Chapter Text
Today was the day. Well, the night technically.
Tonight was the night Jaune Arc was finally going to come clean.
He had already told Pyrrha. She knew about the forged transcripts, about the lie that had carried him through Beacon's front gates and into Team JNPR. She'd known for months now, and somehow she still looked at him with the same warm smile instead of disappointment.
But the rest?
Ren and Nora deserved to know. Honestly, he should've sat them down the very night Pyrrha had agreed to train him. Instead, he'd chickened out. He'd convinced himself he just needed a little more time. A little more skill, a little more proof that he deserved to be there. That way, when they inevitably found out he'd lied to all of them, maybe they'd decide he was worth keeping around anyway.
It sounded a lot less pathetic in his head.
After the Breach, though?
After standing between terrified civilians and charging Grimm with nothing but a sword, shield, and a frankly unhealthy amount of optimism? After watching his teammates willingly risk their lives beside him? After Blake had trusted all of them enough to reveal she had once been part of the White Fang—to admit her mistakes and declare she wanted to become someone better?
Yeah… He'd officially run out of excuses.
If Blake could reveal a past she hated, then he could admit to the stupid decision he'd made before ever stepping foot in Beacon so could he.
He was telling them tonight!
Which was why he'd organized this little get-together in Team JNPR's dorm. The beds had all been shoved against the walls to make room, every pillow they owned had been liberated from their mattresses, and several beanbags—borrowed from... somewhere, you didn’t ask questions when Nora ‘found’ stuff.
The centerpiece of the gathering was less a snack pile and more an engineering marvel. Chips, cookies, candy bars, microwave popcorn, pretzels, chocolate, gummies, and enough soda to make a nutritionist spontaneously combust were stacked into a mountain that looked one poorly balanced bag away from causing an avalanche.
If, through some divine miracle—or Nora simply deciding she was a bit hungry tonight—the pile somehow proved insufficient… Well, the vending machine was always close.
Jaune took a deep breath. His palms were already sweaty.
Okay. Just say it, rip the bandage off.
"Guys?" he began, his voice just a little shakier than he'd intended.
The conversations around the room died almost instantly. Seven pairs of eyes turned toward him.
They were all sprawled comfortably across beanbags and pillows in their little circle. Ruby was halfway through a family-sized bag of chips before apparently remembering she wasn't actually a family. Weiss looked mildly offended by the sheer quantity of processed food surrounding her. Blake had already disappeared behind a novel she'd somehow produced despite arriving empty-handed. Yang was balancing a soda can on her knee for no reason other than she could. Ren looked as calm as ever.
Nora had somehow built a throne out of cushions.
Jaune wasn't going to question it.
"I... kinda need to tell you all something."
Beside him, Pyrrha gently slipped her hand into his. The gesture was small enough that no one else would think much of it, but Jaune felt the reassuring squeeze immediately.
She was the only person in the room who knew why everyone had been called together. And with that silent promise of support, finding the courage to say the next words became just a little easier.
She really was the best partner anyone could ask for. Honestly, at this point she was almost a sister to him. He squeezed her hand back.
Then took a breath.
"Oh my Brothers, it's happening!" Nora stage-whispered dramatically, clasping both hands over her mouth. "I call dibs on being the aunt and the maid of honor!"
Jaune blinked. "...What?"
Pyrrha's face immediately turned scarlet. "...N-Nora..."
Jaune looked between them. "...What?"
Nobody answered.
"I..." He swallowed. "I faked my transcripts."
Silence. Everyone just… looked at him.
"...You did?" Ruby asked, sounding more surprised than upset.
Jaune's stomach twisted. Looking at Ruby's excited eyes? Wait. That wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. Where was the disappointment? The betrayal? The 'Jaune, how could you?'
He scanned the circle. Ren looked thoughtful. Nora was munching on chips. Yang had raised an eyebrow. Blake sighed, reached into her pocket, and silently slid a handful of lien across the floor toward Weiss. Weiss accepted it with all the dignity of someone collecting on a long-term investment.
"...Wait," Jaune said slowly. "Did... did you two have a bet?"
