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Part Two
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Abigail
He's not what she expected, this Hiro Hamada.
Abigail never got a good look at the boy after being pulled from the portal, and she's never learned much about him from her dad—though it's certainly possible that her father knows more about the Hamada family than he's told her. He's been remarkably tight-lipped about the events leading up to his attempted murder of Alistair and his involvement in the death of the Hamada boy—the other one, Abigail thinks awkwardly, averting her gaze from Hiro. Her dad hasn't told her much of anything during her visits, and Abigail is too polite and too afraid to ask. And there's nothing like a separation by a sheet of bulletproof glass and the thick walls of the prefecture's jail to make a family visit truly awkward.
Abigail clears her throat and peers at the boy seated across from her. His arms are folded across the top of the table—defensive, but not leaning away, which is possibly a good sign. Dark eyes scrutinize her keenly with all the care of a scientist. Very serious for a kid, she thinks, but perhaps that's what she should've been expecting: it would have taken a lot of intelligence and courage to do what he'd done for her.
Dark eyes and a dark lion's mane of hair. Small in stature, even for a fourteen-year-old, with thin shoulders and a smooth sort of baby face in spite of his age. Ink stains on his fingers—does he take notes with a pen and paper? she wonders, considering it odd for a tech university student. Still, in a way, she thinks, he's exactly the sort of student her dad would have wanted to add to his collection. Raw talent, he would say of the mental acumen Hiro Hamada has already shown. It can't be taught, so you have to gather it where it grows.
The boy squirms a little in his seat, frowning. Aside from curt pleasantries, they've exchanged no information, only studied each other coolly from across the table. Abigail smiles, wondering what he's made of her, and he seems taken aback by the expression.
"You've...done well for yourself," she says finally, wincing a little at the rusty formality to the words. She clears her throat again. "I mean, I've heard only good things, you know? Acceptance into SFIT at fourteen, two or three project exhibitions under your belt...it's a good track record."
Hiro shakes his head. "I take after my family," he says, neither boasting nor denying. "And my friends, I guess," he adds, turning briefly to look into the heart of the cafe. Abigail follows his gaze but can't make out what he's looking at—until a flicker of movement catches her eye. A girl across the room, streaks of purple in her hair, waves exaggeratedly in their direction before holding her hands out, palms up, in a what's-going-on sort of gesture. "They say you're like the people you spend the most time with." Hiro grins, shrugging pointedly at the girl.
Modest, too. Not exactly what she had expected. "Still, it's impressive—especially at your age. Robotics is a tough field. Engineering is a tough field." He stares. She suddenly feels like the weird estranged aunt at every family gathering, the one whose bizarre statements are only humored because everyone knows that she's just talking to hear her own voice, that she's not really familiar enough with anyone to make any real contribution to the discussion. "But it's all I've done for years," she adds quickly, hoping to keep things going, "and I don't think I'd choose anything else."
"I was wondering that," Hiro says, leaning a little more onto his elbows. "What kind of training you had to go through to be a part of Krei's experiment."
"I have a master's in engineering and a Ph.D. in robotics," Abigail offers, smiling as he looks her up and down. She answers the unspoken question: "I'm only about twice your age. But I guess you could say I take after my family, too." From the sour twist to Hiro's mouth, it's probably not the best thing to tell him. She fumbles for a new subject, unwilling to jump into the real reason for her visit. "Study group?" she inquires, pointing at the table of Hiro's friends, who have finally stopped sneaking glances their way. "For your robotics classes?"
Hiro nods slowly. "Yeah. We have this...paper coming up. Basically just a fancy summary of what we've learned in the second half of this semester. Mostly creating customer-based products and working on dominant design practices, but also some TRIZ stuff. The forty principles and the law of ideality and all that."
"Ah, it's been a while," she laughs. "Though—I've always liked the law of ideality. Such a cool concept. Once you learn about the ineffective parts of a system, you improve it as time passes. 'Technical systems get more effective as time passes' and so on."
"Almost like the theory of evolution, but for robots," Hiro agrees, looking amusedly toward the door that must lead to a back room. Standing a few feet away from it is a robot that can only be Baymax, whom Abigail has heard her dad describe with a rare hint of admiration in his voice. It's probably one of the strangest-looking robots she's ever seen, some kind of cross between a marshmallow and a giant teddy bear, and it holds a tray in its hands. Do they make it work in the cafe? "Don't look at him," Hiro tells her, grinning. He's peering casually out the window now. "He does this thing like a cat sometimes."
"A cat?" Abigail echoes curiously, though she dutifully turns her gaze away. "Did you make him yourself? What's he made of?"
A shadow flits over Hiro's face, but it disappears almost as quickly as it came. "My brother did, actually. But I've, you know...made improvements. He's got a carbon fiber-reinforced polymer skeleton, and his skin is vinyl. Had to be touchable—he's designed to be a healthcare companion."
Abigail nods. "What kinds of improvements?"
"Oh, uh, armor, mostly. But also some improvements to his battery pack—for a longer time between charges, almost three full days if he needs it—and most of his internal processes use solid-state components now."
"Smart," she remarks, impressed. "Sounds like you've already got a handle on the practical part of class."
"Yeah, well, I couldn't get out of taking it," Hiro replies. "And there's some stuff I don't know." He says the last part wholly without pride or disdain, as though he hasn't just conceded that a world-class institute of technology has only some stuff to offer him. He snorts suddenly. "Okay, look again."
She does. The robot is closer. "Why is it just standing still?"
