Archive of Our Own ^beta

To be entirely and blatantly honest, Dabi has no idea what he’s doing. After the meeting, the one he’d spent the entirety of in Hawks’ lap, his memories get a little hazy, but he’s pretty sure he remembers getting sleepy and being taken back up to his room by Hawks. When he woke up, he was big again, and the hand Hawks reached out to pat his shoulder with in greeting was met with an instinctive wall of flames.

Hawks had tried to talk about what had happened, Dabi had told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off, and then, once Hawks had sulked out of his room like a kicked puppy, Dabi climbed out of his bedroom window and disappeared into the forest that surrounds their latest safehouse. This is all to say that he’s now almost a kilometer away from the house with what he hopes is at the very least a sufficient sense of the way back and absolutely no idea what it is, exactly, that he’s doing here.

He figures that he hoped the fresh air would clear his head or something like that. Today was, to put it simply, really, really weird. The entirety of the League - and Japan’s Number Two hero - now know that Dabi regresses, which has probably destroyed the cool, mysterious, and dangerous persona he’s worked so hard to build. But even if that’s the case, no one seemed to mind it. Toga called him cute, Mr. Compress actually knew what was going on, and Hawks … Hawks took care of him.

That’s the weirdest part, Dabi thinks. He’s been regressing for years; the weeks after the fire being the closest he can estimate to a start date since he didn’t realize what was happening the first few times. And in all of that time, he’s never had anyone to be there for him. No one’s ever touched him gently like that while he’s been in headspace, no one’s ever carried him and held him and made him feel safe.

It was nice. There’s no way around that. It was really nice. Embarrassing, sure, and even more so the more that Dabi tries to sort through the hazy memories, the more he’s certain that he can’t let himself see Hawks ever again, but nice.

But that doesn’t mean that Dabi, even if he wants to, can just ask Hawks to be his caregiver or something. God knows he’s busy enough with hero work, no matter how often he swears his allegiance to the League, and again, Dabi would still like to manage to uphold at least some image of the kind of person that could fuck Hawks up if need be. Dabi’s not built for trusting, and Hawks isn’t built to be trusted. It just couldn’t work, probably.

Either way, though, it’s kind of a moot point. Dabi doesn’t need a caregiver. He’s managed this long on his own, and he can keep doing so. Nevermind the fact that as the sun starts to set and the shadows around him start to lengthen, the fuzziness that’s been in the back of his mind since waking up from his nap only grows. He spots a large fallen tree just off of the sort of path he’s been walking along and sits down on it, putting his face in his hands and trying to keep his breathing steady.

Normally, after he gets to regress for a bit, he’s fine for a little while. It’s just something that he has to do every now and then. But today, the pull of slipping down and being little again just won’t disappear. Dabi figures that it’s Hawks’ fault - it would make sense for something about having that side of himself acknowledged by someone else for the first time ever to unlock some new, unprecedented craving for it.

That’s stupid, though. Dabi’s not going to regress again today, and that’s not just a promise he’s making to himself because Hawks has gone back to wherever it is he goes when he’s not being Hawks. He’s going to stay big, he’s going to deal with his actual adult life, and he’ll deal with everything else when the sun is up again and he can’t avoid it anymore.

Dabi stays sitting on the fallen tree for a bit, watching the sun go down, and once it gets properly dark, so dark that the trees looming around him feel like giants, feel like the ones that watched him back 0on Sekoto Hill, he starts making his way back to the house.

He waits outside of the front door for a moment. His room is on the second floor and his arm strength is, to say the least, lacking, so climbing back inside secretly is out of the question. He’ll just have to go inside and face whatever reactions are waiting for him.

How bad could it be? Everyone already knows, everyone already saw him, and he wasn’t kicked out of the League then. He’s Dabi, for fuck’s sake, he doesn’t even need these people if he doesn’t want them. Or, at least, that’s what he tells himself to get his hand to close around the door handle.

The front door leads right into the living room, which is illuminated only by the video game Shigaraki’s cursing at on the TV. He’s perched on the very edge of the couch like a gargoyle, and his eyes don’t so much as flick over to Dabi as he kicks the door shut behind himself and slinks across the room towards the better-lit kitchen, beyond which lies the staircase and relative safety. Well. One down, no problem.

Right as Dabi steps into the kitchen, though, he’s greeted by the sound of Mr. Compress’ voice.

“Dabi!” he says, looking over from where he’s rifling through the cabinet that Dabi is pretty sure only has stale chips left inside. “I didn’t notice that you’d left, when did -”

“Fuck off,” Dabi mutters, his shoulders tensing as he shoves his hands into his sweatshirt pockets. Normally, Mr. Compress wouldn’t give a shit about where or when he went, and he doesn’t appreciate the implications of the change. He doesn’t need coddling. Or, well, not most of the time, anyway.

“Aw, are you back to normal?” Toga asks. She sounds disappointed, and when Dabi’s eyes finally find her sitting on the counter behind Mr. Compress, she looks even more so. “That’s boring.”

Dabi scowls at her. “Sorry about it,” he says. “I’ll be upstairs, just so no one has to have a stroke about my whereabouts.”

“Wait, wait, before you go,” Toga says hurriedly. She hops off of the counter and runs over to Dabi, clasping her hands below her chin and giving him what she probably thinks is a winning smile. “Will you help me paint my nails again? They got all chipped.”

Dabi considers it for a moment. On one hand, he really wants to leave. On the other, maybe staying around people and doing something that, whether he admits it or not, is relaxing, will help settle the small voice in the back of his mind telling himself to slip again.
“Alright,” he relents. “Do you still have the polish?”

Toga squeals and dashes out of the room, her feet thumping up the stairs so loudly that Shigaraki yells, “Shut up!” from the living room, then makes a reappearance less than a minute later with two bottles of nail polish.

“I got the red for me and the black for you,” she explains. “Since you only have tiny bits left.”

Dabi looks down at his own hands to find that she’s right. Nail polish doesn’t usually last long for him, given that he likes to scrape it off whenever he’s bored, but he still likes the way that it looks sometimes.

“Alright,” he says. “Sit down, then.”

