TADASHI

TADASHI'S VISION blurred as he tried to focus, the sounds of people around him in the mall filling his mind as he and Hiro were walking in and he realized he had drifted off again. He tried to mask his discomfort from his brother as they went along carrying shopping bags, struggling to fend off the screams that filled his head.

"So, what else do you wanna get?" Hiro asked.

"What?"

"What else do you want? We still have money left and we've only been here for a few minutes." Hiro said. "Aunt Cass wanted to make sure we replace your wardrobe, so what would you want?"

"Well … I-I guess we could grab some jeans; not that big a fan of shorts." Tadashi replied.

"Okay, I know I good store up ahead."

Hiro led Tadashi down a hall to his left and they continued walking for a bit, all the while being silent as they window shopped as they went. Hiro became concerned at this point, having only exchanged short questions and never maintained a conversation the whole time they were in the mall. He wanted to make him ease in more as he was just as closed off back at home, trying to come up with something.

"Y'know, I made some upgrades to Baymax recently."

"Yeah, I noticed." Tadashi said. "I never thought Baymax would be used in combat."

"He doesn't kill by the way and I didn't tamper with your original chip." Hiro said. "I made a separate combat chip that activates when I or anyone else is in danger. It makes him defensive and more urgent when trying to save someone."

"Huh …"

Hiro sensed his concern. "Hey, why don't we get you a phone while we're here? I could show you some of my favorite songs on Spotify."

"Hmm …" Tadashi nodded blankly, handing him his bags. "I gotta take a leak."

"Oh, okay." Hiro received the bags and watched as Tadashi disappeared into the crowd of people up ahead.

Hiro remained in the middle of the hall, troubled over the fact that he wasn't able to carry a conversation with Tadashi. He headed for a small bench nearby when he felt arms drape over him as someone hugged him from behind. "Hi, daddy." GoGo said in his ear.

"GoGo, what're you doing here?" Hiro chuckled as she stepped back.

"Well, I needed a few new shirts." She said. "Fucking burned 'em while testing out the car."

"What happened?"

"Turns out experimental fuels are fucking dangerous." She chuckled. "I was looking for a better substitute to fossil fuels and I ignored Honey's advice. What're you doing here?"

"Shopping with Tadashi." He held up the bags. "Aunt Cass had donated a bunch of his clothes, so we're replacing them."

"Man, I can't believe it's really been five years since Tadashi went missing." She walked with him to the bench.

"Yeah … but I don't know if he's really back honestly."

"How come?"

"I don't know; I can't talk to him about anything anymore." He said. "He keeps zoning out even when it's stuff he used to be interested in."

"You need to give him time, Hiro; he just came back a few days ago." She said. "We don't know what Hydra had been doing to him all those years."

"Yeah, I guess."

"But in other news, I'm taking the car out on a test drive – you want in?"

"Whoa, no, I'm not doing that."

"Come on, you could be the first man to drive a flying car." GoGo said.

"Well, why don't you drive it; you're making it." Hiro replied.

"I'm not driving that thing; it could crash or some shit."

"Oh, so it's fine if I crash in it?"

"Hey, you could be the first man to die in a flying car; sounds like an honor if you ask me." She sat back, getting a chuckle from him.

"GoGo, didn't expect you to be here." Tadashi cut in as he arrived.

"I was buying some clothes."

"You were shopping for clothes?" He said in disbelief. "I thought you hated that stuff."

GoGo shrugged. "I was working on something." She stood and walked off. "Let me leave you two to your bonding." She turned to Hiro. "Don't forget the thing later, babe."

"'Babe'?" Tadashi asked.

"Oh yeah, heh, we've been dating for a couple years now." Hiro said. "I didn't mention it earlier?" Tadashi shook his head 'no'. "Okay, let's go get you a new phone." He stood and walked off quickly, Tadashi following behind.

A WHILE later, Hiro drove up to a red light and stopped, tapping his fingers on the wheel and glancing at Tadashi. He was as silent as before and he became concerned again, wanting to connect with him. Failing to come up with anything to say, he hooked up his phone and played Post Malone's 'Sunflower'.

He chuckled as he remembered. "Hey, did you know I met Spider-Man?"

"What the hell were you thinking!?" Tadashi finally exclaimed.

"Hey, hey, I can change the song if you want." Hiro said, startled.

"What were you t-thinking becoming a s-superhero." Tadashi turned to him. "Do you want to get yourself killed?"

"Hey, we've survived so far." Hiro turned the corner. "We know what we're doing."

"Hiro, anything can happen if you go out fighting m-meta-humans without powers."

"If we thought like that, we wouldn't have found you." Hiro said. "We've saved lives and we chose to become superheroes after Robert Callaghan lost his mind and started the fire at SFIT."

"What?" Horror spread on Tadashi's face.

