This could only happen once, Roy told himself as he walked back into his office. A fresh cup of coffee in hand, he moved to sit at his desk again. Now then, to the task at hand: dealing with the fact that his subordinate hadn’t told him he needed automail repairs until after he gave him a mission. Sure, he could handle it himself since it was simply looking into a couple of rumors. But, he had a schedule to keep.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on that for me,” he added, one leg folded over the other as he sat down, “Though, before you go, mind sitting down with me?” One hand gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “I want to know more about what the hell your brother got himself into yesterday that he neglected to tell me about.”
If he was going to be down one subordinate for a while, he preferred knowing as soon as possible. Naturally, Roy realized those circumstances weren’t always predictable, but still… He shouldn’t be hearing yet another apology from Alphonse about why Ed wasn’t standing in front of him and mouthing off.
“Should I be concerned that someone is targeting you two? And was it handled?”
One could see by the armor's expression that he was incredibly uncomfortable with the subject. It was kind of embarrassing, really. But being as obedient as he was, he slowly made his way to the Colonel’s table, hesitantly sitting down to tell him the truth.
❝ N-no, it’s nothing of sorts — I think ! You see, it’s a long story, but Brother and I were in the market, and one merchant tried talking Brother into buying some milk, which he hates. Brother yelled at him, saying it was disgusting.❞ So far, everything sounded normal, right? No reason on why his elder would have gotten his automail wrecked. ❝ But then, other people heard Brother yelling,and got offended, calling him short, pipsqueak, and dwarf... And he wouldn’t take it, so he attacked a bunch of people in the supermarket and things got a little out of hand.❞
Usually, Alphonse would be there to stop the blond from those crazy, explosive outbursts, but this time — and hence why he probably felt a little guilty, he had gotten entertained in a nearby alley by some tiny kittens, and gotten way too distracted until he heard an explosion.
❝ So, Brother doesn’t remember it and I was too far away to see it, but someone caused a huge explosion — luckily he was able to shield his face with the automail, but it got destroyed.❞ Though as he thought of it, it didn’t make a lot of sense for the civilian to be carrying a bomb or something that would burst in the marketplace.
❝ Colonel — you don’t think someone could be purposely trying to hurt Brother, right? It was just a heat in the moment thing, wasn’t it?❞
