Yep, no excuse for how late this one was. I kinda got stuck in the middle of Fred's part so that took me the longest. Though, to be fair, I also got an idea for continuing this story into Endgame so... yeah, I apologize since the 'Not Civil War Compliant' tag no longer applies. But, at least you'll get a full story out of this. Also, the long-awaited brother meet-up so that's gotta count for something!

Also, is anyone else happy that now that Disney has the rights to the X-Men that they can include them in the MCU? Cause now I can use the term 'mutants' guilt free! So congrats, the first known mutant in the Rising Sun 'verse is officially Tadashi, so there! :P

Chapter 3

The fire was intense. Shiro blinked as he looked around, trying to get smoke out of his vision. The air was filled with smoke, and Shiro could hardly breathe without coughing. He turned around and searched wildly though, knowing that he needed to find him. He was in danger, and Shiro had rushed in to save him. "Professor?!"

He coughed again, and he could barely make out the auditorium he was in. There were numerous devices in various booths, and Shiro wished that Baymax was there. At least the bot could point him in the direction where the professor was, and they could get to safety.

Suddenly something exploded behind him and threw him to the ground. Gasping, he twisted around to look, ignoring a throbbing pain in his shoulder as he realized the entrance was now gone. He tried scrambling to his feet, but his shoulder wouldn't cooperate and he slumped. He was trapped and he was going to die. Why had he been so stupid?

A hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder, and Shiro gasped, turning around to look. The professor was there, looking concerned as he looked Shiro over. "What are you doing here? You should have evacuated with everyone else!"

Shiro didn't even know why he'd come back, but he shook his head. "I came back in looking for you! Someone said you were still in here." Wait, what?

The professor looked torn, and yet he seemed to argue with himself for a moment before nodding. "All right. Come on, we need to get out!"

Shiro's eyes landed on what was in the professor's hands, and his eyes widened. "The microbots…"

"We can get out using them. Your brother left them in here."

Shiro nodded, and yet he was wondering why the professor even had the neurocranial transmitter. Then he wondered how he even knew what it was to begin with. Shoving that to the back of his mind, he nodded toward the exit. "Well come on, we need to go!"

Scrambling to his feet, he ignored the pain in his shoulder as he and the professor started for the exit. The professor had settled the transmitter onto his head, and a wave of black followed them. Shiro didn't know where they were going, only that the explosion that had knocked him down was probably the main exit. The professor, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly where he was going, and led him to one of the side exits.

"All right." Wait, what? "You can get out through here. Get going!"

"Professor, I can't just leave you in here!" Shiro wasn't even sure what was going on anymore, and it almost felt like he was reliving an event rather than actually in control. "Professor Callaghan, you need to get out too! This place isn't going to last much longer!"

Callaghan turned toward Shiro then, a frown marring his features. "No, I need to get something out before this place goes. Otherwise it'll take o…" His voice petered out, and his mouth dropped in shock. "You're on fire!"

Shiro opened his mouth, probably to tell him that it wasn't possible, that he would feel it, when he looked at himself. His hands were encased in flames, and his shoes were quickly melting off of his feet. He stared in horror for a moment or two before he looked back at Callaghan in panic. "What's going on? What's happening to me?"

The professor backed away however, shaking his head. "This isn't possible. You should be in pain from that. How?"

Shiro's clothes started to catch on fire as well, and Shiro desperately tried patting the flames out. He couldn't even feel them, and all the while he heard in his head a chant of this is wrong, he should be feeling something. His panic heightened as more and more of himself caught fire.

Callaghan stared, and Shiro was suddenly struck with foreboding. He backed away, unsure about what was wrong, and trying to put himself out. However, something gripped his arm and pulled him forward, out of the building. He struggled against it, and realized that Callaghan had directed the black wave to toss him out of the building. Callaghan followed a moment later, breathing heavily as he glared. "You fool! I don't know what is going on, but backing away from the exit is a foolish idea. You should never have been in there to begin with!"

Shiro couldn't reply, and he tried desperately to put out the flames. His clothing was already in ruins, and he could feel himself hyperventilating. He heard a distinctive 'shit' from right beside him, and Callaghan seemed to think before scowling. "Stop breathing for a moment!"

