Chapter Text
There aren’t many people who can challenge Dabi in a fight, these days. Sure, there are the big bad's: All Might, All For One, Shigaraki (though Dabi will never admit it), and… Endeavor, unfortunately.
But for the most part? Dabi’s quirk is pretty damn hard to deal with, and there aren’t many people suited to fight him toe-to-toe.
Dusty McGee said it made Dabi lazy. Dabi never gets the chance to tell him he was right.
He staggers down another alleyway, blood leaking between his fingers where he has them cupped against his temple. The ground sways beneath him, moving the curb into his path and back out again like a concrete snake. Just the sight of it has nausea roaring back up Dabi’s throat, choking him on another mouthful of vomit, which he spits in the approximate direction of the gutter.
The motion makes his throbbing head spin harder, as if he’s just been jacked in the face by yet another diamond-encrusted fist, and a hysterical giggle wracks his already-shaking frame at the thought. Maybe this time the asshole could leave some precious gems behind. Then at least Dabi could pay to get the damage fixed.
Gingerly, he probes at the spot he’d been hit, and his vision immediately goes black. He sits abruptly, missing the curb by a mile as his head reverberates with evil levels of pain. God, his head hasn’t hurt so bad since the time Keigo dropped him during their first flight.
Cradling his face, Dabi inhales sharply at both the memory and the pain. Baby-faced Keigo staring down at him in horror, his little wings fluttering behind him. His friend dropping to the ground so fast he rolled an ankle, but still hobbling over to where Touya had fallen, apologies spilling out of him while Touya tried to reorient himself - tried to ignore the way his vision dipped in and out of focus.
The same way it’s doing now, flashing between images of the past and images of the dirty ground between his knees. Dabi blinks hard, trying to pull himself back into the present, away from those hazy, precious memories.
(Hawks has been on his mind a lot, though. In fact, Dabi's supposed to be meeting with him in half an hour, but that's off the table now, what with the bleeding and inability to stand.)
(The hero's gonna be pissed about being stood up.)
(Keigo wouldn't have gotten mad, he'd have been concerned.)
No, stop it. They're not the same.
Dabi dips his chin, feeling his head throb almost as hard as his chest.
He's tried so fucking hard not to think about his childhood friend, especially since the adult version is such a raging prick. Keeping the two separate in his mind has kept him sane.
Well. Saner at least. He’s never claimed to have a clean mental health record.
Still, thoughts of Hawks - Keigo - circle in Dabi’s mind. How worried the little blond boy had been about his friend, especially when Touya showed himself to be bleeding and dazed. How he’d continued to apologize for his grip slipping. How much he’d cried when Touya couldn’t stand up again without help.
Touya had never told anyone else what’d happened. He’d gone home and claimed he tripped, never telling his parents about Keigo - too afraid they’d try to stop him from seeing Keigo the same way they’d tried to stop him from training. Too afraid they’d think he’d given up on his dream of being a hero for something as frivolous as friendship.
(Even if it was nice to have a friend. To have someone looking at him again without disappointment in their eyes.)
Dabi has a hard time imagining current-day Hawks gazing up at him with such earnest eyes. Nowadays, he’s pretty sure Hawks would string him up without batting an eyelash. In fact, he’s confident that’s what the hero is up to with his whole ‘I wanna join the League’ spiel.
“Heh,” Dabi huffs, letting his eyes lose focus in an attempt to ease his spinning thoughts. “He’s so stupid. Thinks he can fool me.”
Blood drips onto the pavement between Dabi’s knees, and the villain blinks down at it in wonder.
Drip, drip, drip. One red droplet after another strikes the ground, splattering like ink. Splaying, like Hawks’ wings in flight.
Stupid, he thinks, not sure if he’s referring to himself or the hero this time, while black spots dim his vision.
So stupid, Touya muses, body slumping to the side as his consciousness fades entirely.
——
Keigo curses into his phone, annoyed that the thing just keeps ringing with no fucking answer from Dabi. As if the villain can’t be assed to pick up after leaving Keigo hanging for over an hour.
Oh, of course, I have all the free time in the world, Dabi, please feel free to waste it however you see fit, Keigo thinks scathingly, fingers gripping his phone hard enough to crack it.
Of course, in amongst the annoyance is a nugget of worry. That Dabi has ended up in a ditch or at the bottom of a river. Or that Dabi has figured out the Commission's ruse and is planning to drop Keigo in a ditch or at the bottom of a river. Really, it could go either way.
Which is why he’s flying low over the area near their designated meetup spot, listening in on police scanners and hero hotlines, trying to figure out what the fuck happened.
It’s not like Dabi to be late.
The villain says it’s only good manners. Keigo thinks Dabi just wants to get his money’s worth out of his little pet hero.
‘Be advised,’ the police scanner in Keigo’s ear pipes up, ‘Some sort of altercation seems to have occurred on block 3, between the cannery and the fish market. Seems to be some kind of glass or crystal scattered on the ground, and the bricks are charred. Be on the lookout for anyone with abrasions or burns.’
Well, that was a calling card if Keigo ever heard one. He dips a wing and veers in that direction, following his nose almost as much as his heads-up display.
Dabi hates fish. Says the smell of them makes him nauseous. What the hell was he doing over here? Keigo muses as his eyes scan the streets below.
A little ways away, he sees the tell-tale flashing of police lights between buildings, so he pulls up short and tucks into a dive, landing less than a block away.
Then he sends out his feathers.
