Notes: Sorry about the delay. I have a ton written for this series but I don't tend to write in order, so I had to take a bit to figure out what goes where in the timeline that exists only in my head. Then it was my birthday weekend so nothing got done. I hope it's worth the wait. ^_^
Chapter 2 - Moving Pieces
"We're not going to be able to use the nicknames out of the suits," Hiro pointed out as everyone took a break just to hang out together. "Not if we want to maintain secret identities. I've nearly called Gogo 'Gogo' in front of several people already."
"You could just call us by our real names," Wasabi suggested.
"Great idea. What are your real names?" There was a pause as they realized Hiro had been introduced to them by their nicknames.
"Wallace Gingers or Wally for short."
Hiro snerked and stated, "Okay, yeah, Wasabi's a way better nickname."
"I know, right?" Fred agreed, throwing an arm around Hiro's shoulders. Wasabi narrowed his eyes at them but Tadashi quickly jumped into the conversation before something could happen.
"Hey, Gogo. Isn't your real name Edith or Ethel or something like that?"
"E. You can call me E. Call me anything else and you'll regret it," Gogo stated fiercely. Tadashi held up his hands in cheerful defeat.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Okay, so that's everyone except Honey Lemon, right?" Hiro stated more than asked.
"Ooh! Does this mean I can call you Sweet Tea now?" Fred asked with a beaming grin.
Honey Lemon grimaced and responded, "How about not."
"Sweet Tea?" Hiro asked, confused.
"Her name's Honesty," Tadashi tried explaining, only for Honey Lemon to hastily add, "Honesty Lucia Rodriguez. I hate my first name, so my family calls me Lucia and everyone else tends to call me by my last except for you guys."
"Yeah, but if you shorten Honesty, you get Tea, so Sweet Tea," Fred went on. Honey Lemon wrinkled her nose.
"Honey Lemon was the compromise," Tadashi whispered to Hiro.
"Ah," he vocalized before saying louder, "So what should we call you, Honey Lemon? You either need a superhero name or something we can call you in public."
"Not your last name, please. It's too formal," Fred requested, looking pained at the very thought. Honey Lemon sighed and then looked thoughtful.
"Well, I guess you guys can call me Lucia too. You're practically family anyway."
"Aw."
"Great! Now that that's settled-"
"Hold on. You and Baymax need superhero names," Fred insisted.
"I cannot believe I'm saying this, but he's right," Wasabi added.
"Lucky for you, I've thought this through," Fred declared, stalking back and forth with a finger pointing up. "Baymax can be Big Red while Hiro is our Fearless Leader."
"Wait, what?"
"Well, he did take the lead on the thing with Callaghan," Honey Lemon pointed out.
"And with Mazda," Gogo added.
"So we're going to basically admit we're being led by a fourteen-year-old?" Wasabi inquired with a raised eyebrow.
"Might as well. We technically are and it will hopefully prevent accusations of reckless endangerment if we're obviously following his lead," Tadashi admitted with a grimace.
"Sick. I'm in charge!" Hiro crowed, only to yelp when Tadashi grabbed him and turned him upside down. "Really? Not cool, bro."
"Just making a point. You have leadership skills and we know it, but you're still underaged. Which means you still have to obey me and Aunt Cass. Or else."
"Yeah, yeah, fine. Now put me down."
Tadashi swung Hiro over the couch and dropped him.
"Oof. Nice. Hey, Baymax? How do you feel about your new superhero identity?"
The robot, who had been standing in the corner observing, blinked and tilted his head.
"I am a robot. I do not feel. But if you wish to change my designation for safety purposes, then that is acceptable."
"Alright! Big Red and Fearless Leader it is!" Fred enthused.
"Wow, you sure told him," Yori stated, eyebrows rising. Tadashi had just shown General Schneider to the door of the café, as well as delivered the curt notice the man was now banned from the premises.
"He won't leave me alone. Apparently the military wants Baymax's code and they won't take no for an answer, "Tadashi grouched.
"Well, if he shows up again, we'll show him out. Right, Yori?" Cass stated, trying to cheer her nephew up.
"Yeah, sure," Yori agreed easily. "Never liked the guys in charge of the military anyway. Always struck me as more interested in starting the next war than in stopping it."
"Thanks," Tadashi stated before freezing and then groaning. "As if today couldn't get any worse. I'm going to hide in the kitchen until you get rid of her."
Cass blinked as Tadashi fled and glanced at the entry, only to scowl when she saw who was coming in. She quickly moved to intercept the young woman before she could get too far into the café.
"I'm sorry, but I'm pretty certain you're on the list of people banned from this establishment," Cass stated coldly. The girl flinched.
"I... I can't say I'm surprised, but I wasn't planning on buying anything or staying long or... I just wanted to apologize to you and your family. That's all."
"Apologize?" Cass repeated, rather shocked.
