Big Hero Sketch

Tadashi initially thought it was a strange joke....

And then proceeded to be dense as hell about what Fred was stating outright?

He just thinks it’s a in-joke Fred is unusually attached to.

Even Baymax appears to be playing along what the hell

And then it does become a joke... on Tadashi.

Hiro had gone to sleep several hours earlier than usual. Baymax was concerned.

A routine morning scan had shown no problems, but - as Baymax quickly pieced together as he ran through the day's memories - Hiro had in fact run down more quickly than could be deemed normal.

He'd been unable to concentrate on his current project.

He had been purely perfunctory in conversations with the rest of the group.

He hadn't even broken into the gourmet gummy bears Abigail had passed him on the way out of the lab.

And now there he was, sprawled on the bed with an odd, heavy sound to his breathing and an open textbook across his chest, not even one line of homework completed.

Baymax shuffled from his charging station to take the book. Hiro didn't move or offer a sleep-mumbled protest; Baymax blinked, considering the unusual behavior, and stepped back to scan him.

Slightly swollen glands.

Congested breathing.

Some inflammation of the upper respiratory system.

Body temperature of one-hundred-point-seven degrees Fahrenheit.

Diagnosis: Common cold.

The simple, relatively minor explanation should have alleviated Baymax's concern. Instead he found himself fretfully moving from foot to foot, watching Hiro for further signs of distress.

The common cold had any number of complications.

The common cold was fully capable of mimicking the flu; suppose he was wrong?

And either way, Hiro was sick. Hiro had never been sick before.

(No, he supposed that was absurd. Hiro had surely been sick before; Hiro had simply never been sick without Baymax there to fuss over him.)

In any case: it was altogether unsettling.

He turned toward one of Hiro's computer monitors, considering. Hiro had fallen asleep with a group call open, having started it ostensibly to help his concentration; the others always waited for him to end the call first and so they were all still connected, though Baymax couldn't be certain if any of them were still awake. The only sound the call registered was Honey's quiet snoring, a subject he'd already learned not to bring up - otherwise, he couldn't even detect the sound of Fred turning comic pages or Gogo tapping her fingers on her desk or Abigail going over flight plans.

Still. It never hurt to ask.

"Hello?" he said softly, watching the icons for any sign of activity. "Is anyone still awake?"

A brief pause, and then he heard a slight shuffle before Wasabi's yawning voice came through the speaker.

"I'm up." A moment later Wasabi's icon was replaced by a webcam feed; his lights were still on, a project spread across his desk in a sort of regimented sprawl. "What's up, Baymax? We need to wake the others?"

"No," Baymax said. "I hope I did not wake you."

Wasabi smiled a little at that.

"Nope. Nice social niceties though."

"Thank you."

"Any time." Wasabi leaned back in his chair. "What's on your mind?"

Baymax paused, ordering his words. It was no great leap to recognize he was being foolish; nothing was seriously wrong, and Hiro would likely be fully recovered in a week, perhaps less. But he couldn't deny that his distress had risen well above acceptable levels for the ailment, the muffled rasp of Hiro's breath and the rise in body temperature triggering a sensation almost like electric interference.

"Hiro has fallen ill." He held up a hand as Wasabi sat up straighter. "I do not believe it is serious; his fever is low-grade and the congestion appears to be mild."

"Okay." Wasabi leaned back again. "So - what's the problem?"

"Well...." Baymax folded his hands together. "It would seem... that on some level I cannot differentiate between Hiro contracting the common cold and Hiro in danger of falling from a runaway trolley."

"Oh." Wasabi blinked, leaning back further. "Oh. You're worried."

"Yes. I have learned to identify 'worry' as a focused and perhaps sometimes irrational subset of distress."

"Yeah. Worry isn't always rational. I'm in a position to know."

"I have noticed no such thing."

Wasabi grinned.

"Hey now. You're teasing me."

"It is interesting that words can sometimes be used to achieve the opposite effect."

"Yeah." Wasabi nodded slowly. "That's not the only interesting thing here. Let's back up, though. You know what helps me when I'm worried?"

"Careful organization of surrounding items."

"Uh... yeah, that. But also - reasoning with it. Tell me what worries you about Hiro being sick."

"The common cold can easily lead to other ailments such as bronchitis, tonsillitis, pnuemonia, and ear infections."

"All right, good start. But what--"

"A sore throat can lead to discomfort eating, and refusal to eat due to discomfort can lead to malnutrition."

