Fred wasn't sure what time it was when he slowly drifted back into a hazy consciousness, but he was warm and comfortable and that's all that mattered. Only just barely awake, his brain slowly registers the fact that there was a person leaning over his bed, softly calling his name. Usually this would have set off a lot of alarms-how had someone else gotten into his apartment, and what were they doing standing next to his bed?-but his brain quickly identified the other person as Tadashi and he instantly relaxes. This was a dream, then. All right. In that case, he'd just lie here and enjoy this until his alarm actually woke him up.
With a contented sigh, he reaches up to pull dream Tadashi down to his level, burying his face into his chest, wanting to revel in this to its fullest extent. And then he hears a musical chuckle followed by the words, "Well, good morning to you too" and his heart beats a little faster. Wait, just how real could this dream get?
How real it could get was quickly answered when a hand reaches down to gently tilt his chin up, and then Tadashi was kissing him, and suddenly he realizes that this is most definitely not a dream.
For a moment he freezes as the events of yesterday all came flooding back-all of that had actually been real? But then all of that ceased to be important as he finds himself melting into the kiss. Real or not, a kiss from Tadashi wasn't something to be squandered, and he decides that he has absolutely no objections to this being his wake up call from now on.
"You sleep well?" Tadashi asks when he finally pulls away, and Fred has to take a second to form a coherent answer, because Tadashi looking at him with those half open eyes, his hair a tousled mess and a night's worth of stubble on his face, was almost too much for Fred's fanboy brain to be able to handle. But finally he manages to stammer out,
"Y-Yeah, p-pretty good… Y-You?"
"Not bad at all," Tadashi answers, gently pressing a kiss to his temple and making Fred's insides turn to mush. What right did Tadashi have to be this damn attractive first thing in the morning?!
"You ready to get up and go look into getting some breakfast?" Tadashi asks when Fred fails to say anything more.
"U-Um, yeah, breakfast sounds good," Fred agrees, not really wanting to get up but knowing that he probably needed to before he had a problem that only an extremely cold shower could solve.
"Okay then." Tadashi presses one more quick kiss to his cheek before gently pulling the covers off of him. Fred shivers slightly at the exposure to the cold air but the change in temperature was enough to finally fully rouse him.
"So, what are we doing today?" Fred asks, pulling himself up to a seated position with his legs over the side of the bed, not wanting to fully get up and start getting ready for the day until he knew what he was doing.
"Well, I think Mr. Lee wants to take you on a tour of the city-not an extremely detailed one for now, but enough of one that you can at least get your bearings," Tadashi answers. "And after that, he said I could take you to go meet the rest of the team if you wanted to…?"
"Oh my gosh, yes! Of course I want to!" Fred cries, springing to his feet before a wave of anxiety suddenly comes crashing in to drown his excitement. "But… Are you sure I'm ready? D-Do you think they'll actually like me? W-What if they hate me and don't want me on the team?!"
"I don't think there's any possible way that anyone could hate you," Tadashi answers, coming over and putting his hands on Fred's shoulders, giving them a comforting squeeze. "And even if there was, I can guarantee that these guys are going to love you, no matter what anyone else thinks."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I know how I feel about you, and the others trust my judgment so you've already got a really good foot in the door."
"I guess that's something, at least…"
Fred was still nervous, but Tadashi's assurances did at least help a little bit.
With some minor playful cajoling from Tadashi to keep him moving instead of going back to bed, Fred soon finds himself in the kitchen with a plate of Marie's fluffy scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him. The food tasted amazing, and having a freshly groomed Tadashi there to keep him company while he ate made it just that much better.
They were just about finished eating and Fred was starting to wonder where Mr. Lee had gotten off to (it seemed strange that he hadn't seen him yet that morning) when the older man comes storming through, a phone to his ear and a fierce frown on his face.
"Yes, I already told you weeks ago that I would be taking this week off for a family matter so not to schedule any important meetings or events-! I don't care how 'important' this meeting is, it's your own fault for scheduling it- No, I cannot be at your office in half an hour! No, don't you dare hang up on me- And, you already hung up on me! Unbelievable!"
Mr. Lee looks ready to throw his phone down on the table as he jerks it away from his ear, visibly fuming.
"I-Is everything okay?" Fred asks tentatively-it was obvious that things weren't in any sense of the word "okay", but it seemed like the right thing to say.
"Fred, I'm so sorry," Mr. Lee sighs, shaking his head and running a hand distractedly through his salt-and-pepper hair, making it stand up on end. "I truly wanted to show you around the city today, but without my permission my editor scheduled me for a meeting today that he is absolutely refusing to let me reschedule… I hate to leave you here all by yourself, but if I don't go there might not be a comic left for you to continue on the legacy of writing…"
"It's okay!" Fred hurries to reassure him-sure, he was a bit disappointed, but he understood that the future of the comic came first. He wasn't about to let his favorite story-hell, this entire world!-crumble because of him. "I don't mind, really!"
