A/N: Not gonna lie, I hate this chapter outside of the Dabi/Asami scene. It just reads like a filler chapter and I needed to get the show on the road. So sorry you'll have to brunt through this chapter. If you hate it, you're not alone!XD

Chapter 34

Present Day – Day 30

The sound of his grunting and heavy breathing rouses her from her sleep. She blinks heavily before she assesses her surroundings, determining that she is in his room and it's the middle of the night. Her heavy head turns to the man lying next to her. He's sleeping on his back, hands bunching the blanket at his waist as he mumbles through whatever nightmare ensnares him.

Asami watches him, having woken up multiple times by his night terrors since they've been sleeping together. Ever since Asami stopped willingly sleeping with Dabi until he allows her to get birth control, he's still been adamant about sleeping in bed with her, despite the fact they aren't fucking. Dabi's dumb ass didn't buy condoms while at the drugstore, so she's not fucking with him until he gets them. He doesn't seem too happy about it, but hasn't outwardly complained.

The first night was fine, but every night since, something has been either keeping him up all night, or terrors have been harboring his mind when he sleeps. Asami is taken back to when Compress told her that Dabi doesn't sleep well at night, and she can now see the extent of it. He doesn't seem to get much sleep at all.

"Mhmm…ngh…no…" He's stirring next to her and she contemplates waking him up, though this is one of the only times she's really seen him get any rest.

She watches his facial features through the darkness of the room. She can't see much, but she can see his body shaking and his hands gripping the sheets.

Asami can feel the heat emanating off of him, and she worries that he might inadvertently set the bed on fire and kill them both. She lifts her hand up to brush his cheek when she hears the words slipping from his lips, "Loo…loo…Look at me…Look at me, Dad!"

Her hand halts and she widens her eyes at him. She watches him, waiting for him to say more. He stirs a bit more, spewing out incoherent nonsense that she can't decipher. His body is heating the entire room and she feels a light sweat kissing her forehead. Soft blue embers begin erupting from his lashes as steam lifts from the open slits of his skin. She can't allow this to continue, as they will both be barbequed if she does.

"Dabi," she softly calls out his name as she turns to him. "Dabi, wake up, it's just a dream," she says, placing her hand on his chest to shake him awake.

"NO!" he cries out, lifting himself into a seated position as blue flames explode around him. Asami flies back cradling her hand as the pain is instantaneous.

The room lights up momentarily from his flames, and she can see the tenseness of his shoulders as he breathes heavily. He turns towards her as the light flames igniting off of his arms illuminate the space between them. His eyes trail down to see her cradling her hand.

"You're hurt," he states rather than questions with a tone of regret lacing his gruff voice.

"It's nothing—" she begins but he cuts her off by pulling the sheets off of his body and heading to the bathroom. The light shines into the room, causing her to squint at the abrupt change.

She hears him rummaging through something before he swiftly returns in the room. He snatches her hand from her before she can protest and surveys the damage. She looks down at her hand, wincing when she sees the bubbling flesh.

She glances up at Dabi, seeing the stretching of his taut skin as his face forms in regret. "You shouldn't have touched me," he begins as he pulls out a tube of ointment that he grabbed.

He begins lathering on the ointment as his eyes remain fixated on her hand, unable to look her in the eyes while she grimaces in pain. "You were having a bad dream," she explains to him. "I was worried about you."

This makes Dabi's face stretch even further with guilt. "Maybe…I should…" he bites back what he's trying to say. "We should sleep separately from now on."

She can tell that that's the last thing he wants, and a strange part of her feels the same. "That's not what I said," she returns. She brushes his cheek with her free hand, ignoring the heat of him until his eyes find hers. "You're not sleeping at all, and when you do, you have night terrors."

"I'm sorry I'm keeping you up."

She shakes her head at him. "What can I do to help?"

His eyes drop from hers to watch her hand and she does the same for a silent moment. She swallows down the lump in her throat as she croaks out, "You said, 'look at me, Dad'." Dabi stiffens at her words and she watches him carefully, waiting and hoping for him to open up to her.

