Chapter Text
Twice is speaking when they get back to the base.
Tomura assumes he’s talking to Toga, since she was with him when they infiltrated the Shie Hassaikai, but as they get closer he can make out the words and they make him stop in his tracks. “You’re gonna love the League,” he’s saying. “Shigaraki’s our boss, and Dabi’s his right hand man even though he doesn’t actually do anything—”
“What the fuck,” Dabi says, and hastens his pace.
“—and then there’s Spinner, who knows way too much about video games and anime, and Compress, but no one actually knows why he’s here—”
“And I intend to keep it that way,” Compress says, and Tomura has enough.
He bursts into the room where Twice’s voice is coming from. “Who the hell are you talking to?” he demands, expecting yet another recruit (hopefully not quite as murderous, though). He falters, though, upon seeing a tiny girl sitting on Twice’s lap with Toga cooing over her. She’s in a ragged gown, bandages covering her arms and legs. Her hair is long, matted, and her red eyes are huge on her gaunt face.
“What do you mean, I know too much?” Spinner asks as he walks in after Tomura. “I know a normal amount.”
“What episode did Naruto and Sasuke kiss?” Dabi says.
“Trick question they’ve kissed twice,” Spinner answers immediately. And then, “Wait, how do you know about that if you always say you don’t care about anime?”
“Unimportant,” Dabi says dismissively, waving a hand. “Twice, why is there a toddler here?”
“We stole her!” Toga says brightly. “Eri, do you wanna learn how to use knives?”
Tomura quickly steps in. “No one’s teaching the kid how to use knives.” He levels a look at Twice. “Why’d you steal her?”
“She was at Overhaul’s base. The heroes had this whole thing about getting her, so we took her first.” Twice pumps a fist. “Take that, heroes!”
Eri sits in his lap, stock-still and red eyes wide as she takes in the sight of them. They’re quite the bunch, and Tomura has no doubt she’s terrified out of her mind. It’s not his problem, though, and this is no place for a child anyway. None of them are equipped to take care of her.
“The heroes wanted her?” Dabi asks. And then, “She’s covered in bandages.”
Tomura grimaces, already knowing what Dabi’s getting at. It’s pretty obvious with the way she looks. “What, so they staged an entire attack for this kid here? Because Overhaul was hurting her?” What makes her so worthy of being saved, he thinks. What about her drove the heroes to go to such lengths to save her?
“Overhaul’s been using her to make those quirk erasing drugs,” Toga explains. “We think with her blood.” The girl tenses at the word. Toga grins with all her teeth visible, leaning closer to the kid. “I can smell it on her.”
“So, you want to do the same?” Spinner asks dubiously, eyes trained on her. “Use her for the drugs?”
They all turn to Tomura, who feels a bit like trapped prey with everyone’s eyes locked on him. He doesn’t let it show, though, taking a deep breath and focusing his gaze on the girl, whose eyes are filling with tears. She doesn’t make a sound, even as her lip trembles.
“What do you think we should do?” Tomura says first, because a good leader is one who considers everyone’s opinions.
“It would give us the upper hand to have a steady supply of them,” Dabi says slowly.
“Are you completely heartless?” Spinner demands, gesturing towards her. “That’s a whole ass kid!”
A furrow appears between Dabi’s brow, the only indication that he’s frustrated. “I never said we should.”
“Fuck that!” Twice shouts, then claps a hand over his mouth. “Eri, don’t repeat that word, okay? It’s a bad word.”
“O—okay,” Eri says, the first sound she’s made the entire time. The tears in her eyes stubbornly refuse to fall.
“Maybe we can take just a teensy bit of blood,” Toga says, brandishing a knife close to Eri’s face, and she stiffens, teary eyes wide and focused on the blade.
Everyone instantly steps forward, protesting. “Are you insane?” Dabi asks. “The brat’s gonna pitch a fit if you do something like that. I’m not dealing with a snotty child.”
“She won’t even notice!”
And from there, everyone starts arguing, and Tomura would have facepalmed if he did not already have a hand covering his face.
