Chapter Text
Hawks couldn't feel anything.
He couldn't remember back far enough for when his wings weren't constantly filling him with sounds, sensations, perceptions. Even before his training, they were always shaping his world, extending him. Now he felt like he was walking through stuffing, unable to feel the world anymore. It was all gone and it would never come back.
But no rest for the wicked, even now. There was a better world to build.
Putting on the act was easy, after all. He'd done it his whole life already, the script was just a little different now. He sent other people out to do the hero work, others responding while he sat at a desk, writing out reports. It was certainly an odd feeling, being a retired hero - he never thought retirement was in the cards for him. He figured he'd go out in a blaze of glory someday, or he'd outlive his usefulness and be quietly taken out by the Hero Commission.
Such dismal thoughts, he sighed as he closed his laptop. A good sign to head home before it got worse. Besides, it was about time.
He had to take a train, then walk a bit to get to his apartment now. He'd often read, or play games on his phone - anything but listen to all the thoughts that had time to accumulate where his sense of the world used to be. Today, he tapped his foot, fidgeted, tried to not go insane at how slow it all was. The trains barreled past and they were still too slow, slow, slow.
He paused. Took a breath, then another. Remembered his training. It wouldn't do to fall apart in public - he could be recognized even without the wings. In fact there was a kid looking at him now, he noticed, wide eyed and already making the connection of his eyes, his scars. Hawks gave an easy smile and winked, holding a finger to his lips. Our little secret who I am, okay? The kid beamed and nodded, turning away so their stare wouldn't draw any more attention. Hawks left at the next stop.
He had one thing keeping him going, at least. A hopeless project just like himself. Something that he could now keep secret from the Hero Commission, instead of the other way around. He unlocked his apartment, checked for signs of disturbance - he missed how easy it was to have his feathers scout things out for him - and stepped in. Locked the door behind him. Set his things down and loosened his tie. Went to a cabinet where he kept a plastic bin filled with medical supplies. Picked it up and headed to his spare room, which he unlocked with a special key he kept on him at all times. After all, you couldn't be too careful. His current roommate would never survive being found out. He might not survive anyways.
Hawks pushed away that thought and opened the door.
The room was likely the stuff of nightmares - Hawks was long since desensitized to it. The lights were kept dim so as not to hurt the patient's tender eyes, but Hawks could still see well enough. (Not as well as he used to, though. Another insufferable loss.) Tubes hung from the wall in a careful network, keeping fluid moving into a cylinder-shaped bed that sat in the center of the room. Monitors beeped along to a discordant rhythm as Hawks set his bin down on a nearby table and started to roll up his sleeves. The occupant of the bed made no indication he had heard or cared that Hawks had entered.
It was fine. He hadn't responded to any of Hawks' one-sided conversations yet, so it was hardly a deviation from the norm. "Hey Dabi. Hope you got some rest. I'm gonna change your bandages again, okay? No sudden moves." Silence. "Ha ha. Not that you could. You don't seem to do much moving these days. But just in case, don't start now."
Hawks sanitized his hands, put on gloves, and got to work. He cut away crusted bandages, applied salves and medicated ointments, wrapped on fresh dressings. Diligently cleaned out infections, checked vitals. Added medications to the drip line. He chatted the entire time.
"Well that's promising, your skin is a lot less red than it was yesterday! And your body temp seems to have leveled out. Let me tell you, I knew field medical like any good hero, but you've definitely given me a crash course in home care nursing. Maybe I'll leave the Hero Commission and go into medical. They always need people in medical, don't they?"
He continued on, but Dabi never so much as opened an eye. He was alive - the charred man's shaky breathing was evidence at the very least - but he wouldn't wake up. He wouldn't get better really. He just laid there in stasis.
Hawks fell silent as he finished up. He gathered up all the used bandages, took off his gloves, sanitized his hands again. He went to the door and dimmed the lights down so that the only illumination were the indicators on the machines.
"...Don't die, Dabi."
Hawks left without getting a response.
* * *
He slouched in his chair, the phone propped against his shoulder as he tried to physically escape the conversation. It was a unique sensation he was still getting used to - being able to put his back fully against a chair. He slid down a bit further until his shoulders and his rear were the only things contacting the seat. The world was finally a place where heroes could take it a little easy. Why did that free time have to be used for meetings?
