because we need some more glorious drabbles up in here
disclaimer: I don't own the copyrighted material within
Hiro looks out the window, frowning when his fingertips freeze on the glass. San Fransokyo was not nearly as warm as Los Angosaka on any given day, but even Hiro was a little tired of wearing his hoodie 24/7 in sunny weather. "Baymax," Hiro groans as he pulls his hands away, "is your heater online yet?"
"My internal heater is still undergoing maintenance after yesterday's heroic escapades," Baymax says from his charging station, "It will be fully operational in approximately 6 hours."
Hiro sighs, before pulling on his shoes and tugging his hood over his hair. 6 hours wasn't too long, and he has outside chores and general errands to finish before meeting up with his friends for the new Ghibli movie coming out. And New Years is coming soon, he should go and check out a few of the shops downtown before the tourist rush and figure out what he wants to get his aunt.
Brushing past Aunt Cass bustling about in the blessedly warm kitchen, he walks outside and wow that's brisk. Like, really brisk, he and Abigail are gonna get frostbite when they fly after villains; Hiro rubs his nose and walks into the crisp clear day.
He returns two hours later, nose bright red and lips chapped and every inch of him aching from the freezing numb. "Oww," he hisses between his teeth as warmth hits him harder than the gale force winds down by the pier, and he winces when his dry throat aches. Baymax is too far away to hear him though, and he's far too cold to try again.
Cass takes one look at him before sighing, "Oh, poor thing!" and she drags him to one of the comfier chairs. Mochi mrrows and licks Hiro's frozen hand, and Cass wraps those hands around a large steaming mug, "Here, just take it easy." She looks at the frost clinging to the sunlight window and tisks, "You should've come home, you're a little icicle!"
Hiro struggles to get the mug to his lips and Cass helps, Hiro blushing because now he feels like a useless baby. But there's cinnamon and nutmeg in the hot cocoa, just enough spice to make it so sweet in his mouth, and Hiro relaxes into the seat. The warmth spreads from his stomach all the way down to his frozen toes, and he watches his aunt care for her customers. It's soothing, like watching Wasabi fine tune his experiments to exact precision, or listening to Honey as she talks about her day by the fountains at Fred's house, or feeling the hum of Gogo's electromagnetic suspension through the ground.
It's like Baymax giving a hug and Abigail running her fingers through Hiro's hair and Tadashi singing to him when he was very small, Hiro doesn't remember the words but he remembers the feeling and it was warm just like this. He feels like he should remember this, it seems important.
Cass smiles when she finds her nephew snoozing away in the chair, cup still cupped in his hands and looking so young in his oversized hoodie. She ruffles his hair when she walks by and he sighs and break her heart just a bit because he may be Mae's son, but he's hers too and she couldn't be more proud of him.
His friends come to collect him later, and find Cass reading during a dead hour in the cafe, propped up against Baymax acting as a heater for Hiro, Cass and Mochi. Honey awws and takes a picture and sends it to Cass later; Cass hangs it up in the living space.
Hiro just grumbles about not being adorable even while he sits propped up against Cass, Baymax and Mochi, basking in the warmth they radiate into frozen toes and the little aches still firing off in his heart.
Hiro widens his eyes as Fred casually skateboards between racing cars and trolleys because that can't possibly be safe, not even for a Big Hero. Wasabi shakes his head, "Everyone at San Fransokyo State is a skateboard freak, don't be so surprised."
"Hey, I take offense to that," Fred skates up to them, "There's definitely a biking club at SFST I take part in."
The three walk through the crowded shopping district, avoiding the tourist traps in search of perfect New Year gifts. Christmas was a bit subdued this year, what with Baymax "lost" in the portal and grief still settling into proper places. But now Baymax is operating and Hiro is actually excited for the coming year and getting to bother his new friends; what better way to celebrate being alive than stressing out over gifts? Wasabi groans, "We should've gone earlier than this, all the best stuff is going to be gone by now!"
Hiro shrugs, "We'll find something," and maybe it's the Hamada blood in his veins but he's called away from the main streets to the back alleys where bot fights take place and hole in the wall tea shops sell the stuff that Aunt Cass would die for. And there's cute china figures too, which Honey collects, and Wasabi finds the one back alley bike repair shop in all of San Fransokyo that sells the exact bike chain oil that Gogo uses on her traditional bike. "Hmm," Hiro palms a tiny festival doll, "I wonder what to get Abigail..." Not to mention Fred and Wasabi; Hiro tries to think of something, and curses his stupid empty brain.
