Perpetuity - Maria/Riza - part 3
_Gang Violence rises in Central and Maria falls head over heels with Riza Hawkeye. _(CHRONOLOGICAL CHAPTER TAG)
(lol this is still going I guess, slowly but surely)
Maria finds Hawkeye already sitting at the bar when she arrives, one drink in hand, and another resting protectively in the nook of her elbow, where it rests against the wood.
The blonde has on a long skirt with a slit down the side, the fabric draped between her legs so that her entire left calf and a bit of her thigh are exposed. Lord help her, Maria can make out the general shape of what has to be a thigh holster strapped to Major Hawkeye’s leg. Pulling her gaze up in case she looks over or Rebecca returns from wherever she presumably is in the bar, Maria gives the rest of Hawkeye’s outfit a studious look.
She can’t make out much of her shirt from the back, aside from that it’s blue, but her jacket is black, with the collar pulled up so it covers all of what Maria would have been able to see of her neck. The Major did tend to cover her neck a lot, Maria muses, what with the constant turtlenecks she wore at work. She’d have chalked it up to the recent injury that hospitalized her on the Promised Day and left a noticeable scar in its place, except that, thanks to some immature soldiers making hickey jokes, she was aware that Hawkeye had definitely been wearing them before the incident.
She drops the thought- maybe she’s putting a little too much weight on the Major’s clothing choices. The important thing is that she looks damn fine.
Maria remembers years ago, when she found the sight of a woman in uniform to be sexy, but she’d grown used to it by now, and something about seeing the officer with her hair down was very nice in its own way.
“You made it!”
Maria turns, finding herself swept into a hug. She stands for a second- unable to hug back with her arms trapped by Rebecca’s, and somewhat unable to breathe with all of Rebecca’s hair in her face- before the brunette releases her, bounding over to the bar to collect her drink.
“Hello Lieutenant,” Hawkeye, greets in a friendly tone; Rebecca smacks her on the arm.
“Hello Maria.” Rebecca says, tossing a grin at the Major, “don’t mind her, she’s known Mustang forever and I’ve yet to hear her call him ‘Roy’.”
“Hello-” Major, Hawkeye, Riza? “Rebecca. Major.”
She settles on her title, tossing in a goofy grin so that if it’s too formal, they’ll take it as a joke, and if it’s not, well...
“What do you drink, Maria? I’m buying first round.”
“Oh, uh, you don’t have to,” Maria says, adding, at Catalina’s dismissive wave, “they have a nice lemondrop martini here.”
“You look nice, Maria,” Hawkeye says, tone soft- it reminds her of how she’d heard her speak to the Elrics.
“You as well-” ‘Riza’ lingers on the tip of her tongue for a moment, but she continues without addressing her, “I love the skirt.”
She’s probably blushing terribly, but thankfully Rebecca reappears with a drink that she can hide her face with for a moment. It’s nice, as always. Tastes like a less sticky version of lemonade. She’ll have to watch herself. It doesn’t taste like alcohol, but she knows it is, and she has work tomorrow.
Rebecca’s got some similarly ‘girly’ drink, unnaturally bright green in color- Maria assumes it’s something like an appletini. Hawkeye’s got a red wine, a third gone at this point.
The latter seems content to sit, one arm slung wide over the bar and the other holding her wine glass by her thigh, but Rebecca, anxious to dance and flirt, heads off to the middle floor, announcing her attentions so that either of her friends can choose to join her, if they please.
Maria hesitates only a moment before following her into the crowd.
--
Riza finds herself alone at the bar. It’s nothing she particularly minds. Her last girlfriend was the barkeep at Rebecca’s favorite bar in Eastern, in fact, who she’d often talked to between fending off the guys trying to hit on her. Kate had deduced after so many guys turned away without a thought that asking Riza out might work in her favor. They’d dated for a few months before Riza moved back to Central. She’d been too busy since to think about dating again, but Rebecca has stopped accepting that excuse. Hence Maria Ross getting an invite, she suspects.
She can see Rebecca dancing from her spot. Ross shoots a nervous look at the bar, smiling, before turning her back somewhat and joining Rebecca in the fun.
She’s cute, Riza admits. Her hair looks nice tonight, and she has a pretty smile, something she shows off often at the office. She seems to be caught joking around with Brosh a lot, and Alphonse had never been shy about his fondness for the woman- despite his brother’s insistence that a bodyguard wasn’t needed- so she suspects many jokes were shared with the boys as well.
Riza doesn’t mind such a personality- she’s best friends with Mustang and Catalina, after all- but can’t help but wonder how much Maria would appreciate her company. She’s lucked out with her current friends, who seem to understand that her stoic personality in no way means that she is not having a good time, but it’s not always worked out that way.
She suspected she was perceived as unfriendly- or at the very least,-not so fun- by the children in the town growing up, and she knows that some of her own teammates have mistaken her subdued personality for something else. Fuery, for one, who she gets along with now, but admits that he had a different perception of her for a while. At some point, he really thought she was the type of person to throw a little puppy out in the rain.
Riza tips her glass, drinking the rest of her wine in one gulp. She stops to savor the warmth that spreads through her chest for a moment before heading into the crowd. She is capable of making a different sort of impression, she supposes.