Chapter 11: The Rising Tide of Hope

(Posted 2016-02-26, Updated -)

{(CI)}

[Day ?]

Hiro became aware of an annoying beeping sound. It sounded just like the alarm of a cheap clock, only with longer intervals in between.

And similar to how the cheap alarm clock worked, the sound faded in, becoming louder and more obnoxious as time passed. The intervals didn't change much, and the beeps didn't become more urgent and more in number, but the steady beeps grew louder and louder.

Actually, when he contemplated the sound a little more, it sounded more like a heart monitor than the hypothetical alarm clock.

Hiro frowned, wondering why he would be near to hear a heart monitor.

Hiro opened an eye, only to flinch them closed at the bright light. When the pain from the sudden brightness became a little easier to bear, he peeked under his lashes to blurrily see a white and clean room.

Opening his eyes slightly wider still, squinting until his eyes got accustomed to the light, Hiro found himself in a hospital room, propped up slightly at an angle. The brown door straight ahead of the crinkly and scratchy hospital bed was slightly open with a gap that peeked into a quiet hallway outside.

Hiro slowly blinked to clear his eyes once more. This was still a dream, right?

Since that fire, so many days ago, everything was a waking nightmare. Anything good turned out to be a dream, and the past few times he 'woke' on a hospital bed, things had been so scattered that he didn't know if what happened was a dream or not. Though, it was nice to wake in a bright room this time, unlike the usual darkness and gray tones he found himself in.

Honestly, his head must really be messed up to continue to come up with these elaborate dreams, when it did nothing but hurt him more.

The last moment that he had been certain of his awake-ness had been when he had been about to escape. The man who came to take him back, Smith — he looked trustworthy and really upset at his situation, even giving some information about his kidnapper, a Vincent Kruger, if he remembered right.

With a sigh, Hiro closed his eyes and made no effort to move his head. Soon he would wake to reality, which would be another monochrome room (probably gray) where he would stay staring at equations all day, or saw imaginary figments of the people he wanted to see. This place had the monochrome part down, so it was most likely a dream where his imagination went rampant. Another soft sigh escaped his lips, and Hiro briefly opened his eyes, checking if he had woken yet, but found his hospital room unchanged.

Closing his eyes again, Hiro wished and wished (futilely, he privately thought), though he was resigned that everything he wished for wouldn't come true. But he couldn't help himself.

I want to wake up now, before I see something I really want to be true...

He opened his eyes to find the scene in front of him still unchanged; without meaning to, his half-open eyes reluctantly began roaming around the room to take in details.

There was a window to the right with blinds, a table with a vase with a sunflower placed right in front.

His eyes flickered next to the heart monitor by the table, watching the consecutive waves of the red and green line. He followed the waves with his own heart beat a while, not really able to understand much except that his heart rate was steady. He next took note of the half-full IV bag of yellow liquid that was next to the heart monitor machine, eyes flickering down the IV tube to see it taped into his arm.

He saw another, thicker tube that went across his arm and over the IV tube, coming from somewhere out of his field of sight. His eyes followed the transparent material until he saw that it led up to his face — and he registered the feel of a mask over his mouth and nose, and concluded that he had some sort of oxygen mask.

He closed his eyes for a while, just breathing in the air tinged with the smell of plastic and disinfectant. His thoughts wandered as he waited for the dream to end, but the persistent beeping of the heart monitor continued steadily. Blinking open his eyes again, Hiro's gaze returned to its wandering.

Hiro's attention wandered back down to the IV needle in his arm again, going further down towards his hand resting on top of the white hospital sheets; he saw the small scratches on his palms and fingers that he had gotten trying to escape, and noted the wired clip on the middle finger.

He twitched his hand and distractedly noticed the crinkly-soft-warm material of the hospital blanket shift slightly as it twitched as commanded.

Hiro spent a few more moments just staring at the hand, thoughts slow as a crawling turtle; as more of his senses began to filter back, he realized that the other hand felt warmer, and pushed some effort into lolling his head to the other side.

