Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everything had been going according to their plan, but only seconds before it happened, it became clear that they weren’t on time — the beam reached out them too fast and engulfed the entire surroundings.

Hiro was not able to remember anything. There was nothing between Obake's attack and landing in this space. He could only think about this light. It made him completely blind. And now, he was able to keep his eyes open, but still he could only see darkness.

Everything was calm and quiet. But when he closed his eyes, he could see a few blurred pictures. He couldn’t recognise what they were showing. His head pulsed when he was focusing on them too much. And no matter how much he tried, he couldn't do anything apart from looking at the space around him (Did it even count as doing anything?).

He had died, he supposed. He wondered if his friends had as well. As the explosion was hardly possible to survive it, he supposed so.

Hiro didn't know how much time he had spent there until he heard a quiet sound. It took him a while to recognize it as a voice, calling something, but he wasn’t able to hear the word.

He had no idea who the voice belonged to, and how it found there with him. He was pretty sure he was alone in this place. He thought about aunt Cass – Was it possible she was somewhere here? – or his friends. He remembered that he was with Fred when everything had happened (it had to be Fred). He would like to be able to recognise the voice to be certain, but he wasn't.

And so time passed by while until it was getting louder and louder, and then...

“Hiro!”

So someone was calling him. (Did he fainted?)

Suddenly, the hard light hit his eyes. He blinked. (When did he close his eyes?) He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to cover his head with his hands, but sudden touch on his shoulder made him jump away. His effort made him fall on the ground (Solid ground).

“What's going on?” He muttered, barely noticing the fact that his voice sounded quiet and uncertain as if he didn't drink for a longer time.

He was in water (he was sure about it, he remembered water). He shouldn't be on the solid ground. He should be wet. He wasn’t. (Oh, right, he died. That meant they had ground in heaven and you didn't have to be wet even if you were before your death. Great).

He moved his arm and winced, rubbing his left hand which he had hit when he fell (he wasn't wet, but still could feel a pain).

“Are you ok?” He heard the voice again and now he was quite sure he had heard this voice before. To complicate his life he still couldn't focus his vision well and couldn't see the person in front of him. (He knew this voice, he heard it hundreds of times before) “Hiro, respond me. What's wrong? I am starting to worry.”

The voice got closer to him and together with it a shadow above him moved. Hiro groaned and rubbed his eyes. (Respond me? Oh, right. Respond. He was a hero wasn’t he? He could respond).

“I'm fine,” he said but it was still too quiet and, maybe, too weak (How long was he out?).

“Yeah, I just can see that. Well, if you don't want to tell me, I will go get aunt.” Wait, aunt?! Was aunt Cass here?! Where?! “I will go now, please stay here and don't move.”

“I'm literally dead, where could I go?” he muttered quietly. Appareantly not enough, because he was heard.

“You are what?!” Footsteps suddenly quieted down as if person stopped in place. "Hiro, what's going on?!”

“I don’t know.”

He blinked again and again and could finally tell he was seeing something more visible. Everything was still bright and he felt that he was going to have a headache. He could recognise the place, though.

It was his room, he noticed puzzled, looking around. A lot of his things was missing, his desk looked like that only before SFIT. He almost rushed to look it closer, but then his eyes found the person standing in the room.

His thoughts stopped at once as his body did. He recognised the person straight away and screamed, jumping away from him. He hit the cabinet and his robots, one by one, fell on him.

“Hiro!” The voice got louder in his ears as the person rushed to him.

Hiro ignored the pain, focusing on the person that started taking away the robots (It couldn't be him, he had died a long time before Hiro. It couldn't be).

(But he stood there.)

“Aunt Cass!” He shouted louder, keeping his eyes at Hiro. “Come here!”

“You are Obake, aren't you?!” Hiro said angrily, his lips twisted showing teeth. “What do you want?! You've already destroyed everything! What is there you need?! I died!”

“Died?! Hiro, seriously, what's going on?!” He was really starting to panick. (Hiro had never seen him so restless before, even after the bot fighting).

Tadashi touched Hiro's shoulder again; Hiro’s body was all stiff. This time Hiro didn't jump away, he was just looking at hand touching his body as if mesmerized. It was so authentic.

And then it hit him like a speeding train. He was in his – their once – room. He was in front of him, kneeling and touching his shoulder. He could feel it. He couldn't in his dreams. He was in hi-their room, and he wasn't alone. He was there with him.

He had no idea why he couldn't even think about his name. He dealt with it after the fire. At beginning it was hard, but, in the end, he didn't have any problem with that. But he did it now, when he was in front of him, looking so real. Only seeing Obake's scammer was on this level. Still, even Obake didn't do a great work in the end.

His behaviour, his movements seemed much better, much proper, he had to admit it in spite of himself. He really could imagine it was him. (But it couldn't have been. He had died).

(But... So had Hiro).

“Are we in heaven?” he asked, coming back to his first thought, and didn't get any answer. ”So it's hell, isn't it? So... I can imagine myself here, but why you?”

If Tadashi was able to look like more worried and confused, it wouldn’t look like so much different than his current look.

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean I did a lot of..." He bit his bottom lip, and run his hand through hair, "quite doubtful things so there is some sense."

(He helped Obake.)

"I just don’t get it why you are here."

“I'm here, because clearly something happened and you aren’t all right." His voice was soft and quiet. "I help you, I promise, but I need to know a little more.

(Someone has to help.)

Tadashi looked over his shoulder. “Ok, you know what, I hear aunt, she’s coming to us. Let's wait, maybe you'd prefer to talk to her.”

Then Hiro's head began to ache even more, the pain spread through his mind and he losed consciousness again. This time without any strange dark space.

Chapter Text

Suddenly Hiro woke up as if someone poured water on him, but there was no water anywhere. He stared at the ceiling, trying to put in order his own mind, his own breath was loud in his ears.

It was dark and only some light was coming in from the lower floor, probably from his aunt's room.

He felt soft material covered him. Thinking, he uncovered his hand and controled it. It remembered him his old blanket that he used to use once.

When he couldn't find any clue, that would help him, in his mind, he slowly sat down on the bed. He focused on avoiding doing any sound when he put his feets on the floor, but in one moment his eyes landed on the moving wall dividing the room. Then, he mentally saw the picture of his brother standing above him and he remembered a blurry patch of memories.

Nothing what could help him to remember how he found himself in his room. The only thing he knew was that he shouldn’t have been alive in this moment.

But, somehow, he was saved and brought back to home. There was that small possibility that someone of his friend survived was able to save him too.

In the other hand there wasn't any possibility to see his brother that had run into the fire and hadn't come back months ago.

It couldn't be explained or ignored so easily. People didn't come back from death normally. Perhaps, if someone used... he immediately controlled his eyes. No contacts lenses, it was a good sign.

But if Tadashi was here and I surely died, it could be the afterlife, Hiro thought. That wouldn’t be bad explanation.

There was no chance he would survive this kind of explosion, after all. He was quite sure about that but he remembered him asking Tadashi. He didn’t remember exact words but Tadashi’s reaction shown something else. Was it possible that he just didn’t realise that he had died? Hiro liked to think that his brother was smart – and he was, Hiro knew that – enough to figure out it quickly.

When he was thinking more and more, he remembered one thing. Tadashi called aunt Cass. Well, she would be, of course, dead like everybody in San Francisco, but why she was awake before Hiro, he didn’t have any idea since most probably they died in the same time.

Eventually, he got out of bed. Then he noticed that he didn’t feel any pain of his battle damages. He didn’t have any bruises and anything else at all.

Finally he slowly and quietly walked across the room to the stairs. He wanted, he had to leave this room, this house. He wasn’t escaping – at least he thought so - he just needed time to think about that more and Lucky Cat Café wasn’t good place for that. Too many memories, the risk that he wouldn't be alone long and, he couldn't see him again right now. He went to the garage to take Tadashi – oh, right, it was Tadashi’s scooter, wasn’t it? – but he stopped. He would be noticed or, more probably, heard by aunt Cass and Tada… and he really wanted to avoid it. The only think he wanted now was knowing what was going on there.

At beginning, he wanted to go to SFIT. However, thinking about Tadashi and this place in the same time, and then everything what had happened there echoing in his mind, it was too much. So he decided to go to Fred’s house. Since Lucky Cat was fine, this place should be fine as well, and he could be lucky and find Fred in home.

His journey was long and short in the same time. He was looking forward to see Fred again – even if they saw each other right before all of that, it was a catastrophe – but in tge other hand, he had no idea how to explain that situation. That wasn’t like he had an explanation in the first place he didn't understand what was going on.

The life after death wasn’t part of the science that he knew about. He hoped Fred would know something more (and would remember him), despite of being aware how unlikely it was. Fred knew a lot about superhero’s stories, and Hiro remembered him talking about the afterlife and related things.

The problem was, obviously, that in the end of the day, these stories were created by people that had no idea about afterlife since they didn’t experience it. Now, Hiro supposed that he knew more than all of them put together.

He found himself standing in front of the front door of Fred’s home, his hands by his sides. He rised his right hand and hestitated. He took a deep breath, clenched his hand into a fist and knocked hard. Nothing happened after a second or two. His sight landed on the small round button, and he pushed it before he could change his mind. The bell rang loudly, cutting sharply through the air. A few steps behind the door reached his ears, and the door was opened, too fast in Hiro’s taste, showing Fred’s butler in his recognisably elegant suit.

"Good evening. How could I help you?" Heathcliff asked, looking down at Hiro's face.

"Uh… Hi, hello, I wanted to see Fred." Hiro smiled nervously.

Heathcliff raised his arched eyebrow. "Do you know each other?"

Hiro nodded.

"Where and when did you meet?"

Hiro paused. Didn’t Heathcliff remember him? He didn’t expect that and it might have been stupid since in this situation he couldn't have had any expections. So then Fred could forget about him as well.

"Well, we met in SFIT once, but he may not remember me, I just, I just didn’t think that..." Before he was able to say anything else, he had been interrupted by arrival of Fred. Fred who was staring at him. "Hi, my name is Hiro Hamada. I am a brother of-"

"Tadashi Hamada," Fred finished with him. "I know. We have already met, don’t you remember?"

Right now Hiro had no idea what he remembered. Or, to be more precise, had no idea what to think about things he remembered. So he just nodded. After all, he did remember meeting Fred.

"We met a crazy evil genius, too," Fred said, ignoring Hiro's examining look. "So excuse us, we have to go to my room to have serious talk about that." Saying that, Fred embraced Hiro, pulled him inside and led him to his room.

Hiro could hear just their steps echoing in the hall. Indoor didn’t change at all after Hiro had seen it last time.

Chapter Text

Hiro entered Fred's room. As usual, it was filled with comic books and movie items, but he quickly noticed that Fred's extensive comic collection seemed smaller than before.

"Where's that blue superhero statue you bought before Kentucky Kaiju?" Hiro asked, when the absence of the statue, that they had chosen together, caught his attention .

Fred shrugged before replying, his face was an empty mask that didn’t show any emotion.“That doesn’t matter now. There is a bigger problem, anyway.”

Then Hiro heard others voices and he noticed Wasabi, Gogo and Honey Lemon sitting on the couch.

“Hi.” He smiled at them, feeling some kind of relief (he wasn't alone), and straight away turned back to Fred.

“Problem, you said." He almost laughed in the end, sound ended up much more like a sob. "Is this problem related to my brother who apparently walks in our home like it would be the most normal thing in the world? That’s a problem, isn’t it?” His hands were gesturing around him like crazy as he spoke.

Others shared a glance with each other.

“It can be,” Honey Lemon started slowly. Her hands were folded on her laps. "We don’t know what happened, not really. We can only suppose."

“And even our speculations, that we have already discussed, they are ridiculous to say the least!” Wasabi threw his hands in the air. “ However, I don’t see another explanation so that’s it, I suppose.” He leaned back in his seat.

“That’s it? You mean we died, right?” Hiro asked. ”Huh, you were quick. Tadashi haven’t accepted it yet. Not really,” he muttered under his breath.

“What? No, I didn’t mean that! That is… ok, well, I see why you are thinking so, I was there too, but no! I mean, we mean that, somehow, we travelled back in time! So that’s why some things don't add up and…

“Time travelling? ”Hiro interrupted him, not being sure he had heard it well.

“Yeah. However it sounds, it makes more sense than it seems,” Gogo, who had been observing Hiro in silence before, said.

“Wait a second,” Fred said slightly louder. Hiro agreed with him. However, it quickly turned out that they had different reasons as Fred turned to him. “Hiro, you asked Tadashi if he was dead?”

“Um, not exactly? I mean, I said that I am dead, and maybe assumed he is dead too, because he is! “Hiro took a breath, running a hand in his hair. “I don’t remember what exactly I asked." He said slowly, closing his eyes and thinking for a while. “I think I might have asked him if he was Obake.”

(Last time it was Obake.)

“You asked Tadashi if he was Obake,” Fred repeated in shock, his eyes widened, his voice soundes as if he didn’t breathe.

Hiro rubbed his head, looking down at his feet.

“Calm down, it was fair speculation,” Gogo said to Fred, waving him away. “At the beginning we also thought, that Obake was behind it all.”

“And we haven’t thrown this idea away yet,” Wasabi reminded.

“But right now we don’t have any proofs for that,” Gogo pointed out.

Wasabi crossed his arms. “We also don’t have any proofs that he is not responsible for it.”

Hiro really wanted to stop thinking about Obake for a moment.

When his eyes landed on the door frame, he realized that he had been standing next to the door the whole time. He walked over to the couch and sat down on its left part. Now he was sitting next to Honey Lemon who was sitting next to Wasabi. Gogo and Fred were standing behind the couch leaning against its backrest.

He supposed that time travel idea wasn’t worse than afterlife idea. Both ideas were questionable and he wasn’t sure he believed in any of them.

He still didn't give up the idea of afterlife as the memory of the bright light and loud bang was too fresh in his mind. He wasn’t a doctor, but he was pretty sure that human wouldn’t survive that.

Maybe, he thought, everyone, who died, had to go to the part of the universe where they could change some events in their lives. That would explain why Tadashi didn’t remember anything since it was Hiro's journey and not Tadashi’s. On the other hand, his friends seemed to remember, and they recognised him before their original meeting.

“So if we really assume that we travelled back in time, then what day it is today?” Hiro asked. He saw stranger things, after all, and he wasn’t in mood to think about it more than it was needed. So he decided to just go with that and wait for whatever would happen in the future.

“You didn’t check it, did you?” Wasabi sighed, sending him a look. “It’s fourteenth of July.”

Hiro looked at him back. Of corse he didn't check it since he had no idea he should have.

“Three days before we met for the first time," Fred interjected.

Hiro paused, closing his eyes and running his hand through his hair. If he remembered correctly and he was quite sure he did, then it was right before his first visit in SFIT.

“I think it's the day when I went to robot fight.” He shared it with others. “The robot fight when Tadashi saved me from Yama and we got arrested” He looked at his hands. “Since I’m here and not in a fight, we can’t go with original timeline.” He didn’t know if it was good or bad.

Fred rubbed his chin thinking. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said after a while. Seeing Hiro's questioning look, he continued. “Do you remember when you went to the cinema without telling anyone about it?”

Hiro nodded. “I wanted to see a movie and I knew that neither Tadashi nor Aunt Cass would agree to let me watch it. It was… I don’t know, maybe a few weeks ago from today,” he said, not remembering the actual day. He didn’t think that he would need that one day.

“Exactly.” Fred nodded. “So Tadashi didn’t know where you were so he assumed you went to robot fight.”

“What?! Why?!” Hiro jumped up from his seat. “Then I wasn’t even close to any fight, especially robot fight! Why did he assume that?!

“Easy, Little Man. We know it.” He raised his hands reassuringly. “But you had already been interested in it and according to Tadashi you weren't discreet about it. When he couldn’t have found you and you weren’t answering the phone for about three hours, he started to worry. Fortunately, you had returned before he went to look for you.”

Hiro thought about that day. Now, when he was thinking, he was surprised that he had forgotten about it.

When he had come back, both his aunt and brother seemed to be nervous then. Eventually, he wasn’t even punished when he told them the reason why he was out. If they had expected something worse, that would have explained it, he guessed.

“So Tadashi could think so again today, couldn’t he?” Honey Lemon asked when the silence took a while.

Hiro froze. What if Tadashi goes there to look for him and gets hurt or worse? And Hiro wouldn’t even be there.

“We have to go to Good Luck Alley!” He yelled, starting to run to the door bot he was stopped by Gogo. He was about to yell at her but she raised her eyebrow and gave him her phone.

“Or you should just call Tadashi and let him know where you are, instead,” She said.

Hiro blinked looking at black phone. “Oh, right, I can do that,” he muttered.

“But what should we tell him?” Honey asked. Seeing that they didn’t understand her question, she continued. “I mean, as far as Tadashi knows, we don't know each other. He doesn’t know where you are and he is panicking. Then, suddenly, gets call from you, and you tell him that you are with his friend. He may not believe you and think you lie to him.”

All of them shared a glance.

As much as it hurt Hiro, she was right. Technically, he was never at robot fight. That was, of course, if you counted this brand new timeline and not the old one that clearly wasn’t known by Tadashi. Unfortunately for Hiro, the past Hiro had already lied to Tadashi once or twice about his location.

Hiro winced, hating that he had to hear it before realising that Tadashi cared about him.

Alright, wrong words. He knew Tadashi cared about him, of course he did. He didn’t know he cared so much, even a bit too much, to be worried about Hiro's location and he even had already been suspecting the bot fighting.

Hiro swallowed all suden thoughts and worries, not wanting, not having time for that right now, and focused on his friends who gave him a time to think.

“Well… I will be calling from Gogo’s phone. That should confirmed my words, shouldn’t it?”

“When is he panicking?”

”It could still go well.... or, more likely, totally fail,” Hiro muttered, knowing his old brother. Then he gave back Gogo her phone with a grim look on his face. “Then you call and tell him that I am with you. Maybe he doesn’t know that we know each other but that might be great. Since you don’t know me, why would you lie about me being with you?”

“That’s better idea.” Honey nodded. “But we still should think of what exactly we're going to tell him. And I mean the part of our time travel, too,” she added last sentence after a while, clasping her hand on her knee.

Hiro paused. It didn't even cross his mind. As he observed, others were as much surprised as he was.

“Well, we have to call him now.m,” he said slowly, thinking, each words came out carefully from his mouth. “When I left he was talking to aunt Cass in her room. At least I think so, because I saw light from that part and he wasn’t in our room. But he may go out and look for me in any moment and he may even be doing it right now.”

“So we can’t lose more time than we’ve already lost since you came here.” Wasabi understood him.

“Yeah. So we tell him that we are together and we will think about the second thing later.” Hiro decided. “So, any ideas?”

“What did you do when you wake up?” Gogo asked.

“Well, I panicked and I think I fainted.”

“Oh, ok, then… Did I get it right – you wasn’t noticed when you left?”

“As far as I know, I wasn’t.”

“So let’s say that you went out – we don’t have to give the reason right now – and you met Fred . Fred recognized you and invented you to come to his house. He wanted to get to know you better because you are the younger brother of one of his friends,” Gogo proposed. “How it sounds?”

“Seem right… but does Tadashi know where is your home, Fred?”

“Nope, he doesn’t,” Fred answered. Something grim crossed his eyes but quickly disappeared. “But I think it is a better option than giving completely false information. That, what Gogo said, is true, at least part of it is true. So if Tadashi really wants to check you, he will find you here so he won’t stop trusting each of us.”

Hiro froze hearing the last sentence. He didn’t think about that. Idea, that he could disappoint Tadashi so his older brother stops trusting him, was hurting Hiro.

“So that’s it? No one will suddenly change their mind and change something?” Gogo asked. “So I think Fred should call since he is the one who invited Hiro.”

“Very well, let me just find my phone."

Chapter Text

Tadashi immediately answered the phone. Still, he had no time to say a word as Fred was faster.

“Hi, Tadashi! I just wanted to let you know that Hiro is with me.” Fred’ s voice was completely calm and showed no signs of nervousness, which was the opposite of Tadashi’s voice.

“Wha-why is Hiro with you, Fred?! Hear, aunt? Hiro is with Fred. Why is he with you, Fred?”

“I met him when he walked around the city and I thought it would be the perfect time to really know him. You know, your stories aren’t enough.”

“Right, anyway, I would really like to talk to Hiro.”

“Sure, no problem.” Fred shrugged and gave Hiro his phone.

Hiro took the phone with grim look on his face. “Hi, I’m fine,” he said slowly after a while.

“You don’t sound so.” Hiro heard Tadashi’s voice and he had to calm his breathing which began to accelerate (his heart was racing and its beating was echoing in his ears).

“I am fine,” Hiro repeated. “Really.”

“Right.” Hiro knew that Tadashi didn’t believe him. “Why did you leave so late without telling anyone?”

Hiro made a face. Thanks to others he expected this question, but it didn’t mean he liked to hear it. “It wasn’t so late, and I needed a walk,” he answered, thinking quickly. “I had to think about some things. Then I saw Noodle Burger and I decided to eat there. But I met Fred and I landed in his house. Do you know he lives in a really huge house?”

“No, I don’t. Ok, let Fred give me his address so I can pick you up.”

“No!” Hiro yelled, his eyes widened. “I mean, I would prefer to stay here for the night. Could I, please?” he added more calmly but his grip on the phone became stronger.

Others shared a glance. Hiro crossed a sight with Gogo that was sitting with crossed arms. He just realised that she wasn't chewing bubble gum, but he didn’t have time to think about it (his brain looked for any opportunity to escape problematic topic. It didn't work as he heard Tadashi's voice again).

“You hardly know Fred. Why would you want to stay at his house? You have never liked sleeping anywhere but home.” Tadashi seemed to be truly surprised. Maybe worried, too.

“So that’s why I want to stay here. To know him better. Gogo, Honey Lemon and Wasabi are here, too. You always tell me how amazing they are, and I want to see with my own eyes. And you also are always telling me that trying new things is a good and nice thing to do, so I would like to try to sleep in new strange place,” he said. Suddenly he thought of something so he clarified. “Without you, I mean, I'm sorry. I don’t want you to tell them some stupid things about me.”

“Too late for that,” Wasabi commented.

Hiro ignored him. “I will come back tomorrow, I promise. They are your friends, you know them. I will be fine.”

Tadashi didn’t replied straight away. At least he didn’t reply to him. Hiro heard his voice so he supposed that Tadashi was talking to aunt Cass.

“If Fred is fine with that, you can stay tonight. Tomorrow I will come and get you. Do you have your clothes to change?”

“No, I don’, but I can handle it without them. See you tomorrow. Bye.” Hiro ended the call without waiting for Tadashi’s response.

“Noddle Burger, nice thinking.” Fred smiled at Hiro.

“But wouldn't it be better if Tadashi was here?” Honey Lemon frowned, biting her lips with concern.

“We have to decide what to do, first. If we tell him or not, and if we do what we are doing next and if we don’t tell him then what we are doing next and so on,” Hiro replied. “And said that, it’s too late after all, we finished the call.”

“I’m not saying it is not important because it is, but you just don’t want to see him, do you?” Wasabi noticed, raising his eyebrow.

Hiro sat on the couch again, pulled his legs to the chest and rested his chin on his knees. “Is it bad? I should be happy to see him again. I am. Kind of. I think.” He didn't know what to think about it.” I am glad he is alive again. I really am but he had been dead for over six months and…

”Suddenly now you have to accept that your brother is walking and breathing, alive,” Wasabi finished. He shared a glance with others and breathed, closing his eyes. “To be fair we haven’t seen him yet. He wasn't at SFIT today.”

“I have heard his voice and it wasn’t easy, let’s say,” Fred admitted with a short nod. He seemed to be calm and normal but Hiro knew he was good in keeping his feelings hidden when he didn't want anyone to notice them.

Gogo sat next to Hiro, and Honey and Wasabi quickly joined them. Fred left them for a while and came back with three packs of crackers. Two of them he put on the table in front of the sofa and one he left for himself. He start eating but no one else seemed to be interested.

Wasabi sighed. “We travelled back in time. We time travel back in time!” he said louder, and stood up, starting to walk around the room.

“How is it possible? I had thought it was a dream but then Gogo showed me it wasn’t," he took a look at Gogo. She twisted her lips into a smirk. "It could be hallucination, but then I thought “wouldn’t it take too long for a hallucination”. Anyway, it is hardly possible that we all have the same hallucination." He gestured at them.

"The last thing I remembered was that explosion. So that meant I could be dead. Rest of you were with me and it would fit with what I knew, but then some people remembered death while other didn't even remember being in prison–”

“Wait, what?” Hiro interrupted him, his eyes widened.

Wasabi stopped and looked at him. “Oh, right, ” he muttered, and a whole energy suddenly left him. “Well, when we woke up we were in SFIT, and we were finishing our projects. It was time when we had to show our progress, and you can guess who was also there. No Tadashi. He did it earlier. ”

Hiro blinked. “You want to say… You are saying you met Callaghan?” He felt his stomach clenching.

Wasabi confirmed while Gogo gave him a sharp nod. Hiro thought that he should have prevised it earlier. However, after seeing Tadashi alive he couldn’t focus on another things so much and they got lost deep in his mind.

“He doesn’t remember?” Hiro asked in a strangled voice.

“He doesn’t,” Fred confirmed, his hand hesitated and shook between crackers.

“At least, he didn’t react when he was told that he should be in prison. He was surprised but who wouldn't be surprised after such a question." Gogo glared at Wasabi. "You don’t hear it every day, especially when you haven’t done anything bad.”

“Yet.” Wasabi and Hiro muttered together.

“Well, apparently he doesn’t know we know his plan, and apparently thinks he will avoid going to the prison.” Gogo took a chewing gum out of her pocket and started chewing it hard.

“Seriously, what are we going to do?” Hiro asked, his hands ran trough his hair. “We are said to be geniuses. Firstly we failed to save a city and now we landed in the past without knowledge what to do next.”

“To be fair, the science doesn’t know anything about time travel. Nobody else has ever travelled back in time. It’s ok we don’t know what to do,” Honey Lemon said.

“As far as we know,” Gogo commented. “It’s not a thing someone would tell the world, I guess.”

