benches, sitting down on them before crossing his legs and sticking them up on top off of the glass coffee table in front of him. Half his mind was still stuck on the crime scene he had left, which was probably why he didn’t realize the dark clothed figure stumble through the door, right arm trembling.

What did catch his attention was when the man, black hood covering his head and work gloves over his hands, moved straight up to the cash register and leveled a gun upwards into the startled waitresses face.

“Hands up, alright - and I won’t hurt you,” the man ordered, voice shaking. Edward blinked at him, still relaxed in his reclined position. The waitress nearly fell over, opening the cash register, clearly already recognizing what was happening. The man obviously was expecting it to be a quick robbery. It wasn’t an uncommon plan, and was even a semi-good one. The entire restaurant was bustling. No-one was going to pay attention to robbery happening in the middle of it. “Give me the money out of the cash register,” the man continued, sliding a plastic bag across the countertop. 

Edward sighed. “That’s an awful way to treat a girl,” he called, and the man jumped horribly, swinging around to aim at him. “You didn’t even say please.”

“Shut up,” the man hissed. “Or else I’ll shoot.”

“You’re not gonna shoot,” Edward called out, relaxing back to stare up at the ceiling. “You’re trying to be subtle. People are gonna notice a gun going off.”

“I mean it!’ the man stressed. The waitress fumbled with the cash out of the register, and Edward sighed again. 

“Man, you’re a real amateur, aren’t you?” he muttered to himself, before swinging his legs off of the coffee table and standing. “It’s my day off, too.”

“Stop!” the man cried. “I mean it - I’m gonna shoot!”

“Have fun with that,” Edward rolled his eyes, stalking forward the two paces. The man jumped in surprise, not expecting him to move as fast as he did, going to squeeze the trigger, but Edward was already there, right hand covering the barrel of the gun. “Now, don’t shoot,” Edward instructed. “Because it will ricochet back at - wait a minute.” He stared at the gun, eye level, before glaring at the man in front of him. “For fuck’s sake, this isn’t even loaded, is it?”

“Shut up!” And before Edward realized it, the man had wrenched the gun backwards out of his grip and swung the handle of it towards Edward’s temple like a club. Edward sighed for the third time, and stepped back, out of the range of the man before bringing his right fist up and striking it across the man’s jaw. He dropped like a sack of dirt, completely out cold. Ed stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowing as he remembered the man’s panicked glare, the near desperateness that was in his expression, before he saw the waitress twitch, the bag she was filling hitting the counter with a loud thump.

“That takes care of that, then,” Edward shrugged, and stepped over the body towards the waitress, trembling on the other side of the counter. “Are you alright?”

The waitress managed to nod, and Edward carefully laid a hand on her shoulder, before grinning at her. She blinked at him, shaking her head just slightly, before she stared to ramble, “Oh my god, you just, oh my god you saved me, he was going to - and you just -”

“As long as you’re alright,” Edward said slowly, but she cut him off with, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“It’s really no problem,” he shook his head, grinning unabashedly. “No really, it’s no problem.” He kept repeating himself, even as another waiter came by and the waitress started to talk to him in rapid fire Chinese, nearly tripping over herself to get the words out. Suddenly Edward found himself being hugged by three very happy waiters who were trying to offer him his entire meal for free. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, he took the accepted box and shook his head. “No, for real, it’s alright. Just, you know, call the police. And, uh, if you didn’t mention that I was the one who did this? I’d be really grateful.”

After he got a confirmation that they’d keep him out of it, he managed to hurry out the door into the cooling night-time air, letting out a breath. Weird. He had known that the city was experiencing a spike in robberies and muggings, but Ed didn’t realized that it was getting to the point that he was going to be on the other end of it. Edward carefully flexed his right hand, feeling the gears whirl and grind. Sometimes he wondered the amount of trouble he’d be in without his metal limb, and then laughed at the idea that he was actually grateful that he had a missing arm. He supposed that it was alright to feel grateful to have the mechanized arm in the first place, though, considering all the trouble his grandfather had in taking off his own arm and outfitting it onto Ed’s own before he died. 

Edward let his arm wrap around the cardboard box holding the collection of food before heading towards Mustang. It would probably be best if both of them were gone before the police showed up to do their jobs. 

He opened up the car, and Mustang already had his seat pulled forward so that he could place the cardboard box on the backseat, before he pushed it back into place. Edward crawled in after a second, closing the door behind him. “That took longer than expected,” Mustang said, eyebrow raised, pulling onto the street. Edward shrugged, because he couldn’t exactly tell him what had happened. 

