Chapter Text
Dabi watched as Hawks’ eyebrows flew up, their bickering suddenly coming to an end.
It was almost imperceptible, but through a large multitude of rendezvous, Dabi had become privy to the small breaks in Hawks’ seamless composure. Even if he hadn’t noticed such a thing, three feathers vanished from his wings and into the dark shadows of the left of the warehouse.
That couldn’t be good.
Dabi had been the one to summon the impromptu meeting, as he always was. It was nearly past midnight, a fact that he’d known beforehand Hawks wouldn’t be happy about. At first, he’d pretended not to mind the odd hours, relentless to pull off the spy gig. Then, once he initially warmed up to Dabi, he’d groan about it enough to convey irritation but not enough to truly piss Dabi off.
After a series of meetings without the purpose of work, a much less flippant purpose, Hawks didn’t seem to mind anymore.
They had a knack of pissing each other off, as had happened tonight. A failure to coordinate led to clipped tones, but it lacked any of Dabi’s usual heat, as it had grown to regularly lack with Hawks.
Dabi barely had time to turn his head before there was the clang of something against metal and the sound of a girl calling out, flames already lapping to life at his wrist.
Golden eyes flew to him, a warning on his tongue considering the precarious situation, but Dabi wasn’t known for listening to advice from others-- especially heroes, no matter how quietly smitten he’d become to said hero.
Just as Dabi made eye contact with a horrified-looking woman whose hands were glowing, his chest seized with pain, and suddenly the warehouse was bright with lively fire.
First, the warehouse was gone.
The last thing Dabi saw as alarm bells screamed in his mind and he wished Kurogiri was still present was Hawks, his palm also over his chest and his focused eyes serious and alarmed.
Second, something wooden crackled with fire.
Dabi reeled back, his hand slamming through the air and sending multiple somethings clattering to the ground. His back hit a window, evidenced by the quiet clang as he crashed against it and the wooden blinds digging into his back as he crushed them.
He was in a warehouse.
Wooden blinds were not part of a warehouse, nor anywhere else he’d seen since he was in another life. The unpleasant thought had him opening his eyes with a grimace, shoving off of the wall and preparing to grab Hawks from whatever corner he fell into.
Except, Hawks wasn’t there, and Dabi wasn’t looking at the illuminated warehouse.
His heart sank irreparably fast, surely sending him into early heart failure. The strange woman’s glowing hands flashed in his mind.
Dabi should have noticed the flames lapping at the dresser, threatening to reach the achingly familiar floors, but instead his eyes were busy taking in his childhood room with vision that was too crisp, one eye that wasn’t uncomfortably sagging. There were clothes stretched across the floor in front of the closet and the red blanket from his fifth birthday was falling off of the futon.
A photo frame sat face down directly above the flames, and even if it weren’t for the singemarks marring the ripped paper across the back, Dabi would know exactly what photo was on the other side. The brief dent in the doorframe stuck out like a beacon, the burn along the wall beside it a blemish so normal it was missed last time Dabi was in this room.
He felt so, so small.
“Touya? ‘You okay?”
Any muscles in Dabi that weren’t already tense as a rock joined the others at the voice of pre-teenager Todoroki Fuyumi.
His mind was at once a combination of a million different thoughts and complete blankness, shock and perhaps the deep trauma about this house and room muddling everything and watering it down to two feelings:
Anger, the impenetrable anger that had built and then exploded when he was thirteen, having begun when he was five years old and first felt a burn on his forearm.
And, surprisingly enough after being buried for oh so many years, there was some tortured pain that Dabi wanted to crumple and burn into meaningless atoms.
Nothing came out of his mouth, his body freezing up as if he was a petulant child again.
His skin felt hot, too hot, in too many places that he hadn’t had sensation in for years. Flames were practically digging beneath his fingernails, lapping at skin that was supposed to be burnt away. His frantic mind couldn’t decode that mystery yet.
“Touya?” Fuyumi asked, her voice quieter and laced with worry that Dabi felt instinctive anger at, fizzling back into something manageable when he remembered that this wasn’t his life.
