Chapter Text
—°—
Damian was four when he met the Sparda twins. His mother gave aid to her old friend Eva, the wife of Sparda himself, after the demon lord disappeared for several months. Talia explained that until Sparda returned from sealing breaches between the human world and the demon realm, Eva and her sons would stay within the League compound every summer.
Damian disliked the arrangement immediately.
The twins were strange.
Dante was the worst of the two.
The boy was loud from the moment he woke up in the morning. He ran through hallways instead of walking, climbed onto furniture he was not supposed to touch, and asked far too many questions. Damian had watched him spend nearly fifteen minutes trying to balance a spoon on his nose while one of the servants begged him to sit still and finish breakfast.
Vergil was quieter, but somehow more irritating.
He looked at everything too carefully.
Damian would glance toward him and find the other child already staring back with narrowed blue eyes, silent and observant in a way that made Damian’s shoulders stiffen instinctively. Vergil rarely spoke unless he thought something was worth saying, and when he did, it usually sounded annoyingly judgmental.
Worst of all, Damian understood him too well.
“You should spend time together,” Eva said gently one afternoon.
The three boys sat in the shaded courtyard near one of the koi ponds. Warm sunlight filtered through the trees overhead, turning the water gold where the fish swam lazily beneath the surface.
Damian sat perfectly straight on the wooden engawa, hands folded neatly in his lap. His expression tightened immediately at the suggestion.
“We are together now,” he pointed out.
Beside him, Vergil gave a small nod without looking away from the pond. The boy held a thin stick in one hand, using the end of it to carefully trace patterns against the stone beside his foot.
Dante sprawled across the grass nearby like he had been dropped there from a great height. His dark red shirt was grass-stained already, and one shoe had somehow disappeared entirely.
“That’s not playing,” Dante complained loudly.
Damian frowned at him. “Not everything needs to be a game.”
Dante lifted his head just enough to stare at him upside down. “That’s super sad.”
“It is not sad.”
“It kinda is,” Vergil admitted quietly.
Damian looked genuinely offended.
Before he could respond, Dante suddenly sat upright, eyes widening as he spotted something near the edge of the pond.
“Oh!”
Without warning, he lunged forward.
Damian jerked back instinctively as Dante nearly slid face-first into the water trying to grab one of the koi fish with both hands.
The fish darted away immediately.
Dante gasped. “It escaped!”
“You frightened it,” Damian said flatly.
“I almost had him.”
“You absolutely did not,” Vergil replied.
Dante ignored him and leaned farther over the water, tongue sticking slightly out in concentration. One of his sleeves dipped into the pond completely.
A servant standing nearby looked seconds away from a breakdown.
“Young master Dante,” the man said carefully, “please stop trying to catch the fish.”
“But they’re fast.”
“That is because they are fish.”
Dante looked delighted by this information.
Damian stared at him for several long seconds before turning toward his mother with visible disbelief.
“Is he always like this?”
Eva covered her mouth slightly, clearly trying not to laugh. “Mostly.”
“He climbed onto the roof this morning,” Vergil added.
“I wanted to see if I could!”
“You fell off.”
“I landed.”
“You screamed the entire way down.”
“I was being dramatic.”
Damian did not know what that meant.
Dante finally gave up on the fish and scooted backward across the wooden floor until he was directly between Damian and Vergil. His damp sleeve pressed against Damian’s arm.
Damian immediately recoiled. “You are wet.”
“Yeah.” Dante grinned proudly. “Pond water.”
“That is disgusting.”
“It’s just water.”
“It has fish in it.”
“That’s the best part!”
Vergil sighed quietly and pinched the bridge of his nose the way adults did when irritated.
They were four years old.
Damian did not understand how Vergil already looked tired of life.
Dante suddenly leaned forward, squinting hard at Damian’s face.
“You got mad eyebrows.”
“I do not.”
“You do.” Dante used both hands to copy the shape of Damian’s frown on his own forehead. “Like this.”
Vergil glanced over once before nodding seriously. “He's correct.”
Damian’s jaw dropped slightly in outrage.
“I do not have mad eyebrows.”
“You always look like somebody stole your favorite thing,” Dante informed him.
“I do not have a favorite thing.”