Toga does, and Dabi takes the chair next to her. It’s … strange. He feels like he’s being coddled, like they’re trying not to let him go off on his own because they don’t think he can handle it, but when he thinks through it all rationally, no one is really acting that differently from usual. The constant mental replay of all of his memories from the day, both the hazy ones from when he was in headspace and the clearer ones from when he hasn’t been, is starting to hurt his head. Slipping is so, so tempting, but Dabi forces himself to take Toga’s hand and unscrew the lid of the red nail polish.

He’s not very good at painting nails. After almost every brush stroke, he has to slide his nail along the side of Toga’s to keep the polish from drying on her skin, and the polish never manages to go on as smoothly as he’d like it to. But Toga doesn’t ever really complain about it. She just sits there, letting Dabi turn her hand as he needs to, and with the sounds of Mr. Compress puttering around the kitchen aimlessly and Shigaraki clicking the buttons on his controller in the other room, it all feels more like something that could be described as a home than Dabi would like to admit.

Dabi’s just finished Toga’s right hand when Mr. Compress comes over and takes the seat on his other side. “Will one of you do mine next?” he asks.

Dabi wrinkles his nose. “You wear gloves almost all of the time,” he points out.

“I’ll paint yours when mine are dry!” Toga says. “Do you want black or red?”

“Black, please,” Mr. Compress tells her, then, to Dabi, “I’ll still know that they’re painted. It’s kind of fun.”

“If you say so,” Dabi says, because it’s not like he really cares. He returns his focus to Toga’s nails, trying to ignore the feeling of Mr. Compress watching curiously over his shoulder, and the three of them settle into a comfortable silence.

Once Toga’s nails are done, she climbs onto the table to paint Mr. Compress’ while Dabi watches quietly and counts his breaths, and then, just to make it all come full circle, Mr. Compress holds out his hands for one of Dabi’s.

Dabi offers his left hand, and Mr. Compress takes it and pulls it in close. His hands are soft, softer than Toga’s, and his grip is gentle. The polish is cool as it slides across Dabi’s nails, and once again, Dabi feels that fuzziness rising up in the back of his mind.

No, he tells himself. He can hold it together. He has to hold it together. Hawks isn’t here, after all, and - Dabi freezes, tensing up just enough that Mr. Compress shoots him a concerned look. Dabi forces a sort of scowl, and Mr. Compress lets his gaze drift back down to Dabi’s hands.

What the fuck was that for a thought? Just because one thing happened one time doesn’t mean that jack shit has changed. Hawks isn’t his fucking caregiver, Dabi’s regressed without him more times than he can count and he can do it again, without Hawks, as many times as he needs to. Dabi probably already ruined any chance of having Hawks take care of him again anyway, considering that he threatened him and then kicked him out without so much as letting him offer to talk about it. And that’s fine. It’s for the best, even.

Mr. Compress suddenly sets Dabi’s hand down on the table and puts one slender hand on his wrist. “You still with us, Dabi?” he asks.

Toga, who had climbed back into her seat, thrown her feet up on the table, and started playing some game on her phone, puts her phone on the table and leans in close. “It’s okay if you’re not,” she says.

“I’m fucking fine, Christ,” Dabi snaps, a little harsher and a lot less convincingly than he’d meant to.

“It really is okay,” Mr. Compress says. He picks Dabi’s hand up again, blows on his nails quickly, then starts in with a second coat. “We’ve all seen weirder, and none of us think less of you.”

Something in Dabi’s chest feels hot, almost nervous, and he twists the feeling into something that can hopefully pass as irritation or at least indifference with a practiced hand. “Yeah, well, I -”

“Yeah, I think it’s even better that you can be cute and super good at killing people,” Toga interrupts, ruffling Dabi’s hair. He reaches up to smack her hand away without thinking and smudges his polish, Mr. Compress protests and tries to grab his hand back, Shigaraki yells for them to keep it down, and by the time that Spinner and Twice come back with takeout, there’s nail polish all over the table, two of the chairs have been knocked over, and Dabi, Toga, and Mr. Compress are all half-leaning on the table and trying to disguise their laughs with slow, deep breaths.

Toga suggests that they all watch a movie while they eat, and Shigaraki agrees the minute that she calls it a ‘team bonding’ activity. They watch some stupid horror thing that, as Toga continually points out, has very unrealistic gore, they eat takeout that’s gone cold by the time they actually get to it, and it’s … it’s nice. Dabi’s feeling solidly big again, and for the first time since waking up from his nap this afternoon, he has the feeling that everything might actually be alright.

*

Two days later, Dabi wakes up feeling irritable for no real reason. His sleep was restless, especially because he kept opening one eye to make sure that he couldn’t see any spiders in the moonlight coming through the thin, tattered curtains, and he just isn’t in the mood to do anything or see anyone. And then, because the universe hates him, he hears voices floating up from downstairs. More specifically, he hears Shigaraki and Hawks’ voices.

What the fuck is Hawks doing here? Dabi told him to fuck off, and Dabi’s supposed to be his point of contact with the League, which means that he’s not supposed to show up without explicit invitation from Dabi.

His mood worsening, Dabi gets out of bed, throws on a hoodie, and stomps downstairs. Shigaraki and Hawks are in the kitchen, both obviously tense in the way they get around each other no matter how hard they try to hide it, and they both look surprised to see Dabi.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Dabi demands, jerking a thumb in Hawks’ direction.

“I told him to be here,” Shigaraki says, like that clears anything up.

“Yeah,” Hawks adds. Dabi doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t want to know how Hawks is looking at him right now. He doesn’t want to know what Hawks has been thinking about him over the past few days.

Dabi crosses his arms and scowls at Shigaraki. Shigaraki scowls right back. “He’s my recruit,” Dabi says. “I choose when he’s here.”

“I’m the leader,” Shigaraki retorts. “One of us is trying to actually run this group instead of just lying around all day.”

“Oh, yeah, you finally finish playing your stupid games and need something else to do now?” Dabi asks. “I thought you said we were lying low until you got more orders from the big boss.”

Dabi … isn’t exactly sure what he’s doing. He and Shigaraki will snark at each from time to time, of course, but Dabi will usually shut up quickly and let Shigaraki tire himself out. Today, though, there’s a frantic sort of energy in Dabi’s whole body, one telling him to just go, go, go and not slow down, and the more that he thinks about it, the more sure he becomes that it’s Hawks’ presence stressing him out. Hawks was enough of a wild card before all of this, and now, it’s almost like he’s become a walking, talking minefield.

