*Read this chapter before reading the second chapter of Cosmic Intervention. Links are on my profile.

[6 days since the fire.]

No one had the energy to do anything.

Honey was uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn in a corner, Bunsen burners extinguished and wearing darker, more subdued colors. Fred sat on his beanbag, head tilted back and staring at the ceiling, his long face seemingly stretching to touch the floor. Wasabi kept going around to organize and re-organize his workspace; he rearranged the books in his small bookshelf, then came back to change the order, switching from alphabetical to author's last names to color-coded to decreasing in size -

Until GoGo snapped and yelled at him, throwing a mini-disc at his head and telling him to stop or she would go over there and personally burn all his books, so help her. He shrank back at her outburst and nodded, sinking into a chair and fiddling with his tools instead.

When Tadashi had wandered into the lab with the metaphorical black cloud ghosting over his head that morning, the others had known immediately that he wasn't okay. They'd stayed back as the students they shared the lab with came up to him and offered consolations, only stepping up and subtly turning people away once they noticed the strained look on Tadashi's face.

People had taken the hint; one by one, the other students suddenly remembered things they had to do and appointments they had to keep, each one zipping out until the four were the only ones left, watching with heavy hearts as Tadashi quietly thanked them and plodded into his workspace, making the glass opaque a moment later.

The four hated to see their friend like that, quiet and withdrawn with bags under his eyes as he brushed off their questions, saying that he was fine. They could tell he was lying by the small, almost undetectable downward tilt of his mouth and the set of his jaw. But Tadashi had laughed it off - no one thought to point out how brittle his laughter sounded - and had retreated to seclude himself. They had let him go, unable to bring themselves to stop him.

Hiro had been everything to Tadashi, and the four knew that, could remember the long, one-sided conversations they had had with the older Hamada. Tadashi had waxed poetic about his little brother, spiels of he's a complete bonehead but he's a genius, I'm so proud of him surfacing often enough that laid-back, could-care-less GoGo had asked him (threatened him with a concussion) to stop. The young man's complete devotion and over-the-top protectiveness for his brother had been simultaneously humorous and admirable. So it was understandable that his grief ran deep.

It didn't help that they'd found out, several days before Hiro's funeral, that Professor Callaghan had been in the same building, and was thought to have perished in the flames along with Hiro. The student body had erected a memorial for the two victims in front of the ruins of the exhibition hall, the pictures encased in simple, wooden frames and surrounded by sticks of incense and flowers. In the pictures, Professor Callaghan smiled softly, and Hiro grinned, his mouth stretched out into his trademark, gap-toothed smile.

After some time, Tadashi was jerked out of his forced concentration (projects he needed to finish and final touches he needed to give to Baymax) by a knock, and he got up and tapped the glass, clearing it to see who was on the other side. His friends waved at him, and he opened the door to let them in.

Tadashi dropped down onto his chair, and the others gathered around him. They didn't crowd, or pelt him or questions about his mental and emotional health. Tadashi was grateful for that - he'd had his fill of the questions that morning when people had stopped him in the halls and offered condolences.

His friends didn't pry. Instead, Wasabi took a step forward, a bundle in his hand.

"Here," the man said, handing him the bundle. Tadashi looked down to see Hiro's jacket, clean-pressed and fresh with no traces of smoke. "Thought you might want this back."

Tadashi accepted the offered article of clothing, running his fingers over the familiar cloth (the feel of Hiro's hood slipping through his fingers) and smiling weakly. "Thanks, Wasabi."

"No problem," his friend smiled. Then, haltingly, Wasabi reached into his pocket drawing something. "I... also found this in the pocket." He placed the object on top of the jacket. Tadashi blinked at it, and felt his stomach lurch. There, tied to a leather throng, was one of Hiro's microbots.

Wasabi yelped suddenly, rubbing his arm. "What was that for?" he hissed to GoGo, who had just punched him.

"Nice going, genius!" She hissed back. "You might have just made it worse!" In unison, they all turned to Tadashi, wary of his reaction.

But the young man just picked up the microbot-turned-necklace, examining it with a lost, wistful look on his face. His friends, sensing his need to be alone, chose this moment to quietly slip away. Honey, the last to leave, put a comforting hand on his shoulder before she left, and closed the door behind her, leaving Tadashi with his thoughts and his memories.

