Guilty for all the lies, trusting that he's earned his place, Jaune resolves to tell his friends the truth. No matter how emasculating it is. That's kind of the point, though, and the crew will never look at the boy the same way again because, well-
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY. It belongs to RoosterTeeth, and the memory of the master of computer animation. May your brainchild keep moving forward, Monty.
Letting Hair Down and Truth Out
What followed next was loud, chaotic, and need not be described in detail here. Suffice to say that doubts were raised, accusations thrown, world views shattered, demands made, and conflict resolved by a suitably epic team fight rematch (never to be recounted) that only ended when the proof of the matter was laid to rest, along with Jaune's pants and whatever masculinity Jaune had remaining.
(Ren would have been satisfied at taking her word for it. Really. Yang didn't need to pants him as well, 'just to be sure,' even if he did have pretty eyes.)
What followed after what followed next was a good deal more sedate, and far more informative as all the friends prepared to ask their questions.
"Since when?" Nora asked first, wanting to know. She hadn't had a clue about it, but she was probably the quickest to adapt to Jaune's revelation. What it would take to actually shock her, no one could hope to know.
"Since I was born." Jaune Arc, born Joan Arc, answered. "It's not like there was magic or a semblance or surgery or anything. I've always been like this," she said.
"Tall, lanky, and awkward?" someone threw out. And it was true- having had gotten accustomed to a tall, lanky, and awkward guy, now they were trying to wrap their minds around an equally tall, lanky, and awkward girl. At least the voice wasn't as annoying, now that it wasn't faking a pitch.
"No, silly," Nora said. "I mean, yes, you are all that, but I meant how long have you been acting like a boy?"
"Since I was born?" Joan repeated, less certainly this time. "I haven't just been acting. I was raised to be my Father's son."
"Why?" Ren asked, practical and to the point. Of Team JNPR he had been the most taken aback- which meant that he had actually looked surprised, even embarrassed. In a rare moment of teenage hormones, the normally stoic teen still wouldn't meet his leader's eyes- partly from the too-recent pantsing, and partly from the mortification of realizing that Joan had seen it all in the shower room before (and he had just thought that his leader had just been shy when wearing the full body towel!).
"Because my Father wanted an heir to the family legacy," Joan said with resignation, in in those ten words alone gained more sympathy from Weiss than ten weeks of flirting ever had. "I have seven older sisters, but Dad wanted a son to inherit the Arc legacy. When Mom learned she wouldn't be able to give birth to any other children after me…"
"There's always adoption," Blake suggested.
Joan shrugged. "Dad was a big believer in the heroic bloodline of the Arcs. When he realized he wouldn't get a son, he went with the daughter he would have the longest to shape into his ideal son."
"But… you suck," Yang said without a hint of tact. "Not literally, I mean, but your fighting skills. Shouldn't you be, like, amazing if you were trained in the family legacy of heroes for all your life?"
"Yeah!" Ruby echoed. "Uncle Crow taught me how to fight in less than half that time! What gives?"
"I. Deal. Son," Joan repeated, slowing for emphasis. "Not ideal hero. He figured that if I could act like a man, being a hero would come easy."
An ominous silence came down amongst the room. "And you couldn't be a hero while a girl because…?" Yang asked, cracking knuckles. There might be no right answer to her question, but there certainly were a lot of wrong answers.
Joan laughed nervously. "Because one day I'd get married, have to change my name, and lose the family legacy while I gave birth to some guy's children?" she said weakly. "His words, not mine!" she protested.
"Ugh. At least we know where that bad machismo came from," Yang muttered. "He really did a number on you, didn't he?" she asked, not without sympathy.
"It wasn't that bad," Joan protested, defending her father. "He might have been-"
"Less than an ideal parent?" Ren offered.
"Bound in archaic sexism?" Blake whispered darkly.
"Obsessed with a legacy at the expense of his child?" Weiss judged.
"In need of a kneecapping?" Nora offered.
