AN: I worked real hard to stick to my self-promised update schedule of Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday with this one.

007: meant to be.

Early March; 17 years.

The first day of March is not exactly warm, but it's also not unreasonably cold, and after over a week of cloud and frost-choked weather, the skies are finally clear. Emerging from its days-long recess, the sun bathes the city anew in a brisk, late-winter light.

The weather – sun or storms, snow or sleet – none of it has ever held any real significance to Dabi outside of how it affects his quirk. Even as a child, his ambition and focus had been such that very little else had mattered. He'd never really missed the sun when it was gone, or begrudged the rain for ruining a day outside.

And not much has changed, now.

Not much, but not exactly nothing, he thinks, watching the sun sink languidly towards the horizon from the window of the train. For once, he finds, he's pleased to see it.

Hopeful, at least, that it will help ease his little sister's melancholy.

For nearly a week now, Suzume has complained bitterly about the suffocating and seemingly endless dreariness, expressing a desperate yearning for spring. Like a flower, she'd seemed to wilt without the sun's light, grown sullen and wistful in its long absence.

As much as he'd like to attribute her sadness to the weather, though, Dabi knows better. Some of that had undoubtedly been her anxiety over her errant friend. That's a thought that comes to him unbidden, and Dabi's jaw tightens, teeth sliding against teeth as his usual expression of apathy falters into a brief but intense grimace.

Suzume is, he thinks, too vulnerable to the emotions of others. Too fretful. Ever eager-to-please.

It's a double-edged sword.

Early on, he'd considered bleeding some of that sweetness out of her – training her to be harder, molding her to be tougher – more like himself.

That would be a real kindness, Dabi thinks; the world is unerringly cruel, and the way she opens herself up to it so easily is dangerous, a lovely but ill-fated dance on a razor's edge. It's not really a matter of if she will fall –

It's a matter of when she will, and what lies down, down, down that steep precipice, waiting with eager, slavering jaws.

It's a sentiment he feels he's more than intimately familiar with. And while she's more resilient than he'd initially given her credit for, it's a resilience with clearly definable – and most importantly, clearly breakable – limits.

Better, then, if she could balance herself – if she could defend herself, when she does fall. And he could push the metaphorical knife into her hands, and he could teach her to fight. Who better to learn from than he who has already clawed his way back up from that stinking fucking pit?

Oh, his sweet little sister, malleable clay in his hands – Dabi could carve something cold and unflinching from the soft stuff she's made of now. She would be safer for it. She might even be happier for it, in the end.

Able to weather a sunless sky.

Able to withstand a friend's sharp tongue.

Able to bear the terrible actions her no-good brother is destined to take.

Yes, those would be things she could survive, if he taught her.

But Dabi is not kind. There'd been something of that in him as a child, maybe, but even then he'd found himself wanting for it. He'd not been like Fuyumi, like Natsuo, who'd had it aplenty – who'd had it too much.

Too much of his father in him, Dabi knows, now. Not enough room for kindness.

The grimace on his face falters, melts away to something indistinct and ill-defined, and then –

Halfway below the horizon now, the sun casts everything in a low, fire-gold glow, and in that honeyed light, Dabi's mouth unfurls into a grin.

Not kind, no. Not kind; just cruel. Cruel and selfish in the way of someone who has never once had what they wanted:

Ugly, desperate, and ruthless.

A man starving with his first taste of something tender and fresh, undone and made ravenous –

Made into the monster down, down, down at the bottom of that stark abyss, waiting for her to fall.

No, no, he thinks. Why spoil the meat? Even if salt might help it preserve –

Even if bitter might drive others away –

No, Dabi thinks. He can keep her like this. He likes her best like this. Sweet, sweet, and just for him. Waiting in the park, always, for him. Enduring the way he torments her, eyes glassy with the threat of tears, all for his attention.

With Suzume, it's never a fight, never a struggle. Her adoration is abundant, freely given, even when he doesn't ask for it –

Even when he doesn't deserve it.

And when he'd deserved it more, as a child, back when he'd struggled to be what everyone wanted him to be – where had it been, then? When he'd been better, with more of that long-lost kindness in him – when he'd tried to play nice, tried to be good, tried so hard to play the roles of Nice Brother and Good Son –

Nothing. Nothing. Rebuked, rejected, cast-aside. A mistake, a failure –

A picture his father placed in a frame only to replace him, replace him, replace him – !

But Suzume is not his father. She's different.

There's no begging her to watch him when she never wants to look away.

Devotion, Dabi has come to realize, is one hell of a drug. Little blessings, those soft kisses along the scars of his cheeks, like a consecration –

And he knows he doesn't deserve it.

But when she loves him in spite of that –

(Loves him for him, rot and all – )

Doesn't that make it better?

No, Dabi decides. He doesn't want her to change.

Rather, he just wants her all for himself.

There's still some light in the sky when Dabi arrives at the park. The sun blazes like fire all along the edge of the horizon, a red incandescence behind the toothy silhouette of the suburban sprawl. Above it, the night sweeps in, a heavy curtain to quell the blaze.

It's been some time since the sun has been out this late. Winter will be over soon, and spring nips eager at its shuffling, heavy heels. As Dabi settles down beneath the tree – their tree, still barren of its summer resplendence – he can't help but marvel at how quickly the months have fallen away.

It feels as if it has been weeks. It feels as if it has been forever.

And as the sky burns itself out – as the light fades, and the last embers die, swallowed up at last by that navy-blue eventide – the minutes fall away too.

