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If a bird falls in a forest and no one is around to hear him, does he make a sound?
As it turns out, he does.
A loud crash, a frustrated sigh, and a series of expletives, to be precise.
He falls quiet, trying to steady his breathing and calm himself. Getting frustrated will not make him any steadier in the air. He knows this, but it's hard to keep the sting of defeat from burning at the edges of his mind and interfering with his focus.
He beats his wings. They don't make the great sound they used to. Still, he tries to school his breathing in time with the motion, tries to narrow his attention in on the feeling. His wings are a part of him, and he needs to treat them as such. They're an appendage, not a tool. A limb, no different to an arm or a foot. He's bounced back from injuries before, dealt with the stiffness of freshly healed joints. He's used to bouncing back. Not this.
He shakes his head. The comparison isn't helping. Flight is an entirely different art to walking or holding a cup. It's a much more delicate balance. Humans aren't the most aerodynamic creatures, even with quirks that improve such. It took years of practice for him to be able to fly as naturally as he did, and now it feels different. His wings don't beat like they used to. They don't have the same power. Doctors had warned he might never regain what he once had, and he resolved not to let that stop him. He'd show them he was stronger than that. He's already survived so much more than the average hero, the average person, he'd survive this too-
Crash.
"So even heroes have trouble with their quirks, huh?"
Hawks whips his head around to follow the sound of a familiar voice.
"What are you doing here, huh? Don't you have people to fry or whatever it is you do with your free time?" He tries to scramble his way to his feet, a crumpled heap of limbs and feathers isn't exactly the impression he wants to give. He hopes Dabi misses the way he flinches as he shakes his wings out.
"If a bird falls in a forest and no one is there to hear him, does he make a sound?" The amused look says that Dabi did not miss the flinch.
"What?" During the time he'd spent undercover, he'd become somewhat accustomed to the stranger things that Dabi would spout, often unprompted. But that didn't stop him from making it clear on his face how strange he thought those things were.
"If a bird falls in a forest and no one is there to hear him, does he make a sound?"
"I heard what you-"
"I was curious, so I thought I'd come and answer the question for myself, is all." Dabi shrugs, and jumps down from a small cliff-edge he'd been perched upon.
"Doesn't it defy the point if you're here to hear it? You're not no one." Hawks raises a brow.
"You flatter me, Keigo! I didn't know you thought so highly of me." Dabi grins and walks closer, arms outstretched. It makes Hawks back up slowly, wary, and that makes Dabi's smile shrink.
"Twisting my words, Dabi, that's a nasty habit you have." Hawks waggles his finger in a way that's intended to be mocking, but Dabi ignores the tone much like he usually does. "I don't remember putting us on a first-name basis either. So I'll ask you again, what are you doing here?" He puts his hands on his hips.
"I told you, I was just curious, that's all. So get back to whatever it was you were doing and let me get my answer in peace." Dabi rolls his eyes and sits himself down on the ground, clearly with no intention of going anywhere any time soon. Though Hawks would much prefer *not* to have an audience for his post-injury flight practice, at least Dabi seems to have no ill will right now. Not that he can tell, anyway. Nothing about his stance or words read as being backed by violence. And he supposes that having eyes on one of the primary members of the league of villains and paranormal liberation front is better than not having eyes on him...
Hawks sighs, turns on his heel and walks a few steps away, to at the very least put some distance between him and Dabi. The last thing he needs is *more* distraction. Maybe if he stands far enough away, he'll be able to ignore the eyes watching him.
"I don't like the assumption I'll fall, by the way!" He quips, and then turns back around to face away from Dabi. Breathing deeply, he tries to focus on the sensations in his wings. One of his greatest strengths (aside from the power of flight, of course) is how sensitive his wings are, allowing him to sense much of his surroundings that his eyes and ears alone would be unable to pick up. In the past, when he was still learning, focusing on what his wings are picking up over his other senses always helped him steady himself. He just needed to re-learn how to be as in touch with them now as he was before.