"I told him not to follow me over here," Hiro replies, still unable to wipe the grin from his face. "So he's not going to be obvious about it. This is Baymax being sneaky."
"It can override your orders?" Abigail asks, surprised. Robots with more flexible programming are rare, at least in her experience. Mostly because people want to be sure a robot will do a job properly when told—and, in her opinion, because people are still too afraid of all the sci-fi dramas telling horror stories of robots that can think for themselves.
"Well, yeah. He's a healthcare companion, and sometimes people don't really know what's best for their health. So he'll take orders into account, but if he finds something irregular or another way that he knows is better for a patient's physical or psychological health, he'll do that instead."
Abigail nods slowly. "That makes sense…especially since people in health emergencies probably wouldn't be thinking clearly about the orders they give. A robot would have to think through that situation on its own."
Hiro nods. "Tadashi and I also programmed a few basic things he can't override, though. No saving one person if it means hurting other people, no destruction of property unless it's beneficial to someone's health...that kind of thing."
At this point, Hiro is staring pointedly out of the window again, but Abigail takes a second to look back toward the robot, which is only a few feet away now. It stands perfectly still—though it has obviously moved between one glance and the next—and its head is tilted in catlike fascination.
Abigail laughs. "Huh. Unbelievable."
Hiro beams at her.
Baymax takes advantage of their distraction to make his final steps, moving forward all at once to hover at Hiro's side. "I understand that you did not want to be followed. However, I believe—"
"It's fine, Baymax," Hiro interrupts, bumping a fist against the robot's arm.
Baymax nods. "I have brought tea. Chamomile."
And it's even familiar with apology gifts, Abigail thinks. Amazing.
Baymax lowers the tray to set his offerings onto the table: two tea cups of steaming, golden-brown tea, a little pot of milk, a few packets of sugar, and honey, the last in its traditional plastic-bear form.
"You brought honey?" Hiro asks, sounding surprised.
"It is not as healthy as its sugar-free alternatives, but you did not receive chocolate cake," the robot replies.
"Awesome!" Smiling in satisfaction, Hiro overturns the contents of the bear into his drink—far more than the normal amount for a cup of that size. Baymax makes a noise that might have been an aborted sigh in a human. Then, a screen on its chest blinks to life, and a video plays on the surface of the vinyl. Dancing vegetables. A carrot, some broccoli, a radish…
Abigail frowns in confusion, but Hiro bursts out laughing and gives the robot a playful shove right in its belly. "You're obnoxious, Baymax," the boy says, and Abigail realizes that Baymax is teasinghim. Which is a deceptively complex feat, requiring a fundamental understanding of human interaction that most robots don't have. It's almost too much to believe that coding this advanced was born from the minds of two young boys—geniuses, by all accounts, but still boys.
"You know you don't have to stay here, right?" Hiro asks eventually, stirring the syrup into his tea. He looks up at Baymax seriously. "I know you like to check in, but everything's fine. You can go back to Aunt Cass."
"You are certain?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Baymax."
If it's possible for robots to feel reluctance, this one does. It waddles away slowly, as if expecting the boy to call it back at any moment.
Hiro turns back to her, taking a sip of his tea. "He'll...probably be back," he says apologetically.
"That's fine. It's—he's—really interesting."
The boy nods, staring into his tea. He shifts in his seat, seeming suddenly uncomfortable, and Abigail realizes that he's probably trying to figure out how to ask her why she's here. Way too polite, she thinks to herself, and she sips her own tea. It's so hot it nearly burns her tongue, but the chamomile is tinged with something deliciously fruity, and Abigail wonders whether it's a homemade blend.
"I, uh," she begins, suddenly flustered. "You're wondering why I came, probably. And it's partly—I had to thank you for what you did. A lot of people wouldn't have done it—wouldn't have even thought about doing it—but if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here now."
Hiro shrugs bashfully, ducking his head as if to make himself smaller than he already is. "It's nothing special or anything. Once we realized there was a chance you were alive—"
"A chance. A lot of people wouldn't have risked their life for a chance. And the life support would have given out soon. I was lucky you came when you did. And that you came at all."
"I guess..." Hiro begins slowly, "I guess it was because of Tadashi." As if the name is a spell, Tadashi Hamada for the first time becomes an almost tangible presence in the conversation, a third member of the party who perhaps should be there but isn't. The other one, Abigail has been calling him. She had seen photos, of course. Information about Tadashi Hamada, once a rising star at SFIT, is far more prevalent and far easier to track down than information on his brother, a brilliant but still new freshman. The other one had a strong jaw and a longer, fuller set to his build, as though he might have been the fully finished version of Hiro.
The boy doesn't elaborate on how his actions were like Tadashi's, only stares down at his tea. Abigail wonders what it must be like to have put down roots and grown together, and so closely, with another human being, only to have them plucked away before you've had a chance to truly share their life. As an only child, she always finds the complexities of sibling interaction bewildering.
He clears his throat. "Also because of Baymax, probably. They say you're like the people you spend the most time with," he repeats.
"Sure," Abigail offers, not understanding at all. When Hiro makes no move to continue the conversation, Abigail adds, "I probably should have thanked you earlier. I would've sent a letter or called, but it seemed kind of—impersonal, you know? And this is the first chance I've really had to visit, since I've been in and out of the hospital for the past few months."
Hiro blinks owlishly, and Abigail thinks that he probably hasn't considered her since her rescue, nor has he wondered at her absence from his life. A dead brother is probably a more pressing issue. "The past few months?"
