Unless one counted his mako suit, Nero had never worn clothes before. By his logic, he was covered, and that should be good enough to get on with. Although the suit might cover all but his head and hands, it didn't actually hide very much. Skin tight, and made from something that resembled a heavier version of spandex, it didn't leave much to the imagination.

It was just him, Vincent and Veld in the house. Veld, however, had standards that had to be met. He called Nero into the living room one morning before leaving for the office.

"Son," he said, trying his best to be grandfatherly rather than judgmental, "we need to get you some clothes. You can't go around in just that suit. I know Vincent gave you some of his things, but I noticed you don't wear them most of the time. Is there a reason for that?"

Nero shifted uneasily, still nervous in the face of authority. Too used to having to provide the "right" answer, he did not reply immediately.

"I...didn't think I had to?" he stammered. "I never had to before. I always wore just this in Deepground. It's not like I can take it off. I wear stuff overtop to class and to training 'cause…'cause I don't look as weird, sort of like wearing a uniform." It was a long speech for Nero. The boy tended to talk in short, clipped, almost fragmented sentences that were brief and to the point. Almost everything he said sounded like a status report.

"No excuse, Sir," Nero said, clutching at his own shoulders. "It won't happen again."

"I understand that you need to wear the mako suit," said Veld. "You'll have to get into the habit of wearing something over it. Especially pants." That much ought to be obvious, in his opinion, but then again, it was evidently another one of the numerous things that made surface life so different from life in Deepground.

"Being properly dressed shows respect and professionalism. We're not overly formal at home, but you'll notice that Vincent and I don't go around unclothed." Most of the time, anyway; he couldn't always swear to what Vincent might decide to do.

"We'll take you shopping soon," he finished. "Oh, and by the way-you're not in trouble. Consider this a briefing, all right?"

Nero nodded slowly, hesitantly lowering his arms to his sides. "This is like doors," he said after a moment. "Knocking. Privacy."

"Yes," Veld confirmed, wondering not for the first time if Nero truly didn't understand, or if he was just playing dumb to avoid punishment?

"It's weird for you and Vincent and other people, even if it isn't weird for me."

"Yes."

"Understood, Sir," Nero saluted. "Pants are a priority."

Veld coughed to cover the laughter he was struggling to choke back. "Yes, pants are important."

The overall concept of privacy continued to be a work in progress for Nero. He usually remembered to use the door when coming and going. If a door was closed, he would knock first. However, Veld had yet to see the door to the back bedroom close, and Nero frequently forgot to shut the bathroom door behind him.

"Shut the door, son," Veld told him, averting his eyes even as he pulled the door closed the last few inches. "Ain't nobody want to see that."

"Sorry, Sir," Nero told him, the apology almost unintelligible due to the wood further muffling the already staticky speech of his respirator. Vincent snickered, and Veld shot him a look.

"He's your potential kid, not mine," Veld half-grumbled, wishing it were possible to wash one's eyeballs. Vincent just grinned.

"I still say he's your stepson."

Veld sighed heavily and wondered what he'd done to deserve two teenagers in the house?

Vincent didn't need to sleep much. Often it was enough just to lie quietly and watch Veld as he dreamed. Knowing there was a third person in the house made it a bit harder, and Vincent usually checked on Nero before retiring for the night.

Nero never closed his bedroom door; behaved as if it wasn't there. Also, he rarely slept in the spare bed. Vincent had caught him once or twice curled up on the bedspread, wrapped in shadows rather than blankets. More often, however, there would be an exceptionally large and deep shadow on the floor near the bed with Nero huddled at the center.

Reaching, Vincent leaned and pulled the door to close it at least part way. However, the hinge creaked and Nero jerked awake, starting upright.

"It's okay," Vincent assured him, voice soft. "It's just me."

Golden eyes blinked at him in the darkness, then bounded toward him. Vincent started, barely biting back a shout as a creature that was not Nero scurried across the carpet.

"Ned, sit!"

Obediently the thing stopped short and dropped onto its behind. Nero- and it was Nero this time- had climbed out of the shadows. Scooping the thing up in both arms, he held it as if it were a stuffed toy.

"Sorry about that," he apologized.

"What the hell is that?" Vincent stepped closer, eyeing the black whatever-it-was in Nero's arms. Two bright yellow eyes blinked up at him. "That's….not an animal. Or a person. Is it?"

"No, he's a shadow," Nero explained. "I call 'em squeakies."

