Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As bad of the streets of Mantle had looked before, they’d turned into something out of a nightmare. A relatively tame nightmare admittedly, at least by Ruby’s standards, but the blood red illumination now cast by the lamps gave the city a macabre quality. The background sound of the sirens and screams of people fleeing inside around them. 

“I guess the city defenses aren’t doing much,” Oscar said from behind her, but Ruby ignored him. The sound of gunfire had erupted from down the block. It seemed someone other than them were helping defend Mantle.

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Nora chimed in.

An Atlesian Knight flew out from around the corner, slamming into a lightpost. It sparked, and did not get up. It was quickly followed by a second, then three more, though at least these three seemed intact and fighting. As soon as that thought entered Ruby’s head, some sort of cat Grimm, she thought she recognized it as a Sabyr, leapt after the robots, demolishing one of them.

This was the defense Mantle got? Five mindless bots that clearly couldn’t even stop Grimm for entering the city? Ruby grimaced. One problem at a time. 

She turned back to her team, “Well, we didn’t come this far to fail now!” She drew Crescent Rose, and took aim as more than a dozen Sabyrs rushed around the corner, eliminated the remaining Atlesian Knights, and turned their sights on her team.

Yang moved first, launching herself past Ruby, followed closely by Ren and Nora, then Jaune and Qrow. Ruby held her fire, making sure none of the Grimm slipped past her friends’ defenses.

Oscar managed to take out a Sabyr by himself, quite stylishly too, but left his back open to a leaping Sabyr. She switched Crescent Rose to sniper mode, sighted, and took the shot. The Grimm evaporated just before it touched Oscar, who had ducked at the last second seeing her aiming at him. Ruby gave him a smile and a nod. He might still be learning, but he’d definitely improved. But now it was her turn.

Ruby spun Crescent Rose back into scythe mode, and she moved . With a quick slice to eliminate the nearest Sabyr, Ruby fired backward, launching herself into her semblance, killing two in quick succession before emerging in a burst of rose petals. Embedding the tip of her scythe to keep her momentum, she spun it behind her back and into the air, killing a Grimm, and leaping up off another before catching her weapon and spinning with it to land directly between two more Sabyrs, sending them flying. Now in an  open position with no fear of hitting any of her team, Ruby went to work.

She didn’t have long, however. Before they had dealt with the last Grimm, beams of green energy burst from the sky, slicing apart the remaining Sabyrs in rapid succession. Ruby felt her grip tighten on Crescent Rose involuntarily, and she tried to swallow back a wave of emotions. She recognized those, or at least they were very similar. The color, the sound.

Ruby took a steadying breath. It made sense, she supposed, in a strictly logical way. Beyond the person she had been, the technology Penny had used had been... Impressive, to say the least. Ruby shuddered, and glanced up to see what sort of defense system Atlas had belatedly sent to defend Mantle. And frowned.

At first glance, it looked like a girl, flying through the air with what looked like rocket boots. This might have been part of the reason it took Ruby a moment to understand exactly who was flying gracefully before them, as her brain immediately latched onto the logistics of exactly how those boots worked. That would require an incredible amount of skill to make work properly, not even considering what it would take to fly properly, especially the way the figure was. She almost looked like she was dancing in the air, highlighted against the moon.

As the figure began descending was around the time other details began to filter in, like the fact that she had long, flowing, orange-red hair, or the fact that she was in a dress of varying greens and whites, or that her cheeks were lightly covered with freckles, or that her eyes were a glowing emerald green, that her eyes were quite literally glowing.

Had her eyes always glowed? She was fairly sure they had. Ruby’s memory had become a little hazy, she belatedly realized. She had always privately thought that there was some good that had come out of not having a video of Penny, she’d seen what that did to Jaune. Not that she’d ever compared the two of them with Jaune and Pyrrha, that brought on a lot of complicated emotions and-

All of these thoughts had come to Ruby in about the span of 15 seconds, ending only when her brain caught up with itself, and she finally fully registered who it was standing in front of her. 

“Penny?”

