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ghostbeam · 4 months ago

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Oblivi_n.exe | Dabi/Touya Todoroki

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

As Dabi’s new handler, you’re well aware of his history, how frequently he goes through handlers assigned to him. Not that he ever uses them—it’s more complete resistance. You’re not particularly good at your job. Transferred from the PLF for lack of success in handling any of their pilots, you’ve always been far too gentle. You lack authority. Your pilots never respected you. You don’t think Dabi will be any different. You give it a week.

Notes: okay wow hiiiii it’s been a long time since I’ve posted an actual fic (nearing almost a year now😬) this is something I’ve been working on for a bit. I have mech brain rot curtesy of @streimiv and @hawnks (both of whom this is dedicated to bc there’s no way I could have written this without yapping to them abt it and also mint helped me come up w the acronym for HERO’s) and we’ve all got our own mech fics in the works atm but anywayssssss this is kind of my baby atm but I hope it makes sense it’s very inspired first and foremost by pacific rim and then also NGE (mostly through consumption of YouTube vids bc I haven’t actually watched it pls don’t hate me) it’s a whole mess of things and Dabi is kind of a bitch and reader is slowly coming into herself and at the end of the day they both wanna be metal fused to one another forever (no matter how hard he denies it) also I’m not a huge computer person idk if this title makes sense so don’t make fun of me pls ok anyways I hope u like it!!!!

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI, pilot!Dabi x handler!reader, there’s no explicit sexual content in this part, not even a kiss sorry guys, mentions of robot gore (exposed wires, insides described as guts), brief descriptions of being trapped inside a small space, descriptions of burning while inside said space, mention of surgery to fashion a metal jaw onto someone, mentions of child abuse (nothing graphic just allusions to the todoroki family and touya’s past), angst, many run on sentences, a small cliff hanger

Words: 7.9k

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 (coming soon)

You are nothing without your machine.

It’s the first rule, the first thing beaten into his brain by his father. You carry the burden of the mech alone, or you’re weak. You don’t exist.

U.A. raises the best and brightest pilots, navigators, mechanics, and handlers, each one carefully trained to ensure the most important outcome: winning. It should be protection. It should be defense. But if Touya has learned anything at all, it’s that winning means glory. It means worship. It means HERO’s (Human Engineered Robotic Objects) are saints, and pilots are gods.

Touya used to be one of those best and brightest before his accident.

First son to Enji Todoroki, Touya was supposed to be the golden child, the first Todoroki to pilot without a handler. He was supposed to carry the burden alone, something his father couldn’t do, something only one man has ever actually been capable of.

But Touya is born weak, bad bones, a brain unable to handle all that the mech needs to unload onto it. One too many accidents results in him being expelled from the pilot program, his HERO discarded and collecting dust in its pod, and Touya is promptly transferred to mechanics.

It should have been a smooth transition. If one kid can’t handle it, the next will. Because they have to.

He doesn’t take the news well. It’s a fit of tears, a persistent fight, unable to accept the loss of his machine—of his body. Because Touya loves it. What he lacks in strength, he makes up for in pure passion, and despite being unable to handle the burden, there’s no denying that he’s good. He’s almost perfect.

But almost is not enough for Enji Todoroki, and no matter how hard Touya tries, he’s made up his mind.

After months of mechanics, Touya makes a decision. When the next fleet of HERO’s is deployed for the next kaiju battle, Touya sneaks in among the chaos, tucked neatly inside the chest of his machine where he belongs. It doesn’t take long for things to go south, for Touya to get caught in the crossfire, losing control of his mech and burning from the inside out.

It should be an excruciating death, stuck inside a machine made for war, fire raining from above as a battle continues on outside without him.

But he survives, because what he lacks in strength, he makes up for in resilience, and his mech is programed with solutions to every situation. He’s stuck inside for months before he’s found.

Tomura Shigaraki rescues him, pries open the chest of his mech and pulls him from inside. His group feeds him, takes him in, fashions a new jaw for him made from the metal of his mech, and allows him the decision to join their cause or go back home.

And since there’s no home to go back to, Touya finds his footing with the league and becomes one of their top pilots. One who vehemently resists any and all handlers.

…

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

Following closely behind Tenko, formerly Tomura, he quickly explains to you the in’s and out’s of the pilot/handler relationship, along with a warning about Dabi’s resentment toward the whole idea. You try to keep up, but he talks quickly and uses his hands a lot. Even so, you can tell he’s a natural leader, something he had to grow into after overthrowing the man who raised him. His story is a tragic one, and it resonates with you because Tenko came out the other side stronger. Now, the league is a community with a cause, one you really believe in. Even if you and Dabi aren’t the right fit, you still have a place here.

