A/N: Just something to tide you over :) halfway through with chapter 5 of Cobwebs and Crows sequel so expect it the second week of January at the earliest!

Qrow Branwen prided himself on his prowess in battle, his skill with sword and scythe and Semblance. He faced impossible odds and insurmountable obstacles only to come out the other side bloody and beaten but unbroken.

He only wished grading could be so simple.

The dark haired Weapons Instructor of Signal Academy laid his head against the edge of his desk and groaned. He was backed up by at least a week and a half thanks to the latest mission from Ozpin and preliminary quarter grades needed to be turned in the day after tomorrow.

Ugh.

"Knock knock," Taiyang's voice carried over Qrow's pleas for death.

"No," he deadpanned.

"Well I'm already in, so…" The blond walked closer. "What's got you down?"

"Grading," he huffed. "You'd think the principal would give me a break given what I do for Ozpin, but the woman is relentless."

He hummed. "I'm sure her relentlessness has nothing to do with the fact that you tried to give your entire class A's last quarter because you lost their exams and said 'creativity can't be quantified.' Or because you spiked the punch at last year's Vytal Festival viewing party. Or…"

"I get it, I get it," Qrow hissed. "How about instead of rehashin' my colorful history with the principal, you help me out, huh?"

His blond (idiot) teammate burst into laughter.

Qrow threw a pen at his head, which the brawler caught, only for the ink to explode in his hand.

Mildly vindicated, the red-eyed Huntsman leaned his head into his hand and watched the other man run around the room looking for a rag. When he found one, he turned to his mercurial teammate and frowned disapprovingly.

"Rude," Taiyang sniffed.

A shrug was his response.

He rolled his eyes. "Why don't you get a TA?"

"Tits and ass?" Qrow quirked a brow. "How is getting laid going to help- well, aside from the obvious."

"Do you ever read the faculty e-mails?" He spit onto his palm and scrubbed at the dark blotch. "TA stands for Teaching Assistant- or Teacher's assistant, never could remember which- and you should totally get one."

He made a face at the thought. "Isn't that one of those over-achieving little suck-ups who whine about gettin' less than ninety percent on their tests?"

"No." He rolled his eyes harder than before. "Not usually anyways. They're just students who assist you by grading things or logging things into the gradebook- stuff like that."

The salt and pepper (but mostly pepper, thank you very much) haired man rubbed his chin and hummed contemplatively.

"Don't think too hard, you'll hurt yourself," Tai drawled.

"Piss off," he grumbled.

"Whatever, you know you love me," he teased.

"Like a kick to the teeth," he pressed a sentimental palm to his chest.

"Yeah well," he gave up on cleaning his hand for the moment. "My grading is done and Saf is an awesome assistant, so suck it, bird boy."

"Shuddup, you over grown worm," he spun in his chair and dragged himself to his computer. "And help me get a TA."

The continued to banter as Taiyang walked him through the process. It was surprisingly easy- so easy, in fact, that he suspected no one had ever filled him in about getting a TA to help with his work load out of spite.

Granted, he had to sign a bunch of papers that boiled down to "blah blah, I won't sleep with students, blah blah, I won't show discriminate on the basis of blah de blah if/when a TA is assigned to me blah blah, etc." Most of it seemed like a rehash of his teaching contract.

From Tai, he found out that there were more students in the TA classes (it was a class? there was more than one?) than there were positions available, so his request would definitely be filled. Unless the counselor or whoever ran the class was pissed at him for something he had definitely done- that was always a possibility.

No matter, it was out of his hands now. He waved off his snickering brother-in-all-but-blood with a middle finger salute and went back to grading.

Ugh.

-[-]-

Lumi walked into her last class of the day and took a seat at her usual out of the way computer. The last stretch of the quarter was approaching, which meant exams and stress, but she was lucky to have snagged an easy elective and thus had one less test to worry about.

Forty-five minutes into the period, Mrs. Huang strolled into the class and announced that Mr. Branwen was looking for a TA to help him during his prep period; did anyone want to volunteer?

The room fell silent as students exchanged Looks. Mr. Branwen was notorious for his flippant grading policies and general lack of organization. This close to exams, combined with the previous facts, meant that any TA he took on would be drowning in last minute grading and backlog. Hell, there was a rumor that he lost an entire class worth of exams last quarter!

