**A.N.: My submission for the Big Hero 6 Big Bang is finally allowed to be published! Yay! I'll link the art as soon as the main post is available, and I hope you all enjoy!**


The Summer Following the Incident

"Hiro, you promised!" Tadashi frowned up at him, folding his arms in irritation, though on his young form it looked like petulance.

"Yeah, yeah," Hiro tucked together blueprints and papers, binding them into a single folder. "That was before I remembered that you could just tag along to the meetings, and really, what do we even know about her?"

Tadashi sighed in exasperation, the six year old kicking his feet back against the chair. He'd thought he'd finally worn Hiro down enough to allow Mari to come over and have her older sister watch them. He knew that any chance of staying home alone was next to zero, and with Aunt Cass gone for the weekend, Hiro had fallen right back in his paranoid state.

"You know where she lives and her family and her name and that she's got a little sister my 'age,'" Tadashi used finger quotes for emphasis, well aware that someone his actual age would never pass Hiro's approval. "She's not going to try anything, and Baymax is right there if something happens."

"You don't know that," Hiro said. There was no need to take unnecessary risks if he could just keep an eye on Tadashi the entire time instead.

"Hiro." Tadashi knew it was well-meaning, and after the events of last Fall, it had been okay at first, but Hiro couldn't possibly keep this up forever… right?

"Teddy," Hiro copied back. "Just bring your iPad or something and do whatever you do on it. It won't be that bad."

"It's not about how boring it will be." Tadashi stood, walking over to Hiro, glad that he'd grown a little so he wasn't looking quite so far up to talk to him. There was still quite a distance. "You can't be with me all the time, and if you can find someone you can trust to do it-"

Hiro shoved the folders into his bag, nearly tripping over the cord that charged his laptop in his haste. "Why not one of our friends then? They count."

"Fred's with family, Gogo has work, Wasabi has class, Honey Lemon is probably holed up in her lab-" Tadashi ticked each of them off on his fingers. "You know this."

"What's so bad about just tagging along? Other kids do it… with mild complaining." Hiro's smile didn't quite reach his eyes, but he was trying.

After nearly losing Tadashi for the second time, Hiro had gone into protective 'big-brother-but-not-really-because-technically-Tadashi's-older' mode. There was almost never an instance where he was out of Hiro's sight, or in the very least where Hiro could visibly see the only entrances and exits to where he was. At first, it had almost been comforting for Tadashi. The background noise of fear that buzzed in his brain since having his security wrecked by being kidnapped quieted when Hiro did that.

But then it began to grate on his nerves. He was his own person, 25 technically, and just because he was in a kid's body didn't mean he couldn't take care of himself. Especially after learning how to channel his power correctly, he pitied anyone who tried to touch him now. But Hiro was insistent. If Tadashi was to be with their group of friends, he had to be in their sight at all times, and if they were going to go anywhere, Hiro had to know where and for about how long.

It was suffocating.

Tadashi had thought he'd caught a break when Mari and her older sister Angela started visiting the café more often, prompting him to be closer friends with Mari. It was still a little weird, considering his mindset was so different from hers, but he couldn't exactly go hang out at the college to meet people, and old friends were so busy with their own lives that it was almost impossible to do anything fun with them and still meet all of Hiro's requirements.

"I'm not a kid, Hiro." Tadashi tried to remind him gently, knowing he was worried, with good reason. When someone like Kyouji just comes out of the woodwork and does something like that… and then with the disappearance of Ara… it was hardly any wonder Hiro was suspicious of anyone he hadn't known for years.

"You may as well be." Hiro's tone meant he'd made up his mind, and he was as stubborn as he was years ago, when he'd earned the nickname 'knucklehead'… not that Tadashi found much use for it now that things were almost always strained between them. It was difficult to relax and hang out with someone you were pretty much forced to be around constantly. "Anyone who sees you will assume so. And even if you were an adult- uh, sized person… we don't know enough about the group that took you in the first place."

"I told you all I know..."

Hiro nodded. "But it's not enough."

Doing a once-over of the room to make sure he hadn't left anything behind, Hiro tossed Tadashi's special jacket to him, the one that had been designed specifically to withstand the insane temperatures Tadashi could reach without being destroyed.

"Now come on, I don't want to be late."


"Sorry, something came up." Hiro smiled, the bold-faced lie hanging in the air between him and Angela. It was better than outright saying 'I don't trust you', but not by much. He'd sent a text to her the night of, knowing it would be easier to cancel that way than to wait for her to arrive and then explain why Tadashi was going with him instead of staying to hang out with someone his own age.

"It's alright, I'm sure they'll get plenty of chances to hang out." Angela smiled, even though there had been many cancellations before, and it was beginning to wear on her. But Mari was happy, and if that meant putting up with a flighty person, she would, in a heartbeat.

"Right..." Hiro's answer was distracted, as he double checked where Tadashi was sitting, chatting with Mari as she scribbled red dots all over her coloring book, determined to make them into ladybugs later, he was sure.

That reminded him that Tadashi needed some sort of program to practice his handwriting with, and he'd need to find a way to get him qualified with schooling without drawing attention to them anymore than was absolutely necessary. That meant no skipping grades, being homeschooled, and delivering less than absolutely perfect grades intermittently. But even homeschooled kids had to go to centers for testing at times, and if he couldn't keep an eye on him there…

"Earth to space cadet," Angela joked, waving a hand in front of his vacant stare.

"Hm? Oh, sorry." Hiro wondered if she's said anything important, but hesitated to ask outright. "I was thinking about something else."

Angela smiled. "I guessed as much. So are you guys going to the picnic down at the park? I heard there's going to be free snow cones. Mari's taking her puppy to get him used to people, and I was thinking—"

"Um… sorry, but I don't think we will be." Hiro didn't want to be rude, but it would be better to cut her off now. "I'm pretty sure we've got something planned that weekend."

Hiro made a mental note to plan something that weekend if there wasn't already, because Angela would remember, and would ask.

"Oh. Okay then…" Angela tucked a bit of black hair behind her ear, glancing over towards where her sister sat. "I'm sure there will be others. Mari will understand."

"Right…" Hiro returned to wiping down the equipment behind the counter, looking for something to do to politely end the conversation. Why was she so persistent? Hiro's mind logged the information under 'potential suspicion' in case it became important later.

Angela sighed, going over to sit by her sister, showing her again how to make the ladybugs look like they had wings.