Chapter Text
Hawks turned on his phone once they were done talking to Ryu, only to find it already blowing up with texts and missed calls from the Commission. Cursing under his breath, he prepared to call back just as his phone started ringing again. He immediately hit the button to answer, placing his phone on his ear and bracing himself for what was about to come.
"Hawks!" The HPSC president barked in his ear. "Where have you been!?"
Hawks actually winced, quickly spitting out the lie he'd also already bothered to tell Rumi in case she was questioned about it.
The Commission had trained him to be an excellent liar and actor, so of course, they couldn't blame him for using those same skills against them.
"My apologies, ma'am. Miruko insisted we had some drinks and we ended up drinking more than we should. My phone died, so I just now realized you were trying to reach me. Is there something wrong, ma'am?"
The line was quiet for a moment, until the HPSC president talked again, clearly irritated.
"Are you aware of what happened yesterday, Hawks?"
"No ma'am, I'm sorry, Miruko insisted I ignored my phone so I wouldn't be 'roped back into work', as she put it. I'm guessing it wasn't something good though."
"A Nomu from the League attacked headquarters yesterday."
There it was.
"A Nomu? My intel didn't say anything about a new Nomu, but I guess that's not surprising. Dabi doesn't trust me yet, so if you expect me to try and figure out the reason behind the attack, I'd just like to warn you that there's a chance Dabi won't tell me anything. I barely even made contact with him a couple of days ago, and I haven't even filled in my report yet because I was waiting to get more useful information out of him."
"We know the reason. Something was stolen."
Hawks almost straight out cursed her out for referring to Ryu as a 'something' rather than a 'someone'. Of course, that's all he was to her: a toy she could have fun playing with, and that would most likely never betray her.
"May I know what it was, ma'am? Maybe I can trick Dabi into telling me why they want what they stole for."
"All you need to know is that they stole a powerful weapon." a weapon… At that moment, Hawks was actually grateful to the Commission for giving him training to control his emotions so well. "We need it back, it's too dangerous on the League's hands."
Oh Ryu was definitely dangerous on his own, Hawks was sure of it, if him growing up like a literal soldier for his entire life up until now was any indication. He was almost sure the kid could be even more powerful than him and Dabi put together. "Understood, ma'am. I'm sure you want this done as soon as possible, so I will try and schedule a meeting with Dabi immediately, see what he actually tells me."
"The future of this society as we know it depends on you getting our weapon back, Hawks."
And then she hung up.
And Hawks just wanted to absolutely kill her. How dare she refer to his son as if he was nothing more but a weapon to her? The teenager who looked at Hawks and Dabi with literal stars on his eyes just because they told him he had free will and gave him an actual name? That claimed the best to happen to him was the fact he had parents? He was that, a teenager, and he deserved to live a normal life.
(Or as normal as it could be given the current situation they were in).
Still glaring daggers at nothing in particular, he poked his head into the living room again. "Tou, we need a plan. Now. The big bitch thinks the League has Ryu, so we have to make up a convincing-enough excuse."
Dabi sighed. "Well, it's not like we didn't anticipate them thinking the League would be behind it, with me leading the Nomu attack and everything… I'll have to talk with the boss, I have an idea."
"Good, then I trust you, tell Shigaraki whatever it is you need to tell him so we can figure out what to tell the HPSC President."
"We really didn't plan this well, did we?..." Dabi sent a look towards the bathroom, where Ryu was taking a shower now.
"Yeah… We really didn't. We don't even know how we'll manage to keep him a secret, but we couldn't just leave him there."
"I know, I know… We'll figure something out. You're probably needed at your agency, and I have to go talk to Shigaraki immediately. You think he'll be okay on his own here?"
"He's a teenager, not a toddler. I'm sure he'll be fine."
"Birdbrain, out of the two of us, I'm the one who's had experience with siblings. I don't think it's a good idea, but fine."
And so, after quickly letting Ryu know they would be off and telling him to not open the door to anyone, they each went their separate ways: Hawks to handle some paperwork and plan just what exactly to tell the HPSC President while trusting Dabi would fill him in to whatever he was about to tell Shigaraki.
Dabi approached the League hideout, not surprised at all when a knife flew past him as soon as he showed his face into the room. He paid no mind to that or Toga's delighted screech of 'Dabi!' and addressed Compress instead, the only one who was sure to actually give him a coherent answer.
"Where's the boss? I've got some intel he's definitely going to be interested in checking out."