(Ten minutes.)

Where is she?

(Twenty.)

Unease settles thick into Dabi like an oil-slick shade, seeping in sludge-like to wriggle inside between the cracks in his ribs.

(Thirty.)

It fills him up, minute by awful passing minute, until he feels as if his lungs are full of it –

(And then it's sixty.)

– until all his earlier good humor has been displaced entirely by something rancid and devastatingly familiar.

Dabi feels as if he might be drowning in gasoline.

An old and long loathed acquaintance, this feeling. He greets it with clenched fists and the sensation of flame licking all along the inside of his throat, caged hot behind the snarl of his teeth.

It laps greedy at his mind, and he's suddenly all hellfire, every neuron and synapse set ablaze with it. An hour and twenty minutes, now, and it's impossible not to feel it - impossible not to be consumed by it.

(Forgotten, of course. He'd been a fucking idiot to think otherwise. Cast aside again – )

Had he pushed her too hard – frightened her too much? Played the monster too well? It's not like Dabi even has to try. Sometimes, he feels as if he's only a loose approximation of a human, some awful fucking mockery of a person, constructed rough-shod from skin and bone and sinew –

A lot of which isn't even his own, anymore.

Even still – or maybe especially still, as a monster in a human-flesh cloak – Dabi is wrathful.

(Where is she?)

And in his head, he hears his mother, begging him: stop.

(How could she?)

Natsuo, too tired to talk. Too complacent with their lot.

(How could she?)

His father, again; furious. Wasn't that something?

(Please – )

Better than his turned back, wasn't it? Better his anger than dying alone on that goddamn mountain –

Dabi presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and hisses, lips pulled back from his teeth. There's smoke in his periphery, thick and gray and billowing about his face, and the pale illuminance of his blue flames casts the immediate area around him in an eerie, haunting light. It's brightest along the line of his cheeks, half-blinding in the fringe of his vision, searing molten hot along the scars Suzume tries so hard to keep from splitting into a perpetual, ghastly leer –

She touches him. Touches him, always touching him, her little hands on his own, on his face. Sometimes, Dabi tells her no, tells her it's not necessary – and she tries so hard to be sneaky, sliding sly fingers up under the back of his shirt to find the connection in his bare skin there, instead.

"No," he'll say, turning to seize her palms. "I don't need it."

It's a familiar, sadistic game. Dabi likes to push her because he wants to see what she'll do, even though he knows.

Even though he has always known.

"Please," she'll beg him, like always, when he denies her. "Please," she'll whisper, and there are always more tears in her eyes when he refuses her than there is from the pain when he relents.

And when he does relent, and she does heal him, it's the only time Suzume's touch feels warm to him – a gentle heat, a candle's tender and fragile flame in a dark, dark room that hasn't had known light in such a very long time.

No, no – this isn't right. This isn't her. Dabi knows that, doesn't he? He has always known.

Suzume has missed a night with him only once. Late autumn had left her with a terrible cold, one that kept her home from school. There'd been no way for her to sneak out, forcibly confined to bed by her watchful, fretful mother, who'd called out of work, herself.

Dabi had waited that night, too. He'd been more patient, more optimistic than now. There'd been less to fear; he'd not pushed her near as hard in the weeks leading up to her absence, then, and he'd regarded that absence with mildly concerned curiosity.

Tomorrow, he remembers thinking, confidently. She'd be there, tomorrow.

And she was.

The next day, her mother had returned to work, and Suzume had stayed home. So, unburdened finally by her anxious mother, she'd come to find him in the evening like always.

He still remembers the sight of her, unsteady on her feet and toddling gracelessly across the park. Bundled up in two heavy sweaters and her mother's heavier coat, its length dangled down past her knees. The soft waves of her hair were wild and unbrushed, caught up ramshackle in the many layers of her ill-fitting clothes.

And oh, how red her baby-fat cheeks had been then, because god, she'd been feverish, so feverish, teeth chattering and skin hot even beneath the press of his flame-licked fingers.

Dabi had helped her gently pull those messy tresses loose, all while she'd wept – snotty and adorably inconsolable – about missing the night before.

"Sorry," she'd wailed, throat so raw with it, her little body trembling as he'd taken her into his arms. "M'sorry, so-so-so-sorry, please, I'm so sorry – "

"It's okay," Dabi had told her, gently, sneaking his hand beneath her many collars to wrap a hot palm along the back of her neck, his thumb smoothing over the downy softness of her hairline.

It had been okay. He'd meant it.

And then:

"You should've stayed home."

That had been a whispered banality, because it was right to say so. It had also been a lie, Dabi's mouth moving sweet against the crown of her head – buried with a self-satisfied smile in the silk waves of her hair.

Selfishly, nothing Suzume had ever done had pleased him more.

Natsuo had been too tired, hadn't he? Too tired to deal with another of his older brother's outbursts. Too tired from what, Dabi had always wondered –

School?

Him?

Natsuo had never apologized for it.

And yet Suzume had been ill, her fragile body nearly alight with fever in his arms, sick and weak and still pleading for forgiveness.

So precious. So delightfully and undeniably undone by the depth of her sadness.

Such beautiful fucking reverence.

She'd told him her secrets. Traded her pain for his sake, again and again again, always without prompting.

Only a child. Just a kid, begging Dabi for the right to bear that misery for him.

No, he thinks, and here – back in the present – his fury is snuffed out by the word, quelled fast by the thought behind it.

