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“Ironwood’s declaring martial law and abandoning Mantle! Salem is coming, and he’s going to use the staff to move Atlas! If we don’t stop him, Mantle’s going to be des-”
~
Clover grew up in dreary Mantle, tucked between cramped buildings that arched over narrow alleys. He doesn’t try to remember his childhood much, not anymore, but stories like his were a dime a dozen back when he was young: orphans, littering the streets and barely scraping by. The less fortunate ones still had memories of being loved by their parents, before whatever mining accident ripped their lives apart. Those kids never lasted long, too torn up by what was to focus on what could be, and Mantle isn’t kind to those with regret.
Clover had always been lucky.
~
“I’m sure the General understands the enormity of the sit-”
~
He met James Ironwood on a cold, clear morning.
Back on Mantle, Atlas had been a shining beacon of hope, an escape. Being accepted into the Academy was the brightest day of his life, and he would never forget that view from above the clouds when the airship first broke through, a glowing, glittering paradise that he could finally call home.
“I didn’t expect anyone to be up this early.” Ironwood’s voice startled him out of his reverie, and he almost pitched forward off where he was sitting along the roof, a high enough drop that even he wouldn’t be lucky enough to survive. “Especially not up here.”
They spoke of Atlas’s headmaster down in Mantle. Nothing good, of course, but the man standing before him didn’t look like a bloodthirsty monster or warmongering general. He just looked like a man. A little worn around the edges, perhaps, but still just a man.
“Is it not allowed?” Clover asked.
The corner of Ironwood’s mouth quirked up. “Not technically, but since orientation isn’t until later today, I could be convinced to let it slide.” He strode forward until he was next to Clover, but he didn’t sit, back ramrod straight like most of the personnel Clover had seen on campus. “First time in Atlas?”
“How could you tell?”
Ironwood chuckled. “The students from Mantle or the other kingdoms always have that look in their eyes on their first day. Seeing Atlas for the first time, it’s breathtaking, don’t you think?”
This far up, Clover could see the horizon beyond the clouds, a strip of light pink along the distant mountains. “Beautiful,” he murmured.
“I suppose as headmaster, I have to ask,” Ironwood said, “why did you decide to become a Huntsmen?”
Clover hesitated. The true answer, that he wanted to be anywhere other than where he was holding any cards but the ones life had dealt him, likely wouldn’t go over too well. “I want to help people,” he said somewhat lamely. “I want to do the right thing.”
His words rung hollow even to his own ears, but Ironwood chuckled again, sadder this time. “That’s not always easy.”
Clover knew. Most things weren’t. “But shouldn’t we try our best?”
When he was smaller and more hopeful than smart, one of the families that took him in had smiled at him and promised him a better life. He saw them now in Ironwood’s eyes, a tar-like sadness that flooded the lines of his face.
“Of course,” Ironwood promised, emptily. “Always.”
~
“Why couldn’t you just do the right thing instead of the thing you were told?”
~
Clover graduated from Atlas top of his class. He delivered the valedictorian speech with his hair slicked back, feeling bright and shiny in his new uniform.
Ironwood had hired him as a special operative-in-training, which unfortunately meant that he had to separate from the rest of his team who would be heading down to Mantle. Clover didn’t mind it too much. His fellow operatives were kind enough, and the training took up just enough time that he never really felt lonely. He worked hard and kept his head clear, and six months later, he found himself hand-selected for his first official mission.
It was a well-known misfortune that the dust mines around Mantle were becoming increasingly unstable, but only recently did they started receiving reports of Grimm infestations - easy enough for rookies like him and Elm to safely accompany the professionals but dangerous nonetheless for the poor miners that worked there.
Ironwood himself had come on this particular mission. The more advanced operatives said that he claimed it was to make sure they weren’t lying down on the job, but they always suspected there was more to Ironwood than he was willing to let on. It had something to do with the way he carried himself, like the weight of something greater than a kingdom was on his shoulders.
“Do you think Ironwood is hiding something from us?” Clover asked Elm on the airship. They had been crammed in on the ship with the bulk of the operatives’ supplies while both the General and his elite team were flying in separately.
She shrugged, more preoccupied with her one-handed push-ups than anything else. “Probably. We’re just rookies, after all. He doesn’t have to tell us anything.”
Clover frowned. “I suppose.”
The Grimm in the mine were laughably easy to defeat, shredding like paper under the razor-sharp edge of Kingfisher’s line. And he thought that would be all there was to it, before the ground gave way in front of him with a deafening roar. He jumped back in the nick of time but not before he caught a glimpse of a bright yellow hard hat in the tunnels below, cracked in two places and covered with what looked like fresh blood.
