A/N: It's time for another episode of The Adventures of Captain Hardass and Spider Girl!

Team Ro raced through the trees, following Kakashi's ninken as they tracked their quarry. They had been sent on their first away mission, the capture and retrieval of two jonin level missing-nin who had been spotted within Fire Country's borders. Sakura's heart was thundering with excitement at the prospect of her first real ANBU mission.

She had been amused to see the motley assortment of dogs that Kakashi had summoned, and charmed by their little vests and hitae-ate. She'd also been a little charmed by the way Kakashi discreetly patted the smallest one on the head before sending them out, but she'd banished that thought quickly enough.

Things had gone a little smoother between her and Kakashi since the night at the bar. It wasn't like he was going any easier on her—he still barked at her during training, making her repeat moves until she got them perfectly—but for some reason, it didn't bother her as much as it had before. Maybe seeing him relax and laugh at the bar made him less intimidating, or maybe she was just getting used to him. Either way, she'd seen that he had more going on than just being a hardass all the time, and that made him seem more human.

Before the mission, he'd shown up at her apartment and given her a single, unornamented scroll. When she'd opened it, he'd supplied, "That's a self-destruct jutsu. It's required that every operative knows it. Do you understand why?"

Sakura had scanned the contents of the scroll before looking up. "In the event that death or capture is unavoidable, an ANBU operative should use the self-destruct jutsu to destroy all evidence—including the operative's own body," she said quietly, paraphrasing one of the books he'd given her.

He'd just nodded and said, "Have it memorized before the mission," and then vanished in a swirl of leaves.

Sakura snapped back to the present as Kakashi lifted a hand and they all came to a halt. Shortly thereafter Kakashi's smallest dog, the little pug, darted out from the brush. "They're northeast of here, boss. About three miles," the dog said in a gruff voice, and Kakashi nodded. He offered the dog another pat on the head, and then it disappeared with a soft poof.

Turning to his operatives, Kakashi spoke in quick, clipped tones. "We're going to execute attack pattern gamma. Spider, hold your position."

"Wait—" she started, but all three men had already disappeared into the trees, leaving her behind.

Sakura's temper began to rise even as her mind raced. Gamma was a three-man strategy—she'd been sidelined. Not only that, but the strategy required Kakashi to serve as bait while Tenzo and Genma got in position to flank and disable the targets. She frowned as the risk to Kakashi fully sank in. Two jonin missing-nin were nothing to be careless about, and Kakashi had a full team he could have better utilized rather than making himself such a clear target.

It was the plan of a man who didn't care if he was at risk, as long as his team was safe.

That thought got Sakura moving, and she leaped up into the trees, running at full speed in the direction that Kakashi had gone. As she crossed the three miles to the targets, her anxiety only grew. This was what Ibiki-sensei had been talking about, right? Kakashi taking unnecessary risks that put himself in harm's way—she knew there was a possibility that she was overreacting, but if she held back and it meant the difference between Kakashi being fine or getting hurt, it would be on her if anything happened. After all, Tsunade had made it clear that it was Sakura's job to keep him safe.

Sakura knew when she was getting close because she could hear the sounds of swords clashing together. She reached the edge of a clearing and stopped on a high branch, looking down below to assess the situation.

Below her, Kakashi was involved in a furious sword fight with one of the targets, a whip-thin man in blue. The man didn't seem to have a lot of strength, but he was fast, and Kakashi was having to work to keep up. The second ninja, a bulky man wearing red, was currently being held at bay by three of Kakashi's dogs.

As Sakura watched, the red target made a series of hand signals, and fire erupted in a circle around him. Kakashi's dogs disappeared with several piercing cries, and she heard Kakashi curse as he held off another assault from the blue target. But the red target was already forming signs again, and vines erupted out of the ground around Kakashi, looping around his arms and legs and temporarily holding him in place.

