Work Text:
It was early in the morning as Iruka made his way to work marveling at the light snowflakes drifting through the air. Snow hadn’t been seen in Konoha since he was young so it was a rare sight to see. He was sure it wouldn’t last once the day warmed with the sun, but it was still beautiful to watch as the snow fell around him.
Halfway to the academy he noticed three familiar forms waiting on the side of the road.
“Iruka-sensei!” Naruto yelled as he dashed towards Iruka with a hug. If Naruto grew any bigger he was likely to knock Iruka down one day.
“It’s nice to see you too,” Iruka returned the hug and continued towards his other two former students.
“Good Morning, Iruka-sensei,” Sakura greeted him as he approached.
Sasuke gave a rather typical nod, but stayed silent as ever.
Iruka looked around, “What are you all doing out here in the cold?”
Naruto’s face fell, and Iruka noticed the slip in Sakura’s smile before she responded, “Kakashi-sensei said to meet him here.”
“An hour ago…” Naruto amended.
Iruka looked at each of them. Not one of them was properly dressed for the cold. Maybe that was part of the lesson that Kakashi wanted to teach them, but they were still young and their immune systems were not as robust as higher ranked shinobi like Kakashi.
Naruto, with the fox inside him probably barely even noticed the cold, although even if he did he had the most coverage clothing wise. Sasuke looked like he had managed a jutsu to keep himself warm with a bit of circulating chakra; it was rather advanced for his age, but that was never a surprise with the last Uchiha. Then there was Sakura. She looked like she was trying to hide that the cold was affecting her. There was the barest shake to her voice as she reminded Naruto not to criticize their team leader, even if Kakashi deserved it.
Looking around Iruka could feel eyes on them, a hint that maybe Kakashi was nearby watching his charges. Iruka knew he had to get on his way even if he wanted to stay with them until Kakashi decided to make an appearance. Instead he took off his scarf and wrapped it around Sakura.
“Keep yourselves warm, I’m sure Kakashi will be along soon,” Iruka said with a glance in the direction he thought Kakashi was sitting.
He waved to the kids before continuing on his way.
Kakashi watched Iruka walk away, not liking the guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Why should he feel guilty for testing the kids? It was part of their learning to know when to bring the right materials, even for simple missions.
Still he found himself leaving his perch a little earlier than he’d planned to. Kakashi listened to Naruto trying to chide him for being late, while Sakura chided Naruto for his inappropriate behavior with a superior, and Sasuke stayed quiet; no indication whether Sasuke was more on Naruto or Sakura’s side.
“Today we’re going to be cleaning up training grounds 2, 7, and 15.”
Kakashi could see Sasuke flinch, and the fallen look on Sakura’s face, but it was the groan from Naruto that spoke loud enough for all of them.
“Come on, one day you’ll be the one’s ruining the training grounds, so you need to understand how much work it is to keep them clean,” Kakashi said, shuffling them along their way.
That statement seemed to at least perk Naruto up as he blabbered on about how strong he would be one day when he was the Hokage.
As the day went on the snow started to get stronger, covering up the work that they’d done, but cleaning that up would be the next person’s job.
When they made it to the last training grounds even Kakashi’s heart sank at the sight.
This one was quite a mess and the kids were starting to wear out with their lack of cold weather preparation. Kakashi knew this was something he could fix with a single jutsu, but he didn’t want to make it look like they’d been doing work for nothing.
“Go home, it’s too cold for you all to be out here safely. I’ll go handle it with the mission room and let them know we had to stop because of the unusual weather.”
The kids looked at each other. “We can do it, I know we complain, but we can finish it,” Sakura spoke for them all.
“I know you can, but it’s also part of my job to take care of you. To teach you when to stop.”
They seemed to think on that for a moment, but accepted Kakashi’s reasoning.
“Ok, thank you. We’ll see you tomorrow,” Sakura waved as she and Sasuke started to walk away.
“Make sure to have warm clothes if it’s still snowing,” Kakashi reminded them, not wanting them to be ill-prepared for a second day in a row.
