When most saw Adam's mask over his face, nobody wanted to approach him...well, not unless you wanted him to beat you or just flat out kill you, of course. Then there's the few that actually got the privilege to see under the mask, and even fewer, he let near him to do so.
That was the dilemma he'd been facing when the former heiress asked him in her room to 'talk' things out.
"Schnee, was it the fact I'm formerly the biggest enemy to your family, or because I'm helping your friends?" He asked, not letting her take his grimm mask off by holding her wrists firm but not tightly away from his face.
Weiss was far beyond caring he'd been the former white fang Major Taurus or even a terrorist towards her family fighting a literal war between their respective groups.
Giving less effort to take his mask off, she leaned back against the bed frame and sighed. "I was told by Blake, Cole, and Mr. rivia that my family emblem was on your face, and I want to see for myself. "
Blunt and straight to the point, as always, wasn't a good angle, and she knew it, but she needed answers.
Glaring a fierce blaze in his eyes, he stood from his chair and clenched his jaw but tried calming his body and mind, but it wasn't working. "You SDC think you own my people even now; fang or not, we all need to be better
Weiss used a grav-glyph, flicked the chair up, and gave him her plate of sandwiches,"one day I'll see that all faunas atrocities committed by my sperm donor are amended and wash his memory from my life...to be better the harsher roads must be trekked" she looked in his eye slits watching him relax and shoveled two sandwiches in his mouth and mumble "fine"
She had heard it as his knees touched the mattress, and with a gentle guiding pair of hands under hers, Adam let her hands touch his face where the mask sat latched on his head and bowed his head giving her access to remove it but not seeing his face yet.
Adam had never been so quick or trusting to remove his mask for anybody but Blake, yet here he was, allowing his old enemy for most of his life taking off his mask and to do so he bowed his head. Looking over his head she found the latches and unbuckling all four, as she pulled his mask away and put in on her bedside table to grasp the sides of his face with slender and soft cold hands.
"Your hands are cold..." he remarked, taking breaths to calm his mind. 'What possessed me to do this,' he thought, not wanting this but knew he had to do it
"If you want, I can put the mask back on," she offered, feeling his hesitancy.
"N-no, I need to do this. You of all people deserve to be the one to unmask me," he replied, letting her lift his face to meet hers. He saw pain in her expression and saw it he had when tears built up in her eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. "You aren't my enemy...right?"
His face was marred with a single scar, so ugly it churned her stomach. The SDC brand melted into his face, showing black flesh over his right eye. Parts were sticking out and jutted like bulbs of black and pink drops being pulled from out of his face. His right eye was red with a grey color with no pupil to speak of, while his right was beyond help his left eye was a quite beautiful sky blue hue reminding her of the warm summer days and an eternal calm that came with living on a resort for summer break. It wasn't like she'd been heartless or anything, she knew the pain people went through and odd to see it; in hindsight she had reaper to thank for freeing her family from Jacque and his greedy ways. But the soul in his eyes was filled to the brim with pain and suffering.
Adam was confused and unable to process that Weiss didn't mock his scar and didn't even breathe a word about it. She looked at him with no pity but remorse and genuine empathy. He was beside himself seeing the scar on her right eye inflicted by her father, forcing her to prove her skill by fighting an Arma Gigas the size of a four story building, he heard of that thanks to his informant back then so nothing had been done about weiss at the time.
She pulled herself close to an attempt to comfort him. And for her it was an apology to him from her and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't surprised being wrapped head first in her chest, crying on his horns and soaking his hair in tears.
Holding him for several minutes, she said nothing as she cried. No one was so cold as to just mock a man or woman for until he pulled away and awkwardly handed her a box of tissues.
"Ugh, I'm sorry." She replied, wiping her eyes, "I hate what my family had wrought this world, so I guess I feel responsible to fix the problems with mother and sister backing me up."
Adam patted her back and sighed, uncomfortable with what was happening. "I'm by no means the comforting type, but I don't need your promises of paying it forward with me or my species. I do appreciate you helping like you've been doing."
Blowing her nose and tossing it in the trash, she chuckled."I'm not doing this all alone, Mr. Tauras, I have lots of people and my own stores in my name to start fixing the damage."
He grabbed a glass of water and gave it to weiss, grabbing a beer for himself from a small fridge, "Well, I will truly appreciate your efforts regardless." Toasting to that, Weiss smiled and downed all the water.
"But more specifically, because I don't want handouts for this and I adapted to having one eye"
"You deserve to have something as simple as depth perception, Adam. I'm rich, sure, but I actually worked for my wealth this time around, and I promise you that." She snarked.
For Adam to hear he'd get his eye replaced or possibly restored by any means wasn't in his realm of thinking, especially not from the prior fang's enemy. He opened his mouth to answer her with a hard 'NO', but the chance slipped by.
A knock at the door cut off their conversation and weiss went to get it, but Adam was already at the door opening it to show weiss behind him but ready to fight if need be.
In the hallway, Yang, Ruby, Ren, jaune, and nora stood there, horrified. Adam was in her room, but no one did anything but stared.
