Because magic was bullshit and Raven's semblance was busted, the post-graduation plan turned out to be pretty simple.
Ozpin gave Qrow and Raven the gift of magically turning into birds. The twins took turns flying into suspected enemy territory and scouting things out. At any given time, one would be at home with the rest of the team, while the other was on recon.
After so many days, they would use Raven's portals to swap, letting them take turns being with their teammates. Those teammates could do smaller-scale missions on their own schedule, or just train and stand by. When the twins found something, Raven's portals let them reassemble the whole team for sudden, no-warning demolition.
They had to return home the old-fashioned way, and if someone looked at their travel history, the one-way tickets from various points across Remnant back to Vale would have looked most peculiar, but no one was looking at that but Ozpin.
In between, whoever wasn't in the field was on Patch. It was a small, quiet island not far from Vale City, home to Signal Combat School, a modest fishing fleet, and not much else. Most importantly of all, it had a small population and no tourist industry, meaning almost no chance an outsider (or at least an outsider older than sixteen) might see someone with silver eyes.
They stayed in a small, run-down shack while they built a home of their own out in the woods—a team of top-flight Huntsmen and Huntresses had no fear of the grimm a small place like Patch could throw at them. They designed it as a four-bedroom affair, though Qrow would often say, semi-grumpily, semi-jokingly, that it probably didn't need more than three, maybe two bedrooms.
Raven shot him dirty looks when he said that, and then (usually) did something to vindicate the joke.
It was wonderful for Qrow—the best years of his life. He was doing something meaningful with himself. He was with the people he loved enough to keep their bonds strong and soothe his soul, but not long enough at a time to endanger them with his semblance. And those people he loved… they were happy. Or seemed to be, anyway.
He really should have known better.
The car was a total junker.
Taiyang had resisted buying one at first. Sure, they'd need to go into town from time to time, for groceries if nothing else… but Raven and Qrow could fly, Raven could open portals, and even if she wasn't around for portal hacks, Taiyang and Summer were professionals with Aura and could use the trips as exercise.
The sheer amount of food four twenty-something warriors consumed made a compelling counter-argument. It was still undecided when Raven blew up the status quo by announcing she was pregnant. They bought a car the very next day.
Taiyang was funny that way. He seemed like he was always trying to resist the urge to spoil them, and often failing.
So they had a car now, although it was a piece of shit. Still did well enough to get them to town and back when they needed that. Still did well enough as a place for Qrow to hang out when he wasn't up for the drama in the main house.
He idly fingered a half-empty bottle. A bottle he'd bought. Shoplifting was ridiculously easy for a woman with a portal semblance. The Qrow-Raven tag-team had been the source of illicit booze for half of Beacon for four years solid. Summer and Taiyang must have suspected something, but both had kept their mouths shut. Well, Qrow was done with that. He actually had money now, money he'd earned, so he would get his poison the right way.
There was a shift in the light spilling from the house. The fixture must be swaying, Qrow thought, and wondered why.
He had some keen ideas. Ideas that involved loud anger.
He took another drink.
It burned its way down his throat. He was willing to pay for his booze, but that didn't mean he wanted to pay much.
To his mild surprise, the front door opened. Summer. She wasn't wearing her hood, but Qrow could tell by her build. So much smaller than the others. Well, Raven wasn't that much bigger, but Raven's hair made her seem half again as large. Like an animal puffing itself up to look bigger and more dangerous than it was.
He was sure Raven would hate that comparison, and that amused him.
Summer walked down the drive to the car and opened the passenger door. Cool night air rushed in. "This seat taken?" she asked.
Qrow gestured expansively. She sat and shut the door again.
The two of them looked up at the house. The fixture was swaying again.
"I'm glad you're back," said Summer.
"It's good to be back," Qrow said. It was, he insisted. It truly was.
"I know Ozpin keeps you hopping, what with Raven out of commission," said Summer, "but I'm glad you still find time to come back to us."
"I just remind myself why Ozpin keeps me hopping. It's so there's an 'us' for me to come back to." Qrow spoke truthfully—maybe a little too truthfully. Stupid alcohol.
Summer didn't speak, but Qrow knew her better now than he had. The downward glance, the tightening in her cheeks, the touch of bashfulness… she appreciated the words.