“Yeah, we shouldn’t tell the world it,” Wasabi agreed, curling his lips into a small smile. “We should say Tadashi – let me explain, Hiro – Tadashi for sure has questions. I’m not saying only about leaving without any information but you said that you fainted, didn’t you? It is the thing that Tadashi won’t leave without answer. You are lucky he hasn’t taken you to the doctor yet.”

“That… that’s a good point,” Hiro groaned. He was about to say something but stopped. This had to wait a bit longer. “I am not quite sure he is going to believe it. I hardly believe it and I am time traveller who has all of these memories and… and leave it for now… We have to show or tell him some evidence.”

They easily agreed with him, having similar thoughts.

“It will be difficult,” Honey started. She bit her lips and her eyes was wandering over the comic bookshelf. “I don’t think there is something I can tell him to convince him. I know some things he said only me but it had already happened so they don’t prove anything.”

“Look, we have to focus on time between today and presentation day,” Gogo said. “It was–it will be one month. Later Tadashi was… you know that.” Her shoulders hunched a bit.

They sat in silence, thinking, but, apparently, no one had any idea.

“Baymax!” Suddenly Hiro jumped away from his seat, raising a hand. “I didn’t get to arrested, Tadashi didn’t take me to lab and didn’t show me Baymax so if…”

“Calm down, Little Man.” Fred walked up to Hiro and patted him on the shoulder. Hiro let out a breath. “He can assume we told you before him as he had showed us earlier.”

“Showed us?” Wasabi snorted. “We saw Tadashi building Baymax. We knew him before we saw the final effect.”

“Well, it is still one idea,” Fred said optimistically. “We just have to find more.”

“Maybe Baymax remembers?” Honey wondered.

“Baymax is amazing, but he is a robot after all. It’s impossible,” Wasabi said, shaking his head.

“Yesterday I would say that time travel is impossible,” Honey said looking at Wasabi’s face. “But here I am, sitting on the couch in Fred’s house on fourteenth of July in twenty thirty-two." Her sight left Wasabi and turned at Hiro; concern visibly flashed in her eyes. "I know we can’t just assume he remembers. Today he was off but we can ask him tomorrow when we are in the lab.”

“Are we going to find out how we landed in this situation at all?” Wasabi changed topic.

“We will decide later,” Honey said after a while. “Right now we don’t know enough. Is that ok with you?”

They shared a glance, but no one of them protested. Honey nodded shortly.

Wasabi stood up and started reorganizing Fred's comic books.

Hiro's sight followed him. Hiro would really love to have something to work with, but currently Fred didn’t have any future’s stuff.

“So tomorrow we are going to the lab.” Wasabi's eyes stopped at the cover for a second, before he put away the comic book on the lower bookshelf.

“Step one: ask Baymax if he remembers. Meanwhile avoid Callaghan as much as it is possible. Assuming that Baymax remembers, ask him for help to tell Tadashi. Step two: tell Tadashi. What’s next?”

“Um… that’s a good question.” Hiro sighed.

There was a lot to do. Make sure that Tadashi survive the fire, get Hiro to SFIT, save Abigail without being killed. Obake.

“I think I should build microbots again.” He said slowly.

He didn’t like that idea at all but he knew it was the best. Microbots could be in some way quilty for Tadashi’s death but without them rescuing Abigail would be much harder. He explained it to his friends as they didn’t seem convinced.

“You have good points. But I really do hate it.” Gogo said after he had finished.

“Don’t have to tell me that.” He muttered.

“Since you mentioned Abigail” Gogo continued. “Being Big Hero Six won’t be so easy now, will it?”

Hiro didn’t understand it. When he shared his confusion with others they just stared at him with various levels of concern or disbelief.

“What?” He really didn’t know what was going on.

“Do you seriously think Tadashi will agree that you are a hero?” Gogo started and winced, when Hiro titled his head, looking at her with questionable look.

“Do you think he will stand by while his little brother risks his life fighting with criminals, going to another universe when there is possibility he can rest there for rest of his life? And don’t even start with Obake,” Gogo asked, her voice was calm and quiet, but she stared at Hiro in shock.

“Well,” He stammered, looking around at them. “We all agreed we do it because Tadashi wanted to help people.”

Honey sighed.

“Yes, we did.” Wasabi nodded, putting his hand at Honey's shoulder. “But did he become superhero and start fight crime?

“No?”

“Exactly.”

“But we became superheroes!”

They shared a glance. Again. They often did it today.

“Well, it helped you and you felt better...” Honey started but Hiro interrupted her immediately.

“You allowed me to do something you knew Tadashi would disapprove of?” He asked in shock.

“It’s not like that. I mean, yes, at first it should have been just case of the Callaghan but then- look, Hiro, in the end, all of us decided to remain superhero. Tadashi would love to help people, he would not love to see you hurt,” Honey explained, a concern was visible at her face.

Hiro sighed. He would lie if he said he hadn’t thought about it before. However, Tadashi was dead then and Hiro couldn't have known his opinion. Since he couldn’t have expected that he would meet Tadashi again, he just focused on helping people.

Anyway, who would have thought that dead person would bev alive again? Normally people did not come back from death. Normally people did not come back in time, either.

Hiro had no idea what to think. He just didn’t want to let his brother down.

“I see,” he whispered. He took a breath. “We think about it later. I just can’t believe he is here now.”

“We understand it. Really, we do. It’s hard for us, too” Honey smiled slightly.

“So again. First Baymax and Tadashi. Then, somehow, Abigail,” Wasabi said, putting away his thoughts and emotions. “And Obake.” He changed places some comics a bit too hard.

Hiro sighed. “As if first time we did it well and it wasn’t totally disaster. Literally.”

“Ok, one thing at a time. And let’s not talk about him now,” Gogo commented.

Chapter Text

As they had no idea what else they should do, they decided to wait and see what would come out of the step one. They tried to sleep, but it quickly turned out to be a horrible idea.

It didn’t take much time until Hiro woke up screaming and breathing fast, waking others up. When similar thing also happened with Wasabi and Honey, they decided to stay together and watch something instead. After excluding movies with a time travel plot, they watched a family comedy while lying snuggled on the couch.

Meanwhile each of them fell asleep, but no one of them slept well anyway. Fortunately, the morning had come before they noticed.

“So, we are going to SFIT.” Hiro yawned.

“Not now.” Wasabi got up. “Now, we are waiting for Tadashi. He’d like to be there, when you go there first time.”

“He will be pissed off if he skips it,” Gogo agreed, running her hand through hair smoothing them. “So coffee can be first.”

While Hiro wasn’t happy that the visit in SFIT would have to wait (he was about to see Baymax!), he had no energy to argue about it. As well he knew aunt Cas would be pissed off when he goes somewhere without her permission. Again. So he prepared himself and they ate breakfast prepared by Headcliff.

“Did you send Tadashi the address?” Hiro asked Fred during the meal; his own plate reminded untouched until the end.

Fred’s sight was following Heathcliff who just entered the room. “Sure, I did.”

Hiro still didn’t know how to feel seeing his brother again, but he would have to figure it out soon. Right now, he had to behave normally if he didn't want to get more questions to which he had no answers. His stomach tightened the longer he stood there; minutes seemed to be hours.

“What if Baymax remember and say something to Tadashi?” he asked, leaning against the wall, waiting with others in hall. “He can't keep a secret to save his life.”

Gogo snorted, keeping hands in the pockets; a small smile appeared on edge of her lips. “His first sentence is gonna be 'Tadashi is here' and somehow it turns into the talk about his death before we will even be able to talk about keeping it in secret.”

“Noted,” Wasabi commented, his eyes glowed. “First thing to do: Tadashi shows Hiro Baymax and we do everything to ensure that he doesn’t speak out in front of Tadashi.”

“If he remembers.”

Wasabi repeated what Honey had said, waving his hand around in a circle.

Time passed too fast. Before Hiro was mentally ready, Tadashi had arrived. He wasn’t even alone. Hiro thought that Tadashi would take his motorbike to pick him up, but instead, he came with aunt Cass in her car.

At least, aunt Cass didn’t look as pissed off as Hiro supposed her to be. She didn’t start to yell at him. Actually, she didn’t even say a word, she was just looking at him.

She looked worried. So did Tadashi standing next to her. The woman walked slowly up to Hiro. The boy noticed her hesitation. Apparently, Tadashi told her about his last response to touch.

“Hi, dear,” she said, uncertainly raising her hand to direction of Hiro’s shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“Hi, it’s great.” Hiro smiled and rised his hand to give her a lazy wave. “We watched the movie, we talked a bit.”

“I am glad to hear that." She smiled back, a smile didn't reach her eyes and worried look on her face didn’t disappear. He took back her hand, apparently changing her mind.

“And, I thought… "Hiro gestured around, looking between his friends. "Well it isn’t first time, really… My f… Tadashi’s friends confirmed what Tadashi said about SFIT. Could we go there today to see your lab? Please?”

His brother and aunt shared a glance, a forrow appeared between aunt's brows. Tadashi seemed surprised but contented, even if his eyes flashed with concern.

“We can go there,” he said, a surprise visible in his voice. “However, wouldn’t you prefer to go there another day? There is one person you really want to know but from today he is out for a few days.”

Hiro froze. Tadashi didn’t named this person but he didn’t have to. Hiro almost forgot that before all of it, he was really looking forward to meeting Callaghan. Of course, it was changed now and he had to force himself to avoid showing it outside him.

“Not really. I want to see it now. Others agreed to join us.” His voice sounded almost robotic in his ears.

Others gave a sign that they agreed with him; their faces took on a similar blank look. They stood behind Hiro, their eyes were mostly avoiding looking at Tadashi for a longer moment.

“Callaghan is out?” Honey asked, her words hesitated at beginnig and her voice sounded surprised, a relief hid under it.

“Yes, he is,” Tadashi replied, his head titled. “No, I don’t know why, he didn’t tell us it, don’t you remember?” he added noticing their expressions.

“Now, when you said that, I do,” Wasabi said, rubbing back of his neck.

Tadashi looked at them – including Hiro - confused but didn’t say anything.

They had to split into two cars. Hiro joined his brother and aunt, and others went with Wasabi.

Hiro’s journey was quiet. Apparently his family was waiting for him to start talking first. Since he didn’t say a word and didn’t plan it, each of them sat in silence.

As soon as they arrived Hiro jumped out of the car and waited for others outside, looking around. The San Fransokyo Institute of Technology looked the same as it did before the fire, when Hiro saw it for the first time.

Tadashi interrupted Hiro’s thoughts. “Do you like it?”

Hiro hid his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “I have to admit it is impressive but let’s wait until we get inside.”

They had waited for others for a fee minutes, and when they had arrived, each of them, except Cass, entered the building. Hiro looked around, noticing a few small changes, but no significant differences from the short time he attended classes there.

“You know I thought it would be harder to convince you to come here,” Tadashi said when they were going to their common space in their lab.

“Believe me, it was.” Hiro's lips twitched, when his memories flashed in his mind. Literally he had to be arrested and then taken by his brother to even stand close to the building.

“It was you who convinced him, right?” Tadashi took a look at others when Hiro didn’t say anything more.

“Not at all,” Wasabi replied, a small smile raised on his lips while he was looking at Hiro.

“Believe it or not, I listen to you,” Hiro said, he couldn’t help but smile too. “Sometimes.”

“ “Sometimes” is the key word,” Tadashi commented, pointing his index finger at him.

Hiro shrugged, his smile widened.

They arrived to the lab. His – now it should be their – friends showed him their projects which were the same as the last time, obviously. Fortunately, this time he avoided almost falling under the wheels of Gogo.

The most important moment for them came when Tadashi led Hiro to his lab.

The familiar red box was in the same place as last time.

“Won’t you even ask what I’m working on?”

“I don’t have to since you are going to show me,” Hiro answered quickly. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t even think about asking questions.

Others gathered in the room behind the brothers, following them to its inside. Tadashi blinked at them in confusion, looking at them over his shoulder.

“Could you go out for a while, please?” Tadashi asked, taking a few steps to red box.

They didn’t seem to like it, some complains sounded in the room, but they listened and left the lab. Hiro was about to say something but Gogo quietly drew his attention and shook her head. So their basic plan failed.

***

When brothers stayed at Tadashi’s lab, their friends sat in the common space. There was no students since the deadline of showing their projects passed the previous day. In the building were some workers but fortunately Callaghan wasn’t one of them.

“Oh, man, I forgot how much Tadashi wanted to show Baymax Hiro,” Fred said, folding his arms and cluching his shirt.

“You’re not alone with that.” Wasabi sighed. Or they just ignored it when they rushed to ask Baymax

Before they could continue the talk, one person had entered the room. Wasabi blinked in confusion and he supposed he wasn’t the only one confused.

“Huh, it’s me forgetting something or she should come later,” Fred whispered, hidding his mouth by left hand and looking up and down the person with eyes wide opened.

“It’s me remembering things I shouldn’t, master Frederickson.” Professor Granville looked the same as they remembered her, wearing black long-sleeved shirt and gold necklace and standing straight with elegance.

“Professor Granville.” Wasabi was too much focus on the professor to notice who had said it, but, at least, he got confirmation that he wasn’t the only one seeing the professor.

“That’s my name. Seeing your faces," She paused, sending each of them careful look. "Can I suppose you also remember alternative storyline?”

“We go with time travel, but, yeah, we do,” Gogo said with a short nod.

“Have you changed anything so far?” She said in asking tone but she looked like she knew their answer.

“Well, we- we have. A bit.” Wasabi eyes took a look the direction of Tadashi’s lab. “For instance Hiro doesn’t have any note about being arrested.”

“Or bot fighting,” Fred added. “And he came here a bit eariler than last time.”

Professor Granville observed them with no words.

“What’s wrong?” Honey asked, recognising the expression on her face.

“You seem shocked,” she pointed out with tone that sounded as if she didn’t expect that.

Wasabi looked at others and before starting speaking he ensured that Tadashi wasn’t there. “Well, is it odd? One day our friend has been dead for a few months and now he is alive and we are younger a few months. I would say it’s a good reason to be shocked.” .

The woman blinked. “Aren’t you the ones responsible for that?”

“No… why do you suspect us?”

“Isn’t a typical plot in comic books that superheroes goes back in time?”

“It is,” Fred replied slowly and carefully. “But I don’t see what this has to do with us. ”

“Don’t you?" She titled her head slightly. "Aren’t you Big Hero Six?” she said calmly as if she did not just confess that she had discovered their secret identity.

They blinked, spending a second on trying to pick their jaws off the floor. Wasabi looked around. Fortunately – or not, since he didn’t know what was going on there – Tadashi and Hiro hadn’t come back yet.

“How do you know it ? – and come on, she’s already known it, there is no need to deny it,” he said seeing that others wanted to argue with him.

Professor raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you think I don’t know what happens in my Institute, did you?”

They kept silent.

“Let’s sit down.” She ignored their lack of answer and sat on the nearest seat.

They gathered around her, not bothering looking for a chair. Wasabi shared a look with Gogo when he leaned against a wall. They had to talk about it later.

“Do you have any plan what to do?" Granville asked, leaning forward and folding her hands.

“For now we wanted to see if Baymax remembers,” Gogo started. "But Tadashi throw everyone except Hiro away from his lab."

Briefly they shared their plan with professor.

“So it’s not much,” she commented when they finished.

"Honestly, I am not sure it’s not my dream yet." Wasabi shrugged. “Besides, what else can we do? Tell the police? They didn’t even believe Hiro when he reported a theft.”

“As far as we are able to, we want to keep everything the same,” Honey added, her lips twisted in concern.

“I don’t think it is possible,” Professor answered, cutting off their protests. “Alive Tadashi means no reason for Hiro to skip first month so that will exclude him from battle with Callaghan if he doesn’t find another reason."

She continued after a short pause. "Actually, it includes all of you. I didn’t meet Tadashi last time but I don’t think he accepts his brother and friends risking their lives as well.”

“We thought about the second thing–but the first one…” Wasabi hesitated, when he remembered that they had gotten some time because of Tadashi’s death. This time, obviously, it wasn’t considered.

"Still, we don't start on time," Gogo pointed out; her voice didn’t sound convincing though. "Repairs to the building will take some time." Wasabi gave a short nod. Last time they had come back in the middle of September and there was no reason it would differ this time.

“We don’t know what to do and it doesn’t even include Obake.” Honey sighed, her shoulders hunched a bit.

“One thing we know is that we don’t say to Tadashi about all of that," Wasabi said firmly, leaning forward. "At least before the fire, later who knows, maybe we change our minds.”

“Do you know how you want to save him? Do you want to convince him to not run into the fire?”

“Hiro tried it before and you know the effects. He won’t listen to us.” Gogo snarked, biting her lip.

“So unlucky for us, stubbornness runs in the family,” Professor commented, her voice was tinged with irritation.

They confirmed this unanimously. They thought about it more but they couldn’t find any good idea. It didn’t help that after that night they avoided thinking about it and a lot of details disappeared in their minds.

“You just have to ensure that Tadashi is far away from the building so he won’t be on time to run there.” Professor tried to help them but since she hadn’t been there she couldn’t do much.

“Last time Tadashi brought Hiro to the bridge. Probably we could try to convince him to choose another place but I have no idea what place would be far enough away and won’t rise questions,” Wasabi wondered.

Fred was about to say something but was interrupted by sounds of steps approaching them.

Tadashi and Hiro entered the room. They looked at Hiro. He was worried and quiet, but when his eyes landed on the professor Granville, they opened wide and his lips parted. Wasabi supposed that they looked similar when they met her.

***

When others left and Hiro stayed alone with Tadashi, he felt more nervous. He straight his back, trying to not show it outside, but he saw Tadashi’s eyes on himself. He sighed.

“I’m sorry for yesterday... I just–just had a nightmare. Horrible one,” he said quietly. He didn’t lie. It was the nightmare but in real life.

Tadashi came up to him and crouched down. “If you want to talk about it, I am here” He wanted to say more but, before he started, Hiro jumped on him and hugged him, almost knocking him over.

“I am sorry,” he muttered repeatedly.

Tadashi hugged him tighter. “I am here. I always be with you.” He tried to comfort him but he just started to cry.

After a while Hiro calmed down – even if it seemed to Hiro that more time had passed than it had in reality – but didn’t let his brother go.

“And I promise I won’t go and fight in the bot fight,” he said to his shoulder.

Hiro didn’t know how long they had spent being on the floor but it didn’t matter for him.

“So are you going to show me your work or I have to wait until you retire?” Hiro asked turning his face away from brother, his voice was quiet but full of emotions.

Tadashi ruffled Hiro’s hair, gaining a quiet snort from Hiro.

“Come here.” Tadashi put them on their feet and pulled them towards the red box. “Say "ow".”

“What?” So, the last time the duct tape was a revenge for the arrest, Hiro thought.

“Go on, you’re going to see it.”

Hesaid “ow" and immediately heard a familiar sound.

“Hello, I am Baybax, your personal healthcare companion. I was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said “ow!”. On a scale from one to ten, how bad is your pain?” Baymax voice didn’t change at all.

Hiro swallowed, titled back his head, glancing up at two black dots. “Hi Baymax, do you know me?”

“My scan tells me you are Hiro Hamada, younger brother of Tadashi Hamada,” he said the same information about his allergic reaction as last time but he didn’t add anything new. There was nothing what showed Hiro that Baymax remembered him.

“Did you see me? I mean, if Tadashi brought you to home before?” He rushed quickly to add when he noticed Tadashi’s eyebrow raised.

“No, I didn’t. It is first time when I see you, Hiro.”

“Oh.” He felt he wasn’t able to breathe for a while. He focused, mentally poking himself, and blocked these thoughts for later.

After that he took a close look at Baymax, the same way as the last time, and shared his opinion with Tadashi.

Hiro didn’t like that Baymax didn’t remember him. It was just next thing that bothered him. However, he threw away all thoughts about past and future, and any "what if". He was here and now, together with his older broder next to him. Whatever would happen next, it was problem of future him. Right now he enjoyed the time with Tadashi, even if it would turn out to be just his dream or something else.

That was until he saw professor Granville.

Chapter Text

In the end of the day, they decided to create a chat room. They didn't spend all days together, so it would be easier for them to keep each other informed.

Professor Granville was excluded from this after a brief and consensual discussion. After all, she was about to become their professor, and keeping in touch as student and professor, especially in period of the final exams and the Showcase wasn’t the best idea. They would have a big problem if they were caught, and they really didn’t need that to add to their mix of current issues.

That way Fred, as the only unofficial student between them, became a link between them, taking his role with a serious expression on his face, and a glint in his eye.

Since they left SFIT, they used it once, when they realized one thing about Callaghan, and Granville was probably the only one person that migh give them the answer for it.

Tadashi told them that the man would be absent for a few days, but in the old timeline he had met Hiro during those days. Before panic overtook them (did they change something and not even notice it?), Fred texted her.

They were right and Granville had explanation for them, even if she was absent in that period of time then.

Some time after she arrived to SFIT, she was said that Callaghan had decided to leave the SFIT for a while, that repeated also this time, and he had just come back once, when Tadashi had asked him for it.

Between workers of Institute it was no secret that Tadashi Hamada was one of his the most favourite students.

“As if it helped Tadashi in the end.” Wasabi wrote in the chat. Others couldn’t have agreed more.

They didn’t know if Callaghan’s break was related to the fire or not, since he couldn’t know about Hiro’s microbots before presentation day.

“Could Tadashi tell him sth?” Gogo wrote, but Hiro denied it since he had asked Tadashi not to do that then. He had wanted to surprise Callaghan.

They went the same way as last time, to keep thing unchanged as much as possible. Hiro started working on his project to get into SFIT. Even if he didn’t met Callaghan, this offer was still valid for everybody, and Hiro was going to win it again. However, microbots had to be built and he had one month to finish them.

***

A few days passed after visit in the SFIT and Hiro was doing his best to focus on the microbots, ignoring everything else. As on the previous day, he was working in the garage. At begining Fred joined him and they talked about new part of Fred’s favourite comic book, but professor Granville texted him so he had to leave.

“How did you meet professor Granville?” The voice suddenly sounded in the room.

Hiro almost jumped out of his seat, and a few notes fell to the ground as a result of the sudden movement. When Hiro leaned to grab them back, he twisted his lips, biting the bottom one. Sometimes he forgot Tadashi was there (he had just been starting accepting his absence).

Hiro hummed, his finger twitched, holding the tablet. "What did you say?"

Tadashi repeated his question, putting away the book.

“Uh," Hiro shrugged, taking the last piece of paper. "When you did.”

When Hiro shot a look at Tadashi, he caught Tadashi on observing him with an unreadable look on his face; he was doing that a lot recently.

“When you saw her you seemed to recognize her and you even knew her name,” Tadashi commented.

Tadashi was observant and perceptive. Of course, he was, and Hiro knew that. He just thought that after four days he was safe from getting any questions.

This mistake was one of the reason why they created their chat room in the first place. When he realized what he had said, others had already left, leaving him with a little panic.

Decision of Granville was made quickly and there was no information anywhere. That said, neither Hiro could say he had read about it on the Internet, nor could their friends. Fortunately for him, Hiro thought about it a lot, and came up with an idea.

“Well, you have been adoring Trevor Trengrove for a while now, so one day I decided to read any info I could find about him,” Hiro was carefully spelling words. "I came across a Granville's photo as she was Trevor's professor during his university years at SFIT."

“Really?” A flash of surprised flashed in Tadashi's eyes.

“Yup," Hiro gave a short nod without turning his face away from the tablet. "Didn’t you know?”

“No. Why didn’t you say it earlier?”

Hiro waved his left hand. “Now, where would be the fun in this?” He smirked, showing his teeth a bit. “And perhaps I wanted to see how long it take you to realize that I know her."

Tadashi blinked and then laughed, and after a second Hiro joined him with less vigorous laugh. He missed spending time with his older brother. At such a moment, he could pretend that the future was not threatened by any catastrophe (No Callaghan. No Obake. No explosion. No fire).

Everything was just perfect as it supposed to be.

(Baymax, his Baymax wasn’t here. And never would be.)

***

Fred didn’t know what he should expect from professor Granville. She had asked him to meet with him so he invited her to his house that was the safest place to talk about it. There was no risk that someone could overhear something or interrupt them.

She entered his room with a confident step; her chin lifted high as she looked around. “Interesting place.”

“All of it started here. Big Hero Six was born here,” Fred said with the flash in his eyes. He remembered everything like it would happen just a day before. “And it’s here where Hiro came up with our suits.”

Professor Granville's shight stopped at the bookshelf. “Will Big Hero Six be born again?” she asked while she approached to see comic books closer.

Fred nodded, but his move stayed unnoticed.

“Or you will change six to seven?”

Fred coughed nervously, covering the mouth with his fist. “Um, right now we’re not going to tell Tadashi anything… we think about it later, but it is not going to happen before the fire for sure.”

“That’s interesting. We came back because Obake destroyed the city but since I met you again I haven’t heard any plan to stop him.” She folded hands behind her back

Fred frowned, stepping from foot to foot. “Nobody said that Obake has something to do with it.”

“Even if it happened when the city was blown up? And he was responsible for it? Isn’t it so that superheroes come back to change what they failed at?”

“Usually, it is." He shrugged spontaneously. "Not always though and we totally failed Hiro and Tadashi so it fits. However, I see your point of view. We all do, really.” In last part his voice sounded resigned and hopeless.

“So why don’t you think about it more? After Callaghan we don’t have a lot of time.”

A humorless laugh escaped from Fred's mouth. “We do. We really do, but… last time we weren’t able to save the city. Why will we be able to do it now?”

“First of all, you know Obake’s plan and you can change it." She raised her index finger, turning her face to look at Fred. "This time Hiro knows that doing Energy Amplifiers is horrible idea. We can do something with Hyperconducting Magnet before it would or wouldn’t be stolen. There are plenty of things which we can do, we just have to think about it earlier and don’t improvise.”

“That’s amazing that you have so much faith in us, professor. Apparently, we don’t believe in ourselves enough to even talk about it.”

“Avoiding thinking about it won’t make us avoid the same fate as last time.” She put back her hand behind her back and the bookshelf focused her sight again.

“Well said, professor.” He took a look at her face and could swear he had seen a little smirk on her lips.

“You have a lot of stories about time travel.” She noticed, wandering across the bookshelf.

“Too much, definitely too much.”

