Paolo Bucciarati

> Those men took my son away from me. And for what? Drugs that would make them happy for a few minutes? Money that they will squander over whores and booze? A life for wasteful things...
>
> Paolo Bucciarati, still mourning for his son Bruno Bencivenga years after his death.

###### Character Summary:

*The newest leader of Hitman Team #99, Paolo used to be a single father and fisherman struggling to raise his son Bruno. After witnessing his child shot and nearly killed by drug dealers and after he defended his son from them finishing the job, Paolo joined Passione to pay for medical bills and protection- only to have them supposedly "botch" his son's surgery years later. Sadistic and observant, his desire to set things right motivates him to fight and lead the people he now considered his family. His Stand Ventura is one to be feared, allowing him to manipulate users by their blood to the point of agony and death. His leadership and charisma rivals his contemporaries- so much so that the team chose his name to rename themselves when they collectively decided to defect from Passione. They really did it all for him... and he did it all for his son.* * Introduction
* Gallery
* History
* Trivia

## Paolo Bucciarati

### Namesake

Paolo: Italian variation of Paul, meaning "small, humble", in reference to the original Paolo Bucciarati.Bencivenga: Italian surname, meaning "welcome". Bucciarati: Italian fig cookies, in reference to Bruno Bucciarati

### Family

Bruno Bencivenga (son, deceased), Unnamed ex-wife (alive).

### Occupation

Fisherman (former), Team Bucciarati leader

### Status

Dead

Paolo Bucciarati is the leader of Team Bucciarati and a minor antagonist in Fate of Zephyr. In Vento Aureo, he is the father of Bruno Bucciarati.

A fisherman from a small fishing community near Naples, he turned to tourism fishing and boat rides to create extra income for his son Bruno Bencivenga after his wife divorced him. When a group of drug dealers attempted to deal drugs on Paolo's boat, a scuffle among the men led to Bruno being shot multiple times and eventually die from "surgery complications" meant to treat them. To make ends meet, pay hospital bills, and to gain protection after killing the dealers, Paolo joined Passione and ultimately became the leader of his team after Stracciatello's death. By the time Paolo learns of the syndicate's role in the drug trade, he is unable to leave but later decides to consider overthrowing Father Diavolo to stop the trade among other reasons. This decision became more prominent and desired by both him and his remaining team after the death of Stracciatello and when Gigi Una's whereabouts are discovered. Due to the respect and admiration of his team towards him, Team # 99 was rebranded to be named after him as Team Bucciarati. Paolo eventually dies at the hands of Father Diavolo via Solido Doppio, but learns of the Boss's true identity in his final moments.

Paolo's Stand is All Fall Asleep, a close-range Stand that allows users to manipulate the user's victim via their blood, which he gained from Ogio Engio's test.

## Appearance

Prior to joining Passione, Paolo resembles the original Paolo; he has short dark hair and thick eyebrows that are often furrowed due to him constantly concentrating. Due to his age and stress, he has prominent wrinkles on his forehead. Like the original Paolo, he is shown wearing the same t-shirts, which the top has a lace design on the top that matches the original Bruno.

## Personality

Like the original Bruno, Paolo is very determined, brutal, and righteous to a fault; it often ends up blinding him from harsh realities despite devoting his earlier life to shielding them from his loved ones. Always striving to achieve his definition of justice and morals, he believed that honor is based on achieving vengeance to those who have been dishonored and protecting those he deemed unable to protect themselves. Prior to encountering the drug dealers, he was a man known for his honesty, kindness, and diligence. Even before becoming the new leader of his team, he is often complimented for his stoic and cool-headed approach to issues and concerns. However, much of it comes from his struggles with expressing his emotions and speaking his mind unless necessary. Fedel Agnello frequently mentioned how no one knew exactly what his real thoughts were unless he stated them, showing that Paolo often kept to himself and rarely showed his emotions to even his own family.

