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He remembered the kickback. The smell of gunpowder.
The sound his father’s head had made when it hit the floor. A wet, heavy thud.
Doflamingo looked back at the gun.
It would be so easy.
Just walk back down that corridor. Put the barrel to Rosinante’s head. Pull the trigger.
End the Marine Commander. End the traitor.
End the illusion of a relationship he almost believed was real.
Except the relationship was actually real.
Doflamingo turned the gun over in his hand.
He looked at the letters spread out across the desk. The piles of evidence.
The guard found him in the execution room.
"The Young Master has ordered you to your room."
Rosinante went.
Doflamingo was standing at the window when he came in.
On the table were letters he had written. Beside them, Doflamingo’s gun.
Doflamingo didn't turn around.
"I made you betray me." He stated it like something he'd already decided. "I told you three days. I did not do what I said I would do."
He paced across the room.
"I had wrongly assumed that bringing back our father's head would be enough."
He turned to face Rosinante.
"By the time I went back for you, you were already gone."
Rosinante's breath hitched.
Doflamingo had gone back for him.
"I failed to get us back to Mary Geoise. I failed to find you. Someone else did and you became a Marine."
Rosinante opened his mouth to speak but Rosalia started crying, right on schedule.
Rosinante went through the routine. He warmed the bottle before carrying her and bringing the bottle to her lips.
She wouldn't take it.
He tried everything he knew, which was by now a considerable list.
She continued to reject the bottle.
Doflamingo looked at his daughter crying, then at his helpless brother.
He lifted her out of Rosinante's arms, adjusted the bottle once, and she took it.
Rosinante looked at the gun on the table.
"Why didn't you kill me?" he whispered.
Doflamingo kept his eyes on Rosalia.
"I can kill an undercover Marine who spent two years feeding intelligence out of my own palace." He paused. "I can kill a brother who came back to me after fourteen years and looked me in the face and lied."
The bottle gurgled as the milk was finished.
"But I cannot kill the person who gave me her."
Of course. Of course it's because of Rosalia.
Then Doflamingo looked at him.
"And I cannot kill you because I love you."
The words came out sharp, laced with resentment.
Doflamingo placed her back in her cot and pocketed his gun.
At the door, he stopped.
"It's my fault you betrayed me."
Like he was convincing himself.
The door closed behind him.
Rosalia’s eyes were closing. Milk-drunk, entirely unbothered.
Doflamingo loves him.
Rosinante had wondered about it before. In the dark, when the palace went quiet. At hours when thinking felt safer than asking.
He had carried the question for years and taught himself not to expect an answer. And now he had one.
Spat out like something revolting and bitter.
Doflamingo loves him.
This should have been something good. Words he had been dying to hear.
He activated the Nagi Nagi no Mi without thinking.
Silence fell.
His shoulders shook.
Doflamingo loves him.
Underneath the hurt, relief came.
Then happiness.
Rosinante squeezed his eyes shut and felt a smile forming against his will. He pressed his lips together hard, trying to stop it.
He couldn't. The smile grew until his teeth were showing.
Something broke loose in his throat that didn’t quite make it out.
Doflamingo loves him.
Could he be any more pathetic?
He shook harder.
Doflamingo found an unused reception room.
He put his fist through the wall.
Again and again.
His knuckles split and bled and he kept going until the plaster gave and his hands were raw.
He tore the table apart with his bare hands.
He picked up the chairs and started smashing them against every surface of the room.
Trebol appeared in the doorway. "Doffy—"
"Get out, Trebol."
"The Family has been waiting for two weeks."
"I SAID GET OUT."
He kicked what remained of the chair towards the door.
Trebol left.
Doflamingo stood in the wreckage and thought about the alley.
Don't move. I'll be back. Three days at most.
Rosinante, who was only eight years old, had looked at him with complete trust and nodded.
Doflamingo had gone, and the days had stretched into weeks.
The attempt to return to Mary Geoise. His father's head presented and refused.
A traitor’s son wasn’t simply rejected. He was hunted.
Weeks of limping on a broken leg brought him back too late.
The boy has been taken in. He's being looked after.
A stall owner patted his head, knowing who he was looking for.
Doflamingo pushed him off.
He walked away and had never looked back.
He had spent fourteen years telling himself Rosinante deserved better than whatever he was.
Then Rosinante had walked through the palace doors at twenty-two, with scars running down every inch of his body.
His brother was just clumsy like that, wasn't he?
Doflamingo had accepted him without question.
Accepted it like something that belonged to him had simply come back.
He pressed the bridge of his nose.
He was not going to do this.
A tear slipped down anyway.
He inhaled sharply and wiped it away at once.
Trebol had seen the room and understood the state of Doflamingo.
He knew that nothing was going to change on its own.
Doflamingo wouldn’t act.
So he would.
He made his way to Rosinante’s room and stepped inside without knocking.
The room smelled of milk and baby powder.
Trebol walked toward the cot.
Rosinante stood up immediately, moving between Trebol and the baby before Trebol had even fully crossed the room.
“What are you doing here?”
