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Hawks knew his cover was blown the second Dabi stepped out from behind the stack of old shipping crates in the warehouse they always met up in, which suddenly seems like the worst idea he could have had. Dabi’s eyes are burning blue, burning hot as stars in his face but the look he aims at Hawks skirts the thin line of mania that makes the hero flinch back a step. Those same eyes had roasted into Endeavor after he’d nearly had his skull split by the High-End Nomu, and he’d heard it muttered by both Eraserhead and Vlad King that Dabi’s expression during the attack on the young heroes’ training camp had been nothing short of pure delight, even when they were pushing his frail body to its limit and testing his weaknesses. It’s an expression Hawks recognizes easily, and despite the rising temperature Dabi always brought with him, he feels gooseflesh rise on his arms in tandem with the chill zipping up his spine.
That’s the expression Dabi makes when he wants to kill someone.
Dabi has two modes when it comes to killing people. This is a logical fact, one gleaned from hours poring over the lean evidence Hawks had been able to find on the mysterious villain. In fact, Dabi seems to have two modes of operation, period. For the most part, he’s bored with everything, unimpressed by the world around him and convinced that the majority of people—no, society itself is comprised of garbage and it’s his job to burn it all away. If Stain’s philosophy had a twisted justice to it, Dabi’s is an entirely backwards version. He kills people the way you’d toss out a napkin when you were done using it, simply and thoughtlessly, summoning the burning hell he holds beneath his skin to melt through flesh and bone in seconds.
That second emotion Hawks has seen him wear was the same as the smile painted on his face now, tugging too wide at the corners of his barely-stapled mouth. Dried blood clung to the edges of his lips, and the deep color of the scarring wrinkled horribly as the damaged skin tried futilely to stretch to his features. God, he’s hardly even put together, constantly ripping at the seams, and yet Hawks feels almost nailed in place by the singular burning focus of his gaze as he stalks forward.
“You’re an interesting man, Takami Keigo.”
If it was possible for Hawks’ heart to stop beating in his chest, it would have at the sound of that name on the villain’s scarred lips. The question of how he knows it flew directly past Hawks’ thoughts and instead the sheer power of it overwhelms him, floors him, rings in his ears until he wants to scream and fly away into the night. Takami Keigo . The man....the boy he had once been, who now exists as little more than a governmental dossier, locked away in an encrypted file on some sealed computer that only a privileged few had access to—or so he’d thought. And yet Dabi utters it like they’re old friends, his jerky movements reminiscent of a marionette as he staggers towards Hawks. Was he drunk? High? Hawks had wondered many times before if there were some substances contributing to the bizarre, exaggerated movements and wildly erupting emotions, and yet he’d never seen Dabi even smoke a cigarette. It was entirely possible the man was just that unhinged.
“For someone as popular as Hawks is, it’s sure hard to find out anything concrete about you. My boss...’beloved leader’, if you will, had to seeeeeriously pull some strings to even learn your real name. And where you were born, and what your blood type is, and how old you are, and oh....yes, right, your mission . What was the wording? ‘The asset is to infiltrate the terrorist cell known to the Japanese Government and Hero Public Safety Commission as The League of Villains, also known as The Paranormal Liberation Front, via a limited and monitored contact with the fire-Quirk villain Dabi, in order to gather valuable information on the organization’s structure, leadership, and weaknesses.’ Like, damn, what a mouthful . And they seriously call you ‘the asset’? Here I thought my whole ‘pretty birdie’ routine was derogatory.”
It’s probably the most Dabi has ever said to him at once, at least without stopping for a long pause in the middle. For all their meet-ups, they haven’t ever precisely had a heart-to-heart. And now, as Hawks recovered from his shock and stealthily sharpens a feather, he zeroes in on the opportunity to take Dabi out before he gets killed himself. One breath, that’s all it will take. One properly placed feather. The commission will forgive him—they have information already, and maybe getting rid of Dabi really will shake up the PLF hierarchy in a significant way, or at least put the brakes on Shigaraki Tomura. One motion, so simple, so quick, and it will be over.
“I mean what’s next, are they going to start referring to you by a serial number? It’s like they couldn’t make it more obvious they don’t even think of you as human. That’s why they bought you as a kid, right?”
The feather arcs too wide, shot out too soon. He miscalculated the angle and Dabi’s flames consume it in a single, blinding flash of blue-white light. The pain of it is so fast Hawks hardly even feels it, the feather turning to cinders before he even has time to scream. And then Dabi is there, in his space, all staples and dried blood and he should look hideous up close bu the light glints from the piercings decorating the side of his face and Hawks realizes in a horrible, gut-wrenching moment how handsome he is. Was. Is? He can see the man Dabi was meant to be under the mask of death and decay he wears now, like recognizing a face even when it’s laying pale and frozen on a morgue table. Except Dabi isn’t dead.
What is a ghost? A dead thing that doesn’t know it’s dead.
Dabi’s spectral face leers down at him, and before Hawks can ready another feather, before he can rush to eliminate the terrible beauty in front of him, Dabi’s fingers touch the underside of his chin so softly it sends an entirely different sort of shiver through Hawks’ core. “You don’t deserve that, Takami.” Hawks still whips the feather around anyway, one of his longest, most deadly primaries flashing crimson against Dabi’s sluggish jugular. “You never deserved that. Being made into a weapon from childhood, and yet told that you can’t be free to fly your own way. That you have to live in their cage, and hunt on their command.”
