Own

 

  Tadashi's listening to that song again. The sound of the smooth acoustic guitar traveled around our bedroom as the light through the window turned bright followed by the noise of late noon traffic. My brother's matted ebony hair that he refused to cut these past few weeks was mashed against his pillow, faced towards me with the edges highlighted by his laptop screen. A USB was plugged into one of the slots, black and slick like the ring case it came out of.

  Another bad day, I guess.

  It doesn't look like Tadashi's getting up today either.

  It's been one month and two weeks since the accident. Professor Callaghan and Mn died in the explosion and a memorial was built where the exhibit hall used to be. Mn's a hero, despite failing at saving Callaghan...and himself.

  A funeral was held for both of them, separately. Mn's brothers made sure of that. The funeral was tearful and black. He was twenty-three. I can't even imagine how everyone feels, especially Tadashi. They lost a good friend, a great friend, and for Tadashi, a fiance. And right after he'd popped the question, too.

  I wince, shaking my head and picking my backpack off the floor. I know that Mn's second oldest brother, Chase, I think, has moved back into Mn's house along with his family. Kachi used to travel, apparently, but Tadashi told me that he was going on a semi-permanent hiatus to live in the city.

   School started two weeks ago. I've started classes and everything, but the group has disbanded, in a way. I don't know what happened, but it's like without Mn there to add a comment in every once in a while, everyone is so uncomfortable around each other. They don't even hang around each other anymore. I see Gogo in the hallways, but she always has this faraway look on her face, even more so than before. She's, I don't know, void. I haven't seen Fred in a while. And, gosh, Tadashi? He'll be ok some days- he'll go to school, get his work done, come home with me, eat, sleep- and then other days he's just a completely different person. He won't go to classes, won't eat, won't even get out of bed. He just lies there, listening to that playlist, playing each particular song on repeat over and over again, like he's doing right now.

  It's times like these when I think I should just stay home and try to comfort him. Or at least be here when he needs me. It's sad that I can sing every lyric to Caves by Haux by heart. It's not even my kind of music.

  “You follow the words from caves,” I mouth the lyrics as I put my backpack on. I look over at Tadashi. He's still lying there. Is he sleeping, finally?

 “Should I stay home?” I ask just in case he isn't asleep. It's obvious that he's not going to SFIT today, so why ask?

  “No, no,” he lifts a hand and waves unenthusiastically. Guess he's not asleep. “Go on to school. Get your education. Have fun.” And he goes still again.

  I frown at him, despite the fact that he can't see it.

  “Tadashi,” I trail as softly as I can. “You should get up and eat,”

  No response.

  I take off my backpack and put it on the floor before walking to Tadashi's bed and sitting beside him. He doesn't move. I sigh, then take in a deep breath. “Mn is a hero,” I say and that gets a reaction out of him. “He wouldn't want you to be like this. He'd want you to eat.”

  That does something. Tadashi sighs, trembling slightly. His arms are wrapped around himself, and his voice is weak as he talks. “I know you didn't like him, Hiro...but I loved him. He loved me,” I wince as his voice breaks. “he was a hero, even before he saved my life.” He hugged himself tighter. I noticed the ring on his left hand's ring finger, glinting in the light from his window.

  “Did you know that-” he stops, takes a few seconds to breathe. “Did he ever tell you that his mom died a couple years ago? It's why it took him so long to register for SFIT. He and his brothers inherited all their mom's money but Mn wanted to earn it himself,” he sniffs. “Both his brothers left him alone in that house, and when he came back he met Fred again.

  “They've always been close. Fred introduced us,” He laughs dryly. “at a convention. We were hanging out for Fred's birthday and he invited all of us. We walked around the plaza the whole day...and I was drawn to Ty, from the very first second, I knew, I-" Tadashi's shaking. I haven't seen him like this since, well, ever. He's sobbing quietly, hands covering his face while Caves played in the background.

  I ignore the burning in my eyes and instinctively hug him. I did know. I heard it all from the man himself. I hug my face into his back and feel his body rack as he cries.

  I hate this. I hate that stupid fire. I hate the fact that Mn just left him here. Yeah, he was trying to save Callaghan, but what about himself? Did he even think about how it would make the rest of us feel? He was an engaged man!

  I decide to forget school for today, this is important.

 

  I wake up, startled. When did I fall asleep?

  I blink, taking in what I realize is Tadashi's chest. I lift my eyes up to his face. He's still asleep. His skin is clear of tear streaks and his hair is mussed. His features are relaxed, so he must be dreaming well. I sit up, lifting my head from his arm, and get up from his bed as slowly and silently as I can, trying not to wake him from his much-needed sleep.

  I yawn and cover my mouth with my hand as I make my way over to my bed-

  “Wah!” I screech as I trip over something hard and fall to my knees on the hardwood floor. “Ow!” I move onto my and regard the object I fell over. My backpack. Of course. I sigh. What time is it anyway?

  “Are you ok?” Tadashi's groggy voice asks from his bed. He's sitting up and rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm, still half asleep.

  I begin to say I'm fine when I'm interrupted by a calm, soft, robotic voice, “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?”

  It's Baymax. I didn't realize he was still here. Tadashi brought him back here a month or so back and I guess he never took him back to the school. I watch silently as the robot tries to make its way across Tadashi's side of the room.

   “Uh, I'm ok, really. There's no need-” I stop, remembering this morning. “Well, actually, Tadashi could use some help.”

  Tadashi looks up at the sound of his name. Baymax turns to him, his stubbed feet making no sound as they move carefully, one at a time, to face my brother.

  “What seems to be the problem?” The big white marshmallow asks.

  “What? No, Baymax, I'm fine.” Tadashi tries to stop the robot from getting any closer.

   “No, he's not! Scan him, Baymax!” I command, pointing at Tadashi.

  “Don't scan me,” Tadashi orders, firmly.

  “Scan completed.” the robot announces.

  “Unbelievable,” Tadashi's hands drop to his lap, making a muffled slapping sound.

  “Your dopamine levels are low,” Baymax states, lifting one of his four plush fingers. “I recommend eating foods with high concentrations of tyrosine, such as bananas, apples, beans, eggs, yogurt-”

  I laugh as Baymax goes on listing different foods, backing up and once again falling over something. “Ow!”

  “On a scale of one to ten,” Baymax starts as Tadashi laughs hysterically.

  I groan, opening my eyes and lifting myself up. Something glints in the corner of my eye. I lean down and look back under my bed. Something's moving. I can't see what it is clearly, but I reach out and grab it. I pull it out from under the bed-

  A microbot. The sole one that didn't get blown up in the explosion.

  I examine it as I stand up and walk to my desk. It's wigging out.

  “What's that?” Tadashi asks from behind me.

  “It's one of my microbots. It must be broken, it won't stop moving and the only thing it's attracted to are the other microbots, but those were all blown up in the fire.” I say as I put it in a clear case. I turn around and Baymax is right behind me, making me jump. “Jeez!”

  Baymax takes the case from me and observes it, or I'm guessing that's what he's doing. He doesn't really have any expressions.

  “Your tiny robot is trying to go somewhere,” Baymax says.

  “Oh yeah?” I pick up my bag from the floor and set it beside my bed before I flop down and relax on it. “Why don't you find out where it's trying to go?”

  There's some robotic sound of movement, and then silence.

  “Wait, where did Baymax go?” Tadashi's disembodied voice asks loudly in the quiet room. There's a sound of a door closing.

  My eyes snap open.

  “Oh no.” Tadashi murmurs. I turn to him as he looks out his window, then rushes out of the room.

  “What..?” I look out my own window and my eyes widen. There, down the busy street from my bedroom window, is a big white marshmallow patting its way farther and farther from the Lucky Cat Cafe. “Crap!”

  I quickly catch up with Tadashi, rushing out of the cafe. “Why didn't you say something earlier?!”

  “I was thinking!” Tadashi yells back, long legs bounding across the road in Baymax’ s direction.

  A car comes to a abrupt stop beside me and honks. I wave in apology. “About what?!”

  “About-” Tadashi stops himself and groans. “Nevermind! Let's just get Baymax back safe and sound and we'll deal with it later!”

  I nod.“Where'd he go?”

  “He was on a street car- that one!” Tadashi points at a bus stopped a few yards away. We run to it, then up the stairs next to it, and spot the robot at the other side of the plaza. We maneuver our way through the bushes of people, apologizing all the way, and follow Baymax’s tracks. Every time we get a glimpse of him, he turns a corner. Finally, we caught up with him in front of a warehouse's empty lot.

  “Baymax, what're you doing buddy?” Tadashi pants, bent over his knees, head facing the ground. No one is built to run this long. How was the marshmallow so tricky?

  “I have found where Hiro's tiny robot wanted to go.” He says, and for a second I wonder how he wasn't out of breath, before I remember- duh, he's a robot.

  “I told you, it's broken!” I snatch the thing from its plushy hands. “It doesn't want to go any…” I trail to a stop as I behold the moving tech. I turn the case, but the microbot keeps trying to go towards the door.

  “What's wrong?” Tadashi, having gotten his breath back, comes up beside me.

  I ignore him and walk to the door. It has a chain lock on it. “Locked.”

  “What, what are we doing?” Tadashi asks, voice showing obvious disapproval. “You can't possibly be thinking about going in there.”

  “Window.” Baymax points up.

  “Don't encourage him!”

 

 

  Hours later both Tadashi and I slump down on our individual beds and take a deep breath. We managed to get away from both a masked psychopath and aunt Cass. Baymax was in his corner, taking in air and recharging.

  I blew out a breath. “Dude...Who was that?” I knew that if I didn't know, Tadashi sure as heck wouldn't. “Can you believe the cops didn't believe us?”

   “I can. If I hadn't been there, I wouldn't have believed it either. Still can't really believe that happened.”

   “He had my microbots,” I reaffirm.

   “Millions of them.”

   “But how? They were all destroyed in the fire!” I sit up.

  “Unless…” Tadashi trails.

  I know what he's getting at, and I definitely don't like it.

  “Unless it wasn't an accident.” Me and Tadashi stare at each other from across the room. “What if, what if the same guy that stole my microbots is the one who caused the fire? And the fire was just a distraction?”

   “Then that means that-” he began to twist his ring around his finger.