The door began to slide open, and only then did Dabi remember that he was scarred and ruined and not at all the boy Fuyumi was expecting to see, but an entirely different man, one whom she would have seen on the news just a few months prior trying to kill her dear old dad who she for some ludicrous reason still lived with.
It wasn’t ludicrous, he understood her mindset to a tee, but it infuriated him beyond disbelief.
Except, this was Fuyumi before turning thirteen, an age which he’d never seen on her. She hadn’t seen Dabi on the news.
And then, the door was open.
Seeing Fuyumi in the flesh was like having frigid ice water land on his head and drench all of his hair dye out long before it was supposed to happen. It froze his heart and his mind and thankfully froze the stinging feeling that should not have been able to manifest within his eyes, tear ducts burnt to a crisp a long time ago.
“Oh my goodness Touya!”
Fuyumi picked up the red blanket and threw it over his dresser, patting the fire with bare hands that were far too experienced with such a thing. She stamped at the wall of the dresser with the loafers that their mom bought her before she broke, effectively smudging them with ash. After an effort that looked messy and strained, the flames were out, the dresser blackened and dented.
Dabi stood pressed against the window, his mouth a firm line and his hands in fists at his sides.
“What happened, Touya?” Fuyumi huffed, shoving her hair out of her face; there was annoyance in her tone, beneath the layers of heavy concern.
That wasn’t right.
Dabi blinked at her repeatedly, as two seconds prior he’d been completely sure he was about to be caught and that his life's work-- once his first life's work of being a hero failed, naturally-- was all for nothing, that Endeavor would never pay. Yet there she was, the scalded blanket in her hand and her hair mussed from her panic, looking at Dabi with eyes identical to his own.
He looked down abruptly, his hands appearing in front of him.
His skin was clean.
A lot of things clicked into place at once, then. The severity of the situation kicked his panic to the side, as years of being unhoused and on his own taught him how to think fast.
“Oh, sorry.”
His voice wasn’t right, either.
The woman had looked horrified of Dabi-- an expression that he was well accustomed to. Her quirk had been activated, and then Dabi’s chest had gotten that awful pressurized pain. It couldn’t have just been him, either, because Hawks’ hand was over his chest like he was holding it for dear life.
Her quirk must have sent them back in time.
That, or Dabi had finally gone over the deep end, but he didn’t think that was what this was. The dots were connecting too well.
It fucking sucked, and of all times to have gone back to, this was the worst one possible. If Fuyumi was looking at him with familiarity and his skin was unmarred then his hair was surely white, too. It wasn’t who he was, not who he’d been for a long time, but it was what he was stuck with.
If he was here, and Hawks’ had also received that chest pain, then it was likely that Hawks was stuck in his teenage body, too.
Dabi shoved the thought, for the moment.
Any of Fuyumi’s annoyance at the unattended fire-- and, yeah, Dabi could see why that might deter her usually impenetrable kindness-- had sunken away, leaving only concern and care. It was a look he’d once been overwhelmingly familiar with, at the mercy of Fuyumi’s worry on the daily, leading to cruel words and the knack to brush off one of the only helping hands that had ever been extended to him.
He’d still brush it off if it were offered today, coated with the stink of Endeavor and all of the things that Dabi wanted to burn, but he could admit that he had matured enough past the age of thirteen to see that it wasn’t all in an act of looking down upon him.
“Did something happen?”
Dabi had almost forgotten the rhythm of their house.
He didn’t appreciate the reminder, his hands curling back up into fists. He couldn’t forget anything about his turbulent childhood, but being away from it for so long allowed him to forget the finer details, such as the way he and his siblings knee-jerk reaction was that something had happened to put them in a bad mood, not that it was just a simple bad mood. Something always referred to Endeavor.
“Doesn’t it always?”
His too-high voice was clipped and rough in a way so unlike Todoroki Touya, and the clench of Fuyumi’s jaw was enough to show it.
Should he be trying to be discreet?
All of his instincts told him to, and he didn’t know how to do anything else, not after all of this time. Besides, he didn’t need Fuyumi sending him to the same hospital as their mother because he said he was from the future. At the very least, being discreet would make his life easier; a determined Fuyumi and Natsuo were the last things he needed.