"'Course," he added, looking at the house again, "when it's this I'm coming back to, well, sometimes I'm willing to let Oz overwork me a little, you know?"
"Gods, do I know," Summer said, her posture collapsing. "It's exhausting."
The change made her look older, for a moment. It surprised Qrow. It shouldn't have, but it did. Somehow, in Qrow's mind, it was like Summer was seventeen forever.
Probably because that's how old she was in the photo he kept in his wallet, that he looked to from time to time while on mission, for strength, for resolve, for remembrance.
In that moment, though, it was blindingly obvious she wasn't a demure seventeen-year-old trying to keep her head down. She was a woman, an accomplished woman, with everything the word entailed.
He tore his eyes away.
The light fixture swayed again.
"I would have thought she'd be under less stress, not going on missions these days," said Summer. "Nope."
She popped her 'p's. How hadn't Qrow noticed that before?
"Pregnancy hormones?" Qrow ventured.
"That can't be all of it. It's like she's… angry all the time, or scared all the time—you know Raven, she doesn't draw a line between the two."
"I know."
"And Tai—he wants to make it better, his heart's in the right place, but when Raven can't or won't explain it that makes him upset, and when I try to mediate that just irritates both of them, and next thing you know…" she sighed.
Qrow nodded. That was an old feature of the Raven-Taiyang relationship. He'd thought it'd get better over time. In related news, he was an idiot.
What was different was Summer trying to intervene, trying to make it work despite their best efforts. She was giving more of herself to her team, putting more of herself into it.
To her cost, apparently, judging from her next words. "That's hard for me. I love them both, and when they're like this… gods, I feel so helpless." Her shoulders sagged again. "I don't blame you for not wanting to be in the middle of it. I get it."
The way she said it was suggestive. "But…?" he prompted.
"But… sometimes, I wish you were here more. I really could use a hand with them. Or just someone to vent to." She huffed. "It's selfish, I know, to drag you into that cyclone on your vacation time. It'd be selfish of me."
"It's not selfish if I'd do it," Qrow said, the words tumbling from his mouth. "I'd do anything to help you out."
She quirked an eyebrow and her mouth curled mischievously. "Anything?"
He felt like his brain had turned to mush. The circuits controlling his mouth shorted. "Well, I mean, uh, you know…"
The smile on her lips bloomed fully. "You have game with everyone but me."
"Well… yeah," he said, trying to make the monosyllable something defiant and failing miserably. This was what she did to him, what no one else did to him.
She knew it. She had to.
She showed mercy and looked away, her eyes tracking back up to the house. Her smile withered.
They sat there in silence for who knew how long. It was long enough for Qrow to feel thirsty and contemplate taking a drink. No… that wouldn't be right. He offered the bottle to Summer first. She shook her head. The silence returned.
The car was warming up with the two of them sitting there. Qrow didn't want to open the doors. They helped keep the sound out, and he just didn't want to hear what was being said up there.
"At least they'll have each other when it's over," she said.
"Taiyang's rule," he said, knowing what she meant. "Don't let an argument share your bed overnight."
"I don't think he follows that rule as much as he thinks he does," said Summer. "Raven doesn't, at least. Even if she always lets him cuddle her."
"I told you we only needed three bedrooms," Qrow teased.
"And you said sometimes we only need two," she replied.
Qrow found himself silenced. The words, suddenly, seemed more fraught to him. Quiet fell over the car again, but it was tenser this time, more loaded, like the dry-heat crackle before a lightning storm.
"Anything," she repeated, quietly.
Qrow said nothing.
He could see something forming in her head. She'd always been like that, not sharing things as she thought of them, but building them up in the silence of her own skull until she was ready to share something complete. They'd had no team attacks for their first few months, and then she'd shown them three in one day, complete with choreography, signals, and nicknames.
"When we were at Beacon," she said, her voice even, "you slept around a lot."
No point in denying it; she knew. "Yeah."
"And I'm guessing you still do out on mission."
"Not when I'm on duty, but… yeah."
She nodded slightly. "But it doesn't mean anything to you, right? It's just a thing you do for a night, and then… it's over."
