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In the depths of his pain, Vergil had imagined building a life with Morgan. Maybe she would bear him a child, maybe he would marry her, maybe they would have that white picket fence people always talk about. He would ward the house against demons and he wouldn’t disappear when his child was seven or so and Morgan wouldn’t die when their child was eight and they would be happy.
He always imagined a daughter. She would have his father’s white hair and milky blue eyes, but she would have Morgan’s face; maybe she would have Vergil’s frown; maybe she would have Morgan’s sly little smile.
Nonsensically, he hoped she was taller than he was; she would get crap for it, but maybe that meant that immature men who couldn’t see the power in her frame wouldn’t attempt to use her. He hoped she was shorter than he was; that when she came to him scared for comfort, she would fit perfectly in his arms and be reassured.
Occasionally he entertained himself between fits of torture by attempting to name her. Maybe Antigone, who guided her blind father until his death. Maybe something honoring Kundalakesi, who killed her husband who tried to kill her. Or maybe Hel, or something like it, who will bring the end of the world.
Vergil never once imagined he would have a son.
--
When they returned, Nero slammed into Dante in a hug that toppled them both, shouting the whole while. The commotion drew Lady and Trish and a blonde child Vergil didn’t recognize out of the Devil May Cry building. The blonde child placed one foot behind the other, half positioned to start running, watching Dante with hawk like focus.
Lady and Trish pulled Nero off of Dante; apparently Nero was Vergil’s son, because he’d broken Dante’s nose and was aiming for a cheek when the women got there. Dante laughed the whole time, gave Lady and Trish each a hug and a kiss on the cheek. And when they’d backed up, the blonde child sprinted forwards and leaped at him. Dante caught her and spun once, twice, three times, placed her giggling on the floor, and said, “happy eighteenth, Patty!”
“You missed my party, asshole,” she said cheerfully, “and I’m nineteen now, anyways.”
“You two were gone for a year and a half,” Nero said, coming over to extend a hand to Vergil. His eyes were wary, but his usual frown had been replaced by a little smile Vergil recognized from Dante’s own.
He shook Nero’s hand. Nero used that as leverage to trigger and suplex him with a roar of that accursed word; “JACKPOT!”
“That’s my boy!” Dante cheered, because he was the worst brother in existence, this Patty child tucked under an arm.
Vergil lumbered to his feet, glaring at everyone who laughed - which of course, was everyone. Nero clapped him on the shoulder, looking almost relieved. Vergil blinked at him. He’d given Nero no reason for such companionable treatment.
“Get inside, shitheads,” Nero ordered, “it’s fucking cold out here.”
“I’ll go buy some pizza,” Trish said, walking to the cherry red motorcycle in front of the building.
“Get a couple with olives for Verge,” Dante said as she did.
Trish gave him a thumbs up and was off, the engine screaming down the street.
They crowded into the Devil May Cry office. Vergil was shocked that it was clean and tidy. Dante had never been organized as a child. The divide between his half of their childhood bedroom had been made clear by the abrupt transition between Dante’s mess and Vergil’s mostly clear floor. Vergil wasn’t particularly organized either, but if he was forced to share with Dante then he would be better.
“Patty and I’ve kept it clean,” Nero explained, waving vaguely at the main area, “and we’ve renovated the upstairs so there’s multiple rooms now instead of just the one. And the backroom’s all tidied up. Vergil, you’ve got your own room up there, it’s the door farthest from the stairs. Dante’s in the middle one and the bathrooms right next to the stairs.”
“Thank you,” Vergil said with a nod.
“Aww, kid, did you miss me?” Dante said with a frankly annoying beam. “You kept my building clean for me?”
Vergil considered just going up to his room - and then realized that he could just go up to his room. He could just do that now. He didn’t have to stay down here next to Dante. With all these hunters, the surrounding area should theoretically be safe enough for him to just. . . exit. Go up and rest. Take a shower. Read a book or something without checking over his shoulder every ten minutes. Relax, maybe.
He headed for the stairs at the side of the room, planning to do just that.