"-and if you review the minutes from July's meeting, you'll see… Hawks? Are you still listening?"
"Absolutely," he replied, resisting the urge to sit up. "You were talking about the referendum listed in the July minutes, which I have right in front of me." He shuffled over a paper from across the desk, making it at least sound like he wasn't lying. He was finding it fun, getting to lie for his own benefit. He had gotten good at it working with the League, after all. "Did you want to revisit that proposal again for the budget?"
"Hm," the official replied. "Yes, I think we need to circle back with the other members of the committee. For clarity and transparency, of course."
"Yes, of course," Hawks replied, debating if he could learn how to fall asleep with his eyes open by then.
"Good, I'll check your calendar and send you an invite. In the meantime," there was a slight pause. "There is the matter of the Todoroki family."
At this Hawks did sit up. "What matter is that?"
"Well… they're requesting the records regarding Dabi's demise and conditions leading to it. I think it would just settle their minds to have copies of the documents."
At this, Hawks gave a pained sigh. "Yeah, makes sense. They already lost him once to a misunderstanding, after all. Of course they can have the reports… and please give them my apologies too. If it had happened any other way, I would have let them deal with the body. But they already have the ashes, and with these reports, hopefully they can find peace."
The official seemed pleased with the answer. Hawks was pleased at getting off the phone call a little earlier than expected.
* * *
A quiet chime came from Hawks' phone, one he'd programmed but hadn't gotten before. He made an excuse and caught a taxi. He had to get home. Now.
How the hell could people rely on cars when they were so slow?
By the time he'd dashed up his stairs to the apartment, he forced himself to breathe and to check his safety measures. He couldn't afford to make a mistake just because he was being impatient. After one more careful breath, he was in and secure. No one had followed him.
He opened the door to his spare room, and it was barely shut before he uttered, "Dabi."
A single eye of blazing blue swivelled to look at him. The other eye was still closed. He didn't say a word, but he was unmistakably awake.
Hawks' hands were shaking, trying to process the sight before him. Dabi was still more bandages than skin, but that eye watched him with full attention. Full recognition. "Dabi," he breathed again.
"K…Keigo," Dabi uttered, his voice cracked as dry paper. Something burned in Hawks' heart to hear that name from those mangled lips, the first thing he'd said in so very long.
"Yeah," Hawks replied, still not sure what to do now that Dabi was awake. He wasn't sure if he'd ever actually expected it to come to this. "Yeah, it's me. It's okay. You're safe."
"...Dead," he uttered. Hawks wasn't sure if he'd heard him right, but Dabi slowly closed his eye again. "Should be. Dead."
The burning in his heart tasted like ash. Dabi didn't clarify if it was Hawks or himself who should be dead. He didn't say anything else. He'd passed out again.
Hawks gave a deep, shuddering sigh, and let him be.
* * *
Dabi was showing more tiny signs of improvement, but he didn't wake up again. Hawks decided to work remote for a few days so he could keep close and watch for any changes. The other members on the Hero Commission didn't love the idea, but he said he was having some relapses and needed the quiet of home for a while, which they begrudgingly accepted. He wasn't fully lying - he was always having relapses. He just didn't take time off for them.
But it hardly seemed to matter. Dabi wouldn't wake up, despite Hawks' encouragement and cajoling. He needed less and less bandages, Hawks watching as the skin mended in a way that wasn't possible - no human skin could regenerate past the level of burns Dabi had endured. But there it was, fresh red skin below the peeling top layers starting to take on some of his usual pigment. It was just… off a little. Hawks tried not to get his hopes up, as the color and texture seemed to change on a daily basis.
One afternoon he sat on a folding chair he'd dragged in from the other room. Hawks was looking through some emails on his phone that he had no intention of answering anytime soon, just using them to disassociate. The machines around him beeped on, but they started picking up in tempo. Hawks' eyes shot up to the readouts. Dabi was surfacing from sleep again. There was movement in his face, twitches in his cheeks and the tremble of his eyelids, but he didn't fully open his eyes yet.
"...Dabi?" Hawks ventured, his voice barely louder than the hum of the machines.
"Itchy," was all he got in response. He wasn't sure if he'd heard it right or not, but Dabi's left hand started to jerk, slowly making its way across his torso, to give a feeble tug at the bandages on his right elbow.
