Chapter Text
The condensation on your glass of cheap whiskey had pooled into a ring on the scarred wood of the table. You didn't drink it. You just sat in the shadows of the corner booth, his booth, watching the front door of the hideout, waiting for the inevitable.
When the door finally clicked open, Dabi stepped inside.
He wasn’t alone.
She was trailing a step behind him, looking swallowed up by the grime of the underground. Haru. The timid, shivering way she held herself made it obvious: she was your replacement. Dabi had probably plucked her out of the exact same gutter he’d found you in.
He steered her toward the far side of the bar. Catching sight of you in his usual spot, his gaze swept over you for a fraction of a second with total indifference before he smoothly guided her to a booth across the room. Far enough for privacy, but close enough for you to see everything.
Haru wasn't malicious. As she slid into the bench, she caught your eye and offered a shy little smile—the look of a frightened girl trying to find a safe harbor. It made it worse. You couldn't even hate her. Her gentle nature just made you feel transparent, a ghost haunting the perimeter while she took up actual space.
Dabi sat opposite her, leaning over the table and cutting off her view of the rest of the room, reducing her world down to just him. He gave her his full attention. Just like he did to you, a month ago.
"Sit," Dabi murmured, his rough voice dropping into that low, gravelly cadence that used to make your chest tight.
Haru pulled his oversized leather coat tighter around her shoulders, shivering despite the summer heat. You knew that jacket. It smelled heavily of cheap tobacco and ash.
"Hey. Look at me, doll," Dabi said, the corner of his stapled lips tugging into a comforting smile. It was terrifyingly effective. "You're safe here. Nobody's looking for you anymore."
Haru looked up, her eyes glittering. "I... I froze the whole alleyway. I didn't mean to. It just happens when I get scared. It hurts."
"I know it does, sweetheart," he cooed, his voice carrying across the quiet bar. He reached out, a scarred, bare hand tilting her chin up, inspecting her like a prize. "We can help with that. You just gotta do a few small things for me, and I’ll make sure nobody ever touches you again. Deal?"
Negotiating. Soft-talking. Playing the savior.
You watched the display from across the room, a bitter taste rising in your throat. You knew the script by heart. How long before she did whatever he wanted her flashy ice quirk for, and he moved on?
Haru looked at him with that same open wonder you probably had, when you were first brought in. The kind of awe that comes from being a monster's most precious possession.
Your hand slipped into your jacket pocket, fingers curling around the textured grip of a small lighter. A gift from him. Back when your low-tier camouflage smoke screen was still something he found novel, he used to spend his days bathing you in that intense observation, making you feel like your quiet, utilitarian smoke was the most important thing in the world.
Before he dragged you to a dark forest, realized your smoke could only hide a retreat but couldn't burn a hero to ash, and lost all interest the second the air cleared.
Dabi didn't even turn his head when you left the booth. To him, you were already gone.
Two weeks later, the shift was final.
Shigaraki called a meeting around the bar counter to plan a warehouse heist designed entirely to test Haru’s capabilities. You sat at the edge of the room, not even at the table, hands buried in your pockets, hoping for a scrap of utility. Not like you could leave - not with all their secrets in your brain.
"The security grid has a hardwired backup," Shigaraki rasped, scratching at his neck. "If they trip the silent alarm, the heroes will be there in four minutes."
"I can mask the entry," you spoke up, your voice sounding strange and hollow in your own ears. "My smoke can blanket the front perimeter. It doesn't trigger thermal sensors, and it’ll give us visual camouflage while we crack the doors."
You expected Shigaraki to nod, or at least argue. Instead, Dabi cut you off mid-sentence without even looking at you. "We don't need a smoke screen when we have someone who can freeze the security grid and the guards solid before they even touch the alarm. Let the people who can actually finish a job talk, doll."
Haru looked down, her cheeks flushing a faint pink. She shot you a quick apologetic look, but she didn't say anything. She couldn't. Dabi’s shadow was already over her.
"You're on van duty," Shigaraki muttered to you, not looking up from his blueprint. "Keep the engine running."
Demoted to scenery. A chore the League kept around because you knew too much to be let go. The reality settled deep into your bones, a freezing ache that your own quirk could never hide.
The job was a massive success.
