Chapter Text
23078.02.37
Vort Research Station 9
When Lard Nar had first been informed that his lab would play host to an intern from the Irken Academy, he’d been expecting… well, your stereotypical Irken Elite soldier. Smug, up themselves, single-minded… simply put, a pain in their collective ass.
Instead, they got some kid who’s clearly deep in the throes of a major depressive episode, visibly struggling to show the slightest interest in doing anything more than curling up in a blanket pile and crying himself to sleep. Poor thing must’ve had one hell of a session between application and arrival, he thinks sympathetically. He gives him an abbreviated tour of the labs, an overview of the current projects they’re researching, and then assigns Trip to take him to the dorms. After all, there’s no point going too in-depth with him feeling so low. They’ll give him the afternoon and evening to settle in and start fresh in the morning.
…Was the idea they’d agreed upon, but even by lunchtime the next day the kid’s listlessly prodding at a plate of pan fried noodles, not having said a word all morning outside of ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ in a quiet, sad voice.
“Right, that’s it,” Lard Nar announces before abandoning his own lunch and going to sit down across from the new kid, who looks up at him blankly.
“Sir?”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
His eyes widen, and he hurriedly says, “What, no, I mean, I don’t know what —”
He holds up a hand. “Kid, this isn’t Irk, no one here is going to judge you for having feelings, but there’s very clearly something going on and I can’t help you if you won’t acknowledge it.”
The kid is silent for a moment. “Zim. My name is Zim.”
“Lard Nar,” he introduces himself again, reaching across to shake his hand. “So. What’s got you so down?”
23105.22.03
Approaching Resisty HQ, Uncontrolled Space
ringringringring
“I know, I know, shut up,” Zim grumbles, reaching up to silence the alarm.
beepbeep. beepbeep. beepbeep
“I know, we’re almost there, you’re fine!”
“Uh… sir? You’ve silenced the last six alarms,” the computer points out.
“We are twenty minutes out! We will be fine!” he snaps. “Call Lard Nar, give him our ETA.”
A beat. “About that…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
“I told you we lost communications two days ago!”
Muttering under his breath, he ejects his communicator from his pak and hands it to Dib. “Call Lard Nar for me, will you? Tell him twenty minutes.”
“’S that before or after I assume brace position?” he quips as he takes the device, and after a moment, another voice joins the chaos in the ship.
“You must be the Dib human, yes? How’s the trip going?”
“Assuming Spaceboy doesn’t kill us both —”
“We’ll be crossing into your sector shortly, Nar,” Zim says loudly, cutting him off. “Passing BISCUIT now.” A loud chime sounds as the autopilot gives up, and he swears, grabbing the controls.
“Yes, I have you on radar. Do you need me to send someone to guide you in?”
“Still have navigation, I’m fine,” he says dismissively. “If you don’t see us in half an hour, we’ve ditched on the nearest asteroid.”
“We’ve — Zim!”
“He’s teasing you,” Lard Nar assures the human, falsely. “See you boys soon!”
The ship’s left engine starts making a concerning rumbling sound, and Zim groans, throttling back to half power. “Oh, come on, we’re so close, just a little while longer…”
“I’m going to die here,” Dib says faintly. “Oh my god, we’re going to die.”
“You are not going to die. I won’t allow it. Fifteen minutes, Dib, that’s all.”
“To live,” he mutters.
Zim sighs. “See, this? This is why I left Tak’s ship back on Earth.”
“To kill us both?”
“Because I can handle flying a ship that’s frankly nearing the end of its service life. I was trained for this. Would you rather I’d left the Voot for your sister?”
Silence, then: “Fair point.”
“We can make it. I promise.” Probably.
“If we don’t, I will haunt you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, turning his full attention back to flying the approach. He hates manual landings, hasn’t done one in years, but at least it’s pretty much a straight shot in once they leave controlled space. Just duck a few abandoned satellites from the last time this planet was inhabited, and they’ll be on the ground. He’ll have the facilities to evaluate the damage and see how much can be salvaged, if anything…
beep
“Planet detected ahead,” the computer says, bored. “Begin approach sequence.”
