Chapter Text
Dabi always knew that lying about being a little was going to bite him someday. He just didn’t expect today to be the day.
His wrists were cuffed. His legs were shaking. And every pro hero in the interrogation room was yelling at him like he was some damn radio they could tune if they just shouted loud enough.
Endeavor’s voice was the loudest—of course it was.
“WHY did you attack the facility?!”
“Who were you working with?”
“Answer me, Todor—”
“Stop calling me that!” Dabi snapped, but the words came out small, thin, not sharp enough to cut anything.
Best Jeanist chimed in over him.
Edgeshot too.
A dozen heroes, throwing questions, accusations, assumptions, one after the other—
None of them giving him even a second to breathe.
It was too loud.
Too bright.
Too much.
His head was buzzing, his throat tight, his breath coming sharp and wrong. He felt himself slipping—losing the careful mask he’d kept welded on for years.
And worst of all…
He knew exactly what part of himself was about to break through.
Not here. Not in front of them. Not like this.
But no one would shut up. They were talking over him, around him, through him—like he wasn’t even a person, like he was just a malfunctioning villain toy they were trying to reset.
Finally, Dabi slammed his palms on the table and screamed:
“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!”
Silence hit the room like a punch.
His chest heaved. His eyes stung. He curled in on himself without meaning to. And when he finally found his voice again… it wasn’t his adult one.
“I—I’ll only answer Hawks.”
A whisper.
A plea.
A leash he never meant to show anyone.
Aizawa stared at him for a long moment, eyes narrowing not in anger, but in understanding. Quiet understanding, the kind that sees too much.
He sighed, pulled out his phone, and held it out.
“You get one call,” he muttered, “but—kid—if you’re lying about needing him, I will know.”
Dabi shook his head violently.
For once, the truth was the only thing he had left.
When Hawks answered, his voice crackled through the speaker—tired, warm, and familiar in a way Dabi hated needing.
“Yo, Eraser. What’s up?” Hawks joked lightly… until he heard the breathing on the other end.
“…Dabi?”
Dabi swallowed hard.
He tried to force out some cool line. Something sarcastic. Something that would let him pretend he was still in control of this. But what actually came out was:
“…help.”
One tiny word.
Broken at the end.
And that was all it took.
Hawks’ tone dropped instantly, wings audible rustling on the other side like he was already moving.
“On my way. Nobody touches him. Nobody talks to him. I mean it, Aizawa.”
The room shifted—heroes exchanging confused looks, Endeavor bristling, Edgeshot frowning. But Aizawa simply hung up, pocketed the phone, and said:
“Everyone back off. Hawks is coming. Dabi doesn’t answer another question until he gets here.”
Hawks’ POV
Hawks wasn’t stupid.
People liked to pretend he was, mostly because he smiled too much and talked too fast—but nothing, nothing, got past him when it involved someone he cared about.
And Dabi?
Dabi had been a walking question mark since the day Hawks met him.
At first it was little things—quirks, odd habits, stuff that didn’t line up with Dabi’s whole tough-guy-arsonist persona. Hawks kept noticing patterns he couldn’t unsee once they started stacking.
Like how Dabi guarded his room at the League base like it was a nest.
If someone even leaned on the door wrong, Dabi would hiss like a feral cat and threaten to burn their eyebrows off.
And Hawks had thought:
Okay, territorial, but that’s normal. Villain hideout, no privacy, whatever.
Except it wasn’t normal.
Not like that.
Then there was the after-dark rule.
Hawks didn’t push boundaries, but every now and then he’d joke, “Hey, night patrol’s boring, wanna hang?”
And Dabi would give him that look.
Not angry.
Not annoyed.
More like… panicked.
“No. I—no. Don’t come by after dark.”
Hard.
Sharp.
Too sharp for something that simple.
Hawks pretended to shrug it off, but inside, his feathers twitched.
Who the hell doesn’t want to hang out with me at night? I’m delightful.
But even he couldn’t joke away the gut feeling that something was off.
Then came the sick day.
