If you've got what it takes, then take what you'e got and get going

[attainment]

WHO: Barnaby Brooks Jr., Hiro Hamada, Kotetsu T. Kaburagi
WHERE: Barnaby's place in Heropa's government apartment complex
WHEN: The night of March 7th
WHAT: After Kotetsu agrees to meet Hiro, Barnaby arranges to introduce them at his place.
WARNINGS: None that I can think of, will update if necessary



The positive thing about keeping an immaculate apartment is that there's no last-minute rush to make the place presentable for guests. Barnaby doesn't routinely invite people over (Kotetsu doesn't count, he invites himself), but back home there was always the chance of a surprise camera crew showing up to give the city an up-close-and-personal look at how he spends his free time. Then again, he suspects once he inevitably fades into obscurity, someone who hates clutter as much as he does will still regularly clean for his own peace of mind.

On the other hand, Barnaby isn't the type to sit around and twiddle his thumbs, either. The smell of banana bread is already wafting from the oven, coffee items are arranged on the kitchen counter, and the water boiler is on standby should anyone desire tea. Guests may be a rarity, but he still knows how to be a proper host, especially if he went through the trouble of inviting someone over.

If not for the utter lack of personal items outside of a couple of plants, the place might have actually felt homey for once.

Just as Barnaby is pulling the bread out of the oven, he hears a knock at the door. "You're just loafing around, aren't you?" The question is directed at Kotetsu. "Do you mind answering that?"

Comments

[microbrobotics]

Hiro is ... well, he's a bit nervous. Barnaby is someone he both likes and looks up to, and Kotetsu is an important but unknown element. If he doesn't make a good impression here, is that the end of their friendship? The rational part of him knows that is unlikely, but Hiro has never been good at listening to the rational part of himself when it comes to interpersonal stuff.

The knock on the door is extra loud because he did it with his cast, something he immediately regrets a bit. Despite healing from his brother and Ken, it's still a bit sore. And since pain meds make him feel a bit loopy ... yeah, he's coping with regular over the counter stuff for today. He's also got a small tupperware tucked under his good arm. Barnaby hadn't asked him to bring anything, but his aunt and brother didn't raise an impolite boy. If he's going over to someone's house, he's got to bring something along.

Okay, Hiro. Deep breath. "Hello?" he says, glancing at the address on his phone one more time. He's sure he's got the right place... "It's Hiro."

[earnedmystripes]

"It's not loafing, it's more like....preparing. To meet your friend. By chilling out in a generally couch-ish manner."

Shhh, that made sense in his head, okay. Nonetheless, he gets up from his spot on the couch to answer the door, so the first face Hiro will see is not Barnaby's, but that of a middle-aged Japanese man with an embarrassing cat-shaped beard.

"So you're Bunny's little genius friend I've been hearing so much about, eh?" He immediately reaches out for a hair-ruffle, before stepping back and holding open the door for Hiro to come in.

He grins mildly at the kid, pointing at the cast. "Lemme guess, you built something so awesome your arm just decided it needed to go on strike for awhile, am I right?"

A gentle tease, to hopefully shove right past the awkward first-meeting jitters; he wants Hiro to see him as someone to be comfortable around. After all, there's a reason he's introducing himself with his real face, instead of from within his Wild Tiger suit.

[microbrobotics]

Cat-shaped beard, huh. Hiro's gaze zeroes in on that first before flicking over the rest of Kotetsu. He's older than Hiro had expected; he'd assumed someone around Barnaby's age, and Kotetsu clearly isn't. That won't stop him from shipping the two of them, but it is a bit startling. He makes a face, ducking his head when Kotetsu ruffles his hair. More of an automatic reaction than actively disliking the motion.

"Actually, the Tooth Fairy tried to kill me," he says, stepping into the room proper. He smiles a little, because he knows how silly that sounds, but it's also the literal truth. So.

[attainment]

Yes, Barnaby remembered hearing about that over the network. He probably should have mentioned it to Kotetsu before he tried to make a joke about it, but at least Hiro doesn't seem upset. The real story does sound pretty ridiculous, to be fair.

"I'm glad your injury wasn't worse than it was," he remarks as he steps into the room with a tray of warm banana bread and a few small plates. "Is your recovery moving along at a decent pace now that you've got at least one person with healing abilities looking after you?"

Barnaby doesn't specify who, figuring he ought to let Hiro share the information with Kotetsu if he decides to do so. Instead, he sets the food and plates down onto the coffee table, and he gestures for both Kotetsu and Hiro to take a seat.