"Are you sure?" Mr. Lee didn't seem to entirely believe him, frowning skeptically. "I know how much you were looking forward to this… Maybe if I call my editor back I can try again to reason with him…"
"There's no need for that," Tadashi suddenly cuts in smoothly. "The tour of the entire city can wait until tomorrow. How about for today I take Fred to the Cafe, maybe even show him around a bit of SFIT, and introduce him to the rest of the team?"
"Hm…" Mr. Lee seems to be considering his words. "I suppose that could work… I did want to be there for his first official meeting with Big Hero 6, but maybe it will be better this way-it'll give all of you a chance to get to know each other better without having to worry about an old man like me looking over your shoulders."
"T-That wouldn't be a problem!" Fred quickly tells him-Mr. Lee was a legend, and he'd done so much for him, there was no way that he wanted him to think that he didn't want him hanging around!
"I appreciate that," Mr. Lee chuckles, a warm gleam in his eye. "All the same, circumstances as they are this meeting doesn't seem like it's avoidable so it's what we'll have to go with for now. I promise as long as my editor doesn't try to drag me into another meeting I'll take you out on the tour of the city tomorrow, and for now I'll leave you in Tadashi's very capable hands."
"Sounds good," Fred agrees with a nod, glad that his meaning had somehow gotten through.
"I hopefully won't be out too late, but don't feel like you have to be back by a certain time-have fun getting to know your new teammates, all right?"
"Okay!"
Mr. Lee gently pats his shoulder before heading back into the main house, assumedly to go get ready for his meeting. Tadashi, for his part, turns to Fred with an eager grin. "So, what do you think? Are you ready to get going?"
"I think so!" Fred grins back at him, a slightly nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"You okay?" Tadashi asks, apparently noticing the anxiety on his face.
"It's just… I really, really want to meet everyone, but now that the time is here I'm kind of even more nervous that they'll all hate me…" Fred admits,
"There's no way that they'll hate you!" Tadashi cries. "You're sweet and thoughtful and amazing, there's no way that anyone could ever hate you!"
"You'd be surprised how many people I've met who hate me without even knowing me…" Fred quietly mumbles.
"Well all of those people obviously have something wrong with them," Tadashi declares, pressing a firm kiss to Fred's cheek. "And I promise you that my friends won't be anything like that. Plus like I said earlier, I've been talking you up to them for so long that they're all dying to meet you at this point!"
"...Okay, but now I feel like I'm not going to live up to their expectations!"
"All right, that's it." Tadashi stands up and, grabbing Fred's hands in his own, pulls him up as well. "Come on. We're going before you can psych yourself out anymore."
Fred allows himself to be silently dragged along. He wasn't sure that he fully believed Tadashi that the others would actually like him, but if nothing else he knew that Tadashi liked him and that was the most important thing.
"Have you ever ridden on a motor scooter before?" Tadashi as they step out the front door and into the blinding sunlight of late morning in San Fransokyo.
"No, I haven't," Fred admits, blinking in the brightness, before freezing as Tadashi's words sink in. "Wait a minute… Are you trying to say… We're taking the sun scooter?!"
"Why did Mr. Lee have to call it that in the comics?" Tadashi sighs, shaking his head. "I would never degrade my precious baby by naming him something as cheesy as that…"
"Oh… Um, sorry?" Fred falters, worried that he'd managed to offend Tadashi without even meaning to and completely ruined this.
"No, it's not your fault, you didn't know!" Tadashi quickly answers, reaching over to gently squeeze his hand. "You've only read the comics, you wouldn't know that he has a different name in real life."
"Okay…" Fred agrees with a jerky nod, hoping that this meant he was forgiven.
"Fred, I would like you to meet my pride and joy, Bae," Tadashi says with a smile as he gestures to the red and chrome scooter parked at the base of the steps.
"Wow," Fred breathes-it was clear that the scooter (Bae?) was well cared for, and it was a gorgeous machine. Still, he couldn't help but wonder…
"Why did you name him Bae?" Fred asks curiously as Tadashi leads him down the steps, hoping that he wasn't prying by asking.
"Blame it on Hiro." Tadashi playfully rolls his eyes. "When I bought him second hand I spent so much time out in the garage alone fixing him up that Hiro joked I was just pretending to be working on my scooter and actually sneaking off to go see some secret boyfriend. So I started calling him Bae just to mess with him."
