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Dabi doesn’t know what made him do it. He doesn’t know what exactly happened that day, what steps were taken, what the fates had in store that forced Dabi’s feet to bring him to Hawks’ balcony near midnight on a snowy Tuesday (almost Wednesday). He perched there for a while, staring at the wide glass sliding door, before doing anything. He hears the hero moving about inside and wonders what Hawks doing. Then he wonders why he doesn’t just see for himself.
He taps on the glass.
Hawks rips open the door almost immediately.
The first thing Dabi notices about Hawks is that he is radiant. He’s dressed in grey sweatpants and slouchy black workout shirt that ties around the back of the neck. His red wings are rich and full, his golden eyes full of concern, and his blonde locks tousled. Dabi wants to touch. The hero is too perfect, Dabi wants to feel for himself, if only to make sure that this perfect artwork of Hawks won’t shatter.
The second thing Dabi notices about Hawks is how tired he looks. He doesn’t necessarily have gaunt, dark bags under his eyes – he’s too handsome, too perfect, far too flawless for that. But his shoulders sag and his eyes scream for sleep. For something much deeper than sleep, Dabi thinks, and quickly shakes away that thought. It disturbs him. He locks it away.
“What’s happening?” Hawks asks. His eyes flit back and forth all over Dabi’s face. He’s trying to assess the danger. He’s trying to analyze the situation. He’s trying to find the non-existent danger that he expects Dabi brings. Dabi notices that Hawks is holding a coffee pot.
“Not much. What’s happening with you, pretty bird?” Dabi swiftly turns sideways and steps around Hawks into the apartment. It’s shockingly empty. No knick-knacks. No framed photos of mothers or fathers or friends or lovers. Just a couch and a TV, clean, obviously not used much at all. And a hallway leading to a bedroom. Dabi feels his gut swoop. He hasn’t felt that in a very long time.
“Nothing,” Hawks answers, sliding the door shut. His eyes follow Dabi. “Just making some coffee.” He pauses. “Want any?”
Dabi scoffs.
“Why are you making coffee? Go to bed.”
“I can’t. You’re here.” Hawks tries on a signature grin, so carefree, so full of life and love, and so full of fucking bullshit. Dabi just stares at him, the beautiful thing, and doesn’t look away until Hawks does.
“So what’s up?” Hawks continues, keeping his eyes down and moving to the kitchen to set the pot down. Dabi’s caught him off-guard. Perhaps the hero can’t remember who he’s supposed to be right now – perhaps Dabi’s caught him in between persons, in between worlds.
“I like your shirt,” Dabi says, and it’s not what he meant to say, but whatever. It’s true. Hawks’ muscles flex as he snorts.
“It’s a woman’s shirt.” Dabi laughs and Hawks finally meets his eyes again, a little smile on his smooth face. “It’s easier, y’know? With my wings. Women’s halter tops. Especially the ones they wear for working out. I’m never allowed to wear them, though, not in public. Can’t have the number two hero and number one sex symbol walking around in women’s clothes. They’re comfy as shit, though. Wish I could.”
Dabi narrows his eyes.
“So wear them.”
“I told you, hot stuff, not allowed.”
“Allowed? You’re an adult.”
“I’m their adult.”
Hawks closes his mouth then, suddenly, like it was a mistake what he just said. He turns to the sink and opens the top cupboard. Dabi watches him pour the coffee into a mug, set it aside, and brace his hands on the side of the sink. So he’s really caught the hero at a bad time, then. Or is this just what Hawks is like, when he’s home? Is this just what Hawks is like on a snowy Tuesday night, far away from all the expectant eyes laid upon him? Dabi is more interested with every passing moment. Although he also feels something else tugging at his chest. Something sadder, that makes him want to cross the kitchen go to Hawks. Something that makes him want to touch.
“You sure you don’t want any coffee?” Hawks asks, turning around and raising the mug to his lips, and ah, there’s that jovial voice so full of arrogance and light. Dabi laughs again. The smile feels good as it pulls on his stitches. He’s suddenly very glad he came.