She nods. "The atmosphere of the portal—well, I guess it can't be called atmosphere—it had a lot in common with the properties of outer space. So even though I was there for just a few weeks, the side effects on my body were...it screwed me up." She laughs, though it's not really funny. "The pod wasn't geared for long-term space travel. I should know. I was in training to be an astronaut before all of this went down—that's why I was picked for the test. Good mind and at the peak of my health and all. But we never thought we'd need anything for space travel. Actually, we thought we were already being really safe just with the stasis and life support, like we were overcompensating for whatever might happen. Krei and I had calculated only for a few seconds of weightlessness before I was supposed to appear through the other end of the portal. So the pod didn't have any of the benefits an astronaut would have had...and there was no lessening the side effects of the portal. Especially since I was in hypersleep the whole time and couldn't do anything to help."
"What kind of side effects? Like—radiation? Blood cell and balance changes? Cardiovascular issues? Bone and muscle loss too, probably," he adds, looking her up and down as if he can diagnose her health as easily his robot probably can. Abigail wonders if her weakened state is as easy to see as she fears.
"Not so much with the radiation. It wasn't as bad as it would have been in space, or so they tell me. But you're on the mark with everything else. Part-time astronautics expert?"
"Nah. Baymax screened my health for everything after I fixed him up again, even though we'd been in there for ten minutes, tops." His teacup is still mostly full, but he pushes it away and rests his elbows back on the edge of the table. Abigail wonders whether the honey was mostly to get a rise out of his robot. "It's really serious, all the health stuff? Are you still in the hospital a lot?"
"Not so much. Not anymore, anyway. Mostly I go in for physical therapy a couple of times a week to rebuild muscle and motor skills. The bone loss is something else, though—it'll take a while to repair. And without being able to study the portal or its atmosphere, it's still hard to know what caused it, if it was very different from our version of outer space. And it sure looked different."
"It was crazy, wasn't it?" Hiro's eyes grow distant. "Like nothing I've ever seen before. All the dust and colored clouds and light. Like a frozen sunset."
"Don't forget the radiation," Abigail adds dryly.
"Yeah, there's that, too. But even with all that, it was amazing to see. To really be there. Like you were in a dream. I've thought about it a lot since."
So has Abigail. For nearly six hours after first being shot into the portal, she had studied her environment, both with her own eyes and the limited tools available in the pod. Six hours spent sinking from wonder into fearful anxiety as she watched her life support supplies slowly disappear. The last hours spent deciding whether to wait for rescue or to invoke the device's life support systems, which had been implemented into the design in case of unforeseen accident or injury. The last hour spent realizing rescue might never come.
If anyone had been able to convince her to get professional help for this, it's the sort of thing a shrink would have latched onto for sure—if Abigail had ever let on that the pod hadn't instantly and automatically deployed its life support and hypersleep systems. It's easier to allow people to believe that instead of having to discuss the reality with them. Those hours of terror and doubt plague her mind even now, but she doesn't
need someone digging into her every waking thought because of it. There are some things that need to be discussed, and there are others that are better swept under a rug and forgotten.
"Did you get to see much of it?" Hiro asks, curious.
It's a loaded question. Yeah, I did, but do I actually want to talk about it? Thinking of the rainbow fractals of cloud makes her stomach churn even now. But on the other hand, if there's one other person who really understands the strange, eerie universe of her nightmares, Hiro's it. She may never have another opportunity to speak about it with anyone who can relate.
After she was pulled from the portal, most of the people she worked with had greeted her with prying questions about her experiences: What had she seen? What had it felt like? What were her theories about the contents of the portal? What were her resulting medical conditions? (This last, of course, was always injected into the conversation with attempted nonchalance.) But she's always shut down these discussions as politely as possible. No one else needs to know the way she sometimes dreams of being back there, being rocked in the pulse of the expanding atmosphere like a ship on the waves. No one else needs to know that the brilliant pinks and purples of sunsets still make her nauseous.
Except that Hiro might understand all of it. For a minute, she briefly considers discussing it with him, but she's avoided the subject for so long that it would be hard to push the words now. And besides, it isn't what she's here for.
"I got to see a lot of it, yeah. I was trapped in the portal for a few hours, waiting to see if anyone would…" she clears her throat. "I don't usually like to talk about it. It's...kind of a touchy subject."
It's more truth than she gives to most people, and Hiro seems to understand the delicacy of the situation. "Okay, sure," he says, leaning back a little in his seat, his interest faint but still palpable. "But...it's not really a good idea to bottle that kind of thing up. Or at least that's what Baymax says, anyway. He says it's not that great for your psychological health, and he's usually right about stuff like that. He downloaded a database," he adds in amusement. Despite his background in tech and engineering, Hiro seems to be of the same mindset as the nurses and therapists she's met with: care before intrigue and health before curiosity. He frowns at her. "If you can, you should find someone you feel okay talking to about it."
Abigail almost laughs. That's the whole problem, isn't it? "Normally, I'd talk to Alistair about this kind of thing—new discoveries, engineering marvels, whatever. Alistair Krei," she adds at Hiro's confused expression, and he nods coolly. "We've always been sort of partners in crime when it comes to this sort of thing. We've worked together since I was out of college. But I haven't talked to him since you pulled me out of the portal. It's just hard to let go of what he did."
"Because of how he ran the experiment?"