He also noticed it after waking up in this timeline. Before that he hadn’t paid any attention to it. He had just known that he had a lot of them just like the other types of stories. Any other questions were interrupted by sound from their chat. The news was surprising, to say the least.

***

Honey Lemon knocked on the door; the voice was echoingig in the hall, when she and Gogo waited in front of the door. They came to Wasabi’s flat, because he seemed avoiding them all and hiding there for two days and they decided to come and check him.

Wasabi lived at second floor of four-storey building. The building was clean and elegant, but it wasn’t big; his walls were light and in good condition.

Wasabi opened after a while. “Oh, hi? Why are you here? Has something happened?” His tone immediately became worried, thinking about all possibilities.

“We came to ask you about it,” Honey said, looking at him. He was wearing his usual clothes and he looked well enough.

“Come in.” He stepped aside and waited until they entered.

Wasabi kept order and everything was cleverly arranged so his flat seemed to be bigger than it really was. Here and there stood well-groomed plants. The clock was ticking somewhere. They sat down at a wooden table. Wasabi placed a bottle of water and three glasses on the middle of the table. Honey reached for one of them.

“We haven't had any information from you, and with that what's going on, we started to worry about you," she explained.

Wasabi rubbed his temples. “I have been cleaning my flat, again and again, and it isn’t helping for once.” He sighed. “Just… It is just completely mess. We don’t know what to do and we don’t have any plan for Callaghan and he is not even the biggest problem! It feels like a nightmare.”

“It isn’t so bad, Tadashi lives…”

“Now he does, but the fire hasn’t happened yet and you know he is as stubborn as Hiro and we won’t stop him from saving the damn Callaghan!”

“Listen to me, No-Ginger, if we have to tie him up to save his ass, we will do it! We won’t let him die again and we won’t let you freak out here!”

“I don’t freak out! I’m just trying to figure out what we are going to do!” He set his glass down harder than he should have.

Gogo stared at him, sitting with her arm crossed.

“And there is one thing I can’t stop thinking about.” Honey said, ignoring that they were engaged in a kind of duel of glances.

“Another problem?”

“You can say so.”

“Great. I don’t wanna hear that.”

Gogo rolled her eyes. “I do. Come on, Honey, we don’t have all day.”

Honey sighed and combed her fingers through her hair.

“Apart from the fact that Tadashi noticed we are behaving strangely?” Wasabi had asked before Honey could start.

Gogo glared at him.

“That's good point, too, but I have been thinking about Baymax.”

“He doesn’t remember. Being the robot, not having brain and that kind of things.” Wasabi shrugged.

“So think about our fight with Callaghan and try to imagine us fighting without Baymax.”

“Easy, we just,” Wasabi started but stopped when he thought about it more. He frowned. “The fight with microbots was difficult enough last time, exclude Baymax from this and it will be even harder. Great.”

Gogo tapped table. “Perhaps Hiro has to add something to microbots. We all know Callaghan has to steal them but this time we know more than he… we can work on it.”

“Yeah, perhaps we can add the option that we can take a control over microbots at any time and he can’t stop it.” Wasabi wondered.

“It won’t work,” Gogo commented immediately. “Remember, most Hiro’s microbots won’t survive the fire.”

Wasabi groaned. He rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand.

“And then Callaghan will make a lot more microbots than Hiro and he can notice it and eliminate from his project,” Honey added.

“You are not helping.” Wasabi sighed. He took a sip of water. “Right, it won’t work so we have to upgrade our suits and weapons. That is first. Maybe professor Granville will help. Then we have to prepare ourselves to final fight – I am frankly hope it will be our first and last fight, by the way – and save Abigail from the portal. Easy”

“So we need something what is flying and it can’t be Baymax. In the end he wasn’t supposed to be a warrior. Since he doesn’t remember anything we shouldn’t change him.m,” Honey said after a while.

“As if Tadashi would agree and I don’t save his life just to use his project without his permission,” Wasabi said.

They weren't even going to ask him about it. He built Baymax to treat people, not kick their asses. Since they all knew Tadashi wouldn't believe them – at least, not right away and they didn’t have enough time to risk and wait – they couldn’t use time travel as explanation for the need to make Baymax a part-time combat robot. They could probably explain everything after the fire, but they weren’t able to predict his reaction to hearing this.

To be honest, Wasabi thought Tadashi wouldn’t react the way they wanted him to.

He sometimes felt or saw Tadashi’s eyes on himself or others when they were spending time together (mostly with Hiro, when he thought about it) in their garage. It had passed just four days – and he wasn’t even there for two of them – but apparently it was enough for Tadashi to look more intently at them.

Their behaviour was totally different than before fourteenth of July, even if they tried to act normally.

Gogo didn’t chew a bubble gum so often as she did it before.

In the other hand, Fred ate too much and he always was doing it when he was nervous and stressed out. Tadashi was aware of that.

Honey wasn’t as optimistic as usual and she — well, all of them — was more distressed.

Hiro was clearly not acting like himself — honestly, it was something to think about later — and, even if Tadashi didn’t have this comparison, Wasabi did and he noticed the difference in Hiro during his original first arrival at SFIT and then during the second "first" time.

What’s more, in Tadashi’s point of view his brother changed after meeting them, more or less. Tadashi liked them a lot, Wasabi knew it, but Hiro was his younger brother and he was the most important to him.

Thinking about it, they did a terrible job of trying to behave normally. It was only a matter of time before their friend would start to ask questions.

Then their phones made a sound. Someone wrote something in chat. Honey checked and read it twice.

“Police came to the Lucky Cat,” she said after a while.

“Is it too much to ask for one good news?”

***

Hiro didn’t know who looked more shocked – him or Tadashi. He was working normally while Tadashi was doing his stuff and everything was fine.

That was until aunt Cass came to them. It wasn’t really strange. Recently, she has been doing it more often than Hiro remembered from last time. The strange part was that she wasn’t alone. She came with policeman.

Hiro mentally picked his jaw up off the floor, looking between him and his aunt. It didn’t happen last time for sure; he would remember it.

Hiro had quickly texted others, before he stood up to get closer to his aunt. Tadashi wasn’t far behind, and he was the one who spoke up first, a flash of confusion and concern flashed in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Master Gerson has some questions to you, boys.” Aunt Cass looked worried, when she looked between them and the policeman. “Should we go inside?”

“If you feel comfortable with that. It is not official interrogation.”

Aunt Cass led them to the dinning room on the second floor and they all sat down at the table. His brother and aunt chose the seats next to him, leaving the last place for the policeman.

Hiro knew him, not much, but good enough to recognise him. His surname was Gerson, and he was the one that had arrested him for the robot fights. Later, they, as Big Hero Six, cooperated with the police once or twice, working on smaller cases that didn’t include Obake, and Gerson was the person they worked with the most often.

He was trying to figure out, what had changed that sergeant Gerson showed up in that moment, knowing perfectly it hadn’t happened before, when his aunt's firm voice interrupted the silence.

“Could you explain us what you need from the boys?” .

“I would like to ask about robot fight,” he didn’t even finished last word when Tadashi and Cass turned their faces to Hiro perfectly in the same time.

Before they were able to say something, Hiro had answered staring at policeman and ignoring their glares at himself.

“With all due respect, sergeant Gerson, I don’t know what are you talking about. I have never been to robot fight in this life," he said seriously, keeping away his irritation from being heard.

“In this life, indeed.” Policeman's eyebrow raised and his teeth flashed in a short and quick smile.

Nowadays, Hiro wasn’t sure how he should interpret that kind of answer.

“What does it mean?” Tadashi was even less aware of that, and in his voice was heard a clear confusion. He decided to speak in place of his brother, when it became clear he wasn’t about to start himself. “Hiro, if you were there, you better say the true.” His voice became serious, the previous surprise disappeared from his tone.

His tone made Hiro freeze, a cold feeling ran down his back. Hiro couldn’t say he hadn’t expected that, since Fred told him about Tadashi’s suspicions, but it didn’t make it less painful.

“I have not been to any robot fights," he repeated through his teeth, now, his irritation almost showed up. “ Sergeant Gerson must have confused me with someone.”

The man stared at him. He had been doing it since they sat down. Tadashi put his hand on Hiro’s shoulder. Hiro froze, starting to feel trapped in his place.

“It is not excluded,” the policeman admitted, his eyebrow almost disappeared under his hairs.

“If Hiro has any problem, you should talk to his guardian and I am that guardian,” Cass said. Her legs were crossed and she put her hands on her knee.

Gerson briefly looked at her, but his sight quickly returned to Hiro.

“Wouldn’t you know the man named Obake?” he asked finally after wondering by a while.

Hiro froze; if he felt a cold feeling before, now it was a glacier flowing under his skin. His eyes opened wider and mouth opened in attempt of speaking, but ended up muttering a string of intelligible words.

Finally, after time that seemed to be hours, he found his tounge and replied; his tone sounded more firm than he supposed it would. “If you mean my report of theft, it has been clarified. He has nothing to do with it."

“I'm happy to hear it, even if I didn't believe it at first.” The man smiled at him, his eyes was lookingfor something at Hiro’s face.

Hiro blinked and gave him a short and invisible nod. So his speculation was right.

“Report of theft? Hiro what happened? When did y-” Tadashi was interrupted by younger boy telling him that everything had been explained and finished long time ago.

“But talking about bot fighting. It was true, when I said I had never been there, but… For a while I was interested in it—but since it’s illegal and dangerous I didn’t even start it and I won’t do it,” Hiro added quickly to calm down his family that started looking at him again. “I could find some interesting things that you would like to know, sergeant. However, I would prefer to tell you without my family.”

Hiro felt guilty saying it but he couldn’t explain them it. Not yet.

“If your aunt agrees, I will do as well,” The policeman said, taking a look at the woman.

***

Fred came to Lucky Cat and almost collided with Gogo. “You read the news too?” he asked as soon as he caught his breath.

Wasabi nodded shortly, before they entered the Lucky Cat Cafe. They didn’t skip the information that it was closed because of family reason. They noticed Cass at the counter and Tadashi pacing trough between tables.

“Hi, what’s going on?” Fred asked.

Tadashi looked at them surprised.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hiro texted us that the police came here. What happened?” Gogo asked, looking at stairs.

Tadashi waved a hand in the air. “Sit down. We don’t know how long it takes.”

“It takes ten minutes. One minute more and I am going there.” Cass stated angrily but she didn't yell. She was doing something with cupcakes.

Fred repeated his questions after a while when he didn’t get any answer.

“The policeman came, asked Hiro about bot fighting.” Tadashi explained. “Did you know about it?

Wasabi froze and blinked while Gogo shared a look with Honey.

Fred snorked. “He have never been there, trust me!”

“And how do you know it?” Tadashi asked; his voice didn’t sound content and happy.

Fred shrugged uncertainly. “Well… just know it.”

“Is Hiro in trouble?” Honey asked, a concern sounded in her voice.

“I don’t know. It seemed that he isn’t, but who knows.” Tadashi brushed his hair. “He said that he found something what could be interesting for police but he didn’t want us to know it. So he asked for a few minutes to talk with policeman.”

“And that’s all?” Fred looked at Honey who frowned.

“Yeah?” Tadashi shrugged.

“You seem nervous.” Honey pointed out uncertainly.

“I am just… Did you know that Hiro had something stolen?”

Fred blinked and sighed after a second. “No, we didn’t. At least I did not." He took a quick look at others. "Do you know what it was?”

“I have just found out about a theft…and only because policeman mentioned the name. They didn’t say anything about thing that was stolen.”

“Do you remember this name?”

“It's not important, I guess. Hiro said that it wasn't the one responsible for it in the end. Obake? It sounded like that, I think.” Tadashi stopped as he noticed their reaction.

“Obake?! Are you sure?! No way!” Wasabi sat down at the table and rubbed his temples. “Was he here?”

Tadashi looked at him. “Obake? Recently Hiro hardly talks to me. How am I supposed to know anything? Apparently you know more than me so that should be me asking this question.” He started walking again.

“Who is this Obake?” Cass asked, glaring at them.

They traded looks.

“ And the bot fighting… Could he be related to bot fighting? To any fight? Could Hiro be?” Tadashi asked.

“He was interested in bot fight. Hiro, not Obake. We don’t really know him, actually.m," Fred said slowly, carefully choosing his words. "As much as we know Hiro has never gone there, he says so and we trust him.”

“Look, Tadashi–I know how it looks like..." Wasabi gestured with his hands, not pointing at anything specifically.

"We don’t know how to explain some things but Hiro is your brother, you are our friend and we want to help your brother. At beginning it was for you but we started to like him and now he is our friend too.”

“You met him a few days ago,” Tadashi commented, sending Wasabi a questionable look.

“You told us so much stories about him that I feel like I've known him forever. But the thing is-”

“The thing is that Hiro really doesn’t want to fail you again and he put a lot of pressure on himself," Honey interjected. "We don’t know what is going on with Obake now, but we know and you know that Hiro isn’t able to do anything what could hurt him or anyone else.”

“Alright, everyone, sit down and calm down,” Gogo commanded, trying to organize her own thoughts.

“I’m sitting,” Wasabi muttered, but his words stayed uncommented.

When almost everyone sat down, Gogo continued.

“Everyone is nervous, stressed and we are well on the way to a complete breakdown. We have to calm down, wait for Hiro and then talk, because now someone will say something that he will regret later.”

Wasabi took a deep breath and crossed his arms.

“Can I know why you were looking at me when you said it?” He didn’t get any answer.

Gogo was busy trying to convince Tadashi to sit down. She finally dragged him to a chair and pushed him onto it.

“Hiro will be fine, we will be fine, you will be fine. Now, woman up and wait. You don’t help anyone by running around.”

After a while, when they didn’t say anything and were just staring at each other, Cass looked at the clock again.

“Ok, that will be ten minutes, I go there and check it.” She declared when she hurried up to stairs.

“Are you guys all right?” Tadashi asked after a while of observing them.

“We are... We are fine now. We have had some sudden events recently and we are still working on it but we are as fine as we can be. It will be better soon,” Wasabi replied.

“If you need my help, you can ask me, I will help.”

“We know. Right now you are here and it’s enough. If anything changes, we let you know.” Honey gave him a little but sincere smile.

Chapter Text

Hiro was tapping his knee, while he hid his hands under table top and placed his sight and its edge.

Aunt Cass left them alone promising to return after ten minutes. Tadashi followed her, moving slower and sending the last look at policeman's back before he disappeared on lower floor.

Hiro bit the inside of his cheek, unconsciously wandering with his eyes until his sight fell on man's folded hands on the table.

Hiro didn’t have any prepared words and had no idea how to start, but on the top of his mind he kept a reminder that his aunt would come back rather sooner than later. What meant they didn’t have a lot of time. He rubbed back of his neck, edge of his lips raised up smirking, and he spoke avoiding looking at the man in front of him.

“Yeah, so, you also woke up a few months before you died?”

The policeman sat up straight and coughed, a silent noise sounded around them when he moved his elbows on the wooden top.

“So that is what happened,” he didn’t ask, so he probably had already figured out it himself that something had been wrong (to be honest, probably everyone would in such situation), but his voice seemed strange, cracking in the end as if he was hesitant or afraid.

“You don’t… Oh, right.” Hiro's eyes widened, when he realised that the police didn’t know anything about Obake and what he had done. “Wait, hold on, how do you know about Obake then?”

“Miss Trina said that he was a famous bot fighter. Isn’t he?”

Hiro gasped and scowled, remembering that Obake was actually mentioned during his and Trina's interrogation.

“No, he is, uh, he is much bigger problem and, to be honest, we really should have talked to you before,” Hiro sighed, brushing his hair that had already been a totally mess escaping in all direction. “But you woke up in the past and came here, why? How did I become the suspect number one for time travelling?” He pulled his arms in the air, gesturing the area around them.

Man smiled, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. Then he frown, registering exact meaning Hiro's words. A tension showed up in his shoulders.

“Time travelling. I'm really saying it out loud, aren't I?” He laughed softly without a humor and smoothed the material of his pants with his right hand. “What has it come to? One day I am normally working in my office, then suddenly I wakes up in my home and it is strange. It becomes even stranger when I see the calendar which shows it is fourteenth of July when it should be December.” He breathed and licked his upper lip. It took him a second before he continued.

“At beginning I thought it was some kind of joke of my imagination. Some kind of introspection of my life, let’s say." He again laughed under his breath.

"But then I didn’t find you and your brother at the bot fight's spot. So I wondered why it suddenly changed, what happened, because surely it wasn’t on me. So, I decided to ask you. I didn’t want to cause you problems and invite you to the police station, so I came here." He waved, gesturing at the stairs to the lower floor and then table.

He suddenly raised his eyes, as if he remembered something. "Oh, I couldn’t forget about your second identity, of course. Added it, and it was clear to me that you could be related to this situation. As I can see, I wasn’t wrong.” He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug.

Hiro blinked and his mouth opened ready to ask, but policeman was faster and his voice sounded in the room again.

“And if you want to know, how I found out that you are part of Big Hiro Six, you should think better of me." He sounded almost offended. "Your visit with big robot which, by case, has the same shape, size and voice as robot of group of superheroes which shows up short time after that. He has the armour, yes, but take it off and you get this walking marshmallow I had seen only once before. There were the others things, too, but it was the main one to me.”

He tapped his chin and looked as if he was thinking about something.

“Oh, right, the fact, that each of you hardly covered your faces, didn’t helped you as well. But don’t worry, I’m sure that your identity wasn’t discovered by all city.” He smiled toothily.

Hiro had to restrain himself from groaning (Note for himself: correct their suits).

“Explain me, better, what is going on with Obake. You seemed nervous when you heard his name. Does he is responsible for it?” His voice and expression became more serious as he straightened his shoulders.

Hiro looked down at the table, observing dark green blanket covering it. “Do you really not remember the light?”

“There was no light. In one second I was in my office and in another I was in my room. There was nothing between. Did you have it differently?”

Hiro closed eyes, taking a deep breathe.

(This was something to think about later.)

“Obake is a person who blew up San Fransokyo.”

“Blew up?!” He almost stood up, but ultimately remained seated, his posture screamed a shock and outrage.

Hiro shortly recounted the events. When he finished, sergeant Gerson hide his face in his hands and didn’t say anything for a longer while, what made Hiro restless.

“We really should have come to you earlier, I mean first time. Now…”

The man sight heavily, running his hand on his face. “Now, don’t think about it. Now we have to focus on avoiding all of it. Can I assume your family doesn’t know about it anything?”

Hiro nodded. “For now we want to keep it as it is. We think about it after the fire. Or Callaghan.”

“Won't be better if you tell him before? I got questions from my colleagues. They noticed that I haven’t been behaving like myself. Not quite." He looked at Hiro intently.

"I'm sure that your family noticed a change in you, too. They'll think about it and they could assume things that aren’t true. This can pose a problem not only for your plans, but also for your relationship with your family. Think about it.” He smiled at him and stood up. “Time passes quickly, your aunt is going to be here in a second, it has been nine minutes.”

"Right. Oh, and professor Grace Granville also knows,” Hiro said and left the room.

***

Hiro passed his aunt on the stairs. “We have finished it, everything is ok! I go to eat something, I am starving!” he said when she looked at him. He smiled back at her.

Not waiting for her respond, he hurried up to others. All of them were sitting, but when they noticed him, they turned their faces to him. Tadashi stood up and came up to him. Hiro hugged him and felt that Tadashi hugged him back.

“It’s ok, you won’t get rid of me.” He smiled, titling his head back. “Why everyone is so quiet?” He noticed that they were sitting and, mostly, looking around.

“It is strange, isn’t it? It's not what I'm used to.” He ruffled Hiro’s hair. “Are you sure you are okay?” He looked Hiro in his eyes.

“I’m not fine, not quite.” He sighed, but gave him a dismissive wave. “But I will be fine. It had just been a few strange days. You will know about all of it, I promise, right now I would prefer to focus on my project and the showcase. You are here and it is great.” He clenched his hands on Tadashi’s shirt.

Cass and sergeant Gerson entered the room.

“Everything has been explained.” The policeman nodded to Tadashi. “I will leave, if someone of you needs my help, don’t hesitate to call me.” He gave his business cards to Cass Hamada.

Hiro felt aunt Cass’s sight on himself. He expected that she would be questioning him, but instead of that she came up to him and ruffled his hair, despite of his protests.

“So it was just a bad mistake of police.” Honey pushed her hair away from her face.

“It sounds like an occasion to celebrate! Will you eat something? My treat!” Fred declared.

Tadashi waved his hand. "You don't have to pay, Fred."

Aunt Cass didn’t stay long. She decided to take advantage of her day off and go to a yoga class. (What was better than underground cooking competition in the Good Luck Alley.)

“You have never said that you have such huge house.” Tadashi told Fred when they all sat down at the table.

“I don’t. My parents does, but they’re always out on holidays so it’s empty house for me and my friends.” He said between bites of his sandwich. “We have to do party. What would you say about tomorrow?”

“It’s fine with me.” Gogo shrugged.

Wasabi and Honey agreed as well.

“It would be great to relax, to be honest.” Wasabi sighed and had a drink of the juice.

“Alright, are we going to meet here and go there or the meeting point is my house?”

“Your place would be better. We all know where it is so there will be no problem.” Hiro said. “Is that ok?”

No one denied it.

They were finishing eating. Tadashi and Hiro started to clean the table. Suddenly, Fred jumped up and reached into his backpack, which he put down on the floor.

“Before I forget.” He said opening it. “I have something for you!” He pulled out some comic books. “I thought you can like them.” He waited for Tadashi to put down the plates and handed them to him.

“Duck Duck Moose and the Start From Beginning, Duck Duck Moose and Déjà Vu, Captain Moose and New Old Life.” He read aloud some titles, viewing covers.

Wasabi choked on his juice, but quickly assured others that he was alright.

“Once I told you I will recommend you some good stories, so here you are.” Fred ignored Gogo’s glare. She was glaring at him since she heard first title. “I hope you like them.”

“Thanks, they sound interesting.” He browsed one of them.

Fred patted him on the shoulder. “They are interesting. I am looking forward to talking to you about them.”

Chapter Text

Hiro woke up breathing quickly. Sweat ran down his back, and his pajamas clung to his body. He closed his eyes, pushing strands of hair away from them. The blanket made him too hot, so he threw it on the floor and sat down on the bed. He stayed at his position until he felt that his breath came back to normal.

It was the middle of the night. The only noise came from outside the window where traffic continued unabated.

Hiro rubbed his eyes and stood up slowly. Not wanting to wake up anyone he walked as quietly as he could. He stopped when he passed usual Baymax’s place and sighed not seeing red box.

He went to the kitchen, not switching on any light to avoid waking aunt Cass or Tadashi up. Luckily he remembered the room enough to get a glass and water without making a noise.

When he sat down, he tried to remember why he woke up, but despite of his efforts he couldn’t do it.

He drank full glass of water, took another one and came back to his room. He heard Mochi that decided to follow him to the bedroom, tangling between his legs.

Hiro knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep again. He took a small lamp and his notes to his bed, and grabbed his blanket back hiding himself under it.

He decided that he could spend time doing something at least. The time would be as good as any to create Mini-Max again. Anyway, he had had some time before Tadashi woke up and they had to prepare to the party in the afternoon.

***

“We have snacks, drinks, blankets and pillows, movies…” Fred controlled the sheet of paper. When he was passing Gogo, she took it from him. “Hey!”

“Time travel? Isn’t it too much?” She skipped the food and drinks, and read films chosen by Fred.

He took it back, put it on the table in front of the couch and turned to her.

“First of all, there are never too much movies about time travel. Secondly, I don’t know about you but I think Tadashi will believe us faster if he knows about time travel more than he does now.”

Gogo raised an eyebrow.

“That isn’t a bad idea,” Wasabi agreed with Fred. He was lying on the couch but when he spoke he changed his position and sat up, putting away a pillow. “Anyway we don’t have another one so I don’t see the reason why we shouldn’t try.” He took the list and read chosen titles.

“Anyway, these are just movies, we can watch them just for fun.” While he was speaking he took his phone and searched one of the movie. After a while he raised his eyes from above phone. “This one sounds interesting. The boy builds the time machine and uses it to save his parents.”

Gogo snorted. She looked like she wanted to say something but she changed her mind and crossed her arms instead, leanig deeper on her seat.

“I think we should try various methods." Wasabi shrugged. "Surely, fiction won’t convince Tadashi. Neither will science articles nor books. They are always saying that it is only a theory, there is no evidence and so on. Don't expect it will convince Tadashi that we're saying the truth. Just as well, they can convince him that we're crazy.”

Gogo frowned. She took the title from Wasabi and looked for it in her phone. She looked at the screen like it would have the answers for her questions. Wasabi switched off his phone and put the list down.

“I think we can work on that. we will mention something we shouldn’t know, when he is close to us —and don’t look at me like that, I remember we still have no idea what to use— and then, when we will decide to tell him, it can help us." He gestured, using his phone. "Of course, it won’t make Tadashi believe us straight away, but if he associates it with these stories…”

“To be noted, I don’t think, at all, it will help us, even a bit.” Wasabi and Gogo’s phones made a sound.

“Honey texted that she will be in a while." Gogo scrolled the previous messages. "Do you have any information from Tadashi or Hiro?”

“Nothing.” Fred controlled his phone as it turned out to be muted. He changed it straight away. “But they won’t be late for sure. They still have some time.”

“So since we are waiting.” Wasabi put his phone away and folded his hands. "Any thoughts about Granville and Gerson?”

Gogo scowled. She put one pillow on another and sat down next to Wasabi. “I wanna know how many people there are yet who remember.”

“If they are any,” Wasabi said, "it can only be our seven."

She shrugged. Since the moment Hiro revealed to them that Gerson also remembered, she didn’t make any assumptions. “Perhaps. I still don’t see why professor and policeman are the persons who remember.”

“If we assume that it is related to the explosion, it should be just us.” Wasabi wondered. “But the facts are that they do remember, so it has to be something else.”

“Well, professor knows a lot about Obake.” Fred reminded, looking around to find something to do.

“Yeah, she does, but is there anything what she didn’t tell us before?”

“To be honest, she could have skipped some details.” Wasabi said.

“And she will tell us them now, for sure.” Gogo's voice sounded sceptical.