She frowned, “Yeah, I guess. What happened?”
If Dabi were actually his teenage self, his words would have been hot and angry, aimed to hurt Fuyumi and get her away from him as fast as possible.
Dabi wasn’t a teenager though, and his only goal in life wasn’t to cause as much destruction on his way to his goal as possible. Sure, when he revealed his identity he wanted it to be a mess that crippled society, but he didn’t speak every word with the intent to strike anymore. He didn’t have the rage of an active traumatic situation that he couldn’t even begin to process anymore, and that made him more thoughtful, along with his increased maturity.
All of Shigaraki’s comments about his maturity could go down the fucking drain.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, not quite a snarl but certainly hostile. “Go bug Natsuo, or something.”
Her frown deepened.
Instead of immediately throwing out words that’d further the argument, especially with a teenage Touya Dabi, she turned to the dresser and patted at the mess, ensuring the fire was out. She picked up the photo frame, the edge just slightly singed.
If he’d truly been his teenage self, he would have looked away from the photo, for his own feelings.
Yet he was met with the smiling faces of Natsuo, Fuyumi, and his childhood self. He didn’t remember where the photo was taken, only that it wasn’t in their house or at school. He averted his eyes quickly; Fuyumi set it back face down.
He wasn’t sure why she was still there, staring at her brother’s messy room.
He needed to get some sort of disguise and to get out. Hawks wouldn’t be able to find him, considering that Dabi didn’t exist yet, so it was up to him. He didn’t know what else to do but find him, even with his unscarred teenage body and white hair. Anything was better than remaining in this damned house.
“You’ll be careful about starting fires, right? I worry.”
Her eyes flitted from the dresser to the window Dabi had been propped against, and then finally, to her brother. She wasn’t on the verge of tears like he always remembered to be; her resolve was firm, even with the eyebags under her eyes that he couldn’t quite place the timeframe of and the way her sweater hung off of her shoulders, clearly too loose. Either it was their mother’s or she’d lost an unhealthy amount of weight-- or both. Regardless of it all, Todoroki Fuyumi always remained a rock that everybody else could lean against, a fact that once annoyed him to all ends.
She was worried that her older brother was going to start a fire he couldn’t put out.
A fire that would kill him.
His lip curled before he could control it, the irony of the situation crinkling something deep and dark in his chest that filled him with a sadness he refused to acknowledge. Luckily, before he could say something he couldn’t take back, a form appeared behind Fuyumi in the doorway.
Now, Dabi knew what year he was in-- perhaps even the month.
Todoroki Shouto paused briefly in the doorway, his steps stuttering and his eyes too focused for the six year old he had to be.
Around his left eye was a nasty, deep red mark, a salve applied over it that made it shine and accentuated every nasty mangle of the scar that Dabi was all too familiar with. The bottom of it still had a bandage along it, undoubtedly applied by Fuyumi. He stared at the two of them, unnoticing of the charred dresser or surely unhinged look to Dabi.
Something in Dabi shifted, and he didn't like it. Shouto’s right arm was bandaged from his wrist to beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt.
This was dangerous.
He could see Shouto all too well from that day at the training camp, hear the way his own voice had taunted him. Dabi was always acting before he could think better of it, his emotions as hot as his flames and always ready to act. Grabbing the marble from him had been sheer luck and good timing, and Shouto’s full name slipping from his mouth had been the anger of years upon years of anger that led to his death and helped fuel his flames in the afterlife. The way Shouto's eyes had widened and his expression dropped in a way that Dabi didn’t know he was capable of had been overshadowed by Dabi’s high emotions, but he could see it now.
Right in front of him was the same boy in the same situation living the same life, and the sight without all of his hormonal rage and jealousy was a different one.
It served to enlarge the ever growing flames of his fury toward Endeavor.
“Hey Sho-” Fuyumi started, but the words fizzled out before they could even truly begin.
Shouto walked away, itching at his bandage foolishly. His steps were sluggish, and Dabi knew that feeling.
Dabi didn’t meet her eyes, opting to grab the blanket from where it dropped below Fuyumi’s hand and fold it. Fuyumi sighed, a noise that was far too wobbly; Dabi didn’t dare turn around.