"Never mind that," Yang interrupted with an amused grin. "You made fake transcripts? Like, yourself?"
"...Yes?"
"Dude!" she laughed. "That's actually kind of impressive. They fooled Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch!"
"...Well..." Jaune rubbed the back of his neck. "...The transcripts themselves weren't that difficult." Seven pairs of eyes stared at him. "The paper trail was the hard part."
"...The what?" Weiss asked.
"The paper trail." He couldn't help feeling just the tiniest bit proud. It wasn't like he'd ever been able to brag about it before. For obvious legal reasons.
"The transcripts came with supporting documents. Records from a village militia, recommendation letters from retired Huntsmen around Doremi, training reports..."
Nora slowly lowered the chip she'd been about to eat. "...You forged all of that?"
"...Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"Some of it was technically true!" Jaune defended himself. Everyone leaned in. "I did work with the village militia."
"Doing what?" Yang smirked.
"...Cleaning."
"..."
"And I did train under retired Huntsman Barnes."
"What kind of training?" Ren asked.
"I helped rebuild his fences."
"..."
"And sheared his sheep every spring."
Another silence.
"The sheep were very aggressive," Jaune defended.
"...I'm not sure that counts as Huntsman training," Blake deadpanned.
"It builds character!"
"It builds wool," Yang corrected.
Jaune pointed at her. "It was very dangerous wool. They bite and headbutt stuff!"
That earned a snort from Yang.
"So your fearless leader's criminal résumé includes document fraud and sheep wrestling." She grinned. "Careful, P-money. Vomit Boy might steal ya next~"
"Hey!" Jaune protested. "I would never steal from Pyrrha! She is like a sister to me! I don’t even steal!" He paused. "...I just ...make elaborate government-grade forgeries..."
"That somehow sounded worse," Weiss observed.
"It really did," Blake agreed.
Yang burst into laughter.
Across the circle, Ruby gave Pyrrha an understanding pat on the shoulder.
Jaune frowned.
"...Ruby?"
"Yeah?"
"...Why are you comforting Pyrrha?"
She blinked. "...Oh." Another blink."...Nothing?"
Pyrrha looked like she wanted to crawl into one of the beanbags and disappear forever.
...I am missing something important here.
"We're hardly shocked to discover you're of questionable moral character, Arc," Weiss said, wearing the tiny smug smile she'd developed after the school dance.
She'd started teasing him more often since then. He liked to think that meant they were actually friends now. Unfortunately, Weiss had apparently decided friendship meant attacking him with sarcasm whenever possible.
The problem was, she was really good at it.
"You guys..." Jaune looked around the circle. "...don't think this is a problem?"
Everyone exchanged confused glances.
Then, almost in unison they shrugged.
"You were our fearless leader before," Nora said. "Now I know you became our fearless leader without any actual training? That's, like..." She shoved an entire handful of chips into her mouth while thinking. "...twice as fearless!"
Ren nodded, calmly sipping from the only healthy beverage in the room—his own homemade tea.
"I have fought beside you. I have trained beside you." He lowered the cup. "I trust your character, Jaune. More importantly, I trust your desire to improve. That has never been in question."
The knot that had been sitting in Jaune's chest for months loosened ever so slightly.
Jaune didn't even think about it. He simply lunged forward and threw his arms around his entire team.
It wasn't the neatest group hug in history. Nora nearly toppled over backward, Ren accepted his fate with the weary expression of someone who'd long ago learned resistance was futile, and Pyrrha let out a tiny squeak before wrapping her own arms around everyone.
"Awwwwww~" Yang's voice dripped with mockery.
"Awwwwwwwwww~!" Ruby echoed with none.
"You guys..." Jaune looked around at the giggling Nora, the faint smile tugging at Ren's lips, and Pyrrha, who was still trying—and failing—to hide how red she'd become. "...are the best."
For a moment, everything felt lighter. The weight he'd carried for months had simply vanished. This was how he'd hoped the night ending.
Well, not end ending. There was still enough junk food in the room to feed a small kingdom, and Nora had already declared they were watching movies until someone passed out from either exhaustion or junk food poisoning.
Either way, the hard part was over. Or so Jaune thought.
