Chapter Text
Izuku wakes up sweating, turning to his back to pull at his jacket before he’s even fully aware.
He wrestles with the fabric for a moment, opening his eyes as he finally manages to yank it out from underneath him. The cell block is quiet. Dark. Small, dim lights are spaced out along the floor of the corridor between the cages, illuminating the cell block just enough to grant Izuku the ability to see. He sits up, popping his neck to ease the strain of sleeping on solid metal, and looks over at the aliens in the next cell. He can’t see all that well, but it looks like the majority of the aliens are grouped together.
He supposes, then, that must mean he’s the first to wake up.
Izuku lays back down, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep, but he’s not even a minute into his attempt before he starts getting antsy. He turns onto his side, squeezing his eyes shut. How did his wonderful dream school experience turn into this ? It was supposed to be safe. He remembers, very distinctly, how sincerely and earnestly his professor promised them that there were no risks. That nothing could possibly go wrong. That, even if something could somehow go wrong, she had the ability to take remote control of his pod.
What a fucking joke .
Even if they did have full control of his pod, what could they have done? He should never have been put in any kind of spacecraft alone in the first place . Doesn’t matter how prestigious the school is; they are liable for his safety, and having no adult supervision compromises that safety. Clearly. Given where he is right now. Izuku huffs, clenching his jaw. Maybe if stupid fucking Professor Zhara just listened to him when he expressed his concerns, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He wouldn’t have to figure out how to escape from an alien spaceship .
How is he even supposed to escape in the first place? Izuku barely knows how to fly a simplified version of a human ship, and that’s with assistance, too. He can’t fly an alien spaceship, he can’t even speak the language, let alone read it. On top of that, the aliens are leaps and bounds ahead of humans in terms of technological advancements.
In short, he is utterly doomed. He holds back a groan and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Not only can he not fly the ship, he can’t even get to the bridge to try to figure it out. At least - not stuck in a cage. If he can just find a way out…
He opens his eyes, sitting up slowly. The lighting is terrible, so he can’t make out many details, but there’s no time like the present, right? Izuku pushes himself to his feet and slowly walks to the cell door, making sure to stay as quiet as possible. He’d rather not accidentally wake up his… neighbors, after all. At first glance, the door seems pretty flawless in its design. The hinges are seemingly unreachable, surrounded by metal, and he doesn’t see an easy way to actually unlock or access the cell.
Yet, he knows, there has to be some kind of mechanism controlling the door. They obviously couldn’t have just phased through the bars. He smiles to himself at the thought, then begins feeling around the metal for some kind of latch. After a few moments, he pauses, his fingers curling around a small, circular device pressed into the metal. He frowns, uncertain. There must be some kind of access to it. The device has a different feel compared to the cold metal, but that’s all his fingers can find. No handle, no keyhole, just a small circular device.
Letting out a frustrated huff, Izuku moves away from the door. It must be some kind of technologically activated system; something he won’t be able to figure out without seeing it in action. He walks around the rest of the cell, but with his limited vision, he can’t find any “chinks in the armor,” so to speak. Izuku clenches his jaw, turning to go back to his spot on the floor, but he stops. His eyes snag on the group in the cell adjacent to his own. None of them are awake right now , he notes silently. This is probably the best chance he’ll have to get a closer look at them without the bird and cat aliens jumping down his throat.
Izuku quietly steps closer to the bars separating him from the aliens, his fingers curling around the cold metal. He leans forwards, squinting through the darkness. The aliens are mostly grouped up in the same corner they were in when Izuku first woke up. They sleep in some kind of a pile, some stacked on top of others. There are only three outliers: The bird, the cat, and the red and orange scaled humanoid lizard. The two former aliens are resting in front of the group, acting as another barrier between Izuku and the others. The humanoid one, on the other hand, rests a few feet away from everyone else. Perhaps they’re some kind of outcast? Outcast, he decides, is a fitting name.
Speaking of which, he should really think of simple names for the other aliens. Describing them in his mind every time he thinks of them is starting to get quite annoying.
Izuku inspects the aliens for a few seconds, looking for stand-out features. The small, jackrabbit-like one, he decides, can be Watts because of their little electricity stream. He’ll just call the bird and cat aliens Bird and Cat, respectively. Simplicity is best, right? The bug-like one can be Clicks, he notes, as their pinchers click in their sleep. He doesn’t need to give the Oriri’vry a name; he already knows their species name. As for the second lizard alien, the only defining thing Izuku has noticed is the clean split between red and white scales. It reminds him of a candy cane. As he thinks, he notices their stiff, almost anxious posture. Mx. Candy Cane it is, then - do they have genders, is that a thing among aliens?
