Chapter Text
Hawks smiled brightly for the news cameras, though he was sure it didn’t come as reassuring as intended with the blood dripping down his face. He could feel the warm drip of his blood trailing down his cheek from where glass had cut him. Behind him, he knew already that his wings weren’t symmetrical, feathers not as neatly preened as usual. The day had worn them down and, though he could still fly and still fight, it was still clear to see that his day hadn’t been smooth sailing.
No doubt he’d be hearing from his handler about his appearance.
Sure, he hadn’t been able to sit down since he’d woken up eighteen hours ago and all he’d eaten was one protein bar that probably tasted worse than the wrapper it came in, but of course he should’ve had time between stopping a robbery and getting cornered by pushy reporters to doll himself up for the media. Otherwise, the general public might realize that “Winged Hero: Hawks” is a real person, one who gets tired and a little bloody after getting thrown through a convenience store window.
The Commission can’t have that.
Hawks is supposed to be an idol for the people—the fastest hero around, easygoing and unshakeable, keeping the people of Fukuoka safe from danger with a perfect smile and crimson wings.
Keigo Takami, however, was exhausted, sore, and thinking about the leftover fried chicken waiting for him in the fridge back at his penthouse.
He pushed his jaded thoughts to the side, focusing instead on answering questions he paid barely any attention to with PR-perfect responses. Absently, he noted the smiles and excited chatter of reporters and civilians, clearly excited by the young hero.
His smile never wavered in the face of the cameras, even with the taste of copper on his tongue.
He waved, answered more questions, threw out some witty lines that sounded empty as hell to his own ears but were apparently more than enough for the crowd. It was easy to ignore the exhaustion pooling under his skin, the growing headache from the camera flashes, the ache of his empty stomach.
He’d had plenty of practice.
Eventually he managed to extract himself from the reporters with a laugh and some throwaway line that sounded charming enough that he hoped his handlers would be slightly more lenient about the abrupt exit.
Spreading his wings, he shot up into the sky and soared above the clouds, relaxing just a moment in the cold, damp quiet, before heaving a sigh and diving down to level out just above the tallest buildings.
Hawks was used to long shifts, used to skipping meals and feeling the dull throbbing of the muscles in his chest and shoulders from darting around the city for hours on end. Even so, it’d been a rougher day than usual. The first criminal he faced that day was nothing, just a small-time purse snatcher, captured before he could blink.
The second villain was much more slippery. Literally—whatever his quirk was, it kept anyone from keeping a grip on him. He’d just slip out of whatever hands tried to restrain him, Hawks included. His feathers weren’t exempt either, but, after an annoyingly long time chasing the guy around, they’d managed to slide him right into the back of a police van.
Then came the third criminal.
And the fourth.
And the school visit, where Hawks was trapped in a room with a bunch of kindergarteners who screamed over each other and shoved their sticky hands into his feathers, no matter how their poor teacher begged them to behave. His skin still crawled at the ghost of the sensation, but what could he do?
He’s not allowed to tell people not to touch his wings, no matter how much he hates it.
After another exhausting several hours of patrol and one robbery that got him thrown through a window by a guy with a rhino quirk, his boring penthouse sounded like absolute heaven. He had the next day off, too, which might have been one of the few things keeping him from just laying down on a random rooftop and trying to become one with the concrete.
If he flew a little faster to get back, that was nobody’s business but his own.
By the time he began his descent, aiming for his balcony, Fukuoka had thinned to the typical late-night quiet. A few cars still drifted along the streets down below, lighting the distant pavement in fleeting patches of white and red. Most of the lights in his building were out, save for a few stray apartments where the residents remained awake despite it being well past midnight.
His boots hit the balcony harder than he intended, a jolt of discomfort shooting up his legs and making him wince. After taking a moment to crack his spine, roll his shoulders, and shake whatever debris remained in his feathers, he folded his wings behind him and reached for the balcony door, only to pause as his instincts started screaming. Danger! Danger!
Something was wrong.
His gloved hand hovered near the handle, right over a dark smear, almost invisible in the low light.
The exhaustion left him all at once, body still and mind racing. His feathers stirred, sharpening to blades.
There was blood on the handle.
