Because I'm a sucker for Self-Inserts and have been reading too many Assassin's Creed fanfictions. It's been forever since I played AC2, so please excuse any inconsistencies, I'll get on it as soon as I'm back home.
I do not own Assassin's Creed.
Ezio is on his way home when he is hailed. Confused he turns to find a man waving at him like a fool, standing on a rooftop some ways away. The man is no guard, merely a slim figure in a wide cloak with no visible sword or armour. With no little curiosity, Ezio decides to find out what the stranger wants. It's not often he sees anybody but guards or his brother on the rooftops of Firenze, after all.
When he sets forward to approach, the stranger does the same, jumping over streets with some ease, though it isn't as natural as Federico would manage. Like he knows the movements but isn't used to them. Still, it's better than most city guards would manage, Ezio thinks, now even more interested in the stranger's identity.
He's just about to greet the man, having both landed on the same rooftop, when the stranger starts speaking in a manner so alien and broken it throws him off-guard.
"You Auditore, yes?" the stranger asks, his pronounciation so twisted and wrong that Ezio has to take a moment to understand what he means.
"Yes," he answers bemusedly, "Yes, my name is Ezio Auditore and who might you be?"
For a long moment the stranger stares at him, intensely, a little unnervingly if he's honest. The man's whole appearance is strange and alien, clearly a foreigner. If his atrocious manner of speaking wasn't clue enough, then the pale skin and light hair surely would be. And that cut to the hair-
"You Auditore," the stranger repeats, more forcefully, pulling Ezio out of his musings.
"Yes," he answers again, annoyed.
"Yes," the other man parrots, nodding, then pointing straight at Ezio in a decidedly rude manner. "You family," he says, before balling his hand to a fist and jerking it up while making a krk sound and tilting his head.
"Excuse me?" What on god's green earth was this stranger trying to tell him?
"You family," he says, then repeats the motion and the sound and then Ezio has the horrible feeling he knows what the man is trying to say. "You family, krk." Oh yes, a third demonstration doesn't make Ezio feel any better about this.
"Are you threatening me?!" he demands, stepping toward the stranger who lowers his arm. Again, the stranger stares at him intensely and with, he realizes, incomprehension. Does this man not speak any Italian? And if so, why threaten his family if he can't even do it properly?
"You family," the stranger starts again, pointing at Ezio, "Family friend," he says and shakes his head, "No friend."
"What?"
"You family friend no friend!"
"I have no idea what you are talking of!" Ezio hisses, frustrated and angry, "But you will regret threatening me!"
The stanger's gaze trails down to where Ezio is gripping his sword's hilt and he seems to understand the gesture better than any words for lifts his arms in surrender and shakes is head.
"No, no. I no..." Pulling a face the stranger rubs a hand over his weirdly cut hair, short on one side and long on the other, before pointing at Ezio again. "You family. Friend no friend." Again, he grimaces. "Friend. Et tu brute."
That last phrase was Latin, that much Ezio knows, but it's as much a puzzle to him as everything else the stranger had said, so he disregards it for now, focussing on the threat. He takes another aggressive step forward and starts unsheating his sword.
Finally the man backs away, his hands once again in the air. "Okay, okay," he says, whatever that is supposed to mean, before turning and fleeing. It should have been a victory, but all Ezio feels is unsettled. He resheats his sword and watches the retreating figure disappear between two roofs, no doubt taking to the streets to get out of his sight. Then, with a queasy feeling, he heads home to seek out his father.
-o-
"And he said nothing else?"
"He only said 'Et tu brute'. What does that mean?"
"Et tu brute," Giovanni repeats thoughtfully. It could mean a great many things. Maybe the mysterious stranger was calling his son an idiot and given how they apparently had trouble understanding each other, it seems plausible enough. Or maybe he was referencing something, a figure of ancient Roman history possibly, there had been a family whose by-name had been Brutus. He frowns. "And you are certain he was threatening you?"
"What else could that have been? He was talking about our family hanging!" Ezio is pacing agitatedly in his office. Not even his occasional scuffles with the de Pazzi boy leave him in such a mood, even if Vieri throws a lot more insult his way.
