Safe in Brother's Wings Chapter 24: Phase Two, a DuckTales + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 24, everybody! And the start of what I consider part two of the fic—won't say for sure yet that it's halfway because I've got everything written up to Chapter 41 and I'm not 100% certain it ends on Chapter 48, but there's enough of a major difference that I'm satisfied with saying we're now in Part II. :)

Also y'all better read the title like Fred says it. XD

And now for the fun bit of writing trivia: from this part onward was kind of written concurrently with the first half of the fic, so I didn't lose track of what I wanted to write—I was about on Chapter 39 with bits and pieces missing between that and Chapter 32 when Part I met up with Part II. Fun stuff. :)

And once again, my knowledge of Californian geography consists of a couple of browser searches please forgive me and accept my fudging of the San Fransokyo Bay and the surrounding area. Also not entirely certain marijuana has been legalized in California, and probably wouldn't be in a Disney film, but Disney bumped off canon!Tadashi so we don't care what they think. And yes, in medieval times they did get a flogging conga line going—this was before television, you realize.

Angelwings2002, thanks for the review! AAAH DON'T PANIC WE FIND OUT THIS CHAPTER! D: Yes Baymax and everyone else SOON *screams with you* Ahahaha, thank you I'm glad you love it! :D And I will always love writing the bird-kids' antics so glad you liked them. :D

Tadashi was standing on a stage, looking out across a darkened audience—nothing to see except the spotlight surrounding him.

"H-hi—my name is Tadashi Hamada, and I am here to present my research project," he managed into the microphone. Oh come on—just jitters, he had been working on this for months. "My…project is…." It should be Baymax, right? Check his notecards—

Shuffle through them all quickly—all blank.

"Uh—over here, we have—" shuffle over to a table, tug the cover off to show feathers—flip his notecards over. "The project is…for the genetic cleansing of bird-people, so they can live happy, normal lives. Now I know this has been a recent problem—" Didn't his hoodie have sleeves? Shouldn't he be better dressed for this? "But recent breakthroughs, such as Sycorax's genetic cleansers—" his fingernails were dark, ending in curving points.

Something was wrong.

"T…Dashi…."

Look up—

Recoil in horror at the people he knew pinned up like dead bugs, blood trickling down—oh please, please may those messy remains on the floor not be wearing Hiro's hoodie—please, everyone stop staring at him with those eyes—

"Fail."

Something snatched at his feet, yanked, sending him crashing down hard on the stage—wrenched himself around to see that blackness had seized his legs, that Callaghan was towering over him—

"You know what happens when you fail here."

Yank—sending him flying, crashing into a flaming showcase—no—no no—

"—Dashi!"

No.

"NO HIRO NO!" Tadashi screamed, spotting his brother in the flames—debris had him pinned—he had to save him, he had to—

A wall of blackness surged up—

"HIRO NO BEHIND YOU!"

"Dashi—Dashi—"

"Dashi-Dashi-Dashi—Daaah-shiiiii…."

Tadashi jerked awake and upright, breathing hard—a dream. It was just a dream. Scramble a little, eyes darting everywhere—

Nox and a couple of the other kids were staring at him, looking vaguely miserable.

"S-sorry," he muttered, scrubbing his head under his hat before rubbing his face. "Sorry," he repeated, searching the kids' faces. "Hey come on, what's wrong? Don't worry about me—just a bad dream." He hoped.

Nox and Webby exchanged glances before looking at him and scrubbing at their heads.

"What? What, you don't have lice, do you?" he asked, tugging Nox a little closer to check. Oh please don't—

Huey was looking concerned as he warbled and squawked, gesturing quite a bit with his hands and rubbing at his head repeatedly.

No lice on Nox—check Webby for bugs next, still with Huey and now Lena trying to explain something.

"I don't understand," he told them finally. "You're going to have to tell 'Kase—unless…Huey, Webby, words?"

"Bad," Webby said, Huey nodding agreement. "Bad-bad-no good-bad—"

"Okay, so we're going to have to talk to 'Kase," Tadashi groaned, struggling upright with kids hanging off of him—it looked like it was getting on to sundown; they'd be going soon.

Soon everything would be fixed and done for, for better or for worse—

"'Kase!" Tadashi called, working his way around the kids now dancing around his feet and chanting for attention. "Help—I don't speak bird."

"You should really learn sometime," 'Kase countered, giving him a smug look before listening to the kids. "They're still bothered by whatever it is that's wrong with this place."

The fact that suddenly none of them could tell which way north was, she meant. Almost as soon as they had flown over Muirahara Woods that near-constant pull had snapped and went fuzzy—one of the reasons they had landed in this particular clearing was that it had been so sudden it had startled the kids nearly clean out of the sky. It had taken them hours to get the kids calmed down, and by then it was day and they had to wait to go flying the rest of the way.

