Author's Note: I am so SO sorry for the long absence. It was so hard to write anything for some reason. And it was even harder to find a quiet space to work. I also looked at the confused reviews regarding the link I "posted" and now know what the problem is.
It's not there.
So the solution…is to get the fic up to date on Archive of Our Own and make sure the link is there on the more link acceptable site.
Almost done with this fic. I just know it.
(0-0)
Wasabi stared at the book, memorizing several passages that he knew would some up in the quiz next week. He pulled out a page-marker and carefully placed it next to a phrase that he knew would be important. And then adjusted it when he saw that it was at least half a degree off. A place for everything and everything in its place.
He went to the next page, meticulously looking over each word eight times before he began to mark up phrases that he knew would be important. He was tuning everything else out. The scribbling of marker on sheet paper.
Then he heard a chair scrapping against the floor and looked up.
Wasabi smiled, "Hey man."
Hiro smiled tiredly at him. Wasabi could see the bags under his eyes, "Hey."
"Heard you went to your first session last night. How'd it go?"
"Better than I thought it would," Hiro said as he put his bag on the table and pulled out his laptop, "He wasn't pressing me to talk about stuff I didn't want to and we ended up just…talking."
"What do you mean?" Wasabi asked, leaning forward a little.
"Just…talk," Hiro gestured vaguely in the air, focusing his attention on the screen flashing to life in front of him. Wasabi made a note to talk to Hiro about not putting his face so close to a laptop screen. If he wasn't careful, then he could damage his eyesight. He continued, "I told him about you guys and he told me about his husband and daughter. That reminds me…"
He looked up from the screen and stared at Wasabi, "What is your real name?"
"My…real name?" Wasabi repeated.
"When I first met you guys, Tada –" Hiro stopped and took a deep breath, "My…my brother said that Fred gave you those names."
"And?"
"And unless Fred actually created you guys from scratch and is smarter than he claims to be, that means I never really got your real names," Hiro concluded.
Wasabi blinked, "Oh yeah. Guess we got used to being called those names after a while."
"Sooo….?" Hiro paused.
"Oh. OH. Right. My name," Wasabi stammered, "It's…uh, well, my real name is –"
"Could you two keep it down?!" Wasabi jumped and looked over to the direction the voice came from. Karmi was sitting two tables away from them, glaring at them. Wasabi was surprised to hear Hiro snap back,
"Study somewhere else if it bothers you, then!"
Wasabi turned back to Hiro, "Dude, that was a little harsh –"
"It's not like she can't just ignore us," Hiro emphasized, a meaningful look on his now aggravated face, "That's what I'd do. And I'm going to do it."
He went back to his laptop, the hard expression now gone. Wasabi thought that the smile was a little forced, but he wasn't going to push the poor kid.
Karmi didn't say anything else, but Wasabi saw her scowl deepen a little while she went back to her work.
(0-0)
"Thanks for the extra hand, Go Go," Cass smiled while Go Go brought another tray of food to a nearby table, "You sure you don't want to make this a more permanent thing?"
"I got SFIT and my bike courtier job to worry about," Go Go shrugged as she rolled back over to the countertop – she was using her roller skates – and picked up another tray with tuna salads fresh from the oven, "Can't say I could handle another job, even if it is part-time. Why don't you get some workers?"
"Yeah," Cass nodded, looking thoughtful, "I should."
The conversation stopped as Go Go continued going back and forth, delivering food and dirty dishes, back and forth and without much to say.
Go Go couldn't truly admit she was a full-time student. Bills don't pay themselves and she hadn't lived with her parents since she was 18. The financial support and living under someone else's roof was pretty tempting, but she was a legal adult. She wanted to live on her own, anyways. And she never looked back. Though, she did miss her dad's cooking and seeing her parents on a frequent basis. She just couldn't help but think of her parents whenever she saw Cass or Hiro.
Or Tadashi.
Go Go bit her lip. It had been a week since they last saw each other. It had been three months since she thought he was dead. And how did she react? She slapped him. Not once did the sense of joy overcome her in that moment. All she felt was anger and confusion. And fear.
Fear for Hiro, who had to be taken to a hospital and needs to see a therapist. This was starting to become old news to her now, but the shock was still fresh in her mind.
How did you survive? Go Go thought. Tadashi tried to say something, but she cut him off. All she wanted to do was unleash all the rage she wasn't able to set upon Callaghan or Yama or anybody that would have been a great punching bag.
And it took just going on patrol once for her to see what it did to her.
