Casually dropping this here too to piss off all the "dabi&twice were close" naysayers
Dabi speaks with his actions, not with his words, and his body language is relaxed and open and shows that he's clearly comfortable around Jin. I will die on this hill.
Actually, looking closer, his legs are up on the sofa, shielding him from the rest of the group. He's still an introvert, sitting on one edge of the couch, close enough to engage with the others enough and be part of the group, but still choosing the corner of the room as his preferred spot to hang out. Yet, his torso is turned toward the other occupant(s) of the couch, his arms loose and resting comfortably on a knee and on the back of the sofa. He's not closing off. He's not hanging out by himself, standing stiffly and looking out of place as usual, but posed like he's giving his attention to Twice, maybe to Hawks. He's bored, possibly, with his head resting on his knuckles, but still turned that way, with a stance that's open enough to encourage a conversation.
Now, it's no secret that Dabi is a lone wolf.
Even when he does hang out with the League, he still doesn't particularly engage with them more than he has to. Look at him sitting alone on the couch, with space on either side of him. His body language doesn't show that he's uncomfortable around them, but his arms are crossed in front of his chest in a closed off, defensive stance. The others are playing around with each other, eating sushi and bantering, with Dabi as the only one who refuses the food and the companionship vibe. He's here for business, not to socialize.
Dabi does this a lot, intentionally or not. He draws himself a little away from others, hanging around at the edges of the group, standing by himself, keeping everyone at a arm's length. He's used to relying on himself and himself alone. He grew up feeling like his family wanted him to buzz off, so as an adult he does the opposite of what he did as a child. Instead of begging people to pay attention to him, now he's the one who keeps his distance first. He pushes everyone away, acts like a dick to them to make sure they don't expect anything from him (so he can't disappoint them) and doesn't partake in social activities if he doesn't feel obligated to.
In other words, Dabi wasn't always a lone wolf. He became one after failure to connect after failure to connect stacked up, and he began to believe he was better off by himself.
Enter Twice.
Twice is the anthitesis of Dabi. Besides the obvious differences in demeanour (Dabi is a quiet, contemplative introvert, while Jin is a boisterous extrovert), they also markedly react to their trauma in opposite ways. While loneliness made Dabi close himself off and refuse companionship, in Twice's case it made him cling to the League with a fervor and a protective streak a mile wide.
They couldn't be any more different. Dabi's the resident feral cat who hisses at anyone getting too close, and Twice is a guy who is so friendly he could befriend a rock. If you tried to put a name to their relationship, you'd struggle to define it. They're not quite friends because Dabi doesn't entertain the concept of friendship, and they're not just comrades because—despite Dabi's self-denial—their bond is not impersonal and business-like, either. But Twice's insistence on treating every league member like family cracked a bit of Dabi's shell, too, and the way this is shown is so subtle. The cover art above is one of its most obvious examples, but not the first.
This was fairly early in the series. They didn't know each other well yet. They had no real obligations to soothe each other's feelings, but the moment Dabi agrees with the sentiment and self-deprecates, Twice hurries to reassure Dabi that he's strong, too. As far as we know, this was the first time Twice showed him his penchant for contradicting himself.
I find this interesting for two reasons: one, Dabi hates being seen as weak. He especially loathes the gap between himself and the "gifted" heroes. Yet he doesn't take the remark to heart, accepting it with an apathetic expression. Almost like he knows that Twice doesn't mean it. Which brings me to point two, Dabi is typically a dick. He doesn't care if he's hitting a sore spot. When he feels insulted—or when he feels like it, really—he's very quick to turn a sharp remark against others. He's not delicate about it, either, calling Toga a freak, Spinner a lizard, insulting Shigaraki's hands... Those are all things that relate to their trauma. Yet, I can't remember Dabi ever targeting Twice's mental condition. He notably doesn't do it here, where it would fall in Dabi's typical patterns for retaliation.
Their interaction reads entirely like banter. It's almost... Friendly. Dabi should feel offended, but he's completely chill, dismissing it as Twice just being Twice, and that's the closest thing to acceptance we'll ever outright see from him. With him, you gotta read between the lines.
This banters of theirs extends throughout the manga.
I know what you're thinking. I'm stretching it. They're literally fighting here. How can I take this as a sign of closeness?
Well. Dabi provoking people into being cross at him is pretty par of the course. It's just how he is. And Twice getting so invested in things that his emotions get the better of him is also hardly surprising. But what's interesting here is that by now, they're familiar enough with each other's outbursts that Dabi sees the mock-attack coming and instinctively knows when to duck out of its range. He didn't turn, either, so it's not a matter of fast reflexes. He just... Knows Twice. Knows that saying what he said would push his buttons, but not enough for a real brawl to break out, so he says it anyway and ducks with practiced ease. The action is so casual it's almost like its not the first time they roughhoused like this.
I would bet that it's not. Their bond is often told through all these subtle details. Here, for example, Twice is being his usual self and draping himself over clone!Dabi with his usual friendly familiarity. These people are his family, and Twice is a physical contact kind of guy. I'm fairly sure he would hug a cactus if cacti were to suddenly develop feelings and looked particularly lonely.
