Wayward Sky

WARNINGS! Mentions of anxiety and depression and a description of past suicidal thoughts.
It's not bad, but please stay safe guys!

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The first time it happens, it's a warm afternoon in September, just a few days after Gokudera's birthday.

Without any warning, Tsuna completely disappears from Reborn's sight.

Reborn doesn't like it when his targets disappear, but he isn't worried. There haven't been any new reports of assassins itching to spill the young heir's blood and while Tsuna can be distressingly oblivious and outright birdbrained, he has faith that the kid wouldn't run straight into an assassins lap. Or if he did, he'd at least be very loud about it.

Be that how it is, Tsuna returns home a few hours later no worse for wear so it's not a big deal at all. The boy doesn't say where he's been and Reborn doesn't care enough to ask. He's actually feeling rather generous and only kicks his student in the face once when he's a few seconds late for dinner.

Reborn dismisses the incident.

However, it happens again about a week later. One moment Tsuna's yelling at Lambo to wear regular clothes just until his cow onesie is being washed, and then suddenly the house is quiet and Reborn finds Lambo alone on Tsuna's pillow, naked as a newborn baby and drawing turds into Fuuta's book with I-Pin's new crayons.

None of the brats know where Tsuna is (though Fuuta's smile is annoyingly mysterious) and even Mama simply shrugs absently and says that maybe Tsu-kun went to the playground to play. (Reborn doesn't remind her that Tsuna is turning seventeen soon and hasn't done that for years. Has probably never done that all, considering how lonely he was as a child.)

It gets Reborn a little curious, but he has to admit that even future mafia bosses sometimes need time away from obnoxious cow brats and distant mothers.

Tsuna looks upset when he returns that evening so Reborn considers it case closed and gives him double homework. Just because Vongola funds (bribes) his high school studies, doesn't mean that he gets off easy. And the screech he lets out when he discovers that Lambo has peed on his pillow is a nice bonus.

Tsuna disappears again just a few days later and that's when Reborn really gets curious. Mostly not about where and why Tsuna wanders off to, but more about how he does it. He's been keeping a closer eye on the young heir after his second disappearing act and yet somehow Tsuna still manages to vanish into thin air at some point between leaving school and reaching home. His Guardians get home alive and well, so Reborn's not curious enough to go look for the wayward Sky.

But.

Reborn's a hitman. The very best the world has to offer. Some snotnosed formerly sealed Sky brat doesn't just slip past the world's number one hitman without getting caught a dozen times over. Even if the Sky brat is about as powerful as all of Japan's nuclear power plants combined (and potentially as dangerous as that bunny from Monty Python), it just doesn't happen.

So Reborn is curious. And more than a little bit annoyed as he resigns himself to watch over his student more until he stops being stupid.

When Tsuna gets home, frowning and quiet, he initiates a full-scale training regimen that makes the fight with Jaeger and Bermuda look like a playdate and wallows in Tsuna's wails of despair to make himself feel better. It sort of works.

(Tsuna's too exhausted to drag himself upstairs that night so he passes out on the couch. No one mentions the blanket thrown over his exhausted body nor the mug of still steaming hot chocolate he finds when his aching muscles wake him in the dead of night.)