The order shocked Shiro enough that he held his breath without realizing it. However, to his shock, the flames seemed to die down on him before sputtering out after a minute. Shiro fell back, gasping as the last flame flickered out and turning wide eyes toward his professor. "What just happened?"

Callaghan opened his mouth to reply when Shiro heard the distinct click of a gun. Head jerking around, Shiro realized that he and the professor weren't alone. Ten men surrounded them, guns pointed at them and Shiro felt cold.

Callaghan however seemed to know what was going on, because he glared at the man next to him. "We had a deal."

The man snorted. "The deal was that we had access to whatever was available inside that we could use. In exchange, we would make this look like an accident." The man smiled, and Shiro could find nothing comforting in the expression. "I believe we found something more valuable as recompense."

Shiro stared at Callaghan. "What's he talking about?"

"No deal." Callaghan seemed to understand whatever that meant, because the black mass that was at his feet seemed to move threateningly. "I said you could take tech, I never said you could kidnap one of my students."

"On the contrary." The man looked Shiro over. "I believe that the agreement was for anything of scientific value. The boy will suffice. After all, he is quite exceptional."

"No!" Callaghan seemed to make a move, but one of the people surrounding them lifted the barrel of his rifle to point it at Shiro.

"You have what you wanted, Callaghan." The man seemed bored. "You also know that if you do anything at this point, we will act to ensure the government knows exactly what you are planning. I would hate to be the one responsible for letting your daughter's killer run free."

Callaghan seemed to freeze, and that caused Shiro to panic. Blindly, he struck out, catching one of the men aiming at him in the face. Hands grabbed at him, and he felt the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his head. Opening his mouth to scream for help only resulted in something being shoved into it. He tried spitting whatever it was out as he struggled, but that only resulted in being cuffed upside the head and his hands bound tightly behind his back while someone secured the gag in his mouth.

Dazed, Shiro was hauled to his feet. It took a moment for him to realize that the men holding him were taking him away from the fire, toward a section of campus that seemed to have no traffic save for a lone black van. Before being shoved into the van, someone stripped him of what remained of his clothes. Another secured him within the van. The man seemed to follow behind, only pausing long enough to hand over the remains of what Shiro wore with a nod. "Make sure no one can find him."

Shiro struggled again, trying to get free. However, a prick to the back of his neck caused Shiro to fall limp, fogginess beginning to claim his sight. The last image he saw was of Callaghan leaving on a wave of black before the doors to the van slammed home.

Shiro awoke with a blink and a gasp. He sat up quickly, trying to gather his bearings and determine where he was. No gag was present in his mouth, and his arms and legs were free. Sunlight streamed in through a window and caused Shiro to squint. The last vestiges of his troubled sleep faded, causing Shiro to wonder just what he had been dreaming about.

It wasn't the first time that Shiro had awoken to night terrors. He had them quite often, usually regarding fire and suffocating and feeling trapped. Usually he chalked it up to his time in captivity, and never thought much of it beyond that. Usually they felt different than this one, but something about the dream from last night felt different, and yet he couldn't pinpoint why. It didn't help that he couldn't remember the dream, only that he knew he'd been bound and gagged.

A whirring noise drew his attention to the right, where he spotted Baymax studying him and moving forward. The rescue bot stopped when he was in front of Shiro and cocked his head to the side. "Shiro, I detect elevated stress-related hormones in your system as well as: increased heart rate. Are you well?"

Shiro frowned, then looked around. He was in his lab. He'd fallen asleep in his lab. He looked at his desk, realizing that there were two scorch marks on it. "I fell asleep here?"

Baymax nodded. "You fell asleep not long after you ended your conversation with: Cass Hamada. You seemed to be relieved after your call and I did not wish to disturb you. However, I must recommend that you sleep in a much more suitable location next time."

Shiro smiled ruefully, rubbing the back of his head. "Noted. I'll try that next time." He glanced around then frowned as he realized something. "Why haven't you deactivated yet?"

"Your treatment has not concluded. I cannot deactivate until you are satisfied with your care."

Shiro sighed, wondering how he'd forgotten that bit of coding. It had taken the better part of two weeks to work out how to deactivate him without leaving behind someone in danger, and he had figured on a simple command that would work. Not that he thought he'd actually be the recipient of said care before, or have to deal with Baymax and his programming firsthand.