Any day now, Fuyumi was going to lose her big brother.
The door to his room shut softly.
Dabi sat on the futon harshly, the floor creaking beneath his feet. He corded his hands into his hair, finding it thicker and softer.
This was infuriating. He needed to find Hawks.
The idea of a tiny Hawks with baby wings was laughable until Dabi recalled his own appearance. He didn’t even want to look in a mirror. His disconnect with Touya was enough to make his stomach feel like it was curdling. He could feel the world-shattering devastation from when he woke up from the coma and the anger this entire house gave him. It was nauseating, and he wanted to get back to the League. This wasn’t his life-- it was the life he wanted to burn away when he ruined Endeavor’s life.
(The idea of killing Shouto to spite Endeavor was less alluring with the haunted look in his six year old eyes, the glistening wound that wasn’t entirely healed yet fanning across his face, larger than it became. Dabi chose not to think about it.)
He looked at the futon and hit his hand over the blanket, feeling around for something that he hadn’t seen in years. His hand hit something hard and metal-- too much of his skin reacted to the sensation-- and he pulled out his old phone.
September 23, 21XX, Saturday, 10:54 A.M.
Dabi bounded up, acting before he could stop himself. It was a weekend, which meant that Endeavor could be anywhere. He likely would have made himself heard, and the fact that Shouto was walking around was a good sign, but Dabi couldn’t control himself if he saw the man. He didn’t want to ruin his future plans like that, nor muss up the ease of physical life that had just been thrusted upon him. He hated the house and the person he looked like, but he had always wished he’d stolen some items before running after his coma.
He peeked out of the room and hustled down the hall, taking a deep breath before swinging open Natsuo’s door.
Blessedly, he wasn’t there.
The room was exactly how Dabi remembered it. It had the same posters lining the walls, the same pile of clothing in front of his futon, and the same damned shoes scattered around.
The problem with going to find Hawks was that Dabi wasn’t his twenty-three year old self. He looked like a thirteen year old that nobody in their right mind would ignore walking around alone on the streets, especially considering the first place he’d check for Hawks. He couldn’t exactly burn anybody who dared question him, either; Todoroki Touya was still very much alive, and blue flames would be traced back to the Todoroki’s household doorstep.
Dabi didn’t know if all of the vintage time travel movies that Compress liked were true and if his actions would affect his future self. The last thing he wanted was to mess up his plans, so he would be discreet about it.
After some digging and tossing items aside, Dabi found the first shoe he was looking for. It was only the left one, but at least Natsuo wasn’t wearing it. After their mother broke Natsuo finally took the jump and decided to hardly be home anymore, forgoing trailing Dabi around at all hours of the day. It had been his own way to survive in their hellscape, but it had stung nonetheless. Finally, Dabi found the second shoe.
They were obnoxious sneakers with enough platform to make Natsuo look even taller, an aid that he did not need, even at the ripe age of nine. He’d convinced their mom to buy them before she was taken away, and Dabi didn’t think he’d ever stopped bitching about it.
Yet, even if they were an eyesore, they made him a little bit taller. He could use that.
He listened for the telltale signs of Endeavor before deciding that he couldn’t possibly be in the house, considering the silence. Being in the house at all felt like walking on hot coals, but he garnered the strength to maneuver back to the room that was once his.
He was delayed to notice that he was wearing an All Might hoodie, undoubtedly with the sole purpose of upsetting Endeavor. All Might merchandise would soften people’s opinion of him, anyway; his impact on the people of Japan couldn’t be understated, even if it was just on a hoodie. The red beanie that Fuyumi got him once his hair turned completely white was nearly the last thing he needed.
If there were any masks in the house, they would be in the kitchen. He needed some reassurance that if his easily-triggered nerves were hit and he used his quirk, it wouldn’t immediately result in him being guilty if a camera picked it up.
Besides, Hawks was going to be beyond annoying. Dabi would do anything to make sure he didn’t find out his identity.