Hawks stepped back, sharp, golden eyes narrowing as he inspected the scene on his balcony. There was a smear near the railing, a few smudged droplets forming a drag trail from the ladder of the fire escape to the sliding glass door.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
A primary feather detached from his wing and slipped into his palm, hardening into a blade as he slowly and silently slid the door open. He always left it unlocked. His penthouse location was already a secret, and very few people really wanted to haul themselves up forty flights of stairs.
Except someone apparently had, and they did so while either injured or hauling someone who was. The blood pattern seemed less like someone being dragged and more like someone limping along on their own, but he knew better than to take chances.
As he stepped over the threshold, a flurry of feathers rushed out from his wings to inspect the apartment, breaking the stillness. Hawks eyed the trail of bloody droplets that trailed through the kitchen and disappeared behind the partition that led to the living room area, but the feathers told him all he needed to know.
And what they didn’t tell him, the smell of smoke and burnt skin did.
Hawks breathed in deeply and called his feathers back, tightening his grip on the sharpened primary in his hand as he crept towards the living room, an impassive expression schooled onto his face. He flicked on the standing lamp and the room filled with its soft, warm glow, illuminating the scene.
The place looked untouched at first glance. Brown hardwood floors. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Low table. Terrible beige couch that was less comfortable than a public park bench with matching boring and scratchy pillows. Art on the walls that he hadn’t picked and didn’t care about.
Everything was the same as normal, with the exception of the blood trail on the floor and the body beside the coffee table.
Dabi lay half on his side on the floor, still as a statue. One arm was trapped underneath him, and his infamous coat was torn open along his shoulder, the lamplight revealing darker areas on the black fabric where Dabi’s blood had soaked in.
Thin wisps of pale smoke floated lazily up from the seams of his body.
Dabi didn’t move.
Hawks stared.
Dabi somehow knew where Hawks lived. That should have probably been more surprising than it was, but really only served to further prove that Dabi was only second to Giran himself when it came to intel in the underground, at least among villains.
Hawks angled his sword lower, stepping cautiously towards the prone villain, his mind already working through the possibilities.
It could be a trap. It could be a test from the League. He wouldn’t put it past Dabi to show up covered in someone else’s blood just to mess with Hawks.
Or Dabi could just be . . . genuinely hurt.
Dabi, who took one look at Hawks and knew without a doubt that he was a Commission spy. Dabi, who insulted Hawks at every turn, usually with a wild and toothy grin.
Dabi, who might have decided to drag his bleeding body to Hawks for help.
“You still alive?” Hawks crept closer, nudging the villain’s boot with one of his own. “Wakey wakey, Dabs.”
Dabi shifted, just the slightest bit, and his head tipped to the side to face Hawks. It took visible effort, and when his eyes cracked open, their normally vivid blue was dull and unfocused beneath heavy lids that seemed like they wanted nothing more than to close again.
“Unfortunately, still here,” he drawled in reply. His gaze fell on Hawks, drifting down to the sword in his hand. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards for a second, but it seemed like it took too much effort to keep it in place.
“Fancy cage you’ve got here, Birdie,” he rasped. His throat sounded more wrecked than usual. “Only the best and beigest for the Commission’s pet, huh?”
Hawks blinked down at him, unimpressed. Of course. Even beat to shit, Dabi couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
“Thanks. I keep asking for some branches to perch on, but no luck yet. Just more rock-hard throw pillows.”
A breath that might have been a laugh scraped out of Dabi, but it was too weak for Hawks to be sure.
Dabi’s breathing was concerningly shallow, each one hitching with pain. His eyes had drifted away from Hawks again, gaze floating aimlessly around the apartment before falling closed again with a furrow in his brow.
Even like this, Hawks wouldn’t dismiss Dabi as harmless. The man had the highest pain tolerance Hawks had ever seen, and he was reckless enough that it wasn’t out of the question for him to still try to set someone on fire even while he himself is at Death’s door. Dabi could turn the tide of a battle with minimal effort and a manic smile, his untamed blue fire burning through everything in its path.
It would be smart to keep guard around him.
Hawks let go of his primary and let it take its place back in his wing. It wasn’t like he was unarmed, and Dabi would know it, too. But being less visibly armed would probably do more to keep the fire-user from igniting.