A bemused smile graced his face before he looked around for his hat. "Well, if that's the case, I need to go shower and actually make myself presentable. I still have to present you to my professor as finished before the expo, after all. I am sati-"

"Shiro!" Shiro blinked, looking over to the door. He got a brief glimpse of blonde hair before Honey Lemon wrapped her arms around him. "What are you even doing in the lab? I thought they locked it up every night."

Shiro coughed as Honey pulled away from him, allowing him a chance to catch his breath. "I have a key to lock up behind me in case I stay too late. It was surprising, but then again, I haven't given the faculty a reason to rescind the privilege. What are you doing here so early?"

He heard a snort from the door as well a definite pop. "He says early like it's five AM." Curious, he looked behind Honey to see four individuals. One, the woman who had spoken, was blowing a bubble and looked Asian with two stripes of purple in her hair. Another was a blond Caucasian who looked rather lanky, and the third seemed to be a dark-skinned man with broad shoulders and dreadlocks. It was the fourth that gave Shiro pause, a teen who seemed to be hanging back and watching the scene with a look of distrust.

"Um Shiro?" His attention was pulled back to Honey, who was looking at him curiously. "Are you okay?"

"I believe his attention is elsewhere." Shiro managed not to start in surprise as Baymax made himself known. "He had a rather disrupted sleep earlier and might still be suffering from the aftereffects."

"I'm fine big guy." Shiro sighed and rubbed his face. "What time is it?"

"Well, it's about nine AM, which, umm…" The larger male looked apprehensive for a moment as though he were struggling for something to say. "I'd say that was normal for you, but I don't know if you're really who I think you are so…"

The blond man simply walked forward and tossed an arm around Shiro's shoulders. Shiro tensed, not sure as to who the man was, and not exactly feeling comfortable with the physical contact. "What he means to say Bromada is that we're here to check on you and see if you're really Little Dude's brother and you haven't turned to the dark side."

Shiro blinked and extricated himself from underneath the man's arm. "One, my name's Shiro, and two, what? Who's Little Dude?"

It was then that the teen hanging back frowned and spoke. "Fred gives out nicknames and when he decides on one, you're stuck with it. He's meaning me, and I'm not convinced you're Tadashi."

Shiro opened his mouth and then shut it, recalling the conversation that he had the night before. "But you're not unconvinced though."

The teen waved a hand blithely. "You look exactly like my brother, you tell me." He stepped forward, and Shiro noted the piercings and had a sudden urge to scold the kid for it. Which made no sense whatsoever to Shiro. Why did he care what the kid did with his own body? ""I'm Hiro, Hiro Hamada. Aunt Cass said you called her last night?"

That caused everyone to look at Hiro in surprise, and Fred muttered something about repressed memories and something about how every amnesiac protagonist in comic books seemed to have a knack with somehow finding their relatives again. Shiro merely wondered when his life turned into a comic book. "Baymax called her. He found the number, and when I told him I didn't remember anything, he decided to download a database on mental health related to it and proceeded to make the call." He sat back, feeling really uncomfortable all of a sudden. "I'm sorry, I just don't remember any of you at all."

"Reconnecting with loved ones often helps sufferers of amnesia," Baymax suggested helpfully.

"He almost sounds the same…" Hiro walked over to Baymax and started studying him. "What'd you give him, titanium skeleton?"

"Carbon fiber." Shiro was getting a strange sense of déjà-vu. "He can lift close to a ton and the carbon fiber can handle better stresses."

"Hyperspectral cameras?"

"Yep."

"And I guess that you manufactured his actuators right in the lab here."

Shiro stared at the teen, confused. "How did you even know that?"

Hiro rolled his eyes, but didn't answer. Instead, he examined the robot closer. "…That's not vinyl."

"Uh, no, I had to use something tougher to withstand abrasions and tears to the fabric." Shiro watched as Hiro prodded Baymax's exterior. "You still haven't answered my question."

"I'm getting to it." Hiro stood back and frowned. "You probably still used lithium ion batteries, didn't you? I told you to use-"

"Actually they're supercapacitors. I was thinking of using lithium ion, but something told me to use something different." Shiro crossed his arms. "Are you done yet?"