Izuku is startled out of his thoughts when the lights suddenly flick on, blinding him and causing him to stumble back with a shout. His hands fly up to his face, trying to block out the light and ease some of the spots that appeared with the abrupt brightness. He freezes when the sound of movement in the other cell reaches his ears, followed by a cacophony of alarmed voices. Izuku presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, clenching his teeth. It is too loud, too bright, too much all at once.
Izuku tries to take another step back, but he loses his balance, going down hard. He pushes his arms behind him on instinct. He lands too hard on his left wrist and he yelps, yanking his hand back to his chest and letting himself fall the rest of the way to the floor. He looks around wildly before finally focusing back on the aliens across from him. If they didn’t wake up when the lights came on, they’re certainly wide awake now.
Wide awake and staring right at him.
There is a moment of tense silence. They stare at each other, gazes unmoving. Izuku holds his wrist close, trying to ease the throbbing. He doesn’t move a muscle. Idly, he wonders how many times they’ll end up in this same exact position. He knows the answer is entirely dependent on how long he’s stuck here. He doesn’t want to think about how long that might actually be.
The stillness is broken when Outcast growls, stepping forward, but they don’t make it more than a few feet before Cat moves to stand in their way.
Red eyes - were they always that color? - pierce into his own. Cat’s tails swish back and forth aggressively, and Izuku resists the urge to back away. He weighs his options quickly. His actions should be based on their motives. On one hand, if he backs down first, maybe they’ll calm down. He doesn’t know if they see him as a threat, but if they do, submitting might demonstrate his lack of harmful intentions. On the other hand, they could be looking for a fight; any sign of weakness would only prove to portray him as an easier target.
He sucks in a shaky, shallow breath. He doesn’t know what to do, how to present himself. He doesn’t know how to get out of this mess. Fortunately, he isn’t forced to make a decision.
A rattling sound reaches his ears, and, on instinct, his head pivots to the door of the cell block. He watches it for a few moments, anxiety rising as the clanking approaches. Soon, a long beep echoes through the room, followed by a rapid succession of clicks. Izuku stands up, backing away to the far corner of his cell as he eyes the door warily. It opens smoothly, silently, and two aliens walk in, one of which is pushing a cart that is - in an almost comedic way - nearly too tall for them.
The guard with the cart is an Oriri’vry, though their color scheme is different from the one in the other cage. Their skin is a light green down their sides and arms, fading into a deep purple around their abdomen. Avery, they look like they’d be an Avery. The other must be the same species as Watts - whatever that might be - with little trails of electricity jumping between their antennae. He’s gonna call them Volts. From the moment the two enter, Volts doesn't take their eyes off of the cages. They scan the occupants slowly, until they finally descend upon Izuku.
Do something , Izuku tells himself. Volts must be here to act as protection for Avery, but they don’t have a weapon on them; at least, not one that Izuku can see. The electricity suddenly feels a lot more dangerous. He licks his lips anxiously, trying to think of a way to make sure Volts doesn’t try anything.
The reaction is instantaneous.
The electricity stream between Volts’ antenna sparks wildly, and suddenly Volts is snarling at him, even as they back away a step. They straighten, pushing themself up as if trying to appear… bigger? Strangely enough, the action reminds Izuku of something his dad told him when he was young: Make yourself bigger, Nahn, and make a lot of noise. You want to scare it off. At the time, he was talking about a black bear, and the thought is almost enough to make Izuku laugh. Instead, he stares, dumbfounded by the suggestion that he’s the black bear in this scenario.
He can work with that. If he assumes that he is the black bear to everyone , the question of a motive behind the aggression is answered. He was being viewed as a threat after all; the aliens are afraid of him. That is… quite an interesting revelation.
He tries to recall every possible creepy or threatening thing he’s ever seen or heard of. Feeling only mildly ridiculous, he widens his eyes. Reminiscent of some of the horror movies he and his mom like to watch, he lowers his head so he’s looking up through his eyelashes. Izuku bares his teeth as he steps away from the back of his cell, curling his shoulders forward while standing as tall as he can. Flexing his hands, he curls his fingers into a wide claw. The fear that he’s greeted with from Avery as they back up into the wall behind them almost makes Izuku feel badly enough to want to give up the act, but he can’t allow himself to falter now. He’s made himself a ‘real’ threat; if he hesitates now, they’ll see straight through his act.