Shigaraki glares at him. “It’s not your place to question what I’m doing,” he says. “Now, Hawks and I were in the middle of discussing some actually important things, if you would deign to excuse yourself.”

“Fucking fine,” Dabi mutters, because he’d be stupid to not take the out, even though it’s at the price of his pride. He’s already lost enough of that this week, though, so it’s fine. He can take an extra hit.

He turns on his heel and stalks out of the kitchen, through the living room, and outside. It’s colder today, and cloudy, but he sets off down the same path that he followed the other day. He makes it as far as what he’s pretty sure is the same fallen tree as before, and he sits there, wondering about the odds of the entire forest going up if he just set some of the dry leaves covering the ground ablaze.

He’s so lost in thought, almost leaving his body entirely to just sit in his mind as he does sometimes, that he doesn’t hear the footsteps moving towards him until they’re off of the dirt path and crunching through the leaves leading right to him.

Dabi looks up, one hand already raised and on fire, to see Hawks. His hands are in the pockets of his jacket, and his wings are at rest behind him, even though Dabi was milliseconds away from burning the shit out of him.

“Hey,” Hawks says. “You come here often?”

“Fuck off,” Dabi mutters.

Hawks, despite the glare that Dabi’s directing at him, doesn’t fuck off. Instead, he sits down next to Dabi on the tree, everything about his body language saying that he’s trying as hard as he can to look at ease. It would be a convincing performance if Dabi hadn’t seen him stressed enough to know what it looks like. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Hawks says. “But if you want to … I feel like it might be a good idea.”

“What were you and Shigaraki talking about?” Dabi asks. He doesn’t know if he wants to talk about it. Obviously, he doesn’t, but then again, if he talks about it, then maybe, just maybe, Hawks could take care of him again. There’s no use in pretending that he doesn’t want at least that.

“Bullshit, mostly,” Hawks says. “He basically threatened to out me as a traitor if I don’t start bringing in more useful information soon, but I mean - we both know it’d be counterproductive. I’m trying, really, but the Hero world is pretty on edge right now. Everything’s kinda being given out on a need-to-know basis, y’know?”

“Sure,” Dabi says skeptically. “I don’t really care about your excuses right now. But don’t think he wouldn’t follow through on it.”

He doesn’t know why he feels the need to warn Hawks. Hawks knows, after all, that Shigaraki has a short temper and an absolute willingness to ruin what or whoever he sees as being in his way, and Dabi wouldn’t give much of a shit if Hawks got exposed or dusted or anything else. Well. Okay. He would put on a great act of not giving much of a shit, at the very least, probably even to himself.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Hawks says dryly. He offers Dabi a smile that is decidedly not returned, then lets out a sigh as he stretches his legs out in front of himself. “Seriously, though. Tell me right now if you want me to drop it, and I will, but otherwise, we should talk about it.”

Dabi opens his mouth to tell Hawks that yes, he does in fact want to drop it, but the words don’t come out. He should have known that they wouldn’t, and there’s a part of him, deep, deep down, that’s something like thankful for the fact that Hawks knows he had to frame it like this. This way, Dabi doesn’t have to say what he wants.

Hawks watches Dabi for a long moment, then, when Dabi slowly closes his mouth again, says, “I liked it. Taking care of you, I mean.”

Dabi doesn’t reply. He’s never talked about it before, and while he knows that if Hawks was going to write him off for the whole thing, he would’ve done so already - which is a revelation in and of itself -, it doesn’t make him feel any less like any words he could say would be the wrong ones.

“Can I ask you a question?” Hawks asks.

Dabi eyes him warily for a moment. “Fine,” he agrees. “I might not answer it, though.”

“Fair, fair,” Hawks says. He crosses his ankles, then uncrosses them again. “So, y’know, I did some research, and I just wanted to know - like, do you know why it happens? For you.”

“I had a shit childhood. Didn’t think I needed to make that one any more obvious.”

Hawks is quiet for a moment. “Me too, y’know,” he finally says. “I mean, I’m not trying to say that anything was on the same level or anything, ‘cause I don’t know your shit, but … I get it.”

Dabi raises an eyebrow. “You, golden boy?” he says, but even as his initial surprise bleeds into his tone, it stars to make sense. Hawks is too young and too good at what he does to have learned from a reasonable age. Dabi can understand that, sort of.

“Yeah,” Hawks says. The sound comes out with a humorless little laugh. “Trust me, uh, I’m pretty far from who I used to be.”

Dabi looks at Hawks, then down at his own hands. “Same,” he says, a little wryly.

“Well, not always, huh?” Hawks says, carefully, like he’s not sure if it’s okay to joke about it.

Dabi briefly considers incinerating him. It is a little funny, though, and there’s still something that he refuses to name anything as cliche or stupid as hope stirring in his chest. So he just huffs and says, “Yeah, not always,” and it feels like a surrender and an offering all at once.

“I can come by next time, if you want,” Hawks says. “Hang out. Be on spider duty. Whatever.”

Everything about their conversation has been leading to this point, but it still takes Dabi off-guard. Hawks is offering to be there for him again. Hawks is offering to take care of him when he’s small and wants nothing more than someone bigger there with him. He knows his expression is giving away his surprise, but he can’t quite rein it in.

“Would you … want that?” Hawks asks. “It’s totally fine if not, I know you’ve probably been dealing with it on your own for a while, but I dunno. I think I’d be kinda worried about you alone like that.”

Dabi looks over at Hawks and hopes against hope that the heat in his cheeks isn’t visible. “Fuckin’ hero.”

“Old habits,” Hawks says, shrugging one shoulder. “But seriously, I know emotions aren’t your shtick, but you’re going to have to admit to wanting this if you, y’know, want it.”

Dabi kicks at some of the leaves at his feet. “Fine,” he says. “Yeah. I can text you or whatever.”

Hawks visibly relaxes with relief, which is … strange, because it doesn’t seem like ‘oh, thank God I’m not being incinerated’ relief. It just seems like he got something that he wanted, which is something that Dabi is going to have to chew on the next time he’s drunk or tired enough to deal with it.

“Cool,” Hawks says. “Yeah, that’s cool.”

“Cool,” Dabi echoes, for lack of anything else to say around all of the thoughts in his head, and, well. Yeah. Cool.