Hawks lowered himself to his knees next to the burnt man’s body and began a fast but in-depth inspection of Dabi’s wounds, taking stock of his injuries. He called a small feather to his hand and sharpened it, using it to cut a square out of Dabi’s shirt and using the fabric to put pressure on the gash in his side.
“Gotta say,” Hawks said, keeping his tone light as he shifted Dabi’s bangs to view a cut at the man’s temple, “There are probably easier places to break into than my place.”
The ghost of a grin flickered over his mismatched lips again. “Maybe I missed ya. Or maybe I just wanted the workout.”
“Forty flights of stairs might be overdoing it.”
“I’ve never been known to half-ass things.”
Hawks eyed the several popped staples at Dabi’s collarbone and jaw and the blistering on the healthy skin of his palms, wincing in sympathy. “Yeah, I think I’m getting that now. Here,” he said, lifting Dabi’s hand and settling it over the fabric pressed to his ribs. “Put pressure on that for a few seconds while I grab my medical kit. Try not to move.”
“Damn. And I was about to break into an interpretive dance routine,” Dabi scoffed, but he dutifully kept his hand in place on the wound.
At least he was feeling okay enough to be sarcastic, which was probably a decent sign that the villain probably wasn’t going to die on his living room floor and leave him with a pile of paperwork.
Or maybe Dabi was just so dedicated to sarcasm that not even serious injury would stop him. Hawks wouldn’t write it off as a possibility.
He sent his feathers out to do a secondary inspection of the apartment while he gathered his medical supply kit from the closet in the hallway. He hadn’t detected any other people in the apartment besides Dabi, but caution was smart. Caution kept a person alive.
The only heartbeat besides his in the apartment was Dabi’s, an unsteady, fluttering thing on the living room floor.
Injuries were nothing new in hero work, and Hawks made sure to have plenty of supplies at home to avoid as much trouble as possible. Alongside the typical agency paperwork that came with injuries, which was annoying enough, reporting injuries meant explaining the injuries. The Commission never found any of his injuries to be “acceptable.”
Do better. Be better. It wouldn’t do to show that the No. 2 Hero couldn’t handle himself, not after all of the money and time poured into shaping him as an asset.
So, he kept supplies, and he was fairly certain he had everything he would need to patch up the villain currently bleeding out on his hardwood. He summoned his roaming feathers back to his wings and returned to the living room, looking down at Dabi as he set the medical kit down on the coffee table.
Dabi hadn’t moved. His grip had loosened on the makeshift bandage, holding it over his injury more than actually pressing on it. Smoke still curled faintly from his seams. Not much, but enough to make Hawks concerned as he kneeled beside him. No jokes, no scathing commentary. Just a half-conscious man with blood along his temple and too-warm skin, who looked uncomfortably young without his typical scowl hiding the soft roundness of his face.
For one brief moment, Hawks actually wondered if Dabi had died, but a feather settled on Dabi’s wrist and felt that weak, stubborn pulse still thrumming along in the man’s veins.
It was hard to say whether it was a relief or not, given his patient, and he felt a tiny spark of shame in the thought.
Hawks rubbed a hand over his face in exhaustion and took a steadying breath before getting to work. He managed to take off Dabi’s surprisingly heavy coat with no help from the villain, though his turquoise eyes cracked open the tiniest bit before slipping shut again. The shirt came next—Hawks didn’t even try to remove it, simply cutting away whatever remained of the bloodied fabric. Dabi took a small, shaky breath as Hawks peeled the cloth away, feeling it stick and pull at torn skin, but gave no other sign that he was aware of anything that was currently happening. He could feel the heat radiating off Dabi’s skin, feverish and uncomfortable.
Finally able to view the extent of the damage, both new and old, Hawks wondered once again how the hell Dabi had managed to even make it to the building from wherever he’d gotten hurt, let alone climb the entirety of the fire escape. A deep gash cut across his left shoulder, trailing diagonally down his sternum like a seatbelt and cutting across two patches of purpled scarring. It was burnt at the edges but still bled sluggishly, like it had been cauterized shut and reopened by movement. There was a puncture wound on his side that thankfully hadn’t seemed to hit anything important. Fresh burns had turned Dabi’s palms red and angry. A mottled patch of bruises had formed on ribs that showed far too clearly through the skin that covered them. It was a safe bet that there was at least one fracture there, but that would have to take a backseat for the moment.
