Archive of Our Own

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Prompt: for whatever reason (maybe the fact that they bicker like an old married couple) Hawks thinks Shigaraki and Dabi are dating.It doesn't help that Hawks and Dabi flirt by being snarky and calling each other names

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Hawks sat at the bar, watching with Toga and Spinner as Dabi and Shigaraki had a rather heated debate. Both of them were gesturing with their hands- Shigaraki kept his close to his body but they were short, choppy motions and Dabi used wide gestures that were almost sarcastic.

“How long has it been?” Twice asked, taking a seat next to Toga. She offered him her drink, which he sniffed and then lifted his mask to sip at. Then he took another, making a noise of contemplation.

“We’re going on twenty minutes.” Hawks said, taking a drink as he saw a little bit of smoke escape from Dabi’s wrist seam. “Drinking game is every time you see smoke, take a drink. Every time you see Shigaraki scratch his neck, take a drink, and if either of them shove their hands in their pocket or under their armpits, finish the drink.”

“... So are we trying to die today?” Twice asked, handing Toga’s drink back to her before leaning over the bar and grabbing a beer.

“Only if you’re drinking hard liquor like Hawks and Toga.” Spinner said. He and Twice clinked their bottles together. Across the room, Dabi shoved his hands in his pocket.

“Oh- finish your drinks.” Hawks chirped.

Hawks would be lying if he said he wasn’t attracted to Dabi when they met. Sure, the man looked like he’d lost the fight with a flamethrower, but considering what his quirk was, Hawks considered that a sign of strength rather than weakness. Gods knew how many cuts Hawks had all over his body from his own feathers (the answer was ‘way too many’. Hawks would blame a combination of alcohol, dares from Rumi and the fact that he was an idiot as a teenager for those).

Not only that, but Dabi wasn’t scared of Hawks. Hesitant, yes. Keen on not being on the business end of his feathers, yes, but not scared when Hawks dropped the cheery persona. If anything, Dabi did his damndest to annoy Hawks out of it as soon as they met up. It started with the horrible nicknames. Birdie, feathers, chicken, nugget, chicken nuggets, sparrow, and once- and only once- pullet because Dabi had said it in a tone that grated on his nerves and feathers.

Haws wasn’t surprised when the banter took on a flirty tone. He rather assumed Dabi was like that with the entire league. Lo and behold, when he finally met the league, it was a surprise. Dabi was a lot more reserved around them, with the snark and sass kept to a minimum.

Toga was treated almost softly, although he still witnessed his share of threats when the youngest member of the league decided to be a bother that day. Most of the threats were hollow. The most he’d seen Dabi do was pick her up and toss her at Twice. With how much Toga giggled, Hawks wasn’t sure it was a good deterrent. Which lead to his current thoughts on Twice.

Dabi was kind with Twice. Not kind like he saw with his sidekicks and civilians. Dabi was kind in that he would fist-bump Twice and lean against him and instigate physical contact. Twice was the only one he did that with. For a while, he had actually thought the two of them had a little something-something on the side (that assumption was corrected insistently by Toga, and Hawks now had a lot more questions about her and Twice and what she knew and he didn’t).

Spinner and Dabi fought, but they didn’t fight loudly. They didn’t get up in each other’s faces. When Dabi and Spinner fought, they got petty. It was impressive enough that Hawks wanted to take notes. He and Toga would sit on the couch and watch as the two of them left passive-aggressive notes and did even more passive-aggressive actions to annoy the other (Dabi once moved all the dishes in the base to Spinner’s bed, and not just in the bed, but under the futon so that when Spinner flopped into bed that night… well..).

When Spinner and Dabi did get along, that was when it got scary. They were perfectly polite, and they were efficient in a way that again, Hawks wanted to take notes on and send to his sidekicks because damn. They could learn a thing or two.

It was Shigaraki where Hawks saw a reappearance of the snark and name-calling.

He called Shigaraki everything; his current favorites were Crusty, Dusty, Mr. Musty, Handjob or Mr. Handyman. He picked fights with Shigaraki and was not shy in telling the leader of the league exactly what was on Dabi’s mind. Everything from how the plan is garbage to the fact that Shigaraki needed a shower.