“Leaving already, bro?” Dante said, interrupted Nero’s flustered yelling. He smiled, but Vergil knew his brother like he knew his own self.
“I’m showering,” Vergil said, to stave off the fear and vague resignation on Dante’s face, “and if you had any sense, you would too.”
“Oh, we got you clothes, too,” Nero said, still a little red from yelling so much, but mostly calm now. “We kinda just guestimated off what Dante’s sizes were.”
“You cleaned my room?” Dante said, sounding a little surprised. “Normally Patty avoids it.”
“Yeah, cuz it’s gross as hell,” Patty said, crossing her arms over her chest. “It took Nero like a week to get through it all. There were maggots, Dante. Mag-gots. That’s so gross!”
Vergil rolled his eyes, turning and starting for the stairs again. The stairs weren’t anything harder than walking through the endless landscape of hell, but each step made his knees ache. Maybe the human world was poison. Maybe he really had benefited from the miasma of hell. Either way, the stairs were a chore, and Vergil hurt thoroughly by the time he reached the upstairs. He was willing to bet real money that Dante was just going to crash on the ugly couch until he readjusted to the human world’s atmosphere.
He stopped in the doorway of the last room on the landing. It was. . . nice. That wasn’t a word he associated with anything to do with him, but this room was good. Vaguely boyish, maybe, but good.
The walls were light blue, and the curtains hanging over the window were navy blue blackout curtains. The layer just behind them were vaguely transparent white; privacy curtains, though he was sure the window looked out onto a shitty alley and had no chance of anyone seeing him through his own window. The bed looked a little longer than a standard twin sized bed, but he assumed it was because he would be longer than the bed otherwise. The sheets were, unsurprisingly, also blue; Dark blue fabric with white dots on them, a fuzzy blue comforter folded at the foot of the bed, and on top of that was a beaded weighted blanket, a vivid sky blue.
The dark wood of the bedframe matched the dark wood of a dresser and two bookshelves, one of them filled with books, and a table. There was an office chair, black, but a ‘V’ had been painted on it in blue in a way that made him grin a little. Vergil toed off his boots, stuck his dirty socks in them to deal with later, and walked barefoot to the bookshelves. They came up to chest height on someone Lady-sized (which meant around Vergil’s stomach). Above them were several shelves, empty aside from a couple pictures.
The first was of Eva. Not Trish, Vergil recognized immediately, but his actual mother. It was one of the old ones from the manor. There was water damage on one corner, and it had clearly been slashed in half at some point, but it was her. A picture of his mother, all for himself. Something Vergil had never had the luxury of, though he knew Dante kept her picture on his own desk. His fingers trembled as they reached for her beautiful smile, immortalized in a picture his father must have taken at some point. He didn’t dare touch it. He would dirty it with his bloodied hands.
The next picture was a shitty one of Vergil’s human persona; V sitting on the steps of the van, Griffon on his shoulder and Shadow’s head in his lap, cigarette in hand. His first since he fell into Hell, bummed off of Nico and lit with a shock of Griffon’s lightning. It had been a very satisfying nicotine hit at the time, and he did not regret it as he had often regretted chain smoking as a teenager. Maybe it had been submitting to a base instinct as a teen, but as V, it had been soothing. Necessary. The picture was blurry, but his face was mostly clear. An imperfect reflection of his mother, now that he had her picture to compare with. He hadn’t realized that he believed his human self would look so much like her; Urizen, he recognized in some far off part of him, was closer to what he used to wish his devil trigger looked like. Eyes to see all dangers, armored heavily, clawed and sharp toothed and weaponized.
The last picture was of Nero, his arm around a redhead woman who held onto Nico’s hand; in front of them were five children, three boys and two girls. The tallest boy and both girls were brunettes, the middle boy was blond, and the youngest had pitch black hair. All eight of them beamed at the camera, though Nero and the woman both held telltale signs of exhaustion. It looked like they had been on some sort of picnic, pleased to be there with each other.
