Author's Note: The following is a side fic to "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" and is NOT CANON.

Tobirama had a feeling it would come to this sooner or later. He wasn't even necessarily hoping that it could have been later, but all the same he felt almost resigned to his current situation and certainly not enthusiastic about it.

Still, after having suffered through his brother's ecstatic joy for days on end and the planning of his wedding and picking out the children's names (never minding the fact that it was embarrassingly early for that kind of talk), and then having had to put up with Uzumaki Kushina's entirely too broad grins in his direction as if he'd gone and made her month, he had not been looking forward to his inevitable meeting with Namikaze Minato.

However, he supposed there was nothing for it.

The young man was standing on his doorstep, polite and charming as he always was, but hidden beneath the thin veneer of pleasantness was something brittle, angry, and more than a little dangerous. Namikaze Minato was young, was not quite what the clan wars had fashioned Senju Tobirama into, but he was dangerously clever and already more than a force to reckon with.

Tobirama had always liked him, seen him as something of a kindred spirit for all the boy's eccentricities, and he supposed that was part of the problem. They were, perhaps, too kindred of spirits.

And, as Lee so often liked to say, there could only be one lord of the rings.

"Namikaze," Tobirama offered in greeting and the jonin offered his pleasant smile back.

"Good afternoon, nidaime-sama," he said, and wasn't that interesting? Certainly, Minato had always deferred to being polite and respectful, but Tobirama was quite certain that he hadn't been nidaime-sama for some time now. After England, the progression to Senju-san had been a rather natural one.

Of course, it was only Lee who had brazenly dove head first into eventually calling him by his given name. However, he supposed she had more than earned that right.

"I assume you're here to talk," Tobirama noted and then couldn't help but ask, "Do you wish to skip the pleasantries?"

That spark of good humor disappeared from the boy's pale eyes, leaving a stark flatness behind, one that would leave even strong shinobi shaken. However, Tobirama had stared the Uchiha clan for most of his life, somehow eyes without the sharingan did not compare to that.

"I rather like the pleasantries," Minato said with a small and thoughtful smile, "Though if you insist, I'll only ask that we not do this on your doorstep where everyone and their brother can see."

Oh, he knew as well as Tobirama that everyone and their brother was already seeing and that the news would be spreading throughout the upper ranks like wild fire. Tobirama wasn't sure why his love life was deemed so utterly fascinating, he would have preferred they leave well enough alone, but ninjas lived for gossip and Senju Tobirama was paying the price of that.

Either way, Tobirama stood aside and ushered him in, guiding him to the dining room where for so many years Minato, Lee, Hashirama, Kushina, the English nin, and Tobirama's hopeless student Haru gathered for English lessons.

If the place invoked any nostalgia, as Tobirama knew it did for Lee, Minato didn't let it show on his face. Instead he quietly sat down next to Tobirama, folding his hands together as he waited for Tobirama to do the same.

He had… presence, especially for one so young, the kind that quietly demanded respect and attention without Namikaze Minato having to say a word. It was small wonder, that even without taking into account his fearsome skill, he had made the rank of jonin so young.

However, even with Tobirama seated next to him the blonde said nothing, merely stared forward as if utterly fascinated by the wall hangings. It appeared then that if Tobirama wanted the brat out of his house he was going to have to make the first move.

A rather dangerous strategy, Tobirama thought, as this meant Tobirama could say anything he wanted. He supposed that Minato had more or less figured out what Tobirama might say to him, had come here all too likely with his own poorly hidden agenda, and in that case Tobirama would give him anything but that.

Besides, it felt oddly good to emulate the unpredictable and tactless Eru Lee every now and then, "If you liked it, Namikaze Minato, then you should have put a ring on it."

The man spluttered and flushed like a schoolboy, hunching over and nearly falling onto the table in shock, while Tobirama only wished that he'd had the foresight to insist on tea so he could watch the blonde spew it all over his table.

"That's—"

"If you're going to say something utterly predictable like I'm too old for her, that we come from such different times and places, or that she has no idea what she's getting into and I'm taking advantage of her then you might as well not speak at all," Tobirama said calmly, cutting him off before he had a chance, "And, know that I'm torn between your insistence on playing the overprotective elder brother figure, attempting to shield the fact that you're instead the jilted lover, adorable or else pathetic."

Minato flushed one last time, smiled, but there was an edge to his voice as he insisted, "I wasn't going to say that."

"Really?" Tobirama asked, because he was certain the Minato was.