To Bruno, Paolo was a doting, worrying father; many who don't know about his introverted nature incorrectly assume he was rather distant instead. Despite Bruno's maturity and age, Paolo continued to fuss over him and constant reassured his son that all will be well as a means to maintain his innocence. As a result, he oftentimes is in denial of the reality of what his son is going through and subconsciously relied on his son emotionally throughout Bruno's short life since the divorce; this denial is extended to his team members to a degree later on. Paolo tries to devote himself to his son as much as he can otherwise, willingly doing odd-jobs that are sometimes degrading in order to earn and save enough money to give his son a better education or better medical treatment, and attempting to hide the shame that came with doing such tasks from him. He refuses to publicly talk badly of those who had hurt them, especially his ex-wife and Father Diavolo, until he encountered Solido Doppio and began venting his frustration about the latter during their fight.

Team Bucciarati often commented how Paolo was still kicking himself for not doing enough to allow Bruno to live a good, long life. Due to the trauma cause by losing his family, he had further shut himself down and refused to establish any official relationship beyond work with his teammates; he still subconsciously ends up becoming a paternal figure to the younger members. As a result, any attempt of connecting with him beyond his comfort zone might lead him to lash out unintentionally, something that he often did to Ceci when she attempts to act as a child for him. He is quick to apologize when he believes he acts out of turn.

## Skills and Talents

### Stand

All Fall Asleep is a close-range stand that allows blood manipulation.

### Fishing Abilities

Paolo comes from a long family line of fishermen and as a result developed skills related to fishery.

## References

* Blood bending in ATLA and LOK series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygf9cukqHW8
* Bruno Bucciarati Backstory Part 1 and Part 2:
	+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9jxK-NbOgc
	+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMQOhsemww
* "bury a friend" music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHC9tYz8ik

## Site Navigation

Template:Characters
Template:The Hitman Team

 Paolo Bucciarati/Gallery

 Paolo Bucciarati was born Paolo Bencivenga II in Bacoli, Italy. He was named after his father.

## Life Before and After Marital Issues

Paolo was born to a family of fishermen and grew up expecting to inherit and takeover the family's business. Despite the business showing signs of failure by the time he inherited it and due to growing up in a very sheltered society of his community in Bacoli, he believed his life would be similar to that of his predecessors and overall full of good intentions. Paolo grew up expecting that he will live comfortably with a good housewife that he can protect, love, and many children and that he would continue his family's legacy for generations to come. Paolo initially wanted to attend university to learn the trade of business and marketing in order to help grow his family's fishing business and possibly move his family to a more profitable town once he gained enough income to do so. However, his father's sudden illness caused him to take the business before having any experience in the financial aspects of it and pressured to marry young out of fear of the family dying out after his father's death a few months later.

Paolo eventually married his childhood sweetheart in order to appease his surviving family, most of whom eventually became too ill or died before they could help him care for his family and the business. The young couple ended up with their only surviving child Bruno Bencivenga after struggling with fertility, which unknowingly took a toll on Paolo's wife due to her being blamed by both sides of the family despite it unknowingly being Paolo's fault; he was not aware of such struggles as his wife kept them to herself. Wanting to be a good breadwinner and head of his family, Paolo spent hours working on his newly acquired family business as a fisherman and did what he can to assure that his wife and child were cared for. Because he wanted to protect his family from not worrying, he trained himself to hide his emotions further by being more stoic. This ended up unintentionally made him emotionally distant and apathetic towards his wife, further straining their marriage. Despite his wife loving Paolo as a childhood sweetheart, Paolo's inability to express himself is interpreted by her as apathy and disinterest in her feelings and the long hours of work caused her to be often left alone and isolated as more of her friends are able to leave the community to either marry men outside of the small neighborhood or pursue their dream careers- something she was pressured to give up in order to marry Paolo and appease her own family. Both couples inability to share their thoughts and emotions became a major contributor to their failing marriage.

