Work Text:
“Nico, baby, you know I love you,” Dante sighed, flipping a page in the magazine he wasn’t reading. “But the answer is nah. Just like it was when you asked me before. And the time before that.”
Nico, standing in front of Dante’s desk, there in the lobby of the shop, looked like Dante had told her he had casually kicked a puppy.
“Oh, come on, Dante,” Nico pleaded, her hands grasping the air in front of her, desperate. “I ain’t askin’ fer bars a’ gold or nothin’! Just .. Lemme take a peak at the new sword?”
Dante raised an eyebrow, glancing at her, only his eyes moving.
Another page flip.
“Or, or!” Nico continued, excitedly. “Any sword? Any devil arm, really? Please?”
“Nico,” Dante sighed, rubbing his forehead.
“Dante, I know fer a fact that you got a basement FULL a’ devil arms,” Nico huffed, frustrated and showing it. “So much so, that ya pawned at least one a’ them before! What’s the harm in me takin’ a look at one or two?”
Dante shut his magazine and tossed it on the desk, shifting in his chair to face her more head on. Nico, for a split second, looked worried, but she schooled her features into a mask more confident than she felt.
“I just dunno how I feel about havin’ my stuff poked at under a kinda .. scientific-al lens, if you get my meaning?” Dante said, trying to pick his words carefully. Nico was, after all, Nero’s friend and pissing off his nephew’s friend and therefore pissing off his nephew was never high on Dante’s “to-do list.” That was a fuck-around-and-find-out that Dante had come to know far too well, usually at the business ends of Nero’s size 12 boots, directly to the damn face. Besides, it wasn’t in Dante’s usual playbook to make ladies cry, and even if she was one of the tougher ladies that Dante had the pleasure of knowing, chain-smoking, trucker-swearing baddie that she was, Nico was still a young lady.
Nico’s face turned slightly flat, dry as a bone, her hands coming to her hips.
“Is this about my daddy?” She demanded, eyes narrowing in a way that, to Dante, screamed dangerous territory ahead.
Dante chuckled, an attempt to disarm.
“No, not really,” he said, waving the suggestion away. Dante could be a dick, he knew that much about himself, but he wasn’t a “poke the bear about a shit father” dick.
Well ..
Unless it was Sparda.
Which was why he followed up with:
“It’s more about my daddy,” Dante said, groaning slightly as he went to stand up. “Those devil arms, they aren’t anythin’ to mess with. They’re basically the last remnants of demons. Some of ‘em are as near to sentient as an inanimate object can get. It’d be like .. playing with someone’s femur or something, you know?” He paused, looking at Nico, an eyebrow raised. “ .. Girl, stop lookin’ so excited about that concept.”
“No!” Nico said, laughing, shaking her head. “I’m gonna be excited! This is my life’s work, Dante, an’ yes, th’ Order a the Sword was a real nasty buncha bastards, but that ain’t me! You know me. And, you know that not all devil arms like that. Hell, the Yamato an’ Rebellion, they were made from – !”
“From my dad and his weird ability to forge devil arms and shit, yes, babe, I know,” Dante interrupted, raising a hand, a small cringe crossing his features. He walked around Nico, the young woman following him as he made his way to the pool table, picking up a cue he wasn’t going to play with. “He imbued them with parts of his own power and yada yada yada, esoteric demon shit that my old man got up to .. ” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “All the more reason that maybe we should just let this lil science project go, huh? The Order of the Sword came way too close to learning how the Yamato worked, and it was only by the grace of God and the fact that everyone thought Nero was a doofus that they never got him in the same room with the broken pieces before it all went to hell in handbasket. I don’t think you’re gonna use it for anything bad, Nic’, but I do worry about what might happen if that kinda info fell into the wrong hands, you know?”
Nico crossed her arms, thoroughly unimpressed.
“I know my daddy was a rat bastard, but you know who else I learned everythin’ I know from?” She challenged, boldly. “Nell.”
Dante winced, setting the pool cue back on the table, as he dealt with the weight of that name.
