2002
Cambridge University, England
The kid spent the week after the party avoiding Kaz.
He'd emerged from the terrible, awful hangover rather embarrassed and not a little upset.
Embarrassed that Kaz had seen him in that state.
Upset at the two lads who'd taken advantage of his youth to have a bit of fun at his expense. Upset at himself for falling prey to them. Upset at his aunt for treating him like a child by pulling him out of the party in front of everyone. And ultimately, upset at Kaz for tattling on him to his aunt.
Probably. At least that was what Kaz imagined was going through the lad's mind, anyway. That was what he'd be feeling in that situation. Of course, he wasn't a twelve-year-old polymath, so what did he know, anyway? But, he thought, that's what the kid was feeling and was the reason he'd suddenly stopped coming to his room and the robotics lab.
Catesby from the chemistry department, who'd obviously thought that he could use the boy to make a name for himself – (Kaz had thoughts about that, but it wasn't really his business, was it?) – had granted Freddie-Danny-whatever some space in his lab to play, so he spent most of his time that week in the chemistry building…until The Incident.
Kaz would be the first to say that being in a bad mood around explosives tends to result in…explosions.
The kid, it seemed, was no exception, and made a particularly impressive blow-up that resulted in the fire department being called and the building being evacuated and, of course, for his father to be summoned.
Kaz had glimpsed the two of them in the hallway of their living quarters after the furor had died down, and he had never seen a man look so exasperated as Mr. Lyon did at that moment.
"Oh, for goodness' sake, Danny," he was saying, rubbing a hand over his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. "This place is not equipped to handle accidents of your magnitude. We've talked about this."
"I'm sorry, Dad," the lad had said, shoulders hunched and head hanging, and definitely avoiding Kaz's concerned gaze as they passed by each other. He smelled like chemical smoke.
Well, Kaz had reasoned, at least Victoria hadn't told Freddie's father about the drinking, else he probably would have stopped Kaz for a chat. Kaz was glad for that, actually, since he had no idea what he'd say if the fact that he hadn't taken proper care of Cambridge's precious new jewel got out to the higher-ups. Probably some kind of write-up. Definitely a talking-to. He was too close to the end of his studies to risk anything.
. . . . .
2010
MI6 HQ, London, UK
"Remember the time you blew up Catesby's lab?"
"Oh god, no," Freddie groaned, "Why did you have to bring that up? He hated me after that. Absolutely despised me."
Kaz snorted. "And then there was–"
"Noo." The lad was hiding his face in his hands, red-tipped ears sticking out from behind them.
"Basically everyone there, eh?" Kaz laughed. "Burned bridges all around, except for me. Literal fire in some cases."
"Not everyone," Freddie huffed and drank his beer, of which he was carefully taking only small sips to make it last. Evidently, he had learned his lesson. "I was there for years after you left, you know. I managed to figure out how to get along with people, more or less."
"Average, ordinary, unremarkable people, you mean?" Kaz teased.
"Yes, people like you," Freddie huffed, his nose in the air. Then he glanced over at Kaz and dissolved into giggles, just like he used to. "God, I was such a pretentious little brat."
"Still are, in my opinion," Kaz snorted through a mouthful of vindaloo curry. Extra spicy, just the way he liked it.
"You've been back on British soil how long? I've changed, thanks."
"Ach, speaking of being back, I haven't had a proper curry since I left," Kaz moaned, scraping the last bit of spicy manna from heaven off of his plate. "Germans don't do it right. I want another." He hailed the waitress like one would a cab and was rewarded with an annoyed look. Ah, London.
"Came back just for the curry, then?" Freddie shook his head, amused, and ate his own dinner at a more sedate pace.
"Of course. What else?"
. . . . .
2002
Cambridge University, England
After another week of the kid very definitely avoiding him, even going so far as to skip his class, Kaz decided to be an adult and fix things. He was an engineer, wasn't he? He could fix things just as well as he could break them.
So he pounded on the door of 221 when he knew for certain that the boy was in, until it finally opened to reveal a sour-faced preteen glaring up at him.
"It's two in the morning. What do you want?"
"Wanna kick my ass?" Kaz offered without preamble.
Freddie stared sullenly for a moment. "Let me get changed."
The walk over to the campus gym was a silent one, but Kaz didn't mind. He was too busy cursing his awkwardness and dreading what would come out of his mouth next. He wasn't exactly known for his tact.
He needn't have worried, as the next hour was taken up first with picking the lock of the dark and empty gym, then with strikes, grapples, and blocks, which occupied their minds too much to deal with conversation.
"Ah, shit!" With another curse, he was on his ass…again. "Alright, I'm done," he groaned and gingerly picked himself up. "You've battered my pride enough for today, bairn, and it's only three in the bloody morning."
"I'm sorry."
"Nah, don't worry about it," Kaz said, and rubbed his sore hip.