"Hey." Hawks got to his feet, so quick the folding chair clattered a bit. "Don't. You'll tear the skin."
"Fuck," Dabi breathed, and with another sigh added, "off." Every syllable was a struggle it seemed, but hope dared to bud in Hawk's chest.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm the worst, watching out for you like this." He didn't move Dabi's hand but he added a cooling pack to the offending elbow. "Does that help? Your skin is too raw still for itching. Means it's healing anyways."
Dabi gave a hissing noise but at least stopped trying to scratch. He left his arm where it was across his stomach and just stared at Hawks. The silence stretched on but Hawks didn't mind. Dabi was awake. He could be patient for a little longer.
After several long, slow breaths, Dabi took a deeper inhale and sighed just one word - "How?"
"How? How are you here? How are you alive?" When he didn't elaborate, Hawks huffed a laugh and retrieved his chair, settling at Dabi's side again. "That's a good question. You were in the Commission's hospital-slash-maximum security wing, getting worse and worse. We knew it was a matter of time before your quirk overtook you. Then one day, it did. Even in your preservation capsule, you combusted with a wild amount of heat. Burnt up to nothing." He paused, gripping his hands together for a breath. "I said I would take your ashes to the Todorokis. But when I opened the capsule… you weren't cremated. There was ash there, sure, enough for a body, but… you were lying in the middle of it. Barely breathing but alive. And well… being the head of the Hero Commission has its perks. No one had time to review the security footage of me smuggling you out before I fixed the tapes. Then I brought you here, to see if you'd nurse back to health. So here we are." Hawks spread his hands to display the majesty of the bandaged mess before him - raw and healing, but whole. The scars were faint hints. The skin was regrowing, slowly. "Your quirk isn't cremation Dabi, it's reincarnation. Like a phoenix. I think you'll more or less get back on your feet."
Dabi watched him, that wild blue gaze betraying nothing but trying to pierce into him for his secrets. Hawks dreaded the next question, but knew it would come. "Why?"
Hawks was quiet for a long moment, running a hand through his hair before he replied, "I don't know. I can't lie, you'd be locked up for life if they knew you made it through. And we didn't get a chance to talk much after… well, you remember." Dabi's eyes darted to Hawks' empty shoulders, and Hawks' tone turned bitter. "Don't give yourself too much credit. Yeah, you burned them off, but they were regrowing." Breathe, Hawks, he reminded himself. "All for One took my quirk. Didn't come back when he died. So, it's just Hawks in a suit now."
There was no sympathy or apology in Dabi's eyes. But there was a small glimmer of understanding. Maybe that's why Hawks had dragged him here, keeping him healing and hidden. Dabi's situation was different, but they were both broken little pawns in the grand scheme of things, trying to find refuge after being knocked off the board.
"Eh, enough of that," Hawks finally said, slapping his hands on his knees. "No point in dwelling on it. What do you need? Water, food? I've been keeping an eye on your levels and I think you can manage some solid food now if you're up for it…"
Dabi turned his gaze to the ceiling, considering. His jaw twitched a little, as if assuring himself it was there again, hurting but whole. "Soba."
Hawks' smile returned as he stood. "You got it."
* * *
Hawks' relief was short-lived. He'd forgotten what a shit Dabi could be.
He made Hawks feed him, even after his hands were healed enough to grip things. Only after Hawks threatened to feed him like an actual bird did Dabi curl his lip. It was likely the threat of barfing into his mouth that gave Dabi that disgusted look, but something about his revulsion told Hawks that it was to him personally, and he stormed out in response. At least Dabi began feeding himself after that.
When the skin finally started to regrow, it did so with enthusiasm, the red flesh quickly taking over as the new layers grew in. But this also itched like hell, and Hawks knew, because Dabi never stopped bitching about it.
Same with his hair, which was coming back in red of all things. When Dabi noticed, he became an utter nightmare, cursing and yelling, trying to pull it out by the roots until Hawks promised to get him hair dye and help with the process. When given the color choice, Dabi went silent, not making a decision. So Hawks went out and got the first option he could.
Dabi sat in a chair in Hawks' bathroom, hunched over and covered in a towel as he permitted Hawks to work the dye into his hair. He was absorbed in the task, making sure to get every last spot neatly covered when Dabi mumbled out, "So what's your plan?"
