watch me burn || BNHA DabiHawks

1. hello cruel world

"I want a divorce."

The statement is met with silence. Shouto, who's busy playing with his brand new All-Might plushie – a gift Dabi got for him a few days ago, both to annoy Endeavor and get into his brother's good graces – looks up curiously, while Natsuo exchanges a concerned glance with a frowning Fuyumi. Rei puts a hand on Dabi's shoulder.

"You can't divorce you father, Touya," she says gently, her voice almost apologetic.

"Yeah, dumbass, you're not the one who's married to him," Natsuo adds unnecessarily, sending him a condescending look.

Deciding his family is no fun at all, Dabi rolls his eyes. "I didn't say I was going to be divorcing him. I just said I wanted a divorce."

Rei responds with an amused huff, surprising even herself with her reaction. She smiles at him and reaches down to ruffle his hair. It's nice, but he can't have her thinking that, so he hisses like a startled cat and leans away from the touch. Natsu and Fuyumi both chuckle from where they're sitting, playing Macao at the coffee table, while Shouto stares at their mother longingly, like he would like to demand a head pat too.

"I can't just divorce him, you know that," Rei explains patiently, although there's an undeniable frustration in the way she holds herself. Dabi can see the shadow in her eyes that never seems to go away nowadays. "With his position and financial status, even if I somehow managed to get a divorce, he would get to keep the custody of you all. Surely that's not what you want?"

Dabi can't help but grit his teeth in annoyance. There's nothing he hates more than feeling helpless. Even with the extensive knowledge of the future on his side, it turns out he's still powerless against his father's money. It doesn't help that everyone else seems to be much less eager to do anything about dear Enji than he would like.

They've been having these 'secret family meetings' recently, a little rebellious tradition they came up with to be able to discuss important things without Endeavor looming over their heads. This is one of them. Most often than not, they just turn into them five spending some quality bonding time together, which is great, don't get him wrong. Today, though, Dabi wanted them to actually have a serious conversation, one that they've been putting off for weeks now. It all started after Enji's sudden decision to become a better person. Not a good person, mind you, just a little less shitty one. Truth be told, they didn't even notice he was trying at first. They just assumed he was simply avoiding them, until the man explicitly informed them what he was doing, citing that one fight with Dabi as his incentive. Since then, Endeavor has been attempting to be a little less terrible and is still at it now, four weeks later.

The problem being, Dabi doesn't give a shit. The sooner he can get everyone out of this house, the better.

"Exactly!" Fuyumi exclaims, sitting up straighter and pointing at him with her hand that's holding her cards. Taking advantage of her distraction, Natsuo peaks at the numbers and grins to himself. "And I know you have your... opinions, about dad, but do you really think abandoning him now that he finally wants to change is the right thing to do?"

"Yes."

His sister groans. Dabi isn't sure what answer she was expecting. He's pretty certain he's made his feelings about Endeavor clear enough. Natsuo, the person who understands him the most, chuckles and raises his palm and Dabi accepts the high five with pleasure. Curled on an armchair, with a momentarily discarded book in her hand, Rei watches them with a strange expression on her face, something between amusement and melancholy.

See, Dabi isn't stupid. In that future that used to be his present, he's heard all about Endeavor trying to redeem himself too. With his boyfriend's best friend dating his sister, it was inevitable. Apparently, Fuyumi was over the moon about this development and spent a lot of time gushing about them 'finally having a real family'. She never mentioned how the rest of this family felt though, which was rather telling.