"I see." Fred can't help but grin at that-that was a fairly ridiculous explanation, but it was pretty funny at the same time.
"Here." Tadashi grabs one helmet for himself and hands the other to Fred. "This one's Hiro's-hopefully it'll fit you okay for now, we'll get you one of your own soon once I have a chance to take you shopping for one."
"Y-You don't have to buy me a helmet!" Fred protests. "I-I'm sure I can get one myself-"
"Fred." Tadashi shakes his head before pulling Fred close and pressing a quick kiss to his lips, rendering Fred momentarily speechless. "You've got to stop second guessing these things. And since we're dating, you've got to accept that I'm going to be doing nice things for you, not because I have to, but because I want to. I know that's kind of hard for you to accept right now, and I get that it's going to take time to get used to it. But can you promise me that you're going to try to trust me as much as you can?"
"I-I think I can do that," Fred breathes, melting under Tadashi's intense, loving gaze.
"Good." Tadashi grins as he places another kiss onto Fred's cheek and then climbs onto his scooter. "Now, come on. Let's get going!"
"Okay," Fred agrees, carefully climbing on behind him. "Um… I've never actually done this before… How do I hang on to this thing?"
"You don't hang onto the bike, you hang on to me," Tadashi explains. "Wrap your arms around my waist."
Fred gingerly does as instructed, his cheeks burning slightly at being this close to Tadashi, especially in this particular position.
"You're going to have to hold on a little tighter than that, love," Tadashi says, turning back to give him a wry smile. "Come on. I promise I won't bite."
"O-Okay…." Fred wraps his arms more tightly around the other man, sure that Tadashi would be able to hear his heart beating like it was about to fly out of his chest.
"Much better." Tadashi nods in approval before turning back around and putting the key in the ignition. "Now brace yourself, Bae's got a bit of a kick when he starts off…"
Fred was glad that he'd followed Tadashi's advice, or else he was sure that he would have fallen right off. The entire ride to the cafe he continues to hang on tightly, no longer worried about the awkwardness of his position as he was too focused on just staying on the scooter. Tadashi wasn't a bad driver by any means-in fact, he seemed to be an incredibly conscientious one. And he kept reassuring Fred that he wasn't in any real danger. Still, Fred quickly decides that he much prefers to ride in vehicles that have four solid walls to keep him inside of them.
"That wasn't too bad, right?" Tadashi asks when they finally pull to a stop.
"S-Sure…" Fred answers shakily, not wanting Tadashi to think that he was a wimp but quite glad that the ride was over.
Tadashi glances back at him and then, with a sympathetic smile, gently disengages Fred's arms from his waist before standing to help him to his feet.
"I promise that it gets better as you get used to it," Tadashi says with a warm smile as he pulls Fred (still shaking slightly) up off of the seat. "For now, let's just focus on getting you to the garage. You can sit down once we're in there, but I texted Hiro before we left to let him know we were coming, and he's expecting us."
"The garage?" Fred repeats before brightening as his brain finally registers the fact that he was actually standing right outside the Lucky Cat Cafe.
"Oh my gosh…" he breathes as he stares up at the building. "Oh my gosh… This is seriously the coolest thing ever…"
"You mean it's cooler than meeting me?" Tadashi playfully pouts at him.
"Make this the second coolest thing," Fred quickly amends.
"Good!" Tadashi laughs, lovingly kissing his cheek before tugging on his hand. "Now come on, I want to introduce you to my little bro!"
"Do you think he'll mind that we're dating?" Fred asks, his anxiety starting to spike again as Tadashi leads him towards the garage.
"He's had a good year if not more of me 'mooning around over you', as he likes to put it-I think he'd be more concerned if we didn't end up dating at this point," Tadashi chuckles. "And besides, he wouldn't be making you a super suit if he wasn't planning on having you stick around long term!"
"I guess that makes sense…"
"It totally does!" Tadashi beams at him before pulling him into the garage, calling out, "Hiro? Hiro, I'm back! And I brought Fred!"
"Seriously? Finally, I thought I'd never get to meet him-when you didn't come back last night, I thought you two had eloped!" a playfully snarky voice answers from somewhere in the dark depths of the garage.
"Nope, we just came back to ask you if you'd be our best man before we officially eloped," Tadashi deadpans back.
Fred wasn't quite sure how to take the banter, but all concerns about whether or not Tadashi was seriously considering eloping with him (Fred was all for romance, but that was moving a bit too fast even for him!) were quickly swept out of his head as a computer chair near the back of the garage suddenly turns towards them to reveal a shaggy-headed teen wearing an oversized blue hoodie and cargo shorts.
"So, you're the guy my brother's been going on about for forever," Hiro says, an appraising look on his face as he stands up and gives Fred a quick once-over.
