[A/N: Was drinking Ribena, did not hug Leonardo. I'm sorry Leonardo! Also, the half-English half-Italian thing in the game did seem a bit jarring (though the voice acting was hot), but Italian is so beautiful, so I will keep a little half-Italian half-'English' in this fic too.

Also, I will not be following Leonardo's real timeline. It seems he actually left for Milan in 1482, while in the game he follows Ezio to Venezia.

For Nescienx and other AC fangirls.]

"The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me" – Leonardo da Vinci

The Vitruvian Man

I

Leonardo was just in time to drag the curtain over the bodies in his storeroom and drop a canvas sheet over his more recent, esoteric sketches when the impatient knocks at his door segued into the self-assured creak of its hinges.

"Leonardo da Vinci." Lady Maria Auditore sounded amused, when he whirled around.

He managed pleasantries, relieved that it hadn't been one of his more... unforgiving patrons, scooping up the completed commissions and placing them carefully in a box, glad that he'd remembered this morning in between sketching a bird's wing and designing a formula for underwater ink to put the scrolls within reach and within sight.

It was only when he carried the box to his latest patron that Leonardo had a good look at the youth standing behind her. Tall, lithe and broad-shouldered, his hair an unruly shock of dark silky waves, his dark eyes sharp and playful, skin evenly tanned from hours baked in the Firenze sun, Ezio Auditore was quite possibly the most handsome man Leonardo had ever seen; and he has long had the pleasure of Medici patronage and access to the courtiers and philosophers and painted youths entertained in the House of Medici.

Lorenzo de' Medici had introduced the Auditore family to him. Right now, unabashedly staring, Leonardo thanked God for the Medici.

He swallowed, as Ezio took the box from him with easy strength, looking bored, blithely unaware of how Leonardo's fingers itched suddenly for a brush, a pencil, inks and papers. Lady Auditore sensed her son's impatience, the pleasantries swept short, and they leave, leave Leonardo staring after them as the door closed, with his mouth dry and parted like a peasant child and his fingernails curling tightly into his palms.

Leonardo cast an eye behind him to the yet unfinished Adoration of the Magi, sighed, and took to his desk, putting quill to ink and drawing a sheet of paper to himself.

The treatise on violent, sudden emotion he burned, later, deeper into the night, but the sketch he could not bear to crumple. Pencils shaded and shaped the Auditore youth with painful precision onto paper, his dark eyes bright and piercing, his smile inviting, here Leonardo's 'gift' turned both blessing and curse.

Leonardo considered giving it to Lady Auditore in her next visit, glanced back at the fire, and sighed again, tying it instead into a tight scroll and hiding it in the pile of his journals. Women tended to be perceptive, particularly where their sons were involved, and Leonardo was quick to understand social restrictions. He had long learned his lesson, in Firenze, and it had been a harsh one.

II

Ezio fell into an exhausted slumber while Leonardo worked on the hidden blade mechanism, and not even the remarkable intricacy of the design managed to hold his full attention. Guiltily, Leonardo set the blade aside and took up quill and paper, sketching.

Ezio looked vulnerable now where he had not at the door, murder in his eyes and betrayal writ in the tension of his shoulders. The youth Leonardo had so admired was gone, murdered along with his brothers at the gallows, something more primal left in its wake, a newborn hunter mewling for its first kill. And now he would give it fangs.

Leonardo was at heart and in practice a pacifist, respecting all life and disdaining meat at his table, and yet for a man he did not know well, he was about to provide a silent instrument of death.

He put fists at his head, bowing it for a long, pained breath, and began to sketch long, dark lashes, fluttering in sleep. Leonardo dared not linger on this work, managing only the barest of frames before tucking the scroll away in a drawer to be finished later in privacy, returning his attention to the blade.

Later he cannot help pulling a prank on Ezio, serious, brash Ezio, as though he could ever put a blade to those perfect, nimble fingers.

III

Since the blade, every single one of Ezio's visits had been due to encrypted pages from what the assassin called 'the Codex'. Leonardo supposed that he could expect little different – though Ezio called him friend, it was not like they were truly close, confidantes, no matter how much he might wish it otherwise.

Inviting an embrace had been foolishness born of euphoria from the hectic past week, what with the insane journey through the mountains and then the ship to Venezia, sharing a cabin with Ezio and pretending to be interested in politics when all he could think of was how poorly the other scrolls in his bags under the bed hid all eleven of his sketches of his friend.

He'd asked, a little shyly, if he could sketch Ezio, midway, when the coast was a dark line drawn jagged over the calm ways, and his friend had laughed, thinking it a joke. Leonardo hadn't dared bring it up since.

He'd made Ezio uncomfortable after all, Leonardo had surmised. Small wonder the man had stared askance at him when he had put his arms wide. Perhaps he should apologize. Leonardo had no idea where Ezio might be at any given time, but the entire city knew that the thieves' guild had acquired a powerful, silent ally, and-

"Leonardo."

"Ezio! So good to see you." Leonardo said as the door opened silently, pleasure and surprise both. "I was just thinking of you. How can I be of service?"

The hunter had matured: Ezio walked with a deadly, quiet grace, his hands a murderer's hands a multitude over, and his eyes were hard now, dark and cold. Beautiful in the way a hawk was beautiful, all talons and claws. Leonardo's fingers itched, but he was used to that, now. Two sketches had become three, then a multitude of scrolls stored neatly in a locked chest under Leonardo's bed, his sole guilty pleasure in his celibacy, his one mistress to his pursuit of knowledge.

"And then the devil appears?" Ezio quipped, amused. Cool confidence now, where brash youth had once been. "Why, what about? Is there something I can do for you, amico?"

"No, no. No, it is nothing," Leonardo's courage ebbed quickly under the steady stare. "I, ah, is it another page?"

"Actually I was here to apologize."

"Apologize? About what?" Leonardo did not recall the assassin giving offense recently, if ever. Ezio was brusque in their meetings and always business, but it was not as though Leonardo could not understand that the assassin was moving in far more important circles than he.

"That day? The first day in Venezia?" Ezio prompted, when Leonardo continued to look blank. "You seemed hurt."

