So, I know it looked like I wasn't going to ever update but I was just busy and kind of on a vacation and then busy with school crap that I still kind of haven't handled because I'm literally a lazy shit. Graduation is in 27 days, my work ethic is legit going down.
As usual, I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
In all of his years Verde had done a lot of things. He had won a Nobel Prize, he had taught at universities that only the elite could even be allowed to know the names of, he had created things that none other has ever attempted to do, done plenty of things that should have killed him...but what he hasn't done was babysit.
"What do you mean I have to babysit Tsuna? Why can't one of you bring him with you?" Verde asked. He was too tired for any of this and wasn't even sure how he was still alive at this point with how little sleep he's gotten the past week.
"All of us have too busy of days ahead of us, and we can't bring him with us." Luce said, running around the kitchen as she helped Fon pack Kyoya's school lunch. "I've got a meeting with a man to handle some human trafficking issues that has been going on and it really isn't the best place to have a little one around." She explained, with a tone that Verde knew meant she thought he knew better by now.
"I have a field mission, and it was part of my agreement with Iemitsu that the two of them never be in the same building without one of us." Lal said, not looking up from where she was checking Kyoya's English homework. Viper had the Maths homework.
"He's too delicate to go to the Varia. I can't have a child running around the place or someone is bound to get their hands on him and Lussuria is fond of small children." Viper said, checking off two problems with a red marker. He was oddly disappointed in how terrible the boy was when it came to numbers. He had tried his best to get the boy to understand but there were some things he just wasn't grasping...maybe they needed to get the boy an actual tutor...preferably one that was free.
"I've got a diplomatic meeting with Nono and Xanxus, no children." Reborn said, turning a page in the local newspaper.
"I have shows today! I may be awesome but I can't keep a proper eye on little Tsuna if I'm jumping through hoops of fire!" Skull exclaimed. He was writing something on their wall, probably items for the next grocery shopping trip.
"Why can't Fon do it?" Verde asked, he hadn't heard the man give any reasons as to why he couldn't watch Tsuna for the day.
Fon placed a juice box in Kyoya's lunch. "I promised Colonnello that I would take him out for the day, to make up for us not being around the last few years. Unless Tsunayoshi wants to get into bar fights I believe I'm out."
Lal and Reborn rolled their eyes at their friend. They couldn't believe, but could at the same time, that Colonnello had talked Fon into spending a day with him.
"Just let him die in a hole, he's too much effort." Lal said, stabbing at the fruit that was left over on her plate lazily, a scowl on her face at the thought of their neighbor.
Fon and Luce sighed. After two weeks of Colonnello living across the street from them they still haven't heard Lal say one good thing about him. Reborn had given up after a week and only caused the man physical harm instead of insulting him and beating him like Lal did.
"Did any of you think that maybe I had plans for today as well?" Verde asked, feigning hurt.
His roommates, the kids included, gave him a look that said they knew he didn't have anything to do outside of the house.
"You sit downstairs in the basement all day doing science stuff that none of us really understand or care to learn about and drink extensive amounts of coffee. We're pretty sure that you can spare a few hours of that while Luce has her meeting." Viper said, rolling his eyes at the scientist.
"Why not ask Colonnello to watch him? You like Colonnello, don't you Tsunayoshi?" Verde asked. He wasn't going to admit that all he's been doing the past week was watch Netflix while he waited for his associates in Germany to get back to him on what they had found out about their project. He didn't even mind the kid, he's just never been alone with him for more than ten minutes at most.
Tsuna nodded happily at the mention of Colonnello watching him. It had taken a day or two for the boy to get used to everyone and the house itself, but now that he was settled he didn't hide the fact that he adored all of them equally, even Colonnello.
Fon sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm going out with him today Verde. We already went over this." He said, feeling that it was far too early to be exasperated with any of them...yet, here he was.
"Mother put me in a daycare before I started school." Kyoya said, speaking for the first time that morning other than to say good morning, and thank you to Luce.