Mrs. Huang looked around with a tight smile. "Anyone? At all?"

"I think Lumi would be a great candidate to help out Mr. Branwen," Claret shouted with vicious cheer.

"What a thoughtful suggestion, Mister Nox," Mrs. Huang's smile grew a little brighter. "Does that sound good to you, Miss Hazelwood?"

Lumi resisted the urge to throttle the smarmy boy who'd thrown her to the Beowolves. "Sounds great," she said with the widest smile she could. "I love his class."

The older woman clapped twice. "Perfect. Please go see him right away, and remind him about the TA paperwork." Her heels clicked loudly against the tile.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

Determined not to give away her true thoughts on the subject, Lumi quickly packed her things and slung her bag over her head. A few sympathetic classmates wished her good luck, while others shook their head in dismay. Claret, who disliked her (the feeling was mutual), waved as she left, his many dark bracelets clinking together.

Lumi, not above such things as petty revenge, used her Semblance to thicken the shadows beneath the boy's feet and his entire body shivered like death itself had caressed his innards with one long, bony finger.

Despite the spot of joy, her mind soon turned back to thoughts of her new assignment. The walk across the school felt longer in dread, but eventually she made it to the spacious workshop. She let herself in and looked around cautiously. "Hello?"

"Good, you're here," the familiar raspy voice of Mr. Branwen called from his out of the way desk. "You've got a lot to do."

She regretted ever signing up for the TA class.

Of course, she kept the thought to herself and instead said "Okay, where do I sit?"

Surprisingly, Mr. Branwen stood up from his office chair. He motioned to it with a flippant wave of his hand. "I'm a week behind in grading, so you're gonna enter in all the grades I have now. Then you can help me correct worksheets or whatever. You know how to do all that, right?"

Lumi fought down the smart alec remarks that sat on the tip of her tongue. "Yessir," she nodded sharply at him and strode across the space to take her seat.

"Ugh," he grimaced as he plopped down at a cluttered work table with his stack of papers. "Call me whatever you want, kid, but don't 'sir' me, got it?"

"Got it," she shoved her schoolbag under his desk and dragged the graded pile towards herself.

They worked in relative silence, aside from their mutual grumbling. At one point, the bell rang to signal (HA!) the end of the day but Mr. Branwen ignored it. To her credit, Lumi took one look at the pile of still unentered papers, sighed, and committed herself to finishing as much as she possibly could.

While she hadn't exactly jumped at the chance to be his TA, she didn't do things half-way and he was in serious need of help.

She trudged along for roughly an hour then stopped with a closed mouth shriek. The class assignment she'd created in his workbook, the one she had completely filled out and saved several times, was missing from the menu. Hitting backspace, refreshing the page, and restarting the program did nothing- it was like the entire assignment never existed!

"Fuck you," she hissed quietly at the buggy program. "And whoever coded you."

"You talkin' to the computer?" Qrow scrawled a red "12" across the top of the worksheet and looked at her with a raised brow. "I don't think it talks back."

She flashed him a tight smile. "It deleted an assignment I just finished."

He nodded and glanced at the clock. "Uh, I think you can go home now, if you want," he choked. School had been over for more than an hour and he hadn't noticed.

"Thanks, Mr. Branwen," her smile became more genuine. She grabbed her bag and waved at him. "See you tomorrow."

"See ya tomorrow," he shot back.

Lumi didn't look back. Now that she wasn't hunched over a keyboard, her back was killing her and she was on the verge of starvation. She was profoundly grateful Signal was a boarding school so she didn't need to make an hour long flight home to eat. Hopefully the cafeteria was still open…

-[-]-

The next morning she rolled out of bed and stretched like a cat. One look to her mirror, where her class schedule was taped, revealed that she had Combat first period and Weapons Shop second period then lunch. Since today was a "B" day, that meant both classes were the usual hour and a half long instead of A-schedule's hour and a half plus fifty five minute combo.

For some reason, Weapons Shop was sticking out in her mind. Did she have a worksheet due? Or maybe a quiz? She pondered the thought as she gathered her toiletries and nearly screamed when she realized why she was thinking of Mr. Branwen's class.

