A/N: Guess who's back?
Back again
Jester's back
Tell a friend
That's right friends, I didn't abandon this story! It took a lot of work, life got in the way quite a bit, and I'm not exactly happy with it but here is the next chapter in our story.
I'd like to keep this short so I'll say thanks to those of you who have followed/favourited, another thank you to the wonderful people who have commented and showed their support, and one last thanks to Growlscout, who has so generously agreed to be my muse and deal with me rambling on about my ideas for my stories!
Lastly, check out my tumblr to see progress updates and get sneak peeks at whatever I'm working on that day!

Ruby clenched and unclenched her fist lightly before wiping her palm on her jeans. She wasn't sure what was happening to her lately.

Her entire life seemed to be spiraling out of control and not only was she unable to stop it, she was finding herself unwilling to.

And that would be fine, if only she could get her head on straight. It seemed like ever since their first encounter with Torchwick, she found herself playing most things by ear, unable to slow down and plan anything properly. Granted, it was mostly her opponents' fault (stupid billion-dollar-evil-international-underground-organisation), but what really freaked her out was the fact that she was relishing the challenge.

She was afraid she was going to make a stupid mistake and wind up getting those closest to her killed. It only took one slip up for everything to go wrong, and Ruby was afraid that she would miss something in her excitement.

It set her on edge, made her clumsy. She felt like she was slipping. Like she was melting into crowds as easily as she used. Like transition from one accent to another was becoming less seamless by the day. Even the taxi cab she was currently sitting in seemed stifling as she breathed in the musky scent coming off the worn leather.

She looked to her left, and found herself relaxing slightly as she took in the platinum haired woman sitting next to her. She studied her partner's tight, navy blue jeans, before lifting her gaze to the cream coloured blouse and sky blue jacket. She continued her upward inspection and stopped when she met shining cerulean watching her inquisitively.

She smiled when Weiss reached out and squeezed her hand comfortingly.

She was reminded of everything her partner had gone through since their series of misadventures had started. If recent events were confusing her, she could only guess how Weiss was feeling. The woman had her whole life uprooted and yet she somehow still found it in her to trust a girl she knew next to nothing about; and if Weiss was willing to take such a chance, than Ruby owed it to the other woman to not worry about insignificant things like insecurities and what ifs when there were much bigger things to deal with first.

The cab came to a halt and Ruby smiled as she exited the car. She walked around the vehicle, her eyes never leaving the warm brick and rusted garage doors as she handed the cabbie a couple bills, and stood next to Weiss.

"Here we are." She said softly.

"Finally," Weiss commented, "that taxi reeked of stale vomit and cigarettes."

"Don't worry, you get used to it."

"So where have you brought me this time?" Weiss asked, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.

"Come on, I'll show you." Ruby answered as she led the way around the building to an old set of doors covered in so much rust, they almost blended in with the ruddy maroon of the surrounding bricks. This close, they could both hear the sounds of activity within, and once the doors were open (after a frustrating amount of wriggling), the dull thrum exploded into a cacophony of metal grinding against metal, power tools, people shouting to one another, and explicit rap music.

"Welcome to Flynt's." Ruby said as she ushered Weiss through the doors.

Weiss stepped forward and looked around the garage, examining the different stations where workers were taking apart, fixing, and putting all sorts of cars together.

"It's a chop shop." The former heiress observed.

"That depends," a chipper voice said from behind them, "are you a cop?"

Weiss jumped slightly at the sound of another voice, and Ruby couldn't help chuckling under her breath.

We'll need to work on that. She thought as they turned to face whoever it was.

Standing before them was a young woman in her mid-twenties. Her bright orange hair was gathered into two large, poufy, pigtails with streaks of electric blue in her bangs. Her crop-top and short skirt over board shorts showed off enough tattoo-covered skin that Ruby was sure her prim and proper partner found it tasteless, but the woman wore it with an air of fun-loving relaxation that made it look more carefree than scandalous.

"And if I said we were?" Ruby asked in return.

