Okay, this is Tadashi Hamada, and this is the… One hundred and fourteenth test of my robotics project, H.I.R.O. Baymax, you filming this?

Of course, Tadashi. You have instructed me to film all of the tests of your projects.

I know, and thanks for helping me out, buddy. Okay, ready for this?

Were there specific preparations that I was supposed to make for this test?

No, no, it's just an expression! All right, enough with the introduction. Let's do this.

Tadashi lets out a slightly shaky breath as he goes to turn on his latest invention, H.I.R.O (short for Healing-Interfacing Robot Operating system.) This was definitely one of the most difficult projects he'd ever worked on. It wasn't that this robot was trying to be difficult-if anything, it seemed extremely eager to please. Maybe a little too eager, actually. Still, while it was fully functional in almost every aspect of its design, it just wasn't… connecting like Tadashi wanted it to. The way it needed to if it was going to serve its intended purpose. When he'd designed Baymax almost five years ago, his major focus had been on creating a robot who could help take care of the physical needs of its patients, and he had more than accomplished his goal-by age twenty, his invention had been picked up by one of the biggest technological firms in the country, Krei Tech, and by age twenty-one almost every hospital in the world had at least one of the robots on staff, many of them recruiting a whole team of the robots specializing in different branches of the medical field. Tadashi had pretty much become an overnight success, and while he could have comfortably lived off the royalties for the rest of his life, he was too active of a person to feel comfortable doing that.

Of course he was forever looking for ways to improve Baymax's design, but Krei Tech had, to an extent, taken over updating and making Baymax work better, so most of what he did was just tinkering on his original model. Feeling the need for a creative outlet, he'd spent a good couple months wracking his brains trying to come up with something that might top his last invention and, better yet, help humanity in a new way (because, at the end of the day, that's why Tadashi invented things-to help others.) Eventually he came to the conclusion that, while he had made a lot of headway in helping treat people's physical needs, the area of mental and emotional needs was something he'd barely touched. Yes, Baymax had the ability to help people with both of these areas (his own one had become something of a friend and a counselor for him, especially when it came to the unpleasant memories and trauma dreams Tadashi still sometimes had from his childhood of the fatal car crash that had claimed the life of his parents and left him trapped for three hours in the back seat while rescue workers had tried to free him.) But that wasn't its primary purpose.

Tadashi wasn't going to try to create a robotic psychiatrist or counselor-as much as he wished he could do that, he knew that such fields were very specialized and each patient was so unique that a robot would be hard pressed to properly diagnose them when even human doctors struggled to do that very same thing, let alone prescribe and provide the correct medicine and therapy. So he focused on something smaller and more manageable. He knew that sometimes trauma victims or people in need of psychological or emotional support were assigned service or therapy animals who were trained to recognize their symptoms and do whatever it took to make sure that they stayed in a psychologically or emotionally safe state. It was amazing how much these animals could do to help people. However, the training it took for an animal to be able to certified to properly do this was extensive, and of the animals actually trained not all of them were accepted, so there weren't enough for everyone who had need of one of these animals to be able to have one placed with them. Beyond that, some people who could benefit from a service animal's help never applied because they felt that they didn't actually need help or else didn't want to take the animal away from someone who was more "deserving" of the help (Heaven knew how many times Baymax had suggested Tadashi might apply for one if he wouldn't go to actually therapy for the PTSD he believed he suffered from, but Tadashi had always argued that there was surely someone out there who needed the service animals that were available more than he did.) So what could be done to remedy this problem?

Maybe, just maybe, a robot substitute-something that could be mass produced and made available to the general public-would make it possible for more people to get help they needed, and maybe people would be more willing to accept the help if it was something being widely used and they didn't have to feel guilty about "taking help away from someone more deserving." The idea was fairly sound-it would take a lot of hard work, but Tadashi was confident that he could come up with something that would be as successful as Baymax. But once he had the idea of a psychological and emotional helper/companion in his mind, he hit yet another roadblock: What form should this new type of robot take?

Initially he thought of using the model of therapy animals-robotic dogs, cats, or other creatures who were used to help patients. However, one downside of animals, as sweet as they were, was that when you talked to them they couldn't respond-at least not in the language of the speaker. Tadashi then considered a human model or a robot like Baymax, but the problem was that, while some response was good, often times people just needed to talk and receive sympathy or empathy without a whole lot of feedback, so a robot that was too talkative wasn't a good idea either. It was a conundrum, and not one Tadashi was sure how to fix.

