Chapter 2, everybody! Meant to post this Friday, but a new fic idea held me hostage I AM TRYING TO FINISH MY DISSERTATION ALL YOU IDEAS COULDN'T WAIT ONE MORE MONTH! D:

*ahem* Moving on…honestly thought the Hamadas owned a car before rewatching a few episodes, although the truck is shown to have a backseat. And researching the food Cass preps makes me want to try California poke…and Ducktales and Zootopia were picked at random for the boys to watch, and then both were on the TV this past Independence Day. Weird….And then Word recognizes Zootopia, which is even weirder….

Superkoola, thanks for the review! Glad you like it, and hopefully I'll be able to post more regularly in the fall! :D

Thanks for the review, guest! Glad you love it (I do too). :D

Thanks for the review, Mystery! Yes! That is actually not my intent with this fic, but now I want someone to write that because I agree that is an entertaining idea—I can hear the dialogue now too: "HOW are you a kid what are you doing?" "I already went through puberty once get me off this ride!" XD

Big Hero 6/Lilo and Stitch/Meet the Robinsons/Ducktales/Zootopia © Disney (everything referenced is Disney they're everywhere…)

"Those thoughts of past brothers—they'll always haunt me!"—"House of Memories" by Panic! at the Disco

The ride home was almost ridiculously silent, in Cass's opinion.

Despite Hiro's enthusiasm at the adoption center, every time she glanced in the rearview mirror it was to see Hiro on one side of the backseat and Obake on the other, both as close to their respective doors as possible and staring out their windows. Well, expecting them to be super-friendly right away was a stretch, she supposed.

Now if only it wasn't so awkward.

It was an hour's drive back to the café, and for half of that she had been trying to ask Obake simple questions—how was he, what food did he like, did he like movies—nothing. Not even simple responses like Hiro would give when he wasn't engaged. Doesn't talk indeed.

And then there was that look she had caught him giving the adoption lady on the way out, and the look she had been giving him—if she didn't know any better, she'd have thought that the adoption lady had been glad to see the back end of him.

Not for the first time, she wished Tadashi were here—Tadashi would have been sitting in the back seat, both of them in a headlock, cajoling some interaction out of them both, to the point where she would have had to beg for them to tone it down. Tadashi always had that special knack for teasing some life out of a person—with him gone, it felt like all the energy had been sucked out of the house.

She sighed, considering her options. "Hey—Tuesdays are a little slow for the café anyway—how about we just skip the dinner rush, big welcome-home dinner? Any favorites or preferences, now's the time to bring them up!"

Hiro leaned away from the window a little to look at her. "Hot wings?"

"Okay, that's a start," Cass said, glad it had gotten a rise out of someone. "Obake? How about you?"

Obake looked at her, had to turn his head a little farther than usual because of the bandages over his left eye, shrugged a little.

"Okay, so it'll be a surprise," Cass said. "And I was thinking today and tomorrow we just all get situated, maybe I call a doctor to have that eye looked at. Do you know what's wrong with it?"

That look he had given the adoption lady ghosted over his face briefly and he went back to looking out the window. Great.

"Hey, just want to make sure it doesn't get infected or anything," she said, splaying her hands along the wheel briefly. "Ah, there we are! The Lucky Cat Café," she announced, pointing it out as she drove around to her alley parking (the garage itself had long ago been taken over by Tadashi and Hiro). "Hiro, why don't you show Obake around the house while I put the cover on the truck?"

"M'kay," Hiro noised, unbuckling himself and sliding out of the backseat. Obake imitated the process, walked around the back of the truck, Hiro waving at him and directing him into the house, pausing briefly to tug the key out of its hiding spot before unlocking the door and slipping inside.

Obake glanced at her before following him in.

"Okay," Cass noised, brushing herself down before going to the back to get the cover. "Just—new kid, have to get used to him, he probably has his own quirks and…oh, what am I doing?" she wailed, struggling to keep her voice down as she looked skyward. "I could hardly handle two boys I was related to—whatever possessed me to think about adopting a third?"

