Warning: mention of blood, implied prostitution.
Mom shouldn't worry.
———
"We're fucked."
"Calm down, just tell us what happened." Dabi said, sitting more comfortably on his couch.
Izuku had asked to meet in Dabi's apartment, with Hai and Toga as well. He was pacing all around the living room — or the small space that was supposed to be one — not able to make his hands stop moving. He tried to explain them what had happened, he ended up muttering. When he was done, after realizing they probably understood nothing, he tried to calm himself to start again.
"So, your mom wants you to invite your friends home, you said you would ask them, to not make her worry, but you absolutely cannot to protect your identity and separate Karma from whoever you are without the mask," Hai simply resumed.
"Yeah, that."
"Just tell her that they, we, whatever, said no," Toga proposed.
"He could, but that wouldn't erase the problem, she would ask again, and we would be in the exact same situation."
"Yeah, when I still lived with my... sperm donor, I never told him about Dad and 'Pa, and he always asked about where I was going. So you should probably find an excuse, and a very good one."
"But I..." Izuku hesitated. "Do I really have to do this? It's already hard to hide thing from her. I just... I hate lying to her..."
"You'll have to one day or another brat, just get used to it."
Hai was looking deep in thought, they usually had the same expression when they were thinking about an way to show Izuku their hacking skills, it was usually a bad idea.
"We could actually go? Like, Hai and I, maybe? Dabi would scare your mom and the others are too old to make it look believable. If we don't stay for too long, and with fakes names, a bit of makeup and hair dye it could work?"
"Remember you're sitting on my couch, at my place. I can still kick you out."
"Stop arguing you two!" Hai said with a small pout. "Anyways, even if we stayed for 5 minutes, we would know how Karma looks, his name, his mom and his address, it's too dangerous."
"What if we ask Giran to use his quirk on us?"
Giran's quirk was called 'Muddiness', it was an amnesia quirk, however it only caused the said amnesia five minutes before and after a physical contact between the emitter and the target and :
"Ten minutes is not enough. Also, it wouldn't erase all your memories, just make them vague."
"Now that you say it like that..." Toga looked disappointed that her idea wouldn't work.
"Actually, I know someone with a more powerful amnesia quirk. You could still visit Karma's place, and meet his Mom, but you wouldn't remember anything," Dabi said.
That did not seem like a bad idea, maybe with a more detailed plan, it could work.
"How much can her quirk do?" Izuku asked.
"Depend of what ya' want. The most she can do is deleting all your memories for two hours and a half, unless her quirk evolved since the last time we met."
"And you think she'd accept helping us?"
"Gimme a day."
*
Hold waves of memories flew in Dabi's mind as he walked through the alleyway in which he had spent most of his time when he was 18 years old. Faces, words, touches. He hated it, not as much as he hated his old man, but he hated it. A part of him had dreamt of never coming back here, to avoid this place forever, or at least coming back ten years later to burn it to the ground. Yet, he was here. Hoping that his... friend? Could he still call her his friend? was also here. Dabi knew what 'being here' implied, so he did not want to pray too hard.
Going deeper in the alley, not looking at anyone he met — mostly girls, he could be considered a villain, but he wasn't an asshole, he knew he would scare them, especially if they were in that alley.
She was there, in front of a disreputable bar, shyly standing and holding her little bag between her hands as if it was the most precious thing on Earth.
'Hey, my name's Muji!" Was the first thing he had ever said to him, with a kind smile, despite how stressed she had looked.
"Dabi." He had answered, as cold as his own stress had allowed him.
Dabi wasn't surprised to see that she still had the same kind of clothes: the same light grey shirt which, if Dabi remembered correctly, used to be white, a black skirt which was originally a high school uniform one, as well as her dark shoes and high socks.
The Sun was already going down, letting the Moon own the sky for the next ten hours. It was cold, for the middle of June, yet Dabi did not feel anything, not even a little shiver. It was the only good side of his quirk: since he was constantly burning, he could wear a tank-top in a snow storm. On the contrary, Muji did not have anything to protect herself from the cold wind of the night, she did not even have a jacket with her! Her little cat ears on top of her head, slightly shivering, showed Dabi that she, indeed, wasn't warm right now. Her tail was, on the contrary, not moving and kept close to Muji's thigh, in a desperate hope to get a bit of warmth in this freezing alleyway.
From where Dabi was, he could not see much of her face, her hair was longer, hitting the back of her waist whereas, in the last memory Dabi had of Muji, it just reached her shoulders. So he got closer, to finally see her face. When she noticed him, her eyes widened, well, apparently she still recognized him, even with those ugly-ass scars. He looked at her in the eyes. Her irises were not as bright as they used to be, the shiny shade of silver had been replaced by a dirty and dull shade of grey. It had been, what? five years? since they last saw each other. It was not hard to imagine what she certainly thought of him right now. He had twice much more scars than what he used to when they were 18. In the end, both of them had changed, for the better or, mostly, the worse.