   “Tyrone,” Baymax said from his corner.

  We turn to him. He's fully blown up again and looking in the direction of Tadashi's bookcase. I can't see it from here, but I know where he's looking.

  After the funeral, Mn's brothers started cleaning out his house. Mn didn't have a lot of stuff outside of his room and when Chase and his family began moving in they needed to move his stuff upstairs or give it away. Some of his clothes were saved for when Canba got older, and some stuff was given away. Others, though...well, Tadashi took it. Some of his favorite t-shirts or jackets that I realized Tadashi would wear back before I even knew about Mn were in that box. He put it right beside his bed with Mn's Reality Shifts beanie on top and now Baymax was staring directly at it.

   “He's, uh,” I glance at Tadashi, whose hands were clasped on his thighs. “He's gone, Baymax.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Baymax, I'm satisfied with my care.” Tadashi’s stiff voice rang across the room. Baymax began to shut down and compress into his charger.

  I start to give Tadashi a look but stop myself before the words come out of my mouth. Yeah, of course he's not ok. I've learned to just stop mentioning him around Tadashi. It still hurts him. He needs to move on, but this new development, the fact that the fire may have not been an accident- “Tadashi?”

  “I know it's not Baymax's fault,” Tadashi says, looking at the machine.

  I move to sit beside him. “It's not your fault either.” A thought pokes in my head. “But we might know whose it is.”

  He faces me, furrowed eyebrows turning up.

  “We just need to catch him.”

  His eyes widen as he catches on. “No, no, Hiro- we can't-”

 

  “Unbelievable.” He says days later, having caught me right after I finished Baymax's enhancements. He stands at the door of the dojo, gazing with equal amounts of annoyance and awe.

  “You mean fantastic!” I say, gesturing to Baymax's new black and slate plating. Ok, so, Tadashi may have told me not to pursue the masked guy, but since when have I ever listened to him? I mean, look at Baymax! He looks awesome! “With his new power moves, he can totally beat this guy!”

  “Baymax was not meant for this.” Tadashi walks up beside me, eyes not straying off the robot. “He's here to help people.”

  “He's here to help me!” I jump on my toes. “And you!” I add quickly and punch his shoulder. “Come on, tell me this won't make you feel better. Catching this guy, getting my microbots back?” I give him a pleading look. “...Moving on?”

  Tadashi turns his gaze to me, a considering look on his face. Then he sighs.

  I grin.

  “No,” he says.

  I stop grinning.

  “No, we can't do this. Get this armor off and shut him down.” Tadashi says, grabbing the plating on Baymax's arm.

  I grip onto his sleeve. “Tadashi, please!” I plead. “I know you miss him, trust me. But you have to move on. You need this more than I do. We can't leave this up to the professionals. There's only us.”

  And again, that considering gaze. The silence is palpable, only lasting a few seconds but feeling like it's been way longer. “Fine.” He says, finally. “Yeah, ok. We got this.”

  I smile. “I got your back.”

  He smiles back, albeit less sure. “And I got yours.”

 

  Later that night, Tadashi, Baymax, and I ran to the warehouse.

  “So what's the plan?” Tadashi asks once we reach the door.

  “This,” I say and gesture to Baymax, who then punches through the door, spraying splinters of wood across the floor inside. “Get him, Baymax!” I move from behind the big robot and point inside at a whole lot of nothing. The whole place looks cleared out.

  “Seriously?” Tadashi asks in a bleak voice.

  “We're too late,” I reach into my pocket and get out the clear case with my last remaining microbot. “Here, we can follow this.” I lead the way.

  We turn a corner and keep straight. I watch the tiny robot incessantly as it guides us, waiting for any turn of direction.

  “Hiro!” Tadashi yells and something pulls me back by my hood.

   “Always watch where you're going,” Baymax unhands me and moves his stiff forefinger side to side. I look in front of me to see a neverending body of water. I almost ran right off a dock.

  I whistle at the sight. It was dark this time of day and the sea was clouded with impenetrable grey fog. This far into the city there were no stars to be seen, even at the docks.

 The case in my hand starts to jerk forward. I gasp, trying to hold onto it, but it flies out of my hands into the white abyss. I stare at into it, trying to see where it went, and then I notice something.  

  A figure, and it's coming right toward us.

  “Come on!” I whisper to them and run behind a freight train. They follow after.

  “It's him,” Tadashi says as we peak over the side of the train, watching the masked man slither forward on my microbots. He was looking around for something- no, he was bringing something out of the water. Some machinery with a logo on its side. An arc? It had a red bird on it, with its wings spread inside a circle.

  “Your heart rate is-” Baymax starts as I pull him back.

  “Sh!” Tadashi and I chastise. Tadashi holds Baymax by his arm.

  I take a peek around the freight train. “Baymax, time to put those skills to the test, buddy,” I say. This is it, what we've been training for.

  Baymax raises a fist and hops forward. As soon as he turns the corner, all air drained out of my lungs.

   This was a bad idea. As soon as I saw that marshmallow of a robot literally waddle passed me, it suddenly hit me. There's no way he can win.

  A cold wind blows passed my face and a loud, sharp, metal sound comes from behind me. I was so in my thoughts that in a matter of seconds, Baymax got punched into a freight car behind us. If he wasn't such a bright and big shape, I wouldn't have even been able to see him in this darkness.

  “Oh no,” Baymax says as he slips down onto the ground. A round indent was present where the robot's body had been blown back against the train.

   “Baymax-!” I yelp, hearing the sound of an engine.

  I turn to the noise and headlights blind me. I squint at the light as the car stops in front of Tadashi and me.

  The lights turn off and a head pops out of the passengers’ window. A face I haven't seen in awhile screams at us.

  “Get in!” Gogo yells.

  Without question, we run to her and jump into the car, slamming the car door behind us.

  “How'd you know we were here?” Tadashi asks from beside me.

  Wasabi is in the driver's seat, sweating profusely.

  “Baymax called us and told us what you were planning,” Gogo replies.

  The name sparks a thought. “Baymax!” I scream and look out the window. My eyes widen at the scene.

  Baymax...is falling from the sky, heading right towards us.

  I duck into the car as a loud POW from Baymax’s crash came from above me. Wasabi screams.

   “Drive, drive, drive!” Gogo shouts, hitting her armrest.

  Wasabi puts the car in reverse and we back the heck out of there.

  “I knew this was a bad idea!” Tadashi says, hands cradling his cheeks.

  “Why didn't you stop, then?” Gogo screams back. The car comes off the ground for a solid two seconds and makes my heart jump out of my chest painfully.

  “I don't know! I tried, but-”

  “This is my fault,” I say, looking down at my feet, thinking. I look out the back windshield. The Kabuki mask guy is still following us. A wave of black is streaming towards us, completely enveloping everything it passes by- cars, houses, everything. Nothing is standing in its way. Tendrils of black metal snap at us, and Wasabi is dodging only by a hair.

  It's a monster.

  I created a monster.

  Suddenly the car stops.

  “Why are we stopped?” Gogo asks.

  “There's a red light!”

  We groan and Gogo screams. “There are no red lights in a car chase!”

  But Wasabi's attention was on something on the other side of the road. “It's Honey!”

  We all look out the window and see her walking on the sidewalk, eyes on her phone.

  “Honey!” Tadashi calls out, and she finally looks up, sees Tadashi, then the microbots, then doubletakes. “Get in!”

  She runs, I slide aside as she gets in, and Wasabi drives off before the black mass can swallow us.

  “What's happening?” She screams, looking out the back window. “This is what Baymax called me for?”

  The door flips off beside her and both me and her scream. She bounces back on me and the car swerves, almost knocking her out of the car. Almost, if Baymax hadn't of grabbed her by her collar and pulled her back inside.

  “Always wear your seatbelt,” Baymax advises from the top of the car as he buckles her in with one hand, his top half over the side of the car.

  “Did you just put your blinker on?” Gogo asks incredulously.

  “You have to! It's the law!” Wasabi yells back, sweat pouring down his face in anxiety.

  “That's. It.” Gogo takes something out , gum, I see, then she pushes Wasabi's seat back, and sits in his lap before taking the wheel.

  “Oh no,” Tadashi says with wide eyes as he puts on his seatbelt. Curious but in no way feeling like being injured, I put my seatbelt on as well.

 

  I was right to do so because Gogo tossed us around like bags of wheat. My left the seat and my head hit the ceiling more than once, even with my seatbelt on. The car lifted off the road multiple times, and we barely missed hitting the cars and trash left on the side of the road. By the time we hit the train tracks, having missed the train by inches, my heart was racing, skin itching, as the man kept us in his sight.

  Then a black tunnel surrounded us, lifting us off the ground and trying to swallow us, but Gogo was too fast.

  “We're not gonna make it!” Wasabi yelled.

  “We're gonna make it!” Honey yelled back.

  This went on until we finally made our way back into the blue night and onto the docks.

  Then we started screaming again as we headed toward the water. Brakes screeched, but in a blink of an eye and a loud crack, we were underwater.

 

  Baymax lift us up onto the dock, cold and dripping wet, but alive. I gasp as I climb up onto the deck, one leg before the other, and roll onto my back. I cough, vision blurred, struggling to get my breath, as everyone else piles around me. I close my eyes and focus on breathing.

  “Ugh, let's never do that again.” Wasabi gasps from somewhere beside me. Wood creaks as he and everyone else found a place to sit and rest.

  “You guys!” A faraway voice calls. I open my eyes and turn towards the noise. “That was awesome!” Someone laughs.

  Wasabi was in my way of vision, but I could tell that voice from anywhere. I sit up, and indeed, there he stood a couple of yards away, Fred with his arms up in the air and a wide grin on his face, a limo behind him, shining its bright lights at us.

 

  So somehow we ended up in a limo riding to Fred's house. Fred gave us some towels to dry off with when we got in the back of the vehicle, telling us he had seen most of the chase and had followed behind us the whole time. I decided to stop questioning how weird this guy is and just focus on what happened as a whole. The fight was a bust. We didn't get the Kabuki Mask guy or my microbots.

  “How did you get a limo?” Tadashi asked, looking around the back seat.

  Fred seemed to almost not hear him, bouncing in his seat and humming with a smile on his face. “Oh,” he seemed to realize something and turned to my brother. “It's mine.”

