**A.N.: Thank you all for the reviews! (Don't hesitate to do so, I love feedback!) Shout-out to Telemain's Daughter for being an awesome Beta!**
Tadashi hung around the counter as Hiro filled orders for the handful of lunch customers. He received multiple comments on how cute he was, especially from the female population. They never addressed him directly, though Hiro consistently introduced him as his brother; Tadashi noticed he avoided using the term 'little'.
He looked over at the table where Gogo, Honey, and Wasabi were chatting animatedly, likely teasing Wasabi for the events of the day. Apparently, Wasabi had nearly run over the guy Tadashi and Honey Lemon had met at Best Buy. The team had tried to treat him with Baymax, but he'd panicked and left the store as soon as they let him.
Even though he had initially felt uneasy around him, Tadashi pitied Kyouji. Getting hit by a car and then basically dragged off of the street into the back room of a café had to be stressful. No wonder he had been so quick to leave.
He was troubled at his reaction to Baymax; he had tried to design him so that no one being treated would feel threatened. Of course, Hiro had completely ignored that when he designed armor for him.
Tadashi's thoughts returned to a particular part of the conversation the group had had the night before. They were obviously keeping something from him, something important. Hiro had been so angry, and then... the subject had been dropped... too easily, really.
Tadashi waited until the last customer in line had been served and left the café before approaching Hiro at the sink.
"What's up?" Hiro dried his hands on the front of his apron and looked down at Tadashi, wondering at the contemplative look on his face.
"What won't you tell me?" The infamous puppy eyes made an appearance.
Hiro mentally tried to figure out which thing Tadashi was referring to. Maybe he should make a file of 'Things Not to Tell Tadashi.' No, then Tadashi'd manage to find it.
Hiro realized he had paused for too long when Tadashi's eyebrows pinched together in anger. Hiro scrambled to fix his mistake, even though he still wasn't 100% certain which particular thing Tadashi was referring to. He heard the jingle of the door opening, but he couldn't see who it was from where he stood.
"Hey, um. Could you let me go talk them for just a second?" Hiro gestured towards the front counter as he tried to ease his way past Tadashi. "Besides, we really shouldn't do anything unless the whole group is present, and Fred's not here, so..."
Wrong thing to say.
"No!" Tadashi grabbed Hiro's sleeve; though he could easily escape Tadashi's grip, it wasn't a good idea in this instance. "Stop avoiding it! You're just going to keep putting it off, hoping I'll forget about it, but I'm not going to!"
Why couldn't he wait until later to ask? Hiro didn't have time to deal with this right now.
"Tadashi, you're making a scene. Just go upstairs."
Tadashi pulled back and crossed his arms, glaring defiantly up at Hiro.
"You can't order me around!" Tadashi practically shrieked this, and Hiro physically took a step back, feeling disoriented. What the hell, Tadashi? "Last I checked, you were the one keeping secrets from me. And I-"
"Everything okay back here, guys?"
Wasabi had heard raised voices, and had come to investigate. Tadashi looked like he was going to say something, but Hiro spoke first, receiving a glare from the five year old.
"Yeah, we're... it's fine. Could you go take care of the customer who just walked in?"
"Don't worry about it, it's just Fred. He had nothing better to do this afternoon and came to hang out with us."
Tadashi turned to Hiro, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head towards the main area of the café. They were all present now. What was stopping him?
Fred chose this moment to come bursting into the kitchen, obliviously picking up a still angry Tadashi obliviously and spinning him around. Tadashi was too shocked to say anything beyond a small sound of surprise when he left the ground.
"Wow, you're light! So, have your wings popped out yet?"
"No! Put me down!"
"But then I have to talk down to you. Besides, you're warm and it was cold outside."
"Yes, I'm sure riding here in your limo was such a hardship," Hiro snarked at Fred, though he was glad that he had arrived to distract Tadashi.
"I will have you know that I deigned to walk here, just to be with my friends, but if that's how you're going to be..." Fred started to walk towards the door, still holding Tadashi, "I guess I'll just be leaving. And I'm taking my mini-heater with me."
Rolling his eyes at Fred, Hiro followed the group back to the table Gogo and Honey were still seated at. Fred plopped Tadashi down into one of the open chairs before pulling one up for himself. Hiro went to switch the sign on the door to 'Closed.'
