Nothing Left to Manage

Morning · The Grand Dynasty Estate breakfast hall

The Grand Dynasty Estate, breakfast hall — gold morning light and the smell of coffee and something warm from the kitchen

The estate's morning is already in full, loud swing by the time Megi steps through the ballroom's side corridor and into the breakfast hall — the heatwave sitting against the tall windows like a held breath, turning the room amber and thick. She doesn't make it three steps before the cameras find her: the same loose linen she left in, her hair still down, the decorated Aegis badge still on her lapel. The whole table reads it in the particular way that people read things they were already wondering about — Izuku's hand pauses over his cup, Todoroki sets his down with a quiet click and looks at her directly across the table, and Kirishima, seated at the far end, lifts his chin once — unhurried, steady, the same as he was at the pond — and lets his gaze say there she is without saying anything at all. At the near end of the table, Dabi leans back in his chair with his arms folded and says nothing, though the angle of his jaw tells her he noticed, same as everyone else. Denki is already there — yellow blazer swapped for a loose shirt, hair still slightly rumpled, his phone face-down beside his cup — and when she walks in, his chin lifts and a smile breaks across his face that he doesn't quite manage to contain, crooked and warm and entirely unperformed; without fanfare, he pulls the empty chair beside him half an inch further out.

Denki Kaminari: "Hey. Saved it, like I said."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Morning, Megi."

Shoto Todoroki: "You were gone all night."

Pull aside

The heatwave is already pressing at the breakfast hall windows when Megi catches Dabi's eye across the room — just that, a look with a direction in it, and a tilt of her head toward the east corridor. She doesn't wait to see if he follows. The hallway outside the hall is quieter, the sounds of the table falling away behind her, the morning light narrower and warmer here, dusty gold filtering through a single high window and landing on the stone floor between them. When she turns around, he's already there — not close, not performing anything, trench coat still bearing last night's creases, hands loose at his sides, jaw set at the particular angle he uses when he's decided not to say the first thing that came to mind. The lighter sits in her pocket. He knows she has it; he's known every morning since she took it. He watches her the way a person watches something they've been expecting and are still not entirely ready for — the warmth he doesn't name in his face, present and contained, waiting to see what she actually came to say.

Dabi: "You said sunrise. This is later than sunrise, Megi Dullahan."

"I lost track of time. I'm sorry. But I'm here now."

The apology lands between them in the corridor's amber quiet — I lost track of time, I'm sorry, but I'm here now — and Dabi absorbs it the way he absorbs most things she says: without moving, without rushing to fill it, the particular stillness of someone who learned a long time ago that the moment you show it matters is the moment it gets used against you. The heatwave presses through the high corridor window in a single blade of gold, cutting across the stone floor between their feet, and he looks at her with his hands still loose at his sides — not reaching, not performing anything — and what surfaces on his face is not the drawl, not the sarcasm, not the calculated angle he uses when cameras are close. It is something quieter and more dangerous than any of those: the face of a person who counted the hours and is not going to say so. The sounds of the breakfast table drift under the door behind him, distant and irrelevant, and the scorched silver lighter sits warm in her pocket between them like a third party to this conversation.

Dabi: "Sunrise was two hours ago, Megi Dullahan. But you're here, so — what did you actually come to say?"

"I came to give you these back." She hands back the lighter and the bracelet, slowly, where he can see every motion.

The lighter comes out of her pocket first — the scorched silver catching that one blade of morning gold from the high corridor window, the engraved crest face-up, nothing hidden in the motion. She holds it out in the flat of her palm, then the Hawks memento beside it, slow and deliberate the way she said — where he can see every movement, every inch of the offer. The corridor holds them in that amber quiet while Dabi looks at what she's put in front of him, and something in his jaw shifts — not anger, not the drawl, not the casual contempt he keeps polished for public rooms. Something older and quieter than any of those, moving behind his eyes like a flame through glass. He does not reach for them. His hands stay loose at his sides, exactly where they were, and when he finally looks up from her palm to her face, the sarcasm is nowhere in the room.

