Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Oh, not this again,” Midoriya Izuku said, fully exasperated, but still careful not to make any movements with Shigaraki Tomura’s deadly fingers wrapped precariously around his neck, again, at the mall, again. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

“Cheeky,” Shigaraki muttered, directing Izuku down the hallway towards the restrooms and away from the crowds. “You know, I think I liked you better before. You were so much nicer as a poor, defenseless first year.”

“I’ll be nice when you are. What do you want?” Izuku asked, knowing that if Shigaraki wanted him to be dead, he’d already be a pile of dust on the shiny tile floor by now, with just the touch of one last finger left lingering in the air above his throat.

“Just like last time,” Shigaraki said easily, not a twitch of his fingers to betray what he was saying. “To talk.”

Shigaraki led Izuku past the restrooms towards the exit to the mall. Izuku swallowed down his anxiety. He’d dealt with Shigaraki before and made it out alive. Sure, Danger Sense was going off the charts, but without knowing who else in Shigaraki’s ranks was there at the mall, ready to take innocent lives hostage, Izuku wasn’t ready to take the risk that Shigaraki was lying about just wanting to talk this time. At least, not until they were in the clear, away from civilians.

When they exited through the heavy doors, Izuku expected to see daylight, at least the outline of the bright day, the tops of the green trees surrounding the parking lot in the distance, even if the dark swirling vortex of Kurogiri’s warp gate was blocking the majority of the view if Shigaraki’s plans included taking him to a secondary location. If that was the case, Izuku planned to try to negotiate, to convince Shigaraki that their last conversation was productive enough here at the mall, so why couldn’t this one be?

Let’s grab a coffee and talk, Shigaraki. I’ve got all day–all the time in the world for you. But do we really have to leave the inviting atmosphere of the bustling mall? There! The shade under the trees! That’ll be the perfect place to have our talk!

But, as they exited, Izuku’s vision whited out, and Shigaraki’s hand fell away from him. In fact, he felt nothing at all, not even the fabric of the clothes against his skin. Odd , was the last thing he thought before his consciousness fell away from him.

_ _ _ _ _

When Izuku woke again, it was not peacefully, but to the sound of a familiar, angry voice yelling his name. Izuku sat up with a jolt because that voice was not Kacchan’s coming from the other side of his dorm door, yelling at him that he was late for class, or his mother’s, calling him downstairs for breakfast, but the voice of his long-time enemy, Shigaraki, yelling endless expletives. Izuku’s eyes were drawn across the walkway between the two sets of cellblock bars keeping the two humans separate where the yelling, screaming, and swearing was coming from.

Izuku vaguely noticed that his hair was dripping, but his clothes seemed to be drying quickly with whatever he was drenched in. Shigaraki seemed to be faring the same, his own hair darkened to a dark, midnight blue at the ends as it dripped, quickly drying in the air as it regained its usual texture. As Shigaraki yelled at him, Izuku subtly sniffed himself to see if the liquid gave off any scent that gave away what it could be, and he was relieved to find that it wasn’t anything like gasoline or kerosine. It didn’t have a scent at all that Izuku could discern.

“You motherfucker, Midoriya!” Shigaraki was yelling, raging, pressed as tightly against the bars as the space between them would allow. “I’m going to kill you for this! Murder you in cold blood! You’re dead! You hear me?! Wake up, you bastard! You dead motherfucker! Wake up!”

“Uh, and how is this my fault?” Izuku asked as calmly as he could, with Shigaraki adding to the chaos of the unknown situation that was already anxiety-producing, his heart pounding in his chest as he sat up on the metal floor of his own cell as he tried to get his bearings. “You’re the only villain who is persistently out to get me, and I don’t know anyone with any illusion quirks. This must be someone out to get you,” Izuku reasoned.

Izuku stood up and took stock of himself, finding nothing broken or injured, as Shigaraki laughed coldly, obviously unable to be reasoned with and preparing to retort.

“You stupid bastard,” he said. Izuku frowned, finding the endless stream of insults unnecessary. “You stupid motherfucker. How’d you make it into UA? Huh? Are you at the bottom of your class?” Izuku opened his mouth to tell him that the insults were unproductive to effective communication when Shigaraki continued, “Take a look around. This shit is real. This isn’t some illusion quirk we’re stuck in. We’ve been abducted by goddamn aliens, and it’s all your fault.”

Izuku took Shigaraki’s advice and looked around, finding himself in a clean, decently roomy cell, surrounded by metal bars on three sides that buzzed faintly with electricity. Inside his cell, along the back wall, was an oddly-shaped toilet, or what Izuku assumed was a toilet. He hoped to figure it out for sure before he needed to use it. There were also two, large metal boxes filled with what looked to be dead, dry grasses placed on opposite sides of the cell, about a half meter away from the buzzing bars.

He looked to the left and right and found himself among a row of multiple identical cells with many different looking creatures– aliens –inside, all looking at Izuku and Shigaraki (mostly Shigaraki, the louder one who was making a goddamn scene) in open terror-filled wonder and curiosity. It looked like they were watching a plane being piloted right toward where they stood, knowing there was nothing they could do to stop the inevitable destruction, if Izuku was reading their facial expressions and body language correctly.

Standing in the back corner of the same cell as Shigaraki was a dark, possible black feline-looking alien, frozen and not moving a single muscle. Izuku could barely tell if they were breathing. They weren’t even directly looking at either Shigaraki or himself, seemingly keeping an eye on the situation from their peripheral vision.

In the cell with Izuku stood a large bird-like alien with bright yellow, tan, and light blue plumage. Their feathers shook with their terror, and they weren’t even the one in the cell with the yelling human. Izuku wondered if he was already giving off some sort of menacing body language that he was unaware of or something and made a mental note to adjust accordingly as soon as he figured out what it was that seemed to be setting his cellmate off. Maybe it was also Shigaraki’s yelling, Izuku thought, and it very well could have been.

Shigaraki was correct, as far as Izuku could tell. No matter where he looked, there was no waver to his vision, nothing that would give away that it was an illusion as opposed to cold, hard reality staring at him in the face, no matter how improbable it seemed.

“Well,” Izuku said primly, brushing some nonexistent dust off of his shoulder, “I still don’t see how this is my fault that we’re on this spaceship.”

Izuku was actually a little distracted for a moment by how little dust or dirt there was on him; usually he’d be able to see the day’s accumulation, especially when he wore his favorite white shirt shirt. Izuku looked closer at the front of his shirt and realized that the little soy sauce stain was even gone, and he was sure that was permanent–his mother couldn’t even get it out with her best stain remover.

“It’s a planet,” Shigaraki practically whined, grabbing at his hair in pure frustration.

Izuku ignored the interruption. “You were the one who was kidnapping me and took me through that door.”

Shigaraki screamed, reaching through the bars into the space that led into the corridor to make threatening grabby hands towards Izuku.

That’s when Izuku noticed the cuffs glinting in the dim light on Shigarki’s wrists, looking down to find his own quirk-canceling cuffs locked around his own wrists. “Well, shit,” Izuku muttered to himself. “Looks like the aliens did their research.” And that would make sense why his Danger Sense was not warning him about, well, everything.

Chapter Text

H’zashi knew that his luck was running out. He had been too lucky recently, or well, for his whole life he had been pretty lucky. He had a good upbringing with competent, caring parents, met A’zawa (and that was lucky, even when everyone told him that it wasn’t and that their species could never work out as a long-term pair), and found a good job with the Universe Alliance as a rescue agent. H’zashi was hoping that his inability to lay eggs was going to be enough “unluckiness” to last him for his whole life, but with how happy he had been with everything else, he knew that would be too good to be true, too much to ask for.

He had warned A’zawa that something unlucky would be coming, and with how interwoven their lives were, he would probably be roped into it as well. It’s not that A’zawa didn’t believe him, he didn’t think, it’s just that A’zawa didn’t quite understand to what level the unlucky thing had to be to even out how damn lucky H’zashi had been so far in his life.

Like, maybe it would be getting bad food during a grocery run a few times in a row, or having the same part on their spaceship fail three times within the space of a megaclick, or something. But H’zashi knew that it would be bigger than that. Much bigger. But this big? He didn’t suspect this.

Being falsely detained on a prison planet?

Yeah, H’zashi thinks that this should pretty much set him up for the rest of his life, no matter if he lives a whole teraclick after he gets out of here, and even if he’s lucky enough to live that teraclick with A’zawa still by his side. And he would still have some extra luck left, if H’zashi had anything to say about it.

Especially because the crime they were being falsely accused of was falsifying research records.

First of all, that did not warrant this level of punishment, even if it were true. (Okay, maybe H’zashi would have argued otherwise, being the research-minded aldoi that he is, if it were someone else in his place and he believed them to be guilty. So, he’s a hypocrite. There are worse things to be.) Second of all, their accusers did not present the United Alliance with any proof, which is probably because there is no proof to be had, which is the bigger issue in H’zashi’s mind. How can they say there are falsified records with no records to present?

They are most likely just going to hold them for the allotted five megaclicks that they are allowed to hold them for without having any evidence before releasing them. For what reason, H’zashi is still trying to figure it out. A’zawa still hadn’t let him in on any leads yet either if he had come up with any ideas of his own.

Anyway, they were almost one megaclick in, and the facility was clean and a proper research facility, so the cells were regulation size, and meals were high quality and specified by their species instead of one-meal-fits-all bland sludge. It could have been worse, but H’zashi and A’zawa had important work to do that they could not do while they were locked up there, waiting for their stupid five megaclicks hold for the opposing counsel to “gather more evidence” that doesn’t even exist to be over and done with.

Maybe the universe should owe him two teraclicks worth of a lucky life to live alongside his lover, H’zashi thought with trepidation, when he recognized the species of the new prisoners being brought down the corridor. One was unconscious and being carried by two dolluns, an alien species that resembles a pill bug on Terra, and they were obviously struggling under the weight. The other was conscious and struggling, being escorted by two scraks, tall insectoid aliens with long stick-like limbs that were stronger than they looked, but even so, these scraks wore armor reinforcements on their limbs for the escort of this new prisoner.

Both were still dripping wet, obviously having just been cleansed by Kulphea’s cleansing liquids, developed right here on the planet and continuously used after being perfected. At least whoever they were placed with would not have to worry about catching any viruses or microorganisms, the cleansing liquids having taken care of all of that. Still, H’zashi prayed to all the gods he didn’t believe in that they went far past his and A’zawa’s cells.

H’zashi wondered how much unluck he really had to catch up on when his prayers went unanswered, and the guards stopped with the Terrans in front of his and A’zawa’s cells. He counted his lucky stars, however many he might have left, when the blue-furred Terran placed with A’zawa immediately turned away from A’zawa, but almost had a hearts attack (probably with all three of his hearts, H’zashi would guess) when the Terran threw himself against the electrified bars of the cell, his anger directed toward H’zashi’s cell. Or, well, probably directed toward the other Terran, the green-furred one, that was placed in H’zashi’s cell, based on where the blue-furred Terran was looking and gesturing.

Surely the only thing worse than an angered Terran would be an angry and injured Terran, right? But, horrifyingly, the blue-furred Terran just stayed there against the bars, unaffected, as he yelled in his own language at the unconscious Terran placed in the cell with H’zashi, who then sat up straight, suddenly awake, eyes quickly finding his counterpart across the corridor and responding in kind.

Instead of being relieved that the green-furred Terran was awake and alive, the blue-furred Terran just seemed to become more agitated. H’zashi was grateful that everyone in the hall, even those completely out of reach of the Terrans, were silent and still as they watched the interaction play out.

Too soon, the Terran’s green eyes were on A’zawa, and then on H’zashi. They’d been noticed! But then the Terran’s eyes and conversation went back to the other Terran, and H’zashi was confused.

H’zashi knew his and his partner’s new roles here on the prison planet, Kulphea, for the rest of their holding time. Of course he did. They were promoted in the worst way possible. Where they once were spares for any low-level experiments that might have occurred, they now were center stage as social companions, if they survived, for the two new Terran inhabitants. If they made a mistake, made the Terrans angry enough to lash out against them, or just if the Terrans decided they looked more delicious than the food offered one day, then they would be written off, the results well-documented, and that would be that. They would be replaced.

It wasn’t fair. They weren’t guilty. They didn’t have any sentences handed down. They were just there for holding for their five megaclicks until they were to be released, unharmed, and were able to go back to their jobs as rescue agents. Somehow, H’zashi knew that bringing these facts to the guards’ and scientists’ attention and complaining would not bring favorable resolution.

H’zashi and A’zawa were either the best or the worst on Kulphea for this role because they were more intimately familiar with Terra and its inhabitants than most. He wondered vaguely if the scientists knew their specific backgrounds or if it was just coincidence.

During downtime from their rescues, when there were more rescue agents than creatures who needed rescuing, part of their jobs were to research and learn more. H’zashi and A’zawa were assigned to Terra, to observe from a distance a planet whose First Contact had not yet been assigned, and based on what was found during research, might not be assigned for a very long time, if ever at all.

What they found at first was astounding– a miracle, really. A seemingly sentient and sapient species on a level 12 deathworld? No deathworld species had evolved so far that they had found in the universe thus far. That would be a first!

The more they watched, the more they flinched away from the screens, not wanting to learn more but also unable to tear their eyes away. The natural disasters were one thing–the way parts of the planet would seemingly shake itself apart, the tunnels of air or water that would demolish everything that the Terrans had built, the way that the water levels would rise, taking out everything in its path with it. Surely with all of the adversity coming from their own planet they inhabited, the Terrans would band together and be indivisible as a unit, H’zashi and A’zawa had predicted.

Oh, how wrong they were.

How Terrans treat one another on an individual basis could be absolutely horrific, let alone on the wider scales. Where was the altruism? When H’zashi excitedly seemed to have found it, calling A’zawa over to show him a priest who had raised money for a good cause, A’zawa would come over just in time to watch the priest embezzle the funds for himself.

Then the wars happened. It was so bad that surely the humans learned their lesson. Then another war happened. Surely that time–no. Another war. When would the Terrans learn that there was no good in all that death and destruction?

There was good, sure. But the little girl sharing her dolls with a less privileged girl expecting nothing in return paled in comparison to the bombs going off in the foreground. The governments setting up meager welfare programs while funding large militia and then spying on the whole of their citizens was nothing that could be overlooked. The few rich Terrans sitting fat and happy while the millions starved just outside their doorstep was despicable.

Then, to make matters worse, some Terrans started to develop extra abilities. H’zashi was hopeful that this would make things better, but A’zawa was more skeptical. Yes, at first, those with extra abilities were sought out to better their societies, but soon more of the population were being born with these abilities. Those that were doing good with their abilities were doing it more so for fame and fortune, not just out of the goodness of their hearts, which might have been able to be discounted if not for those using their abilities to actively hurt other Terrans.

Overall, they were deemed not ready for First Contact. They were not close to getting to light-year travel by themselves, and it was voted that they were not deemed worthy of help getting to that point. Not only were they not worthy, but they’d be a holy terror on the universe, upending it as they knew it, turning everything on its head as they plowed their way through it, making their own path without regard for who they hurt during their journey.

So what the hell were two Terrans doing here on Kulphea?

With the way the blue-furred Terran in A’zawa’s cell was yelling and screaming and throwing himself against the bars despite the electricity, H’zashi doubted that he was the sharing dolls type of Terran.

H’zashi almost squawked in fear for A’zawa when the blue-furred Terran, seemingly giving up on yelling at his companion, turned 180 degrees and planted himself on the floor, staring at the wall with his arms crossed in front of him. H’zashi probably was not supposed to stare–it was considered rude in most cultures on Terra–but he was seeing an example of pouting in real life! He couldn’t help it! This was a researcher’s dream come true!

Well, if the researcher and his life partner were not trapped with the Terrans… then, it would be a researcher’s dream come true. But H’zashi couldn’t afford to be picky on Kulphea, so he would take what he could get.

The green-furred Terran continued to speak to the blue-furred Terran and stepped toward the bars, seemingly tentatively. H’zashi almost drew attention to himself by trying to warn the Terran not to touch the bars, but stopped himself, figuring that if one Terran was immune to the electricity, the other might be, too.

The green-furred Terran was much more cautious about the electrified bars than the blue-furred Terran was, reaching out tentatively to touch the bars quickly before drawing away. Once the green-furred Terran determined that it was safe enough, he fully grabbed the bars, and continued speaking to the blue-furred Terran, who remained seated but did twist in a way that looked like it would be uncomfortable to view the green-furred Terran as he spoke.

After more words were exchanged, much more calmly, each Terran then turned their attention to their cellmates. To H’zashi and A’zawa respectively.

H’zashi almost missed when the blue-furred Terran was yelling. It sure beat having the green-furred Terran’s attention on him, he thought, as he tried to calm his three wildly beating hearts.

Chapter Text

“We need to work together,” Izuku said.

Shigaraki scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I’m not doing that.”

“I can’t get off of this spaceship alone–”

“Planet,” Shigaraki interjected, lip lifted in a scowl at having to correct Izuku again.

“And neither can you,” Izuku continued, ignoring Shigaraki’s correction, much to Shigaraki’s chagrin. “And until we get off of this spaceship–”

“ Planet. It’s a planet,” Shigaraki insisted. “We’re on. A. Planet.”

“We’re allies,” Izuku continued, talking over Shigaraki.

Shigaraki turned around and dropped to the floor, crossing his legs and his arms.

Izuku’s jaw dropped. “Are you sulking?”

“If you want to ignore me, that’s fine. I’ll just ignore you, too,” Shigaraki muttered under his breath without turning back around, but Izuku still heard him with how quiet and unmoving all of the other creatures in the surrounding area were.

“Well, you’re still answering me,” Izuku hedged against his better judgment. “That’s not exactly ignoring me.”

Izuku saw Shigaraki’s jaw open to retort and then snap close in resistance. Izuku resisted the urge to sigh, forcing himself not to roll his eyes in case Shigaraki turned around.

“You cornered me at the mall because you wanted to talk,” Izuku said. “Well, here’s what I have to say: You can be upset all you want about the situation, but it’s not going to do anything about it.”

Izuku tentatively moved forward and touched his own cell bars. When the electricity buzzing through them was nothing more than a tingle, he grabbed onto them to try to see if he could bend them with his own strength, without the use of his quirk. No luck.

Izuku continued, “We’re on our own here, and we have to do this ourselves. That means teaming up, even if neither of us wants to.”

Izuku could see Shigaraki’s jaw working, could see the tense line of Shigaraki’s spine as he curled further in on himself as he resisted snapping at him in response, and he could see when the reality of what he was saying sunk in and the lines of Shigaraki relaxed just the slightest.

He spun around then, still seated on the floor, but twisted at the waist so he was facing Izuku once again. “Fine. But it doesn’t mean I like you.”

“Of course not,” Izuku said. Then, unable to resist, “the fact that you keep seeking me out for “talks” means that you like me.”

Shigaraki’s lips lifted into a disgusted kind of sneer as he snarled out a quick “fuck you” that lacked any real energy. Then, he asked, “what’s your plan?”

“Well, we need to try to start communication with our cellmates. Try not to be overly intimidating.” Izuku hesitates, eyes flickering to the feline-alien in Shigaraki’s cell. “That might be difficult with the way you were just carrying on.”

“That’s a stupid plan,” Shigaraki said. “This is what they teach you in that hero school? I hope you can get your money back.”

“They’re stuck in here, too,” Izuku said, ignoring the jab. “They know what this place is, first of all. They’ll want to get out of here, too, and they’ll know the technology and guards’ schedules better than us because they’re native to space and they’ve been here in these cells longer. Maybe if they’re already planning to escape, if we can play nice and make friends, they’ll bring us along. Either way, it’s somewhere to start. It’s a plan. It’s more than what you have.”

Shigaraki scoffed but stood up and faced his cellmate, ready to get started on Izuku’s bare-bones, barely-a-plan, because he was right. At least it was something, somewhere to start, something to do rather than wait for rescue that was not going to come for them.

Izuku turned to his own cellmate, taking a few steps closer into the cell, away from the bars, but still leaving plenty of space as to not crowd or feel threatening to his cellmate, and introduced himself, putting his hand on his chest and saying, “Midoriya,” repeating himself a few times.

Izuku was pleased to see Shigaraki following his lead until he heard Shigaraki introducing himself as “God.”

Izuku held up a finger, wondered vaguely if the alien would understand that it meant to hold on a second while I deal with my idiot traveling companion, and stepped back over to the bars to yell at Shigaraki.

“What are you doing?!”

“Introducing myself,” Shigaraki said with a sly smirk and a shrug.

“Not like that,” Izuku said.

“It won’t know the difference,” Shigaraki insisted.

Izuku sighed, leaning his head forward in his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. He explained, “once we get out of here, if we ever do, and they help us send out a distress signal, the people who will be searching for us will recognize the alert going out for “Midoriya and Shigaraki.” They will have no idea who “God” is.”

“The last time I checked, us humans haven’t been able to travel outside of our solar system,” Shigaraki said, “and we didn’t know these alien fucks existed. So, I don’t know who you think is coming for us, which rescue team is coming, unless you think All Might can hold his breath in space and fly at the speed of light, somehow pick the right direction to fly in, and come save his damn successor. I know that my sensei can’t.”

Izuku stared blankly at Shigaraki for a few seconds as all of Shigaraki’s previous comments about them being on a planet suddenly struck him as being important. Shigaraki was about to say something else when Izuku asked, “You said something about us being on a planet?”

“Yes,” Shigaraki snarled. “Thanks for paying attention!”

“No,” Izuku said, backtracking. “That can’t be right. There’s no signs of anything to this extent on any planet in our solar system–”

Shigaraki laughed cruelly. “You can be in denial as much as you want,” Shigaraki said, “but I was awake . Maybe Danger Sense kept you knocked out or something–good for fucking you–but I saw us leave Earth, I was awake when we hit hypersonic speeds and felt like my brain was going to melt out of my ears, and I was awake when they transferred us from the fucking UFO like out of a D-rated alien movie onto this planet and showered us in some freaky blue liquid before dragging our asses here while you slept through it like a fucking baby.

“We’re on a planet in another fucking solar system far from home, probably lightyears away, Midoriya. We’re not just in space, on some kind of space shuttle or space station, drifting around Earth, ready to drop back down as soon as we make an escape plan. You were right when you said we’re on our own.”

At that, Shigaraki turned back around to face his cellmate, put a hand on his chest, and introduced himself. Maybe he saw how pale Izuku got and took pity on him because he introduced himself properly that time. “Shigaraki,” he said. Then, once again, slower, sounding out the syllables, the troubled look not leaving his face.

It took fewer tries than Izuku expected for his cellmate to repeat his name back to him correctly, then it was his cellmate’s turn.

The bird-like alien put their wing-like appendage to their own chest and said, “H’zashi.” The name started with the “h” sound, quickly changed to the “z” sound that transitioned up into a whistle tone, came back down into a low “sh” sound that had just the quickest click at the the end of it, before finishing off with the “ee” sound at the end. Very intricate and complicated, and Izuku didn’t even attempt it until H’zashi had repeated it four times first to make sure the whistle was the right length and the click was in the right place in his mind’s attempt before he even tried aloud.

When Izuku said “H’zashi” aloud, pleased that his first attempt sounded correct to his own ears, he looked to his cellmate to see them frozen, staring. After another moment, H’zashi clacked their beak at him, and Izuku took that as confirmation that he had gotten it right, otherwise they would have repeated their name again for Izuku to try once more, right?

Izuku smiled at H’zashi, and H’zashi seemed to have startled, tensing up and feathers pulling in tight to their body. Before Izuku could figure out what he had done wrong, H’zashi seemed to have forced themselves to relax again and hesitantly moved forward a half-step, forcing their own face into an attempt of a smile, though it looked like it was awkward on their face, like they did not often contort their facial muscles in that sort of way.

Izuku realized then that smiling was probably not common in alien culture. Baring one’s teeth is often seen as aggression in the animal kingdom, and Izuku theorized that it might be the same case here in space.

“Hey, Shigaraki,” Izuku started, turning toward the other cell to warn the other man. “Smiling might be seen as aggression here, so–”

He turned to see Shigaraki facing his cellmate, his face already stretched into the most grotesque grin his facial muscles could manage, eyes widened and twitching with the effort.

Izuku’s heart rate spiked, wondering just how terribly Shigaraki was going to get along with his cellmate until he saw a similarly creepy imitation of a smile stretched across the cat-alien’s face.

“Okay, then,” Izuku muttered under his breath. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Izuku’s next step was trying to figure out how to try to communicate with H’zashi, wondering if H’zashi had any interest in learning any human language or if it would be solely up to Izuku to learn the alien language. Izuku thought it was a good sign that H’zashi was willing to copy his body language, even when initially frightened by it.

It was odd, even, that they so quickly realized that my smile was a positive thing, Izuku rationalized, instead of going with their first instinct that I was acting aggressively. I wonder what made them change their mind about what a smile must mean.

It was impossible to ask right at that moment. Until they had more of the language gap breached, Izuku wouldn’t be asking much of anything, except, maybe how to say “floor” or “green.”

So, that’s where Izuku started.

Izuku squatted and touched the floor and said “floor” in Japanese, and was thrilled that H’zashi repeated it until he got it right. Then H’zashi brushed their wing over the floor and said what Izuku figured must have been “floor” in their alien language, and Izuku repeated it until he got it right.

Izuku then pointed to his hair and said “green” in Japanese and the process repeated. Izuku was using his shirt to learn the word for “white” when Shigaraki called his name.

Izuku looked over to see Shigaraki seated on the floor at the very edge of his cell, his legs fed through the cell bars into the corridor.

“Join me,” Shigaraki said, gesturing to the opposite side of the corridor, the same spot in the cell to where Shigaraki sat, but in Izuku’s cell instead.

Izuku wondered if Shigaraki was playing out some kind of villainous fantasy in his head telling him to come over and join him like that, but Izuku shrugged and decided to play along anyway, sitting down in a mirror image of Shigaraki, feeding his own legs through the bars into the walkway area outside of his cell.

With both of them sitting like that, their feet were about a half a meter from touching each other, so Izuku knew that Shigaraki couldn’t kick him or anything. He wasn’t sure why Shigaraki insisted on them sitting like that until two aliens that resembled pill bugs came through, pushing a cart. They stopped at every cell and delivered meals from the cart.

When they got to Izuku’s and Shigaraki’s legs, they paused, looking down at their legs, over at them, down at their legs again, at each other, at the cart, down at their legs again, all the while speaking to each other in what sounded like it could be the same language that H’zashi was working on teaching Izuku (but really it could have been something completely different. It was purely a guess. Izuku didn’t know enough words or any syntax to be able to tell). The cart was too wide to be pushed through the gap between their feet, so the aliens were at an impasse.

“These are the kind of aliens that carried your unconscious ass in,” Shigaraki said, waving vaguely at the pill bug aliens.

“H’zashi?” Izuku asked, pointing to the alien closest to himself.

“Dollun,” H’zashi said, and Izuku hoped that was the species of alien that was. Judging by the way the aliens in the corridor basically jumped out of their skin and started arguing with H’zashi, Izuku would have bet money on being correct.

“I think they’re called dollun,” Izuku said to Shigaraki, “though, whether that is the singular or plural of the word is yet to be determined.”

Shigaraki sneered at him from across the hallway. “Seriously? You’re going to worry about grammar?”

Izuku shrugged. “If I’m going to learn a new language, I might as well learn it correctly.” Izuku gestured to his cellmate. “This is H’zashi,” he introduced. He repeated it a few times as Shigaraki got the hang of it.

“This one is Cat-Face,” Shigaraki said, throwing his head nonchalantly in the direction of his own cellmate.

“No they’re not,” Izuku objected flatly.

“No they’re not,” Shigaraki agreed, “but that’s what I’m going to call it. Its name is actually A’zawa.”

Izuku tried it the first time without needing Shigaraki to repeat it, as it was easier for him than H’zashi’s name. It started with an “ah” sound going into a Russian “zh” sound back to an “ah” sound again before going into a “w” sound that rounded off into a short purr before rounding off with the “ah” sound.

A’zawa repeated their own name for Izuku and Izuku heard in the purr where he went wrong and tried again. A’zawa purred, and Izuku took that as confirmation that he had gotten it right–or at least right enough.

Izuku introduced himself to A’zawa, and before Shigaraki could try to introduce himself as “God” again, he introduced Shigaraki to H’zashi, all the while ignoring the dolluns running around, probably becoming more and more frantic now that their schedule is getting more and more off-track the longer that he and Shigaraki impede their progress.

The dolluns eventually grabbed some trays from the cart and carefully stepped through the gap left between Izuku’s and Shigaraki’s feet and approached their cells. They waved a card at a keypad to get the electricity to stop, typed in a code to get a lock to unlatch with an audible tick, and opened up a small gap at the bottom of the cells to slide the trays in, all the while eyeing Izuku and Shigaraki nervously, like they wanted to bait them away from where they were, but that they were also nervous to be holding the bait.

Shigaraki and Izuku didn’t take the bait.

Shigaraki couldn’t seem to help himself from reaching through the bars suddenly toward the dollun at his cell though, screaming out a loud “boo” at them. Both dolluns startled, but the one closest to Shigaraki startled backwards and fell onto their back and flailed around, seemingly unable to get up on their own, or at least unable to get up on their own quickly.

The other dollun was quick to help, however, and rushed to their assistance, pulling them up from the floor. They both backed away quickly from Shigaraki’s cell, not turning their backs to him.

A chittering sound came from Shigaraki’s cell as a trilling sound came from Izuku’s. Were their cellmates laughing? It seemed likely when the dolluns once again began to argue with their cellmates in their alien language.

“That one is saying, “how dare you laugh at me!”” Shigaraki said, leaning forward against the cell bars, holding onto them, letting them take the weight of his arms as he lolled his head onto his shoulder lazily as he spoke, filling in for the translation that neither of them knew. “”You’d be scared shitless, too, if you were in our position!”” he said in a higher pitched tone, substituting what the dolluns might have been saying.

Izuku decided that he could get in on the fun, leaning back to take his weight on his hands. “Our cellmates are saying, “we’re the ones here in the cells with them! You don’t see us jumping and falling over!”” choosing a lower-pitched tone of voice to represent their cellmates’ voice-overs.

