AN- Ahhhhh sorry for the long wait guys ;w; I didn't get distracted not at all. Hopefully, I'll get another chapter of something else up soon as well. Uh, Muse Kitty sort of made a break for it lately. She'll be back soon!

Chapter 2

"Mama!" Tsuna yelled, slipping off his shoes, "I'm home!"

"Welcome home, Tsu-kun!" Nana called from the kitchen, and he headed in that direction, carefully stripping his cloak and bags as he walked. He made a mental note to take care of those later, and poked his head into the kitchen. Nana was standing over the stove, the pipes rattling slightly as the steam flowed through them and Tsuna made another mental note to replace them when he got the right materials.

"How was your walk?" Nana asked him, stirring their dinner carefully, but still turning to look at him.

"It was fine," Tsuna replied, hesitant to tell her about what had happened with Hibari, "Talbot-jiji isn't home is he?"

"Talbot-san is in the basement as usual," Nana replied brightly before pouting, "Mou Tsu-kun, you spend all your time with Talbot-san lately. I miss seeing you around the house."

"You're the one that insisted that I spend time with him," Tsuna said defensively, snagging a piece of bread to munch on from the table. "I would have been fine ignoring him." His nonexistent father was the one who had invited the elderly man in and told Nana that Talbot had been a friend to his great-great-great-great grandfather.

Tsuna hadn't been sold on the whole thing, but Nana had insisted that he spend time with their new resident. Of course, there were days that the teen wondered if she would be as supportive of him spending time with Talbot if she knew the full extent of what he was learning. She seemed to be under the impression that Talbot mostly gave Tsuna life advice or told him stories about what the world had been like before the Reveal.

Nana laughed brightly and ruffled his hair, "Mama has to finish dinner. Tell Talbot-san that it will be ready soon, and don't lose track of time listening to his stories again."

Tsuna flushed and pushed her hand out of his hair. "It only happened once!" he insisted, backing out of the room. He spun on his heels and fled the kitchen, faintly hearing Nana murmur to herself as she wondered what she was going to do with the two of them. Tsuna wondered what she would have done without them. He didn't know if she was aware of it, but a fairly large chunk of their income came from Tsuna selling the various machines that had been made in the basement.

It wasn't a true Forge so they were limited in what they could do, and in fact, their larger items wouldn't be the quality that they could be since they had to buy some of the materials and not just make everything from scratch. Tsuna didn't mind though, and Talbot had said that such an environment would force Tsuna to learn how to deal with delicate parts early on.

Nana knew that both of them were Flame Actives; it was impossible to keep that a secret with the number of homemade machines around the house. But she didn't know what type they were. Even Tsuna didn't know what Talbot's Primary Flames were, as his mentor had used several in front of him, and none of them had felt right. He tried his best to smother his curiosity though since Talbot didn't have to teach him how to Smith. The elderly Smith could have left Tsuna to figure out how to do it himself like so many other small town teens.

He ran his hands along the walls as he made his way down the feeling the vibrations from the pipes and gears that ran the house, and he hummed under his breath as he noted the ones that needed to be repaired and the ones that he would need to ask Talbot about to see if he was right about them needing to be repaired. The metal murmured back at him, and he felt a smile creep up his face. Hopefully the repairs could be done without having to replace the metal itself, Tsuna couldn't help but get attached.

His feet hit the bottom of the steps and he let his eyes linger on the door that stood in his way. It had been mostly Talbot's work, but he could faintly feel the drifts of Harmony that he had contributed to the mechanism. It would respond to certain vibrations, which would cause the first gears to start and heat up the water inside, the resulting steam would power the rest of it, and open the door. Which simply translated into meaning that if someone knew the right knock, they could get it open.

He laid a hand on the door to get a feel for the Flames infused in it, and sent his own out into it to deal with some of the problems that had cropped up. He pulled the fighting Cloud and Mist flames apart, calmed the Storm, encouraged the Lightning, propped up the Rain, and supported the Sun. As the rowdy Flames settled down, Tsuna could see the affect it had on the door as some of the scratches on it slowly faded away. He gave it a friendly pat, and then knocked out the sequence of seven short, nine long, and six short.

He stepped back as the door shuddered and creaked as the gears started to turn, and as they ran it grew silent until the door slid to the side and Tsuna slipped his goggles on out of habit. The heat hit his face and Tsuna grinned as he realized that his mentor must have been working on something that moment.

