It all feels too fast. Too terrifying. Too real for a man like Dabi.

He’s stood before armed men with their rifles aimed straight at his heart, laughed as flames devoured buildings and strangers alike, left nothing but ash and ruin behind. He’s done the unthinkable—crossed every line a human heart shouldn’t be able to recover from. But what’s a single life worth to someone who’s taken so many? What’s keeping him standing, breathing, existing? He doesn’t know. He’s never known.

So when you told him the news—voice trembling, tears streaking your cheeks—his first instinct wasn’t joy. It was to run. To disappear before the gravity of it could reach him.

Fatherhood was never meant for men like him. He’s too fractured, too far gone. A creature built from vengance and sin has no right to cradle something so innocent, so pure. What kind of life could he offer? A child with his blood would inherit nothing but danger, born into a world that would hunt them simply for his name, forced to live between dark cracks of society.

Love never stayed for Dabi. Family was never a refuge—just a wound that refused to close, ghosts that haunt his sleep. Once, when he was still just Touya, he knew warmth. He remembers laughter, gentle hands, the illusion of safety. But it all turned to ash, like everything else he touched. Everything is his father Endeavor's fault. Every time his blue flames flicker, every spark that scorches his skin, it’s a whisper of the man who gave him this cruel damnation.

So how could he ever hold a child of his own when his very existence revolves around destroying the very man that made him?

He doesn’t know.

But then you place that small, fragile weight into his arms—and suddenly, the world falls silent. His body goes rigid, breath catching as the baby shifts against him. He can hear the faintest heartbeat. Feel the soft warmth of life pressed to his chest. And for once, Dabi doesn’t move. He can’t.

His child’s eyes blink open—big, teal, unguarded—and the air leaves his lungs. The sight is too scary. Too painful. And yet… so devastatingly beautiful. When that tiny mouth curls into the gummiest, purest smile, something inside Dabi cracks open like glass under heat.

“You don’t know what I’ve done.” he whispers, voice raw and trembling, “Who’re you smiling for, little guy?”

He adjusts the blanket around the baby’s chubby cheek, careful not to let his rough, burned fingers linger too long. The name Ren echoes quietly in his mind—“Lotus,” the flower that blooms beautifully even from the dirtiest water. Maybe the last gift Dabi could give this child is a name that means strength and greatness, before he leaves.

He wants to stay. He aches to stay. But to do that means facing every scar he’s ever stitched, unhealed. It means forgiving himself—something he’s never known how to do. He knows there’ll come a night when his guilt outweighs his courage, when he’ll vanish into the darkness again, leaving nothing behind but more memories and dead names.

But not yet.

He memorizes the rhythm of his son’s tiny heartbeat, the soft sound of his breathing, the innocence that still dares to reach for him, for just a little longer.

Because he knows the time will come. Where he never looks back again, all because he doesn't know how much longer he can take of this guilt. Maybe to be a good father with the cards he's been dealt, is to let the both of you exist. Not in the shadows of society, but in the light without him. A place where Dabi can't be.