Trebol didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked down into the cot.
Blonde hair. Sharp nose. Pale red eyes.
“She looks just like Doffy.”
He laughed. A disgusting sound that filled the room and lingered for too long.
Then it cut off.
“It’s funny. If she looked like you, I’d have to get rid of her too.”
Rosinante flinched, his hand coming up instinctively to shield her.
Trebol stepped closer.
“Corazon.” His breath was hot, too close to Rosinante’s face. “You know I never liked you. You’re useless. Weak.”
He stepped back just enough to look at him properly, eyes dragging over him, assessing.
“I don’t understand what Doffy sees in you.”
“You don’t have to.”
Trebol smiled slowly, showing all his teeth.
“I do.”
He laughed again, louder this time, a snorting edge to it.
Rosalia was startled by the loud sound and she started to wail.
“I have to understand,” Trebol went on, his voice tightening under the noise. “What is it about you that makes Doffy as weak as he is now?”
He stepped closer.
“What is it about you that lets you betray him and still walk around alive?”
Rosalia's cries grew louder.
Trebol’s face twisted in irritation.
He shoved Rosinante aside with one hand and moved towards the cot.
He didn’t make it.
Thin strings caught around his throat and yanked, dragging him out of the room.
The wall slammed into his back hard enough to knock the air out of him.
Trebol choked on the impact. He looked around and found himself in the corridor.
Doflamingo was already moving toward him. The veins at his temple were pulsing.
“You are not to enter this corridor,” he ordered in a low murmur.
Trebol knew that tone. Knew it meant Doflamingo was already past anger.
Trebol didn’t move.
“If I have to have this conversation a second time,” Doflamingo continued, “it will be your last conversation.”
Trebol pushed himself to his feet slowly.
He looked past Doflamingo and into the room, his stare fixed on Rosinante.
Then he turned and walked away.
Doflamingo didn’t move.
Rosinante stood in the doorway, Rosalia held tight against his chest. She was still crying against his collarbone.
“Doffy.”
Doflamingo didn’t look at him.
Rosinante hesitated, shifting Rosalia higher.
“Thank you.”
Nothing. Doflamingo did not even spare him a glance.
“If anyone tries something, you tell me.”
His voice was distant, as though he was giving an order to a subordinate.
Rosinante searched Doflamingo’s face, like there might be something there if he looked hard enough.
There wasn’t.
Doflamingo's gaze went straight to Rosalia.
A quick sweep to ensure his daughter was untouched.
Only then did he turn away.
He didn’t look at Rosinante. Not at the bleeding gash on his arm from when Trebol shoved him.
Rosinante stood there holding her, listening to the sound of Doflamingo's footsteps fade down the corridor.
The days went dead silent.
Doflamingo didn’t come.
Not once. Not even to see Rosalia.
On the fifth day, a staff member came instead.
“The Young Master has requested for Lady Rosalia to be brought to him.”
Rosinante let her be taken.
It wasn’t easy.
Sometimes she was asleep and woke the moment she was moved, her face scrunching before she cried.
Sometimes she fussed the entire way out, small hands clutching at nothing, like she knew she was being taken somewhere unfamiliar.
Sometimes she cried because Rosinante wasn’t there.
Rosinante couldn’t do anything but sit and listen.
Listen to her crying as it moved farther and farther away.
Until it thinned out and disappeared.
The room felt even lonelier without her.
And in the hours she was gone, all he could do was lie there and think about what Doflamingo was doing.
He wondered if Doflamingo spoke to her softly.
If his voice changed for her.
Rosinante tried to picture it.
If he would pace with her, bouncing her gently when she cried.
He tried to fit that version of Doflamingo into his head.
It never quite stayed.
Without Rosalia there, and with nothing to do, Rosinante drifted in and out of sleep.
The kind that never settled properly.
And somewhere in between, he dreamed of a place.
The three of them together.
Happy.
The kind of place that felt close when he was asleep.
And impossibly far the moment he woke.
Rosinante sat with Rosalia in his arms.
Doflamingo had stopped requesting for her.
Rosinante told himself it was because she cried too much.
Or maybe Doflamingo had gotten busy. He must have gotten busy.
All the Corazon work had been handed back to Doflamingo. Rosinante had been stripped of the role entirely.
He looked down at Rosalia, asleep against his chest, and wondered if this had been the right decision.
He held her closer and breathed her in.
What was he thinking?
Of course she was the right decision.
He set her back into the cot, tucking her blanket gently.
He needed to clear his head, so he went to wash up.
He turned on the shower and stepped under it, letting the water run over him, trying to wash away the thoughts he shouldn’t have been having.
Halfway through, he realised he had forgotten his towel.
He left the shower running and walked back toward the door.
If the circumstances had been different, he would have missed it.
But this time, he heard it.
Footsteps.
Careful and quiet in a way that would have fooled most people.
Rosinante activated his Devil Fruit and stepped towards the door.
He didn't even have to reach it to know.
Doflamingo.
Rosalia made a small sound. A soft, startled squeal.
