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The worst part of the war was when Mount Lady’s favorite DabiHawks fanfic stopped updating.
And yeah, sure, maybe she has more important things to be doing right now than reading fanfiction about her co-worker and an infamous Villain, but it was her comfort fic, okay?!
She figured the author must have lived in a place heavily impacted by the war, and could only pray that they hadn’t just straight up died in it. The story was already 230k words long with no end in sight; she could NOT be left on a cliffhanger like that!!!
And, yes, it wasn’t exactly a literary masterpiece, but it was sweet and soft and funny with all the right notes of angst and found family and subtle hints at darker themes. Usually she struggled to read slow burns and quirkless AUs, both of which this fic was, but she’d accidentally clicked it while browsing aimlessly and decided to give it a try out of boredom. Needless to say, she was hooked instantly.
Not to mention that the author had PREDICTED that Dabi was a Todoroki!? She’d thought it was a silly headcanon at first, but it grew on her pretty quick. And then the REAL Dabi had revealed himself to be Todoroki Touya?!?! She still didn’t know how the author had clocked him like that, but she sure wasn’t complaining about her favorite fic becoming more canon than ever before.
Looking back, Mount Lady pondered whether the author had some sort of psychic quirk that told them all of the facts they’d guessed.
It was a gloomy Saturday five months after the war when she got the notification. She quite literally screamed when she got it.
“Shinya! Nishiya!” she shrieked, bouncing up and down like slinky rolling down the stairs. Edgeshot and Kamui Woods respectively bolted (or, limped, in Edgeshot’s case) into the lounge room of the agency immediately, panic on their faces.
“Yu, what’s wrong?!” Shinya exclaimed, that damn IV pole still dragging behind him. He’d barely survived after stitching Bakugo back together thanks to the lack of oxygen he could snag for himself in there. Despite the lack of control he currently had over his quirk, he was clearly fully prepared to power through. Nishiya had sharp branches at the ready before he was even there.
“hawks_pussyeater69 finally posted chapter forty of my favorite Dabihawks fanfiction!” she squealed, already reading the first paragraph.
Both men went completely still, before groaning simultaneously. “What the fuck?” Nishiya muttered. “Hawks… pussy eater…?” He cringed saying the name out loud.
“Yeah!” Mount Lady giggled. “It’s the username of the ao3 author.”
“Why are you reading Dabihawks fanfiction in the first place…?” Nishiya asked, drawing his branches back into himself as he calmed down from the adrenaline.
“Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be into it, but it’s actually really sweet! And it’s a quirkless AU, so no war or anything. Now shut up, I’m reading!”
Nishiya and Shinya gave each other a mutually exasperated look before settling more comfortably in the kitchen area of the room, Shinya sitting down on a barstool and Nishiya making them both coffee.
And good lord was this chapter a goddamn doozy. 26k words of angst, essentially. Hawks, who met Dabi through being Dabi’s little brother Shoto’s babysitter turned out to be working with coup plotting against Dabi’s family. (Dabi being the eldest Todoroki child was another shockingly accurate prediction.)
The League had been in the fic as Dabi’s friend group (and pretty much second family), and poor Twice got hit by Hawks’s car to prevent him from kidnapping Shoto. It worked, but by the end of the chapter Twice was barely clinging onto life in the hospital.
Hawks obviously was swiftly fired, but the incident almost put Shoto back in Endeavor’s custody. Almost. (It was crazy that the fic had predicted Endeavor being an abusive asshole, too.) Endeavor tried to take Shoto away forcefully, but Dabi stopped him, barely. The fight was bloody and desperate and heartbreaking, and left Mount Lady on the verge of tears as they were both carried away on stretchers. Her only solace was in the fact that Endeavor was carried off in handcuffs.
The chapter ended with Dabi in the hospital, missing an arm (like the real Dabi), but Endeavor was charged with attempted kidnapping and assault and momentarily put behind bars. Hawks had vanished from the fic after the reveal, and Dabi now faced the threat of Shoto being taken away by CPS because of his injury.
Mount Lady stared at her screen once she’d downed the last sentence like a shot of neat vodka, completely dumbfounded.
So… clearly the author had been… inspired by the recent events of the world. She just couldn't understand why they put it all in the fic. Were they scared the readers would lose interest because it was suddenly even more unrealistic, given the real-life betrayal? Were they going to fix it later on? Make them get back together? They had only just gotten to the first kiss at the end of the last chapter, for Christ’s sake!
She mournfully finally scrolled down to the author’s note in search of an explanation.
Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. My boyfriend broke up with my by killing my friend, and then I got busy with the war and then had to recover from nearly burning myself to death and losing an arm. Not sure when or how I’m gonna continue this fic, or if I’ll just abandon it.
I only just got access to electronics again a couple months ago (thanks to fuckin Villain rehab ugh), and eventually churned out this chapter over the course of a couple weeks when I wasn’t feeling well. My therapist told me it might help me process my “feelings” or whatever. Still don’t know why I told her about this fuckass fanfic in the first place tbh.
Anyways. That’s all for now I guess. If you don’t like this chapter, you can come bother UA staff at their little Villain rehab program to yell at me for it. Bye.
It took a few moments, but it eventually clicked. It finally, finally clicked. Mount Lady’s jaw hung to the floor.
Dabi, Todoroki Touya, had been writing this goddamn Dabihawks slow burn found family quirkless AU babysitter AU fanfiction this whole fucking time.
What. The. Fuck.