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His whole body throbbed.
Hawks bit the inside of his cheek to muffle a groan, eyes squeezed tightly shut, hoping it will help rid him of the white spots dancing on his eyelids. It didn’t, but his head seemed to hurt less, so he counted it as a success and forced his eyes open.
Pitch black. How useful.
There's blood on his tongue and packed into the scrapes on his face. His head definitely took more than a few blows while he was being tossed about. Every wheezing breath fucking hurt. Cracked ribs, for sure. Probably worse than that, if he was honest with himself. He would count himself lucky for surviving the explosion at all.
Right.
Explosion.
Just his luck.
He really should have seen this coming when he agreed to meet some new potential recruits with Dabi. Recruitments were one of few times Dabi actually allowed him on any League business, probably because he wanted to see Hawks’ reaction if a fight broke out. Which, considering Dabi was a fucking bastard, was every single damn time.
Naturally, this time one of the recruits had a quirk that interacted badly with Dabi’s brilliant blue flames. Which, of course , somehow led to the decrepit office building they'd met in exploding.
He was never going anywhere with Dabi ever again.
Speaking of, he sent his few remaining feathers to scout the area. Dabi laid only a few feet away, his breath and heartbeat stable (or as stable as Dabi’s vitals ever were, considering Dabi’s everything). Hawks’ set one feather to monitor him and the rest to search for an exit.
What a pain.
He sighed (and immediately regret it because, ow) and wiggled his toes and fingers. They tingled, but obeyed his command and that would have to be good enough. He sucked in air through his teeth and braced his hands against the ground to push himself up from a rather uncomfortable position half-propped up against some rubble. That was the only reason he didn't scream.
He barely made it an inch before agony slammed into him. His body heaved, something spillt from his mouth. He gagged. Choked. Convulsed, which made everything worse but his lungs burned and he needed it to stop.
He might have passed out. He wasn’t entirely sure. The fireworks behind his eyes were back. His body shuddered at each wave of pain rolling through. It took everything to hold in his sobs, but he needed to stop the cycle. Soft whines escaped with each breath.
Okay, he thought once his body began function again. He tentatively pressed his right hand along his left side where the pain radiated. Even through his gloves, he could tell his bodysuit was wet and tacky. He swallowed the blood in his mouth, biting through his bruised lip to keep prodding until he found the source. A long rod of metal, stuck clean through.
Okay. Okay, okay.
Shallow breaths. No moving. He could do that. He'd been through worse. Probably. Definitely. The commission had prepared him thoroughly for all sorts of pain and situations. Maybe not "trapped under a building with a piece of shrapnel lodged in your gut" thoroughly, but this wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
His trembling hand moved to his belt, searching for the emergency alert button that he'd never had to use for himself, running through the protocols he’d follow if he was a civilian. His field medic knowledge seemed to be failing him, but he was pretty sure this meant he needed back-up.
A shift in breath caught a forgotten feather’s attention, a groan rang out. He dropped his hand. Right. Couldn't summon heroes to help when stuck with a villain and trying to prove his loyalty.
"Morning, sunshine," he managed to gasp out. Just two words and he felt winded. This was just great.
"Shut the fuck up," Dabi moaned. More grumbles spewed out as Dabi shifted and regained his own bearings on their situation.
“Don't use fire," Hawks quickly cautioned. His tongue felt heavy. Swallowing didnt seem to help. "Don't know what's in the air."
"I'm not a fucking idiot.” Dabi snapped. “Are we trapped?"
"Yeah."
His feathers had combed through the pocket they found themselves in thrice. There weren’t any openings large enough for a grown man to squeeze through, and he didn’t have enough left to risk moving debris without the whole thing coming down.
"Can you call your doctor?" There's a pause as Dabi fumbled with his phone, then the communicator on his collar. "Not an option. What about yours, birdie?"
Hawks fished his phone out of his jacket with a feather. It took a few tries, but his numb fingers eventually found the right button. It refused to light up. His headphones had also been lost somewhere in the explosion.
"Nothing."
Dabi cursed, sitting up.
"And you can't make an opening with your feathers?"
"Explosion wiped them out."
Another curse. Dabi shifted to his knees, feeling along the wall near him.
"Well, aren't you fucking useless then."
Hawks elected to blame the pang that went through his heart on his injury. He wished he could curl up. The air around them was getting cold.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
There's a brief pause.
"Birdie? You good?" he called cautiously, slowly shuffling through the dark towards Hawks' voice.
He thought he'd been doing an admiral job of keeping the pained wheeze out of his voice and his words clear rather than slurred like his unresponsive mouth begged for, but trust Dabi's paranoid ass to catch on.
"Mmhm," That's probably not reassuring enough. "Peachy."
Perfect.
“Where are you hurt? Concussion?" Dabi knelt only a foot away now, feeling along the ground for Hawks' body. Oh, that was where the warmth had been. Hawks tried to grab onto a heated arm, but his hand only managed a loose grip before flopping back to the ground.
"Probably," he agreed. Among other things.
"Where's your emergency kit? You have a flashlight, don't you?"
It was in one of the pouches on the back of his belt, currently digging into his spine, so he'd rather not, thank you.
"Birdie?" A hand landed on his arm and even through Hawks’ tattered jacket, it was warm.
"You're shaking." Dabi's voice accused.
