Hiro was exhausted.
No joke, he spent the entire night looking for a shipment of stolen nickel-titanium alloy only to get attacked by it in an abandoned warehouse. Well to be fair Yama turned it into a robot called "Mega Yama" and he had to call the entire team for backup. In all the chaos he couldn't get a chance to interrogate Yama about what he wanted with Ari in the first place, but then again..He had shown no interest in reclaiming her in the past few weeks. If only he could tell Ari that in a manner that wouldn't compromise her secret identity. Hiro was lucky Yama didn't recognize him as anything other than a member of Big Hero 6 or else.
He shoved Baymax up the cafe stairs, when he got to his room and deactivated the robot in his charging station. However, he saw a pair of bright blue eyes blinking in the darkness.
"Hiiiii Ari," Hiro sweated, there was no way of digging himself out of this one.
"I saw you went on a late walk with Baymax and thought I'd stay up until you get back," she told him, oh..Hiro gave a sigh of relief. "Sara told me this morning that there would be some big event at your school tomorrow, is it keeping you up?"
Well yeah and giant nickel-titanium alloy robot created by a dangerous criminal but that too..Hiro thought, "yeah..A little, I'm just so excited!"
"Hm, this Trengrove guy visiting your school must be real special alright," Ari hummed, "I don't really see the appeal."
"Well my brother was a huge fan of his," Hiro sat down on his bed, and tucked himself in.
"Oh...I'm sorry.." Ari was speechless.
"No no, you're allowed to have your opinions," he shook his head, "though I agree with you a little, I don't see the appeal of his sport drink brand..Tadashi thought otherwise. Want me to tell you about it?"
"Sure," Ari nodded, "but if it makes you too sad you can stop."
He chuckled at her concern, "I'm not made of glass, but I appreciate the concern." Hiro cleared his throat and began his story. "So three and a half bins full of my microbot project for the showcase, I was starting to get pretty frustrated at how slow progress was going. So Tadashi brought a bunch of Trengrove's sports drinks and started drinking them like crazy as he worked, and even offered me a bunch."
"That sounds like a bad idea."
"Yeah it was, the result? Sugar high Tadashi and I running around not getting any work done and driving Aunt Cass up a wall, I think she started stress eating when we crashed." He chuckled, his eyes starting to feel droopy and he yawned.
"Woah, you sound tuckered out," Ari yawned as well, "now you're making me do it too."
They both chuckled, "the workshop is for students only, but it would be awesome if you waited with me," Hiro told her.
"Oh course I will! What kind of friend do you think I am?"
"A medium quality one, not as good as others but still good enough."
"Hey!"
The next morning…
Hiro and the gang (minus Fred) were in line for the inventor's workshop for-
"Trevor Trengrove!" Wasabi squealed with joy. Ari winced and covered her eyes, she was only keeping them company in line, as since she was not an SFIT student she couldn't go in.
"Wow. It's a good thing we got here early," Honey Lemon looked at the huge line behind them, "looks like the whole school showed up."
"Except the Fern kids, I don't see them anywhere," Ari squinted, were they back farther in line?
"Their loss," Hiro had a copy of Trengrove's thesis in his hands, "I mean an inventor's workshop with the Dr. Trevor Trengrove is too good to pass up!"
"What's this about a loss?" They tilted their heads to see Mikan walking up to them.
"You're budging in line Mikan," Wasabi told her, she shrugged.
"Eh neither me nor my siblings are going in anyways, Sally forbade us from going. Did you know when Granville told her that Trengrove was coming she literally was frothing at the mouth?" Mikan gestured to the blue-haired professor, who was staring at the large line with anger, "she is not a Trengrove fan that's for sure, we just came for the free ice cream anyways, David and Sara aren't fans either."
"Weird," Gogo shrugged, she was then pulled into several selfies in front of the workshop with Honey Lemon.
"The Dr. Trevor Trengrove!" Honey Lemon exclaimed as she snapped the pictures.
"Your heart rate has accelerated to 119 beats per minute." Baymax told her, "either indication tachycardia, extreme distress, or-"
"Excitement?" Gogo raised an eyebrow.
"Baymax, Dr. Trengrove is like a science rock star!" Honey Lemon handed the robot a picture of him.
"Who has really weird sports drinks," Ari speaks up, they all look at her, "what? Hiro told me a funny story yesterday."
"Well he's okay, for a male scientist," Gogo crosses her arms.
"Mood," Mikan high fives her.