“Now the situation is different.” He pointed out. “And about policeman, it would be nice to have a person who can arrest Obake, don’t you think?”

“Arrest him? Right now, as far as we know, he didn’t do anything illegal so he can’t be arrested and we aren’t gonna wait until he blows up the city. Again.”

He snorted. “Of course we aren’t.”

“It should be a party but I am hearing something about Obake.”

“Hello, Honey!” Fred waved to her.

Honey Lemon closed the door behind her and looked around. It wasn’t so different. On the table were a lot of snacks and drinks with empty glasses. The couch had a few pillow on itself and two blankets.

“We are talking about Granville and Gerson.” Gogo explained, gesturing at Honey to sit down next to her. “And perhaps I realised that Obake hasn’t done anything bad what can be problem since we wanna get him arrested. Blowing a city isn’t on the picture, of course.”

“But we don’t have to wait until this moment.” She said, her eyebrow raised in a surprise.“Don’t you remember? He stole The City Rising of Shimamoto.” She reminded them when they didn’t seem to remember.

Wasabi blinked. “Oh, right, how could I forget about it? If he does it again, it will be enough to arrest him, even for a while, and search the place, where he lives, to look for any evidence of his plan.”

Honey Lemon leaned on the back of the couch and brushed her hair with her hand.

“Globby!” She exclaimed suddenly but before she continued, they had heard Tadashi’s voice.

“Who is Globby?”

The girls shared a look.

“It’s the name of one person we met one day.” Fred explained. “And hello in my room, you two!” He waved to the two brothers. “Do you like it?” He corrected two bowls of chips, looking at Tadashi to see his reaction.

Tadashi looked around standing next to Hiro who just waved to others.

“I can say immediately it is your room for sure.” His eyes stopped on the statue of monster which was hung from the ceiling. “It's a nice beast. The rest also doesn't look bad.”

“Thanks, I have been collecting them for some time. “He smiled slightly. After a while he cleared his throat and raised his arms while he spoke. “Come on, find a seat and let’s start the party!”

Mostly all of them were around the couch. After a while Fred noticed Tadashi who read the titles of his comics. When he came up, Tadashi was looking at the blue cover of story about superhero who travelled to alternative universe.

“I finished first comic you brought me.” Tadashi said when he noticed Fred’s presence. “It was fun, even if some Duck’s actions were, to say the least, ridiculous.”

"Yeah," Fred laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "He can sometimes do first and then think. No surprise he usually ends up with various situations.”

They were talking a while until Gogo came up to them and patted Fred on the arm. He stopped speaking and looked at her.

“Wasabi asked about the movie.” She informed him with the stoic tone. Her face didn’t have any clear expression. “Apparently he got interested in the plot so he can’t look forward to watching it.”

Fred smiled at her, but didn’t say anything.

The film was going well until its ending. Wasabi lost his enthusiasm and hide his eyes wit his hand. Gogo patted him on his shoulder.

“That’s time travel film. It always ends up like that.” She said. Wasabi groaned.

In the end of the story it turned out that everything, what the main character (Toby) had done to change his past, created even worse future and because of that it had to be change again as it was in original timeline.

Hiro sat down between Tadashi and Gogo and was leaning on Gogo while they watched the film. He raised his head to have better look at her face.

“They could make the better ending. At least once.” He sighed. “It wouldn’t hurt them.” Gogo ruffled his hair, he grabbed her hand immediately. “Don’t do that.” She just smiled toothily at him and did it again. He moved closer to Tadashi who smiled seeing their interaction.

“All threads were explained, Toby learnt a lesson in the end. I would say it was a good ending.” Tadashi commented, observing his brother.

“Yeah, it was good ending, I would just prefer to have one in which Toby was able to save their parents and live with them happily ever after!”

Tadashi turned to him. In this moment Wasabi grabbed his glass and looked at it, his eyebrows were frowned.

“He changed the past. You can’t do it and don’t expect any consequences of it in the same time.” He stopped when he noticed that Wasabi winced and he wasn’t alone. Others looked annoyed or nervous as well.

“What’s going with you? Was it so bad for you?” His question didn’t receive any answer.

Fred was too busy with observing a bowl of chips on his laps to take a look at Tadashi, Gogo and Wasabi didn’t seem to decide to talk soon. It was Honey who eventually answered.

“It wasn’t bad, we just… As Wasabi said, once we would like to have happy ending.” She smiled slightly. So slightly, that Tadashi almost missed it.

They dropped this topic and started another one. Tadashi looked at them sometimes worried as they didn’t come back to normal by a while, but nobody mentioned anything about it.

“So do you have any plans for vacations?” Tadashi asked at some point.

“If we find a time.” Wasabi sighed, leaning harder on the back of the couch. “I guess we will spend it together as much as we can.”

“You all are done with your projects.” Tadashi said surprised. “You didn’t mention about any extra activities.”

“Well…” Wasabi stopped and had a drink of juice.

“Of course we aren’t busy so much.” Fred said quickly. Perhaps too quickly. “Surely we find time to do something funny like, for example, observing birds with Gogo.”

He didn’t finish saying her name when mentioned girl jumped out from her place, took a pillow and throw it at him. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid it, but was able to catch it. He used it as a shield when he noticed that Gogo looked like she wanted to throw something at him again. “What did I do to…” He was interrupted by Hiro who pulled him by the arm.

“Drinks are finishing, we bring more and come back here!” He took Fred ignoring his protests and ran out from the room.

Tadashi tilted his head looking at Gogo. He looked like he would like to ask her, but he knew her good enough to know that in this moment it was horrible idea. Her lips was tightened and eyes narrowed when she was observing escaping boys. It didn’t change when they left.

“It was a secret.” Honey explained to Tadashi as she knew he was the only person who didn't know what was going on.

“It is a secret.” Gogo growled. She picked up the pillow which Fred lost during his escape. Her grip on it was very strong. “And Fred wasn’t allowed to say it like that.”

“He didn…”

“Don’t defend him, No Ginger. Firstly he followed me knowing I didn’t want to be followed and now says it aloud when he promised me he wouldn’t tell anyone else about it.” She throw the pillow at the couch. “Excuse me now, I have to walk by while.”

“What have I missed?” Tadashi looked at Honey.

She cleared her throat and took her hair away from her face. “It is like you heard, one day Fred followed Gogo and she didn’t like it.”

“At all.” Wasabi added with stoic tone, looking at door which just closed behind Gogo. “You weren’t there when she found out about it. She was furious.”

“Ah, and now he told me. Will he be alright?”

“Right now? He will. She won’t hurt him. Rather.” Wasabi titled his head and tapped his chin. "She won’t do anything when Hiro is around."

***

“Thanks, Little Man, you probably saved my life.” Fred said when they entered the kitchen and he had a bit time to rethink his words.

“What were you thinking when you said it?!” Hiro glared at him. Despite of his shortness, it worked. Even if Fred was about to protest, he stopped, took a breath and rubbed his head.

“I wasn’t.” He sighed.

Hiro really had to stopped himself from hitting himself in the forehead.

“She is going to kill you.”

“I know.”

“Unbelievable. Help me better with these drinks.”

They prepared everything quickly and Fred was about to leave when Hiro stopped him. Fred looked at him. Hiro didn’t took anything yet and didn’t move from his place.

“What’s wrong? If you are worrying about your role in it…”

Hiro interrupted him waving his hand. “No, it isn’t it. I have a question to you.” He took a deep breath. “Do you remember any light?”

Fred blinked at him. “You have to be more precise.”

“Before you woke up in the past, do you remember any light?”

Fred wondered, trying to remember anything.

“Well, we were together in the Kentucky… I remember a noise, very loud one.” He rubbed his chin. “But I’m afraid that I don’t remember any light.”

Hiro sighed and closed his eyes, ruffling his hair.

“It’s strange. I am quite sure I saw a light.” He started walking around. “It was so bright that after that I couldn’t see anything apart from darkness and…”

“Hold on, what darkness? There was no darkness, this one I can say for sure!” Fred interrupted him.

“I was somewhere where it was completely dark. I don’t know where it was! I saw a light and heard a bang, and then…” He stopped himself and turned to Fred. “It was between the explosion and waking up in the past.”

“Hiro, I am really sorry to say it, but I can’t explain it. You are the genius between two of us. But don’t worry. “He put down the bottles with juices and came up to younger boy. He put hands on his shoulders. “Don’t worry, Little Man, we will figure out it soon.”

They waited by a while until Hiro calmed down a bit. When he decided that he was fine enough, they took everything and came back to others.

When they were in the hall, they met Gogo that was standing in front of the one painting one the wall. She was standing with folded arms and head up while she was observing it. Fred hesitated, shifting.

“Go on,” He turned to Hiro after a second. “I will come back soon.” He put the bottles down next to stairs, and came up to the girl. “Hi, Gogo…”

She unfolded her arms, titling her head as a sign she was listening to him. “You want to talk with me, don’t you?”

He hummed, agreeing.

She pointed the direction from where he had just arrived with Hiro. “Here someone can overhear.”

She didn’t say the name, but she didn't need to, as it was as clear as day for Fred who she meant. When they were in the kitchen he turned to her. While he started speaking, his phone made a sound. He ignored it.

“I am really sorry, Gogo. I know it isn’t an excuse but I panicked when Tadashi asked so I said first thing I thought about and... I am sorry.” He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he was playing with a material of his shirt.

Gogo closed the kitchen door and sighed.

“You know, I didn’t want it to be a secret. “She looked around the room, not looking at him. “I didn’t say anything because I thought you all would laugh at me and when I finally changed my mind, Tadashi brought his brother to lab, then the fire and…” She shrugged, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I changed my mind again and didn’t say a word about it. Because I couldn’t say to Tadashi about it anymore and it didn’t seem right. And I am sorry, too, for my reaction. It might have been a bit exaggerated.”

“I know what you mean. When you came here first time you said that you had thought that I was living under the bridge.” He smiled slightly for a second, but his smile didn’t touch his eyes. It disappeared quickly as well, as if it was never there.

“Then I didn’t think about it a lot since there were more important things, but when everything calmed down it came back…” He took off his hat and started moving it between his hands. “I mean what kind of friend I am, that my friends don’t know where I live and one of them would never see it because I waited too long to invite him to my place while he invited me thousand times!” He grabbed the hat harder, his knuckles became paler.

“You know, it's strange.” He sighed after a while, the energy left him, his shoulders hunched. “I feel like we don’t do anything to prepare ourself to Obake or even Callaghan, honestly, but in the same time I feel like I don’t have any time to sit down and think that, yes, we came back in time and we can change the past. Or perhaps I am avoiding thinking about it, who knows. I don’t.”

When Fred was speaking, Gogo came up to the countertop and tapped in it, leaning on it. In the moment he finished, she turned to him and looked at him.

“We really need to talk about it with someone, don’t we?”

Fred was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door. When they looked there, they saw Wasabi who uncertainly opened it and looked around. He noticed them and expression of his face became less nervous.

“He is alive!”

Gogo rolled her eyes.

“We started to worry, Honey was about to call sergeant Gerson!” Wasabi lips twisted into a smile.

“Don’t you have anything funnier?” Gogo stared at him, but a little smirk danced on her lips too.

Before Wasabi answered, Fred went between them.

“Since we are here together, I got a question for you.” He put the hat on. “Had you seen any light before you woke up in the past?”

Gogo frowned, from her face disappeared all sign of amusement. “I don’t think there was any light.” She said after a while.

“Neither do I.” Wasabi rubbed his right temple, thinking. “Did you see any?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t. Hiro did."

Gogo and Wasabi shared a look. Wasabi winced.

“Great.” He sighed. “Another problem.”

“Maybe it’s not a new one, at least.” Gogo commented. “Do you think it could have anything to do with how we got here?”

“It is hard to say now, but it is possible.” Wasabi wondered.

They tried to remember something else, but they weren’t able to do it.

“If you don’t come back straight away, Honey really will think that Gogo did something to Fred.” They heard Hiro’s voice. He stood behind the opened door with his hands hidden in pockets of trousers.

“So one quick answer: they also don’t remember any light.” Fred informed him. “And everyone is alive.”

His phone made a quiet ding. Looking at the screen, he frowned. "Guys, professor Granville texted me. She wants us to meet with her and sergeant Gerson. She wrote it didn't happen anything bad, but she prefers to meet as soon as it is possible."

Chapter Text

The computer made a sound but was ignored. It was repeating until Tadashi raised his eyes from comic and looked at it. He saw his brother, who was sitting in front of the computer, working on his tablet. As the sound repeated with the same results, Tadashi used a piece of paper as a bookmark, put comic away and came up to teenager.

Hiro was aware enough to notice a shadow above him, so he stopped and raised his eyes. Tadashi was able to see that his eyes widened and he looked like he almost jumped, but it disappeared as quick as it appeared.

“What’s wrong?” Hiro asked, putting hair away from his eyes. He didn’t have to get the answer as computer reminded about itself. “Ah, this. Don’t worry, it just informs that this part is done.” He focused on it, setting the tablet aside.

As his brother was busy with bigger screen, Tadashi took a look at smaller one. The sketch, which was visible on it, didn’t look similar to his project at all.

“Shouldn’t you focus on one thing at a time?” He asked.

Hiro turned to him, surprised. He noticed him looking at his smaller project and rolled his eyes.

“Microbots are almost done.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, turning back to the screen. “Anyway I can make both in the same time.”

Surrounded by a few doodles design of small rounded robot with two round eyes reminded Tadashi of Baymax. He raised his eyebrow.

“Someone has gotten inspired a bit?”

“Wha-ah, yeah, Baymax is so good that I tried my luck.” Hiro smiled. “Could I do it?”

“Since you have already done almost entire project, you are asking very fast, really." He handed him the tablet. Hiro wanted to grab it without looking at it, but Tadashi stopped it right before giving it to him. As his hand grabbed only air, he looked back at him. “As long as you finish the Microbots on time, of course. Then I would really like to see the result.”

Hiro smiled and took his tablet, switching it off. He really didn’t have to worry about Microbots since it wasn’t his first time. He remembered all of his errors and since he wouldn’t repeat them, the process of doing his project would last less time.

“Mini-Max is for Fred.” Hiro said after a while.

“Mini-Max?” Instead of getting the answer, he saw Hiro shrugging.

It took one or two minutes for Hiro to add more, as he was focus on his work.

“He helped me, so I wanted to thank him. So I thought about creating a mini robot for him.”

Tadashi sat down on the armchair, not stopping looking at his brother. He seemed to wonder before he finally spoke.

“Helped you? With what? Fred didn’t mention anything. Did you have any problem? Do you still have?” Hiro didn’t stop working and didn’t say anything.

“You don’t have to tell me right now. Aunt and I have been worried for a while. Would you like to have someone else to talk about it? We have no problem with it.” Tadashi corrected his baseball hat.

“Just keep it in mind, please. Perhaps you could give me an answer for one question.” He added after a while, not seeing any reaction. “Why did you accept Fred’s invitation when you met each other?”

Hiro's hands didn’t even paused when he was clicking keyboard keys. “Uh, why not? He is your friend?”

“Yeah, he is, but you had never met him before you did it that day. Had you even known how he looked like before you saw him then? I don’t think so, since you were always leaving before he came to me and you didn’t see his photo.”

“Actually, I did.” Hiro had interjected him before he added something more, turning to him. The sound of clicking keyboard keys ended with it. “I saw your group photo which you keep in your bedside table.”

“You went through my things?”

“I didn’t.” He did. A little. When they finished with Callaghan and he was about to go to SFIT.

“You have just admitted it.”

“I was looking for a duct tape. It is not my fault that you are keeping it hidden so well.”

“Right. It always is on the bookshelf.”

“Yeah, I know it now.”

He turned back and took his tablet. He switched it on and saw the picture Tadashi had looked at before. Hiro knew it, but he almost winced when he noticed one detail he had forgotten about. During the night, when he wasn’t able to sleep, he also did some doodles meanwhile sketching Mini-Max.

One of them was the sign of Obake. He deleted it straight away. There was no way that Tadashi could recognize what it was, he had never seen it until now. He wasn’t the problem, not really. It was Hiro, who was not able to stop thinking that Obake had something to do with this situation.

When Tadashi started to talk with him earlier, he thought it was again the situation with Obake and projection. He wished his Baymax had been here and carried out the analyse of Tadashi.

“What’s wrong?” Tadashi was suddenly right next to him. He had to see his face.

“Nothing.” He said quickly, clearing his face. “I’m just a bit annoyed that you thought I could have ever trusted a stranger. That’s all.”

Tadashi’s eyebrows frowned. He looked at him very intently and Hiro had to stop himself from wincing. He hoped their friend were doing better than him on the meeting with Granville and Gerson.

***

“So, when should they come?” Fred asked, putting away the pillows from the couch. Each of them landed around one place.

Gogo rolled her eyes. She was sitting on the couch and chawing a gum. A bubble gum burst. “It is you who got the message and read it to us.”

“They just could hurry up a bit!”

“Calm down, she wrote that it didn’t happen anything bad.”

“Her “bad” can differ from our “bad”!”

The knock drew their attention. As soon as they looked at the door, it was opened, showing Heathcliff. Granville was behind him and they could presume Gerson was there as well.

“Madam Granville and Master Gerson have come.” Heathcliff informed them, standing straight. He took one step to let them walk past him and after wishing them great work, he left them alone.

They changed greetings and now they were sitting on the couch. Policeman and professor on the left, Wasabi, Gogo and Honey Lemon on the opposite side. Fred was leaning against the wall next to the TV.

“So let’s start.” Gerson started, sitting with his hands folded. “As far as I know you haven’t done so much yet.

Fred pressed his lips together and grabbed one of his sleeve of undershirt. Honey Lemon moved her legs nervously, and she was apparently about to say something, but professor Granville was faster.

“As far as I know, sergeant, you haven’t done so much as well. I would even say that you have done even less than people who actively are thinking about our options.” She said, sitting straight and starring at him. “Correct me if I am wrong, of course.”

Gerson winced and corrected material of his shirt. He wasn’t wearing his police uniform but his clothes still looked more formal than casual.

“You can understand, I think, that time travel is impossible. I could never imagine I would experience something like that!”

“Well, I would suggest you to get used to it since we did experience it.” She had shortly looked at others before she spoke again. “We have to share our knowledge. I remind you that I had to stop you from asking your contact in the criminal underworld about Obake.”

“Wait a second, what?” Gogo interjected, almost raising up on the couch. “Yama worked for Obake and he wasn’t the only one for sure!”

“If Obake hears police is searching about him, even if he uses an alias, he will be suspicious and he can do something differently, and then our knowledge can be unhelpful so much as it is now.” Wasabi added, he didn’t seem less worried than Gogo.

Uninterruptedly looking at policeman, woman raised the edge of her lips smiling.

“I got it. Your professor had already explained me that.” He corrected his dark tie, knitting his brows. “I don’t know about him too much. I would even say I know nothing, so this part belongs to you.”

“Right. It's going to be a long conversation.” Wasabi slumped against his seat.

“Alright," Honey Lemon folded her hands. "let’s start what he needed to recreate the Star. He hired Yama to steal his energy amplifiers which now is professor’s sculpture." She nodded at professor.

"It was destroyed by Hiro and Baymax, so he needed another one. Then was Krei and his attempts to create it, but he failed every time. Last one was Hiro who created it and then it was stolen by Obake.”

“So if I understand it well, we can eliminate first one easily, second one won’t work and third one won’t be invented this time.” Gerson asked, wanting the confirmation, but knowing it couldn't be so easy.

“Theoretically, you are right." Granville nodded.

"However, I wouldn’t expect that Obake won’t find another way to have another one.”

They stopped to consider her words, because she was obviously right, but she gave them no time for comment it as she spoke again.

“Next thing, that I know about, is the Hyperconducting Magnet stolen by Obake as well. Miss Tomago and I created it, we had just tested it when it was stolen in Halloween. I am afraid that I can’t cancel this project. If we don’t make it, someone else do and the result will be the same.”

“This time we won’t be distracted by Obake so we can protect it better.” Wasabi said, thinking. “Well, we won’t be distracted by him if he uses the same method.”

“It doesn’t matter. It will be the same or won’t, we have to be much more carefully about everything.” Honey Lemon said, a frown appeared on her face. “Perhaps, if it isn't possible to be cancelled… Do you think, professor, it would be the option to organize better protection of it?”

Granvile stopped for a while, thinking. “I think so. To be honest, it should have been done last time after Yama.”

Honey nodded, straightening her shoulders. “Next thing: Lenore Shimamoto. She is responsible for first catastrophe and her notes are needed to repeat it.” She grabbed her purse's strap and moved it between her fingers. “Her journal is hidden in her house right now. Obake can be aware of its existence, but location—it is hard to say.”

“We have to find the way to take it without drawing attention to it.” Gogo changed her position, and crossed her legs at the ankle. “And we can’t forget about her painting.”

“The painting which was stolen?” Gerson asked, a confusion appeared in his voice and look of his face. Honey and Gogo nodded. “The witnessed testified that it was taken by glut monster.” He spoke last words slowly, not believing truly them.

“Globby.” Honey nodded again, swallowing. “The… monster you heard about, it was Globby.”

“Globby?”

“Fred called him that. His real name was, well, is, Dibs, and he is a petty thief in area where I live. Right know I mean. When he stole Honey’s cherm-purse, something had to happen and he became Globby.” Gogo explained, leaning forward in her seat.

“And here we come to the problem. If Globby doesn’t steal purse, he won’t be, well, Globby. There is no way on Earth that he will steal the painting, he is terrible in it.” She came back to previous position and crossed her arms.

“It isn’t even a good thing.” Wasabi said, his mouth twisted. “If there is no Globby, then we don’t know the plan of Obake.”

Honey ran her hands through her hair. “I don’t think we should make him do it again.”

Gogo snorted. “We didn’t ask him for stealing it.”

“I shouldn’t have left it in sight.” Honey sighed. “It could have happened everything. Even if we decide to go the same way, I don’t know if it is possible to repeat.”

“Honey is right." Wasabi said, sending her a small smile. "We don’t know what happened. Even if we know which things are needed to become Globby, it doesn’t mean it will be the same.” .

“More or less we know. You have every existing element in this purse.” Gogo reminded. “Ugh, you had.”

Fred slowly moved from his place.“If we don’t change anything and he steals the purse and does everything the same as last time, it will repeat, won’t it? I don’t think we have already changed something what could have influenced on it."

Girls shared a look.

Honey bit her lips. “Even the smallest change could have influence on something else.” She started, her voice became really uncertain. “Besides…”

“Honey moves to me in three days.” Gogo finished quickly and without any audible change in her voice.

“I decided to not renew the contract with a current roommate.” She smiled slightly. “As I said, I don’t think the possibility of obtaining the same result is so high and even if it works, we can’t assume Glo-Dibs would help us again.”

Fred raised his fist in the air. “I knew it! You liked being roommates!” He lowered his hand and cleared his throat, noticing Gogo’s stare. “Going with that: any change from Obake’s part or ours can influence Globby’s decision.” He stopped for a while. “For example he could stay with him to the end or join us from beginning.”

“Or he could go away and choose another city to live. Let’s leave Globby for now. We have time to early October to think about him." Gogo said, almost rolling her eyes. “We know that there are some things left which we don’t know enough about like Baymax case. Somehow Obake was able to give him his chip so he might have manipulated him.”

“I think that Hiro could have more thoughts about it. I…” Wasabi had to move when Fred suddenly sat down between him and Gogo. “Watch out, man! I don’t know about you, but I have no idea how he was able to uncover our identity.”

Gerson cleared his throat. He told them what he said to Hiro. The words were, more or less, the same. Fred stopped looking at policeman and noticed Gogo, who pressed her lips together, glaring at him.

“Speaking of that, one of us showed his face a few times, taking off part of his costume.” Gogo said with an accusatory tone of voice. “And don’t forget about Mole!”

“There is no way he told Obake!”

“And you are sure about it, because?”

“Well… he isn’t a type of person who would be silent about it. We would have known it if it had been he.”

“I think we shouldn’t forget about him.” Wasabi interjected, his hands raised gesturing at them. “However, Krei is more likely to be the one who told him. I mean we saved him a lot of times, he was there during our first official appearance. Obake isn’t stupid. He could have had a few suspicions and arranged something to get information from him.”

Fred pointed out Wasabi. “See! Krei is guilty!”

Gogo rolled her eyes. They left this topic due to lack of information and they repeated everything they had already said, adding more details about it if it was needed.

“Perhaps, we could do something with the Magnet.” Granville wondered after some time.

She interrupted their talk about the energy amplifier, during which she remained quiet, even if she was the one who had it in her flat in this moment and knew about it more than them.

“What do you mean?” Gerson didn’t seem content that he was here; the more he listened to their conversation, the more his face winced and frowned.

“We could create it like last time, but instead of making it work, we can focus on trying to make it fail so when it is used, it will destroy the Star or, at least, stop it from shooting.”

Gogo tapped in the couch. “We will have to think about something what won’t be noticed straight away or even at all. It would have to be something so little that Obake won’t pay attention to it too early.”

They had shared some sentences before they came back to their tasks.

Wasabi looked at Gogo and then at professor. “The Magnet will be your part, Gogo, and professor’s. Honey, journey of Shimamoto is yours since you attend SFAI. Try to find the best way to get to it. Painting: sergeant, could you try to organize better protection of it when it will be revealed?”

The man nodded.

“Good. The amplifier, well, we have to decide, what will be better. Even if he doesn’t get Hiro’s one, he can find a way to have another one and we won’t know when it happens. It could make things worse." Wasabi couldn’t stop a frown, thinking about it.

"Meanwhile we also have to be more discreet with our identity when we are in costumes. Then is Krei. We have to find a way to be close to him.”

“Since he won’t know our identity, he won’t trust us so easily this time.” Honey pointed out.

“We can’t tell him while he is one of the main suspects for exposing us. Knowingly or not.” Gogo crossed her arms. “Perhaps, we even should be close not to him, but to someone in his company. Like his assistant. She seemed reasonable.”

Granville wrinkled her forehead. “The assistant, her name is Judy, isn’t it? I can try to meet her and talk during the showcase.”

“It would be really great. She would be really helpful not only with Obake's, but also with Callaghan case.” Gogo said.