"Then I would tell you that I take offense at your insinuation that just because Flynt's Auto Works employs and provides work for people with prior convictions, it is a front for organized criminal activity and not the honest, reputable place of business we have made it into."

There was a moment of tense silence between the two women before both grinned and hugged each other tightly.

"It's good to see you, Katt." Ruby said once they separated.

"It's great to see you too, Zoe." Katt replied. "We didn't know when we'd see you again after that whole affair in St. Louis. It's too bad F's not here, I know he'd love to see you too."

"Yeah, well I'm incredibly hard to get rid of." Ruby joked. "Tell Flynt I am sorry I didn't get to see him while I was here."

"He's a big boy, he'll live. Plus you can count yourself lucky you don't have to be subjected to that God-awful trumpet of his."

"Aw, come on Katt, he's actually pretty good at it."

Katt scoffed. "Not when he spends all day trying to write his own original music."

Both women laughed for a few moments before Katt turned from Ruby to Weiss. "Jokes aside," she said a bit more seriously, "I know you didn't come all the way down here to play catch up with me –especially when you've brought a friend –so what can I do for you?"

"Right," Ruby said as she gestured to Weiss, "Heather, this is my friend Katt. She and her husband Flynt run this place. Katt, this is Heather. She and I are working together on a job."

"Nice to meet you!" Katt cheered as she grabbed Weiss's hand and shook it enthusiastically.

"The pleasure is all mine." Weiss replied in a decent imitation (for a rookie) of a British accent.

"Katt," Ruby said seriously once they were done exchanging pleasantries, "I need to use the back room."

*(OoO)*

Weiss watched the shock cross over the neon woman's face as she looked at her before turning back to face Red. She opened her mouth as if to ask the younger woman if she was sure, but Weiss watched warm pools of silver harden into tempered steel as Red leveled Katt with a look that brokered no argument. Katt shut her mouth and nodded before walking, somewhat stiffly, over to the small office at the other end of the garage. Weiss and Red stood silently as they waited for her to return.

The racket the other workers made faded into the background as Weiss studied her friend. Right now, there was no sign of neither the sweet dorky girl who had found her place in Weiss's heart with her adorable nerdiness and constant quoting of everything, nor the caring young woman whose struggles throughout her life left her with a heart bigger than most and wisdom far beyond her years.

Standing before her was a hardened criminal.

Before, when Weiss thought of the words hardened criminal, she would imagine either men like Junior, who ruled the seedy underbelly of cities through fear and intimidation and stayed on top by crushing the weak underfoot, or alternatively, she pictured the more snake-like businessmen she had met with her father; the ones who flaunted their decadence with things like pocket squares for their suits that costed more than what most people made in a month and watches that could afford enough food to feed a small country, whose smiles were more akin to the baring of fangs than signs of kindness and companionship.

But as she took in the set of Red's shoulders, along with the expression on her face, Weiss felt truly intimidated. True to her grafter roots, Red looked like she could be anybody or nobody. The way she stood made her posture look both tense, as if some new danger could present itself at any moment, and at ease, as if these dangers were an everyday occurrence. Her neutral expression showed nothing of what she was really thinking, and without the usual warmth in her eyes, Weiss could see how the younger woman could pass for anything from a fifteen to a thirty-five year old.

She was an exercise in neutrality. Her true self completely camouflaged by context.

What truly set Weiss on edge, though, were her eyes.

Perhaps it was because she allowed it, but despite her blank façade, the brunette's sharp, steely eyes still portrayed intelligence. Cold, raw intellect, and the will to use it to ensure the enemy was beaten, broken, and left with nothing.

Her attention shifted from Red to Katt as the redhead exited the office and walked back to them with a set of keys in her hand. She frowned as she handed Red the keys and leaned up to whisper something in the taller woman's ear before turning and heading back to the office. They remained silent as Red led her past the office to the very back of the garage. There stood an extremely non-descript door, the kind you could walk by for years and not even care to notice its existence. Red didn't say a word as she fiddled with the keys. She turned the key in the lock and was about to open the door when Weiss reached out and grasped her arm softly.