He blinked when he found three hands, instead of one, his own trapped between two larger ones. Trying to process what he was seeing, Hiro's eyes slowly roamed down the two larger ones and found a mop of messy, dark hair.

Half-guessing and half-knowing who it was that his mind decided to conjure, his eyes drank in the sight of the light green cardigan and San Fransokyo cap.

Hiro felt his stomach drop, knowing that it was something — someone — that he desperately desired and did not desire just as much because —

Because this was all a dream, and he didn't want to see him turn away again.

Hiro stared at the mop of hair for the longest of moments. Tadashi's face was turned away from him, pillowed by his arms, and he saw his soft breathing from the rise and fall of his back. Hiro's conflicted thoughts began to calm when nothing happened, and he didn't notice that the heart monitor noting the slight increase in heartbeat during his moment of trepidation.

As much as Hiro hoped and wished it was real, the cynical part of his mind insisted that this was all a dream.

Tadashi and Aunt Cass and everyone else — they probably didn't even know to look for him, thinking he was dead; Tadashi would never appear in front of him unless it was a dream, because his older brother would already have found him if he thought Hiro was.

The older Hamada was not a genius, but he was smart in his own way — no, Hiro was certain that Tadashi thought him dead.

To make up for the lack of close family members, his subconscious was probably working overtime, giving him dreams where he could interact with them. (But it made waking up even more painful, didn't his subconscious know that?)

However, no matter how snidely his cynical thoughts sniped about the current dream, it couldn't entirely kill off the small hopeful voice near the back of his mind.

If Tadashi was really and truly here... that means I'm out of that horrible place... right?

Hiro continued gazing at the back of his older brother's head, waiting for something to happen. Tadas— dream-Tadashi didn't do anything, still lost in sleep.

To peel the band-aid quickly or slowly, that is the dilemma, Hiro thought.

Hiro experimentally twitched his fingers, unsure if it would wake him from the dream or if the dream-Tadashi would wake up.

As the teen waited with bated breath, dream-Tadashi shifted, hands tightening around his entrapped hand. The dream-figment murmured, turning his face towards Hiro's hand, dragging it closer. Hiro stopped breathing for a moment, taking in the familiar face; Tadashi had tired eye-bags like that one time he had stayed up working on his final project, and his brows were fused together in a frown. Tadashi muttered something indistinguishable, his mouth tilted down.

Hesitantly, Hiro quietly whispered to the figment of imagination shaped as his brother, the name slurring together into a nickname he used when he had been a small child. "'Dashi...?"

Dream-Tadashi didn't wake.

Hiro wondered what would cause the warmth he felt on his hand. Perhaps it was just his blankets again, just like the other time when he distinctly remembered cuddling with Aunt Cass on the couch, only to wake to find himself tangled in blankets.

The cynical voice of this is a dream warred with the hopeful voice of this is real, there are too many details.

A half-relieved, half-frustrated sigh escaped him when Tadashi went back to breathing regularly. Of all the dreams he could have had of his older brother, he had to have one where Tadashi was asleep... which was both a good and bad thing, now that he thought about it.

Good, because he did get to see Tadashi and not have any kind of interactions with him, meaning a less painful wakeup in the morning. Bad, because Tadashi was asleep, and they weren't going to be any interactions between himself and the imagination-figment.

For a long moment, Hiro simply drank in his brother's face.

A tentative thought raised its head. Maybe I could wake Tadashi up, and I would wake from the dream?

It took a while to act on that thought. Hiro was afraid to lose the small comfort of being next to someone, to wake and find himself alone again. But the braver, more reckless side of him insisted on interacting with the imagination-figment in the hope to get something more substantial than just a close-up of fake-Tadashi's face.

After a long moment of indecision, Hiro finally twitched his fingers in fake-Tadashi's hand, hoping that it was enough to wake him, but not enough to rid the apparition.

