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littlereyofsunlight · 5 years

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Ever Wending Home

For day 1 of Steggy Week: Endgame. I posted part of this story back after I’d just seen the movie, and it became my most popular post on this website. So, no pressure on me to deliver with this one, LOL. Here goes:

Ever Wending Home

Bucky sits in on the meeting at Steve’s request. Afterwards, they walk back to the lake and stand on the dock, Steve skipping stones with little flair and expert aim. It’s peaceful, meditative. Steve finds Bucky’s solid, quiet presence comforting, now that he’s used to it. Before, Bucky had been the talker.

“You sure you’re up for this?”

His voice is pitched low and gravelly, another difference between this Bucky and the Bucky he’d known before.

Steve gives a curt, decisive nod. “It has to be done.”

Bucky moves closer so that their shoulders touch as they look out onto the water. “‘S not what I asked.” He nudges Steve with his elbow, just barely. “You could let someone else clean up the mess.”

Steve sighs and let himself sag a bit against his friend. The silence creeps back.

After a while, as the sun starts to sink behind the nearest mountain, Steve turns back and sits on the bench. Bucky hesitates at the end of the dock, watching as a bird wheels lazily over the water.

Eventually Bucky joins Steve on the bench. “You could let the Wasp do it. Scott would fuck it up but Hope would hardly break a sweat.”

“It’s gotta be me, Buck.” Steve ticks off on his fingers as he goes through the list. “Bruce, Nebula or Rocket would draw too much attention, Clint just wants to be back with his family, Carol’s got another intergalactic emergency on her hands, Thor has enough he’s not dealing with right now, Rhodey wants to be here for Pepper.” He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “And the rest of you were only very recently dust.”

Bucky hunches his shoulders and nods. “I figured you’d say that.” He looks at Steve. “But after this mission, if you wanted. You could take a break. Get some rest.”

Steve nods back. “I could take a break.”

“You could at least try.”

Steve looks back out over the lake, gone orange with the sunset. “I could try.” He hears an echo, faint in the back of his head. “Allow him the dignity of his choice.” Steve thinks Peggy would approve of this choice. He thinks she’d choose the same, in his shoes.

—

Steve knows from Bruce to expect her, but seeing the Ancient One is still something of a shock. Not her appearance, of course. It’s the way she looks at him. The way she looks into him, looks through him.

“Your friend kept his promise,” she says, after looking her fill.

“Yes ma’am,” is his reply.

She takes the stone from his outstretched hand, tucking it safely back into the amulet around her neck.

“Have you thought, Captain Rogers, that this might be the one chance you have to keep yours?”

Steve blinks and knows he’s failed to keep the surprise off his face. He’s been trying not to think of it, preparing for this mission.

She folds her arms, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her robe. “You don’t think you deserve it.”

“That’s not exactly—” Steve begins, but she cuts him off.

“Oh yes, Banner told you about the branches.”

“It’s my mission to clip them.”

She tilts her head, reminding him of a bird as she looks down her nose at him. There’s no humor in her voice, but she has the ghost of a smile on her face. “Yes, the ones without the stones in them must not exist.”

Steve isn’t sure what to say to that. It’s not as if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. Return the stones and use the Quantum Realm to travel not back to Bruce and Sam and Bucky, at least not at first. His mind keeps straying back to that framed 8x10 on a desk in 1970. Back to Peggy. His breath caught now, just thinking about it, the same way it had when he’d stood in her office and watched her at Camp Lehigh. He hadn’t realized it was possible for her to be even more beautiful than she had been during the war, but he’d seen her, and she was. She was so grounded, even more than she had been in the ‘40s. So comfortable in her skin, secure with her power. Seeing her had been like lighting striking: illuminating all the shadows and deficiencies of his life up until then.

The Ancient One, her eyes kind and sad and, yes, ancient, takes pity on him. “Once the stones are returned, Captain Rogers, you may do what you wish. The timelines exist whether you remain in them or not.”

Steve takes a deep breath and meets her level gaze. “And what if I choose a different time?” 1970 would be too late to keep that particular promise. He’d done his research. “The Stork Club, a week next Saturday. Don’t be late.” He could try.

At that, she does grace him with a real smile.

—

When Clint had said “the floaty guy”, Steve hadn’t pictured the ghost in front of him. Immediately, he recalled that day on the Valkyrie, Schmidt holding the cube in his hand and the stone within reacting—defending itself?

“I’d like to see her,” Steve tells him.

“Steven, son of Sarah,” the Red Skull intones, “there is no way to return her to the living.”

He nods. “So I’m told. She was my friend. I want to see her.”

The Red Skull smirks but draws back and points at the distant mountain crowned with two stone towers.

Mouth in a grim line, Steve sets off.

It’s a hard climb to the top, made harder by the knowledge of what waits for him there. He’s not sure how much time passes on the trek. Cold wind stings his cheeks and sneaks down the neck of his suit. The alien landscape is foreboding, hostile, even though it seems like there’s nothing living on this rock. Not even Schmidt.

As Steve ascends, panting in the thin air, the Red Skull overtakes him on the path. He’s floating near the edge, between the stones, when Steve finally makes it to the summit.

Steve hesitates, and Schmidt can sense it. “What you seek is below.”

Steve nods and begins unpacking the gear he brought with him.

Schmidt floats closer. “She cannot be saved, Captain.”

Steve grits his teeth. “She’s my teammate. I won’t leave her behind.” He sets out the ropes and spikes, squinting back at the ledge, calculating how much he might need.

It takes him a while to get everything set up. Steve finds the work clears his head. His grief for Nat threatened to bring him down, back on the road here. The thought of her, in this barren place. Cold. Alone. Steve can’t leave her like this. It’s why he left the Soul stone for last. There’s a chance he might fail, but at least he’ll have finished this one last mission. Either he brings her body back, or she’s no longer alone.

As Steve works, Schmidt watches him. He’s silent, offers none of the taunts he would have thrown at Steve before. Still, Steve can’t shake the feeling that the Red Skull is waiting for his moment. That he’ll do what he can to see Steve fall. Steve just isn’t sure what Schmidt’s abilities are in his current form. So far, he’s only been floating. Steve can’t even tell if he has a corporeal body.