Hasn't he always known? She wouldn't. She wouldn't. Not her.

It's only a half-comfort, though. In place of his anger, some other wretched seed thrives in the foul mud of his psyche, and when he stands, finally, on numb legs, to make his way back to the internet cafe –

Dabi finds he feels a little sick with it.

Which is worse, he wonders, pushing his hands into his pockets as he slinks through the gates of the park –

Anger?

Or fear?

The next night comes, and the next night passes, and Suzume does not come to meet him. It's the same the next day, and the day after that, and Dabi finds that little seed truly begins to take root, flourishing in the mounting muck of his mind.

So Dabi comes to the park earlier and earlier, made ever more bold by a growing and awful sense of desperation. It's a feeling he hates; it reminds him too much of being a child – empty, so empty, trying any and every play he can think of for results he knows he'll never get.

It's risky, too. There are people in the park when he comes early enough for the sun to still be up. He comes, anyway.

Comes, and finds nothing.

With each passing hour, the notion that something is very wrong grows, and the seed of his concern flowers sick into a real and suffocating sense of dread. By midweek, Dabi finds himself sleeping less, eating less. It's difficult to even motivate himself to do what he knows he needs to, trading time that should be spent eking out his meager living to instead haunt the street across from her school like a ghost.

Two more days pass, and whether coming or going, Dabi never once sees his little sister amongst the throng of excitable children.

And then, it's Saturday.

Dabi arrives at the park early just as the sun begins to crest the horizon. The morning itself is blessedly mild, and very much a boon for his intentions. The sky is absent of clouds, the temperature brisk but not really chilly, and the children who begin to filter in a little after him seem excited for it, wild and careless in their light weather jackets.

Dressed in a hoodie of his own, Dabi stands to the side of the path circling the park and makes a show of stretching. It's not a color he'd usually choose. Its blue shade is particularly bland and intentionally inoffensive, too light for his liking, but he figures it will serve well where gray or navy or black will not.

It's important, he knows, to remain as inconspicuous as possible. It's why he'd bought it the night before, at a second-hand shop, with money he'd struggled to justify spending.

He's struggled to justify all of this, of course, but still –

Here he is.

The consideration seems to be paying off, though. Most children's curiosity is a flighty, impersonal thing, and aside from a handful of curious glances up at the scars of his naked face – because who exercises in a face mask? – Dabi remains otherwise invisible to the park's growing surge of visitors.

Not for the first time, he's thankful most aren't like Suzume.

So, mostly free to observe the visitors, Dabi people-watches.

It isn't that he expects to find Suzume among the crowds. Something is wrong, he's certain of it; it's just a matter of what. The obvious answer is her family, because isn't it always family? Serious problems come in two varieties in Dabi's experience: family, and heroes, and Suzume has an excessive helping of both.

(Where there's smoke, as they say.)

No, he's at the park for something else: for clues, for hints, for answers to questions Dabi deeply regrets not having bullied out of her long before now.

The big one, of course, is her name. Suzume is not much to go off of without a family name attached to it, but she'd been especially stubborn about giving that up, realizing even at her age that it was a potent bargaining chip. Dabi wanted it, and she knew it, so she'd used it to try and barter for things she'd been keen on, herself:

Things like his name, and whether he had any actual siblings.

What his parents were like.

These weren't things Dabi had any intention of sharing, and he'd refused her every time. Assuming he had all the time in the world to needle it free for much less than it was worth, though, was proving to be a critical mistake.

There are lesser problems, too. Dabi knows which building in her apartment complex is hers, and he's fairly certain he knows the floor. The actual apartment, though, remains a mystery he hadn't even been curious about before necessity had gone and made it terribly important. Late last night, he'd stalked up and down each floor, increasingly agitated to discover that apartment dwellers did not decorate their front doors with nameplates like house owners often did. There was no expectation that he'd know her surname on sight – but there is a lot one can do with a sea of names and the internet.

Frugal living and strict apartment rules, though, had seen those hopes dashed.

Back to square one, then. Back at the park. The comfort of successfully blending in does little to assuage the looming disquiet of what he'll be forced to do if this, too, results in failure.

Escalate and risk everything?

Give up?

He hates the way his mind reels at either of those choices. It's too much, he thinks – this is too much. Dabi is in much too deep, and he hates it, hates it, hates it –

"Katsuki!" A furious, feminine voice cuts through his darkening thoughts from somewhere not-so-far-away. "You come back here and – you come back here and apologize this instant, so help me – "

And then there's the sound of feet, heavy and thudding through the grass, coming up fast from somewhere behind his left shoulder.

Pretending not to notice, Dabi sinks low into another stretch, left leg pushed out to the side – and a half second later, a blonde boy with wild hair connects with and tumbles over it, spilling head first into the dew-damp grass.

As ungainly as the fall is, the boy is lightning quick on the recovery. Righting himself with an easy dexterity that would be surprising if Dabi wasn't already certain he knows exactly who this kid is, the boy snaps to his feet. Pivoting on his heels, he turns to fix Dabi with a narrowed, red-eyed sneer.

"Watch it," the boy hisses, glowering up at Dabi without a shred of concern, hands at his sides balled into tight, trembling fists.

On Suzume, Dabi finds the gesture unspeakably cute. It makes him want to tease her, to overwhelm her until she surrenders her anger in favor of shy, if grumbly, deference.

On Katsuki, though –

Oh, he really wants to hurt this kid.

Instead, Dabi only straightens himself to his full height, fixing the boy with an unblinking and inscrutable gaze.

