Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Sir!”

Two days before the Atlesian students attending the Vytal Festival were set to return home, Penny Polendina arrived at the door to General Ironwood’s office, saluted him, and prepared to rebel.

The General looked up from his desk. “Penny?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I wasn’t expecting you. Is everything all right?” 

“Yes.” Penny didn’t move from the doorway, maintaining perfect posture. The General’s desk was large and made of solid wood, and she found herself wondering how it had been moved through a doorway smaller than the narrowest dimension of the desk. It did not appear as if it’d been transported in pieces and reassembled, either. “I would like to stay at Beacon Academy after this semester,” she said, bracing herself.

The General was silent for a moment, and then he folded up the form he’d been filling out and placed it in a drawer. 

“Why is that?” he said.

She looked sideways. To their right was a window which perfectly framed the spires of Beacon. To her left was a framed image of the Atlas Military Academy and its associated research facilities. If she leaned in close enough, she could pinpoint the facility wing where she had been built. 

“I… I like living here more than I like living in Atlas,” she said. “I have made friends here. I enjoy spending time with them very much, and an environment with friends would be the most beneficial place to continue my education.”

“Penny… you don’t need to continue your education,” Ironwood said slowly. “This year was only so that you could learn how to work with other people, and the Vytal Festival Tournament was your final combat test. You more than achieved social collaboration abilities, and you passed your combat test with flying colors!”

“There are more things I need to learn,” Penny said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“How can I identify what I haven’t learned yet?”

The General chuckled slightly at her words. Penny didn’t see what was supposed to be funny.

“You may not feel ready, but I promise you that you are more ready than any other soldier that’s served under me,” Ironwood said. “Atlas needs you, Penny.”

He was right about one thing. Penny did not feel ready. She did not think the state of being combat ready was something that could be so easily achieved anymore. Now…

Penny nodded, being careful to avoid a direct lie in her reply. “I understand, sir.”

She could calculate all future outcomes of further petitioning to stay at Beacon, and all of them shared one thing in common: General Ironwood would not let her go.

“Thank you, Penny.” Ironwood smiled and nodded to her. “You don’t have to worry about missing your friends. Your new duties will keep you busy in Atlas. And don’t forget, they can always come to visit you. I can easily arrange transportation for them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Penny turned and walked out of the office. Only when she was safely out of range of the proximity sensors of the General’s office did she reach for her scroll and send a text. It was time for Plan B. Fortunately, she had spent exponentially more time designing Plan B than Plan A. 

The library of Beacon Academy was such a wonderful place. All the warm afternoon sunlight coming through the windows, highlighting little motes of dust floating in the air… she had spent hours sitting in one of the fabulously soft beanbag chairs and watching the dust swirl around her. But today was not a visit of pleasure to the library. In fact, this was business, business of the utmost importance. Which was why she had called her four closest friends to the library to assist her in her endeavors. 

“You are all wondering why I have gathered you in the library today,” she said to the four members of Team RWBY, reclining in chairs before her and watching her curiously.

“Why all the secrecy?” Ruby asked. “Is something wrong?”

Penny’s gaze lingered on Ruby for a moment. Ruby. Whenever she listed the reasons why she wanted to stay at Beacon, Ruby always landed at the top. Her first friend. How could she ever leave her behind?

“Nothing is wrong yet,” Penny said. “But things may go wrong soon. Do you remember that I said I was planning to stay at Beacon?”

“Yeah!” Ruby said, sitting up much straighter. “Are you really going to do it?”

“I have a plan!” Penny said. “But it will involve going against the direct wishes of others and breaking at least several laws, depending on how you define certain legal terms.”

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang exchanged looks. 

“Does your father not want you to stay here?” Ruby said.

Penny shook her head. “He is very supportive of this. He knows I will be safe here.” 

“Then who…?”

“General Ironwood will not let me attend Beacon.”

Their reactions were consistent with the shock she was expecting—widened eyes, sudden changes in position, increased heart rates—but what Penny was not expecting was the anger in Ruby’s expression as she rose to her feet.

“Ruby?” Penny said cautiously.

“How… how could he?” Ruby said, clenching her fist. “Who does he think he is?! He can’t just tell you what to do!” 

“Unfortunately, he can.”

“What?” Ruby stiffened noticeably. “Why? He can’t make you go back to Atlas Academy. He wouldn’t make anyone else do that—so why won’t he give you a choice?!” 

“This will require some explanation.” Penny sat down across from Team RWBY and clasped her hands together, reminding herself to stay calm. What she was about to reveal was not a judgment on her realness. She had been repeating this to herself ever since she had realized the position she was in.

Ruby sat down, fixing a look of the utmost concern on Penny.

“I was developed in complete secrecy,” Penny began. “General Ironwood said that it would be far too much of a risk to have any sort of civilian record of my existence. I have no proof of citizenship, no voting ID, and certainly no birth certificate of any kind.” 

