.

"So, this is the new lair, huh?" Naruto deposits the sofa she'd lugged through half of town down onto the office floor, inspecting the building. It's not the greatest, far from all the posh hero offices she'd been snooping around in back in her first few months in this world, back when she'd been trying to figure out how the hell this place worked. Back before she'd picked up her first brat.

Said brat is lounging by the western wall, though he does twist around to acknowledge her entrance.

"New lair? It's the first lair," Dabi corrects, spilling himself across the sofa as soon as it is placed upon the wooden floorboards, liquid in the way he seems to almost seep into the fabric and take up as much space as humanly possible. With his lanky form, that's not exactly difficult. By the window, Tenko watches them with his arms half folded, one hand scratching lazily at the side of his neck. Naruto bites back the instinctive snap for him to stop it (he's been doing it ever since she picked him up, only it was way worse back then) because he's a grown ass man who should take responsibility for his own bad habits. She'll still end up buying him some kind of moisturising cream the second she's got enough cash spare. Which should be soon now that both of her boys are getting full time hero jobs. She's so proud. Grinning and quite unable to contain herself, Naruto drops onto the small slice of couch Dabi isn't monopolising and ruffles his hair. If she digs her fingertips in enough to give him a half-noogie, then what's her firecracker gonna do about it?

"Naruto!" Whine apparently, that's what he's going to do. Whine about it. Dry hands swat half-heartedly at her own and Naruto gives the thick black hair one last ruffle before she retreats, relaxing back into the couch (and forcibly muscling in on Dabi's space) as she eyes Tenko.

"Are you sure you're gonna use Tomura for your hero name? I mean, it's a bit… you know." Naruto shrugs, not sure how to put it delicately so she pussyfoots around it instead. Her kid (and he is her kid, ten years difference or not, she'll fight anyone who tries to say otherwise) is bright enough to be able to understand what she doesn't say.

"I'm sure," Tenko snaps, scratching a little too hard at his neck before finally realising he's back into that old habit and hastily pulling his hand away. "Besides, I can't use Dust if I'm teaming up with metal face here. Dust and Dabi? Too much alliteration." He snorts, dropping into the only other chair in the room as his fingers rummage around for the phone that is no doubt in his pocket. It's strange, ten years ago, Naruto'd never have guessed she'd have given up trying to find a way back. That's what the responsibility of having kids does to you, she guesses, even if they're not your own. Genetically, that is. Dabi and Tenko are hers in every way that counts. Hell, Dabi even goes around wielding her last name like it's a sword. Not that it means anything to anyone here, but he'd taken to it like an octopus to water (man, she misses B). Given what personal history she'd managed to tease out of him, Naruto's not surprised by that. Not in the slightest.

"Just wanted to check. Once you've got a name and a big incident behind you, you're stuck with it. You know that, right?" After all, the only way she'd been able to shake the 'most unpredictable ninja' was to come to a world where she is literally the only ninja. Hell, even though she's trained them, Dabi and Tenko are no ninja. They're heroes with ninja-like moves. She's one brat short of a genin team. Maybe she should get out more, see if she can find another kid to take under her wing. Honestly, Naruto has no idea why Kakashi-sensei balked at the idea of teaching. She's loving it so far.

"You're gonna stalk us on our first job, aren't you?" Dabi drawls, his chest rumbling against her hip. Naruto jabs a finger into his ribs, smirking.

"Damn straight. Gotta make sure my cute little students," brothers, sons, "are okay."

.

She leaves them both there, in that new office (she's not at all touched that Tenko has called it 'Konoha'. Okay, she's totally touched and still a little teary, damn that brat) as she makes her way back to the apartment that is now solely her own. It's a strange thought, that Dabi and Tenko have now moved out. That they're living in the little room above their office space. Their hero office. Her brats are growing up. Naruto sniffs a little, wiping the wetness from the side of her cheek and determinedly pretending it was never there to begin with. Man, she's gonna be an utter wreck if she ever does have a baby. She's emotional enough with her teenaged-near-adult brats.

