"You're here?"
"Yeah," you said slowly, watching the confused expression on Todoroki's face. "I..."
Before you could say anything else, Bakugo interrupted you. "What do you want?"
Todoroki was still wearing the same clothes he'd had on earlier for your date. The only difference now was that he had rolled up the sleeves and the top buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned, his white undershirt peeking out.
He looked from you to Bakugo. "You weren't answering your phone either," he said to Bakugo. "I thought Kirishima might be here."
"Why would he be here?"
"Because I can't find him. When we went back in after the initial explosion, one of my sidekicks told me they saw him going into the warehouse to rescue someone, but I didn't see him after."
Bakugo immediately grabbed his phone and started making a call. "Why was he trying to rescue fucking villains? There was no one else there."
"I didn't see any civilians either," Todoroki agreed. "I just know that he isn't answering his phone. When I couldn't get in touch with you, I went to his place, but he wasn't there."
Bakugo stormed off into the other room, still trying to make calls.
"Y/n," Todoroki said. "I tried calling you, too, but..."
"My phone is gone," you said quickly. "My phone and purse were still in the limo when..." You had a horrible realization. "Shoto! Your driver - "
"He's okay," Todoroki explained, coming to sit by you on the couch. "He was already out of the car when the fire hit."
You breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"So....?" Todoroki asked. Noticing your clothes, Todoroki took off his shirt and put it around your shoulders. He watched you thread your arms through it to button it over Bakugo's t-shirt, and you knew he was expecting some kind of explanation. "I'm not understanding. Why are you here?"
"I.... I was feeling," you tried to say as you fumbled with your clothes. "You see, I felt...No, I feel..." Words weren't working right at the moment, each one seeming to stick in your throat.
"She had a panic attack and was about to puke her guts out," Bakugo spoke for you, suddenly back in the room. "We didn't know where the fuck you were. She needed a babysitter, so I made her come here."
"Oh." Todoroki looked relieved. "Bakugo, that cut on your arm, you should get that stitched up."
Bakugo scoffed as he continued furiously texting on his phone. "I didn't need you to tell me that."
You hadn't realized how bad it was when you saw the rip earlier, but now that you really looked at it without his costume on, the cut on his bicep did look pretty deep. He'd carried you all that way, you realized, despite how much that must have hurt.
"And you, are you okay now?" Todoroki asked, and you nodded. Todoroki picked up your dress, bracelet, and shoes from where you'd left them on the floor and held them in his hands. "If this is it, then I think I got everything. Are you ready?"
You blinked up at Todoroki from where you sat on the couch. "Ready for....?"
"For me to take you home."
"Oh. I mean, okay, I guess." A few hours had passed, so it was probably okay to go home. You shot a glance over at Bakugo who was still buried in his phone. He hardly seemed to even notice that the two of you were there, so there didn't appear to be any reason to stay. But even though... you still wanted to. With a sigh, you looked around for your keys but...
"Oh shit," you said without thinking. "I don't have a key to my own apartment. My keys were in my purse. My building's office isn't going to open for a few more hours, so...."
"Don't worry about it," Todoroki said, taking your hand and helping you off the couch. "You know I have extra bedrooms."
"Um...I don't know..."
"You've been taking up enough of my space all night anyway," Bakugo grumbled from the door. "Go bother someone else."
"What?" you said, wrinkling your brow.
"You heard me. Go. I don't have time to babysit you anymore."
That sharp tone took you back a step. You knew he was worried about his friend, so you tried to brush it off.
"I'll let you know if I hear anything," Todoroki told him. He walked toward the door bringing you along with him, his hand covering yours. "Thanks for your help."
"Yeah, whatever," Bakugo muttered as he held the door open.
You felt yourself pulled behind Todoroki, the two of you quickly moving out the door.
------
The next afternoon you peeked out the eye hole in your door, even though you already knew who was banging on it. For a split second you wondered why Shoto had come there - had you left something in his extra bedroom? But then you realized it wasn't Shoto at all.
You debated just staying quiet and hoping he would go away.
"You better open this door," Dabi growled on the other side, "before I burn it to the ground. You know I will."
With a groan you unlocked the door and opened it, staying in the doorway to block his path into your apartment. But Dabi grabbed you around the waist, lifting you up and over his shoulder, and walked in anyway.
"Damn it, Dabi! Put me down," you shouted at him, beating on his back. The door slammed behind him, and he carried you inside, heading to your bedroom.
"Gladly."
He threw you down onto your bed and started taking off his jacket and shirt.
"I'm going to stop you right there," you said, backing up on the bed away from him.
"No," he said plainly. "No, you're not."
You jumped up off your bed and tried to sprint to the bedroom door, but his arms stopped you, wrapping around you and preventing you from making it out of the room.
Dabi sighed and shook his head while you struggled against his hold. "So pretty but so naïve. Remind me why I keep you alive again?"
"I don't fucking know. Are you here to put me out of my misery?"
"No," he laughed and held you tighter. "I can actually give you the opposite of misery if you want."
"Would you care if I didn't?"
"Probably not."
