"Do you have an ID?" You didn't get to see Dabi's response as you busily rummaged through your bag for your own, the phoenix whistling a short tune as though that was it. "Was that a no?"

     "Depends on how you look at it." You simply gave him a short-lived glare, before being side-tracked at Melissa waving a wild hand from the side-entrance of the building. A sign that said 'Staff Only' hung on top, the blonde looking quite frantic as you waved back. "Is this the scientist friend?" You shook your head, paused, then shrugged, all while still holding a smile at the inventor, "No. I mean yeah she's technically a scientist, if you squint at the dictionary-explanation long enough, but she isn't the one." He quietly nods, ungloved—for some reason—hand still holding tightly around your waist as you arrived near your friend. 

     "Hey Y/N! Layla called you?" You nod as you return the short hug, earning a small sympathetic smile, "You weren't busy, were you?" 

     Memories of you sobbing pathetically in your office makes themselves known like a dodgeball to the face.

     "Nope!" You cheerily called out, "Not at all. Always glad to help a friend out," Her smile widens, before her gaze falls onto the man beside you. "Oh! Who's this?" Panic settles on your face as you struggle to think of a quick-enough lie, but God be praised because he keeps his cool and extends out a proud hand. "Dabi. I'm a friend of Y/N's. And you must be. . ?"

     "Melissa! Melissa Shield, nice meeting you, Dabi." It was fleeting, but you saw the way her calculated gaze stayed on his hand's scarring a second too long. "Now come on, we can't keep her waiting," She gestures with a quick tilt of her head, furrowing your brows with a confused look as you eyed the guard standing by the door with a huff, "But. . . Shouldn't we show our ID's?" She laughs, already past the gate, "As if, you guys are with me now," She sends a friendly wink—taking note of the small band-aid on her cheek—before turning on her heel and letting her lab coat dramatically follow suit, "Now come, I don't have long," You hesitated, but followed her anyway, Dabi side-whistling as he quietly observes the large modern building you were heading for.

     "So, what's with the new face accessory?" She laughs, a finger leaving a ghost of a touch on the covered injury as you three walk through the double glass doors that slid open with a hiss, the cold hitting at your face, "Had a little accident, earlier. One motor blew up and practically exploded the entire prototype." Your eyes widened in concern, to which she laughs even harder, "It's fine! I'm used to it. Plus, I got away pretty quickly, just failed to catch one of the screws that got loose. How about you? Your scars healing well?" You couldn't remember ever telling her about that (maybe Jirou or Momo told her about it?) but you responded anyway for the sake of conversation, "Oh no, they're fine. I'm just keeping some of the bandages on for safe measures." She chuckles, pressing a button on the elevator that you couldn't quite catch. "I feel ya, better safe than sorry."

     Silence falls over the small claustrophobic, reflective box that you were all in, slowly moving up as it dinged every now and then upon passing a floor, "So, Dabi, how'd you and Y/N meet?" You quietly sucked in a breath through pressed-together teeth, the phoenix humming as though thinking about it. "Oh, it was when she was walking home alone one night and she managed to get herself cornered. I saved her, of course," You subtly elbowed his stomach all throughout that explanation, but it felt that he needed a harder one as he laughed, "We've been. . . good friends, ever since." Whether she noticed his hand inching closer and closer to your ass you weren't sure, but she laughed in good nature as the doors slide open (what was it with this building and it's obsession with sliding doors?) upon arriving at the floor, "My, sounds like a good way to start a friendship." 

     "It is, isn't it?" You furrowed your brows at Dabi as if to tell him to stop fucking around, earning a, what you thought—no, what you knew—was a shit-eating grin from behind his mask, "How 'bout you? How'd you meet Y/N?" 

     "Oh we met at college in a convention," She smiles fondly at the memory, getting pulled out of your quiet disappointment to raise a brow at her, "You still remember that?"

     "Obviously! You and Jirou were so loud, oh my goodness. I just knew instantly that we'd be friends," You couldn't help but let a smile settle on your face as well, before the reminiscing gets cut short as she arrives at her lab—you knew, it had her name on it—and softly sighing, "Well, this is my stop. You still remember where Layla's room is, right?" You nod, hoping that your memory served you good, "Alright. See you later, Y/N! Nice meeting you, Dabi," You both give each your respective goodbyes, before the blue door shuts behind her as she makes her way in. 

     Turning your head with a glare to the man in question, he only smiles innocently, "What?"

     You sigh in exasperation before shaking your head as your way of saying never mind, walking past many doors as you traverse the similarly outlined hallways. Seriously, whoever designed this building needs to get fired, each one just looked like a carbon copy of the other.

     The rest of the trip remained quiet, but as you got closer to the emptier hallways he asked, "Why are we here again?"

     "Glorified translators," You answered with not much thought, earning a chuckle as he raises a brow, "And you couldn't do this alone?"

