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The HPSC meeting is started as all HPSC meetings are-Madam President walking in and saying something in a tone of voice that warrants no argument, something that would be considered scandalous by the public, something like: “We need to get rid of Endeavour.”
It’s met with nods all around. His popularity is plummeting, his capture rates aren’t all that high, and his property rate damage is astronomical. It’s no big loss. Hawks must be the number one hero.
The only unfortunate part is the training of his youngest son. A quirk like that simply must be fostered in the correct environment, else it will go to waste–it would be best if they could coerce one of the Todoroki boy’s trusted adults to train him, but UA is impenetrable thanks to that blasted rat. Perhaps they could stage an accident? Something to consider, at least.
They’ll have to run another PR campaign of course, restore the public’s faith in heroes and all that, but Endeavour is no All Might. He’s not essential to the people’s hope, so they can afford to lose him, especially if he dies doing something useful.
It’s not like it’ll be hard to convince him, anyway. Endeavour is practically foaming at the mouth for the HPSC’s approval–he’s already number one, but he always needs more. He’s never satisfied, and in this case, it works out well.
The original plan was to send Hawks to infiltrate the League of Villains–but it looks like they have a new candidate.
Dabi hates recruiting. He doesn’t know why the boss has him do it, seeing as he is hardly the most personable of the group, and besides, it’s not like he actually recruits anyone. It’s more of a formality than anything, really–no one’s particularly keen to welcome fresh blood (except Toga, but only in the literal sense) when they’ve been together so long.
Regardless, he’s once more standing in an alley, waiting for wannabe recruits to show up. He doesn’t know how they do it. They’re like sharks, or reporters–the moment he steps outside, they’re all over him looking for an in with the bossman. It’s uncanny.
Like clockwork, “villains” emerge from the shadows, complete with bad haircuts and no clear goals other than publicity–and annoying Dabi, probably. It reminds him a little of the hero ranking system, what with everyone scrabbling for attention and making fools of themselves in the process.
None of them have that drive, though. They’re all bark and no bite, squeamish at the sight of blood, of scars, of unadulterated hatred, of sweat and tears and desperation to survive, probably even their own shadow. In the end, if they’re not prepared to kill someone, if they can’t even handle looking at his grotesque face, they can hardly call themselves a villain. He gets those the most, those who yammer at him with false confidence to conceal their uneasiness, fake tattoos and fake attitudes, but really, just cowards.
Then he gets those too into it, like Moonfish and Muscular. They’re not in it for the glamour they thought being a villain would come with, no, they’re in it for the blood, for the thrill of the kill, for flesh under their teeth and screams in their ears.
The less said about those types the better. Dabi, on occasion, wonders if it’s because they’re a little too much like him. For all his fraying sanity, he doesn’t want to even entertain the thought of becoming like them, and yet, somewhere he longs for blood, to rip and tear and scream look what you made of me!
He doesn’t, though. Not yet goes unspoken.
It’s another fruitless night, and Dabi is turning to go back to the hideout, when a (awful fear-inducing terrible) familiar voice barks “Hey!”
Dabi freezes. His vision tunnels for a second, splitting into two-four-six-eight red-colored memories, before sharpening in the way it always does before a fight.
“Hero,” Dabi growls, and it’s a wonder his voice stays composed, a wonder that he doesn’t scream Dad please I don’t want to be here anymore instead.
“I come in peace. I’m not going to hurt you,” Endeavour says sharply, and Dabi laughs at that, laughs for all that he wished to hear that as a kid and the irony of hearing it now. He laughs because if he doesn’t he’ll cry. He wants to fight, he wants to scream, he wants to burn, he wants his dad to remember and he wants to forget.
“Am I really supposed to believe that?” Dabi says, still not turning around. His voice is carefully calm–if Toga, or really any of the League was here, they’d know what that voice meant, the fear it concealed. They aren’t, though. It’s just his dad, and his dad couldn’t figure out his mannerisms even back when he wore his heart on his sleeve.