Slowly, he lifts off the ground, just hovering for now, eyes closed. He needs to be steady in the air before he could even think about moving in any direction. This much, he could handle by now. But even that took some practice to regain. He largely has the strength in his wings back to get into the air and hold himself there, now he just needs the balance.
He opens his eyes once he feels stable enough in the air, and the additional stimulation doesn't make him waver. A good sign. Carefully, he leans forward, in position to actually fly as opposed to simply hovering, and it's going well....
Until it isn't. Again, he overshoots it and his balance topples. Just like ever other attempt thus far, he falls to the ground with a shout followed by an even longer string of expletives than before.
He doesn't stand right away. Instead, he arranges himself into a cross-legged position on the floor, and when he looks up at Dabi he expects to be laughed at or mocked for his failure, for how far the number two hero has - quite literally - fallen.
Instead he sees an expression that's difficult to read. Dabi's face can be hard to read at the best of times, scorched flesh isn't exactly the most expressive, but his often exaggerated mannerisms usually make up for that fact, maybe deliberately so. But the look on Dabi's face isn't one of amusement, or distain, or mocking. He almost looks....comtemplative? Hawks thinks. Or perhaps it's sadness he sees on Dabi's face.
Suddenly, it's like Dabi comes to, his eyes focus up and he looks away. Like he wasn't really looking at Hawks to begin with and only just came back to where they were and who was actually in front of him.
"What are you staring at? There something funny on my face?" Dabi grumbles out, jarringly standoffish compared to how he'd been acting only minutes ago.
"Oh- Nothing, you just looked-" Hawks didn't have a witty response either. The look on Dabi's face felt like something he wasn't supposed to have seen. Like he'd caught something Dabi didn't want to be acknowledged. He trailed off, and neither of them filled the silence. Neither of them looked at each other, but somehow Dabi's very presence still felt like it was burning a hole in the side of Hawks' head. The silence wasn't a comfortable one, but still neither of them broke it. it was weighty, heavy, and Hawks was sure anyone would feel it if they even came anywhere near this small clearing in the woods and turn straight around. At least, he hoped they would. He didn't need to be seen with Dabi in a scenario that didn't have them at each others' throats. There was already enough suspicion on him off the back of his mission infiltrating the league under the orders of higher-ups, and that was purely business.
Eventually, Dabi did break the silence.
"I guess even heroes have quirks that don't work quite right with their body, huh?" His voice was quiet, and he still wasn't looking at Hawks, hiding his face, lest Hawks see even more of what he suspected Dabi kept guarded under a masquerade of insanity.
"Well." Hawks pauses, exhales slowly, and then continues. "Twice....Bubaigawara, he did a real number on me, you did a real number on me, y'know?" He feels cautious bringing up the event at all. He knows what the fall-out of Twice's death was, both on his own side and amongst the league members. "The doctors did all they could, but they said the rest of it would take time.....if it came back at all. They said my wings might never be the same." He picks up a small rock from beside him and throws it at a nearby tree, then shoots a feather after it. The feather cracks the rock, but it doesn't break entirely. "I don't have time. All for One is back, Shigaraki is doing god knows what, society is losing faith in us heroes....These feathers are all I've got, yknow? I need them to be the same. I need them to be better. I need to be better." Hawks punches the ground. Should he be telling someone like Dabi all of this? Probably not. But the words spill out before he can stop them, and once they're out he can feel the frustration chipping away at what patience he has left for himself.
Dabi doesn't respond right away, but when he does, it's again not in the way that Hawks expects.