A few years earlier and Tobirama would have put down good money that it would be Minato and Lee who ended up together, not simply dating either, but married with four or five brats on the way. It had seemed inevitable, unquestionable, really.

However, he supposed things changed, and instead of Lee, Namikaze Minato's attention strayed to Uzumaki Kushina and hadn't wavered since. Only, the ties that bound the pair together hadn't truly disappeared or even loosened, and instead the three began a strange sort of dance that Tobirama himself would never have had the patience for.

Lee, however, seemed to. He could imagine her waiting forever, she had probably even meant to, resigning herself to the role of an aunt to Minato and Kushina's future children. However, things changed there too, and Tobirama couldn't precisely say why or how it had happened.

He'd never truly considered it and he doubted Lee had either but…

Somehow, they'd simply slid into each other's lives, and Tobirama was confronted with possibilities he'd never bothered to consider, as well as all the consequences he'd never wanted to deal with.

It was such an oddly natural thing, though, as if all he'd had to do was step in the right direction and the path laid itself out before him. So that it became impossible to imagine a world where he hadn't simply been unwittingly waiting for her to make an appearance.

"I was going to ask what your intentions are," Minato said instead, and once again, Tobirama certainly doubted that.

"You came to ask if my intentions are honorable?"

Minato seemed to realize what a ridiculous question that was, as for a moment he blanched, before regaining his poise and noting, "I suppose, though I'd settle for simply knowing what they are."

Well, that was the trouble, Tobirama wasn't certain he knew himself. Oh, he knew he was not a man for casual swings or passionate and emotionless sex. If he began something, it was going to be something definitive and steady.

However, for all his brother's nattering he wasn't ready yet to put the word marriage to it, not this soon. That wasn't a word you simply tossed around, it was, in fact, a word that Tobirama had managed to avoid all his life.

All the same…

He supposed that if things continued as they were then they would come to that soon enough.

However, Minato wasn't privy to those kinds of thoughts and Tobirama thought it best to remind him of his place in this, "You lost that right when you started dating Uzumaki Kushina."

Tobirama gave him a rather piercing look, "You are not her brother, and your friendship is so strong I honestly hesitate to call you friends. What you are to each other I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand. However, you've chosen to date Kushina for years on end and I'm sure someday soon you mean to marry her, and I'm truly happy for you, but in doing so you gave up your right to Eru Lee's future. Our actions and inactions, Namikaze Minato, have consequences."

It certainly struck home, but perhaps he was underestimating Minato, as his eyes only widened for a moment before the steel was back inside of them.

"Perhaps, nidaime-sama, but I do believe I have a right to ensure her happiness in whatever way I can."

In whatever way he could? Tobirama wasn't sure that he meant that, not truly. There was an easier way to have, once, ensured Eru Lee's happiness and it wasn't a step that Minato had been willing to take. Or, perhaps, Minato meant that for all of his abilities, for whatever reason, he simply could not have taken Lee himself.

Which Tobirama saw as a rather poor excuse.

Still, it wasn't such a bad thought, on Minato's part. After all, Tobirama wanted much the same himself.

"Well, then I suppose you'll be pleased to know that my intentions are more or less the same as yours then."

At Minato's confused expression, Tobirama explained, "I think, perhaps more than even myself, I want to ensure her happiness."

It was… Well, he supposed he'd had similar sentiments before, certainly for his brother. However, it was such a strange thing if you thought about it. That it wasn't so much about what Tobirama wanted, after all, he had avoided relationships all of his life and could do so again. No, it had somehow become about what she wanted, and she needed, and it pleased him to know that she needed this.

And who knew, perhaps he and Lee had their own strange inevitability as well.

"Now, was that all?" Tobirama asked, watching as the man paled.

For all that Minato was formidable, would one day be great, Tobirama had made kages cower. Minato swallowed drily, eyes wide, and said in a breaking voice, "Yes, I suppose that's it."

"Good," Tobirama said simply, "Although next time, if you're going to come and pretend to be more noble in your intentions than you are, try to come up with an excuse that isn't so flimsy."

Because if one thing could be counted on, Tobirama thought, aside from Lee being Lee, and Hashirama being Hashirama, was that this would be far from the last he heard from Namikaze Minato.

Author's Note: Written for the 100th review of "The Will of Heaven" by CloudOnTheHorizont who asked for a story with Tobirama/Lee as well as mixed reactions to the relationship. Well, it mostly ended up being Minato and Tobirama's very strange mental gymnastics with the backdrop of Tobirama/Lee, but hey. Also, is it just me or has this somehow turned into Tobirama/Lee month?

Thanks for reading, reviews are greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto