Chapter Text
On the list of things Dabi didn’t want to do today, clumsily running out a fire escape with a squirming, screaming toddler in his arms was only slightly worse than a surprise reunion with his sister, but still more manageable than one of Shigaraki’s moods. It still sucked, yeah, but at least he was pretty sure the kid had some sort of hummingbird mutation, not a quirk that let it manifest Fuyumi’s sisterly wrath. That would probably be the worst possible outcome.
Yet again, with his current state being ‘sprinting down an alleyway away from a burning building with an armful of toddler’ the bar for good decisions and manageable situations was pretty damn low.
He turned the corner a bit too fast, nearly knocking over a trash can as he continued his incredibly graceful and totally not embarrassing flight from the apartment currently being consumed by blue flames. The little bird writhed again, batting at his shoulders with tiny, taloned hands.
Ever the eloquent one, Dabi responded with an out of breath- “Kid, stop fuckin’- If you keep thrashing around and I drop you, I won’t apologize!”
10/10, Dabi. Good job at this whole ‘saving kids’ thing. He might as well quit his job at the League and just become a hero at this point.
The kid retaliated with a fresh wave of screaming. Given how it nearly shattered his eardrums, it seemed that the scores were Dabi: 0, toddler: 1. He was nearly tempted to just drop it, but the distant sound of sirens snapped him back to reality. Oh, right. The fire. Heroes would probably be here soon, or at the very least they’d send police. He stopped running for just a moment, panting and readjusting his hold on the bird. The kid was still sobbing, but their struggling was finally slowing down. Poor thing was probably exhausted.
He sighed heavily, taking a moment to stare up at the sky and silently ask god where he had gone wrong, and to quickly consider his options. Taking the kid back to the PLF hideout was out of the question. Ujiko asked too many questions when he teleported stuff, and with Himiko’s track record, he wouldn’t be able to leave the kid alone for a second. His own apartment was a better idea, but not by much. It barely had enough room for him, there’s no way he could take a technically stolen child there. That left...pretty much nothing. Okay. Great.
He didn't have time to feel sorry for himself, however. The sirens were getting closer, and he really didn't want to add ‘being caught by police in an alley with a stolen kid’ to his list of problems. With a sigh, he held the kid tighter to his chest and took off running again, slipping through the backstreets of the city as fast as he could for an incredibly lanky man holding an incredibly freaked-out toddler. Thankfully, like any self-respecting villain in this city, Dabi had a mental map of good spots to hide from heroes in. Or take a toddler, apparently.
He huffed, glancing over his shoulder as he kicked in the door of one of his favourite abandoned buildings to hide out in. The old warehouse wasn't anything special, but it was safe enough. Dusty, and a little spooky at times, but safe.
A little voice inside his head whispered spitefully about how this was no place for a child, and how he was making a mistake and would only traumatize the kid, yada yada. He responded with an equally spiteful-
“Fuck off, its not like I had planned to do arson today.”
Which, surprisingly, was true. None of this had been planned. He had just been sneaking to the roof of that apartment complex because he had thought no one lived there and it was a good place for a smoke. He didn't mean to get so distracted by the light in the window, showing off a scarily empty child’s room, holding nothing but a bed that was barely a cot and a dusty-looking dresser. He didn't mean to stare for so long in the window, frozen in place as the kid jumped at some unheard noise and clambered underneath the bed.
Of course, when the door to that sad looking room opened and a man he could only assume was the kid’s father stalked towards the bed where the kid had just slipped out of sight, his eyes full of such a familiar rage, he kicked through the window with full intent to get inside, and his palms lit up in flames with full intent to charbroil that bastard before he reached under the bed. Intentional, but it sure as hell hadn’t been planned. His body simply moved before he could think.
Now he was here, holding a kid he had just snatched from a burning building, and he had no idea what the fuck he was supposed to do next. Somehow, he got the genius idea to help calm the kid down. A good decision? From him? Had hell frozen over?
Slowly, Dabi sat down and crossed his legs, setting the kid in his lap and gently rubbed its back, careful to not touch those delicate wings. Wait, was mentally referring to the kid as an ‘it’ a bad thing? It probably was. He sighed, reaching up and carefully stroking their hair as the poor kid cried and cried. His t-shirt was totally soaked by now, but he couldn’t focus on that right now. At least they had stopped thrashing around, he supposed. Okay, now for the hard part. It had been a while since he had last comforted a kid, so hopefully big brother instincts didn't fade with time.
“It's gonna be okay, kid. That man won't hurt you anymore.” Well, he couldn't promise on the ‘being okay’ thing, but that asshole definitely wouldn't be touching the kid again, and the little bird seemed to lean more into the hug instead of screaming, so he’d count it as a win. “You’re safe now, I promise.”