“That makes it sadder,” Vergil muttered.
For a moment, Damian could only stare at them in complete disbelief.
Then Dante burst into loud laughter at his expression, nearly tipping backward into the pond again.
Even Vergil looked amused now, the corners of his mouth twitching upward ever so slightly.
Across the courtyard, both Eva and Talia watched the scene quietly.
Talia lifted her tea with calm satisfaction, Eva smiled softly into her cup. Neither woman said a word.
—°—
Damian is five when the twins and him get closer.
The next summer, Dante attached himself to Damian within the first hour.
Damian had barely stepped into the main courtyard when something collided violently with his back.
Small arms wrapped tightly around his waist.
“You’re smaller!”
Damian stumbled forward with a startled noise, nearly dropping the book in his hands. Behind him, Dante laughed loudly, pressing his cheek against Damian’s shoulder like they had known each other forever instead of only seeing each other during the summers.
Damian immediately tried to pry him off.
“Release me.”
“No.”
“You are crushing my spine.”
“You’ll live.”
“You are insufferable.”
Dante only held on tighter.
He smelled faintly like dust, sunshine, and the sweet pastries Eva always carried during their travels.
Damian frowned harder.
Last summer, Dante had mostly run around causing problems while Vergil silently judged everyone around him. Somewhere between then and now, Dante had apparently decided Damian belonged to him specifically.
Damian did not understand why.
“Dante,” Eva called gently from the walkway. “Give him room to breathe.”
“He’s fine.”
“I am not.”
Vergil walked past the two of them carrying their luggage, completely unsurprised by the scene unfolding in front of him.
“He talked about you the entire trip here,” Vergil informed Damian calmly.
Dante gasped dramatically. “Traitor.”
“You asked every fifteen minutes if we were close yet.”
“I was excited.”
“You cried once.”
“I DID NOT.”
“You absolutely did.”
Damian blinked slowly as Dante’s face turned bright red.
“I was tired,” Dante muttered.
Vergil looked deeply unconvinced.
Damian glanced between the twins quietly.
Vergil looked mostly the same as last year—calm posture, neat clothes, controlled expression. Older now, somehow sharper around the edges despite only being five.
Their relationship had settled naturally over time.
Damian refused to call ut a friendship.
Vergil enjoyed quiet the same way Damian did. They could sit beside each other for long stretches without speaking and never feel awkward about it. Sometimes they read together. Sometimes they played strategy games in silence while Dante complained loudly nearby about how boring they were.
It was easy.
Dante was not easy.
Dante climbed on him like a cat.
At some point during lunch, Damian discovered the other boy hanging halfway over his shoulders while trying to steal fruit from his plate.
“You already have food,” Damian pointed out, glaring sideways.
“Yours looks better.”
“It is the exact same meal.”
“But yours has more strawberries.”
“That is because you ate yours first.”
Dante considered this carefully.
“…Can I still have them?”
“No.”
Dante sighed heavily and slumped against Damian’s side with enough dramatics to suggest true heartbreak.
Vergil watched from across the table with complete indifference.
“You encourage him,” Damian accused quietly.
“I do not.”
“You never stop him.”
Vergil took a sip of tea. “Stopping him is exhausting.”
“That is true,” Eva admitted.
Talia hummed softly in agreement from beside her.
Damian looked betrayed by all the adults present.
Later that afternoon, the three boys sat together beneath one of the large trees overlooking the lower training grounds.
Well.
Damian and Vergil sat properly.
Dante lay halfway across Damian’s lap like an overgrown housecat.
“You are heavy,” Damian informed him.
“No I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“That does not solve the problem.”
Dante ignored him completely, squinting up through the leaves overhead. Sunlight flickered across his face in shifting patches of gold while warm wind pushed strands of white hair into his eyes.
Beside them, Vergil quietly turned another page in his book.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
It was…nice.
Damian hated admitting that.
“You know,” Dante said suddenly, “when I get bigger, I’m gonna beat everybody up.”
Vergil did not look up from his book. “You cannot even beat stairs.”
“That happened one time.”
“You fell down six of them.”
“I was distracted.”
“You saw a bird.”
“It was a cool bird.”
Damian snorted quietly before he could stop himself.
