So, yeah, I know I should be working on Family, I swear I am! The new chapter is 18k words long right now, I think I'll need at least 2k more to wrap it up and then I'll dive into editing. I need a bit more time :)

ALSO, thanks to a certain evildoer, I keep adding idea after idea to my notes. This one is brought by that certain someone, as in Nikita, The Evil Planner, who likes to tease my imagination. So, the existence of this fic is all thanks to them!

And, seeing I'm here, I want to say that this fic is for you, Nikita :) I do hope you like it ;)

SUMMARY: Apparently, in Tsuna's world, clumsy meant lucky. And, as if that was not crazy enough, Reborn counted in that equation.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but the idea for this short fic, though I'd say this is also Nikita's ;)

WARNINGS:

- short;

- no smut;

- fluff;

- Reborn is cute;

- Tsuna is cute and frightening, at times.

Words: 4031.

Enjoy!

Clover

Reborn wasn't expecting much from his new charge. A civilian, a clumsy teenager, a messed-up boy, a Flame-sealed innocent. That was completely fucked up, in his opinion. For his own good? What the hell? How could one seal a part of someone's soul, energy, personality?

He was not surprised by the sickly look the boy had, or by the way this brunet seemed two steps from exhausted dejectedness, or by the absence of any type of friends.

He was surprised – and irritated – by the absurd clumsiness.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was a sixteen-year-old boy that could not walk without slipping into thin air. He was slightly taller than his mother, which meant shorter than average, had an untameable mane of light brown hair and a, for lack of better words, cute face. His eyes were dull, though, missing that spark coming from the sealed Flames. If he was any amount like his ancestor, Primo, then unsealing the Sky Flames would mean bringing back that life, that energy. Maybe even dwindling the impossible clumsiness.

Because, really, Reborn had to wonder numerous times, during his first, recon day in Namimori, how had the boy not ended up dead yet. Falling down the stairs every morning was bound to at least leave grave, lasting damage. It was strange to see no limp or flinches of pain, though, after his second day but, considering Dame-Tsuna, the nickname given to him by the school peers – and teachers –, and his difficulties with schoolwork, Reborn understood the damage might be in the brain.

Days went by with Reborn looking out for regret and, at the same time, trying to take care of the clumsiness. He tried warning the boy about peels of bananas that happened on his path, out of nowhere, but he couldn't warn him when he tripped because of nothing. He tried keeping the boy focused on the task at hand or on the stairs, to stop him from falling, but, even if Dame-Tsuna avoided falling off the first step, he would slip on the second or third.

It started resembling pathological.

Reborn also wasn't seeing the same clumsiness in the mother, so he truly couldn't understand. Was it a consequence of the seal? It could be, but… Even if the seal affected Flames, that affected the Vongola Hyper Intuition, not being able to use such a power didn't mean becoming as clumsy as Tsuna not seeing a dog sleeping on his path, stepping on it and thus having to flee from said dog's rage. Though, to be fair, at least that allowed the boy to evade a light pole suddenly falling on the road with a loud clang. Which led to the hitman thinking of it as a good show of luck.

Looking back at that, Reborn was safe to assume it was his first, stupidly ignored clue.

"Stairs."

"Uh– HIEEEE!?"

A true lost cause. The baby hitman jumped on the wheezing body of his student, successfully kicking him in the stomach as he hopped to the kitchen.

"You're going to be late, Dame-Tsuna."

"Hieeee!"

Reborn briefly wondered how those shrieks had yet to annoy him after the whole month he'd been subjected to the sounds – Dino had been tortured a lot to get rid of his unhealthy, and irritating, habit of yelling in fear like a girl –, before snatching a thermos of coffee, thanking Mama and leaving through the window. He calmly joined his student while running on the high walls bordering the houses and observed the brunet as he ran to the school with the tie of the uniform almost untied. At least, he had the jacket on, Reborn was slowly beating dignity and self-respect into Dame-Tsuna.

They were quickly reaching the intersection with a rather trafficked road. "You'll trip, slow down."

