Chapter Text
Professor Goodwitch scowls down at Team RWBY.
“It is the first day of classes.”
Weiss keeps her face neutral, holding the ice pack to her bruised jaw delicately.
“It is the first day,” Goodwitch repeats, “Do you know how often I have to consider expelling someone on the first day?”
The infirmary is silent. Ruby shifts guiltily. Weiss valiantly resists the urge to snap at her for showing weakness.
“Would anyone like to explain how this happened?” Goodwitch asks in way that makes it clear she is not asking.
Blake grimaces behind the ice pack she’s holding to her broken nose. “I—” she begins nasally.
“Someone who isn’t lightly concussed?”
Blake falls silent. Yang grins disaffectedly, her entire face a riot of growing bruises. Their ‘leader’ looks like she’s about to burst into tears and apologies.
Looks like it’s up to Weiss.
“We don’t know,” she says evenly, lowering the ice pack with deliberate poise.
Goodwitch turns the full force of her glare on Weiss. “You don’t know?”
Something about the way Goodwitch says it needles at something deep inside. As if it’s Weiss’s fault Goodwitch has so little control over her own frustration. As if it’s Weiss’s responsibility to appease her anger and make everything better. As if she’s furious that Weiss isn’t terrified and begging for forgiveness.
Weiss finally gives into the urge to bare her teeth and snarl back. “No,” Weiss sneers, “I don’t. Would you like that in writing, or are we done with this pointless little ego trip?”
Blake snorts. Yang crows delightedly. Ruby makes a high-pitched keening noise like a plane engine about to fail catastrophically. Goodwitch’s glare is frigid and murderous.
Weiss is aware that she just made things significantly worse, but she can’t really bring herself to regret it. It’s the truth after all. Weiss has no idea how it happened. She’s been completely lost since the day began.
000
Weiss squirms in her sleep. Sometimes she wakes up with her blankets kicked off. Sometimes she wakes up rolled over onto her stomach instead of on her side. Sometimes she wakes up spread eagle, tilted at a forty-five-degree angle from her pillow.
Fortunately, Weiss has never been really affected by it. She has plenty of room to spare on her king size mattress. Unfortunately, Weiss failed to recognize the new issues posed by her room at Beacon: Namely, the tiny beds.
The morning after initiation Weiss wakes up to a falling sensation, swiftly followed by pain as she slams elbow first into the floor. Weiss lies dazed and gaping in the dark, her lower body tangled in blankets like the world’s most pitiful mermaid. She groans in confused misery and tries to rub the pins and needles out of her throbbing elbow.
She briefly considers trying to fall back asleep where she is, then remembers that she’s sharing a dorm now. What remains of Weiss’s dignity will not allow herself to be seen like this. Maybe she can roll under the bed and hide till morning. Then when everyone else is gone she can wriggle out like a deep-sea eel and start her day. She wouldn’t even have to unwrap herself from her blankets. She could just inchworm her way to and from classes. She wastes the next few moments of her life meditating on that mental image.
Eventually Weiss feels awake enough to stop contemplating nonsense. She sits up and begins untangling herself. It’s her first day of classes, and outside of her lingering disgruntlement she feels unusually well rested. She should take advantage and prepare herself.
Finally free, Weiss stands up and tries to remember which direction she should fumble in to find the light switch. Then she thinks better of it. Weiss has never shared a room with anybody before, but she imagines there’s unspoken etiquettes involved. Like not stomping around and turning on the lights while everyone else is trying to sleep.
She settles for shuffling her feet around till she knocks into her discarded bag, then pulling her burner scroll from within. She sits down on her bed and starts looking up info on Beacon for lack of any other actionable plan. She can handle sitting quietly for hour or so. It’s a small price to pay to keep from alienating her teammates on their first day together.
Her teammates. What an unusual phrase. Weiss knew from the start that Beacon functions on tightly knit four person teams. Theoretically, she also knew that going to Beacon meant that she herself would be on one of those teams. She just failed to really internalize it until initiation day. It still hasn’t quite set in. Weiss has a team now. Weiss has a partner.
