Reaction
It had been a few days since the whole incident with Agent V and the shipping yard and Tadashi didn’t want to think to himself how little he had actually slept. Not sleeping was a terrible habit, one he and Hiro shared, but it was a better idea than nightmares when he fell asleep.
“Ow!” Tadashi spat out a swear as he stuck the offended digit in his mouth.
“Scanning now.”
Tadashi jumped, how had he missed the tell-tale sound of Baymax activating?
“Results: laceration on finger, shakiness, jumpiness, apparent inability to focus. Diagnosis is sleep deprivation. Have you been sleeping Tadashi?”
Tadashi spun around in his chair, running his hand across his face, “No, Baymax. I haven’t.”
“Why? Not sleeping leads to things such as short term memory loss, temporary loss of fine motor control, diminished cognitive functions—”
“I know.” Tadashi cut him off, “It’s just…been hard to do lately.”
“Why?”
Tadashi rolled his eyes, he had to teach Baymax how to ask why didn’t he?
“Nightmares, Baymax. They tend to put a damper on sleeping.” Tadashi blinked some blurriness out of his eyes.
“Nightmares are a symptom of emotional distress. I am not equipped to handle emotional distress.”
“Not yet buddy, not yet.” Tadashi spun back around in his chair, “I’ll get there soon.”
Tadashi attempted to work, he really did, but nothing seemed to fit together the way he wanted it to. With a groan he slammed his tools down and shoved himself away from his desk, crossing his arms as he stared out the window.
“Download complete.” Baymax chirped, “Recommendation for emotional distress is to speak with loved ones. Contacting loved ones now.”
“What?! No!” Tadashi whipped around, scanning Baymax’s screen to see who he had called, “Baymax, stop!”
Baymax had only put in a call to Aunt Cass and Hiro, and there was no way Hiro was going to answer his phone, but Aunt Cass would kill him if she found out he wasn’t sleeping. Of all the bad habits the brother’s had, not sleeping was the one Aunt Cass hated the most.
“Calls completed. Hiro did not answer. Is he feeling well?”
“He should be fine.” Tadashi muttered, “He better be fine.”
Hiro probably had stopped sleeping as well, probably forgot about showering or changing clothes too. The little monster forgot about a lot of things when Tadashi wasn’t there to remind him. Maybe he should make something to follow Hiro around and remind him about doing all the things he would forget to do.
“No,” he muttered to himself, “the little monster would just reprogram it.”
Tadashi blinked as he felt Baymax’s arms wrap his arms around him.
“Another treatment is physical contact.” Baymax patted him on the head, “There, there. It is okay.”
Tadashi sighed, and totally didn’t sag into the hug, while rubbing his eyes.
“Baymax, I am sat—”
“The fluffy marshmallow does have a point Tadashi.” A familiar voice cut in, making Tadashi jump out of his chair.
He tried not to turn red as Baymax caught him.
Virginia stood leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed. He was wearing boots, jeans and a sweatshirt, though Tadashi could spot the armored bodysuit the man wore under all his clothes. The shock of green hair was somewhat reassuring to see.
“Please be careful Tadashi. You almost caused yourself physical harm.” Baymax cautioned as he set Tadashi on his feet.
“You scared me.” Tadashi glared at Virginia.
Virginia shrugged, “I knocked. Twice.”
“He did. I was about to inform you.” Baymax stated as Tadashi shot him a withering look.
“What are you doing here?” Tadashi finally asked, resisting the urge to yawn.
“Your aunt called me. She said she got a call from the marshmallow of yours talking about emotional distress. She figured I had the experience to help you considering the whole superhero thing.”
“I’m fine.” Tadashi muttered.
“Don’t lie.” Virginia rolled his eyes as he closed the door.
“My scans say otherwise Tadashi.” Baymax said at the same time.
“So what is the marshmallow anyway? I mean, he’s a robot. But what kind?” Virginia carefully leaned himself against Tadashi’s desk.
“Healthcare.” Tadashi mumbled as he planted himself back in his chair, folding his arms.
“Interesting. Most of the robots I’ve met were…..well, not so nice.”
“I was designed to appear as non-threatening as possible.”
