Chapter Text
When Antón Castillo set his mind to something, he got it.
As a child this had manifested in good marks in school and talent in various forms of art. When he was older, it became getting revenge on those that his brought his family down. It became winning the hearts of Yarans until he finally, eventually, won Yara herself.
And he did.
So when Antón Castillo met young Dani Rojas and the girl immediately ordered him out without a second thought, he set his mind on her. And he would get her.
She was everything he had been looking for.
He had asked Lopez to show him his favourite because he knew the man had a certain fondness for disobedience, just as he had had a fondness for Antón himself. He didn’t need an obedient lamb, he needed someone who would fight him but still learn from him, a lion just like himself.
And preferably a girl.
He had always believed women to be stronger in will than men, likely due to his mother. And Yara was more than past due to be ruled by a woman.
Dani had checked all those boxes. She ordered him out of her room, but when he returned she had been happy, if wary, to talk to him about cars when she realized he might have information she didn’t know. She was the best potential heir he could have asked for, and all he had needed to do was just ask.
If only he had considered asking sooner. Babies were difficult, but to have adopted her when she was five or six would have been even better if only because it would be easier to pass her off as his own. That was fine, he had a plan in place anyway.
In fact, he had a multitude of plans in place. He had his mind set on Dani as his heir, but María had been right in that it was foolish to have his options so slim. In the very least, he had loved his sister while she was alive. Dani deserved the experience of a younger sibling, and Antón didn’t plan to die to cause all the problems that had occurred between him and Valeria.
His heart ached for a moment as he thought of his sister before forcing himself to brush the thought away. It wasn’t time for that.
Not that it was up to him if he died or not. Edgar has guaranteed him only five years, that was why he was looking to Dani before any child that actually carried Castillo blood.
“Thank you once again, María,” He said as he slipped from the bed, his joints creaking in a rather annoying way.
“You won’t linger for even a moment?” The woman rose an eyebrow as she laid back on his pillows. There was no love between them, not of the typical kind at least. But they were good friends, he wouldn’t have taken her offer to bear his child if they weren’t.
“No, no. I have things to attend to.” He grabbed his more nondescript clothing from his closet, humming as he headed into the attached bathroom to clean up. “Feel free to linger, though.”
When he stepped out of the shower, he found María had taken his offer. He spared only a glance to the woman asleep on his bed as he gathered his things--his wallet, a favourite pen, a notebook, and a box from upon his desk--and left.
There was a certain kind of ease in the way he did the practiced journey to Esperanza School for the Lost, now that he had been there so many times. A boat that took him to the mainland, and a car--not his usual, sadly, but it was too notable--he used as he drove himself to the orphanage.
It was a particularly chilly day, but that was expected based on the fact that it was late December. Antón just counted himself lucky that the seasonally uncharacteristic three days of rain had finally lessened up for that day’s visit.
He walked through the side door and made his way up to Dani’s bedroom. Her grounding had ended shortly before Christmas, only to have been reinstated a few days ago on the holiday when she got into a fight with one of the older boys in the orphanage.
“I heard you won your fight.” He said as he walked into the room, the box he carried tucked securely under his arm.
Dani scoffed without looking up from her notebook. “Obviously.” She scribbled a few more lines of what looked like basic math before looking up at him. “Hi, I guess.”
His lips twitched upward. “Winning fights is never a guarantee. Someone weaker, slower, less intelligent, can always win if you underestimate them or they have a bit of luck.” He took his spot on the second chair that had been dragged into her room on his fourth ever visit when she had been already sitting at her desk when he entered.
The girl’s gaze was piercing, reminding him almost of Valeria’s on those occasions when his sister took offence to something he said or did. “I don’t lose. Ever.”
“No?” Antón rose an eyebrow, picking up a small figure made of scrap metal parts twisted together. It looked almost like a bird. “You’ve never lost a baseball game? Never failed a test.”
Her stare was still on him as she clutched her pencil. “Never anything that really mattered. I can’t account for everyone else playing in the game, but if I try hard enough I will always win what I’m doing. If I try, I always pass that test. I fix whatever stupid machine is broken. I win whatever fight I get into because every time they knock me down I get back up and when I knock them down I don’t let them get back up and I--”
Antón looked at the pencil snapped in her palm with mild curiosity. “I admire your determination, Dani.”
She rolled her eyes at him and tossed the broken pencil in a plastic bin also on the desk, filled with other stationary. “Adults only say stuff like that when they’re lying. It’s like when my teachers say that I have a lot of energy but are really just pissed that I won’t stay in my desk.”
He frowned, looking down at the box before nudging it toward her. “I believe you should open this now. Just take out what’s on the top layer.”
Dani gave him a puzzled look as she took the box, struggling to undo the bow on top. He had a knife with him, of course, but he didn’t offer to cut it for her. It was an odd habit he had noticed of hers, choosing always to undo a knot or tangle rather than taking an easier route that would leave the material unusable afterward. He had no doubt that the simple ribbon holding the box closed would be used in something else she made later. When she finally undid it and threw it into her box of assorted machine parts and the like, her confusion only grew as she pulled out the first item within, the objects beneath hidden by tissue paper.
“I thought perhaps we could share them.” He said, looking at the box of buñuelos. Sadly they were lacking their usual caramel, but he figured that wouldn’t be good for eating with their hands. “One thing I will say before we eat though. I don’t like lies ever, but especially not while eating. A little quirk I picked up from my mother.”
Dani picked up one of the figure eights, examining it. “No lies?”
“None.”
“From you either?”
“Of course not.” He took a bite of a buñuelo, smiling slightly. They always had been a favourite of his. “I have never lied to you, Dani. I’ll admit I haven’t always been entirely truthful, but nothing I have said has been a lie.”
