You and Dabi had been playing Uno with Uncle Jin, Spinner and Himiko when it happened, the sound of crutches hitting the floor drawing your attention away while Toga drew another card.
You freeze when you spot a large man hopping into the room on his crutches. You don't recognise him. His hair is long and white, he looks strong, stronger than Uncle Jin, and you can't see his face clearly because his hair's hanging over his face.
You immediately grab Dabi's sleeve, preventing him from taking his turn.
He looks over at the intruder too, but his lips pull up instead of down.
"Boss." He greets, a fondness that you rarely saw in his eyes as he looks towards the snow-haired man.
"Tomura!" Himiko calls happily. "I'm about to win, and then you can play, too!"
"That's not 'Mura..." You mumble to yourself, feeling your heart begin to lose track of its beating.
Dabi looks over at you worriedly as you scoot closer and closer to him the closer Tomura gets. Now you could see his face, it looked like Tomura, this person had all the broken skin around their eyes like him, and the asymmetrical scars on his eye and mouth were the same too.
But he was missing fingers, his hand adorned with a metal casing you'd never seen before, and his arm was scarred purple up it, not too dissimilar to Dabi's. And he was so much bigger.
And that scared you.
"He looks a little different, but it's still Tomura." Dabi tells you quietly. "Ya don't needta be scared."
"He's big..." You whisper as Tomura gets close enough to be able to hear you if you speak any louder. "I don't like it..."
Dabi sighs, playing his move before placing his free hand on the side of your head, holding your head to his chest as Tomura seems to sense your nerves and sits on a chair opposite, next to Himiko.
"Welcome back." Spinner grins. "How's the leg?"
"Glad you're finally better, Shigaraki!" Jin sticks his thumb up before growling: "You were gone for so long! I healed both arms in the time it took you to get outta Docs!"
"I've had worse." Tomura replies with a nearly non-existent smile, his eyes scanning over everyone around the table before they land on you. "Hello, Starlight."
"Hello." You reply in a small voice, clinging to Dabi's arm.
Tomuras eyes flicker to Dabi for a mere moment before he leans back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest and peering at Himikos remaining cards.
"Your turn, Starshine." Dabi reminds you, nudging you gently in the ribs.
You manage to peel your eyes away from Tomura for long enough to pick a card and put it down on the pile on the table.
The second you do, you're staring at him warily again.
You don't really know why you're so scared. It's Tomura, and you know he had been there to help you when the bad people took you.
He'd also never laid a finger on you, even if he threatened to all that time ago.
Not like moms boyfriends had, which was the reason you were so nervous of larger men.
"Ha! Reverse!" Himiko exclaims after Spinner makes his turn. "Aaand, uno!"
"Damn." Spinner huffs, drawing another card.
You put down another card, leaning on Dabi, who grumbles as he has to draw another card too.
Tomura meets your eyes again as you continue to stare at him, and you look away quickly as though you'd been caught doing something bad.
"Quit starin', doll. It's rude, remember?" Dabi whispers.
"He's different." You whisper back.
Himiko makes a loud noise of glee as Jin puts down a special card and calls out a random colour in a panic.
"I win!" She announces happily, slamming her final card down onto the pile and grinning widely at her achievement.
"Aw man, I knew I should've gone with green!" Jin whines, wiping his hands over his masked face dramatically.
You put your cards down, Spinner picking them all back up to shuffle them again.
You had watched him in fascination the other times he shuffled the cards, but you couldn't help yourself from continuously looking at Tomura worriedly now.
"Play with us, Tomura!" Himiko says in her usual chipper tone of voice. "You must have been so bored in the hospital."
"Actually, I'd like to talk to Star." Tomura says simply, staring at you.
"Aw." Himiko pouts. "But after?"
"Sure." Tomura agrees, shrugging casually.
You look at him as he begins to stand, your expression showing your absolute panic. It clearly takes him some effort to stand, but he seems unperturbed by it. In fact he seems a lot calmer in general than he ever was before.
"Be good." Dabi tells you, kissing your head quickly, knowing you're likely to whine whenever he gives you physical affection in front of Spinner.
"Come with me." You plead, looking up at him with eyes full of fear.
Dabi's expression softens, and he glances at Tomura as he makes his way towards you for a second before returning his attention to you.
"Star, c'mon, it's just Tomura." Dabi tries to reason with you. "He ain't gonna let anythin' happen to ya."
"Please." You beg. "Please."
Tomura now stands waiting for you, expressionless while the others all banter and begin to share out cards between the three of them again.
Dabi sighs, caving in and getting up from his seat, waiting for you to follow suit.
Tomura shakes his head. "I want to talk to her alone."
"Sorry. She won't." Dabi responds tiredly.
Tomura cocks his head slightly in thought, regarding you with a small crease between his scarred brows. You can see the moment he realises what the problem is, his eyes flashing as though a lightbulb had turned on in his head.
"How about Dabi sits so you can see him, but not with us?" Tomura tries to compromise.
You nod, aware that even if they were boyfriends that Tomura was still Dabi's boss, and you still needed to behave extra politely with him.
This seems to appease Tomura, his lips quirking up slightly while you stand from your seat, hooking your pinky finger around Dabi's.
You all walk off towards the hallway with the stairs, Tomura slowly lowering to sit down on the steps, motioning for you to join him.
You look at Dabi, who's opted to lean against the front door, lighting up a cigarette. It was probably a conscious decision, making it so you know no-one will randomly burst through the door and take you again.
You nervously sit next to Tomura, allowing a small gap between you both.