You follow Tenko into what he calls the garage, a large floor of the abandoned academy that serves as the league’s base, this part of it full of HERO’s and mechanics all focused on the machines in front of them. It’s completely different from how HERO’s were worked on at UA, where you grew up, and even the PLF didn’t have one dedicated floor to this sort of work. You can feel the energy of the room buzzing on your skin, music blasting from old radios and mechanics tossing tools towards one another in a familiar routine. Tomura leads you to Dabi and his HERO, Blue, though you’re instructed not to call it a HERO around him. With goggles over his eyes and gloved hands, he brings two wires from Blue’s ankle together, sighing at the way they spark each time they connect.

“Dabi.” Tomura calls over the music coming from the radio hanging off of Dabi’s waist. He drops the wires and his gaze flickers toward the two of you. Pushing his goggles up to his forehead, he gives you a once over. His eyes are the brightest you’ve ever seen—kaiju blood blue—and burn scars litter his body. He’s striking in a way you’ve never seen, almost too beautiful to be human. Giving Dabi your name, Tomura explains that you’re taking over as his handler, seeing as he couldn’t keep the last one for more than a couple of days. “She’s your last handler. If you can’t keep this one, then go ahead and fry your brain. See if I care.”

“You say that every time.” Dabi calls from around sucker as Tomura walks away, leaving you alone with your new pilot.

You just your hand out in a greeting, “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Eyeing your hand, Dabi shakes his head and turns his back to you, picking the two wires back up and connecting them again, despite the same spark from before igniting between the two. He looks back up at Blue, touching his fingers to the slim lines starting at the back of her ankle and running all the way up her leg. You peak over his shoulder at the wiring, noticing that he’s connecting two of the wrong ones.

“It’s the wrong wire.” You tell him, and he spins around to look at you, tearing his goggles from his face as he scoffs.

“Here we go.” He sighs with a roll of his eyes, pulling the candy from his lips and tossing it onto the tool cart without a care. “Handler know-it-all bullshit. This is my mech.”

You push passed him and grab the similarly colored wire from beside a red wire and connect it with the one in Dabi’s right hand. Blue lights up cyan through the thin lines that run along each of its limbs and torso, connecting with the two cameras within its head, which seem to blink before the light reaches them.

In an instant, you’re being pushed up against the hard metal, a strong arm over your chest—pinning you up against the HERO. Dabi, now having discarded his goggles, looks at you full of white, hot rage.

“Don’t fucking touch her.” He growls. You’re suddenly aware of the close proximity, eyes flickering between the snarl across his lips and his angry gaze. For a beat, you both freeze, the air suddenly charged like you’re waiting for one another to strike. Snapping yourself out of his hypnotic stare, you push against his chest, forcing him to let you go.

“If I’m going to be you’re handler, you’re going to have to trust me with her.” You remind him. He lets out a harsh laugh, like he can’t believe you would suggest such a ridiculous idea.

“I don’t trust anything but this machine.” He speaks, turning away from you to seal up the machine’s exposed wires. It’s a challenge you’re willing to accept.

“Well, I’m here to change that.” You tell him, before turning on your heel to leave him alone.

He thinks he’ll give you a week.

…

One of the worst parts of being assigned a handler, Touya thinks, is the way that pilot/handler living quarters are set up. He assumes the academy, before it was abandoned and turned into a base for the league, created this sort of set up so that handlers could keep a close eye on their pilots. The handlers Touya has burned through up until now also assumed the same.

The door that connects both the pilot’s and handler’s dorms doesn’t lock, and all of Touya’s past handlers have taken advantage of this fact. He’s been pulled out of bed far too early, pushed around and commanded and barked at. Most handlers behaved as if pilots belonged to them, which was the sentiment drilled into their brains from being thrown into such a fucked up system at a young age.—unless you were a pilot of status like a Todoroki. While he league dedicates a lot of its time to reversing these ideas, most handlers look at Touya like some kind of challenge, this arrogant pilot begging to be tamed. It never takes long for them to realize how easily he’s able to flip the switch on them. You’ll be no different.

But hours pass and you still haven’t entered. You don’t swing the door open and demand he apologize for his behavior earlier. You don’t try and punish him with training regimes, a command of a set of push ups, a schedule you expect him to follow, an extremely detailed meal plan. The entire evening comes and goes without so much as a sound on the other side of the door so he knows you’re even behind it.

