Work Text:
When he’d agreed to a training session with Shouto and Aizawa all those months ago, Dabi had never expected for it to become a semi-regular thing. After all, he wasn’t retired - he was still fully and one hundred percent affiliated with the League, still committing crimes, still an A rank villain with a chip on his shoulder and a grudge deep enough to reach hell. He believed that there were two types of moments in a person's life: moments that were small and added up, snowballing into larger ones, and moments that were pivotal. Completely life altering, earth-shattering moments that made you question what kind of person you were going to be. There were times that Dabi wasn't sure he could tell which was which, but this was one of those times where he had the distinct feeling that whatever he did from here was going to make ripples that would become tidal waves in his life.
Trying to outrun the horrifying butterfly effect that was his life was tiring at the best of times, and, bone weary, Dabi was doing his damndest not to think about it as he dragged himself back into the League's hideaway after yet another session spent trading blows with Shouto (physically) and Aizawa (mostly verbally). He probably should have expected that things at home would be as chaotic as ever, but he couldn’t say he fully expected to walk into the scene that he had.
“What the ever living fuck are you doing?” Dabi asked, tone flat as he watched Twice try to yank a hair brush through Toga’s hair, causing the girl to whine as though she was being killed.
She turned to Dabi with huge puppy eyes (eyes that had long since stopped working on him, Dabi lied to himself) and a small pout, “Shiga can’t hold the hairbrush without dusting it, but my hair got all tangled up in my buns and I can’t get the tangles out! Twice is bad at it too.”
Dabi had to take a second to stop himself from laughing at the sound of indignation that left Twice’s mouth, spurring him into a two-person rant while Toga watched him with a small crease on the bridge of her nose that gave away her frustration as more of a mild inconvenience and general indignation than genuine aggravation.
“Okay, okay, children.” He said, unable to contain the smile that flickered across his lips, hands moving in a mock-placating motion, “Twice, go steal the remote from Shiga and hand me the brush. Toga, sit down- no, not away from me,” He corrected gently, moving her so he was facing her right profile while he snatched up the hairbrush from the other man.
Once they were situated, Dabi carefully sectioned out a strand on blonde hair, making sure that he separated it without pulling any knots apart in the process, and started to brush the strand from the bottom. He held her hair at the middle, fingers cinched tight around the section to keep the strands from pulling all the way up to her scalp as he brushed through, slowly moving his way to the top. Once he’d finished the section, he moved over and started a new one.
Slowly, Toga’s hair looked less and less like a bird’s nest, and more like a normal head of hair. The girl was unusually quiet while they sat, as she usually was whenever one of the Vanguard members was performing a domestic task. She’d never volunteered an answer as to why, and he’d never asked, knowing that sometimes the smallest things were the hardest to explain. None of them had ever had a normal, domestic life, but Dabi knew that it was something they all craved despite the fact that, if asked, any of them would deny it. Villainy left little room to want things as soft and warm as family.
The only time he’d ever seen Toga give any indication that she was anything other than her usual pomp-and-chaos psycho schtick, they’d been on a mission scouting for potential safe houses. Somewhere along the way, they’d ended up passing through a school event being held in the area, and while Dabi hadn’t been paying much attention, Toga had stopped dead in her tracks, face a carefully blank mask.
He could remember clearly, stopping not even teen feet ahead of her and asking what the hold up was. When her gaze didn’t waver, Dabi let his eyes trail across, tracking what she had her sights set on - the event. A father daughter dance, no doubt just one facet of the festival happening around them. If he hadn’t been paying attention, he wouldn’t have heard her.
“Do they know they’re lucky?” She’d asked him, honey colored eyes a kaleidoscope of the colors reflecting across them from the dancers.
Of course they didn’t, he wanted to answer, mind already forming a barrier of sarcasm and brutal realism to drown out the hurt. He’d seen Shouto with Fuyumi and Natsuo at a festival like this just a few months ago and it’d taken everything in him to shut his brain down for the rest of the day. His eyes had darted between Toga and the dancers.
Instead of answering, he’d held out a hand and said, “Come here. I wanna go to this shop.” Toga had taken a little coaxing, but she’d let him lead her into a little boutique, looking more than a little confused when Dabi pushed her forward and told her to pick out a dress.
Twenty minutes and a new dress later, Toga’s mood had already improved greatly. She’d looked adorable in her little sundress, just the right colors to compliment her coloring, and Dabi smiled dropping their bags behind a dumpster in the alley beside the shop. Without a word, he’d grabbed her hand, loose enough that she could pull away if she wanted, and dragged her into the crowd.
“We’re dancing.” He’d answered her silent look of suspicion and confusion, turning and holding a hand out to her in a clear invitation to dance. Dabi had learned how to dance a lifetime ago, but it was a little like riding a bike, and the sense of pride that flushed through him at Toga’s watery smile was reward enough for his efforts.
