Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. This was written for entertainment purposes only.
True to the fickle nature of a Fire Country summer, the sun was shining the next day, climbing bright and golden into the blue sky. Sweat beaded on the back of Falcon's neck and along his hairline as he walked down the winding and unshaded streets. He was used to carrying heavy weights long distances—hell, any shinobi was—but there was a rule about little children that they got heavier the longer you carried them.
Naruto, despite possessing an almost inhuman amount of irrepressible energy, had decided halfway from the hospital to the ANBU complex that he was tired. Falcon's attempt at resistance had crumbled under the onslaught of blue eyes. He hadn't gone quite as far as pouting, but it hadn't been far off, the ANBU was sure. A bead of salty moisture skulked down beside Falcon's ear, just far enough inside the edge of his mask that he couldn't reach to brush it away.
And once again, the concrete monstrosity of Konoha's Black Ops Headquarters loomed into his view as a sweet haven. He grimaced under his mask at that. ANBU was a hulking, hideous construction of grey blocks and unfinished steel, and he loved it. The atrocity squatted in the northwestern corner of Konoha, backed against the cliff of the Hokage monument. Nothing so obvious as a fence of barbed wire surrounded it, but civilians and shinobi alike avoided it as if one did.
He pointed for Naruto's benefit. "That's it, kid." The grasping tendrils of early morning light gilded the steel girders in gold. The walls almost glowed, as if someone had decided to coat the coarse concrete with a cadmium wash. Just as toxic, too. Falcon hated the architect of that building in the mornings.
"It's ugly," Naruto declared emphatically, peering over Falcon's shoulder at his new home.
"It sure as hell is," Falcon agreed.
Naruto began squirming, pushing skinny arms against Falcon's armored back. "Put me down," he demanded. "I wanna walk."
He set the kid down carefully, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. Naruto pulled away and sprinted, completely unintimidated, towards the building, legs churning wildly. A smile tugged at Falcon's lips as he watched the boy's uninhibited antics. A few long steps caught him up to the escapee, and he followed the boy to the doorway at a sedate jog.
The entrance to ANBU was a doublewide metal door, flanked on either side by a window of shatterproof glass. The heavy hinges were greased daily, and the doors never locked. They swung inwards at a fingertip's touch. It was the one detail he congratulated the designers for, and one they had made sure to account for when ANBU finally got the funds to construct its own space. Falcon could remember too many times he had opened the doors by falling into them, too exhausted to go a step further. Also the times, certainly worse, when his hands had been occupied holding a body to his back, not even knowing if it was still alive or not. Those were the memories of nightmares.
He shook those thoughts from his head. Naruto was straining at the doors, trying to pull them open with his five-year-old strength. Falcon reached over his head and pushed gently on the right leaf. It began to swing silently inward and Naruto giggled in embarrassment before throwing his full weight against the door. Under his mask, Falcon grinned, and they stepped together into the dim foyer.
The lobby, with its personal mop closet and tiled floor, was the next unique feature. But at least the eyesore of a building had damn good insulation, and Falcon basked in the relief of cool air against his overheating skin. At a desk set back a few meters from the door, a man in civilian garb was chatting casually with the uniformed ANBU on duty. Falcon's smile faltered. The man on the close side of the counter tossed his head back in a laugh, brown hair skimming his shoulders in an expressive curtain. He was out of uniform, but this was ANBU's Frog.
Falcon wondered for a quick moment if there wasn't something wrong with a situation in which he dreaded seeing his best friend. But there was so much wrong with the premise to begin with, it didn't bear thinking about.
Kyuubi had killed Frog's entire family, which was why Falcon had hoped Naruto could settle in a little before meeting him. Only Frog's youngest brother had survived the attack; evacuated to the hospital, it had taken him four weeks to die. Snatching moments from the overload of missions forced on the heavily depleted shinobi forces to sit by his side, Frog had watched his beloved sibling die by inches. His lungs had been burned beyond repair, and he slowly caved to agony not even the strongest painkillers could truly dampen.
The boy had been seven years old when Frog had put him in the ground.
He was alone now. And though he was not an unreasonable man, when he was lucid, nor a cruel one, he had lost so much.
Frog turned to glance at the door when Falcon stepped inside. The desk attendant reached automatically for the scroll of agents on missions. Falcon waved him off with a casual clarification. "In-village." The shinobi nodded, and dug a different list from a drawer.
Naruto was turning in circles, trying to see everything at once. Not that there was much to see: the desk, its attendant, the door they'd entered by—wide enough for a stretcher team to pass easily, and three smaller doorways leading deeper into the building. The floor was tiled in drab off-white, the walls painted in an equally monotonous green. A closet was tucked cleverly into the junction of two walls, the seams of the door barely visible, and so outlined in brilliant white paint.
Frog lifted a hand to wave at his friend. "Hey, Raidou!" he called.
"I'm in uniform, idiot," Falcon reproved, tapping his mask with an exaggerated flick of his wrist.
Frog laughed. "Well, I'm not, Falcon-chan. I've got a date," he explained smugly.
