Blake knew that she was being watched. She wasn't sure who it was or where they were but she was being watched. The boat ride to her home had been uneventful. They had almost run afoul of a pod of grimm but the ship's sonar saw them and corrected the course.
As she walked down the gangplank she could hear her stalker following her. If she was right then it was one of Adam's underlings. Most likely sent to find her and report back. That had to be dealt with. Blake had never killed before but she was willing to if it meant stopping Adam.
She headed for her home but passed through a slightly unexpected part of town. It would be seen as her seeing her home again by her stalker but in reality she was looking for someone. Someone she trusted.
Feru Lung was stocking the shelves of his bookstore and when he saw Blake a large smile spread over the old man's face. Feru was the one responsible for organizing her father's security detail when he used to meet with Atlas officials in order to negotiate for civil rights.
He was a tall and imposing snow leopard faunus. His chest was almost twice as wide as his hips and he stood at nearly seven feet tall. Even in his old age he was still a force to be reckoned with and that's what Blake was counting on.
Hugging the man she whispered. "I'm being followed. I think it's one of Adams. I need to lose them any ideas."
Without missing a beat he chuckled and answered in his broken english. "Just stay here I deal with this!" by the end of his sentence he was growling lightly. She was going to try and argue but before she could he had disappeared. Into the back of the store.
She was waiting for a few minutes before she heard a sound from the back. When she looked at the door she saw Feru walking back through dragging a person behind him by the foot. Holding them a few inches off the ground he said. "I find on rooftop looking at you and store. I say we kill,"
Blake instantly recognized the unconscious as her old friend Illia. "Please don't." she quickly blurted out. Hoping to keep Feru from killing the chameleon faunus
Dropping Illia Feru responded. "Fine but you must go home,"
Blake nodded accepting his terms. She walked over to the sink and poured a cup of water that was soon splashed over her sleeping friend's face making her wake up and thrash for a moment before seeing Blake and calming down. Throwing a paper towel to Illia Blake said. "Dry up and follow me."
It was clear that Blake was in no mood to argue so Illia did as she was told and followed Blake all the way to the mansion at the center of town. The door was unlocked as always but that didn't stop Blake from nervously knocking twice and waiting.
The wait was short as soon the door opened to reveal Blake's mother too shocked at the sight of her daughter to speak without a word she reached out and threw her arms around Blake trying not to cry as she did so.
Returning her mother's embrace Blake heard her father call out "honey who's at the door"
His question was pointless since he was also walking towards the door to see for himself. And see he did once he was at the door he froze and after a moment collected his thoughts and wrapped his large arms around both his wife and daughter. There was a pleasant feeling in the air as a family was reunited.
A feeling that made Illia seem like a stranger watching a personal moment. Mainly because she was. Thankfully the moment ended when Ghira stepped back and asked. "Where have you been your mother and I have been worried about you." his words would have seemed harsh but his tone gentled their edge.
He was glad to have his daughter back but he wanted to know what had happened to her. "I made some mistakes and now I am trying to fix them, that path lead me here." She didn't want to talk about Adam and she really didn't want to talk about Beacon of Shiro. Luckily her parents understood that she needed her privacy for now and welcomed both of them into the mansion.
"Your room hasn't been used in a long time so I hope that you can stand sleeping in a bed that either isn't yours or is a little too small." her mother said on her way to the kitchen.
Illia was following close behind Blake when they made their way to the guest room. There were two beds, both of them made and identical in design. Blake dumped her small bag on the bed to the right. "We'll talk about the fact that you were following me later right now. I think it would be best to keep your involvement with the Fang between us. Wash up for…" checking the time on her scroll Blake finished. "Dinner." before walking from the room.
…
Olivia was impressed by Adam's flying, not because he was good but because they were somehow still alive even though he seemed to forget ever rule of the Atlas CAA or committee for air travel association. He was dipping between buildings in the abandoned city and was doing so with the throttle maxed out.
Olivia was also holding onto her arm rests for dear life as thought they would save her in the event that a crash took place. Taking his eyes off of the canopy Adam looked down at the console and with a mild hrumpf he flipped a switch and they accelerated another hundred miles per hour.
That was the last straw. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Olivia asked.
Pointing at one of the lights Adam calmly said. "Need to out run the anti air radar wouldn't want daddy's little girl getting shot down by accident now would we."
His tone told her that he clearly didn't want to be here and it also told her that he thought she didn't belong here. "Would you rather I leave?" she snarled back.
"Yes," Adam's replied was without hesitation or doubt. "Everyone of us earned our place in the brotherhood by proving our love for Remnant before everything else. Everyone but you. The only reason that you aren't being buried somewhere on the Schnee estate is because your father would never allow it. You are a ride along and until you show otherwise I am going to be treating you like one."