"The first day of Venezia?" Leonardo tried recalling. "I was not injured. You made sure of that by diverting the bandits' attentions."

Ezio muttered something under his breath, and took two long strides into Leonardo's personal space before he could blink, all but crushing him into a hug. Dimly, Leonardo was aware that he had stopped breathing: Ezio was so warm, his metal armor jutting painfully into his ribs and elbows, the silver buckle at his belt into his belly, and awkwardly, Leonardo returned the embrace, his fingers trembling. Ezio smelled of leather, metal and sunshine.

"There." Ezio drew back, all too quickly and looking satisfied, clapping him on the shoulder with his ungloved palm. "Now we are even."

"I… I… what… this…"

The assassin frowned, concerned. "Leonardo?"

He took a deep breath, trying to kick his much vaunted brain into some form of intelligent speech. "Er. Thank you, Ezio." God damn it.

"You are very important to me," Ezio continued earnestly, "I think of you as my best and most trusted friend. I do not want you to think otherwise. That day, I was just a little tired. Distracted."

Leonardo was quite sure now that he was dreaming. He had thought... "Ezio, have you been drinking?"

"No, no. I do not drink any longer. It dulls the senses," Ezio grimaced. "Not that Antonio's place lacks for liquor, what with all that drunken noise and revelry every night."

"Is that where you stay? The thieves' guild?" Leonardo felt mildly appalled.

"When I am in Venezia, yes." The assassin shrugged, his grin quick and mischievous. "I am an assassin, Leonardo. A den of thieves, a house of whores, such places are full of my ilk."

"You can stay here," The words left his mouth before he could think. "I, ah, I mean, I have rooms disused upstairs. You can access one through the balcony, even. It will be much quieter than the other places."

"Thank you, Leonardo," Ezio said, looking startled. "But it will be dangerous for you. I am a wanted man."

"I think we are long past denying our association," Leonardo said dryly, with a quick glance at Ezio's wrists. "And I have long been known as a friend of your family."

"I remember," Ezio said soberly, his eyes narrowing briefly. The assassin's first kill with the hidden blade, Leonardo recalled, had been in his defense. "Has it troubled you since?"

"No. Not after the removal of the Pazzi. Lorenzo de' Medici ensured that. There's a spare bed upstairs. Not much in the way of any other furniture, unfortunately."

"Thank you, Leonardo." As responses came, that was all too disappointingly neutral.

IV

A rattling sound and a quiet step in the floor above startled Leonardo out of his painstaking drafting of a whimsical set of engineering plans for mechanical carriages. Since the Medici had solidified their grasp on Firenze, he had not had any nocturnal burglaries, but then, Leonardo was all too clear that he was no longer in Firenze. Shakily, he took the nearest weapon he could find – a butcher's knife – and crept up the stair.

He flinched when there was a shout, then a scuffle, the wet sounds of a blade meeting flesh, then loud swearing, a woman's voice, filthy enough that Leonardo blushed. Quickly, he ascended the stair, circling towards the spare room, afraid of what he would find.

A slim woman with short, black hair and a delicate chin stood planted beside the window, hands on her hips, fingers clasped over the hilt of a blade that still dripped blood onto the floorboards. She wore mannish clothes, a rough shirt buttoned whorishly low over her cleavage, and equally unseemly short, fitting breeches, with a scarf around her slender neck that dipped into the valley of her breasts.

"… bastardo… ah, you. Well, help me get rid of this," the woman gestured impatiently at the body at her feet. A man lay dead, sprawled on the floorboard, a gaping wound in his neck. "Courtesy from the Barbarigos, I think. Dio mio, must you stand there gaping like a fish? Help me carry him!"

Leonardo found himself half-dragging, half-carrying the body down to the dissection room, enduring muttered imprecations and the occasional snide comment about his strength and stamina the whole interminable journey, the woman only seeming to take a breath when he offered her a basin of water and a cloth, later, to wash her hands.

She looked around his workshop sharply, her eyes lingering on the unfinished paintings, sweeping over the sketches and the books, and snorted derisively. "You are his closest friend?"

"It seems so." Leonardo didn't need to ask for clarification, and besides, sometimes the fact of the matter was surprising even to himself. "What just happened there?"

"The whole of Italia thinks the world of your intelligence and you ask me that?"

"Why would the Barbarigos want to kill me?" He hazarded a guess, shaken. "Ah… and er, thank you, milady."

"I have never been a 'milady', thank you so kindly, good sir," the woman said, her tone mocking, though her narrowed eyes softened. "My name is Rosa. You are fortunate that I was passing by."

"Yes, I owe you my life. If there is anything I can do for you in return…"

"Lock your windows at night and your doors at all times," Rosa said, though not unkindly. "You do not seem to be a bad sort, just a stupid one, keeping such friends as you do and living all alone with no guard. I will have Antonio post a watch on your place."

"Er… thank you?"

"We look after our own," Rosa inclined her head. "And you are important to him." Full lips quirked into a grin of sly mischief. "I think I will tell him that you were nearly killed today. Perhaps he will remember that when the cretino next does something loud and stupid."

V

Leonardo returned from a meeting with philosophers in the Piazza San Marco to find Ezio waiting for him in his workshop. "How did you get in?"

"I picked the lock," Ezio admitted, looking a little embarrassed. "Rosa showed me how to pick locks some time ago."

"Ah… it is good to see you," Leonardo said, deciding to move past why his best friend had broken into his house. "Would you like some tea?"

"You are not injured at all?" At Leonardo's blink, Ezio added, irritably, "From when those bastardi from Barbarigo tried to kill you. Rosa told me-"

"There was one guard, and Rosa killed him before anything happened," Leonardo said quickly. "No injuries at all. You need not have worried."

"Still, if she had not been there…" Ezio was pacing, a sure sign that his volatile temper had been simmering for some time.

"Antonio has posted a guard. He came by personally to discuss it with me." Antonio had been an interesting man: educated, incisive, with a quick mind that enjoyed debate. Leonardo had come away from the long conversation – one that now took place weekly – with the impression that Antonio's usual associates failed to provide him with an (any) intellectual stimulation that he seemingly craved.