"Yes. What I did was wrong. I know it was wrong and I'll understand if... if he doesn't want to see me. I'm sorry I did it. I was in a bad place at the time, and now they have me on meds and I'm seeing a therapist and everything and it will never happen again."
"Good. Now get out." The girl winced at Cass's sharp tone but nodded and fled.
"Uh, who was that?" Yori asked, risking asking as Cass started angrily cleaning up a table.
"Tadashi's one and only girlfriend, Kaitlyn. Ex-girlfriend. He broke up with her when he was... sixteen? Yeah, I think he'd just had a birthday. They weren't working out, she decided if she couldn't have him then no one could, and attacked while he was waitering for me. Kept going on about being together forever in death while holding him hostage with a gun. Thank God Mrs. Matsuda's got a mean swing with her cane. That gay couple who lives a few blocks down tackled her after Mrs. Matsuda knocked the gun away and she was put away in juvie. She must be out now that she's an adult and getting help. Good for her, but she's still not welcome here, understand?"
"Yeah, I get it. Don't worry, Miss C," Yori promised. "If I see her or the general again, I'll get rid of them."
"Um, Professor? Can I talk to you about switching my partner for the project?" Mary Ito asked. Hiro was also hanging back, hoping to ask for the same thing, although maybe now he couldn't have to. Whose bright idea was it to pair them together on a project? Hell, what math class had projects?
"No," Professor Sullivan replied. "I put you two together to prevent one of your older classmates from taking advantage of either of you or otherwise letting you do all of the work. The fact it will help rein in your rather ridiculous rivalry is just a bonus."
"WHAT?!"
"You heard me. I'm not pairing you two with anyone else. You'll just have to work together," Professor Sullivan stated, folding his arms over his chest while giving the two teenagers in front of him a stern look.
"But we don't even have the same schedule!" Mary protested. "How are we supposed to find time to work together?" Hiro nodded in agreement.
"That's part of growing up; working things out with people who have different schedules. Also, both of you have grown up in a world where it's possible to have meetings with people who aren't even on the same continent, much less the same schedule. Finally, I know for a fact you both have Professor Squires' class after mine and hers doesn't start until two, which gives you both about two hours to have lunch. Why not do lunch meetings?"
Both Hiro and Mary grimaced.
"I suppose I could do that," Mary agreed with ill grace.
"Yeah, I guess," Hiro reluctantly added when Professor Sullivan glared warningly at him.
"Good. I'll see you both next class."
Both Hiro and Mary left, although Hiro muttered as he left, "Meet after his next class?"
"Yeah, I don't want to put up with you more than I have to," Mary agreed before abruptly turning away. Hiro huffed and went to go join his brother and their friends for lunch.
"I'm telling you, there's no way."
"They could be. They're all in the Lovelace Lab now."
"That's just so no one can accuse the board of favoritism towards the Hamadas. I'm telling you, they can't be the Big Heroes."
"Why not?"
"Because if the Nerd Lab was really the Big Heroes, that would mean Wallace Gingers is the guy running around with laser swords. Besides, it would still leave three people unaccounted for, or did you miss the thing where the Hamadas were standing right beside them."
"Okay, you might have a point with that."
"Uh huh. And then there's where the gear came from. Baby Hamada may have designed it but it definitely wasn't made on campus. We would've noticed if the others were making something like that and the baby Hamada was between his lab and his brother's often enough that everyone got glimpses inside and I certainly didn't see any superhero gear laying around. Did you?"
"...No."
"There you go. Unless one of them is secretly a billionaire or something, there's no way the Nerd Lab is the Big Heroes. They might have helped the baby Hamada with some of the designs, but that's about it."
"Dang, you're probably right. Now that I think about it, that pink hero is way prettier than Rodriguez."
Honey Lemon, who'd kind of sort of been eavesdropping when she'd picked up on the conversation happening the next row over in the library stacks, wasn't sure whether to feel insulted or complimented by that last bit. She settled on amused because it served her right for not speaking up by now. Then she blushed when the other guy added, "I don't know. Rodriguez has got it going on, you know?"
Right. Time to go. Still feeling a bit flushed, Honey Lemon gathered her things from the hidden table she'd been studying at - because, while she loved her friends, they were a bit loud and sometimes she just wanted some peace and quiet to work in - and stepped out into the main walkway and almost into the two guys. One of them was already walking the other direction but the other one gave her a once over.
"Well, hello there," he said with a smooth smile and Honey Lemon, who'd already been a bit flushed from embarrassment, blushed harder when she recognized his voice as the one who'd said she 'had it going on'.
"Uh, hi! Sorry for bumping into you."
"It's fine. It's not every day I can claim I got run over by a gorgeous girl," he easily replied. Honey Lemon felt her face get even hotter and suspected she was beet red by this point.