Izuku slowly stalks forward, making sure to drag his feet so the sound echoes chillingly off the metal walls. Avery says something in Common , their voice trembling, and Volts hisses something back before spurring into motion. They open a compartment on the cart and pull out three trays filled with what looks like food. Volts slides all of them through a slight gap at the bottom of the door to the aliens’ cage. Then the guard rushes back to the cart to grab one more tray, which they push through an identical opening at the bottom of his own cage. All the while, Izuku refuses to take his eyes off of them, only moving to step forward when Volts gets to Izuku’s door.
Volts jerks away so harshly, some of the food gets knocked off the tray and onto the floor. Avery rushes forward as soon as Volts backs away, yelling something. The two of them hurry back to the door they came in. Avery presses their wrist to a spot next to the door, and Izuku drops his act, moving close to the bars to see what they’re doing.
On their wrist is a thin bracelet-like band. It’s a matte black and sleek, flat to the skin. A few seconds after it touches a small black circle - similar to the one he felt on his cage - next to the door, another drawn out beep pierces the air, followed, once more, by the rapid clicking of what he realizes must be the locking mechanism. After another second, the door glides open. Avery and Volts race through as if Izuku somehow got free and is chasing after them with a knife before letting it slip shut behind them.
Izuku stands in his cell, simply staring at the door, for several seconds. Did two aliens, in literal space, on a literal alien spaceship, just… run away from him? Him? A giggle bursts from his lips, and he slaps his right hand over his mouth, his eyes wide. He was kidnapped. By aliens. That are scared of him. This time, he doesn’t stop the laughter bubbling up from his chest.
He’s going to die here, isn’t he? These aliens, who are apparently afraid - terrified, even - of him, are going to be the reason he never goes home. The reason he never gets to see his mom again. The reason he never gets to graduate from Kuiper High, never gets to go to Rosette University. For some reason, the thought makes him laugh harder and harder, until he sinks to his knees, holding onto the bars of his cell for dear life as his cackling refuses to stop.
Izuku gasps for breath in between his laughter, attempting to stop when his stomach starts burning from the strain. He tips forward, pressing his forehead to the cold floor, squeezing his eyes shut. His hysteria slowly starts to die out, and he is left panting on the floor, his throat feeling weirdly tight. He stays there for a few minutes, greedily sucking air into his lungs.
When he finally manages to catch his breath slightly, he sits up, wiping tears from his eyes. He looks at the aliens in the cage beside him, pausing when he sees them. He barely manages to stop another round of cackling from bursting from his throat. The aliens have all crowded together at the side of the cage opposite of him, watching him with varying degrees of what he now recognizes as fear, wariness, and confusion. Per usual, Bird and Cat have placed themselves in front of the others, but they, too, stand as far from him as possible.
Izuku looks away from the aliens, no longer finding himself to be very worried about an attack. He inspects the tray that was pushed into the cage, which is laden with a variety of foods. He shifts a few things around on the tray. He sees a few kinds of red meat, cooked versions of those same meats, a few things that look like they might be considered fruit, seeds, for some reason, and… bread? It’s soft, and he tears it open easily. It has the same consistency of bread, but the color is off putting. He narrows his eyes at the pale red ‘bread’, bringing it up to his nose and drawing in a deep breath. It doesn’t smell like bread, but honestly, it doesn’t smell like much of anything.
Izuku sets it down to pick up the various ‘fruits’. They are a range of colors and textures, each chopped up into cubes. He scrunches up his nose at one that smells remarkably like battery acid. Gross. He sets the three cubes of that monstrosity to the side and picks one up that’s neon pink. It smells kind of like jasmine. He’s pretty sure food isn’t supposed to smell like that, but what does he know? He’s in space, space is weird. Izuku glances up at the aliens again, who are still watching him intently, not having moved from their positions. Very weird.
He takes the tiniest bite he can possibly manage, and his eyes widen at the delightful flavor. It kind of tastes like a cross between jasmine tea - which makes sense - and oranges. Izuku smiles, pulling the other two cubes closer to him and shoving the rest of the first one into his mouth.
Izuku skips over the seeds, deciding to try out the few different cooked meats on the tray instead. The first one he picks up is colored a deep blue, the meat tender and easy to pull apart, although his left wrist twinges in pain when he does so, finally moving the joint. He sniffs at it, but it’s odorless. He supposes it makes sense that they would leave it unseasoned; although, for all he knows, seasoning may not even be a thing in space. Shrugging to himself, he takes a bite, chewing slowly. The texture is interesting: stringy and shockingly easy to bite into. It practically falls apart as soon as he begins to chew. It doesn’t taste bad, but the flavor as a whole is lacking. Bland. This is why, he decides, No one eats unseasoned meat .