Scratching lazily at the back of her head, Naruto takes on quick look around before employing some good ol' ninja speed to zip to the top of the nearest building. She can sense Dabi and Tenko's approach so Naruto keeps her eyes on the situation. It's a good test for her kiddos, in a semi-controlled environment. Doesn't mean she won't step in if lives are put at risk. But Naruto's idea of 'at risk' is probably a little different to what people around here think. Then again, she can be down there, intercepting a killing blow in half a second. It's as good a test as she'll get to see where Tenko and Dabi are at. Lounging across the ledge, Naruto peers down at the villain, analysing their quirk. It seems to be some kind of rock creation technique, allowing the guy to create rock seemingly from thin air in any shape or form he wants. There has to be some kind of drawback, right? That's what the whole quirk problem is about, as far as Naruto can recall.

Blue flames roar through the street, liquifying the stone that'd been about to bring a building down. Naruto startles to attention at the flashy attack, an excited (near manic) grin overtaking her features. Her boys are here.

Dabi drops to the street from wherever he's been hiding, a long black trench coat covering most of his folded arms. There's an over-wash of relief among the civilians trapped within the rock, just their heads poking out from the improvised cage. Hostages for the villain. That limits Dabi's options, at least until Tenko shows his face. Her youngest doesn't let it deter him however. His face is set in a hard line, shoulders taunt and blue eyes burning. She'd caught the teen staring at her own eyes more than once, back before he realised she always felt eyes on her, no matter what. It was a trait they shared, bright blue eyes; the shape may be different, but the colour remained so achingly similar. Between that and his fascination with her red hair, Dabi seems to have taken to her, despite his dislike of crimson prior to the breaking of his emotional walls. The fallout from that had been epic, to say the least. Naruto's hardly a fan of recalling that day; she'd not gotten the full story out of him, but she'd gotten enough. Enough to know she'd never going to be letting Endeavor get anywhere close to her babies, either one of them, even if Tenko has nothing to do with him.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?!" Dabi cocks his head to a side, his lips pressed into a shallow, thin line as he considers the villain. She can sense Tenko somewhere down there, clearly employing that oldest and noblest of ninja arts; stealth. She's never been one for it in truth, but both her brats have taken to it. When they want to use it, that is.

"Name's Dabi. I'm with Konoha and I'm here to stop you."

"Not save them?"

"Nah, that's what I'm part of a team for." Before the villain can truly consider Dabi's words, the rock prison encasing the hostages is dusted, Tenko hastily hustling the four away, his body between them and the villain. He's in his hero costume too, a long-sleeve black shirt that's styling comes uncomfortably close to her father's jōnin wear, and typical shinobi pants. Minus the kunai pouch, she's irritated to note. Little bastard's good with knives but he doesn't like using them. Which she doesn't understand in the slightest, kunai are versatile as hell, 'ttebayo! Edging forwards, Naruto watches with proud eyes that're totally not getting teary, not in the slightest. Tenko's hand to hand is shown as he's closing in on the villain, Dabi covering mid-range with his flames and stopping any misplaced projectiles from escaping into the mounting crowd. That's something Naruto still doesn't get; why the hell people gather to watch a fight. Back home, no one had stuck around when ninja started an outright fight; it was a sure-fire way to lose your life if you were civilians. And these people are civilians, there's no doubting that.

Naruto whoops are Tenko lands the final blow, socking the villain hard in the face with a chakra enchanted blow to send him crashing unconscious to the pavement. He's pulling out a reel of capture tape next as Dabi checks over their surroundings, ensuring there's no hidden allies lurking in the vicinity to strike them during a 'victory'. But nobody appears, the civilians are safe and Naruto's wet cheeks are a telling display of how damn proud she is of her boys. They're heroes now, recognises by the act of saving four hostages and taking a villain down without any injury to themselves. Sniffling, the redhead wipes at her face, leaping to her feet. The news-crews are swarming in; that's her cue to disappear.

.

.

"Here!"

The bowl is dropped onto the table before him, broth sloshing up along the sides but only just falling short of actually spilling out. The woman (her hair's red and he's trying so hard to pretend it doesn't bother him but it does, by gods does it bother him) stares with blue eyes (and there's a world of difference there, soft and calm and everything his were not). He stares right back, even as his hands reach for the bowl and chopsticks.