"With who?" Falcon asked, curiously. The desk attendant chuckled quietly, as if he was in on a joke.
"Hayate." Frog smirked at his friend's obvious astonishment. The senbon in his mouth quirked upwards.
"He's in a relationship, Genma. Are you corrupting little Hayate-kun?"
Genma, ANBU's Frog, grimaced. "Hell no. Yuugao would punch me into next week. I lost a bet with him."
The ANBU at the desk chipped in. "Genma bet that Yuugao-san wouldn't kiss Hayate in public. Loser pays for dinner." He snickered. "She did it."
The defeated ANBU scrunched up his face and leaned lazily against the edge of the desk. "She did more than that. Middle of the marketplace on Thursday. You should have seen the two of them, Raidou."
"How did he get Uzuki-san to agree to that?" Falcon asked. "She's so...I don't know, proper, I guess is the word."
"Stuck up?" Genma suggested. "Hayate just told her that I bet she wouldn't. I think she likes to spite me." He shrugged. "But now I owe Hayate and Yuugao food. We agreed breakfast, instead of dinner, 'cause I've got a mission. She's going to make it hell...Hey, you want to come?"
"Sorry, I've got to get the little guy here settled in. He'll be staying at HQ for a month or so. Maybe longer."
Genma flipped the senbon up a bit, then rolled it to the other side of his mouth. "I was wondering about him." His eyes tracked the scurrying form as the child investigated all the corners of the room. The call of the great unknown had lured Naruto from Falcon's side, and not a centimeter would remain unexamined. "Who is he?"
The ninja at the desk interrupted. "Falcon-san, you know you can't bring unauthorized personnel in here."
"I've got the Hokage's permission," Falcon assured him. "Hey, Naruto-kun, come over here a minute."
He watched Genma as he spoke. The moment he said Naruto's name, his friend tensed. Light brown eyes narrowed, and his teeth clenched around the weapon between them. Naruto ran over, blue eyes sparkling. "ANBU-nii-san!"
Genma's muscles loosened as Naruto approached, but Falcon was not reassured. His friend was dropping into a defensive stance, hands spread and relaxed, ready to grab a weapon or form seals at a moments notice.
The little boy stopped in front of Falcon, tipping his head back to send a happy grin towards his new friend.
Genma spoke. His voice, usually smooth and charming, rasped like metal over stone. "What have you done, Raidou?"
"Genma, this is Uzumaki Naruto. He—"
"I have to go, Raidou," he interrupted harshly. Genma never took his eyes from the boy's whiskered face, now peering fearfully at him from behind Falcon's knee. "Hokage's orders or not," he began, but broke the sentence off. Keeping his face carefully blank, he hurried out.
Falcon crouched down on the floor when the doors swung shut behind Genma. The little boy was biting his lip, looking at the floor. "I should go away, ANBU-nii-san," he whispered. "I should go far away, shouldn't I?" He wasn't crying, but the hopeless, slack expression on his face was worse than tears. "That's what everybody says."
Falcon cupped his hand around Naruto's chin and lifted his face. Naruto's eyes were dull, turned inwards against the truth. They were eyes that often walked through those double doors; the rookie on his first solo assassination, coming back with the blood of a child soaking through his vest and deep into his skin; the veteran with three sets of dog tags around his neck and two shattered masks, still smelling of new paint, in his hands. They were Genma's eyes when he stood in the ashes of his home with not even bodies left to bury, eyes that had died once again when his brother took one last, shuddering breath. They were not the eyes for children to be carrying.
Raidou pushed back his mask, and gathered Naruto into his arms, pressing the dandelion-soft head to his shoulder. "You should stay right here, Naruto. You belong here."
"But he hates me," Naruto mumbled.
"It's not you, Naruto-kun," Raidou said truthfully. "Genma doesn't get along with a lot of people." Not exactly an untruth; Genma had a personal vendetta against all of Earth country. "I'm sure you two can become friends." He hoped desperately that his awkward words would be enough.
And Naruto smiled. His eyes lit up like the sun reflected in a trout pond, bright blue and full of life. "Okay, ANBU-nii-san. Hey, you have a face!"
Raidou grinned back. "Of course I have a face, Naruto-kun." I just don't like it very much—squash that thought before it grows any further. "And since I'm off duty now, I don't have to wear the mask anymore. You know what, let's go get you a room. Then, how about lunch?"
"Ramen!" Naruto shouted. He jumped into the air, nearly smashing his head into Raidou's newly exposed face. "Ramen ramen ramen!"
"Okay, we'll get ramen," Raidou chuckled. He glanced quickly at the desk attendant's masked face, and knew that news of Naruto's arrival would soon be spread throughout ANBU. But that was okay. One problem at a time. And right now, the problem was a hyperactive, ramen-craving ball of sunshine and sky. "Calm down, Naruto! Ramen comes later."
Raidou had seen broken shinobi. A decade ago he had patched Genma together, as someone had later stitched up his own shattered soul. Naruto was not broken yet, and Raidou blessed the fates that had spared him. Staring into those innocent eyes, Raidou swore to himself that he would do everything possible to keep the little boy whole.