Summary: The Ninth questions Reborn's sanity and thinks that making him babysit indefinitely will fix his bloodthirsty ways. Reborn is less than impressed. His first project? A depressed five-year-old called Sawada Tsunayoshi who thinks there's no place in the world for him. Oh, god. This is so much harder than assassinations.
F:CV | thrown headfirst
Reborn is a rather well-to-do hitman for the biggest, baddest mafia family there is in Italy. The number one hitman in the world, if he should say so himself. And he would say so himself.
Reborn is the number one hitman in the world, and so he has no business looking after small brats.
And he tells this to his supervisor, the Ninth boss of Vongola.
"I have no business looking after small… humans," he says delicately so as not to compromise his very good salary. The Ninth gives him an unimpressed look, and he knows he didn't do a good enough job of disguising his displeasure.
"Well, Reborn, times are changing," the Ninth says in that wiser-than-thou way of his that always makes Reborn want to set fire to something. "Assassination requests are dwindling, our adversaries are quiet these days. And you need something to do during the interim. Don't be nervous; Dino-kun will visit you occasionally to help you out. It will be like having a family of your own."
If you want to play house, go play with that son of yours whom you've locked in the basement, Reborn wants to say.
The Ninth gives him a dangerous look.
"Can't this… 'something to do' be, ah… assassination?" he says instead.
"What did I just say?"
"There's no harm in reconfirming."
The Ninth sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose like he's getting a headache. What a joke. If anyone should be getting a headache, it is Reborn.
"No, Reborn, no assassinations. In fact, your therapist—"
"My self-proclaimed therapist whom you hired on a whim," Reborn corrects loudly.
"—is concerned for your mental well-being and agrees that placing you in a position of care-giving and nurturing will do you good."
"And," Reborn says dryly, rapidly planning out one-hundred painful ways to kill that damned therapist, "what good will that do me?"
The Ninth ignores him. "And very conveniently, Iemitsu's son happens to need babysitting for a few months, as I said before."
Seeing the look on Reborn's face, the Ninth bows his head very patiently and says frankly, "Reborn, I think it is time you take a break from killing and start caring. And I think children are the way to start."
Reborn smiles pleasantly at the Ninth, who returns in kind. Then, the smile drops from the Ninth's face, and he puts his foot down.
"You will take this job."
With a sourness in his mouth that is reminiscent of the time he and Colonnello dared each other to eat five hundred lemons in six minutes, Reborn arrives at the daycare the Ninth directs him to. The building is small and a heinous shade of puce, with the letters Sunshine Daycare tacked on in peeling yellow paint.
Reborn's nose wrinkles involuntarily.
With a pledge to burn this business, Reborn stalks up the steps and rings the doorbell.
He's greeted by the sight of two small children punching each other with venomous glee before they are rudely forced apart by a battered broom. Pity. He rather liked the violence. When he hears the clearing of a throat, Reborn looks up. An aging woman stands before him, broom in hand, looking at him as if he were the next troublemaker in line.
As if. Reborn doesn't cause trouble. He ends it before it begins.
"Hello," he greets politely. The old lady rakes her eyes over him apprehensively before jerking her head towards the back.
"You're the one the Ninth sent?"
"Apparently," he says through gritted teeth, though his voice is all pleasantness and daisies. He flows through the hall with the grace of a cat, side-stepping a puddle of what he can only assume to be vomit.
"I'm the matron," the lady introduces herself in a way that suggests awful murder should he try to address her otherwise. "This is my daycare."
"Clearly," Reborn answers dryly. "Any other ground-breaking information for me?"
The matron shoots him a look that says she'd like to beat him around the head with the broom.
"You're here for the kid, aren't you? We keep him with the rest. Makes him less susceptible to assassinations and the like. Nobody would suspect the son of CEDEF to be in a place like this, eh?"
Reborn gives her a pleasant smile.
"How old are you anyways? You look awful young to be taking care of a child."
"Twenty one."
