There's a point we pass from which we can't return [O P E N]

[bigdamnhiro]

[Sick days are the worst.

Most kids his age would be happy to have a few days out of school, but most kids his age don't have a high school diploma. Most kids his age aren't trying to get a bachelor's in robotics from the toughest tech school in town. Most kids his age aren't thinking, when they get sick, oh god but I have so many projects to work on.

Hiro tries not to think about it. All the snot, the fevers, the chills and the foul mood he's been in since taking a cold swim in the bay are making him miserable enough without thinking about all the notes and classwork he's going to need to catch up on. And every time he rolls over, there's Callaghan's rumpled trenchcoat hanging on the back of his desk chair, which just makes him want to burrow under the covers and be moody for a while.

Moody and sick, great combo. He snuffles and avoids talking; he shrugs off Baymax's attempts to assess his condition. He has nightmares, from which he wakes up sweating and terrified, and maybe he really regrets a couple of things he did regarding a certain masked man, but he can't take those back now.

He'll figure out what to do about it when his head's not stuffy and swimming.]

Comments

[anewangle]

[Tadashi knows the face a little better than Hiro does. Even just one meeting in Callaghan's office would be enough for anyone to see most of the major stages of his daughters life, neatly framed and hanging from the walls, propped up atop filing cabinets...

Or that's how it had been before he lost her. Things were different now.

He hadn't been sure that night, whether Callaghan would let them drown or not. Too focused on the actual drowning part to spend too much effort on such thoughts, it was only afterward that he'd really considered the idea. Confused and angry and afraid, barely in control... it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. As much as Tadashi never wanted to believe it, as much as it hurt to think about, he couldn't continue to think of Callaghan as only his former professor, his mentor. Not while he was capable of... more? That one word can't really serve as a satisfactory description, but it'll have to do for now. It's either that, or resort to a much more distressing vocabulary.

Instead he puts his focus on Hiro, turning in his seat to face his little brother fully, reaching out to place one hand over those smaller ones, mindful not to bend the photographs. Hiro might not want to look at him, but Tadashi's not going anywhere.]

He might have, he might not have. I'm not sure he's ready to actually ready to give the microbots up...

But we can try again. Next time we'll do it right.

[bigdamnhiro]

If we get a next time.

[Because maybe they won't. Maybe they'll have to take the microbots by force, maybe they'll have to fight for them just like before, only with no portal to suction them away little by little and no transmitter to destroy to end the fight. If an interfering signal won't work, or if the side effects are too savage to take that step, well...something else, then. Maybe magnets.

Ugh. Too hard to think about right now.

At least Tadashi's hand feels so much warmer than the clammy, wet one he tried to pull out of the harbor the other night. Healthy (sort of), and alive and...he's okay, Hiro's okay, nobody died. It could've gone so much worse.]

...M'sorry. That I lost my temper, that you were put in danger because of it. I don't want that to happen again.

[For the first time since Tadashi sat down, Hiro really looks at him. He sets the photos aside and - okay, hug time. Once in a blue moon hug time, but here he is, leaning over and hugging dumb Tadashi's neck.]

Also, I'm building floaties into your armor. No buts.