Work Text:
-1 week ago-
Dabi thought this would be a simple mission: get in, get the kid, get out. That was all it was supposed to be. Toga and Twice had already cased the place, the parents were teachers, and the kid was shy enough that her not being constantly in the same room as them was normal enough. There was minimal security in the building, which was admittedly a bit weird considering why they wanted the kid in the first place, but it wasn’t like the commission cared much in the first place, so they hadn’t worried too much about it.
Apparently, they should have worried about it, though, because for some godawful reason, Eraserhead was in the building staring him down. Why he would be in the building was beyond Dabi, the man had students, and it was the middle of the school week (the exact reason they chose tonight to break in). It should have just been the kid and the parents sleeping away the hell that was dealing with children, but now Eraserhead was here, which, fuck? That’s not good? Dabi didn’t exactly bring backup, once again, this was supposed to be in-and-out. Not in, Eraserhead kills him and hides his body in a back alley to finish rotting before the cops find it, and the kid’s location gets changed.
Dabi blinked. This was not what one would consider a good move when in the middle of a staredown with a professional staring contest competitor.
-2 weeks ago-
“Are you sure you don’t want to change your hero name to something with more personality?” Pinky asked Shoto, “It’s not very memorable.”
“I'm not trying to be memorable, I’m trying to prove a point, and it’s not as though I need a different hero name, the one I have gets the point across.”
“It’s your legal first name, Shoto.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You two coming?” Called Firefly, their work study mentor. They had started lagging behind in their conversation and would soon get left behind as a corner was turned on the patrol route. The two of them sped up.
It was surprising when they found out that they would be working together under the same mentor, but when they gave it a bit more thought, it made sense. Mina had recently started using her acid as a combustible to add more light or warmth to a space, and wanted to get better at using it as a weapon without the risk of causing major harm. Shoto wanted to work with a hero who used flames in battle, but had a low overall casualty and destruction rate. Firefly could help both of them with their goals, and was happy to have two extra people on hand, working in a less patrolled area. Her quirk was a chemical-based fire quirk that ignited when two parts mixed, similar to that of an actual firefly. This meant that she had to learn how to be carefully non-lethal and avoid property damage early on in her career, making her the perfect choice for both of them.
Up ahead on the patrol route, the three of them noticed a fire. Quickly running towards it, they were able to tell that it was a mixed-use building, having a botany shop at street level, and apartments above it.
As they rushed in, they noticed that most of the flowers and lower level had already burnt, luckily, there was no one in the shop, seeing as it was likely the origin of the blaze. They headed up into the apartment levels, checking rooms as they went, directing anyone trying to get out to exits other than the botany shop.
With only Shoto being able to safely use his quirk, they had to go slower than they would have liked, but eventually everyone was evacuated, and the three of them headed back through the building to ensure that no one was missed. As they headed downwards, the three of them started to feel disoriented, assuming it was smoke inhalation, they continued on, knowing that the quicker they finished up, the less the smoke would damage their lungs. The closer they got to the shop, the worse they felt, feeling like they were developing migraines or going to be sick. Reaching the shop, they continued forward towards the door before Firefly noticed something, the flowers being sold were mildly poisonous. This generally would not be a problem, lots of flowers are a bit poisonous when consumed. Unfortunately, this was not a ‘generally’ time the amount of poison in the flowers that were burned (which was most of them), combined with the smoke, anyone who was breathing in the building would have been exposed to a poisonous gas, which could cause major damage.
As they left the building, Firefly directed her students towards the ambulances on the scene to alert them and get medical care before running over to the firefighters to tell them about the gas. Upon getting back to the ambulances and alerting her agency of the issue, the three of them were taken to the hospital, having the most smoke and gas in their systems.
-30 minutes ago-
Natsuo was going to visit his brother to make sure he was ok. That was his goal, he wasn’t going to get distracted by anything. Not Endeavor merch (which he hated to no end, his father and his merch could burn in hell together. The fact that the man had made it to the number one hero position despite his… well… everything, was disgusting), not the fact that his brother was hurt in a fire, and certainly not the fact that his mother was also in the building. No, Fuyumi was wrong, and he wouldn’t get distracted by things that reminded him of their father.
