Ezio is a man defined by kisses.
…And that's pretty much how this story came to life. Happy birthday, Il Mentore!
"My father will never forgive me for this."
Ezio feels her lips flutter against his neck. "You, he will absolve," he says lowly, pausing as her teeth skim his skin, "but I may not be… so fortunate."
He scarcely catches the groan in his throat. Cristina giggles; she seals the mark where the pending purple will bloom with a dove-like kiss, lightly nibbling downward in a butterfly-trail. It's when she nears his collarbone that Ezio feels her halt abruptly, her form tense. In the sudden cut of confusion, he can do little to suppress the sound that escapes him, a peculiar discord between a grunt and a moan.
"Do not stop, bambina…"
Slowly, Cristina pushes herself up, shifting the elliptical dip of the bed. She is silent for a time as Ezio follows her eyes, fixated on the lingering, open window and traced with conflict.
"Oh… Oh, Dio."
"Cristina?" Ezio sits upright, touching her taut forearm. "What's the matter?"
"My lessons." She sighs. "I've forgotten. My tutor—he is coming today."
"Your tutor." Despite himself, he grins, scooting closer to swathe his arms around her waist, graze the bottom of his chin along her shoulder. "Is he so wanton that his desire for your company precedes mine?"
Cristina's eyes are sharp. "Ezio…"
The dash of laughter is hard to resist. Ezio hovers over her ear, catching a glimpse of her face: lips pursed, a frown at their tips, tinted with worry. "I'll be gone before he arrives. Va bene?" He smiles seriously, blinking at her expectantly, but the pout doesn't leave her lips. "I promise," he adds, as silkily and tantalizingly as he can muster. And she relents.
"Come vuoi," she drawls; Ezio nips her earlobe in gratitude.
"Now, back to bed…"
He can hear the roll in her eyes as he pulls her tenderly back, in his arms and underneath the warmth of the velvety blankets, and he kisses her lovingly once more.
"Cristina! Cristina, my daughter!"
Ezio can't put on his clothes quickly enough.
"Here to see the book again?"
Something in Claudia's tone hurts him. "No, I… I just wanted to talk."
Maybe it's the uncharacteristic ice of her wary stare, the heavy darkness of the poorly candlelit room, or the unusually massive desk that divides them, but Ezio suddenly feels very, very distant.
"Can we not just speak to each other as we used to?" he asks wearily. "As if nothing has changed?"
"Everything has changed, Ezio!" Claudia is suddenly standing, simultaneously bristling and trembling, her fingers erect as they claw into the thin pages of the text underneath. Startled, Ezio watches as she breathes a shuddering breath; the next time she speaks, it's in a small voice, laced with water and blues. "Everyone is gone—so far, far gone." Her eyes are eerily mnemonic of their mother's. Raw and blank.
"Claudia…"
"You are all I have left." Her voice is glass-thin. "Please, don't… don't, don't—"
"Shh, sorellina," murmurs Ezio, moving around the counter to gently embrace Claudia's weeping form. Her hands clutch front of his robes in a desperation that breaks him; he only holds her closer, whispering words of feathers and comfort.
"Why? Why did they have to die?" Claudia whimpers against his frame.
Ezio curls inwardly. "I'm sorry," he says, because he doesn't have an answer. "I'm sorry, Claudia."
He does nothing but press a silent kiss to her temple as his sister falls apart in his arms.
"Cristo, is he ready yet?"
The heat presses clammy weights on Ezio's back, chest, forearms—everywhere, really—as he waits impatiently underneath the flying machine—it's the only veil of shade he has when he's on the rooftops of Venice—for Leonardo's signal. It's a mere test flight after the artist's earlier epiphany, after the flash of fire had sent his brain into overdrive; now, it's another conventional day for Ezio the test dummy and Leonardo the mad scientist, and another excruciating, lengthy waiting period for the latter to finish his preparations. Leonardo can do whatever he wants, Ezio thinks restlessly, as long as he has a feasible method of reaching the Palazzo Ducale punctually, but this—this is starting to get the slightest bit uncomfortable.
A tiny yet lively squeal quite a distance away jars Ezio from his thoughts. He has to squint to see Leonardo, an ant-speck across the horizon. The man is making ridiculous gestures with his arms, and the only reason Ezio isn't cackling with laughter is because the sultriness is making him irritable, so his body settles for a low snort; he assumes Leonardo wants him to jump, so he takes his crazy gesticulations as an affirmative and propels forward, quickly drinking in the cool rush of air that meets his face before fixating his attention on maneuvering the aircraft.
