#doc writes

Roy tapped at the edge of the table with his pen, looking down at a piece of paper. “I’m drugging myself, putting on a movie, and trying to sleep through it.” 

“I’m familiar with your patriotic celebrations. I meant for the shop.”  He brought out his little notebook, “I was thinking, are we allowed to put sparklers in drinks? Is that--” he looked over to Hawkeye’s wide eyes and slightly open mouth, “Okay so extremely illegal, got it. Pop rocks! I have an idea for a pop-rock rimmed Red Bull Soda. Do you know they make both red and blue pop rocks? We can top it with whip or something.” 

Roy chuckled  “Loud, gaudy, and fundamentally empty is a more on the nose sort of symbolism than I generally prefer in my drink menu, but I’m sure it will be a best seller.” 

“Okay, smart guy,” Hughes leaned over the table and poked at Roy’s coffee, sloshing a drop over the side and onto Razumikhin’s ceramic ears. “so what’s your plan?” 

“Well. I was going to make an Americano two dollars and fifty cents for the day.” 

“Okay, that’s.” Hughes nodded his head,  “Pretty good.” 

“Every so often, the neurons rub together.” He leaned back, “It’s two different audiences, no reason we can’t run them both. We need a food special. The doughnut shop said we can make a wholesale order, but the margins are shit. I’m tired of outsourcing when I have a kitchen sitting there.” 

“I mean,” Hughes looked down the hallway to where the enticingly, finally, patchworked together commercial kitchen sat with its fresh permit. “We could do it.” 

 “Don’t be ridiculous. I have a grant for that. Hawkeye, when does that kid start?” 

Roy was a giant bag of pick n mix as a person, and, occasionally, he was even one of those salted licorice fish his Bubbe used to love, but one thing that Hughes could never take away from him, not on his worst day, was his ability to find an angle. Which was sort of the chocolate covered almond of the situation. He could even be a caramel in moments, and sometimes a currant drop, and suddenly this metaphor was breaking down in his head,.and Hughes was getting hungry. 

“September.” Hawkeye was more of a high-quality chocolate bar. 

Hughes tipped all the way back on his chair and grabbed one of the wrapped day-olds off the counter. Hawkeye left them there for him, mostly, so it was hard to feel guilty about it. 

“Great, I want his ass on a Halloween special as soon as he gets in the door. Impress me if you can. I’ve seen enough pumpkin spice to last my entire life. More importantly, sell things.”  Roy sighed. “I’m done with this. I move we approve both specials. Does anyone second?” 

Hughes put his hand under his chin. “Roy, I don’t want to play senator.” 

“Does anyone second?” He looked around as if there was a full audience. 

“I’m not seconding based on the fact that there’s three of us and this is stupid.” 

But he smiled, and bit into the pastry. Raspberry. He loved Sundays in general, the rhythms and streams of his life, and part of that was arguing with Roy about whether or not their little Sunday meetings required Robert’s Rules of Order. Bickering with Roy in general was, he thought, a sign of a good time, where everyone was remembering their role and the stage was well-lit. Since he was a boy, he’d preferred loud gatherings to quiet ones. If everyone’s quiet, something’s wrong. 

Hawkeye nodded with her little smile and remembered her line in the script. “I second.” 

“The motion carries. All in favor.” 

Hughes added his ‘Sure’ alongside the two ‘ayes,’ putting a reasonable line under the meeting. He took another big bite, and licked the icing off the tips of his fingers. 

 “I know what Roy’s up to, but Hawkeye, did you want come over? We’re having a barbecue with some people, just casual, but I probably bought too many burgers.” He smiled hopefully. “I got sparklers for Elicia! And little sparkling firework hairbows, I don’t think she’ll be able to stay up late enough for fireworks, just her little things, but she’s so excited! Also there’ll be beer.”

Hawkeye considered a moment, packing up the blessedly positive financials, and then shook her head. 

Roy looked over at her. “You can go, I’ll be fine.” He sipped at his coffee and set the mug down on the table. “I’ve got a bottle of Xanax and the extended Lord of the Rings. Razumikhin can babysit. Do I seem particularly ruffled about it?” 

“I’ll stay.” 

The period was definitive. Old habits die hard, harder when you’re Hawkeye. Roy just crossed his arms with a shrug. 

“If you're that excited to watch me sleep.” 

“One more thing.” Hughes leaned down to his backpack. “I had a request to post this in the window for that week, I said I’d run it by.” 

He set it on the table, a soakingly red, white, and blue sheet of paper with an Alegria  illustration-- if it could be called that --of man and dog standing off to the side. ‘Respect Our Vets and Pets’ it demanded, more than asked, with a firm period. ‘Be considerate with fireworks.’ 

Hawkeye tilted her head back, eyes closed, and Roy gave Hughes a long, silent look. It was all the silence he was about to experience for the next few minutes. Hughes was the talker, but Roy was the ranter. Every grudge Hughes dropped, Roy picked up and carried with him. 

It had been a nice day.

“No. And, if I may be emphatic, fuck no--” Roy’s belief in Robert’s Rules of Order having his signature element of volatility, ”--I’m not letting some pathetic woman in a crossover SUV, who never had to worry--”

“You can just say no.” 

