because I'm perfectly happy in this little universe I've crafted for myself, and drabbles are easy to write which means more updates
disclaimer: I don't own the copyrighted material within
Abigail looks between Hiro, face red and arms crossed and eyes narrowed like Tadashi on a warpath, and Baymax, calm and placid and totally not being incinerated by a fourteen year old's righteous fury, then continues in her trashy romance novel and decides not to get involved.
"I do not need any booster shots, Baymax!"
Oooh, the intrepid spacefaring heroine is totally going to bone the handsome alien monarch and the monarch's even handsomer valet.
"My records indicate that you have not received the recommended Tdap vaccine, nor that you received an earlier—"
Hmm, does that make the heroine bisexual, since the valet wears a dress, or did the nonbinary natures of the alien race make her outside of that spectrum?
"I don't do doctor's appointments, ok?"
She wonders if there's a SFST class about human-alien sexuality she can audit, but then dismisses that because her course load is a bit packed this year as it is.
"Hiro, if hospital environments make you uncomfortable—"
"Just drop it, ok?"
Abigail puts down her book and gets involved, "Can't Baymax just give you the shots here? I mean," she motions at the giant chemistry reaction Honey is currently scraping off the walls in their lab, "We might not do it right here cuz it's kinda dirty right now, but your aunt runs a clean house."
Hiro holds his arm and his ears turn red, "I'd prefer not to have any shots at all, if possible."
She looks at how his shoulders are edging up towards his jaw, the rigid lines of his skinny legs and hips, how he really wants to drop the topic please? She smiles, "It's ok, I hate needles to death." She rolls up her sleeves to show off the nice set of not-heroin marks freeze burned into her skin, "The stupid life support was hooked to these veins and a few places I'm not gonna show off, and they stung so bad in the cold, I never want to get an IV again."
Hiro winces and they share the memory of that chill, and she adds lightly as she returns to her book, "Not to mention they had to shoot up my mouth full of Novocaine when they fixed my teeth; I crushed my father's hand anyway since the noises alone were horrible, and now I can't go to dentist offices without needing to smoke three cartridges."
Baymax interjects that Abigail should be mindful of even nicotine free e-cigarettes and she banters with him over her poor life decisions while Hiro watches her with bright brown eyes. Abigail concedes to try and kick her menthol addiction, and she smiles when Hiro mumbles to Baymax, "If I neeeed the shots, can I get them at home? Hospitals and doctor's offices are just...not a Thing for me."
"I am your personal health care provider Hiro, I will gladly administer the vaccines in a comfortable environment."
"Thanks," and Hiro goes back to his work and Abigail ruffles his hair.
Cass smiles when her little college man and his friends pile into the cafe, Baymax waddling in and tolerating the group of toddlers playing with his balloon body. Hiro rushes into the backroom to get his apron, and it might be rather cruel to make him work on Thursday afternoons between all his classes and hanging out with his friends, but she likes getting to spend some time with her onlynonotonly favorite nephew.
Gogo and Abigail tease Hiro because he's just adorable in his little uniform, and load him down with enough drink requests to make Cass wonder how Honey got so tall when she drinks more espresso than the rest of them. But Hiro is a master of the coffee machines and Cass lets him work while she reminds Mr. Takechiho that no, it's considered bad form to use her macarons as ammunition for his slingshot. Kids, she wonders if Hiro will have any more teenage rebellions now that he's put bot fighting behind him.
While Hiro's friends eat and it's so great to have them over, Tadashi loved them and they were such a stabilizing presence at the funeral, Cass finishes her current needs and slides up to Hiro by the soda machine. "How was your day at school, sweetie?"
"It was good, Abigail's helping me with more robot designs and Wasabi helped me with my applied physics homework during lunch so I don't have too much to do tonight," and he sounds so grown up, all college-y and responsible for his works and oh, if his parents could see him now. He makes a face when Cass gives him a back cracking bear hug, "Honey, you better not be instagraming this."
"Too late!" Honey sings out and Hiro pretends to be mad but still gives Cass an extra hug.
Cass and Hiro work until closing, Hiro mouthing off to his friends between drink orders and clarifying human interactions for Baymax. Cass doesn't throw them out after the doors are locked because they are so much more than paying customers, they're practically family but this point, and she watches Abigail squeeze Hiro onto her seat so that they can show off one of his new ideas together for their friends.
Cass wonders if Abigail was like that with Tadashi; Abigail had come over a few times the year before when she was Tadashi's TA when they weren't at Shizu's or Tadashi's lab, but the distance between them was far larger and formal than the easy invasion of space where Abigail pokes Hiro's forehead and Hiro sprawls over Abigail to grab the last white chocolate croissant.