Fred's phone goes off and he spends a moment having a very strange conversation about cake, waving his arms around and his easy-going voice going rather authoritative for once. Wasabi explains, "He's heading a New Year's dinner for the SF Food Pantry and the Habitat for Families, so he's been on his phone all week."
Hiro raises his eyebrows, impressed at Fred's charity work. Once Fred was done reaming at the other guy for not double checking about food allergies, Hiro asks, "So you're SFIT's school mascot, and an English major at SFST—"
"I'm thinking about adding Ainu Studies as a minor, since I took so many classes about it already," Fred sidesteps a very furious Chinese lady carrying a bag full of kittens away from a shady looking cat seller. "Either that or just general Ethnic Studies with an emphasis on the history of Ainu integration within San Fransokyo and their place in current society and academics, but I figure I should just do the first, right?"
Hiro tilts his head in interest, "Hontou? Any particular reason why or you just like that subject area?"
"Yeah, my grandmother was raised by an Ainu family, so I know some stuff," Fred counts off his fingers, "Gotta balance that around English stuff, bike club stuff, food pantry stuff, Brothers From Other Mothers—which you should all join—stuff, audit classes stuff...oh, and being Fredzilla, of course."
Wasabi grins as Hiro looks at Fred in awe. He pats Hiro's shoulder, "Yep, we made the same face when we found out that stuff, little man."
"How are you even functional?" Hiro tugs at his hoodie strings, "I'm barely managing school, Big Hero stuff and Thursday shifts, and I live 20 minutes in either direction!"
"It's just a balancing game," Fred reassures as he goes off to haggle with the store owner about a pair of hina dolls for his mother, "you gotta figure out what's the most important to you and go from there."
Hiro considers this as he helps Wasabi find the exactly perfect tea set for his mother. His friends and family are important, being a Big Hero is important, his nerd school is important, and keeping Baymax out of trouble so that Tadashi's legacy could live on is important. He fumbles around with his wallet, mind slammed with what else is perched in his balancing game, and he asks Wasabi, "So what's important to you?"
"For today, my agenda is getting these gifts and going home to finish up some work on my physics project," Wasabi purchases his tea set and asks, "Any reason why?"
Hiro looks down at his feet, "Nothing, just..." Did he have something as important as Fred's charity work, or Abigail's piloting, or Tadashi's need to save lives? His microbots were made on a whim, and look where that got them. "...I'm just in a weird mood today, I guess."
This earns him a boba run after he finally decides to make Abigail her own special snowflake present, and Hiro sets aside these questions in favor of listening to Wasabi and Fred banter back and forth, sipping his chocolate milk boba tea and valuing the worth of his friends.
Hiro finds an answer to this while with Gogo, Honey and Abigail, helping them buy gifts for the other boys and Nene; the boys for obvious reasons, and Nene because she's surprisingly kind, giving them sweets Abigail thought were discontinued after her shop was broken into and not kicking them out after-hours. Honey giggles that obviously Nene must be in love with Abigail, and Hiro makes oogaly faces at their backs while the three accuse each other of dating everyone from Nene to Gigi Nguyen to Fred's butler Heathcliff.
Ugh, dating, Hiro wonders if he's ever going to appreciate that stuff and decides to focus on presents instead.
For Wasabi, all of them are pitching in to buy the pieces of a ridiculously awesome 1000 piece equipment set perfect for his physics coursework, with coordinating gift wrap. Fred is a bit trickier in that his interests are both everywhere and confined to heroic pseudo-science, but Hiro finds an old comic book shop with a giant tome on the history of the Second Golden Age of Science Fiction that he hopes Fred will enjoy.
He looks at Abigail who is flipping through one of those mushy romance books, and Hiro sighs because if romance isn't important to him yet, then what is? Tadashi had a mission when he built Baymax, he had something important to him, and Tadashi isn't here to help answer this strange question pulling at Hiro's thoughts.
"Something up, Hiro?" Abigail pokes Hiro's forehead and it doesn't hurt like it used to but he still finds himself comparing older siblings.