Tadashi, elbow on his desk and hand under his chin, dangled the necklace in the air in front of him, moodily watching the microbot twirl.

It had been Hiro's greatest idea, outshining any of his brother's previous inventions. And to think Hiro had gotten the inspiration from Megabot, the robot he'd taken bot-fighting... Tadashi still wasn't sure if that had been a coincidence, or if Hiro had deliberately based the microbots off Megabot to tick him off.

Hiro...

Shaking his head to dislodge gloomy thoughts, Tadashi dropped the microbot, letting it fall and bounce onto Hiro's jacket. I need to do something. Determined to distract himself, he twisted in his seat, pushing against the desk to roll across the room -

And promptly fell over onto the floor, knocking his head on the way down as one of the wheels caught on a stray scrap of paper and tipped the chair over.

Brilliant, knucklehead, he thought to himself, groaning and sitting up on the floor with a wince. Brilliant. Gingerly, he prodded at the growing bump at the back of his head, hissing at the pain. "Ow."

Under the bay window, the red box Tadashi had (figuratively) shed sweat and blood over beeped and opened, the sound followed by a pfffffsh of air as Baymax inflated to his full size. Tadashi watched as the white robot blinked, looked down at his feet, and stepped out of the containment unit, lifting one foot at a time. Several squeaks later, Baymax was in front of him, his black eyes whirring to focus on him.

"Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion," came the pleasant, soothing voice Tadashi had programmed into Baymax on the fifty-eighth test run. "I was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said, 'Ow.'" A chart with a series of faces flickered on the robot's chest. "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?"

("Physical, or emotional?")

Tadashi smiled faintly and shook his head, righting the chair and sitting back down on it. "I'm fine, Baymax. The pain is a one, maybe even less."

The robot blinked at him, black dots winking in and out of sight. "My sensors indicate that you are suppressing your pain. I will scan you now."

Surprised, he lifted his hands in protest. "Wait, no that isn't necessary -"

"Scan complete," Baymax said, and Tadashi rolled his eyes, a faint smile on his face. "You have sustained a minor head wound, which can be treated with an icepack." The robot handed him an icepack, and Tadashi took it, pressing it against his head as the robot continued. "The wounds on your hands are healing at an acceptable rate, and you will regain full mobility and range of motion if you continue to keep them cleaned and wrapped. I suggest going to the hospital and getting your stitches removed within this week."

At the reminder, Tadashi looked down at his hands, which were covered in bandages; underneath them, the stitches itched. He flexed his hands and felt the same listlessness that had stalked him all morning return, weighing down on his chest.

Baymax paused, and blinked. "Other assorted ailments are low serotonin levels, insomnia, and a lack of appetite. Your medical record shows no past history of serotonin deficiencies, and the nature of your current condition cannot be diagnosed accurately by my database. This is not a common occurrence. May I suggest a doctor's visit?"

Tadashi shook his head. "It's fine, Baymax. It isn't a medical condition." Dropping his hands back in his lap, he added, absently, "The only reason you can't come up with a treatment is because I programmed you for treatments for physical pain. I left out any procedures for psychological or emotional pain."

"I understand." Baymax considered him for a moment, then squeaked over to Tadashi's computer, placing a hand on it. "Please wait a moment."

"Wait, what are you - ?" Tadashi half-rose out of his seat, but Baymax was finished with whatever the robot had been doing before he could even take a step.

"Download complete," the robot announced. "New data has been incorporated into my healthcare matrix."

Tadashi's heart skipped a beat. Wait, what? "New data for what?!"

The healthcare companion turned to look at him and tilted his head to the side. "In order to become a better healthcare companion, I have downloaded all the current information and research on the treatment of psychological and emotional injuries. In addition to that, I have also downloaded..." Baymax continued, but the robot's words fell to deaf ears.

In order to become a better companion, thought Tadashi, reaching up and dragging a hand down his face, peering at Baymax with incredulous eyes, his hand over his mouth. He's actuallylearning! Unbidden, his mouth stretched into a wide, ecstatic grin.

It was true that he had programmed the robot with the ability to grow and evolve, but to see it in action... He felt a deep, satisfying stab of pride and the urge to break out into another victory lap around the room.

