[Fic] Reborn!: Building A Legacy In Three Acts (and then some)
For the Minibang Project @ hitman-reborn.
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Title: Building A Legacy In Three Acts
Series/Characters: [Reborn!] Vongola Family, Dino, Romario, Reborn, OMC (Tsuna's offspring), et al...plus gag!6918 moments if you blink hard at all the right times. |D
Disclaimer: Amano's. Am only playing.
Word Count: 6,327
Notes: The focus was on CRACK, and in that aspect I hope I delivered. Married Tsuna off to Kyouko if only to realise the beauteous idea of Ryohei as an uncle (I mean, god-forbid he sires extreme babies himself). Tried to give everybody related to the Vongola an honorable mention, but I ran out of time before I could somehow work in Haru as a second wife/mistress. Alas. Tsuna's son's name was decided on by following Amano's trend here.
Beta'd by ashesto ♥; any remaining marks of illiteracy are all mine. All mine. One more thing: I highly recommend watching this Russel Peters clip before reading, though it's not necessary... it's just that some of the humor at the conclusion is somewhat relevant to it.
Illustrated by ikui. runesque drew something for it too. (;___; I'm really not worthy...) The links to both separate art posts are in-fic and, seriously, CLICK THEM. You'll be missing out on even more glorious crack if you don't. L-LOL. Epic notes for an epic fic. @_@
ETA: Now also available on AO3.
Summary: First is holy matrimony. Next comes fatherhood. Sawada Tsunayoshi, Tenth Generation Leader of the Vongola Family, experiences both-though he is admittedly unprepared for the latter (and with the infamous Reborn as the self-claimed Godfather, who could blame him?) From choosing a suitable name, to keeping track of all the baby's firsts, being a Papa is hard, hard work.
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Building A Legacy In Three Acts (and then some)
by kasugai gummie
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[Before]
They were married in a small, white chapel on the Sicilian countryside, just a few hundred miles off the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Surrounded by friends and family and colleagues alike (the lattermost of whom were a little touched in the head), the resplendent bride and groom came together under the austere benediction of Father Bornicus. It was quite the momentous occasion. Even despite a most spectacular interruption during the exchange of vows (wherein-according to witnesses-a certain someone’s pet ball of yellow fluff had abandoned its organ pipe post and rejoined its master, only to “ku-fu-fu” charmingly and blow in his ear), most of the surviving guests all agreed that the ceremony was a joyous success.
To be honest though, neither the bride nor groom were really bothered by the sudden incapacitation of at least a fourth of their guests anyway. Unavoidable interruptions were just that after all: unavoidable. Expected even; easily taken in astride if your childhood just happened to be one, big, happy procession of explosions and foreign assassins and other potentially life-altering (threatening) things.
A couple of body cleanups in pews five through eight later (basically, what measured out to be the shortest distance between one horrendously offended Hibari Kyouya and one seemingly innocent Rokudo Mukuro), and the newlyweds were dubbed “ready” to venture forth into the next stage of their lives together. And they did so with a-gusto.
After all, it was bad form to delay a Venetian honeymoon. Very counterproductive. And, okay, nobody wanted to dwell on the fact that it was Lussuria who’d caught the fabulous bridal bouquet.
Two months later, Kyouko announced that she was pregnant.
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“You’re what?” Tsuna asked faintly, unable to tear his wide-eyed gaze from his otherwise boring office phone. He’d been in the middle of debriefing with Yamamoto and Gokudera when his wife had called.
“Pregnant Tsu-kun, pregnant! Isn’t it exciting?”
Pregnant. Pregnant meant baby. Baby meant parents. Kyouko pregnant meant baby meant parents meant fatherhood meant him.
Tsuna made a strangled noise in the back of his throat during the grace period of expectant silence. It was a sound that fell somewhere between that of a garbled choke and a half-voiced swallow; Kyouko interpreted it as a form of consent.
“Yes dear, I’ll be letting our parents know about the test result too. Are you in your office right now? Is there anyone else with you?”
It took a few more painfully long seconds before the young Don could manage anything more coherent than a wordless gape. “Gokudera and Yamamoto,” Tsuna answered. He spoke slowly, as if speaking any faster would shatter his sense of reality. Or whatever was left of it, anyway.
“That’s perfect!” Kyouko approved, enthusiasm nearly coloring the sound waves in gleaming shades of sunshine and baby room pastels. “Don’t worry about Maman-I’ll take care of all the long distance calls. I think I’ll leave ‘niisan to you though, okay Tsu-kun? But, go ahead and tell Gokudera and Yamamoto first, since they’re right there.”
“Actually,” Tsuna began weakly, “you’re on speaker phone already-” but wasn’t quite able to finish the thought before the cardiac arrest-like dial tone cut him off mid-sentence.
Well, then.
Tsuna closed his eyes. Reopened them. And suddenly, as if his blink were the trigger, came Gokudera’s ring-laden hands morphing in from across his desk to clasp around both of his. To his left, Yamamoto laughed, hand warm and congratulatory as it clapped against his back.
“Haha, wow Tsuna, you sure moved fast. Good job!”
“The harsh environment of the female reproductive system didn’t stand a chance against your potency. As expected of the Tenth!”
“A-ah.” At least some things never changed. Tsuna tried to smile warmly at his Rain and Storm guardians. He succeeded, for the most part.
“Thanks Yamamoto, Gokudera... I think.”
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[First Act]
He’d fainted the moment he barged into the delivery room. Dropped like a stone, he did, despite all of Gokudera’s best efforts to prepare him against the inevitable some mere moments before Kyouko started crying at the top of her lungs. Clinical charts and The Obstetrician’s Illustrated Companion to Anatomy simply did not, could not, compare to the real thing.
He’d fainted the second and third time too, and was just getting ready to launch a fourth attempt (his foot already thrust purposefully through the door) when Chrome gently pulled him aside and told him in perfectly respectable terms that it was okay if he wasn’t present during the actual birthing process; it was okay if he couldn’t stand the sight of something the size of a watermelon exit a hole the size of an orange. Not many men could, and his perseverance despite the odds was admirable. Really.
Tsuna could only agree-especially after stumbling into a wall mid-way through her (his?) strangely analogued speech.
“Nobody’s expecting you to catch the baby when it finishes coming out, boss,” Chrome said, voice chock-full of solid practicality. “They have nurses with cotton-lined bedpans to do that.” There was the faintest hint of a telltale smirk on Chrome’s lips when Tsuna looked over to ask “But aren’t bedpans for collecting-?” Or maybe it was just a trick of the fluorescent lighting that flickered as they walked under.
“Did you say something, boss ?”
Judiciously ignoring the increasingly distinct smell of pineapples and coconuts and the urge to shake a tambourine, Tsuna refrained from questioning her credentials.
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It was at least a full hour after his last, aborted attempt to stand witness to the venerable art of midwifery when a nurse finally approached him with news that had him dashing through the door once again.
“Congratulations Sawada-san, it’s a boy.”
And so it was.
When Sawada Tsunayoshi, the tenth generation leader of the Vongola Family beheld his firstborn son, it was with something akin to wonder. The wonder of seeing something so tiny and so pink was euphoric, and oh, wow, he even had hair!
“Come here, Tsu-kun.”
Or, okay, maybe it was closer to terror.
Tsuna froze as Kyouko beckoned him close and froze again when she offered him the bundle of swaddling cloth; he froze as all the years of experience from babysitting Lambo suddenly made an unseemly lunge for the nearest neuronal exit.
A wonderful terror, then. Tsuna, despite doing a pretty damn good job of imitating a slab of wood, accepted the infant-Ienobu, he corrected himself absently, Sawada Ienobu-with shaking hands. He rocked his son back-and-forth, the minimum number of times to make it look as if he still knew what he was doing before thrusting him back into Kyouko’s arms.
Kyouko, thankfully, didn’t say anything; merely took him back with a contented smile. This left Tsuna with the blessed, blessed option to admire those particular features that most fledgling fathers found so necessary to inspect, and not worry about dropping the baby on his head, like his father probably had done with him. He started with the feet, wiggling each little piggy with idyllic abandon.
“Where’s niisan?” Kyouko asked, suddenly.
Tsuna paused on the tenth toe, before he came to the sudden, but belated, realization that there weren’t any more to count (and truth be told, he was a little disappointed at the shortage). “Outside,” he answered absently, gesturing with a wave of his free, non-counting hand towards said general direction.
“Oh,” Kyouko nodded, glanced towards where he was waving, then furrowed her brows. “You mean he’s beneath our window? In the parking lot?”
“Huh?” Tsuna finally looked up, a remarkably enlightened expression of wonder on his face (the baby had two’s of almost everything). “Parking-oh! No, no,” he reassured her. “I didn’t mean that outside.” Because that was where the Family’s more socially-disinclined affiliate had staked as his own, personal waiting area for two and only two, under penalty of waking up head first in the Namimori river before dawn. “I meant the other one on the other side.” This time Tsuna made sure to gesture in the correct, general closed-door direction.
“Oh! Then that means everybody is here!” Kyouko reasoned. “Why don’t you invite them in?”
