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Bruno wakes up to sterile white walls and the faint scent of astilbe flowers.
The white walls don’t surprise him. Lately, he’s woken up in the same tiny Italian hospital more often than not, to the point where most of the nurses know him by name and cheerfully greet him in the morning the same way the old ladies in Napoli used to affectionately call out to him on the streets. It’s a strange feeling, being doted on like he’s a precocious child rather than a fully grown stranger who occasionally stumbles in bleeding from various wounds and on the verge of passing out in a way that would make anyone else suspicious, but Bruno can’t say he hates it. On the days when his loneliness becomes a little too much to bear, he’d even say he appreciates it more than they know, even if he knows he shouldn’t be taking advantage of their kindness like that.
The flowers, however, confuse his sleep-muddled brain. As compassionate as the nurses are, most of them need the money for their own families and definitely couldn’t afford spending a large chunk of their paycheck on a bouquet just to wish him well. Similarly, the few people Bruno risks associating with these days keep to themselves so deeply that he’s fairly certain they wouldn’t care if he ended up dying in the hospital, let alone worry about him enough to send him flowers. Both he and the other parties always make it very clear that their exchanges of information are purely for business with no emotional attachments, and Bruno prefers it that way.
He forces his eyes completely open, squinting against the sun’s rays pouring in from the window and illuminating the small, bare room. He’s alone, and there’s no sound of footsteps coming from the hallway - the nurses must be eating breakfast. Bruno gingerly sits up, wincing as every slight shift in position causes the bruises on his body to ache with renewed intensity, and looks over to the small white table at his bedside where a tall glass vase filled with red, pink, and white astilbes sits as if it’s always been there.
Except Bruno’s always been placed in this same hospital room, ever since he mentioned one day that he didn’t like heights but enjoyed the seaside view, so he knows there’s never been any sort of floral room decor. He doesn’t think the hospital would consider buying fresh flowers just to brighten up the place, either.
He ponders this mystery for several minutes, until a nurse strides into his room with a tray of assorted mini pastries and a mug of steaming caffé latte. Bruno gratefully accepts it, and while she’s checking over the state of his injuries, he asks, “Where did those flowers come from?”
To his surprise, the nurse beams. “They’re from the gentleman who brought you in last night. He was terribly worried about you, but he was fretting over you so much that we had no choice but to kick him out of the room. We thought he’d left for the night, but he returned thirty minutes later with those.” She nods at the flowers, her smile widening. “He did leave for good after that, but made us promise that we wouldn’t let you leave until he came back to see you today and make sure you were okay.”
This revelation brings up more questions than answers. Sometimes Bruno’s memories after a particularly bad night are foggy, and today seems to be no different as he can’t recall the events she described at all. He doesn’t remember seeing a man, and he can’t even recall the details of the mission that presumably led him to meeting said man. He assumes from the collection of scratches and bruises littering his body that he’d gotten involved in the usual fight, but what happened after that? Did he pass out? And if so, why did the man bother taking the time to bring him to the hospital instead of just killing him?
Before Bruno can ask if she could tell him about the man’s appearance to jog his memories, and subsequently make a quick escape from the hospital if necessary, another nurse pokes her head into the room. “Your saviour is back, Buccellati,” she says brightly. “He’ll be here in just a moment.”
Bruno’s lips twist in irony at the word saviour, but he nods in acknowledgement. The two nurses exchange a look he can’t read, and the one checking on him steps back. “You’ll be fine,” she pronounces. “You’re free to leave whenever you’re ready. However, please do be more careful in the future, Buccellati. As lovely as it is to see you, I wish you wouldn’t get hurt so often. We’re all worried about you.”
“I’ll do my best,” Bruno says, even though he’s aware they know he’s lying through his teeth. It’s not the first time the nurses have told him off for getting injured so often, and every time he does his best to reassure them, but by this point it’s an empty gesture. They may not know what, exactly, he does that gets him injured so often, but he’s pretty sure they have a good idea even though he’s done his best to hide most of the facts from them.