"What?" Wasabi rested his hands on his desk, staring. "Well, I guess it could, but--"

"Some cold sufferers may develop myocarditis, leading to heart failure. Guillan-Barre syndrome, an auto-immune condition affecting muscle strength. Sensorineural hearing loss. Reye syndrome."

"Okay, look." Wasabi held his hands up. "I can tell you Reye is an aspirin thing. I know because I almost convinced myself I had it two years ago. In fact, you sound exactly like me when someone lets me use WebMD while I'm sick."

Baymax blinked, head tilting slightly.

"Wasabi. You did ask."

"Yeah." Wasabi ran a hand over his face. "Yeah, I did." He peeked at Baymax over his fingers, brows raising. "Anything else?"

"Yes. If Hiro is bored, he will not rest. Also: discomfort may lead to difficulty sleeping."

Wasabi smiled, looking past Baymax to Hiro - just visible at the edge of the webcam's frame.

"He's sleeping now, isn't he?"

"Well." Baymax turned to look at Hiro, scanned him both for brainwaves and to be sure of his temperature, and nodded. "Yes. Hiro appears to be in stage three sleep."

"Good. That's one down. Now, let's work through the rest. What normally causes more complicated infections during illness?"

"Lack of appropriate care, though unsatisfactory hospital conditions are often to blame."

"There you go, not a problem with you around." Wasabi paused, hiding a smile behind one hand. "Can we count the WebMD stuff with that? I mean, you can probably detect any warnings of any one of those."

Baymax nodded again.

"That seems reasonable. Please continue."

"All right, we established he's asleep, and - I've had colds, he'll probably be pretty good about sleeping. But if he gets bored, you think you can keep him entertained?"

"Sedentary activities are often difficult for Hiro. It is common for him to pace even while reading." Baymax considered. "However, he has promised a movie night and it would be an appropriate time to press the issue. I have seen Frankenstein and am interested in similar movies of the era."

"Right. Uh, interesting choice. Ask Fred if he has anything Cass doesn't, he'll be happy to help." Wasabi leaned forward slightly. "As for the malnutrition - yeah, he might not like a lot of stuff with a sore throat, but I'm gonna send you a recipe. Ask the others too - and I bet Cass has one of her own. Soup's good for this, you can try him on all kinds." He reached to tap at his keyboard; a moment later Baymax pinged softly as he received Wasabis recipe. "Got all that? Sound good?"

Baymax hummed once to himself, silently replaying all of Wasabi's advice, and then nodded.

"Yes. However. I am still worried."

Wasabi shrugged.

"That's fair. I mean - it's okay to worry even about little things as long as you don't go overboard."

"I am a personal healthcare companion," Baymax said slowly. "Excessive worrying may... not be productive."

"Not productive, maybe, but I don't think it's actually detrimental. Anyway." Wasabi smiled, shrugging slightly. "Do you remember what Hiro said to us, the night we formed the team? 'You can be so much more'?"

"I remember everything Hiro has said to me, Wasabi."

"Yeah. I thought so. So - are you more than a healthcare companion to Hiro?"

"Yes." Baymax nodded. "He believes so. And I... believe so as well."

"Good." Wasabi leaned back again; for several second he was silent, studying Baymax closely. Baymax had seen that scrutiny before - from Gogo, from Honey, even occasionally from Fred.

But never from Hiro, who took everything he did in stride and would probably laugh away his worries over myocarditis and malnutrition.

"Okay then," Wasabi said after a moment. There was something wondering in his tone, something hinting at further questions; instead, he turned to fidget with his equipment, looking over notes. "That everything you need?"

"Yes, Wasabi. I am satisfied with your reassurance."

"Good. I'm flipping the camera off again. Night, Baymax."

"Good night, Wasabi."

The screen went dark and Baymax shuffled back to Hiro's side, listening to the heavy sound of congested breathing and scanning for temperature one more time.

"Hey. You're still in my flightpath."

Abigail sank her teeth into her lip in delight as that voice crackled into her cockpit, eyes flicking to radar as she replied.

"Can't really call it your flightpath when all you manage to do is eat my vapor." The other woman grunted at that, the homemade craft drifting ever closer to her wing, and Abigail choked back a giggle as she continued. "At best I'm in front of your flightpath, Rustbucket."

"All right, I admit you might have earned that bozomobile racing but don't get too ahead of yourself."