“--about using Mammon’s most horrifying escape hatch to get out of her life, use me. Me! As a pawn in her openly manipulative bid to have her neighbors not scare her poor little doggo, shivering and pissing itself every year--”

“Maeeeees.” Hughes put his head down on the table with a heavy sigh, pulling at his hair. “You know better! You know better! I should not have asked. ”  

“Which is a day, on the calendar, that does not move, a date definite, certain as the rising in the sun, perhaps moreso, given its inflexibility of length. Could she not do as I? Is some reactive pitbull mix she convinces herself she can change like an abusive boyfriend too good for Xanax and Lord of the Rings? I”m not gonna be trotted out--” 

“No.” Hawkeye took the sign from underneath Hughes’ forehead and stood. 

“Like some prize pig by people who don’t give two shits about whatever the fuck is going on in my head on any given day so they can feel like their concern isn’t nakedly selfish and barely convince themselves they don’t think every stupid poor kid who signed up for the Army doesn’t have it fucking coming, sitting on the couch in their lululemon pants. Well! Well. I let the government put a gun to my head--” 

Hughes looked up at him. “Roy, you’re gonna stroke out someday, and then where will we be?” 

But he was well and truly rolling now, about the poster and not about the poster at all, and there was nothing to do but let him burn himself out. Sometimes the pick was one of those cinnamon gummi bears.

“--and pull the trigger and sure, I AM the idiot, I’ll take that, and I lost that game of Russian Roulette, but you know what? I still have the mildest, smallest amount of human dignity left to me, and on THAT count, I will not be a smokescreen for a fucking dog!  I’m so tired of being a symbol for everyone’s bullshit! Fuck your parade! Fuck your values! Fuck your condescencion and especially, fuck your dog! I hope your neighbors set off M80s all night. I hope it runs into traffic. I’m going for a smoke.” 

He pushed himself away from the table with a loud screech as the chair scraped the floor, walking toward the back, pack of cigarettes already somehow in his hand as he tapped one out. The back door opened with a loud shove, and swung closed behind him, the slam of it echoing into the empty space. Hughes felt the look Hawkeye was giving him, and did not quite have the courage to turn to it. 

“I knoooooooowwwwww I’m sorryyyyyyy.” He told the opposite side of the shop. “You know, it’s better that he let it out, remember how bad it was when he just let it eat him from the inside? So really--” He gathered the courage of a sideways glance and was struck by the brick wall he was expecting, “-- oh stop scolding me, he gets pissy on the Fourth with or without me.” 

Hawkeye responded with an elegant toss of the poster into a garbage can. He hadn’t even wanted to hang it. Roy’s assessment of the woman who gave it to him was probably pretty astute, in the annoying way he was right about things. But she’d asked really nicely. 

She touched the edge of it like you might touch a saint’s robe, still hardly believing she’d picked it up for less than a week’s groceries. A suit. A suit that was all hers. 

Michiru had invited her to dinner that weekend. Not a date. Not a date at all. It was senshi business, it was only that Michiru was so cultured and fine that they were going to that restaurant. Haruka couldn’t afford it. She tried not to be embarrassed that Michiru was paying. 

It was okay that she was paying, because it wasn’t a date. It was a business meeting, that was all, and it’s okay to be treated at a business meeting. MIchiru was so pretty. It almost seemed like a joke that their destiny had brought them together. But it didn’t matter. Even if Michiru had been interested in her--which she wouldn’t be, since Michiru was so pretty, and so rich, and so smart--it would have just been a mean joke anyway, since everything had to be about the mission. There was no time for romance. 

But it was still the kind of place that needed a suit.

Haruka walked over to the box that served as a bookshelf,  and pulled the little book of easy mending tips, deeply worn and cracking a little at the spine, out of the box. The grey thread she bought should be close enough, if she was careful with the stitching. She didn’t think it was all that different. Working on cars and working on clothes. Sure, cars could take a lot more of a beating, but anyone who had tried to set a timing chain would know that you should have the same care in your hands. You have to--if you don’t set the chain right, it won’t work. It’s not like a belt. Belts were like t-shirts. They stretched, and accommodated, and worked with most things. You didn’t have to have it exactly right. 

But this suit was like a timing chain. It had to be perfect, and set exactly, and it would last you 25 years. 

She kept telling herself all these things as she carefully wound the thread through the edges of the fabric, forth and back with just a little bit of tension on the needle. The grey wasn’t too bad. The worst hole was at the lapel, and no matter how much she worked and reworked it, it didn’t seem quite right. 

She held it out in front of her, trying to see just how bad it looked at arm’s length. Haruka didn’t remember sighing, but as she felt the heaviness of it come off the walls, it seemed like she must  have. It was so obvious. Everyone was going to know. Just like everyone knew when she was too young to know herself, that there was something wrong with her. She didn’t know how to be a girl, or how to be smart, or how to be loved by her mother. 

Haruka wanted to protest that she wasn’t stupid. And she was a girl. And her mother….

She was just different. That was all. 

The jacket collapsed into a wool puddle in her lap as she threw it down, grabbing her small scissors to pick out the mend again. How many times would she have to do it before it looked right? It had to be right. She wanted to look handsome. She wanted people to look at her and think about how good she looked. 

Michiru might look her. Michiru might even say something. She said Haruka’s name so pretty. Like it was a new word to her, like her tongue was curious about how it felt. Like it wasn’t just a normal, boring name. Her mother probably just saw it on a newspaper or something the day she was born, Haruka didn’t even know. It felt special in her mouth. It felt like something magic. 