Because it had been a good idea, she thought—the Cornelius Robinson Initiative was primarily targeted at finding forever homes for teenagers, because of how hard it was to place them normally. The founder himself had been adopted right there at the cutoff point, knew how awful it was to look down the barrel at just ageing out of the system with no real hope of finding a family outside of marriage. She, herself, had thought it a grand idea—give someone who needed it a sense of belonging.

And when she had decided to go with it, it had been with two well-behaved (for the most part) boys, one in college and one getting ready to go to college. They'd probably be out of the house most days, and she wasn't ready for empty-nest syndrome.

And then Hiro had not wanted to go to college, had gotten into bot-fighting instead…oi that gave her gray hairs. And then Tadashi had gotten him out of it, had gotten him focused on SFIT—the nerd school, as they both called it—things had been going so great—

And then the fire. The explosion.

And Tadashi.

Hiro had shut down completely after the funeral—she had barely been able to get him to eat, let alone get out of the house. And of course, now she had gotten the call. Now there was a second kid in the house again, when he was supposed to be the third. Now, with the absolute worst timing.

At least Hiro had shown some enthusiasm again. Honestly, she was surprised at him practically dragging that poor skinny kid back up front—probably took one look at him and decided that he was in desperate need of some good cooking.

Okay, just—deep breath, be here now. One day at a time, one step at a time.

It was all she could do.

Okay, in retrospect, Hiro wasn't sure why exactly he had thought this might have been a good idea.

Obake, as the boy had identified himself, had seemed a cool pick to invite to their house, the fact he was the only one there notwithstanding. But after a quiet ride home with him, Hiro was seriously beginning to question his own logic here. But…he had promised Aunt Cass he'd give this a shot….

"Okay…so," Hiro noised, kicking off his shoes in the foyer. "This is the uh, the foyer, yeah. That door's the garage—that's where me and Tadashi—it's more of a machine shop now," he said, not wanting to revisit that pain again. Not right now. "So…through here's the living room—that's Aunt Cass's bedroom up those steps, and that's the bathroom," he said, pointing out the doors as he led the other kid through the house—was Obake even older than him? It was hard to tell. "And through here is Aunt Cass's café—we call it the Lucky Cat."

"Mrow."

"And there's the lucky cat now—hi, Mochi," Hiro said, kneeling to pet the tubby calico. "This is Obake—say hi?"

Mochi looked up at Obake, blinked once, twice—maneuvered around both in search of Aunt Cass.

"Yeah, cat thing," Hiro said, standing. "Over there's the kitchen—it's got access to the side alley for deliveries—and then up here's mine and Tadas—my room."

He led him up a flight of steps to a landing, up the next flight of steps to his and Tadashi's room, gesturing at the beds and the desks. "So…yeah, that's…pretty much it. What do you think?"

He looked at Obake, caught him looking at Tadashi's bed—ran to tug the partition closed. "Y-yeah—that's…that was Tadashi's and…we'll figure out something else, okay?"

The way Obake looked at him was devoid of emotion, like someone who was only paying attention because it was the polite thing to do. Glance at the rest of the room, eye lingering on the abandoned plate that Aunt Cass had brought up that morning, before she got the call.

"Uh, yeah, that's—kind of forgot about breakfast, what with…maybe we should go downstairs and see about lunch," Hiro said, rubbing the back of his neck as he picked up the plate of cold food, still ninety-percent full—he hadn't been eating well ever since Tadashi had…ever since the fire. "Uh, yeah. Come on, Aunt Cass is probably in by now."

He led Obake back down the steps and to the kitchen, where he dumped the food and put the plate in the dishwasher—Aunt Cass came in just as he was shutting the door, dusting her hands off.

"All right, who's hungry?" she asked. "I'll make us something quick and then we can go all-out for dinner, get to know each other, maybe a movie or one of those party games—oh, Obake, do you have any allergies? Hiro's got a minor one to peanuts so I have to check."

Obake twitched a shoulder in a shrug.

