A/N: Woooohooooooo! This is my first multi-chaptered fic in this fandom! It issss X27, yesyes. I hope you'll enjoy it :D. I promise nothing on update-speed.

Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. I do own the plot and story :P.

Tsuna To Italy

Chapter 1

Tsuna yawned and rubbed his caramel eyes sleepily, lazily stretching his sleep-stiffened limbs underneath his cotton covers. Surprisingly, he had been woken by the warm sunlight on his face instead of a swift kick to the head this morning. Soft, orangey light streamed in through his closed window, highlighting the pages of the textbooks he'd abandoned on the floor in favour of sleep last night. As usual, his vibrant green carpet was cluttered with all sorts of stuff, which would probably pose a bit of a problem for him when he'd try to navigate to the bathroom later. For now though, the young mafia boss trainee enjoyed the rare moment of relaxation. Snuggling deeper into his warm blue cocoon, Tsuna felt himself relax for the first time in months. His drowsy thoughts went to the people he'd been spending the past few rowdy months of his life with. A genuinely happy smile spread over his face when images of his new friends and family past through his mind. He really loved them, he thought to himself as he turned on his side, staring into his brightly coloured, not-so-very-tidy room.

A great yawn stretched his jaw wide and he wondered what time it was. Had Reborn decided to forgo training today? It didn't seem very likely.

Tsuna tried to take this unexpected chance to sleep in for a little bit, but the notion of Reborn apparently swept all slumber from his mind. The hitman's impossible routine had messed with his biological clock.

Sighing when he realized that he would not be able to doze off again, the brunet scratched his unruly head of hair as he sat up on his soft mattress. It creaked under his weight when he bounced a little to gain momentum for his daring jump out of bed. As long as he avoided the sharp looking Fs on those old English-tests he should be fine. With a rare, giddy feeling Tsuna launched himself off his bed and onto his feet, curling his toes into his plush carpet. Astonished at this achievement (he didn't even fall over!), Tsuna began to feel better and better about the coming Saturday. His teddybear-patterned PJ's lay crumpled in a corner until he discovered the soft, comfy garments and pulled them on leisurely. If Reborn still wasn't here, he may as well take it easy.

He paused when a thought popped into his mind: perhaps Reborn was absent because he was in trouble?

He discarded the notion almost immediately. Tsuna was convinced the crazy infant was invincible.

His reflection blinked at him and smiled while he combed his fingers through his unruly mop of brown hair. It was futile, he knew, but it felt nice, so whatever.

On Tsuna's trek down the stairs his stomach decided to join the muted conversation he heard going on in the kitchen. Scratching his growling tummy, the brunet wondered curiously about the lack of childlike laughter and exploding pink grenades. The smooth floorboards of the hall felt nice against the soles of his bare feet when he reached the bottom of the stairs. A pair of heavy leather boots, caked with mud, stood on the grey mat next to his own pristine white sneakers. That was odd, Tsuna mused. Who would be visiting at this hour? He got a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach as the large boots almost looked like they were looming over his far smaller footwear. Huh. The young mafia boss shook off the feeling, not wanting to ruin his unusually good mood. So what if there was a visitor? They probably weren't here for him anyway.

He padded across the hall and poked his head around the doorway, trying to catch a glimpse of the mysterious guest before walking into the homey tiled kitchen. A gruff baritone reached his ears, accompanied by the familiar tinkle of his mother's soprano and snippets of Reborn's deceptively infantile voice. The tingling feeling that had rested in the back of his mind since he had spotted those strangely familiar boots became more prominent. His caramel browns travelled from the kitchen's scrubbed floor to the hem of a black suit jacket hanging from one of the straight-backed wooden kitchen chairs. His eyes grew wider as they reached choppy black hair, zooming out to take in the entire figure lounging comfortably on unyielding wood, the eerily familiar red and brown of a unique hair ornament catching his attention.

Tsuna felt his heartbeat increase exponentially, stumbling forward into the sparklingly clean kitchen in shock. The person sitting in his home as if he owned the place turned his head at his squeaky gasp.

A crimson gaze burned into Tsuna's fearful retinas, looking disdainful as ever. Time seemed to screech to a halt as silence rang for a moment, then Nana spoke up.

'Good morning, Tsu-kun! Have you slept well?' She smiled brightly at him, unaware of the extreme danger she was in. 'Look, we have a guest over for breakfast! Such a charming young man~.'