"Well, I guess there've been younger," she broods. She makes him stop at the door to the room and so she can point out a boy with obscenely spiky hair—not that Reborn was one to talk—playing by himself in the corner. "That's him. He's been here for years, ever since his mother died."
"I thought this was a daycare, not an orphanage."
"It works as both. I used to get a lot of kids on the doorstep back when violence ruled the streets," the matron said. "I'd keep 'em overnight, and overnight extended to the weekend then the week, a month, a year, until they grew up and wanted to go on adventures. Iemitsu didn't have the guts or the time to look after his own kid and dumped him on me."
The small boy dropped a block on his foot. Reborn nodded approvingly when he didn't cry. He could work with this. If he tried really hard. Really hard.
"He's a good kid. Quiet for a five-year-old, maybe, but good. The other children don't like him too much. Well, why don't you try interacting with him," the matron suggests, though it sounds more like a command. "His name is Sawada Tsunayoshi, although everyone around here calls him Tsuna."
When Reborn raises an incredulous eyebrow at her—you want ME to talk to THAT—she clears her throat and peers at him in a way that would make cabbages wilt.
"Well," Reborn finally concedes. "There is something that I must do before he is brought to my apartment. Tsuna, is it?" and the small boy snaps to attention, trundling over with his hand stuck in his mouth. That would have to change, and change immediately. "Come here."
He leads the small boy to the bathroom and ushers him inside.
"Poop," he orders the small boy very clearly. He frowns when the boy just goggles at him and points at the toilet with newfound vehemence. "You're going to poop, aren't you? You had better do it now and not get my apartment dirty later."
The boy blinks at him, nonplussed.
Before he can order the clearly mentally-challenged boy to Poop! again, the matron swoops in and explains to him very sternly that that is just not how children work. When Reborn asks why, she throws her hands up in exasperation and asks him what mental institute he came from. Which is offending. Reborn is a genius and has his entire mental load in working order, thank you very much. He looks down his nose at the matron, who gives him a surprisingly challenging glare in return, with her eyebrows pointing up and her hands on her hips. Not wanting to risk a messy affair with an old woman who no doubt has enough cats to turn him into the ragged couch he could see in the corner, he capitulates.
Nonetheless, despite her reservations, the matron finally hands over the ogling boy, who, to Reborn's immense distaste, immediately puts a saliva-covered hand into his. He suppresses a shudder and offers a smile, which sends the boy into a bawling fit.
What is wrong with his smile?
How offensive.
The matron laughs at him and calms the small screaming machine down and then, like Reborn is an experiment he must repeat until he gets it right, the small boy toddles back over and reaches out a saliva and now snot-covered hand.
If Reborn doesn't get a pay-raise for this, there will be blood.
Reborn tries again, this time without a smile. They manage to make it all the way to his car, hand-in-hand, upon which time Reborn discerns that the matron can no longer see them and releases the disgusting boy immediately. He shoos him into the car.
And they are able to go back to his apartment without any further incident.
Tsuna is sleeping by the time they arrive. Reborn stares at him for a full five minutes before deciding that shoving his hands under those tiny armpits, holding Tsuna at arm's length, and carrying him like this on the elevator is the safest, quietest, and most caring of approaches. He ignores the horrified looks he's given. They don't understand. Children are a health hazard, are catapults of vomit and pee just waiting to fire. He dawdles for a few seconds in front of his door before grabbing Tsuna by the hair like he is an onion with a green sprout to take out his key and shove it in the door.
"There," he says, rather proudly, as he deposits the sleeping child on the couch. "Now that wasn't so bad."
He can do this. He can do this without killing anything. See, look at the kid. Sleeping so quietly, with his cheek bunched up like a dumpling. It's almost cute.
But there's always a calm before the storm.
Should DEFINITELY not be writing this, but I have the worst writer's block ever such that I can't even write my internship poster, which is due next week. Also, first KHR story since 2013, wow?
This is an AU (obviously) where most parents are dead, Reborn is twenty one, and Dino is fourteen. Say hello to chaos. And slow updates. Always slow updates.