"Ezio! Dio mio, it has been far too long!" the polymath exclaimed, stepping aside to allow his cowled friend in with a gleaming simper.
The assassin nodded his head courteously to the artist, unable to hide the grin that shone on his gruff features when he noted that "far too long" had meant three mere days. Once the door shut behind him, the Auditore was pulled into the surprisingly robust arms of the inventor; his warm embrace had become customary at this point.
Much to Ezio's dismay, Leonardo would occasionally neglect to check the younger man for any injuries before bear-hugging him; the former nobleman never had it in him to be upset over it, though. Luckily, tonight was not one of those nights that he would stumble into the bottega with a wound in dire need of cleansing and stitching.
It was rather unusual of Ezio to put off his contracts, but recently, he had grown somewhat weary of the interminable chase across Venezia's skyline. The endings of which rarely ever changed: his hidden blade in the jugular of a shocked, bleeding target, a multitude of guards barking after him as he narrowly evaded their arrows and broadswords. Tonight was different. Tonight, Ezio did not come back with any fresh wounds or cuts, nor guards he desperately needed sanctuary from. Just another Codex page, though he had forgotten what had suddenly spurred his intrigue in the ever elusive scrolls.
The da Vinci tensed momentarily into their embrace before pulling away slowly. Ezio cocked a brow at the abrupt loss of contact, eyeing the older man curiously.
"Che cos'è?"
Ezio's hands still remained on the small of his friend's back. Leonardo's palms found themselves on the inside of the assassin's pristine cloak, eliciting a sharp gasp from the younger man. Why were they standing so close?
"Leonardo, what are you do––"
"Aha!" The other exclaimed proudly, extricating his grip from the other's attire to reveal the Codex page Ezio had retrieved earlier that evening, "Another one! How exciting!"
Without hesitation, the scientist turned on his heel towards one of his cluttered workbenches on the opposite end of the bottega. Splaying the Codex on top of a pile of old, wrinkled parchment, he began tracing the page with an index tarnished by charcoal. Neither of them were aware of the involuntary blush that shaded the hooded man's cheeks.
"Hmmm, what if I tried…" he reached for a slab of glass to mirror the scroll, "Affascinante…"
The assassin huffed in amusement, finding himself a seat by the hearth on the opposite end of the bottega. Ezio pulled back his cowl as he propped himself up on the plush, velvet material. Whipping flames danced in his gleaming, brown hues as he watched the mastermind mumble and meander, intrigued by what others would have dismissed as a mere scroll.
"Grazie for bringing this to me, Ezio. It is a tricky one, indeed," Leonardo called out to him, not once looking up from the page he had begun to transcribe.
The blue-eyed man hovered over the workbench for nearly two hours, forehead knit together in determination as he jotted down a rough translation on a separate parchment. The Auditore drifted in and out of sleep, waking up to the sound of incessant scribbling against worn out paper. Each time he raised his head, he would find the artisan narrowing his eyes at the work below him, thumb and index stroking his bearded chin as he mulled over each line of manuscript. A trace of charcoal would remain where his thumb had left.
Ezio admired the noticeable contrast in his companion's countenance from its usual gaiety. Now, it was an equally familiar display of determination and thought. Occasionally, though, the painter's fairer attributes would light up whenever he reached a breakthrough in the Codex's cryptic nature.
It took a while, but Ezio finally remembered why he had even gone through the trouble of acquiring this page, and many pages before.