“Why you?” he finally asks, curiosity getting the better of him. He’s nearly ready to strap into the harness.

He can feel the change in the air as Schmidt glides closer. “You will be disappointed to learn the truth, Captain.”

His hands have been steady the entire trip and now as he methodically tests the carabiners, a small tremor starts. Steve keeps his head ducked, focusing on the task in front of him. He makes no reply, only waits, and works.

“I only mean it is not a punishment, to guard the stone.” Schmidt’s robes flutter in Steve’s peripheral vision. “I was not handed this task as a judgment against my life on Earth. In fact, I volunteered.”

Steve’s head snaps up at this.

Schmidt is not facing him, but looking out over the ledge. “The stones are connected by the elemental energy from which they were formed. When I held the Tesseract, with the Space stone within it, I was able to reach out along the connections. As it happened, the Soul stone was without a keeper. It called me here, burning away what remained of my human self in the process, and I took up the mantle.”

Steve blinks down at the ropes in his hands. “But why? Why would the stone choose you?”

“Because I was there to be chosen.” Schmidt looks at Steve with something like pity in his eyes. “All of life is chance.” He looks back down over the ledge. “All that happens after, too.”

Steve shakes his head. He’s finished his work, and he tugs at the knots one last time. “That doesn’t make sense. You’re not telling the whole truth.” He steps to the ledge, deliberately not looking down to where he knows Natasha’s body landed, and turns back to face Schmidt.

The Red Skull moves, lightning fast, in front of Steve. He looms over him, the smirk back on his wretched face. “What is truth, to the dead?”

He pushes hard, and Steve thinks, stupidly, as he pitches over the cliff, that even without a body Schmidt is strong as he ever was.

As the ground rushes towards him, Steve reaches for the ropes at his waist, to reassure himself, but they’re gone.

Oh, Steve thinks, this is the last mission after all.

Everything goes dark.

—

There’s an orange glow behind his eyelids and a throbbing in his skull. Groaning, Steve sits up and raises a dripping hand to his aching head. He’s been lying in a shallow pool, somewhere on Vormir. The sky remains the same hazy orange, the landscape a muted purple, shadows clinging to every rock and crevasse. He moves his arms, flexes his hands, pats himself down experimentally. Aside from the headache, he is fine. Schmidt is not there, the cliff is nowhere on the horizon. He’ll have to go back, figure out another way to retrieve Nat’s body. But he doesn’t know which direction to go.

“I’d say you should get off this rock, for starters,” comes a voice from behind him. “It’ll be a long walk back to Rocket’s ship, though. You up for company?”

Steve can’t believe what he’s hearing, and he’s suddenly, paralyzingly terrified of turning around to prove his suspicion wrong. But he can hear her moving behind him, and then there’s a gentle hand on his shoulder as she comes around.

“Sorry, Rogers, we don’t really do towels here.” The Black Widow stands before him, offering her arm to help him up. “It’s a dry heat, though, so you won’t be damp for too long.”

She looks just as she did when they left on their mission, her two-tone hair swept back from her face and trailing over her shoulder in a braid. Natasha even has the same anticipatory gleam in her eye, the same fond smile, the same leashed, buoyant energy she has when she’s spoiling for a fight she knows she’ll win and have fun doing it.

Steve takes her arm and leans on her heavily as he stands. Her hand is warm in his, warm and calloused exactly where her hand grips her gun, where her thumb meets her palm.

He pulls her into a bruising hug and weeps into her braided hair.

“Aw, buddy, it’s okay.” Nat pats his back, a little stiff. If he’s imagining this, he’s imagining her exactly how she would be and not, necessarily, how he’d want this reunion to go. “Steve.” She pushes at him, just a little, and pulls out of his embrace. “I missed you too.” She reaches up a hand to cup his cheek, and her smile is still fond. Then she’s all business and sass. “Come on, Grandpa, I bet you forgot where you parked your ride.”

He wipes his face with the back of his hand and lets out a shaky laugh, a broad smile overtaking his face. “Nat, we thought you were dead.” The relief coursing through him makes his hands shake harder, somehow.

She looks back at him with that fond little smile, her wide eyes luminous in the perpetual dusk. “I am, Cap.” She shrugs and starts walking. “I fought Clint hard for that dubious honor, Steve, you think I’d give it up so quick?”

Steve scrambles a little to catch up with her. “But you—you’re not like Schmidt, I held your hand.” He feels muddled and dull, the earlier joy curdling in his veins.

She shakes her head. “I don’t pretend to know how it works, Steve.”

“You have gone through some big changes,” he retorts automatically.

Nat swings around to give him one of her sly grins, the one that tucks up into the corner of her cheek. “Gotta say, I thought it would take you longer to recover from the shock.”

Steve shrugs and picks up the pace, steadier now that they’re back in a familiar conversational rhythm. “You know me, I’m adaptable.” That earns him a snort.

They walk in companionable silence for a while. Steve isn’t sure what to ask Nat, or tell her. He’s had several friends return from the dead now; he’s not had the opportunity to make conversation with one who is still dead.

“I feel like I can hear the gears turning from over here,” she observes.

“Well, I can’t say I’m not thrown,” he admits. “This is a first for me.”

“Would you believe it is for me, too?”

He studies the side of her face. “Which part? Being dead, or having to talk to a friend about it?”

Nat never answers any question she doesn’t want to. “Since you’ve got the stone, I assume the plan worked.”

“Yeah, it did.”

She gives him a moment to elaborate, but he can’t find the words to tell her what it was like, fighting Thanos without her. Getting everyone else back. Losing Tony.

The Black Widow, however, is as perceptive as ever. “Who else, Steve?”

He heaves a sigh and his eyes fill with tears as he meets her gaze. Her whole body is tense, braced as if for a blow. When Steve thought about what it might be like to see her again, he hadn’t thought about this.

—

They’re back at the ship too soon. Steve still doesn’t know what to do. He thinks Nat wouldn’t leave him alone; but she seems certain there’s no way for her to leave Vormir, and he’s out of the meager supplies he’d packed for the mission.