"Viper looked into it, dear, said it was too much money." Luce said, patting him on the head affectionately.
Viper gave them all a look. "Which one of you wants to pay for a daycare? All of the good ones are too pricey, and I sure as hell don't want Tsuna playing with the other mafia kids until he starts school." He said in a tone that dared any of them to challenge him on this.
After having Tsuna in their custody for two days it was established that Iemitsu hadn't done anything to start to introduce his son into the underworld, not even the basics that all of them knew when they were Tsuna's age, so they spent a little over an hour every day showing the boy how to do small things...like how to properly hold a knife, or how to aim correctly at a target. They would keep him out of the public eye until he could hold his own against another mafia kid...so until he could go through a sparing match with Kyoya. It was proving pretty difficult seeing as the boy tripped over his own feet when someone wasn't holding his hand. They were hoping that the boy would improve significantly before his sixth birthday.
"What am I supposed to do with him until one of you gets home?" Verde asked, looking at the boy in disdain.
"Park, I want to go to the park!" Tsuna said excitedly, looking at Verde with his large doe eyes.
"If he falls out of the swings more than twice take him home." Viper said over the rim of his strawberry milk.
Tsuna looked like he wanted to protest, but he had fallen out of the swing set at least three times the last time Viper and Lal took him and Kyoya to the park down the street and they all knew it so it was best that he didn't try and protest…
"That means I have to go outside, and talk to people outside of this house. You're making me socialize with pedestrians." Verde said, giving his boss a look that said he wasn't going to let her live this down. Ever. "Why can't I just build the kids a playroom?" He asked.
The room was quiet, as if none of them had thought of that option before.
"What would you put in this room?" Kyoya questioned, raising an eyebrow curiously.
"Shit, I don't know? Toys? A swing set?" Verde wasn't even sure what the two kids that inhabited his house did when they weren't having a meal together, which is actually the only time he saw the kids . "I could make you an entire playground better than the one down the street."
"What room in our house is big enough for a swing set?" Skull asked, genuinely curious about that. He wasn't aware of what room was big enough for something like that.
"There's a room next to the training room that isn't being used." Lal pointed out. "Half of this house isn't being used. Why do we live in a house with like sixty plus rooms if we only use like twenty of them?"
"What kind of a family needs twenty rooms?" Reborn asked in return.
"We're a family?" Kyoya asked, surprised.
As a collective unit the Arcobaleno gave Kyoya a look of betrayal.
"You're such a brat, Kyoya." Viper said under his breath, shaking his head in disappointment.
"How about you and Tsuna spend the day on that play room? That sounds like the safest thing to do while all of us are out. As long as you don't program anything to do something dangerous I give you full range to do whatever you please...as long as Tsunayoshi agrees." Luce said to Verde. This way Tsuna was kept occupied for the day, and Verde got to build crap to his heart's content.
Verde and Tsuna looked at each other, and then at Luce, and then back to one another again, and high five each other. It was the first time Verde remembers high fiving anyone and he still wasn't entirely sure what caused him to do it.
"Why is this our lives now? Do I get to blame Colonnello for this? I really want to blame all of my life problems on Colonnello." Lal said, looking like she was going to stab something sometime soon. It's been ages since she got to beat the crap out of something and she was really quite looking forward to this mission.
"You blame Colonnello for all of your problems, plus you were the one who brought Tsuna home so that's your fault." Fon reminded her, a knowing look on his face.
"She has a good enough excuse to blame him for all of her life problems from what I've heard." Viper said. He had moved on from checking Kyoya's homework and had started to go over all of the finances for the Varia. Usually Squalo did it and didn't let him see it until last minute but he was adamant about making sure that the Arcobaleno and the Varia be as perfectly financed as possible.
"Oh sweetie, don't blame him for everything he's too pretty." Luce said gently, putting a hand on Lal's arm. "And he's got really nice biceps."