"The guard will be useless if the Barbarigo make a serious attempt on your life. You should go back to Firenze. Lorenzo can protect you. Or Monteriggioni. My uncle will be happy to do so. Monteriggioni may even be safer. No stranger enters it undetected."

"I like Venezia," Leonardo shook his head. "And I cannot hide forever in Firenze. Some day I hope to live in Milan. I cannot always rely on another."

"You could die here," Ezio snapped, clearly frustrated. "I insist that you leave. Look at how easily I broke in. Anyone could do it. Distract the guard and send another to lie here, in wait."

"And were I to leave? You have shown me yourself that there is no such thing as an impenetrable stronghold. I will stay."

"If you must stay, then you will move into Antonio's palazzo."

"I like my workshop," Leonardo retorted, balling his fists, struggling to hold his patience against Ezio's draconian will, "And you yourself have told me that Antonio's guild is a raucous place. I need quiet to concentrate, to create."

"Then I am moving in here," Ezio countered, folding his arms. "Quietly. No one will know. But if the Barbarigo send another after you again, I will be there." When Leonardo said nothing, shocked, Ezio growled, "No more arguments. In the meantime I will work with Antonio to remove the rest of the Barbarigo bastardi from Venezia."

"You are always welcome here, Ezio," Leonardo said, cautiously, unable to believe his good fortune. Warmth was infusing his cheeks and twisting at his heart, and it was all he could do to stand still and pretend – pretend – that nothing momentous had happened.

"I have lost too much to the Borgia Maestro and his allies," Ezio said gruffly, thankfully oblivious to how easily he had just overturned his best friend's world. "I will not lose you too."

VI

Considering that it felt as though he had waited years for this, Ezio moving into the spare room above his workshop turned out to be somewhat less life-changing than Leonardo had originally thought. Ezio was a busy man, often away from Venezia altogether on contracts from Lorenzo, and even when he was in Venezia he was usually missing. In his absence, Antonio seemed to visit more often, if not Antonio then Sister Teodora or Rosa.

It was clear that he was being more tightly guarded, but Leonardo did not really enjoy having such a constant stream of demanding (particularly Rosa) visitors. It interrupted his already dubious concentration and shaky schedule. However, his strenuous protests went unheeded, and Leonardo grudgingly adjusted his work schedule along with his social arrangements accordingly.

When Ezio was there, however, the assassin spent most of his time in a shallow sleep, either slumped on a chair in the workshop or curled up on the spare bed. When he was awake, it was usually because Leonardo was performing rudimentary first aid.

Today it seemed that Ezio had broken an arm via having slipped from a roof while in pursuit of a mark. Dosed on a light tincture of laudanum against the pain as Leonardo washed and set his arm, Ezio's speech was rambling and slurred in his description of how he had completed his mission anyway against all odds, though Leonardo noted that the assassin's feet were still flat-footed on the floorboards, and that he had seated himself in a way that he could track the stairwell and the door with his peripheral vision.

"A doctor could probably do this more neatly," Leonardo concluded, as he bound and splint the arm.

"I do not need neat," Ezio slouched back in the chair, yawning, stripped to his undershirt, breeches and one of his bladed bracers. "And you are as good as any of the doctors in Venezia."

"Hardly," Leonardo set himself to clearing up the medical kit on his worktable, flattered nonetheless.

"I do not know how you have managed it, but you can paint anything, you can build anything, you can perform medicine, argue philosophy, sing, play the lyre, write poetry… anything," Ezio continued, his words interspersed by heavy yawns. "You are rich, connected to the Medici, intelligent and comely. It is a wonder that you are not married, amico. I have never even seen you with a woman."

"You are not married either, Ezio," Leonardo deflected the dangerous implication there carefully, and turned around to slot the kit back onto the shelves, searching for an available space and hoping that he had done so in time to hide his flush.

"I am an assassin," Ezio said sleepily, as though it explained everything.

"Your father was married. The author of the scrolls you have brought me, he too, twice, I believe."

"It is different. I am an outlaw. My father worked in secret; everyone who knew him thought that he was a banker. The author, Altaïr, he lived in a community of assassins. No doubt his wives were also assassins."

"There is Monteriggioni."

"You are changing the subject," Ezio pointed out, irritable. "You are famous, well-known, you make the rounds of many Courts, many social circles. If you were a woman I would already have married you."

Leonardo dropped the kit. As he bent to pick it up, trying to think of an appropriate response, any response, Ezio began to laugh, apparently at his own joke, heartily at first, then chuckling drowsily into slumber as the laudanum took effect.

"Ezio?" Leonardo asked cautiously, setting the kit down on the shelf and sidling over to prod his friend on the wrist. When Ezio only muttered in his sleep and shifted gently, Leonardo sighed, looking around for Ezio's cape and draping the assassin in it, allowing his fingers to linger briefly over broad shoulders. "I am not married because of you, amore mio. Nor will I ever be."

V

Rosa's most annoying habit, in Leonardo's opinion, and one that he tolerated with the best of his patience, was her tendency to explore his workshop each time she was tasked with guard duty, commenting loudly on anything new and often opening cupboards and cabinets with brazen impunity.

As such, it was with some trepidation, about an hour of deep and blissful silence spent drawing preliminary sketches on canvas that Leonardo realized that Rosa had gone quiet.

"Rosa?"

No answer. Frowning, looking around warily, Leonardo grew a little worried. Rosa would not leave without informing him in her usual ebullient manner, nor had he ever observed her fall asleep while on 'duty'.

"Rosa?" Leonardo searched his workshop briefly, even looking under the desks and in the dissection room, and then he ascended the stairway, as alert as he could be to any footsteps or suspicious sounds. Perhaps there was an intruder while he was working. Or perhaps Rosa had looked out briefly at the rooftops and had an accident. If she were hurt, Ezio would-

He let out the breath he was holding when he noticed Rosa sitting on the floor beside his bed, unharmed, apparently going through a set of scrolls.

He was somewhat less relieved when he saw the unlocked chest and realized what the scrolls were.

