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Hawks came back to Dabi’s apartment about three weeks after the whole concussion incident.
Dabi knew this because when he came home late one night, there was a red feather tucked between the door and the doorframe.
His first thought was that Hawks was here to finish him off. Dabi gritted his teeth, clenching his smoking hands into fists. Of course. That’s what he got for having a scrap of decency in his system and patching the hero up. He should have left him to die on the balcony in the rain, that bastard.
But something didn’t seem to add up. As much as Dabi disliked Hawks, he could acknowledge that the hero wasn’t an idiot. He was too slick and professional to do something as dumb as forget a feather in the door that could potentially alert his target. Dabi liked to think he would have noticed, but as much as he hated to think it, there was a high probability that if Hawks wanted to take him out covertly, Dabi wouldn’t be able to do much about it.
Which meant that this feather was placed in the crack of his door intentionally.
Dabi took a hesitant step forward, all his senses straining to detect any sort of ambush. He glanced around to check for cameras or any hints of blood-red wings. When he didn’t see any, he crept forward on the balls of his feet and gently jiggled the door handle.
Locked, just as he’d left it. Hmm.
Still on high alert, Dabi grabbed his key and unlocked the door. Then, one hand gripping the shaft of the feather and the other grabbing the door handle, the fire-wielder whipped the door open and prepared himself to be met with a dozen crimson daggers.
Nothing happened. The feather, now secure in his hand, remained still. His apartment living room greeted him, still and empty.
What was going on ?
Dabi slipped inside, shutting the door behind him but leaving it unlocked in case he needed to make a quick getaway. It was a risk, since someone could come in, but Dabi would rather have multiple exits available and not box himself in. Still on his toes, he grabbed the feather tightly in his hand and darted around the corner of his living room, free hand raised and ready.
Nothing. An empty kitchen.
Well, mostly empty.
Dabi’s eyes widened in surprise. Was that a gift basket ?
Lowering his hand and setting the feather on his kitchen table, Dabi cautiously approached the item in question.
It was a gift basket. Dabi couldn’t help but let out a bemused snort when he saw the blue ribbon tied around the handle, and the glittery blue tissue paper. Nestled among the paper was - to Dabi’s absolute shock - a couple boxes of his favorite tea ( how the hell did he…? ), a giftcard to a nearby restaurant, and a little stack of yen. A card, taped to the top of a box of tea, read in scratchy handwriting: “Thanks for the help, Dabi!” To top off the whole set-up was another red feather taped to the card, in case Dabi had any doubts about who it was from.
What the hell?!
Dabi didn’t know how to handle this. He wasn’t sure he should be worried that Hawks had somehow gotten into his apartment with a freaking gift basket without unlocking his doors, disgusted that the hero thought he was enough of a charity case that he gave him money… or perhaps be a little pleased, because god dammit that tea was good .
And, to be honest, Dabi didn’t exactly have a steady income of cash.
Dabi stared at the basket for what felt like hours, before steeling himself and scoffing. Grabbing the feather from the table he stared at its glossy vane for a second before rolling his eyes and burning it to a crisp. Then he proceeded to bring the basket to the trash and throw it in, slamming the lid shut and refusing to look at it.
Well, he threw away most of it. He may have kept a box of the tea.
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Keigo was taking his lunch on the top of a skyscraper when he felt the feathers he’d placed in Dabi’s apartment start to buzz.
It took a second to differentiate between the signals he was getting. A hero didn’t get breaks, not really. While Keigo sat on the roof hundreds of feet in the air, resting his body and absentmindedly munching on some yakitori, he had roughly two-thirds of his feathers flying around doing tasks. His mind was so active that it was muscle-memory mostly allowing him to eat - he’d done this many times before. The sensations came in white-hot flashes; an old woman helped up a flight of stairs, an attempted bank robbery foiled, a dog saved from being hit by a car when it ran out into the streets. The cries of surprise and joy when civilians caught sight of his feathers made him smile a little. It always felt good to know he could help them.
But now, he had to divert his attention a little, focusing on the vibrations pinging through the feathers in a different part of the city. They were fainter and fuzzier - a byproduct of distance - and were threatened of being swallowed up by other stimuli, but he could just make out the shake of footsteps, and he tensed, a little in surprised, when he felt cold fingers grab the feather he’d lodged in the door.
The room shook as the door swung open quickly. More footsteps, then a sudden pause. Ah, so Dabi had found the basket.
