As Ruby stepped out of the platform with her fingers intertwined with Roman's, she remembered the first time they met. His scar was almost on full display now, the ridges of his otherwise unblemished skin coming up like a ripple in a clear lake, and some disheveled strands of hair fell to cover it, but they were just beginning to show a twinge of their familiar inflammation. He must be terrified, Ruby thought. "How far is this place?"
Roman did not look at her. "Just a few blocks away." He was distracting himself with a map of the subway system.
An announcement came over loudspeakers, cutting them out of their thoughts. "All train service to and from downtown Vale has been stopped on all lines but the D train. We apologize for the inconvenience."
Roman sighed in relief. "Looks like we made it out of dodge just in time."
Ruby snapped her attention back to him. "What do you mean? It doesn't sound like law enforcement."
He shook his head. "There is now only one train line from downtown Vale to here, and I'd bet my hat that it's crawling with cops by now." Roman's grip tightened around her hand as he stared off in the direction of the platform exit.
Does that mean that the cops in this subway station were looking for him, too? She took one look at his scrunched brows and castaway expression, knowing that voicing her concerns out loud would do nothing, and Roman had likely surmised the same just now.
"Let's go." He put a hand on her shoulder and started with her to the exit. "We need to get off the streets as soon as we can."
"Technically, we're not on any streets," Ruby said, her useless thoughts cascading out of her mouth in dizzy alarm.
Roman gave no response as he took the first step up the flight of stairs. She followed his lead, taking a hurried pace, but forcing just enough of a calm exterior that no one would think to suspect them. A sparse crowd of people populated the upper mezzanine, and Ruby quickly calculated the disadvantages. There may have been all the fewer people to recognize them, but the only thing any one person had to do to get a good look at him was to turn their head. When she looked at him herself, she saw that his eyes were cast down to the floor, avoiding eye contact with anyone. His eyes did not look guarded; they were as sharp and focused as ever.
A few things assured Ruby: Roman clearly knew how to evade arrest, especially when fleeing a crime scene. He probably has the escape routine down pat. And second, they may have raided his apartment, but he had plans to be somewhere else tonight, and the only way law enforcement could have tracked their movements was if the apartment were bugged. But they got away clean, and no one has stopped them, meaning that their relationship is still secret…right? Just another day in Vale.
As they approached the turnstile, Ruby thought to smile at the station attendant, but she figured that the best thing she could do for Roman was to attract as little attention to herself while she was in his company. She pulled out her scroll instead, intending to look at it just for a believable reason to keep her head down, but she saw that she had a couple of messages from her sister. There were several, but she only saw the latest one: Where are you?
Ruby opened the message and started typing. She wondered if Blake and Weiss were looking over her shoulder. She was so caught up in her train of thought that when she passed through the turnstile, the only thing that briefly caught her attention was the way Roman squeezed her hand as they passed the station attendant. "I'm fine, we're okay."
She wanted to include more details, but a realization hit her, painfully. She has already been tied to Roman Torchwick in the eyes of the law. And even if it were just by pure circumstance, she could not afford to tell anyone where she was right now. It would have been best to be at Beacon, where she would have been accounted for, but with police likely scouring the train for leads, that option may very well be out the window. After all, Blake and Weiss would say she was just on a date with some boy. However, at the same time, if Yang knew enough about the situation to ask, there was probably a press release with Roman's name all over it. This was a very precarious position, and there was just enough risk not only to spell Ruby's condemnation, but also Roman's possible reincarceration.
Hoping that she appeared less worried than she felt, Ruby snuck another look at Roman's face. A few months ago, she would have interpreted him very differently, chalking up his behavior to that of a seasoned, sociopathic criminal. But now she knew that he made a concerted effort to hide his emotions even when it works against him. This time, she was terrified by the look on his face. It was one that she had never seen before.
Ruby anticipated the sound of running footsteps behind them, authoritative voices commanding them to stop. She felt the anxiety creeping up in her and threatening to boil over. Her breath started to get away from her, turning Roman's attention to her. At the foot of the staircase leading up to the street, Roman squeezed her hand again, trying to help her in quiet reassurance. It hardly helped—she knew that as panicked as she was for their situation, Roman probably had a much darker theme plaguing his thoughts.
Ruby could not afford to show it now. Roman's survival may very well depend on her ability to perform well under these circumstances. She settled for wrapping her arm around Roman's as they surfaced. Roman looked down at her as they walked, sparing a second in their to brush his fingers over the hand she wrapped so tightly around his forearm, and the gesture made Ruby wonder if this would be the last time he could ever touch her so tenderly. He turned up his chin at the path in front of him, and led them to their final destination, silent all the way.