"I mean–" the boy started awkwardly, then seemed to steel himself. "I shouldn't have been angry at you these past couple of weeks. It was immature of me to avoid you."
"Were you avoiding me?" Kaz said, pretending not to have noticed. He took a swig of his water. "I thought you were busy blowing things up in places not my lab. Considerate of you, I thought."
Freddie grimaced. "I suppose it was serendipitous that I wasn't in your lab when it happened. If it had to be anywhere, I'm glad that it was in Catesby's."
Kaz guffawed. "Aye, right! He's right famous for bein' an arse. You're everyone's hero," he proclaimed, drawing a giggle from his companion.
"I meant," Freddie started again, sobering. "What I meant was that I'm grateful to you for looking out for me and telling me not to go, even though I did, and I was very rude to you, and thank you for telling my aunt where I'd gone because I suppose it was a good thing that you guys came when you did before I could make even more of a fool of myself–" he said all in one breath.
"Yeah, okay."
"Okay?"
"Aye."
"Okay."
They sat there a little awkwardly.
Kaz cleared his throat. "Your father. He wouldn't hurt you if he found out?"
There were plenty of parents who pushed their kids to be the best, especially among the higher echelons of talent and ability. Sometimes, the way and amount they pushed went beyond the limits of acceptable. He certainly knew all about it: Asian, tiger parents, 'why aren't you studying to be a real doctor like your father and sister?' and all the rest.
"No! He would never hurt me."
"Good." He paused. "There's ways of hurting with words, too, not only slapping your kid around. And other stuff." Och, awkward, awkward, awkward.
"Yes. I've read about physical, emotional, and verbal abuse. I would be fine, if he ever found out. But I'd rather not risk the lecture that I would get. He really knows how to make lessons stick." Freddie wrinkled his nose. "Not in an abusive way. Just knows exactly what to say to make you feel like an arse."
"Alright, then. Glad we cleared that up. Let's set stuff on fire."
"Here?"
"No, midget. Somewhere we can't do any damage. Obviously."
"Yeah, obviously."
They caught each other's eyes and burst out laughing.
. . . . .
2010
MI6 HQ, London, UK
Kaz settled into his new life at MI-bloody-6 soon enough. It was…not as interesting as one might think, actually. Sure, he was now officially involved in espionage, but he wasn't actually doing any bloody spying, was he? Lab work was lab work.
Anyway, he did his job and then he visited the gorgeous on-site gym, where he was sometimes joined by Freddie, who never failed to put him on his ass, the little pipsqueak. At least it wasn't as humiliating as it used to be.
He and Freddie were having a good, refreshing spar when a man walked in and started watching them. Kaz didn't have time to pay much attention to him, as he was busy trying not to die, but he was definitely feeling a little judged by the time the round was over. The man was, without a doubt, giving off 'I'm watching you' vibes.
Freddie gave Kaz a hand up, then turned to their observer with a wide grin. "Hey! You're back!"
The man, who wore a scarred leather jacket that looked like it had seen some action and was just as cool and badass as the man himself, glared at Kaz and sized him up, arms crossed.
"Who's this?"
What, was the man jealous or something? Either way, he was exuding surly cockiness and so much badassery that it ruffled Kaz's feathers a bit. A lot. He would, despite his fiery nickname, never be as cool as this guy obviously was, just standing there. A chap could definitely develop a complex being in the same room as this uber-masculine specimen of a man for too long.
Freddie didn't notice. Or maybe this was what the man was always like. "This is Dr. Kazuya Ishida, our new robotics lead," he said, "Kaz, this is 006, Alec Trevelyan."
"Oh, you're one of the charming assholes everyone's been warning me about." Actually, what Padma had said was that Trevelyan was the most charming asshole he'd ever meet, with the exception of James Bond. "I'm supposed to keep out of your way."
Kaz made sure that the guy knew that he wasn't backing down. Whatever weird alpha-dog claim this Trevelyan thought he had on Freddie, Kaz had been here first.
Trevelyan gave him another slow look-over, then snorted, dropping the tense posturing. "Oh god, now there's two of you!" he exclaimed, shaking his head as though in dismay. "Is this how they make boffins now? Snarky, skinny, and can throw a punch? What do you even need me for?"
"Kaz is shit at seducing women," Freddie explained, the little bastard.
"Hey!"
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Arsehole. Just because he might have witnessed a couple of clumsy encounters when Kaz was still Mr. Ishida rather than Dr. didn't mean that he was that bad at talking to women.
"So are you," he immediately shot back. He didn't know this for certain, but there was no way the awkward little pipsqueak was better at it than he was.
"I'm gay, Kaz. Of course I don't seduce women." And then he rolled his eyes as though he'd given a proper answer.
Trevelyan's gaze bounced between the two of them, looking increasingly amused the longer he stood there. "He's shit at seducing men," he offered, and waited for Freddie's reaction.
"I- You-" he sputtered. "When have you ever seen me trying to seduce a man?"