He leans back, not looking at you but at Dabi, who's scrolling through his phone as he leans against the door and smokes absentmindedly.
"It's been a while." Tomura comments. "How are you?"
"I'm okay." You reply quietly.
There's a short moment of quietness between you both.
"Must've been scary being taken like that."
"It was a little scary..." You admit, downplaying it still.
It'd been scary enough for you to be sick, and it was scary enough for you to not want to be alone again even though you could tell it annoyed Dabi sometimes.
Tomura nods slowly, glancing down at you.
"You remember what the people that took you looked like?" He asks.
You shake your head. "I didn't see them."
Tomura hums, looking away again and you pause for a moment, thinking about the whole ordeal again. A lot of it you tried to forget about, but now you were trying to recall everything again to try and think of something useful for him.
"But when I woke up, there was a tall skinny man with orange hair and a big big nose that hurt Uncle Giran. And he had a friend with long black hair that was looking at lots of computer screens. I didn't see him too well, though..."
Tomura listens intently and nods again. "Good job Star. Thanks for remembering all that."
"Are you going to get them in trouble?" You ask, beginning to feel a little more at ease with him again.
"Not them. But I'd like to get the people that took you in trouble, yes." Tomura replies.
"But they took off Uncle Giran's fingers..." You counter, frowning at him in your displeasure of learning he wasn't going to do anything about them.
"The man who harmed Giran has paid the bills for Giran to get better and have his prosthetics made." Tomura informs you calmly before changing the subject. "Dabi said they hit your head. Is that right?"
You nod and lift your arms so your sleeves fall, revealing the fading bruising and the scabbed up chafe marks on your wrists.
"They hurt my wrists too!" You exclaim.
Tomura's eyes narrow and darken for a split second before returning back to normal.
"If it ever happens again, you have to be still. If you yank on them, or wiggle around, you'll get hurt." Tomura guides. "They didn't put them on properly either if you got hurt."
"How'd you know all that?" You ask curiously.
Tomura pauses for a moment. "I was taught how to deal with that kind of situation when I was around your age."
"You were? Why?"
"Because it's good information to know." Tomura replies.
"But why?"
"Well, would you have gotten hurt if you'd have known that?" Tomura asks in return.
You shake your head.
"There you go then." He says, a finality in his tone.
You look at him quizzically but shrug, knowing better than to push the topic with him. You knew he wasn't likely to bend to your will and tell you what you wanted to know like Dabi would if you kept asking.
"You're different." You comment.
"Well, it's been a while since I saw you." Tomura replies. "You've grown too."
"Dabi can't pick me up anymore..." You muse aloud sadly.
"I bet I could."
"Huh?" You squeak.
"I said, I bet I could pick you up. Even with a healing leg." Tomura grins. "Wanna find out?"
"Uh..." You look at Dabi, who has slowly sunk to a crouch as he smokes and continues to stare at his phone screen.
You'd never been carried by Tomura before, or anyone besides Dabi and Uncle Jin after the boyfriend mom had that had touched you.
"You won't touch my butt?" You ask, knowing that Tomura would never be anything other than honest.
"What?" Tomura asks with a disgusted frown. "Why would I ever do that?"
"Well... moms boyfriend..." You begin, and Tomura holds up a hand to motion for you to be quiet.
"You remember his name?" He asks simply.
"Um, Daiki..." You respond uncertainly.
"What did he look like?" Tomura asks.
"Big and strong like you, Uncle Jin and Spinner." You reply, gesturing with your arms. "He had short blonde hair like Imasuji's but he has both eyes and a scar here."
You point at the side of your neck, and Tomura nods as he makes a mental note of that.
"We'll deal with him too. Sound good?" Tomura asks, holding his uninjured fist out to you.
You grin and bump your fist against his. "Okay!"
Tomura grins crookedly at you as he retracts his hand, and your eyes settle on his new metal-cased hand.
"What happened to your other hand?" You ask, looking back up at him.
"It got hurt." Is the simple reply back.
"Is that what Giran's hand looks like now, too?" You ask, looking back down at his hand. "He's not going to be able to paint..."
"No, Giran has prosthetics." Tomura says, allowing you to look at his hand properly, outstretching it towards you.
"Why didn't you have prosthetics?" You ask.
There's a small pause from Tomura as you run your fingers over the metal on his hand. "Because the doctor found a quirk that should be able to regenerate them for me."
You make a low impressed 'ooh' sound, letting go of his hand. "But why couldn't they use that on Uncle Giran, too?"
"You're full of questions today, Star." Tomura comments.
You purse your lips. That was another way to stop you from pestering him about that line of questioning too.
"How did you get so strong?" You ask instead.
"I trained with the others for three weeks."
"Your hair's white now. It looks like Dabi's. Did you dye it before, too?"
Tomura frowns for a moment, but the expression only lasts for a second before he shakes his head. "It changed because my body and mind was put under a lot of stress."
"Like in horror stories? When people get so scared their hair turns white?" You ask.
"Something like that." Tomura replies. "Maybe if you go missing again Dabi's hair will go white, too."
"What scared you like that?" You ask.
"Are we gonna try lifting you up or not?" Tomura asks, getting to the point. "C'mon, grab onto my back."
"But you're hurt..."
Tomura snorts. "Get on, Starlight."
You reluctantly get onto the step behind him, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his torso, squealing in surprise as he hauls himself up, taking you with him without even struggling once.
Dabi looks over, a hint of amusement in those cold blue eyes as he looks at you both.
You tighten your arms around Tomura, burying your face into his neck as he stands to his full height.
And for the first time in a long time, you smile genuinely.