Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So he’s fourteen years old and his big brother died in a fire that was set on purpose and now he’s staring down the man who started this all in the first place.

Except his brother’s actually not dead and didn’t die in the fire. In fact the amount of people who died in the fire went from two to zero in the span of one of Baymax’s scans. It turns out, his brother was working with Callaghan the entire time, and for what? For the sake of people long dead and gone. But Hiro was alive and there and Tadashi had left him without a second thought. Had helped somebody steal his tech, had let Hiro think he was dead, had hurt him. And for what?

“Our parents, Hiro.” Tadashi’s voice is rough and thick with emotion, desperately trying to get through to him. But what was even the point, Hiro wondered. “You wouldn’t understand, you didn’t know them. And it’s his fault!”

"No." He says voice just as flat as his brother’s wasn’t. "I don’t understand. I’ve been told I’m smart, why don’t you explain it to me.” And it was really Tadashi’s own fault at this point. He’d always arrived after the bot fighting was done, or was just wrapping up. He’d never actually seen Hiro bot fight, especially not the early days and it’d been a very long time since they’d played chess. If he had, he’d recognize the look. No matter what happened, Hiro was going to walk away the winner, whether he walked away with his brother or not, was entirely up to Tadashi.

When you’re hurt, you lash out. Hiro wasn’t any different and he was very, very hurt.

“Tadashi was there.” And that’s how Hiro found out that man in the visor, who had chased them almost down into the bay itself, had been his brother. And that’s when Hiro decided that he didn’t care what his brother’s reason was. There wasn’t a good enough reason in the entire world. For trying to hurt them. For stealing Hiro’s microbots, for letting Hiro believe he was dead. For leaving Hiro alone.

One good turn deserved another, in Hiro’s book at least. It was pretty easy to strip Baymax’s coding, to rip through the green chip and turn all that doctor information into the easiest way to take a person apart coding. Armor, weapons, thrusters, flight. Baymax would never lose a battle. Not if Hiro had anything to say about it.

At least until he woke up at one in the morning to Honey Lemon and Wasabi and concerned faces and voices and realized, he wasn’t the only one his brother was hurting.

I can do better. I can be better.

The spiral of grief and anger and rage had hit rock fucking bottom, where Hiro realized with sudden clarity that he was modifying a robot nurse to kill people.(to kill Callaghan, to hurt his brother.) He didn’t have to be his brother, he didn’t have to fight his brother the same way he’d always fought things. Head on and head first. That wouldn’t work with someone who knew him as well as his brother did.

So he went back through the coding, put it all to rights. And hit the mental drawing board after, deciding to follow the trail of the sparrow icon. Maybe the reason did matter after all.

“What are you going to do, Hiro?” He shrugged at the question. Wasabi watches him from the other side of garage. They’ve all been tip-toeing around him since he let them in on his revelation. Hiro’s already decided what to do. Decided a long time ago. A moment of clarity after the storm of anger and grief had passed.

“What I’ve always done. Bet my life on him.” It’s a good thing he doesn’t really. Unlike the bot fighting, where he’d walk in with no plan to get out,(he knew Tadashi always had his back.) Hiro can’t help but stack the deck in his favor this time.

It all came back to Alister Krei in the end. Lab accidents spanning several years, from their parents to the professor’s daughter. Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, can’t make scientific progress without taking a few(too many) risks. Hiro puts it all together, pulls data, statements, eye witness testimony, packages the entire thing and ships it off to the police and the military and the governor’s office, the San Franskoyo Times’, the gossip rags. Basically any place he’d think would care, create a paper trail as big as he could, as wide as he could. Bury everyone and everything in it. He doesn’t feel anything while he does it. Just the sense that this is all another step on the way.

He’s not Tadashi. He does give up on things, on projects, on people. On his brother.

He has to shout to be heard over the sound of the portal. But his brother, to his credit, does hear him. Hears but doesn’t listen. Hiro has to try all the same.

"Our parents are dead. They aren’t going to know or care about what you’re doing.” He said, hands fisting at his sides. “I know it sucks, but you can’t throw everything away on this.” He’s never been very good at communicating with people, especially not about feelings, but he thought if anyone could understand him, it’d be his brother. “It’s not worth it.”

Turns out he was wrong.

His brother’s features harden. Eyes narrow into slits, mouth tightening into a thin line, body becoming unnaturally still.

"You don’t understand." His brother bites out before he turns away. And that was it. Hiro could hear the snap from where he stood. Relationships, even family ones, when all’s said and done, can only take so much strain before they break.

"Don’t I, though?” His voice sharp and angry. His brother freezes at the tone. He’s never heard it from Hiro before. Hiro’s never used it, didn’t know it existed. But he lost his brother in a fire and that had dragged out a lot of new things. “My parents died in a lab accident and I was too young to know them. My brother died in a fire. And I mourned him, I still am. All I have left is my aunt." So he was wrong. His brother did die in that fire. Because there was no way the person standing with his back to him, stolen tech creeping across the ground around them, about to murder a man for mistakes made in a distant past, was his brother. “Do what you want.” He turns around too, starts walking away, shoves shaking hands into his pockets. Over the sound of sirens, spits out: “I’m done.”

So he’s fourteen years old and his big brother died in a fire.

Chapter Text

So he’s seventeen years old and he’s been kidnapped by a shady criminal organization called HYDRA. Because he’s a robotics genius prodigy and they’re hoping he’ll be their Tony Stark. He thinks he’s pretty justified in thinking his life can’t be this ridiculous. He’d transferred out to New York city to get his doctorate, moved across the entire continental united states, with the hopes of putting as much distance between Ronin, Yokai and himself as possible. So sue him, he got tired of the super villain, (anti)hero, innocent bystander love triangle they had going on and got the hell out of dodge while the going was good.

And then this happens.

It’s a good thing HYDRA didn’t have any basic understanding of Hiro. Leaving him essentially cuffed and alone for psychological warfare wasn’t going to do much when they left all of his effects on him. Like the multitude of new piercings he’d gotten recently. His lip ring pulled at his skin from his toothy grin.

It’s a good thing he’s added ‘lock picking’ to his repertoire since his early teenage years, or really, electronic lock cracking. It paid being a genius and having so many resources at his disposal now. Else he might be in some real trouble. As it is, he has no idea where he is, or how to get out and he’s mildly concerned about running into other guards.

It’s not like he doesn’t have some surprises of his own. The links of his necklaces cool against his skin. (Too bad he’d left Baymax back in San Fran. But then again the thought of these guys getting their hands on Baymax and what he could potentially do. Hiro shivered. No, it’s a good thing he’d left the walking marshmallow behind.) It’s just, he’d rather not tip his hand too much. These guys already wanted him bad, he didn’t want to give them any extra reasons to want him more.

Besides, it paid to be underestimated.

Hiro turned a corner and quickly had to not turn that corner. He pressed up against the wall and hoped the guards at the end of the other hall hadn’t seen him. His run of luck takes a turn for the worst when the sound of footsteps starts toward the corridor he’d hidden down. A quick inventory of the hallway shows very little in the way of things to duck behind. No convenient vents, or machinery or shelving units or anything really.

But there’s a door.

A door with a keypad lock. Amateurs. Hiro wouldn’t be where he is right now without being able to crack something like that.

By the time the guard’s shadow hits the corridor opening, the door is already sliding closed.

Hiro pressed himself up against the door, of course the door was thick enough to be soundproof. With an annoyed sigh he half turned his head to take in the room he’d stumbled into and froze.

There’s was a man in the room with him. Scruffy looking, blond hair, blue eyes, extreme arm muscles and securely strapped into a chair.

The two stared at each other, the man seemed just as surprised to see Hiro as Hiro was to see him.

“Uh, hi.” Hiro finally said, wiggling his ringed fingers at the man. Hiro’s shoulder was shoved up against the door, even though that wouldn’t be able to stop any of the guards from busting through. The man’s brow furrowed, like Hiro was a particularly strange puzzle. “Come here often?” Sometimes Hiro just couldn’t stop himself. The man’s lips quirked in a small smile.

“I suppose you could say that.” His voice had a bitter edge of sarcasm.

“So uh...I’m guessing from all the,” Hiro waved a hand at the chair and straps holding the man down. “You’re not HYDRA’s most favorite person.”

“I’m sort of like one of their favorite people to hate, if that helps.” The man starts as soon as Hiro steps further into the light. Hiro cautiously approached the chair. The man nodded at him as best he was able. “You?”

“Oh they like me. A lot. I don’t like them, pretty sure kidnapping is a bad start to any relationship.” The man raised his eyebrows and then did his best to shrug, upper biceps bunching against the restraints.

“I can sympathize. The name’s Hawkeye, I’d shake your hand but.” The man, Hawkeye, tugged at a strap. Hiro nodded like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

“Right, right. Understandable. I’m Hiro.” Hawkeye smiled a little wider.

“Hi, Hiro. So, this looks bad, and you’re probably not going to believe it, but I’m supposed to be rescuing you.” Hiro made a show of moving his head up in down in a scan of Hawkeye’s current state of immovability.

“You’re right, I don’t believe it.” Hawkeye’s smile took on a self deprecating edge. “But if I let you go, will you I dunno, not kill me?” Hawkeye’s head bobbed frantically.

“Oh yeah, totally. I meant what I said, I am here to save you.” Taking note of Hiro’s squint eyed glare, Hawkeye quickly added. “I’m an Avenger.” Hiro’s eyebrow of skepticism steadily rose. “No, really I am. Card carrying member and everything.” Hiro just folded his arms across his chest and Hawkeye seemed to wilt.

“Fine.” Hiro sighed, he’s taken bigger leaps with less.(and gotten burned all the same.) But he figured things probably couldn’t really get any worse. Stepping closer to the console on the wall to start releasing the mechanical restraints. Hawkeye sighed to himself as Hiro passed out of visual.

“Yeah, I’m never going to hear the end of it. Getting rescued by the kid I was supposed to rescue.” Hiro felt a little bad at how dejected the man sounded. He awkwardly patted Hawkeye’s shoulder.

“If it makes you feel any better I have a lot of kidnapee experience.”

“Oh yeah?” Hiro tapped in a few codes and nodded.

“Yeah.” When he remembered that Hawkeye couldn’t see him. “I’ve maybe lost track of the amount of times it’s happened.”

“That makes me feel better already.”

“Then we’re on the same page.” Hiro said with a grin. “Just so you know, I still don’t really believe you’re an Avenger.” Clint staggered to his feet once the restraints were released.

“Some days, neither do I.”

Forty minutes, two firefights, a lot of running, and Clint getting stabbed in the side later, Hiro drags him out of the base, right into the waiting arms of the rest of the Avengers.

Hiro takes one look at Captain America and Iron Man and his head tilts to look up at Hawkeye, where he’s draped over Hiro’s shoulders.

“Guess you weren’t kidding.” Clint manages a grin at Hiro’s incredibly dry voice. “You really are an Avenger.”

“Told ya so.” He managed before passing out from blood loss.

“I’m telling ya Cap. Something’s up with that kid.”

“He’s a genius prodigy Stark. Considering you’re our baseline for what that’s like, he’s downright normal compared to you.”

“That’s what I mean! I practically threw him into my lab for an entire hour, an hour, Cap. He didn’t touch anything! He looked sure, but didn’t touch a single goddamn thing. Not even when I told him to. I said ‘Kid, help yourself.’ Kid says ‘nah, I’m good.’ Nah, I’m good. That’s not normal!”

“Regardless, someone needs to look after him. HYDRA isn’t going to let this one lie.”

“...Why is everyone looking at me?”

Chapter Text

Hiro missed Baymax. Living out on the east coast by himself, he missed his Aunt and his friends, but it was safe to say in spite of everything, he missed Baymax the most.

And he didn’t at the same time.

It was complicated.