Instead, he takes one look at the terrified, crying child on Twice’s lap and sighs heavily. He doesn’t know what to do with kids. He’s never been around them for any extended period of time, has never interacted with one. “Stop crying, you brat,” he tells her.
She keeps hiccupping, tears spilling down her thin cheeks.
“Guys, shut up. The kid’s already freaking out,” Tomura snaps. He gestures to her, and she freezes up even more, trying to hold back her sobs.
“I—I’m sorr—sorry,” she gasps, on the verge of hyperventilation.
“No, no, Eri!” Twice says, sounding like he’s about to panic. “There’s nothing you have to be sorry for.” He looks in horror at the others as she dissolves into a mess of tears, and stands up with her in his arms. “Someone take her!” Before anyone can protest, he shoves her into Dabi’s arms.
Dabi stares at Twice, awkwardly holding onto Eri in such a way that Tomura thinks she might just slip out of his grasp. “What? Why me? Mister, you take her.”
“She looks quite comfortable in your arms, Dabi,” Compress says, which is such a bald-faced lie that no one even bothers calling it out.
“This entire team is useless,” Tomura whispers to himself. Louder, he says, “Do none of you seriously know how to comfort a kid?” Magne would know what to do, he thinks. But Magne’s gone, murdered by the same man who abused this girl. They’re completely on their own, especially now that Kurogiri’s left.
“Where do you think we would have gotten the experience?” Spinner retorts, glaring at him. In the background, Dabi is trying to spin Eri around or something, Tomura doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
Tomura ignores the fact that he himself has zero experience with children and sighs in aggravation. “Eri,” he says. “Eri! None of us are going to use your blood— especially Toga. So stop crying.”
He thinks it’s his tone more than anything that gets her to stop crying, rubbing weakly at her eyes while still in Dabi’s awful grip, seriously he’s going to drop her in a second if he doesn’t fix it.
Now that she’s listening, Tomura softens his tone—still commanding, still strong, but not as loud. “Look, we don’t even have a way to make those drugs. There’s no reason for us to hurt you like Overhaul.” Will practicality even appeal to children? “Don’t have to cry about it.”
Eri blinks at him. She takes a look around at them, at the dirty room they’ve been inhabiting for the past week or so, and inhales deeply before nodding once.
“Good, so you do have a brain,” Tomura says approvingly. “Dabi, put her down before she loses it from you dropping her.”
Dabi instantly sets her down and then proceeds to back up against the wall. “Twice, I’m going to set you on fire,” he growls.
“If you were so bothered why didn’t you just put her down earlier?” Spinner asks, always the voice of reason, and Dabi very blatantly ignores him. Probably too embarrassed to admit he panicked and didn’t think of it.
“So can we keep her?” Toga asks, clasping her hands together. “Please? She’s so cute!”
They take one look at the girl, standing on the dirty floor. She’s wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to make herself look smaller. With the state she’s in, she doesn’t even look out of place with their surroundings, and something inside of Tomura makes him sick with anger at that fact.
“The heroes will just use her,” Dabi deadpans.
And Tomura looks at him disbelievingly. “So you want her?”
Dabi inspects his chipped nail polish. “Nope. Never said that.”
But as he looks around at the group, he can already tell their mind has been made up with the way they gaze back at him—even Dabi’s. And if he’s honest with himself, he has no… objections to her being with them. If they abandon her, the heroes will never find her. Society will turn a blind eye to a dirty, traumatized child wandering the streets. And then she’ll die, without anyone ever having known her.
“Fine,” Tomura grits out. “Eri.” She looks up at him, eyes wide. “Welcome to the League.”
First order of business is getting her cleaned up and in some new clothes. They don’t have a shower or bath in this damn hideout, which means they’ll have to find somewhere else.
Tomura wishes Kurogiri was here, he’d know what to do. But he’s out on some mission to locate a power Sensei left behind, and he has no idea when Kurogiri will be back. They can do this, though. Keep a terrified and traumatized kid with them… right?
Compress and Toga are out getting clothes and food, while Dabi and Twice are scouting any potential buildings they can squat in. Which leaves Tomura and Spinner in charge of Eri.