"You okay?" She asked.

"Yeah." Red replied. Weiss sighed in relief as some of the warmth returned to her friend's eyes. "Come on, I'll show you what we came here for."

She kept a light grip on the woman's arm as she followed her into a small, cramped room. They stood with less than six inches between them once Red shut the door, surrounding them in darkness, and Weiss had to take a few deep breaths to keep from getting overwhelmed by her friend's warmth and the intoxicating smell of strawberries and roses.

"I'm going to assume there's more to this room than meets the eye, and you didn't just drag me all the way out here for a supply closet." Weiss mused while Red pulled a chain dangling from the ceiling before taking assorted cleaning supplies off the shelves at the back.

"Heh, please," Red scoffed as she reached into her leather jacket and pulled out a set of lock picks, "if I wanted to hide out with a pretty girl in a cramped space, we'd still be at the warehouse."

Weiss felt heat rush from the tips of her ears to the top of her chest and spluttered incoherently while Red chuckled and ran her fingers over the wall, seemingly in search of something specific. "Must you be so crude?" She finally managed to bite out.

"Yep."

"What are you looking for anyway?" Weiss asked as she watched the brunette run her fingers lightly against the drywall.

Red didn't answer. Instead she focused on feeling along the wall until she found what she was looking for. She smiled roguishly as she dug her nails into the wall and tugged. The sound of peeling tape filled the air as Red pulled a strip from near the top of the wall down to the floor, bringing layers of paint with. Where before there was a flat uninterrupted section of wall between two shelves, there was now a large seam and a keyhole.

"This is what we came for." Red explained as she pulled out her lock picks.

Weiss struggled to keep a straight face behind her. "A secret room, really?" She asked between barely restrained chuckles.

"What's wrong with that?" Red inquired.

"It's just… don't you think that's a little over the top? Even for you?"

Red flushed and turned to focus on maneuvering the picks inside the keyhole while she spoke. "Look, I was barely old enough to drive when I first came to New York. I needed a private space to store my servers, along with anything else that was too incriminating to keep and too important to destroy. Half of what I knew was from old spy movies and books, so I used what money I had to buy this lot and rebuild the garage, then I bribed the contractor to add a room that wasn't on any of the plans."

"So if this place belongs to you, why are you picking the lock?"

"There are two keys to this room," Red explained, "one of them is with Pyrrha, the other with Yang. I pick the lock to remind myself that even the best lock out there can be picked and that there's no such things as perfect security."

There was a soft click as the tumblers fell into place and Red twisted the lock, pushing the door open with her shoulder. Weiss trailed in slowly, trying to take in as many of the details around her as she could.

The warehouse had been filled with an abundance of evidence pertaining to the criminal aspects of Red's life, but it was remarkably bare when it came to details about the woman herself, and the few things that did were vague at best. Weiss found her memory drifting to one of their first nights together when she had inspected one of Red's many bookshelves, only to find the range of material to be so wide, the only thing she could discern was that the younger woman read quite a bit, and that, judging by some of the works there, she was incredibly intelligent. It struck Weiss now that that was probably what Red had intended.

"If I take refuge in ambiguity, I assure you that it's quite conscious."

Red had consciously placed the bookshelf there and filled it with those books specifically to provide evidence of the wealth of information at her disposal and the deep general intelligence with which to use it without giving away anything about herself in the process.

This room, though, was –at least partly –devoted to the girl beneath the criminal savant.

There was a bed in a small alcove to the side that was suspended over a cluttered desk by what looked like a series of ropes that, in Weiss's opinion, guaranteed certain death for anyone seated beneath it. The walls around the bed were covered in posters from various movies and TV shows. Books of all kinds lay in scattered piles all over the floor, the only thing they held in common being the fact that they all seemed to be works of fiction. A quick scan showed works by Tolstoy and Conan-Doyle in the same piles as those from Rowling and Riordan. It seemed Red's tastes were not universal though, as there was a small stack of books, the top one showing a picture of two hands holding an apple on the cover, the title blocked by a large note that simply read NOPE.