The song was light and happy, slow enough to be a song you could sort-of waltz to so that little girls could spin and dip with their fathers, and Dabi was grateful it wasn’t the type of dance that required technical skill. They had spent the next ten minutes or so swaying, broken every now and then when he spun or dipped her in time to the song. By their final song, Toga was barely able to hide the emotion she’d been trying to swallow down.
They’d ended up back in the alley, Toga’s face pressed to Dabi’s chest to hide her face while she cried quietly, whispering so quietly that Dabi could only catch snatches of her words through her tear-clogged speech.
“Why couldn’t they just love me? Parents are supposed to love you, aren’t they?”
“All I wanted was from them to want me.”
“I just wanted them to love me like a parent should.”
The memory was a mixed one, if only because Dabi had ached desperately to help her. It was hard to help others when you were so messed up yourself. In the end, she’d been wildly happy, citing it as one of the best days of her life. (He wasn’t sure how much stock to put into that, given how dramatic Toga was prone to being.)
“All done, brat,” He yawned, finishing fixing her hair into neat little buns, “Now go make sure the others aren’t killing each other over the TV. I need to catch up on some sleep.”
The blonde huffed, trying her best to look pouty, but Dabi could see the smile she was fighting to keep down and his own lips spread into a lazy grin as he playfully pushed at her arm, “Well, go on. Get.”
“One of these days,” She sniffed theatrically, feigning a look of long-suffering hurt, “You’re going to tell us where you keep going off to. We’re starting to think you’re replacing us!”
Dabi snorted, reaching out to bop her lightly on the head, “Don’t be stupid, Himi. I’m not going anywhere. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I betray you guys, and you damn well know it.” The smug, shark-like smile that struck across her lips was enough to tell Dabi she’d already known that, and he returned it with one of his own, jagged enough to cut someone.
He’d retired himself to a couch in a different room, comforted by the background noise of Toga wrestling Twice for the TV remote. Sometimes he wondered if he should tell them about Shouto and Aizawa. Sometimes he wondered if he should tell Aizawa and Shouto about them. Family was family, but in the end you got to pick and choose who you wanted to let in on that. It was a careful balance Dabi was walking here, and it made things too complicated.
If it had just been one, maybe two of them, it wouldn’t have been so hard, but as things were, neither side was going to give up their ideals and plans so easily. Dabi just had to hope that no one he cared about would get caught in the crossfire, which meant being proactive in making sure that the people he cared about weren’t getting into altercations.
That was a hard thing to do with Shigaraki as your leader. The guy was proactive, and as time went on, he was becoming more and more assessing, a bigger threat than he’d been when he was just a scared kid following his mentor’s orders. In the end, he wanted the same thing they all did, and he’d made the Vanguard into a makeshift little family unit as a result.
Dabi suspected that he was in a similar situation to Hawks or himself. The situations were comparable in that they’d all been raised by people who hadn’t given a damn what they’d wanted. They’d been lied to, used, and manipulated as a means to an end by the people they’d trusted.
Maybe it was a weird, latent big brother gene that caused the desperate need he felt to compulsively try to fix their lives. Maybe being a big brother was just like riding a bike or dancing - your body never forgot, so you just slide into it without meaning or wanting to. Regardless, Dabi knew that it was dangerous ground to be treading, caring so deeply about people who were labeled ‘villains.’ There was a reason they weren’t known for being family-oriented people.
There was also the fact that Aizawa and Shouto would never accept his found family - they couldn’t see past their villain personas to the scared kids who just wanted someone to love them. Toga and Shigaraki, who just wanted parental love and approval. Twice, who just needed support and understanding with his mental illness. Magne, who had just wanted to be accepted for who she was. Even Spinner and Compress, who just wanted to be a part of something.
Closing his eyes, Dabi let himself fall into a restful sleep. He dreamed of all the people he loved, together and healthy, their best selves with all the help they needed provided for them. When he woke up the next morning, he couldn’t remember how they’d managed to pull it off.
Despite everything, Dabi knew he was going to fight tooth and nail to get the result he wanted - the best result for the people he surrounded himself with. Maybe he wasn’t a good person, or even a particularly nice person, but if he had to crash himself into the ground to get his family a chance at a better life, then he’d go up in flames all over again, and this time, he’d do it right.
Meet me on the rooftop in an hour. His phone demanded on Aizawa’s behalf, Wear something you won’t be recognized in.
With a sigh, Dabi grabbed a bag from his unofficial bedroom, stashed under his bed, and threw it over his shoulder. When he reached the alleyway below, he unzipped the pack and pulled out a mask, ornate but sturdy. One of these days, his choices were going to catch up with him, but he figured now was as good a time as ever to deploy his new rogue action plan - Nova.