"You two weren't in the middle of anything kinky-" Ruby silenced jaune with a smack to the back of the head and muttered insults.
The others had little else, other than polite hello's, and entered the room.
Ren was first to talk to weiss, and adam noticed his bag on his back but trusted that it was safe.
"I found something you should see when you're better," he bowed curtly and hugged weiss.
Nora just hopped in bed with weiss, and Bear hugged her close and ended up cracking her back by accident.
Giggling at the atmosphere, Adam went to leave to the bathroom, but jaune stopped him, grabbing his arm. Bad move, jaune.
"If you value living, you'll let go," he sneered at the bearded blonde.
Everything froze in place with the sudden drop in pressure around Adam and the glare deepening when he didn't let go.
"I wanted to say that I'm-"
"If the next words out of your treacherous human lips are an apology, I'll cut your hand off and feed it to you," Adam interrupted him, wrenching his arm from jaune's grip.
He went into the bathroom and turned on the water, splashing his face and slamming the door, realizing he'd left it open.
"First time you dealt with Mr. Stalker was definitely the better of the two, huh?" Yang fist bumped weiss.
"I guessed you guys came for that." She sat up and said matter-of-factly and got out of bed. The damage had been done, and she felt haunted by it, to say the least. She just had better control over hiding it.
"That can't be more obvious, weiss." Ruby, interestingly enough, said that with some edge to weiss trying to brush it off like she'd been doing for the last month them included.
Adam was heard exiting the bathroom when nora stepped between him and weiss asking, "Are you still going to hurt her major turdas?"
Sighing, adam pushed past her with a hand on her shoulder and grabbed his mask from weiss' side table, slipped it back on and looked weiss in the eye, and turned away, leaving without another word.
"Wh-hat just happened?" Nora turned to jaune."Fearless leader, what did we just watch?"
Jaune looked to yang and motioned for her to follow Adam, looked to weiss and asked "why was he in here unmasked with you and...were you crying to him or for him"
Weiss scoffed and went into her walk-in closet grabbed an outfit cole had made for her in case she did become a huntress. The lack of an answer weiss finally yelled from within it "I know you feel jealous but it's no one's business"
Cold as it was she needed to make it clear she was entitled to not divulging secrets and did just that uncaring for the look he gave as she exited wearing clothes similar to winter's specialist uniform but had pale blue inside and her initials W.S embezzled on the right breast and cole's old armored boots but her dust cartridges were varied rather than just lightning. She still had her sword but it hadn't been repaired since she hadn't needed to use it before her abduction.
"I'm no longer a student here nor am I a huntress so I'm leaving beacon...as should all of you; children need to grow out of their drivel and be responsible as adults" uttering those words cut to the bone for all involved.
"Reformed or not I won't let you join a terrorist no matter what you do weiss" nora said crossing her arms standing firm.
The others joined in but she summoned a glyph and moved them from her path through the door and smiled back at them. "I have people coming to collect my essentials and the rest is going to my home in atlas, goodbye guys, I love you all like the family I wished for growing up" with a push of her rapier she ushered them out as they all gave quiet and weak goodbyes of their own.
After they had left, weiss grabbed the note from the drawer near her door rereading it she'd found embedded in her bed frame, searching address on her scroll, she then sent it to winter to confirm that it was safe to go to. As fast as two hours went by, winter and Willow had contacted her, explaining that it was safe but to not go unless she had really wanted to go. She put the address on her map, highlighted it with a note of caution, and turned on her tracker.
Opening her door, the help she hired to clean out her room immediately began packing everything away meticulously. "Androids really were the better choice." She muttered, walking out with genuine regret and a tinge of pain with how cold she'dbeen to the people she loved most.
Walking down the halls, everyone either didn't notice or avoided weiss for their own reasons or even her assumptions running amok. "They fear you too my sweet ice queen" reaper said chortling behind her just before rounding the corner.
She reacted with lightning speed and drew her sword shakily pointing it at reaper's throat. Her chest heaved in fear, sweat dropped from her chin and tears formed in her eyes seeing yang was the one standing there and not reaper.
Whipping her rapier into her belt loop "y-yang, I-I thought- im sorry yang, but you should not be saying those things"
Yang let out a breath she'd been holding in and sighed with relief rubbing the spot on her neck weiss had pressed against with a bit of blood leaking down the center of her neck. 'I didn't even say anything,' she thought, watching her walk away fast and with urgency.
Weiss sagged against the wall hyperventilating and crying into her knees. She cried for several minutes until she heard the crunching of grass and a familiar voice said "the last time you were crying like this, your father had slapped you to the floor"
Looking up she saw the disappointed frown of Adam looking down at ther. "You almost stab your friend in the neck having a psychotic break and we'll compare notes over coffee"
Adam smiled as he put his mask in a bag wrapped a cloth around his eye and said,"I guess first round is on me then"
She looked up and for a second she thought cole stood above her holding out his hand but soon the image shifted to adam whom, unlike cole, he didn't smile at her.