A few moments after everyone disentangled themselves from the hug, Ren quietly raised his hand. Everyone turned toward him.
"In the spirit of sharing," he said with his usual impossible calm, "I believe it is only fair that I admit to my own past." He took a sip of tea. "I was, briefly, part of a smuggling ring."
"WHAT?!" everyone shouted in perfect unison.
Ren patiently waited for the yelling to die down.
"Orphans in Mistral rarely have the luxury of choosing honest work," he explained. "Smuggling organizations were always in need of additional hands."
"They paid us in food and candy!" Nora chimed in cheerfully.
"Wait." Blake had completely forgotten about her book. "So, both of you were smugglers?"
Nora snorted. "Pfft! No." She jabbed a thumb toward Ren. "Renny was the smuggler." Then she proudly pointed both thumbs at herself. "I was the muscle!"
"That somehow concerns me more," Weiss admitted. "You two were... bandits?" she asked, sounding personally offended by the concept.
"We had... extenuating circumstances that made remaining in Mistral and attending Haven Academy unwise." The room waited. Ren took another sip of tea. "I would prefer to leave it at that."
"Oh, Brothers." Yang leaned so far forward she nearly fell off her beanbag, her grin grew wider by the second. "You actually have criminal records!"
"Yup!" Nora announced proudly. She reached into one pocket. Then another. Then another.
"...How many pockets does that skirt have?" Ruby whispered.
Finally, Nora triumphantly produced a crumpled sheet of paper.
Then, somehow —a tiny pair of reading glasses. Jaune frowned. Those looked...
"Those aren't Professor Goodwitch's glasses, are they?"
"Nope!" Nora put them on.
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely!" Jaune squinted. There was a tiny G.G. engraved on one side of the frame. "...That's a coincidence," Nora declared before anyone could say anything.
No one believed her. But no one wanted to know that Nora had the glasses either.
"Ahem!" She dramatically cleared her throat. "'Lie Ren. 'Wanted for poaching, trespassing in restricted areas, smuggling supplies through Grimm territory—'" She paused dramatically. "'—and repeatedly evading arrest!'"
She proudly held the warrant up for everyone to admire.
Jaune leaned closer. It looked real. Not ‘good fake’ real like the ones he did, but actually real. Official seals, identification numbers, government stamps, the whole shebang.
"...Ren?"
Ren looked entirely unbothered. "A Huntsman license doubles as a work visa here in Vale." Another sip of tea. "Being judged in Vale and sentenced to community service as a licensed Huntsman is significantly preferable to being judged in Mistral as an impoverished street orphan."
"You know," Yang admitted, "that's actually a really solid legal strategy." She whistled as the warrant reached her. "Dang." She looked at Nora. "You got one too?"
Nora scoffed. "Please." She waved dismissively. "Renny's is boring."
She reached into another pocket. Then another. Then—
"Seriously, where are you keeping all these?" Ruby asked and was successfully ignored.
Nora produced a second warrant.. Jaune pinched the bridge of his nose.
Mental note. Talk to Nora about carrying team active arrest warrants around in her pockets.
She struck a dramatic pose.
"Behold!" She held the paper high over her head. "A real criminal!" Then she began reading. "'Nora Valkyrie.'" She puffed out her chest and wiggled her eyebrows at them. "'Wanted for destruction of public property—"
"Classic." Yang nodded appreciatively.
"'multiple counts of reckless endangerment—"
"Expected." Blake nodded.
"theft of food—"
"Understandable." Weiss added.
"illegal possession of explosives—"
“That one they slap everyone with.” Ruby said, making Jaune do a double take.
"multiple counts of assault—"
Jaune stared.
"wanted in two kingdoms for buffet-related offenses—" Everyone blinked, trying to digest that one. Nora kept reading. " —and theft of an entire vending machines!"
Silence. Complete and utter silence, Nora herself was positively glowing with pride.
Jaune was fairly certain he'd forgotten how to blink. Across the room, everyone wore the same expression of horrified disbelief. Everyone except Ren. Ren simply drank his tea.
"...No way," Yang finally said. "I refuse to believe 'buffet-related offenses' is an actual legal category."