“What-”
In the sudden quiet that followed the collapse, he realized that the canary each operative was ordered to carry had stopped singing. A hand clamped down on his shoulders.
“We have to go,” Ironwood said.
Clover glanced back at the crumbling hole. “I think there are people still down there.”
Dust mines were always lit harshly, but Ironwood’s face seemed particularly pale in that instant, drawn and white.
“General?”
“We can’t save everyone, Clover.”
Living in Mantle was like living underwater. He couldn’t forget what it was like, digging through thrice-looted dumpsters and charity boxes looking for anything that could keep him going. Living in Mantle was like sitting in an airtight box, taking small breaths and waiting for the day you choked on them. There were a thousand ways to die, but being crushed underground, frightened and lost, wasn’t a fate he could leave someone to.
“I have to try,” Clover said, and before Ironwood could stop him, he shoved himself free and leaped through the hole.
~
“Sometimes the right decision is the hardest to make. I trust James with my life.”
~
He didn’t find the miners, but he had found out why the canaries stopped singing. The tunnels had opened up to some sort of wide clearing, and a Grimm unlike any he had seen before was resting on its side, thankfully facing away from him.
It looked like some sort of large mole, ten meters long and half as wide. The same dark and white coloring as any Grimm decorated its body, but there was something terribly wrong with the way it was breathing - harsh and labored and painful. Every exhale released a cloud of dust, and the air crackled with barely contained energy.
Clover took a belated step back. There wasn’t just dust inside its body. Somehow, the dust in the mines seemed to have become part of its body, and it wasn’t meshing well at all with whatever black smoky material the Grimm were made of.
“Ebi!”
Clover turned - not fast enough - and from the corner of his eye, he saw a spark, like sunrise. He dropped to the ground and covered his head.
The explosion lit up the entire mine. Clover was lucky.
Ironwood wasn’t.
~
“And I wanted to trust you.”
~
Qrow fitted into Atlas like a bird in a foxes’ den. In those first few days, he seemed more tightly wound than the General, which was in and of itself an achievement. Harriet said that Clover had a bad habit of taking in strays - look at Marrow, after all - but there was something about Qrow that Clover couldn’t explain. He was handsome, of course, with oddly delicate features that first seemed at odds with his deep, raspy voice and extremely deadly scythe. Clover couldn’t help but flirt a little during their first mission together, dropping a wink and a salute in a signature move that had yet to fail him.
It wasn’t until later that he realized there was something dark and desperately sad about the other man, a hopelessness that he couldn’t help but recognize. Yet at the same time, Qrow had a brightness to him that could be blinding, a kindness that seemed so intrinsic to his nature that no brooding exterior could completely cover it.
It was after one particularly long day that Clover felt his feelings shift. He was dragging himself down the hallway to his room, dreaming of a springy mattress and fluffy pillows, when he stumbled upon Qrow in his nieces’ dorm, tucking in Ruby’s covers around her.
The door was open, and Clover heard him say, “You’re getting too old for me to keep doing this, kiddo.”
“Just let me have this,” Ruby whisper-whined. “You did it for Yang earlier.”
Qrow laughed. It was a soft sound, so fond and gentle, coming from somewhere deep in his chest. “I suppose I did. Tai’s going to get on my case for spoiling you girls.”
“I think Dad’ll be more concerned about us facing a supervillain.”
“Oh yeah, that’ll raise his blood pressure for sure. I can’t wait to call him when the Tower’s back up.”
“Ten lien says I can make Dad’s face turn redder than your cape in sixty seconds or less!” That was Yang, who was much less adept at whispering than her sister and uncle.
There was a rustle of covers, and a decidedly unhappy voice said, “If you keep talking, I’ll show you what I can do to you in sixty seconds or less.”
“Why, Blake, at least buy me dinner first.” Clover could almost hear the eyebrow waggle in her voice.
Qrow groaned. “I swear, you’re worse than your father.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Under the moonlight filtering through the window, Qrow looked softer than the morning clouds. There was something tight wrapping itself around Clover’s chest like a hot metal band, and he quickly ducked his head, returning to his walk with deliberate effort.
“Clover?”
Qrow was shutting the door behind him, and the full weight of his attention suddenly made the air too heavy to breathe.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
The cape he always wore billowed around his hips as he walked. Clover prided himself on his cool head, but he had to yank his eyes back up before some very non-professional thoughts could cross his mind.