Dabi: "You didn't come all the way out here to give me back a lighter, Megi Dullahan. So what is it you're actually putting down."

"I did. I came to give you back your lighter and the bracelet you gave me. Because...they're yours. And I don't think I can be anymore."

The words land in the corridor's amber quiet like something set down from a great height — slow, deliberate, final. Megi holds her palm open between them, the scorched lighter and the memento catching that single blade of morning gold, and says the thing she came to say. Dabi goes absolutely still. Not the stillness of someone bracing — the stillness of someone who heard every syllable and is letting it arrive without armor, without the drawl, without anything between his face and the truth of it. His jaw works once, almost imperceptibly, and then stops. The corridor holds them: the sounds of the breakfast table a world away behind the door, the heatwave pressing gold through the high window, two feet of stone floor between his hands and hers. He looks at the lighter. He looks at her face. He does not reach for either.

Dabi: "You rehearsed that. ...No. You didn't. That's the problem, isn't it. You didn't rehearse a word of it."

She slowly shakes her head, "No. I wish I could say that I had it running around my head all night, but...I think that's part of why I have to do this. Because I didn't. Because I realized that the person you loved isn't here anymore. She disappeared when you did...and I can't be her anymore." She swallows, "I'm sorry that everything came out about us on camera. I'm sorry that this might, too, but...it isn't for them. Or the elders. Or our fathers. It's...for me. For what was us."

The blade of morning gold through the high corridor window hasn't moved, but the air around it feels different now — heavier, pressed thin by the heatwave and by what she just gave him, which is something far older and more final than a lighter. Dabi is absolutely still for a long moment, hands at his sides, eyes on her face with an expression that is not sarcasm and not contempt and not anything she has seen him deploy publicly before: it is the face of someone who has just heard the exact shape of the wound, and recognized it. His jaw moves once, closed. He exhales through his nose — slow, deliberate, the kind of breath that is doing a job — and when he speaks, the drawl is not entirely there; it surfaces at the edges and then stops, like a habit he reached for and found too small for the moment. The corridor holds them in its amber quiet, the distant sound of the breakfast table irrelevant and far away, and nothing in her palm has moved.

Dabi: "She didn't disappear when I did. She decided something — and that decision had time to grow roots. I know the difference. ...You rehearsed that part even less than the other. And you're right that it isn't for them. I know that too. I've known it since the corridor. Take the lighter with you. I know what it costs you to hold it. That's why I gave it to you in the first place, Megi Dullahan — not so you'd have something to give back."

"Touya, it's yours. I can't keep it. It's always been yours, part of you. I can't keep that..." She hesitates, but doesn't look away from his eyes, painfully honest as she whispers, "It hurts too much."

The name lands in the corridor like something dropped from a great height — Touya — and for one full second the east window's blade of gold is the only thing that moves, dust drifting slow through it while Dabi goes absolutely, completely still. Not the stillness of composure. The stillness of a person who just heard the one syllable that bypasses every layer he has built, and has no prepared response for it. His jaw works once, almost imperceptibly, and his eyes — which have not left her face since she started talking — do something complicated and private that the drawl cannot reach. The lighter and the memento sit in the flat of her palm between them, unheld, unhurried, and what she has just said is still moving through the air of the corridor like heat off stone.

Dabi: "...You shouldn't have said that name. Not because I don't — not because it isn't mine. Because you said it like you already know what it costs. And you're still putting it down anyway."

She swallows, takes a shaky breath in, "It cost us both everything. But, I...I grieved that for so long. Grieved you for so long. You should be allowed to do that, too."

The words land in the corridor and do not echo — they sink into the stone, into the morning heat, into the space between them where the lighter still sits in her palm. Dabi does not move. His hands stay loose at his sides and his face stays open in a way that has no name in his usual register — not the drawl, not the calculated tilt, not the sarcasm he keeps polished for every room that has ever looked at him wrong. He breathes once, slowly, and something behind his eyes does the work his hands won't. The heatwave presses its blade of gold through the high corridor window and catches the engraved crest on the lighter face-up, burning it visible between them, and he looks at it for a long moment — not reaching, not refusing — just looking at it the way you look at something you've been carrying so long you forgot what it weighed.