Something like resentment crosses Katsuki's boyish but severe features. It's a feeling Dabi recognizes, because he felt it himself often growing up.

Katsuki's voice raises a hair in volume, more scathing than before. "Oh, yeah, think just because you're taller'n me – "

"Katsuki!"

The woman's voice is close behind them now, and Dabi watches Katsuki cast an angry glance at its source before fixing Dabi with one final, pointed scowl.

And then Katsuki is off again, tearing a charge through the trees.

"That brat!" There's the weight of a hand on Dabi's shoulder, suddenly, and then it's gone. Turning, he comes face to face with two women he immediately recognizes as Suzume's mother's friends. Trailing a few meters behind them is a dark green haired boy, sullen-faced, blood spotting red and angry across the right knee of his jeans.

The blonde woman – obviously Katsuki's mother, because aside from her feminine features, she looks just like him – is closest. Drawing her hand back, she holds both before her with a surprising amount of propriety, sweeping down low into a bow before Dabi can even really react.

"I'm so sorry for his impudence," he hears her saying. Behind Katsuki's mother, the woman he guesses to be Izuku's mother hangs back a bit from her friend, her fingers worrying at the sleeve of her jacket. The boy – undoubtedly her son, Izuku – draws closer, fisting a hand in the back of his mother's jacket.

"It's how kids are," Dabi says with a shrug. It's the truth. It's how he was, he knows. How he is, still, to some degree.

And while it's not meant as forgiveness, Dabi is more than willing to let her believe it is. It's undoubtedly better than telling her how much he's fantasized about killing her son for the last several months, after all.

Straightening up, the blonde woman fixes him with a generous but tired smile, his faux-forgiveness evidently accepted. "He's just – well, he's always a bit of a brat, but he's just been – he's been going through it, the last week. And you know, kids and adversity, they don't always handle it well."

"Oh yeah?" Dabi keeps his voice steady with just the right amount of indifference. "How come?"

She seems to read his interest as purely polite, just as he intended. She also seems eager to make excuses for her son's poor behavior – something he remembers his own mother doing for him. "One of his closest friends – well, the two of them really got into it at the beginning of the week, like kids do – and then, now, suddenly…"

A guilty expression darkens her features. Dabi casts a look over his shoulder in the direction Katsuki fled before turning to fix the boy's mother with slightly raised eyebrows.

This, also, has its intended effect. Katsuki's mother shifts her weight from one foot to another, her brows knitting together in apparent discomfort. "Well, and now his friend's gone missing, and he's been – well, he's been inconsolable." She's quiet for a moment, and then: "And he doesn't handle being sad very well."

Missing. It's exactly the level of Wrong Dabi has been expecting, but it has him reeling all the same. It takes every ounce of restraint to keep his expression passive – save, of course, for the requisite amount of socially conventional surprise as expected of a stranger in his position.

He's mindful enough to widen his eyes, just a bit.

"Her mother, too." It's Izuku's mother, this time, much more soft-spoken than her blonde friend. The dark haired woman's gaze drifts between Dabi and Katsuki's mother, heavy with a sad kind of anxiety – an expression her son, from behind her, mirrors almost exactly. "It's as if they've both… disappeared. The mail man said their mail is really starting to fill up their box…"

Mail. Mail. No change in expression would be merited here, and he's mindful of that. But inwardly, something inside of Dabi shifts, and he tucks that thought away. Careful, careful, careful, he cautions himself. Be interested, but not too interested. "That's terrible," he says, again with the appropriate amount of concern. "The police gotten involved?"

Katsuki's mother shakes her head, but it's her friend who answers him. "After the mail man's comment, I did try to call. They said they'd look into it, but – "

"Nothing?" He offers.

Izuku's mother shakes her head, pensively. Shifting to stand beside his mother, Izuku takes her hand and frowns at the ground, rubbing his free hand against his wounded leg.

Dabi resists the urge to make some snide comment about the police. Something fucky is clearly at play, here, and if her father is a hero –

Well.

Instead, he tucks his hands into his hoodie's pocket and shakes his head, fixing Katsuki's mother with as sympathetic a look as he can manage. "Well. Given the circumstance, I can understand why he'd be upset."

Upset. The word doesn't even begin to cover the scope of how Dabi feels. There's a ringing in his ears, and his stomach is sour with it, hot with it.

Angry with it.

It's nothing that Katsuki's mother realizes, of course – Dabi's mask hasn't slipped once. She's satisfied enough with his understanding, and while the relief that washes over her face doesn't fully erase her obvious uneasiness, Dabi suspects that has little to do with him. Suzume had said these women were her mother's friends. That they'd be more concerned with Suzume and her mother's joint disappearance over Katsuki's outburst at a stranger is a given.

Still, Katsuki's mother's voice is warm with respect when she tells him, "I truly appreciate your patience with him, young man."

"Yeah," he says, returning a second of Katsuki's mother's bows with a nod. Despite the veritable jackpot these women have delivered him, it's all the generosity he can muster. "Hope everything works out."

Dabi means it, too.

(Just selfishly, for himself.)

Stepping aside to let them go with a final nod, he watches them amble off in Katsuki's direction. Just before they disappear beyond the trees, Izuku turns to look back, lifting a small hand in a smaller wave.

Dabi, pointedly, does not wave back. Instead, he turns and makes his own way out of the park, morbid thoughts twisting with an idea.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday are a blur of preparation.