"Rosa!" Bright red, Leonardo darted forward, scooping up the scrolls on the ground and dumping them back in the chest. "You had no right!"

"Oh, come on, Leonardo," Rosa grinned, unrepentant as she dodged his wild grasp for the scrolls in her hands nimbly and perched up on the bedside desk. "These are very good. Even the early ones. Even those that are obviously not posed, no?"

"Do not tell him, please," Leonardo could recognize futility when he saw it, and chasing Rosa around the bedroom would not only be futile but also childishly undignified.

"Why not?"

"I know that between us there is only friendship. I do not want that ruined. I will burn these," Leonardo promised, steeling his voice from choking. "Just return that, please, and keep your silence." When Rosa merely arched an eyebrow, Leonardo's shoulders slumped. "I have money."

Rosa sniffed, tossing the scroll accurately at his ear. "Do not insult me, bastardo."

"Many years ago, I was in love. Before Ezio." Leonardo sat down heavily, placing the last scroll in the chest. "An enemy of mine discovered my secret, and accused me anonymously of sodomy. I would have been hanged, me, my lover, and my lover's brothers for facilitating the meetings, but for my tutor and Lorenzo de' Medici's intervention. We were acquitted, but a month later, my lover hanged himself. Suicide. The rumors, you see. So. Never again."

Rosa went from being perched on the dresser to kneeling by his side in a blink of an eye, and Leonardo froze as she hugged him tightly and kissed him on the ear. "You are a stupid bastardo but you are also my friend. And I am a thief. Do you think I care what those spoiled cretinos in Court think should be right and wrong about love? I will not tell him. But," she added softly, "I would rather that you did not burn these."

"They are dangerous, after all."

"Add other sketches," Rosa shrugged. "Myself, Antonio, Sister Teodora, Lorenzo de' Medici, people in the street, your acquaintances. The best disguise is the obvious one, Leonardo. Understand?"

"I understand."

"Good, good. But to be safe, I give you a week to make some sketches. Nice sketches. Especially of me," Rosa added, with a quick smirk. "And then I will take one home to Antonio's palazzo and put it in my room. You should give me one of Antonio as well. After that, if he finds out, well, you just like to sketch your friends."

"I just like to sketch my friends," Leonardo echoed, dizzy, choking now on unexpected tears that he fought to swallow, and Rosa tugged him closer, tucking his head under her chin, rocking him silently and crooning something wordless until he slept.

VII

Despite Rosa and despite the fact that doing so hurt, Leonardo burned some of the sketches; particularly the unclothed ones, any which he felt might cause untoward comment. If Rosa noticed this on her next visit, she made no observation, instead occupying herself with an inordinate amount of feminine preening at the sketches he had made of her.

"These are very good," Rosa's favorite was one of the finer sketches, of her seated, thinking, on a vined balcony lattice overlooking one of the canals, one knee arched, an elbow resting upon it, mannish and feminine all at once. "More than very good. You are better than any artist I have ever seen! Can I truly have one?"

"Thank you," Leonardo said, calmer now after a week of thought. "Please, have any of them. More than one, if you wish."

"I want this one, and this one of Antonio. It is not as good as mine, naturally, but he will like it." Rosa slipped the scrolls into a pouch at her belt. "If he does not realize they are from you then you should cast your eye at someone else, because he is a cretino whose sole interest in life is murder. It is a pity," Rosa leant further forward on the table, hands braced on the edges, winking as she shamelessly and playfully displayed her cleavage, "That you do not like women. I can take care of you, better than he."

"I like women, I just have no interest in them," Leonardo pointedly kept his eyes diverted. "And Ezio is not like that at all."

"Assassini only have one purpose, and it is being an assassino," Rosa straightened, patting his hand sympathetically. "He belongs to the Medici, and above that, to his assassini della famiglia. You are his friend but you will not be more than his friend, not unless you are part of his world."

"I have understood that a very long time ago, Rosa," Leonardo said calmly, forcing himself to hold her knowing stare. "Besides, I am nine years older than he."

"Pah! As though age makes any difference. Although," Rosa said, unrelenting, "The cretino likes women."

"I have known that too. Most men do."

"Is this because you are an artist and a philosopher?" Rosa asked suspiciously. "Antonio said you were touched by God, by the angels. I did not think he meant 'stupid'."

"Many men are no doubt stupid in the eyes of women," Leonardo smiled, as winningly as he could, and Rosa rolled her eyes, throwing up her hands.

"Fine! Kill yourself by pining to death over a cretino." Rosa patted her pouch. "But for this kind payment, I will make some effort on your behalf."

"Effort? Effort to what?"

"To help you, Leonardo," Rosa drawled, with exaggerated patience. "You want help with Ezio, no?"

"No!" Leonardo flushed bright red, standing up so quickly that his stool fell over with a sharp clack on the flagstones.

"Of course you do," Rosa flapped one slender wrist at him dismissively. "Antonio and I will discuss this-"

"Please do not tell Antonio."

"-again later."

"What do you mean 'again'?"

"We will work something out," Rosa decided blithely. "Us thieves are good at solving locked room problems. Even if the locked room is a cretino's heart."

"What have I done to offend you, Lord?" Leonardo muttered, setting his stool straight and slumping back down on it as Rosa patted him on the shoulder.

"Be happy, friend Leonardo! Do not worry, you are in safe hands. And draw more sketches. Of me, naturally."

VIII

Antonio took a deep and appreciative sip of the caffe that he had taken with him to the workshop. The bitter liquid was stimulating, and Leonardo rather enjoyed it – again, from Antonio's pleased response, it seemed this was also rather unusual. They had discussed Theophrastus and the theories of sensation, and were taking a comfortable lull that Leonardo used to sketch the veins of the leaves in a rosemary spring.

"And about Rosa's suggestion," Antonio said, after a second sip, "You will be pleased to know that we have acted upon it. Us thieves do not sit on our laurels."

Leonardo choked on his caffe.

"And so," Antonio continued pleasantly, as though he had not noticed, "Perhaps within the week you should expect a visit from Ezio."

"What," Leonardo wiped his mouth, "Did you do?"