She was his new TA and he was a miserable, unorganized mess. Lumi spit out her mint toothpaste and grimaced in the mirror. If she was lucky, he wouldn't pull her away from the day's assignment to do more TA stuff.

If.

She finished brushing her teeth, rinsed her mouth twice, then attacked her two-color hair with wide toothed comb. The usually mischievous waves had apparently decided that her day was going to difficult enough because they settled with minimal fuss into a high ponytail with braids running along either side of her crown.

It almost made up for the grading hell she was going to experience at the end of the day.

Almost.

Combat class passed like usual for B-schedule; warm-up, drills, spars, cool-down, showers. Mr. Xiao Long bragged that his youngest daughter and his grandmother could run laps around them, so they better HURRY UP.

Lumi didn't feel like becoming a Teaching Moment™ so she picked up the pace and by the end of class was grateful to hit the showers. Her mood on the walk to Weapons Shop was buoyed by the natural high that came from exercise. So buoyed, in fact, that she was twenty minutes into class before she realized that Mr. Branwen was hunched over his desk grading papers and entering them into the gradebook like a madman.

The assignment on the board was to read a section in the textbook and answer questions one through five- or maybe it was eight? possibly even three? What number was that?

She was not willing to do more work than necessary- especially because she was going to have to grade it later- and gathered the will to ask her teacher what their assignment was supposed to be.

"Mr, Branwen?" She spoke quiet enough that the other students wouldn't overhear her. "What's the assignment?"

"It's on the board," he grunted and scrawled a "9" across the top of a paper.

From her vantage point she could see that the stack was not alphabetized. "But what does the board say?"

He glanced up at her, then board. "Pages 113 to 128. Questions one through- ?" He furrowed his brow. "Four," he declared after a moment.

What a mess.

She went up to the board and rewrote the assignment legibly. The words were slightly crooked and irregularly shaped, but it was leagues better than Branwen's straight yet illegible chicken scratch.

He either didn't see her fix the writing, or didn't care, but she was happy because his lack of attention meant that she didn't have to grade papers too.

The bell rang for lunch, and no one hesitated to book it before Branwen could assign homework; Lumi included. Her luck had run out, however, because the rest of her day sped by with a vengeance until she was left standing in front of the shop door as a stream of students hurried to class behind her.

She dreaded the workload, as she had done all day, but pushed open the door anyways and walked in- to an empty classroom.

Where did her teacher go...? No matter, she sat in the warm (ew) office chair, minimized his emails (there was one from Mrs. Huang about TA paperwork) and pulled up the gradebook. There wasn't a lot of new assignments, but if he really had spent all day grading then that was okay.

Lumi finished inputting the grades for the assignment Branwen had been working on before he left, then saved a copy of the gradebook to the desktop. Now that she wasn't as rushed or stressed, she remembered her father's many rants about idiots who didn't save their work or make backups but expected him to work "programming magic" to make the files come back.

She then turned her attention to the messy piles and started organizing them class and date. Once done, she arranged them alphabetically then turned a critical eye to the classroom. It was messy, but personal code of doing every job to her best or not, there was no way she was going to clean Branwen's classroom.

He still hadn't shown up anyways.

Rather than condemn herself to boredom, she pulled out her Scroll, stuck a pair of earphones in, and played her most upbeat playlist as she worked. She fell into a mindless cycle of grab paper, check name, check grade, enter, put aside, and repeat. Every so often she would break the pattern to save her work to both the desktop and the program itself.

Almost a full hour into her work, Lumi stopped to remove her earphones and stretch. She tucked her arms behind her head and pulled her elbows up and back. Her neck followed naturally as she hummed low in her throat in relief. She spun around once, arms thrown to the side, then stopped and nodded at the man in the class with her.

Wait.

Lumi bit back a scream and chucked the mouse at him.

Mr. Branwen snatched it from the air and raised a brow at her. "What, did you see your grade or something?"

A beat passed. "No, I tried to read your handwriting," she said. "As you can see, it came to blows."

He nodded sagely. "Whiskey's better for stress, but whatever flies your airship."

Was… was her teacher encouraging underage drinking? Or just confirming rumors?