"Ooh," Kaz commented. "Defensive. You must've hit a sore spot."
He thoroughly enjoyed the way Freddie was acting angry without actually being upset. Trevelyan, he now understood, was a friend, a real friend. Catching the other man's eye, he saw that there was a mutual understanding of that fact; Kaz was Freddie's friend, too.
Freddie wrinkled his nose and pushed his glasses back up its bridge. "You…you two are going to gang up on me now, aren't you?" he huffed, putting his hands on his skinny hips.
Gray-green eyes opened wide. "Who, us?" Trevelyan asked with much too much innocence in his voice to sound sincere in any way.
Kaz shrugged, equally virtuous. "No idea what you're talking about, lad."
"I hate you. I hate you both."
He didn't, not really.
"So they told you to stay away from us double-ohs?" Trevelyan asked Kaz conversationally, "For my health or yours?"
"Mine, yours, his…Who knows?"
Trevelyan feigned thinking about it for a moment before he nodded. "Probably all of the above."
"Oh my god," Freddie exclaimed like the dramatic little shit he was, "I need to punch something. Alec, come here."
. . . . .
2002
Cambridge University, England
Kaz wanted to borrow his neighbor's car so he could take the kid out somewhere they couldn't do a lot of damage.
But of course, it being past three in the morning, the selfish bastard only told them to scram, so Freddie suggested hotwiring the car instead.
Brilliant little kid, he was.
So they loaded the boot up with everything they'd need to make a spectacular (controlled) fire and then put it out safely, and they were off.
And what a gorgeous bonfire they'd made. It was beautiful.
So were the homemade fireworks Freddie had insisted on concocting on the spot. Such a fantastic, brilliant little lad, that Freddie.
They were lying on their backs watching the gradual lightening of the sky when the kid spoke up.
"Kaz?" His name had never been uttered with such a combination of nervousness and momentousness.
"Aye, lad?" Kaz yawned. He was used to staying up all hours of the night, just like the kid, but lying back like this made him sleepy.
"Are you—Are we friends?"
Kaz let him stew a bit. Just a bit.
"What do you think? You think I let just anyone tell me how to blow things up when I've been setting things on fire for twenty years?"
The kid had taken charge of the setting-fire process from the start. Kaz had let him, seeing how happy he looked. Operation Cheer the Kid Up was turning out to be a success.
Freddie giggled and rolled over onto an elbow to look at him. "I've got to hear that story."
"Well, the first time, I only wanted to see what would happen. The second time I wanted to make sure."
"Very scientific of you."
"The third time was for the hell of it."
Freddie gave a jaw-cracking yawn of his own and flopped back onto the grass. "Same here."
"Yeah? Tell me yours."
Freddie stretched. "My dad tells it better than I do, but here goes. When I was two years old, I made a bomb out of a toaster."
"Sounds about right."
"No shock? No protestations of disbelief?"
Kaz didn't check, but he was sure the kid was looking at him with an incredulous expression.
"Lad, if you told me you'd invented a way to teleport at the age of seven, I'd believe you." He would.
Freddie snorted. "If I'd done that, people would be using it by now."
"The government would want to cover it up and keep it for themselves, wouldn't they?"
"Kaz? Are you a conspiracy theorist?"
Kaz rolled over towards the kid who looked very amused. "I don't like labels." He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper and widened his eyes for maximum effect. He was sure he looked absolutely mad in the flickering light of the fire. "It's only a way for them to find you and control you."
"Oh my god, Kaz," the kid laughed, which was what Kaz was going for. "You're ridiculous."
"That's Almost Dr. Kaz to you, midget."
"Like I said. Utterly ridiculous."
"You were telling me about this toaster bomb."
"Bombs. Plural."
"Of course there was more than one. Go on, then. Tell me about the toaster bombs. And while you're at it, let's set up the next firework," Kaz said, sitting up and rubbing his hands eagerly.
"You're so weird, Kaz."
"What, you don't like setting things on fire?" Kaz honestly couldn't imagine anyone not having a bit of pyromania, especially someone with a healthy bit of curiosity like Freddie.
"I do, but your enthusiasm for it is something special," Freddie grinned, not budging to help him, the lazy little arse. "You know what? I hereby dub thee 'Blaze.'"
"Blaze?" Kaz sat back on his heels, rolling the name over on his tongue. "Blaze. Alright, I guess that's cool enough for me."
Kaz was well aware that he did not come off as a cool kind of guy in any way whatsoever, despite his hobbies of setting things on fire, martial arts, and rock climbing, among others. Oh, and he made robots. But he didn't look cool, nor did he have a cool aura.
But now he had a cool nickname.
Blaze.
"Thanks, kid. And I hereby dub thee 'Midget.'"
"Kaaaz!"
. . . . .
Note:
Dr. Catesby is a reference to one of the members associated with the Gunpowder Plot.