The movement in the trees went completely unnoticed by the toddler. He looked to be almost three years old, and he was running after a butterfly, longish silky brown hair flying behind him. The child, however, was being watched. By another child. This one about seven years old, with spiky, pale silver hair and enormous dark eyes. He was dressed like a miniature shinobi, complete with mask, and if it weren't for the Konoha hitai-ate, and the holster of deadly weapons, anyone who did see him would have thought he was playing make-believe.

But it wasn't make-believe. Kakashi was not only a ninja, but a chuunin, and he was tired and dusty and ready to be done with this particular mission. His sensei was waiting for him to return with the scroll he'd pilfered from a certain corrupt Fire Country daimyo. He really had no business stopping here. If the kid's parents couldn't look after him... But there were no parents to be seen, and the kid was heading for the Forest, and it looked like �?? maybe it was Umino-san's brat? That made him a villager, someone Kakashi's sensei had told him was his responsibility as a Konoha shinobi. Especially the child of fellow ninja.

Kakashi sighed, a tired and far too adult-sounding sigh, and turned back to follow the little boy. He stayed in the canopy, under cover of foliage, and tracked the toddler. Chubby arms and legs, pink, baby-fat cheeks. He really wondered where the kid's parents were, a baby like this shouldn't be left alone. It didn't occur to him that he, at three, could have ever looked this innocent and vulnerable. That at seven, he still looked closer to the baby in front of him than the men and women he called colleague.

It didn't take long for the thing Kakashi was watching for to happen: The boy stumbled over a mole hole and fell head-first down a small embankment to land with a startled thump at the base of a tree, half buried in a pile of leaves. He sat up with a shocked look on his face, then began to wail.

Kakashi dropped down from the tree to land softly beside the bawling child. He pulled the kid to his feet and felt him over. No obvious injuries. The baby stopped squalling for a moment, when Kakashi appeared, then set up screaming even louder as the boy handled him.

"What? You're not hurt." Kakashi scowled at the infant.

The baby shrieked and fell back on his bottom.

"What, baby? Stop crying." The little chuunin stood with his hands on his hips and studied the problem.

The baby just continued to cry.

Meh, this is a real problem now, he thought. He's going to attract attention, making all this noise. And while Kakashi was pretty sure he'd ditched his pursuers long ago, he didn't need to be taking a risk like this. But he couldn't very well just leave the kid, especially if there was a chance someone unfriendly might find him.

He looked around helplessly, then knelt in front of the noisy brat. "OK, stop crying. Nii-san will get you back home, okay?" He wrapped his arms around the baby in a clumsy hug, and was surprised when the child clung to him like an octopus, burying his teary, snotty face in Kakashi's neck.

"Um, OK. We're gonna play a jumping game, OK?" Kakashi straightened up, surprised and pleased that the child had stopped crying. The boy simply nodded his head against Kakashi's shoulder.

He leapt up to a low branch, then to a higher one, until they were well hidden in the trees.

"Wheeee!" the baby said, instantly cheerful.

"You- you like that?" asked Kakashi.

"Uh huh," the baby nodded and bobbled in Kakashi's arms, grinning. His face was still tear-streaked, and Kakashi marveled at how quickly the tot had shifted from one emotion to another.

"Daddy does dat, too. And Mommy." The child grinned, then placed a grubby hand on Kakashi's mask, pulling at it. "Why do you have dis?"

"I just, well- Just because. I'm a ninja."

"Mommy and Daddy awe ninja, and dey don't have dese." The toddler continued to pull at the fabric, uncovering Kakashi's nose. "Ha ha, nose!" he shrieked, when he'd freed it.

"Um, yeah. Nose," Kakashi echoed uncomfortably. "So, what's your name, baby?"

"I'm not a baby! I'm a big boy!" The little boy proclaimed, pushing at Kakashi's shoulders.

"Um, yeah, OK. What's your name?" Kakashi shifted the child on his hip. He was strong, certainly for a boy of seven, but carrying a toddler half his size was more work than he had expected.

"Iwuka."

"Iruka? OK, Iruka-chan. I'm your big brother Kakashi, OK? And I'm gonna take you home now. Where do you live?"

"Wif Mommy and Daddy," Iruka said happily.

Kakashi groaned. "And where is that? Do you know?"

"At ouw house!" Iruka seemed immensely pleased with his answers.

"Was your Mommy or Daddy watching you today?" Kakashi asked, scanning anxiously around, but there was no sign of any adult in the vicinity.

"Mommy's on a mission. And Daddy's at schoow." Iruka answered solemnly. "I was pwaying at Hayate's house, but he had to take a nap."

Kakashi groaned. Great. What was he gonna do with the kid? Oh well, better take him to Sensei.

ooo

To say that the Yellow Flash was surprised to see his student bearing not just a scroll but a toddler, would be an understatement. Kakashi stood in front of his sensei and lifted the baby up towards him.