She wondered, how would a birth certificate for herself work? Would her birthdate be her initial creation, or the most recent time that she had died? It hadn’t even been a year since that last training incident.

“The only records from the beginnings of my existence are the inventories that detail the raw materials used to build my body and the expense sheets that track how many Dust crystals powered my father’s laboratory. I would not exist without the Atlas Military’s funding for the project that led to my creation, a project that they requested specifically.” 

She stopped, closing her eyes. Still real, still real, still real. The last few words of this explanation came out with her eyes still closed.

“The Kingdom of Atlas can lay claim to every corner of my creation. For all legal intents and purposes, I am the Kingdom’s property.” She opened her eyes, hoping that her friends would understand.  

“That… is slavery,” Blake said.

Slavery. Penny had considered that word before when researching her options. She worried that it was too harsh of a way to describe her position. After all, she was happy in Atlas! The military was the only reason why she existed at all! It couldn’t count as slavery if she’d been happy, right?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Ruby’s voice.

“What Ironwood’s doing isn’t right. We’ll help you!” She looked over to the rest of her team. “Right, guys?”

Weiss, Blake, and Yang nodded in assent, and Ruby turned back to Penny, her face set in determination. “We’re in.”

Logically, Penny had expected that they would help. That was the entire reason why she was asking them for their help! But right up until the moment that Ruby said that, Penny had wondered if her teammates would really trust her, a girl running away from her home, over the might and fame of the General.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice suddenly quiet. “Here is my plan.”

Team RWBY leaned in to listen, and Penny did one last visual scan of the library, making sure that no one nearby could overhear them and tell the General.

“If I tried to remain in Vale, General Ironwood would only need to ask the Vale government to return me. I believe it would be quite hard to convince them to let me stay,” she said. “Unless! Unless I was already a citizen! If I can acquire citizenship from the Kingdom of Vale, I would be much safer here, and Atlas wouldn’t dare try to remove me. That would be seen as an act tantamount to war.” 

She paused, making sure that her friends were following along, and when they nodded in understanding, she continued.

“Unfortunately, I think that the Vale government will not be eager to grant citizenship to someone designed by the Atlas Military to be more powerful than any Huntress in existence. Especially when Atlas will be quite eager to take me off their hands. I do not think that the government would be eager to see me as a person.” 

Those words were met with silence. Fortunately, Penny had finally arrived at Plan B. And she was excited for it. The more she thought over Plan B, the more sense it made.

“But!” she said, raising a finger. “I have found a path to citizenship: Vale marriage laws!” With that, she picked up a massive, dusty tome from the table, pulled it open, and hurriedly flipped it to the right page. “Vale Civil Statutes, Section Two Hundred and Forty-One-Point-One: Definition of marriage. In the Kingdom of Vale, a ‘marriage’ will be defined as a legal union with intent to cohabitate between two consenting parties. Two hundred and forty-one-point-one-dash-A: The process of marriage. Individuals intending to be married will—” 

“Penny?”

“Yes?” Penny said, pausing halfway through turning the page before looking up at Yang, who had raised a hand.

“Could you… maybe skip to the part that’s important for you? Not that we want you to hurry up, just… it sounds like there’s a lot to remember in there.”

“Oh! Of course. I am sorry, I suppose you can always find the background information yourself.” Penny hurriedly flipped through several pages, tapped a small paragraph, and spoke rapidly. “Two hundred and forty-one-point-five: Citizenship of married individuals. If a citizen of the Kingdom of Vale marries an individual who is not a citizen of the Kingdom of Vale, full Vale citizenship will be automatically bestowed upon the married individual for the duration of the marriage.”

She looked up at Team RWBY. “This is exactly what I need. If I marry someone who is a citizen of Vale, I will automatically receive a Vale citizenship!”

Dead silence. Suddenly, the loudest sound in the deserted library was the rasp of the heating vents. Each member of Team RWBY stared at Penny in silence, and Penny found herself trying desperately to decipher their looks. Surely they were shocked, but trying to guess what else they might be thinking at that moment was impossible. Oddly enough, Weiss, Blake, and Yang all seemed to be sneaking furtive glances at Ruby. She had no idea what that could mean.

“That… is one hell of a loophole,” Yang said finally.

“It’s crazy enough that it just might work,” Weiss added. “But, Penny—” 

“Would they even let you get married?” Ruby said suddenly, cutting Weiss off. “If… if the law doesn’t recognize you as a person, then they might refuse to let you get married. Which is stupid, but… it might happen?”

“You are right, Ruby!” Penny gave her a bright smile. “I anticipated exactly the same thing you did! And I discovered another loophole in the law!” She flipped ahead several more pages, landing on a passage under the heading Marriage Eligibility.