Useless attempt, as every single time. As every other day, the brunet put one foot wrong and stumbled, backward this time, somehow. He fell full on his butt, flinching and closing his eyes in pain. Reborn had found out that the boy did suffer wounds, but he just healed quite quickly and they were almost never open bruises. Seen out of context, people would have thought he was being abused.

The hitman didn't have the few seconds to kick Dame-Tsuna in the head – lightly, he still wanted the boy to wake up smart, one day – that a truck literally flew past the intersection and crashed into a house's wall loudly, destroying it and sending damaged bricks everywhere.

Reborn stilled, blinking only once.

Tsuna sniffed.

People hurried out of their own houses, offered help to the boy and to the driver, that was clearly drunk. The hitman was struggling to not gape at the absurdity of what had just happened.

Wait a fucking moment.

Ok, priorities, priorities.

Reborn jumped down from his statue perch right onto Tsuna's shoulder and put one tiny hand in his hair, ruffling them in a calming motion. The boy did start to breath more regularly and relaxed a bit.

Then, he coaxed his student into walking back home for the day after letting the called ambulance's rescuers check on him just in case. That way, he discovered the driver was a known drunkard and had a history of driving drunk. And that said man passed by that intersection every day at the same hours.

He made the mental note of later killing the man that had almost driven over his student before sending Tsuna to bed and explaining to Nana what had happened. The woman thanked him for taking care of her son, though he had done… nothing.

Reborn sat at the kitchen table with his coffee and thought. And linked the dots. And understood that, not even by picking up a four-leaved clover would Tsuna have been that lucky. And Reborn, consequently, because losing his student like that…

Clumsiness had saved Tsuna. Twice, by then, if he counted the light pole.

He narrowed his eyes, gulping down the remnants of his deliciously bitter beverage, and hopped up the stairs to observe the setting better. From the railings of the first floor of the Sawada household, Reborn caught sight of a nail poking out of the border of the wall right in front of the stairs. He approached and it suddenly explained the falls.

Tsuna was taller than Nana, slightly, but enough to be in danger of that long nail literally killing him. Reborn swiftly took care of the offending thing, feeling also avenged, somehow. It was with held breath, the morning after, that the hitman watched his student calmly climbing down the stairs, without falling, and hitting his head against the exact point in which the nail had been. Reborn cursed himself in the privacy of his mind, then made sure to tell his student that he had grown up and he needed to mind his head least he became even dumber.

Tsuna had the audacity to pout and blush at him, the brat.

Reborn let him.

The important discovery that clumsiness, in Tsuna's world, meant luck, was the turning point in the way Reborn dealt with the brunet Sky. Instead of trying to warn him about the to-be clumsy moments, the baby observed those moments, located, at times with some difficulty, the danger and eradicated it with the same consequent satisfaction with which he carried his missions.

He also noticed that, if he put enough bloodlust behind his Leon-mallet hits, Tsuna would clumsily dodge them. He didn't know anymore if it was thanks to his Intuition or to crazy luck. But, really, Reborn doubted Intuition would need clumsiness to be listened to. He stuck with the luck idea and started creating occasions of regret, because he had a mission that couldn't be completed without taking care of that damn seal.

The welcome opportunity came two months after Reborn's arrival, in the afternoon when the boy returned home from school. Thankfully, Nana was out for groceries' shopping and the hitman immediately shot his student… whose regret had been… surprising. Tsuna had refused to help an old granny that lived in their street because he couldn't be late else Reborn would have had his head. Which, fair, the hitman had assumed regret would come because of that brunette in his student's class, but he was pleased about this unexpected turn of events.

Strangely.

He didn't know why. Probably the success despite the wrong assumption. Yeah.

So, Reborn made sure to be even more strict and got to shoot Tsuna at least daily. This allowed the seal to start breaking and, the more the hitman forced his student to keep the Dying Will mode up, the more he could see the distinct, enticing, growing spark of Sky Flames in the brunet's eyes. It was a definite improvement. Also, apparently, Tsuna's luck came in aid when coaxing the to-be Elements to fall into the boy's pace. He saved each of them thanks to clumsy episodes.

The Rain because he literally jumped from the roof right into the brunet's arms, and consequently suffered a very embarrassing scold in front of the entire school from the known idiot of said school. Reborn learned that Tsuna valued life above all because Nana had taught him very well.