The nurses smile back at him anyway, inadvertently making the guilt in Bruno’s chest sink its claws in a little further, and they leave the room. Their sudden absence reminds Bruno of the impending visit by the mystery man, and he eyes the doorway. There’s more than enough time for him to escape using Sticky Finger’s portal if he needs to, but he’s curious about what the man wants with him first. His wounds from last night are still fresh, but Bruno’s fought under much worse conditions before and still managed to come out alive. If the man really is trying to capture him for information, he’s confident he can overpower him long enough to flee.
Footsteps sound from the hallway, too heavy to be any of the nurses, and Bruno stiffens. The room is almost empty, with basically nothing he can use as a potential weapon. He sets aside his breakfast tray and picks up his mug, wondering how many seconds it would buy him if he were to throw it in the man’s face, and clutches the handle as the footsteps stop outside his room. Whoever it is hesitates for several long seconds before finally walking in, and Bruno looks up.
And -
Bruno’s long since learned to shut off his emotions, to keep his private feelings close to his chest and not let anything interfere with the work he does. His hands are permanently stained by the dirty work he’s willingly undertaken, and all the friends who used to - who still do - mean so much to him are better off without him occupying a close place in their lives, regardless of his lingering attachments to them. He still believes this wholeheartedly.
But at the sight of Leone Abbachio standing in his doorway, framed by the sunlight and looking just as beautiful as he did the day Bruno walked out of his life, it feels like his heart starts to beat again.
“Leone?” he says hoarsely.
Leone’s eyes flicker down to his mug of caffé latte, which Bruno belatedly realizes he’s still gripping as if preparing to toss it at a moment’s notice. “Buccellati,” he says, voice tight. "It's been a while."
Bruno lets out a mirthless chuckle. “It has, hasn't it."
A tense, uncomfortable silence descends between them. Bruno carefully sets down the mug and contemplates summoning Sticky Fingers and escaping after all, but unless Leone’s combat skills have undergone a sharp decline since they defeated Diavolo, there’s no way he wouldn’t be fast enough to stop him. If what the nurse said about Leone ensuring he had the opportunity to speak with Bruno was true, then clearly he has something important to say to him before he goes. Bruno, at the very least, owes it to him to listen to it - even if he already knows he's not going to like it.
In a desperate attempt to break the frigid waves emanating from Leone, Bruno asks, "You wouldn’t have happened to see who beat me, did you?”
Leone's gaze snaps to his, his cold expression melting into confusion. "What?"
"I passed out after the fight, right? I don't remember much, but I'm assuming from these -" he gestures at the myriad of bruises on his body - "that I must’ve gotten beat pretty badly.” Bruno hasn’t been in this much pain for a while, after all. He’s almost embarrassed that Leone had to see him in this state. “Did you find me afterwards?"
If anything, Leone looks even more bewildered after Bruno's explanation. He steps further into the room, pausing briefly before taking a seat in the small plastic chair set beside Bruno's hospital bed and shoving the chair closer, its legs squeaking loudly against the linoleum. "Buccellati," he says evenly. "Do you not remember anything?"
"I…" He trails off and admits, "No, I don't. Sorry."
Somehow, Leone manages to look unsurprised and horrified at the same time. It’s a little surprising that even after all these years, Bruno is still able to read him, can still discern the slightest shift in expression from a man who'd been too used to suppressing his emotions and had to be delicately coaxed into being honest around him and the kids. If not for the fact that Bruno is now the least qualified person to talk to anyone about being honest with one's feelings, he would feel happier about this evidence of his once-close relationship with Leone, as flimsy as the proof might be.
It’s hard to feel happy about this fact when Leone’s staring at him like he might not know him at all.
“There was no fight,” Leone says slowly. “You were walking in the middle of the road, and I didn’t see you until the last second and hit you with my car.”