All air disappeared from Tsuna's body, but his fight or flee instincts kicked in before his mind had the chance to black out. The walls spun around him as he turned and then he dashed back up the stairs, cheeks aflame with embarrassment as roaring laughter followed him up to his bedroom. The poor door closed behind Tsuna with a harsh bang as he lunged for cover. He continued to take in squeaky breaths while he actually went as far as to crawl under his bed, pulling his vibrant blue covers along with him. Curling up in them, he tried to calm his screaming thoughts.

What is Xanxus-san doing here?

The relative darkness under his bed was comforting: if he closed his eyes he could pretend he was still waking up after a horrible nightmare.

But certain thoughts wouldn't be quieted so easily. Like Oh no, he saw me in my pyjamas! and Hiieee, Xanxus-san is still so scary! and a continuous mental shriek of embarrassed anguish. The one thought the brunet tried especially hard to bash away while in his fortified hide-out, was …sigh…Xanxus-san is still really hands- HIIIEEEEEE! This was absolutely not the right time and place to think about that, with the trigger-happy assassin (hah! Which one? There where two madmen now!) one floor down, in his home's kitchen. It was too surreal.

Why now? Why ever? What was going on in Reborn's crazy head, for Tsuna was certain the hitman had planned this new and unusual "training" as he would surely call it. The harassed brunet suddenly froze.

Oh no. Oh no. Ohno,ohno,ohno,ohno,ohno!

Tsuna clutched the covers and pressed them to his face, petrified when he recalled a conversation he'd stupidly had with his Spartan tutor not a week ago. He sat up quickly, forgetting that he was 2 inches from his slatted and crashing his forehead into it. Hissing in pain, he crawled into himself once more.

That conversation…

Aagh, he knew he shouldn't have confided in Reborn! Tsuna felt his wide eyes starting to prick, his heart skipping a beat before proving it hadn't yet tried out the little red PANIC button and going into overdrive. What if Reborn had told him?

Heavy footfalls stomped up the now creaking staircase (it hadn't even done that during Dino's repeated accidents on it, but the poor hardwood was no match for what was now thundering up to Tsuna's room) and Tsuna's heart screeched to a halt in his chest.

Nononononononono! He wasn't ready to face him yet! …or ever!

Tsuna crawled closer to the wall, backwards, trying desperately to hide. The already abused door crashed open and slammed into the wall with a deafening crack. Tsuna held his breath and kept as still as he possibly could. He felt the strong urge to giggle hysterically when he spotted white socks with blue squiggly lines on it.

Then, to his horror, Xanxus' heels lifted off his cluttered carpet until all his weight was on the socked balls of his feet and it was clear that Tsuna's doom was near.

Squeaking in amplified terror when large fingers curled around the edge of his bed, Tsuna tried to mummify himself in his stretching covers. He could feel those fingers coming closer to his back, but the meanmean wall wouldn't let him hide in it.

A strong hand clamped down on the wrapped up ball of Tuna and dragged him out from under the bed, struggling and yelling muffled pleas to be released. Ringed fingers clutched the edge of a blue cover and tugged on it impatiently, Tsuna tumbling out of the soft depths even though he desperately tried to hold on. His backside landed on the floor painfully, narrowly avoiding one of the pink grenades Lambo had left there. Fuelled by his embarrassment (why the soft teddy pj's?), the brunet tried to dive away from the leather clad legs he could feel against his shoulders (hiiiieeeee!) but before he got anywhere with that, the Varia leader caught him by the scruff of his neck.

'Stop thrashing around, runt.'

Tsuna stilled at the surprisingly non-wrathful,covertly amused tone of Xanxus' voice. The grip on his neck was firm yet oddly unhurtful, making Tsuna wonder. When did Xanxus stop trying to kill and/or permanently damage him (in whatever order) on sight?

'X-Xanxus-san?'

The man grunted and yanked him up, ignoring Tsuna's renewed squirming while he carried him down the stairs, back to the kitchen. Tsuna had no idea how Xanxus could make so much noise on the poor creaking wood on soft, socked feet. It was astounding.

The scared brunet didn't have a lot of time to consider this unwanted turn of events during that short journey. The fact that he was hanging from only one of Xanxus' hands, jostled roughly from side to side made his cheeks burn. Xanxus was really strong… and he was really embarrassed.

Arriving in the kitchen, Tsuna was thrown onto the table since there was no chair ready to catch the involuntary projectile. Why Xanxus didn't just throw him on the floor…probably had something to do with Reborn, who stood next to Tsuna's head on the table and nodded his approval.

From the moment his tutor arrived, everything inexplicable in his live always had something to do with Reborn.

Tsuna quickly sat up, rubbing his sore back and glancing nervously from one crazy assassin to the other. Nana had mysteriously disappeared and he worried for her briefly, until he realised Reborn probably just sent her away to do some shopping with the kids. Unlike his attitude towards him, the hitman was always courteous to the one who cooked him his meals.

