Days in a Crucible [BakuIida]

Chapter 2

The bathroom light brightens abruptly again hours later. Iida's first impulse is to think of it as morning and the lights-off time as night, but he has no idea if that's correct or if they're being messed with. For all he knows, the schedule set by their captors could be a full twelve hours off.

Through the open door, Iida can see that the lights in the room with the cots were also turned back on. Beside him, Bakugou is still awake, his eyes red-rimmed. "You can sleep now," Iida says, standing and stretching. "I'll keep watch."

"Don't wanna sleep," Bakugou says, but he stands too.

"You should," Iida tells him. As they exit the bathroom, he sees Todoroki is only just waking up – he has slept the entire night through. Then Iida notices something in the center of the room and stops abruptly, Bakugou almost running into him. "What are you...?"

He points, wordless, at the things that were certainly not there before the room went dark. There's food – bags of chips, crackers, cured meat, dried fruit. Beneath them is a stack of magazines, and to the side is a pile of neatly-folded clothing. Iida runs over and looks through everything, confused and breathless.

The magazines seem like the sort that might be in a waiting room, or maybe a library. It's a strange selection – men's and women's health, childrearing, fashion, celebrity gossip, cooking, interior design, animal care. They are a bit tattered, as if they are secondhand, but there is no information about where they may have come from, no delivery address or subscriber name.

The clothing consists of underwear, socks, and three identical blue sweatsuits. They felt cheap but new, and as Iida examined them he thought they smelled a little plasticky, like they'd just been unwrapped from packaging.

Bakugou crouches down beside him. "What the fuck," he says, and Iida notices Todoroki standing near them too, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open.

Iida recovers first, swallows down his shock and begins to divide everything into equal thirds. The magazines they can all share, of course. He hands out the clothing too - there is one of everything for each of them - but he isn't sure he wants to wear his set, at least not until he looks over it carefully.

"They came in here during the night, left this shit on the floor, and you didn't even notice?" Bakugou says, standing and turning to Todoroki. "You just slept through it?"

Todoroki blinks, saying nothing, just staring down at the things on the floor as if he can't quite believe they're really there.

"Fucking useless," Bakugou says, and turns away.

Iida puts each of their food rations and outfits on their respective beds. He gets his glass of water from the bathroom – there were three glasses to begin with, luckily, so they don't have to share those – and fills it, then returns to his cot to eat. He starts with the dried fruit, and is halfway through the bag of chips before he realizes this might be all the food they receive the entire day. He forces himself to stop eating and heads to the center of the room, where the magazines are still lying.

As Iida pages through them, he can't help but think they all look so... normal. There's no pattern he can grasp, no sign of a plan, no code being transmitted. The newest issues are a month or so old, the oldest from years ago.

"They want to keep us entertained," Iida says, speaking to the others but also to himself. He spreads all the magazines out, face-up, grouping them roughly by topic. "I assume that's the purpose of this. They've got the essentials, but more as well. This..."

This is a long-term thing, he's thinking, but he's afraid to say it. It means their lives are probably safe, though, at least for now; it would be odd for anyone to go through all this effort for people they intend to kill.