Chrononaut

Come on Hiro. You can do it. It's not that hard. Just lift your hand and…

Hiro was standing in front of a large double paneled door trying to convince himself to put the rather desperate plan he had in mind into action. He could do this. All he had to do was knock. It couldn't be simpler, right? All he had to do was drop his hand down and connect with the wood only… Only nothing was further from the truth. He could knock. Once he did that someone would come and open the door. They would see him and ask him what he was doing there and then… and then… And then was the entire crux of his problem because he had absolutely no idea what would follow.

Hiro dropped the hand he'd lifted back to his side and began to pace, back and forth, desperately trying to plan the conversation that was bound to follow. There had to be something he could say. Some way he could make everything he had just been through believable. I mean, it couldn't be that hard, could it?

Right. Time to face the proverbial dragon.

Squaring his shoulders, Hiro stopped pacing and raised his hand once more, turning to face the door. Come on Hiro. You can do it. Just lift your hand and knock.

…

Turned out he couldn't do it. Fear and uncertainty rose up within him causing him to drop his hand once more as he abandoned the idea of knocking in favor of continuing to pace back and forth in indecision. What was he even thinking? What on earth possessed him to even imagine this was a good idea when there were simply so many things that could go wrong? People didn't just walk up to complete strangers, tell them crazy tales and come out of it unscathed, did they? At the very least he was risking a call to the police. At worst, a very long visit to an asylum somewhere. He couldn't just knock on the door and expect…

"May I help you?"

Hiro froze mid step, his rapidly spiraling thoughts suddenly silenced by the unexpected question. His gut filled with dread, he turned to face the speaker, wide brown eyes locking onto a familiar dispassionate expression. "I… uh… I was just…um… pacing?" He trailed off, not really sure what to say now that he'd been caught in the act.

Way to go. Way to state the obvious, genius!

The figure before him didn't even twitch, remaining silent as he continued to wait for Hiro to answer the question he had asked.

Hiro shifted beneath his gaze before sighing. Now that he had been caught, he might as well go through with his initial plan. Taking a deep breath he turned back towards the door and raised his head. "I'm here to see Fred." He said calmly, slipping on the confident mask he'd mastered during his bot fighting days.

"And who, might I ask, should I say is calling?" Heathcliff asked.

Oh no. He hadn't thought things through that far. Fred didn't know him yet and would probably be unlikely to come to the door to meet a complete stranger! "Ha… Hamada." He stammered, his brain still trying to solve the problem at hand. He needed someone that Fred knew, someone Fred would be willing to meet with. "Tadashi Hamada." Hiro regretted it the moment the words slipped out of his lips.

"Very well. One moment please." Heathcliff slipped back into the house and closed the door behind him, leaving Hiro to contemplate the potential consequences of his actions, alone. And so began a renewed cycle of spiraling thoughts.

Why? Why had he used Tadashi's name? Hiro face palmed with a groan. That was simply asking for trouble. When would his mouth learn to stop blurting out the first thing that popped into his head when he was cornered? It almost always got him into trouble. With experience comes wisdom. Or so he'd always been told only that didn't appear to be working for him.

Hiro began to pace once more.

If Tadashi ever found out, Hiro was a dead man. Okay, that was technically not true. Tadashi was unlikely to actually kill him but he certainly wouldn't put it past his brother to attempt to ground him for life. It was one thing to go out bot fighting, identity fraud was another thing entirely. And to top things off, he'd pretty much handed the information to Tadashi seeing as the person he was trying to fool was actually one of Tadashi's closest friends which meant that the information would probably travel to his brother quickly and…

"Yo, Tadashi, my man!" The door swung open, a familiar voice once again interrupting Hiro's downward spiral into panic. "How did you find out where I lived?" Fred practically bounced out the door, excitement written all over his face only to stumble to a halt in sudden confusion. "You're not Tadashi."

Hiro blinked up at him, shifting awkwardly beneath his gaze. "No… I… uh… No, I'm not." He admitted, dropping his gaze in sudden trepidation.

