When Reborn wakes up, everything mildly aches, and he's handcuffed to a bed.

Verde is sitting on a chair beside the bed, reading a book on mathematical values in economics that he picked from Reborn's shelf. He looks up, probably sensing Reborn's stare. Verde raises an eyebrow. "You thinking about killing me?"

Reborn rolls away, ratting the handcuffs as he goes, and smushes his face into the pillow.

Verde closes the book and drops it onto the floor as he sits up. "He's awake!"

There's the sound of thudding coming through apartment and Lal charges in first, righteously aggrieved. "You're never allowed to hold the kidnapping/murder threats incident over my head again, because you did the exact same."

Viper phases through the wall next, a smirk on their face, clearly enjoying this. "Where's your moral high ground now, bitch?"

Verde sighs, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees. "I still need Reborn to drug someone."

Skull catches the doorframe and swings himself into the room, trotting over and flopping across Reborn's legs. "Would the drugs not count as part of the kidnapping?"

"Yes, the first time, but there were several drugging incidents."

Fon steps in next and smiles at Reborn. "I never kidnapped you," he says smugly, awaiting praise for having such self-control - despite the fact that he did try on several occasions but Reborn managed to run away.

Colonnello peers over Fon's head and huffs out a laugh when he sees Reborn desperately trying to get the handcuffs off while Skull slowly oozes over the hitman. "I heard you tried to kill me. I'm a little flattered."

Reborn needs so much coffee to deal with this.


"Babe," Skull says from halfway down the stairs.

Everyone turns to look at him.

"Little babe," Skull clarifies.

Lal and Viper share a look over the kitchen island while the others refocus on whatever they were doing before being interrupted.

"Are you little babe?" Viper asks Lal.

"If he meant me, he would have said littlest babe," Lal points out, because Viper is a couple centimetres taller.

Verde rolls his eyes, and even stops tying away on his laptop at the kitchen table to turn and frown at the stuntman. "Just use our names, it gets very confusing."

"That's physically and spiritually impossible for me," Skull says gravely. "I meant tall-dark-and-handsome babe."

Reborn throws down his newspaper and stands from the couch, outraged. "Who's little? How dare you call me little when Lal and Viper are in the room. I am above average. I'm the same height as Fon - actually I'm taller than him, with my fedora on."

"No, but Fon's like," Skull flexes his biceps. "Fon's buff babe. Viper's eldritch babe and Lal is just ma'am."

"You're going to be crippled babe in a second after I get my hands on you," Reborn snaps, moving towards the Cloud.

Fon has to quickly straighten up from a yoga pose and vault over a couch to corral an angry Reborn.

"Whatever," Skull dismisses. "It makes sense in my head. Anyway, angry babe, there's like a whole-ass cheer squad on the street."

Reborn pauses. "What?"

Colonnello rolls off the couch and peeks through the curtains. He immediately flinches back. "That's…not good."

Reborn is bonded to everyone so his release of Sky flames during the … incident wasn't too bad. However, the ones with a weaker will have the house surrounded so Viper very quickly locks the whole place down with flames.

"How do we deal with it?" Colonnello asks worriedly. "It's really public, and there's a lot of different famiglias here."

"It will wear off in a few days," Verde assures. "They feel an urge to find the source of the Sky flames but it's not overwhelming like when Reborn was actively searching for Skull. They should calm down soon. They ones who can't fight it off will need to be dealt with though."

"Minions?" Viper suggests.

"No keeping minions," Lal complains. "Let's just wait until it clears up first."

Skull raises a hand. "I'll call Interpol to clear the street!"

"We don't need Interpol." Reborn purses his lips. "And Skull, I think it's time that you stopped…"

Skull peers up at him with big purple eyes.

"Stopped stalling and asked for a promotion," Reborn finishes. "You always go above and beyond; I think they don't value you enough."

'Weak,' Viper mouths at Reborn.


Reborn comes out of the en suite in his Armani pyjamas after a nice warm shower and stops when he finds all of the others piled into his king-sized bed. "You are grown-ass adults."

"Everyone needs cuddles sometimes," Colonnello chimes in, currently buried under Viper and Skull.

"That doesn't even look comfortable." Reborn crosses his arms. "There is literally no room. Get out of my bed."

"I agree with Reborn," Verde admits because he was dragged here and now his feet are hanging off the end of the bed because his giant body can't fit.

Lal is curled up against Verde's side to fit at the edge of the bed, not because she wants to be flattened into a pancake when someone inevitably rolls over in the middle of the night, but because she wants to monitor Reborn and the hitman would never agree to Lal blatantly watching him sleep.

"I need proper sleep," Reborn complains. "And, honestly, I don't think we're all this close, physically-wise. There are enough spare bedrooms and couches, please leave."

Fon is sitting by the foot of the bed. "Technically, to sleep all of us, two of us would need to be in this bed with you."

"Or you could go home," Reborn points out. "You know, because it would be a lot more comfortable."

Lal sits up with a frown. "We can't leave you alone with what's happening outside."

"Then one of you can stay here and the rest go home."

Skull raises an arm and flops it around. "Come oooon, I worked so hard to get everyone into bed. Just one night."

Reborn walks over to the bed and yanks a pillow out from under Viper's head. "You idiots stay here, I'm going to the spare bedroom."

Fon stands up to follow. "The spare bedroom also has a double bed, so one of us would need to-"

"I'm sleeping on the couch!" Reborn calls over his shoulder, picking up the pace until he's speed walking.

Colonnello curses and rolls out of bed to follow, tossing Viper and Skull off him. He doesn't want to sleep on a couch, definitely won't fit with how tall he is, but Reborn needs backup in case someone breaks in.

Viper is actually already asleep and Verde just shuffles around until he's partly diagonal and his feet fit in. Skull grumbles at loosing so many people from the cuddle pile but he fits himself between Viper and Verde to sleep.

Lal rolls out of bed with the decision that if Colonnello is with Reborn, then it's fine. She grabs Fon's hand and drags him into the spare bedroom even though Fon is pouting a little.

"Reborn will be fine," Lal dismisses.

"I know, I just wanted to…" Fon trails off. "He's kept the bond blocked off this whole time since he woke up. He doesn't feel like my flames the way he usually does."

"When he's asleep, we can sneak down and put a little extra flames into him," Lal whispers, which was her plan all along.

Fon brightens up.