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Chapter Text

(Day 3: Diplomacy)

The awkward silence had stretched between them for what felt like hours, when it was finally broken.

"I like your chakra."  The young senju boy in front of him said  monotone as ever. Tobirama's face was painstakingly blank. His hands, folded carefully in his lap–a distinct change from where they'd been balled into fists moments before.

Madara blanched. "What?!" Kami can't blame him for shrieking, because seriously What . (The crack in his voice hurt like a bitch and he, who had just been accidentally promised for the first time in his life that he'll make it past twenty was suddenly very excited to grow old…ish)

Tobirama, who was sitting across from him, set down his tea and frowned into it. His jaw visibly clenched and Madara frowned in return because passing his best friend's baby brother off was NOT in fact the point of this exercise. 

He found himself inching slowly away from the table between the two of them. The un-natural grain of the wood proved that it was probably mokuton. If he made the mini version of the Senju demon cry…(Izuna is close to his age and probably would cry, if only to manipulate, but Izuna was an outlier wasn't he? Madara had seen kid-soldiers before, real ones not graced with a kind of war-time nepotism that gave him a battle buddy, food, shelter, and a flee on sight order his brother had. And from what Madara was seeing…even though they were in more than neutral territory…Hashirama's Tobi , didn't seem to be of Izuna's ilk. From the set of his eyes it was obvious that his life had been coarser)

"I said I like your chakra." He clipped. "Is that not the point of this exercise? To say things we appreciate about one another because Hashirama assumes there are none?" The albino child , because that's what he was, a child, no older than thirteen–a reason Hashirama and he had come up with this damn village to begin with–was looking more irritated by the minute from where he was sitting. 

"Yes," He replied swirling the contents of his cup gently. The chamomile had really done wonders for his temper hadn't it? 

Tobirama was looking at him expectantly. Red eyes narrowed in his direction. This is what he gets for Hashirama saying he was safe huh.

(Fuck the chamomile and fuck Hashirama too. Madara was sincerely hoping to noncommittally grunt his way out this situation, but Tobirama was genuinely trying and he wasn't going to be a dick about it. Not to a kid.)

"I understand that it was a compliment so… thank you for that...but I just don't get why." 

Now it was Madara's turn to frown thoughtfully because truly, he didn't. Most sensors he'd crossed paths with, or really anyone who was sensitive to charka (or honestly just most ninja in general) avoided him because of his chakra's oppressive force. It was a dense wall of heat that radiated from him, and had the possibility to deliver killer intent that sent people into micro-comas. His Chakra , while seen as an incredible tool by his clan (and this village that exists apparently) was heralded as monstrous. People were terrified of it. No one liked Madara Uchiha's chakra–that's just the way it was.

Except, Tobirama did, and more importantly, he wasn't lying about it.

"It is warm." He said, in lieu of any possible explanation that would actually make sense to Madara's frazzled brain. Warm? How the hell was his chakra warm? It was an inferno , superheated that its slightest fluctuation created burns on anyone's skin, bubbling and rancid as the divine wrath of his clan's heralded goddess. 

Madara's chakra only one purpose: to destroy . 

When that didn't seem to work, Tobirama Senju fucking pouted at him. Pouted! What was this world he had found himself in? 

"Dense too. It feels like a warm heavy blanket…" tobirama continued. He traced his finger around the rim of his tea cup, and seemed almost sheepish. Almost. No well-trained (as much as the thought of that term made Madara rage) clan child outside of the Uchiha, and Hashirama, would display such an emotion. It was beneath them.

WARM? How the fuck was his chakra warm????

"It's nice." He finished, resolutely even, as if what he was saying wasn't earth-shattering for Madara to hear.

Nice?  

Madara definitely made a face that obviously displayed his confusion because tobirama clicked his tongue at him in disapproval and tried to explain it to him again , if a tad bit more exasperatedly (and with actually helpful detail this time) 

Who the hell was this kid? 

