I forgot to mention this last chapter cause... I just forgot okay. But so I don't have to explain it in story (and I never do since this is already five chapters long) but the meta story for how Altair knows the Auditore's is this. First, Altair used to work with Ezio (doing what I won't say) and two, both Giovanni and Altair use the same lawyer; La Volpe. One of my favorite fanfictions has La Volpe as a lawyer and I totally stole their idea 8D Also; yes Altair is an author. It was part of the prompt over on the kinkmeme that Altair was a stay at home dad who was an author; that's my only explanation for it. Okay. Done, back to your regularly scheduled chapter.

Still panting Malik let himself fall onto the park bench. His legs ached in the good way they ached after a long steady run and he stretched them out in front of him, sneakers at an eighty degree angle to the paved running path that wound all the way around Washington Park and was about three miles long. He really needed to run more or soon he'd get all worn out from having to teach fourteen kids how to play soccer, at least he had Shaun and Desmond to fall back on and make them run laps with the kids (that was always enjoyable).

"Hey that's not fair!"

Malik's head swiveled when he heard a familiar voice and twisted around on the bench to the grassy area brows going up. He definitely didn't expect to see his goalie here, or see him chasing after another man Malik immediately recognized now as his father. It was hard not recognize him after all since Malik rarely saw men that good looking and crawling with children instead of women. They were playing soccer, much to his surprise and he was even more surprised when some complicated footwork ended up in first Raafe stealing the ball, then it being stolen back and being accidentally kicked.

Kicked right at him.

He yelped and ducked.

"Raafe!" Malik peered over the top of the bench then immediately back and saw the ball rolling away, "You almost hit that man," his father scolded him.

"It was an accident," and the boy ran from the other man to chase after the ball, running right past Malik.

"I am really sorry about that," Malik's head swung forward and saw he was right in front of him and quickly searched for a name, Shaun had told him but he'd been a bit distracted. Three tenths of a second later; Altair.

"It's quite all right," he said.

Just then Raafe popped up next to his father, "I'm really sorry I almost- oh! Hi Mr. Al-Sayf!" he recognized him, of course he would, it wasn't like he didn't see the boy every two days or so.

"Hello there Raafe, nice kick."

"I wasn't aiming at you," he lamented. "I was aiming at my dad's head," he shot Altair a mischievous look and Altair pressed down hard on his head ruffling his hair.

"Way to early for you to be aiming at my head Raafe," Altair said, the boy just ducked out from under his hand and stuck his tongue out, holding the soccer ball to his chest. "And you didn't finish apologizing," he added sternly.

"Sorry Mr. Al-Sayf," he said quickly and Altair sighed rubbing his eyes, Malik just laughed. "Hey, hey dad," he yanked on his father's arm.

"Yes?" The kid just pointed and both men looked.

"Fiiiine," Altair sighed and Raafe actually dropped the ball and ran towards the ice cream truck. Malik couldn't help but think that the last thing Raafe needed was any more sugar. "I apologize for son, once again," Altair told Malik.

"It's fine, I know how he is," at least Altair recognized the fact that he was Raafe's coach. "You could make it up to me," he added, Altair just looked at him, "You paying?" and he got up from the bench and followed after Raafe, walking backwards slightly so he could see Altair's bemused face suddenly morph into a grin and he laughed, kicked the ball forward and followed.

"I guess so," he shook his head following after Malik. As he walked, not looking as he kicked the icosahedron in front of him, he pulled out his cellphone and with speed Malik had only see from Desmond or Shaun texted someone quickly before snapping the slide closed again and slipping it into his back pocket.

"You're pretty good on your feet," Malik said mildly.

At that Altair passed him the ball, Malik kept it just in front of him, "Used to play in high school, first string goalie on varsity," Altair shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Now I just play with Raafe," he shrugged.

"Well now I can stop trying to make him play forward," Malik passed the ball back.

"Daaaad, hurry up!" Raafe cried from the truck.

"You can chill out!" Altair yelled back, his eyes never went to the soccer ball between his feet. "Played blocker too in JV," Altair added.

"Don't tell him that," Malik warned and Altair laughed as they arrived at the truck.

"One thing Raafe," Altair told him sternly and the boy looked chest-fallen for a moment before perking up again.

"Ooookay," he sighed as if put off and then bounced up to the window, arms catching the counter and held himself there. Malik was more than a little impressed by his upper body strength. As the little goalie decided when he wanted by asking the person in the truck a million questions one and a half people came up. One and a half because one was only about three feet tall.

"Do I get something too?" the teenager who'd come up to them asked Altair.

"Sure, why not, I already know Raafe's getting whatever is the most expensive thing," he sighed and Malik watched him pick up the toddler that had been hanging around the teenager's pant legs and found himself not so nonchalantly staring when he turned away. One hip slightly cocked as he held the toddler on his hip Altair's back made a delightful S curve all the way down to his ass; and it was indeed a very nice ass he had in those dark jeans as well. "You getting something?" Altair asked him turning back and making Malik have to actually focus again. He held an unwrapped drumstick in his hand and it did nothing for Malik's imagination when he wrapped his lips around it to eat it.

"Sure" he said and thankfully moved out of line of sight going to the counter as the teenager stepped away with some sort of frozen strawberry thing. He got one of those little cups of ice cream before letting Altair butt him out of the way, his drumstick- perhaps not so safely- in the hands of his two year old, and paid for everyone. "Thanks," Malik said tipping his free ice cream at the other man.

"You're welcome," he said shoving his change haphazardly into his wallet one handed while the other kept a firm grip on the child before stuffing it into his other back pocket. "Raafe, go get my bag would you?" turning away from the trust.

"But it's all the way over there," Raafe whined.

"You going to make your old man go all the way over there?" Altair asked.