The squeaky squeaked, the noise like a rusty bicycle tire. About the size of a small dog, it vaguely reminded Vincent of an ant- its body a uniform black with a pair of antennae waving above yellow button eyes. Instead of six legs, it had only two arms and two legs, lending it a more humanoid stance and gait.

"They don't bite, and they don't poop," Nero went on. "You said I could bring whatever I wanted from the cave." He hugged the creature close, as if afraid it might be taken by force.

"Um. I guess I did." Vincent reached a cautious hand, not sure if he wanted to pet the thing or let it sniff his hand as a dog might. "...Hello?"

The creature- Ned- sniffed at Vincent's hand and then edged its head under Vincent's fingers to be petted. It gave a happy chirrup as he stroked its perfectly round cranium. The solid darkness felt soft and fuzzy as velvet.

"Do they shed?"

"No, Sir."

Well, a sentient shadow probably wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever seen. If it wasn't dangerous or messy, there was no reason Nero couldn't have one around. At least, that was the argument he planned to use with Veld.

"Just keep him off the furniture," Vincent said by way of a concession.

Nero visibly relaxed, cuddling the thing a bit before setting it down. "I promise."

About then a flicker of light behind Nero caught Vincent's attention. A shiver ran through him as he noticed easily a dozen pairs of bright yellow eyes staring back at him.

"Nero," he said, deliberately calm, "how many squeakies do you have?"

"I'm not sure," Nero shrugged. "I've named some of them."

"One I could understand, but why do you have a whole pile of them in your room?"

Nero shuffled awkwardly, stroked Ned's velvety hide, and generally avoided eye-contact.

"You can tell me," Vincent prompted, and then hastily amended, "but you don't have to. It's up to you."

"I miss Weiss and Rosso," Nero said quietly. "I'm not allowed to look for them at night, and I'm not allowed in your room. So. Squeakies."

On one hand, Nero was a grown man. He should be perfectly capable of sleeping alone, or of seeking out a companion if he wasn't. Then again, he was used to his siblings- Vincent forcibly kept his thoughts from veering off into less savory territory- all Nero really wanted at present was warmth and comfort. Despite Ned's velvety texture, Vincent doubted a pile of shadow creatures would be that cuddly. However, there was no way Veld would allow Nero to camp out in their room, even if Nero preferred to sleep on the floor.

"I want you be happy here," said Vincent, aware of how inadequate the word seemed at the moment. "Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"

Nero shifted, pulled his arms close to his body, looked at Vincent, looked at the floor. At length he simply shook his head.

"No, Sir."

"Never mind, kid. It was a dumb question."

Vincent had been so focused on proving a blood relationship between himself and Nero that he'd forgotten to keep the boy updated on his progress - or lack thereof.

Now didn't seem the time to admit that he was batting zero on locating Nero's family. Instead, he stepped closer and tentatively leaned his shoulder against Nero's, unsure if he was doing it right, or even if he should, but Nero needed reassurance, and it was all he had to offer.

"You can sleep on the floor if you want to," he said. "It's not against the rules. You can keep a few squeakies around, too. I don't mind."

Nero leaned back, nodded, his voice dry and scratchy through the respirator when he spoke: "Thank you, Sir."

Veld and Vincent had given him the spare bedroom to sleep in. The bed was soft and comfortable when Nero sat down on it, the mattress more than wide enough for two people, yet there was only himself. The first night, he had opened every drawer in the bureau, paged through the shirts and trousers hanging in the closet, read the title of every book on the shelf, and scrutinized the pictures hanging on the walls. The room was filled with things and he'd wanted to memorize every detail. Eventually, however, he ran out of things to look at.

Every night with virtually no exception, he'd slept on the floor with his brother and sister curled up beside him. The spare room was thunderously quiet without their breathing, the soft shift of their bodies against his as they turned in their sleep. More than anything he wanted assurance that they were alright, and that they missed him as much as he missed them. He liked to think that they were looking for him too, and refused to believe the insidious little voice that said it wasn't true.

Nero tried to sleep. He honestly did, but knowing Weiss and Rosso, Azul and Argento were out there and he was not with them ate at him from the inside. How was he supposed to sleep all by himself in this soft room without them? They should be enjoying these luxuries with him, or else he ought to be sleeping rough but comfortable, safe between them.

Nero couldn't help thinking of Vincent and Veld in the next room, only a few inches of wall separating them. Admittedly, they didn't know him very well, and Veld seemed exceptionally shy, but it felt cruel to him that they would shut him out. Maybe their bed was not big enough for three people?