"It's nice," Cass continued a few minutes later, "really nice that Hiro has you all for friends. You do practically everything together."
"Not completely true," Go Go responded with a smirk, "I like being by myself sometimes. I have a life outside of college and the others."
Like bird-watching, for instance. Thanks for following me all the way into the woods, Hiro and Fred, and not letting that hobby be a secret and for not respecting my privacy like any sane individual would.
"I know what you mean," Cass nodded, "I love my horror movies with Mochi. It gets a little lonely, though."
"Maybe you should try –" Go Go stopped herself. Try what? Dating? She saw how well that turned out to be with Krei of all people. She just wanted to punch that bastard now. They saved his life countless times and how does he thank them? Gives them a security robot to fix and threatens to expose them as Big Hero 6 if they didn't comply. And his lawyers managed to make a contract out of this?! The worst part was when she did a little digging about how that would have really turned out. Not an easy thing to do, considering how both vague and specific she had to be when she looked it up online.
Fact: what Krei did constituted blackmail and withholding evidence from the police. That makes him compliant to their actions as Big Hero 6 as vigilantes. He might have lawyers, but he would still get in trouble if word got out he knew and didn't say anything to the authorities. Now, as long as nobody else finds out and doesn't try to pull anything rash –
"The funny thing is, though," Cass continued, "This started happening since Hiro began attending SFIT."
Go Go nodded absentmindedly and picked up another tray.
"And the same time that Big Hero 6 showed up."
She nearly dropped the tray of dishes to the floor but kept her grip. Go Go kept her tone even, as though she were discussing the weather,
"I wouldn't know, I'm not what you call a 'Ha-Ha' kind of person."
"Would you find it funny if the big guy in red had the same eyes Baymax did?"
"Only if we did a comparison," Go Go said quickly, "Cass, I need to get these dishes out of the way, we can talk later."
"That's what Hiro always said," she heard Cass mutter under her breath.
(0-0)
"d – and she kept insisting that I had a crush on her," Hiro stretched his legs over the arms of the couch, "All because I kept saying 'hi' to her and bringing up the project Granville assigned us to do together."
"But aside from your friend, Honey Lemon, you never saw anyone else you were attracted to?"
Hiro made a face, "Honey Lemon's the sweetest person around, she has that effect on people. Once I got to know her, I guess I got over it. No one else, though."
"Did you say that Karmi doesn't have any friends at SFIT?"
Hiro nodded slowly, "Yeah, but that doesn't make it fair for her to be mean to me!"
"No, it doesn't," Rogers agreed.
Hiro sighed, "I'm just glad she stopped accusing me of the whole crush thing. I mean, where did that come from?"
"Did you ever think that Karmi never had anyone come up to her more than once and acknowledge her existence?"
Hiro looked up with a surprised look on his face.
Rogers continued, "Suspecting you having a crush on her is far-fetched, but your friends told you that she doesn't have any friends of her own. Even after she acted mean to you, you still bothered trying to talk to her."
Yeah," Hiro interjected, "because we had an assignment to do together. I had to talk to her and do the journal."
"Maybe she thought that you would have been scared away after she acted mean to you the first time," Rogers pointed out, "Maybe she was surprised and tried to make excuses for herself. I can't say for certain on her behalf, though."
"All I want is for her to loosen up a little," Hiro grumbled, "I mean, if we can just be friends, I'd be happy with just that."
Rogers nodded, "That's a positive outlook to have, but you shouldn't let her push you around. Even if what you say is true, no one deserves to be treated like that."
Hiro shrugged, "It's just annoying. Compared to middle school and high school, she's been pretty tame. Kind of hard to take her seriously, to be honest."
"How does Karmi interact with you, then?"
"She makes jabs about my age once or twice, she gets irritated if I do something stupid like when I had the cold and sneezed on some fruit," Hiro paused, "You know, I think she's only gotten mad at me for stuff like that. Other than that, I think she just tolerates me. The worst thing she's done was take pictures of me making mistakes or getting embarrassed, and even those times were tame."
Rogers frowned though, "That still wasn't nice of her."
"Yeah," Hiro agreed, "I mean, it wasn't nice."
He paused for a moment, wanting to change the topic, "Did you ever notice anybody when you were younger?"
Rogers chuckled, "Not that I need to go into detail, but I noticed a few."
Hiro remembered the photo on Rogers' desk, "When did you meet your husband? …that is, if you mind me asking…"
"Not at all," Rogers picked up a fidget ball and held it out in his hand as though calculating its weight, "It was eight years ago. I just started out in Boston and met him on my lunch break. We just…talked. And it was just about similar interests we had. We started meeting each week and then, we just started going out."