She looked skeptical but nodded, eating the fried treat in her hands. “It’s good.” The quiet lingered for a moment as they both ate, but as he expected it didn’t last long. “So... what is this?”
It was obvious she was talking about the box, still half full even with the container of desserts laying on her desk now.
“A Christmas present.”
“A... Christmas present?” Dani narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”
He let out a slow sigh. “I thought that was the type of thing I was supposed to do, no?”
Dani scrunched up her face. “I... dunno. Normally parents give gifts to children, but I guess Señor Lopez gave us all gifts for Christmas too and we give each other gifts if we can. I gave Lita a little mechanical bird I made--it even flies around.”
He wondered if the bird on her desk was a prototype. “Very impressive.”
“I guess.” She shrugged. “And I guess it makes sense for you to give me a gift. You’re rich anyway.”
He laughed quietly. It was odd how Dani seemed to recognize the nature of their relationship yet lied to even herself to avoid facing it. Her fear of being adopted intrigued him. “I am rich, yes. Would you like to finish opening it now?”
She glanced at it once more then nodded. He knew she was curious, and yet she still took care to not rip any of the tissue paper as she took out the one other small box inside before pulling out the three books that sat at the bottom.
She carefully folded the tissue paper and put it back into the box before placing it on the ground beside her. “What do you do for your job anyway? You said you used to be a mechanic, but mechanics don’t get rich. Not like you, you wear silk and gold jewelry.”
“I’m a politician.” He watched as she examined the books--one on the history of Yara, one on the mechanics and construction of planes, and one on the mechanics and construction of ships. “Though, much of the gold I wear is actually hereditary.”
Dani looked up at him with her lips pressed together. “People who inherit jewelry don’t work as mechanics. Ever.”
“They do when the Revolution-- ah, nevermind.” He waved a hand, sighing. “I promised no lies, but it is a tough topic. I don’t want to get into it.” That, and avoiding the topic of his family entirely helped to avoid lying while also avoiding who he truly was.
He had claim to the last name Rodríguez from his mother, but it wouldn’t do to tell her quite yet that he was a Castillo, even if he was already quite sure he wanted to adopt her. He didn’t want any of the other children knowing El Presidente was looking to adopt her.
If he had it his way, the only people who would ever know Dani was adopted once it was said and done were her, himself, and Lopez. Yara put a lot of stock behind bloodline, and adoption outside of your family was almost nonexistent. Realistically the only way Dani would have ever been adopted was by some foreigner, looking to “save the poor babies” from Yara itself.
Hypocrites.
Dani actually smiled at him and nodded. “Family’s hard for a lot of us so... I get it. Some of ‘em actually remember their families. Lita actually had a big brother but, hey, too many mouths to feed so they had to give one up.”
There were... many things to address in her statement. What kind of loyalty did that boy have to his family that he let his parents give up his sister? What kind of loyalty did the parents have? But he asked none of those questions. “Lita?”
“One of my friends.” Dani was still smiling. She had a good smile, if not the picture perfect smile that he had been taught as a child. In the very least her teeth were straight, so the fact that her smile showed them wouldn’t be much of an issue. “Her and Alejo--he’s another orphan. He was left here when he was five--are my best friends.”
The fact that she had best friends was... problematic. Could he trust her to not tell them she was being adopted?
Perhaps. He had been planning to adopt her in January, but it was now looking like he would need to wait a little bit longer, just to make sure he could set everything up just as he wanted it.
“I see.”
At least Dani didn’t seem to notice his mood. No, she was too focused on opening the small box that held her final gift, her tongue peaking out through the corner of her mouth.
“Oh.” Clearly she recognized the device as she pulled it from the box, her eyebrows pushed together. Likely she was wrestling with gratitude for it and the odd sort of discomfort one tended to have when receiving a gift they didn’t think they deserved. Hopefully his wealth would assuage any doubts in her mind.
“I recognize you have no way to load it with music on your own, so I’ve taken the liberty of putting a variety on it.” And when he said a variety, he did mean a variety. There was of course his mothers music and some other jazz. There was also some classical pieces, some blues, some classic rock.
And, after a couple moments of consideration because it was a gift after all, he had gotten a younger soldier to help him choose music that she was more likely to like. Rap and pop from the likes of Eminem and Britney Spears had also been loaded onto the music player, though he found it wasn’t quite to his tastes when he gave it a listen.
“Thank you.” Dani said eventually as she unpackaged the included headphones, rubbing the plastic cords between two of her fingers. She didn’t meet his eyes, but he didn’t particularly care.
“Of course. I believe music is one of the most important things in the world.” He reached out to place a gentle hand on her shoulder and gave one squeeze before letting the hand fall.
The silence was heavy and not particularly comfortable as he popped another buñuelo in his mouth. Still, he didn’t talk. Sometimes, silence was meant to be uncomfortable. Sometimes, it wasn’t meant to be broken.
And sometimes, silence was meant to remain only until the ten year old girl you were looking to adopt let out a shaky breath and looked at you. “I don’t understand you, Antón.”
“In many ways I do not understand myself either. But I think perhaps if anyone is to understand me, it would be you, Dani.” He smiled gently at her. “We are quite alike, I think.”
And it wasn’t a lie. Dani’s drive was much like his own. Her distrust of him, even, was much like the distrust that had become his base state following his father’s death. She was strong and she was a lion.
Just like him.
“No lies?”
“No lies.” His hand came to rest on her shoulder again and this time she leaned into it slightly.
He didn’t let it fall even as Dani opened up one of the books he gave her, beginning to read it.
When Antón left it was only because Lopez had come to fetch Dani for dinner.
“Will you be here when I get back?”
“No. But I will be back in a few days, maybe a week. My schedule is uncertain at the moment.”
“Alright. Goodbye, Antón.”
“Goodbye, Dani.”