Compress flicked his wrist, a card appearing on his hand seemingly out of thin air, before answering Dabi's question. "Why, in his room, of course."
Everyone knew that breaking into Shigaraki's room meant imminent death, as he hated being interrupted when he was playing, but they also knew Dabi was not everyone and as long as he had a good reason, Shigaraki wouldn't immediately dust him, so no one really stopped him when he stomped his way over to Shigaraki's room.
Entering it, he was met with the League's leader clicking away and cursing out as he apparently tried to beat a boss in a game.
"Yo, boss, a little bird told me some stuff you're probably interested in."
Shigaraki hissed, still not looking at Dabi and fractionally clicking his mouse to attack the boss. "What!?"
"The HPSC thinks we stole something from them. Something important."
That seemed to interest Shigaraki, as he smashed down a button to apparently pause the fight and actually turned to look at Dabi.
So Dabi went on, "The bird hero ambushed me this morning, said the Commission knew we stole something with the Nomu attack."
Shigaraki frowned. "We didn't."
"I know, some bastard must have taken the opportunity to break in and get it."
"So?" Shigaraki asked impatiently.
"So, judging by what Hawks said, it's a weapon. And a powerful one. But this could play in our favor, boss. We don't have their weapon, but the Commission thinks we do… And they don't need to know that we don't. We can potentially use it to manipulate them while we hunt down whoever actually stole it so we can take it."
Shigaraki seemed to think about it for a second, absent-mindedly scratching at his irritated neck.
"Yes, a deceiving card… that's useful."
"Great. I managed to convince Hawks I knew what he's talking about, but I'll try and squeeze more information out of him about this weapon. You should make Kurogiri start looking into it. I bet there's already rumors in the black market if whoever stole it plans to sell it. Either way, someone must know something."
Shigaraki calmly turned back to his computer, resuming his game. "I'll let him know when he's back. Now if that's all, fuck off, I'm about to kill this damn rock dragon bitch."
Shrugging, Dabi accepted the conversation was over and strolled back out of Shigaraki's room. Now he'd buy them some time, but they would probably need to get a new plan in the future once the Commission started to catch wind of the fact the League did not have Ryu. For now though, this was one less problem off their backs…
It was in the middle of filling out paperwork and texting back to the HPSC President for the hundredth time that it all finally catched up to Hawks.
He had a son with Dabi, whom they'd stolen off the very same powerful government organization that raised and controlled Hawks.
Just exactly what the fuck where they supposed to do now? They couldn't just keep the kid hidden and locked away like the Commission had done to him, but Hawks was sure, if they weren't careful when letting Ryu out of the apartment, something very bad would happen.
So, that brings him to his initial question again, what were they supposed to do?
They couldn’t just leave the HPSC be either, there was a chance they might eventually track down Ryu with them. Honestly, it was a miracle the HPSC President wasn't suspicious of him considering how he coincidentally left on a trip with Miruko the same day their 'weapon' was stolen by someone who left no trace of them even breaking in. The only reason why he wasn't a suspect was the fact the HPSC seriously thought the League had Ryu, but even then, and despite whatever Dabi's plan was, they needed to do something.
Hawks seriously doubted the Commission would show any mercy to him after he'd stolen the kid from them, even if the kid's mere existence was definitely not even legal…
Hum… Legal…
Hawks' head shot up, an idea forming on his head. He needed to meet with Dabi, but not in the apartment. They might have rescued Ryu, but they still needed to explain to him why exactly was the Commission so bad, and he'd rather him not overhearing them in the first place.
He ran some quick plans on his head while sending a text to Dabi.
'Meet me at the usual place in two hours.'
Dabi luckily got the memo, quickly answering with a simple 'ok'.
He'd said to meet him at 'the usual place', not simply 'let's meet tonight'. That meant they were going to be at the abandoned warehouse, where no one could overhear, not even Ryu. Usually, a simple 'let's meet tonight' meant 'come home'. Hawks knew there was a chance that sooner or later, his texts with Dabi could be seen by the Commission, and Dabi knew that as well, so they'd developed a simple code to go around that, where insults meant the opposite most of the time and they had certain phrases for certain things, like…
Hawks' phone vibrated with a new text from Dabi.
'Just don't take up too much of my time, I've got shit to do.'
I've got shit to do means is everything ok?
'It won't hotstuff, promise. Just be fucking on time for once.'
Means yeah, don't worry. I'll tell you once we're there.
So it was settled. He was telling Dabi about his plan.
He could only hope said plan would not backfire into their faces.