Fred walked closer and leaned forward to peer at him. "But you do kinda look like him." He walked around Hiro, carefully inspecting him from all angles. Inspection done he took a step back before confidently declaring. "You must be his younger brother, Hiro." It was a statement, not a question, the confident grin on his face only serving to emphasize that he knew he was right. "What can I do for you, little guy?"

"Well…" Hiro glanced up, putting on his best innocent expression. "You could start by giving me a place to hide."

"Hide?" Fred looked surprised. "Why do you need a place to hide?" He turned and looked towards the street, trying to see if someone had perhaps followed Hiro to his house. "Wait. Don't tell me. Tadashi says you're some kind of genius. I'll bet there is an evil mastermind after you! Probably hoping to kidnap you so you can invent something that will help him get revenge and you need to get away because the fate of the entire world rests on your shoulders!" He declared, pumping an arm up into the air.

The deduction was so typically Fred. Completely random, off the wall, and eerily held more truth than Fred himself probably realized. "Something like that." Hiro's reply was cautious and he too peered at the street, playing up the conspiracy a little. "But I can't talk about it out here. Someone might overhear us."

"Oh, right." Fred nodded stepping back to push open his front door. "Come on in, you'll be safe here. Mi porte d'entrée es su porte d'entrée." And there it was, Fred's terrible French. "That's French for my home is your home." He explained, stepping in and making space for Hiro to follow.

"It's really not." The words slipped past Hiro's lips without his knowledge as he bent down to lift Baymax's case.

"It's not?"

"What's not?" Hiro asked, standing back up, Baymax's case firmly in his grasp.

"Is Mi porte d'entrée es su porte d'entrée not French for my home is your home?" Fred asked triggering a sudden rewind in Hiro's thoughts.

Oh no…

He'd voiced the echo of Honey Lemon's words out loud? Go figure. His mind to mouth filter was still broken. Maybe it was time to just give up on fixing it altogether. This was, after all, Fred he was dealing with. "Yeah, it's not." He confirmed on a grin. "But I wouldn't worry too much about it." He stepped into Fred's home and confidently began to head towards the Otaku's room. "Your misuse of French is what makes you uniquely you."

"It is?" Fred closed the door and began to follow.

"Yeah." Hiro grinned. "That and your comic book obsession." Hiro marched through the hallway containing Fred's family portraits, not even pausing to look at any of them.

"Comic books are rad." Fred agreed, returning Hiro's grin. "All that drama and adventure, evil villains," He raised his arms and wiggled his fingers, "And heroes that swoop in to save the day." And then leaped up and pounced forward, landing lightly on his feet, knees bent and arms stretched out to the sides. "What's there not to love? Wouldn't it be awesome if we could be heroes too? We could save damsels in distress, fight off bad guys and turn into giant fire breathing lizards."

Hiro's grin softened. The familiarity of his surroundings and Fred's rather predictable over the top behavior effectively washed away his earlier doubt, panic and fear. This… could work. "Yeah it would be awesome." He agreed, shifting Baymax's case into one hand, so that he could use the other to push open the door to Fred's room. Marching into the room, he headed towards Fred's white couch before dropping Baymax's case beside it. He then stretched his arms up over his head, worked out the kinks in his muscles and collapsed down onto the couch with an exhausted sigh. It really had been a long day.

Fred followed him in, pausing to close his bedroom door before joining Hiro on the couch. Threading his fingers together, he stretched his arms out in front of him, clicking both his fingers and his elbow. He then casually turned to face Hiro, resting one arm on the back of the couch before calmly declaring. "You're from the future, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Hiro agreed absently. He was exhausted and now that he was finally off his feet it was beginning to catch up to him. He'd been up all night after all.

"I knew it!" Fred exclaimed in triumph, practically bouncing up and down on the couch in excitement.

Huh? Why did it feel like he was missing something?

"I knew time travel was real, but would anyone listen to me?"

Wait… How did Fred know about the time travel?