"Oh come on girls, he's SFITs most famous alumni," Wasabi complained.
"I thought that was Hiro's brother?" They all look at Ari again, "..whenever I visit I sometimes overhear people talking about him, so I guessed he was a very famous person? I mean..there's a school memorial dedicated to him."
Hiro gave a small smile, then ruffled her hair, "you're so sweet Ari, my brother would've melted at your words."
"Thanks..I try to be."
"Well if it weren't for Trengrove's breakthrough in artificial intelligence, there'd be no Baymax," Hiro holds up the thesis. "I'm gonna get him to sign Tadashi's copy of his thesis."
"Aww," Mikan hummed, "so cute."
"I heard that sometimes he picks some students to work with one-on-one!" Honey Lemon exclaims.
"I'm pretty sure we all know who he'll pick today." Both Hiro and Ari tilt their heads to see Karmi standing next to them in line.
"Yeah, I think we do." Hiro replies back in a snarky manner.
"Aw thanks Hiro, glad we agree," Karmi smirks, Hiro lifts up a finger to complain but Mikan steps in.
"Settle down children," she tells them, then turns to Karmi. "You too you little germ."
"Stop calling me that.." Karmi grumbles through gritted teeth, Mikan just chuckles and pats her on the head.
"Hey Mikan I think you should leave Karmi alone," Ari speaks up, Mikan stares down at her with that sharp green glare.
"Hmm?" She flashes her sharp teeth, "we're just being pals, c'mon Ari you and I both know that Karmi could use all the pals she could get." Karmi on the other hand looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but here.
"Even I can tell you're overstepping her boundaries," Hiro pointed out, Mikan then stepped away from the group.
"Alright, fine, fine." She started walking away, "jeez you all are so touchy today.."
Karmi turns to stare at Hiro, confused that he spoke up, she opens her mouth to speak but it was cut off by the sounds of students cheering.
A well-dressed man with brown hair and blue eyes was taking photos with fellow students, Wasabi was bouncing with joy as he walked towards their group, "who's jazzed for some science?"
"Me me me me me me me!" Wasabi squealed, Ari glanced at her friend's joyful expressions and took a lucky guess that the man was the Dr. Trevor Trengrove everyone was hyped about.
"This guy gets it!" Trevor walks past him and heads over to Hiro, he picks up his thesis with a pen, "what's your name little buddy?"
"Hiro Hamada, and I am such a big fan-"
"Here, have a sports drink!" Trevor tosses him his "Jumper Cable" sports drink, finishes signing the thesis and moving on. I don't get the appeal..Ari questions what everyone in SFIT sees that's so famous about him..besides the thesis of course.
"Little buddy!" Karmi snickers at Hiro, who huffs.
"At least he signed the…" Hiro takes one look at the notebook and cringes, "Kiro!" Trevor misspelled his name with a "k".
"Yikes…" Ari flinches, the sound of a door opening brings their attention.
"Alright students! Single file line," Granville opened up the workshop doors. "I will distribute your wristbands for entry."
Ari gives Hiro a hug, "have fun at the workshop."
"Thanks," he smiles, she watches him go as the students enter one by one. Ari gives Karmi a wave as she enters the workshop, the Biotech Major gives a small wave back.
As Hiro holds out his arm to receive his wristbands, Granville lifts a hand up in objection. "I'm sorry Mr. Hamada, but per Dr. Trengrove's request, this event has a strict age cut-off at 16."
"Bummer Kiro," Karmi whips her ponytail behind as she enters the workshop, Hiro glares in anger as she leaves.
As Hiro follows Granville like a sad puppy somewhere else, he notices Ari is trailing behind in concern.
"Professor Granville this isn't fair," he complained, "I'm an SFIT student just like everyone else."
"Except that you are significantly younger," Baymax pointed out.
"But not to worry," Granville tells him, "I've arranged for you to assist at an equally prestigious workshop." The workshop was located at the Sciencetorium, Ari had been there a few times whenever she visited the school, what kind of scientist that's on Trevor's level worked there?"
"It's woweroo time!" Apparently the green-haired, bright colored clothes wearing Wendy Wower. A well known scientist who inspired young children everywhere to get into the science career, but to Hiro..It felt like an insult to get forced to help a kid's show scientist help teach a bunch of kindergarteners science.
"Wendy Wower.." he gave a deadpan stare as all the children cheered.
"Wendy Wower!" That was Fred who exclaimed, cutting past them and joining the cheering kids, Ari raised an eyebrow.
