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Hiro was falling, falling, falling, the wind rushing through hair and stinging his eyes. He could see the ground hastening up to meet him in a deadly embrace. Pain wracked his shoulder where the supervillain Parasitium had shot him with a laser gun. A ragged scream tore his throat. This was it—he was going to die. He wished he could’ve told Aunt Cass and Wilbur that he loved them one last time.
It was with that thought that the hard ground was no longer below him. Honey Lemon had cast one of her compounds directly where he would land. He bounced off of the blue substance and hit the concrete with a painful, but non-deadly, thud.
“Oof.” Hiro had lost his helmet during the fight, and he smacked his head against the concrete.
GoGo wheeled over and picked him up effortlessly. Hiro hurt too badly to complain.
“Wasabi and Fred have Parasitium incapacitated, but we still don’t know where the bomb is,” she explained.
Hiro tasted blood in his mouth. “Where’s Baymax?” he asked. Why hadn’t he come to save me?
GoGo frowned. “He’s with Honey Lemon. He suffered some damage and couldn’t fly to save you after you were thrown off of the building. For a robot, he seemed distraught.”
They wheeled over to the rest of Big Hero 6. GoGo set Hiro on his feet. He swayed for a moment, a wave of nausea washing over him which forced him to his knees. He put his hands on either side of his head and fought the urge to vomit.
Parasitium was tied up with rope that Hiro could only assume Fred had been carrying with him (“You never know when we might need it!”), but that didn’t prevent them from being acidic.
“Didn’t enjoy your little free fall, did you, Zero?”
No one deemed the comment worthy of a response.
“Where’s the bomb, Parasitium?” Wasabi asked.
The supervillain spit. “I won’t tell; you’ll find out soon enough.” They sat back smugly. “I’d say you’ve got, oh, five minutes until it goes off.”
GoGo pushed past Wasabi. She leaned down into Parasitium’s face. “Listen here, Parasitium. We have dealt with a variety of criminals, supervillains, and rogue bot fighters. Maybe you’re new to this things, but we won’t back down especially after you’ve hurt our leader.” She straightened up. “As second-in-command, I think it’s time we execute order delta.”
Wasabi and Honey Lemon looked grim. Fred put his reptilian hands up to his face in surprise.
“Order delta—isn’t that extreme?”
GoGo shot a look at Parisitium. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Hiro picked himself up from the ground to lean on Baymax. “Gogo’s right, Fred.”
The villain looked from one superhero to the next. “Um, what’s order delta?”
GoGo raised an eyebrow. “Do you know who Daedalus was?”
Parisitium shrugged. “Didn’t he make wings or something?”
“That’s right—and his son, Icarus, died from flying to close to the sun.”
Right on cue, Wasabi engaged his plasma blades.
Parasitium’s eyes went wide. “I think I agree with the lizard.”
GoGo shook her head. “It’s too late. Take ‘em.”
Fred laid a hand on the villain’s shoulder. “I’m sorry it had to be this way.”
“Forget! I’ll talk—the bomb is taped to the underside of that bus over there!” They gestured with their head.
Grateful that they’re plan had worked, the group raced over to the bus (GoGo has once again picked up Hiro).
“Who’s going under?” Wasabig asked.
A quick glance at around made it obvious that Hiro was the only one who could fit under the bus. Blinking spots out of his eyes, Hiro got down on the ground and crawled beneath the bus.
“Do you see anything, Hiro?” called Honey Lemon.
His eyes scanned the underside of the bus. “I don’t—no, here it is!” He ripped a black box from the undercarriage and crawled back out. “How do we disarm it?”
Wasabi took it from him and opened it up. Multicolored wires ran in and out of receptacles. A timer read 1:15.
Wasabi pursed his lips. “It’s got to be the black wire; it runs through every box.”
“But the red one goes twice to this box,” Honey Lemon pointed out.
“There’s only one white wire,” Fred added.
They should offer a course on bomb disposal at SFIT, Hiro thought blandly.
1:03
Everyone stared at the bomb in Wasabi’s hands. It would only take one mistake for this situation to turn deadly.
Baymax leaned over the bomb. “There is an ‘off’ switch, here.”
0:51
“What if it’s a trap?” Honey Lemon asked.
Hiro glanced at where Parasitium was still bound. “We don’t have time to ask.”
0:40
Everyone held their breath as Hiro reached out and flicked the switch. The screen flickered 0:33 before going dark.
Fred whooped and jumped. “That’s what I’m talking about! Big Hero 6 saves the day once again!”
Wasabi let out strained laugh while Honey Lemon hugged GoGo.
Hiro noticed for the first time that Baymax was missing his boosters. “Where’d your pants go, buddy?”
Baymax blinked. “They disintegrated.”
Hiro patted his arm. “Don’t worry. We’ll make you a new pair.”
“Thank you, Hiro.”
“Now, let’s deal with this joker.”
Honey Lemon had her phone out. “On it! Hello, San Fransokyo police? I’d like to report a crime.”
Feeling like she had the situation well in hand, Hiro took a step back toward Parasitium. The world seemed to blur around him, and the next thing he knew, his friends were crouching down next to him.
“Hiro, can you hear me?” Honey Lemon was asking.
His surroundings swam in and out of view. Hiro tried to lift his head up and failed. In an attempt to stop the dizziness, he closed his eyes.
“Hiro, can you hear me?” Honey Lemon repeated.
“Yeah,” he murmured. Oh, his head.
She sighed. “Thank goodness.”
Were those sirens he was hearing? He tried to look around again but couldn’t see to the street due to his friends blocking his line of sight.
“You’re going to the hospital, Hiro. Parasitium was obviously targeting you specifically during their attack.”
