Work Text:
Mizuki loves Iruka like a star loves a follower. Or like an owner loves a dog.
He’s held Iruka’s hand and led him through everything that mattered since childhood, from being orphaned together, to graduating the chuunin exam, to becoming Academy instructors together; and he knows exactly how grateful Iruka is to have him.
Iruka looked at him with care and worry when he got job promotions first, stumbling over careful and anxious words to assure Mizuki that it was all by his help that he was getting praised. Iruka, who kept coming over to spend time with him on weekends, who looked at him with appreciation and friendship. And Mizuki revelled in those glances, those moments with Iruka that assured him of his true value; his underappreciated superiority over others.
And that was all he was ever thinking about during the time he was in jail, planning his escape and making the whole world acknowledge him and look at him and make him feel special the way Iruka did.
Mizuki admits he made a miscalculation when he tried to use Orochimaru’s seal. He’s back in prison without any powers now, but he knows – cringing as his muscles cramp again – that he’s meant for more. He knows something will happen, something formidable, and he’ll get to see Iruka again; see the look of awe and fear and submission in those brown eyes.
Mizuki cackles alone in his dark cell. He’s lucky he’s got Iruka to think about.
*
Asuma loves Iruka like the brother he’d never had. He remembers being surprised by just how much his father liked the scrawny, troublemaking brat, initially sparking a sliver of jealousy. In his adolescence, he and his sister had been more disdainful of others, trying to at the same time uphold and rebel against the venerated Sarutobi name. But where he was proud and arrogant and insecure, Iruka was as full of heart and unpredictable and unconditional as the sounds of Konoha surrounding them all; and as thoughtful and accepting as the smoke rising from his father’s pipe.
Nobody would accuse Umino Iruka as a troublemaker now. As the years pass by he watches and helps as Iruka doggedly stumbles his way to his place in Konoha, a place that seems as though it’s been waiting for him all along. Asuma grins at Iruka's scowling for smoking in front of Konohamaru, but how he never forgets to stop by good quality tobacco shops whenever he goes on missions that take him south. Iruka pulling off the most outrageous pranks on anyone disregarding any rank with a poker face to rival the stone carvings on the mountain. Iruka making a blushing, heartfelt toast to him and Kurenai at an inconspicuous Tuesday dinner at her apartment. Asuma sparring with him until he got over his unhappy surprise over the chuunin nominations, sitting with him quietly punching each other’s shoulders until they both understood each other’s point of view completely.
As Asuma stares down at his father’s smiling face in the rain, the warm tears on his cheeks mingling with the cold water from the clouds, he knows he’s lucky that his father had been as smart as they all had said. It was he who had picked out his brother Iruka after all, a shinobi with a heart warmer and stronger than anyone in the village and with just the right personality to match his. And as Iruka stands beside him, the warmth of his shoulder and the depth of his eyes as familiar as Hiruzen’s pipe, Asuma feels lucky that he is part of Iruka’s family.
*
The boys and girls in the class A hate the Head Teacher like he was the devil on a soldier pill. They hate the way Iruka’s the only teacher who makes them do more endurance training than any other teacher, how he makes them write assignments and reports until honestly they’re better than some that their parents have written (they swear!), and they still can’t get how he is patient through the clumsy fumblings of untalented students during important skills like shuriken practice, but has absolutely no patience for people who don't take boring stuff like teamwork seriously.
When they survive the mini-field trip to a monitored area of the forest of death with no injuries, they praise themselves and each other’s quick-thinking abilities, too busy in their triumph to see the Head Teacher’s proud smile. When they pass the Academy graduation exams in front of all of those stern eyes, they puff their chests out, standing straighter and taller among the group of their happy peers and family, too loud to see the Head Teacher’s pensive grin. When all of the graduates who were successfully accepted by a jounin teacher turn out to be from Iruka-sensei’s class, they themselves finally realize – quietly, individually – that really aren’t that surprised.
As they travel around the world: looking out for each other, fighting over the last piece of beef jerky, yelling into an earpiece on purpose just because they can, taking stab wounds without needing to even think about it, carrying their teammates on a three-day run with no food – each in their own teams that have become closer than family – the memory of a stern scar and dark, kind eyes sometimes flashes across their minds.
And they feel lucky to have made it through Iruka-sensei’s essay-writing exams.
*
Naruto loves Iruka like every family member he’s never had. Maybe it was because he’d never known a real family, but all the love he hadn’t received and the love he’d wanted to give had stacked up and concentrated on this one person so much that Iruka had ended up bearing the full brunt of being everything he’d ever wanted – a brother, a friend, a comrade, a father – he was family.
But being family doesn’t mean he has to be happy about getting a mini spar around his living room, avoiding (and surreptitiously trying to save) various pieces of trash that his former sensei is throwing out over another lecture.
“You have some mission report here, half soaked in ramen soup. How is it possible that you don’t have any more cockroaches than the millions infested here already? And didn’t I say before, Uzumaki Naruto, that I would take back my forehead protector if I counted more than 20 cups of instant ramen the next time I was over? And this one here is already the 19th…”
Naruto vaults over the pile of books and snatches the (25th) cup out of Iruka-sensei’s hand. Kakashi-sensei had already tricked him into eating a week’s worth of vegetables yesterday so surely it wasn’t really that bad to treat himself to a palate-cleansing ramen binge last night.
“Ouch!”
Naruto’s sulking is interrupted by a sharp knock on the center of his forehead. Rubbing the assaulted area grievingly, he gives Iruka-sensei the look he knows always works.
“Owowow owwww!!!”
“You’re 18 years old, for god’s sake. That hurt puppy look stopped working when you saved the whole flippin’ world from practically certain destruction. So help me and yourself out here and just bloody pick up after yourself!!”
It’s a sadder and sorrier eighteen-year-old who meekly finishes the dishes and takes out the trash. When he trudges up the stairs back to his apartment, he smells broth simmering, and he bursts into his house and into the kitchen, crushing Iruka-sensei’s smaller back in a bear hug as the older man resolutely continues to roll out dough for Naruto’s favourite homemade noodles.
Naruto grins into Iruka’s shoulder as his head is lightly bopped with the rolling pin. He is lucky the look still works.
*
Kakashi just loves Iruka like Iruka.
Laughing, slyly smirking through the mirror as he shaves in the morning; offended and angry after a public argument. Wrinkling his nose at the cheesiness of Kakashi saying ‘precious person’; blank-faced and uttering one word that blows up the enemy into a cloud of bloody falling pieces; it makes no difference to Kakashi.
He loves Iruka yelling in the classroom in his green vest, smiling in the mission room in his wooden chair, moaning on the soft sheets of their bed. He loves him on their wedding day with all of Konoha surrounding him like the forest looking up to the sun, loves him with chalk on his fingers and on his scar as he rubs it absentmindedly. He loves him on the day they decide Kakashi would be the sixth Hokage; loves him as he staunchly stays by Kakashi’s side through all the political and emotional stresses of the responsibility. He loves him on the evening he decides to retire from active duty; loves him when his face flickers in longing when a former student asks him to teach again; and he loves him when he swallows his pride and blesses the youth to take over the new, completely unprecedented future. Kakashi will be there for Iruka. He’ll always protect his precious person; and he knows Iruka will always be protecting him back in return.
And they both think – one, as he turns a well-thumbed page; the other as he opens a wedding invitation – how lucky they are to have this moment together.