"The anger doesn't help, you know. It makes it worse, actually." Hawks doesn't say anything; doesn't know how to. What do you say when you find yourself on the verge of having something akin to a strange heart-to-heart with a villain? He doesn't need to say anything though, because Dabi keeps talking. "That kind of anger, at the world, at the ones who couldn't help you, at the ones who never tried, at your dear old dad," there's a bite to his words, of course there is, but it's not directed at Hawks, "it eats at you, burns you up from the inside out, and, well, I'd know a thing or two about that now wouldn't I?" A flash of blue makes Hawks jump up, instincts kicking in and pulling him into a fighting stance before he can even think about it. But Dabi is still sitting on the floor. He's leaning back on one of his hands now, the other conjuring a small flame that he rotates with his whole hand and looks at, contemplative. "Relax, I'm not here for a fight." He extinguishes the fire, and that makes Hawks relax a little, but the uncertainty is still written on his features and the way he holds himself, like he doesn't quite know what to do with his hands. Dabi jumps up, and that makes Hawks' wariness spike again, but he still feels no violent intentions coming at him, even as Dabi approaches, and even as he stands before Hawks. If anything, now that they're facing each other, Dabi looks a little awkward. Huh. Hawks didn't even know Dabi could look awkward. He chooses not to quip about it though, on this occasion. "I'm pretty sure that anger is all that's holding this useless sack of flesh together. I don't think there's anything else left of me. I don't know if there ever was-"
"I'm sure at some point there was just a kid who wanted to be cared for. I....know that feeling." Hawks scratches the back of his head. He isn't even really sure where his interjection came from. Guess they really are having a heart to heart in the middle of the forest. Not how Hawks expected his day to go, nor how he expected his next encounter with Dabi to go. He's not entirely sure how he feels about it, nor is he willing to unpack any of it at this moment. Dabi laughs, but it's humourless.
"Yeah, maybe you're right, but he died a long time ago. Unlike you, he succumbed to the hate that was eating away at his soul, and one day when he wasn't looking, it swallowed him whole. Now I'm all that's left." There's a solemnity underpinning his words, but on the surface he presents them as being nonchalant. It feels a little bit dangerously like looking into a mirror for Hawks, and he isn't sure he wants to unpack that either. "This hate will keep driving me right into my grave, and then when it's over, that'll be that. Nothing more to it. You didn't let it swallow you though." Dabi stops, like it comes to him how much he's said and where he's standing. He backs up a little, more of that awkwardness showing. It would almost be endearing, if it wasn't a mass murderer stood in front of him being almost disturbingly genuine.
"I couldn't let it swallow me. I had to prove I wasn't him." Hawks fills the gap this time. He wants to try to convince Dabi that he's not a lost cause, that it's still possible for him to go back. That, yeah, he'd go to prison for all he's done, but he doesn't have to keep doing it. He doesn't have to keep killing, he doesn't have to keep chasing revenge. But he knows Dabi isn't interested in hearing it, and pushing it might reinstate the dichotomy of hero and villain that seems to have fallen down in this forest clearing. In fact, right now it feels an awful lot like Dabi is trying to save Hawks. In a roundabout way.
"Listen, all I'm saying is," Dabi turns on his heel and starts pacing, breaking the eye contact they held and putting distance between them, "one of us is going to make it out of this alive and it's not gonna be me. That means it has to be you." He turns back to give Hawks a pointed look, hands stuffed into his pockets. "You hear me? You're gonna make it out of this alive. Which *means* you're not gonna fall."
"I didn't know you gave pep talks now. Usually you're much more 'I'm gonna kill you, die heroes'." Hawks gesticulates in a way intended to be humorous, and then raises a brow in Dabi's direction. It is incredibly out of character, and Hawks wonders what prompted any of it, but doubts he'll ever actually know.
"Yeah well- shut up, I got my answer anyway, I'm out of here." Dabi turns his face away entirely, so Hawks can't see the expression on it. His voice sounded to Hawks like something close to flustered, and he's not quite sure what that would look like on Dabi's face, nor is he entirely sure he wants to find out. The moment he's distracted by his own thoughts, Dabi is gone, and it's just Hawks left alone in the forest clearing to wonder what the *hell* just happened.
He does feel lighter though, than before Dabi had turned up. Maybe their talk had been good. He hopes it was a good thing. He hopes it won't be a distracting thing. The next time they meet, it'll probably be trying to kill each other; he can't let one little conversation get in the way of that, and especially not the way a part of him stings a little when he thinks about the fact that they probably won't have any more conversations like that.
Back to flying practice. Maybe he won't fall this time.