Disclaimer: None of the characters in this fic are mine, but belong solely to Disney and Marvel.

Games They Play
Part 1: Dissonance

Tadashi was never quiet. As an older sibling, he had a certain talent for making his point known, whether it was pinching Hiro's ear for sassing Aunt Cass or stapling a pack of gummy bears to an immaculate report card. Hiro had become accustomed to his brother's unorthodox methods of communication, but he had also anticipated that they would end after Tadashi's death.

"Oh, for crying out loud." Hiro blinked his heavy eyes open to see Aunt Cass shuffle across the living room floor as she picked up his socks from yesterday. She was already dressed and wearing a tan apron around her waist. "Why, Hiro, I don't understand? You have a perfectly good room which has a bed that is surely more comfortable than the sofa."

Hiro rubbed his eyes, glancing at the couch that he had made his bed last night. The cushions were flat from years of use, the burgundy leather pecked from strain, and the arm rests had been finely kneaded by Mochi. He yawned, pulling the blanket over his shoulders.

"And you have to have this light on all night?" Aunt Cass shut off the light above the sink. "Is something going on that you're not telling me? Because this is he third night in a row that you've been out here. I don't want to wake you at 5 AM when I have to begin opening but if you were in your bed that wouldn't be an issue."

"I dunno." Hiro wrapped around the blanket tightly around himself and flopped back on the couch. "I'm a taquito. It's too early to talk to Taquito." He hadn't had much sleep last night and even though the couch was far from comfortable, that wasn't the main reason.

"Excuse me, Baymax." Aunt Cass said.

"Wait, what!?" Hiro tried to sit up quickly but the blankets he had tangled himself in wrestled him off the couch. Clawing his way out, Hiro pulled the blanket from his face to see the fluffy white robot waiting patiently at the edge of the bed.

"Good morning, Hiro." Baymax held up a hand and curled his fingers in a wave. "I watched you sleep and waited all night for you to wake up." His eyes blinked, the right one first and then the left.

"Okay," Aunt Cass breathed through her teeth. "I mean, if it's really that important to you to sleep on the couch, can you at least leave Baymax upstairs on his charging port? He's not exactly small." She patted Baymax's arm. "No offense."

"I am a robot." Baymax said monotonously. "I cannot be offended."

"That wasn't my fault!" Hiro said, his voice still husky from sleep. "Baymax has been activating by himself. He followed me down here!"

Aunt Cass raised an eyebrow as she stared at them. "Uh, okay. Can't you just reconfigure his settings or something like that? Did he leave a manual anywhere?"

"Urgh," Hiro pulled at the ends of his hair, trying to decide if his hair or his life was messier. "I tried that. But he just keeps activating at night. Like, I don't know what to do."

"Oh honey," Aunt Cass was beside Hiro now, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. "Is that why you want to sleep out here? Because Baymax is waking you up at night?"

"Well, no. I mean yes." His mouth was suddenly dry and tasted bitter. "Well, kind of. It's—It's hard to explain."

Aunt Cass looked to Baymax, who cocked his head. She returned her eyes to Hiro. "What's eating you, sweetie?"

How could he say things that she would understand? This was more than his hunger strike after Tadashi's death. This was more than the depression that had robbed his world of color and purpose. This was hiding inside his skin and bones like an infection, eating him from the inside out.

Closing his eyes, he could hear his name again, the bright flames he had seen in last night's dream whispering it like a dirty little word. He could feel the heat, the pain as they nibbled at his flesh. Hiro twitched his fingers and shivered, the sensation prickling his skin as it had last night.

"Just a little insomnia. I think I just need to fix Baymax, that's all."

She put both hands squarely on his shoulders and pushed him back so that he had to look her in the eye. Hiro could only hold her gaze for a minute before he had to look away, his cheeks hot with shame. He knew that she could tell he was lying. What hurt more than his burning secret was knowing that he was hurting Aunt Cass and both of them were too afraid to admit it.

"Okay, Hiro." She kissed his forehead and walked downstairs to open up the cafe.

Things really had changed since Tadashi's death.

"Hiro, wait!" Aunt Cass caught her nephew by his backpack. "Are we really going to do this running out without talking to me thing again? Because it's really—"

"Oh, r-right!" Hiro lurched forward and wrapped his arms awkwardly around Aunt Cass to give her a stiff hug. He tried to pull back back but she held held onto him in that desperate maternal way he hated.

"You haven't even eaten today, don't you—"

"Nope, I'm fine. Wait, what are you doing?"

Aunt Cass had unzipped the top of his backpack and was stuffing a ziplock bag with pastries inside next to his binders and pencils. She glared at him as she zipped it back up. "There. Now they can't say I didn't try."

"You're invading my privacy." He whimpered. "I'm fine."

She put her wrist to her forehead and shook her head. "That's what people say when they aren't." Before she could ask him another question, a customer called her away. Thankful, Hiro slipped out the door and onto the street. He rounded the corner, walking to the bus stop on the next block.