He doesn't say a word to her, and continues to lather the ointment. "Dabi please," she beseeches. "You know you can talk to me. Tell me something—"

"Stop," his tone is low and threatening as his fiery eyes are on her.

She drops her gaze from his intimidating stare and looks down at her hand. "We can tell each other a secret. Something only the two of us will know. Something we can share." Asami thinks back about how this idea was what led to her and Keigo getting closer. Back then she told him something silly and harmless, still guarding her heart from him.

Dabi doesn't respond so Asami begins. "I hate my father," she exhales shakily having said that for the first time out loud. She can't watch Dabi's expressions as she continues her confession. "Growing up, he had this idea in his head that I was more of a valuable asset to him than his child. I would often hear him talk to people about arranging a lucrative marriage for him to benefit from. He did that with my mother. She was stunning and Quirkless, he was rich and could pay her family's debt. She was sixteen when her father sold her to him. My father was forty," she grimaces. "My mother never wanted kids—understandably at that age. And in what little memories I have of her, she's always crying."

Dabi stiffens at her comment but she doesn't have the strength to meet his gaze. She watches as he begins wrapping her hand in bandages.

"She left when I was five," Asami continues. "She snuck out with the help of one of his guards. Back then, my father pounded it in my head that she was a vile, self-centered, and wicked woman… and for the longest time, I believed him. But the older I got, and the more independent I became, I realized she was just a woman at the end of her rope. I just wish she didn't resent me so much that she could've taken me with her," Asami frowns. "I haven't seen her since," she continues as Dabi finishes. "I think he had her killed; driven by wrath from the shame of her leaving him. But I never looked into it," she shrugs. "I guess I don't really want to know."

She begins fiddling with the newly applied bandage as Dabi sits stiffly in front of her. Neither of them strong enough to look at the other. She hears him shuffling and clearing his throat before his rough voice finally speaks up. "I'm waiting for the moment that you realize I'm not worth any of this, and you leave." Asami's eyes finally find the strength to look onto him, but his are still shamefully pressed downwards. "I've just… never gotten my way, and things always just go to shit when I try… so…" he shakes his head. "I don't know…" he trails off, closing himself off once more.

"Dabi," she exhales breathlessly. "Look at me," he refuses and she lifts his face up with her good palm, forcing him to look at her. "Don't ever say that," she shakes her head at him.

"But, you—"

"This is real," she tells him as he once told her. "Fuck the reasonings and fuck the second guessing," she releases a small chuckle. She drops the smile to convey just how important this is to her. "You're enough. This… us… everything… it's enough." Her eyes are on fire when she looks at him and says, "And I don't ever want to leave."

Present Day – Day 31

The following morning Asami wakes in the scarred arms of Dabi as he hugs her closely to his chest. She can feel his heart beating steadily as his chest rocks her head back and forth. He slept soundly for the rest of the night while she remained curled in his arms. She didn't want to move, despite how uncomfortable she was. She didn't get any sleep for the rest of the night, but it didn't matter because he did.

Asami thinks about his confession to her and her heart breaks at the thought. She thinks about Dabi as a man and what led him to the path that he's on. His body is burned and he's self-conscious about his appearance. He distances himself from the rest of the League as he tries to keep himself above them, but he still cares enough about them to protect them, even if it means hurting his own body.

The things he says to her and the way he looks at her don't go unnoticed and she knows that he cares for her… far more than he should. And she… Asami glances up at him surveying the content look on his face as his mind peacefully dances in his dreams. I think I'm in—

Asami feels a dull ache in her lower stomach and she grunts at the discomfort. She carefully unlaces herself from Dabi's hold, but she hears him stirring as she lifts herself from the bed. She heads to the bathroom where she pulls down her panties to be greeted by the small red stain.

She releases a wavered breath as relief fills her chest, never once been more grateful to get her period than she is now. She can now feel the familiar pressure of her ovaries twisting in knots and she only hopes it's the most painful period she's had so she learns a lesson from this.

