One week after the near-destruction of Atlesian democracy, and twenty minutes after leaving her lunch with Whitley, Weiss collapsed face-first onto a hotel bed. She was not especially careful about who was already on it. For reasons that were probably Ruby's fault, Yang took it completely in stride when someone flopped on top of her without warning—she put an arm around Weiss' waist so she didn't fall off, and dropped a kiss at her temple.
In her defense, there wasn't much room on the bed without stacking on top of one another—Blake sat beside Yang's head, toying absentmindedly with her hair while she read. Ruby had abandoned her bed in favor of hanging out across from her with a book of her own. She looked up as Weiss came in. "Everything go okay?" she asked, so anxiously that Weiss could tell even with her face buried in Yang's shoulder.
She lifted her head to consider the question. "Well... there isn't a civil war, or another Great War breaking out, my sister isn't working under Ironwood anymore, SDC employees have the power to vote out my father's policies, and I spent the last hour making shockingly civil lunchtime conversation with my brother. Now we have dinner plans with Winter tomorrow. Everything is wonderful, and if anything at all happens in the next twenty-four hours I am going to pass out on the spot."
"Right there with you," said Blake, and tipped sideways to lean on Yang and rest her forehead against Weiss'.
Ruby, naturally, saw this and decided to join the group hug. After a dramatic wheeze at the added weight of not one but three teammates on her chest, Yang readjusted to wrap both arms around them all and heaved a sigh. "At least we still have a couple weeks left before classes start up again."
"Ooh!" Ruby perked up, prompting exhausted groans from Blake and Weiss. "We should celebrate! Not, like party celebrate, but Penny's coming over in a couple hours. Maybe we could do a movie night?"
Blake's ears, which had pinned back at the word celebrate, cautiously pricked up again. "That sounds... nice, actually."
"So long as it's nothing involving politics or horror," said Weiss.
Yang nodded gravely. "Brainless action movie. Got it."
Since they'd only seen about a dozen movies between them and would be useless during the selection process, Weiss and Blake volunteered to pick up snacks. It involved getting up and leaving the hotel—which was a serious negative in Weiss' book, at the moment—but did have the upside of letting her stretch her legs and enjoy the novelty of not having a broken ankle anymore.
Glancing surreptitiously around and confirming that she and Blake were the only ones strolling down this narrow side street at ten in the morning, Weiss broke into a run and gave her wings a few experimental flaps. She hadn't been able to do much with her newfound flight, not without risking even more damage to her ankle. All she'd learned so far was that she could now greet people with Ruby-like velocity, and taking off from a standstill was flatly impossible.
A running start wasn't better in quite the way she'd hoped. She felt maddeningly like a kite dragging along the ground, feeling so light but never picking up enough speed to escape it—though the added lift from her wings did let her move faster than she used to. It was actually kind of... fun, once she stopped worrying about getting into the air. She wondered if this was how Ruby felt when she used her semblance.
It took a moment for Blake to catch up, once Weiss stopped to recover her breath. "Still getting the hang of it?" she asked. She tried to keep her tone casual, but the nervous twitching of her ears gave her away.
"I'm not sure." Weiss stretched her arms behind her head, her wings flaring wide. The pulled muscle had long since healed. It was easy now, almost thoughtless—but the curve in her bones still remained. "I'm sure I can fly, I more or less managed it even carrying Whitley, but I don't know if I'll be able to take off without something to jump off of."
Blake reached out to place a tentative hand on her shoulder. "We could... talk to Pietro again, if you want."
"We could." Weiss smiled—and that, too, was easy. "I probably will, eventually. But I'm okay. I knew I might not be able to do everything I could have. Honestly, this is..." Her voice caught in her throat. "It's more than I ever would have hoped for. I'm not upset, Blake. I'm happy."
A slight shimmer in her eyes was the only warning Weiss got before Blake seized her in a fierce hug. "I'm so proud of you."
Great, now Blake was going to make her cry on their grocery run. "Thanks," she mumbled, burrowing her face into her hair. And then, right as she was starting to get comfortable, there was a soft yipping sound and Blake leaped away from her.
Weiss looked down. There, sitting at her feet as casually as if it had been walking with them since they left the hotel, was a dog. A foot-long, stubby-legged dumpling of a dog.
"Well hello, handsome." She crouched down and offered a hand to sniff. The dog pushed a wet nose into her palm, then ran in a little circle around her and began barking excitedly. There was of course nothing to do at that point but to pet it—Weiss rubbed its little face between her palms and scratched behind its ears.
"Are you sure you should be doing that?" Blake asked, from... almost twenty feet away, now. "If it's a stray, it might be sick or something."
