Chapter Text
Hanzo only made it to the edge of the bridge before stopping, senses still straining to trace the samurai’s flickering chakra. He’d made his point, said his piece, and even if the other had impressed him enough to offer a test he should be finished, ready to head back.
But it is always raining in Ame. The villagers despise war, but know more than most how important a strong weapon is. He’s no jinchuuriki but a human sacrifice nonetheless, a weapon that could injure even those he’s meant to protect, so they keep him at arm’s length.
He’s envious, of the lengths this samurai would go to protect his comrades. Comrades who left him to die, even. And it’s sunny here. He’s finished the mission early, no one will come looking for him - not until he’s weeks late. Perhaps it’s a better test to help the other survive, and watch if his conviction wanes over the years. So he turns back, lifting the unconscious man with just a hint of chakra, then turning for the mission safehouse.
It’s only when he gets there that he realizes he never got the samurai’s name, and the relief that hits him when he realizes he might still get a chance to learn it is enough to convince him he’s made the right choice.
Hanzo cleaned and bandaged the samurai’s wound as best he could, stripped him of his armor and weapons, and coaxed the last of the antidote into his system. After that the ninja found himself at a loss for what to do. A trained killer he may be, and careful to learn the effects of his poison on others, but he’d never been trained as a healer. The village saw no need for him to learn field medicine when his proximity could kill a patient by accident, so all he had was scraps he’d overheard, or learned from watching others treat their comrades or himself.
In the end he settled for checking the samurai’s pulse and breath, reassured both were continuing, and gathering supplies to make another dose of the antidote. He was being extra careful with his distance and the mask, but it was better safe than sorry. Hanzo had just begun grinding the ingredients into powder when the samurai woke up.
Mifune woke with a sigh, a wince for the pain in his head now that the numbness of the poison had worn off, then opened his eyes in confusion at finding himself on his back. Dark eyes took in the room in one sweep before landing unerringly on the ninja across the room. One slow blink, to make sure his vision was clear, then the corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile.
Hanzo frowned at that reaction, watching as the samurai tested his limbs before settling back to watch him in return.
“Is this another part of your test?” the injured man asked finally, voice rasping painfully. Hanzo put the mortar aside to locate his water skin, and moved close enough to hand it over. Somehow it set him more on edge that the samurai accepted the offer without hesitation.
“It would be difficult to see how far your conviction will carry you if you were dead,” he informed the other dryly, rolling his eyes when the samurai took a deep swallow. “Are you not worried about poisoning yourself at all?”
“I trust your conviction,” the injured man replied easily, offering the water skin back. “And if you had wished to poison me you would just have let me die.” He smiled wryly at Hanzo’s started expression. “I wish to thank you for the chance to hone my conviction further. People are like swords, and I will not break.”
The ninja scoffed, looking away to hide the smile threatening to show on his face. “Your name. You never told it to me.”
“Mifune,” his guest replied tilting his head respectfully. “Of the Land of Iron. I’ll entrust myself to your care.”
And there wasn’t really anything to say to that, so Hanzo just nodded and went back to the medicine, Mifune watching him quietly the whole while.
(He was a ninja, trained to resist multiple forms of interrogation. A single curious watcher shouldn’t bug him as much as it did. In the end he’s relieved when Mifune falls asleep again.)
It started with casual touches. An accidental brush of fingers when handing the samurai a bowl, or the hint of pressure left over in the tips of his fingers when he finished changing the bandages over the wound. It was a clinical necessity, so Hanzo didn’t think anything of it. Perhaps he should have, such closeness, even clinical, was unusual in his life. Why touch what they feared to even breath close to?
Yet he forgot to consider it and as such gave some sort of signal to the injured man he was unaware of. Because Mifune took his closeness as permission to touch back, and that Hanzo was unprepared for. A tentative brush against his shoulder the first time, asking for attention. He hesitated a moment too long, but didn’t react badly. So the samurai moved on to occasionally resting a palm on his shoulder in understanding, instead of simply saying it.
And Hanzo wasn’t sure how he felt about it. The hand was warmer than he expected every time, skin touching skin when no one ever dared before. He wondered idly if he could steal a little of that warmth for when he was cold without a shirt, then shook the thought away as silly. You couldn’t steal warmth to store for later. Besides, fire chakra would warm him up just as well. It didn’t feel the same when he tried, though. He knew heat should just feel like heat no matter the source, but the warmth of a touch had weight to it. Life.