Shigaraki barked out a laugh, kicking his feet to rid himself of some excess, restless energy. Izuku laughed, too, easily finding enjoyment in the chaos, even if he didn’t understand the majority of the overlapping voices surrounding him. Both men’s laughter trailed off when they found their cellmates staring at them oddly.

“Well, they haven’t attacked us yet,” Izuku said, shifting his weight from hand to hand as he eyed H’zashi from the corner of his eye.

“They seem more jumpy and scared of us more than anything,” Shigaraki said, abandoning looking at his own cellmate altogether to look over at Izuku once again. “Are we top of the food chain, here?”

Izuku hummed as their cellmates seemed to have regained control of themselves and stopped staring, not moving into attack but not backing off in terror either. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s like you said before–we’ve never traveled out of our solar system. Maybe we’re just an unknown.”

The dolluns ended up leaving, abandoning their cart, and Shigaraki laughed, thinking they had just given up entirely until they came back with tall stick bug-like aliens.

Shigaraki groaned. “These are the ones that grabbed me and forced me into this cell. They’re strong motherfuckers.”

“H’zashi?” Izuku asked, pointing to these ones, now.

“Scrak,” H’zashi answered easily.

To the scraks’ credit, they did not startle and shake like the dolluns did when their species’ names were discussed, but they did whip their heads in their direction, like it was surprising for the discussion to be happening.

Izuku called across the corridor, “they’re called “scrak.” Again, no idea–”

“About the singular versus plural variations,” Shigaraki interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “I get it, Midoriya! You’re a nerd, and you need the whole universe to know!”

“Hey!” Izuku objected. “You’ll be thanking me when we can write scholarly papers in this alien language!”

“When will I ever write a scholarly paper in any language?!” Shigaraki argued. “Let alone this shitty alien one?!”

“You never know!” Izuku insisted.

“How are we going to learn the written language, Midoriya?” Shigaraki asked smugly.

Izuku opened his mouth, and then shut it again.

“Can’t do much writing when we don’t know the written language, dipshit,” Shigaraki sneered.

“I’m sure they have some kind of technology to write and type,” Izuku said. “They must! They just haven’t given it to us.”

“Not every language even has a written language. What if these aliens don’t?”

“Do you think that’s likely, and then them being able to make the technology to have the UFO that reached superluminal speed to bring us here?” Izuku reasoned.

Instead of coming up with a rational argument, Shigaraki just repeated the word “superluminal” in a mocking tone.

“Well, you said “hypersonic” earlier, and that technically is correct,” Izuku said, “because it would have been faster than Mach 5, right? But “superluminal” is more descriptive–”

“Superluminal,” Shigaraki once again repeated in the same mocking tone.

“Okay, maybe you won’t be writing any scholarly papers,” Izuku conceded.

“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” Shigaraki snapped.

“Well, you said you didn’t want to anyway! So now that I’m agreeing with you, you have a problem with it?”

As they argued over hypotheticals, the scraks grabbed hold of the meal cart, lifted it up, and walked it over Izuku’s and Shigaraki’s outstretched legs, effectively breaking them out of their argument.

“Damn,” Shigaraki cursed, pulling his legs in and retreating back into his cell now that his fun was over. “Well, we inconvenienced them for a little while. That was fun!”

“How’d you know they were coming? Did you hear them?” Izuku asked, wondering if he relied too much on Danger Sense and not his other senses and was at a great disadvantage now that he did not have the practice to fall back on.

“Nah,” Shigaraki waved off. “Cat-Face pointed it out to me. Mimed eating and told me that “food” is the word for food.”

Izuku repeated the word in the alien language, Shigaraki corrected his pronunciation, and then they both turned to the food trays in their cells.

Izuku waited until H’zashi grabbed their meal tray before he grabbed his own. Both looked completely foreign; he wasn’t sure which one was for him, so he figured the safest thing to do was to wait and see which one was left. H’zashi grabbed the one that looked like a bowl of mixed nuts, so Izuku was left with the tray of the colorful assortment that looked almost fake.

The tray had a small, dark purple slab of meat on it and some brightly colored vegetation. Izuku called his observations over to Shigaraki and found that Shigaraki had an identical tray.

“No use in trying to barter and trade with each other, then,” Shigaraki observed, looking with narrowed, suspicious eyes at his own tray, poking at his slab of purple meat with a finger.

Izuku shrugged and took a small, tentative bite out of the meat, almost spitting it back out immediately–not because it was bad, but because the taste was not what was expected, like when you take a drink of soda expecting it to be one brand, but are unpleasantly surprised with another.

“Uh…” Izuku started, staring down at his slab of meat before looking over at Shigaraki who had yet to try his. “I don’t know if I’m imagining it because of the color, but it tastes like grape candy,” Izuku warned. “Either way, just know that it’s sweet.”

“Oh, wow,” Shigaraki said, his eyes wide as he looked across the corridor at Izuku. “You’re just going to dig right in are you? Not concerned that they’re–I don’t know–going to fucking poison or drug us or something?”

Izuku shrugged. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought of that, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Shigaraki. “Why would they drag us the whole way here from Earth just to poison us?” Izuku asked, making up his excuse as the words left his mouth. “And if they are trying to drug us and we just don’t eat, I’m sure they’ll just find another way to drug us. It’s best to keep our energy up in case the chance to fight back or escape presents itself.”

Shigaraki looked at Izuku for a long moment in consideration before nodding. “I guess you have a point.”

Izuku nodded back at him with fake confidence, like that was his plan from the beginning, hiding his relief that he found some reasons that made sense that didn’t make him seem like a reckless idiot just biting into whatever strange food that was handed to him. Izuku mentally berated himself for acting like a baby freely taking candy from strangers, acting too trusting.

“Not bad,” Shigaraki said when he finally dug in. When he finally braved the vegetables, a grin grew over his face as he yelled across the corridor, “the salad is sweet, too!”

When some dolluns came through with another cart to collect the empty meal trays, Izuku copied H’zashi by placing his meal tray by the section of bars that he now knew could unlatch. Izuku shouldn’t have been surprised to hear high-pitched arguing coming from across the corridor, only to look over to see Shigaraki hugging his meal tray to his chest, refusing to give it to the dollun. Shigaraki even hissed at the dollun for continuing to try to reason with Shigaraki in a language that Shigaraki clearly could not understand. The dollun then turned to A’zawa to try to reason with them instead, but A’zawa seemed to argue back with the dollun instead of making any move toward trying to take the tray from Shigaraki.

Good move, A’zawa, Izuku thought. Izuku wouldn’t try to take anything from Shigaraki, either, even without him hissing like that. Man’s feral. I’d fear I’d get rabies or something from him if I was A’zawa… Do aliens know about rabies?

“I’m learning so much about you,” Izuku said once the dolluns had given up and decided to allow Shigaraki to keep the meal tray, moving on to collect from other cells down the line.

“Oh, yeah?” Shigaraki asked, putting his meal tray in a far corner so that the dolluns couldn’t come back and sneakily collect it later when he wasn’t paying attention. “Like what?”

“That you’re a hoarder,” Izuku said, trying for nonchalance but failing. “Why do you want to keep that? If you fight them on everything, they’re going to retaliate eventually.”

“It might be useful,” Shigaraki said. “And I don’t think they’re going to retaliate. They stayed far away from our legs earlier. Instead of just running our legs over with the cart, they brought reinforcements to lift the thing and carry it over the obstacle we were making. I don’t think they’re allowed to do anything to us.”

Izuku paused to think it over. “Well, it’s a theory, but if you’re wrong, and you push them over the edge to retaliate for everything you put them through up until that point, it’s going to be a rough time for you.”

Shigaraki shrugged, unconcerned. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Until then, I’ll push limits and you can play good-little-hostage and follow the rules, and we’ll see what happens.”

Izuku sighed, consciously decided not to retort and further the argument. He rubbed at his eyes to clear them, then paused looking around at his surroundings before experimentally rubbing at his eyes again, much to the distress of his cellmate if the wing-fluttering and beak-clacking was anything to go by.

At first, Izuku thought that maybe Shigaraki was right before, and they were drugged, but after checking over his body and noticing that nothing felt different, Izuku figured there must be a different explanation to his vision darkening.

“Does it seem darker in here to you?” Izuku asked Shigaraki.

Shigaraki took a moment to look around, frowning. “Now that you mention it…”

“Gradually dimming lights?” Izuku guessed, looking up at the ceiling. “What’s the purpose of that?”

“Usually to make it seem more natural,” Shigaraki said. “Toga has a light that gradually brightens in the morning to wake her up–she says it helps with her seasonal affective disorder. It doesn’t really make sense in here, though, because everything else is so clinical. It’s obvious we’re inside, locked in cages like animals. Why have the additional expense to gradually dim the lights instead of just shutting them off when it’s time for sleep?”

“Maybe it’s a similar reason to Toga’s,” Izuku guessed. “There are a lot of different species here,” he said, gesturing down the hallway in both directions. “It wouldn't be surprising if there are some that are light-sensitive.”

Shigaraki hummed, sounding not totally convinced.

“Either way, I’m not sleeping tonight,” Izuku informed. “I’m not sure why I was knocked out cold for the transport. It doesn’t seem like I’m concussed, but better safe than sorry, so I’m going to stay awake. I’ll keep guard over you so you can sleep.”

“I was going to sleep anyway,” Shigaraki informed him cheekily, but instead of walking over to his own box of dead grass to sleep in, he meandered over to the one that A’zawa was lying down in, having just settled and gotten comfortable. “If you hear a catfight over here, Cat-Face started it. For the record, I just want to cuddle.”

Izuku sucked in a breath through his teeth as Shigaraki stepped into the box. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

He was thoroughly ignored as Shigaraki flopped himself down and wiggled himself real close up against A’zawa who was frozen in place with wide eyes, but who thankfully did not lash out with teeth or claws against the strange, unexpected actions of his cellmate.

“See?” Shigaraki called out to Izuku from the box. Izuku could barely see him over the pastel-colored grasses and the chrome metal edges of the box keeping everything inside. “It likes it, too!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Izuku responded. “They look petrified.”

“Maybe it can somehow sense what my quirk can do,” Shigaraki guessed, “even though right now it’s nullified– woah! What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck–”

Shigaraki thrashed around and scrambled from the box. A’zawa didn’t move, still looking at Shigaraki with wide, terrified eyes.

“What happened? Find their claws?” Izuku asked, amused.

“No! That grass is not dead!” Shigaraki said, pointing at the offending grass. “It tried to wrap around me, like some kind of parasitic plant! Ready to drag me down and devour me alive!”

Izuku, with brows furrowed in curiosity, walked over to his own box of grasses and put his hand in. He was surprised to find a packed dirt bottom instead of more metal. After a moment of keeping his hand still, the grass blades indeed did wrap around his hand, but they didn’t try to pull his hand down into the dirt; they just wrapped around him and stayed there. They were also quick and easy to release him when Izuku pulled his hand away.

“I don’t think it’s harmful,” Izuku said. “It doesn’t seem to be too strong, and A’zawa and H’zashi don’t seem to be bothered by it,” he reasoned, looking over at the cat alien who was wrapped in the pastel grasses and was still unmoving, still watching Shigaraki with wary eyes, but seemingly unbothered by the grasses winding around them.

H’zashi, too, had allowed the grasses to encase him inside his own metal box and did not seem alarmed in the slightest, eyes open and following what was happening in the cell across the hall instead.

“Like hell I’m sleeping alone, now,” Shigaraki exclaimed, making his way back over to the box that contained A’zawa. “Make room, Cat-Face! You’re the one that has to protect me if this stupid-ass grass tries to strangle me tonight!”

For the second time, Shigaraki cuddled up against A’zawa without retaliation from the alien.

“Look!” Shigaraki called over to Izuku. “I think its claws are sharp enough to cut through this parasitic grass if it tries to strangle me. What do you think?”

Izuku looked over to see Shigaraki holding up one of A’zawa’s paws, pressing gently into the pads to force the claws out for inspection. A’zawa’s eyes were still wide, though Izuku seemed to be able to spot confusion rather than pure terror this time.

“I think you’re terrorizing your cellmate.”

“Yeah, well who asked you?” Shigaraki snapped, dropping the paw, crossing his arms in defiance, and cuddling further into A’zawa’s fur to hide his face from Izuku and the dimming lights.

“You did,” Izuku deadpanned.

Shigaraki didn’t pull his face out of A’zawa’s fur, only flinging his arm out of the pastel grass to flip Izuku off. Within minutes after that, he was asleep.

Chapter Text

H’zashi struggled to divide his attention between the Terran in his own cell and what was happening in A’zawa’s cell, not that there was anything he’d be able to do anything about it, if the blue-furred Terran decided to attack A’zawa.

The green-furred Terran, to H’zashi’s surprise, started to introduce himself, and it seemed to be a similar circumstance in A’zawa’s cell with the blue-furred Terran, as well.

Except, for some reason, the green-furred Terran must not have liked what he was hearing, as he interrupted the introductions to go argue with the blue-furred Terran some more.

Eventually, H’zashi got it right that the green-furred Terran’s name was “Midoriya.” It was a pretty smooth sounding name, if not a little boring without any clicks or chirps to break up the syllables. H’zashi learned that the Terran must be at least decently patient, not immediately giving up or flying into a rage when H’zashi did not pronounce his name correctly the first few tries.

When it was H’zashi’s turn to introduce himself, he copied the motion of putting his wing against his chest and said his name aloud. When Midoriya did not try to say his name right away, H’zashi just continued to say his name again. He was starting to wonder by the third time he said his name if Terrans are even capable of making the sounds required to say his name correctly, but the Terran finally gave it a shot after the fourth time he said his name and it was correct–the very first time the Terran tried!

Was mimicry a talent that Terrans had? Were they not already terrifying enough?

H’zashi broke himself out of his thoughts to clack his beak in confirmation at Midoriya. Midoriya then bared his teeth at H’zashi.

H’zashi tensed in momentary fear before all of his research on Terra and its inhabitants came rushing back to him.

That’s how they smile, he reminded himself. Midoriya is pleased, not angry.

He might not have corrected himself so quickly if he wasn’t used to A’zawa’s culture; they, too, bared their teeth in pleasure and greeting. It was one of the reasons why thretuils were considered an outcast species among the universe.

It was odd seeing a smile on a face that wasn’t A’zawa’s.

H’zashi attempted to smile back, hoping that his earlier practice in the mirrors on the space ship back in Terra’s solar system when he first learned about their odd ways of smiling and showing pleasure and friendliness had paid off and stuck with him. He hoped that it didn’t look as awkward as it felt as he forced himself to bare his teeth at his cellmate against all his instincts that screamed that he was starting a fight.

The Terran–Midoriya–called over to the blue-furred Terran. H’zashi took that moment to see how A’zawa was faring and saw wide, stretched out smiles and wide eyes on both the Terran’s and A’zawa’s faces.

It looked like the initial greeting was going well. Maybe H’zashi was worrying over nothing.

Midoriya touched the floor and said a word in his Terran language, and H’zashi could have taken flight with how giddy he became that the Terran was willing to share his language with him.

H’zashi repeated the word “floor” until he got it right, and then was momentarily stumped on what exactly the translation into Standard would be.

Was Midoriya asking for the word for “floor” or “metal”? H’zashi took a guess and taught Midoriya the word for “metal” in Standard until he got it right.

Next, Midoriya pointed at his fur and said “green,” so H’zashi then taught Midoriya the word for “fur” in Standard.

After that was the word “white” that H’zashi learned was the word for “clothes” in Standard, which is what H’zashi was teaching Midoriya when the blue-furred Terran called a word that H’zashi recognized– Midoriya’s name!

The Terrans then coordinated themselves to stretch their lower limbs out into the corridor.

“What do you think they might be doing?” H’zashi asked A’zawa, watching the Terrans curiously.

“I’m not entirely sure,” A’zawa said. “I taught my Terran how to say “food,” and pointed out that the cart was coming, and this is what he did immediately after.”

“Oh, how interesting!”

“He acted like he understood me, but then he goes and does something like this, going so far to drag his companion into it as well. I’m not sure how to read him, yet,” A’zawa said, watching the Terran in his cell with guarded eyes.

“We didn’t see anything like this during our research on Terra, but maybe they’re part of a subspecies that we didn’t get a chance to observe that need to be seated to digest food,” H’zashi theorized.

“But wouldn’t it make more sense that they would need to be lying down if their orientation was important for digestion?” A’zawa questioned, making H’zashi rethink his initial theory.

Soon it became obvious what exactly the Terrans were up to when the dolluns that were in charge of handing out meals were impeded in their progress by the Terrans’ lower limbs.

Oh, they’re mischievous ones, H’zashi thought to himself, but knew better than to voice his thoughts aloud with the dolluns there, knowing that his giddiness that would leak through in his voice would be sure to start a fight. We might have our hands full with these ones.

“H’zashi?” Midoriya had asked, looking up at him from his place on the floor, against the electrified bars that had no effect on him. H’zashi was once again reminded how effortlessly Midoriya could say his complicated name, but he wasn’t quite as startled as the first time. It would surely take some getting used to, though.

Midoriya pointed at the dolluns, and so H’zashi responded with his best guess of what Midoriya was asking: with the species’ name.

“Dollun,” H’zashi said, and tried to tamper down his glee so it was not so obvious when the dolluns startled.

They startled again, little bug limbs rattling in displeasure when Midoriya said some words in his own language across the hall to the other Terran, but the word “dollun” in Standard was crisp and clear among the unrecognizable words.

They already seemed nervous that the Terran in H’zashi’s cell was already saying H’zashi’s name, but to be able to nonverbally ask a question and get an answer in response? To easily repeat the word in Standard after just hearing it once and then communicate that to another Terran? Maybe H’zashi was giving the dolluns too much credit, though. That would be an interesting development for one of the scientific species on the planet, but not necessarily the guard species. The dolluns were probably just nervous that they were being discussed by the Terrans at all, especially since neither had received a Universal Translation Device implant.

It really did speak to their intelligence, and H’zashi was fascinated all over again. He wanted the dolluns to leave so he could speak freely with A’zawa about their Terran charges.

While the dolluns tried to figure out what to do about the obstacle in their way, he heard Midoriya say his name again, but Midoriya wasn’t looking his way when he looked back down, and his voice didn’t have that uptick at the end of his name.

So, not a question this time, then, H’zashi decided as he watched Midoriya talk to the blue-furred Terran, repeating his name multiple times. An introduction?

Soon, there were two Terrans who knew his name, and H’zashi felt more special than terrified. He didn’t know what the dolluns’ problem was.

Then he heard his partner’s name leave the lips of the blue-furred Terran, and his heart sang that they were getting along and communicating. He also felt a twinge of fear, and knew that sometimes instinct could not be suppressed and it would just have to be something that came with time as he was reminded once again of Terrans’ talent for mimicry. With the shapes of their mouths and throats, he did not suspect that they would have been able to get the purr of A’zawa’s name right, but they did. Oh, but they did.

Midoriya used his smaller appendages at the ends of his upper limbs to point at the blue-furred Terran and repeated a word in his own language that H’zashi understood to be the blue-furred Terran’s name.

H’zashi repeated the blue-furred Terran’s name, “Shigaraki,” and had a great time learning and interacting with the two Terrans as the two dolluns continued to grow more and more panicked in the hallway as they continued to fail to move forward and deliver the meals, growing more and more behind schedule.

Dinner and a show.

“Maybe we can tempt the Terrans away from their spots with their food,” one of the dolluns suggested to the other.

“I don’t want to be holding their food when they come running at me!”

“Well, I don’t either, but what other choice do we have here?!”

It was a decent plan, but the Terrans were not tempted. Not by the food. But, with the dolluns be so close, Shigaraki’s face changed. The corners of his mouth turned up just slightly as his body tensed, and A’zawa and H’zashi prepared themselves for whatever Shigaraki was planning to do.

It wasn’t anything harmful. Shigaraki just let out a loud bark of a noise and made a quick movement toward the dollun, not even trying to grab the dollun, it didn’t seem like. It reminded H’zashi of the childish fun of the kits of A’zawa’s species, how the thretuil kits would stalk each other and jump out at each other for play and sport.

The dollun closest to Shigaraki, however, startled so badly that he fell backwards onto his rounded back and flailed around, unable to get back up without assistance, which the other dollun was quick to provide before they both scuttled away from Shigaraki, closely keeping their eyes on Midoriya as well for good measure.

H’zashi tried to hold in his laughter. He really did. But once A’zawa started laughing, he was no match and couldn't hold back any longer, either.

“It’s not funny!” one of the dolluns snapped at them. “You would react the same way in our position!”

“Oh, you mean, like outside of the bars instead of locked in here with the Terrans? Sure! Why not? Let’s give it a try!” H’zashi offered, splaying his wings out toward the door like he thought they might really fall for it.

The dolluns scowled at them and then turned to each other. “Maybe we should just try pushing the cart over their limbs.”

“Not a good idea,” A’zawa drawled.

“What would you know about it?” the dolluns asked. They didn’t want an answer, but they were going to get one anyway.

“These Terrans are the first two Terrans off of their own planet of Terra,” A’zawa informed. “Ever. In the history of the universe. Do you think your superiors would be pleased if you injured them? What if their injuries are bad enough that they need their limbs amputated? What if they can’t recover from something like that and they die? Two dolluns killing two Terrans just to get a meal cart through. How do you think that will go over?”

One of the dolluns swore. The other one suggested, “what if we asked the scraks to help us lift the cart over their limbs?”

“The scraks hate to help us with our chores.”

“The only two Terrans, though. They can’t risk being injured. I don’t think they’d have a choice.”

The Terrans were talking among themselves, and H’zashi had been keeping an ear on their conversation. He didn’t recognize any words they were saying and he didn’t hear them saying his or A’zawa’s name, but then he froze and turned to stare at them even though staring was rude because he heard their laughter.

He was getting a first-hand witness account of Terran laughter. He could’ve cried. He didn’t think it was possible, and especially not so soon. What were they laughing about after being taken from Terra against their will and locked behind bars?

When the Terrans noticed H’zashi staring (and, after a quick glance over at A’zawa, H’zashi realized that A’zawa was staring, too), their laughter trailed off. H’zashi made a mental note to try not to stare the next time they laughed to see if they would keep going for longer.

“H’zashi?” Midoriya asked when the dolluns came back with the scraks. H’zashi gave Midoriya his immediate attention and found him pointing at the scraks.

H’zashi fought down a trill, so pleased that his cellmate had such a desire to learn. “Scrak,” H’zashi informed.

The process from before repeated, with Midoriya informing Shigaraki of what he had learned and the scraks seeming unpleasantly surprised that the Terrans were learning of their species’ name and learning to communicate without the help of the Universal Translation Device.

The scrak, known for their single-minded focus, ignored the conversation and just set their minds to the task of lifting the meal cart up and over the Terrans’ lower limbs as the Terrans continued their conversation in their own language, seemingly getting more heated as their speech became louder and more pressured, but not nearly to the level as when they first arrived.

The scraks completing their task seemed to have broken the Terrans’ argument completely as Shigaraki pulled his lower limbs back into his cell, Midoriya following soon after.

Instead of going right for the meal trays, the Terrans talked some more, and Shigaraki returned the favor of teaching and taught Midoriya the word for “food” in Standard.

The Terrans waited until after H’zashi and A’zawa grabbed their meal trays before grabbing their own. H’zashi would have predicted that they would have grabbed theirs, or even both options, first, seeing how territorial they could be on their home planet. But, these Terrans were also smart and on a different planet. They might not recognize these food options and might not know which tray is for them and if the other meal option for their cellmates is even safe for them to consume, H’zashi rationalized.

The Terrans continued to talk in between bites as they ate, so H’zashi and A’zawa did the same.

“Strange situation we’ve found ourselves in,” A’zawa said.

H’zashi hummed, eyes crinkling in amusement at his partner. “I did warn you that unluck was coming our way.”

“You did,” A’zawa said. “Good thing the deathworlders we’re trapped with are the ones that we’ve been researching for gigaclicks.”

“That does make it easier in some ways,” H’zashi said.

“Only some ways?” A’zawa asked, as always knowing what questions to ask.

“I feel like our research of their species in general might cloud my judgment of me getting to know them as individuals,” H’zashi explained. “It happens everywhere, and I fear this will be no different. Especially because we have no anecdotal information to compare it to.”

“I see,” A’zawa said. “It can be said that aldoi and thretuil cannot coexist, for instance, but if someone knows us, they know that it can, in fact, be done.”

“Exactly,” H’zashi said. “I tensed up earlier when he smiled at me,” H’zashi admitted, looking at Midoriya sitting on the floor, eating from his colorful tray. “I should have remembered from our research and been used to it from your species, but I still froze.”

“They seem flexible and forgiving, so far,” A’zawa noted. “For all the yelling that occurred upon first arrival,” he amended with a sheepish grin. “But they even seemed to have worked that out with each other.”

“Yes,” H’zashi agreed. “I can only hope that any miscommunication mistakes that are made can be fixed instead of acted rashly upon.” H’zashi sighed, nervous all of a sudden. “I really like these Terrans so far.”

“Are you surprised?” A’zawa asked. “I don’t think there’s anyone we’ve met so far that you haven’t grown to like, eventually. You always see the good in everyone.”

“Well, we haven’t met whoever has accused us of forging research documents,” H’zashi said. “There’s still time!”

Once again, the lovers found themselves laughing while locked inside the research facility that doubled as a prison while trapped in separate cells and having Terrans as their cellmates. Never in a terraclick would H’zashi have predicted this, but oddly enough, he was content.

“Some Terrans are more territorial than others?” A’zawa theorized aloud when Shigaraki refused to give his meal tray back to the dolluns after meal time was over, but Midoriya copied H’zashi in giving back his meal tray easily.

“Get the tray from him!” the dollun commanded.

A’waza blankly stared at the dollun. “Who are you to give me commands? I’m here as a prisoner, in case you forgot. As far as I’m concerned, that Terran is on my team, and you are not. I’m not making enemies with my cellmate. Get it yourself.”

The dollun looked between A’zawa and Shigaraki and eventually gave up when the scraks wouldn’t even respond to their request for help, advising to just “let the Terran keep his trinket” and “maybe he’ll be dumb enough to put it within reach so you can grab it when he’s sleeping.”

When the lights started to dim to indicate the start of the sleeping period of the cycle, H’zashi about panicked when he saw Midoriya rubbing at his eyes, and was immensely relieved when he stopped to see no visible damage to the Terran’s eyes. But, then he started rubbing at his eyes again, and it didn’t look gentle! H’zashi flapped his wings and clacked his beak at him to get him to stop, and luckily, Midoriya seemed to abandon the eye-rubbing for talking to Shigaraki instead, to H’zashi’s relief.

H’zashi watched as Midoriya and Shigaraki both looked upwards towards the dimming lights and realized that they have no idea what is going on and he has no way of explaining it to them. They must be so confused to be inside but have the lights dim gradually instead of flick on and off suddenly. Midoriya must have thought something was wrong with his eyes, and that’s why he became self-destructive with them, but H’zashi is pretty sure that Terran eyes do not regenerate when destroyed, so it is an odd behavior to have, for sure.

“The Terrans have no way of knowing that it’s time for sleep,” H’zashi said. “We should get an early start to bed to show them!”

A’zawa agreed that it was a good idea, and H’zashi and A’zawa both traversed to their bed-grass boxes.

Luckily, along with their hint, the Terrans must have realized that the dimming lights, even while indoors, meant that it was time to go to sleep, because Shigaraki headed toward the bed-grass boxes. Except, he went straight for the box that A’zawa was in instead of the free one.

“A’zawa!” H’zashi called out. “Uh–I think the territorial Terran has claimed your bed-grass box as his own! You might want to evacuate–!”

It was too late.

Shigaraki had climbed into the bed-grass box with A’zawa. H’zashi and A’zawa froze, both afraid to even breathe too loud in fear of setting off the territorial Terran, who is so territorial that he would not even give his meal tray back to the dolluns. If A’zawa moved and Shigaraki felt that A’zawa was invading his space, it could result in a bloodbath.

A’zawa was obviously forcing himself to be still, even as Shigaraki continued to talk to Midoriya as he snuggled up against A’zawa.

H’zashi wanted to ask A’zawa if it felt like he was being affectionate on purpose, but he was too afraid to make a noise that might set Shigaraki off, because what if he was wrong? What if Shigaraki was not being affectionate despite what it looked like? What if one wrong move, one reminder that A’zawa was there, in Shigaraki’s space, would be all it would take for Shigaraki to lash out?

Shigaraki yelled, and H’zashi could have cried if he wasn’t frozen in terror. But, instead of attacking A’zawa, Shigaraki leaped out of the bed-grass box, away from A’zawa.

A’zawa, not looking away from Shigaraki for a single second, just in case, whispered, “I think the bed-grass startled him. They probably don’t have anything like bed-grass on Terra.”

H’zashi let out the breath he was holding and his three wildly beating hearts calmed just slightly as he waited to see what would happen next as Shigaraki continued to yell in his language, communicating with Midoriya but pointing at A’zawa’s bed-grass box.

Midoriya walked over to his own (not H’zashi’s, thank the stars) bed-grass box and put his hand inside. After a few clicks, he pulled away again and spoke across the hall to Shigaraki in their language, but H’zashi recognized his own and his partner’s names.

Shigaraki stormed back over to A’zawa’s box, and both lovers were tense, waiting to see what would happen. Shigaraki talked to A’zawa in his own language, even though he must know that A’zawa would not understand. He climbed back into the box, fully knowing that A’zawa was already in there, but he didn’t make any obvious gestures that he wanted A’zawa to leave.

In fact, he grabbed A’zawa’s limb, and seemingly called out to Midoriya, showing Midoriya his paw for some reason, somehow knowingly or coincidentally pushing in just the right spots to get A’zawa’s claws to unsheath. H’zashi held his breath again, hoping that Shigaraki wouldn’t see that as a threat, but Shigaraki just dropped A’zawa’s paw and once again snuggled up to A’zawa’s chest, squirming for a click before seeming to get comfortable and finally stilling.

“Oh my stars,” H’zashi whispered to himself when everything seemed to have settled down.

And if he thought Shigaraki was scary, every time he looked to see if Midoriya had gone to his bed-grass box, he found reflective green eyes, still wide open and awake, looking around as if categorizing every iota of everything he could see. H’zashi had to wonder how much he could see in the dark and how much sleep Terrans actually needed.