The Cloud because the brunet, after being shot to help a young lady search for her missing cat, had ended up in a rather shadowy part of the city and, slipping on thin air, he had pushed Hibari out of a gunshot. Reborn learned that the Hibari clan was basically Yakuza and had a code to repay debts. Thus, the Disciplinary Committee head and heir to the Clan had a life debt with Tsuna. Quite handy.

The Sun because, once more, an out-of-control truck would have driven over the teen if Tsuna had not literally stumbled on him at a corner. Reborn learned that Tsuna had a worrying record number of close calls like that and was suddenly more careful around roads, especially if he could see or hear fast-driving trucks.

The Storm because Tsuna, uncaring about the obvious challenge for the position of Decimo, about which he cared even less, promptly saved the Italian from a not perfectioned technique. And, thus, he saved a stray kitten from exploding in school. And gained points in the Cloud's book for keeping the turf clean of bodies and explosions. Reborn learned to not underestimate to what extent Tsuna would go to help others, even if at the expense of his burnt hands. He subtly healed those, unnoticed.

The Lightning because children deserved to be protected no matter what. Reborn didn't even want to consider how that made Tsuna sound like an overprotective mother and learned that he would not cross path with him if it involved children. No matter what, he preferred not being subjected to the scorching, Flame-backed glare his student had sent to the impolite woman that had kicked Lambo because, quoting the screech, "he's loud", no, thank you.

The Mist because, even if this boy was an enemy that had, effectively and purposefully, harmed some of his friends, Tsuna couldn't stop being an irritating, pure, unbelievable saint and had to read in-between the lines. Of course Rokudo Mukuro couldn't be a simple enemy, he had to be an experimented, abused kid with deep hatred towards Mafia as a whole. And then the brunet metaphorically stomped the dichromatic-eyed teen by telling him that he agreed, Mafia was very bad and they could just team up and make it disappear. Reborn learned that, despite how his student could be stupid, he wasn't. And the hitman liked it.

Just before the final match, as in Tsuna vs Mukuro – that had not ended well, the brunet was on a warpath because of Vindice and had ordered, the Vindice, to be told how he could make Mukuro&co free… Reborn had felt strange… almost… –, the clumsiness had acted again. This time, though, Tsuna had saved the hitman by stumbling and pushing him out of the way of a trap. A killing trap.

Tsuna was crazily lucky, more than a clover anyway.

Reborn wondered what would happen if he gave one of those to his student. A quite amusing train of thought. He would use Tsuna to find one, first.

When Tsuna broke his sunglasses because he clumsily fell on them while escaping Reborn, Nana bought him another pair even though he never used them, so the brunet happened to be carrying them during the Sun match against Varia and he also happened to slip on air and send them on the Sun's head, that fell in love with them. Tsuna let him keep the pair and, thus, the Sun won the match without a single issue.

The clover that was his student simply couldn't be oblivious about it anymore when he ran to the Storm match trapped in threads of silk with which his mother had been working at home. Discovering the Varia Storm's trick would have taken much more time without that crazy, clumsy luck. Tsuna blushed at Reborn's narrowed glare, and apologized. The hitman sat him down then, breaking the imaginary wall and talking about the issue.

Tsuna told him he had always found his clumsiness strange, but it had picked up since the baby had come.

The brunet smiled, looking away. "Thank you."

Reborn blinked, "what for?" It seemed the hitman was only worsening the situation.

He shrugged, still blushing. "You helped."

Which… yeah, ok, he had, but that was also his job so Reborn ignored the fluttering in his stomach and waved off the thankfulness. For some reason, Tsuna chuckled at it. He avenged his pride by kicking him in the ass to the bed.

Also, he stopped questioning Tsuna the Clover's luck and just went with the flow.

However, he didn't even try to put himself between Tsuna and the two Cervello girls when Lambo ended up in danger during the Lightning match. It was already a miracle the brunet had allowed this at all, seeing the girls suffer two twin fists to the faces when they mentioned the brat was pitiful satisfied Reborn and, again, that strange feeling – that a baby should not feel – filled his body.