Outside of the little alcove though, the rest of the room was centered on her partner's work.

There were workbenches situated in different places around the room. Weiss examined the nearest one and was… interested, to say the least, to find that among bits of circuit boards and half built machines sat what looked like a biology textbook. The book was held open on a page showing detailed diagrams of the muscular structure of dogs.

"Sorry, it's kinda cluttered," Red said, bringing the older woman's attention back to her as she stood awkwardly scratching the back of her neck. "Organized chaos and all that."

"Don't worry about it." Weiss replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. She paused for a moment, unsure whether to ask or not, before going for it and nodding toward the table she had been regarding. "Planning on building yourself a friend?"

"Upgrading one actually."

The teasing smile slid off Weiss's face and was replaced with disbelief as she processed the brunette's words.

"You're telling me you built yourself a dog?" She asked.

"Sort of," Red answered and Weiss found herself smiling as the younger girl's eyes lit up before grabbing the former heiress by the hand and pulling her toward the back of the room. They came to a stop in front of what basically looked like a computer on wheels with a boxy, mechanical, dog head attached to it.

"A few years ago, I was watching Doctor Who for the millionth time, and Ten was reuniting with K-9 and that gave me the idea to-"

"Sorry, there were ten canines reuniting with who?"

Red sighed and looked at Weiss with what the platinum-haired girl could have sworn was pity before continuing. "Right, I forgot that we haven't completed your education on popular culture and how far it's come since the 1890's." Weiss glared at her, but unlike before, when a well-timed glare could bring out the sweet, dorky, nervous girl, it simply made Red smile as she went on undisturbed. "Anyway, I was watching a show where a man had a robot dog to help him get out of jams, and I thought: 'hey, I want that!' So, I built one and hooked him up to my private servers." She waved a hand toward the multiple servers standing in the center of the room. "Only problem was: Ein here is big, bulky, and currently less portable than a laptop. So, with the help of some rather impressive research into prosthetics from this one engineering firm in Germany, I'm working to build him a sleeker body before taking him anywhere. Until then, all the info stored here stays in this room."

"Why not just use a laptop?" Weiss asked. "You mentioned back in Canada as well that you needed to wait until you had access to your servers to see those files you took from Torchwick, but as far as I can tell, you still haven't looked at them, despite having several opportunities to do so."

Red paused for a moment, seemingly contemplating how best to answer her question before speaking. "Remember what I said about the door to this place? About nothing being secure?" Weiss nodded. "Well it's doubly so for computers. If it can be connected to, it can be hacked. It's for that reason that there is only one computer that can access my servers."

"Then how do things like those files get sent to you?"

Red moved about the room plugging certain things in and pushing different buttons on the servers as she answered. "After a truly grueling amount of scanning for anything malicious, and enough encrypting and bouncing between proxies to make Harold Finch proud, the data gets sent to Pyrrha, who brings it here and uploads it to a computer in the garage that's wired to the one in here and sends it through to this room, where the relevant data is scanned and used to create new files while the originals are wiped."

"That's a lot of work to go through." Weiss commented. "Why not just have Pyrrha come here, especially if she has a key?"

Red paused what she was doing and looked hesitant for a moment before answering. "Well that's because… um –no one, uh… no one's actually been in here before, you know, except for me."

Weiss's eyes widened as the weight of Red's words settled upon her. "B-but-but… the keys…" she stuttered, "you gave a key to her. And your sister too."

Red nodded in agreement. "They have keys," she said softly, "but they still haven't been here. This is the one place I feel safe enough to just be… me. To be the girl behind the criminal."

"So what are the keys for?" Weiss asked numbly. Red was opening up to her in a way she had only done for a precious few. Baring her soul to the former heiress in a way she felt incapable of doing through words.

