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Hawks couldn't help but feel he was out of his depth for this mission. Finally, his handlers at the Commission had bitten off more than they could chew — and he would pay the price, he just knew it.
On his very first day after formally 'joining' the League, Dabi sat him down, index finger of his right hand alight with a blue-hot flame that could take out the entire League base in seconds, and told him:
"Spill."
"Wh-"
"Your trauma. A pretty little successful number two hero like you wouldn't want to become a villain without a tragic backstory, would you? So spill."
Hawks opened his mouth, about to supply a half-formed explanation about the inherent corruption of the hero system and a desire to see and spearhead real change, when Dabi shook his head, a glint in his striking turqoise eyes. "And don't give me some BS about corruption and 'be the change you wish to see in the world,'" he warned, almost as if he'd read Hawks' mind. "I want the juicy stuff. The trauma that we can use to blackmail you if you ever turn rogue against us."
And eventually Hawks inexplicably found himself opening his mouth, being more honest than he had for a long time, uprooting long-buried secrets that he'd honestly rather have kept tucked away in the shadows of his mind, divulging things he'd only ever told Touya when they were in the false safety of their dorm during their training program.
It was irrational. And yet, underneath all the logical wrongness of it all, it felt so right.
He'd been trained all his life to trust his instincts to keep himself out of danger, and his instincts were pushing his traitorous mouth forward through every single painful sentence and bit of memory he divulged.
Dabi did nothing but sit there, his usual snark and cruelty uncharacteristically absent even as he occasionally asked a prying question or forced Hawks to backtrack on one of his attempts at a half-truth. Mostly, he just listened, and it felt almost as it he believed the impossible words coming out of Hawks' mouth.
Only when he was raw, when he'd spilled out everything he had, when he felt like his chest had just gotten a cavity carved out with his own talons, was there any real reaction — any semblance of the Dabi that Hawks knew him as.
The flame user downright cackled. "Oh, little birdie, I knew it was bad, but you are so, so, so much more messed up than I realized. Perhaps this is going to be fun, after all."
"What, did you finally break our guest?" Shigaraki called mockingly as he made his way down the dingy stairwell and into the kitchen.
"Please don't," Kurogiri interjected from where he stood at the sink, wiping down freshly-washed dishes. "Sensei has plans for him — plans that require an intact and mentally sane hero."
"Right, right, we can't have him be our double agent into the Hero Commission if we don't treat him well, yes, I remember." Dabi rolled his eyes. "I just wanted to give him a little… how shall I put it… a welcome gift, if we may."
"Me too!" Himiko squealed. "I like Hawksie — do we get to keep him?"
Dabi's answering smirk was borderline animalistic, unsettling even to Hawks after everything else he'd seen in his life. And it was ever-so-slightly… protective? Was that the right word? For reasons Hawks couldn't pin down.
"Oh, we're not just keeping him. He's not going to belong to anyone else ever again. He's ours."
Hawks shivered. "Ours" was the word Dabi had used, but instead to Hawks' ears it sounded inexplicably, unmistakeably like "mine."