He made a mental note to discuss with A’zawa when they awoke… if they both survived the sleep portion of the cycle.

“My Terran didn’t sleep all night!” H’zashi reported the next morning, when it was finally safe to do so. Or, well, safe enough, H’zashi figured, once Shigaraki had woken up and moved away from A’zawa.

Oh, and how stressful that had been! Some species were disoriented and aggressive upon waking up, let alone if they were waking up in an unfamiliar place, like the Terran would be. A’zawa braced himself for the worst only for Shigaraki to blink up blearily at him, snuggle his face against his fur for just a tick longer, before taking a deep, groaning breath that just about made H’zashi jump out of his feathers. After that, Shigaraki pulled himself up out of the bed-grass box and seemed to stretch out his limbs while conversing with Midoriya.

Disaster averted. Narrowly, probably.

“Mine did,” A’zawa said, glancing at Shigaraki. “Very soundly.”

“Maybe mine is a different sub-species that doesn’t need as much sleep,” H’zashi theorized, looking back and forth between the two.

“Or maybe stress affects them differently. Mine was very loud when they first arrived. Maybe that’s how he got his anxious energy out. Yours was rather calm, but maybe that means his anxiety had not been released, and that kept him awake longer. If that’s the case, his sleep schedule should eventually stabilize once the anxious energy naturally works its way out of his system,” A’zawa said.

“Well, hopefully sooner rather than later,” H’zashi squawked. “It was nerve-wracking being watched all night like that.”

“Maybe your Terran is a snuggler, too,” A’zawa pondered.

“On second thought,” H’zashi said with a nervous trill in the back of his throat, looking sideways at Midoriya as he talked with Shigaraki. “Maybe it won’t be so bad to have another night being watched over, as long as that means I get by bed-grass box to myself.”

“Oh?” A’zawa teased. “But you love to snuggle.”

“You,” H’zashi stated firmly with the clack of his beak for emphasis. “I love to snuggle you, lover. But I don’t know how I’d feel about getting all close and personal with a deathworlder.”

“Are you jealous?” A’zawa asked, sly smile sliding over his face.

“Jealous?!” H’zashi squawked. Then he paused, taking a second to glance at A’zawa’s cellmate. “I think I am, a little, but for different reasons.”

A’zawa made a ‘go on’ gesture with his paw, and H’zashi decided to oblige.

“Not only does someone other than me get to snuggle with you,” H’zashi said, “but you are snuggling with a Terran. Who ever would have thought either of us would have gotten that experience? So, I might be a little jealous, but I’m glad that one of us is getting the experience as long as it does turn out to be safe in the end,” H’zashi explained. “But I’m more than satisfied to watch from a distance!” he said, already objecting to what he guessed A’zawa might suggest next. “So, no! I won’t be sliding in next to my Terran to get the experience for myself!”

“But at least you’ll know that it’s not a death sentence if your Terran decides to do the same thing this cycle,” A’zawa said. “Your feathers are a lot harder to control than my tail or claws when under stress.”

“That’s a good point,” H’zashi said. “I think there might have been some injuries, maybe even a fight that could have broken out without a way to communicate that I can’t help what my feathers do under stress, if Midoriya had tried to snuggle with me last cycle.”

Midoriya looked between H’zashi and A’zawa, recognizing the use of his name.

“Whoops,” H’zashi said, puffing up his feathers. “I used the Terran’s name.”

A’zawa nodded sagely. “We’ve got to get you better at gossiping.”

Over the next two cycles, A’zawa and H’zashi took the time to learn more about their cellmates. A’zawa learned that Shigaraki was not going to sleep in his own bed-grass box any time soon, and that he had a regular sleep schedule. H’zashi learned that Midoriya tried to stay awake as long as possible, and sometimes fell asleep against the electrified bars. When he was truly exhausted, he would sometimes drag himself into his own bed-grass box, but never ventured in to snuggle with H’zashi in his.

On the third cycle, H’zashi and A’zawa freaked out a little bit (okay, a lot) when Midoriya and Shigaraki got into similar positions, bodies straight, and hands on the floor. Then, at the same time, they began to push themselves up and let themselves fall back down, each saying the same words at the same time.

“Are they playing?” A’zawa guessed.

“Oh!” H’zashi exclaimed after another moment of watching them. “Maybe it’s a competition! Like how the aldoi see how many jumps we can do on one leg before we fall over!”

They watched them a few clicks longer before A’zawa’s body tensed, getting closer to get a better look at Shigaraki.

“He’s sweating!” A’zawa shouted, alarmed. “Stop, Shigaraki! Stop!”

“Mine is, too!” H’zashi said, wings flapping with panic. “Stop, Midoriya! Both of you, please! This game isn’t worth dying for!”

“Guards! Guards!” A’zawa and H’zashi started to yell out. Everyone watching the Terrans and listening in to A’zawa’s and H’zashi’s commentary started to yell out, getting some dolluns to come running.

“They’re dying!” H’zashi yelled, feathers sharpened with stress and splayed out as he indicated toward his cellmate, who was still going through the weird pushing and falling motions and seemed to be counting in his Terran language. “They’re sweating! At this rate, they’re going to lose all their water and die from dehydration! Get as much water as you can!”

The dolluns scrambled for it, yelling commands in their communication devices. It was all limbs on deck to save the two Terrans on Kulphea who were obviously on their deathbeds.

Sweating, for all species, was a last ditch effort to cool the overheated, but it was a flaw in the body’s design in that while it attempted to cool that what was overheated, it used essential water to do so, thereby killing the individual via dehydration where they were saved from being overheated. Either way, they were doomed unless they could get the Terrans cooled down and rehydrated. Quickly.

And maybe if they would stop doing that exercise, for stars’ sake!

A’zawa, in the infinite wisdom he possessed, jumped up on Shigaraki’s back in an effort to flatten him to the surface. It would cool his body against the metal floor and keep him still until the water replenishment could arrive.

H’zashi thought this was a great idea, so he placed himself on Midoriya’s back, having to focus on the emergency at hand rather than this being the first time he was touching his Terran cellmate.

To the lovers’ infinite horror, the Terrans kept going. They were making it even worse, they noticed, as they watched the sweat continue to gather at a higher rate on the backs of the Terrans’ necks, darkening the Terrans’ hair with their effort as they continued with their competition, not even slowing down!

These Terrans had no sense of self-preservation! How were H’zashi and A’zawa going to keep them alive?!

Chapter Text

“If the aliens don’t kill me, the boredom might,” Shigaraki complained as he lied on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m not a reader, but damn, if I had a book right now…”

“I was actually at the mall to get a book!” Izuku chimed. “All Might’s Greatest Rescues: Golden Age Edition.”

There was a noticeable pause where Shigaraki didn’t move or say anything, just took some deep breaths as he contemplated his options. “Did you manage to buy it before I got to you?”

“No,” Izuku said. “But I’m surprised that you’d actually consider it.”

Shigaraki screamed at the ceiling. His long, drawn-out scream turned into a groan, which turned into a whine, and that turned almost into a sob.

“Besides,” Izuku continued like Shigaraki didn’t just have a mental breakdown, “it’s not like I’m hoarding it over here in the cell with me. I don’t think the aliens would have let me keep it even if I did have it on me when they took us. And I think you would have noticed if I had a book over here by now.”

When Izuku didn’t get a scathing response, he tried a different tactic.

“Want to have a push-up competition?”

“What?” Shigaraki asked, voice hoarse from screaming.

“I know you’re in shape,” Izuku said. “Probably not enough to hold your own against me in a push-up competition,” he baited, “but it will still be something to ease the boredom.”

“Oh, I know exactly what you’re doing,” Shigaraki said. “But fuck if it’s not working anyway,” he grunted as he flipped over into push-up position.

They started their competition with both of them counting as they went.

Once they were about 35 in, Shigaraki heard A’zawa yelling something with his name in the mix.

“Ha!” Shigaraki bragged as Izuku continued the count. “Cat-Face is cheering me on! He’s saying, “Go, Shigaraki, Go!” Where’s Bird-Face at? Not cheering for you?”

Shigaraki rejoined the counting just in time to hear H’zashi start squawking something with Midoriya’s name mixed in.

“What was that?” Midoriya asked. “I couldn’t hear you over my cellmate’s support!”

The cellblock erupted with all the aliens in the cells next to theirs yelling as well.

“Oh! Looks like we’re the entertainment for the whole cellblock today!” Shigaraki exclaimed.

“If they’re smart, they’ll be placing their bets on me!” Izuku huffed. “Feeling the burn, yet, Shigaraki?”

“In your dreams, Midor–” Next thing Shigaraki knew, A’zawa was on his back. “Oh this is not fair! I have extra weight now, so–”

But when Shigaraki looked up, Izuku also had his cellmate on his back.

“Huh,” Shigaraki huffed out as Izuku continued the counting, smiling at him all the while. “I bet Cat-Face weighs more.”

“I don’t know how to ask about weights, yet,” Izuku said as Shigaraki took over the counting. “Do you?”

“No,” Shigaraki huffed, feeling the effort through his whole body now that the extra weight was really taking a toll on him. “But don’t birds have hollow bones or some shit?”

“Usually, yeah,” Izuku said. “But these are aliens, so their anatomy might not follow the same rules as on Earth. They might have evolved differently.”

“Well, when we find a way to go back to Earth, we’re bringing these fuckers with us so we can see which one weighs more.”

Izuku huffed out a laugh and almost toppled over, wobbling with the effort to stay in the competition. “I don’t know if they’ll agree to that.”

Shigaraki took a few deep breaths before he responded. “They haven’t argued against anything else so far.”

The dolluns running around outside their cells were easy to ignore until they opened up their cell slots and started rolling bottles of water at them. That was weird enough for them to abandon their competition without a winner being decided as bottle after bottle was rolled at them and started to pile up.

“Do they not think that I’ve hoarded enough of them?” Shigaraki asked, gaining his breath back as A’zawa flitted around him, opening a bottle of water and shoving it at his face. “Oh, fuck. I think Cat-Face is worried about me.”

Shigaraki looked over to see Izuku being given the same treatment with H’zashi holding the bottle of water at an angle in Izuku’s mouth so that Izuku is forced to drink or drown. Izuku made eye contact with Shigaraki and offered him a shrug.

“Well, that was weird,” Izuku said, once H’zashi finally gave him a moment to breathe.

“I’m so full,” Shigaraki complained, holding his stomach as A’zawa tried to hand him another bottle of water.

They were watched closely by their cellmates for the rest of the cycle. They usually were, but it was like their cellmates wouldn’t leave within an arms’ reach of them this time instead of just often finding them watching from across the cell, and they were regularly given bottles of water like clockwork and just stared at as they drank them.

“We must have worried them somehow,” Izuku said.

“I’d suggest doing it again,” Shigaraki said, “just for fun and to fuck with them, but I think I might drown if I have to drink one more bottle of water.”

“The guard rotation has increased as well,” Izuku noted as he watched the fourth dollun walk past since the water incident. “I wonder if that’s a permanent thing or just until they’re sure we’re okay.”

“I’m going to start scaring ‘em again if it’s permanent,” Shigaraki warned, watching the retreating form of the dollun going down the corridor.

It was not permanent; it only lasted until the end of the cycle.

Izuku smiled when he handed over his empty water bottles as he heard the tell-tale arguing of the dollun, knowing without even looking that Shigaraki added his bottles to his hoard pile.

“I wonder if it would purr if I scratched under its chin,” Shigaraki said as he woke up four cycles after their abduction, still not having slept in his own metal box of freaky grasses.

“I hope they bite you,” Izuku said.

“I didn’t say I was actually going to do it,” Shigaraki said, turning onto his back to stretch. “Just that I was curious.”

“I hope they bite you anyway,” Izuku said. “I’m surprised they haven’t with how you aren’t leaving them alone. Why aren’t you sleeping in your own box?”

Shigaraki sat up and shrugged, not looking over at Izuku as he answered. “I haven’t slept alone in years. The League all sleep together in one room, just in case of attacks. So there would be immediate notification and help, you know? I haven’t gone a single night without having Toga kicking me in her sleep or having Dabi draped over me.”

“That’s actually kind of nice,” Izuku commented.

“It started out as a survival tactic, nothing more,” Shigaraki explained, rolling out of the box of grasses and onto the metal floor. He didn’t make a move from there to stand up, just lied there on the floor next to the box. “We made a lot of enemies, and it was safer for us all to be together so no one attacking would be able to divide and conquer. Even after we went so long without anyone trying anything, we never got out of the habit of everyone sleeping in one room.”

“Even the more… distinguished villains, like Mr. Compress?” Izuku asked. “He agreed with all that?”

“I think he might have been the one who suggested it in the first place,” Shigaraki said. “He’s at least the one who fought for it the hardest. When I said no, he started going on, something about there being more teamwork and trust in the heists he’s done that required less skill and had fewer stakes than what we were trying to do at the League, and we all just agreed to sleep in the same room together to get the lecture to be over.”

Izuku laughed, and Shigaraki laughed, too, finally sitting up and heaving himself off the floor. “Yeah,” Shigaraki said, “it’s funny now looking back on it, but I was so pissed at the time. What I wouldn’t give to be back with them right now. Do you miss anyone specific?”

Izuku grinned warily. “Depends. Are you going to use this information against me when we get back?”

Shigaraki didn’t smile. “Are we ever getting back?”

Izuku didn’t have an answer for that. So, instead, he said, “I miss my mom. I’m sure she’s stressed that I’m missing, and it probably doesn’t help that I was last seen with you at the mall. The League didn’t have to worry about other villains breaking in, but you continued to sleep together in the same room. I hope they would keep that up after we were abducted, because they need to be prepared when the fearsome Mrs. Midoriya breaks down the door in search of her son.”

That got Shigaraki smiling again.

“If she can find the base,” Shigaraki challenged.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Izuku said. “And I think there’s a multiplier when that woman is a mother.”

“You’re lucky,” Shigaraki said, “to have her in your corner. Not every mother has that fury.”

Izuku was taking a wild guess when he said, “yours didn’t.”

“Maybe deep down she did,” Shigaraki said with this far off look in his eyes. “But it wasn’t enough to protect me.” He shook his head as if to physically rid himself of his memories. “But that was a long time ago.”

There was a long pause, long enough to become awkward before Shigaraki spoke again.

“Anyone else you miss?” Shigaraki asked. “So I can exploit the information later, of course. Not because I’m interested or anything.”

“Of course,” Izuku said, scrunching his nose and nodding, like he totally believed Shigaraki’s comment. Shigaraki flipped him off for his effort, and Izuku laughed. “I miss Kacchan,” Izuku said. “Good luck using that against me.”

“Bakugou Katsuki?” Shigaraki asked, voice laced with disbelief. “Yeah, I’m not trying to recruit that one again,” Shigaraki said. “You can keep him.” After a short pause, “Why Bakugou of all people? I could never figure out if you two were actually friends or not, and I landed on not, actually.”

Izuku laughed and found that he was actually enjoying the conversation. “He’s been my best friend since we were little kids,” Izuku said. “We’ve had some rough patches… some really rough patches, but we’re good now. You kind of remind me of him,” Izuku said. Then, he quickly added, “But don’t tell him I said that; he would hate to be compared to a villain, even if that’s not what I meant.”

“I’m nothing like him,” Shigaraki protested.

“You both curse like it’s going out of style. You both give people terrible nicknames instead of using their actual names. You both even call yourselves “God!” You, here, with your introductions, and Kacchan with the whole Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight mouthfull of a hero alias he chose,” Izuku said, listing the similarities on his fingers as he went. “I don’t know how much more evidence you want, Shigaraki!”

“I do none of those things!” Shigaraki protested.

“Oh, so now we’re just lying?!” Izuku asked, throwing his hands up.

“I don’t swear that much!” Shigaraki said, derailing the conversation to just one of Izuku’s points.

“Okay,” Izuku said. “We’ll see.”

“What do you mean by that?” Shigaraki asked. When he got no answer, he repeated, “Midoriya? What do you mean by that?!”

Shigaraki found out what Izuku meant when the meal cart came a little while later.

“Thank fuck!” Shigaraki exclaimed. “I’m starving! Withering away to nothing over here!”

“Thank fuck, indeed,” Izuku said, smug smile on his face, eyes fully on Shigaraki and not on the cart being pushed down the corridor.

Shigaraki looked at him strangely, but was distracted by the dollun putting his and A’zawa’s trays into their cell.

“How much do you want to bet that everything on this fucking tray is sweet?” Shigaraki asked, frowning down at his meal.

“Not a fucking thing,” Izuku responded, narrowing his eyes to see if Shigaraki would catch on. “We’ve been having all different kinds of foods for the past three days, and everything has been sweet so far, so I’m not taking that bet.”

Shigaraki, already frowning at Izuku’s antics, took a bite out of the turquoise steak and frowned deeper as he chewed. “It’s sweet, too,” he informed, tossing it back onto his tray. “I’d kill for something savory, or even salty,” he complained.

“You’ve killed for less,” Izuku chimed with a nod and a shrug.

Shigaraki leveled Izuku with a dead stare through the two sets of cell bars that separated them. “I’d give high-quality CPR to All Might for something savory right now,” Shigaraki deadpanned, his voice level with the determination and truthfulness to his words. “I wouldn’t stop until I saved that man’s life. I’d assign Dabi to do compressions–he’s quite good for how lanky he looks–and I’d give that fucker mouth to mouth, even if I didn’t have a barrier around to keep his gross germs off me. I’d send Compress to go get that sparky friend of yours to zap All Might’s heart back into rhythm, and if he wouldn’t do it for us, then Toga could after a little blood transfusion. That motherfucker would live, and he would take his broken ribs and go get me a real steak for the effort.”

Izuku stared at Shigaraki for a long moment.

“What?” Shigaraki snapped.

“I just didn’t know you knew how to give CPR,” Izuku said. “Since fuckin’ when, and who’s the motherfucker that taught you and the rest of the League?”

Shigaraki scoffed. “I’m a villain, not an idiot.”

“That explains nothing and answers none of my questions,” Izuku muttered under his breath, rubbing the spot between his eyes to smother the oncoming headache.

“Hey! If you have anything that is not sweet over there, you better fucking share it with me!” Izuku then heard Shigaraki muttering to himself, under his breath, “never thought I’d see the day I was sick of candy. Kurogiri’s going to think I’m the alien when I get back and ask for vegetables. Where is the real Shigaraki Tomura? What have you done with him, you alien scum? Would Kurogiri say that? Alien scum? Alien gentleman? Alien sir?”

Izuku, flabbergasted at what he was overhearing, looked over to see Shigaraki talking to himself, eyes narrowed in concentration as he tried to imitate the League member, hands absentmindedly squeezing and releasing the cell bars over and over again like his quirk might somehow magically activate despite the quirk-canceling cuffs around his wrists.

“Yeah,” Izuku hedged, watching Shigaraki out of the corner of his eye as he focused on his food. “I wouldn’t fucking dream of keeping it to myself.”

That got his attention.

“I get it! Okay?! I swear a fuckton!” Shigaraki screeched. “You can cut it the fuck out now! You’ve made your damn point!”

Izuku shrugged. “It’s kind of fucking fun,” he said, trying to tamp down the urge to smile at Shigaraki’s expense. “You and Kacchan have the right idea. I should’ve started this cursing all the time thing ages ago.”

Shigaraki rolled his eyes and seemingly decided to change the subject, with food the more pressing matter on his mind than Izuku’s shenanigans. “Hey! Cat-Face has meat, too, but it’s like.. shredded. It’s probably sweet and gross. What does Bird-Face have?” Shigaraki asked.

“Why don’t you use their names?” Izuku asked.

“You think they use ours?” Shigaraki asked. “I’d bet anything that they talk about us constantly, but they can’t use our names when they’re doing it or it would give them away,” Shigaraki explained.

Izuku looked between A’zawa and H’zashi, who were conversing at that very moment, and he did wonder what they were talking about. He figured that they did probably talk about them. Not all the time, but at least some of the time, so it would make sense that they were calling them something else other than their names so they wouldn’t recognize when they were talking about them.

“Okay,” Izuku said. “You might have a point.”

“Yeah, I do!”

“I just didn’t think you were one to care if people knew you were talking about them or not,” Izuku said nonchalantly. 

Shigaraki’s jaw dropped. “I don’t!” he protested immediately.

“It sure seems like you do!” Izuku sang.

“Well, I don’t!” Shigaraki insisted. “Are you going to tell me what H’zashi is eating or not?!”

H’zashi looked up at the sound of his name.

“H’zashi food?” Izuku questioned in Standard while pointing to the nuts on H’zashi’s tray.

“Crocknets,” H’zashi said, feathers splayed over his bowl of nuts.

“Midoriya and Shigaraki try crocknets?” Izuku asked, pointing to himself, to Shigaraki, and then to his mouth to mime eating, before pointing to the nuts again.

“Midoriya and Shigaraki try crocknets,” H’zashi said, handing over two of the nuts.

“One, two,” Izuku tried, placing one at a time in his palm until H’zashi humored him and taught him how to count, using all of the nuts in the bowl until he got up to fourteen.

“If you’re done playing teacher-student, I’m dying to try that thing!” Shigaraki shouted.

“It’s a crocknet,” Izuku said, putting his hand through the bars to accurately toss one over to Shigaraki. “And who knows! We might die trying these things! We don’t know if they’re safe for us to eat!”

“I’ll take my chances, thank you very much!” Shigaraki snapped. Then, after a pause, a genuine, “Thank you, Midoriya.”

“You’re welcome, Shigaraki,” he said, beaming. “It was a good idea. I’m tired of all the sweet stuff, too.”

Shigaraki bit into the nut with his teeth, not bothering to use his hoard of trays to crack the shell. Without further ceremony, he ate the center of the nut and groaned. “It’s salty!” he yelled in celebration. “It’s delicious! It reminds me of a cashew!”

Izuku had to agree.

“Hey! Hey you! No hard feelings about before, right?” Shigaraki was yelling when the dolluns came to collect their meal trays, even as he continued to refuse to give his meal trays back. “Can you give us humans some of these next time?” Shigaraki asked, holding out the shell of the nut with one hand and frantically pointing to it with the other.

The dollun looked at what Shigaraki was holding before looking away again, seemingly uninterested. Then that dollun did a double-take, and even stepped closer to make sure they were seeing correctly what Shigaraki held in his hand.

The dollun turned to H’zashi and started questioning him.

“Oh, no,” Izuku fretted. “I hope we didn’t get H’zashi in trouble for sharing his food. Maybe that’s not allowed.”

Shigaraki hummed as he watched the conversation. “They don’t seem as heated as usual. Is H’zashi miming how you threw the nut to me?”

Izuku looked over to see that that was indeed what was happening. H’zashi then turned 180 degrees to act as Shigaraki, catching the nut for the dollun.

They didn’t even have to wait for the next meal to get their nuts, but the dolluns only brought a bowl of nuts to Izuku, and not to Shigaraki.

“What in the actual fuck?!” Shigaraki complained. “They’re playing favorites now?!”

“You know I’ll share with you!” Izuku soothed. “Something about us sharing with each other must have interested them. I’ve never seen that species before. H’zashi?” he asked, pointing to the new species that resembled moths with delicate, flimsy wings fluttering behind them as they came to observe.

“Dreto,” H’zashi supplied.

The dretos looked even more interested by that short interaction, but rather than being allowed to dwell on it, Shigaraki commanded Izuku’s attention.

“Well? Are you going to share or not, hero?”

“I don’t know,” Izuku teased. “Would you have shared if they had given you the bowl instead?”

Shigaraki scowled. “Of course I would have!”

“I believe you,” Izuku said, reaching into the bowl to grab a crocknet.

“What? You’re not going to make me grovel and beg?” Shigaraki asked as Izuku tossed him the first nut of many. “I would have at least made you do that.”

Izuku laughed, entertained and not in the least bit surprised. “Well, it’s still early,” Izuku taunted, tilting the bowl to show Shigaraki how many more crocknets there were to go. “I have only given you one so far!”

“That sounds like a threat,” Shigaraki said after swallowing the first bite of his reward. “I think I’m a bad influence on you, hero.”

“Maybe I’m just learning new skills all the time,” Izuku said with a smile and a shrug. “Plus Ultra?”

Shigaraki snickered at that and held his hands outside of the cell bars for another crocknet, which Izuku threw to him without hesitation.

“See?” Shigaraki said, bringing the nut to his mouth to crack open with his teeth. “You make threats, but you don’t make good on them. I guess I have more to teach you.”

“Like I said before,” Izuku said after swallowing his own bite. “We’re allies as long as we’re here. As far as I’m concerned, what’s mine is yours. I’m going to share every advantage I have with you until we’re both home.” Shigaraki raised an unconvinced eyebrow at that. “Put me in this same position with the alien that orchestrated our capture, and I would eat all these myself, laughing all the while!”

“Doubtful.”

“Seriously!” Izuku insisted. “Maybe I’d toss them the shells afterwards, just to be a dick!”

Shigaraki laughed. “Now that, I’d like to see!”

So, Izuku tossed him an empty shell instead of a full crocknet.

“Not to me, you asshole!”

Izuku laughed as he tossed Shigaraki three more crocknets to make it up to him.

He noticed the dretos conversing among themselves, looking first at Izuku, then Shigaraki, then back at Izuku again. Despite not having access to his quirk, despite not having access to Danger Sense in particular, he had a bad feeling about them and what their conversation might consist of.

“It’s weird that we haven’t seen the moth-like aliens before, until now. Right?” Izuku asked Shigaraki, trying to brainstorm and work out if his feeling was nothing to be concerned about.

Shigaraki, more focused on opening his latest crocknet than what was happening with the dretos down the corridor hummed.

“Shigaraki,” Izuku insisted, thrusting his head in the dretos’ direction when Shigaraki finally looked up. “It’s weird that we haven’t seen them before until now, right?” Izuku repeated. “I have this bad feeling about them…”

That got Shigaraki’s attention.

“Danger Sense?” Shigaraki asked. “You think these stupid things,” Shigaraki banged one of the metal bracelets encasing his wrists against the bars of his cell in demonstration, “have a time limit or something?”

“It’s not Danger Sense,” Izuku said, trying to tamp down his frustration that Shigaraki would not stay on topic. “It’s just a regular, old bad feeling. I don’t like the way they’re watching us. I wish I knew what they were saying.”

Shigaraki seemed to be taking Izuku’s concern seriously as his eyes glanced around the area, not lingering on the dretos to not allow them to know that they were being watched back. As he was doing so, his shoulders seemed to droop, getting heavy with some sort of realization.

“Our cellmates don’t seem to like what they’re discussing, whatever it is,” Shigaraki said, tone wary.

Izuku took a moment to observe their cellmates, and saw them tuned into the dretos’ conversation without even trying to disguise that they were listening in. They were outright staring at the moth-like creatures as they had their discourse.

H’zashi’s feathers were splayed out from their body, but they did not look relaxed and puffed out. Their feathers looked sharp under the artificial lights coming from the ceiling, and Izuku wanted to touch them to see, if only doing so wouldn’t startle and confuse H’zashi. They were standing as close to the electrified bars as Izuku had ever seen them get, sometimes sparing a glance in Izuku’s direction and then shifting, as if they were– were they trying to shield Izuku from the dretos’ sight?

A’zawa didn’t seem to be faring much better, also in the corner of the cell close to the electrified bars, tail lashing, claws digging into the metal floor, ears twitching as they spun to gather more information about the conversation and pick up the sounds of the other alien captives next to them.

Izuku probably logged their cellmates’ odd behavior in his subconscious, which added to his weird feeling. It wasn’t Danger Sense, but something entirely human that picked up on signs around him that gave him a bad feeling of what was to come.

He wasn’t entirely surprised when a dreto came back a few hours later, followed by a dollun on either side, but this time the dolluns were carrying long sticks instead of meal trays. The dreto carried something big that looked like a weapon, and Izuku wondered where he was going to be escorted by force when they stopped in front of his cell. H’zashi immediately started talking, seemingly trying to reason with them about something, talking fast and loud, but the dreto responded calmly, simply.. H’zashi seemed to deflate at whatever they were told, feathers falling limply against their body.

The dreto must have shot H’zashi down easily. Figuratively.

And then the dreto shot Izuku down. Literally.

It happened quickly. The dreto aimed whatever weapon they had at Izuku between the cell bars and fired without hesitation, not giving Izuku a moment to think, to react, to dodge out of the way.

The force from which the thing attached itself to Izuku’s face had his head snapping backwards and almost took him off of his feet, causing him to stumble a few steps. From what Izuku could see and feel, it was a clear material, resembling glass, sealing over his nose and mouth. There were arms that came out from it that went around his head, clamping tightly around. He was unable to pry it off no matter how hard he tried and how immediately he set to work trying to get his fingers under the arms of it that seemed embedded in his hair; whatever the thing was, it set in place fast, and he was unable to remove it.

At first, he thought the glass was fogging due to his increasingly panicked breaths, but then he realized that the arms are thick for a reason and must carry some time of gas. He realized this as his vision started narrowing.

He laughed, though he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t find it humorous, really.

“Shigaraki!” he yelled as his vision turned to pinpoints, and all he could see was his human companion surrounded by bright white on all sides. “This is how they drug us! Not through the food!”

That was the last thing he remembered in the cell before waking up again, hearing unfamiliar voices in an unfamiliar language that he could somehow understand.

He decided to keep his eyes closed.

“It was the correct decision taking this green-furred Terran over the blue-furred one for the first attempt,” one voice insisted.

“I still disagree,” another said. “Sure, this one seems more cooperative, but if this attempt does not work, we should have saved him for the next attempt that might be more successful. It would have been smarter to use the less cooperative Terran for our first attempt in case it is a failure.”

“I don’t think it will be a failure,” the first voice contested calmly. “We have had first-time successes for multiple species. It’s been five gigaclicks since we’ve had a failure.”

“But this is the first time we’re implanting a Universal Translation Device into the brain of a deathworlder. There might be some unforeseen difficulties. I mean, look at the technology we had to revert to using! It’s not even a complete implant! It sticks out so grotesquely!”

“All in the name of science. Improvements can be made once we are sure it is a success. Then we can improve our deathworlder specific technology before we implant into the blue-furred Terran.”

Izuku decided that he had heard enough.