"You understand that i am the world's most proficient sensor, correct?" ( Why how modest of him. A thirteen year old, the worlds most proficient sensor.) Madara hated that the brat was probably right. For lack of a better answer, or a sarcastic remark that wouldn't be overtly rude, Madara nodded.

"The input I receive, constantly is immense and it can be too much sometimes still, even for me…." He looked…embarrassed now? Which was strange, considering his tone never changed. (Izuna could definitely learn a thing or two from him about keeping a neutral tone). Tobirama had lost a bit the stiff back posture he'd entered the room with. Sharp eyes let Madara observe that he'd drooped his head slightly and hunched his shoulder forward. Yeah. The kid was embarrassed, because admitting you limits to previous enemy, is embarrassing.

Madara found himself feeling very suddenly, and violently fond of the boy in front of him. Here Madara was two steps away, from being an enemy, asking questions that seemed stupid to Tobirama, but Tobirama was choosing to humoring him anyway. 

None the wiser to Madara's inner turmoil, his conversation partner continued.

Tobirama shifted in his seat again, his slouch dissipated and straightened into another back breaking-ly straight posture and his eyes looked old. Too calculating for a child. A hysterical part of Madara recognized that it reminded him of some of his old sensei's. The ones his father had thrown at him to teach him about chakra.

"When it's too much, a sensor is bound to look for a way to take a break from all the overwhelming input they're receiving."

Like a rest stop , Madara's brain supplied unhelpfully. He fought the urge to wrinkle his nose at the reminder of such a thing. Stupid little shacks with bare-bone-supplies they were. Madara had recently spent a less than pleasant couple of days fumbling around one in Senju territory, feverish and mildly poisoned after an unfortunate run-in with a lucky Hagoromo.

"Your chakra is dense enough that it helps me block out other input."  Tobirama's admitted…his ears were pink now, sticking out starkly against his very white hair.

And Madara, well he had no idea what to say in response to that . He breathed in carefully through his nose and begged for all those diplomacy lessons his father made him sit through to rise to the surface.

…

They did not. 

Madara sighed, and felt like gouging his own eyes out when he saw Tobiram wilt in front of him at his lack of, well, anything.

“Thank…you?” He finally said. And it's not as if he was lying, he was thankful, but he still didn't get it. 

He pursed his lips. 

“I…” Tobiramas red , gaze snapped up from ground to meet him. Madara gulped. “Thank you…really.” He grit his teeth. “It's just that my chakra has been described as poisonous my entire life…boiling...too hot to be thought of as anything other than a weapon.” At that, Tobiramas gaze flickered with something too close to grief for Madara to ever want to know what it was. 

“For most…” anyone but you, really “It's too much to be around in everyday life, suffocating even. I had to work really hard to learn to control it... No one's liked it before.” 

Tobirama opened his mouth to say something, but Madara cut him off. 

“I like your eyes. they're a really…nice shade of red.” 

And that surprised him?

“Thank you,” Tobirama mumbled stiffly. When Madara complimented him, he looked like a rabbit caught in a trap. And God, that was a shitty compliment. He could fix this right? He just had to like expand upon his point— 

“Yeah…They're uh… reallypretty ?” Madara  blurted. Tobirama's eyes bugged out. He looked mortified? Atleast as awkward as Madara felt. And oh kami he really just did call his friends thirteen year old brothers eyes pretty? Fuck. Hashirama was going to kill him and Izuna was going to cry and everything is going to be so awkward forever, and he didn't even mean it that way because, like, no, child, weird. The shade of red was just objectively a very nice one, and he was an Uchiha, they like red things that's just how it goes okay? 

(If Izuna was here he'd give him a bag to blow into you and tell him he should invest in a fainting couch because his brother is a dick. )

“Your hair is nice shade of black,” Tobirama offered, in a quiet mumble.

“Thanks, you're really smart.” 

“...Thanks.” 

—

And that's how Hashirama found them, sitting in silence, looking everywhere in the room other than each other. But they'd done it.

He clapped merrily. “Well! The seal just told me your done!” (Madara was very confused. Seals didn't work like that, did they? If they did that just dumb. And what did he mean by told. Did it fucking speak or something?)

