Chapter 6: Double Whammy
He refused to. He willed himself not to. He kept telling himself 'no Hiro'. But for whatever reason, he took a peek at his mother's profile. It was just as disturbing as his father's, if not less so.
Hiro's mother, unlike his father, was a robotics engineer. That's where he got that from. Like his father's information, Hiro's mother had a list of her works and all of them, in some manner, involved making enhanced people.
There were images of various robotic creations. There were strange robots, like one that was some kind of a small spider, and another that hovered in the air and had a large camera on it. Hiro would've completely forgotten that this was all for HYDRA had it not been for a single video of an experiment. Like his father's, this one went wrong.
An image of his mother appeared on his computer screen. She was an Asian woman, with long dark hair that fell over her shoulders, and was wearing a labcoat. Hiro remembered looking at pictures of his mother, and how Aunt Cass would always talk about how beautiful her brother's wife was, and Hiro tried to think of that, hoping it would affect his view on his mother. It didn't.
The video must have been shot by the hover drone with the camera, because the view of his mother was being shown from all over the place as the camera followed her. She was in the lab like his father. And on the table, lay another victim of HYDRA's experiments. His parents experiments.
Hiro laid in the bed in his quarters with the laptop. After watching the video of his father, he was infuriated. He wasn't sure what to feel. Anger? Sadness? Fear? His parents were experimenting on people. Innocent people, who had done nothing wrong to deserve the hell HYDRA was putting them through. Hiro had retreated to his room with the laptop, leaving Skye and Fitz in the lab, so he could examine the rest of the information, and try to make sense of it. All he got was some horrifying footage of his parents doing horrible things to innocent people.
The person on the table wasn't normal like the one in the last video. This person's entire right arm was comprised of some kind of substance resembling rock. Like the subject from the last video, this man was asleep. Hiro's mother approached the man with the small spider drone in her hand, and did the most obscure thing with it. She put it in the man's mouth.
Hiro didn't understand it at first, but then his mother turned to the hover camera, and began to explain it.
"This test will tell us if serum nine gives too much, or too little to the user. We will examine the insides of subject…" Hiro's mother looked down at a clipboard in her hand, "thirty one, and see if the rock like substance has spread to the inside of the body. If so, then we will have to tweek the serum and start again." She talked as if she were just going to have to start over on the project, but in reality, if the experiment went wrong, that test subject was going to die, and she would treat it only as a failed experiment. This made Hiro's stomach turn.
"The spider drone will scan subject one's insides, and-" she didn't get to finish her sentence when the man began to be consumed by stone. It began coming up through the man's mouth, and then it spread throughout his entire body.
"Oh my god!" Hiro's mom screamed. For a moment, Hiro began to think his mother cared about the well being of that person, then the rest of the video came.
The man was completely made of stone now. Hiro's mother had gone from being horrified to upset. "Clearly, the serum was too strong. We'll work on it, and then-" Hiro shut the laptop right there. He had hoped that his mother, whom he had heard phenomenal things about, would have been better than his father. She wasn't. She was just like his father; just one of HYDRA's murderers. They called it a "revolution", but in truth, it was just of means of gaining power, and not caring about who got hurt in the process.
Hiro sat in silence for a while. He didn't know what to say, or what to do. For years, he had been told by Aunt Cass and Tadashi, that his parents had been the kindest people in the world. Hiro called that a mere exaggeration all that time, but now, after watching those videos, he knew the things said about his parents were extremely exaggerated.
Then Hiro began to think about the stories a bit more, and the one that brought them all to an end. What had happened to his parents? He knew they were dead, of course. That was pretty much one of the few important details he could remember about them. But what had actually happened to them? Hiro had been told they had died in a tragic car accident, but now knowing that his parents were part of HYDRA, he knew it went deeper than that. He wanted answers. He needed answers.
The time for searching for answers never came, unfortunately. It was three o'clock in the morning, and Hiro feared if he didn't get any sleep. He'd be too tired to focus on the task at hand: finding Ansgar. Wherever May was flying the Bus, Hiro was sure it had to be in Ansgar's direction. Why would they have been in the air if the team didn't know where Ansgar was? They must've known where they were going.
Hiro laid his head into the soft pillow on the bed, trying to forget about his parents, and all the awful things that they had done. He couldn't. For the rest of the night, his sleep was plagued with nightmares of his parents experimenting on him.
The team had thought Hiro was being paranoid when he said that they needed to protect themselves. Clearly, they were wrong.
