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Dabi looks around as the air goes cold. Between one moment and the next his breath is visible and steaming the air. Frost spreads, crackling and blooming like flowers across the street as the temperature continues to plummet, the sky going dark.
The cold cuts his lungs and he takes a deep breath, relishing in the feeling. It never gets this cold in Japan. Something about it makes him feel alive in a way he hasn’t felt before, giddy.
The city is deathly quiet as the water particles in the air freeze. Dabi can hear them pattering against the ground as they fall, like beads of glass, and it begins to snow. He laughs, delighting in the cold his body was made for, lifting a hand to the sky.
Across from him, Endeavor is shivering, waves of steam rolling off him.
"Who's the weak one now?" Dabi chides, his laughter turning hysterical.
Endeavor seethes, his fire flaring. His hands and arms ignite but Dabi can see them shaking, the cold dragging him down.
"You useless, pathetic, piece of shit! I should have made sure-"
Dabi snarls, but a sharp voice cuts through the cold, as cutting and angry as the storm building around them.
" Enji! "
The ground splits, barely disguising the sharp footfalls against pavement as Todoroki Rei steps forward.
Her eyes are cold and hard, snow white hair pulled hard into a sharp braid. It whips around behind her as the wind rises, surrounding her in a hail of flurries.
Ice coats her fingers, spreading in fractals beneath her feet. She's creating an Arctic winter in the dead heat of summer and Dabi can't believe it. He's never seen this kind of power from his mother. He didn't even know she had it in her. She takes long, confident strides across the street until she’s in front of him.
"Don't you ever- " Silence falls, heavy and dead as she speaks. Her voice cracks through the silence the same as the ground as she comes forward. "-threaten my son again."
Endeavor's fire dims, steam radiating in a heavy column around him. Frost crawls up his legs, ice dragging him to the ground as the cold smothers him, until he’s kneeling at her feet.
"Rei-" he chokes.
She slaps him across the face. "Don't you ever call me that." Ice forces him to the ground, shackling his arms and legs to the pavement. Ice bubbles as he tries to burn and Rei doubles down, making him shriek.
Dabi stares in wonder, his heart pounding. He’s never seen ice as powerful, not in the way fire was. He realizes now how wrong he was.
Ice crawls across Endeavor’s face, skin turning red with the cold. Dabi feels drawn forward, pulled by an invisible thread. He watches as the edges of Endeavor's skin along the ice turns blue, then purple, then black.
He crouches down next to him, hysterical laughter building in his throat and he feels the unmistakable urge to cry.
"We match."
Endeavor snarls but before he can speak Rei snaps her arm towards the sky.
An ice spike drives up under his chin like a massive thorn, shooting up from the ground. It bursts through the back of his skull in an explosion of blood and bone.
Dabi feels numb, watching as blood spills from Endeavor's mouth. It bubbles and hisses before freezing and he laughs until he cries, huge heaving sobs stealing his breath.
Rei kneels beside him, her gentle fingers sliding through his hair. Dabi trembles, somehow more frightened now that his father is dead.
"I'm sorry," she whispers and Dabi lifts his head to look at her. There's frost in her lashes, crusted across her cheeks. It shimmers like diamond.
Dabi can only stare at her. She's whole and confident in a way he's never seen; powerful. For the first time he's proud to be like her.
"I should have protected you." A tear spills down her cheek, freezing in place.
Dabi swallows, trying to loosen the knot in his throat. "You did what you could."
Rei's mouth twists with self-loathing. "You are my son ," she hisses fiercely. She cups his face in her hands.
Dabi can only stare. He thumbs away her frozen tear, watching it melt under the warmth of his skin.
"He hurt you too," he chokes.
A furious wrinkle forms between her brows and Dabi wonders if maybe he hadn’t inherited his temper from his father.
“You survived ,” he murmurs. And for the first time, his own suffocating guilt eases. If only a little. “We did the best we could.”
Dabi grinds his teeth somehow feeling she’d done the more noble thing. “At least you stayed.” He’d barely survived himself. There was nothing either of them could do but survive.
“If I’d left-”
“Who would have believed you?” Dabi’s voice is gentle even as he knows the words sting. “He put you in a mental hospital.”
"I should have killed him sooner," Rei whispers. Her eyes fall closed and she rests her forehead against his. "I let him do this to you." Her hands shake where she holds him.
Dabi cups her cheek. "I forgive you."
Rei breaks down and Dabi holds her as she cries. She holds him so tightly it hurts, the pressure tugging uncomfortably against his staples.
It's the best he's felt in years.
~
Dabi pulls away, smoothing his mother's frazzled hair. "Where will you go?"
Rei smiles sadly. "Home I suppose."
"Mom, you can't."
She smiles and there's a light in her eyes beyond the grief. "I never thought I'd hear that again." She strokes a thumb over his face and Dabi leans into the touch.
"What?"
Reis' lips tremble, tears streaming down her face. "You. Calling me mom." She runs her fingers over his face again, like she's memorizing his features. "I missed you."
"You can't go home."
Rei's expression hardens and she sits back. "I won't go back to that hospital. Not for anyone. Not even you, Touya."
Dabi's heart slams in his chest. He hasn't heard that name since he died. He has to swallow back the tension in his throat.
"You just murdered the number one hero," Dabi says softly, voice choked. "They'll arrest you."
"Better than that hell hole." She rises stiffly and Dabi takes her hand trying to keep her close.
"Come with me."
She blinks at him, surprised but holds his hand. "Where?"
"To the Underground.” Dabi’s knees crack as he stands. “We have enough of a network we could set you up with an apartment, anything you need. Change your hair, no one will even know." He knows he sounds desperate and he fights to keep his voice level.
Rei plays with the ends of Dabi's hair. "Like you?" She smiles and it doesn't feel judgmental. "I like the black,” she hums. “It's you ." Dabi can hear what she isn’t saying. As a child he’d been an exact replica of his father. After his death his roots had started coming in white.
"It's white now," Dabi whispers. "Not red." He searches her eyes, looking for a flicker of that fear she’d once had in her eyes. As the abuse worsened she’d always had that look whenever she looked at him. "Like yours."
Rei smiles and it looks like pride. "You are my son," she says fiercely. That gentle smile returns and she tugs on the ends of his hair. "No matter the color." He sees a flicker of guilt there and knows she’s thinking the same thing.
“I’m-”
“I know.”
She takes a deep breath and fusses with Dabi's coat, smoothing and straightening it. He can see her thinking, mulling over what he’s said.
"Could I help people?" she finally asks, glancing up at him. "Like us?” Her fingers curl reflexively. “I don't-" She bites her lip. "I don't think I can sit still anymore.” She shivers and Dabi wonders exactly how many years she’d spent locked away.
Her gaze turns stubborn and she lifts her chin. “I want to make a difference."
Dabi squeezes her hand. "You'll make an amazing vigilante."
~
Before they leave Rei carves a message into the ice on the wall behind Endeavor's corpse. For awhile people are confused by the message: 'murder your abusers'.
As news of his murder spreads and rumors abound, Endeavor's confidential files are released along with photographic evidence of the injuries and abuse Rei and Touya both sustained along with Rei's statement. It makes her a wanted criminal, essentially outing her as his murderer.
There's no mention of Natsuo, Shouto, or Fuyumi. They didn't have time to consent to it and any information that hints at Dabi being Touya is conspicuously missing.
Dabi doesn't need to be told to know it was Hawks.