“I could come back,” he offers, feeling how hollow the suggestion is. “Or we could send someone else; Clint, or maybe Bucky. I’m sure Wanda would love to visit.”

Nat nods to the final stone, in the pouch of his utility belt. “The only reason you can even see me right now is that stone, Rogers.” She gives him a rueful smile. “Once you hand it over, that’s it.” She says it with her usual inflection, as though she were only talking about a parking ticket. But Steve feels like a hole has opened under his feet, after he’d only just found solid ground.

He settles his palm over the Soul stone and a little frisson of something pulses under his hand. “I guess that settles it. You’re stuck with me.” He can’t leave her to—to what? To fade away? To become nothing?

“Cap, now’s not the time to dig your heels in.” Nat shakes her head, her eyes sad but her smile still in place.

He sticks out his chin. “You tell me you’d leave me behind if the situation were reversed, Romanoff.”

“In a heartbeat.” Nat sets her jaw, and Steve can tell from the tic of a muscle by her ear that she’s angry with him, though her tone stays lightly teasing. “If I had a hot date to keep with my long-lost love and I knew you were a goner either way? Pfft. I’ve had harder times deciding what to eat for breakfast.”

Steve blinks slowly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She leans her elbow against the side of the ship and examines her nails. “Like I said, I don’t get how it works, but before you got here, I heard—something like an echo. It was you and a woman, talking about going to a different time.” Nat shoots him a look.

A memory: Peggy, lips painted red, in a blue dress he’s sure he never saw her wear. He spins her into his arms, holds her much closer than propriety dictates. “We could go home, Steve. Imagine it.” He digs his fingers into the silky material at her sides, feels it slide against her curves. Her mouth curls up in a smile, her brown eyes flash with open hunger. And then it’s gone, and his arms are empty, always empty.

He feels guilty, like he’s betrayed the team for even considering it. “The Ancient One suggested I could go to another timeline, before Peggy met her husband,” he confesses. “I thought about it. I imagined our whole lives together, what could have been.” He shrugs. “But that chance is gone.”

Nat studies him, her face unreadable.

“There’s work to be done, and the team is hurting,” he explains. “I’m needed.” He runs a hand through his sweaty hair, feels it stand on end as he rakes his fingers through. “There’s always more work.”

Nat snorts again and he furrows his brows together. She pushes off the side of the ship. “That’s a load of horseshit.” Arms crossed, she stares him down. “All you’ve been through with us, and you still think the world depends on you alone? You think there isn’t anyone else up to the task of being Captain America?”

He doesn’t respond. It’s not a denial, though, and she digs in. “You know my story, Steve. You know how hard I fought to break out of Red Room’s conditioning, how I struggled to find a way forward even with Clint’s help. The Avengers saved me. Being part of your team, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t think I’m overstepping to say it’s the best thing to happen to any of us.” Her eyes are clear and her voice is steady. She takes one step towards him, and then another, until she’s toe to toe with him. “And I would give it up like that—” she snaps her fingers— “if it meant I could start over for real. That’s why it’s a team—everyone picks up the slack. No one is in it alone.” She pulls him into a hug, quick like a cat, and kisses him hard on both cheeks.

When she steps back, she has the stone in her hand. It may as well be Steve’s heart. “Go get your girl, Steve,” she says, voice thick with tears. “You did right by me. You can go.”

Before he can respond, she’s vanished. A cold wind howls through the valley, and Steve stares blindly out at the alien landscape.

When he comes out of the shock, it could be hours later. He hardly knows what he’s doing, but he punches coordinates into the quantum bracelet on his wrist and, with a prayer he hasn’t said since the war on his lips, he presses the button. Nat’s right. Bucky’s right. He has to try.

#steggy #my fic #steggy fic #steggyweek2k19 #steve rogers #peggy carter #natasha romanoff

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bunimalsfiberdolls · 5 years

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~Early Spring, 1943~

Madonna Maria ibn-La’Ahad crossed her legs, slowly, deliberately, and watched the man seated on the loveseat across from her track the movement with his eyes. She knew that he knew that she never wore anything under her skirts except a garter belt, to keep her stockings up. His eyes went dark with desire and she savored the savage satisfaction that observation brought her. “Tea?” she offered, indicating the tea service an elf had deposited on the low table between them. “Lemon, no sugar, correct? Or would you rather have it black?” “What do you want, Maria? I’m a very busy man,” Grandmaster Mario Auditore rumbled, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing. He openly stared at her cleavage, the creamy tops of her breasts displayed to him by the wide gapping neckline of her blouse as she leaned forward. She curled her lips into a smile and took her time pouring herself a cup of tea before settling back into her armchair, teacup and saucer delicately balanced on one hand. He did not return her smile. She hadn’t bothered to pour his tea.