He missed it when it was gone, where normal cold he could ignore. Where he should be used to ignoring it from the brushes in combat. But somehow deliberate closeness was different, and he had no basis for dealing with it.
When Mifune switched to casual companionship, sitting next to him while eating and occasionally knocking their legs or arms against one another, Hanzo couldn’t figure out what to do anymore. He wondered now how it would feel to lean against the other instead of touch by accident side-by-side. But it was not the shinobi way to crave physical contact, it was a perverse desire he refused to give in to, especially given all the misunderstandings that could arise.
He didn’t realize he’d started shaking whenever the possibility of contact occurred to him.
“Are you alright, Hanzo?” Mifune asked quietly. “It’s just, whenever I touch you you start shaking. If you aren’t comfortable tell me, I can stop…”
“No, I’m not uncomfortable,” the ninja interrupted, closing his eyes, embarrassed at missing such an obvious reaction. “I… don’t know what to do, with touch. My village has always kept at least an arm’s length away, for fear of the poison.”
“Which you do not distribute through your skin, they couldn’t become poisoned that way,” the samurai finished with a frown. A moment later he was sitting closer, not quite touching, and holding an arm out just above Hanzo’s shoulders. “If you become uncomfortable, tell me and I will release you.”
There was no clearer warning before he lowered his arm across the ninja’s shoulders. Hanzo froze, stock still for a second but for the tremors. There was a band of warmth sliding into his bones and down his back and arms. It was heavy and solid in a way that augmented the radiated heat, instead of taking attention away from it, and… Hanzo wanted to wrap that warmth around the rest of him, even if he couldn't picture how such contact would work. But he forced himself to close his eyes and go slow, adjust to the closeness being offered rather than demanding more.
Now that he was looking for it Hanzo could sense the faint tremors as he tensed, uncertain. He forced himself to relax, willed the shaking to stop with a lifetime’s learned control. Mifune wasn’t fooled, and there was a tense uncertainty in his arm, one that lingered until Hanzo began considering pulling away. To spare him the awkward results of his kindness.
Then the samurai huffed and pulled his arm away on his own, shifting closer instead so their legs were touching from ankle to hip. He leaned his side into Hanzo’s arm as well, resting the hand he’d moved on the ninja’s shoulder with an apologetic shrug.
“That angle would have put my arm to sleep,” he offered in explanation. “And grabbing hold to relieve the tension seemed impolite.”
“Hmm,” Hanzo agreed thoughtfully. He would not have been able to ignore the risks of a tighter hold, the implied grapple in such a motion. It wasn’t something worth considering long, however, as Mifune hadn’t done so. Instead he wavered for a long moment, hesitating as he wondered if this was too much contact. It was warm and undemanding, nothing perverted about it, but he still felt perverse allowing anyone so close.
He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he decided after a long moment. If Mifune tried anything he could still kill the man from this position, and he was armed with his poison if this was a play for a weapon. So he settled, the lie of his relaxing muscles finally closer to a truth, and leaned back into the curve of the samurai’s arm.
Mifune didn’t comment, didn’t tighten his grip, only adjusting to the slight shift in weight before settling again. Hanzo closed his eyes, trying to memorize the feel of warmth in the hold - the strange difference a living touch made out of combat, and put off worrying about the consequences.
They sat like that for a long time.
By week’s end Mifune was well enough to travel. Hanzo only felt slightly guilty at the way he shoved the other’s weapon and armor at him and told him to be on his way. He had no plans to return to this specific safe house so he didn’t bother hiding its location from the samurai, but he needed him to be on his way before leaving himself. No point in tempting fate by leaving a stranger in a classified location unattended.
He ignored the persistent ache at the edge of his thoughts, that this was the last time he’d see this strange man, that Mifune would be changed when they saw each other again, or that he would act like this week never happened. What was the proper way to say goodbye to a stranger who had treated you more familiarly than even family members had in years? Who had offered comfort without any other intent, simply in case it was needed?
Hanzo was a shinobi, he didn’t need kindness to keep him going. The memory of another out there who sought the same goal, who had talked long into the night about theories of peace, and would fight to that end even across the world, would be enough. He would make it enough.
(And it didn’t soothe him in the slightest that Mifune looked back before the road could swallow him up, or that he’d wished Hanzo the strength to always follow his convictions before departing.)