“Oh.” Bruno racks his memory, but he genuinely cannot remember anything beyond leaving his safehouse that morning to fulfill his mission. “I see.”
“You really don’t remember it all?”
“No, sorr -”
“Stop apologizing,” Leone bites out. “It wasn’t - it’s better if you don’t remember it anyway.” His eyes narrow. “I’d like to know one thing, though: how long have you been having gaps in your memory like this?”
Bruno has to suppress a wry smile. Leone always was good at seeing through him, at cutting to the crux of the things that mattered. “About a year,” he admits. “It’s not too bad, since I usually don’t forget a lot - just a couple of hours here and there. So far, it hasn’t impaired me in my work, so I’m not too worried about it.”
“That sounds like something you should be more worried about. No one suddenly starts having memory gaps for no reason at your age.”
Bruno shrugs. “Someone I spoke to said it might be a side effect of overusing my Stand, but as long as it doesn’t put my life in danger, I’m okay with that.”
“If it’s a side effect of Stand overuse,” says Leone, looking at him like Bruno’s a particularly dense toddler, “why don’t you just stop using your Stand for a while?”
“I can’t. I need it to -”
“Need it to do what?” For the first time since their conversation started, Leone’s placid tone cracks and a hint of real fury creeps into his voice. “For your work, you said? What work? Just what have you been doing since you quit the mafia five years ago, Buccellati?”
Bruno looks at him. Leone’s hands are clenched in his sheets, nails digging into the fabric, and there’s a fierce scowl on his face, but he still looks miles better than he did the day Bruno first met him in that rainy alley and invited him to join him. He doesn’t know if it’s because of his own influence, or if he even made the right choice that day in dragging Leone into the dirty underworld of Passione, but he’s glad Leone is satisfied with his life now, fitting into the skin of a gangster despite the dangers the role posed even before the events with Diavolo. He can’t upset that balance - not if it could put Leone and the others at risk, not after everything he’s already done to them.
He sighs. “I can’t tell you that.”
The scowl on Leone’s face deepens. “Yes, you can.”
“No, I -”
“I know that expression,” Leone growls, thrusting a finger in his face. “You think I don’t know what you look like when you start deluding yourself into thinking you have to protect others from the self-sacrificing bullshit you pull all the time? Just because I haven’t seen your face in years doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten your entire personality.”
Bruno bites his lip. “I’m no longer a member of Passione. My current job isn’t any of your business.”
“If I were just an ordinary gangster of Passione, sure,” says Leone, his voice rising. “Then I wouldn’t give a damn about what you’ve been up to. But are you really going to sit there and pretend we don’t have history together? After Giorno and the others spent months searching for you when you disappeared? After I never gave up hope that you’d eventually come back to us, even though it’s now abundantly clear the thought never crossed your mind? Are we worth that little to you now?”
The words hit Bruno like a slap in the face, and he reels back. “That’s not - I’m not pretending the past never happened, Leone, I’m doing this to protect all of you -”
“So you admit you’re only hiding to protect us!”
“Of course I would!” Bruno snaps. “You were all my comrades - my friends! You trusted me enough to follow my lead, and I almost got you all killed because we underestimated Diavolo! Do you think I want to put you guys in danger again, when I already failed you once? When I’d only be a burden to you now? Just because I’m no longer fit to be a capo doesn’t mean I stopped caring about what happens to you guys!”
Leone stares at him, and Bruno’s suddenly made aware that at some point he’d grabbed Leone’s wrist, tight enough to feel Leone’s pulse beat against his palm. Face flushing, he’s about to let go when Leone twists his arm and grasps at Bruno’s own wrist in a mirrored pose.
“No one ever thought, not for one second, that you stopped caring about us, Bruno,” he says quietly. “We all know you’re far too kind for that to ever happen, no matter how far away you try to run.”