For half a second it's almost like Hiro and Tadashi and Cass smiles past the ache behind her eyes; this lets her see the seconds where it's not Hiro or Tadashi at all, but maybe like Cass and her little brother-in-law in the years before Tomeo grew up and married Mae and adopted Cass into the family. And maybe it's not like that at all, it's just her nephew and a new loved one that Cass plans on giving the good old Hamada discount, and she asks Hiro after his friends finally leave at bed time, "Do you like college?"
"I love it," he grins so easily now, the grief is settled next to love and there's only genuine happiness on his face today.
Cass wants to cry a little because her newphewbaby is growing up into a man who will change the world, and she teases, "Even though people instagram you hugging your lame old aunt?"
He rolls his eyes and initiates the hug this time, and it's all going to be alright; Cass trusts Abigail and Hiro's friends, and she only hopes that she'll get to see the world that Hiro will create oh so very soon.
It's not really anyone's fault that the lab has to be evacuated—San Fransokyo has so many earthquakes that by now jishinko is a positive nickname for the movers and shakers in society—but the fact remains that Gogo's electromagnetic suspension bike is the catalyst to fifteen broken windows, three fires and the spread of highly reactive itching powder in the lab and the surrounding floor.
As a result, it's she who gets her parents called in, and the group rallies around her. "I'm so sorry," Fred apologizes for the fifth time, "I shouldn't have even brought in that powder—"
"It's cool," Gogo pops her gum, "This is much less on the scale of mess-ups from when I broke my leg with my Hub stunt."
"I keep hearing about that," Hiro kicks his legs in the uncomfortable chairs they're all perched in, "Why exactly did you want to bike across the Hub roof? It's like, 6 stories up and shaped like an otera."
Gogo shrugs, "It just had to be done," and the team ribs Gogo about her crazy stunts throughout the years while Hiro gathers potential blackmail material, until the doors down the hall slam open. Gogo cringes, Abigail rubs her shoulder in support, and a furious pint sized Korean woman shrieks, "ETHEL!"
"Ethel?" Fred's face goes slack, "Your name is Ethel?"
Abigail blinks while Wasabi stifles an inappropriate giggle into his palm, "I thought it was Yerin?"
Gogo shudders as her mother tears down the hall, "Yerin is my Korean name, Gogo is my friend name, and Ethel is going to be on my tombstone—Eomeoni, jebal!"
Gogo's mother grabs her wayward daughter by the ear and drags her into the office, followed by a behemoth of a Korean man who is more silent than the pause after the three disappear behind opaque doors. The doors are soundproof but they can feel Gogo's tiny mother's wrath and Baymax waddles in through the hall, "I instructed Mr. and Mrs. Cho about Gogo's location. Was I correct?"
"...Ethel!" Wasabi and Fred fall into hysterics. Abigail shakes her head and Hiro looks concerned for his friend and Fred wipes his eyes, "But that's an old lady name! What kind of name can be worse than Ethel?"
Abigail puffs out her cheeks and makes eye contact with Honey, who brushes her hair out of her face, claps her hands in her lap, and rattles off, "My name is Maria Lucia Camila Victoria Hernandez Fellner; my mother's name is Maria Ludmila Caterina Valentina Miyazaki Fellner; and my abuelita's name is Maria Leika Kasumina Beniha de Miyazaki." She adjusts her glasses, "Really, Ethel is a nice name."
Fred sputters because too many names and Abigail laughs at Wasabi's dumbstruck expression; when asked by Baymax, Hiro just shrugs, "People can go crazy with names; just be happy Tadashi named you Baymax instead of Synthetic Entity Monster Baymax or whatever."
Abigail forces the door closed just as Hiro pushes Baymax in, and they shiver because the power's out and her kotatsu is out of juice. The typhoon from the northern coasts decided to blow San Fransokyo a kiss before it left, and Abigail wrings her hair out into the sink, "That's it, you're spending the night."
Hiro nods, pale faced and tight lipped, and Abigail narrows her eyes, "Baymax, please scan Hiro."
"Scan complete. Hiro has various lacerations and aberrations caused by tree branches and is in the early stages of hypothermia; a change of clothes and increased heat is recommended."
Crap, Abigail herself is soaked to the bone and Hiro needs a bath but judging from the ominous sounds her flat's water heater is making, she's not expecting a sauna. She turns to Hiro and clucks her tongue because he's covered in mud and leaves, cheeks scratched and hair tangled from a fight with a fallen tree and Cass would be so impressed by Abigail's tiny Hamada rescue service.