They'd thrown him out the last time, Vincent citing an abundance of modesty on Veld's part. Nero felt as if he almost understood this. It probably fell into the same category as the reasons Azul had given as to why it was not appropriate for Weiss and himself to get friendly with each other. Family didn't do that. Neither Vincent nor Veld were family, but the same rules might apply up here. All Nero really wanted at the moment was to not be alone. Surely that would be acceptable?

He lost his nerve halfway, and wound up warping to the dark mako cavern instead. He washed as best he could in the indigo liquid, and made such repairs to his suit as were possible. The fixes he made were becoming increasingly jerry-rigged, and the knot in his gut told him he could not keep this up forever. He could manage without the suit. It would not be pleasant, but it wouldn't kill him. If his respirator broke, however… Nero snapped the thought like a thread, ruthlessly shoving down the panic rising in his chest.

Hundreds of feet above the cavern were two people who said they would never intentionally hurt him. Why Veld had had to make a point of that, Nero wasn't sure. Usually when someone said something like that, it was a hint to expect a literal knife in the back, or an intentionally stray shot in the training simulator. He didn't have Weiss or Rosso to watch his back now. He wasn't truly afraid of Vincent, though he could not understand his continued attempts to endear himself to Nero. Vincent out-ranked him. He shouldn't need to do that, yet he did anyway, which made no sense. Veld...was trickier. Veld was a good cook, could be kind, but he was also obviously the one in charge. It wouldn't be wise to get on Veld's bad side. Even still…

Tilting his head, Nero looked up at the dark ceiling of the cavern. He knew in his head that Veld and Vincent were not directly above him. However, he could see the cluttered space under their bed perfectly clearly. There was no noise tonight, no shriek of bedsprings or thud of the headboard against the wall. Maybe as long as they weren't doing anything, it might be alright? Maybe if they didn't know he was there…

Before he had completed the thought, Nero had made the leap. There wasn't much space between the rifle case and the plastic bins of papers and winter clothes, but it was all he needed. Stretching out in the darkness, among and amidst the objects and their shadows, Nero settled to try to sleep. Just having someone else in the room was calming. They'd never know it, but he'd sleep secure between them, several inches below.

Deepground was hardly a forgotten issue, given that the smoking crater took up most of the old city center. However, since there were no rampaging hoards issuing from it, public concern regarding the underground testing facility had faded considerably. Only the WRO and Nero remained actively worried about it.

"It's still unsafe," Reeve insisted when Vincent brought it up. "There's no good way to get a team down there."

"Actually, there might be…" Vincent said slowly. "Remember the boxes in the foyer and the elevator to hell down in the lobby?"

Reeve blinked. "Wait, is that still there?"

"Yep."

"So we have a stable access point into Deepground?"

"Kind of?" Vincent hedged. "I'd have to ask Nero. It connects to the Deepground storage vault and I don't know if there's a way out of that into the areas where the general population was housed. It's possible Nero could move the location so that the elevator opened somewhere else."

"And he can do all this with his shadows?" Reeve pressed. His expression possessed a wide-eyed intensity that generally meant you'd better either get on board, or get out of the way. Preferably both.

"Maybe? He doesn't seem to have a good idea of what he can do himself. He just...does it. So can I to a limited degree."

"Really?" Reeve sounded impressed.

Vincent shrugged modestly. "I'm nowhere near as good, but I haven't had twenty years to practice."

"I'll schedule a meeting with him and Shelke. It would be worth it to have her opinion as well. If all three of you put your heads together, we should be able to establish a map of sorts."

Vincent nodded, not about to confess that he didn't actually remember all that much. Maybe discussing Deepground's layout with Nero and Shelke would jog his memory a bit. It might not be pleasant, but that didn't matter. What mattered was helping his son.

Vincent did not mention his plan to Nero right away. His Turk training was going well for the most part, but no one was willing to take him on in combat practice. Nero seemed to take this more or less in stride, but there were other, smaller mistakes that he took personally. It was difficult to drive home to him that he would not be tortured for every little mistake. The Turks were a fairly relaxed and socially-maladjusted bunch, but even among them Nero was having a hard time fitting in.

Although Veld did his best to be non-threatening, it was evident Nero wasn't entirely at ease. He would never say anything, and his body language was minimal at best. However, Vincent could feel the underlying tension, the subtle current of fear that seemed to follow Nero wherever he went. It made Vincent unhappy as well. All he wanted to do was to help his son, but he had no idea how.

Veld was puttering in the kitchen putting things away by the time Vincent came home, held up by a late meeting. Purposely dragging a chair out on which to drape his jacket, Vincent made enough noise to let Veld know he was there. Coming up behind him, Vincent wound his arms around him and hugged him close. Setting down the sponge he'd been using to wipe the stove, Veld leaned back against him and patted his hand.