It was actually been while visiting a park near his workshop for some fresh air to clear his head that he'd finally found his inspiration.

Tadashi had grown up an only child, raised by his aunt after the car crash, so he'd never known what it was like to have a younger sibling. He'd often dreamed about what it would be like have a brother or a sister, but given Aunt Cass, his father's only sister, had stayed single all through his growing up years, he'd never so much as had a cousin to play with (and, being an introvert and on the shy side, he'd never really had the courage to make a lot of friends during his elementary school years.) Still, when he'd reached high school and a family friend asked him if he'd be interested in babysitting their twin sons on Friday nights once or twice a month, he quickly learned that he not only had a knack for taking care of kids, but he absolutely loved spending time with them. Something about their innocence and wonder was so refreshing in a world that was often so cynical and dark, and their vast imaginations never failed to astound him.

Maybe the reason he got along so well with them was because he was still kind of a kid himself-he'd never lost his sense of imagination and he still always tried to see the best in the world around him. To this day Tadashi still loved kids, and, while he wasn't exactly ready to have any of his own just yet, seeing them playing or just being their own adorable selves was always enough to make his day. That was probably why, when he'd paused to watch a group of kiddos playing on the playground (from a safe distance so hopefully none of the parents would see him and think he was being a stalker-it sucked that they'd think that when his intentions were nothing but pure, but he understood why they had to be so careful) and felt his anxiety and frustration lifting just from watching their adorable antics, he'd finally found the solution to his problem.

Animals couldn't talk, and while a talking animal robot was plausible it didn't seem authentic. A mature, adult robot, even one as friendly as Baymax, might seem unapproachable to a lot of people. But kids-kids, especially the young ones, were just so sweet and innocent that it was hard not to open up to them, and they were wonderful listeners (it was amazing the things that could hold their attention for extended periods of time!) while giving responses that were genuine, sweet, and often even amusing. So why not make the robot companion in the form of a young child, put it through trial runs, and see how well it worked? Tadashi had nothing but time and resources on his hands-if it didn't work, he could try another design. Worst to the worst, he'd have an adorable prototype on his hands that might be like the younger sibling he'd never had.

So that's what he was doing here today-after almost a year of hard work and development, he had a working first model of H.I.R.O. The plan was that the basic program would be able to be used in many different robot bodies, although all would share a similar base for the sake of ease of development-Tadashi liked the idea of the robots being able to be as diverse in appearance as the people they were helping, which was why for this first prototype he'd created a robot that was based somewhat off of what he'd looked like as a little kid but perhaps a bit more whimsical, with a floof of raven colored hair, wide brown eyes, and even an adorable tooth gap: the perfect little brother. Thanks to some collaboration with his friend, Honey Lemon, who was both a skilled chemist and well versed in fiber arts as an experimental seamstress (meaning she was forever inventing new types of fabric to use in her rather successful clothing line), he'd even managed to come up with a synthetic skin that covered the robot's carbon fiber skeleton so that the robot actually had a realistic and very huggable exterior (because, after all, hugs from adorable kids were just about the most therapeutic thing in the world.) All in all, if you didn't know any better when passing it on the street, you'd think that the small robot was any other five-year-old kid.

So up to this point, everything on this project was going perfectly-HIRO moved and spoke without glitching, and could even hold a conversation if spoken to. Anyone else would have considered the project a resounding success. But as much as Tadashi wanted to believe that this was the case, he couldn't. Not yet. As hard as he could tell HIRO was trying to fulfill its purpose and flawlessly follow the procedures that had programed into it, it just didn't seem… real somehow. Tadashi wasn't feeling the emotional connection with it that he knew was critical to helping a patient recover. When HIRO spoke to him, it was more like a child reciting lines they had memorized than a genuine conversation. Tadashi had tried everything he could think of to fix this problem, working endlessly on the coding to try to see what he was missing. But eventually he came to the conclusion that HIRO was probably the same way as Baymax had been-it would just take time and interaction for the robot to learn what it meant to be "human", or the robot equivalent thereof. It was frustrating for Tadashi, who was something of a perfectionist and couldn't help but feel like maybe HIRO's lack of progress was due to something that he was doing wrong. Still, he wasn't one to give up easily, and that's why he hadn't scrapped the project one hundred and fourteen tests ago and why he was going to try again tonight to see if maybe the latest bit of coding he'd experimented with might have had some effect.