Fuyumi was seated on the counter, playing on her phone, while what must have been her breakfast spun in the microwave. Enough years of cooking nightly made her lazy when it came to herself, and as Dabi watched it happen, he’d been pleased to finally see her break.
Now, he just saw every child in the house as a victim of Endeavor, shattering under his ever-persistent grip. It wasn’t satisfying in the least bit.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” it was beyond unnatural to be talking to her.
They hadn’t yet gotten a carpet to cover the stain of boiling water on wood. Dabi never realized how short-lived the carpet had really been while he’d still been present, as it was such a staple in his memory, an easy way to cover up one of the many broken pieces of the Todoroki family.
Dabi opened drawers that felt like hazy images in his memory yet were now very real, physical things in front of him. The junk drawer with batteries and pens and school photos was deeply familiar, every item exactly as he remembered it. He knew which drawers to skip over, aware that nothing but cutlery or cooking tools were in them. His haunting past was now his surroundings, and he wasn’t at all a ghost in the halls.
Dabi was going to burn that woman alive once he was back to himself. If he wasn’t shoving any real feelings down into the furthest depths of his mind, he wasn’t sure he’d be moving.
Finally, he realized that there was a box of masks pushed up to the back of the counter. He grabbed three; one for himself, one for hawks, and one in case his own got burned.
“Why are you wearing Natsu’s shoes?”
“‘Cuz,” the childish word came easier than it should have, the voice of Todoroki Touya intruding on the firmly placed walls in his mind.
“I’ll tell him.”
He froze, looking at Fuyumi. A teasing smile was on her face, her phone nearly falling out of her hand. Dabi didn’t care if she told Natsuo; hopefully Dabi would be back in that warehouse by the time he came back. What he did care about was the playful banter that came so easily to Fuyumi, no matter how much of an ass Dabi always was to her, especially during such a dark time.
Once, it came easily to him, too. He’d always been alternating between a mix of uncontrollable fury or desperation and the comfortable bond that he had with two of his siblings.
Right now, Fuyumi reminded him just a little bit of Toga, and that frightened him.
Her smile wasn’t at all unhinged and she wasn’t waiting to stab the next person. She had a comfortable home, but no one close around her, save for her two brothers who were generally more of a burden than anything. She certainly didn’t have the League of Villains ready to kill in her defense.
Yet, there was a familiar look in her eyes, behind the good front she put up. Her sanity hadn’t been pulled away through her life struggles, but instead any signs of being a child or happy were gone, once her walls were breached. Dabi could see it, knowing the look from his own eyes. It had been easy to see Toga’s feelings behind her psycho personality, and now, Dabi knew why.
The two teenagers were eerily similar, the world seeing them and deciding that their inner workings were too ugly for it, spitting them back out with masks so unlike themselves. The situations were impossibly different, and Fuyumi didn’t have a murderous bone in her body, but Dabi could see it clear as day.
He shook his head and turned away from her, grabbing in the depths of his mind to remember how he used to banter with Fuyumi.
He didn’t know, the memories suppressed beyond relief.
“I’ll kill you.”
It was something he’d say to Toga, and he thought she would scold him, but he heard the soft laugh as he walked away.
“Be safe, Touya.”
Hopefully, he would never have to come back to this house. He didn’t acknowledge her, finding it pretty fitting of the treatment he’d given her before his death.
Walking through the hall could have killed him.
After waking up from his coma, he’d remembered how he’d spoken to their mom, so shortly before she threw the water at Shouto. He’d wanted to apologize.
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t still wish he’d gotten that chance.
He could hear his own words as he slammed the door behind him, an act so eerily familiar that it hurt. The childish voice he remembered was the same one that currently came out of his mouth.
Dabi shook it all out of his head and walked, the well-worn route to Sekoto Peak stretching in the opposite direction.
He was going to the train station, where he would take the hour-long ride to Tokyo, and then he would sneak his way around the Hero Commission building. If he was discreet enough, he could use his quirk to lift himself up the side.
Just last week, the guys Giran had hired for him got back to him.
They’d found a woman named Takami Tomie, and she’d spoken without much prompting, uncaring of her son’s dangerous career and the risk she put him at with ease.
It gave Dabi enough to work with.