Reborn is curled up in the bathtub, fully dressed and sitting in about two inches of water. He's on the third floor of a five storey apartment building and everything is quite literally burning down around him.

He had to shut off the tap after soaking his clothes because the water comes out boiling hot now. Actually, everything is really hot. Reborn is sweating so much but it's evaporating off his skin even faster. He needs to leave before his clothes dry too much.

But how does he leave? The bathroom has no window, the hallway outside collapsed right down to the second floor which pushed him into the bathroom in the first place, and fucking everything is on fire.

The ceiling is on fire, bright orange licking through and about to crumple inwards at any moment and crush Reborn underneath. There's about half a meter of dark smoke clinging to the ceiling because hot air rises, except Reborn want to die from smoke inhalation rather than being burned alive so if maybe the smoke could come down, that'd be great.

Reborn taps the gun he's clutching to his chest. He needs to get rid of it soon. If it gets hot it'll burn him, if it catches on fire the bullets will go off. Maybe Reborn should kill himself. Reborn doesn't want to but he's just being logical here. Instant death or slow and painful? One neat hole or flesh melting off?

Reborn's gun slips a bit in his slack hands, eyes half closing. He's dizzy. It's too hot.

The stupid thing is that Reborn walked into this place when it was already on fire. The apartment that he's in right now is the safe house of a very important police detective who has lots of blackmail on both the Mafia and the INTERPOL, who doused everything in petrol and set it alight the moment he caught a hint of the safe house being discovered.

Reborn has a file stuffed inside his suit jacket now, not that he can give it to the other Arcobaleno. Yeah, he could have thrown it out of the kitchen window as soon as he laid eyes on it but he thought he could make it out through the stairs instead.

Even Reborn is wrong sometimes.

Reborn is still being wrong right now, staring at the burning bathroom door and waiting expectantly for the other Arcobaleno to come get him. It's a failed mission if they don't get the files Reborn has, but no one is going to care enough about it to run into a burning building.

They've probably gone back to the manor already. Maybe firefighters will come rescue him and Reborn can swoon into the arms of some pretty men.

Maybe Reborn will burn alive hiding in a bathtub.

He hopes he passes out soon.

The room is spinning.

He hopes his corpse isn't too ugly.

It's hard to breathe.

He really, really hopes his Sun flames don't keep him alive.

Everything is so hot.

Make it a quick death at least.

Reborn opens his eyes and then closes them. "Satan, why are you Chinese?" he rasps.

Fon clicks his tongue, patting Reborn's hospital blanket into place over the hitman's chest and straightening up. His bandaged fingers disappear back into his large sleeves. "Hello to you to, Reborn. I'm glad to see you awake."

Reborn peeks out into the private room. It's night-time, judging by the darkness outside the half closed curtain. He can see familiar buildings in the distance, so he's pretty sure he knows what hospital this is. He has nose tubes for oxygen and there's a little plastic clip on his finger for heartbeat as well as an IV needle for fluids. His flames feel tired. Must have used it all up.

Colonnello is passed out in a plastic chair at the bedside, stretched out with his arms crossed on the bed and his head resting on top. He's quietly snoring away near Reborn's hip, shirtless because his entire back is covered in some kind of membrane to protect the charred black skin.

Lal is slumped back in her chair next to Colonnello, also sleeping with a blanket over her and a large bandage wrapped around half of her face.

Verde is sitting at the small round table at the foot of the bed, tapping away at his laptop with a metal clipboard open beside it.

"Is that my hospital file?" Reborn complains. "Verde, go away. Don't look."

"You're allergic to bananas," Verde muses.

Reborn struggles quite a bit to even sit up considering his body is largely numb and Viper is curled up over his legs.

"Don't move too much," Fon says, pushing Reborn right back down. "I'll get your file, don't make a fuss."

There's a short tug of war and Verde quickly loses. Reborn slides his hand across the bed and lightly touches Colonnello's elbow, pushing in as much Sun flames as he can muster right now. Fon returns with the clipboard and Reborn hides it under his pillow.

"Fon?"

"Hm?"

"Am I ugly now?"

