A/N: A collection of various canonverse Uchiha-centric drabbles, ranging from I-want-to-throw-up-fluffy to I-want-to-gouge-my-heart-out-dark. Feedback is appreciated :)
Everything in this series is canon-compliant (and this will probably be my only series where it is so).
rosemaries for remembrance
love amongst dragons
Arranged marriages were frequent in Konoha. So was inbreeding, especially among the bloodline Clans, because to introduce outsiders into the Clan would be to dilute the blood. So when Fugaku Uchiha, heir to the leadership of the Uchiha Clan was betrothed to his second cousin, Mikoto Uchiha, no one was surprised or shocked.
No one that is, except the two in question.
Fourtenn-year-old Fugaku doesn't have any one he loves, per se, and only the faintest idea of what his ideal partner should be. He's a reserved boy, focused on his training and dedicated to his duty to the Clan. Unlike most other boys of his age, he doesn't know what hair colour he prefers or what type of figure his wife needed to boast. But whatever he might have wanted, he knows for sure it isn't the demure girl sitting across from him , eyes downcast and demeanour meek.
Sure, she's pretty - one of the prettiest girls he has ever seen - but she's nothing like he had imagined a 'partner' would be. She looks like she would break in his hands, his fourteen-year-old and already bloodstained hands, calloused from wielding death.
She's too fragile, too pure. Fugaku doesn't like her.
The shinobi world is a patriarchial one. The profession attracts less women than men, and even less women go into combat because most of the kunoichi are assigned to missions of infiltration and espionage.
Its no surprise that they are expected to either quit working or become something respectable like a jounin sensei after marriage.
Mikoto takes exception to this rule. She's one of the very few kunoichi who specialise in direct confrontations - as direct as ninja can be - and its often said that she's one of those who will create a niche for women in this world of men.
She's not insanely strong like the Senju heiress, or fierce like Kushina Uzumaki. She's refined and ladylike, the gracious host of a dinner party who won't hesitate to stab you in the eye with her chopsticks if she deems it necessary, smiling sweetly all the while.
She hates Fugaku even before she sees him, because he's the reason she will have to give up everything she worked for.
If he had to choose someone, Fugaku decides, he would choose Kushina. Except a little less... loud.
Its not because of her beauty or curves or even her spitfire personality. Its because of the fierce look in her eyes, the strength behind her punches, her never-bow-down attitude that he admires. She is inferior to no man, and she knows it.
Beside her vivacious personality, Mikoto is an island of calmness. Fugaku doesn't know better, and it looks like timidity to him.
If she could choose, Mikoto knows, she would choose no one. She is her own person, and unwilling to give up her dreams because of a loveless marriage.
She can't choose, though, and her dreams of being a kunoichi on the same level as Tsunade Senju or Mito Uzumaki crumble as the day of their wedding draws nearer.
Fugaku can recount the exact moment when he fell in love with Mikoto.
Its when they are dispatched on an urgent mission to intercept a team of enemy ninja moving towards Konoha. They are outnumbered nineteen-to-two, and Mikoto lets go of her refined composure. She unsheathes her sword and laughs.
Her side is to the sun, and the rays spill over on her sharingan-lit eyes like mirth spills from her lips. Standing in the face of death, Mikoto laughs.
And Fugaku falls in love.
There's a tenseness in the air that night, because Fugaku took a kunai for Mikoto and ended up in the hospital and Mikoto doesn't know what to say to that. How to thank this man she hates, this man who will take away her identity but gave her her life.
She doesn't have to, because Fugaku speaks first.
"Don't stop."
His words are rushed and awkward. Fugaku may be a talented shinobi, but he's a clumsy wordsmith.
Mikoto's eyes sparkle with confusion.
"Being a ninja. I don't want you to stop." He realises how demanding those words must sound, and backtracks hastily. "That is, if you don't want to. Not if you do want to."
Silence falls heavy on them. Uncharacteristically, Fugaku wants to bash his head on the nearest available hard surface. He settles for trying not to look like he's smothering himself in his pillow (though that is indeed what he's trying to do).
Too occupied with attempted suicide, Fugaku fails to notice the warmth lighting up Mikoto's eyes or the smile brightening her face.
Mikoto and Fugaku are as different as different can be, but they share one similarity beyond that of blood.
Mikoto, too, can recall the exact moment she fell in love with Fugaku.
A/N: And then Mikoto stopped anyway, once she had Itachi.
As you can tell, lots of liberty taken with the characterisation.