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Chapter Text

Weiss needed a break. Another day of classes had passed, and another day of similar thoughts running through her head. She truly had been making an effort to accept Ruby as the leader of her team. Sure, it had been and still was proving difficult at times; the girl’s combat prowess was nothing to discredit, but her childishness came through in many facets of daily school life. Really, had the girl learned nothing of discipline at Signal? She breathed slowly as she walked, trying to center herself again, just as she had been taught. Back straight, shoulders set, face forward. Ruby was young, two years ahead of all of her peers, displaced seemingly on the whims of an ethereal headmaster and shoved into the limelight as a prodigy of sorts. It was unreasonable for her to rise to the challenge immediately, Weiss knew that. Even still, she would be lying to herself if she said that it didn’t continue to bug her. So, when the noise in their shared dorm room had proven to be too much, she simply left without a word, leaving to find a place to de-stress.

Jaune wanted to be alone. He had come to Beacon with nary a plan, just his family’s heirloom weapon and a set of forged transcripts. All he knew was that he wanted to be a hero, as was the destiny of his family. That was as far as he had thought about things, and now he was starting to see the folly that really was. He was behind in every measurable metric the school had to throw at him. He hadn’t even known about aura before being literally thrown headfirst into a deadly combat scenario, and he was only saved by the grace of his newfound partner. At least the good ol’ Arc charm had worked, he had been telling himself. During even just the first week, though, he had seen the looks everyone gave him. Other teams barely regarded him at all, and when they did it was with a look of confusion. Their eyes asked what he was doing here, how he got here. It was his team that hit him harder. As their leader, he thought that he should be their equal at least, but everyone could see he wasn’t. He’d expect his team to be mad about that, but instead whenever he failed something that should have been easy, they just gave him concern and pity. That had been the catalyst for his departure today, as well. A failed exercise in the gym, more concern and offers of advice from his team. He made up some excuse, and he had just left, looking to find somewhere quiet to sulk.

Two divergent thoughts, and yet both of them ended up finding the same empty classroom. Jaune stepped into the dimly lit place, only to see a familiar shock of white hair seated near the front. There was nary a sound playing except for the scratch of pencil on paper, and the door opening felt like a record scratch on the peace Weiss had found. There was a momentary hitch in her concentration, and then she went right back to work. Whoever it was would leave. Jaune just stayed there, stuck in place. He had struck out with Weiss before, but this felt a bit like destiny to him. An opportunity. However, his previous thoughts returned, and he wasn’t sure if he was exactly in the right mood to take said opportunity.

In the end, his decision was made for him. Weiss turned back from her work, looking behind her to see who had interrupted her solitude. Her face scrunched up, and those icy blue eyes rolled. “Oh, its you,” she says, barely hiding her irritation. “If you’re here to try and flirt, I’ll have to ask you to leave. I’m busy, and I don’t have time for your meaningless attempts at flattery.” She spoke with that familiar cold edge to every syllable, hoping the klutzy idiot would take the hint this time. If she wanted an annoying blonde to deal with while studying, she would have stuck around in her room and listened to Yang throw puns around.

Jaune almost apologized and skittered away the moment after, but something tugged at the back of his mind. Sure, he had come out here to be alone, but maybe this was a good opportunity of a different sort. Weiss was always confident, so sure of herself in everything that she did. Sure, he had hit on her just based off of looks before, but in the forest he had seen that she was also a very competent fighter. He had expected her to lead her team, and even though that was not the case in reality, perhaps she might have some sort of wisdom for him.

“Um, actually, if its okay with you, do you mind if I just sit for a while? I kinda had something I wanted to ask you.” He spoke tentatively, very aware of the barbs the heiress usually had. Those barbs were made manifest as her expression curled into a scowl.

“I told you, I do not wish to hear any more of your base attempts at wooing me. What, were you following me here thinking you could get me alone and I would actually put up with it?”

