Worlds Collide

A/N: To my reviewers, The Candy Made Me Do It, well, since you don't like Winry, there's at least one Winry bash in this chapter, but it's playful. nette, glad you liked this. Ari, thank you so much. You can thank the artist who did the drawing for me for having Al a father. Amethyst-eyed Koneko, Those names were bad, I know, but I wanted the guys to have embarrassing middle names, not to mention Al's choice for his daughter (and I think he'd actually give the poor girl some unfortunate name like that). And you were right about Edward's theory being wrong, for more or less all those reasons. The biggest factor that affected his relationship with Roy wasn't Wrath's presence, but Riza's. But it's his theory, and a lot of what you argued will be proven by the revelation of who Stephen is. Exotic Rose83, glad you liked. Yeah, kinda domestic, though. kuragari 75, you reviewed last chapter just about the time I was getting ready to put this one up.

Also, I know Stephen is starting to drive some readers nuts, who he is, I mean. I have a question. Now, I'm not going to reveal who he is until another few chapters, but would readers at least like, when I post the chapter to have the little clues in the story posted just before the chapter with his identity to be one more chance to guess, or would you rather I just wait until it's out in the open and then have me show the clues?

Chapter 11

Intimidation

Amestris

Two years later

Nicholas chased after his sister, snapping his fingers inside of his papa’s much-too-large gloves, a tiny flame leaping up from his fingertips, Aideen putting up a stone barrier immediately. She poked her head out around the barrier, sticking her tongue out at the blond.

“Missed me.”

The six year old boy ran and leapt over the barrier. Nearly ready to attack again, he held his hands up, ready to snap when he heard coming from the lab, “NICHOLAS MAES MUSTANG!!!” Aideen started to laugh at him, black ponytail bobbing. “Aideen Riza, you’re in as much trouble as your brother, so don’t make fun!”

Nicholas watched as Aideen’s smile faded and she turned back to the lab, to the source of their daddy’s very angry voice. Walking out, white labcoat on, hair braided back, Nicholas looked up at his father, who had extended his metal hand.

“Give me back the gloves, Nicholas.” As quickly as he could, the little boy ripped the gloves from his hands and placed them in the metal one opposite him. “How did you get these?”

“Papa’s desk,” Nicholas said, looking down at his feet as he tucked one behind the other and rubbed the back of his right leg with his left foot.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? What if you had hit your sister?”

“He wouldn’t have hit me,” Aideen said. “I’m too fast.”

“You’re not helping yourself, miss.” Nicholas felt himself being grabbed by the collar. “Get over here.” Nicholas looked in surprise as his sister hesitated. “Aideen. Now.”

“But… but he was the one with the gloves.”

“And you were playing with him.”

The boy watched his twin walk in front of them, kicking pebbles as she went. He really wasn’t looking forward to what was to come, which was probably why he was being dragged into the house, to prevent him from running away, though he still tried, nearly choking himself in the process.

********

Munich

Wrath stood, pulling at his collar, glancing over his shoulder at his boyfriend, lover, whatever. The teen could never begin to express his gratitude to their older roommate for being as understanding as he had been about their relationship. But not only was he understanding or in denial, he was supportive, for example, the older man was willing to do exactly as he was tonight, acting as their third wheel. There were already enough stories about Edward, his sometimes less-than masculine behavior at times at work without him being seen alone with Wrath in public. It was nice that Stephen was willing to go out for what he termed “boys night” and go see a show or something, letting the two lovers have a date.

Putting on his suit coat, Wrath buttoned up, then turned completely to Edward, who was still tying his bowtie. Wrath loved those ridiculous little things he wore, making him seem so much more the scientist that he was. Wrath wrapped his arms around the blond, his chin only an inch or so off from being able to comfortably rest on the shorter man’s head.

“Stephen is going to be waiting,” Edward said, resting his head against Wrath’s cheek. The teen loved the feeling of that blond head, hair far softer than his own. Edward’s hand darted up to Wrath’s hair, wrapping a finger around one of the thin black braids. “Your mother really wore her hair like that?”

He nodded a rough cheek against the soft blond strands.

“People think it looks strange.”

“But they aren’t going to say anything.” Wrath kissed Edward’s temple. “They’re too afraid I’d hurt them. Besides, the only opinion that matters is yours.”

Edward fingered the braids again. “They’re a little odd,” He turned around, still in Wrath’s embrace. “but I like them.” The blond moved his hands to wrap his fingers in dozens of tiny braids. “They suit you.” Wrath leaned down, pressing his lips to the thin ones below, his own fingers brushing aside the blond fringe at Edward’s forehead.

There was a knock at the door, breaking the loving moment, Stephen opening it, hand over his eyes. “I don’t know what the two of you are doing, but we’re going to miss the show if we don’t leave soon.”

