Chapter 3

The run to headquarters did wonders to help Hiro clear his head. Not for the first time he marvelled at how much his endurance had increased since he began doing hero-work. Back when he started he wouldn’t have been able to run a quarter of the distance he just did without collapsing from exhaustion, but now he felt like he could actually run a full marathon with only a little bit of difficulty. Whether the change was because of all the physical activity he did on a daily basis or it was just a part of growing up he wasn’t sure, but he was quite glad that he wasn’t developing a stereotypical nerd-bod. Thankfully, headquarters came equipped with showers and lockers for everyone that had several sets of spare clothes. It was just one of several precautions they took to make sure their identities remained hidden, as freshening up after a mission would help make sure they didn’t look as if they were just in a battle.

After washing away the sweat from his run and donning some fresh clothes Hiro went to work on repairing Baymax. However, he was surprised to find that much of the work was already done. Baymax’s body was still in a disassembled state but all the broken parts were gone and their replacements neatly arrayed on a nearby table, and Baymax’s armour was fully repaired and back in its display case.

“Huh,” Hiro said, curious, then pressed the button that would wake Baymax from sleep-mode. “Good morning Baymax. How ya doing, buddy?” he asked once the boot-up was finished.

“Hello Hiro,” Baymax replied, his synthesised voice comforting in its familiarity. “I am unable to move. Self-diagnosis shows that my body still requires reassembly. Until then, I am incapable of fulfilling my role as your healthcare companion.”

“What about your operating system? Memory storage? Medical database?” Hiro asked.

“All undamaged and operating at one hundred percent.”

Hiro sighed a breath of relief. He knew Baymax would be fine, and he had backups of Baymax’s chips so that the near loss of his mechanical friend from the Yokai incident would never happen again, but to hear it said out loud was still a reassurance. “That’s good to hear. So, about the damage you did take, what happened? Where did the broken parts go?”

“Your friends disposed of the damaged components. GoGo has left you a message regarding this.”

“She did?”

The large screen embedded in the wall turned on, displaying two large teal hexagons joined by a thin line on top of a white background, and the feminine voice of Basemax joined the conversation. “Yes,” she said. “Would you like me to play it back for you?”

“Sure,” Hiro nodded. “Though in the future, if someone has left a message for me, please let me know rather than wait for me to ask about it.”

“Noted.” The screen then switched to a video recording of the lab. In the background Wasabi was meticulously placing the new parts for Baymax on the table, even going so far as to use a ruler to make sure each piece was equally spaced apart. Honey Lemon was painting the new pieces of Baymax’s armour, bobbing her head to some music from her earbuds, and Fred was reclining in a chair, reading a comic book. In the foreground, GoGo was looking straight at the camera.

“Hey Hiro,” she said. “Look, we know how much you care about Baymax and don’t like it when others mess around with him, but with how you’re probably feeling right now we thought we’d share at least a little of that burden and do some of the more mundane stuff with his repairs.” She glanced over her shoulder at the work the others were doing, then added, “As you can see, we’ve already fixed Baymax’s armour, got rid of the damaged stuff, and have all the new pieces for his chassis ready to go. When you get here all you’ll have to do is the assembly, and whatever tweaks you might think are necessary.” She then gave one of her rare, but very genuine, smiles. “And if you need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call, okay? Talk to you later.” Then the video ended.

Hiro smiled, feeling grateful for the thoughtfulness of his friends. Knowing Wasabi, all of those new parts would be cleaned of any imperfections from the automatic manufacturing process and placed in the order that he would need them so the assembly process should go remarkably quick, provided there were no complications. Before that, though, there was one more thing he had to do.

“Baymax, you and I both got kind of beat up from that explosion yesterday. Why don’t you scan me to make sure everything’s okay,” he instructed, standing in front of the robot’s head.

“Scanning now ... scan complete.” Baymax said. “Hiro, you have mild bruising on sixty nine percent of your arms, legs, chest, and back, likely caused by the concussive blast from the explosion as well as the subsequent impact on the ground afterwards. I detect no other injuries. To decrease the swelling from bruises, it is recommended to ice the affected area immediately after injury, and to take warm baths and increase your vitamin K1 intake to promote faster recovery after forty eight hours.”