“Just heading to bed,” he said.
“Me too.”
For a wild, crazy moment, Clover almost invited Qrow to join him, but he tamped down on the urge as quickly as it arose. This relationship between them, it was still too fragile and new, and too precious for him to dare risk it now. The silence stretched.
“Well, uh-” Qrow rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, glancing off to the side. “See you tomorrow then?”
Clover grinned, trying not to look too relieved that Qrow spoke first. “Bright and early.”
~
“Agh!”
~
Clover worried.
“I don’t think he even realizes I’m flirting with him,” he grumbled into the table during lunch one day. He was lucky there weren’t many others in the canteen - they had yet another mission that morning that ran into the early afternoon. His posture right now was surely appalling.
“That sucks, man,” Elm said, shoveling noodles into her mouth and being entirely unhelpful.
“I don’t know how I can make it more obvious.” The other day during training, Clover managed to tangle Qrow up in Kingfisher, a situation that seemed ripe for at least a little bit of sexual tension. Sadly enough, his hopes were for naught. Clover was halfway into a line when Qrow stared straight at him, and what was meant to be a smoothly delivered innuendo turned into a badly thought out pun. “Maybe he hates me.”
“Ugh,” Marrow groaned, like he would rather be anywhere but here. “I’ve seen him look at you when he thinks you’re not looking. He doesn’t hate you.”
“You’re being too subtle.” Harriet stabbed a carrot with more force than technically necessary. “You’ve got to beat the bush down straight on.”
“I don’t think that’s the saying,” Vine murmured into his tea. He was promptly ignored.
“Flirting is just stalling,” she continued. “It’s the coward’s way out. Tell him you want to bang him.”
“Absolutely do not say that to him,” Marrow hissed. “I swear to the gods, Clover-”
“Maybe it’d help if you stopped making luck puns.”
“I don’t make that many luck puns,” Clover protested. Besides, he was pretty sure Qrow liked his luck puns, if nothing else.
“Well, have you ever had a conversation with him without making one?”
Clover wracked his memory. Ever since they started training together, he and Qrow had been talking more, even outside of missions. Surely, he could think of just one instance, any instance-
Elm snorted. “Wow.”
Clover buried his head in his arms. “You’re all fired.”
~
“Yeesh, doesn’t look like your boyfriend’s going to make it.”
~
“We’ll figure it out,” Clover said. He cast a glance at Qrow.
The last time they were in a transport together, their close proximity was buffered by the nearby presence of Qrow’s niece and Penny. This time, the cargo hold was enclosed on all sides, the drivers separated from them by two inches of solid steel.
Qrow’s bunched on the ground by a stack of boxes, his cape spread out around him. Clover slides onto the ground next to him, so close that their shoulders could touch.
“Cards?” he offered.
Qrow smiled, ever so slightly, but shook his head. “Not tonight.”
“Tired of me kicking your ass?”
Qrow snorted. “Maybe I should stop agreeing to play games that are based on luck.”
“Sounds like someone’s a sore loser.”
A light punch landed on his shoulder, and he clutched it dramatically. “Qrow, how could you,” he gasped. “I’ve been grievously wounded.”
“Shut up,” Qrow said, but he was smiling now, for real this time. “I don’t know why I agreed to partner with you.”
“My absolute charm and good looks?”
“A temporary lapse in judgment.”
Qrow was fiddling with the edges of his cape, bunching the fabric between his fingers and moving it back and forth against his skin. It must be a nervous tic of his, Clover thought, feeling suddenly and terribly fond.
“Lucky me,” he whispered.
Qrow glanced at him before quickly looking away. One hand freed itself from his cape to rub at his neck - something Clover now knew he did when embarrassed. Clover couldn’t help but puff up a little, seeing the gesture. It was always good to know that he hadn’t lost his touch.
“How are you feeling, Qrow?”
“What do you mean?”
“Hey, I notice when my partners are worried. You’ve seemed off since we were in James’s office.”
Qrow hummed, staring down into his lap. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I hope.”
Clover waited, and after a while, Qrow sighed, pulling one leg up to his chest. “I’ve known James for a long time,” he said. “Ozpin told us a lot of stuff we thought we couldn’t tell anyone else. It was nice to have at least one person there who was just as confused as you were.”
“You’re not alone anymore.” Clover’s fingers twitched, and he wondered if it’d be too soon to try and take Qrow’s hand. “You can talk to me.”
The expression on Qrow’s face was soft, and he bumped his shoulder into Clover’s. A light flutter brushed its way through Clover’s ribs.