*

After that, things get busy for a while. The location of the safehouse gets compromised - Dabi’s pretty sure that Twice is to blame, but it’s hard to say for sure and pointing fingers doesn’t do jack shit either way -, and then the whole damn thing gets burned to the ground during a raid. It’s satisfying, the kind of destruction Dabi hasn’t gotten to do in a while, and he rides the high of it until Shigaraki directs Mr. Compress to park outside of the literal shack that’s apparently their home for the next god knows how long.

The place has five rooms in total, and Dabi accepts the fact that sleeping on the couch will mean that he’s the last one to sleep and the first one awake because it’s better than snuggling up with Spinner, Shigaraki, Twice, and Mr. Compress all night. Toga’s a little too cheerful when she plays the gender card to get a room to herself, but it’s not like any of them can call her on it.

The point is, though, that they’re busy, and Dabi’s not sleeping even anywhere near his usual deficit, and the only time he gets to himself is the time between turning the shower head on and hearing someone knock, which rarely lasts more than twenty minutes. He hasn’t gotten a chance to regress, at least not in the way he needs, where he sinks all the way into it and stays until it feels like the rest of his mind can put itself together again. He just slips a little bit, sometimes, at night or while he’s eating breakfast or while he and Toga are scouting out possible recruits. It’s not healthy, and he knows it. More importantly, it’s not safe, and he knows it. He also knows that he can text Hawks.

The only problem there is that he … can’t. He’s gotten as far as opening the secure messaging app they use, clicking on the profile labeled with a feather emoji - Hawks’ doing, not Dabi’s - and then promptly clicking out of it again. He knows it’s stupid to try to cling to his pride after everything that’s already happened between them, but letting it go is like trying to break his own finger. Easy enough in theory, but always stopped by some instinctive, unavoidable barrier.

Two weeks pass. Dabi hasn’t seen Hawks since they sat in the forest and talked things out as much as the two of them know how. He’s starting to feel like he’s going to go stir-crazy, especially when Mr. Compress starts giving him careful looks across the table, like he can tell when Dabi’s not entirely big anymore, and so finally, one cloudy, dull afternoon, when he’s been feeling on the edge of small all day, Dabi rolls over on the couch, grabs his phone off the coffee table, and clicks on that stupid, stupid feather emoji.

🔥: hey
🐦: What’s up, hot stuff?
🔥: dont call me that

A wrench has suddenly appeared in Dabi’s foolproof plan: he has no idea how to ask for this. Sure, he and Hawks both admitted that they want to do it, but having that implicit knowledge and actually saying the words, even over text, is a completely different thing. Maybe if Dabi’s vague, Hawks will figure out what he means anyway.

🔥: come pick me up
🐦: I’m on patrol, y’know.

Oh. Right. Hawks has a job, one that Dabi doesn’t fully believe isn’t just for appearance’s sake. Of course he can’t drop it only to come hang out with Dabi and his stuffed elephant, who, for the record, is still stubbornly packed away in one of the boxes shoved into the corner of the room. Dabi’s starting to feel stupid for messaging Hawks in the first place, but more than that, the tight, twisty feeling in his chest is starting to pull him closer and closer towards headspace.

🔥: forgot
🔥: sry
🐦: Hang on, did I just get apologized to by you?
🐦: Are you sick?
🔥: no
🐦: Drunk?
🔥: nop
🔥: *no

Dabi’s hand slips on the keyboard, and he closes his eyes. Breathes in, holds it, breathes out again. He doesn’t want to regress here, in this tiny house with everyone else. If worst comes to worst, he’ll just go for a walk, but he is not going to let it happen on this stupid, probably moldy couch.

🐦: Making a real convincing case there.
🔥: when does your shift end
🐦: Schedule says 6, paperwork says 7.
🐦: Why? You that desperate to see me?
🔥: just pick me up at 6:30
🔥: did shig send you the new address
🐦: Yeah, I have it.
🐦: What’s going on?
🐦: You’re not acting like yourself.

Hawks can’t possibly be this dumb, can he? If it’s just an act, Dabi is going to kill him. Unless … unless it is an act, just one that’s doing a shit job of disguising a rejection. The more Dabi thinks about it, the more certain he is that that’s the case. There’s no way that Hawks hasn’t figured out what it is that he’s asking for, and he’s had plenty of time to sit and realize that babysitting an adult man isn’t how he wants to spend his time.

🔥: nvm
🔥: forget it

He locks his phone and resolves to ignore it for the rest of the day, maybe the rest of time if it comes to that, but when it buzzes a minute later, then buzzes again, five goddamn times in a row, he opens it up without hesitation.

🐦: What’s going on with you, seriously?
🐦: Wait.
🐦: Oh, shit, I’m being really stupid right now, aren’t I.
🐦: I’ll be there at 6:15.
🐦: Unless you need me there earlier. I have sidekicks for a reason.

Dabi hates the rush of relief and excitement that crashes over him, but there’s no denying it. Hawks is going to come get him, and now that the band-aid’s been ripped off, Dabi can’t make himself play it cool anymore.

🔥: sooner would be better
🐦: Alright. Give me just a few.

The little typing bubble pops up, disappears, and pops up again before Hawks’ next message finally arrives.

🐦: Are you feeling little right now?

The acknowledgment of it makes Dabi curl in on himself a bit, glancing at Spinner, who’s paging through some old paperback that he found on the floor of the house, out of the corner of his eye just to make sure that his phone screen can’t be seen.

🔥: eh
🔥: not all the way yet
🔥: trying not to
🔥: Okay.
🐦: You know it’s okay if you do, you know. Who’s there with you?
🔥:everyone
🔥: stupid house has like two rooms
🔥: well okay its just spinner in here rn but
🔥: dont want to make it a thing
🐦: Right.
🐦: Okay, I’m on my way over.
🐦: Where do you want to go? Guessing you don’t want to stay there.
🔥: your place

Yeah, okay, Dabi’s never been, but he thinks that getting a hotel room or something would only be more suspicious. It’s not as if he or Hawks are inconspicuous in the slightest, and he’s pretty sure that it would take a hefty bribe and a very sketchy motel owner to let them in without even a quick, blurry picture ending up in the hands of one news outlet or another.

🐦: Okay.
🐦: Do you have clothes that’ll hide your face a bit?
🔥: yeah
🐦: Get those and whatever else you want.
🐦: Be there in ten.

