A/N: Hey guys, this is just a gift for DearCat for being the 100th reviewer on 'Sending Out Flares' over on Ao3.

I'm going to try and get the next chapter of the main story done tomorrow, but keep an eye out for some other side stories as I have ideas. Also, if you have any requests of scenes you want to see, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Hope you all enjoy!

Sometimes, Renato really hated his job.

It wasn't often, but the thought was there, rearing its head from time to time whenever he had been sent on a particularly troublesome or messy mission. He may have been the world's greatest hitman, but even he had bad days.

To be fair, he had known that the whole thing was going to be a wash almost as soon as he had set out. No matter how many times he had to stare into his little Sky's pleading gaze as he walked out the door, it never got any easier, but this time it had been…

Harry had cried. Audibly.

One of the first things they had ever learned of the boy's personality was that their little one did not like drawing attention to himself. Sure he would always be ready to demand hugs or physical affection on a daily basis, but that was when he was happy. The last time the boy had felt vulnerable, scared that he would be punished for breaking a plate when he had been attempting to help set the table for dinner, it had taken several hours, and many of Viper's Mist constructs, before they had managed to find him curled up under his bed, so tightly withdrawn that he had even managed to hide his Flame presence from them.

It had taken the hallway light catching on his tear streaked face once Skull had pulled him out for them to realise he was crying.

After that, they had worked tirelessly to get their Sky to relax in their presence, but even then, the chocked sobs that had rocked the boy had been a completely new experience.

Pulling away had hurt more than he had anticipated, but Renato was a professional. A professional who could not let the rest of the Mafia know that he had been bonded to this defenceless baby Sky, no matter how good the rest of his Guardians were. So he had left.

Now, covered in gun powder residue, blood (some of it his own) and grime, having been shot at, stabbed and thrown through a damned window…. He really wished he hadn't.

"Just one quick job. It's got a good reward and you'll be home the same day. What's the harm?"

He was going to throw Colonnello out of a third story window, into a tree, in winter, see how he liked it. The only bright side he could see about the whole thing was that it was raining hard enough that he would probably be clean by the time he reached the Villa. No sense in appearing in front of the innocent baby Sky like something out of a third rate horror film.

And he was walking the three miles back to the villa. Had he mentioned that? Yeah, apparently cars didn't do too well once they'd had a tire shot out.

So this was him; Renato Sinclair.

World's Greatest Himan.

Walking Home.

In the rain…

Yes, sometimes he really hated his job.

If it wasn't for the fact he had a cute little boy waiting for him back home, a cute little boy who had a desperate grip on his Flames even now, a cute little boy who would probably be very disappointed if he didn't return when he said he would (and dear God, he could not deal with tears right now), he probably would have given up on the villa and just crashed somewhere in town for the night. Alas, that was not to be, so a night of trudging through the growing mud puddles it was.

When he finally reached the villa he wasn't too surprised to see the whole place dark. All of the others had been called away on jobs of their own at various points until it had just been the three of them, Harry, Skull and Renato himself, staying in the building. In hindsight, that was probably why the child had cried so hard. He would have cried too had he been left alone with the circus reject of a Cloud. Still, it was late and the house was dark which probably meant that Harry was asleep. He didn't know how he felt about that.

Moving as quietly as he could in his wrung out state, the Sun slowly eased the front door open, shaking off some of the surface water as he slipped into the entrance hall. Unfortunately the house seemed to be against him (just like everything today) and not two steps into the building, his soaked dress shoe let out a loud squeak on the marble floor. He froze for a moment, listening for a reaction, but when none came, he just toed off his traitorous footwear before moving deeper into the house.

When he managed to reach his room without encountering the baby Sky or the hyperactive Cloud, Renato finally relaxed. It took him 20 minutes to regret that decision.

He had just finished in the shower and had been in the process of putting on his pyjamas when an ear splitting scream tore through the silence of the house. The Sun didn't even have time to think as he snatched up his gun from where he'd dropped it on the bed and launched himself down the stairs. The sound had come from the west facing living room and, while he could technically reach it from the entrance way, he chose to go the roundabout route, slipping through the kitchen like just another shadow as he slowly made his way to the open French doors before freezing just off to the side.

This close, he could hear two people speaking in the room. A man and a woman that he didn't recognise. It sounded like they were arguing but they were being too quiet for him to make out individual words. Still, they were intruders, and Renato had his baby Sky asleep just up stairs. He flipped the safety off.

Bracing himself against the cold tiled wall, the Hitman prepared himself to slip, unseen into the room only for another scream to ring out making his blood run cold. That was Harry!

Throwing all caution to the wind he spun into the room, gun coming up to focus on… nothing. There was nothing in the room except for a giant mound of pillows and blankets piled up on the floor and in the middle were Skull and Harry staring transfixed on the blank and white movie in front of them.

In one part of his mind he realised that the two of them must have raided the linen cupboard to get the walls of their nest that high. The rest of him was more focused on the fact that he, an armed and very dangerous person, had just launched himself into the vicinity of their Sky and the moronic Cloud hadn't even twitched.

Allowing his agitated Flames to bleed into the air around him, Renato calmly aimed his gun right at the civilian's head.