It was time to open his eyes and do what he does best.

Chapter Text

“Come on,” Tomura drawled, hands outstretched, beckoning. “I don’t have a bowl, Midoriya. Toss it on over here instead of giving it to the dolluns! Please!”

Tomura didn’t think he’d actually do it. He was just bored, and, well, it would be nice to have a bowl to add to his growing collection of meal trays and water bottles. So, he was pleasantly surprised when Midoriya shrugged, shoved the bowl through the bars that barely fit, and tossed it in his direction.

Tomura snatched it out of the air and quickly maneuvered it into the cell before the dolluns could try to snatch it from his hands, not that he thought they would actually try such a courageous thing, but that he wasn’t willing to risk it for the sake of adding the bowl to his collection all the same.

He smiled in triumph at the dolluns because they seemed to hate that, then strolled over to the extra box of weird, pastel grasses that were not dead, and deposited the bowl. It was far enough away from all sides of the cell that even if the dolluns got the aliens from the cells next to theirs to cooperate in trying to get Tomura’s stash relinquished back to his captors, they wouldn’t be able to reach. Besides, Tomura and A’zawa shared a box to sleep in, so that extra box could be used as storage, no problem.

He was just starting to fully relax from Midoriya’s weird announcement that he had a bad feeling earlier when two more dolluns showed up with one of those moth-aliens in the lead. What were those things called again? A drato? Why don’t these NPCs come with subtitles? It would make everything so much easier!

“A’zawa?” Tomura whispered, trying not to draw attention to himself, seeing as how tense A’zawa and H’zashi seemed when they noticed the approaching trio. “Drato, right?”

“Dreto,” A’zawa corrected easily, but then turned its eyes back to the aliens quickly coming down the corridor.

A’zawa’s fur at the back of its neck was standing on edge and the ears on the top of its head stood straight up to catch any hints of conversation the approaching aliens might have been having. Tomura wished that he understood their language, that he could eavesdrop, too, or at least be able to get the information from A’zawa.

Tomura did not think it was a good sign that they were carrying weapons with them. The dolluns only seemed to have plain, smooth sticks in their clutches, but the dreto was carrying a larger, much more fearsome looking weapon, something that looked like it came straight from one of Tomura’s video games. Tomura was not surprised that they stopped in front of their cells instead of choosing some other poor souls to harass, but was a little selfishly relieved that they chose to pick on Midoriya first so he could at least gather some intel about what exactly the weapons did before they turned them on him.

Midoriya didn’t stand a chance, not having a moment to even defend himself before the dreto aimed that huge weapon at him and fired. The weird thing that shot out of the weapon affixed itself to Midoriya’s face, almost like it was made specifically for Midoriya’s face.

Shigaraki wouldn’t have been surprised if that were the case with how many times they were scanned on their transit to this goddamn fuckhole of a planet. They probably did have the specifications to model something to fit his face perfectly, and Tomura’s face, too, though he wondered how accurate one would be for him since he was decidedly not as cooperative and did not stay nearly as still as the passed-out Midoriya while the aliens were trying to get scans and gather data from him.

Tomura watched helplessly as Midoriya struggled to pry the thing off his face, first, then reached around his head to try to get the arms off that were latched around the back of his head, firmly in his hair. It wasn’t budging. Tomura felt the dread pool in the pit of his stomach as the clear dome over the front of Midoriya’s nose and mouth filled with a white, foggy gas.

“Shigaraki!” Midoriya yelled as he wobbled on his feet, shoulders slumping, voice louder than it needed to be to get his message across. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide. “This is how they drug us!” Midoriya continued, pointing frantically at the contraption stuck to his face, as if it was not obvious that Tomura already knew from watching in horrified silence. “Not through the food!”

Midoriya collapsed, his legs giving out under him, and he fell to the floor, seemingly unconscious.

Tomura braced himself to fight, putting his hands in front of his face to catch that fucked up thing before it could attach itself to his face and knock him out, too. But the dreto never even turned in his direction, fully preoccupied with Midoriya.

The aliens opened Midoriya’s and H’zashi’s cell door, one of the dolluns entering and pointing its stick at H’zashi, a clear warning to stay back, as the other dollun began to drag Midoriya towards the exit of the cell.

They were taking Midoriya away.

Suddenly, Tomura wanted their attention on him. He needed to field a diversion, give Midoriya time to wake up and fight back.

How long will it take Midoriya to wake up from whatever the fuck that was?

Tomura didn’t know, but what if it was only 15 seconds, and he could have stalled that 15 seconds? He had to give Midoriya that chance. He had to try.

“Hey! Hey, you motherfucker! Over here!” he screamed, slamming himself against the bars and making as big of a scene as possible. “What the fuck are you doing to him, you assholes?! Leave him alone!” He tried a new tactic. “Midoriya! Wake up, you dick! Never let them take you to a second location! That’s how they getcha! Don’t you know anything?! What do they teach you in that dumb hero school anyway?!”

Well, that wasn’t working. But, Tomura knew his loot would be useful one day. He was going to rub it in Midoriya’s stupid, smug face (if he ever sees Midoriya’s stupid, smug face ever again).

He rushed over to his hoard and grabbed an armful of trays and empty water bottles, wishing that they were full and heavy so they could deal more damage, but deciding that he just had to work with what he had at the moment. He ran back over to the cell bars and started throwing them at the dolluns and the dreto, just trying to be as big of a nuisance as possible. On one of his trips back and forth to the cell bars from his loot stash, he even threw his precious bowl that he had just acquired. It seemed to have been working momentarily, kicking up a fuss among the three aliens as they disregarded what they were doing to take cover from Tomura’s onslaught.

When he ran out of metal things to throw, he looked around frantically, and started throwing the discarded shells of the crocknets on the floor at the aliens, even though he knew in the back of his mind that it wouldn't do anything, even as he prayed to gods he didn’t believe in that maybe the aliens were allergic to nuts and they would fucking die where they stood before they could take his only party member away from him.

As the shells were not having a great effect on the aliens, one of the dolluns came over and jabbed the stick it was holding against Tomura’s shoulder. Tomura felt the tell-tale tingle of electricity of similar strength that was coming from the electrified bars and waited to be electrocuted and down for the count, but it never happened.

Tomura looked at the dollun, and the dollun, stricken, looked back at Tomura. Tomura yanked the stick out of the dolluns arms, and threw that, too. The stick hit the dreto, ricocheted off the floor which must have hit the switch to turn it on, because when it bounced off the floor to hit the other dollun that was once again focused on dragging Midoriya further out into the corridor, the dollun froze up and then fell over, like it had been electrocuted with much more voltage and current than whatever that pathetic stick offered.

The other dollun focused on moving everything already thrown very far out of Tomura’s reach so he could not regather anything useful as the dreto limped away from the mess of a scene in the corridor, probably to go get more NPCs as back up. It wasn’t looking good.

“Midoriya! You have to wake up and fight back! I can’t do this alone!” Tomura yelled. He yelled louder, more frantically when he saw his window of opportunity closing in on him when the limping dreto was coming back, followed by some scraks. “I’m all out of ammo, you brat! You have to wake up and fight for yourself, now!”

In a final act of desperation, Tomura tore his shoes off and threw those, too.

One went right into Midoriya’s dumb, stupid head, in an attempt to wake him up with physical force since yelling wasn’t working. It didn’t matter, it seemed, as Midoriya was out, and not even a thrown shoe would revive him at that time. It didn’t even break the stupid contraption that was affixed firmly to his face; it didn’t even dislodge it a little bit. It was a complete waste of a thrown shoe.

The other shoe (in more of a final act of anger than any real attempt at saving Midoriya, knowing now that he couldn’t do anything and feeling like utter shit about it) went sailing through the air and struck the dreto square in the face.

“Couldn’t even dodge it, you dumb fuck?!” Tomura screeched. “It was coming right at you! And you find yourself worthy of taking Midoriya away?! You look pathetic! You should save yourselves the misery, reset, and try again tomorrow! Aren’t you embarrassed?!”

Tomura knew he was making little sense, and they were going to do whatever they wanted now that they had already initiated whatever the fuck they were doing and went through so much trouble (thanks to him) to even just get Midoriya from his cell.

He watched helplessly, only having his voice to yell threats and expletives, as the scraks picked up Midoriya and carried him away.

He hoped he did some real damage to the aliens.

His throat hurt from all the yelling, and for what? Midoriya didn’t even wake up, even just a little, the ungrateful brat.

Some dolluns, probably ones that were not involved in the final boss battle, if their lack of limping or favoring any one limb was evidence, came with a cart and started to collect the remnants of Tomura’s efforts, giving Tomura’s cell a wide berth. Tomura wondered if they could sense the homicidal intent wafting off of him. Tomura knew he wasn’t going to just be given all of the meal trays and water bottles back after throwing such a huge tantrum, but to take his shoes away seemed cruel.

Tomura was pissed.

He was pissed at his captives for capturing him and Midoriya in the first place.

He was pissed that was the only one who did anything. H’zashi and A’zawa did nothing to help prevent Midoriya from being taken away. So much for Midoriya’s theory that they would be helpful in their eventual escape.

He was pissed that he couldn’t express how pissed he was because no one was around to understand him. The only one who understood any human languages was knocked out and taken away.

So, he decided to pout to express how pissed he was to get his point across.

That night, he slept in his own box because he couldn’t stomach the idea of cuddling with A’zawa when A’zawa didn’t so much as hiss at the dreto and dolluns taking Midoriya away. He’d rather sleep alone for the first time in years than sleep with a defector. It was not a restful sleep, being worried about what the aliens were doing to Midoriya and having gone so long without another warm body next to his own. He felt A’zawa’s reflective eyes on him throughout the night, probably worried about the sudden change in behavior, and Tomura felt a little satisfied that at least he wasn’t the only one bothered, even if he had to be the one causing the disruption to make others feel bothered. And that thought made him wonder if it’s typical in this place for people to be drugged and dragged off, never to be seen again, and that’s why he’s the only one who reacted so strongly.

His game plan was to keep reacting strongly.

When the meals were brought the next day, Tomura went over, grabbed his tray, slammed it against the cell bars, effectively scattering his food all across the corridor, and took his now empty meal tray back to his own box to get his supply restarted.

To Tomura’s delight, the startled dolluns immediately left and came back again, bringing him another identical meal tray.

Tomura repeated the process again, causing more of a mess for them to clean up, and adding another tray to his restock. A two-for-one deal.

The next meal time, they brought another tray, to which Tomura repeated the process. Seemingly concerned, the dolluns brought him a bowl of crocknets, which Tomura accepted the bowl for his loot pile, but scattered the crocknets all over the floor in hopes that the dolluns would step on them and fall before they could all be cleaned up. Unfortunately, it seemed that dollun eyes were better than pill bug eyes back on Earth, because they very easily avoided the crocknets rolling around until they could be picked up.

After denying two meals in a row, it must have been a cause for concern because a dreto appeared holding yet another meal tray, standing outside of Tomura’s cell and looking in. The dreto said something to him in that language that he doesn’t fucking understand, and Tomura approached the dreto with narrowed eyes and a pissy mood.

“Bring back Midoriya, and give me some fucking edible food that doesn’t taste like it’s been doused in sugar, and then we’ll see,” Tomura responded to whatever the fuck the dreto had said, but he assumed it was probably something about him refusing to eat.

The dreto slid the meal tray in through the slot at the bottom of the cell. Before Tomura could impulsively repeat what he had been doing for the past three trays, he had a better idea. He picked it up and stood up, one hand supporting the bottom of the tray and one hand hovering over the food like he was considering actually eating it.

The dreto, probably smug as fuck, thinking it got the stupid human to eat when the dolluns were only causing him to throw a tantrum, stupidly stepped closer to the cell to watch, right where Tomura wanted it.

In one quick motion, Tomura dropped the meal tray altogether, leaped forward against the bars to reach through and grab the dreto, and pulled the dreto forward so that it was also touching the bars, electrocuting the poor, stupid thing. With a knocked out dreto in his arms and freaking out dolluns running around the corridor, probably trying to decide whether to get closer to attempt to rescue the dreto themselves or to leave and get more help, Tomura suddenly felt the desire to be destructive. He missed his quirk, how things would just crumble in his hands, and the dreto’s stupid moth wings seemed pretty delicate…

Tomura took a wing in one hand, feeling it, and trailed his hand up to the junction where it came out of the dreto’s back. With a sharp twist and a pull, Tomura tore the wing completely free from the dreto’s back, and he laughed for the first time since Midoriya was taken away.

It was just so funny to him that the species keeping him captive was so damn delicate that low level electricity could knock them out, and their wings could be torn off so easily. He hoped they looked at him and thought “monster.” He hoped they were regretting what they had taken from Earth and brought to their planet. He hoped the day that he escaped from this damn cell, they would know that he was coming for them first before trying to find an escape.

Tomura thought about taking the other wing off, too, but decided it was probably even more cruel to leave it with just one wing, so that way it had to decide to either live the rest of its life with one wing or remove the other wing on its own.

Decision made, Tomura released the dreto, letting it fall to the floor, but pulled the detached wing into his cell with him. It wouldn’t be any good if they could somehow reattach the wing, so Tomura wouldn't give them the option. The wing would make a good addition to his stash, anyway.

For good measure, Tomura slammed the meal tray against the cell bars as he laughed, just like before, raining down food on the injured dreto as the dolluns closed in, flinching away from the loud noise, but still coming in close to pick it up and take it away for medical treatment now that the human released it.

Tomura was buzzing off the feeling of power. It was the best he felt since they took Midoriya away.

He hoped they were aware that the torment would continue until they gave in to his demands.

And he didn’t give a fuck that they didn’t understand what his demands were.

Tomura figured it was on them to figure it out. And they better figure it out fast!

Chapter Text

The first time A’zawa saw an example of the Terrans’ ability to throw things, with their upper limbs, with incredible accuracy and decent speed, he thought it just happened by chance. It was when Midoriya threw one of the crocknets that H’zashi had kindly shared with him to Shigaraki that he saw it with his own eyes for the first time. Even though the intention was clearly there for the crocknet to be tossed through the air and make it to Shigaraki’s outstretched and waiting appendages, A’zawa had never seen anything like it, so how could he have ever imagined that it was on purpose?

When H’zashi proposed the idea that it was, A’zawa had to rethink everything.

It did make sense, especially with the way that H’zashi reenacted the moment of the throw to try to convince their captors to give the Terrans some crocknets of their own, with the deliberate toss from Midoriya and the way Shigaraki was already posed to catch it like he knew the throw was coming, like this kind of throw and catch scenario was common for Terrans. The curiosity won the Terrans another whole bowl of crocknets to see if the throw could be replicated, and it could, to their spectators’ delight, again and again. A’zawa wondered how many games could come out of such a great maneuver, how many defensive and offensive maneuvers.

When he first saw the Terrans, he noticed their lack of claws, their blunted teeth, their largely furless skin, and wondered what options they really had to fight and defend themselves, even knowing what he knew about their species. It’s not what they have immediately available to them, but their adaptability, their ability to use what’s around them, and their uncanny strength and durability that is not discernable at first glance that really sets them apart from other species, A’zawa had come to learn and appreciate.

A’zawa did not have to wonder for long if their throwing abilities could be used for offensive purposes. Shigaraki did an excellent demonstration when they came to take their first Terran for their Universal Translation Device implantation procedure.

A’zawa and H’zashi recognized the weapons they carried straight away and knew that they’d be breaching one of their cells. It had them on edge right away, and their observant Terran cellmates picked up on their foreign-to-them body language easily enough to figure out that something different was about to happen.

“The Terrans have been learning Standard on their own, one word at time,” H’zashi jumped in with, trying to buy his Terran more time when it was clear they had their sights set on Midoriya. “They have been picking up words marvelously and memorizing them flawlessly, even without the written language to aid in their memories. If we could have more time to see how expansive the language centers of their brains are that they can learn a new language from scratch from teachers who don’t know a single word of their native language–”

“You can continue your own little research experiment with that one,” the dreto said, wing fluttering in the direction of Shigaraki in the cell behind her. “This one will get the UTD implant. It’s already been decided.”

A’zawa watched as his lover visibly deflated, feathers that were once fluffy and puffed out in excitement and hope that his idea might come to fruition falling limply against his body as he lost hope for saving his Terran friend. A’zawa knew that part of the dismay was H’zashi’s inability to warn Midoriya what was coming, knowing that Midoriya was facing his future procedure completely unaware of what was happening and unknowing that he was to be returned to them, soon enough able to communicate with them as easily as he communicates with his Terran companion.

The empathy felt for poor Midoriya was quickly overtaken by fear when Shigaraki began to cause an absolute ruckus, once again showing off his throwing dexterity by throwing everything he had hoarded up until that point.

A’zawa thought it was just his vision playing tricks on him, the first tray that flew through the air towards the dollun that was dragging the unconscious Midoriya through the cell opening, the way the light reflected off of the metal of the tray… but then the tray landed true and thudded against the dollun, who dropped Midoriya’s upper limbs in favor of shielding himself from the onslaught of trays and bottles coming from A’zawa’s noisy, armed cellmate.

A’zawa was unsure what Shigaraki’s end goal was. His aim seemed impeccable, so why did he also aim for Midoriya? Who did Shigaraki truly see as his enemy? A’zawa never wished for something so much as he wished in that moment that a Universal Translation Device was not an implant, but something that was handheld so that he could speak to his cellmate and ask him all of the questions he wanted to know.

By the beginning of the next cycle, A’zawa was itching to understand his cellmate better. For the first time since Shigaraki was placed in the cell with A’zawa, he had slept in his own bed-grass box. After having his Terran companion taken away, A’zawa would have predicted that Shigaraki would have sought out more companionship from him, not isolated himself in a way that he had never seen before.

“It’s baffling,” A’zawa complained to H’zashi from his own bed-grass box that felt too cold and too big.

After another half a cycle, A’zawa felt desperate to understand his cellmate.

“Why would he do that?!” he asked H’zashi, looking at the mess of food all over the corridor, eyeing the neon pink juice sliding down the electrified bars of the cell that he had just slammed his meal tray against to rid it of the food instead of, you know, eating it. “He’s going to starve!”

“Calm down,” one of the dolluns commanded. “We’ll bring a replacement tray.”

The dolluns didn’t seem so calm when Shigaraki also slammed that tray against the bars to rid it of the food before adding the tray to his new pile.

“How long is it going to be until Midoriya is brought back?” H’zashi asked the dolluns. “Maybe he won’t or can’t eat until he knows his companion is safe.”

“How long can Terrans go without eating?” the dollun asked worriedly instead of answering.

The next meal was brought by a dreto.

“You can throw a tantrum all you like,” the dreto said. “But you will eat and maintain your strength.”

One meal is the maximum number of meals that Terrans can skip, A’zawa was adding to his mental notes about Terrans as Shigaraki acted like he was going to comply with the directive from the dreto that he surely did not understand, at least not fully.

But, just as the dreto stepped forward to smugly watch Shigaraki take that first bite, Shigaraki abruptly dropped the tray, completely disregarding it altogether as he reached for the dreto instead.

Is the dreto more appetizing after skipping a whole meal earlier?

Alarmingly quick and so, so smart, he pulled her against the electrified bars and then pushed her away again, just giving her enough contact with the bars to knock her out.

“Help!” called out one dollun who took a few steps forward before seeing the look on Shigaraki’s face and retreating multiple steps back.

“I’ll help her!” said one dollun, who was frozen in place and who was decidedly not going to help the dreto.

“Go get help!”

“You!” one of the dolluns yelled at A’zawa. “Control your Terran!”

A’zawa didn’t bother humoring that with a response.

Like he was going to risk stopping whatever Shigaraki had planned? Like he was going to put himself in harm’s way to help his captors and potentially anger his cellmate? Not in a million teraclicks.

A’zawa just watched in horrified fascination as he got to experience a real-time in-person example of Terran strength as he watched Shigaraki tear the wing off of the unconscious dreto. A’zawa blinked hard a few times and shook his head, but when he looked again, yes, the detached wing was completely off of the dreto and in Shigaraki’s hands.

To make matters worse, Shigaraki added the wing to his hoard in his bed-grass box after once again slamming the tray of food against the bars, covering the injured dreto in his rejected meal.

A’zawa mentally crossed out the mental note about Terrans only being able to skip one meal.

And, well, that wouldn’t do, if he wanted to keep the wing.

“What are you doing?!” H’zashi hissed at him from his cell across the hall.

“The wing will degrade if it’s left in the bed-grass,” A’zawa explained. “And I think he wants to keep it intact. I don’t think my Terran has figured that out, yet, about the bed-grass. I’m going to try to explain it to him.”

A’zawa went over and pulled the wing from the bed-grass box, and just about jumped to the ceiling when Shigaraki hissed at him.

A’zawa made a big show of slowly putting the wing back down, but outside of the bed-grass box instead of back into the grass. A’zawa suddenly had a great idea and grabbed a piece of the meat that was scattered from when Shigaraki slammed the tray against the bars once again. A’zawa presented the piece of meat to Shigaraki and then put it in the bed-grass box, entirely pleased that Shigaraki was watching intently and that his eyes widened in reaction when he saw that the bed-grass was rapidly decaying the meat it was given.

Shigaraki’s fingers dug into the bed-grass where the meat just was and threaded through the grasses to find nothing left, not even an oily residue from the meat. For the first time since Midoriya was taken, Shigaraki offered A’zawa a smile.

“Sure!” H’zashi wailed. “Just show the homicidal maniac how to keep his trophy in good condition!”

“I’d like to stay on the homicidal maniac’s good side,” A’zawa contested lightly.

H’zashi squawked at that, wings flapping in agitation, but had nothing else to say.

“And he didn’t kill her,” A’zawa defended. “He very easily could have! But he didn’t!”

“I don’t know if that makes it better! You’re trapped in a cell with him!” H’zashi whined.

“I know you’re scared for me,” A’zawa said, “but I’ve built up rapport with this Terran, haven’t I? Just like you have with yours. He’s smart enough to know that we’re trapped here together, that we’re on the same side.”

H’zashi’s eyes looked between his lover and Shigaraki, who was adding another piece of floor-meat to the bed-grass box to watch it decay giddily and ranting in his own language, the only word recognizable to the aliens being “Midoriya.”

“I don’t know,” H’zashi settled on. “I thought we were starting to figure them out, but this kind of came out of nowhere.”

“I think I’d be just as volatile if they took you away and I had no idea when or even if I’d ever see you again,” A’zawa said.

H’zashi’s feathers seemed to melt against his body at that. “You’re right. Your Terran must be so scared. He’s probably wondering if he’ll ever see my Terran again or if they’ll be coming to take him away next. I doubt I’d be very calm if I was in his situation. Adding to that with everything on his planet that is designed to kill the inhabitants, and every reaction has to be extreme or Terrans wouldn’t have survived as long as they have.”

“Right,” A’zawa agreed. “I’m sure if he had the communication skills available to him, he would use them. But he doesn’t, so he’s using what he has. We just have to support him until he’s reunited with his Terran companion who will hopefully be able to bridge the communication gap when he’s returned to us.”

“Yeah,” H’zashi chirped, eyes flickering over to Shigaraki. “And just survive until then. No big deal!”

Not four kiloclicks later, an unconscious Midoriya was returned to H’zashi’s cell. As soon as Shigaraki noticed the dolluns carrying the green-furred Terran, he was right at the cell bars, yelling and screaming again. Once Midoriya was laid inside and the cell was secure again, the dolluns were flinching away from a tray that was flung across the corridor, but it wasn’t aimed at them. Instead, it ricocheted off the cell bars of H’zashi’s cell, causing it to lose momentum, but it did end up finding its intended target and hitting Midoriya in the upper appendage, causing Midoriya to sit bolt upright.

“Midoriya!” H’zashi greeted. “Hello! You’ve been fitted with a Universal Translation Device implant, also commonly known as a UTD. Can you understand me?”

Midoriya didn’t react and H’zashi deflated.

Midoriya still had the custom ammo mask affixed to his face, and his appendages automatically went to the back of his head to try to get it off as Shigaraki continued to yell at him. Midoriya seemed to be ignoring him, causing Shigaraki to yell louder and become more agitated until Midoriya finally responded once the dolluns had left.

“So much for getting our hopes up for an open line of communication,” H’zashi grumbled across the hallway to A’zawa.

“Thank the stars that your Terran is back, safe and sound, at least,” A’zawa said. “It’s so rare that UTD implantation goes wrong, so it’s lucky that he seems unharmed otherwise.”

“You’re right,” H’zashi said. “I should be grateful. At least we can hopefully see if your Terran will calm down, now that my Terran is back in his sights and he sees that he’s alive and safe.”

“But now that the UTD was a failure with your Terran, I wonder how long it will be until they update their technology and try with my Terran,” A’zawa said, looking over at Shigaraki who was startling looking back at A’zawa expectantly, pointing either at him or just past him, down the hallway. A’zawa looked down the hallway, but didn’t see anyone there, and looked back at Shigaraki.

“Shigaraki, what?” A’zawa tried.

Shigaraki shook his head and went back to talking to Midoriya.

“Not that your Terran would be cooperative if they do get it working,” H’zashi theorized.

A’zawa snorted. “You don’t think?”

“I think that’s why they chose my Terran, first. They were probably so certain that it would work, so they chose the more cooperative Terran to test it out on first.”

“That’s exactly what they did,” Midoriya said, in perfect Standard. “But they chose wrong because I’m not going to cooperate either.”

H’zashi’s feathers sharpened in surprise as he turned to face Midoriya fully and A’zawa just stared from his place across the corridor, a smile growing over his face as the possibilities filtered through his mind.

“Try not to freak out,” Midoriya said in hushed Standard, “but I can now understand everything that you’re saying.” Green eyes flickered between his own cellmate and A’zawa, taking in their reactions to make sure they weren’t going to start yelling and bring the attention of guards, giving away whatever plan he must have mustered up.

A’zawa watched as H’zashi lit up, feathers lifting with promise at the prospect of being able to communicate with his Terran.

“And you guys call us “my Terran” and “your Terran” when you’re talking about us behind our backs?” Midoriya inquired with what must have been a mischievous glint in his eyes. Even being newer to Terran smiles, even A’zawa knew that the smile on Midoriya’s face was more teasing than genuine. “How sweet.”

H’zashi’s feathers drooped once more. “Oh, no,” H’zashi fretted, turning wide eyes across the hallway to meet A’zawa’s eyes. “How are we going to gossip, now?"

Chapter Text

Izuku decided to keep his eyes closed and gather as much information as he could before letting his captors onto the fact that he was awake. Despite his adrenaline increasing, his blood rushing to his extremities in preparation for him to fight, Izuku forced himself to remain still, lax, taking deep breaths as if he was still unconscious.

“It was the correct decision taking this green-furred Terran over the blue-furred one for the first attempt,” one voice insisted.

It was never a good idea to assume things, Izuku knew, but he was pretty sure that he could clock himself and Shigaraki as “Terrans” in this instance, all evidence considered, as there were two of them and Shigaraki had light blue hair and he himself had green.

“I still disagree,” another said. “Sure, this one seems more cooperative, but if this attempt does not work, we should have saved him for the next attempt that might be more successful. It would have been smarter to use the less cooperative Terran for our first attempt in case it is a failure.”

That further indicated that they were the “Terrans” the aliens were talking about because Izuku could indeed be seen as the more cooperative of the two, seeing as how Shigaraki withheld the food trays and water bottles given to him and Izuku always gave them back. That would make it easy to see Izuku as being more cooperative, especially if you add in how loud Shigaraki could get when he yells. Izuku hadn’t seen any other species carrying on like that, so it was probably very out of the norm to make a scene like Shigaraki tends to do on a whim.

“I don’t think it will be a failure,” the first voice contested calmly. “We have had first-time successes for multiple species. It’s been five gigaclicks since we’ve had a failure.”

If they were talking about the fact that Izuku could now somehow understand every word they were saying, Izuku would call it a definite success.

Not that he had to let them know of this fact.

Izuku’s mind whirred with the different possibilities that were now open to him.

“But this is the first time we’re implanting a Universal Translation Device into the brain of a deathworlder. There might be some unforeseen difficulties. I mean, look at the technology we had to revert to using! It’s not even a complete implant! It sticks out so grotesquely!”

Izuku stopped himself from reaching up to see what might be sticking out of his body so grotesquely and forced his breathing to remain steady. He could worry about that later.

“All in the name of science. Improvements can be made once we are sure it is a success. Then we can improve our deathworlder specific technology before we implant into the blue-furred Terran.”

Izuku decided that he had heard enough when it was mentioned that the same is going to be done to Shigaraki. His most immediate goal became to prevent that exact thing from happening, with a concurrent goal of getting the hell off this planet.

Izuku decided that it was time to open his eyes and do what he does best.

Without warning, he shot up, hands flying to his head to continue to try to get that damn mask off his face before they could put him under again. He allowed his breathing to come faster as he felt around, wondering where that grotesque thing might be sticking out of him from could be as tears filled his eyes as he allowed his panic to take over.

“Hello, Terran! I’m glad you’re awake! We did a procedure while you were out and now you should be able to understand us,” one of the aliens said to him. A dreto, he was able to identify through blurred vision of his tear-filled eyes.

He let out an incomprehensible sob in response, flailed backwards until he fell off the metal table he was on, and landed hard on his hands and knees on the metal tiled floor with a grunt. Reeling back as some of the aliens stepped forward, trying to calm him with words he pretended to not understand, he quickly moved back to get away from them, crashing into the shelving units behind him, sending jars and bottles scattering to the ground, the fragile material often shattering on impact when it hit the floor and crunching under the feet of the aliens as they still tried to approach Izuku.

There was a tall metal pole that looked like it was used for IVs, so Izuku grabbed it. It was, apparently, not for IVs as it was permanently affixed to the floor. Not so permanently once Izuku got a good grip on it and yanked it right out, yielding it as a weapon, still sobbing loudly and incoherently as the aliens tried to soothe him with their words he pretended to not understand and wide, slowly moving gestures as to not startle him further.

“He obviously doesn’t understand us! The UTD implant was a failure!”

