Chapter Text
Sunday, 3:20pm:
“Hello! Excuse me? Are you Hero-In-Training ‘Shoto’?”
Shoto’s head popped up, he had been looking up a new cafe that Shouji had recommended to him on his phone. He had just finished visiting his mother at the hospital and was feeling a bit hungry.
But, this was one of the first times someone had recognised him as ‘Shoto’, and not ‘Endeavor’s son’. Shoto’s lips quirked up a bit, “Yes I am, may I help you?” He extended his hand.
The other man took his hand and shook it, smiling, “Yes, Todoroki Shoto, you can help me.”
And that’s when Shoto found himself impaled. A spike had grown out of the other man’s arm and had planted itself in Shoto’s shoulder. Correction: through his shoulder.
Well that’s not optimal, he thought.
---
Sunday, 3:35pm:
To be honest, Dabi was a little behind schedule. He’d stopped for coffee, sue him. Unfortunately, someone had recognized him. The ensuing cop chase cost him an extra couple minutes and put him further away from the scheduled location. And he’d lost his damn coffee. He wasn’t too worried, Dabi knew that Shoto could take a low life like Nitta anyday.
Rounding the corner, Dabi came on the alley he had scoped out prior, it had an unobstructed, but hidden, view of the provided location on the other end. Overall he wasn’t too late. Only, Dabi checked his watch, five minutes late. Spook wouldn’t yell at him for that.
Nitta was supposed to attack at 3:30 pm, so the fight would just be beginning. Excited to see that disgusting bastard Nitta get beat down, Dabi hurried into the alley. He tripped over something fleshy almost immediately after entering the alley.
What? Dabi checked what he’d tripped over. It was Nitta. Covered in wounds.
How did Shoto defeat him that quickly? He thought, quite impressed with his younger brother-- but wait, why was Nitta in the alley and not where he was supposed to attack Shoto? Speaking of which, where was Shoto? Wouldn’t he have stayed with Nitta to cuff him… Is Nitta breathing?
A grip of panic seized him, he looked over Nitta again and found no signs of life.
I wouldn’t have thought Shoto would kill him… But on second thought, those don’t look like burns or freezing… no, they look more like… puncture wounds? Almost like… Shit!
---
Sunday, 3:40pm:
Shoto was down. Had been down for several minutes, and after all the wounds he had sustained, he wasn’t getting back up soon. The first spike had been dipped in some kind of quirk suppressor and it had taken effect almost immediately. Shoto couldn’t defend himself and the other man had beaten him to a pulp. He wished he had listened to Midoriya about Quirkless sparring.
Though the man had mostly stuck to kicking him and slicing him up with smaller spikes, Shoto had other large wounds in his thigh and he knew his ankle had been damaged. He was in terrible pain and his vision was blurry from the bloodloss.
“Who are you,” he coughed, “Why are you attacking me?”
The man leaned in close so that he was squatting next to Shoto.
“My name is Araki Jiro and your father murdered someone I loved.”
Of course it’s about Endeavor.
“My father murdered a lot of people,” He sighed, “You're going to have to be more specific than that.”
Araki’s lift into a snarl. “He killed the person I loved the most, my baby brother! Now I’m going to leave his son a mangled corpse, just so he knows you died in pain. I’ll make him pay for what he did to Saburo.” and with that he raised his hand, forming a spike and drove it into Shoto’s chest.
Shoto squeezed his eyes shut.
Schink.
The spike hit something hard.
Shoto cracked an eye open in confusion, Araki drew back, equally confused. They shared a look of confusion. Deliriously, Shoto weakly shrugged trying to convey to his attempted murderer that he also did not know he had Kirishima’s quirk and he also had no idea why he was still alive.
“Araki!” A new voice yelled. Araki snapped his head to the other person and drew back. By this time, his vision was starting to fade, so he couldn't be certain, but he thought that he saw a figure sprint out of the alleyway and shoot something blue at Araki.
“Shoto!” he thought he heard, “Shit this was not how this was supposed to go. Shoto wake up!”
Shoto passed out.
*****
~ Breaking News: Son of the number 1 hero, Endeavor, Hero-In-Training, Shoto has been attacked and is currently missing. No one knows his whereabouts, if you have information, please report it to your nearest hero agency. ~
****
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Sunday, 4:13pm:
When Hawks woke up from his nap that day to a call from his not-boyfriend, he thought, maybe , it would be a cute little ‘Good morning beautiful’ or something like that. Apparently that wasn’t the move.
