"-Headmaster Ozpin went on to outline how new security plans developed in cooperation with the Vale Police Department would ensure the safety of all…"

Roman tuned it out, focusing instead on the newspaper.

Sitting at the bar, he had enough on his mind to not need the television distracting him. There was always the work of staying on top of the criminal underworld, thinking about who was making noise, who was suspiciously quiet, who owed who money and who owed who favors. Then there was the everyday operations, the kickbacks, the heists in their planning stages and the plates that had to be kept spinning, lest they fell upon him in a terrible vengeance. All the things that made his life difficult before a certain dark-haired witch slipped into his life, but really...

But really… it was still all about Cinder. Cinder Fall was what he was thinking about. Which was to say, he was thinking about nothing, a nothing that took up all his time and attention and brainpower as it had ever since he'd told her "no" in that warehouse.

She'd been true to her word. Roman had refused and she'd respected his refusal. And so… there were no plans. No working with the White Fang, no Dust heists, nothing more than keeping things at hand. Oh, and telling off the commander of the Valean cell that Roman didn't care what Sienna Khan might think as he told them all to fuck off back to Menagerie, which was therapeutic in a way, but then… waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, to see her unleash the kiddos on him or send a message that she wasn't to be denied, but...

Nothing.

"Hey Roman," Junior said, with a chuckle that was more like a low rumble deep in his body, "Tell me, you got your ass beat by Nikos, whaddya think of her tournament odds?"

He answered the question with a finger. Junior just laughed harder.

"But seriously, my guys are having a hell of a time when it comes to this tourney. Every other year, it's the same nonsense, with kids who've never been in a tournament before showing up as dark horses, but this year, Nikos," he laughed again, an extremely aggravating sound, "That shit she pulled at the docks against you has got everyone wanting to put money on her. Seriously, I know you read the papers," he nodded to what was in Roman's hands, "and from the sound of things, she did some crazy shit down there! Even my guys don't know how much is real and how much is just media bullshit!"

Roman flipped him off again.

"Alright, alright," Junior finally acceded, "You're in a mood. Well, if you're feeling like less of a dick later, I gotta pick your brain on something. Got an opportunity that I think would be a mutually profitable enterprise."

He left, and Roman immediately went back to his paper. He liked this kind of work. The intellectual kind, the stuff where he just had to open his eyes, see what was coming through in the whispers, the news, any source of information he could get his hands on and piece together what he could tell from it. Like most thefts, the real goal wasn't any fact or treasure, no singular thing, but the feeling of mastery that came from puzzling out what was going on, tugging at the strings, and finding the little gaps and errors, the opportunities that sang to him.

He could see the little twistings of division within the city, the cracks that civilization tried so hard to deny. But the VPD was frustrated with the Huntsmen, especially with Beacon letting teenagers run free and reckless as vigilantes, and in turn, Beacon was feeling the pressure of Atlas, with their huge, overcompensating sky-battleships trying to crowd themselves in where nobody wanted them. And then the Council, pushed this way and that, viciously asserting their authority where possible but with far too much division to be effective.

As always, the Vytal was a glorious mess, a boondoggle of construction and the sentiments of global cooperation keeping anyone from seeing how messy it was. Really, they made the arena fly, actually fly, as though there was any benefit to that instead of keeping it on the ground, but this way, Atlas gets to swing its technological-

He was getting angry. Never a good sign. Roman took a deep breath and calmed himself down as he continued to scan the paper.

He'd also been looking for anything he could find on another topic, the "mysterious power" Cinder had looped him in on. She wouldn't just tell him her actual goals and then just… walk off, no harm, no foul, so she clearly expected him to discover something. "If the situation changes," she'd said. So… he was looking to find what that "situation" was. A power that was apparently both something you'd want and also transferable… Roman suspected it was some kind of Semblance, something not technological, but tied to the unknown variances of the very ill-understood science of aura.

And the name "Amber." Roman had thought she'd added that detail to humanize her quest, that this wasn't stealing Valean military secrets or some artifact of tremendous expense, but rather, rescuing a poor, righteous warrior from her tragic captivity. But a name gave Roman something to dig into, and—discreetly, very, very discreetly—he'd started making inquiries into where he could find more about this woman.