Izuku swung the metal pole and the aliens jumped back, but Izuku wasn’t aiming for them. He used the pole to knock down the other shelving units lining the room, tossed the pole away, and leaped forward, over and across the toppled shelves to get to the exit. He tugged uselessly on the door once, twice, before really putting his quirkless but beach-trained muscles into it and yanking the door right off its hinges and leaping for freedom out into the hallway, picking a random direction, and booking it, wiping at his tears around the stupid mask still so firmly affixed to his face as he ran, worried that he had still been unable to locate the grotesque thing sticking out of him.

What if he already accidentally yanked it out and he’s bleeding out somehow without realizing it?

He looked behind him quickly and was relieved to see no blood.

When he turned back around, he thought for a moment that the hallway was filling with fog, then realized with dread that it wasn’t the hallway, but his mask once again, filling with familiar fog that had already knocked him out once before. He renewed his efforts to try to get the mask off, but he lost consciousness once again before he was successful.

When he regained consciousness and felt the cool metal underneath him, he sat boltright up, ready to continue his crying-panicking-fighting-running escapade from earlier, but was immediately disoriented when the image of his familiar cell filled his vision instead of whatever place he had woken up in before.

“About goddamn time!” Shigaraki was yelling from his own cell across the corridor. “I thought you were gone for good! Taken out by a stupid-ass mask-gun. Can you imagine?”

Ignoring Shigaraki’s endless ranting and raving, that had probably been going on endlessly if the rasp in his voice was any indication, H’zashi centered in on Izuku, stepping closer, optimistically cautious. “Midoriya!” H’zashi greeted. “Hello! You’ve been fitted with a Universal Translation Device implant, also commonly known as a UTD. Can you understand me?”

Izuku forced himself to not respond, noting that the dolluns were still in range, though they were retreating, probably just having brought his unconscious self back to the security of the cell. Izuku tried not to feel too bad when he saw H’zashi physically deflate, reminding himself that he’ll be able to speak to him freely soon enough.

Izuku’s hands automatically went back to work trying to pry that stupid mask off his face. He was never going to allow another one of these to ever take root again if he could help it. They were an absolute pain to remove once they found their target and got locked on.

“What? Are you deaf or some shit, now? That would explain why you never goddamn listen to me, you fucking brat!” Shigaraki continued, becoming louder and more agitated as Izuku continued to not respond. “Fucking figures that they would try to fix you and return you fucking defective! Are you listening to me?! Hey fuckface! What did they do to you?! I’ll fucking kill ‘em!”

“Chill,” Izuku commanded finally once the dolluns were finally out of sight. “I hear you loud and clear. I just had to wait until the coast was clear. Why would you think that I’m deaf?” Izuku asked, initially intending the question to be rhetorical as he focused on trying to work his fingers under the arms of the mask embedded in his hair.

“Well, they bring you back with one of those stupid implants on your head for deaf people, and then you just flat out ignore me when I’m yelling at you. What am I supposed to think?” Shigaraki retorted, but at least he stopped his yelling.

Izuku stopped at that, reaching up to find a flat metal disk embedded in his head among his hair. Just like Shigaraki had said, it probably looked similar to a cochlear implant. Is this what the aliens were calling grotesque? Izuku could have laughed. It was as much out of the way and flush with his head as an implant could be, as far as he was concerned. He wondered just how far ahead their technology was that this was considered sticking out so grotesquely.

“I think this thing allows me to understand the alien’s language,” Izuku informed Shigaraki. “They call it a Universal Translation Device.”

“It’s working? You can understand them?” Then, at Midoriya’s nod, “Universal?” Shigaraki asked, seeming skeptical all of a sudden. “Are you sure it doesn’t work both ways and that they can’t understand our languages now, too?”

“So much for getting our hopes up for an open line of communication,” H’zashi grumbled across the hallway to A’zawa, momentarily distracting Izuku from his conversation with Shigaraki.

“They don’t seem to be able to understand us,” Izuku informed Shigaraki, nodding his head in the direction of their conversing cellmates.

“Thank the stars that your Terran is back, safe and sound, at least,” A’zawa said. “It’s so rare that UTD implantation goes wrong, so it’s lucky that he seems unharmed otherwise.”

“What are they talking about?” Shigaraki asked, curious.

“You’re right,” H’zashi said. “I should be grateful. At least we can hopefully see if your Terran will calm down, now that my Terran is back in his sights and he sees that he’s alive and safe.”

“They’re talking about how it’s a good thing that I’m back because you’ll calm down,” Izuku said. “You were also right about them not using our names when they talk about us.”

“Ha! Told ya!” Shigaraki gloated. “Let’s make sure that they can’t understand, though. Oh, no!” Shigaraki shouted suddenly, pointing at A’zawa’s shoulder. “There’s a poisonous dart right in your shoulder!”

“But now that the UTD was a failure with your Terran, I wonder how long it will be until they update their technology and try with my Terran,” A’zawa was saying when he happened to look over at Shigaraki by chance at that moment and seemed startled that Shigaraki was pointing at him. Instead of looking down at his shoulder, A’zawa looked down the hallway in the direction that Shigaraki could have realistically been pointing instead, but didn’t see anyone there, and looked back at Shigaraki.

“Shigaraki, what?” A’zawa tried.

Shigaraki shook his head in dismissal and turned back to Izuku. “I’m assuming he has no idea what I said.”

“Not a clue,” Izuku confirmed.

“Not that your Terran would be cooperative if they do get it working,” H’zashi theorized.

A’zawa snorted. “You don’t think?”

“You’re planning on bringing them in,” Shigaraki accused. It wasn’t a question.

“Well, that was the idea from the start,” Izuku defended. “To get them on our side so that we could all work together, remember? This just makes it so much easier!”

“What if they don’t want to help us?” Shigaraki asked, ever the skeptic.

“Then we’re on our own, but we were on our own anyway,” Izuku reasoned. “I think it’s a shot worth taking.”

“Until they tell the guards that it actually did work,” Shigaraki warned.

Izuku shrugged. “Then it’s my not-words against theirs.”

“I think that’s why they chose my Terran, first,” H’zashi mused. “They were probably so certain that it would work, so they chose the more cooperative Terran to test it out on first.”

“That’s exactly what they did,” Izuku said, cutting into H’zashi’s and A’zawa’s conversation without warning. “But they chose wrong because I’m not going to cooperate either.”

H’zashi’s feathers sharpened in surprise as he turned to face Izuku fully and A’zawa just stared from his place across the corridor, a smile growing over his face as the time slowly stretched on and no one said anything.

“Try not to freak out,” Izuku whispered, “but I can now understand everything that you’re saying.” 

Izuku took the time to watch their reactions, mindful of Shigaraki’s hesitations, but was relieved to find H’zashi’s feathers puffing out with presumed excitement and A’zawa’s attentive eyes on him, hopefully open to whatever might come out of his mouth next.

So, why not give them a little taste of his personality? It couldn’t hurt.

“And you guys call us “my Terran” and “your Terran” when you’re talking about us behind our backs?” Izuku teased with a smile to hopefully show that he was not trying to be malicious. “How sweet.”

H’zashi’s feathers drooped once more. “Oh, no,” H’zashi fretted, turning wide eyes across the hallway to meet A’zawa’s eyes. “How are we going to gossip, now?”

Izuku laughed, gleeful that his teasing wasn’t taken the wrong way, and hopeful that their communication, even with this new UTD implant in place, would work smoothly between the three of them.

“So, here’s the plan,” Izuku said, getting right down to it while they still had the privacy without any guards nearby. “I overheard the dretos saying that they were going to try it out on me first, and then on Shigaraki. To buy him the most time possible before that happens, I’m going to act like the UTD didn’t work. If and when they do come for Shigaraki to repeat the procedure on him once they update whatever technology and procedures they need to, I’ll reveal that actually, surprise, I can understand and communicate, hopefully buying him even more time, if we haven’t already escaped by then.”

“What are you saying to them?” Shigaraki asked, eyes narrowed as he watched the aliens become immediately enraptured with whatever the hell Izuku was saying to them.

Izuku waved him off, fully intending on catching him up in a moment.

“So, what?” A’zawa asked. “They really have no idea that you can speak and understand Standard at all?”

“Not a clue,” Izuku answered with a laugh, thinking back to his poor attempt at a half-assed escape. “When I woke up, I cried and yelled and panicked and fought back without giving a single indication that I knew what they were saying to me.”

A’zawa and H’zashi both took a moment to look between Izuku and Shigaraki, and then at each other.

“What?” Shigaraki demanded.

“Maybe our Terrans aren’t so different,” H’zashi said to A’zawa before turning back to Izuku. “Are there different subspecies of Terrans?”

“Uh, no,” Izuku said. The idea of different genders and races and ethnicities running through his head briefly, but he didn’t think any of those counted as a different subspecies, even to an alien species.

“Interesting,” H’zashi commented, seeming like he had to rethink everything. “You two seem so different in so many ways, especially with your sleeping habits, for one. I thought there might have been some differences in some subspecies going on.”

“Ah, no,” Izuku waved off. “He’s a– a–” Izuku was startled to find there was no direct translation for “cuddle” in their language. “Snuggler?” he tried instead.

“We’ve noticed,” A’zawa said, once again side-eying Shigaraki.

“Well, he’s noticed, especially, being the object of the snuggles,” H’zashi corrected with a trilling laugh, gesturing with a wing toward A’zawa. “And he sleeps really regularly, but you don’t,” H’zashi noted.

“Some Terrans have sleep disorders,” Izuku said with a shrug. “They sleep too much or not enough. Being in a stressful situation doesn’t help things, as you can probably imagine.”

“But sleep is important!” H’zashi argued.

“What are you talking about?” Shigaraki asked, pressing himself against the bars as if to get closer to hear the conversation better, as if that would allow him any better insight.

“Tell that to my brain!” Izuku said with another shrug. “It’s not like I would choose to not more sleep regularly if I could.”

“And what is with all the sweating?!” H’zashi asked with a squawk and an agitated flap of his wings, looking back and forth between the two Terrans. “Do you have no sense of self-preservation?!”

“What?” Izuku asked, entirely confused, looking to A’zawa for assistance with this topic.

“He has a point,” A’zawa said, entirely unhelpful.

“What’s going on?!” Shigaraki groaned, slamming his forehead against the bars of his cell.

“Don’t mind him; he’s fine,” Izuku dismissed.

It was after a lot of back and forth that Izuku learned that sweating is apparently not normal, and is in fact a last-line-of-defense life-sustaining mechanism. A’zawa and H’zashi seemed skeptical when Izuku explained that it’s quite normal for Terrans.

“Whatever! It’s fine!” Shigaraki exploded, making A’zawa, H’zashi, and Izuku startle, all attention going from their current conversation about the time system involving clicks to Shigaraki, even if Izuku was the only one who could understand what he was saying. “I don’t need you! I don’t need any of you!” he screeched. “I can make it out of here on my own!”

He stormed away from the bars and flopped down in his own bed-grass box, and that was a new sight for Izuku to see as he had only ever seen Shigaraki in A’zawa’s bed-grass box.

“What’s your problem?” Izuku asked.

“No, it’s fine! Go on without me,” Shigaraki insisted in a snarl. “I’ve done things on my own before. I can do it again.” Then after a pause, he angrily said, “it’s not like they did anything to help when you were being taken away, you know?! And now you’re just cozying on up to them?!”

“Not like they did anything?” Izuku repeated, incredulous. “Like you did anything, either?” he challenged.

Shigaraki clenched his jaw and looked away. “Yeah. I didn’t do anything either,” he said. “So I guess we can just part ways and be on our own.” He folded himself into his own bed-grass box and didn’t move again until the beginning of the next cycle, not even getting up to inspect to see if there was anything different to try on the meal tray offered for him.

Chapter Text

“About goddamn time!” Tomura yelled from his own cell across the corridor when the meal tray connected with Midorya’s arm and it actually worked this time, causing Midoriya to sit up and look around quickly, gathering information about his surroundings. Tomura didn’t give him a grace period to get settled and reoriented before he continued to rant and rave at him, however, having to get out that restless energy somehow, and today it was going to be by yelling at Midoriya. “I thought you were gone for good! Taken out by a stupid-ass mask-gun. Can you imagine?”

Midoriya had the gall to ignore him! After everything that he’d done and been through while Midoriya was taken from him! The absolute audacity!

Tomura opened his mouth to tell Midoriya exactly what he thought about being ignored, but H’zashi beat him to it, talking to Midoriya directly like he might understand that alien language.

And, hell, who fucking knew? Maybe he could, now. Maybe that’s what they were doing to him–rewiring his brain so that they could understand him and he could understand them.

Tomura was suddenly pissed, vision whiting out at the implication of his own thoughts, because why wasn’t he chosen to communicate with?

But then Midoriya didn’t answer H’zashi either. Not even with one of his signature smiles that indicated, “sorry, I have no idea what you’re saying, so I’m just going to smile through it.”

Midoriya just focused on trying to get that stupid mask off of his face, ignoring everything else. When Midoriya’s hands shifted his hair a certain way as he tried working his fingers under the arms of the mask still wrapped around the back of his head is when Tomura saw the silver circle embedded into Midoriya’s head that wasn’t there before. It resembled part of a cochlear implant, and Tomura decided to let his thoughts flow freely now that Midoriya couldn’t hear them and no one around could understand them.

“What? Are you deaf or some shit, now?” Tomura asked as he thought aloud, half-convinced already that Midoriya truly couldn’t hear him anymore. “That would explain why you never goddamn listen to me, you fucking brat!” Tomura continued, becoming louder and more agitated as Midoriya continued to not respond. “Fucking figures that they would try to fix you and return you fucking defective! Are you listening to me?! Hey fuckface! What did they do to you?! I’ll fucking kill ‘em!”

“Chill,” Midoriya commanded finally once the dolluns were finally out of sight, making Tomura startle as he had not ever been expecting a response ever again, finally accepting that Midoriya could no longer hear him. “I hear you loud and clear. I just had to wait until the coast was clear. Why would you think that I’m deaf?” Midoriya asked, still physically preoccupied with trying to work the mask off of his head.

“Well, they bring you back with one of those stupid implants on your head for deaf people, and then you just flat out ignore me when I’m yelling at you. What am I supposed to think?” Tomura retorted, losing the energy he had once held behind his words now that he knew he was being heard and listened to.

Midoriya visibly stopped at that, reaching up to find a flat metal disk embedded in his head among his hair.

“I think this thing allows me to understand the alien’s language,” Midoriya informed Tomura. “They call it a Universal Translation Device.”

“It’s working? You can understand them?” Then, at Midoriya’s nod, “Universal?” Shigaraki asked, seeming skeptical all of a sudden. “Are you sure it doesn’t work both ways and that they can’t understand our languages now, too?”

H’zashi grumbled something across the hallway to A’zawa, momentarily distracting Midoriya from his conversation with Tomura.

“They don’t seem to be able to understand us,” Midoriya informed, nodding his head in the direction of their conversing cellmates.

Tomura watched and listened as A’zawa responded back to H’zashi.

“What are they talking about?” Tomura asked, curious, and finally about to receive answers for the first time.

“They’re talking about how it’s a good thing that I’m back because you’ll calm down,” Midoriya said. “You were also right about them not using our names when they talk about us.”

“Ha! Told ya!” Tomura gloated. “Let’s make sure that they can’t understand, though. Oh, no!” Tomura shouted suddenly, pointing at A’zawa’s shoulder. “There’s a poisonous dart right in your shoulder!”

A’zawa was saying something to H’zashi when he happened to look over at Tomura and seemed startled that Tomura was pointing at him. Instead of looking down at his shoulder, though, A’zawa looked down the hallway in the direction that Tomura could have realistically been pointing instead, but didn’t see anyone there, and looked back at Tomura.

“Shigaraki, what?” A’zawa tried.

Tomura shook his head in dismissal and turned back to Midoriya. “I’m assuming he has no idea what I said.”

“Not a clue,” Midoriya confirmed easily.

“You’re planning on bringing them in,” Tomura accused.

It would make sense, Tomura hesitantly thought. But he wished he had more time to go over the pros and cons of such a decision with Midoriya before he committed.

“Well, that was the idea from the start,” Midoriya defended. “To get them on our side so that we could all work together, remember? This just makes it so much easier!”

“What if they don’t want to help us?” Tomura asked, ever the skeptic.

Sure, H’zashi and A’zawa had never directly gone against either of them, but that could be due to fear of retaliation rather than any sense of camaraderie at play.

“Then we’re on our own, but we were on our own anyway,” Midoirya reasoned. “I think it’s a shot worth taking.”

“Until they tell the guards that it actually did work,” Tomura warned.

Midoriya shrugged. “Then it’s my not-words against theirs.”

Before Tomura could try to convince him otherwise, or talk it out some more, Midoriya was already talking to H’zashi and A’zawa.

Tomura watched as H’zashi’s feathers sharpened in surprise as he turned to face Midoriya fully and A’zawa just stared from his place across the corridor, a smile growing over his face as the time slowly stretched on and no one said anything. Tomura tried to gather all the information he could from their body language since he was completely out of the loop from their spoken language.

As Midoriya continued to talk, Tomura watched as H’zashi and A’zawa seemed to relax and even grow excited. Tomura admitted to himself at that moment that maybe he was anxious about nothing and maybe everything would go according to plan.

But then Midoriya laughed, and Tomura’s imagination couldn’t come up with a suitable conversation that would have Midoriya laughing during it so soon. And then Midoriya jumped right in and started really talking, sometimes dropping Tomura’s name in the mix.

“What are you saying to them?” Tomura asked, eyes narrowed as he watched the aliens become immediately enraptured with whatever the hell Midoriya was saying to them.

Midoriya waved him off, probably fully intending on catching him up in a moment… right? But what if he wasn’t? What if right now, Midoriya was explaining to H’zashi and A’zawa about how he’s actually the bad guy, the villain? What if they’re planning on how to escape together and leave him behind now that they can all communicate without him being any the wiser?

No, Midoriya is a hero, Tomura reasoned with himself. He wouldn’t do that to him. Besides, Midoriya is the one who always said that they are allies right now until they are back on Earth.

Then Midoriya laughed again in response to something A’zawa said, answered with something of his own, and whatever he answered with caused H’zashi and A’zawa to look back and forth between Midoriya and Tomura.

“What?” Tomura demanded.

He didn’t get an answer as H’zashi said something to A’zawa and then turned back to Midoriya.

As the three continued to talk, not giving so much as a word in Japanese or English to Tomura to clue him in on what was being talked about, Tomura started spiraling. Being observant, Tomura noticed when Midoriya stuttered over his words, probably feeling guilty that he was planning on leaving Tomura behind after promising to be allies until they were back on Earth. Then came the side-eye from A’zawa who wouldn't even look at him directly now that he knew about their discourse back on Earth, but only from Midoriya’s point of view.

How cruel it would be for a “hero” to leave someone behind on this god forsaken planet, all alone, doomed to be experimented on and die, when escape might be right there with H’zashi’s and A’zawa’s help. And Midoriya would really deny that to Tomura? What had he ever done?

Well, he’d known what he’d done. Attacking his class and his teacher, never giving him a break. But, there were lines he hadn’t crossed! It’s not like he ever went after his mother or anything! That should count for something! Shouldn’t it?

If their situations were reversed, Tomura wouldn’t leave Midoriya behind! He’d never leave a party member behind! This wasn’t fair!

H’zashi made a trilling sound– laughter?-- and pointed with his wing in his direction. Now they were laughing at him outright? Laughing about the fact that they were going to leave him behind?

The least they could do is tell him to his face that the plans had changed.

“What are you talking about?” Tomura asked to give them that chance to come clean, to fess up and take accountability, pressing himself against the bars as if to get closer to hear the conversation better, as if that would allow him any better insight into their conversation.

H’zashi flapped his wings, seemingly agitated, and looked back and forth between the two humans.

Did he think that Tomura would somehow ruin their escape plans? How could he when he couldn’t talk to anyone? It’s not like he could wave down the guards and tell them what they were planning!

“What’s going on?!” Tomura groaned, slamming his forehead against the bars of his cell.

After some more minutes of discussion, Tomura had decided that he had had enough. If they wanted to team up and be their own group of three and exclude him, that was fine with him! It was! But there needed to be a clear game plan about that! All party members aware of who was involved and who wasn’t!

“Whatever! It’s fine!” Tomura exploded, making A’zawa, H’zashi, and Midoriya startle, all attention going from their current conversation to Tomura. “I don’t need you! I don’t need any of you!” he screeched. “I can make it out of here on my own!”

He stormed away from the bars and flopped down in his own bed-grass box.

“What’s your problem?” Midoriya asked, like he didn’t know.

“No, it’s fine! Go on without me,” Tomura insisted in a snarl. “I’ve done things on my own before. I can do it again.” Then after a pause, he angrily said, “it’s not like they did anything to help when you were being taken away, you know?! And now you’re just cozying on up to them?!”

“Not like they did anything?” Izuku repeated, incredulous. “Like you did anything, either?” he challenged.

Flying meal trays and bottles flew through Tomura’s mind, but, in the end, Midoriya was right in that he didn’t have the effect he wanted, and Midoriya did end up getting taken away after all he had tried.

Tomura clenched his jaw and looked away. “Yeah. I didn’t do anything either,” he said. “So I guess we can just part ways and be on our own.” He folded himself into his own box and didn’t move again until the beginning of the next cycle, not even getting up to inspect to see if there was anything different to try on the meal tray offered for him when it was mealtime.

Tomura laid in his box as his mind whirred, thinking of how exactly he was going to follow through on his announcement that he didn’t need anyone else and he could escape by himself. His teeth clenched and grinded as he tried to ignore Midoriya’s continued conversation with H’zashi and A’zawa that Tomura could pointedly not understand. When he heard the dolluns’ footsteps coming up the corridor, he leapt up from his box, but they had already taken the meal tray. Tomura felt disappointed that he didn’t have the chance to take the tray to add to his collection, but at least the dolluns looked concerned as they looked from the full meal tray in their clutches to Tomura.

“Hey!” he said to the dolluns, stepping up close to the bars. He forced back his smile at the gesture, remembering that Midoriya had said something on their first day there about how smiling might be seen as aggressive. “I… want… that… thing…” Tomura said slowly, feeling stupid and already knowing that speaking slowly won’t make them understand what he was saying. “The… Universal… Translation… Device!” Tomura announced, pointing to his head where the implant would go.

The dolluns didn’t seem to understand, unfortunately. Also, unfortunately, Midoriya did understand.

“What are you doing?!” he asked.

“Wait! Come back! Are you going to give me the implant or not?!” Tomura wailed after the retreating dolluns, ignoring Midoriya.

“You don’t want a UTD,” Midoriya insisted bluntly.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Tomura said, turning his head away from Midoriya to very visually and obviously snub him like he’s been doing to Tomura by keeping him out of the conversations. It served him right.

“What do you think is going to happen when we get back to Terra?” Midoriya asked. Tomura hated how calm Midoriya’s voice was, like Tomura’s childish antics weren’t affecting him at all. “I’m going to have a brand-new target on my head for my enemies to aim at,” Midoriya said, moving his hair aside so that the chrome implant was entirely visible to Tomura’s eyes to really make his point. “Who knows how sturdy this thing is, or if one kick or punch will collapse my whole skull in?” And hell if Midoriya didn’t actually sound worried about that possibility. “Is that something that you also want to worry about when it could just be limited to the one of us?”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Tomura started, but then his thoughts cleared, because Midoriya was trying to leave him behind! “Yes!” Tomura stated. “Yes I do, because otherwise, I won’t be getting back to Earth, or Terra,” Shigaraki mocked, “or whatever the fuck you want to call it now that you’re all buddy-buddy with the aliens.”

“I know it seems pretty hopeless, but what’s made you so hostile?” Midoriya asked, like he didn’t know. “Before, it was just hopeless resignation that we might not make it home, but now it’s like you think you definitely won’t and it’s my fault!”

“Because it is your fault!” Tomura screeched, irritated that Midoriya was playing this game instead of being up front with him. “You’re sitting over there, planning with Cat-Face and Bird-Face to escape and leave me behind, and now you’re pretending that you’re not doing exactly that? So what? I can’t make my own plans in the meantime? That’s cruel, Midoriya. I never expected that from you.”

“What are you talking about?” Midoriya asked, and his acting skills were excellent. He did seem truly bewildered.

“And after the whole speech about us being allies here until we make it back to Earth. You really had me fooled, you know? That’s not very heroic, I have to say.”

“What?”

Tomura saw red. “Stop pretending!” he screamed. “The least you could do is be honest about how you’re planning with A’zawa and H’zashi to leave me behind when you make your grand escape!”

“Shigaraki!” Midoriya exclaimed, sounding half-exasperated, half-begging. “We’re not!”

“Like hell!”

“We aren’t!” Midoriya insisted, and dammit he sounded sincere. Tomura didn’t know what to believe in that moment. “Why would you believe that?”

Tomura didn’t answer, trying to sort through his feelings, trying to figure out if he could trust Midoriya in this instance or not.

“Shigaraki,” Midoriya tried again, only continuing when Tomura’s frantic red eyes met pleading green, “when we open the cell door to get A’zawa out, wouldn’t it make sense to bring you right out with him instead of trying to keep you in there?” Tomura opened his mouth to retort that maybe he would try to trap him or lose him at a separate spot during the escape, but Midoriya continued before Tomura could. “Wouldn’t it make sense to have more party members fighting the NPCs to get out of here instead of limiting our numbers early on?”

“Don’t,” Tomura rasped. “Don’t do that to me.”

“Do what?” Midoriya asked, and seemed genuine in his question, so Tomura answered.

“Use the video game talk like that,” Tomura said. “Everyone knows that’s how I think and strategize for myself, but I’m capable of following along with strategy without people dumbing it down for me.”

“Sorry,” Midoriya apologized easily. “For the record, though, I don’t think you’re dumb because of it. I think it’s unique and probably really helpful to see different strategies and outcomes that others might not have been able to predict in certain circumstances.” Tomura opened his mouth to argue, but Midoriya wasn’t finished. “But I won’t do it again. I’m not trying to do things that bother you, Shigaraki. So, can you tell me why you believed that we would leave you behind?”

Tomura took a deep breath and decided that Midoriya was acting acceptably so far, so he would cooperate with Midoriya’s request until he said something he didn’t like.

“You were talking in that alien language–”

“Standard,” Midoriya supplied.

“--with Cat-Face and Bird-Face and leaving me out of the conversation,” Tomura explained, seemingly ignoring Midoriya’s interjection, but filing the information away mentally for later. “I could tell that you were making plans with each other to escape now that you could communicate, and because you weren’t including me in them, you must have been planning to exclude me from the escape.”

“Why would you think that?” Midoriya asked.

“It would make sense,” Tomura insisted. “They’re probably the ones who even talked you into it, because I know you were insistent on us being allies while we were here, but after they found out that you’re the hero and I’m the villain, then it only makes sense that they would convince you to make an escape plan with them but to leave me behind.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Midoriya said. Tomura nodded with his hands splayed out in a ‘glad-you-could-see-reason’ manner. But then Midoriya opened his big, fat mouth again. “Except one thing. How would H’zashi and A’zawa figure out that back on Earth, you’re a villain and I’m a hero?”

“Because you told them,” Tomura said like Midoriya was stupid.

“But I didn’t,” Midoriya said in the same tone.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Tomura asked, still in the same tone.

“Out of all the information we’re exchanging, I don’t see how that is relevant information,” Midoriya said. Tomura scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, and Midoriya must have seen that because he continued, “Besides, you’re not the villain in your mind, are you? You’re doing what you need to do to better society, which makes you the hero in your story.” Midoriya ignored Tomura’s big, dramatic, fake gagging at that. “So it wouldn’t be fair to just give them my perspective without giving them yours, too.”

After a pause, Tomura asked, “what kind of information have you been exchanging then?”

Midoriya beamed and launched right in, like he thought Tomura would never ask but was so prepared if he ever did. Tomura wondered if he actually needed to breathe or if he had a secret, hidden quirk included in One For All that couldn’t be turned off with quirk-canceling technology that let him talk and talk without needing to take a breath.

Midoriya told him about how the aliens planned to update the implant and give it to Tomura as well, so Midoriya’s plan is to pretend the implant doesn’t work up until that point, and then reveal that it does work to throw all of their research out the window and make them start back from when they implanted the UTD into Midoriya, thinking that it didn’t work but it actually did, hopefully buying Tomura even more time before his implant would take place. And that’s only if they didn’t escape before then.

“And you didn’t think this was important information to tell me?” Tomura asked, exasperated.

Midoriya rubbed the back of his neck, thoroughly chastised. “You’re right,” he admitted easily. “I’m sorry for being such a sucky translator. I’ll work on being better at that.”

“You better,” Tomura said, but Midoriya could probably tell by his tone that he wasn’t planning on holding too much of a grudge over it.

Midoriya told him about how their cellmates were so concerned over their sweating.

“That’s what all that was about?” Tomura said. “Ridiculous.”

Midoriya explained how the aliens, apparently all of them, don’t sweat until it’s a last resort, so it was very alarming for them to see it for the Terrans, and how they thought they were on their deathbed because of it.

“You’ve called Earth “Terra” before and now you’ve called humans “Terrans.” What’s up with that?” Tomura asked.

“Oh,” Midoriya said blankly. “I’m already getting my languages mixed up with Standard. This is just fantastic.” Sarcasm. “It’s what they call us and Earth in Standard,” he said when he refocused on answering Tomura’s question instead of only being focused on himself and his first-world problem like the selfish fuck he was.

“Hey,” Tomura said. “If what they speak is called Standard, and your translation device allows you to understand it, couldn’t it also be called a Standard Translation Device?”

Midoriya shrugged. “I guess. I don’t see why not.”

Tomura burst out laughing, much to Midoriya’s confusion. “You officially have an STD!” Tomura announced.

“No!” Midoriya objected. “It’s definitely called a Universal Translation Device for a reason! I just don’t know what that reason is, yet!”

“Midoriya has an STD!” Tomura cackled, falling onto his back and holding his stomach at the force of his laughter.

“Shigaraki!” Midoriya said, looking up and down the hallway at the other aliens who were watching with interested eyes.

“Well, it’s not like they can understand me!” Tomura defended.

“But I’ll have to explain it to them!” Midoriya said, dread filling his features. “And that’s even worse than if they understood from the beginning!”

“Then don’t explain!”

“Didn’t I just promise that I’d be a better translator? That works both ways.”