"Right. He's always been reckless. It's one of the things I like about him. But he was never reckless with me. Never with my safety. And then after Alistair, I'd talk to Dad, but…" she shakes her head.
At the mention of her father, Hiro's face goes blank. "But he's been sentenced to prison."
"Yes. But I visit. He's still my father, you know? But I can't really talk about what happened in the portal with him. When I bring it up, it's like he's a completely different person."
Not that Abigail doesn't understand where her father is coming from. Some days, especially after a particularly tiring session of physical therapy or an embarrassing moment of physical weakness a woman of her age should have been able to overcome, she feels as though Alistair's actions are completely unforgivable. Other days, she almost finds herself willing to forgive her old friend. But either option forces her to reconsider the morality of her father's actions, which she believes on most days to be marginally unacceptable or, at worst, misguided.
At least she had until she sat down in front of the boy whose brother her father killed.
She remembers the look that always sweeps over her father's face with any mention of Alistair, or the experiment, or her injuries. It's a dark and impenetrable expression that had once been completely foreign to Abigail, who has been reading his expressions with great fluency since childhood. It's an expression that looks very similar to the one on Hiro's face now.
"He's not all bad, you know," she says quietly, thinking now of her father's fierce and teary gaze the first time he had been allowed to see her in the hospital after the portal incident, the rattle of the handcuffs as his rough hands folded over hers, the flood of I love yous that she still isn't sure he consciously let out. "He just—"
"Took a wrong turn?" Hiro asks, and Abigail is surprised at how cool his voice has grown. "That's what they said on the news for weeks after. He was a great father and a great professor that just took a wrong turn. Except that the wrong turn killed my brother."
She bites her lip, uncertain. "Hiro, I know—I know he didn't mean to hurt anyone, especially your brother. He told me Tadashi was one of his most talented students."
"He didn't mean to hurt anyone, but he didn't exactly care about it afterward either," Hiro hisses fiercely. "Did you know what he said to me about it? He said Tadashi's mistake was going back into the fire to save him. Tadashi's mistake."
Abigail says nothing. She doesn't know what to say. It's one thing to know in theory that her father ripped a family apart in his efforts to save her, but it's another thing entirely to read it on the face of another human being, to watch grief and rage flicker across Hiro's face as he speaks. Her father's actions may have inadvertently saved her life in the long run, but they tore Hiro's apart.
She puts her head in her hands, fighting to look at all of it objectively, to catalogue the actions and reactions to find fault, but it's impossible. Robert Callaghan is her father, and to her, his lifesaving actions are misguided but understandable. It's impossible to know what she would have done in his place, but it might not have been far off.
"I'm sorry," Hiro says quietly, and Abigail looks up at him. "I know he's your dad. And you didn't ask him to do what he did. It's just kind of hard to see you and think of what happened. And you...look like him, somehow."
"I'm sorry, too," she replies, her face suddenly burning. Coming here was a terrible idea. A part of her had known it in advance, but it's only now that she's begun to realize how stupid it was. "I really should go."
"Okay," Hiro replies uncertainly, looking surprised. "But…" He watches her finger the omni-band around her wrist. Abigail looks down at her tea. "I thought—why did you come?"
She shakes her head slowly, wondering whether you're supposed to swipe your omni-band at a payment kiosk on your way out or give your credits directly to a barista.
"The tea's on the house," Hiro adds dismissively, guessing her intentions. He's leaned as far back in his seat as he can, another of the cool, blank expressions worming across his face. Suspicion. "Why are you here? You said you were partly here to thank us. What was the other part?"
She hesitates. "I just wanted to see how you would react when I brought up my dad," she explains, and then she winces. Even to her own ears it sounds manipulative.
"Why?"
"You know...you know why he's been placed in prison. The prefecture has charged him with a lot of different things—"
"Sure. Arson, destruction of property, aggravated assault, attempted murder. Involuntary manslaughter." Hiro schools his face into a mask. "What's your point?"
This is stupid. She takes a breath and says it anyway. "He's out for an appeal next week, and I just thought that you could—" Hiro laughs incredulously before she can finish. It's not a pleasant sound, and she thinks that he probably hadn't known he was going to make it until it was out of his mouth. "Nothing that would get him out, just enough that would reduce the lifetime sentence."
"And you thought I would help." Hiro says flatly.
"I wasn't going to ask now that I know..." She stops. It sounds weak. She has always known how Hiro would feel, how he must feel about her father. She'd let herself be talked into this so easily, more to give herself a reason to finally track Hiro down than anything else, but she knows it was a mistake now. She had dreamed up a scenario in which Hiro, understanding her father's actions and grateful that she is alive, might cast aside his tenacious attachment to his brother to help them. But people aren't really like that, are we? she thinks. We pretend to be considerate, and we try to be when we can, but we can't see that far beyond ourselves. It's too hard to see past our own problems. Hiro's struggles are as foreign to her as hers must be to him.
Hiro is looking into the heart of the restaurant, eyes set on the table where his friends cheerfully debate axioms and principles and whatever else they shove into an engineering student these days. Abigail suddenly regrets pulling him away from them.
"You're right," he says finally, still not looking at her. "I think you should go now."
Abigail nods slowly, though she still casts about for something to say, like a verbal band-aid she can plaster onto the end of their conversation.
When she doesn't move, Hiro stands pointedly, and she follows. Stiff-shouldered and resolute, he winds carefully through the crowded tables to lead her to the entrance of the cafe, opening the door for her so she can step out into the sunlight.
