Chapter Text
Doflamingo waited until the ship was out of sight before he threaded his way back around to Punk Hazard and landed near the wreckage of the lab. He wasn't in a hurry. He didn't expect to find anyone alive. Fury and grief were the bitter pills that sat on his tongue as he made his way inside.
He found Monet first, slumped against the remains of the tank in plain view and he held her limp, lifeless body in his arms, cradling her and stroking her hair like he had when she was just a child. Had she thought she had failed him in her final moments? It could never be true. He had failed her. He had failed her and there was no way to make it right.
For Vergo, he had to pick through debris, sorting through the wreckage with his bare hands like he had once picked through garbage looking for food.
He found an arm first, neatly and bloodlessly severed. The cold rage that shot through his body and the realization of who had done it stopped him completely for a long moment as he clutched Vergo's arm to his chest, shaking and taking shuddering breaths.
Vergo. Oldest. Dearest. Truest. First corazon. Brother of his heart. Truer brother than blood had ever been.
Scattered into pieces and thrown away like trash.
Doflamingo kept digging until he had found every part. He wouldn't leave even a scrap of him behind. Doffy bit his tongue until he tasted blood when he saw that even Vergo's face had been cut apart.
Sentimental, he arranged the bloodless pieces on a clear stretch of the laboratory floor and watched them recombine through the Op Op fruit's ridiculous power.
He lay his head on Vergo's reassembled chest and made a keening noise.
He didn't expect to hear a heartbeat.
And when Vergo sucked in a raw, ragged breath of air, Doflamingo wrapped his arms around him and wept with shock and relief.