"There's a collar." Weiss tucked a finger underneath it and wiggled it to show her. "Which does beg the question of who this adorable little guy belongs to." The dog rolled over and let her scratch its belly, tail wagging furiously.
"You're a dog person," Blake muttered, in tones of a sudden and horrifying realization.
"I like animals," Weiss said defensively. The dog yipped, and this time she saw the way Blake flinched. "Are you... okay?"
Her ears pinned back. "I just don't think it's a good idea to go around petting strange dogs we find in the street."
Weiss considered this for a moment. She looked at the dog—which was panting and lolling its tongue out at her, looking about as dopey as any creature she'd ever seen in her life. "Here," she said, and scooped it into her arms. "Now it can't run at you."
Blake still didn't look thrilled by that, but she did stop edging away. "You just wanted to pick it up, didn't you?"
Weiss—who was absolutely guilty as charged—adjusted the little guy so it was cradled in one arm, and she could keep petting it with the other. She wasn't about to turn down the chance to be a gallant girlfriend and hold a puppy at the same time. "Come on. We should probably look for its owner."
They didn't have to go very far. The dog picked up a scent at almost the same time Weiss did—she frowned, not because it had started barking and squirming in her arms, but because whoever this was smelled a little bit familiar. But when they rounded the corner, there was only a middle-aged blond man Weiss had never seen before in her entire life.
Then, he caught sight of the dog in her arms—Weiss recognized him the instant he smiled. And, sure, this casual grocery run could turn into meeting their girlfriend's father. Why not?!
"There you are!" He knelt down and clapped his hands. "C'mere, Zwei!"
The dog hopped out of Weiss' arms and bounced over to the man, who ruffled his fur.
"This is your dog." Weiss had seen Blake greet Nevermores with less apprehension.
"Yep! He's a bit of an odd one, but he's a sweetheart, I promise."
"Apt," Weiss decided. Then, tentatively, "You're Mr. Xiao Long, aren't you."
"Not to my daughters' teammates, I'm not!" He looked up, still grinning. "Just call me Tai. Sorry about all this—I was hoping I'd find the girls first, but we got lost looking for your hotel. I swear we got detoured halfway across the city. The hell's wrong with all the heaters?"
"That's a bit of a long story." Weiss glanced at Blake, and winced at the sight of her ears once again pinned back in alarm. "Do you, um, mind picking him up?"
"Hm? Oh, sure!" Tai straightened up, Zwei tucked securely under his arm. "Hope he wasn't too much of a pest. The girls spoiled him rotten when they were kids, he thinks he's a people now."
Zwei barked agreement, and Tai gave him a narrow-eyed look. "I honestly worry he's right, sometimes."
Weiss wanted very much to say that he was absolutely perfect, and maybe also ask if Zwei could move in with them forever, dorm rules be damned. She smothered the impulse—though she was absolutely going to interrogate Blake later about what kinds of animals she did like. Maybe they could all adopt a pet cat together. Once they were out of the dorms... unless...
She didn't get much scheming done before Tai's scroll went off. He pulled it out and fumbled to open it. Weiss took the opportunity—and Zwei—with both hands, settling him against her chest and cooing when he rested his little head on her neck. Blake shot her a look that was equal parts disgruntled and fond. Weiss made a face at her.
"Hey, Qrow. Found 'em, kinda—we're over by, uh," Tai glanced at the nearest street sign and rattled off their intersection. "No need to hurry."
Qrow must have ignored that odd sign-off, because he showed up not even a minute later. How, Weiss had no idea, half the streets that led to where they were now were impassable, but she'd long since given up on questioning what Yang and Ruby's uncle did. He slouched his way around the corner, and greeted them by whacking Tai on the shoulder. "Took you long enough."
"You're just embarrassed Zwei found them before you did."
"Fuck off," Qrow grumbled. "Not my fault it's too cloudy to..." He glanced at Weiss and Blake, and trailed off. "Hey," he said, a bit lamely. "Sorry we're late to the party. Figured we'd pick up the girls, at least."
"Oh." Weiss glanced at Blake. "Right! We can, um, show you to the hotel?"
"There's no rush." Tai stuffed his hands in his pockets and jerked his head down the street. "You two were out for something, right? I don't want to interrupt."
"Just some snacks." Blake's ears pinned back uncertainly. "We were going to have a movie night, but, um..."
"Then you should have one!" Tai said cheerfully. "Did you two have any plans over the break? Because you're welcome to come by Patch, if you'd like. I haven't talked to the girls much about where they're staying, so we're pretty flexible."
"Um." Weiss shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Well, I have an... appointment, tomorrow." She winced—that was far too clinical, it made it sound like she was seeing a doctor again. "I mean, a dinner? With my..." Siblings? "Family."
