Chapter Text
Hiro Hamada never knew his parents.
He never knew them, and that never once bothered him. Tadashi had never really talked about them much, just brought them up on rare occasions with something about what they might think of a decision or what they might say to make Hiro feel bad. But it never affected Hiro, not in the way that his brother probably hoped it would. His parents had become little more than an idea, a vague notion that explained how he'd been born into the world, and that was it. Of course they'd existed. If Hiro and Tadashi existed, then naturally their parents did. It just never mattered one way or the other. Maybe he'd liked the idea of it once, to be able to have people he could call “mom” and “dad”, but that was about the extent of it. Hiro had enough in the way of family, with just Tadashi and Aunt Cass. That had been enough. That had always been enough.
But then some kind of “magic” happened, and Hiro had wished for Tadashi to be alive again. And Tadashi wished for their parents to be alive again, too.
It had never occurred to Hiro that Tadashi would miss their parents that much. He'd assumed that Tadashi, like himself, had come to accept their tiny family for what it was. But now that he thought about it, Tadashi hadn't been much younger than Hiro when they lost their parents, and Hiro had felt like his entire life went through the grinder when Tadashi died. It must have been worse for Tadashi, to lose his parents and to still have his three-year-old brother to look after at the same time. So of course he missed them. Of course he wanted them back, given the chance.
But it was weird. It was so weird to watch Tadashi run into the arms of the perfect strangers who'd shown up out of nowhere, crying and calling them “Mom” and “Dad”. It was weird to watch them dote on him, to press their hands to his face and talk about how much he'd grown, how they didn't even recognize him, how happy and healthy he looked. Tadashi had turned into a little kid in an adult body, and it seemed like he was happier than Hiro could ever remember him being before. And Hiro was happy for him, even smiled a little to himself as he watched them have their reunion.
At least until Tadashi turned around, wiping at his face with his sleeve, and pointed over at Hiro.
It wasn't the gesture so much as it was the wide-eyed stares that suddenly turned on him. It sent a jolt through Hiro's system and his entire body went rigid with panic. He didn't know those people. He didn't know them, and yet they were giving him these looks that he didn't know how to process and it had him panicking a little. Hiro was terrible enough with strangers as it was, and now to have ones who probably loved him dearly - as much as Aunt Cass did, if not more – wasn't something Hiro was prepared to deal with.
They started moving closer and Hiro automatically took a step back. If it weren't for the happy look on Tadashi's face, if it weren't for the fact that Hiro knew, logically, that these people were his parents, he may just have completely shut down on them or ran away or something. He forced himself to stand there and let them look him over, press their hands on his shoulders and against his cheeks, and he watched without showing too much awkwardness as the woman shed tears – actual tears – and murmured something about her baby growing up so much and so well.
He stiffened even more when the woman – his mom – pulled him into a hug and continued to cry over him. As if strangers that were actually parents wasn't awkward enough for him, he now had to deal with being hugged like this. Hiro looked up at Tadashi, wide-eyed and confused, but his brother was much too busy being happy for this family reunion. For an instant, Hiro wondered if maybe this was something that Tadashi had always wanted, had always wished for: his family finally being complete.
Hiro's family had always been complete.
And then suddenly the man – Dad – was joining the hug and Hiro was crushed between two strangers and Tadashi did nothing to help. In fact, he made it worse by wrapping the entire group of them up in his arms, and Hiro could only let out a little squeak of complaint. He tried to wiggle around to get a look at each face in turn – mom, dad, brother – and then just frowned. This was his family. His whole family, apparently. And it was full of strangers.
And suddenly Hiro just really wanted to run and hide behind Aunt Cass.