Undercover, Buried In Paperwork

a Oneshot

Disclaiment: I only own what I own

Ed was only sent undercover once. Just once. Yet just the mention of the incident would cause Mustang to shiver; and then cringe. Hughes would laugh at his friend's expense and Hawkeye would decidedly not smile. No one ever brought it up around Ed himself.

Lieutenant Colonel Baggins was unaware of this fact, and when she politely asked to borrow Mustang's young subordinate for a sting mission she was quite surprised at the Colonel's twitchy refusal.

"Well, why not?" She growled furiously, her own irritation overcoming proper decorum, "All Fullmetal is doing is causing havoc in the library. It's not like he's busy. I need his skills to catch this kidnapper."

"No, you don't, Baggins. Fullmetal would not be any help too you, whatsoever." Mustang had managed to calm himself and his tone was back to his imperious cool that the Flame Alchemist was known for.

"He is just the age and-"

Mustang cut her off, "Fullmetal does not go undercover."

Baggins scoffed, not liking to be pushed around, "With his skills he won't be in any danger."

"I know." Mustang said, surprising her. "It's the city I'd be worried about."

….. _-_ …..

The incident happened when Ed was new to the position. The kid wasn't quite thirteen, but close, and Mustang was told to catch a serial killer who had a habit of brutally murdering young blond boys around Ed's age. Mustang had hesitated with bringing Fullmetal in- he didn't want the shrimp to get hurt- but he had reached the level of desperate. If Mustang didn't bring in the killer soon than he could kiss all his dreams of being the fuhrer goodbye. Fullmetal had more than proved that he could handle himself. It'd be fine.

It'd be fine, he said. It'd be fine.

Ed didn't really want to go undercover in the first place. The brash young man was too impulsive and flashy to pretend to be a normal kid. He wasn't normal. He was a child, so he claimed. He especially pitched a fit when Mustang said that Al couldn't be around for the duration of the mission. Mustang felt bad about thinking it but sometimes Ed seemed to have the separation anxiety of a nervous puppy. The Colonel almost thought that the kid would turn in his watch before Ed looked at the newspaper.

The front page had been a picture of the latest victim, a ten year old with light brown eyes. Ed paled slightly and looked at Al before resolve seemed to coat his entire being.

"Fine."

Mustang nodded and wondered what had changed Fullmetal's mind so quickly but he didn't pursue the issue. If the young alchemist was finally going to stop arguing then life just got easier.

"Why can't we just hunt the creep down?" Fullmetal asked with the characteristic fire in his eyes and Mustang shook his head.

"That's what we have been doing, Fullmetal. Unfortunately that strategy hasn't worked so we have to change our play. By using you as bait we should be able to lure the murderer out, hopefully before anyone else is killed."

"Brother-" Al started to protest, obviously worried about Ed's safety, but Ed held up a hand to signal him to stop.

"I'll be ok, Al." The alchemist's tone promised a talk later, in private, and Mustang went on with filling in Ed on the intricacies of the mission.

It'll be fine.

Mustang really should have known better.

…

Havoc was installed as Ed's "father" much to everyone's amusement. Havoc thought that it should have been Mustang and Hawkeye as the parents but as much as Mustang would love to abandon the mountain of paperwork on his desk, he wasn't prepared to spend that much time with Fullmetal. Anyways, he'd be much more useful keeping on eyes on everything instead of playing house. Desk Colonels didn't go undercover!

Fullmetal's duties were to wander around everywhere and play the victim as Mustang's other subordinates trailed him from a distance. He was ordered not to show off his alchemy or reveal his true identity and pretend he was some stupid kid skipping school. Mustang didn't think it'd be that hard.

Mustang had to contain himself when he saw Fullmetal dressed as an 'average' teen. The kid was still in black but instead of being of a dramatic, tailored cut it was something a kid his age could get at some scruffy marketplace. Instead of looking serious, Elric just looked like a middleschooler who thought wearing black made him look serious. Wait…

Mustang suddenly came to the realization maybe Fullmetal's sense of style was more due to his age than he thought. He was suddenly reminded of all the… unique fashions that he'd worn around that age. If Hawkeye ever wanted to end him without wasting a bullet she had quite a few pictures that Mustang quite regretted.

Even the 'leave me alone' scowl was characteristic to his age. Yes, Fullmetal's was far more effective- it actually worked- but Mustang decided to hold his tongue and not tell him to try to smile.

Now they could go fishing.