“Slave driver,” Wrath said, playfully squeezing Edward before releasing the older man.

“No complaints from the two of you, or you can just stay here in the apartment all night.” Stephen lowered his hand, apparently seeing that Wrath was about to make a comment about not really minding that. “Don’t say another word. Just get your bloody arses out here.”

Wrath rolled his eyes, looking down at the little blond beside him who smiled in return. Despite their own groans and whining, they were very grateful to the older man. So grateful, in fact, that Wrath had hoped on more than one occasion that the British spy would at least find someone to feel close to the way he did Edward, but like so much about the older man, even possible relationships were held close to his chest.

********

Amestris

Roy got home as quickly as he could, dealing with only the issues that Falman knew he absolutely needed to, hurrying back to the house, opening the door to find a furious Ed confronting him immediately with a hard hit to the upper arm, with the automail fist.

“What the hell were you doing, keeping your gloves in an unlocked drawer, you damned stupid son of a bitch!”

“I did lock it.”

“With alchemy?” Ed asked, a furious glare on his face. “Damn you, Roy! Next time just leave a loaded gun laying out for them. They are full-blown alchemists, you dumbass! You can’t just use a lock and key and expect that to keep them out of your desk.” Roy found himself being hit repeatedly. “You damned son of a bitch.”

“Listen, I’ll talk to the kids and discipline them.”

“Go ahead, but believe me, I already did. They’re not going to be sitting down for a week.” Roy knew he didn’t have to ask how. Ed didn’t believe in doing anything but a swat of his left hand, but with the strength in his arm, it was enough. “But you,” Ed said, grabbing Roy by his collar, “Mr. Flame Alchemist, need to talk to them about the dangers of using your gloves.”

Roy felt himself being pushed through the hall, up the stairs with the pointed metal fingers poking between his shoulder blades.

Doing as he’d been instructed, Roy went into the children’s rooms, Nicholas’s first, since he’d been the one actually using the gloves.

He walked into Nicholas's room, still the gold and green that Roy and the men on his team had painted and papered years ago for the twins' nursery. He found the little blond boy laying on his stomach on the green bedspread.

"Nicholas?"

A set of black eyes looked up from his pillow, and the boy lumped from the bed to hug his papa, eyes watering all the while. The obvious remorse on his son's face made the older man want to immediately embrace his son to comfort him.

"I wasn't going to hurt her, Papa," he said against Roy's uniform. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to show Aideen what you'd taught me in our lessons, and I didn't hit her with the fire."

"I know, Nicholas," Roy said, guiding the boy over to the bed with the realization that Nicholas needed a real lecture., "but fire isn't something any child should play with, and with the two of you, we aren't talking just matches."

Roy sat down, pulling Nicholas down carefully, knowing the boy had received a definite spanking from his other father. "You are very young, but you have to understand that when you play you have to show more responsibility. You can do things that most children can't. Fire alchemy's dangerous."

Roy proceeded to unbutton his uniform, then the shirt beneath just enough to shift the undershirt up. "I know you've seen this when I've been swimming." Roy pointed to the burn scar on his stomach. It had faded with time, but was still there. "I burned myself playing with fire alchemy when I was a year older than you." He traced over the scar that was the size of two of his fingers as Nicholas got closer. "What would you do if you had hurt Aideen like this?"

The eyes shaped identical to Ed's looked up at Roy, then back at the scar. Nicholas rubbed a finger over the faded scar, Roy trying his best not to laugh at the fact that the boy’s fingers tickled. This was a serious moment, one that didn’t warrant Roy’s laughter.

After a few more dozen apologies, Roy left his son’s room, feeling that Nicholas grasped the seriousness, at least for the next twenty minutes—the six-year-old didn’t have the best attention span. He moved down the hall, only half-noticing as his own items seemed to be flying out of the master bedroom. He opened the door to his daughter’s purple bedroom, finding her laying on her stomach, pouting.

“Aideen,” Roy said as two gold and brown eyes looked up at him, “do you know why I’m here?”

“To tell me that I shouldn’t have played with Nicholas with the gloves.”

“That’s right. Do you know how dangerous that was?”

“But Nicholas had the gloves.” Aideen raised an eyebrow, frightening her father just a bit with that he was seeing his own expression on his daughter’s face. “I didn’t.”

“But you played with him. That’s what was so bad, Aideen, what if you’d have been hurt?”

“But Nicholas had the gloves,” she repeated, with the emphasis she’d meant to have the first time blatantly obvious. She didn’t think Nicholas with the gloves was a threat. “I’m faster than him. He wouldn’t have hit me.”

“I know you like to think that he wouldn’t hit you, but—”

“But, he wouldn’t have.” Aideen looked away from Roy, chin on her arms. “He’s not as good at alchemy as me. He needs practice.”