The sound slipped out accidentally.
All movement around him stopped.
Vergil slowly lowered his book.
Dante lifted his head so fast he nearly headbutted Damian in the chin.
“…Did you just laugh?” Dante whispered.
Damian’s eyes widened slightly.
“No.”
“You DID!”
“I did not.”
“You made a noise!”
“It was not laughter.”
Vergil looked horrified. “You are evolving.”
Damian shoved Dante off his lap immediately.
Dante hit the grass laughing so hard he curled into himself, kicking his feet against the ground while Damian glared down at him with growing offense.
“You are both intolerable.”
Dante looked up at him with a huge grin.
“But you missed us.”
Damian opened his mouth immediately.
Nothing came out.
Dante’s grin somehow got wider.
—°—
By the time they were six, Damian and the twins had become inseparable.
Every summer, the moment Eva’s carriage appeared along the mountain roads leading into Nanda Parbat, the atmosphere inside the compound shifted dramatically. Servants hurried to secure anything fragile. Trainees avoided the western courtyards entirely. Even veteran assassins began paying suspiciously close attention to rooftops and open windows.
Because the three boys had become a problem.
Most people assumed Dante was the cause of it. At first glance, that made sense. Dante was loud enough to be heard from three hallways away at all times, and he possessed absolutely no sense of self-preservation. He climbed sacred statues, leapt from balconies with complete confidence in his ability to survive, and once attempted to tame one of the League’s hunting falcons using strips of stolen bacon.
But Dante was not the mastermind.
Vergil was.
Unlike his brother, Vergil never looked guilty. He moved through the compound with calm composure, his expression smooth and thoughtful even while actively planning disasters. He preferred strategy over impulse, and over the years he had discovered that both Damian and Dante were extremely useful tools for carrying out his ideas.
Dante provided distraction.
Damian provided precision.
Vergil provided the plan.
Together, they were catastrophic.
“You calculated the angle incorrectly,” Damian informed him calmly.
The three boys crouched together on a rooftop overlooking one of the inner courtyards. Below them, several servants carried baskets of freshly washed linens toward the eastern wing of the compound completely unaware of the danger above.
Vergil frowned slightly as he adjusted the rope mechanism they had spent nearly an hour building.
“No, I did not.”
“You did,” Damian insisted. “The bucket will release too early.”
Dante lay flat on his stomach nearby with his legs kicking idly behind him in excitement. “I think it’s gonna hit the tall guy.”
“It is not supposed to hit anyone,” Vergil replied.
“Then what’s the point?”
Before either of them could answer, one of the servants stepped directly beneath the suspended water bucket.
Vergil pulled the rope.
For one glorious second, nothing happened.
Then the entire mechanism collapsed violently.
The bucket tipped sideways.
Water exploded downward.
Three separate laundry baskets overturned.
One servant shouted in alarm as soaked linens slapped directly across his face.
Dante immediately folded into hysterical laughter beside them, kicking his feet against the rooftop tiles while wheezing so hard he could barely breathe.
Damian covered his mouth, shoulders shaking slightly as he tried—and failed—to maintain composure.
Vergil looked deeply offended.
“The release timing was correct,” he argued.
“The rope snapped,” Damian pointed out.
“That was not part of the design.”
Below them, several furious servants looked upward simultaneously.
All three boys disappeared from the edge of the roof instantly.
“Run!” Damian hissed.
Chaos followed immediately afterward.
Footsteps thundered across rooftops as the boys sprinted through the compound together, laughter echoing through the mountain air. Dante nearly fell twice. Vergil kept yelling at him to stop stepping on loose tiles. Damian somehow remained the fastest despite being shorter than both of them.
Behind them, several assassins gave chase with expressions that suggested this was far from the first time.
Talia blamed herself for encouraging the friendship in the first place.
Eva simply laughed in amusement.
Sparda, after finally returning one summer and witnessing the aftermath of one of their “experiments” involving homemade explosives and a koi pond, simply stared at the three soaking wet children standing proudly in the destroyed courtyard.
“…Why are there scorch marks on the ceiling?” he asked slowly.
“Science,” Dante answered immediately.
Vergil nodded seriously. “We were testing structural weaknesses.”