  Obviously I didn't hear him correctly. I brought the wet towel to my ear and started to dig for water.

  Wasabi and Honey made confused sounds. Gogo crossed her arms.

  “Look, Fred, we just escaped some guy trying to kill us! I'm not in the mood for-” Gogo started before being interrupted.

  “Master Fredrickson, we are here.” The driver said from the front seat.

  Outside the window were stairs leading up to a white mansion with a large door entrance, spots of gold shining from every room through the many different windows. The palace had to have had at least three floors, and a basement, and a Narnia.

  The first of us to break the shocked silence was Tadashi. “You're rich but you recycle underwear?”

 

  

 

---

 

 

  Tadashi ran a hand through his newly cut short black hair as he looked down at the laptop screen on his lap. His brown eyes scan the playlist of songs while his finger slides down the touchpad, scrolling down the list until he finds where he left off. He hasn't listened to any of them in a whole week. He's been way too busy working with Hiro and the others, making costumes and weapons for them to fight off the Kabuki mask guy, or Alistair Krei, with. Tadashi hasn’t even started on his own costume yet; he's been procrastinating on it for a while. He hasn't had any creative urges for a couple of months now, actually.

  There was only one song left on the playlist Tyrone had left him. All it said was Mine, no band or singer’s name attached to it, unlike the others. Tadashi has been avoiding listening to every song on the playlist until now. It was hard enough seeing everyone's faces without him with them, hard enough when another piece of his life had already ended so abruptly. But now there was only one song left...and he finally feels stable enough to play it.

  So Tadashi clicks on the song.

  A black tab pops up. A white line goes around in a circle on the middle of the page. A video is loading.

  So this one has a music video? Tadashi waits patiently for the video to start up. An image pops up and Tadashi in a breath, eyes wide and jaw clenched.

  Tyrone was sitting on a patch of grass, in a park maybe, with an acoustic guitar in his hands. The sound of a breeze cackled and the short grass moved with it, as well as Tyrone's caramel, almost red, hair. He was surrounded by blue skies and greenery, and his attention was on plucking the strings of his guitar, tuning it. There was a mumble and movement of the camera as a shoe stepped into the frame. Tyrone looked up at the person, mouth agape as his attention was pulled away before he started replying with a grin on his face. Tadashi couldn't hear what he said, but then the screen switched to another scene.

  Legs crossed, Tyrone was smiling at the camera in the same place as before, guitar still in his hands. The sky was a little cloudier.

  “Hey, Tadashi,” Tyrone's voice, his deep-sounding, lovely voice, greeted him. Tadashi's eyes and cheeks began to sting. “I, um, I...started playing the guitar..! My brothers started teaching me a little while ago and...I think I've gotten good enough at it now that I can play this one song for you, perfectly.” A muffled voice in the background briefly distracted Tyrone. “Oh, and Kachi said hi.” Then he started stringing.

  Tadashi recognizes the song instantly.

  “Why nobody knows...the last I was sane? Cause I saw you and went crazy,” Tyrone sang. His voice was harsh and grating, but he was trying so hard to imitate the softness of the original singers’ voice. Tyrone has always had a booming husk of a voice and even when singing this was no exception. His voice was nowhere near perfect- it croaked and broke just like everything else, but it was still so uniquely him that Tadashi can't care less what he sounded like.

  “I hope that you don't mind...that I wish you were mine,” Tyrone’s harmony was discordant and a few chuckles make there way out of Tadashi's mouth. He listens to the song all the way till the end, heartsore and eyes stinging. As Tyrone reached the of the song, so did Tadashi's tears. “I've only ever thought of you, and all concepts of us...yeah we've already won, even when it's hard,” Tyrone's tone changed. He talked directly to the camera. “So Tadashi-”

  “Will you be mine?” A sob leaves Tadashi's throat before he can stop it. The video ended with Tadashi crying softly into his palms. He can't hold himself up any longer and he lies himself down longways on his bed with a hand clutching his chest.

 

 

---

 

 

  I help make custom suits and weapons for everyone besides Tadashi. Gogo's thing is speed, so we use the wheels from her bike to connect to her outfit and use as a boomerang-like weapon and a shield. It also adds to her quickness. They're connected to her ankles, one on each foot. She struggles only a few seconds before she rides circles around the entirety of Fred's lawn in only a few seconds. Fred has a costume reminiscent of his mascot suit and all he really wanted was for it to breathe fire. He can also jump up to fifty feet high. Wasabi has a costume with laser blades coming from his forearm down passed his fingertips, two feet long, at a sharp edge. One swipe is instant destruction. Honey Lemon is putting her chemistry major to the test. She's using the purse Mn got her that day..the same week he died, to make these balls of slime that she can throw to slow or catch the enemy.

  She's still a little withdrawn even now. I think catching the kabuki mask guy is helping all of us on our way to getting over what happened. Finally getting back together and seeing each other again has done us all some good.

  Fred's been kind of quiet since Mn died. More passive. When he got a look at all of our costumes and inventions it was the first time in months I've seen him grin so hard.

  Gogo has changed too. It's hard to describe how, exactly. She's more silent? I mean, even more than usual. And her face is always blank like she's always dazed, always thinking. But it's getting better now. Things are getting better.

  Tadashi, though. He's still...Tadashi. Mourning. He won't say it but none of this is making him feel any better. He didn't like the idea of us going after the masked guy in the first place. He hasn't even tried building a suit, let alone letting me make one for him.

 We're in Fred's backyard testing out our equipment when Tadashi finally shows up. I've just got done showing off Baymax's new ability, Rocket Fist, when he saunters in with a relaxed smile on his face, fully dressed in blue and red armor with silver plating. His chest and shoulder plates are silver and his abdomen is red, along with the gauntlets over his forearms and his belt. The buckle is round and silver with a square in the middle. His under armor is blue and his helmet, shoes, and the cloth under his armor over his neck are black. His helmet resembles the one for his bike, two goggles cradled the top of his head and the helmet cupped his already square jaw.

  “Whoa!” Fred gaps.  

  “Tadashi,” Honey utters.

  Fred hops excitedly over to him and picks at his suit. “Dude! So cool! What does it do?”

  Tadashi turns his arm over to show off the palm of his gauntlet. In the middle is a silver disk. “Stand back,” he says to Fred, and then he flicks his wrist and a flame rose up from the palm of his hand.

  A row of gasps follow mine.

  “Tadashi, are you sure about this?” Honey asks worriedly. I walk closer to him.

  “Fire is an extreme health care violation.” Baymax lifts his finger behind me.

  “Exposure therapy, right?” He smiles, but it wasn't half as cheery as his old ones. Never is, anymore.

  Fred is grabbing onto his arm and biting his lip in excitement. Tadashi begins to explain to all of us how he made his suit but I zone out. Something's wrong. I'm not so sure what it is, but Tadashi is not acting right. Of course, he usually isn't acting right, nowadays.

  This...this is an improvement. He'll be fine. He's healing.

  I look to my side at Baymax, silently studying the others and I'm guessing taking in information from Tadashi.

  He looks strangely still.

 

  Wasabi complains all the way to the island. Who knew such a big buff guy would be so scared of flying? He holds onto Baymax like a teddy bear as we make our way through the air to Akuma island. As soon as Baymax's flat feet touch the ground, we all hop off and Tadashi lands beside us, flames at the bottom of his shoes going out and dropping him to the concrete ground. He's so similar to Baymax, even in this.

  Fred bounces, “Awesome! Our first landing together as a team!”

  “Guys, come on,” I whisper before Fred can start freaking out. We start to move forward.

  “Quarantine?” Wasabi points his thumb at a sign on the gates surrounding us. He gives us an incredulous look. “Do you guys know what quarantine means?”

  Baymax goes on to explain the dictionary definition to Wasabi as we ignore them and keep walking. We turn a corner and find a door.

  “Be ready, he could be anywhere,” I say, blocking them with an arm as we get closer to the door.

  A snap.

  We scream and I hide behind Baymax as everyone but the robot goes off. Gogo throwing her disk, Honey throwing her chemballs, Fred blowing out fire with Tadashi, Wasabi slashing...only to realize nothing was there but a pigeon, who all of us had somehow missed.

  “That...was a bird,” Fred says blankly.

  “Well,” Honey says, standing up straight and out of form. “At least we know our gear works!”

  Seconds later Wasabi is slicing an asymmetric hole into the thick metal door. A loud bang goes off when the pieces of metal hit the ground inside. We are met with a long, dark corridor. We move through the hole and continue on as Fred starts to sing some annoying song about amulets in a basement or something. Wasabi threatens him and I shush them.

  “Baymax? Any sign of him?” I ask the big marshmallow wrapped in red and purple armor.

  He looks to be scanning the area. “The structure is interfering with my sensor.”

  “Maybe because you weren't built for this kind of work,” Tadashi says pointedly. I roll my eyes.

  “Uh, guys, you might want to see this.” Honey says from behind us. We turn around and see her open up a door we had passed by. We walk in behind her and observe the room.

 It was in pieces. Everything. We can see from the top floor railing down to the bottom floor which held a large wiry-like inverted arc and a track from this floor leading over to it. Beside it is an even bigger structure, but despite its apparent destruction, it still looks better than anything else in the room. It's a round body of machinery with an opening in the middle. It's obviously broken and pieces of it are all around on the floor. It looks just like what the Kabuki mask guy, or Krei, we think, pulled out of the ocean by the docks.

  “Whoa,” Tadashi says, “What happened here?”

  “What do you think it is, genius?” Gogo asks from beside me.

  “I'm not sure,” I reply, then notice something on the side of the machine. A symbol. A red bird inside a circle. I point to it. “But look.”

  “You guys,” Honey grabs our attention. She gestures to a room upstairs, red light seeping through the windows.

  We open the door slowly but no one's inside. I walk in first. It's a control room. A few stairs in the back, and a large screen in the middle of the room. There are windows looking out over the room and a control panel in front of it with chairs that haven't been used in a while, apparently. Dust is everywhere.