“Ah, yeah,” Tsuna pulled away from his detailed inspection of the baby’s dimpled elbow reluctantly. “I’ll be right back; they should still be in the lobby,” he said, as he made his way to the door.
No matter how much he wanted to forgo the congratulations and just bundle both wife and child into their car and drive home, he owed it to his friends and followers for their support through the long, quest-filled months prior. If it weren’t for Hibari’s contacts in Indonesia, for example, they would have failed miserably trying to get those ten-odd crates of fresh durian fruit. (Though, the thought of those durians puréed with scallops, and what Hibari had charged for his services, were still guaranteed to make his stomach roll unpleasantly.)
“He must have an EXTREME name!”
Tsuna stilled, hand poised over the door handle-a deer caught in the headlights. Closing his eyes he inhaled as inaudibly as he could and held that breath; he should have known they’d forgotten something important. His brother-in-law’s public thought processes, of which seemed to grow more impassioned by the second, attested to that.
“Something powerful! Manly! Like Killer Whale-no wait, that’s too PG-13-Smashing Whale!”
Chancing a quick, somewhat nervous glance back over his shoulder at his wife and newborn son, Tsuna sighed only when it became obvious that Kyouko hadn’t noticed the commotion outside. Silently, fervently, the Tenth Leader of the Vongola Family offered his thanks to whichever higher powers it was that had given his wife her wonderful ability to selectively ignore everything short of a nuclear fallout.
“Hey, whose bright idea was it to send Lawnhead on that mission to the Lakota Sioux Reserve?”
Another voice muffled through the walls, tone and pitch smothered into a begrudging sort of quiet, but the annoyance was hard to miss.
“I don’t know, I rather like Divebombing Pelican myself.”
The disbelieving snort of disgust could only be Gokudera. “Nobody asked for your opinion. Nobody ever asks for your opinion.”
Yamamoto’s unabashed laugh was an easy accompaniment to Ryohei’s continued suggestions.
Tsuna bit down on his lower lip and beat a hasty retreat back to Kyouko’s side. There were just some things that needn’t be rushed and greeting the increasingly animated congregation outside suddenly seemed like one of them.
“Hey dear?” he began, coughing into his fist after an awkward moment or three.
Kyouko looked up at her husband, the soft, contented expression on her face unchanged even by the odd warble that escaped Tsuna’s throat. “Yes Tsu-kun?”
“You did tell niisan that we’ve already decided on a name, right?”
“No, I thought you took care of it already?”
“... no.”
Tsuna and Kyouko share a long bland look. It was a fine example of non-verbal communication between veteran couples-one where the wife gracefully looked past her spouse’s long-suffering resignation and returned it instead with a brilliant expression of complacent joy.
To be fair, it wasn’t as if Kyouko herself knew just how one-sided the power dynamics of their relationship were. As it was, Tsuna stood no chance.
“I’ll go get them,” he offered again, if though a bit redundantly.
Steeling himself, Tsuna ran through a quick mental check of all the potential misunderstandings he had to head off. It was a good thing they weren’t expected to check out anytime soon; he just hoped getting Ryohei to abandon the idea of having a nephew with the name “Smashing Whale” didn’t take too long.
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[Second Act]
At the ripe, young, sterling age of two, Sawada Ienobu was what any doting parent would call a darling child. Kyouko adored him to pieces, Haru had at least five point-and-shoot cameras on her person at any given time, Gokudera took up scrap-booking, and both Ryohei and Yamamoto proved to be quite keen in contributing their free time towards raising him. Even Hibari seemed interested enough to visit every-so-often and make sure that the first non-garbled word to come out of his mouth would be “Namimori.”
Despite all this, however, Tsuna couldn’t help but entertain certain misgivings.
“He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t scream.”
The Cavallone estate was magnificent in the summer, an elegant plot of rolling lawns and rose bushes all around a sprawling white manor. It wasn’t often that Tsuna had the free time to pay the older mafioso a visit in his own home-and rarer still that he’d seek out the other’s company for the sole purpose of disassembling his personal problems over an afternoon coffee.
Dino hm’d and put down his teacup obligingly. “Not even when he’s hungry?”
“He-well, he still does that at least.” Tsuna shook his head. “But it’s quiet! Really quiet! He doesn’t throw fits at all.”
“... but aren’t those usually good things?”
Tsuna pulled at his hair in frustration. “No! I mean, Yes! They are!” He dropped his head to the table and groaned in frustration.
“So what’s the problem then?” Dino prompted, looking as if his junior had lost his mind. Which, he might very well have. But that was beside the point.
Tsuna peered beseechingly at the other man from the pillow of his crossed arms, as if through sympathy alone, Dino would convert and understand his situation. “The problem is,” he summarized grimly, “it’s unnatural.”
Dino took the opportunity to add another cube of sugar to his brew and sat back, brows furrowed in deep thought.
“I’m sorry, I can’t say I follow,” Dino confessed into the abashed silence that followed. “There are cases of extremely well-behaved babies all the time. Doesn’t this just mean that you and Kyouko might have really good genes?”
“But he’s only two and so quiet that it’s worrisome!” Tsuna explained, hands gesturing in terse twitches. “He’s not startled when something explodes; he doesn’t make a sound when there’s an argument going on. My child is unnaturally zen, Dino! He doesn’t react to anything in a normal baby fashion. How will I know if something’s wrong if there’s no warning for it? I’m scared that someday, someone will drop him on his head and we won’t realize it until ten years later when it becomes apparent that he’d suffered long-term brain damage!”
“... right. That could be a problem,” Dino murmured with all the gravity at his disposal (which wasn’t a lot given Romario’s bathroom break; but still, it was the thought that counted).
“Exactly!” Tsuna’s head dropped back into the crook of his arms. “At this rate I wouldn’t even be surprised if he prematurely bursts into a mess of Dying Will Flames and diapers.”
The Italian blinked at that and looked at his watch. He winced. “Uh, yeah. Speaking of which,” Dino ventured. “Tsuna?”
Tsuna mumbled noncommittally.
Dino tried again. “About that, Tsuna,” he repeated with some measure of urgency, “stay with me now. Don’t your men usually volunteer to look after Nobu?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember whose turn was it today?”
Sighing, Tsuna held out his right hand and started listing off names, absently ticking down his fingers one-by-one. “Gokudera, usually, but Ryohei’s also back from South America, and last I heard, Yamamoto apparently finished his reconnaissance with Reborn early this morning, so both are due-back-” Tsuna trailed off, a hunted expression dawning on his face. Oh sweet, merciful Leon...
“I wanted to tell you earlier,” Dino apologized, tapping the face of his wrist-watch, “the moment we got word from Fuuta that their plane had touched down actually. But, you know how Reborn is.” Dino laughed helplessly, but continued keeping a watchful eye on the soul that was trying to escape through Tsuna’s mouth nevertheless.
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“What is this?” Tsuna demanded articulately. The scene spread before him was what parents’ nightmares were made of and he just couldn’t move fast enough without having to go into Dying Will Mode.
The group in the partly-shaded yard beneath the veranda stopped just long enough to notice him standing halfway through the backdoor, mouth slack with something akin to abject horror in place of his usual expression. Gokudera was by his side in a heartbeat.
“Hey Tsuna!” Yamamoto waved cheerfully with his right arm, the one clutching an aluminum baseball bat and not Tsuna’s son. For the record, Tsuna’s son was cradled in his left. “You’re just in time! Now we can have proper teams instead of this weird one-on-one deal.”
From where he stood on a makeshift mound, Ryohei called out. “HEY OCTOPUSHEAD. GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE ALREADY,” he yelled, tapping his fists together. “I’ll wipe the plate-mats with your face!”
“Tch, just because he won last time,” Gokudera muttered beneath his breath and, before Tsuna could raise any effective form of resistance, looped an arm around his boss’s (“Come on Tenth”) and dragged the resigned man towards the odd boxing ring-baseball diamond fusion from hell. “Show some goddamn respect moron!” Gokudera yelled back.
Wait. Last time?? Taking one look at the elastic roping that fenced in three bases and a homeplate, Tsuna decided that he really, really Did Not Want To Know, but... his heels dug fresh furrows even a farmer would be proud of into the sand pit.
“W-what,” Tsuna spluttered, “what are you guys doing?”
“It’s fine Tsuna!” Yamamoto hefted Nobu again, as if testing the mean balance of both baby and bat. “Kyouko already gave her permission just before she left with the other ladies. Something about an open-air shoe market, right senpai?” He looked to Ryohei who punched the air in affirmation.
“Right!”
“And Reborn’s supervising us over there.” Yamamoto jerked his chin in the direction where the arcobaleno lounged, a glass of pale liqueur tipped in a mocking salute.
Tsuna barely refrained from attempting what would have been a fairly accurate rendition of Munch’s The Scream. He even bit down on the hysterical “that’s not what I wanted to hear” that threatened to escape. Somehow (and years later he’d look back bewildered, thinking “how?”) Tsuna decided to do the one thing that he might have not even considered had he been younger (i.e. more self-preserving).
