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The air in the bar is thick with the usual chaos. Twice is arguing with himself over the best brand of instant ramen, Spinner is meticulously cleaning his sword, and Toga is humming, swinging her legs from her perch on a stool as she flips through a stolen fashion magazine. Shigaraki is a silent, brooding presence in the corner, his eyes fixed on a handheld game, the soft click-click-click of the buttons a steady undercurrent. And then there’s Dabi. My Dabi.
He’s sprawled in the armchair by the cold fireplace, a study in casual, smoldering indifference. One leg is thrown over the armrest, and he’s watching the room with those piercing blue eyes that see too much. I’m leaning against the wall near him, the picture of relaxed ease, a lazy grin plastered on my face. It’s my armor. My feathers, currently preened and resting against my back, are just another part of the costume.
I’m safe here. That’s the mantra. I’m with the League. I’m with him. The Hero Commission is a ghost, a bad memory locked in a vault I never open.
Toga looks up, her head tilting. “Hey, Hawksie? What was the Commission’s training like? Was it super strict? Did they have, like, a dungeon?”
The question is innocent. Curious. It shouldn’t feel like a physical blow to my solar plexus.
My grin doesn’t slip. “Oh, you know. Lots of drills. Early mornings. The usual hero-in-the-making stuff.” My voice sounds fine. Normal. Detached.
But inside, the vault door groans.
“C’mon, birdie,” Dabi drawls, not looking at me, but I feel his attention sharpen like a knife. “They molded their perfect little weapon. Had to be more to it than calisthenics.”
A weapon. The word, coming from him, is a key. A terrible, rusty key.
“It was efficient,” I say, and my voice is tighter now. I push off the wall, aiming for the kitchen. Need water. Need space. “No time for frills when you’re saving people.”
Shigaraki’s clicking stops. The silence feels heavy. “Efficient,” he echoes, the word a dry, dusty thing. “Sounds boring. And cold.”
It was. It was so cold.
The memories don’t flood; they seep. Like smoke under a door. I’m in the sterile white room again. Twelve years old. The sensory deprivation chamber isn’t for punishment, they say. It’s for focus. To hone my connection to my feathers. Forty-eight hours in perfect, utter silence and darkness, with only the distant pinprick sensations of my feathers on the perimeter grid to anchor me. My heart starts to mimic the frantic, trapped beat of a bird’s against a windowpane.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
“Hey, you okay?” It’s Spinner. Concerned. I blink, and I’m back in the bar, but the edges are blurry. I’m at the sink, my hands gripping the cool metal. My breath hitches. Just once.
“Peachy,” I force out. But the vault is breaking.
Another memory, sharper. A correction. Not a punishment, an adjustment. My handler’s calm, disappointed face as the quirk-suppressing cuffs are clamped onto my wrists, rendering my wings heavy, dead weight. “Your emotional attachment to individual civilians is a liability, Hawks. We are removing the variable.” The following “isolation protocol” – a fancy term for a bare, padded cell – wasn’t for days. It was for weeks. Until I could recite the Commission’s doctrine on acceptable collateral damage without a tremor in my voice.
My lungs are beginning to ache. I’m not breathing. I’ve stopped breathing. I turn, leaning back against the counter, trying to anchor myself in the present. Toga’s yellow eyes are wide. Twice has stopped arguing. They’re all looking at me.
Dabi has sat up. “Hawks.”
It’s not a question. It’s a command. Look at me. Be here.
But I can’t. The pressure in my chest is expanding, a star about to go supernova. The sterile white of the Commission’s medical bay overlays the grimy bar walls. I can smell the antiseptic. I can feel the cold press of the monitor nodes on my skin, tracking every vitals spike, every moment of fear during the “stress inoculation” simulations—simulations where they’d holographically murder civilians in front of me to teach me to prioritize the mission. Always the mission.
“I need…” The words are a thin wheeze. “Air.”
I take a step, intending to walk calmly to the door. My leg buckles. Not a stumble. A complete, neurological surrender. My muscles turn to water. My knee hits the concrete floor with a sickening crack that echoes more inside my skull than in the room. A gasp, sharp and pained, tears from my throat.
“Hawks!” Toga’s voice, shrill with alarm.
I scramble, panic now a live wire in my veins. I can’t be on the floor. On the floor means you’re vulnerable. On the floor means you failed. I claw at the wall, using it to haul myself up, my back scraping against the rough brick. My vision is tunneling, dark at the edges, sparkling with static. The only sound is the roaring in my ears and my own breathing—or lack of it.
I’m trying to pull in air, but my diaphragm is locked in a vice. Each attempt is a short, desperate sip that does nothing to fill my burning lungs. I’m hyperventilating, the breaths coming in fast, shallow, useless pants. In-in-in-in-out-out-out. No rhythm. Just terror. Black spots dance in front of my eyes. The room is tilting.
They’re here. They found me. They’re going to take me back. Back to the white room. Back to the cuffs. Back to the nothingness.