Baymax was a source of huge internal conflict for Hiro. On the one hand, the robot was Hiro’s dead brother’s legacy, had helped Hiro learn to grieve, had helped Hiro when it seemed like no one else would or could, had taught Hiro lessons he didn’t know he’d needed. Baymax was a lot more than just a nurse bot to Hiro. He was a companion that always had Hiro’s best interests at the core of his actions. He would always tell Hiro the truth, wouldn’t lie, Baymax really couldn’t lie actually. And in the wake of everything that had happened, Hiro found himself valuing that quality the most. People(Tadashi) lied, Baymax did not.

On the other hand, Ronin was still out there and Hiro knew Baymax kept him updated on Hiro’s everything pretty much. Where he went, what he did, his health, everything Hiro did was recorded and was there for Ronin to ask for. As much as Hiro wanted to keep Baymax around, needed to, he couldn’t. There’d be no freedom from Ronin, from Callaghan, if Hiro kept Baymax with him. As much as the robot was a solid foundation for Hiro’s coping, he was too much of risk to the new start that Hiro wanted with every fiber of his being. So Hiro had left Baymax behind.

It had been hard, so hard. To be so completely alone in a new place, but it was what he wanted. What he needed more than Baymax, was time away. Away from the house where he and his brother had grown up. Where there were memories around every corner and he couldn’t escape from the very real specter of his brother. Where everyone wanted to talk to him about Tadashi, about Ronin and he’s sorry Hiro, really. And Hiro just. Couldn’t.

So yes, he’d gladly sacrifice Baymax if it meant he didn’t have to worry about any of that tripping him up every again.

Aside from the loneliness, New York was so peaceful, being in a place where no one knew him beyond what he wanted them to know. Where he was just another face in the crowd and didn’t have to worry about Callaghan or Ronin or the Big Heroes. Where he could just be another grad student working on his thesis and projects.

As luck would have it, after the HYDRA kidnapping, it seemed that while he’d lost a caretaker, entirely by choice, he’d gained a whole new one, not by choice.

“Unbelievable. Why do you keep breaking into my dorm room?” Clint looked up from the paperback he was reading.

“You don’t keep regular hours.” He accused. “How does that big brain of your’s work if you never rest it?”

“Says the world class sniper who has a hobby of making bad life choices.” Hiro groaned, dropping his bag next to the door and flopped onto his bed.

“Yeah well, I’m an adult. I’m allowed to.”

“Well, I’m almost an adult. I know what I’m doing.” Hiro sniffed, earning himself a disbelieving look from the world class sniper slouching in his desk chair in ratty jeans and a tshirt.

“It’s two in the morning, your last class ended nine hours ago. The fuck were doing at your lab for that long?” Hiro raised an eyebrow at him, tugging off his sneakers.

“Science things…?” A thought had him jerking forward to point at the older man with the shoe still in his hand. “Why do you know my class schedule? Stalker much?”

“Stalker always.” Clint returned. “You need someone watching you. And it sounds really weird to say that out loud.” Hiro frowned.

“Says who?”

“Says me.” A moment of silence, a knowing look. “And Kate. And Steve. And most of SHIELD, hell, Nat agrees with me on this one.” Hiro had no idea who the majority of that list was. He’d only met Kate completely by accident. If by accident you meant she had kicked in his door to say hi. And compare notes, now that the two of them were ‘cranky old man caretakers’. “If HYDRA kidnapped you once, they’ll try it again. And they won’t be as nice as the first time.” Hiro dropped the shoe and ran his hand down his face. Where were these people when he was being used as the rope in a game of tug of war between two maniacs the last three years?

“Can’t you just give me a panic button or something and be done with it?”

“Doesn’t work like that.” Clint held out his hand. “Phone.” Hiro just scrunched up his face at him and Clint sighed. “Phone, please?” With an irritated huff, Hiro chucked the phone at Clint’s head and had the immense satisfaction of watching him struggle with it. Almost dropping it twice. “What the hell is with this thing?”

“I tricked it out.” Hiro flopped backwards on his bed and kicked off his remaining shoe.

“Here.” Clint dropped the phone onto Hiro’s stomach. “My number’s speed dial one. If you even think you’re in danger, call me.” Hiro inspected the phone. “Katie Kate’s speed dial two.

“I see you also activated the GPS tracker.” It wouldn’t be the first time someone had chipped him.(Mental note to go back over his hoodies and double check. He thought he’d removed them all but Ronin was nothing if not determined.) Probably not the last. Clint, at least, was honest about it.

“And these.” Clint handed him a few tiny, thin grey discs, no bigger then the size of a dime. “Stick ‘em in your sneakers and wallet.” Hiro studied them. Trackers of course. He was starting to get bad deja vu.

“In the seams of my clothes too?” He asked in a sarcastic tone. Clint deliberately missed it and nodded with fake cheer.

“Yeah, that’d be a really great idea, Hiro, glad you’re on board with this!” Hiro sent him an annoyed look, dropping the trackers on the comforter. “Look, the more of these you have, the less I have to follow you around. You like me not following you around. You love it even!” Well, he wasn’t wrong. Hiro didn’t like being followed, tracked, stalked, who would? But, if Hiro had to be followed around, he preferred it was Clint. The man was unobtrusive and left Hiro well enough alone aside from a couple late night visits a week when Hiro stayed too long at his lab or the library. Always heckling him about working too hard or staying up too late.

Hiro had seen the man’s apartment and as he got to know Clint more, thought it was nice that the guy who could barely take care of himself, was attempting in fits and starts to take care of him. And of course, with Clint came the other Hawkeye, Kate. She visited every once in a while, when she had time. Usually without warning, usually making him miss class, not that he minded all that much. Dragging him off to lunch at one or another expensive place, going to a museum or a movie or just a walk in the park. Talking a mile a minute about anything and everything. Hiro liked Kate. She had a sharp sense of humor, and could kick his ass with a hand behind her back. And she didn’t think he was weird, like every other kid his own age.

“Oh please, I’ve met waaay worse than a teen genius like you with my day job, never mind the night one.” Kate drawled, “Now let’s see if they make this top in purple.” He figured that when she was around it was because Clint was elsewhere.

It was...nice, in a way, to know that if he needed help, it wasn’t more then a raised shout away. To know that there was someone who was looking out for him, that had a very straightforward reason to do so. Clint cared because he was a superhero and that was his job. This was what Clint did.

So he followed Clint’s playful instructions and slipped the trackers into the seams of his favorite hoodies.

(He didn’t find any other trackers.)

Things more or less settled down into a pattern, the school semester continued unhindered and it looked like HYDRA had more or less given up. Hadn’t been seen or heard of since that first kidnapping. So Hiro was feeling optimistic that his life was on track and would stay on track.

He was proven wrong the next week, when Honey Lemon came for a planned visit.

Chapter Text

“So, buddy pal friend.” Clint begins, sliding into the seat next to Hiro, who groaned, flopping his head back against the chair rest.

“Can I not even go to the airport by myself?” He addresses the ceiling of the terminal. “I’m not even traveling!”

“Well, you’re not really marked as a flight risk, but we wanna cover all our bases.” Hiro rolls his head to the side so he’s staring lazily at the side of Clint’s head.

“Buuuuullshit.” He drawls out. “You’re just curious.”

“I might be.” Clint allowed, stretching his legs out in front of him. “So what brings a hermit like you out to the airport on this fine Sunday afternoon?”

“I get out.” Hiro protested. “Sometimes. Every other Sunday.” Before Clint can respond,

“Hiro!” A tall blond woman waved at Hiro enthusiastically from the arrivals gate. Once she had Hiro’s attention, she started over to them.

“Guess that answers that.” Clint mumbled, watching as the young woman trotted across the expanse, dodging around other tourists, a small roller suitcase behind her. Her clothing bright and cheery, in the latest fashion styles, Clint notes and she never even stumbles in the high platform shoes. Hiro bounces out of his seat to greet her.

“Hey Honey!” Interesting moniker, Hiro had never said anything about having a girlfriend, so Clint is going to assume it’s just a nickname. Honey reaches Hiro and with an excited squeal, hugs the living daylights out of him.

“Look at you!” She exclaims, pushing back to hold Hiro at arms’ length. Looking him over, with a quick up down and then dragging him into another crushing embrace. Hiro bears this with only a slight grunt when she crushes him the second time. Clint relaxes, hooking his elbows over the back of the seat, her body language screams older sister. “You got so tall! And...so many piercings.”

“Didn’t expect me to stay a midget forever did you?” There’s a trace of a smile in Hiro’s voice, though he ignores the second observation.

“Well, no.” Honey pulled back again, Clint notes a very slight accent in her voice. Barely there, she rolls her ‘r’s, probably fluent in Spanish. “But I didn’t realize I wouldn’t have to bend down to hug you any more.” Clint takes the moment to cough, loudly and obnoxiously. Honey’s eyes flicked over to him, her smile didn’t even change, but Clint can feel the apprehension and judgement in her stance. “Oh, who’s this?” Hiro frowns at Clint over his shoulder.

“My landlord. He likes to take an active interest in my life.” Clint grins at Honey’s suddenly intense searching stare. Protective, but let Hiro move all the way to the east coast on his own. Interesting. He gets to his feet to introduce himself properly.

“I’m Clint. Barton.” He adds half a second later, and holds his hand out to her. Her grip is surprisingly firm and strong.

“You can call me Honey Lemon.” She said, eyes still searching his. Good luck with that. Clint’s had a lifetime of practice. “Hiro’s a very close friend of mine.”

“Well hey.” Clint keeps his smile as steady as her’s. “A friend of Hiro’s is a friend of mine.”

“Likewise.”

“Oh my god, you guys are mortifying.”

“He’s a good guy, Honey. I promise.”

“I’m just worried Hiro, there’s no one out here for you if you need help, if something goes wrong.” Hiro was not going to tell her all the ways it had already gone wrong and all the ways he had people watching him in case things should go wrong again.

“Trust me.” He said in the firmest voice he had. “I’m perfectly fine. I haven’t even been kidnapped this month.” Honey frowned at him.

“That’s not really fair Hiro.”

“I can be as unfair as I want.” She continued frowning at him but she didn’t follow up with that conversation, choosing instead to jump tract to his studies, Hiro is only too happy to oblige. No one back home had wanted to seriously push him to ‘talk’ about what had happened, Hiro had overheard whispered concerns about his mental wellbeing. As if he was that fragile, but if it kept them off his back about ‘opening up’, he was fine with it. Ronin had no leverage to force him, had backed off every time before even fully confronting Hiro. And out here, no one really knew about it. It’s not a topic he ever wants to talk about and so far he’s been getting away with it.

“Hiro.” Hiro hums at Clint, the best he’s going to get to show the kid is listening to him. They’re riding the subway back from Hiro’s last class. The only people in the car this late at night. “Honey’s part of Big Hero Six, isn’t she?” Hiro side-eyed him. It really doesn’t surprise him that Clint knows he has a connection to Big Hero Six. It’s not as though it’s a hugely guarded secret after all, Hiro had just been hoping that he could leave that behind him.(needed to leave that behind him.) But the fact that Clint doesn’t actually know the members of the team gives Hiro a small sense of relief. How he guessed Honey was a member is beyond Hiro. But he throws Clint a bone on it.

“Maaaaybe.” He drawled, which was Good Enough for Clint, who didn’t ask any other questions or mention it again.

Fine by Hiro.

Things are going smooth. Too smooth.

No sudden attacks. No storms of the century, no portals to other worlds popping up. It’s quite frankly ridiculous how good things are going.

So of course, it doesn’t last.

Disaster strikes the third day of Honey Lemon’s visit. Hiro goes missing after his last class. HYDRA again, if the giant explosion and abominations of god running amuck on the streets near his lecture building are any indications. Clint thoroughly suited up as Hawkeye runs right into Honey Lemon, also thoroughly suited up as...herself basically, but with more chemistry ball throwing action.

“Honey! Good to see ya!” He fired off an arrow, hitting generic henchman number three in the knee.

“Clint?” She asks, one day glo orange chem ball gripped in a fist.

“It’s Hawkeye when I’m in uniform.” Iron Man flies by before he can say anything else or even begin to explain.

“Let’s go Katniss. The bratling needs help.” Honey Lemon looks up and looks back at him.