Weiss thinks she can work with Ruby. It’s less than ideal, obviously. But Weiss has managed to loosely tolerate a difficult fifteen-year-old before. And unlike Whitley, at least Ruby doesn’t seem to be doing it intentionally. But as for being led by Ruby? Taking orders from her? Accepting her judgment without question? Well, that’s the only part of this that Weiss has a concrete opinion on: No.
Setting aside the whole leader problem, Weiss likes her teammates. She only met them yesterday, and it might just be loneliness and desperation talking but . . . she trusts her instincts. They took down the Nevermore together, didn’t they? They can work together. Maybe they could even be friends. If Weiss is being painfully honest with herself, that’s always been the real goal of coming to Beacon. Now that she’s here though, well . . . she never actually planned this far ahead.
How does one make friends? Does it just happen naturally or is it something she needs to actively pursue? Does she need to ask permission to try and initiate a friendship? Should she make her intentions clear beforehand?
The only training she’s had on getting close to people was for business relationships. According to her tutors, amiable relations start with a small gift to gauge the other party’s openness to further mutual exchange. The same concept should apply on a smaller scale. She just needs to swap high liquidity bonds and insider information for something more personal. What do teenage girls like? Flowers? Chocolate? Military grade dust blends? Maybe all three, like a gift basket. That seems like a good idea.
But what if it’s too much? What if Weiss is being too pushy? What if they’d rather keep things professional and remain as circumstantial acquaintances?
Weiss swallows and her palms start to sweat. She doesn’t think she could ever live it down if they said no. She needs to do this carefully. She needs to do this absolutely perfectly or she’ll be spending the next four years on a team she’s ashamed to show her face too. No pressure. No panic. She just needs to do some research and observation, then come up with an infallible plan to ask for her teammates’ hands in friendship. And a backup plan in case they say no. Like faking her own death and starting a new life on another continent. Maybe Vacuou?
A pinging sound from the forgotten scroll in her hands distracts Weiss from her increasingly contrived fantasies. It’s a message from Winter.
‘It is now 6:30 AM in Vale time. Remember to get up early and be ready for class. You will have to get used to doing it yourself now that you are outside the mansion. The professors at Beacon are not like the tutors at home. They have many more students they are responsible to than just you. Make sure to read the syllabus to prepare for your upcoming classes, but don’t rely on it too heavily since plans often change throughout the semester. How is your condition? You neglected to text me yesterday after initiation like I asked, but the headmaster’s secretary told me that there were no students injured. That’s the extent of my allowed knowledge under Beacon’s policy, so I took the liberty of preparing an emergency contact form if you are comfortable with-’
Weiss flicks her scroll closed. She internally promises to read the rest later. It is far too early to figure out how to respond to . . . whatever all of that was.
Weiss looks up from her scroll with a sigh and comes face to face with a pair of amber eyes gleaming at her in the dark. She jumps in surprise then squawks in pain after thumping her skull on Ruby’s low-hanging bedframe. Blake gives no reaction to her misfortune, which somehow makes it even more humiliating.
Weiss grumbles under her breath while rubbing the top of her head and trying to scrape together a fragment of dignity. She forgot that she fell asleep under a deathtrap last night. Why on Remnant did she agree to this ‘bunkbeds’ thing? Oh right, it was eight pm, Weiss was jetlagged and exhausted, and Ruby and her sister basically did it without asking.
But still! Somebody should have stopped them! Like Blake! Weiss glares across the dimly lit room. The guilty party in question sits cross-legged on her bed, hands in her lap as she observes Weiss silently. To be honest, Weiss kind of forgot about her third teammate. She has even less of an impression of Blake then she does for Ruby and Yang. She hasn’t really interacted with her partner’s sister’s partner.
Weiss scrunches her face. There has to be a better way of saying that. Her partner-by-association? Partner-in-law?