Dream-Tadashi frowned more deeply and did nothing further; Hiro reluctantly came to a decision of saving himself the pain and began to forcefully pull his hand out of the warm grip. Honestly, he wanted to stay in the dream a little longer, but when he woke, it would be that much more depressing and painful — it was better to stop the dream now before it changed and did something that would be too much to take —

Dream-Tadashi frowned deeper and held more tightly to Hiro's slipping hand, pulling it up against his face. He muttered a garbled 'won't let you', when the hand was half-way out of his hands, which made the teen pause.

The small hopeful voice was growing louder and confident, reminding Hiro of the clarity he felt, the amount of detail.

Maybe it wasn't a dream —

But Hiro squashed the thought and the hope that had sprouted, reminding himself that everyone thought him dead and no one was looking for him.

Trying to ignore the heart ache those thoughts caused, he pulled harder to get his hand away from Tada — the imagination-figment's grip. The faster he woke from this dream, the faster he would be able to escape or send some kind of message through Smith. Then hopefully, they'll realize he was alive and look for him.

When he was nearly finished pulling the tips of his fingers out of Tada — imagination-figment's hold, to his surprise, Tada — the dream figment — snapped up, grasped his slipping fingers into a secure hold again with a loud, "Hiro, no!"

Hiro froze in place, watching the fake-Tadashi — it's a fake, a dream, a figment of my imagination — warily. He should be waking up right about here... so why wasn't he waking up?

Tadashi did not notice Hiro watching him with fearful, wide-open eyes, looking around blearily for whatever woke him up.

With turbulent thoughts wondering which direction the dream would head this time, Hiro hesitantly called out to his brother again.

"Ta- Tadashi...?"

His older brother jumped in surprise and whipped his head and met Hiro's eyes. Time slowed, and the two brothers stared at each other; Hiro's gaze roamed Tadashi's face again, taking in the more pronounced eye shadows and the 5 o'clock shadow he hadn't seen before. Tadashi's face was crumpling into something like the grieving face again, and Hiro sighed tiredly, resignation coloring his eyes as he waited for the dream to fade, starting with Tadashi rejecting he was alive —

With no warning, Tadashi lunged at him, grabbing him by the shoulders and holding him tight. "Hiro, you stupid idiot."

Hiro's eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't expected that, and the familiar voice of his older brother scolding him for doing something foolish was as legit as could be — for a dream.

He stayed as limp as possible, trying to harden his heart from feeling anything at all — but at the repeated murmurs of 'oh my god' right next to his ears, there was a burning in the back of his eyes, and he couldn't stop the tears that were welling up.

If this was a dream, he wished it would never end. The hug with Tadashi's strong arms — not fake? ...real? — all around him felt protective, warm, and as comforting as a hot bath after being stuck in a cold rain storm.

Hiro unwillingly let the tears pour, his heart crying out at seeing his older brother who always took care of him, no matter what —

Just like the other dream.

Hiro stiffened at the reminder. Slowly, he began to push away from the hug; that time, the dream-Tadashi had comforted him as well until he realized that 'Hiro was dead' — then the dream became a mess of isolation and suffocating smoke.

A hand running through his hair interrupted his thoughts, and Hiro tuned back into his surroundings to hear Tadashi start scolding him angrily.

"You stupid, idiotic, boneheaded, reckless knucklehead!" Unlike the harsh words he was sprouting, Tadashi's voice sounded suspiciously shaky, and Hiro felt a wetness on his shoulders where his older brother's head was.

If this was a dream, it was so realistic that it hurt even that much more.

Soon, dream-Tadashi would 'realize' that he was dead. And then dream-Tadashi would tell him to 'go back to the dead'. Again.

He should do everything he could to wake up before he faced the crushing disappointment. Again.

But...

Hiro's arms weakly went around the older, stronger man in front of him, clinging as tightly as his noodle-like arms allowed.

Without further prompting, a soft sob broke from his lips, and words began to pour out, only half-making sense.

"Y'promised... y'promised, but y'weren't there..."

Hiro cried, cried as he had never before, for Tadashi's broken promise and the kidnapping and being left alone —

As if understanding his younger brother's blubbers and his need to be as close as possible, Tadashi — not a dream? — clung to him as well, nearly pulling him off the bed. He muttered, "I'm so, so sorry. I thought... I thought..." You died, went unsaid in the silence filled with Hiro's sobbing.