Dabi puts his phone down. The world feels like it completely shifted over the course of that short conversation. The living room seems brighter, less claustrophobic, and cliche as it may be, at least Dabi doesn’t have to admit to anyone but himself that it feels a little easier to breathe than it did before. Hawks is coming to get him. Hawks is going to take care of him.

He gets off of the couch and ignores Spinner’s complaints as he starts searching through the pile of boxes in the corner of the room. There are only a few, and Dabi finds the especially beat-up one that holds Zō and his pacifiers quickly. He takes it under his arm, grabs a hoodie that he’s pretty sure is his from the back of the couch, and walks out of the front door before Spinner or anyone else can ask him where he’s going.

Dabi throws the hoodie on, tossing the hood up even though there’s no one to possibly see him around here, and leans against the rusted remains of the fence that presumably used to stretch all the way around the house. It’s been four minutes since Hawks texted, his phone informs him, so he just has six more to wait. His fingers itch to open the box and get Zō out, but he forces himself to wait. He can wait just a little bit longer, he doesn’t want to be in headspace already if Hawks wants to talk to him about anything, he definitely doesn’t want to be in headspace if Hawks changes his mind, and so he takes deep, hypothetically steadying breaths and stares at the sky.

It’s another gray, cloudy day, which means that there’s nothing interesting to look at it, but Dabi doesn’t tear his eyes away even when Shigaraki’s voice drifts over his shoulder to his ear. Fucker walks so quietly, it’s kind of unnerving sometimes.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“None of your business,” Dabi informs him. His grip on the box tightens without him realizing. He knows that Shigaraki’s not shit, really, but … he seemed the most judgmental when everyone first found out about his regression, and Dabi just doesn’t want to talk to him about it.

Shigaraki steps so that he’s in front of Dabi and waves a hand in front of his face, finally drawing his eyes away from the sky. “I’m the leader. That makes it my business.”

Dabi scowls at him, but he knows it’s not coming across anywhere near as intimidating as he’d like for it to. It has to have been ten minutes by now, right? “Fuck off.”

“Not until you tell me what you’re doing,” Shigaraki insists. He doesn’t stomp his foot on the ground, but Dabi has a feeling that it’s a near thing. There’s probably some irony in the fact that the well-known manchild of the group is the one that judges Dabi for acting like a kid, but really, Dabi doesn’t care about thinking it through right now. He just cares about seeing - there, right there, a flash of red against the gray clouds and, a second later, Hawks, coming to a smooth landing just a meter away. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

“Hey,” Hawks says, giving them both a wave. “Didn’t expect to see you out here, boss.”

“What’s going on,” Shigaraki says flatly.

“I’m picking Dabi up,” Hawks says, rocking from the balls of his feet to his heels and back again. He tosses Dabi a smile, one that actually reaches his eyes behind his flight goggles, and Dabi fights down the small voice telling him to smile back. Shigaraki’s seen him little once before, and that’s an experience that Dabi’s fine not repeating.

Shigaraki’s eyes narrow, but then, suddenly, they flick down to the box that Dabi’s now holding in a death grip and widen again. “Oh,” he says, then, “Fine, then. Don’t get seen.”

“Wasn’t in the plan,” Dabi mutters. His cheeks feel hot.

Shigaraki moves like he’s about to turn around and go inside before freezing. “You know,” he starts, his face contorting like the words he’s saying are physically paining him. “You don’t have to leave, if you ever want to. I mean. You can hang out with us.”

Before Dabi can pull a response to that together, Shigaraki’s fully turning around and walking back into the house, shutting the door behind himself with a slam that’s answered by a muffled yell from Twice. Dabi watches him go, suddenly nervous at the prospect of turning around and facing Hawks. He’s glad he’s here, more glad than he’d admit, but - Hawks is here. They both know why he’s here.

“Dabi?” Hawks says. His voice is quieter and closer than Dabi expects it to be, and he just manages to hold back a flinch when Hawks’ hand lands on his elbow. “Hey. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dabi says, the sound automatically coming out as a snap, but then he forces himself to take a deep breath. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”

Hawks looks at him for a moment, his sharp eyes taking in far more than Dabi thinks he wants them to, then steps back and claps his hands together. “Alright, how are we doing this?”

That’s … a great question, actually. It feels like trying to work out the logistics of getting out of a bar with a one night stand but so, so much more awkward.

“I get motion sick,” Dabi blurts out. “So you can carry me, but be careful.”

Hawks nods. “Alright. Do you know, I mean, like - when are you -”

“I don’t know,” Dabi says, looking down at the ground. He hadn’t thought this part through either. When is he supposed to get into headspace? It feels like it’d be weird for him to be big while Hawks flies both of them back to his apartment, but it’s not as if it’s a switch he can just flip on command.

“That’s okay,” Hawks says, and then, before Dabi can prepare himself for it, he’s being swept off of his feet and into Hawks’ arms, which come under his back and his knees to hold him bridal-style. It takes him off guard, and he latches onto Hawks’ neck with his free hand before he fully realizes what he’s doing.

Hawks smiles at him, so much closer now, and Dabi feels his heart do something funny in his chest. “Hey,” Hawks says. “Hold on tight to your box, okay? I’ve got you.”

It takes Dabi a moment to remember both that he can speak and how to do it, but eventually, he gets out a weak, “Yeah.” He feels caught halfway between big and little, and he wants to let go so badly, but he still just can’t get all the way there. This is Hawks. This is Hawks, the number two hero, smiling down at him and holding Dabi, a villain and mass murderer, to his chest like he’s something worth protecting, and there’s still a nonzero chance that Hawks is just going to dump him at the nearest police station or -

Hawks suddenly spreads his wings, and Dabi lets out a surprised squeak as they lift into the air. Hawks tightens his arms around Dabi before Dabi can even curl further into his chest for security. His knuckles brush against the soft fur lining of Hawks’ jacket, and it feels nice, almost as soft as Zō. “Gotta get out of sight first, okay?” Hawks explains. “Let me know if you’re cold.”

Dabi nods. He doesn’t know if he doesn’t speak because he’s not sure if he’ll be heard over the rush of the wind around them or because he can’t, but Hawks doesn’t seem to mind either way. He keeps holding Dabi tightly as they go higher, higher, and higher, until the ground below is too far away for Dabi to look at.

