Overhaul's pet project

Waking up in the unknown - 8

    Waking up in a room with unfamiliar scents but familiar sounds was extremely disorienting for Izuku. He knew he was in a place he had never been in before but the sounds of the rhythmic but annoying beats from a heart monitor was something he had grown used to since his kidnapping. Overhaul tended to use it during their experiment sessions as he didn't want his perfect puppet to die despite the fact he could just rebuild his body and revive it. Apparently dying and being rebuild can affect a person in bad ways mentally and the man didn't want to mess him up more than he already was. As Izuku tried to determine his location without making others aware that he was awake, the usual small weight on his chest was missing! Izuku's heart monitor began to race and he faintly hear people rushing in. He felt the string tying his lips together for the past day or two was gone and weakly croaked out his little sister's name in desperation. Something was stabbed into his arm and he felt weak as his eyelids get heavy and he slipped into unconsciousness once more.

   The second time Izuku woke up, he used echolocation through quiet clicks of his tongue to "see" the outline of the room and everything and one in it. White lines began to form shapes in the darkness of his mind and painted a picture for him. He was in a room larger than what he had grown used to and held back a shiver as he noticed the medical equipment surrounding him. It reminded him too much of Overhaul and the pain that always followed but he nor any of his goons were near by from what he could tell. Izuku focused more on the room's surroundings and turned to his left and clicked his tongue again as he recognized something near him but couldn't tell what. He sat up as the white lines formed again and a small girl with a nub of a horn on her head laid there asleep. It was Eri and she was starting to wake up!

Izuku watched with blurred vision as the little girl who had become a sister to him, sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She let out a gasp and whispered, "You're awake!" as loudly as she dared without the risk of alerting others that they were up. Eri quietly asked for a hug and Izuku held out his arms knowing she would fall into them. He couldn't quite see her and tried not to use echolocation too much as it hurt his head when overused but knew from previous clicks that their beds were close enough together to reach each other. Izuku felt Eri's hands softly grip his stretched out arms and pulled her to his head and into a warm embrace. He listened as she told him how scared she had been and described the fight from her perspective with little sound effects as she knew Izuku couldn't really see her reenactment of it. The little girl's arms wrapped around him once she finished her story and whispered how happy she was that he was okay. Like most Midoriya relatives, Izuku had wild waterworks when emotional and cried as he held Eri a bit closer and told her how happy he was that she was okay too!

After the waterfall of tears stopped, Eri promised to be right back and crawled to the end of the bed. The pair had grown quite attached to one another and grew anxious when separated without knowing when the other would be back. They learned to hide it well as Overhaul never told either when they would be reunited and always tried to reassure the other before being drug away. Knowing that Eri would never leave his side for no reason, Izuku sat still on the bed and slowly counted in his head till she returned. At twenty three seconds, he heard the sound of shuffling but kept his eyes closed. The bed slightly dipped as a small person crawled back onto the bed at thirty one seconds and Izuku's eyes snapped open at thirty five seconds when something odd was shoved in his face as Eri giggled.

   Squished into his face was the softest thing he had felt in years! It was mainly black from what he could see that was nearly in his eyes and he gently pushed it away to get a better look. Eri babbled about one of their heroes had brought it with him when visiting and Izuku wondered if she had picked up the habit from his mumbling. She continued to explain in extreme detail of what each hero looked like along with their names and quirks. Yep, Izuku thought, Eri definitely took up my habit of mumbling and obsession with heroes too. The second was especially understandable considering they saved them from their terrible situation but Izuku forced his wondering thoughts to go back to Eri and the plushie she had presented him with.

    The stuffed toy resembled his favorite hero, Eraserhead and smelled slightly of a campfire. After spending nearly eleven years by his side, Izuku immediately knew who it was most likely from. "Eri," Izuku paused, worried that his mind could have made up the smell out of false hope and took a trembling breath before asking, "Do you remember who brought me this?" The little girl smiled and nodded, "Yeah! He had a kinda dark voice and seemed grumpy but is actually really nice! He called me a unicorn and when I didn't know what that was he explained it and promised to bring me a toy like yours but in unicorn shape!" Praying that the guy that visited him and Eri is who he thought they were, all Izuku could bring himself to do was nod and give a wobbly smile. "He also had super cool spikes hair! It looked like it would hurt but he let me pay it and it was actually really really soft! And he had the prettiest red eyes like me and your brother Kacchan but I didn't tell him that part..." Eri happily rambled until she realized Izuku was crying and gave him a hug to try and make him happy again.

   Izuku let out a wet chuckle as his tears continued to flow down his face. "It's okay Zu!" Eri said and used her fingers to pull his mouth into a smile. Izuku hugged her back and whispered to her that he had a secret to tell her. Eri pulled out of the hug and looked at him with a serious but excited expression. "I think you were talking to Kacchan. He wanted to be a hero remember?" Eri let out an excited gasp and used her fingers to help herself smile as she still struggled to do it on her own. A knock sounded from behind the door of their room and Izuku clicked his tongue to "see" who it was. It was a woman in nurse scrubs like his mother wore and had some type of horns that Izuku guessed was her quirk or a part of it. Eri nervously greeted the woman as Mrs. Kya and Izuku gently squeezed Eri in his hug and Overhaul had many undercover thugs and didn't trust this new nurse.

   "Hello Izuku, I'm nurse Kya as you just heard Eri call me. I'm here to make sure you are okay and then you have a visitor. He claims to have known you when you were younger. You called him Kacchan." The nurse seemed nice enough as she explained everything and giggled at his nickname for his childhood best friend. She was very gentle and didn't get annoyed whenever Eri would ask her what she was doing. Izuku watched with caution as she took his blood pressure, temperature, heart beat, and other tribal things at your every day checkup. He had a few bandages as well that she unwrapped and checked for any infection before giving him some medicine to take, sweating that it was simply antibiotics and not drugs to kidnap him again. She didn't falter once under his glare and Eri told him she had taken similar medicine and was okay. Nurse Kya left once Izuku let her look in his mouth to prove he swallowed the medication and went to get their visitor. He listened as a second set of steps followed the nurse and the door opened to reveal the very person he had begged for to save him over the past few years of his captivity. In all of his grumpy glory stood Bakugo Katsuki, or in his words, Kacchan!