Chapter 4: Carry That Weight

"Whatever happens, happens."

Professor Ozpin's office seemed just as deserted as it had the last time he was in the room: a single, mostly empty desk, a couple of chairs, and a few bookshelves. Part of him wondered if the man even did any work in this office; if so, none of the remnants of any paperwork were visible around the room. The trip up to the office had been… quiet. Someone on Team RWBY had tried to talk to him, but he had slipped away before they could corner him.

"Mr. Dubois." A voice called, the Professors, his mind directed that straight to the back of his head and ignored it.

Why did he even call Ozpin Professor? Wasn't he the Headmaster? It seemed like everyone sort of called him both interchangeably. He supposed it didn't matter too much; it was just some random academic title that the weird, totally not wizard king pulling the strings of the valean council hid behind.

"Mr. Dubois." The voice called out again, louder.

It really did make him wonder, though. Why, in God's name, would the man let go of control of an entire nation to play principal at a child soldier factory? Surely, if he really wanted to beat Salem, the resources of a whole nation would serve him better.

"Robin!" Ozpin's voice finally broke through the fog and brought his attention back to the real world.

"Oh…" Robin spoke in a small voice. "Got distracted for a moment."

"I can tell you entirely blanked out when I brought up the man you called Tusk," Ozpin said. "Now, if you don't mind, you were in the middle of telling me why you did what you did."

"I already told you what happened. What does it matter why I did it?" Robin bit out.

"The why matters much more than the what in this case. Putting aside the fact you left campus while specifically not allowed. An entire warehouse filled with dust was burnt down, and a man is dead." Ozpin spoke softly, but the words were still like a hammer blow to Robin's chest. His knee began to bounce rapidly under the table.

"What's there to say? I got up, and I saw him swinging on a teammate. I didn't know he didn't have any aura left; how was I supposed to? I went down earlier in the raid." Robin's words came out almost all at once. It was a wonder if Ozpin could even decipher them.

Only now did Ozpin's look turn stern. "I've been a headmaster for many years. If there is one thing I have learned, it's when someone is lying. Try again."

Robin threw his hands up, giving an angry exhalation of breath. "What do you expect from me? I didn't do it because I hate faunus or because I wanted to. I've got enough blood on my hands after… after Hamelin."

Ozpin's look softened. "You aren't going to jail, nor are you being expelled. I do genuinely want to help you, as hard as that may be for you to believe at times. Now, I ask you, please, tell me the truth."

His voice was kind and grandfatherly. For a moment, Robin could believe he was just some old teacher who wanted to help. And maybe he was.

The clock ticked as the long silence dragged on. As Robin just sat there, picking at the scattered threads of his mind, trying to assemble some useful outfit from them. But Robin was never good with needle and thread.

A lone, meek croak of rustling vocal chords comes out at first as he slowly finds his words. "He just kept coming… kept getting up, even after his aura had broken. And Cardin was about to make a choice. He was going to make a choice, and it would have been a bad one."

"And so, you chose to take that choice away from him." It wasn't a question, merely a soft confirmation from Ozpin.

"Better me than him; Cardin's going through enough as is," Robin said, shifting slightly in his seat as he admitted the dysfunctional nature of his team.

The clock ticked again, and Ozpin leaned forward in his seat. "The choice to take a life… it can never be a trivial one. I will not lie to you. Our world is in a time of relative peace. But now? Now, we find ourselves approaching what I fear is a tipping point. You made the choice to take a life. You could not lie to yourself and say you were in danger. You couldn't even truly say that your teammate was in danger. You chose to kill because you did not trust your teammate to de-escalate. Maybe that was the right choice, but now it is impossible to say."

Ozpin sighed and leaned back in his chair. Looking every year of his age he was and more. "There once was a man who lived in a ruined city. He piled a stone for every life that was lost there. The ones that he ended with his own actions. He may not have pulled the trigger, but their deaths were because of him. And when the stones were piled, he had to ask himself something even more difficult. Did he learn anything? Did any of his actions do the slightest thing to prevent this from happening again?"

Robin, almost reflexively, forced a grin. "Asking a mighty lot of one boy to put a stop to generational violence on his own."