"She kind of sounds familiar…" Ari hummed, "I think I used to watch her show..when I was little." She joined Fred in sitting next to the kids.
"Hey, I have an idea," Wendy pulls out a ukulele, "let's sing the Wendy Wower Wowerooskidoo song!" She starts playing the instrument, and the kids (plus Fred) start singing.
"I'm a woweroo! I love science yes I do! I'm a woweroo! I love science yes I do!" Ari stares for a few moments, then starts singing as well, a little behind everyone else though, Hiro just takes one look and facepalms.
Back at the workshop, Honey Lemon grabbed Gogo and Wasabi into a group selfie. "Everybody say Trengrove!"
"No."
"Trengrove!" Behind them, Karmi was trying to find a seat and she noticed they were taking a picture.
"Wait! I don't wanna be in your-"
Snap!
The flash goes off and Karmi's face scrunches up from the blinding light.
"Just gotta pick a filter!" Honey Lemon hummed, "ooh puggle face!"
Hiro pouted as he watched the other kids run around and play, bitter that he couldn't get into the workshop. His phone buzzed with a text and he looked at it.
Honey Lemon: Wish you were here! Photo,jpeg
He opened up the photo to see the others with puggle faces on them, in the background was Karmi, who also had a puggle face on and looked ridiculous.
He smirked at the photo, "oh that's a keeper."
"What's a keeper?" Ari leaned over his shoulder to look at his phone, she snickered, "oh my god."
"Okay woweroos!" All of the kids looked up at Wendy, "who's ready to make gloop?"
The children cheer, "gloop!" Fred exclaims, most excited out of all of them. Ari was looking forward to it as well.
"My super special helper Hiro," Wendy gestures to Hiro, he was wearing a "Wower Power" hat and looked done with everything, "is going to pass out the gloop-gredients!"
Hiro starts pouring ingredients for all the kids to enjoy as Wendy explains more about the gloop. "Gloop is a non-Newtonian fluid, which means it's a little bit liquid, a little bit solid, and a whole lotta fun!"
"I want mine to be green!" A small blonde girl named Brooke exclaimed.
"Green's a great goop color!" Wendy told her.
"Oooh ooh oh! Can I name mine Herman?" Fred asks her.
"Hermans a great gloop name!"
Ari watched as Hiro placed water into the bowl of a blond haired boy with a skull t-shirt and many googles, "I fear nothing," he said in a creepy voice. Hiro just stared at him and then walked away.
"Fred, what are you doing here?" Hiro asked his friend as he walked by his table and poured water into his bowl.
"Oh, I'm a long time woweroo," he explained as he fidgeted with his gloop, "Wendy Wower's Science Hour used to come on after my favorite show, 'Bright Lights, Loud Noises.'"
"Well, glad someone's having fun."
Splat!
Baymax was playing with gloop as well and it accidentally flew on Hiro's face, he just frowned at his misery. "Oh."
"Chin up Hiro!" Ari wiped the gloop off of his face, "I'm sure your day will get better!"
"I doubt it.."
"I asked SFIT to send me its best and brightest. And, looking around this room I can tell they listened." Back at Trevor's workshop, he was giving a speech to the eager students, "Darren, can I get a follow spot?" The lights turn off and a spotlight falls on Trevor, following him as he walks around the stage.
"You're a lucky bunch, after all without SFIT I wouldn't have had my career." He stands in front of the bottom row, "I assume most of you are familiar with my thesis, 'Artificial Fun-telligence'."
A student holds up the thesis, they all clap and cheer, "with a little luck and just a bit of that Trengrove magic, the work you do might catapult you to fame and fortune as well!"
"Like me!" He points to himself, "that's enough Darren," and the lights turn back on.
"Excuse me Dr. Trengrove?" Karmi raises her hand, "hi, Karmi, love everything about you. Um, how exactly will you be selecting the students for the hands-on portion of the workshop?"
"Get out the hose, we've got a spitfire!" Trevor exclaims, "what's your major, Karmi?"
"Biotech."
"Guess what? Biotech majors get first dibs on the free ice cream in the lobby! Go check it out!"
"Okay!" Karmi gets up from her seat to take a look, once she leaves the room however, the doors slam shut. "Wait.." She attempts to open the doors but they won't open.
"Did he just kick Karmi out?" Wasabi gestures to the door.
"I like this guy more and more," Gogo smirked.
