"AYA!" The teen nearly tackled Ayumu, wrapping her sun-kissed arms around the woman and twirling them both around. "I missed you so much. Dabi kept telling us we weren't allowed to visit."
"Ah, Toga? You— you're touching me." Ayumu attempted to extract to no avail. Dabi froze where he was standing beside Shigaraki, his eyes darkening as he watched the way the younger girl clung to her. Ayumu looked pleadingly at him until he stalked forward and tugged Toga away by the back of her shirt.
"I thought I told you to keep your fucking hands off my girl," he growled, but the teen bounced back, pouting.
"I already touched her now, so can't I keep hugging her? Or holding her hand?"
Ayumu resisted the urge to rub at her arms. "I wish you hadn't."
"Daaaaabi, lemme go!"
"Ya gonna keep your hands to yourself?" He shook her so that she jostled against the floor.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, damn." When she was finally released, she scuffed her way over to Twice and leaned against the larger man. "Dabi is so mean."
Dabi pulled Ayumu against him and planted a possessive kiss on her forehead. "You okay, baby?"
She shoved ineffectually against his chest. "No, I'm terrified of the big, bad high schooler." She knew Himiko Toga was a blood fiend and dangerous in her own right, but she also thought the girl was probably one of the least dangerous of people surrounding her.
Her gaze flicked between Dabi and Shigaraki, both of whom were unstable and had Quirks as dangerous as was possible to exist. Compress may have seemed harmless enough with his showmanship and genteel manners, but there was something decidedly seedy beneath his soft eyes and shaggy hair when he smiled at her. Twice was unstable as all fuck thanks to issues she did not personally want to know but could guess stemmed from his refusal to duplicate himself, and his additional insistence on wearing a mask 24/7.
Fuck, she was really in a dark place with this bunch.
Wait. It seemed there was something, some one missing in her estimation of the lethality of the League: a certain looming void.
When Dabi had dragged her to his seat around the surprisingly organized meeting room, Ayumu leaned and murmured so that only he could hear. "Where is Kurogiri?"
He sneered. "Taken while we were putting that yakuza scum in his place."
The woman frowned and thought over that. She hadn't learned the conclusion of whatever took place with Overhaul. Just that it was handled. And that it had been somehow satisfying. Of Kurogiri's capture she'd heard nothing.
"It's nice to see you out and about. Get tired of laying on your back all the time?"
By the twitch of Twice's hands where they sat on the table, she could practically see the anxiety rolling off him. After all, Ayumu and he were not very familiar, and she was still uncertain about him as he was with her.
She chose to ignore the second part, and it seemed like the proper way to go about it. "It's good to be out; I think Dabi got tired of me begging to leave the apartment."
"Damn straight." Dabi wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to stand between his sprawling legs. He nuzzled against the sensitive skin at the juncture of throat and shoulder and planted a hot kiss. "Gotta keep my bitch happy, I guess."
She snorted. "Yes, my happiness is such a priority for you."
"Believe it or not, dollface, I would rather you enjoy our time together. Not that I won't enjoy it either way, but still." His fingers interlocked over her stomach and he planted his chin on her shoulder. "Oi. What's that phrase? 'Happy wife, happy life' or something."
"Do not call me that." Ayumu shuddered violently.
"What? You might as well be. My pretty little housewife, always waiting at home at the end of the night. One of these days I'll come in to find you barefoot cooking in my kitchen." His hands squeezed over her belly and she wrinkled her nose.
"Doc wants to see her back in his office next week." Shigaraki's voice, so long unheard by her, cut through the tension Dabi had stirred up. "She can spend the night with me before I take her over."
It had been some time since she'd last been alone with the leader of the League; he was busy with something. She didn't particularly mind, though time spent with Tomura was somewhat less anxious than being with Dabi.
That was a laugh. Tomura Shigaraki was infamous for his tantrums, but he seemed serene when she had last spent the night with him, and even more so now. He had the ability to turn buildings to rust and dust, but he was somehow less of a threat to her than Touya Todoroki.
Dabi is a manipulator and does wrong because he gets off on it. Tomura is just… deeply misguided and misanthropic.
It was the difference in shades between dislike and hate, but it was a difference all the same.
"Why does the doctor want to see me?" she asked from her seat on Dabi's lap; he had pulled her atop him while she was in thought.
Tomura's one ruby eye narrowed at her through the pale fingers of the hand covering his face. "I don't know; he did some blood tests last time you were there. Maybe he wants to do a follow up."