“Long line,” he said, instead, staring out the window. “Do you need instructions or-”

“No, I still know the way,” Mustang said, nearly devoid of any awkwardness. Edward, on the other hand, was rolling in it, barely holding back his nervous shifting. “You’re right. Should I ask how you’ve been? It’s been awhile.”

“Better if you didn’t, Mustang,” Edward said. “There ain’t much to talk about.”

“How’s your arm?” When Edward turned to look at him, Mustang shrugged. “You were clenching at the scene.”

“It’s fine,” Edward stared down at his right hand. “Hasn’t given me any trouble. Why are you working this case?” he questioned, changing the subject, before he gave a wry smirk. “I thought you were supposed to be in charge of the man hunt for Fullmetal.”

“Still am, among other things,” Mustang said, voice cold, as it usually got when Central City’s resident vigilante was brought up. “This case might be related to Fullmetal.”

Edward felt his face scrunch up in confusion before he could stop it. What? “What?” No, what? “How?”

“You know I can’t tell you that,” Mustang scolded, and turned a corner. Edward gave him an incredulous look, heart tight in his chest - might be related to Fullmetal. Fucking how?

“If it’s relevant to - the case, you have to tell me! What the fuck, Mustang? How the hell is this case connected with Fullmetal?” Edward sat straighter in his seat, leaning forward slightly over the glove box in between his and Mustang’s seats. Mustang rolled his eyes. 

“I can’t tell you-”

“Mustang,” Edward hissed, before pressing his lips together and sighing. “Roy. Please.”

They came to a stop at a red light, behind a plumber’s van, and Mustang leaned back, sighing. “Damnit; alright, fine. The reason why the military hasn’t taken this case completely is because we don’t want to tip Fullmetal off.” Edward held back a wince; too late for that. “Two of the other victims were in the military as well. Number’s two and three. The first one was Sandra Walters, a Major that went missing a month ago. The second is Andrew Jones, a Lieutenant who was missing for two days before he showed up. When Halsey showed up we put the vic’s dental records against our own,” Mustang finished, answering Edward’s question of ‘how the fuck do you know who these people are?’ before he had a chance to ask it.

“What the hell do they have to do with Fullmetal?” Edward questioned, running their names over in his mind. None of them rang any bells. Mustang drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring up at the red light. 

“They were all saved by him,” Mustang said, exhaling. When Edward didn’t speak, he went on. “Andrew Jones was saved from a house fire three months ago by Fullmetal. Sandra Walters was nearly mugged and killed in an alleyway a year ago, Fullmetal saved her. Halsey and his father were hostages in the bank robbery six months ago.”

Edward remembered the house fire; faulty wiring and a loose sweater that sent an apartment building up in flames. There had been people stuck on the third and fourth floors, and Edward had cut open his flesh hand to write a transmutation circle that brought the concrete upwards into a durable set of stairs that helped everyone to safety. He couldn’t pick out Andrew Jones, but he couldn’t pick out Sandra Walters either out of the nearly staggering amount of stopped muggings he had stopped. The bank robbery had yielded little different. Most of that was a painful blur with a sharp hatred directed towards Envy. One day he’d cut that punk’s green dreadlocks off and set them on fire while he watched, he swore it, and then who’d be shorter than a dime then?

“That means nearly half the city’s at risk,” Edward murmured, dragging a hand through his hair, only stopping when he hit his ponytail’s band. The red light turned and Mustang pulled forward. “Fullmetal’s saved a fuck ton of people.”

“I know,” Mustang said, voice low. “Which is why we have to stop this before it gets worse.”

“I have a headache,” Edward whined, tugging at his ponytail. He had the urge to kick out his feet and beat his fists against his legs, but knew it would do little good. “Everything sucks.”

Mustang grinned wryly at him, darting his gaze to look at Edward, before he turned his gaze back on the road. “My sentiments exactly.” He turned another corner, and Edward recognized the front stoop of the apartment building he lived in. It was victorian, with white stone and a black gate surrounding the very small lawn. It wasn’t overly big, but it was over ten stories tall and in the middle of the city, perfect for Ed. As Mustang stopped in front, he leaned forward and caught Edward’s wrist as Edward opened the door and began to get out. “Tell Al hi for me?”

Edward turned back and stared at him, flexing his hand. “Yeah, sure.”

“Do you need a ride tomorrow morning?” Mustang pressed, and Edward glared at him. 

“I should have my bike fixed by then,” Edward said, tugging on his hand. Mustang’s gaze dropped down to it and visibly started, as if he was surprised that he was still holding on. He released it after a second, holding his hand in the air before letting it drop. Edward raised an eyebrow at him, felt his stomach twist, and then he dropped his voice down to a cold, flat tone. “You know us being forced to work together doesn’t change anything, right?”

Mustang’s jaw clenched, barely noticeable. Edward made a point not to stare at him. 

