Masterix requested a CardinxVelvet (Domestic Abuse) romantic ship because of severe problems in their head. Here you go you sick, sick weirdo.


"Look, I'm just going to say this outright," Cardin announced. His team was expecting a motivational speech. They weren't expecting this.

"We suck," he admitted.

No answer. Russel Thrush shifted uncomfortably. Dove Bronzewing looked away from the harsh words, then back when he was ready. Sky Lark had recognized Cardin's pained expression. He had yet to look up from the floor. They were sat on reversed chairs, circled around the room, with heads not hanging so high.

"I mean, last semester, we were pounding on Jaune Arc. Now we're the laughing stock of the school, barely hanging on academically, nowhere near the top teams in combat, and Jaune is pounding Pyrrha on the daily! We're... I mean, come on, we aren't even dateable! You know why? No one likes us!"

Sky Lark leaned in to ask, "Who cares?"

"Yeah, we'll just get better and it won't matter," Bronzewing shrugged.

"I overheard Pyrrha say she's single," Russel added.

"Whatever! It doesn't matter," Cardin retorted.

"You sure? This is the fifth time you've talked about Jaune today," Russel pointed.

"It's not about being better than Jaune, guys! It's about team Cardinal being better than what team Cardinal is right now. Because right now, we suck! Bad! And we do need to care about who likes us. You think teams are good on their own? They get better by helping each other and learning from each other. CFVY learned to fight by sparring with FYRE. JNPR studies with RWBY. Who do we work with? Nobody. And until that changes, we can't get better."

"So-"

"-So shut up and listen, Bronzewing. I'm giving you all three assignments. First, go make friends with another student who doesn't already know we're jerks. You have a week. Second, go make friends with somebody who did know us when we were jerks. You guys have a month. And third, get girlfriends."

Dove Bronzewing raised his hand.

"Or boyfriends," Cardin added.

Bronzewing kept his hand raised. Cardin sighed.

"What?"

"Okay, for starters, I'm not gay," Bronzewing grumbled.

"Really?" Russel chirped.

They all looked at the posters of male models beside Bronzewing's bed.

"Really," he nodded, "and secondly, when people talk about why they don't like us, they talk about you, Cardin. I mean, you're the leader. Nobody's going to trust us until you find a way to make amends publicly."

Cardin nodded at the point. He thought through an answer. In that silence, Russel leaned to Sky and whispered, "seriously, though, what's with the posters?"

"Alright," Cardin nodded, "You guys are right. It's time I lead by example. I'm going to do everything I can to turn our image around. I just want to know that you've all got my back."

They put their hands in the center, made eye contact, and all nodded.

Two weeks later, he was face-to-face with Velvet Scarlatina, arms outstretched with flowers. She smiled. Then she laughed. Then she laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Cardin didn't dare to move. It wasn't in his nature to run.

"Um," he tried, "Could you..."

Her shrill giggles hurt more than his arms.

"Could, could you take the flowers?"

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Coco! Coco, come here! You have to see this!"

She waited for the team leader to join them. Coco stopped by jutting out her hip and pulling down her shades to smirk at Cardin's tuxedo.

"Oh... My... God," she drawled.

"Say it again," Velvet laughed, gesturing him on.

Cardin shifted his weight into a more authoritative stance.

"Velvet," he said through a puffed up chest, "I want to make amends. And I was hoping we could go to the dance together."

Coco laughed. Everyone in the hallway laughed. She turned and shouted at an open door.

"Hey, Fox! Fox, come here! You gotta hear this!"

Next period, he sat in Professor Oobleck's class and actually opened his scroll to take notes. Everyone was staring at him- Professor Oobleck, even. To his left, Jaune had the relaxed look of a man in charge. He was copying something from the whiteboard, but glanced to Cardin and said, "Hey, man, I heard you've started making amends. Glad to hear it."

"Uh... Thanks," Cardin grumbled back.

He tried writing in his notebook. He couldn't help but see that Jaune was slightly faster at writing. His fury at that was irrational, he knew. He reminded himself that, with practice, he would match his peers in all skills. And he forced all but practice from his mind. Then he heard snickering.

He promised himself he would cast no more than a glance. But there he saw Ruby Rose whispering to Blake Belladonna. Ruby was the one snickering. Blake, though silent, was watching him with the same incredulous smile Velvet had worn. Beside her was Weiss, who leaned over to read what Blake was scribbling in her notebook, and then smirked across the seats at Cardin.