  I walk up to the screen that's blasting all the red light. It has the Krei tech symbol on it. I tap a button. Another screen pops up. There's a bunch of little boxes, all cameras somewhere, but only one shows anything. It's Krei, in this room, with a bunch of his employees sitting at the control panels, typing away. Krei is leaning over someone and using their computer, while some type of officer is standing behind him. They all look concerned. I press the rewind button on the panel under the screen and the pictures start to move, the different blank screens turn back on and I pause and start it back up.

 Krei is talking. “We were asked to do the impossible, so we did.” He's walking on the rail to the structure we saw earlier. It's not destroyed here. Its edges are lit up a bright blue and Krei is leading a couple of people to it. He proceeds to turn it on, and a swirl of dark and bright blue appears in the middle.

  I can't believe it… It's a portal!

 Krei takes one of his clients hats and throws it through. A man is next to the other untamed portal across from them and easily catches it.

  “They mastered teleportation…” Tadashi gasps silently.

  We continue to watch the footage for a few more minutes. Krei explains what their plans are and a girl is brought out in a suit. Someone, the guy he was leaning over later in the feed, said something about an irregularity to Krei, but he ignores it.  A girl is put inside a machine and passes through the portal-

  And then doesn't come out.

  “Field breach! Abort!” Someone yells in the feed. An alarm goes off.

  “Oh no,” Honey and Tadashi whisper.

  One of the portals explodes. Krei quickly shuts everything off and the client, or his boss or whoever, tells him to shut everything down. The girl is lost.

  “The government shut down his experiment,” I say.

  “And he's using your microbots to steal his machine back,” Honey realises.

  “Krei's the one in the mask-”

  “Get down!” Tadashi yells.

  “Oh no,” Baymax says and before we can move, before I can even see what's happening, we are buried under rubble and a large rock of concrete.

  I open my eyes and everyone's crouched down, coughing, and Baymax is lifting up the rock. “Baymax, get us out of here!”

  He launches his rocket fist and the rock smashes down in front of us. We climb over it.

  “Get the transmitter,” I order them. “Behind his mask!”

  Tadashi is gone already. Baymax and all of us are pushed back by a punch from my microbots. Baymax is thrown back into rubble and I rush over to him while the others begin their attack. I hear Wasabi ask about a plan in a panicked voice.

  I grab Baymax by the hand and pull him out, but he's stuck. I kneel above him and start moving debris with a strength I didn't even know I had. I hear wind whooshing behind me and I know just by the sound that it is Gogo. I'm finally able to get Baymax up and I turn around.

  Gogo is throwing her boomerang-like disks at Krei while Tadashi is distracting him with fireballs. Both of them are fast. Their running circles around that guy, literally. When his attention is on Gogo, Tadashi hits him from the back, and vice versa. But they aren't getting any closer to him and the mask this way. Krei is getting annoyed, I can tell by the way he's moving. His arms move more erratically, the microbots switching from person to person, until finally, he squats, both hands in a fists, then punches up with both hands. Gogo and Tadashi are both enveloped in his grasp. Tadashi can't fly and Gogo's legs are trying to kick out of his/its grip.

  Then Honey throws one of her chemical balls at Krei's feet and he's frozen to his spot as well. As he struggles to get out of the ice he lets go of Gogo and Tadashi. Honey catches Gogo and Baymax flies passed me, quickly catching Tadashi before he reaches the ground. I realize I should probably be fighting too and run toward them, down the stairs, over behind a column that covers me from Krei's view. Fred's beside me. He lifts a scaly finger to his huge masked lips and looks behind his column. I turn too.

  Baymax is punching out one of Krei's extra hands while Wasabi is on the other side, slicing through each string of jabs. Tadashi is in the air, shooting flames at the edge of his mountain of microbots that he's using to lift himself above everyone. Something behind him is slithering up his mountain of microbots. It's blue and liquidy. Tadashi is firing at it, nonstop.

  Honey. Honey's behind Krei, throwing one of her concoctions at his feet and using Tadashi's fire to harden it. She's keeping Krei in place.

 Wasabi is grabbed by his foot and thrown into the air. He screams and Fred moves from behind his column and jumps up to catch him. Gogo slides underneath them, running circles around Krei and dropping some of Honey's balls by his feet. Baymax moves back, Fred drops back to the ground, let's Wasabi down, and in one smooth motion, blows fire onto the liquid surrounding the front of Krei's mountain. It hardens, and he can't move any of the microbots aside from the ones near his feet and the ones acting as his hands, albeit them being smaller than before.

  Krei struggles to get out of the trap, punches the ice-like substance around him, but we have him surrounded and he's not going anywhere.

  Gogo is sliding to a stop when Krei mixes both hands into one and grabs at her before she can throw one last bomb, but that doesn't stop her from swinging her wrist and letting go of her disk for one last hit. He doesn't expect it and he's hit square in the face. His fist flies up, instantly letting Gogo go, but it moves back and smashes Tadashi into the wall, hard. Tadashi drops twenty feet down to the ground as Krei flies back. I scream for Tadashi, and then for Baymax, who's quick to catch him. My microbots let go of Krei and he falls back and slides on the floor, down the stairs.

  I gasp in surprise and run after him. He's on the bottom level, on his side, hand covering his face. The mask is on the floor a few feet away from him. The sound of microbots hitting the floor fills the room. I run for it and grab it before he can even get up. His back is to me.

  I push the button on the side of my helmet, lifting up the face. “It's over, Krei.”

  He stands up slowly and looks at me. But it's not Krei. It's not...

 

  Tadashi blinks. Something white is clouding up his vision. It’s blurry and he can barely see, but after a few seconds, it becomes clear.

 Baymax. His black pads for eyes close in a blink under his thick helmet as he stares at Tadashi. “You have a minor concussion.” He says in his blank voice.

  Tadashi sits up, groaning and putting a hand to his head. “Where is everyone?” He glances around the room and sees the others near the railing. They are looking down at the lower floor. They gasp and Honey puts a hand over .

  Tadashi struggles to get up. Baymax helps him with one arm and leads him to the railing, where he drops down to his knees and blinks hard. His head is killing him. The throbbing pain won't go away and his vision keeps blurring in and out.

  Despite that, he tries to examine the situation.

  Then blinks again. And wipes his eyes.

  “Professor Callaghan?” He says softly.

  Callaghan's glaring at Hiro, lips tightened into a line, thick grey eyebrows furrowed down.

  It's him. He's not Krei. It's him. Not Krei. Callaghan. Not Krei.

  Kabuki Mask guy is Callaghan.

  “No, I had your microbots,” Callaghan says. Callaghan, not Krei.

  Tadashi can barely understand what was happening. He can't hear anything from where he was. He tightened his grip on the rail bars. It felt like a jail cell.

  “...Mn...let him die..!” He hears Hiro say as Callaghan begins to step closer.

  “Give me the mask, Hiro.” Callaghan pulls out his hand.

 Hiro backs up. “He went in there to save you!”

  “That was his mistake!”

  Tadashi feels his heart drop. Any hope he had that this couldn't be real, that the man before him couldn't have been doing anything as bad as they thought, that Callaghan couldn't be a bad guy, that this was just a misunderstanding, was gone. He feels for a second like he can't breathe. Air isn't making its way into his body.

  Hiro's gloved hand tightens on the mask at the same time Baymax's hand grasps Tadashi's shoulder. Tadashi closes his eyes tight, fighting against a raging headache.

  “How dare you?” he hears. Tadashi opens his eyes and looks at Hiro again. He can see an intense scowl on Hiro's face. “How can you say that- about one of your deceased students?” Hiro's face has gone completely red. “Mn- he ran into a fire to help you! He sacrificed himself to save you! Do you even care? Do you have any idea how much this has affected us?” Hiro motions behind him and Tadashi looks at Fred, with his costume head off, Honey, with covered behind her hands and her green eyes wide, Wasabi, looking down at the floor, and Gogo, her helmet covering her face. “How much this has affected Tadashi?! Do you know how much they've been suffering? Tadashi has been suffering?” He points at Callaghan, looking up at him, and Callaghan's gall is gone.

  He takes a step back, palms faced towards Hiro, shoulders tense.

  Hiro continues. “Mn- Tyrone was a great man- and all you can say is that he made a mistake?”

  “That's not my fault!” Callaghan roars.

  “This is exactly your fault!” Hiro roars back. “He-” Hiro's voice breaks, and he pants. Tadashi spots a tear rolling down his cheek. “Tadashi...Tadashi doesn't sleep be..because of you..” He wipes the tear off his face.

  Callaghan has a pained look on his face, but he offers his hand anyway. “Hiro, give me the mask.”

  Hiro sniffs before opening his mouth to say something, but stops when something yellow comes into view, goes right past him.

  A loud crack bounces off the bare metal walls.

  Gogo's right hand is over her left shoulder and Callaghan's nose is now pointed to his side.

  Tadashi, Hiro, the group, are all in stunned silence. Callaghan's face is turned away from her, his eyes are wide, his mouth parted, and a red hand-shaped bruise is forming on his left cheek.

  “Jail isn't even suited for a monster like you.” Gogo stands up straight, retained anger in her voice. “But it's where you're going.”

  “Baymax, contact the authorities,” Tadashi mumbles, eyes not straying off the scene before him.

   Callaghan is still until Gogo says that. His face contorts in anger and he moves so quick, Tadashi could have blinked and missed it. Gogo's on the floor, slides so far she hits a column. Honey and Fred gasp her name and Callaghan is gaining on Hiro.

  “If he had to die so that I could get my Abby back then so be it!” He growls. And that sets Hiro off. The regret on Hiro's face instantly drops and instead he scowls again, pulling off his helmet and dropping it on the floor. Then to Tadashi's surprise, he puts the mask on.

  Tadashi blanks out. He's filled with the sudden urge to scream, tell Hiro no, stop, don't but his vision goes black. It's only seconds later when he realizes the ringing in his head isn't from the headache, and the fact that he can't see isn't because of the concussion.

  Microbots swarm around Hiro.

  “No!” Wasabi screams and jumps down to stop him. Baymax leaves Tadashi's side to help. Fred and Honey notice late when trying to help Gogo up. It's a team effort but they're all trying to stop Hiro before he kills Callaghan.

