Work Text:
All Dabi wanted was to steal more hair dye. Really.
Things had not gone to plan. The first store? No hair dye. What kind of store carried no hair dye? Best Market, apparently. The second store had a hero signing autographs at the front of the store, and the third store had Dabi bumping into a sidekick. Worse, Dabi was in a bad enough temper that his hands lit on fire.
The sidekick wasn’t the problem. They went down in one sweep of Dabi’s legs.
The backup the sidekick called? More of a problem.
Which is how he found himself skidding through back alleys to the tune of “stop, villain!”
He hadn’t even stolen anything yet.
Dabi took a hard right and dragged himself up a chain link fence, straight into a landfill. It was disgusting, but that was the point. Most heroes were too high and mighty to slum through a landfill to stop a person who hadn’t done worse than flash a Quirk in public.
Regretting most of the decisions that led him to this point, he wriggled deep into the junk as footsteps slammed around the corner. Something sharp jabbed him in the hip.
He could practically hear the dismay dripping off his pursuers. That almost made this worth it.
(How far he’d fallen, he thought, briefly Touya, to think that hiding in a landfill, avoiding the authorities, was any sort of victory.
Dabi reasserted himself a moment later, but the damage was done. He’d be dealing with thoughts of Touya for the rest of the day. Fantastic.)
“No one’s here,” someone barked. “Back to patrol.”
“But he was just here,” a younger voice said, hesitant. “If we searched—“
“Look,” the other person said, losing some of their high and mighty tone. “Sidestep called us in because they’re so uptight that they think a little Quirk usage is enough to bring in the authorities. I humor him most days, but if it means searching a landfill for some wannabe delinquent—“
The speaker’s voice faded out as Dabi’s pursuers presumably walked away. He stayed there for another five minutes, trying to ignore the feel of something wet seeping into his socks.
Yeah. Those heroes owed him a new pair of socks. And some hair dye. While he was at it, he might as well ask for the moon, since heroes weren’t known for their generosity.
(When he was young, Touya whispered, he had thought that All Might—)
Nope. Not going there. With a groan, Dabi extracted himself from his crouch and sauntered off, full ready to burn anyone who looked at him funny for smelling like a trash heap. His socks squelched at every step.
Heroes could up and die, for all he cared. He wanted to yell curses at them, but he could admit that “sock-ruiner” sounded more stupid than anything.
If there was one thing Dabi despised, it was stupidity. Touya was stupid. Dabi was not.
“Fine day to be out walking,” someone said from behind him.
Dabi ignored them.
“Can I—offer you some money, young man?” the person continued, sounding awkward.
Even Touya would have been a fool to take that offer. “I know a trap when I see one, thanks,” he spat, walking faster. Squelch. Squelch.
“That was not my intention,” the person said.
So it was pity, then. Dabi apparently looked even worse than he expected, for a stranger to offer him cash.
His socks twisted, wet, around his ankle as he spun to face the voice. “I don’t take charity—“
He hadn’t recognized the voice, but he would have to be blind to not recognize the figure. Shark head, suited up—Endeavor had almost tolerated working with Gang Orca.
“Goodbye,” he said, spinning right back round on his heel.
“I mean no harm,” Gang Orca called after him, running to catch up.
If Dabi ran now, he would just look guilty. Snarling, he ground to a stop. “I don’t need your help,” he spat, and if Gang Orca looked hurt, well, tough. Heroes didn’t get much pity from Dabi.
Before he could protest, a wad of bills was pressed into his hand. Dabi’s hand was already simmering with unborn fire, and he was ready to tell this hero exactly what he could do with—
He glanced down.
That was—a lot of money. Quite a lot. He could buy six month’s worth of hair dye, new socks, a few nights at a hotel, and still have money left over.
“One of the hardest parts of my job,” Gang Orca said, barreling over Dabi’s shock, “is seeing desperate people become villains because they don’t feel they have any other choice.”
“What makes you think I’m desperate?” Dabi spat, eyes still locked on more money than he’d held since running away.