“The fuck are you talking about?” Hawks finally manages to hiss, and Dabi only chuckles, otherwise totally unbothered by the razor’s edge one tiny movement away from severing his connection to life. “Who the hell do you think you are to say that name to me, even if you did read my file?” Hawks barely registers the warning heat against his chin, and realizes a tick too late that Dabi has him in the exact same position.
“I think I’m somebody who knows what it’s like to be trained for violence and then told that you’re a fucking monster for being exactly what they shaped you into. Somebody who knows what it’s like to look at the entire rest of your life in a grey cycle of endless goddamn obedience and pain and swallowing it all down so you can be called hero , as if that title means a fucking thing anymore.” He’s so close now, and Hawks can smell the scent of his flesh, his blood, and it tickles something deep in his gut that he loathes to even acknowledge, yet Dabi brings roaring to the surface every time. “And I think I’m the guy who’s less of a pussy than you because I decided to bite the hand that fed me and earn my freedom.”
Hawks bridles at that, and yet, at the same time, the words ring true to that part of himself he was always denying, always shoving back and down. The fact of it was he’d suspected Dabi’s heritage for a long time, ever since he saw those incredible, supernova-blue eyes up close and recognized them from a hundred posters and hero trading cards and television episodes. There was some story there Hawks wasn’t privy to yet, but as Dabi raises his hand to cup Hawks’ face, warm and gentle as a lover’s caress even though his other fingers are still poised to burn right through Hawks’ throat, he thinks that perhaps Dabi does understand. That someone so cruel, so twisted, might actually...know.
“You deserve so much more, pretty bird,” Dabi murmurs, his voice as hypnotic as a cobra poised to strike. “You shouldn’t have to obey them, fly into the jaws of death for people who treat you like a poseable doll to dress up and trot out and stuff back in your cage when they’re done with you.” The words deep into Hawks’ ear and he feels the muscles in his hand slowly relaxing, even as the sensible part of his mind screams to tighten and slice. “You deserve a comfortable life. You deserve people who value you as more than a Quirk, as more than Hawks, not those who would have left you in the gutter they found you in if it weren’t for your wings. Not those who dug the gutter in the first place...and then order you to be grateful for the chance to die for them. I just want to open your cage. I just want to see who you can be when you fly free, when someone finally respects you for the bird of prey you’re meant to be.”
It sounds too good to be true, and in Hawks’ experience, that usually means it is. He swallows, trying to harden his eyes, trying to show Dabi he isn’t about to be toyed with yet again. After years of it, he isn’t interested in trading one gilded cage for another. “And what about the fact that I’ve been lying to you this whole time? Are you really just going to let that slide? Is your boss?”
If possible, Dabi just smiles wider, deeper, skeletal and self-satisfied. “Aww, c’mon. You really didn’t think I was that stupid, did you? I’m almost insulted. The number two hero in all of Japan suddenly wants to turn his back on everything he’s ever known and throw his lot in with a bunch of on-the-run criminal nobodies? And there’s no ulterior motive there? Please. I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.” Then, all at once, he releases Hawks and slides away, moving back into the shadows with that odd, halting movement of his, a graceful and painful dance.
“I didn’t have you kill Best Jeanist as a loyalty test, you know. There are other, better ways I could have made sure you were on our side. No, little bird—“ and then Dabi is behind him, melting out of the shadows faster than Hawks thought he could move, and even the feather that rises to meet him suddenly doesn’t seem like enough. “I just wanted you to get a taste of blood on your tongue. So you know what it’s like to hunt for real. Even if the commission let you do it—or if they didn’t, and that body was a fake, my point still stands. You killed someone. And more’s the point, I think you enjoyed it.”
Now Hawks’ grip tightens on the hilt of the feather, his training fighting back against the beckoning words. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I was using you, stupid. I was spying on you and your entire organization and I lied to you the entire time, don’t you see that?” He isn’t sure why the hell he’s suddenly trying to provoke Dabi, but his acceptance is just…too easy. Hawks was expecting anger and the lack of it feels like expecting another step at the top of a stairwell and feeling your foot plunge, albeit shortly, further than you expected.
Both of Dabi’s brows raise at the harsh tone, tugging at the stapled skin just under his eyes. “Fine, fine,” he murmurs, taking a step forward, into Hawks’ space despite the feather pressing against the side of his collar once more. “Tell me you didn’t, then. Tell me the sight of all that blood did nothing for you. That you didn’t feel a single thing but disgust and humiliation as you sunk your pretty feathers into whichever poor bastard ended up stuffed in that bag and we’ll do our trivial fight-to-the-death routine, just like heroes and villains always do. And it’ll mean nothing, but may the best man win.” One fingertip appears at the corner of Hawks’ vision and he jumps back as a single cyan flame sparks atop it. “Or...if you’re finally tired of being a hooded hunting hawk, you can come with me, and never be caged again.” The flame glitters in Hawks’ eyes, a single patch of brilliance in the dim, uniform grey all around them.
Two months later, Hawks watches the dark tide of blood wash towards him on the concrete, and raises one talon to lick the remainder off, a chirp of satisfaction echoing from his throat. He used to never let those noises out, so embarrassed at the not quite human parts of himself, but the thought seems silly and distant now, like a memory of a dream. “Hail the Paranormal Liberation Front,” he purrs to the corpse in front of him, though it’s long past hearing anything he has to say. Or issuing him a command, ever again.
His feathers sing as they shake themselves free of the mess, and return to their places in his wings. Metal glints in the darkness as a hand beside him raises, and he shivers as a different voice responds, “May you be finally liberated.”
Then the flames take the body over, and Hawks wraps his arms around Dabi’s slender form, nestling into his chest for a moment before he spreads his wings for the warm night sky. May they be liberated indeed.