…

Ed stormed down another alley, wishing that he'd been allowed to keep his coat. He thought the whole mission was poorly set up. It was hard for Ed to see himself in the victim role and he didn't quite know how to act helpless when he wasn't actually so. He wished Al was there, at the very least for some company. East City was boring.

"Hey, kid."

Ed turned on heel to glower at the fool who dared call his a kid. To his surprise, it was a lanky man with a knife. A little knife. Smaller than a kitchen knife. What in the world could someone actually be the purpose of such a dinky thing.

"Give me all your money and I won't hurt ya' any." The man took a step forward, the knife raised threateningly, "Go on, be quick about it."

Was this guy serious? He wasn't even holding his knife right! Teacher would have simply laughed if Ed ever even tried to use a knife like that.

"Does anyone actually fall for that?" Ed had to ask,

This stopped the knife man in his tracks, both confusion and anger flashing on his face. "I'm not going to hesitate to hurt you just 'cause you're a little kid."

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL THAT YOUR KNIFE WOULD ACTUALLY COUNT AS A THREAT?!" Ed burst out, scaring the wannabe mugger. He kicked the knife out of the man's grip and then flipped him over his shoulder. As the man's mouth started to open in a fishlike manner Ed gave his a final kick to make sure he stayed down.

"Ed! Are you ok?!" Falman came running with Breda right behind him, both looked worried and slightly out of breath.

"Yeah." Ed gave them a puzzled look, "Why did you break position?"

"Well the mugger had a knife." Breda put in,

"Yeah."

"We didn't want you to get hurt."

"You're kidding, right?" Ed said incredulously, giving the now knife-less man a glance, "My teacher used to throw butcher knives at our heads. How is something that small supposed to be dangerous? This guy must be insane if he thinks he can scare anyone!"

…

That had been the first of many cases added to Mustang's paperwork.

…

The holding cell at the East City police station filled faster than the officers could process the new prisoners.

Among the prisoner were whispers of a demon child who, they eventually concluded, was trying to climb to the top of the criminal underworld by taking everyone else out.

"He wasn't even interested in drugs!" one of the major dealers gravely whispered, "As soon as he saw one of my needles he punched me in the face screaming about something. He can't have been human."

"He broke my rib when he kicked me," the scraggly haired gang leader spat, "That wasn't no flesh."

"Maybe he'd some type of metal chimera?" a blunette proposed, "Who knows what those freaks of alchemists can come up with?"

"You can't have a human chimera, dummy!" another growled, "I bet it's some alchemist with one of those philosoter rocks or something. Aren't they supposed to make you immortal an' some such?"

"He laughed at my knife."

…

Ed was getting tired of all the weirdoes in East. He may have been used to being attacked but by competent criminals. Growing up in the safety of Resembool and then traveling with Al the Unintentionally Intimidating meant that Ed had never had to deal with this class of criminal. He really didn't know how these people could even be considered scary when compared to Teacher.

He wasn't aware that in the last week that he had practically eliminated the population of smalltime pickpockets and quite a few gangs were placing bounties on his head.

…

Mustang had gaped at the sight of twenty ruffians all imprisoned in chunks of earth and former buildings.

"What happened?" He demanded his subordinates,

"They all kind of went after Ed and well… He used alchemy."

…

"He's clearly some kind of evil spirit, boss. He used magic. There weren't no arrays."

The holding cell was getting to be standing room only. Like clustered with like and even though enemy gangs were literally of feet away from each other they kept the peace.

There was a greater enemy now.

"That murderer must have been looking for him. That's why he killed all those kids that looked like the demon. He was trying to save us!"

"You idiot! That's how he summoned the creature. I bet that's who's controlling the beast. We need to find that man before he ruins us all."

That idea was quick to catch on. It only made sense after all. They had to find the demon's master before things got worse.

…

It was after nearly a week and half when Ed finally drew out the murderer. Ten days of wandering through the alleyways, trying not to use alchemy, and not talking to his brother. Five days of being targeted by anyone looking for an easy target. Probably three or so days of being actively hunted. Two-ish days of being actively avoided and causing fright whenever spotted. Basically it was about a week and a half of never ending irritation for a short tempered alchemist.

"Come closer boy, I need to see your face." He was a short, thin man with an interesting swirl of a beard. His oily flattened hair was a creamy blond and his smile looked like a misshapen wire coat hanger.

A few days ago, Ed would have gone through the motions. He would have played along to ferret out the scheme. He would have tried to stick to the cover.