Hiro whirled around and stared at Shiro hard. "You actually remembered. You don't remember anything else, but you remembered the supercapacitors."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Because I told you to use them before!" Hiro closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "No one else was in the room when I told you that, and I tried to make sure that Baymax was still your creation, but you made the change already." When Hiro opened his eyes again, Shiro was startled to see tears in them. "What happened?"

Suddenly Shiro knew that Hiro wasn't referring to Baymax anymore, and the look on his face made Shiro's own chest ache. "…I don't know."

Honey looked torn, and the large guy walked over to place a hand on Hiro's shoulder. "Hiro-"

"Baymax!"

Shiro started and looked over to where his robot sat quietly, but it was something coming from the hallway that diverted his attention. He could hardly believe it when he spotted something extremely similar to his original design for Baymax walk through the door. Looking around, it turned and gave a small, circular wave toward everyone. "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal health care companion."

It was getting too crowded, and the room felt too small for Shiro all of a sudden. Hiro didn't seem to notice Shiro's step backward as he turned toward the newest body in the room. "Baymax, scan him."

The scan was over in less than a moment as the robot seemed to glance over Shiro. "You seem to be having erratic breathing as well as an elevated heart rate. Your core temperature is also currently at forty point one degrees Celsius. Might I suggest tha-"

"Get out. Please."

It was a whisper, but Shiro's Baymax seemed to hear it. The rescue bot seemed to step forward and interpose himself between Shiro and everyone else. "It would be best if you please leave the room. My patient is currently experiencing a: panic attack. If his core temperature reaches a critical point, he will combust."

"Combust? What does he mean combust?"

Shiro didn't hear much, trying to concentrate on Baymax's reassuring tones and calm down. However, it wasn't until a white vinyl hand holding a paper cup of water entered his view that he actually was able to focus on anything beyond the feeling of too small and tight. He pried his grip from his upper arm and reached out, only wincing when he realized that his hands had left charred imprints on his sleeves.

"Sorry." Shiro frowned and looked over, surprised to see Hiro still there. "I should have thought that through a bit better. But, um, no offence, you do realize that I had to make sure. I didn't know if you were my brother or…"

"Or someone that was wearing his face." Shiro took a sip from the cup and grimaced. It felt cold going down, which meant that he had probably heated up so much that anything was cold right now. "To be honest, I didn't… I'm still not sure I believe it myself. I mean, what are the odds, right?"

"Don't ask that. You haven't seen half of the crazy things I've seen before, trust me."

"I find that hard to believe."

This time it was Hiro's turn to frown. "I had my microbots stolen by some crazy professor of yours that tried to use them to destroy one of the biggest names in technology. You can't get crazier than that."

Shiro snorted. "Despite you being part of Big Hero Six, that still doesn't mean I haven't seen crazy stuff of my own. Being kidnapped by a megalomaniac terrorist group intent on conquering the world does that kind of thing to you."

Hiro stilled. "Honey Lemon said you were kidnapped by someone but you wouldn't say who it was."

"Hydra." The mere mention of the name left a bad taste on Shiro's tongue. "That's why I don't believe it. They're big into human experiments, and I'm not sure I'm not one of those."

"Hydra did this to you?" Hiro looked livid. "They kidnapped you from your family, experimented on you, and what? Used you to build stuff?"

Shiro chuckled humorlessly. "I wish. I didn't see the outside of a lab for two years, and even then, I was…" He couldn't bring himself to tell Hiro that he was trapped in a tube that entire time. He couldn't. "I had very limited mobility, and they never let me outside of my cell unless it was for tests."

Hiro stood and started pacing, his expression furious. "That's just… I knew about an info dump on the 'net years ago, but I had no idea that they had you. If I had…" He gestured uselessly. "This never would have happened. We would have come for you."

The idea of Hiro being anywhere near Hydra made Shiro terrified. He wasn't sure if it was because his brother, and if that was who Hiro actually was, actually suggested going after Hydra, or if it was the idea of what would have happened if Hiro had failed, but either option didn't sit well with Shiro. "No, it's… It's really better that you didn't."

"How is this better?" Hiro shot him an incredulous look. "Look, you had a panic attack when there were too many people in the room, your shirt looks like two irons landed on your arms, and you're shaking! I would have given anything to stop this!"