“I think I need to sit down.” She says, but not before she tosses the orange ball and covers the ground in a sticky matching orange foam that slows the HYDRA underlings down.

“Tell me, don’t you want to get back at your brother?”

“I don’t have a brother, so there’s nothing to get back for.”

“We both know that’s not true. Tadashi stole from you, his little brother. Took your invention meant to help people and tried to hurt instead. Don’t you want to hurt him as you have been hurt?”

“Tadashi is dead and even if he wasn’t, even if he did, I don’t care.”

“You...you don’t?”

“No. I don’t. I don’t give a single fuck. Revenge isn’t worth my time. You aren’t worth my time.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ve forced our hand.”

“Good.”

“He’s been kidnapped before?!” Clint winces and backs away from Honey. They’d had to explain why all the Avengers seemed to be following Hiro around. (It was really only Clint after all.) Which had led into the very first HYDRA kidnapping story. Honey’s visor has gone from opaque to clear and they’re all treated to a glare that could turn people to stone. As well as her accent slipping in to sharpen her words. “And no one at the very least called his Aunt?”

“Hiro was worried that his aunt would make him move back to San Fransokyo if she found out about the kidnapping.” Natasha supplied, Clint doesn’t want to know how she knows that, as far as he was aware, Hiro and Natasha had never if ever, interacted. Honey slammed her fist into her palm.

“Of course she would! At least back home he had us!” Clint raised an eyebrow. “Not that he doesn’t have you...all.” Honey hastens to correct herself. “It’s just, he was,”

“Closer to home. We understand.” Steve saves her, Honey nods miserably, huddling in on herself. “We’ll get him back.” Steve says, voice firm and confident.

Easier said then done. Lucky enough, that while HYDRA had seen fit to run off with Hiro, they hadn’t figured out the trackers. Which led to another round of question and answer with Honey Lemon.

“You put trackers on him?” Honey is a mix of incredulous and awe. “And he kept them?”

“I asked first.” Clint says, holding up his hands at her borderline furious voice. “I explained why and even gave them to him, let him figure out where to put ‘em.” Honey Lemon deflates.

“Oh. Yes. That would do it.”

“Oh, I’m not sure you’ll be saying that in a few minutes. You probably won’t be able to say much of anything at all.”

“As long as you shut up, I’m fine with it.”

“HYDRA plays the long game, Mr. Hamada. If we have to restart a project to reach the desired results. We will. Consider this your restart.”

Finding Hiro is another thing altogether. Not in terms of difficulty. It’s relatively easy, actually, the trackers do their job, lead them right to the kid. The base gets a good smashing between them, another unfortunate thing is that, they lose all the data and the HYDRA personnel scatter. It just happens that they’re too late, very much too late.

“Are you serious?” Tony exclaims, voice synthesized through the faceplate. Hiro isn’t dead, at least. Though his current state raises a lot more problems. “He’s like, lethal levels of adorable. I bet even Loki wouldn’t be able to resist.” At four years old, Hiro had huge brown eyes, fluffy black wild hair and chubby round cheeks. Clint knows this because the Hiro he’s staring at, right now, in the middle of a HYDRA cell, comes up to his knee in height and is using his blue hoodie as sleeping bag/blanket. Because current Hiro is approximately four years old.

“Aw Hiro, no.”

HYDRA in all their infinite wisdom had decided that if a grownup version of Hiro wouldn’t help them, a younger version correctly raised would. They just hadn’t been smart enough to separate the now four year old Hiro from his hoodie. Actually, it probably hadn’t been their choice. Hiro positively shrieks at the top of his lungs when Clint tries to disentangle him from the large dark blue garment.

“Okay, okay, okay.” He gives that up and lets the kid sink into Honey’s arms, small hands clutched tightly around the clothing. “No one’s gonna touch the hoodie.” It’s entirely possible that there’s a little of seventeen year old Hiro left behind. The way he’s attached to the hoodie for instance, older Hiro knew that’s where the trackers were. And younger Hiro was holding onto the hoodie for no other reason that anyone could see.

He’s also the calmest with Honey Lemon holding him, though he still cries. Loudly. And at great length. Especially once they’re back at the tower and baby Hiro has nothing to distract him.

“Why does he keep crying?” Tony groaned.

“Hiro, what’s wrong?” Honey asked the wailing child. “What do you need?” Hiro stopped crying long enough to take several shaky gulps of air.

“Niisan,” He gasped out, “Niisan.” Clint sees the way the she stiffens at the word.

“Shh, shhh.” Honey hummed, patting the small child on the back. Miraculously Hiro didn’t start wailing again, instead sobbing quietly into her neck.

“What? What’d he say?” Clint asked.

“He asked for his brother.” Natasha says, keeping a careful eye on Honey. “His big brother.”

“Not good.” She groaned softly. “Definitely, not good.”

Chapter Text

“Explain.” Hiro had managed to cry himself to sleep and everyone wanted answers and a game plan. Clint more than most. Hiro had the unfortunate luck of being his charge, so Clint was feeling just a tiny bit responsible for his current well-being. “Hiro never mentioned he had a brother. Older or otherwise.”

“He wouldn’t.” Honey says, looking up at them. Her face tense and unhappy. “They had a...falling out.” The way she says it makes Clint think it was more than just a falling out. Knows it was more than just a falling out. Knows it intimately. “A very bad falling out.”

“Ronin. His brother is Ronin, isn’t he?” Natasha’s voice cuts through the quiet. Natasha had probably known the entire time, Steve too, since there was probably an extensive folder of background information on Hiro just hanging around.

Clint had made it a point not to look at it. And for once Natasha had backed up his willful ignorance. They didn’t want to do anything that would alienate Hiro, and his past seemed like a very touchy subject. So if Hiro hadn’t brought it up himself and Ronin had stayed on the other side of the country, Natasha had seen no reason to make sure he knew.

Honey Lemon twists her hands in her lap, and finally deflates.

“Yes.” She says in a small voice. “His name is Tadashi. He knows what he did was wrong. He’s sorry, very, very sorry. And he’s been trying to make it up to Hiro, but.” Honey Lemon seems to curl in on herself. “I don’t, we don’t know if he can.” This would explain Hiro’s trust issues. The way he looked around at Tony’s workshop, but then refused to touch anything, no matter how much he wanted or Tony had tried to encourage him to.

“Hiro, as he is now, isn’t going to remember any of that.” Natasha points out. “And I would prefer not to play babysitter while we work this out.” Steve nodded.

“Is Ronin safe to allow around Hiro?” His blue eyes locked Honey in place. “Not, can he look after Hiro, but is he safe?” Honey Lemon looked down at her hands, thinking. Finally she reached an answer and looked back up at them.

“Yes.” Her voice was firm. “He’d never do anything to hurt Hiro again. Especially not now.” That was enough for Clint, he turned and started walking for the elevator.

“Hey, hey Legolas!” Clint didn’t even twitch or break his stride, Steve already knew where he was headed. “Where’re you going?” Stark called.

“To get his brother.”

“Well shit, I wanna come too!”

Several loose strings had come together at once for Clint. It’s nothing he couldn’t have figured out with a little digging, but he hadn’t bothered. Had decided to let Hiro tell him or not as the case may be. HYDRA wasn’t connected with whatever he’d had going on in San Fransokyo. (Though the continued references to kidnapping had thrown Clint for a loop.)

But now Hiro’s condition was making it all about that. So Clint goes over what he knows, on the flight from New York city to San Fransokyo. The facts collected from the few things Hiro has deigned to tell him, implied or outright said, and the scant research Clint had done on his own.

Clint knows Honey Lemon is part of Big Hero Six, he knows Hiro has some connection to the team. Hiro had created microbots for his showcase project to gain entry to the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. The same showcase that had resulted in a fire, burning down the building, and the same microbots which were stolen during the fire. The microbots were used by Yokai and another masked vigilante, named Ronin, in an attempt to murder a businessman by the name of Alistair Krei.

But before their plan could even begin to start, the police had crashed the scene thanks to an anonymous tip(Hi Hiro, Clint thought) and while Krei had been taken into police custody, both Yokai and Ronin had escaped. Yokai on his own, had tried to kill Krei before a trial date had been set, this time he’d been stopped by a new team of superheros. Big Hero Six. Ronin, it seemed had a falling out with Yokai and was the leader of Big Hero Six. And used a modified visor to control microbots, where Yokai had the mask. It really didn’t take a genius to figure this out.

It hits way too close to home for Clint. He knows how heartsick and sore such a betrayal leaves you. How wiped out and empty, after all the anger and pain is gone. He gets it, how Hiro could run all the way across the country, as far away from friends and family as he could.

But just because he gets it, doesn’t mean he’s satisfied with it. Clint had been shadowing Hiro for a while and, even though Hiro was hard to read at the best of times, in terms of activities, it was very easy to see the kid was driving himself into the ground. Working long hours at the student labs, cramming as many classes as he could take, internships already lining up. The way Hiro was going, he wouldn’t have a free minute to spare for the next decade.

In short, running away in both the physical and metaphysical sense.

He needed an intervention. And it seemed by silent unanimous vote, the rest of the team had handed this over to Clint. Which, yeah okay, kind of annoying but he did have the best life experience to help in this case. The only other avenger who had a brother was Thor and that hadn’t turned out very well. Also Thor not actually being present disqualified him by reason of not knowing anything was going on that might need his brotherly expertise. There was also Bucky, older brother to several sisters, but Clint didn’t even want to know what his solution to this would be, since he hadn’t quite shaken all the Winter Soldier programming. It would have been a toss-up between sound life advice or...probably shooting something, possibly both.

So it was up to Clint to assess Hiro’s brother and see if anything could be worked out, for Hiro’s sake at least. And if what Honey had to say on the matter was any indication, then maybe things could be worked out for the better of all.

But Hiro was stubborn and Clint still had no measure of Tadashi beyond what he’d been told by Honey Lemon. Who was a clearly biased source.

This was going to be a delicate situation that needed careful handling and he was the best person to deal with it by default.

They were all screwed.

Chapter Text

A text from Honey arrives a little after two in the morning, waking him up. Once he reads it, he reads it a second time, even as another text from Honey comes in. Despite the late hour and the little sleep he’s been getting, he’s not angry or irritated in the least. His heart thumps against his ribcage. It’s the magic phrase.

Hiro needs u

Followed by:

Transport on the way.

Honey neglects to mention the transport is the Avengers’ personal jet, Iron Man and another Avenger with it.(Tadashi about has a heart attack at that.) The other Avenger, is one that Tadashi doesn’t recognize, dressed in dark purple and black with a quiver of arrows and bow tucked against his back. He watches Tadashi with piercing blue eyes. Assessing him, Tadashi fights the need to squirm, hides himself behind the visor as much as he can. If they know Hiro, then chances are they know what he did to Hiro and he deserves all the weird looks he gets.

It also doesn’t do anything for his peace of mind to know that whatever is going on with Hiro involves the Avengers and Honey Lemon and they still need him.

Tadashi can’t wait to hear the story behind this one, in a heart pounding, extreme worry inducing way. But Hiro comes first, Hiro always comes first.

He still finds it hard to believe that Hiro would willingly ask for him, his little brother moved across an entire country to get away from him, from them really. And Tadashi can’t blame him for that. Was more then a little relieved actually, it meant Hiro was out of Yokai’s reach, that he was safe.

Apparently, not safe enough.

What have you gotten into, Hiro?

The more he waits, the more he worries, and the worry makes him irritated. It’s a long flight from one side of the country to the other and while Tadashi is patient, he’s not that patient.

“What happened?” He asks, voice snapping over the words. Patience finally gone. The unnamed Avenger seated across from him in the jet cocks his head to the side. He’s staring at Tadashi, hasn’t ever looked away. It puts Tadashi on edge.

“It’s Clint, by the way.” The man offers, ignoring Tadashi’s question. “I’d usually give you my codename, but the way I figure, we’re going to go way beyond that point soonish. Like as soon as we land soonish.” Tadashi opens his mouth to repeat himself.