It returned when Tsuna defeated Xanxus, too, but that was after the brunet convinced the Cloud to go easy on the Varia Cloud. Crazy luck there, too, because clover managed that by literally falling into the teen's arms and pleading. Reborn hadn't liked that, especially considering how Tsuna looked in that moment, cute, adorable, irresist–

… He professionally ignored that thought.

The mess that was Varia, anyway, was dealt with and clover-boy manifested his pure horror when he understood the direct consequence: he had officially won the title he so hated. Reborn didn't bother to hide his smugness, nor his inner satisfaction. No matter how Tsuna kept pouting and whimpering to gain some sort of pity, he resisted and kept teasing him. Truly amusing.

Reborn blinked in… 15%-part surprise, 5%-part irritation and 80%-part pride when Tsuna came to call them for dinner and evaded each paint bullet the hitman shot him. As he was tutorturing the Rain teen, he didn't stop his bloodlust in time to bypass the clover ability and hit him. Yamamoto was astonished, less used to the circus that was his charge's luck.

But then Tsuna decided to go past any expectation Reborn had built of the issue and literally conquered an enemy in the enemy base during a raid in said enemy base. Through battle techniques. The hitman couldn't believe it, so he just acknowledged it had just happened and went on with what had become of his life. As in, an actual rollercoaster of impossible luck brought by his clover of a student.

Of course, the technique turned out deadly and explosive, which was another source of satisfaction for the baby hitman. Tsuna was not the smartest teen around, but he was the most dedicated, the most faithful and the most resilient. And luckiest, obviously.

Reborn was hit by a wild, sudden idea while escaping from the underground base, after the Choice battle. So far, he had noticed how the clover-human's luck seemed to work in a radius around him. Thus, the baby pushed his unbonded Arcobaleno Sky – she was not his Sky, but no one needed to know that – into that radius and jumped on Tsuna's shoulder, effectively evading whatever long-ranged attack because of slips and stumbles and even hitting a door face-first. Sure, his student suffered the pain but they were all safe pretty soon.

Tsuna pouted at him the whole time, even during his final battle against Byakuran. Reborn felt he was starting to crack but, really, what could he have done? His clover-Sky was lucky through clumsiness, it was not his fault, Dame-Tsuna.

For fuck's sake, crazy luck couldn't go as far as summoning the whole First Generation of Vongola in the form of ghosts, fuck it all! This was overkill! And they unlocked the true potential of the Vongola Rings? Reborn was going to drag him right into a lottery stall and tell him to choose a ticket with the bloodlusting request to choose the winning one at gunpoint, just to directly test it.

He did crack when his student barely defeated their enemy. His Sun Flames exploded as he hopped to him and started healing him. Tsuna was smiling, eyes dazed.

Reborn managed to smile through his worry, "of course, your luck wants the strongest Sun around to heal you, clover," he whispered.

And Tsuna chuckled with a thin blush along his cheekbones, one hand clutched by the hitman. "Is it luck, though–" He coughed twice, huffing. "I wonder…"

The hitman pursed his lips, letting his Flames do their magic. His student fell unconscious out of tiredness and pain, but was safe, they were all safe. They could go back home.

Reborn couldn't help the echo those words left in his mind.

Tsuna's luck was so crazy that he managed to prevent a whole war by simply teaching Lambo to be more careful around things that seemed important, like food, papers – especially considering Reborn had started making him do paperwork –, rings and boxes. That way, his student discovered the Simon Famiglia and rescued them from the abyss in which the First Generation Mist, Daemon Spade, was pushing them. A ghost. Tsuna had defeated a ghost, and said ghost's centuries' old machinations to strengthen Vongola.

The hitman did drag his clover around town, afterwards, and won the lottery. Twice.

Reborn didn't think about himself when the Arcobaleno battles fell into their laps. He didn't care much, he'd made peace with his mistakes, taken this whole baby curse as a punishment for what he'd done, it was fine, but he wanted his clover to bloom thanks to these battles. Tsuna had already become a finer teen, almost man, and was on his path to greatness, he could only be better with age, like a good wine, and experience, like a war veteran.

He put his whole effort into making that dumb head work into smarter thoughts with each passing day. He made sure Tsuna had all the weapons to outsmart others. He taught him the subtle art of manipulation. He pushed him to his limits, again, and again, and again.

