Volume Three

"I need more than lead and fool's gold to be anybody worth caring for again."

Chapter 1: Lives of the Flies

"If every hope abandons you, there's peace in that, you know. When you hit rock bottom, there's just one way left to go."

Robin looked at himself in the mirror. He had to give it to himself; he had crafted the sleaziest fit possible: tight jeans, loose button-up with the top few buttons undone. Neon wire glasses, a bouquet of roses he fished out of the trashcan after Jaune's most recent rejection from Weiss, and the pièce de résistance, an oversized boombox he bought off a homeless man for five lien.

He was ready for his ultimate quest. Annoying the shit out of a war criminal and murderer. As he had done routinely every day at three p.m. for the past week. Why three p.m.? It was the time she was busy trying to stalk team RWBY after they got out of class, so Robin would occasionally just interject to interrupt it. And by occasionally, he meant every day.

With his preparations mostly complete, Robin turned the boombox on, and it started playing some generic love song by an artist who later was arrested for domestic abuse. Valean music was… weird; he didn't have any other way to describe it. It was like the worst of disco, and modern pop came together and had an unholy abomination child.

He exited his room right as the clock struck three. The other students stared as he danced his way down the hall toward the classroom. They had become somewhat accustomed to it by now. It didn't take him long to reach Cinder and her cronies.

He cleared his throat, getting the trio to turn toward him. "Cinder! I've come to-"

"Oh my fucking gods, are you never going to leave me alone?" Cinder interrupted him.

"No," Robin said as he threw the bouquet forward, hitting Emerald square in the face. He was so fucking glad he was doing this in a public place so they couldn't kill him. Mercury said something, but Robin chose not to mentally process whatever it was.

"I'm vaguely sure this counts as some form of harassment," Cinder said she had run out of bite after the first three times and after the teachers said they wouldn't intervene. To his mind, she was probably just planning on killing him when her shitty plan started up.

Robin pointed and laughed. "Hahah sounds like a you problem. That's hysterical. I'm taking a pic right now. Your face is going in my Cringe Comp." He fished his scroll out of his pocket, only for Cinder to grab it out of his hand and crush it.

"Oops, my bad. I didn't mean to." Cinder said, blankfaced.

"How dumb do you think I am? Two steps back, spooky bitch. You ain't got a leg up on me. You like a bitch with no ass. You ain't got shit!" Robin said, quickly stepping two feet away.

"Aren't you supposed to be trying to ask me to the dance or something?" Cinder asked.

For a moment, he has a brief attack of awareness. That what he's doing is a terrible idea. Then his mouth opens. "I mean, is there even a point in pretending anymore? I know you ain't even gonna entertain it. Ain't no way ya girl cool with me dunking on her and posting it on Instagram about how you're a bitch."

"What the fuck even is an Instagram?" Cinder asked, then shook her head. "Wait, forget I asked. I don't care. I have better things to be doing."

"Yeah? Better things like stalking a fifteen-year-old? You got no class, Cindy. Can I call you Cindy? I'm calling you Cindy."

For the first time, her eyes narrowed seriously. "Why would you word it like? Me and Ruby are simply friends."

Wow, very convincing. "Uhuh, that's why you're staring deeply into her eyes every time you get within five feet of her?"

At this point, more than a few of the students were giving Cinder weird glances. Cinder sighed. "I swear my reputation takes a nose dive every day you approach me."

"Hah, yeah, damn shame you can't do shit about it," Robin said.

"I can do this," Cinder said and then walked away.

"Oh huh, it that took longer than I thought it would." Robin shrugged and finally turned off the music.

-2-

Going out drinking had always been a part of Robin's regular schedule; however, only recently did Yang start tagging along. Probably just to make sure he didn't drink himself to death on cheap whiskey. Or because she was fucking tired of planning the school dance, which was about a week away.

Yang looked down at his drink in disgust, some overpriced whiskey cocktail Robin couldn't even remember the name of. "I don't know how you can stomach that stuff."

"It's simple: I have class, unlike you." Robin leaned back in his chair.

Yang laughed. "Bold fucking claim, I think everyone else would disagree with you on that."

"They would, but only because of the oppression inherent in the system," Robin claimed.

"And how in the world are you oppressed?" Yang asked.

"My lawyer has advised me not to continue this joke," Robin said.

"Don't bullshit me, I know you can't afford a lawyer," Yang said.

"Wow, you've seen through my devious ploy. However, will I recover?" Robin said dryly as he took a sip of his drink.

The pair fell into a comfortable silence for a while until Yang looked at him, a strange look in her eyes. "Can I ask you something, something a bit serious?"

He didn't get the chance to tell her she'd be free to use his empty head to her heart's content. Instead, slowly responded. "Yeah, sure, shoot."

"That night, after you got back from the mission. It wasn't the first time I've helped hold someone up, but…" She trailed off as Robin looked at her in confusion. She took a moment and sighed, then began speaking again. "My question is, would you do the same for me?"

