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“That’s unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean, that’s crazy, Aizawa. He was just at the same bakery you go to?”
“Yeah. He was texting.”
“Crazy,” Tsukauchi said with a sigh. “Well, congrats on the arrest. This is one for the history books.”
“He attacked my students,” Aizawa said sleepily, “I’m just happy to see him in handcuffs.”
They both turned to the window beside them, which looked into an interrogation room. Inside, Dabi’s scarred wrists were locked inside quirk restraining gear and cuffed to the table. It made Aizawa's heart swell just to see.
Aizawa had told the story several times now already and he was sure he’d tell it a hundred more times this week alone. Hell, Hizashi would probably make him retell it that many times himself, and that’s not even considering class 1-A, yet. He’d gone to Eri’s favorite bakery to pick her up some red bean buns, and low and behold--there, under layers of terrible disguise, was Dabi. The bastard had the nerve to be buying Eri’s favorite red beans buns. The last of Eri’s red bean buns. Not even paying attention, just texting someone and chuckling to himself in a way that only the worst villains are capable of.
He deserved the kick in the face Aizawa delivered him.
Dabi, to his credit, had just been confused. Something wrapped around his body and his flames wouldn’t even ignite, then he had a knee in his face and he was coming to on the floor of the bakery. He’d squashed the pastry he was buying for Hawks under his elbow, which was just sad, really, and two glowing red eyes loomed above him.
“Shigs…?” He blinked a couple of times and saw dark hair cascading around a tired face. “Ah, not Shigaraki, then.”
“No,” said a very angry Eraserhead, “not Shigaraki. But you can go ahead and tell me where to find him. Is he nearby?”
Dabi, quite smartly, has not said a word since then.
He didn’t make a sound when Eraser cuffed him, not when the police came and they put the heavy quirk restraining gear on his wrists, even when it chafed his scars and pulled at his staples. Not when they processed him at the closest station, not when they searched his pockets and pulled out his apartment key, the key to Hawks’ apartment, a small box of condoms, his favorite BIC lighter, a bottle opener, one of Skeptic’s tiny cameras, five hundred and fifty-six yen in change, and a few mangled surgical staples that had come loose earlier that day. He didn’t even peep when he was shoved into the interrogation room nor when his wrists were slammed into the table and locked down.
He was a sucker for a good brag or quip, though.
Eraserhead and some detective came in and plopped down in metal chairs across the table from him. Eraserhead (bad cop) talked first, “Trojan: For Her?” He asked in a teasing but I-hate-you way.
Dabi fanned his hands out inside the quirt restraining gear and shrugged. “It was all they had,” he confessed.
The detective (good cop) blinked in surprise. “I didn’t expect that to be true,” he said.
Eraserhead gave a long-suffering sigh.
“Let’s get started, then,” The detective began, and Eraser grumbled.
Dabi empathized. This conversation was about to be long, annoying, and hopefully for good-cop bad-cop, futile.
As expected, they got nearly nothing from Dabi. Sure, it was clear from how he spoke that he thought most of the League was insane, but he did not disclose where they were, who Dabi was, what the League had to do with the events in Deika, anything that the League was planning, how and where Nomu were made, or whose keys he had with him when he was arrested. They did learn, at least, that Dabi had been surprised when they asked him about the idea of turning people into Nomu.
“It seems Nomu are made from various people, some dead, with promising quirks. You didn’t know?”
Dabi looked like he might throw up.
Yeah, Dabi had no clue about that aspect of things. At least he didn’t vomit in the interrogation room. Small blessings.
They had some officers working on running Dabi’s keys already, pulling from a database of locksmiths. They’d need warrants to go in for a search, but they couldn’t get a warrant until they knew what the key might unlock. They couldn’t even be sure they were house keys.
Still, it was the best lead they had, if it turned out one of those keys lead to the League’s current base.
The keys were odd. For starters, they were on separate key rings. The first was a brass key that looked a little beaten and worn, with scratches in the metal. It shared its keyring with a friendship bracelet braided in blue, purple, and black. The second key was one of those ones from a machine that makes copies of keys in just a minute or two, like the ones found at a home improvement store. Sometimes those can be plain, but they can also have designs printed on them. All Might was a popular choice, but this one had Endeavor on it. The broad part of the key was melted, right where Endeavor’s face was.