“I’d say you were pretty successful on that part Tadashi.”
“Thanks.”
Virginia frowned and stepped forward, “Tadashi, trust me. You need to talk about these things or it’s going to get worse. You’ve been having nightmares haven’t you?”
Tadashi nodded, “Every time I try to sleep.”
Virginia hauled him to his feet, carefully, “Then let’s talk about them. Come sit with me.”
Tadashi tried to resist, but the other man was strong enough that he just continued to drag Tadashi to the other side of the lab and onto the ground. Tadashi scooted away a few inches, eying Virginia warily.
“Tell me about the nightmares.” Virginia’s voice was soft, encouraging.
Tadashi just shook his head, pulling his knees to his chest.
“Tell you what, I’ll tell you something about me if you tell me about your nightmares.”
That caught Tadashi’s attention, “Like what?”
Virginia shrugged, “Depends on what you tell me.”
It was quiet for a few minutes as Tadashi contemplated what to share with Virginia. There was the part of him that wanted to tell the man to leave him alone, he could handle this alone and be fine. The other part, one he was never aware was there, wanted to curl up next to the man who had saved his life twice and tell him everything that was wrong so he could make it better.
It wasn’t hard to figure out which side won out.
“Fire.” Tadashi said quietly, his face half buried in his knees, “It’s everywhere and it’s hot and I can’t get out. I’m being burned and can’t breathe. I can hear Hiro shouting and crying and I can’t get out. And right as I wake up a beam is falling towards me and I….I…”
Tadashi started shaking, his breath hitching before he could finish sharing. Virginia tugged him closer, motioning for Baymax to remain silent, and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
“A fire huh? My turn then. It was my second night in town and I picked up police chatter about this massive fire in one of the buildings at this big local college. So I suited up and ran over to help, only to be stop this kid from running into the building. He begged me to help his brother, who had just done the exact thing I stopped him from doing.”
Tadashi sniffed a bit, he hadn’t heard this part of the story from anyone.
“So after making sure he wasn’t going to dash in, I ran in the building. Luckily the boy hadn’t gotten too far in and I found him just in time to smash a beam that was about to fall. He was safe, though he did fall and hit his head. I was about to carry him out when the building exploded. Lucky for him I threw some of my armor onto him and let my suit take most of the force. After that, I carried him out and left him with his brother and the EMTs.”
Tadashi was stunned, he never learned about being in the building as it exploded, so Virginia pressed the issue.
“So remember Tadashi, you lived. Your survived the fire and the explosion. It was terrifying, I still remember diving into my first burning building, but all you need to do is picture your knight in green armor pulling you out. You’re safe from the fire.”
Tadashi was amazed by the feather light touches he felt from the man he had seen throw shipping containers like they were nothing. Then he whimpered as the memory of black waves and water flooded his mind, and he pressed closer into the other man.
“Hey, hey. You’re safe. Trust me, nobody is going to get you in your lab. There’s nobody else in the building right now.” Virginia soothed, rubbing circles on his back.
“Tried to kill us.” Tadashi finally gave in and buried his face in the other man’s sweatshirt, not caring that he had climbed all over him.
“Yeah, I know he did. I really wish you two hadn’t followed me there that night.”
“Hiro was gonna go alone.” Tadashi’s voice was muffled by the jacket.
“And you did the right thing going with him, especially if you couldn’t stop him.” Virginia reassured him, “And I kept you safe from that man didn’t I?”
Tadashi nodded.
“And I’ll stop any other attempts he makes.” Virginia continued rubbing circles on his back, “I’m ready for him this time. Maybe I’ll try throwing a bus at him this time.”
They sat there for a while in silence, Virginia continuing to rub Tadashi’s back.
“Tadashi has fallen asleep.” Baymax chimed in, “My scans indicate that he is experiencing a pleasant dream.”
“Good.” Virginia shifted Tadashi around, noting he was chewing on the collar of his shirt.
It took a bit of delicate work, though anything not involving throwing heavy objects was delicate work for Virginia, but he managed to get Tadashi into a more comfortable sleeping position. He had gone from being half curled up on Virginia’s lap to being curled up on the floor with his head resting on Virginia’s folded up sweatshirt.