  Hiro grabs Callaghan by the foot and tosses him across the room, but Gogo is up to catch him. Wasabi tries to jump Hiro but the microbots push him back. All Tadashi can do is stare. He tries to get to his feet but his legs are too heavy, his head feels like it weighs a ton, his vision goes red, and the next moment he's on his knees again. He's panting, can't get up. He throws his helmet off but it doesn't do much help. The cool air around him makes him feel a bit better, but he still can't stand.

  But Hiro needs him.

  “Hiro! Stop it!” Honey grabs his arm and tries to pull him back, but the kid is unstoppable. He has Callaghan pinned to a wall by his neck using the microbots. Honey throws a pink bomb at the arm of the bots and Baymax slams into it, breaking the microbots hold on Callaghan. The man falls and is caught once again, this time by Fred.

  “Stop stopping me!” Hiro yells.

  “No! You can't do this! This is not what Mn wants!” Honey exclaims, both arms trying to pull him back. Gogo holds onto Hiro's other arm.

  “Who cares!”

  “This is not what I want!” A voice stops Hiro's every movement. His legs still, the microbots come to a pause. Everyone looks up at the railing where Tadashi's head is poking out behind the bars. His arm is through one set of them, as if trying to reach them. Bags are under his eyes as he says, “Hiro! Stop…” his voice is weak, tired. He's barely able to say the word stop without it sounding all breathy.

  But Hiro does.

  Gogo snatches the mask off his face and throws it to Fred, who catches it easily and throws it on the ground with one hand, the other wrapped around Callaghan’s neck. The mask breaks in half, then Fred stomps it a few times for good measures. The microbots have all fallen to the ground once again, lifeless.

  Tadashi passes out.

 

  Baymax lands in front of Hiro as the girls let him go.

  “What was that?” Gogo glares at him.

   Hiro barely glances at her. “Why'd you stop me?” His low voice demands as he picks up his helmet. He steps toward Baymax. “How far are the cops?”

  “This was not what we signed up for.” Wasabi crosses his arms.

  “They are on their way now.” Baymax says matter of factly.

  “How far?” Hiro asks louder, angry.

  “My enhanced scanner has been damaged.”

  Hiro cried out in annoyance. “I never should have let you guys help me.” He said as he climbs onto Baymax's back. “Baymax, wings!”

  “What? Where are you going?” Gogo exclaims.

  “Fly!” And they take off, forgetting the others.

 

  I slam my helmet onto my work table, grab the step up ladder, and move it onto the floor in front of Baymax. I step up it and forcefully pull Baymax's helmet off. I move to my table and start working on fixing it.

  “You're blood pressure is elevated.” Baymax says from behind me. “You appear to be distressed.”

  “I'm fine.”

  “I was under the impression that your goal was completed. Apprehending the Kabuki Mask guy, AKA Callaghan, should have improved your mood.”

  “Yeah, well, it didn't.” I unplug the helmet and walk back over to Baymax. I put the helmet back on his head. “There. Is it working?”

  “My sensor is operational.”

  “Good.” I step back down and pull out my chair from my table, plopping down.

  “A common way to get rid of stress is to-”

  “Look, I don't need your help, ok?” I flatten my lips and lean back more in my seat, spreading my legs and bouncing my feet on the pavement, adrenaline still running through me. “Just leave me alone. Why are you still here?”

  “Are you satisfied with your care?”

  “Why do you care?” I glare at my blank computer monitor, push my cheek harder into my own fist. “I'm not your problem.”

  “As your personal healthcare companion, it is my job to-”

  “Can you shut up?” I kick the bottom of my desk and roll back in my chair, standing up and pacing the room. My legs shake, I'm so irritated. I wipe the sweat off the side of my face. “Why do you keep bothering me? You belong to Tadashi- so why are you always looking over me?”

  “I-”

  I turn to him, walk up to him, grind my teeth. “You come into my life and destroy everything I've built up. You take up all my brother's time, and expect me to just accept you? Why did I stand up for you? Why are you still bothering me even now? When you're supposed to be with him!” I can't take it anymore. Before I know it I'm punching him right in the stomach. He doesn't move, doesn't quiver, doesn't react. Nothing. It just makes me want to hit him more. “You left him! You left and you didn't even say goodbye! Did you ever think about how that would make him feel?” I punch him after every thought. “No. One. Told. You. To. Run. Into. The. Fire!” I pull the red armor off his fat belly before continuing where I left off. “You're supposed to take care of him! Why would you propose to him if you weren't even going to stay?” I don't stop until I'm out of breath and my arms hurt. I pant, gasp, but it doesn't help me any. My anger turns into physical exhaustion. I rest my head on his round, soft belly. “He's lost without you, why would you leave when he needed you the most…?” I sniff. “What am I doing…? You're gone…”

  “But, you are the one who left Tadashi.” I fix my gaze on his face. Baymax. This is Baymax. I furrow my eyebrows up at him. “At the island. With the others.”

  I did, didn't I? I left him. I was suppose to have his back.

  I laugh weakly.

  “Mn is here.” Baymax says in his calm and collected voice, as always.

   I lay my head on his belly again and smile as much as I can muster. “No, he's not.”

  “Mn is here.” He says again, and this time a light appears behind my eyelids. I open my eyes and see as much as I hear my brother talking to me.

  No, not to me. To Baymax.

  “This is Tadashi Hamada,” he says directly to the camera. He's holding one of those movie clapboard things. “and this is the first test of my robotics project.”

  “What…” I mumble.

   Tadashi presses a button near the screen and looks hopefully at the camera.

  A voice. “Hi, I am Baymax-” the screen messes up and Tadashi's hopeful face turns into one of fear as Baymax's arm starts hitting Tadashi and pops off, flying across the room. Tadashi quickly turns him off and the video switches. It's Tadashi again, in another outfit.

  “The seventh test of my robotics project,”

  And it keeps going. Baymax switches the video every time it goes wrong. He skips around the videos until we reach one where Tadashi looks extra tired. He has bags under his eyes and a five o'clock shadow. He doesn't even finish his sentence before the lights go off.

  The very next second a light is shining into the camera and Mn's face appears.

  I gasp.

  He looks so different- no, not different.

  Alive.

  

   His dark grey eyes look so bright after all this time. He's biting his bottom lip and his eyebrows are thick and furrowed up. It's like he's looking straight at me.

  Tadashi appears beside him. “You ok?”

  “Yeah,” Dang, I forgot how deep his voice was. He's squinting at Baymax. Tadashi looks at me too, before Mn hands him the flashlight and moves out of view.

  “I'm not giving up on you,” he says. “You don't know this yet, but people need you. Now let's get back to work.”

  “This is Tadashi Hamada for the 84th-” Tadashi looked at his prop, rubbing the side of his face. He huffed, “test..” then looked at the camera, smiled, and pressed on Baymax. “What do you say, big guy?”

  “Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.”

  Tadashi's eyes grew wide. “It works...you work!” He bounced around the room, screaming, and kissed Baymax's face. His lips left a mark on the camera. “I can't believe it, you- you work! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” He cheered.

  I couldn't help but smile. He was such a dork, even then. It's been awhile since I've seen him smile like that.

  He has Baymax scan him and Baymax says that Tadashi is happy.

  “I am! I really am!” Tadashi grins at him. “Oh man, wait until my brother sees you.”

  Something warm and wet runs down my cheek. I hadn't even realized I'd been crying.

  “That's all for now, I am satisfied with my care.” And the video feed ends with him smiling into the camera.

  I sigh and wipe the tears off my face.

  I'm surprised to hear it continue. “Hello, I am your personal healthcare companion.”

  I return my gaze to Baymax's belly again, but this time I'm met with the surprised look on Mn's face.

  “He works,” Mn said, astonished.

  “He works.” Tadashi said from a few feet behind him, knowing smile on his face. He could never stop smiling back then. He's wearing a different shirt, meaning this was a different day.

  “He works!” Mn exclaimed, turning to Tadashi. My brother's grin widened as Mn hugged him, and then kissed him.

  And keeps kissing him.

  ...Are they going to stop?

  Ok, I think as Mn finally pulls back, then grins hard, showing off his deep dimples.  

  “He works!” And Mn picked him up and spun him around. Tadashi laughed, holding onto the back of Mn's head as they moved around the room.

  Mn lost balance and fell back. I cringe.

  “Ow…” Comes from the ground, definitely Mn.

  Tadashi laughed at him and gets back up from the ground, pulling Mn up with him. “Are you ok?”

  “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?” Baymax asked. Mn brought his attention back to him, moving back in front of the robot. He's wearing a white shirt with orbs moving from biggest to smallest in a circle.

  “Uh, a three?”

  “I will scan you now.” Baymax said. A moment of pause. “Scan completed.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.” Tadashi said smugly from behind him, arms crossed.

  Next video.

  “I met Tyrone from a convention, actually. It was Fred's birthday and he had told us- me, Gogo, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi- that he'd just recently got in contact with an old high school friend and that he was inviting him to come. We all were expecting some raging comic book enthusiast or conspiracy theorist type guy and...no, that's not what we got. Um,” Tadashi was sitting down on a chair, hands clasped over his knees. He's using Baymax as a diary? “He's a nerd, of course, but we all are. Anyway, we met at one of Fred's conventions and he introduced all of us and then we went around the building all day. Went to some panels, ate some cotton candy, bought Fred some gifts he wanted, all that, and then-”

  Tadashi laughed. “Wasabi got sick off some candy and threw up in the bathroom, but we didn't know that and we thought we just lost him! But we were in line to get Fred a signature from some comic book artist Fred loves when they decided to go look for him, so Fred had me and Ty stay in line for him. They were gone for like, an hour, and me and Ty started talking,” he smiled to himself and looked down at his lap. “I was mildly attracted to him. He was interesting. It wasn't a crush or anything yet, but I was curious about him.”

  Baymax skips forward.

  “We started hanging out just the two of us and he started telling me more about Frederick- his project- and I was completely charmed by then-” Baymax skips forward again. “He asked me out-” skip. “And….yeah.” Tadashi shrugged and held eye contact with Baymax, almost expectantly.

  The scene changed. It was late at night, Tadashi's eyes were red and he was wearing a different outfit, with his trademarked cardigan and white shirt with a cursive D in the middle. His cheeks were tear-streaked.

  “You appear to be sad.” Baymax said in the video.

  Tadashi sighed deeply and wiped his face. He looked miserable. “Yeah...Hiro doesn't like him.”

