Chapter Text
“Where are we going?” Toga slurred from the back of the car Dabi had shoved her into and hotwired the first chance he had.
“Shut up,” he snapped, veering dangerously around a corner, the streets deserted at the late hour. “I don’t know, ok. I’m just – we’re getting out of there.”
Just a few hours previously, Dabi had been a rather devote – well, devote enough – member of the League of Villains, and a follower of Stain. However, before that, before he was Dabi, in a time when his skin was unmarred and his hair was red, he was a brother. And watching Toga, 15 years old with no family to speak of, get injured in a fight she should never have been a part of – well, Dabi remembered what it felt like to be a brother.
~*~
The fight, to be fair, had been an accident. They weren’t seeking it out, nor had they actively planned it like they had with many others. They were simply changing base – their last safe house was too close to being compromised, and Shigaraki was thinking rationally for once.
It didn’t matter, as it turned out, that they left late at night, inconspicuously dressed and frequently abandoning cars in case they were being chased. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ran into two wannabe heroes on patrol.
Dabi had no idea who they were, which meant that they had no right to believe that they could single handedly take on the League. He barely gave them a glance before leaving the others to deal with them however they saw fit, more invested in breaking into their fourth car. It wasn’t until he heard the shriek of pain that he paid the fight behind him any sort of attention.
Seeing Toga fall to the ground, hands clutching her stomach as blood seeped between her fingers, was a strange experience. Dabi didn’t give much of a shit about the other members of the League – it gave him something to do, a way to get at Endeavor, but he wasn’t in it for the long haul. But Toga, who had joined up at the same time as him, who never pretended to be anything except for the 15 year old girl she was, who sheepishly slipped into his bedroom at night with a tear streaked face, seeking company but not comfort – she didn’t deserve to die so young in a fight with people who didn’t care enough to protect her.
Dabi was by her side in moments, gently prying her hands from her stomach to look at the wound. It was a slash rather than a stab, which gave Dabi hope that she would be fine. He could stitch up a slash, but who knows what organs could be hit with a stab.
“You’ll be fine,” Dabi said automatically, glancing up to see Toga’s watery eyes looking back at him. “I’ll look after you,” he promised, and this time, he was actually going to keep it.
~*~
The only reason that Dabi didn’t drive off in the car he had broken into during the fight after he had slid Toga into the passenger seat and leave the other members stranded was because their well-stocked first aid kit was in one of the bags abandoned as the fight broke out, and he didn’t know or have time to figure out which.
So instead, he leaned down on the horn and yelled out of the window for the others to hurry up so they can get going.
“Time to switch cars,” Shigaraki said, half an hour out from their safe house.
“Fuck no,” Dabi replied instantly, unable to believe that the man had even suggested it. Shigaraki might be a villain, but Dabi thought he might at least pretend to care about the people he was relying on to make up his league.
“What do you mean, no? We agreed how often we wanted to switch-”
“Yeah, but that bullshit was before Toga got hurt. We’re keeping this car and driving until we get somewhere safe where she can be patched up.” Dabi almost added on an and that’s final, but he already sounded enough like his sister as is.
“We can’t compromise the safety of the whole league just because Toga hasn’t learned how to dodge,” Shigaraki scoffed, and Dabi fought to keep his quirk under control what with the rage boiling through his veins.
“Well I’m the one behind the wheel, so if you want to get out you’re going to need to take a leap of faith out of a moving car. Now shut the fuck up and make sure she doesn’t bleed out.”
The rest of the ride was tense, but Dabi managed to make it to their safe house in 20 minutes, which should decrease Shigaraki’s bitching.
The place was nasty – filthy from disuse, crumbling from age, and the air inside was heavy, giving off a smell that Dabi couldn’t place and couldn’t care to describe. Looking back on it, that above all else was the moment that he realized that he needed to patch up Toga and then get them both of them the fuck out of there.
It was unpleasant, finally tending to Toga’s wound. Her shirt was sticking to her with blood, more of it having pooled out than it should’ve as a result of waiting in the back of a moving car. He had tried to drive carefully, but at the speed he had to go there was only so much he could do.
It was a miracle that they had numbing cream in their first aid kit, although with how delirious Toga was, he wasn’t sure how much of a difference it would make.
He had ordered everyone out of the room as soon as he set Toga down, except for Twice, who was instructed to go and get food and water for Toga before also being banished.
Dabi made quick work of cleaning, sewing, and then disinfecting the wound, although with the grime that seemed to cling to the very air of the new safe house, Dabi’s sure it would’ve been impossible for the wound to heal cleanly were he planning on staying there long enough for it to matter.