"Oh, uh, thanks! I think..."
"That was definitely a compliment. I'm Ryan, by the way. What's your name?"
She nearly said Honey Lemon but remembered in time that they'd decided to use her nickname for her superhero identity. "Uh, Honesty Lucia Rodriguez. Most people just call me by my last name."
"Honesty?"
"Heh, yeah. My parents wanted virtues but wanted something different from Prudence, Chastity, or Concepción. My older sisters got Trinity and Destiny, my older brothers got Truth and Valor, and I got stuck with Honesty."
"It's a pretty name. Almost as pretty as you."
"Oh. Thank you. I, uh, need to get going. Class, you know."
"Right. See you around, Honesty."
"Right," Honey Lemon agreed before fleeing, all the while telling herself she wasn't actually running away from the cute guy who was interested in her and knowing that she actually really was. How embarrassing. She could take out evil-doers but couldn't even manage to talk to a nice boy. Her abuela would be ashamed. Honey Lemon sighed and headed for the lab. Chemistry had always made her feel better.
"About time you showed up. You've been out of the slammer for ages. No time for the rest of us?" Tsubaki asked. Ran huffed while Botan giggled.
"Why do you care? It wasn't you who got us out," Ayame stated pointedly.
"Not for lack of trying. Our new boss is more interested in information at this point in time than anything else."
"You're new boss? Well, well, our new boss is the one who bailed us out. Has the stupidest name ever, but he's smart. Damn smart, and he's got something coming up, something big, that will give us a crack at one of the Hamadas and possibly the Big Heroes as well. You in?"
All six women exchanged looks.
"Play them both?" Tsubaki suggested with a nasty smirk.
"Of course."
"Search pattern one tonight," Hiro decided out loud over their communication system. He relaxed at the sensation of clinging to Baymax's back even as the rest of the team chorused back their agreement. They'd been doing this for a few weeks now, randomly switching up a few pre-decided routes and search patterns for the city, and the streets seemed to be getting safer as a result, although they still hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Fujitas.
"Hm, quiet night tonight," Tadashi mused as they neared the end of their patrol. Hiro had just opened his mouth to agree when the explosion happened. The shock wave threw Baymax off target and they had a rough landing on a nearby rooftop.
"Hiro!" the others called even as Mazda started barking questions over the line.
"I'm fine, but that apartment high-rise is on fire. Mazda, we need firefighters to our location ASAP!"
"On it. Can you help evacuate the building?"
"Way ahead of you," Gogo promised.
Tadashi's heart had leapt into his throat and strangled any words he could have said when the explosion went off right by Hiro and Baymax. He'd blown out his breath in relief when Hiro had quickly responded to their friends' worried cries. Then had come the instructions to evacuate the damaged building and he had something to do.
"The nineteenth and twenty-fifth floors are both on fire," Baymax calmly informed them.
"Right," Hiro agreed before commanding, "Wasabi, you're with Gogo. Get the people who're trying to get out an exit and make sure no one gets trampled. Honey Lemon, try and make the ground a bit safer for jumpers. Make it bouncy or something. Fred, try and catch the ones who try jumping in the wrong spot. Tadashi-"
"I've got the microbots making ladders to the blocked off floors," Tadashi interjected, "but I can only do the areas of the building I can actually see and thus focus on and I can only go so high. I don't have enough microbots to reach anywhere near the top of the building."
"Baymax and I will get the people on the top floors. Just concentrate on what you can do. All of you."
"Right."
The firefighters came while they were working and Tadashi used their ladders to increase the range of both the ladders and his microbots. With people to help herd the crowd, Gogo and Wasabi started reuniting families and helping those with injuries. There was a landing site for Baymax as he flew down from the top of the building with arm loads of desperate people who'd been forced to flee up. One such person, a teenaged girl, broke free of the group and tried running back into the building, only to be stopped by Tadashi. He grimaced at the reminder of his own attempt at something so stupid and was quick to reprimand her.
"Where are you going? You can't go in there! You'll get killed!"
"But I have to! My neighbor didn't let me grab Aiko before dragging me out! She's still in bed! Please, my baby sister's still in there!" the girl sobbed.
Tadashi grabbed the girl by her shoulders, turned her so she was facing him, and demanded in a low voice, "Where?" She gave him a startled look but quickly rattled off the information.
"Apartment thirty-twenty-two. It's on the thirtieth floor. The north side of the building."
Tadashi nodded.
"I'm on it. Stay here."
Then Tadashi started moving, informing the firefighters he had been working with what he was about to do so he could start gathering his microbots. He'd need a lot to reach the apartment on the thirtieth floor.