To activate the robot, he reaches out and gently squeezes its hand-it was a simple enough gesture, something anyone could do even when they were feeling at their lowest and didn't have the energy to talk, just to reach out for some physical reassurance and instantly receive the help they needed.

As soon as the robot registered the pressure on its activation button, its soft brown eyes blink open and a sweet smile forms on its lips.

"Hello, Tadashi!" it says cheerfully.

"Hi, Hiro," Tadashi answers, smiling back at it and trying not to feel too disappointed. He'd been trying to convince the robot to call him "Dashi" for a while now, but given "Tadashi" was the name officially designated in its coding for him it still doggedly stuck with his full name, not seeming to grasp the concept of nicknames yet. Oh well-it wasn't the best start, but he wasn't going to lose hope just yet.

"Are you okay?" Hiro prompts.

"Yeah, I'm fine-I just thought we could talk," Tadashi answers, trying to stay optimistic. So far it was just the same scripted lines, but maybe there would be some variation as they went further along.

"Okay!" Hiro agrees. "What about?"

As cute and chipper as ever, but still undeniably robotic, Tadashi mentally sighs. Still, Hiro was watching him expectantly and obviously doing its best to please and so the man answers, "Well, do you mind if I tell you about my day?" He hoped that maybe listening to his own speech patterns might eventually rub off on Hiro-he'd had some limited success with that so far, so it was pretty much the only thing he could think of.

"Okay!" Hiro answers, smiling expectantly up at him.

"Well, I went to visit Aunt Cass today," Tadashi tells him, thinking back over the events of the day.

"Is she okay?" Hiro asks.

"She's doing pretty good-still busy as ever, but she's hired on some new helpers and I think that's helping her," Tadashi tells him with a warm smile. "I still feel bad sometimes that I had to stop helping her in the shop after I moved out and really started focusing on my studies, but at least she's found some good replacements."

"She knows you love her!" Hiro reassures him.

"Yeah, I know," Tadashi answers, smiling slightly-even if it was just one of the many phrases of comfort Hiro had in his database, it was still oddly reassuring to hear him say it. "And it was nice spending time with her and just taking a break-I ended up making dinner for both of us and we watched a corny old monster movie together after that."

"That sounds fun!" Hiro beams up at him before asking, "Did you see Fred today?"

There was something Tadashi could be proud of right there-Hiro, on its own, had picked up on how much Tadashi talked about his boyfriend and, realizing that Fred was so important to him, had started asking about him whenever he and Tadashi had their conversations. It was one of the things that gave Tadashi hope that maybe Hiro was starting to actually tap into the AI (artificial intelligence) chip that was implanted in it that was supposed to give it the thought and speech patterns of a mature five-year-old instead of just relying on the scripted lines that it had been given to use during conversations (Tadashi had meant for that to be something that helped it start out instead of its sole means of communication, but to date the robot seemed reluctant to venture far from the sentences it knew were safe to use. Maybe, like a young child, it was afraid of trying to use new words and phrases for fear of making a mistake and being reprimanded for it. That was the last thing on Tadashi's mind, and he tried to convey to the robot that he was proud of it for any efforts it made, but so far he hadn't seemed to have convinced it.)

"No, I didn't see Fred today," Tadashi says in answer to Hiro's question. "But I did text him and we should be going to have a date tomorrow night!"

"That's good!" Hiro smiles up at him. "He makes you happy!"

"Yes, yes he does!" Tadashi agrees, unable to keep from grinning in excitement-Hiro was actually seeming to make some progress, it was using its own words to talk about Tadashi's feelings! Was this a bit of a breakthrough for it? To the engineer's disappointment, though, almost immediately Hiro went back to its scripted lines, asking simply,

"What else do you want to talk about?"

"I think that's it for tonight," Tadashi answers, trying not to sigh audibly. Every time he thought that Hiro was opening up to him, something like this would happen. Still, he'd learned not to try to push too much for more or else the little robot would shut down-sometimes literally. At least tonight it had shown some progress, and Tadashi knew he just had to keep trying and eventually Hiro would hopefully break out of its shell.