Light-haired asshole across the table hasn't stopped glaring at him, not since he woke up here. The fucker's scratching at the column of his neck, again, even though the woman's batted his hand away from it three times already. And that's just in the fifteen minutes that he's been awake.

"It's good, I promise!" the woman claims, a beamingly proud smile on her face to match her sunny behaviour, "cooking ramen is how I make money nowadays." Light-haired asshole scoffs again, snatching up his own bowl as he pushes up and away from the table. He's gone from the room a moment later, leaving a stilted silence and a frown on the woman's face. She's young, early twenties, mid-twenties at the latest. She's got one of those faces though, the kind that don't seem to age. A sharp jawline, thin nose and tanned skin. That last feature is nothing like before, so he clings to that. He eats the ramen and it is good. If it weren't for the fact he's gone a few weeks without consistent meals (even then he doubts what he's eaten could be classed as a 'good meal'), he'd probably be trying to pack another one away inside his stomach; it's already rebelling against this one bowl.

When he looks up again, he finds the woman is placing a fourth empty bowl atop a growing tower of them, the slightest splattering of broth around her lips.

"What's your name, kid?" His name? It's not Touya, not anymore. The eldest Todoroki is dead now, he's painstakingly made sure of that. Todoroki Touya is gone, there's no weak son for Endeavor to chase after now, to keep pushing until he breaks.

(But, but he hadn't been able to get a hold of his own power on his own, has come away twisted and broken by his own quirk. Endeavor couldn't manage it, why could he have ever thought he'd be able to make himself useful on his own?)

"…Dabi. I go by Dabi now." Dabi; cremation. It's appropriate, it's his defining trait. He's a fault, a genetic glitch. A frighteningly powerful quirk but an inability to use it. The phantom burn races over his skin once again.

"Right. Nice'ta meet 'ya, Dabi. I'm Uzumaki Naruto and that little idiot was Shimura Tenko, my kid."

"You're not my mother!" The shout echoes through closed door the light-haired asshole had disappeared behind, providing damning evidence that he's been eavesdropping on them.

"Doesn't change the fact you're my kid!" and the woman, Naruto, is up and out of her chair, right up on the other side of the door to bang on the thin wooden surface. It quivers beneath her tiny fist; a strength quirk?

"I know! Just don't give the moocher the wrong impression!" It's ridiculous, but that retort sounds… fond. The first bit. Despite the other's stand-off behaviour, he eagerly, passively agrees that he's 'her child'.

"Until he's back on his feet, he's our too!"

What.

.

"Hey, Staples, wake up." The voice he's used to, it's easy to ignore. The constant prodding in the side is not so easily dismissed.

Swatting at the offending fingers, Dabi lazily allows one eyelid to peel back, glaring at the hovering for of Tenko. It's not as if he'd been asleep, just laid out with his eyes closed and his breathing nice and steady and even and… okay, it might have looked like a midday nap to the other hero. But it wasn't. He'd been reminiscing. No point stating that to Tenko though; he won't believe him.

"Here." The solid thump of an item being forcibly deposited on the table has Dabi twisting his head, curious. A box of hair dye, his usual brand, resides upon the wooden surface. Suspicious eyes make there way back to Tenko. "Don't get any ideas, staple-face. Your roots are showing."

"…Thanks." Tenko nods, ruffling a hand through his hair as the other itches at the side of his neck. He wonders off, mumbling about moisturise that Naruto'd dropped off on her previous visit. It's still strange, waking up in a morning and knowing that the red-haired woman wouldn't be there to greet them with breakfast already waiting on the table. No, if they want that, they have to go swing around to her apartment in the morning now. It's been a month and he's still not used to it. The past three and a bit years have been… the best of his life, really. He might not have thought it at first, but now… now he can look back on those first few months, on that rough patch, and thank the gods that Naruto hadn't given up on him. He can't even begin to imagine where he'd be now without her.

Rolling off the sofa and surging to his feet, Dabi saunters over to the window; they've still not had the time to invest in a hallway mirror yet. The only one in the apartment is within the bathroom, which Tenko is currently hogging. The pipes hiss with the pressure of the shower; Dabi seriously debates turning on the hot tap. Just to hear the usual shriek of displeasure as the water turns cold; it was one of Naruto's favourite pranks when they lived together. Pushing aside the urge, he eyes the window, shuffling slightly to the left until his reflection is clear enough within the glass. Tenko's right; his roots are starting to come through. The vivid red brackets his skull, turning black near instantly. But the traces of that bastard need to be pushed away, shoved down.