"So maybe—gotcha," she said, going to the fridge. "Let's see, sandwiches? Cold cuts, cheese, day-old tuna fish—someone start letting me know if the suggestions are sounding good."

Hiro glanced at Obake—still standing there and looking like he was only paying attention because he had to. Hiro himself wasn't all that hungry still, but he felt like he had to do something before Aunt Cass started to flounder under the lack of response.

"Half a tuna fish sandwich with pickles?" he asked.

"Ooh yeah, good choice—go get some potato chips. What about you, Obake? There's also egg salad—"

That one finally got a reaction out of Obake: an expression of absolute disgust.

"I think that's a no on the egg salad," Hiro translated, looking back at Aunt Cass.

"All right, nix on the egg salad," she said, putting it back. "What about potato salad?"

Now it was Hiro's turn to make the grossed-out face. "Uh, think that's another no." Might as well take advantage when he could.

"What about ham and mayo? Got a nice fresh one."

She and Hiro both looked at Obake, who shrugged.

"I'm gonna take it," Aunt Cass decided. "Let's do it."

Lunch had been spent with Aunt Cass trying to get something else out of Obake while the two boys nibbled on their sandwiches with no enthusiasm. Well, first day, just met, needed to get used to each other, right?

After lunch she sent them into the living room for "TV, movies, video games, whatever floats you two's boats" before retreating to the kitchen and heaving a sigh of relief. Kitchen, cooking, putting ingredients together to make something tasty and good and beautiful—she knew this, she could do this.

She started on the hot wings first, getting them marinating before moving on to making the guts for dumplings—dumplings were always a good choice, she figured, especially with the right sauces. Get the dough started, stuck her head in the living room to see the boys watching Ducktales, sitting on opposite ends of the couch and neither one looking very thrilled to be there. Ouch. Duck back in, get a bowl of potato chips and a couple of sodas, go back to the living room and drop them off on the coffee table, announcing snacks before going back to the kitchen. Open the fridge—ah, that's right, the fresh fish—good California poke coming up!

"Mrow."

"You'll have to wait your turn, Mochi," she told him, deftly stepping around him to continue working. Put the fish back in the fridge to marinade, cook up the remains for stock, roll out the dough, set some aside to slice thin and fry up, start separating and rolling out for the dumplings. She had a full tray when the stock was done—turn it off, let it cool as she got a pot of oil out to heat up.

Cooking was calming—she was in control of the kitchen when she cooked, and it let her focus on something and put off thinking about whatever unpleasant thing was threatening on the horizon (unless, of course, it was fresh and there—in which case, stress-eating). She had cooked a lot after Tadashi and Hiro had come to live with her—when they had finally regained their appetites, she was pretty sure they had immediately gained ten pounds.

She couldn't help the sigh that snaked out of her at that, as she fished the remains out of the stock and put them in the grinder for Mochi—Hiro, young as he was at the time, didn't understand why they couldn't just go home; Tadashi, older but going through the same pain, had been the one to cajole Hiro into calming down and giving life with her a chance. Tadashi had been forced to bury his own grief to get Hiro through his, and she hadn't fully realized it until months later when it finally lashed back out, still raw and boiling.

It occurred to her that she was putting Hiro through the same thing right now.

She stuck her head back into the living room, saw that they were watching Zootopia now, sodas open, Hiro occasionally commenting on the movie. Obake still seemed disengaged, somehow, like he wasn't entirely there.

He was in an explosion about a month ago—she wondered if that had knocked something loose, something important.

It was why she was looking up the boys' doctor while she waited for the oil to heat, writing down a note to call her when the oil started bubbling, had the dumplings all set and was working on rice when something occurred to her.

He was in an explosion about a month ago.

The explosion that had killed Tadashi was about a month ago, now.

She looked back at the living room, considering. Had he been caught in that explosion, had his memory knocked clean out of him? That would explain the John Doe status, the lack of communication…except Hiro had said that the boy had told him his name was Obake.