From beside her, and from seemingly a great distance, she heard Pietro say, “Darling, why don’t you say hello to your friends?”

The person she was pretty sure was Penny turned towards them, and her face lit up with excitement. That was when Ruby knew for sure, and she could feel a smile spread across her face. It was her, really her! She sheathed Crescent Rose, but couldn’t bring herself to do anything more than that. Shock had her frozen solid.

“Sal...” Penny said slowly, leaning forward. Ruby made a confused noise. Was she alright? What was sal? Were her memories intact?
“U...” Penny leaned forward, like a runner waiting for the start signal of a race. Oh. Right. Wait.

“Tations!” Penny rushed forward, propelled to high speeds by her rocket boots. Reacting purely on remembered instinct Ruby stumbled backwards waving her arms in front of her and making a variety of alarmed noises to try and ward off the inevitable impact of the very metal girl rocketing towards her, to no avail.

Penny slammed into Ruby at the speed of a very excited freight train, knocking them both off their feet into what would have been a very warmly received hug if Ruby’s head hadn’t quite firmly slammed into the concrete road. 

Penny, naturally, leapt up immediately, chipper and radiating delight, “It is such a pleasure to see you all again!”
Ruby, groaning internally, and externally if she was honest, held one hand to her head as the reality caught up to her. “Penny, I- I thought you-”

“Died?” Pietro walked forward, moving next to his daughter, “I guess in a manner of speaking she did. But we were able to recover her core from Amity Arena once it had made its way back to Atlas. It took me some time, but-”

“I’m as good as new! Better even. And now I’m the official protector of the city!” Penny gave a salute that Ruby probably would have thought was adorable in any other circumstance. As it was, she was frozen in shock. On one hand she was desperately happy to see Penny again, but there were other things, things that might have been beneath the surface for quite some time-

Ruby realized that she had lost track of the conversation as, to her at least, Penny was very suddenly right in front of her. Like, right in front of her, grabbing her by the shoulders, “We have so many things to catch up about! I cannot wait.” As she said that, Ruby heard sirens begin to blare somewhere distant in the city, but she didn’t turn to look, held captive by Penny’s eyes. That were right. There.  “It seems we will have to wait.”

Penny stepped back, and gave another salute as she rocketed upwards, “Let’s talk more later, I can’t wait to hear about all your adventures and tell you how I have been, I’m very excited for the whole experience!” Ruby was frozen for so long, she barely had a chance to watch Penny rocket into the distance.

It wasn’t until later that evening, after being arrested, seeing Penny again, freed, deceiving the General, seemingly joining the military, and being led to their dorms, also by Penny, that Ruby had even a few moments to try and process exactly what had happened. But by that time, she was already asleep.

Chapter Text

Ruby gave a sigh of frustration into her pillow. The top bunk certainly had its advantages, but it did not allow her to properly flop from a standing position. She’d even tried to do it using her semblance, but it just didn’t feel the same.

They just didn’t understand, she was fine! She’d much rather be able to focus on a mission than be laying around useless in their dorm room. They shouldn’t get to team up on her, that just wasn’t fair. Ruby turned over, kicking her legs up and pressing her feet against the ceiling, studying the place between them as if it was the cause of all of her troubles.

“Ruby? Are you alright?”
Ruby shrieked, jumping hard enough that her head hit the top of the bunk, contouring her legs in a very painful position to keep herself from rolling off the bed. She needn't have bothered, as two steading hands grabbed her shoulder, keeping her in place.

“Penny!” Ruby gasped, “For someone who is made of metal you can be really sneaky.” She slowly relaxed her legs, leaning into her friend for support.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” Ruby glanced at her, and felt a rush of heat as she suddenly realized that Penny was very close, looking almost shy, “I tried to get your attention from the door, but when you didn’t respond I feared you were unconscious.”

Ruby coughed, and shifted so she was sitting with her legs hanging off the bed, “Oh, sorry about that. I was just moping, don’t worry about it. What’re you doing here?”