“I know that,” Mustang said, and sunk back. “I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”

Edward climbed out of the car fully and pulled the seat forward, carefully pulling out Mustang’s order from his own before tugging out the cardboard box and holding it both hands. His stomach clenched (a familiar feeling around Mustang) as he stared down into the car at Mustang, who was staring forward, hands back against the steering wheel, tense. 

It would be cruel, he could almost hear himself think, if he said something he wasn’t sure he meant even if would not be the first time Ed had done so. More than that, he’d pay for it later if he didn’t do anything other than turn on his heel and stalk up the steps. He and Mustang didn’t have the best relationship, but Ed knew damn well that he couldn’t improve it; but he also knew that if he made their relationship any worse, the guilt and fury and clash of emotions might make Ed sick. Where they were was what Ed could deal with easily; Ed’s guilt was at a manageable level, and his indigent rage at Mustang wasn’t too horribly overwhelming. 

“Thanks for the ride, Mustang,” Edward said, briskly, sliding the chair backwards to lock it in the place, before he chewed on his bottom lip, sighing. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” Mustang said, and Edward looked away as he watched his expression relaxed just slightly. “Have a nice night.”

“Yeah, you too, Roy,” Edward murmured, and closed the door with his hip, hands busy with the box. He winced a second later at his slip up, and hoped that his voice was quiet enough the older man hadn’t noticed. Considering the way his luck went, however, there was no way he’d be that lucky. He made sure not to look back as he keyed in his code to the gate, and again to the building, before slipping inside. 

He and Al lived on the seventh floor, which was mildly annoying because more often than not he’d have to scale up the fire escape to get up to the roof so that no-one could see him, but there was no way he could afford the pent houses up above. He only knew that some rich old woman lived in one apartment, and an Asian family that was obviously rolling in it, considering their car in the garage, in the other. There was an elevator that constantly seemed to be out of order whenever Edward wanted to use it, so even though it was currently working, Edward took the white tiled stairs up the seven floors before coming to his and Al’s apartment. He knocked once, with his hip, and waited for Al to open the door.

Alphonse glared at him when he opened the door, though it softened considerably when he spied the food in Ed’s arms. “You’re late,” he pointed out, mildly. Edward winced.

“Sorry ‘bout that. I’ll fill you in while we eat?”

“Better not to. Winry’s here, remember? I don’t think she wants to hear about dead people over dinner,” Al reminded.

“Who wants to hear about dead people over dinner?” Winry called, coming to the front door. She scrunched her nose up. “Is it Ed? ‘Cause he certainly smells like dead people.”

Edward went to protest and only stopped when he caught Al’s sharp glare. He rolled his eyes and shoved the food into Al’s arms. “Fucking fine then. Go dish this out. I’ll shower, if her highness commands it.”

“She does!” Winry sung as she picked out her soda and broke the tab, taking a sip. “Use soap, Edward, I really don’t want to smell decomposing organisms over my chicken.”

“Technically, you’re already smelling decomposing organisms in your chicken,” Al pointed out, and Ed rolled his eyes as he emptied out his keys onto the side table and headed towards his bedroom. Apparently not even Winry was safe from Al’s ‘why the hell would you want to eat other animals?’ As if the cats that Edward was just barely keeping out the apartment weren’t bad enough.

The apartment was structured as so; the door was on the far right side of the apartment which lead down a hallway which really wasn’t a hallway but the other side of a half counter that separated it from the breakfast nook and the kitchen. The family room filled up the other half of the room and was separated by a kitchen counter that wrapped around a quarter of the room, a set of bookshelves against the wall and a mantle above the heater with a host of pictures. In between the family room and kitchen was another hallway that led straight down into Al’s (and now Winry’s) bathroom, another hallway crossing across it’s path. The bathroom was shifted to the right so that it shared that half of the apartment with Al’s bedroom. There was a window at the end of the hallway, Ed’s bedroom to the right of it, and Winry’s smaller guest bedroom straight across it. 

It was important that Edward knew the exact layout of the apartment because hidden in most nook and crannies and secret hide-aways were usually entire sets of knives and kevlar. Al had laughed him off when he talked about the chance that his night job could ever follow him home, and glared angrily when Ed ripped up the back of the couch to stuff kevlar in the back of it, but Ed wouldn’t risk his little brother for the world. 

“Oh my god!” Winry shrieked as Edward moved through his bedroom towards his really quite small bathroom. He paused, waited a second to see if he should head back out, but Al was already there, asking questions. “Is this a fucking machete?!” she yelled, and Edward winced. It wasn’t a machete, most likely she had found the hunting knife in the cutlery drawer, and usually Ed preferred to use his fists, but there were some people who couldn’t be beat down. 