"Yeah," Veld said softly. "Me too."

"This is proof that I was not cut out to be a parent," Vincent mumbled into Veld's hair.

"I dunno," Veld mused. "Nothing's on fire yet."

"Yet."

That made them both chuckle.

"You hungry?" Veld asked. "The kid eats like a garbage disposal, but there's a box or two left in the fridge."

"I'd rather have a stiff drink."

Obligingly, Veld fetched the whiskey and two tumblers from the shelf. He poured a small measure for himself and a larger one for Vincent.

"Everything under control?"

Vincent nodded and sipped his drink. "About as much as it ever is. Mask knows not to bother Nero. He doesn't even seem interested, which is just as well. Don't worry. He won't go after the kid again."

"Good to know," Veld agreed, tasting his own drink.

"Did Nero come home with you?"

"No, he and Max went out, but he's back now. Apparently they got coffee and went swimming."

Vincent raised an eyebrow, but Veld just shrugged. "Don't ask questions you don't want answers to, Valentine."

Vincent nodded and swallowed more whiskey. "Where is he now?"

"In your room looking at a book. Once the kitchen was clean I dismissed him, and he didn't hang around." Veld paused, frowned.

"Vince…" he began, reaching across the table and taking Vincent's hand in his. "Have I been heavy-handed with the kid?"

Vincent blinked. "No. Not at all. I mean, you were Chief for twenty years, the air of authority doesn't disappear quickly. Doesn't bother me, though. Someone's got to keep me in line."

Veld mirrored Vincent's crooked grin with a brief smile of his own. "As much as I usually prefer the kids to have a vague and abiding fear of me...I think in his heart Nero's afraid I'll skin him- or you- if he gets on my bad side. When he pulled me through the shadows, he begged me not to hurt you," he began, voice grimly soft. "He thought I was going to come after you because of what he'd done."

"He never even mentioned Mask attacking him," Vincent added, equally quiet. "He thought you smacking some sense into me was the punishment."

"Oh gods," Veld groaned and reached for the bottle. He hadn't planned on drinking more, but dammit he was too old for this.

"I think I've convinced him that we don't do that sort of passive-aggressive bullshit," Vincent continued. "He screws up, he takes the heat for his own mistakes, and any punishment he may receive isn't going to draw blood. He seemed a little confused, but I think he gets it now."

Veld let out a sigh and nodded, finishing his drink. "Well, that's one small step." For a moment he toyed with Vincent's long fingers, ran his thumb over the back of his hand.

"Vince...you think maybe we're in over our heads? Nero's a sweet kid, but he's got more baggage than the commuter rail at rush hour. I'm a Turk and a profiler, but I'm not a gods damned shrink."

"I know," Vincent agreed, hanging his head. "He's my responsibility. I should be helping him, but I have no idea what to do. Every instinct I have is telling me to give him the biggest hug I can and to tell him it will be alright, except I know full well he wouldn't understand that. It might even scare him."

Giving a heavy sigh, Vincent downed the last of his drink. "You're right. This is more than we can handle alone. I'll talk to Cissnei tomorrow. She's the resident shrink. She'll have a better idea of what to do with him."

"Sounds like a plan."

Leaving the bottle and glasses for the morning, both retreated down the hall. Vincent stopped and glanced through the open door of the back bedroom. Nero lay curled up on the still-made bed, wrapped in shadow as if in a blanket, his respirator rasping softly with every breath. Vincent would have liked to drape the afghan over Nero, or even pat his shoulder by way of a goodnight, but as it was best to let sleeping Turks and SOLDIERs lie, the same was probably true of Tsviets as well. For now, at least, Nero was safe and at peace. He also had a friend, and they'd talk to Cissnei in the morning. Despite himself, Vincent smiled. Maybe he wasn't so bad at this after all.

Silently, Vincent slipped down the hall and into his and Veld's room. He couldn't hug Nero, so he hugged his partner instead, putting as much tenderness and affection into it as he knew how. Veld snuggled close, returning the gesture and stroking his hair.

"We're gettin' soft in our old age, Valentine," he mumbled sleepily.

"That such a bad thing?" Vincent countered gently, resting his cheek on Veld's hair. For the last few days he'd been heartsick over Nero and what had happened to him without his knowledge. Now, however, Vincent felt strangely at peace about the whole thing. Nero would be alright. They'd figure this out. It would be okay.

"Nah," Veld yawned. "'Night, Spook."

"'Night, Veld."