He had come. He had actually come. That's all Toya had wanted once. It should have been enough. Once, it would have been everything. But back then, he'd waited and he remembered every humiliating minute he spent staring down an empty mountain path.
He wasn't thirteen anymore, even if, maybe, part of him always would be. And that part of him? He could feel it. That part of him didn't understand why his father looked so tired. Enji Todoroki didn't get tired. He was relentless, a towering wall of muscle and flame and expectation, but this was the first time Toya had seen him up close for years now and without any doubt, he knew something was different.ย ย
Something warm and defensive twisted deep in his stomach. Something little and childish. His mouth slipped downward into a blatant pout at his father's words, the expression strange and yet horrifyingly familiar on his scarred face as he spoke, jamming both of his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. โ Tch. Y'say that like we ain't on the cusp of a civil war. โ
With that, he turned his attention toward the roadside shrine. Its faded paint had peeled beneath years of sun and rain. Little offerings sat abandoned at its base โ coins, a cracked ceramic figure, a bottle of water gone cloudy with age. โ Wasn't plannin' on startin' anything here anyways. Been tryna talk to you for years. โ He muttered, though it wasn't completely true. A fight was what Toya expected; a fight was what he thought he wanted; he'd been so sure of it, up until now, now that they were standing face to face.
Their conversations had been brief in the past, and they didn't always come with words. They came with fire and disapproval. Even after becoming Dabi, everything he had done had been another form of that same conversation, but he wasn't that kid anymore, and apparently, his father really wasn't that man. He gave a small huff and nudged a loose stone beneath his boot. It skittered across the dirt and disappeared into the weeds. His pout deepened for just that moment before he seemed to remember himself and straightened, forcing some of his usual lazy arrogance back into his posture, though it sat poorly upon him now; a coat thrown over a child to make him appear larger.
โ Kinda figured you'd wanna take a swing at me, though. โ A crooked smirk rose and strained against the staples in his cheeks. โ Thought that's why you asked me all the way out here. Y'know. Number One Hero puts down the family embarrassment before he causes any more trouble. โ
His gaze travelled over his father with an intensity that might have been mistaken for calculation. He studied the scar on his face. He remembered the day he got it as though it were only yesterday. It was Dabi himself who sent the Hood, after all... He remembered how afraid he was when it looked like the Nomu might actually snuff out the flame hero's fire for good.
Physically, Enji was still enormous โ but the shape he occupied in Toya's memory was larger than any real person could have been. Sometimes that made it harder to speak, although his father's battle with the Hood hadn't been the only thing that remained in Toya's memory. He remembered Hosu, too. He remembered Stain, the hero killer. He remembered watching as he stood, beaten and bloodied, but still alive, still furious, still defiant, still ready to take on the fakes no matter what. A man half his father's size, calling him out for everything.
That's why Dabi was here. Stain had reigned in that smouldering ember within him. He watched Stain ready himself for a fight with Endeavour and felt more emotions than he could ever remember feeling. Some sick sense of pride and shame all at once. The admiration of Stain's cause and his conviction to carry it out, and the rotten, gnawing feeling that it should have been him, he should have been the one standing in his place.
But he still wasn't standing before his father with fury and defiance, even now that he'd finally got here. Instead, his hands are in his pockets, and those sharp blue eyes of his are scanning the mountain path, whether for threats or just out of quiet embarrassment, he'd be glad it wasn't easy to tell. He had rehearsed a thousand speeches for this moment, every accusation fine-tuned over the years, every cruel revelation prepared for maximum impact, but, shamefully, now that his father was actually standing in front of him, none of those grand declarations came.
Instead, what came was small and humiliatingly wounded, something that fell out of him naked, before he had a chance to dress it with contempt or sarcasm. โ Y'never even recognised me.... โ That's when his eyes returned, though, glaring up through his pale, untidy hair. His armoured anger and something worse, something even Toya possessed as a child who didn't understand it โ righteous indignation.
โ I know I don't look great. โ His mouth twitched, โ bit crispy around the edges, sure. Different hair. Way taller. โ A laugh escaped him then, thin and rasping, but not with humour. It was an ugly thing, steeped in venom... โ But you've been looking at me for a while now, and what's more? I've always been around, even before the League. โ
That was the part he could not understand, no matter how many times he'd turned it over in his mind. He had chosen the name Dabi precisely because Toya Todoroki was supposed to be dead. He had dyed his hair, tried maybe too hard to abandon the mannerisms of a child who no longer existed, but Enji was his father.
Enji had examined every inch of him as a child, looking for promise, weakness, some indication that his body might adapt. He had watched his hair turn white. He had known the exact heat of his flames, every one of their ignition points, and the way he held himself when trying not to cry. Was he really that easy to forget?
