Chapter Text
Izuku was scared.
There were naturally lots of things to be scared of, particularly to a quirkless child; he was scared of being lost and away from his mother; He was scared of being forgotten and most of all, Izuku was scared of villains, even though he knew Heroes were always there to protect them.
The fear Izuku felt in this moment, however, was unlike anything he’d ever felt before as he felt himself spinning almost endlessly, feeling as though his entire body was going to be ripped apart at any moment… he hadn’t meant for it to go like this, not at all! One moment he was running after Kacchan, desperately trying to keep up as the other kept shoving him away and the next thing he knew there was a glowing crack in the sidewalk, and then he was falling into it, crying out in fear and pain… he didn’t know if it would ever stop when he felt something solid crash underneath him.
Izuku didn’t dare move for several minutes, breathing heavily as he attempted to calm himself. He wasn’t falling anymore, wasn’t in a constant state of pain, and the pain he did have was slowly fading away. The ground underneath him was decisively not grass or concrete, and the coldness of the metal soon seeped into his little body. He didn’t know where he was, or how he had gotten there… part of his young mind reasoned it must have been some kind of teleportation quirk. Izuku slowly moved into a sitting position, looking around carefully… he was in some kind of hallway, and in one direction it looked to split in two directions and the other in a continuous hallway that eventually curved off to the side. Izuku looked up to where he assumed the ceiling would be, just in time to see the same crack he’d fallen into was above him, glowing brightly as it began to slowly fade away and vanish from the glass it was on. Izuku watched in confusion as it vanished, leaving no trace behind but the little boy it had swallowed up, who was rightfully confused at his surroundings.
‘How did I get into an aquarium… and what kind of aquarium is this…?’
Izuku assumed this was an aquarium, at least, thanks to the fish swimming leisurely above him and all around the sides, though Izuku had never seen any fish like these before… they were glowing and strange, and well… alien to Izuku. The fish, for that's all Izuku could reason that they were, swam about in groups and alone, in all sorts of colors and sizes and Izuku couldn’t help but be mesmerized by them and for a minute or two, forgot all about his panic of displacement and the strange teleportation… it wasn’t his fault, really… he was only six , after all.
Izuku was soon pulled from the fish and the outside by the sound of running footsteps, coming from one of the hallway sections, voices carrying towards him as the footsteps got closer.
“I’m telling you, there’s no possible way any new lifeforms could board the vessel! We’re completely submerged within the Osmit Trench and we aren’t scheduled for a boarding or maintenance mandated surface breach for another month! I'm still not sure how you got in here, to be frank!”
“Yes well, why did my doohickey pick up a brand new heat signature? You run an underwater, intergalactic traveling Zoo, do keep up! Something always goes wrong, so just trust me, and if not me, then trust the very clever doohickey I made.”
Izuku turned to face the voices head on, trembling from head to toe in a new wave of fear. He was lost, alone, far from his mother and the boy he considered his best friend and in a place he didn’t recognize nor did he truly understand how he had gotten there. Most of his fear soon turned to confusion as he laid his emerald eyes on the owners of the voices, as they entered the hallway proper, looking directly at Izuku himself. One person must have had some sort of mutation quirk, though Izuku was having trouble placing what it could be for and of, but the other man was much simpler; he looked young, younger than Izuku’s mother, and he had brown hair, a tweed jacket with elbow patches, suspenders, blue pants, a bowtie and for some reason Izuku couldn't understand, a fez. Eccentric clothing choices, perhaps, but he was visually much simpler than the other person who looked at Izuku with shock as he yelled towards the small boy, though the words were directed towards the other man.
“How the bloody hell did he get here? A stowaway, in my zoo?!”
The simple, eccentric man looked at Izuku, squinting his eyes and pulling out some kind of device from inside his jacket, activating it and pointing it all around the hall, somewhat wildly, if Izuku was being honest with himself, and then up and down Izuku’s form himself before the man spoke, rather quick and with an edge of either concern or excitement.
“There’s an ionic signature around him and the center of this hall that doesn’t match with anything else on this planet, let alone your ship… this isn’t a stowaway! Look at him, he’s terrified and alone and my sonic is saying he doesn’t fit in on an atomic level…”
The man paused from his slight rambling to move closer to Izuku, frowning slightly, as if registering what’d he’d just said, his voice softening and his eyes shifting into a look of pure concern.
“Hey… it’s alright, I’m here to help you… can you tell me your name?”
“I-Izuku M-Midoriya…”
Izuku hated that he’d stuttered, but he couldn’t stop shaking at this point… he was so confused now and the man with the mutant quirk looked so angry… he didn’t mean to upset anyone! He didn’t even know how he’d gotten here… it felt like he was on the verge of tears as the eccentric man spoke again, inching forwards more and more, careful as could be.
“Izuku, that’s a nice name.. Iz-zu-ku….. Sounds like a superhero’s name from a comic book or old telly show! I’m The Doctor, and that over there is Gavrok; he runs this underwater zoo and is not to be confused with a different Gavrok i know who most certainly does not run a zoo and is a rather nasty piece of work but that’s besides the point. The point here is, I’m The Doctor, and i can see that you’re scared… why is that, Izuku Midoriya?”
Izuku was slightly confused by the eccentric man, this Doctor, and how he spoke and acted… but he did say he was a doctor… and Izuku’s mother had always taught him you were supposed to trust doctors because they were like heroes; always there to help you… so, despite his fears, Izuku did his best to answer The Doctor.
“I… I don’t know where I am… I fell into a crack and then kept falling and it was hurting and then I was here and the crack disappeared… I-I’m not a b-bad guy… i-it must’ve been a v-villian’s q-quirk… I… I wanna go home… Please don’t be mad at me…”
The Doctor was much closer now, within arms reach in fact, and the closer he got the more it became clear to him that there was no trap, no tricks… just a little boy with green hair and eyes, lost and scared. Young as he looked nowadays, the old Time Lord’s hearts ached in sympathy for this boy, as anyone who had children and grandchildren would have.Most of what the boy had said didn’t make much sense, but that was okay… it didn’t have to make sense to The Doctor; he’d figure it out… perhaps a bit later though as Gavrok called out to the time lord in somewhat of a panic.
“Doctor, the kid might have to wait… The ship’s interface is telling me there’s been a breach from the Krafayis enclosure… its loose!”
The Doctor turned to look at the zookeeper a bit incredulously.
“The Krafayis enclosure??? You had an enclosure for Krafayis’ and you’re only just now telling me this?? Bloody hell, it’s no wonder you keep having enough problems I was dragged down here! Your communication skills are terrible!”
The Doctor paused for a moment to turn back to the boy, Izuku, and spoke to him in that sort of sage-advice-from-a-mad-man tone.
“That’s the problem with grown-ups , they never tell each other anything! Don’t grow up; it stinks!”
As desired, that earned a small giggle from the little boy, which made The Doctor smile brightly before grabbing Izuku’s hand and straightening himself out.
“Right-o, here’s the plan; There is now a Krafayis or two out and about in this ship which means we’re all in danger so-”
The Doctor gave an almost grim and utterly dark look to the zookeeper that promised some form of consequence to these actions before giving Izuku’s hand a bit of a reassuring squeeze.
“We’re gonna run for it to the main control room, lock ourselves inside until I can come up with a very clever plan to keep us all alive. Ready?”
“Now wait just a minute, Doctor! I pride myself on-”
Gavrok never got to finish his sentence as The Doctor began running towards him, forcing the man to follow suit, and pulled Izuku along with a proud shout.
“GERONIMO!”