"Hm? Well the box says it's gotta sit–"
"I know how hair dye works, dumbass. I meant what's your plan with me." Dabi glanced in the mirror, catching Hawks' eyes in the shared disconnect of their reflection. "Am I your housepet now? Plan to release me back into the wild, so I can breathe deep once more before I'm thrown in jail for the rest of my life?"
It was the question Hawks hadn't worked out. Didn't want to think about. He gave a dismissive shrug as he broke eye contact and returned to his task. "Not my problem what you do once you're back on your feet."
But he'd hesitated a moment too long. Dabi's eyes watched him still through the mirror - Hawks could feel them burning without even looking. "You don't have a plan. You of all people."
"Shut it," Hawks warned.
"I can't leave. I can't stay here. How long have I been here again?" Hawks paused to do the mental calculation before Dabi cut in with a tougher question. "What did you tell my siblings? What did you tell Shoto?" His hands stopped. When Hawks didn't answer (when had he gotten so -slow?-) Dabi's tone grew a sharp edge. "That's fucked up, Hawks. I've died on them once already."
"You know what's fucked up, Dabi?" Hawks finally barked. "Watching you burst into flames, blowing your containment cell to nothing. Being the one to crawl in there myself to gather you up, only to find your singed body curled up in the debris like a baby bird. You were breathing. You were alive. I was the only one that could save you. I had to do something!"
Dabi's eyes were still burning into Hawks' reflection. He didn't know what that expression was, and he didn't want to know. "Don't call me that anymore."
Hawks ignored him. "So no, I don't have a plan. I'll figure it out. Or maybe I won't. It's your life, you figure out what you want to do." He ripped off the gloves, threw them in the sink, and stormed out of the bathroom before he lost it any worse.
He flopped down on his couch, burying his face in his shaking hands. He could feel his breaths, too stuttering and too shallow, forcing them to slow down. He tried to remember his training. It got harder and harder to remember what used to be muscle memory.
Dabi didn't make a sound or come out of the bathroom. Hawks didn't know what he did. Hawks didn't know a damn thing anymore.
* * *
Dabi had always teased Hawks, always pushed his buttons, was always right there to test him every step of the way; but now he wasn't saying anything. It was a hollow feeling that ate at Hawks more than he could name. He never thought he'd miss the complaining so much.
The new look - with hair black as soot, just like when they first met - made Hawks finally notice how much Dabi had changed. The bandages and regrowing skin had delayed this realization, but looking at him now as he stood in the kitchen, he wasn't sure a normal civilian would give Dabi a second look on the street. There were thin lines of scars instead of burnt flesh along his jaw and under his eyes, but they were faint, only recognizable because Hawks was deeply aware of where that charred skin used to be. He still had too much of the Todoroki family in his eyes and his nose to risk letting him make his own way, but that was the puzzle he was still trying to solve. No matter how he'd blown up at Dabi before.
It had been over a week and the Commission was calling him on a daily basis, asking in a polite if pressing way if Hawks had sorted himself out yet and was ready to return to the office. He was anxious about going, not taking Dabi's word that he would behave himself and not leave the apartment or open the windows, but there was little else he could do and still keep up his work at the Commission.
"Stop fretting so much," Dabi drolled, searching the kitchen for a snack. Now that he was more mobile, Hawks didn't do anything to restrict Dabi and Dabi didn't restrict himself from poking around anywhere he wanted to. "I'll be your little secret for now. I've just got one price to keep this from blowing up in your lap."
Hawks raised an eyebrow, nursing his tea before he prepared to get on the train. He hated leaving so early to get to work now. "What price is that?"
"I want a laptop," Dabi replied. "Of my own. Not one of your old ones or anything. And I want a good one."
The request was not really a surprise or unreasonable, so Hawks nodded. "I'll pick one up on the way home today. I'll be working late but I'll make sure I get one new."
Dabi didn't seem surprised either by the easy bargain. He smiled, coy as ever, and turned away to the pantry. "Have a good day at work, Feathers."
"Don't call me that anymore." Hawks' tone was serious, and for once Dabi didn't seem to want to press on an open wound. He paused a moment then shrugged, pulling a bag of crackers off the shelf.
'Whatever you say."