Dabi jerked awake when the antiseptic hit the wound at his shoulder, hand snapping up with blue embers sparking from his fingertips.
Hawks caught his wrist, easing it back down to his side as he continued to clean the gash.
“Easy now, Hotshot. You’ve already turned my living room into a crime scene. We don’t need to top it off with any arson.”
Dabi blinked as recognition returned to his eyes, though the sharpness was still buried under the haze of blood loss.
“You can bill Shigaraki for the damages,” he muttered, “Might need to pay in installments though. He doesn’t have shit, either.” Something twisted in his expression, but whatever the cause, Dabi kept it to himself. Instead, he huffed a thin plume of smoke and tried to focus on Hawks’ hands, though his eyes seemed to lag behind as he watched them move.
For a while, there was only the quiet sound of Hawks working, accompanied by Dabi’s shaky breathing. Hawks tried not to stare at the old burns and the litany of staples that were always hidden beneath Dabi’s loose shirts. He highly doubted that was the full extent of it, either.
A number of questions came to mind. What happened? Why did he come here? Where was the rest of the League?
The long lingering question of why Dabi’s body is a patchwork of pale skin and purple scars.
Hawks didn’t try to ask any of them. It was unlikely that Dabi would answer even in the best of circumstances, let alone in his current condition.
Dabi’s eyes closed again, head lolling to the side to face away from Hawks.
Hawks tried to warn him before he started to suture the wound, but the villain just grunted in reply. Dabi didn’t so much as flinch when the curved needle stuck through his skin again and again, closing the gash and replacing a concerning number of popped staples until one of them could access a medical stapler.
He tried not to worry about the lack of reaction. It was all run-of-the-mill for Dabi, held together by metal and spite and pain.
He failed at that, and a cold feeling settled uncomfortably beneath his ribs.
By the time Hawks finished cleaning, closing, and wrapping all of Dabi’s wounds, his hands had started shaking with exhaustion and the sky outside was beginning to lighten. He taped the last bandage in place and sat back on his heels, looking down at the blood dried into the knees of his hero pants. The coffee table looked like a field hospital.
Dabi lay on the floor, wrapped in bandages with his head still turned away from Hawks. His breathing was a bit stronger now, pulse steadier.
Hawks allowed himself a moment to just sit and breathe until he could bring himself to carefully pull Dabi into his arms, grunting as his knees cracked in protest when he stood. After seeing how thin he was, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise how easy it was to carry the villain, but it still threw him off. Dabi always came off as larger than life with the way he carried himself, the way he threw threats and manic, rictus grins like they were weapons all on their own.
Really, he wasn’t much taller than Hawks. He’d probably carried children heavier than Dabi.
He settled the black-haired man onto his stiff, beige couch and let his feathers fetch a blanket and settle it over the man. Meanwhile, Hawks dragged himself to the bathroom for a long overdue shower. He stripped and paused to evaluate the bloodstains on his hero costume, then tossed everything in the hamper.
Problem for Future-Hawks.
Not like he didn’t have a dozen copies of the same costume anyway.
He stepped under the spray of the shower, wings ruffling contently as the heat soaked into his exhausted bones and aching muscles. The relaxed feeling lasted for a whole ten seconds before his mind kicked back into focus.
What the hell was he going to do about the beat-up A-Rank villain fast asleep on his couch?
He’d kept Dabi alive, and a live Dabi was, all things considered, a problem. A dangerous problem, unknown save for a list of murder victims and a history of arson.
He was also Hawks’ sole connection to the League, which meant that the success of his infiltration mission depended on his whims. It was a matter of what the Commission would consider more valuable in the end—Shigaraki’s right-hand man in Tartarus, or the info that could be gleaned should Dabi ever deign to let Hawks meet the rest of the organization?
Arresting Dabi would definitely ruin any of Hawks’ chances of getting into the League, but having the League’s heavy-hitter and only long-distance fighter out of the game could be invaluable. It could turn the tide when the heroes eventually battled with the villains.
