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It's a warm night. That is not unusual; it's spring bordering on summer in Spain. Renato has been in this town before, during this season, and the heat that's starting to cling to his temples and sweat down his nape isn't really out of the ordinary. He pays it no mind, since he is a professional.
It's already been a few months since the Arcobaleno Curse was broken, and he's antsy to get back to his original job and defend his title of the World's Greatest Hitman.
There's nothing wrong with being a tutor, with shaping the minds of future leaders into steel and strength, and while he may never say it out loud, he does care for his students. Nosy, weak Dino and crybaby Dame Tsuna- he'll always keep an eye out for them. But teaching is not as fulfilling as the burn in his muscles, as the slight breeze from the speed of his bullets arching towards a glorious, perfect kill.
Renato's not a psychopath. He merely enjoys the process, the all-encompassing story which begins with a name and ends with his targets dead. It is an art form, something he has honed for years and years and carved into the world with his image.
And now that he has an adult body again, he knows that an assassination will do wonders in working out the kinks of his familiar-unfamiliar limbs.
He is a ghost in an Italian suit, fedora tilted just so on his hair as he wanders the cobbled streets of Cadaqués. The small two-story house of his target is facing the beachfront, and he slips in easily through an open window. Even inside, he can smell the sea salt from the ocean.
The house is a bit sparse, with a small couch and a near-empty kitchen. If he didn't know any better, he would think that the owner was on a vacation. But the glass in the sink is wet, and the plant by the front door is still green. Still, he gives the first floor a cursory inspection. When he finds nothing of interest, he makes his way upstairs.
There is only one room on the second floor aside from the bathroom, which is as bare as the first floor. It's a bedroom. Renato checks his watch, and carefully twists the door open. It's two in the morning. Civilians, like his target, will definitely be asleep. But he hasn't gotten this far by being careless, so he flicks off the safety on his gun in the same movement.
He finds his target lying on his bed, unmoving. His breathing is steady and slow, and his scent sleep-heavy. Renato almost feels irritated with how easy this hit is, but it wars with the deep satisfaction in his blood that hums in anticipation. Within a blink, he is standing beside the bed. The boy doesn't even twitch.
How unlucky, Renato thinks, as he observes whatever features he can see under the soft moonlight. Delicate cheekbones, a straight nose, long, dark lashes resting against pale skin- the boy is definitely young. Young, and oh so beautiful. It is unlucky that he is Renato's target tonight.
He leans closer, and remembering the details on the boy's profile, nudges the messy black hair away from his forehead with his gun. Ah, there it is. An odd scar, in the shape of a lightning bolt nestled in the middle of his forehead. Renato wonders how the boy got it, since it's such a strange shape, but it doesn't matter. After tonight, this boy will be dead.
He cocks his gun.
It is a warm night, which is not unusual during this time of the year. Maybe that's why it startles him when sunset green eyes snap open and the whole world burns.
When he comes to, barely a minute has gone by. But in his line of work, a lot can happen in a minute. A lot of people can be dead before the last second of a minute falls.
Renato grips his gun tighter, jaw clenching as his emotions rage. Quickly, he rattles off in his mind a check of himself and his surroundings. He is still standing beside the bed, his muscles locked and uncooperative. He has received no injuries. He has not been eliminated, even as he stood there slack-jawed as his target woke up.
His target, who just watched him silently as Renato breathed through the confusion and distress and horrified awe, because the boy in front of him has to be the strongest Sky he's ever felt, and now there is a bond between them.
"Fuck," he croaks, tongue heavy in his mouth that's as dry as a desert. He didn't even know it was possible to harmonize this quickly, to form a guardian bond just by meeting eyes. Harmonization was supposed to be a dance, a courtship between the element and the sky, and Renato bonded with him within a second.
He wants to doubt himself, doubt their bond, but it feels weighty and real underneath his sternum, burning.
Renato flicks the safety back on and shoves his gun away, because there is no way he is killing his Sky.
Fuck, he has a Sky.
Even Luce, the Sky Arcobaleno, had failed to tie him down, and now he's tied to a boy who doesn't look past his teens.
"Fuck," he says again, for lack of anything else, and takes a shaky step back. He runs gloved fingers through his hair, dislodging his fedora. It falls to the ground with a quiet thud, and he realizes just how silent the room is.
His Sky is just watching him, green-orange-green eyes blinking sleepily up at him. It's not a reaction that Renato would expect from a civilian, especially when he had just had a gun against his head. For one, he had expected a lot more screaming and crying. But his Sky is just lying there, not even pushing himself upwards to a seating position, looking like nothing daunts him.
