Work Text:
Dabi looked over at the magnet against the wall.
He’d returned to a League, subdued and tense, and all too often their eyes found that magnet, drawn to it regardless of what they were doing. It was not just that they’d lost their no-longer-mysterious backer and their hideout, they’d also lost one of their own, someone who’d fought with them and paid the price for it.
Someone. No, that was too impersonal. And yet, Dabi hadn’t really tried to know Magne, but that was nothing personal either.
Dabi wasn’t interested in making friends from day one, and he’d made it plain to everyone in the League of Villains. He was here to carry out the Hero Killer’s will, as he’d said to Shigaraki.
Yet still, they’d tried to bring him in closer. While some were less interested in others, comfortable with working with him without having to know him, others were curious and wanted to know him anyway. Others like Mr Compress, Twice and Magne.
Magne... she’d shown interest in him, one of the rare few who’d looked at Dabi and thought him attractive even though he was covered in staples and burns.
He’d dismissed her attempts at flirting, having insisted on his own policy of not getting close, but still she showed concern for him, voicing her worries and looking over his wounds after he’d been knocked unconscious during the raid on the hideout.
He’d pushed her away then, insisted he was fine even though he still felt light-headed, but she insisted, refusing to leave him be until he’d recovered. Dabi had to sit and let her help him best she could (though she was no doctor), which at the time annoyed him but looking back?
It didn’t feel so bad, being cared for.
Before he’d joined the League, before even his time on the streets, he’d been so used to dealing things alone as much as possible, insisting that he didn’t need help because if he needed help, he was weak, he didn’t deserve it, only the strong deserved—
He forced himself to breathe, inhaling from the nose and exhaling from the mouth, hands reaching down and gripping the old metal bedframe he’d been sitting on. The metal was uncomfortable to sit on and even moreso to hold onto, but he didn’t care, the sensation was enough to pull himself away from his thoughts for a second.
He didn’t need to think of that right now. This wasn’t the time to be consumed in old memories.
He kept his gaze on the magnet.
What really unsettled him wasn’t that the overlarge magnet was resting against the wall. It was that it sat alone. There was no arm resting on top of it, leaning against it, no cloth covering it. The magnet laid against the wall; once a weapon, now a tombstone.
Fuck, why was he so bothered by this? He didn’t really know Magne, hadn’t really asked about her life, or her feelings, or why she even felt as drawn to him as she did. He didn’t really know her, beyond her desire to live as free as she wanted and her record of crimes. He didn’t even remember what he’d said to her before he’d left, unaware that it would be the last time he’d see Magne.
Twice, Toga, Compress, those three would no doubt be able to tell him anything he asked, but he didn’t have any questions, and he knew asking now would most likely upset them.
So why was he so bothered? Was it really as simple as the fact that she’d cared for him, liked him even though he didn’t return her feelings? Or was it more than that?
He’d been told of how she died later, when he’d returned to their hideout and noticed her absence. Disassembled by the Yakuza’s quirk, leaving nothing but her legs behind, the upper half of her body completely gone, they’d said. The Yakuza boss had done so because she’d attacked him with her quirk, because she’d been infuriated at the idea of being bound to the Shie Hassaikai.
Dabi hadn’t been there to see it, but he’d managed to get enough details. Perhaps if instead, he’d been the one to attack him, they’d have succeeded. He was the only one with a long-range quirk, after all, and Cremation hadn’t failed him yet in turning people into charred corpses.
One blast, and even if he hadn’t managed to get the boss directly, he could’ve taken out enough of them in one fell swoop to make them think twice about crossing their League. If he’d been there, if he’d attacked first, if he’d held Magne back and taken charge as he should’ve, being the leader of the Vanguard Action Squad... it didn’t need saying, did it?
Was that his problem?
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe not just that. Dabi wasn’t exactly a master of introspection. He couldn’t ignore how he felt, but that didn’t mean he knew what it was.
Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Rinse and repeat. Once, twice, three times.
Maybe it was a waste of time thinking about this. He had to look forward, for a brighter future. A future unbound by society’s chains.
He stood up and made his way out of the room in quick strides, ignoring the stares of the League members around him.
He needed a cigarette.