Work Text:
“Little birdy,” Dabi starts, idly stroking Keigo’s softer, smaller red feathers where the tops of his wings meld into his back. They’re sitting on a too-large couch in Keigo’s apartment, yet despite the size Keigo has petulantly squished himself into his boyfriend’s side.
“Yeah?” the hero replies.
Dabi turns his head to meet Keigo’s gaze head-on, his light blue eyes uncharacteristically serious and contemplative. “Tell me… who do you fight for?”
Ah.
It catches Keigo off-guard.
Isn’t that an interesting question.
And in reality… Keigo didn’t truly know. He’d been born on the wrong side of the law as the son of a thief, then taken in and raised and trained by the Commision once his father was put away, and then finally, he grew up enough to gain a little bit of freedom. Yet for so long, everything had been decided for him, every thought manufactured and implanted into him. For so long, nothing had been his choice.
I fight for nobody and everybody.
Why did I become a hero?
Because they said so.
But for whom do I fight?
For them? For myself? For the civilians that I risk myself for every day?
Or… for a world in which nobody has to fight?
“I fight for the future,” he answered carefully. “For a day upon which heroes are no longer needed, and we can relax without worry.”
“How very noble.” Dabi’s expression intensifies. “Do you believe in heroes?”
It’s unfortunately less of a ridiculous question than it seems. Keigo may be a hero, but he’s had many a doubt about the system of heroes, villains, vigilantes, and civilians that the law divides people into.
It’s fairly ridiculous, if he’s being honest.
Not like he’s allowed to, though.
He chooses his words gingerly, feeling as if he’s stepping on glass about to shatter, knowing that he’s speaking to a hero-turned-villain-turned-vigilante.
“I…”
Do I?
Heroes are certainly flawed, yet… I alone have saved many.
But I’ve also seen too many on the other side of the line whom I couldn’t save. Too many whom I was bound by duty and prevented by the Commission from saving. Too many for whom justice will never be served, closure never received, chances never given.
Yet he cannot simply answer ‘no.’
“I…”
For all of my career, I’ve only been a slave to them, after all. Who am I to say?
But he asked about me.
“Heroics is a system that has both saved me and failed me,” Keigo finally says haltingly. “And for you — it’s failed you even more…”
If possible, Dabi’s expression intensifies further. “Maybe.”
Keigo sighs. “I wish to believe, yet I’ve seen enough that I can’t do so wholeheartedly.”
Dabi nods in understanding.
Keigo takes this as a sign to go on. “I would believe in an idealized version of a hero. I would like to be able to believe in the naïve, doubtless, unknowing way that the majority of civilians do. Yet they see us as gods, as invincible figures that they idolize.”
Deep breaths. In, out, in, out.
“Heroes — the daylight ones, at least — have troves of fans who adore them and follow their every move and think they can do no wrong. Fans who don’t think to worry about what’s right or wrong, and simply see our world in black and white the way the Commission paints it.”
How ironic, considering the things the Commission does.
“You’ve seen that,” he continues. “Yet heroes most definitely can do wrong. You’ve seen that too.”
Dabi barks a laugh. “Yeah. I have.”
“I can’t say I completely believe in the heroes, the way we are right now,” Keigo admits. “But I also couldn’t give up hope in them completely, either. I strive to be the ideal I’d like to see, but I certainly fall short more often than not.”
“Mmm,” Dabi muses. “But you keep striving. You sustain the will to continue. You’re strong.”
Silence is palpable in the air for a long moment as Keigo takes in his words.
“And I admire that,” Dabi adds quietly.
Yet why do I still fight, even now?
I’m supposed to be fast and charming and self-assured, but the reality is, that’s not who I am.
“I only find my strength because, even though I may not believe in heroes as we are, I believe that there’s something to keep fighting for, something to protect,” Keigo explains. “And what I wish to protect most is what we have,” he confesses.
“You give me a reason to strive towards a better future… because to me, that future includes you. It includes us.”
Dabi sucks in a breath, his blue eyes widening in surprise.
“I may be a slave to the Commission, someone to obey my handlers and carry out commands. To many civilians, particularly my fan base, I’m some kind of god — they don’t care to look beyond what I care to show them.”
