Chapter Text
“May I ask you a question, Bucciarati?” The man in question looked up from the carpet he was hunched over, very carefully cleaning the droplets of fresh blood splatter. He huffed and straightened up, very willing to shift his attention elsewhere for a moment. The boy he looked at was Fugo, who had just finished bandaging up the unconscious interrogation victim the pair had been working on. Bruno noticed that his hands were shaking, just a bit. ‘He must not have expected this job to go south… poor thing’, Bruno thought. He stood and took a long stride towards Fugo, reaching out to take the bandage and scissors out of the boy’s hands. “Of course. What’s on your mind?” He asked, gesturing towards the unused and surprisingly untainted bed of the hotel room. Fugo sat and stared into his lap. It took him a few tries to get the words out. His mouth opened, though no words would come out, so he closed it again. “We’re safe here, Fugo. I promise. We have time.”
Those words of encouragement seemed to do their job, as after a long self-soothing sigh, Fugo spoke up. “I dare not ask how long, but I know you’ve been in this… business for a long time. Have you ever been caught… back when you were new? When you were nobody?” Bruno’s eyes widened, his lips pursed, and his brows furrowed. “That depends on what you mean by ‘caught’,” Bruno began, turning to go back to cleaning while he spoke. Fugo’s breathing sped up, making Bruno wince. Back on the ground, he opened his mouth, ready to spout some sort of motivation speech as he went along.
“I’ve been walked in on during some… unsavory activities more times than I’d like to count. But, almost all normal civilians are used to this sort of thing. Even back when no one knew my name, they knew to turn around and keep their heads down. You’ll get the same respect.” He started as he returned to blotting in the vinegar solution on the carpet stains. Fugo nodded, though hummed in acknowledgement when he realized Bruno wouldn’t have seen that. “That sort of thing happens pretty often when you’re new. You get reckless and overconfident, so you mess up. It’s expected. Not just being in the mafia, but with any profession. You’re bound to mess up one day for one reason or another.
“But, if you’re asking if I’ve been arrested…” He paused, and Fugo held his breath. It came as a shock to the blonde when he saw a wide, fond smile spread across Bruno’s face underneath his bangs. “Yes, I have. Three times, all by the same officer. I got let off the first time, but I actually got hauled downtown the other two.” Fugo let out his breath, though an accidental sound of confusion slipped between his lips as he did. Bruno, who had just accepted the state of the carpet and sat up straight again to look for any more stains, let out a light chuckle. “You’ve actually been arrested?” Fugo asked, bewilderment clear in his tone. “Couldn’t you have just… slipped away with your stand?”
Bruno full on laughed now, much to the confusion of his right hand. “I guess I could have, but I wasn’t really thinking with my head at the time. I…” His laughter died, tears of euphoria pooling in the corners of his eyes. “I let myself get caught. Oh - don’t look at me like that, kid. When I said we were all reckless starting out, I wasn’t excluding myself.” To avoid saying something rude, Fugo redirected his attention to rubbing his temples to soothe his steadily growing stress. Bruno quickly stood, and put his hands on his subordinates' shoulders. “You’re going to be okay, Fugo. I’ll be long dead before I let anyone get to you. I promise. Why don’t we get out of here, and I’ll tell you about one of the arrests? It was pretty funny, in my opinion.”
Fugo looked up at the sky, his eyes squinted and his brows contorted in pain. “Jesus, how long were we in there for?” Bruno, realizing he had no clue himself, looked down at his watch and winced. “14 hours. I would have offered you lunch, but I should probably walk you home for some rest. How about we have dinner instead?” The man yawned before turning right out of the hotel entrance, Fugo following quickly at his heels. “Thank you, Bucciarati.. That would be nice.” Fugo sighed, stretching his arms over his head. “So… about that arrest?” That same fond grin spread over Bruno’s lightly flushed cheeks. He hummed, and began.
“To preface, I was 17 when this happened. It was the start of the summer, which meant the joyful start of police apprentices and internships. I wasn’t fresh meat, but I was nowhere near the reputation I’m at now. The year before, I had a close call - I was chased down by an intern, and just barely managed to slip through the cuffs. I… I found that fun, though. Incredibly fun. And at the time, I had nothing to lose. So, once summer hit, I started getting chased by cops for fun. At least once a week, I would commit some sort of petty crime and run away like a felon. I won’t lie to you, it was incredibly fun. Being high on adrenaline all the time as a growing teen felt better than any drugs I could have gotten my hands on.
“It was late July when this happened. Most of the cops I led on only gave me about 15 minutes of their time before they got bored and lost interest.” Bruno chewed on his cheek, having to hold himself back from cussing out cops who had long forgotten his name. “They were all corrupt pigs who had ‘better’ things to do than chase down a criminal running like he had a kilometer long warrant. I once found a cop who had given up inside a tourist fast-food place just MINUTES after he let me go!” Bruno groaned, pinching the hooked bridge of his nose in frustration. “…Anywho, I caught a glimpse of someone I hadn’t recognized. A brand new, bright eyed beauty who seemed to take his job much more seriously than his supervisor, who was too busy trying to seduce some young tourists to notice me preparing to steal one of the women’s purses. This guy saw, though, and was ready to give chase the moment I laid fingers on the bag.”
As they turned a corner, Bruno let out a dreamy exhale. It creeped Fugo out, how fondly he talked about this. It felt wrong. But he let his superior continue regardless. “He was… quiet. Notably quiet. He didn’t yell after me, or try and bring anyone else in to stop me. His focus was on me, on catching me. I, on the other hand, couldn’t refrain from showing just how excited I was about this. I was taunting him, egging him on and getting him as mad as I could. Raising the stakes in his favor. This is the kind of chase I had been waiting for. I could tell there was a real possibility for me to be caught, for my record to be spoiled with a real, justified arrest. So, I obviously felt invincible. Untouchable. God, was I an idiot…” Bruno paused, a pained look crossing his face. Fugo opened his mouth to ask about it, but the man continued before he could.