That was stupid to think, the same way it was stupid to think she wouldn’t see past the wool suit, no matter how nice Haruka thought it was. She was always thinking stupid things like that, like when she grew up she was going to get her own apartment, and it was going to be clean and nice, and she was going to cook little dinners in her rice cooker, and maybe even, she’d be married. She thought of things a lot, while she stared at the crack on the ceiling at night. 

Weaving again. The loop of the fresh, clean thread through the old wool. It was sturdier than it looked. It would be a beautiful suit again. She just had to keep trying.

It was just a business meeting, at a nice restaurant. Maybe she would look like she didn’t belong, with her suits a couple years--decades--out of date, but as she worked the thread through another time, she discovered she was beginning to care less. 

It wasn’t someone else’s suit. It was her suit. If someone said it wasn’t the right kind of suit, maybe they just couldn’t appreciate something different. She loved this suit. It was a beautiful grey wool blend that looked nice against her hair, and it looked nice on her, and anyway, those stupid fancy slim suits made her look wrong in her body. This suit was hers. She was always supposed to have it.  It was a good suit. It didn’t look bad. Whoever’d gotten rid of it had been wrong. 

She loved it. It was a real men’s suit, and it was hers now, and she wasn’t going to toss it away or make it feel bad for not being something it wasn’t. She finished up the edge, and held it out again. It wasn’t too bad at all. In fact, in fact….

Haruka stood up and went over to her little dresser with the hastily and poorly repaired drawer, pulled it open, and looked inside the little box. A goldtone stickpin, found in the dirt out back of the local secondhand shop. Just a little violet, where she’d straightened out the petals and you mostly couldn’t even tell they had ever been bent. The dirt hadn’t destroyed it at all. 

A crisp white of her uniform shirt would have to do, and she didn’t have a tie, but she pulled on the pants, long enough and just narrow enough to flatter. It didn’t look bad. No, it looked good. It looked good. The jacket wrapped around her as she pulled it on, caressed her shoulder as she moved it into place. She took that stickpin and stuck in the lapel, right over the spot she’d darned. 

A step back from the mirror. She looked completely like herself, and a totally different person. A kind of Cinderella, ready for a kind of ball. It didn’t matter if there was no princess waiting there for her. It was good enough just to go, just to dance, just to have a beautiful night. A business meeting and not a ball, but nice all the same. 

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: X-Men - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jean Grey & Scott Summers Characters: Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Nathaniel Essex, Victor Creed Additional Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Rivals to Lovers, Scott Summers Needs A Hug, Autistic Shane Hollander, BAMF Jean Grey, Villain Scott Summers, Scott Summers is a Member of the Brotherhood of Mutants, Nathanial Essex is his own warning, Non-Consensual Drug Use, As in somebody is temporarily drugged Series: Part 2 of ILY IG ( I... like.. you. I guess.) Summary: 

Immediate sequel to hate ur guts

Hawkeye had her own gifts, and she had set to them immediately. She wasn’t good at marketing, or events, or finding loopholes, or making complicated arguments. That was her boys. That was what they were for. But she was useful, too. She exchanged every work favor she’d ever done, offered to help out for scrap tile or secondhand appliances on any project people needed, and she had spent every Sunday doing absolutely anything that could be done herself. The second it was habitable, Roy had managed to legally peel off the top of the building and resell it to himself with a VA loan. They were a good team. 

Nearly four years later, she sat in their living room and smiled. The refinished floor was worn but cheerful, the radiators were tuned up and warm, the windows were carefully weather sealed, the kitchen still had its odd angles, but it was pleasant to cook in.  She’d consulted about the best colors to paint the place to create a calming, happy environment. 

It was the kind of place she’d always dreamed of living. It was bigger than she’d imagined, and it was very comfortable, and she wasn’t alone. It made her proud. She had done well. 

The bathroom was her last project. Before she inevitably created more. One of the first things she’d done was make it so they could leave Hughes’ basement. The bathroom had been functional for years. Now it was more than functional, if she was honest. She had built the glass block shower to her exact desires, with two cubbies, two hooks for shampoos and such, hers and his. The marble half-walls were taken from an old school they’d torn down, Hawkeye carefully sifting to find the ones that were least broken and putting a nice silvertone seam in those that were.  Two cabinets she’d taken from a project, perfect for the odd corners of the room, with mismatched mirrors as little vanities. Hers and his. The floor redone in a charming rosette remnant. But there was a large, blank space in it. She’d told Roy for these last years--his annoyance growing as each year passed-- that it would take a nightmare to make sure the floor was rated for a nice tub, and they’d do it, but there were a million other things that needed doing first that were more pressing. Did he want heat? The shop needed to be fixed up first, it actually made money. He could take a bath at Hughes’ house. 

She was so pleased with how she’d lied. 

It helped that she hadn’t really been lying. It had been a nightmare to try and get someone to help her get the floor reinforced, and she had to get Hughes in on the coverup, to which he’d responded with his usual enthusiasm at fucking with Roy, guilting and half-forcing him to come to the hot springs with his family for a vacation. Hawkeye had to stay and hold the store down. Of course. And then she’d had to shut it down one afternoon to fix something with the plumbing. Of course. 