There was thick, black smoke everywhere and she was scared, and she couldn't find her nee-chan anywhere. It was noisy outside, with fire truck lights making the ground as bright as day while sirens sang out. Aiko had tried waving at the firefighters helping people out of their windows lower down, but it didn't look like their ladder could reach Aiko's window. Then something happened down on the ground and a man in white rose into the air until he was right by Aiko's window. She couldn't see his eyes, only the lights from below reflecting off of his helmet, but he had a nice smile.
"Hello," he said, "Are you Aiko?"
"Yes," she answered reluctantly because he was a stranger.
"Your big sister is already down there and she's really worried about you. Will you come down with me?"
Aiko looked down. She couldn't tell if her sister Sonoko was on the ground because everyone looked like ants. So did whatever was holding the man up, but she could see they were actually those little robot things that all of the adults were talking about. A bad man had stolen them and tried hurting people but a group of real superheroes had stopped him and one of them had taken the little robots to do good things with them.
The little robots, Aiko noticed, had been repainted with white and bits of red and purple here and there. Aiko thought they looked much nicer now than when the scary man had them. They looked rounder and eager, like a puppy almost. It also meant the man in white was probably a superhero.
"Yes," she agreed, reaching out to the man, then asking once he'd picked her up, "Are you one of the Big Heroes on TV?"
"Ah. Yes, I am."
"I'm Aiko but you know that. What's your name?"
"My friends call me White Knight," he replied. He sounded odd, like he didn't like his name.
"I like your name," she told him, hoping it would make him feel better. Then they were at the ground and her sister, who was sobbing, "Thank you! Thank you!" over and over, was pulling her from his grasp. She gladly went but turned and shouted, "Thank you, White Knight!" before she could forget her manners. He nodded and went to save more people while Aiko got taken to the ambulance.
A picture of Aiko in his arms would be in the news the next day and Aiko copied and saved it for the rest of her life, because while the adults argued about him keeping the little robots, he would always be Aiko's hero.
The team, still in their suits, collapsed in the debriefing room.
"Ugh, I still smell like smoke," Wasabi complained but even he didn't move as Mazda came into the room.
"We'll let you use the locker rooms in a bit," she promised, "But first we need to debrief you on what exactly happened out there."
"What's there to say? A building exploded on our patrol route and we helped get all the survivors out."
"Are you certain it was an explosion and not just a random fire?"
"Something definitely exploded," Hiro insisted. "It pretty much knocked me and Baymax out of the air. Besides, two entirely separate floors were on fire."
Mazda nodded grimly and said, "The fire chief agrees with you so far. His people still need to finish their investigation but he's already requested police backup in case they stumble across more incendiary devices. As it is, they've already found signs of accelerant but it's all in the public areas of the building: hallways and such, and someone disabled the automatic sprinklers on both of the floors that were on fire."
The team all looked grim at that information but most of them shook their heads when Mazda asked, "Any of you have anything to add?"
"I think it was a message," Fred suddenly spoke up, looking serious.
"What? Why?" Wasabi asked.
"Think about it! A bomb goes off on our patrol route exactly when we're patrolling it? That exact section of it, no less! We were literally going past the building when it exploded. I say it's no coincidence," Fred insisted. "It's typical supervillain behavior: put innocents in danger to prove their point."
"What point is that?" Tadashi asked with a frown. Fred shrugged.
"I dunno. That they know what our patrol routes are?" There was some uncomfortable shifting at that idea.
"Maybe," Mazda conceded, "But it could also be a coincidence. We have no proof either way. We'll change up the patrol routes a bit, however, just in case. And we'll let you know what the firefighters come up with. You're dismissed. Go take a shower."
"Thank God it's a weekend and we can sleep in tomorrow," Hiro moaned as he and his brother entered their house and started up the stairs, their hair still damp from their quick shower in the police locker room. Hiro paused before heading up the second set of stairs, the ones leading to their bedroom, however.
"Aunt Cass?" Tadashi asked before Hiro could because, despite the late hour, she was still up and looked nervous.
"Oh, good. You're home. I mean, I knew you would be. I was hoping it would be earlier but I saw the fire in the news so I know why you're late and you're not in trouble or anything and it looks like you're both okay. You're okay, right? Of course you are," she babbled even as she wrung her hands in a nervous gesture. Hiro exchanged a look with Tadashi before they both reached out and started guiding her to a chair.
"Aunt Cass, what's wrong?" She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh before answering the question.
"I got a phone call today. They're expediting Callaghan's trial. And they want you both there."
Notes: Hiro's (and to a degree, Mary's) schedule is actually from the official book Hiro's Journal. He actually does have a World History class with someone names Squires and a math class (Calculus for Engineers, to be precise) with someone named Sullivan. World History is at 2pm Tuesday and Thursday. The math class is before it and is the one with the glitched schedule mentioned last chapter as the book has it starting at 10:30 am and ending at 10pm. Considering all of the other classes on the schedule are an hour and a half with a half-hour minimum leeway between classes, I suspect it was supposed to read 12pm, not 10pm.