It makes sense that Renato's Sky would be this unfazed over mortal peril.
He takes a deep breath, and crouches by the boy's head. Those eyes, glowing in the dark of his room, follow his movement drowsily. Maybe the boy thinks this is just a dream, Renato thinks a bit ruefully, before biting off another curse.
He definitely hasn't made a good impression so far, no need to throw a tantrum. That can come after, when he is alone and there is no sudden harmonization from a civilian teenager.
"I am sorry to startle you," he begins in Spanish, lowering his voice to a soothing tone. He doesn't know why his Sky hasn't panicked and screamed at the sight of a strange man in his room, but he will take whatever mercies he can get.
A furrow appears between his Sky's eyebrows, and those lovely eyes blink at him in confusion.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he continues, raising his hands palm up slowly to show he means no harm.
At that, the teen shifts his head back listlessly, and parts his lips. Renato is slightly distracted by the way a pink tongue flicks out and wets those lips, but he stiffens when the boy's words reach him.
"Aren't you going to kill me?" his Sky asks, voice so soft Renato strains to catch them.
He is shaking his head before he can help it, swallowing heavily.
"No, no I won't. Of course not, mio Cielo, I won't harm you," he says a bit roughly. God, it serves him right to have such an airheaded sky with not a single bone of self-preservation. Renato will have to train him to not go with the flow, to fight back or scream or do something other than ask an unfamiliar man who had a gun to his head if they were gonna kill him. God.
His Sky scrunches up his nose in consternation at that.
"Aren't you the hitman Reborn?"
Renato freezes, because from the profile he had gotten, this teenager is supposed to be a civilian. And civilians don't know about him. He is only famous in certain circles, only famous in the underground. His Sky should not know who he is, should not accurately deduce his name from the shape of his body and the tone of his voice in this darkened room.
"How do you know who I am?" he asks, managing to keep his voice level. If his Sky is not a civilian, if he is affiliated to a famiglia, then Renato will finally be chained. He has spent decades avoiding ties, closing off his flames from greedy Skies who wanted to bring the World's Greatest Hitman to heel. He will not abandon his Sky if that is the case here, but there will be resentment all the same.
He had thought that this assignment was too easy, that a hit against a teenaged civilian was a waste of his talents. But while he is not lacking in funds, the pay had been well above average, and he had nothing better to do. This is the first job he's taken since his body finally stopped growing from his infant size, and he had thought this would be a good warm-up.
He had been too confident, and barely checked over the job. He had thought no one would ever have the guts to screw him over. And now, he is tied to a Sky who is definitely not a civilian, who might have been the bait to lure Renato into working for a famiglia.
His Sky watches him behind heavy lashes, and stirs slowly underneath his blankets.
When he speaks, it is with a weary, empty tone that sets Renato on edge.
"Because I was the one to hire you. Now, hitman Reborn, aren't you going to kill me? I already paid you after all," his Sky says dully, and Renato feels his breath stutter in his chest.
"What?" he bites out, mind whirling.
Oh god, Renato thinks dazedly, this is so much worse than he thought.
Harry didn't realize it, at first, that something had changed within him. After the Battle at Hogwarts, he had rolled up his sleeves and helped gather the bodies and stood by while parents, siblings, friends, searched the dead faces for someone they knew. Then he had dusted off his dress robes, attending funeral after funeral, giving speeches, and clasping hands with the few survivors.
Everything was a blur of tears and grief and bone-weary relief, because the war was over.
After a while, people stopped talking about the struggles they faced under Voldemort, and people started opening their windows and going on with their lives. Diagon Alley was slowly being filled by new sounds and new shops, business booming once more now that people didn't need to hurry home and hide. Hogwarts was repaired with a few wards and spells, goblins and wizards working together to strengthen the foundations. The dead were not forgotten, but the living laid them to rest in their graves and remembered them fondly.
Hermione went back to Hogwarts for her eighth year, eager to make up for lost time. Ron was inducted straight into Auror Corps, requirements being waived by Kingsley who was made Minister. The rest of the Weasleys went on with their lives, and the Order of the Phoenix and the DA were disbanded happily.
Harry quietly faded into the background even with the exultant cries of "Savior" and "Man-Who-Conquered" by the people. He shook off Hermione's worried nagging, Ron's cheery brusqueness, and packed his bags.
Britain had begun to feel like a cage, like a cupboard under the stairs with only a small grill for light and air. And Harry couldn't stand it anymore.