"He talked about it? What did he say, exactly?" Giovanni presses.
"Nothing!" Ezio nearly shouts, frustrated and worried, obviously, by his encounter with the stranger. "He was talking with his hands, just saying 'You family. You family' and-" His son grimaces, before repeating the motion the stranger had used to convey the word "hanging". Giovanni understands why it so unsettled his son, he doesn't enjoy the picture it conjures either.
"Are you certain he was threatening us?" It seems incongruous, for a foreigner to approach them like that. He could have been employed by someone else to deliver the message, Giovanni had made enough enemies for himself as an Assassin, but that would mean his identity has been found out, which was a more unsettling thought than the threat itself. He's been investigating de Pazzi for murder and conspiracy and if that man got word of his identity it could spell disaster.
"I don't know! He couldn't speak three straight words! All he said was 'You family' and 'Friend' and 'No Friend'! How am I to know what he meant?!"
"Calm down, Ezio," he scolds and watches as his son forces himself to seize his useless pacing. "Now, was he in any way aggressive?"
Ezio narrows his eyes and scowls. "He kept pointing at me," he says, sounding none too convinced.
"Except for that. Did he draw a sword? What was his posture?"
Sighing defeatedly, the boy shakes his head. "He didn't even carry a sword. And when I made to draw mine, he backed off."
"So you scared him off easily?" Giovanni hums thoughtfully while his son looks off to the side. So the stranger might have been a mere messenger for the threat, or he might not have threatened at all and instead been delivering a warning. "See if you can find this man," he orders his son and looking out the window at the darkening sky, "After dinner."
Ezio nods with a quiet "Of course, father" before leaving his study. Giovanni looks after his son, before drawing a paper from his desk to pen a quick note to la Volpe. Maybe the thief master knew anything of the stranger or maybe he has any news on the de Pazzis' movements. Even if he isn't sure about the stranger's motives, Giovanni will take the threat to his family's safety seriously.
It is too late to act on the warning though, a day later guards break down the palazzo's doors, arresting all Auditore men they can catch.
-o-
"No!" Ezio shouts, his voice drowned by the jeering of the crowd he's trying to push through, "That is a lie!" Up ahead, Gonfalonieri Alberti goes on with his sentence, the sentence for conspiracy, the sentence to death for his brothers and father! But the Gonfalonieri had been their friend! His father had trusted him!
He has to get through, but the crowd is too thick, he can barely make any headway, not fast enough, not fast eno-
Up ahead, the floor opens under his family and they fall. They fall. His father's face grim, Federico's as well and Petruccio's- Oh Petruccio is so scared. There is a horrible snapping sound and for one, heart-stopping, incomprehensible moment Ezio believes his family dead, their necks snapped by the jerk of the rope.
But then they keep falling, their bodies crumpeling to the ground and that's not supposed to happen and Ezzio doesn't care! He needs to get to them, more than he ever needed anything else, so he keeps pushing, desperate to reach their bodies.
When he sees his father getting up, tugging the rope off his neck and coughing harshly, Ezio's legs almost give out with the utter, all-emcompassing relief he feels. But he keeps going, he has to reach them, has to be certain they are alive. There is Federico as well, pushing to his feet, where is Petruccio, where is he?
By now the Gonfalonieri is screaming for the guards to apprehend them, and he's also pointing towards Ezio and there are men with swords drawn, but all he cares for is reaching his family. Finally he breaks from the crowd and there is only one more man, a guard, between him and his brothers.
The man isn't even aware of him, facing the unarmed Federico with a sword in his hand, and Ezio doesn't think before swinging his own sword towards the man's unprotected neck. There is blood and the man crumples and maybe Ezio feels a bit sick but mostly he's numb for everything that isn't the relief he feels seeing his littlest brother coughing on the ground.
He's not dead. There is a noose around his neck with a frayed end but he is not dead. Coughing means alive. They are all alive!
"Ezio!" Federico's voice sounds as if far away, coming closer. "Ezio, look out!" He turns just in time to see a sword swinging at him, barely able to stumble out of the way and then Federico is there with a sword of his own, fighting the guard off.
His father is by his side, clamping a hand on his shoulder. "Ezio, get Petruccio and run!" And then he is pulling a blade from Ezio's belt and whirls to defend against another guard.