As the leader, he probably shouldn’t shy away from taking care of her, which is why he forced himself to stay behind with her although he’s uncomfortable with it. And Spinner is the most normal person in their group, so he probably won’t scare Eri like the others would.
“The heroes raided the base for her, yeah?” Spinner asks while showing Eri some game he has on his phone. She’s quiet, sitting still without even fidgeting or saying a single word. Tomura feels the itch get stronger every time he considers why exactly she’s so well behaved. “So they probably know we took her instead.”
Tomura sighs loudly. “Yes. But there’s nothing we can do about that now.” Short of dropping her off somewhere the heroes are likely to find her, but Toga and Twice and Dabi (compared to how he normally acts, he was practically fighting for her to stay) are somehow already attached, and Tomura doesn’t see the point in letting another child grow up brainwashed by the heroes when she’ll be better off with people who value her as an individual.
…The loss of Bakugou still stings.
“What if this ends up like with Bakugou?” Spinner asks, apparently on the same wavelength as Tomura. “All the heroes gathered up and ready to strike.”
Tomura shrugs. “We’ll see then. Do we really want to fight that hard for her?”
Spinner looks at him. “This is no place for a child,” he says instead of answering Tomura.
“Yeah,” Tomura agrees lightly. He thinks about the reason they all came together, why exactly he’s with Sensei—although he can’t remember much, he knows Sensei found him wandering the streets, helpless and alone, and saved him when no one else would. “The heroes made it one, though.”
Dabi and Twice return first (what the hell are Compress and Toga doing, stealing an entire store? Maybe he should have sent Dabi instead, he’s much more practical and would only get what’s needed even if he’d stick out more) with reports of an old, abandoned house in the woods. It was too far for them to have checked in person, but they can’t exactly be picky considering their circumstances so Tomura will take it.
“It’s the perfect place!” Twice exclaims, giving them a double thumbs up. “What if it’s haunted?”
“Ghosts don’t exist,” Tomura says.
“Haunted?” Eri asks, and Dabi smirks and crouches down to her level, resting his arms on his knees. Tomura gets the feeling he’s about to do something very asshole-ish.
“Yeah! If you aren’t careful the ghosts in the house will eat you.”
Eri stiffens, creeping closer to Tomura’s leg, and he ignores the uncomfortable warm feeling in his chest at the sight. “E—eat me?” she squeaks. “But I’m too big!”
“Not for ghosts,” Dabi says, and Tomura has enough.
“Stop being a dick, patchwork, the hell’s wrong with you.” Softer, he says, “Eri, there’s no such things as ghosts or other scary things unless you count Dabi’s dumb ass.” When did he suddenly become the voice of reason?
“Ha, you don’t know, maybe I am dead.” Everyone ignores him, as is usual.
Spinner kneels down next to Eri as well, patting her on the head and drawing Tomura’s attention to that horn. He assumes it has something to do with her quirk, but what? Asking Eri about it didn’t help because she was just as clueless. “Don’t worry, Eri! We’ll all protect you. You’re in our care now.”
“Yeah! Eri, I made you a promise in that base and I never break promises,” Twice says, giving her a thumbs up. “Promises are for losers.”
“O—okay.” She nods decisively to herself. “Thank you. Spinner. Twice.”
Crisis averted, Tomura turns to Dabi. “Stop telling her things that aren’t true. She’s just going to freak out.”
Dabi tilts his head. “You don’t have any younger siblings?”
“No,” Tomura says, and flashes of a young girl, with dark hair and eyes, reverberate inside of his head. Just as quickly, they’re gone, a fleeting memory he can’t recover. “Just me.”
Dabi grins as though he’s figured something out with that statement. “Ah, that explains a lot.” What, Tomura has no idea. But he often has no idea what Dabi is talking about, and by this point has learned to just go with it. “Don’t mean anything by it, leader. Just fucking around.”
“Do you have any younger siblings?” Tomura returns, and Dabi ignores him to wander off somewhere. Asshole.
“We’re baaaaack!” Toga singsongs as she skips her way into the base. “Eri, look at everything we got you!”
