Chapter Text
“Ursula. Boris Venra. Allen Widemann… who is CG mind you.” Nino looked up from the list that he was reading off of. “Tell me Tony, how do I rein Yuno in? How the fuck do I tell a criminal to stop killing, criminalizing, whatever the fuck he’s doing? Mark my words, I can’t deal with another one of those.” He gestured towards Denzel, who smiled at him.
Tony, Saab and Denzel sat in front of him. The trio looked up at the dark skinned man as he ended his tangent, tired.
The fireplace, Saab noted, that was illuminating behind him, made him seem like a supervillain as the undersides of his face were lit up.
“What do you want me to do, Nino?” Tony asks, drained. Nino’s sly eyes had peered over his sunglasses, perching on top of the racer. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Out of everyone in this fucking city right now, Yuno has the most respect for you.”
“I can’t tie him down like that.”
“Tie him down?” Nino’s voice raised as if exasperated. “Tie him down?! He’s gonna blow this whole city up if he continues at this rate.”
“I quite like it.” Denzel inserts smoothly.
Everyone ignored him.
“The cops aren’t even looking into him because of his fucking plot armor anyway.” Tony dismissed it so easily that Nino suspected he was convincing himself. “We’ll be fine.”
Nino could only incredulously bark out a laugh.
Saab murmurs something. It was the first time he had spoken during this long meeting, so all three of the other men turned to look at him carefully, only to find the man wringing his wrists in an anxious way.
“Repeat that Saab?” Nino says.
“He’s not fine.”
He was met with silence as confusion filled the room. Echoing their thoughts, Tony responded with a confused noise, unironically mirroring a duck.
“Yuno. He’s not fine.” Saab looks up to glare at Nino. “And I suspect it’s due to your words.”
Nino’s eyes glistened as soon as he smelt a whiff of an argument. Of course, Saab understood that jumping into the tongue of the ex-lawyer meant a whole other conversation that they did not have time for. However, rather than Yuno he wanted to let out aggravation elsewhere.
As if he had the ability to read minds, Tony stood up abruptly, stopping both men on their tracks. His expression was twisted in a way in which Denzel had never seen him wear and his jaw was clenched.
“Buddha’s back in two months, all we need to do is chill him out.” He said flatly, in a tone which left no sort of room of argument. “Now you both will shut up before I roast you all on the fireplace.”
Tony left the office before anyone else was able to protest.
After a beat of silence, Saab let out a long breath that he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. The tension between Nino and him immediately cracked into a sort of worry instead. The three in the room could be considered the least familiar with the hacker, but they all knew how much Lang valued him. There was a shared sense of fear that the situation may get worse.
Denzel stretched across the couch, changing his previous mayor-like stature. Nino pursed his lips, undoubtedly not wanting the couch getting dirty.
“Well,” Denzel spoke with an unshaking voice, like he wasn’t even worried. “What do we do?” Sometimes Denzel really hated it. The unshaken momentum that criminals were expected to keep, masking their concerns, masking their problems. Even around the people that he heartedly called family, he had to look at them to read them. “We all know how much Lang’s gonna flip when he hears about this. And considering it’s Yuno, his anger won’t be directed at him.”
Saab picked up his thoughts, “It’ll be us.”
“Let’s put it like this,” Nino sighed heavily before he continued, as if his thoughts restricted his words. “We have two main objectives. Of course, he cannot get questioned or arrested. Number two, Yuno can’t die. Is that-” His line of thought cut off as his gaze was led towards the side office doors, his mouth hanging wide open.
The two other men turned around to see a creeping figure entering the manor doors, unable to doubt the identity of the person as soon as they caught sight of the glowing blue shoes he wore. Simultaneously, all three of their throats dried up.
Yuno seemed to be stumbling without a notable goal in mind, his hand over his head in a way which signaled he was injured.
“How the fuck did he get out?” Saab croaked out stumbling to his feet rather quickly considering how fast his mind had been racing. “When the fuck… What?”
Ignoring him, Nino strided straight past the two men with Saab close on his heels. Denzel swiftly sat up but made no moves to follow them. A decision that meant nothing to anyone else but was meaningful to him. He hadn’t wanted to accidentally upworked the hacker.
As soon as Nino and Saab had exited the office doors, Yuno had also come tumbling into the manor with his keys falling onto the floor. The hacker’s eyes were wilted onto the floor, as if he was unable to focus on anything rather than his shaking hands. He leaned back wildly onto the front door as he sunk onto the floor, smiling slightly.
Unlike Saab who had frozen on his step, Nino grimly wadded his way towards the hacker who made no such reaction which showed that he acknowledged their presence. The main hall in the manor was dark and unlit. Previously they had both found it quite comfortable. But now there was a sort of chill that was rather unpleasant.
Before Saab was able to even regain his train of thought, Nino had floated right over the hacker, his hands already on his waist. “Yuno-”
“Are you alright?” Saab cut in, ignoring the face of displeasure that Nino immediately sent him. “Yuno? Can you hear me buddy?” He said softly, tapping the face of the hacker in a soothing way. He had barely processed the fact that the hacker didn’t have his helmet on. It was the first time he had even seen his face, hell, he wasn’t even sure it was Yuno in front of him.
Yuno stirred, his eyes opening tiredly to the sight of a crouched Saab in front of him. As if he was running on nothing but adrenaline and excitement, he tilted his head erratically. An action that caused Nino to step back. “Saab?”
