Disclaimer: Big Hero 6 is owned by Disney Animation. Insert witty second sentence to accompany the rest of the disclaimer here.

Chapter 3 – Frenemies

"Hiro, you did not brush your teeth for the recommended two minutes."

"I'll just add on thirty seconds in the morning. Don't get so bent out of shape about it."

"My shape is round. It cannot bend."

"It's...just a figure of speech. Don't worry about it."

It was bedtime in the Hamada household, and Hiro was busy having an argument about the length of his brushing session with Baymax. It wasn't a real argument (Baymax was right based off of scientific studies), but it was a fun little thing to do with him most nights.

It was one of the few things that didn't seem to stress him out anymore.

Hiro set the toothbrush down on the sink, his mind wandering. Two days ago, Megan Cruz had deduced his identity as a member of Big Hero 6 and confronted him in the garage about it. She had threatened to go to her father and divulge their secret, but thankfully Hiro was able to convince her to come and see their base. What followed was a whirlwind of events that included flying Megan around San Fransokyo, getting caught up in a chase around the city involving the newest villain in town Sirque, and almost getting caught by Chief Cruz. Again.

And Hiro had been expecting the worse when they left Megan in that alleyway. She knew their secret, and it was up to her to decide whether she wanted to keep it or not. But the next day, her school article came out...and it was in their favor. Their secret was safe.

For now.

That should have made him feel better. But all it did was give him more anxiety. And that was the last thing he needed right now.

"Hiro, you seem distressed."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"It all began when you started attending Tadashi's college-"

"It was rhetorical, Baymax."

Baymax walked over to his charger and stepped in. "You are worried about Megan."

"Yeah, I am." Hiro got into bed and pulled the cover over his body. "Chief Cruz is probably not going to like the fact that her own daughter is on our side. That's only going to cause him to double his efforts in getting us. We have to be really careful from now on. One slip-up and we could all be in serious trouble."

Baymax held up a finger. "Perhaps we could all have invisibility added to our armors. That way, we could be undetectable from the human eyes."

"And then run into each other while we're fighting crime? Yeah, that's not a good idea." Hiro pushed his hands into his pillow, trying to fluff it up. "Too bad I can't just use webslingers like S.P.I.D.E.R. can. We could all just swing away as fast as we could."

"Should I attempt to contact Peni to help with our problem?"

Hiro looked at the clock. "I'll talk to her in the morning. She's probably asleep right now." He started to close his eyes. "Megan probably is too. Unless she's working on writing another story or some-"

His eyes snapped open.

"Oh, crap! I completely forgot."

Baymax's optical scanners blinked.

"I haven't logged into Karmi's profile in weeks." Hiro vaulted out of bed to grab his laptop. "She's probably gotten so many messages. I'm not doing a very good job at curating it."

"I am sure Karmi would understand. You are only human, after all."

Hiro's screen came on and he opened an internet window. "I'll just take a gander at it now, and do a more thorough clean-up in the morning. You should probably get some shut-eye, Baymax; I won't be far behind you."

"Be sure to get the proper allocation of sleep. Good night."

As his robot powered down, Hiro logged in to Karmi's fanfiction profile. He had promised her that while she was overseas and working on her internet problems, he would take care of it. But with everything that had been happening, the thought of even going to the site had been removed from his mind.

The violently pink wallpaper loaded onto his computer. His eyes, as always, wandered over to her profile and the last thing she updated it with:

Hey there, Captain Cutie/Lab Lady fans! Due to circumstances beyond my control, I will not be able to update any of my stories for the foreseeable future. I'll still be working on things, but uploading will be an impossibility. If you wish to contact me, I have someone looking over my inbox, but responses may be slow. Stay strong, CCLL Army!

Several feelings started to course through Hiro's brain. Disgust for the pet name she gave her followers. Amusement for the same thing. Guilt for not doing the one thing he had promised.

Sadness because of the whole situation.

He had to push them away. If he held on to them any longer, he'd never get to sleep.