"I am satisfied with my care," he tells the little robot, giving it its cue so that it would know it could shut down-it was the same code phrase he used with Baymax, and he'd gotten so used to using it over the years that he couldn't really think of a reason to try to come up with something new when this one worked so well.

"Okay!" Hiro smiles up at him before returning to its charging station and powering down, it's eyelids sliding shut as if it was going to sleep.

"Was that a successful test, Tadashi?" Baymax asks once the other robot has turned off.

"It was… An improvement," Tadashi answers, pushing his bangs back off of his forehead to release some of the tension in his body before letting out a long breath and looking up at the robot. "Thanks for helping me with this, Baymax. You okay with doing another test same time tomorrow?"

"Of course," Baymax answers, blinking cheerfully. "I'm always happy to help."

"Thank you." Tadashi flashes him a grateful smile. "I am satisfied with my care, Baymax."

The nursebot nods before heading back to his own charging station and also powering down.

With both robots shut down for the night, Tadashi leans his head back as he slumps into his computer chair, shutting his eyes and willing all of the pent-up frustration and negative emotions inside of him to just go away. Usually he didn't feel this agitated after one of Hiro's tests, and if anything he would have been thrilled by the small bit of progress he'd seen. But today he'd already been a bit emotionally drained and so the sense of disappointment was greater than it probably normally would have been. Maybe he shouldn't have tried doing a test tonight knowing how he was feeling, but a small part of him had hoped that maybe talking to Hiro would help him feel better-and it had, to an extent, Hiro had definitely made him smile, but Tadashi couldn't help but feel cowardly for not admitting the whole truth to it and seeing if the robot could actually fulfill its purpose of helping him. It was true that he'd gone to Aunt Cass' today. What he had left out was that he'd been helping her clean out the attic and, while up there, had run into some old things that used to belong to his parents, including an old photo album with pictures of them. He'd thought that paging through the photographs might be good for him, but instead they just brought up the traumatic memories from the accident which were as vivid and fresh today as they'd been only days after they'd actually happened. Tadashi didn't know why they still affected him so badly after all this time, but they just did. Maybe if he'd gone to therapy when he was younger to deal with all these thoughts and feelings, things would have been different, but Aunt Cass hadn't been able to afford anything like that and, by the time he was might have been able to afford to pay to go himself, he was so used to just coping on his own as best he could that he didn't see the purpose of going, despite Baymax saying that he really should see a specialist. As it was, right now Tadashi honestly didn't feel like doing anything but sleeping off the dark feelings swirling around inside of him. He didn't even have the energy to get up out of his chair, so he just lays his head down on his desk, hoping that maybe when he woke up the emotions would have passed and he could start fresh the next day.

Hiro stood in his charger, eyes closed but still vaguely aware of what was going on in the room around him-it was part of his programming to be alert to his surroundings in case he was needed and had to activate on his own if someone couldn't come and actually turn him on. Still, everything was quiet now so he was left alone to his thoughts. Most humans thought that robots didn't think or feel anything when they were turned off, and maybe a lot of them didn't. But Hiro was smart-Tadashi, his maker, had made him smart-and so he couldn't help but think when he was fully charged and had all sorts of energy but nothing to do with himself. He wanted to be able to be left on for long periods of time, like he knew Baymax was-he wanted to be able to experience the world around him, and, more importantly, he wanted to spend time with Tadashi. He liked talking with his maker-he was always so nice and he smiled when he talked to him and made him feel special. He always told him how special he was. But for some reason it always felt like Tadashi thought he was doing something wrong. Hiro was trying to be good and do what his maker wanted-he said the things his code told him to say, and yet somehow the more he said those things the less happy Tadashi seemed. Sometimes Hiro said things that he wasn't coded to say-things that he thought of that he thought would make Tadashi smile-but he was scared to do it too much because he might say something wrong and Tadashi might be really mad at him. So he just kept saying the things he was supposed to say and he hoped maybe someday he'd be able to figure out what he was doing wrong.

Wanting to think about happier things, Hiro lets images of subjects that make him smile play through his mind's viewing screen-Tadashi had programmed him so that he knew a lot about the human world, and Hiro liked looking at the pictures he had in his memory banks of things he hadn't been able to actually see yet but he hoped someday he would be able to see-places like the zoo and the park and the children's museum. Hiro liked to imagine going to these places with Tadashi and seeing his maker smile at him because he was being good and making him happy. Someday he knew these dreams would come true, even if it wasn't today.

