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The world spun. His lungs felt like an actual fire burned within them. But that was the least of his current worries. He heaved his body forward and clutched his side trying to hold together the edge of skin where an entire line of staples had been ripped out during his fight.
Dabi cursed as he fumbled in his pocket for his phone and texted Kurogiri. Fuck relying on others… but also damn it was nice to have people to go to when shit gets bad. After all it was a recruitment inquiry that Dabi was sent on by Shigaraki so his injuries should be Shigaraki’s fault.
He started hacking and had to brace himself against the alley wall. It was only once he got his coughing under control that he could hear the familiar whirling of a portal behind him.
He wasted no time stumbling through the portal and upon seeing the league’s familiar couch, promptly collapsing and passing out on it. Thank god he was someone else’s mess now.
~
There was wood beneath him. He felt the smooth grain under his fingers. HIs hand drifted until he found the edge of the wood. A table, his mind supplied. He was distantly aware of somebody quietly shuffling through the room.
Dabi blinked his eyes open and took in the site of the ceiling. Damn, that's a lot of cobwebs. He turned his head to the side and immediately froze. Terror wormed it’s way into his gut. He felt a fear he hadn’t felt in quite some damn time.
He knew those broad shoulders. The silhouette of that man has been forever burned into his brain. What had happened? What went wrong? There was no way he was back in the hands of him again.
He scrambled to sit up. He needed to leave.
But then he noticed the hair. It was stark white without a speck of red. The man turned towards him at the sound of Dabi’s sudden movements.
“Whoa hey. Careful now. I worked too hard putting your staples back just for you to tear them out again.”
When he noticed the white hair, Dabi had relaxed yet when he met the man’s eyes his breath stopped.
Natuso.
His brother was standing in front of him.
He was looking at Dabi with a mildly annoyed face as though his dead brother hadn’t just come back from the grave and was sitting right in front of him.
Did Endeavor somehow find him? But Dabi noted the familiar surroundings of the league base.
“How’re you feeling? I did my best on you but you’ve got quite the scars.” Natsuo sat on a wooden chair facing the table.
He doesn’t recognize me, Dabi realized with a wash of relief. And another feeling deep in his chest, or maybe his gut, a knot formed. He’s so disfigured and mutilated that his own brother can look him in the eye and not recognize him. Wait, why is Natsuo here? Has my baby bro become a villain too? He has to fight the grin creeping onto his face, just what has he been up to? Suddenly he find himself excited to push and prod Natsuo and learn just what’s become of his baby brother.
~
Natsuo never actually planned to do this. Provide underground medical help to criminals and villains that is. It just kind of happened.
In high school Natsuo became friends with a guy named Asahi. They bonded over a mutual distaste for hero society. Natsuo was happy to have someone not fawning over his Todoroki blood and having the number two hero for a father. And Asahi was happy to have someone to listen to his rants about all the faults in the system. And Natsuo readily engaged with and agreed with Asahi’s endless rambles. It was refreshing to know someone not infatuated with the world of heroes. Growing up with Endeavor as his father showed Natsuo firsthand how corrupt the system actually was. Why the hell was society giving power to power hungry people like Endeavor?
Asahi had a wolf quirk. He would sometimes have cuts and wounds appear on his body and ask Natsuo for help patching him up. He enjoyed letting loose out in the woods and really digging into his wolf side but sometimes pushed himself too far and got hurt for it. Or at least that’s what he told Natsuo.
It was late high school that Asahi confessed he had started to get into some vigilantism work. In terms of the law, vigilantism was illegal and treated equivalent to villainism. Asahi was afraid that Natsuo would stop patching him up once he knew what he was actually up to. Natsuo called him stupid and reminded him that he didn’t give a shit about hero society or the laws. He was just glad to help.
And so Natsuo continued giving Asahi medical attention when needed. Even as they graduated high school and Natsuo began medical school, he would always respond to Asahi’s calls for help at night. Luckily it seemed that Asahi was especially adept at avoiding any major life threatening injuries so even though Natsuo patched him up on the regular, nothing serious had ever come up yet.
One night Asahi called Natsuo in a panic. There was a tremor to his voice that Natsuo had never heard before as Asahi begged him to come quickly to his place. Natsuo prepared himself for what terrible state Asahi could be in but when he arrived Asahi was fine and virtually unscathed. Instead a woman lay on the couch with serious gashes along her legs. Asahi had never brought anyone to Natsuo yet it was clear that this woman needed help and Natsuo would be damned if he didn’t do anything he could to help.