  Him. Oh no, Tadashi…

  “It's stupid, but,” Tadashi's gaze is anywhere but Baymax. “I really wanted him to like Ty, ya know?”

  “It is common to want to build healthy relationships among friends and family.” Baymax said matter of factly.

  Tadashi laughed weakly. “Right? Guess I waited too long. It's not like I don't know why, I know Hiro's not homophobic, but I thought it wouldn't be such a big deal, ya know?”

  “How is that not a big deal?” I exclaim at the screen, then close my mouth shut. It's not like he can hear me.

     “It feels stupid to cry about, but I don't know, a dam just broke, I think?” Tadashi ran a hand through his black hair. “I mean, it's not stupid. But it, this entire situation is frustrating. I should have told him earlier.”

  The video is switched to yet another one, but now it's Mn standing there, looking upset. It feels different though. The air around him seems way more tense.

  He's holding something in his hand. A ring was shining on his left hand.

  My heart starts to race. This was before the fire! He's wearing that shirt with the looping circles.

  “On a scale-”

  “There's not enough time, Baymax.”

  “You seem to be in distress,” Baymax said. Mn gave him a tired look mixed with sympathy.

  “I need you to do something for me, Baymax.” He held out a piece of paper. “Hide this, and don't tell anybody you saw me up here. Seventy-seven days from now, around noon, the space-time continuum whatever is probably going to be all out of wrack, people are going to be in a state of confusion, most likely, and it'll be two weeks after Big Hero 6 has defeated Callaghan.”

  I freeze. A chill runs down my spine as I run through his words again and again.

  Big hero 6? Defeats Callaghan? Who's big hero 6?  

  I automatically start counting names: Honey, Wasabi, Fred, Gogo, me, and Tadashi. I look up at Baymax, who looks down at me, almost curiously, despite only having one expression. And Baymax, that's seven.

  I realize I've stopped listening to the video. Mn is kneeling down under Tadashi's desk. He's putting a piece of paper inside one of the folders in the blue basket underneath the table.

  “Tadashi never looks through here,” he mumbled to himself. I'm not sure if he meant for Baymax to catch that or not. He stood back up and clapped his hands free of dust. His eyes meet mine. “I don't have much time,” Mn's eyes glance to the door on the other side of the room. He sighed and looked back at me, at Baymax. “Tell Tadashi...I love him,” His eyes start to tear up, but he blinks the emotions away, swipe his feelings across the carpet. His hand is pulling a string out of his pocket. No, not a string, earplugs. “And that I will see him again. I promise him that.”

  “Hiro!” I turn at the sound of my name and see that Gogo is running towards me. I double take and reach for Baymax to turn off the recording, but I'm already faced with a white, plushy torso.

  I turn to her as everyone else walks in behind her. She pulls me into a hug.

  “Are you ok?” She whispers.

  I nod into her chest. She's just tall enough to lay her head atop mine.

  “Callaghan’s caught,” She says, pulling away. “The cops and ambulance arrived shortly after you left.”

  “Aye, but maybe don't leave your team stranded on a spooky island next time?” Wasabi suggested from beside her. The others were crowding around me, excluding Tadashi, I notice.

  I groan. “I'm so dumb,” I facepalm myself.

  “Nah, it's cool. Heathcliff brought us here on the family chopper.” Fred smiles, as if that's a normal thing that just happens.

  “And Tadashi?”

  “The helicopter took him to the hospital,” Wasabi says. “He should be there by now.”

  “Then we have to go see him-” I begin to walk towards the entrance of my garage when Honey puts her hand on my shoulder, stopping me.

  “Hiro,” Honey moves closer, holding something out in her hand. A USB. “I think you should see this first.”

  

   I've decided that I don’t want them to see the video Mn left behind, despite the fact that they're the ones who probably need to see it the most. It's confusing, but I feel like he wouldn't want them to know. The video was obviously meant for Tadashi. At first, it seems like Mn's talking only to Baymax, but he's giving him instructions he surely knew Baymax couldn't carry out on his own. He gave Tadashi the USB with all the playlists on it so that he'd be reminded of the videos they have together in Baymax's archive recordings. Tadashi was meant to find the video and help Baymax carry it out. But to do what?

  I've watched the video more than ten times by now. I watched it all night the day I saw it, then all day the next day after I saw the news that morning.

  “Big Hero 6!” They called us from the TV in the Lucky Cat Cafe. I stopped in my tracks, halting right in the middle of the cafe, to watch the news channel. People mumbled around me as they too were curious about the new superhero team.

  A video, cast from a high definition camera, showed us inside the old building on Akuma Island fighting off a masked Callaghan and his mountain of microbots. Tadashi, masked, was streaming flames onto the back of Callaghan as Baymax and Wasabi fought off his tentacle-like microbots. The camera moved around a lot, like the person was jumping, and sometimes the view was hidden behind a column.

  A column. Fred. Of course.

  The phone is put up against the column as Gogo runs around Callaghan, and then Fred in his monster suit comes into view, jumping high and then coming back down, blowing fire onto the liquid goo Gogo had just thrown down. I'm not in the video.

  Big hero 6

  Mn was right. He somehow saw into the future. But how?

   I've been thinking about it for a week now. Tadashi came back from the hospital today. It was only a minor concussion so he was able to recover pretty quick. I'm thinking about telling him. I'm running out of time. Mn said two weeks after we defeated Callaghan, and a week has gone by already but I still don't understand anything.

  I need Tadashi for this. I just don't know if he'll be up for another adventure. He'll tell aunt Cass and get me grounded so I won't be able to suit up ever again. I know I went too far with Callaghan, but what he said just-

  If I'm gonna do this alone I need to get into Tadashi's lab without him noticing. He's already recovering from his first concussion, he wouldn't even be physically able to help with this. Baymax gave me the map Mn gave him. It's a map to the dump. And it has all these drawings on it, like a dog with wings, and a pizza box, and a square with a fedora on its head and three eyes, and I'm sure it's some kind of code of inside jokes. The dog with wings is suppose to be a “wagon” or “Smith” or whatever we called it, I know that. And that cartoon Reality Shifts or whatever. The rest I don't get.

  I go to class, finally, after two weeks of skipping to build weapons and suits for everyone. And train. Lots and lots of training. I can't think. My mind always wanders to the clues, to Mn, to this whole thing that's been happening. It's all just some conspiracy, isn't it? Even when dead Mn still finds some way to annoy me.

   Mn, who knew the future.

   Mn, who broke my brother's heart for some stupid puzzle game.

   Mn, who's obsessed with the number 84.

  84 is the number of tries it took for Tadashi to get Baymax to work, and also the number of days since the week before he died up until the space time anomaly starts. But what happened the week before he died? We went to the arcade, Gogo's birthday passed, he proposed to Tadashi…What else happened? It couldn't have been just a coincidence.

  After class I take the elevator up a level to Mn's lab. No one bats an eye when I open the door to Mn's old room and close it behind me.

  The room is completely empty. Nada. It looks just like Tadashi's room, except vacant. No furniture, no desks, no bookcases. Just white walls and dusty floors. I guess it has been practically three months since he's been gone. Of course they would clean out the room. They need it for upperclassmen. He died on SFIT land; they don't want his stuff here. It's probably at his house...or in Tadashi's room.

  I bite my lip, then sigh. This is gonna be a lot harder than I originally thought, and even before now I thought it would be difficult.

  A door opens. “Hiro?” It's Tadashi. “What are you doing here?”

  I sigh again, quietly, so he doesn't hear me, then turn around and face him. He's wearing one of Mn's shirts. I know because he's never worn it before and it looks like something Mn would wear. And the engagement ring.

   Mn, always haunting us from the afterlife.

  “I'm just, uh…” I scratch at a itch behind my ear. Why was he even here? “Taking a look around. Remembering stuff. It doesn't matter, why are you here?”

  “I, uh, I come here to think.” His eyes glance at the floor and his face sort of arranges into a pout. His eyes reach back up to mine and he tries but fails to clear his face. “Have you seen Baymax, by any chance?”

  Oh yeah, so I basically stole my brother's invention. Baymax always follows me around now, ever since we found out about Callaghan and I saw that video of Mn. He's stuck to me like a piece of tape. It's not like I mind, though. He's good company. It feels, I don't know, right? Somehow? I just don't question it.

  “No, I have no idea.” I start to move passed him, exit the door. I shoot a finger gun at him as I leave. “Have you checked your lab?”

  “I don't think-” Tadashi starts, but I'm already halfway down the hall.

 

  It doesn't take long for him to find me out. He catches me rummaging through the box full of his- Mn's things.

  “What're you doing?” Tadashi's leaning against the wall with my robot poster on it, arms crossed and a sort of smug expression on his face, like he was thinking yeah! I finally caught you!

  “Uhh,” I stumble like an idiot. I should really start planning these things out.

  “We are looking for a paper Mn left behind for us!” Baymax says as I try to shush him and tell him to stop. He doesn't, obviously, and it's too late. Tadashi's peeved and demands we tell him what's going on.

  And then, only a hour later, we're on our way to the Evans house.

  If I knew he would handle it like this I would've got his help earlier! Of course Tadashi would want to help, Mn's his soulmate!

  Tadashi swerves into the driveway of a Victorian house so quick I feel like I've gotten whiplash. He's out of the car before I can even release my seat belt. He's at the door before I can take off Baymax's. By the time I've reached him, Chase is already at the door. A baby is giggling somewhere behind him.

  “Tadashi! Nice to see you,” he says, all genuine.

  “I'm sorry I didn't call first. We were kinda in a hurry.” Tadashi says.

  Chase is smiling as his eyes flash to the side. He watches as Baymax waddles up next to me. “No, that's ok.” He lifts up a eyebrow at Baymax and he looks like he wants to laugh. “Gonna introduce me to your friend here?”

  “Oh!” Tadashi looks back at Baymax, like he forgot he was there.

  “I am Baymax,” Baymax introduces himself before Tadashi can. “I am a personal healthcare companion.”

 Chase's honey brown eyes light up. They're like pools of caramel. “Oh! Filnic, I mean Tyrone, told me about you! You're so cute!” He looks the robot up and down. “And big!”

  Filnic? Was that his old name?

  It sounds exactly like the country I'm from.