“Oi. You need to eat and drink before we leave,” Dabi muttered, pushing the water bottle and packaged protein bars Twice had brought closer to her.
Where we going?” Toga asked blearily, reaching for one of the protein bars and passing it off to Dabi when she was too weak to tear it open.
“We’re getting the fuck away from the League is where we’re going, kid,” Dabi said, handing the opened protein bar back, followed by the opened water bottle. Toga made an inquisitive noise around her full mouth, but Dabi didn’t explain anymore.
The only issue, then, was getting out. They had a car, which they would have to ditch and trade as soon as possible, but the League barely had food or money to speak of – at least, not any that Dabi was privy to.
Whatever. Dabi had gotten along by stealing for long enough before he joined the league, he could do it again, even if this time there was an extra mouth to feed.
“You ready?” He asked when Toga had finished her meal. “It’s going to be a long drive.”
~*~
Other than ‘far as fuck away,’ Dabi didn’t really know where he was going. He was now on the run from both the heroes and from the League of Villains with nobody but an unconscious teenage girl to help him. Not to mention the fact that dawn was inching closer, and Dabi couldn’t afford to be driving around and risking being seen when the roads got busy. He needed to make a decision, and fast.
His sister flashed to mind before Dabi could stop it, but Dabi crushed that line of thinking down before it could develop. He couldn’t bring his shit to Fuyumi – he went into this line of work to protect his family, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to bring the League of Villains to Fuyumi’s doorstep.
“Fuck,” Dabi muttered, before finally settling on a location. It wasn’t anywhere near perfect, and they couldn’t stay there long, but he knew a warehouse that was both abandoned and clean. The only issue was that it was where he had been confronted by Hawks.
Speaking of the annoying bird-hero, he brought up another issue that Dabi was going to have to deal with. He could just send him in the direction of the League, but, no matter what Hawks thought, the man was a shitty actor. The League was going to see through his lies, just like Dabi had, and they weren’t going to be as amused.
Dabi put that matter aside for the moment, focusing on getting them to the warehouse as fast as possible, parking a few streets over and carrying Toga, arriving just as the sun rose. The place wasn’t great, but it was far better than where the League was staying, and Dabi knew for a fact that there was a half decent couch upstairs where Toga could rest.
After finally setting the girl down to properly rest, Dabi knew that he had to consider his options. Chances were that in a few hours he would receive a phone call from a furious Shigaraki, and from that moment on he would be an enemy of not only the heroes, but the villains. Not to mention the fact that he had no stable source of food or money, and he had taken them somewhere that was not only close to their old compromised base, but that Hawks knew he frequented.
“I’m such a fucking dumbass,” Dabi muttered, lying back on the cold floor of the warehouse. When he joined the League of Villains, Dabi had told himself that he had killed Todoroki Touya. There was no room for the gentleness, the protectiveness, the brotherly instincts that he used to possess, so he killed Touya off and Dabi rose from the ashes.
But life isn’t that simple, and underneath everything, Dabi would always be Touya, and he would always be a brother, even if it wasn’t to his own siblings.
He eventually passed out to a fitful sleep, and he dreamt of fire.
~*~
Dabi woke up to the shrill sound of his mobile and, upon seeing it was Shigaraki calling, answered the phone. Was it stupid? Yeah, probably. But Dabi couldn’t pass up an opportunity to be petty.
“What’s up?” He answered with.
“Where the hell are you?” Shigaraki snarled, and Dabi chuckled darkly.
“Right, we left in the middle of the night without telling anyone just to confess the second one of you called. Take a fucking hint Shigaraki, and take this as my formal fucking resignation.”
“All of this over a fucking child. If I had known you were so soft-hearted I never would’ve let you join the League.”
“Yeah, well, you would’ve done me a fucking favour. See you around, I guess,” he said, and jabbed his finger at the ‘end call’ button with unnecessary force.
“Was that Shig?” Toga mumbled, and Dabi hadn’t even realized she was awake.
“Yeah,” he said, moving to sit on the floor next to her couch. “I think we’ve been fired.”
Toga frowned, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “What have you done?” she accused. “If you wanted to leave then that’s your business, why did you take me with you?”
For a moment, Dabi couldn’t believe how ungrateful she was being, but he supposed she was being fair. He did take her away without asking.
“They would’ve let you bleed out, brat. Show some gratitude for your savior,” Dabi smirked, and Toga scowled at him.