"No! Well, maybe- no, no kneecapping Nora!" Joan rejected. "What I mean was, he raised seven wonderful daughters in my sisters, and never loved them any less for it. He taught me my morals and beliefs and encouraged me when I wanted to help people. It's not like he was disappointed in me or set impossible standards or anything. He never said I couldn't be a hero because I was a girl. He just… needed a son to carry the family name," she said. "I get what he did wasn't… normal, but he was my father. I love him, he loved me, and when I got into Beacon he took me out and said he was proud of me." Joan smiled softly at the memory, despite the deceit behind it. Some children really would do anything to please their parents.
The friends weren't sure what to say. 'Complicated' seemed to sum it up- Weiss in particular. Who would have expected the blond dolt to simultaneously have both a more dysfunctional and yet engaged father-daughter relationship than her own? Still…
"What was with all the awful flirting?" Weiss asked. Her view of the blond knight had probably shifted the most in light of the revelations, but the distasteful memories were still, well, distasteful. "More of your Father's influence?" she asked. It would figure that a man so interested in a male heir might shove some… other influences on a young mind.
"No, that was just part of my cover as a guy," Joan denied. "I figured that I was claiming to be a teenage hormonal guy, I should act the part. So I looked for the first person most likely to shoot me down, kept at it so that any other girls wouldn't think I was open and interested, and, well-" Joan had the decency to look a bit bashful. "Sorry about annoying you like that," she apologized sincerely. "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't said no."
"Does that mean you thought that the rest of us might have given you a chance?" Yang asked with a laugh. That would have been ridiculous. Even if 'he' had toned down the machismo or adopted a different approach, there's no way that anyone-
Ruby fidgeted awkwardly in her seat. Pyrrha, seated beside her partner as always, maintained her ever-present smile.
-never mind then.
"I choose to believe that she just realized that I have the best taste amongst us and acted accordingly," Weiss said haughtily. That was a far better rationalization than 'thought she was the most stuck-up bitch in the Academy.'
"Sure. Let's go with that," Blake said dryly, likely thinking the same thing. "I'm just curious as to how you kept it a secret from your team. Especially Ren there," she pointed.
"Yeah, that's right! Didn't you two share a bathroom?" Ruby asked.
"And locker room showers? How did you never notice?" Yang chortled at the last boy.
"Oh, Ren's just shy and probably never looked," Nora suggested. "He's always changing or showering alone whenever I barge through."
Everyone in the room took a second of silence to let that think in. Nora simply smiled, and Ren flushed once again.
"I don't make a habit of checking out my teammates in the shower," Ren claimed. "Do you?" he challenged Team RWBY.
"Well, duh," Yang said. "That's half the fun of shared bathrooms. How else do you think I check up on how I stack up against the competition?" she asked with a leer.
Team RWBY shifted away from the Blonde, half of them feeling inadequate.
"In my defense," Ren tried again, "Jaune wore a strapless dress to the ball and not one of you noticed either."
Everyone's eyes widened at the reminder. That was true!
"Dude…" Yang realized, turning towards the other blonde.
"Dudette," Blake helpfully reminded, but Yang ignored her.
"You wore a dress and were the least girly thing in the room! You must be flatter than Weiss!"
"Hey!" Weiss exclaimed, before realizing it was true. She had to restrain herself from cheering- no longer last!
Joan looked embarrassed and scratched her head. "And now you see the other reason I didn't mind the way my father raised me. I'm... not very good at playing the part of a girl."
"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself!" Nora cheered with a heavy pat on the back. It only almost sent him into the floor. "You can't be any worse than you've been at being a guy!"
"Thanks Nora."
"Anytime Boss Woman!"
"But- it still makes no sense," Yang wondered. "Like, your adam's apple-"
"Semblance," Joan claimed, waiving it aside. Let us never speak of it again.
"Hey, Jaune?" Ruby piped up, ready to ask her question.
"Yes Ruby?" Joan answered, not bothering to correct her on the name.
"Does this change anything?" she wondered with a touch of concern. "Like, do you have to get kicked out of school or leave your friends or get disowned from your family or anything now that you've told us?"