“I have noted several physical abnormalities in my scans of you Virginia, may I perform some in depth scans as to appropriately update my files?”
Virginia glanced at the soundly sleeping Tadashi before shrugging, the black bodysuit moving seamlessly with him, “Why not? Fire away fluffy marshmallow.”
“I am not a fluffy marshmallow. I am Baymax.”
“It’s a nickname. Let’s get this testing started then.”
“671…672….673…674…”
Tadashi ran his hand over his face as he sat up, that was the best sleep he had gotten in weeks. But why was Baymax counting? His eyes, still with a post-sleep haze, focused on where Baymax was standing across from Virginia, who was doing one-handed handstand push-ups. He rose to his feet, his back cracking as he stretched.
“680….Tadashi is awake…682…683…” Baymax continued, not missing a beat as Tadashi padded his way over.
“Alright, let’s call it quits marshmallow. We’ll continue testing some other time.” Virginia stated as he slowly came out of the handstand to his feet, “How’d you sleep?”
“Good.” Tadashi attempted to say, but his words were muffled by the shirt in his mouth.
“Might want to take your shirt out if you’re going to talk Tadashi.”
“It is also highly unsanitary.” Baymax.
“That too. Thank you Marshmallow.”
“You are welcome.”
Tadashi’s face was red as he pulled his shirt out his mouth, he hadn’t done that since he was really little.
“Marshmallow?” He finally managed to get out of all the questions he had.
“It is a nickname.” Baymax chimed in.
“I see….” Great, his most heavily weighed project was answering to being called marshmallow.
“You have class.” Virginia placed a hand on his shoulder, “You should go get ready.”
“My scans indicate that your bladder is full Tadashi.” Baymax added, “I recommend using the restroom.”
Once Baymax finished speaking, Tadashi was suddenly aware of how full his bladder was. His hands flew to his crotch as he rushed off towards the bathroom. It had been a close call, and he admonished himself for not noticing. He hadn’t had a close call like that in years, not that much trouble with his button in longer.
With that in mind, Tadashi washed his hand and left the bathroom.
“Good job.”
Tadashi jumped back, his hands coming up to defend himself, as Virginia spoke up from beside the door.
“Good job for what?” Tadashi questioned.
“You have class. Here.” Virginia handed Tadashi his school bag, completely ignoring Tadashi’s question.
“Right.” He took the bag, nervously glancing between his phone and Virginia, “Class.”
“I’ll walk with you. Might be nice to see this campus in a non-emergency way.”
It didn’t take long to get Tadashi to his class, the boy was worried that he was going to be late despite Virginia telling him he had more than enough time. Before he entered the room, Virginia was sure it was some advanced medical class, Tadashi shot him one last look.
“Thanks again. For last night.” Tadashi mumbled, his hands going to pull his shirt into his mouth.
Virginia pulled his hand away, “You’re welcome. Just be sure to head home tonight, your aunt was worried.”
“Okay.”
When he hesitated a second time, Virginia lightly shoved him through the door. When Tadashi whipped around to express his outrage, Virginia was gone from the hallway. Despite being a little irked, he couldn’t help but smile as he took his seat.
There was something…..amicable about how he disappeared.
Virginia slipped back into Tadashi’s lab, absently scooping his sweatshirt off of the floor.
“Hey marshmallow,” Virginia greeted as he zipped his jacket, “I need a favor.”
“How may I be of service?”
“I need you to make a note to add me to the list of contacts for Tadashi, specifically for emotional distress and emergencies.”
“Added. Please understand that I will not be able to hide this from Tadashi.”
“I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Understood. In order for me to deactivate, you have to be satisfied with your care.”
Virginia smiled, “I am satisfied with my care.”
“Good bye Virginia.”
Virginia shook his head as Baymax deflated back into his storage form, “See you later Marshmallow.”
It was night when Tadashi made his way home. His day had been long, he had a bit of a hard time focusing in class, and he was relieved when he smelled Aunt Cass’ cooking. It was exactly what he needed tonight.