Roman stopped them in front of a modest townhouse, so small and unsuspecting compared to the place Ruby met him at. One unit conjoined to the next on each side, leaving so little space for the families that must have lived in places like this.
Ruby spent a moment thinking about this particular location. It was not in an isolated area, and there were so many units her that they must have some sort of neighborhood watch coordinated. This was not an ideal place for Roman to hide from the law, and Junior must not have been able to plan for whatever went so wrong. Or maybe he just had no time to do something about it. Roman reached around to squeeze her shoulder before kneeling out and pulling metal tools from his coat.
"What are you doing?" Ruby hissed. "We can't just break in."
Roman ignored her, twisting around the pieces of the lock carefully. He finished quickly, twisting the large bar in the lock as it clicked and simultaneously pushing the door open. "We're not breaking in. It's Junior's old house. I used to live here when I was younger."
"You mean you didn't meet him though your work?" Ruby looked up at him, but he would not meet her eyes.
"No. A while back, he was actually my legal guardian."
Ruby decided to change the subject. "Doesn't that make this the worst place to hide?"
Roman sighed heavily. "I can only stay here for a couple of hours. It's only a matter of time before Ironwood comes looking."
Ruby shuddered. "Can't your boss help you out or something? Don't they have some sort of contingency?"
"No, I'm afraid not," Roman entered the living area—poorly named for its size—and fell into a heap on the couch. Raking his fingers though his hair. Ruby followed and knelt in front of him, placing a hand on his knee. He paused and placed his hand over hers. She said nothing as he continued. "In fact, I suspect that they're the ones that just sold me out to the police."
Ruby's eyes widened as she shot up. "What? Why?"
"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure." Roman laced his fingers through Ruby's, taking his thumb across her knuckles. "But now that I'm thinking about it, I'm almost positive."
Ruby tried to say something, anything to comfort him, but her mind resolved no single thing that might help in this situation, and Ruby could feel his hands shaking. The words dammed up in her throat, and she resigned herself to sitting on the couch next to him, pressing the tips of her fingers into his back.
"What did your friends say?" Roman asked.
"My sister texted me, asking where I am a little while ago. I just told her that we're safe."
She felt Roman's shoulders tense. "Is there any possibility that your teammates know that I'm with you right now?"
Ruby shook her head. "I don't think so. It's just Yang."
Roman nodded, looking unconvinced, but too caught up to say anything else on the matter. Ruby pulled out her scroll to see if Yang responded.
Just one message. Okay. Did you get out of the city?
Ruby gulped, not knowing how to respond. She tapped Roman on the shoulder and held her scroll in front of his face.
Roman sighed and took it out of her hands, scrolling back up through the messages to see where the thread started. "Apparently your teammates are wondering where you are."
"I haven't read up that far," Ruby admitted. Maybe it would have been more prudent to read it sooner, but it would not have changed what they would have to do.
Roman quietly read the rest of her sister's messages while she looked over his shoulder to read them herself. When he reached the bottom, he sighed. He started to type, "Hey, it's me. She's with me right now," but Ruby stopped him.
"You can't say that," she said.
"Why not? At least implying that yes, you did get out of the city, would lessen the chances of her going to the police or something and telling them about us."
Ruby shook her head. "She wouldn't, but that's not the problem."
Roman groaned and handed Ruby's scroll back to her. "Okay, then."
Ruby fidgeted with her fingers, pulling away from Roman so she could better face him. "So what do we do now?"
"You need to get out of here."
"What? No, I won't."
Roman ignored her. "Better yet, you should go back to Beacon."
"I can't do that." Ruby clenched her jaw. Roman shot an exasperated look at her face.
"Why the fuck not? They're going to track me back here eventually." Roman stood. "The longer you stay, the more likely you are to be here when cops bust down this door. I prefer to run that risk alone."
"That's not the problem." Ruby clenched her hands into fists in her lap.
Roman sounded like he was about to chastise her for what seemed like blatant ignorance, but his tone changed very suddenly when the realization dawned on him. "What haven't you told me?"
Ruby took a deep breath. "Do you remember much about that night at the bank?"
"You mean when I got shot full of bullets? My shoulder is still pretty messed up."
Ruby nodded. "They found my fingerprints on the door and called me in for questioning two days later."
