Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine. At all. Except the words.

Good Intentions

.oOo.

The creak of the kitchen door startled Professor Agasa from his midnight foraging. He turned, expecting to see a disapproving Ai standing in her bathrobe, and with arms crossed. It took Agasa a moment to process that the lanky figure standing just inside the threshold was not his diminutive housemate, but a tattered phantom thief.

"I apologize for the intrusion, Professor," Kaitou Kid said softly, coming further into the room and leaning against the counter nearest the sink. Under the glow of the fluorescent lights, Agasa finally noticed the young man's disturbing pallor. He would match his clothing if he lost any more color. Agasa shut the cupboard he had been rifling through, and Kid's left arm, which had stayed pressed close to his side the entire time, shifted to show an ominous scarlet stain drenching the side of his white jacket.

Agasa blanched and made a strangled sound that sounded equal parts question and demand. Kid answered with a sardonic grin and a pained wince as Agasa pushed aside his jacket and the wadded remains of a makeshift bandage meant to staunch the blood loss and prevent any sneaky forensic scientist from getting a good blood sample of the notorious thief. An ugly furrow tore through Kid's side, a bit below his lowest rib, showing a clear bullet trail through muscle and skin, surrounded by smeared blood. "Our mutual friends raised the ante, and this is a little more than I can patch up by myself. I don't really want to be out on the street right now either."

"You should be in a hospital!" Agasa scolded, bustling into action to usher the young man out of the kitchen and down the hall towards the laboratory.

Kid shook his head and allowed himself to be herded. "Gunshot wounds are reported to the police and too many people saw me fall. Your pet detective isn't the only one who will be checking the hospital records for the next few days."

"What on earth happened? I assume those men Shinichi is hunting showed up."

"They showed up. The police showed up. Kudou showed up. Half my fan club showed up. It's a miracle the only body falling out of the sky was mine," Kid groused, unhooking his cape and letting the professor gingerly pull him out of the glider's harness. Agasa then helped the injured thief onto the end of a hastily-cleared table before digging around in a drawer before producing a pair of scissors. With Kid's limited assistance, the professor cut away the once-white jacket, dropped it into a bin of wastepaper, and started on the blue shirt beneath. Once the tattered shirt had joined the remains of the jacket, the now-bloody scissors were deposited in the sink for cleaning and he dug a washcloth and a bowl from the cabinet. The bowl he filled with water and carried it back to Kid.

"Well, it looks relatively shallow," Agasa sighed as he probed at the exposed wound with the washcloth, blotting away enough of the blood to see the torn flesh beneath. "And though you should be seeing a doctor ..." A mischievous grin fluttered across Kid's face, resulting in an annoyed look from the professor. "A medical doctor ... But, I'll see what we've got on hand."

"Um ... I hope a pain killer?" Kid grinned weakly as Agasa headed for the door. Obviously, the first aid kit sitting beside the sink wouldn't hold the right bandaging for a gunshot wound. " Probably not aspirin, though, My blood's thin enough at this point."

"Ai keeps some in her desk," Agasa told him, coming back long enough to fill the glass next to the sink with water and set it beside the wounded thief while he opened the correct drawer for him.

"Please don't tell me they're the chewable kind," Kid said, leaning over gingerly to rummage around in the drawer with the hand on his uninjured side. "I think this is a bit beyond the chewable kind."

"You underestimate Ai and Shinichi's headaches," Agasa chuckled. "Something about their condition reacts oddly to regular painkillers."

"Her own freaky mad scientist mix, huh?" Kid asked under his breath as Agasa left. "Are you sure they're not going to make me grow furry ears and a tail or anything?" Kid could hear the professor's stumping steps as he climbed the stairs, probably heading for an upstairs bathroom. Another aching stab burned through his side as he moved too quickly and the wound protested. "Never mind. I don't care, as long as they work."

This, Kid decided, was a huge drawback to wearing white while running across rooftops; especially on nights of the full moon when he made a shiny white target. The muscles in his side burned with every breath and he was feeling the blood loss now: light-headed and woozy in addition to being bone-deep exhausted. He was safe enough with Agasa, and in familiar enough surroundings that the constant feed of adrenaline had ebbed.