He had done well so far, staying away from the news for the past few weeks, the bastard was making more and more news appearances, almost as though to say ‘I Am Here’ not that it helped anyone, with All Might dead, it wasn’t like anyone was going to appreciate the sudden overbearing presence of a new number one hero, least of all Natsuo.
As he got to the hospital, Natsuo noticed more crowds than when he had visited the previous week, which was weird. Why would people crowd a hospital? It wasn’t like All Might had died here, he didn’t even die in a hospital, so it wasn’t that. Listening to a conversation, he heard mentions of Dabi, the villain who gave his father his scar. Look, Natsuo had a brother to visit, and he would definitely do that, but if Dabi was in this hospital, he was going to go thank him, it was common courtesy to thank people for any gifts they gave you, and man, if the new scar wasn’t a wonderful conversation starter for poking at Endeavor’s failures. First, though, to make sure that Fuyumi didn’t have anything to get mad at him for, he would visit his brother. Maybe he would bring Shoto with him to thank Dabi, consider it sibling bonding, and all that.
Finally making it to Shoto and his classmate's hospital room, he noticed that the classmate was gone. So maybe it was just Shoto’s room now, which Natsuo supposed made sense, Shoto had used his quirk a lot more than she had and would have used more energy as a result, extending his hospital stay. Which, considering Dabi’s arrival at the hospital, was actually greatly appreciated.
“Hi, Shoto,” Natsuo said with the least enthusiasm he had ever felt.
“Hi, Natsuo,” Shoto responded with just as much enthusiasm.
“I heard Dabi was here somewhere. Do you want to join me in thanking him for giving Endeavor that scar?” Natsuo said, having decided that Shoto had been sufficiently visited for Fuyumi’s tastes.
“Absolutely, also, I can be discharged,” Shoto responded with not nearly enough hesitation for someone whose class had been attacked by the man not even a full year previously.
“Great, I’ll go fill out the paperwork for that so that we can leave as soon as we finish up with Dabi. I imagine the hospital staff won’t appreciate our visit, so speed will be of the essence.”
Shoto nodded sagely, “A hit-and-run.”
“Exactly!” Natsuo said before leaving to deal with the discharge paperwork.
-now-
Shoto was ready. They were going to visit Dabi, he was going to thank him for beating the crap out of his father, and then he might punch him for attacking his class. Today was going to be a good day, and he was not going to waste it.
As him and Natsuo headed to Dabi’s hospital room, which was remarkably unguarded, Shoto continued not saying anything to Natsuo, they had already had their 3 total minutes per week of conversation and needed no more to get the lack of hatred and the mild affection that came with being siblings across.
Getting to Dabi’s room, the two of them glanced at each other and entered, completely neglecting to let anyone know where they were or that they were going to have a conversation with a major villain who had every reason to want both of them dead.
Upon entering, Natsuo froze. This was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, as Natsuo had an ice quirk.
Shoto did not freeze and headed straight for the homicidal maniac that had repeatedly targeted him and his class.
Getting closer than anyone with a single millimeter of common sense would recommend, Shoto looked a very bewildered Dabi directly in the eyes and thanked him, giving no further context as to why he was doing so.
Dabi, who was chained down to the bed with quirk cancelers and no way to know what was going on or why, turned to Natsuo, who by all accounts should have no reason to be there, considering that they had never interacted after he became a villain.
“So do you want to explain why I'm being thanked since your brother has never seen a normal social interaction in his short, pitiful life?”
Natsuo, who was still frozen in shock for some reason, did not answer his question and instead looked outside the door with a look on his face that did not inspire confidence in his mental state.
“Touya?” Natsuo asked, which immediately answered any questions about his mental state and inspired new questions for Shoto about what made him think his dead brother was in the room.
Dabi, who was not stupid enough to think that Natsuo was talking to an actual ghost, but was absolutely stupid enough to think that Natsuo found out prior to entering the room, immediately blew any kind of cover he could have had by denying it or just not answering, responded.