It was clear he didn't want to keep speaking and while Olivia wanted to argue with him she knew he was right. She hadn't earned her place here she had simply earned not being tortured and then executed.
"What did you do?" she asked, hoping to both shift the blame and learn a bit about the person she was about to spend an undisclosed amount of time with.
Adam thought about whether or not he should answer her before he chose to do so. "I saved your father's life at the expense of several of my own men, the grim where on their way to a small village and there was no way that we could have stopped them on our own. So when we heard that James Ironwood was patrolling through the area with half a battalion on his flagship we opened fire on him to alert him to the danger. The return fire we received killed everyone but me."
"How was that saving my father's life." she asked unsure of whether or not she believed him.
"If the grimm had ambushed that town then you father would have personally led the mission to clear it out. In his own words. We would have fought courageously and we would have been massacred courageously"
Olivia had to stifle a laugh at the way that Adam deepened his voice to imitate her father. " how old are you?" she asked, still wanting to change the topic.
"I don't know," Adam answered bluntly.
"Can't you just ask your…"
"No, my father was killed before I was born and my mom died when I was about five. The records of my birth were sealed by the SDC and destroyed a few years later." Adam said cutting her off.
As pieces started to come together to paint a disturbing picture. "Adam were you born into…"
"Slavery," He muttered finishing her words for her. "Yes, I escaped a few months before the practice was outlawed in Atlas." Olivia's attention was subconsciously drawn to the SDC brand over Adam's left eye.
She wanted to ask about it but knew a bad topic well enough not to. Instead she used what she had just learned to estimate his age. "Well you are at least twenty three," she said.
"My best guess is actually twenty four but that was close,"
It occurred to Olivia that she never asked her father of Adam what their destination was.
Adam seemed to a gifted mind reader since he explained. "Before we go on our get along I need to call in a favor." as he spoke they landed in a snowy patch just outside the failed city.
"Stay here," he said grabbing a rifle from one of the racks and heading out into the snow. Olivia wanted to tell herself that the only reason she didn't immediately fly off without him was because her father would be furious, and because she had no idea how to fly the craft she was now alone in but that would have been a lie.
She was already starting to see the man behind the monster which was the whole point of the mission so maybe she needed to wait and see what the world was going to throw at them.
The boarding door opened and she reached for her sword but stopped when Adam walked through the threshold and with a weary face said. "That's done, let's get going."
Olivia was about to ask what was wrong before he once again cut her off saying. "I don't want to talk about it, let's just get to the hotel."
The flight to the brotherhood safehouse was silent until they were in the car when Adam's scroll rang and she checked the email that he received. Just as he did he burst out cursing in what Oliva could only guess was three different languages.
"What's got you so worked up?" she asked trying to read the email without actually reading over his shoulder.
"Jacques wants your father to kill me in a violent way," Adam muttered before holding his hand out in front of a device under the dashboard that promptly spit out two driver's licenses. One was for Mr. Adam Du'Frey. The other one which had Olivia's face on it, and was for Mrs. Olivia Du'Frey.
Just as she was figuring out what Adam meant about getting killed by her father Adam kept muttering. "Bastard booked us in the honeymoon suite too, damn it."
When they arrived at the hotel he gave her the ID for Mrs. Du'Frey and explained. "Listen, the staff is going to be expecting us to act like a couple of newlyweds. I don't want you taking any of what's about to happen in the next five or six minutes the wrong way."
Before she could respond the valet appeared at the door and reached for Adam to hand him the keys. Once he was looking inside the cabin Adam leaned forward and kissed her wrapping one of his hands around the back of her head before making a sound that concerned Olivia.
He pulled back and handed over the keys without looking directly at the valet. A good measure since Adam was dressed in his usual Adam Taurus leather. Hotel staff have been trained to not see that which is inappropriate and since Olivia was looking too dumbstruck to be a part of this then that meant that the work was on Adam's part. Hopefully James wouldn't hold this against him.
Adam smoothly stepped out of the car and made a fact of sliding over the hood of the car to get to Olivia's door a little faster. Once there he did his best to rip the door off when he opened it and scooped up the still stunned girl before carrying her in his arms to the main desk. On the way there he was looking where he was going only when he absolutely had to and at every other chance he was kissing his way up Olivia's collar bone on his way to her mouth.
This was a convenient reason for nobody to really take the time to look at his face. After all, most of them couldn't see it and nobody wanted to be seen gawking at the two of them. Olivia for her part seemed to have figured out what to do and the giggles and other such sounds she was making drove all gazes further away.