Bruno tries to smile, but fails miserably. “You don’t know that for sure. I’ve - I’ll admit this much: I’ve done some pretty terrible things, Leone. Who knows what kind of person I’ll end up being in the future. I’m not the same as I was before, and I won’t be facing the same fate I would have then.”
“Is that what you really think?” A sharp, bitter laugh escapes Leone. “Give us a little more credit. The years we spent together working as a team weren’t a waste. We know you better than you think. Sure, we don’t know what you’ve gone through since you left, and you didn’t have to outright tell me it wasn’t pretty for me to figure that much out myself. But the fact that you’re choosing to carry your burdens alone when you still have a team waiting for you is all the proof I need to know that you’re the same softhearted fool at heart, capo or not. I doubt that part of you will ever change.”
A sob threatens to tear its way out of his throat, and Bruno, startled, chokes it down. “I didn’t - I still love you guys, of course I do, but you weren’t - I wanted you to forget about me -”
“Yeah, we figured that part out when you ran off without a word,” Leone says dryly. “But you’ve never been the kind of person someone could just forget. I don’t know if you realize just how much of an impact you’ve made on all of our lives. None of us blame you for what happened with Diavolo - we knew what we were signing up for when we followed you into Passione.”
“...I know. I know no one blamed me. But I would’ve deserved it, if you did.” Bruno lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I blamed myself enough for all of you. I still cared, but I needed to leave. I would’ve broken down otherwise. And I knew none of you would have let me go, if you knew what I was planning to do. Especially you and Giorno.”
Leone snorts. “Maybe,” he says, which is likely as good as Bruno is going to get to an agreement. “Regardless of what you want us to think, none of us actually hate you, so if you’ve been voluntarily putting yourself in danger all this time, I doubt we’ll ever let you leave our sight again. I’d watch you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, if that’s what it took to keep you safe. Even if you think you’d only be a burden, or that you no longer have the right to work alongside us, we still want you back because you’re still Bruno.”
“You might not be saying these things if you knew the truth.”
Leone’s grip on his wrist tightens ever so slightly. “But then you can’t know for sure unless you come back and tell us, right?”
Bruno hesitates. Leone’s gaze stays fixed on him, firm, patient, unyielding. He doesn’t deserve Leone’s trust, not after all he’s done, but...if there’s the smallest chance that his former allies won’t be furious with him if they learn the things he’s done to keep them safe, that they’d somehow welcome him back, scars and all, even after all he’d inflicted on them in the past because of his own stupidity...is he brave enough to take that chance, to believe they’d accept him once more?
He doesn’t know. Bruno hasn’t thought of himself as brave for a long, long time. But he knows what the old Bruno - the one that Leone seems to believe still exists, somewhere deep inside him - would have done.
“I can’t return right away,” he says finally. “I have some loose ends to tie up, so to speak. But when I’m done, I’ll come back. I’ll explain everything. I promise.”
Leone nods, releasing his hand and standing up. “Okay.”
“I - huh?” Suddenly, his wrist feels cold without Leone’s touch. “You’re okay with it? Just like that?”
“Why not?”
“I could run away again. I could take this opportunity to make sure none of you ever find me, for good this time.”
“You won’t,” Leone says clearly, without an ounce of doubt in his voice. “You’ve never broken a promise before, and like I said - you haven’t changed as much as you think. I trusted the Bruno that welcomed a stranger into his team, and I trusted the Bruno that allowed me the privilege of fighting alongside him, and I trust you now.”
Bruno swallows down his instinct to reply you shouldn’t. That will certainly take more than a bit of time to unlearn. What would the old Bruno have done, he reminds himself. “Thank you, Leone.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that.”
“In that case…” Bruno glances out the window. The sun is still shining as brightly as it was earlier, and when he strains his ears, he can make out the sound of children’s laughter in the distance. “...thank you for the astilbes.”
He doesn’t need to turn back to know Leone’s smiling.