“Damn, they took my DNA and told you, huh?”
Shoto, who remarkably was able to connect all the dots of what that cobble of a conversation was, realized three things.
1. Dabi was his dead brother Touya, he had survived burning to death somehow and was now crazy and trying to kill their dad.
2. He was the only one in this situation who could both move and use his brain in any capacity, as Touya was chained down and Natsuo was still frozen.
3. Shoto could respect the father murder thing that Dabi was going for, and he knew from family dinners he was forced to attend that Natsuo did too, Fuyumi didn’t, but she wasn’t here right now, so her vote was null.
With these three things in mind, Shoto made the executive decision to once again approach Dabi, and start getting his chains off.
Dabi, who really should have expected the immediate mutiny towards heroes from his siblings given their shared childhood, decided not to kill Shoto as soon as he got out, in a miraculous show of ignoring his Cain instinct. He did, however, immediately get up and destroy the camera in the room, thereby destroying any evidence of how he escaped. For whatever reason, both the camera security and the guard security in this place were terrible.
Natsuo, who by now had gotten over his shock and loaded up the unspoken plan that had just developed between his brothers, once again checked the hallway outside the door, with no one there, he gestured to them to get going.
-7 minutes later-
Rei Todoroki was having an interesting day, for one, there was a crowd outside, as there had been for the past week. The nurses hadn’t told her why, not that they ever told her much of anything. For two, the weather seemed to be changing quickly. This would not be interesting to most people, but Rei didn’t have much to do and, as such, had gotten into watching weather patterns, looking at the clouds outside, she decided that it looked like rain. Thirdly (and really it should have been first, but Rei had priorities), there were voices outside her door arguing about whether getting her on their way out was a good idea. Two of them sounded like her sons, and the third sounded familiar, so she wasn’t too concerned, but she was curious about how they thought they would manage to get her out, given her lack of a legal release form.
The voices came to a consensus and opened the door. Seeing who was behind it, she decided that they probably already had a way out without release forms, given that the third person was covered in the worst burns she had ever seen and definitely would not have been let out of the hospital, visitor or not.
Looking closer, she noticed that the burned one looked remarkably like her dead son, and despite knowing that she was fine in the head by now, questioned her sanity.
Natsuo, seeming to notice that no one was going to say anything and being the one who spent the most amount of time around Rei, spoke up.
“We’re breaking out because Touya’s a wanted criminal for trying to kill dad and Shoto a little bit, and got caught. I know you’re not actually insane, and even if you were, it would just even up the numbers of sane to insane in our prison break group, so it wouldn’t matter. Do you want to join us?”
Rei, blinking, decided that she could do with a change of scenery and some more time with her kids decided that yes, she would like to join them.
-10 minutes later-
Despite the concerning lack of security, the four of them were actually extremely careful about getting out of the hospital without getting caught by guards or cameras, and thus took a bit of time to get to an exit.
Upon getting out, they finally realized that beyond getting out of the building and not getting caught, they actually had no idea what they were doing or where they were going. Dabi, who had by now been told by Shoto that the kid he was supposed to retrieve for Shigiraki, was actually Eraserhead and Present Mic’s kid, was understandably pissed that he had been sent on what was essentially a suicide mission, especially considering that they had literally sent scouts and Eraserhead wore the same clothes when he was a civilian as he did when he was a hero. As such, they weren’t going to the League of Villains for help, not that the others would have agreed with that idea anyway. Natsuo didn’t want to have to explain to Fuyumi why he had freed a wanted felon who had tried to kill their father and kidnapped their mom from the hospital, so they weren’t going home, even if Endeavor didn’t immediately try to kill them. Shoto wasn’t going to sneak them onto UA, because that would be stupid. The principal may find it funny and maybe help them, but the other heroes there would not.
Rei, shockingly, had an answer to the problem of where they should go. Apparently, she had a cousin who, while he had some weird views and was probably in a cult or something, was an ok enough person, and she knew where he lived now.
With this in mind, the four of them headed for Deika City.