"The Lucky Cat…“ Rapunzel read the sign on the cafe door out loud. Normally she would have found the inviting atmosphere of the cafe exciting, but knowing that Varian might be inside, waiting for her, tied her stomach into knots.
Thus far she hadn’t allowed herself to think about what their meeting would be like after so many years. Would he still hate her? Did he still blame her for everything? Would he attack her again, and endanger all of the people here, or would he simply sulk and make vague threats to her? Would he be remorseful of anything? Would he even care about helping Corona? It was once his home too, but he had vowed to destroy the place himself many times before, and had come very close to doing just that on more than one occasion.
"Quick question,” Lance said, interrupting her bad memories. “How are we supposed to get Varian to go along with anything? I mean, it’s not like we can arrest him and drag him back to Corona with us like this… Can we?”
As if to prove his point, he tried to open the door and his hand went through the door handle.
Eugene sighed, “I don’t know, but he doesn’t have to know that we can’t… Let’s just ask him about the scroll first and go from there.”
Just then a customer walked out of the cafe, and Rapunzel tried to shove all her doubts away as the trio hurried through the open door. Only to find out when they entered that she had been worried over nothing. Varian wasn’t there.
"Hi, Welcome to The Lucky Cat!“ A petite woman with short brown hair called out to them. She was all smiles as she placed a coffee pot on a stand next to a bunch of cups and wooden stirrers. “Happy Halloween! Today’s special is our mean green matcha mocha. How may I help you?”
Rapunzel started to breathe easier. This was the warmest welcome that they had received since arriving in San Fransokyo and Rapunzel decided that she liked this enthusiastic woman. “Hi, nice to meet you. Oooh, what’s a mocha?”
The woman blinked in surprise, but then quickly recovered with another beaming smile. “Oh, well usually it’s hot chocolate mixed with coffee, but in our matcha mocha special, it’s matcha green tea with white chocolate.”
"Both those sound great!“ Lance said. You could practically see his mouth watering.
"Oh wonderful… so you like one of each?” The woman said as she walked around the counter to take their orders. “We’re also offering a special ‘trick or treat’ sale today. Buy any drink and get one of our specialty made treats, like our monster muffins or ghostly donuts for half off.”
"Oh cuuute!“ Rapunzel bent down to see the decorated sweets behind the glass counter. The ‘ghostly donuts’ were frosted beignets; round and covered in powdered sugar with black frosting forming eyes and mouths.
Eugene lightly coughed in his hand to gain his friends’ attention and put them back on task. "As delightful as that sounds, we unfortunately don’t have any money.” This announcement elected disappointed frowns from everyone present, but Eugene ignored them. “We’re actually new in town and we’re looking for a particular person. We were told, by an old acquaintance, that we might find him here.”
The woman behind the counter tilted her head. “Oh… and who’s that?”
"His name is Varian.“ Rapunzel said. "We saw his raccoon outside and figured that he was here.”
"Yes an honest assumption to make seeing as how he’s never seen without the little vermin,“ Eugene hastily added before the woman found the explanation odd,"Does… does he frequent this place often?”
The woman gave a soft laugh. “Well, I should say so. He lives here! Oh, but I’m sorry, you’ve just missed him. He’s probably at the school by now.”
"The school?“ Eugene echoed.
"Oh yeah, they’re holding a big Halloween event at the SFIT campus. It’ll go on all night, so you still have time to get there. Are you three from the art institute instead?”
The trio exchanged confused looks with each other, unsure how to respond to that question.
"Umm… not exactly…“ Eugene stuttered, debating on what to tell the woman. He decided to turn the tables instead. "How do you know him, by the way?”
The woman smiled again and offered her hand to them. “Oh, I’m his Aunt Cass.”
"Cass?“ Rapunzel whispered. They may have shared a name but she couldn’t picture two women being more opposite than this baker and their Cassandra.
However, Lance was far more interested in the woman’s title than her name. "Aunt? You mean we have another aunt!?” he excitedly blurted out.
Eugene gave Lance a warning glare, and the taller man shrank back as he realized that he had given too much away.
For the first time however, the smile faded away upon the kind woman’s face. “Wh-what do you mean… 'we’?”
Eugene coughed again, “What my brother means… is… you wouldn’t happen to know an Edmund would you… or maybe a Quirin?”
"Or an Adira, or a Hector?“ Lance added, despite himself.
Aunt Cass slowly lowered her hand and Rapunzel could see the transformation on her face as her friendly demeanor was replaced with a more guarded one.
"Quirin? You mean Varian’s father. You’re from Corona.” It was a statement not a question.