“All marriages must include the explicit and informed consent of all parties involved. Explicit and informed consent is defined as…” she started, before remembering that only the pertinent parts needed to be read out loud. She skipped ahead. “—In cases where age cannot be conclusively determined and no parents or guardians can be located, a court-appointed psychiatrist will determine whether or not the individual in question has the powers of judgment and choice necessary to enter a legal and consensual marriage.”

“I don’t understand,” Ruby said, leaning over to read the page. “What does that rule mean? Why is it even there?”

“That rule is intended to apply to individuals born outside the kingdom in villages where there may not be accurate birth records. There are plenty of examples of this law coming into action. But I believe that this can also apply to my situation.”

“How so?” Blake asked.

“Since I have no birth certificate, there is no way to conclusively determine my age. That also means that I have no legal guardian according to the law. The law doesn’t say that a synthetic person cannot get married. All that it says is that I need to be able to give informed consent, which I am perfectly capable of doing.”

“But the psychiatric examination?” Ruby said.

“That will be how I deliver proof of my personhood to the judges. Currently, my legal status is no different from that of an undocumented villager living outside the kingdom, and the psychiatric examination will serve exactly the same function as it does for such villagers: proving that I am fit to choose marriage!”

“Wow,” Yang said. “I gotta be honest, I was a little skeptical at first, but when you explain it like that… it really does look like it’s worth a shot!”

“There is still one issue,” Weiss piped up. “Penny, who exactly are you going to marry?”

All of Penny’s enthusiasm imploded. Oh. Right. The one issue that she had found with Plan B. “Well…” She shrugged helplessly. “This was the part of the plan that I was hoping you could help me with. I do not know how I would go about asking people this, or who I would even ask.”

Three members of Team RWBY exchanged uneasy glances—Ruby, the unresponding one, was bent over the lawbook, rapidly tracing words with her finger.

“I don’t know if we’ll be much help,” Blake said, as Weiss and Yang nodded vigorously in agreement. “I don’t know how I’d ask anyone that, either. Or if we know anyone who’d be willing to—”  

Wham.

Ruby had slammed the book shut, and she was standing bolt upright, staring at Penny. 

“I’ll do it,” she said, her voice quiet and determined.

“What,” Weiss said flatly, at the same time that Blake said “Ruby?” and Yang said “Ruby?!” in a much more shocked tone. 

Penny, for her part, could not think of anything to say in response.

“Rule two hundred and forty-three-point-two of the Vale Civil Statutes,” Ruby said evenly, slapping the cover of the tome. “Individuals may marry at the age of fifteen years and six months or above if they have the consent of all their parents or legal guardians.” She gestured at herself. “I am fifteen years and eleven months old. I can do it! I will do it!” 

“Are you sure?” Penny said tentatively. This… was not in her list of possible outcomes.

Ruby nodded and moved closer to Penny, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll do anything to help you stay here.”

“Whoa, Ruby, are you sure about this?” Yang held up her hands. “I mean, this is getting married. It’s kind of a big deal.”

“Oh, come on, it really isn’t. It’s not like we’d be getting married married.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?” Weiss said. “The only way to get citizenship is by getting married married.”

“Well…” Ruby hedged. “It’s married married, but not married married, though!”

“Is married married not the same thing as married married?”

“There’s a difference! We’d be just getting married, other people get Married. With a capital M.”

“Now you’re just being arbitrary.”

“No. I’m—” Ruby threw up her hands. “Weiss, I’m sure that people get married just for citizenship all the time!”

“—In regards to that.” Penny opened the tome again to the exact page she was looking for (how many organic people could do that?) and read aloud the most dangerous sentence yet. “It is illegal for individuals to marry for the sole purpose of gaining citizenship in the Kingdom of Vale. Punishable with up to one-thousand lien fine and immediate disbandment of the marriage.”

“Oh,” Ruby said, paling.

“If it helps at all, this plan already involves breaking the law!” Penny added brightly. “Technically, I am stealing myself from the Kingdom of Atlas and you are aiding and abetting a robbery!”

Ruby winced, and Blake made a quiet growling noise.

“Yeah, I guess Atlas will be pretty mad about this too, but I don’t really care about that!” Ruby set her chin defiantly. “So, does this mean we need to pretend we’re actually getting married married?”

“This law doesn’t seem to be enforced very heavily,” Penny added. “However… It may be better to be safe than sorry.”

Unexpectedly, Weiss spoke up. “If you’re still serious about this, Ruby… I think we should take this to Professor Ozpin. He has connections that may be able to help you. I would know, I’ve heard my father ranting about how Ozpin’s got half the judges in Vale in his pocket.”

Penny nodded, and then Yang cut in again. “Ruby, are you sure you want to do this?”