'Silly Tsuna, don't run from your family.'

The young heir did not agree, that sentiment only growing stronger as Xanxus plonked back down in the chair he was occupying before. Tsuna felt as though he was to be breakfast for the two (insane) mafiosi, sitting awkwardly on the kitchen table. He didn't dare to try to get off, as he would have to turn his back on at least one of them while attempting to achieve such a feat.

So he just sat there, thoroughly creeped out by the intense stares boring into him. Reborn was doing it purposefully, Tsuna knew.

Reborn finally broke the silence and Tsuna sighed in relief when at least one of the stares turned away.

'Xanxus and I were discussing your trip to Italy before you came barging in. He has agreed to make sure you don't get yourself killed on the way there.'

'What!'

Tsuna almost fell of the simple wooden table at the newsflash his tutor presented to him with an airy smile. His jaw dropped all the way to his teddy-patterned pyjama top, caramel eyes widening as he recognized the symptoms of Phase I - Reborn Logic. Meaning that this had to do with his training as a mafia boss. And he was convinced he was not going to like it.

'Wh-Wh-Whaaaaat? Reborn, what would I want to do in Italy!' He shrieked. He was promptly kicked in the head.

'It's not about what you want. You're going to learn the ins and outs of being the boss of Vongola. It's about time.'

Reborn smirked and tilted his head, the shadow of his fedora hiding his beady eyes, and answered the question on Tsuna's mind.

'You'll stay there for as long as I deem necessary.'

Tsuna sat in a stunned stupor. His wide caramel eyes searched his infant tutor's unreadable features for signs of a grin or a superior smirk that told him he had just been successfully pranked. When he found no such sign, he felt positively faint. Reborn's airy smile remained unaffected by his poor student's horror as he delivered the final blow to the teen's suffering mind.

'There you will commence your training with Xanxus. He will be able to teach you more about how to wield the Sky flame and its capacities than I.'

Tsuna stared, with his mouth gaping, at his supposed subordinate to find an odd mixture of a menacing glare and an amused smirk at Tsuna's expense on his scarred, handsome features. Wide eyes held a tentative questioning look and the Varia leader slowly nodded (with a fair amount of reluctance, leaving Tsuna to think that however this had happened, he had not volunteered), his expression unchanged.

'You better fucking pay attention to what I say, runt. I'm not going to repeat myself.'

It dawned on Tsuna's mind that he really was going to Italy, with Xanxus, and Xanxus was going to be supervising his training there. Xanxus. In Italy. Scary-ass Xanxus.

Tendrils of foggy black swept into his line of vision and his body thumped onto the kitchen table, passed out.

'He took it better than I expected.'

Reborn supplied from his perch on a teddy patterned tummy. The hitman placed his teacup on Tsuna's thigh after taking a sip, directly next to leather clad calves. Xanxus grunted his agreement, his eyes closed as he rested with crossed arms and legs, draped over the straight-backed chair and the unconscious body of his boss-to be.

'If he doesn't wake up soon, you'll have to drag him to the airport. Your flight is scheduled to depart in 3 hours.'

Xanxus shrugged, careless.

'Fine with me. Luggage?'

Reborn smirked, hiding it in his cup as he took another sophisticated sip.

'He won't be needing any.'

At that, the Varia leader raised an eyebrow, but he didn't question further. No luggage meant less time wasted in customs and no shit to drag along with the unconscious teenager. Tsuna's unconscious body twitched, as though his subconscious was picking up on Reborn's scheming vibes. Reborn suddenly looked up, pinning Xanxus with a beady-eyed stare and a small knowing smirk. Xanxus quirked an eyebrow.

The next moment, the front door opened with a small creak, definitely being handled with more care than the door to Tsuna's bedroom had been.

'Tadaima!' The light voice of Tsuna's mother rang through the hallway brightly and childlike laughter could be heard coming from the front yard. The effect on the people in the kitchen was immediate:

Xanxus shot up in his chair, quickly putting his feet on the floor so that Nana wouldn't catch him reclining on her son. One large hand raked through dark tresses before it straightened out the collar of his white blouse. The Varia leader sat up a bit straighter, brushing some crumbs of toast off Tsuna's teddy-patterned pant leg as an afterthought.

'Okaeri.' He offered gruffly as the smiling woman stepped into the kitchen. He pointedly ignored Reborn's amused chuckle at his behaviour. The hitman didn't bother to get off Tsuna's stomach, finishing his tea and resting the cup on his own lap.