When the vanguard returned to the hideout, the bar erupted into a rare, chaotic celebration. Twice was cheering, Toga was spinning Haru around by her hands, and the drinks were pouring freely. Haru was flushed, laughing breathlessly, her ice quirk having worked perfectly.
And Dabi was the center of it all. He sat at the main booth, his arm slung casually over the back of the seat right behind Haru’s head, pouring her a glass of liquor. He was feeding her that focused, intoxicating praise. The exact same look he used to give you.
You sat in the dimmest corner of the bar, completely invisible. Nobody offered you a drink. Nobody asked how the drive was. The contrast between her grand validation and your insignificance became physically unbearable.
A volatile spike of emotion flared up in your chest. You didn't even want his affection anymore—the illusion was shattered—but the realization that he thought you were nothing, that you didn't even warrant a glance, made you feel like you were losing your mind. You wanted to tear a reaction out of him. You wanted to force him to look at you, even if it was with hatred, even if it was with disgust. Just to prove you were still solid.
When the celebration reached its loudest point, Dabi slid out of the booth, murmuring something to Haru before turning toward the back hallway that led to the quiet, dark alleyways behind the bar.
He was going for a solitary smoke.
You slid out of your booth and followed him.
The heavy metal exit door clicked shut behind you, cutting off the noise of the bar. Step by step, you followed him out into the alleyway. It was dark, lit only by a single, flickering bulb above the doorway and the faint moonlight cutting between the concrete walls. Dabi was leaning against the brickwork, an unlit cigarette between his lips.
He didn't jump when the door shut. He just slowly tilted his head back against the wall, blowing out a long, bored breath as he looked down his nose at you.
"The party's inside," he said, his voice cold, sharp, and dismissive.
"Is this your whole routine?" you asked, your voice already shaking slightly. The adrenaline of confrontation was making you reckless. You stepped closer, crowding into the narrow space between the dumpster and the wall, your fingers tightly gripping a small folding knife in your pocket. "The soft voice? The jacket? The undivided attention until she does exactly what you want, and then you just pretend she doesn't exist?"
Dabi let out a short, mocking laugh, the staples along his jaw flexing. He didn't look guilty at all; he looked thoroughly amused. He reached out, his bare, scarred fingers casually flicking the collar of your jacket, treating you like an annoying stray.
"Oh," he purred, his eyes glinting with malice in the dim light. "Is *that* what this is? Are you just bitching because you didn't get a lay before I moved on?"
The words hit like a physical blow, designed to humiliate you, reducing your entire agonizing month of isolation down to something pathetic.
You froze, a hot wave of shame flooding straight up your neck. Because as much as you wanted to deny it, as vulgar as he made it sound, the thought had crossed your mind. Back when you were still the center of his universe, you had spent nights imagining what it would feel like when that attention finally shifted. When his hand would travel a bit beyond the confines of polite society. You had wanted it.
Dabi watched the color rush to your face, a slow, cruel smirk stretching the stapled skin of his lips. He knew he’d hit the nerve.
"No," you bit back, your voice trembling with fury as you desperately tried to erect a shield. "I'm trying to look out for Haru. Because I know exactly what's going to happen to her when you ditch her."
Dabi's smirk turned sharper, meaner. He took a slow step off the brickwork, invading your space until the scent of ash and leather completely enveloped you, trapping you against the cold wall.
"Haru?" he murmured, leaning down so his breath brushed against your ear. "You think she needs you to look out for her? Doll, she’s actually useful. She can flatten a city block. You?" He let out a soft, degrading huff of laughter. "You’re a parlor trick. A cloud of smoke. You're barely even here."
The sheer apathy in his eyes broke something inside you.
You didn't think. You pulled the knife from your pocket, the blade clicking open into the dim light as you lunged forward. You slammed your left hand against his chest, driving him back against the brick wall, and brought the knife up, pressing the sharp edge directly against the side of his throat, right over the staples on his jaw.
Your chest was heaving, your breathing ragged. "Look at me," you choked out, your voice a cracked, desperate whisper. "Look at me, you bastard. Stop pretending I'm not here."
He did this. He drove you to this.
For a second, the alleyway was dead silent. Dabi didn't flinch away from the cold steel against his skin. He looked down at the blade, then slowly tilted his gaze up to meet yours.
"You want me to look at you?" Dabi asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous register.