The team had been sitting in the café all night, completely bored out of their minds. They had taken shifts for the person staying awake to alert the others if anyone tried to attack. Thank God it was Fred's turn on guard duty, because he was loud.
"Guys!" he yelled through his kaiju suit, practically jumping out of it. "Guys get up!"
"Fred come on," Wasabi said groggily, sitting up from the booth he was laying in. "I will give you everything I own if for some miraculous reason, squirrels form together into one big squirrel to attack us. But until that happens, leave us and the squirrels alone."
"One, that could happen, I saw it in a movie once. And two, I don't think squirrels are about six feet tall and carry assault rifles," Fred said, gazing out the large window in the café.
"What!" Wasabi jumped out of the boot and looked out the window as well. Sure enough, there were men creeping toward the building, armed with assault rifles. The lights in the café were all out, and it was the middle of the night, so the men probably couldn't see Wasabi and Fred standing in the window. But they would soon.
"What the hell?!" Wasabi screamed silently. "Who are those guys?"
"HYDRA I guess," Fred said calmly, as if he were staring off into space.
There were sounds of footsteps coming from upstairs, and a red armor-clad Baymax appeared as if nothing were going on. "I heard sounds of distress," the health-care companion said. "Is there something wrong?"
"No Baymax," Wasabi said quietly. "Go back upstairs, and make sure no one hurts Aunt Cass." He knew the robot wasn't programmed to harm people, so the best thing for him to do was to watch over Cass the best that he could."
"If that will improve your-"
"Yes, it will improve my health, or whatever," an annoyed Wasabi said. "Now go." Baymax began to walk back upstairs to Cass's room, and Wasabi ran to the two other members of the Big Hero 6 that were still asleep.
"Guys, get up," Wasabi went to go shake Gogo and Honey Lemon awake.
Gogo got up from her booth and yawned. "What is it?" she asked annoyed.
"HYDRA's here!" Wasabi replied.
"What!" Honey Lemon screamed as she quickly got up from her booth.
"Shhhhh!" Fred put a claw over his costume's mouth. "They don't know we're here yet. Maybe they'll-" CRASH! Fred was cut off by the sound of bullets breaking through the window. They were suppressed shots, probably so no one heard gunfire and called the police. The team immediately ducked to the ground. HYDRA was upon them.
As glass rained down over their heads, they covered themselves from it. It was completely pointless due to the fact that they were wearing helmets, but it was the natural response.
"Fred!" Wasabi yelled. "Go upstairs and protect Cass."
"What about you guys?" Fred protested.
"Just go!" Gogo yelled.
Not wanting to argue with Gogo, Fred rushed upstairs to protect Cass. The bullets had stopped, but now the sounds of men yelling orders could be heard from outside.
"Check inside!" one yelled. "No one leaves this building!"
"Um, alright," Wasabi said, beginning to get up off the floor. "What's the plan of attack?" Gogo made that badass daredevil face as she tapped a button on her helmet that made her visor activate.
"Attack," she simply answered as a soldier burst through the door. She threw one of her discs at his face, and he fell to the ground with a thud, his gun clattering to the floor.
"That's not a plan," Wasabi complained.
"It's better than nothing," Honey Lemon said as she threw a chemical ball out the window. A large pink explosion could be seen from inside, and the screams of men filled the air.
Wasabi activated his plasma blades, and readied himself for the soldiers that were going to come pouring in through the door. The fight was on. The only question was, how long were they going to last?
Hiro never wanted to sleep again. He woke up thrashing in his bed, filled with the thoughts of his own parents harming him. He had a nightmare, where his father was injecting him with the Extremis serum, and that he exploded without his father giving any sort of care. Hiro hated to think of his parents that way, but it's how he saw them now. Murderers.
He looked out the window and noticed that the sky was the clearest he had seen it in days. It was morning now, so the sun floated slightly above the horizon, and there were surprisingly no clouds in the sky. Down below, Hiro could see nothing but forests for miles. He wasn't sure where the May had flown them to, but he wasn't worried about that at the moment. He wasn't even worried about his parents. No, at that moment, he was hungry. He hadn't eaten in a while, and Fitz called him to the lab before he could get his hands on his late night snack comprised of gummy bears.
Hiro got up out of bed, taking notice of his helmet this time. He could have just moved it, but, nah. As Hiro opened up his door, he found Coulson sitting in the lounge. Was he always sitting there in the morning? He was on the phone, not taking notice of Hiro's presence.
