Chapter 1

It didn't take a genius like Hiro to realize, with the wind whipping wildly against his bird nest hair and the creeping flow of adrenaline pumping into his veins, that he was falling. But he wasn't scared by that. No. He was more frightened by the endless darkness that shrouded his eyes - by the darkness that remained unchanging and immovable even as Hiro swiveled his head from side to side. It was almost as if Hiro was falling through something and nothing at the same time, and that messed with his mind.

To his surprise, a pair of large soft arms were suddenly wrapping around him in a tight hug, pressing his back up against a round convex surface. That must be-

"Baymax?" Hiro called out, his voice resonating against nothing. No echo was heard whatsoever; he was assuming there were no walls.

"Hiro."a soothing robot voice replied. "We are falling."

"You think?!" the teen groaned. His eyes continued to dart about in the darkness. If he could at least figure out where they were, maybe he would have a better understanding of their current predicament. "Baymax, scan the area real quick for me. Where are we falling to and from?"

"Scanning." A brief pause. "I am sorry, Hiro. My scanners and memory database both appear to be damaged and therefore are unable to function properly."

"Just great." Hiro muttered, his hair continuing to lash against his face.

How did they even get into this mess in the first place? Hiro found it stranger that he didn't even know the answer to that question. He remembers opening his eyes to darkness and the stomach-lurching feeling of falling, but anything right before that… It was a blur in his mind. A messy, hazy blur.

"Looks like my memory database isn't functioning properly either." Hiro murmured under his breath, attempting to dig through what he could remember.

Before he could recall a single trace of his memories, he noticed, out of the corner of his eyes, a slight change in the values of the… well, wherever they were falling in. A very subtle and gradual shift from pitch black, to dark grays, to lighter grays, and now whi-

"Brace for impact, buddy!" Hiro called out as he squeezed his eyes shut.

There were times when Hiro was reminded how grateful he was that Baymax existed and how especially grateful he was that Baymax was a robot successfully designed for his purpose; this time in particular was no exception. As the pair crashed into a pile of wooden crates, Baymax's squishy vinyl body merely bounced down the pile however not quite in a manner as playful or gentle as it sounded. To Hiro, it felt like being trapped in a claustrophobic barrel and rolling down a rocky mountain, and that wasn't really his definition of pleasant. However it was either this, or ending up like that messy donut that splat onto the cafe floor after one of Aunt Cass's breakouts.

As the pair hit the solid ground, Baymax's grip loosened, sending Hiro to land off to the side, face-first on the cold, metal ground with a grunt.

"Ugh!" Hiro groaned as he shook his dizzy, sore head. He lifted his eyes slowly to examine the finally visible surroundings.

All he could see were wooden boxes. Wooden boxes everywhere. A shipping warehouse?

Waddling over to the crouching teen, Baymax said, " I apologize for being unable to hold you Hiro. On a scale of one to-"

"Zero, zero. I'm fine, Baymax. Lets just figure out where we are first." Hiro said, brushing the dust off of his cargos as he got up. He looked around once more. "Weird. This place is kind of... familiar."

He wasn't quite sure how or why though. It wasn't like he spent his free time hanging out in warehouses.

"Due to the damaging of both my memory database and scanners, I am unable to verify our current location." the robot stated prosaically.

"Hm. Guess we're gonna have to fix that at the university." Hiro mumbled as he continued peering around some crates. It didn't seem like anything suspicious was around. Nothing waiting to ambush them or anything of the like, but even so, he couldn't help but be a little wary. When weird things happened, it was usually the work of a more dangerous criminal or somebody trying to deliberately take down the Big Hero 6, which is something they've had too much of already. It wasn't easy being super heroes when you're making new enemies left and right, but that's also what influenced Hiro to create a small portable cube designed to carry each person's suit with convenient portability. So that they could be ready for anything. And although he had Baymax's and his own cubes with him it wasn't like he could just immediately whip out their suits and jump into action; it took a bit of extra time to put on Baymax's suit. That was something Hiro would have to work on. "For now, lets just stay on our toes." Hiro said cautiously.

