It's a Plan(et)

Chapter 9

A/N: Sorry for being a few days later than usual, but here's chapter 9! I work at a hospital and picked up an extra shift on the day that I had intended to write this chapter, hence it being a few days late! Thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy!

"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?"