“What? No, no no no,” he responded, waving his hands in front of himself frantically as if trying to brush the notion away. He crossed his arms, hands holding his elbows now and not looking at her directly. “Nothing about that. I… I just had something on my mind is all. I thought that no one else really came around here after classes. I was gonna just sit around and be by myself for a bit, but then you were here and I was gonna leave, but then you said something, and uh…” He rambled for a bit, only to clam up. He really hadn’t wanted anyone to see him in such a mopey mood, but now that cat was out of the bag. Might as well take a chance.

Weiss just stared at him silently, eyes still narrowed. She wasn’t sure that she completely believed him. Every other time the two had talked, it had devolved into cheesy pickup lines and nicknames that sent a rather unpleasant shudder up her spine. However, he looked different right now. Uncertain, unsure, nothing like the faux confidence and attempts at being dashing he shoved in front of her typically. It was a look she hadn’t seen before. Like some sort of sad golden retriever with its tail between its legs. Like shooing him now would be equivalent to kicking a sad puppy. Her own words to Ruby flashed in her mind, of her trying to be nicer. She had meant them only for the red reaper, but she supposed that it should probably apply more broadly.

“I’m sorry, I’ll just go ahead and-”

“Wait,” she says, brows furrowed and a deep sigh escaping her. She couldn’t believe she was humoring him. “Sit, stay, talk.”

His face lit up, shutting the classroom door behind him and moving to take a spot near her. “I knew you didn’t hate me, Snow Angel,” he said, words leaving him before he even thought about it. His mouth clamped shut as ice cold daggers were shot at him and Weiss scooted further away.

“That’s your one strike, Vomit Boy,” she said. “Another, and I will leave.”

“Sorry…” he said, languid look returning. He was silent for a moment longer, staring straight ahead as he collected his thoughts. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Weiss, how do you become a good leader?”

Well, that hadn’t been what she was expecting. She blinked once, twice, expression neutral and voice silent. Her face soured again a second later, turning back to her work and the scratch of pencil returning. “I don’t see why you’re asking me. This sounds more like a question for a fellow team leader or a professor. Ruby is in our dorm, and professors are having office hours right now,” she said, not looking at him as not to betray the still-tender sore spot he had hit.

“I mean, I guess you’re right there… but I dunno. Ruby is just as new as me at being in charge of a team, and the professors… well, I’d just rather not go to them, if I’m being honest. They’ll just tell me to give it time, I’ll grow into it, but that isn’t the answer I’m looking for I think.” He leaned back in his seat, hugging his arms to himself once again as he stared off into the distance to collect his words again. “I know you aren’t a leader, but it looked to me like you sort of know how you could be one. You always look like you’re so sure of yourself. Like you know what you’re doing. Meanwhile I’m just… not.”

That had the white haired girl pausing, a look of genuine surprise on her face. That was… actually a pleasant compliment. Her face firmed again a second later, though, before he could turn his head and see that surprise. “Hmph, of course I am. I am the heiress to the Schnee dust company, and I have no reason not to hold my head high.” She relaxed again, still not making eye contact. “Regardless, I am not the leader of team RWBY, and I have chosen to instead try and become the best follower that I can be instead.” Her voice seemed to drift at the end, like she was telling herself more than him.

Jaune offered her a little half-smile. Part of that answer he had perhaps expected, but the latter half came as a bit of a surprise. He adopted an almost rueful look. “Funny, I thought that I’d be the one doing that,” he spoke, a similar tone that the heiress had adopted before him.

“Well, you are not. You are now the leader of team JNPR, and you are going to have to learn how to become that instead. The headmaster has made his decision, and the faculty here certainly seem to have confidence in his choices.” Words not really her own, spoken with certainty hiding that touch of bitter taste.

“But what if he was wrong, what if he made a mistake and I get everyone hurt? What if something just goes as horribly wrong, and then everyone's injured in some permanent way, and I'm left with no team, no friends, no future?” The thoughts spilled freely now, a flood of anxiety rushing through his body as his brain was confronted with images of his team, battered and bruised in front of that Death Stalker, of Nora and Ren and Pyrrha with inky black feather stabbed through their bodies as they bled on the ground while he could do nothing but watch.

Weiss sincerely hoped that she didn’t sound this bad whenever she was in one of her more fretful moods. Regrettably, a part of her assumed that she did. She smothered that thought down and regarded him with a hard look, the same one all of her tutors had given her back at home.