She’d practiced how she was going to tell him this. She’d done well. 

But now there was a long morning of Roy trying to get the downtown business administration to give them another grant. For what, Hawkeye had no idea. That was what Roy was for. 

And it was his birthday. 

Officially, there was a nice dinner at Hughes’, with Gracia making his favorite things, a few fancy bottles of wine, probably luxurious after-dinner conversation on the patio Hawkeye had also helped with, around the fire pit she’d proudly built. Possibly cognac and cigars. Another year. Things kept getting better. 

Unofficially, Hawkeye was going to have this immaculately researched bathtub installed by the time he got home from the downtown association. 

But first she had to get him out the door. 

“It’s the birthday boy!!” Hughes practically exploded as Roy, neatly dressed, came down the little spiral staircase that dropped directly into the shop, clipping shut the gate behind him. 

Hughes had, in predictable Hughes fashion, done up the place. Hughes’ explosive enthusiasm was the flashbag grenade she wielded against Roy’s suspicion. Streamers taped to the counter, balloons at the corners of the entryways, a big ‘happy birthday’ banner across the wall, and a large foamboard with a picture of Roy that said ‘Wish Roy a Happy Birthday!’

Roy stared at this last detail for a moment, eyebrows raised, before walking to the counter. 

Hawkeye grabbed a metal tumbler from below the counter and started preparing his drink. Triple shot in a cup of coffee, same thing he had every time he went out for a meeting. They would offer it on the menu, but Hughes was pretty sure there was some drug law against it, and Roy wanted to call it a Shot to the Head, so Hawkeye had simply set it aside. 

“Happy birthday!!” Hughes put on a party hat, not missing a beat as he rang up the customer at the counter, who turned to Roy and wished him the same. 

“Thanks,” he leaned against the counter, “I decided to stick it out another year. See what happens.” 

“And you’ll keep sticking it out, because,” Hughes put a cupcake on the counter, “Everything is amazing. Including this cupcake.” He winked to the customer, “And we were supposed to get rain today, but we didn’t! Look how nice it is out. It’s gonna be a great year.” 

“Well. The stage season they just released at the Bear isn’t very inspiring, so it’s up in the air. See if any good movies are coming out. I’ll decide later.” He met Hawkeye’s annoyed gaze. “I’m joking. I can’t trust you to feed the cat.” 

“I would take him to the pound the same day.” She put the lid on the tumbler and set it in front of him. 

“Hughes wouldn’t let you do that, no matter how mad you were at me.”  He took a drink of his coffee. “Mmm. Thank you. Besides, who else is going to really dig in on complaining about the Odyssey movie correctly? I have to at least make it there.” 

”No one hates the things you love as much as you do, Roy.” Hughes took Sciezka from where she was stocking the bar and moved her in front of the till to the next customer. “I have something for you!” 

Hughes dipped under the counter and pulled out a little package wrapped brightly in unicorn wrapping paper, with a sparkling bow, and handed it to Roy as he stood there drinking his coffee. He picked it up and turned it over. 

“Is there a reason we aren’t doing presents tonight?” 

“Sure is!” Hughes leaned over the counter and wrapped his arms around Roy. “I don’t want to wait. Open it.” 

Roy wriggled out of Hughes’ grasp and delicately slid his hand in the fold of the wrapping paper, and it unfolded to reveal a simple cardboard box with a hinge at the lid, which he flipped open with a flick of his hand. 

Inside was a watch. Roy had been wearing a watch for years, a plain Timex with a leather strap that was neither ugly nor handsome. This was a classic Hughes find. It was a slim silver band with a small round dial, the perfect size for Roy’s wrist. The gold sun and a silver circle to serve as the rotation of the moon made up the hour and minute hands, moved against a dark blue background of stars. 

“And it ticks! Like you like.” Hughes puffed out his chest. “It’s an old Soviet watch, but it’s been totally redone. I thought of you the second I saw it.” 

Roy immediately abandoned the old one to the box and slipped it on. “It’s beautiful, Maes.” 

Classic Maes Hughes. 

Hawkeye was not very good at giving gifts, she thought. Every year for Christmas she got Roy a very nice sweater. He liked sweaters, he wore them six months out of the year and he felt better when he took care of his appearance, so he usually did, which made it not a bad gift, just uncreative. Every year for Roy’s birthday, Hawkeye bought him a new bottle of the perfume he liked, with similar reasoning. They were enjoyed and predictable.

Roy looked at the watch with a smile. It looked nice ticking along on his wrist. Even the color of the dial seemed to blend perfectly with his wardrobe.

Hughes was so good at gifts. Rare books, an odd bottle of cognac, tickets to a play Hawkeye hadn’t even heard of, an art piece. A striking old watch. He had a gift for finding things you didn’t know existed, and yet they were the thing you wanted most. Roy always looked so surprised, and pleased, when he opened Hughes’ presents.

One year for Hanukkah, Hughes had given him a thick, elegant cashmere sweater. Vintage, from Japan, and flattered Roy’s narrow frame perfectly. He’d just found it looking for something else online, he chirped. 

Hawkeye nearly killed him then and there. She would shoot him all over again. Let her have the sweater, at least. 

But this year would be different. She had finally found it, something perfect that he would both love and use. 