Despite signs of the marriage deteriorating, Paolo remained in denial of it and tried to salvage what was left as a means to keep their son happy. At one point during his marriage, he learns that his wife had a year-long affair with a traveling salesman from a nearby city that resulted in the conception of Ceci Mariposa. Her plans to secretly pass her unborn child as his was discovered by Paolo, but he chose to forgive his wife if she spent the rest of her pregnancy away from the community and gave up Ceci for adoption; it is believed this is when their marriage officially broke down, as Paolo's wife wanted a daughter but was not ready to leave Paolo in order to do so. She complied to remain married and both parents lied to Bruno and their neighborhood regarding the pregnancy resulting in another miscarriage. This was done to avoid public scrutiny due to his wife's infidelity and as Paolo's attempt to amend their marriage. However, they eventually decided to divorce once Paolo's wife was able to secretly save enough money to buy herself a one way trip to Florence and the salesman she had an affair with prior offered to let her stay with him there. When Paolo and his wife explained to Bruno about the divorce and custody, Bruno decided to stay with his father. Both Paolo and his ex-wife tried to convince his son otherwise, but Paolo was secretly relieved that he got to keep his son in the end.

Paolo decided to work harder to care for Bruno, realizing the life his father expected from the generations before him was merely a lie that left him not only divorced but disgraced and nearly impoverished due to divorce proceedings. He began working even more extra hours and establish extra services to raise enough money for the two of them to eventually leave the community in order to have better education and job opportunities for Bruno. Eventually, the business began thriving better than before and the two are able to live comfortably like Paolo expected to be when he was married. He still struggled with coping and finding closure with the life he used to have even years after his divorce, causing him to not consider a relationship despite many people asking him to consider getting a step-mother for his son's sake.

Despite Bruno wanting to help his father and be involved in the business or take any part-time job, Paolo was against it in fear that Bruno would end up becoming like him. Bruno ultimately gave up on trying to persuade his dad to at least let him handle basic tasks. He is unaware of Bruno's side job as a newspaper boy and believed Bruno when he lied about the shirt he bought for him.

## Joining Passione and Death of Bruno

One of the businesses that Paolo created to help earn more money was to allow tourists to fish on his boats at a lower rate compared to travel agencies and bigger businesses also providing such services. One day, a pair of men claiming to be new customers planned to perform a drug trade using Paolo's boat service to avoid suspicion from the police on land. Paolo had a hunch that their behavior and demand to fish at a less populated area meant they wanted to do illegal activities. Bruno, who had never joined Paolo during these services prior, also had a hunch and asked his father to come along; he attempted to convince his father to allow him to join under the pretense that his father might need an extra hand and feigned interest in it. Paolo immediately told Bruno to go back home instead and help set the table for dinner before he gets home.

However, Bruno decided to sneak onto the boat while Paolo wasn't looking and hid in a closet before the three men set sale. As Paolo and Bruno predicted, the two men attempted to trade drugs and other illegal contraband when Paolo threatened to call the police. In response, the two men aimed their guns and shot at him. Bruno, who overheard everything and able to dial the police when he got out of the closet, ran out to the deck where the men were located. He immediately ran to his father as guns were drawn and ended up being shot when the guns were fired towards Paolo. The pair of men, not intending to kill a child, escaped from one of the emergency boats that was on the deck and Paolo realized that his son had just protected him by standing in the line of fire. Costal guards arrived a few minutes later due to the police call and rushed Bruno to the hospital by the time the men that shot him left. The money Paolo was saving for Bruno's university education and their future move to a new city was all used to pay most of the hospital bills and Paolo was left with guilt of not being able to protect his son in such a situation. It didn't help that he ended up in back to back meetings with corrupt police officers interviewing him about the attack and equally corrupt doctors handing him more bills under the pretense that the injuries Bruno sustained ended up supposedly being worse than expected and therefore required more unnecessary procedures.