He falls asleep unnerved by this, waking up late into the night in a cold sweat, expecting you to barge in, rip the covers from his body and demand to train together. When he wakes up (peacefully) the next morning, there’s no sign of you. He rises from his bed, drinks orange juice straight from the carton and eats a candy bar for breakfast. He fiddles with the navigation screen from his mech that stopped working a couple of days ago, tools spread out on the counter in front of him. Once he’s got the thing working again, your knock sounds from the unlocked door between the two of you. He thinks this might be it, the commands he expects to fall from your lips at the ready as he swings the door open, but you stand there, nervous, hands twitching as your eyes finally meet his.

Greeted by a shirtless Touya, hair mused from sleep, cargo pants hung low on his hips, dog tags swinging against his chest, his scars on display, unashamed and proud. The sight of him knocks the breath out of you, and you clear your throat in embarrassment, hoping your state of dreaming comes off as nerves rather than lust.

“Dabi. Or do you prefer Touya?” You smile. When he doesn’t answer, you continue. “I wanted to see if you wanted to eat breakfast together in the caf. I think we should start over. Yesterday was—”

You’re promptly cut off, “I already ate breakfast.”

With a harsh slam of the door, he leaves you stunned in your room.

You eat alone.

When you started as a pilot, back when you’d entered UA (a few years about Touya’s accident), you went into it believing you could change the world. The exam had placed you into the position of handler, and you were assigned a pilot who had always seemed a little frightened of you despite your obvious lack of authority. Bringing the fact up to your instructors did nothing. They all assured you that this was the ideal dynamic, that the handler always had the upper hand, but you hated that feeling. You weren’t a team like you expected to be; you were urged to control your pilot. You were there to keep them in line, not to be a pillar of support. The bond was never built on trust, and the soul link was always a looming threat. No matter how many pilots you went through, the link was never held as a gift, but a prison, something you would both be stuck with for the betterment of society, a sacrifice to make.

You’d been expelled from the handler program after guiding your pilot to help save another in the wreckage of your first battle together, resulting in the damage of your pilot’s HERO. Your pilot was okay, but the other couldn’t be saved, and you were blamed for the damage of both mech’s.

When you found the league (or when the league found you), you were working with the PLF, but proved to be a weak handler. Every pilot you were assigned to took advantage of your optimistic outlook on the kind of relationship dynamic that pilots had with their handlers. Despite all that you had been through at UA, and with the rest of the pilots you’d been paired with after, you never gave up the hope that handlers and pilots could behave as a team, or, even better, one entity.

Tenko had taken one look at you and demanded you’d be transferred to the league. There hadn’t been much of a choice in the matter, not that you really cared. You were miserable everywhere else. But when you arrived at the abandoned academy and taken a peak behind the kudzu covered walls where each and every area of the building acted as multiple moving parts in collaboration with one another in order to create one massive system, you realized that this was the future you imagined for yourself—and for the world you lived in.

Tenko saw something in you that day, something you aren’t sure you even see in yourself. And so Dabi was your first task, one that’s proving to be very difficult. But he doesn’t treat you like all the other pilots before had. He doesn’t use you. In fact, it seems like he wants nothing to do with you. And while that’s a problem, it’s still one you can work with.

You’re broken from your thoughts by the sound of a voice through an overhead intercom asking for everyone to meet on the first floor of the academy at their earliest convenience. Judging by the quick movements of those around you, you figure you’d better head downstairs as soon as possible.

The meeting on the first floor makes you very aware of just how small the league really is. While it’s definitely not a tiny organization, it’s still much smaller than both UA and the PLF. With everyone piled up like this in one group, you realize it feels more like a community, and the hum of conversation that surrounds you comforts you in a way you’ve never felt within the walls of any other academy before.

There’s discussion about the upcoming mission, one which may be the league’s most ambitious yet; the plan to hijack a mech and kidnap a pilot may be a little unorthodox compared to the league’s past missions, but the jaded pilot they’re targeting has a high chance of joining the cause. Or that’s what they have assumed. As the bodies move and speak around you, it strikes you how different this meeting is from any other meeting you’ve ever been a part of. Tenko is less a dictator and more a wrangler for the disembodied voices of your peers.

You don’t know much about his story, save for the vague details you’ve heard, but Tenko’s status as a lone handler is something you find yourself curious about. If he’s able to work without a pilot, why can’t you? It’s an idea you keep in your back pocket, one you think you can fall back on if things with Touya don’t work out. But you want them to work out. So badly.

You aren’t sure what it is about him, but he’s reignited that spark inside of you. You know he’d rather you give up, and maybe the you from a couple of months ago would have, but something about him—and this place—won’t let you leave.