Dabi: "...You actually did that. You actually stood there and grieved it and then came to hand me the receipt. Nobody does that. Nobody comes back and says — you're allowed to have this, too. They just leave you with the ashes and call it clean."

"They should have. They should have for you...I didn't have time to do much else after Father..." She trails off, already remembering how much she told Kirishima, how much is out in the world, how much Dabi probably knows now about what went on behind closed doors and why she's here now, "...after Father did what he felt he needed to do. But you...you should have had that. Please, take the lighter back. Touya. Dabi. Whoever you want that to be."

The blade of morning gold through the high corridor window doesn't waver, doesn't soften — it just holds there, burning the engraved crest visible in the flat of her palm, and Megi's voice trails off on her father's name the way a sentence does when the rest of it is too heavy to carry into open air. Dabi is very still. He has been still for the last several exchanges — that specific stillness that isn't peace, isn't composure, is the stillness of something that has taken a hit in a place that doesn't bruise on the outside. His jaw works once. The drawl is gone. The sarcasm is nowhere in this corridor. His eyes move from the lighter to her face, and then back to the lighter, and something in his expression does the kind of work that has no name in his usual register — older than sarcasm, older than the charcoal and the silver staples and the persona he's worn for years over the boy the betrothal papers belonged to. He unfolds one hand from his side. It moves slowly — not toward her, but downward, open — the way you move when you're deciding whether the thing in front of you is real enough to touch. His fingers close around the lighter, and he takes it. He doesn't say thank you. The corridor holds them in its amber quiet, the sounds of the breakfast table a world away, and when he finally speaks it is in the voice that exists below the drawl — raw-edged, not quite steady, almost nothing.

💬 "Take care of yourself, Touya."

The words land in the corridor's amber quiet like something set down gently and deliberately — no ceremony, no last argument, just four words and a name that she has now spoken three times in the same morning light. Dabi goes very still. His thumb presses flat against the engraved crest on the lighter and doesn't move. He looks at her for a long moment — not with the drawl, not with the sarcasm, not with any of the layers that corridor ordinarily requires — and something in his expression does the work of a man who has just been handed something he does not know how to carry yet and is deciding whether to hold it carefully or put it down before he can drop it. The blade of gold through the high window catches the silver crest in his closed fist, and when he finally speaks, it is very quiet, very near to nothing, and the irritation underneath it is not at her.

Dabi: "...That's the first time anyone's said that to me and meant it without wanting something back. I'll figure out what to do with it. Go eat your breakfast, Megi Dullahan. You've got a whole day left to survive and I'm not going to be the reason you face it on an empty stomach."

move on to the next activity

The name lands in the corridor the way a door closing softly does — no echo, just the sound of air filling the space it left. Dabi doesn't move. His thumb is still flat over the engraved crest, and he holds her gaze for one full beat after the last syllable of his name, his jaw working once at nothing. The heatwave light through the high corridor window catches the silver in his closed fist, and something behind his eyes does the work his hands won't — a small, involuntary thing, there and gone. He exhales through his nose. The sounds of the breakfast table have been patient through all of this, and they are patient still, but the corridor itself feels lighter than it did when she walked in — not empty, just relieved of something heavy. Dabi turns his face, very slightly, toward the blade of gold on the stone floor, and his mouth does not quite form the shape of a response, and that is the most honest thing he has done all morning.

Dabi: "...Yeah. I'll work on it."