Well, technically he’s already started that with the reduced throttle, but he nudges it back a bit more before proceeding to the next steps. “Strap in, we’re landing soon,” he says to Dib as he pushes the relevant buttons on the dash.
Zim hears him muttering something in Spanish, but can’t spare the brain power to translate it at the moment, too busy running calculations and programming the approach path for the most hands-on landing he’s done since the Academy simulators.
“Landing power, gear, stable, locked. Computer, am I missing anything?” he asks, eyes flicking between his instruments and the window.
A beat. “Green,” the voice says, clearly having realized this is not the time to be a smartass.
“Clear, entering orbit.”
He exhales slowly as they descend smoothly through the planet’s atmosphere. At least they’re here, and he exhales as he sees the landing lights come
into view. Just a few more seconds, and —
Abruptly, the left engine sputters and dies, and Zim doesn’t hesitate, grabbing Dib’s hand and smashing the eject button. A protective shield surrounds them as they fly through the air, and he watches his ship skid across the ground, breaking into pieces as they gently float down to the landing pad.
“—godohgodohgod—”
“It’s okay! It’s okay, you’re okay,” Zim reassures him, gently patting his back. “Told you I wasn’t gonna let you die. We made it!”
Dib buries his face in his shoulder, still muttering to himself.
“Hey, guys!”
Zim brightens as he sees who’s jogging towards them. “Skoodge! They let you in!”
“Finally,” he says with an eye roll. “Thanks for — say, what ship did you take out here?”
Zim follows his gaze out to the — ah. The distinctly not-flaming wreck. That’s… concerning. “I took my ship, yes.”
“Well, that explains it,” Skoodge says, shaking his head. “I’m surprised it made it out of that solar system, never mind all the way out here.”
He can’t argue, really; the core didn’t even have enough juice left to combust on impact. “Well, we did, and we’re here, so it’s fine!”
“I—”
Zim looks at him pointedly, nodding at Dib, who is still visibly shaken.
“…Right. Speaking of, Lard Nar wants to see you, there’s a bunch of onboarding type stuff you’ll need to take care of.”
“Ew, paperwork.” He glances back to what remains of his ship. “What if, instead of doing that, I went and got all our stuff from the ship?”
“He told me specifically to tell you we have robots for that. Also, you wouldn’t know where to bring the stuff, you haven’t been assigned rooms yet.”
Zim sighs. Damn. Nar does remember him well. “Fine, fine. Lead the way.”
Skoodge knocks on a door before keying in the entry code and calling, “Hey, Nar, they’re here!”
The door opens with a whoosh and Lard Nar looks up from his desk, nodding at them. “Thank you, Skoodge. Come on in, you two. How was the trip?”
“Oh, fine,” Zim says casually, then feels eyes boring into him from the left, and amends, “well, until the last… minute or so?”
“Oh, what happened?”
“He crashed,” Dib says flatly.
“Hey, now, crash is a strong word, we weren’t in the ship —”
“He ejected us fifty feet off the ground,” Dib explains to Lard Nar, who tilts his head.
“Ten klicks,” Zim translates.
The vortian’s eyes widen. “Didn’t half leave it to the last minute, did you?”
He shrugs. “Lost an engine at the exact wrong time. If it were just me, I’d have chanced the landing, but… Anyway, it’s not on fire, so it’s fine. How are you? Skoodge said something about paperwork?”
Lard Nar shakes his head. “That can wait for morning, I believe. Let’s get you fed, and I’ll take you to your rooms so you can rest.”
“Oh, thank god,” Dib sighs, and the vortian perks up.
“Do humans have religion? Many of the races we work with don’t, that’s so fascinating! My partner would love to talk to you about it, if you wouldn’t mind, right now it’s just vortians and higeki who have those sorts of beliefs around here.”
He blinks. “Yeah, of course. I mean, I’m not particularly, but I’d love to compare notes. Is that just organized religion, or any sort of spirituality?”
The two remain engrossed in their conversation the whole walk to the cafeteria, and Zim takes the opportunity to look around. There’s plenty of outdoor space and communal areas, which look nice enough, but he has to force himself to keep walking as they pass the labs.
