Work Text:
Well, Weiss was definitely right about one thing. Being mysterious, withdrawn, and stoic was kind of Blake’s “thing”.
Which wasn’t to say that Ruby minded. Not at all. On the contrary, she greatly appreciated her (crush’s) teammate’s stoicism; it always seemed to hold the team together when the going got rough. With Yang being the hothead she’d always been, Weiss having a tendency to avoid conflict whenever possible, and Ruby admittedly being a tad melodramatic at times, Blake was always a welcome source of calm; a steadying presence, even when she was as angry as the rest of them.
Sure, Blake could be pretty reclusive at times―the incident with her almost skipping the dance in favor of holing herself up in the library jumped to mind―but it wasn’t like she was antisocial. At least, not anymore. When she did loosen up enough to join in on the other students’ fun, she was a joy to have around; all witty humor and snide remarks that never got too mean-spirited. Ruby liked to think that Blake retreating back into solitude was her way of recharging so that she could be extra (cute) cool the next day, so she could never really blame her for it.
And, yes, there was no getting around it: Blake was five times more mysterious than your average spy. Not that Ruby had met a lot of spies, mind you, but Uncle Qrow always said he was something like a spy, and Blake could out-mystery him any day. As much as it irked Weiss, though, Ruby found it more (attractive) endearing than anything. Sure, it was a cliché straight out of a sappy romance novel―the cheerful, optimistic extrovert falling for the quiet, enigmatic introvert―but, hey, for all their faults, Ruby liked sappy romance novels.
But, for all that Ruby appreciated Blake’s unwavering calm in the face of danger, asocial but not antisocial nature, and constant aura of intrigue, it did make her a bit… difficult to read.
Which wasn’t a big deal when they were just teammates and close friends (after all, Blake still excelled at communicating during battle, and she didn’t usually seem too standoffish or unapproachable), but when Ruby was trying to figure out what she did and didn’t like in an attempt to engineer the perfect date to finally take Yang’s advice and ‘just ask her out already’?
…Well. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.
But let no one claim that Ruby Rose was one to back down from a challenge. She’d gotten herself into Beacon two years ahead of schedule! She’d helped sabotage a White Fang operation that had been years in the making! Heck, with her team by her side, she’d destroyed a military-grade war robot piloted by one of the most known criminals of their time! She could certainly use her skills of deduction and logical reasoning to figure out what kind of flowers to buy a pretty girl!
Even if the consequences of failure could potentially be the loss of one of her best friends and the permanent weakening of her entire team’s easy camaraderie.
But she was not thinking about that.
And, besides, Blake may have been incredibly hard to read, not very fond of talking about herself, and usually too invested in the latest book she’d started reading to really engage in any deep conversation, but Ruby knew exactly how to get information out of her in a painless and inconspicuous manner.
Because Blake was incredibly hard to read, but it wasn’t hard to notice that she loved to… well, to read. Blake wasn’t very fond of talking about herself, but she was very fond of talking about her favorite novels and fictional characters. And, to top it all off, Blake was usually too invested in her latest book to talk, but she was usually invested in a new book to talk about.
So Ruby knew exactly how to squeeze information out of her.
She figured it was best to start small. Open up with some simple, average questions, maybe throw in a word or two about her own favorite books to make it more believable, and work her way up to the bigger, more obvious ones.
…Okay, so Yang was the one who’d made that suggestion, and the intricacies of the plan were all courtesy of Weiss, but it’s not like Ruby had been planning to charge up to Blake and immediately bellow, “Hey, probably-straight teammate who’s had at least two confirmed boyfriends in the past! What would be your ideal date? Preferably one that doesn’t involve horror movies, because I hate horror movies! Not that I’m gonna ask you out, of course! …What are your flower preferences by the way?” She had some tact. Not a lot, but more than that.
Besides, she was the one going through with it, despite how intimidating the idea was, so she deserved at least some credit. Subtlety, after all, didn’t exactly come naturally to Ruby; the Rose-Branwen-Xiao Long family wasn’t one renowned for its delicacy. Uncle Qrow had a sword that turned into a scythe. Dad’s modus operandi was “punch things until they die”. Yang lit herself on fire when she was angry. Sensitivity wasn’t really part of her upbringing.
So the thought of trying to covertly and gradually interrogate a girl who she knew for a fact was rather adept at subterfuge herself? The thought of sneakily prying into the personal life of a girl who didn’t like to talk about herself and who Ruby would really like to kiss on the lips and call cute nicknames?
Was kind of terrifying.
But, in the end, the intense desire to really understand Blake better―and, by proxy, have a better idea of how to run the idea of a date by her―won out over the fear of what could happen if she failed. So, with the kind of determination that she usually wore into the battlefield, Ruby marched into the library, where she happened to know that Blake would be reading the latest copy of Ninjas of Love in the back corner.
As soon as she actually caught sight of Blake, nonchalantly leaning against a tall bookcase and intently scanning the pages of the novel in her hands, Ruby came within inches of losing her nerve. She wasn’t the leader of Team RWBY for nothing, though, and she quickly threw her doubts aside, trampled over her hesitation, and darted across the room with her semblance before she could have the chance to chicken out for real.
Blake immediately glanced up at her, ears twitching visibly under her bow, and, to Ruby’s surprise, actually lowered her book to shoot her a small smile. “Oh―hello, Ruby. What brings you here?” she asked quietly, mindful of their silent surroundings.
Look. It was a pretty stressful situation, and emotions were running high. That accounted for at least 90% of the surge of pride that almost overcame Ruby in that moment. It hadn’t been only Team RWBY who taught Blake to be more sociable, she knew; a lot of it came from the other students, and Sun, and probably just being in a much safer and somewhat less prejudiced environment than she had been in a long time. But, wow, seeing her instigate a social interaction? Voluntarily?