The pair continued to maneuver their way through the path swamped with boxes, with the teen swiveling his head out of precaution, as his healthcare companion followed close behind. Without Baymax's usual side comments or constant scanning of Hiro's rising heart rates and increased breathing, it was eerily quiet, save for the light shuffling of the robot's feet.

The teen noticed a bright light leaking into the dim warehouse from a set of double doors a distance in front of him and walked towards it with alert eyes.

If we're getting close to the exit, and nothing has happened yet… maybe someone wants to catch me off guard trying to open those doors, and make their move to ambush me then. And if I had to take a guess, I'd bet that those doors will be locked from the outside.

It would be more convenient if Hiro could just simply scan the area and figure out whether there was some other life form here or not. That would either ease the teen's mind or confirm his suspicions and make him even more nervous. But it was just his luck that Baymax's scanners were botched up; maybe that was a part of his, possibly existent, ambusher's plan.

As the pair got closer and closer to the doors, Hiro's could feel his heart begin to pound at his chest.

Alright. Getting closer to the exit. Just several more steps. A few more steps. One more step, and-

Hiro spun around on his heels, squeezing his eyes shut as he raised bare fists.

Silence.

He cracked open an eye. Wooden crates…. no criminal.

Suspicious.

Glaring once more into the dim warehouse, the teen put his weight behind him and pressed his back against a door, finding it to his surprise to be unlocked. He took one step back, eyes darting left and right, then another… and another… and finally…. He held the door open for Baymax to waddle through.

Hiro's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Weird. But honestly how much weirder could his life get? Weird was pretty much the norm for him at this point. Falling through that abyssal black hole was a good reminder of that fact.

"Lets go, Baymax." Hiro said as he took one more look behind him at the warehouse's closed doors.

The two didn't go anywhere the moment they stepped outside into the bright, presumably, afternoon sky. No. Instead, Hiro stood in the same place staring up at the warehouse as Baymax stood patiently and curiously to his side with not a single question being asked..

"This is," Hiro murmured in recognition. "Isn't this… that abandoned warehouse?"

It had been almost two years since he had been here, but even so, he didn't think he would ever forget this place. This was the place where it all began. The place where Baymax brought his haywire microbot, the place where he found barrels upon barrels of his microbots being mass produced under his nose. The same place where he was attacked with his own invention by the man in the Kabuki-mask. The man who he learned was none other than Professor Robert Callaghan. Tadashi's professor… and his murderer.

He's not worth thinking about.

It's been a while since Hiro last thought of Callaghan, but not a day passes when he doesn't think of Tadashi, however, not in a depressed, grieving way like it probably would've been had his friends (and even Tadashi himself) not helped him to move on from his death, but in a way where he would always smile and remember the good times they had. And that was enough for Hiro.

That was enough for him.

That should have been enough for him, but he couldn't deny that he had always wanted one last thing from Tadashi. He wanted a way to thank his brother for everything. Not just for how his brother didn't give up on him but for every moment in his life that Tadashi had been there. It was hard to know that Hiro could never get that.

But lingering in the past and trapping himself in what-ifs would reverse the whole moving-on process he had trudged so far into, and Hiro knew he had to keep pushing forward.

He pulled his eyes away and turned his back to the warehouse. "C'mon, Baymax. Lets get to the university."

"Hey, guys, anyone here?" Hiro called out at the entrance of the empty 'nerd lab.' He shrugged. "Guess they went out for lunch or something. Well then, lets get you patched up, buddy." he said playfully patting the robot's round belly.

"That would be very much appreciated." Baymax responded.

Leading his robot friend by the hand, the pair headed towards Hiro's workspace, expecting to find the usual cluttered mess he seems to always leave behind, similar to his own room back at home, but to his surprise it… was clean? That's weird. Did somebody tidy things up? It was usually out of common courtesy that the others didn't mess with his stuff though, and hopefully they didn't decide to try anything funny today.