“Tadashi!” She smiled and hugged him when he reached the top of the stairs, “How are you? I was worried when I got a call from your robot. Did Virginia make it? Were you chewing on your shirt?”
“I’m fine, Virginia helped a lot. And I think I was, but I’m not really sure. I might have been sleeping.” He responded flawlessly, “What’s cooking?”
“Chicken wing pizza.” A grin snaked its way across her face as she pulled away, “I was hoping to lure both you boys back to the house with my amazing culinary skills.”
“Well, it worked for me.”
“One out of two isn’t that bad.”
Tadashi frowned, “Where is Hiro?”
Aunt Cass frowned, “He’s been in his workshop all day. I was just about to go check on him.”
Tadashi hugged her a second time, relishing in the contact, “I’ll go and drag him out. You stay here, you worked all day.”
She patted his arm, “If you insist. Maybe we’ll watch a movie tonight, there are some good ones on tonight.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let me go and see if I can drag him out.” Tadashi let go of his Aunt and made his way down the stairs.
If Hiro ran off to another bot fight, Tadashi would call in Virginia to drag the boy home with him.
Lucky for Hiro, and the underground bot fighting community that allowed a minor to participate, Tadashi found his little brother hunched over his workbench.
“Hiro, what’re you working on?”
Hiro stayed silent, studiously working on his project. Taking it as a hint, Tadashi stepped closer and looked over his shoulder. The project was green, Tadashi noticed first, and vaguely human shaped. The armor Hiro was studiously welding to the base frame looked oddly familiar.
“Hiro…is that Virginia?”
Hiro grunted, which he took as a yes.
“Why are you making a Virginia bot?”
Hiro didn’t answer, making Tadashi frown.
“Come on Hiro, Aunt Cass is making pizza.”
Hiro shook his head as he set one tool down and grabbed another while simultaneously making a new 3D model for another piece of armor.
“Hiro, you need to eat. Come on.”
Hiro continued to ignore him, making Tadashi’s frown deepen. Hiro was notorious for getting involved in his work, he had a bad habit of hyper focusing on a task, but Tadashi couldn’t remember a time when it actually got this bad.
Part of him wished he had brought Baymax home with him, just so he could scan Hiro. And maybe Hiro would giggle with him when Baymax answered to marshmallow.
“Alright, let’s do it this way then.”
Tadashi scooped Hiro up by the armpits, Hiro was as light as he looked and Tadashi was deceptively strong, and started towards the door. It took a second to process, then it was like a switch had flipped in Hiro.
“PUT ME DOWN! PUT ME DOWN!” Hiro shrieked, squirming and flailing in Tadashi’s arms, “LET GO! PUTMEDOWN! PUTMEDOWN!”
With all Hiro’s flailing Tadashi caught a headbutt to the nose, an elbow to the jaw, and a kick to the stomach. With the last hit knocking the wind out of him, Tadashi was forced to drop Hiro and watched as the boy scrambled back into his chair and went back to work like nothing happened.
“What is the matter with you?” Tadashi gasped, catching his breath.
The tears, he reassured himself, were coming from the hit to his nose and not because Hiro had hit and screamed at him.
Being determined, Tadashi sat and tried for the next hour to get Hiro to respond. At worst he got an angry glare that made something in his chest twinge painfully, and a noncommittal noise at best. Even aunt Cass, who stopped down to see what was taking so long, got nothing out of him.
“Maybe,” Tadashi stared, “Virginia could help?”
Aunt Cass sighed, taking a bite out of the piece of pizza she attempted to bribe Hiro with.
“It couldn’t hurt. He helped you earlier right?”
“Yeah.” Tadashi fought the urge to chew on his collar, “I’ll call him then.”
The phone picked up on the second ring, Tadashi was certain the phone was in the man’s helmet, and Virginia agreed to come over just as soon as Tadashi explained what was going on. He then asked to talk to Aunt Cass, and when she hung up she dragged Tadashi back upstairs and forced him to eat.
“So,” both the older Hamada’s jumped as the voice spoke out from the window, “he’s in your workshop. Can you show me?”
“Sure.” enough of Tadashi was excited that he hugged the man tightly before he led him down to the workshop.