“Then you work hard beforehand to make sure you are ready. Make sure the worst does not happen, and know how to deal with it if it does. Be prepared, be practiced, be confident.” Be perfect: a thought not spoke aloud. It was hardly fair shoving her own standards for herself on someone who obviously could not live up to them.

She was surprised to hear a bitter chuckle from the blond. “You’re starting to sound like my dad,” he said quietly.

“That had best be a compliment,” she spoke, iciness returning.

That seemed to get another laugh, this one warmer. “I guess it is, in a sense. My dad is a great huntsman. Just like his dad before him, and his dad before him. My family has a long legacy of great heroes. You know that statue in the courtyard, the one with the big rock and the guy standing atop it over the Beowolf? That’s my grandpa. An old war hero.” That sad expression came back to him. “He saved so many people in the Faunus wars. Countless, really. I grew up on his war stories, and the stories of his family before him. Every day was spent hearing about my family's exploits, all the good they have done. They were leaders, legendary ones. I guess the weight of that expectation is a little… crushing is all.”

Somewhere along the way, Weiss had started to give him her full attention. Those last words in particular…. The last thing that she had expected to find in this dumb, untrained, overly flirt blonde was a sort of understanding. If there was anyone who knew the weight of a legacy, it was her. He hadn’t even seemed to notice that much himself. The two sat silent for a while, Weiss not moving her pencil and Jaune not moving at all. After a minute of palpable silence, the heiress turned to regard Jaune properly.

“During initiation, in that fight with the Death Stalker,” she started, Jaune turning to look at her as her voice cut through the quiet. “I didn’t get the chance to see everything since I was a little busy with the Nevermore. However, both of our teams were initially fighting as individual units, and it was not enough. Had we continued along that route, all of us surely would have lost, and our careers would have ended before they properly began. You were the one who took notice of the situation first, and the one who found the weakness in your opponent that lead to your eventual victory. You formulated a sound strategy, and you took a group of strong individuals and united them together as a team.” When Jaune didn’t respond, she continued. “Part of the job of a leader is to inspire those around them to action, to give them the hope that they can succeed. You were the one your team rallied around, and I believe that is why the headmaster decided that you would lead your team and… and why Ruby was chosen to lead my own team.” Her words lost some momentum near the end as Weiss barely hid the dawning realization in her. When she only received another dumb look in return, she huffed, staring back at her work once again. “If nothing else, perhaps those war stories have given you an insight into the battlefield stronger than others may have. If it's a reason for confidence you need, there you go. Happy?”

Silence took over between the two again, but Jaune didn’t tear his eyes away from Weiss as she focused back in on her work. That was something that he hadn’t considered himself. He hadn’t put much thought into that fight either in the moment nor afterwords. In his head, he was just doing what needed to be done. It was do or die. If that was actually something special, something that he could actually claim to be good at… Maybe he wasn’t as hopeless as he thought. He had a lot of catching up to do, he knew. His teammates were still miles ahead of him in so many important ways, but he was not without tools to use to catch up. He could still be useful.

He stood up from his seat, Weiss giving him a sideways glance as he did. “Um, thank you, Weiss. I guess I really was in my own head a bit too much there, huh?” he asked, his laugh still awkward, but some of that confidence returning to him now. “I appreciate it, really.” He pushed his chair back under the long desk, stretching for a moment. “I’m gonna go study and train a little more. If I’m gonna be a good leader, I guess I really can’t stay still.” He walked away, opening up the door to the classroom before pausing again. He turned his gaze again, lingering on the back of her head as she hunched over her work. “Thanks again for… for being a friend. Can I talk to you some more later, maybe?”

Weiss felt an imperceivable little twitch in herself at his words, a little glow of satisfaction sitting in her belly. She snuffed it out with another huff. “Hmph. If you insist,” she spoke, the haughty heiress returning in full. “Now get out, you’ve used up enough of my time as is.” With another small laugh, Jaune left and closed the door behind him, leaving Weiss alone again.