The pair of men returned to Bruno's hospital room later that night as an attempt to kill him while he was recovering from his first of many emergency surgeries in order to avoid Bruno from becoming a key witness should they end up arrested. Paolo, who walked in just as the men arrived, murdered them using a scalpel neglectfully left behind by a doctor in order to defend his son. Coincidentally, a Passione mafioso who was passing by after visiting a family friend in the same hospital, witnessed the scuffle and mentioned to Paolo that the men were members of a rival gang. In desperation of protection for him and his son as well as the ability to pay for the mounting medical bills that were about to come in, Paolo willingly took the mafioso's offer to join the syndicate and moved to Naples in order to stay close to his son and work for Passione. He began working tirelessly in order to ensure that his son was getting proper treatment and falsely assumed that Passione will keep their word and let them go once Bruno is properly recovered. Paolo was in denial of the reality; Bruno's treatments were sometimes used against him, either botched or unnecessarily done in order to keep Paolo in line and Bruno unable to recover quickly from what started as simple bullet wounds, and Paolo was often badly treated and told to bear it for the sake of his son. His dedication and perseverance in Passione eventually placed him to join Team #99.

When Father Diavolo announced that his team was responsible for Sorbetto and Stracciatello's actions, one of the team's punishments was to kill Bruno under the guise of a botched surgery. Paolo only realized what had actually happened when he received a message from Father Diavolo after the surgery. As a result, he blamed The Hitman Team for being the sole cause of his son's death, and used his remaining savings to give Bruno a proper burial. He refused to accept any financial help from other mafiosos that sympathized with his lost.

## Leading Team Bucciarati and Fighting The Hitman Team

Shortly after Bruno's death, Ceci found Paolo and believed that he was her real father. Hearing that his ex-wife had refused to take her in and due to her uncanny resemblance to Bruno, he decided to let her join the team. He was given the position of his team's new leader, succeeding Stracciatello as a result.

When news about Donatella Una and her daughter Gigi Una was spread, Paolo was ordered by Father Diavolo to clean out Donatella's apartment alongside his team. It was there that the team began discussing about Passione's treatment towards them and Salata Mista mentioned that finding Gigi will allow them to regain some power and possibly take over. The rest of the team chimed in with agreement, collectively agreeing to become a new independent team to take over the syndicate, and named Paolo as their leader. They agreed to name their new team after him as "Team Bucciarati", and this change in structure was spread throughout the rest of the syndicate after Mela Ghirgha encountered Andreas Arancini.

As an attempt to initially figure out where Gigi's whereabouts were, he initially split the team up to search for information. Upon hearing that Mela was killed and both Bavaroise Fugo and Fedel Agnello encountering The Hitman Team in Pompeii, he ordered the surviving team members to regroup and head to Florence.

## Lost of Team and Death

Paolo ended up becoming the last known member of Team Bucciarati and varied in responses with each of his team member's passing. While trying to figure out what to do next after Salata's death in Sardinia, he learns of a mysterious plane crash near the island's coast and decides to investigate the area himself. Upon arriving, he encountered Solido Doppio but was unaware that the individual was one of Father Diavolo's alters.

Paolo's body was eventually found by the local police and reported to Giorno as he took his new position as Don of Passione.

## Post-Fate of Zephyr

Despite not knowing Paolo well compared to the original Bruno, Giorno Giovanna gave him a small yet respectable funeral that allowed him to be buried alongside Bruno. After the burial, Giorno commented on how fate has already determined Bruno's destiny to die young in both the new timeline and the timeline Giorno came from. He also mentioned how Paolo would have been proud of the man Bruno would have become, referencing the original Bruno, and that he prays for God to let Paolo rest easily.

Paolo's funeral was attended by Giorno and a few of his subordinates. It was also attended by his ex-wife, who Giorno mistaken as an unknown family member of Paolo wanting to pay respects at his wake, and left before anyone could suspect her identity. Paolo Bucciarati/Trivia