Foreign voices met his ears. Rolling onto his uninjured side, Hiro lost the battle against nausea and threw up. Unfortunately, Wasabi was sitting right there.
“Sorry, ‘sabi,” he muttered before once again losing consciousness.
~*~
The memory replayed over and over and over in his dreams at night; it surfaced in his mind unbidden and unwanted. Getting the call from Honey Lemon telling him what had happened to Hiro. Hiro showing up at zero dark hundred with his head and shoulder wrapped in bandages and his arm in a sling. Aunt Cass bursting into tears when given the cover story of Hiro being hit by a car while on his way home from a late-night outing with his friends.
Hiro refused to stay bedridden for long. Now amount of cajoling, commands, or requests by Aunt Cass, Wilbur, Baymax, and his friends could keep Hiro down for more than a week despite the doctor’s orders. At that point, he was back full time at school. A week after that, despite Wilbur’s protests, he was back patrolling at night.
Wilbur’s only consolation was that Baymax and the rest of Big Hero 6 were there to watch out for him.
But they had been there when Hiro had gotten hurt in the first place, and that scared Wilbur more than he liked to admit.
Every night, Wilbur asked Hiro to stay home, to watch a movie, to go out on a date, to do anything other than fight crime, and every night Hiro would deny his request. Wilbur would then watch as he and Baymax took off into the darkening night. He’d climb the stairs slowly up to his room and light the tapered candle that sat in the windowsill. Wilbur would then sit up, going out of his mind with worry, the lack of contact keeping him awake. He’d try to distract himself with homework and projects, but he’d soon run out of things to do. Working all night every night out of sheer anxiety became a regular occurrence.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, he’d pass out from exhaustion. Hiro would slip into bed, sometimes unnoticed. On those nights, Wilbur would wake up to find Hiro sleeping peacefully next to him with no idea what Wilbur had suffered through while he was away. Other nights, Wilbur would wake up when Hiro returned, and he’d wrapped his arms around his boyfriend when Hiro got into bed next to him. He’d hold him tight and try to convince himself that Hiro was there, that he was safe, that everything was going to be okay. That he would continue to be okay.
The night patrols kept pushing him and pushing him until Wilbur couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Hiro, please, can you stay home tonight for once?” Wilbur pleaded watching Hiro flit around the garage gathering his things. He clutched Hiro’s helmet to his chest. “When was the last time you took a break from patrolling?”
Hiro shrugged. “I don’t know. But the team’s expecting me, so I’ve got to go.” He reached out for his helmet.
Wilbur stubbornly refused to give it up. “Hiro, you’re gone every night!” he explained, his voice taut.
“It’s no big deal!” Hiro shot back.
“Yes, it is!”
Hiro grabbed hold of the helmet. “Wilbur, let go!” he snapped.
“Hiro—“
He wrenched the helmet out of Wilbur’s grasp. “Wilbur, you keep trying to get me to stay home, and I’ve told you a million times that it’s not going to happen! San Fransokyo—“
“—needs you—I know!” Without the helmet to hold onto, his hands clenched by his sides.
(By this time, both he and Hiro were yelling. Wilbur didn’t know how to make it stop, how to make Hiro understand.)
“If you know, why are you so upset? I always come home!”
“But what if you don’t? Have you stopped to consider that?”
“Wilbur, listen to me—“
“No, you listen to me!” Wilbur forced out. “When we first met, and I figured out that you were a part of Big Hero 6, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I mean, I’ve traveled through time, but being a superhero is a whole other thing.”
“Wilbur—“
He barreled on. “But when you came home that morning, bloodied and bandaged, I realized how dangerous it was.” Wilbur took a shuddering breath. “Hiro, you could’ve died. I could’ve lost you.
“And now I’m up at night going out of my mind with worry because what if something happens to you? What if you get another concussion? What if you get shot? What if you die?
“I almost cost my father his future and myself my own life due to a mistake when I was twelve. I can’t—I can’t lose you.”
I can’t lose you.
Hiro looked up at him with his mouth slightly open. “Wilbur . . . “
Wilbur wiped furiously at his eyes in an attempt to hide the tears spilling over. “Please.”
Hiro set the helmet down on a table and wrapped his arms around Wilbur’s waist.
“Please tell me you’ll always come home,” Wilbur murmured into Hiro’s hair.
Hiro sighed and pulled back. He looked into Wilbur’s eyes. “I can’t promise that. What we do is dangerous, but it’s necessary. I know you hate it when I say this, but someone has to look out for San Fransokyo; we happen to be those people.”
Wilbur closed his eyes. “I know.”
Hiro reached up and wiped away a tear. “Wilbur?”
He opened his eyes. “Yeah?”
“I’ll do my best to come back to you every time. But I need you to trust me.”
“I’ll try,” he said quietly.
Cupping his face with his hands, Hiro placed a gentle kiss on Wilbur’s lips. Melting into his touch, Wilbur laid his hands on Hiro’s hips.
Hiro pulled back. “I need to go now,” he whispered.
Wilbur pulled him into one last hug. “I’ll keep a candle burning in the window.”
They ended their embrace, and Hiro suited up. After retrieving Baymax from his charging station upstairs, Wilbur stood in the driveway and watched as Hiro and Baymax disappeared into the darkness.
He climbed the stairs being careful not to disturb Aunt Cass. Upon reaching his and Hiro’s room, he crossed to the window and lit the tapered candle that was sitting there. He liked the light jasmine fragrance it gave off as it reminded him of Hiro.
The soft glow of the single candle cast shadows around the room. Wilbur wondered where Hiro was at that moment. Had he run into trouble yet? Was he with the rest of Big Hero 6? Most importantly, was he safe?
Wilbur sunk into his desk chair and closed his eyes.
Please come home.