A Future Set Ablaze

Chapter 1 - Activation

Tadashi shuffled under his warm blankets as sunlight beamed into his room through the window over his bed. His body wished for more sleep but the light was almost blinding as it seeped through the translucent blanket over him. He let out a groan as he pulled the sheets off of him and got up to close his curtains to block out the light. After closing them, the exhausted adult was about to get back into bed until a familiar female voice startled him, causing him to jump a little.

"So, you're finally awake, are you?" Tadashi turning around to see his aunt holding a plate of food, in which he could easily suppose was his lunch. "I know you've been trying to make an attempt to eat, Tadashi, but, you know, you should really try to eat some more. You're gonna starve yourself to death if you don't eat enough." She picked up the hardly-touched plate of last night's dinner and replaced it with the lunch she had recently made.

"I'm not hungry." He muttered and snuggled back into his blankets. She let out a soft sigh and brushed her fingers through her brown hair.

"Also, your friends called again this morning. They're wondering again when you're coming back. The administration said you could start back at anytime, however, you'll be behind some, but I doubt it'll be that hard for you to catch up." The college student just let out a small hum of acknowledgement as he tried to fall back asleep. He could hear guardian left the bedroom and head downstairs, probably getting ready for the cafe's lunch rush.

After what felt like an eternity, Tadashi decided to get out of bed for a little bit, after all, he knew laying in bed and sleeping all day long wasn't going to help his physical and mental condition. However, getting out of bed and moving around caused him to always notice the empty bed on the other side of the room. The bed was hard to miss, no, it was impossible to miss. The well-made bed mocked him, as his brother had rarely made his own bed, and if he did, it was never perfect as it was now.

How long had it been since he had last seen his brother? The young adult had lost track of the time and date what seemed like forever ago. His younger brother had such a successful future in front of him, especially with the fact that he had just been accepted into the college he was suppose to be attending himself, San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. His younger brother would be a year behind him, Tadashi himself, along with his four other friends, who he had met at the school last year, would be sophomores.

"Hiro…" He muttered, staring at the bed that the young boy had slept so peacefully only weeks ago, "why did you have insist on going into that fire?" Tadashi had remembered he was about to run into the exposition hall that had caught ablaze, but Hiro had dashed in front of him, having more speed and stamina than the older sibling had. And before the future second-year could catch up with soon-to-be first-year to get him back to safety, an explosion had thrown him backwards onto the pavement.

His heart throbbed in pain as the painful memories rushed around his brain, covering up anything else that tried to break up the memories from reforming. The adult let out a noise as his breathing patterns started to become irregular, soon realizing his mistake once he heard the familiar inflating noise behind him. He turned around only to see his robotics project active and ready to assist. However, it had to get around his bed and through the tight space between his bed and his small shelf, which it did, slowly but surely.

It stood in front of Tadashi, putting it's arm up and moving it's hand in a counter-clockwise rotation. "Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion."

"Good, um... afternoon, Baymax." Tadashi looked at the dialog clock hanging on the wall, realizing it had just twelve o'clock rather recently.

"I heard sound of distress. What seems to be the trouble?" Baymax continued. Tadashi cracked a small smile, still seeing his project fully functional after all that work that had gone towards it.

"Um, it's nothing, Baymax." He lied. He wasn't really in the mood to talk to anyone at the moment. It was lucky he knew the deactivation message. "I'm satisfied with my-"

"I will scan you now." The creator stared at his robot for a moment, only realizing now how stubborn he had made his creation. He only nodded softly, giving in to the robot's programming.

"Scan complete. Your serotonin levels are low. Diagnosis: depression." Baymax tilted his head as he told the young man the results. Tadashi nodded in response.

"Y-Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Tadashi, why are you depressed?" The robot couldn't read his mind, sadly, but then again, nobody could.

"...Hiro, my brother who you met weeks ago, d-died in a fire." He was able to choke out before starting to cry. Baymax walked up to the young inventor and hugged him, patting him on the head.

"It is okay to cry. There, there. It will be alright." Tadashi cracked a small smile as he wiped his tears away.

"Thanks, Baymax… I think I'm going to go outside for a while." He looked up Baymax's simplistic yet gentle face. The marshmallow robot nodded.

"Fresh air will improve your emotional state." Tadashi smiled at his creation. If Baymax could smile, he knew he'd smile back.

"I'm satisfied with my care." He dismissed the robot, feeling it's vinyl body move away from his body and back over to the charging station on his side of the room.I guess was better off talking to Baymax than just ignoring him… The black-haired adult thought as he watched his creation maneuver his way back to the crate.

The young adult quickly got dressed out of his pajamas and into some rather basic clothes he used on off-days, hoping not to second-guess his decision. After slipping on his shoes and putting on his signature hat, he grabbed the keys sitting on the desk to his moped and headed out.

As started to walk through the doorway, Tadashi looked back one more time at Hiro's bed. He frowned and a lone tear fell down his cheek. He shook his head in response to snap himself out of it and wiped his cheek with his shirt sleeve and headed out.

Only fate knew what was waiting for the recovering older brother in the city...

Author's Note: For once I'm actually getting something written... I haven't uploaded anything in years because I can never get a fic finished... even tho I was SO close with that one fic for another fandom before I accidentally fell in love with Big Hero 6... whoops...

But anyways, my friend suggested when I asked them for an idea for a Big Hero 6 AU to write a "AU where Hiro dies instead of Tadashi" story (to put into simple terms), and I'm totally into this fic, being on Winter Break and all. Somehow. I'm hoping to get it finished before the end of the break, which seems pretty possible right now. I have other ideas for BH6 stories but they're all kinda filled with OCs and stuff and I'm honestly wanted to write something with little to no OCs. And this worked out well so...

The story probably won't be exactly on cue with the movie, considering that it's Tadashi instead of Hiro, and I haven't seen the movie in over a month (I can find clips of the movie but sadly it's the parts I don't need T_T), soo yeah. I'll try my hardest with what I remember.

But anyways, review if you'd like! It would really help me push along with this fic, even if I am motivated to write it at the moment. Who knows, maybe a few days later I no longer have the motivation for this fic like I did before! (...it's very unlikely though, holiday breaks are so boring when you're stuck at home most of the time and have so little to do...)