summary: AU in which Hiro dies in the fire instead of Tadashi. Completely distraught, Tadashi abandons Baymax and enters the field of gene-splitting in order to recreate his brother. His progressions are steady, but he struggles to locate the final component necessary for it all to coalesce – that is, until he meets you.
Warning: this fanfic will dabble in serious mental disorders, pregnancy kink, and noncon/dubious consent. If any of these things trigger you please do not read this.
((Chapter playlist: Pianos Become the Teeth - Say Nothing))
The first thing you had noticed was his size.
You had been seated at a table, directly across from Professor Callaghan, when you marveled at how the blue fabric of his baseball cap didn't graze the top of the door frame. Beneath the table, the tips of your fingers began to fiddle at one another, and it took you a moment to realise that Callaghan had repeated his question.
You tore your gaze from the man at the door and faced the professor with a blush. Your mouth tilted into an apologetic smile, and you answered.
The striking cerulean of your interviewer's gaze, which had previously stolen your attention with their oceanic depth into his skull, now became a vague detail – two scratches of blue in your periphery. Everything in the Testing Room seemed to follow its lead, diluting themselves into an array of masses and nothing more. There were no distinct contours or definitions. Just blobs of colour that drifted this way and that, and when a man identified as Wasabi accidentally lasered a couch down the middle, the succeeding shouts of alarm seemed to synchronize into one harmonised, indistinguishable noise.
It felt wrong.
Disgustingly wrong. The desensitization of the sleek oddities around you only seemed to strengthen your previous attractions. Something hot and wet had seemingly slapped itself onto your form and dragged you forward, unrelentingly, towards the man at the door. The dark stain of his presence stood slanted, leaning one-leg-crossed-over-the-other against the frame, and the black fabric of his sweater clung to his build when he crossed his arms over his chest.
His eyes were dark. They grazed over the room.
When they landed on you, he smiled.
"(F/N)?" Callaghan's voice dragged you from your thoughts and plopped you into your seat. "Are you feeling alright? You've become distant."
A flush crawled across your features and you nodded your head – two parts to clear your nerves and one part out of genuine embarrassment. Shamefully, you glanced over the professor's shoulder again, and you immediately wished you hadn't. He was still staring, and the gentleness of it all was a brutal contrast to swirls of black that poured from his form. You tried to turn away, invert back into yourself for protection, but when you caught his wave out of the corner of your eye and your heart damn near skipped out of your chest, you were you were a fucking goner.
You said, "I'm fine," but your words were mush. Your legs were weak.
"Alright then." The sound of Callaghan's voice reminded you that he was still a person that existed, and there was the scratching of pen on paper.
Your picked at the bottom of your seat. Your felt the heat of your ears. When you raised your line of sight to meet the professor's gaze, he had folded his hands over the table. The blue of his eyes seemed to slice into your skull, claw your thoughts into the open, and there was no fucking stopping the sense of dread that welled in your tummy.
"Let us continue."
You said, "I'm fine,"
but your words were mush.
Your legs were
weak.
The questions were the same – ranging from your reasons to join ninja star, how you could benefit the corporation, and so on – but the physical act of sitting in a chair had seemingly become the most difficult task. Whatever it is that He did to you, it made you fidgety as hell. It was as if there was lava in your insides, melting through your veins, cooking through your bones. He was taunting your need to sit still without doing a single thing, and you breathed out puffs of smoke.
Your gaze scanned for a distraction and immediately fell upon who Professor Callaghan earlier identified as Gogo. She was carving through her station, balanced perfectly on her circular blades, her form all toned limbs and sharp movements. When she slipped and crashed onto her face, she rejected Fred's hand for help and lifted herself to begin again.
"She's amazing," You breathed, watching in awe as she sped past Honey Lemon and sent her pile of papers fluttering behind her. A smile tugged at your lip as she slid seamlessly beneath a table, launched off of a chair and made a perfect arch over Wasabi's laser grid. "What material is that?" You turned in your chair, craning your head to follow her movements. "Titanium..?"
"Magnesium, actually." The soft, foreign voice was accompanied by the scraping of a chair, and a masculine form settled into it. Your eyes widened at the broad shoulders, the dark sweater. When he reached up to adjust his cap, you swallowed the lump in your throat. "And she's still got a few kinks to work out," he said, settling the weight of his brown eyes on you. "She almost cut my head off last week."
"-a case," the professor cut in, placing a considerate amount of emphasis on each word, "that was purely accidental. You of all people should know that there is no progression without error, Tadashi."
Tadashi..? You rolled the name on your tongue, tasted it.
"He's referring to my old robot," Tadashi said, crossing his arms over his chest, "Still thinks I shouldn't have let it go."
"Baymax," the professor stressed, and the irritation in his gaze suggested that the argument was an old one, "had potential. Too much potential to be abandoned."