He won't have Endeavor finding him, not until he's strong enough, not until he's powerful enough to push him away. He knows now, knows he wasn't the one in the wrong, knows it was nothing he did that was wrong. But the scars are deep, they linger and no matter what he tells himself, they'll never disappear.

He's found new comforts; when he sees red hair now his first thought is Naruto, not that bastard. Blue eyes are his own, blue is his quirk. His quirk. He's made it his own, he's worked around the weak constitution and turned it into a strength under Naruto's careful guidance and Tenko's curious, distrustful eyes. He's Uzumaki Dabi now, one of the two heroes of Konoha. He's going to show the world exactly what a hero is, he's going to strip back the layers that cover the pretenders, until they're laid bare to the people in all their brutal truths. A hero is there to save people, to help them with no ulterior motive other than the urge to do what is right.

Tenko, Tenko's on board with that. But he's also striving further, aiming to expose the rotten core of society and how it has come to lay it's hopes and beliefs upon the broad shoulders of one man. Should anything happen to him, then civilization as they know it could very well collapse. Tenko wasn't to pre-empt that; given who the current Number Two is, Dabi's all for it. Grasping a handful of hair, Dabi considers himself in the mirror once again and hums.

Yeah, definitely time to dye his hair.

.

"Dabi! Sofa, now!"

Fluffing his hair up with the dye-stained towel, Dabi obeys and strides across the floor. He drops onto the sofa besides Tenko just in time to catch the blinding flash from the TV. It's Naruto, Naruto in her maelstrom get up, bright and bold against the night's backdrop. There's some kind of villain wielding a transformative or mutant quirk, it's not possibly to tell from a quick glance. But he's up against Naruto, so whatever he was planning is going to fall through without question.

"What's going on?"

"Some jackass causing mayhem down-town; thing is, he's taken out Best Jeanist." Oh.

"Well shit," Dabi hisses, towel dropping to rest across his shoulders as they both stare at the screen. This villain has taken out the number 3 hero and when Naruto wins… It'll bring an uncomfortable amount of attention down in the vigilante Dabi considers his elder sister. It's one thing to ignore a vigilante; it's well known that the police turn the other way given that most vigilantes are small-timers who're going out of their way to not make a mess or ruckus. Naruto… Maelstrom, neither of them are particularly well-known for being tidy or quiet. Which had been fine, when she was dealing with small-fries. This… This is a giant beast of a villain that Dabi wouldn't be surprised to see All Might called in for (speaking of which, where is he? The Number One has been unusually quiet for the past few months). Instead… instead the rest of the world is about to get a front row seat to what Dabi already knows; that Maelstrom is unbelievably, uncomfortably strong.

Dabi and Tenko watch the program in silence, watch as Naruto's golden glow intensifies, burning bright and brighter as she pulls out the big guns. Big Ball Rasengan, while not the fear-inflicting Rasenshuriken, is still not an attack that could be dubbed gentle. The villain goes down unconscious but that's no surprise. Tenko scratches at the side of his neck, dry skin flaking away and nails leaving red trails as they work furiously back and forth.

"Naruto's going to be pissed." When she realises how much attention she's drawn to herself. Their guardian/big sister would make a fantastic hero, there's no doubt of that. But they're the only two people in the world that know Naruto's power is not actually quirk based, that it's something anybody could learn with enough training. That she's not a legal citizen and technically, does not have any rights that could protect her. Not that Naruto needs protecting. But she's too trusting, Dabi knows this, has experienced this. He hadn't been in a position to take advantage at the time, but there are others. Others who would do so. Others that will now be looking into Naruto's position as a vigilante and wondering just why, with power like that, she's never become a hero. And, with further digging, why she's not showing up on any records. Especially quirk-based records.

"Shit, this is gonna be a clusterfuck."

"Understatement," Tenko gripes, pulling away from his neck with a hiss. It's serious enough that Dabi doesn't point out the beads of blood, doesn't point out how Naruto'll have his head for the self-harm. They've got enough on their plate now without that shit.