Penny looked down, holding her hands together in front of her, picking at her dress, “The general told me you’d been hurt, I wanted to check on you.” Penny glanced at her nervously, “That’s something friends do, right?”
Ruby tried to suppress a smile, “Yes, it is, but I’m fine, the whole thing honestly got blown way out of proportion.” She flexed an arm at Penny, trying to provoke a laugh, “See, I’m just as tough as ever!” Ruby pointedly ignored a twinge of pain in her side at that.

Penny looked distinctly unamused, crossing her arms, “Didn’t a megoliath charge you?”

Ruby winced. She’d really hoped Ironwood would’ve omitted the details, “It was fine, my aura took the hit.” She waved a hand dismissively, then scowled as her side let out a protest at the sudden movement, “Or most of it, anyway. Jaune patched me up.”
Penny frowned, and her eyes lit up momentarily, “You seem to have cracked two ribs, and have serious bruising across your right side that your aura has not yet healed.”

“Did you just scan me? That is so cool, how does it-”
“You should not be sitting up.” Penny said firmly, “Ideally, you should be sleeping to allow your body time to heal.”

“Ugh but sleeping is boring,” Ruby whined, falling back onto her pillow, “I should be out there, killing Grimm, keeping people safe, getting Amity ready to launch! There’s too much to do for me to be sidelined.” She gestured emphatically with all four limbs throughout, only stopping when her hand banged into the wall behind her.

“I believe the rest of team RWBY can take care of themselves for one evening.” Penny said, tilting her head slightly, “Besides, most people’s missions are already over, aren’t they?”
“Then I should be training, or- Or...” Ruby tried to find something else that she knew she had to be missing, but came up empty, “Or anything besides sitting here being useless!” She stared daggers at the ceiling again
“I don’t think you’re useless.” Penny said quietly, “Besides, being useful can be very lonely.”

Ruby turned to look at her, and was startled by how suddenly very small Penny looked. “What do you mean?”

Penny hesitated, “I do not mean to sound ungrateful, everyone in Atlas has been very kind to me. But I sometimes feel like I am...” She broke off, and shook her head, “I’m sorry Ruby, it’s not important right now.” Penny looked away, and gave a light hiccup.

Ruby scooted over in bed, and patted next to her, “How about we just keep each other company? We haven’t really had a chance to catch up yet anyway.”

Penny gave her a small smile, “I would like that very much.” With only a few worrying creaks from the bed, Penny climbed into the bunk, and lay next to Ruby, their shoulders pressed together, both staring at the ceiling.

Sometime in between offering and Penny actually laying down, Ruby realized what the end result would be and felt her cheeks turn bright red. She hoped Penny wouldn’t notice.

“Are you sure this is alright Ruby? Your heart rate seems to have increased dramatically, would you like more space?” Penny asked, very matter of factly.

“No!” Ruby squeaked, both cursing Penny’s increased senses and thanking her difficulty to read people’s emotions, “This is totally fine, stay as close as you’d like.”

“Okay,” Penny said, and rolled over so the side of her head rested on Ruby’s shoulder. Ruby could’ve sworn her heart left her body, and was quite sure that her face was as red as her cloak. If Penny noticed this time, she stayed quiet.

“I’m sorry you’ve been so lonely here, Penny,” Ruby murmurred, “If they only care about you cause they think you’re useful, they’re stupid.” She felt Penny’s hands grip her arm tightly.

“You’ve never made me feel like that.” Penny whispered, “You’ve always treated me like everyone else. I have never been able to understand why.”

Ruby shrugged, “I dunno. You’re just you, Penny. I don’t really have any deeper thoughts you don’t already know yourself.” She felt Penny bury herself deeper in her shoulder at that.

They laid like that in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Ruby felt herself dozing, but forced herself to stay awake. She didn’t want to leave Penny on her own. Eventually though, Ruby’s arm started to fall asleep. She tried to subtly shift herself so as not to disturb Penny.

“Is something wrong?” Penny opened her eyes, gazing steadily at Ruby’s face.

“It’s fine, no big deal!” Ruby said. Penny kept watching her. Ruby sighed, “Fine, my arm has kind of fallen asleep.”
Penny instantly shifted, most of her weight coming off Ruby’s shoulder, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Ruby shook her head, moving her arm around Penny and pulling her back.