“— weapons design, robotics; the medbay’s upstairs, on that note, we’ll need to have you in just to make sure —”
Zim wonders if he’ll have to nudge Nar to assign him to a lab. He knows he has lab experience, and really, it wasn’t his fault someone sabotaged his energy blob… and considering it ate not one but two Tallests, it probably wouldn’t count against him even if it had been his fault.
As they enter, he beelines to the synthesizer and lets Nar explain the technology to Dib; sure, he likes him fine, but he likes carbs more, and they’ve been living off rations for a week. He orders a plate of Vortian pan fried noodles and a piece of cake, for the nostalgia of it all, and holds the table while the other two order.
Eventually, finally, they make it to the residential building, and Zim collapses directly onto their assigned apartment’s couch without bothering to explore further.
“…real bath…”
“…weekly, minimum…”
“…questions?…”
“…bed, Spaceboy…”
He’s vaguely aware of being carried and landing on a soft material before passing out completely.
Instead of bothering with whatever kitchenette is attached to their living quarters, Zim decides to head back down to the cafeteria and get some sort of sugary, caffeinated beverage to wake himself up a bit. It’ll probably take him a few days to recover based on his last long flight, and he makes a mental note to take that into account when buying his next ship. Sure, the Voot was a great little ship for what it was, but sentimental feelings for its previous owner don’t make up for it not having been designed for intergalactic travel. Happily, it looks like all of their things made it to the living room that he barely noticed the day before, and opens one of the stacked boxes to find a pair of shoes he can just slip on. He’s pretty sure Lard Nar would have a fit if he showed up to breakfast in slippers.
However, by time he manages to find the cafeteria again, it’s mostly empty but for a few stragglers. Suits him fine. He orders some drink he’s never heard of that looks strongly caffeinated enough to wake up a whole herd of slaughtering rat people, and settles at a table by the windows. It’ll be nice to have a few minutes alone to relax.
“Oh, there you are!”
Or not. Zim sighs. “Hi, Nar. I wouldn’t expect Dib for a few days, by the way; I’m barely functional, and humans are a lot more fragile than I am.”
The vortian waves a hand dismissively. “I’m not concerned, let the poor boy rest while he can. But, since I have you here… I had a thought on something the Resisty could be doing now that we have Irken members, and I’d like your take on it.”
He blinks, and takes a large sip of his drink. “Alright, shoot.”
“Right! So.” Lard Nar glances at his drink, and frowns. “Goddess, I could murder a Bintam Fog right now. Hold that thought, I’ll be right back.”
Zim blinks, then snickers. Nar really hasn’t changed.
A few moments later, the vortian returns with a large steaming cup of something, and settles back into the seat opposite Zim. “Right. As I was saying, we’ve got Irken members of the Resisty now, yeah? What if we had you speaking out about how horrible the Empire is? If people who were actually part of it are talking about how awful it is on the inside, I think that would be very persuasive, we’d get so many people interested just for the novelty. Bring them in with an Irken talking about all the horrors and trauma, then hook them with the solution: join the resistance about it. Yes?”
“Makes sense,” he says thoughtfully, then pauses, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Now, when you say you…”
Lard Nar just smiles expectantly at him.
“You want me to…?! I’m going to be upfront with you here, I thought you’d maybe have me helping with strategy and stuff behind the scenes, I can’t do that!”
“Well, why not? I think it’s an excellent idea.”
“I…” Zim exhales harshly. “I don’t disagree that the idea itself is sound, for sure, it would in fact get a lot of attention having an Irken speaking out against the Empire, it just can’t be me! People know who I am, Nar, and that’s not a good thing! Nobody’s going to take you seriously if you’re just like, oh and by the way, Zim’s our new spokesperson, like, please be serious —”
He shrugs. “So change your name. Problem solved.”
“Wh—”
“You’re already significantly taller than you were the last time anyone saw you, just get some colored lenses and Beeblebrox’s your chu’ai.”
Zim blinks. “And who’s my what?”