Her pencil moved some more, but soon slowed to a crawl before eventually stilling. Her pride didn’t let her say how helpful their talk was to her as well. At the same time, though, she felt an understanding of what Port had told her before. Was what she had told Jaune the same thing that Ozpin had seen in Ruby? She didn’t know, but now she had reason in mind to really try and become a good team mate to the younger girl. Maybe the girl really was someone worth their spot here. Maybe she was truly the right choice after all. She couldn’t focus on her work anymore. With a huff, she shut her books, packed her bags, and stepped out of the classroom herself. Maybe it was worth it to spend some time with her team. Whether her own words had been correct or not, it was at least worth it to learn as much for herself.

Chapter Text

Weiss had been warming up to her team, slowly but surely. Her talk with Jaune weeks ago had been a useful experience for her, even if she still did not like to admit it. Her perspective had shifted, viewing everyone in a different sort of way. She still saw ample things in need of correction in regards to Ruby, but she was doing her best to be a little more lenient. It was mostly a success, in large part thanks to the young girl’s rampant positivity. Similarly, the more time she spent with Yang, the more she came to appreciate her as a person. Outside of being without a doubt the best solo combatant on the team, there was a certain energy that she brought with her. She kept everyone’s spirits up, kept the mood light and jovial when everyone else might be down. Blake was still a sort of mystery to her, honestly. She was the one she had the least problems with initially, bad first impressions not withstanding. She had another four years to get to know her, however, so she was content to play the game of patience.

Similarly, she had slowly been growing closer to team JNPR as well. Perhaps it was her attempts at lightening up, but she was starting to grow accustomed to interacting with them during meal times. Most of those interactions consisted of Ruby, Yang, and Nora doing most of the talking, the rest of them sitting back and letting the extroverts carry things. During these times, though, she found herself chatting with Pyrrha more often than not. This in particular was a very pleasing development. She was long over her desires to be on the same team as the champion, and once Weiss looked past the status Pyrrha held, she found a pleasant, polite girl that just wanted normal friends. Ren and Nora were both exactly as they seemed to her initially, the two of them usually a bit too lost in their own worlds for her to bother trying to break the ice. Whenever either of them (usually Nora) spoke to her, though, she perfectly able to respond in kind. It was a process, but she could feel herself starting to change a little bit.

Somehow, the biggest mystery was still Jaune. After their talk before, the boy hadn’t held more than a cursory conversation with her. For a while, it seemed like he was too busy hanging out with Cardin Winchester of all people. She had been certain that he was being bullied, but he didn’t seem to really want to talk to anyone about it. If she was being honest with herself, she was rather irritated that Jaune just seemed to take all of the abuse that was being thrown his way. Even after Weiss had said that she didn’t mind if he came to talk to her some more, he had apparently decided that doing nothing was better than anything at all. A part of her wanted to confront the blond about it herself, but after she learned that he had even blown off Pyrrha, she decided that it simply wasn’t worth the time. If he was going to be a stubborn mule over it, then she would just let him discover his own folly. Failure was a cruel, but effective teacher.

The first time that she had even laid eyes on the boy for a while had been during the trip to Forever Fall. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but one way or another Jaune and Cardin had been attacked by an Ursa Major, and the pair of them were in deep trouble. She had been fully ready to rush in there and save the pair, but Pyrrha had stopped her. What she saw instead had her thoughts buzzing. Jaune was far from completely useless in combat here. In sparring classes, he usually just spent his time getting used as more of a training dummy than an actual partner. His most recent fight had been against Cardin himself, and that had been almost painful for the heiress to watch. Sloppy, she told herself. His stance was wrong, his weight distribution atrocious, and he brandished his weapons more like a stick and pot lid than a proper sword and shield. She wondered how he had even managed to get into Beacon like that.