The second she saw the vines shoot out of the ground, Sakura was moving, dropping out of the tree with her sword drawn. She only just managed to get there in time to deflect the sword that the blue target had swung at Kakashi's vulnerable back. Their swords met with a resounding clang and Sakura used her chakra-enhanced strength to throw him back.

"Damn it, Spider!" Kakashi bit out as he broke out of the vines at almost precisely the same moment, his body temporarily crackling with electric energy. "I told you to hold your position!" When Sakura didn't answer, too busy engaging the red target, Kakashi just growled and launched himself at the blue target again.

Sakura found that the red target had been much more proficient with ninjutsu than he was with kenjutsu, and so long as she kept him occupied with her sword, he wasn't much of a threat. Only minutes later, Tenzo's chakra-laced wood shot out of the tree above her and curled around each of the target's arms, effectively neutralizing him.

Turning toward the other target, she looked just in time to see the nin slump to the ground, a senbon sticking out of a pressure point in the nape of his neck. Tenzo and Genma dropped from their places in the trees, switching sides as they went to further secure the targets.

As Genma rendered the second target unconscious as well, Kakashi wheeled around and faced Sakura. She could see the glow of his Sharingan through the eye of his hound mask as he snarled, "If you disobey my orders again, I'll throw you off my team."

Her initial anger rose up within her again and Sakura took a step toward him, her body as stiff with rage as his was. "You don't have the authority. It's my job to disobey you if you do something stupid," she countered, barely keeping herself from shouting. "Using yourself as bait was a completely unnecessary risk. There are a million other strategies you could've used."

"I am not going to argue my strategy with you." She could hear the sneer in his voice as he added, "You've been an operative for all of five minutes."

The insult hurt, and before Sakura could think to stop herself, she growled, "Go fuck yourself!"

Tenzo stiffened. "Hey, maybe we should all—" he began, but Genma stopped him with a hand on his arm.

Kakashi took a step toward Sakura, his voice low and deceptively calm. "What did you just say to me?"

"You heard me, Captain." Sakura was proud that her voice didn't shake with the fury she felt. "There were smarter ways to handle that operation. I know it. They know it," she said, stabbing her finger in the direction of Genma and Tenzo. "And if you're half the genius everyone thinks you are, then you damn well know it too." Looking at Genma and Tenzo, she barked, "Back me up here!"

But though she saw Tenzo and Genma glance at each other, both of them remained silent.

"Oh, well that's just fucking great," Sakura said when it became obvious that she wasn't going to get any support.

Kakashi exhaled sharply beneath his mask, his Sharingan winking out as he snapped, "We'll finish this later. I want both targets bound and transported. We leave in five minutes."

Kakashi stalked off to the side of the clearing, while Genma took charge of painting the transportation seals on the bound missing-nin. Sakura stomped over to him and quietly ground out, "What the fuck was that?"

"I don't argue with my captain in the field. Neither does Tiger," Genma murmured, nodding toward Tenzo. "That's just the way it is, Spider."

"You're both cowards," she hissed, but neither man said anything more. After a few minutes, Genma finally activated the seal on one nin while Tenzo activated the other and both of the unconscious targets vanished, teleported to a dedicated room in ANBU headquarters.

Their task done, the three of them joined Kakashi, and in a cloud of uncomfortable silence they took off for Konoha.

By the time Team Ro had returned to Konoha and arrived at the Hokage Tower to report, Kakashi's anger with Sakura had quieted to a dull simmer. While he was as capable of holding a grudge as the next shinobi, Kakashi was the kind of man who had no use for anger when it wasn't productive, and right now, being filled with rage served no purpose.

Meanwhile, Sakura still looked like she was ready to kill everyone around her, her body rigid with obvious anger, and Kakashi silently hoped she'd be able to wait until after their report to explode. He looked forward to it, actually—the small, petty part of him that was used to having his way was determined to put her in her place. No one questioned him in the field.

"Report!" Tsunade commanded as soon as they'd entered the room, all four of them taking a knee and pushing their masks up to rest atop their heads.