The grin quickly faltered, but Robin continued to speak in a forcefully light tone, but his hand shook at his side. "I chose to do what I did because Cardin wouldn't have backed down. I know him. I figured it'd be easier on all of us if I were the one to do it. I already got blood on my hands, so what's another bad guy to the pile?"

Ozpin looked at him in silence for a moment and opened his mouth as the clock ticked once more. "Was he truly evil?"

"Truly evil?" Robin spoke the question aloud for a moment, considering it. "Can't say I rightly know, I ain't God. Outside of the fight, I dunno, he was probably as normal as one could get, loved, lost, had friends, maybe liked watching shitty reality TV with his friends like the rest of us." He shrugged as he finished, his eyes staring. Not at one thing, nor at everything, just blankly staring forward.

"What I do know is a big guy like that, strong as he was, could have wrestled an Ursa to the ground even without his aura. But he chose to spend his strength hurting people." Robin said.

Ozpin sighed. "I'm not going to ask you to weigh his life. Not because I do not think any life is inherently not worth mourning, but because, at the end of the day, the human mind is incapable of it. You are not an unfeeling monster. I know this. I've had this conversation so many times, Robin; I've seen the ones who truly felt nothing… and you… you are not acting like them."

"Is that a bad thing?" Robin bit out suddenly, a burst of anger coming to the surface, which was quashed by guilt and anxiety as quickly as it appeared.

"Is that really a bad thing?" He asked again, taking a long, shuddering breath. "It's just… it's that kind of thing. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. A solution to a problem haunting everyone. Getting rid of someone like him. Stopping him from doing what he does to people and keeping it from happening ever again. It's just…" He paused.

"It's the smart thing to do. The reasonable thing to do. But it's not what heroes do." He spoke, putting a strange weight on the word heroes.

Ozpin hummed for a moment before speaking again. "I had a teacher once. When I was a much worse man than I am today, and he told me something that I still, to this day, believe to be true. Acts of good are not always wise. Acts of evil are not always foolish. But, we must always strive to do good." He paused for a moment, allowing the words to fill the room.

"Heroes…" Ozpin continued, "Is that what you want to be?"

Robin shrugged. "I'm stupid. I get aura and the power to throw lighting around; of course, I'm finna try to be a hero. It's what every boy dreams of growin' up. I just… I never really woke up. I've come close. I am close. But I still like to close my eyes and keep dreamin'."

Ozpin gave a small smile at that. "Dreams, they are not reality. But they do reflect something. What we want, what we hope, what we fear. When we are young, many dream of being a hero. It's only as we become older that the reality of it conflicts with the dream. The collision of imagination and reality creates a jagged edge, a wound that bleeds the hope out of so many. Don't let your dream become a nightmare, Robin."

Robin finally stilled, his hand coming to rest at his side and his knee coming to a stop. He felt something he couldn't really identify. Philosophers would call it an emotion. And the question of just. How do you respond to that?

Old manners picked up where his brain had failed and settled for a simple "Yes, sir."

Silence reigned for a moment as Ozpin spoke. "Now, as for the matter of your punishment-"

-2-

An ankle monitor. They strapped an ankle monitor to him. Robin was still glaring at the device hours later after a nightmare woke him up. He wasn't supposed to be there, sure, but a fuckin ankle monitor? Really? On top of that, a couple more months of mandatory therapy and about a month's worth of detentions.

In the nicest terms, he was under house arrest. Sort of. He didn't even know if he was going to be able to participate in the festival. Apparently, his team's participation was 'under review,' whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. They had even checked his room and confiscated his stash of drinks, so apparently, he was losing out on that on top of everything else. Something about him not being allowed it on campus.

Instead, he was nursing a hot chocolate as he sat in the common room sometime after midnight. No point in keeping his team up with his shit. He took a sip and then tensed as he heard the door.

"Oh." He heard a soft voice utter as he turned his head to see Weiss, of all people, wandering into the common room. "I didn't expect anyone else to be in here. I didn't see any lights on…"

Robin waved her off. "It's fine; I was just being a little weirdo and sitting in the dark with my thoughts." he paused as he held up his cup. "And this hot chocolate."

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, before swiftly gathering herself and marching into the room, DVD player in hand. She wasted no time connecting to the lone TV in the room.

"Watching some show this late a night? What's up with that?" Robin asked as the girl moved to sit on the lone couch in the room, as far away from him as possible.

