The Only Pay-off

Soooo. Recently became obsessed with Big Hero 6, had way to many ideas bouncing around in my head, and this is the result. this chapter sticks pretty close to canon, but as it goes there will be more deleted scene type sections and more AU stuff. Enjoy.

Chapter One: Always There

Gogo called it "intuition," Wasabi called it "luck," Honey Lemon called it something Tadashi thought meant "big brother instinct" in Spanish, and Fred called it "A real-life super-power." Tadashi Hamada called it "ten years of experience." And "access to tracking devices."

Whatever "It" was, it hadn't failed him yet. He'd wake up in the middle of the night to find Hiro sitting on the floor clutching a disposable camera in one hand and a control panel in the other, and Mochi, San Fransokyo's fattest cat, hovering on the far side of his bed. On tiny, rocket powered hoverboots. Purring. Or else he'd get up from studying for an exam and zero in on his little brother trying to make a robot to deliver coffee to the patrons of Aunt Cass's café and rather a lot of coffee on the floor as it malfunctioned. And no-one was going to forget the Yule Log Fiasco three Christmases back. Tadashi had been six blocks away picking up extra batteries from the corner shop, but still arrived before even the next door neighbors had heard the commotion. If Hiro was Up To Something, Tadashi knew, and Tadashi was there, simple as that. Invention gone wrong, a prank war, a calamity at the café, something that Hiro really shouldn't have been doing….it didn't matter. Sixth sense, superpower, or just experience, Tadashi Knew.

Lately, though, it had been bot-fights. Not the professional tournament types, with rules and entry fees and age limits. No. Those were "boring" and "too easy," Hiro had muttered the first time Tadashi had found him at one of the dimly lit back ally bot-fights.

"You mean, 'safe'" Tadashi had returned, checking to be sure that no one was following them and taking one of the back ally shortcuts Gogo had shown him. Hiro had only rolled his eyes and promised he'd "be more careful in the future." Which would have been fine if not for the quiet "not to get caught" under his breath.

Part of Tadashi didn't exactly blame Hiro for wanting to do something exciting; he just wished it was something that was less likely to get his teeth knocked in. So after lecturing failed, Tadashi had quietly slipped tracking devices into the seams of Hiro's new hoodie. Between those and his "big brother instinct," he could at least be there to bail his brother out of whatever mess he got himself into.

Tadashi sat at a desk in his lab—actually, a small office just down the hall from the lab he shared with a few other students—trying to finish a homework assignment when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. As usual, there was no obvious reason—no alarms were going off, no bright pink clouds of smoke were floating down the hall from Honey-Lemon's work station, no cries of "Medic!" were to be heard- Tadashi sighed, and took out a badly battered but still functional cell phone.

"Hi, you've reached Hiro Hamada, I'm kinda busy being AWSEOME right now so leave your name, number, and five hundred dollars and I'll—" Tadashi hung up, stuffed the phone into his pocket and bolted for the door, slamming the light switch as he left. A few heads turned as he wove his way past Gogo's stack of failed bike wheels and around a large easy chair that had mysteriously appeared in the middle of the lab when SFIT's mascot, Fred, had "moved in."

"Five bucks says Hamada's brother's bot-fighting again," Gogo muttered as she watched him go, glaring at her newest creation, a yellow and purple disk no thicker than a pencil. A few of the other students working paused, trying to calculate the odds. One reached for her wallet.

"No bet," said Wasabi over his shoulder. "Semester-end projects are due in," he checked his watch, "39 hours, and if he were finished, we'd know. Therefore, something came up, and the ONLY thing that comes up is Hiro."

Gogo frowned as the girl with the ping-pong robot put her wallet away. "Fine. I'm going for a spin. Keep the door open." She popped her gum, flipped the disk into the empty space where her bike's back tire should have been, checked to make certain the suspension was working, and crammed her helmet over her spiky hair. Anyone who had been near the door threw themselves back—Gogo's bike did not have breaks and her finely honed bike messenger instincts could be summed up as "everyone else had better dodge."

Hiro Hamada had once resented that he was thirteen and a half and had yet to get the growth spurt people assured him would come with puberty. It had been hard enough surviving high school years younger than most of his classmates, and being only five feet tall had not helped much. But being short had its perks. First, old ladies at Aunt Cass's café thought he was adorable and sometimes left him tips or bought him cookies. Second, it made playing the part of a timid, in-over-his-head, wet-behind-the-ears kid at his "first" bot-fight way easier.

The champion of this particular "arena" was a guy named Yama. Little Yama, his robot, was tricky, and for all his girth, Yama was quick with the controls. Hiro smirked down at his own robot, which looked like a four year old had been playing with spare parts- all part of the act, just like the way he let his shoulders droop and his knees bend slightly as he waited. Anything that made him look smaller, younger, and more vulnerable was like blood in the water in the high school halls, but it was an asset in these alleyways.

"Who's next?" Hiro heard Yama's bellow, and saw the spectators shrinking back. Give it a minute…. He thought, and then stepped into the open space. He held Megabot out in front of him the way he's seen kids offering dolls for inspection.

"Can I try?" he asked, letting his voice catch a little. Easy, easy….

Yama and the others laughed, but a handful of crumpled bills, part of last week's winnings, shut him up. Hiro set down his wobbly robot and sat. The fight was over almost before it began, with Little Yama slicing through the perceived weak points of Megabot. The crowd roared with laughter, asking if he needed someone to call his mommy, warning him to get home in time for dinner. Hiro let dismay show on his face, scrambling upward. Phase one…check.

"Wait, that was it? Oh, come on, that was my first fight, let me, let me try again." His words bled into each other, but not because he was scared or anxious or upset. Rather, he was trying his hardest to keep from laughing. He'd fooled all of them, like clockwork.