Words crop up on her tongue—nothing serious, just enough conversational bluster to make her feel a little better about their discussion—but Hiro has already shut the door. Quietly, with a small snick instead of the sharp slam she or her father might have done.
Polite. Too polite, and that's the worst. She half wishes he had shouted at her. Probably she would have deserved it.
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Hiro
On days like today, Hiro feels far from the person he used to be a few months ago after Tadashi passed away, a person so apathetic about his life that he was half-willing to let everything go. It seems almost unfathomable that those feelings were once a reality for him.
Not that there aren't still days when that struggle seems overwhelming, of course. But today isn't one of them.
Today, the sky is a deep and radiant violet with the incoming twilight, and beneath it, the cold air is a welcome comfort to Hiro and his friends, who—aside from Baymax—are still sweating a little beneath their winter garb. The weekend patrol had been routine, and their only real actions had been to force a few teenagers to stop making trouble for a shopkeeper, but the thing about patrol is that it's exhausting. Covering the entire city on foot is a tiring job, and as Honey Lemon pulls her long hair into a bun to cool off, Wasabi mops a dull sheen of sweat from his forehead and stows the rest of his light armor—designed for portability as much as strength—into a backpack.
Only Gogo and Hiro, who spend most of the patrol on motorized wheels or in the air on Baymax's back, don't feel the draining exhaustion that pulls at the others. Hiro in particular usually finds himself excitable and in high spirits after a successful patrol, and while the others are usually too tired to be entertaining, Fred always manages to draw from his endless pool of energy for some good fun.
"I know everyone says this, dude, but it really is all in the wrist," he explains, spinning the long piece of cardboard that they'd swiped from behind a restaurant a few moments earlier. Fred flips the cardboard gracefully across his back and pulls it around to twirl it in the air in front of him.
Hiro tries the same movement, sort of throwing his cardboard behind him and bending so it can roll along his spine, but it ends up on the sidewalk.
Fred laughs. "Not to worry, little man! We'll make an awesome sign-spinner out of you yet."
Gogo, her steps easy and light without her wheels on, looks over her shoulder at Hiro and snorts, grinning.
Hiro sticks his tongue out at her. "Show me again?"
Obediently, Fred launches the board into the air again, sliding it smoothly across his back and around his front as if it's an extension of his arm.
Tadashi would have been awesome at this, Hiro thinks to himself as he tries again. His brother had always been adept at anything requiring hand-eye coordination, though he hadn't really cultivated the talent after dropping karate for robotics club in the second grade. The memory of his brother, while achingly bittersweet, doesn't cause the raw anguish it used to.
"Perhaps it would be best to throw the board closer to your teres major muscle while avoiding your iliac crest," Baymax suggests, breaking him out of his thoughts.
Hiro bends down to pick up the board. "I'd do that if I knew what it meant," he replies amiably.
Baymax bursts into an explanation that Hiro only half hears: the robot has adjusted his backpack to settle it closer to his shoulders, which makes Hiro grin in spite of himself. Baymax hadn't protested when asked to carry his own bag—his armor, once detached, is far too heavy for any of the human members of their party to carry—but he looks a little strange with it on, the pack turning him into some alternate, adorably literal-minded version of Santa Claus that hands out free healthcare and suckers instead of wrapped gifts.
After politely waiting for the end of the robot's tirade, Fred thumps Baymax on the back. "Yeah, man, but sometimes it's not enough to know the process of something. Sometimes you just have to do it so often that it becomes like breathing." Baymax tilts his head in that considering way, so Fred turns to the others and rambles on. "Anyway, I think I'm gonna split when we hit campus. Heathcliff and I have a date with literally all of the Hulk movies—he's never seen them," he adds, sounding incredulous.
Hiro works hard to keep the amusement off his face as he imagines the stone-faced Heathcliff being forced to sit through any movie at all. Wasabi doesn't hide his reaction: "I wouldn't have sat through those crappy things if he hadn't made us," he mutters to Hiro under his breath.
"What was that?" Fred says, perking up.
"Nothing," Gogo interrupts, scowling at Wasabi. She turns back to Fred, her expression earnest. "You think he can take us all home when he picks you up in the limo?"
"The apartment's only a block from campus," Honey Lemon protests.
"It's cool—you guys are all close by, so we can drop y'all off. Actually," he adds, his voice turning sly, "maybe you want to just come over to my place for a movie marathon?"
The groans are out of Wasabi and Gogo's mouths before Fred can even finish the sentence.
"On second thought—"
"Actually—"
Before they can finish, and before Fred can convert to righteous indignation, Baymax interrupts. "Hiro," he says suddenly, jerking Hiro from his amused observation, "You have an email from Abigail. It is—"
Hiro elbows him soundly in the gut. "Remember how we talked about not announcing emails?"
"I only noted that you have an email," the robot protests. "I did not read it aloud this time." Still, Hiro can almost see the wheels turning in Baymax's head—figuratively speaking, of course, since the robot's internal components have been upgraded to nonvolatile memory systems—as he remembers what Hiro has said about the action of smacking or elbowing someone. Irritation.
Hiro turns to meet his friends' withering scowls, which he knows are directed at Abigail and not at him. They had been just as upset as Hiro had been after learning what Abigail was after.
"Incredible," Honey Lemon says, shaking her head. Her narrowed eyes and the angry flush to her cheeks are so uncharacteristic that Hiro has to do a double take: Honey Lemon is almost never angry, or at any rate, Hiro rarely sees it happen.
"Is she still bugging you?" Wasabi asks.
