I'm in my Dadte feelings again. So here's something I haven't expanded on yet for Dante and Patty because I haven't figured out a story to fully flesh it out in. But after the events of Devil's Neverland, Dante seriously considers adopting Patty. The idea of losing her is so harrowing, and in this specific instance the danger to her life had nothing to do with him; so he can't rationalize his attempts to push her away as a form of protection, because had she been with him, under his roof and his care, Pan would have never gotten to her. But this one instance in which it was genuinely not his fault, doesn't erase the danger that being around him, becoming his child, would put her in.
But not only that, he knows, or believes he isn't fit for this. For family, for being a father. Maybe if things had not gone to shit when he was 8. But he'll never know, will he? It's selfish of him to even consider it. To crave the warmth, the smiles. The life that Patty brings to him. She deserves better than this, than him. He'd never be able to provide her the stability she should have. And he has a terrible track record. Nell, Grue, Jessicaโevery time he was selfish. Every time he gave in to the desire to have family, or a simulacrum of it, things ended horribly. So to love her is to let her go.
Canonically we know how this ends. He keeps Patty at a distance, but not so distant because this is Patty Lowell, and she is a determined little girlโnow womanโthat doesn't take his bullshit. Doesn't let him have his way. Always orbiting around him like she knows that deep down he wants her close even if his actions say otherwise.
But in a different world maybe Dante decides to be selfish again. Takes the risk and he tries. He isn't great at the whole dad thing. It takes a good while for him to find some kind of footing, he spent years not having a reason to try to be a proper responsible adult, but he's willing to try for her. He never really gets there, but he does well enough. And when Nina comes back he feels like his little paradise shattered, because of course Patty's place is with her mother, and of course Nina would do better as a parent than he does. So he's ready to let her go, heartbroken, but that's how things always go for him.
But once again, this is Patty. She can have her mom, AND she can have a weird adoptive dad. She refuses anything different. And Nina, well, she sees how much Patty loves him, and how loved she is in return, and she can't take the little family Patty built in her absence from her. That'd be cruel. So they make it work.