“You sure you don’t wanna put the coffee down and go the fuck to sleep?” Dabi asks, and thrills when Hawks laughs at that. Dabi watches the hero’s movements like he’s studying them to report to the League.
But he’s not.
This is just for Dabi.
“I don’t want to sleep,” Hawks says in a way that Dabi takes to mean I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. Dabi shrugs off his coat and goes to take a seat at the counter and that’s when he sees it.
Hawks’ bare feet peek out from underneath his tattered grey sweatpants.
And those feet do not match the rest of Hawks’ beautiful porcelain body.
They are discolored and blotchy with spots of pink and red and purple. There are thick scars running along the tops of his feet and disappearing under his soles. The outlines of black stitches rise and fall along each toe.
And he’s –
He’s got no toenails.
If Dabi weren’t so horrendously scarred himself – if he didn’t see it every day when he looked in the mirror – he might gag. He’s sure that others would, seeing this hero’s feet. It’s not right, Dabi thinks. It’s not right that such a beautiful, wonderful, perfect thing should walk on these bloody stumps.
Not much of Hawks is quite right, though.
Hawks notices him staring and sets his coffee cup down with a violent and startlingly loud thud. It echoes in the soft, snowy night.
“Shit,” Hawks says, casting his eyes away once again. Dabi wants them back. “I can find some socks to wear.”
“Don’t,” Dabi says immediately. “I don’t think I’m one to judge.” He doesn’t motion at his face (or arms or the rest of his body) because he doesn’t need to. Hawks pauses, and Dabi sees fear – real fear – in the hero. He looks young. He looks embarrassed.
He looks so fucking tired.
“I wasn’t expecting company, y’know,” Hawks tries to smile but it falls flat. Dabi tries not to look back down at his feet, then wonders why he’s allowing the hero such small niceties. He decides not to dwell on it.
“I don’t know why. These are prime visiting hours. Or are you kicking me out?”
“You know you’re always welcome here, hot stuff.”
For the first time that night, the honesty of the statement strikes Dabi deep in his chest. Hawks means it, for some unknown reason, and Dabi is grateful.
“What the hell happened to you?”
It’s not like Dabi’s not going to address it. Those swollen stumps attached to the end of Hawks’ muscular legs. Hawks glares.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nothing interesting, then.”
“Also bullshit.”
“Some reconstructive surgeries. Hero work is tough, huh? Gotta repair the damage done, no matter how ugly it gets.”
“Y’know, I was just starting to trust you, and here you go spoutin’ lies. I’d think twice, pretty bird, about your place with us before you speak.” Dabi is very careful to say us and not me.
Hawks’s snarl is even more piercing than before. Dabi’s never seen the hero stripped so raw.
“Don’t use that on me. Don’t tell me that the League needs to know about this – don’t pretend that it’s, I dunno, vital information or some shit like that. That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“So we’re both full of bullshit, then,” Dabi declares and throws his hands up in the air. If Hawks weren’t so fucking angry and jumpy and weird right now, he would’ve laughed. Dabi knows it. Dabi lets his hands fall to the counter and crosses his arms, leaning his head forward to rest on them. He watches Hawks and Hawks watches him.
The hero is vulnerable right now, Dabi realizes.
And how long has Dabi waited for Hawks to be vulnerable?
He could get anything from him in this state. His defenses are down and he’s panicked. He’s insecure and he’s holding back. Dabi could wring him out and hang him up to dry.
But instead, Dabi finds himself saying, “Fine. Maybe the League doesn’t care. Maybe it’s just me who’s asking.”
And really, where the fuck did that come from?
Hawks appears to feel the same sentiment, based on his wrinkled forehead and narrowed eyes.
“Maybe I’m asking about it, just me, nobody else,” Dabi continues, unable to stop now. “Not the League. Not nobody. Just me.”
“Why?” Hawks’ voice cracks around the word. Dabi shrugs.
“I dunno. Why did I knock on your penthouse door at midnight? Why am I here right now? I just…am.”
Hawks doesn’t seem to even hear the words. He’s staring down now, all leaned up and slouched against the counter, golden eyes full of something Dabi desperately wants to decipher. His top gathers in folds around the top of his sweatpants, and Dabi thinks it’s a crime that his fucking handlers won’t allow him to wear it in public. It’s a goddamn crime.
