Alright you guys, I hate to say this, but this story is about wrapped up. I did mentioned that this story was going to be significantly shorter than the other two.

BUT don't fret young pet!

There's o.n.e more supershortsupersupershort story I have planned. And when I say 'supershortsupersupershort' I mean 'supershortsupersupershort'. It's literally going to be three chapters, four at MOST.

(-)

I'm Okay

Chapter Eight

Tadashi was sort of glad, as glad as one could be in his shoes, that the one supervising him while h worked on the last bit of wiring for the portal was Krei. And surprisingly, at least to Tadashi it was, Krei was the quiet type. You wouldn't expect that from the way in interviews the man wouldn't shut up about whatever topic they were discussing. But here Krei was very quiet. So quiet in fact, sometimes Tadashi forgot he was there in the room until the older man would cough or turn a page in whatever he was reading, something to make any sort of noise; and Tadashi would jump three feet high.

Tadashi wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing, just working on autopilot; so the sudden shock he felt in his fingers and the nanosecond of bright blue light startled him more than hurt him; but he yelped in surprise and slight pain anyway.

"What did you do?" Krei asked in an almost monotonous voice, not even bothering to look up from his book.

The college student was too busy shaking his hand to get the pain out of his shot nerves to answer, but gave the older male a look from where he sat, partially under the portal that was held up on cinderblock and a pulley, much like how a garage holds a car up to work on the underside of it. "None of your concern. The portal is fine." The young males voice was clipped and sharp.

He was tired of this thing the two supposedly enemies had going. Tadashi wasn't sure how long he'd been with them, but he knew it'd been a while, only going by the fact his hair was getting to the point it was actually in his eyes now. He had always made certain to get his hair cut when it'd start to fall over his face and he'd have to use gel to get it to stay in it's place. So for it to be long enough to be in his eyes he'd been gone for a while.

"Anything you do to that portal is my business, thank you very much." Krei stated. "Not only because of the fact that it's mine in the first place, but because I'm in this room watching you because we can't have you tampering with it."

Tadashi dropped his wrench and pulled himself out from underneath the portal. "How am I supposed to tamper with it?" He sat up and looked at Krei. "Make it only work for a few seconds, give you guys a false sense of certainty that it works?"

"The fact you came up with that in two seconds time," Krei pointed out, "Gives me the hunch that you at least thought about doing something to it."

Tadashi crossed his arms. "I've had thoughts yes, doesn't mean I'll actually do something to it. I don't know what you two are planning, and I don't want this to explode and hurt people, or whatever would happen if this when haywire." It wasn't lost on Tadashi when Krei visibly flinched at those words.

"It wouldn't be good." The older male muttered and tried to get back to reading his book.

"What would happen?" The oldest Hamada male asked he treaded gently on the subject, getting a sense that Krei didn't really want to talk about it.

The other man was silent for a long moment, long enough to get Tadashi to think he wasn't going to get and answer and he started reaching back to grab his wrench.

"It'd be pretty hard to not know what happens when the portal malfunctions. It was all over the news years and years ago." The tech giant finally responded.

Tadashi abandoned his wrench once more in favor of facing Krei. "I only know what the papers said. And the fact that I was only nine at the time, I don't quite remember everything that I read about it."

The middle-aged man sighed and put his book down. "There used to be two, enter one and leave through the other. But one of the portals exploded, so yes, that is a possibility of you tampering with it and it doing that. But the one you're fixing right now, started imploding on itself and started vacuuming everything around it into the portal." He rushed to explain. "Lost one of my greatest employees that day." He practically whispered the rest, more to himself than to the charge in front of him.

But Tadashi still heard it. "I'm sorry." And he was, he's lost people in his life, people he'd never get back but missed terribly, his parents, a few childhood friends he lost in high school. Even if someone was an employee, it was still hard on one's mind and heart.

"Just," Krei sighed, "get back to work and don't tamper with it." He picked his book up and went back to reading.

The young adult sat there for a moment before once again reaching for his wrench.

(-)

"So, why are you and Callaghan working together?" Tadashi questioned a while later when he moved to work on the other side of the portal.

Krei let out an annoyed huff of breath, loud enough that Tadashi could hear from across the large open room. "Because we can." He stated as if he were talking to a child.

Tadashi shrugged it off, he wanted to keep talking, and he hadn't had much conversation since Callaghan kidnapped him in the fire. "You two seem to really hate each other."

"Your point?" The Krei Tech founder snapped at the younger man.

"My point," Tadashi began. "Is that you two are being somewhat nice in each other's presence."

Krei rolled his eyes. "We are capable of being nice, you know."

"Or put on a good charade for years." Tadashi grumbled to himself.

"What was that?" The older male asked.

"That's surprising." Tadashi answered a little louder. He turned from his work to look over at the man across the room.

Krei leaned back in his chair. "And what does that mean."

Tadashi pulled himself out from underneath the portal again. "Nice people don't kidnap others." He motioned to Krei with his head. "Nice people don't take others away from their daily lives and force them to put back together a project that the government shut down. Nice people don't start fires to cover up their theft of a fourteen year old's showcase project. Nice people don't do those things."

Tadashi could swear he saw Krei's eye twitch from where he sat.

"I said we were capable of being nice, not that we are nice twenty-four-seven. We're not you." The insufferable man at the table growled.

"Never said you were me." The younger calmly stated. "I'm just saying if you two were nice, in any sense of the word, you wouldn't have done this. You two are just great actors."

"Just get back to work." Krei spoke through clenched teeth.

