Chapter Text

Everything hurt.

The medic had said that she had no broken bones or internal bleeding – which she was rather surprised by, given how her chest felt like it had more fractures than ribs – so she had shooed him away after she had been mostly patched up. The antibacterial tag covering most of her left arm stung like hell with every move, even when stabilized by the sling, and the gouge on the bridge of her nose was throbbing as her Aura was slowly trickling back to find her body put through a grinder. But right now she had no time to wallow in that.

Or her primary duty of reporting to the General ASAP for debriefing on what had happened. He had his hands full and would do just fine for a little while longer, but she...

She swallowed, throat parched as she rounded the corner.

Maiden powers, gone.

Penny, defected.

Clover, fucking dead.

Weiss... wanted.

And Robyn...

Captured.

Her hands shook as she reached the holding area. Her stomach felt like knotted lead, weighing her down while simultaneously leaving her hollow, the conflict almost making her nauseous. One of the guards raised a hand to stop her, but all it took was an angry glare to make him stumble back and turn the motion into a shoddy salute and let her pass.

Apparently barging your way through checkpoints worked just fine if you were an angry and bleeding Specialist. Winter scowled at him as she walked past. There were assassins on the loose and this moron let people traipse in just by a glare. She shook her head and kept moving. In the back of her mind she filed the rank and name of the soldier for future reprimands, but that could wait. Right now she needed... She huffed, part frustration, part pain. She didn't know what she needed. Everything was a mess.

The next guard did stop her with only minor hesitation, but he was dismissed with the wave of her Scroll easily enough. The holding cell block itself had no individual guards, so Winter could make her way there easily. Or as easily as the limping gait would let her, given how the gash on her knee had started smarting something fierce with every step if she stretched it too far. It made the last few blocks feel longer than they were before she finally got to cell 198. She stopped in front of the steel door, unsure if she should even open it, and then unlocked it with her Scroll to step in. They were monitored from the inside, but right now she didn't care about the camera.

"Finally," Robyn snarled as she swiveled off the cot in the corner as Winter entered. "Just what..." she started, the fury on the face giving way to a mixture of shock and confusion as she realized who had walked in. Robyn seemed only slightly ruffled, but she retained a certain level of domineering regality even while incarcerated in a small, too-brightly lit cell with a surreptitious camera over the door tracking her every motion. "Winter?" She trailed off after blinking hard a few times. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and took a half-step towards her, reaching forward in concern to touch Winter's bandaged arm. "What happened?"

What indeed. Everything. Winter didn't know what to say, and all she could do was take a step forward to take Robyn in an awkward, one-handed hug.

Robyn seemed to hesitate for a moment, but she reciprocated quickly and wrapped her arms around Winter. She put pressure on a nasty bruise on accident, but all Winter could focus on was just the comfortable warmth. She sighed and pressed her nose into the coarse fabric of the scarf Robyn always wore, trying to get lost in the familiar feeling.

The soft scent of the pine soap she used was comforting.

Robyn leaned her head against hers and ran her hand down Winter's back. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly and turned her head minutely against Winter's.

"I'll get out of the sling in half an hour once the skin heals and that's the worst of the wounds, but..." she swallowed. Physically she had gone through worse during the boot camp. "...I don't know."

What was she supposed to do? She had been preparing herself for the Fria transition for over a year now. This was what she was meant to do. What she was meant to be. She had known the risks which had kept her up at night, but she had come to terms with it. Atlas was a machine with a million different cogs keeping it running, and she had always been just one of them. Being able to be one which truly mattered was an honor, and if she had to be the sacrifice to keep the whole thing going—then so be it. No matter where her personal feelings lay, they were less than a nation.

It had been a relief, in a way, when she had realized that. She had always been secular – even after... everything – but that had been the closest to a spiritual experience she had had. It had been a clear purpose and direction, a chance of being something more than just one cog.

For all good that had done.

Robyn threaded her hand into Winter's hair and sighed. "I'm sorry," was all she said. Winter had been relieved when the secret finally came out, but there hadn't been much time to talk about any of it.

She took a deep breath and made her good hand into a fist. Well, "better" hand would be more appropriate, given the sharp feeling of pins and needles the motion caused on the fingertips which Fria's power had lashed at before Penny had walked in.

Penny, who had just essentially defected. Naïve, bleeding-heart robot she already missed and the world definitely didn't deserve. And of course Weiss had gone with her too with her accolade of wanted misfits, and...

"Winter..." Robyn said slowly. She didn't let go, but the tone of her voice was foreboding. "What is Ironwood doing?"

...and that, yeah.

That.

Suddenly, the hug felt a lot more guilty.

After the Academy days, she and Robyn had taken very different paths with Winter enlisting in the Army and Robyn starting her movement in Mantle. It had been difficult for them many times before with the enormous cloud of "classified" looming over their relationship, but they had made do mostly by ignoring the political reality of the situation. Winter didn't mention Robyn's late-night stints which just happened to coincide with all kinds of headlines of unexpected transfers of wealth, and Robyn didn't speak her mind about what she thought of the system Winter was upholding. It had been a strenuous balance, and now the cat was out of the bag.