“Speaking of him.” Wasabi winced. “Professor Granville, would it be any chance that you would be able to convince him to stop his plan? He won’t listen to us.”

Woman shook her head. “He won’t listen to me either. Our relationship hasn’t been…" She pressed her lips into a narrow line. "great since I left SFIT. Besides, when he has his goal, he will never stop. Include his daughter and there is no way on Earth to change his mind.”

“Yeah, we have noticed it. Last time he tried to kill us and if he had done it, he couldn’t have even blamed it as accident.”

“Excuse me.” Gerson interjected, shock visible on his face and voice. “Police didn’t know anything about it.”

“Firstly we had other things to do," Wasabi shrugged. "and later it would have drawn too much attention to us, and we didn’t want that.” He changed position, straightening his legs. “Anyway, he won’t believe us when we tell him Abigail lives. We don’t have any proof and he is even less likely to believe in time travel than other people."

"Especially if we mention Abigail.”

“He would just get angrier.” Granville nodded. “ We should leave fire as it was apart from Master Hamada to not risk of hurting someone else. Attack on Krei: we have to stop him as fast as it is possible and if he doesn’t hurt anyone too much, perhaps he will receive a smaller penalty this time.”

“And perhaps Abigail will talk to him normally.” Gogo commented.

Wasabi rubbed his temple. “We have to summarize it to Hiro and tell him we have to think about something what will fly and be able to take us to Abigail without the risk of staying there forever.”

“This would be useful with Obake as well. If we really think that it won’t be Baymax.” Honey agreed.

Once again, the last time they repeated the most important things to minimize the likelihood of missing an essential thing that mattered for that moment.

They were aware that there still were another things that needed to be done, but, at least, they knew the direction of their next actions. Since showcase was coming faster and faster, and before they realised, there were just a few days left to begin.

Chapter Text

Hiro suddenly moved on his place, his feet hit the ground, and he almost slid off the chair. At the last moment he grabbed the desk, keeping himiself in his seat. He blinked quickly, realising he fell asleep. When he raised his hand to rub his eye, he felt a weight on his shoulder that had had to wake him up. He looked back and saw Fred's arm. He sent him a questioning look.

“Have you had sleep issues recently?” Fred asked in voice that sounded too firm for a question, looking him up and down, eventually stopping at his feet.

Hiro followed his gaze and noticed his tablet that had to fall when he was sleeping. He took it straight away and controlled it. He didn’t notice any damage or any file deleted by case.

“You don’t look well.” Fred commented, wrinkling his nose, and seeing it, Hiro couldn't help but rolled his eyes.

After all, he didn't look so bad. Right, his clothes looked like mess, but it was due to his nap. Anyway, Fred was the last person that could judge his look.

“Thanks.” His voice was flat when he muttered.

“I’m serious, Little Man.”

Hiro changed position of his swivel chair and took his notes away, so he could put his arm on the desk. He was in one of the guest room in Fred’s house that could be his room if you count how many times he had stayed there during these weeks. The room was bigger than his own one, had a much less staff and looked more like a hotel room than casual one in someone house.

“It’s nothing. It’s just because of the showcase. When it's over, I will be better.”

Fred approached and made the chair move to him, so he could look at Hiro’s face.

“Hey!” Hiro protested. He barely had time to put his tablet down on the desk to avoid falling it on the ground.

“Yeah no, it’s not nothing. Look at your bags, they’ll be bigger than your eyes soon!” He put his hands on Hiro’s shoulders and tried to look at his eyes.

Hiro avoided looking at him and he even tried to return to his last position, but seeing it wouldn’t work, he sighed.

“There are a lot of things, honestly. Showcase is one of them.” He shrugged to get the hands off himself.

“We are going to make it well, you’ll see it. This time everyone will survive, and don’t say I can’t previse it, we have got a plan to take Tadashi far away from the fire. It will be fine.”

Hiro snarked. As much as it wasn’t a bad plan, he would prefer to go with Gogo’s idea and tie up his stubborn brother. Just to be sure. However, it wasn’t his the biggest worry.

“It’s stupid.” He turned his chair when Fred stopped stopping him. “But I feel the moment we save Tadashi, Obake will show up and all of it end up being his mystification. And apparently my mind took too much inspiration from it since I can hardly sleep all night because of dreams about it.” He rubbed his eyes. “I prefer the light. At least I barely remember something.”

Hiro sighted Fred shifting as his frown increased.

“And since I wake up in the middle of night more often than it would be normal, Tadashi, of course, is worried about it and I have no idea what to say to explain it. And as if it wasn’t enough, he started to ask about Obake.” He raised up his arms before placing his head on the desk and plaiting hands on the head.

Fred leaned on the desk, grabbing its edge with one hand, and he patted Hiro with the second one. “Do you have any idea why?”

Hiro moved his shoulders as if to shrug them. “He asked a few times. Who he is and so on. I only said I had never met him and I know only his name. But I don’t think he believed me.” His voice was muffled.

“Did he ask you after Gerson come to you?”

Hiro raised up and brushed his hair with his hands, thinking. “No, he didn’t. He started recently, one week ago, I think.”

Fred’s phone made a sound. He controlled it and before switching it off, he wrote quick answer.

“Speaking about Big Man, he wants to know when you come back.” Fred noticed that Hiro titled his head and looked at his hands when he was typing. “What?”

“You answered to Tadashi immediately.”

“Yeah, is it a problem?” Fred looked at screen of his phone as if he could find an answer there.

“Not a problem, I guess. I mean you often did it with me, too, but I was just said recently that you usually hadn’t done it. ”

“Yeah, there was a time when it took me a while to answer. It changed after – oh, right.” He pressed his lips together. “Right, it had to be something new to him.” His phone rang again so he looked at it quickly. “Now he wrote you could at least once check your phone.”

When Hiro found his phone – when did he put it on the bed? – he did it. He got a message from Tadashi and aunt Cass.

“Apparently I have to go. Now.” He stood up slowly. “Aunt’s waiting.”

"Go to sleep!" Fred didn't get any answer apart from snorting.

***

Sergeant Gerson was sorting documents on his desk when probably last person during his shift – since it was almost over it – entered the police station. He raised up his eyes and noticed Tadashi Hamada. Young man came closer and stood in front of his desk.

“I am sergeant Gerson. How could I help you?” He looked at him. Hamada didn’t seem nervous or worried, but after years of working as policeman, Gerson could notice that his body language was tense and strained, and he noticed some kind of look in his eyes, he couldn’t understand.

“You visited our home some time ago and mentioned Obake. Could I know who is this person?” He asked with surprisingly stoic tone.

Policeman corrected a file of documents. “It is a confidential information.” He started slowly. He wanted to say that Obake had nothing to do with his family in any case, but since Hamada came and asked about him, he had to have some suspicions. He wouldn’t believe it for sure. Gerson had to come up with something quickly since it took him too much time to answer. “Well, I am only able to say, that Obake is an adult man who was suspected in robot fights. It was a false alarm, so I would ask you for not talking about it to anyone else.”

Hamada nodded. “Could I ask about your talk with Hiro?”

“If you were his guardian, you could. However, I was informed that his guardian is Cass Hamada and when we met last time, she wasn’t interested in it.” Seeing that Hamada was about to say something, he added quickly. “It is not a sever situation which puts your brother in danger, so I can’t say anything more right now. If you really want to know, ask your brother or ask Cass Hamada to come here and ask me.”

Hamada had to notice he wouldn’t get more information, because he left after a while.

Gerson still thought that telling him the whole truth sooner than later wasn’t a bad idea, but he was clever enough to know that randomly claiming that time travel existed was stupid. He was going to leave this explanation to others. It was they who dealt with science. As well, he had bigger problem now. He really shouldn't do it, but soon he would have to inform them that Hiro's family was looking for information on their own, because if Cass Hamada came to him, he would have to tell her something and if she discovered he was lying to her, he would be in trouble.

***

“One more moment and you will spend more time at Fred’s house than in yours.” Aunt Cass commented when he entered the kitchen.

He smelled the strong smell of food even before entering the room. “I’m glad to see you, too.” He looked at the pot. “Is it my favourite?”

“Yes, so better take plates and prepare the table. Tadashi will be soon.”

Hiro came up to the cupboard. “He is out?”

He took two plates and glasses. His eyes landed on the kitchen countertop when he walked to the table. He never knew how his aunt was able to keep order while cooking.

Cass nodded. “It has been some time since you helped me in the kitchen.”

Hiro stopped and thought about it. She was right. During these weeks he was busy in the garage or spending time with others. Generally, he came late or at all.

“I will be better, I promise.” He smiled at her.

“I don’t complain. I’m happy you have friends.” She smiled back. “Even if I preferred younger ones, I know you have rarely kept good relationships with people in your age.”

Hiro put dishes at the table, rolling his eyes.

“However, Tadashi might have some complains about stealing his friends.” Cass said when she passed him carrying the pot.

“Did I hear my name?” Tadashi entered the room.

Hiro took a chair to sit. “Aunt just said that you are late.”

“And you are not, for once.” He took off his hat and blazer and hung them on his chair, and sat next to Hiro. He frowned when his eyes were scanning the table.

Cass put the pot between on the wooden pad placed between glasses and raised her eyebrow.

“What?” Hiro looked between them.

“Why are there only two plates there?” Cass asked, as there were prepared only her and Hiro's place.

Hiro blinked and when he realised, what he had done, he had to stop himself from hitting himself. “I forgot, sorry!” He rushed to take another one.

“You forgot about me?” Tadashi turned to look at him.

“Forgot about you? No, of course not!” Hiro laughed nervously, placing the plate and glass in front of him. He almost made his own glass fall. “I just didn’t know when you would come back.”

How could he forget? He spent in past some time, he should already have gotten to used to it. Hiro didn’t notice that his brother and aunt shared a look when a while passed and he was just looking down at his empty plate.

***

“Go to sleep.” Hiro heard Tadashi. “Showcase is just in five days, you have to get more sleep.”

Hiro gave a sign he listened to him, but didn’t move at all, looking at his tablet. Anyway he had been hearing it for some days. He had a lot of nightmares after the fire and he survived, so this time he would do it again.

“Another project? Slow down, bonehead. First you have to get a place.”

Great, he just had to notice it, Hiro, that had hoped that Tadashi wouldn’t pay attention to it, thought. He rolled a screen, controlling another part of their concept idea of flying machine. In this moment it was based mostly on his and Wasabi’s project for competition machine.

“Hiro, seriously. Go to sleep. You look like d- you don’t look well.” As he didn’t get any answer, he came up to Hiro’s bed and took his tablet away from his hands. “You should sleep more and use less it for once.”

Hiro just blinked and raised up his red eyes. Tadashi frowned. It wasn’t first time when he saw it during last days.

“Give it to me back!” He sat up and tried to grab the tablet. While doing it he looked at Tadashi’s hat. Then his behaviour changed dramatically, his eyes widened and mouth opened, and he almost fell off the bed, trying to get himself further away from Tadashi.

“What’s wrong?” Tadashi, remembering last time, didn’t try to come up closer.

Hiro blinked furiously and again looked at the hat. “Why do you have to keep it inside?” He winced angrily.

Tadashi took hat off and controlled it. Not noticing anything strange, he shrugged. “I usually take it off here.” He throw it on his bed, not losing sight of Hiro.

Staring at him and tracking all his movements, Hiro didn’t seem convinced. As Tadashi didn’t understand what problem it was in this situation, he had no idea what to explain and how. If it was something to explain there from his side.

“I go to sleep.” Hiro muttered, not looking at his brother. He prepared himself to bed as fast as possible to avoid more questions.

***

Gogo took a pillow and put it on her ear to not hearing the annoying sound. It was her ringing phone and it was the middle of the night. She wanted to sleep. However, when it rang second time she got up and took it. She didn’t have a time to speak, when she heard Hiro’s voice.

“I need to go to the cemetery.” He whispered.

Gogo pinched her nose. “Again, please?”

He repeated.

“Where that came from?”

“It’s Obake.”

This immediately woke her up.

“Technically, not Obake but Tadashi, but…”

Gogo sighed, realising there was no danger. “I took you there tomorrow. Your aunt kills me if I take you right now. Have you checked what hour it is?” She added quickly as she heard that he was going to protest.

“Fine.” He didn't sound content.

“And I hit you if you sneak out alone, got it?”

“Well, I called you, didn’t I?” He hung up.

Gogo came back to her bed and corrected her pillow, trying to fall asleep again. She heard Honey’s snoring, as she even didn’t wake up meanwhile.

She groaned after a while that seemed to be longer that probably it really was. She covered her eyes with hands, trying to slow down her thoughts. Hiro’s words couldn’t leave her head. As much as she hated to think about it, it was possible that Obake was responsible for it.

They might have denied it when they woke up in this situation but, to be honest, what was more possible – time travel or manipulation of their minds? It wouldn’t be first time when Obake did it. It wouldn’t be even the second one.

She really hoped the whole thing wouldn't turn out to be false from the beginning. Her eyes were the first thing she controlled when she discovered the date. Fortunately, she found no eye contact. Neither did the others. Unfortunately, that didn't completely rule out Obake.

She really tried to focus on Globby and Honey (as their meeting didn’t go as Honey would like to, and he avoided her since then) just to stop her mind from creating worse and worse possibilities, so she could asleep again before the sunrise. It barely helped.

***

Tadashi had just been finishing preparing the tables, when Wasabi entered the Lucky Cat Café. He grabbed one of the belts of his backpack, looking around.

“Hiro isn’t here.” Tadashi said, not raising up his eyes at him.

“Why do you think I’m here because of him?” Wasabi blinked, confused.

“Aren’t you?” He grabbed two glasses and put them on the table. Perhaps tighter than he should have. “Recently all of you, when you come here it’s because of Hiro.”

Trying to not wince, Wasabi grabbed the belt tighter. “We have project to do.”

“Hiro isn’t even in SFIT yet, give him a rest.”

“I know, he is just so excited about it and…”

Tadashi interrupted him quickly. “And looks like death. Leave him alone right now, please.”

“What is it this project?” Cass interjected.

Wasabi looked at her. She was preparing the sweets offered in café and looked relaxed, but something in her told Wasabi that she wasn’t.

“Uh, we’re working on machine to collect space debris.”

Hiro’s aunt paused and turned to him. “It surely could wait. Hiro really needs a break.”

Wasabi pressed his lips together. All of them needed it.

“Where this idea came from?” Tadashi asked.

“It was our own idea.” He wanted to said that it was professor Granville, but he changed his mind. “We can slow down it, I guess.” They couldn’t do it.

Cass raised up her eyebrow. “When I tell Hiro he should slow down, he’ll do it or he’ll be grounded.”

“I guess it’s fair enough.”

He said goodbye and left quickly, seeing that they weren’t willing to talk more being busy with the Café, and they refused when he offered to help. He was really looking forward to dealing with showcase to have a bit of free time before Callaghan.

When Wasabi walked, a small group of students passed him laughing loudly. He winced, hearing it. It might be just him, but he felt as if it was the universe that laughed at him. It didn't help that last summer - before showcase - it could be their group that was just walking and enjoying their time together. Then Hiro had a lot more breaks, they had less thing to deal with, so there was a much more possibilities to find free time.

Unfortunately, he had to admit that Tadashi was right.

When he thought about them spending time together, there were a lot of times he could think about. He remembered perfectly this time when they gathered in Hamada's living room to watch Kentucky Kaiju movie. All of them had already seen it at least once, but they had a great time anyway. Another time Fred brought them burgers (probably from Noodle Burger) and they talked and laughed in the garage eating them while Hiro had a break.

Only to realise, that both situations had place at a time that Tadashi couldn't have remembered. Most of situations he recalled also had happened last time, apart from this one small party and maybe two times when he helped at Lucky Cat. Well, there were times when someone of them was with Hiro (and Tadashi most of times) in the garage but it rarely was all of them, and even that was more work than fun.

If it wasn't enough, this situation showed him that he had begun to mix up what happened last time and this time. Fortunately, these thoughts never left his mind, but he sometimes felt as if it was only a matter of time, when he would say something loud. He liked to think that after the fire it would get better, but in the end he knew It wouldn't.

***

It was early morning and sun was just over the horizon. Hiro wanted to go out as fast as possible and, perhaps, he could have gotten the permission of aunt (not telling her the true destination of his small trip), but later when he thouht about it, he could admit that he didn't give her much choice.

The cemetery was quiet and calm. Hiro couldn’t focus on anything until he and Gogo arrived to the particular place. There, where should have been Tadashi’s grave – and it was there, Hiro was there, he did see it – it wasn’t.

Hiro gasped at empty green grass. Gogo put her hand on his shoulder, but he wasn’t sure if she wanted to cheer him up or herself. Her face was tense when she looked at the same place.

The wind blew and moved the grass around them. Gogo crouched down and touched the soft ground without any sign of hard rock. When Hiro joined to her, she hugged him and dragged him to her side. He leaned his head on her.

They didn’t say anything. Hiro closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. His stupid mind. Why did he want to come here? It didn’t confirm anything. Obake still could play with them, couldn’t he?

Hiro didn’t remember when exactly he came back to home. The café didn’t have any empty table and a few guests was still waiting for their places, so Cass and Tadashi had their hands full. Not saying any words, he prepared himself and helped them. He had just finished taking next order when aunt stopped him. She put her hand on his forehead.

She took his notes with the order. “You should go rest.”

He frowned but listened to it, not saying anything, and went to his room. Once he entered it, he noticed that his tablet was gone. He winced. He could bet he would find it on Tadashi’s site. Not having energy to be angry, he throw himself on his bed without changing his clothes.

Tadashi stood above him. He smiled and his eyes shined. The sign changed. He felt a pain.

He heard a rushed footsteps and Tadashi ran into the room, looking higher than usual. Then Hiro realised he fell from the bed.

“And you wonder why I don’t sleep.” He muttered, rubbing back of his head.

Tadashi handed him the glass of water. Hiro thanked, sniffed water and drank a bit. Tadashi seemed to be arguing with himself, before his face took on an expression of caution and empathy.

“Is it about mom and dad?”

Hiro blinked. “What? Where this question came from?”

“Never mind.” Tadashi said, for once turning his sight of Hiro, but after a while he changed his mind and decided to ask one more question. “Would you like to go to visit their grave?”

Hiro’s eyes narrowed, when he stared at him. “Perhaps later, when I have more time.”

Tadashi titled his head, confused. His thoughts was interrupted by Hiro who started running across his part of room and looking for something in his things.

“I don’t believe!” He almost made one of his robot fell. “You took my phone too?! I need it!”

His older brother crossed his arms, looking down at him. “You need a sleep.”

“I fell asleep immediately when I came here! I’ve just waken up.” He rolled his eyes. “I have to call Gogo!”

“You were with her all morning.”

“So?” Hiro glared at him.

“You will get your phone tomorrow if you sleep all night.”

“But it isn’t even the evening!”

“Exectly and you came here just over one hour ago.” Tadashi came up to him and put his hand on his shoulder. “Don’t act like it is the end of the world, knucklehead.”

He muttered “it is” quietly so Tadashi couldn’t hear him, he passed him and laid down on the bed with face touching a pillow.

Chapter Text

Hiro poured a cafe to the biggest cup he could find and drank it in one go. He started to think, that a little while longer and he would forget how it was when you could sleep continuously all night.

The only one good thing, which happened recently, was the fact that Tadashi realised that just telling Hiro go to bed wouldn’t solve the problem. Instead it would make Hiro more annoyed than he had already been – Hiro didn’t have any energy to think that he shouldn’t be annoyed by his brother. Wasn’t that what he wanted? To have his brother back?

It was just so irritating to listen to the same thing over and over again, and most of the time, when Tadashi spoke to him, was about it during this couple of days. Even if it was for his own good, his patience was limited – but Hiro felt in the air that something was about to happen so he tried not to complain.

Microbots had been completely finished and ignored by him since putting them in the dustbins at garage. He focused on doing them so much to get his mind busy so he wouldn’t think about them being responsible for Tadashi’s death. While it worked then, now these thoughts came back as boomerang. If he didn’t create them, Callaghan wouldn’t have stayed in the building in fire, so Tadashi wouldn’t have run into it.

After the fire he had always been thinking that having the possibility of changing the past, he would never build them, but here he was – literally doing the opposite of it. Was getting to SFIT worth repeating it?

Hiro knew he wasn’t the one responsible for the fire, but there still was the part of him that couldn’t stop wondering. What if it was his action that put the fire? Perhaps, he shouldn’t have left the scene while he was presenting Microbots.

He looked at the empty cup with grim sight, his grip was strong on its handle. He expected to be distracted by one of his friend, who could easily recognise his mood and make him feel better, but he quickly remembered he was alone in the kitchen.

He couldn’t even text or call them, because Tadashi still didn’t give him back his phone nor tablet. Obviously he gave it back himself once, but it was quickly discovered and taken again, and he didn’t try again not to be on thinner ice than he had already been. At least, he thought so, since both his brother and aunt were acting strangely around him recently.

When it finally came time for his presentation, he thought he wouldn’t get on the scene this time. He just froze in place and didn’t move at all, even if he heard his name called by loudspeaker. It was his friends (and brother) who helped him to put himself in order and start presentation.

***

The area was exactly the same as last time. Every even the smallest detail of it. At least, these things that Grace saw on the photos as she wasn’t there personally then. Finally, between a lot of people, she found Krei and Judy when a group of people moved away and she could notice blond hair of Krei. His assistant was standing right next to him, keeping her tablet close to her chest. Grace passed approached them. When they noticed her, she nodded, greeting them and presenting herself.

Judy nodded back. “I was surprised when I heard you are returning to SFIT.”

Grace placed her hands behind her back. “You know about it.”

“So you’re going to be a new professor?” Krei scanned her up and down, with his usual smirk on his face. “Then I am looking forward to seeing inventions of your students. They surely will be something impressive.”

Sudden louder noise caused a commotion in area of main scene. As Grace had a great idea what was going on, she wasn’t surprised. Meanwhile Krei and Judy shared a look, and after a few seconds started moving to the direction of the centre of the commotion. Granville followed them, noticing that Judy took a look at her, before she fully focused on the scene.

“The Microbots are controlled with this neutral transmitter.” Hiro pointed out on his head. “I think what I want them to do, they do it.”

The Microbots changed the shape into the hand and waved. Last time, when she had watched a video of this presentation, it was remarkable, but seeing it in real live it was on a completely different level of impression. Ignoring his appearance, because during his original presentation Hiro seemed to look much healthier (if Hiro didn’t want to listen to his family or friends, she would make sure he would listen to her).

Perhaps, it made her dislike Callaghan even more as he was the reason why Hiro decided to never come back to Microbots later.

She noticed a few details in the speech and moving that was different first time; he never left the scene and Microbots didn’t touch anything apart from its floor. That could be a bit less impressive for her as she had a comparison, but she knew Hiro was about to get his place at SFIT again.

When the presentation was over and during all excitement in the audience Krei was going to back of the scene, Grace slowly followed them. In the corner of her eye she saw Callaghan that also looked interested in meeting Hiro.

“Yes.” Krei had to hear what Tadashi said, once he came closer to them. “With some development your Tech could be revolutionary.”

Grace watched when Hiro gave to Krei one of his Microbots and in this moment Callaghan showed up.

Grace noticed Tadashi’s confusion when he realized that not only had his brother almost frozen in place, but so had his friends. She hoped that Gogo only looked as if she was going to hit Callaghan.

Fortunately, Grace wasn’t the only one who had noticed it, as Honey Lemon put her hands on Gogo’s shoulders, focusing her attention on herself, and shook her head. Even if Honey Lemon didn’t look content seeing the man at all either, she probably wanted to avoid a confrontation at that moment.

Callaghan had to be aware of all of it, since he looked around with frowned forehead. His eyes stopped at Hiro, that tried to have as neutral face as possible (he didn’t handle it better than Gogo), and was about to say something, but then Grace decided to speak.

“Really impressive work you have done there, mister Hamada.” She smiled at him, gaining all eyes turned at herself. Especially Callaghan who turned his head in surprisingly quick movement.

Hiro let out the breath he had been unconsciously holding. “Thank you, professor Granville.”

“There is no need to use this title. She isn’t a professor anymore.” Callaghan interjected immediately with angry voice, sending her an equally angry look.

Fred was about to say something, but before he had a chance, he had been poked in the side with an elbow by Wasabi. Instead, it was Tadashi who spoke.

“Isn’t she? I had impression that she is going to be our professor in next year.”

“She is.” Hiro crossed his arms and clasped his hands on the sleeves of his red sweatshirt. “Well, she will be, actually.”

“Excuse me? Why do I not know anything about it?” Indignation could be heard in his voice.

Grace raised her eyebrow in disbelief. “You should ask yourself about it. It was never a secret so I have no idea why you don’t know about it.” She made a pause. “What’s more, I was said you were informed about it and didn’t have any complain then.”

Callaghan pressed his lips into a narrow line, glaring at her a whole time. She understood why she wasn’t his favourite person, to say the least, but with all that he was planning, he was the last person that could judge her.

The man snarked and decided to completely ignore her, turning away from her. He cleared his thrown and turned his sight at Hiro.

“You must be Hiro Hamada.”

Hiro nodded shortly.

“Your brother told me a lot about you.”

Hiro nodded again, shifting his weight to the other leg. Apparently, Callaghan expected more excitement from Hiro’s side, when he was scanning him with confused expression at his face. Grace had to stop herself from snarking.

Callaghan put his hand in one of pocket of his trousers and hesitated. Grace gritted her teeth. If this kind of thing made him change his mind, she would be going to speak her mind to him straight away. The Callaghan she had known once would never do it, but in the other side, current Callaghan did – or was about to do – things that his past version would never approve.

For a very short second, she noticed a worried expression of Hiro’s face as he recognized Callaghan’s hesitation, too.

***

It took all energy that Hiro had – and it wasn’t a lot – not to attack Callaghan right then when he showed up. Right, he may have given up this desire in the past, but it was now and here, and Callaghan was acting like he wouldn’t do anything wrong. Hearing Granville’s voice helped him to focus on something else than the man standing almost in front of him.

Then, his anger came back when Callaghan was glaring at professor like she would be the worst person in the world. How dare this – and why did Tadashi seem distrustful of Professor Granville, when he saw Callaghan’s reaction to her?