"It is!" Nora practically launched the warrant into Yang's face. "Read it and weep, Ing-Yang!"
"It's Yin-" Weiss tried
"ING-YANG!"
"...That's real," Yang muttered, her eyes growing wider with every line she read. She slowly lowered the warrant. "I was legitimately going to ask about..." She hooked a thumb toward the closet, toward the vending machine. The vending machine that was somehow inside Team JNPR's closet. The vending machine that absolutely, positively should not have been there.
"If I answer that, you're a decoration to crime!"
"Accessory to a crime," Weiss corrected automatically.
"Nah. Ing-Yang is a whole entire decor." She offered Yang a fist bump, which the girl promptly bumped.
Yang leaned back into her beanbag, still chuckling. "Man, your team's full of delinquents, P-money. How's it feel being the only respectable citizen surrounded by a bunch of lovable criminals?"
Pyrrha didn't answer. She looked down at her hands, her fingers fidgeted together.
Jaune's smile slowly faded.
Oh no. Please don't tell me she's actually bothered by this.
Pyrrha was... well… Pyrrha. Sweet, kind, honor-bound to the point she'd probably apologize after someone else stepped on her foot. Maybe this had gone too far. maybe hearing everyone casually admitting to crimes—
"I..." she began quietly. Everyone looked toward her. "...I... also had to leave Mistral."
Silence.
Yang's grin returned. Slowly and predatorily.
"No way."
Pyrrha shrank a little under everyone's attention. "I..." She rubbed one arm nervously. "...I didn't properly read some of the paperwork people asked me to sign. It turns out I... may have accidentally become the owner..." She looked everywhere except at them. "...or partial owner..." A pause. "...or official representative..." Another pause. "...of seventeen endorsement companies."
The room froze.
Pyrrha smiled the smile of someone watching their own execution approach. "...There is currently an investigation into possible tax fraud, illegal advertising practices, and corporate misconduct."
She gave an awkward little wave.
"I've... been politely asked not to participate in any new tournaments or sign any additional contracts until everything is sorted out."
Nobody spoke.b Nobody moved. Even Nora stopped chewing.
"Oh, Brothers above! Team JNPR is FULL OF DELINQUENTS!" She shook her younger sister dramatically. "You monsters! My poor, innocent, impressionable Rubaby!" Another shake. "She looked up to you, P-money!"
Pyrrha's face had reached a shade of red previously thought to exist only in theoretical physics and very good tomatoes.
"Oh!" Nora suddenly gasped. She pointed dramatically at Pyrrha. "You know what this means, Ing-Yang?"
"...What?"
"You're not the group's badass bad girl anymore." She thrust a triumphant finger toward Pyrrha. "Pyr-Pyr is!" Pyrrha made a tiny squeaking noise. "Hand over the leather jacket! And the motorcycle! You ares econd place, baby!"
"Excuse you!?" Yang looked personally offended. "I'm still the bad girl! I also have a record."
Silence. Yang blinked.
"..."
"...You know," Blake said after a beat, "that wasn't the defense I thought you were going with."
"Yeah..." Ruby nodded.
Jaune leaned back into his beanbag and looked around the room.
A forger, a smuggler, Nora and a celebrity under investigation for tax fraud. When had he become one of the least concerning people in the team?
Nora suddenly pointed at Yang with a grin. "Ooooh! And what does our dear second-place bad girl have on her record? Speeding? A couple of bar fights? Please! You can't compete with Team JNPR!"
"Arson, if you need to know."
Nora waved a dismissive hand. "Doesn't count. I bet you just set something on fire with your semblance-fire-hair thingy."
"That's... actually how the report reads," Ruby admitted.
Yang slowly turned toward her.
"But she was really just playing around with fireworks behind a gas station."
"RUBES!"
Jaune blinked. "Wait, wasn't there also that nightclub you trashed during the first week at Beacon?"
Yang shrugged, looking entirely unapologetic. "They never pressed charges. Since I'm a Huntress-in-training, any investigation would've involved Beacon, proper detectives, and eventually Huntsmen. Turns out shady information brokers don't want hunters digging into their businesses."
Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. "Criminals... every last one of you." She sighed before turning to Ruby with something that almost resembled relief. "How you managed to grow into a proper, law-abiding member of society, I have absolutely no idea."
Yang burst out laughing. She doubled over, clutching her stomach as Ruby immediately tried to disappear behind her pillow.
"Oh..." Yang wheezed, wiping a tear from her eye. "Oh, Ice Queen. You have no idea."
Weiss frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Rubes has an open file with Atlas Intelligence and another with the Mistral military."
"WHAT?!" Everyone shouted at once.
Ruby answered with a tiny, embarrassed, "Heh..."
"I didn't know buying depleted uranium was illegal!"
"WHAT?!"
"It's depleted!" Ruby defended herself immediately. "It's barely radioactive! I checked! It's just denser than steel, and I wanted to see if Crescent Rose could fire heavier armor-piercing rounds!"
The room fell silent.
"Oh! She also got flagged for possessing leaked Atlas military documents."
"I thought they were weapon blueprints!" Ruby protested. "They were on a forum! I just wanted to see how Atlas engineers solved the recoil on the Paladin actuators. They had this really clever dampening system—"
"...Ruby," Weiss interrupted, sounding horrified, "I'm fairly certain those are state secrets."
Ruby blinked. "Yeah… I learned that later….."
Yang raised another finger. "Illegal reverse engineering of Atlesian military equipment."
"They asked for helpon the forum!" Ruby insisted. "The M-32 Coil Rifle kept jamming, so I made a guide explaining how to disassemble it, polish the feed ramp, replace the spring, and improve the firing cycle. That's just basic maintenance!"
"For military hardware," Weiss deadpanned.
"...Well, it works better now."
Yang snorted. "Illegal possession of unregulated ammunition."
"YANG!" A pillow sailed across the room. Yang caught it with her face, laughing too hard to care.
"Accidental embargo violations and suspicious internet searches!" she continued from beneath the pillow.
Ruby buried her face in her hands. "How was I supposed to know you can't mail Special Grade military Dust explosives to Mistral? I marked the package as hazardous and put a caution sticker on it! I followed the shipping instructions!"
"The fact you read the shipping instructions somehow makes this worse," Ren observed, taking another sip of tea.
Blake looked up from her book again. "And the internet searches?"
Ruby looked genuinely confused by the question.
"I just wanted to know what the fastest bullet shape was. Then I needed to calculate the magnetic field strength for a handheld railgun, figure out how much uranium was safe to buy, compare tungsten penetration against hardened steel, and estimate the recoil tolerance of the average human shoulder."
She paused.
"...Normal teenage girl stuff."
Yang had slid halfway off her beanbag from laughing.
"Oh!" she gasped. "Don't forget patent infringement!"
Ruby sat upright, suddenly indignant.
"Oh, those charges are complete nonsense! The SDC, Mockheed Lartin, and Boyenng can stuff it! Crescent Rose needed those parts, and they're all jerky jerks that refuse to share their designs or sell the components at a reasonable price. I ended up redesigning the mechanisms myself anyway!"
Jaune wasn't sure what disturbed him more. The fact that Ruby had apparently reverse-engineered multiple patented weapon systems or that she sounded genuinely offended they hadn't simply shared the blueprints with her.
Across the room, Weiss looked like her soul had quietly left her body.
"My partner..." she whispered. She looked at Ruby. "...is on multiple government watchlists."
Then at Yang. "My teammate committed arson."
She turned to Blake. And properly skipped the girl and turned to team JNPR "My closest friends include a document forger..."
She looked at Ren. "...a former smuggler—"
Then Nora, who waved enthusiastically. "...whatever she is—"
Finally, Pyrrha gave an apologetic little smile. "...and someone under investigation for corporate tax fraud."
Weiss slumped back into her beanbag with all the grace of a collapsing marionette.
"I'm surrounded by criminals."
"No way you don't have something, Weissy!" Nora declared with a grin. "Everybody does! Bet you've got one too."
"I most certainly do not!" Weiss huffed, sitting upright with all the dignity she could muster. "I am a proper, upstanding member of society and have never committed a crime in my life."