His hand felt around. To find his kit or the injury, Hawks wasn’t sure. Regardless, it was a terrible idea. Hawks should tell him. Instead, cry tore out of his throat as Dabi brushed against the rebar stuck in his gut.
He floated for a while, trapped in a loop of shuddered gasps and whimpers from the pain it brought. Colors exploded his vision. His ears rang. He might have heard Dabi speaking at one point. Something rushed and concerned. That couldn't be right.
A gentle touch skimmed through his hair. He shook, coming back to his body against his will.
"-sy, there you go, birdie. Don't breathe too hard."
Yeah, he fucking knew. Dabi gave him a few moments to settle, hand stroking his hair. The other cupped his cheek, clumsily feeling around the blood and tears.
"Flashlight?" he demanded, once Hawks regained some lucidity.
"Belt," he grit out, clenching his teeth in an attempt to stop them from chattering. It didn't help, just made the noise louder. Dabi prodded for his belt, managing to steer clear of his injury. His pause meant he understood the conundrum.
"Not how you wanted t' get my pants off, huh," Hawks giggled. Wheezed.
"Shut up."
Dabi unclipped the belt, then hesitated again before attempting to wriggle it out from underneath Hawks’ prone form. That was worse, Hawks decided quickly.
"Just fucking do it." he begged.
Dabi obeyed.
Hawks blacked out.
When he came to, something shined in his eyes. It kind of hurt, and didn’t really make seeing much easier. Hawks squinted at Dabi. He was dusty and streaked with blood and paler than usual, but the determined tilt of his brows is familiar. A bead of blood trickled down over stapled seams.
"Gonna get a infection..."
Dabi paused his digging through Hawks' belt to give him an incredulous look.
"Not exactly my current priority, birdie."
Hawks blinked, looking around blearily to figure out what could be more important.
Oh. Escaping. Right. He was supposed to help with that. He rolled his tongue around his teeth as he thought, trying to get rid of the thick taste of copper. It didn’t help.
"Trackers?" he offered after a moment.
A shaky feather brushed against Dabi’s cheek until he took it in hand, staring down at the tiny machine embedded in it consideringly.
"They probably went offline during the explosion. Skeptic'll have our last location but I wouldn't count on anyone coming soon."
Heroes either, Hawks wanted to say. An abandoned building in the poor part of town won't be a priority. They were truly stuck.
Hawks shivered, closing his eyes. Might as well fix the only thing they could.
"Can you- 'm cold."
"Hey." A gentle tap on his cheek. "Stay with me, birdie. Eyes open."
Hawks obliged grudgingly and was rewarded by the air surrounding them warming. He attempted to curl into it and abruptly remembered why that was a terrible idea.
Dabi’s still there when he returns to himself, looking even paler, sweating, his eyes scanning over Hawks' prone form.
"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck,” A breath. “Okay. Where's your emergency alert?" His hand trailed up to Hawks’ neck, fiddling with the embellishments there.
Hawks gave a slow blink, but Dabi’s form remained fuzzy.
"You'd get caught," he said. Hopes he said. His mouth wasn’t quite obeying him. Understandable, since his face was numb. His voice was usually the first thing to go when he was tired, anyway.
"Nah. I'll press it and leave."
Something about that seemed wrong. Hawks shut his eyes to think. Keeping them open required too much energy. A pat against his temple interrupted his thoughts.
"Focus, birdie. Your alert?"
“It's cold,” Hawks told him instead, “Heat?”
Dabi looked pained, taking a slow breath. That wasn’t right. Dabi wasn't supposed to look like that.
“Okay?” Hawks asked him. The splash of red on his blurry face was probably blood. Hawks should bandage him up. He’d need to get his first aid kit out, but his arm only twitched when he tried moving it. Had he been paralyzed?
“-gency alert? Hawks. I need you to tell me.”
Dabi wouldn’t stop patting his cheek. Hawks tried swiping it away, but again his arm wouldn’t cooperate.
“Buckle,” he finally ground out, after a few more prompts.
“Good– good. Stay with me.”
Hawks shut his eyes again as Dabi rustled with his belt. He should tell him which pocket had bandages for his head. His mouth moved but the words refused to come, something thick weighing down his tongue.
Dabi could figure it out anyway. He loved snooping.
An alarm beeped out. Hawks jerked. That was an emergency signal, he needed to–
“There. Help should– Hey! No moving!”
Oh, right.
Hawks settled. Dabi had it taken care of. “And eyes open!”
The tapping started again, but all he saw when he pried his eyes open was a blend of colors that made his head throb. The darkness was more soothing.
“Hawks. Hawks!”
His cheeks were gripped, one of Dabi's favorite ways of shutting him up, but Hawks couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed even though it stung more than usual. He hummed in response, breath slowing.
“Hawks? Stay awake.”
A pause.
“Keigo. I need you to listen to me.”
He furrowed his brow, eyes squinting open. Dabi shouldn’t know that name.
Hawks shouldn’t either. He's not supposed to use it. He should let Dabi know. His mouth wouldn’t move. He’s tired.
“Keigo? Hey! Hey! Don’t you dare-”
It could wait. A nap first.. He would tell him after a nap. Dabi could keep watch this time; Hawks was too tired.
He shut his eyes and, for the first time in his life, chose to rest.