Penny gave Yang a worried look. It seemed as if Yang was quite concerned for her sister… which was entirely valid of her! It just meant that they would—Wait, what was Ruby doing? 

Ruby turned to Yang, an utterly neutral expression on her face. And then she took hold of Penny’s hand, clasping it tightly between her hands. Suddenly her voice was… angry?

“How dare you insinuate that I don’t love my wife,” Ruby said, shuffling closer to Penny to put an arm around her midsection.

For reasons that Penny wouldn’t understand until much later, her core temperature suddenly shot up 0.9 degrees.

She glanced at Ruby, unsure of how to respond. Was this just—? Yang, for her part, looked to be on the verge of fainting. 

“Kidding! Kidding! I’m kidding!” Ruby said, letting go of Penny and waving her arms apologetically. “I just wanted to see how good I was at acting it out!”

Oh, that made so much sense! Penny’s core temperature returned to normal, and she gave Ruby an appreciative look. She wouldn’t have to worry about Ruby blowing her cover. There hadn’t been a single trace of amusement or fear or anything else that might give away the plan in her voice. Ruby was a sensational actor.

Ruby Rose was ready to marry Penny. She was ready to face down the bureaucratic processes of the Vale government. She was ready to go toe-to-toe with James Ironwood and the entire Kingdom of Atlas. Nothing about this scared her. Except. Except. Except for this.

“So… I’ve got a betting pool going with Weiss and Blake. I say that Dad is going to have a stroke, Weiss is adamant he’ll have an aneurysm, and Blake put a lot of lien on a heart attack. Want to get in on it?” 

“Yang, please,” Ruby said faintly. “I’m nervous enough as it is.”

“I think you may be overestimating the worst-case scenario just a little bit, Miss Xiao Long,” Ozpin said, inclining his head at Yang.

“Everything will be fine once he meets Penny! How could anyone not want to help her? I mean, just look at her!” Ruby gestured wildly at the bench on the other side of the courtyard where Penny was sitting on a bench with her hands folded in her lap—the very picture of politeness and good will. Dad would love her. He had to. Blake and Weiss were sitting with Penny—partly to keep her company until Dad could be introduced to her, and partly as security, depending on how well Dad took the news. “How could anyone not think she’s the sweetest and most wonderful girl in the world?!” 

“...You might—Oh, here he comes.”

Ruby whipped around as Yang spoke, and there he was—Taiyang Xiao Long, sauntering towards them across the courtyard with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, waving enthusiastically.

“Ruby! Yang!” he called out. “Are you kids all packed up and ready to head home?”

His brow furrowed as he drew nearer with no sign of Ruby or Yang responding. And then, belatedly, he noticed what had to be an expression of forced cheer on Ruby’s face, and Yang’s undisguised expression of ‘why did I let myself get caught up in this,’ and his eyes widened.

Darn it. Ruby had asked Yang to at least try to put on a happy face.

“Girls?” Dad said, coming to a stop before them. “Is everything all right?” 

Ruby gave him a weak grin. “Hey, dad. I, uh—I’ve got something to tell you.” 

“What?” He looked at Ozpin. “Oz, what’s wrong?”

“There’s a bit of a situation, Taiyang. I think Ruby is best equipped to explain.”

“Ruby?” Dad looked down to her, his eyes filling with a whole lot of fear. “What happened?”

“I…” Ruby opened her mouth and then closed. Oh, fuck it, she decided, just get it over with all at once. “Dad, I’m getting married,” she said. 

Dad dropped the duffel bag with a thud. Seconds later, something else dropped with a thud: Him.

“So… no one wins the betting pool, then?” Yang said, staring at Dad’s body stretched out on the pavement. “Unless that’s an aneurysm?”

Chapter Text

“Penny, how old are you?” Taiyang said, holding an icepack to his head. 

Before replying, Penny looked around the Beacon infirmary, confirming that the only ones present were people who already knew her secret. 

“That is a surprisingly easy question to answer,” she said. 

Once revived and given a place to sit down and a drink of water, Taiyang Xiao Long had taken the revelation of Penny’s true nature with surprising ease.

“I judge a person by how good their handshake is. And by the gods, you have the firmest handshake I’ve ever encountered, so it would be a complete violation of my principles to think poorly of you in any way!” he had said to Penny several minutes ago. Penny was still puzzling out the meaning of that statement. She was forty-six percent convinced it was meant as a joke, but she was also very curious how he would react if she turned her grip strength up to its maximum while shaking his hand. He would probably react poorly, given how at maximum strength she would break at least several bones in his hand. 

Anyways. She had a question to answer. 

“My soul is no different from anyone else’s,” she continued. “Meaning that it actually develops at the same rate as an organic soul! Even for artificial intelligence, the neural pathways that make up my processors need nearly the same amount of development time as yours do to function properly! From the day of my initial consciousness activation to this moment, I have been alive for exactly sixteen years, one month, three days, twelve hours, and thirty-four minutes!”

