You were so happy munching on the fruit snacks that Kurogiri had cut up for you that you barely even acknowledged Shigaraki as he approached you until he flopped onto the bar stool directly next to you.
The air coming off him was nearly suffocating.
"Rules." He says simply, making you pause mid-bite of a pineapple stick. "Don't touch me, and don't touch anything else without asking, especially my games."
You lower the pineapple stick in your hand back onto its plate, maintaining eye contact with the scowling man opposite you. Clearly this was important information.
And this guy really seemed to love his games.
"Learn to protect yourself, or die." He follows up, his voice harsh and unforgiving.
"Tomura Shigara-" Kurogiri begins to chastise, only to be immediately silenced by Shigaraki lifting up his palm towards his misty companion, a silent demand to be quiet.
"You get one support player. That's it. Welcome to real life, brat." An eerie smirk splits the cracks on his lips further.
You flinch at the insult slightly.
No-one had ever called you that before and you sure as hell didn't like it.
A frown tugs at your eyebrows before you can stop it, and his smirk tugs even wider, as though he enjoys the fact he riled you up.
Dabi eventually approaches and stands behind you, you can feel a bit more heat than usual radiating off his body. You almost wonder if he's feeling sick and running a fever.
"I can protect myself." You argue, maybe a little brazenly.
Shigaraki scoffs. "Is that so?"
He turns away, clearly done listing his rules for now, but something told you he wasn't finished just yet. You watch him for a couple moments, aware that Dabi wasn't relaxing behind you.
Eventually, you slowly turn your attention back to the chopped up fruit snacks that Kurogiri had made you, keeping a half eye on Shigaraki from the corners of your eyes as you do so.
He's leaning his face into his hand again, tapping his face with one finger thoughtfully.
It's probably the hypervigilance more than any actual talent, but you manage to sense his hand flying towards you before it even happens, your own hand snatching his tiny wrist before his fingers even get anywhere near you.
You squeeze it slightly, surprised that you can fit his whole wrist in your hand.
"Star!"
"Tomura Shigaraki!"
Kurogiri and Dabi snap at the same time.
There's a flash of blue and a quick increase of heat from Dabi behind you, although he doesn't seem to move an inch. Maybe it was more of a warning than anything else.
You and Shigaraki are staring at each other, your eyes narrowed and his eyes wide with surprise. Clearly he hadn't actually expected you to catch him before he could land his hand on you.
You would feel surprised too if you weren't pissed off that he'd genuinely try to touch you, especially with his quirk.
"I'll make you sick." You threaten, squeezing his wrist again, as tight as you can, trying to hurt him as a warning.
After all, he had made it clear he wasn't going to take it easy on you.
Shigaraki blinks a couple times before a weird sneering type of smile pulls at one side of his mouth.
"Star." Dabi warns again, but you ignore him.
"If I can't touch you, you can't touch me." You tell Shigaraki, trying to keep your voice stern despite suddenly realising the gravity of the situation you'd gotten yourself into.
His sneer/smirk widens, but his hand does try to retract from you.
"I'm the boss here." He retorts.
"I don't care." You reply, holding your grip tight on him, utilizing his frail body to your advantage. "I'll make you sick."
"Star!" Dabi snaps properly this time. He hadn't ever gotten that mad at you before, but you were too busy making a point to care right now.
Something about how Shigaraki had gone from being relatively civil, even if he was a little blunt and rude, to trying to touch you, had hit a nerve with you. You wanted to prove a point. That you might be young, and little, but you were still able to catch him before he could do anything to you.
Dabis flame extinguishes and he grabs your wrist with the one that hadn't been aflame, careful not to make contact with Shigaraki's hand as he does so.
His grip is firm, but not painful. However, it's still a touch from him you're not used to, and so you finally look at him.
"Let go. Now." He says, his voice low and dangerous, and his face adorning a look of pure fury.
You let go instantly, Shigaraki instantly lets out a twisted little excited giggle the second his wrist is freed. The sound is abnormal considering the situation that just occurred, but you're too panicked by the thunderous look on Dabi's face to care too much about whatever Shigaraki's doing right now.
"She really is good at following rules." Shigaraki observes, his voice and demeanor going back to being cold and stoic. He places the creepy gray hand back onto his face.
"Go and get your stuff before I change my mind."
He waves towards Kurogiri, who seems to manifest one of those black swirling portals once again. Dabi doesn't let go of your arm, using it to firmly tug you off the barstool and pull you towards the warp gate. He doesn't say a word to Kurogiri or Shigaraki before leaving, and neither do you.
If Dabi's expression, and his increasing body heat was anything to go by, you knew it was better to keep your mouth shut right now.
Your vision blacks out for a moment again, and you feel that icy air embrace you once more before blinking and realizing you're back in the hotel room, the warp gate not moving this time.
