Title: You're Here, and I'm Here
Prompt: Tadashi suffers from nightmares, and a five-year-old Hiro does his best to comfort him.
Words: 1.3k
Hello, I'm here with another BH6 AU. This time it's what's commonly known as the Baby Hiro AU! If you keep up with my Tumblr at all, you probably know that I've drawn a ton of little comics and things for this AU, which is probably my favorite of all the BH6 AUs. If you're not familiar with it, it's exactly what it sounds like. Hiro is aged down about ten years, and Tadashi is his guardian.
I posted this one-shot on Tumblr too, but I want to add more to the collection. I have a few prompts from Tumblr that I'm working on, but I'm open to more suggestions if anyone has any! (No promises, but I like to hear what you guys want to read.)
He's lost track of how many different ways he's watched his family die in his dreams. It always involves fire somehow, even if it's only to burn away the remains of whatever horrific event had transpired. The worst part is that there is never anything he can do. He's always standing just outside of the scene, and when he tries to run or scream, it's like he's submerged in water. His movements are slow and sluggish and no matter how loudly he screams, nothing more than whispers leave his mouth.
He's watched his parents and Hiro walk right over a cliff without realizing it was there. He's seen candle flames grab their clothes and swallow them. He's watched them be eaten and mugged and crushed and blown to bits.
It wouldn't hurt quite as much if Hiro wasn't a part of it. That way he could wake up and calm down by reminding himself of the actual nature of his parents' death—that it hadn't been nearly as horrific as they are in his dreams. It's been a few years since they died, and he's healed considerably since then. The nightmares rattle him and leave a yawning ache in his chest cavity, but he doesn't feel quite so completely devastated anymore. The ache is deep-seated and familiar. He's used to it.
The problem is that Hiro always dies with them.
Whether he's fully realized it before or not, it's his deepest fear. Losing his baby brother. Breaking the promise he made to his parents' gravestones, and to himself. Not getting to watch Hiro grow up and do incredible things with his genius mind. Failing at the role he's taken on, even if it was thrust upon him unfairly. Being completely, utterly alone.
Nothing about their lives is fair. He tries not to think about that too much, but Hiro's life ending prematurely would break him for sure.
His incessant nightmares thrive on this fact.
Sometimes he screams himself awake and it takes an alarming amount of time to calm himself down and get his heartbeat under control. He can't even begin to regain his peace of mind until he steals over to Hiro's room and sits by his bedside for a while, watching him breathe and making sure he's all right. Then he can usually go back to bed and spend the rest of the night in an exhausting half-sleep.
As far as Tadashi knows, Hiro is oblivious to the fact that he suffers from nightmares. It's certainly not something he'd ever share with the five-year-old. He does all he can to make sure Hiro feels safe and secure, and informing him that his older brother constantly dreams about death wouldn't be good for his peace of mind. So Tadashi deals with it privately in the dead of night.
It comes as a shock, then, when he's woken from a nightmare for the first time by something other than his own fear. Tiny hands, not nearly big enough to cover even half the expanse of his shoulder, shake him fervently and successfully pull him from fiery delirium.
His eyes snap open and he jolts upright with a loud, ragged intake of air. It's a moment before he can even think straight enough to notice the small form sitting at his side, watching with wide, frightened eyes that gleam in the city light leaking between the cracks in the blinds.
"Dashi?"
Hiro's voice is soft and scared and unsure, and Tadashi immediately regrets the fact that his little brother is seeing him like this.
He sucks in a few lungfuls of air, trying to bring his heartrate down and wipe the terrible images from his mind. After running a hand through his hair, he's finally composed enough to speak. "H-Hiro? What is it? Are you okay?"
"You were yelling," is the only reply Hiro gives.
Tadashi closes his eyes and takes another deep breath. He'd been hoping that, maybe, Hiro had come to his room for a different reason. So much for that. He urges his lips into a smile, even though he's not entirely certain Hiro can see it in the dimness. "I just had a bad dream, kiddo. Everything's okay."
Hiro's face shifts beneath small flecks of light as he tilts his head a little. "You have bad dreams?"
Tadashi chuckles softly. "Everyone has bad dreams, bud."
"Are you scared?"
His eyebrows wrinkle in amused confusion. "What?"
"When I have bad dreams, I get scared. Are you scared too, Dashi?"
Something in Tadashi's chest constricts painfully. "I—uh—"
Suddenly Hiro scoots on his knees to get closer to Tadashi. His little arms reach out to press something against his brother's chest.
Tadashi lifts a hand to find that it's the stuffed robot he'd made for him a couple years ago.
"Hug Baymax," Hiro says as he rises to his feet.
His large brown eyes stare at Tadashi imploringly, expectantly, until the older boy finally wraps his arms tightly around the toy, crushing it against his chest. Tadashi then feels Hiro's tiny five-year-old arms circle around his neck, followed by the soft pressure of his pudgy cheek against the side of his head.
It's all he can do to stop himself from laughing. "What are you doing, knucklehead?"
A small hand pats the top of his head. "It's just a dream, Dashi. It's not real."
And then Tadashi recognizes this sequence of action as all the things he's done for his little brother when Hiro is the one having nightmares. Warmth pools in his chest, leaks down to his gut, and pressure begins to build behind his eyes. The little stuffed toy Hiro calls Baymax falls into Tadashi's lap as he lifts his arms to envelope his baby brother in a tight and somewhat desperate embrace. He hopes Hiro doesn't pick up on the way his lungs shudder as he sucks in a breath, but now there's moisture spilling from his eyes and he can't seem to monopolize the strict self control he usually prides himself on. Chalk it up to the late hour and the fact that his emotions are still fluctuating from the nightmare.
Hiro's thick black hair smells clean and comforting as Tadashi buries his nose in it. "Thanks, buddy," he chokes, voice raspy no matter how hard he tries to steady it. "You're awesome, you know that?"
"You're awesome, too!"
A wavering smile and another mumbled "thanks" pass across Tadashi's lips. He allows himself a second or two longer to hold Hiro tight against him before pulling back and placing his large hands on the boy's small shoulders. His mouth opens with the intent of telling Hiro that it's time to go back to bed and get a good night's sleep, but one look into his face breaks Tadashi's will. Now that Hiro's awake, the thought of parting with him is suddenly very difficult.
Instead, he gives his brother an excited smile. "I think we need some chocolate milk, Hiro. How about you?"
Hiro beams and nods in eager agreement, so Tadashi returns Baymax to him and scoops the boy up in his arms.
The kitchen is dark, lit only by the neon hues from the city that find their way through the curtains, and Tadashi doesn't bother turning any other lights on. The refrigerator provides enough illumination when he opens the door to grab the milk carton and the bottle of chocolate syrup. Hiro sits on the countertop, feet swinging back and forth, and watches Tadashi mix up two glasses of milk. The digital microwave clock reads 2:43, but it doesn't matter this particular night. The two brothers sit in the little kitchenette in the dark and drink chocolate milk together, because sometimes things like this are just necessary. And when Hiro gets sleepy halfway through his cup, Tadashi scoops him up again, tucks him in his bed, and crawls right in behind him.
It's the best sleep he's gotten in weeks. Tadashi sometimes swears that Hiro holds him together when nothing else does.