It's falling slightly, just like his previous attempt, but he pays it no mind and directs it in Leonardo's direction toward the agreed location of the lit bonfire—which he can't seem to find. Huh. Peculiar, considering the leverage of his vantage point grants him eyes over all of the rooftops in the vicinity, and the only things worth noting are Leonardo in the far, far distance, an idle box of gunpowder sitting on a roof a few yards ahead, Antonio from the corner of his left eye, standing atop another distant rooftop… readying an flaming arrow in his direction…
Oh.
Cazzo.
A feral mutation of curse words is torn from Ezio's mouth as he backpedals in alarm. "Leonardo—!"
The explosion blares deafeningly and in his fright, Ezio has to resist swerving madly to avoid the newborn flames that spout treacherously a mere feet ahead. He would deny that a squeak of any pitch escapes him as he rushes through the booming fire, shrinking at the sudden searing graze; then he feels the strangest upsurge in motion, the feeling light and buoyant—until the lack of steeling himself for the twists throughout the ordeal makes his stomach drop and his balance unsteady.
Ezio careens toward Leonardo's roof with the grace of a flying elephant; he hits the ground at a staggering run, clutching onto the giant bat so it doesn't go gliding away—though he wants nothing more than to release the pezzo di merda to crash in the ruthless death it deserves—when his legs buck and he falls sharply, skidding against the rugged tiles and slowing harshly as he approaches the end of the rooftop, stopping just as his head peaks over the edge. At the end of the madness, Ezio slowly pries open his shut eyes to see a sole woman, gaping up at him with eyes blown wide; she bounds away screaming, her cries echoing across the distance.
Gritting his teeth, Ezio painstakingly frees himself from the flying machine, grunting at his fresh wounds. He sees Leonardo sprinting toward him, tripping clumsily over the now-broken tiles of the rooftop, and Antonio jogging closely behind, a little more majestically than his friend.
"Sei pazzo! Ma che cazzo, Leonardo?" Ezio barks, glowering at the artist when he arrives.
"Ezio," Leonardo says breathlessly, taking gulps of air and grasping his kneecaps as he struggles to catch his breath. Ezio uses this time to aim a pointed glare at Antonio, who flashes him a sickly angelic smile that sends boiling blood surging through his bones. As soon as Leonardo recovers, he looks at Ezio with positive stars in his eyes, which the younger man finds the slightest bit unsettling. Ezio jumps when he grabs his shoulders. "Ezio!"
"Yes! Yes, what?"
Leonardo's hands move to grip his face. He enunciates each of his next words with a slow, drawn-out emphasis. "You. Are. Un. UCCELLO!" And suddenly he crushes his lips dramatically against Ezio's forehead with a force that startles his friend, pulling back with a whoop. Ezio looks on, half-dazed and half-stunned, as Leonardo takes Antonio's hands in his own and dances about; and somewhere between Leonardo's ludicrous jitters and shimmies and Antonio's silent mouthing for help, Ezio exhales a harsh puff of laughter—one of both penchant and exasperation—at the absurdity of it all.
"What did you die for, Father?" Ezio says dully, eyeing the Codex Page in his hand with disinterest. His mind meanders back to the day at the Palazzo della Signoria, back to the dry, bloodied floor of the gallows, to the cacophonous roar of the crowd, the white rage he felt toward Uberto Alberti and the drop—it's fast, the surge of dark red grief that runs him through, when he hurls the rolled-up page against a cobblestone wall nearby and lurches. "Che cosa era fottuto?!"
"That is what you are figuring out, non è vero?"
He stiffens, turning his head slightly over a hunched shoulder to find Rosa scrutinizing him, a concerned smile in her eyes.
Ezio faces away, boring into the sunset-orange waters of the Venice Canal. "That is what I am trying to figure out, sì," he replies bitterly. He senses Rosa situate herself beside him, feels her hand brush his hood and some lingering strands of hair away from his face.
"Cheer up, bello. Brooding ill suits you."
He bites back a sigh, a low grunt reverberating deep in his throat instead. "It's difficult to continue," he says, sucking in a sharp breath, "when you have been fighting for someone else's ambitions with no other reason but to fulfill them."
Ezio isn't looking at her, but he notices, from the corner of his eye, the curious quirk of her brow. "Oh? Do you doubt your father's wishes?"
"No. I just question his intentions."
"You will get your answer."
He finally turns to meet her eyes, and there is something certain and sanguine in the cool green that lifts him, just a little bit. "How do you know?"
Her lips ripple upward. "Pazienza, Ezio. I cannot speak as an assassin, but I do know that doubt is just another phase of one's life. Perhaps your father is testing you from the grave."
