I met a boy. He made me smile, he made me wait. He crossed the street, he crossed my heart. He fixed his shirt, he bit his lip, he let me up. I met a boy with crazy shoes and baby blues. The way he moves is changing my whole world. I met a boy. -William Michael Morgan (revised)

Hiro stepped out of the shower, rubbing his hair dry before wrapping the towel around his waist and starting to get ready for the day. It was weird, after all these years, finally having a bathroom that was actually his own. Well, not exactly his own-he had to share it with his boyfriend, Ezra, and the older brother he'd only just recently discovered he had, Tadashi. It wasn't just the bathroom, either-given how small the apartment above his newly acquired aunt's cafe was, there was a lot of sharing going on. Still, despite having to share an attic bedroom and a myriad of other things with two other guys, this was the first time in almost fifteen teen years that Hiro finally knew what it was like to actually have a home. The house of the abusive foster family that both Hiro and Ezra grown up in definitely hadn't been home to either of the boys. Probably the closest thing they'd ever had was the beat up purple rover Hiro had bought with the money he'd made working a part time job the day after they'd run away together-it had been where they'd kept their few worldly possessions and even slept some nights when they couldn't even afford a cheap motel room with the money they made working odd jobs in the towns they would stop when they were about to run out of gas (that was how they'd picked their rather sporadic stopping points-they were doing their best to keep the police off their tails considering they weren't adults yet and their foster parents were probably trying to find them just to avoid getting in trouble for losing them.) Still, even that hadn't been exactly a home. As cheesy as it sounded, Hiro knew that Ezra was his home-wherever the man he loved was, that's where he wanted to be for the rest of his life. But now he actually had something that he could consider a real home and a family-and not just in a metaphorical sense, but an honest-to-goodness biological family! Hiro had been orphaned at such a young age that he had little to no recollection of the older brother he'd been separated from in the system, but by some miracle they'd been reunited when Hiro and Ezra had run into him in the cafe owned by the boys' remaining aunt who had been trying to find her younger nephew for years with no luck. After that rather surprising but not unpleasant reunion, the two boys had been invited to come actually live with the family and, despite a bit of reluctance to begin with on Ezra's part (years in the system had made both him and Hiro wary of strangers, even ones who claimed to be related), they had finally come to be able to call the place home.

This had been a little over a week ago. In that time, Ezra had started working at the job he'd come here to the city to get in the first place-it was only an entry level position in the print room of a prominent newspaper, but it was at least something. Hiro, despite his aunt's insistences that he didn't need to repay her in any way, had started taking a few shifts in her cafe, and in his free time Tadashi helped him start applying for the same university that he himself studied at, the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. If the fact that Hiro had graduated from high school at the age of thirteen didn't impress them, the fact that he was the younger brother of the robotics prodigy and inventor of the famous line of Baymax nurse bots would definitely give him an edge in the rather competitive pool of SFIT hopefuls. Of course he would still be on his own when it came to the Expo (the event that SFIT hosted where potential students presented projects in hopes that a professor would be impressed by their work and choose them to come study directly under them in their lab.) Tadashi was already talking his little brother up to his own mentor and one of the most famous professors at the university, Robert Callaghan (creator of Callaghan's Laws of Robotics and co-creator of the Catmull-Callaghan Spline), but the teen genius had some pretty major ideas going in his brain for an invention that would surely blow all of the judges away. Tadashi had granted him full access to his garage workshop for the sake of the project (he would have let him use the equipment in his lab at SFIT but that might have been seen as cheating), and in the evenings after work Ezra would join the two out there, watching them work or often convincing the two of them to take a break for the night, which usually resulted in late night movie or tv show marathons and the occasional video gaming tournament. It was a bit of a crazy life considering how drastically things had changed, and Hiro was still trying to convince himself that all of this was really happening-that it wasn't just some crazy dream that he would eventually wake up from. He was also trying to find his balance when it came to the relationships in his life-for so long it had been just him and Ezra, but now he suddenly had an older brother and an aunt too. He wanted to get to know both of them, and it was obvious that they were both very eager to have him back in their lives again. They were being extremely accepting of Hiro's boyfriend as well, never failing to tell him just how happy they were to have him living with them and doing their best to include him in things. Still, there was just the tiniest bit of tension there-Ezra wasn't used to having to share his boyfriend, and Tadashi, being the overprotective brother that he'd turned out to be, seemed to still be having a hard time accepting that his precious otouto, who had been basically a baby when he'd last seen him, was almost a full-grown adult and already having a very adult relationship with his boyfriend. Right now there was a very delicate balance in the household and Hiro was doing his best to try to make sure that that balance was maintained. Today, though, he hoped that maybe he could take a tiny break from all of that hard work (although things did have a potential to spiral into an even more uncomfortable state than they already were)-it was the weekend, which meant no work or school for any of them, and, for the first time, Hiro was finally going to be meeting his brother's boyfriend.