“And in great timing too! We just found out to turn you back.” 

Madara sighed in relief. 

He was only a little offended, and lightly, threatened when Hashirama merrily slapped a seal on his neck and infused it with nature chakra to turn him back. 

Chapter Text

When it happened they'd been coming back from a mission, exhausted and covered in blood. The bandits, because that's what they were, low level bandits with a stolen scroll of powerful seals from Uzushio, ambushed them  and then they were children. 

It was terrifying.

Allegedly a big dome of light had erupted because of the seal and that was what led Hashirama to their location. He promptly took them back to Hokage tower, (not without wailing every few hundred yards about how cute the younger versions of his brother and best friend were but no one can win them all), and explained the situation to the best of his ability. Then, he'd made them sit alone, in a room together while he tried to figure the rest of it out.

When Hashirama showed the scroll containing the seal used to Mito, she had managed to come up with a way to reverse the seal within a few minutes. 

But Hashirama didn't want them to just be kids and turn them back to normal. He wanted to try and help two of the most important men in his life get along. So he devised a plan to lock them in a room together until they said too nice things about each other, and after then, and only then, would he actually turn them back. 

It was for everyone's benefit right?  

Right? 

(It was not. As, future Hashirama would soon learn, because Tobirama and Madara make an evil, mean, dream team against his shenanigans.) 

No sooner was Madara once again a grown man, than he was being dragged by the collar, through Hirashin by Tobirama.

He landed on his ass, hard, in Tobirama's lab.

Madara glared up at him. “What the fuck Senju?!”. Dizzily, he stood up and brushed himself off. He winced as his sandal came into contact with a piece of broken glass on the floor.

Tobirama looked pensive. 

He plucked his gloves from his pocket, and slid them back onto his hands. Why his younger self took them off was beyond him. How old was he, fourteen? At that age especially, he should have known why they were needed.

Oh.

He eyed Tobirama warily. The man was oddly hunched together, he had leaned against one of his book cases, was reading–well pretending too, not that Madara was going to call him out on it, then Tobirama would run away and trying to find him was hell.  

“You like my Chakra?” He asked. Madara took a cursory step forward. A broken piece of glass crunched under his sandal.

“No.” Tobirama refuted, he glanced up from his scroll before glancing away. 

“You're lying." 

Tobirama narrowed his pretty red eyes at Madara in response. A small part of him resisted the urge to swoon). 

Madara sighed. He would have to make his next steps carefully. Clearly Tobirama wanted to talk about this otherwise Madara would be strapped to the metal operating table… but Tobirama hadn't figured out how he wanted to talk about it just yet, and his hackles were rising and he could still run away. Madara's coworker was like a cat in that way. 

“No.” He clipped. The corner of his mouth ticked up and he looked up and to the left slightly. 

Tobiram was fucking with him. Being as coy as his knowledge sodden genius brain, could even. The asshole! Madara resisted the urge to look up to the sky and pray for guidance because that's what the shithead fucking wanted.

“You are. You are lying.” He said.

“No.” 

“Yes.” Madara responded. Meaningfully he sent a way of chakra across the room and Tobirama leaned into it, into him really. 

A very large part of Madara was rightfully shocked at how easily Tobirama had folded.

“Well.” Tobirama grumbled, as if that could explain why he was lying, and took a step back. “You called my eyes pretty.” 

Madara grinned. So this was finally happening huh. 

“They are gorgeous.” Tobirama looked violently surprised at that.(And wasn't that a lovely shade of red Tobira was turning too.) 

“Breathtaking.” Madara continued. “The most beautiful shade of red I've seen in my life."

" When we were painting the Uchiwa for the gates of the new Uchiha compound I wished desperately that I could color pick--"

"Stop it Madara!" He snapped.

"...the red from your eyes for it." 

Tobirama glared at him. His head was tipped up and to the side in defiance, almost, to what Madara was saying. He seemed angry. If you were dumb, and not totally obsessed with observing him the way Madara was, that is. But Tobirama wasn't angry. He looked pensive, and frustrated, and maybe even a little hurt? 