Pulling away from Gokudera’s grasp, he strode forth purposefully with every intention to confront his former tutor. It was nothing short of a miracle that he was able to come to a stiff halt by Reborn’s lawn chair without doing something suicidal like trying to strangle the little monster.
But, then again, parenthood was major Serious Business.
“Play ball!”
“Match start!”
“Mind explaining?” Tsuna demanded in as level of a tone possible.
“Iemetsu and Nana are on their twelfth honeymoon,” came the conversational and uninformative reply. “Now, shut up and watch.”
The broiling tension between one of the most influential leaders in the mafia community and his killer baby mentor was thick and heavy. And totally lost on the two Guardians who were well underway with their practical plans to teach the Vongola heir the joys of athletic competition.
“Watch?”
“Blink and you might miss.”
And Tsuna swore his life nearly ended then and there when he saw Ryohei pull back his right arm, fist cocked and glittering with kinetic energy, upper torso wound to the side for what was either a knock-out punch or a killer (and conspicuously ball-less) pitch.
This, he decided, was probably what watching a train wreck in real time felt like.
“READY?”
“Bring it on!” Yamamoto laughed, making last minute adjustments to his and Nobu’s combined grip around the bat handle.
The Sun Guardian grinned, and let go.
History would mark the consequential events as another step forward for human evolution, and what may have been the awakening of a powerful survival mechanism.
Reborn marked it with a “just as planned.”
Darting into the thick clouds of raised dust and ozone, Tsuna followed the path of Ryohei’s “pitch” to where the “receivers” should have been. When he found them... well.
Ienobu looked alright, still cradled against Yamamoto’s chest even though the swordsman himself had flown back several meters until he hit the edge of the makeshift arena’s boundaries. No visible signs of injuries on either man or baby. Perhaps the only peculiarity of note was the bright orange flame engulfing Nobu’s entire head.
“Everybody alright? How’s the kid doing?”
“Just a little scuffed, senpai. That was an awesome pitch by the way, so no worri-WHOA THERE, hey, check out Nobu!”
A double check with the entirely self-satisfied smirk on Reborn’s face told Tsuna everything he needed to know.
“Tenth! Is the young master alright? Te-”
There was a stunned pause as Gokudera came to a skidding halt.
“Is-is that?”
Tsuna carefully looked at everything but the exalted expression on his right-hand man’s face; he was sure Gokudera’s expression was one worn only by those who experienced divine revelations on a regular basis, and that wasn’t something Tsuna was ready to deal with. Not yet.
“B-baby’s First Dying Will Flame.” The Italian bomber first gaped, then flushed. Then he seemed to realize something of vital importance. “Oh shit!”
Gokudera vanished with the expletive hanging fresh in the air-only to reappear a few seconds later brandishing a camera in hand. “No worries Tenth! I’ve got it covered!”
It took all three spectators (minus Reborn) some time to process that statement; even Nobu was temporarily distracted by the sight of a Polaroid-toting man in suit.
“Is your son still flaming, Tenth?” Gokudera asked respectfully, seeing as how he needed to check, and check again the functionality of his instant camera.
“Yes, Gokudera,” Tsuna sighed.
A light chuckle alerted Tsuna to the (when?) empty lawn chair; Reborn, now perched on his shoulder (oh, the nostalgia) made an approving sound from around the rim of his martini. “This is how you should have been trained, Tsuna,” he said. “Most Vongola leaders are supposed to start their lessons around Ienobu’s age, ever since the reign of the Third. But, I suppose you didn’t turn out too badly in the long run.”
A whirr-click later and-“The little master is very photogenic!” Gokudera assured him. “He looks just like a candle! I think this one will look really good next to the one with the tigers. The colors complement very well.”
Tsuna inhaled. Counted to ten. To twenty. “I’m going to go be in my office if anything else goes wrong,” he announced wearily when he no longer felt as inclined to go lie down in a corner and brood.
A chorus of cheery agreement answered him as Tsuna turned on his heel to leave.
“Oh! Wait, Tenth!” Gokudera called after his rapidly retreating back. “We’ve just received word that Mukuro Rokudo is also due back early this evening from the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration.” He left the unspoken question unvoiced: your orders to circumvent the crazy illusionist bastard, Tenth?
Oh, right. Tsuna laid a hand on the door frame, slowing his step and thinking hard. Ever since it had been determined that his son was cemented as the next heir, Mukuro hadn’t bothered keeping his altered agenda and new target any secret.
“Dispatch a decoy-borrow Hibird if need be, and convince him that Hibari-san accepted his marriage proposal. I don’t care how. Just make sure they don’t actually end up killing each other, like they almost did last time. And keep the collateral damage confined to the east wings.”
“You’ve grown up, Tsuna,” Reborn observed, approved, and sauntered away before Tsuna could come out of his abashed reaction to the praise and remember just who exactly orchestrated for his son to spontaneously combust in the first place.
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[Third Act]
“Now Nobu, I want you to listen closely and carefully, okay?”
It would be years before anybody bothered telling Nobu that the first time he almost died (as in kicked the bucket and laid to rest and pushing up daisies without the benefit of Godfather Reborn’s magic bullets) was not during the assassination attempt on his life when he was six, but rather due to the preemptive fact that his caretaking duties that day had been left to the one person on his father’s payroll who shouldn’t have been in consideration to begin with.
Warm hands, familiar hands slipped around his head to hold it steady, and Nobu found himself staring into his father’s worried face.
“Mama and I have to go out of town for the day,” Tsuna explained, firm and a little hurried. He looked pained. “And Uncl-”
Both father and son flickered their eyes to the impassive man leaning against the muraled walls in time to catch the slight but quite noticeable arch in one fine eyebrow. The kind that waxed poetic on bloody murder and rearranged faces.
Nobu was too young to understand the explicitly-crafted threat; to him, the black-haired man simply looked bored. Sleepy even. But Tsuna, what with the years of acquaintance between himself and He Who Was Namimori’s Strongest, recognized danger when it yawned in his face.
“-I mean, Hibari-san!” the Vongola Tenth amended hastily. “Hibari-san will baby-ah, he will be in charge of you for today. Just today, I promise.” And even though he wasn’t a vindictive person, Tsuna swore to find whichever mindless incompetent it was in charge of this massive misunderstanding and cut their paycheck. Or give them to the Varia for a good spanking-but Tsuna wasn’t vindictive (and Xanxus and his team were better suited to killing than domestic discipline anyway).
“Are Uncle Dera and Uncle Ryo still blowing up bad guys in Hong Kong?” Nobu asked gravely.
“I’m sorry Nobu, yes, they are. They’ll be back tomorrow though.”
“What about Uncle Yama and Big Brother Lambo?”
Tsuna sighed. “Please understand Nobu-everybody else is just too busy today.”
“Even Papa Nappo?”
“Yes, even Papa Na-? No!” It was comical, the way Tsuna’s eyes widened indignantly, if “Hibari-san’s” indelicate snort was of any indication. “No! Absolutely not!”
And that was that.
His Papa was still bowing profusely to the unimpressed “Hibari-san” when a message from his Mama came via phone, apologies spilling from his mouth in a continuous torrent. His Papa apologized until the last minute before he absolutely had to leave, and that was when he took the opportunity to mutter some last minute instructions into Nobu’s ear: “Be a good boy and whatever you do, do whatever Hibari-san tells you to do, okay?”
Nobu shuffled his feet and pouted a bit, but agreed anyway. He was six, almost seven, and despite the normal inclinations to test the limits of authority, he knew better. (Godfather Reborn had made certain of that each time he paid a surprise visit.)
They were awkward, the moments after Tsuna finally left everything to chance and winds and the three crones some collectively call Fate.
Neither child nor Guardian were terribly impressed with each other when finally left alone by the terminally-fretting Tsuna. Nobu, having only caught fleeting glimpses of the Vongola’s Cloud Guardian throughout his childhood, did not know that it was this disdainfully sharp-eyed person who was responsible for conditioning his infant self to burble “Namimori” when his parents were hoping for something with less syllables.
Between the slight, somewhat slender cut “Hibari-san” made in his black suit and that of the other guy who’d been standing a respectable distance away ever since he’d ushered them (him and Papa) into the overly oriental-themed room... Nobu refocused his attentions to the wicked cool cannon barrel on top of the uncle’s head and found himself transfixed.
How’d he do that?
_________________________________
Hibari looked down his nose at the prepubescent boy who had gone from openly staring at him to openly admiring Kusakabe’s magnificent hair. He had no time, nor patience (nor experience for that matter) to deal with children of all things; much less the children of herbivores, no matter how powerful that herbivore may be.
The Cloud Guardian contemplated the issue.
It would seem that Sawada trusted him enough to leave his offspring under his watch. Hibari frowned. He’d have to make sure to extort an exorbitant amount of funds from his “employer” later in exchange for the inconvenience. To make sure that a mishap like this would be sure to never happen again. In the meantime, he would leave his second-in-command to deal with the herbivore-in-training.
“Tetsu.”
“Yes Kyou-san?” Kusakabe straightened.