Instead, in the fight with the Ursa, she saw a glint of competence. A hint of potential. He was still sloppy. He took hits head on that he instead could have dodged or deflected with his shield. In the end, he even forced Pyrrha to activate her semblance and reposition his shield so his head wouldn’t be taken clean off. He got a few hits in himself, though. For all he got hit, he got back up, too. If she had taken even one of those swipes herself, her aura would have been shattered in a moment. Most curious for her was the end of the fight. He took the Ursa’s head off in one clean stroke. A feat like that would prove challenging to anyone in their year, even a few people in grades above them. Ursa hides were tough, muscles thick, their bones dense enough to serve as weapons in their own right. Jaune had just planted his feet to the ground, got low, and then sliced right through with only one hand on his sword. To her, it was either impressive skill he had been hiding, or dumb luck that Pyrrha had been there to keep him from an early grave. She worried it was the latter.

Glimmers of training were there, and yet he was still so sloppy. It nagged at her brain, needling away at her thoughts whenever she saw him for the next few days. Questions burned, but she never seemed to find the time to ask them. Opportunity found her, though. She decided to go to the gym in the evening, classes earlier leaving her energy to burn. The rest of her team had neglected to work on an essay for Oobleck, so she made them stay in their dorm to get them done. There had been ample whining from Ruby, but Weiss was stubborn herself. It was there that she caught sight of the blonde, alone in the small space, doing his own warm-up stretches and getting ready for a workout of his own.

So he was doing the extra work to improve, she thought to herself. He had said he would be working hard to catch up, but it was different actually seeing the labors for herself in person. There was just a twinge of pride in her that perhaps she had made him manifest an actual drive to stick by his word. Well, serendipity had brought them together before, and this seemed as good a chance as any to finally get her questions answered.

Jaune was focused on his stretching, and didn’t hear the door open nor the quick steps behind him. He was only made aware of the heiress’s presence whenever she spoke. “I didn’t expect to find you here,” she said, tone neutral and expression set. Jaune jumped a little bit, startled out of his thoughts before he turned around and looked down at Weiss.

“Oh, Weiss, hi,” he said, a small, slightly nervous smile on his lips. “I, uh, usually come here around now. Pyrrha told me that people are usually doing other stuff around now, and I’d be able to have the place to myself, so….” He really wasn’t sure what to say. He had asked to talk to her some more, but afterwards he just hadn’t worked up the guts to follow up on that. Even if she was less prickly than she had been starting out, he would be lying if he said she didn’t still intimidate him a bit.

“I’ll get to the point. I have a question for you,” she spoke, stepping a couple feet away from him to begin her own stretches. “What training did you have before being accepted into Beacon?”

He felt a shock of nerves rush through his body. That was a difficult question to answer for him. Right now, the only people who knew the truth about his entrance to this school were his team and Cardin. He had thought about telling the rest of team RWBY, but his pride kept him from it. He wanted to consider himself actually worthy of his spot here before he told anyone that he didn’t need to. His team deserved to know, as they would be working with him every single day. Cardin had been a complete and tragic accident, but after their spat in Forever Fall, Cardin had agreed to both keep his secret and stay away from him. He had made good on that promise so far, and for all of his faults, Jaune didn’t see him going back on his word. He had been silent in his thoughts for far too long, though, even pausing in his stretching. It had Weiss’s gaze narrowing towards him.

“It’s a simple question,” she said, voice firm and stare intense. He stuttered out an answer a second later.

“My-my dad. He was the one who trained me. My weapon is a family heirloom, so he figured that he would know how to teach me to use it right.” As he spoke, the lie came to him easier and he got back into the motions of his warm-up. It wasn’t completely a lie, of course. His dad really had trained him… in that Jaune had spied on his father and copied some of his movements.

“Is that so,” Weiss spoke, rather noncommittally.

“Yup, uh huh. Dad’s a huntsman, like I told ya, so he taught me how he fought.” Maybe she was buying it.

It was Weiss’s turn to pause in her actions now, hands moving to rest on her hips as she looked up to make eye contact, which he turned away from without thinking. “I can’t say that I have confidence in his teaching methods, then,” she spoke, that familiar edge returning. She wasn’t buying it. “If he truly did teach you, then he neglected the most basic fundamentals of combat. Frankly I’ve seen first year prep school students with better form than you have, you seemingly have no clue of proper technique with either piece of weaponry you use, and you bounce between hiding behind your shield like its impenetrable or completely forgetting its existence and thinking that your face is a perfectly acceptable blocking implement.”