The instant you get there, Dabi spins you around, crouching so he's eye-to-eye with you, just like he always did whenever he needed you to pay attention.
"What were you thinking?" He asks through gritted teeth, clearly struggling to keep his voice from raising any higher than its usual pitch. "D'ya even understand how dangerous Shigaraki is? If he'd have landed that hit, you'd've been gone in seconds."
You open your mouth to reply, but quickly realize that you don't really have anything decent to refute his statement with, so you just shut your mouth again.
He was right, after all. You'd seen how his quirk worked first hand, and you'd even gotten excited about it.
"He swings for you like that again, you run. Do you hear me?" He asks, pronouncing every word properly for once, which makes you feel as though he really expects some kind of answer to that one.
"Yes sir. I'm sorry." You reply, your voice weak.
Now he's let go of you, and your eyes are looking at the floor, too scared to look at his face right now, you realize his hands are shaking ever so slightly.
"Don't ever, ever, try that again. Ya got lucky that time, but Shigaraki is fast. You've never seen him when he seriously means it, and y'gotta be thankful for that, kid. He's not someone y'mess with."
Dabi raises one of his arms quickly, and the flinch that happens on your end is instant. He was an angry man right now, and in your previous experiences, angry men only led to one thing.
His whole body freezes in response for a brief moment before he lets out a shaky sigh.
"Christ-" He begins, before taking another deep breath. "You are so lucky he was jus' testin' you, Star. Don't ever scare me like that again. 'Kay?"
You nod your head up and down quickly, not wanting to upset him any further. You keep your eyes on the floor, your hands clasping each other in front of you.
"C'mere." He says, holding his arms out from what you can see in your peripheral vision, the action really highlighting how his arms seemed to be trembling.
You finally grasp the courage to look at him, your eyes widening when you see a streak of blood running from the seams of the scarring under his eye on one side of his face.
"You're bleeding..." You say worriedly, silently panicking that somehow Shigaraki had managed to touch him.
"Don't worry 'bout it. Jus' come here." He says, motioning for you to walk towards him.
You take cautious steps, but the second you're within reach, he wraps his arms tight around you, crushing you into his body.
He smells nice, even if there is a slight undertone of cigarettes and the smell of something burning, it almost reminds you of mom a bit. The heat he was giving off before seems to have cooled off a bit, too.
He holds you so tight, burying the non-bleeding side of his face into your shoulder, the hand not clutching your side rubbing your back gently.
"You scared the hell outta me kid. Don't do that again." He says, his voice a little wobbly. "Sorry for yellin'. But you seriously gotta know how stupid what you jus' did was. I'm prouda you for bein' so quick, and for puttin' that creep in his place, but ya... Just don't do it again. Promise me. Promise me you won't push your luck like that again."
You're really unsure on what to do right now. You weren't really too used to hugs like this, you weren't used to someone really caring too much about you like Dabi seemed to be trying to express, and you sure as hell weren't used to men showing any emotion that wasn't anger or complete indifference.
"Promise me." He repeats, pulling away from you and gently gripping your chin between his thumb and forefinger.
His eyes are serious, but there's almost a pleading look to them. You hadn't seen that before, and it was pretty successful in getting you to feel guilty for making him so worried.
"I'm sorry..." You offer instead of what he actually said he wanted from you.
"I'll get over it, but I need ya to promise you won't go windin' him up like that again." Dabi repeats.
As though he seems to realize that you can't seem to read the situation very well, and are a little nervous, he finally gives you a very small, and soft smile.
"M' too young for a little kid like you to be givin' me a heart attack, ya hear?"
You nod a little, and he lets out a small little breath of relief, and a small dry chuckle before pulling you back into a hug and petting your hair in big strokes with the palm of his always-warm hand.
"I can feel the aneurysm formin' already kid, I'm tellin' ya." He says with another dry chuckle before pulling away again and giving your hair one final pet as he looks at you before slowly rising.
"Go pack your stuff up. I'll sort this bleedin' out a sec." He says, the tone of a leader coming back into his voice again.
You nod, and immediately move to start packing your own stuff up, not that there was much to do. You didn't want to annoy Dabi again by floundering, so you unpacked all of the clothes that Giran gave you, refolded them and repacked them, and put teddy into your old rucksack, making sure he didn't crush the drawing that was still rolled up in there.
You hoped Dabi wasn't too mad with you to put up the drawing he promised you could when you had somewhere to stay.
You decide it's better to keep your head down for the rest of the evening and behave as much as possible, even if he or Shigaraki annoys you a little bit again.
It was a miracle that Dabi didn't at least hit you after that, and you were more than stupid for not taking that into consideration when you were busy trying to stand your ground with Shigaraki.