Endeavour doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at him, and oh, how this brings back memories. Not good ones, mind you, but he looks back on them with a sort of fond nostalgia nonetheless–beneath all the anger, at least. He alternates between kid, you haven’t seen nothing yet and this is your fault Dad you and your precious Shouto I loved you and how did you repay me and, on occasion, oh, god, what have I become? Those, at least, are getting rarer and Dabi says good riddance. Touya might have said otherwise, but who cares what that guy thinks? He’s dead anyway, busy getting burned on a mountaintop, screaming as his flesh tears, wailing like a child as his blood sizzles before his jaw tumbles to the ground and he goes dead silent.
Yeah. Like he said, happy memories.
Endeavour pipes up, tearing through the silence with his brusque voice, “Let me join the League of Villains.”
Dabi blinks. “No,” he says, and relishes in the power he holds over Endeavour.
“I have a lot I can offer you. I’m the Number One Hero,” and Dabi can hear the pride in his voice, remembers how desperately his father wanted this, “I have access to all sorts of classified files.”
“Exactly. You’re Number One,” Dabi mocks, “so what in the world would make you turn traitor? You can’t claim that the system is broken without admitting you are too.”
He’s struck a nerve, he thinks, but Endeavour still perks up. He has a script for this, certainly, and can finally force things back into his playing field. Or so he thinks.
“In today’s society, you’re never enough. You can give all you are to your work, but the system is unclimbable. It’s an impossible task, and they still expect more, even after you’re broken down and bleeding. They ask you to just go that bit farther, one more villain, and you do it like a desperate dog on its leash just for that little bit of approval. I’m sick of it. It needs to be torn down, and the League is the best way to do it.”
Dabi’s first thought is, wow, Dad, now you know how it feels. I sacrificed everything for you, and you turned your sights to a brat who would never be half as dedicated as I was. His second thought, not a moment later, is who did you hire for that script? ‘Cause you ought to fire them.
Dabi turns to face him then, and he can see the tremble in Endeavour’s shoulders when the extent of his scars are revealed. His jaw is clenched, so are his fists. He’s desperate. Funny that he did that whole monologue about not wanting everything to be about rankings when he’s only doing this for the Hero Commission's approval. He’s not satisfied with Number One. Figures.
Dabi pretends to look pensive for a moment, stepping closer and letting his eyes catch that eerie light. At this angle, he’s almost entirely concealed by shadows save his eyes and flashes of those gruesome staples. He knows what he looks like, and he revels in his father’s fear.
“I don’t care,” Dabi says casually, too casually Compress would say, but Endeavour can’t tell the difference. Dabi is almost shaking with the thrill of it all.
And his father… his father tries to slap him in his anger at being refused. Some things never change.
He remembers when he couldn’t dodge. He remembers the stinging pain in his cheek, but worse, the betrayal. His dad loved him. Please, please, he wouldn’t do this to him, he still cared, he had to, please.
But he’s not Touya anymore.
He sidesteps cleanly, and immediately after ducks to the right to avoid the left hook his dad will throw next. Endeavour is nothing if not predictable, after all.
His dad splutters for a moment, shocked that a lowly villain predicted his attacks, and Dabi takes the moment to snark, “You really can’t stop beating your kids, can you?”
He regrets it at once and yet doesn’t. He was saving this revelation, this ghost of the past, but at this moment he wants nothing more than to see Endeavour’s face when he finally sees what he turned his eldest into. He wants him to see that this is all his fault.
“You’re lying,” Endeavour scoffs, and Dabi could have strangled him just for that. How dare he just brush him off like that, like he was nothing, can’t he see?
(Kid, Endeavour doesn’t abuse his kids and he certainly didn’t drive his wife crazy. There are other ways to look for attention, you know, you don’t need to make stuff up.)
“When I was eight, I tried to kill Shouto. He deserved it, too.”
