Honey Lemon was quite meticulous with her appearance. Everything in her life could be falling down around her, and she would still appear stylish, groomed, and above all else, poised. Hiro couldn't remember a single day he'd seen the girl without at least a pair of false lashes and lipstick. And he didn't even think Honey Lemon owned any sweats, let alone ever wore them.
But that was definitely something that changed the next morning. Honey had not had a good last few days. She was still sore from the failed fight two days ago, a sizable bruise covering most of her left side, and to top it all off, Hiro had been sending panicked texts yesterday about Aria, which had set her on edge. Plus, everything with her grandmother…so when she showed up to the SFIT lab the next morning, as Hiro requested, she wasn't her usual polished self.
"Honey Lemon, it's…whoa, uh…are you…um…" Hiro's eyebrows shot up his forehead when she slumped in, to-go cup of tea in one hand, bag in the other. Her hair was in a bun, but not the perfectly wind-swept bun she sometimes wore. It was mostly just shoved up into a knot on the top of her head. Her face was bare behind her glasses, which made her eyes look so much smaller than Hiro was used to seeing them, and she wore the plainest tunic and leggings combo Hiro had ever seen her wear. To say he was surprised by her appearance was an understatement. "I, uh…w-where are the others? They're coming, right?"
"Yes," she replied tiredly, setting her things down on a nearby table. "Gogo's getting Fred, and Wasabi wouldn't leave home without eating a 'proper' breakfast, so he might be a little late." She sighed, just utterly exhausted from everything that was happening, and turned her gaze back to Hiro. "More importantly, what are you doing out of bed?"
"That's what I said," Aria piped up as she stepped out into the main lab space. She was in street clothes, but was wearing her suit's gauntlets, and hovering what appeared to be a larger-scale version of a tesla cil, though there were some distinct differences. Setting the coil down, Aria walked up to the both of them, eyeing Hiro warily. "Baymax told him to stay in bed."
"Bed rest is essential for proper ribcage healing," Baymax piped up as he too emerged with a smaller version of the coil in his arms.
"Hey, look, look, we can admonish my carelessness later," Hiro said, before Honey could chide him on not following Baymax's direction. "Right now, we've got work to do."
"What are you doing with these generators?" Honey Lemon asked, wary to get near the volatile machines.
"Well, I kind of had an idea," he admitted, nodding his head to indicate Honey Lemon follow him. Inside his office space, his 3D printer was churning out a small device, that didn't yet have a proper shape, and the far wall was slathered in blueprints and data readout sheets. "Aria got me thinking. Did you notice, the way she was able to resist Ome? For a little while, anyway?"
"I didn't notice much that day, to be honest," Honey said, thinking back. She'd mostly been concentrating on not getting hurled through the air. She'd also be lying if she said she hadn't been keeping an eye on Wasabi.
"Well I did. Those pulses he let off knocked all of us back, but Aria seemed to weather them better. And look at this." Sitting down at his desk, he clicked a few things on his desktop computer, and brought up a video. "Yesterday, Aria tried to take Ome on by herself."
"What!?" Honey gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "That's where she went? Why you were texting us like crazy!?"
"Yeah. Don't worry," he ran his hand through his hair, "she knows how dumb it was. She was just trying to protect us. Anyway, Baymax went out to look for her, and when he found her, he caught this footage." Clicking once more, the video on the screen started playing. It was shaky, and still a ways away from the Golden Gate Bridge; it must've been as Baymax was flying in. But it was clear, even at a distance what was going on. Ome was pursuing the car Hattingsfeild was escaping in, trying in vain to rip the vehicle off the road, and Aria stood atop it, countering and resisting his attacks. Honey Lemon watched in amazement.
"How is she doing that?" she asked quietly, as Hiro paused the video.
"That's what I wanted to know. So we came here last night, I kind of commandeered Gogo's electromag generator. I also upgraded Baymax with a few plugins that allow him to more accurately measure Aria's level of magnetic radiation, and this is what we found." He clicked again, bringing up an auxiliary program, which displayed several 3D figures. Clicking the 'start' button on the screen, the nondescript figures, one orange, one black, took stances across from each other. "The entire Earth is acted upon by these incredible forces of magnetic radiation, from it's core, from other plants, from the sun," the air around the figures was depicted as wavy lines, indicating the pervasive magnetic force Hiro was talking about. "Normal people, like you and me, just pass through these forces when they're weak, like if you were to stand next to the electromag generator. It's not going to attract you, obviously, like it would Aria."
The little black figure started walking forward, pushing through the wavy lines. Neither the lines nor the figure were in any way affected.
"But obviously, we're attached to the Earth by gravity, so if the force is strong enough, it can act on even nonmagnetic things like us. But for Aria, the scans showed that she's acting more like a super-conductor for these forces." The lines around the orange figure started to waver, and then bend around it. "Not only was she bending it towards herself, she was also bending it away. Before I regulated it, it was getting more powerful by the day. Regulated, and when she's in stasis, she's just like you and me."
"Okay," Honey Lemon said, following what Hiro was saying. "I get that. But what's that got to do with keeping Ome at bay?"
