We finally get to the main events of the movie in this chapter.
Enjoy!

He was surrounded by flames. They licked his skin as he ran further into the belly of the beast.

"Professor! Professor Callaghan!"

He stopped in the middle of the hall, not far from the stage where Hiro had presented his microbots only earlier that evening.

Tadashi flinched as something (a building support?) came crashing down near him. He had to find Callaghan and get the hell out of here!

"Profess-" He choked as he inhaled a plume of smoke. He heard the voice of his middle school science teacher in his mind.

"In the event, you're stuck in a fire, get on the floor. There's more oxygen down there because the smoke will be rising. Then, if there's a way for you to get out - a fire escape, a clear path - take it and go."

If- When Tadashi got out, he planned on finding that teacher and thanking him profusely.

But, first, he had to escape.

He dropped to the ground and began an army crawl to a nearby window that he knew he'd be able to escape through. And it was so big, maybe it would ventilate the room enough for Professor Callaghan to escape, too.

As he dragged himself across the floor, an image of Hiro's terrified face appeared in his mind's eye.

Oh god. What had he done?

He'd abandoned Hiro after his little brother begged him to stay and now his last memory would be the shock on Hiro's face as he chose his professor over him.

He got desperate: he stood and ran towards the window.

He had to get back to Hiro.

It was almost in reach. He was close, so close.

A deafening sound filled the air and he felt a searing pain all over as everything turned white.

"Tadashi. Wake up."

His eyes flew open and it took him a couple of minutes to recognise his surroundings. He was lying down in the back of the car, outside the Lucky Cat Cafe.

"It's okay, you're home and safe."

Aunt Cass had opened the door and had her hands on his shoulder to calm him down.

After a few deep breaths, he made an attempt to get out. Aunt Cass held onto him and he was glad because he nearly fell, multiple times.

Hiro had been standing to the side. There was concern in his brown eyes but he didn't say a word or move to help until Aunt Cass made him get Tadashi's crutches.

His crutches.

He'd almost forgotten about them. He was no stranger to them, having had them for a week or so when he was 11 after spraining his ankle.

Tadashi idly wondered how his 11 year old self would react to having crutches for the rest of his life.

His aunt still held onto him, even as he started to make his way in, as if he would suddenly collapse.

Tadashi was so glad they didn't go through the cafe. He wasn't ready to see anyone nor was he ready for anyone to see him. But once the door closed…

"Hiro, could you help Tadashi upstairs and get him settled? The cafe's getting busy and I'm needed."

Before Hiro could even respond, Aunt Cass hugged them both (holding Tadashi just a moment too long) before leaving.

Tadashi didn't like how terrified he felt at the prospect of being left alone with Hiro. He had been at the hospital for two and a half months and in that time he had only seen Hiro once, after their argument. The teenager had blatantly ignored him, waiting for Aunt Cass to finish so they could leave.

That was a month ago.

If a complete stranger had looked at them both, they'd be hard pressed working out who had come out of the accident worse.

Hiro looked awful. He'd lost so much weight because he'd barely eaten; his clothes were starting to look two sizes too big. His face was sallow, like he hadn't seen much daylight and his eyes were slightly bloodshot, evidence of his recently acquired sleeping habits...or lack thereof.

Tadashi swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to go up the stairs himself. Apparently, sleeping for most of the time he was in hospital hadn't done much to extinguish his fatigue as he almost fell backwards. Hiro barely managed to keep him upright.

"You need to stop being a stubborn moron," he muttered. His voice was too quiet for Tadashi to work out if it was said with any malice.

They made their way up the stairs in silence. Tadashi forgot about their argument in favour of grumbling about the fact that they lived in a three story building.

When they made it up to the second floor, Tadashi asked, "can I not just stay here?"

Hiro raised an eyebrow at him. "Where do you plan on sleeping?" Then, the teen suddenly remembered he wasn't talking to his brother. His face immediately soured.

They resumed their climb in complete silence. Even Tadashi's heartbeat sounded like it was coming from miles away.

When they got upstairs, Hiro let go to open the partition of their shared room.

Tadashi only had a moment to look at the unusual tidiness of Hiro's room (apart from a plate that had barely been touched) before he started towards his own bed.

As Tadashi sat down, flexing the leg he could actually feel, Hiro asked if he needed anything.