All those test runs paid off, in the end, he thought dazedly. I can't wait to tell Hi-

His thoughts screeched to a halt, and he blinked as his eyes stung.

"Your serotonin levels have dropped again," Baymax noted. "My updated database informs me that low seratonin levels can result from a long range of conditions, including, but not limited to: sadness, depression, or psychological trauma. May I inquire which category fits your current condition?"

Taken aback at the question, he stared at Baymax. "Sorry, what?"

"What seems to be the cause of your low levels of seratonin?" the robot reiterated, voice calm.

"Oh, um." Tadashi looked away, gaze skittering until it locked onto Hiro's jacket and the necklace on top of it. "...a death," he admitted, voice quiet. "The loss of someone close to me."

"I see." Baymax waddled forward. "Protocol requires that I offer consolation," the robot said, reaching out and lifting Tadashi out of his chair to engulf him in white, puffy arms. "There, there," Baymax said, patting Tadashi's head. "It will be alright."

Initially stiff with shock, Tadashi slowly relaxed into Baymax's arms, leaning to rest his cheek against the soft vinyl. "...Thanks, Baymax," he said, listening to the quiet hum of the robot's machinery.

"You are welcome," the robot replied. "May I inquire to whom it is you have lost?"

He closed his eyes, letting out a shaky sigh. "Yeah. It was... Hiro. My brother."

Baymax did not say anything for a moment, then commented, "I do not understand. Hiro was an average human being, about to flower into maturity through puberty." Tadashi choked in surprise at the unfortunate phrasing, slipping out of Baymax's embrace as he broke out into a coughing fit.

Stopping, Baymax tilted his head. "Are you alright?" he asked. "I can provide a cough drop should you require one -"

"It's fine," Tadashi gasped out. Sitting back down, he cleared his throat, nodding at the robot to tell him to continue. "...You were saying?"

Baymax blinked. "With the correct dietary restrictions and the occasional exercise, Hiro would have lived a long life."

Hearing that, Tadashi snorted. Hiro's diet, when meals were not provided, had mostly consisted of instant ramen and donuts from the café. And the genius had always hated exercise, only taking the karate lessons when Tadashi had threatened to hide all his robot parts...

His heart ached, and he sighed, rubbing his eyes. "You're right, Baymax. He should have lived a long life. But there was an... accident. A fire. And Hiro..." Tadashi felt his throat close up again, and ran his hand through his hair. "He didn't make it out."

A moment of silence passed as Baymax processed his words, no doubt integrating the new information into Hiro's medical profile and changing the boy's status to Deceased. "I understand. Your low seratonin levels are not as a result of sadness, but of grief," the robot concluded. "Diagnosis: personal loss. Treatment suggested: comfort and reconnection with close family and friends." A rotating circle appeared on Baymax's chest, before the image changed to show the faces of Tadashi's friends and Aunt Cass. "I will contact your friends and family now -"

"No, that's fine!" Tadashi yelped, springing out of his chair and pressing a hand against Baymax to cancel the call. "They're right outside," he told the robot. "I can talk to them later, so you don't have to do anything. Just... stay still." He exhaled, then narrowed his eyes as a thought struck him. Placing a hand on his chin, he considered the robot in front of him. Baymax tilted his head again.

"In fact, I think I'll make some changes to your programming," Tadashi decided. "I'd been thinking of upgrading you anyway, and now is better than never." And it'll keep me from moping,he added mentally.

"First of all," he twisted and grabbed an empty chip from the stack on his desk and pulled out a pen, scribbling Etiquette 101 on the label. "we need to do something about that bedside manner of yours - not everyone is open to spontaneous hugs, and we can't have you going around and making patients uncomfortable..." He waved the chip in the air to dry the ink, and slotted it into the computer, immediately getting to work.

Tadashi spent the next hour immersed in code, twisting and modifying lines of text, programming the appropriate responses to different actions, personal preferences, and the like. Every few minutes he put the chip into Baymax and asked the robot a few questions, scribbling down the potential problems in his notebook before taking out the chip and diving into the code again. During the whole process, Baymax, in his charging station, continued to inquire after his emotional state, frequently commenting on any changes in Tadashi's neurotransmitter levels.