"Because I was tortured by them!" Shiro hadn't realized he had stood until he was facing Hiro directly. His hands were clenched, and he was afraid that there was smoke seeping through his fingers. "I was trapped in a glass tube while they poked and prodded me and made me do things…" Shiro shook his head, trying to banish the memories that accompanied his words. "They would have caught you too and there would have been nothing I could have done to stop them!"

Hiro stood there, eyes wide as he paled considerably. "Someone would have helped out. The team would have-"

"Hydra erased everything about me. I had nothing, no name, no memories, and no one knew I was even there. I got lucky when the Avengers took down the lab I was in. If I had been there any longer…" Shiro couldn't finish that sentence. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down his racing heart before he ended up having another episode.

He didn't expect for Hiro to wrap his arms around him, or for the teen to bury his face in Shiro's shoulder. "Tadashi, I'm sorry this happened. I should have done something. I should have stopped you."

"Stop me from what? Getting kidnapped?"

"No." Hiro took a step back and looked at Shiro, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Stop you from running into the showcase. I should have held on tighter, maybe distracted you long enough until the building exploded. Anything."

"I don't remember that night." Shiro laid a hand on Hiro's shoulder. "I don't know what Tadashi was thinking, or what went wrong."

Hiro frowned. "You're talking like you're not him."

"Because I don't think I am him." Shiro shook his head. "I could be a clone for all I know. All of my memories are of when I woke up in the lab and beyond. Besides, I don't think Tadashi could do some of the things I do."

"The fire generation, right?" At Shiro's incredulous look, Hiro shrugged. "Honey said something about it, and she mentioned that you nearly freaked out on her about it. I don't know about you, but you could have encountered any number of the experiments at the showcase during the fire that caused it."

"Hydra also gave Scarlet Witch her powers. They could have done the same to me."

"I'm going to guess you don't want me to figure out how." Hiro shook his head, then turned to look at his Baymax. "Baymax, during your scan, was there anything different about Tadashi from the first time you scanned him and now?"

Hiro's Baymax tilted his head. "Other than a higher core temperature and symptoms consistent with a panic attack, Tadashi has suffered from a soft tissue injury to his shoulder and ankle in the past. There are no other differences I can detect."

Hiro turned smugly toward Shiro. "So I'm going to rule out genetic manipulation then. Maybe you always had them?"

Shiro frowned, running through his head everything he could think of about what he knew about himself. "Wouldn't that have been obvious before though?"

"Unless they surfaced all of a sudden." Shiro cocked an eyebrow at Hiro. "What? You got saved by a super soldier, a genius billionaire, and a god. Don't tell me that my hypothesis is any weirder."

"Thor disappeared before they rescued me," Shiro corrected.

"Details, details. Still amounts to the same thing." Hiro crossed his arms. "All I know is that Fred is going crazy with the idea that you got a superpower and disappointed that he didn't."

Shiro was silent for a moment. "I still don't think I'm Tadashi. It seems too convenient."

Hiro chewed on his lower lip. "Look, I'm going to be honest. I came here initially to find out the truth. I was all for the idea that you were just a creepy lookalike, and wanted to make sure it wasn't just me or anyone else making the mistake. But, Baymax says it's you, and no offense, but you made another. I don't know why, and I really want to know, but I also know that whatever happened before, it won't change that you probably are my brother. If we need to, we can get a DNA test done to confirm it, but I have a feeling that it will prove what Baymax said."

"You're really convinced about this, aren't you?" Shiro's mouth quirked into a slight smile. It'd figure that the kid who claimed to be his brother was stubborn.

"I look at everything from every angle I can find. You taught me that, and you'd know I was right." Hiro crossed his arms again. "So, you ready to meet the Nerd Crew again? I promise the only one that might overwhelm you is Fred, and he's promised not to try and get you to introduce him to Tony Stark. Which, I have to admit, the mere fact that he adopted you at all makes me jealous. But I got the better deal I think." Hiro smirked.

"Oh yeah, how so?"

"I'm the one that currently lives above a café that makes the best crullers in San Fransokyo." Hiro stuck his tongue out, and Shiro couldn't help himself. He ended up chasing the teen down the hall to catch up with the others, knowing that Hiro had done it on purpose but not minding a bit.

"So there I was, standing right between this dude and the girl we were trying to save. And do you know what happened? Girl marches right by me, takes her purse off her shoulder, and proceeds to start swatting the man with it." Fred grinned, in his element. "You'd have thought a guy that had just held Wasabi at gunpoint wouldn't be intimidated by that, but he literally ran. Gogo caught him like two blocks later after she had knocked out his accomplice. It was epic!"