“He’s basically your brother’s babysitter.” Stark calls from the front of the craft where he’s piloting. Tadashi ignores that comment outwardly, but files it away. It does make his heart beat faster because why does Hiro need his own babysitter? He knows his brother is a little hellraiser, but not to the level where the Avengers would need to get involved. Usually anyway. And if whatever happened was too much for them, what did that say about what Hiro had gotten into?

“Where’s Hiro?” He wants answers, now.

“There was an...accident, I guess you could say.” Clint says, like the words are being dragged out of his mouth. Tadashi pushes his visor up to rest on his head and narrows his eyes. Clint holds his hands up. “Okay yeah, there was an accident.” That is not as reassuring as Clint thought it was.

“What kind of accident?”

“The kind that leaves your brother three feet tall and crying for his niisan.” Stark again. He feels something cold grab his heart. Hiro used to call him that, when they were little, and when they were older it meant something was horribly, horribly wrong.

“What do you know about HYDRA?” The tone is slightly more gentle, but it still causes the bottom to drop out of his stomach.

“What. Happened?”

The wail Tadashi hears as soon as he exits the elevator makes his legs feel like jelly. It’s familiar, so familiar. A sound from far in the distant past, before the showcase, the fire, the microbots, before Callaghan. (before his fucking stupid mistakes.) Back when it was just Hiro, him and Aunt Cass against the world. He doesn’t need Clint or Stark to show him where to go, he follows the sound of abject misery on his own. His world narrowed down to find Hiro.

Honey Lemon has him, a little bundle of dark blue shirt, brown shorts, messy black hair and noise. She’s trying valiantly, and failing, to calm his little brother down. Tadashi pauses just long enough to slip his gloves off and comb his fingers through his hair so it’ll look something like Hiro will recognize. Hiro’s four right now, mentally and physically. No one knows how much he remembers, if he remembers. Tadashi was seven when Hiro was four, he was smaller, his voice was higher. He’s not sure Hiro will recognize him all grown up, but he can’t leave his little brother alone and crying anymore.

“Hiro.” He calls softly. He ignores Honey Lemon for the time being, standing in front of her as close as he can get. Ignores the other Avengers too. “Otouto.” Hiro stopped crying and jerked around, brown eyes wide and bloodshot, face red and blotchy from crying, with one small hand braced on Honey’s shoulder. God, how Tadashi had missed him. He watched the child give him a once over, moment of truth.

“Tadashi?” The voice was wavering, hesitant. Tadashi nodded.

“Yeah Hiro, it’s me.” Tadashi had to bring his hands up quick to catch Hiro as the child lunged out of Honey Lemon’s hold. Small arms wrap around his neck, hands gripping the back collar of his combat vest. Hiro pushes his face into the side of Tadashi’s neck and starts crying all over again.

“Seriously?” Stark says from behind him. “I thought he’d stop doing that once we got his brother. Like that was the point of this little field trip.” Tadashi smiles, hefts Hiro up more securely in his arms. The hard part is done, getting Hiro to calm down is easy. He runs a hand down Hiro’s back, shifts so his mouth his next to Hiro’s ear, easy when Hiro is intent on squishing his face into Tadashi’s neck, and starts humming.

It’s a lullaby their mother used to sing when Tadashi was little, to get him to sleep, and then later to get Hiro to sleep as a baby. Tadashi used to hum just like this to Hiro after their parents had died, to calm him down at night, so he wouldn’t wake Aunt Cass. It’d been years since he’d last had to do this, but for a four year old Hiro, it would be normal and familiar.

It does work. It works like a charm, works probably too well. Hiro soon breathing snotty breaths down the side of his neck. It would worry Tadashi except for the fact that Hiro had been bawling his eyes out for who knew how long before he’d arrived on the scene. So it’s not anything out of the ordinary. It takes a lot of energy to be that miserable after all.

once it looked like Hiro wasn’t about to wake up anytime soon. Bruce pulled a quick blood sample to be analyzed in the labs. There had been held breathes all around during the short procedure but Hiro, completely dead to the world, didn’t so much as twitch.

“HYDRA is a toss up.” Bruce explained. “Half the time they use science, the other half they use...well...whatever works.”

“He means magic.”

“Yes, thank you Tony, magic.” Tadashi mouthed the word ‘magic’ at Honey Lemon with a confused expression, she could only shrug helplessly back at him. “If it’s chemical it should be easy to reverse, just a matter of figuring out the formula they used. If it’s magic...well, that might be a bit harder.” Bruce continued.

“We weren’t able to get much from the HYDRA lab where we found Hiro-”

“Like anything. At all.”

“I have some leads on where a few of the scientists have run off to.” Natasha said, with a curling smile. Clint loved Natasha, she was like the soul sister he never knew he was missing, but sometimes she scared him. A little. Sometimes more then a little.

“Let’s get things with Hiro sorted first before we go off hunting down HYDRA.” Was Steve’s final declaration.

Clint escorted Honey Lemon, Tadashi and Hiro to their own guestrooms at the tower. Honey vanished into her room with a grateful sigh after a nod from Tadashi. Which left Clint alone with the two brothers in the doorway to their room. Time to gather some intel.

“He always so…” Clint waves a hand at Hiro, curled tightly into the crook of Tadashi’s neck.

“Oh yeah. He is one fussy baby.” Tadashi thumped a hand against the sleeping Hiro’s back. Clint fully expects Hiro to wake up but the child doesn’t so much as twitch. “Not usually so verbal. Very...active.” Tadashi says with a half grin of nostalgia. “Our parents were always chasing him down. He’d get out of high chairs, baby seats, those little playtime things. Any thing he didn’t want to be in, he’d find a way out of.” Clint raised his eyebrows.

“Glad to know he’s always been like that. Makes me feel better about myself.” Tadashi tilts his head.

“He runs away from you a lot? I mean, I was told you were his babysitter.” Tadashi’s quick to fill in at Clint’s questioning look, the side of his mouth quirking up in a barely concealed grin. Clint hides a grimace, damn Stark and his large mouth, damn him to hell. “I have years of experience on what that’s like.”

“I’ll bet.” Clint mumbled and then louder. “Nah. He’s never tried to give me the slip.” Tadashi gives him a strange look. “Hey man, I am just as surprised as you.” Clint defends, and really he is. For all that he knows Hiro could, with time and effort, shake him, Hiro had never bothered to even try. Never even bothered to hinder, outside of one or two protests, Clint’s presence in his life. It makes a little bit of sense, now that he knows about Tadashi.

An older brother, who was part of a superhero team. An older brother who very clearly cared a whole hell of a lot about him and was fully aware of how much trouble Hiro seemed to trip over in his day to day life. Hell, Hiro had probably been more unnerved not having someone monitoring him. Tadashi shifts Hiro in his arms, and shakes out a hand that had been about to fall asleep.

“So…?” Clint sighs and rubs a hand down his face.

“I met Hiro strapped to a chair in a HYDRA base.” Tadashi’s arms tensed and Clint was quick to clarify before the sudden tightened grip could awake the sleeping monster. “I was the one strapped to the chair and he was roaming the halls looking for a way out. Happened to wander into the room they were keeping me.” He shrugs. “Accidental alarm trip on my way in, I did not expect as many guards as there were. They want him bad, kid.” Tadashi nodded, grip relaxing slightly. Hiro mumbled in his sleep, curling to the other side but didn’t wake up.

“It was easier when he was younger and just solving complex equations.” Tadashi said. “Now that he’s older and building things, everyone can see what he’s really capable of.” He rubbed the sleeping child’s back. “I’m so proud of him and I’ve never been more terrified for him. What Callaghan and I did, it’s only the start. HYDRA isn’t going to go away, and they won’t be the only ones.” Clint nodded, Tadashi understood how dangerous and how in danger Hiro was.

“Why’d you let him move out here?” It’s been bothering Clint for a while. By all accounts, by what he’s seen himself of Tadashi and Honey Lemon, Hiro has a steadfast network of guardians back in San Fransokyo. People who cared deeply about his well being and yet, he moved all the way across the United States to attend a university in a city he’d never been to and knew virtually no one in.

Tadashi answers with an ugly laugh.

“I didn’t let Hiro do anything. He did it all on his own. Filed the application, got accepted, bought the plane ticket, packed his bags, got to the airport and left.” Tadashi sighed and reflexively tucked Hiro closer to his body. “I thought it would be for the best. If he had time away from me and from...well.” Tadashi trailed off, Clint could fill in the blanks. Away from Yoaki. That was the kidnapping experience Hiro had been talking about when they’d first met. “I thought it would be better for him out here.” Tadashi finished, sounding miserable.

“I’m not saying that it was better or worse for him to move out here.” Clint watched as Hiro snuffled, half waking up, eyes blearily slits and started lethargically chewing on Tadashi’s shirt collar. “But it definitely wasn’t any safer.” Tadashi tugged his collar out of Hiro’s mouth, ignoring the sleepy whine.

“I’m starting to get that.” He said with a glum look.

Chapter Text

Now that Tadashi was here, Hiro had decided he was done with crying and had moved on to other things. Like asking any and every question he could, as fast as he could. The first exchange was about height, or age really.

“Why’re you so big?” Tadashi laughed at Hiro’s demanding, indignant tone. As though Tadashi’s larger frame was done specifically to annoy Hiro.

“I’m not big, you got small.” Hiro scrunched his face up.

“Nu-uh.”

“Yeahuh.” Hiro had growled at Tadashi’s teasing tone and answer but dropped the subject.

It was really a first hand look at how smart Hiro was, even as a child. How quickly he learned and picked things up and applied them. It was, quite simply, terrifying.

Clint was sure everyone was ecstatic that Tadashi was there to rein Hiro in. He seemed to have some sort of sixth sense where he just knew when Hiro was about to inflict chaos. So far he’d managed to stop the little menace from repurposing the toasters, the microwaves, a few of the bigger TV’s and some of the helper bots, to what point no one knew and Tadashi assured them, they didn’t want to find out. (Clint was also witness to a fine moment of Tadashi extracting Hiro from the engine of one of Tony’s cars and snagging the back of the boy’s shirt when he’d started wandering with far too much purpose toward the Ironman suit side of the lab.)

They had started out basically throwing textbooks at Hiro, Tadashi’s advisement of course. In the hopes theory would slow down the practical testing. The kid had pretty much blown through them. And, as soon as he’d finish a book, the questions would start. It was a never ending cycle, no sooner would Hiro receive an answer then he was firing away with the next question. The questions themselves ranged from simple, kiddy questions to four part paragraph long ones on the nature of thermodynamics. Tadashi answered each one patiently, listened for Hiro’s rambling stream of consciousness question to end and then gently explained the answer to the fullest degree he was able. Which was an insanely detailed degree. Hiro might have been a certified super genius but he clearly wasn’t the only genius in the Hamada family, or even the only genius among his friends. If the question happened to involve any hint of chemistry, Honey Lemon could be counted on to explain it, in terrifying, cheerful depth.

The one strange thing little Hiro did, that Tadashi couldn’t explain, was the odd and extreme attachment to the necklaces, wallet chain, piercings, bracelets and rings that older Hiro had worn everywhere. Except, Clint noted, the day HYDRA had de aged him. The hoodie had been discarded and never looked at again, once Tadashi had arrived on the scene. But the jewelry stayed within sight at all times. Tadashi had shrugged after questioning the boy and only getting vague responses about how they were ‘super special Tadashi, quit bugging me ‘bout them’.

“Well, he’s smart enough to know not to swallow the smaller things.” He’d said, twisting a bar piercing between his fingers as Hiro wrapped one of the larger chain necklaces around his wrist and arm. Face set in a determined scowl as the links kept slipping down. “Does he really wear all this?” Clint nodded and then a thought occurred to him. Tadashi looked a bit too confused by the jewelry. Which meant it was probably new.

“What? He didn’t have all the” Clint made a wave gesture with his hand, indicating his entire face. “Piercings before he left?” The incredulous look Tadashi gives him is answer enough.