"Could you get me a glass of water and find out where Aunt Cass put my meds?"

Hiro left without a word and Tadashi breathed out slowly, looking around at the comforting sight of his wardrobe, the bookshelf opposite his bed, and...Baymax?

His robot's charging box sat near his desk, the bright red standing out in his bland room.

When Hiro returned, he answered the question before Tadashi could ask.

"Some of your stuff was sent over here in the first week for safekeeping."

Tadashi made a small noise of understanding before taking the water and the medicine from Hiro.

"Thanks."

It seemed that Hiro had reached his self enforced limit of how much he'd talk to Tadashi as he went to his half of the room, not entirely closing the partition.

Tadashi sighed and swallowed the painkillers before pulling out his laptop. He'd missed the last half of the semester, recovering, and he got it out with the intention of catching up with some work.

But when he turned it on, the mass of emails and messages and reminders made him slam it shut again.

He couldn't deal with any of this.

Birds tweeted outside his window, almost mocking him.

Anger surged through him. He tried to do some good and this was how the world repaid him?

He saw his crutches, leaning against the bed where he left them.

In his frustration, he swiped at them, relishing in the crash they made as they hit the ground.

"Bro! What the hell!?"

Hiro practically flew into the room, looking around as if expecting to see Tadashi on the floor.

His eyes zeroed in on the crutches and he glared at Tadashi. "I thought something happened!"

"Something did happen," Tadashi said, coolly. Hiro had shown no concern over the last two and a half months, there was no reason for him to start now. "Not that you would care."

"What are you talking about, Tadashi?" Hiro looked spitting mad and Tadashi felt a small flare of triumph.

"Two and a half months. You haven't said anything for two and a half months. So forgive me if I'm sceptical about you giving a damn about me, now."

Hiro ran his hands over his face in frustration. "Did you lose some brain cells when you hit the ground? I'm angry because you endangered your life-"

"To help someone!"

"AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT YOU!"

Tadashi flinched. But Hiro was on a roll now.

"Callaghan is dead. You're now basically permanently disabled. Do you even understand how much that's going to change your life?" Hiro started listing things, ticking each one off his fingers. "You'll need at least one crutch all the time. You won't be able to ride your moped ever again-"

Even years later, Tadashi wouldn't be able to explain what came over him, in that moment.

"I KNOW." He grabbed his laptop and flung it across the room, barely missing Hiro.

Both of them fell silent, refusing to make eye contact with each other as they heard footsteps running up the stairs. Aunt Cass burst into the room. "What on Earth is going on here!?" Her gaze went from her nephews looking at anything but each other to the laptop on the floor, surprisingly mostly intact.

She took a deep breath to reset herself. "Hiro, go downstairs. I need your help in the cafe."

Hiro brushed past her before she finished her sentence.

She sighed, turning to look at Tadashi. He was still sitting on his bed and angrily glaring at the window. Cass picked up the laptop and put it on his desk before sitting down next to him.

"What's wrong, Tadashi?"

The only indication she had that he heard her was him pressing his lips together, tightly.

"You two can't be angry at each other forever."

"Hiro seems to be determined to."

"And so are you." He finally looked at his Aunt and she nodded, as if to assure herself of what she was doing. "I understand this has been difficult for you. But I will not tolerate you throwing things at anyone. If you try something like that again, I'll ground you."

Tadashi gaped at her. "I'm 20. Aunt Cass, I turn 21 in a few months! You can't ground me."

"If you insist on acting Hiro's age, I'll treat you like Hiro." She stood quickly as if she would change her mind if she was too slow to get out. "Give me a shout if you need anything before dinner."

Tadashi stared at the door, long after she left.

When he finally moved, he just lay down. On his desk was a photo of himself and Hiro and their parents. It had been taken a month or so before the accident.

His mother was squeezing him in a hug. Hiro was behind them on their father's shoulders. In the photo, everyone looked so happy. No one knew how drastically their life would change in such a short time.

He slammed the photo face down and rolled over. Seeing his parents beaming at him was another reminder of everything he had lost.

A few weeks passed, rather uneventfully.

Tadashi attempted to extend an olive branch but Hiro was always ready with an axe to chop it down. After about two weeks, Tadashi gave up.

He pretended to be asleep as he heard his Aunt come in. She was trying to convince Hiro to go down and laugh at one of her absurdly dressed customers. Tadashi didn't need to listen to know Hiro would refuse.

'Deep breath in, deep breath out.' Tadashi focused on his breathing, trying to make it as smooth as possible so his Aunt would leave him alone.

"Tadashi? Wake up, sweetie." The warmth of her hand on his shoulder made him want to cry. This would be the only physical contact he had all day. After all, she had a cafe to run and Hiro wasn't about to start talking to him anytime soon.

He didn't move.

'In. Out.'

Aunt Cass tried for a few more moments before giving up and telling Hiro to come and get her if something happened.

There was shifting noises on the other side of the room. Tadashi didn't need to look to know that Hiro was shutting the blinds Aunt Cass had literally just opened. Tadashi began to drift off when-

"OW!"

He shot upright: a remnant of his old reflex to run to Hiro's aid.

The two stared at each other. It was the first time they had looked at each other since Tadashi had gotten angry and thrown his laptop.

Vaguely, he wondered what would have happened if he had hit Hiro or had gotten his hands on something heavier.

A shiver of fear ran through him. He had never been angry enough to be physically violent. But he'd also not gone this long without talking to his little brother.

A beeping interrupted his thoughts and he noticed Hiro's gaze had moved to something behind him.

Tadashi turned and was startled to see Baymax inflating.

Baymax looked between the brothers and began to make his way across the room.

Hiro snorted in amusement and Tadashi easily understood why.

While Baymax's cushy exterior made him look like "a giant marshmallow" (as Hiro had said when he'd first seen the robot), maneuverability seemed to be a struggle for Tadashi's robotics project.

Making a mental note of that - he'd have to find a solution to that - Tadashi watched until Baymax finally got to the room's partition and waved at Hiro, then at Tadashi.

"Hello. I am Baymax. Your personal healthcare companion."

Hiro got off his head and turned so he was directly facing the robot. "Uh, hey, Baymax...I didn't know you were still active."

Tadashi watched in silence as Baymax tried to offer assistance to someone who was desperate not to receive anything. He couldn't help the little snicker that escaped him as Hiro told Baymax that he could "shrink now".

It wasn't until Baymax diagnosed Hiro with puberty and began listing the area where the teen may see "an increase in body hair" that Tadashi intervened.

"Baymax." The robot's head turned to look at him. "He's okay. We're satisfied with ou-"

"What the..."

Hiro pulled something out of the pocket of the hoodie he'd been wearing the day of the fire.

"Callaghan's in there, someone has to help."

"It doesn't have to be you."

The sight of Hiro's pale face told Tadashi that he wasn't the only one who'd been violently reminded of what had happened that day.

Hiro breathed a few times before pulling something out of the pocket.

A single microbot.

The one that Tadashi had taken back from Krei.

"Mr Krei. That's my brother's."

How did it go so wrong?

"My microbot? This doesn't make any sense."

Baymax began another spiel about puberty but Hiro interrupted him.

"No. The thing is attracted to the other microbots, but that's impossible. They were destroyed in the fire." His eyes flicked up to Tadashi but he quickly looked down again, muttering "Dumb thing's broken."

Hiro threw it into a petri-dish.

But Tadashi stared intently at the tiny bot, watching as it repeatedly hit the same side of the dish. If it was broken, it should've been bashing around in the dish erratically.

Baymax also apparently noticed it as he picked up the dish and turned, to see if the microbot would try to go in the same direction.

It did.

"Your tiny robot is trying to go somewhere," Baymax repeated.

Hiro turned to his computer, replying absentmindedly. "Oh, yeah? Why don't you, uh, find out where it's trying to go?"

"No-"

Tadashi was ignored by both boy and bot.

"Would that stabilise your pubescent mood swings?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hiro!" Tadashi hissed. "He's a robot."

Hiro spun around to look at his older brother. "And?"

"He doesn't understand sarcasm."

Then the brother's simultaneously realised something; Baymax was gone.

"Baymax!"

Hiro shoved on some shoes and grabbed the hoodie that he'd found the microbot in. Tadashi got up, reaching for his crutches.

"No. Stay here. You'll only slow me down." Hiro shot out of the room without a second thought about what he had just said.

Tadashi lowered himself back onto his bed, numb, those last words echoing in his mind.

"You'll only slow me down."