"I'm nearly done entering everything in," she motioned to the mostly neat stacks. "But can I ask you a quick question?"

"No guarantee I'll answer, but shoot." He unclipped a silver flask from his hip and took a swig.

What the hell. Was he for real?

"Do you have a system of organization? Of any sort?" She knew the answer in her heart but wanted desperately to be proven wrong.

"Nope," he popped the "p."

Well there went that. She had a wild, ephemeral vision of the classroom at the end of the year, everything labeled, organized, neat and clean. Mr. Branwen had stopped drinking in class and wore a cape that wasn't torn and tattered. She had a 10,000 Lien gift-card to Mocha Mania. It was beautiful.

The hallucination ended as quickly as it had begun. Experience reminded her that you couldn't change people, no matter how badly you wanted to; they had to do it themselves.

But that didn't mean you couldn't help them along… or trick them into it.

"Okay, well I'm almost done, but I am a little hungry…" She commented with a small smile.

"Nice," he nodded. "When you finish the cafeteria'll still be open."

You fucking prick; learn to take a hint, she seethed then wondered where all the aggression had come from. Probably from sitting too long. Or working while the teacher was off drinking. Or hunger. It could be anything.

"Great," she emphasized the "t" and fluidly turned back to the screen. She placed her earphones in, chose her favorite punk rock band, and continued working.

Qrow pattered around the workshop, cleaning in starts and stops. The entire morning and half of lunch had been spent grading, an activity he didn't like on a normal day and that no amount of alcohol could make him enjoy. He took a long lunch and messed around on his Scroll (damn the content blockers on the computer) for the duration of third period.

Third period was first years anyways, and they didn't have enough nerve to yell at him for eating in class or ignoring them.

He was surprised to see his new TA (what was her name?) working when he walked in from his second lunch. He hadn't gone to a primary combat school, but he knew for a fact that at her age he would have been doing anything other than work if he could get away with it.

Qrow wondered what terrible accident was about to occur to balance out his stroke of good luck.

Lumi imagined a terrible accident wherein Mr. Branwen's weapon stopped working in the middle of a demonstration and fell to pieces in his hands. Mr. Xiao Long, the Combat Instructor he was sparring against, then knocked the dark-haired man across the room and claimed victory for the match. When the Weapons Master went to buy himself a consolation- whiskey? sandwich?- his card was declined and he was sent away in shame.

She relished in the petty revenge fantasy for only the briefest of moments. She must have been really hungry if she was daydreaming this much in one day. While she usually ate during fourth period regardless of it was A-schedule or B-schedule, she only ate half her lunch on B-days.

Eating a full meal after Combat class was a one-way ticket to overeating and getting sick. She learned that after one too many lunches where she was "starving no matter how much she ate" and was left half-curled into a ball an hour later when the true size of the meal hit her.

Serving sizes for aspiring Hunters in training were ridiculous, but necessary because of the demands Aura and combat placed on their bodies. If a combat school student, tried to go on a civilian diet to "slim down", they'd get sick almost immediately and start passing out at random.

She liked to think they'd go crazy long before they wasted away to the point of dying because at her current point in time she was willing to stab a man for a sandwich, and she'd at least eaten a little under three hours ago.

Lumi saved the assignment she had just finished and reached for another stack, only to find nothing. She turned in her seat to check and saw that, yup, there was nothing. She was… done?

That was almost too good to be true, but she wasn't going to look at things too closely. If there were any suddenly blank assignments or a power outage that downed the gradebook program, it wasn't her responsibility anymore.

She shoved away from the desk and grabbed her bag before she could talk herself into double checking everything. She threw her Scroll and earphones in their designated pocket and looked around for her teacher. He was flipping all the chairs on top of the tables in a well-practiced, effortless motion.

"I finished. See you Monday, Mr. Branwen," she called over her shoulder.

"Bye… chickadee."

She ignored the odd hitch in the middle of his farewell and made a beeline for her dorm room. School wasn't technically over yet, but for all the work she did it was over for her. Once in her room, she scarfed down three chocolate chip and peanut butter granola bars and transferred her homework from her schoolbag to her pre-packed "going home" backpack.