Before you could even process the shift, his hand shot out. His fingers clamped hard around your right wrist, squeezing with brutal strength until the pain forced your fingers open. The knife slipped from your grip, clattering loudly onto the asphalt, completely forgotten.
In the same fluid, heavy motion, he twisted your wrist and drove his weight forward, completely reversing your positions and slamming your back hard against the opposite wall. The impact knocked the breath clean out of your lungs.
Before you could recover, his other hand came up, rough, scarred fingers wrapping tightly around your throat. His grip was heavy, pinning you securely in place without cutting off the air fully. The skin of his palm was thick and calloused, the metal staples at his wrist scraping cold against your collarbone.
"You're begging for it," he whispered, his eyes burning into yours with an intensity you hadn't seen in a month. "You're so desperate for me to touch you that you're pulling a knife in a dark alley."
He didn't kiss you or offer a shred of romantic illusion. Instead, he crowded entirely into your space, his heavy thigh forcing its way between yours, pinning your lower body flush against the concrete. His free hand ripped at the hem of your jacket, his bare, scarred fingers digging harshly into the skin of your waist.
The friction was sudden, hard, and entirely devoid of tenderness. It was a punishment, a lesson, and a direct, physical answer to the unsaid truth he’d dragged out of you.
"Is this what you wanted?" Dabi growled, his face inches from yours, his breath hot against your cheek as he deliberately looked down at your body rather than your eyes.
Everything after that became a frantic rush of heat and shifting shadow against the cold concrete wall. There was no warmth in it, no lingering touch, no softness. Just a silent, aggressive encounter—a blunt battle of weight and friction where you bit your own lip to keep from making a sound and clawed at his shoulders just to anchor yourself to reality.
Your fingers dug into the heavy leather of his jacket, feeling the rigid, unyielding frame beneath it. He used his size to crowd you, to dictate every movement, leaving the exact boundaries of how far it went completely lost to the disorienting, breathless rush of the dark.
It was a desperate, agonizing calculation. Every bruising press of his body, every scratch of his scarred skin against yours, was a sick comfort. It was proof of life. Proof of utility. You leaned into the roughness of it, greedily tracking the way his weight pinned you, the way his chest heaved against yours. You forced yourself to absorb the sheer impact of him because the alternative—the absolute, crushing silence of the last month—was worse. You needed the pain of his grip on your waist to remind you that you weren't transparent. If he was hurting you, if he was using you, then you had to be real.
And for those few chaotic minutes, it worked. His attention was entirely back on you. He wasn't looking at a blueprint, he wasn't looking at Haru, and he wasn't looking past you. He was entirely consumed by the task of breaking your defiance. You weren't invisible anymore. You were burning.
Then, the second it was over, the fire went out, and the illusion shattered.
Dabi stepped back effortlessly, the sudden absence of his heat leaving you shivering against the brick. With terrifying efficiency, he adjusted his clothes, running a hand through his dark hair as his expression instantly flattened back into that mask of total indifference. The transition was so immediate, so seamless, it made your stomach turn. The intense focus he had just leveled at you vanished as if a switch had been flipped.
He turned on his heel and walked back toward the heavy metal door, the exit clicking shut behind him as he re-entered the loud, cheering celebration of the bar. He didn't even give you a parting glance to acknowledge what had just happened between you.
He just went back. Back to the warmth.
Back to Haru.
The silence of the alleyway rushed back in, heavy and suffocating.
You slid slowly down the wall, your knees giving out as you sank onto the cold asphalt. Your skin was burning, your clothes were messed up and torn, and your throat still ached from the heavy, lingering pressure of his bare hand. You felt entirely unspooled, exposed to the freezing night air, yet the ghost of his grip still felt branded into your skin.
A few inches away, the pocket knife lay catching the faint moonlight on the ground. You didn't pick it up. Your hands were too weak to hold it anyway. You just stared at the glinting metal, slowly clutching your arms around yourself, trying to hold your own pieces together.
The worst part wasn't the roughness, or the bruises that were already starting to form on your hips. It was the clarity. You had gotten exactly what you wanted. You had forced him to look at you.
You had gotten your lay.
You had pushed him into a corner and torn a physical reaction out of him. And as you sat alone in the shivering dark, staring at the dirt on the ground, the crushing realization settled deep into your chest: it hadn't changed a single thing. You hadn't won anything back. You were still entirely, completely empty to him.