"It was kind of mean though," Honey Lemon frowned.
Back at Wendy's workshop..
Ari was having a blast! She was sitting next to the creepy goggle kid (who's name was Michael), and she colored her gloop a deep shade of blue.
"This stuff is addicting," she smirked, however the feeling of nostalgia was always with her as she continued to have fun in the workshop. There were also faint flashbacks that consisted of bright colors and fuzzy pictures, but she knew that this wasn't her first time in a Wendy Wower workshop.
"Thanks for helping with the cleanup super glooper Hiro!" Wendy bounced over to Hiro and placed a woweroo sticker on his chest.
"Wow...eroo.." Hiro gave a fake cheer, Wendy noticed his sadness.
"Hey, are you okay?" Wendy places a hand on his shoulder, "if you want, I can see if that..big..woweroo wants to be my helper instead." She gestures to Baymax whose fingers are sticky with purple gloop.
"No it's-its fine," he pouted.
"You just wish you could be in Dr. Trengrove's workshop instead, huh?" Hiro looks away with guilt, "look, I get it. Even when we were back at SFIT, he was the star."
"You went to SFIT?" Both Hiro and Ari questioned, the latter walking up to them.
"That's so cool!" Ari exclaimed.
"You know Trevor Trengrove?" Hiro asked her.
Wendy started placing books on the shelf, "he was my lab partner for..a while. We had different ways of doing things."
"Oh man! It must've been awesome to work with him!"
"It was..an experience."
Baymax walked up to them, "I am unable to remove the gloop from my hands."
"Come here, big guy, I'll fix you right up." She leads Baymax over to the sink and washes the gloop away with a warm towel.
"Thank you." Baymax tells her when she removed all of the gloop, Hiro just sits on the counter looking at his phone and Ari stares at Wendy with curiosity. She looked..familiar.
Wendy inspected the robot, "Oh, hyper-spectral cameras, carbon fiber skeleton? Killer actuators, ooh are those super capacitors?"
It sounded like tech mumbo jumbo to Ari, but Hiro recognized it. "Uh..yeah, wow were you a robotics major?
"Sure was," Wendy patted Baymax on the chest, "nifty bot you got there."
She pulls out her ukelele, "hey, that's not a bad song title!" She starts to sing, "that's a real super-duper nifty bot! Nanofluids keep it from getting too hot!"
Hiro looks at another picture Honey Lemon sent him and decides to not wait around anymore, he slid off of the counter. "Hey, would it be okay if Baymax and I went to explore the rest of the museum?"
"Oh well, sure," Wendy nodded. "Exploration is the backbone of science, where there is explora-"
Hiro and Baymax had already exited the room, "discovery is never far behind!" She calls after them, "aw."
"Dr. Wower? Can I ask you something?" Ari looked up at her with wide blue eyes.
"Of course!" She replied.
"Do you..recognize me?"
"Hmm?" Wendy tilted her head in confusion, "could you please specify?"
"You kind of look familiar to me, have we met before?" Ari asked again, "my memory is really fuzzy nowadays and it's kind of hard to remember stuff, but I've been getting a nostalgia trip here.."
Wendy stared at her, trying to match her fluffy brown hair and blue eyes with any kid she's met before, "hmm…" Her eyes then widened. "Little Ari!" I do recognize you!"
"You do!?" Ari perked up, maybe she could help me with my memory problem! Finally a clue at last!
"Yeah! You were the smallest kid in a group I taught once! I almost thought you were mute because you didn't talk until at the end of it. You loved it when I talked a little about Marine Biology, and so fascinated with the types of sea animals, though you didn't like the eels."
Ari giggled, mentally picturing a tiny version of her cowering over a picture of those slimy creatures in a book, "I still hate them to this day..Disgusting slippery vermin!"
"I didn't know you moved to San Fransokyo, you seemed really happy where you lived," Wendy hummed.
"Um…" Now was the awkward part, "you see.." Ari gave a quick explanation to her about the amnesia and her current place of residence.
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry to hear that," Wendy gave her a warm hug, "I'm glad to hear you're doing alright despite all of that."
"Mhmm," Ari let go of the hug, "did you by any chance..meet my parents? When you taught that group? I barely remember them!"
Wendy gave her a sympathetic look, "I'm so sorry sweetie, I didn't get a chance to meet them, but you mentioned how much they love you and I'm sure they're looking for you right now."