"Long time no see, huh?" he said, not knowing how to start a conversation, trying to smirk a little to look a bit more confident.
"You leave for 5 years and that's the first thing you have to say?"
"I've never really been the type to know how to chat, I was more in the actions."
"I know, but that's still a shitty excuse. Anyway, why're you here? I thought you said you wouldn't come back under any circumstances."
"I'm not here for... that. Even if I was, no one would want to touch me anyway. I'm here for you." Muji raised an eyebrow. "Not for that dumbass! Remember, I'm gay as fuck."
"So why're you here?"
"I, goddamit," he sighed. "I need your help."
"You must be truly desperate to admit you need someone's help, even mine."
They both agreed to leave the alleyway to find a more private place to talk. They met a few men on the walk, Dabi mindlessly acted like a shield to Muji, seeing how they looked at her and knowing why they were here. No, he did not care about her in particular, he just needed her for the plan, right. Now that he was thinking about it, even if he wasn't protecting Muji, the whole plan was basically to protect Izuku's identity, and he was constantly helping the brat to get rid of his goddam dependence for the asshole. But, no, he did not care.
They ended up in an even smaller alley, where they knew no one would come bother them and, even if they did, it would take Dabi seconds to burn them alive.
"So, what do you want from me?"
"Can't give the details, it's kinda 'secret stuff' but, short version: I need you to use your quirk on two people. I'll pay you."
"My quirk? If your price is enough, why not. But when and why?"
"Don't know about the date yet, and I told you I can't tell you anything. You'll just have to erase a certain moment of their life from their memories, take the money and we'll be good."
"And then, what? You disappear again for 5 years until you need me again? Or why don't you ask Giran? Isn't he your best friend or something like that?" She said, with a slight of anger in her voice. Of course she has not forgotten about that...
"His quirk wouldn't work in that situation and I told you the job he'd offered was better for me!"
"Whatever, how much will you pay me?"
Dabi took an envelope from his pocket, giving it to Muji, seeing her eyes widen when she saw how much he was offering. He knew that, if she accepted, she would have way much more than with any of her clients and all of that without barely doing anything.
"You'll get the second third when you will be done with your quirk, and the last part a week after, when we'll be sure it'd work completely."
"Wait, there's more? How did you even get all of that?"
"I have my ways."
"So they really weren't kidding when they said you acted like the cliché mysterious guy."
Dabi rose an eyebrow. He knew that people talked about him, of course they did. Everyone talked about everyone, which was one of the main reasons why you should check who you were arguing with, or else you better pray that it wasn't someone connected to an influant person of the underground. When Dabi had been younger, and had seriously started working for Giran — desperate ways for desperate times — had also been the time when everyone had stopped bothering him. If they messed with him, they could say goodbye to any type of deal with the broker. Anyway, he had no idea Muji cared about what was said about him because 1) she had better things to do and 2) he thought she hated him.
As he was about to add something else, Dabi felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He checked it, just in case it was an emergency.
Green Brat is calling could be read on the screen.
He considered this as an emergency, so he answered the call, quickly asking Muji to wait a second.
"What do ya' want brat?"
There were muffled voices that he recognized as Hai's and Toga's, the brat eventually started talking:
"Do you know where we could find blood?"
*
An hour earlier.
Dabi had just left, God knew where, to find his 'contact'. Izuku had no idea if this could work, Dabi knew how to be persuasive, indeed, yet he did not want to celebrate a victory that could never happen. Izuku had promised that he would work on the second part of the plan in the meantime: how could Hai and Toga hide their identity?
Fortunately for him and his friends, Mom had let him stay later tonight, which meant they had plenty of time to work on the plan. He did not have the authorization to sleepover, of course, and even if he did, he would have declined: hiding his identity for a whole night would be too difficult.
They were meeting in one of Brainstorm's apartment — 'having at least one other hideout for emergency is primordial if the police or heroes are after you'. Actually, Brainstorm could have made the entire plan, it would have taken him minutes but, as they had said to Hai: "Together, I'm sure you'll find good plans, don't forget the backups, and if you really doubt of you ideas, I'll double-check them.".
"Okay, so," Hai said, slamming his hands on the table around of which they were sitting. "Who's got ideas?"
"Mom doesn't care about apparences, so anything would work."
"The latest picture the public have of me's from two years ago, so I don't need to hide my face completely," Hai mentioned.
"Maybe hair dye?!" Toga proposed. "Dabi could help!"
"Yeah, that'd be cool! But I'd need a dark color, like a brown or a black, maybe dark red like Dad. My hair would be more 'normal' and less iconic, if that make sense."
