Mia Tempesta
Summary: Reborn never liked being a (secondary) Sky, but he can't deny his nature forever, so one day he starts collecting his Elements. Except now there was a tiny Storm that packs quite a punch that he doesn't know what to do with. Denial leads to trouble, trouble leads to possessiveness, possessiveness leads to ... something else much more tender. Throw in Checkerface and the Arcobaleno Sky into the mix and things get quite complicated.
Three months after Reborn returns from celebrating Kyoya's eleventh birthday with the rest of his strange, motley family, Cavallone Nono dies.
The whole Cavallone famiglia mourns the loss of their boss and Dino is inconsolable for days. He gets worse after the funeral. Reborn lets him grieve for about two weeks before he notices that Dino isn't getting better. He had all but stopped eating, he had huge bags under his eyes that looked rather like someone had punched him than because of a lack of sleep and he hadn't spoken unless spoken to in all that time.
So on the Monday of the third week after the former Don's funeral, Reborn breaks down the door to Dino's bedroom at six in the morning, drags the blond out of bed and forces him to go to school. He's graduating that year and can't afford to miss the classes and the materials he'll need for the final exams.
Dino returns home with red eyes, bruises all over his body and a broken spirit because apparently the other kids had made fun of him and his dead father and he had fought them in a rage. The only reason he wasn't even more injured was because Superbi Squalo had jumped in and taken care of his opponents after Dino could fight no more. The blond had still taken down three of his seven opponents, so Reborn was proud of his progress. He figured it was time to step it up, but only after he deals with the school.
So on that fine Tuesday morning, Reborn takes on the persona of 'Mr Borin', the 'substitute' math teacher because the regular one got 'food poisoning' from a 'bad pizza' last night and was getting her stomach pumped out at the hospital. Or so the rumors say. Reborn's inclined to believe them. Lead can be so deadly to humans, after all.
Dino's so down in the dumps that he doesn't even recognize Reborn when he walks in at first. When he does, he kind of panics and makes motions at him as if to tell him to get lost. So cute. He actually thought he can order Reborn around. Or beg his way out of getting revenge. Too bad for him that Reborn doesn't roll that way. Oh, no. If he's committed to something, he goes all the way. That's how half of the shit he and his Guardians got into over the years started in the first place. And no, he doesn't mean the small-fry events from before the Checkerface Idiocy. They may have mellowed down a bit after Kyoya came into their lives for the kid's sake, but they were still Arcobaleno and they still went on occasional joint missions that anyone else would consider suicidal.
So, someone's picking on Reborn's first ever student? They're about to realize he doesn't take that bullshit lightly.
It starts off mild enough that Dino even relaxes on that first day. Reborn just observes and spots each and every one of the idiots that had dared attack the young Cavallone Don. Then, on Wednesday, he calls them up to answer a question. They don't know. He does the same on Thursday. They don't know. On Friday, he writes up a problem that's definitely university level and none of the kids know, but he calls up the bullies again. The leader of the group, to be precise. The kid snaps at him, all high and mighty because he's one of those Skies from a mid-level famiglia and the preferred heir to his father's position. Reborn eviscerates him with words before sending him to the principal's office after the class. He then calls up Dino, the only one who can do this problem because it was one Reborn had taught him just before his father had died. He'd literally beaten the answer step by step into his head with the specially Lightning-reinforced shoes he'd asked Verde to make for him for disciplinary reasons.
The class watches in awe and the bullies in envy as Dino does the problem in under a minute.
The bullies try to take revenge after their little leader is left off with a slap on the wrist. Reborn breaks said wrist when he comes across the bullying.
On Monday morning, the little bully leader's father comes to school to have a 'talk' with the 'new teacher' regarding how his son should be treated like he's a precious jewel.
Reborn calmly tells him that most precious jewels for a good part of history were ground into dust for creating pigments for makeup and art - like Lapis Lazuli, for instance, even if it's only a half-precious stone - or even medicine in some cultures before he turns to face the man, taking off the glasses he's been wearing while grading tests as a part of his disguise.
The man takes in his black eyes, spiky hair and the sideburns before stuttering apologies, making his son apologize to the world's greatest hitman and Dino for the inconveniences they'd caused before all but fleeing the building.