"..." Fred was trying to think of the best and least awkward way to respond, but his brain was completely freezing up and all he could do was stand there, completely tongue-tied in the face of one of his favorite heroes.
"Is he okay?" Hiro asks, glancing over at Tadashi when a full minute passes and Fred hasn't managed to say anything.
"He's just a bit shy, give him some time," Tadashi answers, gently squeezing Fred's shoulder.
Something about that finally jars something loose and Fred manages to stumble out, "S-Sorry! I-It's just really, really awesome to actually be meeting you in person, I never thought I'd ever actually get to-!"
"Whoa, whoa whoa!" Hiro puts his hands up, signaling for Fred to stop. "Nope, we're not doing the fanboying thing. Trust me, I've dealt with too much of that with people from this world already."
"You mean like Karm-" Fred starts to automatically respond, but the expression on Hiro's face makes his words dry up before he can get them all out.
"We do not say her name!" Hiro hisses. "She's like He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, you say her name and she just appears out of thin air, in spite of the restraining order!"
"S-Sorry…" Fred mumbles, his cheeks burning and hanging his head-great, so he'd already completely fucked this up.
"Hiro, cut him some slack!" Out of the corner of his eye, Fred sees Tadashi giving Hiro a sharp look. "He only found out about all of this yesterday, it's taking him some time to adjust!"
"Okay, okay, sorry," Hiro apologizes, actually looking slightly penitent as he turns back towards Fred. "Look, I just don't want to be put up on some weird pedestal-I've had to deal with too much of that in my life already. Just… Treat me however you'd treat the sibling of any person you've dated, or however you'd treat any other new friend."
"I haven't had a lot of experience with making new friends…" Fred admits with a sheepish smile. "Maybe because I get too enthusiastic and clingy and it scares people away…"
"That's better than me, most people just automatically assume that I'm just a loner and hate everyone," Hiro says with a wry smile. "I mean, to be fair, I can't stand a lot of people so that's not completely wrong, but still!"
"I guess we've got something sort of in common, then," Fred says with a small, hopeful smile.
"I guess we do," Hiro agrees, a grin making its way onto his face, and somehow Fred got the feeling that he was forgiven, even though Hiro hadn't explicitly said it out loud.
"Come on." The teen suddenly stands up from his chair and waves for the other two men to follow him further into the garage. "I've been working on this all week, and I think it's really starting to come together! It's a bit rough still and I didn't want to put the finishing touches on until Fred was actually here to try it on for size, but I think it's a good start!"
"W-Wow!" Fred gasps as he sees the beginnings of a midnight blue kaiju suit standing in the back of the garage. "I-It's just like I described it in the story!"
"I'm glad you think so." Hiro grins at him. "I tried to base it as closely off of how you wrote it as I could."
"Well you did an amazing job! S-Seriously, this is like the coolest thing that anyone has ever done for me…" Fred felt himself getting a bit teary eyed in spite of himself. He couldn't wrap his head around it, why were all of these people who didn't even really know him going to all of this trouble to do nice things for him?
"Hey, hey, no waterworks!" Hiro quickly protests. "If you start crying then Tadashi's going to start crying because he always starts crying when things get emotional and I don't want to have to deal with getting both of you to stop crying!"
"Heh, sorry," Fred apologizes, quickly swiping at his tears and hoping that none of them actually leaked out.
"Maybe until the others get here Hiro can take a break from working on the suit and we can all just hang out in here so you two can get to know each other better?" Tadashi suggests.
"I'd be down with that," Hiro says with a small shrug.
"Sure, sounds good," Fred agrees, glad for the welcome distraction-how did Tadashi always know just what to say?
"Oh… Unless you wanted to go meet Aunt Cass?" Tadashi suddenly offers, as if the idea had just come to him. "Actually, we should probably go do that, she won't mind that I introduced you to Hiro first but if she finds out that the rest of the team got to meet you before she did she will boil me alive in soup and serve me to the customers as the dinner special."
"Um, well, I prefer you alive and in one piece so I'd say we should definitely do that!" Fred laughs.
"Do you think that you're up to meeting her?" Tadashi asks gently.
"Funnily enough, she's actually the person I'm least worried about meeting," Fred admits. "She's always been someone I thought I'd like my mom to be like if I actually had a mom… Is that weird?"
"It's not weird at all," Tadashi reassures him before adding with a laugh, "And that's probably actually a good thing since knowing her she is totally going to adopt you as soon as she meets you. She has a habit of adopting strays, whether they be cats or humans."
"I can live with that!" Fred laughs as Tadashi starts to lead him back out of the garage, Hiro trailing after them.