Fred had decided that the best way to gauge how Tadashi was doing after his kidnapping was to talk about some of the different things that Big Hero Six had done over the four years the team had been together. He figured that if Tadashi was sympathetic toward any of the bad guys, he might be slipping, but as it stood, Tadashi was more interested in groaning and rubbing his forehead at every tale. Fred hoped that was a good sign, since the Bromada had always had this kick about keeping people safe. Now he was just getting an update on how the team was carrying on his legacy.

"Why is it that bad guys seem to think that applying paint guns to a solution works? I've never once seen anyone actually fall for that." Tadashi shook his head. "So where was Hiro in all of this?"

"Oh, Little Dude was busy stopping the guy that drove off in the car. From what he said, Baymax was the one to scold the person for reckless driving. I don't think she liked that too much."

"I am not that little anymore!" Hiro groaned, hanging upside down on Tadashi's bed. "That was literally just three weeks ago. I'm legally an adult now."

The three were situated in Tadashi's dorm, Gogo, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon having left to get something to eat. Baymax had offered to go as well, commenting that Tadashi hadn't eaten anything yet and that, as his current patient, he needed to get proper nutrition. The only downside to the whole exchange was that Tadashi had insisted that his name wasn't Tadashi, and while Fred could understand that, knowing that he was probably protecting Hiro from Tadashi's kidnappers, it still left a pang of hurt in the blonde's heart. After all, Tadashi had no recollection of any of them, and if this was what happened to him, Fred was afraid of what could happen if they ran across the guys that did it.

"So let me get this straight. The team is okay with letting a minor fight crime with them?" Tadashi sounded exasperated.

"Well, not at first. It wasn't until someone had stolen Baymax's designs and made a whole army of them that we officially became a team." Fred leaned back, remembering that event. "Pretty sure Yama regretted that whole mess."

"Yama?" Tadashi looked confused, frowning. "That sounds like a bot fighter name or something."

Hiro and Fred exchanged glances. Fred had of course heard all about Hiro's exploits as a bot fighter, but no one had mentioned them to Tadashi. Fred only hoped this was a good sign. "I think he was, wasn't he?"

Hiro nodded. "Yeah. I trashed his bot in a bot fight once. Little Yama. Yama was going to cream me if you hadn't shown up when you did."

Tadashi frowned. "Bot fighting is illegal."

Hiro smirked, looking a little more confident, as though they'd had this conversation before. "No, betting on bot fighting is illegal. But it's oh so lucrative."

"Unbelievable." Tadashi rolled his eyes and sighed. "Let me guess, you never got caught."

"Oh no, we both got caught. The lecture Aunt Cass gave us for that was epic. She started stress eating as soon as she got us home right afterward." Hiro rolled over and pushed himself into a sitting position. "That doesn't ring a bell, does it?"

Tadashi shook his head. "Not a bit. Sorry. The name Yama sounds familiar though."

"You know, I have my own hypothesis about why you can't remember anything." Fred nodded sagely.

Hiro tossed Fred an exasperated look while Tadashi looked over at Fred questioningly. "Oh? What's your hypothesis?"

Fred gestured to Tadashi. "I've got a feeling the reason you can't remember anything is because you're trying to protect someone. Like, subconsciously. It totally fits with the whole kidnapping victim not wanting the evil organization to get a hold of loved ones cliché."

Hiro groaned again. "Fred, we're not in a comic book."

"Au contraire, mi amigo. You forget that Shiro was kidnapped but rescued by the Avengers. We're superheroes ourselves. We are literally living a comic book." Fred grinned, crossing his arms in triumph. "Besides, my dad says that there's more superheroes out there. We're just the newest incarnation."

Tadashi crossed his own arms. "And this is the same dad that idolized Captain America as a kid, right?"

"Naturally." Fred leaned back and studied Tadashi. "Which, you already know who he is so I don't need to explain him at all."

Tadashi sighed. "I'm going to be honest. All of that sounds reckless and dangerous. Why are you guys even doing all that?"

"The superhero thing?" At Tadashi's nod, Fred continued. "Well, besides it being super awesome, we're doing it to help people. You know, what you wanted to do. Only with more kicking villains' butts than you probably would have considered."