"Great, now I don't know where's what!" Hiro grumbled as he shifted through the closets and drawers until he finally found Baymax's usual charger. Huh. Did the colors seem a bit dulled down? Maybe he just didn't notice after two years of constant use of the thing, but if somebody had decided to sort out his work space couldn't they have put such an important thing in a less remote, more visible area?

"This is why I hate it when people mess with my things." the teen muttered as he took out a few tools to work on Baymax's scanners.

It didn't take way too long to get him all fixed up again; in fact, it seemed like there were only a few minor problems here and there. Nothing a robotics major couldn't easily fix.

Once Hiro finished his handiwork he smiled a lopsided smile and stood, hands on his hips, in front of Baymax.

"Alright, Baymax. Test scan me!"

"Scanning." A brief pause ensued. "Your blood pressure levels and heart rate are normal. However it seems your mood swings are more frequent, and you are experiencing hormonal change. Diagnosis:" the robot raised a finger. "puberty."

"Alright, alright. What's with you always pointing out that I'm going through puberty?" Hiro sighed with a smile as he put away his tools.

"It is merely a biological process that I would like for you to be aware of, in case you are concerned about your sudden growth, unstable mood, and sudden urges to-"

"Alright, that's enough!" Hiro exclaimed waving his hands for Baymax to stop. "It seems like you're all good to go then."

At that moment, the sound of doors opening and several laughing voices could be heard entering from the other room, quickly catching Hiro's attention. That was probably the gang. Maybe now was a good time to talk about his odd experience of crash-landing out of some weird pit of darkness, but first thing's first….

"Hey, as much as I appreciate the gesture, I'd really prefer you guys not going through my stuff in there, y'know," Hiro said casually as he walked out of his lab area to join his friends. "I sort of had a set system in there."

Hiro stopped in his tracks when deathly silence responded to him. That and four pairs of eyes opening wider than they were probably meant to be. Four pairs of eyes that were all directed at and burning holes into the confused teen.

Hiro blinked and stared back in surprise. "What," he started a bit nervous by the uncomfortable attention he was receiving. "What's wrong? Something on my face?"

His friends' eyes only continued to stare back at him with what seemed to be shock, but this time a few jaws slowly dropped.

"No way…." Fred murmured.

"Is anybody else seeing this?" Wasabi asked lowly under his breath.

"Is that…?" Honey Lemon whispered hands covering her mouth.

Although his mind usually processes things at a high-speed rate, Hiro couldn't quite process what had happened when he found his face being pressed against the cold lab floor, with a weight on his back and an excessively firm grip holding down his neck and head felt like he was caught in some sort of karate death grip.

"H-hey!" Hiro cried out as he struggled against the sudden assault. "What are you-"

"Who are you?!" a harsh voice growled.

"Gogo, why are you-"

"Who. Are. You?" she growled menacing tone that sent shivers up Hiro's spine.

"Gogo!" Honey, Fred, and Wasabi all cried out.

"Let go, you're," it sounded like Honey hesitated for a second. "I think you're hurting him."

"Yeah, you kinda are!" Hiro rasped, as Gogo continued grounding her knee against his spine. A sharp pain shot up his back, effectively halting his squirming.

"Not until he answers my question!" she retorted, yanking and twisting Hiro's arm behind him.

"Ow! Stop that!" he cried out.

What is she doing?!

"Why is he here?" she seemed to ask nobody in particular. "He- he should be dead!"

"Wait." Hiro's eyes widened. "What?"

A/N: I posted this on ao3, but I thought it would be a good idea to post this here as well! I'm currently editing Chapter 2, so hopefully I'll get that out somewhat soon!

I know not much has happened yet, but I would love to hear what you think so far!

Also, I suddenly had inspiration to write this because of WillowBlueJay17's tumblr tags containing a very interesting fanfic prompt! (although what I have planned for this story may deviate a tiny bit from her original prompt) Check out her stories as well; my personal favorite is her Big Hero 6 fic: Twisted Fate.
u/3933764/WillowBlueJay17