Work Text:
When they bring Baby 5 home for the first time, she gets a bath first thing. Doflamingo can't stand filth, and filthy children in particular make him sick. None of the family comment on it, but he knows they've seen the way he'll sometimes freeze up at the sight of a particularly dirty street urchin. Many of them end up coming home with the family, like the one today.
Doffy bathes Baby 5 himself, and as he's drying her off, asks her a question.
"When we found you, you were wandering the town asking if there was anything you could do to be useful. Why is that?"
The girl's answer is simple, and it amounts to "if you're not useful, then people will throw you away."
Doffy doesn't contradict her. He doesn't tell her 'you're family now, I will never throw you away.'
Why would he?
Why would he tell her something that she won't believe? Why would he contradict the evidence of her own senses, and the life she's lived?
What a cruel thing to do, to tell someone something that they know isn't true. What a terrible way to try to reassure a broken child– by breaking their worldview even more.
Instead he smiles at her, knelt down in front of her with his hands on her shoulders as he dries her off with a big, fluffy towel. It's probably the softest thing that's ever touched her skin so far in her life.
"You will always be useful to me, Baby 5. We'll make sure of it. Promise."
She smiles for the first time since they brought her home, and Doflamingo knows he said the right thing.