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It starts with a comment from one Midoriya Izuku, in the wake of the training camp attack.
{Case No. 369235: RE: League of Villains, training camp incident}
...student Midoriya Izuku heard to be muttering about a flame quirk in sleep. When asked about it upon waking, he said he was dreaming about his father at the time, and not - as initially assumed - the flame villain Dabi. Psychologist on the case, Dr. Kameda Kendo, has recommended further investigation on the grounds that memories so old may have been stirred by more than a similar fire quirk. Pending investigation into possible relation…
Possible relation. See, that’s the part that has Hawks giving the report a beady eye. And it’s also what starts his investigation into a potential Dabi-Midoriya connection.
It’s one of his weirder and far less likely leads, in amongst the mountains of barely-associated data that he’s been handed on the League (and Dabi in particular). Still, he’s tenacious and meticulous in all things, and he schedules a meeting with Midoriya Inko a mere week after his first contact with Dabi.
Seeing the sweet, round-eyed woman who greets him at the apartment door, Hawks is just about ready to dismiss the theory out of hand. Snarly, stapley Dabi? Related to this angelic being who feeds him homemade dinner and makes him tea? All Might being a secret villain seems more likely.
Still, he has to cross it off his mile-long list. So, the interview.
“So, Mrs. Midoriya,” he begins, graciously refilling her tea cup for her, while giving her his most charming smile. “The reason I stopped by today, as I told you in my email, was to ask you about your husband.”
“Ah, so you said,” Inko says, still cheerful, but with fingers wringing the napkin in her lap. Hawks truly hates to put her in such an awkward position. But ya know: safety of Japan comes first.
“What did you need to know?” Inko asks nervously. Hawks watches her reactions closely.
“My understanding, if you’ll forgive me for being blunt, is that he disappeared eleven years ago?” Hawks asks. Inko blanches on the word disappeared.
But it’s one of the more compelling reasons to look into this case, at the end of the day. Dabi himself hadn’t come onto the scene until very recently, but significant digging had turned up mentions of a young man with burn scars, aged 15-22, starting around that time. While perhaps a little young for Inko, Hawks had seen stranger relationships. And records on a ‘Midoriya Hisashi’ had been nigh-impossible to find. Just a name and a quirk registration. Not even a birth certificate.
Which, in itself, is super weird, Hawks thinks, watching Inko chew on her lip. Finally she meets his eyes, her own green ones much fiercer than he would have expected.
“You won’t tell Izuku, will you?” she asks, though it sounds far more like an order. “I’ve always told him that his father went off to America for work. I didn’t want him to think…”
To think that he was unwanted by his old man, Hawks supplies all on his own, memories of too many beer bottles and broken needles causing a pang of hurt to shoot through his chest unexpectedly. Suddenly, he feels a bit of kinship with this Izuku kid.
“It’s not my place to tell him about any of this,” Hawks assures her, taking another sip of tea to soothe his suddenly dry throat. “But I’d like to ask some questions about Hisashi, if you don’t mind?”
Inko inclines her head, mirroring him with her own tea. Hawks half-thinks they’ll need something stronger by the end of this conversation.
“Can you describe him for me?”
“Ah, well, he was very heavily scarred,” she begins, and Hawks has to work hard to hide his startled reaction. “That would probably be the first thing anyone noticed about him. Especially his face…” she trails off wistfully, cheeks somewhat flushed. Hawks tries not to gape.
Okay then! This lead just shot up to the top five, holy shit!
“Uh,” he croaks, his voice actually cracking a little. “Can you - uh, can you describe his quirk?”
He almost doesn’t hear her over the inner mantra of, oh my god Dabi is a DAD. Oh my god this sweet lady is a cougar.
“...very powerful, despite the registration calling it a fire-breathing quirk,” Inko was saying while Hawks’ world rocked on its foundations. “I’m afraid I never found out what he was truly capable of - he only came around a few times.” Again she flushes, and Hawks feels like he’s intruding on private memories that he really doesn’t want to know about.