Hiro was relieved to hear there was nothing more serious, and smiled appreciatively at the advice. “Thanks. It’s a little late for the ice but I’ll do that other stuff when I can.” That hot shower he had after his run did reduce the soreness in his muscles quite a bit, so a nice hot bath sounded like something he could definitely get behind. “But first, how about we get you all patched up, huh?”

Hiro had Basemax play some random music from his ‘work playlist’, which consisted mostly of overly loud rock, and got down to work. Piece by piece, Baymax began to resemble himself again, and barely an hour later his upper frame was finished and functional. Hiro was about to start working on Baymax’s legs when there was an unexpected tap on his shoulder. Seeing as how he was alone, or was supposed to be, the touch came as quite the shock and he jumped in surprise.

Turning to see who it was made his heart jump a second time. “Megan!” he shouted in surprise, his cheeks already beginning to colour. “What are you doing here?” Instead of trying to answer him over the blaring music she just looked at him with an expectant expression. “Oh, sorry. Basemax, cut the music!” he called. The music stopped a moment later, plunging the room into silence.

“That’s better,” Megan said. “I gotta hand it to the guy who built this place, he really soundproofed the heck out of it. I couldn’t hear so much as a peep from the outside. At least you have good taste in music,” she added with a grin.

“Um, thanks, but what brings you here?” Hiro asked again. He knew Megan had full access to their secret headquarters, he had given her her own access code himself after all, but she was the last person he had expected, or at least hoped, to see at the moment.

“It’s Saturday. If you had access to a superhero’s secret base where would you spend your free time?” she said with a smile. “But seriously, I am here for a real reason.” She lifted up her hand, holding a large paper bag. “You haven’t eaten lunch yet, have you?”

The smell of greasy fast food wafted up from the bag and Hiro’s stomach growled in response. It reminded him that he hadn’t eaten breakfast either, and his body was now screaming at him for sustenance.

“It is important to maintain a steady intake of calories in order to maintain proper health and function,” Baymax said in response to Hiro’s stomach.

Ten minutes later, the two of them were polishing off the last of the burgers that Megan had brought. Conversation had been minimal as Hiro was highly focused on filling his stomach, perhaps a little more than was necessary.

“So, you left pretty fast this morning,” Megan said as she munched on a few fries.

“Yeah. I accidentally slept in and wanted to start working on Baymax as soon as I could so I kind of booked it as soon as I got up. Sorry about just shouting at you as I left.” Hiro hoped the half-truth would pass scrutiny and the fact that he wouldn’t look Megan in the eye was a result of his embarrassment about the shouting, not because of something else.

“Don’t worry about it,” Megan waved dismissively. “Though if you had waited a little longer we could have walked here together and I could help out.”

As much as Hiro normally enjoyed Megan’s company, the idea of her in near proximity right now was not something he thought was a good idea. “While I appreciate the gesture, I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea,” he said, trying to keep his discomfort hidden.

Thankfully, Megan took the source of his reluctance to be something else. “We both know I don’t know the first thing about robotics so don’t worry, I’m not asking to do any of Baymax’s repairs myself. But I can at least hand you stuff,” she insisted. “And maybe I can learn a thing or two.”

Hiro tried to come up with any other reason to send her away but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t make her suspicious. Instead he nodded, secretly praying that he would be able to focus on the task at hand and not get distracted by his new assistant.

Miraculously, he was able to do just that. With Baymax as their focus and Megan acting as ‘gopher’ for everything Hiro needed, from parts to tools to lighting, he was able to keep his eyes from wandering to places he knew would only lead to trouble. The early afternoon flew by and It felt like almost no time had passed before they were putting the finishing touches on Baymax’s outer shell. As the robot stood in his charging station after they ran a series of diagnostic tests, both teens without needing to look raised a hand and fist-bumped each other.

“Thanks, Megan,” Hiro said. “You really were a big help.”

Megan shrugged, though smiled at the praise. “I didn’t do much, just fetched stuff whenever you asked.”

“Yeah, but that was a huge time saver. I was expecting this to take all day, but we’ve still got most of the afternoon left.”

“Got any plans for what to do with all that extra time? Wanna design some cool new gear for me? You know, as thanks.” Megan was always trying to get Hiro to let her test out whatever new tech he developed for the team, though the invisibility suit he made her was still her favourite.