Ever since he fell to the Killing Curse in the forest, he had felt that something was wrong. He had woken up one day, when the funerals had tapered off, and realized that he felt empty, like his skin was too loose on his frame, like he was wearing Dudley's cast-offs instead of flesh. It felt like a part of him died, and didn't come back to life when he did. There was a hole in his chest, between his lungs, and it burned even when the rest of him felt cold as ice. It was fire, in his lungs and in his throat, and he was drowning.
He left a note with Kreacher in case anyone went looking for him, but he was done with Britain. He had to get out.
He wandered the different countries, keeping to the muggle side to avoid detection. He watched sunsets in Egypt, observed the paintings in French museums, dined in small booths in China. He went wherever his feet led him, eyes heavy and chest burning. He slept under soft blankets in five-star hotels and he slept under the stars, curled up on the ground in isolated forests.
Harry had spent seventeen years with a burden. He had lived ten years with a motley of bruises on his skin, his name and legacy scarred by a bitter woman and a violent man. And he had lived the next seven years hunched over, waiting for the shoe to drop and throwing himself into danger, being lead expertly to his death by a man he trusted.
Harry did not know how to live.
So he wanders, and wanders.
And when the years pass and he stays the same, broken with war-torn shoulders and still looking like the same seventeen-year-old who walked to his death, he realizes that he doesn't know how to die either.
He doesn't believe it at first. He throws himself off cliffs, hangs himself, slits his wrists, drinks bleach. When he wakes gasping, wounds healed and body sore, he thinks of his mother and his father and Sirius and Remus smiling at him, telling him that dying was quicker than falling asleep.
Liar, he laughs, buys a gun, and shoots himself. When his eyes spring open, the bullet falls out of his head, smelling of metal and rust.
It doesn't even scar.
The years blur, and the sights and sounds he had been eager to look at right after the war grates on him now. Everything is too loud, too bright, too strong. His skin feels like fire. People stare at him, their hands reaching out to him, and he has to keep moving or else they call out to him. With every person that tries to cling to him, his chest burns more and more, and it leaves him gasping and vomiting into porcelain bowls and shivering in bathrooms. It makes him want to crack open his ribcage and scoop out the fire scorching him from within.
He tries not to speak with another person for years- their faces all blur together until the only emotion in his mouth is irritation.
He wants to be alone.
He ends up hiding in a small cottage he wards to the teeth. He wraps himself in blankets, touches his aching chest, and tries to sleep away the anger brewing under his skin.
And when he blinks awake, he finds that a hundred years have passed.
Freak, the voices that sound like the Dursleys rattling between his ears. You're a freak.
Harry is not dead, but everyone he knows in the Wizarding World, everyone who survived the war, is now buried with those that didn't. He is the only one left. The irritation that had driven him to sleep has faded; a century of sleep has robbed him of any other emotion aside from resignation.
He is so, so tired.
Harry has never learned how to live. He realizes that he doesn't need to, not if he learns how to die. So he searches for hired killers, people who have perfected the art of ensuring the dead stay dead.
And when he comes across a man with the title the World's Greatest Hitman, he feels a sliver of hope. Maybe, he thinks, blood thrumming sluggishly under his inhuman skin, maybe this time.
For the first time in over a hundred years, he moves with a purpose. He goes through the different places he has been to, and finds a house in a town in Spain that he had enjoyed, before (before the bleeding wrists and the bullets in his brain and the Killing Curse to his heart, time and time and time again). He settles easily into the house, sending off the assassination request and payment, and patiently waits in his room. Like before, he falls asleep, and wishes he doesn't wake.
But he does, and the burning in his chest that he had been feeling ever since he first woke up from his death in the forest crescendos. It is different from the times people forced themselves on him and he ended up with bile rising up his throat. This time, it feels nothing but warmth and soft sweaters and coffee in quiet mornings, but Harry has been waiting for death for more than a century. He does not know how to live- so he will choose death. What does it matter anyway, if he feels homesafetypeace in his last moments?
He will not be distracted.
"Aren't you going to kill me?" he says, and his voice is soft and hoarse from disuse. His heart is pounding loudly, eagerly. Please, he almost says, but he doesn't.
And when the hitman Reborn says he will not kill him, he almost cries.
His hands have never shaken like this. Renato is a professional; he has trained and worked every single muscle in his body to function at the highest optimum level.
Even during his first kill, even when his mother died in front of him, even when he first activated his flames and was thrust into a hungry, bloodthirsty world of the mafia, his hands have remained steady.
Distantly, he sees his shaking hands reach for his Sky's shoulders. He doesn't know what he's going to do once he's holding them, but the contact, even with a blanket as a buffer, grounds him.
His Sky is alive.
Flesh and bones and blood in his veins and air in his lungs. His Sky is alive.
Renato has time to dissuade his Sky from his foolish suicidal thoughts. He has time.