"You know those pigeon coops that these assassini use to take orders from their masters?" Antonio winked. "What paltry locks. What an even more paltry code and seal on the pigeons' letters. So easily removed and, we shall say, amended."

"What."

"Do not worry, we will put the original mission back on another pigeon. Perhaps even the same pigeon, a little later. He will never be any the wiser. You cannot say that Antonio is not good to his friends," Antonio said happily. "Your sketch, I have framed it in the hallway. I like it. Perhaps when you have time you can do a small painting. Only when you have time, of course."

"Of course," Leonardo echoed dumbly, horrified. No. Ezio was an intelligent man. Surely he would notice the ruse. It would only be logical. After all, he has had many, many assignations from Lorenzo. Surely he would notice a missive that was not in his master's handwriting. "Which pigeon coop is this?"

"Why spoil the surprise, friend Leonardo?" Antonio grinned. "You should enjoy life and the things that your friends will do for your sake."

God hated him. Leonardo was sure of that.

"There are many coops," Leonardo said hopefully. "He has told me this. So he might not see your message."

"Oh, we have taken care of that eventuality, of course. But it is good of you to point it out. I am glad to see that you are getting into the spirit of things."

Leonardo put his head in his hands.

IX

Leonardo was preparing to sleep, dressed in his nightshirt and setting a guttering candle by his bedside desk, when Ezio climbed in through the window.

Sucking on a finger burned on the hot wax from his shock, Leonardo managed a stuttered, "Ezio? What… how, er, how can I help you?"

"You are in grave danger," Ezio said urgently, waving an unstoppered vial under Leonardo's nose. "Drink this now."

Leonardo tried to focus on the vial instead of on how Ezio was crowding him up against the desk, and then he remembered. Antonio. Rosa. The pigeon. "Ezio, is that from Antonio or Rosa?"

"Yes, why?" Ezio asked irritably. "Well, more accurately, it is from Sister Teodora. Drink it."

Leonardo thought Sister Teodora, prostitutes, and aphrodisiac in one single logical train of thought and flushed. "No. And I think that you are the victim of a… a prank, they stole your pigeon and changed the message, that drink will be, will make me do things I will regret. That we will regret."

"So it is true," Ezio frowned, his tone anxious, concerned. "The poison, you have already taken the poison."

"Poison? What poison?" Leonardo ducked Ezio's attempts to force the vial into his mouth. "Ezio, stop!"

"You are already talking and acting like a madman. Rosa said that would be a bad sign. Here," Ezio snapped, pinning him against the wall and the crook of his arm, "Hold still." The assassin tipped the vial into his own mouth in an angry jerk, dropped the emptied vial, and to Leonardo's great shock, crushed their lips together.

Leonardo's mouth opened in sheer astonishment, and Ezio took the opportunity to push his tongue down his throat, tilting back his head with a practiced flick of his wrist. He pushed blindly at Ezio's shoulders for one halfhearted moment, then groaned and wrapped his arms over the assassin's neck, pressing closer, deeper, licking greedily into Ezio's mouth. The liquid, on taste, was clearly plain water flavored with a touch of vanilla essence, the kiss sweet, sinful, perfect.

It was over too quickly, Leonardo stumbling back against the desk and thanking God for the shadows and the thick linens of his nightshirt over his loins. Ezio steadied him absently with a quick grasp on his arm.

"Better?"

Leonardo stared, speechless, and Ezio exhaled loudly in frustration. "How else could I make you drink the antidote without pouring it down your throat and risking you throwing it back up? Sister Teodora explained that this would be the safest method."

So Sister Teodora was part of the conspiracy. Leonardo sighed. He was not surprised. "I think you are the victim of a cruel trick, my friend."

"I know you think yourself immune to my world, with your powerful patrons," Ezio did not move, still watching him so closely, so searchingly, "But the Barbarigo attack should already have proved otherwise to you, Leonardo. A cunningly administered poison, slow acting, this would be the least of the Borgia's evil."

Leonardo gave up. Besides, the weak man within him was still reveling in the kiss, in the taste of Ezio lingering on his lips. "I… er… then thank you, Ezio."

"Go to sleep. I will search your workshop for any clues."

"If you wish." Leonardo crawled into bed, curling up quickly. He waited until Ezio left the room before touching his lips in guilty memory.

He slept fitfully, plagued by wanting dreams, Ezio's mouth, Ezio's smile, and woke with a start, closer to dawn, looking out blearily through the window towards the skyline. When Leonardo realized Ezio was in his room, sitting at the foot of the bed and going through – god damn it, he had a lock on the chest for a reason – the scrolls, he sat up quickly. He had done as Rosa had suggested, but-

"You look better," Ezio said, without turning around. "And there were no clues. I will look farther afield."

"Did you rest?"

"For a time, in the spare room. I do not need much sleep." Ezio was looking at a scroll of Maria Auditore, her perfect hands clasped in her lap, the long, slender fingers that her son had inherited. "This is beautiful. All of these are beautiful. How long have you been sketching these?"

"I always sketch in my spare time," Leonardo said evasively, but Ezio didn't seem to notice, clearly happily absorbed, admiring each scroll with reverent fingers. "You can keep some if you wish."

"Truly? You are very generous, my friend."

"They are just sketches," Leonardo lied, watching Ezio set some aside. His mother's sketch, and one each of Rosa, Antonio, and Sister Teodora. At Leonardo's questioning stare, Ezio hesitated.

"Could I?"

"Of course. As many as you like."

"I want to show these to her and Claudia, show them the friends I have here. You do not have one of yourself," Ezio added, a little accusingly.

"It is hard to draw myself. And your family knows me."

"Use a mirror. My sister has not met you, and she will fall in love with you," Ezio grinned, all mischief, looking through another scroll. "So you were the one who drew the portraits in the hallway, in Antonio's palazzo."

"Rosa picked them."

"No doubt." Leonardo leaned against the wall, watching Ezio go through the scrolls slowly in companionable silence. The rising sun was beginning to tint the whitewashed walls a pale red, painting Ezio's striking features in softer shades.

He was almost dozing when Ezio remarked, "Most of the scrolls are of me."