This was a dream, but Hiro couldn't help feel that is wasn't. The relief of finding his brother next to him, the faint smell of the shampoo Tadashi used, the familiar hug that he remembered from stormy nights —

After a long silence full of wordless murmurs of comfort and heart-wrenching cries of distress, Hiro began mumbling through his sobs, explaining everything that he'd gone through. Even if he was pouring his heart out to a figment of imagination, it was cathartic.

"...I was s'scared... I tried everything to get out... and I tried to wait... but no one came... Stupid guy was makin' me solve all those stupid theor'ms of dime'sion travelin'... and it was givin' me a he'dache..."

Dream-Tadashi held him tight and soothed it all away, crooning comforts and rubbing his hands in circles behind his back, chasing away the shadows of fear with his big presence. "I'm here, Hiro. Right here. You're not there anymore. You're at the hospital. You know the one we always went to after we made those crazy inventions? You're safe, you hear me? Safe."

As time passed, Hiro's tears slowly came to a stop, his ragged breathing fogging up the oxygen mask. When dream-Tadashi shifted, Hiro clutched desperately onto him, wondering if it was the end of the dream —

As if knowing exactly what he was thinking, dream-Tadashi stopped moving and began stroking the bed-mussed hair back as the younger Hamada calmed down, muttering reassurances that it was okay. When Hiro's grip relaxed a tiny bit, he heard Tadashi's soft and relieved whisper in his ear. "I'm so glad you woke up."

At that point, Hiro's arms had slowly lost strength and began loosening from its death grip, the atrophied muscles tired from the sudden movement. The teen began dreading the moment he would find himself alone again in the gray room, but the dream did not end — yet. Dream-Tadashi was still holding onto him, slowly moving both of them into a more comfortable hug where Hiro could loop his arms around his neck. It felt wonderful.

And I'm still not waking up from the dream, Hiro thought. The small hopeful voice was even louder than before.

Was it really a dream?

The teen could feel Tadashi — not a dream? — slowly shift his hold into a more relaxed hug.

He could feel the tingle of the blood flowing back as the circulation came back —

The IV needle was pulling at his arm rather uncomfortably —

His eyes were also uncomfortable, wet and feeling gross —

The oxygen mask was pushing into his face, crushed between his face and Tadashi's shoulder —

Suddenly, the realization struck him like an electric jolt.

Dreams don't have... They don't have pain.

They don't have pain.

A shiver ran up his back. This was actually Tadashi? It was the real thing?

Hiro blinked around the room again and recognized the quiet hallway through the gap of the wooden door as the same one from the hospital that he and Tadashi had frequently visited in their childhood. The vase was holding a sunflower, a flower Aunt Cass always brought over whenever they had to stay overnight at the hospital. ("It's to remind you that you'll come home soon," Aunt Cass says to him, pinching his cheek)

Hiro blinked again. This... this was real?

Another sharp and slightly painful tug from the tangled IV line confirmed it.

Hiro felt his slowly drying eyes start to fill again with hot tears of relief. Soon tears were running down his cheeks when he blinked to clear his eyes to check that he was awake.

He was safe, he was seeing and feeling this, and this wasn't a dream.

Hiro pulled slightly away to look up at his brother — Tadashi, Tadashi was here — and stared at him with a mixed expression of hope and doubt before cautiously asking, "...Tadashi? You're... you're really here...?"

A shadow passed over Tadashi's face, but it went by too quick to see exactly what kind of expression it was. But Hiro forgot about the shadow when Tadashi's face morphed into a familiar — it was his older brother, it was Tadashi, it was Tadashi — gentle, soft smile. His face came closer as he pulled him into a loose hug again — he was here, Tadashi was here —

"Yes, you bonehead. I'm right here, and you are not getting away from me again. Never, you hear me?"

At those words, Hiro felt an inexplicable warmth flow through his body. What tension that had existed before ebbed out, and a relieved sigh came unbidden from his lips.