'Mr Borin' becomes the new favorite teacher, even if Reborn insists on a lot more than other math teachers in the school.
Dino keeps looking at him with something akin to wonder and admiration in his eyes, even when he puts him through hell in training.
Kids are weird.
He leaves when the regular teacher miraculously recovers overnight (coughSunFlamescough) and he has a school full of teenagers crying as they watch him walk out of the gates.
He had, unfortunately, acquired a stalker during that little stint. A little Storm girl by the name of Bianchi who seems to be specialized in poison cooking and is even more obsessed with love than Alexa ever was. She had asked him to be her boyfriend but after he had told her he was otherwise engaged - and Dino chose that moment to trot over and ask him if he would mind if Squalo joined them for a few of their tutoring sessions because the Second Sword Emperor needed help keeping up and also maybe some advice in finances; Reborn was tempted to both send the long haired shark to 'Mammon' because no one was better at money-related things but knew Viper would charge the already stretched thin stand-in Varia leader and he kind of pitied the kid who had all but lost his Sky at such a young age and maybe strangling Dino on the other hand because he had the worst possible timing for these sort of things - the thirteen year old girl got it in her head that she just needed to 'clear up his schedule' in order for them to be together.
Which is when Bianchi started trying to assassinate Dino. She was pretty good for her age but she needed to be a bit more subtle with her poisoning attempts because the food looked anything but edible and even a moron would recognize that. (Some four years down the line, Reborn will stand corrected because there were idiots who didn't see the poison for what it was and Yamamoto was only the first of many.) Reborn left the two teenagers to it because it gave Dino a real opponent to fight and Bianchi was a sweet girl so the practice would be good for her, too. And trying to kill Dino will keep her off of a very married hitman's back.
Reborn already missed his Storm enough as it was.
He didn't need some random Storm throwing herself at him when all he wanted to do was cuddle Fon to death. Or drag him behind locked doors for a bit of passion. It varies and both outcomes would be very welcome.
He just really missed Fon.
Still, even between Dino's developing friendship with Squalo and Bianchi's continued assassination attempts, the blond and Reborn didn't come to a head in their training until they, one day, faced some Cavallone rivals in the middle of a street and Romario and Ivan, two of Dino's most frequent bodyguards, got shot down. It wasn't lethal, but they definitely needed to go to a hospital. Leon had been acting all strange that whole day, unable to keep to a single shape for longer periods of time so Reborn would be forced to use regular guns, which wasn't much of a setback. The only problem with the whole situation was that if Reborn went against this family, he'd be dragged into a mess he had no place in. This was a famiglia conflict and if he gets involved, he'll stay involved until it's finally settled, which could take years.
Dino was panicking at his side because that was a lot of opponents to fight with only the two of them, even if one of them was Reborn himself. Reborn couldn't even shoot his student with a Deathperation Bullet because Leon was acting strange.
Good ol' motivational speech will have to do.
"Dame-Dino, if you run now," he told his student even as he subtly loaded a gun, just in case. "You'll be running forever."
"At least I'll be alive to run!" The hysterical soon to be Don responded, shaking in his socks from fright and nerves. He'd never been in a live battle before and he obviously had no desire to be in one. Reborn still sometimes had a hard time reconciling with the fact that not everyone is like the Arcobaleno or the Hibari, all of whom are battle-crazed or bloodthirsty. Kyoya would be pouting if he were here and Reborn were to tell him to stay back for him to handle it while Dino looked ready to beg him to do just that.
Well, tough luck. Dino's a mafia boss, whether he likes it or not.
He'll have to learn to fight for his family.
"Maybe, but will they?" Reborn asks, pointing at the downed Cavallone bodyguards. Dino stops shaking, as if only now realizing the danger his subordinates were in. "These are the people who watched you grow up, Dino. They raised you as much as your parents have." Perhaps even more so. Dino was definitely a lot more comfortable around Romario than his own father and the mother had left years ago, having found a younger, more handsome rich man to play arm-candy for. "They would die for you. Are you going to repay their loyalty by running away and leaving them to their fate?" The blond was shaking again, but this time not in fear. There were tears clinging to his eyelashes, but they didn't fall. "You may not want to be a boss, but you are the leader of these men. Would you so callously sacrifice them just so you can spend your life running and faking contentment?"
