because I'm exhausted from Black Friday shopping and want to retaliate with some more angst

someone rescue my characters fromme

disclaimer: I don't own the copyrighted material within

Wasabi ruffles Hiro's hair when he walks by in the lab, and Hiro sticks out his tongue.

Apparently none of his friends have ever seen a boy with spiky hair, since they won't stop touching it. Wasabi ruffles, Gogo flips, Fred noogies, Honey sneaks cute little clips in and Abigail alternates between running her fingers through in a rush of tingles and tugging on his hair like Aunt Cass tugging at his ear. Even Nene messes with his hair when he gorges himself on gummy bear sundaes during homework sessions, and Hiro doesn't get it.

Fred charges through, enthusiastic about more fake science, and ruins the rest of Hiro's hair. Hiro whines, "Stop, I'm trying to focus on robot stuff and—"

His eyes widen, then he yelps as a static charge surges from his in-progress robot built to his thumb. "Oww!" Baymax inflates to the general hilarity of the people around him, and Hiro sucks on his thumb. Fred does a double take...then frizzes Hiro's hair up again, and Hiro can hear the air sharpen. "What are you doing?"

"By the power of Thor!" and Fred shoves Hiro into Gogo, who shrieks like a very small child when she electrocutes herself on her bike. Fred belly laughs as Honey and Wasabi titter behind the safety of insulated glass, and raises his hands when Gogo rounds on him, "It's a science experiment!"

Gogo digs her hand into Hiro's hair, charges up another round, and shocks Fred onto the floor. Hiro yells and Fred declares war and Baymax is unsuccessful in navigating his way to his patient. Fred shocks Gogo into Gigi Nguyen, who shocks Elio Miura, who shocks all the way around the room to Honey who squeals and shocks both Fred and Wasabi at once.

Hiro's hair defies gravity and Abigail walks in on him snarling like a bath soaked Mochi, slapping at Gogo's hands while she uses him to taser Fred in the face. "Umm?"

"Hiro is in great distress," Baymax remarks as Hiro starts yelling at everyone in filthy Japanese, "although I am not too concerned about his bodily safety."

Abigail looks at the web of black electricity sparking on his head, then bursts into giggles because Tadashi's hair did the same thing and there was a good reason why he wore a baseball cap 24/7. She tells Hiro so once she manages to rescue him from the Fred vs Gogo War, and he groans as Baymax looks him over, "Such a wasted opportunity."

Then she runs her fingers through his hair and he whines a bit more.

Honey rubs her chin, appraising Abigail and Gogo from their heads to their toes, then nods, "I have all of your body types in my room."

They'd been invited to a seminar for SFIT's female students, celebrating the continuous smashing of glass ceilings, and so of course they'd have to dress to impress potential sponsors and internship organizers. In Honey's cozy flat above the school coffee shop a spectrum of dresses pile upon each other on overstuffed chairs and lolita coord diagrams, and Gogo rubs her arms, "This seems a bit excessive."

"The other girls at Dizzy Kei are pulling from the piles, and I invited Nene over to look later," Honey rummages in a box of puffy petticoats, "Any color requests?"

"Yellow," and Abigail's heart flutter just a bit when Gogo yanks off her top, "something not too frilly either, I want to move around and not tear up lace or whatever."

Honey giggles about savages and Abigail runs her hand through a pile, eyes searching for a favorable color palette. However, her mind lingers on technicolors not so easily translated into silks and polyesters, and she sucks on her e-cig mouthpiece. Gogo seeks her sulk and snaps Abigail's bra strap, "Pick out something pretty, make everyone jealous of those thighs."

Abigail grins, "Like I can compare with your calves?" and Operation Find Gogo Replacement is going down in flames but whatever, Honey finds Gogo a high necked body fitting yellow qipao that has Abigail seeing new dimensions. Honey herself is decked out in "business-loli", all pastel pinks and somehow convincing a business suit to have a cupcake skirt, and Abigail is left alone in her bra ad short shorts.

Until she sees it.

It's much softer than her more stark, casual style, tulle spilling from a pearl studded empire waist to froth just beneath her knees. And the colors play with each other, teal against coral, lavender against light gold, and when she puts it on and twirls it's like spinning through the portal without the pain. It's not as bodycon as Gogo nor as poofy as Honey's—the waist is relaxed, letting her breathe, and when she takes a sip of apricot menthol she feels in charge.

She looks at Gogo and Honey and asks, "What do you think?"

Gogo cracks her gum, "If we weren't teammates, I'd totally take you into the other room."