“I had talons.”
Dabi’s so focused by Hawks’ triceps that he almost doesn’t hear him.
“Doesn’t look like you do anymore,” Dabi responds in a soft voice that even he doesn’t recognize. Hawks shakes his head, still staring down at his discolored feet.
“They cut them off.”
“They?”
“Hero Commission. Cut them off. They said that a mutation quirk – especially one so…predatory – wasn’t a good look for a number two hero. Not a hero that they said was gonna grow up to be so handsome, anyways.”
Well, shit, they weren’t wrong about the handsome part.
“Didn’t fit their agenda, huh?” Dabi asked, careful to keep this conversation afloat. Careful to keep Hawks from sinking. The hero shrugged numbly.
“They told me it would be like clipping toenails, but it wasn’t. I kept bleeding, so they had to sew up the tips of my toes. And when the talons started to grow back, when they started to burst through the stitches, they did it again.” Hawks’ voice trembled. “I couldn’t understand why. The talons helped me get a better grip when I landed, and without them, I had to double my training to get back on track. I barely had time to recover from the surgeries before intensive training started again.”
“Didn’t you ask them?” Dabi asked, something pulling tight in his chest. “Didn’t you tell them you didn’t want that?”
“They wouldn’t listen.” Hawks let out a sound eerily close to a sob. “They kept talking about ‘sex appeal’ and photo ops and public appearances. I didn’t even know what that meant. I was twelve-years-old, for Christ’s sake. But Endeavor – ” His breath hitched. Dabi’s did, too. “He told me that it was for the best. He told me that I would look better, feel better. And I admired him so much. I would’ve done anything for him, and he knew that. So he watched while they sliced me up and sewed me back together, and I told myself that it was all for the greater good. All I wanted – stupid, young, embarrassing fucker that I was – I just wanted him to hold my hand and wrap me up and stop it from hurting. Fucking pathetic, huh? He never touched me, except to throw a punch. But it was all I ever thought of.”
Hawks’ eyebrows furrowed. Both hero and villain’s eyes fell to Hawks’ bare feet.
“I bled so much.”
There was a significant pause.
“I wanted my mom.”
And then Hawks’ face crumpled.
Dabi’s feet carry him, without a second thought, toward the sound of the hero’s raw, ugly sobbing. He’s not quite sure what his next move is, not when he’s crossing the kitchen, not when he’s taking the mug from Hawks’ hand and setting it down on the counter, not even when he reaches out his scarred hands to finally, finally, finally touch.
Luckily, Hawks makes the move for him.
The hero wraps his sturdy arms around Dabi and pulls him impossibly closer so that the villain is pressing Hawks against the kitchen counter. It’s shockingly natural how Dabi lifts his arms – his bare arms, clad only in a white t-shirt, coat forgotten on the chair he was just sitting in – and folds them around Hawks’ chest. Hawks’ face presses into Dabi’s shoulder. His cheek touches a particularly ugly patch of purple scarring, but he doesn’t seem to mind. And hell, if this golden boy doesn’t mind pressing his body into a hideous, broken, torn-up villain, then Dabi sure as fuck doesn’t mind either. He presses back. He lets Hawks shake and cry and heave in his arms.
It’s been so long since Dabi’s been this close to another human. He’s torn between enjoying it and wishing that the crying would stop. It hurts, Dabi thinks irrationally. So he pulls Hawks in tighter and hopes for the best. He can almost understand why people do this. Why his mom used to do this to him, so, so long ago.
“We’ll burn those sons of bitches to the ground,” Dabi says, and the words he says so very often carry a peculiar and significant weight this time. He’s not sure Hawks can even hear him over his gasps for air.
“I’m so tired,” Hawks cries, and Dabi presses his chin to the top of the hero’s head.
“Then sleep, pretty bird.”
And later, as Dabi almost fondly watches Hawks’ eyes close and face smooth as he falls into a peaceful sleep, Dabi thinks he starts to understand why he came here in the first place.