A few more moments of shuffling through the cluttered drawer, and Kid's gloved hand finally closed around a bottle and pulled it free. 'Do not take with alcohol' was scrawled in Haibara's handwriting across the top. Kid glanced at the note and shrugged; he was too young to drink anyway. He popped it open and shook one of the capsules out. He considered two, briefly, but if Haibara had tampered with them, two might put him completely out instead of just dulling the pain.

Agasa re-entered the laboratory carrying a small armful of gauze pads and bandages piled on a towel, and Kid set the capsule behind the water glass. Agasa quietly nudged the door closed behind him, dumped the bandages next to Kid, and soaked a cotton pad with disinfectant. "You're going to have an impressive scar," he commented as he disinfected the wound.

"No faith in your sewing skills out, Professor?"

Agasa answered with a disapproving glare, looking up from the gauze dressing he had stretched over Kid's injury and was taping down with long strips of medical tape. After the bandage was as secure as he could feasibly make it, Agasa helped the sore and woozy thief climb off the desk and into a chair. Kid sagged against the cushioning and shifted so he was putting as little pressure as possible on the wound in his side. The painkiller, which he still hadn't swallowed, dangled from his fingertips and Agasa moved the water glass so it was within easy reach.

"Since you're as patched up as we can right now, I'll go borrow some clothes for you. You'll fit into Shinichi's things well enough, and look less incriminating," Agasa said.

"I'll be sure to think of a good way to return them to him." Kid grinned with a spark of renewed energy at the chance to rile the detective. Agasa shook his head and left the laboratory again. Moments later, the scuffing of shoes being donned, followed by the side door opening and then closing with a soft click, sounded through the otherwise-still house. Kid relaxed a bit more into the embrace of the chair, when a sharp stab from his side, and duller protests from the various other scrapes and bruises he'd accumulated during the night, reminded him of the pill still held between his fingers. He'd forgotten to swallow it before Agasa had made his reappearance with the bandages. Kid held the blue and red capsule up to the light for a moment, before dropping it into his mouth, and taking a drink from his glass.

He let his head drop back, and eyes close, as he waited for the chemicals to do their work. An unpleasant heat was spreading through his limbs as the wooziness intensified, and his vision blurred for a moment, splintering into a double image until he shut his eyes and rubbed at them. Pain began rippling through him, in time to the increasing beat of his heart and intensifying with each breath.

The room swayed ... or maybe it was just him swaying. Kid cursed under his breath and clamped onto the edges of his chair to keep from sliding to the floor. Something was wrong. The pain had increased to a torturous agony, radiating from the wound in his side, pooling in his bones, and making it impossible to think coherently. Blackness tinged the edges of his vision now and Kid dimly saw the tile rushing up at him as he fell off the chair before oblivion claimed him.

.oOo.

The moment Kaito staggered blearily back into consciousness, he noticed the throbbing ache burning across his side. It hurt, sending sharp twinges through him every time he took a breath and stretched the unhealed skin and muscle. He had a dizzying moment of wondering why he felt like the Shrimp had been using him for a soccer ball, shoes on full, before his tattered memories started sifting back into place. He'd been shot; almost nailed by a sniper's bullet as he leapt into the wind for his grand escape, and ended up in a semi-crash; or at least less-than-graceful landing. He'd been bleeding from the bullet, and generally scraped up and bashed around after the landing, and decided to hole up long enough for the spots to stop dancing in front of his eyes.

After finding his Beika hideaway being watched by a pair that looked like they were going to a funeral, and likely had very spirited names, he'd gone to Agasa's – judging the professor to be his best chance at avoiding incarceration and/or death. It was that second one he was really avoiding. He could escape from jail, but even his father hadn't discovered a way to escape from heaven. yet...

He was in a nest of soft sheets, and surrounded with pillows that kept him from moving more than a few inches either way. And, he'd been lying on his uninjured side long enough for an uncomfortable hot and cold tingle to work its way from fingertips to elbow.

"Professor?" Kid croaked out, wincing at the raw feeling in his throat and starting to piece things together. The painkiller ... he'd taken it and, instead of making him feel better, it had knocked him unconscious. He sighed and curled up further under the blanket someone had pulled up over him, wondering if he was coming down with something for his trek through the rain. That was all he needed: a cold along with the gunshot wound he'd spend the next few weeks hiding from his mom and classmates.