"All I need is to be ahead of you."

Rustbucket accelerated hard in lieu of answering and Abigail chortled and zipped after her, congratulating herself on the decision to keep to Tatooine.

"Something's different this time," she remarked as she pressed in close. "You're smoother at high acceleration."

"Adjusted fin weight. You noticed the rattle?"

The reluctant admiration in her voice warmed Abigail; she chewed her lip again to keep the smile from her voice as she answered.

"Rustbucket, I'm the best there is. You don't get to be the best if you can't gauge competition as well as yourself."

"So I'm competition now, huh?"

"Keeping up with me in a homemade rattler does earn you that, yeah."

"Hm." Rustbucket grunted again at that, bearing hard left an in attempt to force Abigail back. "We'll see who'se the rattler."

***

"Closer this time!" Abigail sang out as they decelerated. "You might beat me yet."

"Might? Maybe you need to spitshine your viewscreen. I won that one."

"You didn't." Abigail snorted. "I was lightyears ahead of you."

"Lightyears is a stupid measurement. And my fuselage passed the beacon first - your communications array doesn't count."

"It does."

"No. And if you shifted it back you'd have better acceleration in light atmosphere without being a cheater."

"I--!" Abigail spluttered, only some of it fabricated. "Cheater? Cheater? Who's got a 'bitchass' way of asking to go again now?!"

"Wow. Language." Rustbucket's reply was nearly deadpan with the barest hint of chuckle; Abigail shivered at it and wondered what she was getting herself into. "Think about it though."

"Huh. You're so smart, how about I come down there and you optimize my bozomobile?"

"You don't know where I am, and if you just showed up you'd be a stalker. I'd be too unsettled to race you anymore."

"Bullshit."

"Yeah." The admission was low and easy, and a moment later Rustbucket actually, genuinely chuckled. "Look. We'll talk. For now, I think I can get a little more out of these engines than I have been. And you probably have swoopraces to get to."

"Swoopracing has never been this entertaining."

"More lucrative though."

Abigail licked her lips and hummed.

"You know, lately I'm not so sure."

"Sure you're not." Rustbucket snorted softly. "I'm not that easy to sweettalk. But look. I'm gonna talk to Honey about optimizing fuel output, and maybe you can have your own build if you're a good girl."

"Define 'good'. We talking Tatooine standards, or--wait, Honey?" Abigail rolled the word in her mouth. "Your honey?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

Abigail's tone had brought an odd purr to Rustbucket's voice; she almost shivered to hear it.

"Well, yeah. I would."

"Hm. Tell you what, Spitshine - one week. You beat me again, I'll tell you more. Later."

"Sure. Later."

She sighed as Rustbucket's craft darted off, already scheduling out the week.

Make her race. Win her race. Maybe make a few adjustments to her craft to be sure of beating Rustbucket.

Back in a week.

She sighed, grinning at herself as she set her coordinates.

"All this for a sexy voice. Abigail Callaghan, you are ridiculous."

***

"Honey! I need you to look at this!"

Gogo burst into the restaurant, one of her friend's homemade fuel rods in hand, and stalled as all seven of her fellow residents turned to stare.

"Hello Gogo!" Cass said after a moment. "I see you made it just in time for the tail end of midday cleanup."

Her voice wavered between stern and amused; Gogo's face scrunched into a scowl as she stared back.

"Look, I'll... take care of whatever's left, I just...."

"Oh, don't worry." Cass smiled, shrugging. "Every last one of you has done it at some point. Even Baymax."

"I was under the impression that Hiro's... caterwauling, as you say... indicated injury."

"Nope. He makes a completely different sound for that. And you still got distracted by... whatever he was doing in there."

"So what do you need, Gogo?" Honey asked. She grinned, eyes falling to the fuel rod. "Oh ho, you were testing today. You ran into The Voice, didn't you?"

Gogo's scowl deepened.

"She beat me again." She shrugged, leaning on a counter. "Not fast enough yet. I have a few ideas for adjustments but I also want to make sure I'm getting every scrap out of Honey's fuels."

She wanted to hear that voice react to Gogo's win, to hear what she had to say about her craft, maybe to hear how she'd react to work on that bozomobile.

And she was quiet too long reflecting on the voice and its owner's piloting skills.

"To win?" Hiro asked. "Or to win?"

