"Are you happy now?" she spat when Dabi joined her in the shower.

"What?"

"You must love trying to manipulate everyone, making Hawks do these things—"

He scoffed. "I didn't make him do anything, doll. He's been pretty fucking eager."

"You are stringing him along and using me as a way to push at his morality, trying to, what? Show him he's a hypocrite? Make him hate himself? He's not your father, Touya."

She was against the shower wall before she could utter another word. "Watch how you speak to me."

"What're you gonna do? Kill me?" She was mocking him, taunting him, and knew it was a bad idea; she also knew he wouldn't kill her. Not while she was carrying part of his precious revenge scheme.

He laughed darkly against her hair. "There's a lot of shit I can do without damaging this." One hand stroked her stomach possessively. "Maybe you'd like to meet some of the less savory PLF members, hm? Take a few rounds with them and see if that doesn't change that nasty attitude. Or I could chain you to the bed. You really didn't like that before. I'd leave you there in the dark, coming in only to feed you or fuck you. How long do you think you could handle that?"

Ayumu stared blankly into his chest. She knew he would do it, and she knew her slow plans against him would falter if that were to happen.

Play the long game .

"You don't want that, do you?" He tipped her chin. "Hm?"

"No. I don't want that."

Dabi stroked her cheek. "Good girl."

She got out of the shower first, wrapping herself in a soft, warm towel since it was colder than she preferred, and walking into the bedroom. Hawks sat on his bed usually cheerful facade now painted with a thoughtful frown.

He looked up as she entered. "Are you really pregnant?"

Ayumu kept an ear on the running shower. "Yes." She sighed. "I think the fucker orchestrated it."

"Orchestrated? How?"

"I think he and the doctor conspired, fucked with my birth control." She slumped onto the bed beside him. "He wants them, didn't even give me a choice." Her hands absently traced her as of yet unchanged stomach. "I'm wondering if all the forced threesomes were to make sure someone had a high enough sperm count, since his quirk often kills his."

"I'm sorry."

It was so soft that she wondered if she had truly heard it. The hero was now staring at his feet, golden eyes gleaming with something akin to sorrow.

"It's—" It wasn't really okay, not even if he happened to be working against Dabi as she was starting to suspect (or at least he didn't fully buy into the villain life). It was fucked up, but… "It's understandable. Don't beat yourself up too much." He was, perhaps, her only possible ally.

He turned to pierce her with that doleful gaze. "I'm gonna get you out of this, dove. I promise."

Dabi was out of the shower not three minutes later, towel draped over his shoulders to catch drops of water from his hair. It didn't look bad not all spiked up, and she wondered vaguely how he might look if he grew it out, or if he went back to his natural color.

"Alright, birdbrain, let's talk business."

They discussed everything in the bedroom, and she laid there on the bed playing with a handheld Tetris that was one of the few electronic things she was allowed to touch. After all, it didn't have internet access. Every now and then she heard a name, or the word 'nomu', sometimes talk about civilians. Overall, she couldn't say or do much when it came to their plans. Dabi didn't exactly tell her in depth about these kinds of things. If she ever managed her escape, she would have only these moments of out of context information to share.

Their voices became a low, familiar cadence, eventually lulling her exhausted form to sleep.

"Keigo, honey, you need to put that away before your father gets home."

Little hands held tight to the Endeavor doll, a pout on the child's face. He didn't want to put it away; he'd only just gotten the little doll today, and it was already his favorite possession.

The flame hero was his favorite character on TV, the absolute strongest of all the heroes, no matter what all the stories said about All Might. He was Keigo's hero, and the winged little boy wanted nothing more than for heroes to be real, and for him to be like Endeavor.

The woman turned away from the stove, sunken, tired eyes settling on his as she tutted. One of the eyes floating around her downy hair kept pointed toward the pot on the burner. "I'm serious, Keigo. You know how he gets. Do you want him to be upset?"

"Okay." The little boy squeezed the toy to his chest as he went to put it somewhere his dad wouldn't see. Maybe he could get it out when they went to bed, and everything was dark.

"I'm sorry, Endeavor," he whispered as he set the doll away. Maybe someday he could be a real hero, if only he had more than the useless wings on his back.