Apparently, they were still bothered by this—and apparently, it bothered the kids more than it did the adults.

"Okay," Tadashi sighed, rubbing his face. There were butterflies flapping little icy wings all through his stomach—it was now or never, he'd know one way or the other soon enough. "Okay," he said, a little louder, a little more forcefully. "I'm going to need everyone's attention."

He explained the plan in short order: he and 'Kase would go to the warehouse, get the gene cleansers, and get out, while everyone else stayed put and out of sight.

"Hopefully, nothing will go wrong," he said, butterflies turning into gas molecules as everyone—well, the adults at least—started registering what he was saying. Normalcy just a few moments away, basically…their expressions were breaking him; he had to get this right. "But just in case—if we're not back in…." How long was too long?

Beth came up and put a hand on his shoulder. "If you're not back, we go to the bay."

Tadashi let a deep breath out—right. "Let's say two days," he said. "If we're not back in two days, follow the river to the bay. If we don't meet you there by the end of the third day, something bad happened and…."

"And we'll worry about things being that dire at the end of the third day," Brittany said, arms crossed. "Stop standing there worrying about it and just go already."

Tadashi nodded. "Right. So…."

"So this is where you give us the cool Arnold sendoff of I'll be back," Sashi suggested.

"Only if you promise to reply with I'll be Beethoven."

That got some laughs, at least, and Tadashi felt better about leaving them, at least temporarily.

Simple, in and out, on with life, he told himself. Not more than a day.

"No."

Stop at the tug on his hoodie, look down to see Louie looking up at him, fingers dug into the fabric and eyes wide with concern.

"No," Louie repeated. "No bad stay Dsshi—"

Scoop him up and hug him tight. "I will be right back, okay? Behave for the girls. And Sashi. Okay?"

"Okay," Louie muttered, not eager to relinquish his grip as he was handed to Sue. "Okay…okay…."

Sue hugged Louie tight, looked at Tadashi with a smile that didn't quite dispel the worry in her eyes. "Be careful, okay?"

Tadashi nodded, suddenly not trusting himself to talk—slipped off after 'Kase.

"Finally," she huffed, winding through the brush. "They can't miss you if you don't leave."

"And when did you watch An Extremely Goofy Movie?" he asked her.

"Don't be a knucklehead—honestly."

"My goal once we knock eating, sleeping and bathing out is to get you watching movies. I've already got an extensive list—really hope you don't have any plans for the next few months."

'Kase huffed at him and ignored him for the next minute, lofted up first when they reached a suitable clearing. Tadashi took a few tries to follow.

"You know, you're going to get that right the very last time you ever do this," 'Kase told him, circling overhead as he powered up.

"That's my suspicion," Tadashi said, following her through the growing twilight—even without being able to tell where north was, San Fransokyo was hard to miss. "So how are we going to do this? Getting in once we find the right warehouse."

"I think we try being girl scouts selling cookies."

"You laugh, but they legalized weed—the guards might let us in if they have a bad case of the munchies."

"Hmm," she noised. "I do recall my original's penchant for making sushi with the poisonous parts still in them—we can see how that goes."

"Maybe an option that doesn't end in death."

"Oh please, no one died from it—do you know how hard it is to get a job in this city as a sushi chef with that on your record?"

Grumbling and grousing behind him prompted Tadashi to look—"Grump, we didn't invite you."

"He's arguing that a cloned thief and a robotics major should have brighter ideas on breaking and entering, he's coming because he's certain we'd screw it up, no we can't tell him to shove off we don't tell him what to do, and you have other problems."

"Like what?" Tadashi asked Grump.

"Oh no, that last one was my addition—behind you guys."

Grump twisted around to look, Tadashi angled a bit to see—

"NOX!" Tadashi squawked, recognizing the smaller form flapping behind Grump.

"'Dashi!" Nox greeted, dipping a little and power-flapping to get closer. "Dashi-Dashi-Dashi—"

"Oh no—no no no no—'Kase we're landing, pick a spot."

'Kase sighed, angled around.

A few moments later, and they were landing on a beach at the mouth of the river winding past their camp, right where it fed out into the bay.

"Perfect," Tadashi said, before rounding on Nox the moment he touched down. "You—go back to the others. You—" Pointing at Grump. "Make sure he gets there."

Grump huffed and very pointedly sat down.

"Then fine—you two stay here."

"He didn't even listen when you told him to stay at the camp," 'Kase pointed out over Nox's chant of no-no-no-no-no. "Come to think of it, he never listens to you."

"I want to argue the point, but I really can't—Nox, what are you even doing?" Tadashi asked him, trying to hold him at arm's length. "You can't come with us—it's going to be dangerous."

"'Dashi," Nox said, tone stern as he finally hooked a hand in Tadashi's hoodie.