“As I’m sure you are aware, my son intends to bring his pregnant young bride for her first visit to Italy during Holy Week-” “Our son,” he corrected her. “Giovanni has been dead for twelve years, Maria. After all this time, can’t you at least privately acknowledge that Ezio is mine?” “So that you can successfully brand me an adulteress and steal this house from me, like you and your mother stole everything else after your fool of a brother got himself and my eldest son killed? No, Mario. Your family has taken enough from me. I will acknowledge no such thing. Ezio and Mari are mine, and mine alone. I will not give you any further claim on them.” “So, is Mari mine as well?” He glowered at her. “All these years you’ve let me think… You treacherous, lying bitch. God damn you, Maria!” She arched an eyebrow at his outburst and took a careful sip of tea. “Don’t pretend that you have ever wanted a daughter, Mario,” she scoffed. “After the difficulty of Mari’s birth left me unable to have further children you were only too happy to write us off to Gio and leave both of us to starve when he died.” She took another sip of tea, carefully calculated to give her enough time to make sure her voice was perfectly cold and even before she continued. “I have accepted, years ago, that I was never anything more to you than another part in your petty rivalry with your pathetic brother. Don’t you agree it’s time to stop pretending otherwise?” “That’s not – you were never – that’s not even remotely true!” he bellowed, lurching to his feet to loom over her. “Falling in love with you poisoned my relationship with my brother, and having you in my bed ruined me for other women.” She sighed, finished her tea, and then set the cup and saucer back on the table with the rest of the tea service while she waited for Mario to conclude his tirade. “You fucking destroyed my life, Maria! I had great prospects before Gio brought you here. Everyone acknowledged that one day I could rise to Al Mualim, and now, now I can never publicly acknowledge my own son without admitting that I cuckolded my brother and risk my position in the Order. Because of you. You and your forked tongue and treacherous cunt! My god, you have no fucking idea how it gutted me, whenever Gio was with you, imagining you moaning like a whore in his arms while I laid alone in bed-” “Hardly,” she tersely interrupted him. “I didn’t ask you here to rehash that tired old argument-” she curled her fingers and nonverbally cast a silence when he opened his mouth to interrupt her – “and I refuse to accept any of the blame for your shortcomings and rampant alcoholism.” He shrugged off the spell and glowered at her. She didn’t bother trying to cast another; Mario was waiting for her to do just that, and she’d already effectively derailed his diatribe. In some ways, her brother-in-law was almost laughably simple to manage. “What do you want from me?” “An armistice.” “An armistice,” he scoffed. “After all this time? Why now?” “Because, less than a year ago, Ezio was so unhappy he tried to kill himself-” her throat constricted with distress at the memory of her son, pale and half dead, after Cesare had pulled him out of the river and Mario’s expression softened, slightly. “I almost lost him then, and now that he’s been transferred to Alamūt, neither of us will see much of him, or his child, if he finds visiting Roma stressful or unpleasant. I want to see my son. I want to get to know his wife and hold my grandchild. And I know you want that as well.” Mario sighed and collapsed back down on the loveseat he had occupied previously. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I want that too.” He leveled a hard, calculating look at her. “I want him to know he’s my son.” She clenched her teeth and glared back at him. From her voluminous correspondence with her family and old friends at Alamūt, it was clear to her that Ezio’s mental state was still fragile, and his current ability to assimilate a revelation of that magnitude was dubious, at best. Once that became clear to Mario, he’d do what would be best for her son, one way or another. From a purely strategic point of view, it hardly mattered who Ezio’s father was at this point; Federico had been the heir to the Auditore estate, while he’d still been alive, as the eldest male issue of Mario’s younger brother, Giovanni. Fredo had loved his siblings completely and unconditionally, learning that they didn’t all have the same father wouldn’t have changed anything for him; they were still all Auditores, after all. When Fredo fell – even after so many years, something sharp and jagged twisted in her chest whenever she thought of her elder son’s death – Ezio legally became the Auditore heir. That Ezio was actually fathered by her husband’s older brother technically made him illegitimate, but the stark truth of the situation was that there were no other potential male heirs to challenge his claim and her mother-in-law, La Donna Claudia, desperately wanted the estate and all other ancestral Auditore holdings to remain in her branch of the family. However, Madonna Maria had absolutely no intention of ever telling Ezio the man he’d always known as his uncle was, in fact, his biological father. His sire. She didn’t think of her children as having fathers – not like how she was their mother – the brothers who’d gotten her with child had never been forced to give up anything to spawn her children, whereas she had been forced to give up everything – her home, her first language, her ability to serve the Order in the only way she’d ever known – years of sacrifice and suffering and training rendered meaningless with the stroke of a pen. “I want – if you won’t say it yourself – I want you not to deny it when I tell him,” Mario continued ruthlessly. He hesitated a moment, scowling at her tea service and clenching and unclenching his teeth, before raising his eyes to hers with a searing look. “And I want to know the truth about Mari, Maria. Is she mine as well?” Despite his numerous other shortcomings, she grudgingly had to acknowledge that Mario had always been good to Ezio and he prioritized what was best for her son above anything else – including his duty to the Order, at times. She always put the Order first, like a true and devoted Assassin; that’s how she and her sisters had been raised. She threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Mari is mine, and no other’s. She has no father.” Mario snorted. “It’s a little too late to take the same line your crazy sister did when people asked about her bastard.” She hated how sharply that decades old barb still stung; Aaliyah’s service to the Order had been absolute, her sister had willingly sacrificed everything at the command of Al Mualim, and only after she had fallen did lesser people – people like Maria’s in-laws – feel secure enough to slander her sister and use that word against her nephew. “Aaliyah was a seraph, a pearl before swine who was murdered by an old man too weak to wield the blade himself,” she seethed. “Don’t you dare speak of her like that.” Mario’s mouth twisted and she braced herself for further insult, but then he heaved a tired sigh and slouched back against the back of the loveseat. “Don’t you ever get tired of hating me, Maria?” he asked, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Gio’s been dead and buried too long for him to still come between us. Can’t we, can’t we at least try to be friendly, for Ezio’s sake?” “I was being friendly,” she informed him, tapping the nail of her index finger against the armrest of her couch. “My invitation was cordial. Any unfriendliness in this conversation has been your doing, Granmaestro.” Mario narrowed his eyes and harrumphed in response. She watched him for a moment, letting the silence between them lengthen, before she reached up to adjust the delicate chain supporting the Roman Cross of pearls she had selected from her jewelry cache that morning. The elf had been skeptical of her choices; that particular pendant was far too heavy for such a thin chain, but she liked how they looked together, and if the chain happened to break during her meeting with Mario, she’d turn that to her advantage. She usually could. Mario assumed a suspiciously benign expression and cleared his throat. “You’re right, of course,” he said, far too graciously to be even the least bit sincere. “I should not have brought up, your sister, or said that about her son. It was, unnecessary, and rude.” He exhaled a slow deep breath and she watched the fingers of his right hand, previously splayed at rest against his thigh, curl into a fist. “I know Ezio is very fond of his cousin, and that Altaïr’s companionship has been a source of great comfort and support to him in these difficult times.” “Yes,” she agreed, tone artfully tempered pleasant. “Ezio has always been close to my nephews, and I know that both Malik and Altaïr love him like a brother,” she replied automatically, before a shrapnel burst of pain across her chest reminded her that the present tense no longer applied to her elder nephew. She must have let something bleed through her expression because Mario’s brows momentarily drew together and he started forward, towards her, before he caught himself and leaned back against the couch. “We have all been lessened by the loss of Malik, and his family.” He offered the platitude stiffly, expression wooden and posture ridged. She gritted her teeth and focused on drawing slow, careful breaths through her nose until she could trust her voice to be perfectly even. “Some of us more so than others. You never liked Malik. Please don’t insult his memory by lying about that fact.” “Don’t play the martyr, Maria. You’ve only got me for an audience.” A hard retort almost slipped past her lips before she thought better of it and twisted her lips into something like a smile instead. “I thought you said you wanted us to try to be friendly, Mario?” He sighed. “Maria…” She deliberately uncrossed her legs, noting the way his eyes again tracked the movement with satisfaction as she stood and made her way over to perch on the edge of the loveseat beside him. His breathing had quickened and gone shallow; Mario had never been as good at suppressing his emotional responses as she was. It seems some things never change. “What are you doing?” he rasped as she reached over and uncurled his clenched fist and smoothed his fingers against his thigh. He could have easily pulled his hand away or pushed her back; he did not. “Being friendly.” She smiled and leaned closer. They’d gone through the steps of this particular dance countless times over the years and her body ached with anticipation. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” “You’re only interested in what I want when it suits you.” “Isn’t that true of everyone?” she parried, sliding her hand upwards along the inside of his thigh. “Besides, we’re both invested in doing what’s best for Ezio, aren’t we?” “We have very different ideas about what’s best for our son-” “My son.” “Our son,” he corrected her. He’d leaned closer during their exchange and his eyes drifted shut as he closed the space between them, brushing his lips against the side of her neck as he inhaled deeply. “Christ, you smell good. They never should have married you to Gio; it should have been me. Think how differently everything would have gone, if I’d been your first, instead of him.” “But you weren’t.” She shifted her thighs apart as his hand slid further up her skirt. Neither of the Auditore brothers had been her first, as they liked to put it, but there wasn’t any advantage to correcting that assumption and it had never really mattered – to her, at least - anyway. “Things are what they are and there’s no point to wishing they were any different.” “Cold-blooded as always, aren’t you, Dolcezza?” he murmured, hand moving from her inner thigh to graze the underside of her jaw before tangling in her upswept hair and pulling her forward to meet his lips. She distractedly noted that the chain of her necklace had broken as the heavy pearl pendant tumbled down her blouse between her breasts. Mario had always kissed exceedingly well; even when sloppy drunk, his lips and tongue were devilishly clever. She sighed and melted into the kiss. He’d be so good at oral sex if he had any willingness to give as well as receive. She broke their kiss and hitched her body closer to his, tracing the seams of his robes with a single fingertip. “You’ve broken the chain of my necklace, Sevgili,” she hummed, brushing her lips against his. His cheek was satiny-smooth to the touch, still softly scented of his shaving soap. He took the time to shave, how telling. She parted her lips in an artfully languid smile, dropping her shoulders and lifting her chin to elongate her neck. “My cross must have fallen. Will you help me find it?” “Why not just summon it into your hand?” His lips curled in a self-satisfied smirk as he traced the curve of her clavicle with the callused pads of his fingers. She would have liked to snap the smile off of his face, it would be so satisfyingly easy with a few sharp words, but she suppressed the urge. Things are going so well, don’t sabotage yourself now. She carefully smoothed a loosened lock of hair back into her coiffure and then rolled her shoulders slightly inward, the movement drawing Mario’s eyes from her collarbones to her cleavage, as intended. “Am I being invited to investigate, Madonna?” “You broke the chain, Maestro, it’s only good manners to help find it.” She could feel a rough edge of the cross snagging the handmade needle lace of her slip and clenched her teeth into a wider smile. “Ezio brought me this cross after a contract in Venezia.” “Then it must be valuable.” Mario slid his hands up her torso over her blouse, fingers splayed ostensibly in search of her pendant, smile widening when he located it against her breasts. Not necessarily. Ezio brought her things he thought were pretty, with seemingly no real thought as to their value. Her sister Aaliyah had had an exceptionally good eye for valuable things, which was rather unexpected, considering how little interest she had in amassing money. Most fidā'ī – herself included, to some degree – sought out contracts based on the value of the contract itself, or the likelihood of acquiring valuables, with an eye on clearing their debt and amassing enough to provide for themselves or loved ones when they were no longer able to actively serve the Order. That had never seemed to matter to Aaliyah. Even after she’d had her son and adopted her daughter, Aaliyah seemed to select contracts for the challenge they presented, to prove a point to their father and the Order, or perhaps because it suited her. She’d taken contracts in Cairo because she’d wanted to take her children to the British Museum there, in Istanbul to visit Doğan or some other friendly acquaintance, or in French Morocco simply because it would be a convenient place to buy a new hat. There was also the inescapable fact that Aaliyah liked to kill. Killing hadn’t especially bothered her, when she’d been allowed to serve the Order as a fidā'ī. It had been a little upsetting, at first. Before too long, however, the shock of taking a life faded and it became merely something that was vaguely unpleasant, although decidedly less so than completing the closing report and attendant paperwork required for each completed contract; somehow, that never became less tedious. It was hard for her to understand why her husband and brother-in-law seemed to feel so much guilt for doing the Order’s work, that they seemed to view serving as a fidā'ī as a burden instead of an honor. She wondered if Mario would feel mostly relief, instead of regret, when he eventually would be forced into retirement as a rafīk. He’ll probably expect me to pack up and follow him wherever he’s reassigned, she thought with a sharp spike of annoyance. She had no intention of abandoning the powerbase she’d constructed from nothing in her exile, and was more than happy to avoid that undoubtedly unpleasant conversation for as long as feasibly possible. “Jeegaretō bokhoram,” he breathed against the side of her throat. She resisted the urge to correct his pronunciation. Somehow, in over twenty years, Mario still hadn’t bothered to learn how to properly pronounce the few words of Farsi he’d managed to pick up. It would have been less offensive if he just used Turkish or Italian endearments with her, but at least he seemed sober; there was no reek of alcohol on his breath. “Gooshe sheytoon kar,” she murmured in response. May the ears of the devil be deaf. Naturally, Mario didn’t understand what she’d said and seemed to assume it was just some answering endearment. Perhaps, in a way, he was not wrong. The particular devil she had instinctively hid the nature of their relationship from had been dead for fifteen years at this point and his successor was mostly a friend. Little did Mario suspect that Al Mualim knew of and allowed her shadow management in Rome, probably in redress for unjustly denying her custody of Aaliyah’s children after her father had fallen. The doorknob rattled just before the parlor door swung slowly open and Filomena entered, apologetically clearing her throat with a demur little cough. Mario huffed a sharply annoyed breath through his nose as she turned her attention to her Solak. “Madonna-” “She’s busy. What could possibly be so important that it can’t wait?” “Peace, Grandmaestro,” she murmured, having caught sight of the black wax seal on the letter clenched in Filomena’s hand. “I think it might be best to continue our conversation at another time, don’t you?” She took the letter from Filomena, tilting it so that Al Mualim’s seal was clearly visible. “Of course, Madonna,” Mario rumbled, smoothing his moustache and straightening his robes as he rose to his feet. “Another time, then.” He wordlessly tipped his chin towards Filomena before turning back to her when she also rose and stiffly offering his arm. “I trust you have time, at least, to escort me to the door.” It wasn’t a request. She forced her shoulders down and back, lifted her chin, and smiled serenely in response as she took his proffered arm. “Of course, Grandmaestro.” They left the parlor in roaring silence and proceeded down the hallway. “What is Al Mualim writing to you?” he finally asked in an undertone as they approached the grand staircase, tone clipped and low. “Is it something to do with Ezio? Tell me, woman.” “How should I know?” She arched a meticulously groomed brow at his rudeness. “I haven’t even opened the letter yet, have I.” She dropped her hand from his arm when they reached the stairs. “My apologies for not accompanying you any further. Good day, Grandmaestro.” He caught her around the waist as she turned away and roughly pulled her body back against his own. Her blood heated in anticipation and she knew he’d noticed her response by the way his hands slid down to her hips and tightened their grip. He would have me now, in whatever way I wish, if I allowed it. She savored the satisfaction that knowledge brought her. “Leave your door unlocked for me this evening,” he hissed in her ear. “Tell me everything you’ve managed to learn about our children and you’ll get your armistice.”