That night, he entered his dorm feeling nothing but pain and determination. Dove Bronzewing was in the bathroom, examining his muscles in the mirror. He compared his bicep to one of his models, flexing repeatedly. Russel Thresh was staring intently at a poetry book.

"Where's Sky?" Cardin asked.

"Date," Bronzewing grunted.

"Whoa."

"Right?"

Russel threw down his pencil, frustrated, and gripped his head.

"WHAT RHYMES WITH PUPLE?!"

The next day, Cardin paced down the hallways in a tuxedo, with a bouquet twice the size of the previous.

"Should we stop him?" Ruby wondered aloud.

"We could follow him," Weiss suggested.

"The first time was funny," Blake admitted, "But this will be sad."

He didn't let their words deter him. He was only stopped when Coco stepped out from behind a locker to block his path. She pulled down her shades. There was no smirk, no critic's eye burning his clothes. She glared at him like a marksman.

"What are you doing, Cardin?"

He gripped the flowers to his chest.

"I'm asking your teammate to go to the dance with me," he asserted.

"Why?"

"Because I like Velvet, and I want her to know I'm sorry."

"How about you go like somebody else?" Coco suggested.

Cardin shuffled his feet. He hadn't considered that.

"I... Uh... I mean..."

Coco waggled her head, mimicking his stutter in parody, "Uh uh uh. Nuh-uh, Sweetie. Go put the Lilacs in one vase and the Tulips in the other. They don't go together. And they don't go near Velvet."

Cardin looked down at his flowers. He'd thought paying extra to have someone else sort them was just a scam.

"Uh."

"Yeah, you already said that. Maybe come up with some better lines for your other date, too. What, did you think this kindergarten? 'Here's a flower I got on daddy's credit card, my parents can drive us to the school dance.' Come on, Cardin. You're an asshole, and no one wants to spend time with you. A handful of flowers isn't going to fix that."

"I'm not like that anymore," he insisted.

She gestured at the flowers.

"Then why'd you think a bribe would make Velvet want you?"

Her point was made. There was no grasping for words after that. She scoffed at his silence, and left him in that hallway.

Cardin lay down in his bed and glared at the ceiling.

"Why do we have two vases?" Bronzewing noticed.

Sky Lark was flipping through a romance novel. Without looking up, he answered, "Because Lilacs and Tulips don't go together."

He flipped a page and scribbled a note in the margins. Cardin, realizing, sat up and looked at him.

"You already have a girlfriend."

"Yeah."

"How?"

Without realizing it, he'd called a team meeting. Everyone gathered around and waited for the Grand Master of love to share his knowledge.

There was no third bouquet... But there was a third attempt. Cardin Winchester strolled down the hall in a tuxedo. He had a single flower. Velvet was at the end of the hall, explaining something to her gathered friends. Winchester vectored and held his courage tight. He was stopped only when a mob of the foreign students left one of their orientations en mass. He was face to face with a tanned girl from Haven academy. She looked down into his hands, then at his tux, then into his eyes. There was a look of realization, then of smug mirth.

"Hey, Merc," she called, "Isn't this that guy from the video you showed me?"

Merc was a silver haired student from Haven. He stepped to her side and squinted at Cardin.

"You know what, Emerald? It is. Tsk. Oooh, man, are you trying to woo that faunus girl again?"

"Yes," Cardin asserted.

Another girl from Haven joined them. A nametag sticker over her uniform breast read, "Fall." She had a look of sorrow at the flower, then grinned at Cardin.

"Can I give you some advice?" she cooed.

He thought about it.

"I would appreciate that," he decided.

Cinder placed a hand against the flower, and crushed it against his chest. Her lips curled in cruel satisfaction.

"Don't," she ordered.

They left him, bumping both shoulders as they passed. He stuffed the ruined flower in his pocket. He would not be dissuaded by bullying. As a force of will, he scooted his way (politely, without shoulder bumping) through the crowd. And there he found himself, suddenly, face to face with team CFVY.

"Oh great," Coco hissed.

She pulled her glasses off entirely, and waved them as she tossed all care to the wind. Fox laughed at Cardin, one chuckle, like a drum beat, and followed Coco as she left. Yatsuhashi placed a hand on Velvet's shoulder.