“Aideen…”

“But, Papa, he does. Daddy said alchemy is equivalent exchange,” she said, carefully pronouncing the phrase so familiar to Ed’s mouth. “It wouldn’t be fair if I had the gloves. That’s why I let Nicholas had them. It was a fair spar.”

“You two aren’t old enough to spar.”

“B-but, you and Daddy do it, and Daddy and Uncle Al, even you and Auntie.”

“We’re adults, Aideen. We do it because it makes us better at our jobs, like exercising.” He pulled her onto his lap, making her look him in the eyes. “You know a lot about alchemy, Aideen, but you are six. You are still a child. You can’t question adults. Your daddy and I know much more about alchemy than you do. And when we tell you something, you have to listen. If we think you aren’t listening, we aren’t going to teach you anything new. Daddy and I will stop teaching you alchemy until you can show us that you are mature enough to use it.”

Aideen’s pink little lip began to poke out.

“That isn’t going to work on me, Miss.” The lip made no retreat, though Aideen folded her hands in her lap. “How long did your Daddy say it was going to be before you got another lesson?”

“Three weeks.” Aideen said, sounding as though all the air had been let out of her balloon.

“And it will be three weeks. And if anyone catches you using alchemy in that time, it is just going to take longer.” He then held her round face in his hands. “And you had better get that little ego in check.”

It was startling that his own and Ed’s ego seemed to be combined, possibly even multiplied in their daughter, and the unsure parent wondered how exactly he was going to be going to deal with her if it was this swollen at the age of six.

********

Munich

Coming home from the play and small dinner at a little restaurant, the three men had to pass by Alfons’s old neighborhood. It was obvious that it bothered the younger blond, going by the very street where Alfons had lived, and Wrath placed an arm around him, Stephen wondering if that was a wise idea.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man with glasses and shaggy stubble on his face, dressed in an officer’s uniform watching the two carefully.

“You two go on ahead,” Stephen said to Wrath. “But remember I’m going to be right behind you, so no funny business.”

The older blond walked up to the officer, trying to look casual, though he suspected this was going to be anything but.

“Hello, officer,” Stephen said.

“Those two with you… was one of them Edward Elric?”

“You know him?”

“I knew his cousin. He used to visit him.” The officer shook his head. “It was such a shame, Alfons, you know.”

“It still bothers Edward.”

“Who is that with him?”

“Our friend Ulysses. He’s like a brother to Edward.”

The man took off his glasses, cleaning them with a handkerchief, a set of cautious yellow-green eyes still watching the form of the couple who were walking through the crowd, the two trying desperately not to look like they were “together.”

“I don’t know,” the officer said, replacing the glasses, eyes focusing to get a better look at the two, “they look like they are a bit close for friends.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” Stephen asked, feeling his anger rising, hating when it did this, as he found control difficult to maintain.

“I just mean, they need to be careful. People might think that they are attempting something that goes against nature. Something that the government, even the Nazi party, frowns on.”

Stephen looked this man in the eye, stepping close enough into the officer’s personal space that it was obvious he would hurt the man if he continued to tread on such touchy ground.

“Really? You know, I live with them, and I’d know if something was going on, just like I know you’re half Jewish.”

The man’s face paled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, your accent. I’m guessing it was your mother who was Jewish.” Stephen had to restrain himself. There was a part of him that really wanted to hit this man, to hurt someone who still bore the mark of the Nazi Party, though not as obviously as Stephen had heard he once had.

“You’re Officer Hughes, aren’t you?” Stephen asked, flipping up the man’s lapel where the swastika rested. “What would your lovely wife say if she knew you still proudly wore that insignia? Edward told me that she had only agreed to be with you because you had lost faith in that organization after the Beer Hall Putsch. My, what would she do to see that on your uniform?”

“You know nothing of the Nazi Party.”

Stephen flipped up his own lapel, displaying at its underside the insignia he bore there as a sign he was a member of the Thule Society, a leading force in the party. He watched as the man before him practically cowered in deference to his superior position. Much as he hated the party, Stephen did enjoy the sense of power his place in it had with the other members. Still, as the superior, there was a part of Stephen that wanted to punish this man, not only for his insolence, but for his insults on Stephen’s friends.

“Remember the next time you try to open your mouth, and the knowledge that I will continue to hold close to my chest… as long as you don’t force me to reveal it. I do know enough about the party to know that your mother’s blood is considered a taint to the Aryan race.” The emphasis on this made all the more silently by the fact that Frank, with cool blue eyes and white-blond hair seemed the perfect representation of exactly what the Nazis were touting.

With an icy glare, the man walked away, toward his two friends.

