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Every human dreamed of flight.
They said it couldn't be done.
They said humans were too heavy, too unwieldy, didn't have hollow bones—they said the wingspan would have to be too large, that the human brain couldn't adjust to the new limbs.
Hawks was living proof that they were all wrong.
And yet-
Experiment trial designation 653. Real name: Takami Keigo.
Age: 24.
Status-
Sometimes, science went too far, and someone had to be there to bring everyone back down to earth when it happened.
Dabi ran his fingers through the strange material of Hawks' feathers. He didn't know what they were made out of—not even Hawks knew—but he supposed that he could reasonably assume it was neocarbon-fiber or some equally high-tech shit. Didn't explain the red color, but it definitely explained their durability and versatility. They weren't soft, per se, but he certainly wasn't complaining about the texture as he threaded their barbs through his fingertips.
Decommissioned.
"Stop squirming, birdie," he said with a sigh. "All this technology to make you, and you still can't preen without someone else's help."
"You call it preening like I'm an actual bird. And it was to make sure I didn't go anywhere. I couldn’t rebel if I couldn't live on my own." He huffed. "Ostensibly."
Elite combatant capable of outstanding feats of athleticism and maneuverability. Highly proficient in armed, unarmed, and combat involving improvised weapons. Feathers can sharpen through established neural link with combatant’s spinal cord.
"Yeah? What would you call it then, if not preening? Maintenance?"
Hawks hummed. Dabi could see the exhaustion in his eyes, bone-deep and haunted. Broken. "Something like that."
And Dabi had been augmented to burn things down for a brighter future, but in that soft moment, he thought that maybe he could hold the cracks of the world together and get the same result.
Log update: Has been crucial in key victories of the War such as the Battle of Hosu, the Kamino Straits, the Musutafu outbreak, and others.
Dabi reached out and pulled the shattered man to his chest, brushing a scarred hand against Hawks' calloused one in open invitation. After a moment, Hawks slowly weaved his fingers together with his own.
"Sorry,” Hawks sighed as he leaned back into Dabi's touch, because of course he would apologize. "I’m just… I was afraid I was going to lose you, hot stuff."
Log update: Potentially defected during the High-End Scandal. Whereabouts unknown. Investigative case opened.
"I know," Dabi whispered, pressing a light kiss against Hawks' temple. "I know." He squeezed Hawks' hand that he had captured with his own as he continued to preen the man with the other. It's okay, the motions said wordlessly. I'm not going anywhere.
Log update: Has become something of a war hero in light of recent events in the eyes of the general populace. Codename "Hawks" is instead referred to as their "Symbol of Dreams" due to belief that his defection and actions were morally justified.
The two of them stared out at the fires and aftermath of a warzone; beautiful, yet somehow tragic all the same. The roses of flame and soot that bloomed and clouded the sky before them were the last remnants of a dream that humankind couldn't quite grasp, one that not even the Symbol of Dreams could save. The two of them were part of what was left of their rotten, jagged world, Hawks’ actions being all that stood between humanity and its own doom.
Their feet dangled casually off of the mutilated edge of rebar and concrete of their outlook point overlooking the burning wasteland that the Commission—that they, before leaving—had used to call home.
"What do you want to do now that the War is over?" Dabi asked quietly, not wanting to break whatever moment had built between them.
Hawks absentmindedly ran his thumb back and forth over the back of Dabi's hand. "I don't know," he said eventually. "This is all I've ever had."
And, really, a war machine for twenty-four years of life. It would've been funny if it wasn't so real.
Despite Hawks' betrayal, casualties and deaths during the High-End scandal were brought to an absolute minimum thanks to his timely actions-
Dabi wanted to let him be something else for once.
"It doesn't have to be."
Hawks just gave him a smile and a look so selfless, so accepting of his fate, so sad yet so heartbreakingly happy, that Dabi knew his answer. For Hawks, it just wasn’t true. No, he had always been too good for this world. Too bright. Too heroic.
Too eager to help.
Dimly, Dabi wondered if he himself was supposed to be the villain of this in some other timeline of this story. Would his own defection be put in a different light had the Commission not been outed as blatantly corrupt?
-current location unknown as of the closure of the Program.
Would Hawks’?
Would the golden boy in his arms be blackened? Did killing people make Hawks a villain? If not in this timeline, then what of the next? What was truly the greater good? Dabi shook himself out of his thoughts before he could get into the deeper ethics debate.
The two of them were literal human experiments; there wasn’t exactly much they could say on that front.
Hawks closed his eyes slowly and let his full body weight rest back against him once more.
Dabi looked down at him with what could one day perhaps be love.
Hawks' story was a necessary sacrifice for when humanity got too ahead of itself, when they started dreaming about space and augmenting soldiers with blue fire and red wings.
Hawks was humanity’s dream come true, a guardian angel who had come to stop it from destroying itself.
...And a man who had fallen asleep in his arms.
Dabi huffed, but secretly allowed himself a small smile into the crook of Hawks' neck.
This man was a hero, through and through. Hawks had saved them all, had gone to the edges of the planet and back on impossible wings on an impossible mission to save the last scraps of morality left in the world. He’d rebelled against his creators, rebelled against everyone who had stopped him, yet he didn’t know where to go from the edge of the world.
Dabi?
Dabi would just follow Hawks’ wingbeats.
After all, every human dreamed of flight.