“I know,” Qrow said. “And I trust that James thinks he’s doing what he has to, what he thinks is best. I just- I don’t know if that’s necessarily what’s best for Mantle.”
The dust-infused Grimm. A spark, like sunrise. Blood on the hat of a miner they never found-
Clover shook his head. “He’s making hard choices.”
Qrow looked at Clover, and his gaze was piercing. “I hope you’re right.”
~
“I’ll kill you!”
“Oh, you mean like you just killed Clover?”
~
“You look nice.”
Qrow was wearing the same combat clothes as always, and he raised his eyebrow at Clover’s comment. “I ironed.”
“And look what a difference it made.”
Red eyes rolled in his direction. “You don’t get to say anything. You’re wearing your uniform.”
“Well, I have the unfortunate pleasure of being invited to Jacques Schnee’s dining table.” Clover sighed, allowing himself a touch of melodrama, and collapsed into the nearest chair. “Pity me.”
Qrow shoved him with his foot. “You’re getting your germs all over my furniture.”
“I thought you liked my germs.” Of course, they hadn’t gotten that far yet, but Clover made sure his wink was as exaggerated as possible to get his point across.
“You’re a terrible influence,” Qrow said. “I heard Ruby make a pun yesterday.”
“I thought that came from your brother-in-law’s side of the family.”
“I told her that I had to meet you after dinner, so I couldn’t watch a feel-good movie with them.” Qrow crossed his arms, obviously trying very hard to look disappointed or unamused but not quite reaching either. “Then Ruby yelled, ‘Uncle Qrow’s getting lucky,’ Yang hooted, and the two of them high-fived. So yes, I can safely say that was on you.”
Clover smiled, purposefully ignoring how warm his chest felt. “Girls after my own heart,” he said.
“Well, I didn’t ‘get lucky,’ we talked about politics all evening, and James almost punched me in the face.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Clover chuckled. “Besides, you were antagonizing him just a bit.”
Qrow huffed. “If he couldn’t handle me, then he definitely can’t handle Jacques Schnee. Good to know that we’re doomed.”
Qrow’s cape was draped over his bed. Without the thing over his shoulders, he looked smaller than usual - incomplete - and Clover was struck with the urge to wrap him in his arms. He glanced down into his lap and took a slow breath. After the dinner. After the dinner, and then he’d confess.
“I thought I should let you know,” he said lowly. “They’re serving alcohol tonight. I know you don’t drink anymore, but I didn’t want you to get caught off guard.”
Qrow’s eyes widened. “Well, I did expect- But thank you for- I appreciate-” He coughed lightly into his hand, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “You’re really something, Clover Ebi.”
Clover laughed. “And you're stealing all my best lines.”
~
“Someone had to take the fall.”
“James is going to take the fall. I’ll make sure of it”
~
There’s something warm in his chest again.
His fingers feel cold where they’re clenched together, pressing against that familiar feeling, foreign but not. He thinks he can hear Qrow shouting. He hopes it’s not at him. Gods, he doesn’t want to fight anymore. He just wants things to go back to how they were. He wants everything to have been an elaborate training scenario with Qrow, and they’re both still safely back on Atlas. He wants to have lunch with him in the canteen, wants to bring him breakfast to their morning meetings because Qrow never wakes up in time. He wants-
Clover coughs. There’s a cloying thickness on his tongue. Someone’s collapsing onto the ground next to him. Qrow’s hands hover over his chest before dropping uselessly to his sides. He hears Qrow speak.
There’s a sunrise blooming behind Qrow’s back. It lights up the sky with pinks and purples, flooding over him in warm, soft colors.
Clover’s in the airship again, breaking through the clouds. He’s gazing at Atlas from atop the first home he ever knew. He’s in the mines, shielding his eyes from a spark brighter than the sun.
He’s tired. He doesn’t even remember when it started. He feels like he’s been running on fumes for the past ten years, like he lost his capacity for hope somewhere between graduation and James’s accident. But he looks at Qrow and the horizon, and he thinks this isn’t such a bad way to go. He never wanted to die in the dark, lost and unwanted in the underbelly of Mantle.
The sunrise, it was breathtaking.
His cold fingers find Qrow’s, and he fights hard to give one last squeeze. There’s a smile somewhere on his lips, he thinks. His vision is blackening around the edges, until Qrow’s face is all he sees, framed by a halo of gentle, morning light.
Beautiful.
As far as last moments go, this might just be one of the loveliest.
Clover had always been lucky.
~
"Good luck."