“He chased me for 30 minutes, non stop. I get winded just thinking about it. I thought I had escaped, though. I used Sticky Fingers and got myself into a building I knew was abandoned. It was an old book store that got caught in the crossfire of a shootout, of which I was a part of. I thought I would be safe to hide out there for a while - just catch my breath and get myself ready to hightail it back to the safehouse. Right as I had sat down behind the counter, though, I heard a gun go off. The crazy bastard got his supervisor to shoot open the door, just to catch little old me. Remember, all I had done was snatch the purse off of a tourist.”
Fugo snorted at that. “Wasting precious ammo over an outsider?” He asked, starting to understand the source of Bruno’s amusement. “He really must have been new, huh?” Bruno nodded as a sweet smile seeped from his heart out onto his face. “Yeah. I found out later that this was only his second day on the job. Anyways, he stalked the whole shop like a creep. I was hunched behind the counter now, freaking out. I guess if you were in my shoes, you would have done the smart thing and just opened a zipper out the back, but… I clearly wasn’t thinking straight. I sat, panicking, frozen like prey. And he certainly took up the role of predator. I swear I heard him sniffing around for me.”
Fugo groaned, and Bruno let out a fond chuckle. “It was weird. It was then that I realized his supervisor was likely his dad. While the rookie turned the store upside down looking for me, the older one told him the story of what happened there - you’ll hear that story another time. It took about 5 minutes, but he did eventually come to look behind the counter. And there I was, backed into the corner like I was a rat being stared down by a snake. He didn’t say anything, but he practically ripped my hand off my wrist pulling me to my feet. He was absolutely seething. The arrest was quick, with no words exchanged as I was hauled into the patrol car.”
“They don’t read your rights?” Fugo inquired. Bruno was a little surprised at the boy's interest, expecting that he would have zoned out by now after all of his rambling. “No, that’s an American thing. I’m assuming you know of the Miranda speech. We have the same rights, but there’s no obligation for the police to inform us on arrest. We get handed the Letter of Rights instead.” Fugo nodded, and Bruno was sure he would turn to see his soldato writing fervently in his notebook, if he had it on him.
“Anyways, once the cuffs were on, I started panicking. I’ve never been humbled so fast in my life. All of the confidence cumulated over weeks of being chased and escaping was crushed, instantly. It was over. I probably would have cried if I was a weaker man. This was, obviously, my first arrest, so I had no idea what to do. I tried to bargain, beg, and fight my way out… though I was probably just making my sentence worse. I don’t think I’ve felt more terrified since. Being cornered like that, when I thought I was at my peak, is something I’ll never forget. I was horrified at my situation, and even more horrified by my captors… at least I was, until the funniest thing that could have happened, happened.”
The pair were approaching the entrance of Fugo’s apartment complex, but the look in Fugo’s eyes and the pause in his stride clued Bruno into his genuine interest. So, he took Fugo into the lobby and the two sat on the horrible bench offered to those unfortunate enough to need to sit. “What could possibly be funny during an arrest?” It took Bruno genuine effort to stop himself from laughing before he could explain what had him so euphoric. “He… He spilled coffee on me. The officer. He lifted the cup to drink, but his dad hit a bump and it flew back into my lap. It was searing hot. We pulled over and the rookie had to come and clean it up. It was absolutely hilarious to me, watching this cop who - for the record - broke my wrist grovelling and cleaning up the mess he made. I was in tears laughing, but I was finally able to get a good look at the man's face.” “Really?” Fugo asked, his head slightly cocked to the side. He knew Bruno was particularly good with faces. How did he let the same man arrest him multiple times? “Yes. I’m almost certain it was Abbacchio.”
Fugo’s jaw dropped. “No way!” He gasped. He had heard in passing that the newest member of Bucciarati’s squad was an ex-cop, but he never would have guessed that he had managed to arrest Bruno. “And you still asked him to join us? I don’t think I would be able to be that nice to someone who had done something so awful to me.” Bruno shook his head, and smiled widely at his chosen right hand. “That’s exactly why I chose him, Fugo. He still remains as the only cop I’ve encountered that actually did their job for the sake of doing it. He wanted to help people, to keep people like us off of the street. We desperately need more people like that here, and I’ll be damned if I ever let such good potential go to waste.”
Bruno’s words lit something like a fire in Fugo’s soul. That’s right, Bruno looks for potential in people. That meant he had found some sort of potential in Fugo, though he couldn’t see it himself… right? Fugo cleared his throat and looked away, suddenly feeling embarrassed under the kind glare of his savior. “So, how did you get out? You clearly didn’t serve much time, if any.” All of a sudden, Bruno groaned. “God, that part was a pain. I had to use my phone call to call a contact, who called their contact, who contacted a cop, who contacted a lawyer, who contacted Polpo, who contacted another lawyer, who contacted a sponsor, who then paid for my bail. I was in interrogation for 12 hours before I was let out. I promise you, if you ever get arrested, it will be a much simpler process.”
Fugo nodded, fatigue from the last 14 hours suddenly hitting him like a bus. Bruno seemed to notice the immediate change in his demeanor, now standing and offering Fugo help getting up. “You’ve done well, and we got you home safe. I’m glad you’re aware of the consequences of the life we lead, but you don’t need to be so paranoid.
“I swear on my life that I will keep you and everyone else safe.”