Little Duckling

Little Duckling

[Ratio x Child! Reader, Platonic]

Summary: Dr. Ratio takes responsibility of you after an experiment goes awry. Which you, a child, gets isekai’d into the work of Honkai Star Rail. Based on my headcanons here.

To add: This fic is COMPLETELY platonic and gender neutral. Readers age is not specified at all and there is no use of Y/N. New found family type of shit. Not proofread lol.

“Seems like you’re gonna be picked up late, bud.” Your teacher says after putting the call down with your parents. She gently takes your small hands and leads you to the classroom, letting you sit down on the giant rug where all the toys are.

You felt a little sad. Your parents are late again. It's been a long day for you and you want to take a rest now! But looking at your teacher, you didn’t mind spending more time with her. 

Noticing your foul mood getting better, she gives you a toy bear to play with in the meantime. “Here you go. I’ll call someone to watch over you while I go get something. Be good, okay?” You giggle as she ruffles your hair before leaving briefly. Now you’re left alone in the big classroom with a stuffed bear.

“Hello, Mr. Bear” Its stubby paws gesture to a small wave as you puppet it with your hands. A small smile escapes your lips as you play with it more. Your imagination becomes much more creative with imagining scenarios with the bear.

Perhaps you’ll take it in a cool adventure! Or.. or.. maybe somewhere scary where you defeat the evil monster!! Or go solve a mystery with Mr. Bear as a sidekick! How about all of it? Yeah!!!! You pat yourself on the back for being a smart detective in thinking about how you’ll (spend your time) go on an adventure!

Your playtime is cut short when an odd gust of wind blows past you. You look behind and a small crack of whatever is in the air. It pulsates with a soft glow, almost like it's beckoning you to come closer. An ominous feeling creeps up onto your spine and you decide that it isn’t a good thing.

The anomaly suddenly breaks apart in a maelstrom of whirring winds sucking anything nearby. From chairs, tables, toys and everything. The classroom trembles and glass starts to crack.

You act on instinct but struggle to stand up, feeling weaker and weaker. The lights flicker constantly, almost in the same erratic rhythm as your beating heart.Your senses start to dull from the sheer intensity of the situation. Tears threatening to spill from the corner of your eyes and yet only to be sucked in by whatever it is behind you.

“It’s hard to breathe-'' More of your tears are sucked in. Your steps to the door get lighter and lighter, till you’re practically in the air getting sucked towards the portal. And as quickly as you get sucked in, quickly your consciousness fades.

You wake up groggy with a faint ringing in your ear. Soon that ringing turns into indiscernible voices. That’s when you decide to open your eyes. The first thing you see is the blinding lights above you. You blink it all away and focus more properly in the room that you’re in. Clean white room with many digital images on the screen. The occasional beeping of machines filling the void of silence. 

Your lips feel oddly moist. Looking down, an oxygen mask is placed on you, connected to a machine that makes the rhythmic beeps that you hear. You try to try to remove the mask with your hands but that's when you notice a wire inside connected from your hand. Your unease becomes more palpable and your gaze follows the wire connecting to a bag of fluids hung on a rack.

Your breaths start to accelerate. Where the hell were you? Why are you here? What happened? Where are your parents? Where are your siblings? Where is home? Your heart hammers against your ribcage. Sweat trickling down against your forehead, despite the coolness of the room. Irrationality and fear colliding with each other in a dizzying storm.

The machine beside you beeps louder and louder. Incessantly dulling your head to think properly. Your chest starts to tighten and your sobs are unable to escape from your lips because of the bile forming in your throat. Tears well in your eyes- through your blurry vision you reach out for something. Anything.

Your hand is enveloped by something warm. It pulls you in, surrounding you completely in a dull embrace. You shut your eyes to focus on slowing your heart rate, the dullness becoming calming. Still, the intensity of your panic lingers longer. Your hands tremble, yet hold on to the warmth with an iron fist. Scared of letting it go and possibly losing it forever. 

Your senses start to come back and you hear the muffled voice of someone. With the crash of fatigue washing over you, it becomes a lullaby for you. You follow each faint word with a held breath and exhaling slowly. You settle to lean further into the warmth that envelops you, letting you fall asleep with ease.

By the time you wake up again, the warmth is already gone. Instead being poorly replaced by a blanket on you. The blinding lights back again to bite your eyes. You wince and blink rapidly to adjust yourself more. When you try to rub your eyes, your hands are held firmly by someone else.

You squint your eyes to look at them, a shade of purple is something you noticed first. Then a click of a tongue after. “Turn off half of the lights.” A man says and quickly the strain on your eyes is uplifted.

You finally adjust and you see that what was connected to your hand is now gone. But now you can also see him clearly. ‘Huh, so the purple you saw was actually his hair.’ The first thing that came to mind after noticing his hair was to greet the man in front of you. You open your mouth but your throat tightens. No voice comes out of you, so you opt to close your mouth and nod your head instead since your hands are still held back by him.

The man removes his hands from yours carefully, as if anticipating any form of sudden movement from you. You look at him, an odd pair of reddish-pink eyes looking back at you. The reflection of the light highlights the yellow ring around his pupil, consuming you in a hypnotic gaze.

Perhaps because of the peculiarity of his eyes is the reason why you’re so calm at the moment as he backs away to give you ample space to examine you properly. His gaze still unwavering, although with a hint of softness. There's a deliberate sound of calmness in the air as he asks, “Are you feeling well?”

You nod wordlessly in response, not in the mood to speak. He hums in acknowledgement before turning to the other person near the doorway of the room. You see the other person visibly flinch from his gaze and immediately leaves after excusing themself from the room.

