Hiro woke up to his aunt's cat Mochi staring him down. He gently batted the cat off his chest, then got up from the bed. Hiro turned to check the other bed, he was surprised that the occupant was still there.
"Ari?" Hiro poked the girl lightly on the shoulder. Ari yawned, and rubbed her eyes.
"Hmm? Oh, good morning Hiro." Ari got up from the bed. Her chocolate brown hair looked like a bird's nest, it was sticking out everywhere.
"We should probably head downstairs." Hiro gestured to the stairs. "Aunt Cass will want to talk to you, and I've got to go to school."
"Okay," Ari nodded. Hiro went to get dressed and get his things for school, while he was doing that he also kept an eye on Ari. She was still wearing her blue striped sweater, and was just giving Mochi some pets on his head.
"I didn't know you had a cat." Ari smiled. "He's cute!" Hiro just chuckled at her gleeful expression.
Once he was done packing his things, Hiro and Ari went downstairs to the cafe, it was during the morning rush so it was a little full. He saw his friends sitting at one of the tables, each of them having their own breakfast.
"Hey guys!" Hiro waved, walking over to them.
"Hey Hiro!" Fred was the first one to reply. "Looks like you had a good night's rest!"
"Yeah." He noticed that Ari had walked over to the counter where his aunt was and was having a conversation with his aunt. Ari looked worried at first, but then she started smiling a little bit into the conversation. It was too noisy in the cafe to pick up what was being said, but Hiro could guess it was about her living situation.
"How did things go with Ari?" Gogo asked him, speaking of the devil.
"It went fine, Aunt Cass is alright with her staying at our house for now." He answered, taking another glance at the convo and noticing the sweater girl helping Cass with something.
"That's great!" Honey Lemon beamed, "I knew things would work out!"
Wasabi raised an eyebrow. "So she's staying at your place for now?"
"Yeah for now," Hiro replied, "Hey Ari! Can you come here?" Ari skipped towards the table, looking reassured.
"Hi Hiro!" She beamed. "You were right, your aunt is really nice!" She then noticed the others sitting at the table. "Oh, these must be your friends, hello!"
"Hello!" Honey Lemon waved. "It's nice to meet you Ari!"
"You already met Fred." Hiro pointed to the comic fan, who was scarfing down a stack of syrupy pancakes. "This is Gogo, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon." He pointed to a short woman with scruffy black hair with violet streaks and brown eyes, a well-muscled man with smooth black dreadlocks, a beard, and brown eyes, and a tall woman with honey blonde hair and green eyes.
"Nice names." Ari nodded. "I asked your aunt if I could help her out, I don't want to be a freeloader since you're being so nice in letting me stay here."
"That's sweet of you, but you don't have to help out in the cafe."
"I want to, though."
He then noticed the time. "Well we better get going to school, see you when I get back."
"Bye!" Ari waved. Hiro waved back, he then followed his friends out of the cafe. He made sure to wave goodbye to Aunt Cass as well, he was hopeful that today would be more peaceful than yesterday.
He was going to start the diagnostics, and finally bring back Baymax.
Ari was starting to get used to living around the Lucky Cat Cafe. She didn't want to be a freeloader so she offered to help Cass run the cafe, she just cleaned tables and got customers coffee most of the time. It had only been about a week, but it felt like a much longer period of time.
As she was living around the cafe, Ari learned a lot more about Hiro. He was a robotics major/teen prodigy, she thought it was cool that he was going to college at fourteen years old. He mentioned that he was working on fixing Baymax (his brother's healthcare robot), so she was excited to meet him. She'd sometimes catch Hiro looking sadly at a picture of him and his brother, she wished there was a way for her to comfort him. He was such a sweet person, there had to be something she could do to make up for his kindness.
She was also starting to get used to Hiro's friends. She got along with Fred the most, he was pretty down to earth for someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He never boasted about his wealth, he even got her a phone when she offhandedly mentioned remembering never owning one in her life. She paid attention when he talked about the Captain Fancy comics and Kentucky Kaiju movies he loved, it was the least she could do since he gave her such a warm welcome.
She also got along with Honey Lemon pretty well. The enthusiastic chemist major was a whirlwind of energy. Ari always felt the happiness radiating off of Honey Lemon and it rubbed off on her whenever they interacted. She'd sometimes send her cute pictures of Mochi, since she knew Honey Lemon was an animal lover.
Ari was aware that Go Go was skeptical of her at first, but eventually she seemed to trust her now. She didn't interact with her much, but she thought that Go Go was a rather cool individual. Getting on her bad side was the last thing Ari would want to do.
She didn't interact much with Wasabi either, but it was something she'd like to change in the future. His sense of organization was something admirable, she'd have to ask him for tips while working in the cafe. Hiro might be awesome, but his sloppiness could get on her nerves. At least he didn't pester her about what she could remember and whatnot, that was nice of him.
