Title: Tutor
Summary: Reborn did not have it easy training Tsuna. Even he struggles sometimes.
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"Can we take a break?" Tsuna complains, slumping back from the short table in his bedroom to flop against the side of his bed.
"Almost," Reborn says from beside him, writing out a quick question on a blank piece of paper. "You've almost got it completely. Just one more example problem and you can get back to your actual homework."
Tsuna sighs but straightens up again.
Nana knocks on the door and steps inside, balancing a tray on one hand. "Oh, look at you two," she coos at them. "You're concentrating so hard."
She leans down and they say a happy thank you as they take the drinks from her. Espresso for Reborn and apple juice for Tsuna.
Nana catches sight of the papers sprawled across the desk, all written in Reborn's neat handwriting. "Is that maths? We certainly didn't do that when I was in middle school." She giggles. "My boy is so smart." She pats Tsuna on the head and leaves the room.
Tsuna stares at Reborn.
Reborn stares at the questions he made. He places the coffee down, gathers the papers into a pile and taps them on the desk to neaten it. He places it all under the table as if that could hide it.
"Why do you want to hurt me so much?" Tsuna says quietly.
"I...may have gotten distracted." Reborn clears his throat. "Let's get back to your homework."
"Am I ever going to need any of that? In the entirety of middle school?"
"Some," Reborn murmurs. "The first part. But it's good to know anyway, right? Isn't it interesting how non-plane polynomials have to create a prime ideal Krull dimension to define an algebraic curve embedded in a higher dimensional space than a Euclidean graph?"
"How many questions did we do before it became useless to me?" Tsuna demands.
"Maths is never useless."
"Reborn."
"Three," Reborn hedges. "Maybe two. You...probably don't need to know about brachistochrones in middle school."
"Will I need it in high school?"
Reborn purses his lips. He reaches for the paper with Tsuna's homework on it. "The next question is...what are the co-ordinates of point A?"
Point A is on a straight line with clearly marked X and Y axis. There's no maths necessary, it's just pure observation because Tsuna is in middle school and he's in the general maths class, the lowest one possible.
"You sicken me," Tsuna deadpans. "I did your bullshit problems for three hours, Reborn."
"Uh," Reborn tries. "The next question is; take these co-ordinates and plot them on the graph below. When you join the dots...it should make...a picture...of a house."
Tsuna takes the espresso and moves it to the opposite side of the table from Reborn. "You don't get this anymore. You don't deserve it."
"Don't bully me, I'm just a cute little baby-"
"Three. Fucking. Hours. Asshole."
"What are you doing?" Reborn asks when Tsuna passes by for the third time. "Hurry up, let's go." He gestures impatiently at the door.
"I can't find my wallet," Tsuna complains as he darts up the stairs, his baggy cargo pants swishing with each step. "Have you seen it?"
Reborn sighs. "Have you checked your pockets?"
"Of course I've checked my pockets!"
"How many pockets-"
"Reborn, I have checked all of them, okay?"
"Humour me," the hitman deadpans.
There's silence. Then Tsuna walks down the steps and starts putting on his shoes.
"I quit," Reborn says simply. "I'm done. Nice knowing you, good luck with your next tutor." He turns for the door. "Come visit me when you arrive in Italy, we can reminisce about the time I still had faith in humanity."
Tsuna quickly trots outside after the hitman and scoops the baby up before Reborn can toddle away too far. "You're so dramatic sometimes." Tsuna hugs Reborn to his chest like a stuffed doll and pats the baby's hat. "I'll buy you an espresso, how about that?"
Reborn scoffs loudly at being called dramatic but he does except bribes.
Tsuna takes the sheet of paper back, a little excited because this is his first test back in high school. This won't be like middle school - he has Reborn. Tsuna peers down at it.
14/15
"Um," Tsuna begins.
"Ask me questions at the end of class," the teacher says without turning around.
Tsuna patiently waits and then walks to the teacher's desk at the front when the bell rings. "I'm not sure why this question was marked wrong? If you look at my working out, you're supposed to flip one and times them."
The teacher gives it a quick glance over. "I went to university for five years, do you think I don't know basic-?"
"My tutor has a PhD in applied mathematics, let's not start a dick measuring contest," Tsuna cuts in. "The last teacher questioned my tutor as well. Do you know where she is right now?"
"Are you threatening me?" the teacher blurts out, incredulous.
"I'm not," Tsuna says innocently. His eyes slide over to the window where a little two-year-old Reborn is perched in the tree. "But he is."
Reborn flicks the safety off his gun.
"Nana," Reborn drawls from his hammock, still half asleep. "It's a little early to be up, don't you think?"
Nana worries her hands together as she stands over Reborn's hammock at two in the morning. "There's a spider," she whispers, not wanting to wake up Tsuna.
Reborn sighs and closes his eyes again. He just got back from Italy and forced himself to stay awake the whole day despite the jet lag so he's out of it right now. "Just ignore it."
"It's on my bedroom ceiling."
"Go to sleep and it'll stop bothering you."
"But," Nana hesitates. "What if it…crawls into my brain?"
Reborn groans, partly from the stupidity and partly because he knows he's going to have to get up. If he was any less of a good person he'd suggest she wake up someone else. (She probably already tried, the others just sleep like the dead.)
Nana, with balls like steel, reaches out and lifts Reborn out of his hammock before cradling him to her chest. She then just walks out of the room, kidnapping the World's Greatest Hitman like it's nothing.
Reborn finally opens his eyes and stares at her. "Are you serious right now? I know for a fact that you still think I'm three-years-old."
"I can't ask Tsu-kun," Nana explains. "He's scared of them too."
"What a surprise!"
Nana carries Reborn into her bedroom and then sits him on the quilt. Reborn starts to pitch forwards because he is so damn tired. He just spent the last week running around Italy trying to keep the little brats in line and alive despite a shitload of assassins and the children's own immense stupidity.
That was a 24/7 job by the way because Takeshi kept trying to have sleepovers with Squalo and Kyouya decided that night patrols were a fun idea and don't even get Reborn started on what Iemitsu did.
He plants his hands on the bed between his splayed legs before he tips over entirely and blinks around sleepily. Reborn sighs when he finds it. "That's smaller than my thumbnail. I have a very small thumbnail, Nana."
The woman clasps her hands together and pouts.
Reborn takes off his little pink nightcap with the white pompom at the end. He balls it up and pegs it at the spider with maybe too much of his strength. He cracks the ceiling.
Whatever, he'll deal with that in the morning.
He crawls off the bed and toddles over to the nightcap with the tiny black smear on one side. He then just throws it in the laundry basket in the hallway bathroom on his way back to Tsuna's room.
"Thank you," Nana calls after him.
Oh, that woman better pray he's feeling good in the morning because if he's not then he's going to buy a spider egg and very kindly offer to tutor the lady in pest control methods.