The door of the room creaked open, spilling light from the hallway inside. Kid heard footsteps padding up to the bed and the scrape of a chair being pushed across the floor followed by the scuffling scrabble of his short visitor climbing to a better vantage point. Haibara, he thought. Of the two occupants, Professor Agasa would never manage to walk that softly, or see the need to climb a chair.

Sinking further into concealment beneath his blanket, Kid suddenly noticed the fuzzy semi-darkness that met his eyes was undistorted. His hand flew up to paw at his face, trying to find the missing bit of metal and glass that should have been covering one eye, and panicked until his reasonable side prevailed.

'They were probably worried you'd jab it in your eye, and then you'd be explaining why the doctors had to extract pieces of a monocle in the ER.' Kaito took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. 'You don't want to drag the professor in any further, but it's not like he'd recognize you anyway. Except as Kudou's semi-clone, maybe. And, hey, that might even work to your advantage here! Just don't start wailing you don't want anyone to know you're Kuroba Kaito.'

"It's on the table," a voice said, light and childish, and horribly familiar, but decidedly notfemale. "Your monocle, right?" There was a rustle of cloth and a scrape of a chair or stool sliding across wood as the owner of the voice pushed his perch closer to the bed. A moment later, Kaito felt the rounded edges of silver and polished glass slip under his fingers. "But it's going to be a while before it fits again."

Kaito froze, all other thoughts scattering and re-focusing in on the identity behind the voice next to his bed. The voice, and the glint of a wicked smile Kaito could just see in the dimness of the room. Kudou was laughing at him. "How many other visitors will I have tonight?" Kaito finally asked, trying to sound casual and looking up at the shadows on the ceiling. An experimental stretch let him know that his side was still lancing pain through his body when he pulled at the wound. The muzziness from whatever painkiller he'd taken earlier hadn't evaporated yet. Or maybe it was the after-effects of the crash in the alleyway before he staggered to the professor's. He knew he'd have a better chance getting away from the police even if they got him into a cell than he would trying to dodge Kudou's tricky little sleeping darts right then unless he moved very quickly, and there weren't any uniform-wearing surprises waiting for him in the hall. It was enough for Kaito to stay still, and wait for an opportunity where the odds of escaping successfully were better.

"None," Kudou answered, with an odd note of dissatisfaction in his voice. "Well, the professor's downstairs and Haibara's in the lab, but none of us have called the police."

And there was no "yet" hanging in the detective's voice, Kaito noticed, a mad sort of hope creeping into his brain. In fact, if he had to put a word to the emotion that was lurking in Kudou's voice, he'd call it annoyance over being thwarted. It was a tone he'd memorized from how often he heard it in Hakuba's voice.

Kaito's fingers spread cautiously to trace the edges of the monocle. If he moved fast enough, maybe he could tie the shrimp up in a blanket and get the hell out of dodge before the Professor came up to check on the commotion. After that, he'd just have to be very, very careful not to show up as "Kuroba Kaito" anywhere near Beika or anywhere the Sleeping Idiot was embroiled in a case. Kudou was smart, and it wouldn't take much for him to track a face back to a name.

"Worried that I'll make everyone think Kudou Shinichi's the Kaitou Kid?"

Conan snorted. "If you're taunting me, then you must feel better than I thought you would. No, I'm not worried about you impersonating me as Shinichi."

"Have to wonder why not. Now you know I look like you."

"In more ways than one." Now the detective just sounded smug.

Part of Kaito perked up at the statement, but most of him was busy figuring out how to jump Kudou, take his watch, and toss the brat under the bed long enough to pull a disappearing act. Kaito opened his eyes and saw Conan perched on a stool next to the bed, small hands gripping the front edge of the seat and feet kicking idly in the air.

"Well, as entertaining as this has been for you," Kid pushed himself up and pulled his feet under him, "I believe I have overstayed my welcome." He snatched up the blanket from his shoulders and threw it towards Conan like a cast net. The bed they had placed him on was huge, and Kaito used it a springboard to lunge forward, intent on scooping the faux-grade-schooler under one arm.

And missed.

Kaito's arms pinwheeled as he fell short of hitting Conan, until he plummeted over the side of the bed. The floor seemed a lot further down than he expected it to be. The hole in his shoulder flared agony down his body as he crashed into the floor, leaving him stunned and gritting his teeth, curling instinctively around the injury to protect it. Conan's slippered feet landed beside him, and Kaito forced himself to his knees, coming eye-to stomach with the faux-grade-schooler.