She sighed and leaned back against her personal heater as conversations slowly built and merged and diverged again around her. Toga leapt into the spinning office chair beside her, circling twice as she was knelt gripping the back of it, then slammed her feet down to grin toothily at Ayumu.
"We should really have a girls' night. I've been so lonely since Big Sis died. The guys are no fun."
A stab of sympathy spiraled through Ayumu; she knew what it was to lose someone, she knew that isolation after loss. "Dabi?"
The villain's attention snapped to her. "Yeah, doll?"
"Could Toga come over and spend time with me tonight? Let us watch a movie or two and paint each other's nails?"
"What?" Staples pulled at his snarl. "Why the fuck would I let the psycho hang out with you?"
She sighed and rolled her eyes. "It's a thing for women to need time with one another now and then."
"I'd have thought you had enough girl time with your ex."
Ayumu clicked her tongue. "Not time that, and you know it. C'mon, Dabi. She's already done the damage today, and it's not like I won't be coming to bed with you." Her eyes widened and she laid a hand against his chest pleadingly.
Dabi tongued his teeth in thought, drumming his fingers against her sides. "Fine. But you owe me."
She and Toga both smiled beatifically at him. She kissed the corner of his mouth. "Thank you."
"A girls' night, and honest to goodness girls' night!"
Toga repeated the cheer no fewer than four times before they finally made their way down the elevator and to the apartment she shared with Dabi. Toga held her hand and skipped down the hallway, tugging her along.
"Oh, your paintings are so pretty, Aya! You did all of these?" The teen lowered until her nose was nearly touching one of the pieces leaning against the wall. When her fingers rose, Ayumu snatched the hand down.
"It's still wet. Oils take a while to dry." She then gestured to one hanging beside the door. "That one should be good, if you wanna run a finger over it."
Toga's golden eyes widened. "Can I really?"
"Sure. That's one of my favorite parts, actually. Unlike most people, I can touch them. I made them after all." The painting beside the door was choppy gradients of greys and teals and blues and whites, like a beach through the fog then sliced and slathered piecemeal on the canvas.
Toga ran her fingertip across the ridges in awe. "That's so cool!"
"Are ya done touching the art now, knife nut?" Dabi leaned against the wall nearby, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the two women. "I thought you were supposed to be watching movies and eating ice cream?"
"Ooo!" Toga hopped toward him. "You have ice cream?"
Ayumu rolled her eyes but went into the little kitchen to pull out the carton of rocky road, grabbing two spoons from a little drawer and heading toward the futon that served as a couch.
Toga had settled already, legs crossed and remote in hand as she scrolled through options. Dabi sauntered over and grabbed Ayumu, pulling her onto his lap.
"What are you doing?" she asked the flame villain.
He shrugged. "Just ignore me and eat your ice cream, baby girl."
"You two are so cute." The teen sighed dreamily. "I hope Ochako and I are as sweet as you two."
"Who is Ochako?" Ayumu opened the ice cream and dug in her spoon.
"She's the girl I love." Toga sighed again and finally seemed to settle on something. A rom com, of course. "She's in the hero training course at UA. Her hero name is Uravity, and she's just the cutest little thing."
"Oi, can you not talk about your most recent obsession?" Dabi grabbed Ayumu's spoon and took a mouthful of the ice cream, brushing his lip against her throat as he leaned back.
Toga took her own spoon and started to dig in. "I just miss her so, so much."
"You've met her like twice."
"Time is no indication of the strength of one's love, Dabi," the girl countered. "Now shhhhh. The movie is starting."
"Yeah, yeah."
Despite what she said, Toga initiated mini conversations throughout the film, some of which consisted of her asking about Ayumu's own dating history. Toga was apparently pansexual and had fallen in love many times. By the end of the night, Ayumu was certain that she would never want to be on the list of those Toga had feelings for, since part of her love seemed to consist of wanting to bleed the other person like a fucking vampire.
"I just love her so much I wanna be her. And then there would be two Ochakos." She had given another starry-eyed sigh then and gone about describing the activities the two would do together, like shopping and villainy.
Eventually Dabi kicked her out, but not before she'd extracted the promise of another girls' night in the future.
"Fucking finally." The dark-haired man wrapped his arms around Ayumu and pulled her to the bedroom, shoving her on the bed before covering her completely with his long-limbed body. "Got you all to myself again."