Oh well, they can make do. Directing Hiro to her bathroom, she digs around in her closet for anything that would fit; an oversized night shirt, a pair of surfboard shorts Abigail could tie down, and... "Oh wow, Wasabi's been in here."
"W-What?" Hiro clatters his teeth and doesn't dodge the tightly bundled pack Abigail throws at his chest.
"Yep, there's these emergency packs of clothes where my stash of macadamia cookies should be," Abigail swears revenge on Wasabi but admits that it would be best for everyone in the team to have extra civvies on hand in case they need to change out of their uniforms in a hurry. "Ok, you need a bath, Mr. Icicle; there's extra towels by the sink aaaand there's no lights, Baymax make sure that he doesn't trip and fall and die in there."
Hiro sticks his tongue out and Abigail flashes her shiny white teeth. But when he tugs off his shirt and she sees the nasty cut dragging across his shoulder blades, she hisses and throws him the board shorts, "Strip down and get into those, I'll be in shortly."
"W-What?"
"You heard me," Abigail lights a pitiful candle to illuminate her bedroom, "we're prolly gonna have a mission tomorrow to help with clean up, and I need to make sure that you don't get blood poisoning."
Hiro protests and Abigail uses her taller person privilege to lord over him, and Baymax concludes with, "While I am capable of caring for my patient alone, Abigail's presence will be beneficial." Hiro sighs at his lost cause and trips his way through her bathroom, Abigail listening to Baymax ask "On a scale of one to ten" while she changes into a clean T shirt and spandex shorts.
Knocking three times on the door, she goes in to see Hiro still shivering as he knees by the tiny pre-shower. She tests the water and it's pleasantly warm, and asks, "You doing ok?"
"F-Fine," he chatters, and Abigail flinches when she sees a red trail dipping down his spine. She directs, "Baymax, keep monitoring his health and pitch in where possible," and grabs a little hand bucket, soap and towel.
It's been a long time since she's done this—once her best friend Taylor Zhang got roaring drunk and she had to wash vomit from her hair; Abigail would rather do that a thousand times than relive the news of Taylor dying in a drunken car accident—and never before with someone both so close and so new in her life. But her soap is gender neutral so that the boys in her graduate program don't get all huffy about the feminine mystique, and she gently washes away the muck and blood that clings to Hiro.
His back isn't that bad once the gunk is gone and Baymax applies a waterproof spray to prevent infection while Abigail works on Hiro's arms and shoulders. He trembles under her touch and she coaxes a bit more hot water from the shower, letting him wash his front and legs since he's fourteen and cares about his privacy.
His hair though, that takes Abigail's needlepoint precision earned from years of piloting. Little barrel rolls of raven hair locking around twigs, snarling and matting and refusing to yield, Abigail picks through it all. Baymax finishes before Abigail does, her hands slow and steady as she detangles, then combs, then washes, scrubbing away the grime and little hurts pent up in Hiro's brain, and combs again once the suds are whirpooling at their feet.
He has very nice hair, she takes a moment to just run her fingers through it and count how many shivers corkscrew down Hiro's neck.
Baymax starts the bath and uses every last drop of hot water, and Abigail helps a very quiet, still trembling Hiro into the water. He hisses then sighs in rapture, sinking into the clean water and Abigail murmurs, "I'll be outside," so he can soak in peace. Changing into real pajamas, she argues with the ancient electric blanket bundled away in her chest because it's nearly as cold as the portal in here and Abigail refuses to let any more warmth in her life leech away.
She brushes her teeth once Hiro comes out in her oversized shirt and his backup civvie shorts, and he lingers by her bed, rubbing her eyes and still so very quiet. Abigail shakes her head at his sweet, teenage respect of privacy and pulls him under the blankets, "You're still cold, Hiro, just pretend I'm a space heater and go to sleep."
Freezing hands clutch onto the front of her shirt and she didn't know he was a cuddler, this is nice. Hiro hides his face against the hollow of her shoulder and shivers, and possessed by the urge to comfort, Abigail runs her fingers through his hair down his neck to his waist and back up again. He exhales and falls sleep, and Abigail continues on any way until the repetition lulls her to memories of her father that don't hurt and Tadashi gushing about his brother over a bowl of Shizu's udon and Baymax standing over them, measuring their quieting brain activity.
They scramble to get up the next day because yes, San Fransokyo needs their Big Heroes, but just before they rocket out the door towards their hidden gear, Hiro hugs Abigail and mumbles, "Thank you, neesan."