He rubs his forehead, "Nothing, I'm just thinking about a question Fred brought up earlier this week."
"Ah, the age old 'who came first: the velociraptor or the egg'?"
"Well, obviously the velociraptor, but then again I'm not in evolutionary sciences—we're off topic," Hiro narrows his eyes when Abigail cracks up, "and your sense of humor is stupid."
"Sorry," she ruffles his hair and he's comparing his neesan and niisan again, "I just think it's funny how serious you can get. But seriously," both of their voices do the softening Thing when they're concerned, "what's on your mind?"
Hiro looks down at the gift he's purchased, and thinks of the gifts waiting at home in his closet near the partitioned off section of Tadashi's corner, and they're not getting New Years postcards this year which sucks because Aunt Cass loves receiving them, and he sighs, "I don't know what are the most important things in my life. It seems like I just get general answers, like friends and family and school, but Tadashi had real goals, and so do you and Fred and everyone, and I..."
The depression hits and he rubs his nose against the general cold, "It's stupid, I'm just being down, it's fine."
Abigail half smiles and wraps her arm around his shoulders, "You're fourteen—a genius fourteen year old, don't get me wrong, but when I was your age, I was still bot fighting and sneaking alcohol with my old best friend and didn't know that I wanted to be a pilot quite yet." She looks up to see that Honey and Gogo have moved on and pulls him after them, "You have time to develop a robotics project, and time to grow a little taller, and time to figure out what you wanna do.
"And trust me," she grins as she shoves him forward, "we all know for a fact that you're going to be brilliant."
Hiro kinda wants to cry but these are happy, embarrassed tears and he hides them beneath being fussed over by Honey over his cold cheeks and nose. Maybe he should try and knit Abigail a scarf, the one she as around her neck is fraying and dull against her newer coat, but maybe that's the chill speaking from his toes. But Honey's side is warm and Gogo's rubbing warmth into his back and Abigail's leading them through the knotted up stores, and he decides it's important to figure out which of his teammates would be best to ask for help about this project.
It's a tiny importance, but it's important all the same, and the air is crisp with new ideas breathing in and out like the e-cig vapor Abigail exhales in shades of peppermint spice.
Honey knows fashion, Wasabi knits, Gogo has an eye for dyeing and Fred is too enthusiastic about life to leave out, to say nothing of Baymax's reassuring presence.
Aunt Cass laughs when Hiro pricks his finger again and yes, he sucks at this but this is gonna be the greatest scarf in the history of forever. Water and stain phobic, fire proof, static resistant, it's 20 feet of specially designed fibers to act like silk on steroids, thin but heat retaining without being crinkly, and it's a soft dusky white with delicate orange and gold swirl print that can be knotted in 200 different ways, and protect Abigail's neck while she's on her hoverboard. Maybe she can even use it as a weapon, it's strong enough for Hiro to hold onto while Baymax tugs the scarf over San Fransokyo without fraying, and judging from Honey's jealous glances Hiro wonders if he can sell this.
But first, Abigail. Hiro ducks his head when Gogo snaps her gum, "Impressive, boy genius. She's going to love it."
"It's so cute," Honey runs her hands over the silk, "I'm sooo going to ask you for this during the summer, it would make for perfect dresses!"
Hmm, it could also work as a super thin and super strong undersuit for their super suits. Hiro's calves get a beating from wind shear up in the air and he's already planning for black dyed super socks to protect his skinny chicken legs. He rubs his forehead to get his priorities on straight and presses his back to Wasabi's side since he's warm and Hiro has a love-hate relationship with the cold.
Yes, cold is painful, but at least it means you're not on fire, but then again death is also cold, so really it's in everyone's best interest to just stay warm.
He snorts when Fred stabs himself with Wasabi's needles and gets the "on a scale of one to ten" routine from Baymax. But it's integral for Baymax to be a worrywart, always shuffling into people's business and giving out the best hypothermia-busting hugs. Hiro looks down at Abigail's present and yes, this is good, this is important, he's made something that isn't completely based on someone else's work and maybe
maybe he can do something with his microbots in his own life mission. Those were his robots that Callaghan corrupted and made into weapons, those were Hiro's and maybe he doesn't want them back as they were but they got him into nerd school, maybe they can give him a new purpose beyond the obvious Big Hero stuff.