“Listen, think about it, okay? Talk it over with your human. Oh, and speaking of your human, sort of, I’ve sent your paperwork to your ping ID, if you’d both like to fill it out and get that back to me by the end of the week? We’d like to get you both plugged in before the next operations cycle. Ta!”
“…and then I was like, you’re insane, Nar, this will never work, and he was all, sure it will, just change your name and eye color, and I’m just like, hello? What? Like, am I crazy here? In what world?”
Dib blinks slowly, reaching out a hand to grab the coffee on the side table. He takes a long drink, before finally replying, “One more time, Spaceboy. In English, preferably.”
Zim exhales, forcing himself to calm down enough to switch languages. “Lard Nar has lost the plot. He wants me to be, like… I don’t know, the mascot, the spokesperson, something, for the Resisty. Talking about all my stuff that I went through in the Empire. And he thinks that if I just go by another name, and get some colored contacts, nobody’s going to notice I’m me. Which is crazy, right?”
He looks at him for a long moment. “Says the guy whose brilliant human disguise was a wig and contacts?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” he says defensively.
“’S what I’m saying. People see what they expect to see. Nobody’s going to look at an irken who’s five foot eight with, I don’t know, blue eyes, and think, oh, that’s obviously Zim in colored contacts.”
“Purple eyes,” he says after a moment. “Not that I’m really entertaining this! But, I mean… why would I not go for my favorite color?”
Dib smiles at him sleepily. “Sure. Come to bed? I don’t know about you, but I still feel like I got hit by a bus.”
Yeah, this can wait. He sighs and climbs under the covers, snuggling up to Dib.
“I like my name,” he grumbles. “I like Zim. It’s a good name. There was a Tallest Zim back in the early days of Tallest-ing.” A beat. “I mean, I at least would want to keep my initial.”
“But you’re not thinking about it at all, huh?” Dib teases him, and he waves him off. “So, Z names?”
“I’m trying to think of names that also have a history,” he says slowly. “Like… There was this famous general I always looked up to in my history classes, but I feel like Zukin is maybe too… She was brilliant, but do I really want to name myself after someone who fought on behalf of the Empire, as a Resisty member? There was… Chancellor Zane? Pre-Imperial, of course, but isn’t the whole point that we’re trying to get rid of the empire? Or maybe… Hmm.”
“Zeeblethorpe,” he jokes.
Zim pauses, and grins. “You know, now I think about it, there was a Tallest Zak —”
“Oh, absolutely not. Veto. I will call you Zebulon before I call you Zak,” Dib protests, scrunching his face up, and Zim laughs.
“You hater. It’s literally not about your show.” It’s a little bit about his show. He’s not really going to call himself Zak, of course, but he couldn’t help himself. “Well, Zarek would be the more traditional version of the name. But also, no, I don’t want to name myself after one of the Tallests that gets made fun of by students in history classes.”
Dib sighs. “Should we maybe just look up names beginning with Z online?”
“That’d probably be easier, yeah,” he says, pulling out a tablet. “Let’s see… Zorian?”
“Nah. Just sounds like Dorian, but with a Z. You can do better.”
True. “Zayed… no. Zari?”
“Sounds like sorry.”
“Zakai?”
Dib makes a thoughtful noise. “I don’t hate it. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it. Too close to Zak for me to fully approve.”
“Zenon?”
“Girl of the Twenty First Century?”
“Literally no one out here has seen that movie!” he protests. “Damn it. Zoli?”
“Fazoli’s.”
Zim sighs. “You’re killing me here. Zenith?”
A pause. “Actually? I like that. Call you Zen for short, which is hilarious, by the way, but —”
“It’s very nicknamable, yeah,” he says thoughtfully. “That’s a maybe. What about Zephyr?”
They’re working on unpacking boxes when his communicator buzzes.
bzzzz
bzzzz
Zim sighs, abandoning the pile of books he’s sorting, and picks it up off the table to check the screen.
Lard Nar
hey zim can you come to my office for a minute.