That still made her frown, a little bit—who, precisely, named their child Ghost? Not that she had any experience in naming children, unless Mochi counted, but that seemed a little…odd. The strong Asian culture of San Fransokyo often meant that such names weren't unusual, but…it also meant that the parents were aware of what the names meant. Calling a kid ghost…seemed like it was begging for trouble.

She shook it off, checked the clock…had enough time to do some prep work for tomorrow, she thought. One more peek into the living room—Judy and Nick were in the old asylum, and Hiro was hugging a pillow to his chest, riveted; Obake seemed maybe a bit more engaged.

Well…first day. Things could only go up from here.

She hoped.

Dinner had been a spread, a very impressive spread that three people could not be reasonably expected to eat, especially with two boys with much reduced appetites and one very gregarious woman. She had been carrying the conversation through most of the dinner, to the point that he almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

After dinner, she had gone through the whole house, it seemed, before coming up with a small rolled-up mattress, some blankets, and a pillow, invited them upstairs to pick out a spot—behind Hiro's bed, close to the partition separating the dead brother's stuff from the rest of the room sufficed. Put his backpack there to show that yes, it was fine, try smiling—she liked it, Hiro seemed a little torn. His little façade was starting to wear thin, he suspected.

After that, he found himself with a toothbrush and toothpaste thrust on him—sorry we don't have anything in your size Tadashi was a little bigger than you and Hiro's a bit too small don't worry we'll get something—try to wave her off to assure her it was fine, ended up directed to the bathroom and told not to take too long because Hiro had to get ready for bed too—oi.

The fresh toothbrush cut into his gums and left him with a bleeding mouth that took a while to rinse out—straighten up when he was finally able to spit a color other than pink, consider himself in the mirror. Looking like death warmed over, good eye looking like he had been punched in the face after going about a week without sleep. Well, nothing like living up to your name. Deep breath—twinge in his chest, ribs hadn't quite healed yet.

Took a few minutes to practice a gracious/grateful smile, reminding himself to toss in a few bows too while he was at it—Hamada meant they might react positively to such a show of respect. Brush his fringe back a moment, let it flop back, scrub the sink dry and put everything as it was before finally leaving the bathroom, head first to scan the room—twitch in surprise at the sight of Hiro waiting outside, leaning against the wall.

"Yeah, hi," Hiro said, waiting for him to move before heading for the bathroom himself. "Aunt Cass said something about cookies."

More food—what was this, fattening him up to eat him?

Again, the peppering about what he was like—at least cookies were also over Uno, which he kept winning handily. Hiro, to his credit, got serious after the first couple of games, doing his best to try to beat him. This boy promised to be engaging, at least.

Or he would, if Obake had any intention of sticking around.

'Aunt' Cass eventually had to call it a night, shuttled them upstairs to bed, tucking in Hiro and kissing him goodnight, despite his muted protests. Hesitated at Obake.

"I don't know, I don't know how comfortable you would be, with that, on the first night," she said, hands waffling. He solved that problem by shrugging and burrowing underneath the covers.

The next hour still had quite a bit of sound—Hiro kept shifting around like he was thinking about striking up a conversation and then deciding against it. Cass, downstairs, was moving around, sounding like she was still doing some work in that café of hers. Eventually, the sounds all wound down and the lights clicked off, and soon the only sounds were coming from outside, the natural heartbeat and flow of the city.

He figured he'd give it some time, first—relax, wind down, take stock of himself like he had been for quite some time now. Everything still where it was supposed to be, fortunately. Hopefully—the one eye was still a question mark. Ribs hurt when he laid on them, which was to be expected; legs ached if he were on them too long, left arm still had twinges sometimes—pretty sure at this point the only things holding him together was Divine Grace and personal spite.

And of course, the question of what to do now—what had gone wrong? How had he ended up here—things had been going so well!

Well, almost—that one professor had had concerns, had pointed them out—but he had thought that had been squared away, was pretty sure that had been squared away—he had been almost certain everything was finally turning up aces.

So of course something had gone sideways.

He stared at the dark ceiling, bleary shapes suggested by the light pollution outside, going over every last thing leading up to that explosion. Nothing that would have suggested such catastrophic failure was forthcoming. And then the other burning question—how much of his stuff could he salvage? Was any of it still waiting for him?