“I have research I need to take care of,” Hibari said and swept away, leaving the room’s two remaining occupants with a plethora of unspoken sub-commands in the air.
I’ll be in the library; don’t disturb me. Keep Sawada’s offspring entertained; don’t disturb me.
Alone with the child, Kusakabe sighed. His leader was as mercurial as ever.
He exchanged looks with Vongola’s heir apparent and lowered himself onto one knee to better converse with the boy.
“My name is Kusakabe Tetsuya, but you may call me Uncle Tetsu.”
Nobu shook the proffered hand and shook it firmly. “Your hair’s super cool, Uncle Tetsu,” Nobu told him, expression an odd blend of awe and solemnity. “May I touch it?”
“Oh.” Kusakabe blinked. Hard. Of all the questions he’d been expecting, this one was the most unexpected... and refreshing. Gratifying. “Of course,” he grinned and held still for Nobu who explored his pompadour with a child’s enthusiasm.
“Where’d Uncle Hibari go?” Nobu asked after a while, giving the proud stack one final pat.
Kusakabe nearly choked on that one. “Unc-I mean, Kyou-san is probably reading textbooks right now.”
“His hair looks like a bird’s nest.” And Kusakabe did choke then because, with thoughts of a wee yellow bird in mind, wasn’t that just horribly appropriate? “It isn’t as cool as yours,” Nobu finished shyly.
Kusakabe refused to think about Hibari’s reaction if he’d been around to hear this conversation. Just the prospect was worthy of a mental, mosaic censorship.
“I still want to talk to him though,” Nobu was saying, “and ask him if he and Papa Nappo are still getting married.”
What.
Kusakabe must’ve voiced his disbelief aloud because Nobu jutted out his lower lip in an impressive, theatrical pout.
“That’s what Papa Nappo told me when he and Aunt Chrome came over last week. And he seemed serious too, even though he was smiling weirdly. But he always smiles weirdly! So I tried asking Uncle Dera but he was laughing too hard and everybody else I asked either fell down laughing or ran away when I asked them if it was true.”
It was then that Kusakabe Tetsuya found himself at a crossroad in life. On the one hand, his mind was screaming at him to take the kid and send him cross-country with a purely educational documentary of the Cloud Guardian in action (“do you want to die; he’ll kill you KILL YOU AND THE KID; a decade’s worth of fanatically loyal servitude won’t save your head from being mounted over the lobby mantel!!”); on the other, from what he knew of Sawada’s kid and how he was being raised (by Reborn), he had no doubts that sooner or later, with or without his guidance, the boy was going to somehow find his boss and disturb him.
Frankly, Kusakabe preferred later, but the pleading tug on his jacket-hem and the frighteningly resolute expression on the immature features indicated an inevitable “sooner.”
Faced with limited choices and the unfortunate obligation (responsibility) to maintain good relations between The Foundation and La Famiglia, Kusakabe surrendered. He just had to make sure that Sawada’s precocious kid didn’t ask potentially lethal questions. Right.
_________________________________
Nobu was too young to understand it at the time, but the timely intrusion by the Pettine Family assassins was actually what saved him from being bitten to death that day.
He and Kusakabe (the new uncle with the really manly ‘do) found Hibari in the library, sitting at a table with a collection of boxes and rings and papers spread before him.
It was a very sparse library as far as libraries went, dotted with floor lamps and a handful of bookshelves. There were, however, quite a number of computer monitors, more monitors than shelves, with wires feeding into the walls at various ports.
Hibari’d looked up sharply the moment they entered, eyes narrowing at the interruption.
“I apologize Kyou-san!” Kusakabe bent at the waist in a hurried attempt to ward off the incoming ire. “The child insisted. He’s... very keen on getting to know you better,” he explained, despite finishing on a rather lame note, however.
Nobu left Kusakabe’s side in one brave step forward. “Uncle Hibari,” he began formally with a correct little bow.
A shadow settled over the entire room, despite the lack of windows.
“Sorry for bothering you like this, but I had a question-”
There it was. Kusakabe tried everything; he pantomimed slashing his throat, zipping his lips; he even made a grab for Nobu who merely dodged in time to plunge forth with honest-to-god wide-eyed, earnest curiosity:
“Are you and Papa Nappo really getting married?
“... and why?” Nobu added as an afterthought.
Silence. It was deathly silent in the room, and was the room ever that small and suffocating? Kusakabe really didn’t want to stay to find out and it certainly wasn’t silent in the vaults of his mind, what with the mantra of “shit shit shit.”
Any and all opportunities to salvage the situation seemed lost-in fact Hibari looked ready to snap either of them into twigs, political repercussions be damned, when a rather conspicuous scuffle outside the library door snagged the irate man’s already frayed attention and withered patience.
“It’s this room! I saw them go through that door!”
“Shut up! Let’s make this one quick, it’s just one kid and his babysitter right?”
“Everybody ready?”
“Go get the door, Tetsu,” Hibari commanded, fingers curling ominously.
His second-in-command did so, only to duck aside quickly to allow a noisy outpouring of what could only be a rival mob’s muscle into the room.
“Looks like the Pettine’s assassination squad, Kyou-san,” Kusakabe reported dutifully from behind the door.
“... they’re crowding.”
The some fifty-odd firearms-toting intruders gaped at that; at the murder-personified seated behind the Vongola heir (their would-be target).
“Shit“ seemed to be the general consensus that rippled through the wary ranks, though there were snatches of other reactions amongst the more articulate members. (“Who was in charge of the goddamn intel?” and “Why the hell is Hibari Kyouya here??”)
Hibari rose in one fluid movement, fingers drumming against the armrest. “Tetsu, seal off corridors 3A through 5G. And then add another zero to Sawada’s bill.”
Kusakabe nodded before disappearing behind a row of bookcases. Somewhere, a door locked behind him.
Hibari then turned his expectant gaze on Nobu. “I trust the baby has given you enough instructions on how to not get in the way,” he said dismissively before smoothing his tie and prowling towards the armed-to-the-teeth group by the door.
Nobu blinked, and scrambled towards the closest wall with a bookshelf against it, his godfather’s sage words echoing in his ears.
Keep to the sides. Look for potential cover. Keep large objects between you and them. Watch and learn. Popcorn is allowed.
Hibari didn’t even wait. One minute he was standing in front of the crowd; the next, and he was in the middle of a highly confused fray.
It was a choreography of pandemonium after that.
From his vantage point between the (newly toppled) bookshelf and an overturned sofa, Nobu shifted down into a more comfortable huddle. He still didn’t get why Uncle Tetsu was so jumpy when he asked that perfectly normal question. Nobu sniffed. It wasn't as if the question was going to bite him or anything!
On the other hand, he supposed he could see why Papa Nappo would want to marry Uncle Hibari now. Resting his chin on top of his knees and crossed arms, Nobu watched with avid fascination as said uncle quite methodically demolished the crowd with whatever came to hand.
“Rush him! He isn’t using his tonfas, don’t be afraid and just rush him-” One down.
“ HOLY SHIT RETREAT!! HE HAS A MOP. Where did he get that anyway, TO ALL UNITS, HE HAS A-” Two down.
“FORGET THE MOP. WATCH THE FLOOR LAMP. IT HAS AN EXTENSION COR-URK!” Five down.
“I THOUGHT THAT THING WAS BOLTED TO THE FLOOR oh sweet merciful Jesus-” Ten down.
“NOT THE FACE. NOT THE-MY FACE! MY FA-”
Uncle Hibari, Nobu concluded, was the shit.
___________________________________________________________
[After]
Six years and three months after the first one, the Vongola Family was ready for the second.
And this time, upon Kyouko’s suggestion, the name was to be a combined group effort.
_________________________________
“Jumping Lima Bean!” Ryohei asserted to the small gathering in the waiting area. “It’s extreme and girlishly cute!”
“... that’s it. I’m submitting a request to never allow Sasagawa step foot out of either Italy or Japan ever again.”
“Really?” Yamamoto scratched at his chin in what was probably a thoughtful manner.
A manner which Gokudera, unfortunately, did not appreciate very much.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
The demolitions expert scoffed. “What? It’s not like it’s imperative that he goes on all the overseas missions is it? Who’s the language expert here?”
Yamamoto rubbed at his face a bit more before he brightened. “But isn’t he the only one who knows how to speak !Kung?” he pointed out, clicking his tongue carefully but still managing to mangle the sound. “And I heard from Squalo that there was some sort of civil unrest in the Namibian area that might affect our good-will operations there.”
Speechless, but not for lacking of anything better to say, Gokudera stared at the beaming swordsman. He stared long and hard.
“Hey, that’s an AWESOME idea Yamamoto! She could have a click in her name!! How does !Xoko sound?”
Gokudera buried his face in one hand and despaired.
“... goddammit.”
___________________________________________________________
Fin
Completed: July 3, 2008
___________________________________________________________
More Notes: !Kung language, for those of you curious. It does exist, and it's wicked fun to try out! :)
___________________________________________________________
I know I promised photos (which are taken) and comments/posts to catch up on. But. Augh. One thing at a time. Am too tired for anything else at the moment. :(
___________________________________________________________
Title: Building A Legacy In Three Acts
Series/Characters: [Reborn!] Vongola Family, Dino, Romario, Reborn, OMC (Tsuna's offspring), et al...plus gag!6918 moments if you blink hard at all the right times. |D
Disclaimer: Amano's. Am only playing.