Dino's hands clenched and he lowered his head, his blond bangs hiding his face from Reborn's penetrating gaze.
But Reborn did not need eyes to feel the churning emotions, the conflict and the oncoming resolution. His Sky intuition was stronger than the first time he learned how to read it. He was very close to reading minds these days.
He could feel the decision Dino was making even before he decided on it.
All of a sudden, Leon started glowing really bright rainbow colored lights and they all had to shield their eyes. Something fell at Dino's feet a moment later before the lights finally died down.
It was a bullwhip.
And in its coils, a cute little turtle cooes up at its new master, Dino.
Reborn spares a moment to stare incredulously at Leon, because he had had no idea his partner can do that, but the chameleon looks tuckered out and just goes for a nap in Reborn's breast pocket, not a care in the world.
By the time Reborn looks up, Dino already has the whip in his hands and there's a determination in his eyes that Reborn's never seen before. Instinctively, he knows not to interfere in this fight and steps back to observe. The attackers laugh at the first, warning crack of the whip but several cry out in pain with Dino's first true attack. This might be the first time Dino's entering a battle, but Reborn's been training him for months to use a whip and the kid was finally showing the results of his hard work and all the torture Reborn had put him through.
Even as he watched the blond advance on his enemies, observing the fight in case he needed to jump in and help, Reborn gave half of his attention to that little niggling feeling trying to tell him something that he now easily identifies as his Sky intuition. It takes him a moment to decipher what his secondary Flames are trying to tell him. 'Ah,' he thinks as he glances down at the downed men. 'How could I have forgotten how famiglia Skies traditionally function; they need others to be strong.' Reborn shakes his head as he kneels down beside Romario and Ivan, both of his hands glowing and sparkling with his beloved, powerful Sun Flames. Healing these two would be a piece of cake for a Sun as strong as Reborn is. 'Never seen it in a literal sense, though.'
This little theory of his might need some testing in a much safer and more controlled environment, but Dino was definitely taking the whole 'trust and rely on your family' thing to a whole new level. "Well, Cavallone Nono, it seems I have found a way to convince your son to take over the famiglia after all."
He now just had to wait for Dino to make that decision on his own.
00000
The next day, as Reborn was reading mafia laws out loud to a hospitalized Dino - he had won the fight, but it was still his very first fight and he still had dismal skills and stamina, so he had gotten quite hurt in that mess so Reborn had had to take him to the hospital on Romario's insistence; no, the man did not accept Reborn's offer to heal his boss as well, apparently under some misguided assumption that Reborn couldn't handle the 'strain'. Reborn let him think as he wished. It always amused him when people made such foolish assumptions - because he wasn't going to stop their lessons just because his dame student had gone and hurt himself when he could have asked for help, as would be the reasonable thing to do when he was such an inexperienced fighter. Dino didn't even complain that he didn't get to have some rest to heal, but the hitman doubted the teen was even listening to what he was saying.
Usually, that would have earned him a one ton mallet to the head, but Reborn's gut instincts - or his Sky intuition, that's becoming really annoying these days with all of its nagging (And yes, it did take offense to that, the prima donna.) - told him that this was more important and to let him off the hook just this once.
He was rewarded for his patience when Dino reluctantly called his name. The hitman met resigned but determined and unregretful hazel eyes when he looked up and he knew what Dino was going to say even before the Cavallone Decimo said it.
"Please make me a good, strong boss worthy of the Cavallone name. Whatever it takes. I won't complain about your methods. I just don't want to ever see someone from my precious family hurt ever again."
Reborn smirked, proud. He shut the tome he'd been reading through and stood up. "Rest well, my not so dame student. We start tomorrow."
00000
Dino Cavallone accepted his position as Decimo when he was eighteen and a half years old. He swore to love and protect and lead his family as if his life depended on it and every Cavallone mafioso present cried in pride and joy and utter devotion.
Reborn stood in the back of the room, fedora tipped over to hide his eyes and smiled.
Damn, but he missed his own family.