"Not after I track her down," Gogo interjects, arms folded across her chest.
"No one's tracking anyone down," Hiro replies exasperatedly. "It's not worth it." He makes a show of shrugging his shoulders impatiently. Though he won't say so aloud, it's taken him most of yesterday and today to work through his feelings about it at all.
Baymax had helped, mostly by sitting still to listen without judgment as Hiro ranted animatedly and paced the floor of his room all evening. And then, when he'd exhausted his rage to collapse into a tired heap on the bed, Baymax had asked Hiro whether he, Hiro, would have done the same as Abigail if a member of his family had been in Dr. Callaghan's situation.
That had been hard to process. Hiro's mind flew automatically to Tadashi, who never would have slipped into the murderous rampage that Callaghan had—whether or not he believed Hiro to be dead. Tadashi was fiercely overprotective of Hiro, sure, but he wasn't vindictive, notas far as Hiro knew.
Not that Hiro had ever put his brother in a situation serious enough to warrant such severe retribution, of course, so maybe it was impossible to say for sure. But before Callaghan had done what he'd done, Hiro would have said he, Hiro,never would have hurt anyone either, but he'd come very close to sinking to Callaghan's level.
But the question hadn't been whether Tadashi would have done something worthy of prison; it was whether Hiro would have stood by his brother if he had. And that was a much easier question to answer. Tadashi was Hiro's older brother, his best friend, his partner in crime. And while Hiro would have had a hard time wrapping his head around any kind of uncharacteristically violent action on Tadashi's part—or believing that Tadashi had done something horrible at all, even with objective evidence against him—Hiro never would have abandoned his brother. No matter what Tadashi had done, Hiro would have fought for him, struggled to understand his reasoning, and tried to pull Tadashi from the deep pit into which he'd fallen.
He would have been trying to do exactly what Abigail is doing now.
The deep mire of anger and indignation steeping in the pit of his stomach hasn't completely drained away, but at least Hiro can better sympathize with her position.
"Look," Wasabi says, clapping Hiro's shoulder, "you don't have to talk to her—and especially not to Callaghan—if you don't want to. Just ignore the email. Delete it. And say the word and we'll help you figure out how to make them back off."
"Thanks guys. I think I'm okay."
Aware of Hiro's reluctance to get deeper into the subject, Wasabi lets the conversation drop. Fred, sensing the opportunity, attacks the subject of Hulk movies again to fiercely defend against Honey Lemon's claims that they "just weren't great." ("There were mutant poodles," Gogo reminds him airily. "Do we really have to say more?")
For the most part, they leave Hiro to his thoughts as they reach the edges of SFIT's campus. And rather than allowing Fred to coerce him into Heathcliff's limo with the others ("This is a kidnapping—we're all going to my place."), Hiro protests that he still has to wrap up his paper, which is true. Though it's not the paper at the forefront of his mind right now.
"See you in class, Hiro!" Honey Lemon calls cheerfully from the window, and Fred pokes his head out of the sunroof to wave with characteristic exuberance as they drive off.
Smiling, Hiro holds up a hand and starts back home, catching the streetcar partway. Baymax follows him in customary silent-shadow fashion, ignoring the stares he attracts from bystanders in favor of observing Hiro and his surroundings.
"You finished the majority of your paper this morning," Baymax says finally as they climb the hill toward the Lucky Cat Cafe. "You could have left with your friends for the evening."
"Yeah, but I kinda wanted some time to think," Hiro replies, pleased that Baymax has at least learned not to point out his lies when they're not in private. White lies, anyway. "And besides, I didn't really want to sit through the Hulk movies with Fred again. He's scarily into them."
Hiro pulls the cafe door open wide so that Baymax can waddle through first. "To think about the paper?" the robot clarifies.
"Not really. I mean, kind of—I really do need to finish it, and I'm just at the last part where we apply the laws of robotics to one of our projects, so it won't be hard. But I just want to figure out what's going on with Abigail without everyone else, because they're kind of…"
"Worried?"
"Well, yeah." Hiro pushes Baymax from behind to help him squeeze past a few of the tightly clustered tables, thinking that they really need to rearrange the seating again. "I guess that's the best way to put it. I just don't want them to think I'm stressing out about it."
"And are you 'stressing out' about it?" Baymax turns his head as much as he can to peer at Hiro critically.
"No." With a final push, Baymax is through the tables, and they climb the stairs to Hiro's room. "But do you think...should I read the letter she sent? Or should I delete it like Wasabi said?"
Baymax takes the last few stairs slowly, pausing at the door to Hiro's room to tilt his head in consideration. "It is impossible to say for certain, as I am unaware of the email's contents." Hiro rolls his eyes, watching the robot move past him to step carefully into the charging station to replenish his battery.
Other than a few words here and there, Baymax is always silent while recharging. The robot is fully capable of speaking and functioning normally at these times, but Hiro has always equated the state of recharging with sleep in his mind. He turns his back and drops into the chair at his desk, intending to sort through the rest of his notes as he finishes writing the paper, but he's surprised when Baymax speaks again.
"But, Hiro," the robot adds slowly, "while I cannot tell you the correct course of action, it is worth noting that you have a profound amount of natural curiosity. I believe that you will likely regret deleting the email without opening it."
Hiro frowns, realizing that Baymax is probably right. "Thanks," he says finally. Baymax doesn't reply. His eyes close to black slits.
Whatever the case, Hiro doesn't feel like dealing with the email right away; he has to work up the nerve. Instead, he boots up his computer and rummages through his mess of notes.