Dabi makes up for his week of personal negligence by taking some much needed time to address his depleted funds Saturday night. It's as much for necessity as it is a way to kill time. Picking pockets on the train proves to be the sort of distraction Dabi finds himself craving. Better still that it's a distraction that actually serves him.

With his coffers properly replenished for at least another week or two, he's free to spend Sunday morning and some of the afternoon drowsing in an internet cafe close to Suzume's apartment. It's hard to get to sleep, he finds; he's a mess of anticipation, eager to put his plans into action, and he finds the exhaustion he knows should be hitting him after a week of shit sleep just isn't working the way it should. In the end, it's more the allure of skipping time than actual fatigue that finally lulls him into a fitful, light sleep.

After that, it's a quick meal at the cafe's small cafeteria and a trip to a neighboring city to buy another set of unassuming clothes. The temptation to use his park outfit is there, of course; it's not like Dabi to waste money on clothes, and buying more he plans to wear only once feels like another expenditure he struggles, again, to justify.

It isn't the logic of the choice itself that gives him pause. That, he feels, is undeniable. There were simply too many eyes on him in the park. To be seen so close to that park again doing what he plans to do would be stupid, and Dabi isn't stupid. Dabi is careful. He has a lot to lose, after all.

Rather, it's the recklessness of his plan that makes him wonder at his own impulsiveness. Until now, Dabi's life has been very much focused on one thing and one thing only. Suzume hasn't changed that – not really.

Still, he's regarded her as a particularly delightful distraction – something of an especially potent comfort. There's just so much empty-fucking-time before Dabi will be ready to face his father. Days, months – years. There's no way of knowing how much. No way to tell, yet.

No, Suzume hasn't altered his goals. But she has made that nebulously endless current of days so much easier to bear – a few stolen sun-bright moments in the otherwise dreary march of time, time, and more time.

Worth this, though?

Until now, Dabi has always been careful to keep a low profile. The crimes he commits are, by all measures, negligible. Most are things the police would attribute to his victims' poor judgment rather than the malicious actions of a second party. It simply won't do to behave too brazenly before it's time, Dabi knows.

He's just not willing to gamble Endeavor's reckoning by being caught for anything less than an absolute necessity.

And if he's sent to prison, well –

Chances are high someone might discover Dabi's identity and spoil the surprise.

Nothing is worth losing that. Nothing. Nothing.

And yet –

Sunday night bleeds slow into Monday morning. Outside, in the alleyway that runs behind Suzume's apartment complex, Dabi climbs the wall that runs the length of the complex and separates it from the park, angling for a better view. He studies the area, carefully. There are convenient blindspots between each building and the wall itself, made more promising by a smattering of trees and brush. Even so, if her apartment's mail comes in the day time, it will still be exceedingly risky –

But Dabi finds himself feeling more confident with each passing hour.

Nothing is worth losing sight of his goal. He knows that.

So, Dabi tells himself that losing Suzume's quirk is imperative to his goal. That she's –

That it's worth the risk.

Losing her, he tells himself, is just not something he can afford.

(It's a good enough lie, for now.)

The hours between midnight and sunrise give Dabi more than enough time to settle his minor preparations. First, he plants a change of clothes and his leather bag in a quiet alleyway a few streets over from Suzume's apartment. With that taken care of, he makes his way back to Suzume's apartment itself, back behind the complex. Nestled in a dense collection of bushes there, he hides a heavy steel pipe he'd discovered while practicing his quirk in an abandoned building a few months earlier.

With that finished, Dabi steals another few hours of especially restless sleep for himself, followed by a light convenience store breakfast. The black coffee and pickled plum rice ball are not the best mix, but between the caffeine and the sour twang of the plum, they at least leave him feeling alert. He eats them alone in the park, watching the sun rise.

It is seven AM. One hour before his vigil begins.

Dabi wishes it was over already.

At eight, Dabi begins his watch. The morning dips low and cold again, and Dabi is thankful for the opportunity to dress for it. Hood up, a scarf around his mouth, and sunglasses to shield his eyes from the sun – the weather makes that sensible rather than suspicious. The stream of people flooding out of Suzume's apartment complex are all dressed similarly, and between that and his slow pace, he draws absolutely zero attention.

Nothing to do, then, but wait.

With hands in his pockets, Dabi circles the block a few times. To break up the monotony, he dips occasionally into Suzume's complex, weaving in and around the apartment buildings, mapping them out until every nook and cranny is as clear as glass in his mind –

At least until the sunrise gives way to midmorning and the stay-at-home mothers trickle out onto their patios to string wet laundry up to dry in the crisp, chilly air.

Then, it's back to the streets.

Circling, circling. Dabi changes pace, and switches direction, hoping no one happens to notice his continued and recurrent presence weaving between the thin trickle of pedestrians drifting up and down the street.

A couple of hours pass. And then thirty minutes more.

And then, as Dabi rounds the block for what feels like the hundredth time, he catches sight of what he's been waiting for.

A mailman, clad in a telltale white helmet and driving a beat up looking electric bike, putters slowly up the concrete ramp into Suzume's complex.

Dabi's reaction is instant, darting into the complex's tree-dotted back alleyway. From the shadows between the buildings, he watches the postman park his bike outside building one's mailboxes, gather up a handful of mail from the storage container on the back, and begin distributing the mail into the proper slots.

The man is adept at his work; his hands are a flurried fan of papers, and then they are empty. Returning hastily to his bike, the mailman drives the short distance to the second building, clearly intent on more of the same.