“It’s okay! I just needed to move it a bit.” Penny settled back down, and Ruby’s arm was now tucked around her, holding her close. How did things like this keep happening?

“I have heard that before, that a limb will fall asleep. How does that feel?” 

Ruby thought for a few seconds, trying to put it into words, “I guess, kind of a mix between numb and like it’s covered in static? I’m not really sure.”
Penny thought about this for a moment, then lifted an arm and rested it on Ruby’s stomach. Ruby’s breath stopped for a second, and then Penny pushed her sleeve up, and a small slot opened on her wrist. Penny used her other hand to carefully disconnect wires that were inside, reconnecting them elsewhere, even using a small screen embedded within the tangle.

“That’s so cool!” Ruby breathed, watching fascinatedly.
“When my father rebuilt me, he also taught me as much as he could about how my body works,” Penny said, never stopping her quick manipulations, “He wanted me to be able to learn and safely experiment, to truly make this body my own. So while a lot of my upgrades were designed by him, or from the general, I’ve done a few myself, so maybe-” She cut off with a jerk, and Ruby instinctively held her tighter.

“Penny, are you-” She stopped as Penny began giggling quietly.

“That is a very peculiar feeling!” Penny lifted her arm and shook it gently, “I don’t know if it is exactly what you would feel, but I tried to create something similar. It is very strange!” Ruby laughed, watching the excitement and pleasure on Penny’s face at the new sensation with a deep sense of satisfaction. Penny began fiddling with her arm again, humming quietly, “I will have to ask my father to help me come up with a more permanent solution.”
“I’m not sure that’s a feeling I’d want to be able to feel.” Ruby said, still laughing.

“I want to feel everything!” Penny said excitedly, laying back with her head on Ruby’s arm, stretching her arms out, in front of Ruby’s face, “My father installed quite a bit, and even more after my last upgrade, but even he will admit that he didn’t think of everything.”

Ruby chuckled, and looked away, “If you say so.” She laid still for a moment, lost in thought, then realized Penny was watching her curiously, “What?”

“You are normally very excited about my upgrades. Is something wrong?”

“No, I-” Ruby sighed, and glanced down, smoothing out her skirt, “I just- I wish sometimes I could turn off all my feelings. Being numb sometimes. It’s better, I guess.” 

“Why is that?”

Ruby swallowed, looking over at her. The image of Penny, torn to pieces, eyes empty, suddenly flashed into her head, and Ruby had to choke back a sob, and looked away. Finally, very quietly, she said, “Because sometimes I’m not strong enough with them.”

Penny pulled her closer, very gently stroking her hair, “Then maybe you should not have to be.” She murmured. Ruby’s shoulders started shaking involuntarily, and she buried her head in Penny’s hair to hide her tears.

Chapter Text

Before all of this, Ruby had found that occasionally her brain would run away from her. It would go off on tangents, finding related memories and information faster than most people could keep up. After the Fall of Beacon, it wasn’t that it stopped, but Ruby found that her brain liked to start grabbing pieces that were distinctly unhelpful for a huntress who had a job to do. So she decided that she had to stop it. She wasn’t always successful, but at least the tide of painful memories slowed. Mostly.

But now, with her team finally back together, and finally with time to rest. They started coming back to her, more and more. At the most inopportune times too. Like now, for example. Ruby had much better things to do than go through a slideshow of her most painful memories. Her brain, now fogged from pain, exhaustion, and the emotional strain of seeing- Of Penny in the ground, bleeding green oil-

Ruby’s thoughts quickly began to spiral and fragment out of control, and she gripped the seat of her chair hard. She fixed her gaze on one specific, arbitrary point, the right tip of Penny’s bow. Nope, bad choice. Tears started filling her eyes as the image of Penny being held aloft by the Hound, a horrid slimy finger against her throat. Bam, the image of the hound, it’s mask ripped open, his single silver eye staring at her with pure rage and hatred. Bam, Blake being held aloft by that awful poison spewing Grimm. Older memories began flooding in, Weiss laying broken and bloody on the Haven Academy floor, Yang staring out her bedroom window with a destroyed soul, Pyrrha with a black feathered arrow buried in her-

“Ruby?”