There was at least one way to find out.

Obake checked his watch again—almost one o'clock. Hiro's breathing sounded even—time to go.

He rolled to his stomach, gently lifted himself up to look—yes, totally sleeping. Grab his bag and sneak for the stairs, hand out in case he bumped into something in the dark, feet gingerly questing in case there was something there he didn't see—hadn't even bothered to take his shoes off. Not when he was planning to run the first chance he got.

His toe bumped against something solid and boxy against the wall—he maneuvered around it, hissing—

Hiro made a noise in his sleep, not quite a snore, but loud enough to make him spin around, freeze—

He watched for the longest time, it felt like—started gingerly backing away, hoping that Hiro stayed asleep—something made him glance down—

A light on the front of the thing he had bumped into was flashing—he backed up faster—

His foot slipped—

And suddenly he went crashing down the short flight of steps with a yelp, landing with a thump and a low groan at the first landing. Oh, man, he hoped no one had heard that….

He stayed breathlessly quiet, ears straining—didn't hear anything at first, had hoped that it meant he could sneak away as soon as his leg stopped throbbing—

Froze when he heard a small mechanical noise—whipf whiph wipf wiff—

Something white appeared at the top of the stairs—

For one stupid moment, Obake thought it was a ghost—that he had woken up the dead brother somehow—

Except ghosts didn't hesitate at stairs, looking down at the first step carefully before gingerly stepping down, repeating the process until it was on the landing with him. Up close, he could see that it wasn't a ghost—if he didn't know any better, he'd say he was sharing a landing with a marshmallow with eyes.

And then it gave a little circular wave.

"Hello," it intoned. "I am Baymax, your personal health care companion."

Obake stared at it, currently pressed against the wall as far away from it as possible without falling down the next flight of steps—what was this, a robot?

It continued, undaunted by his lack of a response, flashing an emotion scale onto its belly, bright enough to make him wince a little. "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?"

Honestly? Maybe a four—not that he was going to tell this thing anything—

He flinched at a brighter light, realized when he threw his arm over his eye that it was the hall light right before he heard Hiro gasp.

"Ah! Baymax! What are you doing—"

Obake rubbed at his eye, squinted through the light finally—Hiro was frozen a few steps down, having spotted him—eyes flicking from Obake, to the backpack that had slipped off his shoulder when he fell, his shoes, the marshmallow robot, back to Obake—

Hiro's expression was transparent, in the way his eyebrows sank and his mouth twisted, sigh coming out—it had taken maybe five seconds for him to put two and two together.

"I will scan you now," the marshmallow robot—Baymax—said, unmindful of the sudden tension.

"Uh, Baymax?" Hiro noised. "Maybe we can continue this downstairs—get something from the kitchen."

Obake moved to get up—

The robot was right there.

"Since I have yet to scan you, I do not recommend you moving on your own," it declared, before scooping him up—Obake was treated to a very long and arduous decent down the steps. He glared over its shoulder at Hiro, who had paused to pick up his backpack before following. Hiro, for his part, evenly returned the glare as he followed. Obake eventually had to resign himself to crossing his arms and huffing, shoulders around his ears.

This was not going to plan so far.

Obake had been deposited in a chair in the café, subject to the whims of the robot Baymax as Hiro went into the kitchen proper. Said robot scanned him, started listing the number of things wrong with him—like he didn't know that already. The bruised shinbone was new, only because he had acquired it recently.

Baymax was applying a cold hand to it when Hiro came back with two glasses of milk. Obake watched as Hiro sat down, pushed one over, took a drink of the one he kept before wiping his mouth, splaying his hands against the table, staring at the glass like it had all the answers etched there.

"Look," Hiro sighed finally. "I get it. You don't want to be here. It's just—don't do this to my aunt Cass. She's…in a really tough place right now and…just don't. Just…give her a chance, all right? She doesn't need this—she doesn't need the…any of this." He sighed, looked down, looked back up. "Just…please, just give her a chance before you run out."