Tadashi said that Fred had been wanting to meet Hiro from the minute he'd texted him to inform him of his little brother's reappearance, but both because the other man had been halfway around the world with his parents at the time and because Tadashi had wanted the two teens to have time to settle into their new home, they'd been putting this meeting off until today (not that Tadashi had by any means been out of communication with his boyfriend-Hiro sometimes wondered if his newly discovered nii-chan ever put his phone down with as much as he texted him!) Hiro was extremely curious and, admittedly, a bit nervous to find out what kind of guy his brother was dating. Would he be super stiff and reserved, like Tadashi tended to be at times, or a complete and total opposite personality-wise, a rebel of sorts? The elder Hamada reassured him countless times that Fred was completely normal, but what exactly did "normal" mean to him?

"Hey, Hiro, you almost done in there?"

The teen was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of his boyfriend's voice on the other side of the door.

"Yeah, come in!" Hiro calls after pulling on his shorts.

"Morning." Ezra smiles as he comes through the door.

"Morning yourself," Hiro answers, coming over to wrap his arms around his boyfriend's waist and peck him on the lips.

"Sleep well?"

"Mm! You?"

"I was sleeping next to you, how could I not?" Ezra answers playfully.
"Don't let Dashi hear you saying that," Hiro answers, rolling his eyes but smiling-it wasn't exactly a secret that he and Ezra had an extremely intimate relationship and that they been sharing a bed for some time, but even though he was gay and active with his own boyfriend Tadashi still seemed to be having a hard time adjusting to the fact that the little brother who had only been a toddler when he'd last seen him was now a grown almost-man and acted accordingly.

"He's downstairs making breakfast, so I think we have a couple minutes to ourselves," Ezra purrs in his ear.

"Oh no." Hiro gently pushes him away, doing his best to look stern. "I know your 'couple minutes', and I just took a shower, thank you, I don't want to have to take another one."

"You're no fun," Ezra pouts.

"I'll make you a deal-you behave today and I'll see if I can find a way to get Tadashi and his boyfriend occupied for long enough for me to give you your reward," Hiro answers with a coy smile.

"With a promise like that, you know I'll behave!" Ezra grins down at him.

"Good." Hiro smiles and pecks him on the cheek before pulling on his shirt. "Ready to head down?"

"Maybe if you give me a proper kiss as an extra incentive to be good," Ezra answers, his hands resting on his boyfriend's hips.

"Okay, okay!" Hiro laughs before pulling him into a warm, passionate kiss.

What was supposed to be a short kiss of course ended up becoming extended into a good five minute long mini-make out session until Hiro finally had to force them to stop-as much as he wanted to stay up here with Ezra all morning, they did have some pretty important stuff going on today and Tadashi would kill them if they ditched on him. So, with the promise that they would pick things back up that night when they had more time and privacy, the two boyfriends head down the stairs for some breakfast.

"Good morning, guys," Tadashi says with a warm smile when they enter the kitchen. "Sleep well last night?"

"Yep!" Hiro agrees, taking a seat at the table. "You?"

"Pretty okay," Tadashi answers with a wry chuckle. "Kind of had a hard time falling asleep since I was so excited about today!"

"Excited about seeing your boyfriend?" Hiro asks with a slightly teasing smile.

"Excited about my little bro and his boyfriend getting to meet my boyfriend, yeah," Tadashi answers with a playful grin as he dishes scrambled eggs and bacon out onto plates and then brings them over to the table. "C'mon, eat up, Fred's going to be here soon!"

"I'm eating, I'm eating!" Hiro answers with a wry chuckle, picking up his fork and eagerly digging into the delicious looking food.

Just as everyone was finishing up eating, suddenly the sound of the doorbell ringing fills the small house.

"He's here!" Tadashi cries, his entire face lighting up.

Hiro has to do his best not to laugh as his older brother scrambles to his feet, his fork forgotten and falling to his plate with a small clatter. Wow, he must be really gone on this guy!

"You want us to come with, or do you want a few minutes alone with your boyfriend?" the younger man asks with a tiny smirk.

"Fiance," Tadashi automatically corrects him before blushing and saying, "Um, would you mind giving us a couple minutes? He has been out of town for the last two weeks…"

"Say no more!" Hiro chuckles. "Go do whatever it is you do with him, we'll be waiting here whenever you're done."

He was expecting to get some sort of reaction out of the older man for using so many innuendos, but Tadashi must have really been distracted because he pretty much bolted out of the room without even another word to him.

"Dang-he must really like this guy," Ezra says with a slight smile.

"I'd say a lot more than just likes him," Hiro snarks playfully when he hears the sound of very enthusiastic kissing coming from the front entryway.

"Is it weird for you thinking that your brother's, like, actually engaged to get married?" Ezra asks curiously.

"Not too weird, I guess," Hiro answers with a slight shrug. "I mean… He is twenty-two. He's certainly old enough for it."

"I know, but last time you saw him you were both just kids!"

"True… But you know that I don't really have a lot of memories of that, so it's more like making a new friend who's already engaged," Hiro says after a moment of contemplation. "I mean, I know he's my brother but I don't think that's really completely set in yet…"

"Makes sense," Ezra says with a wry smile. "I'd feel the same way too in your situation."

