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“I need the adoption paperwork,” Tobirama imperiously announces, striding into Hashirama’s study. Sai is perched on his hip and Sasuke on his shoulders.
“Excuse me?” Hashirama asks a bit faintly. “Also, Sakura, growing a tree out of my papers just means they have to be redone, not that we can avoid them,” he adds, barely preventing his daughter from using her Mokuton to turn his paperwork into small cherry trees.
Again.
For the sixth time that week.
“I said, I need the adoption paperwork so I can officially make Sai and Sasuke not only members of the clan, but my sons,” Tobirama says, looking a bit annoyed. He, after all, is the one who gets stuck rewriting all the paperwork Sakura destroys to make ‘pretty trees’.
They all know damn well it’s less because she wants ‘pretty trees’ and more because ‘fuck paperwork distracting Dad’.
“Huh. Toka owes me money,” Hashirama comments, not really thinking about how bad that sounds.
“ Brother! ”
“Oops.”
“Uncle, I don’t think you should be trying to strangle Dad while holding Sai and Sasuke.”
“Go Dad! Beat him up!”
“Dad can you put us down first before you beat up Uncle Hashirama?”
(Mito looks up from the seal Naruto is painting in front of her at the sound of her husband’s shriek and her brother-in-law’s roar of fury. She just shakes her head and ignores that.
Making sure Naruto doesn’t unintentional summon an Ancient One again is more important.)
“So just how did they convince you to adopt them?” Toka asks, taking a sip of her sake. The genjutsu specialist is relaxing with her cousins, watching as their children ran around and caused havoc for the clan elders.
“It was a prolonged and effective campaign,” Tobirama says.
“...They had to do more than just stare sadly up at you? You’re made of sterner stuff than those two,” Toka says, smirking slightly and gesturing at Hashirama and Mito. “Seeing as all Sakura and Naruto had to do was pretty much that.”
“Sakura also grew a wooden barrier around all of them as a defense at the sight of strange shinobi and Naruto almost whacked me in the face with his chakra chains,” Mito points out, a bit dryly. “Do you really think we could have done anything else?”
“No, not really.”
“Exactly. And what do you mean by ‘a prolonged and effective champaign’ Tobirama?” Mito asks, running a hand through Hashirama’s hair. He’s dozing in her lap, tired after regrowing part of the house following an annoyed Kurama spitting up foxfire and burning part of it down.
Perhaps allowing the most powerful bijuu to live in the house, even as Naruto’s companion and protector is a mistake...
“Well…”
It had started with both boys wanting to use his ‘paints’. In truth, what Tobirama has less is paints and more various colored inks for seal work, but his are less... specialized than the ones Mito favors and can be used for things other than seal work. Her’s are simply too chakra imbunded for anything else.
(And no one should ever use paint that’s red due to the blood in it for anything other than seal work)
But it doesn’t end there.
At first he simply assumed it was because they wanted an adult’s attention. Most other members of his clan seemed to avoid the boys. Likely due to how much Sasuke looked like Uchiha Izuna, even though neither boy were Uchiha (supposedly. Rumor put Izuna as being a bit bad at keeping it in his pants and the resemblance is uncanny). Then he realized that he was wrong about them just wanting an adult’s attention.
No. They wanted his attention.
It’s...unusual. The way they would come sit with him, Sai painting while he did paperwork, or Sasuke reading and organizing his notes as he did research. Asked him for stories, asked for him to teach them things. Curled up against him to take naps, just spent time with him even if they did nothing.
(“We had...we had Kaka-nii. And he was a lot like you. He was really smart, and really strong, and he even had white hair like you. But...but he and Tenzo-nii got killed protecting us. The Zetsus were after us, and we only had one idea left, and we used it and they died to give us time.”)
It starts to feel wrong if they aren’t there, and he’s going to make sure that’s never the case. That his sons, his, are always with him, or at least a part of the family.
“You,” Toka smiles warmly, gesturing with her sake cup, “are a softy. Almost squishier than Hashi-chan.”
“Shut up Toka.”
“You’re not denying it? A Sage-blessed miracle.”
“Shut up Toka.”