Hiro shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts once more. He must have misheard. Fred couldn't possibly have…

"No. They keep telling me it's 'not science'." Fred used air quotes to emphasize his point. "Just because something starts out as fiction doesn't mean it can't become reality. In fact most of the ideas for technology we take for granted today started off as a fiction." Fred nodded sagely, appearing, for a moment, to possess all the knowledge in the world before slipping back into his usual Otaku craziness. "So, how did you manage to travel back in time?"

Oh no.

"Was it a time machine? A portal to another dimension or maybe some kind of potion that sent your awareness back in time? Did Honey Lemon manage to invent a potion to turn me into a giant fire breathing lizard at will? How about invisible sandwiches? Has that become a thing?"

No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Hiro all but fell off the couch, scrambling to keep himself in place. "W… Whatever gave you that idea?" He stammered, still battling surprise in a bid to regain his composure. When had the conversation managed to go off on that tangent?

"Well, you know who I am," Fred lifted his hands and began to tick of points, "where I live, what I like, what my house looks like and where my room is and I haven't met you yet. Well not in this timeline anyway. I must have already met you in the one you come from."

This was bad. This was so bad. He'd let too much slip. Revealed too much. He had to fix it. Quickly, before things got too far out of hand. "That's because T… Tadashi told me about you." He blurted out, desperately trying to undo what he'd just done.

"Nice try." Fred stretched again, this time imitating Hiro's earlier stretch, before seeming to melt into the couch. "The big T-man doesn't know where I live, let alone the layout of my home and room. You just walked through it all like you live here and didn't even look at that." Fred pointed to the painting that depicted a warrior version of him on a tiger. "It's not possible to ignore something that AWESOME the first time you see it."

"I… uh…" Think Hiro. Think. "That's because…" There must be a way to fix this, a way to convince Fred that…

Wait.

Wait just one minute.

Why was he trying to convince Fred that he wasn't some kind of time traveler when he could use this information to his advantage? Fred had just done half the work for him. Now all he had to do was convince Fred to help him save Tadashi's life. "Looks like you caught me." Hiro directed a sheepish expression at Fred, sub consciously reaching up to rest his hand on the back of his own neck. "I should've known I couldn't hide it from you."

"That's right." Fred agreed smugly, crossing his arms. "I may look like your typical lazy college student but am actually hiding brilliant deductive skills which I have carefully honed by reading every comic book ever written. Okay, maybe not every comic book as that would probably take a lot of time and not leave me with any time to hang with my buddies but you get the idea." Fred grinned at him.

Hiro face palmed. Fred was nothing if not blatantly overconfident so it was unsurprising that he thought he was some kind of modern day Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately brilliant deductive reasoning was not exactly Fred's forte. More like dumb luck but that was a skill in itself he guessed. "Yeah, I get the idea." Hiro agreed, pulling his hand down to reveal a grin every bit as cocky as the one Fred was directing at him. He'd really missed this. "So, genius, tell me why I'm here then." He challenged, wanting to see just how far Fred could take this.

"Let's see." Fred lifted a hand to his chin and frowned thoughtfully. "We're obviously friends in the future. You've been to my home, so we obviously hang out. You're smart and related to Tadashi. Oh, I know! The big T-man must have introduced us to one another. That's how me met isn't it?"

Hiro nodded.

"Makes sense. He's always talking about you, man. He's so proud of all your achievements. Okay, maybe not all of them. He's not exactly a fan of your bot fighting career. He's always going on about how you're wasting all you potential. Personally I think he needs to chill. Bot fights are really cool. Especially when everyone is taken by surprise by a bot they all thought didn't have a chance. Its' really cool when a small bot ends up in a ring with a large one that keeps winning and all of a sudden leaps up and snatches the win away from the big bot." Fred leaped to his feet and raised his arms in demonstration. "It's like a super hero origin story. The little bot rises from the ashes and takes the villain by surprise leaving everyone around him shocked and amazed."