So Hiro was a bit more observant than he first gave him credit for. And more worried about his aunt than himself. Pity he was asking for more than Obake was willing to give.

Baymax looked up, blinked, looked at Obake, then at Hiro. "Hiro, my scanners indicate that you are: stressed, and upset."

Doing a good job of hiding it, if you asked him.

Hiro glanced at Baymax, glanced away. "It's nothing, Baymax."

"I have very little in my health-care matrix on: emotional health. However, I can see it is affecting your: physical health." He looked at Obake, back at Hiro, down at Obake's leg. "I will remain active. You both are in need of care."

"What? No—Baymax!" Hiro yelped, nearly spilling his milk; Obake idly wondered if he'd cry over it. "Don't—you have to get back in your charger!"

"I am in no current danger of my batteries running dry, and you are in need of assistance."

"No, Baymax—just—ugh," Hiro noised, flopping back in his chair and rubbing his eyes.

"You are tired," Baymax observed. "It is important that you get: eight to ten hours of sleep per night." Look at Obake. "Milk is a high source of calcium, which is important for your bones."

Obake wondered how the robot would react if he threw the milk on it, decided not to test that theory; glare at it the best he could with one eye while he sipped at his glass of milk, mildly glad Hiro couldn't see the expression with the half of his face covered. He didn't need to be treated to a whole lecture on how he should be nice to the robot.

Hiro carted the glasses to the sink when they were done, and Obake was treated to the indignity of being carted back up the stairs by the robot, which had gotten no faster in taking the steps. By the time the robot reached the top of the stairs, it was to find that Hiro was already there—and had hidden his backpack. Narrow his eye at Hiro, who ignored his glare and pointed at the bed they had set up. He heard the robot blink, and then it was an annoyingly long wobble over—he tried struggling, couldn't get any traction against the vinyl—soft and squishy it might be, but it certainly had a good grip on him, right up until it deposited him on the bed. He scrambled away, glaring at them both.

Hiro shrugged. "It's more comfortable on the bed," he said, before looking at Baymax. "Baymax, if you're not going to deactivate, will you at least make sure he doesn't try to leave again?"

Baymax blinked at him. "It is important that you both get adequate sleep. I will do so."

Obake stood, glaring at Hiro, who was currently glaring back at him, arms crossed. He wondered idly how much effort it would take to disable the robot. The vinyl might succumb to a knife, and the head might be where most of the processing information was—it was where data was classically stored in a robot—made it so easy to—

"Tadashi."

He and Hiro both blinked, looked over to the robot, halfway to the steps—it was currently looking at the partition.

Hiro hesitated. "T-Tadashi's…gone, Baymax."

The robot blinked, turned a little to be better facing Hiro. "When will he return?"

"He's…not, Baymax. It's the…it's the permanent kind of gone."

The robot blinked again, looked at the partition. "Tadashi was a young and healthy individual. With proper diet and exercise, he should have lived a long and healthy life."

"Yeah," Hiro muttered, tugging his sheets back. "He should have." He climbed into bed, tugged the covers over his head as he laid down. "I'm going to bed. You two can do whatever."

The robot blinked at Hiro, looked up, blinked at Obake, looked over, blinked at the partition…scanned the room before toddling over to the computer. Obake hesitated, started for the stairs—the robot stopped to look at him. Freeze, back up to the bed and sit down.

The robot went back to its focus on the computer.

Obake sat there a long while, considering. It wasn't like whatever was in his backpack wasn't easily replaceable. He could escape. Maybe.

He looked at the partition, over at the lump under the covers, where Hiro was definitely still awake. Just his luck he picked a fully shattered family, shards still poking everywhere. What was he, the replacement? Some attempt to fill the gaping void this person had left? He should have stuck with his initial plan.

Unfortunately, he had no choice now.

Exhale long and through the nose, climb under the covers, and pick the position of least discomfort, with the intent of staring at the ceiling until exhaustion overtook him.

He wasn't getting anywhere tonight.