As you observe the meeting, you take the time to look around the room, taking in your peers and their attentive faces as they listen to Tenko intently. You turn to your right, your eyes meeting a pair of blue ones, impossible to miss. Dabi holds your stare for what feels like ages, and when your colleagues erupt in a fit of many simultaneous discussions, you tear your eyes from his to observe the commotion. When you glance back in his direction, he’s gone.

You don’t seem him again after that. You train with other handlers, get to know your peers a little better. Everyone else seems to be welcoming, and most offer you sympathy when they find out you’re Touya’s new handler. From what you can gather, he’s had his fair share of them, all of which have quit or left in hysterics due to his harsh nature. When you ask around about where he could be, you’re told that he’s most likely in the garage, a place you assume he’s in more often than not.

You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to the garage. A place so completely different, so against the ideas and beliefs of any other academy you’ve been a part of, the chaos and community within is so foreign to you. You find Touya with Blue, working inside of her chest, where the cockpit is.

“Touya!” You call up to him and watch as he peaks his head over the edge of her metal plating. Annoyance falling across his face, he jumps down from where he stands, landing hard on his feet in front of you.

“What are you doing here?” He questions, his figure so tall and imposing above you. He’s not particularly muscular, not even all that tall compared to Tenko, but he makes you feel small regardless, in more ways than one. Rolling your shoulders back, you stare straight into his eyes, unwilling to back down.

“I figured you wanted your space today.” You explain, as Touya moves around you to get to his rolling cart of tools, forcing you to turn toward him and follow him if you want him to hear you. “I know adjusting to a new handler is rough, and I never want to make you uncomfortable. But I was thinking we could try some of those pilot/handler bonding exercises. It might be good to start training like some of the others do.”

He drops the wrench in his hand onto his cart with a loud thud, turning around toward you with a look of disbelief on his face. “Pilot/handler bonding exercises? They really brainwashed the shit out of you at UA, huh?”

At the mention of your past academy, your eyes widen in surprise. You had no idea he knew about that. Clearing your throat in order to compose yourself, you speak again, “I left UA for a reason. I have no attachment to their methods, but you guys do the same stuff here, so what’s the issue?”

“The issue is that I never asked for a fucking handler in the first place, especially not one as eager as you.” He spits, “Sure, you’re understanding now, all that bullshit about ‘giving me space,’ but the moment you get a lick of power over me, you’ll change. You’re not different.”

“I don’t want power over you. This is an equal exchange. Pilot’s and handlers are meant to be a team—” You try and argue, but he doesn’t let you finish.

“That’s what they told you, right? We’re a team, and as teammates, you make sacrifices. And it doesn’t matter if one of you turns into the other’s braindead dog because that’s your place.” His words hit you hard, the exact thought process you went through when leaving UA, completely disillusioned with their idea of “teamwork.” He’s right, and you know it, but since coming here, you thought that wasn’t how it had to be.

“Look, trust me, I get—” You’re cut off again.

“You went to UA! There’s no trusting you.” He scoffs, “It’s not like you’ll last here, anyway.”

“You are such a hypocrite! You’re from UA!” You retort, throwing your arms up in desperation. “You can hate me all you want. You can resist and resist and fry your brain ‘till there’s nothing left, but I believe in this shit. And you don’t get to tell me that I don’t, or tell me I’ll turn into something I worked so hard to get away from.”

Touya stands there, surprised by your outburst, completely unaware that you were capable of all of that. He doesn’t say anything back, and you roll your eyes. “So fuck you, and, by the way, her angel port is smoking.”

At your words, he turns in a rush, seeing the smoke billowing from Blue’s chest as he climbs his way up her form. Once inside his machine, he extinguishes the port and allows himself to relax. There are two things on his mind in this moment: how you could have possibly known it was the angel port without being inside of Blue’s chest and how, for the first time in a long time, he feels bad for his handler.

But for you, it’s the first time you’ve ever held your own against a pilot before, and that feels good.

…

Something feels weird.

Off, unsettling, strange.

He realizes, much to his dismay, that it’s your absence. Despite only having you around for such a short time, Touya has realized that your lack of presence now feels wrong. He hates it. He hates you.

He can’t find you. You haven’t knocked on his door. You’re not in the caf, not the garage, not the sparring floor, not in your room. And he did check—without knocking.

He’s not even sure how he can feel an absence. You aren’t a regular part of his life, and he never wanted you to be. But he feels all fucked up.

During training, Touya jams Blue’s halo core and she leaks vibrant neon from between her ribs. It takes him half an hour to get her reboot her system and rips one of the cables attached to the back of his suit in the process. He spends the afternoon cleaning HERO fluid off the sparring floor.