“Alright, this should be good,” Hawks says. He turns a little, movements careful and slow enough that Dabi’s stomach doesn’t start to protest, and then they’re flying off towards the city. “You’re now free to move about the cabin,” Hawks jokes, “except, uh, not actually.”

Dabi wants to roll his eyes at him, but then, one of Hawks’ feathers detaches and taps Dabi on the nose. It’s stupid and embarrassing, but he laughs before he can stop himself.

“You think that’s funny?” Hawks asks, grinning down at Dabi. He looks abruptly more relaxed than before, which is strange because Dabi hadn’t even noticed that he was tense. “Watch this.”

Hawks sends a few more feathers up into the air above them, and Dabi slides his hand down from around Hawks’ neck to fist into his shirt as he watches. Hawks makes the feathers spin, jump, and twirl, bright red against the gray sky, and every time that one darts down to tease at Dabi’s cheek or nose, he can’t hold back a laugh. He feels held and safe in a way that he can’t remember feeling in a long, long time, and from there, it’s easy to sink into it, with big Dabi making one more note to revisit his stance on trust before sliding firmly into the backseat.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Hawks says. If he’s noticed any change in Dabi, he doesn’t give it away. “I think it’s about five more minutes, are you cold or anything?”

Dabi shakes his head.

Hawks’ gaze softens, his smile slipping from a playful grin to something that makes Dabi want to curl into him even more. “Going quiet on me, firefly?”

The pet name hits Dabi somewhere in the chest. Rei used to call him that, way back when, so long ago that he’d almost forgotten, and it makes his throat feel thick.

Hawks slows, his grip on Dabi tightening just a bit and his brow furrowing with concern. “You okay, Dabs?”

Dabi nods, then leans his head against Hawks’ shoulder and closes his eyes. He feels like Hawks is waiting for him to speak, but words are all out of his reach.

“Alright,” Hawks says softly. “We’re almost there. I’m going to go a little faster once we get low enough to be seen, so hang on tight, okay? These wings aren’t exactly made for stealth.”

Dabi nods again, eyes still closed, and then his stomach dips as Hawks suddenly picks up speed. It only lasts for a moment, though, and then Hawks comes to a stop, his wings rustling as he shakes them out.

“Hey, we made it,” Hawks tells him. “Can I put you down?”

Dabi considers that for a moment as he opens his eyes and looks around. They’re out on a small balcony, decorated only with two chairs and a few dying plants, and then they’re moving in through the sliding glass doors, into a bright, airy apartment with high ceilings and plain, white walls. Dabi looks at the couch that they’re moving towards, then shakes his head.

“No?” Hawks asks.

Dabi shakes his head again and grips the front of Hawks’ shirt a little tighter to make his point. It doesn’t make sense, he knows, to feel uncomfortable here when he practically demanded for Hawks to bring him, but he’s never been here before and unfamiliar places aren’t really his thing.

“Alright, alright,” Hawks says gently. He sits down on the couch carefully, letting Dabi settle down onto his lap. “So, uh, this is my place? It’s not much, but it’s not like I spend a lot of time here, and I mean - well, okay, I don’t think you’re really going to judge my interior design choices, huh.”

He clears his throat a little, then nods towards the box that Dabi’s still clutching tightly. “Did you bring Zō?” he asks.

Dabi nods. He sits up a little, still not letting go of Hawks’ shirt, and opens the box with his free hand. There are a few pacifiers inside, which he doesn’t really want right now, and Zō, who he very much does. He takes Zō out of the box, then pushes it onto the floor. Hawks laughs quietly.

“Hi, Zō,” he says, waving one hand. “How have you been?”

Dabi makes Zō wave one foot in Hawks’ direction. “Doesn’t talk,” he mumbles.

Hawks’ eyebrows raise a little, like he’s surprised to hear Dabi speak. “He doesn’t talk? That’s okay. I think I can probably talk enough for both of us.”

That gets a little laugh out of Dabi, which gets a soft smile out of Hawks. “Do you want some water?” he asks. “I know I could use some after that flight.”

Dabi turns Zō towards himself so that they can briefly consult each other on the matter, then turns him back to Hawks so that they can both nod.

Hawks laughs again. The sound makes Dabi’s whole body feel warm. “I don’t get how you’re so cute,” he says, shaking his head a little, then, “I hate to say this, but I do need you to scooch off of my lap if you want me to get up.”

Dabi shakes his head hard. He knows that this is Hawks’ home, that it’s not scary, that Hawks won’t be going far, but … he doesn’t want him to leave.

“Why not?” Hawks asks. “Is something here scaring you?”

Dabi shakes his head again and makes a little humph of discontent.

Slowly, making sure that Dabi’s eyes fix on it before it gets too close, Hawks reaches a hand out and brushes some of Dabi’s hair away from his forehead. His touch is so, so soft, and Dabi wants to lean into it forever. Above him, Hawks inhales, like he’s going to say something, but he stays quiet for a long moment.

“I’ll carry you,” Hawks finally says. “C’mon. Do you want to see the kitchen?”

Dabi nods, and then Hawks is standing up, shifting Dabi up onto his hip, and keeping one arm securely wrapped around his waist as he carries him into the kitchen. Hawks gets two glasses from one of his cabinets using his feathers, and Dabi watches their movements with wide eyes as they carry the glasses to the sink and fill them with water. He’s leaning into Hawks and holding Zō tightly, and the last time that he was held like this, other than the last time that Hawks saw him regress, is so far back that he doesn’t really remember it anymore.

The second glass is almost filled when Hawks snaps his fingers and says, “Wait, that’s probably not a good idea.”

He steps over to a different cabinet, bouncing Dabi a little on his hip as he goes, and uses his free hand to get out a white plastic cup. Dabi wants to resent him for it, a little, because he could use a regular glass, but he can’t quite get all the way past the soft sort of fuzziness that’s filling his head.

Hawks’ feathers carry the water, Hawks carries Dabi, and Dabi carries Zō, and they all make it back into the living room without incident. Hawks sits down, settling Dabi on his lap again, and for a few minutes, everything’s quiet and still. Dabi’s almost getting sleepy when, suddenly, a bright glint of light from one of the floor to ceiling windows by the doors to the balcony catches his eye.