“Oh, come on,” he mumbled. “Don’t throw Nellie at me, Nico, that’s not fair.”
“I’ll pay you,” Nico said, quickly, sensing she might make up some ground here. Dante gave her a disbelieving look, brows furrowed.
“Pay me?” He parroted.
“Or, uh .. I dunno,” Nico muttered, picking her words better, shrugging her shoulders. “Trade ya .. ? Or somethin’?”
Dante snorted, heading back for his desk. Nervous and fidgeting, maybe Nico could sense that for all his bravado, Dante did like doing things for his friends .. After all, he could do so little for them, in the normal day to day of friendship. Stop a kaiju-sized abomination from eating them? Sure! Dante was the guy for that! But that only happened once in a blue moon, and what happened far more often was that Dante couldn’t buy someone lunch.
“Nico,” he said, lowering himself into his chair again. Gotta be strong, he told himself. Be firm, set boundaries. She won’t stop being your friend if you tell her no. Right? “I honestly can’t begin to think about the thing you could possibly offer to trade me that would make me okay with giving you the Devil Sword Dante to futz about with.”
“Y’say that, but I know I got somethin’ you want!” Nico said, pointing at him, grinning. “And, on toppa that! I’m so sure of it, I’m gonna give it t’ya, even before we shake on this here trade.”
Dante was intrigued.
“Oh yeah?” He asked, incredulous. “You’re that confident? And what if, after I see whatever it is, I still don’t go for the trade, huh?”
“Then we shake hands an’ walk away,” Nico said, nodding firmly. “No hard feelin’s, a course, but .. ” Nico winked and pointed a finger at Dante. “I know what I got~ And I know that you want it.”
Dante scratched the stubble on his chin, thinking.
Well shit .. Now I’m curious ..
He sighed, leaning back in his chair, rubbing his face with both hands, a long groan as he realized that he had been outplayed by a Goldstein, and not for the first time in his life, either.
“Okay,” he said, leaning forward, shaking his head. “Let’s see this amazing thing you say you got?”
Nico looked delighted and quickly pulled out a phone from one of the myriad of pouches on her toolbelt. Dante raised an eyebrow, watching her navigate to something, her tongue poking out from her teeth as she focused, effort clear on her face.
She set the phone down on the desk in front of Dante with a flourish, turning it so that it faced him right-side up.
“Okay, so, fer some backstory,” she explained, tapping the play button with her finger. “I got two dashcams in my van, see? One facin’ out an’ one facin’ into the cab. Y’know? Fer insurance.”
Dante gave her a look, brow furrowing.
“You have insurance on that thing?”
“Buddy, I put full coverage on that bitch,” Nico deadpanned, one hand on her hip.
Dante raised both eyebrows, surprised.
“That’s gotta be expensive as shit.”
Nico huffed, rolling her eyes.
“Just watch th’ screen, okay? Focus!” She scolded. “Now, I been lettin’ Vergil drive th’ van t’run errands if I ain’t doin’ nothin’ in it, an’ he asks nice – ”
“Does Vergil have a driver’s license?" Dante interrupted again, concerned.
“I dunno,” Nico huffed, frowning. “I never asked.”
“That’s gotta void your insurance,” Dante muttered.
“Focus!” Nico snapped, kissing her teeth. “Watch th’ damn recordin’, an’ trust, know an’ believe, I got about fifty a these where this one came from.”
Dante frowned, watching the screen.
It was a recording, yes, pulled up on Nico’s camera app by the looks of it, and in it, Vergil was climbing into the driver’s seat of the Minotarus. Dante watched him turn the ignition, watched him adjust the seat, put on his seatbelt ..
“Nerd,” he muttered, still watching.
“Dante, I swear on my granny .. ”
“I’m watchin’, I’m watchin’, don’t bite my head off!”
Vergil driving was a bizarre sight to see, and Dante found himself wondering where Vergil learned how to drive in the first place. He had spent nine years in Hell, and they weren’t exactly known for their thriving automobile market down there, and even after that, he had spent God only knew how long as a crispy-critter, flakey as all get out, wearing a potato sack and hacking up a lung or two.