He moves on, leaning forward to grab another type of meat, dark red in the middle, though darker on the top and bottom. It reminds him of steak. That’s a good sign, at least. This meat has an odd smell to it, one he doesn’t have the words to describe very well. It almost smells like sulfur, but… not quite, at the same time. He slowly, more hesitantly and gently than before, tears away part of the cubed meat, popping it into his mouth. It’s tougher than it looks, forcing him to chew even harder than usual to cut through it. It tastes… fine. At least it doesn’t taste horrible, as it’s probably going to be one of his best options for protein here.
Izuku shoves another piece of the same meat into his mouth before he can second guess himself, gnawing at it as he pokes at something that resembles jello. It wiggles when he touches it, but it sticks to his finger when he pulls it away. He tilts his head at the substance now on the tip of his pointer finger, nervously rubbing it between his fingers. It’s thick and slimy, leaving behind a gross residue on his skin. He sighs, resigned to his fate, then licks the jello-stuff off of his fingers. He blinks, pausing as he registers the sugary taste. It’s almost like… honey. The texture lines up well enough, too. A strange aftertaste lingers on his tongue after he swallows, but it’s not bad. He nods in approval, deciding that he likes alien honey.
The last food item on the tray, other than the seeds, is a group of berries. Izuku eyes them warily, cautiously picking one up and crushing it between his fingers. The scent is sweet, which is a good sign. Probably. Hopefully. He wipes off the juice on his pants, picking up a few more berries and stuffing them in his mouth. The food has been safe so far, so it’ll probably be fine, right?
Wrong.
…Fuck .
Izuku gags, a bitter, sour, disgusting flavor spreading through his taste buds, and he spits the berries out quickly. His breathing becomes shallow from the coughs that begin to wrack his body, shaking his head roughly as if he can rid his mouth of the pungency. His stomach clenches, and he bites his tongue, holding back another grimace. Gross, gross, gross. At least he knows he’ll never eat that again. It reminds him of a liquid medicine he had been forced to take when he was a kid. They tried to flavor it - some kind of weird artificial grape - but it wasn’t nearly strong enough, and his throat burned on its way down.
Izuku hastily grabs the container that holds what he really hopes is water- his left wrist throbs at the action, but he doesn’t care - in order to wash the taste off of his tongue. Izuku tries to open it, but he can’t figure out how to open the lid. It’s not a twist like a water bottle, and it doesn’t snap open either, or if it does, he can’t get the right leverage with one hand. He can see the line where it opens, but he just can’t get it to work. There’s a loud chuff from one of his neighbors, and Izuku looks up. The Oriri’vry holds up a container of their own and shows him how to unseal the lid. They squeeze the sides, then tap the top, and the lid pops up an inch, allowing them to pull it off. It’s an unexpected but kind gesture, and he blinks at them slowly as he copies their movement. He really hopes this is water. When he manages to unseal the lid, he raises the container in a toast, offering them what he hopes is a grateful close-lipped smile.
He purses his lips, looking back down at the clear liquid, his shoulders tensing as he gets a small whiff. It smells a little bit sweet, but nothing as strong as something like syrup or chocolate, so he takes a tiny sip. He threw away his caution with the berries, he won't make the same mistake twice. It’s definitely water, or something close to it, but it seems to have some strange added minerals in it. It’s refreshing, and the faint sweetness does a fine job of rinsing his mouth of the berries.
Izuku climbs to his feet, still sipping at the water, holding his left arm to his chest as he moves. He makes sure to keep his movements slow, noticing the nervous shifting of the aliens when he gets up. His left leg tingles when it wakes up, his toes numb as he walks around his cell. He takes a few laps around the bars, nervous energy keeping him from sitting still. He sighs, pausing to take another sip of his water and -
That’s weird. Suddenly, he’s… tired? Well, not tired , exactly, just out of breath. Surely it hasn’t been that long since he’s had some decent exercise. It can’t have been more than a few days since he was on the Anchor, and he was exercising every day in training before he was… well.
Anyway , the point is, he shouldn’t be out of breath, at least not this quickly. Which means something is very wrong. He pauses, breathing out and then, slowly, drawing in a deep breath. He becomes a little lightheaded, his vision blurring for a moment, and Izuku reaches out suddenly, grasping the bars of his cell with his left hand to keep his balance, a large flare of pain rewarding him for the abuse to his wrist.