"Yeah." Hiro flashes him a smile, grateful to have someone to talk to about how admittedly weird all of this still was for him, before sitting up a little straighter when Tadashi finally returns, hand in hand with a slightly shorter male who had dark blond hair tied back into a ponytail and was wearing an Avengers t-shirt.

"Guys, this is Fred," Tadashi says, the love he had for the other man evident in his expression. "Fred, this is my brother, Hiro, and his boyfriend, Ezra."

"Hey." Hiro nods in greeting before getting up to shake the newcomer's hand. Maybe he hadn't been brought up under the best of conditions thanks to that horrible foster home, but he had had proper manners pounded into him (he just chose when or when not to use them, oftentimes to the great annoyance of his ex-foster "parents".)

"Hi!" Fred answers with possibly the friendliest smile Hiro had ever encountered as he returns the gesture. It was like the guy was exuding the same type of friendliness as a squirmy little puppy in the park-you just couldn't not like him even when you'd just met him. "It's so awesome to finally meet you! Tadashi's been texting me all week telling me how excited he is to have you here!"

"Really?" Hiro flashes his slightly embarrassed looking older brother a curious look.

"Totally! You should have seen the text he sent me when you first showed up, I swear the thing was in all caps with more exclamation points than would be considered holy and took me at least thirty minutes to read!" Fred answers with a laugh before adding with a warm smile, "You have no idea how much he missed you all those years-he's been looking for you for as long as I've known him. It's good to know you guys are finally back together."

"How exactly did you guys meet?" Hiro asks, partly because he was curious and partly because he didn't want his brother to see how much he was blushing from finding out just how much he cared about him.

"That's kind of a long story…" Tadashi says with an awkward laugh.

"A long story, but an awesome story!" Fred declares, pecking him on the cheek.

"I don't mind hearing a long story," Hiro declares with a slight grin.

"Me neither!" Ezra agrees, just as curious as his boyfriend.

"Hm… I'll make you a deal," Fred says after a moment of thought. "We tell you our story, and you tell us one of your stories, that way you guys can get know me a little bit and I can get to know you!"

"One of our stories? I'm not sure we've got anything you guys would really want to hear about…" Hiro says uncertainly, not sure he wanted to make this deal.

"Turnabout fair play, little bro," Tadashi answers with a tiny smirk. "Take the deal or don't, it's up to you."

"...All right, fine!" Hiro sighs. "Just don't expect anything ridiculously gooey and romantic or anything!"

"Deal!" Fred agrees with a grin before gesturing to the living room. "C'mon, we should probably sit down because this might take a while!"

"Right!" Hiro agrees-maybe he wasn't too sure about where this was headed, but he'd be damned if he didn't see this through.

"Now c'mon!" he says with a grin as soon as he and Ezra are settled on the couch across from the other two. "Get spilling already!"

"Okay, okay!" Tadashi sighs. "Fred, do you want to start us off?"

"Nah," Fred answers with a playful smile. "I'm honestly excited to hear your version of things!"

"...That wasn't part of the deal!"

"I'm making it a part of the deal!"

"Rude!" Tadashi playfully sticks his tongue out at him.

"Guys, c'mon, stop flirting and get telling!" Hiro groans, rolling his eyes but more amused than frustrated.

"Fine, fine, I'll go!" Tadashi sighs before settling down more comfortably in his chair. "Okay, so this was in our senior year of high school, just to give you some background. Fred had transferred in the previous year from a private school-"

"Because I'd gotten kicked out for being gay!" Fred puts in.

"Yes, because of that," Tadashi agrees with a tiny smirk. "Of course, I didn't know that at the time. Heck, I was still trying to figure my own sexuality out-I'd always thought I was straight even though I wasn't really into girls just because I hadn't really considered the other options. But then I started noticing other guys… Y'know, in that way around my junior year. When I met Fred I was still kind of teetering on the edge, but then the first time I saw him any all doubts about being gay totally went out the window."

"Aw, that's so sweet!" Ezra cries even as Hiro makes fake gagging noises at the ridiculously mushy expression on his elder sibling's face.

"Hey, you wanted to hear the story, I'm just telling it!" Tadashi tells the younger boy sternly. "I can stop at any time!"

"Okay, fine, fine," Hiro agrees, rolling his eyes and smirking. "Please, continue this ridiculously sappy story."

"Hiro-"

"So, did you ask him out, or did he ask you out?" Ezra cuts in, trying to keep the peace.

"That… Is also a rather tricky question," Tadashi admits, sharing a knowing smile with Fred like it was some kind of inside joke between the two of them. "I guess we should start out with the day when we actually talked for the first time, which was about a year and a half after we'd actually sort of kind of met the first time."

"It took you guys that long to talk to each other?" Hiro asks in disbelief.

"Are you going to listen or not?"

"I'm listening, I'm listening!"

"All right then! So, here's what happened…"