"You should see him shirtless, it's really quite beautiful." Reborn said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Viper snorted into his milk. "Are you into blond soldier boys?" He asked curiously.
"As a man who is secure in his manhood, and his sexual orientation I can say that the military has done some nice things to the human body. Look at Lal's eight pack for example." Reborn said, leaning over and lifting Lal's tank top enough to show off that the woman did indeed have an eight pack.
Lal swatted his hands away while Viper let out a low whistle, Verde and Skull at least tried to act like they weren't staring.
"I always enjoy looking at you, kora." Colonnello said, leaning against the doorframe of their kitchen. He had been coming into the house for a week now without knocking so none of them were surprised to see him.
"I'm literally going to sacrifice you to Satan for a corn chip." Lal said, adjusting her shirt so that it was where she liked it to be. "Why are you even here?" She asked.
"I'm driving Fon and I around, kora. And I need to speak to you about something." Colonnello said, motioning with his head that the two should go to a different room.
Lal gave him a curious look. "Is this about work?" She asked, still seated.
Colonnello shook his head. "It's about that one thing, kora." He said with a look that empathized that this conversation needed to happen in private.
It took Lal a moment or two before her eyes widened and she stood up. "I completely forgot." She said quietly, an almost embarrassed look on her face as she dragged Colonnello into the opposite hallway, where their gym was.
"What the hell just happened?" Viper asked, confused as to what just happened with his best friend and her blond boy, as they liked to call him.
"Maybe he's asking her out! Oh, you know how much I think those two belong together!" Luce said happily. After watching the two of them for two weeks she could definitely see some sort of chemistry between them.
"it's probably about work, you know how Lal Mirch is; all business and no personal life." Skull said, he remembered a time before Luce got pregnant when they all went out drinking and Lal had spent the whole evening going over reports for both the military and the CEDEF.
"it's got to be more personal than work, you saw her face." Reborn said, thinking back to anything that would have the two going off in private. And then it clicked. "Viper, did Lal ever say if she said no?" He asked, turning to the younger man curiously.
"Said no to what?" Fon asked.
"She said Colonnello proposed, but she never said that she said no." Reborn said, a sly smirk on his face.
"Well, it's assumed that she said no. She broke his arm!" Skull exclaimed.
Fon shook his head, his braid swishing behind him. "You can't just assume something with these two; their relationship is way too complicated." He said, sitting down in Lal's now empty seat. "Knowing Lal Mirch she mostly likely broke his arm and when he was in the infirmary told him that she would marry him."
"But you all said they didn't have that kind of relationship!" Luce was going to be mad if they had lied to her about
"They don't, officially. But Lal isn't that good with showing emotions when it comes to Colonnello. We thought that by now you guys would notice." Reborn said. "It's just slightly illegal for them to be together so they aren't."
"But if the military wasn't involved," Luce prompted. The military, she found, was a lot of reasons why Lal did and didn't do a lot of things.
"They definitely would have been married by now." Fon said, collecting all of Kyoya's homework from Viper. "It's all just a matter of convincing Lal Mirch that they wouldn't be kicked out of the military actually."
"Who wants to make a bet?" Viper asked, seeing his chance to make a few bucks. He had been looking for a new betting pool, and he was sure that Lal Mirch wouldn't care if it were about her love life or not. Besides, the Arcobaleno were always up for a betting pool when it could catch their interests for long enough. Usually they bet about TV drama's that they all had a common interest in. When Luce first told them she was pregnant they had a betting pool about the gender until it was confirmed that it would be a baby girl...of course, Luce had predicted it would be a girl from the start.
"One hundred dollars says that they're already engaged." Reborn said confidentially. If he knew his friends than his suspicion was right. It wasn't too hard to figure the two out if you knew them well enough.
Fon, guessing the same thing that Reborn had, seconded Reborn's bet. "I know it's hard to believe, but Reborn has a point. Lal Mirch, is very secretive so this sounds like something she would do."