“Bye, Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto yelled as he ran to catch up with his teammates.
Kakashi waited until they were out of sight before he started his work. He didn’t want them all to fail a mission even though they did most of the work, everything was a team effort in the end.
With a few hand signs Kakashi planted his hands on the ground and the dirt shook until it leveled out and then compacted down, evening out the sparring surface around him. He looked around seeing the job done and made his way to the mission office to turn in the paperwork.
When he got into the room he noticed the warm friendly face of Iruka smiling at another shinobi as they talked about something unimportant. Kakashi looked around the room, realizing that Iruka was the only one behind the desk today; not that Kakashi was trying to avoid him…
As he made his way up to Iruka’s desk it felt like the golden smile turned to something more tentative.
Kakashi silently handed Iruka the sheet for his review.
“Your team isn’t with you?” Iruka asked after reading the sheet that said it was a Team 7 mission.
“I sent them home. It was starting to get too cold for them, so I finished up the mission to make sure their hard work wouldn’t go unrewarded.”
Kakashi watched the emotion pass on Iruka’s face. He was mediocre at reading emotions in social situations, but between mission training and Iruka’s rather emotive face it was obvious that Iruka was now feeling guilty over his earlier thoughts.
“That’s good of you,” Iruka said as he stamped the approval on the mission report. “Thank you for your hard work.”
Kakashi nodded and turned on his way. He felt eyes on him and glanced back to see Iruka watching him with a befuddled look, but let it go and continued towards home.
Iruka saw Kakashi turn towards him, though it was only a moment before he left Iruka alone in the quiet mission room.
With the surprise snow most of the desk team had been conscripted to clear paths for civilian safety and left Iruka to manage the room alone. Normally he wouldn’t mind but when he saw Kakashi walk in he couldn’t help his hackles rise at the man’s presence today. He hadn’t gotten a chance to see how long Kakashi made the kids stand out in the cold, but the fact that he’d been there watching upset Iruka.
Hearing that Kakashi had sent Team 7 home early and even finished the mission by himself made Iruka second guess himself though.
Had he been upset over nothing?
Iruka didn’t have long to think about it as people started to flood into the mission room with an unexpected evening rush that took him well into the next shift to help clear. He was glad when the new team showed up a little early to help with the slightly disgruntled shinobi that were struggling to understand why they had to wait so long, until they noticed that Iruka was the lone person on the other side of the desk.
After passing off everything to the next team, Iruka made his way outside. It was chillier than he’d expected, but also with the loss of his scarf he had less protection from the cold than when he’d left home this morning.
Iruka made his way to Ichiraku for a warm bowl of ramen where he found Naruto diving into a second bowl.
“Welcome!” Ayame and Teuchi greeted Iruka as he took the seat next to Naruto.
“Iruka!” Naruto yelled too loud for someone who was right by his side.
“Nice to see you again, Naruto.”
“I have your scarf from Sakura, she says thank you. I was going to drop it by after dinner,” Naruto said as he slid over the folded up scarf.
“Ohh,” Iruka wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but was glad to have the scarf back. “Were you all waiting long after I left?”
“No, Kakashi arrived pretty soon after that. He even let us go home early because he said it was getting too cold. We didn’t want to leave, but he said it was his job as our team captain to know when to stop.”
Iruka hmmed as he listened to Naruto’s story. “That’s true, it’s something you should remember if you become Hokage one day.”
“If? You mean when,” Naruto said proudly.
“Yes, when,” Iruka agreed with a smile on his face.
Teuchi placed Iruka’s bowl down and Iruka thanked him before starting to eat as he listened to Naruto go on about their clean up mission today. He whined about how boring the D-rank village missions were, even though he’d already done that loudly to the whole mission room time and time again.
At the end of the night Iruka ended up paying for them both, receiving a too strong hug from Naruto as thank you.
Iruka split ways with Naruto saying he looked forward to seeing him again soon, before making his way back to his quiet and cold apartment.