He was in the middle of wrestling with a particularly stubborn line of text when there was a clatter of something in Baymax's vicinity. Tadashi turned distractedly to see Baymax out of his containment unit and holding Wasabi's necklace at an arm's length, eyes watching the microbot twitching at the end of its tether. After dismissing the action as unimportant - nothing was in the danger of exploding - Tadashi turned back to the chip, concentrating. It made sense that the microbot was moving, after all, because that was what Hiro had designed them to do -

...Wait, what?

He spun around again and Baymax looked up at him, saying, "The miniature robot is moving."

"It's called a microbot," Tadashi replied distractedly, eyes following the microbot's movements. He frowned. "That's not possible," he said. "The neural-cranial transmitter was destroyed in the fire, and that was the only thing that could make the microbots move... Can I see that?" Baymax handed the necklace over, and Tadashi held it up to the light, watching the microbot wriggle around.

"Must be broken," he mumbled after some consideration, giving the necklace back to the robot. "You can hold on to it for now, I guess," he said. A shadow passed over his face, and his lips turned down. "Not like there's anything I could to do fix it, anyway." With that, he turned back to the computer and the frustrating code.

"This microbot is one of Hiro's," Baymax said behind him.

Tadashi nodded as his eyes scanned through the text on the screen. "Yeah," he replied, finding a potential loophole and filling it, fingers tapping away at the keyboard. "It is." A part of his mind wondered how Baymax knew that Hiro had made the microbots, but he brushed the thought away, concentrated on the programming.

"It seems as if the microbot wants to go somewhere," Baymax commented, and Tadashi irritatedly pushed his bangs off his forehead.

"Why don't you follow it, then?" He muttered, deleting a few words and typing in others. This part of the code was important; it made sure Baymax didn't inadvertently insult anyone with his overall frankness, and it needed at least seven lines of text.

"Will finding out where the microbot wants to go improve your emotional state?"

Brow furrowed as he untangled several commands from each other, Tadashi didn't hear what the robot said, but waved a hand in general agreement. "Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure." This part of the programming made sure that Baymax didn't overwhelm his patient with too much medical information, especially when the patient was in shock. Information overload didn't help patients suffering form PTSD, and Tadashi wanted to make sure Baymax's programming would prevent him from accidentally triggering a panic attack.

Someone tapped on the door, and he half-turned, eyes still glancing at the screen, saying, "Yeah?" with an edge of annoyance in his voice.

Wasabi was at the door, looking confused. He jerked a thumb behind him. "Man, you do know that Baymax just walked out, right?"

At that statement, Tadashi turned completely. "What? Don't be silly, he's right... here..." The room was empty, and Tadashi shot out of his seat, programming forgotten. "Oh, fudge." He rushed past Wasabi, only snatching his keyring on the way out. GoGo stepped back to let him sprint by, raising an eyebrow as he nearly tripped over his feet.

"I could always give you a ride," she said, popping a bubble.

Over his shoulder, he shouted back, "Your bike doesn't have a backseat or any brakes!" At the door, Tadashi reached out a hand to pull it open when it swung open of its own accord and revealed Honey, who had pushed it from the other side.

Her face noticeably brightened when she saw how Tadashi had come out of his workspace, and she grabbed his shoulders, exclaiming, "Oh, you're out!" in a happy voice. She held him at arms length and swept her worried eyes over him. "Are you feeling better?" she asked.

I really don't have time to deal with this right now! With a half-smile, Tadashi removed her hands from his shoulders, avoiding her question and saying, "Sorry, Honey, gotta go; Baymax got out, I need to get him back before he gets run over by a truck, we'll talk later, okay?" Darting past his startled friend, Tadashi raced out the door, weaving through the crowd as he sprinted down the hall. Behind him, he thought he heard Honey tell him to be careful, but anything else she said was lost to the sound of his feet against the floor.

Baymax wasn't particularly fast, and it shouldn't have been hard to keep up with him, but somehow, whenever Tadashi got close, the robot managed to do something that left him scrambling to keep up. He'd abandoned his moped in a nearby parking lot the moment Baymax had walked up the train station steps and into the mid-day crowd, opting to race after the robot on foot.