In the cover of night, they’ll make a helluva lot faster headway than men on foot, who would be checking every dumpster and stairwell. For Keigo, all he needs is the vibration of breathing or a heartbeat within ten feet of one of his little helpers, and he’s golden.
Not that he really wants to race the police, but he doesn’t have many options unless he wants to pop in and take over the case, which could raise some really awkward questions if things go sideways. Better to just find Dabi and get outta there fast.
Fortunately, fast is Keigo’s specialty.
“Gotcha,” he breathes when one of his feathers reports back on an inert body emitting high levels of heat.
It’s the opposite direction of where the police are searching, which is the best case Keigo could have hoped for. Still, he hustles up one street then over three more, eyes peeled as he follows his feather’s signal.
And there Dabi is, slumped over on the ground, a darker smudge against the grey pavement. Keigo approaches with caution even though he’s pretty sure the villain is unconscious, having not moved since the feather found him.
“Dabi?” he hisses, staying well back in case of a violent, fiery reaction.
No response.
A feather prods at the dark leather covering the villain’s shoulder.
Nothing.
Chatter sounds in Keigo’s earpiece. Apparently, the police have found the person Dabi got into a fight with. Someone with some kind of mineral or rock quirk.
Might actually be one of the quirks that Dabi would struggle with, Keigo muses, listening in for a moment to see if the guy knew just who he’d been fighting.
‘Central, this is Captain Yamamoto. The suspect said he was accosted by a young man dressed in black. Average height with dark hair and a medical mask on his face. He’s not sure who it was, but he described them as having a flashy quirk of some kind. Maybe light - or blasting, given the scorch marks. Please run a check in the database…’
Keigo breathes a sigh of relief.
Sure, Dabi would probably show up on the search, since he matched the descriptors. But the League was supposed to be located somewhere in Yokohama, so the flame villain would likely fall lower on the suspect list here in Fukuoka. After all, the League had no reason to be here.
And we’re gonna keep it that way, Keigo thinks, crouching down next to Dabi’s inert form, tugging a glove off with his teeth so he can check for a pulse.
It’s difficult to tell through the scarring, but the villain seems steady enough. Keigo takes the risk of tapping the flashlight on his phone, just to see what he’s dealing with.
“Oh, yeah,” he mutters, taking in the blood-matted hair and the puddle of red pooling beneath the villain’s head. “That’d do it.”
Urgency snaps at Keigo’s heels now. Head injuries were always hit or miss with how severe they could be. Keigo had seen someone take a bullet through the temple and survive, while someone else slipping and knocking their head on a countertop was dead as a doornail before they hit the floor. From what he can see, Dabi has been bleeding a lot, but that’s not a surprise - head wounds are the gushers of all bodily injuries.
Still, there’s no time to waste here.
Biting his lip, Keigo pulls off his jacket and, using a sharpened feather, cuts off both sleeves. The suede and fuzzy interior are flexible and thick, making an excellent padded brace that Keigo wraps around Dabi’s neck, stabilizing his head. He pins the sleeves to each other with a couple of feathers, then sends a dozen more feathers to plaster themselves to the side of Dabi’s skull, acting as an adhesive bandage while trying to stem the flow of blood.
Rudimentary, but effective. His first aid instructor would be proud.
Next, Keigo glances down at the blood on the ground and grimaces. He can’t let the police find it, if only because the investigation will be annoying - maybe escalating to questioning neighbors or shop owners if they think someone has been mortally wounded.
(He knows for a fact that the blood won’t return any kind of DNA match. He’s tried everything from blood to fingernail clippings to spit swabs (never again), and none have returned a match on the villain, which isn’t annoying at all.)
Still, blood equals more interference than he wants. So.
Keigo’s feathers get to searching.
And come back with a vile mixture of spoiled food from a dumpster, a half-empty sake bottle from someone’s window sill, and an unused watering can filled with algae and other disgusting swill.
He dumps it all on the bloody puddle, obliterating all chances of it being discovered. He even artfully tips a trash can near the mess, just to make it look like an accident.
Shaking his feathers does absolutely nothing to clean the filth from them, and Keigo grimaces as they reattach to his back even as several others detach to lift Dabi in a rescue position - flat on his back with his spine and head held steady to prevent any further damage.
Scanning the alleyway with his sharp eyes, Keigo nods to himself for his good work. Barely five minutes on scene, and he’d secured the victim and cleared the evidence. Not a personal best, but not bad.
Dabi hovers prone at waist level next to him, breathing steady, face pale. Keigo glances down at him, hero brain giving way for just a moment to his less noble side.
If I left him here, he muses. The police would find him. Take him in. Dabi’s in no condition to fight back, so he’d be in Tartarus before long. The Commission Board would rip me a new one for losing my contact but…
His still-bared fist clenches at his side, freedom from this mission hovering so close he can practically touch it.
Normal patrols. No more lying. No more chasing the coattails of a villain whose moods changed on a whim. Keigo could go back to, if not an easy life, at least one that he’s comfortable with. One that doesn’t make his heart ache in the deep hours of the night.
Dabi coughs weakly at his side, and Keigo takes a deep breath before letting it out in a great gust. Like it or not, he couldn’t live with himself if he knowingly gave up the mission. He has a duty, and he might not get a chance to earn Dabi’s trust like this ever again. After all, he’s literally holding the villain’s life and freedom in his hands.
And I’m going to give both back to him without batting an eye, Keigo thinks, teeth grinding. For the mission.
With that thought in mind, Keigo takes off into the night, his cargo levitating at his side, feeling heavier than anything he’s ever carried before.