"But who's winning what?" Fred chuckled, his voice gone deep and theatrical. "Just what Gogo didn't know she needed - a smooth-voiced siren of space with just the right skills, setting her sights after so long in the void--"

Wasabi groaned through his own grin, reaching over to lightly shove Fred.

"Fred, for the last time, there's no such thing as space sirens."

"Says you."

"All right, all right," Honey said, holding her hands up. "I'll look at your output, you work on tightening everything up." She grinned again. "And maybe we'll get to hear The Voice soon?"

"Depends." Gogo shrugged. "We have a bet, sort of. Let's just get to work."

"Hm." Honey nodded, striving for seriousness; Gogo wished she'd go back to the grin. "All right, as long as you're sure you still want to win."

Gogo scoffed.

"I always want to win."

And did it matter that she wasn't really sure what she was out to win as she leaned over the fuel samples with Honey, carefully weighed and adjusted and tested each component of her craft, listened to Hiro's suggestions and Fred's wild theories about Spitshine's identity and Tadashi's encouragement and the teasing from them all?

"Aunt Cass! You won't believe the salvage we found today!"

Cass straightened at the tension thrumming through Hiro's boisterous shout, frowning as she glanced toward him.

Shouting for the whole restaurant to hear meant he wasn't particularly afraid, but the tension, and the fact that the boys came through the back several minutes after sunset instead of through the front in full light, meant there might be something questionable about their find.

If she heard of one more angry junk dealer trailing her fool of a younger nephew....

Her breath and thought stalled at the sight of the limp figure cradled in Tadashi's arms.

"Lay him down," she managed after a moment. "Put him in my bed."

"No, mine," Hiro piped. "You can't sleep on the floor Aunt Cass, you're up all day even more than us."

"Neither of you are giving up your beds," Tadashi said. Instead, he carefully lowered the stranger into his own bed as Hiro hurried to gather items their aunt requested.

"Water, and clean cloth. See if Honey has any more of that fluid she gave Wasabi to clean those cuts."

She gently shouldered Tadashi aside and knelt to peer at the man. Boy, really, just a baby under the dirt and blood and grime because he couldn't be any older than Tadashi, and wasn't Tadashi her baby?

"Cass? Here, I have the disinfectant."

Honey was at her elbow now, and she could hear Wasabi's anxious fidgeting as Hiro shoved his way back through.

"Thanks, Honey. Now--"

"So what are we gonna do?" Hiro asked. "I mean, it looks like he walked away from whatever happened."

"Were you followed?" Wasabi shifted back a bit. "No one followed you, right?"

Gogo snorted as she stepped into the room; Cass gritted her teeth at the press of people behind her.

"You really think they'd notice? They had something to focus on, Hamadas lose everything else when something gets their attention."

Tadashi scoffed, turning to look at Gogo.

"Like you have room to talk, Miss 'I drank Honey's fuel sample because I was so into redrafting my blueprint'."

"I didn't actually drink it, now answer the question."

"I don't--"

"Gogo." Cass took a deep breath. "How about you find out? And listen out for anything matching our new friend here." She stood, turning to face them. "And why are you all in here? Who's keeping the customers in line? Serving them?" She planted her fists on her hips. "No one. Are you all out of your minds? Honey, Wasabi - go watch the restaurant, assuming I still have anything left in there. Tadashi, you and Hiro stay here."

Gogo frowned but nodded, heading out without a word as Honey and Wasabi scuttled guiltily back to the restaurant proper, and Cass let out a soft sigh as she turned her attention back to the unconscious boy.

"Tadashi, how's your medical droid coming along?"

"Baymax? Well, I... think he can scan and diagnose, but I haven't tested him on anything but healthy...." He trailed off, looking at the other boy, and nodded. "I'll get him."

"Good. Hiro, bring me a few packs of that coolant gel Honey made for Tadashi, tell her I'll help her replace it. Don't open them."

Hiro nodded and hurried off, and Cass turned her attention to cleaning the boy's wounds and trying to bring down the swelling of a broken arm and listening to Tadashi's droid's recommendation on how to start rehydrating him, and all the while she wondered about how he'd ended up stumbling battered into the scrapyard and who might be missing their baby.

***

The stranger slept through the night and most of the next day - slept through Gogo's report that no one had followed nor had she overheard any mention of him, slept through efforts to get the rehydrating broth Baymax recommended into him, slept through even Cass and Baymax setting his broken arm once the swelling receded (though in that instance the arm had been numbed before the setting and splinting began).