Virginia paused just outside the door, stopping Tadashi and inspecting where he got hit.
“He got you good huh.” Virginia said as Tadashi lowered his shirt, “Head back and put some ice on those. Just save your brother some food okay?”
Tadashi hesitated, “He’s gonna be okay right?”
“Yes, just let me talk to him alone for a bit.” Virginia shoved him nicely towards the house, “Now go.”
Virginia winced as he entered the workshop, the air smelled strongly of sweat and urine. How had nobody noticed that?
Shaking his head, and avoiding activating his mask to protect his sensitive nose, Virginia made his way over to Hiro.
“You want to do this the easy way or the hard way kid?”
Hiro turned to look at him, shock flashing across his face for a moment before he shook his head. In that instant, Virginia spotted all the same issues he saw with Tadashi earlier: bags and dark circles under his eyes, shaking hands, an unfocused look in the eyes, and the smells he had noticed when he entered.
Making his decision, Virginia lifted Hiro into his arms.
“PUTMEDOWN! PUTMEDOWNPUTMEDOWN! LET ME GO! LETMEGO!” Hiro screamed, kicking and flailing all the while.
Virginia felt sorry for Hiro whenever the boy made a solid hit, he had been told multiple times hitting a tank was softer than hitting him. He was going to have to be certain that he took painkillers or something later.
He also felt bad when he had to sit on the old couch, it groaned under his weight.
“Enough Hiro, you’re safe. You’re okay.” Virginia kept his voice soothing as he rocked the flailing teenager, “Tadashi is safe. Nobody is hurt, nobody is coming to get you.”
Virginia pressed on, the boy’s hits felt like someone brushing up against his suit, rocking and consoling the boy. As time ticked past, Hiro stopped struggling and started crying into the bigger man’s sweatshirt.
“I promise you Hiro, you’re safe. I’m here, Tadashi is here, and your aunt is here. Nobody is going to come after you, nobody is going to hurt you.”
It wasn’t hard to figure out that Hiro was upset about what had happened at the shipping yard. That was why Virginia suspected Hiro was replicating him in robot form, to protect people.
Eventually Hiro’s crying petered out and one of his hands disappeared into his mouth, and Virginia chanced standing up. Once he was certain that Hiro wasn’t going to break into a screaming fit again, he left the workshop and head back towards the Hamada household after flicking the power to the workshop off.
“Hiro!” Tadashi, dressed in sleep pants, a t-shirt, and reading glasses, leapt to his feet as Virginia cleared the landing.
“Shh.” Virginia held a free hand to his lips, “He’s half asleep and likely to scream if you wake him up.”
“Is he okay?” Aunt Cass was next to Tadashi, a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“Recent events finally caught up with him. He should be okay in the morning.” He shifted Hiro to look him over, “He’ll have a few bruises, and probably a headache, but he’s okay.”
Aunt Cass frowned, “You hit him?”
“Never. He hit me. I’m pretty sturdy.” Virginia looked around, “Where do you want me to set him?”
Aunt Cass pointed to the empty spot on the couch, “There will be good.”
“You’re going to need a towel.”
Aunt Cass frowned, “Why?”
“His pants are wet. Urine I believe.”
“Tadashi, go get him some clean clothes please.”
Once Tadashi was gone and Hiro set down on a thick blanket, Aunt Cass sagged. Virginia shot her a sympathetic look from his spot by the window.
“I’m sorry.” He finally spoke up, “If they hadn’t followed me to the shipping yard, this wouldn’t have happened. Never get innocents involved.”
Aunt Cass frowned, the superhero looked far older than he had the other day. She never thought she would see someone so young look so old.
“It’s not your fault. They do get into everything.”
He snorted, a disbelieving look etched across his face.
“Aunt Cass, I’ve got….he disappeared again didn’t he?”
Aunt Cass, who had turned her back for a moment when Tadashi came down the stairs, sighed heavily as she turned around to see the window open and the curtains blowing in the faint wind from outside.
“Yea, but I’m sure he’ll be back. Let’s take care of Hiro for now.”
Tadashi nodded, his concern for Hiro taking precedence over the slight aching that came from the older man disappearing without a word.
Did he not like them?