The snow was still falling around the village with shinobi everywhere clearing paths in the center of town. As he got further from the center the paths were less clear. It was where the shinobi lived, so the village must have pooled their resources to keep the main pathways clear where civilians would be in the most danger, not being used to snow at all. Enough shinobi had been on a mission or two through snow that they could handle it better in these unusual circumstances.
When Iruka started walking up the stairs he realized he wasn’t alone. He didn’t know how long the person had been following him which was rather concerning, however they seemed to be purposefully making their presence known which took off the edge. Iruka paused in front of his door waiting for the other person to catch up.
A moment later Kakashi appeared lazily walking up the stairs, hands in his pockets like this was just another day.
Iruka sighed, “You could have said hi or something instead of just following me you know.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Kakashi teased with a sparkle in his eye.
Iruka wanted to smack him for that, but held back. “Would you like to come in for tea?” He asked, opening his door before Kakashi could answer.
“That sounds perfect,” Kakashi replied, following Iruka inside.
They took off their shoes and Iruka went to the kitchen to heat the kettle while Kakashi shuffled around the living room a bit. He and Kakashi weren’t exactly friends, but Kakashi had come over once or twice after Team 7’s creation to talk about the kids and their history.
“No heater?” Kakashi finally asked.
So that’s what he’d been looking for… “No, it’s not usually this cold.”
Kakashi came back to the kitchen, casually leaning against the counter as they waited for the kettle to boil.
“Why-” “You-” Both of them started to talk at the same time.
“You first,” Iruka said. Kakashi being both senior to him and his guest it felt appropriate.
Kakashi hesitated. “You were upset that I made them wait out in the cold this morning.”
Iruka was about to say something when the kettle started to whistle at them, giving him a few moments to think through what he was going to say. He pulled the kettle off the stove and placed a few scoops of tea in the kettle to let it steep while they continued to talk.
“I was a little bothered that you were watching them stand out in the cold just to teach them a lesson.”
“They have to learn somehow,” Kakashi reminded him.
“Yes, but some lessons can be taught without making it hurt. Besides, they’d been out there more than long enough to learn the lesson. You didn’t need to keep going once it had started snowing.”
The two of them were silent as it was obvious they had rather different thoughts around teaching.
Iruka knew that the difference was the age groups they were used to being around. Pre-genin should always be taught with words first, and with tactile second, although he understood that once they were out in the field words were not fast enough. There wasn’t time to let someone fail. Still it was hard to let go. Whether he would always be this way, or it was just because it was Naruto he didn’t know. Iruka tried to not let Naruto become more important than his other students, yet somehow he had.
Iruka poured tea for each of them, waiting to see what Kakashi would say.
“I can try words a little more often, however you will have to let them go one day. It’s not always going to be safe for them, they have to take care of themselves and each other. I’d hoped that by leaving them waiting a little longer Sasuke might share his secrets to help his team.”
Iruka hadn’t really thought of that, but then again he knew Sasuke’s behavior from the classroom and the Uchiha usually acted as if he would rather die than have to teach others something. “I think you would have been waiting days for that to happen.”
Kakashi shrugged his shoulders. “Probably.”
Iruka cracked a smile, at least sometimes he was right.
“What were you going to say?”
“Me?” Iruka questioned.
“Earlier you were going to say something too.”
Iruka thought back, “Just thank you for sending them home early. Naruto told me what you said and I appreciate it. I know I need to separate myself a little more, but it’s hard not to care about them.”
Kakashi smiled under his mask, or at least seemed to, which Iruka took as a good sign.
Something caught Iruka’s eye and he took his mug over to the balcony, “Want to watch the snow with me?” he asked as he draped a blanket from the couch over his shoulders and opened the door to the chilly evening air.
Kakashi joined Iruka outside as the snow fell against the moonlit night.
They enjoyed the snow in silence until Iruka noticed Kakashi shiver next to him. Iruka shifted closer and wrapped the blanket over Kakashi’s shoulder so they could both be warm as they continued to watch the snow fall.