Damian crossed his arms. “The results were informative.”
Sparda looked at Eva with the exhausted expression of a man (demon?) realizing his children had somehow multiplied.
Still, despite the chaos they caused together, the bond between them became impossible to miss.
Dante clung to Damian constantly now, dragging him into games, conversations, and reckless adventures with unwavering determination. Vergil pretended to find this irritating, but more and more often Damian caught him quietly saving seats for both of them during meals or waiting near doorways whenever one of them lagged behind.
Somewhere along the way, the summers had stopped feeling temporary.
They had become something Damian looked forward to.
Which was why everything felt wrong after his first kill.
—°—
At six and a half years old, Damian understood what death was supposed to mean. He had been trained his entire life for this purpose. The League taught efficiency before compassion, precision before mercy. He knew anatomy better than most adults. He knew exactly where to strike and how long it took someone to stop breathing afterward.
None of that prepared him for the silence afterward.
The mission itself had gone perfectly.
His grandfather had watched with cold approval while Damian carried out the execution exactly as instructed. No hesitation. No wasted movement. Clean and efficient.
Damian had done everything correctly.
So why did his chest hurt?
He sat alone behind one of the outer buildings now, knees pulled slightly toward his chest as evening wind moved quietly through the mountains. The compound felt distant from here. Quiet enough that the muffled voices drifting from the nearby gardens carried clearly through the air.
His mother was crying.
Damian stared down at his hands harder.
He had never heard Talia cry before.
Not once.
Eva’s softer voice murmured beside her, comforting and gentle, but Damian could still hear the grief underneath it. The sound twisted painfully somewhere deep in his stomach.
He did not understand.
This was what he had been raised for.
This was what heirs of the League were meant to become.
Wasn’t it?
His eyes burned suddenly.
Damian scrubbed angrily at his face before the tears could properly fall.
Then footsteps approached rapidly around the corner.
Dante appeared a second later, breathing slightly hard like he had been searching the entire compound. His expression brightened automatically at the sight of Damian before immediately falling again.
Because Damian was crying.
Dante stopped moving altogether.
For once, there was no joke waiting on his tongue. No teasing comment. He simply stood there staring with wide blue eyes, suddenly uncertain in a way Damian almost never saw from him.
Slowly, Dante walked closer before dropping down beside him against the wall.
Their shoulders bumped together lightly.
“You okay?” Dante asked quietly.
Damian looked away immediately. “I am fine.”
“You’re doing the weird face.”
“There is no weird face.”
“The sad one.”
Damian’s jaw tightened sharply. “I am not sad.”
Dante frowned at him for several long seconds. Then, very carefully, he leaned sideways until most of his weight rested against Damian’s shoulder.
The gesture was clumsy and awkward. Purely childish.
But warm.
“You don’t gotta lie to me,” Dante mumbled softly.
Something in Damian’s chest cracked painfully at the words.
“I completed the mission correctly,” he whispered.
Dante stayed quiet for a moment.
Then he asked, “Did you want to?”
Damian froze.
Nobody had asked him that before.
Not his grandfather.
Not his instructors.
Not even his mother.
The question itself felt unfamiliar.
“I…” Damian’s voice faltered slightly. “It was my duty.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Damian swallowed hard enough that it hurt.
More tears blurred his vision despite his obvious frustration with them.
Dante watched silently before reaching over and grabbing Damian’s hand with both of his own. His grip was small, warm, and stubbornly firm.
“If somebody makes you do stuff that hurts you,” Dante said fiercely, “they suck.”
Despite everything, Damian let out a broken little laugh at that.
Dante brightened instantly like that tiny sound alone was a victory.
A moment later, another set of footsteps approached more calmly.
Vergil stepped around the corner carrying three juice boxes and a blanket under one arm. He took one look at Damian’s face before his expression darkened immediately.
Quietly, he sat down on Damian’s other side.
Neither of them asked questions.
Neither of them pushed.
Vergil simply handed Damian a juice box like this was the most natural thing in the world, then spread the blanket across their laps as evening cold settled over the mountains.
The three boys sat there together in silence while the wind moved softly through the gardens nearby.
And for the first time since the mission ended, Damian did not feel completely alone.