That felt really good.
“Ah,” she quickly began before she could say something stupid like You’ve come so far, “I was just gonna ask―” Not what she was reading; she wouldn’t want to talk about Ninjas of Love with a younger girl, and she wouldn’t dare talk about it with Yang’s little sister―
“You were just gonna ask…?” Blake prompted, sounding not irritated like Ruby had half-expected, but just fondly exasperated. There was a small, indulgent smile on her face, and Ruby suddenly drew a blank, the bottom of her brain opening like a trapdoor and letting all her rehearsed questions tumble out and shatter on the ground below.
To her very little credit, though, Ruby was at least able to scrounge up something passable before the silence could stretch into awkward territory. “I just wondered if you had any good books to recommend,” she half-fibbed in an almost but not-quite smooth recovery. “Uh, like… romances,” she added after a moment, no matter how much it made her face burn to put it so bluntly.
Blessedly, Blake didn’t seem to find anything overly suspicious about the question; she just blinked owlishly a few times, then smiled again―she really needed to stop doing that, unless she wanted Ruby to suffer a premature death at the hands of her own fluttering heart―with a slight laugh. “Ruby, I read multiple books per day. Of course I have some good ones to recommend.”
She couldn’t help it―Ruby absolutely beamed, unable to contain her excitement that her disastrous question had actually worked. “Wow, really?” she gushed, bouncing excitedly and trying to keep herself from looking too giddy; she didn’t need Blake to be any more suspicious than she already probably was. “Thanks, Blake! You’re, like, the best!”
Blake laughed again, a bit louder this time, and Ruby’s heart swelled almost to the point of bursting. At the beginning of the year, the best she could’ve possibly hoped for was a tiny smile; now, she got two laughs in one conversation? Maybe Blake was in a really good mood today.
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Blake chuckled as she pushed off from the wall and started to amble towards the rows of bookshelves in the center of the room, “but you’re welcome. Do you have any particular kind of romance in mind?” Then, as if she needed to clarify: “Romance novel.”
Ruby scrambled to follow her, falling into step beside her and trying not to stare too obviously. Blake’s prettiness was very distracting. “Uh, I guess just the classic kind? Y’know―” And here it was; here was the opportunity to get some information― “heart-shaped box of chocolates, a dozen red roses, and what have you. Unless you have a different type to suggest…?” Was that too transparent?
Evidently not, because Blake just hummed thoughtfully and came to a stop by one of the bookshelves, glancing up at it and tapping her fingers on her leg. “Well, I’m sure we can find plenty of those,” she said slowly, “but if you want a recommendation, a lot of my favorites are of the ‘reclusive loner meets eccentric extrovert who takes them on all sorts of crazy dates’ variety.” At this, she smiled to herself, and the moment seemed so personal that Ruby looked away.
“That sounds good,” Ruby hastily agreed, smiling widely. “Got any really exciting ones for me?”
Apparently, her luck was just insane today, because, amazingly, Blake returned the smile with one of her own, albeit much smaller and more… Blake-like. “Well…”
Ruby returned to the dorm an hour later with a stack of books in her arms and a huge, triumphant grin on her face.
“I’m guessing it went well?” Weiss muttered as she pored over her Dust Studies textbook, rifling through her notes with one hand and stirring a small mortar of Dust with the other.
Immediately, Yang popped out from under the covers―who knows why she’d been in bed at three in the afternoon―with an exaggerated “Oooooooh!” of intrigue. Crossing her legs and leaning back against the foot of the bed, she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Do tell, dear sister.” Weiss scoffed, audibly rolling her eyes, but abandoned her studies to turn and watch them curiously.
Ruby set her pile down on the floor next to Weiss’s bunk. “Well, honestly, it was kind of a disaster at first, because I totally forgot everything I was gonna say as soon as she opened her mouth―” Weiss groaned and Yang stifled a snicker, but Ruby resolutely ignored them― “but, after that, things went pretty well! I found out her favorite type of romance novel, she went off on a tangent about the most romantic moment in one of her all-time favorites―” They both winced in sympathy and were, again, ignored― “and I picked up her top five to study!” After a moment, she pouted a little, crossing her arms over her chest. “I couldn’t find out anything about her favorite flower, though.”
Weiss raised a delicate eyebrow. “Her favorite flower?” she repeated, sounding, as she often did, unsure whether to be confused, condescending, or just contradictory. “Is it really that important?”
“Yes, Weiss!” Ruby huffed, waving her arms about wildly. “How am I supposed to get a bouquet for her if I don’t know what flowers she likes?! I can’t just guess; I would have no idea where to start!”
“Don’t fight her on this,” Yang advised, and Weiss acquiesced with little more than another eye roll, turning back to her studying and muttering something unintelligible under her breath. “Sounds like things went pretty well, sis,” Yang continued as if Weiss had never even been there, “but I have one concern.
This time, Ruby was the one raising an eyebrow, although she didn’t have to see her own face to know that she couldn’t make it look as dignified as Weiss could. “What?”
“When are you gonna have time to read all those books?”
It was a valid point. The shortest of the stack was a good two hundred pages, and the largest was big enough to pass for an old, archaic textbook. Ruby just shrugged, hauling them back into her arms and jumping up onto her bunk. “I’ve got time,” she said casually, dumping them next to her pillow and immediately picking the first one up.
Yang whistled. “Now that’s dedication,” she teased. “You worry me when you get all determined like that, you know.”
For all her talk, Yang didn’t make any attempt to stop Ruby from plowing through the book as fast as possible, and, when Blake arrived an hour later, Yang was the one to casually divert her attention long enough for Ruby to slide the book under her pillow and pretend not to have been diligently making her way through it at light speed.