#HIIIII CUPCAKIEEE

[inkykeiji]

hi clari!! its cupcake! ohh the prompt idea is soooo much fun!!! could you do something with bmb Dabi and number 22?? i could totally see them being on a walk or something and I think it could be really cute!!

prompt: footbridge series: break my bones warnings: use of the word daddy/referenced daddy kink, toxic relationship, reader is female and quite bratty words: 1.1k

It’s one of those slow, lazy summer days, where time drips by in syrupy drops, thick and viscous and sugary-sweet. 

The sun wanders between fluffy clouds, seeming to sway with the wind, the slight but constant breeze gliding between the willows and the blossoms and the blades of overgrown grass, and everything is languid, everything is lax, everything is nice. 

Which means you are bored. 

Of course. As always. 

“Don’t you dare get on that tree trunk,” Dabi warns from his spot on the ground, hands laced behind his head, eyes staying shut as he speaks. 

“What? How did you—”

“Because I know you, and I can hear your footsteps,” a singular eyelid lifts to fix you with a pointed look, holding your stare for a moment before slipping shut again, Dabi’s head snuggling back into his palms. “I can hear you tiptoeing toward the river. I knew that fallen trunk was going to be trouble the moment we got here.” 

“You’re way too damn perceptive,” you grumble, and he can hear the pout rapidly forming in your voice. 

“Wouldn’t be any good at my job if I wasn’t,” he quips.  

“Why can’t I get on the trunk? I want to cross the river.”

“The river is shallow, take your shoes off and walk across like a normal person.”

“The river is nearly up to my waist.”

A lid lifts again, this time with a raised eyebrow, and he smirks, a sloppy quirk up of a corner of his lips. “So? Your dress is nearly short enough to not get wet anyway. Just hike it up a little more while you walk across and you’ll be fine.” 

“But that isn’t the fun way,” you whine, pout in full force—brows furrowed, forehead crinkled, nose scrunched—with your arms crossed over your chest, and Dabi’s surprised you don’t stomp a foot.

Brat. 

“I don’t care what the fun way is, if you fall and break a bone it’s my fucking head on the chopping block. You are not walking across that damn tree trunk.” 

“Oh yeah? Watch me.” 

Really, he should’ve known, should’ve expected this to happen. His word barely holds any weight at all when it comes to you, and his threats of I’ll tell Daddy! are most often met with blasé Go ahead’s and/or flippant I don’t care’s, despite how serious or severe the transgressions might be, and the punishments that follow.

“If it bothers you so much then just come with me,” you say, as if it’s that simple, that obvious, already starting to pull yourself onto the trunk, using the scraggly roots as steps.

“You really are such a fucking brat,” he’s growling as he kicks his boots off at the edge of the riverbank with more force than strictly necessary. 

“Yeah, yeah,” you’re waving his complaint off with a delicate flick of your wrist, too concentrated on keeping your balance as you teeter on the rotting trunk slapped across the river—a crude imitation of a footbridge—rickety on the balls of your feet.

Dabi doesn’t even bother rolling up his jeans—Tomura really is going to have his fucking balls if you get so much as a goddamn scratch, he’s sure of it—as he trudges into the flowing water, crystal liquid quickly lapping at the charcoal denim, which eagerly sops it up.

“Unbelievable, fucking unbelievable,” he’s muttering to himself as he walks along with you, arms outstretched as a precautionary measure, willing and waiting and ready to catch you if you come tumbling down.

“Shh,” you hiss at him, though there’s a smile on your face. “You’re breaking my concentration.” 

“I’d really like to break something else right now.”

“Cheesy, Dabi,” you glance at him through the corner of your eye, smile spreading. “Very cheesy, but I appreciate it.” 

The wood is slippery; one wrong step and you’ll be twisting an ankle and toppling into the water, the rubber of your shoes having already skidded across the wood twice, each gifting Dabi with a mini heart attack, followed by a string of curses. 

“Why don’t you ever fucking listen to me?” 

The question is sighed out from tattooed lips with his eyes kept steadily on your feet, aiming for exasperated nonchalance, despite the fact that it’s been gnawing at his stomach, his brain, his heart for weeks now. 

“I dunno,” you shrug, and the action nearly causes you to lose your footing, Dabi grasping onto your hand to stable you, automatic and instant, years of training put to good use. 

That’s not good enough, Dabi wants to spit at you, molars grinding the words to a choking dust. 

“I guess it’s because...I like your attention?” you peek at him through your lashes, almost as if you’re scared the answer is going to get you into trouble, features on the verge of a wince. 

And suddenly, everything stops. Rushing water turns to blood in his ears, and spikes of adrenaline surge through his veins, numbing like Novocain, muscles locking, bones freezing.

“You do?” 

It comes out more biting than he means for it to, laced with a caustic skepticism. 

“Of course I do,” you snort out the words, as if it’s abundantly apparent, as if he should know this already, fully looking over at him. “It’s just, uh,” you pause, chewing on the thought, eyes darting back to the trunk. Dabi’s hand squeezes yours just shy of too hard, twice—a silent encouragement, a desperate plea to continue. “You’re fun. Or, well, you can be, depending on the day.”

He’s not like your Daddy; he gives you what you want, he can’t fucking say no. He isn’t like Tomura, immune to your tricks and your charms, your pouts and your puppy-dog eyes. He’s weak. 

A flash of inexplicable anger, sharp and scalding, slices through his chest, charring flesh as it goes. 

But he isn’t given a moment to mediate on it, ears pricking up as rubber skids over bark again, and then you’re plummeting from the trunk and into Dabi’s waiting arms, skillfully and expertly catching you as if it’s second nature to him, as if it’s no feat at all. 

“See?” you huff out the word with a slight breathlessness, a wobbly smile on your face, but your hands are trembling, clasped tightly behind his neck, fingers twisting in the tufts of ink at the nape of his neck. “Everything was fine.”

“Next time,” he begins, words shoved through clenched teeth. “I want you to fucking listen to me.” 

And although he’s glowering at you with stormy eyes and a face twisted with rage, his arms are flexing, cradling you so tightly to his chest that it’s beginning to hurt, so tightly that you’re sure his handprints will streak your skin with broken blood vessels flooding beneath your flesh. 

“Yeah,” you say softly, though there’s a glimmer of mischief in your eyes, a spark that you can’t quite seem to snuff out. “Deal.”