Winter had heard the broadcast the Rose girl had sent out, and abandoning Mantle was something Robyn would never get behind even if it was just a heap of irradiated gravel by the end of it. No, Mantle and its people were what Robyn had dedicated her life to, and no amount of eldritch horror masterminds at the doorstep were going to make her budge one bit on that.

The knot in Winter's stomach tightened. There was no way around this. Right now she needed Robyn, but there was no way they could just pretend that the last hour hadn't happened. She hadn't wanted to think about it. She just wanted to lean on someone and be told that it was going to be fine. She didn't want this.

Robyn's hand stopped its caress, and Winter gritted her teeth, trying to find any way of just not having this talk.

Useless.

"He's..." Winter started, keeping her voice level, "...he's making a decision. We can't stop. Not now, not with Salem. Not..." Her throat felt tight. She didn't want to justify everything to her now. Justifying what they did wasn't her job. She just made sure it all worked out in the end.

She expected Robyn to yell, but all she got was a pained sigh which sounded just as bad. Robyn pulled back slightly and took Winter by the shoulders, holding her tight and looking her in the eyes. The hold stung her arm, but that was the least of her worries.

"Decision? Decision to just abandon two thirds of the population to the dogs? That—"

"Didn't work," Winter interrupted, shaking her head and looking to the side. "The key to the vault went to Penny who ran off with the RWBY group. Nothing is leaving without them coming around." It was flimsy, but it was better than nothing.

Robyn exhaled deeply and leaned her forehead against Winter's. That did feel nice. "What would we do without those rookies. But that doesn't change the directive Ironwood gave. It's... inhumane."

That stung, but they didn't have all of the facts. They weren't in all the meetings and they didn't hold all the strings. Someone had to, and that person was Ironwood. He had made the judgement call, and they just had to... trust him. Trust that there was no other way out.

"I don't know," she said quietly. "We're in a corner. There's a real chance of losing everything. Everything." She took a deep breath. "Maybe if we had done better, but right now, I just don't know."

Robyn set her jaw, but she kept her voice down. "And because we don't know, we should abandon Mantle and any remote chance of ever uniting any nation with Atlas again?"

"I didn't say it was a good choice. There are none left." Winter put her hand on Robyn's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Right now we just have to make it work."

Robyn furrowed her brow. "And which 'we' are you referring to?"

Winter closed her eyes. There was probably not going to be a 'we' for the two of them by the end of it.

"The civilization as we know it."

Robyn gave her a resigned sigh in response. "I don't know if it's a very promising or a very ominous thing that we have to view things like that, now."

Winter huffed tiredly. "Which 'we'?"

Robyn chuckled quietly, the weight of everything heavy in the air. "The civilization as we know it, I suppose." She took a deep breath and seemed to realize she was pressing hard on Winter's bandaged shoulder, and she took her hand away, putting it on Winter's cheek instead. She looked tired and distraught, setting her lips and trying to find her words. "What are you going to do?"

Winter looked down, unable to meet the lilac gaze.

She didn't know. She didn't know what she could do, much less what she should.

"Just... manage, for now," she said after a moment, looking up at her. For better or worse, it was all in Ironwood's hands now. "The only way to make things worse is anarchy."

"Winter..." Robyn said, tone almost as disappointed as it was desperate, but Winter pushed through.

"Right now we need a direction. Any direction. Even the wrong one is better than nothing at all. I'm..." She swallowed and took a measured breath. "I'm sorry." It hurt her to be here and see Robyn like this, but she had to. She owed her this much.

"Winter." Robyn lowered her hand from Winter's cheek to her shoulder. "What do you think? No, not what he thinks. I want to know what you think."

Winter shook her head. She didn't know what to think. She didn't want to think. She just wanted everything to be back in their neat, manageable and compartmentalized little boxes she could label and file away. Orders were orders and those worked, and with everything else in upheaval, she needed that structure to survive.

"I don't... I don't know. We can't let her win."

Robyn mumbled a curse under her breath and shook Winter's good shoulder gently but insistently. "What do you think he's doing if not that?"

"We stop, and we sink. He's keeping the ship going, and for now, and that's all that matters right now." Abandoning Mantle was... unspeakable, but so was their opponent.

"That's it?" Robyn asked, looking her dead in the eye.

"And that's it." Robyn's eyes would've been beautiful if it weren't for the look in them. Silence reigned, both of them looking at each other and scrambling for a usable excuse until they heard footsteps go past the cell door.

Winter sighed, her hands in tight fists. "...I should go. They have to be looking for me, and it's probably trouble for you. I just... just had to be here now."

Robyn swallowed her retort and looked down. "...I see." After a moment, she raised her head and stepped forward, engulfing Winter in a tight hug.

Winter pressed into it unconsciously, holding her tight and memorizing the feeling of her scarf.

"Just... be someone you can live with," Robyn said, sound muffled by the crook of Winter's neck. "That also means staying alive to see that."