"I understand that, but what Ansgar's doing there may cause a situation similar to the one in New York," he told the person on the other end of the line. He waited a while so the other person could talk, then began to speak again. "We know he's been in possession of Loki's scepter. He's been using it to experiment on people… No. Not enhanced people. He's been trying to give powers to normal people… No we're not sure if he has it now but… That shouldn't matter. We're tracking him down because he's put innocent people in danger, and capturing him is the first step to ensuring their safety." Whoever Coulson was talking to, he seemed to have different opinions than them. "We can't just forget about him because he doesn't have the scepter. He's still a head of HYDRA that needs to be taken out… Thank you. Send as many men as you see fit. We'll meet them when we touch down." With that Coulson hung up the phone and sighed.
"Work bringin' ya down," Hiro spoke up. Coulson turned around, not surprised, he must have known Hiro was there.
"I'm just sorting things out," Coulson said.
"Sure. Sorting things out with 'as many men as you see fit'."
"I don't know if you've noticed Hiro, but we're at war. HYDRA needs to be taken down, and finding Ansgar will help us with that."
"I thought we were looking for him because he was after my friends and my aunt."
"We were, at first. But, after searching through HYDRA's computers at their base, we found more information on Ansgar. He's one of HYDRA's new leaders, one of it's new heads. We take out all the heads, and no more will grow back."
"Seems like the info you found was more helpful than mine," Hiro said, his expression changing to sadness.
"Yeah," Coulson said. "Skye told me about your parents. That's why i've come to talk to you."
"There's nothing to talk about. I saw the footage of what my parents did to those people. They were HYDRA."
"Your parents were more than just HYDRA Hiro."
Hiro looked up at Coulson "What are you talking about?"
"Follow me. There's something I want to show you."
Coulson motioned for Hiro to follow him out of the lounge. They walked through the long hallways of the Bus, all the while, Hiro was thinking about what Coulson was talking about. He spoke like he knew Hiro's parents. When Coulson said they were more than just HYDRA, what had he meant? Hiro would soon find out.
The hallway ended at an oak door, and Coulson pushed it open. The room looked like an office, with a large oakwood desk, and a large leather chair behind it. It didn't look like the kind of room that would be on an airplane, but it was still nice none the less.
Coulson walked over to the desk and pushed a button on the edge of the surface. There was a clicking noise, and suddenly two large holographic screens appeared on the other side of the room in front of Hiro.
Hiro tried not to look amazed, but it was actually pretty cool. "You know, most people would just have a MacBook."
"Is a MacBook a hologram that has more information that has a more efficient search engine than Google?" Coulson asked smugly.
"That's not true."
"Maybe, maybe not." Coulson walked over to the hologram on the left and began working his fingers across the surface, and then again with the one on the left.
"This," Coulson said, stepping away from the holograms, "is who your parents really were."
Hiro stared in awe at the two screens. The one on the left had his father's picture, and the one on the right had his mother's. This was almost identical to what Hiro found on the HYDRA flash drive. Except these were S.H.I.E.L.D. IDs.
"What… what is this?" Hiro asked.
"These were your parents S.H.I.E.L.D. IDs." Coulson said like it was common knowledge.
Hiro didn't understand. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents? His parents? He saw them, on video in the HYDRA lab, experimenting on people. Now they were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents?
"But… the footage…"
"Yes, Skye told me. I figured you should know the truth. Your parents were never working for HYDRA, they were agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Everything was making less and less sense the more Coulson spoke.
"Right," Hiro said. "S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who work in HYDRA labs. Gotcha."
"Hiro, the reason i'm telling you all of this is that you don't think about your parents like that. They weren't HYDRA scientists. About thirteen years ago, we had received information that an unnamed group was experimenting on people; trying to create super soldiers like Captain Rogers. We didn't know it was HYDRA at the time. They were laying low. We wanted to learn more about these people, so we had your parents go undercover as scientists for hire. They were the best S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever seen. Their job was to slow their progress in perfecting a super soldier serum. We couldn't attack directly in case they had other installations around the globe that would be warned. So, that was our best option."
"But… those people." Hiro said quietly.
"We… didn't expect human trials. But, your parents had to keep their cover, so they went along with what HYDRA was doing-"
"So you just let them kill innocent people so they would stay safe?" Hiro said angrily.
"Sometimes the needs of the many outway the needs of the few," Coulson said calmly, despite Hiro's tone. "If the serum was ever perfected, HYDRA may have continued doing what they did in the forties: leave a path of destruction wherever they went. It was either let a handful of people die, or let thousands die. Your parents only experimented on a few subjects before they…" Coulson didn't finish.