Hiro sighed. "I didn't want to bring this up so soon, but yeah, Robert Callaghan started the fire at SFIT and attacked Krei Tech with my Microbots. Us becoming superheroes was the only way we could stop him."

"Wait, us? Who else are you working with?"

"Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred." Hiro answered. "Look, I know you're worried, but we know the risks and we've saved the city multiple times since we started."

Tadashi sat back and crossed his arms, calming down. "… The others are still around?"

"Yeah, they started working at Stark Industries after Mr. Stark opened it a year ago." Hiro said. "I'm an intern there actually."

Tadashi frowned slightly. "I'm happy for you … I'm sorry about freaking out."

"Nah, bro, it's alright." Hiro said. "I'd freak out if I found out you did the same after being gone for a while."

"Yeah …"

As the car ride went on Tadashi began to open up a bit more, chatting with Hiro and learning more about what'd changed at San Fransokyo and about Dr. Cello, a professor who'd secretly been helping them on their missions as the Big Hero 6. Arriving at the Lucky Cat Café, Hiro parked on the side of the road and got out with Tadashi, helping him with his baggage.

"Hey, could you play that song you played earlier again later, by that Post Malone guy." Tadashi asked. "Kinda liked it."

"Uh, sure." Hiro smiled and opened the front door only to get blasted with confetti.

"Welcome back, Tadashi!" Aunt Cass along with, Honey, GoGo, Fred, Wasabi and a few other people said excitedly as the two entered.

"I thought I said there'd be no confetti." Hiro dusted his shoulders.

"Now, what'd a party be without confetti?" The woman crossed her arms.

"What's this all for?" Tadashi looked around as there were drinks and snacks set on the tables and music played on the back.

"Because you're back!" Aunt Cass exclaimed.

"We hadn't given you a proper welcome, so this's our little way of saying 'welcome home', buddy." Wasabi handed him a drink.

"T-thanks." Tadashi took the cup.

"Oh, we've got so much to talk about." Honey grabbed Tadashi's hand and led him further into the room.

Hiro watched as Tadashi and the others talked amongst each other, putting the bags aside and taking a seat nearby. "So, lemme guess, you forgot the party, didn't you?" GoGo came up to him, handing him a drink.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Hiro rubbed the back of his neck. "Did Aunt Cass get mad?"

"She almost followed you all the way to the mall." She laughed. "If Wasabi weren't here, I'd have let her just to see how far she'd go."

"Well, Tadashi took a while picking a phone – I didn't know he'd be so particular about it." He took a sip.

"I missed the big lug." She sat back. "He'd take a million years on a project, but he always impressed the professors in the end."

"Yeah." He said. "I just hope this makes him feel more at home."

Tadashi, Fred and Honey laughed as they chatted amongst each other on the other side of the room, Wasabi being the only one who was upset. "It was one raccoon, alright? It's not like I have a phobia or something."

"Man, he freaking killed me." Fred's laugh died down. "He started crying."

"Did you see how fast that thing was?" Wasabi's eyes bulged in terror.

"Hey, tell him about the squirrel that bit him in the nuts!" GoGo called out.

"Ethel!" Wasabi snapped.

"That's her real name? I almost forgot." Tadashi chuckled.

"What? You really thought my name was GoGo?"

"Well, for the last year I was here, I think."

"That hurts me, Dashi," GoGo sniffled. "And here I thought we were having fun mocking Wasabi and his feral groupies."

Wasabi growled in frustration. "Okay, okay, let's stop picking on him."

"Thank you." Wasabi said and walked off.

"Come on, Wasabi, I'm sorry." Fred followed him. "Why don't I get you some gerbils you can spend the night with?"

"Leave me alone!" Wasabi yelled, only amusing Fred more.

Honey held back a laugh as they went off, not noticing Tadashi stare at her for a bit. "So, you're working at Stark Industries now?"

"Oh yeah, I have been in R n' D for a while now." She said. "Just too bad I haven't had any ideas for projects in a while."

"I'm sure you will; you know your stuff."

"Thanks." She smiled.

"Hey, why don't we meet up tonight and discuss some ideas over dinner?" He asked.

"Oh, um …" Honey looked for words.

"Honey!" Violet Parr interjected as she entered the café. "Sorry, I'm late; we got held up."

"Violet, what're you doing here?"

"Mrs. Hamada told us to come." Violet said. "Honestly forgot I had a Facebook account."

"Wait, you said 'we' …"

"Yeah, Dash was just behind me."

"Okay, look, look, I was there before you were, so how's about you appreciate my help!" Dash Parr yelled on the phone as he entered, listening to the person on the other end. "Yeah? Well, fuck SHIELD!" He cut the line. "Bitch asses." He looked around. "Sorry, Coulson was on my ass again."

"Man, you seem to hate those guys a lot." Hiro noted.