The way Dabi and Shigaraki interacted felt very familiar.

It, quite honestly, took him a lot longer than he would have liked to realize that Dabi treated Hawks a lot like he treated Shigaraki. Aside from the name-calling and petty jabs, Dabi also… fussed.

That was the only way he could explain what Dabi did. It wasn’t nice. It was annoying as hell but it was definitely from a place of well-intentioned concern. If you could call picking Shigaraki up and dropping him in a full tub of ice-water. Or hiding Shigaraki’s video games until he ate whatever vegetable Dabi had insisted upon (Dabi did the same to Hawks and he had no idea how to react to that. The first time Dabi had laid hands on Hawks, it was to physically drag him down to the store to get something that wasn’t coffee or fried chicken).

“They’re like an old married couple.” Toga said, resting her elbows on the back of the couch just beside where Hawks was sitting. Hawks looked up from the game on his phone. It was Dabi and Shigaraki’s turn to cook tonight and the two of them were having a hushed, but energetic argument in the kitchen. It sounded very… mundane, actually. Something about how to cook eggs.

“Know many married couples?” Hawks asked with a grin. Toga rolled her eyes.

“Used to. Plus like, they do this with everything.”

“They could also just hate each other.”

Toga laughed, shaking her head.

“No. They’re really quite fond of each other, I think. Watch the two of them fight- like really fight. They avoid going for the throat and I know both of them have deets on each other that would like, actually cause them to spill some blood.” She paused, thinking about it. Judging by the grin on her face, it was more like fantasizing about what that would actually look like.

“Down girl. I don’t think that’s something you should encourage.”

She giggled again. “No. Just.. watch them on the next job we do, alright?” She said, shooting him a mischievous smile that had too many teeth. He had a bad feeling about what she was planning, but their next job was fairly simple. An errand run for one of the doctors they used. It was seemingly beneath them, but Dabi had been acting dodgy about it and Shigaraki was almost excited.

“What happened?” Hawks asked when he arrived, a duffle bag on his back and a bag of convenience store food in one hand. Mr. Compress had an arm in a sling and he could see a lion-headed doctor at the far side of the room, tending to a crispy-looking Dabi. Shigaraki was hovering around him, but overall, it looked like everyone had been taken care of. He handed the bag off to Twice and let Spinner take the duffel bag.

The job was a disaster, according to Mr. Compress. What had been intended as a sort of ‘introduction’ to a supply line turned into something… more bloody. Gentle inquiry into if the doctor had set them up had been refuted. Apparently, there was a third party involved and that’s why it got bloody.

Hawks looked over Shigaraki and Dabi again. Despite the… complication, it did seem like Shigaraki was satisfied by the event. He and the doctor were talking in low, rushed voices. As he passed by them, he let a feather drop nearby, passively listening in as he ‘checked in’ on Dabi.

He told himself the feather wasn’t an afterthought. That he wasn’t trying to justify to himself the worry that had wrapped itself around his lungs.

Hawks laid on the roof, staring up at the stars, or what little you could see of them from the middle of the city. Spinner was next to him. He hadn’t meant to start a weekly bitch session with Spinner, but with him being the only other morph in the league, they didn’t really have anyone else who could understand. That, and Spinner had a very odd choice in beer and Hawks was having a hell of a time trying each one.

“I have to ask. Are Shigaraki and Dabi dating?” Hawks asked. Spinner let out a non-committal groan before he sat up. Hawks heard the sound of a bottle opening, and then a second. He sat up, hand outstretched and waiting for the bottle Spinner handed him.

“If you figure it out, let me know.” Spinner grumbled. Hawks clinked his bottle against the one Spinner held out.

Hawks knew a few things he never wanted to know. Things that were just… not on his list of details to obtain for his mission nor anything that bleeped on his personal curiosity radar.

See, here’s the thing. The league really had a thing for his feathers.

It wasn’t uncommon- a lot of people liked his feathers. Rumi sometimes requested a few of his longer ones during winter. She used them to stuff one of her pillows because it helped with her burrowing instincts (she also stole a bunch of clothes from his sidekicks and some of the other heroes. He would never forget the day Rumi walked out of Fatgum’s agency with one of his spare hoodies, or rather, IN one of his hoodies. The height discrepancy alone was ridiculous. She wasn’t swimming in his hoodie as she was a pair of feet sticking out of the bottom).