“How do you know about that!?” Endeavour says incredulously, furiously.
“When I was twelve, you found my stash of bandages and screamed at me for hoarding them, for still needing them. You told me to tough it out. You told me that Shouto didn’t get burned like I did,” Dabi interrupts, vitriol coating all of his words.
“You aren’t Touya! You can’t be, he’s dead, I swear he’s dead,” His father says violently. He steps forward with his hand raised and suddenly Dabi forgets that he’s stronger now. He is suddenly little Touya, Touya with his father’s shadow hovering over him like an executioners’ axe, he is still desperately trying to put his broken world together.
Then he remembers who he’s become, and Dabi wants to kill Endeavour so badly it hurts. He wants to see his face torn and blistering, wants to see him scream like Touya had as he burns, he wants to rip out his heart and throw it to the wolves, he wants to smash his head against the alley wall over and over until he’s nothing more than a bloodied pulp and then he’ll do it again. He will see, he will, and Dabi won’t forgive him. He’ll light them both up, and they’ll both scream in agony, and they’ll both die, and it will be final. He won’t wake up three years later–this time with more parts missing.
He thinks he understands Moonfish and all those other villains like him better now.
He tempers his violent thoughts, barely, but doesn’t bother keeping his voice calm when he says, “Don’t you see, Dad? I’m Touya. Or at least, I was,” Dabi cackles, “I got a new name now. But you know that, don’t you, old man? You did this to me, and you’ll reap what you sow. The past never dies.”
Endeavour chokes.
Dabi laughs, and laughs, and laughs until he can’t breathe then he laughs some more.
“Touya… oh, my baby boy, what have they done to you?” Endeavour whispers, hoarse.
Dabi grins and feels his face tear, but he’s too giddy to care. “It was never them. It was always you. So really, what have you done to me?”
“I’m sorry.”
Dabi feels his mood drop inexplicably. “Are you only now realizing that? You’re pathetic,” Dabi sneers, but there’s no joy in it anymore. He’s sorry? Like that’s going to make up for what he did, he’s not sorry now but he will be when Dabi kills him with his very own fire.
“I hurt you and I never should have done that. But you can still come home, please, come home. Your siblings miss you.”
He acts like this is something they can get over. Like it was just an accident that Touya died, that Endeavour hadn’t caused it. Like villainy is something he can come back from, like he can flip a switch and oops, he’s good again! It was all just a silly childish rebellion anyway, Dabi doesn’t matter, only Touya. Only Endeavour.
“I went home, you know. And I thought, Dad will love me now! After all, how could you not change after you caused your own child’s death?” Dabi pauses, and Endeavour sobs.
“You were beating Shouto so hard he threw up. And all I could think was my death didn’t change anything. How could I possibly come home after that?”
“You don’t have to be Dabi anymore, Touya.”
“You’re right! I don’t have to, I want to. I’ve been Dabi longer than I’ve been Touya, did you know? You’re too late.”
Dabi watches as Endeavour sobs, grief wracken, his guilt finally catching up to him.
“Be a man. Don’t cry,” Dabi taunts, echoing his father from so long ago.
Endeavour looks like he’s going to throw up. Dabi has the distinct urge to laugh and throw rotten fruit at his shaken, nearly collapsed form.
“I…I can’t let you go, Touya. You are my son. I’ll get you the help you need, and I’ll look this time. We can start over. Be a family.”
“You lost any claim at being a father when you left me to die!”
Endeavour’s eyes narrow. He almost looks like a hero again.
“I’m going to make things better,” his father sighs, closing his eyes, before he strikes.
Dabi lights up, laughing as he goes.
Neither of them leave that alleyway alive.
(Later, Dr. Ujiko will find Dabi’s corpse. Later, the League will mourn for their friend and use that suspiciously blue-eyed Nomu with that suspiciously blue fire quirk to avenge him.)
(Later, the HPSC will mark this mission a success.)