Vergil moved his attention to the bookshelves; the one full of books was full of poetry. He didn’t take any of the books out, because he still needed to shower, but something in him warmed at the sight. He didn’t know most of the authors; Nero or Patty had probably went out and bought as much poetry from second hand stores as they could. Probably hadn’t curated the collection at all.
That was good, Vergil thought, because that meant he could go through it and weed out what he disliked as he went.
As expected from a man who apparently fostered five children. Enough things that he knew they cared, catered to him as much as possible, carefully not giving him an overwhelming amount of choices while still allowing him control over his own things. Everything taken care of without asking him about every detail. He hadn’t looked at the desk drawers, but he guessed that all his new writing supplies were blues and neutral colors, and that only two of the four drawers were filled.
There was a knock on the doorframe. Vergil turned to see his son in the doorway; speak of the devil, and all that.
“Trish says she’ll be back with pizza in about fifteen minutes,” Nero said, leaning against the doorframe.
Vergil nodded once and looked back at the poetry.
“Your book’s the first one on the top shelf,” Nero said, “the one you left me, I mean. The rest of it’s in alphabetical order by author last name, if that, uh.”
“Yes,” Vergil said, “I noticed.”
A beat.
“Clothes’re in the dresser,” Nero said, “Dante’s just got a lot of t-shirts and pants at this point, so I couldn’t get you anything really fancy. So it’s mostly button-downs and turtlenecks, slacks, all that. V dressed a little differently, so there are some more showy outfits, if that’s what you’re into.”
That wasn’t what Vergil was into at all, but Vergil was grateful for his son’s careful consideration of his wants. He could have just bought the cheapest t-shirts and jeans and called it a day.
But when he opened the first couple drawers, he found that Nero had gotten him all the staples of a wardrobe. Lots of solid colors - mainly black, blue, and even a few shades of purple - that would be good for layering, a couple unopened packs of underwear, several colors of undershirts, and the aforementioned slacks. One pair of very sturdy looking jeans, a big coat.
“I went and put a basket in the bathroom for the shit you’re wearing right now,” Nero continued awkwardly, “since it can’t really go in the wash with everything else. I’ll try and get the blood and demon gunk out tonight, but the coat might have to go to the dry cleaners.”
“I understand,” Vergil said, “though I can wash my own clothes.” He’d had to, living alone for so long as he had. It was a survival skill, even if he admittedly wasn’t all that good at it.
“I’m heading back to Fortuna in like a week,” Nero said, only a little jokingly, “so you’d better use me while you still can.”
“I do not intend to misuse you,” Vergil said, selecting black slacks, a white undershirt, and a blue button-down that had little airplanes embroidered on it.
“Helping you with laundry isn’t what I’d call misuse,” Nero said, tone shifting from light-hearted to vaguely combative, “stealing my arm, on the other hand. . .”
“I cannot return it,” Vergil said, and tore open the underwear package. He was slimmer than Dante these days; if these were bought based on Dante’s size, they may not fit properly. He would go out and buy better fitting clothing once he had his own source of income.
“Not really asking you to,” Nero said.
“I assure you that the Yamato is being carefully handled, though,” Vergil said and turned to look at Nero.
“Did you just make a dad joke?” Nero said, eyes narrowing.
“You started it,” Vergil said, finding himself smirking as he stepped out of the room, pausing only long enough to pick up his dirty socks from his boots.
He left Nero there, heading for the bathroom. He had missed showering; though if there was a full sized bathtub, he may yet take a bath. He hadn’t had one of those since he was a child, living with his mother. Didn’t he used to share with Dante back then? It was so long ago now that the memories were fuzzy at best and nonexistent at worst.
--
Who wouldn’t love their daughter, Vergil sometimes thought while on the run. He hadn’t considered his own family at that point, but it was a thought that stuck with him through the years. Boys were hard to love. He knew he was. But a girl. . .
Arkham had been a shock to his system. He loved Mary, sure, or so Vergil had thought for about five minutes after learning she existed. But maybe he didn’t, since he was so eager to use her blood to unseal the Temen-ni-gru. At least Lady killed him. Such an annoying bastard, who dared to not stay dead when Vergil had tried his own hand at murder. Vergil regretted being drawn in by his words that first day in the library.