He saw that her inbox has several unread messages, and despite his statement to Baymax, he started to sort through them, starting with the oldest. Most of them were just words of encouragement ("I love your stories! Hope to hear from you soon!"), but there were a few other ones, like a request to co-author a story, questions about Captain Cutie's dietary limitations, and the same person that kept making new accounts just to bother her.

Hiro sighed as he quickly sent an e-mail with his information off to the moderators of the site. Maybe this time he would actually stay banned.

He knew that outside of his friends and her family, only a few select people knew about the real reason of her not being available to her adoring fans. Her name had been kept out of the news when Di Amara and Sycorax were busted, which was a very good thing; it wasn't like Karmi was a very common name, and someone could possibly put two and two together.

Thankfully, it didn't seem like any of her followers had figured it out, at least as far as her messages were concerned.

Hiro got to the last e-mail in her inbox. As soon as the next page loaded, he took a closer look. It appeared that it was several messages sent on different days; the date on the oldest one was from almost three weeks ago. And it was from someone named-

"ChiefM'gann."

He recognized the screen name from one of the reviews left on the story he had proofread for Karmi when she stayed over his house, as well as a few of the other stories. "I wonder what she sent all of these messages for?" he wondered out loud.

He took a look at the first message:

Hey there, Karmi! Sorry I haven't been around for a while. I've been suuuuper busy with school and this secret thing that I've been working on! Just say your profile update. That totally stinks! But I know you'll be back and rocking the stories before long! Hope everything's well!

That was weird. Not the message, of course (it was very nice), but if that's all this person was going to say, then why were there were so many other messages after it?

The next one was a week later:

Quick question: have you had any thoughts about what I said to you earlier? I think your insight would be invaluable to what I'm working on. Let me know as soon as you can.

Man, this person was very impatient. Did they not read the entirety of her profile? She was overseas, for goodness sake. He quickly scrolled up to see what they had been referencing, but the amount of messages dating back that were read was staggering. No matter; maybe they'd reference it later.

Now, he was much closer to the present. This message was from five days ago:

Please. Message me back. We have to talk.

OK, the shift in tone was immediate. What in the world was going on? Whoever this person was, they were all over the place. What did they want with-

Karmi. I know who you are.

Hiro's finger paused right above the mousepad.

And I can't keep lying to you anymore.

Oh boy. This looked like something he wasn't suppose to be looking at. Hiro grabbed his phone to send Karmi a text...and then his eyes traveled to the next sentence.

My full name is Megan Cruz.

His phone, now forgotten, slipped out of his hand and hit the mattress.

My father is the chief of police in San Fransokyo, and he wants to get rid of Big Hero 6. And I've been helping him do that.

Hiro leaned forward, his gaze transfixed on the diatribe that followed.

Ever since I got to this city, I've been working on an article for my school newspaper. It was about Big Hero 6, but I wanted to take it in a different direction. I wanted to find out who those superheroes were. It was partly because of my dad, but also because I felt like the public had an obligation to know their identities too. So I did a lot of research. Went to interview a lot of people. Dig a lot of digging. And that's when I found out about you. About what Sycorax did to you.

At any other time, Hiro would almost be impressed by Megan's tenacity. But right now, the only thing he was feeling was anger.

I can't imagine what it was like to be used by someone like that. To get turned into a monster. I'm so sorry about what happened. If it's any consolation, I deleted all of the info I found about the incident. It wasn't my information to know.

Hiro narrowed his eyes. It did seem like Megan was legitimately sorry about it. But something was still nagging at him, though. Why did she not mention any of this to him?

And on top of all of the guilt I have about that, I now have a new problem. It's with my friend. And it's someone you know. His name is Hiro Hamada.

Oh. That was why.

Hiro is one of a few people who I was going to interview because of his closeness to Big Hero 6. I also know that you're friends with him, as well as one of the only persons who was with you when the police raided Sycorax. I thought he could offer some insight into them, into who they were. But I think he's keeping a secret from me. He's hiding something. And I'm scares me.