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

The two in the blanket nest flinched, just as the man on screen chucked a little girl into a river. Was that Frankenstein? He could feel his left eye start to twitch. At least the completely terrified look that Skull sent his way was enough to sooth his ego, if only a little

"Ah Senpai! When did you get back?"

Why had he thought that this man would be a suitable baby-sitter again? Just because he had the mental age of a five year old it clearly didn't mean that he knew how to take care of one.

"A while ago. Now I repeat. What. Are. You. Doing?"

He really shouldn't have been so angry that the Stuntman hadn't felt him enter. Skull was not Mafia, and Renato had been trying very hard not to draw attention to himself, but he had had a very bad day and frankly, if he had been an enemy, both the Cloud and their Sky would have been dead right now. Just let him have this.

"Ah, well, you see. Chibi-chan was upset so we built a forte!"

"…Why?"

"Because it's impossible to feel sad when you're surrounded by pillows ne?"

God help him, he was surrounded by idiots.

"And Frankenstein?"

"It's a classic! Everyone has to know the classics! I'm broadening Chibi-chan's horizons!"

"It's a horror movie."

"Yeah, but the special effects are terrible and it's fun to laugh at."

"He's five."

With every word he had been moving closer to the mess of blankets on the floor coming to a stop just as his bare foot brushed against something far too fluffy. The Sky, who had miraculously missed everything that had just happened, as engrossed in the film as he was, obviously felt the vibration through the padding and his head snapped up, a broad grin filling his face as he recognized just who was standing above him.

"Ren, you're home!"

And damnit, he was trying to be angry. How was he supposed to keep the irritation at the front of his mind when those star bright Flames launched themselves at him, curling around his Sun in a way that made him want to melt into the puddle of blankets before him. Behind the boy, he could see Skull sigh in relief and he felt like shooting the Cloud on principal. Using Harry as a shield was cheating. Still, those wide verdant eyes were still fixed on him waiting for a response.

"Hello Tesoro, how was your day with Skull?"

That was enough of a prompt for the boy to begin babbling, words spilling out of his mouth so fast that Renato, a master of over ten different languages, had trouble deciphering them. Absently, he moved ruffle the boy's hair (they had all grown used to unconscious affection since meeting the touch-starved Sky child) only for the boy to freeze in horror. Instincts piqued, Renato straightened up and followed the child's line of sight... right to the small stab wound he had received to his ribs that morning. He never had managed to finish buttoning his sleep shirt.

The wound was a little thing and, to be perfectly honest, he had forgotten it was there. With his Sun Flames, the chance of infection or poison being a problem was minimal and when he had found that it had stopped bleeding while he was in the shower, he had paid it no mind. It would be gone in a day or two so it wasn't anything worth treating. From the look on his Sky's face, you would have thought he'd had his stomach ripped open.

"It's nothing little one, don't worry about it."

He tried to pull the edges of his shirt together, hoping that the old adage 'out of sight, out of mind' would ring true, only for his hands to be caught in a pair of much smaller ones.

"You're bleeding!"

"No I'm not, it's stopped see?"

"But it looks like it 'urts."

And the boy was lisping his words again, something he only did when truly distressed. That, coupled with the determined glint in the boy's eyes had him folding like a house of cards. Giving the monstrosity on the floor another half-hearted glare, he moved so that he was kneeling next to the boy.

"Okay Tesoro, what should I do to make it better."

The boy looked thoughtful for a second before;

"I kiss it better!"

Off to the side he could hear Skull choke at that, but he ignored the Cloud's sudden coughing fit. Instead he kept his eyes fixed on the boy who had moved to sit on his knee, an amber ring starting to glow around his pupils. Damned stubborn Sky, how was he supposed to say no to that face?

"Alright."

As soon as the word was out of his mouth, the boy ducked down, pressing a quick kiss to the mostly scabbed skin before darting back up again. But that wasn't all. Instead of just patiently enduring the eccentricities of youth, Renato was left reeling at the surge of Sky Flames that wrapped around his own, moving to fix the wound before draping all over him like a pleased cat. In his lap, the boy just grinned, a smugness practically bleeding off of him in waves. If Renato wasn't so tipsy off of the Sky Flames right now he would do something about that.

Actually…

Looping his arms around the boy's waist, the Sun suddenly flopped to the side. The mounds of blankets made the landing soft so he was able to just lie there and snuggle with his giggling Sky. He had to admit, this was actually pretty comfortable.

From this new position, he couldn't see Skull, but he could hear the Cloud whining and attempting to get the boy's attention back onto himself. In the background, a shrill scream sounded from the television. He tuned it all out.

Now that he was here, back in his territory, warm and clean, happy Sky Flames buzzing in his arms and a gentler than normal Cloud Flames brushing against his own… the adrenaline rush faded and the earlier exhaustion quickly caught up with him.

In the morning he would have to clean this all up. The blankets would have to be put away. The furniture would have to be returned to its proper place and Skull would have to be instructed on the proper care and management of a five year old, but for now he would let it be. The Stuntman was right: it's impossible to be sad when surrounded by pillows. Though bubbling Sky Flames helped out too.

Instead, he was just going to have to settle for pulling the boy even closer, tucking the lads head under his chin as the child snuggled into him, arms coming up to cling like a baby Kola.

Yes, Renato really hated his job sometimes, but right now? He really loved his life.