"Actually," Reborn cuts in, sitting upright. "Bermuda, this is your fault. Because you came after us with bad information, you can't control your fucking people, you gave your flames to Skull for no reason, and the whole point of you doing this is the first place is that you got fucked over and didn't know how to deal with it."
Reborn leans forward, his blanket half slipping off his shoulders. "You're basically just really fucking useless and you would have done everyone a favour by just dying when you were supposed to."
"Reborn," Bermuda says sharply, hands clenching into fists on his lap. "I understand that you are distressed, and I am also taking into account that you are my Sky-"
"No. No, no, no."
"But I will not tolerate being spoken to like that," Bermuda finishes. "Please act maturely."
"Well, okay," Reborn says simply. "If you want to have this conversation already, then these are my terms; I don't ever want to see you again, and if you force me to do anything in particular, I will kill myself and then everyone can suffer together."
"Reborn," Bermuda sighs.
"Do you think I am bluffing."
Bermuda says nothing for a long moment. "Perhaps we should take a break and reconvene later. There are rooms available for you-"
"I want to go home," Viper demands.
"The Man in the Iron Hat-"
"Listen," Colonnello announces. "I'm real fucking tired right now, and I want to sleep, and so we are all going back and maybe we'll call you, yeah?"
Bermuda waves Jaeger forward where the Vindice is standing behind Bermuda's chair, the man staring intently at Reborn throughout the whole conversation. "I will set a guard rotation-"
"I will guard them," Fon cuts in. "I will guard them. They are mine. They are all mine, not yours."
Bermuda slowly looks over all of the newest generation of Arcobaleno. None of them look particularly stable right now. And in fact, Bermuda can feel the newest additions in flames, faded, muted perhaps but linked all the same.
They are very close to just snapping.
"Alright," Bermuda allows, in the same tone you would reassure a wild animal with. "I will, however, revisit you again on the morrow."
"Take your time," Lal drawls and starts pulling the rest of them up, herding them close.
Bermuda summons a portal directly into Reborn's living room and Lal ushers them all forward before finally joining them last.
The portal closes behind them and Reborn just sits on the carpet, huddling up in his blanket and shivering.
"Did I..." Skull trails off nervously, looking around the trashed room. "Did I do a really bad thing?"
"You did well," Viper muses. "We can use this. They're bonded to us and it gives us an advantage. They have information on the other threat too - that Iron Hat guy. We can use this."
Fon, Lal and Verde start discussing watch rotations, and how to better defend the house, maybe if they should move to somewhere more secret or stay to avoid being tracked down. They definitely have to close up the broken window.
Colonnello reaches down and then straightens back up with a limp Reborn slung over a shoulder. He starts heading upstairs with Skull at his heels.
"Stay together," Lal demands when she sees Viper lag behind. "In pairs at least. A fighter in each group."
Viper jerks. "Yeah, thanks, I know I'm fucking useless."
Lal frowns. "Viper, we're not doing this right now."
Verde hums and pushes up his glasses. "If it helps, Fon didn't do much either."
Fon rolls his bare shoulders, the muscles sleek and rippling even under the dim moonlight. "Oh, Verde. After this is over, I will show you exactly what I can do."
Reborn props his chin up in his hands, elbows digging into Colonnello's back. "You're all kind of pathetic actually. It was basically just me, doing all the work as per usual."
"Uh-huh," Colonnello says, having stopped halfway up the stairs. He pats Reborn's ass. "And what did you do, except fall to the ground and faint?"
"Uh, I was the only one who killed a Vindice?" Reborn reminds Colonnello.
Skull clears his throat and pretends to flip long hair over his shoulder. "Well if you really want to talk about who saved the day-"
"Not you," Verde sneers. "I will even accept that Lal helped more than you."
"True," Viper agrees. "The Rains were useless, like most Rains are."
Colonnello turns on his heel (almost hitting Reborn's head against the wall if the hitman didn't duck) and starts walking back down the stairs, shoving Skull out of the way as he goes. "Viper, have I ever told you about just how huge my dick is? And just how honoured I would be if you sucked it."
Lal huffs out a quiet laugh, sounding tired, sounding like she didn't mean to but it was dragged out of her anyway.
Everyone pauses a moment and then finally relaxes, tension bleeding out of their muscles, leaving them shaky and exhausted.
"That was terrifying," Verde whispers, shoving his glasses up so he can scrub his face with his hands.
Reborn mutters something quietly into Colonnello's back but no one can make out the words. He's shivering again.
"I can't wait until tomorrow," Viper sighs, too tired for proper sarcasm to show through.
"Don't you mean 'on the morrow'?" Skull echoes Bermuda, putting on a posh accent.
"Shut up and fucking go to bed!" Lal snaps at them. "Goddamn. Verde, Fon, you get the defences up and running. Skull, Colonnello, stay with Reborn and make sure he doesn't get worse. Viper, with me, you get as much information as you can tonight and I'm calling in COMSUBIN - I don't even fucking care anymore about this Omerta bitch. They started it, my army is damn well going to end it."
"The Mafia would kill us for something like that," Colonnello says cautiously.
"Then Italy will burn with us," Lal promises. "And the universe will die and I would be so fucking delighted."
Because according to Bermuda, there are no other candidates as strong as them, none that would be able to hold the pacifiers without being drained too quickly, and it's been too long since the last generation to wait for new candidates. If they die, the Tri-ni-sette stops working.
"Huh," Viper says, just realising that they have a whole shitton of leverage.
"You want Interpol, Lal?" Skull asks excitedly.
"Yes! Fuck it actually, yes, get me Interpol." Lal throws up her hands. "Let's just get everyone."
"Everyone?" Fon echoes. "Because do you mean..."
"If you have a phone number, give it to me," Lal deadpans.