     "One, I only asked you to escort me, I wasn't expecting Melissa to invite you in. I mean yeah it was common sense and it's only fair, but whatever. Two, as if you'd ever say no to wasting more time with me." If you were with other people you would've honestly thought you sounded a little too stuck-up, but another laugh and a, "Fair point," made you realize that, you were in fact not with other people, you were with Dabi. 

     Finally arriving at the only door in this particular hallway that had a name plate, you go to knock on it. The first hit in the door had already opened with a flustered looking brunette, hands gripping onto a notebook that you could see some very wild and messy scribbles in, "Hi, hey, get in," She pauses to send a confused look at the man just quietly keeping up from behind you, before shaking her head and letting way. "Y/N this is uhh, Tokuda Taneo, Taneo, Y/N L/N, cool, cool, uhh she speaks Japanese." She nods a few times before disappearing into what looked like a storage room, grabbing a few flasks along the way while you were left to awkwardly keep conversation with a man you hardly knew.

     . . .

     Then again you did it with Dabi so who's to say you didn't have a talent for it?

     "Hey, nice to meet you," The man in question gratefully accepts the extended hand, his angled features and mismatched eyes being the one to greet you head-on, "Pleasure is mine." 

     "So, Layla's told me you're not from here?" He shakes his head, sitting on the green couch that it seems all these work stations had. But it was obvious from the piling materials on one side that it was only cleared for the man last minute, the smell of tea wafting from the cup nursed in his twitching hands, "No, not at all. Not even close," He sighs, "I just hope I'm not fired yet." You stare, before shaking your head, "Oh, uh, where do you work?"

     "Juzo News, I'm a freelance journalist." Your face makes that face everyone makes when realizing something, pointing a finger as you did so, "Oh! Yeah, yeah I remember. I used to buy ice cream from the vendor outside the building like all the time, they're the best," He lit up at the mention of that like it held a place in his heart, smiling sadly, "Yeah, yeah they are." 

    Before you could look to Dabi for help on continuing the conversation, Layla emerges with two plastic chairs, noisily pushing it to you and Dabi as she drags out a metal one, "Hey, hi, yeah, here." You gratefully accept it and sit without much thought, turning to her with a raised brow, "So how do we do this?"

     "I ask the questions, you translate for him, he answers, you translate for me, vice versa." You nod, not bothering to ask why she was so out of breath as she clears her throat and scans over the pages of her small pad, "How much do you remember from the incident?" You did so as you turned to him, the man slowly nodding in recall, "Not much, but I remember being taken from straight off the streets and into a plane headed here," You assumed he meant New York, nodding as you quietly relayed it to Layla in English, "I had a sack over my head the entire ride, so I don't know where it is. All I know is it smelled awfully like the sea, but I can't be too sure, because by then my senses have been rendered useless." 

     He takes a sip of the drink still in his hold, one hand reaching over to grab the blanket around him, "When they finally took it off me, I was in a bright building. A lot like this one, actually, difference was most of the staff there didn't look like they had proper uniforms. And the ones that did were either armored or wearing biohazard suits." You told it to Layla with a slowly raising brow, the girl not minding as she continued to write furiously with no signs of stopping, "I saw a reoccurring symbol though." Upon translating that she had already shoved a pencil and paper in his direction, putting away the now empty cup as he slowly sketches, "I was shoved into a room with a lot of other equally confused individuals. They stripped us bare and got us into. . . hospital gowns is the best I can describe them, but they were mostly rags than anything. Took some blood, did some testing, and shoved a tube up my nose. Here's proof, if it's even needed," He points to just beneath his bottom lip, the fading scars of an incision and stitches making you cringe as you relayed it to the chemist.

     "That place had practically no windows, and I hadn't seen the sun until I managed to get out just earlier today. It was just. . . artificial white lights, white spotless tiles, white walls—white was everywhere, it drove me nuts." He pauses as he comes across a particular memory, shuddering at the thought, "Turns out I wasn't the only one with an ability there. I say ability lightly because I never really had one, just this slot in my chest," He opens his shirt without hesitation as he showcases it to the three of you, slowly nodding as if to tell him to put it down. He did eventually, "So they gave me dosages of a blue liquid after running even more tests and being asked what the slot did. Told them I didn't know, and after about a week of the drugs I could do this," He extends out a hand as he puts down the pencil, a camera lens emerging from the skin like a zombie out of a grave straight from a bad horror film.

     You jump back in the middle of reciting the translation to Layla, blissfully unbothered as it seemed that that was all it took to finally pique Dabi's interest, "It was. . . painful, to say the least." The brunette stops, looking up after she rereads her notes, "Blue?" He nods, "Blue, yes. Bright blue. I was the only one they gave it to, and no one else. They left me alone for a while, but I still didn't. . . feel safe. Then days, or even just hours, I'm not sure, later, they took me in for testing again. When I was to have the tube shoved up my nose again, something happened and I was left alone for a few minutes. There, I overhead what I would assume is part of their research. And. . . the things I heard are better left to the human imagination." 