A man came through the door, his dark Caesar-clipped hair gleaming as he strode to the counter. Roy looked up, and then that magical switch went off in him as he pushed himself away from the counter. 

“Chip!” He extended his hand with a bright smile, “I was just about to head over.” 

“Can’t wait to hear your presentation today, Roy.” He returned the handshake, looking around at the shop “I hear you’re one of the top contenders for the grant. And, looks like, happy birthday.” 

“Oh, did you get that subtle hint?” He laughed and indicated to the sign. “Well. I have a folder full of reasons the committee should give it to me.  You ought to see the plans for this outdoor beautification grant.This place could be beautiful. I’ll take my birthday as an excuse, though, if you wanted to just let me have it as a gift.. But first,” He rushed around the counter, “let me bribe you. This one’s on me.” 

He was so good at this. Everyone on the downtown committee loved him, loved to recommend him for any grant or low-interest loan or prize they came across. Sometimes, as in this case, ones she’d even temporarily forgotten about. He was so charming, when he tried. Hawkeye loved their little three-way partnership. Her boys were so good with people. She was good with things. Roy was going to get this grant, she was sure, and then all the plans she’d drawn up--just some little patio tables and planters, lights strung off the awning-- were going to become real, and most importantly, they weren’t going to pay for it.  

Roy mixed up an iced pistachio latte with cold foam, and didn’t even choke on it, just handed it over with a smile and some chit chat about how this street could use a little brightening, and a casually worked in comment about the improvements they’d made to a building once considered a half-blighted liability, but, of course, it’s about the community. 

It was lovely to watch him work. 

She wanted him to leave. 

There was a narrow window of time, and it grew smaller the more impressive Roy happened to be, and he was absolutely on today. She could tell the second he came downstairs, the way his tie was knotted, how he held himself. He was in fantastic form. That was wonderful, except for the fact that it tore time from her carefully laid out plan. 

Finally, mercifully, Roy tucked the file under his arm, still chatting to Chip about something to do with parking and foot traffic. She held her breath as she watched them leave together, not even needing to think as she pulled the shot into the cup and put it up on the bar. The door shut, their voices growing soft as they walked down the street. 

Hawkeye rushed to the back, nodding to Hughes as she did so, Havoc swapping in with her on bar. She had coordinated this like a military maneuver, thanking whatever small luck was afforded her when Roy had said the meeting was on his birthday, but he didn’t have any real plans anyway, so he was going to take it. Why turn down free money? It was a twist of luck. 

She pulled off her apron and hung it, busting through the back door to where two very large men were shoving a bathtub off the loading pallet onto a dolly. Armstrong’s head gleamed in the mid-May sunshine, his carefully waxed mustache bright blonde against the pink of his skin as he secured the tub with a strap, arms popping beneath a tight white shirt. Sig was no smaller than Armstrong, but made himself less conspicuous, his shirt rust colored and slightly baggy, his brown hair and beard tamer than Armstrong’s brightness. 

She was lucky to have the help. Armstrong and Sig were two of the few men in the little home improvement group she’d met up when she was desperately seeking a hobby that took her laser focus off Roy. He needed less help to keep from falling down; she found houses that needed it more. Mostly it was a cabal of helpful lesbians looking for things to do on the weekend and women to drink beer with while staring at a completed patio. 

Sig and Armstrong had taken the time to help her with this, the final phase of her project: Getting the damn thing upstairs. Armstrong had the benefit of using the ReStore’s truck and sizeable dolly, but nothing could be done about facing the back stairs, which were at least concrete, a strange shove-in from the 50s, just another momentary eyebrow raise in the odd collage that was the story of the building. 

The building was built in 1905. Strikingly, freight elevators were not largely popular, and the upstairs had been a hotel before its long-time tour of duty as a series of flophouse apartments. There had never been any need to install such a thing, even if it could be architecturally managed, which Hawkeye doubted very seriously. 

But they had talked about this. They had reasoned it out. They were three people with extensive experience and a need to throw themselves into intense hobbies for their own reasons, which only Armstrong ever cared to discuss.They let him. Armstrong responded by letting Sig and Hawkeye stay silent about theirs. It was another of the partnerships Hawkeye valued. 

Slowly, they moved it up each and every stair. 1,2,3, go. Rest. 1,2,3, go. Rest. Even with the dolly, and the well-reasoned team lift, sweat began to drip off their collective brows. Five more steps.  It was doable. They had already done 30. The very worst would be over, and the rest of the plumbing was very nearly tinkertoy level of complexity. She looked down at her watch as the dolly thunked up another stair. Plenty of time. 

Armstrong’s voice boomed through the stairway as they pushed and yanked up another stair, nearly slipping back over the high rise of the steps, saved only by a good catch between Hawkeye and Sig. 

“A truly impressive choice!! The warm-touch stone resin! The classic single slipper design with ergonomic backrest! Over seventeen inches of soaking depth! This is a magnificent finial for the private spa you’ve created!”  

It is also of note that a stone resin single slipper bathtub with ergonomic backrest and seventeen inches of soaking depth weighs about 500 pounds. 

Armstrong was the only reason she had the bathtub in the first place--he’d pulled it for her the second a fancy contractor brought it in for the write off--so she couldn’t very well tell him what she was really thinking, which was to shut up and haul. It would be ungrateful, and if she was going to be ungrateful, it should at least be after they finished the job. 

