A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting; some stuff's been happening. I've amped up Ruby's dorkiness and difficulty in social situations a bit; I don't see her as having any specific disorder, but it's based on my own experiences with social anxiety and low ability to read facial cues.
On a side note, I'll be writing a few oneshots for Valentine's Day, and you can vote on which pairings you'd like a oneshot about on my profile. Enjoy!
"So how do powers activate?" Ruby asks for the tenth time.
"Ruby, I told you, it varies a lot. We're trying to work out what might activate her powers," Yang says, sighing.
"Try stabbing her," Blake mutters from the far side of the room.
"Good point!" Ruby says cheerfully. "It might activate her powers if Weiss thinks she's under attack!"
"I object! I refuse to be attacked solely for this!"
"Don't worry, silly! I won't actually hurt you!"
"Do not call me silly!" Weiss splutters, then dodges Ruby's scythe. Nothing. Zero ice, zero wind, zero powers.
"Darn," Ruby says. "Maybe your powers only activate at night, or something?"
"Or maybe Weiss knows you aren't really going to hurt her," Yang comments.
"Why would that make any –" Weiss screams as Yang sends a ball of fire toward her.
And voila. A wall of ice springs up between them, then swiftly turns into steam when the fireball hits it.
"So her powers do work when she's getting attacked. Good to know," Yang says, grinning. She can't deny that it was sort of fun.
"That was utterly irresponsible," Weiss squeaks. "You could have killed me!"
"But you're not dead," Yang says. "So it worked. And that fire wouldn't have killed you anyway, unless you were wearing tissue paper."
"Guys, calm down," Ruby says, stepping between her teammates. "Yang, that was a little dangerous. But now we know, which is the important thing."
"I don't know how helpful that will be," Weiss says. "If I get attacked, I might be able to fight back, but I still don't have any control."
"Which is why you need a weapon," Yang cuts in. "I have a spare pair of gauntlets, but you're a stick figure, and the recoil would break you in half."
"Hey!"
"Maybe there's a sword or something in here," Ruby mutters, and begins poking through another equipment locker. "Yep! There's a sword."
Ruby tosses it casually towards Weiss, which she dodges with a yelp.
"Are you insane? Don't throw weapons around like that! Dust is volatile, you know."
Ruby sighs under her breath, but loud enough for Yang to hear. And Yang really can't blame her; even her eternally sunny little sis must be getting tired of Weiss. Maybe they'll be able to pawn her off to the police and pretend that they rescued her from her evil and horrendous kidnappers. That would be a victory for everyone.
Weiss picks up the rapier and twirls it experimentally.
"This will do," she says.
Ruby gives the monitors one last check for alerts, then turns back to the team.
"All right! Since Weiss has powers that you can counter if they get out of control, Yang, you two are going to patrol together."
Yang does a half-turn toward Weiss and raises one eyebrow. Weiss raises the opposite eyebrow. They stare at each other awkwardly for a few long moments until Yang laughs at her. Weiss looks outraged, but must be getting a sore throat from all her whining, since all she says is "you're so immature."
And, to be fair, Yang is not going to deny that. But they're on patrol, where they can't afford to joke, so Yang doesn't respond. Taking the high ground, that'll show her.
…
"So, um, you like to read?" Ruby asks. So far, Blake has said precisely nothing throughout their patrol, and maybe that's just her, but Ruby likes talking to people.
"Yes," Blake says.
"Um, read any good books lately?"
"Yes."
Wow, this is going to be tricky.
Ruby loads Crescent Rose with one of the special grappling-hook bullets and begins aiming. It's an eight-story leap, so even though the bullets are supposed to be for emergencies and her regular people-powered grappling hook is right there, Dad will probably forgive her for using one. Blake watches her intently, eyes glowing in the faint light from the streetlamps.
"What good books have you read?"
"I read a lovely book about silent meditation," Blake says.
Ruby fires. Her aim is perfect, as always, and there's now a rope stretching from her weapon to the top of the skyscraper.
"Cool, silent meditation! Must be fun, to be, uh, quiet all the time, and meditate."
Ruby's brain catches up.
Oh. She doesn't want to talk.
People don't like talking to Ruby, and she isn't really sure why. Yang says she's the coolest little sister ever, and she's tons of fun to be around, so why doesn't anyone else like her?
It's okay. At least Blake doesn't call her a dolt, which is probably rude even if Ruby has no idea what it means, and say that her costume is ugly. But Yang would say that Weiss just hasn't had time to warm up to Ruby, and once the new team members get to know her they'll know how amazing she is.
Yang might be lying, it occurs to Ruby.