The boy genius looked at the date. It was right before she had gone to his garage to confront him. Her tone had been confrontational then, but it looked like she had some real struggles with what to do.

I like Hiro. He's a good guy, and a good friend. We've gotten to know each other over the time I've been here, and while my eyes sometimes glaze over when he's talking to me about science, I feel like I've known him all my life. Which is why I'm so torn right now.

His heart started to beat faster.

Karmi, he knows something. He knows something about Big Hero 6. Something big. But the journalist in me is conflicting with our friendship. And I don't know which way to go. And so, I wanted to ask you something. I have no right to ask, but I figure I would do it anyway.

Hiro's face lit up with the screen, the next question already in his view.

What should I do?

He didn't know. He didn't know any of this. She was really agonizing over this decision. When she had shown up at his house, she seemed like her normal, nosy, standoff-ish self. But this...this brought things a bit more into prospective.

Judging by how you haven't responded to me for the past three weeks, I can already tell you're not going to answer. I understand completely. I'm going to send this off, and then just make myself scarce. It's been great reading your stories, and I will continue to do so, but I won't contact you again. You deserve some privacy.

Anyway, hope everything works out for you. I guess I'll just end with this.

Goodbye.

It was signed with her name, but Hiro couldn't see that; his eyes were watering, but he quickly brought his arm up to wipe the tears away.

This made so much sense. All of this time, he had thought that Megan was the enemy. But reading her article, and seeing this exchange...it put her in a different light altogether. He had come to see her as someone relentless in her passion, and that went both in the good and bad direction. But maybe he understood her a little better now.

But now, just like Megan in her message, he had a new problem. This chain was very clearly not meant to be read by him, but he couldn't unsee it. And with Karmi being limited in her responses, his brain was coming up with a terrible idea.

He would have to be Karmi. Just this once.

"Well," Hiro said to himself, cracking his knuckles, "She says that I have the body structure of a teenage girl. I just have to transfer that to my fingers."

He set his hands on the home keys, ready to type out a response...when the website auto-logged him out for inactivity.

"Great. Wonderful."

Hiro typed in her username and password, but was swiftly rebuked by the window. "Come on. I'm putting it in right and everything." He brought his phone up to his face, checking the Note where he held Karmi's profile information. "Yeah, that's right. What is going on?"

He put it in one final time, and even checked the box to tell the website he wasn't a robot ("The robot's in front of me, not here"), and it finally relented. He quickly went back to her inbox to see everything was exactly as it was.

Hi there, Megan.

Except for the brand new message that was marked with the word "now" at the top right corner.

Which wasn't his.

He would later find out that Karmi logging in had automatically logged him out of her profile and not the inactivity. Never mind the fact that he didn't even know that she was able to log in; she had always given him the impression that she couldn't because of her internet problems.

But enough about the future. We're dealing with the present.

Sorry that I haven't been able to respond to you. I've been very busy with personal stuff, and unfortunately my stories had to be put on the back burner. I appreciate you reaching out to me.

Karmi sounded very subdued. No emoji, no winky-faces or anything like that.

To be honest, I don't even know where to begin with everything you've sent me. So, I guess I'll just start at the beginning.

Hiro's index finger moved over the pad, slowly scrolling down the entirety of the gargantuan message.

You had no right to that information about me. I don't know what sort of connections you have, but there's a very good reason as to why my name hasn't been in the press. One, it's because I'm underage. Two, I would get harassed to no end. Three, my parents are currently in litigation with Sycorax, and if they had their way, they would burn everything into the ground for what they did to me. If the case goes the way they think it will, I won't have to worry about much of anything for the rest of my life. But it's not about the money. It's about the people behind what happened not being able to do what they did to anyone else ever again.

This was a surprise; he knew that both of Karmi's parents were both lawyers. She had mentioned it when she stayed over his house, but he didn't know that they were suing the company. That fact put a little twinge of happiness in his heart. If anyone deserved to see Sycorax go down, it was Karmi.