During repairs, he shocks himself over and over while trying to fix her core, fingers burning from the sparks each time he arranges the wires inside. The cameras in her eyes won’t work from the reboot, and Blue won’t let him unlock the lens panel to fix it. It’s almost like she’s mad at him too.

He’s a complete mess. It’s your fault. He has no choice but to go looking for you. Again.

He searches every wing of the academy before concluding that you’re in your room. He barges through the joint door, spotting you at the counter in your tiny kitchen. You’re surprised by the intrusion, a frightened gasp falling from your lips as you jump in your seat. You turn toward him, prepared with angry words on your tongue, but Touya speaks first.

“You’re not getting an apology out of me, so don’t expect it.” He begins, moving to stand in front of your swiveling kitchen stool as he looks down at you. “But I’m willing to be civil with you, so we don’t have to do this shit anymore.”

You’re not exactly sure what “this shit” is, but Touya looks a little worse for wear at the moment, so you don’t question it. He places a tray from the caf down in front of you that you hadn’t noticed in his hands upon arrival, says nothing else, and turns to leave the room. After shutting your joint door, you look down at the tray of food, noticing one of his suckers placed onto a vacant compartment of the tray.

You’re greeted the next morning with a knock on your door, Touya dressed in his pilot’s suit on the other side as you swing the door open. “C’mon. You’re gonna watch me train today.”

You watch him turn around to leave, expecting you to follow. You rush to pull on your combat boots and grip your dog tags in your fist as you rush to catch up to him. He doesn’t spare you a glance as you fall into step beside him, taking a look around his dorm before he leads you through the exit door.

“You need to get a feel for my fighting style.” He explains as you walk down the corridor. “I’m not saying I’ll listen to you when it comes down to it, but it’s important for you to know.”

You nod, agreeing that you should definitely observe him inside of his HERO. By understanding his moves, you’ll be able to understand the way he thinks, and you’ll be able to help him in actual combat if needed. He’s already said he won’t listen to you, but it won’t stop you from trying. He stops abruptly, turning to look at you, and you stop with him.

“If we’re gonna do this, it’ll be on my terms. I’m not your dog.” He tells you, seriously. He eye’s you up and down, taking in your expression as you nod at his words. “If anything, you’re mine.”

He begins walking again, leaving you in your spot, irritation filling your chest as you watch him, smug. “Asshole.” You curse under your breath.

“What’d you say?” He barks, turning to look at you abruptly.

“You’re an asshole.” You speak louder. He walks back toward you, making sure to tower over you intimidatingly as he looks down at you in annoyance. His eyes flicker down to the tags around your neck before hooking a finger on the chain and pulling you closer.

“Watch it.” He drops the chain and walks away again.

You follow him to the sparring floor, and he shows you where to go to watch. Stood behind a large window that looks over the sparring area, other members of the base watch the HERO’s engage in combat below. You spot Tenko and he motions for you to stand beside him.

“I knew he’d warm up to you.” He comments. The last of the previous battle finishes and you watch the two enormous machines retreat to the sides of the area, their pilots emerging from their chests with their handlers rushing to the bottom of the mech’s in support.

“He hasn’t. He’s not.” You shake your head. You aren’t sure why you deny it, if it’s some way to keep your expectations low or if there’s some kind of embarrassment aspect to the whole thing. Whatever is happening between you and Touya feels intimate and private, something that the two of you need to figure out for yourselves, not something meant for the eyes of others.

“Hm. Okay.” Tenko shrugs. “Guess not.”

You hadn’t noticed Touya enter his mech at all. You see the swing of one giant mechanic arm, too close to the window you stand behind, and you’ve shifted your full attention to the scene at hand.

The enormity of the room surprises you, despite the fact that you had seen it just moments before. But when you’re truly looking at it, watching these huge machines go at each other, the way the ground shakes, the leaves outside shake, the deep forrest clear in view from the wall that opens out to the greenery (the lack of a wall is likely from the academy’s abandoned state, but it’s a good feature to have on the sparring floor when giant robots are toppled over onto various surfaces).

The way Blue moves is electric, mechanic movements almost feel fluid with the way that Touya pilots her, easily dodging attacks from their opponent and moving around them in the most graceful way a giant machine can. It’s beautiful, unlike any fighting style you’ve ever seen in a HERO before.

“He’s showing off for you.” Tenko observes from beside you. You don’t argue with him, only because you can’t dispute it. This is your first time seeing him in action. It makes your heart beat out of your chest. There’s this ache like you should be inside with him, cables connected to both of you, tucked neatly inside of Blue together.