All three of them laugh and do their makeup, Honey pinning flowers that bear Big Hero colors in the petals to their dresses. Then Honey pins up Abigail's hair, drawing chic from her rather boring locks, and when Nene walks in to nonchalantly strip down, Abigail looks even lovelier than her beauty queen mother.

Once Nene puts on a modernized kimono and Carol Nguyen squeals with Honey over new commissions, they all head out to the seminar. Abigail meets awestruck eyes of her peers and superiors with her chin lifted and her strappy heels clacking powerhouse concerto on the marble floors. Gogo is wooed by one of the major automobile companies, Honey strikes up an alliance between various sororities to support San Fransokyo's charity closet, and Abigail spies Nene having an interesting tete-a-tete with another former bot fighter.

And Abigail herself smirks at everyone who'd put her down after the Yokai incident, sampling all the little cakes and making sponsors squirm from her direct charm. Her shoes shine under the lights, and she exhales colorful vapor that matches her dress, sizing up her future and considering.

Wasabi presses his hand to Abigail's waist, and she bites down around a curse. She hears Fred, Gogo and Honey annihilate the dipstick in the shark powered jet pack who thought it was hilarious to try and create a sharknado straight from Fred's comic books, and she wishes she could help but alas, shark bites are painful.

Hiro wrings his hands by her side because there's blood everywhere and she wants to smack him upside the head and knock away all the guilt welling up like rotten honey in his eyes. She fingers the torn edges of her super suit, hypercompetent fabric fraying ever so slightly, and she sighs, "If I'd been wearing my sweatpants, I wouldn't have a leg."

Hiro flinches and Wasabi presses down harder, "ETA on Baymax, little man?"

"H-He's circling back from Honey," Hiro wrings harder until Abigail grabs his hands, and his eyes fix on her leg, "Do we have to go to the hospital?"

Baymax says that they have to go to the hospital, and this is not good. So far they've avoided actual injuries that can't be fixed by their personal butt-saving companion, keeping them away from the bothersome, identity-outing paperwork that regulated healthcare comes with. Abigail gags at the teeth marks along her ribs when Baymax dresses them, and Wasabi keeps Hiro from freaking out too badly.

Thankfully, they all congregate after Shark Face is put down, and the ER nurses all whisper behind their hands like starstruck shoujo when Fred nearly burns down the doors in his haste to bring Abigail inside. She gets stitched up with the promise of a new set of scars that hopefully are sexy instead of scary and can be explained to those outside of the know, and then the nurses and surgeon freeze up because they need her identity for payment and stuff and this is going to suck.

Honey whispers, "How much?" and it's a lot. Hospital people in suits instead of scrubs come to talk to the worried nurses with paparazzi eyes, and Abigail wants to run.

But then Alistair Krei waltzes in like he owns the place (he probably does, Abigail recoils in her mind), waving away nosy hospital officials with,"Whatever their injuries cost, I'll cover it pro-bono." He is so slick, convincing everyone that no, their identities can totally remain confidential as they should for the safety of San Fransokyo, and if the officials need a bit more money to cover that cost then well, he wasn't hurting for cash.

They're saved and Abigail wants to hug her knees to her chest but her abdomen has fresh stitches and she doesn't want anymore scars caused by Krei, her elbows sting subzero when he meets her gaze. Hiro takes the lead and half-smiles, "Thank you, Mr. Krei, this is...unexpected."

Krei BSes for a bit because he can't help himself, but when Abigail is frozen and the other heroes are too unnerved to laugh, he drops the act. "It's the least I can do," and his voice is soft, almost sincere to Abigail's ear, "for the people who saved my life, and the person I owe greatly."

Abigail flinches and Hiro looks back to put his hand near hers. She smiles a bit and grabs onto his fingers, seeking his warmth.

"If you don't mind, I'll gladly cover any medical bills," Krei plays on his phone, "it's perfect publicity for me, and this way you don't die before you graduate, Mr. Hamada."

Hiro takes a half step back towards Abigail and Krei smiles, "Your secret is safe with me, but keep your visor on when you save multimillionaire hostages?"

"R-Right," Hiro half-laughs and Abigail still sees the guilt in his eyes.

She frowns, then sucks up her dislike of Krei, and sits up for her team's sake, "Thank you, Mr. Alistair," she flashes her shiny white teeth, "We'll try not to abuse your generosity."