She must have woken up when Doflamingo picked her up.
Rosinante pressed closer to the door and leaned in.
He heard Doflamingo’s voice, but it was too low to make out the words.
Rosinante strained, listening, trying to catch anything.
Anything at all.
He couldn’t.
So he did the only thing he could.
He pictured it.
Doflamingo holding her. One arm steady beneath her, the other adjusting her, settling her when she fussed from being woken up.
Pacing the room, murmuring to her.
Rosinante shut his eyes as his throat tightened.
This was all he had now.
Standing behind a door, piecing the scene together from scraps of sound.
Rosinante pulled back.
He stepped under the shower, letting the water run down his face and mixing with the tears he didn’t bother to stop.
Rosinante thought he was dreaming.
Doflamingo was in his room.
Just standing there at the foot of the bed, looking at him with Rosalia in his arms.
Rosinante pushed himself up, rubbed his eyes hard and blinked.
Doflamingo didn’t disappear.
Not a dream.
Doflamingo was right there. In his room.
Rosinante hadn’t seen him in weeks.
“When’s her next appointment?”
Rosinante stared at him.
Doflamingo was the one who made the appointment.
Doflamingo, who does not forget things.
“On the tenth,” Rosinante replied, his voice still rough with sleep.
Rosalia wasn’t fussing. She was comfortably settled in Doflamingo’s arms.
Which meant he’d been holding her for a while.
Which meant he'd been in the room, watching Rosinante sleep for a while.
Rosinante swallowed nervously.
Doflamingo didn’t say anything else. He stepped forward, placed Rosalia back into the cot, and left the room.
Rosinante stayed on the bed for a moment longer, still in a daze.
Then he got out of bed and walked over.
Rosalia looked up at him and made that soft, happy sound she’d started making recently when she saw him.
Her hand was curled around a pink feather.
Rosinante stared at it.
Not a dream.
Rosinante spent the morning getting Rosalia ready.
He dressed her first before packing the bags.
Milk powder, bottles, cloths. The small things that didn't seem like much, but filled the bags quickly.
Then he picked her up and opened the door.
Doflamingo was already waiting at the end of the corridor.
Rosinante's step faltered. He hadn't known if Doflamingo would be coming.
Then he kept walking.
Doflamingo looked at him once before his eyes moved to the bags.
He reached out and took them without a word, already turning toward the stairs.
“Hold her properly,” he said, not looking back.
Rosinante adjusted his grip automatically. “Okay. Thank you.”
Doflamingo didn’t respond.
Dr. Tegata checked Rosalia thoroughly.
Weight. Length. Reflexes.
“She’s doing extremely well,” he said. “Weight is excellent. Especially for a premature baby. Better than expected, frankly.”
Rosinante nodded, but his attention drifted, eyes already on Doflamingo.
Doflamingo was watching Rosalia, who lay on the small examination bed, blinking up at the ceiling.
There was satisfaction in his gaze, as though he expected nothing less from his daughter's results.
“Let’s move on to you.”
Dr. Tegata turned to Rosinante and began his portion of the check.
The recovery. The stitching. Whether everything was healing the way it should.
Rosinante lay on the examination bed and answered all the questions Dr. Tegata asked.
Dr. Tegata didn’t ask about the cut on his arm.
Rosinante didn’t mention it.
At some point, he realized Doflamingo had moved. He was standing closer now. A few steps in and angled slightly toward Dr. Tegata.
Listening to everything intently despite his eyes looking elsewhere, like he was disinterested.
The appointment ended.
Doflamingo was already at the door, Rosalia wrapped up and sleeping in one arm. Bags in the other.
Rosinante stayed back while Dr. Tegata went over everything.
Supplements. Vitamins. Instructions.
And another packet.
He paused.
Ointment and clean gauze. Not meant for an infant.
“Requested by the King,” Dr. Tegata said, packing everything together in a bag.
Rosinante’s fingers tightened around the bag.
He didn’t know where they were going until Doflamingo stopped in front of a restaurant on the east side of the city.
The kind of place with dark wood and soft lighting.
It looked nice. Rosinante didn’t eat out much. He was always in the palace.
Doflamingo went in and Rosinante followed.
They were seated immediately.
Doflamingo ordered for both of them without asking, which Rosinante had long since stopped having opinions about.
He found himself watching Doflamingo the whole time.
Trying, and failing, to understand what this was.
Then the food came.
Fish.
Rosinante picked up his fork and took a bite.
Peppercorn.
He paused.
Fish with peppercorn reduction.
For a moment, he just stared at the plate.
Across the table, Doflamingo was watching him.
Rosinante felt the weight of it, even with his eyes lowered.
He took another bite. It was delicious. More than delicious.
Familiar.
He stopped chewing and looked up.
Doflamingo leaned back slightly in his chair, one arm resting against the backrest. Posture loose in a way that didn’t quite match the sharpness of his gaze.
“I located the chef,” he said.
A tight knot formed in Rosinante's throat.
He didn’t say anything. Neither did Doflamingo.
Rosalia slept through all of it.