Izuku took notes of everything as ideas flew. It was reassuring for him to have a paper trail, even if he would destroy them to hide every trace of the plan.
"And you'll also need to hide your freckles! Don't take it personally! You look sooo cute with them but they're also too recognizable."
"Hm, 'Pa must know about high coverage foundations, so I'll ask him what I can use."
They finished the little details about Hai's future disguise, it was now time for Toga's. She looked embarrassed, as if she had something to say but she didn't know how to.
"Are you okay?" Izuku asked. "We can take a break if you want, or finish tomorrow, even another day, it's okay we still have time."
"No, no, no, it's okay! I'm fine!" She tried to force a smile on her face. "Just, my face is more known by the police, even the medias talked about me..."
"Hm, I see, then it'll probably be harder to hide your identity."
"Actually... it won't."
Izuku got confused, so did Hai.
"Okay, promise you won't leak those informations to anyone else?"
"Promise!"
"My quirk allow me to transform into someone else, but I can only take their look and voice. The thing is that- I need to drink their blood. Usually, one cup equal one day."
That explained a lot, Izuku had noticed multiple times Toga loved talking about blood, or even gore things. Her need to consume blood probably caused her to love it.
"It's sounds amazing!" was Izuku's first reaction, and most honest one. "That would be so great for infiltration! Or crime scenes! If blood was found, you could drink a part of it to help find the person's identity! That would be so much easier and faster!" Izuku started muttering, and mindlessly taking notes about Toga's quirk: starting with what he knew to continue with hypotheses and ideas of how that power could be use.
"Karma? Karma? Are you still with us?" Hai waved his hand in front of Izuku's eyes to 'bring him back', which worked. "Sorry dude, you sounded really focused but we're kinda busy so it'll have to wait."
"Hm, yeah, sorry." He scratched the back of his neck. "Anyway, Toga, is there any reason why you feel embarrassed talking about it? You don't have to answer, sorry I'm- I'm probably being intrusive..."
"No, no, it's okay, you're not. Just, I- people don't usually react well when they discover my quirk..."
Hai got closer to Toga, putting his hands on her shoulders, to be face to face and look at her in the eyes.
"Listen to me sis, no one, you hear me: no one has the right to mistreat, insult, or bully you, because of your quirk, or any fucking other stupid reason. You are strong, you are beautiful, you are smart, you are powerful. Got it?"
"Yeah, I got it," she said in a weak voice.
She hugged him and thanked him for his kinds words, when they separated from each other, Toga asked to simply resume the conversation, as if nothing had happened. So Izuku did it, but promised himself that he would help Toga as soon as he could.
"Do you think you could take someone else apparence to meet my mom? Even if the public know you, no one would notice you if you look like someone completely different."
Toga nodded energetically. "Of course! I just need to find someone! And, if I have to spend a lot of time in someone else skin's, I'd rather like if it was a woman, you know?"
"Of course, totally valid," Hai said.
"Maybe we could ask Giran? I'm persuaded he knows how to find blood somewhere."
"Please no!" Toga quickly answered. "He only has blood packet, so you never know where it comes from. I tried it once and I ended up with the apparence of a weird adult man, it was-" she shivered. "horrible."
"I see... Then, for desperate times..."
Izuku took his phone from his pocket, going in his contact list to find the phone number he knew the most (and had memorized by now).
"What do ya' want brat?"
Toga and Hai were still chatting, but Izuku could clearly hear the person on the other side of the phone, so he answered:
"Do you know where we could find blood?"
*
"What the hell?" Was Dabi's first reaction.
He listened to Izuku explaining the whole thing, whilst Muji was listening. He had not put the brat on speaker, but she had an excellent hearing, thanks to the few cat traits she had. It was not the only one she possessed, for example, Dabi would swear on the staples holding his skin together that he had already heard her purr. So Muji was hearing the whole conversation, listening to Izuku explaining that he needed blood for Toga's disguise, preferably the one of a teen or a woman that looked young.
Dabi looked at Muji. She already hated him anyway, so he had nothing to loose.
"Twice much, and you let us take a seringue of your blood," he suggested.
The main reason why Muji was in that alleyway, was because she needed money, even if that meant let men twice her age — that Dabi would gladly torture and burn alive — touch her. So, yeah, he was manipulating her with money, he knew that.
"What the hell did you get yourself into?"
"Long story, still less dangerous than that shitty-asshole."
"Yet we're both still here."
"Yeah, we are." Dabi stoped himself from drifting back in old, awful, memories. "Anyways, you're in?"
"I need money, and a new apartment, so yes, I am." She giggled.
And no, Dabi had not missed that idiot little smile. Not at all. He was only here for buisness. He did not care at all, about anyone.
———
Update: February 16th (grammar correction)