When he leaves she lays back down and asks for the good expensive pain killers. No one stops her because there's fragments of broken trust realigning in her eyes with all the unhappiness brought on by Robert Callaghan's death sentence, and they can imagine how this generosity much sting at her elbows. Fred goes out to get her good hospital food and Hiro sticks by her side, rubbing at his eyes until she exhales, "I'll jump in front of sharks for you any day, so get used to it and stop being so guilty."

His lips quirk upwards and she pulls everyone in for a hug, Baymax too because he's a giant healthcare marshmallow, and the promise of future scars in their stomachs is soothed away for a while.

All of them get nightmares, it's a given with what they've lived through. But Hiro is only fourteen and the fire still burns under his skin along with all the times he could've disappointed his brother so badly.

This night he dreams of what could've been, squished against the couch armrest and Fred after a Godzilla marathon/team bonding mission. He slips deep into the dark, tormented by flashes of searing heart on his arms and glass digging into his eyes and Tadashi is gone, Tadashi is dead and his bones were broken to ash before they could pass chopsticks and

Callaghan is there, maskless and spitting that Tadashi's death was his own mistake. Hiro feels tears burn plasma down his cheeks and instead of turning to Baymax, he looks down and sees the demon mask. His neurotransmitter, his microbots controlled by this mask and abused for Callaghan's own needs, they were stolen from him like Tadashi was and Abigail's not dead so the entire loss meant absolutely nothing.

He picks up the mask and Gogo asks him what he's doing but Gogo isn't Tadashi no one is and Tadashi's dead because of one little thief. Baymax asks if this is what Tadashi would've wanted and he's dead, remember? he can't want anything now? and like a conductor he crescendos the microbots back into his control and pushes he team far away from the dark.

Callaghan moves to run and he slams him hard against the wall, and Abigail once said that she'd wished she'd died to make up for Tadashi but that isn't fair to Hiro, she isn't the one at fault here. It's Callaghan's fault, he did this and he doesn't care about Tadashi and why does he get to live after all the lives he's scattered with the ashes?

"Microbots," Hiro's voice is dark and twisted and broken apart like Tadashi's when he explained that mom and dad aren't coming back, "destroy!"

The microbots surge and flesh tears and Hiro becomes a murderer and Callaghan screams like how Tadashi screamed before he's crushed by burning rubble—

Hiro wakes up in a rush, heart racing and throat closed up. He trips away from Fred's side and out of Fred's room into the dark manor halls and he can't breathe past the smoke and blood and where's Abigail, where's Baymax, where's Aunt Cass, where's Tadashi?

Heathcliff finds him cowering under the kitchen sink and sits him down on a sofa, hot chocolate in a ridiculously ornate cup and a warm blanket around his shoulders. Hiro only gets half a moment to choke out a thank you before Heathcliff reappears with Baymax and a very groggy Abigail. Abigail yawns and Baymax asks what is troubling Hiro, and Hiro can't help it, the nightmare roils back up and he could've been a murderer and it hurts to know how much he's not like his brother.

Next thing he knows he's in Abigail's arms, slender hands steadying his hot chocolate and Baymax playing more Tadashi videos, soft Tadashi videos, Tadashi videos that make Hiro smile past the ache in his heart and make Abigail laugh into Hiro's hair. They stay like that for a while, Hiro finishing his cup and Abigail not asking questions, until Hiro finally says, "I-It was a nightmare, about me and your father."

Abigail twirls a lock of black hair around her finger, "I don't blame you, he wasn't on his best behavior when he tried to smash you guys with your microbots."

Hiro jolts hard and her arms steady him and he hides his shame in his hands, "I dreamed that It-took the mask after what he s-said about Tadashi and I killed him, I'm no b-better than he is, aren't I?"

"Hiro—"

"If I'd l-looked down, that's what would've happened, and he'd be dead!"

"Hiro no—"

"And then y-you'd still be in the portal and I'd be in prison and o-oh, Tadashi would've been s-so disappointed! He'd h-hate m-me!"

Abigail turns him to face her and narrows her eyes, "Tadashi Hamada loved you more than life itself, he'd never hate you in a thousand lifetimes." Then she expression softens with her words, "You had a nightmare, a bad ending what-if, and obviously you didn't since I'm here and my father's in prison and we're saving the city.

"Oh Hiro," she kisses his forehead and exhales above his sob, "if Tadashi is watching us, he'd be the opposite of disappointed, he'd be so proud of you."