He walked forward confidently, ducking under some low hanging gears that weren't in use and made his way over to the hunched over Talbot in the back. The bright yellow of Sun Flames caught his attention, and Tsuna hovered to the side, wondering what his mentor was making. It would be small and delicate from the way that the man's hands dwarfed whatever he was working on, fingers flying even as Flames leapt off of them.

When Talbot cupped his hands around them and intensified his Flames, Tsuna knew that he was almost done, watching as the almost too bright light slowly slipped away, disappearing into to the object as Talbot infused it with his Flames. Tsuna pulled his goggles up as the light finally disappeared and the old man turned around to face him.

"Talbot-sensei!" Tsuna greeted with a wave and a grin.

"Ah, Tsuna just in time," Talbot grinned back. "Tell me how this feels." He tossed a chain at the Sky Smith and Tsuna caught it in one hand.

He ran his hands over it, marveling at the warmth still coming from the links. He blinked, and reached out for a different pair of goggles he had hanging off of the wall in the workshop. Talbot watched him pull them on with a bemused smile, just waiting for him to get it. The goggles that Tsuna put on magnified what he could see, and he held the chain up to one of the lights and then as close to his face as he could get.

Each little link in the chain had lines, joints in them, and he ran a finger over one to see what it would do. He blinked at the jump of Sun flames that he could feel and when he pulled his finger back and rubbed it against some others to get a better feel, the hand that still held the chain could feel the tiny gears in it click together and the joints were twisting, forming a different shape. Tsuna gaped at the glove he now held in his hand, and twisted it around.

"That's amazing Sensei!" he exclaimed, "Internal or external healing? It feels like healing is what you want the Sun flames to do."

"Correct Tsuna," Talbot said with amusement, "Internal. Whatever part of the body that it takes shape as will be healed. How many uses do you feel in it before more Flames need to be infused in it?"

Tsuna turned his attention back to the glove in his hand and concentrated his senses to see if he could feel the amount of Flames his mentor had placed in his latest work. The rolling energy inside the metal wasn't the same tidal wave that Talbot was able to infuse, but it wasn't the calm creek that most of the mass produced products had. The familiar feel of them licked at his own Flames, and he narrowed his eyes.

"Uh, seven?" he asked hesitantly, and Talbot raised an eyebrow at him. "Seven," he repeated firmly, and grinned at the amused look that his teacher gave him.

"Very good," Talbot praised, turning back to his workbench. "It won't save you from really bad injuries but it can be of use to you any way I believe. Don't lose it."

Tsuna stared at the old man for a long moment and then tapped the glove again watching it click back into the chain and pulling it to his chest. "Thank you Sensei."

Talbot chuckled and then glanced back at him. "Now you wouldn't have come down here without a reason. What can I do for you?"

"That's not true Sensei," Tsuna protested immediately as he pulled up a bench to sit next to the old man. "I come down to spend time with you-"

"But," Talbot said with a smirk and Looked at him.

Tsuna grinned sheepishly, "You taught me how to court Elements that I wanted should I find them, and how to accept or reject a courtship should someone find out the nature of my Flames." The old man nodded and eyed him. Tsuna flushed and muttered, "So uh, what do I do if we just Harmonize? No warning or courting. Just-"

Talbot looked even more amused if nothing else, and Tsuna sunk down in his spot. "And who," the old man looked like he was enjoying this, the bastard. "Did you actually managed to pull into your orbit this time young man?"

Tsuna's hands flailed as he protested, "I didn't do anything Talbot-Jiji! Hibari-san just cornered me on my way home and we- we Harmonized." He turned his large brown eyes on his mentor and blinked at the way the amusement drained from Talbot's face.

"So this is how it begins," the old man murmured, and Tsuna leaned in.

"Talbot-sensei?" he questioned, and the inventor shook his head, reaching out and ruffling his hair. Tsuna squawked at the action and tumbled off of his spot.

"Don't worry about it quite yet," Talbot said with a chuckle. "What you need to do right now is find a good acceptance gift if you're going to keep the Harmonization. It would be rude not to."

Tsuna flushed and pulled himself from the ground. "I don't know if I am though. Going to keep the Harmonization Jiji. Hibari-san is-" Tsuna pulled a face, and looked down at his hands, feeling the Flames in his core twining around his own. It felt so right though. He took a deep breath. "I'll think about it. Thanks Jiji!"

He headed for the stairs back up to his own room, and missed the grave eyes that Talbot watched him with.