All his searches were turning up dead ends, but that only made Roman suspect that he was asking the wrong questions, going about this the wrong way. There was something he was missing, but there wasn't any-

"Roman!"

He turned, because he knew ignoring problems—and this voice meant a problem, cheerful as it was—only made them worse. But he particularly didn't want to hear from a Malachite and- ah, Maidens, Red and Green were both here.

One Malachite was fine. Either of them—not that he could tell the difference, but one was the wild one and one was the shy one, and on their own, they were fine. Enjoyable, even, if you were smart enough not to get too close or, Brothers help you, sleep with them. But together…

There was a reason they were Junior's enforcers. Roman worked well with Junior, they had a good relationship, but they were men in parallel positions in a mean-ass world, which meant that Junior had his fingers as deep in the ugly stuff as Roman's were. And when he needed to get ugly, that's why he had his twin daughters-or-whatever-they-were. And the Malachites came together only when there were real problems, and that's when the claws—in every sense—came out.

Also, Roman made a point not to learn their names, because he knew it was the one thing that never failed to piss them off.

"Matilda, Melissa," he nodded at them, but they didn't even rise to the bait.

Not a great sign.

"Whaddya want from me?" he asked, with as much pompous annoyance as he could force into his voice.

"Ohhh, nothing, nothing," Red said, her smirk as acidic as her voice, "Just had to share with you that we've heard some interesting gossip… some little pieces and whispers, the usual..."

"Also…" Green chimed in, "she's adorable, by the way."

Roman's eyes went wide. The way they said it, they knew he knew what she they were talking about.

"The fuck are you talking about?" he asked, in legitimate disbelief.

They grinned. One more predatory than sweet, the other the reverse… then they both flipped because they were both sharks. "Your niece, of course," one of them said.

"How did you know I had a niece?" Roman growled, knowing not to deny it. Now he had to figure out what game Cinder was playing here…

"She told us, and Neo confirmed it."

Wait, what?

"Yep!" one of the twins added, the green one, who normally had the sense to shut the hell up in times other than now, "Marched right down to the bar, told us she was looking for her uncle, and normally-"

"-we'd tell her to piss off," Red cut in.

"-but we were interested in meeting a celebrity, and then she told us you were her uncle, and that got us interested."

"We just had to get Neo after that, and she said—well, didn't say—that you had a niece, and the four of us have been just talking and talking about all your family traditions, growing up in Mistral… such an interesting childhood you had."

Every. Godsdamned. Thing. Roman had told her about discretion… every single thing, for her to be just telling random bouncers that- what the hell was this girl playing?

Seeing Roman choke on his incoherent surge of emotions, the Malachites continued to press the issue.

"And don't worry, we haven't hounded her for autographs… yet!" said the green one.

Red nodded. "And we certainly wouldn't be using this for any sort of inside scoop for-"

"Out of my way!" he spat as he leapt up from his seat and stormed his way to the back room.

They followed behind, snickering the whole way, but Roman was knocked way too off balance to care about decorum and appearance right now. Let'em snicker—Roman's mind was running through a hundred scenarios, thinking of what would happen if people learned that the Invincible Girl was related to a notorious criminal, particularly if they knew she was still in contact with the black sheep of the family. He couldn't- why would she jeopardize everything like this? He wrenched the door open to get some answers and...

She… she was there. Just sitting there, in the back room of Juniors, seated at that crappy, well-stained table, telling Neo about something… something he was sure was unimportant compared to the fact that she was absolutely where she should not be!

"What," he growled, slamming the door behind him (right in the Malachites' faces) before slamming his palms down on the table, "are you thinking being here right now?"

She paused, evidently not expecting such a welcome, before replying, "It's nice to see you too, uncle. And it's been nice to meet-"

"You cannot be serious! You- you-" he choked on his fury as his eyes darted to Neo, her face clearly broadcasting how pleased she was to be fucking with him like this. "You! Neo! Out!"

Neo gave him a look of protest he cut off with a furious, "I SAID OUT!"

Getting that he was serious, she had the good sense to vanish.

Roman turned to Pyrrha, but she coolly cut him off. "You didn't have to yell at Neo, Uncle Roman."