“Aunt Cass wouldn’t have let him leave the house.” Was the flat response.

Interesting.

Clint didn’t think he’d ever really seen Hiro without all the accessories. So he’d gotten them after he left San Fransokyo but before he’d met Clint. Normally Clint would write it off as teenage rebellion. First time away from home with no one to say no and no immediate repercussions? Perfect time to get as many piercings as you could.

Except that baby Hiro attached importance to them. A lot of importance. If a rebellion was all they were, four year old memory fried Hiro shouldn’t have cared a lick about them. But he did. On closer inspection, the accessories didn’t look or seem out of place at all. There didn’t seem to be anything different about them. So with a mental shrug, Clint shelved the mystery for when Hiro was back to normal.

Lucky(or unlucky) for Clint, outside of Tadashi and Honey, he was Hiro’s favorite person. So he was the one left behind at the tower with Honey and Tadashi as the rest of Avengers tried to track down the HYDRA cell and a way to reverse Hiro’s condition. Clint had no idea how Tadashi had done it, growing up with Hiro the first time through, without going completely insane. He could only take baby Hiro in small hour long doses. Any longer, he’d start staring at the windows and balcony with intense longing.

There was, however, something to watching Tadashi and Hiro interact. Hiro wasn’t the bitterly sarcastic, suspicious, paranoid, just this side of angry, seventeen year old that Clint knew. He was a bubbly, curious, energetic child, who clearly adored his older brother and anyone his older brother even glanced at favorably was his new best friend.

Tadashi wasn’t quite the same tense, brooding, silent young man who’d they’d picked up in San Fransokyo.(Clint wasn’t sure how much of that had been worry for Hiro.) Tadashi was a bright, out-going, and most importantly, patient big brother. Who was more than happy to indulge his little brother’s educational pursuits. Tadashi knew Hiro inside and out. Knew what to say and what to do with the four year old to get the most amount of cooperation. Or, equally, the most amount of fun.

“It’s been awhile,” Honey Lemon’s voice is quiet and barely covering tears, as they watch Tadashi swing Hiro upside down by his ankles, the small child laughing and a fond smile on Tadashi’s face. “Since they’ve been happy like this, since they’ve been happy at all really. I wish it didn’t have to end.” Clint nods, resting his arms on the counter. It’s not the first time he starts making plans to corner seventeen year old Hiro and get the full story. Honey keeps deflecting, saying that it’s Tadashi and Hiro’s story to tell. But Tadashi refuses to say anything, his mouth closing with a snap every time the subject even briefly gets mentioned. And it didn’t look like Hiro, as he is, remembered.

Chapter Text

Actually, Clint couldn’t have been more wrong. Hiro, the little brat, remembered, maybe not everything but he knew more then he let on. Might not remember the whole event, but he remembered something. Be it flashes of what happened or feelings. Whatever Hiro knew, he hadn’t seen fit to share with anyone else, choosing instead to pretend he didn’t know anything. Tadashi had warned Clint, warned all of them, about that on the first night.

“Hiro lies.” He’d said simply. Which was a bit at odds with teenage Hiro, who never lied but was a master at deflection and sidestepping. It made getting a straight answer out of him on a subject he didn’t want to talk about an exercise in subtle, non violent, interrogation tactics. (Though there was many a time that Clint had dearly desired to tackle and sit on the kid until he got a straight answer.)

Clint can tell somewhat in the way four year old Hiro looks around that he recognizes where he is. The fact that Hiro latches onto Clint so readily is another check mark. So it’s not that much of a surprise when Hiro, sitting on the floor of the common room one night, screws and bolts from a small robot scattered around him, nails Tadashi with his big brown eyes and opens his mouth.

“Why doesn’t big me like you?” Hiro asks, completely out of the blue. It’s a little over a week since the change. The event had been explained to Hiro and as far as anyone could tell, he’d accepted it. Everyone freezes, except Tadashi and interestingly enough, Tadashi notes, Clint. Tadashi had been expecting something like this, Hiro was a genius, even four years old. He might not be as good at reading people as when he was older, but Tadashi would always be an open book to Hiro, no matter the age.

“I did something bad to you.” Hiro tilts his head, Tadashi elaborates. “I stole something from you.”

“My gummy bears?” Tadashi shakes his head.

“No. Not the gummy bears.” Hiro breathes a sigh of relief.

“Good, cause I’m saving them, ya know.” Tadashi smiles fondly, remembering the plastic jar of gummy bears Hiro had kept under his bed. And threw a fit over if Tadashi so much as hinted at.

“Yeah, I know buddy.” Tadashi shifts restlessly, thinking over how to explain the microbot situation to Hiro. “Okay.” He rubs his mouth. “Big you. Big you creates something better then gummy bears.” Hiro squints at him.

“Better then gummy bears?” The question is tinged with disbelief. Tadashi has to smile in spite of himself, he hears Clint’s snort of amusement.

“Better then gummy bears.” He confirms. “Big you builds these.” Tadashi holds out his hand, and the microbots making up his wristbands slide onto his palm. Hiro watches with wide eyes as Tadashi has them change shapes.

“Big me is awesome.” He breathes, Tadashi grins. Yes, that was definitely a choked off laugh behind him. The microbots ring back around his wrists.

“You’re always awesome.” Hiro looks up at him and Tadashi’s grin fades.

“And you. Stole them from me?” Tadashi nods, he almost doesn’t find his voice to say:

“Yes.” But Hiro deserves an explanation after all this time. Not the anger and grief fueled ranting from the first time around. But a real accounting of Tadashi’s complete and utter failure. “I did.”

“Why?” This is breaking Tadashi’s heart, it’s been so long since Hiro had looked at him like he had the past few days. Had reacted to him as though he was Hiro’s brother instead of just an unwanted stranger. And he doesn’t want to lose that trust, that belief a second time. But he can’t change what he did and he can’t lie to Hiro. Not again. Not ever again.

“I was going to use them for something terrible and I didn’t want you to know.” Hiro frowns at him. A small one, not actual anger but more displeased with the content of the answer. Tadashi can’t help it, he’ll tell Hiro the whole truth, but he doesn’t think he has it in him to come right out and say it without prompting.

I wanted to kill someone with them, I almost did. And you stopped me.

“Did you have a good reason?” Tadashi can’t look at Hiro anymore, with his innocent, trusting brown eyes. To this Hiro, Tadashi can do no wrong, isn’t capable of making mistakes. If Tadashi took his microbots then he must have had a good reason. But Tadashi can and he did and he hadn’t.

His gaze drops to the carpet between them. His hands folding over each other, fingers brushing the cool material of the microbots. Some days he can’t stand the feel of them, a physical reminder of the one bridge he had never wanted to burn, but had turned into an inferno all the same.

“I thought I did. I convinced myself I did.” His voice quiet, Hiro hears him all the same. “But I didn’t. I really, really didn’t.” He runs a hand down his face, taking deep breathes. “I ruined it for you, Hiro. I blew it skyhigh.” He misses the way Hiro sits back, processes what he’s been told, misses once again the look Hiro gets when he’s about to win. Clint doesn’t. He’s seen that look on older Hiro, right before he manages the impossible. Like winning a month’s rent off Clint in poker, the card counting cheat.

A small hand pats Tadashi’s knee, he peeks up from his fingers to see Hiro staring at him. Face serious.

“Are you sorry?” Dumb question Tadashi thinks, he’s never stopped being sorry since the day after Hiro walked away from him. Since he realized the kind of person Callaghan had turned into, the kind of person he had almost turned into.

“Yes.” Hiro nods once decisively.

“Then apologize.”

“What?”

“If you’re sorry,” Hiro tells him, seriously, hand still gripping Tadashi’s knee. “Then apologize.” The idea was so simple it was ludicrous. Tadashi’s hands dropped away from his face as he stared at Hiro in shock.

“Hiro, I stole from you. I stole an invention that you made.” Hiro stayed just as firm. “I made you think I was dead for weeks. You mourned me.” Tadashi heard his voice getting higher and cracking as he tried desperately to get through to Hiro the magnitude of his crimes. Hiro’s hand gripped Tadashi’s knee tighter, but his eyes kept boring into Tadashi’s. “I tried to kill someone with it. With something you made.” His hands came up to grab Hiro’s shoulders, gripping them tightly as he tried to make Hiro see reason. “I let you think you were alone, that I left you behind. I took something you made, to help people, and I tried to kill someone with it. I shared it with a man who’s using them right now, to rip things apart. You tried to stop me and I wouldn’t listen. You were right and I ignored you. I rejected you. I hurt you. Me, I did all of that, to you. Do you understand?” Tadashi didn’t realize he was crying until Hiro’s hands were on his face, on his cheeks, tears streaming around his chubby fingers.

“Apologize.” Hiro’s voice was quiet but firm. He sniffed loudly, Tadashi wasn’t the only one crying here.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“If you’re sorry, you gotta apologize, Tadashi, or you’re not really sorry at all.” Tadashi took a deep breath, his hands moving from Hiro’s shoulders to cup his cheeks. Slowly, with the weight of three years on his back, Tadashi leaned forward, until his forehead rested against Hiro’s. His eyes closed, unable to bear looking so deeply into the brown eyes staring steadily back at him.

“Gomen.” He whispered, voice catching on the tears in his throat. “Hontou ni gomen, otouto.” Hiro’s small arms shifted to wrap around Tadashi’s neck in a hug.

“Ī nda yo.”

Chapter Text

A high pitched, angry wail wakes Tadashi. For a second he’s confused, doesn’t remember where he is or what’s happening. The thick smoke makes it hard to see, harder to breathe. The floor shakes irregularly. Not an earthquake, he’s from San Fransokyo, he knows how an earthquake feels. His hearing is like he’s underwater, noise is slightly muted, he can hear the sound of fighting, though he can’t tell if it’s close to him or far away. Tadashi groaned and shook his head muzzily, trying to clear it.

His trip back to consciousness kicked into overdrive when the wailing started up again.

That wasn’t just any wail, that was Hiro.

Four year old Hiro.

In distress.

His hand went to his head, and hit the visor still somehow resting in his hair. Around his wrists he could feel the solid weight of the bands of microbots. He hadn’t had time to activate the microbots. But now he did, he flicked the visor down securely over his eyes. Feeling the odd tingling as the neurotransmitter went to work linking his mind to the microbots.

Through the darkglass of the visor, the HUD booted up. It filtered the vision impairing smoke out, allowing Tadashi to see clearly. To find Hiro.

He ignored the various Avengers, regrouping or clashing with HYDRA agents. Zeroed in on where the noise was coming from.

Hiro was securely held by a HYDRA agent, the full room away from him.

They want him bad. Clint had told him, bad enough to de-age him, bad enough to infiltrate Avenger’s Tower for him. Bad enough to try taking the Avengers head on for just the chance to grab him.

It was too bad for HYDRA, Tadashi wanted Hiro just that much more.

He climbed to his feet, using the wall behind him as support. Judging by how weak his legs felt, probably wouldn’t be running right off the bat. Good thing he had the microbots to do the heavy lifting for him.

“Ronin!” Honey was already across the room, working as Big Hero Six for several years and being friends for longer made it easy for her to know what was coming.

He didn’t bother with subtleties or grace. The microbots slid down to gather in his palm, pooling into a ball roughing the size of a baseball.

The baseball team had been a rather brief time in his highschool career. Done for one season before the more alluring prospects of the robotics team and AP comp sci had taken hold. But he had been the backup pitcher and he still had the aim.

A fact that’s brought home when the ball of microbots Tadashi throws explodes and engulfs the head of the HYDRA agent holding Hiro.

Shrieking, the agent dropped Hiro to claw at the microbots contouring to his face. Honey Lemon was ready, a chemball already turning the floor to a soft cushiony foam breaking Hiro’s fall. Clint was also ready, vaulting over an upturned couch and rolling across the floor, he snatched Hiro up, tugging the small child close to his chest and running before the HYDRA agent had even the slightest grasp on what had happened.