"I needed a contingency plan, should anything go wrong and I needed to scuttle everything. They both knew me before I created Red, so they were the logical choices should I need someone to wipe away every trace of my existence."

"So… why bring me here?" Weiss asked, her chest tightening with what was either hope or dread. Maybe both.

"I know it hasn't been very long." Red whispered as she took the older girl's hands in her own. "But there's something about you that tells me I can trust you to have my back, and our recent misadventures have proven that you are someone I want by my side, especially when we take on Torchwick, and I guess I figured that part of that includes you knowing the real me."

Weiss fought against the stinging in her eyes as she struggled to form a sentence past the lump building in her throat. "Red, I-I-" she choked out.

"I know it's not much to go on," Red admitted, "but if we get through this ordeal with that cane-carrying-cunt, and you still wanna stick around afterwards we'll come right back here and I'll tell you whatever you wanna know… starting with my name."

Weiss wanted to thank her for this privilege. To tell Red that she was beyond happy to stand by her side. To reassure her that of course she would want to stay. But the words refused to come. Instead, she simply launched herself into the arms of the woman before her, wrapping her arms around the brunette's neck and holding tightly as she poured every ounce of emotion she wasn't brave enough to say into the embrace.

She felt strong arms holding her tightly around the waist and sighed happily before shivering slightly when Red smiled against her neck. They stood there silently for several minutes, both content to simply enjoy the feeling of the other in their arms.

When they finally separated, Red went about looking through the files from Miami while Weiss reclined against one of the work benches, watching the other girl with a soft smile on her face. She was struck once again by the realization that in twenty-one years, she had never felt safer, more at ease, more like she belonged, then when she was gallivanting around the country, risking her life and liberty, to help this woman she sometimes had trouble frankly believing was real commit all sorts of crimes.

She couldn't remember being as happy as she was now, watching as Red scanned those files, her eyes twinkling at the prospect of absorbing new information. She wasn't even aware her gaze had shifted and that she had been staring at her friend's lips until she heard her name being called.

"Weiss? Did you hear me?" Red asked as she spun in her chair to face the flustered former heiress.

"Huh? S-sorry," Weiss stuttered, her cheeks warming in embarrassment, "could you repeat that?"

Red smirked knowingly. "I said, that I think I may have found what we're looking for."

"You found information on Torchwick?"

"Not exactly," Red answered as she rose to her feet, "but I think I found some more concrete intel on why he's headed to South America."

"That's good." Weiss said. "It'll be good to have something more solid to rely on than just the word of some internet ghost."

"And no hidden messages this time, either." Red added jokingly.

"No, instead I just had to stand here for the better part of an hour while you played with your computers." Weiss teased.

"Hey, cut me some slack, it's my first time having company." Red countered as she stepped closer and placed her hands on the platinum blonde's waist. "Tell you what, I'll be sure to get another chair for you when we come back."

"That could work," Weiss said, her eyes casting over the various piles of books littering the floor, "though you may need to rearrange your… collection a bit to make room."

She smiled for a second, but it quickly dissolved when she felt Red stiffen and stare off into space.

"Red?" She asked cautiously. "What's wrong?"

"That's it…" The brunette muttered before turning and rifling through her desk.

"What's it? Red, what are you talking-" She was cut off as soft lips pressed against her own. She barely had time to register what had just happened and respond before the lips were gone.

"Weiss, you are a genius!" Red exclaimed as she rushed around the room gathering various materials. "I can't believe I never thought of that! God, I'm so stupid!"

Weiss was still stunned when Red hefted a backpack carrying her laptop and several notebooks over her shoulder and grabbed the former heiress's hand.

"Come on, we need to talk to the others!" She exclaimed, pulling a still shell-shocked Weiss out of the hidden room and back towards the street.

It wasn't until they were already in a cab on their way back to the warehouse that a coherent thought finally breached the fog of her mind.

Red just kissed me!

It made her heart race for a brief moment before screeching to a halt as her next thought filled her with fear.

I just kissed Red…