Disclaimer ~ I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Prompt: In the middle of working on a car
Colonello was only looking for his phone. He had it on him when they were on their way back to the mansion after the last mission, because he was the one who called ahead to let Reborn know they'd need his sun flames ready when they got there.
The mission was technically a success, but it could have gone a lot better. First, the team doing this mission was only Colonello, Lal, and Skull. That already put them at a disadvantage because it was the three people least suited for this type of assignment. But the others were busy with a different job across town. Colonello wished they had gotten Viper on their team at the very least. The mist was sneaky, and that's exactly what they needed. Lal and Colonello were soldiers, so they at least had some experience with it, but Skull was a civilian. Not only that, but his whole profession was being loud and drawing attention to himself. Colonello had to admit, Skull was doing fairly well despite only having a crash course in sneaking around. Mostly, he watched what Colonello and Lal did and then copied them.
Things went wrong after they split up. There wasn't supposed to be anyone in the building. So of course that meant there was a high profile business meeting going on between two famiglias that saw them on the cameras. By that point they had managed to grab what they were there for and were heading to the rendezvous point. Of course, it dissolved into a gunfight. They did fairly well all things considered, since Skull didn't have a weapon and it was basically two against twenty.
The three of them made it back to their car, where Skull was quick to get them out of there before the goons gave chase. With his skills, they evaded all the goons without incident. That's when Colonello noticed the blood flowing down Lal's arm. He might have panicked just a little bit and called Reborn to be ready, but in his defense Lal was hurt. She had been since the gunfight inside the building. Even if the wound was just a graze, she was still loosing a lot of blood.
Reborn had her fixed up within minutes of them getting back. The hitman then smacked Colonello for making them think it was a life threatening injury. Colonello was unrepentant. Any injury deserved to be treated like a life threatening one when it was on Lal. Reborn left after telling everyone that Lal just needed to rest for the night. She'd be back on her feet by morning.
That brings us to here, approximately six hours afterwards. Colonello had showered and taken a short nap, but woke up feeling restless. He was planning to kill some time by playing on his phone, except he didn't know where it was. He searched all the areas he was in after getting back to the manor, but still couldn't find it. That was when Colonello remembered calling Reborn from the car and changed direction to head towards the garage. He hollered a greeting to Skull upon entering, as Skull was busy fixing up another of their various cars, and made his way towards the silver sedan they used on the mission.
Good news! Colonello found his phone. It was laying in the backseat of the suspiciously clean car. There should have been bloodstains on the floor and seats, but the car looked practically brand new. It didn't make sense.
A noise from Colonello's left had the rain turning just in time to watch Skull go limp from where he was elbow deep in the hood of their van. The wrench that was in his hand slipped through his limp fingers and hit the floor with a clang.
Colonello would deny he yelped until the day he died. He just made a concerned noise as he hurried over to his teammate, that's all.
Colonello carefully pulled Skull away from the car and laid him down on the floor, checking him over for any possible injuries. He feared the cloud had hidden an injury from their earlier mission. It didn't sound like Skull, but Colonello couldn't think of any other reason the kid would have collapsed.
Colonello was seconds away from stripping Skull to see if he had tried to treat the wound himself when he heard a soft snore. Colonello released the breath he didn't even realize he was holding. Asleep. Skull had just fallen asleep.
"This kid is going to give me gray hairs," Colonello muttered. Colonello sighed and stood up. While he could just leave Skull on the floor, Colonello wasn't quite as sadistic as Reborn. He would at least put Skull in a bed. The kid probably hadn't slept since the night before the mission. He needed the rest.
Bonus: Verde was able to get a picture of the incident by checking the footage from his hidden cameras. Reborn paid good money for a picture of Colonello's panicked expression.
So I actually figured out how I wanted this chapter to go literally directly after getting in bed to sleep. Then the next night as I was working on this, I was planning out the next chapter. I was planning on working on the fics that need rewriting, but my niece fell asleep on me so I was limited on what I could do. I need my phone to look at the old version while I write the new one in my notebook, but I only had my phone since I was stuck being used as a bed. At least I made plenty of progress.
I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! I actually decided to do Colonello next because I had a mistake in the prologue where I said "Colonello almost had a heart attack the first time he found Colonello elbow deep in the hood of a car" instead of Colonello finding Skull there. I want to thank both Dreamer Rose and Deacog for pointing that out to me so I could fix it. If I make any mistakes like that again please let me know so I can fix it as soon as possible. I don't have a beta so I'd really appreciate the help.
I'll try to have my next update ready soon. I'm working on chapter 2 of the Ripper's Princess so I hope I can finish that soon. Please stay tuned for the next update!