It doesn’t take him long to get his opponent on their back, the heavy thump against the floor jostling the ant-like figures on the ground below, handlers waiting for their pilots to finish. It goes on like this for a while, his training, using different methods of combat and winning each time. He’s amazing, and you can tell why his reputation is the way it is, second only to Tenko, who you have yet to see in action.

When he finishes his last session, you watch Blue walk to the edge of the room, and Touya emerges from her chest, jumping the long way down her body without any issue. You watch as he looks toward the window you’re behind. He waves at you, an acknowledgment of your presence, and you wave back, though you aren’t sure he can actually see you.

It’s the beginning of everything for the two of you. You think Tenko was right.

He lets you stay with him afterwards while he does maintenance on Blue. He helps you climb up the path to her chest, hauling you over the edge to sit inside with him. He turns around abruptly, holding a hand up before allowing you to walk any further.

“Do not touch anything.” He warns, completely serious, before letting his hand fall and allowing you further into the cockpit. You take in your surroundings, the guts of his machine, analyzing the different control panels and screens that line the interior. You can tell he takes good care of her, and he spends a lot of time in here. It looks lived in, stickers stuck to metal plating and pieces of him all over. He’s made a second home in between the ribs of his mech. You feel a little jealous, though you aren’t sure of what.

The two of you sit against the left side of Blue’s interior, waiting for her updates to finish, the loading screen on each of her monitors display a fire graphic that grows with the increasing percentage on screen. Between you and Touya sits an opened bag of sour gummies, which Touya picks out the lemon flavor and drops the candy in your palm with each new handful he gathers.

“How do you know all this stuff?” He questions around a mouthful of sour cherry, “Like, the real names for things, where stuff goes, how to fix them. That day with the wires…”

“I spent a lot of time around mechanics at UA, and then also at the PLF.” You explain, picking the yellow colored candy from his open palm as you speak. “I couldn’t connect with other handlers. I didn’t like how they thought, or how they viewed the pilot/handler relationship. Mechanics were mostly neutral, and they loved these machines like nothing else. They reminded me of why I joined UA in the first place.”

“Hm.” He nods, thinking about your past. “Well, I guess if you spent so much time around actual professionals…I could maybe use your help sometimes in the garage.”

“Really?” You question excitedly, a spark lighting up your eyes as you swerve your head toward him. He feels something tight in his chest at the sight.

“Yes, but only on the outside. I don’t want you messing with her insides, yet.” He establishes. “And never alone. I have to be there at all times.”

“Of course, yes, oh my god. Touya!” You smile, gripping his shoulder firmly, a gesture of thanks, communication of how much his trust means to you. “I’ll be so careful with her, I promise.”

“Yeah, well, you have no other choice.” He shrugs, throwing another pile of candy in his mouth. “I’ll kill you if anything happens to her.”

You take the threat seriously, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s realized that you’ve wormed your way into his life and he hadn’t even noticed just how entangled you were now.

As the weeks go by, you spend a lot more time together. You work on blue together, and you rest inside of her chest, sometimes allowing yourself to drift off against his shoulder on especially tiring days. He sits beside you in the caf, and while he doesn’t always say much, the feeling of his arm against yours is comforting. You can tell people are starting to notice, and they’re starting to talk. You’re being dubbed someone who’s tamed him, but you know how far from the truth that is.

Despite your differences and the petty arguments that come up when Touya feels like you’re intruding on his independence, you’re growing attached. You wonder if he is, too.

…

Spending time together in the garage becomes the new normal for the two of you. Being in each other’s dorms feels far too intimate, so you always meet in the garage. This way, one of you is always busy doing something with your hands. There’s no room for any strange feelings in the pit of your stomach to seep in.

You sit in the crook of Blue’s neck, watching Touya as he repairs the lenses in her “eyes.” Blue has three pairs of eyes; in her head, her chest, and down near her hips, which all footage is projected onto monitors inside the cockpit so that Touya has a full view of what’s in front of him.

He’s so peaceful while he works, you’ve noticed, almost like he goes somewhere else completely. It’s a part of him you don’t think many people get to see, a piece of him just for you, and you want to be selfish with it.

“Can I ask you something?” You question, leaning your head back against the metal. “But you can’t get mad.”

He looks up at you, still fiddling with a lens, a mocking look on his face. “I’m not making any promises.”

You take a deep breath, preparing yourself for the possible fallout of the question you’re about to ask, “What do you think about the soul link?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’d never do it.”

You nod your head in understanding, “yeah, I get it. It’s weird, right? The idea that someone else would be inside your brain.”

“It’s fucking invasive.” He says.