Word Count: 6,327
Notes: The focus was on CRACK, and in that aspect I hope I delivered. Married Tsuna off to Kyouko if only to realise the beauteous idea of Ryohei as an uncle (I mean, god-forbid he sires extreme babies himself). Tried to give everybody related to the Vongola an honorable mention, but I ran out of time before I could somehow work in Haru as a second wife/mistress. Alas. Tsuna's son's name was decided on by following Amano's trend here.
Beta'd by ashesto ♥; any remaining marks of illiteracy are all mine. All mine. One more thing: I highly recommend watching this Russel Peters clip before reading, though it's not necessary... it's just that some of the humor at the conclusion is somewhat relevant to it.
Illustrated by ikui. runesque drew something for it too. (;___; I'm really not worthy...) The links to both separate art posts are in-fic and, seriously, CLICK THEM. You'll be missing out on even more glorious crack if you don't. L-LOL. Epic notes for an epic fic. @_@
ETA: Now also available on AO3.
Summary: First is holy matrimony. Next comes fatherhood. Sawada Tsunayoshi, Tenth Generation Leader of the Vongola Family, experiences both-though he is admittedly unprepared for the latter (and with the infamous Reborn as the self-claimed Godfather, who could blame him?) From choosing a suitable name, to keeping track of all the baby's firsts, being a Papa is hard, hard work.
___________________________________________________________
Building A Legacy In Three Acts (and then some)
by kasugai gummie
___________________________________________________________
[Before]
They were married in a small, white chapel on the Sicilian countryside, just a few hundred miles off the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Surrounded by friends and family and colleagues alike (the lattermost of whom were a little touched in the head), the resplendent bride and groom came together under the austere benediction of Father Bornicus. It was quite the momentous occasion. Even despite a most spectacular interruption during the exchange of vows (wherein-according to witnesses-a certain someone’s pet ball of yellow fluff had abandoned its organ pipe post and rejoined its master, only to “ku-fu-fu” charmingly and blow in his ear), most of the surviving guests all agreed that the ceremony was a joyous success.
To be honest though, neither the bride nor groom were really bothered by the sudden incapacitation of at least a fourth of their guests anyway. Unavoidable interruptions were just that after all: unavoidable. Expected even; easily taken in astride if your childhood just happened to be one, big, happy procession of explosions and foreign assassins and other potentially life-altering (threatening) things.
A couple of body cleanups in pews five through eight later (basically, what measured out to be the shortest distance between one horrendously offended Hibari Kyouya and one seemingly innocent Rokudo Mukuro), and the newlyweds were dubbed “ready” to venture forth into the next stage of their lives together. And they did so with a-gusto.
After all, it was bad form to delay a Venetian honeymoon. Very counterproductive. And, okay, nobody wanted to dwell on the fact that it was Lussuria who’d caught the fabulous bridal bouquet.
Two months later, Kyouko announced that she was pregnant.
_________________________________
“You’re what?” Tsuna asked faintly, unable to tear his wide-eyed gaze from his otherwise boring office phone. He’d been in the middle of debriefing with Yamamoto and Gokudera when his wife had called.
“Pregnant Tsu-kun, pregnant! Isn’t it exciting?”
Pregnant. Pregnant meant baby. Baby meant parents. Kyouko pregnant meant baby meant parents meant fatherhood meant him.
Tsuna made a strangled noise in the back of his throat during the grace period of expectant silence. It was a sound that fell somewhere between that of a garbled choke and a half-voiced swallow; Kyouko interpreted it as a form of consent.
“Yes dear, I’ll be letting our parents know about the test result too. Are you in your office right now? Is there anyone else with you?”
It took a few more painfully long seconds before the young Don could manage anything more coherent than a wordless gape. “Gokudera and Yamamoto,” Tsuna answered. He spoke slowly, as if speaking any faster would shatter his sense of reality. Or whatever was left of it, anyway.
“That’s perfect!” Kyouko approved, enthusiasm nearly coloring the sound waves in gleaming shades of sunshine and baby room pastels. “Don’t worry about Maman-I’ll take care of all the long distance calls. I think I’ll leave ‘niisan to you though, okay Tsu-kun? But, go ahead and tell Gokudera and Yamamoto first, since they’re right there.”
“Actually,” Tsuna began weakly, “you’re on speaker phone already-” but wasn’t quite able to finish the thought before the cardiac arrest-like dial tone cut him off mid-sentence.
Well, then.
Tsuna closed his eyes. Reopened them. And suddenly, as if his blink were the trigger, came Gokudera’s ring-laden hands morphing in from across his desk to clasp around both of his. To his left, Yamamoto laughed, hand warm and congratulatory as it clapped against his back.
“Haha, wow Tsuna, you sure moved fast. Good job!”
“The harsh environment of the female reproductive system didn’t stand a chance against your potency. As expected of the Tenth!”
“A-ah.” At least some things never changed. Tsuna tried to smile warmly at his Rain and Storm guardians. He succeeded, for the most part.
“Thanks Yamamoto, Gokudera... I think.”
___________________________________________________________
[First Act]
He’d fainted the moment he barged into the delivery room. Dropped like a stone, he did, despite all of Gokudera’s best efforts to prepare him against the inevitable some mere moments before Kyouko started crying at the top of her lungs. Clinical charts and The Obstetrician’s Illustrated Companion to Anatomy simply did not, could not, compare to the real thing.
He’d fainted the second and third time too, and was just getting ready to launch a fourth attempt (his foot already thrust purposefully through the door) when Chrome gently pulled him aside and told him in perfectly respectable terms that it was okay if he wasn’t present during the actual birthing process; it was okay if he couldn’t stand the sight of something the size of a watermelon exit a hole the size of an orange. Not many men could, and his perseverance despite the odds was admirable. Really.
Tsuna could only agree-especially after stumbling into a wall mid-way through her (his?) strangely analogued speech.
“Nobody’s expecting you to catch the baby when it finishes coming out, boss,” Chrome said, voice chock-full of solid practicality. “They have nurses with cotton-lined bedpans to do that.” There was the faintest hint of a telltale smirk on Chrome’s lips when Tsuna looked over to ask “But aren’t bedpans for collecting-?” Or maybe it was just a trick of the fluorescent lighting that flickered as they walked under.
“Did you say something, boss ?”
Judiciously ignoring the increasingly distinct smell of pineapples and coconuts and the urge to shake a tambourine, Tsuna refrained from questioning her credentials.
_________________________________
It was at least a full hour after his last, aborted attempt to stand witness to the venerable art of midwifery when a nurse finally approached him with news that had him dashing through the door once again.
“Congratulations Sawada-san, it’s a boy.”
And so it was.
When Sawada Tsunayoshi, the tenth generation leader of the Vongola Family beheld his firstborn son, it was with something akin to wonder. The wonder of seeing something so tiny and so pink was euphoric, and oh, wow, he even had hair!
“Come here, Tsu-kun.”
Or, okay, maybe it was closer to terror.
Tsuna froze as Kyouko beckoned him close and froze again when she offered him the bundle of swaddling cloth; he froze as all the years of experience from babysitting Lambo suddenly made an unseemly lunge for the nearest neuronal exit.
A wonderful terror, then. Tsuna, despite doing a pretty damn good job of imitating a slab of wood, accepted the infant-Ienobu, he corrected himself absently, Sawada Ienobu-with shaking hands. He rocked his son back-and-forth, the minimum number of times to make it look as if he still knew what he was doing before thrusting him back into Kyouko’s arms.
Kyouko, thankfully, didn’t say anything; merely took him back with a contented smile. This left Tsuna with the blessed, blessed option to admire those particular features that most fledgling fathers found so necessary to inspect, and not worry about dropping the baby on his head, like his father probably had done with him. He started with the feet, wiggling each little piggy with idyllic abandon.
“Where’s niisan?” Kyouko asked, suddenly.
Tsuna paused on the tenth toe, before he came to the sudden, but belated, realization that there weren’t any more to count (and truth be told, he was a little disappointed at the shortage). “Outside,” he answered absently, gesturing with a wave of his free, non-counting hand towards said general direction.
“Oh,” Kyouko nodded, glanced towards where he was waving, then furrowed her brows. “You mean he’s beneath our window? In the parking lot?”
“Huh?” Tsuna finally looked up, a remarkably enlightened expression of wonder on his face (the baby had two’s of almost everything). “Parking-oh! No, no,” he reassured her. “I didn’t mean that outside.” Because that was where the Family’s more socially-disinclined affiliate had staked as his own, personal waiting area for two and only two, under penalty of waking up head first in the Namimori river before dawn. “I meant the other one on the other side.” This time Tsuna made sure to gesture in the correct, general closed-door direction.
“Oh! Then that means everybody is here!” Kyouko reasoned. “Why don’t you invite them in?”