"I'm going to bet two hundred that it's just a date." Luce said, not wishing to believe that her Rain wouldn't tell them something as important as being engaged to their neighbor.
Skull nodded along enthusiastically. "I agree with Mama Luce." He wasn't even entirely sure which one was true, or if any of it were true in general...but usually when Luce made a guess at things it ended up to be true…
"I'm going to side with Reborn and Fon. They've known the two of them the longest; they know their habits better than we do." Verde said carefully. It took a lot out of him to say that he agreed with anything that Reborn said, but he wasn't keen on losing any bets that had Viper involved in them.
"Can we make bets?" Kyoya asked curiously. If the adults were going to bet about things, he wouldn't mind getting in one of these betting pools.
"Do you have money to spare?" Viper asked, raising a brow at the boy. He had been trying to get money from the child for a while and he always said that he didn't have money.
Kyoya and Viper stared at each other for a moment, neither of them really saying anything and none of the others seemed to want to disrupt them, that is until Kyoya decided against being in the betting pool and turned back to his breakfast.
"That's what I thought, brat." Viper said, sounding pleased with himself. He had written everything down, as per usual.
"What did Kyoya do this time?" Lal asked, re-entering the room with Colonnello close behind. She looked more annoyed than romanced.
Of course, none of them could tell Lal Mirch that they had a betting pool on her, she would shoot it down immediately, and none of them wanted that.
"He said that he wasn't going to do his chores, and I said that if he didn't do his chores then Luce wouldn't make him any of his favorite meals and so Kyoya agreed to do his chores." Viper said, as a flawless liar as always.
Lal gave Kyoya a curious look. "I know you don't like your chores, but I don't think I've ever seen you protest about them." She said raising a brow.
Kyoya shrugged. "It felt like a protesting kind of day." He told his 'aunt'. He was just as curious as the others were as to what was going on.
"I don't want to take a bath today!" Tsuna shouted, surprising all of them. He was still in his lion pajamas, as per usual.
The Arcobaleno laughed at the young boy. He always had some sort of issue with baths that they ruled out to being because he was young and from their experience with Basil it was clear that five year old boys weren't fond of bath time.
"You have to take a bath, little one. I'm not having a stinking child in my home." Reborn said, giving the boy a sideways glance and a hint of a smile.
Tsuna pouted, but he didn't really have any arguments as to why he shouldn't have to take a bath...so he stuck his last forkful of pancakes into his mouth.
"We should all get going now. Long days ahead of us and all." Luce said, picking up her empty cups and dish's. "Verde, if you would please give Tsunayoshi a bath for me. I would appreciate it." She was usually the one to spend most of the day with Tsunayoshi, but she had already wasted enough time at home and wanted to get this meeting over with.
Verde made a noise in the back of his throat. He wasn't even sure what he was supposed to do with the kid when it came to 'bath time'. "I don't even know where his room is." He told her truthfully. He wasn't even sure where Kyoya's room was.
"I'll show you where my room is!" Tsuna said excitedly. He loved his room, it was big and comfortable and after his second day in the house the Arcobaleno had let him decorate it! Kyoya had decorated his room as well, but Tsuna found it less fun than his room and more like something he would find back in Japan.
"Have fun you two." Skull said, finding the situation amusing. It wasn't often that Verde was faced with something that he wasn't sure how to handle, and when he was faced with something he didn't understand it was amusing. If he didn't have a show today he would have helped.
"We should be going, kora." Colonnello said to Fon. He had, of course agreed to take Kyoya to school on their way out.
"You ready to go Viper?" Lal asked, grabbing her car keys and a sports drink from the fridge. Neither of the two had time to go to their usual cafe for coffee today.
Viper stood up, stretching as he did so. "My cloak is in my room. Meet me in the car." He said, tugging his long violet hair into a braid. He found that it was easier to hide it under his cloak if it was all tied up first.
"Try not to get blood on my carpets at the end of the day!" Luce called out. She didn't go out much since becoming pregnant, but when she did leave the house for business she always found blood on the floors and was getting tired of having it cleaned.