He doesn’t know what it was, but he wants to find out. It reminds him of back when he would sneak out of bed at night and watch news reports of his dad’s fights. The little square beside the newscaster was always filled with bright lights - Endeavor’s flames, of course, but there were also camera flashes and headlights and sometimes flashy Quirks of villains or other heroes, and Dabi would sit so close that he could almost feel the static of the TV on his nose, the volume turned all the way down so that his mom wouldn’t hear.

Dabi slips out of Hawks’ lap and crawls over to the window on all fours, Zō still clutched in his hand and getting a little squished against the floor as a result. Dabi will apologize later. He makes it to the window and sits cross-legged as he peers out. He’s a little disappointed when he just sees cars moving by on the street far, far below, the mid-afternoon sun occasionally catching on their hoods and being thrown up to the window, and no sign of heroes or villains anywhere, but the cars themselves are interesting to watch. Dabi sits Zō up on his lap so that he can look out too, and together, they watch the sea of cars and people moving this way and that.

For a moment, Dabi almost forgets where he is and who he’s there with, but then, just a second after he’s slipped his pointer and middle fingers into his mouth, Hawks comes up behind him on quiet feet and crouches down next to him.

“Do you want this instead?” Hawks asks. “Probably a better idea than those.”

Dabi tears his eyes away from the street to see that Hawks is holding out a pacifier. He takes it, pops it into his mouth, and wipes his fingers on his jeans, and Hawks laughs a little as he takes a seat next to Dabi. “Is it okay if I hang out with you two?

Dabi nods.

“Are you watching the cars?”

Dabi nods again.

“There are a lot of them, huh,” Hawks says, then points. “Ooh, do you see that blue one? If I didn’t have wings, I think I’d like one like that.”

Dabi does his best to follow where Hawks is pointing, but there are too many cars and they’re all moving too fast, so he just leans his head on Hawks’ shoulder and hopes that’s answer enough. He likes leaning on Hawks. He’s more solid than he looks, and he’s warm even through his clothes.
Hawks wraps a wing loosely over Dabi’s shoulder and pulls him in a little closer. It feels so, so nice to be touched so casually, in a way that Dabi hadn’t properly realized he missed.

“I’m sorry I don’t have a lot to do over here,” Hawks says. “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve … I don’t know, picked up some coloring books, maybe? Do you like to color?”

Dabi shrugs. It’s almost hard to follow Hawks’ words. He’s not really sure of how old he feels today, not sure if he’s anywhere more specific than ‘little’ at all, and the part of his brain that puzzles feelings and thoughts into words and vice versa isn’t as easily within his reach as it usually is.

“Well, either way, we’ll do a bit more planning before next time, okay?” Hawks asks, and that bit - or at the very least, the part about there being a next time - sticks in Dabi’s head like a the dumb song that Toga wouldn’t stop singing the previous week. Hawks wants to do this again.

Dabi nods, then rubs at his eyes with one hand, suddenly sleepy. He doesn’t want to go to sleep, though, because if he goes to sleep, he’ll probably wake up big, and that will mean that he won’t get to hang out with Hawks anymore. So he stubbornly sits up again, not so far as to dislodge Hawks’ wing from around him, and keeps watching the cars pass outside.

After a few minutes, Hawks claps his hands together. “I have an idea,” he says. “I don’t know if it’ll work, but - you wanna try something?”

Dabi just looks at him. He doesn’t really want to move from his spot, especially now that the clouds outside have parted to let the sun come streaming in through the window he’s in front of, but then again, maybe whatever it is that Hawks is talking about will be fun.

“Here,” Hawks says, getting to his feet. “I used to do this all the time when I was a kid.”

Dabi watches curiously as Hawks walks over to the couch and starts taking the cushions off of it. He doesn’t know what Hawks is doing, but the concentrated face he makes as he tries to stand one of the cushions up on the floor is funny. Hawks gets two cushions standing up next to each other before Dabi decides that whatever this is is much more entertaining than the cars outside and crawls over.

He stops in front of one of the cushions. They’re plain gray, and when he’s sitting like this, they’re just about his height. When Hawks places another cushion on the other side of the one Dabi’s looking at, it wobbles a bit, and he pokes at it. It wobbles more, then falls over, taking the other two cushions Hawks had set up with it.

“Hey!” Hawks exclaims, and even though it sounds like he’s laughing, Dabi freezes. He didn’t mean to make Hawks mad, he was just curious, he doesn’t want to be bad because if he’s bad, Hawks won’t play with him anymore, but he didn’t mean to and - “Aw, hey, firefly, it’s okay,” Hawks says, softer now.

He crouches down in front of Dabi and brushes his hair away from his face. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise,” Hawks says. “Want to help me set it up again?”

Dabi does, swallowing hard around the feeling in his throat telling him to cry. He doesn’t need to cry. Hawks said it was okay, and that means it’s true.

Carefully, Hawks and Dabi set the cushions back up. Dabi’s not very good at helping, but eventually, they get all six of the cushions arranged in a sort of rectangle, and then Hawks throws a blanket overtop of the whole thing.

“Alright,” he says, stepping back to look at their creation with his hands on his hips. “I think we did a pretty good job. You wanna test it out?”

Dabi, who hasn’t wanted to get off of the floor yet, looks up at him.

“Come on,” Hawks says, waving his hand. He sheds a few of his feathers into a small pile, then tucks his wings behind himself and crawls into the gap they left between two of the cushions. Once he’s settled inside, he pokes his head back out and motions for Dabi to follow him.

Zō is still lying over by the window, but Dabi kind of wants to see what Hawks is doing more than he wants to go back and get him. He sends a mental apology to Zō, then crawls into the fort.

It’s dark inside, but there’s still enough light for Dabi to see the warm smile that Hawks greets him with. It’s … actually pretty cool inside, like a private world just for the two of them.

“You like it?” Hawks asks.

Dabi looks around one more time, just to make sure, then nods.

Hawks laughs a little. “C’mere, firefly.”

He opens his arms, and maybe later, Dabi will reflect on the fact that he doesn’t hesitate before crawling into them. He curls up against Hawks’ side, his arms tucked close to his chest and his head resting just above Hawks’ heart, and Hawks wraps one arm around his waist and uses his other hand to gently pet through Dabi’s hair.

“My mom and I used to make forts like this all of the time,” Hawks tells him. “Once, we made one that took up my entire room. I had to use my feathers as a pillow for a whole week, because I used all of my actual pillows in the fort.”