Tadashi looked torn, and shook his head. "I'm not so sure about that…"

Suddenly the door opened and all three heads turned abruptly. It was Tadashi's sudden curse that made Fred blink, but his attention was quickly redirected to the man who seemed to be standing in the doorway blinking. He was heavyset and blonde, but he turned his attention to Tadashi. "Um, Shiro, who's the visitors?"

Tadashi looked like he was about to stammer a reply when Fred stood abruptly. "Fred Lee. Old friend of Shiro's here. We've just been catching up and everything with each other." He grinned as he held out a hand. "And who are you? Shiro mentioned a roommate. You him?"

The blonde blinked and looked over at Tadashi, but the Bromada simply shrugged. "Paul. Paul Simmons. You certainly don't look like how I envisioned any of Shiro's friends."

"Yeah, well, we weren't expecting Shiro's roommate to suddenly show up." Hiro had decided to take Fred's lead and stood. "Hiro Hamada. Shiro said you were out for classes."

"I was." Paul gave Tadashi a look that screamed that there was some explaining to do in the future, but Fred was quite used to dealing with that sort of thing. "I was just going to grab one of my books for class, but…"

"Yo, you going to stand in the doorway?" Paul nearly jumped several feet into the air as Gogo made her presence known. "We're trying to get through."

Fred would have snorted with laughter at Paul's expression as he spotted the diminutive Korean girl behind him, but decided to take pity on him. "Sorry, we were planning on making a picnic or something in the room. You know, since we haven't seen him in a while."

Honey, who was right behind Gogo, looked apologetically at Paul. "Hey, maybe all of us can go out to eat sometime. We'd love to hear what Shiro's been up to since coming all the way out to Massachusetts."

"It would be beneficial for patients with retrograde amnesia to have friends and family involved with the recovery process," Baymax supplied, standing somewhere just out of sight of the doorway. "Tadashi's mental health would improve much faster."

Paul looked confused. "Who's Tadashi?"

"Oh, um, dude, you're gonna be late for class!" Fred scanned the books on the shelf next to the other bed and plucked what he thought was Paul's textbook from the pile. "Here you go man, hope you're not late to lecture or anything!"

Paul's eyes widened comically as he looked down at his watch. "Damnit, you're right!" Ignoring the book in Fred's hand, he grabbed another from the shelf and stepped back into the hall, Gogo and Honey Lemon stepping deftly out of the way while Baymax and Wasabi stepped into view, looking as though they were watching Paul's progress down the hall.

Fred, however, breathed a sigh of relief and slumped down in the chair he had occupied previously. "Whoa, that was close." Ignoring the others staring at him, he gestured everyone inside before he scooted over to close the door. "Baymax, rule number one of someone trying to protect someone else by hiding their identity, don't say their name out loud. You're going to blow Bromada's cover."

Gogo's eyes narrowed. "And just what kind of cracked idea is in your head now?"

Wasabi looked confused and groaned. "I'm going to agree with Gogo. Why are you suddenly talking about hiding Tadashi's identity?"

"It's not like Tadashi's a superhero or anything." Hiro had grabbed a bag from Wasabi and was digging through it, snagging a bag of gummy bears out and plopping it next to him. He then paused as Tadashi shifted uneasily.

Honey herself was looking a bit uneasy, but decided to speak first. "Um, actually, about that…"

Gogo's eyes travelled over to Tadashi as she frowned. "Wait, you're a superhero?"

Tadashi sighed and rubbed his face. "Yeah. Um, it started a year ago." His jaw clenched though. "I wasn't going to wait around for someone to kidnap me again, and I wanted to help people."

Hiro looked cross. "Bro, you are not allowed to lecture me about being a superhero when you've been doing it too."

Wasabi looked beyond stunned. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but is Fred right and you're hiding your identity to protect Hiro or something?"

"Nope!" Fred shook his head. "It all makes sense. He was kidnapped by some crazy organization that probably threatened to grab Hiro since he's all genius-y and make them both work for them, but Tadashi totally went into ultimate big brother mode and made himself forget everything to protect the little dude."

"I'm seriously thinking you got dropped on your head as a baby," Gogo snorted. "That made no sense whatsoever. No one can forget their entire past like that."