"I'm getting to that," he said. "Ome's using his powers unregulated, and I have no idea what his level of control is, but I'm guessing his control over it gets weaker the more he pushes it. So the more powerful he gets, the more dangerous, and he lets off these unregulated pulses of magnetic radiation. Powerful enough to knock the rest of us back. But watch." The black figure on the screen was bending the radiation around it in waves, acting like Ome and his magnetic pulses, knocking the orange figure back. But as soon as the orange figure began to take control over the surrounding radiation, it formed a bubble around itself, and the waves rippled around the orange figure, instead of against it.
"When she's got enough control over it," Honey said, realizing what was happening, "she's totally out of Ome's influence!"
"Bingo." Closing out the window, Hiro leaned back in his chair, wincing at the pain still lingering in his chest. "So, I figured, if someone was able to irradiate Aria without even meaning to, I could build something that could do roughly the same thing." Sweeping a few papers off the surface of his desk, he picked up what looked like the headpiece that controlled the microbots.
"…What's it do?" Honey said, picking it up from his hands.
"Disrupts the electromagnetic spectrum," he said, grinning. "I'm still tweaking it, but it'll create the same sort of bubble that Aria can create around whoever's wearing it. It obviously isn't going to be as strong; nothing can really compare to Aria and Ome, and the two of them technically aren't even running on the traditional spectrum, but it'll give us more of an edge than last time."
"Oh, Hiro…this is amazing!" Honey said, turning it over in her hands once more, before handing it back. "Last time felt like such a slaughter, I was really wondering what you'd pull out of your hat, but this exceeded my expectations!" Some color had returned to her pallid face, and she brightened up, which made Hiro happy. He didn't like to see his usually chipper friend so run down like she was.
"Thanks, but I-" before Hiro could continue, a loud crash could be heard from the main lab, followed by Baymax's usual "Oh No."
"Crap! Hiro!" he heard Aria call, and shook his head.
"I'll be right back." Standing slowly, gingerly due to his injury, he left Honey standing in his office to help Aria with whatever it was she'd just dropped. Still in minor disbelief, and rather sore and tired, Honey Lemon sat down at his desk, and turned to face his computer. Hiro really was a genius. She didn't know where he came up with ideas like this! But it was brilliant, that was for sure!
"I would have never guessed Aria could become so powerful," she mumbled to herself, clicking into the video of her facing Ome that Baymax took again. She skipped forward a few parts, really studying how the girl was resisting his control. The girl on the screen seemed so different than the nervous, twitchy girl they'd first met in the café, not two weeks ago. She skipped through a bit more, but became curious when the scene appeared to change. Playing at normal speed, it looked like the video was still from Baymax's perspective, but it was taken inside Hiro's workshop. Aria was a fair bit worse for wear now, sporting several deep gashes, and was crying.
'Poor dear,' Honey thought sympathetically. 'I can really relate to wanting to have a good cry.' She was lost in her own thoughts for a moment, reflecting back on all the things weighing heavily on her mind lately, not really paying attention to the video as it continued to play. That is, not until Hiro kissed Aria.
"I knew it!" she gasped, smiling as she stood up. She'd known Hiro had feelings for Aria, there was no hiding this kind of thing from Honey Lemon. Scrambling away from the desk, she burst out the door to Hiro's office, catching both him and Aria off guard as they were attempting to stand back up the last generator. "I knew it!" she repeated, giggling, and ran up to Hiro. She scooped him up into a hug, picking him up slightly, seeing as she was taller in her heels than him. He looked perplexed, and Aria raised an eyebrow.
"Knew what?" he asked, as she set him down.
"That thing we were talking about!" she sang, and rushed to give Aria a similar hug.
"What thing?" Aria squeaked, crushed in Honey's embrace. Hiro's wore a confused expression, but realization slowly dawned on him, and he looked quickly between Honey and his office.
"Ah, no, you didn't play the rest of the video!?" he asked. She nodded gleefully.
"What?" Aria felt completely lost, but knew that if Hiro was horrified by whatever it was, she probably should be too. His face was red, indignantly so, and he covered his eyes with the heels of his palms. "I'd totally love to be in on whatever it is we're talking about."
"She knows we're tog….uh, that we kissed," Hiro said flatly, catching himself before he could finish 'together'. Honestly, he didn't know if they were really 'together' or not yet. No doubt that he would've been thrilled if they were, but, he didn't want to be presumptuous. He grew even redder, if that were possible. Similarly, Aria blushed, hard, and gaped at Honey Lemon.
"Oh, I knew you guys were crushing on each other waaaay before now," Honey said, laughing slightly, but only adding to Aria's embarrassment. "And I totally, 100% condone it! Oh, you guys are so cute together!"
"Who's cute together?" Aria felt like hyperventilating as Fred burst into the lab, much to energized for so early in the morning, followed by a much more subdued Gogo. "Are you guys talking about my OTP of Baymax and a sentient version of Iron Man's armor!? Because I'm telling you-"
"What!? No! Fred!" Hiro threw his hands up, but couldn't keep a smile from cracking across his rode-hued face.
"Okay, you got me up. Now tell me what I'm doing here or I'm going to take a nap on top of my work station," Gogo said, yawning slightly. Hiro, giving Honey a very pointed look, went to fetch the prototype he'd shown her earlier. Not before exchanging glances with Aria, though. They were getting good at communicating nonverbally; just that glance said a lot.