Luckily, Sig did not owe Armstrong much of anything, and broke his daily vow of silence. 

“Shut up and haul!” 

Sig stared down silently at the tub, finally perched at the top of the staircase and within rolling distance of the apartment. He looked down the stairs, and at the steel beam that ran up the back of them. His voice rumbled out thoughtfully. 

“We should have used a truck winch.” 

“A winch?” 

She began to see the idea form in her mind. Plywood for a ramp. Wrap the chain at the steel support post. Push from behind. Easy. Perfect plan. Could have been done in ten minutes.

Her brow furrowed. 

“Motherf--” 

---

Hawkeye sat on the floor of the bathroom, tool box packed up. Finally done, Armstrong and Sig given thanks, beers, and sent home. Roy would be home any moment now, presentation, questions, and necessary lunch mixer all finished, five hours of work that would be incredibly worth it if he could pull it off. She had managed to pull off her end, the plumbing hooked up as easily as she’d thought and hoped. 

It was a wonderful bathtub. It was a silly thing to be proud of, but she was. She had researched for months what the ideal bathtub would look like, the material, the shape, the length--Hawkeye now had extreme opinions on things she had not known existed one year prior--and then she had noted what she would have to do to afford it. She was a frugal person, mostly, or that it was she just didn’t require much. Her wardrobe was very utilitarian, and she mostly maintained what she had. Her little Forester had been bought out of pocket, and she kept it in repair. She cooked her meals, and the only place she went out was to Hughes’ house. She had a flip phone. She liked her gym, and to go shooting, and those hobbies could add up, but she was very satisfied with the simple, quiet life she had, and had a relatively safe cushion in the bank. 

So she let the bathtub be important to her, even if it was a little silly. Roy had been patient about having one. Mostly. She wanted him to have a nice one. It was something he would like, and use, and maybe, for once, she allowed herself childishly, she could possibly beat Hughes at his own game.

She heard the front door open. She scrambled off the floor, and looked down at her black shirt, which, she noted with irritation, now had a white streak on it. Hurriedly, she ran into her room and tore it off, grabbing another off the stack of laundry she was privately thankful she had not yet put away, and rushing into the living room, where Roy was shutting the door behind him and tossing his keys into the basket. 

“Happy birthday to me. I’m not sure that we got the grant,” he took off his suit jacket and grabbed the hanger he’d left by the door, “but, I am also reasonably sure we got the grant. The guy from the Italian restaurant must be having his first day in front of people. Which means,” he pulled off his tie and let it join the jacket on the hanger, “If we put in two thousand, they’ll put in five, which should be enough for your proposal. You’re welcome. I’m a genius. We’ll go over the budget later. God, I’m tired.” 

“Oh,” Of course he was. He’d been playing at being the charming, funny pillar of the community all day. She should have thought of that, she was so excited about the bathtub that she didn’t even consider it. “We’ll stay in. I’ll call Hughes.” 

“Hawkeye,” he sighed as he unbuttoned his vest,. “You worry too much. I’m fine. Gracia’s planned dinner for me, and while I’m an ungrateful prick it’s only to a point. Besides, I don’t have to be entertaining to you people. Let me get changed, we’ll get there and I’ll have some wine in the sun, I’ll be a new man.” 

Hawkeye looked him over. He did seem mostly fine, a little tired but not frayed. His tone was easy and relaxed. The social demands of the evening were low. He could have this one. And he was right, she supposed, that Gracia would have been working all week to make sure dinner was special. Possibly he was also right about her level of worry, but that suggestion she pushed to the side. 

“Before we do. I want to give you your present early, too.” 

“You and Maes. All I’m going to have left is whatever Elicia went wild with at the mall. Can I get changed first?” 

He looked up at her and she realized exactly how close she was standing to him, like a kid trying to get her parents up on Christmas morning. She nodded, taking a step back, and he flung the hanger over his shoulder as he walked to his room, past the closed bathroom door. She hurried into the bathroom behind him, adjusting the towel she’d placed on the side of the bathtub, giving the window a last wipe so the tub would sparkle in the sun. 

It did look nice. 

“Hawkeye?” His voice echoed down their narrow hallway. 

“In the bathroom.” 

“Interesting choice.” 

He gave a big stretch as he walked into the bathroom, pulling a baby blue sweater--merino, 2 Christmases ago-- over his head. He ruffled his hair before he blinked a few times and caught a glimpse of the bathtub. He walked toward it slowly, stopped in front of it, then put his hands on his hips and grinned. 

“You did this? Since this morning?” 

Hawkeye nodded proudly. “Happy birthday.” 

“Oh, Hawkeye. You…” He touched the edge of the bathtub, its gentle curve up to the backrest, “I mean, I thought we’d get a bathtub someday, if I was very good and you didn’t like getting rid of me at Hughes’ so much. But this is. Not what I expected.” He chuckled. “I thought we’d get whatever one of your buddies threw out.” 

“No. I bought it. I waited. You’re the one who likes baths, so I wanted….” She gave a nod. 

Roy stood and looked at the bathtub for a few more moments, studying the slope of it, the out of the way spout, the bath caddy with a carved out space for a wine glass. She smiled, a swell of joy growing in her chest. He liked it. He liked it so much he was temporarily silent. She’d never managed to make him silent before, with a present. 