There were four other people waiting. Two guys in stuffy business suits, a woman in kitten heels, and a guy in a beanie who looked like he was heading to SFIT as well. Taking deep breath, Hiro let it go slowly, hoping they couldn't see the sweat on his brow or the twitching of his right hand. When he swallowed there was nothing, his mouth dry and cracked.

The bus rumbled to the stop at just two minutes late. He let everyone else get on first because his vision was starting to fade in and out of focus. As Hiro clutched the railing on the stairs he felt his heart hammering inside of his chest and prayed it wouldn't happen here.

"Are you getting on, kid?" The driver said a little unkindly. Hiro assumed he was already on edge for being late, but really, that was the driver's fault, not his.

"Yeah…"

"What?"

"Y-Yes, I am." Climbing the three steps, the driver closed the door behind Hiro as he slipped his pass across the reader. There weren't any seats left so he grabbed the nearest railing as the bus lurched away from the curb. He felt his stomach tumble horribly as it did so, remembering the food Aunt Cass had saddled him with only made it worse. Closing his eyes, he shivered and gripped the steel support pole.

"Are you going to get sick?" The driver asked."

"No." It wasn't really a lie. Yet.

"Well, you look pretty pale."

"I'm okay."

The bus driver looked over his shoulder and held Hiro with a hard glare. Other passengers were starting to look too, but the teen was too green at the gills to really care. Another fifteen minutes and the bus pulled to its stop beside the robotics lab. Filing off, with the other students, Hiro quickly found his lecture hall and chose a seat near the back of the class.

His fingers were so clammy it took him three tries just to unzip his backpack and find a notebook, which turned out to be the wrong one. Stuffing it back in on top of Aunt Cass's pastries, Hiro pulled the correct notebook out and opened it to the formulas he had calculated last night. As he was doing so, Wasabi slipped in on one side and Gogo on the other.

"Hey little man," Wasabi said, grinning. "Why are you sitting in the back today?" Gogo didn't really say anything, she just leaned over and looked at Hiro's answers to last night's homework.

"How did you get that?" She mumbled.

"Hey guys..." Hiro said as he slouched in his seat, swallowing to keep the bile in his throat down.

Gogo slapped a hand to his forehead. "You okay? You don't feel warm."

Hiro didn't have the energy to move her hand. Besides, it felt kind of nice to be fussed over by a girl. "I'm fine."

"That's what people say when they aren't." Gogo quipped.

At that moment, the professor walked in and all eyes in the room were focused on the blackboard. Thankful for the quiet this brought, Hiro took up his pencil and wrote down random words that made it past the deafening rush of blood in his ears. His vision was beginning to swim, so he put an elbow on the desk and held his head with one hand. With one eye open, he roughly scrawled the pieces of equations that he could see until he was interrupted by Gogo who grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her.

"I'm talking to you."

"What?" He hadn't even heard her. The row in front of them turned and shushed them, fingers on their lips.

Gogo took both his cheeks in her hands. His head was floppy like a rag doll's. "You are really not okay. What's wrong with you?"

And then it happened. Hiro's eyes rolled back into his head and he seemed to nestle into Gogo's hand. His head was jerking softly to the right as though he was erratically nuzzling her palm.

"H-Hiro?" She began shaking, just as terrified to pull her hand away from him as she was to keep it there, supporting his entire body weight. Gogo looked to Wasabi whose eyes were just as wide and afraid as her own. In that brief moment she took her eyes off of Hiro, his body suddenly jerked violently and he hit his head on the desk on his way to the floor where he began flailing uncontrollably.

Wasabi and most of the class stared, paralyzed by the intellectual prodigy's spastic fit. Gogo, on the other hand, sprang to Hiro's side, pulling chairs, book bags, and anything else that he might smack his head on out of the way. Gently, she cupped her hands under his head to protect it from the floor.

"Call an ambulance!" She shouted. "He's having a seizure!"

Every nerve was pinched and wound so tightly he didn't want to exist. The pain was so deep and he wanted to scream but there was no air in his lungs. Hiro tried to move his fingers, the bones stiff and brittle as gravity itself pressed and tightened on him like a closed fist.

And then it let go. He hit the dusty earth with a certain amount of momentum, knocking him off balance so that he fell on his knees. Gasping, Hiro sucked air back into his lungs. It tasted like metal. He wiped his cheeks with his sleeves, which were wet with tears he didn't know he had cried.

"Hello, Hiro." Jerking his head up, Hiro glanced around. The terrain was barren and desolate, a soft breeze sifting the dry topsoil so that the air was saturated with it. Standing like a shadow in the dust was a familiar face with a beckoning grin. "Wanna play a game?"

Hiro got to his feet and dusted off his knees. "Tadashi, where are we now?"

A/N: I wrote a great chunk of this at work (on my lunch break, I swear) on a Mac who kept wanting to change 'Hiro' to 'Hero,' so I apologize if there are any such instances. This concept started as a oneshot but may develop into a short. Thanks for reading!