An airbus left from Patch to the City of Vale, and vice versa, every turn of the hour and despite the fact that she had to go visit her mother this weekend, she was excited to be going home to her siblings and dad. More importantly, home to her dad's cooking.

She salivated at the thought of savory pulled pork sandwiches all the way to the bus stop.

Meanwhile, in the workshop she had so quickly escaped, Qrow stood scratching the back of his head. He needed her to do something, but couldn't remember what. It was "important" and "couldn't be turned in past the deadline- I mean it, Qrow."

Oh well. The fact that he couldn't remember it meant it was unimportant, contrary to Ember's claims. He shrugged and went to sit at his desk. His quiet little assistant- whose name he couldn't quite recall- had taken over the space, but it was neater than he'd seen in it months and the area around the computer was clear so he didn't care too much.

Hell, she could've cluttered it up more and he still wouldn't have cared as long as she finished up the grading. That was the least enjoyable part about being a teacher (beside the meetings-ugh) and the more of it he could shove off on her, the better.

He kicked his feet up on the desk and leaned back with a content sigh. Ah, now that that nightmare was over he could focus on important things- like going to the bar to (hopefully) find himself a lovely woman to go home with.

The dark-haired Huntsman pulled out his flask and Scroll and proceeded to do what he did best when ignoring his responsibilities- pester Taiyang.

He was mildly surprised that the blond had texted back so quickly, but then he saw what time it was and remembered that the last ten minutes of Combat classes were set aside so the kids could (hopefully) shower. Sweaty teenagers roaming the halls was the last thing anyone wanted.

The bell rang and not five minutes Ember Huang casually strolled into the empty Weapons Shop.

"Hello, Qrow," she smiled sweetly at him.

Uh oh.

"Do you have those forms I asked for?" she leaned over his desk.

"Remind me, what were those for again?" He remained nonchalantly reclined.

Her smile tightened. "For your new teaching assistant."

"Ah, yes… Chickadee." What was her name?

The older woman raised a bewildered brow. "Chickadee? I sent you Lumi Hazelwood."

Bingo. "She just looks like a chickadee, ya know?" He nodded at his assessment as if to reassure the other teacher that he did, in fact, know his TA's name.

"I don't see how," she drawled.

"Black hair on top, grey under," he motioned vaguely. "Like a black cap chickadee."

"Indeed." She pursed her lips. "Overly familiar nicknames aside," she placed one hand on her hip. "I need her signed contract and yours- both paper and electronic versions. Otherwise, you can go back to grading alone."

Damn, he only had a TA for two days and she was already trying to take her away? He'd never done anything to her. (He ignored the memories of the time he snuck dye into her conditioner just to see what color her orange hair would turn, and the time he'd filled in as counselor in her place and somehow convinced the top student of the year to drop out and become a painter, and the time he…)

Unjustified harassment, he thought, from a fellow educator. How shameful.

"So soon? I just got her." He gazed up at her with a faux hurt expression. "But fine, you'll have them next week."

"Next week?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "They're due today."

"Well, I would turn them in now, but you see…" He trailed off, looking for an excuse. "She didn't sign all the pages so…"

"Was she not just here, helping you?" The brown eyed woman stared him down. "Why didn't you have her sign everything then?"

Fuck. Take a hint, lady. "She looked sick, so I let her go early."

"She was sick?" Her tone spelled out her disbelief. "Fine, if that's your story. Lucky for you, I have flight a catch in about half an hour for a conference, so make sure those papers on my desk before school starts on Monday or else."

"Will do, have fun, bye," he shot back with an obviously fake smile.

As soon as the door closed behind her he was taking a hit from his flask.

He'd have her papers for her, and a few other things, too, like an ass kicking. She played the cool, open-minded counselor to the kids, but she was harsh and unrelenting towards people she deemed "unworthy" or "irredeemable" (like him.)

Two-faced counselors aside, he actually did want to keep his TA around. It was somewhat risky given his Semblance, but Signal was a combat school and not a Hunter academy so it was unlikely that she'd be attacked by Grimm in her sleep- unlike him and his teammates when he'd been in school.

He pushed aside the bittersweet memories and turned to his computer to look up "Lumi Hazelwood." (Chickadee fit her better, but whatever). Her school picture showed her with all grey hair, which prompted his memory of all relevant details he knew about her. It wasn't much.