“What are we meant to do now? How are we meant to spread Stain’s beliefs now?” Toga pouted, and Christ did she look young.
“Listen,” Dabi started, his voice uncharacteristically gentle, “We might have to put that on the backburner for the moment. We need to focus on laying low and living through whatever happens next. Let yourself just be a kid for once, jeez.”
“I don’t think being a kid means hiding away in a warehouse all day, waiting for the day that someone comes to kill you.”
“That’s all we did when we were in the League.” At that moment, Dabi’s phone rang again, although the display showed it was coming from Hawks, not one of the members of the League, like he had been expecting.
“What do you want?” he answered bluntly. Normally, Dabi liked to drag out a bit of teasing with Hawks, but he was drained.
“That was direct. Can we meet up?” the hero asked, and, well, Dabi might as well just get it over with.
“No. Sorry to tell you that all of your good spy work was for nothing, but I’m out of the League. You’ve lost your only contact, birdboy.” The silence on the other end of the phone as Hawks attempted to process everything he had been told would’ve been amusing if Dabi didn’t have so much on his mind.
“You knew I was a spy?” he finally asked, and Dabi’s lip twitched up slightly.
“Since the very start. Piece of advice – if you’re going to try it with the remaining members of the League, maybe take an acting class or two first.”
“But – why didn’t you kill me?” Hawks demanded, and Dabi himself wasn’t even sure of the answer.
“It was entertaining,” he said, but that didn’t really cut it. He exposed the plans of the League without a second thought because he found it funny to mess with Hawks? Hawks seemed to find the same flaw with his answer.
“You sabotaged yourself frequently because it was entertaining? And what the hell do you mean you’re out of the League? You got kicked out?” Dabi should just hang up.
“I left. Think of me as a reformed man. You’ll see me on the news, rescuing cats from trees and giving fire safety talks to children. See ya, birdboy.” Dabi hung up the phone to see Toga staring at him.
“A spy?” she asked, looking betrayed, and Dabi resigned himself to explaining the whole story to her. Once he was done, the only thing she could ask was “were you ever loyal to the League?”
“The League was my means to an end. Not that it turned out the way I wanted to it,” Dabi muttered bitterly.
“So, what, you’ve dedicated your life to killing Endeavor?” Toga frowned. “Why only Endeavor? There are tons of fake heroes out there. Let’s kill them all!”
“Cut down on the enthusiasm, brat. I don’t give a fuck about the heroes who are only in it for the money or the fame. If they’re still acting like heroes, who gives a shit? I care about the ones like Endeavor, who use their power to cover up the fact that they’re an abusive piece of shit,” Dabi snarled, fists clenched. Toga examined him for a moment, and then laughed, high pitched and unstable.
“Ok, hero Dabi,” she said giggling, “we can kill them first.” Dabi scowled darkly at her.
“Hero? Do you think heroes do the shit I’ve done? Kidnap a kid? Tried to kill the number one hero? Planned to kill others?”
“Oooh, so defensive. I think you’re just pretending to be all edgy and villainous when actually you want to save abused kids. Have you thought of going into social work? Sounds like it would be better suited to you than villainy,” Toga cooed, and Dabi wished he had a rebuttal, because he did want to save abused kids.
He knew he wasn’t a good person. He had known he wasn’t hero material the first time he had daydreamed about killing his father. He had committed countless crimes, and had joined the League that was giving heroes the biggest issues.
“You can’t work around kids with a face like this,” he said instead, the bitterness in his voice more overt than he had intended. Toga cocked her head to the side.
“You could work at a haunted house,” she suggested, and if Dabi wasn’t hyper-aware of her injury, he would’ve shoved her off the sofa.
“I think we’ll stick to stealing to get by for now, but thanks for the suggestion,” he said dryly, flicking her in the forehead and going to get some of the food he had taken with them for the both of them. They would get by.
~*~
When Dabi had considered the fact that Hawks knew of the warehouse, he didn’t think it would be a pressing issue. In fact, it had barely discouraged him from showing up there, knowing just how unlikely it was that Hawks would show up. Apparently, he was an idiot.
Waking up to a commotion downstairs and instantly worrying about the child in his care was an awfully familiar feeling, and Dabi could go his whole life without feeling it again. He shook off his sleep and reminded himself that it was Toga, who could mostly take care of herself and who was likely making a racket for fun. Even so, he made his way downstairs, yawning and stretching as he clambered down.