The cold splash of reality shot Leonardo straight back to consciousness. "Of… of course. You are the, you are my closest friend." He should have made more sketches of the others. "And, uh, I prefer to draw men." Leonardo bit down on his tongue quickly. Why had he said-

"Why?"

"The musculature is more challenging," Leonardo said quickly.

"I see." Ezio seemed to accept his explanation, carefully opening another scroll. "Some of the paper is quite old, as well, some of mine, while all of the ones of Antonio and the others are new."

"I was only recently introduced to the others," Thank God for Rosa, who had coached him on what to say.

"Even the one of my mother."

"Rosa asked me what she looked like. I apologize, if you would rather I did not-"

"Do not worry so much, Leonardo. Why would I not want a friend to know how beautiful my mother is?" Ezio picked up another scroll, one of the last ones, the paper long yellowed. "This one, the armor I am wearing… it was the day I brought you the broken blade."

"Yes," Leonardo did not know what to say, looking down at his hands. He knew he should have burned that one. "You were… you were so tired, I did not want to wake you. So I waited."

"I was so young then." Ezio murmured, turning the sketch up into the growing light from the waking sun. "Young and stupid."

"We were all young and stupid once."

"You? I find it hard to believe."

"Even me," Leonardo said wryly, watching Ezio tuck the scroll carefully back into the chest. "Even me."

X

Leonardo was reading by candlelight in his bedroom when Antonio climbed down onto the sill. Having had long acquaintance with Ezio, Rosa and the other thieves, this did not surprise him any longer.

"Antonio. Ah, good to see you."

"Leonardo," Antonio beamed. "Feeling better?"

Leonardo stifled the urge to throw the book into Antonio's face. "No, and no thanks to you and Rosa! That was… that was outrageous. I cannot believe your temerity-"

"All's well that ends well though? You are better, everyone is better." Antonio slipped easily into the room, straightening with a yawn.

"I am not better," Leonardo corrected, struggling to control his temper. "You knew, you and Rosa, you knew and yet, to do something like this to me when you know I love him with all my heart and my soul, how could it not hurt me when I know it could never happen any other way? When I had to lie to him when he asked me why most of the sketches were of him? When I had to smile and thank him for the 'antidote' when I would have gladly died to kiss him again? No, sir, I am not feeling better, and you, sir, owe us an apology."

Antonio had tried to interrupt Leonardo's tirade at points with a raised hand, but he refused to let him get in a single word. The kiss had been seared into him, burned into his dreams, and it hurt to know all too well that the thieves' trick had been beneath it all. Letting Antonio know exactly what he felt about the thief's meddling was… cathartic.

Up until he realized Antonio looked somewhat more worried than he should even for a lecture.

Up until there were the clear sounds of someone running away on the roof, and then a loud, ugly curse from Rosa, and another set of following footsteps, fading away into the night.

Leonardo exhaled, and leant back against the wall. It was clear. Perhaps in his previous life, he had been a great sinner against God.

"Well," Antonio said philosophically, after an awkward silence, "If he does not kill Rosa, I think she will be able to make things right."

Leonardo closed his eyes, forcing himself to slow his breathing, and then he shook his head slowly and put his book down on the sheets. What was done was done, and if he looked deep within him, it was aching, dull relief that all was now known, that there were no more secrets. "Caffe?"

"I would be pleased."

XI

Rosa was very contrite the next day, having even arrived with sweet, mulled wine and a variety of delicacies and desserts. Exhausted, not having slept for the night, Leonardo could only accept her apology with good grace.

"It is actually a relief," Leonardo admitted. "He might hate me now but at least I am no longer hiding."

"I wish a man would say those things about me," Rosa said, almost wistfully, and grinned wickedly when Leonardo groaned and curled his fingers up over his skull. "You are being dramatic. He does not hate you. He is just leaving Venezia to think."

"After which he will hate me."

" 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted'," Rosa echoed, and Leonardo frowned, startled. "Antonio said that is the assassini creed. I do not think he will be as angry as you think. Besides, he needs you."

"He can easily send a messenger to me with his codex pages-"

"I did not mean it that way," Rosa hooked up the spare chair with her ankle and settled down next to Leonardo. "He talks more about you than about anyone else, even his family. He thinks the world of you."

"As a friend. If even that, now."

"You are too pessimistic. I spoke to him, remember? He does not hate you."

"Did he burn the sketches he took with him?"

"What is it with you and burning sketches?" Rosa glared, folding her arms across her ample bosom. "If he does not want them, I want them. If the cretino has burned them I will kill him."

"No, no. They are not important." Leonardo sighed, slumping down against his workshop desk, pillowing his head on his arms. "After that problem in Firenze, the one that Lorenzo saved me from, I thought I was beyond this. I wish now that the Medici had never introduced me to the Auditore."

"No man is beyond love," Rosa said expansively, cocking her head for a moment as though in sudden revelation, and then she grinned mischievously and pulled over the bottle of wine. "Come, drink. I will drink with you, and then we will go upstairs to your bed, and I will show you how much better I can take care of you than that ill-tempered cretino who does not deserve you."

"The ill-tempered cretino is here," Ezio said dryly from the stairwell, and Leonardo flinched, barking his knee sharply on the table as he tried to rise.

"You must forgive me if I had thought that the ill-tempered cretino had made good on his word to flee Venezia with the morning tide," Rosa retorted tartly. "Do you want Leonardo or not? If not, I intend to seduce him. If not me, then maybe Antonio will. Or the both of us."

"Rosa!"

"Go away, woman," Ezio braced a palm on the balustrade and vaulted lithely down onto the floorboards. "I need to talk to Leonardo."

"Do I have to confiscate all your weapons first?" Rosa asked, meeting the assassin's challenging stare unflinchingly.

"I am not going to hurt him," Ezio said irritably.

"You mean, any more than you already have?"

"Rosa, please. Thank you, but I can do this myself," Leonardo tried to sound as determined and as confident as he could, and sounded tired instead. Rosa turned her glare upon him, then muttered a vile imprecation under her breath and stormed up the stairs. Ezio waited until he heard her leave from the window (did none of his friends know how to use the door) before shifting uncomfortably, staring at his feet.