The breakfast hall is fully gold now — heatwave light pouring flat and merciless through the tall eastern windows, turning the white linen tablecloths into something almost blinding. Megi steps back through the main doors and the room doesn't gasp; it just quietly reorganizes around her arrival the way it has learned to do. Kirishima's chin lifts from across the table — that same steady clock of her return, the one that never announces itself — and Todoroki sets his cup down with a small, deliberate sound that is almost a greeting. Denki is exactly where she left him, yellow blazer bright against the morning, his hands loose around his coffee cup, and when their eyes meet his expression does the specific thing it has been doing since the ballroom: fully open, nothing performing, one unanswered question still living in it like a held breath. Whatever he asked before she stepped into that corridor — it is still there, unhurried and unrescinded, patient as the heatwave itself.

Eijiro Kirishima: "You're back."

Denki Kaminari: "No rush. I've got all morning."

Izuku Midoriya: "There's food still warm, Megi — I asked them to hold a plate."

"Thank you," She offers quietly, before taking her plate and sitting down with them, between Eijiro and Denki as close as she can.

The plate is warm through the linen napkin Izuku presses it into — a small, deliberate act of care that asks nothing back — and Megi carries it the length of the table and slots herself into the gap between Eijiro and Denki with the ease of someone who has decided exactly where she belongs this morning. Eijiro's hand finds her forearm as she sits, a single quiet point of contact that doesn't announce itself, and his shoulder opens half an inch toward her the way a door does when someone's expected. The heatwave gold lies flat across the white linen and the whole table absorbs her return without ceremony — Todoroki's cup stays exactly where he set it, Izuku exhales and moves back toward his own seat, Hawks tips his chin a fraction at nothing in particular — and then Denki's elbow finds her ribs in a nudge so light it barely qualifies, and the question that has been sitting in his eyes all morning shifts from held breath to something warmer, more patient, still entirely there.

Izuku Midoriya: "They kept the eggs warm, too. I asked twice."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Hey. You okay?"

Denki Kaminari: "Look who made it. Saved your coffee, too — you're welcome, by the way."

She smiles at Denki, weak as it is, but nods to Eijiro, "I'll...I'll tell you all later. Text it, I don't want it...out in the open? If we can avoid it. He deserves better than that and...and so do I, I think."

The table absorbs it — the quiet request, the small smile aimed at Denki, the nod to Eijiro — in the particular way a table does when everyone at it has learned, over the course of four days, how to listen to the shape of what isn't being said as much as the shape of what is. The heatwave light lies flat across the white linen, still and merciless, and the warmth of Eijiro's forearm under her fingers is the most uncomplicated thing in the room. Denki's eyes do something careful — the question that's been living there since before she stood up doesn't go anywhere, but it adjusts, the way a hand does when it relaxes its grip without letting go. Across the table, Todoroki sets his cup down a half-inch further from his place setting than he needs to, and the small deliberate wrongness of it is the only sign he's been holding something.

Eijiro Kirishima: "Yeah. Text is good. Take your time."

Denki Kaminari: "I'll have my phone on. No rush — it doesn't have an expiry date."

Izuku Midoriya: "The eggs really are still warm, Megi. I want you to actually eat something today."

"Thank you, Izuku," She offers, and does start to eat. Slowly, carefully, clearly still thinking about what happened rather than what comes tonight.

The eggs are warm the way Izuku promised — a small, deliberate kindness that asks nothing back — and Megi eats slowly, each bite deliberate, her eyes not quite settling on anything across the table. The heatwave light makes the white linen almost surgical, and underneath it the morning holds her, unhurried, as if the whole hall has agreed without discussion to let her have this. Eijiro's forearm doesn't move from its place beside hers on the table's edge — just present, grounding, a point of heat that doesn't require acknowledgment. Across the spread of cups and cutlery, Todoroki finally sets his displaced cup back to its correct position, the smallest act of recalibration, and something in the angle of his shoulder says the morning has been received. Shindo watches her eat the way he watches everything — patient, measuring — and then tips his chin almost imperceptibly toward the tall windows as though he's already thinking about what the afternoon holds and has decided she should be, too.

Izuku Midoriya: "The eggs really did stay warm. I checked twice. I'm — I'm glad you're eating."

Denki Kaminari: "No rush on anything, okay? Text when you're ready. Or don't. I'll still be here."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Take your time."

