"Mochi, get down!" Hiro batted the large cat, who was partially graying at the muzzle now, down off the couch. But Mochi was far too stubborn to be dismissed so easily, and jumped right back up. The boy just rolled his eyes, leaning back against the couch and sighing dramatically, and Aria laughed slightly. She didn't mind Mochi; she didn't have any pets back home, so she kind of liked having the cat around. And it was a good thing too, because Mochi would not leave Aria alone. "So, does your magnetism extend to animal magnetism too, or…?" he asked sarcastically, smiling over at her.
"Ha, I guess so," she replied, as Mochi settled down in her lap, purring. "He's cute. And fat. Do you guys feed him non stop or what?"
"He was born fat," Hiro chuckled, scratching the mischievous cat behind the ears. "I've never known a time when he wasn't."
"Excess body fat can lead to several health conditions, including heart disease, and diabetes," Baymax chimed in from the corner, and Aria rolled her eyes.
"You hear that, little guy?" she said, as Mochi looked up at her. "You gatta shed these pounds or you'll get kitty-betes!" Mochi meowed loudly, as if this had offended him, and immediately jumped down from her lap.
"You insulted my cat," Hiro said, "get out of my house!" He was smiling though, and the two of them burst out laughing. Aria smiled back at him, glad that this wasn't overly awkward. She had just met him, after all, and now here she was, sleeping in his living room. Life was so strange sometimes. As Hiro kicked off his shoes and propped his feet up on the coffee table, he leaned back and stretched. "So, I was thinking we could run a few more in-depth scans tomorrow morning. Then I'd really like to get some more electrodes on you, and measure brain activity during pulses. I have this idea, it's kind of crazy, but I think it could really help you, you know, to control this."
"Yeah?" Aria said, eyebrows raised in curiosity. "What's the idea?"
"Well, I mean, it's not anything concrete yet. I need to finish those calculations first, but I was thinking some kind of, you know," he pantomimed a helmet around his head, "apparatus you'd wear. If I could find out the exact mechanism behind the magnetism, I could maybe create a sort of, like, channeler for it. Contain it. And then make it easier to control."
"Like some big clunky helmet?" The description he was giving her sounded rather cumbersome to Aria, and it wasn't very hopeful. She'd have to wear some huge helmet from now on? But Hiro shook his head, and sat up.
"No, something smaller, more discreet. Something you could in theory wear undetected. Here, c'mon, I'll show you." Standing, he motioned for her to follow, and started towards the stairs on the far end of the room. She hesitated, knowing that once again, she'd be entering a space with countless delicate metal things, that Hiro probably did not want her screwing up. But with a bit more urging, and some deep breaths, she followed.
Hiro's loft bedroom wasn't big at all, and very, very cluttered, and it didn't help that half of it was sectioned off with a paper partition. Looking around, Aria noticed several small figurines, prototypes of bots it looked like, start to rattle across their shelves, but she blocked her nerves out, trying to keep calm. It seemed to work, as nothing came whizzing through the air towards her head.
Hiro dove into the mess that he called a desk, digging through a few drawers. He eventually produced a slim strip of metal that looked almost like a headband. "Here, check this out. This would be something like I'd want to make," he said, handing it to her when she walked up close. It was very light in her hands, and she turned it over to look at the underside.
"Is this the thing that controls the nanobots?" she asked, and he nodded vigorously. It obviously wasn't the original, as that one had been destroyed, but it looked very similar, with a few minor tweaks.
"Yeah, and the mechanism that does it isn't too different than what I'd want to use for yours. I could probably even make it smaller, less noticeable. But like I said, it's still just an idea…"
"Well, next to unmagnetizing me, it's the best idea I've heard so far," she said, and before she could stop it, or herself, she felt the metal start to pull from her hands. It slapped against her forehead somewhat painfully, and as she flinched, several nanobots lying around the room haphazardly started to rattle. Whether it was from the command of the headband, or from her attracting them magnetically, but they started to rattle towards her, until several outright picked up from their resting spots and flew at her head, sticking to her temple. "Ow! Jeez!" she said, plucking one from the side of her face to look at it.
"Ah, sorry about that!" As Aria examined the tiny contraption, Hiro reach towards her and began plucking the others from her head. She held the little robot up to her eyes, squinting at it. "Those things are…well, they're nothing but trouble, honestly."
"I guess I can see why you'd say that, but honestly, I'm just amazed at how small they are, and yet they can still do…well, you know how much they can do." She shrugged at him, as his face morphed into a somewhat uncomfortable expression.
"Yeah, well, they get everywhere. I always seem to find them all over the place." He opened a drawer in his desk and dropped the handful of nanobots in, shutting it quickly before they could spring out and smack Aria in the head again.
"You haven't been using them for anything?" she asked, pulling the headset from her forehead, with some difficulty. "I mean, I know what happened with them, but still. It's such an amazing piece of tech. You've gatta be doing something with them?"