“Whoa. That’s so cool!” Ruby said. “You’re just a couple months older than me.” 

There was a strange thrum of electricity that went through Penny every time Ruby said something about her was cool. She was feeling it again now, even if it seemed a bit incongruous to be told her age was cool. 

“Thank you!” she said. 

Taiyang shifted his position, and then lowered his ice pack, placing it on the nightstand. “Ruby,” he said in a quieter voice. “I do need to ask. Are you sure you want to do this? I know it’s to help your friend more than anything else, but at the end of the day, no matter the ulterior motive, you are quite literally getting married.” 

Ah, the parental concern. Penny had told herself to prepare for this part of the conversation, but now that it was here she was still worried. She understood why Taiyang was worried! But… what if he said no? What would she do, then? 

At the same time, Ruby was already nodding energetically before he was even done talking. 

“I’m as sure as the blades of Crescent Rose, Dad,” she said. “I want to help Penny. I don’t care what I have to do, I’m going to help her!” Suddenly, she turned to Penny and wrapped her arms around Penny’s shoulders, resting her chin on Penny’s right shoulder. “And besides, I never really cared much about getting married, but if I had to get married to someone for legal reasons, Penny is one hundred percent the girl I’d want to get married to for legal reasons!” 

She smiled up at Penny, and Penny felt as if her gyrometers were coming loose from their internal mounting points. 

“It’s going to be so easy pretending I’m in love with you, because I’m already so happy being around you, so I’ll just let all that real happiness show and I bet no one will know the difference!” Ruby said, before squeezing Penny even more tightly. 

“Thank you,” Penny said, because for unknown reasons, she was having trouble computing anything else to say at all. “You are the best friend that anyone could ever ask for in the history of the universe, Ruby Rose, and that is not an exaggeration in the slightest!” 

Ruby giggled. 

For some reason, everyone in the infirmary—Weiss, Blake, Yang, Taiyang, Professor Ozpin, Professor Goodwitch, Zwei—was staring at Ruby and Penny with a very curiously unreadable look. 

“Well,” Taiyang said after a few moments, raising the ice pack back to his head. “You’ve got me fooled.” 

Penny thought that was a strange thing to say, since she wasn’t trying to pretend or feign any romantic feelings at this moment. 

Later that night

“How are you feeling, Penny?” 

Penny looked across the limousine seating to Ruby, who was stretched out on the cushy bench seat opposite her and drinking a can of soda she’d pulled out from the refrigerator built into the seats. 

“Are you allowed to take those drinks?” Penny said instead of answering the question. “I was under the impression that we would have to pay extra for them.” 

Ruby shrugged. “Ozpin paid for the limousine, so everything goes on his bill, too. I consider it my compensation for how stupidly hard final exams were.” 

“Ah.” Penny nodded sagely. The limousine had been Weiss’s idea, as part of an effort to present an image of a genuine ceremony for their courthouse ‘wedding.’ Another part of the image: their outfits. Penny really only had one dress that could be called formalwear, and it was the dress she’d worn to the Beacon dance. Despite her nerves, she was quite excited to have the chance to wear it again! Especially because Ruby was so enthusiastically appreciative of the dress, too! Ruby, coincidentally, was in the same situation with her own dress from the dance, which Penny thought was very pretty as well! 

A moment later, Ruby finished the last of the drink, tilting her head back to shake the last few drops into her mouth. Then she pointed the can at Penny in a very accusatory manner. “You haven’t answered my question!” 

Penny shifted in her seat, suddenly afraid to look at Ruby—afraid of the reaction to what she was about to say. “I am… nervous.” 

What if Ruby thought that it was her fault Penny was nervous? Which absolutely wasn’t the case! Penny was nervous because her future hung in the balance, not because she was about to marry Ruby! Marrying Ruby was exciting! 

Ruby stared at her for a moment, and then executed an entirely unnecessary activation of her semblance, reappearing next to Penny with a flood of rose petals now fluttering all around them both. 

“It’s okay to be nervous,” she said softly, putting a hand on Penny’s arm. “We’re kind of breaking the law! That would make anyone nervous! But we’re gonna be fine, I just know we are… Can I do anything to make you less nervous?” 

Honestly, Ruby speaking with her like this was already decreasing some of Penny’s stress levels. But she had some other ideas, too. Such as… mission briefing!

“There will likely be some level of romantic behaviors expected of us in the courthouse, since we must give the impression that the reasons for this marriage are romantic and not political.” She paused, scrolling back through the documents she had read last night. “Granted, because we are young, the standards for our romantic displays will not be as stringent, but even so…” Penny held out a hand to Ruby. “Will you be comfortable with handholding?”

