Episode Three: Ask Your Dad

Super awesome Beta: Monster Cat Music Girl

Itachi's Age: 3

"Say what?" Kushina asked as she stared, dumbfounded, at the face of the three year old before her.

She was leaning backwards over the couch, having been in the process of watching a soap opera while she waited for the little ankle-biter to get home.

Itachi opened his mouth to obediently repeat himself, like she'd asked, when the redhead lurched forward to stop him. Nearly face planting in the process as she waved her hands wildly in the air. "Nuh-uh, no! Don't- just... where did you learn that word?!"

For a panicked moment, she worried that she'd slipped up. Mikoto would have her head! She couldn't think of when, though, she'd been crazy paranoid about keeping unsavory words like that out of the midget's hearing range.

"From the chuunin outside the bar," he replied. "What does it mean?"

"Uh...," Kushina answered, for once rendered speechless. This was why she wasn't a parent. Little kids and their fragile psyche. She was pretty sure the boy was too young to be knowing words like that. Probably. Maybe? Dang it. This wasn't even her kid!

Oh.

"Go ask your dad."

Duh. Not her child, not her problem.

Satisfied she'd successfully dodged the situation like a true ninja, Kushina turned back to her show. It still had about ten more minutes until it was over. Itachi could make himself a snack in the kitchen, he knew the drill.

Except, instead of hearing the disturbingly-too-quiet-for-a-three-year-old sounds of food preparation, there was a soft click. Suspiciously like a door being closed.

Fearfully, the redhead turned away from the television. There was no sign of the little midget, and the front entry way was conspicuously lacking in little shoes.

Aw, crap.

Minato was having a pretty good day, as far as days went. He'd come in with less than the usual amount of paperwork, Kushina had baked a fresh batch of cookies and packed some for him to take to work, and the meeting with the clan heads had ended earlier than expected. Normally, he would stay for the after meeting socializing, but... he had cookies to eat. Not that he let anyone else know that.

They would expect him to share.

So with that in mind, he leaned over to activate the office's privacy seals to enjoy his lunch. Yes, he took Kushina's cookies that seriously.

He was just placing a finger on the activation array when his window exploded open and red-headed bullet knocked him from his chair.

"IT'S LEGITIMATELY NOT MY FAULT THIS TIME, I SWEAR, DATTEBANE!"

Okay, ow. His ears were ringing. "Kushina...? Wha-"

"Hide me!" As quickly as he'd been tackled, Minato was released and his assailant had disappeared under his desk.

The Yondaime didn't react for a moment as he tried to understand what had just occurred. Usually being tackled in his office by his wife in the middle of the day went very differently than it was going now. He carefully stood up and righted his chair before coming to crouch down and peer under the seemingly empty desk. She was even using the genjutsu seals? Something must seriously be up.

"Kushina, is everything alright?" he asked warily.

"Shhhh! She's coming! She'll hear you! I'M NOT HERE, 'TTEBANE!"

...

This was going to be one of those days, he just knew it.

Minato was about to try one more time to get a coherent response from his wife when he felt something that made him pause. The only thing that could describe it was sheer rage. A dark miasma of pure killing intent that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

It was making it's way down the hall only to stop just outside the door to his office. Honestly? It reminded him of his wife, almost, when she was really really mad at him. Yet, worse. He didn't know there could be killing intent worse than that.

It was somewhat offset by the soft polite knock on his door.

Hesitantly, he set his chair back upright and sat at his desk before calling out, "Come in."

The door opened, and surprisingly did not reveal an enraged bijuu, but a disturbingly calm looking Uchiha Mikoto. "Good afternoon, Hokage-sama. I hope I'm not intruding?"

Minato was convinced that face deserved a flee-on-sight notice more than his ever did. He actually had to slip into a partial combat mindset just to keep from freezing up. What did Kushina do?!

He was so distracted by the mother in front of him, he only barely noticed her son was in the room as well.

Meanwhile, under his desk, the redhead was not doing as well as her husband. She nearly jumped out of her skin at the soft sound of another person crawling under the desk beside her.

Itachi sat down under Kushina's Hokage's desk fort and took a moment to glance around at the ingenuousness of his babysitter's hiding place. He did not know they were allowed to hide here. With the genjutsu seals, it was unlikely his mother would find them.

Though, his mother could be pretty creative when she was upset. He did not know why she was so upset, but Uzumaki-san clearly knew. Maybe she would tell him?

Kushina watched in growing horror as the kid looked around before returning his attention back to her and opening his mouth to speak.

Using all of her ninja skill, the redhead clamped on hand over the toddler's mouth, and used the other dig into the desk drawer where she knew her husband kept his lunch. She quickly found the bag she wanted and promptly released her hold on the child's mouth only to replace it with a chocolate chip cookie.

Kid's liked cookies, right?

It seemed to work. The kid's eyes went really wide as he slowly bit and chewed. He seemed to stare at the cookie like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. She breathed a sigh of relief. As long as she had cookies to feed him the child would keep silent. And fortunately, this child was a very slow eater.

Little did she know that Uzumaki Kushina had just activated Uchiha Itachi's addiction to sweets. Especially her home-baked cookies.

Now she just had to wait out the apocalypse (aka angry Uchiha Mikoto) and pray she had enough cookies to last...

A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed that, sorry for the delay. Real life has been crazy. Full time jobs are no fun. I can't decide if I had more fun writing Minato, Kushina, Itachi or Mikoto in this… they're all fun. Probably Minato and Kushina are tied.

Okay, off to work on M:TABD. It's going to take longer than this did, but I'm determined to get that chapter done. :)

Thank you for your patience!

-Py

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