“Fucking heroes, man,” Tomura complained. “Always having to do the right thing…” Tomura tried and failed to hide the growing smile. “Except getting STDs apparently.”

“Shigaraki!”

Midoriya desperately tried to change the subject.

He talked about how H’zashi’s feathers can sharpen to be as sharp as knives. This can happen on purpose when H’zashi wants it to, or automatically in response to H’zashi’s surprise or stress.

“That’s pretty cool. And Cat-Face is just a big, dumb cat?” Tomura asked, glancing at his cellmate.

Midoriya smiled in an I-know-something-you-don’t-know kind of way and explained how A’zawa told him that he has a venom in his tail. Midoriya stated that he believes that it’s similar to how a scorpion’s tail would work, and that A’zawa said it’s probably the same stuff that the gas that knocked him out in the mask is made out of.

Tomura looked over at his cellmate in awe. “You didn’t tell me you were so cool!”

Midoriya said something to A’zawa, probably a quick translation along with an explanation of why Tomura was saying that if Tomura had to guess (unless it was “I’ve lied to him for now about how we’re still bringing him along on our escape. Just keep playing nice until we get the chance to ditch him.”).

And speaking of the mask, it wasn’t on Midoriya’s face anymore, and Tomura was just now realizing it.

“It was on a timer,” Midoriya said. “Well, that’s what H’zashi said, but I still didn’t stop trying to pull it off until it actually came off by itself right before the meals came. I think it made him anxious to see me struggling with that. I think they really actually care about us, even after only having known us a short time and not being able to communicate until now.”

“Do you still have it?” Tomura asked. “The mask?” he clarified.

Midoriya held it up to show Tomura that he did. “It’s useless now, though. A’zawa explained that it won’t work again.”

“Can I have it?” Tomura asked, reaching his hands through the bars in anticipation of Midoriya throwing it to him. “I need to replenish my stock.”

“Replenish your–” Midoriya’s eyes went from Tomura’s bed box then down to his feet. “When I was taken away, you wouldn’t have had room to sleep in your own bed-grass box,” Midoriya said, thinking aloud. “And now you’re saying you need to replenish your stock, but I know the dolluns aren’t brave enough to come into your cell to clean you out.”

Tomura stubbornly did not respond.

“And I’ve been meaning to ask,” Midoriya said. “What happened to your shoes?”

Chapter Text

“How long until the lights go out?” Shigaraki asked, yawning.

“Shigaraki wants to know how long it is until the lights start to dim,” Izuku said aloud, not directed at anyone in particular.

It was A’zawa who answered. “Probably about another two kiloclicks. He’s tired, right? That’s what that open-mouth thing means?”

Smiling, Izuku nodded. “Yeah. That’s what it means. It’s called a yawn. It brings more oxygen into the body to try to wake the person up. It doesn’t really do all that much, but that’s its intention.” Turning to Shigaraki, Izuku said, “A’zawa asked about what your yawn was, so I explained that. He says it’s going to be about two kiloclicks before the lights begin to dim.”

“Kiloclicks?” Shigaraki asked, brow furrowed in disgusted confusion.

“Time is measured in various degrees of clicks,” Izuku responded scholarly, much to Shigaraki’s annoyance. “A click is a second, a hectoclick is a hundred seconds, a kiloclick is a thousand seconds–”

“Well, how long is a thousand seconds anyway?”

“About 17 minutes.”

“Rounding down, it’s going to be about half an hour until lights out?” Shigaraki clarified.

“Yes,” Izuku confirmed.

“And you couldn’t have just said that?”

“I’m trying to be a good translator here, remember?”

Shigaraki groaned, slamming his face into his hands.

“Is that harmful?” H’zashi asked, feathers puffing out with anxiety.

“Nothing to worry about,” Izuku said. “H’zashi wanted to know if you hitting yourself in the face was harmful,” he notified with a laugh.

“Oh, fuck,” Shigaraki said, looking across the hall at Izuku’s cellmate with alarm. “How many things have we done that they thought we were hurting ourselves?!”

“I really freaked H’zashi out when I was rubbing at my eyes the first night we were here when the lights started dimming for the first time. I don’t even remember doing it, but H’zashi is adamant that I did. He said that he thought that I was destroying my eyes in distress to the lights changing, and was very worried because he was pretty sure that our eyes don’t regenerate once destroyed.”

Shigaraki snorted. “Well, he got that right.” Shigaraki yawned again. “I’m going to my…what’s it called? A grass-bed box?”

“Bed-grass box, is the translation.”

“They should call it a Shigaraki box,” Shigaraki said, snorting to himself as he crawled in and made himself comfortable, making Izuku confused. Maybe Shigaraki was really tired, so much so that he wasn’t making sense.

“Why do you say that?” Izuku asked.

“We both decay stuff,” Shigaraki answered, like Izuku should have already made the connection.

“What?” Izuku asked, thinking that Shigaraki is obviously delirious with how tired he must be or something.

“The aliens haven’t told you?” Shigaraki asked. “Cat-Face showed me with a piece of meat. He put it in the bed-grass stuff, and it decayed it away, just like that. Except, unlike with my quirk, I think it only works with dead things. I think that’s why he was so adamant that I take the dreto’s wing out.”

“The dreto’s wing?” Izuku asked.

Shigaraki sat up bolt straight. “I never showed you the wing!” He reached up above him, in between the back of the cell and the edge of the bed-grass box and pulled up a huge, glittering wing that Izuku immediately recognized as belonging to the dreto alien species.

“I know!” Shigaraki said when he noticed that Izuku’s jaw had dropped. “Pretty neat, isn’t it. If Cat-Face hadn’t warned me about the bed-grass being like me and decaying shit, I would have lost it! A sacrifice to the grass! Can you imagine that?”

“Amazing,” Izuku squeaked out. “I’m going to ask them about it now and see if I can find out more. Is there anything specific you want to know?”

“Nah,” Shigaraki said, putting the wing back down and lying back down in the grass, dismissing Izuku with a wave of his hand. “Just fill me in on the basics tomorrow.”

Turning to H’zashi, Izuku whispered frantically, “how the hell did Shigaraki get a dreto’s wing?!”

“Oh, well, he just kind of twisted, and then pulled, but kind of using both motions together,” H’zashi explained, trying to show with his hands how Shigaraki did it. H’zashi’s eyes wandered up and down Izuku’s body. “I don’t imagine it would be very difficult for you to do, either, Midoriya. Their wings are quite delicate.”

Izuku rubbed at his eyes, and H’zashi flapped his wings in agitation, making Izuku sigh and put his hands down, away from his face. “Sorry. I know that bothers you.”

“And I know now that it doesn’t really injure you. It just really looks like it does from here.”

“I just didn’t realize that he maimed someone while I was away,” Izuku explained.

“Oh, yes,” H’zashi answered. “I was concerned at first, but A’zawa reassured me and calmed me down by reminding me that even he might respond so violently if he was in that position and I was taken away from him. It would be hard to be in Shigaraki’s place with not knowing the language, not being able to have anything explained, having his lover taken away and not knowing if he’d ever see him again.”

“I’m sorry,” deadpanned Izuku. “What? You think we’re lovers? Me and Shigaraki? Shigaraki and me? Me? As in Midoriya? Me? Is my Universal Translation device working correctly?”

“Are you not lovers?” A’zawa had the audacity to ask.

“We’re not even friends!” Izuku revealed. “Sure, we knew each other back on Terra, but we didn’t get along. We just put aside our differences temporarily while we’re here because of the situation we’ve found ourselves in.”

“Well, that’s very mature and forward-thinking of both of you,” H’zashi complimented.

“I don’t know if I’d be able to do that with some people from my past that I don’t get along with,” A’zawa pondered aloud.

“I think you’d be able to,” H’zashi objected, “with the right motivation.”

“Overhaul?” A’zawa threw out.

H’zashi squawked. “It’s not like they are enemies, though! It’s not like Midoriya is very clearly on the good side and Shigaraki is a villain or something. Midoriya just said that they aren’t friends and didn’t get along on Terra. It’s a completely different situation than if you were to be stuck somewhere and had to try to work together with Overhaul!”

Midoriya congratulated himself for keeping a straight face and wondered if there was an off-switch for his implant so that he could go back to blissful unawareness whenever he wanted.

“Shigaraki said something about the bed-grass being able to decay dead things,” Izuku said to change the subject.

Shigaraki had been paranoid that Izuku was going to tell the aliens that he was a villain and conspire with them to leave him behind. Izuku saw no reason to betray him by doing any part of that, even if he believed that it wouldn’t matter to them and they would still want to help Shigaraki escape regardless.

“Oh, yeah. The bed-grass is an invasive species on most planets, which is why it’s contained in metal on all sides here instead of just allowed to grow freely. It would take over the planet in most environments if allowed. It’s a pretty hardy species and can grow in most climates, spreading and choking out other plant species around it,” H’zashi explained. “A’zawa’s the one who showed Shigaraki with some extra meat from his discarded meal how it worked. I can show you tomorrow with some of yours if you’d like a demonstration.”

“I’d like that,” Izuku said. Then, “Does it have any cleaning properties, or just the decay?”

“Excellent question!” A’zawa praised. “It does have cleaning properties as a byproduct of its decaying properties in that it preys on dead things, but also microbacteria. That’s why despite its invasiveness, it’s perfect for bedding. It keeps Kuphea’s prisoners clean and healthy.”

“Kulphea’s prisoners?” Izuku asked.

A’zawa and H’zashi shared a look. “This might take a while,” H’zashi warned.

Izuku gestured around him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Did you find out anything about the grass-bed?” Shigaraki asked at the beginning of the next cycle.

“Bed-grass,” Izuku corrected easily. “And it not only decays dead things, but also microbacteria. It’s been keeping us clean.”

Shigaraki blanched, looking at the bed-grass box. “How did I miss the fact that I haven’t showered in days, but I’m not all grimy and gross?”

Izuku shrugged. “We’ve had bigger things to worry about. I vaguely wondered if it was something to do with that liquid that we were doused in that you mentioned. Our cellmates explained that it was a cleaning liquid, but it’s not long lasting, hence the bed-grass to keep us all healthy.”

“I wish I could decay microorganisms,” Shigaraki said, looking down at his hands. “They’re too small,” he added, looking up at Izuku, like Izuku didn’t already understand that his quirk is five-finger activation.

Izuku just nodded in sympathy.

“The microorganisms!” Shigaraki clarified. “Not my hands!”

“I know what you meant!” Izuku insisted, barely refraining from rolling his eyes and unable to refrain from laughing.

Shigaraki scowled at him. “Just making sure.”

“H’zashi and A’zawa explained to me last night that this planet is a prison,” Izuku said. “It’s called Kulphea.”

“Really?” Shigaraki asked. “If they’re criminals, maybe I had nothing to worry about if they found out I’m a villain. Maybe they’d be on my side and want to leave you behind, and I’d have to play hero,” Shigaraki spat the word out like it physically pained him, “and convince them to bring you along in the end.”

Izuku considered not telling him this next part, but decided honesty was the best policy. “They said that they are innocent of the crimes they are accused of.”

Shigaraki barked out a laugh. “That’s what they all say!” Then, “What are they accused of anyway? Murder? Espionage? Crimes against the universe?”

“Falsifying research records,” Izuku answered.

Shigaraki grimaced. “Lame! Who even cares if they’re guilty or innocent if that’s their charge?”

“They were researching Terr- humans!” Izuku informed.

“You can say Terrans, now that I know that means humans,” Shigaraki said. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“They also sometimes call us deathworlders because Earth is so deadly and dangerous.”

“That… sounds fucking awesome,” Shigaraki admitted. “I renounce my humanity and am now only to be referred to as a deathworlder. Damn, they know how to name things, don’t they? Well, except themselves. Cat-Face and Bird-Face are much better names than what they tried to tell us their names are.”

“You’re in a good mood today,” Izuku observed.

“I’m actually feeling kind of restless.”

Shigaraki lied down on the floor, grabbing the cell bars and pulling himself forward, sliding across the cell floor on his stomach until he couldn’t any further, wrapping his arms around the cell bars and resting his forehead against them as he stared at Izuku.

Izuku, after staring deadpan at Shigaraki for a short moment, decided that if he can’t beat him, he might as well join him, and mirrored his pose across the corridor in his own cell.

“What are you two doing?” A’zawa asked.

“Shigaraki is feeling restless, and I just decided to join him,” Izuku said. “A’zawa asked what we are doing. I let him know you’re restless and I just decided to join you.”

Shigaraki narrowed his eyes. “A likely story.”

Izuku narrowed his own eyes in turn. “What do you think we said?”

“Well, I obviously heard… floor… green… white.”

“I already told you that I misinterpreted those words at the beginning, and those translations are actually metal, fur, and clothes.”

“Well, then I heard metal, fur, clothes.”

“... And why would A’zawa say that to me?”

“You tell me!” Shigaraki demanded. “It’s obviously in code so I can’t understand the message!”

“Why would A’zawa need to talk to me in code when you already can’t understand Standard?”

Shigaraki narrowed his eyes in frustration at Izuku’s logic and tried a different strategy. “Or maybe Cat-Face said, uh, “remember not to tell him that we’re actually mastermind criminals.” And you said, “I already told him that you said you were innocent from a petty crime.” I don’t know why you would hide this information from me, though. Them being mastermind criminals instead of researchers would probably help us escape faster.”

“It probably would,” Izuku conceded. “Alas, they are just wrongly accused researchers, if they are to be believed, after all. They could just be lying to me, but I’m telling you what they told me.”

“What if I’m secretly a language expert and I’m picking up Standard so quickly?” Shigaraki asked.

“Then you’ll see that I’m doing my best to be a good translator and telling you exactly what they’re saying and what I’m saying soon enough,” Izuku said.

Shigaraki groaned, pushing himself back a little bit to give himself room to drop his head to the floor.

Without missing a beat, and impressively without looking up, Shigaraki reached out his hand as a dollun passed by through the corridor, wrapping a hand around their ankle, causing the dollun to trip. The dollun, panicked, scrambled along the floor, trying to get as far away from the snickering Terrans as they could before finally hauling themselves back up and scurrying along as fast as they could down the hallway.

Shigaraki seemed surprised to find Izuku laughing with him.

“That’s not very heroic of you,” he snipped.

“Well, it’s not very nice of them to lock us up like this,” Izuku reasoned. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We didn’t? You’re including me in that statement, too, huh? I think this abduction has gone to your head.”

“It hasn’t,” Izuku promised, even though he figured Shigaraki was only half-serious and probably didn’t care all that much either way. “Do you think that any of them care what squabbles we have going on back on Earth?” Izuku asked, but it was a rhetorical question. Of course the aliens didn’t care. “Being way out here kind of makes everything back there seem small, doesn’t it?”

Shigaraki thought for a moment, and Izuku got the sense that he was actually thinking about it, which he appreciated. “Yeah, it kind of does,” Shigaraki agreed in the softest voice Izuku had ever heard come from him.

“Your turn,” Shigaraki warned as they heard footsteps echoing, nearing their cells.

Sure enough, the alien was closer to Izuku’s cell, close enough for him to reach out and grab their ankle to trip them up.

“Ouch!” H’zashi exclaimed with a wince, coming closer to the cell bars to get a better look at their bleeding victim. “I think you broke her facial phalange!”

“I’m sorry– her what?” Izuku asked, absolutely bewildered, knowing that the alien in front of them, holding her face, could not have a face finger. No. Not happening.

“Maybe I am losing it,” Izuku told Shigaraki after H’zashi did confirm that he did hear correctly the first time.

Shigaraki, amused, asked, “why’s that?”

“H’zashi just told me that I broke that alien’s face finger.”

“No fucking way!” Shigaraki exclaimed, shifting to try to get a better view as the alien ran down the hallway out of sight. “I want to break something!” Then, after a moment, “what the fuck is a face finger?”

Izuku asked their cellmates and translated for Shigaraki, explaining that it’s apparently involved in that alien’s species’, who are called ucuh, mating rituals.

Shigaraki barked out a laugh. “Nice!” he praised. “You probably just ruined her whole dating life! That’s what she gets! We’ll take these fuckers down, one love life at a time if we have to!”

Izuku’s laugh echoed down the hallway, the jailed aliens growing silent and still, turning to see what the Terrans were up to. Izuku felt the way his shirt moved against his skin in between his stomach and the cell floor as he struggled to breath, and the way the cell bars tingled with low level electricity against his arms. He knew he would remember that moment forever.

“You say you want to break something,” Izuku said. “You don’t think tearing a dreto’s wing from their back was enough, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. I did do that,” Shigaraki mused, smiling as he thought back on the memory. “That’s just the beginning. I’m going to become a terror as they’ve never known, even locked in this cell, until they set us free.”

“I don’t think terrorizing them is going to motivate them to set us free,” Izuku hedged.

Shigaraki rolled his head back and forth on the floor before looking back up at Izuku. “Well, what we were doing before wasn’t motivating them to set us free, either,” he argued.

“Wow, okay,” Izuku conceded. “You may have a point there.”

Shigaraki pouted when the next alien to come through the corridor made a point to go through the direct center, out of reach of both Terrans, but in doing so, made an alien coming in the opposite direction pause so that they could also take the path that was directly center between the two Terrans’ cells.

“Hey, H’zashi? A’zawa? If the guards come around and ask you to get us to stop terrorizing everyone, could you try to negotiate to get us some toothbrushes?” Izuku asked. “Ask for something that you guys want, too. Then you could offer to try to distract us or something when you hear someone approaching our cells.”

“You’re asking them to get us toothbrushes?” Shigaraki asked. “About time!” when Izuku nodded.

“Yes, of course,” H’zashi said, always eager to help.

“What are toothbrushes?” A’zawa asked. Or well, he tried to, the word not quite successfully falling from his lips, but Izuku knew what he meant.

“How do I best explain what a toothbrush is to aliens who probably have self-cleaning teeth or some shit?” Izuku asked Shigaraki, trying not to look as exasperated as he felt.

Shigaraki grinned, and they got to work.

“I’m sure they have some kind of brush, right?” Shigaraki asked. “Cat-Face has fur. He’s gotta brush it. So, you could start with that. Explain about how it’s like a brush, but a lot smaller and for cleaning teeth.”

“Good idea,” Izuku said, and started to do just that.

“Oh, and make sure to describe the bristles as soft,” Shigaraki added as he lied sprawled out on the floor, head turned in Izuku’s direction to make sure he was paying attention. “I don’t want stiff bristles. That’s just asking for gum recession.”

“Got it,” Izuku said. Before translating for H’zashi and A’zawa, he looked at Shigaraki consideringly.

“What?” Shigaraki asked.

“You said you’d never write a scholarly paper, but I think you could about the mechanics of toothbrushes,” Izuku said.

Shigaraki laughed. “That almost sounds like a compliment.”

“It’s almost supposed to be one, I think,” Izuku said, smiling.

Izuku explained the concept of a toothbrush to their cellmates, showing with his fingers how long the whole thing should be versus how much space the bristles would take up.

“You have to manually clean your teeth?” H’zashi asked, horrified. “How often?”

“Twice per cycle is recommended,” Izuku explained. “You have self-cleaning teeth?”

“The shells from my nuts cleans my teeth, and the kind of meat A’zawa eats has cleansing properties with the way it has to be bitten into the the juices,” H’zashi said. “Your food doesn’t clean your teeth as you eat it?”

“Some help,” Izuku admitted, “like the fibers from fruits and vegetables, but it’s not the same as brushing.”

“Well, we are known for being the researchers of Terra,” A’zawa said, “so it won’t be difficult to make them think we already knew about this device and your need for it without giving away that we can talk with each other. It shouldn’t be hard to ask for or for them to make.”

“Are they asking about toothpaste flavor preferences?” Shigaraki asked. “If so, for fucks’ sake, nothing sweet. If there’s no other choice, make it at least have some spice, like cinnamon or something, right? But avoid it if it can be helped, yeah?”

Izuku laughed. “They were actually asking about how often teeth need brushed. It’s a new concept entirely to them.”

“Fucking luxury bones, man,” Shigaraki complained, gesturing vaguely to his face. “High maintenance pieces of shit.”

Chapter Text

“Are they bringing us our toothbrushes?” Shigaraki asked. “And mint toothpaste?” he badgered when he didn’t get a response automatically.

“Cotton candy toothpaste,” Izuku answered under his breath as he tried to focus on what the approaching dolluns and scraks were conversing about. It was rare to see the two species getting along enough to walk next to each other, let alone conversing together.

“No!” Shigaraki objected, throwing himself to the ground in preparation to tantrum. “Tell them to send it back! I don’t want it!” Then, after a thoughtful pause, “Do they even know what cotton candy is?” Then, indignant, “Midoriya!”

With a snicker, Izuku said, “Okay, you got me. I’m trying to listen in on their conversation,” Izuku stressed, nodding his head in the direction of the aliens coming down the hall. “They haven’t mentioned anything about toothbrushes, yet.”

Shigaraki quietened then, looking down the hall to see the two species approaching. “Oh,” he whispered-yelled, trying to be quiet but also still be heard by Izuku across the hall. “They don’t normally get along, do they?”

“No, which is why I’m trying to listen in,” Izuku explained with a sharp glare in Shigaraki’s direction.

Shigaraki raised his hands in surrender and meandered back into his cell, busying himself with counting how many of each item he had gathered in his newly accumulated stash.

“They have that gun that shoots ammo-masks!” Izuku warned loudly as soon as he saw it clutched in the hands of a scrak following up at the back of the group of approaching aliens, unable to control his volume in his panic.

Shigaraki, without hesitation, used a bowl to shield the lower half of his face before turning around from his stash, quickly making his way to the bars that still buzzed with low-level electricity that had no effect on the humans the cells housed. He promptly threw another bowl over to Izuku who, adrenaline rushing, panic crawling up his throat, imagined himself fumbling the bowl and it rolling down the corridor toward the approaching dolluns and scraks, leaving him defenseless against their weapons, Shigaraki yelling in the background, probably something about wasting a valuable part of his stash, but Izuku wouldn't be able to make it out because of the blood rushing through his ears making everything sound muffled.

Luckily, that was just his panic-addled brain feeding him some intrusive thoughts of what-if, and he caught the bowl just fine, pulling it in through the bars and pressing it over the lower half of his face where the mask would attach if given the chance.

The scrak holding the weapon awkwardly, the weapon too small to sit correctly for it’s long, armored limbs asked, “what is this?” with the weapon half raised toward Izuku when they stopped in front of his cell, turning toward Izuku’s cell first.

Why does it always have to be me? He felt selfish immediately after the thought, knowing that it was better for them to focus on him than to drag Shigaraki off to get his own brain messed with for the UTD implant if that could be avoided at all.

Izuku provided direct translations for Shigaraki in real-time, nothing more and nothing less. “What is this?” he said, right after the scrak.

“What is this?!” Shigaraki mocked, in a high-pitched tone gesturing with one of his hands, feeling brave enough to not brace the bowl with both hands with the weapon not aimed at him, but not enough to remove the bowl from his face, his voice echoing off the metal contours of the inside of the bowl pressed cautiously against his face. “What are those?! What is anything?! Fuck, are these guys dumb. We should have figured out that they weren’t top of the hierarchy the second we got here.”

Despite himself, Izuku smiled under his own bowl. The faint scent of the crocknets that had been presented in the bowl had long dissipated and there was no dust left behind to waft up into his eyes, but Izuku could imagine it if he tried hard enough. Maybe that’s what was making him tear up, and not the camaraderie that Shigaraki could show when Izuku needed it the most, when he felt the panic at the thought of ‘what if this didn’t work and he woke up with yet another body modification that he wasn’t warned about, didn’t consent to?’

Shigaraki was probably just responding with anything to feign a conversation to not make it obvious that Izuku could translate, so in a way he was benefiting himself by responding, but he could have responded with nonsense, or simple facts like “the sky is blue” or “two plus two equals four.” He didn’t have to try to relieve Izuku’s nerves in the process, Izuku reasoned with himself.

“Take their bowls away,” the scrak demanded when they didn’t get an answer to their obvious question, looking between the two cells to see which prisoner would comply or succeed first.

“Take their bowls away,” Izuku repeated.

“They want them to do what?!” Shigaraki guffawed. “As if! They’ve never gone against us before! They won’t do it now, especially by trying to take something away from our mouths, you know, where we bite from?” More laughter. And tears? Yes, there were tears, Izuku saw. Shigaraki wiped them away with one hand, still supporting the bowl with the other. “These guys at least have a career in comedy when this guard thing doesn’t work out.”

Izuku found himself laughing, too, despite the tense circumstances.

“We wouldn’t do that,” A’zawa answered for both himself and H’zashi. “Even if we wanted to help you– which as your prisoners, mind you, we don’t– we would still not risk ourselves unprotected against the Terrans for your benefit.”

“I never gave Cat-Face enough credit,” Shigaraki said as Izuku translated. “But don’t tell him I said that. You’re my translator. Not theirs!”

“Possessive of me, are you?” Izuku teased through his bowl, eyes narrowing in good fun.

“Who said that?” Shigaraki asked, looking around for the culprit to try to make sense of it, to put it in context.

“I did,” Izuku declared.

Shigaraki looked back at Izuku, brain processing, before very obviously scowling, even behind his bowl.

“Even if I was, you’d have no say,” Shigaraki said. “If I say you’re my party member, you’re my party member. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Izuku drawled with an eye roll and a half-shrug, but was secretly pleased that Shigaraki was comfortable enough around him to allow some of that game-speak to leak into his words and not keep it tightly locked in the confines of his thoughts only.

“That’s more like it!” Shigaraki declared, even despite Izuku’s less-than-serious tone, probably deciding that he would take what he could get or maybe that pretending that Izuku’s feigned compliance was total compliance would get on Izuku’s nerves. It honestly just amused Izuku; it made him happy seeing Shigaraki act carefree in such a tense situation.

“Will they follow you? Can you get them to understand that?” the dollun asked, much to the scraks’ surprise.

The dolluns were not known to be problem-solvers, much more of command-followers than thinkers. But these dolluns have been around the Terrans for cycles and cycles. A’zawa and H’zashi seemed more mildly, pleasantly surprised than completely taken aback like the scraks.

“They want us to follow them? As in follow Cat-Face and Bird-Face?” Shigaraki asked, having observed that the dollun asking the question was asking directly to H’zashi and the way the question was worded.

“That’s the way it was worded,” Izuku said. “Maybe this trip is for a different purpose than to try any implantation updates. I really wish I could ask.” Izuku, frustrated, looked longingly at H’zashi and A’zawa, wishing that he could telepathically communicate with them. What is going on? Where do they want to take us? What are they going to do to us?

“They do know some simple Standard,” H’zashi supplied. “I can try to communicate your desires to them and see if they will agree.”

Izuku quickly translated for Shigaraki before H’zashi turned to Izuku and looked over at Shigaraki as well, loudly and slowly saying in Standard, “follow? You… follow?” while pointing at the Terrans, himself, and then pointing out toward the dolluns and scraks in the hall.

“Follow…?” Izuku repeated like he was testing the word out on his tongue, trying to remember where he had heard the word before. “Follow?” he repeated, turning to Shigaraki like he was asking him if he knew.

“H’zashi asked, “follow? You… follow?” in Standard,” he supplied, but made it sound like a question and kept a confused expression on his face.

“Follow!” Shigaraki exclaimed like he finally understood, and then said, “it will look better if the one without the implant is the one who gets the answer, at least some of the time.”

“Good thinking!” Izuku exclaimed with more energy necessary to seem like their conversation was about finally understanding that the aliens wanted them to follow and not the actual conversation they were having. Izuku turned back to H’zashi, and said in slow, slightly mispronounced Standard, “yes, follow… you. No–” then paused as if he was searching for the word, frustrated, and pointed at the bowl on his face and the weapon the scrak was still holding half-raised, as if ready to aim and fire at any given opportunity. 

“Ammo-mask,” H’zashi provided, repeating it a few times until Izuku feigned finally getting it right.

Surprisingly, the guards were all patient with waiting for the impromptu teaching moment to be over for H’zashi to take the time to respond back to them with an answer instead of demanding one immediately.

Izuku nodded determinedly. “Yes follow. No ammo-mask.”

“They said they will follow, but they don’t want the ammo-masks. Is that something you can agree to?” H’zashi asked.

Izuku was impressed with how he was able to keep his voice even and flat, keep the emotion out of it like he was negotiating for two parties unrelated to him instead of for Terrans who could aid in his escape against the guards keeping them all prisoner there under false pretenses.

“Yes, I believe so. The ammo-mask gun was not mandated to be used, just offered to us. Isn’t that right?” the dollun asked the scrak.

“Yes,” the scrak answered, though their voice was hesitant, like they had no idea what universe they were dropped in that a dollun was leading negotiations with prisoners to get them to do what they wanted.

“And there’s enough of us here to lead them to the holding area by force, if required,” the dollun continued, making a back-up plan, much to everyone’s surprise if Izuku’s read on their body language was correct, “so if they make a run for it or start to fight, we will subdue them and just lead them to their destination physically instead of by trying to get an aim on them with the ammo-mask gun and accidentally hitting someone else or injuring them by striking an area not in range of the targeted area for attachment. Is everyone in agreement and ready to move forward?”

Thanks to the surprise at a dollun’s sudden take-control and problem-solving attitude that is rare for its species, no one paid any mind to Izuku’s muttering that went right alongside the dollun’s speech, giving Shigaraki his real-time translation of exactly what is being said.

“We should still keep the bowls, though,” Izuku offered as an idea as soon as he finished with the translation. “If we discarded them so easily after all that, they might catch on that we can understand that the ammo-mask gun is no longer a consideration for us. We have to act wary about it as long as it’s in sight.”

“Well, that’ll be easy,” Shigaraki said, “because I am wary about it as long as it’s in sight.”

Izuku watched, keeping the bowl pressed tightly against his face, body tense and ready for action should any wrong move be made against him, as the dolluns, for the first time (since he’s been awake and conscious to see it) opened his cell door. H’zashi walked out and looked back at him, giving him a wave with his wing and a simple, urging prompt in Standard, “follow… follow!”

Izuku’s eyes flitted around the company in the corridor, looking for any reason why he should not step out into the hallway. But, he found that the scrak holding the ammo-mask gun had slung it over his body by its strap and was not even holding it with their limbs anymore, let alone holding it at the ready or aimed his way. No one had their hands out, ready to grab him or force him. It seemed like they were letting him walk of his own accord until he showed them that he was not cooperative. But, Izuku could be cooperative.

