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‘Please, I need a bit of direction here’.
‘Hawks’, the commission president sighed, ‘The orders are whatever it takes to gain information from the League’.
‘I know that’, Hawks’ tone was steeled and he resisted the urge to clench his teeth, ‘But where does that end?’.
‘It doesn’t’, the president replied, her cold eyes picking him apart as they had done when Hawks was a child. He urged himself not to wilt under her glare, keeping his shoulders set.
‘He wants…’, Hawks hesitated, his fingers flickering at his sides as he thought about how to word what he was going to say.
Out in the public, it was easy.
The HPSC had told him to play up the laidback and jovially carefree act.
Was it an act? Hawks found it difficult to tell where it ended. Regardless, it was an easy mask to slip behind.
Stripped bare here in the president’s office with the mid-morning winter sun burning his eyes, he would fool no one by joking around. Hawks came here with a question he needed the answer to, but the HPSC never gave answers.
Not to him anyways.
‘Dabi wants to… take things further’, Hawks swallowed against the dry lump in his throat. He kept his hero jacket on despite the room being sweltering from the high blast radiators, his wings revealing his unconscious discomfort by twitching.
The president eyed them warily before lifting her gaze to Hawks’ golden gaze.
She always hated those eyes, blinking up at her and trying to wring any sense of pity out of her.
She was comfortable with the fact that she was not Hawks’ mother.
The president’s eyes slipped away and back to her computer screen as if disinterested.
‘We are done here’, she replied finally and she saw him bristle from the corner of her eye.
‘But…’, Hawks’ voice betrayed desperation and she quickly looked at him to silence any protest.
They didn’t teach Hawks to whinge.
Hawks knew when it was time to stop talking and he began to back away, the doors already opening behind him. He was perfect for this mission, he thought bitterly.
His sight, his quirk, his intelligence.
His potential for espionage.
His absence at Kamino.
His desperation for a more casual life, for freedom in lower ranks.
As Hawks turned the last moment to open his mouth, to further question – the door was slammed in his face. He bit his bottom lip sighing.
But nothing made him more perfect than his stringent obedience.
--
‘Hello, little songbird’, the raspy voice crooned from inside Hawks’ apartment.
‘Dabi’, Hawks greeted, swinging his legs from where they hung over the edge of the balcony.
‘Aw’, Dabi didn’t sound disappointed at all, ‘I thought I might sneak up on you’.
Hawks turned from where he gazed down at the cityscape below, his golden eyes more tired than Dabi had seen them. Dabi hovered at the balcony door, having let himself in by picking the lock. The hero turned back after giving Dabi a small sneer.
‘As if I wouldn’t hear that’.
‘I was quiet’, Dabi insisted, deciding to exit out into the cold air. He slipped down beside Hawks, sweeping his long legs to dangle by the hero’s.
As if in response, Hawks’ wings rustled, each feather fluttering as if threatening to detach.
‘Ah, of course’, Dabi continued to stare into the side of Hawks’ face who seemed to be refusing to look at him properly, ‘What’s a songbird without his wings?’.
‘Why did you come tonight?’, Hawks’ voice was a little strained and Dabi was a little taken aback by the absence of usual witticisms and clipped banter.
The meeting at the HPSC must not have gone well so.
Hawks had told him he was hoping to be debriefed about an upcoming mission.
‘I came because I wanted to’, Dabi shrugged.
Hawks felt even more miserable with that answer.
Hawks couldn’t imagine just wilfully going where his emotions told him to.
Dabi was a robot controlled only by the whims of his labile moods despite an often solid and impassive appearance.
Maybe that comes from being the villain son of a hero.
Hawks on the other hand was bumbling, cheerful and lackadaisical – falling into mishaps with the run of his mouth more often than not. However, every move Hawks made was calculated, precise and deliberate – even all the accidental ones.
Maybe that comes from being the hero son of a villain.
‘You okay?’, Dabi’s voice broke through Hawks’ reverie. Hawks shook his head, his blonde hair falling into his eyes as he tried to gather his thoughts – and fast.
He had had a few moments when he heard Dabi start picking the lock – in fact he had had a few minutes when one of his feathers tingled from the dark sloping presence making its way towards the back entrance of the north apartment block.
Hawks blew upwards so his curl was pushed from his eye, ‘Yeah, course I am Dabs’.
Dabi didn’t look all that convinced, but it was unusual for Dabi to look all that sort of anything. Instead he tilted his head on one side as if observing the hero before motioning slightly with his hand. Hawks complied, shifting up so their thighs were pressed together.
Dabi looked out over the city Hawks was staring into and retrieved a cigarette from his back pocket, lighting it quickly with a snap of his fingers and let the smoke drench them both.
Hawks would never tell him he liked the smell.
‘I’d say that I’m sorry I kissed you’, Dabi murmured as he breathed out a plume, ‘But I’m not. I never apologise for doing what I want’.
‘How do you justify doing what you want?’, Hawks suddenly asked, his golden eyes flicking up through dark lashes to blue ones.
‘Justify?’, Dabi asked as if confused, inhaling again and considering, ‘Justice is supposed to be your thing birdie. Besides, I just don’t think about it’.
‘You must think about it to do it, surely’, Hawks insisted, planting a hand behind him so he could lean back a little. Dabi watched the way his jacket fell off his shoulder a little, exposing tanned muscled skin.
‘No, not really. I just do what feels right at the time’, Dabi was tracing his gaze up from Hawks’ hip to the nip in of his waist. He brought the cigarette in again, letting his eyes linger.
‘How do you know what’s right though? No one has told you. After the fact, on reflection, it could be wrong?’, Hawks ignored Dabi’s obvious advances, tempted to reshoulder his jacket. His wings twitched as Dabi reached a hand forward, tweaking one of the primaries between scarred fingers.
‘On reflection, hardly anything I do is right’, Dabi replied, too preoccupied with the shine of quills and the inhalation of nicotine to be properly engaging in this conversation.
‘How do you live with that?’, Hawks felt his throat constrict.
‘I just feel it and then I do it’, Dabi answers shrugging, dragging a fingertip down the feather blade, ‘Simple as that. Don’t think about it’.
‘How do I feel it and not think it?’, Hawks managed a shuddering breath as the hand became more insisting, digging in deeper and parting the feathers.
The emotional core of Dabi pumped like a beating heart, echoing out vibrations and moving him like a puppet. Hawks’ pulsed like a dying ember, struggling and on the way out.
‘I can think of one way’, Dabi murmured and he dragged Hawks in to kiss him again.