Knowing that bastard, Dante thought, propping his chin on his hand as he watched his brother drive. He probably taught himself.
For a stretch, that’s really all it was. Vergil didn’t look like he was all that interested in driving. He was, of course, because goddamn if that man didn’t miss a turn signal, didn’t come to complete stops when necessary, but Dante never saw Vergil’s expression change from his usual, stoic and almost bored composure.
Dante glanced from the screen to Nico, standing in front of his desk, her arms crossed and her expression smug. On the recording, Vergil sighed, once, and then, moving his hand out of sight onto the dash, must have flicked on the radio. Dante watched him make his first face, a small scrunch of his nose, his brows coming together in distaste, the radio sounding static-y and muffled. Dante watched his brother keep pushing something, and he realized he was trying to tune the radio, hitting the “seek” button every few seconds. Finally, he settled on a station that seemed to drift in and out, sometimes fuzzy, other times clear. Dante couldn’t quite make out the tune, but Vergil’s hand returned to the steering wheel, and his face softened into his usual mask of “I would rather be doing anything else besides this” aloofness.
“Sooo .. ?” Dante drew the word out, confusion on his own face when he glanced back and forth from the screen to Nico. “What? Does he get pulled over or .. ?”
“Just watch!” Nico grinned.
Dante did, but only for a second, before he looked at her again, purely incredulous and deeply perplexed.
“Does he pick his nose or something?”
“Dante, now gahdamn it!” Nico tutted, her hands coming to her hips. “Will ya just watch th’ damn tape!”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be watchin’, Nic’!” Dante put his hands up, defensive. “Okay, so Verg’s driving, so?!”
“I’m tellin’ you, just watch it – !”
“Why, is he gonna do a trick or somth–?!”
“Sometimes, when I’m lonely, I sit and think about him .. ”
Dante froze, blinking at Nico. He caught Nico looking super smug, before his head snapped back to stare, open mouthed, at the recording again.
“And it hurts to remember all the good times .. ”
Vergil was .. singing? Not loud, not boisterous or really putting his whole chest into it, but he clearly knew the words, and he was softly singing along to the song on the radio.
“When I thought I could never live without him,” Vergil continued, the melody and volume almost too gentle for Dante to believe. “And I wonder does it have to be the same .. ? Every time when I see him, will it bring back all the pain .. ?”
It was around then, as recording!Vergil was making a turn, absently muttering through the chorus, that Dante realized he had not heard his brother sing .. even sing a little bit .. since they were small children.
“Does he .. do this a lot?” He asked, still staring.
“Mmhmm,” Nico said, coming around the back of the desk, pulling down a menu on the camera app, the recording still softly crooning in the background. Dante’s eyes scanned what must have been a list of the saved recordings.
vergil_the_carpenters
vergil_layla
vergil_guitar_gently_weeps
vergil_all_coming_back_to_me_now
vergil_ABBA
“I got about, mmmm,” Nico hummed, thinking, as she collapsed that menu, standing back from the desk, still by Dante’s side. “Twenty? More, maybe? He really likes th’ sad 80s stuff, if I’m bein’ honest with ya, an’ I mean, I couldn’ carry a tune if ya gave me a bucket, but he don’t do half bad, even if he does do that lil whisper sing-y thing a his.”
Dante used his finger to drag the tracking of the recording back to when Vergil started again.
“ .. sit and think about him .. and it hurts to remember all the good times .. ”
Dante interrupted Nico from speaking, the young woman opening her mouth to go on about how she could send the recordings to Dante’s email, if he wanted, by holding out his right hand and summoning the Devil Sword Dante, his eyes never once leaving the screen.
“Ohh, yes, thankyouthankyouthankyou, Dante, oh, you won’t regret it!” Nico squealed, clapping her hands together, almost bouncing with excitement.
“Yeah, sure, uh,” Dante muttered, waving her off. “I uh .. Can I borrow your phone for the rest of these or .. ?”
Dante may or may not have spent the next hour or so figuring out how to send the recordings to his own phone.