“I’d be comfortable with anything,” Ruby said immediately, before clasping both of her hands gently around Penny’s outstretched hand. Then she blinked, looking down at their hands. “Your hand is really warm!” 

“My body generates a great deal of heat,” Penny said apologetically. “I hope it will not be uncomfortable—”

“It’s awesome!” Ruby cut in breathlessly, squeezing her hand tighter. “Is, um, is your whole body like this?”

Penny hesitated, and then said, “Yes.” 

“O-oh, that’s…” Ruby leaned in closer, her eyes momentarily starting to slide shut, as if she’d briefly been falling asleep. “Is cuddling a thing married couples do, too?” 

“According to my research, I believe that is accurate.” 

“Can I cuddle you?” Ruby said immediately, leaning even closer, her eyes going wide. “As practice, I mean! It’s just like a really long hug, right?”

“Absolutely, and absolutely!” Penny said. It was such a relief that Ruby was so eager to put on a good performance. And Penny found herself full of eagerness too, but that was to be expected when her freedom was at stake. It most certainly had nothing to do with how she was in close physical proximity with Ruby Rose, her proximity sensors registering that presence as a constant, comforting hum. 

Ruby leaned forward, pressing her entire upper body against Penny. Her arms wrapped around Penny for the second time in twenty hours. 

“Oh, this feels nice,” she said, letting out a little sigh. “You really are… so warm, Penny, I don’t know how I never noticed before!” 

“I usually try to keep my internal temperatures as low and shielded as I can, but today my nervousness has been driving up the temperature without reprieve. I am sorry.” 

“No, don’t be sorry, I love it!” Ruby snuggled her face into Penny’s side and let out another little sigh. “You’re… Penny, can I be honest about something? Even if we weren’t getting married, I’d still want to cuddle you. You’re just so warm!” She reached up and poked at a curl of Penny’s hair. “And fluffy. And sweet. Like a freshly made pancake.” 

Penny was having some trouble processing that analogy, but she decided not to worry about it. What really mattered was that something about the words made her processors cycle wildly in a way which felt decidedly nice. 

“You are also like a breakfast food to me, Ruby Rose!” she said finally. 

Ruby giggled again, and then shifted her position, flopping herself down in Penny’s lap so that her head was nestled on Penny’s thighs. “So, what else do married couples do?” she said, gently poking Penny’s cheek. 

“Well, they enjoy each other’s presence deeply…” 

“Good thing we already do that!” 

“They usually want to spend the rest of their lives together. Did you know that some marriage vows specifically say till death do us part?”  

“Hmmm.” Ruby scrunched up her face for a moment, deep in thought, and then nodded. “I don’t know about until death, but it’d be cool to spend most of the rest of my life with you, Penny!” 

Penny nodded. She found herself thinking the same sentiment. Ruby was just that sensational of a friend! 

Ruby seemed to be comfortable with the position she’d found herself in, her hair splayed out over Penny’s lap, and suddenly, looking at her, Penny had a completely unforeseen urge, one that she could barely fit in with all of the other needs to practice. 

“Would you like me to play with your hair?” she said, deciding to take the impulse and ride with it. She knew it was another gesture that was usually seen as romantic, and one that would be fairly easy to perform. “As practice, I mean!” she said immediately. “And only if you want to—” 

Ruby reached out, picked up Penny’s hand, and deliberately placed it on top of her head. “Yes, please,” she said simply. “...I mean, if you want to! Only if you want to!” she added in a rush. 

“I see no reason not to try!” Penny said. She didn’t want to accidentally yank Ruby’s hair, so she to great caution with moving her hand slowly and deliberately across Ruby’s scalp, threading her fingers through Ruby’s hair and taking absolute care not to do anything which might hurt. She did not have tactile sensors in her scalp, and so she was quite curious about how Ruby would react to this. 

Ruby let out a long, quiet sigh like a dog settling down for a nap, and what little tension there had been in her body now disappeared entirely. 

“Oh, that’s really nice… Why does Yang never want anyone to touch her hair, if this is how nice it feels?!” 

Neither she nor Penny had a good answer for that. Several more minutes passed in silence as Penny continued to move her fingers through Ruby’s hair in calculated moves. The limousine’s ride was smooth and quiet, and it was almost as if they were sitting in a still room. Ruby continued to make quiet little sighing noises. 

“Hey, Penny?” Ruby said four minutes and thirty-two seconds later. 

“Yes?” 

“How are you so good at this?! Dad used to play with my hair when I was a little kid, but you’re sooooo much better at it and just, how?”  

“Oh, well…” Penny shifted, unsure if Ruby would appreciate the truthful answer, because it was rather technical… At least, she was unsure until she remembered the day when she’d told Ruby exactly what she was and then Ruby had looked her right in the eyes and told her that she was a real girl with a heart and a soul. Ever since that day, it had become so much easier for Penny to believe she was a real girl. Because Ruby said she was a real girl, and how could Ruby be wrong about anything, ever? 