The clerk was about to ask them if they had a reservation when Olivia slammed their fake IDs down on the desk. Accepting that he wasn't going to be getting any more out of them the clerk simply handed them a set of keys and said. "Room 593 fifth floor"
Olivia grabbed the keys and once they were in the elevator Adam set her down before he set about cleaning her lipstick off his face. The sudden shift from shoving his tongue down her throat to calmly correcting his jacket confused Olivia. (in no small part because Adam may have been putting on a show but she was very much so invested in their previous activities.)
"We should be in the clear now the staff knows better than to get too close to our room after the show we just put on for them." He said as the door opened to reveal their floor.
Olivia was a little miffed to say the least. Adam had just dragged her into metaphorically deep water and then just left her there. She was feeling things in this moment that she had never felt before. Things that were made more confusing by the fact that she was actively trying to humanize Adam.
Once the door was closed and Adam had checked to make sure that it was empty he went back into the main room only to have Olivia surprise him by throwing her arms around him and attempting to kiss him.
It was only an attempt though since Adam deftly slipped out of her grip and took three quick steps back. "What the Hell was that!" Adam half shouted.
Olivia now looked more awkward than anything else made a few sounds that may have been intended to be words but they were unintelligible. "I told you not to get the wrong Idea didn't I!"
Adam knew his words might seem harsh but he wanted to make sure that there was no confusion between the two of them and her father.
Then she started to yell but not at Adam. she was also yelling in a language that Adam didn't know but it seemed like she was cursing about her father. Though he was extrapolating based on what he knew of similar languages.
When she finally spoke english it to asked Adam. "do you have any Idea how hard it is to be the daughter of James Ironwood?!"
"No I don't!" Adam said making a fact of emphasizing that fact on account of his upbringing he never had any parents.
" well it's nearly impossible, every boy who has even seen me for the last seven years has been too afraid to even look at me for more than six seconds. The only one that even seemed to think about it was the grandson of the man that trained my father but he straight up told me that he couldn't see me as anything more than a friend since my father was like a brother to him!"
Olivia was rambling and if Adam was honest he didn't have the patients for this. ignoring her he went about looking over the room. There was only one bed which told him that he was going to be on the couch tonight. That was how these things normally went since he was the youngest member of the brotherhood. or at least he was the youngest. now he needed to give up the chance for an actual bed so that James wouldn't want to kill the next time they met.
It turns out that ignoring a raging eighteen year old woman who was ranting about how she hasn't managed to get so much as a hug from any boy within five years of her was a bad idea that was immediately rewarded with the landline for the room being thrown at the back of Adam's head.
Adam's patience gave way to anger. "WHAT THE FUCK!" he yelled turning to face her while rubbing the back of his head.
"Listen to me when I'm talking to you!" Olivia shouted.
"why?" Adam asked working on getting his anger under control. "you just threw a damn handsent at me, why on earth should I be listening to you rant and rave like a bratty child, I have no fucking CLUE how someone like James managed to raise an aboslute bitch like yourself."
his verbal lashing seemed to achieve his intended purpose when Olivia realized what she was doing and stopped. Adam sighed trying to think about what to say. before he could Olivia did. "I'm sorry, I know that I still haven't earned my place here. when our luggage gets here I'll go grab dinner from somewhere."
as if on queue the doorbell rang and when Adam went to inspect it he saw the hotel staffer that had left their bags at their door. quickly taking off his shirt, loosening his belt and tussling his hair Adam opened the door and out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the maids trying to hide out of sight.
she was watching for any sign of what was going on. Adam could have sent her running with a stern glance but the last thing he wanted to do was clearly show his face to anyone. That was part of why Olivia had offered to go get the food.
reaching down he grabbed most of the bags over his shoulders and smoothly lifted them up. an old trick that he had learned working in the mines. turning around gave the maid a good view of his well toned and heavily scarred back.
the slight gasp that he heard told him he was right about the maid. she was most likely a faunus who liked what she saw. He was a former miner who seemed to have found success in the business world. the maid was going to spend the next few minutes enveying Olivia. or at least she would think that she was envious of Adam's "Wife"
using his foot to guide the last of the case into the room Adam walked into the living room to find Olivia who if she was impressed by the show of strength wasn't showing it. setting down the cases he grabbed his own and went about setting up his hygiene bag in the bathroom. razor, toothbrush, shampoo, and finally a black pouch that he took with him back into the living.
"If you plan to go out you should dress well. they are going to be expecting you to go out of you way to be the prettiest thing on the planet," Adam said looking through his bags making sure that everything was there.
with a nod Olivia grabbed her bags and headed for the bedroom to change. completely unaware of what she was about to walk into.