"Look, we're going to have a hard enough time sneaking in as is," 'Kase said. "By the time we get there we should be hitting at swing shift, and you can't convince him to sit still when you leave his line of sight—if you wanted to slip away that badly you should have waited until he was asleep or distracted, and I'm pretty sure that would have only worked temporarily."

"'Kase, please stop making points," Tadashi muttered, rubbing his face. "No, Nox, you can't come."

"'Dashi yes," Nox insisted. "'Dashi yes Dashi-Dashi-Dashi—"

"He's a kid," 'Kase said, arms crossed as best she could manage with feathers. "He doesn't understand that you're coming back when you go away."

Groaning was starting to look like a tempting option. "We can't take a kid on a heist."

"Ooh, we upgraded to heist—listen, there's a group of kid vigilantes running through the city, a kid on a heist is nothing."

Tadashi gave her a baffled look, had to look at Grump to point at her and question—was surprised to see Grump nod and then give a little half-apologetic shrug.

"And when we get there, Grump can babysit," 'Kase said, giving the griffin a smug look.

Grump looked like he was planning on sitting on her and not moving until a 9.8 dislodged him.

"Okay, okay, fine," Tadashi sighed, waving his hands and conceding defeat. "But you," he said, pinning Nox with his hands on Nox's shoulders and giving him his full, undivided, I am the one in charge and you'd better listen attention. "No going all over the place, you stay on my tail unless I say otherwise, when we get there you are staying with Grump, and then we're flying straight back to camp. Got it?"

Nox seemed more taken with Tadashi's full undivided attention than he was with anything Tadashi was currently saying.

"Too much," 'Kase said.

Tadashi sighed—yes, he figured as much. "Okay, two things, how's that?" he asked Nox, freeing a hand to hold up two fingers. "One: you stay on my tail. You stick with me, okay?"

"Okay?" Nox echoed.

"Stay with 'Dashi, yes? No flying around doing stupid stuff, yes?"

"Yes-yes-okay-okay—"

"Two," Tadashi said, ticking off his second finger. "If I tell you to run, you go like something's chasing you, okay? You get out of dodge and you come right. Back. Here. To this spot, where we're supposed to meet up. Okay? Something goes bad, you run."

Nox seemed to have lost Tadashi's thread.

Tadashi sighed. "I say run, you come here. Yes?"

"Yes," Nox chirped.

"Good," Tadashi moaned, straightening up—no, dawn wasn't upon them, although he was certain a few more gray hairs (feathers, whatever) were upon him. "And by the way—when we get back you're looking at the mother of all time-outs."

"No-no-no-sorry-no—"

"Don't give him such a hard time," 'Kase said. "He just wants to be around you."

"Yeah," Tadashi sighed. "But the last time I just said screw it let 'em tag along, Della broke her leg."

'Kase huffed, blowing her fringe out of her eyes. "Fine, flog yourself—remind Sashi about the bear when we get back and you can get a conga line going."

"They used to do that you know," Tadashi called after her—too late, already up in the air. Turn his attention to Nox, whistling and chirping, eyes raking the far shore.

"And what do you do?" Tadashi asked, redirecting Nox's attention. "Where do you stay?"

"'Dashi," Nox said, pointing.

"Right. And if I tell you run?"

"Run. Hiiirr," Nox said, pointing at the beach.

"Here. That's right." Tadashi pointed at Grump. "You know I blame you for this—he doesn't get this misbehaving streak from me."

Grump huffed and launched himself into the air after 'Kase. Tadashi tried a few times—

"'Dashi—Dashi-Dashi-Dashi," Nox said, waving his arms and wings. "'Dashi—fly." Crouch down, wings all the way up, tips touching each other—jump back as he flapped down, do it again when he jumped forward, flapping a few quick times to keep him hovering around eye-level. "Fly—up—fly."

"Are you schooling me?" Tadashi asked, trying not to be amused—Nox chirped, landed on his shoulders, dropping down to hug him from the back—Tadashi glanced up, spotting 'Kase and Grump circling, both of them looking impatient. "Okay, okay—get off me, let me try again."

"No," Nox said, when Tadashi crouched. "No-no-no up-up-up—" followed by a lot of squawking and squeaking that Tadashi had no clue how to translate. Straighten up, crouch, wingtips touching each other—"Yes-yes up-fly up!"

Nox was up in the air in a flash—Tadashi pushed off hard, trying to time his downstroke—his wings brushed the sand—beat down hard—touch down—try again, more force—airborne this time.

"Yes maybe fly yes," Nox chirped, doing quick lazy circles around Tadashi as he powered up, no effort to his soaring at all.

"Showoff," Tadashi muttered. "So maybe I'm not the best at this."

"Like I said," 'Kase said when he came even, already angling for the city. "You'll get it right just as we're turning back to normal."