It didn't sound like Yang, The cocky, headstrong girl. Who charged forward into a fight with little to no regard for her own safety. This… this wasn't her. And for a moment, as she squeezed her eyes shut, as her voice wavered and quaked, he wondered if it was her at all.

Robin inhaled deeply as he stared at her. "I…" He swallowed, his voice shivered in his throat. A cold exhalation of breath and nothing more. "I told you, didn't I? You're special, of course, I would, if you needed it. But Yang… there's a lot of people who would race right to your side if you needed it. And they'd get there faster than I ever could."

Her face looked conflicted. "So… You're saying you'd put in a token effort?" She asked, almost dejected.

Something about those words: they put a steel rod down his spine as he straightened in his seat. "No." He said almost forcefully, taking himself off guard. "I'm saying that I'd get there as fast as I could, but I don't think fate would have me be the one to get there first."

Her face shifts, confusion overcoming her face. Like she cannot process it. Solve for X, when X is fuck you. A measure of tiredness entered into her expression. "It's always fate and your god with you, isn't it?"

The table creaked slightly as she leaned forward, resting her arms on the table, and spoke. "I think I'm starting to understand your god. The fatalism, the idea that we don't have a say, that we never had a choice, that your god, or your maker, or whatever, simply made the call for you before you were ever born. Choice? Options? Chances? What does it matter if your maker has already chosen your path."

"Fuck that. God philosophy. Fuck your god. Fuck your messed up sense of… whatever. I know I have a choice. And every day, Robin, I make it. Every time I wake up, see someone or get into a fight, I make a choice. And I make the same one because I believe I have the power to make it." She let out a breath, almost panting as the pace of her rant picked up pace, for once it was Robin on the back foot, unable to get a word in edgewise.

She pointed at him. "The fact is, you always got a choice. That's the world we live in, but only if you're strong enough to accept it. The easy choice is to say you don't and keep making the wrong choice every day until it destroys you. Fatalism. God. It's all so much bullshit. And you can say whatever you want and make up your stories, but you're the one in control of yourself. You've always been."

Staring was the wrong word. Staring was what you do to a freak. You stared at an abused circus elephant. You stared at the alcoholic who drank himself into a stupor.

Staring.

Robin didn't stare at Yang. In a sense, he didn't think he'd be able to. He simply watched her. Let her scream and yell and thrash. And watched her.

"Maybe you're right, Yang," He said softly. "Maybe at the end of the day, there's no God, no Fate, none of it. Someone smarter than me might be able to figure it out, but I'm not that person. I can't really see the difference it'd make, though. It'd take a man a lot smarter than me to figure it out, but it'd take a real dumbass to think it'd make any difference."

Robin shook his head, not at her, not at himself. Not even at the world. A mere exercise in neck muscles. "Maybe it's like you said, and I'm making the wrong choice, and you're right about everything. Maybe, for once in my worthless life, I'm finally onto something, and you're wrong. But does it really make a difference? We are who we are regardless."

Robin felt something somewhere deep in his chest. There are words for this. English had a word for it somewhere down the evolutionary ladder, between Anglo-Norman and the Dutch ancestry of the language. There had to be an emotion for this. He simply didn't know it.

It's an almost alien sensation. Something foreign. In the exact same way, the angry, determined emotional warmth in his core isn't. That's safe. That's comfortable. In it's own cruel, fucked up way.

This was the opposite feeling.

Robin thought back on one of the few English lessons he bothered paying attention to. The Sun Also Rises. He could try and get all philosophical, and go on some morality lecture. It was what he usually did. But Yang threw it all out the window. It didn't matter against her. He could have been the world's smartest man or its greatest fool. Maybe there wasn't a difference. Not here.

Part of him wondered if he would have cared before Dove passed. How much would the old Robin have really cared? And how much was this new one, who couldn't parse his own emotions? He watched her for a long moment before he broke eye contact with a sigh. "I… You're right. I think. I don't know. I don't really know how I feel; there are a lot of things I feel around you."

He looked back at her. "It doesn't make sense. It's stupid, and if we're being honest here, it's incredibly self-destructive. But that's how I feel, and there's no point in wrapping that up. You'd just see through me clear as day, and I'm not good at hiding things around you."

"And I…" What else could he say here? What could he say? Nothing that mattered. Nothing that would magically change how he felt, however that was. Instead, he simply reached out and took her hand. No more words to be said. None that he could think of anyway.

AN: This is by a large margin the chapter I have been the most unsure about, in terms of being at least semi-realistic. I'll be honest, I'm a sappy mfer at heart; ignore the past 20 chapters of trying to tear out y'alls hearts, so I've been looking forward to a scene like this for a while, don't know if it's the best, but I done gave my best attempt. Y'all let me know how ya found it aight? You know the deal at this point, call out any mistakes or weird shit, hope y'all enjoy, and as always have a wonderful day!