Something told Aizawa that Dabi was not the one to print this key, but he did have to carry it. Coupled (ha--coupled. God, he needed more coffee--) with the condoms, the key probably belonged to a sexual partner. Or the League, and they gave him an Endeavor key as a joke. Despite both options being viable, everyone on the case seemed to agree that it was probably the first option, like a group gut feeling.
Everyone pulled extra hours, and before midnight, even, they knew what apartment complex one key went to. The battered brass key came from a cheap apartment complex in Tokyo, which they got into after harassing a judge at his private residence. By midnight, Aizawa and Tsukauchi were running an investigation on the shithole apartment that must have been Dabi’s even prior to joining the League of Villains. There was an obscene amount of (likely stolen) medical supplies, from the surgical stapler to the expired prescription pain medication. All in all, though, there wasn’t much. He had some books, a futon mattress that looked like it’d been fished out of the trash five years ago, some blankets that were in a similar state, a small kitchenette that didn’t have much going for it other than an iron skillet, and a short stool with a board over it and a cushion next to it, as if it were a makeshift table. The fridge was largely empty and the food in it was all expired, too, showing that Dabi wasn’t spending time at home lately--likely hadn’t in a long time.
The second key didn’t turn up any leads in Tokyo, nor Musutafu, nor the greater Tokyo region.
By morning, they gave up and went to bother Dabi in his holding cell. He was being held in a large and well-guarded station until he could be moved to Tartarus, although due to his scarring, it was likely he would be transferred to a hospital for some time before prison. He also couldn’t be given a normal cell in Tartarus until he had stood trial, since the prison was a rather severe location, and would be given a cushy and solitary and secure cell until that time arrived. For now, at least, the process made it easy to hound the villain for information.
“You guys got into my apartment? Geez,” Dabi said.
Aizawa wasn’t feeling patient, he felt like getting to the point and getting this done. “You have a second key. We’re going to find where it goes, no matter what. You telling us saves us time, and will look good for you during your trial,” he spoke through gritted teeth.
“I call bullshit. You might find where the key goes, but I won’t get shit if I tell you what lock that key goes in.”
Aizawa pressed, “Where does the key go, Dabi?”
“Wash’s chastity belt, fuck you.”
The key didn’t match with anything known on the main island. Nor Hokkaido. They tried Shikoku next, but at that point, they’d spent three days without much sleep just searching for one key’s lock. Aizawa kept having to leave the investigation to go teach, but before and after he finished classes he was back at the station to assist in the search. During those few days of tireless searching, they kept Dabi’s phone plugged in. His arrest hadn’t been publicized, but after the first day, he stopped receiving calls and texts completely. They kept track of his contacts, though, and what messages they had sent so far. Everyone had nicknames, so at best they were making educated guesses as to who might be “Grand Theft Motion Sickness” and “[|O”. The contact name “Featheries > furries” was likely more accusation than anything identifying, too, so that felt like another dead end. At the very least, “Split dir. M. Night Shyamalan” and “Out for blood” seemed to correlate well to known villains Twice aka Jin Bubaigawara and Himiko Toga.
At 4:03AM on the fourth day, the locksmith database for Kyushu turned up a match in Fukuoka. They put aside Dabi’s phone to head to Japan’s southernmost island.
The sleep on the train south was the best part.
He and Tsukauichi met with the local police to catch them up on the investigation before going to get a warrant from a local judge. Since the public was yet to be informed of Dabi’s arrest, they had to start catching the local force up from there. It was already afternoon by the time they were settled with the police, and in the interest of not wasting time, they decided to head right to the apartment building, rather than wait around even longer to get a warrant. Unlike Dabi’s personal residence in Tokyo, this apartment was on the high end of living. They’d have to ask the front desk about the key, but unlike scummy living spaces that prided themselves on spitting on heroes, yuppy places like this one would usually roll over to help out the law.