What the fuck. What the fuck.
It should not be this hard to breathe . Is it a panic attack? He wasn't feeling very… panicky until now, and it’s not exactly that his throat is closing up. It feels more like he just can’t get enough air to sustain his body. He can’t catch his breath, he can’t catch his breath, why can’t he breathe ?
Izuku falls to his knees, gasping, struggling for air. He can vaguely register the shouting of his neighbors, the alien language coming out shrill and high pitched, even while muffled by Izuku’s own racing heart. His left hand is still holding the bars in a white-knuckled, throbbing grip, the fingernails on his right hand scratching at the metal floor below him. Well , he thinks to himself, mildly hysterical once more. If I wasn’t having a panic attack before, I certainly am now .
Izuku pulls his right hand up from the floor, scratching at his throat as if he could force more oxygen into his lungs. Oxygen . That’s it. He needs oxygen; there isn’t enough air for him on this ship, and he’s only just finding out through the symptoms of altitude sickness . He needs to calm down, his panicking is only exacerbating the situation.
There’s just a slight problem.
Handling panic attacks has never been a strong suit of his, and that isn’t going to change out of necessity. He narrows his eyes, trying to focus on something - anything - to ground himself, but the edges of his vision are already starting to fade to gray. Suddenly, something soft brushes against his hand; the one that is gripping onto the bars for dear life . The room spins when he snaps his head up, finally loosening his grip to rip his hand away from the bars.
Black fur and vertically slitted eyes catch his gaze, and Izuku can’t help but latch on to the distraction. Cat sits calmly, their tails swishing back and forth on the floor. They lean forward, their snout just inches from the bars. One of their tails rises up off the ground, and he watches as it slowly glides through the air, crossing through a gap in the bars. His eyes widen, self preservation demanding that he run, move, get away, do something , but he just… sits there. It’s as if his panic attack completely shut down his limbs, rendering them unusable, paralyzed. Which makes sense, he supposes. The brain needs oxygen to operate, doesn’t it?
The tail hovers in the air in front of face for a moment, and Izuku finds himself only able to stare, gasping desperately for breath, his body still frozen in place. Hesitantly, the tip of the tail brushes against Izuku’s cheek. His eyes flutter closed at the sensation of the soft fur against his skin.
The tail shifts suddenly, causing Izuku to flinch at the movement, tensing, bracing himself for… whatever it is Cat is going to do to him. Nothing happens for a long moment, the sound of Izuku’s strained gasps the only thing warding off the tense silence. Hesitantly, Izuku pries his eyes open, forcing his blurry vision to land on Cat. They haven’t moved from their relaxed pose, and Izuku’s eyes scan their body before finally landing on those dark, void-like eyes.
They watch him far too calmly compared to the hostility they displayed just minutes before. Far too calmly when Izuku feels like he might be dying. Is he dying? He really hopes not. He doesn’t want to die; not yet, not here, not before he sees his mom again. Not before he sees Earth again and can stare up at a familiar splattering of shining stars from his backyard.
Cat extends their tail again, this time wrapping it around his left wrist loosely, drawing Izuku’s attention to the inflamed, slightly swollen stretch of skin encompassing the joint. Distantly, beyond his panic and racing heart, Izuku hopes it looks worse than it really is.
The tail tugs on his arm lightly when he fails to show any form of acknowledgement, and his face twitches when a barely-there flash of pain registers. His eyes flick back to Cat’s face, holding eye contact once more. They stare at each other, Izuku with unfocused eyes, until Cat starts exaggerating their breathing. The end of their tail flicks gently against his arm in a steady rhythm. Izuku finds himself, almost subconsciously, attempting to mimic the slow rise and fall of their chest.
It’s a monotonous, agonizingly slow process that has Izuku drawing further into his head, but, piece by piece, Izuku begins to calm down. His breathing, though still shallow, begins to slow, and he relaxes his body, sagging tiredly against the cell bars.
Izuku, his mind still partially in the clouds, makes a desperate noise when the tail begins to withdraw from his wrist, and the movement stills. Izuku sucks in another breath through his teeth, wishing, dully, that he’d been placed in a room with a higher oxygen concentration. Actually - scratch that. He wishes that he had never been kidnapped in the first place. His head lolls to the side, the world tilting, spinning around him before he hits the bars with a dull thunk . As darkness finally consumes his vision, he wonders, too, what he ever did to deserve this.
“We are but slaves to the whims of the universe, Nahn.”