Come to think of it, isn’t this Weiss’s chance to actually talk to her? Surely a conversation with Blake will be easier without the rapid back-and-forth of Ruby and Yang distracting them. And there’s no Grimm or monologuing headmaster to deal with. It’s the perfect opportunity! Or it would be, if she could figure out how to break the lengthy silence she and Blake have fallen into.
Blake’s strangely luminescent eyes bore into her. She hasn’t said a word. Is this some kind of powerplay? Is Weiss- no, she’s wearing her nightgown. Though she does feel oddly exposed wearing only her pajamas in a room with three near-strangers. The sudden burst of self-consciousness frustrates her. She plasters on a scowl and tilts her head a bit to show-
Oh. Weiss isn’t wearing her eye patch.
Her challenging scowl turns genuine. Weiss is proud of her scars, but that doesn't mean she’s going to let some gloomy stranger gawk at her. The other girl’s relentless stare goads her to her feet. Blake’s expression doesn’t shift, even when Weiss marches right up to the other girl’s bed. She looks right through her. As if she’s not worth acknowledging outside of her injury. As if she’s nothing at all.
Fury boils in Weiss’s stomach. This is Beacon. Nobody gets to look down on her here. Nobody gets to hurt her and pretend it doesn’t matter. Weiss won’t allow it.
“Well?” Weiss snarls as she leans in. “Is your curiosity sated?”
Blake doesn’t flinch. Weiss’s nails dig into her palms. She bares her teeth and leans in until their faces are mere inches away. “Or is it truly so fascinating?” Weiss snarls lowly, practically shoving her missing eye in the other girl’s face.
Just as Weiss is about to grab her by the throat and start shaking, Blake finally blinks, then flinches back. Weiss is viciously satisfied to finally see the bored disinterest leaving Blake’s eyes, and then slightly confused when abashed realization replaces it.
“No,” Blake says hoarsely before clearing her throat and repeating, “No. It just… reminded me of something.” Blake’s face twists for a fraction of an instant. “Nothing worth remembering. Didn’t mean to stare. Sorry.”
The apology catches Weiss badly off guard. She freezes a moment before squinting.
Blake is slightly hunched, shoulders half up, hands burying themselves in her blanket. She’s still wearing her pajamas, but Weiss can just make out the outline of the bow atop her head. (Did she forget to take it off before falling asleep?) Blake doesn’t look like she’s lying. She just looks stiff and awkward.
Weiss huffs as the fight slowly drains from her blood. It’d be pretty hypocritical of her to take issue with someone for getting lost in their thoughts. She might have just overreacted. Badly.
“It’s fine,” Weiss finally mutters as she stands up and pretends to find the opposite wall fascinating. “Apology accepted.”
There’s a long moment of silence as they both collect themselves.
“Can I ask when you lost it?”
Weiss’s sheepish regret instantly burns to ash. Maybe Blake really is that rude.
“When? Not how?” she questions snippily.
Blake meets her renewed glare evenly, but with a flicker of steel behind it. “You do pretty well in combat, but when something approaches you from your blind spot you don’t notice till its close. You’re compensating for the loss, but you haven’t fully adjusted to it. So, I assume it happened pretty recently.”
Weiss begrudgingly finds her interest piqued. Unlike her combat tutors, Blake sounds like she actually knows what she’s talking about.
“And how exactly would I adjust to it?” Weiss asks while trying to hide her investment. She’s desperate for any tips she can get her hands on. Nobody gave her a guidebook for how to fight with one eye.
“With your hearing, primarily,” Blake answers easily. “Also, I asked first.”
“It was half a year ago,” Weiss admits, “but I was only cleared for training again two months ago.”
Blake raises an eyebrow, impassive eyes widening a touch. “You were down for four months?”
Weiss rolls her eye, waving a hand dismissively. “I was, but it’s nothing so dramatic.”
She lost nearly twenty-five pounds during her fight with Arma Gigas. Most of her rehabilitation was spent clawing her way back up to a healthy weight and rebuilding muscle mass. Technically, she still hasn’t fully recovered. She can’t quite land a double axel without Aura anymore, but she doesn’t feel like a perpetually exhausted scarecrow either, so Weiss can’t complain much.