The teen didn't seem to mind, not as much as in the beginning. He seemed… almost at peace with what was expected from him. He also was more relaxed during their training than with his friends or at school. Reborn wasn't going to read into that, but he found it increasingly hard to not smile when with him, or to not let his eyes wander lower than his face. And he was a baby.

Deep within, the hitman started to hope. He knew there couldn't be any way their curser could be as gracious as to lift the curse. It had to be some kind of trap – if his clover ended up in the crossfire, he would reap souls, godly being or whatnot –, something stank.

He didn't notice how Tsuna kept to his side whenever Checkerface was involved or the battles were ongoing. He had forgotten about his student's clover ability. He hadn't thought about himself.

So, yes, he was totally surprised when his student managed to convince half Mafia world, as in Vongola and its allies, into a two-stories house just to plan Arcobalenos' freedom. He didn't let his hope rise to the possibility of having his body back, of being an adult again, of being able to–

But then Tsuna went and threw rules through the window, along with self-preservation sense, and kept his inhuman luck while holding onto Reborn's body as if he could disappear into nothingness, trembling, scared, terrified even. He felt like he didn't deserve such lo– loyalty.

Because Tsuna, pure Tsuna, God of Luck Tsuna, yelled at and scolded the World's Greatest Hitman because the baby wasn't wanting his freedom enough, and then, unhappy and still fuming, did the same to all the other Arcobalenos before, ultimately, turning to Vindice and daring them to work against him when he was trying to help them all.

That must have been the first time anyone got away with screaming against the strongest beings on Earth, all at the same time. And Reborn… he understood. Tsuna was safe, he'd always been, and he was the safest with the World's Greatest Hitman, the world's most dangerous threat, because he'd managed the impossible, once more. This time, not thanks to his godly luck. All it had taken to make Reborn fall had been Tsuna, simply Tsuna, the package that made the most amusing, luckiest, most impossible clover that succeeded in breaking a centuries' old curse.

And, as Reborn looked at the light coming from his pacifier, as he felt his skin pleasantly stretch into his long lost, long forgotten, adult body, as he gazed over his bigger, slender hands, as the pacifier fell to the ground, he couldn't help it.

He couldn't help his lips forming a happy smile.

He couldn't help clenching and unclenching his hands.

He couldn't help the chuckle bubbling in his lungs.

He couldn't help the feeling of utter joy and thankfulness and love.

He couldn't help eyeing the cute pout of Tsuna when he came over to ask Reborn if he was ok.

He… just couldn't resist.

Reborn swept Tsuna, precious, lucky, rare Tsuna, off his feet. He trapped the boy in his arms, one hand on his nape and the other on the small of his back. And Reborn kissed him. He tried to pour all his feeling into the chaste touch, all his thankfulness, all his adoration, all his love. He huffed at the yelp, ended the brief kiss, ate up the beautiful, endearing blush, cradled him as if having the most precious, fragile living being in his arms.

He looked at the burning, dark gold that were Tsuna's eyes, not hiding his emotions. He saw them all reflected in them. And he tightened his embrace.

"Thank you, clover of mine."

Tsuna made a strangled sound, a mix between a gasp and a whine, blush darkening. "Y-you… won't let that go, huh…"

"No chances," Reborn smirked.

His clover, and hopefully lover, just huffed and pecked his lips. "I love you, too, crazy hitman."

If there was someone, in the whole universe, that could get away from Reborn after calling him crazy… Well, that was Tsuna. The strongest, purest, most adorable Sky shrouded in godly luck that the hitman had ever met. It took him a long time and a lot of whines on Tsuna's friends' part to let the brunet free of his embrace and, even then, Reborn barely let his clover venture more than three steps away.

He was so fucked.

"I'm going nowhere."

Reborn scoffed, "I'm not letting anyone pluck you away from me."

Tsuna blushed. And hit him in the shoulder, muttering something along the lines of the hitman being a gorgeous jerk. Which led to Reborn kidnapping his (c)lover to another place to have a private and more intimate… conversation. He knew his Tsuna, but, now, he wanted to know him better.

Hope you liked it :3 See ya!