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“This is the place, huh? Not too big, not too small.”
Tomura knew he should look down the hill and see whether Spinner’s assessment of Deika City measured up. After all, it had been his decision to come here, both to rescue Giran and end the stalemate with Gigantomachia. If the others wound up dead, crushed by Sensei’s still-loyal servant or picked off by these Meta Liberation Losers, it would be because they’d followed him.
Well. Except for one.
“Man…why did I get dragged into this?” Wincing, Dabi clasped a hand to the back of his neck.
Though Tomura hadn’t seen him since he’d fucked off to test high-end nomus almost two months—two shittygruelingmiserablegoddamnedlonely months—ago he noticed something was amiss immediately. Details no one else would pick up on because, frankly, no one else had been waiting six weeks to receive word—just one little I’m alive, or sorry, or didn’t mean to abandon you lol—from the stapled sack of shit. Details like how flushed his unscarred skin looked. The amount of dust clinging to his coat. How his balance wavered, one boot almost tangling with the other, as he barely sidestepped Twice’s measuring tape while being hollered at for his callous attitude toward Giran’s plight. The fact he’d upset Jin to begin with proved the whole situation had gone sideways.
No one else noticed. But no one else knew Dabi like he did.
“Stop.” Tomura’s voice cracked through the air like a rifle shot. Everybody froze, gazes leaping to him. Everybody but one.
“Compress,” he continued, losing some of his volume but none of his command.
The magician snapped to attention, hastily securing his mask back over his face. “Er, yes?”
Not taking his eyes from Dabi, Tomura held out one hand. “Water.”
“Ah! Oh. Of course.” Compress didn’t even attempt to hide the relief in his voice at being off the hook. Taking a marble from one of his coat’s many pockets, he converted it back into their canteen and passed it over.
With his empty hand, he pointed to Dabi, then over at the line of trees marking the forest border. “You. Go sit.”
“Oooo,” crowed Toga. “Someone’s in trouble…”
Dabi blinked, switching a bewildered stare between her and Tomura’s finger. Some sense of meaning must’ve sunk in because, eventually, a dent appeared in the middle of his eyebrows and he plodded his way toward the spot indicated.
No one dared utter a word when Tomura stalked after him.
Dabi halted at the first tree he came to, gawking up at it like he’d never seen such a thing before. He didn’t even register Tomura holding a hand up near his cheek. Scalding heat rolled off scarred and unmarked skin alike, as suspected.
“Goddamn it, you’re burning up. Take your coat off.”
Again, like a deer in headlights. The already brilliant blue of Dabi’s eyes shone brighter still—practically incandescent. Feverish. Unfocused. Resisting the urge to just Decay the damn thing right off him, Tomura pushed the heavy garment from his wayward partner’s shoulders and helped him shrug free of it. His fingers showed blister-red after handling the leather; no doubt touching any of the metal reinforcing the sleeves would’ve earned a first- or even second-degree burn. He dropped the coat to the leaf-littered ground.
“Sit.”
This command proved easier to grasp. With no hint of his usual poise, Dabi plopped down, crumpling against the tree’s trunk. Tomura knelt beside him and held out the canteen.
“Drink.”
Slowly, as if afraid the container might bite, Dabi lifted it to his lips and sipped. Instinct took over at that point. Eyes going wide, then squeezing shut, he tilted his head back and guzzled the rest. Panting, he took a moment to catch his breath. When he reopened his eyes, clarity and personality had returned, if with weariness tagging along behind.
“Hey, mophead.”
Two words, spoken in that familiar, quiet, and currently cracked voice, nearly accomplished what a month and a half of constant fighting and sleep deprivation hadn’t. Tomura didn’t break, though. He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t make a sound. He didn’t reduce the tree to splinters by smashing Dabi’s skull through it. He didn’t Decay the sheepish smile off his (stupid handsome fuckinghatehimsomuch) face. Neither did he give in to the impulse to collapse into the scarred arms that would’ve caught him and never let go. He couldn’t afford to. Every iota of rage and pain and razor-edged glee needed to be reserved for whatever Re-Destro had waiting for them at the bottom of the hill. To expend any of it now could cost him or the rest of the League their lives. So, Tomura corralled his stampeding emotions with a temporary fence of practicality.
“Can you fight?” His tone came out blander than stale bread.
Dabi’s smile dwindled. He scanned Tomura’s face for any sign that his presence meant more than an extra pair of boots on the ground. Catching none, he took a long inhale and settled into tight-lipped resignation.
“Yeah. Got a little piss and vinegar left in me. What’re we up against?”
“An army of deluded morons. The usual. We’ll need to keep them distracted for about an hour and a half.”
“What happens after the clock runs down?”
“Gigantomachia shows up and proves their philosophy is a pile of shit like everyone else’s.”
That dropped Dabi’s jaw. “You’re still fighting that thing?”
“What’d you think we were doing out in the middle of nowhere? Meditating and earning merit?” Tomura snapped before cursing himself. The sneaky bastard had always had a knack for poking his emotional pressure points—for getting him to do exactly what he swore he wouldn’t. Collecting himself, he wiped his expression clean again.
“Are you going to be any use here or do you need to sit this out?”
