Licensed Villains

Resolve

"Endeavor," he says.

"Touya."

There's the spike of feeling that was missing. He can't name it, couldn't if a dictionary was laid before him. He only knows it felt cold like hands that don't quite reach or skies that match grey. It grasps at the loose ends of Dabi's thoughts, gripping till a dozen memories are squeezed from them.

The door slams shut behind him. He moves to the chair set out, sinking in to it while holding his father's gaze. It's startling how much his eyes look like the ones he saw in the mirror that morning.

"I'm surprised they let you in here," Enji tells him. Dabi almost dared to think he looked uncomfortable. He could tell by the way he rested his hands neatly on the table like he was trying hard not to clench them into fists.

Dabi shrugged. "Knowing the new heads has it's perks."

Enji's jaw clenches.

Good.

"Only a few months ago people were screaming for you to be in one of these cells," he grumbles.

"And now they're cheering over the fact that you are instead," Dabi retorts. He can't bring himself to grin sarcastically like he normally would. It's for the same reason that his legs are trembling. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, plastic digging into his spine.

There was a time when this reunion would have gone very differently. If he'd saw Endeavor a year ago, he wouldn't have made it out alive. Neither of them would have. He'd have done anything to put this man into the ground. If it had meant Dabi sinking to hell with him, so be it.

Now, instead of roaring flames and screaming littered with cries and curses, there is silence. It pounds into Dabi's ears, traveling through them down into his chest where the lack of sound echos. He had not been angry when he sat down, but he could feel it festering.

"Is that all you have to say to me?" he says through grit teeth.

Enji's brows furrow. "What is that you want me to say?"

He wants to yell that he tell him how much he despises he him. He wants to hear him tell him he feels his pardon is unjust. That he is a failure. That he hates him for succeeding in crumbling his empire. He wants him to admit Dabi was stronger than him in the end. No matter how much he'd hissed at little Touya about how weak he was, Dabi still remains the one sitting on the free side of this glass and with armies of allies backing him.

"Whatever it is you're thinking," he says instead.

Enji's eyes narrow, his shoulders tensing and raising. He sees a flash in his eyes and doesn't recognize Enji, but rather Endeavor. He looks as the hero does when he's in battle, defeating those he believes to be villains.

"You and your siblings are foolish," he tells him. He glares. "You think putting me away will help people, that you are right to drag our private life into the open. I was a hero - I saved lives and now I cannot anymore."

"There will be more heroes," Dabi says.

He has already started to see the new generation of heroes emerge. He knows they will outshine Endeavor. They will not burn brightly like he had - leaving ashes behind them - but instead glow with a light people will reach for. Shouto's class will. The children who now see what it means to be a real hero will. All those that they are going to help with the new commission will.

It's odd hearing Enji's words and knowing they are wrong. He used to hang off every syllable, taking them to heart and turning them over in him mind till they seeped into the cracks of his thoughts permanently. He wonders then if anything he ever told him was true, or if they were weak attempts at salvaging some power like his words now are.