Lard Nar
we’re having a meeting and you came up. come say hi
He groans loudly. “Do I have to?” he whines rhetorically, already typing an affirmative response. “I’ll be right back, Fearless Leader needs something.”
“Have fun,” Dib says mildly, ripping the tape off of another box.
Zim already knows this isn’t going to be the fun kind of meeting. He hasn’t even turned in their paperwork — can’t even turn in their paperwork. He hasn’t decided which name he’s going to put down for himself yet. Surely they’re not going to send people who aren’t even full Resisty members out on missions, therefore whatever it is will probably be incredibly boring.
He knocks on Lard Nar’s office door, already dreading what he’ll find inside.
“Come in!”
The door isn’t even fully open before someone says, “Oh, wow, we have another one?”
He immediately shoots Nar a pointed look before looking around the room; some screwhead’s hovering by the window, someone wearing a cloak is lurking menacingly in a corner, and —
“Hi!”
A higeki bounces up to him and holds out a pale lilac hand, which he hesitantly shakes.
“I’m Mephi, Lard Nar was just telling us about you! It’s so exciting that we have irkens joining the cause now. Do you mind if we talk sometime after this, by the way? I was doing my thesis on the psychological effects of totalitarianism when the Empire came —”
“Mephi,” Lard Nar begins loudly, and she grins apologetically, “just joined us recently as well, after her planet became an Irken ally last year. Shloonktapooxis, of course, has been here since the beginning, as has Spleenk,” he continues, nodding at the screwhead and a tall, lanky alien whose species he can’t remember the name of, “and this is Iskra, you’ll usually find her in the medbay.”
The cloaked woman briefly raises a hand.
“Everyone, this is Zim. We worked together in the labs on Vort before, well, you know. Anyway, he’s —”
“Wait, Zim?” the cloaked woman interjects. “Like. The Zim? That guy who blew up half of Irk?”
Zim pastes a vague smile on his face, tuning out the conversation. He is truly never going to live that down, is he? Granted, that seems to be a selling point here, but…
“…use that as a recruitment tool! We have irken members now, both of whom are ex-Invaders, they know everything that goes on inside the imperial core, they’ve lived it!”
“Yeah, and it fucking sucked for both of us,” he mutters, mostly to himself.
“Exactly!” Nar exclaims, pointing at him. “Exactly my point, even the Irkens aren’t benefiting from anything the Empire is doing! And when that becomes public knowledge…”
“Yeah, what was — sorry, Nar, I’ve always been curious — what was that like, growing up in the system?” Mephi asks, her long black braids swinging as she turns to face Zim.
He exhales sharply. “Oh, it was great, which of course is why I took the first opportunity to fuck off to Vort, and then when the labs shut down, signed up for Invader training. Probably a solid half of people who become Invaders do it because it’s a socially acceptable way to get the fuck away from the Empire.” At least, from what he remembers from training. Granted, his desire to fuck off had nothing to do with political disagreements at the time, but they don’t need to know that.
Spleenk stares at him. “You signed up to conquer other planets, ruining who knows how many lives in the process, because you wanted to leave Irk?”
“Hey, to be fair, I spent six years on Earth and never once did I ruin anyone’s life. You will note that Earth is still a fully independent society. The only planet I ever damaged was, well. Irk.”
“Hey, uh, what is… Earth?” Shloonktapooxis asks.
“Exactly. If it was an Irken territory, you would’ve heard of it.”
“Anyway. I’m looping you all in as top members of the Resisty, but the fact that we have Zim is not to leave this room. Nobody except us, his human, and Skoodge is allowed to know. As previously discussed, we have a plan that involves him, and it requires the utmost discretion on all of our parts if we’re going to pull it off. Can I count on you to keep this to yourselves?”
Silence, then Spleenk pipes up. “If I have to.”
Nar gives him a stern look. “You have to.”
Wow, he feels so welcome. It’s just like being back on Irk. “Are we done here?” he asks the vortian, pointedly ignoring the others.
“Go on,” Lard Nar says easily, waving him off. “Have your Dib come see me when he’s ready, yes?”
Zim sighs, throwing a casual half-salute as he turns and walks back to their quarters.
If he has to.