The league, however, didn’t like to advertise that they liked his feathers. They never outright asked. Hawks wasn’t sure if he was weirded out by it or if he found it adorable. It was like watching kids pick up feathers on the playground.

For example, Hawks learned that Spinner listened to podcasts about math and programming. There were a handful of feathers in a pile next to his bed, and if Hawks concentrated, he could hear the soft voices talking about variables and loops and functions. He wasn’t sure if Spinner just kept the feathers because they were pretty or if he was going to use them for something. Hawks felt that it was probably the latter, since Spinner had mentioned making miniatures a few weeks ago when explaining tabletop gaming to Hawks.

Toga squirreled away an ungodly amount of his feathers. She sorted them by type and would take them out to look at them. Pet them. She probably knew he had some awareness in the feathers after they dislodged, because she would never do more than look and pet. He’d seen her with dead birds, and he was honestly very grateful she waited until his quirk faded from the feathers so he didn’t have to feel her eating them.

Compress had a few he would tuck into his hat, swapping them out when they got old and damaged. Hawks knew that Compress was involved in several other things, but it seemed like it was his version of assisting the league. Hawks wasn’t ready to ask Compress about it, but if Compress didn’t tell the league soon, then they were going to be pissed when they found out he was still working with another gang, even if he was using his pay there to fund the league.

Twice had one worked into the hem of his mask. He’d caught more than a few of Twice’s episodes that way. He’d be woken out of a dead sleep because of something from a feather and when he focused in on it, he’d realize Twice was trying to work himself out of a spiraling panic. Sometimes he’d text Toga. A lot of the time he'd call Twice up and they would spend hours talking until the other man felt better.

Shigaraki and Dabi were not exempt from this feather fascination. Dabi always had one in his pockets. Always. There would also be one in his room, tucked next to the bed or in a pillow. Close enough that if the feather was fresh, Hawks could fall asleep with the sensation of Dabi sleeping next to, or on top of him. His feather. Sometimes sleep would blur the sensation and the dreams that usually followed left him glad he didn’t have a room at the base.

It was less fun when Dabi kept a fresh feather in his pocket and Hawks had to feel exactly how often Dabi would run his finger over the vanes. He found out that Dabi didn’t just shove his hands in his pockets to avoid punching Shigaraki or letting bits of his quirk lash out. Sometimes he just shoved his hands into his pocket because they were cold, or he was fidgeting, and Hawks’ feather was his new favorite thing to fidget with.

Shigaraki… Shigaraki didn’t pick up feathers all that often. When he did, he did so gently. Hawks hadn’t felt anyone pick up a feather-like Shigaraki did. He treated it like he was holding finely spun glass. Always three fingers and his thumb. Never four fingers. Hawks understood. His quirk was touch-based and even after the Deika-city event, he was still hesitant to trust himself with things he valued (and wasn’t that a shock, to know that on some level, Shigaraki valued him, or at least, his feathers). He would pick the feather up and set it down somewhere, usually on his bed, as quickly as possible. Shigaraki would pet it, not unlike Toga or Dabi. He seemed to delight in the smoothness of the long secondaries and the softness of the scapulars.

Sometimes Shigaraki would forget.

Hawks learned how Shigaraki’s quirk felt. It wasn’t painful, oddly enough, or it wasn’t with his feathers. It just felt like fizzy bubbles and floating away. Not unlike how he figured the little mermaid felt in the Hans Christian Andersan fairy tale. Soft. Gentle. Not a bad way to go. It certainly ranked high on his list of preferred ways to die, you know, right under ‘in my sleep at the age of eighty’. Hawks wondered if it was something Shigaraki could control - if it hurt or not. He wanted to know, but he knew better than to ask.

It was because of the feathers that he knew entirely too much about Dabi and Shigaraki’s sleep habits.

Primarily, that they spend a lot of time sharing a bed. Or a couch, or once, the armchair. They would tangle together like a pair of cats, sleeping soundly enough that Dabi slept through the night and deeply enough that Shigaraki would actually snore.