Hiro stared, his jaw slack. He'd thought he knew everything there was to know about the Otaku but Fred had just managed to completely surprise him, revealing a side Hiro hadn't known existed. "You like bot fights?" He asked in disbelief, still trying to comprehend how that had not come up even once in the two years they had been friends. To be fair though, it was a topic he'd avoided after Tadashi died. "But they're illegal."

"Bot fights are not illegal." Fred waved his hand, brushing the comment off. "Betting on bot fights is illegal. There's nothing illegal about watching a couple of robots duke it out," Fred bounced on his feet pretending to box against an imaginary opponent, "as long as you're not placing any money on the outcome."

"Try telling that to Tadashi." Hiro couldn't help but mutter.

"Tadashi does tend to have a rather black and white approach to life." Fred agreed, settling back down. "Which is why he'd make an awesome hero. I can just picture it, Tadashi with super powers, sweeping in to save us all from ourselves. It's almost like he was born to play the role. Don't you think?"

Almost like he was born to play the role.

Fred's words echoed through Hiro's mind bringing with them threads of both agony and grief. Fred was correct. Tadashi really did have the perfect personality to become a Hero. He was genuinely good and kind, always concerned about doing the right thing and the welfare of others. He'd even gone so far as to design and build a healthcare robot that could be used to help heal people, both mentally and physically. Hiro on the other hand, appeared to be the complete opposite. He was cocky, arrogant and quick to anger and the robots he'd invented were used to fight. It was incredibly ironic then that it was Hiro that had taken up that role instead. "Yeah." Hiro softly agreed looking up to meet Fred's gaze with grief reflected in his eyes. "Tadashi would have been a better hero than me."

Tadashi would have been a better hero than me.

Stronger, kinder, older, smarter, friendlier, just better… And that's when he was suddenly struck by a disturbing train of thought: Perhaps he was never meant to be part of Big Hero 6. After all, what did he know? He was just one kid. One cocky teenager who actually had the arrogance to think he could lead and make a difference when all he'd really accomplished was causing not only the death of his beloved brother but also his own, over and over again despite his best efforts to avoid it. Maybe he hadn't traveled back in time to save his older brother. Maybe he'd simply returned to die in his place…

It was a distressing notion, and not one he really wanted to ponder on too deeply lest it drive him insane.

"Hey, little man. You okay?"

Hiro blinked, Fred's voice once again pulled him back into the present. "Yeah, I'm fine." He lied, the words slipping smoothly past his lips.

"You look like you just saw a ghost."

"No." Hiro shook his head. "I was just… lost in thought." He hedged, pushing the dark revelation to the back of his mind in the hopes of ignoring it a little longer. He didn't really have time for it, or the implications it had on his chosen course of action.

Fred frowned at him, clearly unconvinced.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here." Hiro quickly changed the subject, hoping to avoid the barrage of concern Fred was about to direct at him. "I have a preposition for you. I want to create a team of super heroes and I want you to be a part of it." His words quickly caught Fred's attention and the Otaku began to bounce up and down on his feet in barely contained excitement. "I'll even turn you into a fire breathing lizard."

And with those words Hiro knew his distraction tactic had succeeded.

"You can do that?!" The barely restrained excitement suddenly exploded as Fred literally leaped up into the air. "You can really turn me into a fire breathing lizard? But Honey Lemon says she can't create a chemical formula to do that. She said it's 'not science'."

"She's right. Technically I'm not going to physically turning you into a fire breathing lizard. I want to build you a fire breathing lizard suit that you can wear. It will double as both armor and a weapon. I won't be using chemistry, I'll be using robotics."

"A fire breathing lizard suit." Fred stared at Hiro in awe, the gears in his head turning. "And a super hero team. I like where this is heading! I'm so in! So, who else are you planning on inviting into the team?" Fred easily agreed to join the team before allowing his curiosity to get the better of him.

"Well, that's where you come in." Hiro shifted, lifting his left leg to rest it on his right knee and resting his arm on the back of Fred's couch in the hopes of creating the illusion of confidence he was far from feeling. "I need you to help me convince Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Gogo to join us." He watched Fred carefully, silently hoping the Otaku would agree to help him. Fred was, after all, currently his only viable link to the rest of the team.