That was, however, far from the end of it. The robot jaywalked across the street and very nearly caused a pile-up; a car screeched and stopped, barely missing Tadashi by an inch. He cringed and hurried on, legs pumping as he raced off after Baymax, who was turning the corner and walking through a market, jostling people as he went -

Baymax's expansive sides knocked down a crate of oranges, and Tadashi stopped to help pick up a few, bowing and apologizing profusely to the fruit stall owner, who was an irritated old lady with white hair and wrinkled skin. The woman yelled at him in a mix of English and Chinese, waving a broom over her head with a furious look in her eye. Catching a glimpse of Baymax waddling off from out of the corner of his eye, Tadashi ducked her swing, bowed, and apologized one final time before sprinting off after Baymax.

...who was currently crossing the street. Again. The blare of a horn made Tadashi turn his head, and his stomach dropped as he saw the incoming tram that was headed directly for a collision with a certain inflatable robot. Baymax, eyes fixed on nothing but the necklace in his hands, waddled forward, completely oblivious to his oncoming death.

"Baymax!" Tadashi yelled, swerving around a biker, hand out. "Baymax, look out - !"

The robot took another step, the tram rushed onwards, and Tadashi felt his heart stop -

But Baymax waddled on, and the tram went on, its side missing the robot's white side by what seemed like a hair's breath.

Knees weak with relief, Tadashi mentally thanked whoever it was upstairs who just had saved him from what could have been the destruction of his robotics project, and continued in his chase.

He finally caught up as Baymax came to a stop in front of a warehouse. "What..." he panted as Baymax turned to look at him. "were you thinking?"

"I have found where the microbot wants to go," Baymax said serenely as Tadashi reached over and took away the necklace.

"For the last time, the microbot doesn't want..." Tadashi trailed off as he watched the microbot jerk towards the warehouse doors. Not believing his eyes, he moved the necklace to the side; the microbot jerked and tugged, unerringly, towards the door. "...huh," he said. "You're right. It is moving." But what's making it move? Lowering the necklace down over his head, Tadashi extended a hand and placed it on the corrugated metal of the warehouse door.

"Locked," he mused. I wonder... Dropping his hand, he began to scan the warehouse for a way in, eyes brightening as he spotted an open window. "Jackpot." He turned to jog towards it, then stopped as he heard the squeak-squeak-squeak of Baymax behind him. With a sigh, Tadashi turned back around and lifted his hand in a stop right there motion.

"You stay here," he told the robot. "I don't think you'll be able to fit in the window."

"Protocol requires that I stay by your side, especially since your health is still compromised." Baymax replied. "The window will not be a problem. I can deflate and decrease the girth of my body when needed."

"No, Baymax, stay -"

"Also, your current height is insufficient to reach the window," the robot interrupted.

Tadashi squinted suspiciously at Baymax, who blinked innocently. Was it just him, or had the robot just... sassed him? Mentally filing away the tidbit under Things I Really Need to Reconsider About Baymax's Programming, he let out a resigned sigh and threw up a hand. "Fine," he acquiesced. "Just... try to be a little more quiet."

"I understand."

Muttering under his breath about stupid decisions he had made about Baymax's programming at five AM in the morning while running on coffee fumes, Tadashi spun back around and marched to the window. Baymax toddled along behind him, head tilted as the robot's sensors picked up the words "going crazy," and "complete and utter nonsense."

"There is no need to worry. Recent scans and your medical records tell me that you are clear of any danger of succumbing to insan-"

Tadashi groaned. "Not now, Baymax!"

The two got inside without much incident - Tadashi had made sure that Baymax had deflated before trying to get in through the window - and Tadashi crept down the metal stairs, cringing at each clang and squeak whenever he or Baymax shifted.

At the ground floor, Tadashi took extra care to scan his surroundings for anything out of the ordinary, hands by his chest in a defensive kata and rotating a full 360 degrees to make sure he didn't miss anything. Off to the side, Baymax watched, staying silent but keeping his eyes fixated on Tadashi.

The warehouse was empty and silent except for several dusty shipping containers and the occasional flutter of a bird. Finding nothing irregular, he relaxed out of his defensive stance and lowered his hands - then snapped them back up and spun around. He'd heard something... There! A small noise, coming from behind several shipping containers, and definitely not the sound of a bird.