By now Jaune was sweating, body stiff all over as his heart pounded a mile a minute. Had she figured it out, had she overheard one of his team saying something? Had Cardin gone back on his word and told her? What if the whole school already knew, what if he was on a ticking timer already and about to get kicked out next time he was called to the headmaster’s office?

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you, my dad trained me and I got into Beacon because of it, alright?” His voice shook still, but he could feel himself getting angry too. A purely defensive mechanism, hoping that it would make her back off. She did not relent though, stepping into his space even closer and using every bit of that five foot height to intimidate. If anything, now the both of them were indignant.

“Then that tells me one of two things. Either you are intentionally being lazy in classes and combat, or you are only here because of pure nepotism.”

That had Jaune pausing, anger flashing white hot inside of his. His eyes burned, standing up straight himself now and turning to fully face the heiress, looking down at her harshly. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. You said your family is made up of great warriors, right? Who’s to say that your father didn’t speak to the headmaster and put you in this school despite you being woefully under prepared for it?”

“That is not what happened.” He was getting loud now, pride stinging.

“Then what, did he think you were properly ready for this? We are here to learn how to risk our lives to save people, and you won’t do any good there if you just come here and almost get yourself killed fighting a single Grimm!” She was yelling now too.

“I’m here to learn how to save people.”

“With your poor excuse of training? Right now you are a liability to yourself and your team.”

“I know that!”

“Then why did you come here at all knowing you were liable to get yourself killed?”

“ Because I want to fight!”

“Then your father should have taught you better in the first place!”

“ He didn’t teach me at a damned thing! ”

Silence. The two stared at each other, rage painting their expressions. Weiss with arms crossed and face set, Jaune wearing his emotions on his sleeve for all to see, panting . Both stunned into silence. Jaune was the first to break. He realized what he said, the implications. He was caught. “Shit,” he muttered, sitting on the ground and pulling his legs to his chest, leaning his back against the wall.

Weiss followed him with her eyes, staring down at him. Her face was still firm, but her voice returned to its usual volume. “Jaune Arc. How did you get into Beacon?” He knew the game was up.

“I cheated my way in. I forged my transcripts, took Crocea Mors, and I ran away.”

“ Why?”

He sighed, curling in on himself even further, hoping he’d wake up and this would all be a bad dream. “I told you before. My family is made up of legendary heroes and generals. What kind of kid wouldn’t hear those kinds of stories every day, see his dad go out and save people and not want to do the same? He helped so many people, my family helped so many people. I just figured it was obvious that I would want to do the same. My parents didn’t want that, though.” Another flash of understanding zipped through Weiss’s mind at those last words. It really was always about family. “I asked my dad to train me every day. Every day from the day I was old enough to hold a wooden sword, I begged, and I pleaded. He said no every time. Said he didn’t want me putting myself in danger, that he wanted me to live a normal life. My mom wasn’t any help, either, said to just listen to my father, he just wants the best for me. Neither of them cared what I wanted for myself.”

Weiss was silent as she listened, looking down at him. Once again, she felt that understanding she had felt before with the blond. Parents who didn’t care for their child’s wishes, futures set in stone unerringly. It’s all for your own good, they said. The reasoning was different, but the results were the same. Jaune’s family at least seemed to do it out of love, but even that could be stifling. She stepped forward, and sat down next to him.

“Who else knows about this?” she asked, voice kept quiet and calm now as she stared straight ahead.

“My team and Cardin. The last one not by choice.”

She flicked her eyes over in his direction. “Is that why you were hanging around that brute so much?” He nodded. “ Hm,” she responded, eyes ahead again.

Jaune could do nothing but sit there and start to plan what he was going to tell his parents after he got kicked out, and Weiss silently pondered her next actions herself. She hadn’t meant to get so heated over this. It really had just started out as a curiosity, she told herself. Now here she was, both of them feeling terrible for their own reasons. She could have been more reasonable about this, she realized. Just told him that she was worried about his training quality, maybe offered up something to do about it. It would still have been a swing at his pride, but at least it was better than barging in on him when he was alone and getting into a shouting match. She knew she had to do something. Otherwise she wasn’t sure how either of them would act after this.