Hiro stopped screaming the second Clint picked him up. Mouth snapping closed and small fingers twining into the straps of the quiver crisscrossing Clint’s chest. Clint can understand, it’s a bumpy ride, as he darts back across the room, dodging weapons and jumping over and around debris.

Tadashi meets him at the only clear exit from the battlefield of a common room.

“Near as we can tell, they blasted in from the basement. Take him up, Tony’s penthouse is secure. Use the stairs when you can.” Tadashi nodded, gently disentangling Hiro from Clint. The Microbots finished returning to him just as Hiro tucked his face into Tadashi’s shoulder. The building shook as HYDRA redoubled their efforts.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to go up?” Tadashi yelled over the sound of fighting. Bucky hit the wall next to them, left a perfect indent of his back, snarled and threw himself at the next advancing group.

“Get them out of here now!” He shouted over his shoulder. Clint shoved Tadashi out the door and into the stairwell, shouting instructions.

“Yeah, forget what I said! Jarvis says the workshop is secure, so are the back stairs, head down there, wait this out!”

Tadashi doesn’t need to be told twice, he ducks out the door just as another explosion happens, this time followed by a bellowing roar.

With any luck, the Hulk wouldn’t bring the entire building down around them.

The trip down the stairs is uneventful and tiring. Tadashi’s heart thuds in his chest, his arms wrapped securely around Hiro. His brother is quiet, only once does he make a sound, a small gasp when they hear another muted roar from far above them.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here; everything’s going to be alright.” Tadashi soothed, and wasn’t sure if he was comforting Hiro or himself. HYDRA was a league above what he was used to dealing with. Tiny fingers tightened their grip on his vest.

With a final burst of speed, Tadashi hits the shop floor, the doors sliding open and shutting firmly behind him. Swallowing deep gulps of air, Tadashi crossed the cluttered workshop to a corner far from the main sightlines of the entryways.

Hiro wasn’t crying, he was making awkward snuffling noises that Tadashi remembered from their parents’ funeral. His face mashed into Tadashi’s tactical vest.

It’s a few precious moments of quiet. Right before all the alarms in the workshop started blaring. Tadashi doesn’t know how much time he has before HYDRA finds them, but he knew that he couldn’t fight with his arms full of Hiro.

Kicking aside a few tool trays and a chair, he crouched down, trying to disentangle the small child’s fingers from their grip on his clothes.

“Come on Hiro, I’ll be fine. I need you to stay right here. Keep quiet, keep out of sight. Whatever you hear, whatever you see. Don’t leave this spot. Okay?” Hiro’s mouth thinned, lips turning white from how hard he pinched them together and for a moment Tadashi thought he might fight him. Instead Hiro nods.

And opens his palms. Let’s Tadashi settle him in the dark corner under the desk, lets himself be covered with a suit jacket Tony had tossed aside and forgotten. Let’s Tadashi leave him there without so much as a sound.

His brother carefully hidden away, Tadashi moved back into the main floor of the lab, just in time for the doors to blast open and a small squad of HYDRA agents to spill in.

His head hurts, he’s winded and all he wants to do is go sit in the corner with Hiro and let the other superheroes sort this mess out. But his little brother’s counting on him, so Tadashi squares his shoulders and gets ready to fight. He manages himself well, takes out two agents and stalls the others as much as he can. But it’s only a matter of time really.

In the end, it’s not HYDRA that takes Tadashi down. At least not completely. It’s a wrench. A very big, very heavy, very badly placed wrench. A wrench and a well-timed HYDRA agent’s kick, that sends Tadashi sprawling backward to hit a table, knocking the wrench off and knocking him out.

(He misses the black shape that drops from the air vent to land on the agent that had kicked him.)

Tadashi wakes up on the medical floor, tucked into a state of the art bed, with a very distraught Hiro sleeping curled up next to him and a headache that feels like all the dwarves from Snow White are merrily at work on his brain. Having missed his exciting rescue by Hawkeye and Black Widow.

“It was awesome.” Clint assures him. “I nailed one of the bastards between the eyes. With my boot.”

“He ran out of arrows.” Natasha supplied as explanation.

“I didn’t think that was a thing that happened to you.” Clint made a face at Tadashi, who only smiled right back. Unconsciously one of his hands slid down to rest on Hiro’s back, feeling the heartbeat under his palm and the rise and fall of breathing. His brother mumbled and shifted in his sleep but didn’t wake up. It had been a traumatic and tiring day for a four year old after all.

“See if I save you ever again.” Clint muttered, childishly crossing his arms over his chest.

Chapter Text

“Just a mild knockout. Compounded by the other knockout you had. Surprisingly no concussion.” Bruce tells Tadashi, looking just as tired as Tadashi still felt. “You should be back on your feet tomorrow after observation. Take it easy.” Clint is fairly vibrating with excitement.

“We pretty much broke the local HYDRA cell.” Is the welcome news he has. “It’ll take them a really damn long time to regroup and try again. In the meantime…” Clint trails off, punching his fist into the palm of his hand. “It’s open season for us.” He grinned, teeth white.

“We will get Hiro’s problem sorted out.” Natasha promises, eyes glittering darkly. Apparently directly attacking Avenger’s Tower makes all of them want to hunt you down and beat the tar out of you, who knew?

Speaking of Hiro, he refuses to be moved from the bed until Tadashi is up and about. And sticks close to his older brother.

Tadashi’s going to miss this, when Hiro goes back to seventeen years old and hating him. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but.

But.

Now that he’s reminded of exactly what he’s lost, it’s tempting to want to keep Hiro as he is. Four years old and still thinks of Tadashi as his brother. Four years old, knows what was done and still looks up at Tadashi with big brown eyes and a gap toothed smile and breaks his brother’s heart all over again.

It’s tempting, so very tempting.

But it wouldn’t be fair.

Not to Hiro, not to himself, but especially not to Hiro.

Wiping away his little brother’s life, all his struggles and triumphs to start over simply because Tadashi can’t handle the consequences of his own (stupid) actions.

So no, they’re going to find a way to get Hiro his life back if it’s the last thing Tadashi does.

Luckily it is not the last thing Tadashi does.

(It’s more like the millionth and one thing Black Widow has done this year alone.)

There’s a breakthrough only a day later. And by breakthrough Clint means Natasha dangled a HYDRA scientist they’d tracked down in the wake of the tower infiltration off a bridge during rush hour until he had babbled everything he knew about Hiro’s sudden age reversal. Turns out it is a chemical solution, so no one needs to go track down a magic user to reverse the process. Happy day.

Tadashi looks mildly concerned with the youtube videos of the event.

“Is that…” He started to say and then trailed off.

“Don’t worry about it.” Clint ruffled his hair in passing. “Like you’ve never held someone over the edge of building.” Tadashi’s face twisted, Clint knew for a fact that Ronin had held someone over the edge of a building. The month before Hiro’s little accident in fact. Clint was starting to wonder if the majority of Ronin’s more exciting stunts were the result of stress from Hiro. Tadashi seemed to have reached some sort of peace with himself because he finally sighed, ran a hand down his face and went to go rescue Honey from Hiro’s rapt attention.

From there it’s a simple matter for the combined brainpower of Honey Lemon and Bruce to take the information and data provided by the HYDRA scientist and come up with a working reversal serum.

“You’re sure this is going to work?” Tadashi asked for what was probably the hundredth time. Clint couldn’t blame him, nobody could, really. Everything about this was experimental in the extreme. Tadashi could just as easily lose Hiro for good as he could get him back.

“Worry too much, Tada-nii.” Hiro chirped, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his two small hands gripping the fingers of Tadashi’s larger hand and swinging his body on the tips of his toes.

“You don’t worry enough.” Tadashi retorted, lifting his arm and Hiro, who had a surprisingly strong grip, along with it. The small boy squealing with glee, kicking his feet a good few inches off the ground.

“I promise Tadashi, this isn’t going to hurt Hiro.” Honey Lemon says in a gentle voice. “Well, not any more than a normal shot would.” She grinned nervously, next to her, Bruce tapped the syringe with the serum and raised his eyebrows at Hiro’s suspicious look. Tadashi suddenly grabbed Hiro around the middle and swung him up to hold securely in his arms.

“Let’s get this over with.” His voice was grim as Hiro, now realizing the reversal was going to involve a needle, started struggling.

It takes a night, a pretty horrible, full of pain filled screaming night but in the morning Hiro wakes up as a perfectly fine, perfectly normal seventeen year old genius.

Unfortunately, it turns out Hiro doesn’t remember anything from when he was de-aged.

“Get the fuck away from me. Right. Now.” Clint has to sigh as Tadashi steps back and keeps going back until he’s out of the room. Teenage Hiro’s baleful glare following him every step of the way. Hiro’s an angry kid. Clint’d always known that from the moment the boy had burst into the room he was being held in. Angry and hurting and doing everything he could to stay afloat. But Hiro hadn’t always been like this and he didn’t have to continue like it either. There was a lot of Clint’s own history in these two kids. Natasha catches his eye and Clint knows there’s no letting this lie. No walking away.

It was just a matter of not screwing this up. Easier said than done, Clint took home the Gold in screwing things up. Better to start with the nicer brother. AKA the brother less liable to bite his head off with a wrong word.

“So, why did you do it?” Clint’s leaning against the counter and Tadashi stares at him with wide brown eyes. Clearly blindsided by the question. Sometimes the direct approach had its merits.

“I’m sorry?” His brow furrows in confusion. Honey Lemon is with Hiro right now. Perfect timing for Clint to swoop in on him.

“The microbots, the fire, Krei.” Tadashi winces at the last one. Clint smiles inwardly, Hiro is hard to read, his brother is anything but. “You had to know how Hiro would react, so why did you do it?”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

“Bullshit.” He’s sure of this. “Tell me the truth.”

“That is the truth.”

“Why are you such a martyr?” Clint blows out an explosive sigh. “It wasn’t your idea, was it?” Tadashi opens his mouth and Clint jabs a finger at him. “Shut up, don’t you dare try to deny it.” Tadashi’s mouth closes with a click. “I grew up in the circus, teaches a kid a lot of interesting skills. One of them is how to read people. That only got better with time and training, let me tell ya.” He lowers his arm to drum his fingers on the counter. “The kind of kid who builds and codes a healthcare bot isn’t someone who randomly decides to kill a guy.” Tadashi has a hunted look that tells Clint he’s getting real close. Just a tiny bit more and he’d crack and Clint could get to the bottom of this mess. Start sorting it out. He owed it to Hiro, and he owed it to Barney. “Not without someone else pushing.”

“It was my parents. They died in a lab accident when we were kids. Hiro doesn’t remember them. And Callaghan.” A short pause as Tadashi wrestles with himself. How much to tell, how much to hold. “He knew.” His gaze drops to the floor. Like this is the most embarrassing thing ever. Maybe it is, Clint does have first hand experience in this area after all. “He was my mentor at the Institute.” He stops, words running out but Clint can guess how this goes. It’s really very close to his own story.

“You looked up to him.” He states. No hint of accusation. Tadashi nods, gaze still trained on the floor. “You trusted him. You trusted what he told you, what he asked you to do. It made sense at the time, didn’t it?” Tadashi’s head snapped up, his eyes bright with anger.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not my fault!” He hissed. “I made the choice. I could have said no. I could have stopped him. I could have stopped myself. I didn’t.”

“You’re right. It is your fault. But it’s not all your fault. Don’t take his share.” Tadashi is quiet, arms folding and unfolding on the counter in front of him as he works through whatever is going on in his head.

“I hate him.” He comes out with, “I hate Callaghan so much.” Clint didn’t think Tadashi had been capable of the amount of venom present in that sentence. “I hate myself too. Or,” He hastened to correct at Clint’s expression. “I hate what I did. I hate the person I was, who made those choices.” Tadashi paused for a moment and hung his head. “I can’t hate Hiro. I used to think it would be easier if I did. But I don’t. I can’t. I couldn’t. I was angry, I was being stupid and he tried his best to give me an out. And I still fucked up so badly.” He ran a hand down his face, scrubbed at his cheek, and met Clint’s stare head on. “I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for what I did. I can’t make it right, but I can try to do right by it.”