On near-silent feet, Tadashi crept closer to the source of the sound; Baymax followed, taking wide steps in order to keep from squeaking. Once at the stack of shipping containers that was blocking his line of sight, Tadashi stuck out his head to peek around the corner, cautiously looking for the source of the noise.

Beyond the shipping container were several semi-transparent partitions that hid whatever the noise had come from. Tadashi could see something moving behind the partitions, but couldn't tell what it was; the material made everything a indistinct blur. Warily, he scooted closer to get a better look, inching along the side of the translucent fabric. Preparing himself for what could potentially be on the other side, he slowly turned around the corner - then stopped, blinking in confusion at what he saw.

There, not too far away from him, was some sort of assembly line, one that was depositing small black objects into a waiting canister that was already filled halfway with the double-ended, metallic things...

Said things were looking increasingly familiar, and Tadashi reached over to pick one up, holding it up to the light - and nearly dropped it in shock. It was a microbot - one of Hiro's microbots.

It is an assembly line, one that mass-produces microbots. Then that means... Feeling a sense of foreboding, Tadashi bent over the canister and dug his hands in, hoping his hunch was wrong.

It wasn't, and Tadashi felt his heart sink as his hands came up overflowing with microbots. The entire canister was full of them, and the machine was making more each second. How many microbots did that make? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand?

Someone had managed to steal the design for Hiro's microbots, and was mass-producing them. Hiro's microbots, that his brother had spent hours over, that Hiro had died for! Tadashi was suddenly struck with a burning anger, and clenched his fists around the microbots, gritting his teeth as he was overwhelmed with the urge to punch the person responsible.

Another sound jerked him out of his thoughts, and Tadashi turned to see Baymax peering into a similar canister, poking a white hand into its contents. The canister looked exactly like the one he was standing in front of, a canister that was just one in the seemingly endless rows of containers that filled the room, lined up from wall to wall and stretching on for as far as the room was long.

Anger forgotten in the face of the sheer number of canisters, Tadashi swept his eyes across the dozens upon dozens of rows, trying to come up with a rough estimate and failing. If each canister held at least thirty thousand microbots, multiplied by the number of canisters that he could see...

"No way," he whispered. "What... what's going on? I don't... I don't understand -" But then the air was filled with the familiar sound of clattering, rushing clicks, and the microbots began to rise, one after the other, until there was a high wall of impenetrable darkness, rippling in the half-light like some kind of large creature of the night.

At the top, riding at the crest of the wave of microbots, was a man in a kabuki mask. As Tadashi watched, in shock, the man lifted a hand, and the microbots swirled and in on each other, coiling back like Mochi before the cat pounced -

The black mass sprang up and rushed towards him and Baymax, who was saying in a tranquil voice (one that was highly inappropriate for the situation at hand), "Oh, no."

Cursing under his breath, Tadashi turned and ran, grabbing Baymax's arm and frantically dragging the robot behind him. He turned to see how far the microbots had come, catching another glimpse of the man, who was perched on a metal walkway, his red and white mask gleaming in the light.

Tadashi wished he could charge the man and punch out his lights for stealing his brother's invention, but the swarm of microbots was getting closer, nearly at his heels, and Baymax wasn't running!

"Come on, come on, come on!" Tadashi yelped, getting behind Baymax to push the robot forward.

"I am not fast."

"Yeah, no kidding!" Tadashi said through gritted teeth. Yet another thing to add to the list. I knew I should have taken Baymax out on a field test before finalizing anything... "You're a medical robot, Baymax! Speed is essential when responding to medical emergencies!"

"I will add that to my database," Baymax replied. "But I am afraid there is not much I can do at this moment to change -"

Tadashi pushed again, effectively cutting the robot off. "Less talking, more running!"

"I am not fa-"

"I heard you the first time!"

At the police station, Tadashi felt a headache throb into existence at the back of his skull. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tadashi explained, for what seemed like the umpteenth time, "I discovered a unregistered assembly line in a warehouse by the docks that someone was using to recreate an invention that is still in its early testing stages. This is an example of the invention," he said, holding up the necklace. He hissed, "Later, Baymax!" and swatted the robot's arm away when he attempted to grab Tadashi's hand.