“Where the hell were you?” Tomura asks, looking into the hall. “We’re not carrying all this shit to our new base.”
“Mister and I were just getting everything Eri needs,” Toga says, dumping everything onto the ground.
“She’s the newest member, so we thought we could welcome her,” Compress adds, carefully setting his own bags down as well.
“I just said some clothes and food! How did you even steal all this?”
Twice comes out with Eri in his arms, Spinner following close behind. “Woah! What’d you get?” Twice says.
“We did get clothes,” Toga explains, picking out a pink shirt with hearts on it while Compress releases more items he compressed. “But there were so many options, and Eri would look soooo cute in everything, so we got a lot! And we got toys because Mister says kids like toys. And food, because duh. Eri, do you like ramen? We got tons of ramen.”
“Ramen is literally all we eat,” Dabi says suddenly. Tomura doesn’t startle, because he’s a villain and he doesn’t get startled by idiots like Dabi who come out of nowhere. “Stop acting like it’s something special.”
“Boo, you’re boring,” Toga says, waving a hand dismissively. “Eri, what’d you eat with Overhaul? I bet this is way better than that!”
Eri freezes up, eyes wide. Her breathing suddenly picks up, loud and rapid in the quiet space.
“Okay, new rule,” Tomura says after a pause. “No mentioning that guy to her.”
“Um, what do we do?” Twice says, rubbing the back of his head.
Toga looks… upset isn’t the right word, but she’s not her usual, bubbly self. “Eri, look at this.” She digs through the bags until she pulls out some stuffed seal. “His name’s Mamegoma, and he’s so cute. Here, take him!” She leans forward and places the seal into Eri’s arms.
Eri’s eyes are all watery, body shaking in place, but she instinctively grabs onto the plushie. It’s big, half her size (and they don’t even know how old she is, that’s something they should know, right?), but she clutches onto it until her knuckles turn white.
“He’s not here to hurt you anymore,” Toga continues. “Shigaraki made sure of that!”
“Yeah, I destroyed his arms,” Tomura says. “So he can’t hurt you.”
Eri blinks, inhales deeply. “His… arms gone?”
Tomura grins crookedly. “Watch this.” He grabs one of the shirts spilling out of a bag, ignoring Toga’s protests, and closes his hand around it. Quickly, it crumbles until all that remains is dust that spills out of his palm. “I did that to him.”
Eri looks down, at the seal, and then back up at them. “Thank you,” she whispers. Tears fill her eyes again, but this time it’s from clear happiness.
It probably says something about Eri that she doesn’t seem to be bothered by the thought of violence. It probably says even more about them that they don’t care.
They end up taking everything with them anyway, because no one ever listens to Tomura.
Eri is a quiet addition to their little ragtag group. She sticks to herself, doesn’t get under their feet as they pack (really just grabbing what little possessions they have and handing them over to Compress). Tomura is sure she’s still terrified out of her mind with them but he doesn’t really care. Not much he can do about that, she’ll learn eventually.
When they get to the new house, which took a full three hours to get to because it’s outside of the city, an instant fight ensues. Dabi pushes them all aside to claim an entire floor for himself (not that Tomura is going to let him. What’s he gonna do, set Tomura on fire?), and Spinner chases after him shouting about how that’s not fair. Twice is next, yelling about how he’s taking two floors if Dabi’s taking one (the house has three stories), and Toga follows while cackling. Compress sighs and runs after them, insisting that as the resident old man he deserves the most space.
This is why Tomura hates everything and everyone.
Eri is left behind, staring in the wake of whatever chaos just occurred.
“That’s us,” Tomura says to her flatly, “the most dangerous villains in Japan.”
“Villains?” Eri echoes, her wording awkward and clunky. It’s clear she’s never used the word before, possibly never even heard it.
Tomura blinks down at her. “What do you know about heroes and villains?”
Eri gazes down at the stuffed toy still held tightly in her grasp. “Deku is a hero,” she mumbles. “And—and Mirio, too.”