Unless they were going to implant something else inside of him.

Or try to implant something into Shigaraki.

The same process repeated with Shigaraki’s cell, but Shigaraki showed less hesitation than Izuku did, rushing out to be by Izuku’s side. There was some tenseness among the guards, then, but slowly they relaxed.

“For a second there, I thought they were going to attack each other,” one dollun behind them voiced, relief clear in his tone as they started to walk down the hallway, the scraks leading the dolluns, leading H’zashi and A’zawa, leading Izuku and Shigaraki, followed by guards of both species as well.

“What?” one dollun asked, clearly giddy with relief that all was going according to plan as well. “The Terrans or the aldoi and the thretuil?”

A’zawa and H’zashi’s upper bodies tensed ahead of them and they noticeably moved a little closer as they walked together, walking in solidarity against the voiced prejudice of the dolluns behind them, but unable or unwilling to directly speak out against their guards when they do not have the protection of the electrified bars between them and their captors.

“That’s a good point,” the dollun said, “but I was more worried about the Terrans, since they were known enemies back on Terra.”

“Sure, but aldois and thertuils are natural enemies, are they not?”

“That’s why this is sure to be a bloodbath.”

“You don’t think they’ll help each other?”

“I think it’ll be every individual for himself.”

“What do you think the Terrans talking about anyway?”

“I don’t know. They never seem to stop, though, do they? Especially that green one. He just goes on, and on, and on–”

“Like you don’t?” the dollun teased, chittering out a laugh before being scolded by a scrak behind to take the job seriously.

“They have a point, Midoriya. All you do is talk,” Shigaraki said, giving Izuku some relief from translating everything he was overhearing as they walked.

“They give me a lot to translate,” Izuku said with a small shrug, but he knew Shigaraki wasn’t really complaining, just giving a response for the sake of giving a response and not giving away the fact that Izuku is actually translating after all.

“How did they know we were enemies on Earth?” Shigaraki asked, thinking aloud. “I thought that our abduction was completely random, just whoever was next to walk through that door, whether that be a single person or five people, that’s who they got, and they just so happened to get us. But, with the way they are talking…”

“They did say it as if they know– for sure– that we are enemies. Not just not friends, but true enemies,” Izuku agreed. “Were we being watched beforehand?”

“You’re going to get my paranoia going again,” Shigaraki warned lightheartedly.

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you aren’t being watched,” Izuku countered.

“It’s actually– you know what? Nevermind. You’re the correcting type. Not me.”

“What?” Izuku asked. “What did I get wrong? What’s the saying actually?”

“No!” Shigaraki objected from behind his bowl, turning to look straight ahead and refusing to look at Izuku. “I’m not doing this, Mr. Superluminal. I’m not like you!”

“Shigaraki!”

“No!”

“I need to know!” Izuku objected. “I strive for knowledge!”

“Look it up when we get home!”

“Shigaraki!” Izuku whined. “I won’t remember!”

“I’ll remind you!” Shigaraki said. “But that’s as far as I’ll go! That’s it!”

“You won’t remember to remind me!” Izuku objected.

“It’s a good song! Of course I’ll remember to remind you!” Shigaraki said, completely offended.

“It’s a song?” Izuku asked, sounding even more interested and desperate, taking a few quick steps to get a little ahead so he could look back at Shigaraki over his bowl that he continued to hold to his face with both hands (taking no chances!) and meet his eyes even with Shigaraki refusing to look over at him.

Shigaraki rolled his eyes. “I’ll remind you,” he insisted. “When we get back to Earth. Not a second… or a fucking click I guess, sooner.”

The dolluns and scraks all stuttered in their steps, hearing a word from their language leave Shigaraki’s mouth in the middle of their foreign language, but continued on leading, taking a right down a hallway that led away from the cells, down a hall with nothing to look at, just white, metal walls with no windows or pathways off.

“Ah, Shigaraki, you used a Standard measure of time!” Izuku cooed. “I’m so proud of you!”

“If you ever react like that again, I’ll never do it again,” Shigaraki threatened, eyes narrowed, but it didn’t look so threatening over his bowl he continued to hold there.

Izuku made a cross over his heart and hoped that Shigaraki couldn’t see how he was still smiling like a dumbass under his bowl. From the way Shigaraki’s eyebrows moved downward and a line appeared between them, Izuku figured he probably could.

Oops.

Before Shigaraki could say anything about the expression that Izuku was probably making under his bowl– Shigaraki didn’t have x-ray vision, he couldn’t know for sure– they were led to a door and all four of them, A’zawa, H’zashi, Shigaraki, and Izuku, were ushered through.

The door was shut behind them, and with a quick turn of the handle, they quickly discovered that they were locked in. A quick look around by the humans showed nothing that looked like a camera, but one of the walls was made up of only more electrified bars that led out into an area that looked like an arena that could be found on a movie set. It was large, covered in a flat area filled with a rusty orange dusty looking ground. There were big boulders and rocks provided on the landscape and a big seating area with an announcer's box with a large looking satellite, or what looked like it could possibly be a satellite if it didn’t look so… alien… coming out of the top of it. Since they were on an alien planet, Izuku figured it probably was indeed a satellite.

“No cameras,” H’zashi said.

“No recording devices,” A’zawa added.

Izuku repeated this to Shigaraki as they finally removed their bowls from their faces and asked, “what is this?” his heart sinking as they provided him the answer.

Reluctantly, he provided the answer then to Shigaraki.

“H’zashi and A’zawa said that part of Kuphea’s research is how different species react in stressful situations. This is an arena made for inducing stress and seeing how species will respond. H’zashi is an aldoi and A’zawa is a thretuil. They are natural enemies, but they have found love in each other. Apparently, the experiment is allegedly to see if they will once again become enemies if enough stress is applied.

“We are of the same species, but are known to be enemies on Earth. So, they’re looping us in with the experiment, or maybe looping them in with ours since we’re kind of the main attraction here on Kulphea at the moment. Since they had to open both cells anyway, they decided to just bring all four of us at the same time. They’re going to see if we help each other or hinder each other.”

“What’s the stressor?” Shigaraki asked, cracking his knuckles and starting to jog in place to warm himself up, steely red eyes set on the arena beyond the bars to see if he could see what challenge might await him.

“A big deathworlder species that has been trained to attack on command. They won’t let it kill us, apparently, but…”

“Yeah, got it,” Shigaraki said and started stretching.

Izuku took a deep breath, and then another, trying to calm himself.

“We got this,” Shigaraki said, looking at him. “You’ve done harder things.”

“I’ve had my quirk,” Izuku argued.

“Well, now you have me,” Shigaraki snipped. “I’m better than any damn quirk.”

Izuku laughed at that, some tension leaving his body. “The whole intention of this arena is to see if the stress of it all will split us apart.”

“Well, they failed. I wonder if we told them that if they would just bypass the whole thing, but this is the most action we’ve seen in weeks,” Shigaraki said.

“You can’t know that we’ll stick together through the whole trial,” Izuku argued.

“I already said that if you’re my party member, you’re mine,” Shigaraki said. “And I take care of what’s mine.”

“Wow,” Izuku said, dumbfounded. “I have never felt like such an object, but also oddly protected.”

“Good,” Shigaraki said.

“Is it?” Izuku wondered, but laughed anyway.

He then caught H’zashi and A’zawa up on Shigaraki’s intentions to stick together no matter what.

“That’s everyone’s intentions going in, though,” A’zawa said.

“What I’m going to tell you now so you know, and what they will learn from their experiments eventually, is that Terrans, when they are faced with adversity, will band together and fight harder,” Izuku informed. “Something that can even bring two enemies together is the joining of forces against a third enemy. We have a saying on Terra that goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Too bad the rumors about Terrans weren’t true,” H’zashi said later as they sat there waiting.

A’zawa stated earlier that they might be waiting for some kiloclicks due to the fact that they had intended on drugging the Terrans, so they would have allotted time for the drugs to wear off before starting the stress test.

“What rumors?” Izuku asked.

“That about 80% of your population have meta abilities,” H’zashi stated forlornly. “With that statistic, at least one of you, if not both of you should have some sort of ability, but we haven’t seen any evidence of anything since you both arrived.”

“We both do,” Izuku said.

“What?!” H’zashi squawked.

“Then why haven’t you used them to escape?” A’zawa questioned.

“These,” Izuku said, gesturing to his quirk-canceling bracelets. “They have technology that cancels out our abilities.”

H’zashi and A’zawa stared at the bracelets on Izuku’s and Shigaraki’s wrists for a long time.

“The reason we believed that you and Shigaraki were lovers until corrected was because of the matching jewelry, signifying that you carry eternal love for one another on each other’s person for the world to see,” A’zawa informed. “After you informed us that you were not lovers, I figured that you both wore bracelets to signify love, but to other individuals instead of each other. But, you’re saying, this whole time, we were looking at the reason why our escape has been delayed?”

“Now, now,” chided H’zashi. “We don’t know what their abilities are! You’ve seen examples from when we were researching Terra! Some can enlarge their appendages, but that would not necessarily help us escape for instance!”

A’zawa nodded and seemed to be taking some deep breaths. “What are your meta abilities?”

Izuku smiled sheepishly. “Uh, I have more than one, kind of. But I have super strength, I can float off the ground, and I can sense danger. I can impede vision, and I have these black tentacle things that I can manipulate.”

“Oh my stars.”

“And Shigaraki’s?”

Izuku got even more sheepish, if possible. “He can decay anything he touches as long as it’s with all five of his fingers.”

H’zashi and A’zawa stared at Izuku for a long moment, then at Shigaraki, then at each other.

Izuku caught Shigaraki up on what they were talking about.

“What’s it matter anyway when we don’t have fucking access to our quirks?!” Shigaraki protested.

Izuku perked up and repeated this sentiment to the aliens.

“Maybe there’s a way to break them,” H’zashi said, pulling out two of his feathers and offering one to each human.

They stayed sharp even when not attached to H’zashi’s body.

“Yeah… we have really important veins in our wrists that if we slip and cut them, we could bleed out and die,” Izuku explained.

H’zashi was quick to take the feathers back, putting them right back into their slots where he took them out from as Izuku watched incredulously. Izuku’s eyes narrowed in skepticism as H’zashi pulled them out again and handed them back, but the ends of them were shaped like little hammers instead of acting as knives.

“What?” Izuku said, so confused at what he was looking at that he didn’t ask in Standard.

“The fuck?” Shigaraki finished his sentiment as he looked between the feather in his hand and H’zashi’s wing from which the feather was removed.

Shigaraki looked intently at the hammer end of the feather, and, perking up, said, “I don’t think these will work. The bracelets are too strong for a small feather-hammer, but…”

“But?” Izuku asked, weary and confused, and ready for a nap after seeing what H’zashi can do that he didn’t think to mention before.

“Can he make lock picks?”

Izuku’s eyes widened and he suddenly found that he had new energy as he gave the feathers back and explained what he needed the ends of the feathers to look like. Soon, he had his very own feathery lock picking kit that he was handing off to Shigaraki.

“Don’t you know how?”

“I do,” Izuku admitted.

“Scandalous,” Shigaraki snickered.

“But you should get mine off first so we don’t risk you decaying the feathers over and over again as you’re trying to get mine off,” Izuku said.

Shigaraki’s eyes widened. “Smart,” he agreed. “I can barely imagine having my quirk back after so long without it. It didn’t even occur to me…”

Shigaraki moved closer and got to work picking the lock on Izuku’s quirk-canceling bracelets, and Izuku just sat in the feeling of his power flowing through his body once it was returned to him.

“You know, you could probably just break mine off, now,” Shigaraki pondered as Izuku took over the lock-picking feathers and got started on Shigaraki’s bracelets.

“I probably could, but I don’t want to hurt you. Plus, what if it sets off an alarm if they’re broken versus if they’re just unlocked?”

“Plus, you want to feel badass by using your lock-picking skills when you never get to otherwise?” Shigaraki guessed.

“Yeah. That, too,” Izuku admitted without an ounce of shame, sending a mischievous smile up at Shigaraki before looking down to continue his progress, ignoring Shigaraki’s laughter, but unable to wipe the smile off his own face.

“What do we do with these?” Shigaraki asked, holding the bracelets in his hand, curling all five fingers around them.

They decayed to dust in his palm.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “I guess we don’t have to worry about hiding them. No one give me a high five! Unless…” he looked determinedly at the door that they came through that was locked behind them.

“A’zawa says to wait!” Izuku shouted before Shigaraki could put down his hand on the door and give it a good caress.

Shigaraki groaned. “Do they want out of here or not? It’s escape time!”

“If we leave now, through that door, we won’t know where to go or what to do next,” A’zawa said.

“What’s our alternative?” Izuku asked.

“We go through the arena, get to that announcer’s box, and lock ourselves in. We can use that satellite to send a message to our crew to come pick us up,” A’zawa said. “But the satellite doesn’t actually turn on until the arena is filled and ready to announce and project what is happening to the researchers, so it would ruin our plans and strand us here to try now. If we do want to use the announcer’s box, we would have to wait until it’s time to go against the deathworlder.”

Izuku went over to the electrified bars, pushing himself right up against them and looking out and up. He saw blue.

“Is that open air out there?” Izuku asked. “After we make the call, would they be able to drop down in the arena and pick us up right here?”

“Yes,” A’zawa confirmed.

“Sounds good to me,” Izuku agreed, then explained to Shigaraki.

Shigaraki groaned.

“Do you not agree?” Izuku asked, concerned.

“No,” Shigaraki said. “It’s a good plan. I just was ready to go. I feel like, for the first time since coming here, escape is finally in sight, and I’m just ready to do something about it!”

Izuku shrugged. “If the plan fails, we can come back through this way, and you can demolish that door. But in the meantime, I think it’s best to bide our time for the most direct escape route possible.”

Shigaraki nodded. “It’s a plan. Let’s hurry up and wait, then.”

Chapter Text

One of H’zashi’s feathers fell out. One of his tail feathers, and he seemed very embarrassed about it, so Izuku tried to refrain from prying.

Izuku thought that H’zashi would just put it back in like the others, but H’zashi walked over to Shigaraki, handed the feather to him, and then, very pointedly, made sure that he used all five fingers on it to decay it, to make it disappear.

When the same thing happened two more times, Izuku felt he had to say something. The strong glare from Shigaraki to find out what the hell is happening was also a strong nudge in the right direction.

“H’zashi, what’s happening? Are you okay? Are you healthy?” Izuku asked.

“It’s just stress,” H’zashi answered. A’zawa put a supportive, comforting hand on H’zashi’s shoulder.

“Is there anything I can do to ease your worries?” Izuku asked. “We have a solid plan in place, plus the back-up plan to come back through this way if our first plan fails. Even if they shut the bars again, remember that the electricity doesn’t bother Shigaraki, so he’ll be able to decay the bars like nothing, then decay the door, so we’re just back to where we are right now.”

“It’s the arena,” H’zashi said after a long moment and a squeeze to A’zawa’s hand. “You Terrans are valuable, so when we said that the deathworlder won’t be allowed to kill, we meant that it wouldn’t be allowed to kill you Terrans, not that it wouldn’t be allowed to kill us.”

“Oh,” Izuku said. “I’m so sorry you’ve been worried about that, but when I said that we were planning on teaming up and nothing would interfere with that, I was including both of you in there as well.”

A’zawa and H’zashi’s eyes fixated on Izuku, like they could hardly believe what they were hearing, like it didn’t quite make sense and they were trying to look at all the evidence they could find to try to piece it all together.

“You’re our friends. We’re in this together. Shigaraki and I decided that from the start that you two might be able to help us escape, even before we could communicate, because we found ourselves all in the same predicament. It’s us, all four of us, against anything Kulphea can throw at us. We aren’t leaving you behind or letting anything bad happen to you. I’m sorry if anything we did made you think that.”

H’zashi let out a half-wail, half-squawk, and threw himself forward on top of Izuku and Shigaraki.

Shigaraki quickly curled his hands into fists to prevent himself from accidently decaying anyone in the confused pile he found himself in. “Uh, what’s this?” he asked Izuku as he met his eyes through the feathers that surrounded them as wings gathered them closely.

“H’zashi was scared that he might be injured or killed because he and A’zawa are not a rare species among the universe like Terrans are. The stress was causing his feathers to fall out and this is his response when I corrected his thinking,” Izuku answered, occasionally blowing in between words to prevent feathers from getting in his mouth.

“Oh,” Shigaraki said. “Makes sense.”

“Danger Sense,” Izuku said when he felt the flare come to life at the base of his skull.

“No,” Shigaraki said, raising his voice a little above the noises that H’zashi was continuing to make. “I said that it makes sense.”

“I know!” Izuku said. “And I said that I felt Danger Sense!”

“Oh, shit!”

“I think it might be go time! My quirk that senses danger is flaring up!” Izuku warned.

Looking out into the stadium, there were numerous people in the seats already, still more filing in.

“Why didn’t we hear them?” Izuku asked, frowning, then frowning deeper. “Why can’t we hear them even now?”

“They have a sound barrier up to prevent additional stress to the participants ahead of time. They like to try to control for that sort of thing,” A’zawa answered.

“I wonder if it actually makes any difference.”

“It’s not going to for when we kick their ass!” Shigaraki screamed after Izuku translated the conversation for him, going over to the bars and pressing himself against them to yell and make obscene gestures toward the gathering crowd.

“Does he know that the sound barrier works both ways?” A’zawa asked. “They cannot hear him.”

“I’m not sure he would care either way,” Izuku stated fondly with a bright smile. “Besides, it looks like they can see him.”

Small sections of the crowd started pointing or gesturing in his direction when they happened to glance over and notice him carrying on, and soon the whole arena was out of their seats, trying to get a better view of the Terran right against the electrified bars that had no effect, seemingly yelling and screaming, trying to communicate something to them.

“You shitty fucks! Once we cause panic and the stampede happens and you get trampled, I’m going to laugh in your smashed-in faces! You all deserve it! You voyeur freaks!” Then, dropping down to a whisper, “not to kink shame or anything… actually,” then, back to yelling, “yes I do, if it’s you! Do you get off on this? You’re a freak for it! I hope your children are ashamed and your grandchildren spit on your graves, you fucking bastards!”

Izuku imagined the individuals up in the crowds, wondering what words of wisdom the screaming Terran had to offer, and laughed, knowing that their imaginations would never even come close to the truth.

Soon, the reason for his Danger Sense flare came to be known as the hulking canine-looking alien was lead out to the arena. The canine-alien had two massive tusk-like teeth protruding from its bottom lip with a mess of both sharp and dull teeth with seemingly no pattern to them in its mouth. It was covered in short hair or fur that was brownish orange, the perfect color to easily blend in with the landscape of the arena if it wasn’t so fucking big. It towered over its trainer, which was a ucuh, the kind with the face finger used for dating purposes apparently. It must have been three stories tall. It was hulking and wide, too, reminding Izuku of a bulldog’s stature.

The crowd looked like it was going wild, and the canine startled, trying to go back the way it came, probably from the noise. With a jerk, it was left twitching on the ground before being talked to, commanded, by its trainer, probably being encouraged to get up and keep moving.

Was it shocked? That’s what it looked like.

“Does it have a fucking shock collar on?” Shigaraki asked, echoing Izuku’s thoughts. “It looks like how that dollun looked when I threw an electric stick at it, or the dreto when I electrified it with the bars, but it recovered a lot quicker.”

“You what?” Izuku deadpanned.

“Not important,” Shigaraki waved off. “But I didn’t see the trainer hit the dog with a stick, so it has to be some kind of wireless collar or something, right?”

“Or an implant,” Izuku said, touching his own implant with a shudder. “I hope not, though, poor thing.”

Shigaraki laughed. “Are humans the only species that would look at our opponent, a hulking, massive, drooling dog-alien, and think, ‘oh, poor thing’?”

“No!” Izuku protested. “Surely not.” Then, softer, a little less sure, “no.” Then, “Hey H’zashi and A’zawa, what do you think about that alien?”

“That’s what we’re going against?!” H’zashi asked, fluttering his wings with anxiety.

“They shocked it just a few clicks ago,” Izuku informed.

“Good,” H’zashi said, relaxing a little. “Maybe we might stand a chance if they weaken it first.”

“That ugly thing is going to be the death of us,” A’zawa stated firmly. “Weakened with shocks or not. Unless some of us distract it while some of us take over the announcer’s box and we can get out of here. Are we going to divide tasks?”

“Well, there’s no ladder up to the announcer’s box, so I should be one of the ones assigned to that task, correct?” H’zashi asked.

“Yes, and I think I should stay behind then. If both of us go, they won’t hesitate to use lethal means to take us down because we’re expendable. One of the Terrans should go with you.”

“Are either of you able to climb?” H’zashi asked. “I think you’d be too heavy to carry.”

“I can,” Izuku said. “Very easily using one of my quirks.”

“Shigaraki should be able to kill off that alien easily with his quirk, then, after I sedate it with my venom from my tail,” A’zawa said, “but who knows what they have to send in next.”

“You were right,” Izuku said to Shigaraki. “They do not find that canine-alien to be a “poor thing” at all.” Then Izuku explained the plan to Shigaraki, who was absolutely horrified.

“I can’t kill that dog!” he objected, pointing at said ‘dog.’ “I’m on board with everything else. That’s whatever. But I’m not killing Sparky!”

“You named that alien after the nickname you call Chargebolt?” Izuku asked, like that was the important take-away in the whole situation they had found themselves in.

“I might have to rethink the name,” Shigaraki agreed with a loll of his head, like it really was the most important aspect of the weird situation they had found themselves in.

“You could name it after the color, like Fulvous or Russet or Tawney.”

“My intention was to give it power over the situation that once controlled it, so I would like it to have a name that reflects that.”

“Some people might find that insensitive.”

“Fuck some people.”

“Okay. I was thinking Volt, but what about taking it one step further… What about Revolt?”

Shigaraki turned to him with a gasp, wide-eyed. “And you named yourself Deku of all things?! When you had this naming ability inside you all along?!”

“I… gave myself power over a situation that once controlled me,” Izuku said, but it sounded almost like a question.

Shigaraki stared at him for a long moment. “Well, I can’t fault you for that. C’mon Deku. What’s our plan to make it to the announcer’s box to send that message out, but to also not hurt Revolt in the process?”

“I–”

The electrified bars turned out to be a gate, and that gate lifted before their eyes.

“--don’t think we have time to work it out, but I agree! No killing Revolt! I’ll pass it on!”

He did pass it on.

“Who’s Revolt?”

Then, frantically, “What do you mean no killing the opponent that is literally there to maim us for research points?!”

“Not even hurting it?! Are you crazy?!”

“We are in a soundproof room! You did not overhear its name!” … “Why did you name it?!”

H’zashi and A’zawa probably had a few more questions, but Izuku said, “I’m glad we’re all in agreement!” and he and Shigaraki bolted through the open gate into the arena.

“We are not in agreement!” but they followed out after them. In Izuku’s book, that’s called being in agreement.

The announcers were probably confused that they didn’t need to even start the back wall moving inward to force the subjects out, that all four came running out at full speed instead of even creeping along the walls cautiously. This was especially odd for the thretuil, the feline species who are particularly adverse to the canine deathworlder that they had chosen as the stressor.

The trainer, the ucuh, yelled out “attack!”

And the canine-alien did indeed start to come after them, so they scattered, but kept a close eye on each other.

When Revolt got too close to H’zashi, A’zawa had leapt in front of him to shield him, tail lashing in threat.

“Revolt! Yoohoo! Over here! I bet you can’t catch me!” Shigaraki had yelled out in a light-hearted, playful voice, catching the canine-alien’s attention so that he would bound in Shigaraki’s direction instead.

“Stop getting distracted and get one, you dumb animal!” the trainer complained, but it wasn’t quite a command as much as a complaint if Revolt’s unchanged behavior was any indication.

Izuku realized then, though, that he was hearing a different language. It wasn’t Standard. But Izuku could understand every word.

“What language is the ucuh speaking?” Izuku asked quietly when he set to running next to H’zashi.

“Sobachiy,” H’zashi answered. “It’s used specifically for canine-species.”

“Well, I can understand it, and I can now speak it, too, thanks to this thing,” Izuku said, flicking the transplant in his head as they ran.

H’zashi winced at the gesture, but didn’t say anything about it, deciding it was probably more urgent to question, “You can understand Sobachiy?! After already being introduced to Standard! But it’s impossible to pick up more than one language with the UTD unless your home planet has more than one natural language!”

“H’zashi…” Izuku tried to go for a long pause for dramatics, but it was more of a huff for breath from all the running. All of that being in a cell without being able to exercise because your cellmate thought you were dying if you were sweating was really catching up to him. “Terra has over 7,000 languages.”

“Oh, my stars.”

“I’m going to give Revolt a command and see what happens!”

“Are you crazy?!”

“Probably!”

It was good timing, Izuku changed course and headed toward the hulking canine-alien as the massive thing cornered Shigaraki. Shigaraki whirled on it, but kept his hands curled tightly into fists, not daring to reach out his hands in even the gesture of placation in fear that he might accidentally hurt Revolt should he rush forward unexpectedly.

Izuku could hear Shigaraki’s nervous laughter between huffing breaths as he neared. “Ha! Ha-ha! Good dog? Yeah? You’re a good dog, aren’t you? I don’t look so delicious, do I?”

 Once Izuku felt like he was close enough to be heard, he yelled with all the breath he had left, “sit!”

Revolt sat. And then looked in Izuku’s direction for his next instruction.

But Izuku didn’t have another instruction.

No.

Izuku had nothing but praise.

“Oh, my! Such a good boy! What a good dog! What a good boy! Such a smart dog!” Izuku gushed through pure habit alone.

Revolt’s little stub of a tail started to wag ferociously.

Breathing hard, Shigaraki stopped beside him after abandoning his cornered location and sneaking past the distracted giant to join Izuku’s side. “I think he likes it. What are you saying to him?”

“It’s his trainer’s language.”

“You got another language?” Shigaraki asked.

“Yeah, because it’s a Universal Translation Device,” Izuku reported smugly. “Not an STD!”

“What’s the new language called?” Shigaraki asked.

Izuku frowned, knowing where this was going. 

“Sobachiy.”

“Sounds like that starts with an ‘S’ to me, so now it’s a double STD!” Shigaraki said, turning as if to announce it to the crowd, then back again to say, “Sorry Midoriya, I don’t make the rules.”

“But you literally do,” Izuku complained under his breath.

“What are you doing?! Why aren’t you attacking?!” the ucuh asked in a yell from off to the side, out of the way of any danger.

“This one told me to sit,” the canine-aline said. And then after a moment of consideration added, “And then told me I was a good boy!”

“Oh my God,” Izuku breathed, tears rushing to his eyes as H’zashi and A’zawa joined them. “Revolt can talk!”

“You are!” Izuku yelled. “You’re such a good boy! So smart!”

“Why are you talking to it?!” A’zawa asked urgently.

“He’s following my commands just like he’s following his own trainer’s,” Izuku quickly explained under his breath.

“Stop talking to my mutt!” the trainer yelled at Izuku.

“Maybe better than his trainer’s,” Izuku pondered aloud. “Do trainers get training here, or do they just wing it? They don’t seem very effective.” Disgruntled with how the trainer’s yelling was making Revolt sink lower and lower with every yelled word, Izuku turned his attention back on the trainer. “Come over here and make me!” Izuku challenged. “I’ll break your face finger right the fuck off!” he screeched.

Revolt whined.

“Oh, but I would never hurt you, good boy. No,” Izuku cooed up at the giant canine-alien. “Not the good boy, right? Such a good boy!” Izuku was relieved to see the tail giving hesitant wags again.

“Okay, what did you say?” Shigaraki asked, side-eyeing Izuku as he wiped the spittle from his mouth with his arm from the force of his scream.

“Told the trainer I’d break their face finger off.”

Shigaraki gasped. “Can I help?”

“Let’s do it!” Izuku declared and they both took off toward the trainer.

“Woah! I’m off limits!” the trainer tried, stumbling over their feet in their haste to start running away from the quickly approaching Terrans.

“Says who?” Izuku goaded as they chased them around. “I was never told the rules, unfortunately. And even if you tell them to me now, I’m a prisoner. I don’t fucking care!”

“No one else can control the monster!” the trainer tried. “He’s a deathworlder!”

“So am I!” Izuku rasped, eyes wide and smiling widely, knowing full well that he looked absolutely terrifying to the poor ucuh.

Suddenly, the canine-alien jerked again, like he was being electrocuted. They heard it this time. It wasn’t the low buzzing of the bars, but actual, high levels of electricity that could harm a deathworlder’s body, a body like theirs.

“I said attack!” the out of breath and panicking ucuh said to the shaking and limp canine-alien. “You listen to me! Not some random Terran!”

“Too bad he’s now out of commission for the next few clicks,” Izuku said. “Now who’s going to help you?!”

The ucuh ran to an emergency exit that opened in the wall as they ran toward it, and Shigaraki and Izuku could have gone through after them, but that was not in their plans. They turned to the canine-alien whose neck was now on the ground after he had collapsed instead of being two stories above them.

“Here,” Shigaraki called when he found the metal implanted into the alien’s neck.

Izuku rushed over to help him examine it and they called A’zawa and H’zashi over, too, who did come over to help inspect, though reluctantly. “We wouldn’t ask if we were more familiar with their technology,” Izuku explained as he beckoned them over. “He’s a good boy. He won’t hurt you. He wants to be a good boy.”

Once A’zawa and H’zashi both independently confirmed that the implant wasn’t connected to anything vital, Shigaraki cackled as he laid down his hand on it and decayed it away, taking away the ucuh’s, and Kulphea’s, ability to electrocute the canine-alien any further.

“No more pain,” Izuku promised as he petted the canine-alien’s head. “Because you’re the best boy. Do you have a name?”

“Don’t ask him that! I already gave him one! A cool one!” Shigaraki objected when Izuku let the group know what he was asking.

“I already asked him,” Izuku said. “And he said he doesn’t have one. He liked the one you gave him.”

Shigaraki beamed with pride.

“Why didn’t you tell us that you could understand us?” one of the researchers, a dreto, asked, voice projected with some kind of technology from the announcer’s box.

