Looking at Ezio now, you wouldn’t know he’d been crunched under the heel of a very large dinosaur recently. He looked as strong as ever. Focused. A little serious. It was only because the jet pack had received a few adjustments and he was testing. He tended to take testing Leonardo’s inventions very seriously until he was in the air or under the water or wherever and could finally just appreciate the magic of his husband’s mind at work.
“You can go a little tighter...ah, ok, bene…” He rolled his shoulder where Leonardo was adjusting the straps. It felt like it fit more snuggly already so that was good. He rubbed at the spot on his neck where one of the dinosaur’s claws had dug in just a little. There was nothing there, of course. But the thought was on his mind.
“I should tell you...something happened on the island and I don’t know how many people saw it.” Ezio grimaced. “If it will be an issue.”
Leonardo’s brain worked in a dozen different directions at all times, and even now with hands both on the jet pack and on Ezio, it was no different. He was still making adjustments, tightening straps, chuckling with the request for tighter. It had been on the tip of his tongue to make a joke about last week.
It was his only excuse for catching up to Ezio’s heavy comment a few seconds late. “Hm?” With the way it was worded, he could guess, but he also was good at letting his brain wander into a hundred different ideas, most bad. It was a failing. The most obvious one made him cluck his tongue and try not to dismiss it outright, so he smoothed a comforting hand down Ezio’s arm and squeezed. “Please do not tell me you got eaten by a dinosaur and did not tell me about your insider perspective.”
Ezio snorted and reached up to pinch Leonardo’s midsection. “Had I carved my way out of the belly of the beast, I’m fairly sure everyone would know by now, amore mio.”
It would’ve been quite the story, at least. As it was, he wasn’t sure anyone had even seen, or if i would matter if they had. The more time they spent here, the more he felt like their special circumstances weren’t all that shocking to anyone here. But old habits were hard to break. Ezio flashed a small smile and exhaled loudly.
“I might have preferred that though. To being crunched under a foot and left in the underbrush until I healed. There was a lot going on and the dinosaur had many distractions,” he shrugged. “It’s possible no one even realized I was injured rather than hiding.”
Leonardo’s laugh at the pinch morphed into an open wince with the thought of being crunched underfoot. They had both died more times than they would’ve been able to count if not for Leonardo’s documentation on each and every one. Crushed was not new, but crushed by a dinosaur?
He blew out a breath. “That is a new one for the book.” His hand gave another comforting squeeze even as he barrelled on with an easy smile. “It is amazing how many lifetimes we have lead and a place like this can still manage to surprise us. But!” He was one to sound as if he was looking on the bright side, even if that was still up for debate. “There are some truly exceptional people here and no one has taken the pitchforks to them yet. Perhaps people do not care?”
Ezio’s nose wrinkled lightly at the mention of the death book. He had never been all that fond of it, but it was hard to argue with Leonardo when he insisted on doing things. A few copies had been lost over the years, to be re-transcribed at a new location thanks to Leonardo’s eidetic memory, and Ezio always wondered what anyone might think if they discovered such a thing. That was if they could decode Leonardo’s work anyway.
“It’s certainly possible. But you now I hate to get complacent.” He stepped away to make a few stretching gestures to make sure the new bindings on the jetpack were responding well to his movement. “It is enough that people are starting to sort out who you are,” he added with a teasing eyebrow lift. “That alone might have been enough to raise questions, but…now this.” At home, there was no middle ground. Anytime anyone had found out, there’d been hell to pay and Ezio didn’t have Leonardo’s optimism. “I don’t know. It worries me.”
Leonardo reached forward to tuck in one last compartment before backing off, letting Ezio have his moment. That didn’t stop him from brushing a hand against his husband’s ass with a sly little smirk on his face before he was out of reach. He wasted no time grabbing his phone out of his pocket so he could add observation notes for when Ezio was ready to take off, swapping between that and the conversation at hand.
“I should have not leaned so heavily into my love of gay marriage and Taylor Swift, I know.” He did sound apologetic, at least. “There has been no sign of people being held and tested on more than we already are, Ezio. Perhaps--” He knew it was probably a little too naive of him to suggest this, and did so with a wince. “It is different here? I know we are not accustomed to peace lasting for long but so many of us are all stuck together..”
Ezio smirked at the ass grab – too easily pleased but such things even after all these years. He was less pleased at the continued dread in his gut. He sighed and tried to find a middle ground. “I hope you’re right. I’m not ready to believe it will be that easy but I am not going to run around threatening the people who know either. We will just have to see how it goes. Please just…”
The jetpack was especially responsive and sputtered to life when he grazed a thumb mindlessly over the ignition button. He fired up a few feet then regained control. “Merda. Sorry, sorry. That was my own fault for removing the safety before I was ready to go.” Reluctant to waste the fuel it had taken to get off the ground, he hovered there, testing some of the finer control. He had to talk loud to be heard over the jets. “Just be a little cautious still, yes? Please.”