Dabi waits until he sees the man gather the letters before he slips from the back alleyway down between buildings two and three. This, he knows, is the riskiest part. It is by sheer luck that there is no one here, now – no one in the alleyway, and no one on their balcony.

No one but Dabi and the mailman.

As the mailman approaches building two's cluster of mailboxes, Dabi halts in the shadows cast by the tall building, only a few meters away. Loosening the scarf around his face a bit, he pockets the sunglasses – does his best to look vulnerable.

"Hey – hey!" He calls out, voice pitched into a quavery panic. It's a well-practiced pantomime of genuine alarm; he's used it many times to tease Suzume, mimicking her frequent anxious exclamations until she's red in the face and blustery with adorable fury.

The mailman turns, letters in hand, and regards Dabi with a look of confusion. "Can I – can I help you?"

Dabi imagines Suzume – imagine the sound of her voice as she bemoans some new terror in a game she can't manage herself, pleading and desperate for his help. Always so serious. Always so needy, as if it were a matter of life or death.

"Please – can you come with me for just – for just a moment? My sister – it's my sister. Something's wrong with her – please."

The mailman's face flickers from bewilderment to immediate concern. He's a middle aged man, and the black hair that peeks out from his helmet – unruly and curling behind his ears – is flecked with gray. "Shit," the postman says, and he's moving towards Dabi, letters gripped white-knuckle in his left hand. Dabi catches a glint of a wedding ring before he turns, now completely confident the man will follow him into the complex's back alley. "Is she okay?"

"I don't – " Dabi imitates the way Suzume speaks when she's undone, stuttery and unsure, a fragile flutter in her voice. "I don't know. She's not – she's not waking up, and I think – "

"It's okay, son." The man says from behind Dabi, low baritone voice reassuring in the way fathers on TV often are. "It's gonna be okay. Let's see what's wrong before we get too ahead of ourselves."

Dabi doesn't answer, and in a few seconds, they're back behind the complex.

Empty here, too.

Dabi allows himself a small, knife-point grin before he turns to face the man again, cloaked once more in a mask of apprehension. The mailman's eyes meet his – and Dabi watches them widen as the older man gets his first good luck at Dabi's scars.

The mailman's expression is painfully honest, and it isn't revulsion or fear that twists his features. It's worse.

It's pity.

The mailman let out a held breath. "Are you – "

Emphatic and prickling with a well-hidden anger, Dabi shakes his head. Still imitating Suzume, he mumbles, "Not me – it's my sister, and she's – she's just over here."

The man blinks but nods in assurance, quick on the recovery as Dabi leads him into a dense pocket of brush and trees flourishing against the wall of the park.

"You got a kid yourself, huh?" Dabi asks as he comes to a stop. A quick glance around reveals they are still entirely alone.

"Uh – yeah, I do." The man doesn't seem to notice the switch, Dabi thinks – he's too caught up in the narrative at play. "Daughter 'bout your age, son a little younger."

"Yeah, thought so," Dabi says, sweeping down to snatch the pipe from under the brush. "I can tell."

"Where's your sister?" And it should be an accusation, Dabi thinks. It should be. But the question is so earnest, so trusting – the man's voice still so thick with honest-to-god worry.

The mailman doesn't expect a thing.

And why would he?

By way of answer, Dabi turns sharp on his heel and, in one fluid motion, smashes the pipe at full strength across the mailman's face. There's the sick-sharp cracking sound of metal meeting bone, and then the man is down, and there is blood in the grass and blood on the pavement and blood speckling across the flurry of letters, gone red and white scattershot up in the air.

Without a sound, Dabi steps over the softly moaning mess of wrong-angled limbs at his feet, picking up letters hurriedly with his free hand. There's no time to dawdle; luck has been on his side so far, and he's not looking to push it.

The man makes a kind of wet gurgling noise, and, finished collecting the letters, Dabi spares him a single glance. His jaw looks fucked, and his teeth – the ones Dabi can see, anyway, the ones that are still left – are slick with blood.

Eyelids flagging, it seems the man can barely keep his eyes open.

"Sucks," Dabi says indifferently with a whistle and a shrug, throwing the bloody pipe over the wall. The letters he secures inside of his jacket, zipping it all the way up to his chin and under the scarf, which he tightens around his mouth again.

With what he came for successfully acquired, Dabi hoists himself up and into the park, tracing the trajectory of the pipe. Once on the other side, he picks that up, too, shoving it under his jacket with the letters, bloody side first.

Leisurely, so as not to draw any attention, Dabi makes his way out onto the street, putting his sunglasses back on as he leaves. There is no commotion that follows him – no shrieking, no demands for him to stop. There is only the twittering sound of birdsong and the lofty bubbling of children's laughter, nearly drowned out by the sound of passing cars.

Lucky, Dabi thinks as he waits for the green signal at a crosswalk, intent on his change of clothes a few streets away. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Never too careful, Dabi takes sanctuary in a net cafe several cities over from Musutafu. Everything – from the theft itself to the change of clothes in the alleyway to the uneventful train ride after – had gone off without a single hitch. There's a singing in his blood, a foul giddiness prickling in the corners of his mouth, and he's all the more indulgent for it when he pays for a private booth up on the fourth floor.

In lieu of the elevator, Dabi takes the stairs, two at a time.

Sequestered and alone in his booth, he unceremoniously dumps his leather bag on the floor and settles down cross-legged in front of the blue-light glow of the PC. Carding an almost trembling hand through his hair, he takes in a deep breath, and then another breath more.