He'd warded off the robot up to this moment, but Baymax was proving to be extremely stubborn, reaching for Tadashi's hand again. The policeman watched with a bemused air. "I have to check to see if your stitches are intact -"

"Baymax," Tadashi groaned, pushing the robot's arm away. "Just give me a moment, okay?" He turned to face the policeman again. "Along with charges of squatting and illegal robot assembly, this person has violated copyrighted material." At this, Tadashi tapped the crumpled piece of paper he'd placed on the desk. "Those microbots belong to my brother, Hiro Hamada."

The policeman squinted at the microbot and the paper before typing something into his computer. "A Mr. Hero Hamada, did you say?"

"Hiro," Tadashi corrected. "With an i, not an e."

"Hiro with an i," the policeman repeated, backspacing to erase what he wrote and typing Hiro. Frowning, the man remarked, facing the screen, "Say, haven't I heard that name somewhere? Something about a fire..."

Tadashi curled his fist, blinking. Darn it, his eyes were burning again. "Probably," he managed. "He was in the fire at the SFIT Showcase."

The policeman stopped typing and glanced at him. "Geez, I'm sorry," he said, looking uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to -"

Shaking his head, Tadashi gave a weak smile. "No, it's fine," he assured. "I just want to make sure to get the guy that stole my brother's invention."

Still looking uncomfortable, the policeman shifted. "Look, kid," he began. "I'll file a report, but I can't promise anything. The SFPD is busy enough as it is with the bot-fighting circles, and well," the policeman shrugged. "There's a high chance your request will be pushed back."

But by that time - ! Tadashi swallowed the budding protest and nodded. The SFPD was busy, and worked hard. It wasn't anyone's fault; it was just the way things were.

Seeing the look on his face, the policeman took pity on him, pulling out a clipboard and a pen and placing them in front of him. "Tell you what - write down your phone number - cellphone or home phone, either's fine - and I'll call you the moment the SFPD finds anything, alright?"

"Thank you," Tadashi said, scribbling down his cellphone number and the number of the Lucky Cat Café. He wrote Tadashi Hamada after the former and Lucky Cat Café after the latter. "Just ask for Tadashi."

"Sure thing," the policeman said, printing out the document he'd been typing and placing it in the stack of what Tadashi assumed was more cases. He seemed to be considering something for a moment, then said, awkwardly, "And for what it's worth, kid, I'm sorry about your brother. Heard he was a genius, too."

He was. His throat grew tight, choking any words he might have said; Tadashi just nodded, turning to leave... And ran face-first into an inflated chest.

Baymax looked down at him, blinked, then took two steps back. "I will scan you now," the robot said, and Tadashi rolled his eyes, holding out his hands for the scan.

Finished, Baymax said, "You have not torn any stitches. However, the skin has become inflamed. I advise that you apply medicinal cream imme- immedia- diaaa- " the robot's voice slowed, and Baymax slouched forward on an alarmed Tadashi.

"Baymax, what's going on?" He said, panicking slightly. Had he missed something in the test runs? Why was Baymax -

The robot answered his question for him. "Low baaaaattery," he drawled.

Tadashi pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course, he has to run out of battery now, out of all times..."Remind me to extend your battery life, Baymax." He slung the robot's arm over his shoulder. "Come on, buddy, let's get you back to your charging station." But first, they had to go get his moped; charging Baymax would have to wait.

...And since when had Baymax started sounding drunk when low on battery?

"You kicked the door down!"

Biting back a groan, Tadashi just nodded. "Uh-huh. But shh! Keep that between us, okay, buddy?" Those upgrades I've been thinking of are sounding better by the minute.

"Shh!"

AN: Hello again... After two months of nothing, here is a chapter edit. There isn't any new content, and I apologize for that.. but RL is keeping me away from story ideas and whatnot.

Newcomers: This is a Alive!Tadashi AU, coupled with a Dead!Hiro AU... It is a twin-fic to New and Old's Cosmic Intervention (link on profile.) We recommend you read the chapters together (my first with her first, etc..) but as we have not updated in a while, well.. You might have to read New and Old's chapters before mine.

I'd like to promise a new chapter sooner or later, but I am not (surprisingly). But thank you anyway for your various reviews, favorites and follows. Apologies to people whose reviews I have not answered - like I said, I didn't have a lot of time.

Thank you for reading!