~Summer, 1916~

He’s absolutely perfect, she couldn’t help thinking as she watched her infant son noisily nursing at her breast. Unlike Federico, who had been fussy and frustrating at first, Ezio had taken to nursing immediately. She caressed his head as he fed, running her fingers through his thick fine hair before cupping her palm around the curve of his tiny skull. My perfect, beautiful boy. Federico had inherited her pale complexion; Ezio, apparently, had not. He’ll look more like his father, she thought as she ran a finger up her infant’s chubby arm and tickled his tiny palm with her finger. “You’re playing with fire, Maria-joon,” Cesare commented as he stretched across her bed, where he’d been napping in a patch of sunlight only moments before like an oversized cat. “Those brothers are going to fight over you like two dogs with a bone once Giovanni sees Mario with that baby.” “Gio doesn’t care what I do so long as I’m not interfering with his whoring,” she retorted, casting a quick glance at her older son, still sleeping on the settee beneath the window. Federico had fiercely resisted being put down for a nap. She’d finally resorted to a spell to help things along. Ezio had obligingly slept for an hour or so after being fed, but had just woken up demanding to be fed again, which was fine with her; she loved nursing her son. “No man likes being made a cuckold,” Cesare hummed, settling on his back and lacing his fingers together behind his head. He flashed her a roguish smile as he lazily eye-fucked her. “Especially not with his older brother – positively cold-blooded on your part, jāné del-am.” Ezio sneezed and kicked his legs in distress at the momentary loss of her nipple. She guided his tiny mouth back before he could start crying. “Sometimes, I almost think you might be a little fond of me, Cesare.” She gently stroked the back of her finger over the curve of Ezio’s cheek as he resumed nursing. “Isn’t that silly?” “I am fond of you, Maria-joon,” he chuckled. “You’re so delightfully ruthless and practical.” He slithered off the bed and across the space between them to skitter his fingertips up her thighs. “And impatient for Mario to arrive. I can taste it on you – naughty girl – lusting after your husband’s brother. Tisk, tisk.” He playfully wagged a finger at her before chucking her under the chin. His lips were pillow soft against hers and his tongues were hot in her mouth, heat spilling down her throat to settle in the floor of her pelvis. “Shall I have you first?” “Not in front of my children,” she murmured, watching the incubus lightly caress her son’s small body. “This one is going to be a charmer when he’s older.” He flashed her a brilliant smile. “Un ometto così bello.” Cesare’s accent, as always, was flawless. She hated how much she envied that. “Hopefully not too charming for his own good.” She sighed and glanced over to make sure Federico was still asleep. “Will you summon an elf for me? I want Fredo moved into his room before Mario comes. He’s too young to keep secrets, Cesare.” “He’s going to have to learn at some point.” The pulse of summoning magic he released prickled across her skin and Ezio flinched in her arms at the feeling of it. “Especially in this family. The sooner the better, Maria-joon.” He’s not wrong. She startled at Ezio’s weak mewl of protest and relaxed her suddenly tension-tight grip on her infant son and forced a smile at Cesare. The incubus watched her in the falling silence with a ghost of a smile on his lips, head cocked slightly to the side and eyes glowing. She’d become accustomed to the bioluminescence of his eyes years ago and found it flattering that he no longer made any effort to hide his otherness from her. It was refreshing, and surprisingly comforting, to be around someone with whom there were absolutely no pretenses between them. Something outside the room drew his attention and he momentarily flicked his eyes towards the door. “I’ll take Federico back to his own bed. The elves are taking too long and I suspect it would be better for you if I make myself scarce. Safety and peace be upon you.”