“Fair enough, just remember, when all’s said and done. You shoulder your half, you don’t shoulder his.” Clint said, voice rock steady. Tadashi nodded.

“Okay,” It was barely above a whisper. “Okay.” Tadashi paused. “I miss him.” He said equally quietly. “I miss him so much.” Well, it didn’t seem like Clint needed to intervene on this side of things, which meant the holdup was Hiro. Now that he knew the background, he had a chance.

Chapter Text

“So I had a talk with your brother.”

“He’s not mine.” This time it’s Clint’s turn to wince. Hiro hadn’t even hesitated, his reply had been completely devoid of emotion, a simply stated fact. As far as Hiro was concerned, his brother had died and the person walking around with his face and name was someone unconnected to him. The opposite of love isn’t hate, Clint knows, it’s apathy.

Damn, this had been so much easier when Hiro had been four and didn’t remember the events first hand.

Waitaminute.

Hiro lies. Tadashi had said, had warned them. That may have held true for when he was a kid, but it had changed over the years. Hiro didn’t flat out lie, exactly. These days, Hiro misdirects, Hiro deflects, Hiro lets assumptions fill in the blanks of questions he’d rather not answer.

Now that Clint thought about it, Hiro had never actually said he didn’t remember. They’d all just assumed because of the way he was acting. Tadashi had been staying out of his way completely, and Honey hadn’t even tried to broach the subject. Probably only talking about topics that were deemed ‘safe’. As far as Clint knew, this was the very first time anyone had directly confronted Hiro about what had happened. With being deaged and about the rift between him and Tadashi.

So what if Hiro did remember? Or at least remembered enough? And his current actions were just a way to give himself space to sort through what he remembered of being deaged and reconcile it with the anger and betrayal he’d been carrying around for so long? Or flat out ignore it as long as he could in the hopes it would go away on its own?

Now that. That seemed like a very Hiro thing to do. (Too bad for him Tadashi didn’t seem inclined to leave anytime soon. Or ever.)

Clint decided to take a gamble. Pretend that his suspicions are a foregone conclusion and proceed accordingly.

“Kid, what’s holding you back?” Hiro stares at the wall behind his desk, tapping the point of his pencil against the surface of the desk, and Clint stares at the back of his head. The light of the lamp catches the links of his necklaces and makes the silver rings on Hiro’s fingers glint.

Tadashi had frowned when he’d seen that the first thing Hiro had done after waking up was a mad scramble to find and put in all his piercings. It was a pretty quizzical frown, which told Clint that this was not normal behavior for Hiro and Tadashi was running through all the possible reasons why his brother would be so fixated on jewelry of all things.

It was useful having Tadashi around. He was easy to read, heart on his sleeve kind of guy. Different from Hiro, who’s poker face and acting skills could not be beat. Unless you were Tadashi. Tadashi knew all of his brother’s non existent tells, could call Hiro’s bluff almost as soon as the lie or deflection was enacted. And since Clint could read Tadashi, when the two brothers were together, he could read Hiro by proxy.

However at this point in time, Clint doesn’t have Tadashi to read off of and Hiro is not Tadashi. It’s hard to guess at what the kid is thinking, and a lot is riding on this, so Clint has to take some leaps of faith.

“Little you forgave him.”

“Kid me would forgive him anything.” Ah ha. It was as close to a confirmation as Clint would be getting. Time to up the ante.

“I know a little about brothers.” Clint started. “I have one myself. Older brother even. Barney Barton.” He leans back on the bed, spine fitting up against the wall. Ignoring the tap tap tap of the pencil against the wood. “Growing up, he looked out for me, the best he could. We didn’t always see eye to eye. Fought each other as much as we fought together. He taught me how to punch, and how to take a punch. Hits like freight train, my brother.” In his chair Hiro doesn’t turn around, but he doesn’t interrupt or leave either, the pencil keeps steady time against the desktop. “I made mistakes, because, that’s sort of what I do. He made mistakes too, because it sorta runs in the family.” Hiro snorts. “We may or may not have tried to kill each other quiiite a few times. I may or may not have thought I actually did at one point.” Hiro still hadn’t turned to face him and Clint did feel a little bit like he was talking to wall. But stubborn stupidity was his trademark and he’d never backed down before.

“The point I’m trying to make here is, I know what you’re going through and I know this is hurting you just as much as it’s hurting him. I saw how you used to be.”

“Yeah, when I was four.”

“I saw how you used to be,” Clint continued as though Hiro hadn’t spoken. “And I see how you are now. Face it, this isn’t good for you. Running away, ignoring it, it’s doing a lot more harm in the long run.” Hiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut in annoyance. “You need to have some closure. Either forgive him or don’t, but have that talk. Learn from my amazing amount of experience. In this area, I am practically king.” The silence is heavy, not with tension, with something else. Clint’s said all he can. It’s Hiro’s turn now. It quiet, very quiet. Hiro thinking things through, eventually he opens his mouth.

And finally puts to words his thoughts on this.

“He broke the rules. Our rules.” Hiro’s voice is hard, eyes still closed. There’s emotion there and that’s the important thing. Maybe Hiro hadn’t buried his brother as deeply as everyone thought he had or maybe he did remember something from the last week. “We had rules, it all seems so stupid now. Who really needs over three hundred rules for a relationship anyway? No one. Dumb, stupid, fucking rules. But they were ours.” Hiro opens his eyes and finally turns to nail Clint with his stare. The pencil stilled in his hand. “Give me some time to think this over.” Clint nods, it’s actually better then he’d hoped he’d get from Hiro.

Hiro thinks it over. He does! Really, he does. He comes to only one conclusion. Clint is right, he can’t continue on as he has. Closure. Sure, closure sounds like a good idea right now. Both for himself and his brother.

Tadashi did drop everything to come running all the way across the country as soon as he’d heard Hiro needed him.

Plus there was warm hands on his cheeks, hands the size of his head almost, and tears slipping between his tiny fingers. A deep voice apologizing, choking on emotions.

Okay, so maybe he did remember a bit more then everyone gave him credit for, so sue him.

He still wasn’t going to make this easy, little brother prerogative.

From that starting point it was pretty easy to come up with a plan. There’s one more life out there after all. Someone who, in Hiro’s opinion, had waited long enough. He had the knowledge and the skill and the tools now. (and the back up.)

Someone has to help.

Okay then, one last chance.

For all of them.

He bends his head to the desk and starts mapping out a plan.

Hiro twisted one of his rings around and around on his thumb, watching the play of lamplight on the object. In front of him sat his notebook, filled to the brim with calculations, doodles, ideas and everything needed to save a life. It had taken several false starts and the better part of two days to come up with, but finally, Hiro was satisfied with the results.

Course of action decided, he should feel...something, like relief or happiness or something, anything. Instead he felt jittery, wound tight. Full of nervous restless energy. His foot bounced on the floor to no beat, faster and faster. His thoughts jumped from one thing to the next with no discernable pattern.

One thing was clear.

He couldn’t face Tadashi like this. He couldn’t have the kind of confrontation, the kind of talk he wanted like this. He wouldn’t be in control, he needed to be in control and right now, he wasn’t even in control of himself.

So he took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

And reached for his phone.

In times of anxiety and/or stress there was one person that Hiro could always turn to. Even if he’d been trying to ween himself off the habit lately.

He didn’t even bother deliberating with himself, just hit send and brought the phone to his ear.

It only rang once before the call connected. It always only rang once.

“Hello, Hiro.” The tightness in his shoulders loosened at the simple greeting, the tone calm and even. His foot bouncing slowed down. Stopped. The world slowed down. Stopped.

He felt his mouth curve into a smile.

“Hello, Baymax.”

Chapter Text

“Hey,” Hiro blows into the common room in the tower like a man on a mission, because he is. He’s got a Plan, with a capital P even. It took him all of twenty minutes to come up with and forty to decide to go through with.

Clint starts from where he is at the kitchen counter, he clearly hadn’t expected Hiro to reach a decision so soon. He’s even more confused when Hiro stalks right by him and stops in front of Tadashi. Tadashi looks up sharply, focuses warily on Hiro.

He’s sitting on one of the couches in the lounge area, Honey Lemon next to him, their positioning showing intimate talk. Clint is sitting on one of the high stools in the kitchen area. And there are several other Avengers scattered around. Hiro doesn’t really pay that much attention to them. His own personal  drama has been played out in front of audiences so many times, it’s completely normal at this point. At least this way he gets to show off a little.

Tadashi’s hands clench tightly around each other in the space between his legs. Hiro can still see the fine tremors in them. It’s a little petty, but he gets a flash of vindictive glee to know Tadashi’s nervous around him. Nervous enough to shake. Good. Clint is also staring at him hardcore, but Hiro’s less concerned with that. He’s only doing what Clint wanted him to do after all. Hiro has a Plan, Clint told him he needed closure and there’s only one thing that’ll get him that.

He holds his hand out, wiggles his fingers. “I want my microbots back.” The visor is off Tadashi’s head and in his waiting hand before he has a chance to blink. Huh, he hadn’t thought Tadashi would hand them over so quickly and without hesitation. Maybe there was something to this redemption thing after all. The microbots around Tadashi wrists scatter to the floor and the couch cushions. Tadashi either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Is staring at Hiro, waiting. Everyone’s waiting actually. The soft chatter from the other corners of the room have tapered off. They’re the center of attention. Annoying, but Hiro wasn’t going to put this conversation on hold by waiting or asking to move to a more private room.

Hiro closes his fingers around the carbon fiber and plexi-glass hardware. It’s heavy, Hiro can think of a dozen different ways to make it lighter, faster, just all around better, off the top of his head. Tadashi probably hadn’t even bothered to update or upgrade his batch of microbots, maybe just made new ones to replace any damaged ones but hadn’t bothered messing with the design or coding itself. Sloppy. Guilty.

If you’re going to steal from someone you may as well go all the way, in Hiro’s opinion at least.

(It also irked him that Callaghan hadn’t bothered with upgrading either.)

Hiro doesn’t look away from his brother, Tadashi started to fidget with his hands again, the ongoing silent staring from Hiro playing on raw nerves. Hiro’s let this sit for quite a while, it feels like the time’s come. Finally, really come.

He’s had enough of other people rampaging around with his invention. Using it for things he’d never intended, it’s time to put a stop that. It’s time to focus on what he can fix, what he can save,(who) instead of letting his past dictate his actions.

And if he’s offering Tadashi a chance to redeem himself while he’s at it, so much the better right?

To really say he’s sorry

“Tadashi.” Tadashi’s breath hitches a little but he doesn’t look away, keeps meeting Hiro’s steady gaze. It’s the first time Hiro’s called him by his name since forever and a day ago. “I want all my microbots back.” His brother sighs, and quirks his lips up in tentative smile.

“Then I’ll get them back for you.” He promises, even though without his own batch of microbots he didn’t have much of a chance of matching Yokai. Hiro nods, and tosses him the visor, he grins as Tadashi almost fumbles the catch, not expecting it.

“It’s a loner.” He explains at Tadashi’s and really everyone’s wide eyed look. Tadashi settles the visor back on top of his head, not flipping them over his eyes. Hiro appreciates the gesture. Microbots shifting back around his brother’s wrists. “I want it back with the rest when we’re done.” He ignores the shaky smile on Tadashi’s face when he says ‘we’. God, his brother is such a nerd.

“Understood.”

“Awesome,” He leaves that in the air for a few seconds before cocking his head to the side. “That visor thing’s pretty...heavy. You do any upgrades?” Tadashi shakes his head, a look on his face like he can’t quite believe what’s going on. He’d better strap himself in then, Hiro’s got a lot of ground to cover and if Tadashi couldn’t keep up, he was gonna get left in the dust. “You’re gonna need some upgrades.” Hiro says point blank. Tadashi blinks at him, confusion sweeping across his face. Hiro has to fight a little to keep his face straight. Truth is, he has missed messing with Tadashi. “Because those are severely out of date and I have been waiting to see the look on Callaghan’s face when he realizes how behind in tech he is. Idiot hasn’t bothered upgrading or messing with design either.” Tadashi still looks like someone pulled the rug out from under his feet and look, there’s a trapdoor too! Hiro can feel the waves of amusement from Clint’s side of the room.