“Ah, yeah,” Tsuna pulled away from his detailed inspection of the baby’s dimpled elbow reluctantly. “I’ll be right back; they should still be in the lobby,” he said, as he made his way to the door.
No matter how much he wanted to forgo the congratulations and just bundle both wife and child into their car and drive home, he owed it to his friends and followers for their support through the long, quest-filled months prior. If it weren’t for Hibari’s contacts in Indonesia, for example, they would have failed miserably trying to get those ten-odd crates of fresh durian fruit. (Though, the thought of those durians puréed with scallops, and what Hibari had charged for his services, were still guaranteed to make his stomach roll unpleasantly.)
“He must have an EXTREME name!”
Tsuna stilled, hand poised over the door handle-a deer caught in the headlights. Closing his eyes he inhaled as inaudibly as he could and held that breath; he should have known they’d forgotten something important. His brother-in-law’s public thought processes, of which seemed to grow more impassioned by the second, attested to that.
“Something powerful! Manly! Like Killer Whale-no wait, that’s too PG-13-Smashing Whale!”
Chancing a quick, somewhat nervous glance back over his shoulder at his wife and newborn son, Tsuna sighed only when it became obvious that Kyouko hadn’t noticed the commotion outside. Silently, fervently, the Tenth Leader of the Vongola Family offered his thanks to whichever higher powers it was that had given his wife her wonderful ability to selectively ignore everything short of a nuclear fallout.
“Hey, whose bright idea was it to send Lawnhead on that mission to the Lakota Sioux Reserve?”
Another voice muffled through the walls, tone and pitch smothered into a begrudging sort of quiet, but the annoyance was hard to miss.
“I don’t know, I rather like Divebombing Pelican myself.”
The disbelieving snort of disgust could only be Gokudera. “Nobody asked for your opinion. Nobody ever asks for your opinion.”
Yamamoto’s unabashed laugh was an easy accompaniment to Ryohei’s continued suggestions.
Tsuna bit down on his lower lip and beat a hasty retreat back to Kyouko’s side. There were just some things that needn’t be rushed and greeting the increasingly animated congregation outside suddenly seemed like one of them.
“Hey dear?” he began, coughing into his fist after an awkward moment or three.
Kyouko looked up at her husband, the soft, contented expression on her face unchanged even by the odd warble that escaped Tsuna’s throat. “Yes Tsu-kun?”
“You did tell niisan that we’ve already decided on a name, right?”
“No, I thought you took care of it already?”
“... no.”
Tsuna and Kyouko share a long bland look. It was a fine example of non-verbal communication between veteran couples-one where the wife gracefully looked past her spouse’s long-suffering resignation and returned it instead with a brilliant expression of complacent joy.
To be fair, it wasn’t as if Kyouko herself knew just how one-sided the power dynamics of their relationship were. As it was, Tsuna stood no chance.
“I’ll go get them,” he offered again, if though a bit redundantly.
Steeling himself, Tsuna ran through a quick mental check of all the potential misunderstandings he had to head off. It was a good thing they weren’t expected to check out anytime soon; he just hoped getting Ryohei to abandon the idea of having a nephew with the name “Smashing Whale” didn’t take too long.
___________________________________________________________
[Second Act]
At the ripe, young, sterling age of two, Sawada Ienobu was what any doting parent would call a darling child. Kyouko adored him to pieces, Haru had at least five point-and-shoot cameras on her person at any given time, Gokudera took up scrap-booking, and both Ryohei and Yamamoto proved to be quite keen in contributing their free time towards raising him. Even Hibari seemed interested enough to visit every-so-often and make sure that the first non-garbled word to come out of his mouth would be “Namimori.”
Despite all this, however, Tsuna couldn’t help but entertain certain misgivings.
“He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t scream.”
The Cavallone estate was magnificent in the summer, an elegant plot of rolling lawns and rose bushes all around a sprawling white manor. It wasn’t often that Tsuna had the free time to pay the older mafioso a visit in his own home-and rarer still that he’d seek out the other’s company for the sole purpose of disassembling his personal problems over an afternoon coffee.
Dino hm’d and put down his teacup obligingly. “Not even when he’s hungry?”
“He-well, he still does that at least.” Tsuna shook his head. “But it’s quiet! Really quiet! He doesn’t throw fits at all.”
“... but aren’t those usually good things?”
Tsuna pulled at his hair in frustration. “No! I mean, Yes! They are!” He dropped his head to the table and groaned in frustration.
“So what’s the problem then?” Dino prompted, looking as if his junior had lost his mind. Which, he might very well have. But that was beside the point.
Tsuna peered beseechingly at the other man from the pillow of his crossed arms, as if through sympathy alone, Dino would convert and understand his situation. “The problem is,” he summarized grimly, “it’s unnatural.”
Dino took the opportunity to add another cube of sugar to his brew and sat back, brows furrowed in deep thought.
“I’m sorry, I can’t say I follow,” Dino confessed into the abashed silence that followed. “There are cases of extremely well-behaved babies all the time. Doesn’t this just mean that you and Kyouko might have really good genes?”
“But he’s only two and so quiet that it’s worrisome!” Tsuna explained, hands gesturing in terse twitches. “He’s not startled when something explodes; he doesn’t make a sound when there’s an argument going on. My child is unnaturally zen, Dino! He doesn’t react to anything in a normal baby fashion. How will I know if something’s wrong if there’s no warning for it? I’m scared that someday, someone will drop him on his head and we won’t realize it until ten years later when it becomes apparent that he’d suffered long-term brain damage!”
“... right. That could be a problem,” Dino murmured with all the gravity at his disposal (which wasn’t a lot given Romario’s bathroom break; but still, it was the thought that counted).
“Exactly!” Tsuna’s head dropped back into the crook of his arms. “At this rate I wouldn’t even be surprised if he prematurely bursts into a mess of Dying Will Flames and diapers.”
The Italian blinked at that and looked at his watch. He winced. “Uh, yeah. Speaking of which,” Dino ventured. “Tsuna?”
Tsuna mumbled noncommittally.
Dino tried again. “About that, Tsuna,” he repeated with some measure of urgency, “stay with me now. Don’t your men usually volunteer to look after Nobu?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember whose turn was it today?”
Sighing, Tsuna held out his right hand and started listing off names, absently ticking down his fingers one-by-one. “Gokudera, usually, but Ryohei’s also back from South America, and last I heard, Yamamoto apparently finished his reconnaissance with Reborn early this morning, so both are due-back-” Tsuna trailed off, a hunted expression dawning on his face. Oh sweet, merciful Leon...
“I wanted to tell you earlier,” Dino apologized, tapping the face of his wrist-watch, “the moment we got word from Fuuta that their plane had touched down actually. But, you know how Reborn is.” Dino laughed helplessly, but continued keeping a watchful eye on the soul that was trying to escape through Tsuna’s mouth nevertheless.
_________________________________
“What is this?” Tsuna demanded articulately. The scene spread before him was what parents’ nightmares were made of and he just couldn’t move fast enough without having to go into Dying Will Mode.
The group in the partly-shaded yard beneath the veranda stopped just long enough to notice him standing halfway through the backdoor, mouth slack with something akin to abject horror in place of his usual expression. Gokudera was by his side in a heartbeat.
“Hey Tsuna!” Yamamoto waved cheerfully with his right arm, the one clutching an aluminum baseball bat and not Tsuna’s son. For the record, Tsuna’s son was cradled in his left. “You’re just in time! Now we can have proper teams instead of this weird one-on-one deal.”
From where he stood on a makeshift mound, Ryohei called out. “HEY OCTOPUSHEAD. GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE ALREADY,” he yelled, tapping his fists together. “I’ll wipe the plate-mats with your face!”
“Tch, just because he won last time,” Gokudera muttered beneath his breath and, before Tsuna could raise any effective form of resistance, looped an arm around his boss’s (“Come on Tenth”) and dragged the resigned man towards the odd boxing ring-baseball diamond fusion from hell. “Show some goddamn respect moron!” Gokudera yelled back.
Wait. Last time?? Taking one look at the elastic roping that fenced in three bases and a homeplate, Tsuna decided that he really, really Did Not Want To Know, but... his heels dug fresh furrows even a farmer would be proud of into the sand pit.
“W-what,” Tsuna spluttered, “what are you guys doing?”
“It’s fine Tsuna!” Yamamoto hefted Nobu again, as if testing the mean balance of both baby and bat. “Kyouko already gave her permission just before she left with the other ladies. Something about an open-air shoe market, right senpai?” He looked to Ryohei who punched the air in affirmation.
“Right!”
“And Reborn’s supervising us over there.” Yamamoto jerked his chin in the direction where the arcobaleno lounged, a glass of pale liqueur tipped in a mocking salute.
Tsuna barely refrained from attempting what would have been a fairly accurate rendition of Munch’s The Scream. He even bit down on the hysterical “that’s not what I wanted to hear” that threatened to escape. Somehow (and years later he’d look back bewildered, thinking “how?”) Tsuna decided to do the one thing that he might have not even considered had he been younger (i.e. more self-preserving).