"Memory repression is mainly caused by a traumatic event in a patient's life," Baymax added. "As there is no evidence of previous brain injury that I can detect, it is safe to assume that Tadashi's memory loss coincides with his time in captivity."

Fred glanced over to Tadashi, who looked like he was rubbing his temples. "I can honestly say that the doctors I saw when I was rescued said nothing about a head injury." He opened his eyes and sighed. "Look, I don't know why I forgot everything."

"Which is why I'm trying to think of every possibility." Fred crossed his arms, smug. "Since you obviously don't know why you forgot it all, it's a matter of piecing together the pieces. Kinda like Doctor Destructo and the Blue Cyclone. Blue Cyclone forgot everything once in issue two hundred and fifteen, and everyone around him was putting the pieces together, but it was hard since Doctor Destructo kept hiding the most important evidence."

"That is still the stupidest thing I've ever heard of." Gogo blew a bubble and popped it in annoyance as she fished out fries from a bag. "My guess is you probably saw something horrific and your mind just shut down."

"I'm still not convinced that you didn't have some head trauma at some point," Wasabi stated. "That, and I'm pretty sure if we brought you back home, some of your memories would start surfacing."

Honey Lemon was chewing her lip, obviously thinking. "Shiro, who's the woman that keeps shadowing you?" When the others looked over to her, startled, Honey shrugged. "I keep seeing this red-haired woman around campus, and she's not part of the faculty."

Tadashi groaned. "If I plead the fifth, will you guys leave it alone?"

Hiro blinked. "Wait, lemme guess. One of the Avengers, right?" Tadashi grimaced, and Hiro sat up properly. "I'm right?"

"I can't answer that." Tadashi pressed his lips together while crossing his arms before speaking again. "Look, can we drop this?"

Fred nodded, sagely. "Yeah, sure. We got you covered. Your secrets are safe, man."

Tony rolled back from his project, frowning as he examined it. It was an upgrade to his Mark XLVI, and he'd been fine-tuning the armor since the events in Sokovia. So far, it'd done the work well enough, but he figured that he'd be almost complete with the ideas for his next suit here soon.

He was actually tempted to work on a suit for Shiro, considering the kid didn't have any real protection in his current suit. However, considering that Shiro was a martial artist and needed mobility, plus the limitations considering his abilities, well, Tony hadn't gotten much beyond tossing around ideas for trying to find a good material to withstand Shiro's extreme heat.

Which, he couldn't outright ask Shiro to test out different materials to see their resistance. The kid had way too many hang-ups regarding his fire abilities and tests. Not that Tony blamed him one bit. He'd come out of his stint with terrorists with probably as many issues, and he still dealt with PTSD regularly. Still, he'd had to rig up a heat chamber that could hopefully reach the same heats that Shiro produced to see the effects on different materials.

He rolled his neck, massaging it a bit before he tossed his screwdriver down onto a worktable. He frowned then, glancing toward a clock on the wall before he winced. It was probably a good thing that Pepper had agreed to go to one of his meetings that day. He was sure he'd have missed it by now, and considering that he was also certain he had another meeting to attend in a bit, he probably had less time to get ready than he thought.

Besides, he had other things to worry about. According to information that Romanov had gathered, Shiro had apparently discovered pieces of his own past, and Tony hoped that the kid was having an easy time of meeting people from his past. Not that Tony complained about it, but Shiro really needed something more concrete to hold onto than just the Avengers. The kid was dang-near reclusive and paranoid, two things that didn't mix well. Couple it with Shiro's very-real fears, and it was a recipe for disaster.

Making up his mind, he stood, walking toward the elevator to take him to his suite. "Hey Friday, can you contact Hill and tell her to reschedule my meetings leading up to the expo?"

"And what should I tell her when she asks why?" Friday was a great assistant, but Tony couldn't help but miss Jarvis's snark right about now.

"Just let her know I'm going out of town until the end of the expo. Pepper'll let me know if there's anything important I need to address." Tony's upper lip twitched as he imagined Pepper's expression. "Also remind me to get an apology gift for Pepper later."

"I'm sure she'll enjoy it."

Was it his imagination, or was that genuine sarcasm? Either way, he grinned and looked toward Dum-E and pointed to his workstation. "Clean this up for me. Daddy's gonna be back later tonight so don't wait up."