Dabi had been coughing like a dying engine, eyes glassy, voice rough. The kind of sick that reduces even the toughest grown adults into pathetic puddles. Hawks brought medicine as a peace offering, expecting snark and fire.
What he got instead was… softness.
Not a lot.
But enough.
Dabi wasn’t biting or snapping.
He was quiet.
He let Hawks put a blanket over him without threatening murder.
He even accepted the soup with this tiny, hesitant nod, like he wasn’t used to being taken care of.
Hawks told himself, Everyone acts different when they’re dying inside, it’s fine, but something about the shift stuck in his mind like a feather snagged on a branch.
And then came The Hard No.
One night, Hawks casually said, “Hey, wanna come over? Got a new video game.”
And Dabi snapped.
Not angry—afraid.
“No! Absolutely not. Don’t—just don’t.”
He backed away like Hawks had asked to see inside his soul.
That was when Hawks went home, sat on the couch, opened his phone, and typed:
“Why does my friend act childish?”
He expected something stupid—like, “They’re immature,” or “They like attention.”
What he didn’t expect was the first result:
AGE REGRESSION (Non-Sexual).
Hawks blinked.
Then he clicked.
And the more he read, the more his stomach dropped.
Hyper-defensive about private spaces? Check.
Struggling with overstimulation? Check.
Random mood shifts between hardass and oddly childlike? Check.
Avoiding late-night contact because regressors tend to slip more easily when tired? …Check.
There were dozens of traits, and Dabi fit so many that Hawks had to sit back and stare at the wall for a solid minute.
“…No way,” he muttered aloud. “Dabi? Little?”
But it made sense.
More sense than anything else ever had.
The websites all said the same thing:
“The #1 goal is to make the little feel safe.”
And Hawks, being Hawks, decided on the spot he wanted that for Dabi—wanted to give him something safe, something stable, something that wasn’t fire and trauma and silence behind closed doors.
So he acted.
Quietly.
Secretly.
Just in case.
He picked one of the many extra rooms in his penthouse—one nobody ever used—and began turning it into something soft.
Warm.
Calming.
Neutral tones at first.
Then some blues.
And maybe a plush or two, hidden behind the dresser so Dabi wouldn’t tease him if he ever found them.
If this works, Hawks thought, standing in the doorway with crossed arms, it could change everything.
If it doesn’t… well. He’ll just tell me to go to hell louder than usual.
But Hawks had always been willing to take a risk.
And Dabi—whether he admitted it or not—was worth it.
He just didn’t know that tonight was going to prove him right.
Or break them both.
(End Hawks’ POV)
The door burst open five minutes later like Hawks had been waiting on the rooftop the whole time.
His wings folded tight with irritation, his golden eyes sharp as blades—until they landed on Dabi.
Then they softened.
Completely.
Hawks crouched beside the chair, ignoring the cuffs, ignoring the watching heroes, ignoring the tension in the room.
He just put one hand gently on Dabi’s knee and said quietly:
“Hey, chickadee. I’m right here. You did good calling me.”
Dabi’s lip trembled.
He looked away fast.
“I—didn’t want you to save me,” he whispered angrily, voice cracking. “I said I never would.”
Hawks’ smile was soft and unbearably kind.
“Yeah. And I said I’d show up anyway.”
That was it.
That was the sentence that undid him.
Dabi curled toward Hawks like gravity had shifted. His breathing came easier the second Hawks’ hand moved to the back of his head, grounding him, shielding him from the room’s harsh lights.
“Wanna go home?” Hawks murmured.
Dabi nodded without lifting his face.
“Okay. Then we’re going.”
Aizawa stepped aside.
Hawks unbuckled the cuffs with a precision that said he’d practiced it before.
And Dabi… Dabi leaned into him, small and exhausted and finally feeling safe.
As Hawks guided him out, wings partly flared like a barrier, he tilted his head down and whispered:
“Next time, don’t lie about being a little. I can’t help you if I don’t know you need me.”
Dabi’s voice was barely audible:
“…I didn’t want to need anyone.”
Hawks pressed a warm palm to his back.
“Tough luck, baby bird. You’ve got me now.”