~Autumn, 1916~

“Look at this hair!” her sister Berenice, seated on the couch beside her, laughed as she ruffled her fingers through Ezio’s admirably thick cap of curls. “I thought most of it would have fallen out by now – it usually does, you know – but not only has he kept all the hair he was born with, he’s grown even more! Malik, come see your new cousin.” “Babies are boring,” Maria’s six year-old nephew groaned, shoving a shock of dark hair back from his face. “They don’t do anything, except sleep and poop.” “And cry,” her son, Federico, added emphatically, knocking over a whole battalion of tin soldiers with a sweep of his arm. “Babies are noisy!” “Some far more than others,” Aaliyah observed dryly in Farsi. “Those two are much too loud to ever make it far as fidā'ī.” “They’re just children, let them have their fun,” Berenice scolded and Maria slid a reproachful smile at her younger sister, who was slouched against the leg of a Louis XIV loveseat while she supervised her son as he played with a wooden toy biplane. Aaliyah’s son, Altaïr, was preternaturally quiet for a toddler, watching everything around him with his strange antique gold eyes in almost total silence. She’d never heard Altaïr properly cry, like all children do from time to time. Berenice liked to claim that he howled like an afrit whenever he was separated from his mother, but Maria had yet to witness that reaction for herself; Aaliyah didn’t allow her child more than half a dozen feet away from her, and usually kept him within arm’s reach. “Not in your mouth,” Aaliyah admonished. There were fresh teeth marks on one of the plane’s wings. “Are you hungry, my treasure?” she asked when her son began to fuss – breathless huffs and soft mewling – and tug at the bodice of her robes. “You should encourage him to use words, Aaliyah,” Berenice reprimanded their younger sister, the critical edge in her voice scraping across Maria’s already raw nerves as she watched Aaliyah’s posture stiffen defensively. “It isn’t normal that he hasn’t even tried to talk yet.” “Leave it alone, Berenice,” she said quickly, before Aaliyah had the chance to say something unpleasant. “Once they start talking it’s hard to get them to stop.” As though to underscore her point, Federico shrieked with unabashed delight as Malik scattered another battalion of tin soldiers with a clumsy burst of force magic. “Again, Mal! Do it again,” Federico shouted, bouncing on his heels with excitement. They’re going to wake Ezio. Ezio had been colicky for the last ten days and caring for her usually sunny, easy going baby was getting progressively harder as fatigue and frustration set in. Maria clenched her teeth and cast a silence over her son and nephew. “Maria,” Berenice scolded in an undertone with a cluck of her tongue and a disapproving look. “Our sister doesn’t approve of lazy parenting,” Aaliyah drawled with a sweetly serrated smile as she settled her son into her lap to nurse. “Do you, dear Berenice?” “What, exactly, counts as lazy parenting?” she asked, noting the way their eldest sister’s brows had drawn together and lips thinned as Aaliyah nursed her toddler son and continued to smile, without breaking eye contact, chin lifted defiantly. While she appreciated that Aaliyah was intentionally drawing the full brunt of Berenice’s high-handed indignation to spare her a lecture, it wasn’t necessary. She’d been bickering with their sister for the last four years over child rearing and had plenty of experience making her point, while keeping the peace, which was something for which Aaliyah had woefully little talent. “He’s getting too old for you to still be nursing him, sister dear,” Berenice declared with a sharp smile of her own. At least her sisters were careful to keep their voices low and light, smiles firmly fixed and body language relaxed around the children; her husband and his brother did not. Giovanni and Mario fought like two stallions with their blood up over a mare – noisily and bloodily, thundering against one another and trampling anything unable to get out of their way. She’d learned to draw Federico close and cast a silence over the combatants as she spirited her son away. “I’m making him strong,” Aaliyah retorted, smile stretched thin and brittle. “He hasn’t been ill even once since he left my body. Two years now and not even so much as a cold-” “Peace, my sisters,” she interrupted, pointedly flicking her eyes towards Malik, who was watching them warily. She almost forgot, from time to time, that Malik knew the language they were speaking and would increasingly understand what they were saying. Her own son did not.