"We'll try our best." Her guardians, and Colonnello said to the woman.
"So, what do you know about science?" Verde asked Tsuna, forty minutes later when Tsuna had had a bath and was dressed in a fresh pair of clothes.
"Absolutely nothing." Tsuna said, speaking honestly. Lal had told him that if they were truthful with one another things would be easier for all of them. He was never one to lie to begin with though.
"How do you feel about learning some science while I make this playroom?" Verde asked. If he was going to spend a day with the little one he was going to teach him stuff as he went.
Tsuna bit his lip in thought. The idea of science itself was awesome to him, but he wasn't really interested in learning about it. It sounded far too complex for him. "I don't really think I want to know anything right now." He told Verde.
Verde sighed disappointedly. He knew a thing or two about teaching and knew that forcing a kid to learn something didn't ever turn out well, but he was hoping that he could teach the boy something. "How do you feel about slides?" He asked instead.
Tsuna perked up. "I love slides!" He said excitedly, and proceed to tell Verde about a slide back in Japan that he claimed was taller than their house.
Verde went about making blueprints for the room while Tsuna talked, and of course he made the appropriate sounds as the young boy went on rambling, three years living with Luce had taught him how to pretend like he was listening and genuinely cared for what the other was saying. There were things that he needed to order, but most he could make himself.
"What does that do?" Tsuna asked, at least two hours later when Verde had left the room and come back with a cart full of crap. Tsuna was pointing to the blow torch, which was the first thing that Verde had pulled out of the pile of crap.
"This," Verde said proudly, "is a blow torch." He told the young one as he displayed what it could do.
Tsunayoshi was impressed, and made the appropriate noises of a person whose interest had been caught. "How do you use it?"
There it was, Verde's chance to teach the boy something useful. "Come here little one, I'm gonna teach you some stuff." He said, wondering if that feeling deep in his chest was what some people called pride.
Truthfully, he had been planning on teaching all of this to Aria when the time came - in hindsight it would be forever until he could actually get away with teaching Aria anything-but Tsunayoshi was the next best thing. Kyoya might take an interest in mechanics one day, Verde suspected that it would take a few years for that to happen.
Tsunayoshi was a better student when it was something that he found interesting, like fire, He got the hang of welding in two hours, with a few errors-nothing that wasn't expected from a beginner. Verde's only concern was Luce's reaction; she hadn't exactly told Verde that he wasn't allowed to teach Tsunayoshi or Kyoya how to do dangerous things like weld but he was pretty sure that she would have some sort of fit.
"When Luce and Lal come back home you can tell them that you helped me make the playground, thing, whatever the fuck this room is." Verde said, taking a larger than usual gulp of coffee. It was hours later, maybe around two o'clock, and the two of them were in the kitchen for a food break because Tsuna was complaining about being hungry and Verde sure couldn't let the boy go hungry.
Tsunayoshi was sitting at the table eating a sandwich, and had been pretty quiet for the most part while Verde instructed him on what to do. "Do you think they would be proud?" He asked, nibbling on a corner of the sandwich. He knew well enough by now to know that he wasn't allowed to repeat certain words that the Arcobaleno, as he learned they were called, said around the house because they were bad words.
It wasn't something that Verde had expected to hear from the boy, and he had to actually think about the answer. "I think," Verde said after a long stretch of silence, "that they would be happy to know that you've found a new skill." It was technically the whole reason he was with the Arcobaleno was so that he could learn things he wouldn't with his parents so he assumed that the two women, and the rest of them, would be proud he had finally gotten a hang of something...but that was only the technical reason.
Tsuna looked pleased enough to hear that from him. "When are the others getting home?" He asked.
Verde couldn't honestly answer that question. The person that was most likely to come home early today was Skull, but that wasn't a definite thing either because somedays Viper got home early and spent hours locked up in his room until dinner.