Hiro smiled, "That's really sweet."
"Thank you, Hiro," Rogers smiled back, "Did you want to get back on how you met your friends?"
"There's not much to say," Hiro shrugged, "After that, they helped me prep for the Expo and…"
His voice faltered into quietness.
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, Hiro, you know that."
"I know…" Hiro muttered, nodding his head weakly, "I know…"
(0-0)
"It's been two weeks," Honey Lemon said pleadingly to Hiro one day, "Can't you at least try talking to Tada –"
"No," Hiro said briskly, "I'll talk to him when I'm ready to talk to him."
"But he misses you," Fred protested, "He told me that. He's been wanting to talk to you about what happened."
"Fred, I hate to break it to you, but I'm not really comfortable with this discussion," Hiro retorted.
"But –"
"But nothing, Fred!" Hiro returned to his work, trying to ignore how his insides shivered more and more.
"But what about the therapist?" Honey Lemon asked.
"I told him I didn't want to talk about it with him yet," Hiro didn't look up from his work, "He said we'd talk about it when I was ready. That's how therapy works. I won't talk to him until I'm ready."
No one knew if Hiro was referring to the counselor or his brother at the final statement and didn't dare ask for clarification.
(0-0)
Tadashi sighed and clenched his fists together. Fred stood by, ready to act if necessary.
"On my mark," Tadashi said. Heathcliff nodded and readied himself as well. On the monitor screen, Fred's father, Frederick Fredrickson the III, was nodding here and there while parrying an oncoming blade. Tadashi had stopped acting surprised with each new thing he learned about his friend and simply greeted the man politely. He didn't care to ask why Mr. Frederickson was barely clothed and how he was surviving in what looked like a climate unsuited for bare skin. It reminded him of their current project.
"Now!"
They waited for a second signal, in case things were to go wrong, but then sighed with relief when the signal didn't come. Several moments later, Tadashi was brushing off his clothes and accepted a bottle of water from Heathcliff. He smiled at Fred and asked,
"How's Hiro doing?"
Fred's grin slid off his face and he shook his head. Tadashi sighed.
"I don't want him to be afraid of me…"
"He's not afraid of you," Fred said hesitantly, "He's just…adjusting."
"So why hasn't he tried talking to me? Why hasn't he tried sending me messages?"
Fred slumped, "I don't know."
(0-0)
It was at least four weeks since counseling with Rogers started that it happened again. Hiro was taking his lunch break. Fred was beside him reading a comic, but he wasn't paying attention to the words or the action.
Then Karmi walked by. Hiro ignored her at first, and she him. But then she said something he didn't expect,
"Is your brother, Tadashi, alive?"
He didn't know how she knew. He didn't know why she asked. It was a few seconds before he could let the words sink it, and then his heart started hammering against his chest.
Hiro's breath began to quicken. In and out. Out and in.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
"Hiro?" Fred looked up from his comic book, eyes widening with fear. Karmi looked skeptical and unnerved at the same time.
"Hiro?"
Are you alright?
I'm fine, but Callaghan's still in there!
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Hiro slid off his chair and landed on the ground with a thud!
"Is…is he alright?" Karmi asked to no one in particular nervously.
Tadashi!
Callaghan's in there. Someone has to help!
"Hey," Karmi snapped her fingers in front of him, "Talk to me. What are you doing?"
TADASHI!
A flash. An explosion.
Snap! Snap! Karmi's fingers went.
"Karmi, you shouldn't do that!" Fred tried to pull her away.
He went in there to save you!
THAT WAS HIS MISTAKE!
"Would you quit being a drama queen and answer –?!"
"SHUT UP, KARMI!" Hiro screamed, panicking.
A fist in her gut, knocking the wind out of her.
Chairs collapsing to the floor.
Hiro running out of the lunch room, wheezing and fighting back tears.
Karmi fought back her own tears as she clutched her stomach. She hesitantly accepted a hand up from Fred as a crowd began to form around them.
"Wh-what did I do?" She said quietly.
(0-0)
Author's Note: Hiro's lash of anger is something that can happen if a person is agitated in a panic attack. I used a scene from Iron Man 3 as basis, as Tony was stated to be suffering from anxiety attacks since The Avengers.
I'm getting close to the end, I just know it! I also need to catch up on the series proper, since the latest episode involves what appears to be Tadashi's ghost or Obake's doing. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Please review and give critique, I know this isn't my best and I appreciate any suggestions or corrections if needed. Thank you for your patience.