Viper groans, rolling over and rubbing their face against Reborn's shin. "Shhh, I'm trying to sleep."

Fon ignores Viper and smiles softly at Reborn. "No, you're very handsome."

Reborn finally has the courage to touch his face. No scars or burns. "Did the pretty firefighters carry me out?"

Fon raises an eyebrow. "Do you not remember? Skull said you were conscious when he found you."

"I survived the whole building burning out?" Reborn guesses, rather impressed with himself. He's glad he doesn't remember that.

"Not exactly," Fon corrects. "Skull went in to get you. He dressed you up in his clothes since the bike suit is flame retardant for his stunts, and then just carried you out."

"The lackey can't carry me," Reborn argues. He's jumped on Skull before and the man went down like a bag of bricks. Not exactly a surprise considering how big Reborn is.

Said lackey opens the door with a hug bag of takeaway in his arms. "Oh! You woke up!"

"Look!" Reborn insists, pointing at Skull. "If I was in his clothes then why isn't he horrifically scarred?"

"I was," Skull says easily, trotting over. "Then I got better." He dumps the bag on the bed and leans over to squeeze Reborn in a hug.

Reborn stares at Skull's ear, which is the closest thing to him. There are supposed to be five piercings running down the outside cuff, but now there's a jagged trail of sunken flesh split open by what looks to have been molten metal bleeding straight through. It's solidified into the wound now, keeping Skull's ear twisted and deformed. They'll have to cut it out later.

"You can't carry me," Reborn says quietly.

Skull pulls backs and blinks. "Of course I can. You weigh much less than my bike."

"You should have left me, I would have been fine," Reborn lies. "I was enjoying my bath."

Skull sits on the bed, trying to stifle a smile. "You were so cute when I found you. I mean you were delirious and suffocating but so cute. You kept saying that everything would be okay because you'd protect me."

"I don't remember that happening."

"Yeah, because you were half dead."

"No, I think you're a liar."

"I don't lie, senpai! I very clearly remember-"

Viper kicks Skull off the bed. "Shut up! Does no one see me sleeping - is that food?" Viper sits up on Reborn's knees and drags the bag of food towards them.

"I can't feel my legs," Reborn points out.

Viper scoffs. "Cry me a river."

Lal's eyes flutter open at all the commotion and then she jerks up to her feet, bumping Colonnello who also startles awake. Reborn quickly snatches his hand back before the blond notices.

"Reborn," Lal sighs in relief. "You're fine. Do you need anything? Does anything hurt? Viper, why the fuck are you sitting on him?!"

Viper jabs a burger in Lal direction. "He's a Sun! He fucking glows when he sleeps! He's not going to break." Viper voice hitches a little on the last word and they clear their throat roughly.

Colonnello holds Reborn's face with bandaged hands that can't even move properly from how burned they are, tears welling up in baby blue eyes. "The stairs were blocked, I couldn't even get up to the second level. Next time just jump out of the damn window, I'll catch you."

"I'm fine," Reborn soothes, patting the blond's bandaged hands gently. "Calm down, be more like Verde."

Skull sits up on the floor where he was kicked down, propping his chin on the mattress. "Verde was freaking the fuck out. He punched the nurse who messed up your IV needle."

Reborn blinks. "Was it a male or a female nurse?"

Verde huffs. "I don't see what difference it makes."

"Don't punch any kind of nurse," Colonnello berates. "Either way, Viper only came later and had to do a lot of Mist work to stop people from calling the police."

"Okay," Reborn begins slowly. "I mean it was a little fire, I would have been fine no matter what."

Reborn says this despite being a hundred percent certain he was going to die. But he's a hitman and a Sun so he doesn't want to be dramatic or anything.

Fon's smile wavers. "Little fire? You were already dead when Skull brought you out. CPR worked but your heart stopped three more times on the way to hospital. The burns healed up but they were still third-degree."

Reborn goes still. "Was I ugly?" he jokes again because what is he supposed to say to that?

Fon visibly softens. "Of course not. You're always the most beautiful person in the room."

If Reborn has to go out under nature, he wants it to be drowning that finally does him in. At least then people won't get hurt if they decide they want to come get him.