Hiro wasn't really sure how to broach the topic, but a look from Tadashi told him he needed to, and quickly. Fred, however, spoke up first.
"So, I was thinking-"
"Congratulations, Fred."
"Hush, Gogo. Anyway, so I was wondering if Callaghan had something to do with- Ow!" A noticeable kick under the table interrupted Fred.
If looks could kill, Gogo would have been guilty of murder; Honey Lemon looked worriedly at Hiro; Wasabi looked down at his hands. Tadashi just looked confused.
"What's the big deal?" Tadashi got the feeling this was in the realm of 'don't tell Tadashi,' but he couldn't figure out why. Nobody reacted like that to Fred's crackpot theories, unless... maybe it had to do with the mention of Callaghan.
"Is this about Professor Callaghan?"
Gogo leaned back in her seat, looking at Hiro as if she were silently ordering him to start explaining.
"Not exactly a professor, anymore."
Hiro's comment confused Tadashi. "Well, he couldn't be if he- wait, he survived too? ...Why are you guys looking at me like that?"
No one answered, each trying to think of what to say.
"Seriously, guys. What's going on? Is he okay? Is he dying?"
Hiro let out an unstable and borderline hysteric string of laughter, dropping his head into his hands. This only worried Tadashi more.
"Guys?"
"Tadashi-" Honey Lemon started to speak, but cut herself off, not really knowing what to say. They all knew how Tadashi had looked up to Callaghan as his role model, even a father figure in the absence of his own.
"Hiro?" Tadashi turned to him, staring him down as much as a five year old could, demanding an explanation.
"Well, he is alive and healthy." Hiro didn't look too pleased about it, though.
"So, what aren't you telling me?"
Gogo sighed in exasperation, leaning forward in her seat and looking Tadashi square in the eyes.
"We think that Callaghan was the one to start the fire in the first place."
"What?" That couldn't be right. "Why would you say that? Where's your proof?"
"And that-" Hiro interjected, "is exactly what his lawyer asked when he was taken to trial."
"Trial?"
"Apparently, 'motive doesn't equal a crime.' And what was that other thing he kept saying that made me want to punch him in the face? Oh, yeah: 'no body, no crime.'"
"But why would he even be on trial in the first place? And what do you mean by motive?"
It didn't make sense; Callaghan loved the school, he cared for the students. Why would he want to start a fire to destroy everyone's creations?
"He needed my microbots."
Tadashi just looked at him like he'd lost his mind.
"I- what?"
"He tried to use Hiro's microbots to get revenge on Krei for causing his daughter Abigail's apparent death." Fred spoke up now, only causing more questions to arise in Tadashi's mind.
"Wait, tried? Revenge? Apparent death?" Tadashi felt a pit grow in his chest, dread threatening to suffocate him. "I- He... no- he couldn't have..."
Honey Lemon sympathetically put an arm around Tadashi's shoulders, running her fingers through his short hair in a comforting gesture as she began to recount the events that had followed his disappearance, letting Hiro fill in the details of things she hadn't been present for.
Multiple instances made Tadashi want to interrupt and ask questions or reprimand Hiro for a particularly dangerous occurrence, but he mostly stayed silent, weighing each detail in his mind. He nearly had a conniption at the description of Gogo's driving when they were being chased. The only thing that stopped him was the quick explanation that it had saved their lives, and Baymax had been there to pull them out of the water.
Tadashi marveled at the description of each of their 'upgrades,' looking at Hiro when Baymax's were described along with the chip containing the fighting instructions on it. Hiro had conveniently failed to mention it earlier.
He did, however, interrupt when Honey described the events on the island.
"Wait." He stopped her before turning to Hiro angrily. "You tried to kill Callaghan?"
"Tada-"
"KILL? Hiro, you don't kill people! He-"
"He let you die!" Hiro's face grew red as he abruptly stood to his feet, knocking the chair he was sitting on over. "He didn't care about you! He said it was your mistake."
Tadashi looked as if he had been struck, orange tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, though they couldn't heal this injury. He opened his mouth to protest, but Hiro wasn't finished.
"What was I supposed to do? Take him to the police, who ended up doing nothing? Let him go? For practically killing my brother who meant everything to me?"
Hiro's voice had risen to a yell, and he was shaking, tears forming in his eyes, which he brushed away angrily. Tadashi hadn't seen Hiro get this upset in a long time, and it scared him.