Near sunset Tadashi peeled back the bandage on the stranger's forehead to check the wound there, and the man stirred and blinked at him. Tadashi froze, relief and apprehension flooding him, and for a few moments both of them only stared.

"Huh. So," the man said at last. His voice came out in a rough scrape, and he grimaced and cleared his throat. "So I probably didn't die, huh."

"Probably?" Tadashi rolled his eyes, sitting back on his heels. "Just probably. I look that ghastly, huh?"

The man smiled, wan and weary and yet with enough cheek that Tadashi couldn't help smiling back.

"Nah - opposite." His gaze shifted to Baymax as the droid shuffled forward, speaking in brief bursts that hinted at a slight shortness of breath. "Huh. That's different. You this guy's bodyguard?"

His speech had an odd cadence; living in a restaurant in a space port hub had exposed Tadashi to all manner of accents and grammatical quirks, but he couldn't place the man's peculiar, easy lilt. He was also astoundingly relaxed for someone who'd been unconscious in a scrapyard less than a day ago and woke to a strangers in a strange room, watching Tadashi and Baymax alike with a mild, friendly curiosity.

"No," Baymax was saying, glancing at Tadashi before continuing. The droid seemed as bemused as Tadashi by the man's comfortable, familiar behavior, and spoke slowly. "I am a medical experiment. The intent behind my structure and programming is to provide a portable physician contructed of low-cost materials, thus giving a companion and expert in the use of standard medical equipment in the field."

"Yeah?" The man nodded slowly. "Neat. So - how'm I doing?"

Baymax paused, scanning the man with a soft whirr.

"You have several lacerations of varying severity, concentrated on your forearms and torso. You are dehydrated and exhausted, suffering from sun and windburn and other symptoms of exposure. Your left arm is broken, and I suspect some bruising of the ribs and clavicle. However, you do not appear to have a concussion, and your blood pressure has risen and your pulse dropped to acceptable levels." Baymax paused again. "You are also far calmer than might be expected, but do not appear to be suffering shock."

"Am I? Huh. Yeah, I guess." He smiled again and shrugged, grimacing as the motion disturbed his arm, but talking doggedly through pained breaths. "Well, yanno. I'm indoors... patched up... not dead...." He grinned at Tadashi. "...probably not dead, and... well, everything hurts like hell... but a guy looking to build low-cost full-service medical droids? Probably pretty stand-up... and anyway if you wanted me dead it'd be easier to leave me in the desert... or the city?" He cocked his head. "Did I make it out of the desert?"

"Uh... yeah," Tadashi said slowly, biting back his own grin. "My brother and I found you in the scrapyard. He fell on you."

"Oh. Yeah, I kinda remember that." The man nodded, clearing his throat again. "Neat. I had a bet with myself on that, you know? So, guess I won that. Say, uh, got anything to drink?"

"What--oh! Sorry." Tadashi grabbed the cooling broth he'd carried in and passed it to the man. "Probably easier now that you're awake to do it yourself."

"Heh, I'll say. Awake to enjoy it now too." He sipped the broth carefully. "S'good - you make it?"

"Uh... no. No, I can't be trusted to cook. My aunt made it, she'll... want to know you're awake." Tadashi fidgeting, looking away briefly. "So, uh. What did you win? In your bet with yourself."

"Well." The man shrugged again - one-sided this time. "Not being dead?" He gave a sly grin Tadashi couldn't help returning. "Probably."

"All right, all right, that's getting old." Tadashi wrinkled his nose and made the most put-upon face he could muster, chewing his cheek at the sound of the other man's weak-but-delighted laugh. "Go back to sleep, you're easier to deal with that way."

"Bet you say that to all the guys," he said lightly. "So... if you were wondering, this guy's name is Fred."

"Fred, huh? I'm Tadashi." He grinned, reaching to take the empty bowl from Fred's hand. "I meant it - go back to sleep. Exhaustion. Tell him again, Baymax."

"Rest is the best cure for your current ailments."

"Aw. Beset on all sides." Fred attempted a drawn-out sigh but winced at his damaged ribs. "Woo. Okay, you got me. Rest it is. But also, yanno - thanks. I mean, I won the bet with myself, but I wouldn't be probably-not-dead if you weren't a nice guy, so... thanks."

"Thank my brother for sitting on you, otherwise we would have thought you were just regular salvage." Tadashi paused, waiting until Fred began to drowse before rising.