It's too easy, he thinks. Too easy. It's all been too easy. Even in broad daylight – even out in the open. It's hard to not feel as if this, somehow, is destiny.

There'd been blood on the clothes he'd worn and burned in that alleyway.

Before that, there'd been pedestrians who'd spotted him on the walk from the park to the alleyway. He'd seen them, seen the way they'd noticed the blood – noticed the wet-red of it, speckled across his hoodie and his pants, both.

No one had said anything. No one had even looked particularly alarmed.

Dabi turns, and opens his bag. Inside, there are the letters, and the heavy metal pipe. There's blood on those, too. It's dried now, more brown and less red. He touches the pipe. Runs his fingers over those stains, marveling at them.

He's done this – he has.

And that had been so easy, too.

No hesitation. Stepping stones to something greater, something more important.

Dabi closes his eyes and steadies his breathing. In and out, in and out, and he smiles around it, smiles wide and wild, air pushed out sharp between his teeth.

Meant to be, he thinks. It's a mantra, now. Meant to be.

Retrieving the batch of letters from his bag, he sets them beside the keyboard on the low desk. There's so much promise in them, in the neat, bloody stack he's made of them, and for a moment he can only stare, his pulse a roar in his ears.

Meant to be.

Taking the first one from the pile, he finds the name of the addressee and types it into the search engine. In a split second, there are pages and pages of results. His eyes scan the first four or five, and then he tries another search engine, and then another.

Nothing. Nothing sticks out to him. The name is generic, and the searches are for all kinds of different people. None of them fit.

And that's fine, he tells himself. It's fine, and expected, really. There are twenty-five apartments in building two – Dabi had counted them out by their patio doors during his many loops of the block.

Suzume's name is one in twenty-five.

Statistically speaking, hers would never be the first.

So, he tries the next letter, and the one after that, and the one after that.

One is a teacher at Suzume's school, her name and picture listed under the faculty section of its website. One of them is some official in the local municipality, smarmy and smug and wholly insufferable in his many online portraits. One of them he can only find by their name alone, attached to a series of second-hand auctions featuring the most discordant assortment of goods.

Most, of course, bring up nothing at all.

Meant to be, he tells himself between each search, feeling his pulse steadily rise. Meant to be. Meant-to-fucking-be.

And about three-fourths of the way through the pile, that proves to be true. The name Meihane Kozue, printed in a simple, impersonal font across the front of a utility bill, strikes gold with the very first search engine on the very first page.

The first link leads to a small article ten years ago announcing the wedding of a Hirabayashi Kozue to her childhood friend, famed UA alumnus and rising hero-star, Meihane Akihiko. It's a sleazy gossip rag piece, and more than a little slanderous with regards to Kozue. The writer – a jealous fan of Meihane's, by Dabi's estimation – seems incensed at the news, bemoaning the loss of Meihane's availability in the lurid, sordid way of tabloid articles.

The level of zealotry evident in the rambling story strikes Dabi as tacky, but more than that, it's fucking bizarre – at least until he backs out of the article and searches for Meihane Akihiko, specifically.

"Fucking shit." The words escape him in a disbelieving hiss as he stares, incredulous, at the screen.

Meihane Akihiko. His name had meant nothing to Dabi. His hero name, though – and his face – do:

Featherlight, No. 5 Pro Hero.

The man that stares back at Dabi from the pictures at the top of Meihane Akihiko's search results make him look more like an idol than a hero. His features are almost delicate, borderline feminine in nature, and his smile is easy and charming and decidedly boyish despite being thirty-one. The soft spill of pale violet hair that frames his face seems effortlessly natural in that obviously manufactured way of people who want to appear effortlessly natural.

Fucking obnoxious.

Dabi has seen this man plenty of times before in the news. While no Endeavor – and certainly no All Might – Featherlight is still a name and a face that has shown up repeatedly in Dabi's searches regarding his father. The top ten heroes are all staple household names across Japan, after all; the top five, even more so.

Featherlight, though, has never been more than a name or a face or a rank. Dabi cannot even properly recall his quirk. The man is something to hate, sure, but in that distant, detached way that Dabi regards all heroes with. Nothing more than that. Not worth a thought.

Now, though –

Dabi frowns at the screen, clicking on a portrait of the man to enlarge it.

It's much the same as before, but more of it, and in better detail. Featherlight's eyes are thick-lashed and relaxed, his smile reflected in them.

Violet, like his hair.

Violet, like Suzume's. They are, he realizes, her exact goddamn shade.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me." Dabi presses his fingers into his eyes and breathes in sharply through his nose. It's not something he wants to believe, but how could it be anything else? The story matches up too neat, too well –

Beloved, promising UA alumnus, married to his childhood friend. Idol pretty, popular with the girls. Rising star. Hero.

Hero.

Hands back on the keyboard, Dabi makes another search. This time, it's a combination of Meihane's hero name –

With the words wife and daughter.

There are a few very brief articles announcing the birth of, at the time, No. 7 Pro Hero Featherlight's daughter with his wife. None of them have pictures, and most of those are drowned out by articles and fan forum posts wholly centered on Featherlight, himself.

But somewhere on the third page, off a link to a post in a small and poorly populated conspiracy theory subforum of a much larger aggregation site, Dabi finds something interesting.

The post itself is brief, and from only two days ago, penned by someone calling themselves feathertickle. It's the title – "featherlights wife gone" – that catches his attention.