Tomura can’t help the grimace that overtakes his face at the mention of that damned green brat. “Well, forget about heroes,” he says harshly, “they pretend they’re better than us villains just because of their label, but they would have used you the same way that fucking bird would have, too.”
Eri stares up at him, red eyes huge in her face. “That… fucking bird?”
“Ah—” Tomura pauses, realizing maybe he should watch his language around her. And then he decides he doesn’t actually care. If Eri wants to curse, then she has all the freedom to do it. “Yeah, big beak or whatever the fuck else you want to call him. Anyway. Eri, in this world you’re either labeled a hero or a villain, and depending on what you get determines the way they’ll treat you. Remember that.” Then he turns with a swish of his coat and heads towards the house, dreading whatever disaster he’ll find inside.
Dabi ends up in timeout for pulling out his quirk and nearly burning the house down, and Tomura questions keeping Eri with them if she’s going to have that motherfucker as a role model. Him supposedly being an adult is a joke. The man acts more childish than the actual kid.
Toga and Twice will be upset, though, so he doesn’t say anything. Even if he really wants to decay Dabi right now.
“I wasn’t actually going to burn anything,” Dabi says.
“Quiet. You’re in timeout,” Tomura snaps. He looks over at Toga, who’s busy brushing through Eri’s long hair, Twice, who’s showing Eri how to assemble some toy train set.
“I’m older than you,” Dabi says. “Stop treating me like a child.”
Tomura raises a nonexistent eyebrow. “Yeah? Then fucking act like it and admit you fucked up.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, boss.” Then why is Dabi still standing there in the corner instead of just leaving?
“Dabi,” Tomura says in a very low, very deadly voice, “you are quite possibly the worst person I’ve ever met in my entire life. Shut the hell up and think about what you’ve done.”
Dabi glares at him, and finally moves from his spot. “I’m going out,” he says, and slams the door as he leaves. Eri freezes, red eyes pinpricks, and Tomura curses.
“It’s fine, Eri, Dabi’s just being a big baby.” He comes closer and squats down next to her. “Hey, listen. None of us are gonna hurt you. Don't have to worry about that.” He pauses. “If Toga tries to take your blood, just tell me or Spinner, okay? Or if Dabi tries bullying you again. Just come to either of us. These guys are menaces.”
Eri blinks at him, eyes huge in her tiny head. “Not… vallins?”
“Villains,” Tomura absentmindedly corrects. “And you can be multiple things. We’re all villains, but they’re—” He gestures at Toga and Twice, “—also menaces.
“Oh.” Eri puffs up her cheeks, looking determined. “Me—na—ces,” she says, sounding out the word.
“Aw, that was great, Eri!” Toga cheers, clapping enthusiastically. “You’re a fast learner.”
“Fast learner,” Eri repeats, looking confused.
“It means you won’t struggle too much when you have to learn your hiragana and katakana,” Tomura says, realizing that’s probably something they have to do. He highly doubts Overhaul bothered giving the girl an education. And before Eri can question what he said, he waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it right now. I’ll explain later.”
“You know, Shigaraki, you’re a great big brother,” Twice says. “You even look alike!”
“Huh? No we don’t. Look at us.” And he doesn’t acknowledge the other thing, because he’s not trying to be her big brother, just a good leader. He straightens up, facing the two of them with Eri standing at his side.
Toga giggles, clasping her hands together. “What are you talking about, Tomura? You do look like you could be siblings! You both have red eyes and white hair!” She leans forward and twirls a strand of Tomura’s hair around her finger. “Long, too. It’s sooo cute! Are you sure she’s not secretly your sister?”
“What is sister? I’m Tomura’s sister?” Eri says, and Tomura glares at them.
“Now you’ve got her believing it, too,” he complains. “She’s not my sister. Eri, forget everything these two idiots tell you. Actually, just don’t believe anyone that isn’t me or Spinner. Or Compress, but only because he’s old. And never listen to Dabi.”
“Why?” Eri asks, and then gasps and claps her hands over her mouth. “No! Sorry!” Her eyes fill with tears, and Tomura watches, bemused, as she hunches in on herself.