Before she even knew what was happening,  Ruby was kneeling on the ground by Penny’s bed, one of her hands gripped tightly in both of hers, “I’m here.”

Penny’s eyes were wide, and thankfully their normal shining green, and not the red that Nora, Whitley, and Klein had described to her, “Ruby, I don’t know what’s happening to me. My recent memories, they are... corrupted?” Her voice shook, and Ruby squeezed her hand. “A Grimm had me, I think, but then...” Penny’s eyebrows furrowed, and Ruby felt her start shaking, “I don’t want to go,” she said, almost too quiet for Ruby to catch, “Not again.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Ruby said firmly, “You’re not-” She broke off, almost bursting into tears. “You’re not leaving me again, alright? It’s not allowed.”

Penny frowned, clearly deep in thought, “I am trying to piece everything together, but it is difficult to keep everything straight. Something is-” She broke off, shuddering. Ruby clutched her hand even tighter. “I’m fighting it as hard as I can, but it takes all of my focus, I can’t seem to bring my memories in order. What happened with the Grimm? Is everyone okay?”

Ruby took a deep breath. Okay. She could talk about this without breaking down. Totally. For her. “We’re not sure exactly what it was. Some new kind of Grimm, stronger, faster... Smarter.” Exactly how new it was, well that was probably debatable. But Penny didn’t need to know that part, not right now. “We’re pretty sure it was here for you though. It only went after the people who brought you in, who had the-” Ruby broke off, almost unconsciously rubbing her arms that had been covered in Penny’s blood.

She jumped in surprise as Penny reached out and brushed her face, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized she had shed. “Did it hurt you?” Penny’s face was carefully controlled, but Ruby could see the guilt in her eyes.

“No, everyone’s fine.” Ruby wiped her eyes hurriedly, looking away. “My aura broke, but that was the worst of it outside of-” Ruby gripped Penny’s hand harder, biting her tongue. Insensitive, and besides she was supposed to be helping Penny right now, not the other way around.

“What happened?” Ruby glanced over, and saw fear and worry had overtaken Penny’s controlled expression. “Who-”

“Oh, no, not like that, I’m sorry Penny.” Ruby shook her head, stupid way to phrase it. “It had you, it almost killed you. Just thought that was insensitive, I’m sorry. Whitley and Willow killed it before it could get anyone else.”

Penny tilted her head, looking relieved but confused, “I do not remember Weiss mentioning either of them had combat training. How did they kill it?”

Ruby gave a humorless laugh and looked away, “They don’t, sorry. Or, at least Whitley doesn’t, I think Willow might have a long time ago. Weiss doesn’t really talk about it though. I might have distracted it. And weakened it. At least a little.” Ruby looked carefully at Penny, who still looked confused, and sighed. “I used my eyes, when it had you. It didn’t kill it, but it hurt it bad enough that Willow and Whitley were able to drop a statue on it when it tried to go for you again. Not that we would have let it near you!” She said quickly, “It would have had to go through me first, and-” Ruby broke off again as tremors began to run through her again.

“Didn’t you say your aura broke?” Penny asked gently, “You shouldn’t have risked yourself just for me.”

“I’d do it again.” Ruby said firmly, no longer able to control the emotion in her voice, or the tears running down her cheeks, “I told you, I’m not letting you leave me again. I couldn’t- I won’t let-” Sobs finally threatened to break through her words, so Ruby bit down hard on her fist, shame running through her. She needed to be stronger than this, what was wrong with her? Everyone needed her to be-

She felt Penny pulling on her arm, pulling her close and Ruby couldn’t help it. She buried her face in Penny’s chest, shoulders heaving, unable to keep any of it bottled up anymore. She felt Penny carefully brushing her hands across her shoulders, her hair, settling on holding her hand and rubbing her back.