Leonardo burst out laughing at the abrupt shift in heights. He backed off, still laughing. The jets didn’t let off high heat but the energy propulsion was something he wanted to keep his eye on from a distance. “Amore mio, my greatest muse, my best champion… I do not know if you are one to talk about being a little cautious while you are flying in the air with a jetpack.”
His camera was open and snapping pictures from every angle, though he did pause to grin up at his husband with joy. It was always nice seeing him use an invention that Leonardo had made and did well. The numerous failures in the past had been fun too, but usually only briefly, until something was broken or blown up. “Don’t shift speeds very quickly, you may shoot off into space if you hit it just right.” An exaggeration, but in Leonardo’s defense, he was currently zoomed in a little close on Ezio’s thighs.
Leonardo’s laughter lifted Ezio’s spirits. It was hard to worry too much when the love of his very long life was looking up at him with his beautiful, delighted face.
“I never claimed I wasn’t occasionally guilty of hypocrisy!” he called down to him before letting the jet pack carry him around in a low flight path. He circled Leonardo for a few minutes, careful to stay close and give his husband all the views he needed for scientific reasons as well as personal. Ezio had flown many different ways at this point in his life, but there was always something special about Leonardo’s inventions. He let his eyes drift shut with the wind in his face and smiled.
Of course, inventions took some tweaking. That was the whole point of this. So he probably shouldn’t have been surprised with his altitude dropped rather suddenly. He checked his positioning and the controls, but the dip turned quickly into a chaotic flight, back and forth, until he landed with a clatter into a bush.
“I’m all right!” That said, he didn’t get up right away. There would be bruises for a moment. “This week doesn’t like me very much,” Ezio grumbled into the dirt.
Leonardo was swearing and already in a run when he saw Ezio go wobbly, and met him to his landing place just a minute later. From laughter to a serious frown, he reached down to unbuckle the jet pack from where he could reach and smooth a comforting hand across Ezio’s arm, looking for any other injuries that might be hidden.
“This is what we get for trying to have that sort of conversation with you in the air,” Leonardo admonished gently, though it was half his own fault for distracting Ezio, and looked properly upset over it. “Tonight, I think we will take a long bath together, and get some wine--” He cut off his words and made a little noise. “Good wine. And then I will see about fixing the propulsion. Are you sure you are okay, my heart?”
Ezio gave a self-deprecating chuckle as Leonardo came running but did groan as the jet pack was removed. The healing would kick in a second but for this brief span, he was sore and strangely delighted by it. Living forever had a great many perks. But sometimes just feeling the effect of the world on his body for more than a brief few minutes was something he strangely missed.
“I promise I’ll live,” he joked with a mischievous stare. Pushing up on his arms, he curled to sit more towards Leonardo so he could reach up and run his fingers gently down his jawline. “But I can’t promise I won’t crash more often if it gets me promises of good wine and long baths.” He had the grace to look apologetically at the jet pack. “Anyway I’ve been using it a lot. It’s a brilliant design, even if it did drop me on my face.”
“Ha ha,” Leonardo deadpanned, but it didn’t stick. He could have a grin on his face in an instant, and it was easier when Ezio was looking at him like that and touching him. Really, he was easy when it came to his husband. “If you hurt my jetpack in a badly timed crash, I’ll take away your good wine and bath privileges.”
He would, ultimately, do no such thing, and that was as empty of a threat as they came. But Leonardo was already looking his baby over, just making sure nothing had broken in Ezio’s fall. He had to reach around Ezio for it, and darted in for a quick kiss before slinging himself around to peer at the pack. “Good news, I think your face may have broken the fall for my brilliant design.”
“Oh is that right?” Ezio snorted. He did love Leonardo’s threats – the more unbelievable the better. But he was determined not to lose his plans for the evening so he didn’t outright call his husband a liar. Instead, he leaned into kiss Leonardo’s neck in a spot he’d claimed for himself half a century ago. “It is a good thing I know you are fond of my face, or I’d be very put out by the blatant favoritism happening here.”
Grinning, he pushed to his feet and pulled Leonardo up with him. “Why don’t we take your brilliant design back to your workshop so I can properly distract you from the science you so clearly want to focus on right now?”
Leonardo smiled despite himself unable to keep a smirk off his face as far as Ezio was concerned for the life of him. And what a long life it was. It helped that that was the spot, and he was admittedly a weak man. But a weak man that was full of love, and his eyes had blatant adoration in them.
“Yes yes si, come on.” He let Ezio pull him up, and brushed off any dirt on the Assassin’s shirt, lovingly. “I will get in a thorough check of the jetpack and then a thorough check of you, let us go.”