"Yeah," he said again, marveling at how his vocabulary had abandoned him. Something was buzzing in his head; the combination of booze and where this conversation seemed to be going was shutting things down.
She didn't follow up immediately. Qrow knew it was because the next words would have weight to them. He wasn't disappointed.
"Could you do that with me?"
He almost dropped his booze. "What?"
"When they're like this, they're usually at it all night. When they stop, it'll be to have either makeup sex or angry sex. Either way, totally obnoxious. I just… I…"
She was blushing. Qrow could see that even in the light from the house. The fixture swayed again; the light shifted over her face, casting different parts of her in different light. It was fascinating. Captivating.
Qrow was staring.
But, with what she had just said… what she'd just asked for… maybe that was okay?
Damn, she was right again. He had game with everyone but her.
"Just for one night," she said. "Without changing anything between us. Tomorrow we'll come back and pretend it never happened." She looked up at him, looking heart-rendingly vulnerable. "Can you do that?"
He swallowed and found the last of his courage. "I meant what I said. For you, Sum, I can do anything."
A smile flickered over her face. She looked so beautiful, right then. Qrow wanted a picture; he wanted this memory, this moment, burned into his mind forevermore.
Uh oh. He'd just told her a lie, hadn't he?
She shook herself into something more playful, almost artificially so. "Then we'd better swap seats. No drinking and driving, even on Patch."
"Oh, but drinking and fighting is okay," said Qrow with a roll of his eyes, but he was getting out of the car all the same. This was well-trod ground.
"Drunken fist is a thing, drunken stick-shift is not," she replied snappily. The punchline wasn't funny, not after the fifteenth delivery, but there was comfort in the familiar rhythm.
They passed each other in opposite directions around the hood of the car. As they did, something startled Qrow, startled him enough that he leapt away and spilled booze from his open bottle over his hand.
Looking back, he saw Summer grinning mischievously and waving with one hand. Working furiously, his brain tried to reconstruct the last few seconds.
Had Summer just smacked his ass?
"You little brat," he said, half-chuckling, half-amazed.
She just smiled at him, a brilliant, free thing. He didn't think he'd ever seen a smile like that on her face. For a moment, he couldn't breathe.
She swung into the car, breaking eye contact. Qrow's heart, which had been fluttering in his chest, took a swan dive into hell.
He'd definitely lied to her.
There was no way he could pretend this night had never happened. And there was no gods-damned way he could treat her like a one-night stand.
Fuck.
Qrow didn't consider himself a selfish lover, but he outdid himself that night.
Whatever else this was supposed to be—whatever they were pretending Summer was to Qrow—she mattered to him, mattered infinitely more than the parade of anonymous bodies that'd marched through his bed in the past. He had to do right by her.
So he poured himself into it, dedicated every iota of his well-practiced skill, all his attention, every trick and technique he'd learned. It was like his graduation exam at Beacon, like everything he'd done and practiced for years was to prepare him for this moment, this night.
If he only got one night with Summer Rose, he'd give her the best night he possibly could. She deserved no less. She deserved…
…anything.
They were sitting in the car again, staring at the house again.
It was morning. They were washed and clean. There was no evidence.
No tangible evidence, at least. The memories, Qrow hoped, would last a lifetime.
The thought made him feel guilty. What happened to "this won't change anything"? What happened to "we'll pretend this never happened"? He sucked at this.
"I think," she said thickly, like the words were struggling to clear her throat, "that I owe you an apology."
That left him flabbergasted. "What for?"
She swallowed, looked at him furtively, tore her eyes away. "Because I don't think I can keep my promise. I don't think I can pretend last night never happened."
She was out of the car before he registered the words.
She was inside the house before he breathed again.
The next day, Ozpin sent a message, asking Qrow to go on a mission.
Qrow showed the message to Summer.
Her eyes betrayed her feelings. She didn't want him to go. She longed for him to stay. They pleaded with him, grasped at him. He wanted it—oh, how he wanted it.
But her lips said, "Go."
So he went, hating himself with every step.
Five days later, deep in hostile territory, Qrow took sanctuary long enough to check his message traffic.
There was one message. It was from Summer.
Raven's gone.
Next time: Taiyang