A high, thin whine is coming from somewhere. It’s me. My hands fly up, palms clamping over my ears to block out the noise—the memory of my handler’s calm voice, the beeping of the monitors, the sound of my own younger self sobbing in the dark. I press so hard my skull aches. I’m disappearing into the static, sliding down the wall again, my legs utterly useless.
This is it. This is where I shatter. In front of everyone. The perfect weapon, malfunctioning.
Then, heat.
A different kind of heat than the fire of his quirk. This is solid, encompassing warmth. Strong arms wrap around me from behind, pinning my own arms to my chest in a firm, unbreakable hold. One arm bands across my collarbone, the other around my waist, pulling me flush against a lean, scarred torso.
Dabi.
He doesn’t say “It’s okay.” He doesn’t say “Calm down.” He knows those words are useless, poison. He just holds me. Anchors me.
“Breathe, pretty bird,” his voice rumbles against my back, low and steady, a vibration I feel in my bones. “You’re here. With me. In the bar. Toga’s got her stupid magazine. Twice is probably crying. Shigaraki’s judging everyone. You’re here.”
He emphasizes each mundane, present-tense fact, dragging me back from the past one brick at a time. My hands are still over my ears, but his chest is against my back, his heartbeat a slow, deliberate drumbeat against my spine. I try to match my ragged gasps to it.
Thump… thump… thump.
“In,” he commands softly, his breath stirring my hair. I suck in a shuddering, broken breath. “Hold it.” I try, my body trembling violently. “Now out.” I let it go in a ragged, wet sob.
We repeat it. Again. And again. The tunnel vision recedes. The static fades from my ears, replaced by the sound of his voice, the crackle of his staples so close to my cheek, the distant, worried murmurs of the others that he’s shielding me from. The terrifying, crushing weight on my chest begins to lessen, just enough to let real, aching gulps of air in.
The panic attack doesn’t vanish; it exhausts itself, leaving me boneless and hollowed out, trembling in the aftermath. A puppet with its strings cut. The only thing holding me up is Dabi. Slowly, carefully, he lowers us both to the floor, his back against the wall, me cradled between his legs, my back still to his chest, his arms never loosening their hold. My head lolls back against his shoulder. I’m crying. Silent, exhausted tears that just leak out, tracing paths through the grime on my face and his scars.
The room is respectfully, uncomfortably quiet. I see Toga, her hands clasped over her mouth, her own eyes shiny. Twice is sniffling, one mask turned away. Spinner is looking at the floor, his fists clenched. Shigaraki… Shigaraki is looking right at us, his red eyes unreadable, but the game is forgotten in his lap.
Dabi ignores them all. He rests his chin on the top of my head, his voice a private murmur meant only for me. “They’re never getting you back,” he says, and it’s not comfort. It’s a vow. A promise etched in flame and blood. “Anyone tries, they go through me. And then through the rest of these idiots. You’re ours now. You’re mine. Your past can burn.”
The finality in his tone is what truly breaks the last of the ice inside me. I believed the Commission owned me. Body, mind, and quirk. But here, on this dirty floor, held together by the most wanted villain in Japan, I feel something I never have before: possession born not of utility, but of a fierce, twisted, and undeniable belonging.
My wings, which had been pulled in tight and shuddering, slowly unfurl. Not in a display of strength, but in a gesture of utter vulnerability. The red feathers brush against Dabi’s legs, against the floor. A silent signal. I’m here. I’m exposed. I trust you.
One of his hands leaves my waist, his fingers—surprisingly gentle—sliding into my hair, blunt nails scraping soothingly against my scalp. The other arm remains locked around me.
“Sorry,” I whisper, the word raw and torn.
“Shut up,” he replies, no heat in it. “Don’t apologize for their shit.”
Toga slowly approaches, kneeling a few feet away. She doesn’t touch, just offers a small, understanding smile that’s devoid of its usual manic edge. “We’ve all got bad stuff, Hawksie. Ours just… shows on the outside more.”
Twice nods vigorously. “Yeah! It’s ugly! Don’t hide it, you jerk!”
Spinner clears his throat. “Nobody here is… what they were supposed to be. That’s the point.”
Even Shigaraki grunts, a short, acknowledging sound. “Decay affects everything. Even memories. Let them crumble.”
This… this is my league. My villainous, dysfunctional, chaotic family. They see the cracks in the golden boy hero, and instead of exploiting them, they’re quietly shoring up the walls around me.
The exhaustion is total, pulling me toward a dark, quiet place. My eyelids grow heavy. The adrenaline has bled away, leaving me spent.
“Sleep, birdie,” Dabi murmurs, feeling the shift in my weight. “I’ve got you.”
And for the first time since I was a child plucked from a life I can barely remember, I believe it. Completely. I don’t dream of white rooms or cold voices. I drift off surrounded by the scent of smoke, cheap booze, and the solid, unwavering heat of the man who set my world on fire only to become my only safe place to land. Held not as a weapon, but as something fragile, and therefore, infinitely precious.The bar doesn’t go back to normal right away.
It tries to. That’s the thing about the League—chaos is their default setting, and silence sits wrong on all of them. It itches.
Twice is the first to crack.
“Well! That was—”
“—terrifying and emotionally devastating!”