“You know, at UA it always felt like a threat, you know. Like, it was a way for a handler to control their pilot, not a tool or a bond like it should be.” You begin, thinking back to how you viewed the soul link back then. You didn’t like how the bond was presented as this power that a handler holds over their pilot, a threat to keep their pilot in line. But, you could understand how the link could be used for good. “But since coming here, I can tell it’s not all bad. People trust each other here. I mean, there’s obviously some people who abuse it, but, for the most part, everyone seems to understand what it really means to be a pilot and a handler.”

You’re mostly just thinking out loud, but Touya doesn’t say anything to your ramblings. He continues to work on the lenses, and you can gather that he doesn’t want to talk about the subject anymore. But you can’t let it go, yet. There’s something you’ve been worried about since you met him.

“And what about…your brain? They say when a handler and a pilot don’t complete the soul link, the pilot will eventually fry their brain.” You can’t help it. You think about it all the time, what will happen when he can’t take it anymore. The closer you get to him, the realer it feels. “Are you ever worried about that?”

He looks at you, an expression you can’t quite make out fall across his face as he stares. It’s almost soft, the way he looks at you in this moment. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

The truth is, this is a reality Touya has accepted. He’s not afraid to die, and he never has been. He’ll probably die inside of Blue, and he has no problem with that fact. He doesn’t need to be around for long, just enough to show his dad what he’s capable of.

“C’mon.” You stare. “That’s not fair.”

“Shit. I left some of the screws for this in my dorm.” He curses. He looks where you lounge, tucked into Blue’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

You watch him jump down, much higher than his usual height at her chest, but he lands anyway. He doesn’t turn to look back at you as he jogs away. You climb up the side of Blue, and look at the lenses in her head. They’re already repaired, and you know Touya used the excuse of missing screw just so he wouldn’t have to talk about the soul link.

But it’s the first time he’s ever left you alone with Blue before.

…

As the mission draws closer, Touya throws himself into training. You’re on the training floor with him most days, standing behind that big glass panel as you watch him spar with his peers. He still doesn’t let you down on the floor with him until he’s full out of Blue and close enough to the edge of the sparring floor to get to you. You’re not allowed in the actual training area, and even though he says he doesn’t want you clinging to him, it’s really because he wants to keep you safe. Seeing your human body near the giant machines that are HERO’s makes him want to grab you and keep you inside of Blue’s chest forever.

You can tell all the training is taking a toll on him. With an excess of headaches and the occasional nosebleed, you continuously get into arguments about him cutting back on training inside of Blue. There are other ways for him to prepare that don’t involve his fragile brain being hooked up to an entity that takes so much. He doesn’t listen.

Later and later into the night, as your fellow pilots and handlers disperse and return to their rooms to sleep, Touya stays inside of Blue, testing her movements and sparring against test dummies and obstacles. Once you and Touya are the only two left on the sparring floor, you speak into the intercom attached to your head.

“Touya, I think you should take a break.” You tell him, “It’s late. Get some rest and then we can pick it back up in the morning.”

There’s a pause, then, “I’m gonna stay for another hour. Get some sleep. I’ll be done soon.”

“No, Touya. You’ve been at it for hours. You barely took a break for dinner. C’mon.”

“You know, you sound awfully like a handler trying to tell their pilot what to do.” He teases, but you can hear the irritation in his voice.

“You are insufferable. I’m worried about you.” You groan.

“I’m fine. Go sleep.” He insists.

“If I find out you aren’t out of here in an hour—” Your line is promptly cut off, leaving behind static in your ear. You sigh and throw your com to the side. You hope he’s telling the truth.

With one last look at Blue, you make your way out of the training floor and find your way back to your dorm.

Touya doesn’t answer the door when you knock the next morning. With a frustrated groan, you leave your dorm and head to the training floor, assuming he woke up early to get some extra hours in. The closer you get the the floor, you notice other members of the base rushing in front of you. Feeling panicked, you pick up the pace, jogging toward the training room to make sure something isn’t wrong. You collide with a body in front of you, nearly falling to the floor as you steady yourself. Toga stands in front of you, her cheeks red and eyes glossy as she explains something your mind can’t catch up to understand. The only thing you recognize is his name, and you’re running toward the training floor in an instant.

You watch as Blue stomps around the area, her arms swinging in all directions, losing her footing as she moves. Knowing you can’t do anything on the floor, you make your way up to the overlook, finding Tenko yelling into your intercom.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” You ask him, pulling the headset off of his head and placing it on yours instead.

“He’s out of fucking control. He won’t answer. I don’t even think he’s conscious in there.” He tells you, running a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots in anxiety. “You’re not linked yet, are you?”