He takes a moment to absorb her words. His father's ghost, assessing him even now—he wouldn't put it past him. "Perhaps," he repeats.
The two gaze over the apricot-colored waters, a friendly silence washing over them. It's only around two minutes when Ezio feels Rosa's hand cup his chin and twirl his face to meet hers once again.
"All that grave parlare and this," she begins playfully, smoothing her thumb underneath his scantily-smiling lips, "is all I get out of you?"
For once, he doesn't control the untamable smile thriving across his face as his gloveless hand mirrors Rosa's, holding the left side of her face while he drifts forward; his lips saunter above her right cheek before he kisses it, swiftly and cleanly. Gradually, he leans back, drinking in her pleased expression. "That better?"
There's a gleam in her eyes. "You tell me, amore."
And that's when Ezio opens, and he understands.
"Thank you, Rosa." He says it sincerely; the air in his chest is featherweight.
She moves forward, kisses his cheek, and stands. "Pazienza, Ezio."
Bianca and one of Bartolomeo's recruits have been missing for some time, and after vowing to find them, Ezio finally has them both in his grasp. (The fact that he knows the sword's name and not the man's is something very, very telling about Bartolomeo in itself.) So when he goes to meet the mercenary to return them to him, it's almost blatantly obvious whom he would come to embrace first.
"There you are!" he bellows heartily, snatching Bianca's hilt out of Ezio's hands into his own—almost cutting Ezio in the process—and twirling it around in a fervent circle, pressing affectionate smooches along the metal skin. Ezio stares, nonplussed. His lips curl downward in disgust; it was slick with blood earlier, he nearly says aloud, but he would likely receive a whack to the head for referring to Bianca as an it. That, or Bartolomeo would simply keep kissing it. Maybe both.
"Bartolomeo," Ezio calls. He's faintly surprised when Bartolomeo perks up at the sound of his name; he wouldn't be so shocked if the older man's puckering had droned out his voice. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Bartolomeo pins him with an uncomprehensive stare until, abruptly, his expression alights. "Ah, certo! How foolish of me!"
He strides toward his returned recruit, who smiles expectantly at his mentor's impending words of welcome. Bartolomeo smiles, too—and places Bianca in his student's hands. Both the recruit and Ezio gawk stiffly as Bartolomeo turns and stalks toward the assassin, and before Ezio can properly react, Bartolomeo grabs either side of his face and plants a fat one, smack-dab on his lips. The mercenary pulls back with a resounding smack! and an exuberant slap to Ezio's back.
"Grazie for saving my beloved Bianca!" he laughs.
After recovering from his shock, Ezio roughly rubs his gloved hand against his lips. Twice. "Aren't you forgetting someone else?" he asks incredulously, repeatedly pointing his eyes to his revolted recruit.
Bartolomeo brings a hand to his forehead. "Ah, merda! How could I forget?"
He walks over to the recruit once again. Ezio watches a bit tentatively, this time; Bartolomeo apologizes to the boy, taking Bianca out of his hands—and marches back over to Ezio.
The Auditore chomps back a vexed sigh as the cold steel of Bianca's blade kisses the grimace on his lips.
"How are they?"
Sofia closes the door silently behind her. "Fast asleep," she whispers, trotting to their bed with feather-quiet steps. Drowsily, Ezio drapes an arm around the green of her waist, beckoning her to fill the cold, empty space beside him. She fits snugly, adjusting her lithe form against his to offer them the most comfort.
"Good." Ezio brings her closer, kisses her briskly, and finds it easier to doze off.
"Are you certain about this?" Her voice brings him back. "Leaving everything behind, abruptly starting anew… It can't be so easy."
He chuckles. "Credetemi, amore mio," he murmurs into her hair. She smells of tulips and of Flavia, Marcello. "It is."
It's the last time Ezio Auditore spends more than a two-second spell reminiscing about his life as an assassin, and it's the first time in a long time that he sleeps so peacefully.
bambina – baby/babe
Dio – God
Va bene? – Okay?
Come vuoi – As you wish
sorellina – (little) sister
Cristo – Christ
Cazzo – Fuck
pezzo di merda – piece of shit
Sei pazzo! Ma che cazzo, Leonardo? – You're crazy! What the fuck, Leonardo?
Un uccello – A bird
Che cosa era fottuto?! – What was it fucking for?!
non è vero – is it not
sì – yes
bello – beautiful
Pazienza – Patience
grave parlare – serious talk
amore – love
certo – of course
Grazie – Thank you
merda – shit
Credetemi, amore mio – Trust me, my love