Eugene sighed, there was no point in skirting the truth now. “Yes, we’re from Corona. I’m Eugene Fitzherbert, this is my adopted brother Lance…” Lance waved at her enthusiastically, “and my lovely girlfriend Rap-”
"Just call me Raps.“ Rapunzel hastily interjected. She didn’t want a repeat of the conversation with the police officer, and there was no telling what Varian had told the woman.
"Yes, well, as it turns out that my father, Edmund, and Varian’s father, Quirin, were brothers, and we only just all found each other again after several years of being separated.” Eugene gave a nervous chuckle, “Honestly, we’re still trying to piece together the whole family tree as it is, and we were just wondering how you may fit into it.”
The woman closed her eyes as realization hit her and her beaming smile returned. “Oh… now I see.” She gave her own awkward laugh. “Sorry, no, y-you wouldn’t recognize me. I’m not his biological Aunt… I’ve just been fostering Varian while he’s here in the states.”
"The states?“ Rapunzel echoed.
"Oh, yes, the US. ” Aunt Cass noticed the trio still staring blankly at her… “the United States of America.”
"Oh.. America!?“ Rapunzel shouted. "Yes… I can’t tell how exciting it is to finally see the Americas. I’ve only gotten to read about it in books before. They really undersell how insanely amazing this place is. Like those horseless carriages everyone rides around in. I’ve never seen those before.”
'You… you mean… cars?“ Aunt Cass asked surprised. "They don’t have automobiles in Corona?”
Rapunzel shook her head, not understanding why the woman was surprised. “Oh no. Everyone has horses in Corona. Like Maxumis, he’s the best horse ever! So sweet… Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any horses here at all. Do they just not have them in America?”
Aunt Cass tried her best not to laugh at that question. “Oh, no, we do have horses here, just not everybody owns them. Especially here in the big city.” She flashed them another wide smile. “Listen, there’s no other customers right now. I can take a short break. Why don’t you all have a seat and I’ll bring us some drinks. On the house. Would you prefer coffee or tea?”
Eugene tried to politely turn down the invite, not the least of which because they couldn’t drink anything in this state. “Oh no, you don’t have to go out of your way just for us.”
"Nonsense, any family of Varian’s is more than welcome in my home.“ She insisted. "How about I brew up some of that matcha? I’ll go put the kettle on.” And with that she walked behind a swing door into the cafe’s kitchen.
"Quick, we need to get out of here.“ Eugene whispered in a panic.
"We can’t just run away now.” Rapunzel whispered back. “She’ll think something is wrong for sure and warn Varian. Besides, we might learn a thing or two by talking to her.”
"Like what? How to brew tea?“ Eugene hissed. "In case you haven’t noticed right now, we’re kind of incorporeal right now.”
As if to prove this point, Lance tried to take a seat in one of the chairs and fell right through it. He rubbed his backside as she stood up again.
"Oooff… Incorporeal or not, it still hurts when you land on your rear end.“
"See!?’ Eugene squeaked. "If we don’t get out of here now, she’ll definitely know that something is wrong.”
"Ooh… where is that white chocolate…“ They overheard the woman’s voice call out to them. "Hey, do you mind if we just had plain green tea instead?”
"Uhhh… anything is fine with us!“ Rapunzel awkwardly called back into the kitchen. "Heh… Take your time. No rush.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth before everyone started running around the cafe looking for a solution. Yet everything they touched passed through their hands as if made of air.
"Do you want any sugar?“ Aunt Cass called out again.
"That’d be wonderful, thank you!” Eugene yelled back as he tried and failed to get on a bar stool. Beside him Rapunzel sunk through a booth; only her nose and eyes were visible over the top of the seat cushion.
"Whatta we do?“ Lance whimpered.
Eugene widely cast his eyes around for anything that might help.
Then Rapunzel stood up and grabbed their hands. "Quick. I have an idea!”
i just realized that since big hero 6 takes place in 2032, if it was real hiro’s parents just recently died or would soon because they died when he was 3 and he would be turning 4 in 2022
let’s not think about the 2019-2022 pandemic going on
let’s not think about how such a pandemic causing his parents’ death would make Tadashi grow up to want to provide better free universal healthcare and lead him to majoring in engineering to create a “personal healthcare companion”
let’s not think about how Cass relies on her cafe to provide for her family and that maybe she was so unwilling to close was because there was a time when it had to be closed and it was difficult to take care of a 3 year old and 10 year old
let’s not think about how they are canonically a low-income partially poc family (reasoning: hiro received a full grant instead of full scholarship (honestly he probably got both and used the scholarship money for his projects); grants are for low income students.)