For this reason, neither Aizawa nor Tsukauchi expected to be told “no”.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you both, but our residents do expect their privacy to be respected. We have some rather important people living here, you know,” a sheepish yet firm receptionist explained.
The lobby was simple, bright, and smelled like artificial clean laundry freshener. Aizawa was already tired of being there.
“Important residents? Like who?” Tsukauchi came off idly curious, but he was fishing for more information. If Dabi was meeting with politicians or business associates, lawyers, doctors, they needed to know.
“Oh, well like--Oh, Hawks!”
Behind them, Hawks was in full hero costume, a granola bar hanging half-eaten from his mouth, and making a break for the exit. He waved, but hardly glanced at them.
The receptionist looked a little panicked. “Wait, Hawks! Could you talk to these guys maybe…?”
Aizawa thought of Tokoyami briefly, interning under Hawks and previously briefly captured by Mr. Compress and Dabi. The feeling of a stone crushing his stomach settled in nicely. If Dabi had Hawks’ apartment key, Aizawa might decide to pluck Hawks.
“Huh? Oh, Eraserhead, and you must be that detective working on the League!”
“I didn’t think we had met yet,” Tsukauchi said in a friendly way that covered anything he was actually thinking.
“We haven’t, but it’s nice to meet you. What are you here for?”
Aizawa hunched a little more and buried his hands further into his pockets. “We have a key we’re trying to find the lock it matches. Seems like it was made for a door somewhere in this building, and it’s vital we know whose key it is.”
“They don’t have a warrant!” The very unhelpful and unlikeable receptionist chimed in from behind Aizawa.
He nodded slowly. “That’s correct, we do not yet have a warrant, we have a few suits working on that right now, though.” It wasn’t a lie, at least. They had arranged to get the warrant as backup and to cover their bases in court. Because Dabi and the owner of the melted Endeavor key would certainly be in court.
Hawks tilted his head to the side. “Oh, good luck with that, then. But you should probably get that warrant, first. Anyway, I’m gonna be late for a meeting, so I--”
“Before you go,” Tsukauchi interrupted, “you must be observant to be Number 2. Can you tell me if you recognize this spare key?” The detective pulled out an evidence bag from his trench coat pocket and dangled it in front of Hawks’ eyes. The yellow visor glinted as Hawks tilted his head further.
“No, but hey, they’ve got alright taste in heroes. I’ve gotta get to the agency now. Fastest hero means I can leave a little close to the wire, right? Don’t wanna waste any more time!”
With that, Hawks shot out the door and zipped into the sky, a blur of red. Then, he was gone.
Aizawa raised an eyebrow at Tsukauchi.
His friend sighed. “I’m glad I get to keep my quirk largely secret, because Hawks definitely knew who I was, but he must not know my quirk to lie to me so easily.”
They went to Hawks’ agency while they waited to get the warrant signed by a Fukuoka judge. His secretary informed them Hawks had been out of the office and hardly even spotted around Fukuoka, so they were lucky to have caught him at all.
Tsukauchi clarified that Hawks probably hadn’t been lying about having a meeting to get to, but had lied about going to his agency and about recognizing the key. He also hadn’t been lying about the “alright taste in heroes,” which meant Hawks was an Endeavor fan. This knowledge only served to piss off Aizawa even more than he already was.
When the warrant came through, they decided to still do things by the books.
For a single floor of the apartment complex.
After a very long, very boring amount of their day being spent knocking on doors and asking civilians to see if a key would fit their door, Aizawa decided to give up on procedure and ask a resident if they knew where Hawks lived.
An older woman batting off her visiting grandkids told them, “Oh, he’s on the top floor, probably so he can take off and land easily whenever he wants. Sometimes he uses the ground floor exit, but I think he only does that when he’s trying not to draw attention to himself.”
They decided to restart on the top floor and work their way down.
In the elevator, they met another resident, a man around his thirties who decided to gossip when they asked about Hawks. “I think he’s got a girlfriend lately or something. I share a wall with him, ya know? I haven’t told any of the media, though, the guy’s young and deserves his privacy. Does his girlfriend know you’re looking for Hawks?”