“Any other information you can give me?” He asks weakly. Jokingly he adds, “He didn’t happen to leave an address, did he?”
“Actually,” Inko says, rising from her chair to go and dig through a kitchen drawer. Hawks watches in astonishment as she returns with a letter. “He sent a check to cover Izuku’s time at UA. There’s an address on there, if it will help?”
Hawks blinks down at the unassuming scrap of paper with a little address printed in the top corner. It truly can’t be that easy, can it?
“I - I’ll just copy this down, shall I?” He asks, accepting the check with both hands. It even has a Disney villain design on the background. Is that allowed? Are villains allowed to have a sense of humor like that?
Dabi doesn’t seem the type, he thinks, taking a picture of the address on his phone and trying not to lose his mind. But he doesn’t seem like the type to have a kid either?? Do I even know him well enough to judge? Literally the only things I know are that he’s an asshole and he’s hot.
His thought process screeches to a halt.
NO! BAD HAWKS! HE’S TAKEN.
Taken to jail. Who could leave such a nice lady?
Nice lady with a taste for bad boys. Did you see the way she blushed just thinking about him?
Stoppppp, no I don’t wanna knowwwww.
Too bad you already thought about it the first night you met him. Mental images are there to stay, buddy.
I do not have time for this right now.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Midoriya,” he gets out, rising from his chair with a stiff back and even stiffer wings. He definitely needed something stronger than tea for this conversation, but it’s too late now. “I’ll get back to you if I have any further questions. You have a nice day now.”
She nods and escorts him toward the door, and along the way, Hawks’ eyes practically bore holes into the pictures framed along the walls. But there are no images of Midoriya “Dabi” Hisashi anywhere, and with Izuku being the spitting image of his mother…
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” Inko says at the doorway. Then she holds out a furoshiki bound bento to him with a bowed head. “Please accept some humble leftovers. And do be safe out there.” Hawks accepts the cloth-bound bento with a tight chest and a little bit of warmth in his own cheeks.
Okay, I can see how Dabi could easily fall for her. Now I just have to figure out why he was stupid enough to leave.
“Thank you Mrs. Midoriya,” he says quietly, returning the bow. “I will do my best.”
----
Theories are still running amok in Hawks’ head as he flies toward the location indicated on his GPS that he’d plugged in from the check address. Theories that range from the wild to the boringly domestic. Still, they’re just theories. He has nothing that actually proves Dabi is Midoriya Hisashi, but he also has nothing that dis proves it either.
It’s giving him irritable bowel syndrome, he thinks - the not knowing. He’s been hanging out in the bathroom way more than normal, feeling like death. And if Dabi can afford to pay for all of Midoriya Izuku’s tuition in one big fat check, then he can definitely pay for Hawks’ sick leave from the past few days.
Oh my god I’m gonna have to make sure he’s been paying his child support, he realizes, circling high above the location in question. He has to be, right? After paying for tuition too? But how can he when..
Hawks glances back down at the roof he’s been circling like a much-less-cool vulture, confusion and weird speculations multiplying exponentially at the sight of the dilapidated roof. Because it looks nothing like the bougie mansion he’s been imagining. No sugar daddy in anyone’s future, it seems.
He’s a villain, Hawks. Please stop forgetting that.
A villain with a child and a wife. A man who could attack his own child, if the police reports were to be believed. While also sending his child to school for heroing? Yeah, Dabi’s a villain alright. But why???
One way to find out.
He drops, boots thumping into the roof and kicking up dust. It’s a simple matter of a sharp feather taken to the lock on the roof access door, and then Hawks is inside the building.
It’s actually rather boring as far as infiltrations go. There’s a whole lotta nothing up until he reaches the ground floor, and then he walks into a bar.
Which sounds like the opening of a joke, but it really isn’t when he suddenly has knives, black mist, a sword thing, a magnet, and an inordinate amount of hands pointed his way. The only one that doesn’t seem intent on adding him to the kebab menu is Dabi, who sits at the bar with a glass of scotch half-raised to his lips and a look of actual surprise on his usually apathetic face.