[microbrobotics]

Hiro settles himself down into a chair. He had a pretty good meal earlier, but he's at that age where he's starting to eat everything in sight. A plate of banana bread sounds awful nice right now. He sets the tupperware down on the table as well - it's very small, actually, because it's filled with Hamada family hot sauce. Not the best pairing with banana bread, but he figures he can leave it and they can do what they want with it.

"Yeah, I got a couple people," he says. Good on Barnaby for not specifying. Hiro's told a couple people about his brother's abilities, but he knows Tadashi wants to keep that one on the downlow. "I should have it off in a week or so."

sorry for the delay bros

[earnedmystripes]

You know, if it were any place other than here, he would probably be making a joke about Hiro's dental hygiene right about now, but...well. They've had the literal devil before, the Tooth Fairy isn't actually that implausible anymore. And the whole brainwashing incident just rings too uncomfortably close to home for Kotetsu so he just. Self-consciously rolls his shoulders a little and settles into a seat beside Barnaby. Vaguely debates if he should tell Hiro about Jesse, ultimately decides against it, especially since it's already almost healed.

"Good, m'glad you're doin' better and there're people helping you take care of it. I always end up getting impatient when it's me, so...."

Is it banana bread time? It's definitely banana bread time.

[microbrobotics]

"Well, I'm not patient either," he says. It's itchy and he can't really move his arm properly. And as cool as it is using microbots to help supplement his grip, he would just about kill to just roll his wrist naturally. But he can feel it healing too; the toughest part will be convincing a doctor to cut it off early. "If my brother weren't here, I'd probably try to get it off."

Meanwhile: banana bread. Serving himself a nice big plate's worth of that.

[attainment]

Everyone is welcome to all the banana bread. Barnaby has a freezer filled with similar snacks as a quick and easy way to entertain unexpected guests, so he'd rather not have any leftovers. Since he's got a teenage boy and someone who acts like a teenage boy over here, though, he suspects that won't be an issue.

"By the way Hiro, what's this?" he asks, gesturing to the small tupperware. "It looks like some sort of sauce. Did you make it?"

[microbrobotics]

By the time Barnaby asks that question, Hiro's mouth is full of banana bread. He has to swallow quickly before responding. "Oh yeah, it's a family recipe." Technically, his brother made it, but he helped okay. "Extremely spicy."

[earnedmystripes]

He chuckles at Hiro's assertion about his cast, because hello, that's exactly how he'd feel if he was the one with a broken bone. Without Barnaby to babysit him, he'd probably be fussing with it and straining said injury, because he's a responsible adult who makes good life decisions.

The mention of the sauce has him tug curiously at the edge of the tupperware lid. "Is that right? What's in it?"

Special hot sauce sounds pretty awesome for the next time he grabs a hot dog or they have barbeque or something, though it might be interesting with banana bread too...spicy banana bread. There's a curious thought. He doesn't quite act on it, though the cogs are clearly turning in his head, you can almost see them.

[microbrobotics]

As soon as Kotetsu gets it open, he's going to be assaulted by a wave of spicy pungency. This is some seriously hot stuff, just about enough to singe your nose just by smelling it. Aunt Cass called it "face melting" for a reason, after all.

"Basically every pepper we could find," he says, stealing himself another slice of bread. "Ghost peppers, jalapenos, habaneros ... there's some local stuff in NorCal too that we like to throw in, but nobody had them here." Sure does smell hot enough without it though.

[attainment]

Oh dear. Barnaby doesn't say anything at first, but the hard smile he gives Kotetsu clearly says, Do not put hot sauce on that banana bread I baked for you, or so help me God...

"I've never seen a sauce like that before," he admits, and it's true. "Thank you for bringing us some, Hiro. We'll have to try it with Kotetsu's fried rice soon. Or perhaps it would go better with tacos?"

What else goes well with hot sauce? Well...that's something else he can consult his friend Google about.

"Oh, that's right," Barnaby suddenly adds, eyebrows raising as if he'd just remembered something. "I still haven't properly introduced you two, have I. My apologies." (More like Kotetsu didn't introduce himself when he stopped loafing long enough to answer the door, but Barnaby should have expected it by this point.) "You've probably already guessed, Hiro, but this is my partner Kotetsu."

[microbrobotics]

"I've done both." Mostly because Hiro would gladly eat hot sauce with anything. And he's pretty sure it was originally a curry recipe anyway, so rice is about as close a pairing as tacos would be. "Wings are the best though."