Leonardo broke the strained silence first. "It was the thieves' fault. A prank. If you want to forget everything and continue to be friends, I am more than happy to do so."

"I do not want that," Ezio said fiercely, then he looked away, to the door, hooking his fingers in his belt. "I do not know what I want."

"I can wait, if you wish to go away for a while."

"If I go away now I will not return with the right decision." Ezio circled around the desk, and Leonardo forced himself not to flinch as the assassin abruptly embraced him tightly, fingers curling roughly into his shoulder, around his ribs. "I do not like seeing you hurt."

"It will pass," Leonardo whispered, burying his face against Ezio's embroidered collar. Warmth and leather and steel, some things did not change.

"Nor have I ever had someone say such things about me. No one has ever wanted me like that."

"You are young."

"Listen," Ezio growled, just against his ear, and Leonardo shivered. "Other than my family, there is no one more important to me than you."

"I said I would be happy to remain friends-" Leonardo's words were cut off when Ezio exhaled in exasperation and kissed him, angrily at first, all clicking teeth and scraping tongues, then gentler, sweeter kisses that stole his breath and thought; when Leonardo sagged in his arms, light-headed, purring when Leonardo tentatively stroked thumbs over his ears, carded fingers through silky hair.

"I want to try this," Ezio murmured, when they broke for breath and Leonardo was gasping, dizzy and only supported upright by Ezio's arms. "It feels right."

"It is against the law."

Ezio grinned, and Leonardo immediately felt somewhat foolish for giving his words voice. "If I am caught by the authorities, there are far greater crimes that I will be executed over, Leonardo."

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted?" Leonardo echoed, and Ezio's grin faded, the assassin looking at him oddly.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Rosa."

"I suppose if anyone would know it would be her. Did she tell you what it was?"

"She said it was your 'creed'."

"Perhaps not an interpretation that my ancestors would agree with," Ezio said, with wry humor, but he leaned in for another kiss.

XII

"See? Rosa fixes everything," Rosa said, not without smugness. Sister Teodora's 'chapel' had a stateroom complete with velvet curtains and heavy mahogany furniture, leather books in bolted shelves along the walls, discreet metal rings set into the sides, and Leonardo had never really wanted to know why. At present, it was being used as a tea room, with Sister Teodora serving small cakes, wine, tea, in Leonardo's case, and caffe, in Antonio's.

Ezio was seated beside him, an arm draped casually over Leonardo's shoulders. Of necessity, it was only in private, or with the closest of friends, that anything could be shown, but for this Leonardo was already intensely grateful. He sipped his tea in silence, as Ezio snorted.

"You and Antonio owed me several favors."

"By that accounting, you owe us a favor now," Antonio pointed out, enveloped in a deeply cushioned chair, in blissful caffe heaven. "Or if not you, then Leonardo."

"Leave him out of this," Ezio said, his voice not without a note of warning, but the thieves merely chuckled.

"Oh, now the cretino is so protective," Rosa leaned forward to trail fingers up Leonardo's arm, ignoring Ezio's glare. "Leonardo goes to Court so very often, or the Palazzos, or the Piazzas, he meets lonely court butterflies who have not seen so fine a man, or old men who have not feasted their eyes on so handsome a-"

"Rosa," Leonardo interjected quickly, as Ezio growled. "I have no interest, as I have said."

"I was not worried about you, but for you," Rosa said sweetly, clearly baiting Ezio, who was also clearly falling for it. Leonardo was not sure whether or not to feel gratified.

"I will teach him to defend himself."

"I do not need to learn that," Leonardo protested, with a quick, accusing stare at Rosa. "Nor do I have time."

"You will make time," Ezio decided, leaning over to brush lips tenderly over his ear, and Leonardo shivered, almost dropping his cup. Rosa curled back onto her seat, seemingly satisfied, even as Sister Teodora rolled her eyes and Antonio smirked.

"Honestly, Leonardo. When you last told me you were in love I did not think it would be Ezio," Sister Teodora said mildly, refilling his tea. "Does Ezio even know what to do with a man?"

Leonardo coughed. "Er…"

"Or the both of you have not…?"

"No," Leonardo said quickly, at the same time that Ezio snapped, "It is none of your business."

"Is it Ezio? I think it is Ezio," Rosa grinned wickedly, winking when Ezio glared at her in turn. Antonio shook his head slowly, concentrating on his caffe.

"If have any questions, or if you need help with your performance, feel free to ask. At the very least, I have herbs," Sister Teodora said soothingly.

"I am leaving," Ezio said pointedly, though his ears were bright red.

"Our rooms are always open to you, Ezio," Sister Teodora said, untroubled. "If you ever need a little specialized comfort and succor from Leonardo."

"Sister Teodora," Leonardo gasped, scalding his tongue.

"I will remember that," Ezio retorted playfully, in the place of outrage, much to Leonardo's surprise; he twisted around to look at the assassin, disbelieving, and his lips slanted up against a waiting mouth.

XIII

For all his words, however, and for all that Ezio lay now in Leonardo's bed whenever he visited Venezia, caresses oft turned awkward and fleeting. It was new to Ezio, Leonardo reminded himself, each time, and he was patient. This, after all, was already more than he could have hoped for, to kiss, to hold Ezio in the waking dark in his arms as the assassin slept his fitful sleep.

One night Ezio returned after three weeks in Firenze, resting his ear over Leonardo's heart and stroking his beautiful fingers in splaying circles down his belly, and Leonardo was tired; it had been a long day in the Piazzo. He was unable to stifle his moan, the quick instinctive buck of his hips. Ezio's hand stilled instantly.

"I am sorry," Leonardo said, his fingers squeezing Ezio's shoulder nervously.

"It is still strange," Ezio murmured, apology in his tone. "And it has been a year."

"At any time, if you wished-"

"No," Ezio cut in sharply. "I want you. I love you," he added, low and fierce, making Leonardo's heart leap to his throat, the way he could now forgive Ezio all things, "It is just… strange."

"If I could touch you instead?" Leonardo asked, emboldened, but hesitant. "You could close your eyes," he continued, when Ezio didn't answer. "Pretend that you are lying with a woman."