If Hawks wasn’t so hurt over what this implied, he’d say Shigaraki had a very adorable snore.

He never actually caught them fucking with his feathers, but that he chalked up to the feathers simply fading. It wasn’t uncommon for them to keep faded feathers until Hawks showed up again (and if Hawks showed up after he felt his feathers fading and made sure to shed just a little more at the base, that was his secret and his alone).

Hawks also learned just how many of the league had nightmares.
It was all of them.

They all had nightmares, and they had them often.

There were many a night where Hawks would wake, feathers tingling as someone whimpered or thrashed in their sleep. Sometimes he could wiggle a feather just enough to wake them, to keep the dream from going on any longer. Sometimes he couldn’t - the feather too old to do much besides feel.

He would usually try someone in a neighboring room, see if he could wake them up. When he could, sometimes he would sense them going to the one having a nightmare’s room and wake them. If it was Compress, he’d take them out to the kitchen for a cup of tea. If it was Twice, there would be soft conversation. Sometimes about the nightmare, and sometimes it was just Twice filling the room with chatter so they didn’t need to let their thoughts spiral in the quiet of the night. If it was Spinner or Shigaraki, there would inevitably be some sort of video game pulled up, or sometimes a movie.

If it was Dabi waking someone up? He usually just checked on them and either crawled in next to them or dragged them to his room to sleep. Sometimes half the league ended up in Dabi’s room (once he asked the league what they did that winter- did they turn on the heat or just use Dabi? Dabi was not amused with his question, but the rest were. He also found out later that year that they often did just use Dabi, curling around him like kittens).

Those quiet nights when everyone was curled up together, either in bed or in the living room, those were the worst. Hawks learned how close the league was, and learned how much he was missing. How much he wanted to be included in the puddles of blankets and comfort. It didn’t matter how many blankets he threw on his own bed.

It wasn’t the same and he knew it.

Hawks didn’t mean to fall asleep, but he had just come off of a triple and the last time he ate was on day one, and he couldn’t remember if he had a protein shake or an apple. He’d been subsisting on coffee and he could feel the exhaustion in his bones.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t skip the league meeting, and there was no time between the end of his shift (and another villain incident) and the meeting for him to stop and get food.

He showed up to the league tired and cold and a little damp because it had started to rain. Not enough to drench his jacket, but enough that his feathers were heavy and he shed both at the door, leaving them in a messy pile. Toga offered him her blanket, an ugly fluffy thing that used to be neon green, and he shot her a grateful smile before collapsing onto the couch.

He vaguely remembered there being some sort of inquiry after his well-being, which he waved off and he was sure they spoke a bit more but all he could remember was trying to surreptitiously bury himself in the blanket followed by nothingness and then finally the soft murmurs of voices as he slowly woke.

It almost sounded like he was back at his apartment, which wouldn’t be the first time he blacked out and ended up there. Usually, he was pretty good at getting back home after long shifts- but he didn’t dare say that to the league. He didn’t want his his nickname to be ‘homing pigeon’.

The only issue was he didn’t have the bulk of his feathers on him. Most of them were still in a soggy pile by the door, although one of his primary coverts was being held, a finger running down the vanes before being smoothed back into sleekness again.

“Fucking quitit.” Hawks grumbled, burying himself further in the blankets. Plural.

He only remembered falling asleep with one blanket.

The finger on his primary stopped.

“You can feel that?”

Hawks was suddenly very, very wide awake.

A foot kicked him from the other end of the couch and Hawks rolled, shooting a glare down the couch. Dabi sat, brows raised. In one of his hands was the primary covert. They stared at each other, Hawks not sure what to say or where to go with this.

The decision was made for him.

“Told you! Pay up!” Spinner said. Hawks saw Twice and Compress exchanging money with Spinner and Toga, both who were looking entirely too pleased with themselves. Shigaraki was staring at Hawks, even as Spinner and Toga both collected from him.

“Dabi, pay up!” Toga chirped, bounding over to the couch. To his surprise, Dabi broke the staring contest and rifled around in his pockets.

“The fuck.” Hawks whispered.