“This is--” he stepped back from the tub next to her, “I’m not going to make you take it back, because I want it, but, also, this is too much. It must have cost you a fortune.” 

“No, there’s a deep scratch. I put it against the wall,” she said, ignoring that she’d had the floor reinforced. He wouldn’t know it had to be done. So who cares. 

“You could have never told me. You’re always telling me I don’t pay enough attention. I’d never know. I thought you put the tub that way so I could read with the light from the window.” 

“It worked out.” She shrugged. 

“It didn’t work out. It worked out in the way of, ‘Riza Hawkeye forces things to work out.’ Give yourself a little credit. This is an amazing present, thank you. Though,” he gave a little chuckle, “ I can’t help but think you’re trying to get me to cancel on Hughes and family. It might work.” 

This year, she had finally done it. She’d broken her own rut.

“Better than a bottle of cologne. Or a sweater.” She answered his look of inquiry with an explanation. “I always give you the same thing.” 

“And?” He shrugged. “I always order the same thing from Shanghai Village. I own a lot of sweaters. I wear that perfume because I like it. You give me things I enjoy. I --Hawkeye, you do so much shit for me. Let’s be honest. Really. For but a moment, and then pretend this never happened. You could never give me a gift again and that’d be fine. The bathtub is beautiful. I can’t wait to take a bath in it, and I will be unreachable for hours. But you don’t need to impress me.” 

Hawkeye nodded, but Roy kept looking at her, studying her for a moment. He paid attention to her. She loved the way he always knew what she was thinking, or at the very least that she was thinking something, when his mind was clear, and doing well. It was a good sign. She also hated that the price of him doing well was a total inability to keep her thoughts to herself. 

“What is it?” His arms were crossed, head slightly tilted as he continued his assessment. There was no getting out of it, when he looked like that. Hawkeye found herself wishing he was a little more tired. 

“I wanted to be.” She fought to bring it out of her mouth, conscious of how silly she sounded. “Exciting. Sometimes. I think I’m. Not.” 

Roy paused a moment, took a long, quiet look at the bathtub. There was a soft meow as Razumikhin strolled into the room, sitting at Roy’s feet and padding at his leg until Roy opened his arms to accept him with a jump. Roy scratched the cat’s head and looked over to Hawkeye.

“Well. I hate excitement. I left the Army to avoid excitement. Quiet is good for me. Excitement is, I think we can say, bad for me. My routine is good to me. I like it. I like how I know what you’ll do. I like warm sweaters. I like my cologne. I like szechuan chicken. I like you.  I like you the way you are. So. There’s that to consider. I already have Hughes’ general excitement to deal with, cut me some slack.” 

Hawkeye considered this, that at the very least he was not lying about avoiding surprises. Roy sighed and shook his head. 

“What a pair. Here. Let me tell you something, for free even. I look at this bathtub, and I see an amazing amount of effort. And, I am reminded, you have spent years, giving me effort. You worry you’re boring, I worry I’m a…” He took a deep drag, and released the confession, rubbing his cheek against Raz’ fur, “Barnacle.” 

“No. You’re--” Necessary. Important. My home, and I don’t mind maintaining my home, she wanted to say, but it wouldn’t come out. It was too sappy. She simply shook her head. “Not.” 

“And I don’t think you’re boring. I think you’re familiar. Want to hear something sentimental and maudlin?” He did not wait for an answer. “Your gift is that you make my life possible. I enjoy my life because of you.” He turned to leave the bathroom. “Well. Enough of that. I’ll put Hallmark out of business. There’s dinner waiting and I’m feeling like a cigarette suddenly. We should start walking.” 

Roy strolled out of the bathroom, Hawkeye right in step behind him as he dropped Razumikhin to the floor and pulled a can of cat food out of the cabinet, pulling the top off and plopping some beef tips in gravy into a small ceramic bowl. 

Hawkeye took her coat. “I wonder. What Hughes worries.” 

“Maes?” Roy snorted as he grabbed a small tin out of the cabinet and stuck it in his pocket. “As far as I can tell, the only thing Hughes truly worries about is his next meal.” Roy laughed again, “To be a big dumb Jew bastard, huh?” 

“He’s not dumb.” Hawkeye smiled. ‘Which makes it worse.” 

“True. He’s conniving in ways the world cannot fathom.” Roy strode to the door. “We’re probably stuck with him, I think. You’re stuck with me another year, I guess. Get used to it.” 

Hawkeye was proud of their apartment. She was proud of her present. She was proud of being stuck with a strange family she never could have imagined for herself, in the way a caterpillar can never imagine going from flower to flower through the sky. 

And, she thought, she was proud of being Szechuan chicken. It was on every menu because people liked it. People came back to the things they liked. 

She flipped off the lights and shut the door behind her. 

Hawkeye would have said something, in that moment, as Roy had clearly gone beyond the bounds of normal allowances, had Hughes not already been dragging Roy bodily toward the back door. Where the incident resolved.

Saying any of this would have resulted in one of Roy's little one-man Lincoln-Douglas debates, and she was hungry.

"I made beans if you want them," she said, instead.

Roy looked at her over his glass of wine. ''I'm not even hungry. I'm so--sick of Hughes thinking he can manhandle me, toss me out the door and tell me I'm not allowed to be in my own shop, just because he's what? Bigger?"