Keigo vaguely felt himself grin. He knew, logically, that he likely wasn’t going to get very far with the basket. While he’d certainly been thankful for Dabi’s aid on that night with the storm, the villain had been very clear about his thoughts on the incident and he probably wouldn’t appreciate being reminded of it again. Even so, Keigo’s hero instincts prompted him to do something in return, even though his efforts would probably be thrown in the trash. And, as a bonus, it would certainly be great if he could gain even a smidgen of Dabi’s favor. The man was being fantastically stubborn about accepting Keigo into the Liberation, and wasn’t giving him any useful info. The Commission-heads were getting impatient.
Silence and distant vibrations as Dabi clearly pondered his offerings. A weird, self-conscious part of Keigo hoped he liked what he found. It was simple, since Keigo simply wasn’t sure about most of what Dabi liked. He knew the villain’s favorite tea just because he’d recognized the smell when he’d caught the villain drinking it some weeks back - it was the same as Endeavor’s, and since the hero had told him the brand, it had been easy getting a few boxes. The gift card and yen wasn’t anything particularly tailored to Dabi but he did know that the villain struggled with money, as evidenced by his shabby apartment and run-down furniture. Hopefully those things would be useful?
Keigo felt the contents of the gift basket shift around from the second feather he’d left there. He’d left it more as a calling card, but it was useful that it gave him extra info. After a moment, he flinched slightly at the unexpected twinge of pain that came from the feather in Dabi’s hand being burnt. His heart sank; the villain clearly wasn’t pleased.
Oh well. He tried, right? He’d just have to work harder at getting Dabi to loosen up around him.
That didn’t stop him from feeling a little sad about the rejection, though. Keigo wasn’t sure what that meant.
He prepared himself to feel his last feather crumble away, but to his surprise that didn’t happen. Instead, the basket shifted again, and Keigo heard a box of tea being lifted from the crinkly tissue paper and set on the table. His heart expanded in his chest so suddenly that it was almost painful.
The rest of the basket was thrown away, and the last feather was burned, but it didn’t dampen the wide grin on Keigo’s face. He let his awareness flood back to his other feathers, which thankfully had been able to work mostly on auto-pilot - albeit a bit sluggishly - while he was focused on the two at Dabi’s apartment. Satisfied that everything seemed to be going smoothly around him, Keigo stood and called his feathers back, stretching his arms and flexing his significantly smaller wings as he waited. It didn’t take long before he saw the red blurs whizzing towards him, and he let out a little sigh of satisfaction as they all slotted back into place. He had to admit, it was much easier to move around without giant wings hanging off his back, but they were such an integral part of him that he always missed them when they were gone.
Whisking his trash into the nearest dumpster with a feather, Keigo leapt off the building and let himself fall for a few hundred feet before spreading his wings to soar back upwards. He was going to go back to his agency, but something steered him in the other direction.
Towards Dabi’s apartment.
What are you doing? Keigo thought to himself sternly. He knew what he was doing was risky - no matter what Dabi’s thoughts were on the basket, he wouldn’t be happy with Keigo showing up again.
That’s fine, I’ll be so high up he won’t know it's me!
But that’s not the point - WHY am I going back? This isn’t part of the mission!
I just want to see if he’s out and about, right? Maybe I’ll catch him away from the apartment and try to win him over a bit.
God, why did I send that basket? It’s so stupid . Why did I even think Dabi would want something like that?
Why am I so frazzled right now!?
Keigo hadn’t felt this confused in a long time. Even as he tried to puzzle out what exactly he was doing, he kept going higher and higher, until the air was thin enough that no normal human would have been able to breathe it, and he continued to fly in the wrong (right?) direction.
From his spot far above, Keigo’s shadow looked roughly the size of an average bird on the buildings far below. So long as he didn’t accidentally shed any feathers, he would be completely invisible to any onlookers.
Dabi’s apartment was coming up. Keigo sucked in a breath of thin, frigid air.
He didn’t see him. Keigo did a few lazy circles, hoping to catch sight of the black-haired villain nearby. After a few minutes, it became obvious that Dabi wasn’t around. Rolling his eyes at his own madness, Keigo prepared to turn back, when something dark caught his eye.
He immediately zoomed in with his raptor vision, a grin breaking out on his face.
It was Dabi, dragging a ratty camping chair of some sort out of his apartment to his balcony. After unfolding the chair, the villain went back indoors, only to emerge a moment later with…
Keigo couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle, confident that sound wouldn’t carry from this far up. Dabi was drinking tea. And from the look of almost bliss on the villain’s face, Keigo knew exactly which tea it was.
Something warm and tingly welled up in Keigo’s chest, and he swallowed down the satisfied chirp that wanted to make an appearance. Feeling wholeheartedly in a much better mood than he had been in all day, Keigo swung a wing around and turned to head back to his agency, doing a few celebratory dives and corkscrews once he was sure he was out of Dabi’s eyesight.
Today was a good day.