Blake didn't even bother hiding her smirk. "Ten lien says it's tax fraud."
The room went completely silent.
Jaune's eyes slowly drifted toward Weiss.
Yang's grin spread from ear to ear. "...Ice Queen."
Nora leaned forward. "...You ain’t denying it."
"I did no such thing!" Weiss snapped just a little too quickly.
"You totally hesitated," Jaune said, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "That was at least a full second of hesitation."
"I was offended!"
"You were thinking."
"I was deciding how offended I should be!"
"Uh huh." Yang leaned forward with the smile of a huntress that had just spotted prey.
"So..." Yang said with a smile far too sweet to mean anything good. "How's the tax investigation going?"
Weiss's shoulders slumped. "...I need to submit a few more documents, and the trial is in six months," she admitted in a voice barely above a whisper. "But it isn't my fault! How was I supposed to know I had to pay those? Nobody in Atlas does!"
"Yay!" Nora cheered, throwing both fists into the air. "She's one of us!"
"A complete reprobate," Ren added, the corner of his mouth twitching into one of his rare smiles.
"A terrible influence on my poor, developing mind," Ruby agreed solemnly as she leaned against Weiss's shoulder.
"Oh, shut it," Weiss huffed, shoving the giggling reaper away.
Jaune couldn't help smiling. The room felt lighter. The knot that had been sitting in his stomach all evening had completely disappeared. They'd all walked into this gathering carrying some secret they were afraid would change how the others saw them.
Instead, it had somehow become a competition. A very concerning competition. Still, it was nice. There weren't any walls between them anymore. No hidden truths. No lies waiting to come crashing down. Just eight friends sitting in a circle, laughing about the questionable life choices that had somehow brought every single one of them to Beacon.
"You guys know what this means?" Nora asked, grinning from ear to ear.
"That we should start our own mafia?"
"Maybe." Nora nodded thoughtfully. "...We'll put a pin in that." Yang gave her a thumbs-up. "We have to dress the part!" She spread her arms dramatically. "We're officially Beacon's bad boys and girls now!"
"I'm not entirely sure that's—" Jaune never got to finish.
Nora hooked an arm around his neck, spun him toward Pyrrha, and locked him into a surprisingly effective chokehold.
"Imagine it, fearless leader!" she proclaimed. "Pyr-Pyr wearing black lipstick! Dark mascara! A choker around that beautiful pale neck! A black corset!" She shook him slightly. "Tell me you see my vision!"
Jaune's brain, traitorous thing that it was immediately produced the image.
Pyrrha, dressed head to toe in gothic black. Dark makeup accentuating her deep emerald eyes. The corset… pushing her pale moun—
His face became uncomfortably warm. "...I see the vision."
Nora grinned wider. "I also get to put Renny in dark makeup and one of those fishnet shirts!"
Jaune blinked. That made considerably more sense, the whole plan was just an elaborate excuse to get Ren into skimpier clothes.
Ren, for his part, merely sighed. "I suppose resistance is futile."
"It really is," Blake agreed.
"Ooooh~! Ice Queen!" YAng turned toward Weiss with a wicked grin. "Can we put you in a black dress? Dye your hair? Maybe make you all gloomy and mysterious?" She waggled her eyebrows. "We'll call you... Bleissy."
"First of all." She held up one finger. "I would look stunning in black." A second finger joined the first. "Second, if you touch my hair—" A sweet smile spread across her face. " —you'll wake up bald, Xiao Long."
"Then it's settled!" Nora declared, utterly ignoring the implied threat of grievous bodily harm. "Tomorrow we march into Vale and get ourselves completely new fits!"
She pointed dramatically at Ruby. "Rubes! You've got the most experience with this stuff! I want lace! Leather! Corsets! Chains! Dark makeup! The whole package!"
Ruby gasped. "Oh!" She shot upright, suddenly far more excited than anyone should've been. "We can go to Heated Subject!" She clapped her hands together. "They always have the best goth stuff!"
And the night came to a close with Nora and Ruby planning new clothes and quite a lot of makeup for everyone in the room.