Considering Winry didn’t come into the room, chasing after him, Edward assumed that Al had calmed her down so that she wouldn’t kill him. Once his shirt was off he checked around the automail port to look for any signs of pulled flesh. He had to feel it out, unwilling to take off the pale white skin-like cover that currently covered most of the arm. He never particularly liked wearing it, but too many people stared and ran off when they got sight of his metal arm.

It had been a little over twelve years now since he had surgery for the automail. Originally he had only lost the lower part of his arm, a little above his elbow, but the rest of it came off soon after because of infection. He supposed that it could have been worse - that he could have lost his left arm instead of his right, and then what would he do? At least loosing his right arm meant that his grandfather could give his mechanical arm without giving his grandkid two right hands. 

Once his trail of thought started, as he turned on the shower, it was hard to stop. He thought of what restaurant he would take Al (and now, Winry too, he supposed) for the anniversary of their mother’s death, coming soon. Usually, for their father’s they stayed in and watched old Western movies until they felt sick, but proper clothes and a classy night out had been the tradition for the past five years.

It all depended on what they felt like doing when it came to their grandfather’s anniversary, but most of the time it was a quiet night in while Ed and Al went through his old library, pouring over the meticulously hand written books that didn’t make sense to most people, and most of the time, didn’t make much sense to them either.

The shower was almost too hot when he stepped under the spray, already reaching for the shampoo. As much as relaxing in the shower was a nice thought, there was food waiting for him, and he never got to finish his barbecue plate. He quickly washed his hair, before grabbing the bar of shop and washing the rest of him. After a second he was satisfied he didn’t smell of ‘decomposing organisms’ and instead like the usual lye scented soap he used. Luckily the fake skin cover kept the automail from getting wet, but he’d have to take it off eventually to oil the automail. 

Pajamas, because he wanted to sleep for a few hours before he went back out, and he toweled his hair as dry as it could go. He usually left it down when it was wet and it dried straight. More than once, Winry had teased him about getting him a blow dryer for Christmas or a birthday present to help, but he usually responded by starting up a shouting fest with her. 

When he came out, Winry was sprawled on the couch, soda in her hand and plate empty while Al munched on his vegetarian platter as he studied some medical text book. Most people relaxed with a nice novel, but Al settled his mind with - he bent for a second to read the spine, oh - Hippocrates. Ed grabbed a plate and scooped up his food before he sat across from Al, checking to make sure Winry was completely focused on Top Gear before he leaned close to Al and caught his attention. It only took a few seconds to relay everything that had happened, and Al’s frown became more and more pronounced.

“Why on earth would they target the people you’ve saved?” Al questioned, eyebrows drawn together. He was upset, and frustrated. “That’s just - it’s awful.”

“I know,” Edward murmured. “Which is why I have to get a handle on this before it gets worse. I thought this was bad before, but this is - it’s worse.”

Al frowned. “Brother, you’re gonna be careful, right?” 

Ed grinned. “Since when am I not careful?” 

If anything, Al looked even more worried.

The story goes like this. Edward and Alphonse Elric are born a year apart from each other to Trisha and Richard Elric. ‘Elric’ is not Richard’s last name (which was Martin) but the Elrics' are just prestigious enough to warrant a maternal last name. Their grandfather is Edward Elric (the first) who also has a younger brother by one year named Alphonse, and both are associated with the term ‘World Peace’. (After all, wouldn’t you call the two men who ended World War II and smoothed over the Cold War ‘peace keepers’?)

When Edward is three years old, their father - a cop and rising star - is shot down during a car robbery; on his day off. Trisha Elric is killed two years later in a car accident that costs Edward Elric his arm as he held up the wreckage so that his younger brother could climb out of the car. They go to live with their (very old) grandfather who is loosing his mind. In an effort to keep it, he writes. Everything. From his furtherest memory to a very complicated division of science that only his grandchildren are privy to understand. 

He passes away when Ed is ten and Al is nine, and instead of being put with their mother’s cousins, who currently live out of the country, or with a family friend, they’re placed in an orphanage until Ed turned fifteen and declared emancipation for him and his brother. It’s approved and Ed enrolls at the university on a scholarship and graduates four years later in theoretical physics. Instead of doing the sane thing, like, getting a job somewhere in theoretical physics, he wheedles his mother’s friend, Maes Hughes, into getting him a job with the police. Because, here’s the kicker, he’s decided he’s going to be a superhero.

Have you laughed yet? It really is alright, if you do. After all, five foot five men with long blond hair who are missing an arm don’t exactly scream ‘crime fighting’ material. 

Then again, Edward Elric did enjoy smashing everyone’s perceptions of him.