Kakashi calmly gave a truncated report of the mission, simply saying that Team Ro had found and captured the two missing-nin not far outside the bounds of Konoha. He told Tsunade that he and Sakura had fought the targets while Genma and Tenzo flanked them, eventually disabling both targets and teleporting them home.

When he fell into silence, Tsunade let it linger as she looked them over, her eyes pausing on Sakura's angry face. "Why don't you tell me more of the details of this mission?" she said, and her eyes were narrowed as she looked back to Kakashi expectantly.

Damn it. Kakashi knew exactly what she was fishing for and was reluctant to give it to her. "We tracked the targets using my ninken. Once we found them, we executed attack pattern gamma and were able to secure both targets with no injury to the team."

"Isn't gamma a three-man strategy?" Tsunade asked, crossing her arms.

"Yes," he answered.

"Who was the bait?"

"I was," he said.

"And who was the man left out?"

Sakura spoke up, her voice tight. "I was."

Tsunade's eyes were sharp on Sakura. "And yet Kakashi just told me that you helped apprehend the targets. Care to tell me how that happened?"

Sakura cleared her throat. "Lady Hokage, I judged the risk to the captain to be unnecessary, especially when there was no real reason to sideline me. I made the decision to follow him and fight."

His irritation rising again, Kakashi spoke. "She disrupted the mission without communicating with anyone about it first. She could have gotten herself, or someone else, killed."

Whipping her head toward him, Sakura snarled, "It wasn't my back I had to protect from that sword!"

"I had it handled!" Kakashi said tightly, his shoulders tense at her implication that he couldn't protect himself. He cursed inwardly—now was not the time for him to get angry again.

"Enough!" Tsunade barked, and they fell into silence. There was a moment that seemed to stretch on forever as Tsunade considered them, and then she finally spoke again. "I'm inclined to agree with Sakura. There's no reason to use a three-man attack pattern if you have four people in the field."

Sakura lifted her head slightly, vindication written all over her face, and Kakashi gritted his teeth as he replied, "If there's no clear hierarchy in the field, it'll be chaos. You know that."

"You'll just have to figure things out," Tsunade said, her whiskey-colored eyes hard as she stared at him. "Unless you want to take me up on my previous offer..."

Sakura's brow furrowed as she looked from Tsunade to Kakashi. He sighed, willing his shoulders to relax as he formally stated, "I do not wish to leave ANBU, Lady Hokage." Sakura's eyes widened.

Tsunade echoed his sigh. "You're dismissed." As they all rose from their kneeling positions, Sakura stood there looking stunned as Genma, Tenzo, and Kakashi all filed out of the room.

Outside, Genma and Tenzo pulled up to look at Kakashi expectantly. He frowned—there was clearly no choice, he was going to have to figure out a way to work with Sakura. Wearily turning to face her as she stepped out behind them, he said, "Alright. Obviously, we're going to have to discuss—" But he cut himself off as Sakura blew past him, nearly flying.

"Sakura?" Tenzo called in concern, but she was already bolting down the hallway toward the stairwell.

Kakashi frowned and then took off after her, feeling his skin crawl with renewed irritation. It was bad enough that she'd challenged him in the field, that she'd gotten Tsunade's approval. Now she couldn't even meet him halfway so they could find a way to work together?

Sakura slammed out of the building, but Kakashi was close behind her, and he could hear Tenzo and Genma behind him. When she darted off in the direction of the training fields, they followed at a slight distance, Kakashi leading the way.

When he reached training ground 3, Kakashi observed that there was already a huge crater in the ground that hadn't been there before, and he arrived in time to witness Sakura putting her fist through a tree, completely demolishing it. He stopped on a tree branch at the edge of the clearing, Tenzo and Genma shortly arriving to stop beside him.

"You probably shouldn't get in her way right now," Genma murmured unnecessarily, because they could all feel the murderous rage that poured off of Sakura.