"Put yourself in my situation. Our parents died when I was three, and you became everything to me. Then one day you're gone, and the bastard who caused it doesn't even care? Mocks it, even! Am I just supposed to get over it, when I have the power to get back at him?"
Tadashi tried to imagine losing Hiro, but it only made him more upset, and he was dangerously close to outright crying.
"I-I'm sorry. You have every right to be upset." Tadashi choked on the words. "It was still wrong to try and kill him. I- this is my fault. I shouldn't hav-"
"No. Don't you ever say that, you understand?" Hiro looked positively murderous, though he made a visible effort to calm down. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Hiro sighed, pushing at his closed eyes with the heels of his hands before righting the chair he had knocked over and sitting back down.
"You're right that killing Callaghan wasn't the answer, which I realized for myself a while after the team stopped me and I left without them. I was replacing Baymax's scanner, and I lost it when Baymax kept saying, "Tadashi is here" and refused to let me remove his healthcare chip that stopped him from hurting a human."
Good robot.
"Baymax showed me some videos from when you were testing him-"
Bad robot.
"You saw those?" Tadashi buried his face in his hands in embarrassment as everyone laughed, the tension dissipating.
"Yeah." Hiro struggled to stop laughing to continue what he was going to say. "Anyway, they made me realize that you would never want me to kill someone, and I started to feel really guilty, especially when the team showed up after being rescued by Heathcliff."
"I honestly preferred the helicopter to flying on Baymax- no offense." Wasabi had always had a great fear of heights, particularly falling from them.
There was silence for a while, no one really knowing what to say, until Tadashi spoke again.
"So, where is he now? I mean, you said he wasn't a professor anymore, but you also said the police didn't do anything, and there was a trial, so..."
Hiro sighed before explaining the rest of the story: the attack on Krei Tech, and the use of the portal. He paused slightly before telling him about how he had gone into the portal to save Abigail, and how Baymax had gotten left behind, though he had been able to recreate him when he had found the chip.
Tadashi seemed initially upset at how careless Hiro had been, though he admitted it was the right thing to do, and that he was proud of him. But his question still hadn't been answered, and he repeated it.
"He's probably home right now, with his daughter. He wasn't found guilty for anything."
"Nothing? At all? How is that possible? You said he destroyed Krei Tech. With witnesses."
"And he did. He just had a really good lawyer."
Tadashi sat back, ready to hear the explanation. Hiro took a calming breath before beginning.
The lawyer had started by dispelling claims that the professor had set the fire, since there was only circumstantial proof, and no one had witnessed it beginning. It was therefore decided that he could not be charged with arson or the unintentional manslaughter of Tadashi.
Then came the part that had really angered Hiro. Since Hiro's neurocranial transmitter was just a working prototype in the realm of science, Callaghan's lawyer argued that no one could prove the effects it would have on a human being. There was also no way to test it, since it had been destroyed during the fight at Krei Tech.
It was insisted that after Callaghan put it on to protect himself from the fire, long-term exposure altered his brainwave patterns, heightening emotions both common and repressed and basically giving him temporary insanity. It was temporary, the lawyer had claimed, because Callaghan had returned to his normal self after he had removed it for a while, expressing disbelief at his own actions.
Apparently, Callaghan could have even continued teaching at SFIT, but chose to retire instead in order to spend more time with his long-lost daughter.
Tadashi turned these thoughts over in his head. They could be true, though it was highly unlikely. However, one couldn't exactly disprove it either. He wondered how Callaghan would react now, if he were to see him again.
"I know you're probably not going to like this, but... could we possibly go visit him?" Tadashi turned towards Hiro, since it was ultimately up to him.
Hiro blew air between his teeth, pulling on his sleeve as he considered the question. A mischievous grin grew on his face, one that unsettled Tadashi.
"You know what? Yeah. I can't wait to see his face when you introduce yourself. Hey, Gogo, do you still keep in touch with Abigail?"
"Yeah. Honey and I hung out with her just last week."
"Cool. Could you call her and let her know we're stopping by to visit?"
"Right now?"
Hiro checked his watch; it was almost 2 in the afternoon.
"Yeah, now would be good."
**A.N. So, the trip to Callaghan's will be next chapter. Chapter 12 was also written with the assistance of sayagirl24, so props to her for getting the ball rolling.**