You shake your head, closing your eyes in frustration as you try to think. You know it’s the only way. You have to take some of the burden off of him, make him share it with you. It’s the only way he’ll survive right now. “Do you think you can get into Decay right now and knock him down somehow?”

He hesitates, “I can get inside. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to touch him at all.”

“You have to.” You plead, desperately. “I just need him down for ten seconds, tops. As long as I can get inside of her, I can save him.”

He looks at you like you’re insane, and maybe you are. But you know you can’t live with yourself if you don’t try something. Tenko nods.

“I can do it.” He tells you. You rush passed him, following the stairs down to the training area. You feel Tenk grab your wrist firmly. “You bring him back, okay?”

“I will.” You nod.

He dodges Blue’s movements, weaving between her legs as he finally makes it to Decay. It takes a few moments for him to connect, but he goes straight for Blue. You watch the giant machines fight one another, but it’s clear that Blue’s lack of control hinders much of her ability. She needs Touya just as much as he needs her. It’s tough for Decay to dodge her swinging arms, but Tenko manages to knock her down quickly.

The fall shakes the room, but you waste no time running for Blue. Climbing over the side of her, you manage to touch your thumb to the pad on the outside to open her chest up. She begins to stand up, and you slip down, grabbing onto a bar beneath her ribcage. You let out a frustrated groan as you try to pull yourself up over the edge of the cockpit. Finally making it over, you see Touya sitting there, still connected to his pilot’s chair, eyes glazed over and blood gushing from his nose. You push the button that closes the panel in Blue’s chest, and you’re suddenly alone with him.

Touya’s body is being jerked around by the movement of the mech, and you hang onto the walls of her chest in order to make your way to him. You situate yourself in his lap, taking his head in your hands as you look at him with tears in your eyes.

“You fucking asshole! I told you to take a break.” You sob, resting your head against his as you try and think of what to do next. “Touya, please. Please, baby, I need to you come back. Just fucking come back so I don’t have to do this without your permission, please.”

With no response from him, you wipe your tears, coming to terms with the fact that you have to complete the soul link now, or he’ll die. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Touya. Please forgive me.”

The soul link isn’t exactly an action so much as it is a feeling, an experience. There’s no trigger for it, no way to make it happen. It just begins.

It’s Touya, aged thirteen, wild, chubby-cheeked and happy, in the pilot’s seat of his father’s HERO. It’s his drive, his determination, his anger, his hurt. It’s the day he snuck into battle, the day he couldn’t get out, flesh burning and fusing to the metal walls of his mech, the feeling now deep in your skin. It’s you, aged fifteen, hopeful, alive, shaking hands with your first pilot. It’s your heart, much too big and much too open for your line of work, it’s your passion, your fire, every piece of you that was broken down again and again until there was nothing left. It’s Touya and it’s you, and every single bit of your souls now tied together in one big knot.

There’s nothing but darkness. And then there’s screaming. And then you can hear everything. Every thought running through Touya’s brain right now echoes in your head as you slowly come back to yourself. He can hear the same of yours.

It’s overwhelming at first, to have two sets of thoughts in your head at the same time, but you manage to focus. You can feel an anger inside of you like you’ve never felt. It’s almost like it’s your own. You need to come back. You’ve lost control of Blue.

In an instant, you feel yourself come back to your body, now straddling Touya like before, you feel his arms shoot around you and he tucks his chin over your shoulder to pilot Blue like he’s used to doing. He pays no mind as he presses up against you, but you feel your heart rate increase at the closeness.

He’s so close.

I have to be. You’re in my lap.

Shit. I didn’t think—

Clearly.

I can’t fucking believe you. I told you we weren’t going to do this.

You were dying!

Then you fucking let me!

You’re jostled around in his lap for a moment as he stops Blue from destroying any more of the training floor, and Touya wraps an arm around your waist, holding you steady.

He gains control of her quickly, moving her toward the edge of the room. You tuck your face into his neck, not wanting to distract him and keeping your thoughts at bay so you don’t overwhelm him. He powers Blue down, severing the neural connection between the two of you, and shoves you from his lap and into the pilot’s chair like you’ve burned him. He storms out of the cockpit, climbing out of his machine and leaving you inside. You think about the argument you had within each other’s head, how Touya would have rather died than be linked to you like he is now.

You slump against the seat, comforted by the metal cage you’ve been left inside of.

#dabi x reader #touya todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #tw claustrophobia #just in case it’s like so brief and doesn’t describe much yet but I just wanna be safe #ghost.writes #ghost.fic

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