“I don’t...I don’t understand.” Hiro rolls his eyes at his brother.

“Just because you ran off with my prototypes doesn’t mean I shoved the designs into a box and forgot about them for the last three years.” He ignored Tadashi’s wince. “MK I’s have slow response time, they’re clunky as shit, can only move across the ground and the neurotransmitter design is a mess.” Tadashi’s eyes had slowly started to widen as Hiro ranted. “Do you have any idea how annoying it is, watching the two of you running around with inferior, outdated hardware? I made those when I was a sleep deprived fourteen year old for crying out loud.” Tadashi opens and closes his mouth a few times and Hiro has to mentally pat himself on the back. Damn, this was more fun than he remembered it being. Finally, Tadashi starts to talk.

“You continued working on the microbots, you’re going to make better ones.” Tadashi feels his way through the sentences as though a wrong word would spring a trap. Who knows? Hiro thought, it might. “And you’re going to give them? To me?” Hiro huffed and folded his arms across his chest.

“I’m going to loan them to you.” He corrected.

“You trust me to give them back?” Hiro really hated to crush the hopeful look on Tadashi’s face, but the truth shall set him free. Or at least not make things worse with false promises.

“Doesn’t matter,” He waved a hand from side to side. “I added a new design feature. I call it: Neuro Lockout.” He shrugs. “Fool me once and all that jazz.”

Clint can say a lot of things about Tony. Both good and bad, but one of the things he can’t really criticize is Tony’s impeccable sense of timing. Because before things can take a turn for the sad and sorry with Hiro’s latest pronouncement, Tony Stark comes careening, there’s really no other word for it, around the corner into the room. He zeroed in on Hiro, throwing an arm around the younger boy’s shoulders and tugging him close to his side.

“I heard the word ‘upgrades’.” He announced, in the tone of voice people reserved for Christmas mornings. “In fact, I heard Hiro say upgrades! That means you need to use my lab!” Hiro elbowed Tony roughly in the side causing the older man to jump back with a yelp.

“What is with you? Always with the lab.” He growled. “No, I don’t need it, I have my own lab thankyouverymuch.”

“You have a school lab.” Tony corrected, his pointed tone making it clear exactly what he thought of that.

“Yeah and it’s mine.”

“Well, mine’s better!” Hiro crossed his arms defiantly across his chest, refusing to budge.

“It’s a non-issue because I don’t need a lab.” Clint leaned forward, studying Hiro intently, ignoring the continued argument, he flicked his eyes to Tadashi, gauging his reaction and then back to Hiro.

“You little brat.” He said, leaning back against the counter. His voice, though not loud, was still strong enough to cut through the arguing and be heard. Hiro was hard to read, but Tadashi was not, and Tadashi could read Hiro. Mostly. “You sneaky little brat.” Hiro had taken a few steps back when he spoke the second time, fingers tap-tapping along his elbow joints. Clint files that away. Possible nervous tic, this is the first time he’s seen it. “You’ve already built them.” Tadashi gives a slight jerk of the shoulders and Clint amends that to: “You have them with you.” Hiro’s smirk is just a tad bit sheepish, yet still smug. With a flash of inspiration, a mystery that had been tugging at the edge of Clint’s mind gets solved. “The rings,” He says, gesturing vaguely at Hiro. “The chains, the piercings!”

“You really think I’m a jewelry wearing kinda guy?” Hiro asked, holding up a hand, showcasing ringed fingers. And yeah, Clint had always found it weird that Hiro wore so many rings and wrist bands and chains and necklaces, considering how active he was.(How he had to know about rings catching on things, how easy it was to grab a necklace in a fight and how painful a ripped out piercing could be.)

“I knew there was something off.” Clint said in response, Hiro’s smirk only grew. His answer was all the rings, chains, piercings, even his watch, flashing a dozen, a thousand little tiny pinpoints of blue(receivers, Clint thought.) and breaking completely apart, down into microbots of varying sizes, some the same size as the originals and some so small they looked like a fine mist when gathered together. They swirled around the floor in a gentle silver and black pool, moving more fluidly and gracefully then the microbots Tadashi and Yokai had. They climbed back up Hiro like vines, nothing like the jagged branching movements of the others and settled into his cupped hands, solidifying into a length of chain that spilled over his fingers to the floor. The transition was quick and smooth.

“Say hello to the MK VI’s. Chain’s just the easiest to deal with when there’s so many, a ball would have been too heavy. Conservation of mass being a thing.” Hiro’s explanation. Tadashi was straining forward, still not getting up from the couch and keeping his hands clasped tightly in his lap. But his eyes were fixed on the silver and black links swaying in the space between Hiro’s hands and the floor.

“Unbelievable.” He breathed, “Where’s...I don’t see a transmitter.” Hiro made a clicking noise between his teeth, his smirk all mischief. He tilted one hand letting the chain links fall into his other hand and brushed back the shaggy hair covering his right ear. There was a cuff, clipped around the back of his ear, almost like a hearing aide, but smaller. It was a dull matte black with a steady glowing blue square in the center. Hiro’s rather wild, shaggy hair covered the cuff and blocked out the blue light. “Can I?” Hiro canted his head to the side, fringe of hair sliding from his fingers and covering the cuff.

“Sure.” His fingers plucked the cuff from the curtain of his hair and held it out on the palm of his hand. “Knock yourself out.” The chain of new microbots stayed solid and firm in Hiro’s grasp even when Tadashi hesitantly picked up the transmitter from Hiro’s palm. He raised an eyebrow at Hiro who waggled his own back. Clint had no idea what that meant, but Tadashi certainly did, if the way he dropped his shoulders with a huff was any indication.

“This.” Tadashi said, twisting and turning the cuff in his hands, studying it intently. “It took you the better part of a month to even code the first transmitter. How did you? This is amazing Hiro.”

Hiro seemed to glow under the praise. Clint felt a sense of relief; hopefully things would work themselves out after all. Oh, wait a minute.

“If you had these the entire time,” Clint starts, “how did HYDRA get you?” Hiro bounces a little on his feet.

“The first time? How do you think I got out of the cell they were keeping me in?” Clint really should have seen that answer coming. “The second time, I uh, maintenance.” He says a little sheepishly. “I had them offline for maintenance and minor upgrades. Left them behind at my dorm.” Both Clint and Tadashi stare at him. “I still had the trackers on, okay? I thought it’d be fine.”

“Bonehead.” Tadashi says in a quiet fond way. “Absolute knucklehead.”

“Yeah, well, learned from the best.” Hiro says, trace of a smile in his voice.

Tadashi feels the tenseness in his stomach relax. Tentatively grins at his brother and Hiro.

Hiro smiles back.

Chapter Text

Hiro had thought he was over what happened, had thought he’d dealt with it. Thought he’d moved on. It turned out that he hadn’t. He’d started dealing and then had stalled himself out. Buried himself in his schoolwork, in his upgrades, in his studies. In being better then his brother, in doing better, all he had succeeded was doing anything and everything he could to keep from confronting the issue. Even running to a whole different state, to a whole different coastline.

But always the anger and hurt burned in the background. The bitterness too. He’d never really got it out of his system, never really had the chance. Never really gave himself the chance. Always distracting himself, always running.

Until he couldn’t anymore.

Until he’d tripped, been pushed, fallen .

And his brother had caught up at a run.

That was the thing wasn’t it?

When Hiro had needed him, really needed him. All he’d had to do was call. And Tadashi had come.

He hadn’t backed down at any point either, hadn’t tried to sugar coat things, deny them or deflect.

Tadashi had told him, told a child him, every little detail. Truthfully, honestly. Meant every word of what he’d said. Including his regret. Had asked for forgiveness.

And Hiro.

Well.

It might be a while. A long while until he could really trust Tadashi again.

But.

He wanted to. He wanted to so badly . Everyone knew that Tadashi missed Hiro.

The truth was,

Hiro had missed Tadashi just as much.

There’s just one last thing to take care of, before Hiro can slap a ‘done’ sticker on these chapters of his life.

He’s going to need help to pull it off.

Good thing he knows where to go and who to ask for that.

“So Callaghan.” Hiro starts, leaning back in his desk chair in their garage lab, Tadashi within arm’s reach and the computer display in front of him running simulations, numbers and data flashing by. Aunt Cass had been overjoyed to have him back home in San Fransokyo for spring break. Doubly so when she realized the brothers were no longer fighting and actively attempting to get along. Hiro was sure they’d made her year for that alone.

“Can we not start this right now?” Tadashi half voices to the ceiling.

“Start something? Who’s starting anything? This is about finishing.” That catches Tadashi’s full attention. Sure, the words sounded like barbs, meant to hurt, meant to fight, but Hiro was always more then just his surface and he had really bad social skills. The sarcastic tone he’d used wasn’t bitter, it was more teasing. Meaning, despite the way and how he’d said it, Hiro didn’t want to fight and this was something else. Not something related to what Tadashi had done and where his blind loyalty had gotten them all. He stops staring at the ceiling, his head slowly tilts back down. And yeah. He was right.

This isn’t about fighting or rehashing what went wrong. Hiro is staring at him, with his head propped on a fist, but his eyes are laughter. He’d known how Tadashi would take his opening comment about Callaghan, had probably said it that way on purpose. Little brothers could be such a pain. But it’s not like Tadashi hadn’t deserved it. (And it’s not like he doesn’t miss it.)

“Alright.” He allows, swiveling in the chair to match Hiro, even going so far as to mimic his little brother’s posture, his chin held up on his fist. “So Callaghan.”

“He tell you why he nose dived off the deep end and took you with him?”

“Yes.” Tadashi doesn’t think he has it in him for anything but short answers.

“He show you? The security footage, I mean.” Hiro asks, eyes sharp, no laughter now. Tadashi shakes his head slowly, knuckles digging into the underside of his jaw. He doesn’t say Callaghan hadn’t needed to, Tadashi had trusted what he’d been told. “The entire event is really well documented.”

“Why are you bringing this up, Hiro?” It’s painful on an emotional level. A deep emotional level. To have his brother bring even the tiniest bit of Tadashi’s betrayal up and not even sound the least bit annoyed or upset by it. Hiro looks at him, really looks . Tadashi feels like his brother’s eyes are boring through his own, sorting through every little bit of him. When had Hiro developed a stare like that anyway? Finally, Hiro’s fist drops away from his chin and he spins around in his chair to type something into the computer, sorting through files and blueprints.

“I did some digging, okay, a lot of digging annnnnd managed to get this .” Tadashi squints at the schematics Hiro brings up on the screen.

“The test pilot pod schematics?” He questions.

“Did you know,” Hiro begins with a tone that says ‘I know you don’t’, “That there is a cryosleep function embedded in the safety protocols of the test pod?” Tadashi shakes his head again, he still doesn’t know where this is headed. “Did you also know that the test pod went fully into the portal before they could stop the simulation?” Tadashi sits up straight, this is serious, a lot more serious then he first thought. “And that the exit portal failed before the entrance portal?”

“What are you saying?”

“I like happy endings.” Hiro’s eyes flick over to him and back to the screen. Too quickly for Tadashi to really get a read on him. “Is what I’m saying.”

Tadashi almost doesn’t let himself hope, but if there’s one thing he’s going to keep doing until the day he dies, it’s believe in Hiro.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “What do you need?”

“Tony’s lab.” Tadashi snickered under his breath.

“I’m sure he’ll be over the moon to hear that.” Hiro didn’t confirm or deny, turning to stare at Tadashi expectantly. Tadashi knows that look, he’s waiting for something. “Okay, what else do you need?”

“It’s more a who then a what.” Tadashi rolled his eyes.

“ Who else do you need then?”

Hiro’s smile nearly splits his face in half as he says simply:

“You and Baymax.”