“Why don’t I come up there and show you?” Izuku yelled back.

And thus their escape attempt began.

They rushed over to the wall, and the crowd seemed a little agitated at this, but not too much, probably believing that they could not reach them.

“Revolt,” Izuku called, “can you help A’zawa over the wall?”

Revolt sat down at the wall, directly facing the announcer’s box, putting his nose to the wall. That’s when the screams started and the aliens in the crowd started to move out of the way, most urgently where Revolt’s nose met the wall and a little more calmly moving outward from there.

“I am not using that deathworlder as a staircase,” A’zawa objected.

Then A’zawa stared in open horror as Shigaraki did just that without hesitation.

“What? Are you scared?” Izuku taunted.

A’zawa did use Revolt as a staircase. As did Izuku, because even though he could have used Float or Black Whip to get him up and over the partitioning wall, he wanted to save his quirks to be a surprise to take his opponents off guard for if he needed them later. The less they knew about him the better.

H’zashi flew himself up, “thank you very much.”

“Such a good boy! The best boy!” Izuku praised, patting his head.

“No,” A’zawa said. But when Izuku turned to see what he was protesting, he wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at H’zashi who was looking between Revolt and A’zawa with longing in his eyes.

“But he really is such a good boy,” H’zashi said. “He doesn’t seem to have any aversion to you.”

“Well I have an aversion to him!” A’zawa protested.

“And why is that?” H’zashi asked in a very clinical tone. “We are researchers, so maybe we should–”

“Oh my stars.”

“You want to keep him?!” Izuku exclaimed. “That’s such a good idea!”

“I’m a little rusty on my Sobachiy,” H’zashi said, “but it won’t be a problem to study up and get back into the swing of it. I understood the gist of everything you were saying after all.”

“Everything?” Izuku asked with a blush, remembering the threats he was throwing toward the trainer.

“Let’s find a way out, first,” A’zawa said, gesturing toward the announcer’s box. “We’ll see if our rescue team even has a ship big enough to bring Revolt with us.”

“He used his name!” H’zashi said excitedly, feathers shaking. “That’s a great sign!”

“Let us in!” Izuku said, pounding on the door to the announcer’s box.

“Uh, no,” one of the dretos inside said, like Izuku was stupid for even suggesting that. “You should surrender before reinforcements come and take you back to your cells. You shouldn’t have hidden our scientific advancements from us.”

“Uh, no,” Izuku repeated, using the same tone that the dreto had used with him. She flinched at that, the mimicry of her tone just a tad too perfect. “Last chance to come out peacefully before we just come on in ourselves,” Izuku warned.

“I hope they don’t, I hope they don’t, I hope they don’t,” Shigaraki was chanting under his breath, practically salivating at the chance to use his quirk, let them see him use his quirk, see their reactions in real-time, see the fear and know that it could be them next.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Izuku said with a shrug and gave Shigaraki the go-ahead.

Shigaraki put his hand on the door and the door dissolved under his fingertips. The dretos slammed backwards to get away, eyes wide with terror and horrible realization.

“Please exit this area,” Izuku said. “We have business here.”

“I hope they don’t, I hope they don’t, I hope they don’t,” Shigaraki chanted.

One by one, hesitantly, then hastily, they moved past the group toward the safety of the exit, leaving the announcer’s box free, Shigaraki’s scowl deepening as each one willingly complied with Izuku’s commands and Shigaraki did not get to decay any aliens to dust.

“Was tearing the wing off of a dreto not enough?” Izuku asked as the aliens half-hesitantly, half-rushingly shuffled past them and toward the exits.

“After all they’ve done to us? I could decay this whole planet, make it disappear from existence, and that still wouldn't be enough,” Shigaraki grumbled, but Izuku was pretty sure he was being hyperbolic because he didn’t make a move to touch any of the retreating aliens as he glared at them menacingly.

H’zashi and A’zawa took over from there, using technology that was completely foreign to Shigaraki and Izuku.

Soon enough, the reinforcements came.

Not H’zashi’s and A’zawa’s. 

They weren’t that quick.

The reinforcements that the dretos had warned Izuku about.

They heard a door open and shut and suddenly there was a hawk flying above their heads.

Well, not an Earth hawk, but a hawk-like alien.

“Shit!” Shigaraki exclaimed as he ducked when the alien swooped down, just barely missing them.

“Are you guys okay?” H’zashi asked.

“We can handle this! You keep working to send out your message! We’ll keep this guy entertained!”

“Would be easier to focus if we still had a door to close and lock!” A’zawa complained under his breath, but his eyes didn’t leave the screen and his claws didn’t stop typing.

“You make it sound so easy and relaxing!” H’zashi fretted from the doorway that had no door, eyeing the hawk-alien overhead.

“Maybe it’s just a Terran thing,” A’zawa said, eyes still not leaving the screen as he typed away, despite the noise the hawk-alien was making as it made its battle cry and swooped down toward them, trusting that the Terrans would do as they said.

The hawk-alien landed on the satellite, tilting it in the opposite direction, then took off again.

“Stars!”

That didn’t sound good!

“I’ll fix it!” Izuku was quick to assure, setting his sights upwards to the satellite.

Shigaraki worked on running through the aisles of chairs, taunting the hawk-alien and then dropping to the floor to be out of reach before repeating the process again and again as Izuku activated Float and quickly scaled the satellite, using Black Whip to reposition the satellite and keeping his attention on Danger Sense in case the hawk-alien redirected its attention on him. Danger Sense flared and without looking back, Izuku deactivated Float and let himself fall, only activating Float again once he was close enough to the ground to put his feet down and deactivate Float again for good. He saw that hawk-alien had just barely missed him.

“Thanks for the warning,” he said lightly in Shigaraki’s direction.

“I knew you had Danger Sense to look out for you,” Shigaraki said. “I think it’s best to keep it guessing. It probably thinks you have eyes in the back of your head now.”

Izuku laughed. “Maybe. If we could get it to speak, if it can speak, then I could try to negotiate with it.”

“And maybe gain another language,” Shigaraki said. “Until then we run and distract?”

“Until then we run and distract!” Izuku agreed.

After a kiloclick of that, Izuku, huffing, in his hiding spot in the seats just an aisle away from Shigaraki’s current one, asked, “what do hawks like, typically? Maybe we can find an easier, less dangerous way to distract it?”

“How would I know what hawks like?” Shigaraki asked, nose scrunched in distaste at being asked a stupid question.

Izuku leveled him a blank look and sighed. “Everyone knows that Hawks and Dabi have a thing going on,” he said. “It’s got its own hashtag online.”

“No it doesn’t,” Shigaraki deadpanned.

“#hotwings.”

Shigaraki winced. “It’s the worst! They can’t be discreet at all! Running around like fucking teenagers in love! It’s been years!”

“So what does Hawks like?”

“Like I would know what he likes?”

“Shigaraki.” Shigaraki gave him a blank look. Izuku sighed. “Were you not the one who said that when something is yours, you take good care of it?”

“God fucking damn it!” Shigaraki screeched, catching the attention of the hawk-alien, who flew right toward them, sending them running again.

Once they lost it and were near each other again, Shigaraki admitted between huffing breaths, “he likes music. All birds like music! You couldn’t have figured that one out yourself?”

Izuku smiled and grabbed onto the back of the chair above him, ready to heave himself up when Shigaraki spoke again, “but especially drumming. So find something to hit these chairs with that will make a satisfying noise.”

Izuku and Shigaraki made another round of running around, yelling and distracting the bird when it got too close to one of them or the other as they found objects that would work well enough as drum sticks.

It took a while. Eventually Izuku had to make passes by the announcer’s box and yell what they were looking for and H’zashi handed out four writing utensils that would work perfectly as drum sticks. They were wooden and everything. H’zashi would later explain, at a less dire time, that they were for the dretos who had lower dexterity with their wing arms and needed wooden utensils for the grip.

Izuku took his place behind some metal chairs and Shigaraki took his place against the brick partitioning wall.

“What do we–”

“Come on, people, now | Smile on your brother | Everybody get together | Try to love one another right now,” Shigaraki drawled, immediately getting the attention of the hawk-alien. After a few beats more, he started drumming, stopping the hawk-alien in its tracks.

Instead of attacking, it circled above before landing on the roof of the announcer’s box, head tilting.

Shigaraki half-sang, half-screamed some more before a line caught Izuku’s attention.

“Just because you’re paranoid | Don’t mean they’re not after you,” he sang, looking over at Izuku, smirking.

Izuku laughed out, smiling, and started in with his own drumming that probably was not correct for the song at all, but it had all the heart necessary, and the hawk-alien seemed to like it as it started moving its head back and forth.

And so did H’zashi, if his own movements were any indication.

He did not seem thrilled.

“What is this witchcraft?!” he asked, startled.

“It’s music!” Izuku answered.

“This is not music!” H’zashi objected. “None like I’ve ever heard!”

Izuku laughed. “Do you like it?”

“I… I don’t know!” he wailed.

A’zawa glanced up before glancing back down at his work, trying to hack through the system before stopping all together to look at his lover.

“When did you learn moves like those? And what is this sound?”

“It’s the Terrans noise! They call it their music! It makes me move like this and I don’t know why!”

“It looks good on you, baby! It makes me want to dance with you!”

“After!” H’zashi insisted, but he seemed happy enough if his fluffy feathers were any indication. “First, get us a ride out of here!”

Izuku’s and Shigaraki’s arms hurt from drumming so long and their throats hurt from singing loudly enough to be heard over the drumming. They tried to just drum, but they would quickly lose rhythm and the hawk-alien would be less enthralled with them, so it was safer to have a song to lead their drumming with.

They were tired and sore by the time the rescue ship touched down.

“I’d hate to send Revolt to attack and have him get hurt=” Izuku was saying loudly to be heard over Shigaraki’s current song, staring wide-eyed at the ship that he feared was sent by the dretos to get them in line now that the hawk-alien had failed to do so.

“No need!” H’zashi said. “Those are our reinforcements!”

When the door opened and H’zashi and A’zawa were safely inside after being helped down by Revolt (and Revolt was also inside, because the ship was more than large enough to bring him along, H’zashi had pointed out), Izuku and Shigaraki nodded at each other, and booked it like hell was on their heels to the ship. As soon as they got there, they started drumming on the sides of the ship, once again stopping the hawk-alien in its tracks and placating it once again until the door was closed fully.

“If you think drumming is bad, try it while making sure you don’t touch the sticks with all five fingers,” Shigaraki complained, dropping the sticks and rubbing at his arms and hands, trying to find relief.

“I think you also had to drum harder than me, too,” Izuku admitted, sliding down against the wall to rub at his own arms. “Metal is a whole lot louder than brick.”

“I don’t know how we managed to get out of there without killing anyone, including the stressor of the damn experiment,” A’zawa said, glancing back at Revolt who was splayed out on his back, getting praise and petting from H’zashi and hesitant introductions from the rescue crew, “but we did it because of you. We were able to escape from Kulphea where we were falsely imprisoned without giving them a reason to imprison us later. And I just–”

A’zawa closed his eyes and purred.

“Oh! I’ve been wondering if he could do that!”

Instead of that being what stopped A’zawa, A’zawa instead moved toward Shigaraki and rubbed his face against Shigaraki’s face.

“Wow,” Shigaraki said, smiling. “H’zashi better watch out! I think I love A’zawa!”

“I’m not translating that for you.”

“You have to!” Shigaraki objected. “It’s your honor as a translator!”

“You just want the drama and to start a fight!” Izuku accused. “I never asked to be a translator, first of all. And second of all, I’m not giving them any reason to say fuck it, and kick us out of the air lock into space instead of taking us home!”

“Okay, that’s a good point,” Shigaraki acquiesced. “I’ll let it slide this time.”

“You know where Terra is, right?” Izuku asked as A’zawa backed off of Shigaraki. “Because you researched it? You can get us home, right?”

“Oh my stars! He speaks Standard!” one of the rescuers said as they made their way over. They seemed to be coming over cautiously at first, but came rushing over as soon as they heard the Standard come out of Izuku’s mouth.

“This is N’muri,” A’zawa introduced. “She’s been vaguely interested in Terrans for nearly a gigaclick, but never had the opportunity to study them herself.”

“A dreto,” Izuku recognized.

“So smart,” N’muri praised.

“Kulphea is full of them,” Izuku explained with a frown. “Dretos are the ones who gave me my UTD.”

“Oh,” N’muri said, wings drooping. “I’m so sorry. That’s can be such a rough process, even when the recipient knows about it and consents. I can’t imagine how it was for you without the proper notifications in place.”

Izuku relaxed. She seemed like a good person, despite all previous experiences with her species so far.

“You must join up with us at UA! It’ll be–”

“N’muri,” A’zawa interjected softly. “You know as well as I do that UA cannot recruit from a planet that First Contact has not yet been made.”

N’muri pouted. “Well, hurry up and make sure First Contact gets made soon, A’zawa! And you keep on H’zashi about it, too!” she demanded.

“Oh, I plan on it.”

She turned to Shigaraki and introduced herself. Izuku translated for him, and then translated again back for her.

“Oh… he doesn’t…?”

“Midoriya made a plan to prevent Shigaraki from having to go through the same thing, hoping that his plan would last until rescue, and it just so happened that it did,” H’zashi said after catching the tail end of their conversation, coming up behind them, probably having heard his name mentioned earlier and wanting to see what they were talking about.

“That’s wonderful. What good friends you must be,” she said.

“They’re not actually–”

“The best of friends,” Izuku said before A’zawa could correct her, shooting A’zawa a small, knowing smile before translating the conversation for Shigaraki.

“Ha! You called me your best friend!” Shigaraki teased. “I mean, if I’m competing with Bakugou, I can see how I can come out on top…”

Izuku punched his arm.

“Midoriya!” Shigaraki objected. “You can just go around punching people now that you have your quirk back! That’s like if I offered you, bestie, a high five… Would you like a high five?”

“No,” Izuku said. “How about a fist bump instead?” Izuku offered, holding out his fist, green lighting flickering around it.

Instead of backing down, Shigaraki held out his fist, too. At the last second, before their fists met, Izuku deactivated his quirk, and Shigaraki opened his hand, fingers splayed wide, so that Izuku’s fist hit his open palm instead of a closed fist.

“Turkey,” Shigaraki said.

Izuku scrunched his brows.

“No, you get it, right? My hand is the feathered tail and your fist is the body of the turkey.”

“No, yeah. I get it, Shigaraki,” Izuku assured. “I just didn’t expect that from you.”

“Toga taught me that,” Shigaraki said proudly. “Expect the unexpected, bestie,” he declared, spinning around with his hands out to his sides, palms up, smug as hell.

Izuku would miss this, he thought, when they got back to Earth and were no longer allies, no longer friends.

“So, about getting us home,” Izuku tried again.

“We’re already there,” A’zawa said, turning Izuku by the shoulder to look out of the small, round window.

And right there was Earth, in all of its beauty. They just needed to land, in preferably the right spot, and they’d be home.

“You’re just going to send the only two Terrans in space home?” Izuku asked. “For real? No questions asked? No strings attached?”

“How would I attach strings to you? Those would be long strings.” Despite himself, Izuku laughed. A’zawa continued, dismissing his sentiments as the Terran nonsense that it was, “the Hyperspace Protection and Security Congregation would probably object if they knew…”

“But no one likes the HPSC,” H’zashi said cheekily, passing by them on his way through to go talk to some rescuers on the other side of the ship, bringing Revolt along with him.

“He’s right. No one likes the HPSC. In some ways they’d be better to you than Kulphea, but in other ways worse, and we’d rather just get you home.”

Shigaraki came up behind them. “What are you looking at? Some kind of nerdy constellation or– oh. Would you look at that. Looks like they are doing the right thing and taking the only two Terrans in space back home to Terra,” Shigaraki said. “Maybe they were imprisoned there under false pretenses after all.” He stared out of the window. “We sure got here fast.”

“Superluminal,” Izuku said.

“Superluminal,” Shigaraki agreed, not mocking at all.

Chapter Text

They weren’t taken the whole way home, but they were dropped off close.

That is, if Australia could be considered close.

Izuku would argue that at least it was in the eastern hemisphere. Shigaraki would then argue that they lived in the northern hemisphere, and they were dropped off in the southern hemisphere, so no, it was not close.

Shigaraki grumbled that he had no choice but to call Kurogiri for a warp gate to get them the rest of the way home, because it’s not like A’zawa and H’zashi dropped them off with a fat stack of human cash that they could use to get some plane tickets, so they searched for a payphone.

“Would you hide your goddamn hair? You’re going to get us recognized!” Shigaraki complained after he swiped a jacket from an outside kiosk himself, using the hood to cover his own hair and features as much as possible.

“Do Austrailians care about Japanese culture that much that they would recognize us?” Izuku asked, but still anxiously put his arms over his head–like that would do anything to disguise himself. “Maybe the number one hero, but I haven even broken the top 50, yet. And sure, you’re the leader of the League of Villains, but you guys haven’t been making any huge waves recently. You’ve kind of been laying low.”

“Laying low?!” Shigaraki screeched, gaining the attention of others passing on the street.

“Uh, Shigaraki–”

“Not making huge waves?! I’ll have you know that we–”

“You’re drawing a lot of attention towards us!” Izuku said with a high pitched voice as he smiled and waved at people who were definitely looking at them. “And if you’re talking about that human trafficking ring that you guys demolished, that wasn’t exactly villain-like, so not your usual waves.”

“It was too villain-like,” Shigaraki argued. “We stole all the money they had. Releasing all their victims was just… fun, okay? I got to use my quirk, Toga got to practice her lock-picking skills, and we got to confuse a bunch of people.”

“I’m sure those were the only reasons,” Izuku said, heavy with the sarcasm.

“I’ll show you a reason–” Shigaraki threatened, reaching his hand out toward Izuku.

“Oh, look! A payphone!” Izuku said, pointing across and down the street.

Shigaraki grunted, putting his hand back down and crossing the street with Izuku. “Besides,” Shigaraki grumbled, getting back on the initial topic, “you don’t know who might be here, not just Australians. There could be someone who moved here from your hometown, or hell, even a hero here on vacation who recognizes both of us if we give them the opportunity,” Shigaraki warned, swiping a sun hat from another outside stand and plopping it down on Izuku’s curls.

“You sound like you speak from experience,” Izuku hedged, adjusting the hat to fit more comfortably and decidedly not complaining about how it was stolen. Not the time or the place for my moral high ground, Izuku decided. Besides, trying to return it would just leave me without a disguise and draw more attention to ourselves that we absolutely don’t need.

“Nowhere is safe,” Shigaraki answered vaguely, looking back at Izuku meaningfully.

The payphone was right next to a library that Izuku used to quickly look up the coordinates of where they were currently located before Shigaraki would call Kurogiri. Izuku eyed Shigaraki’s hand as it quickly snatched the coordinates from under his as soon as he finished writing them– Shigaraki’s hand that now had full access to his quirk, and that poor, defenseless piece of paper that had the coordinates written on it. Izuku decided to quickly write out the coordinates again, just in case, before rushing to follow Shigaraki out to the nearest payphone.

To say that Kurogiri was surprised to hear from him was an understatement if Shigaraki’s reassurances were anything to go by.

“Yes, yes. I have the coordinates here,” he mumbled into the payphone, gripping the paper tightly.

“Yes, I’m fine. You’ll be able to see that when you make the fucking warp gate,” he said, his voice raising slightly, sounding stressed.

“I’ll explain it all later,” he insisted, voice lowered, eyes flitting around to see if anyone was suspicious of him.

Then, indignant, “I will not explain now. It’ll take too long, and you won’t believe me anyway.”

A sigh.

“I was abducted by aliens.”

“Wait, really? Toga saw it happen? Anyway! Yes! That’s what happened!”

“No! She’s not covering for me! I could very well tell you it’s none of your damn business and leave it at that! Are you coming to get me or not?!”

Shigaraki lit up with a sudden idea, eyes locking on Izuku. “I have someone who can corroborate my story!”

He deflated, frustrated again. “Well, you’ll see who it is when you send the warp gate, won’t you?”

“No, it’s not Toga! You already know about Toga! It’s someone else!” He rubbed at his forehead in resignation at how the conversation was going in circles, and Izuku empathized.

Izuku also noticed how he was now holding the phone with one hand and rubbing his forehead with the other, no note with written coordinates in sight.

“Okay the coordinates are–”

And Shigaraki seemed to realize that, too.

Izuku silently handed him the extra note that he had hurriedly written down. Shigaraki looked at the note with the written coordinates, looked at Izuku, and gave him a genuine smile.

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a fucking second,” he said into the phone. Izuku wondered if Kurogiri could hear the smile in his voice.

“Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri’s voice announced once he and Shigaraki made it through the warp gate. Izuku found himself standing in the middle of the League’s base, surrounded by the members of the League of Villains and found himself wondering if he just leapt out of the pan and into the fire. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I’m not repeating myself again!” Shigaraki immediately objected, sinking down into a chair that looked incredibly comfortable.

“Hi,” Izuku said with a wave. “Uh, everything he said is true. We were abducted by aliens. They gave me this implant,” Izuku said, pointing to the disc, “called a Universal Translation Device, and I used it to understand their languages and plan our escape.”

“How universal is it, I wonder,” Kurogiri pondered.

“I’m not sure. Until now, I didn’t even know it worked on languages other than alien ones. What language is this?” Izuku asked.

Kurogiri said nothing for a long while. “Coptic,” he answered finally. “A dead language.”

Izuku’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Oh.”

“What?” Shigaraki asked.

“Uh, my UTD–”

“STD,” Shigaraki corrected under his breath.

“--works on human languages as well, including apparently dead languages…”

Everyone was dead silent at that.

Izuku turned to face Shigaraki fully.

“So it is Universal, not just S-languages, so it’s not an STD, so take that, Shigaraki!” Izuku yelled, pointing in Shigaraki’s face.

“Well, fuck. I want one, too. It’s like having yet another fucking quirk for you, isn’t it?! Hey fuckers!” Shigaraki yelled up at the ceiling. “Take me back! I want the implant! How do I say that in Standard?”

“I want the implant,” Izuku answered in Standard.

“I want– Again, but slower,” Shigaraki demanded.

“What the fuck?” Dabi asked.

“I told you!” Toga yelled. “I told you all what happened at the mall, but did anyone believe me? No!”

“Thank you, Toga,” Shigaraki said. “You’re sleeping next to me tonight,” he said, lazily pointing at her from his spot sprawled out in his chair.

Toga preened under the attention.

“Well, who could have believed that?” Dabi asked. “Aliens?”

“The truth is out there,” Izuku said.

“And why the fuck is he here?” Dabi asked, gesturing to Izuku.

“He needed a way back home!” Shigaraki defended. “They dropped us off in motherfucking Australia!”

“You should have warned me that you had a hero with you, Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri said, swirling in a displeased manner if Izuku had to guess at his body language. Izuku braced himself. This was it. This is when they ambush him and he has to fight his way out. “We could have moved to one of our warehouses instead of our main base to have this meeting.”

“I did tell you that I was bringing someone with me. If this place is compromised now, that’s your fault,” Shigaraki complained, throwing the blame right back.

“You didn’t say that you were bringing a hero back,” Kurogiri said.

“I did say that Izuku darling was taken with Tomura!” Toga interjected. “From there, it should have been safe to assume that that was the one who could say that Tomura was telling the truth when he did confirm that he was abducted by aliens!” she sang, spinning in a circle on her toes.

Everyone was silent.

“It’s time to pack up,” Kurogiri announced. “We’ll be moving to location F. Please be prompt.”

“I hate packing!” Shigaraki complained.

“If you would wear your gloves, you wouldn’t ruin so many things,” Mr. Compress offered gently. 

Shigaraki pouted. “But they snag on things and I end up sending my piles everywhere. It takes twice as long.” He side-eyed Mr. Compress. “But if you were to turn everything into marbles for me…”

Mr. Compress sighed. “Looks like I have my evening cut out for me.”

“It takes that long to turn everything into marbles?” Izuku asked, itching for a pen to write it down.

Mr. Compress considered Izuku for a moment and must have decided this little tidbit of information couldn’t hurt. “It’s not turning everything into marbles, it’s turning everything back in the right order and unpacking everything. You wouldn’t turn the television back before the television stand, for instance.”

“Oh,” Izuku said, nodding, eyes wide with understanding. “That makes sense.”

“And then, tonight, since I’m sleeping next to you, you can tell me all about Izuku darling,” Toga said, bouncing on her toes and shooting Izuku a smile and a wink before running off to hurriedly pack up her own belongings.

“Take me now!” Shigaraki cried up to the ceiling again. “I’m sorry for leaving! I won’t even rip off any more wings! I promise!”

_ _ _ _ _

“You were… abducted by aliens?” the HPSC agent repeated again, like she would get a different answer this time.

“Yes,” Izuku confirmed.

Again, Detective Tsukauchi made no indication that Izuku was lying. With the odd nature of Izuku’s claims, he had been requested to sit in on Izuku’s interview, and Izuku had no objections, as long as it remained an interview and not an interrogation, of course.

“What is that, on your head?”

“They call it a Universal Translation Device,” Izuku said. “They acted like it was supposed to help me understand their alien language, but I made it clear to them that I did not.”

“Interesting. I wonder what could have come from studying it if it had worked.”

Izuku said nothing, so there was no lie for the detective to pick up on.

Having the HPSC mess around with the technology in his head was the last thing he needed.

So, Izuku changed the subject to what each alien he came across looked like, explained what his days looked like, and finally explained how he was captured along with known villain Shigaraki Tomura who was kept in a separate cell from him.

“Did Shigaraki Tomura make it back to Earth?”

“Oh, yes,” Izuku said, nodding. “We were actually dropped off in Australia. He had Kurogiri warp us to his base back here in Japan, and that’s ultimately how we ended up home.”

And if Izuku “forgot” to mention that he knew the current location of the League of Villains until the very end of his interview, well that was his business and no one else’s. After all, he did have so much on his mind, being abducted by aliens, rescued by other aliens, and then surrounded in the League of Villains’ base only to get away unharmed (by walking unimpeded through the front door, but they didn’t ask about that).

By the time the heroes got to the warehouse, it was empty, which was better than expected. It meant that Izuku had given them enough time to pack up and relocate fully, having to leave nothing behind. One of the heroes was sure that there’d be at least four booby traps for them to walk into–he lost money by making that bet.

_ _ _ _ _

Months later, Izuku found himself facing Shigaraki in an abandoned warehouse.

One of the ones Kurogiri mentioned? Maybe this is the one I would have been warped to if Kurogiri would have had warning that I was on the other side of that warp gate.

The foundation was ruined, the weight-bearing walls were giving out, the ceiling above them groaned in warning, but still, neither Shigaraki nor Izuku moved.

“Deku! We have to go!” Shouto shouted. Then, a moment later, when he saw he wasn’t following, turned away from his firefight with Dabi for just a second to brace one of the walls with ice before having to give his full attention back to Dabi once more.

“Deku! Are you ready to retreat?!” called out Uravity, who was currently fighting with Toga, who fought so seamlessly even as she was weightless.

Uravity was holding up, though, dodging Toga’s knife strikes, not allowing her to get a taste of her blood and take back control of her own gravity. Uravity released her gravity once more, dropping Toga to the floor, but Toga fell gracefully and landed in a roll, rolling toward Uravity to try to stab her again. Uravity leapt straight up so that Toga leapt underneath her. With a press of a hand to her back, Toga was floating off the ground again, laughing all the while.

“Hey boss! Our ride’s here!” Dabi called out, abandoning Shouto to go toward the warp gate that appeared behind Shigaraki.

Shouto took a few steps toward Dabi, to follow after him, but stopped himself and instead worked on putting up more ice to support the building to prevent the ceiling from crashing down on his friends.

“Shigaraki!” Dabi yelled again.

“Give me a hectoclick!” Shigaraki snapped, making both himself and Izuku freeze.

Izuku tried to tamper down the smile growing over his face.

“Don’t,” Shigaraki demanded, losing his tense stance, and covering his eyes with one hand, holding out the other in weak protest.

“Don’t what?” Izuku asked innocently.

Sighing, Shigaraki pulled out a flash drive from his pocket and tossed it to Izuku instead of answering him.

“Give this to rat,” Shigaraki said in butchered Standard, but he was always improving!

“Give this to the rat,” Izuku corrected, but pocketed the flash drive.

Shigaraki rolled his eyes, but Izuku could see him whispering the correction to himself under his breath, even if he couldn’t hear it.

“Hey,” Shigaraki said as he was taking steps backwards toward the warp gate. “Sweeping is another word for Universal. I think it fits better.”

Before Izuku could process and then retort, Shigaraki was gone, Toga tumbling in after, and the warp gate was gone.

“You’re getting so good at dodging Toga’s knives,” Izuku said as they walked back to headquarters to shower and change before heading home. “Did she even get you at all this time?”

Uraraka blushed a little as she moved a piece of hair out of the way to reveal a small, bleeding line on her cheek. “Just the one this time, though,” Uraraka reported, determination gleaming in her eyes. “I’m sure next time it’ll be nothing at all. But forget about me, Shouto’s over there fighting Dabi and holding the building up! Talk about raising the roof!” She performed the dance move of ‘raising the roof’ in celebration of Todoroki.

“What?” Todoroki asked.

The rest of the way back, Uraraka explained the dance move and showed Todoroki how to do it. The next day, there were press releases about the fight that broke out at an abandoned warehouse with pro heroes and League members, and also some follow-up pictures on the next page of all three heroes involved walking down the street doing the ‘raise the roof’ motion.

It was a good time.

“I have a gift for you, right from Shigaraki,” Izuku said, sliding the flash drive across the desk to Nezu.

After plugging it in and running the required protections, which took much longer than Izuku thought it would, Nezu’s eyes lit up in delight, and Izuku’s heart started beating rapidly at what that might mean.

Nezu laughed in glee to himself as he continued scrolling.

This is either very good, or very bad.

“This is quite the alliance that is forming,” said Nezu after another several minutes.

“With the HPSC as well?” inquired Izuku.

Nezu glanced up with steely eyes and a sharp smile that had Izuku immediately smiling back.

“No one likes the HPSC,” Nezu said, as if that answered Izuku’s question.

And to Izuku, it did.

“You know what?” asked Izuku. “I’ve heard that before.”