“I saw your fight with the Ursa in the forest, you know,” she started, still refusing to look at him. He didn’t look either, face still buried in his knees.”I was going to go in and help you, but then you started fighting it yourself. I really thought that you were just being reckless, but then you did… better than I thought you would.” She could have told him about Pyrrha and Ruby being there, as well, but she would honor Pyrrha’s desire to keep things a secret. “If what you’re saying about not having any real training before this is true… then you’ve made a prodigious amount of progress over just a couple of months.”

Jaune felt a bit of hope start to bubble up inside of him. Of all the things he expected, praise hadn’t been one of them. He chanced a look over towards the heiress, and he saw a strange mix of emotion on her face. Uncertainty, worry, awkwardness, like she was trying really hard right now to be kind and genuine. She continued.

“My family didn’t want me to be a huntress either. After my older sister went to Atlas academy, she turned down the right to inherit the company. So, being the next in line, it of course went to me. I didn’t want it, though. The only reason that I was allowed to continue learning from my combat tutors was because my father thought that it would keep me placated. A flight of fancy, a whim that I’d grow out of. Whenever it was obvious that I wouldn’t, he fired my teachers. When he told me he was going to send me to prep school soon to learn more about running the business, I applied for Beacon behind his back. And then once I got accepted I just… left. I stayed in a hotel for a month before the year properly started, and I haven’t spoken to anyone in my family but my sister since. The only reason he hasn’t come to take me back now is because Beacon is its own legal entity. He can’t do a thing about it without causing a major scandal.”

Now, it was Jaune’s turn to feel that same kinship. Of all the people at this school to hear a story he might recognize so deeply, Weiss Schnee had not been anywhere in that list. He was fully sat up now, attention held rapt as she told her story, looking right at her as the barely suppressed emotions played across her expression. She turned away from him, looking over to a random corner to have her eyes anywhere but on his.

“Look, I can’t say that I can approve of what you did. It was reckless and foolish to the highest degree, and you are extremely lucky that either no one but me has questioned your lack of skill or that you haven’t gotten seriously hurt in combat yet.”

Jaune offered up a weak smile, unable to help himself. “I suppose this isn’t the right time to say that I didn’t even have my aura unlocked before the Emerald forest?” he asked, trying his best to lighten up the mood with a cheeky joke now that they were being honest.

Her gaze snapped back to him. “You didn’t even have your-” she started, only to shut her eyes and take a slow, calming breath. “How you are not a stain on the ground in the woods is a mystery to me,” she said, shaking her head and standing up.

“You can thank Pyrrha for that one,” he said, standing up soon after her, emotions a little more stabilized by now. “She’s actually been really helping me out for the last week or so. She gave me the regiment that I’m using right now, actually. We’re training basically every night by now.”

Weiss gave another non committal hum as she thought for another few moments. Then she stepped back, and started up on her warm up stretches herself. “Well, if she thinks that what you have right now is worth refining into proper shape, then I won’t intrude,” she says, stretching her arms out as she got herself limber. Jaune brightened up immediately.

“You mean you won’t tell anybody?” he asked, hope rising in his voice and beaming smile returning.

Weiss gave him a deadpan look, frown on her face. “Jaune, please don’t make me admit out loud to blatant fraud. Else I’ll have to ask Pyrrha to add ‘learning to read between the lines’ as part of your training.” When she got only a nervous laugh in response, she rolled her eyes and finished her warm-ups in silence, making her way to the opposite side of the gym and beginning her cardio.

Neither of them said a word to each other after that, both working out in silence, too many thoughts buzzing around in both of their heads now for casual conversation to take hold. After an hour of this, Weiss was the first to leave. She grabbed a bottle of water from the nearby vending machine, and walked to the exit. Before leaving, she paused. She looked over her shoulder as Jaune worked on his conditioning, panting and sweating as he pushed himself like he hadn’t before. He wasn’t paying her any mind. She felt a small smile curl on her lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, just loud enough to be heard before stepping out the doors and heading back to her dorm again, wondering if and when fate might bring them together once again.