But if Morgan had given him a daughter, he would have loved her immensely.
Not much about humanity made sense to him. He’d grown up largely outside it, too busy fighting back the hunters. The heavy focus on sons did not make sense, though he remembered what it had been like to be somebody’s son and somebody’s brother. Sometimes he would hear things in seedier sections of the cities he sheltered in. He hadn’t really gotten it. Still didn’t, honestly.
Morgan had been a lovely woman, anyway, as had Vergil’s own mother. That was about all the women he knew personally. Lady, the single day he’d known her, had been surprising in that she could feel so deeply for a man she seemed to hate. Vergil sometimes thought that was what convinced him that a daughter would be worth more than a son.
A son would try to destroy him; would search for his legacy and try to devour it whole; would turn himself into a Frankenstein’s monster of all the parts Vergil left behind and cannibalize himself to keep it inside.
A daughter might give him a second chance as he lay dying, might try one last time to save him.
--
Nero could cook. Vergil wasn’t sure why that surprised him, but it did. Nero had never really seemed the type to know how to cook. Yet Vergil came downstairs in his pajamas (very stereotypical light blue with vertical white lines) to cook himself pancakes for the first time since he was fifteen and squatting in someone’s house (the calendar in that particular house had said they were out for a vacation - it was an often enough occurrence in his teen years anyway; find an empty home and sleep under the guise of safety) and found Nero already at the stove, humming a jaunty little tune.
“Morning,” Nero said, glancing over at him, “I’m making omelet sandwiches. Tea or coffee?”
“You cook,” Vergil said instead.
Nero shrugged. “I can do some simple meals. It isn’t fair to leave Kyrie to do all the work around the house, not when I can help. And I’m around more than she is, frankly, since she does community work. Most of the gigs on Fortuna are close enough I can get it all done during the school day and watch the kids in the afternoons until she gets back. Might as well make dinner too, right? Kyrie usually ends up cooking on the weekends, but it changes as needed.”
While Nero explained in maybe too much detail about his everyday life, Vergil grabbed a stack of plates, one for each member of the household. Nero shot him a careful smile. Vergil had no idea how to use any of the instruments on the counter (the houses he broke into as a teen did not generally have instructions on how to use their appliances). Instead he grabbed a couple of mugs and a small pot for water.
“Oh,” Nero said, “Dante’s got one of those electric kettles if you want tea.” Vergil slowly put away the pot, looking to the device Nero gestured at.
Vergil had seen these before but had never used one. Still he walked over to it and inspected it. It had a jug portion that detached from the base. There was a button on the handle that opened the lid and a little lever on the base itself. Vergil assumed that lever was the power for the base. He plugged it into the wall socket seven or eight inches above the countertop and filled the jug with water. He flipped the lever, placed the jug on the base, and looked at Nero.
“Tea’s up there,” Nero said, pointing to a cabinet, instead of saying Vergil had done something wrong, so Vergil walked over to it.
“Dante never drank tea as a child,” Vergil said.
Nero raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s not a surprise. Patty likes having it as an option, so we keep a stock.”
“And Patty. . . lives here?” Vergil asked. He peered up at the containers of tea. He didn’t know any of the brands, but they had black tea bags, which would have to do. He grabbed one from the box.
“Just for right now,” Nero said, “she lives with her mom for most of the year with monthly visits, but she lives here in the summers.”
Vergil hummed and returned to his tea brewing. He watched as Nero turned off the heat and cut the thick omelet he made into four parts with his spatula. He grabbed two pieces of toasted bread and placed the omelet between them, wrapped it in a paper towel and placed it on a plate. He offered it to Vergil, who took it with a nod.
It was a good omelet. Vergil ate it as he finished making his tea and came to sit at the kitchen table. Nero joined him after a moment with his own steeping cup of tea. He put a sandwich in front of three other seats, though he didn’t take one for himself.
