It's eleven at night, half of them are punch drunk, and the mission was an absolute shit show that none of them want to talk about because it wasn't that the enemy was stronger or the situation out-smarted them.

It was just dumb mistakes and it snowballed and they want this stupid fucking day to be over.

Skull sees the playground across the street as they stumble back home - because the car got totalled and the police are watching the roads anyway. Skull glances at the others and somehow musters the energy to jog over to it. "Hey, push me on the swing!"

Reborn rolls his eyes as he and the others keep walking. "Is now really the time to re-do your miserable childhood by projecting your neglectful family onto us?"

"Push me, daddy!" Skull cheers, flopping onto the plastic seat. "Push me like you can still feel love after you realised I was watching as my sister drowned!"

A laugh is startled out of Reborn and he comes to a stop. "Fuck."

"Keep walking," Verde urges, pushing at Reborn's back. "Ignore him and he'll follow us anyway. I'm too tired for this."

"I can't," Reborn sighs, reluctantly heading towards the park. "Damn it, I can't believe he actually got me with that."

"You're not as hard to crack as you think you are," Viper mutters snidely but follows.

Lal crosses her arms and holds out the longest but does follow the rest across the road.

The park is basically a tiny patch of grass, the road side bordered by short, square poles connected with metal to form a fence. There's a rusted and paint-chipped merry-go-round, a splinter-filled wooden playhouse on stilts and attached metal pole to get up and down, a half-hearted sandbox that's nearly all dirt now, and the relatively new swing set.

Reborn grabs the chains of the swing and drags Skull back before sprinting forwards and hurling the swing as far as he can. Skull laughs and he hits the horizontal peaks and gravity catches him again.

Reborn catches the very edge of the plastic seat on the backwards swing, having to jump to reach it, and does the throw again. If he's doing this anyway, he wants to see if he can make Skull do a 360.

Viper floats up to the playground structure and holds onto the pole, floating themselves back down in a very lazy attempt at playing.

"That was pathetic," Colonnello tsks. "Watch how a real man plays." He mounts one of the metal handholds of the spinning disc of doom but then sees Fon walk towards him instead of Lal and rethinks that. Colonnello sits down properly, bracing his back and feet against the metal holds, a death grip on two more with his hands.

"Brace yourself," Fon says with maybe too much glee.

"Do your worst."

Verde walks over to the other swings seat and Viper follows, sitting on Verde's lap. The seat starts slowly swinging upwards, clears the horizontal, rotates over the top bar and comes back down at a nice, easy pace.

Reborn gives up and instead grabs one of the chains as Skull swings forward. The stuntman is launched from the seat, hits the ground, rolls three times and pops back up with his arms raised like a gymnast who just nailed the landing.

"Taa~daa," Skull says.

Colonnello goes flying from the rapid blur and squeaking metal of the merry-go-round, rolls, and quietly throws up into the grass.

"Man down," Lal mutters from her place on the only park bench that was possibly a deep green before the paint was worn away but now only the grey wood shows.

"Hey, Reborn," Viper calls out lazily, on their second loop around the overhead bar, the chain now quite tangled, with Verde still as their prisoner. "Come sit on my theoretical dick, let's stack up."

Reborn sighs wistfully. "I'd love to, except I'm homophobic, so penises give me anxiety."

"Oh my God," Lal says quietly.

"Even your own?" Colonnello wonders, half recovered but still on the ground.

"It's internalised homophobia, so especially my own," Reborn insists.

"How do you shower?"

"I close my eyes and let Shamal wash me."

Skull laughs so hard he misses the jump to the next square pole and his foot slips out from under him.

Fon dives in and Skull's stomach is rammed into Fon's shoulder, inner thigh hitting the fence post instead of something more delicate.

Everyone clusters around in shock with Lal watching on from the one park bench, so done with these people.

"I thought I was going to die," Skull whimpers, clutching at Fon's clothes.

"Are you okay?" Colonnello asks in horror.

"How many fingers am I holding up?!" Viper cries and holds up seven fingers – on one hand.

"He's not even hurt," Lal points out but she's smiling.

Fon lays a stunned Skull on the ground and Reborn covers the stuntman's face with a handkerchief.

Verde throws a handful of dirt onto Skull and sighs mournfully. "He was a good man."

(And in the end, it wasn't such a bad day after all.)