Blue eyes searched for cracks in Tomura’s resolve. As perverse luck would have it, he noticed the tracks of rusty red smeared down Dabi’s cheeks at that moment. They’d seeped like tears from the drooping scars that made up his lower lids. More crusted the staples in his chin and near the hinges of his jaw. Tomura’s stomach writhed like a dying animal. What the fuck had Ujiko been making him do? Had he been testing the nomu by fighting the damn things?
As if reading his thoughts, Dabi touched the bloody streaks. “Whatever you need me to do, consider it done.” A pause. No—a hesitation. “I just have a couple of things to say first. If you, uh, want to hear them.”
This asshole…Tomura had to curl his hands into fists to keep from clawing at his neck. Telling him to shove it sideways with no lube would be satisfying in the present, but Tomura knew, just like Dabi did—just like he’d counted on—the mystery would turn into a distraction he couldn’t allow. Worse, if one of them survived this battle and the other didn’t…He yanked his focus back before his imagination could drag it down into that abyss. The exasperation in his sigh didn’t need to be exaggerated.
“Fine. Out with it.” He wouldn’t go away with any regrets—let Dabi carry them all if he wanted.
“Okay. First item is my family name. It’s Todoroki.”
Every calculated reaction he had lined up imploded, leaving Tomura’s mind a void.
A grim little smile spread across Dabi’s face. “You didn’t know. I’m surprised.”
Tomura shook his head to get the gears turning again. “I…suspected. After you told me your given name. Especially watching how you acted after All Might retired.” Endeavor’s rise to the number one spot on the hero rankings and Dabi’s new habit of leaving the charred corpses of low-level villains littered around the city had started too close to each other to be coincidence. A powerful fire quirk…blue eyes in the family…an older son who vanished from the news feeds abruptly…no, it hadn’t been difficult to fit the pieces together at all once he’d realized they were there in the first place.
“Why tell me this?” Tomura asked, tone teetering between genuinely curious and accusatory. “Why now?”
That smile still pulling on the seams in his skin, Dabi stared down at his hands resting in his lap. “Just wanted you to know why I really stayed behind with Ujiko, I guess. When I saw I’d be useless against that giant, I figured it’d be an opportunity to handle my personal shit. I could look for a way to take out Endeavor without being a burden on you and the others. Go figure, I failed big time.
“Oh, sure, me and dear old Dad went toe to toe when I took the first high-end nomu out for a test run, like I said I would. But then that wannabe recruit I was looking into kind of fucked me over. And then Miruko showed up. And I was out there all alone, with no one to back me up, just how I’d wanted it.” A strangled laugh hiccoughed out of him. “So, Ujiko had to bail me out in the end. I completely overheated during the fight. My brain was so fried I even forgot the damn high-end on the field. If you hadn’t had the doc send me out here, he probably would’ve chopped me up and fed me to the rest of his pet projects. Anyway…I told you all that to tell you this.”
Dabi drew a long, shuddering breath and looked up square at Tomura. “I was wrong. I should’ve trusted you. The others too. I should’ve trusted that you would’ve helped me if I’d asked. That you’d want to. I’m sorry. I’m a reckless dick. And I didn’t leave because of you.” Closing his eyes, he let his head thump back against the tree and swallowed hard. “Just didn’t want to cash in my chips with you maybe thinking that was the case.”
Verbally eviscerating him for the sheer volume of his idiocy—take down Endeavor alone, didn’t want to be a burden, overheated to the point of collapse—should have been Tomura’s first instinct. However, it found itself blocked off before it even arose by one confession that kept echoing in his head.
I didn’t leave because of you.
The volatile energy buzzing in Tomura’s bones settled and faded out. Rather than leaving him depleted, it gave way for a new source of strength to rush in and replace it. One that set something in him right, like a dislocated joint popped back into place. The spot was still sore, still tender, but once aligned it made him whole and clear and sure the fight waiting for him was already his.
Reaching out with ring and pinky safely tucked against his palm, Tomura gripped Dabi by the chin. Those remarkable eyes fluttered open, startled but fixed solidly on him.
“It’d be easy for you then, wouldn’t it?” Tomura’s voice came out low and vicious, his dirty, broken nails digging into leathery scar tissue. “To just die here and not have to back up any of the shit you said? But you’re not going to get that luxury. I won’t allow it. You’re going to live just so I can have the pleasure of watching you beg and plead and grovel to earn my trust again. Understand?”
The tiny shiver that ran through Dabi, and the flicker of tongue over his bottom lip spawned a new reason to live that tied with Grind Re-Destro into the dirt for first. Patchwork hands landed on his forearm, petting and tickling. The smug bastard even dared to smile. “Perfectly, boss.”
“Good.” And then, because he was dangerously close to kissing him, or stripping him naked with his teeth, or something else otherwise unbecoming of the next King of Villainy, Tomura stood and added, “You look like hammered crap, by the way.” The hand that had clutched Dabi’s chin switched to offering him help up.
The smile sprawled into a crooked grin as the gesture was accepted. Dabi picked a bit of dead leaf from the hopeless mess of Tomura’s hair before tucking the locks behind his ear. “And you’re beautiful, as always.”
He snorted and tried to sneer. Really, he did. “Lying sack of shit.”
Any further attempts at flirting were cut short by an exclamation from Toga.
“Someone’s coming!”
After a final squeeze, Tomura let go of Dabi’s hand. For the first time in too long, they went to meet whatever came their way gladly, head-on, and, more important, together.