Licensed Villains

Resolve

[A/N: I feel it's important to note that in the middle of typing one of these sentences a cat bit me and I had to stop writing because of the bleeding :/ Y'all better enjoy the chapter because it literally took my blood, sweat, and tears. ]

The air is stale. It's the thing Dabi always notices about these places - what he notices now as he walks down the hall tailing the guard. Every breath is near painful with how unnatural the scent tastes on his tongue. However, it's nothing compared to the eye burning white surrounding him. He'd heard this place was supposed to be fancy, but he hadn't expected the sterile cleanliness of it.

It's silent too. He'd thought to hear the slamming of doors and rowdy rustling from through the walls like in movies, but all he could pick up was his own footsteps and the jingling of keys from the guard guiding him - the rhythmic clink that came with every second step.

Dabi hates every bit of it.

Nearly everyone had predicted so, and yet here he was: ignoring their advice and barreling ahead as usual. Hawks had fallen from the couch when he'd told him, a surprised squeak leaving his lips. Akito had expressed her uncertainties with Sutorimu remaining silent at his side. Natsuo had thrown a fit and Fuyumi had started crying before she could put in her two cents. Izuku though. . . Izuku had only let a small smile quirk up his lips and told him something that might as well have thrown him through a wall.

In the end, his words weighed more than everyone else's doubts. They always would, he thinks.

So he was here, heart hammering in his chest and fingers aching from how stiff they were in his pockets. He kept his shoulders slumped and chin raised, even when the metal detectors blared at his staples, when the guards sent him odd looks, when he finally reached the door with the blocky letters Visitors across it. He pushed on, though his whole being wanted to turn around.

The guard's hand rests on the door knob hesitantly. She looks back at Dabi with uncertainty, the shadows of her face hardly there under the hallways bright lights. She informs him, "He's just waiting in here," but it sound less like a statement and more like a concern.

He's grown used to the look on her face these past few months. He's seen it on so many others. The unsure lilt, the caution, the occasional pity. It had angered him at first. How dare these people treat him like glass. Hit me! he wanted to shout, See if I shatter! But that was not why they looked at him like that.

For all that he thought they hurt for him, for his story that was posted for millions to see, he knew that they too hurt for themselves. They gained five victims of a broken home, but they also lost a hero.

"I know," he responds.

"If you don't want you don't hav-"

"I want to," he says, promptly cutting her off. He knew what he wanted, if only everyone would stop trying to tell him otherwise.

Though clearly still apprehensive, she nods and opens the door.

Stepping into that room is nothing like Dabi had imagined. The night before, he'd stayed up late envisioning it. He tossed and turned, kicking at his sheets while his hands came alight with blue flames and his voice cracked and he shouted frustratingly. He'd imagined anger - enough to burn cities and still have the energy to ruin hundreds more. He'd thought of pain like the kind he gets when he sees his siblings. The sharp, lung-puncturing kind.

But, when he sees his father, he feels nothing.

Enji sits behind the clear pane glass looking like he always has. His hair is no grayer, his eyes no more tired. He is a perfect image of himself as he sits in the the plastic chair too small for him; broad shoulders, scowls, and all. The only difference between who Dabi remembers and this man is the lack of a flaming beard bordering his chin. Dabi near laughs at the irony of it. While he may look the same, his fire is gone and without it he may very well be nothing.