Aizawa and Tsukauchi quietly shared pained eye contact as they considered who Hawks might have regularly visited him.
Regularly visiting him in a sexual capacity, no less.
Aizawa needed a vacation.
Standing in front of Hawks’ apartment door (helpfully pointed out by his neighbor from the elevator), Aizawa tensed before he put the key in the lock.
When it turned easily, he groaned.
Hawks came home to Eraserhead and Detective Tsukauchi sitting on his couch.
He stared at them, frozen in the entryway. Eraserhead looked lazily over the back of his couch at him.
“Would you like to see the warrant?” He snarked.
Hawks smiled tightly. “Sure,” he said. “Might as well exercise my rights, right?”
The detective held up a piece of paper and waved it like a dog treat. Rather than dignify that with a walk of shame, Hawks sent out a feather to snatch the document.
They didn’t even watch while he read it over.
“I’m surprised I didn’t come home to a bunch of guys tearing my place apart. What’s this about, anyway?”
The two men rose from Hawks’ couch and stretched. The detective spoke, “To answer the first part of what you said, we’d rather not get the media involved. As to the second, Dabi from the League of Villains was arrested earlier this week in Musutafu and one of the keys he had on him unlocks your front door. So if you don’t mind, Hawks--”
“Even if you mind,” Eraser cut in.
“Right. Well, we’re going to search your apartment for any evidence that Dabi might have been here.”
“Why did Dabi have my apartment key?” Hawks asked, hoping to get suspicion off him.
“You tell us,” Tsukauchi answered.
Hawks shrugged, “He stole it?”
Tsukauchi smiled like he was about to show a winning poker hand, and a sinking feeling told Hawks he might have one. “You should know, Hawks, that it’s not worth lying to me. My quirk is Lie Detector, and I’ve already heard a few from you today. Aizawa, how about we start with the kitchen and work our way back through the apartment? And I mean it, Hawks, I’m not worth lying to anymore.”
They started in the kitchen, with the two intruders asking Hawks questions in a lackadaisical manner. How’s your day so far? How was your meeting? Now, who was that with exactly?
It was annoying.
More annoying was that Hawks had believed that they wouldn’t be able to get their cute little warrant, so he hadn’t cleaned house before they got here, and a careful watch from Eraserhead was making it impossible to send any sly feathers to get rid of any evidence.
“You like red bean buns?” Eraser asked from where his head was poked into Hawks’ fridge.
“Got into them recently on recommendation. They’re good,” Hawks replied flatly.
Eraser closed the fridge to stare at Hawks, red eyes glowing. “You know, when I arrested Dabi, he was buying red bean buns.”
“Must’ve been a tasty arrest.”
Hawks tittered behind them while they searched, anxiously staring as they sifted through cabinets and drawers, reminded each other to check the trash when they were near the end, strolled into the living room, and began poking around. They searched between couch cushions, under furniture, in drawers--everywhere. When they finished the living room, Hawks’ coffee table had several small bags of evidence, mostly surgical staples they’d found around the place.
Sometime during his relationship with Dabi, Hawks had been getting careless.
“Hawks,” Detective Tsukauchi turned to him as they were about to move to the next room, “Stay in here. Don’t do anything while we search. You can wait on the couch,” he said, pointing to Hawks’ couch.
“Wait on the couch?” Hawks asked, aghast.
“It’s annoying having you hovering,” Eraser deadpanned as he walked into Hawks’ bedroom.
Thus, Hawks was relegated to his own couch in his own home.
He could hear them rooting around, exchanging comments. They’d stopped asking him questions when it was clear he was just going to flatly glare at them. He’d pantomimed zipping his mouth at one point, which Tsukauchi had the nerve to coo at him for. Shutting himself up hadn’t stopped the two from making snide comments here and there, such as, “A lot of staples around the couch--doing office work at home, Number 2?” and--
“Lube but no condoms, Hawks?” rang Eraserhead’s bored yet entertained voice.
“Ran out,” Hawks called from where he was impatiently pouting on his couch, legs tucked up under him and wings half-closed around him. “Too busy getting laid, unlike you guys, clearly.”
He thought he heard someone hum thoughtfully in response.