But so could information. Plans. Numbers.
Hawks battled with himself as he washed away the grime of the day, debating between the short-term and the long-term until his fingers started to prune and he forced himself to leave the comfort of the shower. The feathers he left with Dabi told him the man was still fast asleep, so he wrapped a towel around his waist and made his way to his bedroom to throw on some sweats.
A couple feathers darted to him as he sat down on the edge of his bed, dropping his phone into his hand. He scrolled through his contacts until he came to the HPSC President’s office, thumb lingering over the unremarkable little label that, with one quick tap, could have a swarm of agents filling his penthouse in no time at all.
Dabi would be put in quirk-cancelling cuffs and hauled away, and there would be one less A-Rank villain roaming the country. One less League member to worry about.
They would try to interrogate him. Hawks had the feeling that Dabi would bite off his own tongue rather than answer. He’d probably spit it at them too, a bloodied grin on his face all the while.
Just one tap, and Dabi would be either sent to Tartarus or dragged into the sterile, hidden rooms of the HPSC, where he would disappear. Rooms that Hawks himself knew all too well.
It made his stomach turn.
With a sigh, he stood and returned to the living room to check on his unwelcomed guest. Dabi’s brow was furrowed in his sleep, fingers clutching weakly at the star-patterned blanket that covered him. Hawks cleared a space off the coffee table and sat down to watch, tapping absently on the back of his phone as he watched the villain twitch in discomfort.
“You’re a terrible decision, you know?” he muttered. “And really inconsiderate. I could’ve eaten my leftovers hours ago if it wasn’t for you, Crispy.”
Dabi slept on, fingers twitching tighter on the borrowed blanket and shadows marring the area under his eyes even through the darkness of his scars.
Hawks stared at the ceiling like it could give him the answer. The air purifier hummed, the poor thing working overtime in a futile attempt to clear the room of the smokey smell that still lingered in the room. The living room was still a mess, medical supplies, bloodied gauze, and stained staples spread over the table and floor around the darkened, dried stain on the hardwood. Outside, the city was still quiet.
There was no way in hell Dabi would talk if the HPSC took him in. He’d been in contact with Dabi for months and barely learned more than Toga’s favorite color (pink, though blood red is a close second), or that Compress cheats at cards (though having played a few rounds of Blackjack with Dabi at a bar once, Hawks has his suspicions that Dabi himself is a card counter).
And technically, his mission was still to infiltrate the League. Not to capture any of them.
Not yet.
Feathers shot free of his wings, darting around the apartment to clean up what they could. The rest would have to wait until he wasn’t feeling dead inside and out.
Again, problem for Future-Hawks.
Future-Hawks was really going to hate Present-Hawks, but Present-Hawks was wobbling where he sat and the floor was looking more and more tempting, stain-be-damned.
Scrubbing a hand over his dry and burning eyes, he stood and threw the sleeping villain an exhausted glare, wagging a finger at his unwelcomed visitor.
“You’re a pain in the ass and a hazard to my mental and physical well-being,” he chided, “and this is definitely going to be a mistake. But you can stay until you’re healed and then I’m evicting you, got it?”
Dabi didn’t reply.
“Great talk. Glad you agree. We’ll come up with a chore list later.” Hawks mumbled as he stumbled off to his room. He left the door cracked open with a scattering of feathers around his doorway and in the living room to keep guard just in case Dabi decided to drag his mangled body over to try to kill Hawks and have the apartment to himself until his agency sounded the alarm.
Throwing himself onto his stomach, he sank into the plush mattress with a groan. He quickly decided that it wasn’t worth moving even if Dabi did attempt to roast him.
Something was definitely going to go wrong. It was a terrible idea to take in the villain who broke into his house, injured or not.
Hawks decided to blame the sleep deprivation. Definitely that, and not the way Dabi had somehow trusted him just enough to drag himself to Hawks’ place while at his most vulnerable.
No. Definitely not that.
With a sigh, Hawks’ eyes finally slipped shut, and Dabi’s heartbeat, monitored by the feather at his neck, lulled Hawks to sleep with its gentle rhythm.