Her weapon was a collapsible police baton- that he was mildly concerned over being stolen equipment but not really- and it turned into a bow. A little unusual, given that most people adopted some sort of gun in addition to their main type of weapon, but she didn't talk back when he disassembled the wreck her first prototype had been and made the changes he suggested so she was okay in his books.

Better than the kid who showed up with a trumpet, at least. He shuddered.

Qrow took note of her dorm room number, grabbed the paper contract and headed out. The halls were mostly clear, because it was Friday, but smalls groups still lingered around doorways and water fountains.

For as little as he cared about his "image" (unless it was to make himself seem cool) it made him feel like a perverted old man to be heading towards the girl's dormitories despite his honest intentions. However, there was nothing to be done for it except to shift into crow form and fly his way there. He shifted back a few feet off the path to the brick building and walked up.

His nieces were as young as some of the girls who eyed him with mistrust, but he tried not to take their suspicions personally. He definitely wouldn't be there unless he needed to be.

Eager to get the awkwardness over with, he charged ahead with his usual nonchalance- only to be stopped by a girl half his height in the first floor lounge.

"Hi, Mr. Branwen," she began. "What are you doing here?" Her smile was sharp and mildly threatening.

He'd seen Raven absolutely thrash a guy for following her around. Telling this kid it wasn't any of her business would do him no favors and might possibly be a danger to his health, veteran Huntsman or not.

"I need Hazelwood to finish filling out her TA contract," he lifted the thin sheaf of papers as proof.

"What room is she in? I'll bring them to her," she held out her hand.

He hesitated. "Room 310. They need to be signed now," he explained and cautiously handed it over. There was still the electronic version, but he could email her… after he looked up her school e-mail.

"No problem," she chirped and spun on her heel.

He shoved his hands in his pocket and took a seat. A few awkward minutes later, the teal haired girl came back and shook her head.

"She's not here," she returned the contract. "Her roommate said she goes home for the weekend."

"Thanks anyways," he called and strolled out.

Well fuck. Of course his Semblance would act up now of all times. He sighed, then shifted to bird form and flew to his room. He'd just have to hunt her down on Monday.

-[-]-

Spending time with her mother was as much of an ordeal as Lumi had expected it would be. She arrived at school Sunday evening mildly injured, annoyed and exasperated, but her foul mood left her as she caught up with her longtime friend, Calypso, over dinner.

The taller and tanner girl brought her up to speed on the drama of last week and gushed about the upcoming fieldtrip to Beacon Academy, then speculated what this week would hold. Noteworthy news included break-ups, make-ups, new relationships, and most importantly, a new rumor about Lumi and Mr. Branwen.

"What."

"Mm, apparently he went to your room and wasn't seen again," Calypso informed her with a grin. "Your roomie was locked out the whole day."

Lumi stared intently at her with a slowly furrowing brow. "I left before school ended. Did anyone even ask Amaryll?"

"Of course not." She clenched her hand into an impassioned fist. "No fact checks- we die like Huntsmen!"

The grey and black haired girl lowered her head to her hands and contemplated her entire life.

"Cheer up," she patted her back. "At least when everyone comes by tonight to pick up their goods you can tell them all about your romp with the weirdest alcoholic on campus."

"Excuse me; what." She lifted her head to stare at her good friend of two years. "If Branwen was really sleeping with students he'd be in jail already." Or dead, she admitted to herself, because even criminals hated child predators.

The white-haired girl waved her off flippantly. "Details, details."

"Facts, facts," she mocked.

Her eyes rolled dramatically. "Well only a few people were saying it, so maybe it won't be that bad?"

Lumi sighed and stole a buttery roll from the other girl's plate. "I hope so. If I'm right, I'm going to be spending a lot of time with him. I'd hate for people to get the wrong idea and have to have the truth beaten into them..."

"Mm," she hummed. "Anyways, did you do any designing when you were home?"

The conversation drifted to lighter topics for a while then the two walked to the dorm hall and parted ways. Lumi trudged up the stairs to her room where a couple of her regular customers were standing and chatting. She waved at them and they responded with various flavors of "hello."

Time to start dispelling rumors.