********

Amestris

Ed laid in bed, mind and body drained from the withdrawal of the fearful adrenaline rush that he’d received earlier that afternoon. Above him, in the guest room, he could hear Roy climbing into the guest bed. There was still a part of Ed, a rather large part, that wanted to seriously injure his fuhrer husband. It made no sense to Ed that Roy wouldn’t take into account that their children would almost certainly abuse their alchemy? Roy had injured himself countless times learning fire alchemy, and Ed, well…

Ed clenched and unclenched his right hand. He’d paid his price for doing the unnatural, for going beyond his skills, disobeying the basic laws of the science. He’d paid his price, and he paid each day for it. More than once, Al had asked him why he’d been able to stay intact, but Ed retained his artificial limbs. After all, the younger brother and argued, they had both been equally guilty. Ed knew that it wasn’t true, that as the older brother, he should have known better, shouldn’t have convinced his baby brother to commit an act he knew went against everything he’d ever learned. He’d been over-confident, like both of his hard-headed children. He deserved a punishment worse than his brother’s. Besides, for as often as Al’s now-adult face transformed in pity at his older brother, it seemed as though the Gate had found an effective punishment for him as well, the younger Elric’s sympathetic nature obviously pained by the seeming inequity in the Gate’s treatment of the two alchemists.

Ed nuzzled his face against the calico by his face, Carlida purring like a freight train. He rolled over to be able to pet her with his left hand, pressing his legs against the rather large dog curled at the bottom of the bed. The pets had sided with him. And, to some extent, even Roy had at least understood the blond’s anger. It was bad enough having terrorists and crazed reporters and fans posing threats to their children. Honestly, did the parents need to supply more?

And adding to it all, their son would be the one to suffer by the lack of lessons, not their daughter. Aideen managed, by some regular miracle, to always improve her skills, lessons or not. She had an uncanny, unnatural skill at the science, and deny it as much as they might like, she would probably surpass Roy’s skills before she became a teenager, Ed’s before she was officially an adult. So instead, when lessons resumed, the two fathers would have to continue to separate the twins into two lessons, Ed taking Aideen to continue what she knew, Roy taking Nicholas.

Their son was by no means at a rudimentary level, and he, too, would probably surpass both parents, but it obviously frustrated the boy that his twin sister, one who was a few minutes younger than him, was so adept. However, the boy’s naturally competitive spirit had him thinking of ways not to out-do his sister, since he would never manage that, but to think of ways to trip her up. Like when Aideen attempted fire alchemy and managed to do it better and first, Nicholas learned how to turn the air into heavy fog, which didn't incinerate as easily, with each attempt she made.

Ed smiled to himself, scratching Carlida’s ears, thinking back on the frustrated look that had crossed Aideen’s usually passive features that day. Nicholas’s alchemy might not have been as complicated, but it had irritated the hell out of his sister.

Then, the phone rang. It was late, but not ridiculously so, meaning it was probably Al with another question about Sasha. He was a good father, but he panicked every time the girl coughed, not to mention that he sometimes spoiled her a bit. He leaned over Carlida and Black Hayate to get to the telephone.

“You know, eventually, if I make up with Roy, you’re going to lose your spots.” The only response he got was a green eye opening just a sliver and a large yawn from the black and white bruiser at his feet. Grabbing the phone, he held it to his ear. “Hello, Al.”

“Brother,” he said, with the noise of crying in the background.

“Al what is it?” Ed would have been concerned, but he’d hear that kind of crying before, occasionally twofold.
“It’s Sasha. She’s kicking on the floor and we can’t get her to stop. What if something’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her, Al,” Winry’s voice said, obviously from the other line. “She’s throwing a tantrum. Ed, can you convince your brother of that?”

“She’s right, Al. It’s just a temper tantrum,” Ed said.

“Told you,” came the voice of Ed's sister-in-law.

“But why would she be yelling like this over something as simple as bedtime?” Al asked, sounding genuinely worried, not to mention at wit’s end.

“Because she’s two, Al.” Then, Ed added, “And she’s Winry’s daughter.”

“I’m still on the other line, Ed, and I know where you live. I’ll take down guards to get to you if I have to.” Winry sounded almost serious, making the more experienced parent wonder just how long this tantrum had been going on.

“Well, what do we do?” Al asked.

“Ignore her. Take her to her room and let her yell and kick until she exhausts herself. That’s what I used to do with Nicholas. You should remember that, Al. You lived here for damned near four years.” There was silence on the other end, making it obvious that the younger brother hadn’t necessarily liked this style of parenting. Ed knew that Sasha had slept in the bed with her parents for ages until Winry had put her foot down, wanting alone time with Ed’s brother—yech, he thought to himself—not to mention feeling that their daughter would eventually gain some independence if they weren’t giving into her whims so easily.

Finally, Ed convinced his little brother to listen to him.

Ed missed the days when tantrums were his only worries. He was still furious with Roy, yet wished that the warmth pressed so closely to him was not that of their pets.