"Dolphin Safe Tuna Nachos coming through!" Cass was carrying several plates of nachos in her hand, she placed them on the customer tables, she handed a pair of mittens to the customer with a very hot plate. "Hot plate! Really hot! Keep the kitten mittens on for awhile will ya?"
The customer just wiggled the thumbs on the kitten mittens in agreement, Ari made sure to get water for the customers with the nachos.
"Refill alert!" Cass refilled the glasses of some senior citizens, A ketchup bottle crashed and Ari went to clean it up. After that was done, Ari noticed Cass trying to pick up the huge tray of dirty dishes. But she was having a hard time doing so.
"Let me help." Ari went to help her pick up the tray, but her efforts weren't doing much good. Then all of a sudden the weight was lifted, she saw a giant white robot had picked up the tray of dishes.
"Wait what?" Cass blinked in surprise.
"Hello, I am Baymax." The robot waved. Hiro must have fixed his brother's robot!
"Baymax? Baymax! You're back!" Cass gave the robot a big hug.
"Aunt Cass." Baymax hugged back, Ari notices that Cass pulls Hiro in the hug as well. She chuckled at the cute scene.
"Hi Baymax." she waved at the robot. "It's nice to meet you."
"Hello." Baymax waved back.
"So what specific functions does Baymax have?" Ari asked, after the adorable hug in the cafe Hiro was pushing Baymax up the stairs for a quick recharge.
"I am a personal healthcare companion." Baymax answered her.
"He's also state of the art." Hiro chimed in. "Though while I stuck to most of the original design I upgraded his batteries."
"Is that why he's getting shoved up the stairs?" Ari helped him get the robot up to the charging station, she saw a battery icon flashing on Baymax's chest as he was recharging.
"Correct, just making sure the charging station at home works the same as the one in the lab." Hiro sat down on his bed, somewhat tired after shoving the robot up the stairs. "Baymax is a lot heavier than I remember." He realized what he said and gave a light chuckle. "No offense buddy."
"I am a robot, I cannot be offended." The robot replied, she let out a chuckle.
"He's very self-aware isn't he?" Ari smiled. "I think we'll be very good friends, Baymax and I." She turned to face Hiro, who was smiling as well. "Don't you think?"
"Mhm. Baymax can also help you with your amnesia." He explained. "He's really good at his job."
"I don't want to burden you any further Hiro," Ari frowned.
"A burden?" Hiro was confused. "What do you mean by a burden?"
"I'm probably putting you and your aunt in danger by staying here." Ari explained, she was starting to walk to the other end of the room. "I don't want to be here for too long, what if Yama finds out where I am and-" She was too distracted to watch where she was going and her foot ended up stubbing the corner of the bed.
"Ow…" Ari rubbed her foot, she didn't notice that Baymax got out of the charging station and was walking towards her.
"I was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said 'ow.'" Baymax brought up ten faces from smiling to upset. "On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your pain?"
"None, I'm fine Baymax." Ari retorted, it didn't hurt that much!
"Bad idea to lie to the healthcare companion Ari." Hiro was chuckling.
"I don't need any-" Ari was cut off when Baymax picked up her injured foot, his hands turning a slight blue color. A feeling of cool relief was on her foot, making the pain more bearable.
"Icing the area is recommended to reduce swelling." Baymax continued to cool the area, the pain subsiding.
"Okay, okay, I'm fine now you can stop icing my foot Baymax." Ari spoke up after a while.
"I cannot deactivate until you say you are satisfied with your care." The robot replied, Ari sighed.
"I'm satisfied with my care, you should get some more battery power." When she said those magic words, Baymax went back to his charging station and deactivated. Ari examined her foot, which wasn't hurting at all thanks to the healthcare companion.
"You aren't being a burden to me or my aunt, Ariel." Hiro got up from his bed and sat next to her. "Aunt Cass told me the other day she enjoyed having another helper in the cafe, and my friends enjoy your company. I promised you that Yama isn't going to get his hands on you and I'm going to keep that promise." The words were comforting to her. It felt like words she'd always wanted to hear but never got.
"What if you get hurt?" She questioned "I'd feel awful if you were injured because of me."
Hiro gestured to the recharging robot and chuckled "It wouldn't be the first time I outsmarted Yama."
"Bet it wouldn't be the first time you'd have to get rescued by superheroes either huh?" Ari grinned, smiling once more.
"Hey! It was one time!" Hiro shook his head. Still glad Ari didn't realize that my friends are the same superheroes that rescued her. He still wanted to find out what Yama wanted with the girl, but no matter what reason he wouldn't let that happen.
