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Discretion is an important part of most shinobi relationships, but it becomes absolutely crucial when there are rank differences involved. Attacking a target's precious people is not honorable, but it is common, and rare is the chuunin who wants to face a jounin's personal enemies. And two jounins' personal enemies? Iruka will pass, thank you.
But while discretion and subterfuge are necessary, they are also, in the right light, entertaining. Iruka's work at the mission desk means that he is the one who keeps track of the others' comings and goings, the one to arrange things on the occasions when their schedules do overlap.
"Ah, your penmanship is atrocious," he tells Anko as she hands in a mission report. "How do you expect me to read this?"
"With diligence and clever code-breaking skills," she retorts with a grin, not even a flicker of her eyes to give her away, but he knows she's seen the extra scrap of paper folded over the edge of her report: the pagoda is all it says. She will know the rest.
He sighs in exasperation. "Please be more clear next time, Anko-san."
"Of course, sensei," Anko says sweetly, and he knows that tonight she'll make him pay for delivering the message this way. "Your patience is too kind."
When Ibiki comes in, two hours later, he looks tired and strung tight enough that Iruka doesn't want to try the blustering approach. Instead he stays calm, stays quiet, taking the report Ibiki produces—which is, in fact, considerably messier than Anko's immaculate one—and keeping his voice down when he hands Ibiki a scroll in return. "A message from the Hokage," he murmurs, which is what the scroll contains; his own message is wrapped around the base of it, nearly indistinguishable.
"Thanks," Ibiki says as he takes it. His grip is careful and catches Iruka's addendum neatly. "She doesn't need a reply right away, does she?"
Iruka shakes his head. "She didn't say it was urgent," he says.
"I'll look at this later, then," Ibiki says, tucking the scroll into his flak jacket.
"Of course," Iruka says. "Have a good evening, Ibiki-san."
It is some time yet before his shift is over, and after that he heads home just as he would on an ordinary evening: dinner, a few assignments to grade, the very ordinary routine of a school teacher in a hidden village. Not until full dark does he leave the house again, and then he heads toward the center of the village and the bars that his peers will be frequenting. He turns off that path between one street and the next, hopping up to the rooftops and taking off into the dark.
Will Anko beat him to the rendezvous? Will Ibiki even be there? After a rough mission, sometimes one of them will need time to unwind before they're fit company even for each other. The ability to understand that, and accept it even when it's painful, is another thing shinobi relationships require.
The pagoda is dark when Iruka reaches it, but that means nothing. It's a warm night; they probably won't bother with a fire. He slips a kunai into his hand and makes his way toward the entrance. He can't feel any active wards—is he the first one there? It seems strange, when they were both off-duty before he was. He inches his way past the outer columns, stepping under the shadow of the pagoda's roof.
He turns, raising his blade, the instant he hears noise, but he's still not quite quick enough. Anko is warm against his back, the point of her kunai just under his chin. "You're late," she says.
"Wouldn't have wanted to make anyone curious about where I was going in such a hurry," Iruka says mildly.
"Tch," Anko says irritably. She's definitely going to be playing rough with him tonight; there's a tiny part of Iruka that's always thrilled at the chance to be the brat instead of the rule-making sensei for a little while.
A crackling, powerful set of wards spike to life around the pagoda's edges, and Anko goes tense against Iruka's back. "I hope I'm not going to listen to you two squabbling all night," Ibiki rumbles from the shadows. He already sounds worlds better than he did this afternoon.
Iruka relaxes a little, a knot of tension below his ribs melting away. This feels like one of the nights when they can all be what the others need. He keeps his tone light: "If you have other suggestions, I'd be happy to oblige."