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Realizing that she loved him was like being hit with a ton of bricks. If a ton of bricks was the realization that if she’d never been punished before she’d see punishment for this the likes of which she’d never seen before. Because the reality of the matter, Siren was government property. And Dabi was a villain she was tasked with taking down.
And everything had gone to protocol, she’d wormed her way in, she’d given him everything including reason after reason to trust her. She was a nobody who’d made her home with the League. Keegan. A nobody from American brought overseas and escaped captivity. And he was the boy that she was so desperately in love with.
Just like Hawks. Keigo. The one person in the world that understood her on a fundamental level. She loved him.
Dabi--- No. Touya. A name thought to be long dead. He’d shared with her the deepest part of himself that nobody else knew. She didn’t want to do this anymore. She couldn’t hurt him.
Fuck it was so hard to think about it, with him standing there, his hands on her face. And he watched her with such love hidden behind the darkest part of his eyes. She could see it. She could hear it in the way he breathed peacefully. Even the rale in his lungs seemed to be softer than usual as he took in the sight of her.
And she felt her world crumbling because she didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve that look. She’d betrayed him, time and time again.
“Touya, I---” She shook her head. “You shouldn’t trust me. God--- I’m such an idiot.” She pulled herself away from him at that, and one of those hands tried to chase her. “Why? Why do you make it so easy to be with you… To want to love you---” The panic set in.
Cerulean eyes looked her over, as if he was trying to piece together exactly what she was panicking about. But he said nothing, his eyes held worry though, She could see it, behind the quirked brow and his confusion at her sudden panic.
“I don’t--- I don’t deserve you. You--- deserve the world and I ruin everything I touch.” She heaved out, on the edges of a sob.
“Slow the fuck down, Princess. What the hell are you going on about?” He finally spoke.
“I can’t--- I can’t do this anymore.” The building pain in her chest left her mind in disarray. Finger tips trailed across the open space between them. And Touya caught her by the rest.
“Keegan. Breathe.” It was a demand, as she choked on sobs and hyperventilated breaths.
And her brain exploded in a cacophony of signals. Until she choked and sputtered on a sob and spoke in a mousy voice that wasn’t quite hers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. They were going to hurt us if we didn’t. God I’m sorry.”
“Vega, right?” He tried. They’d tried to explain things, and introduce him to everyone once, a coordinated effort that didn’t go unnoticed. Though honestly, Vega was surprised. And so was Keegan. She didn’t think it was something that he’d find worth remembering. Especially since the other’s didn’t front often. But she’d trusted him, and they’d all deemed him in the need to know.
###
They’d discussed this once, a few months ago, curled up in bed under the covers after he’d absolutely wrecked her shit. It’d been her idea of pillow talk. Touya had pretended that he’d just wanted to sleep but he’d listened to ever damn word she’d said, and tried to hold onto it.
I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, She’d said. I think you should know, just in case you’re ever in a situation where you meet one of my alters.
There was silence as he tried to recall what she’d said about Vega. He’d remembered her as the small mousy one. He gravitated towards calling her Little Mouse, because he thought it was cute. She was what--- fifteen? Something like that. A child no older than his youngest brother.
“Whoa there, Little Mouse.” He breathed, instincts he thought long dead flooding back to him that moment. A hand came to rest gently on her cheek, the other remained on her wrist, warmth radiating from it. “Calm down, and tell me what happened. Why are you apologizing?”
“Because that’s what you do when you do something bad.” Vega said, her expression shifting and her eyes avoiding his. “We’re supposed to kill you.” That was not what he was expecting. “But I can’t. We can’t. Why should we hurt you? You’re just trying to show the world what we all know already.”
“You were supposed to what?” His eyes narrowed, and the hand on her wrist grew warmer and warmer until she yelped out in pain and tried to wrench herself away from him.
“Please… I’m sorry! I’m sorry. You’re hurting me!”
He let her go, and watched as she stumbled backwards.
“We deserve it.” She said, and that pulled something in his chest, something that hurt him physically. “I deserve it. Right? I came here to manipulate you. To hurt you… I wasn’t… She wasn’t... “
“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.” Anger tainted her tone, “But you--- You wormed your way in. And you made us trust you, made us want you… crave you. And all those sweet little things you offered that we never had before.”
This one is Venus. The angry one.
“You heard us. Every broken piece of everything we are. You heard it. And you mirrored it. And we don’t deserve it! I don’t deserve that.”
Silence fell as she collapsed back against the wall, and slid down it. And Touya took in the information that was being filtered into his senses. And while he was angry yes. His anger wasn’t at her, oddly enough. No. He wanted to tear apart whoever had decided to play with her emotions like this. Whoever had sent her here to this exact moment. He was going to burn them to a goddamn crisp.
The silence continued, and her eyes wandered but didn’t really seem to see anything as she sat there, trying to hold herself together.
###
It was like poison settling into her throat trying to sort through the signals firing through her body. Her wrist burned, her brain was on fire. Each new signal tried to force a different person to the front, and Keegan just wanted to look at him and tell him the gods honest truth.
When she looked up at him again, whiskey eyes met cerulean and she shook her head.
“I don’t want to be their bitch anymore. But I can’t get away from them. The Commission owns me--- And I will never be free.” Keegan shook her head. “So why don’t you put me out of my misery, Touya. And save us both the pain.”
She watched his face, listened to the sounds his body made. “What the hell did they do to you?”
“What?”
“Contrary to popular belief, Keegan, I’m not fucking blind. What did they do to you?”
“I--- I don’t know where to start.” She breathed, and found herself shocked when he pulled her into his arms and held her tight against his chest.
“At the beginning, and give me every damn good reason for me to go burn them all to fucking ashes.”