Disclaimer: Sadly enough, I do not and will not ever own the AMAZINGNESS that is Big Hero 6 or its franchise.

(A girl can dream though right?)

Btw, I came up with this idea like SUPER late at night so it may not be the best… but hey, I tried. Anyway, I sorry I've been MIA recently. I've been SUPER busy with school and all, and I've had writer's block for the longest time. For all of you waiting for my other stories, please be patient. I'm trying; I swear.

XOXOXOXO

Hiro wakes to the sound of rushing water. Due to some poor planning on the part of contractors and an unfortunate incident involving two mischievous, robot-loving brothers, the pipes in Aunt Cass's house have found their course directed inside the walls nearest Hiro's bed. It's not exactly bad, per say, and on good days, Hiro would even go as far as to call it soothing.

Today, however, is not a good day.

His head is pounding in a way that the Hamada had become far too familiar with in the last couple of months. Hard, heavy, strikes thudded at the base of his neck, traveling swiftly upward to tendrils of shooting pain that gathered behind closed lids. If he could think through the pain, he knew there'd be somewhere in his brain a statistic of how he should feel, why that's happening, and what to do about it, but that would encompass actual thought, and he's not sure he could handle that at the moment.

Actually, he's not sure he could handle much of anything at the moment. Because for all Hiro's genius and big-brained schemes, there's really not much he can do about a concussion, especially at the rate his head is pounding. So the end result is simple; since moving is out of the question, he's just going to have to wait for someone to come along and move him.

After all, the team wouldn't have just left him unsupervised. Or rather, Hiro mused as he let his mind wander anywhere in hopes of escaping the awful ache that was his brain, they know by now not to leave him unsupervised. There had been a bit of a calamity the first time he had been injured on the job, and after the team found him feverish and disoriented, attempting to fit a squash into one of Honey's beakers (simultaneously breaking both the beaker and the squash), they tended to leave at least one of them with him whenever he was bedridden. It was a bit embarrassing waking up to find Fred talking adamantly by his bedside or Wasabi arranging his meds into alphabetical order according to color, but after a while, he had to admit it was pleasant. Baymax was a wonderful machine who was developing quite a large expanse of a personality, but he was still that, a machine. Sometimes Hiro missed human companionship and touch, not because his brother's last invention wasn't enough, but because he just needed to feel skin on his and hear jokes that he didn't already know the answers to. He felt that the robot understood that and stayed out of the way for purposes such as that, when he needed Honey's coddling or Freddie's sense of humor or even Wasabi's frantic mothering.

In all honesty, he was surprised one of them wasn't at his bedside right now. He supposed that was what the rushing water was though. Likely, Honey Lemon or Gogo was watching him and had gone off to get cleaned up. It wasn't like they had an aversion to using the adjoining bathroom. More than once he had walked in with every intention of relieving himself only to find one or more of his teammates occupying the space, Wasabi cramming his large bulk into the space between the shower and the sink, a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth or Honey Lemon singing off-key and styling her hair. He'd once even walked in on Gogo painting her nails of all things, and was sworn into secrecy rather quickly. (It was more like threatened, as frankly, he's never been more frightened of four bobby pins and a half-empty bottle of hair spray than in that moment.) His house had become their house, and them his family, filling his room with laughter it hadn't seen since… Since..

Hiro bit his lip to will the thought away. Already he could feel the moisture building back behind his lids, and he opened his eyes for the first time since his awakening to angrily blink away the tears that had formed there. Light, bright and unwanted, filtered in through his lashes, but he welcomed it in favor of the heavy sobs that were sure to come if the leaking had continued. He had only cried in front of the team once, after a determining job where the villain they were fighting set the building they were in aflame, and he certainly wasn't going to do it again. He didn't even remember most of it, just the feeling of despair clawing at the pit of his stomach and closing up his airways. Most of what he knew of the night came afterwards, when he woke up cradled in Wasabi's strong arms, Baymax leaning over him, supplying the oxygen mask that the robot felt was needed at the time. The team didn't let him out of their sight for nearly two days afterwards, and each was suspiciously quiet about the events that transpired after he had passed out. Even Baymax seemed tight-lipped on the subject, opting only to say that they had 'defied their initial programming,' and after the youngest Hamada had hacked the police station's database and gawked at the mug shot, he decided to do the same. Because, as far as he knew, there's no way that level of a physical damage to his tormentor's face could be anything but deliberate.