From the start, the thread very quickly devolves.

feathertickle 10:31: hey did anyone else hear something about featherlights wife maybe uhhh dying? my friend mentioned something about it to me yesterday but idk i cant find anything

kinda think she just dreamed it lol

[mod] bug0utthere 11:12: I tried searching. Can't find anything like that. Did she mention the site she heard it on? I feel like that would be pretty big news.

feathertickle 12:17: idk she says she saw someone mention it on her feed but cant find it now that shes looking for it again (ﾉД`) thats why im worried i she dreamed it lol

mochipoppin 12:34: worried she dreamed his wife died? does that mean you hope his wife did die? isn't that kinda fucked up?

feathertickle 12:41: i didnt mean it like that okay! jeez lol ┐( ˘ ､ ˘ )┌

mochipoppin 12:42: so what'd you mean by it then? you're not fooling anyone, featherlight has the creepiest fucking fangirls.

PMmeBigNaturals 12:55: dont get why all the girls want his dick so bad he looks like such a cuck

epochintime 13:04: isn't that guy always drowning in pussy?

PMmeBigNaturals 13:07: bro look at his face lmao

feathertickle 13:14: ( ` ω ´ ) whats wrong with his face! hes sensitive and handsome and hes an incredible hero!

PMmeBigNaturals 13:15: choke on his dick harder rofl

mochipoppin 13:15: knew you were a gross vulture, FT.

feathertickle 13:29: sjdflsjljwljfej what! (｡•́︿•̀｡) im just concerned about his kid!

mochipoppin 13:36: no one believes that lol.

PMmeBigNaturals 13:37: more like u wanna make him another one lol u fucking breeder

feathertickle 13:39: (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

PMmeBigNaturals 13:40: r u fucking kidding me rite now u degen

[mod] bug0utthere 13:42: I found something, I think. No idea how relevant it is, or if it means anything. I'll leave it linked here. I'm also closing the thread, you guys are getting way too off topic.

The link attached to bug0utthere's post leads to a screenshot of what appears to be a drafted blog post, clearly unpublished. The date is from the previous Tuesday. Its message is brief.

"It is with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of my wife, Kozue, after a little over ten years of marriage. I ask for privacy in these trying times, as her death was both unexpected and a terrible tragedy. I hope to find solace in both the good I can bring into the world, and in my beautiful daughter."

Dabi stares at the letters on the screen, thoughts racing. What even is this? Fake – real? Suzume's mother – dead? A top ten hero's wife dying would be big news, he's certain of that.

But he's also certain that their separation would have been, too, and Kozue's estrangement from her husband has been conspicuously absent across all the searches he's made so far.

A cover up, then, maybe, or part of one – and that's not so surprising, he thinks. Dabi knows first hand just how far heroes are willing to go to shield their shameful inner lives from the public eye. Featherlight has obviously worked tirelessly to keep the news mum on the subject of his and his wife's separation. An announcement about her death might make dogged reporters more curious about things they shouldn't be – which explains the unpublished draft of the post.

That the post exists at all is also not terribly surprising. Dabi can imagine Featherlight chomping at the bit to announce to the world that he was single once more – only to think better of it before actually posting it anywhere.

It's not like marriage actually precluded him from his extramarital affairs.

Dabi lets himself fall back against the mat, staring up at the dingy yellow bulb set high in the ceiling. Something, somewhere, is very, very off – and his little sister is caught up right in the middle of it.

Closing his eyes against the dingy overhead glare, Dabi cups his hands against his mouth and breathes hot into his palms. Featherlight. No. 5 pro hero. Suzume's mother, possibly dead. It's all so much more than he's bargained for. The stakes, suddenly, are so fucking high. He'd been expecting someone competent from the way Suzume had talked, but not this. Not fucking this.

"Fuck," he breathes. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Risks, risks, and more risks. And he thinks: this is where I have to draw the line. This is where it's too much. Endeavor is already a far-away dream, and Featherlight is what – a few short steps behind that? How is he supposed to manage? What the fuck is he supposed to do? It's just not a risk he can take. It's not.

Another star in the sky, so far away. He wants to blot them all out. They just keep shining, and shining, and shining –

"I want you to be okay," Suzume had said. And he thinks about tomorrow, about the park, about their winter-dead tree, and her not being there. And he thinks about the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that.

And eventually spring will breathe green life back into its branches – and for what? For who?

Suzume, he knows, won't be back. And the tree will flourish, and the tree will wilt, and the tree will flourish, and the tree will wilt, and no matter how long he waits, she won't be back.

I want you to be okay.

But he's not. He's not. Dabi is gnashing-teeth furious, fire building up like vomit in his throat. Heroes, heroes, heroes. Scumfucks, all of them, taking what's his, always taking what's his.

His birthright, his pride, his little-fucking-sister.

And it's too much, it is, but now it's too much in a different way. It's too much in a way he just can't take, in a way he just can't bear. Different in a how-fucking-dare-you kind of a way. Different in a I-will-make-you-pay kind of way.

No, no. Not this. Not again. What had Dabi told himself, earlier?

Meant to be. Meant-to-fucking-be.

And it's fine, it is, it will be. It will be. It will be. Because after all, Featherlight isn't Endeavor, Dabi tells himself.

Featherlight's downfall doesn't need to be spectacular. It doesn't need to be society-shattering.

It just needs to be successful.

AN: i hate writing action, i hate writing action, i hate writing action. please give me dialogue and longing forever. there's more of that next chapter. dabi gotta be ampin up to do something craaaazy.