He grasps Dabi’s hands in his own, meeting the other’s gaze earnestly.
“But when I’m with you, I’m none of that. I’m no more of a god than anyone else, and I’m not a slave, either. I’m only free. ”
Exhale. Inhale.
“I’m only human. With you, I’m not bound by duty or persona—I’m free to do as I desire, to love as I wish.”
Dabi almost doesn’t know what to make of the confession. In all honesty, their relationship, and its development, is unconventional. A hero and a former villain? It’s not like they can expect a happy ending. Yet the way Keigo’s speaking makes it seem so, so tempting to believe it’s possible.
“The first day we met you tried to kill me,” Keigo recalls, his voice dragging Dabi back out of his thoughts. “And then every day after, the same thing.”
“You gave me a reason to live, despite having to tolerate your presence,” Dabi interjects. “I didn’t realize it then, but I do now.”
Keigo smiles. “And you gave me pause when you questioned my motives, my morals, my ideals,” he replies. “I felt drawn to your presence, forbidden by my handlers though it was. I felt there was another layer to you, and I was right.”
“How,” Dabi croaks, suddenly emotional. “I was broken by everything that had led up to those days.”
“Never broken,” Keigo whispers. “You were never broken, so never call yourself that.”
Unexpectedly, Dabi finds himself letting loose a very-much-broken-sounding sob. “I was nothing but my father’s soldier, his little puppet to mold and command as he pleased. And then I was nothing at all to him, once Shouto was born. He never spared me even a glance, no matter how I screamed and raged and fought to be seen.”
Oh, he remembers all too well the feeling of helplessness, of worthlessness, of anger and hate slowly but surely unfolding within.
“I wanted him to stand up and face me and face the rest of my family for how he had destroyed us.”
It was the first time I truly felt hate.
“By the time I turned 13 I couldn’t take it anymore; I wanted so badly to kill them all, every last one of them, the happy family that I could never be a part of, would never be accepted into.” Dabi stops to draw in a heaving breath, feeling more emotional than he’d expected to be. “Tell me- how could you say I was never broken when I once felt that?” he cries.
As Keigo wraps one red wing around him, it reminds him of how his mother used to hold him in the darkest of moments, and he leans into the warmth, the feeling of comfort, the steadfast presence. It reignites memories of a time when he didn’t need to be made of iron, when he could rely on others and freely hope and trust.
“I gave my father one last chance,” he concludes softly. “In reality it wasn’t truly a chance for him; it was only a way of trying to convince myself that he cared, that he would come for once.” It’s painful to relieve the memories, but Dabi pushes on. “He never did — when I burned and burned and burned, he had no idea.”
If I could cry, I would.
How foolish I was, once. How young and hopeful.
It’s stupid… yet why do I still wish things could be that way once more?
“I was weak then. I’m strong now,” he finishes lamely, unsure what to say.
“Yes, you are,” Keigo whispers immediately. It makes Dabi’s heart clench, how much Keigo trusts in him, how no hesitation at all accompanies those confidently-spoken words. “You say I’m strong, but you… you escaped your father, you escaped the pain and anger, and you cast aside the hopeless, aimless path you could have taken in favor or forging your own.”
The words spark memories of all those days after the fateful night at Sekoto Peak, when Dabi would wander the streets of the city, delirious from the pain, numb from the shock, burning from the anger. He almost laughs—perhaps Keigo would say he’d eventually escaped, but oh, how long it had taken him.
Keigo pushes on. “When you had nobody else, you trained and protected yourself, building both your physical strength and your emotional walls… but then, after we met, as I got to know you, you let me in and trusted me.”
I trusted you because you trusted me first. You saw me, and you still do. Thank you.
“And I think that’s the greatest kind of strength. To realize that you have the capacity to forge ahead, to move beyond the things that consumed you for so long…”
Keigo’s breathing is faster than usual and as he meets Dabi’s gaze, Dabi feels his own breath almost taken away by the sheer genuine passion burning in the hero’s golden eyes.
“You said you admired my strength. Yet for you, constantly fighting to take one more step so long as you’re alive… I feel, truly in my heart, that your kind of strength is the greatest of all.”