lights of the city mini fics: ruby's story
...
Coming out to Casey was the easy part.
She was already a lesbian herself, and had actually been the one to suggest the nickname ‘Ruby’ ages prior, so chances were pretty good this wouldn’t be a problem. And it wasn’t! Ruby simply offhandedly mentioned she was a girl now, and she was also a lesbian, and Casey just nodded, a sort of smug, imperious look on her face, and moved on, unphased.
The hard part was coming out to her uncles.
It’s not that she was afraid of them, not at all, they were good men, regardless of their criminal enterprise. Mickey always took her shopping for new suits, even if he didn’t particularly care for fashion. Danny let her tag along when he went on walks, and explained the history of the hidden city as he went. Leonard- as much as he complained- still taught her to cook when she was bored as a child. As for Heinous Green, granted, he wasn’t exactly the most chatty man alive, but he was always willing to listen to her ramble about whatever wrestling move she’d picked up from her favorite human wrestler Ghost Bear. They were all good men.
But she really wasn’t sure what they’d think of this.
She knew that Mickey, at the very least, didn’t mind trans people. It’d come up during one of their dumpster diving trips, and he had, in his own way, admitted his support of the community.
“I mean,” He’d said, picking up a bag of chips and sniffing it. “‘S long as it don’t hurt me or mine, ‘s none o’ my business, bro. D’you think Leonard would eat salt ‘n vinegar if we told ‘im it was just salt?”
And that was it.
So, he at least didn’t have a problem with them, but that didn’t mean he’d be fine with his nephew becoming his niece.
It was harder than she would have expected to get the four of them in a room together. Leonard was always sulking around and trying to look cool in some corner, Danny was generally pretty busy with something or other, and if you looked away from Mickey for five minutes he would generally disappear under your nose. Heinous Green was easy, though, he had a soft spot for Ruby, and always had.
And so, after a good hour of effort, she got them all to sit on the couch, and she stood in front of them, and she took a deep deep breath.
“I have… I have something to tell you? And… and you have to wait until I’m done to talk, alright?”
Mickey made a zipping motion across his lips, and the other three nodded, and she sighed, sitting up a little straighter, balling her hands in her lap.
“I think- no. I am a girl. My name is Ruby, and I use she/her pronouns,” She said, before hesitating, trying to think of anything else to say. “I… I have always been a girl, but I didn’t figure it out until like a month ago. This doesn’t change who I am, I’m still the same person, I’m just… I’m just a girl now.”
She finally focused on the expressions of the men gathered in front of her, and- oh. Oh that was unexpected.
Danny was grinning widely and sharply at her, Heinous was nodding slowly, Leonard looked wholly unsurprised, and Mickey… well, Mickey looked absolutely befuddled, which was hardly anything new.
“I could have sworn…” He muttered, shaking his head. “We looked it up and everything-”
“She’s trans, dipshit,” Leonard rolled his eyes. “She’s sayin’ she’s transgenda.”
“Ohhhh,” Mickey’s eyes went wide. “I thought-”
“Ruby,” Danny leaned forward. “Do you want to try estrogen?”
“Uh,” She blinked. “I don’t… I don’t know, should I?”
“It’s up to you,” He said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “But I have been wanting to rob a pharmaceutical company for months now, and-”
“-And what he’s saying is, we support ya.” Leonard said, huffing. “If you’re a chick, then you’re a chick. Good on ya. You can still drive, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Then we have no problems with it. Right Green?”
Heinous nodded.
Ruby sniffed. “You guys… you guys mean it? For real?”
“We mean it,” Danny smiled. “For real.”
She launched herself forward, and Heinous caught her easy, picking her up and swinging around, just like he had when she was a little girl.