Raafe made a face, "You aren't that old," but he left anyways, jogging back towards where they'd come.

"Works every time," Altair smirked taking the drumstick from the kid on his arm. "Thanks for coming Petruccio," he added to the teenager and somewhere between Malik getting his own and that moment (which couldn't have been more than a minute or so) the teenager's ice cream and stick had vanished, as if it had been inhaled. "I don't have the right cash on me now but you know I'm good for it," he apologized.

"That's okay Mr. La'Ahad," Petruccio sighed, "I just am not looking forward to more Chem work," he hung his head, waved and then left. Altair waved back before making his way to a bench, sitting and putting the toddler next to him, and went to work finishing the rest of his drumstick.

Malik joined him, "Can I ask why my goalie was almost late for the last game?" he asked mildly.

"Ah, yeah that was my fault," he said sheepishly offering part of his treat to the boy.

"Couldn't his mother have driven him?" he glanced at Altair from the corner of his eye.

"No, I'm the only one," and Malik sort of regretted asking and he was definitely not asking why.

"Ah, what was the hold up?" no need to broach uncomfortable topics like that.

"My editor decided it would be a good time to reprimand me," he said.

There was about one second of silence before Malik looked at him, "You're a writer?"

Altair seemed to regret sharing that information since he immediately put his hand over his face, but not before Malik got to see him flush. "I write young adult novels," he sighed as if he was condemning himself.

"Wow," Malik didn't even have to make himself sound impressed; he actually was.

"Here you go," Raafe aparated in front of them, Malik still didn't know how the youth did that; appear out of thin air. He held out a much worn backpack which Altair took and pulled a pair of red Converse from.

"Finish this for me," he held out the last bite or so of his ice cream out which Raafe took gladly and kicked off his cleats, putting on the shoes and tied them back into place quickly shoving the cleats into the backpack.

"We're not going to play more?" Raafe asked disappointed.

"We've been here almost three hours kid, time to go home," Altair sent him a look. Three hours? Hell.

"But-

"You got to break in your cleats and burn off all that dumb energy you have, but I'm tired and so is Kamal," indeed the younger boy was leaning against him, eyes shut.

"Okay," Raafe said resigning himself.

"Nice meeting you Mr. Al-Sayf," Altair reached his hand out.

"Please, Malik is fine," he shook his hand.

"Altair," Altair introduced himself.

"It was nice to finally meet you as well."

"I'm sure we'll see each other again," Altair said standing and picking Kamal up putting him against his shoulder.

"I'm sure," Malik agreed and watched them walk away.

—

For Malik the soccer season ended way to early, if only because once it was over he didn't get to see Altair. It was an incredibly dumb reason he knew but it didn't mean he didn't feel that way. And once next season started Raafe would be to old to play in the league Malik coached.

Luckily for Malik though an opportunity presented itself through his job actually. He was the assistant athletic director of a private magnet school that was for both middle and high school students which catered to athletes, though really focused on soccer, football and lacrosse. They offered scholarships to particularly gifted students too, and as the man who handled all the day to day activities of the gigantic athletic department while the main director got to go play political games with the dean, he had a pretty good say in who he thought should get these scholarships. There was a reason he coached recreational players after all, to see who was good enough to maybe get a place at the school. So when Malik brought up Raafe to his superior there wasn't much of a discussion, especially since they'd been to at least one game and had seen the machine-boy in action, and Malik got the delight of sending Altair the letter from both the dean and athletic director about requesting his permission to allow Raafe to attend their school to play soccer.

—

"Daaaad," Raafe knocked on the door of his office and not for the first time in his life Altair was jarred out of his groove. He muttered to himself but opened the door, since Raafe knew better than to just open it himself.

"Yes?" he asked sticking his head out like a turtle.

"Mail," he held out a weighty stack of envelopes.

Altair took them and began flicking through them, flicking the junk onto the floor as he did making his son giggle. He always got an exorbitant amount of mail on Fridays for some reason, he didn't even know why, like the mail service conspired against him to give him massive amounts each week so he'd actually have to work over the weekend. He stopped when he came to a particularly nice, heavy weighted and official looking envelope. 'To the parent of Raafe Ibn-La'Ahad,' it read in the to-line.

"You didn't get in trouble at school did you?" Altair asked him as he picked up the mail Altair had thrown on the floor.

"No," he said distractedly and then Altair noticed where it was from and raised a brow quickly opening it.

"Woah," he said reading.

"What?" Raafe held the clutter of junk in his hands looking at his father.

"Malik recommended you for a scholarship to Masyaf Magnet," he said.

"What's that mean?" he tilted his head at him.

"Hmmm," he read through the dean's letter, it was standard boring drabble and wasn't much interest. The one from the athletic director was a bit more enlightening though, "They want you to go to school to play soccer," he looked at his son from over the edge of the paper.

"REALLY!" he jumped excitedly the junk mail once more becoming scattered all over the floor. "So I don't have to do school work and stuff?" he asked hopefully.

Altair snorted, "No, you still have to-

"Awww man," Raafe groaned, slumping.

"But you'll get to play on their team, which apparently is very good," he said looking over the letter once more. "Everyone there is an athlete, like you, very serious I'm sure," he said.

"That doesn't sound so bad." Altair let out a long impressed whistle, "What?"

"I don't even care if you don't want to; you're going," he said, "Cause I don't have to pay for it."

"You're so cheap dad," Raafe told him.

"I bought you a hundred and fifty dollar cleats this season; don't go calling me cheap," he gave his son a light flick on the head. "Besides I bet you'll like it."

"I'll have to make new friends," Raafe made a face.

"You told me only two of them were going to your new middle school," Altair gave him a look, "You'd be making new friends anyway." Raafe thought about that for about three seconds before nodding in agreement. "So you wanna go?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright then."