Despite the professor's distaste, Tadashi appeared unaffected, and at that very moment you became hyper-aware of how well he identified with black. You saw the colour in the slouch into his chair, the amused curve of his eyes. He was modest and arrogant. He was cool, content. A brute contrast to yourself and the hot stretch of red that crawled across your face. You decided he noticed, there was no fucking way he didn't, because those brown oriental eyes were trained on you in a way couldn't fall short of entertained. He's got you under his control and wont let you forget it, holding you all teasing still while dark tendrils crawled up your legs, your torso, slathering up your neck and onto your features. They lick at your mouth, push past your lips, and when his line of sight drifted to your hair you could feel the finger-like curls of smoke sliding through your scalp.
"I'm not abandoning him," he said, nice and easy, as if he could do all this and eat a sandwich. "Just a temporary shift in priorities."
Something wormed into your pants then, slid beneath your underwear, and your lap burned at the contact. You couldn't deny it anymore – you were wet – and you failed to distinguish whether the gallop in your chest originated from excitement or fear.
When he turned to Callaghan, you hoped into the void that he'd ease up on the pressure, stop doing what ever the fuck this was, but then he keeps you a little longer, and a little more than that, until you realise he wasn't intending on letting you go at all.
Callaghan responds – a snarky remark about the ethics of gene splitting – and the sudden realisation of the fluidity of it all brings a sinking sensation to your chest. Tadashi had you wound around his finger, strung tight, and he didn't miss a beat in the conversation. It continued around you, and you attempted to stay within fifteen paces of the subject but it effort was in vain. All you could sense was the man beside you, feel him pressing into your skin, your insides, and he smelled of a deep, earthy scent.
Suddenly you fell backwards through your skull, saw visions of yourself arched on his cock in the dark mass of nowhere, grinding and bouncing to fulfill your pleasures. He leaned forward, pressed his mouth into your ear. "(F/N)," he moaned, taking hold of your hips and rocking you on his lap. You wailed and he smirked into the flesh, rocked you faster. "(F/N)."
"(F/N)." Callaghan sounded concerned.
The black loosened and you broke the surface; the light and noise of the testing room crashed into you, wave-like, before settling into a state of manageability.
You blinked your eyes, rubbed at your ears.
"(F/N)?" It was Tadashi who said it this time, and the way he said your name with fake syrupy sweetness made some something boil beneath your skin. The tendrils were gone. He looked just about ready to wrap you up in his arms, coo at you. "Are you okay?"
You rubbed at the back of your neck and nodded. "Yeah," you said, trying to ignore how weary you sounded.
"I understand," Callaghan said, leveling Tadashi with a stare, "that the concept of gene-splitting can be upsetting. We wont speak of it again if it makes you uncomfortable."
For the sake of preserving some shred of dignity, you murmured something to the effect of "yes, please don't," when a sharp whizzz cut you off.
You felt rather than saw Gogo's blade cut into your cheek. Given the speed with which it approached you, it should have carved through your skull and out the other side of your head, but something had stopped it. You remained frozen, fearing for the worst, and the piercing sound of Honey Lemon's scream did little to calm your nerves
You looked at Callaghan, eyes wide, as the lab room fell into a suffocating silence. You watched as Honey Lemon, Wasabi, and Fred gathered before you. When Gogo appeared, her face lay hidden in her hands and her eyes were scrunched with worry.
You did not want to look at Tadashi.
Bleeding Christ, you did not want to. Your lips fell apart and closed again. It took you two more tries before you could speak. "Tadashi..?" You said, voice weak and cracking at the corners. The bloody mess of his hand halting the progression of the blade dominated your periphery, and your heart tried to pound out of your chest. "Are you-?"
"Don't move," Professor Callaghan muttered, eyes wide with worry, and something wet slid down your cheek. "Be very, very still." He arose then, coming towards you, and beyond him Wasabi dropped his laser, mouth agape in shock.
You opened your mouth with the beginning of another question, but the action evoked a stinging pain from your cheek. You winced, and more fluids streamed down the side of your face. You raised a hand to touch it, and your fingertips came back red. Uncaring, you gritted through the pain and tried again. "Is it bad?"
"This might hurt." Tadashi said from beside you, but you could not turn to face him.
Tadashi's large, warm hand slid through your hair hand held your head tight – bracing. "What's wrong!?" Your voice cracked with worry.
Drip, drip, drip. Red pooled onto your shoulder.
"Tadashi," Honey Lemon spread her fingertips just enough to speak through the gaps, and her voice was mortified. "Are you okay?"
Curiosity claimed you victim and you turned your head to the left. The warnings that followed were useless by then – a sharp sting carved across your cheek and the hand tightened in your hair, tugging you away. You winced at the feeling, now painfully aware of just how deep the blade had cut. A gaping sensation ensued, followed by the metal clang as Tadashi dropped the device.