“Any other questions we want to get out of the way?” Hawks said, taking the mug of coffee from Compress. The older man gave him a small smile before heading back into the kitchen for his own cup.

“Yeah- what the fuck were you doing that caused you to sleep for sixteen hours like the dead?” Spinner asked. Hawks shrugged and sipped his coffee, hissing as he burnt his tongue.

“A triple shift happened.” Hawks grumbled. Dabi kicked him again, gentler this time. Hawks shot him a sour look. “What.”

“That was dumb.” Dabi stated. Hawks wasn’t sure if this was in regards to the coffee or his work schedule.

“Isn’t it also illegal?” Shigaraki asked. Again, Hawks shrugged. Dabi kicked him again. In retaliation, Hawks used the feather still in Dabi’s hand to pull him off the couch. Hawks stretched out his legs with a contented sigh, ignoring the way Dabi swore and tried to stand, only to be thwarted by the feather constantly knocking his feet out from under him.

“Technically, no. There’s some clauses written into the law.” He pretended not to notice the look the league shared with each other at that.

“But… a triple shift-” Spinner started. Shigaraki interrupted him with a “When was the last time you ate?”

“Uh…” Hawks said, trying to stall for time. He decided a burnt tongue was worth not answering and took a long, slow, painful sip of coffee.

The look both Shigaraki and Dabi sent him spoke volumes about how well that ploy worked.

“So… are you three fucking now?” Spinner asked. Hawks stared up at the sky and hated his life choices. He wasn’t sure what life choices he made that led to the league suddenly being overly interested in his well-being, but it was feeling exceptionally excessive. It was only a triple the one time and now the whole league was fussing, with Dabi fussing the most. He had no idea how to feel about any of this except bewildered.

“If we are, it’s news to me. Especially since I am not interested in polyamorous relationships.” Hawks said. Spinner hummed and opened a beer, followed by a second. As per the tradition, Hawks sat up and waited for Spinner to hand him the second beer.

“I can fix that.” Spinner said. Hawks’ head snapped around to stare at Spinner even as he took the beer. He gestured with the bottle.

“Don’t you fucking dare. I am not-”

A slow smile crawled over Spinner’s face.

“Spinner, I will drop you from thirty stories up.”

“Shigaraki and I are not together.” Dabi said as Hawks landed on the warehouse roof. He blinked as he tried to string those words together in a way that made sense with the context, since to his knowledge Shigaraki wasn’t supposed to be at this meeting? It was just Dabi and Hawks meeting up for five minutes so Hawks could drop off a thumb drive during his break.

“Uh- Yeah? He’s supposed to be back at the-”

Dabi huffed, a cloud of steam following the gesture. He caught a muffled ‘fucking idiot’ that had his feathers bristling.

Then the conversation with Spinner a week and a half ago floated to the top of his mind and he connected the dots. That fucking- He was absolutely going to drop Spinner from several stories up. He wasn’t sure if he was going to catch him afterward or not.

“Okay? Cool?” Hawks said, trying to play it off. Dabi began to massage the bridge of his nose with one hand.

“Yeah, well apparently Spinner seemed to think Shigaraki and I were together. As well as Toga. And Twice.”

“So the entire league?” Hawks said. He couldn’t resist teasing Dabi a little, letting his tone lilt in a way that had Dabi huffing again.

“Compress didn’t. And I think you…?”

Did this mean that Dabi considered Hawks part of the league now? He didn’t mull over the thought too long as his brain-mouth filter was missing when it came to Dabi.

“Oh no. I thought you two were at least fucking, considering how often I felt the two of you draped all ov-” he snapped his mouth shut so fast he heard his teeth click. Dabi finally looked up, a smile tugging at one side of his scarecrow face.

“That’s fucking creepy birdie.”

“Said the man who keeps stashing my feathers in a pillow.”

“You weren’t suppos-” Dabi stopped himself, growling softly. “Let’s try this again. Shigaraki and I aren’t together. Romantically or sexually.”

“Good to know. Why do I need to know?” Hawks replied, stomping down the little bird-like part of him that was perking up and getting ready to fluff his feathers.

“So you don’t get all prudish on me when I do this-”

Hawks was about to ask what when Dabi was in his space, making it very clear what he wanted.