I'm glad that you apologized and realized what you did was wrong. I guess I have no choice but to ask you to keep it to yourself, at least until the court case is over. I think it will be over soon, but it may require my parents' actual attendance in San Fransokyo, which they're not currently in a position to do right now.

Wait, hold on. Did that mean that they might come back to the city soon? Maybe he would be able to-

But I don't want to talk about that anymore. I want to talk about Genius Boy.

Uh oh.

Megan, I've learned over the course of the past year that Hiro is a very frustrating person. He annoys me to no end, is a pain in my butt, and thinks he's full of himself because of his giant encyclopedic mind.

"That's...all fair."

But I've also learned that he's kind, comforting, and a true friend who will always have your back when you need it. And yes, we both have interacted with Big Hero 6. We've been lucky to be part of the select few that have. But Megan, if he has a secret that's connected with Big Hero 6, and he hasn't told you about it, there's probably a very good reason why.

Yes, there was a very good reason why. One that Megan had figured out by the present time, and one that Hiro wasn't too keen to tell Karmi.

We all have our secrets, Megan. You have yours, I have mine, and Hiro has his. We all do. I don't pressure him to tell me what he knows. I just sort of live with it. Yeah, it's kind of bothersome that he's talked to Captain Cutie more than me, especially being his future bride and all...

The ambiguity of the "his" caused Hiro's face to heat up.

But I live with it. If he has a secret, it's his prerogative to keep it. And if he wants to share that with me, then he'll do that. There are things that I've never told him. Things that are very difficult to talk about. But that's MY right. When I'm ready to open up, I will. If you have secrets, I wouldn't want to know them unless you wanted to tell me willingly.

This was not right. He should not be reading this. Any second now, Karmi was going to send him a GIF of a wrestler drop-kicking another person, and he would get the message instantly.

I could talk about this all day, but I don't want to waste what little time I have looking over my messages, but I'll just leave with this.

The alarm on his phone told him it was time for bed, but he was too transfixed at the messages to pay attention to it.

If you want to keep going for this article about Big Hero 6, that's your right. If you want to interview/interrogate Hiro, that is also your right. But you should be doing this article because YOU want to, and not your dad. And above all, if you DO find out Hiro's secret, assuming he has one, it had better be worth it. It took a long time for me to become Hiro's friend, and I treasure it every day. I don't want to lose it.

Hiro's eyes had started watering again. He could feel the tears running down his cheeks.

And I would hate for you to lose something special like that.

A couple of the drops hit his keyboard. He was almost at the end now.

Megan, I don't want you to block yourself off from me. I am here (sort of) if you want to talk. But I think there's a better person for that than me. Someone a little more closer in distance. He's a good listener, as long as you can get past his ego. And his hair.

Hiro gently set his hand on top of his head. "I resent that."

I'm going to move this to a private folder so that the person that I have monitoring the profile doesn't see it. I have a feeling that they would have an opinion on everything we said. They're probably sleeping right now, anyway. Good thing I was able to get on and do this.

Maybe when all of this is over we can meet face-to-face. And maybe we'll drag Hiro along just to work him up a little. :P

I'll talk to you later.

~Karmi

Hiro logged out and closed his laptop, setting it onto his desk. That was...a lot to deal with. Just add it onto the pile with everything else. But it was comforting to know that both Karmi and Megan thought about him that way. It was just a shame that he had to find out about Megan now and not before her impromptu induction into their inner circle.

But as he hit the lights to go to bed, there was one thing that he was absolutely certain about.

"If those two ever meet in real life...I would never hear the end of it."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: You are correct, Genius Boy. You would never hear the end of it. Which is why I'm dying for it to happen in the show. And if it doesn't...I might just have to take matters into my own hands.

You know, provided that Megan is actually going to stick around past the end of the season.

At the point in time that this will be going up, I have not seen "Fred the Fugitive" yet. I have heard about a few things that happen in the episode, but I won't mention them here. Already giving me ideas to write about, which is a good thing. Wonder what will crop up in my head at the most inopportune time.

Read and review, if you like. Until next time, everyone.