She exits the bathroom when she's finished cleaning up to see Dabi getting dressed. He's zipping up his jeans when their eyes connect. His shoulders are tense until she finally speaks up. "I'm going to need tampons," she tells him and his shoulders loosen up as a sigh leaves his chest. He's relieved, just as much as she is.

"Ask Toga. I'm sure you girls will spend all day complaining about it," he offhandedly comments.

She sighs at his comment and decides to divert. "Any word on when we can go to the store?" she asks him carefully.

"I've got a mission with the violet regiment and I'm not sure when I'll be back," he responds. "Twice is going to escort you around the compound until then. I was gonna have him make a copy of me to follow you around, but I don't trust that bastard to not get handsy with you," he responds with a cheeky grin.

Asami blinks at him, trying to decipher what he's saying. "I'm sorry, did you just say you don't trust your own copy to not try to make a move on me?"

"I know myself best, Butterfly. That fucker's gonna touch you."

"It's a copy. Of you. You're seriously jealous of yourself?" she scoffs.

Dabi chuckles as he walks away from her to grab a clean shirt. "So, when you come back, we can go to the store?" she asks him with hopeful eyes.

He tugs his shirt on and glances over at her. "Yeah," he releases quickly and she smiles as she lights up at this.

"Is the mission dangerous?" she asks him as he grabs his overcoat.

He stops getting dressed for a moment and watches her, seeing the worry in her eyes. He brushes her cheek as he cups her face in his large hand. "Don't worry, I have something to come back to," he tells her and she can't ignore the flipping of her heart when he says this.

Asami gets dressed and follows behind Dabi as he escorts her back to her room. Since their merger, Trumpet and Skeptic have found Asami's talents in PR to be useful to the Meta Liberation Army and recruiting more followers to their cause. She is working with the two in tandem to boost the recognition of the MLA and revise their image and mission statement from the dark ages. She actually enjoys her work as it reminds her a lot of working for the Hero Agencies, though her computer access is heavily restricted on what she can say and release since her last stunt with the laptop.

Dabi drops her off at her room where she tells him to be careful and he gives her a kiss before leaving. Her heart aches as she watches him leave, and she hopes that he will be safe.

Once he is down the hall, Asami showers and prepares herself for the day. When Asami is ready, she waits for Twice to arrive and escort her to Trumpet and Skeptic. No one has attempted to attack her while walking the halls, and most people they encounter on her way to the office don't pay her much attention. Asami questions if Dabi made up the threat to keep tabs on her at all times, and would hope that she's garnered more trust from him.

It doesn't take long for Twice to arrive and energetically offer her an escort to the office, and she isn't quite sure the man is aware that she can't say no.

When Asami arrives to the office, she sits down at the desk and gets straight to work. She helps Trumpet skew the narrative on the MLA, and works with Skeptic to scrub any alternative thinking from public forums. Since their merger and Asami's PR skills, the MLA has found a 27% recruitment increase into their organization, though they would never give her that credit, and write it off as their false win in Deika narrative—which Asami also wrote.

Either way, Asami is not very well appreciated by these two, or Re-Destro. But she doesn't care much since working with them at least gets her out of her room and doing something. She spends most of her days doing this when she is not with the League or Dabi, and she finds it strangely peaceful.

There are moments where she takes a step back from the work and checks up on Hawks. She's been checking up on his missions and his public image since she's been gone, and each time, her shoulders sink with disappointment. She's expecting him to act differently or hold himself like he's lost an important piece of him, but each time she sees him—which is oddly rare recently—he's smiling and carefree.

She knows this is a public image the hero commission wants to paint with him, but part of her can't help but feel sad that not even the most micro of movements show that he's noticed her gone. With each videoclip and candid photo of the winged hero smiling as if there weren't a care in the world, Asami slowly severs her bond with a man she once thought she loved.