His eyes went wide and he scrambled the rest of the way to his feet, staring in mounting horror as he looked Edogawa straight in the eye. "Since when are you contagious?" Kaito squeaked and clapped his hands over his mouth, eyes going wide. How long ago had it been since he'd been old to squeak?

"Oi!"

Kaito backpedaled to put distance between them, catching against the bed he'd tumbled from, his back pressed against the mattress, and clutched at the throbbing in his shoulder. "What happened to me?"

Conan stood silently for a heartbeat before sighing. He pulled his glasses off, and set them on the chair, followed by his stun watch. Kaito watched his every move suspiciously, trying to drag the tattered bits of Poker Face back over his face. Conan shoved his hands in his pockets and offered a truncated shrug before explaining, "You're hurt, and running off in a panic like this isn't a good idea. I'll leave the gadgets there, and for the record, I'm not contagious. The professor says you swallowed some of the same poison Gin and Vodka forced me to take and it didn't kill you."

Kaito grabbed the panic scrabbling at him and shoved it, hard, into a box. Still, he couldn't quite stop the bitter laugh that answered the detective's explanation. "Didn't kill me? My life is ruined."

"Yeah. Welcome to that." Conan ignored Kaito's venomous glare. "This wasn't the way I thought I'd finally catch you."

"You didn't catch me."

Conan shrugged and watched the thief in silence as the other boy relaxed by slow degrees. He moved away from the bed eventually, stretching his smaller limbs, and looking over his new body with a sense of curiosity. And, Conan suspected, testing how to move in his shrunken form.

"Yours, I'm guessing," Kid said, pulling at the child-sized shirt and trousers someone had dressed him in.

"I think they're yours, actually. Your mom brought them with her after the professor called someone named Jii."

That brought the thief up short, and he stilled, utterly. Conan's eyes narrowed and a knowing smirk tugged at his lips. "She's not supposed to know about you, is she, Kid?"

Kid thumped his head against the bed in frustrated answer. "Guess I should have known better. How long did you keep this from your mom?"

Conan thought back to when his parents had found out, and suppressed a shudder. At least he wouldn't have to tell them about this. "Longer than you, but they had to arrange a flight back to Tokyo."

Kid responded with another thump against the bed that turned into a sigh. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and pushed away from the bed. "Right now, I wish we lived further away." Kid trudged past Conan, his slippers shuffling against the rug in dejection, and staying silent when Conan fell into step behind him.

Downstairs, Kid's mother sat across from Haibara and the Professor, a half-drained glass sitting beside her on a coaster. As soon as the two boys set foot on the bottom step, she rose. A moment later Kid's mother was across the room, and Kid squeaked as he was swept up into her arms and nearly crushed. He hissed in pain, pushing at her with his good arm until she loosened her hold.

"Ah!" Agasa reached towards them, concerned. "Kid-kun was shot earlier this evening, Chikage-san! Please, be careful with him."

Chikage sent Agasa a cool look and set her son back on his feet, but didn't quite allow him out of reach, and knelt beside him. "That is not the most drastic thing that seems to have happened to him, Professor."

"It's definitely the most painful, mom," Kid said, lifting his shirt away from the bandage across his shoulder to check for blood. "Looks like the bullet hole shrunk with the rest of me, though."

Chikage stood smoothly, and pushed a bit of her unruly hair away from her face. "If you'll excuse us, Professor, I need to speak with my son for a moment."

Kid tensed, but followed his mother as she swept out of the room. The moment the door closed behind him, Kaito found himself pulled back into a tight hug.

"What happened? Hiroshi said you were shot during a heist."

"I was," Kaito answered, awkwardly trying to return her hug before his arms fell back to his side in defeat. Somehow, this was more disheartening than waking up with the chibi-Detective perched too close with Kid's identity in his hands. He had been taller than his mother for a few years, and now he couldn't even hug her completely. "A bullet grazed me in the shoulder, and … well, the Professor's let me crash here a time or two before. I just needed to patch myself up enough so you wouldn't notice I'd been hurt." He offered her a self-mocking grin. "I didn't want you to find out your son was an international criminal. Though I guess you already knew."