He had to stop himself from laughing hysterically spontaneously, hearing his lack of knowledge. Was he so busy preparing his plan that missed things that happened around him?

Then he turned to him. Hiro could feel a Tadashi’s confusion, when Tadashi was looking at his back while Hiro barely interacted with Callaghan. He gritted. He couldn’t wait when Callaghan's case would be over, and Tadashi would stay alive. Then, perhaps, he could really start to forgive think better about the man. When it would be both of them who had a reunion with lost family members, not only Callaghan.

When he realised that it took Callaghan a bit too long time to take the envelop with acceptance of admission to SFIT, part of him wanted to shout at him. He tried his best not to look concern. He didn’t think what it would be if he didn’t get a place. He just knew that Tadashi would tell him he should have prepared himself better (what would be fair, but it wasn’t the problem in this situation).

However, after a time, that seemed an eternity, Callaghan took the envelop and looking at Hiro, started to speak again.

“The microbots are extraordinary invention and I am looking forward to seeing your next ones when you will gain more knowledge.“ He smiled and gave it to Hiro.

In the jail you won’t see a lot, Hiro said mentally, but physically he forced himself to smile and nodded. He took it and thanked, looking at it. He felt Tadashi’s hand on his shoulder.

Then they left the building. Hiro couldn’t drown out his heartbeat. He clenched his hand into a fist. Not now. He had to take Tadashi as far as possible.

“Dinner is on me!” He heard Aunt Cass’s voice.

“Free food!” Was it Fred?

He felt Tadashi’s hand in his own one and pulled him towards Wasabi’s car. Someone joined to him at the second side of Tadashi. He had no idea when, but they dragged Tadashi in back of the car.

“Hurry up! We don’t have all night!”

“You’ll show him a SFIT another time.” Hiro heard someone speaking.

It was just him or it was going hotter and hotter? The fire started? He clasped his hands on the material. Landscape behind the window. Did they move away from the building?

His throat was so dry. He needed a water. Someone handed him a water. Once it touched his mouth, his stomach was churning. His whole body was on fire. He tried to curl up in a ball. He couldn’t. Why?

It was so hot, his breath hurt.

He felt a cold air on the face. The fire finished?

They stopped. Why they stopped? They had to keep going!

More cold wind. Was he on the ground?

“-SFIT, Little Man.”

They were at SFIT? No!

“Breathe.”

He breathed, didn’t he? It hurt.

“Breathe in. Breathe out.”

He couldn’t do it.

“Breathe in. Breathe out.”

It hurt. It was a smoke?

“Breathe in. Breathe out.”

He felt a weight on his shoulder. He couldn't do it.

“Breathe in. Breathe out.”

After a long time it got easier. Cold air surrounded him. He was sitting on the ground? Why he was on the ground? What happened to the car?

“Car is close. We stopped. We are far away from SFIT.”

They are far away from SFIT. Good. He breathed in. It didn’t hurt.

“Very good. Now again. Breathe in, breathe out.”

He was doing good.

“Honey Lemon, Gogo and your aunt are far away from SFIT, too.”

He nodded.

“Do you hear me?"

He nodded again.

"Perfectly. Could you name five things you can see?”

What he see?

“I see grass. A pincone. I see you, Wasabi, and your green sweater, and your car.”

“Very well, now, name four things you can hear.”

“I hear your voice, my breath, driving cars… and birds.”

“Excellent. Give me three things you can feel.”

“Your hand on my shoulder, grass around me and wind on my skin.”

When did he take off his hoodie?

“Great. Give me two things you can smell.”

“Forest, your cologne.”

“Excellent. And one thing you can taste.”

“Um… water?”

“Very well.” He massaged Hiro’s shoulder. “Ok, Hiro, we stay here as long as you want to.”

Hiro leaned his forehead on Wasabi while he was still massaging him. After some time of silence he stood up with a little help. He looked around and noticed that Fred slowly showed up behind the car.

Hiro titled his head, but before he said something, the second head appeared. Hiro’s eyes widened and he felt that his breath stopped in his chest for a second. He ignored concerned Fred that looked between them.

Before he realized, he was at side of his older brother, jumped at him and hugged him as strong as he could. They both landed on the ground. He felt the arms surrounding him, snuggling into his chest plate.

This time Tadashi left the SFIT before the fire. He was alive and save, he repeated, ignoring part of him telling him he would wake up soon. Tadashi was here. He was sure right now. He had to be close to him and hear his heartbeating, otherwise he would lose it again.

***

Gogo was thinking that her heart was going to jump out from her chest. It was only touch of Honey that kept her in a place with a rational level of thinking.

She looked through the windshield around the front seat, breathing and tapping at her lap, trying to focus on that and Honey’s grip (she started massaging her right knee).

When their looks crossed each other, Honey gave her a small and quick smile that didn't reach her eyes, the tension visible on her face. Gogo tightly leaned her head against the backrest and closed her eyes.

Cass wasn’t going fast but it wasn’t Wasabi’s slowness or Gogo’s speed. It was something in the middle.

“Something wrong?” Cass asked when she took a look at the overhead mirror and saw their faces.

Gogo hoped that the smile, that she gave her, seemed honest and natural.

“It was a day full of emotions.” Honey, who usually was better at pretending than Gogo, said.

And it wasn’t even end of it, Gogo thought wincing. But they knew what would happen. Or perhaps it had already happened, she didn’t care. They handled the most important thing in this moment.

Honey took her phone and looked at it. While she was reading her eyebrow became one line above her eyes. Gogo turned to her quickly.

“Something happened?” She asked quickly, the tension in her body, ready to react on whatever could happen (her voice surely drew Crass’s attention, she thought deep inside).

“They had to stop.” Honey breathed, she took away her hand from Gogo's knee. “Hiro has had a moment of… Now he is fine. Everyone are fine.”

“You all are so worried about Hiro.” Cass' voice cut through the air when the silnce extended.

Gogo swallowed and smiled bitterly. She just shrugged, even if she wasn’t sure if the woman would see it. Fightng side by side, staying late with their projects and a lot much more for what she didn't have an energy to think now.

Honey found Gogo’s hand and grabbed her with her own. “About him and Tadashi. They, they both will be so excited when they arrive to SFIT together first time.”

“Well, they had an unofficial visit earlier." Cass pointed out. "Knowing Hiro he has remembered any detail of everything he saw.”

Cass frowned as she didn't received an answer again.

They arrived to the area that, as Gogo recognized, was close to Lucky Cat Café.

“Hiro,” Cass started again, seeing that the girls weren't going to say anything. “recently – Do you have idea what is going with him?”

The girls shared a look. Honey bit her lip, looking at opposite side from Cass.

“You have been spending a lot of time together, you surely had to notice that difference in his behaviour.” She had to stop at red light, so she used the opportunity and looked directly at them. “Or he was lying to me and Tadashi?”

“What? No," Gogo shook her head vigorously. "he was with us every time he said so.”

 "And you exactly know that? Did you tell you every time when he was leaving to Fred for instance?"

Gogo snorted mentally. Good point. It wasn’t at Hiro’s style.

“Most of the time we were together with Fred, so yes.” She had to count to ten, before continuation. She couldn’t focus on the talk, as her thoughts ran away to, fair, grave, number doesn't exist, empty lab, another topic. “Listen, madam. Hiro isn’t going to bot fighting. He has never been there.”

She knew she made a mistake, when she noticed that woman’s grip on the steering wheel became stronger and her knuckles turned white.

“I have never mentioned both fighting.”

“Tadashi has,” Gogo answered quickly, “so I connected it by myself and deduced that it was that. If I am wrong, correct me.”

They arrived to Café. Cass parked in silence and they entered the Lucky Cat. Honey and Gogo weren’t going to continue the talk. Neither was Cass Hamada.

Chapter Text

A guiet clatter sounded, when aunt Cass put the last plate on the table. Hiro flinched visibly, said plate landed in front of him. The edge of his lips raised to poor version of smile and quickly fell, his eyes didn’t move from the table. Did he even register the appearance of the plate?

Aunt paused, seeing the picture created around the table in the Lucky Cat by students of SFIT [his friends didn’t look better than Hiro, their meals touched barely or at all; Tadashi could feel the ball of concern increasing in his stomach (that had been growing for some time, not wanting to disappear)]. Exchanging a look with Tadashi, she saw she wasn’t the only confused person and his eyes didin’t calm down her own worries.

“Did Hiro feel bad along the way?” Remembering Honey’s words, she came forward and checked Hiro’s forehead. Hiro completely ignored her touch, giving her no sign of reaction.

“He had a panic attack,” Tadashi said with frown, looking at his brother siting on his left. “All day he didn’t seem to be himself, I think that showcase could be a reason of more stress, not to mention all emotions gathered after whole time he spent preparing on this day.” He winced his mouth, not being fully convinced by his own words.

Phone calls announcing receipt of a new message, the sound seemed to cut through the air, again and again. With such frequency, something had to happen.

Not losing sight of his brother, he quickly took his phone controlling it (he thought he had seen others doing the same). He had to double-take at the words shown in first message. The SFIT went up in flames.

He repeated it loud and, maybe because of the shock, it took him a while to notice that his words elicited a reaction only from his aunt, that was about to take her seat, but hearing it, she paused above the chair for a second before she did that.

Or he thought so, until Fred suddenly got up from his seat and approached him in a few quick steps. He looked at him in way he had never done before and something in his eyes (and his face, and his whole body) made Tadashi’s stomach clench even more (Fred wasn’t Fred).

Fred leaned over him, his right hand landed on Tadashi’s neck and left one on the wrist. After a while, that seemed the iternity, Fred made a sound resembling a sigh (or a sob, definiately a sob) and strengthened his grip, almost resting his entire body on him.

Tadashi put his free hand on Fred’s shoulder, patting it while he looked above his head at others.

Their eyes focused on Fred and seemed to analyse him with care worthy of that one in the labs, and when they found – or not – what they were looking for, they all, including Hiro (his wide eyes, pale face), turned their eyes to Tadashi, not making any move.

Honey, as if she noticed Tadashi’s look at her (Tadashi didn't think she did; she looked like she was far away in spirit, and she sounded so), shook her head, her hair moved with that move.

“That’s real,” she whispered, and Tadashi had to make an effort to hear her. “It’s really happening.”

In that moment, Tadashi didn’t even look twice at Gogo’s hand suddenly put on Honey’s hand on the table.

Gogo nodded after Honey’s words, but Tadashi wasn’t sure if she really heard them. Sitting there, in front of him, she breathed in and out, not turning her face from him.

When he wanted to look at Wasabi, he found his chair empty. He almast jumped up from his seat (Fred corrected his grip at his neck), when in corner of his eye he noticed a flash of green above him. Wasabi, with frown and shadow in his eyes, touched his neck, avoiding Fred (his hand was sweat and cold).

Aunt Cass sat there, not knowing what she was looking at. “It’s terrible to hear that, but I’m sure they will fix it. It isn’t a first time in fire, is it?”

Tadashi nodded. With the institut’s character, fire happened there time to time (he couldn’t think about another so huge fire as that one he had seen on the article’s picture).

“Someone was hurt?” aunt Cass asked, looking at Tadashi’s phone in his hand on which Fred held a firm grip. Before he had time to look at it to find answer, Wasabi said one firm word.

“Callaghan.” His voice froze Tadashi. Such a strong certainty, as if he was saying that the sun would come up the next day, not that,

The meaning of that one word hit him. Not thinking more, he pulled his hand from Fred's grip and found most recent news about the situation at SFIT.

He almost sighed in relief, raising his eyes up from the screen (he didn’t understand Hiro’s frown and flash of anger in his eyes).

“There is noth-” He paused, reaching the end part of the article. Finishing these two sentences, he realised he had been holding his breath. Before correcting himself, he took a deep breath.

“There is no evidence yet, but he might be inside during the fire.” Tadashi swallowed, wanting to stop and keep inside his dark thoughts, he didn’t need more worries in this moment (the woman had to be wrong; he had to be outside and alive).

When Tadashi’s eyes turned to Hiro, he could swear he saw Hiro’s eyes rolling at his words. Not believing that Hiro would react in that way on this kind of news, he blamed his eyes for the confusion.

He felt aunt's look at himself, so gave her a smile showing he was alright. She didn't need his worries to add to her own at this point.

“I think it’s becoming late.” Aunt joined her hands together, her sight flew above full plates on the table (meanwhile observation others, she and Tadashi didn’t eat anything either). “Everyone come back to own place,”

She noticed the apparent lack of reaction [There was reaction, Tadaschi saw it; (Fred pressed his forehead against his neck and Wasabi put his hand on his opposite shoulder again, Gogo and Honey almost synchronously tensed their arms, looking at him)].

“Or you could stay here. For one night, I think we could find some place.”

“They can stay in my room,” Hiro proposed quickly, but his voice sounded as if he was far away from this room.

My?

Aunt blinked, observing Hiro for a while, but nodded biting her upper lips. “If Tadashi doesn’t mind.”

Tadashi tried to stand up, but Fred didn’t seem willing to step aside. Instead, answering for Tadashi’s attempt to free himself ended up with Fred pressed his entire body to his body. Fortunately, Wasabi came to the rescue and now Fred was standing next to him, not wanting to lose a sight of him. Wasabi gave him a quick hug, patted him on the back and gave him a small smile.

Tadashi’s sight followed others while they were gathering together and, surrounding Hiro, were climbing the stairs, heading to Hiro and Tadashi's room.

Almost automatically Tadashi took a plate, but aunt’s hand stopped him. She shook her head at him and waved him off. “Follow them, I’ll handle it. And don’t press them.” She added, when he arrived to buttom of the stairs.

Easy to say, hard to do. Something was wrong with his brother, with his friends and it didn’t start today. He didn’t press them, patiently waiting when- if they would want to share it with him, but there was no sign that they were going to do that (all explanations, he had already gotten, were nothing but lies).

***

Tadashi corrected a pillow, listening to breaths of others. Each of them insisted on sleeping with them in their room and Tadashi had no energy to question it. The room was large enough to accommodate them on the floor with pillows and blankets.

Now, considering their breaths, no one of them was sleeping. Tadashi himself had problem with falling asleep. Each time he closed his eyes, dozen of questions were crossing his mind and alternately was seeing pictures of Hiro, his friends and Callaghan; too many of that to count.

Something touched him and he almost jumped off his skin. Trying to calm down his racing heart, he looked at intruder. Hiro. He had on his tounge some words to speak his mind, but seeing Hiro’s face he muffled them before he started talking.

“What’s up?”

Hiro opened his mouth, but noting came, and quickly shut it, looking at him with that look in his eyes that gave Tadashi chills down his spine.

Hiro made a gesture; the same he had done as a child when he wanted to sleep with him after a nightmare. Without thought, he raised a blanket and Hiro didn’t waste time, quickly landing next to him, his hands clenched at his back and his entire body glued to Tadashi.

Tadashi ran his fingers through Hiro’s hair, not saying a word.

It must have been hours before he felt that his brother had finally fallen asleep, but he couldn’t follow him in that himself. Others slept as well, but a few times he heard a sudden awakening of any of them. Once his eyes met Wasabi’s eyes, but he didn’t show any reaction or desire to talk so Tadashi didn’t react either.

Insteat of sleeping, he was following any news about situatiotion at SFIT, but once Hiro winced because of screen glare, he switched his phone off, knowing he would find out all about it in the morning (there still was no information about Callaghan’s status).

It didn’t help, because shortly after Hiro woke up anyway, with sharp breath. He said nothing, but he put closer to Tadashi even more – what Tadashi thought was impossible – pressing his ear to his chest.

At some point he had to fall asleep, because next time he opened his eyes, the light was coming into the room and he was trapped in strong hug.

"Wait, Fred?" He blinked, seeing light brown instead of black mess of his brother.

Said brother, not fully awake, complained, being trapped under the weight of Fred as well.

Chapter Text

If Hiro didn’t know better, he would think he had come back from the fight with the Noodle Burger Boy last day. His energy level reached zero. His temples was pulsing each time he moved his head and when he opened his eyes, the glaring light was trying to kill them. He put rest of his energy into hiding his face in warm material next to him with the intention of staying that way forever.

Unfortunately, peace and quiet weren’t meant for him as something thick leaned on him and then pushed him away, stealing the heat from his reach. Cold air quickly hit his skin while he leaned up on his elbow, trying to recognise the situation. He rubbed his eyes with the hand,

“What the,” He guickly moved, avoiding an elbow on his face. He blinked furiously. “Fred? What are you doing here?”

“I’d also like to know it.”

Mutted Tadashi’s voice reached Hiro’s ears and his heartbeating almost stopped. He shook his head, driving away intrusive thoughts. His headache, of course, didn’t let go, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it.

Fred’s face appeared above Hiro, casting an pleasant shadow. A smile from ear to ear glued to his face could easily replace the Sun. It might have been just a play of the light, but Hiro thought he had noticed a grim look in his eyes (and he wouldn’t be surprised if he really did).

“Rise and shine!”

Tadashi poked Fred in his arm, trying to slip from his grasp. “Get out from me, first.”

Hiro rolled out of bed, his feet hit a cold floor and he stretched his arm wide. He had no time to do anything else before Fred appeared in his sight again, slipping off the bed and crouching on his knee. He put his hand on Hiro’s knee, intently observing his face.

A second later Hiro felt the blanket behind him shift and Tadashi sat down on his other side, doing exactly the same thing as Fred. Hiro rolled his eyes, but regreted that quickly as he couldn’t stop a wince.

“Ugh,” He leaned elbows on his knees and hid his head in his hands. “I had to sleep badly.”

Suddenly he felt a hand circling on his back, but he showed no reaction even when he realised it was Tadashi’s. He took a deep breath, focusing his entire attention to that touch (Fire was gone and Tadashi was here).

“Yesterday you had an eventful day.” Tadashi’s voice sounded in Hiro’s mind.

(He had been hearing Tadashi’s voice every day for a month. It was just now, when he took a moment to realize how real it sounded.)

Hiro felt a smile growing an his face and couldn’t stop a laugh escaping from his throat. The sun was shining, giving a warm and friendly light to the room (it was an new verison of the old day).

Fred’s chuckle mixed with Hiro’s. “You have no idea.” Words sounded bitter while his eyes were wandering between Tadashi and Hiro.

A sound interrupted them, signalising that they weren’t only ones who woke up.

Hiro’s eyes followed Tadashi when he was acrossing the room and while Wasabi stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder, and looked him up and down. Wasabi’s entire body expressed relief,and he seemed to think about his next step.

Whatever he planned to do was too slow as Gogo appeared between him and Tadashi, covering his brother a little from Hiro’s sight. He wasn’t able to see Gogo’s face, but her energy was practically vibrating under her skin.

Honey walked past Wasabi and stopped right next to him. Hiro had a perfect angle to see Honey bitting her lips while she was observing Gogo and Tadashi, and the way her eyes were sparkling fully focusing on them.

“What’s up?” Hiro heard Gogo’s voice and could imagine a smile on her face. “Do you have any plans for today?”

Tadashi shrugged and waved at Hiro. “Ask Hiro, a choice is on him.” He hestitated. “If he wants to do something, I mean. We can always stay here and relax a bit.” He addressed these words to Hiro, looking at him.

Hiro turned away his face, but showed him a thumb up. It must have been enough, because Tatashi gave no comment on it.

Their voices mixed together while they were preparing for a day.

Honey’s hair disappeared on the stair and Hiro was about to follow her and others, but he felt a hand on his shoulder stopping him on his place. He turned back and saw Fred, shifting from one foot to the other. His entire enthusiasm left him and a frown appeared on his face.

Hiro felt anxiety in his chest (it was the moment when something would go wrong).

“Uh,” Fred started, but the footsteps interupted him.

Wasabi’s head showed on the top of the stairs. His face tensed as he noticed them, and he looked back at the bottom of the stairs. “What’s going on?” He whispered, leaning on the railing to be closer to them without getting in the room. “Everything is alright, don’t worry!” He added louder while next pair of footsteps was heard on the lower part of stairs.

“I-uh- we explain later,” Fred answered quickly, also whispering. “Tell them we join in a moment.”

Wasapi disappeared again and when no one appeared on his place and no sound was heard, Fred pulled Hiro deeper into the room, to Hiro’s desk.

“About the light,” he whisperred. “I think I can remember something.”

Hiro felt a chill run through his body, and he took a step back in shock.

“Not much, and not sure it’ll help us. But, I think I saw when it covered you right before explosion.”

Hiro opened his mouth, but nothing came out apart from a sight. They shared a really long look; their wordless communication wasn’t forgotten learnt during their fights as a team. Fred nodded sharply in the end, and they together rushed to others.

When they joined them at the table, aunt Cass’s hand froze as her eyes landed on Hiro. She slowly lowered her hand and put down that, what she was keeping, on her plate. She stood up, straightened her shoulders and turned to Hiro. During her way on her face appeared an expression that Hiro didn’t like, and he tried his best not to wince.

She put her hand on his shoulder, nodded at Fred pointing him his seat next to Wasabi, and then nodded at Hiro in silent request to follow her. Hiro followed her without a word, looking back at others once. He had bad feelings about it.

She led him to her room and gastured at her bed without a word. Hiro sat down at it, chuwing his lower lip. Mosaic cats looked at him appraisingly.

“Hiro,” She started, and Hiro didn’t like her tone; she was always using it, when he was sick to tell him doctor's recommendations that she knew he wouldn’t like to hear about. “I’ve noticed- we’ve noticed that you are having a worse time.” She raised her hand, interrupting what he had to say.

“You’ve worked hard to get the acceptance letter and you got it. I’m so proud of you. Tadashi is proud of you. But,” She breathed, and placed her hand on his knee, squeezing slightly. “We are worried about you, about your new habits. You’ve taken too much projects at once. Your sleeping schedule doesn’t exist anymore, you barely eat anything, and,”

“And I’m a one big mess, I got it.” He tilted his head back. “How can you say I don’t sleep?”

She sent him an odd look. “You woke up me several times, and even more Tadashi.”

Hiro couldn’t stop a grimace forming on his face. While he knew he had woken up Tadashi more times he wanted to count, he wasn't aware that his aunt had experienced it as well, but was it really something to worry about? (He was always doing his best not to wake anyone up, and most of the time he succeeded.)

His shoulders hunched under aunt’s look, and he looked down at his hands on the knees. After a while, he put his hand on his aunt’s hand.

“I’m not angry at you. You are going to start a new adventure. I’m sure you will be like a fish in water there, but you’re only fourteen years old. Whether you like it or not, your body is neither used to nor, even less, adapted to the lifestyle you've been living lately. If you’re going to continue it, you will quickly fail,”

“From exhaustion.” Hiro’s voice seemed too harsh even in his own ears. “I’m sorry, aunt. I know, but…”

His headache was going to kill him, he felt as if he had no energy left, but he knew he had no option. He had to keep going. (What was he going to do? Tell Obake to wait because he needed a break?)

She gave him a small smile, but her firmness didn’t waver. “We need to set new rules when you start classes.”

His grimace deepened, but he nodded. “I still have a some time before that.”

“And,” Aunt Cass straightened her back as she paused and looked at Hiro’s eyes.

He felt as if she was scanning his soul and reading his mind, and the more time passed without a word, the most worried Hiro became.

“Hiro, if something is happening, you can tell me, you know?”

He nodded, swallowing. “I know, thanks aunt.” He quickle stood up, and rushed to the door. He stopped right before leaving the room. “Uh, can I?”

Aunt sighed, but nodded shortly. He didn’t waste time, not risking she would change her mind, and disapeared from her sight.

***

Hiro could barely swallow a single bite of his toast, but forced himself to do so, not wanting to give Tadashi and his aunt another reason to complain. The toast tasted tasteless in his mouth and seemed endless.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Fred was playing with his food instead of eating, staring at his plate. Gogo’s plate stayed forgotten while she was busy talking to Tadashi and Wasabi (he had fallen silent a second ago; his eyes seemed to analyse Tadashi).

Honey Lemon had already finished her own meal and now she was drinking a tea. Her eyes was looking at Tadashi and she appeared thoughtful. Suddenly, she put down her cup and a frown appeared on her face.

Hiro followed her sight, observing his brother. He was busy talking, relatively indifferent to his surroundings. But Hiro saw his stiff figure, and when he leaned back he could see Tadashi’s hand playing with his phone under the table.

“Are you ok, Tadashi?”

Honey Lemon was the one who asked, but everyone else was waiting for the answer.

Being interrupted in the middle of the sentence, Tadashi blinked, his fingers froze and his phone almost fell, and he looked up at them as if he didn’t expect that question. He looked at them with an odd expression on his face.

“There was a fire.” He explained, slowly, as if he had to explain the sky was blue.

Wasabi blinked at him. “Oh, we know that.”

Tadashi focused on him his disbelieving look. “And that’s it?”

Wasabi shrugged and took a look at others, watching their reactions that didn’t truly exist. “That’s a bit old news.”

Tadashi blinked again, and seemed to lose his words.

Finally, Hiro’s toast was finished and forgotten, and it seemed to be a signal for Tadashi to turn on his phone. His finger was clicking the screen like crazy until it completely froze above it, Tadashi’s face turned pale. The phone fell to the ground with a loud clatter.

Hiro’s blood froze, and his shoulder tensed, expecting the worst.

Gogo stood up, almost jumping from her seat, clenching her hands into fists and looking for a danger.

Wasabi controlled the door; they had a safe and quick way out in case of,

“Cal-Callaghan was inside.” Tadashi’s voice was trembling and sounded weak, he looked like he was going to faint.

Hiro quickly found himself by his brother’s side and he saw Wasabi appearing on the other side.

Tadashi made a sudden rapid movement, stood up and stepped away from them. The chair hit a ground ignored by everyone.

“Callaghan, he-he is g-gone.”

Wasabi blandly grabbed his chair with one hand, moving it closer, and together with Hiro directed Tadashi to sit on it.

“Uh, we kn-ow!” Fred winced, rubbing his ribs that had been in close contact with Gogo's elbow.

Gogo’s sent him a long warning look.

“It’ll be fine, you’re gonna see him soon.” Fred said instead, observing Gogo’s reaction and taking a step away from her. “Last time he was doing pretty well.”

Tadashi made an odd sound, as if he wanted to laugh but couldn’t. He shook his head sharply, looking away from Fred. He hid his face in hands, his shoulders hunched and trembled.