"Go home, kid." Yama said shaking his head. " Botfights aren't for little boys with toys."

"I have more money?" Hiro offered.

Yama waited until after the money was in the pot. "You have another robot, kid?"

"Uh, noooo…." Hiro dragged out the sound. The announcer woman lowered her silk parasol, counting off. As she raised it and Little Yama advanced on the three sections of Megabot, Hiro tilted his head and hit a few buttons on his control panel. "Megabot? Destroy."

Little Yama, just like the six other King Bots Hiro had annihilated over the last three weeks, didn't stand a chance as Megabot latched on to it and took it to pieces. Yama himself dropped his controller and stared as his lovingly crafted dealer of robot death was reduced to parts and sparking wires.

Pleased with himself and the night's winnings—at least a couple hundred bucks, maybe more—Hiro got to his feet and started to make his exit. Usually he could be out of the knot of onlookers, onto a street, and into a café or corner store before anyone thought to follow him, if anyone thought to follow him. This time, he found himself up against a wall with Yama and several goons advancing on him, and once again, Hiro lamented only being five feet tall.

"Uh, listen, guys…I can totally fix Little Yama, and I'll teach you everything I know about high-torque micromotors—I mean, I charge but hey, worth it right?" Hiro's eyes darted from side to side, looking for an escape route. Man, I really should have planned for this.
A roaring filled his ears, a roaring that was not his own terrified heartbeat, but rather a very familiar scooter. The driver barreled past one of the goons and screeched to a halt directly in front of Hiro.

"Get on!" Tadashi shouted, using one hand to toss the spare helmet to his little brother.

"DRIVE," Hiro called back, clinging to Tadashi with all the strength and desperation of a wet kitten to a warm brick.

Tadashi sped down the alleyway, trying to ignore the angry yelling behind them. "Are you ok? Are you hurt?"

"Nah, I'm fine," Hiro answered into the back of Tadashi's jacket.

"Then what were you thinking? You're going to get yourself arrested, or worse! Knucklehead!" Tadashi would have put his head in his hands had be not been driving at frankly terrifying speeds down dimly-lit alleys he'd only seen on maps.

Hiro, now certain that his teeth were not going to get kicked in, didn't seem to notice. "Yeah, but I WON, and anyway, it's only the betting that's-."

"Oh, no." Tadashi hit the brakes as three cop cars with flashing lights cut off the head of the alley.

"Illegal." Hiro finished, wincing.

One of the police officers ushered the brothers out the door where their Aunt Cass paced. Since it was only betting on botfights that was illegal, and technically neither Hamada had been caught betting, they'd been let off with a warning.

"Oh, are you ok? I was so worried when they called, are you hurt?" Aunt Cass grabbed both boys in a hug, squeezing them so tightly that Hiro momentarily lost the ability to breathe.

"We're fine, Aunt Cass, really," Tadashi promised, trying to escape. She let go, stepping back, and just as suddenly lunged forward, sizing them both by an ear.

"Then WHAT were you two knuckleheads thinking?" she demanded as they got into her old truck, Tadashi's motor-scooter sitting in the bed. "For ten years I've done my best, and yes, maybe I should have picked up a book on parenting, and YES it's like the blind leading the blind, but…" The lecture continued as they made the short drive home, though it was not always discernable. Words and phrases like "Unbelievable!" and "Should I have signed you up for more clubs?" and "you worry me sick" were punctuated by mutterings about idiot drivers and having to close the café early.

"Stress eating," Aunt Cass said as she took a donut from the Lucky Cat's display case and switched the "closed" sign back to open.

"We're sorry, Aunt Cass," Tadashi said, remembering that it was Wednesday, beat-poetry night, and one of the best nights for business.

"We love you, Aunt Cass," Hiro offered, quietly slipping some of his winnings from the hidden pocket in his hoodie into the safebox under the counter.

"I love you, too," Aunt Cass said, her mouth full. Hiro and Tadashi waited a moment longer, then went up the stairs to the apartment and to the room they shared at the top of the house.

"I hope you learned your lesson," Tadashi said, watching Hiro make a few adjustments to Megabot.

"Sure," Hiro said, focused on his work.

"Really?" Tadashi asked, not believing it for a second.

"Absolutely. Prison changed me, bro." Hiro stuffed Megabot into his backpack and started towards the stairs.

"Funny," Tadashi deadpanned, grabbing Hiro's hood. "Where are you going?"

"Uh…to a friend's house?" Hiro said.

"Which friend?"

"Alex?"

"The kid who used to take your lunch money?" Tadashi glanced at Hiro's computer screen, filled with a map of San Fransokyo. "You're going bot-fighting again. Unbelievable." He threw up his hands in exasperation. "You graduated high school at thirteen, so I know you've got a brain in there. Why waste it with this?"

Hiro shrugged. "It's fun? Better than going to college like you, I don't NEED more people trying to teach me stuff I already know." He didn't add that he'd hated being so much younger than his classmates in high school, college would be a million times worse.

Tadashi took off his ball cap and ran a hand through his short, dark hair. "What would Mom and Dad say

"I dunno, they're gone." Hiro didn't seem to realize Tadashi had been talking to himself, or just how much the answer hurt. It had been ten years, but sometimes it felt so recent, the pain still fresh. Tadashi winced, then shook his head, trying to clear it. Heat, screaming, twisted metal, sirens, a toddler's wails…

"Think fast," Tadashi ordered, tossing Hiro his helmet. "I'll take you."

"Really?" Hiro was instantly on guard.

Tadashi sighed. "If I can't stop you, I'm at least going to be there. C'mon."

Well, I hope you liked it, keep an eye out for more coming soon. *Mochi eyes* leave a review?