"No, we just have to iron some things out." Dash answered, noticing Honey up ahead. "Honey, there's my beautiful girl!"

"Oh, um …" Honey winced as he came up to her and draped his arm over her shoulder.

"What? Did I do something?" He squinted then turned to Tadashi. "Oh, hey, you're Hiro's brother, right? I'm Dash." He offered to shake his hand.

"Who're you? Why do you have your arm over her?" Tadashi frowned.

"Uh, I'm her boyfriend – you didn't mention that?" Dash asked Honey.

Honey laughed uncomfortably. "Uh, I was dating Tadashi a while ago before he disappeared." She turned to Tadashi. "I'm sorry, Dashi, I –,"

"You forgot me, didn't you!?" Tadashi yelled.

"Hey, look, man, it's not like that." Dash said.

"Shut up!" Tadashi growled.

"Whoa, chill; let's not blow up over here." Fred moved up to him.

"No, you forgot about me, all of you!" Tadashi looked around the room. "You've all finished college, y-you've gotten jobs and started dating a-and I'm just an inconvenience! Y-you all s-seem like you care, b-but you don't!"

"Tadashi …" Honey's brows stitched in worry.

"Alright, that's enough!" Hiro shot up from his feet.

"Hiro." GoGo tried to stop him.

"We have put aside everything just to make you feel welcome again, and this's the thanks we get?" Hiro went up to Tadashi. "We were devastated when you disappeared and we're doing everything to help you get your life back and somehow we don't care? You can't blame everyone for what happened to you!"

The room fell silent, worried and shock filling the onlookers' faces as Tadashi's frustrations boiled to the surface. Clenching his fist, Tadashi stormed out of the room, worrying Hiro. "Tadashi, wait!" He called out, but the older man had already left.

"Alright, I made us a pizza!" Aunt Cass grinned as she stepped out of the kitchen with a steaming pizza pie on a tray, sensing the tension in the room. "What happened?"

Tadashi walked angrily through the street and got on his moped, struggling to start up the dilapidated machine and getting on the road. He saw Hiro's car nearby as he went and frowned, speeding away from the Café.

SOMEWHERE IN a factory in Southern Amersia, a suited man backhanded a black woman tied to a chair, drawing blood from her already bruised lips. The woman in question, Chloe Martin, breathed haggardly and sat up once more, eyeing the three men around her in the abandoned packaging room filled with drums, chuckling.

"Oh, so you think this's funny, huh?" One man drew out a knife.

"Hey, cool it; the boss would want her alive." Another man held him back.

"No, we're wasting time." The third man said, turning to Chloe. "Now, for the last time, tell us what you're doing here, or we start cutting." He produced a sharp machete.

Chloe's cool demeanor began to vanish as he moved closer, raising the blade to cut off her hand when a door slammed open behind them. "Oh, Mr. Sing!" The second man said.

"W-what brings you here?" The first man asked nervously.

"Our sensors detected an outsider breaking in." Mr. Sing said. "Now, how anybody found our location is one thing, but how one entered with such deftness that they tripped no alarms is downright astonishing!" The man moved up to Chloe. "Now, who are you, my dear?"

Chloe looked at him for a moment, as if she were looking for words, then she gave him a sharp head butt, breaking his nose instantly! The other men panicked as Mr. Sing fell back and Chloe tapped the top of her wristwatch, releasing a small blade that she used to cut the rope and break free!

The three men descended upon her and she acted quickly, kicking the man with the machete in the shin and grabbing his weapon as he felt, stabbing him in the gut! Dislodging the blade, she cut off the second man's hand as he moved to stab her and she knocked him back, impaling the last man in the heart and killing him instantly!

Mr. Sing slowly got to his feet, holding his nose and not noticing what happened when Chloe grabbed him by the neck and pushed him toward an open drum filled with acid, tripping him and nearly plunging him in if he didn't catch himself at the rim at the last second! "Wait, wait, wait! I can give you anything you want!" He said quickly. "What do you want? Money, diamonds, I can get you anything!"

"Tell me where you're getting your weapons from?" She demanded.

"What weapons?" He asked and she stabbed her watch-blade into his wrist, forcing his hand into the acid and drawing out bloodcurdling screams as his skin melted! "Alright, alright, I'll tell you what you want to know, fuck!"

The woman grunted and threw him to the ground, swiping his handgun from him in the same motion and training it at him. "Talk."

Mr. Sing panted and wiped the blood flowing from his nose. "A few years ago, we smuggled some drugs for a man who said he worked for an organization called the Skull. It was just small stuff at first, cocaine and shit, but he had us start smuggling crazy weapons and in return, offed politicians and police officers who got in the way of our drug runs, and he warned he'd hunt as all down if we tried to break away or failed any of his ops. That's all; we don't know who he is or where he gets the stuff from, we only take it where he wants."