“Hiro.” Honey Lemon’s voice reached Hiro’s ears.

He took a look at her, reluctantly taking his eyes off his brother. Her face was empty, not showing anything, her eyes were focused, and she stand there ready for action.

“What about your microbots?” she asked, her voice was firm and calm.

Hiro nodded, realising her intention straight away. Without a word, he rushed to his room, skipping two flights of stairs at a time and almost bumping into his aunt.

He looked for his clothes he had worn the previous day. His heartbeating was ringing in his ears, faster and faster, when he couldn’t find them between a pile of his other clothes.

Then, finally, his eyes caught a piece of his hoodie that had landed almost under his bed. He hurried up to it; his knees hit a ground when he sat down next to it. Under the hoodie he noticed also his trousers and shirt; but his attention only focused on the pockets. He searched pocket after pocket, in hodie and trousers, in the pile of other clothes, under and on his bed. A trash, a crumpled paper, a trash, a coin and coin again.

Sweat ran down his neck as he searched again and again, each time with no result.

He went back downstairs as if on autopilot; his body felt numb.

The voices fell silent when he appeared, and everyone looked at him expectantly. He hide his hand in the pockets and looked at his feet, shrugging his shoulders clumsily.

“I don’t have it.”

He tried to remember what he had done with it. He had it, he put it into his pocket when Tadashi asked–no, Tadashi didn’t ask. That had happened last time. This time, Hiro realized with horror, Krei didn’t give him back his microbot.

“I think Krei’s got it,” he muttered resignedly.

Tadashi closed eyes and his hand ran through his hair, leaving it with a mess. He took a few steps away from others and stopped, looking at them with an unreadable expression on his face. He shook his head, his lips twisted in a grimace, and without a word and looking back, he left the Lucky Cat Café.

Chapter Text

They really made it; Tadashi survived the fire, alive and untouched by the flames. His bed was in mess, more often than not, and the hat ended up thrown in the corner, forgotten by him. And still, Hiro had an impression that Tadashi was not there, not really.

Since Tadashi found out about Callaghan, he was spending more time in the garage than anywhere else, and he put more energy into keeping Hiro far away from that place than into talking with him.

Since his brother didn’t want him to be around him, Hiro spent more time at Fred’s place. It was not like it was something new, this time or the other one, and, at least he could easier focus on his own work, undisturbed by anyone.

And he and his friends had a lot of things to do since they officially started to put their projects into practice.

“That wasn’t the plan.” Wasabi took a careful step forward, looking at Hiro, whose landing was far from successful.

“You don’t say,” Hiro muttered when he was waving his way out of the machine. He grabbed its arm and straightened it. “It’s too heavy and not agile enough.”

Wasabi approached the machine and put it upright, observing it up and down. “And doesn’t have its own mind like Baymax.”

“The engines accelerate when you want to land.” Hissing, Hiro had to take his hand away of the hot metal.

“Yeah, that’s a problem with…”

Their progress of the Baymax’s replacement wasn’t going so well as Hiro thought it would be, but they were on the right direction, hopefully.

As far as Hiro saw, Honey seemed doing better than them, but disappeared in the mansion before Hiro could ask his questions.

“Alright.” Wasabi straightened his back as their discussion arived to its end. “Now, you’re gonna lie down a bit.”

Hiro winced, glaring at him.

“That’s not on me.” Wasabi gave him a short shrug. “That's your aunts’s rule number one. You know it.” He titled his head. “Though I agree that you need a rest.”

“I’ve heard that thousands of times.” He opened the door with one hand and stopped it with his foot. “And I’ve already rested. Com’on,” He said, looking behind his shoulders at Wasabi, “how long it’s gonna last?”

“Surely more than a few days.”

Hiro snorted, but didn’t say anything more.

“We have no answer yet,” Fred informed them as they entered his room.

He was laying on the couch, with a crossed legs and his left foot was rocking left and right. He didn’t rised his eyes up from his phone, scrolling it with no pause.

Hiro threw himself on the couch backrest with a loud groan, the hood of his hoodie fell down, covering his hair.

“That is-”

“Bad,” Hiro interjected, his voice was muffed by the couch.

“-suspicious.”

“Give Granville time, she will fix it.” Fred extended his arm and patted Hiro’s head, gaining a clap in return.

“There’s nothing to fix. As far as we know Krei may already have the entire warehouse of my microbots.”

Wasabi sat down next to Hiro’s head. He frowned, focusing his sight at the table in front of the couch. “Maybe he doesn’t.”

“It’s Krei.”

“He can’t just introduce the new brand product so fast,” Fred said, turning his phone at Hiro’s head, “your microbots are too popular for this. Not really a surprise, it was the same last time.”

Hiro raised his head, pulling the hood back over his back, and blinked, seeing official post on SFIT website describing his performance, and huge number of comments and reactions.

“If Krei introduces Microbots in any form, people will notice it stright away.”

Hiro raised his eyebrow. “Oh, really? And when exactly it stopped Krei?”

Fred switched off and put away his phone. “If Krei doesn’t want to become the number one suspect of being the arsonist, he will most likely like to wait a bit longer.”

He lifted his index finger up. “And if he doesn’t want to, Judy will,” The second finger joined the first one. “so either way Krei will wait before doing anything. Meanwhile, Granville can deal with it.”

Wasabi shook his head, with doubtful look on his face. “I’m with Hiro here. Krei hasn’t answered since she emailed him, and it was two days ago.”

“Speaking about Krei?” Honey’s voice was heard first before she appeared in the room with her eyes turned at her notebook kept in hands. “Do you remember what exactly he said about his prototype?”

“His prototype?” Wasabi looked around but everyone seemed to have similar knowledge about it. “Not really, when was it?”

“When Globby kidnapped him first time. He demanded it before trying to attack Globby.”

Hiro lifted himself up and leaned his elbows on the backrest. He thought about that day and their hunt for a monster, trying to remember any sign of stolen Krei’s invention.

“Remember that headband on Globy’s head?” Honey suggested helpfully.

Hiro nodded. The object was usually barely visible but if you looked at the right angle with the right light you could slightly see it.

“It’s most likely to assume that he at least tried to create your neurotransmitters.”

Hiro hummed, surprised that he hadn’t thought about it before. He rarely paid attention to Globby’s headband as it was hardly showing during their fights anyway, and even if it was, there was no time to think about it further, and he never came vack to it afterwards.

But now considering everything he knew, Honey was right. It looked too much similar to his invention in Hiro’s book to be just a coincidence. Since Globby wasn’t a kind of person who would create it by himself, it was highly possible that Krei was responsible for that copy, and Hiro didn’t even know about it.

“But how Globby got it?”

“Stole it?” Fred said in tone sounding it was obvious (because it propably was), “and then it got mixed with Honey’s purse, and voila! Globby was born!”

Wasabi hummed, “So we can slowly say goodbye to the idea of Globby’s return.”

Honey flipped through a few pages, and furrowed her eyebrows in concentration.

Hiro stepped away from the couch, crossing his arms and placing his hand on his chin.

“We don’t know how Krei’s transmitter ended up comparing to mine.” His voice sounded irritated. “Knowing him, not very well.”

Wasabi nodded. “It most likely wasn’t a masterpiece. Krei Tech is famous for their failures.”

Honey aproached the couch, and Fred moved himself to make a place for her.

“That would solve a problem, at least,” She sighed, looking at her notes. “Are we even able to make sure it will happen the same way like last time?”

“Since Krei keeps ignoring us, not really,” Wasabi commented, crossing his arms.

Hiro turned to Wasabi. “Maybe it will be better to go to Krei personally? Then he-“ His voice was cut off by the ring of his phone.

“Oh, that’s aunt. Hi,” He said as he answered the call, “yeah… of course, I’ll be there for a second… just say goodbye.”

“You have to go, right?” Wasabi asked.

Hiro hummed, his face winced into a grim look. “Since it is a funeral tomorrow, aunt wants me to be early today.”

Wasabi stood up, and approached Hiro and pulled him to his side. “We’ll be there too.” He patted him on the back. “You’re not alone.”

Hiro gave him a small smile.

His aunt waited for him, alone in her car, and, like Hiro, wasn’t in mood to talk.

He didn’t even bother to check the upstairs, and went directly to the garage. Tadashi was there, of course, leaned above something on the desk.

“Aunt says that diner is ready.” He said as he entered, and didn’t get any answer nor any sign he was heard. He shifted, trying to see what Tadashi was working on, but his arm obstructed the view.

“Everyone are asking about you. They’re worried.” He made a few more steps forward. “I’m too.”

It seemed that he wouldn’t get any answer so he sighed and turned around. Then he heard the quiet clap before Tadashi spoke.

“So now they remember me.”

Hiro turned back so fast he almost got dizzy. “What do you mean? Of course they remember you!”

Tadashi snorted under his breath. “Right.”

“The-“

“You know,” Tadashi interrupted him, not even looking at him, “during last two days they texted me more than they did during last month.”

“They texted you, a lot.”

“Fred, maybe, if you count 'Hiro this Hiro that'.” He circled his hand speaking it, but still didn’t turned back to Hiro.

“I-“

“Did you come here for something?”

Hiro pressed his lips, and took a look around until he noticed his old notebook. He quickly grabbed it, and left without more words.

***

The dark clouds covered a sky, not leaving any place for the sun. People stood there, gathered in front of the new grave, protected by black umbrellas, while the ceremony was going on. Hiro squeezed between Tadashi and aunt Cass, staying out of sight. He hid his hands in the pockets of his jacket and pulled the hood over his head.

Despite of the rain it was a warm day, but Hiro still felt a cold feeling on his arms. Everything was so surreal. It wasn’t a new impression in his life, not since the explosion. Still, it was a whole new level of bizzarness in his taste.

All of those people came here, elegantly dressed, to say the last goodbye, shared their words about him (full appreciations of his work, his fairness, how he always cared about people around him, ugh), and all of that was for the man that was alive and well, planning the death of another man.

Hiro thought he was doing great with blocking out his emotions and keeping his face as neutral as he was able to, but a dissapointed look of his aunt when their looks crossed told him otherwise. Tadashi hardly looked at him.

When the single ceremony was coming to the end, Hiro thought, perhaps for the first time, that he could forgive Callaghan one day when everything was resolved. Something felt better inside him, but he didn’t delve into it, not now.

Instead, he sneaked up on others, and luckily for him it seemed that his sudden absence remained unnoticed while aunt Cass focused her attention on Tadashi.

He found them behind the main crowd, gathered in one place. Honey was holding Gogo’s hand while she was looking straightly at the front of the ceremony. Her hair was braided, and Hiro thought it could be his first time he saw her like that.

Gogo gestured for Hiro so slightly that he almost skipped her move. He approached them, playing with material of his jacket. He didn’t leave them until the end of the ceremony, standing the whole time in silence.

When it was finished, Tadashi looked above him, not giving a sign he noticed him nor others, and walked past him.

Aunt’s frown deepened but she said nothing as she waved at Hiro, and put her hand over his shoulder when he came to her side. Hiro looked over his shoulder at his friends last time, not wanting to leave them, but he had an impression that his aunt wouldn’t let him stay with them this time(or he was becoming a paranoic).

***

Hiro didn’t see Tadashi after the funeral, nor the next day. He had no idea if he was in the garage again or not, and he didn’t bother to check it before going to Fred.

It didn’t rain but it was still felt into the air, and Hiro had to skip a few puddles when he walked.

He found Honey in Fred’s room, with Fred lying on the bed, hiding his face in the pillow. Fred lifted his hand in a wave, hearing the opening door, and said something but words was lost in the material.

“How is Tadashi?” Hiro heard Wasabi’s voice behind his back and almost jumped.

“No change, really.”

Fred sat up, straightening his arms. “He’s doing better than you.”

Hiro froze in the mid-step.

“At least he eats something.”

“Actually,” Hiro swallowed and cleared his throat, “he forgets more often than not. If we don’t bring him anything, he won’t eat probably.”

“And- you know, doesn’t matter, he still doesn't act like himself.” Fred slipped off the bed.

“Tadashi told me that when his parents died, being busy really helped him.” Honey said suddenly, putting away her notes that she had been focusing on. “It was something what your aunt started and it seemed to succed.”

Hiro took one step back. He had no idea about it.

“And she tried it with Hiro but failed.”

“Whoa,” Hiro felt a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Hiro. You did nothing wrong.”

Hiro blinked, his heartbeating sounded in his ears.

“Everyone reacts differently.” Wasabi’s calm voice cut it off. “You dealt with it in your own way.”

Hiro snorted. As if his way was such a great way of dealing.

“He said you forgot about him.”

“Well, he is wrong!” Fred said, frowning his eyebrow.

“No, he is not,” Wasabi disagreed, his tone didn’t change. “Comparing the time before we… time traveled, he isn’t so wrong.”

Fred hunched, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “Now when I’m thinking,” he muttered under his breath, “we used to eat pizza every Friday. We haven’t done it for ages.”

“You haven’t. For Tadashi, it suddenly stopped a month ago, and unlike you, he has no idea why,” Wasabi pointed out.

Fred winced. “…Fair.”

Gogo entered the room, and stopped seeing them.

“So,” Honey started, with a a facial expression between concern and relief, “it’s time when we tell him?”

Gogo observed them carefully before she walked to the couch and sat down next to Honey with crossed legs. “The fire happened. That was our plan.”

Hiro sat down and grabbed his head, hidding his fingers in his hair. “But Tadashi isn’t himself, he…”

“Of course, he isn’t,” Honey said, her voice was soft but firm, “he thinks he lost someone he cares about.”

“Callaghan was so important for him?” Hiro couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice.

He ran into a fire for him. Of course he was. It was Hiro who thought it was more Tadashi’s thing of helping people than anything else. As usual, with no surprise, he was wrong.

Fred’s phone made a sound.

“Uh, guys, Krei as always has a terrible timing. Granville got an email.” His eyes moved while he was reading it. “He writes he wants to meet with Hiro one day and discuss everything.”

He laid down, and lifted his phone to his face.

“He didn’t deny anything? That’s a surprise,” Gogo commented.

“Hiro,” Honey said, turning to Hiro again, “give him some time. It’s not easy for Tadashi now. We know that he is alright but Tadashi doesn’t. For him he is really gone.”

“And we weren’t so helpful, were we?” Hiro muttered bitterly, looking down.

“It’s hard to pretend to care about someone you really don’t,” Wasabi sighed, joining them on the couch.

Gogo crossed her arms and leaned back. “And when that someone tried to kill you last time you saw each other.”

“Is it a good idea to tell him now?” Hiro asked, not rising his sight from his laps. He felt a suden cold on his skin. (What if Tadashi would choose Callaghan again?)

“Does we have any good reason not to?”

“Right now, does it even matter if he believes or not?” Wasabi said, leaning his elbows on his laps and folding his hands under his chin, "if we keep avoiding the truth, it will be still worse and worse."

"Or we decide not to tell him at all, and come up with something else?" Fred suggested, but he didn’t sound convinced, playing with his phone by moving it from hand to hand.

“That was our decision,” Hiro said, his throat felt full, “we tell him after the fire. It is. It's not- we shouldn’t hide it longer.”

“Hiro,” Honey said and waited until he looked at her. “Are you sure you want to be there when we talk with him?”

“Of course I am!”

But, under Honey’s sight, he didn’t feel so convinced about it, and she had to notice it, he saw it in her eyes.

(What if Tadashi wouldn’t believe them, and would run to Callaghan to help him?)

“I’m not,” he sighed, “I will tell you tomorrow.”

“Then tomorrow we we’ll decide how much we want to tell him,” Wasabi decided.

“And now, let’s focus on Krei." Fred waved his phone. "When would you like to meet him?”

“How about never?”

Gogo tried to brush Hiro’s hair and failed, even if Hiro’s protest was smaller than usual. “The best it will be as soon as possible.”

“If he says it may be tomorrow, I’ll go there while you talk with Tadashi,” Hiro said after a while, and when they agreed he turned to Honey, “so still want me to the Globby project?”

She rolled her eyes but smiled slightly. “Come here.”

***

Baymax was in his room. It was the only thing Hiro could think when he noticed a familiar red box.

He approached it slowly, carefully putting his hand on its edge.

"Be careful."

He jumped away and turned around. Tadashi was sitting at his desk, partially obscured by a paravan.

Hiro rolled his eyes. "I am."

He sat down at his desk, but then he turned his chair toward Baymax, looking at it with a furrowed eyebrow.

"Why is it here?" he muttered under his breath, "shouldn’t it be on the Tadashi’s side?"

"Do you have any problem with it?"

Hiro blinked, realising he had been heard, and looked at Tadashi who was observing him. His body seemed tense despite of his apparent loose position.

"Just surprised." He shrugged, hoping it looked naturally. "No problem with Baymax."

Tadashi had to notice something on his face, because Hiro barely come up with an idea when Tadashi stopped him.

"Don’t try it."

Hiro snorted. Tadashi didn’t even know what he was going to do (but, maybe, he was still right. Baymax could help Hiro, but it didn’t mean he would be able to help Tadashi too).

Hiro’s eyes landed on his old notebook. He flipped through a few pages, and quickly realised that something was wrong.

"You went through it?" He asked, glaring at Tadashi who seemed unconcerned by his accusation.

Hiro rolled his eyes, and moved the chair with more energy than it was needed, but he said nothing more.

Hiro heard that each sound from Tadashi’s side stopped. When it didn't change after a while, he sighed and looked over his shoulder.

"What?"

Tadashi looked at him, as if he was analyzing each part of him, one by one, but didn’t say anything.

Hiro grabbed his notebook and reorganised loose pieces of paper that were in the wrong place. He took the last one and stopped, the edge of his lips raised. He slowly turned around, the chair back slightly hit the desk.

"I know you think something is wrong with me." He raised his eyes from the paper. "And maybe you are right. Or not." He titled his head. "Figure it out. I'm not the only genius here."

Tadashi narrowed his eyes.

"In any way you will think about. If you decide it will be helpful, go ahead." He gestured at his stuff, knowing there was nothing obvious there (he would get another lecture about overworking, but he could live with that).

Meanwhile they could decide what exactly they wanted to tell him.

Chapter Text

It had passed almost more than three hours since their conversation, and Tadashi couldn’t sleep a wink so far. As much as he couldn’t believe it, Hiro really left him a full access to each thing he was working on recently.

He took a look on the notebook that was forgotten by Hiro for a while and left in the garage. He flipped through it again, but then quickly closed it, putting away. If Hiro didn’t change his mind he would do it tomorrow.

As far as he knew, there was nothing what would answer for his questions, and even if it was, it was just the tip of the iceberg.

After a short hesitation, he opened the notebook again, stopping at the proper page. Hiro's admiration for Callaghan seemed to disappear, to say the least, but Tadashi didn’t forget the time when Hiro would have done anything to get his opinion. And Tadashi just knew that Callaghan would have given it and much more to him, if he had had a chance.

If he had, and he hadn’t. No matter how much Tadashi didn’t believe it.

Professor became more than just his teacher. He was his mentor, the best he had ever known, that imparted his knowledge not only in the field of technology but much more.

With time, perhaps unknowingly at first, Tadashi started to recognize Callaghan less as a professor and more as a father figure. A father, that he had lost eleven years ago, and the awerness of his absent, of his suden disappearance, was stronger than the memory of him.

That, perhaps, was a mistake to get attached to someone he knew that, after leaving the college, their paths most probably wouldn't cross again. Or they would, and Tadashi’s graduation day wouldn’t be their last day of seeing each other.

Now Tadashi would never know it.

Callaghan was a great professor. He saw each student as their own person, always was there for them if they needed a talk or any help. He was strict, especially regarding the rules in his classes, but he needed to be; otherwise, the risk of hurting someone would be greater.

He thought his friends had liked the professor. They had never said or done anything that said otherwise. Until that one day, when everything went crazy and didn’t stop.

Tadashi rolled out, reaching for his phone, and muttered under his breath seeing the hour. He was not going to sleep that night.

Groans and rustling from the other side of the room interrupted his thoughts. He quickly slipped off his bed.

Hiro thrashed about on his bed more and more intensively, kicking everything, his mouth alternately opened and closed. It wasn’t his first time Tadashi had seen him like that, and he had a bad impression that wasn’t the last one either.

Tadashi waited until Hiro would go deeper into sleep to wake him up, but it never happened as Hiro’s eyes shot opened circling around.

“Fred!” Hiro’s voice, rough and panic, cut sharply through the air.

Tadashi took a two short steps forward while Hiro tried to calm down himself.

Hiro pulled his legs up to his chin, curling up in a ball. His eyes didn’t stop tracing every detail in the room, and in a second they focused on Tadashi, Hiro changed drastically. His face became emotionless, with a thin line as a lips and glassy eyes. He didn't say anything.

It wasn’t the first time when Hiro tried to pretend that nothing had happened, but despite his efforts Tadashi didn't fall for it. He took a slow step forward, careful not to make a sound to avoid scaring him more.

“Hiro,” He made his best to keep his voice quiet and warm, and stopped as Hiro turned away from him and lay down again.

Hiro folded his arms, hugging himself, and curled up to become as small as possible.

Tadashi stepped back, his back hit a wall, feeling his throat tighten. He closed his eyes as his mind sped up (or it was his breathing) analyzing and looking for something what he could do.

He found nothing. He was a few steps away from his little brother that clearly was going through something terrible, and he had no single idea what to do.

Obserwing his brother was hurting; the pain was burning him.

Hiro rolled to the other end of the bed to be as far away from him as possible.

So Tadashi turned on his heels and walked out of the room.

***

Tadashi played with his phone. The screen flashed with colors as he was scrolling it, even if his eyes didn’t follow it. It wasn’t enough. The phone landed on the couch, bouncing.

Hiro's words turned into a bumerang in Tadashi’s mind, but no matter how much he thought, no clue came to his brain.

Figure it out yourself. Right.

He ran his fingers through his hair for the hundredth time, and leaned back looking at the ceiling.

Ewerything was fine until Hiro, out of the blue, fainted in mid-step.

Until he rushed to Fred, not supposed to know where his house was, but somehow he did know.

Until Fred confirmed Hiro’s story which was an obvious lie.

Until all his friends sudenly seemed circling around Hiro as if they knew each other forever.

Until they, Hiro included, cut themselves off from him.

Until they got irritaded at the mere mention of the professor’s name.

Until everything changed with no explanation.

Explanation.

He grabbed his phone, a few quick movements of his fingers and a messages were sent to all his friends, not giving them any clue what he wanted to talk about with them.

He had no expected he would get any answer soon, in the middle of the night, but apparently it was a next thing he was wrong about. It didn’t pass more than ten minutes when he got the last message about being on a way.

No greeting, no cursing him for the time. Just I’m coming.

Tadashi had no idea what to feel, nor what to do. So he went down to the first floor and waited, watching in disbelief as each of them appeared behind the door.

Gogo and Honey Lemon came together, side by side, both of them looked as if they had run; in clothes clearly put on in a hurry (and he could swear that Gogo wore at least one Honey’s thing, and vice versa).

Before they even opened the door, they looked around, and as soon as Honey noticed him she asked if everything alright. She clearly lost a tense on her shoulder when Tadashi gave her a position answer. Gogo put her hands in her pockets, but didn’t stopped observing their surrounding.

Wasabi arrived a few minutes later, not looking much better than girls, with no headband but with a car keys in a hand. Noticing the girls, he breathed a sigh and nodded at Tadashi.

Fred showed up, getting out of the limo, with chin lifted up and straightened shoulders, wearing clothes that seemed to be in half his pijamas, with his hat on crooked. When he looked around and saw he was the last one, he focused his attention on Tadashi, titling his head and analyzing him up and down.

They gathered around one of the tables but didn’t sit down; each of them expressed some degree of anxiety or tension that didn’t seem proper on a meeting with a friend.

Tadashi came to the table, and leaned his hands on it, putting his weight on it. His arms tightened under it. He took a deep breath, before he glanced up and looked at them, one by one. Their faces became hard as his eyes met theirs, as if they were preparing for a difficult and dangerous challenge.

“How did you meet Hiro?” He had no energy to play the subtleties. “What’s going on that you all are so-” He lifted his hand to his eyes and rubbed them. "No, I don’t have to know."

“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine. But,” Tadashi continued, staring at them, his lips narrowed in a line, “whatever it is, it influences Hiro. And, somehow, you are connected to it. So tell me, what’s going on.”

Wasabi took a sudden step back, his hands trembled at his sides. His head turned away, looking for an eye contact with others. He caught Fred’s eyes, and they seemed to have a wordless conversation.

Tadashi had to focus on it too much, because the next thing he knew was a short nod of Gogo, and each pair of eyes came back to him with even more newfound confidence and neutral expression in their body language (with varying degrees of success).

“We discovered some dangerous information that can threaten the city,” Wasabi spoke up, his voice was calm and firm but in Tadashi’s ears it sounded unnaturally, “so we called police. Sergeant Gerson came. He is working on it.”

Tadashi huffed.

He had no idea what he had expected. However, he certanly had not expected that his friends would decide to tell him a next lie.

“It started before him,” He almost hissed, trying to kick his thoughts and feelings away as they were about to became a distraction.

He raised his hand, cutting off their next excuses. He bit the inside of his cheek, thinking. They avoided his first question, and, even though he didn’t see their reason, not really, there was a deeper meaning behind it.

“I put a gps system in Hiro’s clothes,” He said, and observed how their faces changed between confusion and shock.

“How could Hiro know where to go, Fred?”

“I texted him bef-” He was interrupted by something.

Tadashi had no idea by what and how, but he could bet Gogo was responsible for it, since Fred’s eyes had met with hers a second before he paused.

“Where did this question come from?” She asked, not showing any sign she registered that Fred had started talking. “Did Hiro say something?”

Tadashi wanted to deny it immediately, but held back at the last moment, and after a quick rethink, he nodded.

“He said I should figure it out. So I’m doing it.” He lift his shoulders into a short shrug. “I want to find a reasonable reason what’s going on with Hiro, and you are clearly into it.”

Wasabi nodded, twice. His eyes seemed to be focused on Tadashi’s face as he lifted up his chin, straightening his back.

He cleared his throat. “You talked about him so much that we thought we knew him as well as you.”