Hawks means to say a million things that might a) ingratiate him with the League b) save his life c) save his life and ingratiate himself with the League, but what comes out is:
“Do you look like a hobo because you blow all your money on your family?”
Several things happen at that point. Most of them regrettable.
Dabi drops the glass of scotch, shattering it on the floor. The face behind one of the many hands makes a choking noise like a pitifully deflating balloon. Several knives and the big funky sword go flying at Hawks in a seemingly surprised reflex to weird statements, but the misty stuff intercepts them and sends all the projectiles into an already scarred wall.
Maybe heroes pop in to ask personal questions on a regular basis? Hawks thinks distractedly, eyes never leaving the scarred face of the flame villain. Dabi had started coughing about 0.2 seconds after he lost his scotch, and was now clutching his chest like an asthmatic.
Which does not stop Hawks from approaching him in a near-daze of hyper-focused attention. He hardly notices the other villains giving him a bewildered berth, though he does note the black cloud hovering over his head. He almost thinks it's a physical manifestation of his personal angst over this whole ordeal until he remembers Kurogiri’s presence, after which he dismisses it.
They haven’t killed me yet. And I refuse to die until I find out what went wrong here.
“How could you leave them?” Hawks asks fiercely, finally coming to a stop in front of the wheezing villain. “They’ve waited for you for like ten years, and you just up and left them.”
His stomach drops when Dabi’s flushed face suddenly pales, and his watering eyes shoot up to meet Hawks’ frantically.
“No idea wh-what you’re talkin’ about, bird,” Dabi croaks, shooting furtive looks at the other League members in the room. Almost as if he doesn’t want them to hear this.
Well too bad, Hawks thinks viciously. Privately, a voice that sounds like his therapist mentions that maybe this is some misplaced aggression that he’s venting based on his own childhood trauma of being abandoned by his parents, but he promptly tells that voice to go fuck itself.
“Seriously man, I get supporting them from afar, but there’s so much I don’t get?” He growls, crowding into Dabi’s space in his frustration. Weirdly, the flame villain leans back, allowing himself to be pinned with his back against the countertop.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dabi repeats shiftily, averting his eyes. Hawks feels his lip curl back, revealing his extra-sharp incisor.
“Really?” he snarls. “Family left behind not ringing a bell? Can’t recall that sweet lady who obviously misses you? Not to mention the fact you were willing to attack her child , your blood, at the training camp!”
Dabi blanches hard, and that’s all the evidence Hawks really needs. And, as far as the loud whispering behind him is concerned, it’s all the League really needs either.
“Dabibro had peeps at the camp? Dude that’s fucked up.”
“No wonder we lost so many players there - he was trying to cover for his family .”
“I think it’s sweet! I wonder if I drank blood from them? Who do you think it was, Magne-chan?”
“Dunno, but that’s kinda not cool. Right, Spin?”
“I mean, yeah I guess. I wouldn’t want my family members in danger like that…”
“CAN IT,” Dabi snaps at the assembled villains over Hawks’ shoulder. His scowl is horrific, marred by all the scarring that Inko had mentioned. Hawks’ wings bristle behind him with his anger.
“They’re not wrong,” he states, crossing his arms over his chest. “How could you put your family in danger like that? Like this.” He gestures at the whole room, encompassing Dabi’s role in villainy. Dabi’s expression folds slightly into guilt.
“I had to,” he mumbles, obviously trying to keep the answer from reaching the rest of the villains. “How the fuck did you even find out?”
Hawks scoffs. “One visit to your house was all it took. As a matter of fact.” His eyes sharpen, and Dabi rears back.
“No you fuckin’ don’t,” he starts, but Hawks already has two fistfuls of his stupid goth jacket.
“Yeah I sure fuckin' do,” he growls, yanking Dabi’s resisting form into a crushing bear hug. The villain curses and squirms like a freaking fish, but Hawks is genetically predisposed to an unrelenting grip when he’s stressed.