His stomach grumbles and everyone pushes him downstairs to pig out on peppermint bark macarons and abuelita that Honey helps Aunt Cass make, and Gogo calls Abigail since the presents are packed away and there's an empty space by Baymax that needs filling. Hiro wonders if they're all going to go to the temple on New Years, since Tadashi is dead but Abigail is now his claimed older sister and Baymax counts as family and so does everyone else now.
There's so much going on in his stupid empty brain so he just sits between Gogo and Baymax and sips abuelita, savoring the warmth. He misses Tadashi, the holidays are so off-putting without him. But then Abigail comes and squeezes into the lot of them and Aunt Cass makes them all watch Attack of the 50 Foot Snowman with her. Fred loves that movie and he and Cass geek out over the crap special effects, and Wasabi and Honey fight over the macarons while Gogo and Abigail keep out-commenting each other for a last word that Hiro doesn't get but laughs at anyway.
Mochi curls up into Hiro's lap and purrs away a storm, and Baymax is everyone's pillow but especially Hiro, who rests his head where Tadashi's face would shine through the vinyl when asked. His loved ones are here and it's warm and he hasn't got a clue what he's doing with his life for now but he has a few ideas, and Hiro relaxes just enough for the tension of Fred's question to slide away and dissolve into empty cups of abuelita.
There's fireworks outside up by the koi fish turbines and temple bells ringing all over San Fransokyo, and Hiro watches them all with Baymax from atop a skyscraper. He's supposed to be home with Aunt Cass but right now he needs to think and the air is cold enough up here to keep the tears at bay.
"I am detecting increasing levels of stress and depression from you," Baymax scans.
Hiro sniffles, "I'm just being sad, that's all."
Tadashi loved New Years, he loved the food and the temples and the people, and he would always help Hiro put on a kimono for morning celebrations. Sure, it's easier to put on than the woman's kimono tucked away with the rest of their mother's belongings, but now Hiro has to do it by himself and his hands shake too much.
"Would it help if I play more of Tadashi's recordings?" Baymax blinks and he's a healthcare robot but his voice is doing the softening Thing like Tadashi used to do and Hiro finally cries.
"Please," he asks first in English then in Japanese, and Hiro watches his brother come back to life in short snippets.
In some of them, he forgets to turn off Baymax's recording video and he works at his desk, chugs energy drinks, sleeps under his chair and runs off to pick up Hiro from another bot fight gone sour. Hiro wonders how he would always find him but figures he appreciates the older brother mystery, and catches Tadashi mumbling, "That kid is going to be the death of me."
Hiro catches a sob in his frozen hands and he needs mittens, he needs a scarf, he needs Tadashi to come warm up his hands and hide together in the kotatsu and kiss his forehead when Hiro is so blown back by sudden grief that he's 3 years old again. Maybe if Hiro had pulled Tadashi back, maybe if Hiro had taken the neurotransmitter with him when he left his exhibit, maybe if Hiro had met Abigail earlier and convinced her not to enter the portal, Tadashi could be here watching the fireworks with Hiro and keeping away the cold.
"It's ok to cry," Baymax soothes, and Hiro crawls into his embrace, wanting to cut out all the rotten pieces of grief still sticking to his heart. It's been a few months and it still hurts so bad, Tadashi is gone but not really but kinda really and there's no easy bandaid for this kind of pain.
"Thank you Baymax," Hiro wipes his eyes once his crying jag is over, and then wipes at the tear stained vinyl, "Sorry."
"I am a robot, I cannot be offended."
Hiro laughs because there's not much else to do, and then watches the fireworks for a bit more. Aunt Cass will be waiting with warm hugs, and he can always ask his friends to come hide under the kotatsu with him, and Abigail's already lived through Hiro's cuddle attack, maybe she can kiss his forehead too. Maybe Mochi will if all else fails, and Hiro laughs a bit more at the image, feeling the grief lift up and pass along with the sound of temple bells.
Baymax flies him back home before Aunt Cass notices, and he joins her for one of the songs on Kouhaku Uta Gassen. "I didn't know people still watched this," he says, "wasn't this popular when you and my mom and dad were little?"