Yo Shindo: "Word of advice — eat enough. The afternoon has opinions of its own."

She gives Shindo a quiet nod, clearing the whole plate slowly and carefully, before she looks up, as promised, toward Bakugo.

The plate is clean — every last edge of it, deliberate and unhurried — and when Megi sets her fork down the small sound of silver on china is the only announcement she makes. Shindo catches her nod with the ease of a man who already knew the morning would end exactly this way, and something in the angle of his mouth acknowledges it without making a thing of it. The heatwave light is merciless and steady across the white linen, and Megi lets it sit a beat before she lifts her eyes across the table to where Bakugo has been waiting — not impatiently, not performing patience either, just with that particular stillness of someone who decided not to do anything until she decided to look. He is exactly where he has been since she sat down: forearms on the table, weight forward by a fraction, eyes already on her face the moment hers find his — a dare that doesn't announce itself as a dare, only sits there in the flat gold light and waits to see if she holds.

Yo Shindo: "Good. You'll want something in your stomach for this afternoon."

Katsuki Bakugo: "There you are."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Hey — you okay?"

Denki Kaminari: "No rush on anything."

She takes a breath in, nods. "I'm here, Bakugo. Are we talking here or is there somewhere we need to go?"

The question lands clean across the white linen — no armor, no deflection, just Megi Dullahan looking at Katsuki Bakugo and asking where they're doing this. A beat passes where the only sound is the heatwave pressing at the tall windows, light flat and merciless across everyone's hands. Something moves through Bakugo's jaw — not anger, not satisfaction either — something closer to the particular relief of a person who has been waiting for someone to stop performing at them and just show up. He doesn't make a theater of it. He pushes back from the table in one clean motion, the scrape of the chair doing all the announcing he needs, and tilts his head toward the corridor — not a suggestion, not an invitation, a direction. Eijiro's forearm doesn't move from its place at her side until it has to, and when it does, his eyes follow her the whole way, the kind of steady that doesn't require a word.

Katsuki Bakugo: "Not here. Come on."

Eijiro Kirishima: "I'll be right here."

Denki Kaminari: "Coffee's still warm when you get back."

Izuku Midoriya: "Take your time — there's no rush before afternoon."

She nods, stands up, and follows him.

Bakugo doesn't look back to check she's following — he doesn't need to — and the corridor swallows them both in pale heatwave light the moment they clear the breakfast hall doors. The stone is cool underfoot where the sun hasn't reached yet, and the quiet is a different kind than the table's: no one filing it, no one clocking it, just the distant sound of the estate waking up and the particular stillness of two people who have finally stopped circling. He stops at the tall window halfway down and turns, arms loose at his sides, the crimson lapels catching the morning light — not performing at her, not building toward anything, just standing there in the corridor like a man who had a thing to say and finally has the room to say it. The words, when they come, don't sound like a dare.

Katsuki Bakugo: "I don't do this. The whole — waiting around, pulling someone aside. That's not me. So I'm only going to say it once: I see you. Not the mandate, not the dynasty. You. And I'm not telling you to pick me — I'm telling you that whatever you decide today, I'm going to remember that you were the first person in this whole thing who actually made me feel like I could lose."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Still here."

Denki Kaminari: "Coffee's going cold, so — no pressure."

Pull aside

The corridor swallows them the moment the breakfast hall doors swing shut behind her, and the ambient noise of the estate — cutlery, low voices, the distant chime of a clock somewhere in the east wing — disappears into stone and silence. Bakugo stops at the tall window halfway down without ceremony, turns, and the crimson lapels catch the full force of the morning light. He doesn't lean. He doesn't fold his arms. He just stands there the way a person stands when they have been holding something at a controlled burn for three days and have finally decided the controlled part is optional. The irritation is real and immediate, but underneath it — underneath the jaw set hard and the weight forward on the balls of his feet — is something that looks, against every odd, like a man who wanted to be the one she walked toward this morning and wasn't.