~Winter, 1922~

Her sons were still sleeping soundly, the light from the lamp beside her just barely strong enough to outline the features of their beautiful young faces. She reached over and dimmed the light further when she felt the first scalding drop of moisture escape from the corner of her eye to roll down her cheek. Several drops then overflowed from her other eye and she struggled to steady her breathing as grief and pain and frustration and bitter simmering anger poured out of her eyes and down her face. Droplets of saltwater fell on the letter she somehow still had clenched in her hand, barely strong enough to even blur the sharp slanting lines and hard angles of her father’s handwriting. Of course he cast a water resistance charm on this letter. It wouldn’t do if his Very Important Words were to become blurry or illegible because his Over Emotional daughter just couldn’t control herself. “Mari-joon?” he murmured questioningly from the doorway. “Whatever is the matter, jigar talâ?” She wiped the moisture from her cheeks and looked up at Cesare – dark copper hair worn a little too long for the current fashion, flawless butter-pale skin and glittering greenish eyes that always reminded her of the Caspian Sea back home – then drew a shaky breath and cast a silence around her sleeping sons. “There’s been an accident,” she croaked, voice buckling under the strain of keeping it even. “Berenice’s little boy, Kadar.” “What happened?” “They went out to play in the desert – Malik, with Kadija and Altaïr, and Kadar tagged along – there had been rain, which is why they went into those wadis, treasure hunting-” her voice cracked and she gulped a breath to steady it, the stiff parchment of her father’s letter crinkling in her white-knuckled grip “-and they got caught in a flashflood. He never had a chance, not really.” “Have they found him?” She choked down the inappropriate laughter that somehow bubbled up her throat and the effort made her eyes stream again. It took an embarrassingly long time to get herself mostly back under control. Cesare waited, his silence providing more comfort in that moment than any spoken word or sentiment. “My father says, here, I’ll read you his exact words, so you get the full effect.” She swiped a hand across her eyes and cleared her throat. “I have sent fidā'ī to recover the body. If Allah spares any mercy they will find it before the jackals do. Your sister’s widow is behaving disgracefully and requires physical proof to accept that his youngest son has fallen.” She hated how brittle and angry her voice sounded as she read her father’s words aloud. “He didn’t use a white seal on his letter; he cares that little. Losing Kadar is so inconsequential to him that it doesn’t even warrant a proper death notification-” She would have said more, railed against at her father’s cold-blooded callousness, but her voice betrayed her as her throat closed itself with stupid, senseless grief. “Peace, Maria-joon,” Cesare murmured, suddenly beside her and sliding a comforting arm around her shoulders. “As unlikely as it seems, they may yet find the child alive. Perhaps your father also clings to that hope, which is why he used his customary seal on the letter and dismisses Darium’s grief. It is barely three years since Berenice fell and that wound is still fresh for him. He loved your sister very much.” “My father loves his family best after they have fallen,” she retorted. “The dead have lost the ability to bring disappointment or shame, unlike living daughters.” “You should allow yourself to grieve for your sister and her youngest son.” “Why?” she demanded. “Would grieving bring them back?” “No-” “Then what’s the point? Why would I waste my time on something that accomplishes nothing?” “Spoken in your father’s voice,” was Cesare’s sardonic rejoinder, and she hated how much it stung. “Has holding on to so much anger really brought you happiness?” She clenched her teeth and pointedly avoided his eyes. The parchment crinkled loudly in the silence she’d cast around them as her father’s letter finally began to crumpled in her hand. After a long moment Cesare took the letter from her, skimmed his eyes across the sharply sloping script and then sighed, eloquently. “His timing leaves much to be desired, doesn’t it?” “Does it?” Her throat was tight and her eyes were burning again and she hated, hated, hated how much she felt. “I am getting older. I’ve only had two children and they were born years apart. Unless I am able to conceive again soon, it seems unlikely that I ever will. He’s not wrong to chastise me; a tradition practiced in our family for over seven hundred and fifty years will end because I’ve failed to conceive a daughter. Because I’ve failed to do my duty.” “Berenice could have tried harder to have daughters. Aaliyah still lives. I fail to see why the brunt of this should fall upon you, Maria-joon.” Federico whimpered in his sleep and kicked one leg out from under the covers to hang over the edge of his bed, his pale scrawny ankle and bare foot exposed to the cold night air. She’d made him put socks on his feet before tucking him in that evening, but somehow, he’d already lost at least one sock while asleep in bed. “Aaliyah is unmarried, whereas I have both a husband and a lover,” she sighed as she got up and tucked her son’s already cold foot back underneath the covers, then smoothed the blankets over his slim body and pressed a kiss against his temple. She inhaled deeply, savoring the scents of hyssop and rosemary and clean boyish skin. Her arms ached to hold him, but her eldest son always been fiercely independent and he’d wake up cross and defiant if she tried to cuddle him. Federico seemed to have outgrown her arms as soon as he had learned to walk. Sometimes, it felt like he was outgrowing her. “I want to have another baby, Cesare, but I don’t know if either Mario or Gio will give me one.” Cesare hooked a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his eyes, head tilting as he studied her, his expression surprisingly soft and lacking his customary shade of hard-eyed cynicism. “You are tired, and your heart is heavy, whether you will let it grieve or not,” he murmured. “You belong in bed. Let me make you feel better.” She leaned into his kiss, suddenly hungry for his otherness, to feel his tongues and his chin splitting open, desperate to be taken by this man who was not actually a man at all and yet somehow managed to be so much more, and so much less disappointing, than any other man she’d known. He broke their kiss to retrieve the lamp she’d brought to read her father’s letter and then guided her from her sons’ room to her own, leaving her side only to deposit the extinguished lamp on the mantle and light a fire in grate before returning to undress her and take her to bed. “I’d give almost anything to have a daughter,” she murmured softly afterwards, cheek pillowed against his chest. “You could help me, Cesare, couldn’t you?” She sat up and studied his expression, searching out any hint of his thoughts. “If we made a deal, you could ensure that I have a daughter, couldn’t you?” “I could,” he confirmed, eyes narrowing slightly. “What exactly do you want, Maria-joon?” She rubbed her tongue against the inside edges of her bottom teeth as she considered her response, choosing each word with care. “I want a daughter, a Maria of my own, a legacy. I want to see her grown and serving the Order as I should have been allowed to serve. Aaliyah would train her to be great, I know she would. And I want you to protect her, Cesare, protect her from men who would do to her what they’ve done to me. Could you do all this for me?” “You demand many things, Maria-joon,” he finally responded as he slowly sat up and shook his hair back over his shoulders. “Too many things, you mean,” she sighed, making no effort to conceal her disappointment. “I did not say that. You are fortunate that I am so fond of you, Maria-joon; my kin would demand much in return for what you request. Indeed, my sister has commanded much more for far less.” He rubbed the tips of his fingers over the cushion of his bottom lip thoughtfully as he studied her, head tipped slightly to the side as his lips curved into something not quite a smile. “You are not so close to the end of your childbearing years for it to be impossible for you to conceive a daughter without my intercession. Why are you so eager to deal with the Maraas? Most avoid us, and only seek a deal as a last resort.” She averted her eyes, gaze flickering over various objects discernable in the frail starlight filtering through the high mullioned windows of her bedroom – the large, heavily carved white jade jewelry casket her father had given her when she’d come of age, for the spoils you will collect on your contracts, jeegaram; the Chinese cloisonne vase Selim had sent her when Ezio had been delivered, now filled with waxy white Madonna lilies on the cusp of blooming; the muted metallic sheen of the antique astrolabe Aaliyah had sent from some ottoman contract as a belated wedding present not long after her marriage; the last gift Berenice had given her, a handblown glass eagle enclosed in an ornately gilded cage – before settling on her hands as she picked at her cuticles. “I may conceive another boy, only boys, and never a daughter. If I am fortunate enough to have a daughter, she may die young – many children do – illness, accident, malfeasance. I want certainty, Cesare.” “Nothing is certain,” he murmured. “Some things can be certain,” she insisted. “You can make them certain.”

#The Garden #prologue to Season 3 #which I'm still writing #because I work too damn much #writing #personal

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