His voice was silky clear, a voice that Saab still hadn’t gotten used to yet. “Are you hurt?” The other man asked a question that had an obvious answer considering that there was a trickle of blood trailing down Yuno’s face. “Let’s get you patched up first.”
Yuno made no other sounds but beamed at him, allowing Saab to usher him towards the couch which already had a fire lit on top of it. Nino already had his arms crossed as he silently trailed behind the pair. The sharp eyes he bragged so much about didn’t miss the way Yuno’s eyes glistened.
As Saab stepped into the kitchen to grab the first aid kit the nerds had stuffed away in one of the 50 drawers, Nino stood behind Yuno. The hacker never looked up towards him, only sinking himself further down the couch and closing his eyes.
“Y’know, when I was a kid I wanted to be a lawyer,” Nino found himself saying quietly, his eyes staying on Saab’s frustrated figure as he shuffled through all the different cereals and wines that somehow were placed next to each other. “And I was! For a little while. It allowed me to work with a lot of interesting people, even some people like-”
“Like me?” Yuno ended in a light-hearted tone. A tone that didn’t even allow Nino to snap considering that he had been interrupted 3 times in the last 10 minutes.
Nino took a second to gather himself, finding that Yuno still had his eyes closed, but a light smile still rested on his face. Nino’s gaze scattered towards the hacker to ensure he hadn’t bled out before he answered. “Yes, like you. And I know you feel lost right now, and there may be some sort of strong feeling rustling beneath you, but you need to let us help you with that before you drag us all to hell.”
“Denzel says hell is a good place,” Yuno pointed out. His eyes finally opened and he leaned back to meet Nino’s eyesight. His gaze was as sharp as the others. “Are you saying Denzel was wrong? That’s not quite kind, Mr. Nino.”
Nino felt his mouth dry as he was the first to avert his eyesight, the first time he had ever done that. Cold sweat seemed to cover his forehead as he was caught completely off guard by the hacker’s words. He hadn’t been looking as Yuno continued to stare at him, smiling carefully at the man’s panic.
“Found it!” Came a delighted shout from the kitchen and Saab came scampering back. Yuno closed his eyes again and Nino was glad he had been saved by the bell. Saab rustled himself between the fire and Yuno, and frowned as he saw that Yuno’s breath had slowed dramatically.
“Nino is he alive?” Saab panicked as he rose to check the hacker’s pulse once again. “What happened to rule number two?!”
Nino stared down at the hacker intently, a bad feeling rising in his chest. Before he was able to answer, Yuno’s mouth crept into a slow grin and his eyes fluttered open. “What’s rule number two?”
“To keep you alive.” Nino cut in, ignoring the process Saab was going through to patch that ghastly wound in his head. “Now tell me Yuno, what the fuck did you do?”
Yuno’s confident aura was gone in a flash as he frowned. The change in demeanor told Nino that he had managed to crack a tiny part of Yuno’s shield that he had obviously put up for himself. As if Yuno was rerunning the events that he had gone through he lightly sighed and shrugged. “I killed a few people on a bus.”
Saab’s hands stopped mid-bandage, and Nino could do nothing but stare at the hacker. Far too nonchalant for his own good, for their own good. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he fought the urge to take up Tony’s deal and push himself into the fireplace.
“Yuno, Mr. Lang will be back in a few months.” Saab had said softly, returning to wrap the bandage around the hacker’s head. Yuno’s eyes flashed and he flinched, as if he had forgotten Lang had existed and Nino picked up on this. His shield fell apart and Yuno shook his arm, trying to regain feeling.
“Mr. Lang wasn’t there.” He whispered, his voice vastly different from confronting Nino just a few minutes ago. He trusted the two men in front of him, that was obvious. The line hadn’t been completely scratched yet. “Usually he’s there, but he wasn’t this time…”
Nino gestured at Saab, allowing him to continue the line of questioning considering that Yuno clearly worked well with empathy. Saab nodded, lightly pressing his lips together as he finished bandaging the hacker’s head. He rested his hand on Yuno’s head, endearingly passing him affection the way that all the boys couldn’t resist doing.
“Yuno, I think this is dangerous.” Saab said, his voice cracking with emotions that were rarely heard in the manor. “It’s dangerous, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Mr. Lang, he wouldn’t want you to get hurt buddy.”
Yuno didn’t reply, and Nino continued instead, ignoring the suggestion he himself had just given Saab.
“You doing this, it’s putting the entire family in danger. Tony, Raymond, Denzel… The Nerds. Imagine if you get caught by the cops, who will pull you out of jail then? If Buddha comes back and finds you 12 feet underground, we both know he’ll lay in that grave beside you.”
Nino looked up, wanting to gauge how much their words were impacting the hacker, but instead he was met with an unforgiving gaze.
“Nino,” Yuno huffed out slowly, leaning into Saab’s touch. “I know you’d get me out of jail if I got caught.” Nino’s breath caught up as he heard this, and he struggled to no beam at his ego. Yuno carried on. “I intend to live, but killing is just…”
“You’ve never felt anything like it.” A rough voice came from behind them, and all three of them looked back to see Denzel and Tony standing there. Nino jolted, as he hadn’t even heard their footsteps. “Yuno, that anticipation, I’ve felt it too.”
“Then you understand.” Yuno said after a beat, his eyes fluttering to close once again. “If you understand, then that’s good.”
Nino couldn’t help but meet Tony’s eyes, and found the racer’s gaze locked on Yuno. A tiredness bore between the two and as if Yuno could feel the cautious gaze, he lifted his eyes once more to smile at Tony in greeting.
Tony smiled back.