"She- you- this-" he couldn't seem to find the words so he just gasped out, "Why are you here, Pyrrha? This… it's beyond reckless, and I thought- I thought I told you, thought you knew that I-"

"Uncle..." she said softly as Roman felt her words puncture his anger, his fury deflating in the face of a foe who wouldn't fight him. His eyes darted downwards, unable to look at her as she continued, "I came because… because you have no idea how it's been since the fight at the docks! Wondering if the last time I'd see my uncle before he went to prison—or worse—was the two of us fighting. I've had enough fighting, I've had more than enough, and I want…" her voice dropped to a quiet that cut deeper than he could imagine being cut as she said, "I want my Uncle Roman back."

Ohhhhh, that hurt. Roman missed his niece, missed the precocious little girl who studiously watched his hands as he showed her a card trick, demanding he do it again and again and again until she could figure out the trick and master it herself. The athletic preteen who fearlessly threw herself into every spar. Seeing her now as an adult, an adult who wanted him back in her life… that was painful.

He gave her a pained groan as he conceded. "Just… why now, Pyrrha? What on Remnant made you think now, right before the Vytal, when scrutiny is as high as you could imagine, you could show yourself at the sleaziest joint in town to ask to speak with its most wanted criminal?"

"Because you stopped, no Dust stores have been robbed since that night," she answered. "You… you faced me in a fight and you backed off. And I figured you… quit."

Her answer was clearly a deduction she wanted to be true more than one she knew could be true, practically demanding that he be the one to ruin her optimism and tell her the truth.

And telling the truth was, by far, the thing Roman was worst at.

"Kid..." he sighed, "The situation at the docks, it… the operation failed. The buyer dropped out, the demand for Dust wasn't worth the risk anymore. It was a business decision, that's all."

Pyrrha gave him a look that told him she wasn't buying it. Because it was mostly a lie, but the truth she was looking to find in this story wasn't any way more false than the real reason why there hadn't been any action. She had no idea to even suspect it, but he'd pissed off Cinder Fall in an effort to keep her out of this…

Only for her to show up at Junior's like none of that counted!

"And… I'm still doing crimes, just nothing flashy enough for your friends to care about 'em. I haven't changed one bit, and that's as true as it's ever been."

But Pyrrha gave him a faint, irrepressible smile at that. "Well, I didn't think you stopped all your criminal misdeeds," she said with a faint echo of humor growing stronger in her voice, "I told you, I know you're a wanted criminal. I'm not stupid, uncle, I just don't think 'breaking the law' is enough for me to cut you out of my life."

"And your mother says..."

Pyrrha's lips curled up in a sharp, challenging grin in reply. "She had me call as soon as she heard about the fight."

Wincing in sympathy, Roman had to ask, "She chew you out?"

Pyrrha shrugged. "A mix. A lot of crying and asking if I was okay and, yeah, a lot of chewing me out for being so reckless with the Vytal coming up. And then my agent had to give me the same talk."

"Sorry about that."

"Apology accepted," she replied with a grin, but one that soon softened back to her usual concern. "Uncle Roman… You're family, no matter what anyone else says, you're family to me, and I'm not going to turn my back on you."

"Not all 'family' has an attitude like that," he quipped back, "You and I both know that it doesn't mean 'never leave-'"

"I know."

The frost in her voice reminded Roman that he'd just made a low blow. If her earlier emotion had been the needle to deflate his anger, this was the punch in the gut to remind him that his niece was a girl who had come to him needing familial warmth and he'd responded with furiously pushing her away as hard as he could. For her own good, but… she was an adult now. She could make her own mistakes. He didn't have to be the asshole, not here.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "You… alright, let's be smart about this, though. You and I both know that, whatever you might be thinking, our family connection is not something you need hovering over you in the press. So we just gotta keep it quiet. You've told Neo and the Malachites—all three of 'em, I don't know how they charmed you, but they are assholes to the extreme—but I can count on them to keep this secret. They're good at that. Who else knows?"

And Pyrrha promptly answered with the worst answer Roman could expect: a long and sudden silence. Followed up by something just as bad.

"...my friends know."

"Fuck me," Roman sighed, slumping into a beaten old chair. "How? How'd they find- tell me you didn't tell them!"

