Chapter Text
Shouta didn’t waste any time getting them out of the tunnel and on stable ground away from the sinkhole where the reserve staff had set up camp and the rest of their friends were waiting for them. Maro had the box in his hands because- as expected- Izuku was immediately swarmed by seven concerned teenagers.
Shouta gave them a few minutes while he updated the other adults and Maro chatted with the reserve staff about the best way to make sure there weren’t any adult basilisks in the tunnel still that they needed to be worried about while their main cryptozoologist was still on her honeymoon.
(She was going to be so mad when she got back and realized what she missed; cryptozoology was a labor of love and the zoologists tended to be pretty passionate about it. It wasn’t every day they got to work with a basilisk and as much as she loved her wife, she’d kick herself for missing that chance.)
Soon enough though, Shouta got things moving again.
“Maro, how do we know if the basilisk imprinted? And what do we do if it did?” Everyone fell quiet at the million-dollar questions as Maro turned back around.
“Oh, that’s easy enough! Just check his leg. If the basilisk imprinted, there should be a little mark at the first spot it touched.” Izuku immediately pulled the fabric up twisting around to try to see the outside of his left ankle. Sure enough, a little white mark hardly bigger than the average birthmark had appeared. “Oh, congratulations Izuku!” Maro practically gushed. “Looks like you’ve got a new little friend!”
“What?” Izuku, Shouta, and Hizashi all asked at the same time, with varying inflections.
“Please tell me we don’t have to keep feeding it bugs.” Shouta continued. It was going to be a problem if they did.
“WHAT?!!!” Hizashi asked, at a considerably louder volume that time.
…
They did, in fact, have to keep feeding the little snake bugs, but only until it was big enough to start taking live mice. Considering Hizashi’s phobia, the fact that Shouta’s book orders were some of Maro’s favorites to fill because the eccentric man always popped up with the most delightful challenges for him to find, and the fact that Izuku was now one of his sons’ best friends, Maro was willing to just order more of the meal worms he normally got for them in a little, solid, box.
The care of basilisks away from a nexus, while not the most studied given how rare they were, wasn’t actually that difficult from the care of any other snake. The difference was this snake could kill you in extra ways.
Luckily there were ways to counteract that, including but not limited to: building a custom terrarium with mirrored glass (or magicking a normal terrarium to mirrored glass, given the fact they had to get something set up for the girl- and she was a girl, a very pretty one- basically immediately), wearing mirrored sunglasses around her, or just having Izuku take care of her since she wouldn’t use her ability on him.
And he would be taking care of her- with the imprint it would be dangerous to keep them separated long term, not for him, but for anyone else who tried to take care of her. She would inevitably start to get aggressive without Izuku around, so it was either the Yamazawas had a surprise new pet or they put her down.
None of the sorcerers wanted to do that; it felt near criminal to put down a baby animal just for existing. Especially since she’d be no more dangerous than any other snake if she was properly taken care of, which the Yamazawas could easily afford to do.
Since Hizashi preferred to drive anyways, Shouta portaled himself, Maro, and the boys home directly from the reserve so they could get everything set up.
Izuku loved his new little buddy.
He named her Queenie, but only after trolling his boyfriend by saying he was going to name her Kacchan. Izuku would never do that of course, but he’d never seen Katsuki get that huffy before.
She was a queen, in Izuku’s opinion. Once she adjusted to the (quite frankly very nice) terrarium they set up for her in Izuku’s room, she turned out to be the sweetest girl. She didn’t even hiss at the cats, who were all very curious about her once Izuku started letting them in the room again after about a week, and he only saw eyes flash once, and that was just because Henry zoomed too fast and startled her.
Izuku even started taking her out of the enclosure sometimes, letting her wrap around his neck or his wrist as he did homework or research in his room.
Nedzu was incredibly curious, but since it was a bad idea top top bottom to try to take Queenie to UA he had to come to her. He also agreed that she was a very beautiful lady and deserved nothing but the best of everything. Izuku was glad; he might’ve had to stop the personal lessons if Nedzu thought anything else. (It was a joke, when Izuku told him that. Mostly.)
Maro looked into it more, and as far as he could find there hadn’t been a documented case of a basilisk imprinting on a human before. They knew they could do imprint in general and there wasn’t any reason that wouldn’t count for humans too, but there just wasn’t any documentation he could find of this particular example. The didn’t really know where this was going to go, but if anyone knew about tracking everything possible because of the results of unknown magic, it was Shouta.
He had no doubt they’d figure it out together, and in the meantime Maro was very excited to basically be the resident snake expert and cryptozoologist on such cutting edge research.
Queenie didn’t get very big very fast the way Shouta was worried she might; away from the nexus she grew at what was more or less a standard rate for snakes, depending on the breed. Maro’s best guess was that she might end up slightly bigger than normal just due to the concentrated magic in the house, but nothing too bad.
(“You said they can live up to two centuries, right?” Hizashi asked Maro one afternoon as he was heading back home after checking on Queenie. “What happens if, heaven forbid, Izuku dies first? Will she get aggressive?” Maro was silent for a moment.
“I don’t know.” He was honest with the concerned parent. They both knew Izuku was going into a dangerous career field. “There’s every chance that now she knows what it’s like to be taken care of, as long as that level of care continues she’ll be content, at least, but I just don’t know. That might be a bridge we have to cross when we get to it, though hopefully that won’t happen for a very, very long time.”)
What they weren’t expecting was Queenie finding her own little way to communicate with Izuku in the most dramatic way possible.
She was an intelligent little thing; it only took her a month to figure out how to escape her enclosure, though she saved that for when she really needed it because she didn’t want anyone locking her in. When Izuku was taking a nap in the living room with Shouta just before Christmas she slithered her way out of the terrarium directly to the teenager. Kimchi saw her, but a small hiss made it clear she wasn’t interested in playing at the moment, prompting the ginger cat to simply watch her curiously as she slithered up the couch and into Izuku’s hoodie.
Izuku stirred, but didn’t fully wake up until Hizashi got him and Shouta (Hizashi’s shiny new husband after their nice, low key winter wedding) up for dinner. Queenie, shifting around under his shirt incredibly disgruntled at being moved, nearly gave Izuku a heart attack.
“Noooooo, don’t put me back.” A small voice popped up in the back of Izuku’s mind, nearly giving him another heart attack. “You’re so much warmer than the lights. Let me staaaaaaay.”
“Izuku?” Shouta asked, when the teen froze and went pale.
“I think… I think Queenie is talking to me?” He told the dark haired man. “Telepathically?”
“Does this mean I can stay? I won’t even beg for food like the cats do!”
“She wants to stay with me for dinner.” Izuku announced lightly as she popped out of the top of his hood to wrap around his neck, slow blinking at Shouta in a move she picked up from the cats. “She says she won’t beg for food like the cats do.”
“Nothing’s ever simple with you is it, problem child?” Shouta sighed. “You’re gonna have to ask your papa for that one.”
“You know what?” Hizashi gave up. He was used to weird but this was above his pay grade, he was giving up. “As long as she doesn’t beg for human food or bugs, I’m okay with it.”
“Yessssssss.” Queenie cheered, only inside Izuku’s head.
Izuku really wanted to know the answer to Shouta’s question- a part of him would love a simple day. The issue was the rest of him thought that’d probably get boring. He had a talking, magical snake! He was already making a long mental list of shenanigans he could get into with that.
Shouta wasn’t a stupid man; he clocked the glimmer in Izuku’s eyes. This was going to give him grey hair, he just knew it.