To be fair, with Dabi, that probably wasn’t gonna happen anyway.
“Yo! McChicken!” Hawks pulled the phone a little ways away from his ear, wincing. “Open the fucking door! I have a problem!” He probably should have expected this, actually. Seriously though, he just woke up, hadn’t had coffee yet, and already shit was happening.
“I’m comin’ I'm comin’” Hawks mumbled, shuffling to the door. It took a few tries to unlock it but he got there eventually. “Whadda want, huh?” He asked, pulling the door open. Seeing Dabi, Hawks turned around to lead him inside, before whipping his head around again with a purely comical double take.
“Dabi… Why do you have the Todoroki kid?”
“I’ll explain once we’re inside and he’s patched up, the kid’s got a couple cracked ribs and his ankle, thigh, and shoulder are fucked. And he’s definitely bleeding out.” Dabi replied
“Jesus Chist on a cracker.” He muttered “Come in you fucking idiot!” Hawks hurried Dabi and the, as he could now see, currently semi-conscious and beaten to high heaven, kid draped over Dabi’s back.
He directed them to his couch, grabbed some scotch and vodka out of the fun cabinet, and got to work assessing the damage. He could freak out later. Dabi went to fetch the med kit.
He started removing clothes to check the kid over. The ribs? Yeah, definitely cracked, but no wetness in his breathing so no perforated lungs, thank the holy bucket of KFC. That hero first aid really comes in handy doesn’t it. Ankle? Dabi got it right. Fucked. A little bit shattered, but it would heal all right. (“What the fuck is this?” He muttered, coming across a punctured amulet, but shrugged and set it aside. There were more pressing matters at hand.) Shoulder? Thigh? Definitely stabbed. And holy cheesecake, the teenager had so many cuts all over his body, it looked like he’d done the cha cha slide with the contents of a knife drawer.
Just then, the heterochromic eyes blinked blearily open. He seemed to tense up at the sight of Hawks.
“It’s alright kid, I’m gonna sit you up, that okay?” Hawks waited for the boy to give him a wary, if unfocused, nod before helping him into a more upright position. “Here you go.” He handed the vodka to the kid, “Drink up. And oooh,” He grabbed the scotch. ”Here I go.” Hawks opened it and downed a couple shots worth. He’d need it. The Todoroki kid followed suit, grimacing, but managing to get enough down to dull the pain, before passing out again, just as Dabi walked back into the room.
“Woah! What the hell?” Dabi exclaimed, noticing the scotch in the boy’s limp hand. “You’re supposed to be fixing him, not giving him teenage alcoholism!”
“Chill, it’s for the pain, I don’t have any other fast acting painkillers here.” Hawks replied, snatching the med kit and buckling down to try and save the kid’s life. Even though he started stitching the wounds that were bleeding the most, Todoroki only whimpered and shifted, and Hawks wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or not that the kid didn’t wake from unconsciousness. Either way, he doubled down and finished patching the kid up.
*****
~Breaking News: Son of the number 1 hero, Endeavor, Hero-In-Training, Shoto has been confirmed kidnapped. A figure resembling the A-rank villain ‘Dabi’ was seen carrying Shoto down an alleyway at XXX warehouse. Please remain aware and alert. If you have any information please report it to your nearest hero agency. ~
*****
---
Sunday, 5:45pm:
Dabi’s phone starts ringing. Hawks can see the way that the tension that has accumulated in his shoulders reaches a peak when he looks at the name of the caller. Nevertheless, Dabi still answers and brings the phone to his ear.
He immediately winces and holds it farther away as muffled yelling can be heard on the other end. Dabi’s face becomes mildly concerned, then quickly morphs into annoyance.
“Oi, oi!” He snapped, “Shrub, just shut up for a second and listen.”
The other end becomes quiet.
“Shoto is with me, he’s injured so I had to treat him quickly and Spook’s place was too close to the scene.” Hawks thought it odd that Dabi had referred to the boy as ‘Shoto’ and not ‘Todoroki’. Was he familiar with the kid?
Hawks could hear the other person pose a question, though he couldn’t hear exactly what it was. Dabi looked apprehensive. “... I’m at Hawks’ apartement.”
More yelling could be heard.
“Calm the fuck down, dude it’s fine. Hawks is chill.” Dabi put his hand on the phone and moved it away from his face as if he was shielding it. He stuck his head towards Hawks and conspiratorially whispered, “You’re cool with this right?”
