Where Would I Go?

"Tell me what's wrong."

"Go away."

"No! Vanellope Von Schweetz, I'm not leaving until tell me what's wrong!"

Standing in the bathroom doorway was an eighteen year old Hiro, grabbing the shoulders of a several inches shorter, seventeen year old Vanellope. They'd been friends since they were nine years old, when Vanellope had tried to run away from home. It'd been an interesting situation; Hiro didn't like being stolen from. But when Hiro ratted her to the police (even after she'd given him back his wallet), Vanellope came home kicking and screaming. She'd been terrified. The nerves-of-steel and tongue-of-razor pickpocket girl had been terrified. After finding out the matters (a bad foster home) whilst simultaneously getting to know Vanellope (who ended up being just barely more than her sass and Hiro being okay with that), Hiro eventually resolved himself in befriending her. And, after the foster home incident, making sure nothing happened to her. Ever.

Hence the reason why they were in Vanellope's bathroom doorway. One of the girls in Vanellope's foster home called Hiro up, telling him he needed to be there squat. Vanellope was having a mental breakdown in the bathroom, and no one could console her. But for all the genius he had, Hiro couldn't understand why Vanellope was so worked up. Her foster home was solid and kind; it even some other children that had been under similar circumstances to her own.

Vanellope took a quivering breath.

"Let me go, Hiro."

Hiro took his hands off of Vanellope's shoulders and sighed,

"Fine but—"

"No! Hiro, let me go. Forever! You've been in this stupid town even after you graduated high school. And then you retook the classes. You've been here five years longer than you have to be. Just go."

Hiro stood there, dumbstruck. It was true; he retook every class in high school, just to through school with her. But he'd just graduated. Like, the day before. And Vanellope was seventeen! Did she really think that one more year would hurt that much?

"Vanellope, it's just another year before we can both go. We can both do our thing." Hiro said soothingly.

Vanellope shook her head.

"No. No, we can't both do our thing. What we both want to do is very different. You want to invent world-changing robots. I want to go drive laps around a racetrack.," she snapped back. "It's not very compatible."

Hiro narrowed his eyes. "We've talked about this since we were ten; I make the cars and you drive them."

"We were ten Hiro! And okay, yeah, fine. Let's say that the plans we made as ten year olds were a legit source; do you really want to do that? Do you really think that anyone else wants you to do that? Wasting genius on… on cars?" Vanellope's arms were just barely missing hitting the doorframe as they flailed about. "Just go." she repeated.

They just stood there for a moment. Hiro didn't know what to say, and Vanellope had already said whatever was on her mind. The other kids in the house had wisely left the two to their arguing, and it was just breathing and silence.

"Do you want me to do that?" Hiro asked quietly.

"Yes!" Vanellope said desperately. But her eyebrows stitched in confusion, "No. Oh, I don't know! But it's what you should want."

Hiro thought for a moment and then pulled out a scrunchy and multi-colored hair clips from the drawer.

"Put them on."

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"Put them on."

"Are you insane? I don't even wear that anymore!"

"You're not getting my final answer until you put them on."

Vanellope raked her hands through her hair in anger.

"Aren't I supposed to be the impossible one?" After a moment's pause, Vanellope sighed, "Fine."

She yanked the hair items out of Hiro's hands and fished around her drawers to find a hair brush and used it to help put her hair up in a high pony tail; the action was completed by a red scrunchy tied into the pony tail to hold it in place. Then Vanellope put in her brightly multi-colored hair clips John Cage style. She still looked different than the fourteen-year-old girl that had been last seen wearing this look; who wouldn't? But it gave Hiro comfort; the day Vanellope decided to stop wearing this style was the first time Hiro found himself getting worked up over how someone looked. It had felt like a piece of Vanellope just vanished. Seeing it again was comforting.

After she was done, Vanellope snapped her arms into a crossed position and turned to Hiro.

"Okay, your turn."

Hiro thought for a moment.

"Where would I go?"

Vanellope scowled.

"Answering a question with a question. Priceless. I'm serious Hiro—"

Hiro cut Vanellope's rant short.

"Me too. So answer me: where would I go?"

Vanellope growled.

"I dunno, Italy? France? Lady Liberty's underpants?" Vanellope shuddered for a minute, "Forget the last one. But does it matter Hiro? You'll just… go wherever."

Hiro clicked his tongue, already having a feeling he was going to win.

"And where will you go? Ya know, after high school."

Vanellope shrugged,

"Wherever! I'll be fi—"

"So what you're saying," Hiro rubbed his finger on the bathroom sink's countertop, "is that I'll just go "wherever" and you'll just go "wherever". Those sound the same to me."

Vanellope narrowed her eyes.

"Except they're different wherevers. You're "wherever" should be college. My "wherever" is some race tra— what exactly is so funny?" Vanellope stopped her thoughts to express her annoyance at Hiro's newfound amusement, "What is so funny about any of this?"

Hiro smirked.

"Well, Vanny, now that you ask, I do happen to remember enrolling in SFIT. You should know what that is since we live maybe five miles from it."

Vanellope blinked.

"You're kidding me. You're kidding me. Hiro! That's! Well, that's the best science and technology school in the country, but it's here! You didn't want to stay here… did you?" Vanellope was suddenly confused and deflated, as she'd finally realized a flaw in her logic; in the eight years she'd known him, Hiro never said anything about wanting to leave home.

Hiro smiled. "It's home base Vanny, why would I leave? Sorry, but, as far as leaving San Fransokyo, you're the plan maker."

Vanellope stood there for a moment, looking relieved despite her best attempts.

Vanellope spoke again, a sigh in her voice, "Well, that kind of seals it, huh?" Suddenly, she scowled and whacked Hiro in the chest with her knuckles, "You couldn't have saved me some endorphins by telling me that sooner?"

Hiro chuckled and rubbed his neck.

"Yeah… to be fair, I think I got some grey hairs too."

"Too?"

They laughed, and, like that, the comfort began to sink in.

Vanellope took a glance at the mirror to her left.

"Why did you have me do this to my hair?" she said confused.

Hiro shrugged. "I've actually wanted to do that for three years."

Vanellope rolled her eyes. "Mm'kay. Any other bucket list items you wanna fulfill?"

Before Hiro could loose the courage, he said "Yeah, actually."

And then he kissed her.

A/N: Yay… One-shot… I HAVE ANOTHER CHAPTER FOR OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE TRACK! I SWEAR! IT'S LIKE 90% DONE!

Anyways… one shot. Little bit of fluff 'n' stuff. Drama. Little bit of OOC ness. Hopefully not enough to choke a horse.

Okay, well, I'm going to hate myself tomorrow because I'm going to look up "Vanellope and Hiro" and see this… and barely anything else…

Reviewing can take less than a minute!

~ Sam