"What, exactly, were you thinking, mio Cielo?" he manages to ask, and his fingers grip bony shoulders and his gaze looks into empty eyes. He is alive, Renato screams in his mind, and steadies his breathing. He gentles his tone, and gentles his grip when he realizes how much the teen is going to bruise. "Why did you hire someone to kill you?"
His Sky narrows his eyes and looks at him like he is stupid, and Renato can't even get angry because there is still panic swirling in his gut and the moonlight catches on his eyes and makes the amber flecks in his green eyes shine.
"So that I'll die," he replies slowly, as if it's the most logical conclusion to hire Reborn of all people to assist in a suicide.
Renato ignores the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and calmly breaths through his clenched teeth.
"And why do you want to die, tesoro? You are young, and if there is anything or anyone bothering you, I'll gladly go and kill them for you," he says, trying to keep the desperation and hysteria from his tone. From the wide-eyed startled look on his Sky's face, he doesn't succeed.
Fuck, is this what harmony feels like? Because if he loses his Sky, Renato doesn't think he'll be sane for much longer. Even with his Sky parading his alarming suicidal tendencies, the bond between them is getting stronger and stronger. It almost feels like it is humming under his skin, and warmth is curling up in his belly even as terror chills his spine. He quickly thinks back to the empty kitchen he saw, the cold living room with nothing in it. His eyes roam over the bruises under his Sky's eyes, the way his skin looks pale and gaunt that tells of months (years, maybe, he thinks in horror) of listless abandon. The way green eyes looked at him dully, pupils overblown and lazy, and how slow the teen moved, as if his body felt too heavy. Fuck.
His Sky frowns, blinking at him like he couldn't believe what's in front of him. (Renato knows the feeling.) Slowly, he finally gets up, letting the blankets pool at his waist and Renato's hands fall from his shoulders.
"You're being very unprofessional, you know. I researched for a long time and everyone I asked said you're the best hitman. So I picked you and now you're saying you're not going to do what I paid you for?" the teen mutters plaintively, fingers fiddling with the loose threads on his blanket.
There is a pressure building behind his eyes, and Renato finally gives in to the urge to massage his temples. "I'll refund you, mio Cielo," he sighs, before eyeing the mulish expression on the other and frowning. "And don't even think about hiring other hitmen to kill you. I'll kill them all before they even reach you," he threatens.
His Sky just looks at him, and for a moment, he thinks that the teen will finally burst into tears. But instead, he just flops back onto his bed, and curls up under his blankets.
The frown on his face has smoothed to a barely-there pout, and his Sky looks at him through half-lidded eyes.
"Of course you'd be one of those people who seem obsessed with me," his Sky whines softly, burying his nose in his sheets and blinking at Renato in reproach.
Renato has to breathe through that revelation, because it sounds remarkably like Sky attraction. But he can't feel any other guardian bonds, so the teen must have been running ever since he activated his ridiculously pure flames.
How long has he been running, Renato wonders, and feels his heart clench at the thought of his Sky young and confused, backing away from people who would force a bond and just be found wanting by his Sky flames, hurting them both with the rejection.
"Mio Cielo-" he begins softly, only to be interrupted.
"Why do you keep calling me that? 'My Sky' and 'treasure' in Italian?" the teen asks, a hint of a grumble settling between the words.
So he really is a civilian, if he doesn't understand why people flock to him like moths to a flame, and why Renato is calling him a Sky. Renato wants to curse again, because from his dealings with his former student, civilians don't deal well with learning about Flames and the mafia. This is going to be a long talk.
Swallowing, he reaches with his hand, keeping his expression open. Those green eyes must have seen the hidden plea in the contours of his face, because his Sky sighs mightily before extracting one arm from his blankets and resting his fingers lightly on Renato's palm.
The skin to skin contact feels like a punch to the gut. It is only because of his professionalism that he doesn't whimper, but it is a near thing. God, he's never felt anything like this before. He has to shake his head slightly as it is, to let the chant of minehomesafetypeaceminemine fade from his ears. When he is sure that his voice is under control, he makes himself comfortable at the side of the bed and gives his Sky a crooked grin.
His Sky might want to die, and might have used the most unconventional way to do so, but Renato has always been stubborn. What's his will be his, and even if he's not a Cloud, his possessiveness has always been strong. And now that he's finally found homeminelovewarmth, he's not going to let this go. Renato is the World's Greatest Hitman, after all, and he's always been best at solving problems.
Even if he's not as well-versed with depression and suicide, for his Sky, for his home, he can learn.
"Tell me, mio Cielo, what do you know about Flames?"