The sight before him took a few seconds to process. Hawks’ wings would be noticeable anywhere, so they answered the question of who Toga had pinned to the ground with a knife to their throat.
“Toga,” Dabi reprimanded, too tired for this bullshit.
“Dabi!” she replied ecstatically. “Look who I found! It’s the traitor. Isn’t he pretty?” she cooed, leaning closer to Hawks, who looked like he would happily sink into the ground to get away from the unstable girl. “Is he your boyfriend?” she asked out of the blue, turning to Dabi excitedly. Hawks seemed to choke on air at the accusation, which just about decided how Dabi should respond.
“Yeah, we’re real sweethearts,” he deadpanned. “Right, babe?”
“Please get her off of me,” Hawks said instead of responding, but Toga jumped off of him of her own accord, ambling over to Dabi. Hawks stood, brushing off his pants and, likely, his pride.
“You’ve got seven years on her and you still managed to get pinned?”
“Your boyfriend is a weakling, Dabi,” Toga said, eyes shining. She looked beyond excited to be in on the joke.
“You said you left the League,” Hawks accused, flapping a hand at Toga.
“I did leave the League. And I brought Toga. And since when was I meant to share every detail with my life with you?”
“Honesty is the foundation of a good relationship,” Hawks said dryly while Toga cackled.
“It’s no fun when you join in,” Dabi said irritably. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what the fucks going on.”
“No. You can leave now.”
“If you’ve gone against the League, you can help us-” Hawks argued, cut off with a bark of laughter from Dabi.
“I said I left the League, not that I’ve gone all hero. You don’t have to be in the League to be a villain,” Dabi taunted, watching Hawks’ fists clench and unclench.
“Then why did you leave?” Hawks borderline shouted.
“Oh, I know that! He left to save me,” Toga said happily, lifting up her shirt to reveal the long wound stretching along her abdomen. “They would’ve left me for dead, but Dabi saved me.” Hawks just raised his eyebrows at Dabi, and Dabi didn’t need to hear it.
“Why are you so desperate for me to be a hero?” he snapped.
“Why are you so desperate to be a villain?” Hawks retaliated, and Dabi didn’t know what to say.
Because it’s the only way to protect them. Because what else am I meant to be, looking the way I do? Because if I’m not a villain, then what excuse do I have to not visit her?
Instead of answering, Dabi lunged forward and shoved Hawks against the nearest wall, crushing him to it by the throat. “I don’t need a reason to be a villain,” he snarled, his face far too close to Hawks’.
“Overcompensating,” the hero managed to choke out, and Dabi pressed down just a bit harder before letting go, letting Hawks slide down the wall, gasping for breath.
“I’ll prove you wrong,” Dabi said darkly as Hawks stood back up, coughing slightly.
“Yeah well,” he croaked, “So will I.”
And that was that.
~*~
Dabi always knew that Toga bored easily, but it was easier to deal with at the League where there were more people for her to bother.
“You said we would kill heroes,” Toga said, throwing herself onto the sofa, pouting. They’d been in the warehouse for a week and a half at this point, and the only time either of them left was when Dabi went to find money and food to keep them going. He couldn’t exactly blame her for being bored, but it didn’t make it any less annoying.
“I said we’d kill the corrupt ones, and we don’t know who those are yet,” Dabi snapped.
“Right, because we know that you’re too weak to kill Endeavor, even with a Nomu.”
“Right,” Dabi gritted out.
“So what do we do now? We can’t stay locked inside anymore Dabi, I’ll die. I’ll just drop dead,” Toga complained, and Dabi reminded himself that it was wrong to hit a child, even a crazy, villainous child like Toga.
“Fine! You want to get out the house, we’ll get out of the fucking house. But if anyone recognises us, you can deal with them.”
“Yeah, obviously. A hero like yourself wouldn’t dare kill an innocent,” Toga said with a shit-eating grin. Ever since Hawks’ visit, this was her favourite way of teasing Dabi.
“Do you want to stay inside all day? Because we can stay inside if that’s what you want,” and that got Toga moving.
Disguising himself was always a trial. Between the scars and the piercings, he could barely let any of his skin show if he wanted to remain out of prison. That meant long jeans, a hoodie pulled as far over his face as it could, and a surgical mask over his face. It didn’t fully cover the scars under his eyes, but there was only so much he could do.
For Toga, it was easier. She hadn’t made a spectacle of herself on live television fighting Endeavor like he had, so she just put on some plain clothes and took her hair out of her signature pigtails and she was good to go.
“You look like a criminal,” she said when she saw his get up, and he thwacked her on the back on the head in lieu of responding.