Nero instead grabbed a fruit from the center of the table, peeling it with careful motions. It had been a long time since Vergil had eaten an orange and the smell of it was sharp in the air. His mouth watered even as he took another bite of his sandwich.
Patty was down a minute later, wearing her own pajamas. They were fuzzy and bright pink with little white rainbow-maned unicorns on it. She went to the fridge, poured herself a glass of juice (apple, Vergil thought, based on the color), drank half of it in one go, refilled it to the top and sat in front of one of the sandwiches.
“Thank you, Nero,” she said sleepily as she dug in.
Nero nodded.
“Also hi, Vergil,” she said, “d’you like your room? I forgot to ask yesterday.”
“It was nice,” Vergil told her.
She smiled much more easily than Nero did. It seemed Nero, like Vergil himself, tended to keep a resting bitch face. “That’s good! Nero did the basic stuff like the furniture and the shelves, but he let me pick the colors of everything. And obviously I’m the one who found all the clothing. Dante and Nero don’t really care, but I tried really hard to get all high quality stuff for you, cuz Lady said you were a Victorian era bitch.”
“Why would you say that,” Lady rasped as she came through the door as well, her whole face screwed up against the sun coming through the open window, “he’s going to stab me again.”
“When have I ever stabbed you?” Vergil said. “It was Arkham who got you back then.”
Lady squinted at him.
“Who the fuck’s Arkham?” Nero asked.
Trish slipped into the room, looking far more awake than Patty or Lady by nature of not having to sleep. She wrapped her arms around Lady’s waist and steered her to the table. Lady sat, still squinting at Vergil, taking a frankly massive bite of her sandwich. Trish moved around the kitchen, making something.
“Vergil,” Nero said, switching targets, “who the fuck’s Arkham?”
“You people never tell us anything,” Patty sighed and rubbed at her eyes.
“Lady’s father,” Vergil said, “he also went by the name Jester. He was a clown.”
Lady snorted. “Sure was.”
“My apologies,” Vergil said, “I should have killed him when he first found me.”
“Fuck, imagine if you had,” Lady said, some of the vigilance slipping from her posture, “I’d really hate you then.”
Implying that she didn’t hate him now? That was an improvement over what Vergil had been expecting.
“If Patty wasn’t right there, I’d shoot you in the head,” Lady said conversationally, “for everything you’ve done to me and Dante. And Nero, to whatever extent he’s been affected by you not being there.”
Ah, there it was.
Lady most likely valued the exchange of information, so. . . “I’ll answer a question if you answer one of mine,” Vergil offered.
All four other people in the room looked interested. Even Trish, who was carefully not-looking at him the same way he was not-looking at her. Too much history, or lack thereof, between them.
“I’ll take you up on that,” Lady said and looked at the kids, “what do you kids want to hear? My questions can wait.”
Patty shrugged and Nero frowned down at his food. Trish returned to the table with two cups of coffee. She placed one in front of Lady and settled in front of the last sandwich.
“I want to know about my mother,” Nero said, glancing at Vergil before looking at Lady.
“You heard the kid,” Lady said, “anything and everything you’ve got on his mom.”
Vergil blinked once, twice, considering. “Her name was Morgan. She was a researcher in the Order headquarters. She had strict parents, which made her want everything they forbade her from having, which led her to me.”
“Morgan,” Nero echoed, eyes wide. Dante told Vergil that Nero grew up an orphan between bouts in Hell. Vergil suddenly regretted being unable to remember her family name.
“I do not believe she was the sort to give up a child,” Vergil told him, “one of her close friends grew up in a local orphanage and did not do well there.”
“So she’s probably dead, then,” Nero said quietly. He sighed. “I’ll ask Kyrie if she can dig something up. My mom - she just what, wanted to, you know? In exchange for research?”
“She wanted to show me off to her parents,” Vergil said, frowning as his head began to throb, “something about making them realize she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was only a year older than I was. Things only escalated after we got to know each other. I was only in Fortuna for about six months.”
“Why’d you leave?” Nero asked.