With a shove he pushed you back on to your bed, and before you could even blink he was on top of you, his body pinning yours down. Even without the threat of his quirk, there wasn't much you could do to get him off you. But you could scream.
He quickly clamped a hand down over your mouth.
"Scream like that again and I'll set fire to this whole building. Got it?"
You nodded your head slowly, and he took his hand off your mouth.
"Fuck you," you spat at him the second his hand went away.
He already had one wrist secured to the bed by his hand and now he used his other to do the same.
"Not yet, baby. Not just yet. I want to talk first."
"Liar."
"I'm not the liar here. You were the one flying off in the arms of a hero after telling me how much you hate guys like that. Was I mad when I saw you? Yes. But then a thought occurred to me."
"One thought, huh?" You tried to bring up your knees to hit against him but he only pressed onto you further. "One poor little thought just bouncing around in there."
You cringed as tiny sparks from his fingers burned your wrists.
"Shut up and listen for a second, smart ass. It's actually great that you have hero friends," he continued. "You should become even better friends with them. As much as I hate the idea of their disgusting paws touching you, I have to admit that you showed a real talent for the bait and switch the other night at the hotel. We could make that work with them, too."
"It was only a coincidence that I was even there last night," you said as you tried to push his hands off your wrists.
"Right. A coincidence. If you wanted some dick, all you had to do was call me."
"Not that I have to tell you what I do, but nothing happened."
You tried to kick him off you, but he pulled both of your wrists over your head and held them in one of his hands, his other fumbling with his pants.
"Poor you. Guess you'll have to stick to fucking villains."
"Good thing I have Shigaraki's number then, I guess."
He growled and you continued to squirm under his hold, flinching when he brought one hand to your face.
"You're going to regret that," he said, his dark tone not matching the gentle way he started to pet your cheek.
You pretended to lean into his hand but then reared back and bit as hard as you could. Just as you hoped he jerked his hand away, giving you enough of a window to get out from under him.
"You bitch," he cursed before grabbing for you again. This time his hand was hot when he flung you back onto the bed and crawled on top of you again.
"I could have made you feel good, baby. I know what you like, what makes you drip around my fingers. But no, you had to go and bite me."
"You don't know anything. Get off me."
"I know that I have ways of biting back."
You froze when he held up his hand, a tiny blue flame dancing on the tip of his index finger. You didn't dare move as the flame came near you, but instead of burning you directly, he drew a line down your shirt, separating it into two halves that he easily pushed aside to reveal your bare chest. He grinned and kept the flame lit on the tip of his finger as he stared down at you.
"You don't scare me," you said as bravely as you could muster.
"But I should."
The next thing you heard were the sounds of your own screams when the flame touched the skin of your collar bone.
"What the fuck!" you yelled. You heard a sizzle as his finger start to burn your skin.
"Shhhhh," he said, "Don't wake the neighbors, now. Wouldn't want to have to burn them alive."
"What the hell are you doing?" You felt faint, the smell of burned skin and hair filling the room.
"Hold still, baby, so I can make it pretty. The more you struggle, the uglier it's going to be."
Terrified, you tried to stay completely still. While you forced yourself to not scream, he began to slowly trace a shape on your skin with the tiny flame on his finger.
Slamming your eyes shut, you had to grit your teeth to try to block out the pain. Tears started streaming down your face and you were sweating from the fire, his body heat, and your own stress.
"Perfect," he finally said as he mercifully got off you.
He left you there, lying on the bed, your shoulder screaming in pain from where he'd burned you, while he went into the other room. Without even looking at it, you knew it was bad. Your mind raced as you tried to think of what to do for burn wounds.
Trying not to move your shoulder, you slowly got off the bed and looked in the mirror. Right over your collarbone, Dabi had burned an outline of a tiny flame into your skin. The lines were red and gnarly, the skin upraised and angry.
You were still staring at it in stunned silence when Dabi came up from behind you. You flinched when he placed a bag of ice on the wound.
"Keep this on there. And keep it clean. I don't want my work to get infected." Then he handed you a water and some pills. "Found these in your kitchen. This will help with the pain."
"Get the fuck out," you said behind clenched teeth.
"That's no way to talk to me." Dabi wandered into your closet and came back with a shirt for you.
"You." You had to force the words out. "You... You branded me."
"An eternal reminder of my eternal love. You're mine now, officially. You like this shirt?" He held up the one he'd found.
You held the ice tight against you, the pain searing through your shoulder. He was insane. You'd known it for awhile now, but this... this was on an entirely new level. All you could do now was go along with whatever he said and hope that he left soon.
Feeling defeated, you let your tears roll freely down your face as you stood there obediently and let him pull the shirt over your head.
"Finish getting dressed," he said, leaving your bedroom. "We have a team meeting."
"Team meeting? I'm not going to -- "
He came back across the room to you in an instant; he knocked the bag of ice out of your hand and roughly pulled you to him.
"Don't even say you're not going, because we both know you are, one way or another," Dabi said. The hand on your side was getting warmer the longer it stayed on your hip. "The only part you get to decide is whether or not you go willingly."