The next half hour or so is spent documenting the ways in which his recent projects exemplify the laws discussed in class. Hiro and Fred recently upgraded the flamethrower mechanism of Fred's suit, and while Hiro won't go into the details of the suit itself (as unlikely as it is that their teacher will realize that the flamethrower being described is attached to the suit of one of the masked heroes patrolling San Fransokyo), the upgrade is a great way to analyze some of the different laws of engineering.
For some time, he loses himself in the intricacies of writing. Papers have never really been Hiro's strong suit; he's more the type to brainstorm a project and jump into its construction rather than to organize his thoughts and verbally plan out an attack. But the last few months at SFIT have made something of a planner out of him by necessity, and with the helpful notes from his friends, this paper flows more smoothly than most.
He stops when he reaches the conclusion, his fingers hesitating on the keypad. All of his notes on the laws of robotics and the law of ideality are useless to him now. How do you wrap stuff up without sounding stupid? he thinks. Conclusions are always supposed to mean something.
But Hiro only lets himself stare at the screen for so long before boredom takes the reins. Endings are hard. And the presence of Abigail's letter in his inbox hasn't been far from his mind all evening.
He sweeps his hand across the interface to bring up his email window, and there it is, sitting atop the pile. Hiro wavers for only a second before tapping it open, letting it the window fill the screen before he can change his mind.
Hiro,
First, I want to say that I'm sorry. It's probably the first thing I should have said to you when we met at the cafe, but I wasn't in the right frame of mind. In fact, it's not even enough to say I'm sorry, because my family has caused yours so much suffering, and it's nothing we can ever take back.
I shouldn't have expected you to put everything aside so easily. My only excuse is that before we met, you were just an abstract person to me, and all I could think about were my own problems. I didn't come meaning to hurt you. For all he's done, my dad is the only family I have left, and I felt like I had to say something in his defense. I know it's probably hard to understand, but at the end of the day, he's still my dad. Wouldn't you have done the same for someone you love?
Anyway, I'm not really sure why I'm writing this, or if you're ever going to read it. You'd be well within your rights not to. I guess maybe I'm just after a chance to explain myself. Like I said, I didn't mean for things to happen like they did. You just weren't as real to me as my father is. Now, I know you're just a person who has gone through more than anyone should have to.
All the best,
Abigail
Hiro settles slowly back into his seat, suddenly aware of how close he'd been leaning into the screen. He feels a little lighter now, the tension in his chest loosening as he processes Abigail's words.
She dropped the thing about having me come talk to her dad, at least, he thinks to himself.
There's nothing too surprising in the letter, he realizes upon rereading it. Nothing he doesn't already know. Except that the words wouldn't you have done the same for someone you love strike Hiro a little close to home.
Tadashi never would have done something like that, Hiro thinks to himself. He never would have gone as far as Callaghan did. As far as I almost did, he adds as familiar feelings of doubt and self-loathing flow to the forefront of his mind.
Over the past few months, he's spent a lot of time indulging these sentiments, wallowing in his self-recriminating thoughts. Wondering what could have gone differently, what Tadashi would think of him, what he's going to do without his brother. Before Tadashi died, Hiro never would have considered himself to be a particularly unhappy person; other than the occasional lost bot fight or infrequent feelings of bored restlessness or worries about what he's going to do with the rest of his life, he'd had little to feel upset about. And Tadashi's cheerful good-naturedness had always held him afloat for as long as he could remember.
It's only since losing his brother that Hiro has come to understand that most people's lives are filled with the occasional quagmires and low valleys, deep and dark pits that must be crossed with care. It's only now that Hiro realizes how much Tadashi's presence in his life had somehow kept him from the fear and worry inherent in the real world, in the life of the average person.
Before, depression was something Hiro only vaguely understood, something sad and serious that only happened to other people. Now, Baymax's frequent references to his psychological databases whenever Hiro gets into one of his moods and refuses to speak or eat have afforded Hiro an exhaustive understanding of the condition.
Hiro knows he's worried Baymax over the past few months. The robot won't admit it, since he's a personal healthcare companion who "cannot experience worry, as that would undermine my ability to provide clinical advice." But Hiro knows Baymax better than that, recognizes the apprehensive, uncertain way he hovers over Hiro when he's not sure what course of action to suggest. At one low point, there had even been a time when Baymax had been worried to the point of divulging the details of Hiro's condition to Aunt Cass and Hiro's friends. And that point had been around the time that Hiro had claimed to be "sick" enough to cut classes for three days in a row, refusing to eat or to get out of bed. Luckily, Hiro's companions had taken it in turns to sit and talk with him for a while, long enough for him to finally resurface from his misery.
Things are getting easier now, though. Not like the hole in Hiro's chest is going away anytime soon, but his periods of optimism and contentment are stretching longer and longer nowadays.
It's only through Baymax's guidance that Hiro has started to deal with his darker thoughts in healthier ways, taking the time to feel them settle in his mind before considering how to work past them. He makes a conscious effort to do this now, pressing his palms to his forehead as if he can slow his thoughts with a bit more pressure. The doubt and worry are familiar ones he's worked through, so he processes them and sets them aside.
As for Abigail, he doesn't feel angry with her, not anymore. It had been surprise, more than anything else, that had led him to act as he had in the cafe, but after thinking it all over, he can understand the place she's coming from.
