While the Rhythm of the Rain Keeps Time

"Someone has to help."

Tadashi's last words rang through Hiro's mind for the hundredth time that week. He knew he should be getting out of his room, doing something besides just moping and worrying his family and friends, but he couldn't help it. Without Tadashi there, Hiro just felt like he was...nothing, like no matter what he did it wouldn't make a difference, that it wouldn't change anything.

Tadashi was gone, burned up in the fire that it had turned out Professor Robert Callahaghn, Tadashi's teacher, mentor and supposed friend, had set just to cover his tracks while he stole Hiro's invention. The micro bots being used for such a thing as a revenge scheme that took no prisoners still hurt, but Hiro knew he couldn't change anything about the past.

And yet.

Callahagn's callous words that day they discovered who it was that had stolen them had pierced through Hiro's usually calm and calculating mind, causing the pure rage that slept deep beneath the surface to spread over his vision. He had not only almost killed a man that day, but he had violated every scrap of trust that his team had had in him, and had almost sunk to the Professor's level.

And yet.

Part of Hiro would never be able to forgive the man what he'd done. After all, they had found the man's daughter, not just safe but alive and breathing and mostly well, but they had never found anything of Tadashi after the fire. Not even the bones that were usually left after a person burned, but the firemen said that the fire might have been hot enough to have eliminated even those, so there was never any knowing which ashes were his.

AND YET.

Hiro had adopted Tadashi's last words that day, as well as the ones that had inspired the idea for the micro bots, as his own encouraging catch phrases. He had moved into Tadashi's old lab at the Institute, and kept Tadashi's old hat hanging on the lamp there, had taken to focusing on Baymax as a project, had basically adopted most of Tadashi's life as his own. Even Big Hero Six had taken a bit of a backseat to his trying to keep his brother alive in his own way.

AND YET.

He still visited Tadashi's grave every once in a while, usually by himself, just to talk to his older brother. Hiro knew he couldn't be heard by his dead brother, but it didn't deter him from trying. On a particularly bad day, he'd run out into the rain with his black hoodie on when he visited, not bothering with an umbrella or a raincoat, and he practically collapsed to his knees in front of the empty grave. "Tadashi come home." His tears felt like they stood out against the rain, choking his voice as he begged the fates to return half of the only family he'd ever known.

AND YET.

Hiro never heard the footsteps approach from behind him, but the presence didn't bother him. He assumed it was his aunt, come to join him at Tadashi's grave that day, but before he could state anything or settle in with her presence, a voice rang out that he never expected to hear again.

"Hiro?"

The youngest Hamada's whole being turned, his arms thrown slightly out to the side as if not sure whether to take a defensive or offensive posture. But what greeted his eyes only confirmed what had greeted his ears. Standing there in a clear standard rain parka and a full hospital gown, covered in scars and old wounds, was Tadashi. And the rain seemed to beat out a rhythm against the ground around him as two lost brothers found each other again.