When All Q Breaks Loose

Chapter Forty Six: Just Drop It

Fred stared dejectedly at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Not wanting to disturb Baymax, GoGo had led him to the same bathroom where she'd bandaged his nose only a few days ago. At least it wasn't his face she was worried about this time, he thought as his knuckles sat under the running water.

"I'm sorry," he apologized as he let his body sag against the sink's pedestal. "I know I shouldn't have done that. I just couldn't seem to help myself when I saw him just sitting there, laughing like some evil super villain."

GoGo pursed her lips as she gently pulled one of his hands out from under the water's stream. Blood still welled up a bit from the cuts he'd given himself. Chances were good she'd have to wrap his hands to completely cover them. "Stop," she admonished him. "Everyone loses it every now and again. It just shows how much you care for Hiro."

But Fred wasn't hearing any of it. "I lost control," he reminded. "I should never let that happen. Now I know why my dad wanted me to learn all that stuff back when I was a kid. 'You should never let yourself lose control,' he told me time and time again. And I didn't listen."

Careful to not cause further discomfort, GoGo gently dried Fred's hands on a towel. "You can't always control that kind of thing," she admonished, her expression also downcast. "It just sometimes happens. You can't take it back. The only thing you can do is try to be better. Now you know what triggers it. Work on controlling that."

Fred nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He looked down at his hands as she wrapped gauze around them, making sure to specifically cover his knuckles, which she'd applied antibacterial ointment to with a q-tip. "I guess we all have something we need to work on."

GoGo gave him a careful smile as she playfully punched him in the arm. "There you go. See? It's not all that bad. You learned something valuable and we learned where one of your buttons is. Now we can try and avoid it in the future."

"You can't have always been this calm about that kind of thing," Fred pressed as he turned to face her, his hands down at his sides now that she'd finished taping the gauze in place. "I mean, I know your personality. You're a fighter."

She gave him a somewhat wistful smile. "Yeah, and before I met Tadashi I had a reputation of beating up anyone who didn't agree with me," she informed him. "I asked him to keep that bit quiet though. I used to have quite the temper." She smiled at him almost ironically. It was common knowledge that she was still quite the spitfire.

"You used to beat people up? No!" Fred mock protested, sounding more like his usual self. He could actually picture her doing just that, small size and all. She was more than capable of it. It wouldn't surprise him if part of her reasoning behind that was because people had picked on her. It seemed a common thread with their group. The fact that she'd never really talked about her past before was not lost on him and he felt honored that she'd share that tidbit with him.

GoGo rolled her eyes. "Don't get all sentimental on me," she warned, threatening to punch him in the arm again. "Yes I was bullied as a kid but I lived through it and you can live through this, okay?"

Fred couldn't help but smile. It still hurt, knowing he'd wanted to take that guy out, that he was even capable of doing it. But GoGo was right. If he kept dwelling on it, he'd never overcome it. "Guess we should go see what the others are up to," he said.

GoGo turned her threatened punch into a shoulder cuff instead. "Yeah. Let's go." She reached out for his hand, intertwining her fingers with his as they left the bathroom together.

...............................

Wasabi couldn't help but stare incredulously at Fred over the breakfast table, regardless of how much the mascot was trying to ignore it. "What were you thinking?!" he admonished. It was bad enough that Hiro was out of commission, but to have Fred lose it on the man who was currently being detained by them, illegally, he might add... that was something else entirely. Now Baymax had two people to look after, which was far from fair.