Pulling away from Gokudera’s grasp, he strode forth purposefully with every intention to confront his former tutor. It was nothing short of a miracle that he was able to come to a stiff halt by Reborn’s lawn chair without doing something suicidal like trying to strangle the little monster.
But, then again, parenthood was major Serious Business.
“Play ball!”
“Match start!”
“Mind explaining?” Tsuna demanded in as level of a tone possible.
“Iemetsu and Nana are on their twelfth honeymoon,” came the conversational and uninformative reply. “Now, shut up and watch.”
The broiling tension between one of the most influential leaders in the mafia community and his killer baby mentor was thick and heavy. And totally lost on the two Guardians who were well underway with their practical plans to teach the Vongola heir the joys of athletic competition.
“Watch?”
“Blink and you might miss.”
And Tsuna swore his life nearly ended then and there when he saw Ryohei pull back his right arm, fist cocked and glittering with kinetic energy, upper torso wound to the side for what was either a knock-out punch or a killer (and conspicuously ball-less) pitch.
This, he decided, was probably what watching a train wreck in real time felt like.
“READY?”
“Bring it on!” Yamamoto laughed, making last minute adjustments to his and Nobu’s combined grip around the bat handle.
The Sun Guardian grinned, and let go.
History would mark the consequential events as another step forward for human evolution, and what may have been the awakening of a powerful survival mechanism.
Reborn marked it with a “just as planned.”
Darting into the thick clouds of raised dust and ozone, Tsuna followed the path of Ryohei’s “pitch” to where the “receivers” should have been. When he found them... well.
Ienobu looked alright, still cradled against Yamamoto’s chest even though the swordsman himself had flown back several meters until he hit the edge of the makeshift arena’s boundaries. No visible signs of injuries on either man or baby. Perhaps the only peculiarity of note was the bright orange flame engulfing Nobu’s entire head.
“Everybody alright? How’s the kid doing?”
“Just a little scuffed, senpai. That was an awesome pitch by the way, so no worri-WHOA THERE, hey, check out Nobu!”
A double check with the entirely self-satisfied smirk on Reborn’s face told Tsuna everything he needed to know.
“Tenth! Is the young master alright? Te-”
There was a stunned pause as Gokudera came to a skidding halt.
“Is-is that?”
Tsuna carefully looked at everything but the exalted expression on his right-hand man’s face; he was sure Gokudera’s expression was one worn only by those who experienced divine revelations on a regular basis, and that wasn’t something Tsuna was ready to deal with. Not yet.
“B-baby’s First Dying Will Flame.” The Italian bomber first gaped, then flushed. Then he seemed to realize something of vital importance. “Oh shit!”
Gokudera vanished with the expletive hanging fresh in the air-only to reappear a few seconds later brandishing a camera in hand. “No worries Tenth! I’ve got it covered!”
It took all three spectators (minus Reborn) some time to process that statement; even Nobu was temporarily distracted by the sight of a Polaroid-toting man in suit.
“Is your son still flaming, Tenth?” Gokudera asked respectfully, seeing as how he needed to check, and check again the functionality of his instant camera.
“Yes, Gokudera,” Tsuna sighed.
A light chuckle alerted Tsuna to the (when?) empty lawn chair; Reborn, now perched on his shoulder (oh, the nostalgia) made an approving sound from around the rim of his martini. “This is how you should have been trained, Tsuna,” he said. “Most Vongola leaders are supposed to start their lessons around Ienobu’s age, ever since the reign of the Third. But, I suppose you didn’t turn out too badly in the long run.”
A whirr-click later and-“The little master is very photogenic!” Gokudera assured him. “He looks just like a candle! I think this one will look really good next to the one with the tigers. The colors complement very well.”
Tsuna inhaled. Counted to ten. To twenty. “I’m going to go be in my office if anything else goes wrong,” he announced wearily when he no longer felt as inclined to go lie down in a corner and brood.
A chorus of cheery agreement answered him as Tsuna turned on his heel to leave.
“Oh! Wait, Tenth!” Gokudera called after his rapidly retreating back. “We’ve just received word that Mukuro Rokudo is also due back early this evening from the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration.” He left the unspoken question unvoiced: your orders to circumvent the crazy illusionist bastard, Tenth?
Oh, right. Tsuna laid a hand on the door frame, slowing his step and thinking hard. Ever since it had been determined that his son was cemented as the next heir, Mukuro hadn’t bothered keeping his altered agenda and new target any secret.
“Dispatch a decoy-borrow Hibird if need be, and convince him that Hibari-san accepted his marriage proposal. I don’t care how. Just make sure they don’t actually end up killing each other, like they almost did last time. And keep the collateral damage confined to the east wings.”
“You’ve grown up, Tsuna,” Reborn observed, approved, and sauntered away before Tsuna could come out of his abashed reaction to the praise and remember just who exactly orchestrated for his son to spontaneously combust in the first place.
___________________________________________________________
[Third Act]
“Now Nobu, I want you to listen closely and carefully, okay?”
It would be years before anybody bothered telling Nobu that the first time he almost died (as in kicked the bucket and laid to rest and pushing up daisies without the benefit of Godfather Reborn’s magic bullets) was not during the assassination attempt on his life when he was six, but rather due to the preemptive fact that his caretaking duties that day had been left to the one person on his father’s payroll who shouldn’t have been in consideration to begin with.
Warm hands, familiar hands slipped around his head to hold it steady, and Nobu found himself staring into his father’s worried face.
“Mama and I have to go out of town for the day,” Tsuna explained, firm and a little hurried. He looked pained. “And Uncl-”
Both father and son flickered their eyes to the impassive man leaning against the muraled walls in time to catch the slight but quite noticeable arch in one fine eyebrow. The kind that waxed poetic on bloody murder and rearranged faces.
Nobu was too young to understand the explicitly-crafted threat; to him, the black-haired man simply looked bored. Sleepy even. But Tsuna, what with the years of acquaintance between himself and He Who Was Namimori’s Strongest, recognized danger when it yawned in his face.
“-I mean, Hibari-san!” the Vongola Tenth amended hastily. “Hibari-san will baby-ah, he will be in charge of you for today. Just today, I promise.” And even though he wasn’t a vindictive person, Tsuna swore to find whichever mindless incompetent it was in charge of this massive misunderstanding and cut their paycheck. Or give them to the Varia for a good spanking-but Tsuna wasn’t vindictive (and Xanxus and his team were better suited to killing than domestic discipline anyway).
“Are Uncle Dera and Uncle Ryo still blowing up bad guys in Hong Kong?” Nobu asked gravely.
“I’m sorry Nobu, yes, they are. They’ll be back tomorrow though.”
“What about Uncle Yama and Big Brother Lambo?”
Tsuna sighed. “Please understand Nobu-everybody else is just too busy today.”
“Even Papa Nappo?”
“Yes, even Papa Na-? No!” It was comical, the way Tsuna’s eyes widened indignantly, if “Hibari-san’s” indelicate snort was of any indication. “No! Absolutely not!”
And that was that.
His Papa was still bowing profusely to the unimpressed “Hibari-san” when a message from his Mama came via phone, apologies spilling from his mouth in a continuous torrent. His Papa apologized until the last minute before he absolutely had to leave, and that was when he took the opportunity to mutter some last minute instructions into Nobu’s ear: “Be a good boy and whatever you do, do whatever Hibari-san tells you to do, okay?”
Nobu shuffled his feet and pouted a bit, but agreed anyway. He was six, almost seven, and despite the normal inclinations to test the limits of authority, he knew better. (Godfather Reborn had made certain of that each time he paid a surprise visit.)
They were awkward, the moments after Tsuna finally left everything to chance and winds and the three crones some collectively call Fate.
Neither child nor Guardian were terribly impressed with each other when finally left alone by the terminally-fretting Tsuna. Nobu, having only caught fleeting glimpses of the Vongola’s Cloud Guardian throughout his childhood, did not know that it was this disdainfully sharp-eyed person who was responsible for conditioning his infant self to burble “Namimori” when his parents were hoping for something with less syllables.
Between the slight, somewhat slender cut “Hibari-san” made in his black suit and that of the other guy who’d been standing a respectable distance away ever since he’d ushered them (him and Papa) into the overly oriental-themed room... Nobu refocused his attentions to the wicked cool cannon barrel on top of the uncle’s head and found himself transfixed.
How’d he do that?
_________________________________
Hibari looked down his nose at the prepubescent boy who had gone from openly staring at him to openly admiring Kusakabe’s magnificent hair. He had no time, nor patience (nor experience for that matter) to deal with children of all things; much less the children of herbivores, no matter how powerful that herbivore may be.
The Cloud Guardian contemplated the issue.
It would seem that Sawada trusted him enough to leave his offspring under his watch. Hibari frowned. He’d have to make sure to extort an exorbitant amount of funds from his “employer” later in exchange for the inconvenience. To make sure that a mishap like this would be sure to never happen again. In the meantime, he would leave his second-in-command to deal with the herbivore-in-training.
“Tetsu.”
“Yes Kyou-san?” Kusakabe straightened.
