Work Text:
Her father gives her a camera for her eleventh birthday. It's an absented-minded gift, something that says I know you're there, but I don't know who you are. He has a puzzled look on his face when he sets the gift in her hands, and the handwriting that says "To Bianchi" is his right-hand man's. She kisses his cheek, tears open the paper, and says thank you, breathless and trying not to cry, because he hasn't remembered her birthday since Hayato's mother died and his world died with her.
That night, she sits on her bed and fiddles with the camera, too desperate for anything to throw it away, but too angry to use it. When she goes to bed, she shoves it to the back of her bedside drawer, and pulls the sheets over her head, until the air is stiffled and hot, and she falls asleep, eleven years old and feeling too young.
x
He comes a few months later, tall and thin and with his suit jacket unbuttoned. He's jaunty and new, and she sits at the top of the stairs, watching him. He takes up the entry hall, makes the house feel too small, and when he glances up at her, sharp eyes, she holds her breath, feels giddy and small.
"Bianchi," her father calls a few minutes later, when he's making greetings, "come say hello." She clamors down the stairs, dragging Hayato along behind her, his hand in her sweaty one, and she says hello, yanks Hayato until Hayato says hello, too.
"Hello," the man says, and he's already turning away, and Bianchi trails along behind all the men, pulling Hayato with her, because she wants to watch, wants to see.
"Reborn will be staying here for a few months," Pietro says when he spots her in an open doorway. "Don't follow him the whole time."
"I won't," Bianchi lies, and when Pietro catches her still there, she runs, leaving Hayato behind, crying in the doorway.
x
She takes the camera out a few days later, looks it over critically. It will do, she decides, and she runs down the stairs, searches until she finds Bernardino.
"Here," she says, shoving the camera into his hands. He laughs, and bends down until his head is touching hers, and he shows her how to put the film in, snapping it into place. She listens as he tells her how to be careful, don't let the sunlight hit the film. Then he shows her how to take off the lense cover, how to point and shoot.
"Bring it back," he says, "and I'll take care of your pictures." She nods as she takes the camera back, and then she runs out the door, looking for Reborn.
x
"It's not your real name, is it?" she asks. She's sitting on the edge of a fountain, her toes nearly reaching the gravel. It's hot, the summer sun too bright, and she wants to go swimming. Reborn's in the garden, though, sprawled over a bench with a newspaper in his hands, and so she's in the garden, too, sitting as close to the fountain's spray as she can.
"No," he says after a moment, and the newspaper rustles, a page slowly moving from one side to another. Bianchi fiddles with the camera in her hand, then says, "can I take your picture?"
The newspaper lowers, and his eyes look sharper than before, and she clenches her hands on her camera, curling her toes up against the fountain's marble.
"If you want," he says after a long silence, and Bianchi fumbles with her camera before she can lift it, holding it steady just long enough to snap a picture.
She doesn't wait to say thank you, running as soon as the camera's shutters click. She tosses the camera onto her bed, and pulls over her damp shirt and trousers, and pulls on her swimsuit to go swimming. It's too hot, and her hands are sweaty.
x
"This it?" Bernardino asks, and Bianchi nods, hopping up to sit on the table. It's an old office, down the hallway from her father's, and Bernardino's pulled the drapes closed, spun a new light-bulb into the socket overhead. Bianchi had written dark room on a piece of paper, and Bernardino had taped it on the door, and now it's just the two of them, Bernardino whistling through his teeth as he shuffles from one end of the long table to the other, moving long pieces of film.
"Look," he says after a while, and she leans over, watches as Reborn's face slowly fills the tub. His face looks wavy, like seaweed in the ocean, and Bianchi stares, and watches, as one picture, and another, and another, are hung up, all of Reborn, standing and sitting and turning away, in the garden and the hallway and on the long gravel road leading up to the house, sharp eyes and thin mouth.
"Bianchi," Bernardino says, and Bianchi throws herself from the table. There's a crash, the sound of water splashing over the floor, and Bernardino's cursing as she throws the door open, running down the hallway to the staircase.
x
"Say goodbye, Bianchi," her father says. Hayato's already standing by his side, and Bianchi slowly shuffles forward, gives a sullen goodbye as she stares at the tile beneath Reborn's feet.
"Your daughter," Reborn says, and when Bianchi looks up, his eyes are sharp, "will be very pretty when she grows up, won't she?"
"She takes after her mother," her father says, and his hand is heavy and warm on her shoulder, and she lets herself lean closer, looking back at the tile underfoot.
Reborn leaves with his suit jacket carried under an arm, his hands in his pockets, his elbows turned out. His steps are jaunty, like the tilt of his head, and Bianchi throws herself into a chair on the other side of her father's desk, the skirt of her sundress pale against the black leather.
"It's for the best, Bianchi," her father says, but his eyes are already turned down to the papers, like he's forgotten she's there. She sits in the chair, leather hot and sticky on her legs, and when he leaves the office, she jumps up and follows him, grabbing his hand. His hand is sweaty in hers, and his grip is loose, and she holds on tighter and tighter until he stops, and looks down at her, and grips back.