There weren’t many places they could go. They couldn’t go to eat both because of their lack of money and the fact that Dabi couldn’t take his mask off, so they ended up wandering to a park. Dabi didn’t miss the longing way that Toga looks at her peers, laughing with friends while Toga’s only company was a villain with a fucked up face and daddy issues.
“Life isn’t fair,” she muttered sourly, shoving her hands in her pockets unhappily. Dabi didn’t know much about Toga’s life before the League, but he guessed having a quirk related to consuming other people’s blood would fuck anyone up.
Maybe if you hadn’t joined the League, that could’ve been you, Dabi almost said, but it was probably a step too far. “How’s your injury,” he asked instead, and Toga shrugged.
“Hurts,” was all she said, and Dabi made a note to dig some pain killers out of the first aid kit he had taken from the League. He cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner – of course it hurt.
Dabi had hoped that taking Toga out would cheer her up (well, make her less insufferable) but instead she seemed to be getting more depressed with every step.
“You’re the one who wanted to go out,” Dabi finally snapped, aggravated by the girls drooped shoulders.
“Do you think,” Toga said, sounding surprisingly serious, before cutting herself off and chewing anxiously at her lip. “Do you think,” she tried again, “that if it weren’t for my quirk, that would be me,” she nodded at a random girl that didn’t really matter, but Dabi knew what she meant. Would she be happy, was what she was asking.
Dabi often wondered the same thing about himself. If it weren’t for his father, would he be happy? Would he have a real house with real friends, and a job that let him pay for things legitimately? There was no way of knowing for sure, but Dabi felt as if he knew the answer.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I don’t know what happened to you before you were in the League, so I can’t say. What I do know, though, is that there are two types of bad people,” this was something his mother had told him, the first time he had gone to visit her in the hospital. “People who are born bad, and people who are made bad. And us?” he gestured between them, “I don’t think we were born bad.”
When Rei had told that to Dabi, she had been talking about herself and Enji. She had told him that his father had been born bad, but that he had turned her bad. Dabi – Touya, at the time – had tried to protest – they all knew that Shouto’s scar was their father's fault – but his mother had shushed him and continued.
“I am a bad mother, Touya. I have always been a bad mother to you, to all of you. But I promise you this, my sweet boy. I will work at getting better, and I will become the mother you always deserved. When I get out of here, we’ll be the family we always should’ve been, and we won’t need your father, because I’ll love you enough for the both of us.”
Dabi had cried at his mother’s bedside that day, and it was the first time he had seriously imagined killing his father.
Next to him, pulling him out of his depressing daydream, he heard sniffling. Toga wasn’t crying, but her wet eyes and quivering mouth showed just how close she was.
“All I wanted was for them to love me,” she whispered. “To love me the proper way, like parents should.” It was all Toga said before clamming up, but it was enough to make Dabi feel sick.
“Let’s head back now,” he murmured, and Toga nodded her assent.
They were just on their way back when they heard the scream. Toga spun around, but Dabi firmly gripped her shoulder before she could investigate. It turned out to be useless, however, when the problem came to them.
In the week and a half they had been there, Dabi had managed to put the fact that he had made enemies of the League out of his mind. After all, they were too busy hunting heroes to bother with them. At least, that would be the case if they had a calm and rational leader. Instead, Dabi found himself staring at Shigaraki across a fairly busy park.
Dumbass, was all he could think for a moment. Dabi and Toga, while assets to the League, were not worth a confrontation in a public place that would no doubt attract heroes.
“You got your knives?” Dabi muttered, and Toga rolled her eyes at him for the idiotic question. As if she would go anywhere without them.
“We going to fight?” She said, perking up instantly. It didn’t seem to matter to her that the people she was about to fight had been her allies a week and a half ago. Maybe the words ‘left for dead’ had finally sunken in.
“Yeah, but be careful. You’re injured, just play support.” Toga rolled her eyes again, and then quirked a grin at Dabi.
“You’re about to fight villains,” she sing-songed, and Dabi carefully elbowed her.
“This doesn’t make me a hero,” he hissed. “You’re about to fight them too.”
“Hell yeah. We can be Dabi and Toga, the crime fighting vigilantes who also murder people,” Toga said, punching the air for emphasis.
“Catchy,” Dabi said dryly, although it didn’t sound half bad. Murderous vigilantes? It could be worse. Dabi lit up his hands, catching Shigaraki’s eye again as he and the rest of his League stalked towards them. “Bring it on.”