Kindling

The thing about Tobirama is that he got his summoning contract very young, he was being raised by the snow leopards before his mother took her last breath, the contract having been her gift to the one son that took after her in temperament so he had been raised by them in all the ways that mattered. And sometimes it showed. It wasn't just the poking things for no real reason, or the casual viciousness; on some level Tobirama didn't understand why he should accommodate the morals of the rest of humanity. Or, as his cousin put it, he just didn't give a fuck unless one of the people he loved was dying, and honestly Hashirama was so annoying sometimes Tobirama thought his brother would be better off without him anyway.

In some ways he stood between Hashirama and their father, but he was also sure that about half the time father was pissed off at them it was his fault anyway that he wouldn't dare to touch his heir, Tobirama didn't think. Either way, when Tobirama made the mistake of reaching out with his senses and felt the magnificence of Madara's soul something in him just was done. He had just found the most beautiful thing he was ever going to find, the warmest, the most sparkly, the most wonderful, thing on the planet and he was never ever going to be able to tell anyone? Was going to have to actively try and kill the sunbeam? Nope. Not happening. At first he did his best, he tried very hard to play at giving a fuck for his brother's sake, but it just didn't work. Because Hashirama never came to him and told him about his cool new friend how is he supposed to collect his person if he didn't know anything about them? Honestly by the time he was sent to follow his brother it was no surprise that he had decided to do the things the leopard way, always seemed to work better anyway.

Which is why, at what in another world would have been a terrible traumatizing event for everyone involved in this one went a little different; the moment their father decided to reveal them Tobirama decided he had had enough and rather than reveal himself into bear his teeth and snarl and be angry he did the leopard thing and he walked right across the river and claimed the best patch of sunlight, curling up and making it his. The fact that it happened to be Madara Uchiha just kind of happened and was not something that he had any control over, sunbeam was sunbeam; the fact that the fluffiest spot on the best sunlight was it Madara's incredibly soft hair and also the place that Madara’s flailing didn't whack him wasn't Tobirama’s fault.

Madara just wanted to know why there was a small, faintly terrifying white-haired child perched on his shoulders purring and how he could get it to stop, the boy was kind of cute in really terrifying way, but he was still on top of Madara and not looking like he was going to move. Even worse the Senju were eyeing the child with clear wariness, clearly unwilling to anger or dislodge the small boy (and, yeah, ok, Madara had noticed that the child really should be quite a bit heavier than he was, it was hard not to notice! The kid was on his head!) and it was several minutes before the Senju clan head slowly, warily, said “Tobirama, get – uh, off and come here” the man barked and Madara felt the boy on his head shift and small hands burrowed under his hair and gently scratched at his scalp as the child- Tobirama apparently- curled closer. “No, mine.” Tobirama grumbled, “We can split you up by force!” Butsuma snapped and Tobirama’s red eyes narrowed (at least Madara assumed they were, it felt like it), “No you can't” the child growled “take him to the summons” and Butsuma paled dramatically, well aware that his son could and would do that and not ready to deal with a Uchiha brat that had Sage Mode and had learned how to person from a bunch of big cats (a mental image of Madara riding a giant tiger filled the Senju’s head and he swayed where he stood; no, maybe on second thought it was fine if Tobirama stayed where he was, he could take care of himself).