“Hey, now, Eri, what’s the problem?” Twice asks. “I’ll go beat ‘em up!”
Eri shakes her head. “Not… allowed,” she whispers.
Tomura’s brow furrows. “To question things?” he guesses based on her reaction, and she meekly nods. “Well, fuck whoever told you that. Here, in the League of Villains, you’re free to do what you want. Only rule is to not betray us to the heroes. Obviously, it’s one thing if you’re captured, but—actually, this doesn’t apply to you. Point is, you’re not gonna get hurt for asking a question.”
“Oh,” Eri says quietly, ducking her head. She came out of her shell for a bit, but she seems to have withdrawn again. Oh well. Kurogiri would probably tell Tomura it takes time—it sure did for him, from what little he remembers of his early childhood.
“And to answer your question, don’t listen to Dabi because he’s an asshole. You saw the bad example he was setting, right? Don’t be like Dabi.”
“Don’t be like Dabi,” Eri repeats, nodding to herself, and Tomura grins. He even reaches out for a moment to pat Eri’s head, before realizing he probably should be careful with his quirk around her. Sure, he’s mastered control over it and hasn’t accidentally dusted anything since he was a teen, but something tells him this is… different. He can’t be reckless with her the way he is with everything else.
And Eri flinches, anyway, so he quickly pulls his arm back and pretends he wasn’t just about to ruffle her hair affectionately.
Her hair, which is quite identifiable, especially with that horn. Can’t do anything about that, but the hair… “Hey, Eri. You up for a new hairstyle?”
It’s up to Eri, of course. Tomura had a feeling she’d agree even if she was uncomfortable or unsure, so he made it clear that she didn’t have to say yes. Then he also went and said he’d get the same hair without thinking, just because it might make her less convinced they were trying to somehow torture her. And she eventually agreed, once the League sat her down and explained what was going to happen with her hair.
There’s no way Tomura’s letting Toga anywhere near Eri’s head with sharp objects, and the rest of them don’t know how to cut hair, or style it, or do much of anything. Or they’re just unwilling to try cutting a little girl’s hair, scared of messing it up and traumatizing her further. Useless, all of them.
“Not even you, Compress?” Tomura asks, arms crossed over his chest.
Compress shakes his head. “I’m afraid she would end up looking like a clown if I tried.”
Tomura puffs up his cheeks. “Lame,” he says. He’s not even an option, for obvious reasons.
“Dabi dyes his hair,” Spinner points out. “Maybe he can do it.”
“Dyeing hair and cutting it are two different things,” Tomura says, looking at Eri. Although… dyeing it would help. And he’s sure Dabi has enough black hair dye for both of them.
Tomura’s regretting that promise to do the same changes to his hair already.
“Do we have a better option?” Spinner asks, and Tomura snorts.
“Yes. When it comes to choosing Dabi, always yes. Where is he, anyway?” That’s the problem with him. Well, kind of. Tomura doesn’t really care where Dabi goes as long as he checks in occasionally just so they know he’s not dead or captured, but he has a tendency to be missing whenever they need him.
“Dunno. I can spam his phone!” Toga says brightly, pulling it out.
“Yeah, sure. Tell him Eri needs him and it’s an emergency. He’ll come back for her.” Tomura pauses, then says, “An Erimergency.”
Toga giggles as she types on her phone. “That’s a good one. One Dabi, coming right up!”
Dabi slams the door as he stomps in. “Can’t you control the crazy girl?” he complains to Tomura. “She was blowing up my phone.”
“Could have just muted her,” Tomura says, shrugging. “Anyway, now that you’re here, can you cut Eri’s hair?”
Dabi looks at him. “What,” he says.
“Cut Eri’s hair,” Tomura repeats. “We need to give her a disguise. Oh, we think we should dye it, too. And none of us are good with hair, and Toga’s Toga, but you dye yours and stuff.”
“You’re not supposed to know about that,” Dabi says, and Tomura rolls his eyes.
“I don’t know where you got the idea that you’re all subtle and mysterious but you’re literally not. Anyway, Eri’s hair?”