They put Hawks’ fucking lube into an evidence bag when they come back, along with a couple of toys he’d recently bought for he and Dabi.
He seethed from his stupid spot on the couch. Tsukauchi had the nerve to smile brightly like nothing was wrong.
They kept going. Most of the toiletries were taken to be checked for saliva or hair. Several actual hairs were collected into a bag. One bag for thick, black strands; another bag for short, wiry, dark red ones. From his echoing bathroom, Hawks could hear the two men argue back and forth about who should have to use tweezers to collect used condoms from the trash.
Briefly, Hawks considered looking Eraserhead’s glowing, quirk-canceling eyes dead on and stepping off his balcony into the night air. Either the underground hero would let him fly away or… fly away, but more figuratively.
He ended up just resting his head on the couch’s armrest and staring at the ceiling. He figured he’d get caught by the PLF and end up Toga’s pincushion or Ujiko’s latest experiment, not sitting on his couch while two assholes picked his apartment clean of staples, hair, and semen.
Maybe he was cursed.
No, he was just being dramatic. This was just good old-fashioned karma.
Listening to someone walk into the living room and say, “Is this all the sex you guys have? Not very impressive, Hawks,” did make him really wonder if the gods or the universe hated him, though.
Hawks got at least one win: they didn’t do anything public. He successfully convinced them that formally taking him in would be disastrous for the country, with the nation in turmoil already because of so many recent events shaking the public trust in heroes. While this made Eraser look even more like he wanted to flay Hawks and serve him for Sunday dinner, it did get them a nondescript vehicle to drive to Musutafu. It was already too late at night when they left, or more accurately, too early in the morning, so Tsukauchi and Eraserhead switched halfway through the drive so the other could nap. Hawks sat in back, singing along to the radio, tapping his foot, rustling his wings, complaining about how much he hated cars since his wings didn’t fit in them easily, and in general being a nuisance.
They arrived in Musutafu by mid-morning and Hawks skipped along behind his escort while they brought him to the interrogation room.
He smiled at the local officers, who choked on coffee, walked into desks, and spit water when they saw the head of the “Dabi’s keys investigation” team leading in the Number 2 Pro Hero in Japan. Hawks just pretended everything was completely normal.
“Wanna say hi to your boyfriend before we get started?” Aizawa asked in a way that was somehow threatening.
“Sure!” Hawks replied, offering a too-big smile.
Eraser’s eyes narrowed.
Past a few security points, Dabi lounged in a cell. A guard was watching him, but he was leaning on the bars as if he’d been chatting with Dabi.
“You shouldn’t engage with the prisoner,” Tsukauchi said. The guard looked up, blinking owlishly at the three of them.
Hawks tilted his head. The guard mirrored him.
Hm.
“Hey Dabi, look who we brought,” Eraserhead said, waving to Hawks. Dabi groaned. Hawks waved energetically. “Wanna see the condoms we found?”
“Already did, when I took ‘em off,” Dabi replied.
“Awww, you guys are banging,” the guard crooned, receiving a mix of odd looks from the other four men.
“Not that I don’t wanna stay here and discuss my sex life with you assholes, but I don’t wanna stay here and discuss my sex life with you assholes.”
Eraser huffed.
“Anyway,” Dabi continued, “I think I’m gonna leave now.” He turned to the guard, who Hawks had a feeling was a stealthy and prominent member of the PLF. “We should bring Big Bird with us,” he told probably-Toga.
Probably-Toga nodded as she took out leaned into a phone that had been hidden from sight moments before. “Hey, Ujiko? Can we bring Hawksie too?”
“No!” Eraserhead yelled, leaped forward, eyes blazing. Toga’s disguise dropped into fleshy goop around her, but she was already spitting black liquid.
So was Dabi from his cell.
And, horrifyingly, so was Hawks.
“Whoa, wait, no--” he started to yell, cut off by the black stuff oozing from his mouth and nose. Then, he was swallowed up by the teleportation quirk.
Aizawa stomped on the mix of black and fleshy goop left behind.
“Shit,” he said emphatically. Tsukauchi nodded sagely.
“Shit, indeed.”