Loneliness. Pure, sweet, melancholy loneliness was what filled her when she woke. It was a common theme amongst the villains she'd dreamt memories of, but this had been different.

Hawks hadn't believed heroes were real, which was strange. Based on what she saw he lived in poverty with his parents. Or at least his mother; his father didn't always seem present.

The memory was a far cry from the flirtatious, vivacious hero she knew firsthand, though there were moments…

She searched for a place Dabi wouldn't think to look in order to hide the feather. Theoretically it would work with Hawks' Quirk as long as she wasn't touching it. In the end, she slipped it behind a canvas, tucked into the wooden frame to stay in place.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, your feather is in the flat now, behind a painting. I don't think Dabi will find it, so it should be safe."

The day was otherwise slow; she worked on some ink painting, had a light salad, streamed some nonsense, then took a nap, only to startle awake as the door slammed shut.

She sat up sleepily from the futon, rubbing at bleary eyes to see Dabi wiping blood from his face. Ayumu frowned. "What the Hell happened to you?"

The scents of burning flesh, ash, and smoke were rancid from him; stapled were missing, parts of his flesh wrinkled or hanging loosely.

Dabi grunted, heading toward the bathroom; she rushed to follow, alarm growing at his bleeding visage. "Hold on." Ayumu caught the bathroom door before it closed. "Let me help."

He already had the first aid kit in hand. "Why the fuck would you do that?"

"Because you're falling apart," she retorted, gesturing at his form. "Now come here." The villain allowed her to grab his arm and lead him to the bedroom. She took the kit in hand and started sorting through it. "I thought you were trying to limit your Quirk use."

He shrugged off his jacket and struggled with the blood-soaked shirt. "Don't have to anymore; you're already knocked up."

"For—" she grabbed the hem of the tee and used safety shears to cut a line down the middle, removing it that way. "So, you're totally fine burning yourself alive?"

Dabi scoffed. "Uh, yeah. Did you not notice, doll.?" He held up his hands, showcasing the staples along his wrists. "It's kinda been a thing for a while."

"Have you thought about what will happen if you die? I'll be stuck here un—"

" When ," he interrupted pointedly.

"'When?'"

" When I die, doll. Not 'if.'"

She rolled her eyes, dabbing at his cheek. "Don't be so melodramatic."

"I hadn't figured I'd make it through all of this alive; just holding out until my revenge, and then I'm good to croak whenever." He shrugged off her suddenly motionless hand, bringing her back to herself.

Ayumu flicked his forehead, causing him to wince like a child. "Don't joke like that. It isn't funny."

"I'm not joking— ow, would you stop being a bitch? I'll do it myself—"

She swatted his hands down, taking up the medical stapler. "You'd better not be planning to just up and die. You can't kidnap someone, keep them locked up, impregnate them, then just— just die without notice."

"Aww, baby, you care."

"Would you stop acting like that." She held his skin in place with one hand and began lining up the stapler. "Hold still."

"I've been dead for a decade, doll. Just waiting for the rest of me to follow the name to the grave." He turned so she could take a look at his back and dress the wounds there.

He was a mess, a ruin of burns and scarring and torn flesh. Ayumu wondered if there was a healer alive who could keep him together. Not while he's intent on killing himself.

She shouldn't care. He had kidnapped her, raped her, violated her in so many ways that she should hate him, and there was a part of her that did. However, there was also a part of her that found him amusing, enjoyed sitting on the couch and eating take-out while they binged Netflix together, even grudgingly enjoyed the majority of what he did to her, barring major exceptions.

And she contained so much of his past now, many memories he'd had throughout his life from abuses of his father to moments alone as an adult, the first murder he'd committed (and his vomiting immediately after), and the death he'd thought was upon him as a boy. She knew him too well to fully hate him.

Thus, Ayumu cared whether he lived or died, and how he lived and died.

"You don't have to die, Touya," she murmured as she finished bandaging him up. "Not again."

He'd popped some pain killers upon coming inside, and was now lying back, staring dazedly at the ceiling; she didn't know if he'd heard her at all.

Notes:

I'm not sure about the pacing of all of this; it's different when you're working with a character outside of the action. I might play with timelines a little, but still hoping to have everything in its proper place.