You didn’t mean to start nesting.

It began with small things—folding the blanket just right, arranging the space where the light hit warmest, keeping his feathers when they fell. You told yourself it was nothing. A way to feel grounded. A way to stay sane.

Minato never stopped you.

In fact, he encouraged it—always with a soft smile, always just close enough to feel his warmth. He’d watch from the edge of the room, arms loosely crossed, golden wings tucked in behind him. Saying nothing. Just present.

“You look peaceful when you’re focused,” he said one day, kneeling beside you as you smoothed out a corner of the nest. “I wish you’d let yourself rest like this more often.”

You tried to laugh, brush it off, but his hand came to rest on your back, gentle. Grounding.

“You don’t have to keep proving anything to anyone,” he murmured. “Not to the village. Not to them.”

He leaned in, voice softer now. “Not to me.”

It sounded kind. Almost loving. But there was something beneath it—something patient, watchful. Like he was waiting for you to say the right words. Or the wrong ones.

You kept building.

Sometimes, you’d catch him already sitting in the nest before you got there. Other times, he’d be holding a new blanket, or one of his own feathers, wordlessly offering it like it was obvious where it should go.

“You’re making something beautiful,” he said once, fingers brushing your knuckles. “Something that feels… like you.”

But the nest never really looked like you. Not anymore.

It looked like him.

Smelled like him. Moved with the way he breathed, his chakra threaded through everything like silk. And when he settled in beside you—wings spreading just wide enough to close off the outside—you didn’t pull away.

“You’re safe here,” he whispered. “You always have been.”

And he smiled, like it was all your idea.