"Ladies and gentleheroes, since we kicked so much butt at, well y'know, kicking so much butt," Gogo, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi were at Fred's manor. The latter attempted a second time to persuade them into the superhero business.
"I took the liberty of designing our very own…" He had a curtain over something, then pulled it away to reveal a spotlight. "Superhero signal!" Fred did a few jazz hands, the curtain fell on top of him as he did the jazz hands.
"Ooh." Honey Lemon clapped, curious to see what Fred has cooked up. Wasabi coughed from the dust created in the air and tries to blow it away. Gogo didn't react at all, she just popped her bubblegum.
"Heathcliff! Hit the lights!" Fred does a small drum roll as Heathcliff turns the lights off. The spotlight turns on to reveal…
"Ta-da!" Fred throws his hands in the air, the spotlight turns on, but it's not the words he expected to see.
"Halp?" Wasabi raises an eyebrow, glancing at his friend.
"Yeah, that's supposed to be 'help." Fred sighed. "Heathcliff, did we keep the receipt?"
"We did not, Master Frederick." The butler replied. Fred didn't complain and just pulled his friends into a hug.
"Okay, so we'll just go with 'halp,' people will know." He grinned. The signal might be not what he initially wanted, but superhero stories don't start off perfect after all!
"Freddie, I heart your enthusiasm." Honey Lemon started saying as Gogo broke the group hug. "I really do, but I had to freeze someone yesterday." She stared at him hard. "I'm not comfortable with that." Even though Yama was going to do harm to Hiro. She didn't like having to freeze him.
"Don't beat yourself up Honey Lemon. I'm sure he thawed by now," Fred reassured her. Meanwhile, Heathcliff turned off the spotlight in the background. "Guys! This is no way for Big Hero 6 to talk!"
"Big Hero 6? Really?" Gogo raises an eyebrow, out of all the team names for Fred to pick it had to be that?
"My brain stormed an epic list of team names, and that one tested best, with an audience of me, and also Heathcliff..." Fred thought it felt right for some strange reason. Like something you'd slap onto a movie title.
"The power of six!" He held out his hand, expecting his friends to do the same, but his hand stayed alone in the circle. "C'mon guys I need at least one more hand from each of you."
"Look Fred, it was a one-time thing." Gogo explains. "Saving you two knuckleheads from Yama."
"I could've sworn I heard from someone, I don't want to name any names. But it might rhyme with Bobo, that this was a one-time thing when we stopped Callaghan!" He exclaimed.
All three of his friends flinch at the name, and Fred realized his mistake. "Sorry." He stared into the ground. "I forget we're not supposed to mention." While he was shocked as the rest of them that the masked villain they labeled "Yokai" was actually their thought-to-be dead Professor Callaghan. It didn't hit him as hard despite their profession being the one to take their beloved Tadashi away.
Hiro however… reacted in a fit of rage at the realization Callaghan started the fire that killed his brother, and the latter in retaliation exclaimed it was Tadashi's fault. Fred didn't want to remember how horrible that encounter went, so he tried changing the subject.
"And you didn't just save Hiro and I from Yama, you guys also saved Ari." He brought up the mysterious sweater girl.
"Has Ari mentioned if she's recovered any memories?" Honey Lemon asked him.
"Well, there was one thing. She told me that she remembered never owning a phone, which was a shocker! So after she told me I went and got her one, Ari kept telling me I didn't have to but I wanted to. At least if she ever got into trouble she'd be able to call us for help quicker." Fred explained. "This is the kind of red herring that leads to trouble."
"Trouble?" Gogo frowned at him.
"Yeah, in comics whenever there's a mysterious character with amnesia which is quite uncommon and mostly seen in other types of literature. The first few memories are often something sad, like remembering not having a family or never celebrating a birthday. It's a red herring that Ari might have a tragic backstory!" He referred to fiction with that one. "It's a thing I've seen in a lot of anime."
"That doesn't sound good." Wasabi shook his head. "Ari's a good kid, I don't want to know what sort of reason there was for Yama locking her up."
"A reason that can be solved by a superhero team!" Fred raises a finger to the air, trying one last time to persuade his friends into the superhero business.
"Sorry Fred, it's probably not a good idea for us to get involved." Honey Lemon was not convinced.
"And that's it! We're done! We're not becoming superheroes and we don't need a team name!" Gogo declared, walking out of the room with Honey Lemon and Wasabi following her afterwards as they waved goodbye to Fred.
The comic fan pouted, at least Hiro would back him up in the whole superhero thing. He should check on the teen genius, who was still at SFIT working on some sort of project.
Baymax has arrived ladies and gents! I love him but also how do you write him? Next week will be ending the "Baymax Returns" part of this fic and some fresh faces make their debut! Stay tuned, leave a review and remember to take care of yourself! You're not a burden!