"Yeah, and?" His annoyance, unconcealed in his voice, indicated to Ruby that he was waiting for the point.
"Right now, they think that I was just a witness, and that I went in and saw the blood. And if cops are on the only train back to Beacon, they're going to ID me. And why else would I be coming all the way back from out of town at this time of night if I lived at Beacon?" Ruby ventured a gaze up at Roman. It was almost like he could watch the gears turning in his head.
After a moment, he spoke, clarifying exactly what Ruby was worried about. "You're worried that someone would associate us if you took the train tonight after giving suspicious testimony."
"In short, yeah. I'm worried that right now, someone has already considered that and tried to track down my movements tonight. What if they figured out where you lived because they already have, and they saw me coming here?"
"I don't think so." Roman put his hand to his mouth. "If they had, someone would have been tailing us. We both would have been arrested already."
"Fair enough, but that doesn't change that I could be associated with you at this point."
Roman nodded. Ruby noted the despair in his eyes. "Yeah. We have to come up with a plan." He crossed his arms and paced back and forth in front of her.
"Even if I do leave, I can't take the train." Ruby suggested.
"You're right on that, and no car service runs this late. But you do need to find a way to get back to Beacon."
"I'm not leaving you. Take that off the table." Ruby crossed her arms in defiance.
Roman threw his hands up in the air. "Ruby, we're both potentially screwed if you stay here tonight. Believe me, I want nothing more than to have you keep me company all night, but the reality is that, yes, you're spot on, and if the one person who was supposedly at the scene when I lost a shit ton of blood is unaccounted for tonight, any smart cop will suspect you and chase that fox all the way up the tree until they get here. And when they do, they'll burn down the tree."
Ruby sat in stunned silence, but she remained still. "I don't care."
"Ruby, please, for the love of everything, don't make the stupid choice and sacrifice yourself for me." He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. Ruby refused to look him in the eyes. She knew he would be able to persuade her, given enough time, to leave him. But if she did, it may be the very last time that she would ever see him.
"What if you die tonight?" She said, voice hollowing out as she finished her sentence.
Admittedly, it was a low blow, but she could not stop herself from considering the possibility. And if tonight was the last opportunity she would ever have to spend time with him, she was going to take it.
When she finally looked back up at him, his eyes were sympathetic. She finally got him to understand. But it was not exactly a success. They were in a position where they could very well suffer dire consequences if they made the wrong choices. But all Ruby wanted was to spend time with him, and she prayed that her selfish choice would cost him less than his life tonight.
His hand came up to meet her chin just as the tears started to fall. He wiped him thumb over her cheek, softly smudging the mascara tracks off her face. "If today ends up being my last day on this earth, I'm glad that I got to spend it with such an amazing, beautiful woman."
Her sobs came out as a laugh, and she reached up to cup his face in her hands. "I cannot believe that you brought lockpicking equipment on our first date."
He laughed, and opened his coat, showing her the inside. "I honestly forgot it was in there."
"Typical," she huffed, and she was smiling, happier than she should have been to see him so unguarded.
In the moments when their mirth subsided, Roman was staring, determined, into her eyes. He was not going to waste this last opportunity to be close to her, just like she wouldn't. And as they both came to silently understand each other's intentions and pulled the other closer, Roman's scroll rang. Ruby jumped.
Hardly even an inch from her face, Roman said, "I should really get that, shouldn't I?"
Ruby nodded. "Probably best to take care of matters at hand first."
Roman snorted, reaching into his pocket as he removed his coat and sat next to her on the couch. His face fell when he saw the caller ID. "It's Neo."
"What's wrong?" Ruby placed her hand on Roman's knee.
"She doesn't call unless it's urgent." Roman declined the call and opened his text messages.
Ruby squeezed his knee, looking at him in pained anticipation.
"Junior's been arrested."
Hey everyone! Back from the dead. Admittedly back to updating sooner than I thought, but I wanted to make good on my word. Took me a little time to sort out exactly how I wanted this to end. No more time for filler, and we're getting straight into endgame so that when people come back to re-read this story, there's finally some gosh darn closure. Unfortunately this means that the word count is no longer at 69K, which really breaks my heart. But we do have a little ways to go before this story ends, so it won't go by too quickly. Updates are probably going to come a little slow because I want to make sure that they are quality, full-length chapters (if three-thousand words count as such) and not some hackneyed stretch to the finish line. Let's do this, folks! See you next time.