“Whatever your thinking is probably idiotic and wrong so I'd suggest you stop, Tobira.” 

And oh, that diminutive did make him properly angry, and Madara continued without giving his the Senju time to rise to the bait.

"You're better than the kami-forsaken horseshit that those elders spit out, or whatever kind of imposter syndrome you've got going on in your head." He maturely stomped his foot. "Don't look at me like that! If you brought us here to have this conversation sober then I'm going to say this shit sober too."

Tobirama quirked an impatient eyebrow with him when he was finished with his rant and Madara raised both back. 

It was Tobirama who broke first

 “You know what my clan thinks about my coloring.” Tobirama hissed (finally! He was using words), although he was a lot quieter than he was before. Not defeated, just contemplative.

Madara glanced down at the Halo of glass around Tobirama's feet--it formed just over a complete semicircle starting at the edge of the wall to his left, before looping in front of him around to his right side, containing him and the bookcase within it--and then back up to the man's face. “And you know I, and more importantly, you think it's bullshit.” 

Tobirama took two quick, irritated steps forward, over the broken glass without looking down, until they were close enough to breathe the same air. And kami, he was huffing in anger, instead of taking the usual measured breaths he took so much pride in teaching his students to use. 

(The first part of controlling anything is controlling how you breathe, is what he'd say, allegedly. Once Kagami had heard this, he'd parroted it back to Madara anytime he took angry breaths for a week )

He was flustered. Madara resisted the urge to grin like the love struck fool he was.

And then Tobirama tripped over the remainder over the beaker that had shattered straight into Madara and they were falling.

And once they hit the ground they were kissing. 

–

“You're so hot…” Exclaimed Tobirama about five minutes later. He was rankled. Disheveled and frustrated. His mouth was kissed-bruised and angry looking. It stood out starkly against a pale complexion. Madara was in love with this new side of him.

It kind of made Madara want to bite him, again. Even if Tobirama did turn him into some kind of squirrel like he threatened too when he did it the first time. ( I'm not a fucking nut you gnawing ruffian, he'd said, and then smacked Madara's when hed waggled his eyebrows suggestively in response.)

“Thank you.” He said smugly, rather than biting him, because he could be a good boyfriend rather than the insolent fool Tobirama kept calling him.

Tobirama took advantage of his bowed head to cuff Madara's ear hard . “No I mean, as in you're warm …it's nice” 

“You've said that before.” Madara murmured, carding his hands through the man's hair from where his head lay on his lap.

Tobirama looked pensive again. Madara kept carding his hands through his hair. It was unbearably soft and not unlike the texture of the happuri he wore constantly. He had something to say, again, and this time Madara could wait.

After a while, the albino man sighed. “You were my homing beacon for a really long time.” 

“I…it's a lot to explain actually…” he continued. “..but the younger version of myself kind of got it right. Except for in the case of referencing sensors as a group when I presume it was probably just me or people like me….”

And yeah, even his kid self had gotten the way Tobirama had disconnected from himself during that portion.

“I drag myself over and fixate on your chakra because it is enough to block out other input.” He murmured, voice uncharacteristically soft, and the closest Madara has ever heard to sounding wistful.

“It's amazing really,” Tobirama continued, his red eyes peering up strongly into Madara's own. “The sheer power of it is breathtaking. And not even remotely do I mean that in a way just regarding science, or weaponizing it.”

He bit his lip. “When I stand next to you…I feel like I'm standing next to the sun even when I know my feet are on the ground. I orbit you, but not just to cope when it becomes too much anymore. Basking in your warmth at this point makes me feel more whole than when I am alone..." Tobirama petered off, red faced and unsure of himself. "It makes me….happy?” 

“You make me happy.” Madara blurted. He cursed loudly in response to his own stupidity, and looked down at a wide-eyed Tobirama who still had his head in Madara's lap. 

But then…

His partner's lips quirked up in his own version of a smile. “Excellent."