"I would not do that to you," Ezio said gruffly, though he flicked a tongue up along Leonardo's jaw. "What would you do?"

"My hands," Leonardo rested a palm tentatively on Ezio's thigh, sliding it higher, just below the apex of his legs, when the assassin did not flinch away. "And then, my mouth."

Ezio shuddered against him, his breath hot against his neck. "Yes."

Divested of clothes, however, the assassin was limp in his grasp, with Leonardo kneeling between splayed thighs; even though Ezio shivered and moaned when Leonardo turned tongue and teeth to dusky nipples, his free hand alternatively stroking lean, muscular flanks or slipping down to squeeze his perfect rump. Ezio kept his fingers on the bed, seemingly awkward, curling his fists into the sheets when Leonardo kissed down his heaving chest to the curls between his legs, the assassin shivering and arching when Leonardo laved soft sacs with his tongue, the flesh in his grip firming slowly.

Ezio gasped a curse when Leonardo licked experimentally at the tip, and he had to hide a smile. It had been so long, and this was Ezio. He would have to take his time. The hot shaft thickened quickly under his mouth, as he pressed wet kisses down its length, jerking when he drew the tip of his tongue against the wet slit, the musky, masculine scent filling his senses as he took the now engorged head in his mouth and sucked.

The assassin bucked with a startled yelp, almost choking Leonardo, and he held down narrow hips quickly. He could not resist pulling back, with a wet sound underscoring Ezio's frustrated moan, could not resist grinning. "Surely the women have done this for you before."

"It was not so good with the women," Ezio said harshly, reaching down to push a hand down over the back of Leonardo's skull insistently. "Who taught you how to do this? I will kill him tomorrow."

Leonardo had braced himself instinctively for the weight of old pain from older ghosts, but to his amazement he felt only amusement as he turned back down, obliging, swallowing inch by inch until he could take no more, and wrapping the fingers of his right hand against what was left.

The stretch was a barely remembered ache in his jaw as Ezio writhed and cried out, a wounded, hoarse sound that twisted lust in a sudden painful throb in his own loins. Leonardo ignored it, breathing hard through his nose and sucking harder, stroking his tongue against the throbbing vein against it. Fingers curled painfully into his shoulders, his hair, and then Ezio snarled, bucking roughly up into his throat as he spent himself. Leonardo drew back hastily, coughing, swallowing what he could and wiping the rest over the back of his hand.

Ezio looked delicious, sprawled and dazed, naked against his sheets and wetting his lips with his tongue, breathing hard. He opened his mouth, trying to form words, managed a croak, then a wry grin; Leonardo was reminded all too pointedly of his body's own needs, and, licking his own lips, tried to slip off the bed.

The assassin caught him quickly by the arm. "Where…" Ezio cleared his throat. "Where are you going?"

"Ah, the, washing facilities," Leonardo said awkwardly. "I want to kiss you, and, right now, I will not taste very-"

"You have not finished," Ezio looked pointedly at the tent in his nightshirt.

"I will do that in the facilities." Leonardo squirmed, uncomfortably aroused. The scent of Ezio's sex was still thick in the room, and he was beginning to find it difficult to breathe.

"Take this off," Ezio said irritably, his free hand plucking at Leonardo's nightshirt. "I will use my hands."

"You, you do not need to-"

"I want to," Exasperation. "Now, Leonardo."

Self-consciously, Leonardo removed his nightshirt, fully naked for the first time before his lover, feeling awkward as callused fingers ran curiously over his ribs, over his belly and his flanks, his thighs, knuckles brushing up against his cheekbones, curling down his spine, splaying down to his hips. Ezio sat up, pulling him up against him, licking tentatively at his mouth, and then pulling a face.

"See," Leonardo said dryly, but he stilled when Ezio closed one of his perfect hands over his flesh, the assassin licking a path down to his neck, then abruptly sinking his teeth into his shoulder even as he jerked roughly – almost too roughly – at Leonardo's shaft. When he shattered, instantly, he did so with a broken moan, pleasure swift and so unforgivingly intense that it burned.

XIV

"Tomorrow I go to Roma," Ezio murmured against his back, his moustache and beard scratchy against his shoulder. They were both spent, first in the workshop, despite Leonardo's protests, and then again in their bed. "It will be a while. And I may not return." When Leonardo did not answer, instead hunching his shoulders, Ezio sighed, and pressed a kiss against the arch of his spine. When they tangled again in the morning it was urgent, desperate.

Alone in his workshop, later, cleaning up with scents and rags, Leonardo considered leaving. Leaving for Milan.

XV

The workshop that the Duke of Milan provides him with is more spacious by far than Venezia's, but Leonardo disdains servants, preferring a solitary, private life outside of the necessity of Court.

He does not think about Roma, or the rumors. Pope Alexander IV still lives, despite the turmoil that had overtaken Roma for a time, and by that standard, Leonardo thinks, grimly, that he is right to leave Venezia after all, Venezia and her memories that turn crueler in the dust.

He hopes that it was quick for Ezio, that there was no suffering.

Leonardo manages to put the finishing touches on his commission for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception with only minor intellectual interruptions, and is beginning his sketches for the Last Supper, when a voice behind him observes, mildly, "Milan is pleasant in the summer."

Leonardo bites down hard on his lip, and does not turn. "It is a little too early in the day for a haunting."

An exhalation, so familiarly exasperated, and arms encircle him tightly from behind, a kiss presses against his neck, stubble tickling his skin; Leonardo turns, disbelieving. "You."

"Me," Ezio admits, playfully, caressing one hand up to his arm, his shoulder, his cheek, and rests his forehead against Leonardo.

"Pope Alexander lives."

"Aye."

"I thought you were dead."

"I know." A soft breath. "I am sorry. I should have sent word."

"When you saw that I had left Venezia…?"

"I was angry," Ezio confesses. "And busy. And," he adds, brushing his thumb tenderly over Leonardo's bitten lip, "Foolish."

"Ah." A whisper, as lips follow Ezio's thumb, sweet and inevitable and complete.