"You want to include the entire gang?!" Fred continued to bounce up and down in excitement, already picturing the team in his mind. "That's so cool. I can't wait to tell everyone. They'll be so psyched. We're all really tight you know. We do everything together. Everyone at SFIT refers to us as the fearless gang. Led by me, of course." Fred puffed up his chest and pointed at himself. "Honey Lemon, Wasabi, Gogo and…" Fred's suddenly paused, the revelation Hiro had been waiting for finally dawning on him. "Wait, you want to include everyone except for Tadashi?"

Hiro nodded in confirmation.

"Why do you want to exclude Tadashi?" He asked in confusion.

"Because," Hiro paused for emphasis. "Our first mission will be to save Tadashi's life."

- BH6 - BH6 - BH6 -

A/N: Apologies for the erratic nature of Hiro's thoughts at this stage. He is under a lot of pressure and after all his previous failures to save his brother has now begun to second guess himself all the time. I feel it is a natural progression considering what he has gone through and had to deal with and am hoping the gang will be able to get him back to normal with time.

PS: This story is now officially longer than my first one! XD XD XD

Kiki Anderson: Nope. It was the security guard. Tadashi is currently otherwise occupied XD.

WriterGreenReads: Priorities are very important you know. The rose bush hurt him the last time round. Why should he go through that again when he can avoid it? XD

: Yeah, he is losing it a little.

CrazyBlueOwl: I agree. Comforting Baymax is the best Baymax! And a nice counter balance to Hiro who is currently stressing beyond belief.

Interviner: Thanks. Am feeling better but now have a whole new level of chaos in my life. Home renovations suck. I'm sleeping on the couch and struggling to find time to do anything at all at this stage. O.O. I'd like to do a chapter from Tadashi's perspective but am avoiding it at this stage as this story is actually being told from Hiro's. I may insert one later of we get to the scene I have in my head.

Taura Fall: Nope. It's not officer Gerson. I was tempted to make it Gerson but then realized he was the police officer. I am better but have home renovations to deal with now :(. AS for graphic... I refused to watch Elfen Lied as well and prefer more light hearted anime as a general rule. As for Kabaneri... Search for: Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. I didn't finish watching it though...

Culinary-Alchemist: Love the nickname. Especially as I have just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist. Gives me the idea you are going to transmute some awesome food for me! I seriously consider it a compliment that you were unable to pull yourself away from my story even though you found it when you were supposed to be sleeping. I hope you will continue to enjoy it as much.

Jathagarth: Yeah, the story has taken a bit of a dramatic turn. Might be influenced a bit by all the drama I have been dealing with in real life at this stage but I think I'll leave it as it is for now and hope it tones down a little. I don't feel it's completely out of place as the turning point was triggered by the sudden pressure that Arishem put on Hiro. Each cycle Hiro went through revealed a bit more about how and why he got there. And each failure put more pressure on him. As a result he is now second guessing himself more than he usually would which has led to the shift in tone. The fact that this story is written from his perspective only serves to highlight this even further. Your first understanding of the situation is spot on. Well done! Mr Portalverse Intelligence (Arishem) showed Hiro that the earth was headed towards chaos due to the inventions of multiple mad villains and verbally implied that this would result in the earth's demise. This verbal implication is what gave Hiro the idea he is somehow supposed to fix the entire world. What he did not tell Hiro was that Arishem is a judge that is meant to decide whether the earth deserves to continue to exist and the earth will be found lacking if the villains are allowed to gain the upper hand. I don't know how to work this explanation into the story yet as this implication would only be apparent to people that know the Marvel verse that Arishem comes from. I considered having Fred offer the explanation due to reading a comic book that 'accidentally' ended up being more true than not. The other option is to have Arishem himself offer the explanation at a later stage but am not sure if I'd be able to work that in. Alternatively I can leave it a mystery... kind of like the main villain in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie that was never explained.