Hiro is fourteen and very aware of his sensitive crybaby nature, but he cries without shame into her shoulder because she's alive and he's not a murderer and Tadashi might be gone but Hiro can feel his love in Abigail, in Baymax, in his friends and family and the skies above San Fransokyo. The hurt dies down back into the dark and he wakes up later to the scent of Wasabi making multigrain waffles, Honey taking a picture of him and Abigail with her fingers still in his hair and her lips to his forehead.

Hiro smiles as he bows three times in front of the little shrine, placing a little bowl of tempura udon by Tadashi's picture. There's no occasion for this, no holiday or death day or anniversary...it's just him and Tadashi in their room, Aunt Cass making chicken wings downstairs while Baymax observes and Mochi cleaning himself on the windowsill.

"I'm sure you must be tired of me only visiting when I'm crying" he shrugs at the shrine, "because I certainly am, and Prof. Chiang—you know, the Asian Cultures teacher that splits between SFIT and SFST?—gave me this idea about sharing a bit of my day every day with you so you'll know I'm in good hands and I can...well, you know, get some peace about all of this with you and myself. So yeah," he rubs the back of his head, "This is so awkward, kaasan and tousan must be rolling in their graves, ne?"

He sits down on the bed and pulls out his notebook from his bag, "So you started doing heavy work on Baymax our freshman year because of that research grant the school gives out to major protects, right? Well, my ideas aren't nearly as cool as yours," Hiro shows off the design ideas in his notebook, flipping through pages of robots built to take down threats bigger than even Baymax can handle. He blushes, "Yeah, I know, they look like battle bots, and basically are battle bots, but I gotta start somewhere. Honey said that she blew up her family's toolshed when she was starting out, so if my King Katana prototype ends up skewering me to a wall, Baymax will lecture me in your place."

Hiro taps his bottom lip, then flips to a new page, "And I think I want to reclaim my microbots for myself. Make them smaller too, more nano than micro, because Nene—Nene Wakahisa? Kinda short, runs that dessert bar you and Abigail used to go to?—was taking about how in her kinesiology classes, a huge issue with rehabilitating paraplegic is both the disconnection between nerves and the wasting away of muscles as a result. And I was thinking, why not make nanobot braces and support structures and nerve connectors with smart skin applications?" He smiles bright and wide, "It's different from a neurotransmitter, since you can't consciously alter these bots into weapons; they work on biofeedback and sympathetic reactions to nerve triggers, and the smart skin itself is super interesting, if I figure out a way for the nanobots to be more like flesh it can replace amputated limbs and huge burns..."

Hiro's smile softens to something a bit more fragile in its expanse of hope, "Baymax is going to help a lot of people already, and I just want to make sure that everyone has a chance." He's silent for a moment, then laughs and lightly shoves the table the shrine is on, "Knock it off niisan, I said I'm not going to cry as much anymore. I don't have time for it," he squishes his face, "This new nanobot stuff is super awesome but suuuper hard to conceptualize, not to mention all of the team gear has to be upgraded to keep up with demand, and I also want to use the nanobots for my original ideas with the microbots, and whoever invented homework can eat my—"

"Hiro," Aunt Cass called out, "dinner's ready!"

"Ok!" Hiro closes his notebook and lingers by Tadashi's shrine, before ducking his head and mumbling, "So rest easy, ok? I'll probably get sad again, because I miss you, so so much...but it's getting better, and my friends are amazing, and I'm going to change the world. So yeah," he fist bumps his brother's picture frame, "tell mom and dad I said hi."

Hiro opens the door, watching Mochi leave for the kitchen...and whispers, "And I like Shizu's udon, but don't say I told you so!" before running downstairs to gossip with his aunt about the general hilarity of college

and maybe where pain doesn't exist and the universes are settled on a physical plane, tadashi looks down at one of the best options his parents have found, and whispers i love you too.

I hurt Hiro a lot but then I want him to find peace and happiness and excitement in his new future so it balances out. And I wanted to touch on Abigail's mixed feelings towards Krei, the general awesomeness of the girls, and their extended classmates. I can't promise that Gigi Nguyen is gonna be important beyond a name I keep dropping, but Nene has a purpose, I can assure you.

Anyway, I hoped you liked this batch of drabbles! I threw in some Sophie's Universal Singularity at the end because I NEEEEEEEEEED to believe that Tadashi is watching Hiro from beyond and is just so proud of his baby brother, I NEEEEEEED that.

Also, Hiro's nightmare is based on a tumblr post: holyhairbrush dot tumblr dot com/ post/ 103615771483/ i-guess-you-could-call-this-an-anti-hiro-au