"Couldn't sleep." She answered easily. "I could ask you the same question: what brings a man like you to sit in a dark room drinking hot chocolate?" She sounded a bit confused at the very concept as she spoke it out loud.

"Alright, two things, lady. One, I had a nightmare and couldn't fall back asleep. Two, what in the world do you mean a man like me?" Robin said.

"Well…" She seemed to struggle for a moment. "You're you."

"Very descriptive," Robin commented.

"Shut up and let me finish." Weiss spat out.

Robin put down his hot chocolate and held his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright, go ahead and list my character defects."

"I just never got the impression you were the type to brood in the dark. It seemed to me like you were the type of person who acted off of gut feelings and then attempted to justify them after the fact. Was I incorrect in that assumption?" She spoke slowly as if explaining a concept to a child.

Robin sat there for a moment, taking a sip from his not-as-hot chocolate. Was he really that type of man? I mean, sure, he didn't really think through his actions the best all the time, but… he shook his head, casting the thoughts to the back of his mind; he had enough going on as it stood.

Instead, he threw on a smile. "What can I say? I'm like a duck."

She tilted her head slightly as she continued to set up her DVD player. "I'm unfamiliar with that expression. Is that one of those colloquialisms that Ruby keeps saying you make up, or is it a Valean one?"

"You didn't lemme finish. I'm like a duck. I look calm on the surface, but I'm paddling furiously beneath the water." His smile grows as he finishes, expecting a sigh or something. Instead, she just stared at him.

"If you thought at any point in time that the adjective anybody would use to describe your supposed facade as calm, then I am sorry to be the one to tell you that's not the case. You drink, you swear like a soldier, I can see an ankle monitor on you at this very moment, you seem to make impulsive decisions at the drop of a hat, and, if you are to be believed, you seem to come to the worst decisions after the longest amount of thought–"

She cut herself off. "My point is, maybe instead of pretending we are something else, it might be better to be truthful about who you are."

Robin took a long, shuddering breath. Hearing her go on made him tense, his muscles itch. Be honest. That'd go over well. "Part of me almost thinks it'd be easier to just give up, so I don't gotta think bout it no more." He faked another smile. "The happy-go-lucky vagabond who don't stay down no matter what hits–it's a bit at odds with 'I'm having trouble even functioning sometimes, and I've had to kill people'. It's just…"

He licked his lips. "Ain't something I like to think about. So I run, and I fight, and I do weird shit. Keep them thoughts a couple of steps behind me."

Weiss finally got her DVDs set up and sat back onto the couch, again as far away from Robin as possible as her show came on. Looking away from him and staring at the screen, she spoke. "My father, he had a saying. You can fit in anywhere except with yourself. His point was along the lines that a person can act however they want to act, and to most, that act is all they are. But the one place you can't…you can't let that act fool yourself. You have to know what's real and what's not. There's a difference between confidence and foolishness. Is it good advice? I truly can't say. I despise the idea of acting like something I'm not. If that's how you want to live, however, then maybe you should keep that in mind."

"They called him painwise, for it was all he knew," Robin said suddenly, in some kind of poetic meter. He held up a finger and moved it side to side like a metronome to keep pace. It was a very quick thing. A brief quote, and then he's back to normal, or whatever counts as normal. "Something like that. Maybe a little less physical, a little more poetic."

She had nothing to say for a long moment as the light of the TV reflected on her face. She looked… at peace, as if this was a type of ritual for her. It was something she had done for long enough to have a sense of familiarity.

"Poetry is poetry, Robin. Digest it however you like. It will only have whatever meaning you take out and apply from it. If that's all you know and all you can be, then you have to change what you know. You have to learn. You have to be different. Discover your own maxims. Find truths that you can build something on. Otherwise…"

The screen flickered to black as the scene ended, and the faint song of the TV went silent. "...you will never find a reason for why you could ever deserve to be happy."

And with that, she began to unplug the DVD player, not waiting for his response. The screen is dark. The stage is bare. The curtains have closed.

No soliloquy lasts forever.

Mostly a talking chapter, but important talking. Hope y'all enjoy. As always call out any mistakes or anything weird, it was my first time actually dealing with Weiss for this story which was interesting. Hope y'all have a wonderful day.