So, following that incident, Hiro kept a tight lid on his tears. Every once-in-a-while, he might rant to one of the others or lean on their constant support, but when it came to the topic of his brother, his emotions were his and his alone. Granted, there were a few panic attacks, little moments where all rational thought left him, but the team had a system for that now, and those were taken care of almost as quickly as they came. In short, he was getting better, and the team was slowly edging him on.

Aunt Cass had stopped maxing out the volume on the tv, in the hopes that Hiro wouldn't notice her wails. Honey didn't break anymore at the sound of his name. Wasabi could walk into what-was-now Hiro's lab without clumsily rearranging every photo to the way he used to have it. Fred's smile didn't dip and his fingers didn't dance around his necklace so often whenever he casually threw in a comment he would have said. Hiro had even caught Gogo once or twice at his grave, even if said teammate never acknowledged the fact. Hiro also knew that most of these changes, this quiet acceptance, were because and for him. Slowly but surely, the light was shining back into his life, and he acknowledged–as he heard the water tamper off and wall behind his head became quiet once again- that the team had been the cause of a good portion of it.

Maybe that was why, as the tell-tale signs of someone toweling off reached his ears, the laid-up inventor sat up a little straighter. He ought to thank them, all of them, for being there for him and helping him through what was now months after his death. Hiro doubted that they didn't know of his unending gratitude for his everything they did, but he had to tell them. Because if something were to happen to any of them –banish the thought, one more loved one's death and Hiro didn't think he'd recover- he'd never be able to live with himself if they hadn't been told of how much they meant to him. Yes, he'd have to, for lack of better words, 'pour his heart out' to every, single, one of them, but, for the sake of his own pride, he'd tell each at his own pace, starting with the unfortunate teammate who had drawn the short-straw and was stuck babysitting him.

Said person was already getting out of the shower anyway. Hiro could hear the door hinges squeal, as he slowly released the tension on his tightly-closed eyes. Pain blossomed at the action but he ignored it, forcing his eyes open and grimacing at the brightness. If he was going to thank Honey or Fred or Gogo or whomever walked through that door, he was going to look them in the damn eyes and at least attempt something at resembled a smile. And so he slightened the vice-grip his eyelids had on each other and pulled his lips into the slightest crescent curve, before tipping his neck up, and… Freezing.

Because expecting Honey or Fred or Wasabi or Gogo to come sauntering out of the steam was a whole lot different than the figure he got, toweling off his dark hair and flashing him the easiest smile, as if they hadn't found the charred ashes of his remains and buried them six-feet under the ground and marked his tombstone with the words 'He will be missed' in dark, chiseled letters that stood out like a spotlight in Hiro's concussed mind.

As if he wasn't the long deceased Tadashi Hamada, waltzing out of the shower after seven months dead, placing bare feet on the carpet and forming his mouth into the first syllables of a 'Good Morning' that he'd never get to say because it was at that moment his little brother threw himself backwards, clawing desperately at the sheets until he met the headboard and then continuing to furiously scramble with the bedspread even with nowhere else to go.

And when Tadashi didn't think he could begin to get more concerned, Hiro began to scream.

XOXOXO

Oh, is it one more fan in denial about Tadashi's death? Yep. Pretty much. I love that boy too much to let him die, at least, like that. This is a team fic too, btw. The rest of the gang will show up in a few, don't you worry your pretty little head about it. I don't want to leave anyone out.

This will probably be a multi-chapter fic my dearies. Hope you stay tuned and PM me if you think of something you'd like to incorporate into this or just about anything really. As always, please R&R, it really does mean a lot to any writer. Btw, constructive criticism is nice too! I swear I won't be mad at that.

My heart goes out to you all! Please stay safe this chilly winter season, and as always, continue to write and read your heart away!

:)