Abigail wipes her eyes and yells at Hiro for turning her into such an emotional ninny, and they spend the rest of the day in the sky, helping people and keeping Fred from killing himself and chasing away the storm clouds that pile beyond the horizon.
Nene frowns at the damage those bastard yakuza-wannabe freshmen have done to her bar. Everything is spilled and spoiled, graffiti tagged on the walls and her floor stereos ripped out. It's not the end of the world, mind you, she has the funds needed to repair the shop by next week, but it's still too much unnecessary work.
One of the Big Heroes, the shortest one in purple, shifts by her side, "Don't worry, my other teammates are chasing them down right now, and one of them says she knows where they tried to pawn off your stereos."
Nene sighs, "Thank you, this helps." She sits down on a clean bar stool and muses, "Lucky punks, if this had happened three years ago they'd be missing their kneecaps."
"What was that?" and he is so cute, Nene swears she's seen that face before with that tone of voice, but the helmet visor is doing things to her eyes and she can't be too sure. There's more important things to worry about anyway, other than the nighttime antics of a possible customer. Still, she appreciates this hero's presence, and needs to give him something.
"Nothing," she picks up an uncontaminated container of white chocolate caramel pretzels and bows it over to him, "For your excellent service; I made them myself with that good Ghirardelli chocolate and there's sea salt in the mix, so please enjoy."
His face lights up and she's seen that smile before, that's Abigail's little student, Nene has never forgotten a face, even with that tricky helmet. Does Abigail know about this? And oh, the Big Hero 6 who saved this poor campus would just so happen to be the same number of people as Hiro's friends; they say there's a new member now, dressed in grayish white and on a hoverboard and oh
oh
Nene smiles and waves when Hiro leaves, the boy promising to return with her speakers. Nene has her kinesiology project to work on and shop salvaging to do; she puts off the first for another night and enlists her heroes in cleaning everything up before the sun rises. It's a lot of work she really, really wish she didn't have to do, and she's actually bothered by her policy of no questions asked when she knows that it's Abigail behind that visor and it's her little customer at fourteen doing things that Nene envies at eighteen.
But the work is pleasant, and the heroes are pleasant, and Nene watches them go with a wave. Oh yes, she's definitely stocking up on more white chocolate caramel pretzels, she should have enough by reopening to make Hiro's sundae extra special.
Honey appraises the posted pictures before nodding and reblogging them to her online boutique's active feed, and Abigail whistles, "When you said that you helped run Dizzy Kei Boutiques, I thought you were joking."
"Nope," Honey smiles, and deletes an older cache of junk data, "a few other girls man the posts while I'm in the lab or in the field—you know Gigi Nguyen, the current theoretical mathematics TA? Her older sister Carol owns the domain and we all pitch in when we can."
Gogo looks at all the sunny dresses and leggings and platform heels and cracks her gum. Abigail takes a moment to appreciate Gogo's biking shorts before reminding herself that team incest is unacceptable, especially when Abigail is a 24 year old grad student and Gogo a barely 20 undergrad. Making a note to start crushing on another radish calved Korean girl, Abigail asks, "What do you do for extra cash, Gogo?"
"Bike courier," Gogo pulls at her shirt to reveal a sakura crest tattoo on her shoulder blade, "I've been sending messages for companies in Bayview and beyond since I was 15. Good pay, made a few friends," Gogo smirks, "Nearly got arrested for ramping a freeway on a dare and derailing a high speed chase."
Honey gasps, "That was you?!" and oh crap, Abigail is never going to find someone as deliciously daring as Edith Yerin Cho. They banter for a while about exercising because those radish calves came from somewhere and hypersleep had a hyper effect on muscle deterioration in Abigail's body. But then Honey asks, "What do you do for money, Abigail? I mean, outside of TA work?"
Abigail feels her shoulders slump and she plays with her e-cig, "I used to fly private parties for a weekend, do errands in my father's department...maybe volunteer to pilot for Krei Industries."
Gogo sucks in a breath and Honey apologizes for Abigail's misfortunes, and Abigail smiles, "He paid me a lot for Silent Sparrow, since I was the best pilot they had and the only one stupid enough to fly through an experimental teleportation wormhole."
"Abigail..."
"It's my fault, you know," Abigail twists and fumbles with her e-cig but the cartridge needs refilling and the idea of smoke vapor in her lungs makes her stomach turn. "If I had said no, Silent Sparrow wouldn't have gotten to that testing stage, and my father wouldn't have lost it over seeing me disappear, and Tadashi would still be alive."
Gogo grabs onto Abigail's shoulder and her voice sends fire through the cold sores in Abigail's healing flesh, "What your father did was his own decision. You couldn't have known about Tadashi."