"That's no trouble at all!" Tai waved his hands, looking a little frantic. "Really, we're not on a schedule here. We sort of figured we'd be in Atlas, uh..."
"Long enough to fight a civil war?" Qrow suggested.
"...A while, so we're happy to kick around for a couple of days. I have off work until the end of the month." Weiss glanced helplessly at Blake. Somehow meeting Ghira had not made her any more equipped to deal with situations like this.
Blake just shrugged. "There's not really time to go back to Menagerie, so I'd appreciate having somewhere else to stay if Ruby and Yang are okay with it."
Which was good, because Weiss could just nod and bundle herself in with that. Tai seemed to take her hesitation in stride—and, mortifyingly, this was still a much better first impression than she'd managed with Blake's parents.
It helped that Tai seemed like the easygoing sort. He began wandering down the street the way they'd been headed before they could argue with him, and let them drag him through a supermarket while Blake read through the list Ruby had given her with increasing concern.
"It'll get eaten," he assured her, chuckling and tossing another bag of chips into the basket hanging off the arm of a grumpy Qrow. He'd refused to let Weiss give Zwei back, and was instead busying himself with hunting down his daughters' favorites. By the time they reached the halfway point on the list, Tai had already grabbed everything else on it unprompted, plus several bags of candies Weiss was fairly sure weren't available outside Atlas, just because he thought they might like them.
Weiss rested her chin on Zwei's head and took a few deep breaths. She was not going to cry on their grocery run. This time, this time, she was going to meet her girlfriend's father without being a complete disaster.
"It's sweet," she said, as they left the shop.
"Huh?" He turned to look at her, and she busied herself with scratching Zwei's ears.
"That you remember all that."
"Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck and suddenly found the underside of Atlas absolutely fascinating. "Well, uh. It's the least I can do after... everything."
Weiss managed to keep her promise to herself, about maintaining her composure during their completely normal grocery run—but it was a near thing.
By the time they returned to the hotel, piled high with snack foods and takeout, Blake seemed to have warmed to Zwei a little. Enough to tolerate his presence, at least. Tai produced a leash and tied it to one of the beds to keep him out of the way while they ate.
It was shockingly loud. Weiss was glad Tai and Qrow hadn't insisted on going out to eat—it was all she could do to be inside with a handful of people she knew and two she sort of didn't, especially with Ruby and Yang's... enthusiasm. Penny's arrival right as they were finishing dinner only added to the noise.
Weiss contented herself by curling up in one corner of the room, petting Zwei while he rested his head in her lap. She was a little too overwhelmed to engage with it all at the moment. But she watched fondly as the sisters teased their uncle, and their father explained a few things about Yang by trying to impress Blake and Penny with a string of increasingly elaborate puns. Blake seemed not to know what to do with any of it—she sat with one ear folded back and the other perked forward, half-wincing and half-laughing. Penny began making a few clumsy ones of her own.
Later, she could not have told anyone what the movie was about. She spent the length of it eating popcorn and lavishing attention on the dog in her lap, watching the people around her more than the screen. Ruby's crooked grin as she and Qrow fought a small war with their elbows, because she kept whispering explanations to Penny and distracting him from the fight scenes. Tai loudly and glowingly comparing the heroine to Yang until she buried her face in Blake's neck to hide from her embarrassment.
Her scroll buzzed. She glanced at it, and winced. It was a message from Whitley, and given it was almost eleven at this point, that probably meant something catastrophic had happened to their plans tomorrow.
She hadn't realized quite how catastrophic.
"Mother wants to come," he'd sent. "What should I tell her?"
Weiss typed out, "Absolutely not," then, "Fine," then deleted that too. She curled up with her head on her knees and groaned. Zwei licked her hand.
"Such a good boy," she told him, and patted his nose.
"I'm not ready for that."
It took several anxious minutes for Whitley to reply. "Okay. She says she found a restaurant we could try."
Weiss rolled her eyes. She followed the link he'd sent her anyway—she'd been putting off the grueling process of finding a place to eat in Atlas for far too long. At least she didn't have to worry as much about it being up to a particular standard. Winter ate military rations without complaint, and even Whitley wasn't quite as fussy as mother.
Her scroll finally loaded. Weiss scanned the screen halfheartedly, fully expecting this to be the first of at least a dozen places she dismissed because she didn't want to physically travel to the restaurant just to find out she wasn't allowed inside. Instead, she found a banner right near the top that read, "Faunus welcome!" with a little paw print next to it.
Oh.
Weiss glanced back at the name of the restaurant, and realized with a lurch that it was the one by the courthouse, where they'd eaten during the trial. The one that was famous for its fish.
Her throat went tight. She spent several minutes petting Zwei to calm herself down, then reached for her scroll again.
"Looks good," she sent. And then, after a long moment, "Tell her I said thank you."