But what amuses me is Dabi's reaction. He's pushing Jin's face away, again on autopilot, but not shrugging off... Well, the rest of him. Because Jin is currently hugging Dabi's back, thumping his chest like Dabi's his favourite bro, and slinking an arm around his shoulder for good measure.
Again, the familiarity is in the details. Dabi doesn't play nice to soothe feelings. When he doesn't want to do something, he says so. Loudly. How he acts around Twice is not a ploy to get Twice to be favorably inclined towards him, either, because he doesn't need to butter Jin up. Jin was already his defense lawyer since training camp. But the fact that deep down under that bundle of trauma, Dabi cares about him in turn, is a fact you only notice when you care to look at their body language around each other.
My final (and favourite) offering is this high five. The camaraderie in this gesture is the closest thing we've ever seen to Dabi reciprocating Twice's friendship.
Tell me one time when we've seen Dabi act this buddy-buddy to any other League member.
Dabi... Dabi doesn't high five people. In fact, the only other time we've seen him initiate physical contact with someone was when he slung an arm around Hawks' shoulders during his introduction to the Plf, and that was an obvious power play. He was intimidating him. He was daring him to shrug off the touch and show that he was uncomfortable in front of the whole army (which Hawks obviously couldn't do) or play along, accept the touch, and thus implicitly Dabi's power over him as one of his new bosses.
But this high five here is not a scheme; there is no power play involved because Twice is the same rank as Dabi, a fellow commander of a Plf regiment, and a trusted ally that Dabi goes back to defend.
I find this scene significant because if Dabi was really as selfish, ruthless and manipulate as he poses for his villain persona, he should've been mad at Twice. Furious, even.
Yet, when Twice was bawling his eyes out, realizing he's the one who gave Hawks the intel to send a flock of heroes against the whole League, Dabi remarkably doesn't blame him. This faux pas could've easily undone part of Dabi's carefully planned revenge. If killing Twice was enough, on its own, to make his goals a little harder to achieve, as Dabi tells us, you can imagine what losing the League as a whole would do. If the PLF was annihilated here, Dabi would no longer have the platform he needs to be seen as a threat during the broadcast.
However, despite the fact that Twice gave away vital information and prompted the raid, Dabi knows where to direct the real blame, and it's not Jin. As he's running up the stairs to lend him help, he's thinking "Twice. This isn't your fault. As always, those scummy heroes are to blame."
And sure, Dabi might still rationalize it as defending his interests because Twice is an important pawn in his revenge plan... blahblahblah...
But why the high five.
Why not just telling Twice "the others are waiting for you" and let him reach them as he deals with Hawks? Why bothering to slap his palm as Jin passes by, if not because Dabi simply... Wanted to?
Again, let me repeat that Twice was bawling his eyes out. A pro hero was there to see him cry through his struggles, to see him yell and thrash around, begging to be heard, and only offered silence in return.
Sounds familiar yet?
Yes, yes, I'm saying exactly what you think I'm saying.
In that moment, Dabi saw himself in Twice, saw his own childhood, and extended that hand to high five him out of sympathy, cameraderie, because he knows exactly what Twice is feeling, and how lonely and painful it is.
After all, this lines up perfectly to the kindness he later shows to Toga when he burns down her abusive home. People smile, he tells her, they smile every day in spite of our tears. So let's smile, too. Let's do what they do and stop saying sorry when it hurts others, because they sure as hell never apologized to us.
Dabi's not overt about his affections. I doubt he even realizes he has affections. He's not very in touch with his emotions. But Twice's friendliness and openness opened a crack in his shell, and I think it's thanks to that that he's finally starting to relate a little more to the other Lov members as well. Just a few months before, he never would've thought of comforting Himiko, but he does now. Presently, the only emotion he correctly recognizes and clings to is rage, but he's not the unfeeling monster he poses to be. He might outwardly refuse friendship, but that doesn't mean he hasn't grown fond of the people he spends so much time with.
Ironically, Twice's last moments might be when Dabi came closest to realizing he cared about Twice as much as Twice always cared about the League. Which makes an awful lot of sense when you realize Twice used to be the heart of the League, the glue keeping them whole, the one guy who always made room to make each and every one of them feel less lonely.
In a way, if Horikoshi were the type to add this kind of symbolism to his art... I'd say this cover refects that, a bit. I'm definitely interpreting it the way I want to see it, but... Dabi is turned to look Twice's way, shielding himself from the others with his legs propped up on the couch. -> he's still figuring out friendship, and at this time he's only really open to one person, the first he was willing to see as an equal. Then there's Twice, who's facing the whole room in turn because he always had the tools to connect with others. But he's sitting stiffly, he's not talking, and as the only one wearing a full bodysuit, he stands out. -> He looks out of place, like a guy who's lonely even in the middle of a crowd. Then at his side is Hawks... Facing the group as well, but slouched, making himself smaller, with that ever-present hand covering his mouth, stopping his true self from accidentally spilling out and say too much. -> A guy who looks like he belongs, but who never says anything substantial about himself. What a group.
... And now my thoughts are def running away from me so I'll stop here before I talk about this picture for the next 5 hours
I don't really think Horikoshi put this much thought into poses and potential symbolism, but for me what really hits about this artwork is that it gives us a glimpse of a could've been. An AU where they aren't exactly fine, yet but they're getting there. Already significantly more fine and less prone to posturing than what we're used to at least