“Same reason I ever left a location,” Vergil said with as casual a shrug as possible, “Mundus found me.”
There was a thump from upstairs. Dante must be awake.
“He was hunting you?” Patty said, voice quiet. “That kinda sucks.”
Nero said nothing, frowning as he integrated the new information. Vergil wondered what other conclusions Nero was drawing from what Vergil had said.
“It did,” Vergil said, “Lady, my question to you is this: is Dante truly in your debt? If so, how much and how long will it take to pay it?”
Lady eyed him. Then she shook her head. “Dante’s not in debt to me. I put the money I get from him into a rainy day fund, basically. He’s - Dante’s got a lot of people depending on him. The money he’s got left over he tends to blow on pizza and sundaes and shit, so just in case the worst happens. . . rainy day fund.”
Vergil hadn’t even realized he was stressed about that until the relief hit him. He nodded to Lady and settled back in his chair. Dante joked a lot about his debt to Lady; Vergil assumed it was a problem. But a running joke between friends? That was fine. Normal, even.
He wondered who was depending on Dante, though. Dante had never mentioned anything like that.
--
What use did a daughter have for his legacy? She would make one of her own to pass to her own children. And this may as well be the crux of the matter. A daughter would grow to have no use for her father. Would grow to kill him when his time was up. But she would be merciful, wouldn’t she? If he loved her with all he was, maybe she would tell him she loved him one last time before she killed him.
A son wouldn’t do that. Sons weren’t raised to do that.
Vergil had not been raised to do that, he’d been raised to protect his mother and his baby brother (even though Dante was the baby by only a matter of minutes). And when he failed that, he raised himself to fight for his father’s power and legacy.
If Vergil needed to die, a daughter would handle it and finish the job. He didn’t think a son could do it. If he met his father once more, if his father begged for an end, if his father betrayed him, Vergil would not kill him. Dante might, but Vergil would not. A daughter might have the determination a son would not.
When Vergil’s strength ran out, he would wish for the daughter of his imagination to cut his throat herself. To smile sweetly and call him Papa and finish him.
--
“So, power, huh?” Nero said. He took the dish Vergil handed over. Patty had assigned him to help with the dishes after breakfast with a sly little look that had Vergil’s hackles raising. Not that he had those; his father was a bug, after all, not a dog.
“I will not accept a lecture on power from my own spawn,” Vergil said, stiffly. He continued with the simple, mechanical motions of cleaning the small amount of plates, cups, and mugs they had used for breakfast. The pan Nero used to cook had been cast iron, and would not need to be washed and seasoned so soon. Nero had already wiped it down.
“So you accept it,” Nero said and, when Vergil glanced over at him, continued, “that I’m your kid, I mean. You said you didn’t on the Qliphoth.”
“I didn’t answer then,” Vergil said, because he hadn’t.
“Are you gonna?” Nero said. He took the next plate, but didn’t dry it, turning to face Vergil head on. Like this, Vergil could see just how closely his son resembled him. He had always hoped that his child would resemble Morgan more, but. . . If nothing else, Vergil could see her in the thin curve of his lips and the shape of his eyebrows and the way his forehead creased. “Cuz I’m still waiting on your answer, old man.”
Vergil wasn’t really sure how to answer that. What exactly had it been that Nero asked during that fight? Are you feeling accepting yet?
Frankly, asking Vergil anything during battle wasn’t a great move. His default response was generally to deny having anything to do with the subject and maybe insult his opponent a bit. There was too much going on. His attention was split too many ways. He wouldn’t have answered that in a satisfying manner; though at this point, Vergil wasn’t really sure what his response had been, just that Nero had called him a fucking asshole in response.
“Who else’s son would you be?” Vergil asked, turning back to the plates. “You look like your mother.”
“I do?” Nero said, surprised. He automatically started drying the dish he’d been holding as he thought that over. “I didn’t. . . fuck. Isn’t there anything else you can tell me about her?”
“It has been a long time,” Vergil said, “take measures that no demon lord ever takes you captive, Nero.”