They watched in silence as she demolished one tree after another, an occasional slam of her foot creating another crater as she let out a wordless cry of rage. The grounds were being wrecked, but Kakashi knew full well that shinobi wielding earth-moving jutsu were tasked with maintaining them, so he didn't waste time worrying about the damage. When she finally came to a stop, panting, he dropped down from the tree he was in, letting her see him. He heard the sounds of Genma and Tenzo landing beside him.

Stalking forward, his irritation crackling within him, he opened his mouth—and his voice caught in his throat when she met his gaze. There was fury on her face, certainly, but it was the anguish that lay there that gave him pause. Her eyes swam with unshed tears as she rasped, "She's using me to get to you, isn't she? She's using me to make you quit."

And then Kakashi understood.

Sakura didn't appear to be angry at him anymore. Instead, she seemed to have realized that the only reason she'd been promoted to ANBU was so Tsunade could use her to manipulate him. In spite of himself, his irritation began to wane, and he remembered when Sakura had looked at him fiercely and told him that joining ANBU was all she'd ever wanted. It really wasn't her fault that she'd been put in this position. When he opened his mouth to answer her, what came out was, "I'm sorry."

He could sense Tenzo and Genma stiffen in surprise beside him—surprise that echoed within him. He had no idea why he'd said that.

Sakura's face crumpled and she turned away, sniffing quietly. Frowning, Kakashi turned to his other two subordinates and jerked his head back the way they'd come, indicating that he wanted them to leave. Tenzo and Genma both had looks of concern on their faces, but they took off into the trees, leaving Kakashi and Sakura alone.

As Kakashi leaned against one of the tree trunks Sakura hadn't destroyed and waited for her to compose herself, he mulled over what had just happened. He didn't know why he'd apologized—Tsunade's actions certainly weren't his fault. But Sakura had looked defeated in a way that belied everything he'd learned about her so far; she didn't seem like the type to give up. She was more the type to get even angrier and smash through whatever was holding her back. Seeing her look so defeated made him uncomfortable in a way he didn't quite understand.

"I'll request a transfer," Sakura said quietly, and then her shoulders slumped a little more as she added, "Or I'll just quit. I—"

"Just… fuck. Just shut up for a minute," Kakashi blurted uncharacteristically. What was he doing? Wasn't getting her to quit the team what he wanted? Medics were too likely to get hurt in the field. He knew that. He didn't want that responsibility. And he didn't want someone whose job was to make sure he didn't get hurt. Tipping his head back, he sighed.

"You're a good medic," he said. It was like his mouth was moving without his permission. He could feel her turning to look at him, and he kept his face pointed toward the sky. "Your fighting skill is certainly of a high enough caliber to qualify you for ANBU. You're not a complete liability in the field... except for when you're undermining me," he bit out, frowning.

"It's not like I wanted to," she said softly. "But you didn't give me a chance to say anything before you left."

Finally lowering his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not used to having to answer to anyone but the Hokage. I don't like it," he admitted.

There was silence between them for a moment, during which he could feel that she was still looking at him. Finally, he turned to meet her gaze. "We'll figure something out. I'll... consider hearing you out before executing a plan," he said, even though his brain was screaming at him about how incredibly stupid that was. It was like someone else had taken control of him and he no longer in charge of his own actions.

Her eyes were surprised and very, very green as she blinked at him and asked, "Why? What do you get out of this?"

That uncomfortable feeling increased and Kakashi looked away again, frowning. "Maybe I think that Tsunade's overstepping… and maybe I think we both have something to teach her about underestimating people." But that didn't feel quite right—in fact, it almost felt like a lie. He pushed that to the back of his mind as he pulled himself away from the tree. It would do for now. "Just… don't quit."

After a brief pause, she quietly said, "Okay." Kakashi nodded and turned, ready to take his leave. But she stopped him when she continued, "Captain?" When he looked back at her, she had a hesitant smile on her face as she said, "Thank you."

Kakashi felt something tighten in his chest and he reached up, pulling his ANBU mask down as he turned away. "You're welcome," he murmured before he leapt off, leaving Sakura and all the uncomfortable feelings she caused behind him.