His mother settled herself more comfortably onto one knee, and returned his grin with a dry smile. "Plausible deniability, dear, in case either of us ever needed it. Speaking of which," Kaito felt himself tense back up as her tone shifted from worried to more businesslike, "what do you want to do? Kaitou Kid has spent years off the stage before. He could do so again."

A lead weight settled itself into Kaito's stomach as the imprecations fell into place. Kid had gone quiet for years because of his father's death on stage. A death that had been no sort of accident. He started swearing, biting the stream off with a yelp when his mother swatted him. He rubbed at his head and sighed. "Jii can cover for me for me at least once, but damnit, they knew who dad was." His mother waited silently as Kaito scowled at the floor before drooping into a sigh. "Kid goes off the radar again, I go home like this," he slashed at the air at his new height, "and they're going to come sniffing around, wondering what I'm up to. I … I can't go home."

Kaito found himself pulled back into his mother's arms and Kaito allowed himself - just for a moment - to lean into the offered comfort. He clawed his poker face back into place, and forced his voice to behave before hugging his mother back briefly - again with arms frustratingly too short. "We'd better go back in and talk to Kudou."

Kaito stepped away and fumbled with the doorknob above his head before twisting it open. The low conversation between Kudou, the Professor, and Haibara stopped as soon as he reentered the room. The door closed behind him, and the nearly-soundless tread of his mother followed.

"Professor, any chance you've got room for one more around here?"

The professor looked startled at the request, choking a bit on the mouthful of tea he had just drunk. "Kid-kun?"

"I can't go back home," Kid explained, cutting him off and nailing Conan with a pointed look. "I'm the second Kaitou Kid, the first was my dad. A man in a black trench coat named Snake killed him. I only saw Snake once, and he thought I was dad. Snake, and anyone he works for, might start looking for children-that-aren't."

Conan's expression grew stormy and he looked towards Haibara, who sat perfectly still and frozen, before he turned back to Kid. "You think Snake is part of the Black Organization?"

"I've never found enough on them to know either way," Kid answered, "but paranoid is better than dead, and there is an alcohol called Snake. I would go hide out with Jii, but they might be watching him too."

"It would give me a larger sample-size to work from," Haibara commented, taking a slow drink from her mug. She looked at the professor with a slight shrug of her thin shoulders. "I have no objections."

"Occhan would never let you stay with us," Conan said.

"I'd never put up with the love taps he doles out to you without doing things the Task Force can't mention around Nakamori-keibu after I do them," Kid returned.

Kid's mother settled her hands on her son's shoulders and smiled. "Hiroshi, if you are all right with looking after … Shiro-kun, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement. Jii and I will set up his alias."

"Arakaki," Kid interrupted. "Arakaki Shiro."

His mother, blinked down at him, before she pressed a hand to her mouth, surpressing a laugh, and reached out the other to ruffle his hair. "Arakaki Shiro it is. Stay out of the newspapers, though."

"Arakaki Shiro?" Conan echoed, looking a bit puzzled. "Shiro" answered him with a challenging grin.

"I'll leave you to figure that riddle out on your own, detective."

Conan's eyes narrowed, and a smothered snort of amusement distracted him. Ai set her empty mug on the low table and slid off the couch with a muffled thump. "You have that look, again," she told him. "Like a little boy with a present he knows is a toy."

Shiro stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, grinning innocently at her. "I'm not much of a toy, Haibara-san. But I am entertaining."

Kat's Notes:

As Midoriko-sama discovered, and showed me, there is an alcohol called snake wine. It's from Southeast Asia, and uses poisonous snakes to give it that extra special zing. As someone who is (hilariously) terrified of snakes, you'll never see me so much as looking at a bottle. I would fall apart in gibbering terror.

You can also thank her for the title. Hers was a most giggle-worthy suggestion, and I stole it shamelessly.

Normally, when I saw this scenario, Kaito would be fed the pill by a Black Org. member. Logically, that's not what they'd do. They poisoned Shinichi because they were in a public place, he was a known semi-celebrity, and they didn't want to draw too much attention to themselves. Kaitou Kid is a known criminal, so they'd just shoot him. Professor Agasa and Ai, on the other paw … Ai needs to stop leaving anything apotoxin related in obscure places. Last time it was a cold medicine bottle, and this time it's in the panadol.