You're quiet as he re-emerges from the bathroom with no more blood streak down the side of his face. He didn't really have anything to his name beyond what he could fit in his pockets you'd noticed, so it was really just reliant on you to finish up.
You grab your toothbrush from the bathroom, and make a silent vow to yourself to not speak unless spoken to for the rest of the evening.
*â¢*
When Kurogiri had told you you had your own room, you should have been thrilled.
But you weren't. You were nervous.
You hadn't slept in a room alone by yourself since meeting Dabi, and you weren't really ready for that to change. Not knowing that no matter how hard you tried to fight sleep every night, the nightmares about mom would come.
And now you'd annoyed Shigaraki, you didn't trust that he wouldn't come and sneak into your room at night to come and touch you. To make you rot like he'd made that glass tumbler rot.
Dabi seemed pleased about it for you, though. It was like earlier had never happened. He gave you a big smile as soon as Kurogiri announced that you'd have your own space, ruffling your hair like he always did and exclaiming how exciting it must be to have your own room again.
It wasn't.
You were anxious now, as well as feeling so guilty for making Dabi angry earlier that you had a bit of a stomach ache. You couldn't even finish the fruit snacks Kurogiri had cut up for you earlier on in the evening because of it, and although Shigaraki had disappeared off elsewhere, and Kurogiri didn't seem too annoyed at the fact you couldn't finish them, you still felt like an annoyance all the same.
You refused to sit in your new room alone, preferring to be with Kurogiri and Dabi as Dabi watched the TV in mostly silence as he drank and occasionally wandered off for a smoke.
After a while, Dabi scoffed, immediately turning the TV off as Endeavor, the number two hero came on screen, and announced he was going to bed, so you should too.
So you'd laid on the bed in your room, staring at the ceiling and gripping onto teddy with as much strength as you could muster to try and keep yourself awake.
You didn't want to tell Dabi earlier, lest you remind him of what you did and reignite his anger towards you, but you really were terrified of Shigaraki coming into your room.
Every little creak of the floorboards made you jolt upright, as did every distant thump. Eventually, you could hear what sounded like shooting, which made you think either Dabi or Shigaraki were playing a game, but it wasn't really a soothing sound to hear at the dead of night.
You'd left the bedside lamp on, but it wasn't really doing much to help.
You're uncertain how long you stay awake for, but it's long enough for your dread and anxiety to pretty much spiral out of control.
You even get to a point where you start to get mad at Dabi for breaking the rule of you not sleeping alone. He'd set it, and yet he was happy to break it.
He must have known you'd be scared. There was no way he couldn't. Not after earlier with Shigaraki, and then when he'd gotten mad at you.
When you hear a door open and close in the hallway, that's it for you, and you sit up, listening to the quiet footsteps as they slowly fade away, waiting for them to disappear completely before you slide out of bed, still holding tight onto teddy, and quietly open and close your own door, crossing the small hallway to quietly open Dabi's door.
"Dabi?" You ask quietly into the dark room, the only light coming from the small crack in between the door and the wall.
You can barely make out the sight of his silhouette sprawled over the bed, but it's definitely him, you can just about see the dark patches of his body in comparison to the unscarred areas, even in the darkness.
"Dabi..." You repeat, a little louder.
He lets out a sleepy grumble, his head lifting in the blackness ever so slightly.
"Star?" He asks groggily, sounding a little confused. "What're you doin' up?"
"I'm scared." You explain, holding teddy to your chest as you pad closer to Dabi's bed.
There's a brief silence, but Dabi eventually seems to flop his head back down.
"Nightmare?" He asks.
"I haven't slept yet." You admit in a whisper.
There's another short silence before Dabi groans, shifting a little so there's more space on the bed.
"Come on then." He sighs slightly, lazily patting the bed, the sound echoing a little in the room.
You don't take much more encouragement, immediately climbing onto the bed, getting under the covers that Dabi was laying on top of, and closing your eyes, your body instantly relaxing knowing he was right beside you. Nothing would happen with him so close.
"I run hot at night, little Star. Don't wanna hear any complaints." He mumbles, tiredness clear in his voice.
"I won't." You promise, opening your eyes to try and peer at him in the darkness.
You can't see much, just the gleam of the light from the doorway bouncing off the metal sutures that line the majority of his body.
His body heat doesn't seem too much warmer than usual at the moment. Nice and toasty, like a little space heater. It certainly wasn't uncomfortable, and it was actually helping you finally lull yourself to sleep.
You battle sleep for a little longer, but the sound of Dabi's soft rhythmic breathing, and the heat coming off of him, as well as the added security of just knowing you weren't alone finally made you feel comfortable and safe enough to drop off to sleep, one arm wrapped around teddy, and your other hand curled into a fist and ever so slightly pressed up against the scarred arm nearest to you.
Just in case you woke up worried you were alone again.