"It doesn't have to," Joan said. "Miss Goodwich knows- my medical records can't lie. They might have me down for some sort of Gender Identity Disorder-"
"You are not a Disorder," Pyrrha said softly but firmly, her first words of the post-confession. There was steel behind them, ready to challenge anyone who disagreed. Joan gave her partner a grateful smile.
"-but that's not a reason to expel someone from Beacon. As long as you kill Grim, no one cares what gender you are- or identify to. So what if I think in masculine tense?" Joan shrugged.
"And your family?" Blake asked. Too many books told of broken bonds of family over secrets such as these.
"My father used to say 'If you really live up to being an Arc, Real Friends will accept the man you are on the inside.' He always said that it was my choice of who I told, if I told anyone."
"That was… nice of him," Weiss conceded. There were a lot, a lot, of issues that could be made with Mr. Arc's parenting decisions. How much of Joan's life, of being raised a man and a hero, was forced onto her by her father? How much was because she herself was willing and wanted to, to be a hero or please her father? It might be impossible to pull the two apart. But at least they seemed close all the same.
"And as for friends… well Dad always said that a Real Man can trust his friends with his life and his honor and still call them friends at the end of the day. So I don't have to go if ya'll don't want me to."
Unsaid, but heard- "I trust you all."
Unsaid, and never would be begged, but pleaded all the same. "Please still be my friends."
Ruby almost reached Joan before everyone else answered in their own way. Almost beat Yang's cheeky thumbs up, not before Weiss's roll of the eyes as if there was any alternative, only after Blake gave that silent smile she offered in support. She couldn't outrace the sound of Nora's whoop, was too far away to match Ren's quiet but brotherly nod, too slow to beat Pyrrha's supportive hand.
For perhaps the first time in her life, semblance or no, Ruby Rose came in dead last in a race as she gave her friend a hug. But no one cared a bit, not least Joan as she returned the embrace full of heartfelt sentiment. But Ruby would not be still for long.
Ruby circled around, looping an arm around her first friend at Beacon and using her broad shoulders as a podium. She looked at everyone else with a smile. "Friends! Sister! That one weirdly quiet guy we tolerate because we have to!"
"Hey!" Ren exclaimed.
"Four score and seven-tenths of a second ago, I had a dream!"
"Oh, this ought to be good. Again." Yang said with a smile as Ruby rolled forward.
"A dream that one night, this night, our two teams would come together, as a better team, and induct our old-new friend into the Sisterhood in the only way appropriate!"
Nora squealed in excitement. "Do you mean-?" she began.
"Yes!"
"Did you just plagiarize your own joke?" Weiss asked.
"Yes!"
"Do I have a say in this?" Joan asked from her position as Ruby's podium.
"No!"
Ruby drew herself up and pointed a finger imperiously.
"Yang, get our stuff! We're going to have the Best. Slumber. Party. Ever!"
"Oh no…" Joan muttered.
"Oh yeah!" every other girl exclaimed.
Author Notes:
You know what I don't get? People who gender-bend Jaune and don't call her 'Joan.' It makes no sense to me.
If chapter one was my take on a pure-friendship fic of Jaune's friends, consider this my light-hearted parody of the countless 'Jaune's improved backstory' fics. It's not that I don't get the appeal- Jaune's a fraud with an annoying voice and even more annoying machismo, and needlessly so. Some of his antics went beyond 'comic relief' to aggravating butt-momkey. I totally get why people want to embellish his backstory- Jaune's a cool guy when the chips are down and pretensions are out and you need moral character. People want to make him cooler.
But come on, people- this is a Monty Oum universe. The coolest people are always the women. Jaune's not going to fit into the rare quiet male ninja-dude that Oum liked, that's Ren, so if you really wanted to make him cooler by retcon...
Bah. Amateurs.
(Wink wink nudge nudge, that's a joke. I'll confess- I got my own Jaune backstory reinterpretation ideas, even if I shy away from the 'he's a overpowered badass' and more towards 'he's not so damn awkward and flirty.')
Final part tomorrow.