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Iruka should’ve known his luck would run out. He’s managed to keep his distance from Kakashi, other than the mission desk and necessary exchanges of information or trainees. Iruka knows better than to end up at company parties with a drink and the heat of Kakashi’s attention from across the room.
He’s almost more of a ghost than Kakashi is, having spent the last five years behind an office desk or in a classroom. He’s the best off-the-field trainer they’ve got—so it’s not a shock to be asked to sit in on a mission planning meeting. He’d been ready to throw together some intensive immersion classes for the schmuck being forced to go on a mission with Kakashi.
Tsunade telling him he’s the one going on the mission is a shock, though.
“I can’t go undercover,” Iruka says. “That’s not what I signed up for.”
“There’s too much heat on this mission for Kakashi to go in alone, and Tenzou is still recovering.”
Iruka remembers the report Kakashi tried to hand in for that mission: it was almost more blood than paper, and even Kakashi seemed a bit embarrassed when he realized the state of it.
“Is Tenzou going to be okay?” Iruka asks. Tenzou is kind—and good with their trainees.
Tsunade pushes her glasses up on her face and sighs. “Should be. He’s resilient, and Kakashi would’ve died if Tenzou hadn’t pushed him out of the way.
“That’s part of why I’m sending you in,” she continues. “Kakashi needs someone to keep him in check.”
“I’m babysitting,” Iruka says, tapping his pen against his notebook.
“No,” Tsunade says, voice sharp. “You’re keeping our best agent from getting himself killed for a mission, and helping complete it.”
Iruka credits his years working with middle schoolers for giving him a thick skin; he’s certain he would otherwise be trembling at her tone.
“So...what are the mission particulars?”
“Kakashi!” Tsunade calls. “Why don’t you stop lurking in the shadows?”
He steps forward, left eye covered with a plaid print eyepatch, and the rest of his body enveloped in a matching suit.
“How long has he been there?” Iruka says, faint. He’d felt pretty good in his business casual and braided bun this morning, but not anymore.
“Oh, the whole time,” Kakashi says. “I’ll try not to make you have to call in a backup babysitter.”
“Great!” Tsunade says. “Then it’s settled. Kakashi, you can fill him in on the rest; I’ve got a meeting to get to.”
Iruka is proud that his mouth only falls open for a millisecond, as Tsunade cheerfully leaves the room.
“But you haven’t told me anything,” Iruka says to the closing door.
“Sure she has.” Kakashi slips into Tsunade’s vacated seat. “I’m running point, and you’re providing limited backup.”
Maybe Iruka should go back to being a regular teacher, if he manages to survive this mission.
*
Iruka has seen Kakashi turn in reports written in smudged pencil, despite the fancy laptops they all have access to, and the practically thought activated wireless printers. He can be sentimental and appreciates a handwritten note with the best of them, but there’s no damn reason not to use a pen, at least.
The disconnect of the Kakashi who turns in those heinous reports and this Kakashi who has mission particulars mapped out to the nth degree is struggling to fit in Iruka’s head.
Iruka teaches classes on the importance of mission prep and establishing rapport with teammates, if only for the length of the mission. But they’re three days into their planning and schema, and Iruka wonders how Kakashi manages to make him want to ignore all the advice he cheerfully dispels.
Kakashi wants Iruka to ask questions about the mission, and Iruka is biting back the urge to tell Kakashi that he’s good to go, actually.
“We’re infiltrating a building to steal more computer chips of the same variety as the one Naruto already stole, check.”
“And they’re—”
“Highly defended, with live guards as well as detection systems.” Iruka twists the button on the end of his long sleeved shirt.
“So you do read reports for something other than spelling and grammar.”
Iruka blows out a breath, pushing a bedraggled lock of hair out of his face. “I have the time, since I don’t get my plaid suits tailored.”
“Pin check.”
Iruka stares at him; he doesn’t know what Kakashi just said, whether it’s some type of thing Kakashi is trying to trap him with.
“It’s a pin check suit. You called it plaid.”
The shirt button pops off in his hand.
*
Naruto squeaks something out around a mouthful of cereal. At least, Iruka is assuming there’s words hidden behind the milk and moderately-healthy breakfast.
“You’re going out on a mission,” Naruto says. “With Kakashi-sensei.”
If Iruka thinks calmly, he can still picture Naruto as the cute, younger sibling he’d been when they first got thrown together.
“I am field certified,” Iruka replies. “I trained you, didn’t I?”
“I guess,” Naruto says. “Don’t let Kakashi-sensei drag you into any of his weird stuff.”
What could possibly qualify as weird to Naruto is too frightening for Iruka to consider.
“Trust me,” Iruka says, “I’ll be doing my best to avoid him and complete the job quickly.”