"No!" she protested, but Roman could read the blush on her face, "It was just... Ruby definitely knew something was up when I wouldn't accept her help and I had to tell Jaune because-"

"Because?" he interrupted, raising his eyebrow in far more alarm than he should have let on, "Because why, Pyrrha? Do you mean to tell me that you and that fraud are-"

"That is none of your business!" she snapped back, "And… he's the person I go to to talk about these things because I certainly can't talk to family about-"

Roman raised his hands in defeat. "Alright, alright, I get it… but how many people know?"

"Seven..."

"Seven!"

Pyrrha sent him a quick glower. "Yes, seven. Ruby knew something was up, which means her team knew something was up. And she's persistent—I think you know something about that, and her teammate, Blake, was the girl you tried to shoot with missiles-"

"She thrust herself into the middle of a highly armed criminal-"

"-and so she wasn't going to let it rest, either! So… I told them. Just that we're related and that I don't have any contact with you and that it sucked to have to fight you, but… they've promised to keep it quiet. And I trust them, they… they care about me, uncle. I have friends at Beacon who actually care about me, and it's… it's nice. Really nice."

Roman turned quiet at that. She wasn't lying, and it hurt him to know that he was, once again, the source of so many problems in her life. But at the same time, Roman was still a skilled operator, and some skills never switched off. This wasn't the real discussion, even as important as it was. There was a proxy here, and he'd have to cut through it to get to the heart of the matter.

"Pyrrha," he sighed, "Why do you want to see me. Really."

Even without the years he'd spent reading faces, whether as a confidence man or as Neo's closest associate, Roman could read the meaning on her face before she even opened her mouth.

"Because you raised me," she answered. And hell if it didn't hurt. "More than Nonna, more than mom, you were the one who was… when I was little, you were there for me. And then you left. And I've… I wanted to see you again, uncle. I've felt like… all my time at Sanctum, I felt like there's been something wrong with me that-"

"There's nothing wrong with-"

"I know!" she cut him off. "But I felt like there was something missing from me, and no matter how much I put into my training, it was never enough to fix the hole inside me."

"It wasn't your fault!" Roman exploded, "It was mine, I know what I did and I had to leave because I-"

"And now I want to try and have a relationship with you, to feel like I have my family back and you..." her voice became soft, the words taking on a rasp of pain, "You're trying to push me away."

Roman looked down once more. He didn't want her seeing his eyes right now. "It just… there are things that just aren't the way you want them to be, Pyrrha."

"Not unless you change them."

He looked back up to her. The fire blazing in her eyes was so damn familiar and yet… it wasn't like last time.

"The flame that lights the darkest night..." he murmured.

Pyrrha smiled softly. "You still-"

"You think I was gonna forget the motto?" Roman scoffed. "Your Nonna must've told me those words a million times back when I was a kid. Couldn't go a day without hearing it—'Oh, your father,'" he mimed in a rough falsetto, "'if he only knew...' Heh, every time I got in trouble… 'You are an Igni! The flame that lights the darkest night!' And..." he looked away, Pyrrha's gaze still more than he could face. "Well, I'm not an Igni anymore."

"But I am."

That got Roman's attention, his eyes going wide as Pyrrha continued her argument. "I didn't pick my family, Uncle Roman. Neither did you. So… like it or not, you're stuck with me. And I'm not about to give up on you."

Roman chuckled. "Too damn loyal for your own good, but… thanks. I think… I think your grandfather would be awful proud of you to hear that."

Pyrrha paused at that. She'd never known the old man, having passed when Roman himself was small, but more so, he could see on her face that there was something else. Something she wasn't telling him. Wasn't sure how to tell him.

"Pyrrha," he said, knowing he had to be the grown up, the one to push her on this, "Spit it out. I know there's something you're trying to figure out how to tell me."

She paused a moment, her eyes darting away from him as his words goaded her to speak. But… Pyrrha was a willful girl, not one easily dissuaded from confronting even the toughest emotional challenges. She looked him in the eye, a thin trace of a tear in her gaze, and said, "I didn't… I knew you had to know, but I didn't know… how to say it."

Roman nodded, prompting her to continue as he braced himself for the bad news.

"Nonna… Nonna passed."

"Oh."

It was all Roman could think to say in the moment. He… he had made a point to not particularly keep up with what happened to his family after he was banished. Nothing more than the inescapable news of Pyrrha's career, which Roman could never bring himself to look too closely into with its tangled mess of emotions, but he… he figured he knew. Knew that his mother, an old woman, resilient, but always so frail looking, who openly wore the marks of a hard life, wasn't long for the world.