After hours of this Asami tells Twice that she's ready to go and the duo leave.

"Oh, I forgot my wallet!" the eccentric villain announces as he jumps to turn directions down the hall. She quickly follows him as he leads her to a room. He heads in and she waits wordlessly in the hallway.

She peaks into the room when she stares at the whiteboard in front of her. " 'Little late to ask this stuff: Liberation Army Facts'?" she reads out loud on the board. "You still don't understand what the MLA represents?" Asami releases a humored scoff as the double personality villain joins her in the hallway.

"It's just a refresher!" he snaps at her. "I have no idea what's going on!" he gleefully admits as they continue to walk down the hall.

She chuckles at his words, "It's simple," she begins, "You have a Quirk that you're using and improving on: they like you. You're like me and Quirkless: they hate you," she smiles up at him before thinking about it more. "Well, I guess it's more complicated than that," she says thoughtfully as she brushes her chin. "Why don't you read their book?"

"It's so boring!" he grumbles and she lets out a harsh laugh.

"Ain't that the truth," she murmurs. "So, you have one of their lackeys teaching you their culty believes?"

"Uh huh!" he affirms her with a single nod. "Though it's quite the bore!" he grumbles. "He makes it really fun!" another adds.

"Yeah, sounds riveting," she offhandedly states. "But Imma pass, the last thing I need is one of those fanatics to be looking at me like I'm some insect."

Twice continues to walk her down the hall to the lobby where the rest of the League hang out. She's not feeling too great as the menstrual pains are starting to get worse. She decides to call it a night and spends the rest of the day in her room with a heating pad on her stomach.

Present Day – Day 33

This is by far the worst period that Asami's ever had and she can't help but be grateful. There is no way she can question if she's pregnant after a period from hell like this one. She spent all of the first and second day locked in her room, confined to her bed and bathtub. This made it easy on Twice to not have to babysit her for the past few days, but she's definitely bored now as she waits in her room for someone to come pick her up.

Asami doesn't have access to a phone, and her laptop is given to Trumpet and Skeptic, so she can't use that. She figures she can scream until a League member shows up, but she doesn't want to sit here and wait forever.

She wonders how much damage it would really cause if she walked down the hall on her own to the lobby where the League hangs out. This side of the compound is really only for League members, so the likelihood that someone from the MLA is stalking these halls waiting to kill her is low.

She figures she can't wait in her room any longer, feeling the sting of cabin fever. She opens the door to her room and sticks her head out in the hallway. She turns her head back and forth to see no one in sight. She steps out of her room and begins heading to the lobby.

As expected, no one is in the hallways, and her trek to the lobby is devoid of any excitement. She figures Dabi and Shigaraki are being paranoid as she enters the common area to find Spinner and Compress making breakfast, while Twice, Toga, and Shigaraki wait on the couch.

"Smells good," she peeps up as the two villains perk up at her voice.

"Oh! Asami!" Compress speaks with shock. "What are you doing without an escort?"

"It was just down the hallway," she grumbles. "It's not that big of a deal."

Shigaraki turns to stare her down and she notices that he's not as pissed off as she would have thought he'd be, considering he was the one who told her to be escorted at all times.

She looks around at the facial expressions of all the villains and Asami sees the heaviness weighing over them. She begins to suspect that she's not being locked up for her own good, and she decides to test them. "Is there really a threat on my life? Or was this Dabi's way of controlling me?"

"What? No! Of course not!" Spinner unconvincingly feigns shock.

"It's Dabi's way of controlling you!" Twice chides in. "He only means to protect you," another side returns in a fatherly tone. "Nah, he wants you all to himself!" the last part argues.

Asami sighs, "What do I have to do to gain his trust?" she asks them, figuring that fucking him and opening her heart to him to say that she'll never leave him isn't enough.

Spinner snorts at this, "Let us know when you find out. The guy's a real ass."

"Now, now," Compress chimes in. "The man is complex and closed off."

