Cuddly Midori

Izu Finds Dabi. A Lot.

Art by Squish!! on our discord server!

Dabi was not necessarily surprised so much as he was confused the first time Izuku appeared on him. One would think that his first reaction to that would be to set him on fire, but that wasn't what happened, he had a calming feeling, like he belonged there, and Dabi couldn't bring himself to scare him off. Not to mention, the first time it happened was on a train and as much as Dabi didn't much care about collateral damage, there were a lot of children around, he was cold hearted, not merciless.

So Dabi allowed the boy to lean into his side until his stop came, he didn't even heat the area to make it uncomfortable. It was nice, Dabi will freely admit that (though never aloud), he almost missed it when the kid left.

Then it just kept happening, at least once a week at random times in random places where the kid shouldn't have even been or known about. Leaning against his side during a cold night, getting a piggy back ride during the day, holding his hand, sitting on his lap, talking his ear off, humming softly, sitting in silence, it didn't matter, he did them all.

The one that kind of left him a little shocked and in awe was about three months into it. He'd been going out for more recruitment and wasn't expecting to be ambushed by about ten guys three blocks from his target. Obviously, he handled most them easily, but now quite a bit was on fire from their little spat and one of the guys was using some kind of quirk to throw his fire away from him, which only pissed Dabi off more. Before he could really unleash his quirk, a warm and familiar weight settled on his back and Dabi cut his flames to keep the kid safe, scowling the whole time.

"Be careful, you damn Bush, I coulda burnt you." Slowly the flames around them died out, the last guy had already been knocked out, probably by Izuku, and Dabi was feeling pretty good as he made his way to his meet up point. He didn't even bother to shake the boy off, seeing no harm in letting him stay. He even snaked an arm behind his back to make sure the kid wouldn't fall off as he went, which was completely unnecessary, but it made him feel better.