The kid sniffled, but those tiny hands finally detached from his shirt and reached up to rub their eyes. They were still hiccuping and shaking like a leaf, but they were calming down. Okay. Okay, holy shit. He was actually doing a good job. The kid took in a shuddering breath then looked up at him with those tear-filled eyes, and for a solid ten seconds Dabi was sure he was going into cardiac arrest.
Turns out the sensation of having feelings after essentially locking his emotions in a box and throwing it into the ocean was not dissimilar to a heart attack. Good to know.
Now that he was actually looking at the kid and not just at the fear in their eyes, he could see that ‘they’ was actually a ‘she.’ The little girl was tiny, way too tiny to be all that healthy, but now he could see that she was less of a toddler and more of a waifish six year old. He had been right on the money with the guess of a hummingbird quirk, though. Besides the obvious wings and tiny black talons on her fingers and toes, she also had tiny feathers growing in along her cheeks and mixing in with her spiky black hair, and he could see other patches of feathers poking out from under her sleeves.
He could also see a hand-shaped bruise around her neck, frighteningly large and clearly only a day old. If that man wasn't already dead, Dabi would break back into that apartment to kill him again.
However, since he had a little girl to deal with, he squashed down his more murderous thoughts and tried to gently smile at her. Which was hard, given how he was more scar tissue than human at this point, but at least the girl didn't scream. A fact that would be much more comforting if he didn’t recognize the uneasy silence she had fallen into after the panic faded as a defense mechanism, not as her actually feeling safe.
“My name is Dabi,” He whispered, careful to not raise his voice much higher than a murmur. “Can you tell me your name?”
Silence, then obvious nervous fidgeting with the hem of her sleep shirt, followed by more silence. Unsurprising, but still disappointing. Maybe he really was losing his touch.
“It’s okay if you don't want to tell me, I can just give you a nickname.” ‘Little bird’ had a nice ring to it (and it was definitely nicer than his myriad of names for a certain overgrown chicken) so maybe he’d stick with that. He felt his lips curl up, smile becoming a little less forced. “How’s little bird sound, kid?”
The kid’s eyes widened, the feathers puffing up slightly. Was that a good thing? Maybe he was being rude, or maybe she had just realized how jacked his face was and decided to start crying again. Dabi prepared himself for more sobbing, expecting her to try to run or something. He didn't expect her to flash him a tiny smile and nod, the tears in her eyes almost completely gone. There was that fist squeezing his heart again. Should he go to the doctor or something? This was beginning to get concerning. Wait, fuck. Don't get distracted by possible cardiac arrest, focus on the kid.
Speaking of the kid, she had just made a sound that wasn't heart wrenching sobs. She was looking down now, pulling at the hem of her shirt so hard he was almost worried it would rip. “Um...Dabi-san? Can I...can I ask you something?”
“‘Course you can, little bird. And just call me Dabi.” He’d be flattered by the honorifics if he didn't know any better. Once again, he found himself wishing he had done more than just roast the kid’s piece of shit father.
She took a deep breath, wings fluttering behind her for a few seconds. It must’ve been a nervous habit, but she quickly stopped and ended up looking down and biting her lip instead. “When you said that Dad couldn't hurt me anymore...d-did you mean it?”
So few words, but so much was being left unsaid and understood anyway. ‘Are you going to take me back? Do you even believe me in the first place?’ Had it been the first time someone noticed something wrong, or was Dabi simply the first to actually step in? Her voice was so quiet, almost in disbelief that she had gotten away at all. That little smile had fully disappeared, and instead she had pulled away from him slightly, tense and ready to flee at a moment’s notice.
Dabi’s face crumbled, his eyes widening in recognition. God. He had seen this face so many times before, sometimes even just in the mirror. “I promise, kid. He will never lay a hand on you again. I made sure of it.” His voice came out hoarser than he intended, and for a moment he was worried that he had scared her.
Instead, she sighed out a breath neither of them had even realized she had been holding, the tension leaking out of her shoulders. She rubbed at her nose and looked up at him, eyes filling with silent, relieved tears, and finally she allowed herself to collapse against him, curling up in his lap and hiding her face in his chest. He sighed quietly, arms wrapping around her and acting as a shield between the chilled air of the warehouse and her trembling frame.
A few minutes later, she mumbled something against his shirt so quietly that he almost missed it.
“I’m Sorano.” A moment passed, and he felt her little hands pull tighter on the fabric of his coat before it was followed by a murmur. “Thank you for saving me.”
Dabi reached up and gently stroked her hair, ignoring his third heart attack of the night. “I’m glad I did, Sorano-chan.”