"Hold on to me," she says, then activates the winch. Blake yelps in shock and her nails dig into Ruby's shoulders when they start flying. Ruby loves this part, because it's like ziplining but upward. At night. And with guns, which just make things better.
Ruby misjudged their speed, and they nearly hit one of the giant windows, but they make it to the roof in one piece. Ruby adjusts her hood, which gets blown around by the wind, and detaches the grappling hook, pushing it into her pocket.
"Interesting gadget," Blake says, and Ruby pounces on that chance.
"I know. The casing is designed to fall apart in flight, and the air friction opens the hook, so it doesn't actually require an internal power source! It's so cool –"
Ruby stops herself. Blake doesn't seem to be listening anyway; she's glancing around, looking nervous.
"This area, Sector 18, is a White Fang hotspot," she continues in a quieter voice. "It's sort of a ghetto, full of factories, so a lot of poor Faunus have ended up here, which means a lot of crime."
Blake visibly tenses up.
"Did that sound racist? It might have been racist. I just meant that, you know, poor people get desperate and commit petty crime more often than rich people. Usually with rich people it's stuff like investment fraud and tax evasion that we don't really deal with, since the police can handle it much better. I'm talking too much."
"It's okay," Blake says, but she's probably just saying that to be nice, and Ruby's had enough people try to be nice around her to know that when she sees it.
Ruby starts scanning the area with her better infrared goggles. There are fewer people out and about than usual. In fact, there's almost nobody out on the streets.
Ruby spends about fifteen minutes scanning the area, even using Crescent Rose's scope to check the farther streets, then turns to Blake.
"It's too quiet. Either everyone decided to stay home, or –" Ruby pauses to give Blake space to finish her sentence like on cop shows, then continues – "there's something more serious going on."
"A White Fang meeting?" Blake suggests.
"It could be the White Fang, but most criminals, even here, aren't with the gangs. So we should be very careful. Weapons ready."
Blake nods and tugs a blade out of the sheath at her waist. She holds the sheath itself in her other hand. It's also a gun.
They're going to be friends.
They stalk across the rooftops, Ruby pausing occasionally to peer around with the infrared systems. One or two people rush into a (supposedly) empty warehouse in the corner of her vision.
"We might have our target," she says, gesturing to the warehouse. It's left over from the days when this district was a coal mining town, and has been falling down for years, but there's too much asbestos to demolish it safely, so it's probably going to stay there for a few hundred more years.
Blake nods and they creep closer, being more careful to stay behind cover when it's available. Most criminals don't think to look to the skies, but the White Fang are good, and almost certainly have guards posted.
There are guards, in pairs distributed around the rooftop. They're deliberately casual, slouched slightly in an attempt to pretend they're just hanging around.
And they're all wearing full-face masks.
"If we can knock two out and steal their masks, we have a sure ticket in," Ruby says. "We won't be recognized."
"Our faces might not be, but the White fang are part animal," Blake hisses back. "They'll be able to smell that you aren't Faunus."
"Good point," Ruby whispers back. "It's nice to be patrolling with you. Yang would have already knocked them out by now."
"Thanks, I guess," Blake says. "What's our plan? Do we wait and see who comes out?"
"I think that's our only option," Ruby says, rummaging through her pockets for a surveillance bug that has enough range and will work if tossed haphazardly in, while still being small enough to be unnoticeable. There are none, of course. She'll have to start building some better bugs over the weekend.
They wait on the rooftop until Ruby's feet fall asleep. Blake crouches silently behind the roof ridge, looking completely at ease, although it's hard to tell with the mask. Eventually, people start slipping out, two or three at a time. Ruby trains her night vision goggles on them, and takes blurry green snapshots. Even that much evidence is better than nothing.
One of the last people to emerge is Roman Torchwick. Ruby has to blink a few times, check again, and then use Crescent Rose's scope to get a good view of his hair. It's him.
"He's working with the White Fang," she mutters. "Great, two of our most dangerous opponents have teamed up. This is going to be great."
"Torchwick. He's the one The Huntress sent a report about earlier?" Blake asks, or says, it's not really clear from her flat tone.
"Yep, that's him. But he has robots, so I don't know why he'd be working with a gang."
"Maybe it's not his decision," Blake says. "The White Fang are incredibly powerful, and they keep close tabs on villains that might be useful allies, and they certainly aren't above blackmailing someone with power or connections that they might need. Or, I assume they do. That's what any sensible gang with the power and information would do in this city."
"It could be," Ruby admits. "For now, we don't know, and I don't know how much that matters. We're fighting the same people, regardless."
Blake nods.
"Let's keep going," she says hastily. "I don't want to get found by their rearguard."
"Smart," Ruby says. "Team RB, resuming patrol. Over and out."