"How do you contact him?"

"I told you, we don't know who he –," Mr. Sing began when Chloe shot him in the foot, making him scream in agony. "Alright, alright!" He pulled out a thumb drive from his pocket and slid it toward her on the ground. "Everything you want to know is in there, just stop please!"

Chloe squinted and gingerly picked up the thumb drive, looking the man in the eye the whole time. Pocketing the drive, she walked off and left Mr. Sing who became relieved when she shot a kerosene container and a gas pipe on her way out, setting off a chain reaction of explosions that blew up the factory on her way out!

She looked around as she entered a dilapidated parking lot outside the factory, nonchalantly shooting down confused guards who stood beside an expensive black car. She moved up to the car and squeezed her way in, driving away from the burning down building and heading down a dirt road that led into a forest.

Going over Phil Coulson's instructions once more in her mind, Chloe remembered the coordinates to her next destination, taking a right out of the woods into a main road after driving for half an hour. She looked on to the open road and saw the bullet scar on her forearm, recalling how she was attacked by Hydra in San Fransokyo four years ago when she posed as Dr. Cello's assistant. She began to wonder how Hiro and his friends were doing since they'd been gone, deciding to deflect the thoughts and focus on the task at hand.

BACK IN San Fransokyo, Hiro turned the corner onto the grounds of the SFIT and parked by his old building, feeling nostalgic as he hadn't been there in a while. He exited the vehicle and locked it, moving across the pathway as he wondered where Tadashi would have ended up after he'd driven around the city for a while. He walked for a while when he saw Tadashi's moped nearby, running on as he finally knew where he was.

Tadashi stood on the bridge near the rebuilt expo building, sighing as he failed to recognize any of the people roaming around the campus. He leaned on the guardrail and tried to think when he saw Hiro running up to him. "Tadashi, there you are!" He said.

"Hiro," Tadashi sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about earlier, I –,"

"No, I should be the one apologizing." Hiro said. "We tried to make you feel at home, but it may have been too much too soon."

Tadashi frowned. "I know I'm making things difficult, but I don't know if I can handle all of this. I can't recognize anything anymore: all of you guys have moved on with your lives, I don't know where any of my other friends have gone … I don't know what to do. Time flies so fast."

Hiro looked to his brother and hesitated to speak, moving up to him. "I can't lie and say I know exactly what you're going through, but I'll be here to help you anyway I can. We can help you get your life back."

"T-this isn't my life anymore, Hiro, it's yours." Tadashi said. "I don't belong here."

Hiro tried to argue, but stopped, sifting his mind. "I can help you start a new life then." He stepped back. "Why don't we head back home? Aunt Cass's worried."

"I need to stay here for a while."

"Well, I –," Hiro tried to say when he heard a low whine behind him. "Get down!"

Hiro tackled Tadashi as a laser blasted through the guardrail, mere inches away from them! Hiro quickly turned and saw two men in armored exo-suits approaching them from both sides, cutting off their exit! One of the men trained his cannon at the two and Hiro ran up and slid toward him, tripping him and grabbing his arm and shooting down the other man1

Hiro bashed the remaining attacker's head on the ground, knocking him out and he turned to Tadashi. "We've gotta get outta here!"

Tadashi froze as he saw the man unconscious at Hiro's feet and he followed him, running onto the nearby pathway. He glanced over his shoulder as they went past his moped, seeing three other men chasing after them with jetpacks! One of the armored men shot a laser at the two brothers and they jumped out of the way, Hiro falling onto the side of a car and Tadashi onto a bush.

The man aimed for Hiro and fired and the boy quickly yanked the car door open, letting the blast skewer the metal! Grabbing a shard of glass, Hiro flung it at one of the men's helmet's, stabbing him in the eye and causing him to veer out of control, crashing onto the ground!

"How'd you do that?" Tadashi asked in amazement.

"I had ninja training."

"You had what?"

One of the remaining attackers growled in aggravation and threw a volley of bombs at the two boys, activating them in mid-air and giving them no way to escape when a psionic wave collided with the explosives, detonating them in midair! The armored men reeled back in surprise, shocked at what happened and bullets shot through their backs from behind, killing them instantly!

Hiro and Tadashi panted in shock as they wondered what happened when they saw a man and a woman approaching them from both sides of the street, the man cocking an advanced modified shotgun and the woman rubbing her wrists. "Who are you guys?" Tadashi asked.

"I'm Daisy Johnson and this's Mac, we're from SHIELD." The woman flashed her ID. "Tadashi Hamada, you're coming with us."

"Wait, what's going on here? Who're those guys who attacked us?" Hiro asked.

"That's exactly what we want to find out." Mac said.

"The eval revealed discrepancies in Tadashi's explanations of he did for Hydra while under captivity." Daisy explained. "There's more he's not telling us."