"Hey," Reborn begins. "So Colonnello said I had to ask you, before I was allowed to take a COMSUBIN tank out for a spin. I lied and said you agreed."

Lal stares at him.

Reborn leans further out of the hole in the top and pats the tank he's riding in. "So can I drive it around?"

Lal closes her eyes. "Fine."

Reborn winks. "Thanks~"

"Where's the toaster?" Viper asks, standing in the kitchen with two slices of bread in hand, only having just realised that the machine is gone.

"Fon punched it to death," Verde says without looking away from his blueprints spread over the dining table.

Viper does a double take and Fon frowns, leaning back so he can look at Verde around the open door of the cupboard.

"The toast popped up and Fon got scared," Verde continues.

Viper opens and closes their mouth. "I will pay you for footage of that."

"No," Fon cuts in. "No, it wasn't the toast. The toaster opened up and shots darts at me. I think they were poisonous."

"But you still, like, punched the toaster to death?" Viper clarifies.

"It-it shot at me," Fon stutters. "I was defending myself."

"But did you-"

"Yes!" Fon cries. "Yes, fine, I punched the toaster to death."

Colonnello instinctively looks both ways as he walks across the tiny alleyway road with Skull, despite the small road actually being blocked off with huge concrete dividers.

"Oh, almost forgot," Skull says idly. "Verde is-"

A huge Icelandic man comes out of nowhere, backhands Colonnello away and hoists Skull up by the front of his suit jacket, other hand stabbing forward with a butterfly knife.

"Daddy, no!" Skull shrieks in horror.

The assassin's expression spasms and perfectly spells out the phrase: what the fuck.

Giving enough time for Skull to grab onto the man, brace his feet against the hip height concrete block behind, and death roll them both out of sight of pedestrians.

Colonnello stands up and pats himself off as he hears the quiet but desperate thumpthumpthump of a head hitting concrete.

Skull pops up from behind the divider, looking rather ruffled, and steps over the block back to Colonnello. "So anyway," he continues. "Verde is cooking tonight so do you want to eat somewhere before we head back to the manor?"

"That was almost impressive," Colonnello says.

"I'm fucking magnificent," Skull retorts automatically. "Learned that trick from Reborn, actually."

"Was that from when Fon found out Reborn was giving Lichi coffee?"

"Yep."

"That was a good day."

"Luce," Reborn says, having stopped hallway down the stairs with a shirt in hand. "I…appreciate your enthusiasm but why do the clothes you sew for me look kind of like they're for a baby?"

Luce blinks where she's tucked into an plush armchair. "Oh my. Really. How odd."

"Actually," Verde chimes in, pulling his hands out from the bowels of the open TV because Lal did something and now it won't work. "I would also like to know why clothes appear in my room when I haven't even agreed to let you make them. And they do look like an adult sized version of baby fashion."

Luce titters. "Oh, Verde, I just enjoy making you things, that's all."

"Okay, but the baby part…" Reborn trails off.

"I really make things for everyone," Luce continues dismissively. She holds up whatever project she's currently knitting and can't quiet stop herself from cooing. "This is for Skull, some little booties. I think I'll make him a cute onesie as well."

"Are you trying baby clothes on us to see what you'd like to dress Aria in?" Verde guesses.

Luce pauses. "That depends how much you dislike the idea."

"Very."

"Then no, I wouldn't do that to you."

"How was your week?" Colonnello asks lazily from the couch, watching Fon come home after a while in Sweden.

"Not bad," Fon muses, dropping his bags by the door. "Punched some people. You?"

"Pretty good. Yesterday, I stared at Reborn's handsome face for hours while I pretended to listen to him teach me Spanish."

"What do you mean 'pretended to listen'?" asks Reborn, standing in the doorway down to Verde's basement lab.

Colonnello opens his mouth and closes it before trying again. "Um. No, I studied very hard."

"Say that in Spanish."

"I-I, Reborn, please."

"Dilo en español!"

"Did you just trip?" Skull asks, holding a watering can tipped over the daffodils in the back garden.

"No," Viper says.

"Oh. 'Cause it kind of looked like you tripped. While floating. Mid-air."

Viper shakes their head. "I don't remember that."

"Alright then."