Hesitantly, he holds his hand over the screen, and then he swipes the email away to bring up an empty field for his response. The words come slowly, and he deletes half of them in order to reword the message, but eventually he's drafted a letter by way of reply.
Baymax is all for having Hiro process his emotions, understand his thoughts, and confront his feelings head on. Forgiveness is just one of the buzzwords the robot is always harping on about, and just this once, Hiro thinks he knows what his friend would suggest he say in his response.
And he's right about me, Hiro thinks, rereading the words one more time. I'm a naturally curious person. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing…
He sends it. For a moment, he stares at the screen, only realizing he's biting his lip once it starts to hurt.
Finally, he takes to his feet, stretching his arms overhead and shaking away the coiled tension in his limbs. He doesn't feel better, exactly. But he thinks replying was probably the right thing to do anyway.
A glance at the clock tells him the hour is later than he'd thought. He steps into the bathroom to brush his teeth and change for the night. As he walks back to his bed, he notices for the first time in a long time the emptiness of Tadashi's section of their bedroom. Aside from the obvious emptiness, of course—because it isn't as though Tadashi's things aren't there. It's just that he isn't. The room is almost clinically tidy. Everything in its place. Not lived in. Not possessed.
A grief counselor Aunt Cass had very briefly visited had told her to clear away Tadashi's things, but neither Aunt Cass nor Hiro will stand for it. After all, they don't need the space, really, and it still feels somehow wrong to clear it all away, as if removing the possessions might somehow erase the memories as well. Aunt Cass straightened up a bit after Tadashi passed on, and Hiro knows she still comes in frequently to dust, her hands trailing slowly over old photographs and books and gadgets. But for the most part, Tadashi's bedroom looks as it did on the day he died. As if Hiro and Aunt Cass half-expect him to brush through the door of the cafe at any moment, some sort of unfinished experiment tangled in his arms, something he would undoubtedly set down in order to help Aunt Cass pick up the dishes before flicking the side of Hiro's head in greeting, dragging him upstairs to finish his homework, talking to Hiro about his day, helping him with the business of growing up…
It's funny, he muses. How different things are now. It's almost as if he's a different person than the person he was before. As if the Hiro who once had Tadashi is a complete stranger.
He turns away from Tadashi's side of the room and toward his own. There's nothing for it: growing up and changing is unavoidable, no matter how much Hiro wishes he could stay the same has he was when he still had Tadashi.
But at least if I'm gonna grow up, I still have a lot of help doing it, he thinks to himself, dragging a blanket from the back of his desk chair. Baymax is settled onto his charging station still, unmoving and silent. Hiro can't help but bump his fist lightly against the robot's vinyl skin as he wraps the blanket around himself. "Thanks, buddy," he whispers.
Baymax isn't as out as he'd thought, because the robot's eyes open a little, giving Hiro the impression of a lazy cat. "For what are you thanking me?"
"Mmmm, a lot of things," Hiro replies, smiling.
Baymax scrutinizes him for a moment without moving from the charging station. The robot's eyes are half-open, giving his expression an endearingly bleary quality. "How are you feeling, Hiro?"
It's a loaded question, and one that Hiro has characteristically felt the need to brush off, but he knows what Baymax is asking. And his friend deserves an actual answer. "Not perfect…but better. Less worried. I think everything with Abigail's gonna be okay. You were right to tell me to open the email."
Baymax raises his head, looking pleased. "I have come to a better understanding of your behavior and predicted responses over the past few months."
"Yeah, you have," Hiro agrees.
"You are…" the robot pauses, tilting his head as he searches for the right words. "You are on cloud nine?"
Hiro laughs. It's probably just as well that Baymax never gets embarrassed when Hiro laughs at him, because the robot's struggles to achieve a more human-like usage of language are amusing, to say the least. "No, I'm on cloud nine most...hmm...well, when we're literally flying in the clouds. That means really, really happy. Today, I'm more…content to wait and see what happens, I guess. Like taking it easy."
"I see," Baymax replies, and Hiro knows he's filing away the information for later use. "You are going to bed?"
Hiro pulls the blanket close around his shoulders, shuffling slightly to cover his legs as well. "Yeah. I'm gonna polish up the paper tomorrow, but I'm mostly finished."
Baymax nods approvingly. "You have achieved an average of seven hours of sleep over the past week. It would be unfortunate to alter this statistic."
"Wouldn't want to mess up the numbers," Hiro grins. "Sorry for waking you up, buddy. Keep recharging."
"I do not mind being woken," Baymax replies, but his eyes again narrow to slits, and he grows quiet and still.
Once Hiro turns off his computer, the room grows dark. It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust, but the faint light coming from the strings of lanterns intersecting the street outside makes it easy to crawl into bed. The bay window behind his pillow faces out into the dark night outside, and Hiro clambers onto the low shelf to get close to the glass, folding his legs beneath him and raising the blinds for a better view.
Messing up the numbers isn't Hiro's intention, but his mind is too awake to fall asleep so soon. On the empty streets below, the cable car comes and goes a half dozen times before he finally crawls into bed.
.
.
.
A/N: If there is anyone who is the opposite of a math/engineering major, it's me. I struggle to do basic equations at the grocery to find the cheapest foods and save my poor wallet - so everything I know about engineering/the law of ideality/the effects of space on the body I basically got off the Internet. Please be gentle if you see mistakes!
Anyway, this chapter turned into 20 pages…way longer than I planned. If you can, leave me a review...Too long? Too wordy? Too angsty? Let me know what you thought!
Peace,
ket