Hiro's gaze unfocused, the relief he felt loosening up his body and slurring the words from his mouth. "...y're really no' gonna go 'nywhere?"

Tadashi's grip tightened infinitesimally around him. "Of course not." Hiro felt another ruffle on his head, the ones Tadashi gave him when teasing. "Oh-ho, just you wait knucklehead, I'm not going to let you go anywhere without me. You're going to have to deal with me in the same bathroom for a while."

Hiro didn't really hear the last part, as his brain was only focusing on the 'Of course not' and 'not going to let you go anywhere'.

"'Kay... Tha's good... I was lon'ly..." Hiro began to relax further into Tadashi's strong chest, surrendering to the fatigue from his sudden movements and swing of emotions. "...Y're g'nna st'y... righ' h're?"

Tadashi rubbed his back reassuringly. "Yes, Hiro, I'll be right here. I promise."

"Pinky... pr'mise?"

Tadashi huffed in amusement. "Hell yes, pinky promise."

"'Kay... an' we alw'ys kee' pinky pr'mises... R'le numb'r one..." Hiro trailed off, slowly losing his grip with reality again. He faintly heard Tadashi reply cutting off.

"Yes, rule number one, pinky promises are forev — Hiro? Hiro! Hiro —"

Hiro lost consciousness again to his older brother's cries, but he only felt relief that everything was over and done with. He had nothing to worry about, because Tadashi was here. He was here, and he would take care of everything.

Tadashi probably kicked the bad guy's butt for him already.

One year later

"Hiro, come on! You'll be late for your morning class!" Tadashi called as he pulled the scooter out of the garage.

Hiro quickly ate the last piece of buttered toast and gulped down the rest of his milk. "I'm coming!"

He picked up his bag and rushed out of the café, yelling a goodbye back at Aunt Cass. "I'll see you later Aunt Cass!"

"Have a good day boys!"

Hiro hopped on the back of Tadashi's scooter, grabbing the helmet held out from Tadashi's hands.

Tadashi chuckled as he rapped on the helmet to make sure it was secure, then turned and started the scooter.

It was another normal day, that is, as normal as a life as a college student-superhero-vigilante could get.

To the general public, Big Hero 6 remained that, 'Big Hero 6', with rumors of a seventh hidden member directing from the shadows. With the emergence of superheroes all around the country, it wasn't that difficult for the people of San Fransokyo to accept them, though they had a tough start.

The vigilantes' tendency of wearing muted colors had led to several misunderstandings with the police; they had thought it was a new gang of some sort, and several officers had even been disgruntled that they did not leave things to the police. It had taken a costume change to a more bright color scheme, a nonviolent end to a police shootout and a runaway tram before the police and the public gave the San Fransokyo heroes their full support.

After that the team had to work harder to keep their secret identities intact, Hiro working on new inventions during his medical downtime to help out. Clothes that changed color on command, allowing the team to slip in and out of the public eye without much trouble; extra-tinted glass on the helmet visors with another layer that screened useful information on the sides, and many other small little inventions that made it easier on the team's double-life. With Hiro's ingenuity and teamwork, they were also able to change their inventions to an unrecognizable degree, allowing everyone on the team to hand in their original senior projects with no problem.

Things were great. There was the occasional villain that came through San Fransokyo, but Big Hero 6 only really had to deal with the Fujitas and Banzai Bombers regularly, but that was no biggie for the team.

Actually, tonight was Hiro's first planned patrol; today was the day when Big Hero 6 would change to Big Hero 7.

He couldn't wait until the bad guys came up against his new and upgraded microbot technology! They'd never see it coming.

Hiro sighed contentedly as he held tighter to Tadashi's waist, watching the sakura rain down on the world around them.

All was well with the world.

{(CI)}

A/N - This is the end peeps! Thank you all for coming with me on this really long journey of Hiro (and a little Tadashi)! I really appreciate all of your support! The next chapter is the Epilogue with more details of what happens to Vincent! Go on and read it! :)