     "As if," The chemist scoffs, "This is important."

     It looked like he hesitated to do so, but kept talking, "When you were talking to yourself earlier, you mentioned something about the pituitary gland. And you're completely right! They are doing something to it, and it didn't take much of a genius to figure out the criteria they had in taking in the poor unfortunate folks such as myself." He finishes the sketch as his voice drops, vaguely seeing the shape of a man's head and what looked to be Darth-Vader esque mask, "Like I said earlier, I wasn't the only person there with an ability. I just didn't know that we all did," You looked at Layla as you got to that part, a quiet look of victory on her face as you could only assume that a theory of hers had been proven correct, "Apparently, we secrete a special hormone that triggers these changes in our body. We're still human in biology, we just have this extra hormone that makes us slightly different. They originally planned on harvesting the pituitary gland in it's entirety, but seeing as you could really only get less than a drop of it, they realized they were going to have to do something else."

     He sighs, perhaps another bad memory coming into mind? "So they made another drug. It was to speed up the creation of this specific hormone, but it backfired and created. . ." He quietly swallows a lump in his throat, slowly shrugging in response to Layla's confused look asking why you had stopped, "I don't want to say monsters, but it worsened the inhuman characteristics of the other people there. A man with sharp teeth died because the drug made them grow so large to the point of it piercing through his own body!" Taneo takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself before he could continue, "It took a lot of trial and errors, and a lot of lost friends, but they got what they wanted. So a system was made. The enhancing drug, to which I found out just hours ago they called Trigger, was first put into a person. It had a fifty-fifty chance of backfiring, and while it settled, a tube would be shoved up that person's nose to collect the secreted hormones. Either it had filters or it was manually filtered to get the hormone they wanted, I don't know, but they did it." 

     By now, Blue was on her fourth page, this time even more invested as you only now noticed the recorder resting on her lap that had been rolling since the start of this whole conversation, "Once that was done. . ." He shakes his head, "I'm sorry that's all that I can recall. They never told us why and where these harvested hormones were getting used for." Upon translating Layla already had an answer, repeating it to the man as his eyes visibly waver, "They're being used to make a different type of drug. It can genetically change a human to turn into. . ." She gestures to him, "You guys. Sorry, still don't have a proper terminology. But okay, next question, do you remember any names or faces that were in that facility?" He pauses for a moment, and another, then another, but ultimately coming up short as he sighed in disappointment. Not at the question but at himself for not knowing what to answer.

     "I'm starting to have gaps in my memory, and can't really recall anyone." Before quickly adding, "I can tell you if I ever remember anyone afterwards, although," She nods, either in understanding of his situation or just wanting to get as much information as she could without having to stall to wait for him to remember, you weren't sure, but didn't dare to raise the question. "Okay, uhh. . ." She flips a few pages back as she clicks her tongue repeatedly, trying to think of other things to ask, "That's. . . really. . . it. . ." She stands up and stumbles to grab her white board, turning to you as you quietly thanked the journalist for his help. 

     "Okay so now we know that, we can assume that this drug is forcing your pituitary gland to secrete this hormone. Have you felt any discomforts lately?" You shrugged a no, but it doesn't seem like it mattered as she continued, "Remember when I said crying was a side effect? It's because of that. Your body's trying to get used to this new. . . new, foreign hormone, trying to nestle it's way into your pituitary gland. And while doing that, it's messing up all the other hormones in the process and making you act weird. You might even experience other side effects like growth spurts, breaking out in your skin, have shitty mood swings, changes in your sex drive, fuck up your energy distribution, et cetera et cetera—but my point is!" She scoffs, running a hand through her hair and completely ignoring your reddening face and the growing investment in the conversation that creeped onto Dabi's face, "It. . . it finally makes sense. . ! If. . . If I can get my hands on any of their files, I can. . ." She clears her throat, shaking her head, "No not that. I can just. . . the short answer is this has been a lot of help, but I'm still going to need more." 

     "Well I'm currently looking for the lab," You offered, quietly slapping away the phoenix's hand that tried to pull some shit, "I don't have a lead yet but—"

     "That's perfect!" She cuts off, the loudest her voice has gotten in the few times you have held a conversation with her, "Once you find it tell me. The experiments they're doing there sounds fucked up, and I'd be damned if I don't end up helping one way or another. Plus, I might be able to make an antidote! I can get that thing out of you!" She starts writing on the white board as she mumbles many more to herself, something about just flushing it out along some of the words you heard her say. But you just sigh in relief at the confirmation that there would still be hope for you, turning to Dabi to quietly celebrate, but he holds a rare look of visible concern. "Uhh, babe, you got uh," You hesitantly reach a hand up to where he subtly pointed to his nose, touching it and seeing. . . blood, as you pulled away. "Huh."