"It's a tradition," Cass ruffles his hair, "Your mom would always predict who would win, she conned me and your father out of a lot of money."
Hiro smiles, then sits closer to his aunt and asks, "can you tell me about them?"
It turns out that Mae Hamada née Rudolph conned more than just money from her little sister and hapless boyfriend. She got Cass to clean the entire house every week, got Tomeo to convince his Japanese speaking friends to pronounce her name like "mei" instead of "maeh", and conned both of them into dancing at the major temple in San Fransokyo on New Year's in ballerina tutus in a plot so convoluted that even Cass doesn't get how it happened.
During the course of the stories his head ends up in her lap and her fingers are in his hair, just like Tadashi and Abigail and maybe once upon a time his con artist mother and his long suffering father. Baymax is nestled by his side, recording everything for future reference, and Hiro asks softly, "Does the hurt ever go away?"
The fingers still before brushing along his hairline down to his cheek, "No, but it gets easier to breathe around it."
Aunt Cass has lost her older sister, her brother-in-law and her nephew, and Hiro doesn't get how she can function like this when he still falls apart. Then he remembers that stability is important for her because he is important to her, and he mumbles, "I love you."
He can hear her get all sniffly from his admittedly rare declaration of affection, and he decides to say it more often. She's important, his cobbled together family is important like the city he protects, and living up to Tadashi's hopes is so important that it leaves Hiro breathless. There's hands in his hair and his friends' hands on his back though, so he plans on making it through.
They love their gifts, Hiro blushes when Honey chokes him into a giant hug and rumples his carefully pressed kimono.
They're in the cafe, dressed in their New Year's best and Hiro being cooed over because apparently none of them have ever seen him in traditional dress before and he's adorable again. Cass takes pictures with Honey and Hiro and Gogo share their grief over his kimono and her hanbok, while Wasabi tries to explain to Fred that no, beanies do not go with semi-formal attire.
Abigail looks a little sad and lost and Hiro blames her father since she most likely had her own New Year's traditions derailed by the previous year. But then she opens her scarf and she's squishing Hiro into a hug, spinning him around and making everyone laugh at how tiny he is. Hiro grumbles and hisses like Mochi and Baymax hugs him and lectures his friends about adolescent mood swings.
Everything is bright and colorful and there's New Year's red replacing Gogo's hair streaks and Honey teaching both Spanish and German holiday songs to the woefully incompetent bunch; Gogo nails them all with a Korean song and Hiro's shy Japanese has them all singing along to the bilingual radio.
Hiro pouts and sticks his tongue out and smiles so much that his cheeks hurt, and he ends up smushed against Abigail, Cass and Hamada while he challenges Gogo to an ill-conceived arm wrestle. Gogo beats everyone except for Wasabi who she battles to a draw and Cass breaks out the mochi and kurikinton to munch on while they go around on temple runs in San Fransokyo.
Nothing hurts today, not even when Hiro lights incense for Tadashi and his parents that night to wish them a Happy New Years, because everyone is with him and he was right, he can make it through as long as his important people are here to keep him warm.
Hiro leads them all on a midnight flight over the continuous fireworks. They swirl around the colors as shouts of celebration rise into the sky, and they welcome the new year with all the determination that has surrounded them as long as Abigail studied for her pilot's license at the age of 12, as long as Fred fought for various charities, as long as Gogo pushed her limits, as long as Wasabi rose above his family's disadvantaged background, as long as Honey forced femininity into her fielkd of study, as long as Tadashi ever protected Hiro and Baymax ever protected Hiro and Hiro protected Baymax and Tadashi's memory.
You know when I said that these drabbles weren't gonna be too connected? I lied for this one XD
These drabbles centered around New Years (my timeline of It's a Body Shock puts them in the end of December when Baymax 2.5 is made, which is kinda awkward considering that they're starting winter quarter at SFIT at this time as well but now it's New Years, but whatever, we don't need to think too hard about this)
These also centered around Hiro's relationship to temperature, personal importance, more Hiro and Abigail fluff, and general Big Hero 7 fluff with special mention to Cass Hamada née Rudolph, who got adopted into the Hamadas when her sister and bol were alive and kept the name as she raised her siblings. Dem headcanons lol
Anyway, I hope you liked these!