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Dabi was having an awful day. First, he’d dropped his breakfast because a police officer had recognized him and he’d had to escape before the guy could catch him. He’d also had to set three different random areas on fire to keep the cops off of his tracks so that they couldn’t track him to the league’s new hideout.
Then Shigaraki had been an absolute baby about not having breakfast and had threatened to dust Dabi at least eight times in the space of six minutes. Not having food also made Toga and Twice antsy, so they’d been annoying him the entire rest of the day. He was about ready to snap and burn something in the hideout when Shigaraki had announced that they were going to cause some chaos.
This was exactly what Dabi needed. He would be free to set as many things on fire as he wanted and could go to town on some unfortunate policemen. This was going to be perfect!
Until Shigaraki said that he couldn’t light anyone on fire because they were “bringing a message to hero society”, whatever that meant. And when Dabi asked him why fire didn’t bring a message- albeit a message of “screw heroes, you’re all absolutely useless”.
Shigaraki simply flipped him off and lead into a speech about their “greater purpose”. So, to shut him up, Dabi agreed. So the league headed off to cause chaos that would bring a message to society.
So while the rest of the league was out destroying things, Dabi was standing awkwardly behind everyone, waiting for something to happen so he could actually be of use. It didn’t seem like it was, so he let out an impatient sigh, relaxing slightly.
Then he heard a crunch of gravel behind him. Dabi turned quickly, fire flaring up along his arm. The person behind him sucked in a breath and then leapt at him viciously, his arms outstretched. It took a lot of restraint for Dabi to not just light the guy on fire, screw Shigaraki’s message. But then he remembered that Shigaraki got upset every time that anything didn’t go according to his plan, and that an angry Shigaraki meant things got dusted. And also that this angry Shigaraki had access to his favorite trenchcoat.
As Dabi still wanted a favorite trenchcoat, he smothered his flames and danced away from the careless grab.
The guy, who with further perusal was actually a hero, seemed shocked. He turned around quickly, then came at Dabi again. He sucked at actual combat, from what Dabi could tell. Probably went to some big hero school that never bothered to teach anything other than quirk combat. That lead Dabi to the question- what was this idiot’s quirk?
“So, the heroes sent some idealistic fool after me, huh? You can’t even handle a punch, you idiot. What are you going to do, huh?”
“Stop you!” The guy said, eyes burning with some form of determination. “My quirk is the perfect counter for yours, you’ll never be able to beat me!”
“The perfect counter, huh? What do you mean by that?” Dabi loved teasing information out of idiots like this guy. Although he did prefer it when they would actually put up a challenge.
“My quirk puts out any sort of flame! You’re useless against me!” The guy jumped at him again and actually managed to snag some of Dabi’s hair when he ducked.
“Useless, huh? Yeah, I doubt that.” Dabi was sick of this dude, and also his head hurt now that he’d pulled out his hair. So when the idiot came at him, he sucker-punched the guy so hard his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out.
“Man, your unlucky day, huh? The one time Shigaraki doesn’t want me to use my quirk…” He looked at the slumped-over hero, shrugged, and walked away. The others seemed about done, so he walked over to them, done with today. Hopefully tomorrow would be better.
The next day was not better. Dabi woke up to an absolutely livid Shigaraki and a bouncy Toga.
“ Why ,” hissed Shigaraki, “ Didn’t you tell me you were related to Endeavor? ”
“What,” said Dabi, who was really not very good at mornings. In response, Toga pulled him over to Spinner, who was watching a video on youtube that was loudly blaring what looked like this morning’s news.
“After last night’s new attack by the League of Villians,” the newscaster said, “A young hero was found passed out by the side of the road. When he woke up, he had DNA belonging to the villain Dabi. That DNA was processed in the hopes that it would lead to Dabi’s identity- and it did. The villain is related to the pro hero Endeavor, which comes as a shock to hero society. Many are speculating-”
Spinner shut off the video there.
“Oh,” said Dabi, who already had a headache. “Well, that’s unfortunate. At least we got your message to hero society out…?”
Shigaraki let out an incomprehensible yell, then disintegrated a chair. Dabi sighed and massaged his head.
Dabi hated theorists probably the most out of everyone. There were a lot of theories about how he was related to Endeavor.
“Everyone thinks you’re Touya Todoroki,” Spinner commented.
“Everyone can mind their own business,” Dabi said.
Shigaraki disintegrated another chair. Toga placed an order for four new chairs, then added a table as well. When asked why she simply said, “Just in case!”
The table was needed approximately two days later Shigaraki heard Twice debating with himself over who Dabi could possibly be.
The League of Villains’ work to spread their message didn’t stop even with a world-shattering revelation. Instead, it increased. Dabi was seen destroying things more often, and Shigaraki had taken to disintegrating any sort of Endeavor merch that could be seen. It seemed like a serious message against the hero himself, but Shigaraki was mostly just sick of hearing his name.
Everything came to a head when the league ran into a group of UA students. This happened more often than Dabi would like because kids were pesky- especially these ones. They wouldn’t quit. Ever. It was annoying.
Instantly the hero students squared up, ready to fight. Dabi would’ve liked to ignore them and continue on their way, but Shigaraki had some form of bias against the short green-haired one. So the league fought them.
It was going pretty well until Endeavor’s kid showed up directly in front of Dabi and yelled at him.
“I know who you are!” He yelled, eyes seemingly angry. “You’re…”
Everyone paused in their fight. The villains were excited to see who this kid thought Dabi could be, and the hero students were interested in Shouto’s new theory (because he hadn’t told anyone it yet).
“My cousin, Itoko!”
Dabi’s flames went out in shock. What..?
“How on Earth did you know?” He asked Shouto, completely surprised. The others all seemed similarly stunned.
“It wasn’t that hard to figure out. I remember dad always being really dismissive of you and your quirk. Also, you still send Aunt Oba letters sometimes, and she mentioned it to mom.”
“Huh. I really need to stress the importance of secrecy to her, I guess.”
Shouto nodded. They stood there for a second, the other’s mouths gaping open in shock.
“So, are you going to tell everyone else in the family or…”
“Nah,” Shouto said with a shrug. “You’re pretty fun to hang out with at reunions, and Endeavor would probably stop going if he figured out who you were. Also, I really like hearing everyone’s theories, they’re pretty neat.”
“Oh, cool,” Dabi said. “I guess I’ll see you at the next reunion then? Well, if you’ll let us go, that is.”
Shouto looked over at his friends, who all seemed pretty shell-shocked. The villains were basically in the same state.
“Yeah, sure,” he said and walked over to his friends. He started to guide them away from where the villains stood. “See ya later, Itoko.”
“Bye, Shouto,” Dabi said and waved to his cousin before leading the villains towards a safer area than in the middle of an open area.
(When the villains made it back to the base and snapped out of their stupor, Twice pointed at Spinner triumphantly. “I told you he was Todoroki’s cousin! Pay up!”
“How did you guess that…?” Spinner groaned, but forked over what he owed Twice. The villain cheered triumphantly while Dabi shook his head and Shigaraki started to pester Dabi about his lineage.)
(At the next reunion, both Shouto and Itoko hung out and roasted Endeavor pretty much the entire time. Natsuo joined, and it was probably one of the best reunions they’d been to in a long time.)