  Finland! He's from Finland! Does that even count as Scandinavia? And Filnic? How was I supposed to guess that?

  “Thank you,” Baymax says politely.

  Tadashi laughs. And it surprises me because he barely laughs anymore. It sounds so sincere. “That's sorta what we came for. Tyrone, that is.”

  Chase lets us in and asks us if we want to stay for dinner. Tadashi politely declines and Chase leads us up to the attic. I wouldn't of minded dinner, but it doesn't account to me until later that he probably didn't want to spend any more time at his dead fiance's house than he had to.

  Mn's house is big, but that might just be because we live in a cafe and sleep in what's basically a decorated attic because there's only one room, a kitchen/living room, and one bathroom. This house was meant for multiple people. There are four bedrooms, I count, and the living room is bigger than our cafe.

  Kachi pokes his head out of one of the rooms as we pass by. He says a quick greeting and shuts his door back. Chase's husband is cooking dinner downstairs and his kid, Canba, I think, is in the living room watching kids’ learning cartoons.

  It strikes me that Mn's invention would have stopped the need for that.

  I shake my head and help Baymax up the latter into the attic. It's old and dusty, except for the boxes full of Mn's stuff. Everything else looks untouched. The floor has been swept, but empty spider webs hang from the corners of the ceiling.

  Chase turns on a light, says something else, then leaves us to search through the masses.

  Or, well, I say masses but it turns out only a few of his things are up here. He didn't have a lot. Tadashi said most of Mn's technological equipment was donated to SFIT or thrown out. His clothes were packed here, donated, or given to Tadashi. And he's a guy, so he didn't have many clothes to begin with. He wasn't much of a fashionable person.

  His personal belongings, journals and old high school math notebooks, and sketches of Frederick and other projects are spread around in other boxes. Tadashi, Baymax, and me get to work.

  Baymax is painfully slow, but he can't help it. Tadashi, though, he can't seem to slow down. He's going through boxes and folders like a ravenous wolf. Or Smith. I, on the other hand, find myself analyzing every single thing of his. There are drawings he kept from when he was young mixed in with some of his schematics. From the style, he was probably a five-year-old or younger. They're all 3d stick figures with slanted lines as hair. One drawing is clearly of him and his mother. He's wearing overalls and his hair is colored dark brown and over his forehead, like it is now, or, not now, but when he was alive and ever since I met him. He's holding hands, which are only two nubs, with a dark-skinned woman with long brunette hair. Her eyes are big and round.

  I put the drawing back and pick another one out of the folder. It's a photograph of him and his mom. It's professionally made, in a studio or something. Mn is maybe seven or eight years old and he's sitting in his mother's lap. His mouth is covered by a black mask you'd wear if you were sick, and both he and his mom are gazing at the camera.

  She really is pretty. Side by side, they do really look alike, with their chubby cheeks and wide almond-shaped eyes. I guess that's where he got his looks from.

  I put the picture back behind the drawing and keep searching.

 

  Baymax is the one who finds it first; the note Mn left behind. Me and Tadashi gather around him as he holds it on the tips of his fingers awkwardly. It's an index card with a drawing and some numbers on the unlined side.

  The drawing was of a portal, much like Krei's teleportation one back on Akuma Island, and under it was the subtitle Fredrick.

  I heard Tadashi gasp from the other side of Baymax.

  Under Fredrick was a date and time. This time I was the one who gasped. The date was the day of the showcase, only minutes before the explosion. I knew because it was documented all over social media, on Whotube, and in all the articles that came out on the news the next day.

  When I was there, what time it was wasn't really my priority.

  So he really did know the future. It keeps hitting me.

  Tyrone Nial Evans was a time-traveler.

 

  Tadashi, Baymax, and I fly to the school the next morning. Tadashi quickly finds the paper Mn left for him in the basket underneath his desk. We're in a sense of urgency. More than a week has passed already, and if we're gonna fix whatever Mn messed up, we gotta hurry and get all the clues.

  Why would he do this anyway? Just to be bothersome? He couldn't have just put all of this in one place or, I don't know, told us that he was a time traveler? It's hard to believe but it's better than dying in a fire. How long has he been time-traveling? Has this been his project all along? Fredrick being a time-traveling machine? I'm surprised he didn't tell Tadashi. Guess my brother wasn't the only one keeping secrets.

  But then again, if he knew it was Callaghan who started the fire, then why did he go in there to save him? It was a distraction and he knew it, so why..? If he hadn't gone in there, everyone would still be alive. Tadashi and the guys wouldn't have this pain down their throats. If he hadn't gone, then everyone would've been happy. He could've gotten married to my brother, graduated SFIT, built a learning device instead of a time-traveling machine.

  But if he hadn't gone in...would someone else had? I remember that night vividly. I was thanking Tadashi for helping me, and then the alarm went off. He stopped some student and she told him that Callaghan was still in there. Then he...then Tadashi tried to run in..

  Tadashi tried to save Callaghan, and then Mn appeared. Mn, the time-traveler. Mn, who just wanted to make learning easier, who spent the entire week trying to warm up to me, who proposed to my brother and then died three days later.

  Mn, who saved my brother's life.

 On the paper were directions on how to build Fredrick. We got straight to work. We go to the dump and pray that none of Fredrick has been crushed into a ball or recycled. There are so many parts to find, and the map doesn't make that much sense. And then Tadashi looks at it and laughs, then cries, because he gets all the references. The pizza box- Cici's pizza. C.C, the nickname we made for Tadashi. The Reality Shifts character he used to watch with Tadashi. The Wagon inside joke. Or Smith. Whatever. There's even a picture of one of the robots from Electro-Beam, which I didn't notice until last minute was for me to understand. I didn't pay it any attention because I thought Tadashi would get it, but then I really looked at it, and something burst. I don't know, it was something I hadn't really felt before. It hurt. A lot.

  I wouldn't let Tadashi see me cry. I can't let him have that satisfaction. But Baymax was nice enough to hug me until I got it all out. I really love that robot.

  We went through the dump for most of the day and it wasn't until eight o'clock at night that we found everything we were looking for. Wires hidden under one of Tyrone's Reality Shifts hoodies. Tadashi mentions that he'd been wondering where that went. Fortunately, it was somehow intact after practically three months. I mean, yeah, it was dirty as all heck, but we could recognize it still. Then there was a statue of a dog and a dragon. To mini ones you got at an old antique store. The dog was small and broken while the dragon stood tall and unharmed atop a large piece of metal. Cici's pizza boxes were everywhere, which is why it took us most of the day to actually find which spot was the one on the map or not. Gosh, we smelled like skunks by the time we got home.  And then an Electro-Beam mecha action figure held the rest of the machinery we were looking for.

  We were tired. Lost probably fifty pounds after carrying all that stuff back to the truck we borrowed from the school. We slept that night and then tried to store that energy for the rest of the week.

  It takes a few days of sleepless nights, caffeine, and fifteen-minute naps to finish building Fredrick. The end of the week is here and it's five in the morning when we are finally done.

  I can barely keep my eyes open, can barely move from this bean bag chair. I look over at Tadashi who's lying on the ground beside me, cuddled up on Baymax's stomach. I'm so tired, just blinking almost lures me to sleep, and this guy thinks he can just take a nap?

  I call over to him as loud as I can while dying of exhaustion. He doesn't stir. I kick him. His head bounces off the pillow as he's startled awake.

  “It's morning. We gotta keep going or we're gonna miss our chance.” I say, and for a second it's like he doesn't even hear what I say, he just squints at me like he can't see, then sniffles and looks behind him at the machine blocking the window. It smells bad in here, we haven't showered in days. I've stopped noticing it until now because I've barely been alive these past few hours, but now my senses are coming back to me.

  Tadashi tries getting up but he slips off Baymax and a loud slap of his hand on the white marble floor startles me. Baymax says something about safety. Once Tadashi gathers himself we both get up and shuffle to the large machine. It looks just like the picture Mn made. I yawn and cover my mouth as I look out the window. It's around seven now, I think, because people are coming into the lab from outside. What exact time is noon anyway?

  My vision blurs and I close my eyes for a few seconds then open them again. The people outside look like they're stuttering, I'm so tired. I blink a couple more times, trying to get the sleepiness out of my eyes as Tadashi works on turning on the machine. It took us days of rewiring and fixing Fredrick for it to finally turn on. A blue portal appeared in the middle of the heptagon when we were finally able to make it work. Relief rushed through me so hard I didn't even have time to be amazed. I think I passed out.

  I'm blinking, yet the students outside, walking down the walkway to the robotics lab, are still buffering, like a Whotube video. They're moving closer, buffering, then appear a few steps forward, like time is rebooting itself.

  Oh gosh, is time rebooting itself?

  “Tadashi,” I say with urgency. He looks at me with bags under his eyes. “It's time.”

  His expression screws into one of concern and he moves around Fredrick to stand next to me. Baymax comes up behind him.

  “Oh no,” he whispers. “Tyrone, what did you do..?”

  He saved you, I stop myself from saying.

  “We gotta get this boy ,” I say, grabbing his attention. We nod at each other and get to work on turning Fredrick on.

  The others have no idea what's going on. We didn't tell them and weirdly enough they haven't asked us what we've been up to either. They've texted every little while and we try to text back as casually as we can. We don't want them to know what's happening yet. If something goes wrong we both left a note, signed by us and given to Baymax. He's staying here. Not that we have any doubts, but both Krei and Mn's portals obviously didn't work the way they expected them too. But for me and Tadashi?

  Well, the Hamada brothers have gotten through everything so far, we're not turning back now.

  And also...Mn promised.

  “Tadashi, now,” I say. He clicks a button on the remote connected to Fredrick. It lights up blue, and at the top is the date and time of the fire. I sigh in relief.

  Tadashi comes to stand beside me, right in front of the portal. “This is it. It's now or never.” He looks at me, smiling. I look back at him.

  “Tadashi, I love you.”

  He ruffles my hair. “I love you too, little bro.” Then he turns back around to Baymax. “Baymax, take care of everyone else, alright? This is my last request.”

  “Yes, Tadashi. Are you satisfied with your care?” Baymax asks, for the last time.

  Tadashi sniffs, but I can't tell whether he's crying or not. “Yes. Yes, I'm satisfied with my care.”