"Nah." Hiro rubbed the back of his neck, collapsing back into his desk chair, motioning for Aria to take a seat on the bed. "I've got so many other projects I've been working on, and Baymax always needs upgrades. Not to mention our suits require constant maintenance, and my doctoral final project, it's all just a bit much to find time here and there to tinker with a long-dead idea. Besides." His eyes darted briefly to the paper partition on the other side of the room, before settling back on Aria, "it feels too bitter to work with them, really. Too much…stuff surrounding them."
"Yeah, I guess I get that." Aria still didn't understand why Hiro didn't sell, or even give the nanobots to someone else to further develop. It was such an amazing product, surely some good could come out of it? But, it was his invention after all. He could do with it as he pleased, even if that meant packing it away. And Aria could definitely relate to not wanting anything to do with things that brought up bad memories. "Sorry I asked."
"No, no, it's alright!" He forced a smile back on, and shook his head. "It was just an honest question."
"You can ask me an uncomfortable question if you want. You know, to get back at me," she joked, which caused a genuine smile and laugh to overtake Hiro's features. She realized he crooked front teeth, but it sort of added to his oddball charm. Made him seem more real.
"Ah, well, when I think of one, I'll catch you off guard with it, how's that sound?" She nodded, smirking at him, knowing it probably would catch her very off guard and embarrass her, but hey, it was what she deserved, right? Pulling her legs up to sit criss cross on his head, her eyes followed him as he got up and walked over to the windowsill, where several small gadgets sat, and picked one up. Snagging a small screw driver as well, he flopped down on the bed beside her, and started to tinker with it. It seemed so casual, like he'd just decided on a whim to start working on an intricate piece of machinery, and it almost seemed funny to Aria. She would never understand computer types.
"Man, I could never work something like that," she said, watching him slowly take the thing, whatever it was, apart piece by piece.
"It's always sort of come easy to me," she said, shrugging.
"Says the kid who graduated high school at 13," she retorted.
"'Ey, what can I say? I'm a genius!" He tossed a somewhat cocky smile at her, and Aria rolled her eyes, but turned her face away quickly; a tiny blush had crept up on her cheeks, and she didn't want him to see. "But, it kind of runs in the family, you know?" he continued, not seeming to notice Aria's rosy cheeks. "Tadashi was a prodigy as well, though he was always better with programming than I was; I'm more of a hands-on, mechanical kind of guy. My Dad worked for one of the biggest software companies in the nation as their head tech engineer. And my mom wasn't into computers, but I hear she was one hell of a mechanic." He tossed the screwdriver he held from one hand to the other, smiling at it. "Heh. So I guess it was always sort of, you know, destiny that I'd do stuff like this. Though I don't really believe in all that 'destiny' and 'fate' stuff."
"My Dad's a used car salesman and my mom makes a mean baked spaghetti casserole. So what does that spell out for my future?"
"Hmmm…I'd wager something involving a food truck," he joked, raising one eyebrow and smirking. Aria shoved his shoulder playfully.
"What a destiny!" Aria continued to watch him tinker, and jokes and quips flowed fairly easily between them, something she was greatly relieved about. Her worst nightmare was to be annoying or awkward around the guy who she was pleading to help her, and this was just such a relief, to be talking with him so normally! It almost seemed like they were old friends, judging by the way conversation flowed so easily back and forth. It was comfortable.
"Here, hold out your hand," he said, taking her outstretched hand when she offered it. Before she could protest, he was sticking a small screw from the device he was working on, on each of her fingers, laughing as they all, of course, stuck to her magnetically. She pouted mockingly, and tried to shake them off. But right as she was, and Hiro was reaching to take them back, his Aunt Cass stuck her head up from the stairwell into the loft.
"Dinner's ready Hiro, are any of the gang staying to eat-well, hello, what's going on?" Seeing the obviously playful exchange between her nephew and the girl she'd met only this afternoon, she climbed the remaining few stairs, as Hiro finally retrieved the screws, and Aria felt a small twinge of panic in the pit of her gut. As she let her guard down, the screws flew once more from Hiro's grip, towards her temple. She was only just able to bat them away in time to save herself a few holes in her head.
"We'll be right down, Ant Cass," Hiro said nonchalantly, "and Aria's staying the night, she didn't have anywhere else to go."
"You do realize how strange all of this is?" Cass said sarcastically, folding her arms in front of her. "If you weren't always surrounded by ridiculous things, Hiro, I wouldn't allow it." She turned her gaze to Aria, who to her, seemed like a very nice, albeit weird girl. But who was she to judge? Hiro was the weirdest kid Cass knew, and she meant that in the most loving way possible. "In the future, maybe the homeowner would like to be alerted to these kinds of things?"
"Sorry, I figured you'd be okay with it," he said, surprised that Cass was putting up any kind of resistance to it at all. She just shook her head, casting her eyes skyward briefly, and waved them to follow her.
"Well, of course I am, if she's got nowhere else to go!" Aria stood and followed the two downstairs, suddenly feeling very out of place. The warm, comfortable feeling she'd had before was gone now. "Hiro, with all those brains of yours, you can be pretty clueless!"
"What?" He cast a look back at Aria, silently asking what the hell Cass was being fussy about. She was right though; he was a genius, but some things just seemed to go right over his head.