“I have been mathematically calculating the precise levels of pressure to be exerted through my strokes by considering the resistance levels of your skin, the thickness of your hair, the ambient air temperature, and several dozen other factors with more miniscule influences,” she said truthfully. 

“Ooooh, that’s so cool,” Ruby murmured. She tilted her head a little bit so she was staring into Penny’s eyes instead of looking at the ceiling. “Penny… Whenever you actually get married for real, your bride is going to be the luckiest girl on Remnant.”

Just like the moment yesterday afternoon when Ruby had first put her arm around Penny, Penny’s core temperature once again shot up by 0.9 degrees. 

“Thank you,” she said, while simultaneously digging around in her language processors for suitable words for a reply. Only to repeatedly come up with nothing. Finally, she resorted to modifying what Ruby had just said to her. 

“And when you get married for real, your bride will also be the luckiest girl on Remnant.” She paused, and then realized an error in that logic. “Except that, by the definition, there can only be one luckiest girl on Remnant?” 

“Well, it’s going to be your bride who’s luckiest.” Ruby shrugged. “I bet my bride won’t mind being the second luckiest bride. It’s still better than being the third luckiest bride. Or the fourth luckiest. Or…” She waggled her fingers vaguely. “You get the idea.” 

“Thank you, but I think it would be your bride who would be the luckiest.” 

“No, yours,” Ruby said insistently.

“Perhaps they could trade places on a regular basis?” Penny offered, even though she was not entirely sure how such a thing would work. Would one of the brides have to intentionally become less lucky to let the other one have the top placement? How would that even ensue in a practical sense? Maybe—

“Schrödinger’s bride!” Ruby said. 

Penny blinked at her for several seconds before she realized what Ruby was trying to imply. “I think you may be slightly misunderstanding the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment. If we were to actually apply the concept of quantum superposition… the end result would be us both married to the same bride.” 

At that moment, her internal dictionary helpfully informed her that at this point in the conversation, she was really just describing polyamory. 

“Then maybe we’re both the luckiest bride,” Ruby said. “Like, tied for it. Because, you know, we are going to be really married to each other, even if it’s not really really married.” 

Penny’s logic processing unit temporarily shut down, leaving her without many options for responding besides nodding silently in agreement. 

Final determination: She was extremely lucky to have Ruby as a friend. Luck was probably not something which could be quantified. What could be quantified, however, was how wonderful Ruby was. Which was easy to do. She was the most wonderful of anyone! 

Ruby sat up and scooted out of Penny’s lap, shaking her hair out, and Penny felt a momentary surge of disappointment. There was something about that moment which had made her want for it to last as long as possible. It was like Dad would tell her sometimes; all good things must come to an end.

Oh, Dad. She wished he could be here for the wedding. She wished she had even been able to inform him of the wedding plans. But she could not risk Atlas monitoring the communications between her and him, and intercepting her plan before she could put it into action. So, Dad would be completely unaware of the situation until after the wedding was over. 

She hoped that her father would take the news of marriage more calmly than Ruby’s father had. 

Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by internal positioning reporting that they would arrive at the courthouse in several minutes, if the limousine driver was following the most optimal route. And with that came the realization that there was one more thing Penny wanted to discuss with Ruby before their deception began. 

“Ruby?” she said. 

“Yeah?” Ruby had been looking out the dark-tinted windows with her chin propped up on her hand, but now she turned back to Penny, her eyes widening slightly with curiosity—a habit of Ruby’s which Penny considered thoroughly adorable. 

“There is one other behavior which will likely be expected of us in the courthouse, likely once the legal status of our union has been officially conferred.” 

“Huh?” Ruby’s brow furrowed, and then realization visibly hit her. “Wait, do you mean—”

“Kissing,” Penny said. 

A brief silence between them ensued as they both considered the ramifications of that—although Penny had done quite a lot of considering already. 

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” Ruby said, shrugging. “Unless you count all the times I’ve given Zwei a little smooch on top of his fuzzy head right between his ears because he was being too cute.” 

“I have never kissed anyone, either,” Penny said. “In all honesty, I have always been somewhat confused as to why lip-to-lip contact is considered a higher form of intimacy. The lips are just muscles on the edge of the mouth with differentiated skin. Would it not make more sense for hand-to-hand contact to be considered a higher form of intimacy, given how the hands are capable of extreme dexterity and artful movements, and are also the body parts with which we usually interact with the world?” 

“Huh.” Ruby raised a hand, turning it back and forth directly in front of her face, as if she’d never really considered her hands before, and then she shrugged. “We should probably practice kissing, then?”

Penny blinked rapidly. 