 

  Tadashi takes my hand with his free one and together, we step into the portal.

 

  “The truth is, I hate this suit. I hated shooting fire or being near it, being the cause of it... And I hated flying. Flying is supposed to feel freeing, but all I could think of was Tyrone handing me that ring case before rushing into the fire. I hate what fire represents. But I wear it to remember. As tribute. Because I have to let that go.”

  Tadashi said that to me the day he got out of the hospital from his concussion. That's the first thing I think of when everything goes black, then fiery red.

  The first thing I feel, however, is nausea. I feel bile crawling up my throat and I heave but nothing comes up. It's hot. Deathly hot. I feel like I'm being choked to death for a second-

  And then I can see.

  I'm inside the showcase hall with fire at my face. I'm standing right next to it, as it slowly reaches the door. Smoke is everywhere, but I can see clearly. The fire is going so slow I barely notice it moving. But it is. I move away from it and notice Tadashi out of the side of my eye.

  He's standing next to the door, right next to Mn.

  Mn, alive. Here. In the flesh.

  He's leaning against the door, ankle crossed over the other, head leaning back and relaxed expression on his face, like he's just chilling outside an old building, enjoying the breeze. He has earplugs on.

  I move closer. Tadashi's hand is on his cheek.

  “Oh, Mn...” I faintly hear him say.

  “Tadashi?” I call, reminding him. He looks back at me, pain clear on his face, before he turns back to Mn and wraps an arm around his waist. I come up next to Tadashi and touch his shoulder. “You ready?”

  He nods, not looking at me. “Yeah,” he puts his arm around my shoulder and then presses the button on the remote in his hand.

  

  We're pushed back out of Fredrick, right into Tadashi's lab. We fall in a pile onto the floor. Mn lands on Tadashi and I land next to him.

  I raise onto my knees and look over at the two, but Mn's unconscious. Tadashi groans, moving Mn off him and sitting up on his knees as well. His eyes immediately land on Mn.

  He gasps and turns Mn on his back, who's limp, and I'm not sure if he's breathing.

  My heart spikes because what if he's not breathing.

  My fears are allayed when Mn's eyes flash open, his irises wide and grey, like a storm cloud. But then he starts screaming, harshly, madly, like he's being tortured.

  I try to move to help him, see what's wrong, but I can't. My body is frozen.

  He's arching his back in pain, his feet sliding up and off the floor.

  “What's wrong with him?”

  “His arm!” Tadashi's holds his hand and gets on top of him, holding him down while simultaneously showing me his arm. It's fading, like, actually phasing in and out of translucency.

   “I have contacted the ambulance,” a voice says from behind me. Baymax is standing there with an image of a telephone rocking back and forth on his stomach.

  “Baymax!” I say, glad to see him. Mn's still screaming and someone's knocking at the door. I pay it no attention and look passed Baymax to Fredrick, then back to Mn.

  “That's it!” I rush to my feet.

  “What?” Tadashi asks, rocking Mn back and forth, whispering consoling things to him as he grasps onto his still fading arm. Marks are appearing on his arm, but they aren't like tattoos or birthmark or something magical.

  They're burn marks. His body is still somehow connected to the past, still in that room.

  “Baymax! Help me destroy this thing!” I start pulling at wires, but it's not shutting off.

  “What's going on in there?” Someone's yelling outside, pounding on the door.

  “Would that stabilize your emotions?” Baymax asks, calm as always.

  “Yes, Baymax, yes!” I cry as I pull at the stubborn machine’s edge.

  Baymax appears on the other side of Fredrick and helps me pull the machine apart. I'm really lucky he can lift one thousand pounds or this would've taken a lot longer.

  The door bursts open as soon as I drop the last piece of the machine to the ground. The portal closes and Mn has stopped screaming.

  Someone else screams instead. At the door is a crowd of people but the one closest to us has horror on her face. There are machine parts and it's debris all around us, and I'm too relieved that Mn's ok to worry about having to clean this back up later.

  That is, until I see that she's staring at Mn.

  Tadashi's breathing really hard. He's covering most of Mn's body from view from where I'm standing, but I can see his arm poking out from under Tadashi, limp and covered in blood. His wounds are bleeding all over the floor, creating a puddle.

  “Someone call the ambulance!”

  “They're on their way!”

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no-”

  As people start to rush in and out of the room, trying their best to help, and Baymax works on securing the wound before the ambulance gets here, I feel the bile from before finally come all the way up.

 

🏥🏥🏥🏥

 

  The first thing I notice is that it smells like a hospital. I should be used to this by now, but I still hate it.

  The second thing I notice is that I'm not dead. I was sure that I was gonna-... I thought my plan wouldn't work, and that I'd die in that building a hero. Tadashi's hero.

  But then I'm glad to be alive.

  But then the third thing I notice is that I can't see. And then I open my eyes.

  It's white, and blurry...yup, a hospital room. It smells acrid and medicinal and like death. Iron too. It usually smells of iron. But that might just be a memory.

  I trace the ceiling, what I guess is the ceiling, over to the wall, and then I really see. Tadashi's sitting there, asleep. He has his head on top of his crossed arms on the side of my bed. I can hear him lightly snoring. He looks beaten down and exhausted. He has bags under his eyes like an old man.

  I laugh through my nose, then get really conscious of my breathing. Cause what if this is fake and these are my last few breaths? What if I am about to die but it's just later than when I expected?

   Absentmindedly, I move my hand to sit on top of his head.

  And the fourth thing I notice is that my arm is wrapped all the way up to my shoulder, and then pain rushes through me.

  It's like a fire, quick and unexpected, hits me full force, scratches, tears at my skin, into my veins. I feel like I'm gonna throw up, nausea runs over me. It feels like someone peeled back my skin and put hot sauce on it. It's a gnawing, stabbing pain that makes me scream at the top of my lungs.

  Tadashi wakes up, I think, and people, nurses, pour in through the door. They try to put a mask on me, and they're saying something I can't hear, but I can't let them touch me. It'll make it worse. It'll hurt more.

  They're gonna suffocate me!

  I thrash my face side to side, trying to stop them from touching my face. One of them grabs me by my chin and holds me down and I try and fail to bite them. I see Tadashi out of the corner of my eye, being pushed out by a nurse or doctor or whomever. I reach out for him but only more pain reaches back. He's fighting to stay in, hand reaching out for me as well, his eyes drawn to mine, but then the mask goes over my nose and mouth, and fog clouds my vision right before everything goes black.

  

🌁🌈🌍🌎🌏🌜🌞⏰⌚⏳⌛📅🔄🔁♻

 

   Tadashi tells me what happened after I've calmed down. It takes a few days. He's been catching up on sleep along with Hiro. Everyone else visits me first, after I'm stable enough to be allowed to finally have guests. Chase and Kachi are first, of course. As always. I can barely tell them what happened, but I try my best to explain it to them. They're strangely understanding, like this isn't a big deal. Chase doesn't seem to care whether or not I'm telling the truth, he's just happy I'm alive, but Kachi is going all conspiracy theorist on me. He's always been the sort to be into this stuff. He doesn't understand it, but he's interested in it. Like it's some fandom he can just get into.

  “Well, I knew that if Callaghan was found alive, then there's gotta be a way you weren't dead either!” He said.

  That's my brother.

  “Ok, yeah, you time-traveled. Give me my grief back.” Chase said.

  That's also my brother.

  Honey showers me with hugs and cheek kisses. Then Gogo. Then Fred. Then, feeling left out, Wasabi. They demand to know what happened back at SFIT and I tell them. They don't believe it at first, besides Fred, but there's no other way to explain it. They don't seem to care either, besides Fred, I have to stress, because they're just glad I'm safe. Though they do say they're mad at Tadashi and Hiro for not letting them help. I say nothing to that.

  Mama Cass brings me good food, illegally. I love her to death. She hugs and kisses me, calls me her son and that I'm welcome to stay with them whenever I need if it'll help me recover. She doesn't ask about how I lived, and I'm grateful for it. It's bothersome having to explain it so many different times to different people.

  And then Tadashi. He fills me in on all the gaps in my knowledge, tells me how he went days without sleep just listening to my music. And he cries, and I hold him, because I can do that again, one more time and many more times after this. My arm may be irrevocably damaged, or else it'll take years to heal properly, and even then I'll probably have scars. They won't know until it happens. I'm an anomaly.

  I kiss his forehead and his hair.  It's still so soft. It's grown a little longer since the showcase, but it's still short in the back.

  “Never do that to me again, bonehead,” he says into my neck.

  “Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm an .” I rub his back. He pulls back but keeps his hands on my shoulders. I wipe the tears off his face and he leans in and kisses me.

  “You really are,” he says,  pulling back.

  “What?”

  “A .”

  I gasp dramatically. “You just said a swear word!”

  He rolls his eyes. “Shut up..” and he kisses me again.

 

  Hiro walks in a few minutes later. He frowns when he sees me. Or maybe it's because Tadashi's sitting in my lap. He quickly moves off.

  “Hey,” The kid says, waving timidly.

  “Hey,” I wave back.

  He stands still, looking at me with unreadable eyes. For a second I start to think he's just gonna stay at the door the rest of the visit, but then he moves. He runs to me and wraps his arms around me, hugging me. I freeze up, because how was I suppose to expect that? But then I hug him back. His embrace tightens for a quick second before he pulls back, just as quick.

  “You ok?” I ask.

  He puts on a smug look like he hadn't just completely ruined his bad boy rep. “I'm fine.”

  “You missed me, didn't you?” I smirk back.

   He laughs in my face. “You wish.”

   “Aww, you don't have to act all shy about it, Blue Jacket.”

   Hiro's smirk drops. Tadashi bursts out in a laugh.

  “Is that your nickname?” He laughs.

  “You're so,” Hiro puts his hand on his large forehead and says with actual pain in his voice, “bad at naming..!”

   Hiro and Tadashi stayed until visiting hours were over. The squad came and went, as well as Mama Cass with muffins she made for me hidden in her purse. Tadashi gave me a kiss on my forehead before he headed out the door with Hiro beside him.

  Hiro paused at the door, letting Tadashi out first before turning to me.

  “Hey,” he called. “Get better soon.” And with an added smirk, “I want to go ziplining.”