“You smell like trash,” Gang Orca said, voice dripping with what Touya would have called “concern” and what Dabi termed “condescension.” “You look half-wild, and your first instinct to seeing me was running.”
“You’re ugly,” Dabi snarked, hauling himself back into his usual self. “Anyone would run.”
The slump in Gang Orca’s shoulders told Dabi he had hit a sore spot. Apparently, more people than Dabi ran from the hero.
Mmm. Dabi smelled “tragic backstory based on Quirk discrimination.” Give the man hopelessness and a gun, and he might make a half-decent villain.
“Anyways,” he said, sliding backwards, oozing mock sympathy, “gotta go. Nice to meet you and all—“
“Young man,” Gang Orca said, grabbing his wrist.
His burned wrist. His needed-medical-staples-to-stay-together wrist. Dabi bit back a hiss of pain and fury.
“—truly want to help you,” the fish was saying.
Dabi couldn’t help it; he threw back his head and laughed. It wasn’t a kind laugh, he knew. It was a laugh that made mothers pull their children out of his way.
(His mother, Touya thought, would have done the same—
Dabi crushed the thought without mercy.)
“Tell me when heroes are heroic,” he said through heaving breaths. “Tell me when our government governs instead of corrupts, tell me when people are just, and then I’ll believe you.”
He shot enough scorn through his words to make sure Gang Orca understood that all this would happen when pigs would fly.
Gang Orca opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. Dabi cut him off. “Nobody cares about me,” he said, “which is perfectly fine until freaks start grabbing me. Now let go .” He would have yanked his arm away, then, if his skin wasn’t burnt raw.
“I care,” Gang Orca said, ignoring Dabi’s jab.
“Nobody important cares,” Dabi snarked. That one took. Finally. Gang Orca released his wrist, eyes drawn with hurt.
Dabi jerked his arm back, half-snarling.
“Heroes have hurt you before—“ Gang Orca said, not really a question. Dabi suppressed wild laugher.
“—and I apologize,” Gang Orca finished. Dabi rolled a sneer around his lips, but Gang Orca wasn’t done. “There is discrimination and corruption I cannot address,” Gang Orca said, the words a shot through the stomach.
No one else had bothered to acknowledge Dabi’s reality before.
“I can help who I see, though,” Gang Orca said, face contorting into something that was probably supposed to be gentle. “That’s all any of us can do.”
Dabi grinned, crooked and wild, to hide Touya underneath. “You’re not too bad,” he said, meticulously offhand. “I guess I won’t kill you today.”
Then he did run, flat out, jerking himself around a corner, and another, and another.
No one followed him.
He was alone in the grimy underbelly of Mustafa.
He clenched his fist, angry at Gang Orca for looking at him with sympathy, angry at the man for thinking Dabi was redeemable.
As his fist clenched, something crinkled. He was still holding the money Gang Orca pressed into his palm.
It could buy so many things. Protection, information, food, weapons. Everything in underworld could be bought, for the right price.
He could buy proper salve to help his skin recover. He could take a train out of town and disappear forever. He stalked out of the alleyway, lost in thought.
“Flowers?” someone said. Someone young. He sneered down at a girl holding a ragged bundle of flowers out to him. As he watched, another flower bloomed from the child’s palm. The girl looked meaningfully at the wad of money in Dabi’s hand.
Dabi was half-tempted to burn the flowers and stalk off, but the girl was so drawn and tired, like his baby brother after “training,” that he didn’t quite have the heart to pull it off.
“Flowers?” the girl repeated, a spark of hope in her dull eyes. “I made them myself.”
Dabi pinched his nose. “You’re just going to get yourself killed, walking up to strangers like this.”
Still, she held the flowers out to him.
Yeah, no. He wasn’t going soft for a little girl with flowers.
He wasn’t.
One hour later, a nurse brought a mismatched bundle of flowers up to Rei Todoroki’s room. “Sender anonymous,” the nurse reported, fanning the flowers out across the table.
Rei stood as the nurse left, touching the flowers with slow caution.
Hope didn’t come often, not for Rei.
That day, hope came in the form of a half dozen flowers, edges charred black with the faintest edge of fire