Nana carried two bulging shopping bags to the counter, dropping them onto the floor with a relieved sigh before turning back to the mafiosi. Xanxus was halfway into an awkward kind of getting up, contemplating whether he should offer his help to the lady of the house, when Tsuna's mother gently shooed him back into his chair. She seemed to still not have spotted her son in a dead-faint.

'Oh, don't bother, I'll get to those in a moment. Why don't you boys tell me why Tsu-kun is passed out on the kitchen table while I take a breather, hmm?'

Or so he thought.

Reborn instantly hopped off his perch, onto the floor and pulled out one of the chairs by its leg, offering it to Nana with a flourish. The woman took it with a girlish giggle and placed her hands on either side of her son's head, gently cupping it. Xanxus swore he saw her pointer finger checking the brat for a pulse while slowly stroking his brown tresses and his eyes narrowed minutely. That was when he remembered, she was Iemetsu's wife. He wondered just how oblivious she really was.

Reborn hopped back onto the table's surface, not even onto his poor student's body this time.

'I just told Tsuna about his trip to Italy. He was very upset about having to miss you for an undetermined amount of time, maman.'

Tsuna's mother smiled brightly. 'I see, poor Tsu-kun. But, he'll have to grow up some time, I know.' She sighed, an adoring look on her face as she looked at her son. 'Something every mother tries to deny, of course!' Her clear laughter rang through the kitchen. She then looked at Xanxus, who sat up even straighter at her scrutiny. Her warm eyes passed over his frame with surprising sharpness, before she looked him straight in the eye and smiled openly, sparklingly at him, the look completely vanished.

'I'm so glad you're going to help Tsu-kun get to his grandfather safely! Thank you so much, Xanxus-kun!'

She stood up to bow at him and Xanxus felt particularly uncomfortable, especially given the fact that up until that moment, he would've had absolutely no qualms about ditching the brat in some gutter the moment he stepped foot in Italy. With wide, honey-brown eyes looking at him so adoringly, almost giving him the exact same look she had been sending Tsuna a few seconds ago, and the sincere gratitude the woman was adamant about showering him with even hours after he'd caved, Xanxus suddenly felt a little sick.

In hindsight, that was probably exactly what the woman was going for. The Italian's jaw ticked as he realized he had just let himself be suckered into protecting the useless brat for his entire fucking stay in Italy. He looked away from the manipulative being who's home he was sitting in and sourly studied the living room.

Xanxus, as mostly all Italians, knew not to mess with housewives. And the fact that he had seen this woman juggle two toddlers, one world's greatest hitman, the Poison Scorpion and himself with effortless ease, grace and that constant heartfelt smile this morning didn't have anything to do with that.

Xanxus ferociously stomped down on the tiny chunk of respect growing for the woman, clearing his throat before dredging up a painfully awkward response to her gratitude.

'It's no problem, ma'am.'

He didn't miss the smug smirk on the infant's face as he forced out the completely untrue statement, but refrained from retaliating. The woman was still there and he had found out this morning that she was not fond of anything remotely child-like being manhandled when he attempted to drop-kick that annoying cow-brat back to its home-base in Italy for slapping him in the face with a sticky, half-eaten lollipop.

That was the moment he found out first hand why Nono never messed with the females they encountered in the famiglia.

Tsuna's mother had looked at him squarely right as the steel, mud-caked toe of his boot was about to connect with the brat's cow-printed behind and this chill went down his spine. The look in those disappointed honey-brown eyes had frozen his entire body, somehow conveying to Xanxus that the mere fact that he could even think of doing something like that to the brat made him a very, bad, boy. The sheer shock of being affected as such by the mother was enough to make him cancel those plans without even consciously thinking about it, his boot thudding onto the front steps while the brat ran of cackling. The woman's eyes had instantly turned warm and accepting and forgiving, making him feel like now he was a very good boy again (because she somehow radiated the belief that he had been one before the dropkicking incident), despite the fact that the first thing the woman had ever seen him do was try to assault her 5-year old kid.

The woman was fucking terrifying.

Xanxus was convinced the arcobaleno knew and schemed with her on a regular basis. Heck, she was probably the mastermind behind Vongola's interrogation department, the way she persuaded even him to do whatever without so much as saying a single word. The Varia leader wondered briefly whether he would have felt as terrorized by his own mother.

His boss' mother smiled at him warmly and went about putting all the groceries away, sparkles and flowers popping up in the air around her. Xanxus uncomfortably shifted and glanced at the unconscious teenager on the table in front of him, now in his care, and sighed deeply.

He pointedly ignored the nagging feeling of "shit is going to happen" at the sight of Reborn's scheming smirk.

Please review and tell me what you think, I appreciate criticism!

'Till the next chapter!

-Dirkje