You craned your head to look at him then, uncaring of the gush of sticky warmth that crawled down your cheek. "Are you alright?" He asked, and his smirk was gone. His tone was gentle. The sliced mess of his hand was limp in the cradle of his arm.
You nodded your head, numbly, and focused instead on the bloody divide in his hand.
"Hey, no worries," he said, and when he settled you with his gaze you could feel the warmth of it stroke your hair, settle you down. It's a look that said: it's alright, I've got you, and for reasons you don't understand, you believed it. "I'll be fine."
"Wait wait wait wait wait-" Wasabi cut in, shuffling forward on his stubby legs and moving his hands dramatically about, "did you just say I'm fine!? Look at your hand! Look at her face!- Er, no offense," he quickly added, noting your expression, "We definitely need to call a hospital!"
"I'm on it!" Honey Lemon withdrew her phone and clicked toward the two of you on the length of her heels. "Are you feeling okay, love?" She inquired in the overtly excited tone that she always has, tilting your chin with gentle fingers to inspect the damage. "I'm sure Gogo didn't mean it, right Gogo?"
A hush rolled over the group, and everyone turned to face the woman with dark hair. Her expression was contorted with regret. "(F/N), I'm so sorry," Gogo said, voice soft. She took a step forward, and looked as if she didn't want to take anymore. But she did, and the pain in her eyes seemed to become more and more profound with her every movement. "It doesn't hurt too much, does it?" Her voice had dropped to barely above a whisper, and her fingertips reached towards your features, seemingly willing to fix her wrongdoings, only to invert back into her palm again.
You shook your head, and the gaze you gave her seemed to be reassuring enough. She took hold of your hands and squeezed.
"Really loving all the concern over here, guys," Tadashi said, tone playful, and he was washed over by an amass of Honey Lemon's "Sorry, are you okay?" Gogo's "When will you die," and Wasabi's "ain't nobody told you to do that though." Fred, on the other hand, stood at the tips of his toes in his monster suit, knees bent, chanting some sort of appreciation prayer to the alien gods to "saving us yet again."
You smiled at that and turned to Tadashi, forcefully reminding yourself of the size difference between the two of you. He was massive in comparison, towering over you in his seat, and despite all that had transpired you were forcefully reminded of tales of the gentle giant. You reached out your hands, tiny in light of his own, and paused just before the skin of his wounded appendage – asking for permission.
He complied, and it felt massive in your palm. You cradled it the best you could.
When you glanced up at him again, you were surprised to find that he was still staring at you. How could the man who had seemingly drowned you be so affectionate...?
"Does your face hurt?" He asked, and there was a tug at the corner of your lip.
You nodded, and for some off reason you couldn't help but laugh. "Yes," you replied, your grin showing teeth, "Does your hand hurt?"
He nodded, a lot, and your heart swelled at the white of his teeth when he smiled. "Hey, I'm not dead yet!"
"Unfortunately," Gogo muttered, and Tadashi nudged you at your shocked expression.
"She's kidding," he said, laughing, and slowly rose up onto his feet at the disapproval of the group. "How about," Tadashi offered, and your eyes widened at the bloodied mess of his right forearm, "instead of bleeding to death while we wait for the ambulance, (F/N) and I just walk to the medical wing of our school."
Fred paused mid chant, lowered on one knee, and scratched at his chin. "That makes sense."
Wasabi raised an eyebrow, paused, and nodded. Honey Lemon clicked forth then, took hold of your hands, and helped you up. "Will you need any help?" She asked, and you noticed the first quirk of her Spanish accent. "(F/N) is so tiny, I'm sure I can carry her there!"
"No, no, I'm-" You stuttered, but the attempt was in vain. Tadashi had already given her a wink and a nod and Honey Lemon swooped you up and into her arms, drawing you close to the strawberry-scent of her chest.
"Come on, Tadashi," she called, literally bouncing with excitement. "Her life is on the line!"
You flushed as she cradled you closer then, kissed the button of your nose. "T-This-" you tried, enveloped in the heat of embarrassment, "You don't have to-"
Tadashi nodded his head in the direction of the door, nice and easy, but when he gazed at your form, something dark shadowed in his eye, something both tangible and intangible that reached for you, stretching, and you swore to the stars and back that you could not have imagined the ensuing finger-like pressure that closed around your throat. In that moment there was no denying the familiarity of what it was - you've seen it everywhere, fleetingly, whether it be the twitch of a finger when hungry or the stalk of a predator before slipping into a rut. You have seen it in smirks - felt it in yourself after watching an enemy bleed. The raw amount of exposure confined into the simple brevity of a glance left you feeling split open, bleeding raw, with your carnage dangling form Honey Lemon's arms as she happily bounded after him.
I feel that this is a safe place to leave off.
If you stumble across any errors, please let me know! I do overlook some.