She stared at her feet, the tears threatening to pool out, "can I..go to find Hiro? I just..need someone to talk to right now, and he's the closest person I know."
"Of course," Wendy patted her shoulder, "don't worry Ari, I had a friend at SFIT that had amnesia once, and she ended up doing great with a happy career, a caring husband, and three loving kids. So things will get better soon alright?" She wiped her tears away.
"T-thank you," Ari gave her another hug then left to find Hiro.
She found Hiro looking at periscope, a rather long line behind him. He saw the line and stepped away, "sorry, didn't know there was a line."
"Hiro!" Ari called him, he ran up to her.
"Um Ari I was trying to find a way to get into the workshop, no offense to Dr. Wower but I need to get in there!" He then saw her puffy cheeks, "Are you okay?"
"No, not really." She explained what happened in the conversation with Wendy, "I just need a hug."
Baymax scooped her into one of his hugs, "there there, you will be alright." He patted her on the head.
Hiro squeezed into the hug as well, "you can always ask me for hugs Ari."
"Aww thanks," she smiled, "I guess I can help you get into Dr. Trengrove's workshop as payment."
"Yes!"
At Dr. Trengrove's workshop… SFIT's students were racing to build a piezoelectric generator for some reason. As the students worked, he looked at them.
"Hey, I notice you're wearing a Space Hike shirt," Trevor gestured to a student.
"Yeah, I'm an astro science major," the student replied.
"Well guess what? Astro science majors get second dibs on the free ice cream!" He shoves the dejected student out the door, "go on! Take a space hike out to the lobby!"
"He's kicking out everyone who isn't a physics, engineering, or chemistry major," Honey Lemon noted. Seeing as the room had a lot fewer students than before, first it was Karmi who got kicked out...Then half of the students.
"I'm sure he has his reasons," Wasabi argued, "he's the Dr. Tren-"
"Done," Gogo finished hers, and Trevor went over to her table.
"Gogo! You can stay-stay!" He told her.
"Done!" Wasabi and Honey Lemon exclaimed.
"Hmm, yes." Trevor looked at their models, "these look promising."
Honey Lemon held up her model. "Oh do you want to test them or-"
"Everyone else enjoy that free ice cream bar! Just save some for me! I love me some ice cream!" Trevor told the rest of the remaining student body, who left the room in sorrowful states.
Gogo, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon watched all of their peers leave in awkward silence as Trevor gave weird chuckles.
"Also, I need your phones."
"I have reservations."
"Oh come on it'll work!"
"I trust you Ari." The girl's idea to see if Granville was at the door was to fill Baymax with helium, so he'd float and could have a bird's eye view of the door.
"Just tell us what you see," Hiro instructed.
"It is partly cloudy, with a 30 percent chance of-"
"No! Trengrove!"
Baymax scanned the area, he saw movement on the upper levels of the workshop. "I see Dr. Trengrove taking Gogo, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon into another room." He then scanned the back entrance of the door. "And Yama is standing outside the Pavilion entrance."
Ari gasps with horror, "oh no he's here for me!"
"Calm down!" Hiro grabs her by the shoulders, "Yama won't get you I pro-" he then realizes the seriousness of the situation. "Yama?" Here at SFIT?
That could only mean one thing: danger.
AN: Oh boy, feels like the worst time for me to return to posting HOF. But since everything seems to be gloomy might as well try to post to try and lift people's spirits! Not going to go into details on the matter here, it's a heavy subject y'know? But I hope everyone is still doing alright in these rough times.
Anyways Small Hiro One! This episode I have been looking forward to post because it gets so wholesome? You'll see what I mean next week.
I decided to make the choice of having Ari know Wendy when she was little because Wendy Wower is SO underrated, and she deserves more love! Also it's cute don't me
Before the hiatus, Angelxoxo8 asked who the mystery person was after Big Hero 6 left the junkyard. The answer is it'll be a looong while before you know their identity, there's a few rare mentions so keep an eye out, I really wanna keep them a secret up until the reveal. It ties into what I have planned for Phase 3, which is gonna be the hardest arc to write since a lot of it will be original. That's most of what I can say for now, hope you're satisfied with your care on that.
Also happy pride month! I need to come up with some pride one-shots maybe a HOF related one.. it'll def have Ari since she's part of the LGBT+ community.
Speaking of pride month might as well make that related to question of the week!
Question of the Week: What are some of your LGBT+ headcannons for the Bh6 characters from the movie and show?
Stay safe everyone! And don't forget to hydrate!