There you go, Hiro Hamada's recommendations for hot sauce usage. But more importantly: the thing he came here for. He looks between the two men at the word "partner." The age difference isn't really going to stop Hiro from shipping them a little; they're both in the "way older than Hiro" category which is the only one he really registers. "Nice to meet you, Kotetsu," he says. Then he pauses, curious: "You speak Japanese?"

[earnedmystripes]

...Yeah, Kotetsu knows that smile. It's enough to have him sheepishly drawing his hand away like a scolded child, because there are certain things in life you do not test, and that expression is one of them.

"Wings sound awesome, can't wait to try it with 'em."

Maybe something to pester Bunny about later on after Hiro had left? He'll file it away for later, anyway.

Any significant looks given in his direction with regard to said partner are pretty much entirely missed; he just smiles back, and replies (in Japanese, because he's a dork), "Sure do. Nice to meetcha too, Hiro."

[microbrobotics]

Hiro's grin widens at that. Not that there's any real shortage of Japanese speakers here, but it's nice - and fun! - to know what his options are. Maybe there'll be a time where it comes in handy. "Nice to meetcha too," he says, also in Japanese. His pronunciation is a bit weird, more Americanized but still with a natural fluidity to it that would be absent from someone picking it up late in their life. A different dialect? San Fransokyo definitely has its own way of speaking, and Hiro didn't grow up speaking it nearly as much as his older brother did. "I'm kinda rusty sometimes but it's good to know."

And then he turns back to Barnaby with a questioning look. Did you get all that?

[attainment]

No one is saying konnichiwa or arigatou, so most of that flies over Barnaby's head. Although he studied Italian in high school, he had no incentive to pick up any other foreign languages at the Hero Academy.

"Apparently I'm the odd one out," he says with a small smile, but there's no sign of discomfort in his tone. "I'd like to learn some if I ever visit Japan, though."

Once he goes back home, he'll have plenty of time to travel. Until then, however, it looks like imPort business will likely keep him too busy for anything like that. It's not something he regrets, necessarily, it's just the way things are.

"By the way, there's something we wanted to tell you," he says with a glance in Kotetsu's direction. "Can we count on you to keep a secret?"

[microbrobotics]

"Sorry. We'll keep it to English then." English is easier for him anyway - Tadashi always had to bully Hiro into keeping up with his Japanese.

Anyway, that's beside the point - especially when Barnaby mentions keeping a secret. And ... the significant look. Well, okay. He's going to assume they have something actually exciting to tell him and didn't just invite some teenager over to tell him about secret dating or something. That'd be weird. So, he'll assume it's gonna be a cool secret of some kind. "Definitely," he says, a grin starting to spread across his face. "I won't tell anyone. Not even my brother."

[earnedmystripes]

Huh...the translation had worked when he'd spoken Japanese to Blue Rose, but he'd actively intended for her to understand, so maybe that had made the difference? Hell if he knows. Technology isn't exactly his forte.

"Maybe I could teach you some sometime, Bunny." That could be kind of fun, even. He's not used to knowing more about something than his partner...! Heh heh.

But yes, moving on to the the real reason why Hiro is here...Kotetsu is a little nervous, honestly, because he's never directly chosen to tell someone upfront about his secret identity. There have been people who've found out, and a couple he's revealed himself to while dressed up as Tiger in the heat of the moment, but never someone he didn't know. He's honestly a little relieved that the kid offers to keep it from his brother, as awkward as he knows it is to hide things from family. Hiro is one thing, because he's a friend of his partner's, but he's not quite ready to extend that trust by association to someone Hiro cares about that neither of them know well.

"Right, so. You know how Bunny's a Hero, yeah? And that he's got a partner, Wild Tiger?"

He takes a breath, rubs at his neck. "...Well, that's me. I'm Wild Tiger."

[microbrobotics]

Admittedly some of the import of this is lost on Hiro; he's technically got a secret identity of his own back home, but it doesn't carry weight the same way it does for them. And he's since adjusted to seeing people post all kind of things over the network showing off powers and/or cool gear. But he can sense that this is a big deal for Kotetsu, and he does get having to keep that kind of thing secret. It's like if he decided to tell Aunt Cass about his own superheroic antics.

So, while he fails to look super impressed or surprised, he does brighten considerably at the news. There's one very important question that ties into all that ... "Does that mean you've got a suit too?"

[attainment]

Barnaby figured Hiro would take the news in stride, which is probably for the best. Sharing his identity is already likely awkward enough for Kotetsu. The more casual they can keep this meeting, the better.

“That's right,” he answers. “Our suits are designed by the same engineer, actually. The mechanics are similar, but they're equipped with different functions in order to enhance our individual strengths and fighting styles. Would you like to see it?”