Dabi frowns, ignoring him. “Fine. I’ll do it. Where’s the brat?” And he doesn’t wait for an answer as he pushes past Tomura, muttering under his breath, “Can’t believe they’re making me take care of the spawn.”
“She’s a team responsibility now,” Tomura reprimands. “We all have to pitch in. Though,” he wrinkles his nose, “maybe it’s best that you stay away from her, since you’re… you.”
“Glad we agree,” Dabi says flatly, stepping into the kitchen as Tomura follows. Eri is seated at the table, Twice encouraging her to try drawing something on an old notepad he found. “Hey, Eri.” He grins a manic, patchwork grin. “Boss here wants me to cut your hair.”
Maybe this was a mistake, Tomura thinks, seeing the fear bloom in Eri’s eyes.
It turns out Eri just didn’t know cutting hair is painless, thinking it would hurt the way everything Overhaul did to “clean” her hurt, and Tomura finds himself thinking he should have spent a little bit more time torturing him. Just a little bit.
Once they get that cleared up, and Tomura has to take a couple deep breaths upon finding out more details of what exactly happened in that hideout, Dabi gets started. “Dabi’s hair salon is now open for business,” he says, holding up the scissors as he stands behind the two of them, seated on some chairs they dragged in. It’s the kind of goofy joke he doesn’t usually make, more Twice’s style. But even he’s trying for Eri, in his own, weird way apparently.
Eri giggles at that, before quieting herself. Dabi looks down and frowns. “Hey, you can laugh. Did Overhaul say you couldn’t?”
“No noise,” she says simply.
Tomura sees something flicker in Dabi’s eyes. Something dark and angry. Something he never expected to see from him.
Dabi quietly starts cutting her hair, brushing through it with a gentle hand, gentler than Tomura thought he ever could be. But Eri… Eri deserves that gentleness. They were never allowed, but—
Kurogiri always cut Tomura’s hair. That’s why it’s grown out now, because he doesn’t have him around to do it for him anymore. It’s not that he can’t learn to do it himself, but it was one of those things he’s used to Kurogiri doing. And now he doesn’t have Kurogiri around, so.
It’s fine, he actually likes having long hair more than he thought he would.
“Well,” Dabi says suddenly, breaking the silence, “you should be as loud as you can. Otherwise, otherwise people will never hear you, yeah? They won’t even know you exist. So. You don’t… just forget everything he told you.”
“Giving her actually good advice?” Tomura asks teasingly. “I’m surprised.”
Dabi huffs. “Not giving her advice.” But Tomura knows better by now, Dabi is easier to read than he thinks. He cares, but has been through too much in his life to recognize it by this point. Tomura gets it. They all have their hangups, their issues. He never questions any one of them.
Dabi cuts enough that her hair is only down to her chin, the floor a mess of pale strands once he’s done. “How does that look?” he asks, meeting Eri’s gaze in the mirror.
She gingerly touches the ends of her hair, blinking slowly. “It’s nice,” she says mildly, and Dabi looks at Tomura in frustration for a second, before his face smooths over.
“Now you?” Dabi asks Tomura.
He’d forgotten all about that. He supposes he can’t cling onto Kurogiri like this at his age. “Yeah,” Tomura says. “Don’t cut too much.”
Dabi rolls his eyes. “Whatever, boss.” Despite his brusque tone, his hands are gentle as they pull Tomura’s hair back. His fingertips brush against his cheek for a moment, and Tomura isn’t sure what he expected, really. They feel soft, so unlike Dabi’s personality. But he’s still human, of course his skin is soft where it isn’t scarred. So he isn’t even sure why he’s surprised about it.
Cutting Tomura’s hair takes less time than Eri’s. By the end, his eyes are closed shut as he basks in the feeling of his hair being tugged and pulled as Dabi snips off the ends. He won’t ever admit how soothing it feels.
“Done,” Dabi says after a few minutes, and Tomura’s eyes flutter open. He blinks at himself in the mirror, realizing how unused he is now to having shorter hair, although it’s about the same length as when he met the current League. “Okay?”
“It’s fine.” Tomura shrugs. “Do we have to dye our hair?”