Ezio stumbles over to Petruccio, but before he can kneel to help his brother, he has to deflect a strike from yet another guard. They are fully surrounded now and he can't- he doesn't know what to do, barely able to protect his vulnerable little brother, let alone get him away from here. And Petruccio is still on his hands and knees, too weak to stand and coughing horribly.
What should he do? What can he do? All around there is only fighting and people screaming and surely soon there will be even more guards.
"Run! My sons, run!" He can hear his father calling, but he can't, not with Petruccio-
There is someone else in their midst, slipping through the ring of guards when one tries forward only to meet Ezio's sword. Barely, he recognizes they don't hold a weapon. He doesn't know what they are, friend or foe, but the guards don't either. One goes to strike the interloper and Ezio reflexively defends. Tense and stressed, he tries to keep an eye on the newcomer who now crouches by Petruccio, which proves impossible with the amount of guards attacking him - have they multiplied?
He has to shift, put his back to Petruccio and the unknown and he hates it, but there are blades flashing and he's getting tired. There are nicks and cuts on his arms already from when he isn't quick enough to dodge or parry.
It feels like an eternity of desperate fighting, being pushed back further and further until he can see Federico from the corner of his eye. Their father is a whirl of blades and death on his other side, blood staining his clothes and Ezio fears, he fears that he may lose them, that this short reprieve from death is all they will be allowed. Should they die here, when they had so miraculously survived the execution attempt? Is it all for naught?
With his heart in his throat, Ezio fears for his own life and that of his father and that of his brothers. He's almost forgotten the interloper when they dash past him, ramming their way through the circle of guards. With a cry of pain and a stumble in their step, they break away and into a run. On their back is Petruccio, he's free!
Father has seen it as well, drawing closer now. "You need to run, on my signal." He's beside Ezio now. "Cover for me," he orders and Ezio does, not thinking overly much as his father reaches for his belt again, this time opening one of the pouches.
Thick grey smoke explodes around them, sending the guards hacking and coughing. Ezio isn't better off, but at his father's cry of "Now!" he sets off running nevertheless. He's out of the smoke in a second, deflects a strike haphazardly and gets a new cut along his shoulder, but he's out of the circle of guards. A look to the side shows Federico running as well.
He can hear father somewhere behind him, calling out and drawing the guard's attention. Ezio wants to look back, wants to see that his father makes it out as well, but there are more guards coming into the piazza and the street he made for is now blocked. So runs up the side of a building, grabbing a handhold and pulling himself up and up until he's on the roof. There is a guardsman there, looking as startled as he is and drawing a sword before Ezio pulls him over the edge.
For just one moment, he hesitates, looking down into the square. His father is still fighting, surrounded on all sides in a tide of armoured guards. Like a demon incarnate, he slashes at them with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, but there is no-one protecting his back and-
"No!" It takes a moment until his head catches up, a moment to process that he is doubled over screaming and there is no air in his lungs. There is-
There is blood. Death. There is a hand on his collar and Federico is pulling him away from the roof's edge. He doesn't want to, but he follows his brother. Leaving- leaving his father behind.
When- when had this happened? When have they become criminals?
Ezio stumbles on the roof's tiles, but Federico is pulling him along uncaring of his sputtering and panting. Arrows soar past them, but the guards have fallen back significantly. He follows Federico down some scaffolding and into an alleyway, where he leans against the wall to catch his breath.
Federico is hurt, Ezio realizes, worse than he himself is. There is a heavily bleading wound on his side and another deep gash slicing open the back of his doublet as well as the skin underneath. Still his brother is standing strong.
"No time to cry, brother," Federico says, "We have to find mother and Claudia and get them out of the city."
"And Petruccio," Ezio adds, pulling himself up and wiping at his wet cheeks.
"And Petruccio," Federico agrees grimly.
Index:
Et tu brute? - And you, Brutus? (Latin; allegedly Gaius Iulius Caesar's last words during his assassination to his confidant Marcus Iunus Brutus, leader of the conspiracy against Ceasar; the quote was popularized by William Shakespeare's 'The tragedy of Julius Caesar')