Hawks gaped at him, “No! No, I'm not cool with this!” He whispered back.
Dabi went back to the phone, “He says he’s cool.”
“No! Dabi! Gimme that.” Hawks snatched the phone out of Dabi’s hands. And addressing the other person on the phone he said, “Look, I don’t know who you are, but the son of Endeavor is lying unconscious on my couch because he almost died,” A sharp intake of breath from the other side of the phone shows that Dabi failed to mention how badly Todoroki was hurt. “I don’t know what is going on but for the love of the holy chicken wing, I don’t want to be involved.”
“... I’m coming over there.” The mystery person said.
“No you’re not.” Hawks replied. “You don’t know where I live.”
“Yeah I do.”
“What?!” Hawks squawked, “How do you know? That’s a state level secret! Kid? Answer me?”
“... Tell Dabi I’ll be coming after I clean up his mess.”
“No! Tell me why you know where I live!”
The other line hangs up. Hawks whirls on Dabi and gapes at him, “Did you tell him where I live?”
“No,” Dabi shrugs his shoulders. “The little shit always knows more than what's good for him.”
“Oh lovely!” Hawks cried sarcastically, “Now there’s only an unidentified leak in national security! Great! Oh and,” He gestured wildly to boy still unconscious on his fucking couch, “Endeavor’s kid is bleeding all over my beautiful couch.”
“Technically he’s not bleeding anymore.”
All right, that’s it. Hawks grabbed Dabi’s shirt collar, pulling him close enough to hold feather to Dabi’s exposed throat.
“As much as I support the League, I won’t stand by while you harm more children. The Kamino incident was enough.”
Dabi’s eyes widened, his brows furrowed, his hands came up to his shoulders in a surrendering position, “Wait, Nugget,” Confusion swept across his face, “I thought you knew, I’m not--”
Just then the sound of Hawk’s bedroom window opening alerted him to yet another intruder. And a new person, quite short, clothed in a hoodie with a face mask obscuring his identity, stepped into the room.The intruder’s green eyes widened at the scene in front of him.
“Uh,” He froze, “Am I interrupting something?”
In his grip, Dabi heaved a sigh, “Shrub, you have the worst timing.”
---
Sunday, 6:00pm:
“Wait, wait,” Hawks said, “You’re saying you don’t work with the League?”
Dabi, now freed from his grip, was sitting on the same couch as him. They both had hot chocolate in hand, the mysterious person had sat them both down and handed them mugs that he’d helped himself to in the kitchen.
“Good for the soul,” He’d said and disappeared to check on the young Todoroki. Hawks had sat in silence for a little bit, too stunned to say anything. Dabi had actually started speaking first, explaining how he was part of a third party who had interests in keeping an eye on the League.
“I honestly thought you knew,” Dabi sighed, “Since, you started dating me and everything. I wouldn’t have expected a Hero Commision spy to be okay morally with dating a villain…”
Panic once again shot through Hawks, “What?” He nervously chuckled, “I’m not--”
“Oh, save it. I know you were a spy for the HPSC since the first day. I just thought you knew I was also. Otherwise why would you have… started… dating me?” Dabi’s eyes widened in horror. He turned sharply to Hawks, hot cocoa cup slipping out of his fingers in shock. The crash of the mug on the floor was loud in the deadly silence that followed.
He grabbed Hawk’s shoulders and made him look directly in his eyes. In Dabi’s blue eyes, he could see the horror had sharpened into anger. But Hawks had recently spent so much time staring into those eyes, that he could clearly see the hurt and sadness behind the fury.
Gripping his shoulders even tighter, Dabi forced out his next question slowly.
“Did you… is this, is us , a way… to get information?” He ground out.
“Dabi…” Hawks wanted to soothe, but apparently the hesitation in his voice gave Dabi all the answers he needed. He released Hawks abruptly, stood up and turned away, hand pressed to his temple. Hawks’ stomach dropped.
Hawks followed him up, reaching out to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Before it could connect, Dabi whirled back on him, slapping the hand away.
“Was any of it real?!” He yelled.
“Of course it was!” Hawks cried back, “Of course, it’s just the Hero Commission--”
“What?! The Hero Commission what?!” He clutched his head. “What?! They forced you to date me? Who am I kidding, you probably volunteered.”
“Dabi, no!”
“I can’t fucking trust you!!” He screamed “You emotionally manipulative bastard!!”
“Oi, oi, what’s going on?” The intruder was back, “You’ll wake up Todoroki with all that screaming.”