Tadashi frowned even more, and irritation raised in him, but when he opened his mouth to speak, Wasabi hurried up, not letting him interrupt.

“We were wrong. Of course.” He gave him a lopsided smile. “When you brought him to the lab, the first thing what he had done was almost ending up under Gogo’s wheels.”

Tadashi could feel his eyebrown raising up, when he found himself staring at Wasabi without a word. As far as Tadashi knew it hadn’t happened, and his knowledge about it was first-hand.

“He ignored my safety line.”

Fred nodded, looking at the table with a slight flash in his eyes. “He was so excited, literally a ball of energy. Can’t blame him." He blinked and looked up. "And he certanly loved my idea of an invisible sandwich!”

“He wasn’t so energic,” Tadashi could just say, blinking at Fred, “and what-” He shook his head, and took a really deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Listen, if you,”

“Hey!” Fred lifted his hands in surrender. “It was you that wanted explanation!”

“And that sounds like that?” He deadpened.

"Well, you didn’t like our reasonable answer," Fred shrugged in his best nonchalant look. “ So that's what is left.”

Gogo sighed, shifting. She tilted her head back, closing her eyes for a second, before she looked straight at Tadashi.

“Time travel. We experienced time travel, back in time.” She spoke up, quickly as if the words were burning her throat.

Tadashi blinked, twice, taking a step back automatically.

“And we know how it sounds.” Wasabi said, sounding and looking resigned. “We have evidence before our own eyes, but it’s still hard to believe, you know?”

“But with the alternative, we take it for granted.” Fred said under his breath; Tadashi almost missed it, not sure if it was because of his unfocused mind or the outside noises.

“So we remember two versions of the same events.” Honey Lemon said quietly. “First time it was evening instead of the morning, when you brought Hiro to SFIT.”

“And you tricked him to come there.” Gogo said, a smirk danced on her lips for a second. She looked like she wanted to add something more but changed her mind.

For a short second Tadashi caught himself on wanting to know how, theoretically, he had done it and succeeded, since every time he had tried to do it, he had failed, but eventually he held back.

It sounded crazy. It was crazy. It was impossible, and,

He dragged a hand across his face.

“So, you are telling me, what, that you had already lived those weeks? Twice?” He pressed his lip; against his will his voice sounded too high-pitched, even to his ears.

Time travel wasn’t something that he was interested in so much and he just – Tadashi snorted. So that was the reason why Fred threw at him a ton of stories about it in a such short time.

He felt a dark feeling; the tension, the fear, which he had managed to locked away in back of his mind for a while, returned with redoubled force, but others seemed to miss it.

"it’s been a month so far." Wasabi nodded. “And then a few following months. One day it is a December, and then, kaboom, it is a July.” He gastured with his hands as if he was picturing the explosion. “Again.”

“If you had already known it would have happened, you could have done something with that, so why…” His voice broke in the end, not letting him finish it, but they looked like they understood his intention.

Honey Lemon took a step forward, her arms put at her sides and her fingers crumbled a material of her leggins, cutting off any explanation that were planned by others.

“Do you know he has a daughter?”

Tadashi paused, not expecting that. He swallowed, and nodded.

“Callaghan has a daughter, Abigail,” Honey explained anyway. “A few years ago she was a part of the experiment in the Krei Tech. It went badly. She hasn’t come back so far.”

“That’s why Callaghan hates Krei.” Wasabi added.

Tadashi shook his head. “Why are you talking about him as if he would be alive.” He regret saying it straight away as he watched Honey’s shoulders hunched.

“Because he is.” Honey said carefully, turning her sight away from Tadashi, and bit her lip. “He didn’t die in–” Her voice broke. “in the fire.”

“He hates Krei.” Wasabi repeated as if it would explain everything. “He can’t forgive nor forget it, and don’t get us wrong, we are not saying that his feelings or thoughts are wrong.” Wasabi raised his hands in surrander.

“Krei isn’t the best guy around. Even the tenth best. But as far as we know, Abigail knew what she was in for, but it’s not about her right now, not exactly.” Wasabi looked at Gogo, before he turned back to Tadashi.

“Callaghan wants a revange on Krei. Tadashi, please, let us finish it first.” He begged, when he noticed that Tadashi was about to interject him. “I don’t think we finish it otherwise.”

Tadashi reluctantly agreed, and Wasabi sighed in relief.

“He wants a revange on Krei. Because he spent ages on trying to figure out how to save Abigail but anyway he failed each time.” Wasabi took a breath. “Until he saw Hiro’s microbots.” He swallowed and straightened his shoulders.

“Now, we have no idea if he planned a fire or not,” Gogo spoke up instead of Wasabi. “But we know, that he rushed to Hiro’s microbots, stole them and run away with them. The fire didn’t kill him.” Her voice sounded so bitter than Tadashi stepped back in shock, and felt a corner of the table pressing his back.

Tadashi titled back his head and opened his mouth to speak, but a noise distracted him. Others turned their heads, as if they would be one single person, imediately finding a proper source of the sound.

Hiro showed up, his eyebrows twitched as he noticed that Tadashi wasn’t alone. Hiro’s gaze stopped between Tadashi and Gogo while he seemed to realize what was going on.

Gogo suddenly showed up at Hiro's side. She took a quick look over her shoulder, before her eyes came back to Hiro. They seemed to have a quick conversation, but Tadashi wasn’t able to hear any word of it. Gogo put her hand on Hiro's shoulder and they came back to her place together. Hiro grabbed and leaned on its backrest, looking resigned.

“So!" Fred clapped once. "Let’s come back to our little adventure with time travel!” He ended with a laugh, but it sounded desperate, and his too wide smile definitely looked so.

One last time Tadashi looked at Hiro, who said nothing and kept avoiding his gaze.

“You really believe in it.” It wasn’t a question.

Fred nodded vigorously.

“Why didn’t you tell it before then?”

“Would you believe it?”

His right hand shook, when he snorted. Or laughed, he wasn’t even sure what it was. “Am I now? What’s changed?”

Fred and Wasabi shared a long look.

“We wasn’t sure if we told you a truth.” Honey Lemon spoke up, grabbing a chair and sitting down on it. The noise sounded too loud than it should have. She leaned her elbows at the table. “It was always after the fire.”

“I wouldn’t have tried to change his mind, you know.” Tadashi's frown deepened as Hiro suddenly rised his stare at him. “I knew him good enough to know better than that.”

His words turned out to be inappropriate as Honey’s mouth hung opened for a few seconds before she pressed her lips. Wasabi and Fred looked at each other again, and joined Honey at the table, with a grim expressions on their faces.

Tadashi followed them, feeling as if he became one of their study object as four of them - while Hiro came back to staring at his hands - directed their sights straight at him, not even trying to hide it. He wasn’t even sure if they blinked at least once.

Wasabi stopped the eye contact first, shook his head and rubbed his temples.

“You said we should have changed something.” He said, his voice sounded rough, he seemed to have a problem to find a words while his eyes were tracing every detail on the table. “Who said we haven’t?”

“What?”

“You said we hate Callaghan. Perhaps, we do. Sometimes.”

Hiro snorted, curling up his lips.

Wasabi didn’t look like he was going to continue, nor Honey, nor Fred that was admiring a ceiling. Gogo was busy, leaning forward Hiro and whispering something with him.

“Stealing microbots would be enough for you?” He tried not to sound offensive nor hurt while speaking it.

Gogo put his hand on Hiro's shoulder, and in return Hiro stared at her but his gaze had no power behind it.

“That, what happened during that, would be.” Wasabi almost hissed. “That, what he said after the fire, certainly was.” His hand clenched into a fist.

The noise cut off Tadashi’s words, and he realised that Hiro stood up in a suden move, and went directly upstairs.

Gogo's sight followed him, along with Tadashi's. Her body was stiff as she sat down on Hiro's seat, when his footsteps quieted.

Tadashi frowned, and he needed to stop himself from going upstair, so instead, he came back to the topic. “So, what exactly he said?"

Gogo laughed, loudly, but as fast as it had started, it finished, and she turned to him with serious look on her face. “To be clear, don't start this topic with Hiro first. Wait, when he starts. If he does.”

Tadashi nodded, but then paused and looked at her, obserwing her closer. “In… that future, you became close.”

She leaned forward, folding her hands under her chin. “You can say so.”

If there was something that could convinve him, it would be this. He had been observing their interactions since their first meeting, and since then he had unanswered questions. A lot of them.

Hiro didn’t used to be comfortable with people around him, he had always been cautious and closed-minded around them, keeping himself as far away as he could, but it all seemed to change when he met Tadashi’s friends. He saw them once, something clicked, and then he barely left their side.

“We was afraid of starting this talk with you.” Gogo continued, twisting her fingers. “Because, if we start it, we start with this, and this, and…” She bit her lip hard, and closed her eyes.

“And I think I’m gonna kick you.” She turned her sight at him; her eyes seemed too gloosy.

“Why?”

“If you even think to do it again, I swear I’m gonna…” Her voice was too shaking in the end. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The chair loudly tapped the ground. “I’m gonna go to Hiro.”

Not adding more, not looking back, she disappeared.

A silence prolonged. Tadashi leaned further on his seat, observing Honey that didn’t stop looking at a direction taken by Gogo.

“So,” He started before he was ready, his throat felt too dry, and ended up looking for words. “Hiro mentioned a Mini-Max?” That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to know right now.

“He’s doing a Little Guy?” Fred glanced up, his eyes looked more alive than a second before. “Didn’t mention it.”

This question, or its answer, worked on them like a spell. Smething changed in them, as if they made an unspoken agreement, and their tension calmed down, still there, but its decrease was evident.

Fred shared a look with Honey and Wasabi last one time, and turned back to Tadashi. “It’s late, you have a lot to think about. We come back later, when it’ll be light.”

“If you want us to.” Honey interjected, looking at Tadashi uncertainly.

Tadashi’s throat seemed completely closed, and he didn’t feel he could find a word.

“Hey, do you nee-”

Tadashi shook his head and swallowed, closing his eyes. “I’m fine. I’ll text you soon.”

Honey’s lips twitched. She stood up and corrected her dress. She nodded, Tadashi wasn’t sure if it was meant for him or for Wasabi who joined her at her left side.

They left soon after, and Gogo joined them shortly before they closed the doors behind them.

When Tadashi came back to their room, Hiro seemed to sleep, covered completely.

There was one thing that didn’t change. He wasn’t going to sleep a wink that night.

Chapter Text

Delivery has failed. The email adress you entered is not valid.

The communication remained the same, word by word, no matter how many times Tadashi rewrote professor Callaghan’s name. The email was not going to be sent now. Or ever.

Not like it was a surprise, Tadashi had not expected anything else, but he still felt… disappointed. The address email was the only way he was able to reach the professor – that meant, if the professor was really alive. Tadashi did not fully believe in that, but if it was confirmed to be a lie, that would mean he was being fooled, and he did not want to believe in that.

He leaned back in his chair, and eventually turning his sight away from the screen. Gasping at it would change nothing, and he would only get sore eyes.

“That didn’t confirm anything, you know?”

“What the- Hiro!” Tadashi turned back in a sudden move to see his brother. He could swear he had heard a crack in his neck, but that what he surely had not heard was his brother coming. “Could you stop it?”

Hiro only blinked at him. Mochi walked past him, rubbing his tail against his legs. “I’m just saying no one knows he didn’t really die so everything is done as if he did.”

“This isn’t- nevermind,” Tadashi muttered under his breathe. “Who knows when he learnt sneaking so well.”

Tadashi just should get to used to it. Since the showcase Hiro was avoiding him, and if it wasn’t enough, somehow he also started moving in such a way that most of the time Tadashi had no idea that Hiro left or entered the room (well, now he knew the answer, didn’t he? Surely.)

“It’s not like I could call him anyway, is it?” Tadashi said a bit bitterly, meaning it to himself, but he said it too laud not to be heard. He moved his chair so he could have an easier look at Hiro.

Hiro frowned, and pressed his lips together slightly. “Better not.”

“I wasn’t saying serious.”

“You don’t believe us.” Hiro turned his faced away, hiding his hands in the pockets of his hoody. “Maybe that’s better.” Tadashi heard his mutter, and waited for something more but it never came.

Tadashi had to admit, he did not expect that– well, he did not expect a lot of things that had happened in his life recently. But even this was something on another level.

He could not even say that the time travel was at the top of his list of things that were unlikely to happen, because that would mean admitting that it was on the list in the first place (he did not have such list, but even if he did, he was quite sure that, in this life and the next, he would never have thought of it).

“No trying to convince me? Even a bit?”

“We said everything we wanted,” Hiro shrugged, still avoiding looking at Tadashi’s direction while he went to his desk, and added, “There is nothing what would make you believe more than you do now.”

Tadashi hummed, unconvinced, listening to the sounds Hiro was making as he looked through his papers. At least that didn’t changed. Mochi jumped on Tadashi’s bed when he had controlled Hiro’s mess next to his bed.

“What did aunt want?”

Hiro raised his head a bit. “…Nothing.”

Hiro said, not being able to sound less enthusiastic than he did now.

“Krei wants to have an appointment, she doesn’t,” he said after a while.

Tadashi raised his eyebrow, returning to his desk. Mochi jumped above his pillow to reach the window sill. Tadashi almost automatically grabbed some objects that found themselves under cat’s attack.

“She didn’t seem so against it when we talked.”

Tadashi knew that their aunt wasn’t completely over the moon about it, not with Hiro’s recent problems, but Hiro was interested in it, and you don't get a chance like this every day. She decided to give it a try at least, and listen to what Alistair Krei had to say.

"If I’m not there, you’re not there." Hiro made quotation marks with his fingers when he spoke. “And she wouldn't listen to my protests.”

“Well, of course, she wants to be there.”

She was an adult while Hiro was not. And no matter what, she would have to give permission if Hiro got this internship.

“Why do you not want her to be there with you?”

Hiro opened his mouth but then closed it, not saying anything. He frowned, seemingly surprised by this question, before he turned away so Tadashi could see only the back of his head.

***

Eventually, Hiro changed his mind, and he and their aunt left some time ago while Tadashi stayed in the Lucky Cat Café.

Tadashi had no idea why the interview for an internship was arranged so quickly. He could put two and two together to know that Krei showed interest in Hiro’s microbots. But his own experience differed in this regard as he had never had any interview so fast.

Maybe he was overthinking, and he shouldn’t focus so much attention on that. Hiro could just decide to tell them at the very last minute, so they didn’t have much time to talk about it.

“Excuse me.” The male voice interrupted Tadashi’s thoughts. “One black coffee, please.”

“Of course,” Tadashi answered automatically, taking a clean cup.

When he was making coffee, he glanced at the man out of the corner of his eye. With a surprise he recognized him as the policeman who had visited them once.

“Excuse me, sir,” Tadashi said before he could change his mind. “Why were you here before? Really?”

“I wanted to talk with Hiro.” The policeman had raised his eyes to look at Tadashi’s face before he spoke. “He told you, didn’t he?”

Tadashi turned his eyes to the courner top, placing the coffee in front of the man.

“Sergeant Gerson, right?” When he got a nod, he sighed, and ran his hand through the hair.

“Impossible, isn’t it?” The sergeant raised the edge of his lips, leaning to get sugar. “Part of me still is waiting for when I’ll wake up. But each morning there’s no change.”

Tadashi swallowed, leaning on the counter top. “How did it even happen?”

The sergeant stirred his coffee, adding two teaspoons of sugar. “If only I knew.”

He sighed, looking out of the window. “The one thing I’m sure about is the fact that at one moment it was winter and then at another it was summer.”

The question was – why would this man want to claim that he was from the future?

The sergeant took his cup and directed to the closest free table, but Tadashi shook his head and waved at him to wait. Tadashi had left a note, had served two other customers and cleaned a table before he came back to the man.

“Here no one will hear us,” Tadashi explained as they entered the backroom, looking over his shoulder, and then focusing his sight on the policeman. “How did you know that you are in the… past?” He still kept his voice quiet to avoid a risk of being heard.

“At the beginning I didn’t. Winter wasn’t so cold, it was even quite sunny. Normal day, routine. Nothing beyond the norm, let’s say.” He corrected his half-empty cup in his hands.

“Then I got a notification. The bot fighting. Again, nothing strange or untypical, especially in that area. I arrived at the place, and the details were too familiar, too similar – I should have taken a double look then, I suppose, but it was just a coincidence, right?”

He stopped, hearing that someone had called for the bill. Tadashi disappeared for the moment, automatically cleaned the table, and quickly came back.

“During the interrogation, the actual date was told, not only by one person. It was the main warning, one that I wasn’t able to ignore.”

“But why did you-”

“Came here? Hiro gave me the same question.” He gave him a sincere-looking smile. “The details were similar, as I said, but hearing the actual date, I realized something was odd and not right. The number of people questioned was too low. Two people were missing, and those people were you and your brother.”

Hiro attended bot fighting. Tadashi had his suspicions, but having the confirmation–

“Is there anyone else who...” Tadashi gestured with his hand. “Experienced it?”

The sergeant nodded. “Your friends, of course, and Grace Granville.”

Grace Granville. Was that a reason why Hiro seemed so shocked when he saw her in the SFIT? Was she not supposed to be there at that time?

“And–and professor Callaghan?”

The ergeant shifted from foot to foot, his hands toying with his now empty cup. “As far as I know, he doesn’t.”

“Is he-”

“He didn’t die– I mean, if nothing changed, of course.” The man stopped as if he hesitated to continue. “I heard that Hiro is similar to you, so I’m not sure if I should tell you about it– so you could run and confront him.”

Tadashi bit his lip, not commenting it.

“You should know that Robert Callaghan is dangerous man– he is not the person you used to know. If you want to more information, you should talk with your friends, they’ve had personal experience with him.”

“They said that he stole Hiro’s microbots.”

The policeman hummed. “When Hiro spoke about theft he meant Callaghan, not Obake.”

That at least explained one thing. He couldn’t have noticed something what never happened. In this timeline, apparently.

“He claimed that someone stole his invention, and then used it to attack him when he discovered it.”

Was the professor able to attack a boy? His little brother? The professor couldn’t wait to meet Hiro (Hiro used to dream about meeting the Robert Callaghan).

“And later he attacked again, this time also your friends, but you should ask them about it– I know only a few details, and I don’t want to exaggerate this. And the last attack… well, from some kind of view, Callaghan could protect himself from them, but he was the aggressor in the first place.”

The policeman focused his eyes on his fingers while he was moving the cup between his hands. Then he raised his eyes in a sharp move, looking straight at Tadashi, but said nothing, returning to his fingers.

Tadashi ran his hand through his hair, leaning against the wall. “It’s just… I knew– know him, and he wouldn’t be able to…”

“People change. And grief makes people do many things they would have never thought of doing before.”

“I– I will talk with Hiro, I guess.” Tadashi took a step forward. “Thank you for your time, sir, I think I used it too much right now.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Hamada. You’ve got my business card, don’t hesitate to use it.”

The man nodded, and turned back to go away, leaving Tadashi alone.

Chapter Text

Hiro should have known better than to tell Aunt Cass that he was going to have the interview for an intership while the meeting was about something else entirely. But he couldn’t tell her the whole truth, that Krei had stolen his microbot. If she ever found out about it, she would report it to the authorities, and even with Gerson on their side, the case would most likely end up in the press, which would draw attention to them, and they could not risk that.

Hiro just hadn’t considered that his aunt might want to attend the meeting before, what… he should have seen it coming, really. But what was done, was done, and what was said, was said.

The meeting was located in the old company headquarters as the new one hadn’t been officially opened yet. This building seemed to be much less futuristic, in the more common, rectangular shape.

“Good morning,” Hiro said as soon as he went inside, not giving his aunt a chance to speak. “My name is Hiro Hamada, I have a meeting with Mr. Krei.”

The security man raised his head from the screen, and looked at Hiro up and down. He quickly controlled something on his computer, and wrote a short note in the open notebook placed in front of him. He nodded at them, and pointed to the row of chairs with his right hand. “Sit down here and wait until the assistant of Mr. Krei comes to bring you to his office.” He gave them the lanyards with the word ‘guest’, and came back to the screen.

Everything, from the ceiling lamp to the potted flower, screamed elegance and richness, and nothing was out of its place, even the pile of closed cartoon boxes put in the corner near to the guard box.

With all this stylish look that the chairs had, it could seem they would be more comfortable to sit on. But Hiro and his aunt didn’t need to wait a lot of time as Krei’s assistant arrived soon after.

Judy looked exactly the same as Hiro remembered her, with immaculate clothes and a tablet in hand.

Judy gave them a short nod, and said, “Mr. Krei is waiting for you.”

When they got up, she turned on her heel and took them to his office.

Krei’s office seemed claustrophobic compared to the one Hiro knew, more dark and without huge windows with a view of the city skyline (and maybe that was better, fewer ways to kidnap Krei).

Hiro cleared his throat and spoke as soon as Krei’s gaze focused on him, “Good afternoon, Mr. Krei. I am Hiro Hamada. We met during the showcase, do you remember? We talked about the internship at your company.”

Hiro was fully aware that it was a bit risky, even before Krei raised his eyebrow in surprise.

“We agreed to this, “Hiro continued, “when you took my microbot.” He gave Krei a meaningful look, hoping he would get what he meant.

Krei leaned back on the chair, plastering his usual smile on his face. “Grace mentioned something about it, yes.”

“Of course, I want it back before we decide anything,” Hiro said with a toothly smile, trying to make his voice sound as gentile and sweet as he could, and added, “Just like we agreed.”

Before Hiro even entered the company, he had been thinking about referring to Silver Sparrow to persuade Krei to cooperate. But he hadn’t discussed it with others, and his knowledge of it would raise alarm bells, not only for his aunt.

Also, even though Hiro and the others hardly tolerated Krei, he wasn’t the worst of their problems, and Hiro didn’t need to make him so. That meant no warnings or threats regarding this case right now, when it was difficult to predict the consequences.

Krei laughed, not dropping his business face. “As soon as we end, I’ll send Judy to bring it for you. Meanwhile, make yourself comfortable.” He gestured at two prepared chairs in front of his desk.

Hiro followed the suggestion, not protesting. Whatever Krei had done with it, was done, and Hiro could only hope they would be able to stop Krei from releasing microbots into the world. So far, Fred had been right, and Krei hadn’t made any move in that direction, and meanwhile Granville (with the help of lawyers, probably) had started to deal with the legal part of it.

If that wasn’t enough, Hiro would have to bring the Silent Sparrow case to others.

“Very well, Hiro, could I call you Hiro?” Krei started, leaning his elbows on the desk and folding his hands together. “How do you imagine working with Krei tech?”

Aunt Cass cleared her throat, reminding Hiro, who had flinched, of her presence. When Hiro looked at her, she sent him a meaningful look. He winced before he focused on Krei again.

“I thought I could observe someone while they are working,” Hiro said, adjusting himself in his chair. “I’m starting a college, so I don’t think I’ll have so much time for it, of course,” he took a quick look at aunt Cass, “but I’d like to try a few hours weekly, and if I was able to also do something, it would be great.”

***

Their journey home passed in silence. Aunt Cass tried to start a conversation, but when she barely got any answer, she gave up eventually. Before they arrived, Hiro had earned more worried looks.

“Thanks, aunt, love you,” he said with a smile, unbuckling seat belts as they had just parked. He was about to leave, but stopped and added, “Thank you, that you agreed on it, I really appreciate it. And I promise I will take care of myself.”

His aunt smiled at him back. “I’ll judge that myself.”

Hiro had snorted before he left and directed himself to the garage. As far as he remembered, he had left the tool he needed there.

When he finally found it and could go to his room, he found Tadashi sitting at Hiro’s desk and Mochi sleeping at his bed.

“You leave for a moment, and when you're back, they take over your home.”

Tadashi looked up. “How was the interview?”

Hiro rolled his eyes, knowing that Tadashi would get everything from aunt Cass later.

“With no surprise,” he said without going into details, and instead approached his desk to look over Tadashi’s shoulder.

He found his old notebook, now opened in the middle (and, of course, all loose pages from it landed around the notebook instead f being inside in their proper place).

“You gave me permission, remember?” Tadashi raised his eyebrow, almost amused, seeing Hiro’s face.

Hiro opened his mouth, then shut it. “I didn’t mean that.”

Tadashi snorted, looking at the mess he wasn't responsible for. Hiro, who was a person who normally was unable to maintain order around him, couldn’t bear the thought of sudden changes in his notebooks.

Hiro was fully aware of that, and he was proud of it, and he surely didn’t like it when someone, even his brother, was touching it. Now he had no clue what he had been thinking when he came up with this idea.

Tadashi turned a page, but he was not reading it, Hiro realized. Hiro bit his lip, analyzing his brother. “What’s going on?”

Tadashi didn’t answer at first. He closed the notebook, and started to gather the papers into one pile. “Did the professor attack you?”

Hiro blinked. “What?”

“Did the professor attack you?”

Granville didn’t — oh right. Hiro frowned.

“How do you know about it?”

Tadashi put away the papers, and rubbed his eyes with both hands.

“What happened?”

Hiro stepped back, and sat down on his bed, squeezing the long tool. Mochi meowed in protest and ran away.

“After the showcase,” he spoke after a while, “I found one microbot under my bed. It was moving while it wasn’t supposed to, not when others were destroyed.” He gestured with his hands.

He didn’t need to explain this. Tadashi had helped to create the microbots, after all; he knew how they worked.

“I… ended up running around the city.” Hiro’s eyes almost subconsciously turned to the red box. “I found a place in which someone was producing more and more of them. I’d stayed there too long because he noticed me, and I had to run away. Through the window.”

“Did you run away straight-”

Hiro shuddered. “I had to. He was using the microbots, and was rushing towards me.”

Tadashi closed his eyes. Hiro turned his look from him.

“And what about the second time?”

Hiro exhaled. “I went there again. Gogo, she and the rest, stopped me before I could do anything. But then, again, we were caught. There was this car chase. We then found out about Fred’s house.” Hiro leaned back, looking at the cailing, and blinked furiously.

The room felt warmer, his t-shirt seemed to stick to his back. He breathed deeply, in and out. He shook his head, and stood up, throwing away the tool that landed with a clatter. “I need to walk,” he declared, not looking at Tadashi.

He almost stopped at the red box. Instead, he texted Fred that he was coming.