"He did," she said, noting her immediate mistake.

"Oh, that's the answer now?" He flung his hands in the air and poured another glass, as Hawkeye quietly cursed her own name. "Might makes right, fuck the little guy, there's nothing about a moral imperative here. I suppose this is the way of both the world and a modest coffee shop. Quidquid multis peccatur inultum est. And here I thought I left the Army!"

Hawkeye did not speak Latin, but neither, she thought, did it matter. When he got like this, he was mostly talking to himself. She softly set down two tacos in front of him.

"Why don't we just let him take me out back and shoot me, if that's what he really wants to do. The Old Yeller treatment, a dog that's never gong to get better and bites--"

To this she took mild offense. "Hughes would never hurt you. You are being unfair."

It was not even a criticism, really, more an accurate statement of fact that Roy was not in the frame of mind to entertain.

"Well. What do you want from me? Since everyone is giving orders."

"Eat your dinner. Take a xanax. Go to bed." It was, she thought, a very simple list of desires, and had the added benefit that it would make him feel better, and then Hughes would apologize the next morning, and Roy would wave it off with some strange little quote, and everything would be fine.

Roy stood up from the table. "I am going for a walk. I am going to go get a drink. I am going to do this by myself, because I am a grown man, who doesn't need to be told where to be, or how to live his life. I know I'm everyone's pet invalid, but I do have one or two independent thoughts."

Hawkeye hated when he got like this. There was no convincing him of anything, and she didn't like him to be alone when he was upset, but whenever she tried to express that, if he was like this, it never seemed to come off right. He was so busy barking at shadows, when he was like this.

"Can you tell me where you'll be?" She called after him.

He whipped around, lips pressed together, and Hawkeye felt something in her fall. A mix of fear and memory and love that put her off her desperately wanted tacos. But then he stopped. Looked at her. Sighed.

"I'm going to Cork. I won't be too long. Just...let me be."

"Okay. "

He gave her a little smile. "I'll. I'll keep you apprised. I'm okay."

Hawkeye turned to her tacos. He probably wasn't lying.

She should have locked him in his goddamn room that morning.

---

Roy tried not to get too drunk, most of the time, because it was not necessarily a great frame of mind for him to be in. He just needed a break. That was all. This was a nice, quiet corner of the wine bar he liked.

But all he could feel was mad. he should have brought a book.

Hughes would never understand. He would never understand what it as like to feel like you were going to rattle out of your own skin, and how every sound was like a bomb in your head. Every single day always had to be such a fucking battle.

Hughes came out of everything fine, because Hughes was the luckiest motherfucker who ever lived, all the time. He had no idea what it was like to fight with life, because if Roy had learned anything, it was that Jewish God was probably real and hated Roy Mustang, personally, while also loving Meishe Avram Hughes ben David v'Channah, who had barely learned his parsha--fucking Roy had learned more if it in trying to help him--but somehow, somehow, got everything he ever wanted, all the time, and even managed to get a Purple Heart without--

Roy had the sudden realization both that he had consumed a fair amount of wine this evening, and that he was in the middle of an argument with a God he hadn't even considered the reality of, and not not even a direct one. He was so mad about a theoretical concept's theoretical preference for Maes.

He put his head down on the little wooden table and started to laugh. He was crazy after all. They sure weren't joking. He tilted his head back and started to recite something, letting his heart slow down as he ran his mind over the words like a worry stone.

"I am going to lose my fucking mind." His eye popped open to the sound of a very beleaguered man next to him. "These--they chain together, and they sing together? Who the fuck thought this was a good idea for a two year old?"

I know a two year old, he thought.

"And he LOVES them. He won't stop playing with them, and they bring him so much joy, and they are so busy, and so loud--"

'Excuse me." Roy leaned over. "Can I ask what you're talking about?"

He grinned as he called the Uber to Target.

---

Gracia did not generally like taking night shifts, but the pay and the eternal gratitude of her coworker had convinced her to do it. It wasn't the worst shift in the world, home just as light was beginning to poke through the trees, a slow Sunday morning at her house.

She opened the door and kicked off her shoes. A voice from upstairs. Not her husband's. Talking to Elicia, who was burbling happily. Softly.

Gracia's eyes widened. She told Maes she thought this place was haunted, and could have sworn that when Elicia was a baby she would see people in the corners of her room, and sometimes she would laugh at nothing as she laid in her crib. She almost called up the stairs to Maes, but what was he going to do up against a ghost?

She carefully crept up the stairway, waiting to see what Elicia was doing, wondering what she was going to do when she discovered it.

Gracia Hughes could not have imagined what she was about to see.

Roy was cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a multitude of plastic toys. Setting them up in a group as Elicia looked over his shoulder, occasionally smacking a llama as Roy withdrew her hand with a silent admonition to wait.

"Roy?" Gracia looked down at him, "Are you ....all right?"

"I'm great now." He whispered. "I've discovered how to communicate something to Hughes."

He set down the last plastic creature with a firm tap, and put Elicia in his lap.

"Listen to me. Listen to your Uncle Roy. These are yours. I bought them for you. Your father cannot take them from you, they are a gift from Uncle Roy to his cherished niece. Do you understand me?"

"Licia's toys!"

"Yes. This is crucial."

He leaned toward the llama and rolled the little wheel.