Dante had jokingly told Vergil his memory was like swiss cheese. Dante wasn’t exactly wrong, even though Vergil had stabbed him a couple times for the comment. Mundus had done a number on Vergil, obviously. As had Dante himself, and the solitary years Vergil spent dying slowly, the split between V and Urizen and their eventual inevitable reunification.
And, surprisingly, Vergil realized that he didn’t want Nero to come to harm the way Vergil had.
Nero was a full grown man. An adult with a family of his own. Fully functioning, without need for a father in his life. Vergil was purely decorational amongst Nero’s inner life. A father present just so Nero could say that he did, in fact, have one. Vergil wasn’t needed here the same way he wasn’t needed by Dante. Wanted, but not necessary.
All in all, there was no reason for Nero to care about what Vergil said or did. There was no reason a relationship between them needed to be built.
And despite all that, Vergil looked at this adult man, unconnected to him by anything other than shared blood and a single month of experience where they both were not entirely themselves, and found he did not want Nero to come to any harm. Not from Mundus, but also not from Vergil, either. Not from Dante or Lady or the hordes of demons. Vergil had wronged this young man a year ago. He did not wish to do so again.
“Oh,” Nero said and crossed the kitchen to put the dish with the rest. Vergil held out the other for him to take. “You were hunted. You wanted the power to protect yourself, huh?”
Vergil’s hands paused on the final plate.
It was not. . . untrue.
“I get it,” Nero said, drying the plate he’d taken from Vergil, “without strength, you can’t protect anything. Not even yourself.”
How cruel, to hear his own words to his brother echoed by his son.
Nero sighed, leaning back against the counter, frowning out across the empty kitchen. “That’s the fucking pits. I’m betting that’s how you ended up in Hell, right? And Patty sometimes mentions this Mallet place. . . maybe that was it? No, but she said it was right before she met him and Lady said you guys were all teenagers when you met. . .”
One day, Vergil might tell him the whole story. Or Nero would wrestle the information out of Dante.
“Ugh, whatever,” Nero said, and put away the plate, “I just wanted to say that I get it, ok? I was too weak during the Savior Incident. I couldn’t save Credo - he was basically my big brother, you know? My and Kyrie’s, both.”
Vergil forced himself to resume washing his dish. That was a familiar story. Dante had not told Vergil much about this Savior Incident that he caused in Fortuna, but to lose a brother due to weakness? That one, Vergil knew. How many times had he lost Dante to his own weakness?
“But y’know, getting maimed teaches you some shit,” Nero said, raising his right hand and wiggling it. He looked at it like it did not belong to him, despite it being the flesh colored human arm Vergil remembered from their fight on the Qliphoth. “Power’s pretty hard to come by. There’s strength in numbers, though. I know you’re my father and all, but uh. . . you need anything, you call me, ok? I’ll help. No questions asked.”
“Not even Dante would be foolish enough to offer me of all people that boon,” Vergil said, trying to ignore the way his insides squirmed at Nero’s words. He handed over the last plate and turned off the water.
“If Dante can be a stupid bitch at whatever age you assholes are,” Nero said, “then I get to be a stupid bitch every day till I reach that age.”
Vergil did not have anything to offer a son.
He had no legacy and no power, no gifts to give, no advice, no guidance. He had struggled to survive his entire life. There was no space in him to be what a son might want. He could not teach Nero to fight (he already knew that), could not explain the differences between demon lords (he already knew that too), could not protect him or take care of him (he was too old for that). He had no stories to tell. No games to play.
There was nothing in him to give. Vergil was a deeply boring person and the only thing of interest about him was the people who had hurt him.
But Nero wasn’t an imagined child, he was Vergil’s son, full grown and kinder than Vergil deserved.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Vergil said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the sink in a mimicry of how Nero had been leaning on the counter a minute ago. “You are not his son.”
Nero grinned then, the same way Morgan had grinned at Vergil when he pulled off some particularly clever response, and Vergil’s chest ached.
“Nah,” Nero said, almost smug as he put away the last dish in Dante’s cabinet, “I’m yours.”