*
Kakashi suggested they travel separately to avoid exposing the other’s cover, but honestly—whether or not that’s true—Iruka is glad to have a bit of a break from the nuisance that their interactions have become. Going from ‘annoying yet hot coworker seen a few times a week at maximum’ to ‘hours in the same room detailing mission plans’ makes Iruka consider buying stock in a headache medicine. There’s no doubt that Kakashi is great at what he does—it’s just that ‘annoying Iruka’ is part and parcel of his abilities.
But tonight he has a break, Iruka reminds himself, as he enters his hotel room and does a sweep for bugs.
It’s a much nicer room than he expected—he thinks the couch might even be a foldout. Iruka places his bags neatly on top of the dresser, strips the hotel comforter, and flops onto the bed for a power nap.
He’s half dozing, sinking into the bed.
Snap.
Iruka shoots up, reaching for a weapon he doesn’t have, all sleepiness evaporated.
“You didn’t check the balcony,” Kakashi says, looming nearby, not a single silver hair out of place.
His heart, which was practically through the ceiling, eases marginally. Unfortunately, that seems to be negated by the increase in blood pressure that Kakashi inspires.
“I didn’t know this place had one,” Iruka says, miffed. He had looked over the schematics; he’s positive it didn’t have one.
Kakashi sits down next to him on the bed. “You’re right: it doesn’t. I just used my card key.”
“Your card key.”
“No point in two rooms when we can go over the parameters.”
“There’s only one bed,” Iruka tries; surely this will offend Kakashi’s sensibilities.
Kakashi does look at Iruka then, eye considering him in a way that makes Iruka wish he had three extra sweaters.
“I’ll take the wall side at lights out.”
Iruka wonders if the company files on him include the fact that Iruka has always preferred to sleep against the wall, or if Kakashi is genuinely that talented at annoying him.
*
He wakes up slowly, head half buried in his pillow, one of the rare mornings where being awake feels like an earned luxury after a restful night's sleep.
Iruka is struggling to figure out why he did sleep so well. He doesn’t remember watching movies until he passed out, and the unfortunate truth is Iruka isn’t exactly bringing anyone home these days.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
Iruka opens his eyes. He considers pinching himself in case he’s still asleep.
Nope. Kakashi Hatake is next to him in bed, trapped firmly under Iruka’s arm and against the wall.
And to Iruka’s eternal, horrifying shame: Kakashi is still hot in his pajamas with mussed hair. Maybe even hotter.
“I’m going to get up now,” Kakashi says. “Still a few things to check over.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
When Kakashi doesn’t move, Iruka dares to look at him again. It’s strange seeing him without the eyepatch, almost unguarded with the entirety of his facial scar visible.
“Your arm,” Kakashi replies.
Iruka scrambles away from Kakashi, freeing him as quickly as possible. Kakashi flashes him a smile, his face dimpling.
He thwacks himself in the head with a pillow as soon as Kakashi is ensconced in the bathroom.
*
Iruka takes a slow sip of his coffee while Kakashi doctors his own mug.
“It’s a simple mission,” Kakashi says. “We get in, we find the computer chip, and we try not to set anything on fire.”
“Wait,” Iruka says. “Is that an actual concern? The fire part?”
“Isn’t it always?” Kakashi asks, his mouth twitching up into a half-smile.
Iruka shakes his head and laughs. “I try very hard to avoid anything flammable.”
“When’s the last time you looked in the mirror?” Kakashi drinks from his simmering mug.
He blinks at Kakashi and resists the urge to scratch at his scar. “I mean, this morning, probably?”
Kakashi sighs and doesn’t volunteer an explanation for the non-sequitur.
“First stop is turning off the security cameras,” Kakashi says, switching back to the job.
Iruka is certain he missed something, but between the preparation for the job and the tension of maintaining this balance with Kakashi, he can’t figure out what.
*
“And it should be...there.” Iruka is talking to himself, zoned on his mental diagram of the warehouse layout. He adjusts his vision line forty three degrees to the right, and sees it: the Shukaku chip.
He nods at Kakashi, who steps forward to disengage any safety protocols or alarms.
Iruka makes a noise and Kakashi freezes. “The position of the chip and the stations…” Iruka inhales and closes his eyes. He files away all the extraneous objects in his mental picture, and then he realizes. “Shukaku is at the end of a fibonacci sequence!”
“Which means there could be chips at other points in the spiral,” Kakashi says. “You’re so brilliant I could kiss you!”
It’s a turn of phrase, Iruka reminds himself. That doesn’t mean Kakashi actually wants to kiss him.
The lighting is too poor for Iruka to tell if that’s a flush on Kakashi’s cheeks or a simple shadow.
