21-year-old Dabi. Two years before joining the League of Villains.

Dabi sprawled on the worn, sagging sofa in the abandoned place that parodies an apartment he’d been squatting in for the past week. His eyes narrowed as they landed on the tiny figure in front on him.

This kid was a walking disaster. A living, breathing reminder of a mistake he’d made in a moment of sheer idiocy. Three years passed of near-misses, close calls, and a slow, creeping realization that he hadn’t completely fucked this up yet. Yet.

Dabi exhaled. The little monster usually pushed ahead like some kind of bulldozer, and didn't stop studying everything around even when they fell backwards due to their clumsiness and scratched their knees. No tears, no wailing. Just sheer, stubborn resilience.

Huh. Wonder where they got that from.

Dabi hadn’t signed up for this and definitely hadn’t wanted it. But here he was, stuck with a miniature human who had the survival instincts of a cockroach. Dabi, frankly speaking, wasn't doing very well. The worst thing about this situation was that it was only his problem.

Who was now toddling toward him, holding up a half-crushed beetle.

Dabi stared.

"...The hell am I supposed to do with that?" Dabi muttered, more to himself than to the child.

Great. A future villain in the making... Or a future entomologist. Either way, Endeavor would lose his fucking mind if he knew.

This is my life now, Dabi thought dryly. He was literrally babysitting a future felon who hasn’t even figured out object permanence yet.

He reached out, plucking the beetle from kid’s grubby fingers, and flicked it away.

"Don't give me all this crap. And don't put it in your mouth, understand?"

And again—three fucking years of near-death experiences that had nothing to do with hero battles and everything to do with a toddler’s complete lack of self-preservation. And the child, by some miracle, was still alive. And Dabi still somehow wasn't the worst father in existence—though, granted, in his case the bar was exceptionally low. The bad example of his own shitty father made itself felt in the most important strategic moments for raising a child. This...definitely didn't have a good effect on Dabi's parenting style, if it could even be called parenting.

Next year, this brat would get a quirk. And if it was anything like his own, then they were both screwed. But that was a problem for future Dabi. Present Dabi had more immediate concerns: like keeping the kid from touching his staples.

Endeavor never had to deal with this shit. Then again, Endeavor would've probably blasted the kid through a wall by now. Maybe that made Dabi the better parent by default.

What a depressing thought.