“I mean, if neither of us have done it, then it might look pretty obvious in the courthouse if they’re all like ‘You may now kiss the bride’ and then our cover gets blown because we look like we’ve never kissed before! I don’t want to take any chances with getting you your freedom!”  

“You are okay with that?” Penny said tentatively. “I… I do not want you to waste your first kiss on a situation of pure convenience. I am aware that the ‘first kiss’ generally holds a great deal of significance, and I would not… would not want to take that significance away from you.” 

Ruby nodded emphatically and leaned closer, giving Penny a brilliant smile. “I don’t mind! It’s you, Penny, I think I’d be comfortable doing anything with you. I trust you.” She paused, and then added, “Plus, I think my first kiss being part of a preparation for a fake-real marriage to help my best friend get freedom is way more important than most first kisses! They’re always weird and awkward for everyone, I think? Yang’s first kiss was with a girl who fainted halfway through.”

Truthfully, Penny had stopped listening fully halfway through Ruby’s monologue, because she was hyperfocusing on one particular word choice. 

Best friend. Ruby had called Penny her best friend. BEST FRIEND!!!

Of course, Ruby had called Penny friend many times before, but best friend was new!!! And it was unlocking feelings Penny didn’t even know were possible to feel!

Her core operating temperature surged once again, along with several other emotion signifying metrics, and she was filled with so much joy that she just… decided to dart forward and kissed Ruby. 

Unfortunately, darting was not exactly an action conducive to reasonable kissing behavior, as Penny learned a moment later. Her mouth just sort of bounced off of Ruby’s, and while there was definitely some sort of mouth-to-mouth contact, it couldn’t be called a kiss any more than a high-five could be called a handshake. Attempt number one: unsuccessful. 

“Oh, sorry!” she said, composing herself. “I don’t know why I did it like that!” 

Ruby poked at her own lips, slightly wide-eyed, and then giggled. “Okay, so now we know how not to do it! Wanna try again?” 

Penny nodded, the words best friend still bouncing around endlessly in her consciousness, and leaned forward again, this time much slower. Ruby leaned forward again too, and this time, when their lips met, it was not a collision. 

Penny had tactile sensors in her lips, mostly because she had found that they helped with emotional signifying through facial expressions. But now, she was discovering another benefit of having tactile sensors in that particular place: Ruby’s lips felt sensational against hers. Truly, truly sensational. They were soft! So soft! She hoped that her lips were equally soft for Ruby. 

Ruby shifted slightly, resting an ever-so-gentle hand on Penny’s shoulder, and Penny reciprocated the gesture, data flooding her consciousness from so many directions. 

…Alright, with a primary source to investigate, Penny was finally starting to understand why organic beings liked kissing so much. (She still thought that a handshake made more thematic sense, though.)

Finally, Ruby pulled back, blinking rapidly and tilting her head in thought. “Wow,” she said finally, slightly breathless. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get married for real someday, but if I do, then I know the kissing for that is gonna be great.” 

“I agree completely.” Penny was trying to figure out why she wanted to do this again so badly. Did everyone just want to kiss their best friend? Or was it some signals getting crossed up inside her somewhere? Maybe she should check for short-circuits in her wiring once this was all over. 

“Still don’t get why people close their eyes when kissing,” Ruby said, letting out a confused huff. “Don’t they want to see the person they’re doing it with?” 

“We could try a kiss with our eyes closed to see if it makes a difference?” Penny offered. “And since that is the societally expected version of a kiss, we should probably aim to do that so as to not rouse suspicion.” 

“Okay!” Ruby leaned in again, and this time Penny closed her eyes before their lips met. 

She was not registering any difference in sensational-ness levels. Perhaps it was an organic thing. 

What was not an organic thing was how Penny was analyzing and detailing every aspect and dimension of this moment into her memory, creating a file within her memory that was far larger than any of her other memories, even the ones she considered her most treasured. Surely the reason why she was taking such care with this particular memory was so that she would be able to better keep up this ruse. Her freedom was very important, after all, and her full commitment was needed! 

Finally, Penny’s sensors alerted her that the limousine was coming to a stop, in the approximate location of the courthouse’s front entrance. 

She pulled back, and struggled to think of something to say. 

“Your lips are very soft!”  

Somehow, that did not quite seem like the correct reply, but it was true! 

Ruby let out a little laugh and scratched the back of her neck. “I mean, I try to use chapstick, so… I guess that means it’s working?”

“That seems logical.” 

Ruby nodded. “See, this is why it’s good we’re practicing kissing! Now we definitely know what not to do, and we’re gonna be so good at this in the court, and no one’s gonna know we’re not actually in romantics with each other!”

Suddenly, there was a knock on the limousine door, and a moment later it swung open, revealing Yang’s sunny visage. 

“Hello, lovebirds!” she said in a singsong voice. “Are you ready for your midnight marriage?”