*
There’s fifteen guards of varying states of ‘armed’ between Iruka, Kakashi, the chips, and their getaway into the sunset.
Iruka has faced worse odds, though usually related to his love life. He and Kakashi have a gun, a handful of knives, and the mostly-warranted confidence of their training. Still, the current situation isn’t exactly something he’s looking forward to.
Kakashi sighs and rolls back his shoulders. “You have the chips, so you’re the one who has to make it through. I’ll go in and buy you some time.”
Before Kakashi can step forward, Iruka grabs his shoulder.
“You’re not going in there alone. Don’t you watch horror movies?”
Kakashi flushes. “I don’t like being scared. The job is different.”
Iruka files that under ‘incompatibly cute with his image of Kakashi’ for later. “The person who decides to be brave and go in alone ends up dying horribly, every time.”
“That’ll be fine, if you manage to get out of here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s another way!” Iruka has slipped into instructor mode without realizing, his voice rising.
The door they were preparing to go through bursts opens in front of them.
“Go time,” Kakashi says, slipping into an offensive stance. “Say, if we make it through—”
Iruka huffs out a breath as he lands a high kick. “We can talk after there aren’t fourteen baddies waiting for us.”
Kakashi sighs and tosses a whistle sized object into the center of the room. “Smoke bomb,” he explains.
There’s no slow, subtle hiss of air escaping. Something pops, and Iruka has heard a lot of smoke bombs go off before but they’ve never made that sound.
“Where did you get that from?” Iruka asks, brain scrambling through conclusions.
“Took it from the R&D lab,” Kakashi says.
The R&D lab where Konohamaru has been interning, and Kakashi didn’t think to verify…
He steels himself and steps into the room; the inhabitants toward Kakashi’s smoke bomb are knocked out, and absolutely fucking covered in glitter.
An explosive glitter bomb.
Kakashi incapacitates two of the dazed operatives with clean shots through the thigh. Iruka pins three more with a handful of knives to the wall.
“I didn’t know glitter could do that,” Kakashi says, as they step over the glitter stunned casualties. There’s already some glitter on the back of Kakashi’s blazer.
“You and I have led very different lives,” Iruka mutters.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” Kakashi asks, reaching his hand out to steady Iruka.
“Now?” Iruka asks, slamming the door behind him, fingers reflexively grabbing onto Kakashi’s own.
Their earpieces activate, providing coordinates of their helicopter pickup; whatever Kakashi was thinking, he doesn’t finish the thought once they click off.
*
“You brought back more than just the Shukaku chip,” Tsunade says from behind her desk. The pile of chips Iruka grabbed are stacked in front of her.
Iruka laughs, a bit nervous. “Well, when we saw Chimo and Matatabi—”
“When Iruka determined the layout was a fibonacci sequence,” Kakashi interjects. “I didn’t see them.”
He gives Kakashi a look but Kakashi is staring serenely at Tsunade.
“You’re sure you want to go back to the training room?” Tsunade asks. “We could always use another like you in the field.”
“Respectfully,” Iruka says, “I’d like to take this experience and use it to enhance our curriculum. There are some gaps in our field training.”
Tsunade nods at him. “Thank you for bringing Kakashi back in one piece. Kakashi, get this report handed in, and then you’ve both got the next week off—so get out of my office.”
He stammers out a thank you while Kakashi gives an indolent salute. They walk out together, Iruka pausing long enough to close the door behind them.
It’s not tension that Iruka feels as they amble down the hallway together, but more a sense of expectation. Kakashi inclines his head at the first alcove they come to, and Iruka steps aside with him.
“You saved the mission,” Kakashi says, hands awkwardly shoved in his pockets.
“I think that was more the glitter bomb,” Iruka says. “Speaking of...you’ve got glitter on your face,” Iruka breathes, rubbing the pad of his thumb along Kakashi’s chin.
“I meant it, you know,” Kakashi says. “About you being brilliant.”
“And the other part?” Iruka asks, hand dropping to Kakashi’s shoulder.
“Can I kiss you?” Kakashi’s hands move to Iruka’s waist, perfectly cliche.
“Yes,” Iruka says, and it’s not even half a breath before Kakashi is kissing him. This is what Iruka had been shying away from, the way Kakashi touches him is as intense as everything else he does.
“I do still want to hear about your glitter experiences,” Kakashi says when they pull apart.
“Hmm, that sounds like a post-dinner activity to me.”
Kakashi glances down at his watch. “I know a great twenty-four place a few blocks from here, if that counts as dinner.”
“Just this once,” Iruka teases.
An occasional field job isn’t so bad, Iruka decides, as Kakashi laces their fingers together.