"Here, I found this in the Forest on my way back."

As soon as the man had taken hold of the baby, Kakashi untied the scroll from his back and laid it on the ground. "Here's the scroll."

"Are you in the habit of picking up strays, now, Kashi-kun?" Sensei asked. But his blue eyes held mirth, not reproach.

"I think it might be Umino-san's. His name is Iruka." Kakashi stared up at his sensei.

"Oho, Iruka-chan. And what were you doing out in the Forest all by yourself?" Sensei asked, turning his gaze on the child in his arms.

"Pwaying. Hayate had to take a nap, but I wasn't sweepy." Iruka answered. "I wanna pway wif Nii-san." He twisted and squirmed in the man's grasp, reaching stubby arms towards the slender boy who'd rescued him.

"Don't you think Hayate's mom and dad might be worried about you?" the yellow-haired jounin asked.

"No. Dey fink I'm taking a nap." Iruka replied. "Wanna pway."

Kakashi's sensei put the struggling child down, and he instantly dashed for the young chuunin.

"Nii-saaaaan!" the toddler cried, full of glee, and launched himself into the air, tackling Kakashi around the waist.

The serious little boy stepped back to cushion the impact, then spun and sent Iruka flying in a graceful arc, a victim of his own momentum.

Sensei gave Kakashi a reproachful look.

Iruka landed with a gentle thump, and repeated the performance Kakashi had witnessed when he fell down the small hillock: A dazed look around followed by a piercing wail.

"Kakashi..." Sensei said.

"I didn't hurt him, Sensei. He attacked me. I made sure he'd land safely." Kakashi crossed his arms and stood looking scornfully at the child.

"Well, now you've upset him. Do you think he expected to have his affection rewarded with assault?"

"I..." Kakashi stared at the sobbing child, then at his inscrutable sensei. Since when was an attack affection?

The blond man picked up Iruka, who quieted briefly, then looked at him with tear-filled eyes and a quavering lip, and said, "Chuu?" before starting to cry again.

"What does it want?" asked Kakashi.

"A kiss." Kakashi's sensei proceeded to attempt just that, pressing his lips to the crying child's face and murmuring soothing words.

Iruka just cried louder, beating chubby fists against the jounin's vest. "Nooooo!" He wailed, "Ch-ch-chuuuuu! Niiiiiiiiii-saaaaaaaan!"

"Ah yes," Sensei said, holding the kicking and writhing child out at arms length towards his student. "You did create this problem, so it would seem little Iruka-chan here thinks it is yours to solve."

"Me?" Kakashi looked startled. "I don't know what to do with it. You fix it."

"Are you trying to tell me Hatake Kakashi is afraid of a three-year-old?"

Kakashi regarded the squalling toddler, who was now manifesting little sparks of chakara in the air in his tantrum. Ah yes, the child of ninja indeed. "N-n-nooo. I'm not afraid..." But he took no step closer.

"Just give him a kiss, Kakashi-kun. Is that so hard to do?"

"N-n-nooo..." But Kakashi's body language said otherwise.

"Chuuuuuuu!" wailed Iruka, struggling even harder in his captor's grasp. And suddenly he was free. Perhaps the three-year-old had managed to escape the future Fourth Hokage's clutches. Or perhaps the jounin had let him go. Either way, he propelled himself with even greater velocity at Kakashi, who this time, on a signal from his sensei, caught the child.

"Chuuuuuu!" Iruka sobbed, clinging to Kakashi, who was almost unbalanced by the weight of the still-thrashing child.

Kakashi raised what to his sensei were obviously fear-filled eyes, and in his moment of inattention, Iruka bashed his head hard into the side of Kakashi's face.

There was a frozen moment where nothing happened. Iruka and Kakashi were both too startled by the sudden collision of skulls to make a sound, and the future Yondaime was somehow caught in the time warp, watching his student tangle with the toddler. Then Iruka shrieked, Kakashi's eyes went out of focus, and in a strange slow motion he fell, like an inflatable toy whose air was being let out.

The Yellow Flash was true to his appellation, once he broke free of his trance, and in less time than it took the sound to reach him, he was catching his falling student and the now screaming Iruka, one in each arm. He held both children to his chest, kissing first the tear-streaked toddler's face, then his unconscious, masked protege.

"Kid's got potential," he thought, as he headed across rooftops to return the stray to his father. "I'll have to tell Umino-san."

ooo ooo ooo end ooo ooo ooo

Author's Notes: Special thanks to Kiki, Momo, Winter, Bite, and Eloquence for support, beta-reading, and encouragement. Thanks to Momo for Yondaime's closing line.

If you read it, drop me a review and tell me what you think. This is a departure for me, this sweet fluffy stuff.

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