Dabi laughs around the pacifier at that mental image - Hawks but smaller, trying to lay his head down on a pile of feathers only for them to scatter into the air and all over the room.

“You think that’s funny?” Hawks says. Dabi can’t see his face from where he’s lying, but he can hear the smile in his voice. “Okay, so, do you know the story of Issun-bōshi?”

At first, Dabi wants to shake his head, but then the name settles and he remembers … something, one of the distant memories that he’s better at getting to than big Dabi. His mom told him about Issun-bōshi, he thinks, him and Fuyumi. Endeavor had been out late after getting hurt in a fight with a villain, and Dabi had been so worried that he was keeping himself and Fuyumi awake. So their mom finally came in and told them stories until the front door finally, finally opened.

“Dabi?” Hawks asks gently. His hand stills in Dabi’s hair.

Dabi opens his mouth and lets his pacifier fall into his lap. “Mom told me it,” he says.

Hawks looks at him for a moment, once again looking surprised that Dabi spoke. “My mom told it to me too,” he finally says. “Do you want to hear it again?”

Dabi considers that for a moment, then nods. He thinks he liked it, and besides, if Hawks is telling it, he’s pretty sure he’d like it even if it was boring.

“Alright,” Hawks says. He reaches down, pulls Dabi’s hand away from his mouth, and offers him the pacifier again. “So, long ago, long ago, there was an old man and an old woman that really wanted to have a child of their own …”

Hawks tells the story of Issun-bōshi, the tiny samurai, then the story of Kaguyahime, the princess from the moon. He’s a good storyteller - he does all of the sound effects and funny voices, and like he knows exactly when Dabi is getting sleepy, he always starts acting out different parts with his feathers just in time to wake Dabi up again. Dabi is just starting to think that he could stay in the fort with Hawks like this forever when his stomach growls.

“Are you hungry?” Hawks asks. He pulls his phone out of his back pocket and checks the time. “Wow, yeah, it’s late, we should probably order something. How does pizza sound?”

Dabi nods his way through a yawn, and Hawks ruffles his hair. “Alright, let me call, then.”

He calls the pizza place with Dabi still tucked into his side, and neither of them move until the doorbell buzzes. Hawks moves to get up, and Dabi whines in protest almost without realizing what he’s doing.

“I know, Dabs, but I’ve gotta go get the pizza,” Hawks says. “Can you stay right here for me? I’ll just be back in just a minute.”

Dabi doesn’t want him to go, but he trusts Hawks to come back when he says he will. So he nods, Hawks gets up, and true to his word, it’s only a moment later when he’s back, bringing the smell of pizza with him. “Why don’t we eat up here?” Hawks suggests, leaning down so that he can see into the fort and pointing back at the couch. “We’ll have to take a cushion or two from the fort, but we can put them back up when we’re done, if you want.”

Dabi doesn’t really care where they eat as long as Hawks is there, so he crawls out of the fort and watches it collapse in on itself a bit as Hawks takes two cushions and tosses them back onto the couch. “Alright, there we go,” he says. “Let me get you a plate.”

Before Dabi can even protest about Hawks leaving again, a few of the feathers he discarded earlier go flying into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a paper plate and plastic cutlery. The feathers drop everything onto the coffee table, and Hawks takes a seat on the couch and pulls the pizza box towards himself. Dabi crawls over and up onto the couch, sitting down next to Hawks and crossing his legs.

Hawks takes a slice of pizza from the box, puts it on the paper plate, and carefully cuts it into bite-size pieces before handing the plate to Dabi. “That okay?” he asks. “Here, can I take your pacifier?”

Dabi lets Hawks take the pacifier and put it on the coffee table, then picks up one of the small pieces of pizza and puts it into his mouth. It’s good, especially considering that he’s pretty sure it’s the first food he’s eaten today, and he’s eaten the entire first slice before Hawks is halfway through his own.

Hawks puts his half-eaten slice down on the lid of the box and quickly cuts another slice into pieces for Dabi, and they keep going like that until the pizza is halfway gone and, like an itch in the back of his mind, big Dabi starts trying to come back.

The living room is quiet. Hawks switched on the radio at some point, and the music filtering from it is the only sound. The windows now show just the lights of the city outside, the overhead lights cast the room into a soft, golden glow, and as the quiet stretches on, Dabi lets himself come back. It’s a strange feeling, always is, like he’s waking from an early morning dream, and he sits up a bit as he lets the day wash over him and his adult brain.

Hawks looks over at him when he unfolds his legs and stretches them out, resting his feet on the coffee table. “You back with me?” he asks carefully.

“Uh, yeah,” Dabi says. He doesn’t look Hawks in the eye, suddenly remembering that he has no idea what this part of it’s supposed to be like either, but looking around the room really isn’t any better. He sees Zō lying on the floor in front of the window, one of his pacifiers next to the paper plate on the coffee table, what’s left of the fort, and his cheeks go hot as he draws his knees back up to his chest. His mind feels more clear than it has in what feels like months, like the stress he carries has been neatly cleaved in two, but …

“Hey, it’s cool,” Hawks assures him, like the words cost him nothing. “I had fun, seriously.”

Dabi snorts a little at that, because he doesn’t really know what he’ll do if Hawks is telling the truth. “Glad to hear it, birdie.”

In a small act of mercy, Hawks doesn’t ask Dabi if he had fun too. Dabi figures it doesn’t need to be stated, and besides, his sincerity quota is more than filled for the month.

There’s a weird feeling hanging in the air of the room. It feels like everything previously established about them and who they are to each other has been thrown into the air, and neither of them know quite how or when it’s all going to settle, and before Hawks can acknowledge it, Dabi grabs the remote for his TV from the armrest of the couch and switches it on. Some stupid sitcom is the first thing that comes up, which seems mindless enough to keep on, so Dabi tosses the remote to the side and stretches his legs out again. This time, his thigh brushes against Hawks’, and neither of them move.

One episode of the stupid TV show turns into another turns into Dabi muttering under his breath about all of the better decisions that one of the characters could make, much to Hawks’ amusement, which turns into the two of them falling asleep on the couch. The mess from dinner is still strewn out over the coffee table, both of their feet end up hanging halfway in the fort that has now lost all semblance of structural integrity, and just before he lets himself slump against Hawks and into sleep, Dabi is once again hit with the feeling that he might have accidentally stumbled into somewhere else that feels like a home.