Intently writing in his blue notebook, Hiro only vaguely registered his surroundings. He just thought of the perfect fix to a bug in Baymax’s system, and he had to write out the code before he forgot it. His need to remember the code sequence led him to accidentally walk right into another student, causing the other boy to drop what he was holding.
“Oh, man.. Uh, sorry!” Hiro just had two more lines to write out, so he scribbled them down as fast as he could while having it be legible. Then, he tossed the notebook aside, and crouched down to help the student pick up his belongings. “Really, I’m sorry about that..”
❥ ▬ ▬ ▬ It was one loaded question he posed. Where did she even begin? So much had changed in the years since they had all spent hours upon hours together in the labs at SFIT swapping notes and consuming in human amounts of pizza. But rather than dwell in the past, she chooses to look forward, offering him a sunny smile.
❛ Pretty good! It’s been a little weird to not have everyone around all the time, but I guess that had to happen someday. ❜
Among the number of things he can’t stand about humans, their capacity to stare at anything the smallest modicum out of the ordinary is fairly high on the list. The unwanted attention makes his skin crawl, or perhaps he wants to break out his claws and scoop the eyes right out of their head.
But he’s in public, which means he has to deal with this like humans do: talking. Fixing his features into something less like utter abhorrence, he turns to the younger man.
❝ If I don’t do something now, Hiro is going to wonder why his control isn’t working. It’s bad enough that I’m always out, Matt. ❞ There was the faint semblance of worry in her tone, and she breathed out slowly. ❝ I’m really sorry for this. ❞ She knew he was watching - but that he couldn’t hear what was going on at the very least - and Gogo swung her fist in the other’s direction, following through with a roundhouse kick and landing on her wheels nimbly.
Queue an exaggerated expression
of shock coupled with a sharp intake
of breath, “No. You wouldn’t!”
A pause before continuing, “You seriously
think I need one?”
The speedster was amused at the
fact he seemed so affronted by her
expression of opinion, and her eyes
shimmered with unspoken mischief.
❝ You sound like you don’t know me at
all. If I wanted to, of course I would. And
yeah, I kind of do think you need one.
You’re looking a bit scruffy round the edges. ❞
We were discussing the death of Takeshi, Tadashi’s twin, and how Cass would find out, and this happened. Extreme warnings for implied death and hella angst. Ps: click the first links for some painful musical accompaniment.
(You’re welcome afterbxrns and pxriculum.)
Once upon a time, the door to her shop chimed merrily to warn her of customers’ arrival. The sound would be quickly drowned out by the tramping of feet and babbling of various voices. She would wear her most welcoming smile and tell them what the specialty was and how the pastries had just come out of the oven, so weren’t they just in time.
Now, the shop is a dark and desolate space in an even more broken wasteland that was once a city of life and light. Instead of a fully loaded pastry case, she stocks her shelves with whatever survial tools she can get her hands on. There is no bell, no smell of things baking in an oven, and God forbid anyone makes any noise getting here, lest you find yourself at the mercy of the nearest bloodthirsty gang that hears you, or she twists your ears until they’re ready to fall off for being so damnably irresponsible.
She’s cleaning out her trusted shotgun that usually nestles in a hidden place below the counter, Mochi glaring mistrustfully at the door, when they come in. The slimmed down feline (because who can afford to keep a cat as fat and happy as he once was with things the way they are?) leaps down to greet them, her first signal to look up.
She almost wishes she hadn’t.
Her gaze goes first to Matt, because in truth she’s afraid of what she’ll see in his companion. She’ll need to clean and bandage his legs as soon as possible if he wants to continue this fight against Hiro. Perhaps a few hours rest would do him good as well, a judgement obtained by noting the red around his eyes, and the way they seem to focus on nothing and everything all at once. He doesn’t meet her gaze, doesn’t say anything, though the latter is far from unusual with him.
Brown eyes slide to his left, where stands her nephew, Tadashi. He looks only slightly better off in terms of scars and scrapes, but far worse in every other way as his amber eyes meet hers. The emptiness she finds there threatens to swallow her whole, and the lack of color in his face makes some of her own drain away. But she chooses to ignore these things to ask a question.
“Where’s Takeshi?”
Silence is golden, some say, but in this moment it is the dark black of a void slowly pulling her in with its monstrous gravity. Try again.
“Where is he?” Matt doesn’t move an inch, as if he can sense the rising storm within her, battering against the boundaries of her skin, barely restrained from destroying everything in her path for the answer she wants. So once again, she turns back to Tadashi.
This time, the foreign language of his expression is as easily understood as any other. Every sag of his spine, glint of something overwhelmingly sorrowful in his eyes, tells her what she needs to know - what she doesn’t want to know, or understand, because oh God, she had never thought the nightmare they lived in could get worse.
“No.” It’s just one word, two letters, and yet the whole world seems to shatter with the power of it. Reality breaks and bends around her, turning everything into a funhouse mirror reflection of itself: ugly and distorted, and so very, very wrong.
“Aunt Cass-”
But she doesn’t let him finish before she releases the storm. It escapes her in the form of anguished shouting, broken sobbing, the hurling of the most inexpensive objects she can afford to crush his skull in with because if there’s one thing she taught him it was honesty, and how d a r e he lie to her in such a way, try and trick her into believing something so disgustingly awful. How could he?
“Cass, it isn’t his fault. Calm down.”
And suddenly, inexplicably, she does. Because if even Matt can break his silence to say this, to subtly confirm the fear echoing in her mind, then it must be true. And if it is, then what is all this for? Any of it? Her screaming, their fighting. She’s lost two nephews now, and what the hell for?
The silence stretches between them for an eternity, languid like a cat, watchful like a hawk. Mochi undoubtedly sought out shelter when her raging began, and she thinks he has the right idea. They all need sanctuary right now. A place to step away from the fighting and danger, and grieve together. A sigh far heavier than any soul should have to bear the weight of tumbles from her lips, and her shoulders droop as if they’ve accepted it for their own.
“Come on, I’ll patch you up.”
They can fight later about how it happened, about what revenge will be sought and how. For now, time has stopped, and the world beyond the once cheery shop doesn’t exist. For now, she will put away her grief and sorrow, and the countless angry words she wants to scream at the sky. She has lost two nephews now, so she has to keep the other two alive.
Lauren couldn’t help notice a pair of eyes staring at her work, “You alright there?” She arches a brow at the other, noticing the concern on his face.
Was it the amount of voltage she put into the machine that was unsettling him? After all, there was sparks of electricity flying here and there. But she promises it’s not that dangerous and she has everything under control.