Once alone with you, he takes a much more intentional pace in his actions as he takes out an ID from pocket and hands it to you. He points to it then to himself. “I am Doctor. Veritas Ratio. Your current doctor.” He speaks slowly, enunciating each word to make sure you understand properly.

You repeat his name in his head. Veritas Ratio. It's a very unique name that makes your curiosity spark up. He is, afterall, very peculiar. Different hair color, different eyes, different name? How very peculiar indeed!

Your curiosity must've shown when he speaks, “I will entertain your questions in the future. First-” he pauses before giving you a tablet with a blank form needing your information. “Since you can’t speak yet, you will introduce yourself with this”

You take the tablet with sheer astonishment at its sleek, high-tech design. Ratio guides you in the form. “Surely you are adept in inputting?” His question is answered with the furrow of your brows and the tilting of your head as you try to piece together what he meant. 

A small part of Ratio finds endearment from the face of your frustration. He pushes it down to focus on the matter at hand. He leans closer and taps on a blank line on the form, a keyboard appearing on the tablet. Your mood turns from frustration to one of unexpected clarity.

It works like a normal tablet- just looks more techy, you guess. You type your name slowly with your two index fingers. Each press is paired with a beep that amuses you to no end. You signal him that you finished typing by facing the front of the tablet to him with an expectant gaze. Ratio hums, acknowledging you by taking the tablet and reading your name aloud. 

Now it was his turn to look at you expectantly, as if a silent question if he’d pronounced your name correctly. A surge of delight fills you as you nod excitedly with a big smile. Ratio nods at you back. Although his face is stoic, there's a twinge of amusement from him as he watches your eyes twinkle by simply reading your name aloud. 

“Children are truly simple minded.” Ratio concluded audibly. When he notices your head tilted at him, he dismisses you, explaining that it was nothing. He hands you the tablet back and guides you to the rest of the questions in the form. 

Age. “Little one, how old are you?” Ratio asks with a raised brow. You hold up your fingers to show him how old you were. He points to the number you’re supposed to press. Mentally, he notes down the fact that you can count. He just doesn’t know how far. Perhaps he should teach you personally? Who knows what kind of fallacious education any other teacher would provide? Perhaps even… So on and so forth.

You stare at Ratio who is clearly deep in thought. You don’t know why, but currently your empty stomach doesn’t care when it growls loudly. Your face glows red with mortification before turning away from Ratio quickly. Clearly the hospital bed will be your new grave from all this embarrassment.

Your mind changes immediately though after a large hand is gently placed atop of your head. “I’ll be back with some food.” Ratio says before getting up and quickly leaving. You wait for him patiently, and to be fair, it didn’t really take a long time. As if he’s already anticipated your hunger.

The door opens to reveal Ratio holding a tray of food. He sits down next to you and you can clearly see the.. Uh.. food? Much to Ratio’s dismay, your mind quickly changes again. He observes how you looked so appalled with the food he brought. 

Why does it look like green sludge? Is he trying to feed you poison? When he brings a spoonful of whatever he brought, you turn away with a grumble. But your conscience gnaws at you. You wanna be a good kid like how your teacher said! So you, with an unbroken-probably-slightly-broken will, turn back to Ratio who still holds the spoonful to your lips. You gulp cartoonishly, mentally preparing yourself for the battle of your tastebuds.

Quickly, you take a sip and surprisingly it tastes… nothing! It's soft and easy to swallow but that's about it. Nothing special about the meal. You decide to suck it up and keep eating the small spoonfuls that Ratio gives. When you finally finish the meals, a sigh of relief escapes from you when he offers you a glass of water to wash the ‘taste’ away. 

Nonetheless, the battle of your tastebuds is over! Huzzah! But wait- you are immediately distracted by a small, yellow, glossy pudding. Your eyes light up in excitement at the sight of sweet goodness. The pudding glistens as Ratio scoops a small spoonful and feeds to you. You, of course, take a bite as fast as you can.

You savor the velvety sweetness but comforting taste that completely melts in your mouth. Each spoonful fed, the messier you get, causing Ratio to sigh, “You were eating properly earlier and now here you are with a mess on your face.” You raised your hand to wipe your face but Ratio was quicker to wipe the sides of your mouth with a wet wipe. “Let me. You’ll only make a bigger mess” He grumbles. You giggle, the first time Ratio hears your voice.

“Oh? You even have the gall to laugh at the mess you made? The sugar must’ve gotten to you already. Perhaps no more pudding for you.” 

A horrified gasp escapes your lips and immediately you grab his sleeve and tug on it over and over. You stare at Ratio with big eyes that shimmers with apologies and hope for him not to confiscate the pudding you haven’t finished yet. The more that Ratio stares, the more impossible it felt for him to say no to you. 

Although to you, he looked stoic as he was before but you came at him with some prayers and a dream to eat pudding again. Your silent pleading finally works when Ratio sighs and gives you another spoonful of pudding. “Wasting food is not a good thing after all.” You nod, this time you eat carefully so as to not make a mess, lest you give him a chance to take your pudding away again.

You take a small rest to digest properly while Ratio is out to put the empty trays away. Perhaps it was out of boredom when you yawned. By the time Ratio comes back, you were already asleep. He sighs and comes closer to properly tuck you in the bed. Once finished, he just stares at you and thinks about what he needs to do next when you wake up.

A walk in the hospital's garden, some basic hygiene, and probably a place for you to stay. Yeah, sounds good to him. But first, he’s gotta complain to the resource management about the shitty blankets they have. Ratio stands up, turning the lights off on the way to the door. Leaving you with his coat tucked around you.

A/N: That's it for now folks! This is going to have multiple chapters that'll follow my headcanons so its not over yet :3. Thank you so much for reading! A like or a reblog would be very appreciated.