Immediately Dabi quieted, though no less hurt and angry. He hissed to the hooded figure, “Hawk’s didn’t know I was a spy on the League and decided to use my emotions against me!”
“I didn’t--”
“You! You don’t get to talk.” Dabi glared at him.
Hot anger finally rushed through him, “Would you just let me explain?!” Hawks screamed-whispered.
“Oh dear,” The intruder cut in again. From what Hawks could see under the hood and mask, he looked thoughtful. His foot was tapping and he had placed a hand to his chin. “This is a pickle.” He sighed.
“Shrub, this is no time for your smart ass comments.”
“No, no it’s not. Which is why I will not be making them. C’mon.” He gestured to the couch, shooing them. Confused, they both sat down, Dabi had to be pushed a bit.
“Now, not that I thought I would be doing couples therapy today, but this needs to be resolved.” He sat down across from them. “I haven’t introduced myself yet have I? You can call me Zero.” He extended his hand to Hawks, who just looked at it. “Not friendly as the public says, huh?”
“You broke into my house.” Hawks replies flatly. Still comprehending that the vigilante he’s tried to catch a couple times was sitting in his living room.
“Oh, yes, I supposed that would put a damper on anyone’s relationship. Whoops.” Zero sits back. “We should fix whatever this argument is about. First, Dabi, please explain what’s going on.”
“The bird started dating me on HPSC orders to get information on the League, he didn’t know I was also a spy.” Dabi growled.
“Okayyyy… Hawks? What's your side of the story?”
Hawks looked at Dabi, “The first thing I need you to know is that this was real.” Dabi scoffed. Hawks ignored the stab of pain and continued. ”When I got in with the League, the Hero Commission started pressuring me to use the emotions of one of the League against them, they proposed a dating scheme, but I refused and instead befriended Twice. Turns out he’s a great guy and I actually became friends with him. That’s when I started to crack.” Hawks sighed again. Holy Colonel Sanders, he’s been doing that a lot today. “I started questioning the HPSC, but I never really left their control. Then villain activity picked up and they ordered me to start using more romantic feelings against one of the League members.” He looked down. “They suggested using Toga.”
“She’s 17.” Dabi snarled. Zero didn’t look pleased either.
“Which is why I refused again, and chose you.” Hawks looked again into Dabi’s eyes, “I was only supposed to sleep with you a couple times, that’s it. Falling for you was never part of the plan.”
Blue eyes flew open in shock, but it was Zero who interjected, “They… they made you sleep with an assumed villain?” His voice contorted with alarm.
“Oh yeah,” Hawks shrugged a shoulder, “Not the first time, part of my training was to act as a honeytrap in case the situation called for it.”
Zero gave him a look. Dabi’s mouth hung open, “You know that’s not okay, right?”
“Huh?” Hawks replied eloquently.
“I really did not get enough information on you.” Zero muttered. “I only got enough to realize you were a spy and to see if you had any family members… Everything else seemed unimportant.“
“Obviously not.” Dabi snapped. “I could’ve told you he wasn’t a villain from the beginning. You didn’t need to check.”
“How did you figure that out, by the way?” Hawks asked. He thought he covered his bases.
“The person you bought Best Jeanist’s body from.” Zero replied for him.
“She said she was completely confidential!”
Zero and Dabi shared a smirk, “She is, but if you’ve seen her handy work up close for a couple years, you can spot it anywhere. Kou is good but she’s not infallible. Speaking of which,” Zero turned to Dabi, “The other two have already deposited Todoroki’s ‘body’. The heroes should find it soon.”
Whoa, what? “What,” Hawks repeated out loud. “What is going on?”
“Some complications came up, but basically we’re faking Todoroki’s death.” Hawks went to protest this horrible idea but Zero held up a hand, “Look, it may seem crazy but here’s the truth: Endeavor is an abusive father, Todoroki decided that he wanted to expose him, and we had to make sure that he was out of that house before we dropped the news. I will also add that Dabi is arguably the best person to look after him right now, anyway.”
“And why’s that?” Hawks looked to Dabi.
“Well,” He fiddled with his fingers nervously, “I’m his older brother.”
*****
~ Breaking News: Son of the number 1 hero, Endeavor, Hero-In-Training, Shoto has been found. Unfortunately, he had suffered multiple wounds and succumbed to blood loss. We are all shocked and horrified and offer our sincerest condolences to the Todoroki family for this tragedy. ~
*****