"Doesn't even introduce himself with his full name," Shigaraki grumbles as he's taken back to the first moment they met. "I mean, who does that? You introduce yourself with your name. Not call people 'ugly' and 'psychos'."

"Been a team for almost a year now and the guy won't say a damn thing about him," Spinner shakes his head as his crosses his arms over his chest. "He hasn't told you anything has he?" he asks, knowing about their relationship, but not understanding why she'd go for someone like him of all people.

Asami shakes her head, "I'm just as much in the dark as all of you."

"Well, to be fair, we only know your first name," Compress glances over at Asami.

"Oh," she says, cheeks growing red. "It's uh… Hatsuse."

"Hatsuse?" Compress is visibly taken aback, but Asami cannot see his facial expressions behind his white and black mask. "The Hatsuse? As in Kenji Hatsuse of Hatsuse Financials?"

Asami awkwardly chuckles as she scratches at the back of her head. "Uh, yeah… that's my dad."

"Your father?" Compress dramatically places his hand on his chest, making a show of how shocked he is with this revelation.

"I don't get it," Spinner grunts at the man. "Who is this guy?"

"Who… Who?" Compress shakes his head at the reptilian man for his ignorance. "Kenji Hatsuse was named the richest man in all of Japan for twenty-eight years in a row, only to be removed from that title when he left for America two years ago."

"Does that mean you're loaded?" Twice asks Asami animatedly. "Keepin' it all to yourself I see," he grumbles.

"Yeah," Spinner says, "It would've been nice to have some extra cash around here! Had to go into an all-out war just to get some decent grub, when you could've paid for it the entire time!"

"No, it's not like that!" Asami says lifting up her palms in defense as she shakes her hands. "It's my dad's money, not mine. I have no say in it."

"You know," Compress begins, "My family and I once broke into a home of Kenji Hatsuse's. He had one of the most complex security systems we've ever seen," he says with a proud voice as he recollects on that night. "Though it couldn't hold us back."

"Wait… our home in Mustafu? That was you! You took my favorite necklace!" Asami places her hands stiffly on her hips.

"Ah, yes, among many other things. That was a good haul," he says reminiscing about that night while Asami rolls her eyes.

"Oh! We could use the money to go shopping!" Toga chimes in. "You could buy me a new coat! Friends by friends gifts, right!"

"So," Shigaraki begins as he watches her behind strands of white hair. "You're saying you have no way into your dad's deep pockets? We could use that money to break ties with those Liberationist losers."

"No, I don't," Asami says turning to the man with narrowing eyes. "I make my own money, and if you want any of it, you'll have to let me out of here to remove it, which I am sure none of you are keen on doing?"

Shigaraki grumbles to himself as he looks away from her and Asami sighs. "So if this escorting me around thing isn't to protect me from the MLA, then why is Dabi suddenly holding me hostage again, and why are you all so compliant in it? I thought you all trusted me," she ends sadly.

Everyone in the room looks in a different direction, though none of them match her gaze. The truth is something they all know as Dabi pulled them all aside with the plan, and they all agreed since the repercussions could be disastrous.

They are not keeping her from any MLA members looking to kill the Quirkless Ambassador who facilitated the merger of the MLA and League. They are keeping her at a distance from Dabi's newest recruit, Pro Hero Hawks.

To the League, the recruitment is a beneficially rare opportunity to have a pro hero on their side. Having him find his kidnapped girlfriend would cause the hero to retaliate against them and lead to their untimely arrest. Not to mention that Dabi convinced them all that she would leave with the man if she had the chance, knowing that they all like her, and would be devastated if she left.

But Dabi's motives are different, in that he worries that she will crawl back to the winged hero when she's reunited with him, so for the time being, it is the League's biggest goal to keep the two unaware of each other's presence while they both remain in the building. No matter the cost.

A/N: Yay! Asami's not pregnant! This chapter was basically to have her get her period and Dabi dip for a bit. Next week we're going shopping! And maybe bumping into a familiar face?! 😱 What are your predictions? Stay tuned!