“You’re the one who got the idea,” Dabi says, “I’m just doing what you told me.”
Tomura grimaces. “Eri,” he says, turning to her. “You want black hair like Dabi’s or no?”
Eri stares up at him, looking confused. Her gaze flickers over to Dabi for a moment. “But you said… don’t be like Dabi.” And Tomura realizes, in that moment, how dumb kids really are. He can feel Dabi’s gaze burning into the side of his neck.
“When’d you tell her that?”
“Offended?” Tomura asks, deflecting to hide the fact that he’s embarrassed Eri ratted him out. He shouldn’t be, he’s said way worse to Dabi’s face without offending him, but somehow he is.
“Why should I care what you tell her,” Dabi deadpans, and then stays quiet. Clearly he’s leaving it up to Tomura to clarify.
Tomura huffs and rolls his eyes. “I know I said that,” he starts slowly, “but I meant don’t act like him. It’s okay if you get matching hair colors. So, again. You want black hair?”
Eri is silent, kicking her feet back and forth and her tiny hands gathered in her lap. “Okay,” she says.
“You can say no if you want,” Tomura stresses, “you don’t have to say yes to anything if you don’t want it.”
“I want it,” Eri insists, voice a little stronger. “Will it look nice?”
“Better than Dabi,” Tomura says, and Dabi pinches his arm. “Hey!”
“I’m going to get the dye,” Dabi says instead. He turns around and leaves the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
“We didn’t give you a shower first,” Tomura realizes suddenly. “Should probably do that before dyeing it. Probably should have done it before cutting your hair, too.” He sighs. “Well, too late for that now. Hopefully Dabi’s dye isn’t total crap.”
“Shower?” Eri asks.
Tomura pauses, wondering how best to answer this. It’s clear she has some trauma involved with cleaning, because Overhaul apparently saw her as dirty. “It’s a way to make yourself nicer,” he says eventually He leans forward slightly, looking into her eyes. “Eri, I don’t know what that man did to you, but that wasn’t cleaning. That was… abuse. I think. Cleaning isn’t supposed to hurt. Did cutting your hair hurt?”
“No,” Eri says, eyes wide.
“Exactly. Showering is the same. So don’t get scared when you do it, okay? It’ll be fine.”
Before Eri can respond, Dabi bustles into the room. “I’m back,” he announces, holding up the box of hair dye. “Who’s going first?”
Tomura and Eri share a look. “I’ll do it,” he sighs after a pause. “Don’t get the dye all over my face, or I’ll kill you.”
“Sure you will, boss,” Dabi says, and gets to work.
Dabi’s laughing by the time he’s done, a crackly, rasping thing. It sounds as though he hasn’t laughed in years, doesn’t even know how to anymore, and knowing him, he probably hasn’t.
But apparently, seeing Tomura and Eri stand side by side with identical appearances is too much, even for him. “You really do look like siblings,” he cackles. “Who knows, maybe your mom had another kid without you knowing.”
“Impossible,” Tomura says. “I killed my family.”
Dabi goes very silent at that, his laughter dying off abruptly. Tomura isn’t sure what bothered him, he was just correcting Dabi. It’s not like he’s sad about his family being dead. He’s a monster, it’s what he does. Kill people. Or maybe even Dabi thinks that’s too much, that Tomura went too far in murdering them and this is where he’ll draw the line despite being a killer himself.
He doesn’t say anything else, merely leading them out of the bathroom. And continues to be quiet as the rest of the League proceeds to lose their mind over the two of them.
“Oh my gosh, you’re like twins!” Toga exclaims. “Except that Eri is wayyy younger.”
“So like siblings,” Spinner says flatly, and Toga grins.
“Yes!”
Tomura hasn’t seen what he looks like. He kept his eyes closed, refused to look in the mirror. Something is telling him he doesn’t want to see. And now everyone keeps insisting they look like siblings, which is bothering him for a reason he doesn’t know. His actual sister’s dead. He killed her, too. Sensei made sure he knew every single one of their hands by heart.
But he doesn’t think he wants to kill Eri, not at all. And that’s not at all him.