Work Text:
“For you, padre .” Giorno has come home from school clutching a crumpled piece of paper in one of his little fists, a look of utmost concentration on his delicate features. Dio’s heart almost, almost wrenches - Giorno with sad eyes and worry pulling his mouth down reminds him of his own unpleasant childhood, and even though he has a pile of work a mile high on his desk he summons a smile for his son.
“What is it?” He asks, careful to make his tone gentle. Giorno has not been with him for long; there’s still a shadow of fear in the little boy’s careful demeanor that he hopes will one day dissipate entirely. He’s filled with anger whenever he thinks of his son unhappy. He wants to give Giorno the life he didn’t get to have. Giorno steps forward, unsteady, and Dio tries to smile.
When Dio had met Giorno, he had been struck by two things; how little the boy looked like him, and how much the boy looked like him. Alright, Giorno’s hair was inky black flopping over his eyes and it was difficult to acquaint Dio’s toned muscles to the scrap of boy clutching all of his earthly possessions in a battered ladybird-shaped backpack - but he had the same stately bearing and the same look and a sadness that Dio recognized all too well.
(He had tried to buy him a new backpack and had ended up buying an entire child-sized luggage set of ladybird themed goods, one of which was still on Giorno’s shoulders even now, red and black luggage tag dangling from it announcing that it belonged to Giorno Brando of Class 2A.)
“We did this,” Giorno says, “I did this about you.”
He takes one step forward, teeters, allows Dio to take the crumpled up piece of paper, and then turns tail and practically runs. Dio falters for a moment, unsure of whether he should run after the boy or not, but is eventually overwhelmed with curiosity and turns his attention to the gift his son had just given him.
Son. The word still feels hard to think about.
He unfolds it and he can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face.
Giorno’s handwriting is very round and careful, and Dio is dutifully impressed by his good spelling - not too impressed, though. He has Dio’s genes, after all.
The title of the worksheet is “Best Dad Ever”, and the middle of it has an illustration of a featureless blob that is probably intended to be humanoid in nature, that Giorno has helpfully drawn a shock of blonde hair and an unimpressed face onto, and labelled ‘Padre’, in case Dio couldn’t tell.
“His name is PADRE .He is so good at TAKING CARE OF ME . My favourite memory of him is THE FIRST TIME I MET HIM AND HE SAVED ME .”
Dio Brando is not getting choked up at a worksheet given to primary school children - he is a top lawyer in the most prestigious legal firm in the country and no matter how neat and careful Giorno’s handwriting is, or how adorable the mental image of his son’s face wracked with concentration as he makes sure that the thing he’s going to give his padre is as perfect as it can possibly be is, it would not be enough to make Dio Brando cry. He swallows and rubs at his eye. There must be dust in his study. He should get the cleaner to be more thorough.
“It made him laugh when I GOT MORE OF MY SPELLINGS RIGHT THAN JOLYNE .”
It makes him want to laugh again. Jotaro had looked pissed from across the playground - not that he’d been surprised. Those Brando genes were smart. Still, he’d bought Giorno the huge stuffed turtle that he’d seen him staring at the last time they’d gone out to the toy shop.
Beating Joestars deserved a reward, even if Giorno was too young to realize why.
***
Giorno’s bedroom has a bug shaped nightlight plugged into next to his bed, and it illuminates his serious face as his father enters the room.
He is so peaceful. Half asleep, hair tousled, the turtle tucked in tight next to him, Dio is hit with a pang of love he hasn’t felt since his mother died, and it takes Dio a minute to be able to say anything at all.
“Thank you, GioGio” he says, after a minute, and Giorno smiles. Dio wishes he smiled more.
His son holds out his arms for a hug and even though Dio has never been very good at physical contact or interacting with other people, he has enveloped the boy in his arms. He is not going to be like his father. He is not going to be like Gio’s mother. He is going to take care of Gio until he feels worthy of the neat looped handwriting that says that he saved his son.
“Happy Father’s Day, padre,” Giorno says, in his serious little voice.
Dio is good at words when it comes to his cases; he pins them down and rearranges them and has moved judges to tears. They do what he wants them to do. He’s good at words when it comes to scathing comments that tear into their intended victim’s hearts (especially if said victim has the surname Joestar). He is not good at having feelings.
He’s not sure anything he says to Gio could really express how grateful he is.
He just hugs his son tighter.