But Ed was freaking sick of idiots trying to take advantage of him.

With a clap and a quick touch to the ground, the man was wrapped in a ribbon of stone. He made a squeaking sound.

"No." Ed said shortly... Or tall-ly. Whichever would soothe his complex.

"You're not Richard." The man looked confused, "I thought you were Richard. Where's Richard?"

"Not here, old man. What do you want? If you say my wallet then-"

"You've stolen the life from my Richard! You need to give it back. All these imposters. All these imposters. I'll find you Richard. Yes. I will." The man's silvery eyes gleamed with madness, he started shaking, perhaps trying to get loose. "Yes, I will get rid of this imposter just like all the rest of them."

Ed froze, realizing this insane man might actually be his ticket out of the mission.

"How did you 'get rid' of the other imposters?" Ed bit out slowly.

The trapped man laughed manically.

…

Cecilian Morgove never made it to trial. Mysteriously, he was found dead in the holding cell five minutes after he made it to custody. Even more curiously, the man had somehow had several different potential causes of death. The autopsy found that it was the stab wound to the heart, not the three to the shoulder or the bizarre carving of an exorcism on his back, nor the clove of garlic shoved down his throat or the other worrying injuries.

The families of the six teenage boys who he'd killed didn't mind.

…

Ed had caught the first train out of East City. Mustang let him. They both had been in royally bad moves.

Ed was just so disgusted at the murderer. He was obviously insane, but what he had done… Ed was just glad that Cecilian would never have the chance to hurt another person again, even if the news of his death made him cringe.

He really couldn't understand how someone could do things like that. Just… evil. It made Ed feel sick.

Was this what he had to look forward to dealing with as a dog of the military? What if he hadn't stopped him?

Mustang, however, was disgusted at all the paperwork going through his desk. Not only were there all these new cases to be filed and processed, but the police wanted a building renovation because they needed more space to house unprocessed criminals- not to mention the jail itself needed to build a new wing.

He also didn't need all the citizen letters inquiring if a demon's master was killed, was he absolutely sure that it'd disappear? What was even…?

Too much paperwork.

….. _-_ …..

But none of them explained this to Baggins. Mustang had told his tale once- just to Hughes- and he'd never been able to live it down. He'd never speak of it again. Hawkeye didn't see reason to and the rest of the subordinates wanted a job in the morning.

Baggins glowered at not even being given an explanation and Mustang held up one of his hands in an attempt at peace.

"Just… Believe me when I say that Fullmetal does not do undercover work. If you need his assistance to apprehend the crook when you find him, I will let you borrow him."

That was not conducive to Baggins's plan at all but she could tell the Colonel wasn't going to budge an inch. Darn. Mustang never shared.

"We don't want a panic on our hands." He said, almost eerily, looking at the manageable stack of papers on his desk. He seemed to shake with the remembrance of some past trauma.

Rather than anger now, Baggins caught a chill. Maybe she didn't need to fight for Fullmetal. Staking out that dropspot sounded promising…

Mustang sighed and wondered, yet again, how someone as small as Fullmetal could find so much trouble.

A/N: Hi! I'm kind of new to the fandom- I mean, I'd known the basics of FMA for a few years and had liked the few episodes that someone had shown me, but I've finally actually binge watched both anime series in their full entirety within the last few weeks and I'm currently obsessed because everything is awesome- so this is my first foray into writing in this 'verse. I don't quite know what happened here... Well, I do, kinda. But like a lot of my writing it got seasoned with a bit of unplanned humor and who knows what else. I got the idea of an undercover!Ed story after finding out that there are several (some which are quite good btw) and so my silly tendency to parody got mixed in with a want to write something somewhat serious and the crackish elements came from me writing this when I should have been asleep.

The basic concepts for this was simple- Ed would take out common petty criminals with ease when you consider the monsters he got used to. Trouble finds Ed everywhere, not always the trouble he wants. Ed doesn't strike me as having the personality to excel at going undercover- at least for an extended amount of time. They kind of combined and I over thought things and... well, out popped this!

Anyways, I hope you found some sort of enjoyment out of this! I have fun writing it, so hopefully you had fun reading it. I'm really interesting to see what you think. Like, what do you think would seriously happen if Ed went undercover? Do you think there's a little too much moodwhiplash? I just think the tone of this fic turned out... well different. So. Thoughts? Opinions?

Thanks for reading!