"Why are you two working together?" Tadashi continued his questioning completely ignoring the angry look he was getting from Krei.

"That's not something you need to know." The pissed off middle aged man stated.

The college student shrugged. "Than I guess I just conveniently forgot how to rewire something." He waved the wire he had been trying to braid back into the panel towards Krei. "I must be sleep deprived. I heard that happens when you kidnap someone and you make them sleep on a cot that shouldn't even bee qualified for sleeping on." Tadashi continued to practically taunt. "You know, a pile of bricks would be more suitable to sleep on." He thought aloud.

"Then take a nap on those bricks over there, then get back to work." The blond snapped.

"I'm not working on this portal, or anything else until I get some answers." Tadashi put his figurative foot down.

Krei shrugged. "Then you're going to be here a while."

"Yeah, so are you." Tadashi leaned back against the portal and stretched his legs out in front of him.

The room fell quiet for a while, Tadashi practically lounging against the portal and Krei angrily staring at Tadashi over the top of his book.

"We're working together because we can." Krei gave the answer with a frustrated huff. "Now get back to work!"

"Why am I here?" Tadashi continued to ask questions.

Krei slammed his book on the table in front of him. "You're here because you know ho to rewire things, you're here because you knew what your brother put into those Microbots. You're here because we brought you here. And if you ever want to leave here, you better get back to work."

Needless to say, Tadashi got back to work. A pissed of Krei was actually kinda scary.

(-)

Tadashi was pretty sure he only got a nap's worth of sleep in before Callaghan was waking him up and making him finish the very last bit of the portal's wiring. He would have finished last night, except he really was sleep deprived and almost fell asleep while playing with open wires.

"You better get it done. Today." Callaghan hissed when he shoved Tadashi in front of the circuit board for the portal. "We don't have time for your silly little games today."

The college student rolled his eyes and moved the multi-layered printed circuit board to where he was working on last night. "Why don't you guys just automate this; if Krei made this, shouldn't he still have the schematics?"

Callaghan slammed his hand down next to the PCB, startling the young man beside him. "What part of 'the government shut this down' do you not understand?"

"A simple 'no, he doesn't have it' would have sufficed." Tadashi quietly commented. "And I know what it means. I was just wondering if he had something that would be more efficient and quick with repairing this."

"Well, we wouldn't be able to use them anyway, even if he had the original." Callaghan removed his hand from the tabletop, allowing Tadashi to reach for the soldering iron he needed.

Tadashi didn't say anything else, opting instead to work on the last piece he needed to finish. He knew it wasn't going to take to long for him to finish solding a few pieces of the board. He had worked on circuit boards before, Baymax having a multi-layered one, so he knew how to go about it and what not; but he never worked on one of this size, or of this importance.

"This is the last thing you have to finish, correct?" Callaghan suddenly asked over Tadashi's shoulder.

The college student jumped when he heard the former teacher's voice behind him. "Y-yeah." Was all Tadashi could stutter out, he hadn't realized Callaghan was watching him like a hawk. "I'm almost done though, shouldn't take much longer."

The older man didn't verbally reply, but stood where he was.

It did take Tadashi a little bit longer than he originally thought to finish, mostly because the sharp blue eyes watching him made him nervous.

"I still don't think you guys should fix this." Tadashi muttered to himself as he installed the last thing into the side.

"It's a little too late for that." The older male sharply said.

Tadashi gave one final twist of the screwdriver, securing the outside paneling in place. "There. Happy?"

"I'm annoyed." Callaghan replied.

The younger male tossed the screwdriver back in the little toolbox. "What are you guys even using it for?"

"Things." The middle aged man retorted. "Things that don't matter to you. They don't pertain to you. They don't concern you."

"It doesn't pertain to me?" The slightly shorter male turned to face his once-mentor. "You kidnap me, force me to reverse engineer my little brother's invention, and force me to rebuild this – almost from scratch, and it doesn't pertain to me?"

"No." The sharp voice Callaghan used went right through Tadashi's head. "It doesn't. It involves Krei and myself."

"And Hiro, and SFIT." Tadashi snapped back. "You two hurt a lot of people just to do," He motioned with his hand to the room and the portal. "Whatever it is you're trying to do. You burnt down a showcase hall, costing millions of dollars in damage, stole tech from a kid, kidnapped me. And I'm sure you guys have done other things to cause some sort of havoc to someone since you began all of this." He stood up a little straighter. "And this doesn't pertain to me?" He looked Callaghan in the eye. "Des it pertain to Hiro? To SFIT? To San Fransokyo?" He paused for a second. "It seems like it to me." He finished quietly, but not losing the force behind his words.

For a fleeting moment, it seemed as if Callaghan deflated. He actually looked as if he were thinking about something. "I just want my daughter back." He mumbled to himself, but Tadashi still heard him.

"I'm sure Hiro want's his brother back. I'm sure that Cass wants her nephew back." Brown eyes narrowed. "What would your daughter think if she ever knew what you did?"

Blue eyes went from looking at the ground to looking at Tadashi. "My daughter is none of your business." He growled.

Tadashi shook his head.

(-)

Once again, Tadashi was rudely woken up by Callaghan, though this tie it was a box hitting the young adult in the head and the sounds of something being harshly dropped on his table.

"We're going to be gone for a little while." The cold voice of Callaghan reached his ears. "Not sure how long exactly. Could be a few hours, could be a few days."

"When can I go home?" Tadashi's tired voice cracked when he asked.

"Don't know yet." Was all he got in response before the door shut with more force than necessary, and the light went out in his room.