"I was in that portal for almost a week before hand," Abigail presses her fist to her lips, "If Hiro hadn't upgraded Baymax to take down Yokai, I would've stayed in there. If my father had died instead of Tadashi, I'd still be in there." She shudders and looks at Honey and Gogo with pained child eyes, "Is that...is that fair? Cuz Hiro said it wasn't but now I'm thinking about it and he nearly died saving me and Tadashi died a stupid death due to my decision—"
Honey hugs Abigail into a lean shoulder, and Gogo fills in the empty spaces. Abigail swallows her tears as Honey soothes, "You couldn't have known about the accident, or Pro...your father deciding to take his hurt out on everyone. And Tadashi's death has nothing to—listen to me, hermana," Honey chides lightly when Abigail shakes her head, "The only one to blame is not in this room. You're our friend and our teammate, and you have nothing to be guilty for, Abigail, especially for being alive."
Abigail's heart bleeds at this easy acceptance and she understands why Tadashi mentioned Honey's name so often in their long ago study sessions. Abigail wipes her eyes and half laughs, "You two ought to call me Abby already, but he took that nickname and ruined it."
Gogo grins and squeezes around Abigail's waist, "Fred will hook you up with a good one, no worries. And seriously," her voice is so soft and sincere that it makes Abigail shiver, "you're a part of the nerd team now, don't ever forget it."
"I won't," Abigail sniffles and blushes because she's a terrible mess and they don't care and it's so wonderful to have people fill the space that Taylor left behind. She hugs them again and sighs over her hopeless crush, craving menthol just a bit but putting her e-cig away; it's pleasantly warm in here anyway, listening to Honey and Gogo and being a part of something that she'd thought her father's crimes had stolen, she can do without.
Abigail and Hiro walk down the street, her steps staccato and his flowing everywhere because he's just developed a cool new idea for Baymax and can't wait to test it out. But he's a hungry boy and Abigail's eaten maybe half a muffin in the past 36 hours, and it's time that she's taken him to Shizu's.
Shizu's is a respectable noodle house, thoroughly Japanese down to allowing 20 year olds to drink, and they claim a little table. Hiro looks around and kicks his legs, "So this is where you and Tadashi used to go all the time?"
"What can I say," Abigail looks at the familiar wall décor and the bar where she tried to con her way into getting a bottle of sake for herself and Taylor when they were 15, "udon fans tend to congregate around these doors."
They get edamame to start and Hiro plays with the bean pods, "I've always preferred yakitori and gyouza; noodles are too wet, they splatter when I'm trying to work on stuff."
"I know," Abigail squishes her face, "I messed up one of my freshman year projects big time by spilling soba all over it. My partners tried to kill me, I had to convince my father to give us more time to recreate our schematics."
Hiro shakes his head at such a terrible accident. They both order the chicken udon with Hiro asking for the house hot sauce on the side, and Abigail wrinkles her nose, "That's going to mess up the flavors."
"Oh, you're a flavor purist like Tadashi!" Hiro grins, "What, do you eat your sushi raw too?"
"Soy sauce is sacrilege!"
"Then why would they make such delicious sauces in the first place?"
"For the sad, taste-ignorant losers who don't appreciate the natural taste of food!"
They argue for ten minutes and Hiro covers her edamame with soy sauce and she noogies him so hard that she electrocutes herself on the metal table edge. Then they laugh and laugh until their waiter comes with their udon, and Abigail rubs at her eye, "Just try it without the sauce first, you heathen, and then you can destroy it however you'd like."
"Absolutely," he snorts, and then tries the udon that his brother loved so much. Abigail slurps at her own broth and noodles and looks up to see Hiro considering the bowl. She raises her eyebrows, and he shrugs, "'s ok."
She smiles, "That's how they hook you in."
Hiro tries some more, looks at his hot sauce, and Abigail laughs when he reluctantly pushes it away. He claps, "Itadakimasu!" and with the warm lighting and the soft music and the good food in their stomachs, it's easy to think of Tadashi here, all three of them enjoying together.
I'm literally just gonna write 5-7 random drabbles of random lengths that appear in my mind and post them per chapter. Except for a special arc involving Nene, these drabbles are not super connected and are more of just happy, sad and happy-sad moments in the It's a Body Shock post-canon U.
Jamie Chung said that Gogo's real name is Edith, so I added it onto my headcanon name for her to make Edith Yerin "Gogo Tomago" Cho. It has a nice ring to it.
Anyway, I hope you like this kind of formatting! If you have a specific scenario you want to see, gimme a shout out in the comments/reviews!