She'd never really recovered from his father's death. A hero's death, they'd been told. A true Huntsman's death, giving his life for others... but what did that leave them? What comfort came from knowing that the absence in the home, the void in the family, was a heroic gap? Roman had grown up in the shadow of the man, his example, the brave Huntsman, the ideal of manhood, invoked at every failure in his long history of disappointments. His underwhelming record compared to his sister, his expulsion from the Academy, his first arrest… If your father was still alive, if your father could see his son now...

His ghost was always present, even as Roman cast off the patronym and claimed a name of his own.

And now his mother had joined his father in the great beyond. Her long awaited reward. Roman… Roman hoped she had found peace, at long last. In all his differences with his mother, in all the ways he'd disappointed her, he knew he had not been a good son. That his mother deserved better.

But Pyrrha was not finished.

"I was there," she told him, "At… at the very end. She hated Argus," she said with a weak laugh, "But she always said she'd rather be with her family, even if it meant moving to the north, and... She told me she… in private, when she was in hospice, she told me she regretted that she didn't have both her children there. At the end."

That was a surprise.

Thetis Igni was not a woman who had regrets. Stern and severe, she was a woman of rigidly upright character, on an almost fanatical quest to raise her children right. Her… results in that endeavor were not for lack of trying. Even now, Roman felt the instinctual chill at the thought of his mother's judgment, meeting the impossible reality that she… she had had second thoughts. Second thoughts about him.

He'd assumed, had assumed for the last five years, that in the mind of his mother and sister, he was an ugly stain on the family record, to be blotted out if possible, or simply not discussed in polite company. If anything, he suspected it had been a relief for them to see the black sheep of the family finally cross the line, that they could finally be done with him. Even if his niece was the stubborn hold out, he had accepted, even if it was a secretly painful acceptance, that his family had forsaken him. And that they had been right to do so.

More than anything else in Pyrrha's return, this was the moment Roman's resolve broke. He simply gawked at his niece as she revealed this unknown dimension of his mother, which, more so than even her death, called forth unbidden tears to his eyes.

There were many, many rules in the underworld—for all the songs of the legendary outlaws and their freedom from the Law, the truth was far more constrained—but above all, Roman knew there were rules upon rules on what a man was. And a man did not cry. Even at the news of his mother's death, he was to mourn with dignity, to shed, perhaps, a tear, but to do so gruffly. To not be unmade by the discovery that she had regrets, to not be unmanned by the regrets of his own.

He pressed his palms on the table and leaned, heavily, his body suddenly feeling the weight of a thousand years of history upon him, a generation and a generation and a generation of men who came before him, the expectations of family that were never forgotten, even as they were as parted as a man could be. His head was drawn down by inescapable gravity, two wet trails were likewise pulled down his cheeks as Roman felt the loss, the incredible loss, that at the end… he wasn't there.

He knew he had to say something. Anything. But words choked in his throat until all he could rasp was, "Thank you, I… Thank you. It shouldn't have..." and then he went back to silence.

"I don't have a lot of family left, Uncle Roman," Pyrrha said, softly, "Please… I want my uncle back. The man who taught me how to use a sword and to stand up for myself and to juggle. I don't want to lose him, I've lost too many already. Please uncle… let me back in."

Roman looked up, looked into the emerald eyes, his sister's eyes, as wet with tears as his own, and slowly nodded.

"Okay."

Thanks to Renarde and Six02 for feedback on this chapter!

It's funny that a huge part of this story is about three OCs who will never directly appear in it. It's a generational story, with Pyrrha's mom, dad, and grandmother being so important to her and her uncle, and even her grandfather gets a mention in how Roman feels he grew up in the shadow of a dead man. I don't like going too far off from canon and loading the cast up with OCs, but I had to populate the family tree a little. Thetis Igni is, of course, named for Achilles's mother. Why not give that name to Pyrrha's mother? I preferred the sound of Admetus and Alcestis and used it in my prior fic, The Children of Remnant. Alcestis's presence has already been seen, but for Admetus... well, there's been hints as to what's happened with him, and how he informs Pyrrha's character.

Also, a lot of people have been curious about what it was that Roman did that crossed the line, and next chapter, you'll get your answer.