10 Year Mishap

19

When neither Tsuna or Hayato showed up for dinner that night, everyone was naturally concerned. As the night went on, they collectively started to assume the worst. Before a search party was put together, Reborn did the logical thing and check Tsuna's office, where Hayato should have been doing paperwork. The sight of the two peacefully sleeping on the sofa made him smirk and raise his gun upwards, obviously about to fire a blank at the ceiling. After pulling the trigger, the two sleeping jerked awake and Tsuna began to cry.

The sound of a gunshot made him cry for several reasons. The biggest being it wa a loud and sudden noise he wasn't prepared for. Tsuna didn't register Hayato or Reborn trying to calm him from his hysterics. His mind had been launched into fight or flight response after the small stall and he chose flight. The second his feet hit the floor, he was running out of the room and down the hall. He didn't know where he was going, just that he needed to get somewhere safe. 

The Guardians had followed Reborn and were unsurprised to hear a  gunshot and figured the hitman had found the missing duo. What they weren't ready for was the sound of a child crying seconds before the source of the sound rammed right into Mukuro's legs and didn't let go, knocking the man down in the process. It took several seconds to register that Mukuro was now on the floor, and several more seconds to realize that it was a crying child who had run into him. Seeing as Tsuna was the only child in the castle, they all started to freak out again and think something more serious was going on.

Hayato and Reborn came around the corner shortly after Tsuna knocked into Mukuro. The appearance of the two - despite him not seeing them - made Tsuna's grip on Mukuro tighten. The male Mist quickly put the pieces together and allowed his Flames to cover him and the child. He quickly stood and left the hallway and went to his own room. He'd let the child stay there for the night as he was obviously too distraught to be alone. Besides, Mukuro heavily doubted that Tsuna's grip was going to let up any time soon.

***

When he got back to his temporary place of residence, Tsuna checked his phone again. He had been expecting the messages to not go through to Reborn because they had to travel across timelines. What he didn't anticipate were the two conversations labeled 'Reborn'. The top one still said that the messages had failed to send, but the second one said they had gone through. Weird.

Deciding to ignore it for a bit, he got to work on putting stuff away and making the psac more livable. This task lasted for the total of thirty minutes before his phone went off. Surprised, he stopped what he was doing and turned his full attention to the device that should not be working currently. He opened up his messaging app and found the notification was from the second chat with Reborn. It asked the simple demand of "Who are you."

Not quite thinking it through, he left the message on read and went into his contacts to look at something. As he thought, there were two 'Reborn' contacts in there. He went back to the chat just as another message come through. "Who the fuck are you? I know you're reading this."

Deciding it had been a very bad idea to leave the World's Greatest Hitman on read, he quickly typed out, "Wrong number", changed the contact name to 'AU Reborn', turned off his phone and put it down. He knew his lie was obvious before he even sent it, but he really couldn't care at the moment. Something was obviously messing with him and he really didn't want this world's Reborn on his case, especially because he didn't know if he'd be like the Reborn he knew or if he'd react to him like this worlds Aria did and try and frame him for murder. It wouldn't occur to him until much later that he should've hidden his currently very trackable phone far away from where he was staying.

***

It took him an hour, but Mukuro had finally gotten Tsuna to let go of him and sleep. The child was still crying, even in his sleep, and he had suspicions as to why. He knew from experience that the tiny Sky wasn't going want to be near people or leave his side for a while. He told Chrome who passed the message to everyone else.

Based on how similar his situation was to this Tsuna, he knew that the kid was more than likely plagued by nightmares, even if he didn't understand why. Mukuro knew that the gunshot had not only triggered his flight/fight response, but had also triggered some deep memory, resulting in the surfacing of obvious PTSD.  Nothing the others would or could do would help Tsuna. The trauma wouldn't go away like a that, but Mukuro knew that empathy would help more than sympathy. Though the others knew well, they would only make matters worse.

With a sigh, he made himself comfortable on the couch in his room. He had gotten an extra blanket from the closet for his own use while Tsuna slept in his bed. He was going to be there for the child for as long as he could, even if it meant sleeping on the couch.