"No, it's fine," she dismissed him.

Before he left, he spent a long time staring into Cardin's soul. There was an understanding between them. Velvet sighed, and planted a hand on her hip.

"Well? Go ahead," she gestured.

Cardin ignored the flash of a camera behind him, the quiet murmur of the crowd, Nora's whispered, "Can I break his legs yet?"

"Velvet," he started.

But she had less patience than she'd anticipated.

"Do you remember pulling on my ears while I asked you to stop? How about all of those racist remarks you keep making about me being a faunus? Did those just slip your mind?"

"No. That's why I'm here."

He reached for the flower in his pocket. He remembered that wasn't an option. Velvet made a vague gesture with her whole body, a question, like asking, "And what could you accomplish here?"

He took a knee.

"I-"

"You're an asshole," she said in the cutest accent anyone had ever heard.

The general murmur of the crowd agreed. Cardin nodded.

"I was, yes."

"No, you are. If you expect me to just forgive you for what you've done, you're an asshole."

"I don't," he admitted.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because an apology is the first step to being a better man."

"Oh, you want me to make you a better man?" she sneered.

"No. But I think you deserve a better man than I've been."

No comeback. She scoffed, stalling for time. The crowd was silent.

"Forget about the dance," Cardin whispered, "but let me make up to you what a jerk I've been."

"And how do you plan to do that?"

Here, he applied the wisdom of Sky "Lady Killer" Lark.

The full extent of that failure was expressed an hour later, in the foreign students' quarters, when Emerald Sustrai sat down to watch random internet videos. She found one titled "Flashmob proposal at Beacon."

She laughed long and hard.

It was two weeks later that Cardin next saw Velvet. The dance had come and gone. He'd selected no other date, and had failed to woo mere friendship out of a study buddy. But he had a study buddy now. His contact with Velvet was a literal bump, her error.

"Oh," they both said.

"Sorry," Cardin offered.

"No, I..." Velvet didn't finish.

Cardin turned to leave. She called out.

"Wait, Cardin. I have a question."

Cardin stopped. Though it pained him, he turned and addressed her.

"Why did you do all of that? You know, two weeks ago."

She gestured over her shoulder, at the past. Cardin shrugged.

"Look, I was just looking for my dorm keys. Sorry I stopped in the hallway."

"I'm serious," she insisted.

He sighed. He looked for an answer less embarrassing than the truth, but she'd literally caught him in a hallway.

"I... Uh... I like you," he admitted, "And I like you... A lot. So I... You know, did all of that."

He didn't move. He'd played his cards, so he knew he might as well see how the hand went. It was only then that he looked her in the eyes, and saw the bags under them. She was exhausted. Coco rounded the corner and joined them. Though her glasses were up, the pale complexion revealed that she was just as spent.

"Come on, this again-" she started.

But Velvet waved her down.

"It's my fault. I bumped into him."

Then, to Cardin: "Look, Cardin. I appreciate the gesture. And I believe you're sincere. And I'm sorry if you've had a lot of embarrassment recently. I mean, it's not my fault, but I sympathize. Just... I don't have any need for a boyfriend."

"Nobody needs a boyfriend," Coco grunted.

"Thank you, Coco," Velvet said, meaning, "I literally could not be less grateful for your commentary."

"Any time," Coco answered, meaning, "I will never do this for you again."

Coco swiped her keycard in the dorm door. But she stopped without entering. She wavered, her balance thrown off by tiredness. Seeing her in profile, Cardin could tell that her eyes were dancing behind her shades.

"Your dad was a chef, right?" she remembered, "and your mom was a masseuse?"

Cardin squared his shoulders to her, caught off-guard.

"How did you know that?"

"You had an interest in my teammate. So I had an interest in you."

Cardin had no answer. Coco continued, "You cook?"

"Y-yeah, sometimes," Cardin nodded.

"And you can give a mean massage, or are those just for show?"

She gestured at his biceps.

"Uh... Yeah, I guess," he mumbled.

Coco thought again, then walked back to Velvet's side, and wrapped an arm over her friend's shoulder.

"See, Velvet," she said, "no one needs a boyfriend."

Cardin's ego found its nadir in that moment.

Coco finished, "But everyone needs a slave. Your call."

She patted her friend as she left, and Velvet considered the thought with a slowly growing look of mischief.

This was the beginning of a long and prosperous relationship.