The first assassination attempt should probably not have come as a surprise. And, in a way, it didn't.

Faint color painted her cheekbones and she gave him a mild glare. "Don't you start too. Gracia is bad enough, giving me those doting looks every time I turn around."

"Lisa." The whisper drew her attention from his hands to his face, and her lips parted. Roy was looking at her—at nothing but her—with a focus she'd only ever seen when he faced mortal danger. Except that, where his eyes were cold, then, they were warm now.

"Ross-kun," he murmured, not seeming to notice. "What do women really want?"

It was a messy idea, a jury-rigged, special-dispensation way to disorder records and assignments. It proposed to bend regulations into pretzels without ever quite breaking their letter.

It was Mustang all over.

"I've never met another woman who's so beautiful when she isn't trying."

She really couldn't help a satisfied smile at the stunned realization spreading over Roy's face. To be perfectly honest, she didn't try all that hard.

Hawkeye sniffed. "It was bad enough, dealing with bureaucratic idiots as an officer," she noted. "I'm not going to deal with them as a secretary."

Clearly, Roy was heading for another superior who could spot him coming and going. This could be good or bad.

A corner of her mouth twitched as she wondered what Roy would think if he knew that she'd learned half her officer skills from her family's bank manager.