“I have research I need to take care of,” Hibari said and swept away, leaving the room’s two remaining occupants with a plethora of unspoken sub-commands in the air.
I’ll be in the library; don’t disturb me. Keep Sawada’s offspring entertained; don’t disturb me.
Alone with the child, Kusakabe sighed. His leader was as mercurial as ever.
He exchanged looks with Vongola’s heir apparent and lowered himself onto one knee to better converse with the boy.
“My name is Kusakabe Tetsuya, but you may call me Uncle Tetsu.”
Nobu shook the proffered hand and shook it firmly. “Your hair’s super cool, Uncle Tetsu,” Nobu told him, expression an odd blend of awe and solemnity. “May I touch it?”
“Oh.” Kusakabe blinked. Hard. Of all the questions he’d been expecting, this one was the most unexpected... and refreshing. Gratifying. “Of course,” he grinned and held still for Nobu who explored his pompadour with a child’s enthusiasm.
“Where’d Uncle Hibari go?” Nobu asked after a while, giving the proud stack one final pat.
Kusakabe nearly choked on that one. “Unc-I mean, Kyou-san is probably reading textbooks right now.”
“His hair looks like a bird’s nest.” And Kusakabe did choke then because, with thoughts of a wee yellow bird in mind, wasn’t that just horribly appropriate? “It isn’t as cool as yours,” Nobu finished shyly.
Kusakabe refused to think about Hibari’s reaction if he’d been around to hear this conversation. Just the prospect was worthy of a mental, mosaic censorship.
“I still want to talk to him though,” Nobu was saying, “and ask him if he and Papa Nappo are still getting married.”
What.
Kusakabe must’ve voiced his disbelief aloud because Nobu jutted out his lower lip in an impressive, theatrical pout.
“That’s what Papa Nappo told me when he and Aunt Chrome came over last week. And he seemed serious too, even though he was smiling weirdly. But he always smiles weirdly! So I tried asking Uncle Dera but he was laughing too hard and everybody else I asked either fell down laughing or ran away when I asked them if it was true.”
It was then that Kusakabe Tetsuya found himself at a crossroad in life. On the one hand, his mind was screaming at him to take the kid and send him cross-country with a purely educational documentary of the Cloud Guardian in action (“do you want to die; he’ll kill you KILL YOU AND THE KID; a decade’s worth of fanatically loyal servitude won’t save your head from being mounted over the lobby mantel!!”); on the other, from what he knew of Sawada’s kid and how he was being raised (by Reborn), he had no doubts that sooner or later, with or without his guidance, the boy was going to somehow find his boss and disturb him.
Frankly, Kusakabe preferred later, but the pleading tug on his jacket-hem and the frighteningly resolute expression on the immature features indicated an inevitable “sooner.”
Faced with limited choices and the unfortunate obligation (responsibility) to maintain good relations between The Foundation and La Famiglia, Kusakabe surrendered. He just had to make sure that Sawada’s precocious kid didn’t ask potentially lethal questions. Right.
_________________________________
Nobu was too young to understand it at the time, but the timely intrusion by the Pettine Family assassins was actually what saved him from being bitten to death that day.
He and Kusakabe (the new uncle with the really manly ‘do) found Hibari in the library, sitting at a table with a collection of boxes and rings and papers spread before him.
It was a very sparse library as far as libraries went, dotted with floor lamps and a handful of bookshelves. There were, however, quite a number of computer monitors, more monitors than shelves, with wires feeding into the walls at various ports.
Hibari’d looked up sharply the moment they entered, eyes narrowing at the interruption.
“I apologize Kyou-san!” Kusakabe bent at the waist in a hurried attempt to ward off the incoming ire. “The child insisted. He’s... very keen on getting to know you better,” he explained, despite finishing on a rather lame note, however.
Nobu left Kusakabe’s side in one brave step forward. “Uncle Hibari,” he began formally with a correct little bow.
A shadow settled over the entire room, despite the lack of windows.
“Sorry for bothering you like this, but I had a question-”
There it was. Kusakabe tried everything; he pantomimed slashing his throat, zipping his lips; he even made a grab for Nobu who merely dodged in time to plunge forth with honest-to-god wide-eyed, earnest curiosity:
“Are you and Papa Nappo really getting married?
“... and why?” Nobu added as an afterthought.
Silence. It was deathly silent in the room, and was the room ever that small and suffocating? Kusakabe really didn’t want to stay to find out and it certainly wasn’t silent in the vaults of his mind, what with the mantra of “shit shit shit.”
Any and all opportunities to salvage the situation seemed lost-in fact Hibari looked ready to snap either of them into twigs, political repercussions be damned, when a rather conspicuous scuffle outside the library door snagged the irate man’s already frayed attention and withered patience.
“It’s this room! I saw them go through that door!”
“Shut up! Let’s make this one quick, it’s just one kid and his babysitter right?”
“Everybody ready?”
“Go get the door, Tetsu,” Hibari commanded, fingers curling ominously.
His second-in-command did so, only to duck aside quickly to allow a noisy outpouring of what could only be a rival mob’s muscle into the room.
“Looks like the Pettine’s assassination squad, Kyou-san,” Kusakabe reported dutifully from behind the door.
“... they’re crowding.”
The some fifty-odd firearms-toting intruders gaped at that; at the murder-personified seated behind the Vongola heir (their would-be target).
“Shit“ seemed to be the general consensus that rippled through the wary ranks, though there were snatches of other reactions amongst the more articulate members. (“Who was in charge of the goddamn intel?” and “Why the hell is Hibari Kyouya here??”)
Hibari rose in one fluid movement, fingers drumming against the armrest. “Tetsu, seal off corridors 3A through 5G. And then add another zero to Sawada’s bill.”
Kusakabe nodded before disappearing behind a row of bookcases. Somewhere, a door locked behind him.
Hibari then turned his expectant gaze on Nobu. “I trust the baby has given you enough instructions on how to not get in the way,” he said dismissively before smoothing his tie and prowling towards the armed-to-the-teeth group by the door.
Nobu blinked, and scrambled towards the closest wall with a bookshelf against it, his godfather’s sage words echoing in his ears.
Keep to the sides. Look for potential cover. Keep large objects between you and them. Watch and learn. Popcorn is allowed.
Hibari didn’t even wait. One minute he was standing in front of the crowd; the next, and he was in the middle of a highly confused fray.
It was a choreography of pandemonium after that.
From his vantage point between the (newly toppled) bookshelf and an overturned sofa, Nobu shifted down into a more comfortable huddle. He still didn’t get why Uncle Tetsu was so jumpy when he asked that perfectly normal question. Nobu sniffed. It wasn't as if the question was going to bite him or anything!
On the other hand, he supposed he could see why Papa Nappo would want to marry Uncle Hibari now. Resting his chin on top of his knees and crossed arms, Nobu watched with avid fascination as said uncle quite methodically demolished the crowd with whatever came to hand.
“Rush him! He isn’t using his tonfas, don’t be afraid and just rush him-” One down.
“ HOLY SHIT RETREAT!! HE HAS A MOP. Where did he get that anyway, TO ALL UNITS, HE HAS A-” Two down.
“FORGET THE MOP. WATCH THE FLOOR LAMP. IT HAS AN EXTENSION COR-URK!” Five down.
“I THOUGHT THAT THING WAS BOLTED TO THE FLOOR oh sweet merciful Jesus-” Ten down.
“NOT THE FACE. NOT THE-MY FACE! MY FA-”
Uncle Hibari, Nobu concluded, was the shit.
___________________________________________________________
[After]
Six years and three months after the first one, the Vongola Family was ready for the second.
And this time, upon Kyouko’s suggestion, the name was to be a combined group effort.
_________________________________
“Jumping Lima Bean!” Ryohei asserted to the small gathering in the waiting area. “It’s extreme and girlishly cute!”
“... that’s it. I’m submitting a request to never allow Sasagawa step foot out of either Italy or Japan ever again.”
“Really?” Yamamoto scratched at his chin in what was probably a thoughtful manner.
A manner which Gokudera, unfortunately, did not appreciate very much.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
The demolitions expert scoffed. “What? It’s not like it’s imperative that he goes on all the overseas missions is it? Who’s the language expert here?”
Yamamoto rubbed at his face a bit more before he brightened. “But isn’t he the only one who knows how to speak !Kung?” he pointed out, clicking his tongue carefully but still managing to mangle the sound. “And I heard from Squalo that there was some sort of civil unrest in the Namibian area that might affect our good-will operations there.”
Speechless, but not for lacking of anything better to say, Gokudera stared at the beaming swordsman. He stared long and hard.
“Hey, that’s an AWESOME idea Yamamoto! She could have a click in her name!! How does !Xoko sound?”
Gokudera buried his face in one hand and despaired.
“... goddammit.”
___________________________________________________________
Fin
Completed: July 3, 2008
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More Notes: !Kung language, for those of you curious. It does exist, and it's wicked fun to try out! :)
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I know I promised photos (which are taken) and comments/posts to catch up on. But. Augh. One thing at a time. Am too tired for anything else at the moment. :(