#[ starring technically-not-an-OC harold mulberry as anonymous

[etruatcaelum]

tai, you're truly father of the year. let one kid enroll too early into school and then left them both to protect the world while you sat on your ass at home. no wonder summer picked salem, god damn

-> haters anonymous

“Listen, buddy,” Tai says, indignantly leaning closer to jab his forefinger into Mulberry’s chest. “I didn’t hear you crying about Ruby being ‘too young’ last year when my kid was the top student in your Arms Fundamentals class, so don’t come at me with that bullshit now. Ozpin offered her a spot, and speaking not just as her dad, but as one of her teachers at Signal, I happened to agree with him that she was ready.”

Mulberry swats his hand away, scoffing. “Just because you weren’t party to the conversations Glynda and I had with Ozpin does not mean that discussion didn’t happen–”

“Bullshit!”

“Father of the year,” Mulberry says poisonously. “I notice you have nothing to say for yourself on the matter of your inaction since Beacon fell. You know, when Barty mentioned you told him that you hadn’t gone after young Miss Rose because you had things to look after here, we assumed you were referring to Yang.”

Grinding his teeth, Tai snaps, “I was!”

“She stopped by here, you know—your daughter. Yang.”

“Really. What for?”

Mulberry lifts one shoulder in a tired shrug. “Wanted to say goodbye, I’d wager. She wished us best of luck reclaiming the school—and it’s her luck we hadn’t yet discovered who Salem’s woman is, because I think Glynda would’ve told her and I hate to think of the poor girl on the front lines with that on her shoulders–”

“Can we please leave my wife out of this?”

CRACK.

The other man’s palm smacks onto the table with a noise like gunfire; Tai jumps. Fuck him, he always forgets how loud Mulberry’s semblance really is. “Your wife,” Mulberry hisses, plum eyes burning in the exhausted, grey-tinged misery of his face, “is responsible for this catastrophe–”

“I know Summer, she didn’t—”

“—hundreds dead, dozens of them students–”

“—pick Salem, she’s in trouble—”

“I do not care!” Mulberry screams like a thunderclap, and Tai staggers back with a shrill yelp of pain. In a low, furious voice, he goes on, “I don’t care what the big bad witch may have done to coerce her service; Summer had twelve gods-damned years to get out before she helped that monster orchestrate the worst terrorist attack in history, and I swear to the Brothers I’ll kill you if I catch you bringing her groceries again.”

“Oh, come on, Harry, I’m not gonna just give up on her to make you feel better.”

“Shut up,” Mulberry snarls. “This whole time you could’ve been out there for your kids, and instead you’ve been enabling the bitch who did—this—and nearly got them both killed. Because she’s your ex-wife.” He straightens up, breathing hard. “Get out. Don’t let me see you back here again unless it’s to tell me you’ve removed your head from your ass.”

“Hey—fuck you too, man.”

“Out!”

With one last glare, Tai turns on his heel and stomps out of the watchtower, fuming. Mulberry hadn’t even become a professor at Beacon until a couple years after Summer was captured—the man didn’t know her like Tai did. Hadn’t seen the heart-wrenching look in her eyes when she crept out of the woods that night, two days after Beacon fell.

She needed help, not to be treated like some—villain, and if nobody else except Tai could see that… well, so be it. He wasn’t abandoning his kids. He was bringing their Mom back home.

If any family deserved to be made whole again, Brothers knew it was his.