And pissed is, of course, a form of stress.
Turning on his heel with a taller, thrashing villain held firm to his chest, Hawks peers out around Dabi’s shoulder and pinpoints the spandex guy with a terrifying look.
“Get the door.”
“Sir, yes sir!” The guy says, saluting. He doesn’t even follow up with his schticky contradiction.
Good, Hawks thinks determinedly while the guy races toward the door. None of the villains move to stop him as his wings begin to flap.
“HAWKS, YOU FUCKER, PUT ME DO-”
Dabi’s demand is cut off when Hawks leans into him hard, his wings pumping fast enough to launch them toward the door at full speed. They burst through it and into the night air with almost no margin between them and the ground, and Hawks can hear Dabi’s cursing in his ear the whole way.
He ignores it. He’s got a family to reunite.
----
“Hawks,” Dabi whispers weakly, roughly twenty minutes later. “Bird, if you don’t put me down right now I’m gonna hurl.”
Nice try, villain, Hawks thinks rudely. Though, to be honest, Dabi really doesn’t sound too good.
“We’re almost there,” he assures, with only a little bit of sarcasm in his tone.
“N-no we’re not,” Dabi hiccups. “Mansion’s halfway across town.”
Mansion? So he kept a bigger place for them? Or did he not know that Inko downgraded to an apartment? Hawks wonders. But before he can pry further, the Midoriya apartment looms up in front of them.
The landing on the balcony would have been smooth if Dabi hadn't collapsed like a boneless eel onto the floor, knocking over a flower pot and pulling on Hawks’ feathers while he’s at it. Between the sound of shattering terracotta and Hawks’ yelp of pain, it’s no surprise that Inko appears at the glass sliding door barely a moment later, rubbing her eyes and tugging her dressing gown around her.
“Hawks?” She asks, voice groggy from sleep. It occurs to the hero then that he has no idea what time it is.
“Yes, Mrs. Midoriya, it’s me,” Hawks says. “And someone you haven’t seen in a very long time.” He steps back with a grand sweep of his wings, revealing the rather pathetic Dabi currently crumpled against the railing.
Inko peers at him, and Dabi stares dazedly around himself. Then they speak simultaneously.
“Who is this?”
“This isn’t the Todoroki mansion.”
There’s an awkward beat of silence that Hawks’ brain helpfully fills with a record scratching noise.
What?
“What?”
“What?”
“What?”
Dabi turns into the gap between the railing and promptly loses his lunch. Hawks rakes his fingers across the back of his neck in sheepish embarrassment and shock.
“This isn’t your scarred but sexy husband?”
Inko blinks.
“No.”
Hawks nods sagely to himself.
“This is the missing Todoroki son.”
Dabi coughs pitifully.
Inko purses her lips in thought. “I… suppose he could be?”
Hawks nods again. He keeps nodding until his brain shuts up.
“I think…” Inko ventures. “There may have been a case of mistaken identity here.”
Hawks shoots her a thumbs up, still nodding. Inko bows her head graciously, then squats next to the panting Dabi.
“My son is friends with your little brother,” she says gently. “If you’d like to come inside, maybe we can give him a call?”
Dabi flicks a glance back at her sweet, open face, and Hawks stops nodding long enough to see the temptation writ into his expression. Inko waits patiently, but does add, “I can get you some water. Maybe tea? And when you’re feeling up to it, we have leftovers.”
The villain caves so fast, Hawks’ head spins. Or maybe it’s from the mild cranial trauma he’s given himself - hard to tell. But Dabi’s accepting a hand up, meek as a kitten, and following Inko into the apartment without a word of protest. Leaving Hawks out on the balcony, questioning his life and his choices.
“Wait,” he asks no one in particular. “Then who is Midoriya Hisashi???”
----
In the depths of Tartarus, All For One sneezes so hard he gets shot by the motion sensors. No one feels particularly bad about it, but they do give him an All Might bandage.