Did he know what happened to Hiro's parents? Could they be alive? Could HYDRA just be holding them somewhere? Hiro had to know. "What happened to them?" Hiro asked urgently.
Coulson was silent for a few moments, then sighed. They would occasionally leave the lab to go back home for a while, or come to the Triskelion to give a full report. One day, when they were in D.C., going back to base, they never came. We soon found out they they had… died, in a car accident."
Hiro's hopes faded. He already knew his parents had died in a car accident. He had just hoped that their death hadn't been true, and that they were alive somewhere. But, Coulson had confirmed it right in front of him. He had been in the same city as his parents when they died.
"We never really had any confirmation that it was truly an 'accident' or not until about a year ago, when Captain Rogers revealed HYDRA to the world. We hacked into the data HYDRA had been hiding among S.H.I.E.L.D. files, and we found a phone call that HYDRA had blocked from getting to us. Your parents found out the organization was HYDRA, and tried contacting us. But HYDRA knew. I probably don't have to explain what they did. I'm sorry Hiro."
There it was. Plain as day. HYDRA murdered Hiro's parents. All Hiro knew about the car accident was that it didn't happen in San Fransokyo. His parents had been on a 'business trip' and that's when they got into the accident. But now Hiro knew that it wasn't an accident. He knew that his parents died trying to do the right thing. Then he realized something and began speaking to Coulson.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he said. He didn't sound angry, but there was something in his voice that indicated he wasn't happy.
Coulson leaned against his desk and put his hands to his sides "You know Hiro, I knew your parents. They were good people. They always put others before themselves. They knew they lived in a dangerous world where people would want to hurt the ones that they loved, so they asked me to keep you, your brother, and your aunt out of any sort of S.H.I.E.L.D. business. You were never to be told your parents were even a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. And so far, that's paid off. The only reason HYDRA knew about you was because you were put on our list of enhanced people. That was probably a mistake on my part."
Just a few short hours ago, Hiro had hated his parents for what they had done. Now, he regretted everything he had previously thought about them. They were trying to keep him and the little family he had left safe. HYDRA had been affecting his life for nearly twelve years, and he didn't even know it. He wished his parents were still there so he could thank them. He wanted to thank them for trying to keep him safe, and keeping them out of their dangerous world. If they could see him and his friends now, they'd probably think that they didn't need to protect him. Nonetheless, in the end, his parents had turned out to be the kind people that his aunt had always told stories about. Not the twisted mad scientist he saw them as the day before.
"Thank you, Coulson, for telling me that," Hiro said. "I really didn't want to be thinking of my parents as monsters the rest of my life."
"Neither would I," Coulson simply replied. He pushed the button on the desk and the holograms disappeared.
"Coulson," a voice spoke through a radio. Coulson took the radio from his belt and answered.
"What is it May?"
"We're here."
"Good. I'll be back up there in a few minutes." Coulson turned off his radio, and started for the office door.
"Yeah, about that," Hiro said, "where are we going?"
"San Fransokyo," Coulson replied.
Hiro went wide-eyed. "Uh, Coulson, I said I wasn't going back until-"
"We're not dropping you off," Coulson interrupted. "When we went through HYDRA's files back in Miami, we found out Ansgars next location. HYDRA's set up a base in San Fransokyo. We're going to meet a strike team on the ground and advance. Ansgar's not going anywhere."
Home. Hiro was actually going home. His friends would be there, and so would Ansgar. He was personally going to punch that guy in the jaw for the hell he had put him through.
"Come on," Coulson said, let's ready up."
"Wait, Coulson," iro said before Coulson could step out the office door. "You said you promised my parents to keep me away from anything S.H.I.E.L.D. related. Why did you let me come with you guys?"
Coulson smiled. "You ever tried arguing with a teenager? Not so fun." With that, they both stepped out the door.
Ansgar had another thing coming if he thought he could run. He had threatened Hiro's friends and his aunt. Payback was coming, and it was long overdue.
(A/N) GOOD GOD! I'm finally done with this chapter. As soon as I got back from camping, I rushed upstairs, and started typing away. I would like to thank you guys for all the awesome reviews you've been giving me. I really appreciate it. I'd also like to wish you a Happy Memorial Day, and a special thanks to any war veterans out there. You guys rock! Alright, so i've been without any water for about four hours now and i've got a headache, so I think it's best I get off my laptop. That's DaydreamDepartment out of your hair! )