“—we should do something cheerful!”
“—we should burn something down!”
He claps his hands together, the sharp sound cutting through the lingering heaviness. It’s forced. Transparent. But it’s an effort.
Toga huffs out a small laugh, wiping under her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re so bad at this, Jin.”
“Thank you!” / “Rude!”
Spinner finally exhales, the tension in his shoulders loosving as he pushes himself upright. “I’ll… grab a blanket or something.”
“Don’t bother,” Dabi mutters without looking up.
And he doesn’t.
Because Hawks is already buried in him—half-curled, wings draped like a shield, like instinct took over and decided this was the safest configuration. One of Dabi’s hands is still in his hair, fingers idly moving, slow and absent, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
It’s… weirdly gentle.
No one comments on it.
Shigaraki shifts slightly in his seat, the only real sign of life from him. His fingers twitch against the console in his lap, but he doesn’t pick the game back up. His gaze lingers a second longer on Hawks—on the feathers, slightly dulled, still trembling now and then with leftover adrenaline.
“…Tch,” he clicks his tongue softly. “Figures.”
No one asks him to elaborate.
—
Time passes in that strange, suspended way it does after something breaks open.
Eventually, Hawks stirs.
It’s subtle at first. A shift of weight. A shallow inhale that catches halfway before smoothing out. His fingers twitch where they’re loosely curled against Dabi’s arm.
Dabi notices immediately.
“Easy,” he murmurs, voice low enough that it barely carries past them. “Don’t rush it.”
Hawks doesn’t answer right away. His eyes open slowly, unfocused, pupils still a little blown. It takes a second—two—for recognition to settle in.
Not the bar.
Not the League.
Him.
“…still here,” Hawks croaks, voice rough from crying and too little air.
“Yeah,” Dabi replies simply. “That tends to happen.”
There’s a beat.
Then, quieter—almost reluctant:
“Didn’t go anywhere.”
Hawks lets out a weak huff of something that might be a laugh. His head tilts back slightly against Dabi’s shoulder, just enough to glance up at him.
“You’re terrible at reassurance,” he mutters.
“And you’re terrible at not collapsing,” Dabi shoots back.
“…fair.”
Another pause. Less heavy this time.
The room breathes again around them.
Hawks swallows, his throat working. “I… didn’t—” He stops, jaw tightening. Starts again. “That wasn’t—”
“Don’t,” Dabi cuts in, sharper now.
Hawks stills.
“Don’t explain it,” he says, quieter but firmer. “I don’t care about the Commission’s little horror stories. I care that you’re not doing that again without someone there to catch you.”
There’s something possessive in it. Not suffocating. Not clinical.
Just… absolute.
Hawks studies him for a long second.
Then, slowly, something in his expression shifts. Not the easy grin—the real thing, underneath it. Worn down. Honest.
“…you stayed,” he says again, softer this time. Like he’s testing the shape of it.
Dabi snorts. “Where the hell would I go?”
Hawks’ wings twitch, a faint rustle of feathers. One brushes along Dabi’s arm, deliberate this time.
A quiet, grounding touch.
“…people leave,” Hawks says, almost absentmindedly.
Dabi’s grip tightens—just slightly.
“Not me.”
It’s immediate. Certain. No hesitation.
And for once, Hawks doesn’t argue.
—
Across the room, Toga leans sideways toward Twice, whispering loudly, “They’re sooo gross.”
“I know!” / “It’s kind of sweet!” / “I hate it!” / “I love it!”
Spinner sighs. “You’re both unbearable.”
Shigaraki finally picks his game back up. The soft click-click-click resumes, like a heartbeat returning to baseline.
“Get over it,” he mutters. “If he breaks again, we’ll deal with it then.”
It’s not unkind.
It’s just… the way he says things.
—
Hawks shifts again, more awake now but clearly drained. “I should—” he starts, like he’s about to get up.
Dabi doesn’t let him.
A hand presses lightly—but firmly—against his side.
“Nope.”
“…Dabi.”
“Nope.”
“I can’t just—”
“You can,” Dabi interrupts. “And you are.”
Hawks exhales slowly, some of the old instinct to push, to perform, to recover quickly flickering behind his eyes.
Then it… fades.
Not gone.
But quieter.
“…five minutes,” he compromises weakly.
Dabi huffs. “Try an hour.”
“Dabi—”
“Bird.”
The single word stops him.
Hawks goes still.
“…yeah?”
Dabi’s voice drops, something darker threading through it—not anger. Not quite.
Something protective. Something that still has teeth.
“They turned you into something that breaks when it slows down,” he says. “So slow down anyway.”
Silence.
Hawks’ throat tightens slightly.
Then, with a soft, resigned exhale, he lets himself sink back again.
“…yeah,” he murmurs.
This time, he doesn’t try to get up.
—
The bar settles.
Not back to chaos.
Not yet.
But into something quieter. Something steadier.
And right there on the cracked floor, wrapped in smoke and warmth and the presence of people who don’t ask him to be anything but what he is—
Hawks stays.
Not as a weapon.
Not as a hero.
Just… as himself.
And, for now—
That’s enough.