For a good hour or so, Hiro contentedly reviews his favorite images in the gentle silence of the room-he never got bored with them, no matter how many times he imagined them. But then suddenly the silence is broken by a sound. Surprised by the sudden noise, Hiro wonders if maker had woken up and was talking to himself or Baymax. But even though the noises sounded like his maker's voice, they weren't sounds like words or even the funny noises Tadashi sometimes made when he was thinking about something or working on a project. They sounded like sad noises-scared noises, even. That wasn't right-maker shouldn't be upset! It scared Hiro knowing that Tadashi was sad, and he wanted to help-he needed to help him! But he wasn't supposed to activate on his own, right? Hiro didn't know what to do-he wanted to help Tadashi, but would Tadashi be mad at him for doing something he wasn't supposed to do? For a minute Hiro is at war with himself, his fear of straying from his coding fighting with his desire to help his maker. But then he hears Tadashi crying out and his decision was made for him. Tadashi needed help, and he was going to help him, even if it meant getting in trouble!

It was strange for Hiro to power himself on for the first time-he was used to Tadashi being there when he opened his eyes, telling him what to do. But he knew that he needed to help Tadashi, and so even though it was scary he carefully steps out of his charger and sets off to find his maker. It didn't take long to find him-Tadashi was sitting in his chair, looking sound asleep but seeming to be crying at the same time. How could he be sleeping and crying at the same time? Hiro wondered. He knew that he could sort through his memories and figure out what was causing his maker to be so upset, but right now he cared more about making Tadashi feel better than putting a name on the problem. Usually when someone was upset, Hiro's coding told him to talk to them so they would feel better. But Tadashi was asleep, so how could he talk to him? Hiro wasn't sure what else he could do-Maker had never told him what to do if someone was asleep when they were upset! Without coding or instructions from Tadashi, Hiro felt terribly alone and afraid. Maker had always said that he'd be able to figure out what to do if he was ever in a place where he didn't know what he was supposed to do, but how was he supposed to figure it out? He just wanted to make Tadashi happy again!

And then suddenly images start coming into Hiro's mind. In his memory banks, Tadashi had given Hiro lots of examples of how humans interacted with each other, including comforting each other. Hiro had never really tried any of these things because he didn't want to do them wrong and make Tadashi upset. But Tadashi was already so upset, he couldn't make things worse by trying one of them, right? There were so many forms of comfort humans used, and Hiro had no idea which one he was supposed to choose. He anxiously tries to decide which one to try, but it was hard. Then finally he sees a picture-a picture of a man who kind of looked like Tadashi and a little boy. The little boy was wrapping his arms around the man in a hug, and the man was smiling, as if the boy hugging him was making him happy. Was that was Hiro was supposed to do? Would a hug make Tadashi happy? Hiro wasn't sure, but it was worth trying, at least.

Still feeling a bit scared but determined to do his best, Hiro bravely walks up to Tadashi, who was still fitfully sleeping. After another moment of trepidation, the little robot carefully climbs up onto the chair so that he could be close enough to Tadashi to actually hug him. He'd never done this before, so he wasn't sure how this was supposed to work, but all the same Hiro carefully wraps his arms around the man's torso, hoping that he was doing it right. Then, looking up and seeing the tears that were still rolling Tadashi's cheeks, the robot finds himself saying softly, despite it not being something he'd ever been coded to say, "Don't cry, Dashi. Please don't cry."

It was one of the few times Hiro had ever allowed himself to actually voice the thoughts in his head instead of just repeating his coded phrases. And somehow, whether it was the words or the hug or both that actually helped, Tadashi actually stops crying. He doesn't seem to wake up, but he wraps his arms around Hiro and pulls him close, a small smile actually appearing on his lips, as if somehow just having the robot there made him feel better. Something warm glowed inside Hiro's chest as he realizes what he had done-he had made Tadashi happy. He had made Tadashi happy when he was sad and had needed him! Beaming, the little robot happily nuzzles up against his maker-his Dashi. He had made Tadashi happy by doing something that wasn't a part of his coding. He had finally found a way to make him proud of him! Maybe Hiro was still a bit scared to try doing things that weren't a part of his coding, but if they made Dashi happy then he would try as many new things as he could! And for right now, he'd enjoy just getting to be with Tadashi like this, because being so close to his Dashi and making him smile was the thing he wanted most in the world.