After that night Asahi asked if he could send others Natsuo’s way. Natsuo agreed as long as it was outside of med school hours. When Natsuo started med school he moved into his own single apartment away from home. Thankfully that meant that he never had to explain the random escapades late at night with a packed bag of medical supplies in hand.
Eventually it became a full on side gig. Asahi worked as his contact and would inform Natsuo of people in need of his services. He became a somewhat known doctor in the underground world. Discreet medical attention was a scarce resource for people on the other side of the law. And Natsuo was willing to help almost anyone who needed it. The first time he came face to face with a well known villain, whose face had just been plastered over every news site in the country his blood ran cold. He nearly turned right around and ran to start planning to move out of the city. But he stood his ground and ignored his fear. This man was in need of medical help and Natsuo was going to be the one to give it to him.
He enjoyed the work. Most of his patients were people he could relate to by talking about the flaws of the hero system. And it started to give him a quiet thrill of satisfaction that while Endeavor was out there fighting and injuring villains, Natsuo was patching them up and helping them bounce back. It also helped that even with how famous Endeavor himself was, virtually none of that fame was shared with his kids so Natsuo never had to worry much about his patients recognizing him.
His current patient, infamous Dabi of the League of Villains, looks one moment away from incinerating Natsuo on the spot.
“Who the fuck do you think you are and why are you here?” Dabi finally croaks in an intimidating voice after silence stretched for way too long between them.
“The man who just saved your skin. One of your friends called me in.” Natsuo answers bluntly. He wasn’t going to let Dabi under his skin no matter how much his voice made his skin crawl. He had been treating villains for way too long for that.
“What’s your name?” Dabi’s gaze feels deadly and calculating as he watches Natsuo move through the room, collecting his supplies.
“It’s Touya,” He answers simply. When Natsuo started treating other criminals beyond Asahi he quickly made the choice to keep his name secret. Even if people didn’t know he was a Todoroki and just knew the name Natsuo, a med student with the same name as an underground doctor was just a bit too obvious for his liking. Admittedly Touya didn’t feel much better but the first time someone asked his name, Natsuo panicked and it was the first thing out of his mouth.
Dabi huffs a laugh, “Liar.” He giggles in a way that makes Natsuo feel cockroaches crawl up his spine.
He fights back a shiver as he retorts, “So? It’s not like Dabi is your actual name. You don’t expect me to advertise my name to every villain I treat, do you?”
“Man, you need to work on your bedside manner.” Dabi says as he gingerly stretches each of his arms above his head, as if testing the work Natsuo just completed on his staples. His eyes never leave Natsuo and he can’t help but think that he understands what prey feels like as a predator stares it down.
“How’d you end up here anyways? Villains aren’t exactly popular among med students. You know, seeing as how we are the ones maiming people for you to save.”
Natsuo almost freezes for a moment before catching himself. Dabi should not know that he’s a student. Most people assume he was a licensed doctor or at the very least a disgraced one. Never a med student.
Don’t give him the upper hand. Instead Natsuo took the question in stride, pretending as though Dabi hadn’t made a lucky guess as to his med student status. He probably just thought Natsuo looked young and made an estimate based on that.
“Well believe it or not, I share a lot of views with my patients. Specifically a lot of anti hero sentiments.”
Dabi looks as though he found exactly what he was looking for. He gleams at Natsuo. “Not so fond of dear old dad, are you?”
The tweezers Natsuo is holding drop to the ground with a loud clatter. He quickly picks them up and scrambles to recover. “What are you talking about?” He tries to speak evenly but his words end up being gritted out.
“You look quite like him, you know. Nearly gave me a heart attack when I woke up.” Dabi says. Natsuo didn’t know what to say. He knew he took after Endeavor in looks but could a villain really take one look at him and just know?
“I used to thank the world that I took after mom instead of that heathen. That is until his hell damned quirk started to burn me from the inside out.”
Natsuo’s breath catches. He looks over Dabi’s face again, drinking in his features. He takes in Dabi’s figure. And then looks him over once again. He tries to imagine what Dabi looks like underneath all those scars. What he looked like years ago. Natsuo can’t help but notice how familiar Dabi’s piercing blue eyes are.
“Touya?”
Dabi spreads his arms and gives a slight bow forward, still watching Natsuo with a smile plastered on his face. “The one and only.”
And Natsuo’s world shatters.