Ruby stayed there longer than she should have, until her sobs turned to hiccups, and her hands clutching at Penny had relaxed a little. She could still feel herself shaking, but the intensity had passed somewhat. She sat up slowly, looking away, “Sorry, you didn’t need that.”
“I don’t mind, Ruby.” Penny said, still holding one of Ruby’s hands tightly. “I just wish I was able to do more. Penny winced, and Ruby squeezed her hand. “In fact, I think I may have to shut down for awhile. My processing system is struggling to contain whatever is happening, and it may have better luck if my other systems are in a dormant state.”

Ruby gave her a weak smile, “Basically you need a nap?”

Penny brightened, actually grinning in earnest excitement, “Yes! This would seem to fill a very similar need.” She hesitated, glancing down at their entwined hands, “Ruby, could you do something for me?”
“Anything.”

“Would you talk to me about something while I’m... falling asleep?” Penny giggled, then winced, placing her other hand on her chest, looking frustrated. “When you talk to me about things, I find it comforting.”

Ruby could feel herself blushing, and mentally slapped herself. Very much not the time for that, “Sure, of course, what should I talk about?”

Penny thought for a moment, “Could you tell me about how your eyes work? You’ve told me so much about Crescent Rose, but this is the second time you have saved me with them.”

Ruby hesitated, and tried to push down all the associations that came with those thoughts. She was mostly successful. No reason to connect them, just explain for Penny. She could do that. “Sure, but I gotta warn you I don’t really understand them that much myself.”
“Sensational.” Penny smiled, then closed her eyes, “Starting the process now, just a moment.” Her eyes popped open, and she turned to look at Ruby again. “Thank you. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Okay. Well,” Ruby hesitated, not quite sure where to start, “It’s supposed to be triggered by wanting to protect people. Only works on Grimm, sometimes it turns them to stone, but sometimes it just destroys them. I’m not really sure why.” She thought back to Maria’s explanation, the moment where it really clicked in her head of how it worked. “It’s easiest to trigger when the people I want to protect are close to me, people I love, but even then it’s not always reliable.” Ruby laughed, though she felt little humor about it, and she could feel her voice getting faster, even though she tried to stop it, “Actually, the only person who they’ve worked with more than once like that was you. Before that Grimm had you, I just couldn’t do it, I don’t know why. I mean, maybe I do but-” Ruby finally forced her mouth closed, her face bright red. Stupid, stupid, she’d been able to not spit something like that out for months, and now is when her brain decides to malufunction? 

Finally, Ruby glances at Penny, hoping she was already asleep. No such luck. Penny was staring at her, and Ruby could see the metaphorical gears working in her brain. Obviously, her brain didn’t really have gears, it was much more sophisticated than that, probably had all sorts of little wires and circuits, and Ruby really needed her brain to shut up now, because she had been sitting here silent for almost thirty seconds, and even a groggy Penny would notice soon-

“Ruby?” Ruby almost yelped as Penny reached out and touched her cheek. That was the second time that had happened, just tonight, she needed to relax and get used to it and-

“Ruby. I think I’m in love with you.”

The air instantly left Ruby’s lungs and she stared, absolutely dumbstruck. She tried to piece the last few seconds together, trying to make sense of how those words just left Penny Polendina’s mouth, most especially directed at her. She marshelled her entire brain power to formulate her response, this was very important.
‘’Huh?”

Dammit.

“I think I’m in love with you, Ruby.” Penny repeated, looking sleepy, but pleased, “I only just realized, and it is difficult to be certain as this is not something I have felt before, but I think it’s true.” Penny’s eyes closed, but she forced them open again, “I had to tell you, I’m sorry. I wish I had realized sooner, I hope you don’t mind.” Penny’s eyes closed again, and this time she seemingly couldn’t get them open, “I apologize, Ruby. I seem to have chosen to have this nap at a most inopportune time. I look forward to discussing this with you later.”

Ruby stared at Penny, aware that her mouth was wide open but unable to close it. Her brain, rather than running too fast now, had seemingly completely frozen, unable to fully process what exactly had just happened.

Finally, Ruby’s brain started working just enough to sputter out exactly one sentence, “What the fuck?”