“It’s my turn to ask a question,” says Weiss.
“We’re taking turns now?”
“Yes, we are.” Weiss declares with her arms crossed. “You just used another, by the way, so now you owe me two.”
Blake raises an eyebrow but doesn’t object.
“Where did you learn to fight?” Weiss asks.
“Huh?”
“You’re a cut above all the other applicants. Your fighting style is very refined, and you seem to have experience in tactics. You’ve obviously got more training than a couple years in combat school. Where’d you learn?”
There’s a lull as Blake’s face twists into something unreadable. Weiss doesn’t rush her. She’s had a lot of practice with waiting for people to speak. Whatever Blake can dish out is nothing compared to a half hour of silence in father’s office.
After a protracted moment, Blake huffs a breath through her nose.
“You’re that Weiss Schnee, right? Heiress to the SDC? The one nobody’s seen in a decade?”
“I am,” Weiss answers, feeling a little confused. Did she miss a step in the conversation somewhere?
“I thought so,” Blake admits. “But you’re not really what I expected.”
Weiss frowns, her original question momentarily forgotten. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t seem to care about the fact that I’m a faunus.”
“You’re a what?” blurts Weiss.
Theres a moment of mutually baffled silence.
Weiss looks at Blake like she just confessed to being three highly trained children in a trench coat. Blake examines Weiss like she’s some bizarre foreign instrument whose sound is very much divorced from its appearance. Her seemingly ever-present bow twitches with her changing expression.
“Wait,” Weiss says as she squints in the dim lighting. “That is a bow right?”
Blake’s confused expression amplifies. “Bow?”
Weiss feels a pulse of slowly building dread. She summons a small propulsion glyph to flip the light switch on the wall. She blinks a few times in the suddenly lit room, then turns to study her elusive teammate in depth for the first time. She doesn’t get far before something stops her.
“. . . you didn’t have those out the whole time, did you?”
Blake gapes at her. “You—” she sputters, fluttering through a dozen different expressions before settling on wide-eyed incredulity. “You didn’t notice?”
Weiss can’t speak, flabbergasted by the blindingly obvious cat ears atop her teammate’s head. They fold back in agitation as Blake’s wide eyes somehow go even wider.
“How did you not notice?!”
Weiss feels a slowly dawning flush of mortification. Okay, she can still come out of this without looking like an oblivious idiot. She just needs to frame it as a poor attempt at a joke or something. It’ll all be fine. She just needs to not freak out. She just needs—
“I only glanced at it once or twice!” Weiss points and screeches, her voice reaching an impressive octave even by her standards. “I thought it was a bow!”
“We spent nearly six hours together in the Emerald Forest! We sat right next to each other at the team naming ceremony! How did you not notice?!”
“We were busy! And Ruby and Yang hogged my attention! I’ve only got one eye now! I need to be economical with my field of view!”
Blake’s expression shows exactly what she thinks of the heiress’s flustered defense.
“It’s not my fault you don’t draw much attention!” Weiss shrieks, desperately passing the buck. “Surely this sort of thing happens to you all the time!”
“Are you serious!?”
“For Brothers’ sake, will you two shut up already!?”
Weiss and Blake both jump. Weiss’s eye flits to the bed above Blake’s and finds the disheveled blond boxer glaring down at her with furious red eyes. Ruby echoes the sentiment with a miserable whine from her own bed. She has clamped her pillow over her head to escape the light and noise.
Weiss wants to sink into the earth and disappear. The ‘faking her own death’ plan is looking more appealing by the minute.
“I- I’m going to take a shower!” she announces loudly then bolts for the bathroom before anyone else can yell at her. The door slams shut behind her. She locks it, abandoning Blake to their teammates’ dissatisfaction.
Weiss stands with her back pressed against the door for a moment. She turns on the bathroom fan then starts the shower to cover any noise. Finally, she pulls a towel off the rack, buries her face in it, and has a very minor meltdown out of sheer overwhelming embarrassment.
Weiss’s first day at Beacon is off to an absolutely nightmarish start.