"I would say that tonight is going to be a takeout night." Verde answered finally.
Tsuna gave him a questioning look. "What is a takeout night?" He asked, eager to learn anything he could about his new family. He loved them a lot already, and every time he learned something new about them it just made him happier.
"Takeout nights are the nights when all of us are too tired to cook dinner, but we haven't eaten either because we've all been so busy, so we order stuff from a whole bunch of restaurants and have them delivered to the house and sit around and bullshit about our days." Verde said. "Of course, Fon doesn't really have anything to bullshit about today, but I assume that he is going to come home intoxicated and when he comes home intoxicated he gets a mad craving for mapo tofu, and if there's mapo tofu in the house Viper is gonna get their hands on it as quickly as possible." Verde explained. He tried to recall what everyone usually ordered when they had takeout nights, but it seemed that the most stable thing in takeout nights was the mapo tofu.
"Can I order sushi?" Tsuna asked curiously.
"We can't order anything with raw fish, kid. Mama Luce can't have it and it makes her upset when she sees us having something she can't have. You don't want to upset Mama Luce, do you?" Verde asked.
Tsuna shook his head. He had only seen Mama Luce upset once, and he wasn't very fond of it. "I don't want to make Mama Luce upset."
"Reborn likes getting mild foods, you'll be fine." Verde said, getting slight amusement from the fact that Reborn of all people couldn't even handle spicy tofu. "How about we get back to our room."
"Verde, Tsunayoshi, I'm home." Luce called out, placing her house keys in the empty bowl gently. It seemed that she was the first one to get home, which was weird because she thought by now Skull would be home. What she expected was to find Tsuna in the parlor room coloring while Verde read a book about bioengineering on the couch. What she found, was Tsuna and Verde sitting in the room next to their gym welding, their five year old way welding, together what looked to be a slide.
"Hello, Luce." Verde said, not looking up from what he was doing.
"Why is the five year old welding?" Luce asked, figuring that it was best to just jump straight to the point with Verde. She wasn't even sure why she left him alone with Tsuna, she should have known that this would have been the end result.
"He wanted to learn how, and he's doing pretty well so I don't see why you're giving me the Judgy Face." Verde said. He didn't have to look up to know that she was giving him the most judgemental look she could manage.
"If he gets hurt, Lal Mirch is going to kick your ass. Reborn will kick your ass. Kyoya will actually try and murder you." Luce said. She realized that she should probably be more worried about Tsuna, but she figured that if he hadn't killed himself by now it was fine.
"He did most of it himself, you should be proud Luce." Verde said. "Are the others home?"
"Not that I know of." Luce said, feeling suddenly exhausted. Her day was more stressful than she was expecting, which was saying something. She wanted mushu pork, and eggrolls, and oh how she wanted at least a gallon of gelato. "Takeout?" She asked.
"Takeout." Verde agreed happily.
"How about we get you cleaned up," Luce said, giving Tsuna a look that said she was ready to give him at least three baths to wash off all the dirt and grime that had somehow made itself onto him in the hours that she had left the two alone together.
Tsuna had stopped what he was doing when Luce came in, and was now staring at Luce in horror. "But I already took a bath."
"That was this morning. It's past our regular dinner time, and you're covered in grease." Luce said, picking up the boy. She didn't even want to think about how many times she was gonna have to wash her dress to get the now forming grease stains out of it.
"I'm calling in Tartugas." Verde called out, sounding more excited for the idea of Mexican food than usual.
"Order chicken enchiladas, and a platter of empinadas while you're at it, and call the Jade Wolf - they should know our usual order by now." Luce said from the door. She figured that by the time she gave Tsuna a bath and got him dressed, then went to get changed herself, at least two of the others would be back.
Okay, so this is a long chapter and idk if the next chapter is gonna be long or not but I'm hoping that it doesn't take me three damn weeks to update it. Tartugas is actually a Mexican restaurant that my neighbor likes to go to and I got Jade Wolf from Shadowhunters tbh.