"Promise," Winter murmured, and she froze when she felt a soft click right against her back, out of the sight of the camera.

Her eyes widened, and it took her a few long seconds to recognize the sound of her belt pouch clasp opening. The pouch held a variety of Dust ampules, a folding dagger and...

...her Scroll.

She slowly turned her head, meeting Robyn's eyes who held her stare without showing emotion, but also not moving her hand.

The guidelines were abundantly clear on how severe of an infraction it was to tamper with the clearances of a SpecOps member, and that was when martial law was not in action. She'd have to yell for help immediately to detain Robyn for a court-martial. With no hesitation or room for explanations. Right now.

"I love you," she found herself whispering.

"I love you too," Robyn said back, voice strained as she pulled back, Winter's pouch becoming lighter as they parted.

She felt like she should say something, do something, but she only turned around and walked out of the cell, locking the door behind her and leaning against it.

What had she done? Why? Was it worth it? Was anything? Would either of them make it? Would Weiss? Would anyone?

She let herself indulge in that aimless wallowing for a few more seconds before pushing herself off the door with a frustrated grunt and shoving those thoughts aside. She didn't have time for this, so she composed herself and resolutely did not think about the uncertainty weighing heavy on her, only exhaling slowly and doing a tally of her own injuries. Her knee didn't hurt anymore and her arm had almost stopped stinging, but her chest felt twice as tight as it had going in. With a last breath, she looked forward and started her march to Ironwood's office.

"There will be reprimands," Ironwood said from his seat in the office.

"Yes sir." Not to mention when they figured out where her Scroll had gone.

Ironwood paused for a second, waiting for her to elaborate. "And that's it?"

Winter fixed her posture minutely. "I have nothing to add to my report, sir. I overstepped my authority by visiting a volatile PoI purely for personal reasons. I will not try to excuse my actions, and I am prepared to take full responsibility."

Ironwood looked at her, and despite everything, in him she could see why she had joined the army. There was power in this hierarchy. Order. And General Ironwood embodied that all, having risen to the highest of echelons, always a rock-solid bulwark to look up to. Like an immutable fist of iron, holding tight no matter what the world threw at it. Atlas... no, the world needed that. If not him, then people like him.

He measured her for a moment. "We need all hands on deck right now. Report to Marshall Mann for deployment." He paused and looked down at his papers. "But make no mistake, the only reason full investigation is delayed is because of the imminent war Atlas is facing. Dismissed."

Winter held in her breath of relief and gave him a sharp salute and turned away, only to be stopped when she was just about to step outside.

"And one more thing..."

She turned, somewhat curious from the sudden change of tone. Subordinates, especially insubordinate ones, were not called back like that after a clear dismissal.

Ironwood leaned on his table, eyes closed and holding his forehead in one hand. And at that moment, Winter could clearly see why she had stayed in the army.

For all that Ironwood was an embodiment of the power of organized military, he was most of all a human. That was what truly had enthralled Winter in the harsh military life. The knowledge that there was more to it than just that, that behind the strict absolutism of efficiency, Ironwood was the beating heart of Atlas. Not a leader, not a savior, but a person. A person who tried his everything to help not just the ones he cared about, but everyone else as well. A person who had donated his life to the altar of humanity, one who had vowed to be the one who would fight in the dark so that the others could enjoy the light. And there was a lot of darkness in this world, she had learned.

Ironwood considered his words for long seconds before shaking his head minutely, his stone wall of an expression cracking for just a bit. The General gave way to the person wearing the mantle, and the person was broken. His eyes were bloodshot and dull, posture slumped and his beard scraggly from where he head leaned on it. His arm was in a sling, mirroring Winter's own, and his eyes were rimmed with darkness and set deep in his head. He looked beyond exhausted. Body, mind and soul, and he allowed himself that brief indulgence before composing himself, brick by painstaking brick building that wall back up because he couldn't afford not to. He sighed and righted his posture, looking at Winter with his body casting a long shadow across the moonlit office.

"There's a storm coming, Schnee. We need people like you."

Winter nodded slowly, unable to shake the mental image of the weary man he had been just a few moments ago. "Thank you, James," she said after a moment. Forgoing the titles, if only to give him just that acknowledgment that he wasn't in this alone, that there were others willing to carry some of the weight. He wasn't the only person with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

She almost flinched in surprise when Ironwood let out a bitter, pained laugh in response, like she had just said some joke only he seemed to get. It was an ugly, utterly mirthless sound which made chills go down her spine as it filled the room, that stone wall of his breaking down again as he averted his eyes and leaned on his hand, shoulders shaking until the echoing laugh suddenly died down, leaving behind a tangible, terrible silence.

"Dismissed," he just said hoarsely and jerked his injured hand in its sling towards the door, prompting Winter to make her leave, the heavy hollowness growing in her stomach yet again as the memory of the broken laughter refused to leave her.

"Goddess, why are we not assaulting Atlas? Every moment we wait, they can better prepare themselves!"

"It's only polite, Tyrian. Let the lesbians happen."